The Contractors

by Harry Hunsicker

  “There’s some shotguns and a couple of pistols in the cabinet.” The deputy pointed to a metal storage locker behind the desk, a push-button combination dial on the front.

  An explosion, like a grenade, from outside.

  “She needs a weapon.” I pointed to Piper. “This is gonna get worse before it gets better.”

  “Yeah.” Hollis nodded. “Give her a shotgun.”

  The deputy scampered to the locker and punched in a series of numbers. He opened the door, tossed a black Remington to Piper.

  “What about me?” Eva said. “I want a gun, too.”

  “Yes, me too.” Morales moved across the room.

  “Shut up.” I shoved the drug smuggler away. “Sit in the corner and be quiet.”

  “They’re here to kill me,” he said. “And you have me tied up.”

  “No weapon for the guy on trial.” The US Attorney accepted a shotgun from the deputy. He jacked a round into the chamber.

  “What about my wife? They’re going to kill her as well.” Morales paused. “I thought Americans were fair. No gun, that’s not fair.”

  “He’s right. They will try to kill me, too.” Eva grasped my arm. “I need a gun.”

  “Give me the Colt.” I pointed to the gold pistol on the US Attorney’s hip.

  He hesitated and then handed it over.

  Eva did need a piece. The more firepower we had, the better.

  “Don’t do it,” Piper said. “Don’t give a gun to her.”

  I held it out.

  “Thank you.” Eva reached for the weapon. “I must be able to defend myself.”

  “Follow the rules on this one, Jon.” Piper’s voice was frantic. “We have enough firepower down here to hold them off if we secure the doors.”

  Lazaro Morales smiled, and I realized nothing was as it seemed.

  I pulled the gun back.

  But not fast enough.

  Eva grabbed it and smiled.

  The pistol was a .38 Super, basically a turbocharged nine-millimeter, the preferred cartridge for Mexican criminals since it was illegal for citizens of that country to own weapons chambered for military rounds.

  The sound of the report was horrendous in the narrow confines of the basement room, the explosion echoing against the cinder block walls.

  The US Attorney’s head snapped back as the bullet penetrated the soft spot just below his cheekbone.

  Lazaro Morales jumped to his feet, grinning.

  Eva fired twice more. Twin licks of flame. The blasts, softer this time.

  Hollis fell to the ground as the deputy sprung a leak and a red stream jetted from his chest.

  “Kill him.” Lazaro Morales nodded to me.

  Everything was in slow motion, languid. My vision tunneled. My muscles seemed disconnected from my bones, working at odds with each other.

  I raised the shotgun. The barrel moved like it was underwater, sluggish.

  Next to me, Piper shouted, her words indistinct, muffled by cotton.

  Eons of time passed, a thousand tiny years between life and death. I kept raising the gun, millimeter by millimeter. Piper was faster, a bolt of lightning in comparison. She had her shotgun about halfway up.

  Eva fired, muzzle aimed at my partner.

  Boom. Noise was loud again.

  Piper fell.

  “NOOO.” I yanked my weapon toward Eva. Slapped the trigger.

  Nothing. I struggled for the safety.

  From a long way off, down an empty, dark tunnel, the barrel of Eva’s gun came toward my head. I tried to move but couldn’t. The sense of powerlessness was total.

  Then, nothing but red and a strange smell of melted candles in a distant room.

  I blinked away blood. Sounds were returning to normal. My skull ached. I was on the floor, face up.

  Eva stood next to me, holding a cell phone in front of my face.

  “The girl at the first place we stopped. The one who fought with me over the meth,” she said. “I took this from her.”

  I groaned. Couldn’t move. Stomach nauseous. Head dizzy.

  The Alamo Service Station. We had neglected to search Eva after her encounter with the goth woman in the Whataburger uniform.

  “I organized the attack with our people outside.” She knelt, stroked my face. “I’m sorry things couldn’t have been different.”

  My voice returned. “P-p-piper. Y-y-you killed Piper.”

  “You did love her.” Eva nodded. “Just as I suspected.”

  Lazaro Morales appeared behind his wife. His hands were free.

  “Vámanos.” He touched her shoulder.

  “Goodbye, Jon.” She stood. “You’re a nice man. I’m not going to kill you.”

  “P-p-piper.” I blinked, tried to stop the double vision.

  “No.” Morales wagged a finger. “Kill him. You must.”

  Eva hesitated. She raised the gold-plated gun and stared at me down the barrel. Sadness filled her eyes.

  “Noooo.” I held up a hand as if it would stop a bullet.

  She nodded. “Sí.”

  Then she turned, jammed the muzzle against her husband’s chest, and pulled the trigger.

  I didn’t remember anything after that.

  PART IV

  “It is with the utmost humility that I accept my party’s nomination for president. The time has come for this nation to reclaim her compassion, for the labels which separate us to disappear.… Yes, that’s correct. I accept in the name of all peace-loving peoples in the Americas. Now is the moment for every person in this hemisphere who loves freedom to come together in a spirit of unity and harmony, and for each of us to reach for the shining star of opportunity that is our collective destiny.”

  —US Senator Stephen McNally, party convention, July 2012

  McNally Leads by Eight Points—New polls indicate the charismatic and increasingly moderate US Senator Stephen McNally has an apparently insurmountable lead over his opponent. Establishing what amounts to a coalition of voters, members of the left and right wings of both parties have embraced McNally’s message of hope and economic prosperity.

  —The Associated Press, August 2012

  - CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX -

  Paynelowe flew in style.

  Their bird, a Gulfstream V, had plush leather seats, dark lacquered wood trim, and hunter green carpet embroidered with the company’s logo, a bloody claw superimposed over a pair of crossed swords.

  Piper and I sat in the rear in overstuffed swivel chairs. I had a bandage on my temple from where Eva Ramirez had struck me with the gold-plated Colt.

  The bullet Eva had fired at Piper had hit the breech of the latter’s shotgun and split apart, copper-clad shards of lead splintering off, slicing several furrows along Piper’s right hand and arm, which had been holding the weapon.

  These wounds were minor and had been bandaged by a Paynelowe medical team who had arrived at the courthouse within a few minutes after the gun battle ended.

  The flight attendant on the Gulfstream was about twenty-five and looked like she could have been an alternate on the Norwegian bikini team. She wore a skirt that came to midthigh, a matching blouse, and a push-up bra.

  It was about four on the afternoon of the attack, and we were airborne.

  She served us a late lunch: herb-crusted salmon, asparagus in a balsamic vinaigrette sauce, and rosemary-roasted new potatoes. All washed down with a nice Sauvignon Blanc and mineral water. Piper, grumpy from being shot, called her a sky whore, so we didn’t get any coffee, which would have been nice.

  My father was still missing in the badlands of West Texas, at least according to the people who had transported us to the airport.

  Lazaro Morales, the number two man in one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the western hemisphere, had died, taking with him the secrets he possessed about the inner workings of the cartel as well as any chance of nabbing the leader.

  His wife, Eva Ramirez, had disappeared along with the survivors of a crew of heavily ar
med men who had arrived from Mexico that morning at the town of Presidio, the only crossing point in the five-hundred-mile stretch of territory between El Paso and Piedras Negras. Presidio was lightly guarded by the Border Patrol and accessible to the rest of Texas only by a two-lane highway that ran north to Marfa. A straight shot in and out.

  Eva’s boyfriend, Keith McCluskey, a corrupt, drug-addicted DEA contractor, had disappeared as well and was presumed dead. The remnants of his rogue band of Paynelowe operatives had surrendered to Hollis’s group of slightly more legitimate law enforcement contractors.

  The US Attorney for the West Texas region was dead, as were three US Marshals, a county deputy, four Paynelowe contractors, and a half dozen Mexican nationals. The wounded had been airlifted to Midland and El Paso, the locations of the closest trauma centers.

  About an hour ago, the plane had picked us up at the Marfa airport for the flight back to Dallas Love Field, where our arraignment for various and sundry crimes awaited.

  Obviously, the easy cleanup for this entire mess would be for Piper and me to disappear down a hole somewhere. No chance then for us to tell our side of the story.

  But with a body count this high, stretching across the breadth of Texas, the national media had jumped on the story like a hobo on a ham sandwich, meaning the smart move for everybody concerned (except us) was to find a scapegoat suitable for sacrifice.

  The collateral carnage was staggering. Eva Ramirez’s sister. The firefight at the Cheyenne Apartments back in Dallas. God knows how many in the badlands of West Texas.

  I wiped my mouth on a linen napkin, stifled a belch. The salmon had been excellent. My appetite had been surprising, given the physical and emotional turmoil of the past few hours.

  “So Eva Ramirez was a shooter,” I said. “Sent to take out her husband.”

  Hollis, ribs bruised from the round that had hit his bulletproof vest, had explained earlier. As a witness, Eva would be lightly guarded yet in the same courthouse and holding area as her husband. That way she could either take him out herself, a pretty big undertaking, or, more likely, coordinate an attack from the outside.

  Hollis nodded.

  “They were gonna bring people across the Rio Grande.” I shook my head. “To attack a federal court?”

  “They did just that. And what about the shooters in that little town, Schwarzemann?” He paused. “These are dangerous times. That’s why our contract is going to be bigger next year.”

  The pilot’s voice sounded over the speaker, telling us to buckle our seat belts.

  “His own wife,” Piper said. “Wonder what leverage they used to get her to play ball.”

  “Fucking animals.” Hollis shook his head. “They’ll use anybody.”

  Piper made a huffing noise, drained her wineglass.

  “You were gonna let a baby with burned legs scream in agony,” I said to Hollis. “Don’t go high-and-mighty on me.”

  The flight attendant took our trays.

  “And you work as a DEA agent,” he said. “But you still don’t understand the realities of the War on Drugs.”

  I didn’t reply.

  “Riddle me this.” Piper looked at Hollis. “How did you jerkoffs let a cokehead like McCluskey have access to all those guns and personnel?”

  “That policy is under rev—”

  “I wasn’t finished.” Piper pointed a finger at his face. “And then let the cokehead fly around the state in a freaking Chinook helicopter?”

  Hollis shook his head but didn’t speak. He bit a lip and looked out the window as the green-brown mass of Central Texas slid by.

  I closed my eyes. The food and wine had made me sleepy, which was the point. Get me to lower my guard. Then I remembered the exploding highway and my father who was still missing. I opened my eyes, guard not lowered even a little bit.

  The interior of the plane was silent except for the drone of the engines.

  “You both spent a period of time alone with two cartel members.” Hollis continued to stare out the window. “We’re going to want to know everything they told you.”

  The Gulfstream banked to one side and began its descent.

  “Morales,” Piper said. “How did you snag him?”

  “A lucky break. One of his guys blabbed when he crossed at Presidio to see a girlfriend.” Hollis looked at her. “The Texas Rangers arrested him.”

  “And Eva,” Piper said. “How did she end up being a witness?”

  “She came to us. Dropped in out of the blue in San Antonio. Kept talking about how she wanted to get out of the life.”

  “She played you,” I said.

  “Like a cheap guitar.” Hollis nodded. “We didn’t know about her relationship with McCluskey either. Turns out he was trying to arrange a new identity for her using Paynelowe resources.”

  Piper chuckled.

  “Did he really bust her with a kilo of coke?” I asked.

  “Probably,” Hollis said. “But he was operating independently so we don’t know for sure.”

  “She took out all those shooters at the hotel.” I shook my head. “A stone-cold killer.”

  “Not surprising. The best intel we’ve got at the moment indicates they were with a rival cartel,” Hollis said. “And their bosses had a shoot-on-sight order out for her head.”

  “I don’t understand,” Piper said.

  “The other cartel didn’t want Morales to start talking about them. Which he might have done if she’d testified against him.”

  “But Morales’s boss, Diego somebody,” I said. “He sent her to kill Morales.”

  Hollis shook his head. “El jefe’s name is not Diego. It’s some hard-to-pronounce Indian name. Guy goes by el Camello, the Camel, of all things. They love the shit out of the animals down there.”

  “Camel, donkey, whatever.” I sighed. “The boss man wanted her to take out Morales so he wouldn’t testify. Seems like the other cartels would want the same thing—”

  “The others cartels didn’t know what she was up to.” Hollis shrugged. “She was deep undercover, not unlike the way we do agents sometimes.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Apparently, McCluskey misappropriated some Paynelowe funds,” Hollis said. “He had this big plan to run away with Eva and live happily ever after.”

  “Another round of parties,” Piper said. “Eva would have liked that.”

  “Where are you taking us when we land?” I asked.

  “Dallas County Jail.” Hollis tightened his seat belt. “Sucks to be you, doesn’t it?”

  The angle of the descent increased. The smoggy silhouette of the Dallas skyline was now visible. Reunion Tower and the massive white arches of the new bridge across the Trinity River.

  The plane circled; the engine noise grew louder. Hollis leaned forward, motioned us closer.

  “The scanner you used,” he said. “We need it back.”

  I shrugged.

  “Retrieving that device is an action item at the next NSA department head meeting.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “That means it’s beyond serious.”

  “We don’t have it,” Piper said.

  “My boss lied to the NSA. Told them Paynelowe had already recovered the scanner.” Hollis rubbed his eyes. “And the NSA went ahead with the software update.”

  “Oops-a-daisy.” Piper raised her eyebrows. “Now tell me what you’re talking about.”

  He explained briefly. The software update meant the scanners could read the tags on auto batteries as well as the magnetic strips on the driver’s licenses in all fifty states. All of which could then be tied to every criminal and civil database in the country.

  I tried to fathom the enormity of what that meant. A single agent in the field could point a scanner at an individual and learn everything about that person with the push of a button.

  “We’ll get it from you.” He buttoned his coat. “One way or the other.”

  The whine of the engines chang
ed pitch. The tarmac rushed closer.

  “A couple of ex-cops.” Hollis chuckled. “Hope they don’t leave you in general population very long.”

  - CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN -

  We landed without incident and taxied to a restricted hangar on the west side of the airport. The Gulfstream cut through a line of Southwest Airlines planes, the orange-and-blue Boeings likely filled with daily commuters heading home to San Antonio or Houston.

  As the door of the Gulfstream opened and a wave of steamy air rushed inside, two guards from the forward area of the plane cuffed our hands in front and linked the restraints to chains around our waists. Then they led us out, one in front, the second behind.

  Hollis brought up the rear, lugging a duffel bag full of our personal effects: wallets, cell phones, badges, and the two Reaper rifles we’d been carrying. The bag was sealed with a yellow evidence tag.

  A dozen or more men in navy blue utility pants and matching shirts stood guard on the tarmac. They carried MP5 submachine guns and wore vests with yellow stenciled signs Velcroed on the back that read DEA AGENT.

  Six or eight Dallas police cars were parked in a loose semicircle around the area between the plane’s door and a large white panel van. The van had blue government license plates, metal lattice over the rear windows, and oversized run-flat tires bulging from the wheel wells.

  One of the outside guards opened the rear doors of the vehicle.

  Hollis came around from behind us and tossed the duffel bag inside. Then he waited.

  The guard by the door of the van and two of his colleagues hopped in after the bag as the pair of agents from the plane led us over, a short trip of about twenty yards.

  “We’re not gonna do very well in jail,” Piper said as she walked beside me.

  “No. I don’t suppose we will.” I scanned the surroundings.

  Nothing but uniforms and official vehicles. Zero options. The chains that bound me rattled as I walked.

  At the rear of the van, the guards stopped by Hollis. He ignored Piper and held a tri-folded piece of paper in front of my face.

  “You know what this is?” he said.