by Jo Robertson
He shut off the machine and placed the photo back in his pocket. Every moment of the transport of the cargo was etched in his memory more vividly than the long, slow death of his own father in the village plaza in Real de Cantorce.
Santos was not a man to indulge in regrets. A man must do whatever is required to survive – and to thrive. But, by God, he wished he had slit the girl's throat instead of handing her over to Diego Vargas. He told himself that if he had known what would happen to her, how the few nights would become months and the months become five long years, he would never had brought her to Reno.
Never left her in the hands of such a man.
But Santos was a young man then, voraciously hungry for the many things that Diego Vargas could offer him.
Chapter Twenty-nine
In the bedroom Bella sat in a corner in a wicker chair while the girl Esperanza crouched on the bed, her slender legs drawn up to her chest, her arms folded around them. Bella had never seen anyone look so hopeless in her life, and her heart wrenched with sympathy at the thought of what the girl had gone through.
Careful not to touch her, Bella moved to the edge of the bed and lowered her voice into a soothing tone. "Can you tell me what happened, Esperanza?"
The girl hunched her shoulders and stared at her feet.
"Sheriff Slater tells me you speak English. ¿Puede usted hablar inglés?" Can you speak English?
"Si," the girl mumbled.
"Bueno." Bella smiled reassuringly. "Can you tell me how you came to be in the van with the other girls?"
"Son todas muertas," Esperanza whispered instead of answering the question. They're all dead.
"Lo siento mucho. I'm very sorry." Bella scooted her chair closer to the bed. "Where are you from?"
"Toluca." So far south in Mexico. How did she end up here in northern California, Bella wondered?
"Were you kidnapped?"
The girl wet her dry lips. "Sí, some men came to my village near Toluca and took four of us. Several girls were already in the van. When we arrived in Tijuana, the rest of the girls were there."
"How did you get across the border?"
"No sé." She shrugged and picked at the threads on the bedspread. "But it was night and the roads were very bumpy, like dirt roads. Perhaps the ladrones found a place that was not patrolled carefully."
"Did you see the faces of any of the men who took you?"
She shook her head and looked embarrassed that she couldn't give better information. "Solamente los conductores." Only the drivers.
"What about when you stopped. Did you see anyone else?"
Esperanza scrunched her face and concentrated. "In Tijuana, there were two other men. Muy grandes. They spoke English most of the time."
Bella pulled a photo six-pack from her briefcase and spread the pictures on the bed. "Do you recognize any of these men?"
"¡Mí Dios, sí! I will never forget his face." She pointed to the picture of Diego Vargas. "He was in Tijuana. He forced the girls into the van."
Bella felt a shiver of excitement run through her. She'd made a clear identification of Vargas. "What else can you tell me about him?"
"He is a very bad man."
"What happened?"
"Once we had crossed into the United States, we stopped somewhere, I do not know where. One of the girls was very young, perhaps ten or younger." Esperanza began crying and swiping at the tears with dirty fingers, leaving long smudges on her smooth cheeks. "He took her away for a very long time."
Bella felt a chill begin at the bottom of her spine and travel upwards to her neck.
"When they brought her back," Esperanza whispered, "she was bleeding very badly. She died shortly after."
Bella tapped the photo of Santos. "What about this man? Do you recognize him?"
Esperanza took the picture and held it close to her face. "No, I have never seen this man."
Bella clenched her fists and tried to command her rational mind to control her emotions, but she couldn't stop thinking about Diego Vargas and his unspeakable brutality. This girl's testimony would be enough to put the monster away for a very long time. And Bella intended to see that happen.
#
Santos made the flight from Sacramento International Airport to LAX in a little over an hour. Two Norteños picked him up at the airport and left him with a Ford Explorer rental.
Forty minutes later he waited impatiently for the inside man to make the prearranged appointment on the Terminal Island side of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. Santos remained in the Explorer even when he saw the contact pull up to the parking area in an unmarked squad car, and he remained there until the man slipped into the passenger seat of the Explorer.
Santos looked at the tip of his cigarillo as he blew the smoke slowly out his nostrils. "You are late," he said after a few moments.
"Couldn't be helped." The man kept his wraparound sunglasses fixed on his face so his eyes could not be seen, but Santos recognized the edginess, the restless legs, and the wandering hands – all signs of discomfort. What did the man have to be nervous about?
"El Árabe thinks there is a leak from the Los Angeles area," Santos said.
"Don't call him that," the man snapped. "He's as American as me. More than you, my south-of-the-border friend."
Santos let the offense slip by. After all, he did not intend for this American to be around very much longer. When his usefulness ended, he would disappear. Already the man's value to Vargas' organization was questionable.
"So why the all-fired hurry for a meet?" the contact asked.
"El Vaquero is not happy that the information you have been sending us is tardy."
"Like I give a fuck how Vargas feels."
"Caution, mi amigo impetuoso, you should take great care about what Diego thinks."
The man cracked his neck, twisting it one way, then the other. "Tell him I've got it covered."
"He will want to know the details."
"I'm going up north to Sacramento."
Santos raised both eyebrows. "Oh?"
"Yeah, I've got a connection there."
"Bueno." Santos placed a large paw on the man's shoulder. "Diego will be very happy, and when the boss is pleased, he rewards handsomely."
#
The attack on the safe house occurred shortly after three o'clock in the morning.
While Bella had gone to her office to prepare her case against Vargas, Rafe had driven north to investigate the possible leak in the Nevada County Sheriff's Department. He also made some confidential calls regarding his own department.
At the safe house, Slater assigned the first shift – Ruiz to the front door, McKidd and Harris to the back, while he stretched out on a cot in the hall by Esperanza's bedroom door. He could hear the girl moving around in the room, the squeaking of the bed springs and then the flushing of the toilet.
He imagined she wasn't going to sleep very well tonight. He'd have to make long-range plans to protect her. Moving her around seemed the best security until the trial ended. And with Vargas' long reach, who knew how long that could take?
Slater must've dosed off because a foreign sound, the dull clank of metal on wood flickered through his subconscious and brought him springing to full alert. He reached for his handgun lying on the floor, and slipped it out of the holster as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the cot. As he stood, he quietly turned the knob on the girl's bedroom.
She lay quietly under a pile of blankets, black strands of hair the only thing he could see from his angle. He eased the door shut, and clinging to the wall, traced his steps back through the great room to the patio window. He saw Harris' broad frame silhouetted against the pale glow of the moon, but McKidd wasn't in sight.
Soundlessly Harris hunched over, weapon in hand. Slater still couldn't see anything, but obviously something had drawn the deputy's attention. Slater strained to see what had alerted Harris, holding his breath, tightening his grip on his weapon.
Where the hell was McKidd?
Focused on the scene in the back entry, Slater didn't hear the front door open until a floorboard suddenly creaked behind him. He swung around, raised his weapon to fire, and aimed at a large, dark shadow lurching toward him. But he wasn't fast enough and all hell broke loose.
Slater took the first bullet high in the chest, the pain of it searing through his muscle and shattering his clavicle. He got a round off before he was spun around from the impact, but it went astray. The second bullet caught him low in the back and he wondered briefly if it would paralyze him. The third one sank deep into his thigh.
At the sound of the first report, Harris flew through the back patio door, crouching low, aiming his weapon, and firing like a madman. The first intruder went down with a shot to the head and one to the chest, but the second one managed to hit Harris in his upper thigh, close to the groin. He went crashing down like a felled buffalo, his handgun skittering across the floor.
A third intruder entered from the front landing and ran down the hallway.
No, Slater screamed silently, feeling his blood drain steadily onto the hardwood floor, knowing he was helpless to keep the attacker from reaching the girl. Shivers started to rack his body, his skin felt clammy, and his mouth was parched. He recognized his body going into shock.
As the second shooter advanced on the defenseless Harris, Slater panted shallowly and tried to scrabble out of the way, reaching for his backup weapon. But he was too weak and his arm flopped uselessly at his ankle.
He clamped his chattering teeth together and made a last-ditch effort. He hardly felt the weapon leave its holster, but suddenly the grip was solid and warm against his clammy palm.
The second hitter loomed over Harris, lifting his gun for the head shot, when Slater's bullet took out the back of the man's skull. Harris lay sprawled on his back, bleeding profusely from his leg. An artery? Even knowing there was nothing he could do, Slater tried to crawl toward his deputy.
The girl's screaming penetrated the roar in his head. She raced out of the bedroom into the hall and ran smack into the third hitter. Slater saw Harris' fingers jerk faintly in an attempt to reach his discarded weapon.
At that moment, another figure entered through the glass patio door behind Harris. Slater opened his mouth in warning, but no sound came out. A hard blow to the back of Harris' head with the butt of a semi-automatic rifle and all movement stopped.
God, Slater thought, they were all going to die here. Now.
Right before he passed out, he glimpsed the round sweating face of Manuel Ruiz as it twisted into something vicious with satisfaction while he loomed over the fallen Harris.
God, Manuel Ruiz, a traitor in his own house!
Ruiz placed his heel on Harris' chest, aimed the barrel at his skull as Slater's eyes fluttered shut. From a distance he heard the faint jumble of words:
"¡No! Qué – haciendo – " and a muffled response "El Jefe dice – " followed by a final blast of gunfire.
His last thought before he lost consciousness was, Thank God Bella wasn't here.
#
"Slater, Slater, can you hear me?"
Bella's pretty face, worried and damp with tears, floated in front of Slater's eyes as he opened them.
"Esperanza?" he moaned. "Is she alive?" His voice petered off into the creaky sound of an old man and he tried again. "Did they get her?"
Bella shook her head. "Let's just worry about you right now."
He felt the motion of the gurney beneath him as she placed her hand on his cheek. "What happened? Christ, is everyone dead?"
"They're taking you into surgery." She gripped his hand. "Don't worry. Rafe and I will handle everything." He saw the sheen of tears in her eyes and felt the soft press of her lips on his before his lids became so heavy he couldn't hold them open.
He heard Hashemi's voice at his feet. "You'll be okay, man. They'll fix you up."
That must mean the girl was dead, Slater thought, as an anvil of grief and guilt pressed on his chest. And he must be dying because Bella would never kiss him on the mouth, and Hashemi hated his guts after the little talk they'd had about her at the safe house.
Suddenly, the memory of the slaughter that'd happened there panicked him and he struggled to sit up. "Ruiz," he muttered weakly. "He's – "
Heavy hands held him down. Hashemi's voice. "Take it easy, man. Calm down."
A moment later a mask descended over his mouth and he floated off to a blessed, undulating oblivion.
#
Santos knew the text message that came through as he boarded a plane from LAX to Sacramento was meant for Vargas and had somehow been sent to his phone by mistake: Se acaba. It is done. What next?
Santos settled back into his first-class passenger seat and fumbled with the seat belt before responding. Even though he hadn't ordered any moves against the witness, he was afraid he knew what the message meant.
He was a cautious man, after all, and many things could happen between arrest, arraignment and trial that could extricate Vargas from the charges ADA Torres brought against him. Hasty action was not Santos' style, but rushing in headlong without thinking about the consequences was exactly the kind of action that Diego would take.
He texted back. ¿Quién? Who?
A few moments later the answer in English: prime + 3.
That meant the girl plus three others were dead. ¡Mierda! Santos swiped a hand over his face as the flight attendant warned over the intercom that all cell phones were to be turned off.
Theirs? he texted.
Sí. 2 + M.R.
Fuck! M.R. stood for Manuel Ruiz, their deep-cover informant in Bigler County. The girl was surely dead, along with three deputies or agents, whoever had been guarding her, probably the sheriff included. Ruiz had become a casualty, too, either by accident during the attack or eliminated by the assassination team under Vargas' direction.
Santos wondered if the lovely ADA Isabella Torres was one of the casualties and felt a brief and unfamiliar wave of regret. More likely the sheriff and deputies.
And, if they were fortunate, el árabe, the DEA agent.
But, Mother of God, how was he to clean up this mess? And who had survived the slaughter?
Chapter Thirty
"That bastard!" Anger and grief warred for a place in Isabella's expression. She dashed at the tears that spilled down her cheeks.
Rafe wrapped an arm around her shoulder and walked her toward the hospital exit doors. "There's nothing we can do about Slater now. He's in good hands."
She shrugged out of his hold and turned away as he reached for her again. "I'm not leaving him."
He stared at her back, thinking Isabella could easily have been at the safe house when the hit went down. She could've been talking to the girl, and right now lying in the operating room, fighting for her life or sprawled on the safe house floor riddled with bullets. He clenched his fists at his sides.
Goddamn it! He should've protected her better, protected them all. But he was too tunnel-visioned to see the rat scurrying around in his own house. And even though he suspected multiple rats were involved, he still had little more than an inkling who the rat in his own department was.
He ran through the list of names in his mind. Contacts Lupe might've revealed accidentally or under torture before he died, men below and above Rafe in rank, even his trusty administrator, Mrs. Roberts.
Five feet away from him, Isabella hunched over, her arms wrapped around herself as if holding in a terrible pain. He ached for her, for Esperanza's death, and for the possible loss of a good man like Ben Slater, but he fell back on rationale to reassure her.
"The surgeon said it would be hours before Slater came out of the operating room," he said logically, turning her around to face him. "Be reasonable. You need to get some rest."
He glanced at the black and white wall clock which hung unattractively over the nursing station – six-thirty in the morning. "You won't do Slater any good here."
"What if he ..." Fresh tears start
ed down her face and her nose ran.
He wanted to kiss her red cheeks and puffy eyes, but he handed her a handkerchief instead. "He won't. The man's too stubborn to croak on us."
Isabella laughed, a sad little attempt that sounded like a dying songbird. "Yeah, Slater's obstinate as hell."
He tried to coax a smile from her. "Must be where you learned it from."
She rarely swore, and he knew she was under a lot more strain than she admitted. "He's going to be okay, Isabella."
She nodded solemnly. "Yeah, sure."
He sighed heavily and tried to reason with her again. "If you don't want to leave the hospital, let's go to the cafeteria and get some coffee."
When they reached the lower level, the cafeteria's security gates were down over the kitchen area, and they settled for vending machine coffee and stale breakfast rolls. They chose a small table near the back exit doors of the nearly empty room. Several nursing staff sat across from them and a custodian mopped at a corner area to their left.
Isabella ignored her coffee and stared through the glass windows into the dark night where the security lights dotted the walks and parking lot.
"I told her she'd be safe," she finally whispered. "I told Esperanza everything was going to be all right."
"You couldn't have known."
"No, no, you're wrong. I know what kind of monster Vargas is. I should've anticipated this move."
She ran her fingers through her dark hair, loosening the knot at her neck until it fell messily around her shoulders. She looked young and vulnerable with her hair down and her face free of makeup.
"Slater's the expert," Rafe contradicted, blowing on his coffee although it was barely lukewarm. "He thought she was protected. Hell, I thought she had enough protection too."
"Poor Esperanza," she murmured. She looked exhausted, shadows under her eyes and lines around her mouth. "One minute she was a young schoolgirl, probably on her way to the market place, and the next minute her life was a living nightmare."
She covered her face with her hands and let the sobs take over.
"Ah, Bella, don't ... please don't cry." He scooted his chair close to hers and pulled her into his arms. "I hate it when you cry."