by Tim Maleeny
He snapped his fingers and his men piled out of the car, guns over their shoulders, grenades concealed in pockets or clipped to their belts. Gauchos, thought Salinas. I have a bunch of cowboys working for me. But they were loyal, and in the end that would make the difference.
No guards were visible in front of the house. The outer gate was open, a simple brick walkway leading up the door. On either side of the path the earth was hard-packed sand raked clean. It looked like the ground was being cleared for a landscaping project. Salinas wondered idly what kind of plants would grow in this sandy soil so close to the beach.
He waved his hand in an abrupt gesture and his five men spread out on either side of the brick walkway, three on the right and two on the far left. The American with una nariz grande stayed close to Salinas, immediately on his left but practically in his shadow. Typical American, always talking tough until the action started.
***
Inside the house, Enrique watched the men fan out across the sand. He waited until they had spaced themselves evenly, then he checked the security camera to see where Salinas was standing. With a nervous hand, he held the remote control in his hand, his thumb sliding back and forth across the top button. He waited until Salinas took another step forward, then Enrique pressed the button. He held it down so hard that his thumbnail turned white and only released it when the walls started to shake.
Earthquakes are caused by a sudden and violent disruption of earth. Tectonic plates floating on liquid magma collide, one slips under its neighbor and shakes it up a little. But what topples buildings and kills people isn’t the magma or the plates—it’s the ground resting on the plates, the soil beneath our feet that supports our weight when we walk, holds our buildings erect, and keeps our world on solid ground.
But ground isn’t solid. It’s porous. For every million grains of sand on the beach there are ten million air pockets between them. For hardened clay it might be less, but no speck of dirt really touches the one next to it. Like people, the earth needs room to breathe.
Give the ground too much air, though, and something terrible happens. It turns to liquid. Air pockets cause dirt to slip and slide. Pump enough air into sand and it liquefies, the grains flowing over each other like water. A patch of ground solid enough to support the weight of a car can be transformed into a churning wave as ephemeral as the human soul.
Salinas staggered backward on the paving stones as the ground opened its mouth on either side. The bricks bucked and yawed, the ones nearest the edges of the path disappearing into the sand like sinking ships. The earth roared and the men on either side of him were yelling. André had leapt onto the walkway directly behind Salinas and was clutching his shoulder like a drowning man.
The five men sank up to their waists instantly, sand spraying into the air, cross currents pulling the men sideways. Salinas saw one man lurch three feet to the left and then get yanked deeper into the sand, down to his chest. It looked like he’d been taken by a shark.
A muffled explosion and a cry of pure terror. The man on the far right must have worn his grenade on his belt and the pin was torn free by force of the wave. All around him the sand churned red. Salinas watched in horror as the man screamed until his head disappeared beneath the surface.
Salinas tried to run but the walkway was disintegrating. He felt the bricks wobble like rogue surfboards beneath his feet.
Then it stopped.
The earth went silent. Only the sound of grown men whimpering filled the courtyard. Salinas and André crouched together on the bricks. The four men still alive were stuck, held fast as if they were trees.
Once the air stopped pumping through the sand it went from liquid to solid in an instant. The men grunted and yelled, pressed down on the sand with their arms. Two tried to reach one another to get some leverage, but they might as well have been dropped into cement. They seemed to be able to move an inch at a time, but at this rate it would take them hours to dig themselves out.
Salinas had already decided to leave them behind when they started screaming.
The man on the far left was the first, then his companion a few yards away. Salinas saw something dart across the surface of the sand near one man’s arm, then disappear. He looked to the right and caught more flashes of brown. Scuttling across the surface with the speed of many legs—insects, maybe some kind of crab. Salinas narrowed his eyes and took a step closer to the center of the walkway.
Scorpions.
Three inches long, barbed tails curling behind segmented bodies built for speed. One of the few creatures on the planet other than a shark whose only purpose in life was to bring death.
More breached the surface. Small and nimble enough to squeeze through the sand in a way that a human body never could. The men were delirious with fear, spit flying from their mouths as they shouted for help. They slapped the ground with maniacal energy but were not nearly fast enough to swat creatures that swam through the sand to sting their arms, legs and genitals.
Salinas watched in horror until the last man stopped twitching and died.
The front door opened.
A man in a haz-mat suit with a silver tank connected to a metal rod by a plastic tube stepped into the yard and took aim at the scorpions. Whatever yellow liquid was in the tank was deadly, far more toxic than the scorpions. It smoked when it hit them. They ran but couldn’t escape. The spray made them whither and shrink like dry leaves under a magnifying glass. In less than five minutes the yard was clear.
The man in the suit disappeared and another man stepped into the doorway.
Enrique smiled and held up the remote control. This time his thumb hovered over the second button.
“That walkway has its own channel, a different set of pipes beneath your feet. You saw how quickly your men sank into solid ground. You might have noticed a few stray bricks disappeared as well.”
He waited to make sure Salinas was paying close attention.
“What do you think will happen when I press this button?”
Salinas started to respond but André cut him off. The American stepped in close, and Salinas felt the barrel of a handgun press hard against his spine.
“That won’t be necessary.” André’s nasal tones echoed around the open courtyard. “Just tell Cordon we want to come inside.”
Chapter Seventy-six
Night brought a change in the weather.
Clouds scudded across the sky and rain slanted sideways by the time Cape and Sally left the hotel. The man behind the front desk reminded them it was hurricane season.
Wind buffeted their rental car as they drove east toward Bagdad Beach. The windshield wipers seemed to get weaker with every mile. Between the rocking and the lashing of the storm it felt like being at sea.
The house stood out like a third nipple in a topless bar. It was the only permanent structure on a bluff overlooking the ocean. From the road it looked like a bunker, low and immovable. They drove past from both directions, then parked half a mile down the road near a footpath that led to the beach.
They were soaked before their feet touched sand. Whitecaps danced all the way to the horizon as waves crashed onto the shore. The waves got bigger as they moved further up the beach.
“This sucks.”
Cape leaned into the wind. His hair was plastered against his forehead. Sally’s ponytail streamed behind her like a kite.
From this angle it was clearly a castle. The beach narrowed until it disappeared into a rock wall that sloped outward ten degrees and up three stories until it morphed into the foundation of Cordon’s fortress. At the base of the cliff was a small tide pool with jagged rocks around the edges. The sand reappeared a short distance beyond the pool, as if Cordon’s presence had put a chokehold on the beach.
The castle would cast a long shadow on a sunny day. Cape wondered if anyone ever dared explore the tide pool.
Lights were on in every window, and there were a lot of them. Even from three stories down the glass looked heavy,
patterned with lead and set deep into the stone walls. The roof was flat with crenellations, stone diamonds on all sides jutting into the sky like spears.
Cape raised the binoculars but couldn’t see a thing. The windows were too high and the rain ran down the lenses faster than he could clean them. Water was dripping into his eyes, down his neck and into his jacket.
“We could come back tomorrow.” He had to raise his voice over the wind.
Sally patted her clothes to check that everything was where it belonged. Rain dripped off her nose in a miniature waterfall.
Cape went through his pockets and started dumping things onto the sand. The binoculars were useless, so was the night vision scope. The receipt from the gift shop wasn’t going to stop a bullet, either. He adjusted his handgun on his hip and switched his pocketknife to his jeans.
“You know they’ll search you.” Sally ran both hands over her ponytail and squeezed. A torrent of water spilled onto the sand.
“I’m counting on it. If they find some things to confiscate, maybe they’ll overlook some other things.”
“In places they’re less inclined to search.”
“Yeah.”
“That reminds me.” Sally held out her hand.
“What?”
“Give me your balls.”
Cape took a step back. “You’re not the first woman to try and take them.”
“Yeah, but I might be the first to give them back.”
“How about I give you one and I keep one.”
“Deal.”
Cape unzipped his fly and rummaged around.
Sally rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. “Having trouble finding it?”
“Shut up.” Cape found what he was looking for and pulled. He winced as the duct tape tore hairs off his thigh. He took the sonic disruptor and placed it in Sally’s upraised palm. “Careful, you don’t know where it’s been.”
Sally turned it over in her hand. “I push this button?”
“Twice—make sure you push it twice.”
Sally tugged on her ears to make sure the filters were still in place. Cape did the same and felt water spill down his wrists.
“Ready to walk back to the car?”
“I’m not coming.”
Cape stopped in mid-stride. Sally was looking at the windows. He followed her line of sight up the broken wall of rock.
“We’re in the middle of a hurricane.”
Sally turned to face him. “I don’t like doors—especially front doors.”
She had a point. An image of the methane refinery flashed into Cape’s brain and he reflexively started counting to himself in Spanish. He held her gaze for a long time, then turned his eyes toward the open ocean. Fifteen-foot swells were crashing onto the beach. The water was gray flecked with white, turning black at the edge of the horizon. The storm was getting worse.
“See you inside.”
Sally nodded but didn’t smile.
“Not if I see you first.”
Chapter Seventy-seven
Cape wiped water from his eyes and knocked on the front door.
The door had a small window cut into it—a little hinged door-within-a-door set at eye level.
The eye that looked out was clearly not happy to see Cape.
“¿Qué usted desean gringo?”
Cape didn’t catch the meaning but there was no mistaking the tone. He pressed two photographs through the hatch, which slammed immediately. A second later he heard the voice through the door.
“¡Chingate!”
Footsteps. Silence. Cape stood in the rain and counted the seconds. The front yard was a cleared patch of ground, recently raked but soggy, puddles interspersed with mounds of sand.
The door opened. The man who greeted Cape had different eyes from the one that had glared at him.
“Señor Weathers, what a nice surprise.” The man tilted his head foreword in a mock bow. “I am Enrique—I work for Luis Cordon.”
“How’s the benefits package?”
“Won’t you come in?” Enrique looked past him into the storm as he held the door.
Cape walked into a human wall. He looked up and came shy of the face. Tilted his neck back as far as it would go and landed on a face that even its mother would disown.
The giant’s long hair was pulled back in a ponytail, streaked with gray. The face was as craggy as the cliffs outside, the nose lacking cartilage, broad cheeks criss-crossed with hundreds of tiny white scars. Cape wondered how many knife fights you had to lose to get a face like that.
The Incredible Hulk opened his mouth and Cape unconsciously took a step back, bumping into Enrique. The man in front of him had no tongue. A jagged stump flicking back and forth suggested he wasn’t born that way. He smiled with malice in his eyes and revealed teeth big enough to be found inside a horse’s mouth. On the biggest one, right in the front, a golden skull was embedded in the enamel.
“Meet Julio.” The voice in Cape’s ear was meant to be soothing—Enrique was the perfect host. “He cannot say hola himself, as you can see.”
Julio gargled at Cape and pushed him against the wall.
Cape spread his arms out from his sides and let Julio paw him from his ankles to his ears. He grabbed Cape’s belt and tugged at his pants but didn’t go anywhere near his ball. He didn’t touch his balls, either.
When he found the gun Julio gagged and spat, shoving Cape into the wall again. The gun looked like a toy in Julio’s hand, which looked big enough to palm a basketball player palming a basketball.
“You were expecting trouble, señor?” Enrique’s tone was mild.
“I’m in Mexico.” Cape shrugged. “Anything can happen here.”
“So true.”
Julio found the knife and Cape bounced off the wall like a well-behaved guest.
“Any other surprises?”
“I forgot to bring wine.”
“We have a cellar.” Enrique nodded at Julio, who took up position behind them. “Come this way.”
The hallway was a cross between a museum of natural history and an aquarium. Cape peered into the tanks set into the wall as they moved deeper into the castle. Spiders, scorpions, centipedes as long as his hand.
Brightly colored fish swimming contentedly between stalks of pastel coral were the exception.
They came to one tank lit by ultra-violet light that held a single fish. Razor-sharp teeth jutted from a distended jaw, two milky eyes bracketed a fleshy lure dangling in front of its mouth, brightly lit by its own bioluminescence. Scary enough to put in a Disney film for that mandatory moment of blinding terror that had shaped so many childhoods all over the world.
“Señor Cordon is a collector.” Enrique almost sounded apologetic.
“That’s why I’m here.” Cape extended his right hand, trying to feel if the stone was the real thing or a surface applied to a much thinner wall. “He has something that belongs to me.”
“The photographs you brought.”
“And something else.”
The hallway had begun to feel like a tunnel. It branched off at various intersections but they kept moving forward and down. Cape forced himself to take a deep breath.
“You must get claustrophobic working here.”
“What makes you say that?” Enrique had stopped walking. His eyes shone brightly.
Cape sensed the change in tone. He patted the walls gently. “These—they can feel a little close.”
Enrique breathed deeply through his nose and resumed walking. “We have almost reached the great room.”
The room was great indeed. The hallway-tunnel ran into a dogleg and Cape blinked from a sudden explosion of light. Twin chandeliers that might have once adorned a real castle hung from a heavy oak beam running the length of the room, which must have been forty feet long and thirty wide. To the right two huge windows faced the ocean. They were eight feet across and fifteen high, almost as tall as the ceilings. Cape heard the rain whipping against them but could barely see
the streaks of water in the bright room. It was utterly black outside.
Directly across from him was a large rug leading to a desk. Dark wood, impossibly wide, with feet elaborately carved into talons. A second door to the room was in the wall behind the desk and to the left. Cape made a mental note and turned to his left.
A leather couch dominated this side of the room, surrounded by smaller chairs and tables. A globe with detailed markings over the bodies of water sat next to a side table piled high with books. Flanking the couch were two suits of armor with visored helmets, one holding a sword and the other a halberd, a spear with a hooked blade that looked like a can opener from the Middle Ages.
Set into the wall was a fish tank filled with piranha. Sitting on the couch was one of the handsomest men Cape had ever seen.
“Luis Cordon.”
The man smiled as he stood. “Mister Weathers—”
“—call me Cape.”
“Como usted desea.” Cordon extended his hand. “I was worried you wouldn’t be joining us.”
Cape didn’t really want to shake but understood the risk in not doing so. Cordon’s hand was strong and smooth, his palms drier than Cape’s.
“Please, take a chair.”
“Maybe later when you’re not looking.”
“Can Enrique get you anything?”
“How about a towel?” Cape ran a hand over his hair. Water spattered the carpet. “Sorry.”
“Anything else? A drink perhaps.”
Cape shook his head. “You saw the photographs I brought?”
“You would like me to get them?”
“Both of them.”
Cordon patted his pockets. “Let me see, where did I—”
“You can keep the pictures.”
Cordon looked up but said nothing, a smile spreading across his handsome features.
“Just get the people in them.”
Cordon arched an eyebrow. “Both of them?”
“Yes, both of them.”
“Very well.” Cordon smiled. “Wait here.”
