Silent Hunt

by John Lescroart

  Trona risked a quick glance over. “You’re standing on your line,” he said. Hunt backed up off it. Israel leaned over and tossed a five-gallon plastic bucket up to Hunt’s spot. “Put your line in that,” Trona said. “Keeps it out of the way. Don’t let it wrap around your leg, or your hand for that matter, and especially your fingers. Hundred-pound tuna hits and your finger’s wrapped with eighty-pound, it’ll amputate right then.”

  Hunt got himself squared away. Israel threw another couple sardines out into the clear, blue, still water. Trona scanned the horizon in a wide arc.

  Then, a sudden swirl at the surface out in front of Hunt, and Israel came alive. “Dorado! Dorado!”

  Hunt got his rod up, pumped, cast, fed line, back cast, waiting what seemed interminably for the rod to load as he’d been taught, then let it rip again. This time the instant that his fly landed, one of the big fish struck.

  He’d never really imagined anything like this kind of acceleration in any fishing context. Suddenly, just about immediately, all the line that he’d so carefully dropped into his plastic bucket—fifty or sixty feet of it—was gone and now he was on to his reel, already nearly to the backing, holding on for all he was worth with one hand as the reel spun beneath his other palm and the running fish ran off yard upon yard and then, sixty or seventy yards out, jumped once, twice, a third time.

  Unable to stop himself, or even aware of it, he let out a scream. “Heee-ya!”

  “You got him,” Trona said. “Let him run. Stay cool. You got him.”

  AFTER THE FISHING AND A brief siesta back at the hotel, Joe borrowed Baja Joe’s van and drove to Los Planes to see the baseball game. Over the years he’d become a fan. The boat captains were all good players, and Israel’s tiny village of Aqua Amarga was pitted against mighty La Paz. Hunt rode along. As soon as the sun went down and the heat dropped slightly, the game started under sparse lights, before a big and boisterous crowd. Israel was on the mound, carefully picking his way through La Paz’s heavy hitters.

  Trona and Hunt drank Pacíficos and ate spicy peanuts, compared California’s new austerity to the poverty they saw here. Hunt noted that either one could produce fine baseball. Joe waved to Israel’s sister, Angelica, sitting just a few rows down with three of Israel’s four children. No sign of Israel’s wife or oldest son. Joe felt the burn on the back of his neck, something no amount of sunscreen could prevent here in Baja. But it was a good feeling and he felt his heart downshift.

  Halfway through the third, a fleet of four black SUVs came tearing across the flat dusty desert from far away, hopping over the creosote bushes and dunes, converging from all the outfield directions. The field they were playing on here had no home run fence, and so nothing stood between these intruders and the players. Murmurs rose, then tense voices rippled through the crowd and some of the spectators clambered down the bleachers heading for where they had haphazardly parked.

  Israel stood in an alert posture on the mound, watching. Trona saw no emblems or roof lights or radio antennae on the SUVs.

  “I don’t think they’re fans,” said Hunt.

  “Oh, they’re not.”

  “I left my bazooka at home.”

  Joe felt for the .45 that was not on his hip, the .40 that was not on his ankle, then finally the .44 derringer that was not in his pant pocket and thought: Mexican law is Mexican law—gringo law enforcement or not. The SUVs slid to dusty stops one by one and disgorged cumbersome, heavily armed men. Trona saw the Zetas patches on their shoulders and his heart went cold. He and Hunt had joined the crowd surging down the stands then ducked under one of the bleacher benches and like monkeys lowered themselves to the ground.

  Joe peered through the scaffolding and saw Israel still on the mound, waiting for four Zetas who strode toward him from center field. Their M-16s shone dully in the lights and the outfielders stood frozen, watching them with what might have been resignation or terror. Everywhere Joe looked he saw another fire squad of Zetas closing in, nine men in all, a baseball team’s worth of armed men.

  Fans hustled through the dust of the parking area, children scampering out ahead, car doors opening and slamming shut. At the mound the four Zetas surrounded Israel. One of them motioned with his gun and Joe could see that Israel and the man were talking and that Israel was nodding his head in agreement. The other five Zetas came trotting in from across left field, straight in Joe’s direction. He had been in a situation like this before, many years ago, and he had killed several men but failed to protect the man he had pledged his life to protect.

  Something touched the back of his arm and he reeled to find Angelica and Israel’s three small children behind him.

  “That man is Hector,” said Angelica. “He left Aqua Amarga five years ago to be a Zeta. He wants to be known for his cruelty. Now Hector has come for him.”

  “For Israel?”

  She shook her head no. “For his son. Joaquin,” she said. “Joaquin comes to the games but not to this one.”

  The five Zetas were nearly to second base now and still coming directly toward Trona and Hunt and Angelica and Israel’s children. “Joe,” said Hunt. “Time to move it.”

  “When they don’t find Joaquin here, they go to Aqua Amarga. They know.”

  Joe took Angelica’s hand and crouched and led her and the children away from home plate and the refreshment stand and the parking lot. Wyatt brought up the rear. Where the grandstands ended they stopped and huddled, half hidden from the stadium lights in the scaffolding.

  Automatic gunfire burped from the parking lot and screams rose in the sudden silence. Some of the parking lights burst and smoked. Laughter. Then more shots, and more lights exploded.

  Trona saw Israel on the mound, still and tensed, searching the bleachers for his sister and children. Three of the gunmen, the ones who’d been with Hector at the mound, had taken up positions at second base, shortstop, and first, but hadn’t let go of their guns. Hector strode dramatically to home plate and set his machine gun in the on-deck circle. He lifted the bat that the last La Paz hitter had left behind and took a couple of check swings, then walked to the plate and stepped into the batter’s box.

  By now the five oncoming narcotrafficantes were methodically searching the grandstands where Angelica and the children had been sitting just moments ago.

  · · ·

  Israel wound up and slung a slow-ball and Hector drove it into left center for a single. Hector dropped the bat and raised his hands over his head as if he’d just homered. Israel backpedaled toward the chaos, his glove and free hand raised to the Zetas in supplication. The leader yelled to his men, waving the bat at them, and Trona saw Israel disappear around the dugout.

  “When they are finished having fun they will go to Aqua Amarga and find Joaquin,” said Angelica. “And it will no longer be fun.”

  Trona looked at Hunt and Hunt looked at Trona. “Something tells me we should get there first,” said Hunt.

  Staying low and in the darkness, they guided Angelica and the children to the borrowed van. Trona drove through the dark without lights, blended into the cars heading for the road. They hit the highway a few minutes later.

  “Why do they want Joaquin?” asked Joe. “He’s only, what, fifteen?”

  Angelica steadfastly ignored him. Trona asked again and she turned to him, her frightened expression lit faintly by the dash lights. “Joaquin found gold in the hills, in one of the old mines. They are everywhere and the boys are always digging and searching. The gold belongs to the village. We were going to use it to make our old pangas more safer, and buy a new Yamaha engine for Gordo. And to buy a truck for Luis because his old truck is dying. And we were going to send Maria Hidalgo Lucero to school in La Paz because she is a smart one. And buy a new generator and a freezer for Aqua Amarga to share, one with a very good ice maker. And then when we ran out of gold, Joaquin and the boys would go find more in this mine, and we would improve Aqua Amarga with the gold forever. But Joaquin cannot keep quiet. His words spr
ead like a fire. Now Hector knows. He will take the gold and he will force Joaquin to expose the mine. Maybe worse.”

  Angelica pointed out a shortcut to Aqua Amarga and Joe slowed and steered the van off the highway and onto a narrow dirt road.

  “Two of us and a few village men can’t keep Hector from taking the gold,” said Joe.

  “I just got an idea,” said Hunt. “Maybe not a full idea. Part of one.”

  “I did, too,” said Trona.

  LIKE ALL OF HIS NEIGHBORS’ homes, Israel’s was one-story white-washed stucco. Strands of rebar poked up from the roofline, announcing to the government that construction was not complete. Therefore, the house was not finished. Therefore, it couldn’t yet be taxed.

  The house squatted by itself at the end of a dirt road just at the edge of Aqua Amarga. Behind it a vast wasteland of cactus and shrub, laced with half a dozen or more dry arroyos, stretched to a low range of foothills off in the distance, the shape of the range clearly visible now in the light of the full moon. The house itself seemed to sit in a pale glow from the bare bulb over the front door.

  The four SUVs skidded to their own ostentatious stops in front of the house, dust billowing up around them. Before much of that dust had settled, the passenger’s door on the lead car opened and a man emerged, cradling a machine gun. When he pulled open the back door behind him, a body in a baseball uniform got pushed from inside and fell into the road.

  Israel.

  The Zeta kicked out once and the body rolled away, hands coming up over the head for protection. Israel rolled over a second time and suddenly was on his feet, facing his assailant, turning halfway to face the other Zeta just coming out of the car. But the other car doors were opening all around, other men spilling out; headlights from each of the vehicles stayed on, illuminating the scene.

  Israel was surrounded with nowhere to turn when the front door of the SUV he’d come in opened and Hector got out. “Basta!” the leader called out, and all around the men stiffened to something like attention as he came around the front of his SUV. In Spanish, Hector continued. “Israel and I will talk. He is a reasonable man.”

  Israel spit at the ground.

  Hector got alongside the Zeta who’d kicked at their captive and now made a command gesture. Without a word, the Zeta handed his machine gun to Hector, who paused for an instant and then fired off a quick burst of three shots into the spot near Israel’s feet where he’d spit.

  Israel jumped backward at the same moment as a woman’s scream rent the air. The front door opened and the screen slammed up against the house and Angelica was suddenly standing under the light, holding her hands up against her chest in panic.

  Hector turned around slowly, unfazed by the woman’s presence or her reaction. He nodded nonchalantly at Angelica, then came back to Israel. “Where is Joaquin?” he asked in a gentle voice.

  “He is inside. The gold is a lie. It is a tale told by a child. There is no gold!”

  “Why don’t you invite me in and we can talk? Where is your hospitality?”

  “No,” said Angelica.

  “He will come in anyway,” said Israel. “Let Joaquin tell him that the gold is a lie.”

  TRONA AND HUNT WATCHED FROM the place they’d chosen to hide—behind the abandoned chassis of an old American car that someone had dumped on the side of the road and left on Israel’s street about 150 feet from the front door of his home. Their shortcut across the desert in Baja Joe’s van had given them a ten- or twelve-minute edge over the Zetas who’d driven the long way around on the regular highway. It was all the time they were going to have to get the details of their plan worked out, but it was going to have to be enough.

  There weren’t, as it turned out, too many details to consider. There was one gun—a Colt .45 six-shooter with bullets that might or might not fire—that Israel kept hidden in a cut-out floorboard under the bed. A thirty-four-inch Louisville Slugger that one of Israel’s screwballs had long ago, when he’d been a teenager, broken off in the hands of Fernando Valenzuela. A bottle of Herradura.

  Now, when Hector and his #1 bodyguard disappeared into the house behind Angelica and Israel, Hunt whispered, “So far, so good.”

  One by one, in short order the Zetas killed their engines and their headlights, until the only light on the street, beyond the moon’s, was the one above Israel’s door. The seven remaining Zetas broke off into their respective cars—three, two, and two. A couple of them lit up cigarettes. All of them put their weapons down on their car seats.

  Hunt gave Trona a solemn nod and the two men stood up and the solemnity vanished as they lurched drunkenly out into the street. Trona had his arm thrown over Hunt’s shoulder. Hunt let out a laugh. He was using the Slugger for a cane, nearly stumbling with every step, while Trona held the tequila bottle in his free hand and Hunt broke into a slurred version of “Tequila Sunrise.”

  They advanced on the Zetas, a couple of drunk American idiots.

  The seven congealed again out of their cars, but only two of them brought their weapons out with them. Hunt saw that nobody seemed too concerned with this interruption. It was clear to them what was going on, by no means an uncommon occurrence. Cheap tequila and gringos on vacation were a staple of the economy down here. The Zetas had business they were attending to, and these guys were an interruption, but they certainly weren’t anything to worry about.

  One of the Zetas gave some kind of order and the two guys who had pulled out their weapons split away from the group and started moving toward the gringos, shooing their hands in front of themselves as though they were trying to move cattle.

  Shoo away, thought Hunt.

  Happily drunk and oblivious, Hunt and Trona kept coming, singing along, closing to a hundred feet, seventy-five, sixty. The lead Zeta held up his weapon, stopping in the road, and said, “Alto! Ahora, alto!”

  Hunt and Trona, swaying against each other, stopped and blinked at the apparition. Hunt laughed and Trona slurred, “Sorry, dudes. No habla español, por favor.”

  Hunt watched the Zetas turn back to their compadres, no doubt wondering what they were supposed to do with these clowns. A couple more of the narcos who’d stayed back by the cars decided to come on up and help get these pests out of the way, not bothering to bring their weapons.

  In front of them, Hunt pointed at the machine guns, held up a hand as if he suddenly understood. At the same moment, Trona offered a sip from his bottle of tequila, an excuse to get half a step closer, let the advancing guys get within range. “And,” he said, slowly, evenly, dragging it out. “Now!”

  Hunt came up with the baseball bat and drilled the nearest Zeta over the ear. At the same moment, Trona swung with the tequila bottle in one hand, cold-cocking the guy in front of him, drawing the revolver out from his belt with the other, getting the dead drop on the two backup guys. “Don’t move. Hands up! Don’t move!”

  Hunt, never slowing down, had his hands on his guy’s machine gun before he’d even hit the ground, and now charged the remaining three guards down by the SUVs, who barely had had time to get halfway to their feet, scrambling, when they were all looking at a suddenly very serious American commando who was clearly well trained in the use of the M-16 and prepared to use it.

  They raised their hands signaling their surrender as Trona, now armed with his own machine gun and a good handgun, came forward with the other two captives, their arms in the air as well. The gringos’ two victims lay bleeding, quiet, unmoving, both facedown in the street.

  Trona stood guard as Hunt collected the rest of the weapons. Minutes later they had bound and gagged the narcos with duct tape and fifty-pound-test fishing line that they found in the toolbox of the van, line that would cut them deeply if they struggled.

  INSIDE, FOR HECTOR, THE NEGOTIATIONS were not proceeding well. He’d been a villager here all his life, until a few years ago, before accepting the uniform, and the dark soul, of a Zeta. So he knew how stubborn these people could be. How superstitious. Ignorant fisherm
en!

  Even pointing his gold-plated, Malverde-embossed .45 at Joaquin, it had taken Hector a full ten minutes to convince Israel of the futility of his—and the town’s—position. If there was gold in Aqua Amarga, then it was Zeta gold, Hector’s gold, verdad? The town was only still in existence because of the forbearance of Hector Salida! Didn’t Israel realize that Hector could kill every man, woman, and child in Aqua Amarga and nothing would happen? Nobody would care. The useless and corrupt government would do nothing. To oppose Hector would be certain death. Did Israel want to see him kill Joaquin right now in front of him, or did he want to bring him the gold? It was really that simple. Hector looked down at Joaquin, a handsome young man, now curled tight on the floor, trembling like a cold dog. Hector swirled the barrel of his fancy gun through Joaquin’s lush black hair.

  Israel looked at his son, then at Hector, then at Angelica.

  “No,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Israel.

  Hector watched Israel rise and motion to his bodyguard to follow. They went down the hallway of the small house. Hector heard a scraping sound, like furniture being moved. He smiled at Angelica. “I miss the village.”

  “The village does not miss you.”

  “I’d rather be a legend than a slave.”

  “You are a slave to greed.”

  The two men were back in a moment, the bodyguard swinging a heavy rice bag onto the table, Israel looking on with a beaten expression. Hector swung his weapon away from Joaquin and ordered him to stand. The boy stood on shaking legs and Hector pointed the barrel of his gun at the bag. Joaquin untied and upended it and the heavy treasure thundered onto the old wooden table. Hector set his gun down and pawed through his bounty—somewhere near thirty kilograms of quartz run through with thick, visible veins of gold. Five, eight, perhaps ten kilograms of the gold itself. A fortune.

  Finally, thought Hector, things are going my way. “Now. Where is the mine? Which mine?”