Borderland

by Peter Eichstaedt

Reyes nodded. “The lawyer for Don Diego Borrego. Alvarez had connections. He knew everything the DEA would do before they did it.”

  “I think you’ve said enough,” said a voice from the back door.

  Reyes looked up, his mouth open. “What the hell?”

  Dawson jerked around, straining to see who was at the door, fear pulsing through him. The dim figure of a man wearing jeans, a dark polo shirt, and a black ski mask filled the doorway. Dawson’s stomach tightened as the silhouetted man stepped onto the patio holding an automatic pistol with a silencer pointed at Reyes’s chest.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” the man said, stepping closer to the table. “You just don’t know when to shut up, José.”

  Reyes sprang out of his chair and yanked the pistol from his shoulder holster. Three bullets thumped into his chest, knocking him backward and toppling the chair. His gun clunked to the tabletop.

  Dawson pushed himself up and away from the table as the masked man swung the gun barrel at him.

  “You made a big mistake, my friend,” the man said.

  Dawson’s heart was pounding so hard his body shook. He waved his hands. “Wait! Wait! I have nothing to do with this. I was only here to interview him. I’m a journalist. Washington Herald.”

  “I know who the fuck you are. You were warned to keep your goddamned nose out of this. You’re no better than your fat-assed father. You’re worse. You’re more dangerous. That’s why I’m going to enjoy killing you as much as him.”

  Fonseca. Dawson’s mind screamed as his body twitched with fear.

  “Put the gun down,” said a voice from behind Dawson.

  They both twisted toward it.

  Garcia crouched in the shadows at the corner of the house, his face barely visible under his boonie hat. His silenced automatic was pointed directly at Fonseca. “Put...the gun...down,” he repeated.

  “Well, well. Agent Garcia. Whose side are you on?”

  “I could ask you that, but I already know. You’re on your own side, Ernesto. Always have been.”

  Fonseca fired at Garcia, who fired back and twisted away, disappearing into the shadows at the corner of the house. Fonseca reeled from the bullet that slammed his chest.

  Dawson lunged at the table, grabbed Reyes’s pistol, and swung it toward Fonseca, firing wildly as more muffled gunshots came from Garcia. Fonseca’s body jerked as slugs slammed into his chest, knocking him to the ground, his arms splayed, his chest heaving.

  Dawson turned to Garcia, who rose from the shadows, bleeding slightly from his left arm. Garcia hurried to Fonseca and knelt beside the body. He peeled the mask up and over the face.

  “It is Fonseca,” Dawson murmured. He stared wide-eyed, still holding Reyes’s pistol. “I...killed...him.”

  “No, you didn’t. I did.”

  “But I fired the gun.”

  Garcia shook his head. “You’re a bad shot.” He looked up at Dawson. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”

  Dawson stared at the weapon in his hand.

  “Give me that.” Garcia rose and grabbed the gun away from him, then squatted beside the body. He used a clean corner of Reyes’s bloodied shirt to wipe the gun, obscuring fingerprints. Garcia put the gun in his lifeless hand and folded the fingers around it.

  “Fonseca was dark ops,” Dawson said. “At least that’s what José told me. Someone is going to find out. And soon.”

  “Yeah, they will. But no one will say a goddamn thing. Get it? No one was supposed to know. He shouldn’t have been in Juárez. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were never here, either.”

  “The man inside the house? And the dog?”

  Garcia shook his head. “Both dead.”

  Dawson stood still, his mind racing. What have I done? I’m in deep now, deeper than I’ve ever been. It was supposed to be about my father. I found the bastard who killed him. Maybe I didn’t kill Fonseca. Like Raoul said. But I picked up the gun. I would have. I could have. You’ve done it this time, Kyle. You crossed the line. Big time. He looked at Garcia. “What do we do now?”

  “We get the hell out of here before the cops come.”

  Chapter 39

  Barrancas del Cobre, Mexico

  Vibrations of the turboprop’s twin engines rippled through Anita’s body as the plane idled on the tarmac of the Juárez airport. Carlos sat grinning in the cockpit with headphones on and gave her a thumbs-up. His gesture was meant to inspire confidence, but her stomach quivered with anxiety. I hate small planes. She normally avoided them and had never flown privately in one and never with a cartel boss. But her anxiety about the aircraft didn’t match her worries about going into the mountains alone with Carlos.

  She wondered if she’d ever really known him. As a child, he’d had an explosive temper, something to be expected of a child who had everything he ever wanted. Even then, his behavior had repulsed her to the point that she didn’t want to be around him.

  As she’d grown, her distaste for him had become a distant memory. Her attention had turned elsewhere. By high school she had fallen in love with Kyle, and her and Carlos’s lives had taken different paths, their childhood friendship a thing of the past. Until now. Carlos suddenly sat atop a drug empire and had more money and power than anyone deserved.

  Carlos was at the controls of what Anita knew was a multimillion-dollar aircraft, facing a mass of dials and digital readouts she could never comprehend. She nodded at him and smiled, more from fright than pleasure, not knowing what else to do. She winced when a hulking passenger jet descended from the sky and touched down in front of them, its tires screeching onto the black-streaked runway.

  She listened in the headphones as Carlos spoke into the small padded microphone, then throttled up the engines and moved the plane onto the wide runway. He guided the plane to the end of the runway where he braked and swung the plane around quickly, heading it in the opposite direction.

  Carlos eased the throttle levers forward and the plane accelerated rapidly, bounced slightly, then lifted into the air as if it had been launched, climbing upward and pushing Anita against the padded leather seat. She took a breath, her stomach clenching with every bump.

  The plane rose sharply, banked over the desert, and headed to the distant and dark Sierra Madres. Anita watched the ground shrink away and wisps of clouds appear outside her window. Icy panic gripped her chest and her throat went dry. What have I done? She’d put her life completely in Carlos’s hands, and now she was streaking over the Sonoran Desert with a man she’d known only as a child. She nervously checked her seat belt.

  Carlos had picked her up at her mother’s house in a black Escalade with tan leather seats. The luxury was unfamiliar, and she admitted that she was bit envious. She’d been around it when she was young—something she’d somehow lost and forgotten. She wondered why she’d denied herself such luxuries for so many years.

  Her father, Alfonso, was not the kind of man to deny anything for himself or his family, but likewise he was modest and practical. It served no one to flaunt their possessions and success in the face of others, he had said. Such behavior only belittled others, humiliating those who had no hope of ever attaining their status in life. Strutting around wearing expensive clothes and jewelry was tasteless, if not disgraceful, he had said. Carlos had no such inhibitions.

  She’d gone into journalism at a perfect time for a woman of her background and education, and quickly learned that each day carried its own thrill. She witnessed and reported on the tragedies and triumphs of the people who lived in the place she called home. Though at times demoralized, she was convinced of the value of her profession.

  Law had been tempting, but rather than standing in front of a judge and jury, she stood in front of a camera. She had seen how the law really worked—not to protect and serve the people for whom it was written, but to shield and protect the rich and the powerful.

  But lately Anita had been rethinking her life, ever since her father’s death in the car acc
ident three years ago. Don Diego had come to the house to tell Margarita and her about it. Anita had called him uncle, Tio, for her entire life and trusted and respected the man. But after that day, doubts about Don Diego had crept into her mind. He had left with too many unanswered questions hanging in the air, already choked with emotions.

  Why had her father driven out of the mountains rather than fly in one of Borrego’s planes? There was nothing to explain, Don Diego had said. Alfonso had insisted on driving, despite the fact that the roads out of the mountains were treacherous, as they always had been, during the rainy season. He had been unable to control the vehicle in the mud, despite the four-wheel drive. It had tumbled into a ravine, rolling, spinning, and bouncing until it crashed to the rocky floor, exploding into a blazing inferno. By the time his men could reach it, Don Diego said, there was nothing left but the charred hulk of twisted metal.

  She’d broken off contact with the Borregos after that. But with the killing of Don Diego, a terrifying moment that she was only now beginning to accept, that had changed as well. It had brought Carlos back into her life, more fully than she could have ever anticipated. Maybe it was a good sign, she thought. It had presented her with an opportunity, which was why she was with Carlos now in the twin-engine turboprop bouncing over the Barrancas del Cobre, the Copper Canyon area of Mexico. She adjusted her sunglasses and gazed at the rugged and forested mountain peaks that stretched into the hazy distance. She prayed she’d done the right thing.

  “I’m going to show you something,” Carlos said with a smile.

  He banked the plane over the canyons below, tilting the plane sharply, then let it descend rapidly.

  Anita’s stomach was in her throat. The peaks and valleys that had been far below were now just under the wings. Tree tops seemed close enough to touch. She pushed herself deep into her seat, pressing her head back and closing her eyes. “Carlos, this is pretty low.”

  “Look there,” he barked, ignoring her. He dipped a wing so she could see the canyon floor was covered with leafy marijuana plants. Further on were more valleys and growing fields. “You’ll see it all over the next few days,” he said, leveling the plane and climbing higher.

  Moments later, Carlos circled the plane over his family’s mountain hacienda, a complex of white stucco buildings with Spanish tile roofs, a swimming pool, and grassy fields and corrals. An airstrip had been cut out of the forest. Several single-engine aircraft sat on one side of the runway and Quonset huts flanked the other. “The hacienda,” he announced.

  Carlos guided the plane in a long, sweeping turn over the hacienda, which disappeared from view behind them until he banked back sharply and returned, the plane skimming over the treetops, then dropping onto the landing strip. The plane’s wheels touched down and bounced briefly, with Anita’s stomach feeling each jolt. The plane rolled to the end, where Carlos braked hard and brought the plane to a stop. Anita exhaled deeply. Made it.

  The plane spun and returned to the Quonset huts where a half-dozen men and women had gathered to welcome them. Carlos flicked a dozen switches, and the engines whined to silence.

  Anita removed her headphones with shaking hands and stood weakly, then threaded her way through the narrow aisle from the cockpit to the rear door. Solid earth beneath her feet felt reassuring as the sensations of flight continued to course through her. She scanned the airstrip and the Quonset hut hangars, and tried to collect herself. The story. Focus on the story.

  The airstrip was lined with landing lights poking above the grass. Night flights. She noticed the security cameras mounted on each of the Quonset huts. Her gaze paused at the open door of one where another twin-engine turboprop was being fueled. The famed Borrego air armada.

  Anita turned to ensure her video camera and tripod were being unloaded and taken to the hacienda. Her bosses had refused to let her take Brad Austin along for the three days she needed to complete the interview. She was plenty strong enough to tote the camera when needed, having been religious about her workouts and diet. She was ready for this, as ready as she’d ever be.

  The fact that Carlos was going to go on camera at all was worth a story. No other known cartel capo had ever agreed to a sit-down interview exclusively for the American public. It was a coup. What he would say was almost secondary. But she was not going to settle for drivel. She wanted Carlos to answer questions about what the drug wars meant to the Mexican people. What did it mean that thousands of people had to die just for a chance to make money from the tidal wave of drugs being smuggled into and sold in the United States? It was the break she’d been looking for—the interview that would propel her to Atlanta, Washington, or New York. Her heart pounded at the thought.

  She looked around and the reality settled in that she was in a remote area of the Sierra Madre Mountains virtually alone with Carlos and his men. She couldn’t make her qualms go away. Several single-engine planes were parked nearby and attended to by a couple of local natives, the Raramuri. They carried large bundles from inside a dark Quonset hut and tossed them into the interior compartment, dimly visible in the shadow of the overhead wings. The Indians glanced at her, only pausing to look, then continued to methodically load the planes.

  Anita felt the tug of Carlos’s arm slipping around her waist. He pulled her close, but she resisted. He twisted around, taking her in his arms. She lifted her hands against his chest, but it was not enough to stop him from kissing her quickly on the lips. “Welcome home,” he said.

  She pushed him away, touching her fingers to her lips. This was too much. She frowned and stared at him. What do you think you’re doing? She shook her head slowly. He was acting too familiar. He was good-looking, she admitted that. But she was not his girlfriend, and she was not his to do with as he pleased.

  Carlos smiled, looking like a kid, almost giddy. “Don’t worry about that stuff,” he said, waving at her luggage. “Everything will be put in your room. I’ll show you around. We’ve made a lot of changes since you were here last.”

  Anita smiled. “Great.” She welcomed the chance to stretch her legs. “What’s all of this?” she asked with a sweep of her arm.

  Carlos motioned to the Quonset hut hangars. “Those are our aircraft, necessary for the business, of course.” He watched as the Raramuri continued to load the plane, then lifted his gaze to a wide, grassy field that ended at a collection of white-fenced corrals where half a dozen horses stood, their noses to the ground. Beyond the corral was a barn-like building. “Those are the stables, as you can see.”

  Anita tried to collect herself. She would try to be more accommodating to his moodiness. Relax. You’ve known him since childhood. This is going to be all right. “I hope we can ride while I’m here.”

  Carlos smiled. “Yes, of course. Starting tomorrow.”

  Beyond the barn was the pine forest, thick with brush. She took a long, deep breath of the cool mountain air and treasured the scent of pine. “It all seems so familiar, but truthfully, I can’t remember if I was here before or not.”

  “You were. Several times. When we were both young. My father had just bought the place. He made many improvements over the years. Come, let’s go inside.”

  Carlos took her hand and led her along a flagstone and gravel walk that snaked through stunted trees and bushes to a high stucco wall. He pushed open a thick arched door, with wrought-iron hinges and handle. The door opened to a patio with several glass-topped tables shaded by canvas umbrellas, each beside a rectangular pool with lap lanes. He led her around the pool and up wide, curved steps and into the house.

  He pushed aside the heavy glass sliding doors and they entered a sprawling living room of terra cotta tile and leather furniture. Art decorated the walls, interspersed with elaborate crucifixes. The contemporary art pieces were large, fiercely colored canvases. Abstract sculptures filled the corners, and large leafy plants flourished near the windows.

  “Carlos. This place is beautiful. And the artwork. It’s…” She turned to him and smiled, squee
zing his hand, then turned to gaze at a large painting adorning the living room wall. It depicted a blade cactus, the kind you see all over the Southwest, but close-up, the cactus flesh an iridescent green, the thorns thick and sharp like jagged spears. Beside the blade cactus was a knife with a gleaming silver guard and a mother of pearl handle.

  “I picked it up in a gallery in Santa Fe,” Carlos said. “Actually, I selected most of these pieces myself.”

  “My God. The cactus is scary looking.”

  Carlos held her hand and stroked her fingers nervously, then stopped. “Hard edges. Dangerous and unforgiving. I like it.” He let go of her hand.

  To the left, the living room emptied into an extended and curving hallway.

  “We’ll be staying in rooms up there,” Carlos said, then motioned to a man in a Hawaiian shirt and jeans at the bar. “Tell Roberto what you want. Please excuse me. I have some business to attend to.” He disappeared down the dim hallway.

  Anita paused to get her bearings. Nearby was a dining room with a heavy wooden table and straight-backed chairs. Beyond that, she glimpsed a spacious stainless steel kitchen where two Indian women worked. Roberto, a heavily muscled young man, waited behind the bar with a blank gaze.

  She sidled up to the bar, and resting on an elbow, asked Roberto for a glass of white wine. He nodded, and watched him pull the cork with a soft pop, noticing the automatic pistol holstered at his waist. The wine gurgled into the glass, which he pushed across the tile-topped bar and stared, waiting for her to take it. She lifted the glass with a nod and turned to gaze at the pool, the grounds beyond, and the hangars.

  Anita sipped her wine. This kind of luxury was seductive. A person could get used to this, she thought, then recalled that those were the words that Kyle had spoken when she was in his arms. Yes, she could have gotten used to being with Kyle as well. But Kyle was a fantasy she had clung to for too many years—years that had gone by all too quickly. Now she was alone in the mountains with a man she barely knew and did not trust. What have I done? Sadness seeped into her bones, and for a moment she felt weak as tears welled in her eyes.