From that point on I just ran as fast as I could. The man started to rise and turn. I pulled up my gun to give him a muzzle strike in the skull. Just before I hit him, his hands flew out to his sides.
“Mr. Marcinko!” the man yelled. “Don’t hit me! It’s—”
That was about all Saul got out of his mouth before I clocked him. I’m sorry to say that I got him pretty hard, even though I pulled back at the last moment and managed to get him with my forearm rather than the gun. That was a good thing: the muzzle would have split his skull; my arm only knocked him unconscious.
* * *
“I know where the lady is,” were the first words out of Saul’s mouth when he came to in his truck a few minutes later. He’d parked down the street; I’d hauled him there over my back after making sure we were alone.
“Tell me.”
“If I help you find her, will you help us?”
“I won’t kill you. How’s that?”
He gulped, the way villains do in old-fashioned movies. But he stuck with his agenda.
“A deal’s a deal,” he said. “I help you and you help me.”
“We don’t have a deal,” I told him. “You tell me where Veronica is, and I won’t kill you. That’s the deal.”
“W-w-we want the same thing,” stammered Saul. “To get rid of the cartel.”
“That’s not my goal here, Saul. I just want Veronica.”
“She’s in the community building. Will you help me now?”
“How many people are in there?”
“Four.”
“Four? You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I…”
He didn’t, not really. He was guessing. But it wasn’t a bad guess. He’d seen the two SUVs leave and not return, and knew from experience they drove around in pairs. With eight men on, that left four at the security post.
There was a police-style scanner and radio under his dash. He turned up the volume and hit some buttons to make it scan, but there was no traffic.
“What happened to those SUVs?” I asked, not telling him that I knew very well what had happened to them. “Did they radio back?”
“Not that I heard. In the hills the radio has trouble transmitting. So maybe they did call back and I didn’t hear.”
I drove around the development. The lights were on in the security station on the first floor of the community center. There was a single SUV parked in front of the door; three more were in the back, lined up side by side.
“Call them on the radio and tell them you found an intruder,” I told Saul.
He reached for the mike.
“Wait—let me get into position first.” I put my finger in his face. “Give me ten minutes. On the dot. You double-cross me, Saul, and I’ll get you. Even if I have to come back as a ghost.”
“I’m, I’m, I’m not going to double-cross you. We have a deal.”
I slipped out of the truck and ran through the backyards of the units until I got to the community center. Sneaking to the patrol SUVs in the back of the building, I knifed the front and rear tires of each. Serenaded by the satisfying hiss and gentle thud as they settled onto their rims, I trotted over to the building, peering into a lit basement window.
Veronica was sitting at a table, arms crossed, a scowl on her face. Two thugs were with her, Mexican rent-a-cop types, in this case rented, bought, and wholly owned by the cartel.
Before I could crouch down and get a better view, I heard a sound from around the corner. I went over and saw one of the security types walking out toward the SUVs. Sizing him up—skinny little runt, easily handled—the door opened again.
Unsheathing my knife, I waited as a second officer gathered his gear, pulling a large duffel bag and a soft-sided tool kit out from the vestibule. He shouldered the duffel on his left side and picked up the tool kit with his right, then began slowly walking from the building.
I caught him after a few feet. He was as tall as the other man was short, and I actually had to reach up quite a bit as I got my knife into his throat. This had the unfortunate effect of making the blood spurt even more wildly; I hate an untidy execution.
The other guard remained stubbornly oblivious, not only of what was happening to his partner, but of the fact that the SUV had four flats. He got in, started the vehicle, adjusted his seat belt, and fiddled with the gear. By the time he glanced into his rearview mirror, I had already dropped his partner and run up to the side of the truck.
I rapped on the window. Surprised, he rolled it down.
Two fists to the face stunned him. I reached in, pulled his head through the opening, and gave him two more for good measure. I hauled him out of the truck, pulled him around an electric utility box a few yards away, and slit his throat. While he bled out, I retrieved his partner, dragging him across the yard and dumping him behind the box as well.
By the time I got back to the window of the room where Veronica was, the two guards had changed position. They were talking to her, but whatever they were saying didn’t make much of an impression. She sat stone-faced, staring at the table.
Finally, one of the thugs got up and left the room.
Twenty or thirty seconds passed before Veronica rose. Her hands went to her hips, and she thrust her boobs out—from where I was squatting, it looked like she was propositioning her guard.
Maybe it looked that way inside, too. The man started to rise, reaching his hand out toward her.
The next thing I knew, she had flipped him over the table and given his head two quick heel kicks. She grabbed his pistol, then ran to the door in time to bash the other guard as he ran inside.
Pretty stupid of them to bring their weapons in while interrogating a prisoner, but these guys weren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the shed.
I tapped on the window. Veronica twirled around, pistol in two hands, braced to fire.
“Just me,” I said. “Good work.”
She couldn’t hear me through the glass, but pointed to the side, mouthing the words “Meet me.”
* * *
Maybe it took ninety seconds for me to get there. I was still feeling a little winded; carving my name into veins takes a bit out of me. But I didn’t dally. Still, by the time I got there, not only had Veronica caught the other rent-a-slime, but she’d trussed him and the other man with their own zip ties. There was a holding cell at the far end of the basement; we carried them there and tossed them in. (The second guard woke about halfway down the hall; a kick on the side of the head put him back to sleep. I may market it as a replacement for Ambien.)
“You have blood on you, you know,” said Veronica, pulling the cell door closed and making sure it was locked.
“I cut someone shaving.”
“Shame.”
I went out in the hall and looked around. The offices were new and clean, but mostly empty. There were no computers in the main dispatching center; the only thing there was the radio, a simple affair that looked about twenty years old at least. The underground garage was empty.
The walls flanking the ramp entrance were made of large cement blocks. Where had I seen those before?
Duh—down in the tunnel.
I walked to the wall opposite the entry ramp to the garage and examined it. Unlike the other walls, this was a veneer panel, the sort of thing your great-uncle installed in his basement “man cave” back in the 1970s to lend a little “class” to the joint.
Since when did garages need class?
I pushed on it. It gave a little. I fiddled some more, gently pushing.
“I found the cell keys,” said Veronica, coming over after searching the main security office. “Are you sure we shouldn’t take one of the goons with us and question him?”
I was too engrossed in the wall to answer.
“What are you doing to the wall, Dick?”
“Lifting it.” I spread my fingers like a wide receiver trying to grab an errant pass, then pushed upward. The
wood panel moved, revealing … not the wall, but a panel of metal slats similar to the panels used by merchants to protect their storefronts on city streets.
“What’s in there?” asked Veronica.
“Probably the tunnel I was in.” I worked out the direction. “It comes up the road, angles over here. It would go right past your grandparents’ house.”
“Can we get out that way?”
“It’s locked on the other side.”
The radio cackled. Saul was making a call, trying to be cool, I think, but warn us at the same time.
“Unit Patrol to Base. Base, do you read Unit Patrol? Base?”
I went up to the dispatcher’s area and picked up the microphone.
“We’re in control, Saul. You can relax.”
“Did you hear that last transmission on channel ninety-eight-seven?”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“They’re trying to get the security headquarters—it’s the Mexican police. The real police.”
The phone started to ring.
“Say you’re the dispatcher,” I told Veronica. “Find out what’s up.”
I left Veronica to handle the call while I went back to the cells and considered her suggestion that we take one of the lugs to interrogate. Both were sleeping soundly. Which was more likely to talk?
More importantly, which was less likely to lie?
I did a quick eenie-meenie, then chose the bigger of the two. In my experience, the old cliché—the bigger they are, the harder they fall—speaks true.
I dragged him out of the cell and relocked it. There was a restroom next door; I figured a good dunk or two in the toilet would revive him.
“Dick—we have to go,” said Veronica.
“What’s up?”
“The local police unit says there’s been reports of shooting at the farm. They’re sending people there.”
“They’ve been there already,” I told her.
“They say they’re sending people now. They’re calling in the army, too. I tried to find out what else they knew, but they started asking questions about who I was. I told them I was new. I don’t know if they believed me.”
* * *
I hate leaving a jigsaw puzzle half finished on the table. To me, once you have the four corners figured out, there’s no sense not putting the rest of the damn thing together.
Here, an immense jigsaw puzzle was staring us in the face. There were all sorts of pieces out, little clusters of answers and half-answered riddles scattered. I just needed a little more time—a few dunks with my friend here and I was sure to get the sides worked out.
But it was clearly time to go.
* * *
“All right,” I said. “Here, take my gun.”
I gave her the MP5, and repositioned my pistol so it couldn’t be easily grabbed by anyone other than me, and even then I’d have to unsnap the tie-down. Then I went into the cell and scooped up our prisoner.
I bent about four or five inches straight down under his weight as I walked out. “Damn, he’s heavy.”
“You should take the other one. He barely weighed anything.”
“It’s my penance for using clichés,” I told her, staggering toward the front of the building.
X
While I’m groaning my way out of the building, let’s catch up with Trace and the boys.
The morning after they arrived, some relatives of the Garcias came over. After talking to them for a while, Trace decided that the Garcias would probably be about as safe as anyone in the village—not exactly the sort of ringing endorsement an insurance company would like to hear, but good enough. Sometime after midafternoon, she bid farewell and started northward with Tex and Stoneman. The plan was to go across the border and meet us at the ranch. At that point, we hadn’t yet had any of the real fun and games that made my evening so memorable.
Trace was behind the wheel a short time later when a large tractor-trailer swerved in front of the car, nearly throwing her off the road. Once she recovered, she stepped on the gas and caught up. She was probably thinking about how she would extract some revenge from the driver when the truck swerved again, this time into the other lane. It narrowly missed another car, then pulled back in, once again cutting off another car.
Trace followed along for a few miles, her anger gradually diminishing. It seemed to her the truck driver was probably drunk, but that wasn’t her concern. And while one of the final provisions of NAFTA had just been approved to allow Mexican truck drivers to drive as far through the U.S. as they wanted, Trace has never been much for political issues. “Screw them all, before they screw us,” is about the extent of her political beliefs.
Gradually the distance between her and the truck increased until she couldn’t see it anymore. Not too long afterward, she decided to find a place to stop to powder her nose.
Cars and trucks clustered at the side of the road ahead, spread in disorganized fashion near a large tent pavilion and a food stand. Trace parked at the very back of the line.
Leaving Stoneman sleeping in the back, she and Tex got out and stretched their legs. There was an outhouse beyond the tent; holding her nose, she went inside to inspect the facilities.
Tex, meanwhile, ambled over to the parked vehicles. There at the lead was the truck that had nearly run them off the road. Deciding to give the driver some friendly instructions on road etiquette, Tex’s pace became somewhat more deliberate. But as he passed the back of the trailer, the sound of banging caught his attention. He stopped and listened. It sounded very much like someone was pounding on the inside of the trailer.
He went to the rear door and found it padlocked. Before he could satisfy his curiosity, the truck started moving.
“There you are,” said Trace, coming up behind him. “What are you staring at?”
“I think there’s people in the back of that trailer.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I guess it’s none of our business, huh?” added Tex.
The comment poked at Trace’s conscience, but probably she would have simply dropped it had they not seen the truck stopped at a police roadblock a half hour later. By now, it was dusk, and the red lights of the police car threw strange shadows across the back of the vehicle and the road.
“That’s that same truck,” said Tex. “We oughta tell them to search the back.”
“Yeah.”
There were two policemen. One was talking to the truck driver; the other eyed the line of cars.
“You want me to try my Spanish?” asked Tex.
“I’ll deal with it,” said Trace. She left the car in park and got out.
“You should check the back of that truck,” she told the policeman who was dealing with the traffic. He frowned at her and waved her back to her vehicle.
“Really, you should look in the back,” insisted Trace.
The officer waved the other cars around the side of the roadblock, sending them on their way. The drivers happily ignored the rocks and ruts and sped off.
“There’s something in the back of that truck,” she told the policeman. “You should look into it.”
“You are a Yankee,” said the man. “Let me see your license.”
“Are you going to check that trailer out or not?”
The cop whistled to his partner—then pulled his gun on Trace.
“You will show me your license, and pay a fine, or you will spend the next year in Mexico.”
XI
Veronica retrieved the vehicle she had been stealing when surprised by the security thugs, returning with it while I bound our guest with a few more zip ties and gave him a gag for good measure: the last thing we needed was a backseat driver.
I appropriated some riot guns, tear gas, and tactical equipment from one of the security vehicles, sticking them in the pickup truck. I also found a mobile radio, charging in a cradle on the console between the front seats. All of this took time, and when I finally got into the pickup and closed the door, I
could see the dim outline of a revolving red and blue bubblegum top coming up the hill from the Mexican village.
“Let’s show them the way,” I told Veronica.
My head flew backward as she stepped on the gas. I picked up the police radio and, holding my hand around the mike to add a little distortion to the ambience, announced that a patrol was en route to the camp via the off-road route.
The police closed in on us as Veronica found the trail. I had my MP5 on my lap, ready to use it, but they hung back, no doubt believing we were who we said we were. They slowed down when we slowed down—which was a little disappointing, as I was itching to show the MP5’s effectiveness when used as a turn signal.
“Shotgun, we’re coming up the road toward you,” I told him over the team radio.
“Yeah, I can see the lights. How come you get to have all the fun?”
“We’re in the pickup. We’re the first car through. Take out the second. They’re the ones with the bubblegum lights.”
“Gotcha.”
We took the last switchback and started uphill. The troop truck sat off the side of the road to our left, its rear end off the road in the ditch, the front crushed and low against some rocks. It occurred to me that the police might stop and inspect the wreck; that would mess up my plan.
There was no need to worry with Shotgun on the trigger. A second later, a grenade swooshed overhead, exploding just in front of the vehicle behind us. The driver jerked off the side of the road, rolling the vehicle across the slope.
“One down, one to go,” said Shotgun.
“Wait,” I said. “Two vehicles? Wait!”
“Fire in the hole,” he said, launching grenade number two.
“Stop! Stop!” I yelled, this time to Veronica. She slammed on the brakes and I bolted from the truck, running back to the second vehicle.
Saul’s.
I found him barely conscious, about ten yards from the side of the road. The pickup was obliterated.
The police SUV was in better shape, its front end and cabin pretty much intact. The same could not be said for its two occupants. The grenade had exploded at the base of the windshield, and between that and the force of the rollover, the results were gruesome.
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