I shot a glance at Vito. He was peering intently at the hills through his binoculars, unseen wheels turning in his head. He nodded slowly up and down several times as he brainstormed. I don’t know how he could see anything in the dark, but he seemed to have a fix on something.
“What do you think, Vit, can we do it?”
“Yeah,” he murmured, dragging the word out slowly across his lips as he mapped a trail in his mind. “The north side is lower, easier to climb. We gotta ride over there,” he said, pointing toward the far edge of the mountain, “then we can drop down inside the wall—if they don’t ’ave any men there.”
“I’d like it better if you stay topside and cover me with that Springfield. Then you can dash on out on Man o’ War here if things go to shit—which they probably will. Don’t die in this wasteland, Vito. Go back to Italy, see those kids of yours.”
“Okay, Joe, it’s a good plan. But first, we gotta get you in the goddamn place. It’s almost three now. Let’s go, ’uh.”
“Yeah, we should go. Yippe ki-yay, paesano.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Nothing,” I said, half grinning. “Let’s go.”
86
We rode off several hundred yards and made a wide circle around the front of the hacienda, coming back toward the jutting hills once we’d cleared the broad vista in front of the high ground. The terrain roughed up enough that we had to dismount and walk the horses the last quarter mile. I tied them to a tall ocotillo plant while Vito assessed the incline that towered above us, immense and dark. I shouldered the coiled ropes and hurried over next to him. He had the Springfield in one gloved hand, the binoculars in the other.
He pointed with the rifle toward a natural fold in the rugged surface of the hill several hundred feet up and said, “We can take that cut up this side and around the back. See ’ow it runs almost all the way up? It’s a good path.”
“All right. I’m ready.”
He turned and set off with me close behind. There weren’t many loose rocks so the footing was good. The night air was cool, but before long we were both sweating from the effort, even with our coats tied around our waists. My legs were throbbing after thirty minutes, and I slipped a little every so often, but Vito just climbed on as if he was shelling on Waikiki Beach.
Thoughts of what lay ahead forced their way into my consciousness several times. I beat them back each time, focusing on the job at hand. We’d get to that other part soon enough.
* * *
We made the ridgetop by four and took a blow. Time was short, but the climb had been exhausting. It was better to take two minutes than to go stumbling over the edge of the cliff.
Vito and I scanned for bad guys while we rested, but we had the whole mountain to ourselves, a barren rock under a field of brilliant stars, the panorama below us stretching all the way back to the coast. It could have been a camping trip—but we were no Boy Scouts.
Vito broke the silence as we stood up. “I like what you say—about Italia. I think I’m gonna go ’ome after this, maybe for good. It’s time to start over.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Now you’re cooking with gas. I know a few things about starting over. It’s not easy, but reconnecting with your family’s gotta beat working for that animal Roselli.”
“Maybe I can … we’ll see,” he mused, his words trailing off. Then, “And you, you ever gonna go ’ome, Joe?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been gone a very long time. I don’t know if there is a home for me anymore. Ask them, maybe they know,” I said, waving a hand at the shimmering constellations above us.
“’ey,” he said, grinning, “the gods, they let even Odysseus go ’ome after ten years.”
I smiled back as I tightened up my holster. “Yeah, you’re right about that, my friend, they sure did. But look what he went home to.”
87
The ants moved slowly below me, following an invisible trail as they went about their work. With a thumb roll of the knurled wheel, I tightened the focus of the binoculars, squinting back into them to get a second look.
There were just two of them, weaving back and forth in irregular passes behind the home. Only they weren’t ants; they were armed men trolling the wide space between the back of the house and the base of the cliff. Their efforts were indifferent, torpid—like they were asleep on their feet. But that didn’t mean it would be easy to slip between them.
The house had too many lights on. They didn’t illuminate the area effectively, and they silhouetted the guards for anyone approaching from the hill. An amateur mistake—like the sleepwalking guards—but Casa Bravo had probably never been stormed before.
The learning curve was going to be steep for these guys tonight.
At the extreme left and slightly behind me, the rock wall merged with the cliff. A small wooden gate we hadn’t see from horseback was wedged into the nook where the man-made met the mountain. It was well tucked away, and anyone who got anywhere near it from the outside would catch a quick case of dead if they didn’t know the secret password. But it was the perfect egress point for us.
I twisted halfway around, made a low pssst, and gave a head nod in Vito’s direction. The rope around my ankles went full taut as I pushed up from my prone position, hand-walking backward while Vito hauled me away from the overhang I’d been dangling over like a spider in waiting. I loosened the rope, and we crept back over the top of the ridge to confer.
“Vito, there’s a jumping-off point almost directly behind the house. The rock shears off completely near the bottom, though. You’re going to have to lower me with the rope. It’s fifty, sixty feet, no more.”
“I can do that, no problem.”
“There’s a gate at the north corner of the wall, where it meets the mountainside,” I said, pointing toward it with my finger. “As soon as I’m down, you bounce down the hill, grab the horses, and meet me at that gate. Will twenty minutes be enough time?”
He thought a second, nodded his head.
“If I’m not out before sunup, or if you hear any shooting, just go. Take your horse and ride—no dicking around.”
His eyes met mine for a steely second. He nodded again, said, “Okay.”
“Good. Now what’s the best way down this hill?”
“We gotta zig-a-zag a little, but the hill, she slopes down easy. I see the ledge you mentioned, we can make that. But, Joe,” he cautioned, his stare as hard as the granite beneath us, “don’t slip. You slip, you die.”
I looked down over the ledge, back at Vito, mulling his words. “I don’t know Vit; after so many years of people trying to make it happen, I sometimes wonder if I ever will.”
* * *
It was tedious going down. We had to make our way down the slope carefully, of course, but also in total silence, without loosening any rocks—and against a running clock. We were pretty much the camel going through the eye of the needle at that point.
From the nub of the ledge, I peered down as the guards approached each other. One of them was smoking. Man, were those guys careless. They’d have no shot against whatever ex-OSS guys were probably creeping up the incline now.
Hell, for all I knew, those guys were above us on the ridge, looking down in bemusement at our efforts. I tried not to think about that again.
There was no time to get fancy, and we didn’t have any gear anyhow, so I drew the rope around my chest, made a highwayman’s hitch, and snugged it up while Vito laid out the rope behind him. He doubled it around a large outcropping and tested the base for a foothold. Then he looked at me and nodded that it was okay.
I walked over to him and whispered, “You won’t be able to see me once I go over. Just keep playing out the rope gradually until it slackens. I’ve got four forty. We have less than an hour ’til first light. We need to be way out of here by then.”
He held out his hand and I took it, squeezing firmly. “Buona fortuna,” he said.
“Grazie.”
I leaned over the led
ge and waited until I saw both guards cross and march off in opposite directions. Then I gave Vito a final head nod and stepped over the edge.
88
The rope went tight under my arms as I hung there, suspended over the yard below like a side of beef in a meat locker. After a pause, I began dropping down as Vito played the rope out in herky-jerky two-foot measures.
I swung a little with each one, but the descent was clean. Faint grunts came from the hilltop with each drop as Vito tightened his grip on the rope. The smell of wood smoke was on the air, drifting out from the large chimney in the center of the house as it spiraled up and back.
I scanned the yard as I went down, eyes alive for any signs of movement. Everything was still. At fifteen feet I looked down, preparing for the landing. I almost gasped out loud when I did.
Directly beneath me, a man stepped out of the shadows along the tuck-under at cliff’s edge. He stood there a moment while he buttoned up the fly on his pants, his rifle braced against his side with his arm, cigarette burning beneath a straw sombrero.
I reached for the knot to release it, but he started to walk off just before I did. Now I was seriously screwed. I could either shoot him and blow the whole thing to hell, or I could drop to the ground and have him pop me while I lay there.
There was one other play, right up there with the ol’ Statue of Liberty in terms of viability. But it was fourth and long so I gave it a shot.
Pulling the rope furiously toward me as it dropped, I flung my body backward with all the momentum I could gather. Shifting my weight at the apex of the swing, I swooped down upon the unsuspecting man in front of me.
“Jefe!” I hissed as I whipped forward, knees locked, yanking on the release point of the rope as I closed in.
He turned, and got a face full of boot as I collided with him, both of us going down hard with an Oomph!
I landed heavily on my back, the soft ground and grass more or less breaking my fall. I lay there several seconds, searching for my breath, then sat up.
The guard lay flat on the turf like a fresh-shot buck, motionless but moaning, his rifle several feet away. I scrambled over to him and drove a fist into his temple. It felt shitty hitting a downed man, but this was the wrong night to be shedding tears for the Marquess of Queensberry’s rules.
I looked up, saw what might have been Vito’s face looking down, and gave him a wave-off signal. Then I grabbed the guard’s rifle, took a hold of his feet, and hauled him quickly into the dark recess beneath the cliff, his small sombrero trailing along by the rawhide choker wrapped around his throat.
Along the base of the rock the ground sloped down into a narrow channel worn by some stream eons earlier. This notch, along with the low weeds and limited light, made a pretty good stash for both of us.
I stripped off his dark wool jacket and threw it on, then checked the pockets. There was a pack of tobacco in one and a nasty little surprise in the other—a small leather bag with buckshot sewn inside.
The hat was too small, but the guard also had a heavy, dark beard and I didn’t, so I put it on anyway, scrunching it down as tight as I could and flipping up the jacket collar. Then I picked up the rifle and made for the corner gate a few hundred feet off.
Hugging the rocks, I skulked along the cliff face until I was just twenty feet away. When I was sure I was alone, I darted out of the darkness and pressed myself flat up against the solid oak gate.
Sidling up against the door, I slid out the three-inch-thick wooden batten and laid it on the ground. Then I hauled back on the metal bolt with care and pulled on the door’s handle. It took a little effort, but the gate swung inward a couple of inches. I left it that way, slightly ajar, then set off toward the house, hoping that would be the last of my troubles.
It wasn’t.
89
Halfway to the hacienda, a shadow grew before me in the darkness. Squinting tightly, I made out the outline of a man, a rifle, and a sombrero, backlit by the houselights. It was the other guard, meandering around in that same, somnambular pace.
I stopped and pulled out a cigarette, turning away from him and holding my hands close together, aping a striking motion several times. He changed direction, ambled toward me.
Reaching slowly into my pocket, I withdrew the leaden bag and hefted it up in a cupped hand, marking the oncoming man all the while from the corner of my eye. When he neared, I asked through clenched teeth and a phony accent if he had a match.
He cocked his head, turning an ear toward me. Then he said, “Ahh, sí,” digging into his coat and pulling out a box of matches. About five feet out he realized something was wrong, but by then I had him.
I spun a quick pivot and drove my left hand into his startled face, plowing into his cheekbone with my bonus-weight fist. His legs buckled, then he dropped to the ground, straight as a plum line. I snatched his rifle in midair.
He got the grab-and-drag treatment, too, then I hunkered low in the hidden ditch with my burgeoning guard collection, my heart pegged out at max. I’ve known many men who claimed that they were supernaturally calm while in grave danger—but they were all full of shit.
90
Vito was going to need a little more time to bring the horses around. I hogtied the guards together and stuffed their bandanas into their slack mouths, then thumped them both again just to be sure. I lay there then, still as a sniper in my weed bunker, counting off another five minutes, each one a long, lonely march to the gallows.
I cased the hacienda while I waited, searching for a way in. It was a king’s castle for sure, but nothing I would have expected in rural Mexico.
Casa Bravo was a modern post-and-beam ranch, two stories in height, with stacked stone sides similar to the outer walls. Several floor-to-ceiling glass panels ran across the backside of all three wings, divided at regular intervals by stone partitions. The front façade appeared to be nearly all glass from what I could see by peering through the house. The whole complex was anchored in the center by a massive stone fireplace running through both levels and capped by a large, rectangular chimney on the flat roof.
The left wing and the huge center section were built up above flat ground while the right wing was cantilevered out from a rock shelf, seemingly floating over an escarpment that fell away steeply beneath it. Its walls were also glass, with a sleek balcony running end to end.
I’d underestimated Bravo a bit. The man had good taste—or at least a good architect.
The suspended portion of the hacienda was dark, whereas the other two sections had several lights on in each. I made an educated guess that Bravo’s sleeping quarters were on the right and the living area was in the middle, with the hired hands bunking on the left.
I checked my watch, the outline of the radium-lined hands glowing ghostlike in the blackness. It was five a.m.—time to move. I took off the jacket and the silly hat and then set out across the open grounds, scurrying toward the darkened section of the house.
I made for the clean steel balcony that ringed the sleeping quarters, but as I neared I realized that there was a pronounced gap between the edge of the steep drop-off and the sleeping quarters beyond. There was no way to reach the balcony above.
That left me two choices: slip into the center of the house through a sliding door, then stumble around from room to room looking for Helen, or jump out onto the metal bracing underneath the quarters, clamber up to the outside edge of the balcony, and then play Peeping Tom. Neither option made me want to break out in the aria from Carmen.
There were three bedrooms from what I could see—a large wraparound end unit, and two others inboard of that. The master had to be Bravo’s, so Helen was apt to be in one of the other two. That gave me a fifty-fifty chance—the best odds I’d had all week.
I crept over to the cement retaining wall abeam the extended wing and took a look underneath. There were three large steel poles angling down beneath the edge of the balcony into the concrete foundation thirty feet below. It was about an eight-foot jum
p to the nearest one—not the hardest thing I’d ever done, but definitely a one-shot deal.
If I made the leap, I’d still have to monkey-climb to the top and find a way in, doing it all quietly enough not to wake anyone. If I missed, they’d be hosing me off the rocks come morning.
Crouching down low, I measured the distance with my eyes as I rocked back and forth to get my timing. I took one final deep breath. Then I leaped into the void.
91
Silently I fell, fingers spread wide, clutching for the pole with both hands as I plunged past.
I grabbed it clean, but it was larger in diameter than I’d estimated and I went skidding around the pole, fingers clawing for a grip on the curving surface as my momentum carried me by.
I twisted around in desperation as I began to slip off, looping an arm over the brace and swinging it down, then locking the other hand on my wrist like a vise grip. The crook of my arm took the brunt of the impact, but I held fast, stifling a grunt as I came swinging to a stop, fifteen feet beneath the bedrooms and a hundred more above nothing.
I hung there, holding my breath, waiting several long seconds to make sure I hadn’t woken anyone. When I was sure it was okay, I curled my legs around the pole, hooked them together and began shimmying up slowly toward Bravo’s tree house.
In two minutes I made the lower side of the balcony, just barely reaching the lowest of the three rails. Still clinging tightly to the pole, I stretched out the fingers of my left hand, sliding them around the railing and grabbing hold. I exhaled silently, then grasped the steel bar firmly in my right hand and chinned myself up to eye level with the balcony.
I crept over the railing, then sank down flat on the cold cement patio, crawling across the deck toward the bedrooms, hand then knee, hand then knee, trying to remain out of sight. When I reached the glass of the corner room, I rose up a foot and peeked through vertical louvers rustling gently beneath a ceiling fan.
One for Our Baby Page 26