Sarah stopped Bonnie as she went by the podium. “Have you heard any news about that gang?” she asked.
Bonnie frowned. “Why would I know anything about them?” The words came out a little sharper than she intended.
“Oh, heavens, I didn’t mean anything,” Sarah said quickly. “I thought Buddy might have said something to Tom that’s all.”
Bonnie touched her friend’s arm. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I guess I’m just a little on edge these days.”
“I think we all are, so don’t worry about it.”
“Anyway, Tom hasn’t talked to Buddy for two or three days, as far as I know. So I haven’t heard anything about M-15.” Her voice was vehement as she added, “It would be all right with me if I never heard anything about them again.”
“Amen to that,” Sarah said.
Bonnie summoned up a smile and pushed her buggy past the podium. From the corner of her eye, she saw Millard Jeffers emerge from the office behind the customer service counter. Two armed, uniformed men were with him, one of them wheeling a cart with a couple of plastic crates stacked on it. The men were from the armored truck outside, Bonnie realized, and were probably picking up the store’s receipts to take them to the bank.
She was only about ten feet beyond the podium when she heard the screams from the store’s entrance.
Her head whipped around. A couple of female customers were running away from the entrance doors, back into the store. They must have been on their way out when they saw the four men coming in. The men wore baggy sweatshirts despite the heat, and as they charged into the store, they drew machine guns from under the shirts. One of the weapons erupted in a burst of fire that sounded like thick cloth being ripped. Both of the fleeing women were struck in the back and flung forward by the impact of the bullets tearing through their bodies. Blood splashed in the air.
Carlos Flores tried instinctively to get in front of the men and block their way into the store. Another burst of automatic fire stitched into him and threw him back against the carts. He flipped over and landed in one of them, his blood spurting from the dozens of bullet holes in his body.
There were thirty or forty people around the check-out stands and the customer service counter, and most of them just stood there gaping at the results of the unexpected violence. The first ones to react were the two guards from the armored truck, both of whom reached for their holstered revolvers. But before they could draw the weapons, the four gunners opened up on them, spraying them with lead that made them dance a macabre, jittery jig as blood exploded from them. Millard Jeffers darted toward the office, trying to get out of the line of fire, but a slug caught him in the leg and sent him spinning off his feet. More bullets thudded into him, rolling him over and over. His body left a thick smear of crimson on the tile floor.
Even as that happened, his wife Sarah was in motion, lunging toward Bonnie and crying, “Get down!” She reached out and shoved hard against Bonnie’s shoulder. Bonnie went down, unprepared for the push. Her hip hit the buggy and sent it rolling away. As she sprawled on the floor, she looked up and saw Sarah drop as three bullets slammed into her head, killing her instantly. She fell, landing on top of Bonnie, who couldn’t contain a scream of horror as she saw what was left of her friend’s shattered skull only inches from her face.
Bonnie twisted her head and looked toward the buggy, which had come to a stop about ten feet away. Her purse was where she had left it, in the fold-out child seat. The gun was useless if she couldn’t get to it. She flinched as she put her hands against Sarah’s body and started trying to shove the weight off of her.
The machine gun fire and the screaming continued, blending into a hideous melody of death. Fear welled up inside Bonnie. Even if she could get her hands on the .38, she realized, she wouldn’t have any chance against four killers armed with machine guns. But if she lay there under Sarah’s body, covered in Sarah’s blood, the monsters who had invaded SavMart might take her for dead, too. Sickness roiled her belly, but she forced it down. Terror and rage warred inside her. If she could just kill even one of the bastards....
She had to try.
She was about to summon up her strength for another attempt at getting Sarah off of her, when a man hit the floor beside her, a little girl in his arms. The girl was about three and was shrieking and writhing around. Bonnie wasn’t sure if she was hit or not, but the man with her, probably her father, surely was. He had a black, red-rimmed hole in the center of his forehead where a bullet had entered, and the back of his head was a bloody mess where the slug had blown its way out. He was dead.
But his little girl was alive, and Bonnie knew she had to do everything she could to keep her that way. As the girl wriggled out of her father’s limp arms, Bonnie reached out and grabbed her, pulling her down to the floor before she could stand up and run in terror, which would just make her a target. Bonnie held on to the girl with all her strength and rolled toward her, dislodging some of Sarah’s weight that had been pinning her down. She hissed, “Hush! Hush now and be still! You have to stay down here and be quiet!”
Sure enough, a moment later the gunfire began to die away. The screaming and moaning of wounded people continued, however, until a man’s voice bellowed, “Shut up! Shut up and listen, or we’ll kill the rest of you!”
Some of the sounds subsided. Bonnie heard hurrying footsteps. She raised her head enough to see that a couple of the gunners were herding survivors into the front part of the store. Were they getting everybody together just so they could mow them down easier?
The little girl in her arms whimpered, and Bonnie said, “Be quiet now.” The girl sniffled and, thank God, lay still.
The man who had yelled the orders before, climbed up onto one of the check-out stands so that everyone could see him. He swung the barrel of his machine gun menacingly back and forth. “Listen to me,” he shouted, “and listen good! This is what you get for crossing Mara Salvatrucha! You get in our way, we kill you! You got what we want, we kill you and take it!” He took one hand off his gun and gestured to one of his companions, who started rolling out the cart that contained the store’s receipts. “You kill one of us, we kill a hundred of you! You can’t stop us! You can’t even slow us down! The border is ours!”
No one still alive dared argue. They huddled there in terror, praying that this nightmare would soon be over and that they would live through it.
For dozens of people, though, an afternoon of shopping had proven to be deadly. Bonnie saw bodies sprawled everywhere she looked, motionless and covered with blood.
“You tell everybody what happened here!” the gang spokesman continued. “You spread the word, you damn gringos! You piss off M-15—you die!”
With that, he fired again, aiming at the heads of the small crowd of survivors. Most of them screamed and dived for the floor, but a few were too slow and went down with bullets in their heads.
Bonnie stayed where she was, clinging tightly to the little girl. There was nothing she could do now, nothing except keep this one young life safe if possible. Shudders went through her as she fought off the creeping hysteria.
The leader jumped down from the check-out stand and sauntered arrogantly toward the blood-swamped entrance. The killer with the money was already gone. The other two flanked their leader, backing away with their guns covering the living and the dead, just in case anybody decided to stop them.
Bonnie waited about a minute after the men disappeared through the entrance. Then she slid the rest of the way out from under Sarah and got awkwardly to her feet, still holding the little girl. She tried to keep the child turned away from the awful sight of her dead father.
“Lady!” somebody called to her. “Lady, get down! They might come back!”
“I don’t think so,” Bonnie said as she walked unsteadily toward the buggy she had been pushing before all hell broke loose. She wanted the cell phone in her purse. Somebody had to call for help . . .
The sudden w
ail of sirens outside told her that calling was unnecessary. Someone had reported the atrocity already. The frantic calls must have flooded in to the sheriff’s department.
The survivors began to climb tentatively to their feet as Sheriff Buddy Gorman charged into the store, gun drawn, followed by Lauren Henderson, Wayne Rushing, and a reserve deputy Bonnie didn’t recognize. Buddy’s feet slipped a little in the blood on the floor as he came to a stop and looked around at the horrible scene.
“Good Lord,” Bonnie heard him say, and it sounded like a prayer. He turned his head and said to Lauren, “Get every ambulance and paramedic you can down here, right away. And call Tucson and tell ’em we need help! Some of these people will probably have to be choppered to hospitals there.”
Lauren nodded as she holstered her gun. She looked pale and sick, as if she might throw up at any second.
Bonnie could relate.
Buddy spotted her and hurried toward her. “Bonnie!” he said. “My God, Bonnie, is that you?”
She could understand how he might not be sure about her identity, splattered with gore as she was. She nodded and said, “It’s me, Buddy. I’m all right. I’m not hit.”
“The men who did this—”
“They’re gone.” Bonnie took a deep breath and steeled herself to be calm and helpful. “There were four of them. Hispanic, in their twenties, height ranging from five-six to five-ten, wearing jeans and sweatshirts. They were after the cash. A couple of guards from the armored truck parked outside were picking it up.”
Buddy reached out and squeezed her arm. “You’re doin’ fine, Bonnie. Did you see their vehicle?”
She shook her head. “I was already in the store when they came in. I don’t have any idea what they were driving.”
“We ought to be able to find somebody else who can tell us that.”
“It won’t do any good,” Bonnie said grimly.
“They’re probably halfway to the border by now. You won’t catch them.”
“We’ll sure as hell try.” Buddy turned away to snap orders at his other deputies. They spread out to check on the survivors, performing crude first aid until the paramedics and ambulances arrived. When Buddy turned back to Bonnie, he said, “All this for a lousy robbery?”
“They took the money,” she said, “but that wasn’t their real objective.”
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“One of the men said this was what Little Tucson gets for crossing Mara Salvatrucha. They didn’t make any secret of who they were, Buddy. They wanted us to know. That’s why they left some of us alive.”
“Good Lord,” Buddy said again. “You make it sound like he was saying . . .”
Bonnie nodded. “Yes. He was saying that Mara Salvatrucha has declared war on America. But Little Tucson is where they’re gonna start.”
13
Tom was in the office at Brannon Auto Parts, going over the sales for the past couple of days, when he heard the sirens screaming past outside on Main Street. He got up from the desk and went into the store’s main room, where Louly stood at the front window looking out.
“What’s going on?” he asked her.
She glanced back at him and shook her head. “I don’t know. A couple of sheriff’s cars went by with their sirens on and their lights flashing, and it looks like the ambulances and fire trucks are headed the same way.”
“Which way?”
“West.”
Tom rubbed his jaw. “Must’ve been a bad wreck out on the highway.”
He turned back toward the office, but before he got there the bell over the front door jangled as someone hurried in. “Tom, Louly,” Ben Hanratty from the drugstore said excitedly, “have you heard what happened?”
“No, what?” Louly said.
Ben was wide-eyed. “I heard it on my police scanner. Some of those M-15s just went into the SavMart with machine guns and shot it up! Killed a bunch of people!”
Tom stiffened as every drop of blood in his veins seemed to turn to ice.
Bonnie had gone to SavMart to do some shopping this afternoon.
Without a word, he turned and ran out the back of the store. Louly called after him, but he ignored her. He flung himself into the pickup and cursed as he fumbled getting the key in the ignition. Finally it went in. He twisted it, and even though the F-150 started up right away, everything seemed to be taking twice as long as it should. Tom jerked the truck into gear and fed it gas. The tires slung gravel as he fishtailed down the alley and then careened out into the side street. Barely slowing to look for oncoming traffic, he swung onto Main and floored the accelerator.
He could see flashing lights far ahead of him and knew the emergency vehicles were headed for the same destination. He drove like a madman, weaving in and out of traffic and running red lights. The still-rational part of his brain tried to tell him that he couldn’t do Bonnie any good if he got himself killed in a wreck before he even reached SavMart, but the terror gibbering in the front of his brain drowned out those more reasonable thoughts.
Luck was with him, though, and he hadn’t plowed into anybody by the time he got to the parking lot entrance. He skidded the pickup off the road. The fire lane in front of the store was jammed with sheriff’s-department cars, ambulances, and fire trucks. Tom brought the F-150 to a halt far out in the parking lot, not paying any attention to the fact that it was slanted across a couple of spaces. He ran toward the store entrance, his heart slugging heavily in his chest.
A large group of civilians stood near the entrance, shouting questions and being kept back by several firefighters and one of Buddy Gorman’s reserve deputies. Some of these people were just curious bystanders, but many were relatives of folks who had been inside the store when the shooting started. They wanted to know what had happened to their loved ones. Fear lay heavy in the air like a bad taste on the tongue.
Tom managed to push through the crowd, ignoring the angry reactions he got, but when he reached the front of the mob and started toward the store entrance, one of the firefighters put a hand on his chest and pushed him back. “That’s a crime scene, mister!” the guy yelled over the commotion. “You can’t go in there!”
“My wife—” Tom began.
“I’m sorry, but the sheriff said to keep everybody out.”
Tom’s hands clenched into fists. He was about to shove the firefighter out of the way, but before he could do that, movement at the store entrance caught his eye. He looked past the firefighter and saw his wife emerging from SavMart, covered with drying blood. Buddy Gorman walked next to her, and Bonnie had a small child cradled in her arms.
Tom didn’t have time to wonder who the little girl was. He just bellowed, “Bonnie!” and lunged past the firefighter before the man could stop him. The guy turned and started to lumber after him, but Buddy held up a hand and called, “No, it’s okay!”
Tom rushed up to Bonnie and grabbed her, pulling her desperately into his arms. That jostled the little girl, and she began to cry. Bonnie got an arm around her husband’s neck and hugged him hard, then said, “Take it easy, Tom. You’re scaring her.”
Tom stepped back a little so that he could look Bonnie over from head to toe. She had blood on her face and in her hair. Her jeans were splattered with it, but not as heavily. “Are . . . are you all right?” he managed to say. “Were you hit?”
Bonnie shook her head. “I’m fine, just shaken up a little. This isn’t my blood, Tom.” A catch came into her voice as she went on, “It’s Sarah Jeffers’. She . . . she saved my life. She pushed me down when the shooting started, but she got hit. She’s dead.”
Tom hugged her again, more carefully this time. Relief at finding Bonnie okay was mixed with a growing horror at how close he had come to losing her forever.
Lauren Henderson came up behind Bonnie and said, “I’ll take the little girl, Mrs. Brannon.”
Bonnie turned to hand the sobbing child to the deputy. “What’ll happen to her?”
“We’ll take good
care of her, don’t worry,” Lauren said. “Child Protective Services will take custody of her until we can find her mother or some other relative.”
The little girl wailed, “I want my daddy!”
Lauren cradled the child against her shoulder and patted her on the back. “Come on, honey,” she said. “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”
As Lauren walked away, the little girl continued crying for her daddy. Tom looked grimly at Bonnie and asked quietly, “The kid’s father . . . ?”
“Killed in the shooting,” Bonnie said. “I grabbed her and held her down, out of the line of fire.”
“And probably saved her life,” Buddy Gorman put in. “Tom, you’d better take Bonnie on over to the hospital and get her checked out. It’ll free up an ambulance if you take her.”
“I told you, I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Bonnie said. “I banged my hip a little on the buggy when I fell down, but that’s all that’s wrong with me. The doctors will have their hands full already without wasting time on someone who doesn’t really need their help.”
Buddy said, “You married a stubborn woman, Tom.”
“Yeah.” Tom glanced toward the store. “I heard it was M-15 that did this.”
“There were four of them,” Bonnie said without giving Buddy a chance to respond. “They held up the store, but it was an act of terrorism more than a robbery. They mowed people down with machine guns and then said it was because Little Tucson had stood up to them.”
Quickly, Buddy said, “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t go around talking like that, Bonnie. We don’t want to throw folks into a panic. The sheriff’s department will issue an official statement about what happened later.”
“So you can put some spin on it and make it sound not as bad as it really is?” Tom snapped. “Damn it, Buddy, this was an . . . an invasion! It’s just like when Pancho Villa crossed the border over in New Mexico and raided Columbus, only those M-15 bastards don’t even have the excuse of being revolutionaries. They’re just killers!”
Buddy’s eyes narrowed. “This is a legal matter, Tom. Like I said, the sheriff’s department is in charge.”
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