Nothing to Hide drm-3

by J. Mark Bertrand

  “Andy’s theory was, only a disaster could focus our attention on doing something. Only a disaster could shake us out of the complacent notion that we can just wall ourselves off from the problem. What he wanted for Mexico was what we’d already given to Baghdad and Kabul.”

  “Regime change?”

  He smiles. “Stability. When the border became such a contentious issue after 9/11, Andy started telling people the border would never be secure until the nation of Mexico was, and that wouldn’t happen without some kind of intervention. Cooperation simply wasn’t enough. The question was, what would have to happen before Americans would support such a move?”

  “You mean, before they’d support an invasion of Mexico? That’s insane.”

  “Not an invasion. What he had in mind was something similar to what he’d worked on in Colombia, only with a more effective U.S. component. And anyway, it’s not that insane. We’ve invaded Mexico before, and not just when Santa Anna was in charge. Remember Black Jack Pershing?”

  “What does all this have to do with the drug cartels?”

  He gives a theatrical shrug. “You tell me. You’re the detective. We put pressure on the Mexicans to crack down on the cartels, so they started waging war, which sent the borderlands into a death spiral. Now the headlines are full of the excesses and Americans are shocked, shocked at what’s happening on our doorstep. Someone has to do something.”

  “That’s a very cynical point of view.”

  “What can I say? My profession doesn’t breed many idealists. What I’m telling you is this: Andy tried to convince anyone in power who’d listen that the cartels were running wild and the Mexican government was out of its depth. If you were one of the people paying top dollar for his intel reports, that was the message he hammered into you day in and day out. So, no, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to find that Andy had a line into the cartels.”

  The cigar in my hand has burned down to my fingers and my throat burns from sucking it down. The column of white ash suggests that Englewood has good taste in smokes, but I feel compromised somehow in partaking of his largess. When he signals the waitress again, I scoot my chair back.

  “You’ve had enough?” he asks.

  “The night he was shot, Nesbitt seemed to believe those cops were planning to kill him.”

  “They did kill him.”

  “Right, but he thought it was a hit. He thought HPD pulled him over with the express intention of punching his ticket. What would have made him so paranoid?”

  “Your colleagues asked me the same question. I’ll tell you what I told them: I have no idea. In most parts of the world, though, when you do the kind of work we did, it’s not so strange to assume that when the police pull you over, they intend something more sinister than to write up a traffic citation.”

  “Is that the kind of thing you worry about?” I ask.

  “Me?” He knocks back the last of his scotch. “No, I don’t. But like I told you, my line was analysis. I never got my hands dirty. Andy did. Always assuming he never worked for the CIA at all. Naturally, I take the official denials at face value.”

  “Naturally.”

  I put a few dollars on the table despite Englewood’s objection. I believe in paying my own way. He leans forward a little, the mischievous glint back in his eyes.

  “I forgot to mention something,” he says. “You and I, we have a mutual acquaintance. I thought I’d heard your name somewhere before.”

  “Oh really?” I ask, thinking he means Wilcox, though why Wilcox would have mentioned my name to him-

  “Reginald Keller,” he says. “I think you guys called him Big Reg.”

  At the sound of the name, my whole body tenses.

  “How do you know Keller?” I ask.

  “Before his troubles, he was involved in a little business venture. I was one of the investors. So was Andy, if I’m not mistaken. I guess you could say that when you brought Keller down, you cost us all a pretty penny.” He reaches for the money on the table and pockets it. “I’ll consider this as repayment.”

  “It’s supposed to be for the tip.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he says. “I always leave a big tip.”

  As I leave, I can hear him laughing under his breath. I push through the doorway, out into the balmy night, a few cars racing down Kirby with their stereos thumping. I go to my car, fumble through my pockets for the keys, then slump down behind the wheel. Everything he told me about Nesbitt is forgotten. The spooks and the cartels, the interventions and the border wars. All of it erased by the sound of that name.

  I brought him down, but I didn’t bring him to justice. He disappeared into thin air as we closed in on him. With friends like Englewood, maybe that wasn’t so hard to do.

  Reg Keller. Big Reg. He once threatened to come back and settle the score. The name alone is enough to have me checking over my shoulder. But Keller’s not in the backseat with a garrote. He’s not in the parking lot taking aim. He’s gone, long gone, and he’d be crazy to return. I slip the Browning out of its holster and press the slide back, touching my finger against the reassuring round in the chamber. He’ll never come back again.

  But just in case.

  CHAPTER 15

  The last time I saw Reg Keller, we faced each other in the gutted wreck of my garage apartment after Hurricane Ike knocked a tree into the roof, him pointing a submachine gun in my face and me blinded by the flashlight mounted under the barrel. He gave a rambling, self-justifying excuse for why the death of a girl named Evangeline Dyer, which led directly to the murder of her friend Hannah Mayhew, wasn’t his fault. He’d put a bullet into the brainpan of one of his own men, Joe Thomson, and that wasn’t his fault, either. I’d driven him to it, and someday I was going to pay for it. But not that night. He’d had his chance, but despite everything Big Reg didn’t have the nerve to pull the trigger.

  I turn onto Kirby and head past San Felipe, following the curve in the road around to Allen Parkway, heading home to the Heights north of Interstate 10. Somewhere along here-I slow down to try and pinpoint the spot-Andrew Nesbitt was pulled over and eventually killed. A grass verge runs down the middle of the road, separating east- and westbound traffic, the streetlights distantly spaced, alternating cones of light with stretches of shadow. Off to my left in the darkness I glimpse the headstones of the Jewish cemetery and beyond them Buffalo Bayou, which looks lovely in the tourist brochures but in the doldrums of summer is essentially a fetid swamp with bicycle trails cutting through it.

  Perhaps Englewood’s job is not the only one to breed cynicism.

  While I reflect on this, a pair of headlights comes alongside in the right-hand lane. It’s an H3 Hummer, one of the smaller ones, just a little bit larger than a Sherman tank. I glance over in time to see the rear passenger window rolling down.

  As I watch, a flash erupts and my passenger window shatters into a cloud of glass. Reflexively I jerk the wheel, running up onto the grass median, then panic and pull back onto the road with a thump. I stomp on the brake but catch the accelerator instead, jolting forward. Which is just as well. My car slides right and glances off the Hummer, forcing it to swerve and lose a little ground.

  I keep the pedal down, checking my rearview. The Hummer jumps ahead. I clench my teeth for impact, holding tight to the wheel. All my evasive driving skills have gone out the window, my strategy just to go fast and hold on for dear life. Instead of ramming, which is what I expected, the Hummer makes a surprisingly agile slip. Now the headlights are on my left.

  The Hummer flicks into my rear fender near the back tire, accelerating into the contact. My car wrenches and spins. The tires slide back onto the median. I’m moving sideways, my right tire in the lead, skimming the grass until I shear off a newly planted sapling. Then the car finds purchase and leaps the median into the opposite lane.

  My body is rigid with fear. I try to level out the wheel, but suddenly there are headlights coming westward, threatening a head-on collision. I slice the
tires to the left, overcompensating. I’m off the roadway, sucking in breath, careening down a wooded embankment with my foot on the brake.

  My car slides to a stop, the wheel jerking at the last moment, tires jammed in the soft dirt. At this angle, all I can see in my rearview mirror is a towering apartment block on the opposite side of Allen Parkway. Turning around in my seat, I watch the Hummer crawl to the edge of the embankment, where the doors open and the dome light comes on. I count four men inside. They’re only twenty, twenty-five yards away.

  This is bad.

  I turn off my engine, killing the headlights, then feel around for my own dome light and switch it off. Then I force my leg over the middle console and pull myself to the passenger seat, ignoring the sound of crushed glass. With the Browning in hand, I push the door open. I roll onto the damp ground, aiming toward them.

  The men are lined up on the curb, but they haven’t started down. They seem to be waiting for traffic to clear so they can descend without any passing motorists noticing anything odd. I reach back into the car for my phone, ripping it free of the charger. Glancing behind me, I spot a dark thicket of trees outlined against the sky. While they’re still standing on the edge of the road, I close the passenger door and raise myself into a crouch.

  There’s no pain in my leg, I realize.

  I dash for the trees. The sprint takes just a few seconds, but in my mind I’m moving in slow motion, silhouetted against the night, the fatal bullet tearing its way through the air. I reach the thickest of the trunks and hide behind it for cover, which only leaves about a quarter of my body exposed. I hunker down next to the roots, trying to make myself invisible. My breathing is loud and ragged and must be audible for miles.

  When I look back, they’re not on the embankment anymore. The bright apartment tower makes it hard to pick out their shadows in the dark. Squinting, I see them fanned out, advancing on either side of my car. They move with precision, minding each other’s fields of fire, like men who’ve been trained in the art and have worked a long time together.

  At that moment I realize I don’t have a chance.

  In training it’s so different. The targets stay put while you pepper them with holes. All the drills, all the preparation locks your muscle memory in so you can’t act without thinking. When the balloon goes up all the sudden, hopefully the training kicks in and keeps you from freezing. You draw and fire, you get a good sight picture, you’re careful of your backstop so nobody innocent comes to harm.

  If you have time, though, and nothing else, no one to back you up, no advantage in numbers or tactical surprise, if all you have is time to run through all the possibilities, knowing your opponents won’t stand still, that they’ll react unpredictably and all too fast, then the result all too often is hopelessness. Walking up to Skull Ring and mashing the trigger on the Krinkov, that was nothing. I flash back to my most recent performance on the range, when I bungled the reload in the middle of the course and dropped my mag on the ground. Just remembering that, I know I can’t shoot my way out of this. These men are careful. They know what they’re doing. Even if I drop one, the others will return fire. I won’t make it out alive.

  I pat my pockets for my flashlight, but I know it’s not there. Like the rest of my things-my briefcase, my ballistic vest, the zeroed-in AR-15 locked in the trunk, everything that might have helped me in this situation-it’s back there in the car. All I have is the Browning with one magazine. That and my phone. And I’m afraid to use it. The screen is so bright I’m afraid to switch it on for fear of attracting their notice. I can hear their voices declaring the car empty.

  Glancing behind me, I try to make out a path. Maybe there’s a line of retreat that will get me out of here. There should be parkland deeper in, and then I should hit Buffalo Bayou. Only they’re so close that if I make a break, I know they’ll see me, and at this range it would be hard to miss. I like my chances better hunkered down. If I fire first, I know at least that I can drop one of them. That’s better than nothing.

  “Tracks,” a voice hisses.

  The sound makes me freeze. One of the shadows points a hand in my general direction.

  I have to force myself to move. I raise the Browning, lining up the Tritium night-sights over his silhouette. I take a deep breath, then let it out.

  The first shot has to count.

  I’m sorry, Charlotte. I should have been a better-

  Up on the embankment, the Hummer’s engine rumbles to life. The shadows all stop in their tracks, then turn to watch. Now they’re the ones frozen in place. The back wheels spin out and the Hummer tears onto the road with a throaty roar.

  Then it’s gone, leaving silence in its wake.

  “Are you kidding me?” a loud voice says.

  The reply is softer: “He must have doubled around.”

  “And you left the keys in? Is that what you’re tellin’ me?”

  The voice is familiar. The last time I heard it, the speaker was holding me at the point of his shotgun. Brandon Ford. I strain to listen, trying to make out which one of the men is him. If I can figure that out, then I’ll know where to aim my first round.

  A third speaker, loudest of all: “Shhhhh.”

  They aren’t crouched anymore. They stand flat-footed. They think they’re unobserved. This would be a good time to hit them, if only I trusted my ability to pull it off. I don’t. While I lick my lips in pained anticipation, one of them races up the embankment. He reaches the crest, looking hard down the length of the road, then signals to the others. The Hummer is long gone. They huddle up near the trunk of my car, conversing in subdued tones, words I can’t make out. Clearly an argument, and by the sound of it, desperate. This is a development they didn’t anticipate.

  And they think I did it. I wish I’d had the forethought and the nerve.

  I let out my breath. Whoever took that Hummer-a car thief seizing his chance? — is now tops in my book. By now I would probably be dead if not for his intervention. A freak occurrence, the kind of pure chance Carter Robb would attribute to providence.

  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  All I have to do is stay hidden. Even better, now that they’re on foot, maybe I should risk making a phone call. If the bright screen doesn’t attract their attention, or if I can shield the light from view, we’re in the heart of the city, meaning patrol units could swarm this place in a matter of minutes. That’s what I’ve got to do. Otherwise, I run the risk of letting Ford slip through my fingers. I don’t have a choice.

  I grip the phone in my left hand, my finger hovering over the sleep button. When I press it, the screen will flash to life. If I keep it close to my chest, screened by the trunk of the tree, then it should be invisible. I can only afford to speak in whispers, they’re so close.

  “Hey,” a voice calls, not Ford’s. “He left his keys behind.”

  A man slides behind the wheel of my car. He turns the key. The engine fires up, touching off the headlights. I flatten myself against the ground, eyes tightly shut, expecting the gunfire any second. I grit my teeth as if the bullets are already ripping through me.

  Nothing. I glance up, but the lights dazzle my eyes. The motor revs and the wheel spins in a long, whirring circuit, kicking up earth. The revving dies down.

  “The wheels are stuck. Give me a hand.”

  I can’t let them take the car. The file on Ford is in my briefcase. All my notes. The rifle in the trunk. There’s no way. I tap the sleep button on the top of my phone, bringing the screen to life. Now that I’m bathed in the headlights, what’s the risk? Emergency dispatch is on my speed dial. I punch the number.

  Then I cancel the call. This is exactly the kind of situation I can’t afford to be in. Exactly the kind of explaining I don’t want to do. Not to Wanda, not to Internal Affairs. But if I don’t call, I’m letting Ford walk away. The odds of finding him again are almost nil.

  Am I making a mistake? Probably so.

  I set the phone between two roots, facing to
ward me, ready to press redial as a last resort. As long as they don’t detect me, though, I’m not going to call for help. If I lose the car and everything in it, I’ll make up an excuse.

  “The front left is blown,” one of them announces. “Pop the trunk and see if there’s a spare. We’ve gotta get out of here.”

  “Look.”

  The Hummer has reappeared on the embankment, coming from the opposite direction as it disappeared. I feel goose bumps rise on my forearm.

  “Leave that and come on!”

  Without another word, they head toward the newly arrived vehicle. It’s not the same one, I realize. They have a backup driver. One of them must have called for help during the whispered huddle.

  I keep my position until they’re all in the Hummer. The doors slam shut and they turn around on the embankment, heading off in the direction of Kirby, the way we came. Part of me wants to go after them. Ford is getting away.

  I wait a few seconds, conflicted about my lack of action.

  Cars pass back and forth on the parkway. Cicadas chirp in the distance. My breathing returns to normal. It’s done. The decision is made. It’s like they were never here, except that my car is trashed and stuck in the soft dirt. Unsteadily, bracing my hand against the tree trunk, I get up on my feet. I slip my gun away. I limp toward the car. The pain in my leg is back with a vengeance, hard to ignore.

  On inspection, they’ve at least done me one favor by rolling the car out of the ruts the front tires had embedded themselves in. The left front tire looks shredded. Even the rim is chewed up. I pull out the jack and the spare, retrieving my flashlight to make the work a little easier. The physical task calms me down. As I tighten the lugs, I begin to wonder who those guys were and why they were trying to kill me. Before now, the question hadn’t occurred to me.

  The Hummer must have picked up my trail at Downing Street. That much seems certain. How would they know to find me there? Tom Englewood told me where to meet him. It follows that he made this arrangement. At the last minute, revealing his connection to Reg Keller, he must have figured he was telling a dead man.