Some Rise by Sin

by Philip Caputo

  You didn’t have to, Lisette said to herself.

  They drove on in the bright afternoon without talking, each enclosed in a bubble of her own thoughts, Lisette now more conscious than ever of the distance between them. It had been there from the beginning, albeit concealed, not by love but the longing for it.

  * * *

  As fast as Riordan could drill the boards, Moises carried them to César, down on his knees as he extended the deck plank by plank until he reached the far side of the gorge. Riordan, who came from a family where “good with his hands” described a man who could throw a decent punch rather than one adept at fixing or building things, admired César’s skill. After the final plank was laid, he uncoiled two long ropes to make support lines between the handrails and the suspension cables on each side. Bending low to loop them around the cables, straightening up to do the same around the handrails, he formed two series of triangles the span of the bridge.

  From the far end, he called across the chasm, “Eso lo hace! Hemos terminado con esta maldita puente!”

  Moises shut off the generator. It was done—a tough job completed in the depths of the wild Sierra Madre. Riordan took a gulp of air, savoring its piney tang, and gazed with satisfaction at the clean, smooth, yellowish decking, the cables and ropes as taut as telephone wires. Sweating from his labors, César tested their work, crossing toward Riordan and Moises at a normal walking pace. When he reached them, he grinned through his sweat, turned, and began to stomp back toward the opposite side. Under his pounding, the bridge undulated and swayed.

  Riordan, standing with Moises in front of the two support trees, shut his eyes. Two seconds later, Moises yelled, “César!” His eyes snapping open, Riordan saw his friend flat on his back about two-thirds of the way across, clutching his chest while rolling from shoulder to shoulder. The bridge canted to one side, and he began to slide off, saving himself from a fatal plunge by hooking an arm around a support rope. Now he lay at a sideways angle, his legs from the knee down dangling over the gorge. He let out a loud groan. Moises threw a shoulder into Riordan, intending to shove him out of the way so he could go to the aid of his stricken boss, but inadvertently pushed Riordan onto the bridge.

  Without hesitation or a conscious thought, amazing himself, Riordan grasped the handrails and moved forward as quickly as he dared. The bridge swung from side to side, bounced up and down; he felt as if he were walking on a waterbed suspended in midair. He reached César in ten seconds and stood behind him, taking a moment to make sure he had his balance. Then, letting the handrails go, he knelt down and, with cautious, deliberate movements, reached across César’s body, grabbed his legs, and swung them back onto the deck.

  “What happened?” he asked, out of breath even though the physical effort had not been strenuous.

  César looked up. His face had a grayish pallor. “Got dizzy … fell.… Pain here…” He poked his left shoulder. “Damn diesel fumes…”

  Oh, God, not a heart attack, Riordan thought. He placed his arms under César’s, intending to drag him. But it would be impossible to walk backward on the unstable platform while dragging a man as heavy as himself. César would have to make it back on his own two legs. Riordan raised him into a sitting position, then—he didn’t know how he accomplished it—got him to his feet and turned him so that they stood facing each other.

  Doing an about-face, Riordan said: “Hold on to me, hold tight.”

  César clasped him around the waist and shuffled behind as Riordan half-walked, half-hauled himself forward by the handrails. They looked like a curious circus act. Riordan gave no thought to the bridge’s lurching, to the grinning chasm, to the rocks shining through the thin, clear water below. He was aware only of the necessity to deliver his friend to safety.

  When they reached the other side, César released him. He staggered forward, bent over, and dry-heaved. Riordan had him lie down under the trees, telling him to take deep breaths. He did, complaining that it felt like he was inhaling ground glass.

  Aspirin. You were supposed to give aspirin to someone having a heart attack. But he didn’t have any aspirin.

  “Moises, go find Dr. Moreno,” Riordan said. “Bring her here quick.”

  He sat down in the warm loam and rubbed César’s chest. “How is it now?”

  “A little better. Oye, Padre. Muchas gracias. I thought I was going to—”

  “Don’t think about it,” Riordan said, panting. “Take it easy. Rest.”

  “I fainted,” César said, as if embarrassed.

  “We’ll find out what’s wrong and get you fixed up.” He smiled reassuringly.

  While they waited for Moises to return with Lisette, Riordan alternated looks at the bridge, swung out over the deep rift in the land, and at César’s face, now regaining some color.

  “Not so much pain now,” César said. “I’m okay now.”

  “No, you’re not. Dr. Moreno will have a look at you.”

  But that wasn’t going to happen, not here. Dr. Moreno had left the village some time ago, Moises reported when he returned.

  “All right, let’s get him in the truck,” Riordan told Moises. “You drive.”

  He extended his hand to César, who grasped it and pulled himself upright.

  “No kidding, I’m okay.”

  “The hell you are,” Riordan said. “We’re going to bring you to Hermosillo. To a hospital.”

  He and Moises got César situated in the passenger seat, quickly loaded the generator and the tools, and started off. The road spun down out of the pines into the oaks and junipers, matching the Santa Teresa bend for bend, some turns so sharp Moises had to take them almost at walking speed. On that long, jarring drive, Riordan had a chance to reflect on his actions. In retrospect, they seemed as automatic as reflex; yet there had been nothing automatic about them. They had not lacked intention. He’d seen what needed to be done and he’d done it. He wondered how he’d managed to conquer his abject terror not once but twice, the second time towing a man who weighed at least 180.

  These musings did not produce pride in himself. Quite the opposite. He felt humbled, touched by grace; his rescue of César had been an act of love, for one human life and so for God, and grace is bestowed in proportion to the love in the soul that receives it. That, not reflex, not his own will, was what had overcome his dread and impelled him forward. He wasn’t worthy of it, but his faith taught that it was the unworthy to whom grace was granted.

  At last, from a straight stretch girdling a hillside, he saw the river a few hundred feet below—a ribbon of water that vanished into the sand and reappeared downstream. The roofs of San Patricio peered through the mesquite and palm trees, the twin domes of his church towering over all, crucifixes against a barren blue sky. Westward, the highway to Hermosillo drew a winding black stripe across the Sierra foothills. The familiar landscape brought him to the recognition that in having been touched by grace, he’d been restored to himself and his rightful place in the world. He was skeptical about emotional religion, the ecstatic moment of conversion evangelicals spoke of; yet he felt that he was undergoing something like that now—a reconversion, as it were. After the shock on Christmas morning, he’d played a mental trick on himself to dodge the conundrum theologians and philosophers had wrestled with for two thousand years: how to reconcile an all-loving God with the existence of evil. If they hadn’t resolved it yet, he certainly could not. He would have to live with the doubts it awakened. No faith without doubt, he reminded himself. The trick had been the idea that he’d been thrust into an alternate universe, some spiritual black hole in whose depths the laws of moral physics no longer applied. But he was in Mexico, bleeding, suffering Mexico, a Franciscan priest empowered to preach the Gospels, to perform baptisms, to witness marriages, to anoint the sick, to celebrate the Eucharist, and to hear confessions, whose secrecy he was sworn to preserve. To violate that oath was to betray a sacred trust. He’d betrayed it three times; he would no longer. He resolved to end his unholy pact
with Inspector Bonham and Captain Valencia, regardless of the cost to himself. Grace is given to the undeserving, he thought. But once it is, your actions have to show that you’ve received it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Operation Zone Hawk—the unofficial code name was the Professor’s creation—got under way with the detention of the mariachi and norteño bands hired to perform at Ernesto Salazar’s birthday fiesta. The two groups, numbering twelve in all, were quietly rounded up the night before, brought to the air force base outside Hermosillo, herded into a hangar, and assured that they would not be held for long, a day or two at most. Each entertainer owned several costume changes, so there was enough clothing in their collective wardrobe to outfit the Professor, Captain Valencia, and the two dozen federales and paratroopers they had handpicked to crash the party. The men would be wearing bulletproof vests under their disguises, however, and this, along with the size differences between them and the musicians, created fitting problems. These were sorted out, though a few men had to make do with mismatched outfits, like the lanky Sublieutenant Almazán, whose pants reached only halfway to his ankles. The Professor attired himself in a black charro jacket, a black sombrero, and blue trousers, while Valencia, who considered mariachi suits ridiculous, got himself up as a norteño guitarist: flashy shirt, white cowboy hat, lizardskin boots.

  They were crammed together in the hangar, the real entertainers and the masqueraders, the former sitting in glum silence until the Professor handed each bandleader an envelope containing $500 in U.S. currency, less than what they would have earned performing for Salazar but sufficient to cheer them up. They got into the spirit of things, helping the masqueraders rehearse “Las Mañanitas,” the tune sung at birthday parties from Mexico to Argentina. Some of the troops and policemen could play instruments, and the musicians gave them tips on improving their technique. The lighthearted atmosphere irritated Captain Valencia, wrapped as tight as the coils around an armature. Singing, yodeling, plucking guitars, his troops were behaving like boys on holiday rather than disciplined soldiers about to embark on a critical mission. It would be different if they were in their combat uniforms. These silly outfits—that was what accounted for their goofing off, Valencia decided. It galled him no end to think that he and they were going to meet his big moment decked out like cheap nightclub acts.

  Loosen up, take it easy, the Professor urged. The prelude to a dangerous action was always harder on the nerves than the action itself. Think of the costumes as camouflage, like the markings on a zone-tailed hawk’s wings.

  “There is nothing the matter with my nerves,” the captain grunted.

  At a little past two in the afternoon, Rubén Levya signaled by cell phone that the guests had begun to arrive.

  The frivolities stopped; the men assumed appropriately serious attitudes and boarded the planes, thirteen in each of two air force Cessna Caravans, with the logo of a private air charter service—AEROMUNDIAL—pasted over the military markings. A couple of the instrument cases stacked in the luggage compartment actually contained instruments; the rest concealed FX-05 assault carbines with folding stocks. Sitting in the copilot’s seat—not because he knew how to fly but to get a better view—the Professor watched plains rise to foothills, foothills to the crooked spine of Mexico, the Sierra Madre Occidental. The plane bounced in the turbulent air over the mountains, and he recalled the invasion of Panama in 1989, Operation Just Cause. (Though deposing Manuel Noriega wasn’t a cause, and its justice had been doubtful; Noriega had simply outlived his usefulness to the world’s only remaining superpower.) The Professor was then a young soldier in the 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry, 82nd Airborne, which seized Fort Amador in a nighttime air assault. Noriega, who’d profited from the Colombian cocaine trade, was holed up elsewhere; but he soon surrendered. With a great deal of poetic license, the Professor could say it was the first time he’d taken part in the capture of a drug lord. And he’d been capturing, killing, and investigating drug lords ever since, when he wasn’t working for them.

  Actually, he had been employed by only one for all these years since he’d deserted the DEA, and that was Joaquín Carrasco. If the Professor was nothing else, he was loyal to those who were loyal to him. The DEA had not been, abandoning him before he’d abandoned it. The investigation into his partner’s torture and murder had been called off to protect the Mexican general who had ordered the assassination. He was a friend to the Juárez Cartel and was related to the defense minister, a friend of Washington’s. It was the minister who made a few phone calls and got the investigation quashed. The Professor set off for Mexico on a mission of vengeance—or, as he preferred to think of it, of justice, tracking down and killing his partner’s three killers. One turned out to be a top informant for the CIA, which pressured the DEA to rope and tie its renegade agent and bring him back to the reservation. If it failed, the spooks were going to go after him themselves—with extreme prejudice. The Professor fled deep into Sonora and found sanctuary in Carrasco’s organization, then at war with Juárez. He offered his considerable skills to Joaquín, if Joaquín would aid him in his hunt for the main target, the general. Carrasco pulled strings and arranged for the Professor to join the Federal Police. In that guise, he developed informants in the general’s retinue and then set up the sabotage of a private plane flying the officer to a vacation spa. He died in its crash, an accident to all appearances. Grateful to the drug boss who had made this possible, the Professor honored his end of their deal, taking on every assignment Carrasco gave him. They had stuck together for almost twenty years. Until now. The plaza had been promised to Rubén Levya. Sometimes necessity trumped loyalty.

  The pilot, not much older than the Professor had been in his paratrooper days, tapped him on the shoulder and pointed out the window. The mesa lay ahead, a swath of greens and browns ringed by peaks and lumpy hills; in the near distance the cell tower resembled a giant exclamation point. A few second later, the Santa Bárbara ranch became visible: the flat-roofed main house umbrellaed by trees; the long bunkhouse behind; the reddish-brown scar that was the airstrip, private planes parked in a row beside the pole barn where coke shipments were stored. The plan was to achieve complete surprise and capture Salazar, Mora, and the others without firing a shot. Actually, that was as much a hope as it was a plan. Mike Tyson had spoken eternal truth when he’d said, “Everyone has a plan until he gets hit in the mouth.” The remainder of Valencia’s company was assembled at the Hermosillo air base: one hundred troops waiting to be summoned in case things went seriously south.

  The altimeter spun: three thousand meters, twenty-five hundred. Below, a single-engine plane, probably with late arrivals on board, was taxiing to a stop. The Caravans swooped low over the ranch headquarters on their downwind leg. The Professor caught glimpses of gunmen loitering by the parked aircraft, a crowd clustered around a smoking barbecue pit in the front yard, a wooden platform—the stage. The Brotherhood’s entire leadership gathered in one place: he practically salivated. The plane’s radio crackled. He picked up the mike and put the headset on.

  “I see you,” Levya said, speaking through a handheld Motorola. “You see me? The two delivery vans at the end of the runway. I’m in the blue one; one of my boys is in the white one.”

  Cargo planes had flown the vans into Salazar’s roadless ranch months ago. They served as taxis for his visitors, mostly Colombians.

  “Where are Uno and Dos?” the Professor asked, using the code names for Salazar and Mora.

  “The main house. They’ve been in there all day.”

  As the plane banked to turn into the wind, the Professor toggled the sound-system switch and announced to his passengers, “We’ll be on the ground in about two minutes. There are thugs guarding the landing field. When you get off, don’t look at them, just get into the vans. Thank you for flying with us today,” he added to lighten things up.

  The Professor’s Caravan touched down, turboprop churning up cyclones of dust, and rolled to a s
top. Valencia’s plane landed minutes later. Joking and clowning as instructed, the men disembarked, grabbed their instrument cases, and wedged themselves into the vans, the federales into Levya’s blue van, the paratroopers into the white one. The vehicles must have transported mojados at one time: their exteriors looked to have been beaten with hammers; inside, the seats had been ripped out to make room for twenty migrants in a space meant to hold nine people. Levya drove the half kilometer to the bunkhouse in what seemed like five seconds, the other van close behind.

  “You remember what to do?” asked the Professor, sitting in front with his knees in his chest.

  “Yeah, yeah. Sí. Yeah, I know,” Levya said. The ice-veined sicario was jumpy, not from fear, the Professor assumed, but from unfamiliarity with his role as a traitor. “He’s still in the house. Him and Mora. Drinking. Tea! Fucking tea. Or maybe Mora’s blowing him.”

  “Get him to come out.”

  They wanted Salazar outside to prevent a getaway through the escape tunnel.

  There hadn’t been time, during the rehearsals for the raid, to prepare for the unexpected, like the fornicating couple who almost fell out of bed as more than two dozen federal policemen and paratroopers in musicians’ garb burst into the bunkhouse. The woman squealed, covering herself with a bedsheet, the man leapt to his feet, mouth ajar, erection wilting. It shrunk to nothing when the Professor, taking no chances on a breach of security, drew a pistol from under his charro jacket.

  “Back in bed, facedown! Both of you!” he said in a low voice. “Hands behind your back!”

  The lovers obeyed, and a federale gagged and cuffed them.

  In the front yard, blocked from view by the ranch house, Levya was at the stage microphone, playing master of ceremonies. The raiding party in the bunkhouse could hear him clearly. “Hey, everybody, sit down. The music is here.… We’re going to sing ‘Las Mañanitas.’ … You over there … Come on, muchachos! Sit down.… That’s it.… Okay! Muy bien!… I’m going to go inside and get our guest of honor. When he comes out, everybody sing ‘Las Mañanitas.’” He shouted: “Oye! Músicos! We’re ready for you!”