by R. A. McGee
“If you kill me, you need to kill him too. I was just looking out for my business interests.”
“Kill who?” Clark said. “Who told you who I was? Who told you where I lived?”
“Some old guy. Said he knew you were the one who killed Torres. He gave me your address.”
Twenty
Clark dragged César from the trailer and shoved him face-first to the ground. “Okay, shithead, start walking.”
César turned his head back and forth. Clark had pulled his hair from its ponytail when he dragged the cartel boss, and his bloody face didn’t make him look any more respectable. “Walk where?”
The salt mine was vast and open. Other than the trailers, the only other non-flat aspect of it was the deep pit in the middle.
“Just walk. And if you’re thinking about running…” Clark pointed to Miri, who was holding her pistol. “Don’t.”
The man stumbled off, out into the flat field.
“Okay,” Miri said. “We gotta think about this. Is there any chance what he says is true?”
“Yes.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Clark rubbed his face. “A few months ago, when you were taken in Costa Rica, what did I tell you? Huh? I said it had to be someone from Blackthorn who dimed you out. Remember?”
Miri nodded.
“I didn’t understand how anyone even knew you were in the country to kidnap you, just like I was having a hard time wrapping my mind about how Torres’s men could have found me and my place in the States.”
“But we know how they knew about me; it was David Butterfield. Lucy and McHenry found the evidence and proved he was talking to the Russians and had me kidnapped. Maybe he told Torres and his cartel bosses where you lived. Easy enough for him to pretend that he’s McHenry on the phone.”
“Maybe it was Butterfield. But what if it was McHenry?”
“That’s far enough, fucko,” Miri yelled, after stealing a glance at César. “There’s no way, right? He recruited us both. He always looks out for us. It just doesn’t make sense.”
Clark rocked his head back and forth, his eyes closed. He was trying to put the pieces together, but he felt like he was doing the puzzle in the dark. There was only one way to turn the lights on. “We have to talk to him.”
“What do we even say?” Miri said.
“I can think of a few things.”
Miri looked at her partner, but didn’t say anything.
“So?”
“So what?” she said.
“Are you in?”
“First of all, I have no idea what that means. At least tell me what’s going on in that big head of yours.”
Clark wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her. He couldn’t ask Miri to follow him on a trail that could end up at Blackthorn’s doorstep.
McHenry ran the best-funded, most clandestine extra-governmental agency in the country. Blackthorn had been founded by McHenry, funded by a pork-filled bill coauthored by a couple of senators who owed the old spymaster a favor. There was no reason to believe that he was involved in anything nefarious. And yet…
Miri was still talking. “Second of all, I’m offended that you even have to ask. You know me better than that.” She squeezed his shoulder. “If you need answers, we need answers.”
“Good. Because I damn sure need answers.” He turned toward César, who was standing in the middle of a field, hands clutching his stomach. “You can come back now.”
The man hobbled over to the pair, approaching with apprehension.
Clark smacked him not so gently in the face. “Tell me how that rat bastard contacted you.”
Twenty-One
César told the same story, over and over, for the better part of an hour. Unlike his previous attempt to throw Clark and Miri off his trail, this story was concise and consistent. It never wavered.
“One more time,” Miri said. “If you’re lying, now’s the time to come clean.”
“I’ve already told you. I found out from one of my people in the States that Torres had been killed outside the prison. He had no clue who did it or what happened. I have a bunch of soldiers, but they aren’t detectives. We figured a whole squad of guys hit Torres’s truck. But it wasn’t a whole squad, it was just you? I… I can’t believe it was one man.”
Clark nodded. “It wasn’t even that hard. His guys were really bad.”
“That’s one way to look at it. I was upset that Torres had been killed, but ready to chalk it up as a loss. Just the price of doing business. Then, a day or two later, I get a phone call.”
“Who was it?” Miri asked.
“I didn’t know. That’s the thing. One of my men brought me a prepaid phone I’d never seen before. The guy was on the other end, waiting for me.”
“What did he say? Be specific,” Clark said.
César shifted his feet and put his hands back on his stomach. “I already told you. Can I sit down yet?”
“You’ll be sitting on the ground forever if you don’t answer my question,” Clark said.
“He said, ‘Are you aware what happened to Torres?’ I told him I was and he said he knew who did it. I asked him how the hell could he know, and the voice told me that the killer worked for him. Then he gave me an address.”
“That’s all?”
“More or less. He figured I’d have my guys in the States do their part. The only thing he said was that I needed to do it quick. So we did.”
Clark paced back and forth, staring at the ground. Miri folded her arms and watched. “And you still have this phone?”
“Of course. I’m not sure who that guy was, but when someone gives you such amazing info, you make sure you can contact them again.”
“Have you ever?”
“Ever what?”
“Contacted the number again?” Clark said.
“No. It’s in my safe. I’m keeping it for a rainy day,” César said, managing an amused look through the bruises on his bloodied face.
Clark saw the smirk, and put all his strength into an enormous right hand, which landed squarely on César's chin and knocked him off his feet. The drug lord was asleep before he hit the ground.
“We need the phone.”
“Yes,” Clark said. “We need the phone.”
Clark hauled César onto his shoulder and walked him back to the Escalade, dumping him into the back seat. He hopped into the driver’s seat and left the salt quarry behind, heading through the small town and toward César’s compound.
“I know you work for the guy and all, but how are his guys going to feel about their boss being half-dead in the back seat?”
“There shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”
Miri looked over at him. “That’s all you can say? There shouldn’t be too much of a problem?”
“Nope.”
“Hmm,” Miri said.
Clark traveled well-worn roads, taking the necessary turns to put the Escalade back in front of the compound as soon as he could. Within minutes, he’d pulled through the clearing and up to the small road which led to the entry gate.
He drove up to the guard. Clark watched the man look inside the SUV, obviously expecting to see a handful of people and an ambulatory boss. Before he could say anything, Clark spoke up.
“We got hit. We got hit really bad. All the other guys are gone. I just managed to get him out of there and bring him back.”
The guard looked at Miri. “Who the hell is she?”
“Look, Ángel, we don’t have time for this. Let us in. Who knows if anyone followed us? I need to get him inside. What are you gonna do, leave César out of his own house?”
Ángel thought for a moment, then opened the gate.
“Good,” Clark said. “Listen, meet me in the house. We need to figure out what’s going on. Bring the rest of the guys. They all need to be in on this.”
Ángel nodded and Clark sped up the driveway, a faux urgency in his actions. He slammed the car into park and again hoisted César
on his shoulder, carrying the still-unconscious man into the mansion.
Miri was several steps behind and to the right of him, in a perfect spot to watch his back the entire way.
Clark dropped César onto the kitchen table. Moments later, Ángel and two other men appeared.
“That’s it?” Clark said. “Three of you? We need more to protect the boss.”
“The rest of the guys are out on the road working,” Ángel said.
“What about the men who were with Sammy this morning? They should be here somewhere. We left them behind, remember?”
Ángel looked up as if just remembering. “I haven’t seen them in a while. Figured they’re taking their time with that traitor.”
Clark nodded and stepped away from the table. César was beginning to stir.
“What the hell even happened?”
“I don’t know,” Clark said. “One minute everything was fine, the next… boom.”
“The other guys were killed?”
Clark nodded. “Super dead.” Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw that Miri had slowly moved back, so that her back was flat against a wall. He hands were by her sides, relaxed but ready, eyes on the entire room.
“It’s gotta be Pascual’s men. Getting revenge for their boss.”
César moaned and blinked his eyes.
“There,” Clark said. “He’s waking up. Ask him what he remembers.”
Ángel and his two other guards crowded around the kitchen table, slinging chairs out of the way. “Jefe? Jefe, qué sucedió?” Boss, what happened?”
César blinked again. He was bleeding from his mouth, and drool flowed across his chin.
“Get closer,” Clark said. “I think he’s trying to tell you something.”
One of the men went to the other side of the table, all of them crowding César, straining to get a hint of what he was saying.
Clark was aware that Miri was now next to him, and on an unspoken count, they raised their pistols and shot the two men in front of them, hunched over the table. Then, in unison, they both moved their pistols to the third man and fired, Miri a split second before Clark.
César finished coming to, his eyes wide, face covered with fresh blood that wasn’t only his.
Twenty-Two
Clark pulled the man off the table and waited for him to find his feet. “Take us to your safe.”
César mumbled in confusion, his badly broken jaw hanging askew.
“It’s been a long day. I want the phone, so just give it to me.”
Miri was in the kitchen, going through the refrigerator. She emerged with two bottles of water and handed one to Clark.
He raised his eyebrows.
“What? All that salt in the air made me thirsty. Don’t look at me like that.”
Clark shook his head and the pair fell into step behind César, who led them down a hallway that was opposite the kitchen and over the shiny marble tile. They passed two bedrooms, a bathroom, and what appeared to be a home theatre as they went.
Miri surreptitiously checked every door handle and poked her head into every room they passed.
The group ended up in a home office. There was an enormous wooden desk, a flat-screen television on the wall opposite and, against the far wall, three large safes.
Clark walked over to the desk and saw a small ashtray, stuffed with the roaches of joints. “Do you smoke cigarettes?”
César looked at Clark with disgust.
“Really?” Miri said. “That’s what you’re worried about right now?”
“Don’t judge me,” he said.
César stood, looking uncomfortable in his own office. Clark gestured to the three safes. “Well? Open ’em up.”
The man padded over to the first safe, still on unsteady feet. He punched in a combination and went to open the door.
“Hold on a second,” Miri said. She pressed her pistol into the back of César’s head. “You pull any surprises out of there, you’ll get the biggest surprise. Got it?”
The man quickly nodded and held his hands up, like a robber caught by the police.
César slowly moved his right hand to the handle of the safe, unlatching it with a loud clank and pulling it open with his fingertips. The safe was full of gallon-sized Ziploc bags stuffed with white powder. He gestured an upturned hand to the cocaine.
“What am I going to do with that?” Clark said.
César made a rubbing motion, his thumb on the rest of his fingers, the universal sign for money.
“Negative,” Clark said.
“Come on, Vanna, let’s see what's behind door number two,” Miri said, pistol still on the man.
César repeated the same process, this time pulling the door open on a small arsenal. The safe was full of pistols and rifles, shotguns and silencers. He gestured again.
“Not a bad lick, but in case you forgot, I already have my own,” Clark said, waving his Glock.
“Okay shithead, door three better be the one, or this is the end of the line for you,” Miri said.
César opened the safe. Cash, in stacked, neat bundles—hundreds of thousands of US dollars.
“Finally something we can use,” Miri said.
César raised his hands higher in the air, but gestured to the inside of the safe door, where there was an insert of mesh pockets.
“What is it, boy? Did Timmy fall into the well?” Miri said, drawing a laugh from Clark, who was leaning against the desk. He’d given up his search for a cigarette.
César looked confused at the reference, but again gestured with his head toward the pockets. Miri pulled him out of the way, pushing César toward Clark to control, then looked inside the mesh pockets one by one, eventually pulling out a small black flip-phone out, turning it over in her hands.
“Is that it?” Clark said. “That’s the phone?”
César nodded, mumbling unintelligibly.
Miri pushed the power button and the phone turned on, playing a small tone as it did. She went through it, switching to recent contacts.
There was only one number, and it appeared as a random series of digits.
“Inbound was encrypted,” she said, and tossed the phone to Clark. “We can’t trace the number from here, but we could call it back.”
“Not now,” Clark said. He typed a number into the phone, and his own burner phone rang in his pocket. César’s phone was still juiced up and on a cell network.
“Okay. I believe you got a call that gave me up,” Clark said.
César nodded wildly.
“But… that still doesn’t let you off the hook,” Clark said.
César stopped nodding.
“I know for you it was business and I can respect that. But for me? For me, it’s personal.”
César dropped to his knees, hands in front of him. He mumbled and pleaded, drool and blood spilling from his mouth.
Clark raised his pistol. It now weighed a ton. He felt his heart rate quicken, and his breath grew ragged. He’d pulled the trigger so many times, but this was a different sensation.
He thought of Samantha, her perfect red hair bouncing in the sunlight. That image was pushed from his mind, replaced by Samantha’s angry skull that visited him every night when he slept.
Miri watched him and waited.
Clark lowered his pistol. “Miri. Can you…?”
He looked at the man in front of him and felt a twinge of shame. Shame that he wasn’t strong enough to finish what he’d set out to do. Shame that he’d let this get into his head. Ashamed that his anger about Samantha was somehow preventing him from pulling the trigger when he needed to most.
Miri slipped her finger into the trigger guard on top of his. He was vaguely aware of the pistol moving back to César’s forehead, even less aware of the man’s blubbering and crying from his knees.
Clark watched as his finger moved, with help, and then his Glock cracked off a round.
His hand was again rock-solid, with no trembling, as it pointed to the place wh
ere César’s face had once been.
Twenty-Three
Clark dropped his arm to his side and then tucked his pistol into his waistband.
Miri didn’t say a word, turning and walking out of the office, leaving him by himself.
The fog he’d been in for weeks was gone. A weight lifted off his shoulders. His chest felt light and his mind was clear. He exhaled, then took a deep breath, and walked out of the office door, into the backyard. He wanted to savor fresh air, and staying in the office with its burned gunpowder only intensified his desire for a cigarette.
As he approached a row of shrubbery, there was a shoe, lying by itself on the ground. He kept walking around the edge of the tall bushes and saw a dead body on the ground.
Further up the path, two more bodies, dead as doornails.
He rolled one over with his foot and recognized him from earlier in the day. The third man who’d dragged Sammy kicking and screaming from the brunch table. The other two were the rest of the eviction party.
But if they were dead, then where was Sammy?
Clark hurried along the path, turning the corner that led back to the main house. He opened the big slider door and stepped into the empty kitchen. He moved past the bodies that littered the floor around the kitchen table and called for Miri.
She answered from the front room.
“I think we have a problem.”
Miri was looking out the front window toward the entry gate. “No shit, we have a problem. Those guys friends of yours?”
Clark peeked out the window next to her. Two pickup trucks were driving up the driveway, having already opened the now guardless gate by themselves.
“Yeah, I know them,” Clark said.
“Great. How are they going to take seeing their boss dead on the ground?”
“That’s not the problem.”
Miri snorted. “How is that not a problem?”
“Because those aren’t César’s men, they’re Pascual’s. They must have figured César and his guys killed their boss. Looks like they’re pretty pissed about it.”
