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“And that’s the problem,” Washington said. “It wasn’t about Garvey’s greed or needing money. That’s what came out in the interview. He admitted to the coke being in the bag. He said that he was transporting the drugs under duress.”

“‘So said the kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar,’” Payne said.

“In most any other case I would agree with you, Matthew.”

“But?”

“Garvey said he was told that if he refused, the cartel would kill his family,” Washington said. “Now, it is possible that he was made to think the cartel is involved. The resulting fear would be the same. He is, after all, Commissioner Gallagher’s granddaughter’s husband, and not cut from the same cloth. And if one is naïve—such as someone like Garvey, who does not have a record, not so much as a speeding ticket—one can be made to believe something they otherwise would not.” He paused to let that sink in, then added: “Particularly when one is shown photographs of the wife and young son—and, to make the point, the photograph of a boy’s body floating in a river.”

“Jesus!” Payne blurted, and suddenly thought of Amanda and her being with child. “Talk about a motivator.”

“How did he say they got to him?” Byrth said.

“A guy who became friendly with him at a local tavern,” Washington said. “Garvey said the guy claims to be an itinerant charter sailboat captain, and befriended him not long after he started going there six months ago. Looking back, Garvey now can see how he was duped, the guy seemingly making small talk over weeks while slowly mining him for information. It would appear that that information was sent to a connection here, who then shadowed the family and photographed them.”

“When did he get the threat about his family?” Payne said.

“Saturday. He was winding up work, ready to come home. The guy ‘happened’ to run into him and insisted on buying him a going-away beer. Then he handed him an envelope with recent photographs of the wife and son at home, at school, even at church. The guy made it clear that the cartel would kill the family if Garvey did not do as told. He claimed that he also was forced under the cartel’s control, but that might well be a ruse to make the cartel angle sound credible.”

Washington took a large sip of his Irish whisky martini, then added, “Everything in his statement is of course being investigated. But I have interviewed my share of professional liars, the extraordinary con artists, and Garvey is not one. He was telling the truth. It was quite difficult to watch, and then he completely broke down.”

Everyone was quiet for a long moment.

The Texas Ranger broke the silence.

“The poor bastard is fucked,” Byrth said matter-of-factly.

“That would seem to be today’s vast understatement,” Payne said.

“There is as we speak,” Washington said, “an involved discussion with the District Attorney’s Office.”

“I’d suggest that the DA is the least of this Garvey’s worries with a cartel involved,” Byrth said. “I’d take my chances on jail. Because, unless one of those miracles from the ceiling of that cathedral occurs, the cartel is going to make good on whacking him. They do not like losing product.”

“He does fear the worst now,” Washington said. “Commissioner Gallagher just moved his grandddaughter and great-grandson to his home, where there now is a squad car detailed round the clock.”

“It is absolutely repulsive how little they value human life,” O’Hara said. “It’s incomprehensible. To kill them over a lousy two keys? Compared to all the tons they move?”

“You would think so, Mickey,” Byrth said. “As I told Matt and Jason, snagging two keys is a slow day on the border. It’s usually one helluva lot larger. The record is six thousand kilos. One day, one bust. Wholesale, that’s three hundred grand.”

“I can only imagine their reaction to losing that much,” O’Hara said.

“That’s when they really start cutting off heads and stacking the bodies like cordwood,” Byrth said. “It’s not lost on those running the drugs. They are coached to do anything—and will do absolutely anything—necessary not to lose a load.” He grunted, then said, “Splash.”

“Splash?” Payne said.

“Yeah. We’re constantly surveilling the Rio Grande, hunting the mules before they cross. It’s not a helluva lot different than hunting deer—you know their patterns and there’s so damn many of them—except the cartel bastards shoot back. Since we know where they’re liable to cross, or we get a tip from an informant, we generally can find them in the staging process. Sometimes the tip is disinformation to draw us to a certain crossing point, then they make a big deal about loading the boats, and at the last minute act spooked and turn around. It’s all a diversion. The big run is taking place up- or downstream. During one this summer, I was up in our helo with a Bushmaster, flying as the shooter—”

“Our Aviation Unit shooters like to say High Altitude Sniper Intervention,” Payne said.

“Same thing,” Byrth said, nodding, “but we also wind up doing a lot of treetop flying. Anyway, we had Rangers in the brush of the riverbank watching the bad guys on the Mexico side—maybe a hundred yards away—loading bundles of keys aboard a couple of twelve-foot inflatables with outboards. We cannot do anything until they’re on our side, so we let them transfer the bundles to the waiting pickup or van, then either bust the load just down the road or follow it to the delivery. This time we were told to take them sooner rather than later.”

He took a sip of his bourbon, then went on: “Once the pickup was loaded, it took the dirt road to the highway. We were up in the bird and caught up to the pickup just as an unmarked DPS unit moved into place ahead of the truck and a marked DPS Tahoe pulled in behind and lit him up. The minute the pickup driver saw the lights, he pulled a hard left, cutting across the grass median, then started hauling ass back in the other direction.

“We were pacing him with the helo. I was in the open door with my Bushmaster and could see his every move. He knew he was close to getting caught—he frantically kept glancing up at us and in his mirrors—while yelling into his two-way radio and cutting in and out of traffic. He caused two wrecks before making it back to the dirt road leading to the river. Now that he was away from the populated areas, I got the go-ahead to take out his tires. The Bushmaster’s chambered in that heavy 6.8mm SPC. I popped the left tires with a couple three-round bursts, but he just kept running. Ahead we could see the river and the two inflatables waiting just their side of the middle.”

“They were going to come back and unload the truck?” Payne said.

Byrth shook his head. “They wouldn’t need to. The pickup raced to a part of the riverbank that was five feet above the water—and sped up, launching into the air.”