“I came to fill you in on the latest bad news with your former family. As you might imagine, they want you dead. Three of them crossed the river illegally with a horse trailer filled with enough explosives to blow this jail sky high. Fortunately for you, we caught them at the river. You had a half ton of TNT designated specifically for you. Your uncle wants to blow your body parts all over West Texas,” she said. “And that pisses me off to no end. That puts every employee in this jail in jeopardy every second you spend in my country.”
She stood, knocking her chair over behind her, walked around the table, and punched Gutiérrez square in the jaw.
He slumped back, but the handcuffs held him in his seat. Once he’d recovered, he pulled himself upright in his chair, his expression shocked and angry, his face finally animated. He looked from Otto to Escobedo, who turned their heads in unison away from the table.
Josie hit him again, but he ducked and the punch landed across the top of his head. The handcuffs slid across the metal bar as he tried to cover himself. He screamed for a guard, and Josie scowled at him.
“Look around. See any cameras? Any two-way glass? We’re soundproof and secure. The jail is made for guys like you. I could beat the life out of you and claim a pretty hefty bounty. I’d be a hero to the Bishop himself.”
Gutiérrez leaned away from Josie, who stood directly over him.
“The way I see it, you have one chance at making it through this mess. You can’t go back to Mexico. You’d be dead by nightfall. You can’t stay here. Your only chance is a transfer to solitary maximum security.”
His eyes widened, and he looked to Otto and Escobedo as if they might be ready to escort him out of the jail.
Josie pointed to Escobedo. “This is Warden Escobedo of the federal penitentiary in Houston.”
Escobedo nodded. He was wearing a navy suit, white shirt, and red tie with a flag tie pin: polished, neat, and trim. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at Gutiérrez. “We need a reason to get you out of here. We need an actual attempt on your life before the prison system will make the move.”
His eyes wide, Gutiérrez pointed at Josie. “She just said those explosives were aimed for me!”
Escobedo rubbed at his jaw. “Trouble is, we can’t prove that load was intended for you. We suspect it, but that’s not the same as proof. See what I’m getting at?”
Gutiérrez looked confused and desperate. Escobedo’s story was just that: a story. They had already arranged transport for all four prisoners, but they hoped to use Gutiérrez’s knowledge of the Medrano cartel in the process.
“Here’s what we do, then.” Escobedo went on, “You work for me. I’ll bend the rules to get you out of here.”
Gutiérrez’s expression changed. He looked expectantly to Escobedo, who now appeared to hold the keys to his life. “Tell me what you want.”
Josie said, “You’re going to pretend to be a Medrano today.”
* * *
Hack Bloster received the cell phone call from underneath his pickup truck, where he was draining oil into a metal bucket. He continued unscrewing the bolt on the oil pan and fished his phone out from his shirt pocket with his free hand. The male voice on the other line said nothing more than, “Landline in ten minutes.” Bloster flipped the phone shut and laid his head back on the concrete floor. It was the code phrase. It was the Medranos, and they wanted to deal. He had hoped the phone calls would end after Red’s death.
He watched the black oil flow and remembered being stretched out with his dad under his first car. He wondered how his life had spun so far out of control. Five years ago, he had been a man with a clear sense of right and wrong: someone who acted morally, regardless the consequences. He had been proud to wear the badge, but he never allowed a rule book or code to keep him from doing the right thing. It was why he had joined the Gunners. Rules and laws were not keeping the border safe. Guns and people would see to that. He had personally vowed it.
Then Red came to him with a business proposition. He had a contact, a broker, who needed someone on the border to make a quick exchange of guns for money. Red started out as the mule, moving the guns from a contact in New Orleans to an unnamed runner from Mexico who met him once every two weeks to receive a shipment. Eventually, Red figured out what the New Orleans dealer was selling, and figured out he could buy off the Internet and sell even cheaper, so Red broke from the supplier to start his own business. It was at this point that Red involved Bloster. Red needed someone to help him buy the weapons; he didn’t have enough experience and knowledge about the computer and Internet sales and auctions to get the best deals. Bloster had developed the Web site for the Gunners. He was a natural partner.
The profit was more than Hack had ever dreamed he was capable of making, and in the beginning, the end user was nameless. He hadn’t even known Red was working with the Mexicans at first. By the time Bloster discovered how involved Red was with Medrano, it was too late to pull out. He was a partner, a very well paid one. But it didn’t mean that he supported the idea that the Gunners were now in partnership with a cartel. He had never intended for Medrano to have any association with Artemis. The cartel had been looking for a safe route into the country, and Red had provided it right through his front yard.
Bloster wiped his hands on a shop rag and answered the secure phone on his kitchen counter. Bloster knew how easy it was to trace cell phone calls, so he talked business only on a landline. His mouth was so dry, he could barely speak.
“We got business, Mr. Bloster. You ready to do some business?”
His hands grew sweaty. “I don’t owe you anything. We got all deals squared up. You got your last shipment and we’re done.”
The man laughed. “You telling me we’re done? You think it works like that?”
“Red’s dead.”
“So what? No, we’re not done until I say so. Understood?”
Bloster stared at the .38 on the kitchen table and considered putting it to his temple. There would be no doubt in the bastard’s head that it was over then. No chance his mother and sister would be impacted by the evil that surrounded him on all sides. Bullet to the head. Just like Red.
“Fifty thousand dollars per man, Mr. Bloster. Four prisoners? Two hundred thousand dollars. You release them, stage a breakout, lose the key, I could not care less. Tonight, before midnight. No later. I won’t discuss consequences, but they won’t be good if the job isn’t done.”
Bloster felt the acid in his stomach rising to his throat. “The jail is too secure.”
“Figure it out. A white nine-passenger van will be located behind the jail by eight o’clock this evening. A driver will be in the back. It’s already received clearance from the jail. You get the prisoners to that van by midnight tonight, and you’re a wealthy man.”
* * *
Gutiérrez was escorted back to his cell by a sheriff’s deputy. Otto, Josie, and Escobedo remained in the conference room.
After the door shut, Josie leaned against the wall, bent over at the waist, and stretched her fingers toward the floor. Her back cracked and the relief was instant. She stood and unhooked her five-pound gun belt, then laid it on the table, her attention on Escobedo.
“I don’t feel good about this,” she said. “We’re setting up a sting in the sheriff’s jail without informing him. He’ll be furious, and I don’t blame him.”
“You don’t worry about Martínez,” Escobedo said. “This isn’t about a courtesy call; it’s about saving lives. I’ve got two case agents on their way. From here out, I take over. It’ll keep you out of hot water with the locals.”
Josie narrowed her eyes at Escobedo, annoyed at his condescension. “You know me better than that. I didn’t call you to get cut out of the investigation. I don’t make decisions based on how much hot water I might get in. I’ve worked hard to see Hack Bloster in handcuffs.”
“This is a federal investigation. I’m looking at a law officer who sold guns illegally
across a national border. He’s in serious trouble, and I suspect your mayor is culpable as well. You have too much on the line to let emotion get involved.”
Josie’s face flushed. She knew she could be called a lot of things; emotional was not usually one of them.
“I’m not asking to be there when you take him in, but I’ve got knowledge of this jail, of operating procedures.”
Otto cleared his throat to cut her off, and gave her a single shake of his head. He obviously thought she was pushing too hard. She looked away and said no more, angry that she hadn’t set up parameters with Escobedo when she called him. The loss of control was always the risk in calling in other agencies. Bottom line, the feds held the trump card.
* * *
Josie and Otto left the jail, basically dismissed from the investigation. They walked outside into the warm evening air, and Josie let out a long sigh. Otto said he would follow her home.
“What for?”
“So you can pack a bag. One night, Josie. Stay at our house until those prisoners are out of our jail.”
Josie stood at her car and closed her eyes, so tired, she could have laid her head against the door and slept. “I’m going home. I’m tired. I’m angry, and I hate the world right now. I’m in no shape to see Delores.”
“Delores doesn’t care about your mental shape.”
“No, Otto. Thank you, but no.”
“Damn it! You’re acting irrationally. Stop playing the martyr! Does this really prove you’re tougher than them? That you can’t be bullied?”
“It doesn’t prove anything! They have invaded my home, shot up my bedroom, and could have killed the man I love. If I don’t fight back now, I lose all self-respect.” She lowered her voice, the fight gone out of her. “And at this point, that’s about all I have left.”
At sunset, Josie left her house to walk Chester back to Dell’s place. Following the dog’s meandering path, she watched him sniff and ignore a hundred different scents. She searched the sky, hoping to catch a glimpse of a pair of aplomado falcons Dell claimed were nesting on the property. She’d been searching unsuccessfully for several months. She tried to turn her focus outward, to get out of her own head, but the tension and anger that pulled at her muscles did not ease on the walk.
Dell immediately recognized the look on her face when she approached him outside his barn. “Trouble?” he asked.
“I need you to keep Chester tonight.”
“You staying at your cop friend’s house tonight?”
“Most likely.”
“Liars go the same place as thieves.”
She smiled. “For a person who has no family around here, I sure have a lot of people giving me advice on what I need to do.” Dell said nothing, just stared at her patiently and waited for her to come clean. “I’m going to the watchtower. I’ll be able to see our houses as well as the crossing the Medranos have been using across the river. If they so much as approach my house…” She let the thought hang in the air.
A strong gust of wind blew dirt around their feet, and a layer of dust she had heard called sand-flour coated her skin and the inside of her nose. Dell covered his nose with the crook of his arm and closed his eyes for a few seconds until it passed. The blistering heat of the day had mixed with a dry border wind from the south. The southern winds stirred up occasional dust storms in West Texas that would reduce visibility to nothing. The monsoon season, which usually ran from June 15 through September 30, still had not materialized, and the threat of dust storms was a weekly occurrence. The July wind was capable of stirring up fine sand particles that hung in the air and formed whirlwinds that tore across the desert, infiltrating every crack and crevice.
Josie looked at the strip of orange and red that spread across the horizon. “I want my town back,” she said. “I want my life back to normal. I want to clock off at four and take a hike in the evening with Chester. I want to quit worrying all the time about men who slink around our land at night with AK-47s slung over their shoulders.”
Dell snapped his fingers. “Give me ten minutes. I got a brisket in the fridge from last night. I’ll pack us a sandwich and grab my guns and my bedroll.”
After a halfhearted argument, Josie finally agreed to put the dog in Dell’s house and set up observation at the tower with Dell. Technically, she wasn’t on duty, and she could use the company. And she knew what grab my guns meant; he had a small arsenal he kept packed and at the ready in an old duffel bag that remained by his nightstand. He also smoked the best brisket in all of West Texas.
Josie changed into a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt and her uniform boots. Her badge was in her back pocket, and her ankle holster was strapped into place. Like Dell, she had packed her own arsenal in an Eddie Bauer duffel bag that Dillon had bought her for her birthday last year. They’d used it for camping gear during a weeklong hike through Big Bend National Park, a trip that was a buried memory for now, one she refused to dig up.
At about six o’clock, Josie and Dell loaded up her jeep and drove the three-mile stretch of gravel road to the watchtower. Josie evened out her backpack, bedroll, and duffel bag on her shoulders and back and started the climb. She kept an eye over her shoulder at Dell, who kept up with no problem, in better shape than most men she knew. Once on the observation deck, they both dropped their loads and leaned over the railing outside, enjoying the view as the burn in their legs subsided.
Josie opened two folding chairs on the deck while Dell carved up the brisket onto tin camping plates from his duffel bag. She contributed a pull-top can of fruit cocktail and convinced Dell to give it a heavy dollop of Tabasco sauce. Leaned back in their chairs, feet propped on the deck rail, they ate the brisket with chewy pieces of French bread they used to wipe up the leftover sauce on their plates. Glad for Dell’s quiet company, she checked for messages and put her cell phone on vibrate in her pocket. Otto had called earlier to ask her one more time to spend the evening with them and had seemed genuinely happy that she was outside the house with Dell for the night.
Josie had set her cell phone’s alarm clock for five in the morning to give her time to get home and shower before her morning shift. Warden Escobedo had promised to call when something broke loose at the jail, but she wasn’t sure how much longer she could wait before placing the call herself. He had said he wanted the transport ready by 8 P.M., another hour. She felt the heavy thump of her heart pressing against her chest.
After she and Dell finished dinner and laid out their bedrolls on cots in the lookout room, they settled back into their chairs on the observation deck to watch for movement along the Rio to the south. Josie filled Dell in on the current drama, including the threat by Medrano to blow her house up if she didn’t release the prisoners by tonight at midnight, and the probable gun connection with Red, Bloster, and the Gunners.
“It’s guys like Bloster and Red you have to keep an eye on. Any man that has to join a club to protect his house or prove his manhood is a weak imitation. I don’t need a club to keep people off my land.”
“Who do you think killed Red?” Josie asked.
“That’s just the problem. Those gun nuts get so paranoid, they think the whole world is out to get them, when in reality, ninety-nine percent of us couldn’t give a rat hole less what they do in their little meetings. In the end, usually turns out to be one of their own that punches their clock, leaving the rest of us shaking our heads.”
Dell had turned his chair to face north and was sighting down the barrel of his shotgun toward Josie’s house. He tapped her on the thigh with the gun barrel to make a point he had made a hundred times.
“A man loses his common sense, his ability to think rationally, he loses his ability to survive. And, what’s the number one rule of the desert?” he asked.
“Survival of the fittest.”
“That’s why the good guys will always have the advantage.”
THIRTEEN
Pegasus Winning stood in the stockroom in the back of Value Gas, sneaking
a cigarette. She was the only employee on duty, and the store and lot were currently empty. From her vantage point, looking out the square window in the stockroom door, she had a clear shot to the front entrance. It wasn’t even eight o’clock, and she didn’t get off until two in the morning. She was bored out of her mind and had already restocked the chips, her only chore for the night, outside of running the register and locking up. Sundays were torture.
She had time to finish two cigarettes before she heard the buzz of the front door and saw her brother lope inside. He scoped out the aisles and walked the perimeter of the store, looking for either Pegasus or trouble, probably both.
“Hey,” she called, stubbing out her cigarette on the stockroom floor.
“You here by yourself?” he asked.
She nodded and walked to the front of the store to stand behind the register. He followed and threw a bag of cookies and a pack of gum on the counter. She thought he looked tense.
“I’m taking off soon. I’ll try and stop by tomorrow. Just in case, though, I wanted to let you know. Tell you to watch your back. Be safe. Remember to knock the safety off if you have to use it.” He smiled, a half grin, and chucked her on the chin. “Be careful, sis.”
She didn’t speak. She could not force the words out, so she just smiled and nodded her head at his back as he turned from her. He didn’t do good-byes, and his effort to see her now made her nervous. She usually found out he was leaving through a note or phone call after the fact. She watched his car pull out of the lot, and the loneliness felt like a thousand pinpricks through her heart.
The tears had just begun to roll when a sheriff’s deputy walked into the store. He glanced at her and then gave her a second look as if assessing the situation. She wiped her tears off with the backs of her hands and sniffed to stifle the flow. The cop walked quickly around the store, as if he wanted something specific but couldn’t find it. He didn’t bother to ask questions, and she didn’t offer to help. He finally grabbed a Mountain Dew and set it on the counter.
The Territory: A Novel Page 19
