I know what I should do here. I know what the play is - sit back. Call in the cavalry. Surround him. Take him alive.
The problem is, I’ve been itching to put holes in a motherfucker since Ethan first told me that Lucia’d been taken. I’m gonna gut-shot this piece of shit. I’ll get answers, and my trigger squeeze too.
I’ve taken two steps towards the door when I hear the toilet flush. I stop in my tracks. No fucking way that a sicario just took a shit in my bathroom. And flushed! I hear the faucet run, and somebody washes their hands. I keep my weapon drawn, covering the door, and then it opens.
It’s a kid.
It’s Diego.
Chapter Fifteen
That poor fucking kid. There he was, minding his business and taking a shit, and then he comes out of the bathroom to find me with God only knows what kind of look on my face, and a pistol pointing at his. Good thing he already went.
I lower the pistol instantly, but he’s already starting to shake. I’ve seen grown ass men burst into tears or fill their pants when they come face to face with the business end of a gun. So I know I gotta reassure him, and quick. I cross the short distance to him, put my hands on his shoulders, and give him the most reassuring smile that I can.
“Hey, buddy!” I probably look like Shrek on molly, but I need to keep his mind so busy that it doesn’t have a chance to process the thought that he was a split second away from getting wasted. “I’m so happy to see you! You want some breakfast? Come on, let’s get some breakfast! Man, what a nice surprise!”
A hell of a fucking surprise.
I lead him toward the table and have him take a seat, then I’m over to the fridge like Martha fucking Stewart. “Milk, buddy? Eggs? I got pancake mix. Yo, what about pancakes, and eggs?”
I look at the young kid’s face, and realize he’s looking at me like I’m a crazy person. I drop the cookery act. Back to the Dom he knows. “Diego, why did you come here?” I ask him in Spanish, hoping that he’s been spared the news, and this is a tragically timed ‘fuck my parents, I’m running away’ move.
He looks shaken. “I can’t find my mom and dad. There’s no one at home.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be with your Dad in Juarez?”
The kid shakes his head. “I was in El Paso with mama. She was talking with some people, and told me to wait where I was when she went with them.”
I didn’t need him to tell me that she didn’t come back, but something he said stabbed at me; Lucia had been taken on this side of the border, not in Mexico. I didn’t want to spook the kid, but he read the question on my mind anyhow.
“She looked scared.”
I tried not to show any emotion, instead running over the math. This must have been days ago. “You didn’t go straight to Ethan’s?”
Diego nodded, almost guiltily. “I waited like she said, all day, but when it got dark I got scared. I tried to make my way to Ethan’s, but then a cop on the road saw me walking and shouted at me. And I didn’t want to get sent back to Mexico without my mom, so I ran.”
I shook my head. Jesus. “How the heck did you find this place?”
“Dad brought me here to shoot.” He said, and my heart pumped to hear him describe Ethan that way. I remembered those days as fondly as the kid, watching my brother teaching Diego with patience and pride. A ghost of a good memory pulled the corners of his mouth up into a smile. “I was on the road with the billboard for the sexy girls.” He grinned coyly. “We always pass it on our way here, and I remembered the way from there. I’m not in trouble, am I?”
I crossed the kitchen to him and ruffled the kid’s dark hair. “No buddy, you’re not in trouble.” I looked down at him, and my heart was torn between pity for him, and beating anger towards the people who had thrown this boy’s life to the wolves. “You ready for some breakfast?” I asked him.
He did. But he also wanted something more.
“Uncle Dominic…” He asked me when his plate was clean. “Are my mom and dad okay?”
I know I have to tell him, but I don’t know how, not yet. Instead I look for distraction. Anything.
“Did you bring any things with you? Clothes? Toys?” It’s a stupid question, but maybe I can distract him by promising to take him to get some once the stores open.
“Only this.” The kid says, getting to his feet so that he can pull something from his pocket. It’s stuffed in tight, and he works to get it free with the same kind of effort King Arthur had to use for the sword in the stone.
“Got it.” He says, handing it over to me.
I look down at what’s in my hands. I’ve seen it before. You could say it was my last happy memory. I was drinking beers with my brother, watching Lucia and Diego painting a Sugarman mask for the Day of the Dead celebrations.
Diego sees the look in my eyes.
He smiles.
“It’s for you.”
Chapter Sixteen
After eating everything in the fridge, I fall asleep on the sofa with Diego beside me. I’m not worried about unwanted visitors. I’ve thought it over. Aside from the usual Border Patrol danger, there’s no reason to think that I’m in any more shit than usual. I could drop everything right here if I wanted to. Life could bump along like it always had. I’d need to figure out what to do with the kid, though. His dad’s not an option, and I still haven’t told him that the parents he loved are waiting for their patch of dirt.
Shit.
Diego’s illegal so I don’t need to worry about anybody missing him. He’s good here for now. He is sleeping peacefully as I get up off the couch and go take a shower. I feel like shit but the presence of the kid has at least done something to persuade me that God hasn’t abandoned me. He’s given me some peace, and now I need to put my plan into action to see that others get theirs.
I find something in the freezer that the kid can eat for dinner, then do my best to gently wake him up. “I’ve gotta go out for a while.”
He doesn’t say anything but he doesn’t look too stoked on the idea. At least not until I hand him the remote. “There’s Netflix on there. Watch whatever you want.”
His eyes go a little wide. “Anything?”
“Anything.” If Piranha 3DD isn’t in the recently viewed list when I get back, then I guess I don’t know boys.
I head outside to my ‘garage’, which is just some tin roof on poles. The truck’s space is empty, but my dirt bike is here. I kick up the stand and hit the long driveway out of my ranch.
I bought this place with a VA home loan and the money from my fourth deployment in 2009. Juarez was the most dangerous city in the world at the time, and a lot of people were bailing out, or at least not buying. This ranch belonged to an older guy who’d kicked ass in Korea, and he was worried that it would find its way to a straw buyer for the cartels, who were always looking for legitimately owned land for illegitimate purposes this side of the border. After we talked a bit about killing bad guys, he gave me this place for a steal. I wish the guy was around now. Wouldn’t say no to a salty old vet like him watching my back.
I had had plans for the ranch. Family, first and foremost, but I fucked that one up before all of the others. When you don’t like to think, being alone on a ranch isn’t your friend. Thank God for the Border Patrol.
I turn out of my property and hit what isn’t much more than a dirt road. I follow it almost all the way to the bar before I hit good asphalt, and with a lot of swearing and grunting, I get my bike loaded into the bed of my truck.
A couple of minutes later, I’m outside of Sarah’s motel. She’s waiting for me in the shade, a cigarette down to its last drag. “You look like you just shit an elephant.” She tells me as she stubs it out on the wall.
“So what’s this all about?”
I don’t answer her. Not directly. “What would you have done for your brother?” I ask instead.
“If he’d have ever got over himself enough to ask me?” She grunts with a pained laugh, but then she sees something in m
y eyes, and holds my look. “Anything.” She says, and I believe her.
“Let’s take a drive.”
Chapter Seventeen
We don’t talk as I drive. Sarah gets that this is no road trip, and that our destination is the place for answers. We get off the road and bounce across the country landscape, Sarah following me out into the shimmering heat and the stillness of the desert.
“This way.” I tell her. “Almost there.” I say, because the words are a distraction to myself. I don’t want to remember the last time I was here.
She follows to my side. Out of the corner of my eye I see her face is neutral. No outward signs of the questions she must surely have building up inside her.
We finally come to the river. It breaks the silence of the desert, and I break my own.
“I found her here.” I say, turning to face her. “The woman that your brother loved.”
I see the corners of her eyes lift. The corners of her mouth fall.
She says nothing.
I tell her everything.
Chapter Eighteen
I pull my truck to a stop outside of my house. For a moment I sit behind the wheel. Have I made the right decision?
I told Sarah I was going to tell her everything, and that was the truth, and a lie. I told her everything about how her brother had met and fallen in love with an illegal woman. I told her about how Lucia had taken his dark life and bathed it in light. I told her about how Lucia had been kidnapped, found dead, and that the final tragedy was too much for the man who had loved her more than life itself. I left out that she - they - had a son. And I left out that I planned on finding the people responsible, and killing them all.
“Why are you telling me this?” She asked, knowing that I wasn’t doing it to help her fill out Ethan’s obituary.
“I want the people responsible.” I’d told her. “But you know how things work down here. She was here illegally, and he was a veteran with PTSD. I can’t see them starting a task force over either of them, can you?”
She’d shaken her head. “So you’re it?”
“I’m it. And I could really use your help.”
And then I’d told her how. It wasn’t her field, but Sarah would call in some favors and get me everything she could on the kidnap racket in El Paso and Juarez.
After all that, we’d stood in silence. I could tell there was a question she needed to ask. When she did, it wasn’t the one I was expecting.
“Did Ethan come to you straight away?”
I hesitated. Thrown off. “No.”
“Did he go to the police?”
Another pause. “No.”
Then it was Sarah’s turn to stall. “Do you think that…”
“He killed her himself, and this is a cover up?” I said it with more heat than I should have. Sarah didn’t get defensive.
“War changes people. Could it have changed him?”
I shook my head. “Not like that.” I wanted to tell her about Diego, and how he’d seen his mom leave with strangers, but the fewer people who knew about him for now, the better. I didn’t want loose lips seeing him taken away and shipped back to his junkie dad.
Thinking of the boy, I left the truck running for the AC and walked onto the porch. “Diego!” I called out, and he came running to the door so quick that I expected to see a tail wagging.
“Uncle Dominic!”
“Hey kid.” I said, a little taken aback at the enthusiasm. “Come with me. Let’s go have some fun.”
He smiled back at me, and in his eyes I saw the reflection of his mother’s soul. The kid didn’t know it, but I swore in that moment that tonight, people would bleed for her.
Chapter Nineteen
When I was at war, the hours before a mission would be spent prepping gear, and doing rehearsals. Tonight, it was spent eating cheeseburgers and shooting zombies at an ‘entertainment restaurant’. Diego was kicking my ass, but at least I was getting some trigger time.
“I suck at this.” I told him. “You wanna try the basketball games?” Tall as I was, I’d gotten okay at hoops in the military thanks to killing hours on concrete around the world.
I spotted a net amongst the lights and led Diego to it, arriving at the exact same moment as what I guessed was a mom and her son. She was tall herself, north of 5’10”, with an athletic physique. The kid was a bit older than Diego, and as blonde as her.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling like we’d cut them off, “after you.”
“Oh not at all.” She smiled back, in an American accent I couldn’t pin down. “There’s two lanes. Why don’t we let the kids go?”
She widened her eyes as she said it, as if to say “please God I need a break.”
“Sure.” I smiled. “Hey, Diego. Why don’t you guys make friends?”
He beamed back at me, and he probably thought that life was rosy and that mom and dad would be joining us soon. How could that kid and this woman have any idea that I was just seeing this meeting as the perfect opportunity to help build an alibi? If something went wrong tonight and I got picked up by the law, a jury would have a hard time believing that Mr. Smiley at the restaurant had gone on to slit throats later that night.
“I’m Dom.”
“Anna-Maria. This is Brad. My friends are on date night, so I guess they’re trying to make him a brother or sister.”
I hadn’t met many blonde Anna-Maria’s in my life, and she saw me raise my eyebrows, and laughed. “I take after my dad’s side,” she told me. “Big time. And my mom is Argentinian.”
“I bet there’s a story behind that.” I said politely.
“Oh, you know, that old one about a naval ship coming into port and a sailor knocking up a local girl. The usual romantic tale.”
This time my laugh was genuine.
“You were military yourself,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.
“Ranger. How’d you know?”
“You have that look.”
“And what kind of look is that?”
“Like you used to be jacked, but not enough to be a pro-athlete.”
Fuck, she made me laugh again. “Damn. You nailed it.”
She pretended to shoot for the hoop. “Don’t give me too much credit. I grew up around it. Little Creek, Virginia.”
“Your Dad was a SEAL?”
“He was, yeah.” And something in her tone said that he was no longer walking the earth.
“Hey.” She said quickly. “I’ve got to drop him off and get to a meeting, but…”
I saw where she was going, and spared her the embarrassment. “Here’s my number,” I said, handing her one of my Border Patrol cards. “Meetings at this time, huh? Savage.”
She shrugged. “I’ll tell you about it sometime, Agent Dominic De Leon.” She said, reading my card. “Border Patrol, huh?”
I felt there was an edge to her words, but in a split second her smile was back. “I better get going. Nice to me meet you, Agent De Leon.”
She took the kid’s hand and walked away. I felt Diego’s eyes on me. “Can we shoot more zombies?”
I looked at my watch, and shook my head. The time for games was over. Outside, darkness was falling.
And I was coming with it.
Chapter Twenty
Night has come, and it’s time for me to go. I was worried about getting Diego to sleep, but the kid was out of it as soon as we got back to the house. I told him that I’ve got to work tonight. That’s true enough, in a sense.
I collect the few tools that I need and place them in a ruck. I pull it onto my shoulders, the weight giving me comfort, but I’m stopped on my way to the door by something on the kitchen table; Diego’s Sugarman mask.
“Fuck it.” I pick it up, and put it into my jacket pocket.
I take the dirt bike, hitting the roads first before I break track and kill the lights. I pull a helmet with mounted night vision from my ruck, and cover the next couple of miles cross country, my eyesight back to the familiar green shades of
my wartime service. I know this territory well, and I hide the bike under thick brush - I’ll be covering the last two miles on foot.
I use a weak red light to check my position on my GPS as I head south, closer to the border. Google Earth has given me the top down look I need, and now it’s seared into my mind as I check off landmarks. It’s not long before I see what I came for; a low black shape peeking up on the dark horizon. It doesn’t look much like it did when I was handed a photo in the briefing room, but this is my target; the cartel tunnel.
Chapter Twenty-One
The building that housed the suspected tunnel was an agricultural outbuilding that had seen better days. Likely it had fallen into disuse because it was so close to the border, not three hundred yards away. A rancher would be too worried about leaving equipment in there with how things were these days, and maybe the cartel had spotted an empty building and moved in. More likely they’d sent in somebody half-respectable looking to buy it, and the rancher was either blinded by ignorance, or by dollars.
I couldn’t see any lights as I watched the building from a slight rise a hundred yards away, but I didn’t expect to either. They’d have covered the windows on the inside, because the night was when they did a lot of their work. Sure, the Border Patrol had thermal cameras, but you need eyes to watch a screen, and we just didn’t have enough. Usually I cussed about that kind of thing, but tonight it was in my favor. The only eyeballs I wanted on what I was about to do were in skulls south of the border.
I crawled a few yards backward, then to my right, and into a depression in the ground I made a final check on the tools that I had in my ruck; I’d chambered a round in the pistol when I was out of the range of sound for the building, so I simply pushed my palm against the slide to check that the hollow-point round inside was sitting snug. I slid it into the holster on my hip. Next I lifted a Mossberg 500, and put the sling over my head and shoulder. I’d removed the stock, and she lay comfortably along my side. Finally, I reached down and picked out what I’d seen lying on my kitchen table; Diego’s Sugarman mask. I pulled it over my head, whispered a prayer to my brother Ethan, and stepped out toward the building.
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