Their designated section of the Tijuana River was barely what you’d call a river. It was more like sludgy trickle of toxic chemicals and raw sewage that ran along a wide cement channel littered with dead dogs, burning tires, and discarded needles. The stench was overwhelming, but that never stopped people from wading through the filth to try and make it to the American side. Himes claimed that you got used to the smell after a while. Léon wasn’t sure if he believed that. There weren’t enough showers in the world to wash the memory of that smell out of Léon’s head.
It was just after midnight when they spotted a trio of junkies squatting and huddled together on the American edge of the river. Male in an illegible death metal T-shirt and dirty jeans. Long, tangled hair and lurid red Kaposi’s sarcoma legions on his arms and face. Two females. One overweight and painfully young. Childish, pink-and-black T-shirt featuring a bad knock-off of Hello Kitty. Way too much bloated belly exposed between the hem of the shirt and the saggy waistband of her torn pink leggings. Faded pink hair, with a good six inches of black roots. Maybe sixteen, tops. Dead, hopeless eyes. If she was sharing needles, and who knew what else, with her male companion, she was probably already HIV-positive. Léon hoped she was just fat, and not pregnant. The second female wore a hooded sweatshirt, hood up and curly black hair spilling out from around its edges. Jeans and dusty hiking boots. What skin was visible was corpse pale in the harsh sodium lights. The first two were totally absorbed doing something furtive with their hands, probably prepping their heroin, but the second female sat stone still and seemed to be watching the border patrol agents. Léon couldn’t see her eyes under the hood, but she gave him the creeps.
“Paid diversion,” Himes said as they pulled their ATVs up on the lip of the channel.
“Paid?”
“Smugglers pay junkies to shoot up along the river,” Himes told him. “Divert our attention away from their operations.”
Himes lifted the visor of his helmet and raised a pair of compact binoculars to his eyes to get a closer look at the action. He watched the junkies for a silent minute, then handed the binocs over to Léon. Léon pushed up his own visor and scoped the trio for himself, adjusting the focus and zooming in on the male junkie’s hands.
Sure enough, he was dumping something from a tiny plastic envelope into a metal bottle cap. The chubby girl was pressed up against him, holding a disposable lighter and a syringe. She had sparkly glitter polish on her bitten nails, and a cheap ring shaped like a star.
“Should we try to apprehend them?” Léon asked.
“We can try,” Himes said. “But they’ll probably run back over to the Mexican side.”
“So, what?” Léon said. “We just watch them?”
Léon was zoomed in so tight that when something suddenly happened, it just looked like a fast shuffle and blur. He lowered the binocs, squinting at the three junkies. Now there were only two of them. They were both laying face down in the oily sewage, rivulets of crimson feeding out into the sluggish current. The chubby girl didn’t seem to have a head.
“What the...”
He turned to Himes and saw that the second female was standing right beside them, between the two ATVs. She was inexplicably nude. Impossible, but not any less possible than her running all the way up to the top of the steep concrete bank in the half a second it took Léon to lower his binocs. Her chin and chest were slick with gore. Her eyes did not reflect any light, just swallowed it all and gave nothing back. She was holding something, something that Léon’s baffled brain translated as a dirty red mop. But when he saw that the mop had streaks of pink, he realized what he was really looking at. It was a human spine with the head still attached, clotted pink hair brushing back and forth against the naked woman’s bare toes.
Léon looked at his partner. Crack-shot, bad ass Himes. Highest arrest record on the team. He didn’t draw his weapon. Didn’t take action. He was just staring at the woman with a drowsy kind of dread, like a suicide on a ledge, looking down. Like he knew what was coming. Like he deserved it.
When the girl dropped the spine and leapt on Himes like a hungry animal, Léon scrambled sideways off his ATV, thought processes utterly short-circuited by what he was seeing. It would have made sense to punch the gas and speed away, but he wasn’t thinking. Couldn’t think. All he could do was stumble backward, hands up and head shaking in endless, wordless denial. Because the woman was changing, form and substance flickering like a fire, bleeding off into the air around her as she tore into Himes with raptor claws and a thousand jagged teeth dripping glistening venom like rattlesnake fangs.
Léon tripped and fell on his ass as what used to be a woman threw back what used to be a head and screamed. That sound, that agonized, furious scream, was the single most terrible sound Léon had ever heard. Then something happened that was so strange, stranger even than all the other madness of the previous impossible moments, that Léon could feel his mind snap like a broken bone. In a way, it was almost a relief, not to have to try and make sense of anything anymore. Because there was no way to make sense of what he was seeing.
The sky around the woman’s head was unfolding. The earth was torn wide open like Himes’ corpse and things started to fall upward, twisting like trash caught in a high wind. There was a blinding flash and a burst of excruciating pain like a plane crash inside Léon’s head and then the woman was gone. So were the two ATVs and Himes’ body. So was the lower half of Léon’s body. Everything from the navel down was gone, neatly severed and bloodless for a surreal moment. Then, the blood came in a dizzy sickening rush, flowing down into the oily river and mingling with the blood of the dead junkies. Léon thought he heard the buzz of ATVs, backup on the way, but it didn’t matter. It was too late.
SIX
Dean stood at the single window of a motel room. He’d been looking out at the freshly washed Impala sitting in the mostly empty parking lot, but now let the scratchy plaid curtain drop. The room was identical to every room he’d ever stayed in, nearly invisible in its generic blandness. The only thing that stood out and reminded him that he was in Arizona rather than Nebraska or Montana or Vermont was a creepy painting of an anthropomorphic saguaro cactus wearing a cowboy hat and a mildly demented expression on its prickly green face. When they first checked in, he’d been tempted to take it down and stash it in the closet, but discovered that it was bolted to the wall. Like anyone in their right mind would want to steal that atrocity.
Sam had his laptop set up on the rickety table on the other side of the narrow room, surrounded by open files and crumpled papers.
“So what have you got on little Ritchie Keene?”
“He’s in a band.” Sam said. “They’re terrible.”
“How about something useful? Like his DOB?”
“April 16th,” Sam read off the screen. “1988.”
“When Mrs. Keene was talking about whatever she thinks might have happened to her husband on the job,” Dean said, “she referred to it as the day after the youngest son’s seventh birthday party. Not the day after his actual birthday.”
“Still,” Sam said. “At least that narrows it down, gives us a window of about a week or so. I’d say we should look for something that occurred between April 10th and 20th, 1995.”
“Looks like I’d better pay a visit to our friends at Customs and Border Protection,” Dean said. “Where was Keene stationed?”
“There’s no way either one of us is getting into a CBP station,” Sam said.
“Why not?” Dean asked.
“Look,” Sam replied. “I want to bag this creature too, but we need to play it smart. Weigh the risks. A CBP station isn’t some podunk sheriff ’s office where you can fool everyone with slick talk and a fake badge. In case you haven’t been keeping up on current events over the past eight years, the CBP and the Department of Homeland Security have combined forces to crack down on any possible terrorist threat to our great nation. And they take their jobs very, very seriously. I think it’s safe to say they’re
basically Dean-proof.”
“I’m deeply hurt by your lack of faith in my ability to sweet-talk,” Dean replied, opening the closet door and pulling out a garment bag containing two unremarkable navy-blue suits. He unzipped it, removing the smaller of the two jackets. “I’m like the Chuck Norris of sweet-talking.”
“I’m serious, Dean,” Sam said. “Federal prison serious.”
Dean pulled off his T-shirt and slipped into the white button-down that had been hung underneath the jacket.
“What? You’re saying you couldn’t go on without me?” Dean buttoned the shirt and draped a dull striped tie around his neck. “You love your dear big brother so much that it would break your heart if I went to prison?”
Sam looked away.
“I’m just trying to be practical,” he said.
“Practical,” Dean repeated, tightening the knot on the tie. “Uh huh. Just give me the damn address.”
SEVEN
The Nogales Station of the CBP was probably one of the most unfriendly looking buildings Dean had ever seen. He’d seen prisons that looked more welcoming.
The officer at the archive check-in desk was female. According to her laminated photo ID, her name was Ariana Cruz. She looked way too young for the job. Wide, heart-shaped face and big brown eyes. Pretty, even with minimal make-up and her dark hair pulled back into a no-nonsense bun. The sweet, kid sister type. No wedding ring.
“You must be Ariana,” he said, flashing the most charming smile in his arsenal. “Ray Sandoval told me that you were the one to talk to about pulling some old records.”
“I’m sorry, you are...?” She blushed, dropping her gaze.
“I’m Special Agent Allman,” Dean told her. “I’m sure Sandoval must have mentioned that I was coming.”
He badged her with the FBI ID, holding it low, just to the left of his belt buckle. Trying to make her feel embarrassed about looking too closely at that area of his body and keep her focus upstairs, on his face.
“Well... I...” She picked up a clipboard, scanning over a list of some sort.
He took a step closer, one hand on her desk. He didn’t want to overplay it and act all pervy. Just give her the impression that he liked what he saw but was trying to be professional about it.
“It took me three weeks to get all the paperwork together to cover the transfer of document custody,” he told her. “I’d hate to have to go through that all over again.”
“I’ll need your badge number,” she said.
Dean pulled out a very official-looking business card with the FBI logo and Bobby Singer’s phone number. Held it out to her.
“If there’s a problem you can contact my superior back in DC,” he told her.
“I need to enter your badge number into the system for security cross-check,” she said. “It’s standard procedure.”
“Listen, Ariana,” he said, leaning in and lowering his voice, making it softer, more intimate. “I know you hate all that paperwork just as much as I do...”
She cut him off before he could continue.
“You’ve always had it easy with women, haven’t you?” she said. A funny little smile curled in the corner of her mouth. “I can see why. And, you know what, I’d love to lie to you and tell you that I can get you past security if you take me back into the supply closet and show me a good time. Just for my own selfish reasons.”
Dean couldn’t help but laugh. Some innocent kid sister.
“But let’s face facts,” she continued. “Even if you rocked my world, which I have no doubt that you would, I still don’t have the power to let you in without performing a security cross-check and issuing a bar-coded visitor ID. If you want to bypass security, you’ll have to show my superior officer a good time.”
A new voice, masculine, deep and slightly accented, spoke up behind Dean.
“That would be me.”
Dean turned to face the owner of the voice. Latino, late fifties with thick, perfectly groomed white hair and incongruous pale-blue eyes set in a deeply lined face the color and texture of old saddle leather. He wore the same uniform as Cruz but with higher-ranking insignia. His photo ID read “Raphael De La Paz.”
“Sorry, sir,” Cruz replied, blushing even deeper and awkwardly shuffling papers on her desk. “This is Special Agent Allman, here about some old case files. I just need to get his badge number...”
De La Paz looked at Dean.
Dean couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so profoundly scrutinized. By a normal human being, anyway. It was like that unflinching gaze was riffling through the drawers of his mind. Dean was sure the game was up.
There was a fingerprint scanner beside the clipboard on Cruz’s desk. If they printed him, it would only take a few clicks on a computer to call up Dean’s less-than-sterling history with law enforcement. Sam had been right. This was a spectacularly bad idea.
“Come into my office, Agent...” De La Paz gave Dean another searching look. “What did you say your name was again?”
“Allman,” Dean said, sweating in earnest now. He knew perfectly well that the older man hadn’t forgotton the fake name he’d given Cruz.
“Right,” De La Paz said. “Cruz, take a break. Smoke. Coffee. Facebook. Whatever.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
De La Paz turned and headed down the drab, fluorescent-lit corridor. Dean saw no choice but to follow. As they walked, Dean noticed the older man limping slightly on his right leg. De La Paz opened a metal door labeled with his name and gestured for Dean to enter.
Dean stepped inside the cramped, windowless office. It was pin-neat and minimalist. Standard, government-issue metal desk, nearly bare except for a phone, a small, outdated computer monitor, and a single framed photo facing away from Dean. Two identical chairs, one behind the desk and one in front. One wall was lined with large, alphabetized filing cabinets, making the small room feel even smaller.
De La Paz stepped in behind Dean and closed the door. There was barely enough room for the two of them to stand side by side in front of the desk. Dean wondered for a moment if maybe Cruz had been serious about him showing her boss a good time, but De La Paz just squeezed past him and sat down behind the desk. He motioned for Dean to take the other chair.
“I’ve worked Border Patrol for twenty years,” De La Paz said. “Seventeen of those years in the field, before a Zeta bullet put me behind this desk. People tell you all kinds of stories. Some are true. Most aren’t. You learn to know the difference just by looking at ’em. At their eyes. I never even listen to what people say anymore. I just look at their eyes.”
Dean shifted in the uncomfortable chair, feeling like he was twelve years old again and back in the principal’s office.
“I know you’re not an FBI agent.”
The uncomfortable chair squeaked under Dean’s weight as he shifted again, a subtle torture device that amped his discomfort up to eleven. He ran every angle, every possible response over and over in his head and still came up empty. He looked down at his sweating hands. Some Chuck Norris.
“But I also know you’re not a criminal or a terrorist,” De La Paz continued. “You probably like to think of yourself as some kind of rebel, but you have the soul of a lawman. I see that in your eyes.”
Dean squinted at the older man, wondering where he was going with this.
“You’re carrying a hell of a lot of scar tissue for someone as young as you are.” De La Paz sat stone still, never taking his eyes off Dean as he spoke. “But we all get calloused on account of the things we’ve seen on the job. Things we’ve done. Things the people we protect could never understand. Those things have made you cynical, but deep in your heart you still believe in justice, don’t you?”
Did he? Dean had no idea how to answer a question like that.
“You know I oughta turn you in,” De La Paz said.
“What’s stopping you?” Dean asked. If De La Paz really was going to blow the whistle, Dean wished he’d just get it over with al
ready.
“Maybe the fact that you remind me of someone.” De La Paz pulled a bottle of top-shelf tequila from a desk drawer, along with two shot glasses. “A complicated, driven man with eyes like just yours. Met him back when I was your age. Still young enough to think I knew everything about everything.” He looked down at the bottle, shaking his head with a slight smile. “That man sure proved me wrong.” He opened the bottle, poured two modest shots. “His name was Winchester. John Winchester.”
De La Paz held one of the shot glasses out to Dean.
“Pleased to meet you, Dean,” De La Paz said, raising his shot glass and clinking it against Dean’s.
Dean tried to no-sell his surprise, but he was pretty sure his jaw was in his lap.
“You knew who I was this whole time?” Dean asked.
“I had a pretty good idea.” He smiled. “I suppose you might have been Sam, but you’ve got firstborn written all over you.” He tossed back the tequila and set the glass down on his desk. “Now why don’t you tell me what this is really about.”
Dean looked at the older man for a moment, then at the tequila. He wondered what supernatural horror had brought his dad and this guy together, but figured this wasn’t the time to ask. He just had to hope that they had both been on the same side. He sucked in a deep breath, downed the shot, and took a risk. A risk he was probably out of his mind for taking. He told De La Paz what this was really about.
Supernatural 8 - Coyote's Kiss Page 3
