The two thugs were crossing the street now, heading for the reporter. She looked at them but didn’t move, didn’t scream or run, until they reached out to grab her, by which time it was too late. One of the thugs yoked the woman and clapped a hand over her mouth; the other knelt and swept her feet up. Together they carried her toward the SUV. The driver jumped out and opened the rear door, like a nasty parody of a chauffeur.
Marder was by now a few yards behind the men. A younger Marder was in control of the aging body, a Marder walking the trail, weapon ready, expecting action.
He fired two shots into the street-side tires of the SUV, puncturing the sidewalls. This got the attention of the men carrying the reporter, who stopped and looked over their shoulders, their faces showing the stunned look of jacklighted stags. The driver reached inside his jacket, and Marder shot him. He slumped down the side of his car, leaving a shiny trail of blood on the dark metal.
“Let go of the woman!” said Marder.
After a brief hesitation, they did so. The woman staggered, having lost one of her shoes. Marder said to the men, “On the ground. Facedown. Hands behind your head. Move!”
The snaky guy said, “What the fuck’re you doing, asshole? Do you know who we—”
Marder shot him in the foot and he sat down, writhing; the other one did too, never taking his squinty eyes off Marder as he stripped them of their pistols and cell phones.
Marder turned toward the woman, touching her on the arm. She started violently, coming out of shocked paralysis. He said, “There’s a red Ford truck up on the drive. Get into it and wait!”
“But someone is coming … I had an appointment.”
“It’s canceled, unless you want whoever’s picking you up to get shot when they send another team after you. Just go!”
She took off her remaining shoe, picked up her case and bag from where she’d dropped them, and hobbled up the drive. Marder went over to the man he’d shot, who he was glad to see was still breathing, and took his pistol and cell phone too. He knelt down and said to the men on the ground, “I’m going to drive out of here, and if I see that you’ve moved when I come by, I will kill all three of you.” Then he ran up the drive, got in his truck, tipped the valet, and backed down the driveway with the transmission screaming. The men were still lying where he’d left them.
“Where are you taking me?” the woman asked, when they were a few streets from the hotel.
“Bird Island. I have a house there. Just a second—I have to make a call.” He made a brief call to Skelly on one of the cell phones he’d lifted from the thugs.
“I think you’ll be safe there for a little while,” said Marder in Spanish when he finished this call. “I’m Richard Marder, and, I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name, but I’ve seen you on television. The torso story…?”
“I’m Josefina Mercedes Espinoza. Thank you for rescuing me, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to contact my crew and have them pick me up. They’ll be frantic when they show up at the Diamante and I’m not there.”
“Okay by me, Señora Espinoza, but in my opinion it’s better for them to be frantic than for you to be a torso on television, especially if someone else is covering your story. Which of course they would, if it was your torso. My place is fairly safe at this point, and you can call your guys on a landline and set up a secure retrieval.”
They were crossing the bridge over the Río Viridiana. Marder kept checking the mirrors, conscious that the reporter was staring at him. A trio of SUVs had just appeared on the road behind them, driving in excess of the speed limit. Marder pressed more heavily on the gas.
“Who are you?” she demanded. “The police? No, Cuello owns the police. The army?”
“Not the army.”
“No, because you have a slight accent. But you also sound like you’re from Michoacán. You’re an American?”
“Busted.”
“Let me out of the car!”
“Don’t be stupid, we’re almost there.” He turned off the road onto the causeway. The kid with the fruit was still there, and Marder gave him a wave. He slowed down on the narrow road, and as he rolled along he saw that someone had splashed the riprap on one side with small dabs of white paint at regular intervals.
“Who do you work for? The DEA?”
“No, I don’t work for anyone. I’m a retired book editor.”
“Really? I didn’t realize book editors were in the habit of taking on three La Familia sicarios and rescuing reporters.”
“As an editor, freedom of the press is very important to me. Why were they kidnapping you?”
“Or the CIA, maybe, hmm? What are you doing in Mexico?”
“Seeking tranquillity by the sea. That’s my house up ahead.”
Marder observed that the gate was closed, but when they approached, a young man whom Marder had never seen before opened it and stood aside, then closed it when they passed. Marder spotted a Glock pistol stuck in the waistband of his faded jeans. Skelly must have been busy.
“I heard about this place,” said the reporter as they entered the front hall. “The previous owner disappeared.”
“Yes, he was disappeared by a man named Servando Gomez. Do you know the name?”
“That’s El Gordo. He’s jefe of the plaza here. Why are you here, if you’re not with a U.S. agency?”
Marder ignored her and shouted out for Skelly. Lourdes came out of the kitchen. She was dressed in a blue skirt, a short-sleeved white shirt, and new-looking sneakers. Her makeup was now restrained to a level more suitable for a schoolgirl, in Marder’s view. That was fast, he thought, and then: she’s really still a child inside that sexual flesh, and she could change back again tomorrow. Why am I responsible for this person? This was not part of the plan.
Lourdes said, “They’re up on the roof terrace—” and then she saw Marder’s companion and cried, “Oh, my God! Are you Pepa Espinoza?”
“This is Lourdes,” said Marder. “She’s a big fan. Look, why don’t you two get acquainted—I need to see my friend.”
Marder dumped the pistols and cell phones he had collected on a nearby table, jogged to the stairway, mounted to the second floor and then up a side stair to the roof terrace. He found Skelly by the front balustrade, kneeling by his long gun case. Statch was some yards away, looking out at the coast road with a pair of binoculars. She ignored her father.
“What in hell is that?” asked Marder. Skelly was screwing a tube onto one end of what appeared to be a gigantic weapon from a sci-fi movie. It was painted pale tan and looked to be more than seven feet long. It was supported at its center by a bipod and had mounted on it a long telescopic sight.
“It’s a twenty-millimeter Anzio Ironworks rifle,” said Skelly, as he arranged the thing so it was pointing out through the balustrade at the causeway below. “I figured we might need it if the guys you rescued your reporter from decided to come out here and get her.”
“You always travel with a cannon?”
“Not when I fly—it doesn’t fit in the overhead bins. You know, you should talk to your daughter. She’s very upset with you.”
“Why is that? Because I bought a house in Mexico without asking her permission?”
“That, and I think she’s jealous of your paramour. You know, her mother dies, you jump into bed with your mistress, and, not only that, you buy her a house in her mom’s hometown, where you refused to travel when her mom was alive.”
“What!” cried Marder. “I didn’t—I haven’t—”
But these expostulation were now interrupted by a cry from Statch. “Someone’s coming down the coast road. Three vehicles. They’re turning onto the causeway.”
Skelly dropped down to the deck and put the butt of his rifle to his shoulder. He said, “I think you’ll want to get your Steyr up here. And plenty of ammo.”
Marder thought of asking him what the plan was and then thought about ordering Statch off the roof but instead turned sharply and raced to his room,
where he unpacked his rifle, stuck two spare magazines of 7.62-mm ball in his jacket pocket, and headed back to the roof. On the way he passed the reporter, trailed by Lourdes, who was admiring her at a respectful distance. The woman looked at Marder and his weapon and asked, “What’s going on?”
“Just a small war. Why don’t you stay indoors for a little while. I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He took off, followed closely by the woman, who was apparently not someone who stayed away from a war, small or large.
Marder dropped prone to the left of his daughter, who was to the left of Skelly and the Weapon from Outer Space. She was looking through the binoculars.
“Could you please go downstairs?” said Marder. “I don’t want you up here.”
She disregarded this and continued to study the approaching vehicles.
Marder looked through his own scope. Three green Lincoln Navigators were rolling toward the house. Now he understood what the paint marks on the roadside rocks had been for. Skelly had placed them there as range markers.
He heard a whirring sound behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that Pepa Espinoza was crouched down and wielding a tiny video camera. Of course she’d be doing that. Tape at eleven. Statch noticed her too. “Is that her? The girlfriend?”
“No, of course not. I just met the damn woman!”
“I don’t believe a word you say anymore.”
At that moment came a bulky muffled sound, like a car door slamming. The cannon had fired.
Through his scope, Marder saw a large hole appear in the hood of the lead car. The SUV slowed, stopped, with black smoke gushing from under its hood. The middle car braked and slewed sideways on the loose gravel, clipping the rear bumper of the stricken car. The third car braked ten feet behind the middle car. A man got out of the middle car and began to walk forward. Through the scope, Marder could see that he was one of the two kidnappers, the one with the squint. He wants to find out why his guy stopped, Marder thought. He didn’t hear the shot—he’s thinking mechanical breakdown.
Skelly fired again, with a similar result. Smoke arose from the second car. Marder had seen the man on the road jump when the round struck. The man looked at the smoke and the huge hole in the car’s hood; the penny dropped, and he ran to the third car.
Skelly said to Statch, “Darling, would you pass me that magazine of high-explosive incendiary rounds? That’s right, yellow tops. Thank you.” He took the heavy box Statch handed him, changed magazines, and chambered a round. Marder looked through his scope. The 20 mm fired again, and the last car, now reversing back down the road, lit up like a Chinese lantern and burst into flame. Men leaped out of it, some of them on fire, and plunged down the rocks into the water. The doors of the other two cars sprang open and men jumped out, more men than should have been able to fit in them. Marder thought it was almost funny, like the clown car in the circus. The not-funny part was that some of them had automatic rifles, and these began to fire in the general direction of the house.
“Lourdes!” Marder shouted. “Run down and tell your aunt and the kids to lie on the floor.” The girl hesitated, unwilling to leave Pepa Espinoza for even a second, but then turned and vanished. The occasional bullet cracked overhead. Marder saw there was a porcine, stocky man down there with field glasses, apparently giving orders. Marder sighted on him, but he dropped down off the road before Marder could squeeze off a shot. He shot down two men firing automatic rifles, after which the other men took shelter behind the two forward cars. The trailing car was by this time burning hard, sending a column of black smoke up into the cloudless sky. Skelly fired an incendiary round into each of the other two cars, and these went orange as well, and the men behind them leaped off the road.
“They’re in defilade down among those rocks,” observed Skelly conversationally. “They could work their way toward us along the causeway and slip into the foliage down there and creep through the garden to the house. We should have mined the approaches and preregistered mortars all along the apron where the causeway meets the island. But you can’t have everything. I tell you what, Marder, next time you want to start a war, let me know a little in advance. I’ll lay a base coat down for you.”
“I didn’t plan to start a war,” said Marder.
“Oh, yes, you did,” said Skelly, but under his breath.
“Excuse me?”
Skelly sat up and leaned against a balustrade column. “I said, I was hoping you would introduce me to our new friend.”
Marder did so.
“Aren’t you afraid that they’re moving forward, as you said?” asked Espinoza. She had shaken Skelly’s hand politely, but now she raised the camera and turned the introduction into an interview.
Skelly looked lazily back at the wreckage he’d caused. “I don’t think so. These are thugs, not assault troops. They’re brave, but they’re not paid for this shit.”
And, indeed, the men were collecting their wounded and creeping back to the coast road, picking their way carefully along the riprap.
“Ah, victory is sweet,” said Skelly, and stood up and swept Statch into his arms, bent her over backward and gave her a sloppy mock-kiss like in the famous photo of the sailor and the nurse on V-J Day.
“You people are crazy,” said Pepa Espinoza. “La Familia has hundreds of soldiers. They have tanks, helicopters; they own the police. How will you fight that?”
They all looked at Marder, who placed his index finger next to his forehead and said, “I have a plan.”
“What? What is your plan?” Pepa demanded.
“I am going to go downstairs and make a really big pitcher of margaritas,” said Marder, and, placing his rifle on his shoulder, he walked stiffly from the terrace like a good tin soldier.
8
Marder was drunk. He was not often drunk—he didn’t much like the woozies, and he suffered from post-drunk insomnia and hangover—but he thought that today was a special occasion, being the first time since the year 1969 that he’d shot and killed a human being. He’d been perfectly calm when he shot the gun thug at the attempted kidnap and calm when he squeezed off rounds from the Steyr (that hideous moment when the crosshairs of the scope rest on the target’s vitals, and the shooter knows he has a kill, and he imagines, or Marder imagined, the final thoughts of the target, unaware that his life was about to end) and saw the men fall over in that cut-string marionette way they had. But after he’d walked away from the terrace, he shook like a set of castanets, tossed the rifle on the bed, and knelt at the toilet and tossed his lunch; he couldn’t catch his breath. And he had another intense recollection of the last time he’d been in combat, sharp and vivid, as if the real life he’d had since then had been a dream.
* * *
They had argued, there in the command hooch at Moon River, about the scam with the fake Russians and the porters. Yes, they’d played it in different areas, but the NVA weren’t stupid; they communicated. They’d be saying, “Who’re those white guys driving those stupid Hmong? Who’s the liaison with our command?” and they wouldn’t find a liaison, they’d know it was a scam, and the next time they went out it’d be a massacre. Meanwhile, Colonel Honey was on the horn every day: When are you people going to finish my system? What is wrong with you, Marder, don’t you realize this is the key to the whole war? And Lieutenant Handlebar was getting the same from his people up his chain of command. So, a lot of tension, with Skelly arguing that they had to be blown, that they should go out on the last mission at night and do the usual sneak play and emplace the last fifty or so voodoos that way. And he had prevailed.
Skelly volunteered to lead it, and Marder couldn’t back out; not that he wanted to back out. The whole unit was psyched up by the prospect of finishing the mission and seeing how the new system worked. To Marder’s surprise, Pinto Hayden also volunteered. Hayden said that he’d like to go because if they had another technician working they could get through it that much faster. There was a little silence and then Sweathog also said, “Yeah, what the
fuck,” and the lieutenant said, “Shit, we’ll all go, we’ll get another bird in.”
The birds came, three Jolly Green Giants, and they almost scratched the mission because of the low ceiling, but it lifted later the next morning and they flew out to an old half-overgrown LZ on the east side of a mountain near A Yen, on the other side of which was a place where two main branches of the trail converged and it was therefore vital to sensorize. They flew in without incident, ascended the mountain, and Remained Over Night on the steep slopes, digging niches in the mud to park their exhausted bodies.
A chill mist covered the mountain as they descended the next morning. They were in three teams, each with eight montagnard soldiers, a Special Forces sergeant in command, a lone airman, and one LLDB along in case they needed to interrogate someone or confuse the enemy. Marder was in Skelly’s team, walking just within visual range of Baang, Skelly’s radioman, watching the sway of the big basket that contained their PRC-25 radio with the antennae rolled up and concealed. When they started out, they could barely see more than five meters and they kept bunching up for fear of becoming separated, and Skelly was trotting up and down the line calling out in a harsh stage whisper to keep their distance. Every so often the leading team, with Hayden and Pogo, would stop and they’d wait in silence, listening to the drip of water from foliage and the gurgle of the rushing stream whose gorge they were following. It was dangerous to walk down stream valleys—always a good place to get ambushed; it was safer to chop your way through thorn and bamboo—but for this mission they were taking the risk; they needed silence and speed.
As the morning wore on, the mist lifted a little, and Marder could see the line of men, maybe four or five in either direction, and he could see also that they had entered a zone of disturbed forest. Trees had been knocked over by blast and the area had been defoliated, which was how they knew they were close to the trail. The sergeants posted security teams and the airmen got to work, opening the little globes of the voodoos, turning them on, pinging the relays to ensure that they could communicate with the net, burying each in a shallow pit, and artfully stringing the antennae, rootlike, vinelike, around any conveniently upright vegetation.
The Return: A Novel Page 15
