Head Wounds

by Michael McGarrity

  When the food and booze came, Harjo poured two liberal shots into glasses, tossed an ice cube into each, and handed one to Fallon. “How much money do we have?”

  “I’ve a little over eight thousand left,” Fallon replied, digging into his steak, medium rare, covered in green chile.

  “That should cover us, with enough left to get across the border when it’s done.” Harjo knocked back his scotch, poured another, and sat at the table watching Fallon eat. “I say we go for Gilberto. He’s the easier target of the two.”

  “That’s fine, but it won’t kill the two-headed snake or put the cartel out of business.”

  Harjo examined the whiskey in the bottom of his glass. “What more can we do?” he mused.

  “I suppose half a snake is better than none,” Danny replied, pleased with his riff on the cliché.

  Harjo laughed. “Cute.”

  “I like clichés,” Fallon said between bites. “They simplify conversation.” He stopped eating and sipped his scotch. “We’re gonna need better weapons.” All they had were semiautomatic handguns.

  “Diego Mendez or Vito Torres will provide them from their arsenals.” Harjo took a bite of his mole poblano. Delicious.

  “Which one of the scumbags do we kidnap?”

  “I’m thinking Mendez,” Harjo replied, pushing the beans on his plate off to the side. They were too mushy. “He’s single and seems the more arrogant and self-absorbed of the two.”

  “Thinks himself too important to be fucked with,” Fallon summarized.

  “Exactly, and therefore sloppy about being cautious. We’ll take him at his house.”

  “And if a girlfriend or two are there on a stay-over?” Fallon inquired. Mendez, the cartel’s chief executioner, was a devoted practitioner of ménage à trois.

  “No civilian casualties if we can avoid it,” Harjo replied. “Mendez is fair game.”

  “That works for me.”

  They went over the first phase of the setup. To avoid suspicion, Mendez needed to believe a Piedras Negras patrol officer was knocking at his front door. They’d picked Officer Beltran Diaz to provide the uniform and sidearm. About Harjo’s size and weight, Diaz was a lazy, not-too-bright cop who worked the tourist district. He lived with his waitress girlfriend in a small house near a dirt soccer pitch used by neighborhood schoolkids. She was at work when he got off shift, dropped at home by his partner. She didn’t return for five more hours. They’d seize him there, take what they needed, tie and gag him, and be gone in under five minutes.

  “Then the clock starts ticking,” Fallon noted.

  Harjo, who wasn’t sure if that was a cliché or not, said nothing.

  They ate, drank, and talked. The second phase of the operation wasn’t quite as clear-cut. The guard at the gatehouse in the subdivision where the Garzas lived was always a trusted off-duty police officer. It was a plum job that more than doubled the officer’s official salary. Bribery wasn’t an option. Nor was murder.

  In cases of emergency, the guard kept a list of security codes for all gated residences inside the subdivision. Fallon had read about it in a blog posted by a Piedras Negras firefighter who thought the policy was stupid. First responders should always have immediate access, he’d complained. Fallon googled the firefighter’s name and learned that, a week after the posting, the man had been killed in a hit-and-run. The poor sucker’s family probably had no idea why he was dead.

  Assuming they could neutralize the guard and the cops in the patrol car stationed at the entrance and get the access code for Garza’s property, they could only guess what awaited them inside.

  “We could be mowed down like ducks in a row,” Fallon said, pleased with his latest cliché.

  Harjo groaned. “Give it a break. We’ve seen no police going in and out of the enclave, just what appears to be typical everyday traffic. Homeowners, wives, delivery trucks, housekeepers. No slick-top cop cars or undercover vehicles.”

  Fallon shrugged. “They could be smarter than that.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to find out.” Harjo plopped down on one of the double beds. “Let’s get some sleep and worry about it in the morning.”

  Danny yawned. “Finally, a plan I can relate to.”

  Their first day back from deep cover had Fallon and Harjo quickly morphing back into normal human beings. Knowing it wouldn’t last, they made the most of it, sleeping in and capping off a late breakfast in the hotel dining room with a shopping trip to a nearby big-box discount department store. They bought new clothes, two small backpacks, and got haircuts at a nearby barbershop that was right out of the 1950s.There was no resemblance to the two derelicts who had roamed the Piedras Negras streets.

  At a sporting goods store they bought ski masks, hunting knives, heavy-duty zip ties to use as handcuffs, duct tape, and a package containing industrial-strength flexible tent repair patches to cover Office Diaz’s mouth, which would hurt like hell when pulled off.

  They walked part of the way back to the hotel, taking in the scenery and everyday life of the city. It felt like a holiday. Saltillo citizens seemed more at ease than the residents of Piedras Negras, not so pinched-faced and jumpy. Harjo ventured that maybe the cartel wasn’t in control of everything in the city just yet. Fallon laughed off the idea.

  A mile high and bordered by rolling mountains, Saltillo spread out from its historic core across a valley filled with residential subdivisions and modern industrial parks. In a sad way, it reminded Harjo of Los Angeles, or any other southwestern American city. Fallon refused to be depressed. He stepped to the curb and whistled over a cab.

  Back at the hotel, Fallon called Guillermo Maldonado, a used car dealer in Piedras Negras. Earlier in the week they’d checked out a beige Chevy sedan with eighty-six thousand miles and no body damage. Fallon named a price that ate significantly into their cash and Maldonado agreed to meet them at the airport with the car.

  They packed, checked out, and took a cab to the airport, where they hired a pilot with a small single engine four-seat Cessna for the one-hour flight to Piedras Negras. They landed and were met by Maldonado outside the terminal building. He counted the cash, turned over the paperwork and keys, and left in a brand-new truck driven by a smiling senorita who waved gaily at them as they drove off.

  “I’d like to have a truck like that,” Fallon muttered.

  “Not the girl?” Harjo suggested.

  Fallon cranked the Chevy’s engine. “Maybe both.”

  With different wheels and their new average-citizen disguises, they spent the remaining daylight hours checking and rechecking on all the important people and places essential to their plan. Beltran Diaz and his partner had the same shift assignment. Diaz’s waitress girlfriend was on time for work at the restaurant. By sundown the soccer pitch in front of Diaz’s house was deserted. The patrol car posted near the guard station to the enclave where the Garzas lived contained the same two shift cops. The regular off-duty police officer running security at the entrance smiled and waved through the residents without a care, signaling all was calm.

  Lorenz’s lieutenants, Vito Torres and Diego Mendez, left police headquarters within ten minutes of each other and lingered at their favorite watering hole for a good hour before parting company.

  “It’s going like clockwork,” Fallon said with a grin as they left the bar’s parking lot on their way to Officer Diaz’s house. His grin faded under his ski mask when they arrived, knocked at the front door, and Diaz’s girlfriend answered. She had dyed-blond hair, the sniffles, and was home early with a cold.

  “Like clockwork,” Harjo mumbled as he forced the woman into the front room, his handgun at her head, hand covering her mouth. Diaz was nowhere in sight. “Where is he?” he whispered.

  She nodded at a closed door at the back of the room adjacent to a small kitchen. Fallon moved to cover it. A toilet flushed and Diaz emerged, his hairy belly hanging over the top of his sweatpants.

  Fallon dug his piece into the cop’s rib cage. “Han
ds over your head. Speak and you’re dead.”

  Diaz nodded and complied.

  They put both of them facedown on the floor, zip-tied their hands and feet, duct-taped their eyes, and slapped patches over their mouths. They dragged Diaz to the bathroom and tied him to the plumbing under the sink. They did the same to the girlfriend in the kitchen. They’d be uncomfortable and miserable but would survive the night.

  Harjo dressed quickly in Diaz’s uniform, pinned on the badge, strapped on the sidearm, and gathered up his clothes. They were out the door in eight minutes. Way over their time limit, which pissed them both off.

  The rode in silence to Mendez’s house and found the driveway in front of his garage empty, a good sign there was no playdate happening inside. They parked the Chevy on the street and climbed the stairs to the front porch, past the rows of manicured native plants.

  With a peeved look on his face, Mendez opened up to the sight of Harjo in the police uniform. Fallon coldcocked him with the butt of his handgun, yanked him inside, and lowered him onto an expensive modern couch that fit nicely into the minimalist décor of the room, cluttered only by two handguns on the coffee table and an assault rifle leaning against a wall.

  Fallon picked up one of the semiautomatics and stuck it in his waistband. “Who says assassins don’t have good taste?”

  Harjo grabbed the assault rifle. “I like how he’s accessorized.”

  Mendez was a bantamweight, wiry but muscular. They carried him easily to the attached garage, bound and gagged him, and put him in the back of his SUV. Harjo drove while Fallon kept Mendez company. When Mendez came to, Harjo stopped behind a church and Fallon transferred him to the front passenger seat.

  Harjo waited until Danny slid into the backseat and stuck his pistol in Mendez’s ear. “Here’s how you stay alive,” he said. “Do as we say or die.”

  Mendez garbled something through the patch that had been slapped over the gag. Harjo ripped it off and pulled out the gag.

  “Son of a bitch,” Mendez screamed. Skin around his mouth was torn and bleeding. “Fuck you.”

  “Kill him now,” Harjo ordered Fallon.

  “We don’t need him?” Fallon asked.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mendez protested. “I’ve got money.”

  Fallon snorted. “Stick another patch over his mouth.”

  “No! What do you want?”

  “You’re going to help us pay someone a visit,” Harjo said. “You don’t have to do anything more than sit where you are and say nothing. Got it?”

  “Who are you visiting?” Mendez demanded.

  Harjo waved a warning finger. “You’re talking.”

  “Let me shoot him.” From the backseat, Fallon ground the muzzle of his weapon in Mendez’s ear.

  “Okay, I’ll shut up.”

  “Good.” Harjo put Mendez’s SUV in gear. “Here we go.”

  The police car with the two uniforms was parked next to the gate. Harjo stopped at the guard station, rolled down the window, and nodded to the officer inside.

  He gave Harjo a hard, questioning look. “I don’t know you.”

  Harjo smiled and poked his thumb in Mendez’s direction. The blood around his mouth had been wiped clean. “Do you know him?”

  The man’s expression softened. “Of course. Excuse me. Is there a problem?”

  “No problem, just a matter requiring some delicacy. Open the gate.”

  The gate swung open.

  “And give us the code for Senor Garza’s security gate.”

  “I’m not allowed to do that.”

  “You have Senor Mendez’s authorization.” Harjo turned to Mendez, who’d somehow opened the passenger door. He tumbled to the pavement, hands and feet still zip-tied.

  “Shit!” Fallon said. “Shoot the guard.” He put two rounds in Mendez’s back as the man tried to crawl away.

  Harjo shot the guard in the mouth, picked up the assault rifle, and before they could react took out the cops in the patrol car through the open passenger door of the SUV.

  Fallon got in the front seat, slammed the door, and took the assault rifle from Harjo’s hands. “What do we do now?”

  “Fight or flight?”

  Fallon pointed the weapon straight ahead. “Let’s go.”

  Harjo gunned the SUV into the enclave, accelerated to Garza’s estate, and drove it into the front security gate. It buckled but didn’t break. He backed up and hit it twice more before it gave. Motion sensor lights illuminated the long driveway. Harjo gripped the wheel waiting to be shot, Fallon hung halfway out of the passenger window searching for targets.

  The front of the house was lit up, lights ablaze inside, but there was no resistance. They pulled down their ski masks, bailed out of the SUV, and stormed the front door. Fallon blew the lock off and they went in low through a long entryway to a large room, where Gilberto Garza, dressed in his nightclothes, stood wide-eyed and empty-handed surrounded by massive Louis XIV gilded furniture.

  “Who are you?” Garza asked, his voice shaking.

  Harjo shot him dead and watched him fall. “Let’s go.”

  He turned in time to see Carmen Garza come out of an adjoining room. She raised her shotgun. The blast caught him in the stomach.

  Fallon killed her. The rounds from the assault rifle slammed her into the wall and turned her housecoat into bloody puffballs floating in the air.

  Harjo sat on the carpet holding his innards. “Get out now.”

  Fallon bent low to lift and carry Harjo to the SUV. “Not without you.”

  Harjo gripped Fallon’s hand to stop him. “I’m not going anywhere. Leave now. Go to my place in El Paso. Do this for me.”

  Fallon didn’t move.

  Harjo smiled and coughed blood. Danny’s face was out of focus. “Please, do as I ask. I left something for you there.”

  “Okay, okay.” Fallon pried Harjo’s hand free and stood.

  Slowly, Harjo stretched out on the carpet. It was an ugly room to die in. He listened for the sound of the SUV and didn’t close his eyes until he heard Fallon drive away.

  CHAPTER 23

  Danny Fallon wheeled Mendez’s armored SUV out of the enclave, rounds from arriving officers gouging the bulletproof windshield, pinging off the front of the hood. He slammed one patrol car out of the way, running over Mendez’s body in the process, and roared down the winding road, sideswiping another responding unit as it rounded a curve. There were two units in pursuit, but the SUV far outmatched them and soon the headlights receded to small dots in the rearview mirror.

  Traffic on the police radio reported that roadblocks had been set up on all escape routes. Fallon doubted he could blow through them. To survive, he had to go off-road. He gunned the vehicle between two houses, traveling downslope, taking out a wood fence and a backyard patio set. A steep drop-off ahead would put him upside down on a stretch of pavement. Through the trees below he could see stationary flashing emergency lights signaling a roadblock. He grabbed the assault rifle, opened the driver’s door, and bailed out. The SUV careened into an arroyo, tipped over, and burst into flames. Hopefully the cops would stay busy looking for a body, and he’d be far away when they discovered there wasn’t one.

  Fallon strapped the rifle over his shoulder, scrambled down to the pavement, and took off running uphill, away from the roadblock. He paused at an intersection to a dirt road that climbed to higher ground. Sirens were screaming, the sounds carrying up from the city below. Lorenz had probably thrown everything he had to bring him down. Danny didn’t like the idea of being tortured, castrated, and hung from a railroad overpass.

  He couldn’t go through the police or around them, so he’d go over them through the high terrain and find a place to cross the river into Eagle Pass. Get to El Paso as Harjo wanted.

  Fallon gauged the incline. The terrain was child’s play compared to what he’d experienced in Afghanistan. He’d parallel the dirt road and stay in the shade of the bordering
trees. Outside lights came on in several nearby houses. He started out fast and picked up the pace, crashing through the underbrush. He had no time for caution or stealth.

  He ran with the image of Harjo dead on the carpet in Garza’s house, his guts spilling out. It was burned in his mind like an impression etched on glass. He never should have left him there. That was wrong. His eyes watered, but he wasn’t crying.

  For several days, Estavio Trevino had watched two deep-cover assets gather real-time intelligence on Lorenz, his brother Gilberto, Juan Garza, and several high-ranking cartel gang members. They were clearly professional, carefully studying and surveying the home turf of each subject. They’d obviously done their homework and knew exactly where to look: Longwei’s restaurant, the safe houses, their targets’ homes, even the heavily fortified police headquarters.

  What they had planned for the street cop they’d surveilled, he could only guess. Some sort of gimmick. Trevino suspected they were Americans. He admired their thoroughness.

  He’d shadowed them with great interest until he was almost certain he wasn’t their target. But even a kernel of doubt that they might be DEA agents sent to seize him as originally planned made him consider taking them out.

  Late one night, he’d tailed them to their rented Zaragoza trailer and spent an hour huddled in the cold debating the proposition before turning away. There was no need for a preemptive strike. Not yet.

  Lorenz and Longwei had tightened security in anticipation of his retaliation, and with the murders of Gilberto and Carmen Garza, protection had been further reinforced. No matter where he chose to strike, there would be no easy way in.

  As a police commandant, Lorenz had used his position to stifle information about the Garza killings. The weak-kneed news media played along. It was reported that during a home invasion the highly respected couple had been murdered and Gilberto had heroically killed one of unidentified attackers before succumbing. The surviving attacker remained at large.

  Bloggers, lacking information, were silent. Reporters on Texas television stations used the crime to highlight the continuing epidemic of horrific murders of innocent people along the Mexican borderlands. On the streets of Piedras Negras, there was whispered talk of three police officers and one of Lorenz’s top lieutenants found gunned down outside the Garzas’ gated subdivision the very same night of the murders. And a rumor spread about a patrol officer and his girlfriend found dead in their apartment the following day. Cops talking on the QT called it a murder-suicide.