Seeming to appear from nowhere, the first indicator we had of his presence was the unmistakable racking of a shell into the chamber.
The instant we both heard it, basic human instinct took over. The strongest of all innate traits rose to the fore, self-preservation shoving aside any thought of possible danger ahead.
Pushing straight ahead, I covered the top half of the staircase in four long strides, taking the steps two and a three at a time. Making it as far as a single step down from the top, I dove straight ahead onto the hardwood floor, my chest hitting first, body coasting atop my Kevlar vest.
Arriving no later than a half-step after me, Diggs hit a similar pose eight feet away, landing just before a shell tore an enormous gouge from the wall above him. Sending shards of plaster across the polished floor, dust still hung in the air as we heard the slide on the shotgun work a second time.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Diggs spat my direction, his features more annoyed than surprised. Remaining folded in his side, he switched his gun to his left hand, using his right and corresponding leg to pull himself across the floor.
“You good?” I hissed.
Flashing his eyes my direction, he replied, “I got this.”
Lifting my pelvis a few inches, I crawled forward. For the first time, I took in the set of double doors standing closed before us. I saw the hall extended out in either direction, overhead lights revealing them to be completely empty.
“You sure?”
This time, Diggs didn’t bother looking my way. “Just go get his ass.”
Recognizing the tone, knowing better than to press it any further, I pushed myself a few feet further ahead. Making sure I was well beyond the vantage of Mejia below, I shifted my gaze to the doors before me.
One after another, I riffled through the various options I had, considering my approach.
Fifteen minutes earlier, he had stood on the balcony and fired down at me. Using a handgun, he hadn’t a prayer at hitting anything, but he’d still unloaded the better part of a clip, proving he wasn’t afraid to come at me if need be.
Hell, his actions at the estate in Baja years before had proved that much.
But I also knew that he had dropped that gun to ground when he took the bullet. And that it had been into the lower part of his torso, that entire area a mash of vital parts, an injury to any one of them enough to cause serious damage.
More than that though, I knew everything the man had done. I knew what had happened all those years before, just like I was fully aware of all that had occurred in the last couple of days.
Pushing myself to a standing position, I gripped the gun tight in my right hand. Abandoning any sort of crouched position, I made no attempt at making myself a smaller target. The noise of the fight between Diggs and Mejia behind me bled away.
On the other side of the doors could be damned near anything. I was aware of that, but this shit had gone on long enough.
Not once did I slow my pace as I strode forward.
Grabbing the handle of the left door, I jerked it open and stepped inside.
Chapter Ninety-Two
The inside of the office was even more ridiculous than the rest of the house, somehow infinitely more even than the grounds outside. Like a cross between a massage parlor, a Victorian castle, and the Oval Office, the place was a mishmash of styles and features, all of it aimed more at what someone thought the office of a drug kingpin should look like.
Style over substance.
The type of place that someone building an arboretum and a winery in the middle of the desert would put together.
Giving my surroundings nothing more than a cursory glance, making sure there were no other guards lurking nearby, I waited as the door to the hall swung shut behind me. With it fell away a fair bit of the noise from the hallway, only the occasion din of a gunshot punctuating the quiet.
“Ruiz,” I muttered, my focus landing on the single person inside the room.
Twenty feet away, the man that hadn’t crossed my mind in years but had somehow come to dominate my every thought in recent days sat staring back at me. Folded into a leather desk chair that appeared much too large for him, it rose above his head and behind either shoulder, giving him the appearance of a child playing businessman.
Wearing the same white linen suit he’d worn on the balcony, his shoulders were twisted a bit to the side, both hands pressed into his abdomen. Mashed into the space between his ribs and hip bone, both of them seemed to be stained red, blood continuing to seep out steadily beyond their reach.
“Tate,” he muttered, the single word seeming already a bit slurred. As if the blood loss was already starting to get to him, his body already starting to shut down, he stared up at me with heavily lidded eyes. Sweat lined his face and forehead.
Whatever firepower he’d brought along for the evening seemed to have tumbled out over the railing minutes before, the desktop before him bare.
Not that it mattered, his current state appearing that he wouldn’t have the strength to lift and fire a weapon even if he had one.
So often in the last couple of days, I’d been forced to sit and think. Multiple trips across Washington and Idaho, a flight from Bozeman to San Diego. Time to contemplate how this moment would play out.
What I would say to this man if given the chance.
Gun still clenched in my right hand, I started forward from the door. Splitting the sofas in the center of the room, I cut a direct path to the desk, his eyes tracking me the entire time.
“Do you remember what you said to us the night we brought you in?” I asked. Keeping my pace even, my boot heels echoed off the floorboards as I walked forward.
“I remember,” Ruiz said. Grunting softly, he pulled himself up a few inches higher in his seat. “I also remember your partner telling me to shut the hell up, and when I wouldn’t, he threw me to the ground in front of all my guests.”
His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked up at me. “How’s he doing now, by the way?”
Knowing that he was only trying to bait me, that he just wanted to put up the façade of being in control, hoping to mention Martin to get me to do something stupid, I forced myself to remain rigid as I stared at him. To bite back the jolt of ire that rose through me, the inclination to spring across the desk and bury my fist into his face, wrap my hands around his throat, until he was no more.
Digging into the left front pocket of my jeans, I drew out two items. Two things I had been carrying with me since leaving that house in Snoqualmie days before.
Placing both down side by side on the desk between us, I arranged them exactly as they had been on that mantle.
Sliding his gaze from me to the items and back up again, Ruiz remained motionless for a moment. Slowly, one corner of his mouth peeled back slightly, his lips and teeth glossy with saliva.
“Plata o plomo? Seriously? You’re giving me a choice here?”
I met his gaze just long enough to see my features held no such mirth.
“No.”
The smile had only just managed to fade, replaced by realization, as I lifted the gun to shoulder height and pulled the trigger.
Again.
And again.
Chapter Ninety-Three
The bottles of Powerade sitting in front of Carl Diggs and I seemed to be having little effect. After a night that had included a two-mile jog down a desert road, storming a home in the center of a tropical rainforest, enduring smoke and sweat and blood and everything else that had occurred, there was no way a couple of quarts of electrolytes could possibly return us to status quo.
The only things that even had a chance at beginning to make that a possibility were a shower and a few hours of sleep, both of which I knew to be waiting in the locker room in the back end of the DEA headquarters we now sat in. So close I could practically hear them calling to me, I forced myself to remain reclined in the leather rolling chair alongside the conference room table.
“Man, what the
hell are we doing in here again?” Diggs asked, his voice relaying the same mix of thoughts I was currently working through.
Striking a pose similar to mine a few feet away, his legs were extended before him. Crossed at the ankles, his boots were propped on the edge of the table, his thumb and forefinger massaging his forehead.
With the exception of the clothes he now wore and the various scents of battle rolling off him, he was a very near copy to exactly how he’d appeared just eighteen hours before.
“Diaz asked us to give her a few more minutes.”
In the wake of us finishing off Ruiz and Mejia respectively, Diggs and I had made quick pass over the grounds. Wanting to ensure that we had finished what we set out to, that we would never again have to worry about a Tres Salinas or someone like him showing up unexpectedly, we made a point of going through every last room and outbuilding.
A chore neither one of us had wanted to do, but ended up being damned glad we did.
Even if it did end up making our night much, much longer than originally anticipated.
“How much shit did they end up seizing?” Diggs asked, hand still working across his forehead, shielding his eyes from view.
“Last I heard, couple hundred kilos of pure product,” I replied. “Plus, all that wine.”
The process was something we’d started to hear about before I stepped away, the idea to dissolve cocaine into liquid and transport it that way. Supposedly much easier to move without detection, back then the whole thing was still pretty fledgling, working through a lot of snags.
Apparently, it had leaped forward a great deal in the time since, the massive warehouse on the back end of the property an operation designed entirely for its production.
“At least it makes a little more sense why they set up a damn winery way the hell out in the desert.”
Snorting slightly, I gave no further response. Letting my features glaze, I stared off, thinking of everything that had transpired.
How a simple dinner of thanks for my friend and partner had ended with me now sitting here, on the back end of one of the largest busts in my life, bringing down someone I thought was in prison for a product I didn’t know existed.
Wild.
Deep in thought, pondering what had happened, what still lay ahead, I barely noticed the light tapping at the door. Not until it cracked open, a puff of cool air from the hall flowing in, did I lift my gaze.
Beside me, Diggs did the same, both of us looking up expecting to see Diaz.
And seeing someone much, much different instead.
“Ah hell,” Diggs muttered. “What do you two want?”
Filing through the door first was Agent Jones. His expression as affable as ever, he stepped through, his clothing without a wrinkle, his hair pushed neatly into place.
A far cry from us, it appeared he’d gotten a full night’s sleep, just now arriving back for a new day.
A shoulder bag hitched into place, he stepped forward and lowered it to the ground beside his feet.
Entering behind him was Smith, his usual scowl locked in placed as he slid to the side, making a show of slamming the door a bit harder than necessary.
“Just going for coffee yesterday, Diggs?”
Keeping his feet extended before him, Diggs replied, “I didn’t say where I was going. Had to hit my favorite spot, this joint up in LA called the Eat Shit Café.”
The scowl on Smith’s face grew a bit more pronounced as he stepped forward.
A move that we both knew he had no intention of following up on, was simply posturing, waiting for Jones to step back in.
More of the same practiced schadenfreude we’d seen from the day before.
“Gentlemen, please,” Jones said. Raising his hands before him, he glanced between the two of them before working his way around to me. The diplomatic one of the pairing, he made a point of eye contact.
“There’s been enough hostility for one night, I dare say.”
Remaining in place, he kept his hands raised, waiting until Smith took a step back before lowering them to his sides. Glancing to Diggs, he waited until the man shifted his focus, returning his hand to his forehead, before sliding down into the closest seat.
“Now then,” he said. Placing both forearms on the table, he laced his fingers before him. “It appears the four of us need to have a discussion.”
“Like hell we do,” Diggs muttered.
“Where’s Diaz?” I added.
Ignoring Diggs’s comment entirely, Jones shifted to me. “Agent Diaz is still overseeing things at Fruit of the Desert. That was quite a discovery you guys made out there last night.”
The last few days had brought together quite a narrative, though it was still clear that there were a few pieces missing. Things that I hadn’t quite been able to square yet, no matter how much I tried.
In spite of the man’s word choice, it was clear that nothing that had happened out there was a surprise in the slightest.
Adding that bit to what I already knew, superimposing it onto the story we’d managed to cull together, I said, “You guys already knew what they were doing out there.”
Across from me, Jones remained completely silent.
Even Smith, for his part, managed to keep his mouth shut.
“And that’s why you sprung Ruiz. You wanted him there overseeing it.”
In my periphery, I saw Diggs pull his hand away from his forehead. One at a time, he lowered his feet to the floor, turning his body to stare across the table as well.
“Not like that, exactly,” Jones replied.
“Then like what, exactly?” Diggs shot back, his voice rising.
As if snapping back into action, remembering the role he was here to play, Smith took another step forward. Raising a finger before him, he snapped, “This is so, so much bigger than you two could ever hope to understand. Why the hell do you two think you were ordered to stay away from Ruiz?”
“Ordered?” Diggs spat back. Springing to his feet, he slapped both hands down onto the table, his body coiled, as if he might leap across it. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? We’re not soldiers, and we damned sure don’t work for you.”
The standoff between the two lasted the better part of a minute. Diggs on one side, appearing to want nothing more than to add one more tally to the night’s list. Smith opposite him, playing the part, no matter how foolish such an attempt would be.
And again, it was Jones that managed to dispel things.
Bending at the waist, he took up the shoulder bag from the floor beside his chair. Pulling it onto his lap, he reached inside the top flap and drew out two thin stacks of printouts, both held together at the top by a binder clip.
Placing them side by side on the table before him, he returned the bag to the floor and again laced his fingers.
“Well, actually,” he said, staring back at us, “that’s what we’re here to talk to you both about.”
Chapter Ninety-Four
Between the two of us, Deputy Ferry looked like he’d had the worst week, but not by much. Seated in a padded chair outside of Kaylan’s room, he stood as he saw me approaching, meeting me halfway down the hall. Across his nose was a padded metal splint held in place by white athletic tape. Peeking out from either side were concentric rings from the dark end of the color wheel, the entire area puffy and swollen.
All in all, a look that vaguely resembled a character from the old Star Trek series.
Not that I had any false pretenses of looking much better. Since the hatchet job I had done on my hair and beard a couple days ago, the total number of hours of sleep I’d gotten could be counted on one hand. My eyes still burned from the assortment of sweat and smoke and a hundred other things that had found their way in.
The stink of battle still clung to me, persisting even through a pair of the longest showers I’d ever taken. Added to it was the stench of the airplane, a toxic mix of tourists bathed in suntan lotion and the Mexican food the family sitting be
side me had been kind enough to carry on with them.
Even at that, it wasn’t like there was a single other place either one of us would be.
“Hawk,” Ferry said, arriving with his hand outstretched.
“Deputy,” I replied, returning the shake. Peeking over his right shoulder toward Kaylan’s room down the hall, I asked, “How’s she doing?”
Releasing his grip, Ferry turned over the same shoulder. His hands found his hips as he looked on a moment before turning back. “Better. Still sleeping most of the time, which the doctor said is normal with a head injury like hers.”
In line with the carnage spread across his face, his voice was a bit distorted, his breathing extra loud.
“But she’s been awake?” I pressed.
“Yeah,” Ferry replied. “Couple different times, seems to be reasonably coherent too, which they say is a good sign.”
On my last trip to visit Kaylan, she was still encased in gauze. Outside of her eyes, I hadn’t been able to get any sort of read on the shape she was in, everything else hidden from view.
A mental image I’d carried to that jungle oasis in the desert and back. Had even had flash through my mind as Junior Ruiz asked if I would consider making him the same offer he’d posed to us so long ago.
“She’s asked about you a couple of times,” Ferry replied. Eyebrows rising slightly, he added, “I told her you’d been by, but were out helping apprehend the men that had done that to her.”
As far as stories went, it wasn’t the best I could hope for, but it damned sure wasn’t the worst either.
My preference would have been that there was no need for such an explanation to be provided at all. As glad as I was that she was coming around, that some mental cognition was already present, I’d hoped to be back in time to be sitting there when she first opened her eyes.
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