“Donde esta el consulada Americano?” Angela called out, but the man was already backing away. “Shit,” Angela said.
She put the car back in gear and rolled on. It was then that she noticed the mobile phone nestled in a cradle attached to the dashboard. She couldn’t figure out at first if it was a hands-free system, much less how to turn it on, so she yanked the phone from its cradle and dialed 040 for information. As soon as the operator came on the line, Angela asked the address of the American consulate. After that, it was a matter of finding the car’s GPS system and making her way there.
As she turned into the long drive and neared the gate, she saw the Marine guard unsling his weapon. He began speaking rapidly, head bent in the direction of a microphone on his lapel. Puzzled, she slowed down and looked in the mirror. There was a black SUV in the street behind her, parked across the entrance to the driveway. Shit. She accelerated and pulled up to the guardhouse. The Marine looked impossibly young to Angela, but he held the rifle as if he knew how to use it. The sight of Esmeralda slumped in the front seat caused him to blink in confusion. “I’m an American citizen,” she said. “My name is Angela Sanchez. I’ve been held prisoner by one of the local drug traffickers. This girl was wounded helping me escape.”
The Marine looked back up the drive, then back to Angela. “We got a report that someone was going to show up here in a stolen vehicle. Robbed one of the local businesses and killed the manager.” He swung the weapon to bear on Angela.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she said.
He didn’t look like he was kidding. “Stay in the car, ma’am.”
“Damn it,” Angela said, “we don’t have time for this. This girl is bleeding to death, if she hasn’t already. We need help.” The Marine didn’t answer or budge. “Look,” she said desperately, “look at who’s behind me. Does that look like the local cops?”
“No,” the Marine said, “but that does.” He nodded toward the top of the drive.
Angela looked. A blue and white pickup with a light bar on top had pulled up. The word POLICIA was stenciled on the side with a gold star beneath it. She turned back to the Marine. He was speaking into his mic. “Please,” she begged. “The cops here work for Mandujano. Or Zavalo. If you let them take us, they’ll kill us.” A thought occurred to her. “Tell someone upstairs we have information about Auguste Mandujano’s involvement in human trafficking and illegal immigration. Please.”
“Wait one,” the Marine said. He spoke again. Angela looked back. A pair of stocky men in police uniforms had gotten out of the pickup and were approaching. One appeared older, with gray streaks in his hair. Otherwise they were almost identical with their brush cuts and mirrored shades. They might have been father and son. The Marine got done speaking and exited the guardhouse, holding his weapon at the ready. “Help you fellows?” he said in English.
The older cop on the right seemed to be the one in charge. He answered in Spanish. “This woman is under arrest for robbery and murder.”
The Marine smiled apologetically and shrugged. “Sorry,” he said in English. “No comprendo.”
The younger one spoke up in English. “These two are wanted criminals. We’re taking them in.”
The Marine nodded. “That’s what I hear. Thing is, one of ‘em’s an American citizen, and the other one’s hurt. I got to kick this one upstairs. Kinda above my pay grade. Sorry. If you guys would just wait a couple minutes, maybe we can—”
“We’re not waiting,” the young one said. He reached for the pistol on his belt.
The Marine raised his rifle and pointed it. “Ah-ah,” he said, “Let’s not do anything silly, now.”
“There are two of us,” the young cop said, but his hand had stopped midway to his holster. “You are alone.”
Angela heard a metallic rattle and a grinding sound. She looked forward and saw the gate slowly moving aside. Sitting several yards behind it was a desert sand-colored Humvee. A turret atop the vehicle held a multibarreled minigun, pointed at the men in the driveway. The man behind the gun looked grim.
The Marine was still smiling. “Gentlemen, I am a member of the United States Marine Corps. I am never alone. Now why don’t y’all trot on back to your vehicle and sit in the AC while we get this straightened out? It’s a hot day.”
The two men, frozen in place, stared at the Humvee. The younger one slowly lowered his hand. Then he mumbled something and turned away. The older man followed. They walked back to the police truck, heads held high, and backs stiff.
“Assholes,” the Marine muttered. He leaned over and looked inside the Mercedes. “Sit tight, ma’am, we got a medic coming.”
“Thank you,” Angela said.
Another young man in a Marine uniform was striding out past the Humvee, a medical bag slung under one arm. He reached the car and yanked open the passenger door. He had red hair and fair skin scorched by the sun. He knelt and slid two fingers to Esmeralda’s neck looking for a pulse. He grimaced. “She’s alive, but barely. She needs a hospital.” His voice had a country twang that reminded her of home.
“If you take her there,” Angela said, “the people after us will kill her.”
“Well, that settles it, then,” the red-haired medic said. He stood up and motioned at the Humvee, which began to slowly back up.
“Get the car inside,” he said to Angela.
“We ain’t got authorization to let ‘em in yet, Sergeant,” the guard warned.
“And I give a fuck about this why, exactly?” the medic responded. “You got a problem, talk to Mr. Huston. He’ll back me up.” He looked back at Angela. “Get a move on, lady.”
Angela moved forward, letting out her breath as she cleared the gate. A pair of Marines ran up with a stretcher. As she got out of the car, they began carefully loading Esmeralda onto it.
“Excuse me,” a voice said.
Angela turned. The man standing next to her was tall and slender, dark-complected, with large dark eyes and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. Despite the heat, he was dressed in a dark suit, which fit him as if tailored, and a red tie.
“My name is Huston,” he said, holding out his hand. “I work here at the consulate. If you would come with me, please.”
THEY WERE headed back into town, both Keller and Oscar cuffed in the back of Castle’s patrol car. Oscar said nothing, just sat and stared out the window. Keller leaned forward and spoke through the metal grating, which separated the front of the car from the prisoners in the back.
“Castle,” he said.
“Shut up.”
Keller ignored him. “Do you know what’s going on out at that farm? What that church is up to?”
“Don’t know,” Castle said. “Don’t care. Now sit back and shut up.”
“They’re kidnapping people. Illegals. We don’t know what they’re doing with them. Not for sure. But we both know it’s nothing good. Especially for the women. You know what I’m talking about.”
Castle said nothing.
“You ever read any of their literature? Seen their website?”
“They mind their business,” Castle said. “I mind mine.”
“They’re white supremacists, Deputy,” Keller said. “They think people like you and my friend here aren’t even human. They think God appointed them to be supreme.”
Castle snorted. “I let myself get all bent out of shape every time some crazy-ass white man puts somethin’ stupid up on the Internet, I’d go outta my goddamn mind.”
Oscar spoke up. “Do you have children, Deputy?”
“No,” Castle said, “if it’s any of your business. Which it ain’t.”
“I believe that those people have kidnapped my sons,” he said. “They’re holding them.”
Castle looked in the rearview mirror, back at them. His brow furrowed in concern. “Why do you believe that, sir?”
Oscar and Keller looked at each other. “It’s kind of a long story,” Keller said.
“Uh-huh. Maybe you should te
ll it to your lawyers, then.” He was pulling to a stop in front of a small building set back from the street, with a narrow strip of grass and shrubs in front of it. A fading wooden sign attached to the front said SHERIFF.
Castle got the two of them out of the car and shepherded them to the front door. He had to pause to take the front door key out of his pocket and unlock the glass front door.
“Kind of small for a sheriff’s department,” Keller remarked.
“It’s a substation,” Castle said. “Don’t use it much.”
“So why bring us here?” Oscar asked. “Not the main station?”
“Orders,” Castle said. “This way.” He led them into a tiny office with a pair of empty desks—the tops bare as if no one worked there. The lights were off, the only illumination provided by bars of light filtering through the partially opened venetian blinds.
“Orders,” Keller repeated. He looked at Oscar, then back at Castle. “Don’t those orders seem a little odd to you?”
“I just work here, sir. Stand over there.” He pointed to a spot a few feet away, on the other side of the desks. Keller and Oscar shuffled over to stand side by side in the place indicated, as Castle found another key on his ring and opened a metal door covered in flaking red paint that stood across the room. The door opened with a shriek of hinges long unused. “In here.”
“What is in there?” Oscar said.
“Holding cells. Come on, move it.”
“Holding cells?” Keller asked. “For what?”
“Holding,” Castle said. “Now get in.”
“If I go in there,” Keller said, “What are you going to do?”
“Wait for the Sheriff,” Castle said.
“Instead of taking us in and booking us. And this still makes sense to you?”
Castle dropped his hand to the Taser on his belt. “You going in there, or you wanna ride the lightning in?”
Keller considered his options. He didn’t have many. He’d counted on his instinct about Castle, thought he could talk him into helping them. He’d apparently been wrong, and that miscalculation was going to get him and Oscar locked up. After that, he sensed, things were going to get very, very bad. But he was unarmed, handcuffed, and faced by a man with a variety of ways to take him down and force him into the cell that awaited him beyond that door.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll go. But promise me one thing.”
Castle rolled his eyes. “You are not in any position to bargain here, Mr. Keller.”
“I’m not bargaining. I’m just asking. It’ll cost you nothing.”
“Tell me while you’re walking,” Castle said.
Keller moved toward the door. “If you’ve got access to a computer, go online. Look up Church of Elohim. E-L-O-H-I-M.” He walked through the doorway. There was a short hallway in front of him, with a barred window set high in the wall at the end of it providing the only light, and old-fashioned barred cells on either side of the hallway.
“I’ll do that,” Castle said, “in my abundance of spare time. Keller to the right. Mr. Sanchez to the left.”
In moments they were in the cells, facing each other across the hallway. There was nothing in each cell but a pair of bunks and a metal toilet. “Remember what I said, Castle,” Keller said.
The only reply was the clang of the metal door closing. The deputy didn’t speak as he walked down the hallway and out of the door.
“SO,” ANGELA said, “is Huston your first name or your last name? Or is it like Madonna? Or Cher?”
She sat across from him at a table in a featureless room with only the table and chairs for furnishings. Angela assumed, however, that there would be others listening.
Huston smiled. “Let’s go with that last one.”
“Are you FBI?” Angela said. “DEA? CIA?”
Still the same smile. “Officially, I’m a cultural attaché.”
“CIA, then. How’s the girl I came in here with?”
“I understand she was badly shot up. I don’t know anything beyond that.”
“She’s got a lot of information you might want,” Angela said. “About drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms across the border, you name it. You should take really good care of her.”
Huston nodded. The smile didn’t waver. “Believe me, we’ve considered that.” The smile faded a bit. “But,” he said with a shrug, “she is apparently a Mexican national. The subject of an investigation by the local state police, but not the Federals. The Federales, according to what we can find out, know nothing about any killing in any whorehouse in Ciudad de Piedras. And that in itself is pretty interesting.” The mask dropped away and Huston’s face suddenly looked as cold and merciless as an Aztec idol’s. “So, Mrs. Angela Sanchez, most recently of Wilmington, North Carolina, maybe you should be as honest as you possibly can about what the hell is going on here, before we decide to throw you both back in the lagoon and let the sharks figure out who wins and who loses.”
“I’m going to tell you,” Angela said. “You don’t need to bully me.”
Huston studied her for a moment, his dark brown eyes locked on hers. Then he nodded. “Okay,” he said, “I’m going to break protocol here, and tell you I’m sorry. I know you want to help, and I know why. So.” He smiled, and it was the first genuine smile Angela had seen from him. “Please, Mrs. Sanchez, tell us what you think we need to know, paying special attention to the smuggling of people and weapons into the United States.”
She took a deep breath, then she told him everything. Huston sat across from her, nodding from time to time. She noticed after a while that he wasn’t taking any notes, and mentioned it.
“Don’t worry,” Huston smiled. “We’ve got that covered.”
“You’ve got the room wired.”
“Of course.”
Angela kept talking. When she finally wound down, Huston nodded.
“Thank you,” he said. “This may be of use. If true.”
“I hope so,” she said. “Because it’s true. All of it.”
He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “We’ve been picking up lots of chatter, seeing lots of movement of people and assets. Those trucks found empty out in the desert, with no sign of what happened. Sources tell us that everyone’s jumpy, as if something big is about to happen. Up until now, we haven’t known what that is. And now, thanks to you, we have some more pieces of the puzzle. Andreas Zavalo’s about to make a move on Auguste Mandujano.” He smiled at her. “Assuming everything you’ve told us is true.”
“What are you going to do?” she said, adding, “Assuming this is all true.”
He shrugged. “Well, there’s an argument to be made for letting them do it. One less narcotraficante, or a few dozen if this thing turns bloody, wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
“But a lot of innocent people might get killed.”
He sighed. “There is that.” He stood up. “I’ll have someone show you to a room where you can freshen up. Maybe get some rest.”
“Has anyone found out what happened to my husband?” Angela asked. “And my friend Jack Keller?”
Huston shook his head and sat back down. He studied the backs of his hands for a moment, as if considering what to say.
She felt her throat constricting in fear. “What’s happened?”
Huston seemed to come to a decision. He looked up at her. “Border Patrol found a burned-out truck just north of the border. There was a lot of spent brass around. Evidence of some kind of firefight. A lot of blood.” He hesitated. “Three bodies.”
“Who?” the word came out as a whisper.
“They haven’t identified them yet.”
She took a deep breath, tried to calm her thudding heart. “Was one of them Latino?”
He looked sympathetic. “I don’t know. I’ll see if I can find out.”
“Please do,” she said. “And thank you. Now, I think I need to lie down.”
He stood up again. “Of course,” he said. “Follow me.”
KELLER PACED the cell like an animal, going back and forth from the bars to the bed to the toilet, over and over, looking for something, anything he could use to try and get them out. Oscar sat on the bed, watching him from across the hall.
“You’re going to wear yourself out doing that,” Oscar said finally.
Keller paused at the cell door, leaning his head against the bars. The iron felt cold on his forehead. “I’m sorry, Oscar,” he said. “I screwed up. I thought I could get that cop to trust us.”
“Because he was a fellow soldier,” Oscar said. “He’d been where you’d been.”
“Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.”
Oscar shrugged. “This is not over. Maybe he will have a change of heart.”
“I can’t depend on that,” Keller said. He looked back at the bed. “Only thing I can think of is I try to clog the toilet. Maybe with the blanket from the bed. I flood the cell. The cop has to come in and stop the water. I rush him.”
“And then?” Oscar said.
“Then we get the hell out of here.”
“I mean, what happens to that young officer? You’ll have to injure him. Maybe kill him. Do you think he deserves that?”
“I don’t care what anyone deserves,” Keller said. “I need to get us out.”
Oscar shook his head. “I think you do care,” Oscar said. “If he’s an innocent man, doing his job, then you must not harm him. And I think we both believe that’s what he is.”
Keller sat down on the bed, clenching and unclenching his fists. He recalled Lucas’s words. You never killed anyone that didn’t try to kill you first. “I need to get us out of here,” he repeated.
“You will,” Oscar said. “You will think of something. Or opportunity will present itself. When it does, you’ll know what to do. I have faith in you. Perhaps you should as well.” He lay back on the bed, arms crossed behind his head. “I’m going to rest now,” he said. “And think. Try to do the same.” Then he was silent.
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