Venice was in her office, a functioning monument to modern style, its sharp lines and chrome-and-glass aesthetic a harsh contrast to the darkly wooded gentlemen’s club vibe in Digger’s digs.
“Okay, Ven, what’s up?” Gail called as she approached.
“Those contacts that Digger sent us from the jungles? We got an interesting hit. One of the dead Americans had placed a recent call to a Randy Goodman.”
“Why does that name ring such a loud bell?”
“That’s the name of the pilot who abandoned the guys in the jungle last night,” Venice explained.
Gail scowled. “Is there reason to believe that they’re the same people? Seems a little on the nose to me.”
“There’s no reason to believe that they’re not the same,” Venice replied. “I think it’s worth noting, though, that the two of them spoke within twenty-four hours of mission launch.”
Gail’s heart skipped a beat. Could it really be this simple? “Twenty-four hours, eh?”
“It’d be one heck of a coincidence.”
“And we don’t believe in those, do we?” Gail said.
“We know that Digger doesn’t,” Venice said with a smile. “I know you don’t want to be pulled back into this side of the business, Gail, but—”
“I know,” Gail said with a sigh. “There’s no one else. So, where am I going?”
* * *
There was no way Jonathan was going to remember all the names. Gloria and Tomás were easy, if only because he’d had conversations with them. Then there was the one-eyed kid—Santiago, if he remembered right—whom everyone treated like shit. It wasn’t Jonathan’s place to play camp counselor, but he hated to see the handicapped kid be ostracized. Of course, Santiago didn’t help his own case by wearing that stupid plaid headband and whining all the time. It was one thing to be scared—hell, if you weren’t scared in this circumstance, then you weren’t human—but it was something else to tell people that you were scared. Repeatedly. The fact that Santiago was on the older side among the orphans—Jonathan pegged him at maybe fourteen—somehow made the whining worse.
They’d been on the move for three hours, without a break. The pace was impossibly slow, and efforts to enforce silence among the herd of children were even less successful than the efforts to keep everyone together.
Despite Boxers’ dire predictions, no one had shot themselves yet, even though all were armed. Seemed they’d been able to abscond with more firepower than he’d realized in the confusion of their escape. It seemed that everybody had grabbed a rifle and a chest rig, and quite a few had grabbed boxes of bullets. Because they had more 5.56-millimeter ammo than the oddly shaped 7.62-millimeter ammo that fed AKs, Jonathan had selected M4s as the weapon to be carried. It also had the advantage of being considerably lighter than the wooden-stocked Kalashnikovs. Jonathan respected the AK as a fine and reasonably accurate rifle of the people, but too many of the people who’d tried to kill him over the years had carried it, and he held a grudge.
He made them stash the unneeded materiel in the bushes.
Jonathan had let them load up with a full mag, but with chambers empty and safeties on, and he let them load spares for their chest rigs. All but the two ten-year-olds. They were welcome to a rifle, but there was no way to cinch the chest rigs tightly enough for their scrawny bodies. It was hard for Jonathan to scare up a scenario where he would want support from a bunch of armed children, but in none of those few scenarios was there a role for an unloaded rifle. If shit happened, all they would have to do is rack the bolt and go to work. They’d have thirty chances to hit a target before they went dry, and then with the extras, they could load up and do it again.
At first, the boys in particular had enjoyed the tacti-cool look of being kitted up, but now the reality of the weight and the chafing had begun to sink in, and the rain and the heat didn’t help at all.
Oh, God, the rain. It had fallen constantly, without letup, since the wee hours, alternating between opaque gully washers and saturating drizzle, and the effect was a feeling of being parboiled. Even the kids bitched about it, and they had spent their entire lives here. On the plus side, the rain kept most of the bugs at bay, and more importantly, it kept curious aircraft grounded. Every hour bought them additional distance from the site of the explosion, and every foot of additional distance put them farther away from whatever search pattern Alejandro Azul and his goons would put into place.
Jonathan was dismayed to learn that Azul’s brother was among the casualties. Venice hadn’t wanted to tell him, but he’d learned to read her voice, and he knew she’d been holding something out on him. He didn’t give much of a damn that he’d killed the guy’s brother, per se—hell, he’d killed a lot of people over the years, and every one of them was somebody’s son or brother—but it was distressing to learn that Azul had additional motivation to be exceptionally vindictive.
It was the way of things in his business. Once the killing started, it could be very hard to stop. His only real chance at survival was to get the hell out of Mexico.
Jonathan kept Dawkins with him—he was, after all, the real focus of this cluster—and he’d assigned Boxers to take up the rear to wrangle stragglers and to protect against an assault from their blind side. The last broadcast he’d heard from Big Guy—about five minutes ago—mentioned something about how easy it would be to “snap these skinny necks.” Perhaps he was going to need relief soon.
Jonathan heard footsteps approaching from behind, and he swiveled his head to see one of the older girls of the group closing the gap. When she was level with him on his left, she fell into step with him. He figured she wanted to talk, but it was not a conversation for him to start. It took her about a minute.
“Are we truly going to the United States?” she asked in Spanish. She wore her long black hair in a ponytail tied with a rubber band.
“What’s your name?” he asked. “I know you told me, but it’ll be a while before I get them straight.”
“Angela,” she said. “I’m fifteen years old.”
“Nice to meet you, Angela.” He didn’t offer to shake hands, and neither did she. “And what do you think about that idea?”
“Are we?” Angela pressed.
He smiled. “Yes, we are.”
“How are we going to get there? The boys say we’re taking a boat. Is that true?”
He danced his eyebrows. “I guess you’re just going to have to trust me,” he said.
“Why should I do that?”
“Because you seem like an intelligent young lady.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
Jonathan chose not to respond.
They walked together in silence for the better part of a minute before Angela said, “We’re afraid of gringos.”
“And why is that?” Jonathan sensed that he was walking into a rhetorical trap of some sort but saw no harm in following the script.
“The other gringos were not as nice as you,” she said. “In fact, they were cruel. Especially to the girls.”
Jonathan deeply did not want to ask the next question, but she’d teed it up for a reason. “Did they . . .” He hoped the context of the pause would suffice for words he didn’t want to speak.
“They did what men always do,” Angela said. Rather than look away, as Jonathan would have expected given the subject, she drilled him with a harsh glare.
“Who were these gringos?”
“The men who came with the guns,” she said.
“Who did they work for?”
“I never asked. But they looked like you.”
Jonathan gave her a curious look.
“Muscular,” she said. “Fit. Like American military.”
“Or maybe police?” Jonathan said.
“I don’t know police who look like that,” Angela said.
“Was it always the same men?” Jonathan asked. “Who came with the guns, I mean.”
“And to molest us,” Angela said. “Yes
, always the same.”
“Why didn’t Nando protect you from the men?” Jonathan asked. “Was he afraid?”
Angela scoffed. “No, he was not afraid. He’s the one who sold us to them.”
Jonathan felt his ears grow hot. “So Nando was a monster,” he said.
“That’s too nice a word,” Angela said. “Are you sure that he is dead? Did you see him die?”
“I saw his body,” Jonathan said. “If it helps set your mind at ease, I’ll tell you that his brain was mostly outside his head.”
“Good,” Angela said. She lowered her voice. “Maybe Gloria will be next.”
Tough kid, Jonathan thought. He didn’t want to press too hard on the point about Gloria, but he tucked it away.
“We have a long way to go,” she observed.
“Yes, we do.”
“Do you think we can make it? Alive, I mean?”
“I know we can,” Jonathan said. “If I had any doubt, I wouldn’t have started.”
“You cannot be certain about the future,” Angela said.
“Some elements of it you can,” Jonathan said. “I know for a fact that Mr. Dawkins, Big Guy, and I will win the day. We will not fail. We might have to fight hard to win, but we won’t lose.”
“What about the rest of us?”
Jonathan gave her a long look. “Are you going to believe what I tell you?”
“I guess that depends on what you tell me.”
Jonathan shifted his eyes back to the front. “Nope,” he said. “Not good enough.”
Angela laughed. “What’s not good enough?”
“Your answer. You have to tell me up front that you’ll believe what I tell you.”
“How can I do that?”
“Apparently, you can’t. That’s fine.”
A grin appeared on Angela’s face. For the first time, she appeared to be something other than terrified or angry. It was a good look for her. “Now you have to tell me.”
“Promise me.” He liked seeing the flash of humor in her eyes.
“Okay, I promise you.”
“Promise me what?”
“That I’ll believe what you tell me.”
“Are you sure?”
She slapped his arm. “Come on!”
As if on cue, shouting erupted among the kids behind him, and he whirled to find two boys locked in the kind of fight that existed only among children, locked in a mutual bear hug and rolling on the ground, searching for the advantage the eluded both of them.
“Goddammit,” Jonathan grumbled. He’d taken only three steps toward breaking it up when Tomás waded into the fray. Only a year or two older than the combatants, Tomás grabbed each of the other boys by their collars, wedged his sneaker-clad foot between them to separate them, and then flung each to the side, where they landed hard on the mulch. When one of them tried to rise again, Tomás used the sole of his foot to push him back down.
“Stop it!” Tomás yelled, his M4 slung, muzzle down, across his back. “What is wrong with you?”
“He started it!” said the one who’d been pushed back onto the ground.
“I don’t give a shit!” Jonathan yelled. “I’ve got this, Tomás.” He patted Tomás on his shoulder, then took his spot between the two fighters. “I don’t care if he stole your lunch, insulted your girlfriend, or made fun of your mother. We will not fight among ourselves. Do you understand me?”
“But he—”
“No! I don’t care,” Jonathan said. “What’s your name?”
The boy dared to stand up, and Jonathan let him. “My name is Diego,” he said.
“How old are you?”
“I’m thirteen.” He looked like every other kid to Jonathan’s eye. Short, skinny, and barefoot, he wore a dirty white wife beater over his khaki shorts, which themselves were frayed at the edges, leading Jonathan to believe that they had begun life as long pants.
“And you?” Jonathan said to the other kid. “Get to your feet. Tell me your name and how old you are.”
As the kid arose from the ground, Jonathan realized that this presumed boy was in fact a girl. “My name is Sophia,” she said. “I’m thirteen, too, and if that son of a whore ever touches my chest again, I’ll cut off his balls and feed them to him.”
Jonathan had to stifle a laugh, but he forced himself to stay in character. “No, you won’t,” he said. “You won’t have to. If that happens again, let me know and I’ll beat him blue.” He turned to Diego. “Are we understanding each other, young man?”
Diego looked at his feet and nodded.
“Say it,” Jonathan said.
“Yes.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
The rest of the kids had come in closer to witness the spectacle. In the near distance, he saw Boxers closing in, too.
“Do we have everybody, Big Guy?”
Standing next to the gaggle of children, Boxers looked like a storybook giant. “All except for the one I fried up and ate,” he said. Next to blowing shit up, projecting menace was Big Guy’s favorite thing.
Jonathan beckoned them all in closer with wide circular motions of both arms. “Everyone, gather around. Sit down if you’re tired.” As they assembled, Jonathan pulled the camouflaged boonie hat off his head and wrung the water out of it. Not that it would do any good.
“Okay,” Jonathan said. “I want every one of you to listen carefully. We have a very, very long way to go. I understand that you are all children, but if you don’t start acting older beyond your years, you are not going to live very long.”
He focused on Sophia and Diego. “You two are thirteen years old. That’s plenty old enough to know not to be stupid.”
Nervous laughter rippled through the group.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” Jonathan said. “Not a single one of you. Do you comprehend what the stakes are here? Are you aware that one of the world’s most brutal killers is hunting us?”
Gloria stepped forward. “Come now, Mr. Scorpion. We don’t want to—”
“Frighten the children?” Jonathan interrupted. “Yes, I do. It’s only fair. It only takes one of you to screw up to get everyone else killed.”
The youngest boy in the front of the assembly put his face in his hands and started to cry.
“Don’t do that,” Jonathan said. “No crying. Do that on your own time when this adventure is over.” He started wandering among them. “Starting right at this moment, you are all going to stop feeling sorry for yourselves and start working as a team. We’re all going to become one living survivor with multiple heartbeats. We will put aside all the bullshit kid stuff, and we will push ourselves. You will survive, and you will thrive. There will be blisters, and there will be aching muscles, and we will push all those things out of our minds, because if we give in to them, we will die.”
“Is it true we have to go over one thousand kilometers?” a young girl asked.
“What’s your name?”
“Renata. And I am ten years old.” Great smile and perfect teeth. Her shirt looked like a boy’s hand-me-down.
“Yes, Renata, that is true.”
“We’ll never make it,” said the boy who’d been crying.
“Name and age.”
“I’m Leo, and I’m ten years old. Almost eleven.”
Jonathan stooped to his haunches to get closer to the boy’s level, but he continued to speak in a voice they all could hear. “Leo, I never want to hear you say anything like that again. Of course we will make it.” He stood again. “Big Guy and I always win.”
Jonathan planted his fists on his hips and considered his words. He wanted to make sure this next part came out exactly right. “Pay very close attention as I tell you one of the most important truths you’ll ever hear. If you refuse to accept that failure is possible, then success is guaranteed.”
From his peripheral vision, he saw Angela roll her eyes.
Jonathan pointed his finger at her. “Scoff if you want,” he said, “but I h
ave seen it work dozens of times. I have seen far too many brave, skilled soldiers give up and write a good-bye letter to their sweethearts, only to die soon thereafter.”
“It’s mind over matter,” Tomás said.
“More than that,” Jonathan said. “To show fear or to hold doubts about success means taking your eye off of the mission. It means putting yourself ahead of the team. When you allow yourself to think about anything but success, you make the kinds of mistakes that can get people killed.”
“People get murdered all the time when they’re just minding their own business,” Diego said.
“I’m not talking about street murder. I’m talking about people fighting to prevail over an enemy. Sure, there’s always the sniper shot from two hundred meters away, so it’s not a perfect rule. But generally, when the shooting is over and the dust settles, the people who are left standing are the ones who never quit.”
He watched the fear settle over the crowd. They started chattering among themselves.
Gloria took another step forward. “Scorpion, I must insist—”
“You insist on nothing,” Jonathan snapped. With Angela’s implication that Gloria had looked the other way as children she was responsible for were raped, he’d lost interest in anything Gloria had to say.
“If there is more shooting, we will be ready,” Tomás said. He shifted his M4 into port arms.
“Will there be more shooting?” Sophia asked.
“I don’t know,” Jonathan said. “I think it’s a very real possibility, and frankly, with a bunch of kids in tow, I don’t know what to expect from you.”
“We are all stronger than you think,” Angela said.
“Then prove it,” Jonathan said. “Prove it to one another before you even try to prove it to me.” He started pacing through the crowd again. “None of you are strangers to violence. You wouldn’t have been at the House of Saint Agnes if your parents had not been killed. You know that when violence comes, it arrives quickly and it shows no mercy. There is no forgiveness for mistakes. I don’t want a fight, and I will do what I can to avoid one, but the only way I can possibly do that is for us to keep moving, so we can put as much distance as possible between us and those who are trying to find us.”
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