South

by Lance Charnes

  “Why?” Peter fixed Luis with the most intense look he’d ever seen on a six-year-old. He sure was his mother’s son. “Where are you going? Mommy said you have to stay with me.”

  “She said I have to protect you. It’s not the same thing.” Luis once had discussions like this with Nacho, recalled seeing Bel’s brand of stubborn on his son’s face. Explaining without falling back on “because” was some of the hardest work he’d ever done as a dad. “I think some bad things might happen here, and I need—your mom needs—to know you’re safe so we can deal with it. That’s why I need you to hide. Can you do that?”

  Peter checked on his mother. Nora had reached the end of the aisle and now stood at parade rest. “Where’s my sister?”

  “She’s safe. She’s with some nice people who’re taking care of her. I’ll get you to her when we’re done here. Peter, we can’t talk about this anymore. Please go hide. All right?”

  They both watched a guard shove Paul next to Nora. The bit of strength in the boy’s face wobbled. “Are you gonna help Mommy and Daddy?”

  “I’m going to try.”

  Doubt clouded Peter’s eyes. He stared at Luis in a way that made him wonder if the boy was X-raying his soul. Then Peter turned and trotted to the nearest set of shelves.

  Someone talked loudly outside, but Bel couldn’t make out the words. The guard stood across the room. She could hear him breathe, smell his cigarette. When he moved, something on his web gear clinked—a D-ring against his weapon, maybe.

  It was just her and the guard now. She’d barely held herself together as they dragged Paul and Peter out of the room. When they took her away, what would they take her to?

  Footsteps and clinking approached her. She could feel the guard stand way too close to her. “What’s your name, mamacita?” he said in Spanish.

  Go to hell. He must have heard that, because the slap came a moment later, slamming her against the metal post behind her. She tasted blood and saw stars the blindfold didn’t shut out.

  He grabbed her jaw. “What’s your name, bitch?” He had a young voice that hadn’t yet been scoured by cigarettes and booze and life.

  “Rosa.” She couldn’t bear to hear his voice say her real name.

  “Huh.” His hands squeezed her breasts through her shirt. The fear she’d felt when Paul left came back about ten times sharper. No, not this. Not this. The guard chuckled. “Ay, mama, you ain’t bad for an old one, huh? Let’s see those tetas.”

  Bel wanted to scream when he pulled her shirt up to her armpits, but clamped her mouth shut and instead grabbed her right handcuff with her left hand. Her bound arms pinned her shirt hem above her breasts. The guard’s hands roamed over her—“Ay, mama, ¡que buena!”—then his fingers wrapped around the chest band and ripped her bra upwards. She ground her teeth as the underwires scraped over her nipples.

  The cuff was stuck.

  She couldn’t do anything until she could get her hand free, even as he groped her, pinching her nipples, saying stupid dirty things about the girls. The cuff was definitely tighter now. Maybe her hand had swelled; maybe she’d accidentally closed the cuff when she put it back on. She twisted, felt the burn of skin coming off the base of her thumb. Get off me! her mind screamed, both at the hardware and at the pig molesting her.

  “You look good for an old woman, chica,” the rodent crooned. “Too bad about the bruises.” She felt his fingers fumble at the top button of her jeans. Not this not this not this no no no… “Let’s see what you got down here, huh? You want to show me, huh?”

  Bel tore more skin off the base of her thumb. Just a little more, come on, get off …

  The worm unzipped her, grabbed her jeans and panties on each side, and yanked them to her knees.

  She flashed to that shower cube at Bagram, that asshole technician crowding her into the corner, grabbing at her. She’d fought him off with sheer fury and terror, but she’d had both hands free and he wasn’t packing a gun. The same fury and terror flooded her system now.

  “Ay, mama, all clean and smooth down there, huh?” His hand forced itself between her legs. She tried to crush his fingers between her thighs and got another slap for her effort. The cuff was so close to coming off, just another fraction of an inch. Off! Now! NOW!

  “I know what you want, mama, huh?”

  I want your cock to fall off I want you to burn to death you cockroach you termite…

  “I got it right here, you want it? I know you do.” He wrenched her sideways, grabbed her hair and forced her to bend over.

  The cuff tore a chunk of skin from her thumb, then flew off.

  Bel swung her left hand behind her, slammed the handcuff against what felt like his face. He spat “What the fuck?” and let go of her hair.

  She ripped off the blindfold, grabbed a length of pipe from the next shelf over, and swung backward as hard as she could. The elbow joint at the end crashed into his neck—“You fuckin’ bitch, I’m gonna kill you!”—spun him around so he tripped over his own feet and went down on his knees. She shuffled forward a step, changed up her grip, then slammed the pipe between his legs. He howled, collapsed on the concrete.

  He swore at her. He could still talk. He could still breathe. That cockroach.

  Bel hiked up her pants, then lunged forward. Someone growled the filthiest language she’d ever heard, curses in two languages, rising and falling with the pipe she plowed into his head and shoulders and upstretched arms as she showed that asshole what it was like to be afraid for your body and your life and to be treated like a slab of meat you culero you hijo de puta just chingate guey you pedazo de mierda…

  The voice was hers, only not like she’d ever heard it before. When she looked down, the guard’s head was a misshapen pile of raw hamburger and the pipe dripped blood on the floor, but she couldn’t see where the blood landed because there was so much.

  The pipe clanged on the cement. She stumbled to the other corner, fell against the wall and barfed her dinner of bottled water and takeout fried chicken. Long after everything was out, she heaved and heaved until she could barely breathe or see or feel.

  She’d never killed anyone. Ever. She’d wanted to—everyone wants to sometime—but hadn’t, because normal people don’t do that, good people don’t do that.

  That cockroach was going to rape you.

  I killed a man.

  He was going to rape you!

  The debate in her head faded into fog. She straightened, wiped her eyes, put herself back together again as best she could without being able to feel anything in her hands or feet or anywhere else on her body. She slid the cockroach’s pistol out of his back waistband, then picked up his AK. A bottle of water from the flat by the door. A peek out the window: Nora and Paul, flanked by two FBI SWAT guys. How nice.

  Bel slumped to the floor against Paul’s bookcase, the AK across her knees, pistol by her side. No way out for her now. When they came in and saw that…mess over there, they’d kill her. Maybe she’d take a few with her.

  I’m so sorry, Lucho.

  That’s when she heard the first explosion.

  Luis heard the familiar drumroll of a Blackhawk an instant before an explosion blew out two of the warehouse’s windows. The sounds outside bounced loud and clear through the windows and off the metal roof: Blackhawks thrumming a couple hundred feet overhead, AKs firing, the ripping-canvas noise of a minigun, shouts, screams.

  Hijo de perra. McGinley came through.

  Luis had hung back from the gathering at the end of the warehouse, trying to get a feel for the layout and puzzle out where Bel was. The agreement between México Unido and the U.S. lay on a folding table in the clearing’s center. Luis tuned out Zambreño’s rambling speech about new beginnings and ultimate triumphs, and now the State Department suit—gray-haired, round-cheeked, some kind of Southern—went on about cooperation and good neighbors.

  Now Luis tried to listen to everything.

  Gunmen on both sides shuffled, glanced between their
own, checked their weapons. Some American suits whipped out their phones. So did Salgado’s aides and Casillas. Ray had drifted a few feet down the aisle from the pack of Zetas. Nora stared straight at Luis.

  He nodded to her, drew his pistol, then scuttled to the shelf unit closest to Ray. Smoke and the giant-hummingbird whir of a drone gunship blew through the open windows. The State Department suit had stopped babbling, though Luis couldn’t tell what he was doing now. He didn’t care. He was going to find Bel, and nothing was going to get between him and his wife.

  Luis slipped around the end of the shelves, quick-stepped forward, grabbed Ray’s collar with his right hand. His left ground the pistol’s muzzle into the back of Ray’s head. Luis dragged him behind the shelves. “Where is she?” he hissed.

  “Jesus, Lucho, let me go!”

  “Where’s Bel?”

  “Get that thing off—” Luis knocked the side of his head with the pistol “—Fuck! Chill, will you?”

  “¿Donde esta Bel? Understand me now?” Luis tightened his grip on Ray’s collar.

  Ray choked as his tie knot bit into his throat. “For Chrissakes, it’s me! We can talk! Just let me go.”

  “Like you just let Bel go? Like I had to blackmail you into letting the kid go? Drop your piece.” A few seconds later, Ray’s pistol clattered on the floor. “Now, last time. Where’s Bel?”

  Ray’s neck bloomed red around his collar. He reached up to loosen his tie; Luis slapped down his hand. “Front of the room.” Panic shook his voice. “Left-hand window. There’s a door, it goes into a storage room. She’s in there.”

  “Her and who else?”

  “A guard.”

  A bolt of anger ripped through Luis. “You left her in there—alone—with one of those animals?” He jammed the pistol’s muzzle into Ray’s ear. “I oughta shoot you now.”

  “It’s okay! It’s okay! They won’t hurt her, I swear!” Ray reached back to peel Luis’ hand from his collar, but Luis whacked his wrist hard with the pistol. Ray slumped. “Let me go. We can talk. Jesus, hermano, why can’t we talk?”

  Because there’s nothing left to say. Luis whipped Ray’s belt off his suit slacks. “Hands behind your back.” He strapped Ray’s wrists together, then yanked his tie around so the tail draped over Ray’s back. He grabbed it like a leash. “We’re going to get Bel.”

  “Are you fucking loco? Our guys’ll kill you if the Feds don’t.”

  “You’re in front. Figure it out.” Even as Luis’ anger built, he marveled at what he’d done to Ray over the past few minutes. He didn’t regret it. It was too late for that. “Listen to me,” he growled. “I’ve loved you like a brother for half my life. You’re godfather to my children. That’s why you’re not dead right now. But you’re not that guy anymore. I don’t know who the hell you are. You lied to me, you sold me out, you kidnapped my wife. We’re done. It’s over between us. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you. ¿Comprende?”

  Ray nodded. “I did what I had to. I’m sorry, hermano.”

  Luis looked everywhere but at Ray. This would hit him later, when he had time to think. Right now he had only two goals: rescue Bel, save Nora. “Too late. Let’s get going.”

  A billow of orange flame lit the empty windows. The walls rattled. Nervous voices in English and Spanish buzzed at the warehouse’s front. Then another familiar sound from outside: the turbine whine of a Blackhawk hovering low. Boots on the ground, coming up.

  Ray nodded toward the cartel side of the warehouse. “That way. Behind our guys.”

  “Your guys. Lead the way.”

  Every gunshot, every explosion knocked away a piece of Nora’s sense of defeat and hopelessness. She’d brazened it out, thrown all the go-to-hell attitude she had left into her words and the way she’d carried herself. But it ran out, and she’d stood through all the posturing and chest-thumping with a glaze over her brain. The little ceremony around signing the MOA between the Zetas and the State Department had made her want to vomit.

  Now the Bureau guys around her shifted and muttered and switched off their carbines’ safeties. “Who the fuck is out there?” she’d heard a headquarters flunky grouse in between threatening people on his phone. The Mexicans swirled like bees, half of them barking into phones, their thugs slowly spreading out in case this turned into shooting.

  She’d almost cheered when Luis hauled away that Esquivel swine. Luis was still on her side. McGinley had done his part. She began fishing for the handcuff key in her back pocket, just in case. But knowing that a lot could still go wrong kept her from building up too much hope.

  The sounds changed. A firefight, M4s and grenade launchers; McGinley’s people had landed. Nora nudged Paul with her shoulder. “Get ready to drop. I’ll tell you when.” He nodded.

  “Hey,” her QRT agent snapped. “No talking.”

  She sized him up in a moment: young, built like a cinder block, eyes bright on some kind of supplement. Ex-contract soldier, probably. “Those are our guys out there,” she told him with all the fake confidence she could scrape up.

  “Al-Qaeda?”

  “ICE. Border Patrol. DEA. They’re going to clean up the mess the brass made.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Those people over there?” She nodded toward the Mexicans. “They cut the heads off women and little kids—”

  “Shut up, bitch—”

  “That’s who D.C.’s hooking up with. Do you feel good about—”

  The guard backhanded her, not hard but enough. She’d normally draw on anyone who did that to her, but the handcuffs spoiled that fantasy. Instead, she shook it off. “When our guys come in, who’re you going to shoot at? Them, or your new buddies over there?”

  The QRT guy leaned down to sneer in her face. “You, you fucking traitor.”

  She couldn’t help smiling at the maniac uncertainty in his eyes. “The traitors are the ones running our country.”

  Before he could answer, the door behind the Mexicans exploded.

  Luis and Ray both hit the cement when the loading door came rocketing into the warehouse in a cloud of flame and smoke only yards away. Luis’ ears filled with static.

  Battle sounds pounded the air—pistols, AKs, carbines, screaming, shouting, bullets crashing through metal, shattering glass. Luis crawled past Ray to peek past the last shelf unit. At least four bodies were on the ground—two sicarios, a cartel guy in a suit and an FBI SWAT trooper—smoke grenades spewed between the factions, legs in black ran along the front wall.

  The front wall. The storage room. Bel was back there. Bullets were flying everywhere. They’d go through that wall like tinfoil. The longer he took, the more likely she’d be hurt.

  When the last of the stick of ten SWAT guys scrambled through the door, Luis crawled back to Ray. “Let’s keep going. We’ll be behind the assault team. Get up.”

  He pushed off the floor, grabbed Ray’s leash and duck-walked into the open using Ray as a shield. Bullets chinked through the metal wall behind him. A bleeding sicario staggered out of the haze; Luis fired blindly into the man’s center of mass, putting him down.

  The smoke burned Luis’ throat, stung tears from his eyes. Ray kept stopping, forcing Luis to jab his pistol into the back of Ray’s head to goose him along. Luis felt a tug across the back of his body armor—a bullet, a hair too close. Keep moving. Save Bel.

  They’d just reached the front wall when Ray screamed and dropped, clutching his chest. Luis crouched behind him, pulled Ray’s coat away. Blood bloomed across the right side of his chest. Not fatal—not yet—but he was out of the fight. Luis tore off Ray’s tie and used it to bind his ankles. No matter what, he was going to pay for what he’d done.

  A brief gap in the murk showed Luis the storage-room window—smashed—and the door—peppered with over a dozen bullet holes. Oh, God, Bel, stay down, cariña, I’m coming…

  The next moment, Luis was flat on his back, his chest on fire.

  Casillas crouched next to the shelves, staying low, wa
tching the Zeta delegation fade away or get shot down. Half these idiotas had pulled out their guns and started shooting at the Yanquis, for all the good it did them. He wasn’t that stupid. Pose no visible threat and you’re not a target; the Yanquis probably thought they’d get to arrest someone. Not like his Zetas, who knew the simple fact that anyone left standing was an enemy who needed to be put down.

  He wanted nothing to do with a Yanqui prison. He could hear fighting outside. Loyal soldados were out there. He had to get out, rally the men, fade into the barrio. The gringos wouldn’t dare follow them into that maze.

  A hostage. He needed a hostage.

  Casillas stared at the storage-room door.

  He knew exactly where to find one.

  74

  TUESDAY, 18 MAY

  Bel pressed herself flatter against the concrete than she’d ever thought possible, crossed her arms over her head, and waited to die. The window disintegrated in a few seconds, bullets clanged through the wall, cracked into the shelves above her. Smoke wafted in. Hot shrapnel peppered her neck and arms. Her ears throbbed with the noise.

  Please, God, let me see Lucho again. Let me see my son. Dios te salve, María. Llena eres de gracia…

  Someone rattled the doorknob, tried to open the door. She’d piled junk against it, but there wasn’t that much and whoever was out there really wanted to come in, slamming into the door over and over, each time pushing it open a bit more.

  “Lucho?” she yelled. “Is that you? Lucho?”

  If it was Lucho trying to get in, he’d answer her. If it wasn’t him, it was bad news. She readied the rifle she’d taken from the guard she killed, aimed at the door.

  The door splintered, fell off its hinges. A man stumbled in, coughing, a whorl of smoke following him. He stepped over the pipes and pallets Bel had piled up, leaving the haze behind.

  The man she’d seen with Ray at the mall. The little one with the cowboy clothes. The bastard who’d put her in here.

  He spotted her a moment later, drew his pistol.