by Alan Russell
Then she left the room and returned to her office. To her calling. There was still a lot of preparation to do for Operation Esperanza.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Nina accepted the incoming call on her car’s Bluetooth system.
“I’m calling to wish you luck,” said Greg.
“As long as you don’t say, ‘Break a leg.’”
“Don’t break a leg,” he said.
“That sounds good.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m not quite at El Centro.”
“You still have a long drive.”
“About ten hours,” she said. “And then the wait.”
“For the dawn’s early light?”
“The plan is to go in predawn. Supposedly the ranch shuts down at three in the morning. By three thirty everyone should have cleared out. And barring insomnia, by four thirty everyone should be asleep.”
“I’m sure it will all go like a charm. How’s Ellie?”
“She was all smiles this morning when I dropped her off at Grandma Gail’s.”
Gail wasn’t really her baby’s grandma, but Nina had given Ellie’s sometime caregiver that name.
“Maybe I was hearing things,” Nina added, “but this morning I’m pretty sure she said, ‘Mama.’”
“That must have been a thrill.”
“It was.”
“Of course, you’ve been lobbying her for months.”
“I won’t deny it.”
“It will be nice to hear something other than ‘ohbez.’”
“Are you working today?”
“I’m glad to say I’m not. Today’s agenda is for me to be a rock star.”
“Looking for anything in particular?”
“I’ll settle for a modern-day Cripple Creek gold strike. Short of that, a few aquamarines would be nice.”
“Good luck to you as well.”
“Let’s plan a joint celebration when we both get back.”
A brief wave of unexpected sadness washed through her, but she needed focus now, not emotion. “I like the sound of that.”
Nina crossed the Arizona border into Yuma and then continued along Interstate 8 over to Interstate 10. The desert that was Arizona showed itself. Millions lived in Phoenix, but to Nina’s thinking, those people were more mirage than not. The real Arizona was the desert.
“Here we go again,” she said. “Can you hear me, Sister? It’s hot outside, but I’m cold. You’ve got my back, don’t you?”
She was going to war again. She needed her sister.
“Did my heart really turn to ice?” she asked. “I remember it being that cold. Maybe that’s what it took to survive. Maybe that’s what it will take now.”
She’d downloaded a number of songs for her drive and called up one now, Sia’s “Elastic Heart.” It was how she chose to think of hers.
As the desert went by, Nina cycled through her playlist, including Hozier’s “Take Me to Church,” Coldplay’s “A Sky Full of Stars,” and Kyng’s “Electric Halo.” She drove through Tucson listening to the Foo Fighters’ “Something from Nothing” and the Pretty Reckless tune “Heaven Knows,” and two and a half hours later, entered New Mexico on the storm of Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse.”
“Sun Tzu said the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. That’s what I want to be able to do. But it won’t happen today, will it? It’s difficult to wage a war when you’re uncertain how many fronts you must fight it on. But I think I know, Sister.”
After a while she added, “Long drives give you a long time to think. But when the answers are ugly, what good is it to think?”
Padre Diego had supplied them with most of their intelligence. He’d never been to the brothel, but he’d heard the confessions of those who had.
The two drivers met up with Nina at the prearranged spot outside of El Paso. Even though they were only being called upon to drive, they were scared. The two women looked like what they were: suburban housewives. That wasn’t a judgment; it was the world they knew. But now they were outside that comfort zone. They were volunteers in a struggle in which they believed, but now they were wondering if they were in over their heads.
With her measured tones and her apparent calm, Nina reassured them. In a situation that felt like madness, she was the voice of reason. This was a battle, and they needed to understand the objective. Nina discussed what they might expect and went over what to do if things went wrong. When she was convinced they were prepared and ready, she hugged the women and whispered, “Esperanza.”
They had the GPS coordinates and directions of where they’d be going. The two drivers would park at a dirt turnout about a quarter of a mile from the ranch and await Nina’s summons. Nina would park closer to the ranch.
Now it was up to Nina to go and free the captives. No one gave her a pep talk. No one told her it would be all right.
Nina had been assured by Father Diego that there were plenty of secluded spots near the ranch where she might park. She drove slowly along the dirt road, her headlights swallowed up by the darkness around her. Then she saw what she was looking for. There was an opening in the midst of the mesquite trees and chaparral on the side of the road that looked perfect. She parked the car and then examined the surrounding area. The car was well hidden amid the trees and brush. Although the ranch wasn’t in sight, Nina knew it couldn’t be more than an eighth of a mile away. It was twenty past three, which left her plenty of time for her preparations. There was only a sliver moon for her to work by, but that was as expected. She’d planned it that way, wanting the cloak of darkness.
At four in the morning, Nina was in position. There were two cars in the dirt parking lot. She felt their hoods, determined the engines were long cold, and then disabled the vehicles. It was likely the cars belonged to the guards. Even if she failed to incapacitate those guards, they still wouldn’t be able to come after the two waiting drivers.
She shrank into the shadows of the parking lot. There were still lights on inside and outside the house, but Nina couldn’t see or hear any activity. She let the minutes pass while she studied the house and surrounding area. There was no activity she could detect, no sign of a patrol, and no sounds of music. From inside the ranch, there were no flickering lights to indicate someone was watching a television.
With her wolf mask on, Nina finally emerged from the shadows and began prowling the compound. The ranch’s electrical power was supplied by a generator. She disabled it, and in the silence that followed listened for any cries. No one called out; no alarms went off.
Nina turned on the cell-phone signal jammer and then put night-vision glasses over her mask. In one hand she carried a combination flashlight/stun gun. It looked and operated like an ordinary flashlight until she pressed a red button, which unleashed ten million volts. In her waist pack was a taser. There was also a bludgeon, restraints, and tools for breaking and entering.
There was only one door into the ranch house. It was there that Nina would be the most vulnerable. She’d practiced her breaking-and-entering skills inside the Carlsbad home with locksport kits. By now she was confident she could manually open any standard lockset in about a minute’s time, but that was without having to worry about someone on the other side of the door blasting her with a shotgun. In this instance she’d decided speed was more important than stealth and had brought an electric pick gun to get her through the door quickly.
Soundlessly she crossed the expanse to the door. Necessity had been her teacher, and she hadn’t forgotten her lessons. Before positioning the electric pick gun, Nina tried turning the door handle. Much to her surprise it turned, and she pushed the door silently open. Those in charge of the ranch apparently didn’t fear a home invasion.
Using her night-vision glasses, Nina made her way forward. All she had to do was follow the snoring. One of the guards was asleep in an easy chair. Sitting on the ground next to him was a mostly empty bottle of tequila. The still-pungent odor of mota fille
d the air.
She slid by the man and went farther into the house. In the first bedroom, she found another snoring man; this one was sprawled on a bed.
Nina passed by him as well, scouting the rest of the house. She was stopped by a locked door; behind it she knew were the “coops” that held the female prisoners.
Backtracking, Nina came to the room with the sleeping man and silently closed the door to keep him from hearing. Then she went to the living room and the guard passed out in the easy chair. He didn’t awaken while she tied him to the chair with a rope, nor did he come to while she put flex-cuffs around his wrists.
As she tightened the gag in his mouth, he started, but his scream was muted. The fright in his eyes bespoke what his voice couldn’t. He was looking at a glowing wolf face.
She made her way to the bedroom where she silently opened the door. The second guard wasn’t quite as compliant as the first, but ten million volts managed to assure his cooperation, if not his complete silence.
“Make another sound,” she whispered, “and I’ll light you up like a Christmas tree.”
It was unclear if he understood exactly what she was saying; what wasn’t unclear was the stun gun pressed into him. Nina gagged him, tied him up, and then relieved him of his gun and keys.
Nina stood outside the locked door, but didn’t hear any movement from inside. When she threw open the door, she was glad to see there wasn’t a third guard. The women inside awakened to her shining flashlight and her saying, “Santuario.”
Sanctuary.
They could not see that she was smiling. They only saw her wolf’s face that glowed one second and then disappeared, only to glow again.
The women would surely have panicked and screamed if not for one among them, the woman who’d left the note in Padre Diego’s offertory plate.
“Es La Loba!” she said.
Nina gestured for them to follow her, and the women did. Once they were outside, she made her call to both of the drivers. A short time later, La Loba herded four women into one car and three into the other.
“Adios, hermanas,” La Loba told them. “Tener miedo no mas.”
The ghost wolf told them to be afraid no more. And then she added, “Usted no esta solo.”
You are not alone.
She waved to them as the cars drove off.
The woman who had dared to write La Loba, a girl of fifteen named Sofia, said to the others, “Did you notice she was missing one finger? I heard she lost it while besting the devil himself.”
All eyes turned to get a last look at La Loba, but she was already lost to sight.
Nina paralleled the road, using the night-vision glasses to make her way through the chaparral. There were prickly pear cactus and thorny mesquite to be avoided, but she was worried about other dangers. She kept low and moved from side to side. She heard the moans before she even came in sight of her car.
With the stun gun in hand, she approached cautiously. Without making a sound, keeping the brush between her and the groaning, she drew nearer. She wasn’t going to be drawn into a trap—or at least another trap.
Oh, Sister, she thought.
Nina had hoped she was wrong. She’d wanted to be wrong. But hard lessons had left her with no more illusions.
Her dark clothing hid her presence. Her wolf mask was now off, but that didn’t matter. It would always be there whether she was wearing it or not. She chose when and where to be heard, tossing a rock near where he was.
“Nina?” Greg said.
“Tonight my name is La Loba.”
He wasn’t listening to what she said. He was too busy pretending righteous indignation. “Did you do this? Did you set this goddamn trap? I came to help you.”
“It’s called a pig trap,” she said. “I find it an appropriate name.”
“What’s wrong with you? I’m hurt, goddammit. I’m fucking bleeding everywhere.”
“I knew you’d find the car,” she said. “How is it that you came upon it so easily? It’s a dark night, and I made sure it was hidden in the brush.”
“You could have done a better job hiding it, all right? Now get me the fuck out of this thing.”
“All week I’ve been pretending for your sake. It wasn’t easy for me. I’m not an actor like you are. You fooled Elese into thinking you were the perfect husband. And then I bought into your act.
“In the back of my mind, I suppose I already had doubts—like why it was you had so few mementos of Elese; why you insured her supposedly because the two of you were going to have a family, and yet you’ve never talked about having a family.
“But in my mind everything began to crystallize with that drawer. But you knew about my discovery, didn’t you?”
“No, I don’t know a goddamn thing about any discovery, and I don’t fucking know what you’re babbling about. I do know I need help.” He shook a branch in frustration and then groaned in pain. “Help!”
“The night of my discovery, I didn’t sleep well. There was something unsettling about your secret compartment. I wondered what other secrets you had. And the more I wondered, the more it felt like I had vertigo. I remembered a line from a Gilbert and Sullivan play: ‘Things are not as they seem, skim milk masquerades as cream.’ Things were definitely not as they seemed. A man who has a secret compartment would be distrustful of everyone and everything. And I listened again to that voice in the wilderness that told me when I was being watched, and I was suddenly sure you were monitoring me.”
“Listen to yourself, Nina. You hear how deluded you sound? I know how you suffered. But now I’m the one who’s suffering. You have to help me! I think your trap might have hit my femoral artery. I’m bleeding like a son of a bitch!”
“Inside the house I took care of Ellie and made plans for Esperanza. I gave no indication that I suspected I was being watched. But when I wasn’t in the house, I learned about home surveillance systems and how cameras could be hidden in the most innocuous spots and triggered by motion. And that from Colorado you could be watching everything going on in your house from your phone, or tablet, or computer.”
Greg said, “While you were weaving your fantasies, I was working in Colorado! And I was worrying about you and your rescue missions. I could see how it was making you paranoid and crazy. I just didn’t realize how far gone you were.”
“I asked you how you found my car. It was a rhetorical question. This week I discovered your GPS tracker. Of course, I was looking for it; I never would have seen it otherwise. The only thing I wasn’t certain of was how long it had been in place. And whether you would use it to track me down and kill me tonight. I wanted to be wrong. I didn’t want to find you here.”
“You’re wrong! I came here to help you. I love you, Nina.”
“Did you know Baer told me romantic love was the worst mistake a woman could make? He said there was no easier way to deceive someone than by pretending to be in love. I didn’t know at the time he was talking about you and Elese. But now I do.”
He tried shaking a branch again, but his maneuvers only hurt him.
“And I’m afraid Elese might have come to realize that as well. In her journal she wrote that you seemed to be more of a dream than anything else. But you know that, don’t you? You pretended enthusiasm when I began reconstructing Elese’s book, but I detected something else. I thought it was sadness on your part. But I think it was fear of being discovered. Do you remember what she wrote about you? Maybe he always was a dream. That’s how it feels.
“Is that why you burned down the cabin? Were you afraid her words might get you caught? It was your idea to honeymoon in Alaska. Elese wrote that the two of you had never been there. That’s what you told her, but it was a lie.”
“You’re taking everything out of context. Just give me a chance to clear everything up. I promise I will. But right now I’m hurt. I’m hurt badly,” Greg pleaded.
“I surveyed the trail around here ahead of time. There was only one likely spot where you’d be
waiting to ambush me. When you make a spear trap, you need the right tree and the proper angle, and you need to direct your game where you want it to go. When you pull back the tree, the stakes have to be positioned so that they come swinging at the target. I put all the pieces of the trap together in a park in Carlsbad and brought them with me. It took me less than fifteen minutes to set everything up, trip wire and all.”
“We can talk about your huge, fucking mistake later! Right now I need a tourniquet. Right now you need to get me to a hospital.”
Nina could hear him reaching inside his coat. She was listening to his every movement.
“Throw me your flare gun and accelerant.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
She repositioned herself, using the cover of darkness to move to another spot. “You can cut the poor Greg Martin act. You’ve milked your star-crossed lover role past its expiration date. Your first wife was a psychotic, and your second, sainted wife was abducted by a madman. And what would have been your third wife went afoul of Los Fuegos and suffered the terrible consequences of being doused in gas and shot with a flare gun.”
“I loved Elese. I love you.”
“When did you decide I had to die? Was it when I was surprised by how few of Elese’s personal effects you had? Was it when I began re-creating her journal? Or was it when I made my discovery of your secret compartment?”
“I need help. Please.”
“I wonder if Elese realized your deception at the end. I wonder if that was the final nail in her coffin. You feared I’d figure out your involvement over time. You feared I might put together the loose ends. And you were right to be afraid. You told Elese you’d never been to Alaska. But you had. That was where you met Baer, wasn’t it?”
“There’s no time to hear your conspiracy theories! I’m fucking bleeding out!”
“Yes,” she agreed, “there’s blood all over your hands. I should have seen that. But what you did was so unconscionable that I had trouble bringing my mind around to even imagining it. Even now it’s difficult.”