by M C Rowley
“You know we have to destroy all that after this,” she said.
“Yep,” I replied.
“Shouldn’t you read it better?” she asked.
My photographic memory had always astounded people. But I played it down. I figured there was little reason to share with people the fact I had the skill. It would only make them suspicious. However, Luciana was ahead of me.
“I was briefed on your memory skills,” she said. “But I can’t believe it’s true.”
I smiled without looking up at her, and kept flicking through the pages until I’d devoured the whole twenty-page document. I handed it back to her.
She opened a black briefcase with two gold combination locks, and put the document away.
“Have you met him?” I asked Luciana. “Our employer.”
She tilted her head slightly. I reckoned she was about forty, but she looked thirty. Only her hands, with their raised veins and small moles, gave her away.
“No,” she said. “And nor will I.”
I asked, “What’s your background?”
But Luciana’s face changed and twitched. She stared at me but her mouth didn’t move.
I nodded. “Okay then.”
“Get some sleep, Mr. Cochran,” she said.
So I did. I leaned back a little more, found a comfortable spot on the seatbelt to lay my head without straining my neck muscles, and closed my eyes.
My mind went straight to Eleanor. And to Jairo, my son. I wondered why we couldn’t fly for this part of the journey, but let it go.
I slept for the rest of the journey, until we made it to the border of one of the greatest, and most insane, cities on Earth. Mexico.
I awoke to the sound of stalling traffic, honking horns, and vendors hawking their wares between cars. The sky was fracturing at the bottom, blue streaks and orange scars ripping into the inky night, and the lights of the metropolis bounced back off the cloud of yellow pollution clouds.
Luciana was sitting in almost the same position. Next to her hung an outfit and a new pair of shoes. I became aware of my prison overalls and nodded.
“What time is it?”
Luciana was reading something and didn’t look up. “Five thirty a.m.”
“Well, I guess these are for me,” I said, taking the jeans and shirt down from their hanging position. I looked at Luciana again, hoping my question was obvious.
She looked me in the eyes. “Get changed here, Mr. Cochran. We don’t have the time.”
I nodded and stripped off my prison garb. My body was pasty and sagging. I had lost weight even in the short time I was inside. I felt ashamed in front of Luciana as I changed, slowly and awkwardly, into the shirt and Levis. I felt better once I had. It had been a long while since I’d put on normal clothes.
“Here,” said Luciana, handing me a plastic waste disposal bag. I dumped my prison clothes and shoes into it and sat back.
We were shifting through the traffic like a dune buggy on sand. Half five in the morning and it was jammed. If you personified Mexico City in visceral terms, flesh and blood, this guy was a 300-pound taco addict with veins so thick and full, any doctor would feel guilty giving him a week. The street was a flyover, known as the periferico, and elevated over Mexico City’s inner districts. We were heading for the airport, in the north of the city, but soon we left the main highway and we were taking a back route.
After a further fifteen minutes, large hangars appeared with Mexicana and Aeromexico and Lufthansa scrawled across their corrugated-iron frontages. We drove alongside them on a grotty back road, its sides littered with garbage and old knobby trees whose roots had destroyed what used to be a sidewalk.
The car stopped at a fence, and after a short while a gate began to open. We drove through and entered a large yard full of twin props.
“Let’s go,” said Luciana.
The car pulled up by a small jet that was being refueled by a young man. I could see a pilot in the cockpit, and the little lights on the wing and around the door were illuminated. We disembarked from the car and boarded the plane.
Less than ten minutes later, we were airborne.
On the jet, Luciana gave me an electric razor and asked me to cut my hair in a fine crewcut. I did so, and then I read through my profile again. Once I was finished, I went to sit opposite Luciana, and while the modest jet engine roared on the other side of the armored plating that formed the cabin, I tried to get more from her.
“How do you know my son is there, in the mountains?”
Luciana looked at me as if she were bored, and said, “Mr. Reynolds pays informants everywhere. When he needs an individual, he gets them.”
“So why use me?”
“Our employer told you, didn’t he?”
“He told me the bare minimum,” I said.
“Mr. Reynolds has informants working for him all over the place. One of them spotted your son and called it in. We know the rough area because the boy mentioned a town called Miahuatlán. So we’ll drive in that direction and see what we find.”
“I think you’re being overly optimistic if you believe my son would risk himself to rescue me,” I said.
Luciana looked straight at me and said, “We’ll see.”
The flight took two hours, and from the moment the plane’s door swung open, the jungle heat smothered my nostrils and throat. Tropical heat, sticky and pungent with rotting vegetation and dead insects. We stepped down and surveyed the thick, relentless, and green surrounding the small airport.
Luciana led me across the concrete to a small office. No papers were exchanged, no register signed.
This flight was off the books.
Outside, a black Suburban awaited us. We climbed into the SUV, and within five minutes we found ourselves driving on thin, wavy lines of gray tarmac that were losing their fight with the jungle on either side. The SUV clipped and brushed against the overgrown trees and plants with worrying frequency. The sickly, fruit-like odor of composting leaves and bark accompanied us the whole way.
I never saw the driver’s face. He stayed quiet and concentrated on the tricky turns.
I noted our ascent had intensified after half an hour, and before long the view of mountains above confirmed the rise. The road became ropier. Small communities hugged the strip with speed humps three feet tall to prevent traffic from killing the locals. Wild dogs ran about as if they owned the place. Some of them had skin hanging off tiny bones; others were plump with puppies and had inflated teats.
Of course, the villages, speed humps, and turns made the going slow.
Luciana was staring at her phone. “We’re close,” she said. Her finger darted around the screen. GPS, I guessed.
“Yes,” she said. “It has to be right…”
But she didn’t finish her sentence.
The whole floor below us jolted upward, moving to the left. I glanced up and saw the driver’s shoulders arch as he battled with the wheel.
The swerve slammed me back into my seat and I grabbed my seatbelt out of instinct.
“Chingada, chingada,” cursed the driver, who had lost control.
We were going to crash.
Luciana looked panicked, her dark eyes stretched wide like burnt-out holes.
I braced myself.
At first the SUV slid sideways down the road, and I thought maybe we’d be alright. But as suddenly as the first swerve had come, the side behind us now lifted high and the ceiling peeled over my line of vision until it was underneath me. I grabbed the seat and closed my eyes.
The SUV must have rolled five or six times. The noise was horrific, and the stench of gasoline flooded the air. Glass smashed around me and the seatbelt seared my chest.
Finally, after less than five seconds, we came to a stop, right side up.
My body was numb from the impacts I had sustained and I knew pain awaited me. But nothing was broken. I wriggled my toes, then my fingers. Everything worked.
I opened my eyes and saw green. Jungle all
around us, filling the view from each window and making it dark inside.
The acidic odor of unleaded fuel saturated the air. I retched hard.
Luciana was groaning in front of me. I leaned over and looked forward.
The driver was inert, blood oozing from his head, slumped sideways as a result of direct impact with the windscreen or door. His silhouette was limp and black against the green of the jungle.
Luciana stirred. My head began to pound as my senses returned. The smell of gas. And burning.
Luciana was moving. My vision was becoming blurred and her movement reassured me. She would help me. I relaxed a little. The pain thudded in my head, and I closed my eyes and waited for Luciana to aid me with the belt.
I heard her get up. And then the car door open.
The stench of gas was more pungent outside, and I tried to call out to her, but I was too weak. My chest hurt. I tried to shout her name again and again while the flames at the front of the SUV began to climb but nothing came out of my mouth.
I opened my eyes and squinted through the smoke and saw that Luciana was gone.
I vomited fully. I shook my head.
I had to get out now.
My right hand fumbled for the seatbelt fastener, but my fingers were clay and the clasp was like an intricate pin-number machine. My position afforded a fractured view of the windscreen, mainly filled by our driver’s corpse, but the slither of light that had shone a bright, fluorescent green was now filling with the hot red of fire, and the stench of burning gasoline had become overbearing.
My fingers would not work. I yanked the belt and the strap across my chest tightened. My throat hurt. I was going to burn alive.
Gasoline poisoning happens slowly. You have to wait for it to work its way into your lungs, suffocating you, and all the while, as you drown in the disgusting and rancid fumes, you are aware. It’s horrible. It’s like drowning and burning alive at the same time.
I slumped back, and Eleanor spoke to me in my mind. She was talking about our son. I remembered the hunt for him. The regret of not finding him in time. The decades of pain, and still it wasn’t over. It was so cruel. If there was a God, why would He allow such a thing to come to pass?
Eleanor had never given up. I knew people called her crazy behind her back. But she didn’t give a damn. Her fortitude and love for her son were unstoppable. She was telling me so now, over and over.
I opened my eyes.
I stirred and rammed my finger into the seatbelt release button. It was hot now. The fire had become rampant in the hood of the truck. Flames covered any green now. I slumped to the side and looked out of the window. Green, green, and green rampant plant life. And in the middle of it, framed by the jungle, a figure.
The figure of a man.
Walking toward me. Carrying a machete.
Chapter Four
Jean Santos had sat through a hundred briefings during her five years in the CIA and this one was no different: seated on slightly dated but robust office furniture in a windowless boardroom, listening to her superior, Dave Rose, outline the details they knew and the details they didn’t.
She looked at maps of the southern Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico and the target location of the village from where Jairo had called. Their endgame target, Mr. Reynolds—some stupid code name—was a ghost. Right here in the United States of America. They had been informed of the troubles the government had had down south of the border weeks back, and informed that it had come from meddling from the States. Vast monies moving around the world and landing in the accounts of cartel leaders, all traced back to the homeland. Rose’s message was clear: Prevent the civil war that was starting in Mexico from leaking over the border.
They had no information on Mr. Reynolds except his name and his general activities—namely, funding huge criminal organizations in Mexico and the U.S. and controlling various police entities at the same time.
And that info had come from Jairo Morales.
The call had come two weeks back. A man calling himself Jairo Morales had said he had information on Mr. Reynolds and then made a host of ridiculous demands. Rose had instructed the team to tell him where to go, not believing the word of an ex-cartel member. But then Jairo had predicted correctly the events of Lujano, which led to the arrest of an employee of Mr. Reynolds, the former soldier Ruth Kyle.
So the CIA decided to take Morales seriously.
Rose decided to send one agent. And that agent was Jean Santos.
Right now, Rose was giving instructions on finding the hidden village and linking up with Morales. Jean sat and nodded and pretended to take notes. There was no need. It was a simple mission.
After going over the last part, Rose said to Jean, “bring him back quickly. Things are boiling over fast down there.”
Jean nodded.
“And no contact. Nothing. You’re on your own.”
Jean nodded once more.
“Okay then,” said Rose. “Get to it.”
Jean shook her boss’s fat, clammy hand and headed to her desk to grab the last of the things she’d packed in her apartment at five a.m. She looked across the office, across the sea of open-plan desk modules filled with agents typing away, and sighed. Then she went on and left the building.
Two hours later, she was on a small Cessna plane winging its way to the Sierra Madre, the face of Jairo Morales tattooed in her mind.
Chapter Five
The guard called Hernandez could not believe that what this guy, Mr. Reynolds, had told him was true. That there would be a breakout at around eleven p.m., and that he would be able to escort the five special prisoners held in a separate outhouse cell called Cell 10 to the transport truck without any questions or interrogation and drive them straight out of there.
He followed the order because Mr. Reynolds had kidnapped Marisol. They’d barely been married three months, and only last Tuesday the new Mrs. Hernandez had been planning the color of their forthcoming baby’s nursery in the modest but new house they’d bought using their Infonavit funds.
And then Mr. Reynolds had called his cell for the first time.
A computerized voice—like in the horror movies—had slowly told him that he needed to help Mr. Reynolds in order to get his new bride back home. Hernandez had agreed and listened to the instructions. That was four days ago and tonight was the night. And as promised, the gate opened and the five prisoners were driven out without any issue at all.
Hernandez drove them for one hundred kilometers, ignoring the constant stream of phone calls to his cell from the prison behind him. His job was gone for sure. But he might just save the woman he loved.
He arrived at the meeting point, in a small town just south of the border and Nuevo Laredo called San Rubén.
It was two a.m. by the time he pulled into the empty lot next to the Soriana supermarket, just as Mr. Reynolds had instructed. And he waited. The five prisoners behind moaned about going to the bathroom. He ignored them, and smells started to drift forward into his cabin. He didn’t dare open the truck, though. He knew who the five prisoners were.
At 2:35 a.m. a set of headlights flooded his wing mirrors and Hernandez sat up straight. The second truck killed its lights and rolled parallel to Hernandez’s. Inside the cabin were two huge guys with ski masks on. They nodded and jumped down from their truck, an old ten-ton removals beast.
Hernandez stepped down and uttered the password Mr. Reynolds had told him to say, and the men replied with the correct answer.
ID verified. Good enough for him.
He followed the men to the back of their truck and watched as they opened the doors. A frightened and dirty young lady sat alone in the hold. She looked up and stared at Hernandez with unbelieving eyes for a minute, before crying out and stumbling up in her binds to reach him.
One of guys jumped up into the back of the truck, took out a knife, and cut the plastic ties around her wrists and ankles. He pushed her off onto the ground. Hernandez dived for her and brought her t
o her feet and held her, tears streaming down his face.
“Now go,” said the second guy.
Hernandez didn’t wait to verify anything. He grabbed his wife and walked fast, away from the lot and away from whatever it was they were going to do the prisoners, praying he’d never see them or hear from Mr. Reynolds ever again.
Nighttime was Reynolds’ favorite time. No need to hide behind mirrored glass. He could simply oversee the operation with his phone from the comfort of wherever he was. Tonight, in the mansion. He sat in the shadows of the study and looked out the window in front of him. Stars filled the vista, interrupted only by the silhouettes of pine trees, like spindly fingers reaching for the moon.
His phone rang. He picked it up, making sure, as always, that the distorter was on.
“Yes,” he said.
“It’s done. All five are here.”
“Good,” said Reynolds. “You know what to do.”
And he hung up.
Things were working out better than he had expected, better even than he had planned. Soon, Jairo Morales would be captured.
He picked up the phone and dialed Luciana.
She answered after a couple of rings.
“Everything okay down there?”
“Yes, eventually,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “Did you tell the network who to look for now? We must find his family for this to work.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Just concentrate on Jairo Morales now. And let me know as soon as he’s captured.”
“Yes, sir,” she said and hung up.
Mr. Reynolds sat back and lifted the small glass of bourbon to his lips and sipped in the darkness.
Chapter Six
I tried to move and I shouted senseless yells, but the figure outside the SUV stood still and the flames began to fill my view until he was behind them.
