Iron River

by T. Jefferson Parker

  Then the phone finally rang, but it was Buenavista PD captain Gabe Reyes reporting that he’d found a cell phone and a charger under Mike Finnegan’s pillow an hour ago. None of the nurses had ever seen the phone or heard him talking on it, and when Reyes went to the messages and call logs and contacts, they contained not a single name, number, or message.

  “He said he never used it,” said Reyes. “That it was just for emergencies. It’s one of those prepaid models. I think he was whispering or texting. That’s why they never heard him talk.”

  “Whispering or texting who?”

  “I doubt it was somebody wanting to buy a shower curtain. You don’t hide a phone and not use it. And I checked—if you lie in that bed where he does, and you can use your right hand, there’s an outlet within reaching distance. He could have been using and charging that thing late at night when the nurses were changing shift, not paying such close attention.”

  Hood thought that all of Gabriel’s police work added up nicely, but he wasn’t sure to what. “Thanks, Gabe.”

  “I want to get Father Quang to talk with Finnegan.”

  “Explain.”

  “He’s a priest out of El Centro. Vietnamese, you know, a lot of them are good Catholics. Quang has a deep sense of evil because he has seen things. He is bright. I think he might help us cut through some of Mike’s bullshit.”

  “I’d like to be there for that.”

  “Sure. One more thing, deputy. Beth said IHOP was terrific. She had a light in her eyes. Treat her well.”

  “Yes, I will.”

  Around nine o’clock, Hood got out of his truck and shut the door quietly and trotted across the street. He climbed the fence and strode across the entrance walkway and the little perimeter of flower bed. He followed the edge of the building until he found a dark and sheltered place, then he squatted amidst the shade-tolerant begonias and rhododendron and African violets and looked through the smoked glass. An early article about Pace Arms said that manufacturing was done on the first floor, and this appeared to be true. In the faint light within, Hood saw the twelve men working diligently at their benches, all fingers and elbows, all working on what appeared to be small-caliber semiautomatic pistols.

  Back in business, he thought.

  He was almost all the way home to Buenavista when Ozburn called: Raydel Luna was here in California and Jimmy was alive somewhere down in Mexico, and there was a plan.

  29

  They set off in their own vehicles, Hood in his black Tahoe and Ozburn in his Land Cruiser still caked with dry pale mud and Bly in her black Suburban, a dark posse charging down the highway through the deeper dark of night.

  Hood brought up the rear, keeping his eyes on the divider and on the back of Janet’s ride, but along the peripheries of his sight the spindly ocotillos rushed by and the paloverdes marched full and rounded, through the headlight beams and to the north the quarter moon sketched the outlines of the distant mountains against the sky.

  Luna was waiting at a bar called the Corral on Highway 98 just outside of Quartz. The Corral came into view ahead on Hood’s left. There were cars out front. He watched Ozburn drive by without slowing, then Bly and Hood did the same. The restaurant sign was dim and read only CORRA. A mile past, Ozburn signaled and flogged it, then skidded into a smoking U-turn across the highway and came back at Hood with a merry flashing of brights. Hood smiled, and when it was his turn he did the same. They parked noses-out in the lot, Bly and Hood near each end and Ozburn in the middle. Hood could hear music playing inside, a loud corrido.

  Hood pushed through the door first. The music jumped in volume and he saw the pool players and the drinkers and the smoke drifting into the rafters. Faces turned his way, washed in the red light of candles in red glass domes on the tables and along the bar. Luna sat in the depths of the room with two other men.

  He stood as they approached and he shook their hands strongly and his small eyes bore into Hood’s. He wore a vaquero-style sport coat with leather-trimmed pockets and yoke that was too small for him, and this made his thick neck and shoulders seem even larger, like a bull disguised as a mariachi. Amador was Luna’s physical opposite, light and slender and long-necked and angel-faced. He was dressed in the uniform of the Baja State Police, and an AK-47 was propped against his chair. Hood guessed early twenties. Esteban Vogel was also nothing like Luna. He was light-skinned and blue-eyed and sandy-haired and he wore slacks and an open-collared dress shirt and a blazer that draped expensively. Early thirties. Along the wall beyond them stood two uniformed Mexican Federales, both young.

  Luna said that Jimmy was alive and being held somewhere in the mountains. But there had been developments. And everything in Mexico was “not usual” since the bloody kidnapping at the hospital. The slaughter in Mulege was bad enough, he said, but now things were very, very not usual.

  “Let me explain,” said Esteban Vogel. “You know that originally the Zetas were defectors from the Fifteenth Battalion of Mexico’s Special Forces—GAFEs. These men were great soldiers, our bravest and best. They specialized in airborne operations, counterinsurgency, counter-drug trafficking, and, as we saw at Imperial Mercy, rescue operations. At first there were only twenty defectors. They were led by a man named Humberto Vascano, known as Z1 and El Verdugo, which means The Executioner. He sold their services to Benjamin Armenta’s Gulf Cartel and began recruiting in the poor Mexican states of Veracruz, Oaxaca, and Puebla and Chihuahua. Vascano is charismatic and ruthless. The recruits were trained in the special forces tactics, and armed heavily. Because of their counter- drug trafficking training, they became very effective drug traffickers. Because of their counterinsurgency training, they became accomplished insurgents. They were paid three hundred dollars a week to start, and could earn up to one thousand. The pay for the GAFE soldiers is two hundred dollars per month and this was the reason for the defections.”

  Vogel looked at each of the Blowdown team while he removed a silver cigarette case from his coat pocket. He offered cigarettes around the table. Bly and Hood accepted. Vogel lit their smokes, then his own, and clipped the case shut.

  “This was three years ago. At that time, Mexican desertions were approximately one hundred soldiers per month. Now it is twelve hundred soldiers per month. The Zetas have grown to over one thousand. They grow faster than we can count. They have outgrown Armenta, though some of them still work for him. They have branched out into Quintana Roo, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, Sinaloa, and Baja California states, establishing territory, controlling smuggling routes, reaping profits, destroying the opposition. They have been extremely successful in Guatemala and are now drawing recruits from the once legendary special forces known as the Kaibil. The Kaibiles are defecting at twice the rate of us Mexicans. The Kaibiles and the Zetas have aligned themselves with the Mara Salvatrucha, which gives them street-level numbers and foot-holds in American cities. They consider themselves superior to the cartels. They have bragged about overthrowing the government and murdering President Calderón. They have been unleashed. I can tell you that the worst is yet to come. Gentlemen, and lady, of Blowdown, we have a crisis in our country and now it has moved into yours.”

  “We want Jimmy back,” said Ozburn.

  “This long preamble was necessary,” said Vogel. He exhaled curtly. “The Zetas have Jimmy. But they are not Benjamin Armenta’s Zetas. It is Vascano himself. The Executioner is offering Jimmy to Armenta for one million dollars. But more important than the money, he is using Jimmy to destroy the trust between our two governments. Both sides are humiliated by the hospital raid. Because the kidnapping makes Calderón and his government appear inept and lacking in control, Vascano believes he is closer to destabilizing it. And, if he can infuriate the United States against Mexico, this is good for the Zetas. This was an act of terrorism not only against the United States, but against Mexico. However . . .”

  Vogel drew deeply on the cigarette and slowly let out the smoke. He tapped the cigarette out in a black plastic ashtray. “Ho
wever, at the powerful urging of my advisors, and Sergeant Luna, I asked Vascano, through intermediaries, to also offer Jimmy to you. He has agreed.”

  “What price?” snapped Bly.

  “Five million dollars.”

  “The United States government doesn’t pay terrorists,” said Ozburn.

  “Nor does ours,” said Vogel. “And it will not be seen to. But we are hoping to diffuse the crisis that began at Imperial Mercy. We are hoping that the return of Mr. Holdstock, perhaps made possible by certain sympathetic elements within the Calderón administration, will ease tensions. We are hoping that the sight of Mr. Holdstock returned to American soil, reunited with his family, viewed by millions of Americans, will reduce this strife between our two great nations.”

  Hood sat back and figured his net worth if he cashed out everything he had. It was about forty grand if he kept the Camaro.

  “We’ll get it,” said Bly.

  “You tell Vascano we’re going to get it,” said Ozburn.

  “You already have it. It’s a gift from our people to Jimmy Holdstock. You just have to deliver it to Vascano and bring Jimmy back across the border. The Zetas will call Luna at noon tomorrow. Only two persons can be present to transport the money and collect Jimmy. One must be Sergeant Luna. If a third is suspected, they will murder Jimmy on the spot. They have said that the Executioner wants this exchange done quickly.”

  “What if Armenta offers more?” asked Hood.

  “Vascano will sell to the highest bidder.”

  “We could easily be walking into a slaughter,” said Ozburn.

  Vogel leaned forward and spoke quietly. “Agent Ozburn, this is possible. But my people have used the very best of their skills in negotiating with Vascano, and they tell me that he is more interested in collecting the ransom than in killing a Mexican policeman and an American ATFE agent. He has already pitted our government against yours through Mr. Holdstock. It is a worldwide event. It cannot have gone better for Vascano. Now all he wants is the money. We have all the assurances we can have.”

  “From a man called the Executioner,” said Bly.

  “The situation is perilous but not hopeless,” said Vogel. “And even so, it is the very best we can do. So discuss this among yourselves and decide who will take the money down with Sergeant Luna. My people have talked to Soriana and Mars, but that is all. We are a very small group of men and women trying to accomplish a large thing. Now, my ATFE friends, I suggest you follow me.”

  They trailed the two soldiers through the small kitchen, then out the back of the bar, then across a flat lot. Waiting near a windbreak of greasewood trees were two more soldiers and two military jeeps and an American SUV and an armored half-track. The half-track had a Mexican army logo on the machine-gun station, and a third soldier seated before the .50-caliber gun.

  “Bring your vehicle around,” said Vogel. “The sooner we finish this, the better.”

  A minute later a soldier lifted a large canvas backpack from the storage hatch of the half-track and hefted it over his shoulder for the short walk to Ozburn’s truck. The weight bent him. Vogel said it was all hundreds, as demanded by Vascano, just over one hundred and four pounds of them, packaged in one-pound bundles of forty-eight thousand dollars. Confiscated cartel money, he said, weighed and packaged in the United States and smuggled down into Mexico by car and sea. The soldier backed against the truck and shrugged off the pack onto the tailgate. Bly insisted on inspecting it. As she did, Hood watched the bundles accumulate on the tailgate of the vehicle.

  “The bills are not short and not marked,” said Vogel. “There is no transmitter hidden in them or in the pack. We will give them no reason to keep Jimmy from you.”

  “No, you won’t,” she said.

  Bly continued her inspection unhurriedly, then replaced the bundles in the big pack. She had to lean a shoulder into it and push with both legs to move it off the tailgate and into the back of the Land Cruiser. When she had finished, Vogel and one soldier climbed into one of the jeeps, and the other two soldiers dispersed into the other.

  Hood watched the half-track roar to life and the gunner lock down his weapon. The big machine pivoted madly and lurched forward through an already flattened section of greasewood, then powered off across the desert toward the border like some enormous warthog. The jeeps screamed along behind, throwing clouds of dust into the dark, and even through these clouds Hood could see the world of stars above.

  The Blowdown team and Luna stood beside him and watched. “I belong to you until the Executioner calls,” he said. “After that, one of you will belong to me. But when we cross that border again, we will both belong to the devil. After all, we have made a deal with him.”

  There behind the Corral among the empty booze boxes and beer kegs and the foul trash cans and the slumping garbage bags and the dripping hose and the sticklike mantids fixed to the screen door beneath the naked lightbulb, Sean Ozburn spread an old newspaper upon the hard ground and weighted its four corners with rocks for butts and barrels.

  Because of his seniority, they used his gun and he spun it first.

  Ozburn defeated Bly.

  Ozburn defeated Hood.

  Hood eliminated Bly.

  Hood beat Ozburn twice, the barrel of Ozburn’s gun locating Hood with the seeming confidence of a compass hand swinging north.

  Even though Hood had prevailed, in deference to Ozburn’s age, he offered to let Ozburn go get Jimmy. Ozburn said a deal was a deal and so it was.

  Luna looked on with his hands folded before him and his shoulders stretching the fabric of the vaquero coat, his neck a taut column, his shaven scalp shining except for the flat black berm on top, his eyes lightless, and at Hood he smiled his smile that was not a smile, and the chill imparted to Hood was as true as any he had experienced in the streets of L.A. or the alleys of Anbar or the tunnels of Jacumba.

  Don’t count on Luna for help again. Don’t count on him at all.

  30

  Dear Mom & Dad,

  I’ll be out of the country tomorrow, hopefully for just an hour or two. But I thought I’d write to tell you I love and miss you and I plan on seeing you in October for Dad’s BD.

  I’m sure you’ve seen all of the chaos here on TV. It’s much less focused and contained when you’re in the middle of it: There are National Guard troops everywhere and more coming in every hour, and all the news media are scrambling around looking for someone to talk to, and patients are checking out of Imperial Mercy in droves because they’re afraid it could happen again, and there’s a hundred people at least outside the hospital entrance carrying signs that say “Take Back Jimmy” and “America Stand Up” and “Don’t Tread on Me,” and things like that. There’s half-tracks and troop carriers and light tanks all over Buenavista and nowhere to park them so they pull up onto the old stone sidewalks, which busts them up pretty good. There must be a couple thousand Guardsmen here. They’re billeting them in houses if people will take them, and they’ve set up a headquarters in the desert outside of town but that desert is a hostile place.

  I saw Jimmy just a few days before they took him, and he was doing better. I’m fearful for him, though. His body was broken but bodies heal. It’s his mind that worries me. Jimmy’s mind was broken, too, and I don’t know if it can survive more pain. Not an hour goes by that I don’t think about how the Zetas could have kidnapped me instead, or anyone else on the Blowdown team. Because it was Jimmy I respect and thank him. I owe him. Dad, maybe you understand that because you always felt the same way about Anderson. I believe that we the living ride on the shoulders of the sick and the crazy and the dead. That sounds morbid but it isn’t.

  Know that I love you. I’ll see you soon.

  Charlie

  31

  The Executioner called at ten minutes after noon. Hood watched Luna step from the bustling lobby into the courtyard of the Hotel Majestik, cell phone pressed to the side of his head, nudging past a senior U.S. congressman, who turned and glared at
him. Hood saw two other Southern California representatives and, briefly, the Secretary of Homeland Security pressing through the lobby, surrounded by a phalanx of her bodyguards. The Guardsmen and reporters were thick, and the camera crews were shooting interviews in every nook and cranny of the old hotel.

  Luna stood by a fountain with his back to Hood. He appeared to be arguing. A moment later he lowered the phone and flicked it shut with a snap of his wrist and barreled back through the lobby. Hood followed. They walked to the parking lot of the ATFE offices, where Ozburn and Bly were standing guard over Hood’s Tahoe. The vehicle had been outfitted with two GPU transponders so it could be tracked over long distances, and loaded with two spare gas cans that were strapped into the rear compartment beside the five million dollars. The cash had been divided into two backpacks, which would give each man a fifty-pound load and still leave them free to use both hands for weapons. Hood had chosen a drum-fed 12-gauge and he carried his usual Glock .40 on his hip and the AirLite eight-shot on his right calf. He also wore a pair of bull hide cowboy boots, and the left boot heel contained the ivory-handled two-shot derringer given to him by Bradley Jones. Late the night before, Hood had carved an exact place to fit the piece. It had taken him hours to create this opening and get the fit just right and still leave one side of the sole intact to fit back over the weapon and lock puzzlelike into place and not come open when he walked. Luna had requested an M16. He wondered if Luna would bring his bow and arrows, but he did not. Luna considered the weapons with what looked like amusement.

  Ozburn handed Hood a thousand dollars in small U.S. bills, mad money, he said, and Hood folded it once and put it in the left back pocket of his jeans. Bly replaced the U.S. federal plates with Baja plates.