The Zozobra Incident

by Don Travis

  My glide ratio was about seventeen to one, meaning I traveled seventeen meters forward for every meter of altitude lost. Good, but not good enough. Unable to search for thermals by seeking out favorable cloud formations, I sacrificed some forward propulsion to maneuver north and south in the blind hope of picking one up. As I was about to give it up as a poor gamble, a mild thermal grabbed the sail, giving me enough altitude to ease some of my concern and allow me a moment to linger on the glittering lights of the city far below me.

  The radio jerked me back to the present. “BJ, dammit! Give me a report.”

  “Can’t cuss over the airwaves, Gene. I’m airborne and just caught a thermal.”

  “The Plymouth’s on Coors.”

  “Tell him to slow a bit. Need some recon time.”

  “We’re pushing the ten o’clock deadline.”

  “Puerco knows we’re on the way. He won’t do anything rash at this point. You receiving me okay?”

  “Hear you fine.”

  The reception on the little headset was good, and my visor provided some protection from the rushing wind, allowing Gene to understand me. That would be crucial when Puerco phoned, as he was bound to do when his patience ran out.

  The paraglider sailed over the wide sandy banks of the Rio Grande and the parallel swaths of dark cottonwood bosque, their boundaries defined by a double-stranded necklace of sparkling streetlamps. The river gleamed dully as it flowed south through the valley. The vast starkness of the West Mesa loomed beyond.

  Crumbled remnants of dormant volcanoes called the Five Sisters lay at the western edge of the Rio Grande Valley. Their last eruption about one hundred thousand years ago had been a cataclysmic event, sending untold tons of molten igneous matter pouring down the slopes toward the valley. When the monsters ran out of steam, the burning rock simply halted, leaving a fifty-foot wall of black lava hanging over the western landscape… the escarpment.

  Even after a hundred millennia, the mesa, actually hardened lava thinly covered by sand and soil, was warmer than the terrain in the valley. Snow melted faster atop the mesa than along the river. This residual heat should provide me with a final lift to allow for reconnaissance.

  As the massive void rushed toward me, I snapped on my night vision goggles and heat-imaging gear. The paraglider had lost more altitude than I’d expected, but moments before reaching the black wall of the escarpment, a minor thermal jerked me upward. I spilled air to keep from soaring too high and began searching the ground below me, grateful the paraglider let me sit upright in the harness rather than lie prone as in a hang glider.

  When the signal from Boca Negra Park began registering, I turned the kite northward. There was no sign of Paul’s old Plymouth, but the city’s lights would blind me until Charlie neared the top of the escarpment. It was time to locate Puerco.

  The heat sensors picked up a couple of images, probably foxes or coyotes. Then two prone forms on the southern edge of my target area glowed faintly on the heat-imaging screen. Vehicles parked nearby radiated heat from cooling motors. Gene acknowledged my whispered warning.

  “Got it. I’ll send in the Boca team.”

  Almost immediately, Puerco’s stakeout team in the south came into focus. I informed Gene. It hadn’t taken long to find the Saints covering Puerco’s north and east flanks, and I eventually found the Saints guarding the west. Somewhere in the center of those four points, was the head Saint—and Paul.

  Praying the glider had enough altitude, I circled the area again and corrected the course of the La Boca team. Gene’s police squad—merely heat forms to me—moving in from the north seemed on course, and the assault team at the escarpment on the east side had already scaled the lava cliff and were bearing down on their targets. But the team coming in from Rio Puerco wasn’t even on my screen yet.

  Sailing out over the valley floor to try for another updraft from the escarpment earned me a small boost, but not much. Heading back for another look, I caught sight of several cars emerging from the glare of the streetlights below the base of the cliff as they tore up Unser toward the mesa. Three of the vehicles had flashing light bars. The second car in line would be Charlie in the Plymouth. Blinking against the temporary blindness caused by looking directly at the lights, I started seeking out the lion in his den, or rather the boar in the bushes—Puerco Arrullar.

  His shimmering yellow-green image showed up in my goggles at the same moment my cell phone vibrated against my wrist. Puerco, standing on the mesa floor a hundred feet below me, was getting nervous. My story ready, I hugged the phone close to my mouth beneath the face guard and pressed the answer button as I sailed soundlessly over the bulk of what seemed to be a big Hummer parked near him.

  “Where are you, motherfucker!” Puerco shouted. “You better not be fucking with me.”

  “I’m on Unser just coming up the grade to the top of the escarpment. There are three cop cars with me, so don’t get nervous. They have instructions to turn around and leave as soon as my Plymouth’s at the top.”

  “What’s that noise?” the thug demanded. “How come I can hardly hear you?”

  “I’m shouting as loud as I can. We had to break the driver’s window to get the keys, and it’s noisy as hell. Don’t get nervous now, Puerco. Not when we’re about to get this thing done.”

  “You got the money?”

  “In the backseat like you instructed.”

  “You alone?”

  “Except for my escort, which will depart immediately. I’m hanging up now. Make sure that bozo with the flashlight gives me the signal.”

  Worried about getting too near Puerco and the figure lying prone near him—Paul?—I veered to the south. That maneuver probably saved my life. My heat-imaging equipment picked up a third individual lying prone nearby. Puerco’s personal backup. Zancón, probably.

  A voice growled in my ear—Gene doing his whispering bit. “Targets on the south are out. East team got their two guys.”

  “Good.” I twisted around to see if I could find what was happening to the north and the west. I watched the northern police team overpower their targets.

  “North team’s achieved targets, but I’m worried about the west, Gene. I can’t visually locate our guys.”

  “Late getting started. Might have a problem there.”

  “Kick them in the ass. The Plymouth’s on the mesa now. It’s headed north to the target area. Charlie knows about the guy with the flashlight, right?”

  “He’s been warned, and he’s well armed.”

  “God!” I moaned as turbulence rocked me unexpectedly. “I hope they don’t shoot him as soon as they see him.”

  “Don’t lose your cool, BJ. We talked this out. They’ll want to see the money first. And then Puerco’s gonna want to deal with you personally. Charlie knows how to handle it.”

  I described Puerco’s location to my ex-partner and signed off the air. The turbulence had cost me some altitude. The kite was getting too low. I needed to find a landing place fast. That was the most dangerous part of the whole caper. My depth perception was virtually zero, especially when I lost contact with the heat sources painted by the imaging equipment. But I had to go in blind unless I wanted to drop right on top of the gangsters. I began to mentally prepare for a landing, praying it wouldn’t be in the middle of a cactus or on a jagged boulder, which could seriously hamper my ability to take them out before they harmed Paul.

  My blood froze and my plans changed with the most unwelcome sound imaginable. It started with a single gunshot. And then all hell broke loose. An astounding number of red dots peppered the night to the west. A pitched battle was taking place down there. Suddenly realizing how vulnerable I was hanging below a slip of fabric, my muscles spasmed. Oh, God, not now.

  Activity on the ground below me steeled my nerves and pulled me back to the crisis at hand. A shimmering, luminous image stood staring off to the west. He turned and pointed at the figure lying prone beside him. Oh, God! Puerco was going to shoot Paul. />
  Then the second figure rose to stand beside Puerco. I forgot the rushing wind, the sinking kite. I forgot the lives at risk on the battlefield to the west. Gene had been right. Paul was a part of the whole scam. My heart turned to stone. Well, the fuckers weren’t going to get away with it.

  I turned the kite and prepared to come in behind the two men. Screw finding a landing place and sneaking up on them. I’d drop right on top of them. My angle was too steep; my speed, too fast. But there wasn’t much I could do about it. Then the second figure broke away and raced to the third form I’d spotted moments before. I gave a sigh of relief when he dragged an obviously helpless man across the mesa floor. Paul! He was a captive.

  I’d been worrying about coming in too fast; now I felt suspended helplessly in space above the three. The two standing images raised shimmering arms in unison. Jesus, they were going to kill Paul!

  Then one of them lifted his head. Puerco had heard something—the flutter of my wing, the rush of wind. Tossing away my night vision goggles to avoid being blinded by the flash of a gunshot, I tore off my heavy gloves and hit the harness release without knowing precisely where I was.

  Instead of landing atop Puerco and Zancón, I fell short, abruptly striking the ground. Surprised and off-balance, I scrambled to keep my feet but went over, striking my right kneecap on the sharp edge of a stone. I sucked wind to keep from making an audible sound. Totally blind in the absolute darkness, I heard the glider’s canopy dragging in the dirt ahead of me. Suddenly there was the roar of a weapon, a muted flash, and then something caught fire. Puerco had taken the paraglider’s wing full in the face; his gun went off, igniting the kite’s sail.

  I’d lost precious moments because of the distraction. Ignoring the crippling pain in my knee, I flopped onto my belly and brought up my Ruger, firing blindly in the general direction of the man I assumed was Zancón. He got off two shots before he went down.

  I twisted on my side just as Puerco fought free of the glider’s fabric. Yelling to draw his attention from Paul, I rolled quickly to the left. The gangbanger might be fat, but he was fast. Bullets tore up the ground where I had been lying a second before. Using his gun flashes as a target, I fired twice more, rolled again, and quickly inserted a fresh clip into the pistol. The flaming wing died; it was totally dark again. Had I hit Puerco?

  A stone rattled in the darkness. He was alive—and working his way to his hostage. Frantic, I slithered like a snake in Paul’s direction. But Puerco was headed the other way. The night vision equipment! He was going for my glider. If he got to it, Paul and I were both dead. When I tried to stand, my leg collapsed. As I fell to the ground, Puerco’s salvo tore through the air directly over my head.

  “Got you, you fucking queer!”

  As if acting of its own volition, my handgun banged away until empty. Deafened, I almost didn’t hear Puerco’s scream. A heavy body crashed to the ground. Everything grew quiet. Even the battle to the west had fallen silent.

  It felt like five minutes before my muscles would obey me. Where the hell was everyone? The world had gone silent. Or maybe I was deaf from all the gunshots. I clawed a small Maglite out of my jacket. Holding it at arm’s length to the left, I switched it on.

  Puerco sprawled motionless on his belly.

  I swung the light around and located Zancón. He lay against the wall of the small arroyo where they had taken shelter, trying to staunch the flow of blood from a wound in his abdomen. His right shoulder didn’t seem to be working right. I limped forward. Satisfied he was no longer a threat, I searched him and found a switchblade. Taking his weapons with me, I checked to make sure Puerco was dead and then made my painful way to Paul.

  Trussed and blindfolded so tightly he couldn’t move or make an intelligible sound, his painful gasps frightened me. I ripped off his gag and dug a rag out of his throat. In the excitement of the firefight, he’d almost swallowed the scrap of cloth stuffed in his mouth to silence him. In another minute or two, he would have suffocated. He took deep, shuddering breaths.

  “Who… who’s there? What happened? Where am I?” His voice wheezed through a raspy throat.

  I laughed from relief and hugged him. “Damn. Trussed up like a Christmas goose, and you’re still asking who-what-where questions.” I carefully pulled off his blindfold. “It’s me, Paul.”

  “Vince? Is that you? Be careful, Puerco—”

  “Don’t worry about him. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

  “Zancón! He’s here somewhere too.”

  “He won’t bother you either. He won’t bother anyone for a very long time.”

  Paul blinked against the glare of my flashlight, and then his eyes went wild at the sound of approaching vehicles.

  “Don’t worry. That’s Gene and Charlie and about half the APD.”

  He sagged in relief. “Take me home, Vince. Please.”

  Epilogue

  A PATROL car whisked Paul to UNM Medical Center to be checked out while Gene and I met with the team commanders in an APD conference room. A considerable amount of brass sat in on the debriefing.

  Amazingly, although something like five hundred rounds had been expended earlier that night, there were relatively few casualties on either side. No one except Puerco had died, and Zancón suffered the most serious wounds. He would recover, hopefully to live out the rest of his life behind bars. Most of the rest of the Santos Morenos members were in custody too. The gang would probably never recover.

  After the critique, which was declared a righteous operation, the Public Information types scurried off to feed data to the press, and the rest of us were free to go our own way. Gene had a blue-and-white drive me to the UNM emergency ward, where I found Charlie patiently sitting in the big waiting room. He’d driven over in the Plymouth after turning over the bags of cash to the police for safekeeping.

  Paul came out shortly thereafter. Beyond a knot on the head, a few scrapes and bruises, and a sore throat from the gag he’d almost swallowed, he was unscathed. It remained to be seen if he suffered subtler, more durable injuries. But I was betting he was stronger than that. The doctor ordered him to take it easy for a few days, gave him a spray for his sore throat, and released him.

  We delivered Charlie to his place before heading home.

  The sun was over the horizon, and the neighborhood appeared to believe this was a day like any other by the time I pulled the Plymouth to the curb. The old place had never looked so good. Both of our fannies were dragging by the time we entered the house.

  When I left last night, there had been half a dozen people in or around the house. Gene had done a good job of clearing the place out before we got there. I wondered how he’d handled Hazel.

  “You need to get some rest,” I suggested.

  “We both do, but I don’t think I could sleep if I went to bed.”

  “Delayed reaction.”

  “Damn, Vince, is this what you go through every day?”

  I laughed. “My days are usually boring as hell.”

  He snorted. “Your house is firebombed. Your front porch and your neighbor’s house are shot to pieces. A man you’re waiting to meet gets sliced to death, and that doesn’t mention this Emilio guy getting iced. Sounds pretty boring to me.”

  “And for the next couple of years, my existence will be dull, dull, dull.”

  A shaft of light caught in his black hair and shot sparks. “Don’t feed me pablum, Vince.”

  “Not pablum, truth. Contrary to recent events, my life is very ordinary. Pretty much like the guy next door.”

  “God, platitudes, yet. From pap to platitudes in sixty seconds.” He turned somber. “There’s something I should have told you a long time ago.”

  “That Puerco was blood? Yes, I knew. And you tried to tell me that night at the C&W, but I interrupted you.”

  “Yeah, but I should have made you listen. And I should have fought them harder, talked sense into Puerco. Something!”

  “You did what you were supposed to do
—you survived. And right now the last thing you need is to load yourself up with guilt. Nothing would have changed if you had told me.”

  “You know what I was really afraid of? Crying like a fag! I was worried I’d break down and start begging for my life.”

  “But you didn’t, did you?”

  His deep brown eyes met mine, and a smile broke out on his face. “No, I didn’t. I got mad instead. I cussed them until they finally put a gag on me.”

  We broke into laughter—more a release of pent-up tension than mirth.

  “Anyway, it worked out just the way I planned it,” I said when I could speak again.

  His grin turned mischievous. “Yeah, but what if it had been raining or—”

  “I’d have found a way, Paul. I’d have found a way.”

  I took his hand and slipped the silver ring I’d bought at the Zozobra burning over his finger. He looked blankly at it for a brief moment and then smiled.

  Exclusive excerpt

  Although repulsed by his client, an overbearing, homophobic California wine mogul, Confidential Investigator BJ Vinson agrees to search for Anthony Alfano’s missing son, Lando, and his traveling companion—strictly for the benefit of the young men. As BJ chases an orange Porsche Boxter all over New Mexico, he soon becomes aware he is not the only one looking for the distinctive car. Every time BJ finds a clue, someone has been there before him. He arrives in Taos just in time to see the car plunge into the 650 foot-deep Taos Gorge. Has he failed in his mission?

  Lando’s brother, Aggie, arrives to help with BJ’s investigation, but BJ isn’t sure he trusts Aggie’s motives. He seems to hold power in his father’s business and has a personal stake in his brother’s fate that goes beyond familial bonds. Together, they follow the clues scattered across the vast Bisti/De-Na-Zin wilderness area and learn the bloodshed didn’t end with the car crash. As they get closer to solving the mystery, BJ must decide whether finding Lando will rescue the young man, or place him directly in the path of those who want to harm him.