by Blake Banner
“No, not good news.”
“Hope you sort it, dude. Bill’s in the post, metaphorically.”
He hung up and I sat staring at the burning tip of my cigarette. For a moment it looked like a burning globe, a scorched planet, a dying world.
It was too big, too vast to comprehend. My head was reeling. I needed to know where Marni had gone. I needed to talk to her. For a moment, I thought about going to the university and abducting Engels’ secretary and beating their whereabouts out of her. But I knew that would not lead anywhere good. All I could do was wait for them to get back.
And hope that she did get back.
I drove the rest of the way to the house through the afternoon sun, left the car down the road, where she wouldn’t see it when she finally came home, and let myself in. It was still silent and dead. I threw myself on the sofa to stare at the ceiling and wait, either for Marni to come back or Red to call and tell me he’d fixed up a meeting with Montilla, or one of his representatives.
I kept getting waves of anger at Marni. Why was she so damn obstinate? Why would she not confide in me? Why did she not trust me? What was it she kept saying? Do your reading. And while she sent me off to do my reading, like some misbehaved school kid, she cozied up with some son of a bitch who was in the pay of the biggest drugs cartel in the world. Smart move, Marni.
Do your reading.
I swung off the couch and went upstairs. I rummaged in my drawer and found the diary she had left for me, back when I’d tracked her to the old hideout we used to use when we were kids on holiday in Turret, Colorado. It was the only thing she could be referring to when she told me to ‘do my reading’.
Why would she want me to read her diary? It was not even current. It was years old, from shortly after she’d graduated, while she was doing her doctoral thesis. I carried it downstairs and dropped on the sofa again, started leafing through it. A lot of it was just reflections about her research and comments about colleagues. As I read, I could hear her voice in my mind, maturing from the passionate, naïve girl to the equally passionate, focused woman. She talked about her growing awareness of her father’s work. She talked about the fact that he had blazed the trail for her, but she didn’t mention how. She talked about his research, but said that there were important notes and documents missing. Vital documents that she needed, and she wondered what he had done with them.
There were other passages where she spoke with love and respect about my father, Robert. She had trusted him and relied on him. He had been a surrogate father for her, until she had discovered—until I had told her—that he had killed her true father.
I turned page after page, searching. What was it she wanted me to read here? What was it I was supposed to find? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps just as she had killed Robert, she now wanted to eliminate me from her life, too. Perhaps the associations were too awful. Perhaps she had grown to hate me.
But my mind went around and around in circles. If she hated me, if she wanted to eliminate me from her life, then why had she made herself, and her plates, so visible at the funeral? She knew what I was like. She knew that would be enough to bring me to Tucson. So what the hell was she playing at? Why, ‘Go home, do your reading’? Why those particular words?
Unless…
I began to look at it from a different angle. I closed my eyes and visualized the ad she’d put in the paper for me. ‘Kyle Rees, you have seen what you came to see. Now go home. Do your reading.’
How did she know what I had seen? She hadn’t even known I was in Tucson. The only things she knew I had seen were her and her plates. As far as she was concerned when she wrote that ad, I was still in Boston. So how could I ‘go home’ if I was already home? She had called me Kyle Rees. Kyle Rees had come from the future to protect Sarah Connor. She had called herself Sarah Connors on the car registration, which she had known I would find.
I sat up. So she was acknowledging that I was there to protect her. She was not rejecting me. Therefore, when she referred to ‘home’ what was she talking about? Back to the beginning? To square one? Back to base? Turret? Our hideout?
Go back to what I had found in our hideout and read it. Why? Apart from suggesting that she was not rejecting me, it got me nowhere.
My cell rang and I grabbed it. It was Red.
“It’s set up for tonight. Come to the Nest. Now.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer. He just hung up.
I smoked another cigarette and thought. Then I stepped out and walked to my car. I had a bad feeling. It was a very bad feeling. I knew things were about to get real ugly, but there was nothing I could do about it except meet the ugliness head on, and fight.
I drove through the gathering dusk, in the fading light of the dying sun, and eventually pulled onto the dusty forecourt of the Hawk’s Nest. The green Jeep had gone, but the other trucks were still there, though their position had changed. They had left and come back. My gut was telling me this was bad, but I could not yet tell why.
I climbed out of the car and walked to the door. It said it was closed, but I pushed in anyway. I took a couple of steps and heard the door thud closed behind me. Red was where he had been, sitting at the table. His boys were sitting around him. The sheriff was behind the bar getting himself a beer. I couldn’t see Chetan, but I knew he was behind me. I knew he was behind me because Cissy was sitting at the table. Her eyes were puffy from crying. My rucksack was there too, with all the money spilled out across the table.
Only Chetan, I told myself, out of this bunch of mental retards, had the brains to work out there was something between me and Cissy, and follow me when I’d left.
I felt the muzzle of his revolver in the back of my neck, and heard the click of the hammer. That was twice, I told myself. Twice since following Marni to Tucson that I had been stupid and careless. And both times had been because of sentimentality over Cissy. There could not be a third time. The third time would cost one of us our life.
Chetan spoke softly in my ear. “You ain’t playing with stupid kids anymore. I’m onto you. Sneeze in a way I don’t like and I will cut her into small pieces and feed her to you. You understand me?”
“What do you want?”
Red grinned. “It ain’t so much what we want, Lacklan. It’s what our new best friend Rafael wants. And he wants you. But before we hand you over, we want to have a little fun. Sit down while I tell you what’s going to happen next.”
Nineteen
It was like a hammer blow, just above my kidneys and into my lower ribs, knocking all the air out of my lungs and sending shards of crippling pain through my chest, sapping the strength from my legs and my arms. Next came the kick to the back of my knee, and I went crashing between the chairs against the table.
I braced myself for the barrage of kicks and stamps that I assumed was coming next. But instead, Red’s boys got up from the table, and while Chetan covered me, they took my Sig and my knife. I could hear Cissy screaming at Red to stop. There was a loud slap, I heard her gasp and then she was silent. I raised my head and saw her blinking away tears. She looked stunned. I mouthed at her, “Shut up!” Then I looked for Red.
He’d moved to the far end of the room and was now returning. He had a long coil of rope in his hands. The sheriff loomed up beside me and clapped his cuffs on my wrists. Next thing Red was looping the rope though the cuffs and tossing it up over one of the rafters. Then he and a couple of his boys heaved and dragged until I was hanging about an inch off the floor.
If you’ve never been hung like that, you have no idea how painful it is. Pretty soon all your back muscles and your intercostals start to go into spasm, you can’t breathe and you start to suffocate. The worst thing is, the harder you try to fight it, the more severe the spasms become. The only thing you can do is try to relax your breathing and go limp. Which is not easy when you have eight guys looking at you, whose main purpose in life is to cause you as much pain as they can.
Red spoke first.
“
You been screwing my girl.”
I shook my head. “I tried, but she wasn’t interested.”
The backhand was fast, and Red was as strong as he was stupid. My head rang like a bell and I heard Chetan’s voice, low and ruthless, saying, “Don’t kill him. We need him for Montilla.”
“Tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth, you fucking asshole. Why do you think I moved out?”
“Why’d you give her the money?”
I snarled at him. “I’m not as stupid as you look, Red! I didn’t give her the fucking money. I stashed it in my room while I checked out the new place and found somewhere to hide it.”
It was a desperate lie, and it sounded desperate. I could see Chetan smiling. Only the second time I’d seen an expression on his face. He was examining my knife.
“I could almost believe you. You lie with real skill. That makes you very dangerous, Lacklan. A man must be very careful with somebody like you. And that’s why I followed you when you left. If you are not screwing Red’s girl, and you did not give her the money, maybe you can explain why we saw you kissing in the doorway.”
I sighed. “I forced her…”
He continued in his relentless, monotonous voice. “Now you are making stupid mistakes, Lacklan. We saw clearly that she kissed you. But you are ready to risk your life to protect her. That means you have feelings for her. That means we have you. We have real power over you.”
I looked at his bland, smiling face and knew that I had badly underestimated him. Sheriff Caleb stepped into view with his thumbs in his belt. He stood up close and stared into my face. “Who are you?”
I held his eye. “The man who’s going to kill you.”
It was stupid and it earned me another backhand, but it made me feel better. I was disoriented, but the taste of blood helped to focus my mind.
“I’m going to ask you again, boy. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
The truth was more improbable than any lie I could dream up. I toyed with the idea of telling him I was CIA. I’d got as far as wondering how they’d check that and how I could confirm it, when suddenly, out of the blue and for no apparent reason, Red started whaling into me with his fists, snarling and spitting, pounding my ribs and my face. The pain was excruciating. They train you to deal with this kind of thing in the Regiment, but it never gets easy. All you can do is withdraw inside, go with the pain and promise yourself vengeance when the time come.
I felt my lip swelling and tried to keep my eyes away from his fists. When that time came, I wanted to be able to see him; to see his face.
Chetan and the sheriff dragged him away. His cheeks were crimson and he was screaming, “You think you can come here, screwing my woman, takin’ my money, you mother fucker!”
Chetan held up my Fairbairn & Sykes. “This is a military knife. Its used by the British Commandos. Your piece, Sig Saur p226 Tacops. That’s an expensive gun. Also used by the military.” He pointed at me. “You are military. Now I’m going to ask you one more time nicely, and after that it’s going to get bad. Who are you and what are you doing here?”
I closed my eyes and sighed. It was genuine. Right then, I was all out of options. I told the most convincing lie I could think of, because they would never believe the truth.
“I’m special ops. I’m here on an assignment that does not concern you. Like a damn fool, I fell for Cissy and got dragged into this bullshit.”
Chetan frowned at the blade of the knife. “Special ops? What the hell is a special ops operative doing in Arizona? Shouldn’t you be in Iraq or Afghanistan?”
“You’re way out of date, pal. The enemy isn’t overseas anymore. It’s right here at home.”
He gave a rueful snort. “Ain’t that the truth.” But then he got that constipated look and spread his hands. “But all this? Arana, Romero… What was that? In your spare time while on another assignment?” He shook his head. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
Put like that, I kind of agreed with him, but it was also kind of true. I sighed again. “Think of me as Superman, truth and justice, the American way.” I jerked my head at Red. “I saw this son of a bitch beating up on his girl, and it made me mad. When I get mad, I have no sense of proportion.”
Red was staring at his pal. “You believe this shit?”
The sheriff said, “He ain’t a Fed, that’s for sure. And he ain’t from the Arizona PD.”
Chetan gave a single nod. “He’s military. He ain’t law enforcement. He’s either acting solo or his story is true.”
Red walked up and stood bending his knees and adjusting his shoulders, like his skin didn’t fit. “So, what happens now, Mr. Special Ops? We hand you over to Montilla, he’s gonna gut you like a fish. What happens then?”
“You serious, Red? Have a look around. What do you think is going to happen when my team comes looking for me?”
Chetan chuckled and stood. “The military don’t avenge their own. That ain’t how it works. You sign up, you know the score. Especially special ops. Either way, we hand him over to Montilla and it’s the Sinaloa’s problem, not ours.”
Red shook his head. “That’s it?”
Chetan stood close to him, so they were almost touching. “We don’t give a shit what his story is, Red. We only care about what it ain’t. He ain’t after us. He ain’t interested in us. Whatever he was sent here for, it was not you and me. His beef with us was personal. So we give him to Montilla and wash our hands.”
Red’s voice was almost hysterical. “And what about me? I’m entitled to me revenge. Eye for an eye…”
Chetan’s voice dropped to a rasp. “You get that when we hand him over to the Sinaloa.”
The sheriff broke in, sounding reasonable. “Get a grip, Red. Don’t show yourself up in front of your boys.” Red and Chetan stared each other down for a count of five, then Red said, “Cut him down.”
Two boys cut the rope. I tried to stand but my legs buckled and I sprawled on the floor. A powerful hand grabbed the scruff of my neck and dragged me to my feet. Then they took my arms, pulled me stumbling across the bar and out the door into the parking lot. There was no moon, the stars were pinpricks of cold light in a black sheet of emptiness. And from where we stood, on the edge of the desert, Tucson was a glow on the horizon, that right then seemed very far away.
The sheriff slapped Red on his shoulder. “I can’t be a part of this. I’ll catch you later. Let me know how it goes.”
He crossed the lot, climbed in his truck, and drove away into the night. When he’d gone, Red came up close to me and grabbed my face in his hand. There was madness in his eyes, like a kind of frenzy. “You’re going to hell, boy. Tonight, you are going to hell.”
They bundled me in the back of an SUV with a baboon on either side. All around me doors slammed like a fusillade. The engines roared, the tires kicked up dirt, and we were away. I didn’t see where Cissy was, or even if they’d brought her, but I was guessing they had her in a truck behind us. I was also pretty sure that tonight was not going to end well for either one of us. There was death in the air. Death and madness. You could smell it.
We drove fast, in convoy, plunging west through the desert. At first I thought we were headed for Three Points, and we were going back to Mexico through Abasse. But we hit Three Points and kept on going on the Ajo Highway. We kept going for an hour, till we came to Sells. At Sells, we turned south onto Route 19. The lights of the town died away behind us and we plunged on, deeper into the darkness.
Somewhere inside I was aware that I might be afraid. I was aware I could well die that night. I would almost certainly be tortured. And they had Cissy. As long as they had Cissy, I was powerless.
I was also aware that I was no longer dealing with saps like Red. Chetan was smart, and Montilla was going to be real smart. I was in trouble, and right to be scared. I had lost control of the game, and I was going down fast.
We drove for fifteen minutes, crossed through the scattered cluster of hou
ses that was the village of Topawa, and kept going south. I began to think maybe we were going to cross the border. Maybe we were going into Mexico.
But we weren’t. After another fifteen minutes, we arrived at a scattering of shacks and buildings gathered around a small gas station. We turned right off the 19 and onto a dirt track. There were no roads or streets here, just beaten paths between ramshackle buildings. We came to a halt outside an old, whitewashed church. The pale walls looked almost blue in the starlight.
Chetan spoke for the first time since we’d left the club. “This is the old mission of San Patricio. The white government here stole our country, put us on reservations, like rare animals, like they were doing us a favor. Now they neglect us so that we live in ghettos on our own land. But Montilla and Chavez, through the Sinaloa, they help their people. In Mexico they build schools, hospitals and affordable housing. They help the poor, they help people get back on their feet when they have been robbed and exploited by the multinationals.
“Now they are going to help us here. Soon the people of San Patricio will have business projects, maybe a casino, a hotel, opportunities…” He turned in his seat to look at me. “What do you think, white man? You think we should trust you instead of him?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “White man?” I jerked my head at Red. “Who’s he, Sitting Bull?”
He leered at me and turned to look out of the windshield again. Out of the darkness in the south, an intense light appeared, seemed to warp and separate, like a crazy dividing cell, then resolved itself into a column of headlamps headed our way.
I felt sick. Things were about to get ugly.
Twenty
There were three dark blue Audis. They approached at a sedate pace, came off the road making small plumes of dust, and pulled up in front of the mission church. The doors opened almost simultaneously and ten men got out. They were all dressed in dark suits and they all had long, dark blue coats. It was like a scene from Men in Black.