Final Target

by John Gilstrap

  As he spoke, the sense of dread deepened around him. He understood that these were harsh concepts, but he needed to seed a sense of reality, or else they were all flirting with catastrophe. Sooner than any of them knew, they would have to fend for themselves for the hours it would take for Boxers and him to procure transportation. If they continued to act like children instead of the refugees that they were, bad things lay ahead.

  Leo raised his hand.

  “Yes, Leo?”

  “Are Hugo and Alonso and the others going to be okay?”

  This was not the time for Jonathan to share his real thoughts on that matter. “I don’t know,” he said. In the strictest sense, that was the truthful answer. “Now, all of you get to your feet. Suck it up, get along, and keep moving till I tell you to stop.”

  “And stop making so much noise,” Tomás said. He looked to Jonathan and smiled when he got the approving nod.

  The children moved in silence as they formed into a single pack. As they were getting their act together, Boxers sidled in next to Jonathan. “I think it’s time for you to abandon your dreams of being named Father of the Year,” he said.

  CHAPTER 15

  A little additional research revealed that Randy Goodman, the man who’d received a phone call from one of Jonathan’s attackers, had rejoined the civilian world only eighteen months ago, after serving nine years as a chopper pilot for the United States Army. As far as Gail was concerned, that detail eliminated any chance of a coincidence. She harbored no doubt that this Randy Goodman, from Manassas, Virginia, was a man she needed to talk to.

  The challenge now was to confront him for information without causing him to clam up. Gail was no longer a cop, but she still had a badge she could deploy if it came to that. She marveled at how easily she shed her determination to walk the straight and narrow, how jazzed she was to reenter the world of intrigue. She just hoped to avoid violence. She could do without getting shot again.

  With a little poking into banking records, Venice had been able to determine that Randy Goodman’s most recent paycheck came from an outfit called Rebel Yell Rotors, a helicopter charter business headquartered at Manassas Regional Airport, out in the middle of pretty much nowhere.

  As Gail navigated the narrow approach road, she formulated her plan, which wasn’t much of a plan at all—more a full frontal confrontation. His reaction would determine everything to follow.

  Gail had been to the airport several times before, in the company of Jonathan and Boxers as they all departed on various hostage rescue jobs, but she’d never paid much attention to the number of tiny aviation companies that occupied the low-rise structures that lined the airfield. There was even a crop-dusting outfit, a specialty that she sort of thought had gone the way of mosquito trucks and phone booths.

  The office for Rebel Yell Rotors occupied a spot about halfway down a row of single-story, glass-front offices, the doors for which were separated by no more than twenty feet. Their logo was a caricature of a bearded Confederate soldier waving his hat out the open door of an old frame-tailed chopper, the same helicopter featured in the opening sequence of the TV show M*A*S*H.

  A low-pitched bell donged as Gail pulled the door open. An unmanned receptionist station greeted her just inside the door. Molded plastic chairs sat in front of the window, which itself displayed at least five dead flies. A plastic case displayed pamphlets for “exciting battlefield tours.” I’ll bet they’re exciting, Gail thought. As falling out of the sky so often is.

  “Hello?” she called. “Anybody here?”

  She heard noise from a back room, and then a man appeared from the third door back. It was the real-life version of the caricature in the logo, complete with the ZZ Top beard and Confederate tunic. Seriously. And he appeared old enough to have served in the Valley Campaigns. “Well, hello there, missy,” he said. “We’re not doin’ no tours today.”

  “Well, darn,” she said. “But, truthfully, I’m not in the market for one. I’m looking for a young man named Randy Goodman. I heard he works here.”

  “He does indeed,” Stonewall said. “You a relative?”

  “No, sir. I just have a few questions to ask him. Is he around?”

  “Are you a cop? I don’t want no criminals workin’ for me.”

  “No, sir, not a cop. He’ll get no trouble from me.” That last part might have been a lie.

  Stonewall stewed about another question but ultimately said, “He called in sick today. Though to tell you the truth, he didn’t sound sick to me.”

  Gail waited for the rest.

  “Kids his age,” the old guy said. “You know they’re out drinkin’ all night. Then, when mornin’ comes, they can’t pull their butts into work. I seen it before. The new generation just got no work ethic—”

  “So, he’s at his home?” Gail interrupted.

  Stonewall shrugged. “I suppose. You know, the new generation don’t use real phones no more. Caller ID says it’s him, but he could have been calling from the moon, as far as I know.”

  Or from Mexico, Gail didn’t say.

  “Do you have his address?” Stonewall asked.

  Venice had done the research. Gail pulled a notebook from her pocket and read off a number and street in New Baltimore, Virginia.

  “That sounds right,” Stonewall said. “I hope you got good suspension in whatever you’re driving. Roads get pretty tough back there.”

  “I’ll be okay on that front,” she said. Gail had spent much of her life in the country. There’d even been a time when she lived in a remodeled Indiana farmhouse. She was a big believer in sport-utility vehicles.

  “Okay, then,” Stonewall said, turning back toward the room he’d emerged from. “Tell Randy to get well fast. And if he’s lollygaggin’, tell him to get his ass back to work pronto.”

  “I’ll do that,” Gail said. “Oh, one more thing, if you’ve got another thirty seconds.”

  Stonewall leaned back out into the hallway.

  “What, exactly, does Randy do for you?”

  “Mostly, he gives me dyspepsia,” the old guy said with a smile. “Nah, he’s a good kid. And a good pilot, too. He does a lot of my crop-dusting work.”

  “Got it. Thanks.”

  * * *

  While waiting for the runaways to be brought back to Saint Agnes, Alejandro ordered his men to off-load Nando’s body from the flatbed that was stacked with body bags and have it returned to the rubble of the school building. He ordered the corpse removed from the bag and propped up against the rubble. The trench where his brain had been glimmered red and brown.

  Alejandro remained out of sight behind the assembled vehicles as the children were marched up the road from the Gabay residence. He noted that their hands had been zip-tied behind their backs and that they walked in silence, their heads down. Alejandro had long thought it interesting that the defeated shared a common posture, irrespective of whether they were old or young. Three boys and two girls. He thought he recognized a few of the faces, but he wasn’t sure. All of them looked like they had been crying, and none of them looked particularly healthy. Red eyes and pallor about the nose and mouth.

  They appeared perfectly primed for what he had planned for them.

  Orlando herded the children through and over the rubble and positioned them maybe two meters away from Nando’s ruined corpse. Close enough to catch the stench in the air and to hear the buzzing of the flies. Overhead, buzzards circled, awaiting lunch.

  Alejandro let them sit and stew for a few minutes, and then he strolled over to them. He approached from behind, out of their view.

  “Nando was not a smart man!” he yelled when he was still ten meters out.

  As he had hoped, they jumped at the sound of his voice and turned toward him.

  “Don’t look at me,” he ordered. “Look at Nando. Learn the lessons he has to teach you.”

  In unison, the children’s heads swiveled back to the awfulness of the corpse.

  “What do we think thos
e lessons might be?” Alejandro asked.

  None of them moved. One of the girls—one half of a set of twins—started to cry.

  Alejandro kept his approach slow and even. He remembered the twins from previous visits to Saint Agnes and felt mildly ashamed about the fantasy his mind conjured for them. Perhaps in a few years, if they lived that long.

  “You twins,” he said. They couldn’t see him, and they did not dare turn their heads. “What are your names?”

  The girls looked at each other, and then the one on the left said, “I-I’m M-Mia. This is my sister—”

  “No!” Alejandro snapped. “Don’t tell me. Your sister’s name is Lia. Is that correct?”

  The rightmost twin started to turn her head but then stopped herself. She nodded.

  “Not much of a talker, I see,” Alejandro said. He stroked the angle of her jaw, and she jumped. She continued to cry.

  Alejandro moved down the line to the skinny boy whose jaw muscles were flexing quickly and with intensity. “I remember you, too,” Alejandro said. “Are you sick? You don’t look well.”

  The boy said nothing, kept his gaze locked forward, but from Alejandro’s angle, his eyes seemed unfocused.

  “He’s the boy with the gun,” Orlando said from off to the side.

  “I see,” Alejandro said. “Remind me of your name, boy with the gun.”

  The boy said nothing. He continued to stare.

  Alejandro thumped him hard on the top of his head with the extended knuckle of his middle finger.

  The boy yelped and jerked forward. He started to dare a look toward his attacker but then thought better of it.

  “His name is Hugo,” said Mia.

  Hugo shot her an angry look.

  Alejandro grabbed a pinch of hair at the back of Hugo’s neck and pulled him back to an upright position. “Do not try my patience, young man. Consider yourself already half-dead. But that means also half-alive. How it ends for each of you depends on how cooperative you are. Answer, ‘Yes, Mr. Azul,’ if this is clear to you.”

  The children mumbled something that sounded like yeses, and he decided not to push too hard for more than that. Yet.

  “So, Hugo, are you the leader of this little band of jungle marauders?”

  When he didn’t get a discernible answer, he thumped the same spot with the same knuckle.

  “Yes,” Hugo said. “Sort of. We don’t really have a leader.”

  “This was his idea,” said a younger boy.

  “Shut up, Alonso,” Mia snapped.

  Alejandro smiled. They were already turning on one another. This was going to be even easier than he had hoped. He moved down the line to stand behind the tattler. “So, Alonso, what was it Hugo’s idea to do?”

  Behind Alejandro and to his left, Hugo leaned forward and whipped his head around to look at Alonso. “Keep your mouth shut,” he said.

  “You might want to consider listening to your own advice,” Alejandro said.

  He turned back to Alonso, who looked smaller than the others and was maybe twelve years old. He squatted down behind the boy until they were head-to-head. He extended his arm out from the boy’s shoulder as if it were Alonso’s own arm. He pointed to the corpse he’d staged.

  “Take a look at your old friend Nando,” he said.

  Alonso started to cry.

  “See how quickly the body puffs up in this heat? See those flies all over his face and head? I’d hate to see—”

  “Stop!” Hugo said. His voice had strength to it. “You don’t have to make the little ones cry. Yes, I am the leader, and it was my idea to go to the Gabays’ house. I thought maybe they could give us a place to stay and something to eat. Now, leave Alonso alone.”

  Alejandro felt anger rising in his face. If he could feel it, then that meant he was showing it, and that made him even angrier. Any attempt at brave talk—from a boy, no less—could only undermine his purposes. He wanted fear and crying. He had no room in this exercise for strength or bravery from the other side.

  He stood to his full height and strolled back to a position behind Hugo. “So, Hugo. You are the leader. Tell me what you’re thinking about your decision to lead your followers here. Your hands are tied. You all are helpless. Do you think that makes you a good leader?”

  Hugo said nothing. Alejandro hadn’t expected him to. But the boy’s jaw muscles were working again, and he looked like he might be on the verge of tears.

  “Tell me about this gun you were carrying. Were you going to use that to kill me?”

  “I was going to protect myself.”

  “From whom?”

  Hugo pivoted his head and rolled his eyes till he locked gaze with Alejandro. “From predators,” he said.

  Alejandro punched him in the face. The quick pistonlike blow knocked the young man to the rubble but wasn’t hard enough to cause serious injury. The point wasn’t to injure in the first place, but rather to humiliate him in front of his friends. When Hugo raised himself back to a sitting position, blood ran freely from his left nostril and from a cut over his right eye that was caused by his impact with the ground. With his hands bound behind him, he had no option but to let the heavy drops drip over his lips and off his chin.

  Alejandro moved around the assembled kids until he was in front of them, clearly visible to them.

  “Please do not make the mistake of thinking you are in control,” he said. “Do not make the mistake of showing me disrespect. Perhaps you saw what was left of the poor Gabay family?”

  The children looked at the ground. Alonso and Franco joined Lia as criers.

  “The House of Saint Agnes was your home, was it not?”

  Heads nodded.

  “Tell me what happened here.” Alejandro tapped Hugo’s thigh with the toe of his shoe. “Let’s start with you, Mr. Leader.” If the person in charge showed cooperation, it was Alejandro’s experience that the followers would do likewise—even if the leadership structure was fragile and weak.

  Hugo snorted and hawked a bloody wad onto the ground, aiming well away from Alejandro. “Men came here last night,” he said. “Soldiers, I think, but they said they were not.”

  “Why do you think they were soldiers?”

  “Their clothing. The way they acted. They came in the middle of the night. They woke us all and said we needed to leave.”

  Alejandro found himself scowling. This was not what he’d been expecting to hear. “What reason did they give you that you needed to leave?”

  Hugo started to answer but then had second thoughts.

  “Because the Jungle Tigers were on the way,” Mia said. “Something about some shooting earlier in the night that left other Jungle Tigers dead.”

  “Did they confess to being the killers?” Alejandro asked.

  “They said it was self-defense,” Hugo said. “They were here in Mexico to rescue a man named Harry. I don’t know why or what from. When Nando and Gloria found out, they knew that you would be angry and that their lives would be in danger.”

  This made sense to Alejandro. The man named Harry was the DEA pig that had his friend in America so nervous. He didn’t know precisely what the connection was between a hostage rescue and blowing up the House of Saint Agnes, but it must have had something to do with the weapons exchange.

  “Tell me who blew up the school.” Alejandro directed the order to Hugo, but in his mind, it was up for grabs for all of them.

  “We don’t know, exactly,” Mia said.

  Alejandro redirected his eyes to her, waiting for the rest.

  “Would you untie my hands, please?” Mia asked. “This is very uncomfortable.”

  Alejandro smiled. He admired the guts it took to ask. “I’ll untie your hands when I have the answers I want.”

  “Are you afraid of a thirteen-year-old girl?” she asked.

  Again, Alejandro felt anger rising. “Do not think for a moment that I would hesitate to treat you just as I treated your friend Hugo.”

  “And do not think
that I am easily frightened,” Mia replied. “I know what you are capable of. I watched you kill my family. I have no desire to die today. Not for a long, long time. In fact, that is why we are no longer with the others.”

  The smirk that inched across Mia’s face told Alejandro that she was being deliberately coy. “All right,” he said as he fished a locking-blade knife from his front pocket and flick-snapped it open with a flourish that revealed the four-inch blade. “I’ll allow you this small victory.” He put his hand on the back of her neck and pressed down, forcing her face to touch her thighs, thus exposing the zip tie that bound her wrists. Another flourish, and the plastic dropped away.

  “Don’t make me sorry I did that,” he warned. “Or I guarantee that you will be sorrier than I.” He took a step back and allowed Mia to sit tall again. “You mentioned others,” he prompted.

  “Everyone else from Saint Agnes,” she said. “Scorpion had us gather as much as we could carry—”

  “Scorpion?”

  “Mia!” Hugo snapped. “Don’t. Shut up!”

  Alejandro spun on the boy and kicked him in the stomach. He wouldn’t be able to talk again until he was able to breathe again.

  Hugo drew his knees up and heaved.

  “Scorpion was the lead soldier,” Mia said. “He had us gather in the main room and bring up the guns and bullets and explosives from the cellar—”

  “He knew about them?”

  “Tomás told him,” Mia said. “Nando kept telling Tomás to shut up, but he told the soldiers everything.”

  Something flipped in Alejandro’s gut. “Tomás Rabara?”

  “Yes.”

  Alejandro remembered very well the day he first met that boy. He’d been only twelve then, and Alejandro had made the mistake of assuming that he was as weak as he appeared. He knew now that he should have trusted the advice of his lieutenants.

  “So, this Scorpion person blew up the school?” Alejandro prompted.

  “That’s what we don’t know. When the trucks arrived, he told Gloria to take us all into the jungle. That’s where we were when the explosion happened. We didn’t know what it was.”