River Runs Red (The Border Trilogy)

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  “I’ll tell you when I see you.”

  “Where?”

  “Pick a place. Not too far away. I want to do this now.”

  She named a coffee shop usually frequented by university students, not far from the hospital. It might be crowded, but its chairs were gathered into cozy groupings between large pillars, offering a degree of privacy while still being public enough for safety. “It’s just got pastries and such,” she said. “If that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll need twenty,” she said. “But I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  She hung up, tossed the rest of her toast into the trash, poured her coffee down the sink. Before she left, she called Franklin Carrier and told him she would be late, and why. “Go get him, girl,” he said.

  “That’s the plan.”

  Given what she had seen last night—the almost erotic charge she had experienced remembered vividly, making her tingle all over—she would have been surprised if Wade had slept at all.

  Unless he was used to nights like that.

  He was ensconced in a chair when she reached the coffee shop. He had managed to find the most remote table in the place, tucked back in a corner with a pillar and a rack of coffee mugs and pots blocking access to it from three sides. The table was small and round, its surface a tiled mosaic. Wade had a huge mug steaming on top of it, no food. Molly waved and ordered a coffee and a croissant at the counter. When she had them, she carried them to the table, set them down, and leaned over to kiss Wade’s cheek. He didn’t return the gesture. His eyes were bloodshot, his brow furrowed.

  “You sounded bad on the phone, Wade,” she said, settling into a plush wing-back chair. “What’s up?”

  “I…had a rough night,” he said. He scratched the outside of his thigh, through his jeans.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Me, too. I mean, sorry it happened.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  She sipped her coffee, watching him over the rim of her cup. “You wanted to see me, though.”

  “Yeah.” His gaze darted around the place, landing on the coffee shop’s framed art (amateurish, vaguely Warholian watercolor portraits of writers, musicians, and artists), the other mismatched tables and chairs, the employees bustling about, but never meeting hers. She was getting used to the beard, but he hadn’t even combed his hair. Dark bags weighed down his eyes and his cheeks looked gaunt, as if he’d lost a few pounds overnight.

  She knew he hadn’t. He had lost some in captivity, though. His natural good looks and cheerful manner had disguised it, hidden the emotional toll it must have taken on him. Today he displayed it all.

  “So what’s up?” Knowing his secret gave her a private pleasure, a kind of power over him.

  “I…” He stopped, picked up the giant mug, took a loud drink. “I haven’t told you what happened over there.”

  “In Iraq?”

  “Right. Or Byrd either. I told the story a hundred times to the authorities and to people at CNN, but that was just a version of it, you know? Like the truth, but not the whole truth.”

  “And now you want to tell it?” Franklin had called this one. Next time she would trust his instincts.

  “I think something happened to me over there, Molly. Something…I don’t know, weird. Something that’s not right.”

  “What do you mean?” Molly dabbed at her lips with a napkin, hiding the grin she felt coming on.

  “I’m not really sure. I just thought maybe if I told you about it, it would help me understand it myself.”

  “I’m here, Wade. I called work, so they know I’ll be late. As long as you need.”

  He nodded gratefully. “Well, you know the basics already, right?”

  “I know what was in the news. You were kidnapped, you got away.”

  “I was supposed to have a meeting with an insurgent leader. It took me days to set it up. Weeks. Working channels, talking to people who knew people who could get to him. Finally, one day, I got the call. Get to this address, right now. Sami, the Iraqi who worked as my driver and translator, was sitting in the lobby of the Palestine, my hotel, playing cards with some of the other men who did the same for other journalists. I grabbed him and we hustled out to his Mercedes, a gray, paint-peeling piece of crap that must have been thirty years old. We drove to the address where the meet was supposed to happen, through a few checkpoints, into a neighborhood where most of the houses were relatively intact. But when we parked and knocked on the door, someone answered without opening it more than an inch or two and shouted at us. Sami shouted back, then shrugged and started back to the car.

  “‘What’s going on?’ I asked him. ‘Meeting’s off,’ he says. ‘Canceled. They will call when it can happen again.’

  “Well, I was pissed. I yelled at Sami, yelled at the house, even though the guy had shut the door and there were no signs of life inside. Sami was used to things not working out—he was Iraqi, after all, so that was a way of life for him. He gave me a few shrugs and started up the Mercedes to drive back to the hotel. Before he got out of the parking space, two black trucks drove up and blocked us in. Then these masked guys jumped out of the truck beds with guns. I ducked down in the back, but they weren’t shooting at me. They killed Sami.”

  “You must have been terrified.”

  “I can’t even tell you. It was the most horrible—well, okay, not the most horrible moment of my life, because we both know when that was. But it was close.”

  “I’m so sorry, Wade.”

  He shrugged. “They dragged me out of the Mercedes and threw me into one of their trucks. Tied me up, stuck duct tape over my eyes and mouth. We drove around for a long time. I couldn’t tell where we were. I know we went through some checkpoints, but either they paid off the soldiers or they had allies there, because we were never stopped, even though anyone could see there was a gift-wrapped American journalist in the back.

  “Finally, we stopped and they hauled me out of the truck. We went inside somewhere, and down some stairs. A lot of stairs. I kept thinking they had to end. A few times I stumbled, but they always caught me. I kept telling them I was an American, a journalist, but that didn’t bother them in the least. They knew who I was. They had set the trap for me, after all.

  “I’m told I was missing for seventeen days. I tried to keep track, but I couldn’t see the sun. When they took off the duct tape, I was in some kind of cell, a cave with an iron door. People brought me meals, but they wouldn’t answer questions. Sometimes they demanded that I renounce Christianity and accept Allah. Sometimes they asked me questions about troop movements. They claimed I was a spy for George Bush.”

  “I guess they didn’t know you very well,” Molly interrupted.

  “Apparently not. After what seemed like a few days, they started occasionally torturing me.”

  “Oh my God, Wade.”

  “Nothing real terrible. Beating me with sticks. Taking my clothes away and throwing cold water over me, keeping me cold and wet for hours on end. When they did these things, they would rant about Abu Ghraib, like I was personally responsible for what went on there. Of course, I didn’t know anything that would help them, and the questions they asked hardly made sense anyway. When they told me it would stop if I made a propaganda video for them, I went ahead and made it. I tried to make it obvious that the things I was saying were scripted—all lies—crossing my fingers in front of the camera, winking, sometimes saying things like, ‘Is that good? Is that how you want me to say it?’”

  “We all watched that online,” Molly told him. “It was awful, seeing you in that condition, with those armed men standing behind you. But you’re right, it was obvious that you didn’t mean a word of it. Byrd cracked up, said it was the worst propaganda tape ever made, and you’d better not try to join the Screen Actors Guild.”

  Wade smiled for the first time that morning. He had been sitting in his
chair, arms held close to his sides, tense, but now he relaxed a little. He took a drink from the big mug then set it back down. “Glad to hear that,” he said. “I tried to be terrible. Anyway, I’m not going to bore you with all the details. It was one thing after another. I lost track of time and I was pretty sure I was going to die. Then one day when I expected someone to bring food, it didn’t show up. I waited, and still, no food. Finally I shook the door and called for some dinner, and the door swung open in my hands. Who knows how long it had been unlocked. I went out, expecting to be caught or shot at any second, but the place was empty. Up and up and up, out of the cavern and into a bombed-out mosque full of garbage, and finally out into the streets. Even they were empty. It wasn’t right, wasn’t natural, that there should be no one anywhere.

  “The first living thing I saw was a pig, trotting down the street. Eventually a U.S. patrol came around. I waved them down, they picked me up, and drove me into the Green Zone. There I was fed and debriefed at length by intelligence types. I think you know the rest—physicals, more debriefing, the trip to El Paso.”

  He stopped, drank deeply, as if the story had parched his throat. Molly hadn’t been taking notes, but she had a good memory and tried to store away every detail. She could pump him for more later, when she started writing. “It sounds horrible, Wade. But what is it you think happened there that’s affecting you now? Besides the bad memories, I mean?”

  “I don’t really know. Maybe in that dank cave, wet and cold and naked, I caught some kind of…freaky virus.” His gaze bored into her, intense enough to be frightening. “Do you think that’s possible?”

  “There’s a hospital right up the street.”

  “I can’t go there. Not yet. I…I feel like I’m losing my mind, Molly. Losing my grip.”

  “I guess there are viruses that can affect you that way, right? Mentally.”

  “Probably. I think so. But…I know we don’t ever talk about it, but we’ve both seen magic at work, right?”

  She gave him a questioning look. “I mean, come on, if there were a rational, scientific explanation for…for what happened to my dad,” he continued, “we’d know it. There isn’t. That wasn’t a naturally occurring pool full of super potent acid or anything. Which only leaves irrational, unnatural—or supernatural—explanations. Magic. Maybe there was some kind of magic working in that prison cave, too, and not necessarily the good kind. There were unexplained lights, strange dreams. Given what’s happening to me now, maybe it was an evil magic, a dark magic, to which I never should have been exposed. And the way I got out, the way everyone vanished—that wasn’t natural either.”

  “What about what’s happening to you now? What’s that?” she asked.

  His jaw worked, but then he clamped his mouth shut. He was still for a moment, as if listening to something. Molly could only hear the gentle rush of other people’s conversations, the ticking of the ventilation system as it blew warm air into the shop, the hissing of the steam machine. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said finally. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “You can trust me, Wade. We’ve always trusted each other, right?”

  “I know, Molly. That’s why we’re here. That’s why I called you.”

  “Then—”

  “I’m sorry, I just can’t. I can’t, Molly. When I can tell you, I will.”

  “You’d better, mister.” She knew, of course. She could have pressed him harder, thought about mentioning the convention center, the pregnant woman, or the three migrants in the park. Even Gretchen Fuchs. A thrill coursed through her.

  “Kethili-cha,” she said quietly, not fully understanding why.

  Wade stared at her as if she had unexpectedly removed the top of her head and poured her coffee inside. “Kethili-anh.”

  Electricity flowed between them. The fine hairs on her arms and neck stood on end. Every pore in her body tingled with anticipation, with power. A point had been reached, she understood—a turning point from which there would be no going back.

  Dump your coffee on the floor.

  As she thought the command, she visualized him obeying. Leaning forward in the deep chair to pick up the mug, holding it out past the edge of the table, tipping it slowly, watching the dark liquid splash on the floor.

  Dump your coffee on the floor, Wade.

  His lips curled in a faint, uncertain smile. He caught her eye and gave the slightest shrug, raising his right eyebrow a fraction of an inch. The body language said I don’t know why I’m doing this.

  Then he leaned forward, took his mug in his right hand, held it out and poured the coffee. It hit the ground, splashed, puddled.

  When he put the mug back, Molly rose and flagged down one of the coffee shop’s employees. “Excuse me,” she said. “My friend has spilled some of his coffee.”

  “Be right there,” the young man said. “Thanks.”

  “God,” Wade said, blushing, as she sat down again. “What a klutz, huh? Sorry. I didn’t get you, did I?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Wade,” she said. She kept her voice calm, but inside her emotions were racing.

  She had made him do that. Ordered him to, with her mind. And he had done it.

  She controlled him.

  It felt right, somehow. Natural. The way it should be, should always have been.

  She had been waiting for this, she realized. Waiting for a very, very, very long time.

  Kethili-cha…

  THIRTY-SIX

  The White Sands Missile Range was less than thirty minutes from Las Cruces, New Mexico, out Highway 70 on the other side of San Agustin Pass. The tiny town of Organ straddled the highway in between, and although much use was made by soldiers from the base of the Organ Mountain Café, for serious drinking, they tended to make the trek into Las Cruces.

  One thing a CIA operative had to know for any posting was how to find out where the right people drank and socialized. In some remote places that could be difficult, but in the States, it only took Truly a few minutes and a couple of phone calls to identify some popular spots. He staked out the Conquistador Lounge, a place that had probably been seedy when it was built in the early sixties and the big, overdone monument sign was placed on a pole out front, and it had only gone downhill since. The décor was strictly illuminated signs provided by beer distributors, a pool table, and scarred wood-grain tables between seats that had been torn and repaired with duct tape. No one came for the scenery, but soldiers liked its extended happy hour, cheap pitcher prices, and the easy availability of the working girls who frequented the place.

  Truly got there about eight and sat at a corner table, nursing a light beer and watching the crowd. An hour later, he had found his mark. Specialist Owen LaTour came in alone, sat at the bar, and slammed down two beers within the first ten minutes, before switching to tequila. He didn’t talk to anyone, although he nodded to a couple of uniformed soldiers. A slender man, he wore civilian clothes, but the haircut and posture were unmistakably military. Truly gave him a half hour to get oiled up, then he moved in. The place had become more crowded, but the stool next to the young soldier was empty, as if he were sending out a “keep away” vibe.

  Truly bumped into the soldier as he approached the stool. “Excuse me,” he said, slurring his words just slightly. “Seat taken?”

  The soldier shook his head. Truly sat down heavily. “Is now,” he said. “What are you drinking?”

  The soldier shot him a wary glance, like he didn’t really want company and suspected Truly was out to pick him up. “Tequila,” he said, touching the rim of an empty glass.

  “Barman!” Truly called out. “Get my friend another tequila. And one for me.”

  Another glance, and the soldier stiffened slightly. But a free drink was, after all, a free drink, so he offered a shy grin. “Thanks.”

  “No problem. Nothing’s too good for a man in uniform, right? Thank you for your service.”

  The soldier shrugged, cheeks reddening. “You do what you can.”
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  “Exactly,” Truly said. “You do what you can. Perfect attitude. You, sir, are a gentleman.”

  The soldier blushed more. “Look,” Truly said, leaning toward him and lowering his voice. “I’m not trying to hit on you or anything like that, so don’t worry. I’m just a patriot, a man who serves in his own way, and appreciates those who wear the uniform.”

  “Thanks,” the soldier said again.

  “James Truly.” He stuck out his hand. Reflexively, the soldier shook it.

  “I’m Owen LaTour.”

  “A pleasure,” Truly said. “Listen, you want to get a table? It’s getting a little crowded here at the bar.”

  Owen agreed, and they went to Truly’s corner table, which was still unoccupied. After a couple more drinks—for the soldier, Truly barely sipped his—he showed Owen his CIA credentials. The young soldier whistled, still green enough to be impressed by the presence of an intelligence agent.

  Truly told war stories of the spy game, mostly ones he’d heard from other people, and he became seemingly more free with information as the evening wore on. Owen followed suit, going from closemouthed about goings-on at White Sands to dishing on the base’s officers and activities.

  Around ten, Truly acted like he’d had a sudden brainstorm. “Your girl broke your heart, right?” he asked, picking up on a thread Owen had dropped earlier in their conversation. Owen had explained his determined drinking as an attempt to wash away the memory of her betrayal.

  “You better believe it.”

  “I know the feeling, man,” Truly said. “Better than you can imagine. It hurts like hell.”

  “That it does.”

  “You know what would make it feel better?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Getting laid.”

  Owen looked at the tabletop. “I don’t know, Jim. These women in here—”

  “Who’s talking about these women?” Truly interrupted. In truth, the women in the bar were perfectly acceptable to most men, himself included. But he was trying to make an impression. “We’re only an hour from Juárez, Owen. World-class tail.”