by Mark Dawson
“Fine.”
Anna turned to watch as the army technicians started to unload the cargo from the Gulfstream. The weapons were ferried to a cart and then wheeled across to the SUVs.
They had a lot of firepower.
She wondered whether they would need to use it.
* * *
49.
MILTON CAME around. He was groggy and, as awareness returned, so did the pain. He assessed the damage. Red hot spears lanced up from his face. His head throbbed. His arm was difficult to move. A couple of ribs broken? He tried to open his eyes. His left was crusted with dried blood and his right was badly swollen; he could only just open the first and he could see nothing through the second. There were bones broken there: the orbital, perhaps, and something in the bridge of his nose. He felt a stubborn ache from his shoulders and realised that his hands were cuffed behind his back.
“You alright?”
He looked to his left. It was Beau.
“I’ll live.”
“You don’t look so good. They worked you over some. I saw when they marched me down the mountain. They pretty much had to pull Adolfo off you.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“Really? Doubt that, partner.”
Milton winced; his lips were cracked and bloodied.
He looked over at Beau. His shirt was ripped to the navel, revealing a tiger’s tooth that he wore on a chain around his neck. He was sitting down, leaning back against the wall. His arms were shackled with FlexiCuffs behind his back.
“You got any bright ideas?” Beau asked.
“Not right at this moment. Has anyone been in to see us?”
“Not yet.”
“Where are we?”
“Back in the city. South side. Looked like a pretty swanky neighbourhood, at least by standards around here. My guess is we’re in one of El Patrón’s houses.”
“And this room?”
“First floor. End of a corridor. I didn’t get the chance to see all that much.”
“Anything else?”
“Only that I’m not sure why they didn’t just cap us out in the desert.”
“He strikes me as the kind who’d want to make a point.”
“I reckon that’s right. The way I’m thinking, that roughing up they gave you out there ain’t going to be a pimple on a fat man’s ass compared to what they’re going to do to us next. It ain’t going to be pretty for us.”
“Or them.”
Beau laughed bitterly. “Jesus, man. has anyone ever told you you’re full of it? Look around, will you? We’re cuffed, in a locked room, waiting for a psychopathic motherfucker to come and do whatever the fuck he wants to us. This ain’t the time for bravado.”
“It’s not bravado, Beau. They should have killed me when they had the chance. They won’t get another.”
Beau was quiet for a minute. Milton assessed himself again: save his face and some bruising down his arms and trunk, there were no major breaks or internal injuries. He flexed his muscles against the cuffs. The sharp edges bit into the skin on his wrists.
“You think the girl’s still alive?” Beau asked him.
“I don’t know.”
“If she is, she probably don’t want to be.”
THEY DIDN’T have to wait long. The door was unlocked and Adolfo and another man stepped inside. He was older and bore a passing resemblance to Adolfo. His skin was unnaturally smooth; Milton guessed there had been a lot of plastic surgery involved.
“Hey, Adolfo,” Beau said.
“Hola, Beau.”
“I’m guessing this is your old man?”
“I am Felipe,” the man said calmly. “You are Señor Baxter, and you are Señor Smith?”
“That’s right. I don’t suppose you want to get these cuffs off me?”
The man smiled broadly. “I don’t think so.”
“I was saying to Adolfo earlier, things don’t have to be unfriendly between us.”
“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it? You came here to murder my son.”
“Come on, man. Who said I was gonna murder him? I was paid to deliver him.”
Another indulgent smile. “We both know that would have been the same thing.”
Milton tensed against the FlexiCuffs again. The two men were close enough to him––if he could free his hands, he knew he could take them both––but the plastic was too strong. He tried again. There was no give at all. Dammit.
Felipe noticed him. “Señor Smith. Unlike Señor Baxter, I know very little about you.”
“Not much to know.”
“I doubt that. You are mysterious––hiding something, I think. You will tell me what it is.”
“You think?”
“They always do.”
“They’re not like me.”
“You talk a good game.”
“Where’s the girl?”
“She’s here.”
Milton sat forwards and then got onto his knees. “I’m going to give you one chance. Give her to me, give us a car and let us leave.”
“And if I don’t?” Felipe asked.
“Then it won’t go well for you.”
Adolfo stepped over and backhanded him across the face. Fragments of broken bone in his nose ground against each other and his nerve-endings.
Milton looked up at Adolfo and smiled. “Or you.”
Adolfo drew back his foot and kicked him in the ribs. Pain flared and Milton gasped out.
Felipe put a restraining hand on his son’s shoulders. “Enough. You will both stay here for now. We have business to attend to. We’ll send for you when we are ready.”
They stepped outside. The door was locked behind them.
“Come on, man,” Beau said. “What was that about? You got a deathwish?”
“Something like that.”
* * *
50.
“LET ME do the talking,” Pope told her. “Alright?”
“Alright.”
“If there’s anything I need to know, I’ll ask you.”
“Fine.”
Anna, Captain Pope, Lance-Corporal Hammond and Lance-Corporal Callan had been the first across the border. The SUV was plenty big enough for the four of them and the extensive amount of weapons and other equipment that had been unloaded from the hold of the Gulfstream. The second SUV had followed behind. They had dispensation to cross the border, passing swiftly through a filter lane reserved for the army, border patrol and government agents. Anna had never been to Mexico before and the sudden, abrupt change from the affluence of El Paso to the poverty of its twin was shocking. The buildings south of the border were dilapidated and scarred and the people bore the fatigued look of the perpetually defeated. It was all a stark contrast to the optimistic, banal chatter of the hosts on Sunny 99.9FM, still within range as they drove south.
They had been busy. The second van had peeled off for the restaurant but their first stop was to the headquarters of the municipal police for details on Lieutenant Jesus Plato. After being made to wait for an hour they had finally been directed to a block station in the west of the city. It was a small, boxy building, cut off from the rest of the neighbourhood by a tall wire mesh fence. There was a second line of concertina wire, the windows had bars and they had to wait for the door to be unlocked.
“Pleasant neighbourhood,” Pope said.
He led the way inside.
The receptionist regarded them with wary eyes.
“Teniente Plato, please.”
“Take a seat.”
Anna sat down. Pope did not. She watched him from behind a magazine as they waited. He stood, arms folded, impassive. There was no expression on his face. He made no effort to engage with her. The woman behind the desk tried to get on with her work but she didn’t find it easy; there was a restive presence about Pope that was impossible to ignore.
The officer who came out to see them was old. Anna would have guessed mid-fifties. His hair and moustache were greying and he was a little overwe
ight.
“I’m Teniente Plato. Who are you?”
“Pope. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
“I’m just going to smoke a cigarette. We can talk outside.”
They went back out into the humid morning.
“We’re here on behalf of the British government,” Pope began.
“That right?”
Pope took out a passport.
Plato glanced at it. “Captain?”
“That’s right.”
“Army?”
He nodded.
“That’s a coincidence.”
“How’s that?”
“Had an Englishman in here three days ago.”
“The man you arrested?”
“Didn’t arrest him.”
“But you fingerprinted him?”
“Standard procedure.”
“Name of John Smith?”
“That’s right. How’d you know all that?”
“We need to see him.”
“I need some reciprocation here, okay, Señor?”
“What did Mr. Smith tell you––about himself?”
“Next to nothing.”
“That’s not surprising.
“But there’s more to him than he’s letting on––right?”
“We’re here to help him. We work together.”
“Doing what?”
Pope made a show of reluctance. “Let’s call it intelligence and leave it at that.”
“You know he said he was a cook? What’s he done?”
“Lieutenant, please––we need to speak to him. Please.”
“You’re going to have to move fast. He’s in a whole heap of trouble.” Plato dragged down on his cigarette. “Someone he’s been helping out has got herself mixed up with the cartels. A journalist, writes about them, not a good idea. They abducted her yesterday night. This morning, your friend went out to the desert to try and negotiate with them to get her back. Didn’t go so well––the cartels, they’re not big on negotiating. Him and another man who went with him were taken away.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was watching,” he said. The answer seemed to embarrass him.
“Where?”
“Place out of town.”
“Got any idea where they’d take him?”
“Better than that––I know. I followed. Place not too far from here.”
“You’ll take us?”
Plato shook his head. “That’s not a place for a policeman like me.” Again, Anna saw shame wash across his face. “I’m done with getting myself into scrapes like that. But no-one’s stopping you. You want, I’ll give you directions.”
* * *
51.
DUSK FELL as they travelled across the city. Anna sat at the back of the SUV and said nothing. No-one spoke. There was a sense of anticipation among the three agents. Determination. Callan had disassembled his handgun and was cleaning the mechanism with a bottle of oil and a small wire brush, as ritualistic as a junkie with his works. Hammond was listening to music again, her eyes closed and her head occasionally dipping in time with the beat. Pope was driving, his eyes cold and resolute, fixed on the road ahead. Their equipment was laid out on the floor in the back of the van: MP-5 SD3 suppressed machine-guns equipped with holographic sights and infrared lasers; a large M249 Squad Automatic Weapon; H&K machinepistols; a Mossberg 500 shotgun; three 9mm M9 Beretta pistols; M67 grenades and a Milkor Mk14 Launcher; M84 flashbangs; night-vision goggles. The agents were each wearing jeans, t-shirts and desert boots with khaki load carrying systems strapped on over the top. Each gilet was equipped with pouches for ammunition, hooks and eyelets for grenades and flashbangs, and each was reinforced with Kevlar plates.
The second SUV was directly behind them. They had visited the restaurant and found it closed down, boarding fixed across the front door. They had asked around at the other businesses nearby and discovered that there had been a second shooting, two days after the first. The owner and the woman who ran the front of house had both been shot dead. No clues as to who did it. It was them who they needed to talk to. Since they couldn’t, that trail had run cold.
But it looked like they didn’t need that trail, after all.
Anna was nervous. She would have preferred to stay behind but Pope had insisted that she come. If the operation proceeded as he hoped they would not delay in getting out of the city and back across the border again. There would be no opportunity to detour and pick her up. Pope had explained what she would have to do calmly and without inflection: stay in the van, don’t get out of the van, leave it all to us.
And Pope needed her help, too.
He parked a hundred yards away from the gated entrance to the compound. Anna saw a guard shack and two men, both of whom were armed with rifles.
“Alright, Anna,” Pope said. “There’s the house. See it?”
“I’m not blind.”
“Do your thing.”
She opened her laptop and connected with the internet. Her slender fingers fluttered across the keyboard as she navigated to the website for the Comision Federal de Electricidad and, after correctly guessing the URL for the firm’s intranet, forced her way inside.
“I can’t be surgical about this,” she said. “It’ll be the whole block.”
“Doesn’t matter. Can you do it?”
“Just say when.”
“Ready?” Pope asked the others.
Hammond said, “Check.”
“Check,” said Callan.
“Alright then. Here we go.”
They quickly smeared camouflage paint across their faces. Pope put the van into gear again and slowly pulled forwards. When they were twenty feet away from the gatepost the guards came to attention, one holding up his hand for them to stop. The van had tinted windows and the two of them were unable to see inside. The men made no effort to hide the automatic rifles they were carrying. Pope pulled a little to the left, opening up an angle between the driver’s side of the van and the gatepost. One of the man spat out a mouthful of tobacco juice and stepped into the road. Hammond brought her MP-5 up above the line of the window, aimed quickly, and put three rounds into each guard. Anna was shocked: the gun was quiet, the suppressor so efficient that all you could really hear was the bolt racking back. The men fell, both of them dead before they hit the floor.
Anna’s heart caught. She had never seen a man shot before.
Suddenly, it all seemed brutally, dangerously real.
Pope calmly put the van into gear again and edged forwards through the gate.
Anna compared what she could see in the gloom with the map she had examined earlier. It was a crescent-shaped street that curved around a central garden. Mansions were set back behind tall fences. It was nothing like the rest of the city; it was as if all the money had fled here, running from the squalor and danger outside and cowering behind the gates. One of the gardens was lit up more brightly than the others: strings of colourful lights had been hung from the branches of pecan and oak trees and strobes flashed. The sound of loud Norteño music was audible. Pope pulled over outside the driveway of the mansion. They pulled down full-face respirators and added night vision goggles.
They collected their weapons.
The time on the dashboard display said 21:59.
“Now, Anna.”
She hit return.
Her logic bomb deployed.
The time clicked to 22.00 and all the lights went out.
The streetlights.
The lights in the mansion, the colourful lights in the grounds.
The music stopped.
“Go, go, go,” Pope said.
* * *
52.
PLATO AND GOMEZ ended up on their usual jetty, looking out onto the sluggish Rio Bravo. The brown-green waters reached the city as a pathetic reminder of what it must have been, once, before the factories and industrial farmers choked it upstream for their own needs. They were beneath the span of the bridge, sitting on the bonne
t of Plato’s Dodge. The headlights were on, casting out enough light so that they could read the graffiti on the pillars. Several of the concrete stilts had been decorated with paintings of the pyramids at Teotihuacán. He could see the fence and the border control on the other side. The low black hills beyond El Paso. America looked pleasant, like it always did. The day was ending with the usual thickening soup of smog, muffling the quickly dying light.
Sanchez pulled another two cans of Negro Modelo from the wire mesh.
Plato took a long draught of his beer. He sighed. His heart wasn’t in the banter like he hoped it would be.
“What’s on your mind, man?” Sanchez asked. “You’ve been quiet all night.”
“Been coming here for years, haven’t we?”
“At least ten.”
“But not for much longer. All done and finished soon.”
“What? You saying you won’t still come down?”
“Think Emelia will let me?”
“You wait. She’ll want you out of the house. You’ll drive her crazy.”
“Maybe.” Plato tossed his empty can into the flow. It moved beneath him, slow and dark. Sanchez handed him another.
“What am I doing?”
“What?”
Plato looked at the can, felt it cold in his palm. He popped the top and took a long sip. “I can’t stop thinking about that girl.”
“From the restaurant?”
“And the Englishman. Going after her like that. Going after the cartels, Sanchez, on his own, going right at them. Makes me ashamed to think about it. That’s what we’re supposed to do––the police––but we don’t, do we? We just stand by and let them get on with their murdering and raping and their drugs. We swore the same oath. Doesn’t it make you ashamed?”
He looked away. “I try not to think about it.”
“Not me. All the time. I can’t help it. All that bravery or stupidity, whatever you want to call it, how do I reward him?––by sending him on his way to a death sentence and not doing anything to help him. And then three of his colleagues turn up and I won’t even take them to where he is. Didn’t even try and help them. I just tell them where to find him. They go there, that’ll be another three deaths that keep me up at night. All I can think about, all day, is what am I doing? I’ve just been trying to keep my head down. Get my pension and get out.”
