by Andrew Gross
“Get away from him, Lauritzia. This man is about to die, and I do not want him to soil you one more second. It’s over for him. In this world. The rest, I can only hope, is only just beginning . . .”
“Papa,” she uttered again, still in shock, and moved away.
“So this is the big finale?” Eduardo Cano showed his teeth and laughed. “You sound like a fucking priest, Oscar. This is your big revenge? The afterlife? Eternal damnation. As if I need you to consign me to hell. Well, I hope it tastes sweet. Very sweet. You look a little thin, Oscar. Have you been eating your own cooking?”
“I’ve been living on the dream of one day holding this gun at you, Eduardo, and now I feel pretty full. You asked what I would say . . . well, I too have dreamed of this. And what I ask you is, why? Why, Eduardo? Was it that I betrayed you? The one you took up from nothing. Because of what I knew. Who we were meant to kill that day . . . You could have taken any of my children, and it would have kept me in anguish for the rest of my life. But all? Even their unborn children. Even unfed dogs do not act like this. Why?”
Cano wiped his face and looked into Oscar’s eyes; even holding the gun, Oscar seemed to shrink from his presence. “You think it was to protect myself, eh, Oscar? Or my friends up north who let us battle to the death in our own country? You are a fool. It was because I thought it would bring you out from under a rock, you cowardly cur. It was because each one, I thought, Now, this will bring him back. To face me. So that I could kill you myself. So I could strangle the life out of you with my own hands. No man could sit by and watch his family slaughtered one by one. But you didn’t come. Each one, you still chose to hide, while I took the things you loved. What of that, Oscar? Even the most cowering lizard in the desert does not behave like that.”
“I was in U.S. custody, you bastard. I could not come.”
“Well, now the coward has his revenge. Go on, get it over.” Cano turned his back to him. “I’ll make it easy for you. See if you have the guts. Go on. Right in the back of the head. Isn’t that want you want, Oscar? You can brag about it. The killer of El Pirate. Do it now. Take your big revenge.”
Oscar moved up behind him and placed his gun to the back of Cano’s head. “Do you know what day it is, Eduardo?’
“The day the worm catches a cow and has his banquet.”
“It is November second.”
“Ha, the Day of the Dead! What a fucking joke! Now go on. Before it becomes November third. I’m sure your daughter can’t wait to see my brains sprayed all over her pretty outfit.”
“No more talk, Eduardo. Your time has come. See you in hell.”
Oscar stiffened to shoot, but in the same instant, Cano’s hand darted toward his belt and came out with the blade sheathed there, and as if in the same motion, he thrust it downward and spun away from the gun and dug it into Oscar’s knee.
Oscar yelped, buckling, the gun firing wildly, the bullet missing Cano’s head and shattering a lamp by the bed.
Cano pivoted and came upward with the blade, slashing Oscar across the forearm, tearing the gun from his grip and sending it rattling across the floor.
Lauritzia screamed.
“I told you to shoot me, Oscar, didn’t I?” Cano said, his eyes now ablaze with a coyote’s gleam, and he kicked Oscar’s legs out from under him, toppling him to the floor, and reached into his belt and took out his own gun. He thrust his knee onto Oscar’s chest and pushed his gun into Oscar’s mouth. “I gave you the chance, didn’t I? What a pair you are. One is a coward and the other one only talks of heaven. You know what day it is? Of course I do, Oscar, this is the day you die. Not me.”
Oscar looked up, his eyes darting in futility, his thoughts rushing to Lauritzia. His arm flailed, seeking to locate his gun on the floor, his fingers grasping. Cano raised the muzzle to the roof of Oscar’s mouth. “You were a cook when I found you, and you will always be just a cook. I am El Pirate. No one tells me when I die. I tell you! Now, eat this, asshole—”
“No—you are wrong, El Pirate!” It was Lauritzia who spoke, who now pressed her father’s gun to the back of Cano’s skull. “Just this once we do.”
She squeezed.
Cano spun, his eyes wide in terror, as the side of his face caved in, like a building imploding. He rolled off Lauritzia’s father and landed face first on the floor. Even dying, his hands kept grasping and twitching, like an animal moving around without its head, trying to locate his gun. His eyes rolled up, but they still had that arrogant laughter in them. I decide who lives and dies. I do. His chest still rising and falling with his breath, as if he were some vampire Lauritzia had seen on TV, who would not die.
He would never die.
She went up and put the gun against his temple. “For me, heaven will have to wait, but for you, hell is ready, El Pirate.”
She pulled the trigger again. This time he didn’t move.
“Just this once, we do.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Deputy Director Carol Sinclair, third in line at the Department of Homeland Security, stepped into the makeshift offices of the joint task force investigating the deaths of Agent Raymond Hruseff and David Gould.
With her was Richard Sparks, who headed up the FBI’s New York office, along with three military-looking men in suits.
The dozen or so agents manning phones or sitting behind computers sat up or hastily threw their jackets on.
“Where is Senior Agent Dokes ?” the deputy director asked them.
At first, no one spoke up. Not that anyone actually knew his whereabouts. Only that he was in the field. Following up on a lead. Dokes was their senior officer in the investigation. You didn’t rat out your superior, even when your superior’s superior came into the room. Even with a good chunk of the U.S. military police standing behind her.
At least for about five seconds.
“He’s not around, sir,” a nervous agent said, standing up. “Agent Holmes may be able to help you. I know they’ve been in touch.”
“Thank you,” the deputy director said, her tone clipped and about as frigid as a glacier.
Sinclair continued down the hall, stopping at the glass-enclosed workspace that was home to the task force’s senior leadership. It took about a second for the redheaded agent at the desk to see who stood at his door. He jumped up, throwing on his jacket and straightening his tie, his mind doing eighty to figure out just why they were here. “Ma’am!”
“I’m looking for Senior Agent Dokes.” The deputy director stepped into his office.
The Homeland Security agent cleared his throat, the first time he’d been addressed directly by someone of this rank. “I’m afraid he’s not here, ma’am.”
“And where might I find him?” She had a handful of files in her hands. “There are some questions he needs to answer.”
Questions that had landed on her desk about how David Gould’s blood had shown up in a completely different place from where Dokes claimed he was killed. Questions relating to certain government postings throughout his career. That coincided with other events that now had come to light.
“He’s out.” The young agent cleared his throat, thinking he may have backed the wrong horse in this race, the race of his once promising career. “He’s in the field.”
“The field?” The deputy director looked at him skeptically.
“Yes, sir.” The agent swallowed. “The field.”
“You were with him, at the Goulds’ house, the night David Gould was shot, weren’t you, Agent Holmes?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Holmes felt his stomach plummeting. “I was.”
“So why don’t we have ourselves a little discussion . . .” The deputy director dropped the files on his desk. “And then you can tell me just where we can find Senior Agent Dokes.” Her gaze had the firmness of concrete. “In the field.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
When I finally came to, everything was bumpy; I had the sensation of being tossed around. I found myself in a car—a Ra
nge Rover or Jeep, actually—my wrists bound in front of me and clasped to a handle bar on the dashboard. I yanked them toward me, and they didn’t move.
Next to me, Dokes was driving. I blinked several times, trying to clear the fuzziness from my head. Along with the throbbing ache. We were on a dark road, no longer in town. And this didn’t have the feel of an official trip. I was pretty certain that ache was about to become the least of my worries.
“Where are you taking me?” I turned to Dokes.
“It doesn’t matter where I’m taking you. How about we say the beach.” There was a tiny chuckle in his reply. “Do you like the beach, Wendy?”
I looked around and recognized the main road, 160, that led in and out of Gillian. “There’s no beach around here.”
“Don’t be so sure. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
I didn’t like that no one else was in the vehicle. If Dokes was arresting me, he’d certainly have a support team along with him. My mind flashed to Lauritzia. I didn’t know if she was dead or alive. Dead, I figured. I’d gotten there too late. We went over a bump, and I lurched forward, held back by the handle bar.
“You should’ve just stopped,” Dokes said with an air of resignation. “Back in that hotel when I told you to.”
“If I had, I’d be dead,” I replied. “We both know that.”
“Maybe. But you surely would have saved us both a lot of trouble. There must be a lesson in there somewhere though.”
“I’m waiting . . .”
Dokes shrugged, slowing the vehicle. He put on his turn signal. Left. “Beware the piano player.” He chuckled as he turned the car. “Next time someone asks you up to his hotel room . . .”
He pulled onto another road, and it was only then that I saw where we were heading.
The beach.
The Great Sand Dunes National Park.
And that’s when I understood just what we were doing here. We weren’t heading to any place. But to the middle of nowhere. The beach . . . And this would be my last ride. I jerked on my cuffs. It only made them tighter. I jerked them again in anger and desperation, trying to rip the handle bar off the dashboard.
It didn’t budge. Just dug the cuffs deeper into my wrists until they hurt.
“You know it’s true, what they say about them,” Dokes remarked at my frustration. “I could have told you that.”
We drove into the dark park. We approached the front gate. It was unmanned. Dokes drove around it anyway, bouncing onto the tundra. This was one of those open natural sites. No fences or manmade barriers to keep it in. You could get at it from probably a hundred directions, especially in the right vehicle.
“Isn’t this a bit after hours, Dokes?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Not my hours.”
I was growing scared. My heart started to beat faster. I knew he was taking me up there, deep into the acres and acres of desolate, barren dunes, to kill me. I jerked at the bar again. It was only tiring me out.
“You think that’s really gonna make a difference.” Dokes grinned at my desperation.
I said, “I know why you’re doing this. I know what this is all about. I know what Curtis found out about Culiacán. That the DEA agents killed there weren’t the intended targets that day. That it was Lasser’s daughter.”
“I know you know.” Dokes shrugged dismissively. “What else would you be doing here?”
“And I also know where it leads,” I said, my tone growing harder and more frantic. “I know you all used to work in El Paso in the DEA. For Sabrina Stein. I know the Mexican government came up with the idea to let one cartel win, as their way to stop the violence. I know the U.S.’s role in that was to procure the arms. Lasser’s job. Just the Juarte cartel. That’s why you’re doing this to me. So that it doesn’t come out that the U.S. government was arming drug traffickers and took sides in the war between narco-terrorists. That it basically allied itself with the Juarte cartel.”
“All very interesting.” Dokes nodded. We left the paved road and began to bounce over the sand. “Too bad you won’t be able to tell anyone.”
“I’m not the only one who knows this. Others do too, and when I disappear, they’ll bring it all out. We have the proof.”
“You really think that’s what this is all about?” We started to climb. I saw a sign: MEDANO CREEK. An arrow pointing. Another sign read: DUNES.
That was what we took.
“Trust me,” he said, “it’s a whole lot larger than that.”
“What could be larger than the U.S. government taking sides in the drug wars? Arming killers and drug cartels?” I racked my brain for what I had missed, for what was still out there.
Dokes merely laughed at me. “My career.”
“Your career? Are you insane? Your career is more important than the United States supplying millions of dollars in illegal arms to drug cartels?”
This time he wasn’t laughing. “It is to me.”
He drove down the long main roadway toward the shapeless, dark mountains. Thousands of acres of them. I remembered looking it up. Whatever he had in store for me, by morning there would be no trace. It was pitch dark. The winds were whipping. The moon shed some light on the crests of the dunes, rolling like huge black waves in a turbulent sea. Soon we began to bounce. I had to cling helplessly to the handle bar to keep from being thrown out of my seat. The vehicle climbed a steep, dark incline, Dokes downshifting and powering through. The headlights cut through the darkness, flashing a widening cone of light ahead. Then the car pitched forward, like we were surfing a giant wave, traversing the backside of the dune and heading out into virtually nowhere.
“Please, please,” I begged him, becoming really scared now. He just kept his gaze on the road, focused intently ahead.
“You don’t have to do this. You’re a government agent, for God’s sakes. Do you have kids? I do. Two. You know that. They don’t have a father now. Please, please, Dokes, don’t do this.” He ignored my pleas. “Say something to me, goddamn it. Dokes. Please . . .”
He didn’t answer, just continued to drive. As if I wasn’t even in the car. The moon lit a trail over the dunes, and it was like in Lawrence of Arabia, shimmering against the darkness. I knew precisely why he was taking me out there. By morning, the shifting sand would cover me completely. No one, no one would ever find me.
Not a grave. Not even a trace.
Nothing.
He drove about ten minutes longer, the wind now snapping at the windows, the temperature starting to drop. I figured he didn’t have a specific destination in mind. He was just heading as deep as he could into the void. It was November. Who would ever know?
My heart felt like it might crash through my chest.
Then suddenly he stopped. Completely terrifying me. We were on the upside of a massive dune. Rising above us in the night like that giant wave in The Perfect Storm.
The one that drove them under.
“Please, no,” I begged him.
Dokes put the vehicle into park, leaving the lights on. “This is as far as we go.” He got out and came around to my side of the vehicle, but before he did, he opened the back and came out with a shovel. My heart started to beat wildly. He came around to my door and opened it, took out a key, and took off the cuffs that had bound me to the handle bar. “Let’s go.”
“No, no, no, no, no,” I murmured.
“You shouldn’t have been up there,” he said. “You crazy, stupid bitch. Don’t look at me. You got what you asked for. You should have just gotten on that train and gone home.”
For a moment I thought I saw the slightest weakening in him—realizing he was putting an end to the life of an innocent person—but it was quickly covered up by all he was bent on protecting: his stupid rank, his pension, his career. The counterfeit notion that he was preserving the security of the United States. It had all hardened around him in this fake, inpenetrable veneer. And it wasn’t going to crack. No matter what I said.
What gnawed
at me most was that the bastard was going to win.
“Get out,” he said, grabbing me by the chain linking my cuffs and dragging me out of the vehicle. I fell into the sand. “Get up.”
I didn’t get up. I just looked up at him, tears forming in my eyes. “Fuck you,” I said. “Fuck you to hell. You’re nothing but a piece-of-shit murderer hiding behind his badge. You’re scum, Dokes. The slimiest form of it. You’re going to rot in hell, and for what? To protect your fucking pension. Even the cartels are higher than you. You’re zero, Dokes. Pretending you’re saving the country . . .”
He raised the shovel and I was sure he was about to bring it down on me and end it all right there.
I turned away.
“I said, get up!” he shouted at me. He hurled the shovel at me and took out a gun.
“Okay, okay,” I said, and pulled myself to my feet. I started to cry.
“Start walking.”
I started to walk, trudge really, stumbling into the massive dune in the dark, the only thing illuminating us the beam from the vehicle’s headlights.
I thought of Neil and Amy, that they’d never, ever find out a thing behind what had happened to me. I would just disappear. That they’d never know I wasn’t guilty of the things they said I was. They’d grow old despising me for murdering their father. And never fucking know.
I fell, tears and mucus covering my face. Dokes kicked me forward and ordered me to go on. I thought of Dave. I love you, honey, I said inwardly. I’m so sorry for what happened. Maybe I’ll see you soon. Maybe . . .
Dokes pushed me from behind with his foot. I fell face first into the sand. I was miles from anywhere, in an unmarked grave that by morning would be invisible, swept over with sand. I would probably never be found.