My heart is so heavy for you, sweet husband. Charlie and Janet told me what happened in the Buenavista safe house today. They want me to help them find you. I don't understand your mission but I want to be by your side. I want to be with you. Six years ago, when I promised you for better or worse, that was more than a promise. It was a statement of unchangeable truth. Please let me come to you. Please let me come to you. Your joy is mine as is your pain and we are one. All My Love, Seliah
Hood nodded and she sent the e-mail.
"I've betrayed him," said Seliah. A tear ran down her cheek and she dabbed it away with the paper towel.
"We need your computer password," said Hood. "We'll monitor his incoming messages every hour, and we'll forward his correspondence to you, immediately. And you'll have to do the same for us when you get the mail first. There's no other way for this to work. You have to trust us and we have to trust you."
Seliah stood and looked down on them. "You steal Sean's body and soul and now you even want his words."
"He needs your help," said Hood. "And so do we."
She gave them her password and the three of them sat on the couch and watched the laptop screen and waited for Ozburn to reply. After an hour and no message from her husband, Seliah asked them to leave. When Hood asked for the Piper registration number she wrote it hastily on a notepad, tore off the sheet and handed it to him. She stared at the floor as they walked out, then shut the door behind them.
6
When they were gone Seliah put on shorts and a tank top and running shoes and drove down to the pier and parked on the street near the ocean. The tourists were gone by now and the beach was nearly empty. There were lights on in the pier restaurants and a few diners in the sidewalk cafes beside the railroad tracks.
She stretched, then set off north along the tracks, running the edges for a while, then running down the middle of them with the gravel shifting underfoot and the moon leading her on. Her heart felt like a weight inside her, a great, cumbersome anchor that was trying to drag her down. She tried to outrun it but couldn't and it spoke her to anyway: He murdered three men this morning. He murdered three men this morning. Did you, Sean? Gentle Sean, good Sean? Do I believe Charlie and Janet? Do I dare not to?
After the first mile she checked her wristwatch and, just as she suspected, she was faster than two days ago-already fifteen seconds off her last time. Even carrying a heart that felt like an anchor.
She tried to concentrate on her stride and her breathing but all she could think about were the last four weeks. Four weeks and so many strange things for Sean and for herself. First there were Sean's aches and pains and his crazy sexual appetite. Then a few days later he suddenly gets much stronger in the weight room, and his body is still aching and he hears things he shouldn't be able to hear, and his eyes hurt so bad in light that he buys news sunglasses. What causes those things? Flu? Steroids? Drugs? The common cold? The plague? Sean had thought flu at first, but after a few days the symptoms were far stronger and stranger. Then the symptoms would vanish for a day or two. He took no steroids, no prescription drugs, no recreational ones. And he began sounding extreme, almost crazy, in some of his e-mails.
And the extra-weird part, thought Seliah, was that a couple of weeks after Sean got stronger in the weight room, she started getting faster on her runs! And two weeks after Sean started hearing things loudly, even hearing things he shouldn't be able to hear, Seliah start hearing them, too. Just like what happened to Sean, all those near and distant sounds would blend in her brain at night into mysterious, flowing melodies. Some were lovely. And two weeks after all Sean's sensitivity to light and cold, she got those symptoms, too. And she'd become easily angered and provoked. Thoughts of violence came barging into her usually gentle soul. She was either too hot or too cold, and neither seemed to have anything to do with the temperature of where she was. And the insomnia and the sex and the terrifying dreams. My God, she thought, the sex was almost constant the last time we were together. That was two weeks ago, when they snuck a weekend in Las Vegas-snuck it from Sean's criminal partners, from ATF, from the world. Undercover agents did it all the time. She was fairly sure that Charlie Hood suspected but he said nothing. And Sean's crazy sex drive had all but killed me, thought Seliah. And now, now, two weeks later? I could do it again right now. I know I could. I'd love to, hour after hour after hour! And the brightness of the pool water in my eyes? And the roar of tiny noises at night and the pain in my legs and neck and back? All just as Sean had experienced, she thought.
She lengthened her stride and felt the strength in her legs and the amazing endurance that was now hers. She wasn't even breathing that hard. She wondered if all of this shared sensory overload was some kind of sympathetic thing with Sean, like when a man feels his wife's labor pains. Is there really such a thing? How can I feel what he feels? Am I just lonely and afraid? Am I just making all this up? Dr. Clements had taken her temperature and looked into her ears and nose and throat and pronounced flu. Rest, plenty of fluids. Would twenty-four hours of sex and a couple of gallons of sports drinks spiked with vodka count? And of course Sean wouldn't see a doctor if he was well enough to walk through the office door. He had never been sick a day in his life. Until now.
She continued north between the tracks. She remembered the dream she was having early this morning, at about the time that her husband was allegedly gunning down three young men for reasons unknown. In the dream she had been ravenously thirsty, but water was revolting to her and sports drinks and sodas and juices and beer were all sickening to her body and soul. But she found one thing that really hit the spot, and she had drunk so much blood out of Sean that he was white and blue-lipped. But he offered his neck so she could have more! What the hell has gotten into you, girl? Maybe time to cool it on the vampire books and movies and TV shows. Isn't there enough trouble in your life without feeding your inner devils? But why were those bloody and ridiculous stories so… delicious? So compelling? A few short weeks ago she was dreaming of having babies. Wholesome dreams of beautiful daughters, beautiful sons. Hers and Sean's. Soon, she had thought-it's almost time for that part of our lives. When the undercover mission was finally accomplished they would be ready. Now this. Maybe the thirst for sex and the baby were part of the same larger desire, she thought. One led to the other.
She was pouring sweat now and the sounds were condensing around her: the shuffle of the waves on the beach and the plane droning overhead and the resounding clash of the rocks under her shoes, and she heard the Coaster train coming up behind her while it was still miles away, long before the approach lights began flashing and the train sounded its deafening whistle.
She glanced over her shoulder just once and stayed between the dully shining tracks, and she heard the warning blast again, much closer this time; then she heard it again. She heard the engineer screaming at her, or believed she did. Then she veered to her left and jumped down the embankment, leaping across the boulders toward the beach as the train howled past. She could feel the pull of its slipstream. The roar was almost unbearable to her. She hit the sand and sprinted to keep up with the Coaster, and for a moment it looked like she could stay even with it but the passenger windows began to outdistance her slowly, then quickly. She cut down near the water, laughing, and continued north. When she got home she wrote an e-mail letter to her husband. It didn't have the rational, somber tone of her last one-the one suggested by Charlie and Janet. This one came straight from her heart. She told him of her passion, her loyalty, her love, her need of him. She pledged herself to him again, 'til death do us part, and she promised to find a way to help him on this strange and terrible thing he needed to do. If you needed to stop three professional killers, okay, Sean. It changes nothing in us. And if we have to manipulate ATF and Blowdown and our formerly true friend Charlie Hood, then so be it. I am yours and you are mine and together we are greater than two. We can do anything.
7
That evening Bradley Jones had sat through hi
s first roll call as a sworn deputy of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. He was dark-haired and handsome, and seemed to be paying his usual half attention to things. He had turned twenty and a half years old the day before and was now eligible to work patrol. He was profoundly hungover from celebrating that milestone with his wife and some friends. This was his first shift working anywhere but the jail and he had an idea about how to make it special. Maybe even unforgettable. He stifled a yawn.
"Jones, you counting sheep?"
"Blessings, sir."
"We can send you back to the jail day shift if you can't stay up this late."
"I'm alert, sir."
"Look the part. Okay, here's tonight's headline: ten-year-old boy kidnapped right out of his own living room in Cudahy this afternoon; shots fired but nobody hit. His name is Stevie Carrasco and here's what he looks like."
The sergeant tapped his keyboard and a picture of the boy appeared on the briefing room monitor.
"This mug is already downloaded to the data terminals in the cars, so use the MDT if you think you see him. The kidnapping might be a gang thing because said ten-year-old is son of an Eme gangster with ties to some Mex cartel. And you know, these fuckin' cartel animals kidnap and murder each other's wives and kids like it's a sport. So…"
Bradley fixed the sergeant with a look of great interest, but he couldn't keep his mind on the man's words. He'd already gathered some of this story from one of his young deputy friends, Caroline Vega, who by luck happened to help take the kidnap report from Stevie's hysterical sister, who had called nine-one-one. Bradley believed in luck and in Caroline.
He also knew Stevie's father, Rocky. Rocky was a Florencia OG with Eme ties, a tattooed knot of a man with a reasonable outlook and a quick smile. He was also tied to the North Baja Cartel. Everyone knew that the North Baja Cartel was having a hard time maintaining supply lines in and around L.A. They were losing traction. Which led Bradley to wonder if MS-13 sicarios of the newly arrived Gulf Cartel had grabbed the kid to cripple a North Baja rival, bleed some cash out of him, and jack up the terror level so guys like Rocky might think twice about staying in L.A. Everybody wanted California real estate, thought Bradley. Especially the Mexican drug cartels. After all, it was the front door to the biggest drug market in the world.
In the motor yard they checked over the patrol unit, a late-model Crown Victoria Police Interceptor with almost two hundred thousand miles on it. Bradley, a motorhead, checked under the hood-fluids, belts, battery, radiator and brake lines-then used his own pressure gauge to check the tires. He washed the windshield twice, meticulously, nothing more annoying to him than poor view at night.
Jerry Clovis checked the MDT and radio, then leaned on another radio car and watched Jones do his work. Clovis was a thickly built middle-aged deputy, a family guy, easygoing and unambitious, the kind of man who made Bradley Jones want to take a long nap.
"Ready, Brad?"
"Nope. One minute."
Bradley tossed the squeegee back into the bucket, then walked down the row of black-and-whites until he was out of earshot. He called Rocky to see if he knew yet where Stevie was being held, and told Rocky it would behoove them all to find out fast. Then he called Theresa Brewer of FOX News and told her the ground rules again. Then he called Caroline to make sure she knew what to do and when. He walked back to the unit with a bounce in his step.
"Checking in with the wife?" asked Clovis as they boarded.
"Every chance I get."
"What's her name?"
"Erin."
" 'Atta boy. Take it easy. Keep it clean. That's been enough to get me through twenty-two years of this. Three more to go."
"Easy and clean, that's me."
"I see you have an ankle gun."
"It's an eight-shot Smith AirLite. Charlie Hood turned me on to them."
"Never had to draw my gun on duty. Not once."
"They'll kill that boy if they don't get their ransom fast enough. They might kill him anyway."
"Kill a kid over business," said Clovis. "Pure animals. Nothing's the same in this world anymore."
"Everything's the same as it always was."
"Can't say I really agree with that."
"And that's why I have two guns."
"Coffee?" asked Clovis.
"Let's just drive fast, make something happen, arrest somebody."
"Oh, man, you've got a lot to learn. First patrol shift, right?"
Bradley nodded, smiling. "I'm kidding, Jerry. Coffee would be good." L.A. Sheriff's Department patrol area two includes the rough territory along the broken Los Angeles River, from Maywood down to Compton, which was where Bradley Jones and Jerry Clovis were now patrolling, fresh coffees in hand. These were no longer the days of Winchell's coffee but of specialty double espressos and low-fat lattes, which Clovis and Bradley drank respectively.
Clovis drove. Bradley looked out the very clean windshield at the city of South Gate, unassuming and unbeautiful in the smog-muted autumn light. They cruised Tweedy out to South Gate Park, looped it once slowly with an eye for drug peddlers, but it was quiet and the cover of darkness was still more than an hour away.
"You ever do anything heroic?" asked Bradley.
"I actually delivered a baby once."
"Fantastic. How did it go?"
"I didn't do much, really. Put her in back with a blanket from the trunk, then drove under siren, lights on full. Then when the screams got too loud, I got worried so I pulled over and held on to the lady's head while she screamed and pushed and thrashed around in the back. Then out it came. A girl. Bloody mess but she started bawling, too, and by the time we got to the hospital they were waiting for us and the mom was wrung out but smiling."
"Now, that's a good tale."
"Not sure how heroic it really was."
"You up for some heroics tonight?"
"Yeah, right, we'll bust a nickel-bag crack dealer in Compton."
"How about we rescue Stevie Carrasco?"
Clovis looked over at him. "Sure. Anytime."
"I'm going to find out where he is."
Clovis looked over at him again. "No, you aren't."
Bradley sighed. "Old men."
"You're joking again, right, Jones?"
"You in or out?"
"I can't believe we're having this conversation."
"Pretend we really are having it. Rescue Stevie Carrasco. Would you be in or out?"
Clovis said nothing for a long time. "Give me more details."
"Happy to: Carlos Herredia's North Baja Cartel has an old alliance with La Eme and Florencia Thirteen. A loose alliance. They've been here in L.A. awhile, low-profile, doing business, building market share. But the Gulf Cartel has moved in. Benjamin Armenta and his MS-13 gangstas mean business. They've taken out six Florence boys in four months but nobody has figured the why. That's because our brethren in law enforcement think the cartels are still safely confined south of the border. Well, guess what? Armenta and the Salvadorans have pretty much sewn up the east side and now they want South Central. Stevie's dad is Rocky Carrasco, an Eme favorite. The Salvadorans grabbed his kid. Rocky's already gotten a ransom demand for half a million in small dirty bills that smell like herb, crack, crank and Mexican brown H. With me?"
"How do you know this stuff?"
"Does it matter?"
"You're serious."
"I'm serious. What if you got a chance to do something good tonight? To use all your training, all your preparation, to do a good act. Delivering the baby? Absolutely fabulous, Jerry. But now you've got a chance to take it up a notch. Pull over, please."
Clovis pulled the prowler to the curb of Firestone Boulevard. The Los Angeles River dribbled before them, a trickle in a concrete channel.
"Let me tell you what I see in you," said Bradley. "I see a cautious man with the heart of a warrior. I see a man who knows right from wrong. I see a man who took an oath and meant it. Am I right?"
"Well, sure, okay."
"J
erry, sometime tonight I'm going to find out where Stevie is. And when I do I'm not calling in SWAT or hostage negotiation or backup. I'm calling in me. And that could mean you, too. I'm going to get that boy out alive. I'm going to make sure the world knows about it, too. Because I don't work for free. Are you in or out?"
"I'm in."
Bradley bored into Clovis's eyes but liked what he saw. "I can leave you out. You can sit it out."
"I'm in."
"Sweet, Jerry. Good. Okay, let's drive."
Clovis had just pulled back into traffic when Bradley's cell phone buzzed. Rocky told him no news yet, all his men were working it hard, they'd grabbed a Salvadoran who was bleeding a lot but talking not at all, and Rocky's wife was out of her cabeza with worry. Rocky said if they hurt Stevie, he'd kill every Salvadoran kid in L.A., every single last one of them.
"You be cool," Bradley said. "You get that address for me."
8
Rocky's call came in at nine thirty-eight P.M.
"The Salvadoran cracked when we started breaking off his teeth," he said. "They got Stevie in Maywood."
"How many of them?"
"Three Maras. Experienced guys."
"Talk to me."
"I'm on my way to drop the ransom at a church parking lot in Maywood. After they pick it up, the Salvadorans are gonna leave Stevie at Freeway Liquor in Bell Gardens."
"They think you're dumb enough to do that?"
"They have my solemn word I'm dumb enough. Bradley, man. You do this for me… You get Stevie outta there okay…"
"I'll get him."
"I can be there with some of my best friends. I've done this kinda shit before."
"Stevie will end up dead and you'll end up in prison again. I'm the one for this job. My partner and I. Now, is there a dog at that house?"
The border Lords ch-4 Page 4
