by M C Rowley
I started by grabbing breakfast and a coffee in a local restaurant. The food was good: fried pulled pork and tortillas. The coffee tasted like puddle water. I asked the owner of the restaurant about trucks, and he knew a guy and gave me the address written on a napkin. I followed the directions to a junkyard called El Suerte—The Luck. I hoped the place would live up to its name.
Carlos, the owner, was a small-time importer running a tiny but profitable operation. His junkyard was muddy and in complete chaos, with wrecks stacked upon more wrecks, and a huge magnetized crusher. He had older cars that ran too, and even a few expensive models. I saw some vehicles with American plates: a Dodge Charger, and a Ford Lobo truck that would have left the court only two years back.
I found Carlos sitting in his portable office. A short guy, he was dressed in a deep-purple suit and matching tie. His hair was combed and gelled to creepy perfection, and he wore two gold necklaces. Clearly sniffing dollars, he was eager to please. He walked me out and I started the hunt.
Within five minutes, I found a ten-year-old VW Transporter. I paid Carlos in peso bills—the equivalent of 2,500 US dollars—and asked him to throw in some old Mexican license plates. He had a teenage kid fit them for me and threw me the keys. It was now untraceable and could be disposed of easily.
As I drove away, I saw him closing up the yard. That was his week’s quota of sales done.
The truck sorted, I decided to scope out the pickup spot. It was noon; I had time. I pulled out my cell phone and punched the coordinates into Google Maps. Two hours away.
The drive took me around the south of Lujano until I hit Federal Highway 57 to Mexico City. After fifteen minutes, I turned off, and before long I was rolling past field after field of corn, wheat, and sorghum.
The Sierra mountains loomed in the distance for an hour before I started to ascend them. The land grew greener and greener as the two-lane highway wound through the mountains. I was alone, passing only a couple of trucks, one car, and a guy on a horse. The hills had been excavated to reveal stony walls of gray. As I got higher and higher, the views of the valleys below were beautiful. The Sierra felt endless, limitless to the horizon. The truck handled well, but I began to use the gears to slow, and rode each bend—sometimes near 180 degrees—avoiding the brakes.
Finally, the GPS started bleeping at me. One big turn to go. I took the curve and the road straightened out.
“You have reached your destination,” blurted the GPS app.
I pulled over. On the other side of the road, heading toward Lujano, was a rest stop.
The pickup point.
I drove down further until I found a break in the central divider, and did a U-turn. Back at the rest stop, I killed the engine and got out.
My neck burned. The sun glared down furiously and it was over thirty degrees. Nothing moved. No sound, no wind. Only the drone of a million crickets in the shrubs.
I rested for an hour and looked at the map on the GPS app. There were no other possible routes. This was the only vehicle-friendly road into the Sierra that existed. I traced it back to Lujano, and then Polysol. The only choice I had was in how to cross Lujano. I could go west around the city out to the industrial park, through the traffic, through the city itself—which was madness. Or I could take the toll road, which went east around the city. I’d have to stop and pay the toll ten kilometers in, but that was the only risk I saw. The toll road ended at the entrance of the industrial park. I supposed I might look strange driving a truck dressed like a CEO; I’d better buy overalls, I decided.
I started the return journey, driving slowly, taking note of each turn and bend. I stopped for coffee in a tiny town, sitting outside the restaurant at a solitary table and sipping the weak brew. The town was plastered with Governor Pep Augusta’s campaign posters that promised better everything: water sanitation, road quality, schools, salaries, and buses to Lujano. His smiling face was everywhere: dapper, approachable, and honest. He was a dream politician, for sure.
I finished the coffee and paid, leaving a decent tip. I figured they didn’t get much trade here—although maybe I was wrong, as two families strolled in as I left and started ordering a meal.
I got back in the Transporter and continued taking it slowly back down the mountains. Once I reached Highway 57, the rest of the journey was easy.
At the industrial park, I passed the entrance and arrived at Polysol. I checked my watch: one and a half hours from the pickup spot in the Sierra to here, discounting my coffee break.
The site was quiet—deserted. I parked the truck next to my office. Inside, I locked the door behind me. It was 3 p.m. and the sun illuminated the space in a soft gold, but I drew the blinds. I needed to sleep. I lay down on the small sofa and closed my eyes. I thought about Eleanor and our son. And about what I had allowed to happen.
The office phone ringing woke me. I got up and stumbled to the desk and picked up the phone.
“Mr. Kersteen,” said Salvatierra. “Plans have changed. Be ready tomorrow morning. At the spot we discussed. Four a.m.”
And he hung up. I kicked the trash can next to me and cursed it.
No time to make a plan. No time to ask where Eleanor was. I checked the clock: I’d slept for an hour, at best. There was no point going back to the apartment. I would stay here. There were taco stands in the industrial park, and even though I wasn’t hungry, I would go out and get something to eat. I’d need the energy for whatever awaited me tomorrow.
I dialed Jason’s number.
“What’s up, Scott?”
“Change of plan,” I told him. “The pickup’s going to be early tomorrow morning.”
“OK,” he said.
There was silence for a few seconds.
“Did you get anything on my wife’s whereabouts?” I asked.
“No,” said Jason. “She’s gone. We’re pretty sure they took her peacefully. The neighbors aren’t saying they saw anything unusual.”
“Jesus,” I said.
“Stay strong, Scott. Get this done and they’ll likely release Eleanor. We’re gonna have to wait for the package. I want to come with.”
“No way. You can’t come. How the hell can I explain that?”
“Will you have to?”
“No, it’s too risky. What if I’m picking up some of Esteban’s men? Or Salvatierra?”
The line went quiet.
“Okay,” said Jason, “I’ll hide out at Polysol. Wait for you.”
“I guess. I don’t know, Jason. But we need a proper plan,” I said, and hung up.
I locked up the office and stepped outside. The sun was going down and the light cast across the empty site was ominous. Somewhere, Eleanor might be watching the same sunset. I prayed silently that she was okay. I needed to focus and get this done.
It was eight p.m.; there were only eight hours to go.
Chapter Ten
It was 11:30 p.m. when Jason appeared at my office door. He was wearing a large black jacket and a balaclava. He looked intimidating until he pulled it off and revealed his smirking face.
“You sure no one saw you?” I asked.
“Of course.”
He walked around the office and then sat on the sofa. I offered him a coffee and brewed up a large jug. We waited for it to drip out, then I poured it, black. We sat and sipped.
“So, what time?”
“Four a.m.,” I said.
“And nothing else?”
“No,” I said. “Any idea what this might be yet?”
“Still trying to figure that out but it must be something to help with the kidnap of the Governor,” said Jason. “I keep asking myself why they’d need a big company like Polysol involved as a front. Why would they need…?”
He paused and looked at me.
“Why would they need me?” I said.
“Exactly.”
Jason turned on the small cubic TV set I had yet to use and the news came on. The presidential scandal had escalated. According to the CNN en Españ
ol report, it had started with a house registered in the name of the first lady and with a value of more than ten million US dollars. This was a gargantuan amount in Mexico, where most regular Joes’ homes were worth less than 50,000 dollars. CNN, of course, had a graph to demonstrate this difference. The fancy company apartment in Lujano was probably worth no more than 200,000 dollars. So ten million dollars was beyond normal. The money from the sale of this house had been linked to a trafficking ring. Somehow the two were connected, insisted the reporter. Back in the studio, the TV presenter was running a poll asking whether the president should step down.
As Jason watched the TV, I went back to thinking over my drive. Each bend, every turn. I was ready. I looked at my watch: 1:00 a.m.
Time to leave.
Jason wished me luck, and I left the office.
I drove the Transporter through the deserted industrial park, which was bathed in that soft white light that only economy bulbs produce. It was so quiet I could hear the faint hum of the electricity lines.
I made it to the toll road entrance, and then to its exit in half an hour. Then, the highway, and then the mountain road. I drove with caution around the curves. The night was cold and so I flicked on the Transporter’s heater, and soon warmth began to flood my legs.
I saw no signs of life for the whole journey. When I reached the pickup point, I did the U-turn to face Lujano again and parked in the rest stop.
It was 2:36. Just under an hour and a half until the package showed up.
I killed the lights, and the engine, and that made it cold again. So I got out and walked around the Transporter a little. I opened the back doors so that the package could be loaded easily. Then I sat and waited there. The night sky was clear and the Taurus constellation hung right above me. In the moonlight, the mountains were silhouettes. All was silent, but for the din of cricket legs scratching like a thousand tiny drum beats, carried across the jagged land by the gentle wind.
It was 3:00.
I scanned the horizon for any light pollution, a sign of nearby towns and villages, but there was nothing, only the dead black mountains and the profoundly dark-blue night sky.
I checked my watch: 3:30. Thirty minutes to go.
I got back into the truck’s cabin and started retracing the route to Polysol in my mind. It was an hour to the highway, then twenty minutes down the toll road, and ten to the industrial park, and Polysol. Then I would be done. I hoped.
I mapped the turns of the journey as I waited. Every single one I could remember. There was a series of winding curves that were tough in the Transporter. I’d have to be steady, for sure. And the package might make things complicated, depending on its weight.
I looked at my watch: 3:52. Eight minutes.
My heart juddered and adrenalin began to swell inside my chest, filling me with electric tension. I gripped the wheel.
The lower part of the Sierra was simple. A slow descent, passing a town, and then the highway.
At 3:55 I started the Transporter’s engine and listened hard above the hum of the six-cylinder motor. The minutes crept slowly by, but I heard nothing. The silence dragged and dragged. I started to wonder whether this was a setup. A way to get me out here.
And then, somewhere in the distance, behind the black hills, I heard it: the faint rev of a car engine.
I looked into the wing mirror and saw nothing. But the sound soon evolved into shifting noises, up, down, aggressive and fast.
Gears crunching.
Then lights, further back on the road.
I checked my watch: 4:00. They were on time.
My heart was pumping hard. It hurt. I’d been in enough compromising situations over the years: downloading files from a CEO’s laptop or embezzling money out of a foundation fund and framing some hapless accountant. But not this. This was a new level of intense.
Light burst into view and the furious roar of a V8 engine flooded my ears. I turned around and looked back through the Transporter’s hold at the two headlights just before the driver killed them. I saw the black Mustang GT lunge to the right, brake hard into a ninety-degree handbrake spin, and stop horizontally across the highway. The stench of burning rubber hit me as the doors of the GT flew open and two large, bald men in black military outfits jumped out. One came to the truck, grimacing, and looked in the back. The other opened the GT’s trunk and pulled out something heavy.
The package.
Together, the men carried the strange shape toward my truck’s hold. It was only when they began walking sideways, each holding one end of it, that I realized what the package was.
A human body wrapped in black plastic.
I stared at them as they laid the body down in the hold, and hardly registered that they were pulling out large Desert Eagle pistols from their belts.
“Move, cabrón,” the one on the left shouted at me. “You got an hour before this entire place is on lockdown.”
As he said it, police sirens screamed behind him. He slammed the doors of the Transporter shut and banged the side of the truck, and I watched through my wing mirror as the two men ran back to their rudimentary roadblock and began firing at the oncoming cops. That was it for me|: I looked forward, revved the engine, pushed down the clutch, put it into first, and slammed down the accelerator, hard. As I surged forward, all I could hear was gunshots.
God knows how I didn’t take a hit. But I didn’t.
The Transporter was doing fifty kilometers per hour before I reached the first turn. Big blasts of yellow fire came from everywhere at my back. My adrenalin was so high, I zoned out and fixated on the driving. I took the first long curve at about ninety kilometers per hour and straightened out. I was focused, and I was scared shitless. And I did not have time to wonder who the hell was tied up in the back of my truck.
The next curves were trickier. I cut across the lane divider to make each one shorter. The Transporter remained steady. I was humming to myself, I realized. It wasn’t musical. Just humming. Nervous, manic humming.
Each turn pulled me toward the abyss below, a 1000 meter drop from the edge of the road.
I bombed through a village and the houses were all in darkness. As I turned a corner, a flash rebounded off my wing mirror. Not a gun muzzle flash, more like a camera flash, but there was no time to think about it.
I carried on, around thirty-degree turns, leaning into them as the Transporter rocked on its suspension, screeching in the night. The wrapped-up body slid across the floor and thumped into the wall of the hold. No time for that now—I went faster.
The turns were getting more intense. The Transporter’s tires squealed. I took a sweeping turn and saw the hairpins ahead. Much, much harder on the suspension and tire tread. I used the gears to brake, shifting down to second, and the motor groaned and rattled. The smell of burning rubber filled the cabin, each side of the van lifted ever so slightly off the blacktop each time the edge came close.
I made it to the highway. Still no cops, apart from the ones I’d seen get peppered by my two new colleagues. My heart was pumping in unison with the Transporter’s pistons and my head thumped with the strain of concentrating so hard.
As I drove west, the sun was starting to break through the hues of the horizon. It would be light in thirty minutes and I still had to get down the toll road.
I kept my speed steady at a hundred. There was traffic around me, three lanes of it: early-morning commuters cruising into Lujano, massive trailers trekking south to north. I calmed a little, which helped with the pounding headache and shaking hands.
Then I ran into a problem.
Ahead of me was the exit for the toll road, and parked right there, its red and blue lights flashing, was a state police patrol car.
I slowed. I was still a kilometer away and I ran through my options. I could pass the exit and try to go around Lujano, but that would take too long. The city would have more police. Going through it was definitely not on the table. What was it the guy in the mountains had said? “You got
an hour before this entire place in on lockdown.”
I had no option but to go for it.
There was a five-meter gap between the patrol car and the barrier. I figured if I kept going at 110 kilometers per hour, he’d be way behind me within minutes. I started to accelerate toward the exit, aiming for the gap.
I was around 200 meters away when the cop sprang out of the car and held up his gun. I drove straight at him, and at the last minute he fired two shots, but not at me, into the air. I swerved hard and passed him so quickly I thought the rush of wind would blow him over.
I cranked the gears up to fifth and took the Transporter up to 120 kilometers per hour. Behind me, the cop gave chase, his siren blaring.
It dawned on me that I’d made a mistake, a big mistake. Even if I could outrun this guy, he was bound to call in backup now. And I was on a forty-kilometer road that was as straight as they come, like the Romans had built in northern Europe. The patrol car was already making up ground.
I kept steady at 120 and the police car followed, siren screaming, lights going wild. Ahead, I saw the toll booths approaching. I had no time to stop and pay, I thought with a smile that must have looked deranged. I felt deranged.
The road rose and I slowed a little, but I still had enough momentum to smash one of the barriers, that was for sure.
I aimed for the middle one.
The people around the toll booths stared at my approach, jaws dropped. A hundred meters, fifty, twenty. And boom!
I hit the barrier so hard it came off and stayed stuck to my front grill for about fifty meters.
The cop blazed through behind me. And then a second cop car followed on.
Now I had two problems.
The three of us drove on. The sun was up now and I could see the two cars clearly in my mirrors. They were side by side, which I thought was strange. It looked as though the cops were talking to each other through the windows. I shook my head and looked forward.
The road was unrelenting. No curves or side roads. No escape.
I looked back at the cops, and something strange happened. A man emerged from the sunroof of the second police car, dressed in black and struggling to keep his balance in the wind. As I watched, confused, he raised a machine gun and pointed it at his colleague in the patrol car.
