The Contractors

by Harry Hunsicker

  So much for the Tahoe.

  The smoke shifted direction, pulled by the thermals of the desert. A dark cloud swirled around us. The air stunk with the odor of gasoline and burnt plastic.

  Eva clung to me and blinked away smoke and dust.

  I looked at my cell. Still no signal. Not sure who I’d call anyway. Milo Miller back in Dallas? This might be stretching the limits of what Milo owed me, but then again, maybe not. In any event, it was a moot point. I tried to formulate a workable plan.

  Thirty seconds stretched to a minute. Neither of us spoke.

  The Tahoe continued to smolder, churning out billows of oily smoke.

  From behind us came a whistle I recognized. I gave the return signal, two high-pitched calls followed by a low trill.

  Piper emerged from the weeds and smoke, running crouched over. She skidded to a stop at the base of the boulder, coughing.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “The fire.” She took a deep breath, wiped her eyes. “Used it as cover to get across the road.”

  Nobody said anything for a few seconds.

  “What do we do?” Eva asked.

  “We go forward,” I said. “Our only option.”

  Piper didn’t say anything.

  “The opposition. Whoever they are.” I pointed to the west. “They’ve got the only transportation for miles.”

  “So we walk right up to them.” Eva hugged her knees to her chest. “And they kill us from a hundred meters out.”

  I didn’t say anything; there was no sense stating the obvious. We were in the deep end, our heads submerged, and the lifeguard was nowhere around.

  “Not necessarily,” Piper said.

  We both looked at her.

  “The sniper’s a pro.” She wiped sweat from her brow. “He’s good enough to shoot the tire on a moving vehicle from five or six hundred yards away.”

  Eva stared at her, face pale, clearly trying to piece it together.

  “But he’s not good enough to hit any of us when we bailed out?” I finished her thought.

  Piper nodded.

  “Sinclair’s trying to kill you.” I looked at Eva. “But these guys want you alive.”

  Her face drained of what little color it had. She blinked like her eyes didn’t work.

  “Who are they?” She looked at me. “You were getting ready to tell me.”

  “The company is called Paynelowe.” I paused. “Is your boyfriend a real DEA agent or a contractor?”

  The air was very still. The smoke had blown away. Ants crawled in the dirt as a scaly-backed lizard scurried underneath one of the rocks and several bees hummed around a flowering cactus.

  “He’s a contractor.” She licked her lips. “He’s from Houston.…”

  Her voice trailed off as the whump-whump of the helicopter grew louder.

  - CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE -

  Sinclair, behind the wheel of the Crown Victoria, washed down another amphetamine with cold coffee. The inside of his skin felt like electrified velvet. His muscles crackled, the sound of broken glass that only he could hear.

  He’d never been much for drugs. Don’t get high on your own supply and all that crap. Now he understood what all the kids were talking about.

  Sadie sat in the passenger seat. A little after dawn, as they drove, she’d taken a knife and cut off the bottom of her dress so that the hemline came to the middle of her creamy thighs. She’d also ripped off the sleeves so her arms were bare.

  The pain in his gut had started to feel different, so he’d asked her to ride along with him for a bit. Just in case he needed somebody to drive. Looking back, he supposed he should have asked if she even knew how to drive.

  “I want me a pill.” She smacked her lips together. “T’ain’t fair you get one but not me.”

  “That’s grown-up medicine.” He drained the last of the coffee, purchased the day before.

  “I’m a grown-up.” She pouted, examined her lips in the mirror. “I’ll be nineteen and a half in two months.”

  Her voice had two speeds, monotone and whiny.

  “You know what I mean.” Sinclair accelerated, slowed, and accelerated again. He was trying to break the monotony of the empty road, an endless blacktop surrounded by desert.

  Southwest Texas looked a hell of a lot like the pictures on the evening news of the Middle East. Piles and piles of sand, mounds of rocks. Not as many palm trees though, or exploding camels.

  “Where we going anyway?” Sadie shifted in her seat. “I gotta pee-pee.”

  He’d given her a very abbreviated version of why he was chasing the three people in the Tahoe, but Sadie only seemed to comprehend about half of what she saw or heard. Maybe her real mother had been a boozehound while she was pregnant. Or maybe Sadie had been dropped on her head as a child.

  After a while, he’d told her the truth. He needed to make real sure the Mexican lady didn’t tell anybody about who he was or what he did. Sadie didn’t seem to mind that this implied death or physical harm to the Mexican lady. In fact, she seemed to get off on the idea.

  “We’re following the helicopter.” Sinclair pointed to the west. “Better hold it. We’re not stopping for a while.”

  A gray Chinook with no markings had crossed the road about twenty minutes before. It had been headed south but banked about a half mile past the road and turned to the west, the same way Sinclair was going. The aircraft had then increased its altitude and sped off.

  Dollars to donuts that was the cokehead Paynelowe contractor, Keith McCluskey.

  “We can’t catch no helicopter,” Sadie said. “I thought we was after the people in the Tahoe and the Mexican lady.”

  Sinclair sighed and looked at the cell he had taken from Myrna DeGroot. No signal.

  That meant he couldn’t call out, couldn’t reach Imogene. It also meant he wouldn’t get any more calls from Hawkins like he’d received but hadn’t answered an hour ago. Scary how they could get this cell number so fast.

  This part of Texas was virtually uninhabited, less than one person per square mile. No reason for cell towers. No reason for towns either. Just a single east-west road that led to the target’s final destination, Marfa. A perfect place for an attack.

  He felt a tingle in his stomach, a rumble above and beyond the speed and the bullet wound. The nervous flutter that came when the fight was close at hand.

  The flutter grew louder. Then it became a vision, a cloud of light that enveloped Sinclair in a strange dampness like a cold sauna.

  From a long way off came a voice calling his name. A whiny, monotone voice.

  “Heeey. Heeey. Are you okaaay?”

  The flutter and the cloud disappeared, replaced by a jagged edge of pain so ferocious it was beyond his ability to comprehend. Bile and blood rose in his throat as spikes of agony jackknifed up his spine.

  A period of time passed. He opened his eyes. He was still behind the wheel, but the Crown Victoria had somehow parked itself by the side of the road.

  “What happened?” Sadie touched his hand. “You’re all white and stuff.”

  There was a wide spot on the shoulder a few yards ahead. The spot led to a break in the fence line where the remnants of a barn lay. The structure was about thirty yards off the highway, the only sign of human habitation they’d seen in a half hour.

  “I-I-I don’t know.” Sinclair heard a strange voice speaking, his own.

  The surrounding terrain was sand and rock, partially covered with grass the color of dried wheat, cactus, and the occasional mesquite tree.

  The barn was roofless, huge chunks of the walls missing as well. A half dozen mesquites had grown up along the base of the foundation.

  The pain eased, and Sinclair drove along the shoulder. He turned onto the rutted path that led around the barn to what used to be the front of the structure, on the side opposite of the highway. He pulled into the building. The wall facing the highway was the most intact, hiding the Ford from any traffic that might go by.

 
“You’re not gonna die, are you?” Sadie licked her lips.

  Sinclair slumped in his seat, shook his head.

  “You need to go see a doctor,” she said.

  Sinclair lifted his shirt and stared at the bloodstained bandage on his abdomen.

  “No.” He let the shirt drop. “I’m fine.”

  He knew enough rudimentary first aid to know that no major blood vessels had been hit. Nothing structural. Just a little graze that hurt real bad every now and again. As soon as he killed Eva Ramirez he’d find a doctor who wouldn’t report a gunshot wound or maybe a veterinarian he could threaten or cajole into treating him.

  Sadie didn’t say anything.

  Sinclair wiped sweat from his face.

  “I really gotta go tinkle.” Sadie opened her door. “Be right back.”

  Sinclair covered his face with his hands, took several deep breaths.

  A minute or an hour later, someone tugged on his arm. He opened his eyes.

  Sadie’s face was inches from his. She held a finger in front of her lips and then pointed toward the road.

  Sinclair brushed aside the pain and carefully opened the driver’s door.

  “There’s a car,” Sadie whispered. “With some soldier men.”

  Sinclair slid out, eased to his knees, and crawled awkwardly to the rear of the barn. The pain had lessened. He peered through a gap in the wall.

  A Porsche sport utility vehicle was parked on the side of the highway about forty feet from the back wall. All the doors were open, and a group of men stood nearby, checking the actions on their weapons.

  Even in civilian clothes, they were clearly military. The haircuts and way they carried themselves. The rifles they held, like miniature M-4s but with silencers attached to the muzzles.

  There were four of them. They talked quietly among themselves and then got back in the Porsche. The SUV pulled onto the highway and headed west.

  Paynelowe operatives, had to be. McCluskey always favored ex-soldiers. That meant he was close by, certainly part of the crew in the helicopter.

  Sinclair stood and made his way to the rear of the Ford.

  Sadie came up beside him. “What are we gonna do?”

  “Time to go hunting.” Sinclair opened the trunk and unlocked the biggest of the gun cases. Then, he pulled out a blue-black barrel assembly and a scope.

  The Barrett .50 caliber was a huge gun, weighing well over fifteen kilos. In combat, the rifle and its ultra-powerful cartridge were used primarily to stop vehicles or penetrate buildings at long ranges, not to kill enemy personnel. The .50 caliber round was almost six inches long and could shatter cinder block walls or the forged steel of a truck engine from a mile away. The damage it could do to a human body was hard to describe.

  He fitted the barrel assembly together with the receiver and pulled a box of ammunition from a duffel bag.

  “That’s a big bullet.” Sadie pointed to the ammo. “You could kill Godzilla with that sucker.”

  Sinclair slid a cartridge into the breech of the single-shot rifle but left the bolt open.

  A gun shop owner back in Dallas with a thing for underage girls had given him the rifle. The guy had said it was more powerful than a .50 caliber. Sinclair didn’t know much about ballistics other than bigger was better.

  The rifle was chambered for a little-known round called the .460 Barrett, a .50 caliber case necked down to accept a slightly lighter and much faster .45 caliber bullet. A more accurate projectile that hit with more terminal energy than its big brother. Tommy, may his dumb ass rest in peace, had once shot a cow with the rifle. Damn near blew the thing in two.

  “You gonna shoot those guys in the Porsche?”

  “You want to take a pill, Sadie?” He popped the lens covers off the scope.

  “Yeah.” She nodded and twisted a lock of hair in between a thumb and forefinger. “But first I want you to kiss me.”

  Sinclair stopped what he was doing. “Sadie, darling. I’m old enough to be your grandpa.”

  “Don’t you think I’m good-looking?” She pouted. “My daddy says I’m pretty enough to get the job done.”

  Sinclair gingerly placed the rifle on the backseat, careful to keep the scope from being jarred. Tommy had sighted-in the finely calibrated optics the week before, six inches high at a thousand yards.

  He shut the door, pulled the teenager close, and mashed her face against his.

  They stayed that way for a few moments, flesh against flesh, lips pressed together.

  When they broke apart, Sadie said, “You know what they say about preachers’ kids?”

  Sinclair shook his head.

  “You shoot your Mexican lady and I’ll show you.”

  He nodded and headed to the front of the car. Sadie scampered after him. He stopped at the driver’s door and looked across the roof at her.

  “You know how to drive?”

  She nodded.

  “Why don’t I ride shotgun,” he said. “Rest up a little.”

  “Whatever you say, baby.” Sadie came around and helped him into the passenger side.

  Settled in, Sinclair handed her a pill as she started the engine.

  “You ever killed anybody before?” She swallowed the tablet dry.

  He looked at her funny but didn’t reply.

  “It’s like flicking a switch.” Sadie backed out of the barn. “One minute, they’re on. The next, they’re off.”

  “Yeah.” Sinclair raised an eyebrow. “How’d you know?”

  That was exactly how he’d describe the sensation.

  “Lots you don’t know about me,” she said. “We’re gonna have us a ball after that Mexican lady dies.”

  - CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO -

  I scrambled up the ditch and ran toward a low spot in the fence where the top strand had broken. I hopped over, signaled for Eva and Piper to hurry.

  The chopper banked, came back for another pass. The aircraft was maybe a thousand feet up, making wide, lazy circles around our general area.

  Piper cleared the fence like a gazelle.

  Eva’s heel caught on the wire, and she fell, landing in the dust, her arm beneath her. She cried out, and I pulled her up. We followed Piper down a cattle trail that led into a stand of mesquites. The trees were squat, close to the ground and thorny, more like shrubs with fancy notions about being something else.

  The cover was better than nothing but not by much.

  We jogged down the trail away from the highway, trying to avoid the daggers that protruded from each low-hanging branch.

  The terrain, which appeared flat from the road, was not. Small depressions sculpted the land, weed-choked draws that led to places where the sporadic rainfall drained, undulations in the earth’s surface.

  Prickly shrubs and desert yaupons. Texas buckhorn bushes that looked like rosemary but had thorns instead of fragrant needles. Cactus everywhere.

  A couple of minutes later, we entered a clearing. In the center was a stock tank full of brackish water, and a couple of salt licks for the cattle that had left hoofprints everywhere.

  No breeze at all. The heat was all-encompassing, a fourth, uninvited member of our entourage.

  I wiped sweat off my face. Struggled to catch my breath.

  Piper, T-shirt wet like she’d been caught in the rain, held up a hand, motioned for us to stop.

  A couple of mourning doves whistled overhead.

  Piper looked up. “The chopper’s gone.”

  I listened.

  Nothing but the buzz of flies around piles of manure.

  A path lay on the other side of the clearing. It was wider, two ruts on either side for the wheels of a vehicle, obviously the way the salt licks had been delivered.

  Eva rubbed her arm, winced.

  “Are you all right?” I touched her shoulder.

  Piper clutched her subgun and stared at me. Her face was slick with sweat, eyes filled with something I couldn’t place.

  Anger and sadness. Regret. Jealousy?

&nb
sp; “I am fine,” Eva said. “Let’s keep going.”

  “Wait.” Piper held up her hand.

  Eva looked at me, clearly searching for instructions.

  Piper put her hands on her hips. “What’s your boyfriend’s name?”

  Eva stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “The DEA agent,” Piper said. “What’s his name?”

  “Keith. His name is Keith McCluskey.”

  Piper and I looked at each other.

  “You know him?” Eva said.

  “Why didn’t you ask us about him?” I said. “Or tell us his name before?”

  “What does it matter?” She shrugged.

  “We’re DEA,” Piper said. “Supposedly on the same team.”

  “You have to understand.” Eva took a deep breath. “There’s a line. It separates the narcos and those that fight them.”

  “You mean the police?” I said. “Law enforcement.”

  “Yes.” She bit her lip, struggling for the right phrase. “And that line, sometimes it’s hard to see. Sometimes it disappears.”

  I nodded. “McCluskey’s as bent as a paper clip.”

  “He breaks the rules, yes. But not in the way you think.”

  “What do you mean?” Piper said.

  “I don’t know how to say it.”

  “Give it a shot,” I said.

  “Both sides, the narcos and the police, they think they are in the right.” She paused. “What’s the word in English? It’s very… ironic.”

  I nodded.

  The narcotraffickers were modern-day Robin Hoods. They gave money to the destitute, fed the hungry, clothed the orphans. The police in Mexico were poorly paid and corrupt, oftentimes more dangerous to the citizens than were the criminals.

  On the other side of the coin, the DEA and other American law enforcement agencies often let smugglers escape or even gave tacit approval for their continued operation, all in the hope of catching the next man up, the bigger fish. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives even allowed smugglers to bring weapons into Mexico for the same reason, a clear violation of about a dozen international laws. A little bad now for the greater good later. Right became wrong and then right again. Or did it?

  “Why don’t you just turn yourself in to McCluskey?” Piper said.