by Mark Dawson
The Lynx was a multi-million pound piece of equipment and not something they could just leave there overnight. The men were put on stag to guard it while they flew in an engineer. It was farmland. The farmhouse itself was five hundred feet away. Dark and isolated, lots of barns and outbuildings. It was cold and wet and there was an almost tangible sense of danger. The platoon were arranged in a defensive posture with an inner and an outer cordon, split up into groups of two and three. Their arcs overlapped each other, giving them three-hundred-and-sixty degrees cover around the stricken chopper.
Milton and Pope formed one of the two man teams. They lay face-down in the mud, their SLRs resting on bipods, both squinting down range into their nightsights. They were cold and soaking wet. Pope’s legs were frozen, the cold chilling all the way through to the marrow, his hands felt like blocks of ice and he couldn’t cover his ears because he had to listen for activity. They were both in a foul mood, cursing the pilot for breaking the chopper and the engineer for his inability to fix it.
Pope looked through the nightsight.
Movement? He checked and rechecked.
“Two men coming out of the barn towards us,” he reported.
“Bollocks.”
“And there’s a third. I’m serious, John.”
Milton looked through his nightsight. “Alright. Not bollocks.”
Pope watched them as they approached. They were moving carefully, keeping low. Two of them were carrying rifles and the other the unmistakeable shape––long, and with a bulbous onion-shaped end––of an RPG. Just their luck. They must have landed right in the middle of a PIRA hotspot. They were coming straight for them.
Despite the short tour in Iraq, Milton and Pope were still green. Chasing outclassed Republican Guardsmen on the road back to Baghdad was one thing; the Provos, with years of experience and full of hatred for the army, were something else entirely. Pope started to panic. What were they going to do? They couldn’t contact an officer or NCO for advice since they were too young to warrant a radio. Protocol said that they should issue a challenge since these could be three of their own men but if they weren’t friendlies then that would mean that they would either be in a firefight or chasing the players as they went to ground, and this was not the sort of country where you wanted to get lost and cut off from your mates.
Milton did not panic. He was calm and assured. He knew the correct routine for this situation and he followed it to the letter.
He pulled back the bolt to cock his rifle, identified himself as army and called out for them to stop.
They ran for it.
Milton fired. Pope fired.
The farm descended into pure chaos. The inner cordon saw the two tracer rounds from the tops of their magazines and thought that they were under attack. They started to fire on Milton and Pope. They both rolled into a slurry-filled ditch and covered their heads, screaming out that they were friendly. One of the lads with a light-machine-gun joined in the fun, sending a fusillade of fire down onto them. They were safe enough in the ditch and Pope remembered very well the look he had seen on Milton’s face as he risked a glance across at him. He grinned at him and then, in the middle of the firestorm, in bandit country with a broken-down Lynx and twenty men throwing fire down upon them, he gave him a big, unmistakeable wink.
The search for the three Provos had been both immediate and thorough. And utterly thrilling. It had been, Pope recalled, the best night of his life and the one when he had decided that the army was definitely what he wanted to do. It seemed as if the whole company had descended on the farm. The brass sent a Gazelle to join in the search, circling overhead as it shone down its powerful Night Sun searchlight. A Saracen armoured car turned up with a soldier manning the big turret-mounted machine-gun. Roadblocks were thrown up and dogs and their handlers spilled out of cars. The rifle company was out all night but it looked as if their quarry had got away.
But then, two days later, a man admitted himself at a hospital in the south with a 7.62mm wound in his buttocks. Pope and Milton knew it was one of the Provos that they had chased into the fields and that one of them had shot him. They argued about who should claim the credit for months.
POPE WASN’T ONE for mementoes but he had kept a couple of photographs from that part of his career. He took down an album and flicked through it, finding the photograph that he wanted: seven men arranged around a Saracen. In those days, the vehicles were fitted with two gallon containers at the rear. They called them Norwegians. The drivers filled them with tea before they left the sangar each morning and although the tea grew lukewarm and soupy before too long, it was a life-saver during cold winter patrols. The photograph was taken in a field somewhere in Armagh. Three of them were kneeling, the other four leaning against the body of the truck, each of them saluting the camera with a plastic cup. Milton was at the back, his cup held beneath the Norwegian’s tap, smiling broadly. Pope was kneeling in front of him. Milton was confident and relaxed. Pope remembered how he had felt back then: it had been difficult not to look up to him a little. That respect was something that remained constant, ever since, throughout their time together in the Regiment and then the Group.
The microwave beeped. He knocked back the rest of the whisky, collected the meal and took it into the lounge.
He sat down with the album on his lap.
Memories.
He didn’t question his orders but they were troubling. Control had said that Milton had suffered from some sort of breakdown. That didn’t seem very likely to Pope. Milton had always been a quiet man, solid and dependable. Extremely good at his job. Impossible to fluster, even under the most extreme pressure. The idea that he might snap like this was very difficult to square. But, there again, there was all the evidence to suggest that something had happened to him: the trouble he had caused in East London, shooting Callan, and then, after six months when no-one knew where he was, turning up again in Mexico like this.
Something had happened.
He had his orders, and he would obey them as far as he could.
He would go and bring him back. But he wouldn’t retire him unless there was nothing else for it. He would do everything he could to bring him back alive.
* * *
36.
BEAU BAXTER DIDN’T even see him come in. He was hungry, busy with his plate of quesadillas, slicing them into neat triangles and then mopping the plate with them before slotting them into his mouth. It was a public place, popular and full of customers. He had let his guard down just for a moment and that was all it took. Adolfo González just slid onto the bench seat opposite him, a little smile on his face. It might have been mistaken for a friendly smile, one that an old friend gives to another, except for the fact that his right hand stayed beneath the table and held, Beau knew, a revolver that was pointed right at his balls.
“Good morning, Señor Baxter.”
“Señor González. I suppose you think I’m pretty stupid.”
“Negligent, perhaps. I’m surprised. Your reputation is excellent.”
“And yours,” Beau said, with a bitter laugh.
“You know not to make any sudden moves, yes?” Adolfo’s English was heavily accented, slightly lispy.
“No need to remind me.”
“Nevertheless––”
“There’s no need for this to end badly.”
“It won’t, Señor Baxter, at least not for me.”
Beau tried to maintain his composure. He laid the knife and fork on the plate, nudging them so that they rested neatly alongside each other. “Let me go back to New Jersey. I’ll tell them to lay off.”
“I could let you do that.”
“They’ll listen to me. I’ll explain.”
“But they won’t, Beau––do you mind if I call you Beau? You know they won’t. I killed your employer’s brother. I removed his head with a machete. I killed five more of their men. They want that debt repaid. I’d be the same if the roles were reversed, although I would do the business mysel
f rather than hide behind a panocha’s skirts.”
“I’ve got money in the car. Twenty-five grand. I’ll give it to you.”
“That’s the price they put on me?”
“Half. You’re worth fifty.”
“Fifty.” He laughed gently. “Really? Beau, I’m disappointed in you. You think I need money?”
He realised how stupid that sounded. “I suppose not.”
He indicated the half-finished quesadilla. “How is the food here?”
“It’s alright.”
“Do you mind?” González picked up Beau’s knife, used it to slice off a triangle, then stabbed it and put it in his mouth. He chewed reflectively. “Mmmm,” he said after a long moment. “That is good. You like Oaxaca?”
“I like it alright.”
“It is a little too Mexican for most Americanos.”
“I’m a little too Mexican for most Americans.”
González took a napkin from the dispenser, folded it and carefully applied it to the corners of his mouth. Beau watched Adolfo all the time. He looked straight back at him. Beau assessed, but there was nothing that he could do. The table was pressed up against his legs, preventing him from moving easily, and, besides, he did not doubt that Adolfo had him covered. A revolver under the table, it didn’t matter what calibre it was, he couldn’t possibly miss. No, he thought. Nothing he could do except bide his time and hope he made a mistake.
“We’re alike, you and I,” he said.
González did not immediately answer. “Let me tell you something, Beau. I want to impart the gravity of your”––he fished for the correct word––“your predicament. Do you know what I did last night? I went out. Our business has a house in a nice neighbourhood. Lots of houses, actually, but this one has a big garden in back. Not far from here. We had two men staying there. Hijos de mil cojeros. They used to be colleagues but then they got greedy. They thought they could take my father’s money from him. Do you know what I did to them?”
“I can guess.”
“Indeed, and discussing the precise details would be barbaric, yes? I’m sure a man such as yourself must have an excellent imagination. We had some enjoyment but then, eventually, after several hours, I shot them both. And then, this morning, I visited the restaurant where a journalist and her friends were eating on Monday night. The owner and the cuero he was with, they didn’t give me the information that I wanted. So I shot them, too. Just like that.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Another question: do you know what a pozole is?”
“I’m pretty sure you’re fixing to tell me.”
He smiled, his small teeth showing white through his thin, red lips. “A pozole is a Mexican stew. Traditional. Hominy, pork, chillies. It’s important to keep stirring the soup while it is on the stove so that the flavours blend properly. One of my men has acquired a nickname: he is know as El Pozolera. The Stewmaker. It is because he is an expert in dissolving bodies. He fills a plastic drum with 200 litres of water, puts in two sacks of caustic soda, boils it over a fire and then adds the body. You boil them for eight hours until the only things left are teeth and nails, and then you take the remains––the soup––to an empty lot and burn it up with gasoline. It is disgusting for those without the constitution necessary to watch. A very particular smell.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, Beau, I need you to understand that, even though we might be in the same business, you are mistaken: we are not alike. You deliver your quarry alive. You even allow them to bargain with you. To negotiate, to offer you a better deal. Mine cannot. I do not make bargains and I do not negotiate. I’m not open to persuasion and I can’t be dissuaded with whatever you have in your car, by the money in your bank account or by any other favour you might offer me. Once I have decided a man must die, that is it––they will die. A final question before we leave. You have killed people. Not many people, I know, but some. Tell me: what does it feel like for you?”
“Feels like business.”
“Again, a point of difference. For me, it is everything. It is the sensation of having someone’s life in the palm of your hand and then making your hand into a fist, tightening it, squeezing tighter and tighter until the life is crushed. That is power, Beau. The power of life and death.”
“You’re crazy.”
“By your standards, perhaps, but it hardly matters, does it?” The man leaned back. He studied Beau. “I’ll be honest. You will die today. It will not be quick or painless and I will enjoy it. We will record it and send it to your employer as a warning: anyone else you send to Mexico will end up the same way. The only question is where, when and how. I will give you a measure of control over the first two of those. The how?––that you must leave to me.”
Beau looked out of the restaurant’s window. “I know where the girl is.”
“Good for you.”
“The Englishman––I know where he’s taken her.”
“Ah, yes, the Englishman. Caro de culo. An interesting character. I can find out nothing about him. What can you tell me?”
“I could give you him, too.”
“You’re not listening, Beau. I don’t barter. You’ll tell me everything I want in the end, anyway.”
“I could deliver him to you in five minutes.”
He smiled again, humouring him. “You said you know where the girl is?”
“Yeah.”
“You know, Beau. It still doesn’t matter.”
“And why is that?”
“Because there is nowhere in Juárez where the Englishman could hide her from me. This city is mine, Beau. Every hovel in every barrio. Every street corner, every alleyway. Every hotel, every mansion, every last square inch. How do you think I found you? All I have to do is wait. She will be delivered to me eventually. They always are.”
* * *
37.
MILTON WATCHED the conversation through the windows of the diner. The place was on Avenue de los Insurgents in a strip mall with a large plastic sign in the shape of a lozenge that said Plaza Insurgents. Milton’s taxi had pulled over on the other side of the road, behind a 1968 Impala Caprice with ‘Viva La Raza’ written across the bonnet. The passenger side window was down, classic rock playing loudly.
He recognised the driver as the doctor from the hospital.
Milton stood quietly and watched.
The diner was busy. Beau Baxter was alone in a booth and González made his way straight to him, slipping down opposite and beginning to talk. Beau’s body language was stiff and stilted and his face was pale; this was not a meeting that he had requested. Curious, Milton crossed the street to get a little closer, watching through an angled window so that neither man could see him. He looked closer and saw that González had not moved his right hand above the table. He was armed, or he wanted Baxter to think that he was.
Milton moved away from the window and leant against a telephone kiosk. He looked up and down the street and across the strip mall but if González had other men here, they were good. Milton could see nothing that made him think that there was any sort of back up. González was on his own. He could feel the reassuring coldness of the Springfield’s barrel pressed against his spine. Thirteen shots in the clip, one in the chamber. He hoped they would be enough.
Beau and González got up.
Milton moved to the entrance. There was a bench next to the door, an advertisement for a law firm on the backrest. He sat down behind a newspaper he found on the floor, the Springfield hidden in his lap. Beau came out first, González behind him. Milton let them pass, folded the newspaper over the arm of the bench and took the gun. He followed. When they reached González’s car Milton pressed the barrel against González’s coccyx.
“Nice and easy,” he said.
González turned his head a little, looking back from the corner of his eyes.
“You again.”
“That’s right.”
“I still don’t know your na
me.”
“I know.”
“English, then. Why are you always involved in my business, English?”
Milton glanced at Baxter. “You alright?”
“Feel a bit stupid.”
“Get his gun.”
Baxter frisked him quickly, finding a gold-plated Colt .45 in a holster clipped to his belt. He unfastened the holster and removed it.
“Look at this. Gold? You might have money but you can’t buy class.”
González said nothing. He just smiled.
“Beau,” Milton said. “What are you driving?”
“The Jeep,” he said, nodding to the red Cherokee with tinted windows.
“Get it started.”
“You have already taken too long, English,” González said. “My family has eyes everywhere. They are our falcons––waiters, barmen, newspaper vendors, taxi drivers, even the cholos on the street corners. A hundred dollars a week so that we may know everything about the comings and goings of our city. My Padre will know what you are doing before he sits down to dinner. And then he will find you.”
“You’ll be halfway back to New Mexico by then, partner,” Beau said.
Milton prodded González in the back and propelled him towards the Jeep. When they reached the car the Mexican finally turned around to face him. “Every moment in your life is a choice, English. Every moment is a chance to go this way or that. You are making a choice now. You have picked an unwise course and you will have to face the consequences of your decision.”
Milton watched him carefully, a practiced assessment that was so automatic that he rarely realised that he was making it. He watched the dilation in his eyes and the pulse in the artery in his neck. He saw the rate of his breathing. The man was as relaxed as if they were old friends, meeting up by coincidence and engaging in banal small talk about their families. Milton had seen plenty of disconcerting people before but this man––Santa Muerta––this man was something else. A real piece of work.