“Some of the rounds must have hit the engine, stopped it dead. It seemed to get real quiet then, I remember, though that may just have been my imagination—my ears were still ringing.”
Stop stalling, he thought. Get through this part quickly. Get it said.
In the silence, he could hear a clock tick faintly in another room.
“Colin went up to the truck with his AK, looked inside, then lowered his rifle and just stood there. That’s when I knew.”
His mouth was dry again. He sipped more water.
“Who was in the truck?” she said.
“I went over just as Colin opened the passenger-side door. There were three people inside, the driver, a woman, and a little boy she was carrying in her lap, maybe four or five years old. The boy had a bloody bandage on his leg. I knew then what had happened. They were civilians, had fled the fighting in the village. What the driver was yelling was ‘Niño’ and ‘Hospital.’ If I’d waited another few seconds, I would have understood. I would have seen who was inside the truck. But I didn’t wait.”
“Christ,” she said softly.
“I warned you. Sure you want to hear the rest?”
“Yes.”
“Guess was they were trying for the hospital, about five miles away. They would have made it too, if we hadn’t been there, blocking their way. On their road. In their country.”
“What did you do then?”
“Nothing. I was just numb. We couldn’t do anything for them. All three were dead. We just stood around. Nobody said anything.”
Seeing it all again, the smell coming back to him—gunpowder and gasoline and death.
“What was going on in the village?” she said.
“Still nothing on the radio, so we knew something was wrong. We went on in. Bell drove the technical, Colin manned the .50. I sat up front. I felt cold all over, and my hands were numb.”
“You were in shock.”
“Some of what happened after, I remember vividly. Some is just a blur, still. We headed down into the village. It was quiet now. No more shooting.
“The village wasn’t much. Concrete shacks, prefab aluminum roofs and walls. A lot of the homes were shot up or burnt out. Garza was sitting in front of one of the shacks, drinking a beer and smoking a cigar, an M-16 across his lap. Four men were kneeling in the street in front of him, with their hands tied behind them. No uniforms. They were civilians, as far as I could tell. The rest of the unit was watching us, to see how we’d react.
“The other vehicles in the village were all shot to pieces. I’m not sure how the people in the pickup had gotten away. It looked like Garza and his men had gone from door to door, dragged everyone out, then torched the houses.”
“What about Herrera’s troops?”
“There were none there. There never had been.”
He listened to the clock tick. Finish it, he thought.
“There was a drainage trench behind the houses that ran down to the river. We smelled it before we saw it. There were about fifty bodies in there, mainly women and kids. A few men, but mostly kids. Some of the women were naked. Everyone was dead.
“I asked Garza about the prisoners. He said they were soldiers, Herrera’s men, that they’d taken off their uniforms when they knew an attack was coming. I said we’d bring them back with us for interrogation. I knew if we didn’t, he’d kill them.
“He wouldn’t hand them over. Told us to mind our own business, that we were gringos who took dinero de sangre—blood money—and we’d done what we were paid for. He said this was between his people, that we didn’t understand. They held weapons on us—men we’d trained, carrying American-made rifles.
“I told Garza we wanted the prisoners, wouldn’t leave without them. He smiled then, got up, said if we really wanted them, we could have them. I knew what was coming. Maybe if I’d moved faster I could have stopped it. But I didn’t. He raised his M-16, and shot them all in the back, right there in front of us, one after the other.”
He heard her slight intake of breath.
“I drew my sidearm, a .45, was going to shoot him. Colin stopped me. If I had, the others would have killed us all right there, then probably blamed it on Herrera’s men. There’d be no one around to say different. Thinking back on it, I wish I’d shot him anyway. I should have died there. Needed to.”
“What happened then?”
“There wasn’t much we could do. Bell was back in the tech, trying to get us to leave. Garza was grinning, watching us back down. We drove out of the village. Bell was angry at me, said I’d almost gotten us all killed. He said Garza was right. We’d done what we were paid for. It wasn’t our war.”
“But these were men you’d trained, armed.”
“Yes.”
“You facilitated what they did.”
He picked up the bottle, drank the rest of the water.
“How do you feel about that?” she said.
“How do you think I felt? Later on, we found out what happened. It was Herrera’s home village, so it was personal. No troops had ever been there. The point of the raid was to send a message. It was a symbolic gesture.”
“What about the people in the pickup?”
“We didn’t know what to do. They had no ID, and any relatives back in the village were likely dead as well. I couldn’t leave them out there for the animals, the elements. I got an e-tool and dug a grave in a field there by the roadside. Buried them next to each other.”
The pill was starting to kick in, fatigue taking over again.
“Did Farrow know about the village? What was going to happen?”
“He said he didn’t, and I had no reason to doubt him. Two days later, it was all over. Herrera tried to leave the country, didn’t make it. Ramírez and his people took over. Mission accomplished.”
“You came back to the States then?”
“We were scheduled to leave by boat. I was on my own in a jeep, on the way to the rendezvous point, when I hit the mine. The next thing I remember is being in the back of a truck, with Colin driving. He fixed me up as best he could, then got me medevaced. Saved my life. A day later I was at a hospital in Tampa. I had two broken legs, a broken wrist, shrapnel in my back and in my face.” He touched his left eyebrow.
“When I was well enough to travel, they transferred me to another hospital up north. Acheron paid for everything.”
“Did you keep track of what happened in San Marcos after that?”
“I did.”
“So you know about the purges, the crackdowns?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Estimates are Ramírez killed more than five thousand of his own people over the last decade, imprisoned thousands more.”
“I know.”
“Do you ever wonder if he could have come to power without your help?”
“Every day,” he said.
Silence between them.
“Nice story, right?” he said.
She said nothing.
“You’re the first person I ever told that to,” he said. “The whole thing, I mean. No one else knew it all, besides Colin, Bell, and Farrow. Not my wife, not my priest, not even the therapist I saw when I came back. And if the next thing you ask me is if you can use any of that in a story, the answer is no. Not yet, at least.”
“I’m sorry about all this,” she said. “What you had to go through.”
“We helped light the fire. Then we got burned. There’s no one else to blame.”
She sat back. He tried to read her expression in the dimness. Wondered if she was frightened of him now.
“I’ll find another place to stay tomorrow,” he said. “Get my things from the motel. I’m sure your friend Dwight will want to talk to me again.”
“You can bet on that.”
“That pill’s starting to work. I think I might be ready to try to sleep again.”
She got up. “Get some rest. We’ve got a lot ahead of us.”
She went back to her bedroom. He stretche
d out on the couch, looked up at the dark ceiling. He wasn’t sure how he felt, if it had been right to tell as much as he had. Either way, he thought, it’s done.
Her sleep was thin, fragmented. Bits of dreams woke her every few minutes. Awake, she thought about what Devlin had told her. You wanted to know, she thought. And now you do.
The nightstand clock read 4 a.m. when she got up, went barefoot down the hall to the living room. Devlin was snoring softly, but every few seconds an arm or leg would jerk almost imperceptibly.
Who is this man sleeping in your house? she thought. How is it he came into your life? What else has he done that he can’t talk about, can’t face? And do you even want to know?
She watched him for a while, lying there in the moonlight. You’ve given me your nightmares, she thought. Then she turned, and went back down the hallway to her bed.
When she woke in the morning, he was gone.
Twenty-Eight
Lukas woke to the steady beep of the driveway alarm, saw the light blink on the bedroom wall console. He rolled off the bed, took the Sig Sauer automatic from atop the nightstand. Morning light came through the windows.
He dressed in jeans and T-shirt, walked barefoot into the living room, the gun at his side. At the front door, he looked out, saw Farrow’s Bronco pull up into the yard, Holifield at the wheel.
He heard a noise behind him, turned to see Tariq on the stairs, fully dressed, a gun in his hand.
“Gordon,” Lukas said. He slipped the Sig into his belt, let the fall of his shirt cover it. He unlocked the door, went out, the ground cold under his feet.
Holifield stepped down from the Bronco. Farrow got out on the passenger side. He wore a pale green flight jacket and sunglasses.
“What are you doing here?” Lukas said.
“You don’t check your messages?” Farrow said.
“We were on the road until late. I turned my phone off.”
“We need to talk.”
Farrow looked past him, at Tariq on the stairs. “Alone.”
He nodded toward the woods beyond the garage.
“Hold on,” Lukas said. He went back inside, said “It’s okay” to Tariq. He slipped on sneakers, got a jacket from the closet.
Farrow had started down a trail that led deeper into the trees. Lukas followed him. Holifield stayed beside the Bronco, thumb hitched into his belt, just forward of the gun holstered there.
They came to a clearing, birds singing around them. Farrow turned to him.
“When were you going to tell me what happened?”
“There were complications. It didn’t go like it was supposed to. I’ll make it good.”
“A reporter called my house last night.”
“About what?”
“I didn’t wait to find out. I hung up and called my lawyer. She was from the same paper that’s been writing these stories every other goddamn day. Have you seen them?”
“No, why?”
“They’ve got all the pieces. It’s just a matter of time before they start putting them together. Doesn’t take a genius to see where they’re headed with this. Right up our ass.”
“A newspaper? Forget it. You’re giving them too much credit.”
“This reporter had my name, my home phone. She’s probably got my address, is on her way there now.”
“How’d she get your name and number?”
“No idea how she got the number. But I can imagine where she got my name.”
“Devlin,” Lukas said.
“He’s a problem that should have been solved a while ago and wasn’t. Now he’s an even bigger one—for both of us.”
“I said I’ll make it good.”
“I have to see the old man today, give him a sit rep. But first I wanted to talk to you, hear your piss-poor excuse for what happened, and how you’re going to fix it.”
“You want me to come with you? Talk to him?”
“Are you crazy? He won’t want you anywhere near him, hot as you are right now.”
Lukas felt a flush of anger. “No one’s happy with the way things went.”
“You understand what’s at stake here, the possible repercussions? A reporter called the Unix office as well. Bad enough they used my name in the paper. If they try to bring the old man into this? No telling what happens then. This thing’s sprawling, and it’s gotta stop.”
“Devlin’s the key,” Lukas said. “Anything a reporter is getting is coming from him. Take him out of the equation, and they’ve got nothing. It’s the same with the cops. Without Devlin, there’s no case, no story.”
“And considering you had a shot at him and blew it, how is it you think you’ll get close to him next time?”
“There’s always a way.”
“Maybe those reporters need to go as well.”
“Take out a reporter working on a story? That’s the last thing you want. Who do you think the police will suspect first?”
“It could look like an accident.”
“You’re not thinking clearly. You want to try something that stupid with your own people, go ahead. But don’t ask me to be involved.”
“Sometimes,” Farrow said, “in extreme situations, we have to take chances we normally wouldn’t. Maybe this is one of those times.”
“Can’t the old man put pressure on someone local, throw some money around, get the story killed?”
“It’s not that easy. And I told you, there can’t be any link to Unix. His position is this is our fuckup. We need to fix it. He’s right. And we will.”
“I’ll deal with it.”
“One other thing.” Farrow took a folded piece of yellow legal paper from his jacket pocket, held it out.
“What’s this?” Lukas said. He opened it. Written on the sheet in pencil was an address in Connecticut.
“It’s where Devlin used to live,” Farrow said. “His ex-wife still does. You lose the scent, she might know where he is.”
“That’s a reach, isn’t it?”
“He won’t go back to Florida. We found him there once. And it seems like he wants to cause as much damage up here as he can. One way or another, you need to stop him.”
“What happened yesterday was a random shooting,” Lukas said. “No one was killed. Happens up there every day. That story will die quick unless they tie it to something else. And without Devlin, that won’t happen.”
“That’s a big risk you’re taking.”
“Everything’s a risk,” Lukas said.
Twenty-Nine
Tracy had just gotten in, was on the way to her cubicle, when she saw Alysha standing in the conference room, waving rapidly at her through the glass. Rick Carr was at the table in there, along with Irv Siegel, the executive editor, and Susan Van Ness, the nervous twentysomething who ran Digital.
Tracy went to her desk, unlocked the top drawer, grabbed what she hoped was her most recent notebook, and started for the conference room.
“Tracy!”
She turned. Harris was coming up behind her. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Hey, R.J. What’s up?”
He moved in close to her. She didn’t step back.
“You never responded to my emails. And don’t say you didn’t see them.”
“I didn’t.”
“Unacceptable. You work for me, in my department, under my supervision. I thought we were clear on that.”
She looked back over her shoulder at the conference room. “Sorry, this other story…”
“Ted tells me you wouldn’t meet with him either.”
“Didn’t get a chance.”
“No excuse. What did we talk about in my office the other day, about being a team player?”
Rick had gotten up, opened the door to the conference room. He pointed at Tracy, then inside.
“Speaking of teamwork,” she said to Harris, “I think they’re waiting for us.”
Siegel sat back, said, “Now that we’re all here.”
He was in his sixties,
his hair and beard wiry and gray. He wore reading glasses, had loosened his tie. There was a folded copy of the morning’s paper at one elbow, an electronic tablet at the other.
It was the first time she’d been in a meeting with him. He’d come to Philadelphia after stints in Cincinnati and St. Louis. At both those papers, he’d overseen large-scale staff and budget cuts. She’d never spoken with him directly before, had no idea what he thought of her or her work.
“Sorry,” she said. She looked at Rick, who was tapping a pencil on a legal pad. “You’re in early.”
He gave that a small smile. “Thanks to you.”
She sat next to Alysha, looked up at the framed front pages on the wall—9/11, the Phillies winning the 2008 World Series, the MOVE bombing from 1985.
“First of all,” Siegel said, “I understand we have some ongoing safety concerns.”
“New Hope police were at my house last night,” Tracy said. “They’ll be back tonight as well. It’s probably not necessary.”
“I’d rather they be there than not. If I need to make a phone call on that, let me know. Or we could put you up in a hotel for a few days. Your choice.”
“Thanks, but I think I’d rather stay at home.”
He looked at Alysha. “Bennett, that goes for you too. I’d feel better knowing you’re both safe until we have some resolution here, preferably in the form of an arrest.”
“If you’re offering me a free hotel room for a couple nights, I won’t say no.”
“We’ll set that up.” He looked around the table. “Who wants to go first?”
Harris had taken a seat across from Tracy. “I just want to go on record to say I didn’t know anything about this. Whatever story Tracy’s working on, it was with someone else’s okay.”
He looked at Rick, who was doodling on a corner of the pad.
“Noted,” Siegel said. He turned to Tracy. “I’ve read our stories, and Rick’s filled me in on what we know so far. Tie all this together for me.”
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