Easy access.
He was driving us over an unpaved road on our way toward Monterrey and the prison located about twenty miles past the town’s outer perimeter. Open desert surrounded us on both sides of the dirt road. I rode shotgun. On occasion we’d pass a squatter’s shack that had been cobbled together out of plywood scraps or corrugated tin or pea-green plastic siding. On occasion we’d bounce our way past a collection of four or five shacks that seemed always to surround a water spigot, as if this were the reason for the shacks and not the other way around.
I leaned into the space between the front bucket seats in order for him to hear me over the engine noise and the wind whipping against our faces. I asked him if he had been filled in on Renata’s situation.
“Entirely briefed,” he confirmed. “In fact, I am familiar with Richard Barnes. He often visits when he is down this way on business. And I’ve seen many photos of his wife.”
“So you won’t have any trouble recognizing her when you see her?”
Hudson shook his head.
“But do we have a plan?” I asked.
“I’ve got an idea or two, Mr. Marconi,” he shouted as the Land Rover engine strained to make the climb out of the desert and up a steep grade covered on both sides with heavy brush and flowering cactus. “But in a case like a prison breakout, you rely less on planning than you do on simple firepower and who you know on the inside who will take a bribe.”
The road dipped, then suddenly ended, the brush all but disappearing. We came upon a level plain, the edge of which finished off in a sheer cliff about a hundred yards away.
I thought about all the guards under my command for so many years who never had a problem with taking a bribe from some of the more wealthy inmates (usually drug pushers). And why not? So long as it kept the peace inside the iron house, and weight in their pockets.
“I’m sure you had no trouble finding a guard who could be bribed,” I said, not without cracking a smile.
“It’s more of a challenge deciding which man best suits our collective needs.” Shaw motored straight for the cliff’s edge as if it didn’t exist.
“But that doesn’t mean a breakout will be easy, Mr. Marconi,” Shaw said, a minute later. “It simply means it will not be impossible. Remember, regardless of her intentions, Renata Barnes broke the law. And regardless of the guards who I assume will be working alongside us, there will be many, many more who will want to see her stay exactly where she, by law, belongs. In a cage.”
We lay on the gravel-and sand-covered floor of the flat-topped bluff, Shaw on my left. I was viewing the entirety of Monterrey Prison through a pair of Hudson’s compact Minolta binoculars. I was pretty surprised at how the setup of the prison resembled some of our own prisons in the States. Namely, Attica State Prison.
“An absolute fortress,” I pointed out, the binoculars glued to my eyes.
“That’s because it is,” Shaw said. “In Mexico, prisons are designed to keep people out as much as they are designed to keep criminals in. Perhaps more so.”
“And who would they want to keep out?” I said, running the lenses of the binoculars all along the pentagonal exterior wall, hesitating only long enough to examine the stone guard towers that occupied each of the pentagon’s five points.
“People like you and me,” Shaw said. “Rescuers and irregular armies in the paid employ of the drug traffickers and their families.”
I moved my glasses from tower to tower.
Each was occupied with a spotlight and three guards, all of them packing sidearms and semiautomatic weapons slung over their shoulders. Perched in the tower directly above the front gates, a belt-fed, tripod-mounted machine gun — .30-caliber, if I had to guess. A real spoiler if you got too close.
This was the prison’s basic setup: The front, triangular portion of the pentagon-shaped exterior wall faced the open valley to the east, while the back, squared-off portion had been set inside the crotch of the L-shaped cliff face to the west. Inside the stone and razor-wire walls there was what appeared to be an administration building comprised of four floors and made entirely of dark brown stone. There were a dozen or so freestanding buildings on the inside, four of them serving as the prison’s cell blocks.
Long and rectangular, the cell blocks had been laid out at ninety-degree angles to one another to form a perfect square with an open space in the middle. The inside walls that faced the large square of open space were branded with large white letters identifying which unit was which. From where I lay at the top of the cliff, I could identify Units A and B only, C and D being hidden by the angle.
The open interior space itself had been segregated into four smaller yards (again, just like Attica) by a stone wall shaped like a cross, the very center of which supported a separate guard tower and a second .30-caliber machine gun. From where I lay on my stomach on the cliff top, I could see that the tower supported at least six guards. All the guards were armed to the teeth (more like soldiers than guards), with yet a seventh inside the Plexiglas-enclosed hut who manned a telephone and switchboard that I was sure controlled the gates into and out of the four yards.
Aside from the cell blocks and towers there was a laundry building located near the back, west wall. Beside it, a powerhouse. The four major cables that supplied the power were connected to a never-ending series of steel-frame, high-voltage towers running parallel with an unpaved access road that spanned the flat desert landscape for as far as my eyes (and binoculars) could see. Until the road just disappeared below the horizon.
And as for man power?
The entire compound was crawling with guards all done up military style in olive green pants and combat boots. Unlike their American cousins, however, these guards carried both sidearms and automatic weapons slung over their shoulders while working inside prison walls.
Barnes had informed Hudson that Renata had been jailed in the basement of A Block, which, as luck or providence would have it, was one of the two blocks located closest to the prison’s front gates.
Hopefully, they hadn’t moved her.
Even from the relative safety of the cliff top, I pictured Shaw and I busting through the gates in his Land Rover, shotguns blasting, pulling up to the front door of A Block only to be met with .30-caliber machine gun fire.
I set the binoculars down flat on the ground, rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands. I asked Shaw how he planned on getting beyond the gates without getting all shot to hell.
“By utilizing three tried-and-true tactics, my friend,” he said.
“And what are those?” I said, feeling the heat of the desert floor against my belly.
“Number one,” he said, raising the index finger on his right hand, “we rely on the trickery of diversion.”
I nodded.
“Second,” he said, raising the middle finger, “we use the power of heavy armor and equally heavy artillery.”
He put his arm back down in the dirt and began making his way back to the Rover on all fours.
I propped myself up on my elbows. “Hey,” I said, looking back at him over my left shoulder. “You said three tried-and-true tactics.”
Shaw stopped.
He got up on his knees and smiled. “How could I be so forgetful,” he said. He raised his left hand once more, raised three fingers side by side. “Number three,” he said. “If number one and two do not work, we will pray to the good Lord very, very hard.”
“That’s the plan.” A question.
He bobbed his head. “For the most part,” he explained. “But don’t worry so much. Tonight we’ll enjoy a little fiesta, and tomorrow morning we’ll settle the plans.” He got up off the ground and headed, on foot now, toward the Land Rover.
Fiesta, I thought, as I turned my attention back to the prison. Barnes is paying us to break into Fort Apache, and the expert guide wants to have a party. I was reminded of the old saying about eating and drinking until you drop because tomorrow you’re as good as dead. Maybe that was the poin
t. Or maybe that’s how Shaw led his life in the first place. As for me, I had something to live for and it wasn’t Renata Barnes and it sure as shit wasn’t her husband’s two hundred Gs or Tony Angelino’s orders for that matter. What I had to live for came in the guise of a bald man who drove a black Buick. I had to keep myself alive long enough to find him. Once I killed him, I’d leave the rest to fate.
I picked up the binoculars, set them against my eyes once more.
There was something going on now in the vicinity of the prison’s front gates. The gates were opening up. Some guards were running out of the gates, machine guns balanced at the hip. The guards scanned the immediate area with their gun barrels.
I had no idea what the hell was going on, what they were so jumpy about.
A few seconds later, I found out.
A truck was pulling out of the gates. A one-ton truck, with a front cab and a fully enclosed cargo area. Like a Ryder rental, only instead of yellow, the vehicle had been painted olive drab green.
The truck stopped. While one of the soldiers got inside the cab, another opened up the back and hefted himself up inside. I tried to get a look inside the truck with my binoculars. But it was impossible to make out anything other than total darkness.
When the soldier was inside, he closed the door.
Then the truck took off, heading due east along the access road parallel with the power lines.
For a moment I thought about asking Shaw to follow the truck for a while. I don’t know why I wanted him to do it. Instinct maybe. My intuition banging against the interior of my skull. But then I thought better of it. Besides, Shaw had already fired up the Land Rover.
If I had to describe it, I would say there were two different sort of looks on his tight face. The first was a pinched expression that said, Get your ass back in the truck.
The second was a wide-eyed smiley face that roared, Let’s party!
Chapter 22
She hasn’t eaten in three days. Not that they haven’t tried to feed her. A tin plate filled with a kind of meatless stew is set beside her on the concrete floor. Water and bread sits there too. She doesn’t eat not because she won’t eat, but because she can’t eat. She doesn’t have the energy or the strength. In the windowless basement cage, she has no idea if it’s night or day. She has no way of telling time, no way of knowing how long she’s been down in that dungeon. She wants so badly to shout something out, to connect with someone else.
The old man in the cell beside her own has stopped talking to her.
Somehow, she finds the strength to crawl up to the front of the cell. She whispers, “Roberto,” three distinct times, but all she hears is nothing.
She has no idea what the old man looks like or if he really is an old man. But she suddenly feels a terrible pit in her stomach, like he is dead.
Dead at her expense.
In a moment, she hears the loud banging of the basement gates opening up. She hears the heels of the jackboots slapping against the concrete floor. They appear suddenly at the floor of her cell. The mustached man and his ever-loyal guard.
When the mustached man gives the signal, the cell gate slides open.
He enters the cell, grabs her by the hair, takes a fistful of it. Yanks it.
He leans down, into her ear. “We’re going for a little ride,” he says.
She’s too tired to protest. The soup of drugs running through her veins has poisoned her blood. She’s so messed up, in fact, she can hardly feel it when the mustached man lifts her up by her hair.
Next thing she knows, the soldiers are dragging her up these metal stairs. It must be a back stairwell. They drag her by the arms, so fast the tips of her toes are dragged along the edges of the metal treads and risers.
At the top of the stairs, they pull her into a garage of some kind. A huge, echoey, open place with three or four trucks parked inside and all sorts of mechanic’s tools set on the walls and floors. They cuff her hands behind her back. They lift her up and set her down inside the bay of the first truck. One of the soldiers follows her inside. He has one of those hoods in his hand. A black hood. He sets it over her head and pulls the drawstring on the bottom to secure it.
She hears the sound of an engine starting, feels the movement and bucking of the truck, tastes the hot wool against her lips and tongue.
“Where are you taking me?” she inquires. She is slurring her words, like a drunk. “Tell me…please.”
But the soldier sitting across from her says nothing.
Maybe he can’t understand English.
“No habla Ingles?” she asks him, in that same slurred voice.
“I can speak English perfectly well,” he says.
She realizes he’s not about to tell her anything.
The truck stops suddenly and then she hears the doors open up and a second soldier hopping up inside.
“Were going to the pit.” he volunteers, in a Latin-accented voice.
It’s the answer she’s been looking for, whether the soldier knows it or not.
She might ask more questions, but she knows in her heart that it is answer enough.
Chapter 23
Like Monterrey Prison, Shaw Hudson’s ranch was nothing less than a fortress. From the Land Rover I could make out the tin roofs of the structures set inside what I guessed to be about six or seven acres of desert. A high stone wall topped with bands of razor wire surrounded the property. Video surveillance cameras were mounted to the wall and spaced every ten feet or so apart. Two additional cameras were mounted to the entrance gates, one over each corner of the metal frame that supported two solid steel-plated doors on sliders.
The armed guards were taking no chances.
When Shaw pulled up to the gates, a Mexican man signaled for us to stop. He was a wiry man in dirty jeans, with a Fu Manchu mustache. He wore boots and a faded leather vest with no shirt underneath, so that the sunburned skin appeared way too tight for his muscles and veins. On his head, he wore a short-brimmed cowboy hat with a peacock feather sticking out of the leather band. Slung over his shoulder, a black M-16, the trigger of which he caressed with the index finger on his left hand. He glared at me with wide, intense eyes as he spoke something in Spanish to his “Jefe.”
Slowly, the gates opened.
I turned to Shaw, as he threw the Land Rover in gear. “Cautious,” I said.
He turned to me. “You ever hear of the Trojan horse, my friend?” he said.
I nodded. “The Iliad, ” I said. “Or was it The Odyssey?”
“I thought it was the Bible,” he said.
Then he drove on in.
The buildings inside the compound had been constructed with plenty of stucco and plaster. Toward the far wall, there were a dozen tall aluminum towers topped with windmills that spun slowly but steadily in the breeze. Heavy wires were attached to the windmills and ran to each of the buildings. There was an old-fashioned water pump set in the middle of the lawn. A wooden trough beneath the pump caught the water that dripped from the spout. I looked around for some horses while Shaw took it slow along the long gravel drive. There were no horses. But there were five Harley-Davidsons equipped with leather saddlebags, parked side by side, at an angle, in front of the main house.
The main house had been positioned in the center of the wide-open property at the very end of a driveway turnaround. It also was constructed of adobe plaster that had faded to tan. A wide porch wrapped all around the front and sides of the two-story farmhouse. The massive wood front door was flanked by two sets of French doors spaced equidistantly along the front exterior wall. These doors opened onto the front porch, probably more for ventilation than easy access.
The compound was a busy place.
There were women in long colorful dresses walking in and out of the house and guards stepping out of their way, all of them wearing jeans and cowboy boots and hats. Rifles hung at their sides; sidearms were mounted to their belts or set inside shoulder holsters. Many of them smoked cigarettes, and they
stared at me as I drove in with Shaw, smiling and sometimes laughing at me.
Like I was the brunt of some bad joke.
Set to the immediate left of the house was a three-bay garage with a wooden double door secured with chains and padlocks. Parked beside the garage was a brand-new John Deere backhoe, a good-size core drilling machine, as well as a trench digger. Equipment as familiar to me as the old photos of my father I still had lying around my apartment in Stormville. Such are the memories of a construction family.
To the right-hand side of the garage, partially hidden by the main house, was a built-in swimming pool and a pool house with a thatched roof and walls made from dried palm leaves. A long open bar was connected to the pool house, with the thatched roof extending over it. Hanging from the rafters of the bar were lots of colorful Chinese lanterns.
From where I sat inside the Land Rover, I spotted a small crowd of young women sunning themselves, pool-side, dressed only in thong bathing bottoms, no tops. They carried tall drinks in their hands. As Shaw stopped the Land Rover and we got out, one of the women took notice of us and came to the end of the wood pool fence. She was a tall, long-haired beauty and she wore narrow black-framed sunglasses, that covered her eyes. I tried like hell to look only at her face. But under the circumstances, the eyes tended to wander south.
“Don’t be shy,” Shaw said, as he pulled the shotgun off the dashboard clips.
“Hola, ” I said, feeling a wave of embarrassment spill over me like the pool water that dripped from her long black hair. Hola! How silly did that sound?
She smiled and laughed a little and said something to Shaw. “She wants to know if you’d like to take a swim a little later.”
I would, I said.
He told her.
The woman touched her lips with the tip of her index finger. Sexy. And then she turned back to the group. That’s the beauty of a thong. When a woman turns her back to you.
I thought about telling Shaw how much I was going to like it here.
But he was already heading for the house, the stock end of the shotgun resting against his right forearm.
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