“I say so,” Emily said. “Anyway, since I’m here, do you think you could take a look at what we have?”
I squinted up at the ceiling, a fist under my chin.
“Sorry, can’t do it. Impossible,” I finally said, shaking my head vehemently.
I waited until her jaw finished dropping.
“Only kidding,” I said. “Just a little tenacious-investigator humor. Let’s see what you’ve got, Agent Parker.”
CHAPTER 11
SHE HIT SOME BUTTONS that brought up a screen and then clicked on a video. It was black-and-white footage. Maybe military. It was an aerial shot of cars and trucks moving along an abandoned desert road.
“This footage is from exactly one week ago. It was taken from a high-altitude drone above Creel, Mexico, a tiny resort town near the Copper Canyon section of Chihuahua,” she said.
“The FBI flies high-altitude drones now?” I said. “In foreign countries?”
“No, but the air force does,” Emily said. “Is it that much of a shock that the military is involved in this, Mike? This is Homeland Security priority one. Just about everybody is involved.”
I absorbed that with a nod.
“Who’s in the cars?”
“We got intel that a high-level cartel meeting was taking place, so we had a plaza boss out of Río Bravo followed.”
“A plaza boss?” I said.
“A plaza boss controls the centers of the border towns where the drugs and the drug mules congregate. After the drugs make it up from the south, they use these plazas as staging areas where they can organize, distribute, and prepare the product for smuggling across the US border.”
The phalanx of cars pulled to a stop in front of a large, compoundlike building. What looked like tents were set up in the backyard. There were a large number of vehicles already there. There must have been fifty or sixty cars parked in a field beside the structure.
“It looks like a wedding,” I said.
“Almost,” Emily said. “It’s the quinceañera of the daughter of cartel leader Teodoro Salinas.”
I knew who Salinas was from the web news. He was the leader of the only cartel left that wasn’t under Perrine’s control.
Parker suddenly hit Fast-Forward on the video.
“Watch what happens.”
She hit Play again, and suddenly people were pouring out of the building, some of them running. There was a traffic jam in the parking lot as cars and trucks peeled out.
“A Mexican fire drill?” I said.
“It’s something. We don’t know exactly what. All we know is, our guy never came back for his car. Two of the other cars that were also left behind belonged to rivals of Perrine’s Los Salvajes organization. And Teodoro Salinas is missing. There’s been no word.”
“That is a mystery. You think Perrine had something to do with it? You think he was there?” I said.
“We’re not sure,” Emily said.
I stared at the screen.
“Well, let’s see. Three dirtbags enter, no dirtbags leave,” I said. “Then a bunch of people suddenly flee in panic. Sounds a lot like the Manuel Perrine that I’ve come to know and love.”
CHAPTER 12
“HOW LONG DO YOU think we have to stay out here?” Ricky said, watching as the beat-up Wilson football Brian tossed to him flew over his head.
“Agent Parker’s car is still there, right? So at least until it leaves, dummy,” Brian said, gesturing for the ball.
Ricky searched for the ball in the tall grass. It had been almost an hour, and here they still were, out in the back “yard.” It was no yard. It was a field you couldn’t see the end of. It was the size of Central Park—Manhattan, maybe. It had been cool at first, but now it was just like everything else out here in nowhere land. Extremely boring.
“What do you think they’re talking about in there?” Ricky said.
“Probably how this place is too visible for us, and they need to send us somewhere really remote,” Brian said.
“This sucks,” Ricky said as he finally found the ball. “Even with the delay, you know Mary Catherine is going to want us to do our schoolwork anyway. I wanted to catch Matlock. Now it’ll be over by the time we’re done.”
“No,” Brian said. “What really sucks is that you actually care if you miss a stupid, crappy eighties show about an old guy.”
Jane, sitting with her back to the car shed, dropped her book and jumped up and intercepted Ricky’s return pass right before Brian could catch it.
“It could be worse,” she said.
“Give me the ball,” Brian said.
“How the hell could it be worse, Jane?” Ricky continued. “New York had its downsides, but I had, like, friends, you know? Things I liked to do. Now I’m a hick. We don’t even go to school! I mean, if we had a washboard and a jug to blow into, we could start a band.”
“Give me the ball,” Brian insisted again.
Jane finally flicked it to him.
“He’s telling the truth, you know, Jane. Last week, I even busted Dad listening to country music. I’m starting to think there is no threat from that cartel guy. Maybe Dad’s just gone crazy and turned the whole lot of us into a bunch of crazy backwoods hicks.”
“But I thought you liked the animals, Ricky,” Jane said, ignoring Brian.
“For about five minutes,” Ricky said. “I’m going to be thirteen, Jane. Old MacDonald sitting on his stupid fence has lost his charm.”
“Exactly,” Brian said, overthrowing Ricky again by twenty yards. “It’s bad enough we’re living out here like doomsday preppers. Do we have to actually become farmers? In fact, I say we end this right now. If the peewees want to follow Mr. Cody around, more power to them. My days of waking at the crack of dawn and working for free are done.”
“You said it,” Ricky agreed, throwing the ball back to his brother. “Don’t they have child-labor laws in this state? Only problem is, how are we going to get out of it?”
“He’s right, Brian,” Jane said, intercepting the ball again. “Mary Catherine won’t sit still for that. You know how much she likes Mr. Cody.”
All three of them turned as they heard the rental car start. Agent Parker waved to them before getting in and pulling out. They stood in the field, waving back until they couldn’t see the car anymore.
“No! Come back! Take us with you!” Ricky said.
“Don’t worry, little brother. I have a plan,” Brian said, spinning the ball up in the air. “You just leave it to me.”
CHAPTER 13
I WAITED ON THE porch until Emily Parker’s sedan disappeared in the distance, and then I went back into the house and took the dishes into the kitchen.
In the corner, I saw that, despite her obvious annoyance at the federal intrusion, Mary Catherine had put on another pot of coffee. When I looked out the window, I could see her sitting on the fence behind the house, showing something green and fuzzy in her palm to Shawna and Fiona. Probably seamlessly weaving in some lesson about the life cycle while she was at it, I thought, teachable moments being yet another specialty of the ever-upbeat and unstoppable Bennett nanny.
Mary Catherine was handing the caterpillar off to Shawna when she looked up and saw me watching. She stuck her tongue out at me, but then she smiled and waved. I smiled myself as I waved back vigorously.
Friends again, I thought. Good. Lord knew I needed all the friends I could find.
I decided to pitch in and wash the dishes at the big porcelain sink. I’d washed a dish or two in my time working in restaurants when I was in college, but I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually washed any by hand. Then I did remember. It was when my mom went back to work when I was a kid.
She got a job cleaning offices downtown, and my dad and I had to fend for ourselves. My dad, no Bobby Flay, would char some pork chops in a big, black cast-iron pan and boil some potatoes, while I got cleanup detail. It was a grim time, to be sure, but I do remember how proud my mom was of my meticulous dish cl
eaning.
Remember, Michael Sean, she’d always say, it’s never the job you do but how hard you do it.
I liked to think I’d taken her words to heart in the four-odd decades I’d lived on this planet. I had worked hard as a father, as a cop.
And now where am I? I thought, drying my hands. Hiding out from a violent drug lord with my family in the wilds of Northern California. I’d worked hard, all right. I’d damned near worked myself out of a job.
After I dried the plates and cups and put everything back in its proper place, I opened the tap and poured myself a glass of cold water. I took a long drink and then opened the tap again and cupped some water in my hands and splashed it over my face.
Only then did I go over the full significance of everything Emily Parker had told me.
I had hoped I was just being cynical about law enforcement’s lack of information. I hadn’t been. They really didn’t know anything about the attacks on the Mafia. There were no witnesses, no DNA traces, and no leads.
That wasn’t the only problem, unfortunately. Emily had told me some new, disturbing information that actually hadn’t made the papers.
Throughout the Mexican border towns where the cartels were most active—Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, Puerto Palomas, Reynosa, Nogales, and Nuevo Laredo—all the informants for both the DEA and Mexican federales were being systematically wiped out.
It was a veritable purge. In the middle of the night, three or four pickup trucks would show up, and people would be dragged out of their houses by what seemed like army troops dressed in black. The informants’ headless torsos would be found a few days later, dumped in front of police stations, the words ESTO SUCEDE A RATAS spray-painted across their chests.
This is what happens to rats.
It was unprecedented stuff. Some were saying that someone in US federal law enforcement had to be tipping off Perrine. It also had to be someone pretty high up in the FBI or the DEA, since the identities of the slain informants were top secret.
It was almost too incredible to believe that things were actually getting worse. Almost fifty thousand people had died in the last few years of the cartels’ domination. Five thousand people were missing. Now, with the attacks on the Mob, our worst nightmare was coming true. Border be damned, the cartels were expanding into the Mob’s territory. No different from terrorists or an invading army, they were here among us, killing Americans with impunity.
Emily had also explained the egregious political horseshit that was going on in our government. With the approach of an election year, the president, looking for the Hispanic vote, had backed off on strong border policies. In fact, the Justice Department had actually put some pressure on the state governments in Arizona and Texas to tone down their “aggressive border-related law enforcement.”
No doubt about it. It was Alice in Wonderland crazy time. No wonder Perrine was on the rise.
And that wasn’t even the only new terror-inducing bit of inside scoop Emily had given me. Apparently, an insanely toxic and strange white substance had been found at one of the Mob hits in Malibu.
Emily had actually shown me pictures of the Mob boss and his wife, who had been exposed to the substance, and it was something else. Their skin was a shade of purple I’d never seen before. It looked as if they had been turned inside out.
I was standing there, trying to get the frightening images out of my head, when one of the kids hit a Wiffle ball off the windowsill. I looked out the window at my kids, running around oblivious in the side yard.
Jane was in a lawn chair with her nose deep in a Pokémon encyclopedia, while Ricky and Eddie were shooting at each other with gun-shaped sticks. Brian had arranged a game of Wiffle ball for the younger kids, and as I watched, Chrissy hit the ball and began running toward third until Fiona grabbed her and turned her around.
After a second, I pulled open the back door and lifted a second foul ball before Shawna could pick it up. Shawna squealed happily as I actually picked her up as well.
“OK, butterfly girl,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face. “Playtime’s over. Who’s going to be the first one to try to deal with Daddy’s screwball?”
CHAPTER 14
MARY CATHERINE’S HAIR WAS still wet from her shower when she came down the stairs into the kitchen the next morning before dawn.
She smiled as she turned on the oven to warm yesterday’s blueberry scones. The scones had been Juliana’s idea: switch out the raisins in her Irish soda bread recipe with blueberries, and dust it with sugar. Could she be any prouder of Juliana? She was going on seventeen now, and instead of being a drama queen, the eldest Bennett just dug in every chance she got, with very little grumbling about it.
She’d be leaving them soon enough, Mary Catherine knew. Juliana had recently confided that she wanted to join the Coast Guard, of all things. She said she loved the ocean and thought it would be a great way to serve her country and learn something. She could also save money for college, knowing how difficult a challenge tuition would be for their huge family. What planet do these kids come from again? Mary Catherine thought.
She’d been worried about the transition for them, but they were adjusting. In the beginning, she’d had to peel them off the couch in front of the TV, but now they actually preferred being outside. They’d stay out there all day if she let them, running around in all that space or exploring the little stand of trees beyond the creek.
They really were a special bunch. They all had their quirks, of course, but overall, they were happy and obedient and well-mannered beyond their years. Sure, they liked to goof around, but the amount of general goodwill and fellowship they had for each other was quite remarkable.
Had Mike instilled that in them? Their deceased mom, Maeve? Whoever it was, they deserved a medal, because through thick and through thin, somehow these guys made it work. She’d never met a nicer, tighter, more down-to-earth group of caring kids.
She smiled as she looked around the room. She loved the old kitchen. The handmade cabinets, the huge pine table they used as an island, the pots and pans hanging on the rack above the new Kenmore stove.
There was even a real mudroom with a sink, where they stored the slickers and the wellies. The mudroom reminded her of the one on the farm where she’d grown up, in Ireland. So much so that on some dark mornings, coming down to get breakfast going, she would look through the mudroom doorway and could almost smell the acrid scent of turf smoke, almost hear the whistle of the kettle coming to a boil.
Even though we’re in hiding, it actually is a good place here, Mary Catherine thought for the hundredth time. It felt warm, safe. It felt like home.
CHAPTER 15
FIVE MINUTES LATER, MARY Catherine had the big pine table covered with four different types of bread, spreading mayo here, peanut butter there, portioning out cold cuts.
She hadn’t made the kids brown-bag lunches since New York and had almost forgotten what a Herculean feat it really was. It would have been fine if she could have made, say, just ten bologna sandwiches and been done with it, but of course they all had their idiosyncrasies. Shawna had to have a plain bologna sandwich, while Chrissy would tolerate only grape jelly with her peanut butter. Some would eat only turkey, others only ham. Ricky’s order was the biggest pain: yellow American cheese (not white, heaven forbid) and mustard on wheat toast.
She’d already made potato salad and a couple of loaves of banana bread the evening before. It was all for the surprise picnic she had planned. After milking, Mr. Cody wanted to take everyone to a part of the ranch they’d never seen before, the rugged, hilly southeastern section. Cody had been out riding on his horse, Marlowe, the afternoon before and had spotted a huge, hundred-head herd of wild antelope that he wanted to show the kids.
Mary Catherine looked out at the sun, just cresting the top of the Sierras. She couldn’t believe this place. Every day was like a new show on the Discovery Channel.
After she’d Sharpied each of the kids’ names on their tinfoil-wr
apped sandwiches, she went into Jane’s room to wake her up. Jane was sleeping in the lower-left bunk of the girls’ two sets of bunk beds. Mary Catherine smiled when she saw the latest Rick Riordan paperback on the floor over the flashlight Jane wasn’t supposed to use to stay up late reading.
Mary Catherine gently shook her shoulder.
“Rise and shine, kiddo,” she said.
Jane opened her eyes and stared up at her strangely. Then she let out a low groan.
“I’m not feeling well, Mary Catherine,” she said.
“What is it? What’s wrong? Do you feel hot?” Mary Catherine asked, putting a hand on her forehead.
“No, it’s mostly my stomach,” Jane said. “Maybe it’s something I ate.”
It’s probably nothing, Mary Catherine thought, squinting at her. Too much popcorn from the National Treasure movie-a-thon the girls had watched the night before.
“I’ll go and get you a ginger ale,” Mary Catherine said.
Before she went downstairs, she went into the boys’ room and shook the first foot she could find.
“Time to get up, Eddie,” Mary Catherine said. “It’s getting late. Could you wake the others for me?”
After a moment there came another low groan.
“Mary Catherine, my stomach’s killing me,” Eddie said. “I’m sick. I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Me too,” Brian said a moment later.
“Me three, MC. I really feel like I’m going to yack,” called out Ricky.
What?! Mary Catherine thought, panicking. They’d had a turkey for dinner the night before. Is it food poisoning? she thought. Salmonella? That was all they needed. She hadn’t even had a chance to find a pediatrician.
“Oh, no, guys. Jane’s sick, too,” Mary Catherine said. “Hang in there. You must have caught some sort of bug. I’ll wake your father. We need to find you guys a doctor right away.”
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