by Glenn Trust
Sole Survivor
Glenn Trust
Sole Justice
Book 1
Copyright © 2019
Sole Survivor
By Glenn S. Trust
All rights reserved
Sole Survivor is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Products and services mentioned in Sole Survivor were used to give realism and authenticity to the story. Their use in no way implies that the manufacturers or producers of those products or services agree with, or endorse, the author’s opinions on any subject.
This publication, in electronic and/or printed version, is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The publication may not be resold, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
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Dedication
For the survivors.
Table of Contents
Sole Survivor
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1.Universal Law
2.Just Ask Felipe
3.The Munchies
4.Beginnings—1973
5.A Man at Peace
6.Interrogation
7.Childhood—1978
8.Call Me Bebé
9.Eruptions
10.On the Edge of Manhood—1990
11.Good for Business
12.Paid Up
13.Death and Life—1998
14.Houseguest
15.Very Helpful
16.Shaye—2001
17.After All
18.Question of the Day
19.Land of Opportunity
20.Fairy Tale
21.Everything was in Order
22.Life Was a Blast
23.Good Drama
24.I Knew It
25.A Shock
26.Ain’t Goin‘ Nowhere
27.Sara Jane
28.Heads or Tails
29.On the Big Water
30.Dirty
31.Fixing Things
32.They Had a Plan
33.Progress
34.A Damned Fine Feeling
35.Acting Stupidly
36.Resolving Problems
37.Too Damn Late
38.The Odds
39.Pray
40.It Had All Been Said
41.Stay Out of My Way
42.You’re In
43.These Will Do
44.Satisfying
45.There is Always a Way
46.Soon
47.That Makes Two of Us
48.On the Go
49.Both
50.Eyes Above
51.One Crazy Fuck
52.Ready for the Big Show
53.Little Fish and Big Fish
54.Examples
55.Crime and Punishment
56.Ground Zero
57.Howl
58.Promotion
59.There Were No Ghosts
60.Lines and Sides
61.Sole Survivor
62.Relief
63.Unfinished Business
64.Only Justice
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1.
Universal Law
He was alone now, on the move. He liked it that way. Moving meant he didn’t have to think. Thinking was bad. Thinking made him remember, and he didn’t want to remember.
Death. That was a thing he didn’t want to remember. It was a thing to forget.
Thinking about it brought the questions, and there were too many of those. One lived, and one died. Why? That was the big question.
He shook his head. No, it wasn’t a question at all. It was a fact, clear and immutable.
One lived, and one died. Why? For the sake of some unfathomable, inscrutable order in the universe … Karma … what goes around comes around … God’s will? It was irrelevant.
When it was your turn … when it happened … it happened, and that was it. Done.
There was no way to run from it. It was like gravity, holding everyone down. There was no way to escape it. You might just as well try to step out of a window and fly. Gravity wins out every time and cracks your skull open like a melon.
It was a universal law. It held things together and kept them from flying out into space. Maybe a few skulls were cracked, but by God, there was order in the universe.
That was death, a universal law, cold, heartless, unfathomable. One lived, and one died. There was no why to it. John Sole nodded as he drank, finally accepting the truth of it.
Somewhere, planets careened into each other in great cosmic explosions, wiping out entire worlds of people. They had no choice in the matter. The universe was an asshole. It didn’t matter why.
A voice crept into his mind. It was the voice he had been trying to drink into silence.
Who are you kidding, John? You know the truth. Death doesn’t always just happen. Sometimes, there is a reason. He looked into the bar mirror and lifted the glass to his lips. Admit it, John. Sometimes, you’re the reason.
He nodded. Right, sometimes there is a reason.
Tired eyes stared back at him. God, he looked old. That was a law too. Everything got old. John Sole had gotten old.
He scratched the salt and pepper stubble covering his cheeks and chin. How long had it been? A month? A year? An eternity.
The face in the mirror was haggard. The dark, short-cropped hair had grayed around the temples. Deep wrinkles, etched around the eyes and forehead, marked the memories he carried—would always carry. He turned the glass up, drained it to the bottom and shook his head, but the memories remained.
2.
Just Ask Felipe
Sometime earlier …
Dust blew into the truck’s cab coating their faces, settling into every wrinkle, crevice and bodily orifice. The sweat rolling down from their brow left dirty smudges in the fine grit before dripping off their jaws.
Outside, the temperature soared above one hundred and ten degrees. Inside, the old box van’s air conditioner had long since given up the ghost.
The two men in the truck found relief by dousing their shirts with water from one of the many gallon jugs they carried and opening the wi
ndows so that the hot air blowing in evaporated the water from their clothing. The cooling effect was temporary, but it provided a respite from the oppressive heat. When their clothes dried, they repeated the process.
They bounced along on a routine trip across the Sonoran Desert of Northern Mexico. At Cuitaca, they left Highway 2 and proceeded north across the desert, staying away from the border crossings at Nogales, Naco, and Agua Prieta. The backcountry dirt tracks and trails they followed had been there for centuries but were now largely forgotten. In some places, crews had been brought in to improve the dirt road with picks and shovels. It was an expensive process, but the truck’s owner could afford it.
The men in the truck saw that there had been improvements since their last trip a month ago. They joked that Bebé must have money to burn, to send men with shovels and picks out into the desert, a hundred kilometers from anywhere, to patch a hole in a road that no one else used. In truth, Bebé had more than money. He had lives to burn, the lives of those who relied on him for their sustenance.
After bumping for hours across the desert, they approached the border with the United States. The driver eased the truck down a low bank into a dry wash and parked in the scant shade provided by a cluster of ocotillo plants.
The first part of the job was complete. Now came the hard part, to wait in the truck under the desert sun.
“Aiyee. it is hot today.” The man behind the wheel, Ernesto pulled a soiled handkerchief from his shirt pocket and wiped his face, streaking the dust that had collected there and leaving dark circles of dirt under his eyes and around his nose.
He was a veteran of many such trips. Before working for Bebé, he had driven trucks from one end of Mexico to the other. For years, he made the border crossing at Nogales regularly while employed by a small company that shipped avocados.
“You have too many years for this, old man.” His companion, Felipe, saw no need to wipe at the dust on his face only to have it replaced again soon enough.
“This is true,” Ernesto said, nodding. “A few more trips like this and I will ask Bebé for the pension he promised. I have done enough. I am tired, and my old woman wants me home more.”
“You think there is really a pension for us?” Felipe was young, in his twenties. His job was to provide security for the truck and its cargo, at least until it crossed the border.
Armed with a semi-automatic pistol tucked into his trousers and a Remington 750 semi-automatic carbine resting butt-down on the floor between his knees, he gazed out the window. A jackrabbit huddled a few feet away under the same ocotillo. It stared back at Felipe but was not disturbed enough to leave the shade for the blistering sun.
“Sure, sure.” Ernesto nodded. “Bebé has always kept his word. For me, he is a man of honor.” He smiled. “And who else in Mexico pays as well as he does.”
“True,” Felipe said, too young to be interested in pensions. He pointed at the jackrabbit. “I could shoot that jackrabbit.”
“Why would you do that?”
“For something to do,” Felipe replied with a shrug. “We could build a fire later and eat it for supper.”
“Have you ever eaten jackrabbit?” Ernesto pulled his upper denture out and shook his head laughing. “Too tough and stringy.”
“That’s disgusting, old man! Put your teeth back in.”
Ernesto complied, chuckling. “Wait until your time comes. You are a young rooster now, but one day …” He nodded as he settled the denture onto his gums. “I’m fortunate to work for Bebé and have enough money to see a dentist. Otherwise, I’d be gumming my food like an old granny. You’ll see. Trust me, you’ll see.”
The men dozed in the heat. Ernesto moved outside into the shade of the truck, his head resting back against a tire. Felipe remained in the cab.
“You should come outside,” Ernesto called. “You’ll find life is less confined and a little cooler, at least.”
“I’ll stay here,” Felipe said. “Someone has to wait for the call.”
“Bring the phone with you. It works outside just as well, I think.”
“I’ll stay in the truck!”
“You don’t have to be so touchy.”
“I’m not touchy! I’m just not going to sit in the sand like some peasant taking a siesta while a rattlesnake crawls up my pants.”
“Is that all!” Ernesto laughed. “Nothing to worry about. The snake will just crawl in far enough to meet the one there between your legs. Then he’ll turn around and find his way out.”
Ernesto laughed again and then settled back and closed his eyes. Felipe watched the immobile jackrabbit who watched him back. They remained locked in their own private Mexican standoff. Felipe had the gun, but the jack had blinding speed. Neither felt inclined to disturb the balance of power between them.
Three hours passed. The phone’s electronic chime sounded harsh and brittle in the dry air, like glass breaking on concrete.
Felipe grabbed it, listened and nodded. “Bueno.”
He leaned out the window and called to Ernesto. “They’re ready.”
Ernesto dusted off the seat of his pants as he walked to the truck cab. “It’s about time.”
He climbed in behind the wheel and turned the ignition key. The engine rumbled to life. The Jackrabbit, at last, decided that caution required him to move away from the ocotillo. Felipe nodded, the victor of their battle of wills.
It required twenty minutes for them to travel the remaining two miles of rough ground to the border. The truck bumped up the final grade and came to a four-strand wire fence. A man, a gringo, waited for them. He opened a gap in the wire by lifting out one of the fence posts, swinging it and the wire to the side.
The truck rolled through the opening and across the sixty-feet of dirt road that the U.S. Border Patrol maintained as the boundary with Mexico. The man who had opened the fence approached the truck.
A weathered western hat, boots, dusty jeans, and work shirt made him look like a grizzled cowboy out of a movie. In fact, Sam Bergen’s family had settled the area along the Arizona-Mexico border more than a century earlier, laying claim to enough of the arid ground to support a moderately sized herd of cattle. Over the years, the costs of maintaining the herd in that harsh environment had outweighed the financial return. The Bergen Ranch fell on hard times.
“Buenas tardes,” Ernesto said as the gringo approached.
“Buenas tardes,” Sam replied in accented but fluent Spanish.
Ernesto looked at Felipe and nodded.
“Hmph.” Felipe reached into the glove box and removed a thick envelope, handing it to Ernesto who passed it through the window to Sam.
The rancher hefted it in his hand up and down a couple of times and nodded. “Feels about right.” He nodded towards a shed and water tank two hundred yards in from the border.
Another truck waited in the shade, newer and marked with the logo of a local delivery company. The company had no idea that their name was being used for anything but legitimate shipping purposes.
Sam Bergem smiled, tipped his hat and watched as Ernesto put the truck in gear and moved towards the shed. His job completed, he knew it was the easiest part of the operation. There was no way he wanted to be in the hot truck bouncing over the desert on a day like today. All he had to do was open a small gap in the wire fence for Bebé Elizondo’s shipments to pass into the United States—that and allow them to transfer the cargo from the old truck to one that would not be so easy to identify as a carrier of contraband.
For that service, he was paid ten thousand U.S. dollars for each truck that crossed his property. Bebé was good on his word and had never shorted him on the payment.
At Sam’s request, Elizondo had even ended the illegal immigration problem on his ranch. The Los Salvajes cartel had put the word out to the coyotajes that the Bergen Ranch was off limits. The flood of illegal immigrants wandering across the ranch dried up almost overnight.
Sam Bergen was a happy man. As costs soared and profits
plummeted, he had hit on the way to keep the family ranch in the black, and best of all, in the family and not foreclosed on by the bank.
Ernesto pulled the old truck up to the shed, and they began transferring the cargo to the American truck with the fancy logo painted on the side. Ernesto and Felipe passed the cartons from their vehicle to two men who loaded them on the other. The work went swiftly. They had done this many times.
“I’ll bet their truck has air conditioning,” Felipe grumbled as he passed a carton over.
“Yes, and dancing girls and cerveza too in the back,” Ernesto laughed.
They had almost completed the job when a loud crack startled them. Felipe moved to the cab to retrieve the rifle. Sam Bergen stood with a revolver he pulled from his waistband pointed at the sky. A helicopter came skimming over a nearby hill, followed by two more. A line of dust showed a caravan of Border Patrol vehicles bouncing over the desert toward them.
The warning shot Sam fired came too late to be of any help. All it did was get Felipe killed.
One helicopter hovered while the others landed in a swirling, biting cloud of dust. Felipe came from the truck cab with the Remington pointed towards the first chopper. Three sharp reports, like thunderclaps, came from the sky in the direction of the hovering helicopter. Felipe crumpled to the ground, three neat holes in his chest.
DEA, FBI, Border Patrol, U.S. Customs, ICE—there were patches of every type on the various uniforms of the men who surrounded them. Except for Felipe, all the other smugglers had the presence of mind to drop at once to their knees, their hands clasped behind their heads to demonstrate they posed no threat to the officers.
Sam Bergen dropped his father’s colt revolver onto the sand and put his hands in the air, old west style. He was arrested, handcuffed, and placed alone in the back of a separate van. The realization that the ranch would not remain in the Bergen family broke his spirit and his heart.
This would be one of the biggest drug busts in Arizona history, and he knew the Feds would seize the ranch and everything on it. They called it private asset forfeiture, and it was routine procedure to take the property of suspected drug dealers, whether they ever got a conviction in a court or not.