by M C Rowley
Kyle didn´t even glance at me. Instead she stood back and addressed us all.
“No time for this now. We have to go.”
She pointed at the straw haired heavy guy then at Pep.
“Aronson will take you and Bayer and Hernandez. Dyce, you ride with me.”
The guy called Aronson opened the doors of the first truck, and Bayer and Hernandez hauled Pep into the back cab. The trucks were Toyota Tundras with double cabs. Kyle gestured me to the co pilot seat of the second truck. The thing was enormous. Kyle started it up and the huge V8 engine pulled us up and out of the mud. The truck in front started moving too. It was so dark. The rain pattered the cabin roof of the truck while I thanked the stars for the dry warmth it provided.
We pulled out and for the first five minutes, I hadn´t noticed that we were both driving without lights. Kyle found the heater dial and put it on full. I felt my wet feet go soggy and warm as the fans kicked in.
“I guess there´s no point asking you where we´re headed,” I said, as the truck bumped and jumped along the huge stones, rocks and holes of the track.
She smiled, “I will explain. I´m following protocol. It´s a risk to release information until things are secured. You were right back there, what you said. This is serious. Make no mistake.”
She spoke with a southern US accent. Maybe Louisiana, I thought. Rounded, smooth and therapeutic.
I nodded. “But why can´t I know who you are?”
“Let´s say we don´t make it there,” said Kyle. “Let´s say the Feds or the cartel capture one of us. And it happens to be one of you. You or the governor. They will press you for information. So it´s best you know as little as possible, for as long as possible. Standard procedure.”
I nodded. So they were pros.
“Right now, every man and his wife in Lujano is looking for the Governor.”
We stayed quiet for an hour. I lost my bearings after thirty minutes. We were climbing a hill on a country track, and we´d passed one very sleepy pueblo. Other than that, we were alone on the road. After the hour passed, a dim glow appeared ahead, from within the hills. The road leveled out, and before long, I could see small, square buildings, each with a single yellow light floating above it. Small Mexican towns that local people called “ranchos”. They weren´t ranches. But the residents used to work on the land, which is where the name comes from. The town was a “rancho” and the people, “rancheros”.
The rancho road thinned and turned into white cobbled path. Each house was large, but unfinished. The majority of them were still the crude gray of concrete block and even the painted ones had windowless upper rooms, all of the houses I saw there had wire splinters shooting out of their supportive columns on the roof.
We trundled along on the wet cobble stones in silence, Kyle hunched at the wheel as we snaked our way through the deserted town, all doors shut, and windows shuttered, until we turned off the main road at the edge of town and went down a curving driveway. That led us downward into a wider driveway that circled a large two-story building set at the edge of small woodland.
It was detached and the surrounding wood provided good cover. The rain had almost stopped, and I could make out the cubic shape of it. It looked like a concrete version of a Canadian wood cabin. The trees were pine, tall and spindly. There was a light on in one of the windows. Besides that, it was camouflaged in the woods.
Kyle turned the Tundra into a complete stop. She killed the engine and only the rain sounded.
“Stay here,” she said.
She got down from the Tundra and nodded at her colleague driving the other, who was pulling up alongside us.
Kyle walked up to the house and put her head sideways at the door. Then she knocked it and stood still for a while.
The door opened and she stood up straight.
There, standing and framed by light, was Jason.
Chapter Nineteen
Jason stood aside to let Pep, arms still tied behind his back, pass into the house with Bayer, Hernandez and the blond guy. Kyle and I walked behind them.
I looked at Jason as we walked up the steps and I couldn´t figure out if I wanted to hug him or punch him more. He was smiling at us and then saluted Kyle.
“Jason,” she said. And walked past him.
We stood in the honey colored overhead lamp hanging in front of the door. It lit Jason´s features downwards so the shadows made him look like a gargoyle.
I squared up to him, “Where were you?”
His smile dropped a little, but he was still merry. “Scott. We had to wait. Salvatierra and his friends could have been around.”
“But they weren´t.”
“And we were. And we found you easily right? I mean, you´re here before 11pm, so it must have gone well. The governor´s looking okay. You too.”
“But you´ve been watching us?” I asked.
Jason looked back at me. “From a distance, yes.”
“I need to get Eleanor, Jason.”
Jason nodded and ushered me in to the house and shut the door. “Come in,” he said. “We´ve got a lot to talk about.”
I followed Jason´s sauntering figure down a cold concrete corridor. The walls were a dark cream color, with small framed paintings of the Mexican Sierra hanging every four steps. The cheap beige tiling clinked and chinked with our footsteps. We turned left into a large kitchen. It was bare. There was minimal furniture besides four breakfast stools, placed around a large inbuilt concrete island. The kitchen was half finished and half raw concrete. The light was just a bulb dangling from a large hole in the ceiling, large enough to put your fist through. The bulb´s wiring hung stiff and brittle and burned. There were no windows, and the fixtures were ancient and unused. There was a small stove in the corner, with some pans on and connected to it, a small tank of propane gas.
Jason gestured for me to take a stool.
He sat down next to me, like we were in a bar.
“So what are you?” I asked.
He shook his head and flashed a wry smile.
“I work for an agency,” he said.
“Mr Reynolds?” I asked.
Jason nodded, “I can´t say anymore about that. I just can´t. He is as big a mystery to us as he is to you.”
I stayed still, and listened.
“Mr Esteban is a threat to more than you think,” he continued. “Mr Reynolds has had him as a “main target” for many years. All that stuff I told you about him is true. We´ve been looking for an “in” for years too. Eventually we landed on his espionage activities. Which is where you come in.”
“So I´m a prospect,” I said.
“Listen, we didn´t set this up. It was an opportunity. We just looked for people who might want out. Someone we could convince of the truth. We identified you among others. I swear to you that we didn´t know about them holding your wife. Although he has done this kind of thing before. Not the kidnapping governors thing so much, more the using his employees for his own ends. You´re our second flip since we started this mission.”
“Flip?”
Jason nodded and seemed to realize how stupid he sounded when he´d said that.
“You´re in a spot,” he said. “But like I said in the first place, we can help you.”
“No,” I said. Jason looked puzzled.
“You didn´t say we, you said you. You could help me. How can I trust anyone now, Jason? You or Mr Reynolds.”
“You can´t really,” he said. “But what are your options?”
He leant down to the side of the table and pulled up a laptop bag, and from that, a MacBook. He opened it up and typed something and flipped it around and placed the computer on the table, screen facing me. It had a USB internet dongle feeding it 3G internet connectivity.
On the screen was the home page for CNN. In big bold letters in its lead story read the following sentence,
HUNT GOES ON FOR KIDNAPPED GOVERNOR
And then, below in the sub-edited second line,
Sear
ch spreads further.
Jason was looking at me straight, like a teacher who busted a kid with cigarettes red-handed and now wanted their confession.
“The story is national and international. And before today, it was under control. Under Esteban´s control. But now you have that control.”
I stared at the screen. Under the headline, was Pep´s picture.
“Do the media know I´m involved?”
Jason shook his head quickly.
“No, but that´s Esteban´s next card to play. We´ve figured it out. We think he´ll set you up as prime suspect. He´ll have tons of dirt on you.”
I thought about the impromptu Federal Police photo session, and conceded that much.
Jason was right.
I had zero options.
“But we can´t release Pep,” I said. “They have Eleanor.”
Jason nodded. “Of course. We need her free, Scott. She is an American citizen. Rest assured. You played your cards early by getting out of there. But it was the right move.”
“I want to see Pep.”
“He´s fine.”
“But where is he?”
“You saw him come in. We can´t stay here long. This is a safe house, but it´s cleared for a few hours more at most. We have a job to do tonight, and then we move.”
“Who is Mr Reynolds?”
Jason shook his head and looked down, “I can´t say, Scott. But like we said, you got no choice but to trust me.”
I knew it was true.
The kitchen door creaked open and the straw hair guy popped his head around it. He nodded and looked at Jason. Jason nodded back.
The straw hair guy was holding a satellite phone, big and bulky, even in his swollen hand, aerial extended, LED screen light on.
Jason got up and walked up to Aronson, and grabbed the sat phone, then looked back at me.
“Look, Scott. Grab some food. There are cans of stuff here. Help yourself. We´re safe here for a while, but we´ll be moving on later tonight.”
I didn´t move or say anything, but Jason just nodded again, and left. I heard him greet the caller on the phone, and then, just a tiny hint of a voice on the other end of the line.
Jason´s voice faded away and I waited five minutes in the kitchen before getting up and heading to the door. I looked down the corridor. It was clear.
I walked out of the kitchen and turned left, instead of right, the way I´d come in. I walked slowly down the corridor and found a small door leading to a ceramic patio. I heard the weather raging outside.
I slid open the thin plastic door and stepped out into the night, closing the door behind me. Lightning flashed angry white light on rows of corn crops that danced like wild, black wet snakes shining in some crazed worship to the inky, swarthy clouds above. Here in the fields, lightning was the sole resource of light. The air stank of dampened soil and rotting leaves. The storm whipped the air around like a predator weakening its prey. The rain its lifeblood, spraying everywhere. I was getting wet again.
I headed back to the kitchen and went through the cupboards. I found some pasta soup. I hunted out a pan and turned on the gas ring, and threw it all on.
I ate alone.
As I was putting the dirty bowl into the basin, Jason came in with the Hernandez guy.
“We´ve located Salvatierra. And we need you for the mission.”
Chapter Twenty
I jumped from the stool.
“Is Eleanor with him?”
Jason and Hernandez crowded around the table so that they formed a semi circle around me.
“Maybe,” said Jason. “But it´s our only shot. We strike before he finds us.”
Jason put his hand on my shoulder, “We´ll find her.”
Then, Hernandez spoke up. “I´m the mole in Salvatierra´s operation.”
I looked at him. “You knew the governor.”
“Yes. I´ve been working remotely for Salvatierra. He might have your wife but we´ve got to go, Salvatierra expects me back soon.”
I looked from him to Jason.
“Hernandez is telling the truth,” said Jason. “Salvatierra will be hunting you down, right now. But he doesn´t know Hernandez is ours. He doesn´t even know about me, or Kyle, Aronson or Bayer. We have the upper hand tonight, and only tonight.”
“Okay,” I said. “ Let´s go.”
We were to head out through the corn fields and arable land at the back toward a neighboring village that was too small to have an official name but locals, according to Hernandez, called it Calabazas, owing to its pumpkin harvests. Salvatierra and his troop were based there, Hernandez told us. So we prepared ourselves. Jason gave me a thicker jacket which was a big step up from a bin liner. It was now midnight or thereabouts. We had no flashlights. The plan involved Hernandez of course, but he would set off in a different direction.
As soon as I had my chance, I would go for Eleanor. If we could save the Governor too, then great, but I didn´t give a shit about Pep anymore.
Hernandez, Jason and I walked out of the same back entrance I had found already and Hernandez shook hands with Jason and nodded at me and waded off into the corn field. The plants were still short enough to see him waist up swamped by crops. After less than 30 seconds his black outline faded into the night. I turned to Jason.
“And us?”
“Come on,” he said and struck off to the side of the fields. “Bit of a trek ahead.”
He wasn´t kidding. We walked two kilometers on pitted and stoney and slippery ground before we made our turn into the black plasticky reeds of corn. The soil underfoot like hungry clay, sucking at my feet, greedy for sacrifice. My shoes sank at least half a foot deep with every step.
Our tedious progress was made more agonizing when I looked back, and still, in spite of the darkness and curtains of rain, was able to see where the crop met the path we had left.
We walked on for an hour. We couldn´t hear each other talk over the patter of rain drops hitting young corn leaves. After thirty minutes my pants were soaked to the thigh. But my body remained warm as we stomped through the mud.
By the time we saw the dim light of a house reflecting from the clouds above a half kilometer off or so, and then saw Hernandez wading out of the shadows toward us through the corn, I had almost forgotten the plan. I had to piece it together, moving back to when we were warm in the house. Hernandez had already been to see Salvatierra. Then he would meet us. We would go with him as his prisoners.
Hernandez´s features were finally outlined by the dim light, pistol hanging in his right hand.
He headed straight for Jason. Nodding as Jason breathed out heavily, Hernandez grabbed Jason by the back of the head and pulled him to his chest, like he was giving him a hug, except the arm that should have been pulling in the embrace around Jason´s shoulders instead was holding the 9 mm pistol against Jason's shoulder.
He fired a shot and the sound was thunderous. It cut through the rain like a hundred axes chopping clean through a trunk of oak. Jason let out a wild cry of pain. And then Hernandez turned on me. Although I was a foot taller than him, he was leaner and more triangular. He raised his arm with the pistol in hand and that was the last thing I remember seeing in the fields.
Chapter Twenty-One
My head pounded, implacable.
I was laying face down on a sofa and I was indoors. My arms were tied, again.
I rode the waves of pain as they gushed backward into my skull, like my brain had turned to fluid that was being sucked though some malevolent pump and flooding my nerves. I gritted my teeth until I tasted iron, until it regularized, not subsided, but regularized. The pain kept a steady drumming beat. I could breath in between the beats, taking short, sharp breaths for air, like an olympic swimmer. I kept my eyes shut. And I focussed on my breathing. The sofa stank of sweat, and a lump of vomit rose in my throat.
I held it and controlled the pain.
After four or five minutes, I tuned my ear to exterior noises, and I heard Jason talkin
g Spanish with someone.
The other voice was Salvatierra´s. Jason´s voice was strained. He was in a lot of pain. I still didn´t open my eyes. I focussed on what they were saying while riding the waves of pain coming from my head.
“¿Donde estaban?” said Salvatierra, Where were you?
“We were out there,” said Jason, in Spanish, “We were running. The rain made it tough, that´s all.”
“Where is he?” asked Salvatierra, “or I´ll shoot your other shoulder, and then your knees.”
“We don´t know. I took Dyce. Got him free, we left the governor at Polysol. I don´t know where he went.”
I heard Salvatierra rise to his feet, then a few steps, and then a hellish scream of agony. I decided to risk opening my eyes.
Salvatierra had his back to me. We were in an old living room, decorated in what was normal in 1960s Mexico. Light orange walls now covered in cracks and damp patches, brown sofas placed in a square facing each other. Salvatierra stood over Jason in the center of the room still dressed in his Fed uniform, but with the jacket hanging open. Jason was lying on a green rug which filled the floor space. There was a burnt out fireplace behind them. On the walls were black and white prints of men drinking pulque, drunken sniggers, beaming down at the scene. The house smelled of wet cement. There was one window and thick, stained drapes covered the view. The rain continued to beat the glass.
Salvatierra stood over Jason. He had his pistol poked into the bullet wound Jason´s right shoulder held.
“Where is the Governor?”
Jason howled with pain.
“The only thing keeping you alive is the fact you know where the governor is. That´s all. And we will kill you, and all of your family, your kids, before we find out where he is.”
My head banged and thumped. I wriggled my arms back but the ties were done up tight. I looked again, and saw that Jason was tied up as well, and his shoulder was bleeding badly. His face was toward the floor.
“Or perhaps,” said Salvatierra, still in Spanish but pointing at me. “Perhaps this guy is so important to you. Maybe we should focus on him.”
