by Doug Ball
“With God, yourself. Goodbye.”
The two of them both sat and leaned back with a smile.
The Governor reached for the phone and called the Hawk. He had to be told.
#
At noon a totally exhausted Tan arrived at his office. No one else was there, he had to let himself in and brewed his own coffee. Two stale donuts were evident on the counter in the conference room and got devoured rapidly. He wandered around the office trying to get himself reoriented to the job.
The night was like a nightmare with various scenes replaying randomly in his mind with a few added from the Usafi affair and the time of the War for Arizona. To say he was confused was a serious under-statement. It was just that the mind, when it is extremely tired, can play nasty tricks on a man. Everything that had been shoved deep into the back corners of the mind slowly and surely crept to the screen of thought and played in an endless loop until the mind was able to recapture them and stuff them back in their mental boxes.
He sat at his desk too tired to turn on his computer. The pencil in his hand wandered across the top page of the pad of paper that had been laying there since his last visit. Without totally conscious thought it began to write the scenes from his nightmare, each drawn in words of infinite detail. Tan cried, dribbling tears onto the canvas of his mind and the paper before him.
An hour later he looked at what he had written, folded it, stuffed an envelope, and took it to the Governor’s office. “Here ya go, Josie. Please see that the Governor gets this in about twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes? How about you take it in now?”
One of the muscle boys was sitting in the corner reading a book. “Tan, you okay, man?”
“No.”
“Want to talk.”
“No.”
He turned to Josie, “Just give it to her in 20 minutes.”
The muscle stood and followed Tan to the back door of the building.
Tan looked around for his truck. It wasn’t in the handicapped spot he had been using.
The muscle said, “Your truck’s over there, Tan. What you gonna do now?”
“I’m going home to my very pregnant wife, my three boys, and a dog. I will be there for a while getting me back to me. I’m okay. Thanks for your concern, but I just have to do this my way. You go back and do your job, Tim. I’ll take care of mine, what’s left of it.”
“Anything you need, you just call.”
“Thanks.”
Tan got in his car and drove to St. Joseph’s hospital to see Leon and Ray.
At the desk they told him Ray had been released and Leon was upstairs in the trauma ward.
He found the room and walked in.
Leon was sitting up with his hands just big balls of gauze and his feet even bigger balls, a few spots of blood showed in spite of all the gauze. He was asleep. Tan picked up the chart from the end of the bed and tried to read the scribbled notes on the page. Nothing there but blood pressure, O2 levels, and heart rate. He walked out and walked to the nurse’s station.
“Excuse me. Can you give me an update on the man in room 342, please?”
“All I am allowed to tell you is he is stable and doing as well as could be expected.”
“Will he walk and be able to use his hands again?”
“You’ll have to talk to the doctor on that, sir. He should be around shortly.”
“I’ll wait in the room.”
She turned her back on him and began talking to the other nurse.
He shuffled back to the room and sat down. Burying his face in his hands, he cried, “God, you gotta heal this man. Naw, that ain’t right. Lord, I’m askin’ you to heal this man. I would rather it was me there than him. He might not know of you like I do, but he’s a good man who needs a bit longer to think on his relationship with you. I know he was probably real angry with you for his daughter’s death. But, his heart was broken by those bullets just as sure as hers was. Whatever you decide to do is okay with me, but he’s too good a cop to end up like this.”
“That was right purdy, Tan. I didn’t know ya cared so much about a tough cop like me. But, you’re right about me being mad at everyone and everything after I heard about Lana’s death. I still ain’t too happy about the whole damn thing. Did you get the boss of that outfit?”
Tan’s head popped up with the first words. His smile grew as Leon talked. Life was good. His man, Leon, was still kickin’. “You just can’t do anything the easy way, can you, Leon?”
“Nope. Just wasn’t built that way.” He was smiling. “But, let me tell you how not to spend a day or so in your life.”
“Good to hear your voice.”
“Let me tell you what it feels like to be crucified.”
They talked for at least an hour before the doctor came in and pronounced Leon alive. In the conversation the doctor stated that Leon needed a rebuild on his right wrist and his left foot. A few bones had been broken in each. Loss of blood was the main issue being addressed at the present time with all the needles and hoses. The hand was the worst and he may never regain complete use of it again. There was even some fear that he might not regain the feeling in a couple of fingers, if not the whole hand.
Leon said, “They tell me I will probably never use a gun with that hand again. That’s okay, I have another hand and I qualified every year with both hands. Who cares, there’s always shotguns.”
Tan left smiling and head high before the doctor was finished. The doctor was prepping his friend for surgery as he left.
Tan went home.
#
The Governor opened the envelope and read the hand written in pencil statement from Tan. The first page was almost illegible, but the second began to make sense. Bottom line, the whole thing was Tan’s fault, he ordered the Arizona officers to follow him. He knew he was doing what the Governor and the Attorney General would not have wanted him to do. He would be at home with his family when they wanted to come and arrest him for all the charges that could be pressed. He resigned.
The Governor said to Josie, “Get me Mr. Brown’s home phone, please.”
Josie looked it up and dialed the number, handing the phone to her boss. On the second ring, Joan said, “Hello.”
“Joan, this is the Governor. In a couple hours tell Tan I want him and his crew in my office tomorrow morning as I originally stated. Don’t say a word, but he still has a job with me and there are still loose ends out there for him to hunt down.”
“Thank you, Governor. I’ll tell him and he’ll be there. I just want you to know how much he respects you. Sometimes I almost see you as competition, but I know he loves me. We’re okay.”
The sound of three boys running amok in the background with the TV blasting over the top of them made it difficult for the Governor to hear, but she got the drift. “Good bye, Joan. When this is all over, you and I will have to have lunch one day.”
“I’d like that.”
The Governor ended the call and sat back.
19
Armado Borrego sat on the edge of the bed in a mid-range chain motel outside of Blythe, California, his elbows on his knees and hands under his chin holding his head up. The blue helicopter was at the bottom of Lake Havasu. They had flown up the river itself dodging radars and lookout points all the way. One radar had locked onto them, but they shook it within a mile or so. They had landed south of Parker and off loaded the two men with him, his son and a soldado, and the pilot took him to the lake where they sat the chopper in the water, killed all the switches, and swam away right after the rotating blades stopped under water. He had made it to the surface and pulled the cord on his life jacket, causing it to inflate. The pilot never came up.
He called a taxi on his phone after he reached shore and hiked a mile over the rough terrain in the light of a rising sun. The taxi dropped him in Parker. He rented a car and made it to Kingman, where he turned in the car. After walking around the corner and eating breakfast, he called his wife. She answered from
Casa Grande, Arizona. They made plans.
His men, those few that were still alive, were scattered, abandoning him as soon as they could. None would answer a call. They knew he would never rise again. They knew he would never have the funds to pay them again. They knew they needed to find a new Patrón, one who had clout and money.
His phone vibrated on the nightstand. The number was strange, new to him. He answered. “Yeah?”
“644 555 1563.” It was his wife giving him the number of her new throw away phone.
He wrote down the number on a single sheet of paper, tucked it in his wallet, and left the room to walk to the All-4-A-Dollar store across the street and get his own phone. On the way to the restaurant next door to the motel, he turned his old phone off and tossed it into a dumpster alongside the restaurant, went in, and had breakfast at 4 PM. Before the meal got to his table, he watched the dumpster get dumped into a truck, fascinated by the process.
He paid for the meal with a prepaid VISA, just as he had paid for the room and registered in the name of Bart Ramage.
#
At 10 AM the next day, Tan and crew, along with the three body guards and the Border Patrolmen, who had been airlifted in at the last minute, were standing tall in the Governor’s office. Joining them were the Hawk, Desi Armistad, Ray Lawler, General Rios, Sara Borkowicz, and Josie. The Governor opened the show.
“Well, you big bad vigilantes, what do you have to say for yourselves? Were you trying to start another war or just plain crazy?”
Tan stepped forward. “Governor, I told you in the letter yesterday that I was at fault and forced these men and women to follow me. It is my fault. I am to blame.” He looked like he was standing in front of a firing square from his actions in a just cause.
“Shut up, Mr. Brown. I read your letter. Burned it right after.”
Tank stepped forward, “What did you expect? Our friend was down there. They were the bad guys. We took care of a small problem and kept it centralized.” He paused and stepped closer to the Governor. “Who were the dudes in black?”
The Governor ignored his question, and moved right along. “You are all here for one reason and one reason only. You are here because you are all heroes of Arizona. That even sounds dumb, doesn’t it Desi? General?”
They both nodded in agreement. Josie even nodded.
“So here’s what happens now. You all get a medal, along with Leon. You all keep your jobs. You all never do this again. You all cannot tell anyone about the adventure south of the border with the men in black. You all understand?”
All of them agreed in one form or another. Tan lifted his head. Joan hugged him. The folks in the room were shaking hands and hugging one another until the Governor said, with a rough voice, “Get out of here, I have work to do. And, so do you.”
“Tan, stay for a moment, then you can take your bride home, along with your boys who are probably driving my driver, Burt, crazy by now.”
Everyone left. Joan followed Josie out of the office and into the Governor’s conference room where Burt was holding little Robert on his knee and telling them all a story about monsters in Iraq when he was there during the big war. The three boys were sucking it up like ice cream.
“Tan, this can never happen again without my okay way up front. I am a nervous wreck. The men in black are on our side as far as the border is concerned. I want Armado Borrago in jail as soon as possible. That is your team’s job until it is a reality. Get on it and keep me posted.”
“Yes, Governor, anything else?” He turned to go.
“Name the baby after me.”
“I don’t think Governor would go over well as a girl’s name. A boy, that might work.”
He walked out.
Her phone rang, “Yes.”
“SCOTUS refused the President’s case. A contract is a contract. It must be freely agreed upon by both sides. If one side does not freely agree, it is not a contract and neither party has any obligation in the matter. End quote.”
“Thank you. Give the AG my thanks.”
She sat in her chair with a large smile on her face and sipped her tea.
#
Borrago bought a used car under the Bart Ramage name and crossed back into Arizona. His thinking was that no one would look for him there. His wife had traded the Mercedes for a used Ford, she and the girls were stashed with family for the time being. All he had to do was find a nice place they could hide for a couple of years and all would be well.
The drugstore next to the motel had provided the tools to change his look enough to fool the casual searcher. His hair was now blond, his mustache was gone, and his beard growing into a goatee. The clothes he was wearing were two sizes too big and he wore them gang banger style. The hoodie hid his face to a great extent which gave him even more confidence in being able to pull off the transition to being an American. All he had to worry about at this point was having his shorts fall off.
Using the throw away phone he called the only contact that he would make, “Hello,” came the tentative answer.
“Maddy, is my wife there?”
“Si. I will get her.”
In moments, “Armado?”
“Si. You are all right, yes?”
“I am fine. The girls are fine. We need a home.” She spoke with a heavy Mexican accent, but it was English. The girls were very fluent. They had not been allowed to watch Mexican movies, only American with no subtitling.
“I am moving to do that. You may call me tonight if I do not call you first. I miss you, Missus Ramage.”
“And I miss you, Meester Ramage.”
He watched a Highway Patrol car pass him from behind slowing to check his paper plate in the back window before he sped off. “The police they just passed me by. We are safe. There are many Mexicans in America. I have good papers, a driver’s license over a year old, a Safeway savers card, enough credit cards prepaid to buy a nice home. I will look in a town called Wickenburg first. Maybe a job on a dude ranch as a horse wrangler awaits me there.”
“Find a home with a nice view of the mountains and a pool.”
“I will do my best. Traffic is getting heavy I must put more attention on the driving. Goodbye until tonight. Our son should be with you tonight.”
“Son? Which one died, Armado, which one.”
“Armado Hector was shot as we entered the chopper. He may not be dead. He fell in the yard and I could not get to him. It looked like he was dead.”
“You did not get our son out of there. I am hurt and angry. Must I go back and find him. Must I search for him?”
“No, mi amante. I am sure he is dead. I will make one call to know the truth, my love.”
“You will or I will. You have one hour. If he is alive and in prison, we are through, done, finished. How could you leave our son, your namesake?”
“It was not easy, love, but Eduardo pulled me into the chopper as it was lifting. Had I stayed I would be dead or captured. One hour, my love.”
The phone went dead.
At exit 31 he went north east along old 66, stopping two miles from the interstate to make his call.
Armado, his son, was dead. He had seen the bullet strike and his head explode. “No one lives through a wound like that. Now I will lose my wife and she will poison my daughters with her lies. They, too, will leave me and I will be alone with only Antonio, my boy who has become a man these past days. I should have killed her myself, years ago. Now it is too late.”
The call went through to Antonio. “Meet me in Wickenburg tomorrow morning at sunrise in front of the post office.”
“Si, mi Padre.”
“English, my son. We are in the United States now and must blend in.”
“Yes, Father. Sunrise tomorrow at the post office.”
“Blessings, my son. You and I will build a new cartel.”
“I would rather not, my father. Let’s live here in peace.”
“We will talk of that in the morning.”
Antonio looke
d around at the scenery north of Flagstaff and decided in an instant that there was no way he was going backward into crime. “I am free.” He took inventory of his assets. In his bag he had a gun with ammo, three throw away smart phones with internet access, two sets of clothes (one dressy and one casual), and over $20,000 in prepaid credit cards. There was also the $5,000 card in his shirt pocket and the cash sewn into his jacket, $5,000. His wallet held $300 and change. Around his neck was a pendant of 99.9% gold worth maybe $4,000. His belt buckle was platinum and he had no idea how much that was worth. Inside the heel of each boot were diamonds that he could use to buy himself a fair sized ranch in Colorado.
The word Colorado stuck in his mind. He started the engine on the used pickup he had already purchased, looked at the gas gauge, rolled up the windows, and pulled into traffic. “North is a good direction,” he said aloud. Then he remember the two sets of ID he had with him. He would have to choose one tonight and stick with it. Nothing he had was traceable.
The radio blasted music from KAFF, KAFF country – Flagstaff, Arizona.
As he set the cruise control he said, “Well, father dearest, you are on your own.”
“Next stop, somewhere deep in Utah or Colorado.” He still liked Colorado.
20
That afternoon the office phone rang. Tan answered, “Special Investigator’s Office, Tan.”
“May I speak to Mr. Brown, Please?” a rough male voice said.
“You have Mr. Brown, how may I help you.”
“I am sure you know that you did not get the head man in the south. I am still free. You have ruined everything.” The line went dead.
Tan checked the caller ID on the phone and it was blocked.
“Crap, and he rubs it in.” Tan sat the phone in its cradle and saw his hand tremble as he did it. The only time that had ever happened before was just before his squad was ambushed in Iraq. They had been working their way through heavy vegetation trying to catch a sniper who had killed two men. The task was no scarier than any other they had been on in the past three weeks, but out of nowhere his hand started shaking just like it was now. They got hit seconds after he ordered everyone to cover with silent hand signals. The vegetation they had been moving through was mowed down at four feet off the ground and not a man was hit except by falling limbs and leaves. When the attackers came in to finish them off, his squad was able to kill them all.