encrypted cell phone to his ear and assure Hector that the governor was still in Austin, but A thought struck him.
The governor was not in Austin. He had left town. They were pulling the trick on Enrique de la Garza. He put the phone to his ear.
'Hector, the governor is no longer there in Austin.'
'But, jefe, we have had twenty-four/seven surveillance on the Mansion. He is here. Yesterday, his caravan journeyed around town.'
'No. It is a decoy. He is gone. Find him!'
All his dreams had been born on that field.
Bode sat in the stands at the Comfort High School football stadium. On that field he had discovered two things: his football ability and his ambition. His ability fueled his ambition. His ambition expanded his world beyond Comfort and the ranch. He began to believe that there was more waiting out there for him. That his life would be played out on a bigger stage. That he belonged on such a stage. All he had to do was surrender to his ambition.
And he had.
'That you, Bode Bonner?'
Bode turned to an old black man standing there. It took him a moment to recognize the school janitor from thirty years before. He had been old back then, but he was ancient now.
'Mr. Jefferson. How are you?'
'Older. You still the governor?'
'Yep.'
'Thought they killed you?'
'They tried.'
Hector Garcia and one of his soldados followed the Texas Ranger into the restroom at the small taco bar near the University of Texas campus. They had trailed the Ranger in the SUV from the Governor's Mansion to the restaurant: lunch break. It would be this Ranger's last lunch. When they entered the restroom, the Ranger was zipping up. His soldado blocked the door. Hector pulled his switchblade and released the blade. The Ranger turned from the urinal, and Hector pushed him hard against the wall and swiped the blade across the Ranger's face, bringing the blood.
'Where is the governor?'
'Fuck you!'
Hector drove his knee into the Ranger's testicles; the Ranger went down. Hector felt the heat of hatred consume his body. He pushed the Ranger's head into the urinal and put the blade inside his nostril and slit it like butter. The Ranger started to scream like a child, but Hector clamped off his throat and all sound.
'Where is the governor?'
'Fuck you!'
Hector cut out the Ranger's eye. Before he died, he told Hector what he needed to know. Then they set fire to the taco bar to delay a warning to the governor.
They would only need that one night.
Bode Bonner had been a senior when Lindsay Byrne had moved to town, to this modest frame house. She had been the love of his life from the first time he saw her at school, looking lost in the main corridor. He walked up to her and said, 'Hi, I'm Bode Bonner.' He waited for the sense of awe to cross her face, but it didn't. It never had. Lindsay had never bought into his specialness. To her, he was not a god. He was just a man. She had brought him back down to earth that day. She had kept him grounded.
She had not idolized him as so many others had, but he had still been her hero. She had told him so one day on the ranch during spring roundup. They had worked side-by-side in the pens-he branded, she vaccinated. She had stumbled back over a calf; he had reached down and scooped her into his arms and off the ground before a cow could kick her. Her face was red from the sun and the work, and she was beautiful. He kissed her, and she kissed him back. Then she gazed into his eyes in that way she did, and she said, 'You're my hero, Bode Bonner.'
He had laughed and said, 'Hell, I just plucked you out of cow shit-I didn't rescue you from Indians on the warpath.'
'You're a good man,' she said. 'I'm proud to be your wife.'
She wasn't proud anymore.
Now, all these years later, for some reason that he could not put into a complete thought, Bode Bonner wanted desperately to make her proud again. To be her hero again. He needed that. It was the part of him that was missing.
They had married after she graduated from UT with a nursing degree. She joined him on the ranch. And there they would still be had Ronald Reagan not won the presidency in 1980. Democrats had controlled the State Capitol since Reconstruction, but Reagan carried Texas and gave Republicans in Texas hope. That hope came to Comfort in the nineties. Republicans were plotting a takeover of state politics, and they needed young attractive candidates to run against old incumbent Democrats. Bode Bonner was thirty-one years old when ambition came into his life again. He had grown bored on the ranch. He again looked beyond the fences. Out there somewhere was excitement. Challenges. An adventure for Bode Bonner.
Perhaps in politics.
He had already run for the state legislature as a Democrat and lost to the incumbent in the primary. He then became a Republican and ran against the same incumbent in the general election. He won. The state legislature was a part-time job, only one hundred forty days every two years, so they had still lived at the ranch. Four sessions later, he ran for the Governor's Mansion and won. That was a full-time job, so they had moved to Austin. Four years after that, he had won again. His political career had soared-and his wife could no longer keep him grounded.
Between Comfort and Austin, he had lost his way.
He was governor-for-life, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough. Ambition and testosterone drive a man to greatness-and then to self-destruction. No man can stop when he's ahead. Not when there's more to be had. More money. More power. Higher office. Younger women. Ambition drives him forward and testosterone makes him want more, always more-until he destroys himself. And those around him.
It is man's nature.
Was it God's desire? Did God really want Bode Bonner in the White House?
He stared up at the crucifix above the altar in the Catholic church he had attended as a boy with his family. Where he had received communion and professed his faith in God. But he had lied. He didn't believe in God. He believed in Bode Bonner. Until that day at Kerbey's-until he had survived an assassination attempt-he had never thought much about God. He had thought about himself.
He had given in to his demon: ambition.
He wasn't God's chosen one. That was pure delusion fueled by ambition not faith. It was not real. What was real was that he loved his wife and daughter, but he had squandered their love. So his wife had left him and his daughter hated him. He had betrayed them both and now paid the price. Just as Hank and Darcy and Mandy had paid the price of living in the shadow of an ambitious man. It's a dark place. A dangerous place. They were dead, innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of Bode Bonner's ambition. They would never laugh or love again; they would never have children or be someone's child again; they would never live again. Their lives were over-because of him. His ambition had killed them as surely as if he had pulled the trigger. Their deaths were on his tab. He turned his eyes up to the crucifix above the altar. They had died for nothing.
Unless.
At two the next morning, Hector Garcia and his two soldados parked the SUV under a stand of trees just down from the entrance to the governor's ranch north of San Antonio. They donned night-vision goggles and slung silenced weapons over their shoulders. Not that anyone would hear the gunfire-the ranch was in the middle of nowhere-or the governor's death cries.
They hiked up the caliche road to the house on the hill. A dog barked out front of the house. Hector put the beast down with one silent shot. When they arrived at the house, they tried the front door. It was unlocked. He shook his head; the gringos live such sheltered lives. They entered the house.
Five minutes later, everyone sleeping in the house lay dead.
Hector removed his goggles and turned on the lights.
