Payne said, “It shouldn’t be a problem finding it. It’s at least got to be in the backup files on the Bulletin’s computer system mainframe. What I’m wondering is if we’d have any luck tracing the postings back to their source.”

Harris nodded, then looked at Byrth. Payne followed his eyes.

Payne noticed that Byrth was deep in thought.

And that he had the dry white bean going across the fingers of his left hand. That had been what caught Harris’s attention.

Byrth said, “It is common for, say, an arsonist to stand in a nearby crowd to watch the firemen put out his handiwork.”

Payne considered that, then picked up on his train of thought.

“Yeah,” he said, “and these comments could very well be just another manifestation of that behavior.”

Payne then felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

He pulled it out and saw that he’d received a text message from his sister.

It read:

Amy Payne Against my advice as a professional and a friend, I tried to steer her away… You better take care of this one, Wyatt Earp!!

Payne shook his head.

What in hell is she talking about?

He made a face as he slipped the phone back into his pocket.

Harris and Byrth noticed that.

“Everything okay?” Harris said.

“Hell if I know,” Payne said, shaking his head. “Women.”

That triggered appreciative chuckles.

Then Payne felt another vibration in his pocket.

Sonofabitch! Now what does Amy want?

Harris and Byrth saw that, too.

He made another face and said, “Sorry. I should just turn the damn thing off.”

He glanced down at the color LCD screen: unknown number OK… I gave it some thought.

Even consulted with my favorite shrink.

I?m game, Matt.

See, I promised myself… well, I?ll explain later. -A Payne thought his heart was going to burst though his chest.

Amanda!

Unknown number? Shit!

Wait! Amy has to have it!

His thumbs flew as he replied to his sister’s text.

He put down the phone and looked between Harris and Byrth.

“What?” Payne said innocently.

“Should we wait?” Harris said, sounding a little exasperated.

“No, go ahead,” Payne said.

Just then, the phone vibrated with her reply.

“Sorry,” Payne said, and glanced at the screen:

Amy Payne I was going to ignore you but knew you?d get her number somehow amp; then hold it against me that I withheld it… 609-555-6221.

Great!

Then he stuck the phone back in his pocket.

“What I was going to say,” Harris then said, his tone still suggesting mild annoyance, “was that I agree with Matt. That we could get our people to see if they can trace these to an IP address.”

Payne and Byrth nodded.

Every device connected to the Internet had to have a unique Internet Protocol numerical address, and, at least in theory, every IP address of every router had to have a legitimate physical address associated with it as well. So they could track backward and find the IP address… and find their doer.

“Failing that,” Harris went on, “we can get the Bulletin to seed an article that might incite the Death.Before. Dishonor person to reveal more about him- or herself. One of those phones to my ear when you came in was with Lee Bryan”-he looked to Byrth to clarify-“Bryan is the editor at the Bulletin. He agreed. With conditions, of course.”

“Of course,” Payne said dryly. “Damn sure worth a try.”

Payne gestured toward Harris’s desk telephone. Harris pushed it across the desk toward him. Payne picked up the receiver, thought for a second, then punched in a short string of numbers.

“Corporal Rapier,” Payne said into the phone. “Is the ECC free? Anyone in there?” He listened a moment and then grinned. “ ‘ Just Sweet Dee on the big screen.’ I see. Then that means you’ll be available in the next ten or so minutes. And we’ll need someone from Information Systems Division.”

Payne hung up the phone.

He looked at Byrth. “ISD falls under the department’s Science and Technology division.”

Byrth was nodding when he felt his cell phone vibrate.

“Sorry,” he said, slipping the white bean into his pocket and reaching for the phone. “Apparently, I’m not any better than Marshal In Lust here.”

He read the screen. His eyebrows went up.

“Excuse me,” he said.

He pushed a speed-dial key and put the phone to his ear.

Harris and Payne exchanged a glance.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Byrth said into the phone. “What do you have?”

And he remained stone-faced and silent for the next few minutes, breaking his silence with only a few grunts and “uh-huh”s.

Then he said, “Okay. Thanks. Keep me posted.”

Byrth looked at Payne and said, “Remember that kid running drugs I told you we nabbed in College Station?”

“Shoney?”

“Close,” Byrth said. “Ramos Manuel Chac?n. Good memory, though.”

He turned to Harris and brought him up to speed on Ramos Manuel Chac?n.

“What about him?” Payne then said.

“When they booked him, they didn’t really get anything beyond the phone numbers on his cell phone. But then they went through his car with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. In addition to the drug residue-he’d already delivered the drugs to his vendors-there was all kinds of trash. And, apparently, there were a few bills that had not been mailed, including a City of Dallas water bill.”

Payne and Harris were nodding.

“Water bills have service street addresses,” Payne said.

“Right,” Byrth said. “So they called Company B in Garland; that’s the Texas Rangers office in DFW. And Sergeant Kenny Kasper-really good guy-gets the address and drives by in his personal vehicle. Doesn’t see anything of interest. So he gets an idea. He drives over to Dallas City Hall. Craziest damn place; the building looks like a triangle turned on its head. That I. M. Pei designer did it. Anyway, he pulls some strings. Now he’s wearing a water meter reader’s outfit and he’s got a city vehicle with all the appropriate stickers on the doors.”

Payne snorted. “Pretty good trick.”

Byrth nodded and said mock-seriously, “That’s why we’re Texas Rangers.”

He went on: “So then Kenny drove over to the house and banged on the front door, prepared to say he’s there to turn on the water. No one answered, but he thought he could hear muffled moans. He went around to the backyard. But all the windows and the back door were covered. He banged on that door and-you know what?-the damnedest thing happened. It swung wide open.”

Payne chuckled. “That’s called a Size 10 Steel-Toe Universal Key.”

After a moment’s thought, Byrth went on: “What he found wasn’t pretty. But it could’ve been worse if he hadn’t taken the door.”

“What?” Harris and Payne said at almost the exact same time.

“It’s a stash house in a struggling neighborhood near downtown. And inside he found eighteen undocumented immigrants, mostly women, all but the two toddlers chained and locked up. Everyone had duct tape on their mouths, toddlers included. Kasper said he’s pretty sure some of the young girls had been raped.”

“My God!” Harris exclaimed.

Byrth nodded. “And there was drug-manufacturing paraphernalia. Empty packets of Queso Azul scattered all over the dining room. They don’t know how long the bad guys had been gone, but it appeared that they just missed them. And judging by the way things were thrown around, they’re not going back to the house.”

“They just left those people to die?” Payne said, shaking his head.

“Happens all the time in the desert,” Byrth said. “Doesn’t make it right, of course.”

They were all quiet, lost in thought.

“Then this El Gato is back in Dallas?” Payne said.

Byrth shrugged. “No one knows. None of the immigrants are talking. At least, not saying anything of help. Forensics is going through the scene, but that’ll take forever to process. There’re eighteen sets of prints from the immigrants alone. Lord knows how many from the bad guys. And even then who knows if we get a match to any.”