Cartel

by Chuck Hustmyre

  The left turn was coming. The two Cadillacs were al-ready through it and gone. He could still catch them if he didn't have to stop for oncoming traffic. There were plenty of vehicles coming at him, including a tractor-trailer rig. But there was a gap. Not much of a gap, but maybe just enough. Rodrigo swung wide into the right lane. He didn't look. He just eased the wheel over. Tires squealed. A horn blared. Something bumped his back right fender. He ignored it and kept his eyes focused on the turn and the slim gap through the oncoming traffic.

  Rodrigo jammed down the clutch and shoved the gear-shift up into second. Then he cut the steering wheel hard over, but the wheel was sloppy and had a lot of play so the turn was loose. His tires screamed. The big truck towered over him, threatening to crash down on him like a tidal wave. So close he could see the shock on the driver's face.

  Momentum alone was not going to carry the pickup through the turn fast enough to avoid getting smashed by the tractor-trailer. What Rodrigo needed was power. So he popped the clutch and stepped on the gas. The old tires bit the pavement. His stomach lurched as the back wheels broke free and the rear-end starting sliding. Still keeping his foot down on the gas, he turned into the skid, but the steering wheel felt like a rocking horse and the front end barely re-sponded. Rodrigo realized he had gotten himself into a situation that he was powerless to get out of.

  So he prayed. Just two quick words. "Help me."

  And someone must have heard him, or so he believed, because the tractor-trailer driver had time to put on just enough brake to miss the tail-end of Rodrigo's truck, and so Rodrigo made it through the turn and managed to straighten out on the side street...just in time to see both Cadillac SUVs stopped side-by-side in the street, blocking it from curb to curb.

  Rodrigo slammed on the brakes and stomped the clutch, but he was going way too fast to stop in time. He wasn't sure which SUV his grandniece was in. A crash could hurt her. Or worse. So he jerked the wheel hard right and hit the curb at almost a ninety-degree angle. The front tires blew as the old truck bounced over the sidewalk and slammed into the cinderblock wall of a grocery store. Rodrigo dove down on-to the seat an instant before the jagged upper edge of the hole he had blasted in the wall shattered the windshield and peeled back the roof. The truck didn't stop until the entire cab and half the cargo bed were inside the store.

  Rodrigo heard screams and prayed he hadn't hurt any-one. He was on the floorboard, wedged between the seat and the dashboard. A pile of cinderblocks lay on top of him. Warm liquid ran down his face into one eye. The truck seemed to be spinning, but he knew it was just his head that was spinning. He couldn't breath, but he could taste the air inside the cab. It tasted like cement dust. He tried to sit up but couldn't move. The concrete blocks held him down.

  He heard voices but couldn't see anyone. His head hurt. He was tired. The concrete was crushing him. He tried to shove the cinderblocks off but they were too heavy. He prayed to God to look after Rosalita now that he had failed her.

  Metal shrieked against metal.

  Rodrigo looked up with his clear eye and saw a man yanking on the driver's door. He was dressed in black. A fel-low priest? Pulling and pushing the door, back and forth, the steel grinding against itself as the man tried to reach him. Maybe the truck was on fire. But Rodrigo didn't smell any-thing burning, didn't hear the crackle of flames.

  The man kept yanking and shoving, yanking and shov-ing.

  Someone else was shouting.

  Then the door ripped away.

  Rodrigo reached up but the man ignored his hand. In-stead, he leaned into the cab and yanked out the cin-derblocks one by one. When he was finished, a second man appeared. They each grabbed one of Rodrigo's legs and dragged him out of the truck. He landed on his back on the hard floor of the grocery and heard himself scream as pain sliced through his left side.

  His ribs were broken.

  The two men stared down at him. He saw their tattoos and knew who they were. Los Zetas. He tried to say some-thing, but the pain in his side had driven the air from his lungs and all that came out was a wheeze.

  More men appeared. Rough hands jerked him to his feet. The pain was unbearable. The man who had ripped the door open, the one dressed in black, reached back into the cab and grabbed the pistol and the burlap sack with the extra gun and the cell phones from the gangsters who had come to the rectory. Then the two men hauled Rodrigo back out through the hole his truck had knocked in the wall of the store and toward the waiting SUVs.

  Halfway to the vehicles, an old man wearing work clothes stepped into their path. He said something to the two men, but Rodrigo couldn't make out his words. Beneath the brim of his hat, the old man's nut-brown face was rough and weathered but there was some kindness etched into it. The man dressed in black tried to push the old man aside, but the old man stood firm. The man in black punched the old man in the nose, toppling his straw hat and knocking him to the ground. From the corner of his eye, Rodrigo saw the old man start to get up. Then the man in black laughed and shot the old man in the face with one of the pistols he had taken from Rodrigo's truck.

  The crowd of people that had gathered around the crash site screamed and fled. The two cartel men shoved Rodrigo into the back of one of the Escalades. Rosalita wasn't there.

  Chapter 61

  Jones stroking out seemed even more likely now as Gavin drove the Suburban out of the neighborhood where they had barely missed getting their hands on Scott Greene. Jones sat in the passenger seat, eyes closed, palms pressed against his temples, like he was literally trying to keep his skull from exploding.

  "You all right?" Gavin asked.

  "Yes," Jones said without moving.

  "You don't...look all right."

  Jones lowered his hands and took a few deep breaths. "I'm fine."

  "Okay," Gavin said. "So now what?"

  "I assume that train is headed to Mexico."

  Gavin nodded. "That would be my guess." He pointed. "The border's only a couple miles by air."

  "Or train," Jones said.

  "Or train."

  Jones picked up his iPad and studied the map display.

  Gavin looked over and could see the flashing blue dot that represented their targets. The dot was getting closer to Mexico and farther away from them with every pulse.

  "We need to get ahead of them," Jones said.

  "World Trade Bridge is only two miles from here."

  Jones nodded. "And get the bird in the air."

  * * * *

  Scott punched the button to end the call and handed the prepaid cell phone back to Benny.

  "I can't believe you just did that," she said.

  "I didn't do anything," Scott said. "That was an anony-mous call."

  "An anonymous bomb threat."

  "It was the only way I could think of to buy us some time."

  They had climbed one train car back to the flatbed and were huddled under a tarp, next to a piece of equipment that looked like a gigantic steel valve, probably something to do with oil or natural gas wells. The train had just crossed the river into Mexico.

  "You didn't tell them which bridge," Benny said.

  "The first Monday of every month, I have to go to a meeting with representatives from every law enforcement agency in Laredo to be briefed by Homeland Security on the latest threats and contingency plans," Scott said. "I've al-ways thought of it as a huge waste of time, but I have learned a few things, like the protocol for a bomb threat to one of the bridges."

  "What's the protocol?"

  "Customs and Border Protection shuts the bridge down and conducts a complete search, and if the threat doesn't mention a specific bridge, they shut them all down."

  "So you just shut down all four bridges?"

  He nodded. "For at least two hours."

  Benny closed her eyes and said a short prayer in Span-ish. Then made the sign of the cross.

  "What did you pray for?" Scott asked.

  "For God to help me save my daughter."

 
; Scott nodded, but he wasn't going to count on divine intervention.

  "And that he would not use her to punish me," Benny said.

  "Why would he do that?"

  "Because I'm a bad person."

  "You're not a bad person," Scott said. "You're a good person caught in a bad situation."

  Benny looked away.

  Scott reached out and took her hand. She turned to him and looked up into his eyes. Then she smiled at him.

  * * * *

  An unmarked government sedan was stopped in the OFFICIAL USE ONLY lane at the World Trade Bridge in front of Gavin and Jones's Suburban, and the jackass driving it was jawing with the uniformed CBP officer in the security booth and wouldn't get out of the goddamned way.

  "Blow the horn," Jones said.

  Gavin gave him a look. "You really think that's going to work?"

  "Try it and see."

  "He's probably asking for directions to the donkey show."

  Jones's only response was a grunt.

  Then the CBP cop got a call on his radio.

  Gavin's window was down. He could hear the squawk from the radio but couldn't make out the words. Whatever the words were they were pretty serious because the CBP cop turned all business and dropped the gate closed in front of the sedan.

  "What the shit is he doing?" Jones said. Then he jumped out of the Suburban and strode toward the booth, chin jutting out like a drill sergeant. Gavin unassed the Suburban and jogged to catch up. Jones was wound pretty damned tight. Somebody had to keep an eye on him. Besides, these CBP dicks had guns and they were sticklers for the rules.

  When Gavin reached the booth, Jones was waving a set of credentials in the officer's face and trying to talk over him. Still, Gavin heard the CBP officer saying something about a bomb threat.

  "That's bullshit," Jones said, his voice rising with each word. "There's no goddamned bomb. There never is. Terror-ists don't warn you before they blow things up. Not since Gerry Adams sucked Bill Clinton's cock and cut the balls off the IRA." He pointed to the gate. "Now open that gate and let us through."

  The CBP cop was in his mid-thirties. Not exactly an old salt, but experienced enough to know that his union contract didn't require him to take this kind of shit from another fed-eral bureaucrat. "Sir, someone called the central office and said one of the bridges was going to be blown up. Protocol demands that we-"

  "One of the bridges?" Jones shouted. "You mean you don't even know which bridge was threatened?" When the man didn't answer, Jones berated him some more. "So for all you know it could be one of the other three bridges. Or none of the bridges. Is that right?"

  The officer reached for the microphone clipped to his shirt. "Sir, if you want, I can call my supervisor here and you can discuss bomb threat protocols with her."

  Gavin dragged Jones back to the Suburban before he got them both arrested. "What the fuck are you doing?" he said once they were both back in their seats with the doors closed and the windows up.

  "Trying to get us across that bridge."

  "You do realize those credentials you're so fond of flashing around are fake, right?"

  "And that idiot knows the difference?"

  "He's just doing his job."

  "And I'm trying to do mine."

  "I understood this was supposed to be a covert mis-sion," Gavin said.

  "What's your point?"

  "That throwing down with Border Protection isn't very smart."

  "You think it's a coincidence the bridges are closed?" Jones snapped. "Right now, after Greene hopped a train back across the border?"

  Gavin pointed at the gate. "You think he did this?"

  "Of course, he did," Jones said. "Every time we turn around the son of a bitch is one step ahead of us."

  "If you're right," Gavin said, "he's a lot more than one step ahead this time."

  Jones took a deep breath and seemed to get control of himself. Like a switch had flipped inside his head. "What's the status on the helicopter?"

  "Spinning up right now with my best man onboard to quarterback."

  "Ground support?"

  "Two four-man teams." Gavin pointed to Jones's iPad. "With you on the tracker and me handling comms, this time we're going to nail his ass to the wall."

  Jones nodded. "And while all this action is going on across the river, what are we supposed to do?"

  Gavin smiled. "Wait for the bridge to open."

  Chapter 62

  Scott bailed off the flatcar first. They were on the north side of Nuevo Laredo, and the train was lumbering through a curve at about twenty-five miles an hour. Scott jumped to-ward the outside of the turn so the engineer wouldn't see him. Despite what Benny had said, he still had trouble be-lieving that the engineer didn't care at all who got on and off his train.

  Scott tucked and rolled as best he could, clinched his teeth, and wrapped his arms around his head, but the ground was hard-packed dirt and rocks and it hurt. When he finished rolling, Scott looked up just in time to see Benny leap off the train. She hit hard and for a minute he was afraid she'd broken her neck. Then he saw her moving.

  Scott stood up and his knee almost gave out. He'd wrenched it when he hit the ground. He tried to walk it off, but it still hurt. When Benny stood up, she had grass and dirt stuck to her face and in her hair. Scott laughed.

  She glared at him. "What?"

  "I like your camouflage."

  She brushed off her face and ran her fingers through her thick black hair. Then she said something in Spanish and aimed her middle finger at him. He didn't need a translation.

  Scott watched the train rumble and clank its way down the tracks. "I still can't believe no one stopped us at the bor-der."

  "Your government doesn't care what goes into Mexico," she said. "Only what comes out."

  "What about your government?"

  "They don't care either way. As long as they get paid."

  Scott glanced around. "Which way?"

  She pointed south and they started walking. Scott's knee still hurt. "How far to the market?" he asked.

  "Two or three miles."

  "Any taxis out here?"

  "No," she said.

  They kept walking.

  * * * *

  It turned out they only had to walk a mile before Scott was able to flag down a taxi. They rode the rest of the way in a hot, dusty Toyota with no AC and Mariachi music blar-ing from an old portable cassette player wedged between the dashboard and the windshield.

  The Zaragoza Mercado was a sprawling open-air market: a hodgepodge of tents, stalls, and trailers, jammed together to form a crosshatch of narrow, twisting aisles, all teeming with shoppers. At the edge of the market, Scott saw an old man with skin like dried leather unloading crates of vegeta-bles from a donkey cart.

  Benny smiled when she saw the market. It was clear she had fond memories of this place. Scott hated to interrupt them. But duty called. "Where are you supposed to meet them?" he asked.

  "There was a stall." She pointed a hesitant finger. "That way. I think. Where tío used to buy me cookies."

  "You think it's still there?"

  "That was a long time ago," Benny said. "But even if it's not there anymore, tío and Rosalita will be close by."

  They entered the mercado and walked past dozens of vendors hawking leather goods, clothes, hats, dishes, tools, furniture, meat and fish, fresh produce, natural remedies to a variety of ailments, including impotence and infertility, beer, and tequila. Lots of tequila. Somewhere in the middle of the market, Benny hesitated at the intersection of a pair of me-andering aisles. She glanced back and forth.

  "What's wrong?" Scott asked.

  "I'm not sure which..."

  A steady throb, like a distant drumbeat, reached Scott's ears, but the market pressed in so close on all sides that he couldn't tell from which direction the sound came. He stepped into the middle of the intersection and scanned what he could see of the sky. Then he saw it. Half a mile out to his right, a Black Hawk helicopter
at a thousand feet and flying straight toward them.

  Benny saw it too. "How did they find us?"

  Scott took Benny's hand and turned down the aisle that ran perpendicular to the direction of the helicopter. And froze. Ahead of them, he caught a glimpse of a black Chev-rolet Suburban cruising the outer edge of the market. They had already been boxed in. There was nowhere they could run and not be seen by either the men in the helicopter or in the Suburban. But if they couldn't run, maybe they could walk. Maybe they could get lost in the crowd.

  They strolled down another aisle, careful not to outpace the other shoppers. Soon they passed an old man with a table full of hats for sale. Scott dropped an American twenty on the table and picked up a traditional Mexican straw sombre-ro, with a conical crown and a wide brim that curved upward at the edge. He put the hat on while they walked.

  The helicopter was behind them, getting louder and closer. They reached a wide aisle that ran through the center of the market. It was more of a service lane and wide enough for a car or a small truck. They turned right and kept moving, still maintaining a leisurely pace. Fifty yards later, an identical service lane crossed the one they were on. The intersection formed a small circular plaza in the center of the market. Food vendors ringed the plaza.

  Straight ahead, at the far end of the service lane, Scott saw another black Suburban turn into the market, heading toward them and accelerating. The lane was barely wide enough for the big American SUV, and people jumped out of its way. Several women screamed and some of the bolder men threw things at the Suburban.

  Scott angled Benny toward a nearby bench.

  "You want to sit down?" Benny said, surprised. "Now?"

  He took a seat and pulled her close beside him, close enough so that her face was under the brim of his sombrero.