I didn’t click on the light yet. I could see bad news the moment I stepped in. Our stuff was thrown everywhere, strewn all over the ground. The tool chests tipped over. The shelves ransacked. Everything we owned was flipped on its head.
Were they searching for something? What?
While I was standing there, mulling it over, I saw a shadow begin to creep along the wall. Someone prowling.
They were still in the room! The intruders. Whoever they were.
I ducked down behind the fender of a Chevy Tahoe and readied my knife. Terrified. Bewildered. Ready to rock.
Within seconds, I saw my enemy walking past me, well unaware of my presence. He was wearing a dark jacket and a dark hood. Six two. Probably 210 pounds. Up to no good.
I sneaked up on his backside, quick as a house cat, and instantly put him in a choke hold with the blade of my knife pressed directly onto his jugular. Checkmate, son! I had him at an absolute surrender position.
Finally in control, I was ready to ask him three brief questions, almost praying for him to give me false answers so I could have the moral green light to slit his jugular and drain him right on the spot.
And I was all set to begin question number one.
“Who—?”
But just as my mouth began to blurt out the first word, I felt the barrel of a Beretta M9 press on the base of my neck.
“Don’t do it, Colonel.”
It was the calm voice of my billiard opponent. He was so close I could smell his nuclear-grade aftershave. I wished I had moved more quickly and positioned myself closer to the door so that my flank wouldn’t have been so vulnerable, but—damn it—shitty strategy on my part, I was cornered.
And outnumbered.
He did indeed bring his friends. In addition to the thug under my knife, there were now two other thugs standing on both sides of me. In business suits.
I cooperated. I slowly, meekly, lowered my blade away from the throat in question.
“Who are you?” I asked him through gritted teeth.
“My name is Warren Wright,” he said. “And these are my friends. We work for a fun little group called the DEA.”
Chapter 12
Agent Warren Wright holstered his weapon. All the guys around me then seemed to relax a bit. A very small bit. With the cat out of the bag, the fact that he’d revealed himself to me as a fed, the fact that they’re all feds, the fact that his boring name is Warren Wright, the entire group seemed to decide I was no longer a threat to them.
Pfffff. If they only knew…
How close I came to breaking his jaw regardless. Him, with his stupid suit. And his stupid hair. And his impossibly white teeth. What they were doing here in my garage had yet to be politely explained to me. So I was impolitely furious.
Warren looked me up and down. He was smirking. He had enjoyed his words in this situation. He had enjoyed every last syllable.
“You look old up close,” I told him.
“Incorrect. I look handsome. And responsible. But most of all you know what I look like? I look like the one who isn’t going to jail.”
“Jail,” I repeated with disdain.
“Would you like me to tell you why?”
“Nope.”
“Would you like me to tell you how done you are?”
“Nope.”
“I wonder…have you heard anything about big rigs blowing up? On routes out of small towns? Small Texas border towns?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. I didn’t want to try to deny it. He obviously knew. He had half his department standing there, crammed into my Podunk garage. They weren’t here for a banjo lesson, that’s for sure.
“Let me repeat myself, Colonel Amanda Rae Collins, Highly Decorated Employee of the Month, have you heard anything about big rigs getting blown up?”
“N—”
“No, you haven’t,” he said, cutting off my no with his own slightly more contrived no, then pausing. This was him setting up his corny crescendo. (God, these government jackoffs are all the same. As if they were all issued the identical dismal sense of humor at academy graduation. The type of idiot banter that guarantees they will never have sex.) All to set up his grand explanation of world facts: “You know why you haven’t heard about it? Because we buried the story,” he replied to himself, with pride. “We did.”
Silence.
I think it was my turn to speak. To be impressed.
“Each time?” I finally broke the silence.
“We can do that.”
“Do you want me to clap? Slowly?”
Warren leaned in close. I could smell the federal on his breath. The faint odor of decaf and bureaucracy. “We’re watching you and your little girlfriends. We know all about your history with Diego. The games. The felonies.”
“He’s more than a felon.”
“‘I’m talking about you. About illegal behavior.”
“Oh, yes, please keep talking. Let’s just spend the next month talking. And filling out forms. And holding conference calls. And spell-checking email. Meanwhile, that bag of shit is still at large. And have you seen what he’s done?”
“I’ve seen what you’ve done,” said Warren. “So far. And I’ll tell you something, we know how to keep you doing it.”
“What?”
He didn’t answer.
There’s no way he could be saying what I thought he was saying—was he giving us his government-issued blessing to continue our crusade? “Keep me doing what?” I asked again.
He had turned away and was about to exit the garage but he stopped. This was his patented move. He was going to savor this moment.
“Doing…nothing,” he said.
I had to stand there for a moment and absorb it. Keep me doing nothing? How could he think we weren’t accomplishing anything!? He looked over at me, smug about his little zinger. Then he nodded for his nerd clan to pick up a few items of mine: to gather two of our trunks and a couple of our duffel bags, holding our only six rifles, plus our only stash of ammo.
“That’s our only chance!” I protested, referring to the weapons. “That gear was not easy to get, you need to leave all that here.”
“Sure, Amanda, as soon as you show me a permit.” His posse then funneled behind him as he exited. “Hasta luego.”
I watched him leave. (More like smelled him leave.) I was fuming. “Oh, the luego is coming, you bastard. Just you wait.”
Chapter 13
Church was full on Sunday. Church is always full in Archer. Part of it is pure piety. Part of it is Rita. Rita is one of the most beautiful souls this town has ever seen. One of the most eloquent. One of the most loved. Our pride and joy. Our pastor.
She was mid-sermon. And reiterating one particular point over and over again. “I’m so sorry,” she said to the congregation.
She was talking about the DEA raids. Most everyone knew about them at this point, but she took them personally. She took them as an affront to her way of life.
“…That they would come into your neighborhoods, violating the sanctuary of the Home. That they would trample the rights and values of the very backbone of this proud community, the fundamental backbone: family.”
A murmur of amens circulated in the room. About four hundred people were present, and aside from maybe two or three teenagers texting each other and Gus snoring gently, I daresay every single sheep in this flock was fully invested.
“I’m so sorry that our families were subjected to this,” said Rita. “It’s no secret that my busy past has drawn undue attention to you, and I beg you your forgiveness.” Another murmur of support from the crowd.
My thoughts couldn’t help wandering to the last remark from Agent Warren Wright. Nothing. Uttered merely days ago. Amanda is doing nothing. It wasn’t the caustic attitude behind it that stung me: It was the truth of it.
I had indeed done nothing.
I had accomplished nothing. I had improved nothing. Diego was probably richer and smiling harder today than he
had ever smiled before. All thanks to me and my big bucket of nothing.
Kyra was in the back. She didn’t (as she put it) “subscribe to all this stuff.” But she’d do anything to support one of our trio, even if it meant enduring two hours of (as she put it) “doctrine.” Secretly, I was hoping one of the nice guys from the fire department in the third row would turn around and ask her to, I don’t know, roller skate with him, or something. But Rita was too captivating up front.
It was poetic and inspiring. And I was so caught up in it, her quotes from the Good Book, the way she ushered us into hymnals, that it took me a few seconds to realize she was about to shatter my Sunday morning.
“Amanda, would you do us the honors?” she said.
What?
She was looking at me. Me? Honors? What? Why was she suddenly mentioning my name in the middle of the sermon?
Rita had just asked me, in front of everyone, to come up and share my views on “hope.” She had asked me about it yesterday. But I thought she meant to write my dumb thoughts on someone’s greeting card or something. I had no idea she was going to make me say it out loud in front of hundreds of people.
The entire church turned to look at me sitting there. I swear an entire minute passed. I was stunned. Gus soon leaned over and whispered to me, “She wants you to go up front.” I guess he wasn’t asleep after all.
Um.
I started to make my way to the front of the room.
There were warm nods from various townspeople. Dentists. Moms. Dads. Janitors. The wondrous slice of diverse American pie that any serving of Texas can offer. And, good gosh, they were all expecting me to say something amazing.
I slowly made my way to the front. I have spoken quite often to large groups, to my troops, but I did so as a colonel. I’d stood on platforms under a large military tent. I commanded the Fifth Regiment. As a colonel. That’s 1,227 Marines under my assignment, allowing me to design their life or death struggles.
I got to the altar.
I’m not a colonel these days.
Rita held me in place for a moment. I dread this stuff. Seriously dread it. “We all know about so much of Amanda’s efforts out in the field,” she said to the crowd. “But what most of us don’t get to see is how much courage she displays in her day-to-day affairs.”
Oh, my God.
“She is determined,” continued Rita. “She gives 100 percent.”
Oh, my God. We all get through our day, whatever that day may bring. We all face it. We all battle it. I’m not special. The room was spinning. I hated standing up there. Rita finally finished and gave me a nod along with a graceful gesture that the podium was now mine.
When I talk to troops I’m not Amanda. I’m a colonel. And that colonel got sealed in an imaginary envelope when my husband died. I didn’t have her inside me anymore. She was gone. So I was capable only of being 100 percent regular me at that point. And as I looked out at the sea of expectant faces, regular me freaked out.
I glanced over at Rita, who remained at my flank, the perfect position for an assassination. She smiled warmly, having no clue that she was setting me up for pure failure.
I mustered all my courage and conviction and emitted the following.
“…Uh…”
And that stupid-ass syllable, amped by the church’s brand new 110-decibel sound system installed by gleeful Kyra, sounded like the belch of a dragon.
My hands started to shake.
“…Um…The…R-Rita…She wanted me to say a few words about taking a…Taking a…s-stand.”
Good Lord, that sentence was the worst thing that ever came out of my mouth.
“Taking a stand…is…is hard.”
My breath was gone. I could hear my voice quiver. Some people started to shift around in their seats.
“But it’s only hard when you forget the one thing that matters most,” I said. “The people you’re standing up for.”
There. I managed to get one thought out. It was a cliché at best, but at least it almost seemed like a decent point to make.
Looking out at all those eyes looking back at me, I was so far in over my head that I decided, Screw it.
Rita’s face froze as she saw the look on my face. She was thinking I was about to implode.
I wasn’t. I was finding my stride. I was starting to make sense to myself. Not easy to do.
“See, I’ve faced the working end of a Kalashnikov,” I continued, “stepped over Syrian land mines, been trapped in a collapsing bunker in Korea. But I’ve managed to find hope even in the most hopeless nightmares thanks to one thing: I always knew that I was doing it for my people. Without that thought, I definitely would have tumbled.”
I felt like I was making sense to them. The congregation. I paused, feeling the room.
“You brought this on us,” came an angry voice from the back.
Which was the last thing in the world I expected to hear. It was this guy who worked at the local dive bar. Phillip, I think was his name. A decent man. Vocal.
“You know we just like to mind our own business here,” he continued. “This town doesn’t need to go kickin’ on a foreign hornet’s nest.”
A lot of the congregation instantly rallied in my defense. “Amanda is amazing.” “Quiet, Phil!” “Don’t say stuff like that!”
Phillip continued. “We got our own problems. Vandals. Gangs. Shootings.”
“Sit down, Phil!” said a number of people. “You’re out of line!”
But I disagreed with their disagreement. I was hearing my own words, echoing in my ears, realizing how hypocritical I’d be to ignore the truth.
“He’s right,” I said, and the room suddenly quieted. “Phillip’s right. I have no business making this town a second priority.”
I thanked the crowd and walked back to the pews. Amid silence. It was awkward, no question. But I had figured something out. Phil had helped me see it: I can’t just attack Diego and watch him attack me and my people back, us attacking each other back and forth, again and again like the two of us were in a boxing match.
I don’t care what the excuses are at this point; I have to finish him.
Chapter 14
How do you fight a war without weapons? Answer: You don’t. The first battle is to prepare for the battle. Which means we needed to get new weapons.
DEA interference was just a bump in the road. I couldn’t whimper in the corner about how tough I had it. I needed to move forward. I needed to treat every phase of the preparation like it was part of the grand battle.
We’d been fighting with low-budget guns on both sides of the equation, but it was a guarantee that Diego would refortify his drivers immediately—as in, he’d increase their fire power. I could imagine he’d also add secondary vehicles as escorts, maybe a guy on a dirt bike, maybe a guy in a sport pickup, a technical.
Rita found a headline on a Mexico City news site that gnawed at my soul. “Nineteen People Dead in Ranchita.” Diego had retaliated against us. Against me. He was ravaging small villages in Mexico that had shown support for US intervention in the past.
“And look at this second article,” said Rita. She knew this would get my attention. This update was even worse: The people who were killed were kids. Nineteen girls from an all-girls kindergarten.
My hands were shaking. I was ready to fight the entire planet at this point. I was so sick of hearing about psychotic dickheads doing mass damage, I had to make a move. We had to make a move.
The biggest gun store in Archer was run by two brothers from Arkansas. Arm & Arm Gun Depot. In addition to overcharging for every item in the store and boozing on the shooting range, these gentlemen had both been convicted of assault on a disabled kid. Truly not the pride of Archer, they would sell weapons to minors and violate just about every law invented, given the chance.
Which meant Rita, Kyra, and I felt comfortable obtaining weapons from them in our own special way.
It was 2:15 a.m. We were on the outskirts of town, standing
in front of Arm & Arm.
“We should make sure—”
Smash!
Before Rita could even finish her brilliant sentence on the importance of being subtle, Kyra sailed a brick through the front window. She was already entering the premises.
“My gosh, our fingerprints will be all over,” said Rita. “There’s gonna be video. Surveillance.”
“No, there won’t,” I told her.
“How do you know?”
“Because we’re gonna burn it down.”
Chapter 15
We entered Arm & Arm Gun Depot and ransacked every nook, obtaining the key weaponry we needed for our quest. If you want a short-muzzle compact machine with kick, may I suggest the MP5, easily modified to automatic fire? Picture Tom Cruise running around in Mission: Impossible. Now add my face and subtract his cinematic grin. I rarely grin while blasting up a warehouse.
That’s the MP5. I love it. And Kyra knows I love it. So we got two.
Rita took a shotgun, double barrel, eight concussion grenades, and an Eickhorn combat knife. Those blades are nasty. You can cut the base of a streetlamp with one. (If you’re ever sitting around feeling super angry at streetlamps, I guess).
Kyra started the ignition on our getaway minivan. We had doused the place with gasoline, added some sloppiness so it didn’t look like the handiwork of the three most obvious bitches in town and, whoomf, we set the place ablaze—
Just as Kyra ran back inside.
What was she doing?! We tried to grab her but she squirmed out of our clutches, disappeared through the door, and, within seconds, emerged toting an SR-25 sniper rifle.
“Christmas in July!” she said.
“It’s December,” said Rita.
“I know, but nobody says Christmas in December.”
Chapter 16
A few days later, we were standing across the street from La Sombre Fashion Boutique, a fancy dress shop in town, at 1:45 a.m. We had been debating which unlucky spot would be our decoy, and this was it. When you’re doing multiple break-ins, you have to confuse the pattern a bit, just in case a bunch of sheriffs were in front of a wall map of Texas, putting colored thumbtacks in all the right places.
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