Enemy in Blue

by Derek Blass

  “A fellow officer? Another member of the blue crew? Cold hombre. Must be some serious shit for you to fuck over one of your own like this.”

  “Serious enough. I expect there to be several men defending the place...”

  “What place?”

  “The home of some Raul Dominguez...”

  “Ay chingao! Raul? You crazy shit!”

  “You said five thousand a person,” the Chief said, cutting off the impending renegotiation.

  “But you didn't say Raul's place.”

  The Chief moved his glass of whiskey around in his hand. “What's the big deal?”

  “Shit—you can expect more than several men defending Raul's place. He usually has a bunch of people just chillin', 'specially if he knows he's gotta defend.”

  “I've only seen one guy working the perimeter.”

  “You don't know how many are inside.”

  “I haven't seen a ton of movement inside, even after watching for a while,” the Chief responded.

  Jorge leaned across the narrow table, “Look hombre, you can wish or you can believe. I am telling you what the fuck exists in that place.” Jorge paused and then sat back in his chair. “What about the husband, he gonna be there?”

  “By the time we get moving, I expect so.”

  “Good cop?”

  “Morally?”

  “What the hell do I care about morals? No. Is he a good fighter.”

  “One of our best. Morally and the other way.”

  “Damn jefe, even if you get out of this you know you're fucked.”

  The Chief gave Jorge a long look. “Been fucked for a while, you know, Jorge?” Jorge looked away and called for Chico.

  “How about one of these jefe. Take that edge off,” he said handing the Chief a pack of Marlboro Reds.

  “I can't inhale that crap.” Jorge kept his hand extended and nodded his head at the pack. Two years since the Chief had quit, cold turkey, after seventeen years of smoking. Finely rolled cigarette, brown tobacco leaves puckering their sweet, brown lips at him. He grabbed the pack, pulled one out, lit it using a worn candle on the table and vomited up a lung coughing. Jorge roared. “Fucking Reds.”

  * * * *

  Cruz sat in the back of Martinez's vehicle, speeding through time. Staring at Sandra who quivered when they hit large bumps. He brushed her forehead with the back of his hand.

  “How's she doing?” Martinez asked.

  “Same.”

  “We're about to cross the border. If they ask, she's sleeping.”

  “She is.”

  “You know what I mean.” Cruz did know what he meant and wondered why he chose to be semantic. Stress like this turned him into a demon. He looked up from Sandra and saw the border checkpoint ahead. There was no line and they flowed on through. The only mark of their passage into Mexico were two thumps.

  Sandra stirred and opened her brown eyes, currently blood red and searching.

  “Where are we?”

  “Mexico,” Cruz answered. Alfonso peered around from the front seat to see what was going on.

  “Who's that?” Sandra asked while clamping onto Cruz's arm.

  The question unnerved Cruz a bit. He reassured himself that the shock affected her memory. “That's Diego's son, Alfonso. Remember?”

  “The traitor's son?”

  “Yes.” Alfonso shifted uneasily in his seat.

  “My head is killing me. Does my face look that bad?” Sandra asked, finding a moment to be a woman.

  Cruz paused, experienced enough to carefully word his response. “Those blisters will heal.”

  “My eyes still aren't adjusted from that light,” she said as she repositioned herself on Cruz. With that, she was back asleep. Cruz looked out the window at the just-inside-the-border mess around them. Men in straw hats and tired sandals pushing little carts around with bells on the handle. Calling out “helado” every few steps. Women in pressed white shirts and red skirts riding up their thick thighs stood on street corners. Every other store was a pharmacy. The delicious irony of a Mexican border town providing life support to the first world. They arrived a few minutes later.

  The house was set back in the lot. A man sat solemnly on the front porch. His face was a series of hems, time strewn across his face. Brown skin hardened and sheened from the sun. A pristine, white hat, pulled down just above his eyes.

  The front door sprung open and a woman came running out. She went straight to Martinez and jumped on his hips, straddling his waist and deluging him with kisses. A tall, stout man came out next. He stood in the doorway and smiled at Martinez.

  “Cómo estas hermano?”

  “Man, it's been a long time Raul,” Martinez said while returning the smile. So this was Raul, Cruz thought to himself. Martinez told Cruz a bit about his brother-in-law during the car ride. He grew up in the Chicano Movement during the late 60s. Father—a revolutionary and leader in the movement. Mother—educator and medic to the warriors. Martinez said—and it was all conjecture—that he worked with revolutionary groups in Mexico like the Zapatistas. Wooden stairs creaked as he made his way off of the porch and came down to shake Martinez's hand.

  Martinez set his wife down and turned to Cruz and Sandra, who had just edged past the open car door.

  “Carmen and Raul, this is Cruz, Sandra and Alfonso there in the front seat.” Martinez gestured for Alfonso to come out of the car.

  “Who are they?” Raul asked. He looked at them guardedly. A black cowboy hat with a red insignia on the front was in his hand. He wore a black, western-style shirt neatly tucked into his blue jeans. Cruz saw the same insignia on Raul's belt buckle, which was reflecting the setting sun.

  “Cruz is a lawyer where we live. Sandra is a reporter for one of the local news stations up there too.”

  “Ahhh, a fellow media person,” Raul noted. Cruz watched as they smiled at each other. “And him?” Raul asked looking at Alfonso.

  “That's a longer story. Let's just say he's an interested bystander with a debt to repay.”

  Raul looked around them at the surrounding hills. “Let's get your car in the garage and go inside. These hills have eyes.” Cruz supported Sandra by her arm and followed Raul into the home. The man on the porch sat motionless. Not a twitch as they passed with Cruz wondering if he wasn't one of those sculpted Indian figures you see outside of smoke shops. To his surprise, there was a whole group of men inside the house when they entered. They sat around a big, circular pine table littered with bottles and chips and cards and packs of cigarettes. It was the moment in the dream when a whole roomfull of people looks up at you.

  “Todos, estos son amigos de Carmen y Martinez,” Raul announced. The people in the room collectively grunted and went back to their activities.

  One woman stood out. She was seated on a couch with her back to them, watching a news station. Raul pointed toward the same couch and invited them to sit down. They did but the woman still didn't acknowledge them. Instead, she sat focused on the television and without looking at them said, “It's riveting. We're sitting in a war zone. Evil fighting a little less evil in a struggle over a multibillion-dollar drug trade. Bodies found limbless in the middle of the street. Tongues delivered in boxes. Decapitated heads lined on fences. Skeletons resting in metal cans full of acid. Kidnapping, rape, murder, extortion, bribery. Riveting.”

  “She hasn't taken her eyes off that set since getting here,” Raul whispered to Cruz.

  “I hear you, and no, I haven't,” Alicia answered. “This is the eye of the storm delivered on a seventeen-inch rabbit ear television.” Raul just shook his head and pulled up an old wood chair next to Cruz.

  “It's true, you know?”

  “What's that?”

  “These border towns are at the center of a colossal struggle. The government, supposedly cracking down on the drug trade they facilitated for fifty years. The drug lords fighting back with armies of their own. No one is safe. These monsters dump mutilated bodies at schools' doorsteps to
intimidate children. Mind control, hombre. Inculcating the youth. The streets are vacio by seven every night. Any surviving businesses either pay off the government or the drug lords or both. Burros line up to make border runs and shit out la cocaina and la marijuana on the other side for rich gringos to consume. And that's what it is brother, the destruction of human life just to get highhhhhhhhhhh.”

  “You working to stop it?”

  “Man...there's no stopping this. No revolutionary group has the might of capitalism behind it. When money is at issue, ideals and politics take a back seat. No, we will let them fight and kill each other until all of those cabrones are dead.” Cruz looked at the television which showed a report on the kidnapping of a teenage girl from right in front of her school. She was some politician's daughter.

  “You seen that video Martinez has?” Raul asked, changing the subject.

  “Not all the way through,” Cruz answered hesitantly. He was relieved when the door to the garage opened and Martinez came into the house with Alfonso and Carmen.

  “So what's the plan, brother?” Raul asked Martinez.

  “First, sit down. I'm beat up to hell.”

  “No shit.”

  “Then, figure out what to do with this,” he said as he flung the safe with the video to Raul.

  “This it?”

  “That's it. Fucking blood-stained video. The life lost over that video...” Alicia broke her focus on the television and looked at Martinez. “Just don't know what to say, man, other than I've got an obligation to make the contents of that video matter.”

  “You watched it yet?”

  “Why? I was there.”

  “More to make sure it's even got what you expect it to have.”

  “No. Pandora's box opened in the last two weeks. I've been surviving.”

  “You mind if we watch it?”

  “Nope.” Raul handed the mini-safe back to Martinez so he could open it. Martinez punched a few digits into the electronic keypad and opened the safe.

  Cruz noticed him handle the drive delicately, seemingly in reverence to its contents, the lives lost protecting it. Then he turned his attention to Alicia. “Excuse me, but who are you?” Cruz asked her.

  Martinez answered for her, slightly protective, “That's Alicia Williams. She is—was—my partner's wife.”

  “I'm still his wife. It's just that God separated us.” Cruz sat quietly and looked at her until she changed her position, relieving him of his unspoken duty to be mournful.

  Sensing the tension Raul said, “Let's go downstairs to watch it. I've got another television and a laptop set up.” Cruz, Martinez, and Alfonso followed him. Carmen sat with Sandra and Alicia on the couch.

  Downstairs was a fortress. Steel lined the four walls. A generator sat silently in a corner. One wall was full of canned fruits, vegetables and meats. Another wall had a workbench laden with boxes of ammunition. Guns of all types were mounted on the wall.

  “We don't fuck around,” Raul said to Cruz. Cruz smiled sheepishly at him. The firepower was humbling. Raul pulled some folding chairs into the middle of the room and gestured to everyone to sit down. They did and Raul went about setting up the video.

  “Okay, here we go,” Raul said. He turned the lights in the room off and pulled up his own chair. Cruz half expected him to start a popcorn machine. The screen went from black to slightly colorful. The house in the jostling picture was run down, a whiteish-gray with peeling paint. Weeds grew around the perimeter of the house, about a month tall. The camera followed three officers around the side of the house while a separate group took place at the front of the house.

  “Is your sound broken?” Martinez asked.

  “No, no. Must just be the video.” They watched in silence as one of the officers with Martinez used a devastating kick to break in the back door. The cameraman stormed into the home directly behind the last officer. Martinez led the group, checking rooms off the hall while moving to the front of the house. The group stopped at the end of the hall, which opened into a larger living area. The camera peeked around the officers who were pressed against the wall.

  Martinez lowered his gun. The rest of his group did the same. They walked into the room and the camera focused on a young woman crying on the ground, her eyes squinted and her hands over her forehead. An old man lay motionless on a couch next to her. The camera panned up to one of the officers who was making agitated gestures at the camera with his finger.

  “That's Shaver,” Martinez said, identifying him although his back was to the camera.

  The camera dropped to floor level but something kept it tilted up.

  “Smart,” Raul murmured.

  “What's that?”

  “He's got the camera propped up on his foot.”

  They watched as the young woman grabbed onto Shaver's leg. He kicked her off and she went reeling like a stuffed doll toward the wall behind her. After some seconds Shaver pointed his gun at the old man, who was still motionless. He jabbed his gun into the old man, which is when Martinez made his move toward Shaver. When he did, Shaver's gun unleashed several rounds into the old man. The camera shook from the shots and as if to coincide with real life, a man's voice from upstairs cried out to all of them, “Oye!”

  A cannon-like boom sounded from upstairs, followed by the splintering of a door. Cruz jumped out of his seat and instinctively went toward the stairs. He saw Sandra on her stomach at the top of the stairs.

  “Sandra, get down here!” he screamed out as he rushed up the stairs. She sat still, immobilized by the blast. Cruz got to the top step and grabbed Sandra under her arms. He got a glimpse of the men at the pine table. It was now turned on its side, functioning as a shield from the bullets. A rattlle, rattlle tat tat tat came from the front door and pieces of the table flew around the room. Cruz hauled Sandra down the stairs just as Raul and Martinez came rushing in his direction, guns in hand.

  “Where's Carmen?!” Martinez screamed.

  “Still up there!”

  Sandra crawled to the middle of the room where she rested on her knees bawling. Alfonso was crouched, frog-like, behind a chair. Alicia remained in the upstairs room, sitting still in her chair and staring at the screen in front of her. Cruz pointed at Alfonso and said, “You grab one of these guns and protect these women!” He nodded and pushed his chair up to the stairway as Martinez brought Carmen downstairs.

  Sounds of material being broken surrounded them. Wood splintered. Glass shattered. Ceramic ware exploded as both sides exchanged fire. Martinez crouched at the top of the stairs and urgently called to Alicia.

  “Alicia...Alicia! Get over here!” She turned around and stared blankly at him.

  “What the fuck is her problem?” Cruz asked from right behind Martinez.

  “She's fucking traumatized.”

  Cruz looked behind him at Alfonso and the women. Alfonso was still behind the chair with his gun pointed up the stairway. As Cruz turned back around, he heard a thump and then a scream. Alicia's eyes were peeled back wide. Blood shot out from her throat and nose.

  “Oh my god,” Martinez said. He crawled to the couch and pulled Alicia down in front of it. “Goddammit!” Martinez cried out as he put his hands on her neck. It was no use. Blood streamed through his hands and Alicia went limp.

  The rest of the room was in similar disarray. Several of the men Cruz had seen at the poker table were either shot or taking cover behind objects. Then something startling happened. Cruz watched as Martinez started to wipe Alicia's blood on his face and chest.

  “Martinez...what the hell?”

  “Just stay down there Cruz!”

  Raul was pinned down behind the couch where he had been trying to return fire. Cruz covered his mouth and gagged when he saw Alicia exhale her last breath. The gunfire subsided some. Cruz heard moaning and the occasional piece of glass fall to the floor in the main part of the house.

  Martinez was pointing furiously at the security room. “Get in that room. Fucking trust me Raul!” Rau
l scurried from the couch to the stairs and squeezed past Cruz. He went and checked on Carmen and Sandra, who were huddled in the back corner of the room. Cruz saw Martinez lay down on the ground next to Alicia and put one of her legs over his head.

  “Check that side room!” Cruz heard someone scream from the front of the house. A set of footsteps crunched toward him. After several tense seconds, a shadow appeared around the corner and Cruz slowly backed down the steps. The only sound was the muffled cry of Carmen and Sandra. The three men knelt in the center of the room, hearts slamming against their sternums as they waited for the final showdown.

  Cruz could hear someone rubbing against the wall while advancing. The noise stopped at the top of the steps.

  “We know you're down there! Might as well give it up, hijitos.” There was a pause followed by, “I hear your bitches crying. If you don't surrender it's gonna be a hell of a lot worse for them!” The men pointed their guns at the stairs. Cruz's hands were shaking.

  “I'll give you three seconds. Make a smart decision, would you? One...two...thr...”

  “Three motherfucker,” Cruz heard Martinez say. Now Martinez's plan came to fruition. The men had taken the bait and thought Martinez was dead. “Get your fucking hands above your head! Tell that fucker over there to get his hands up too! Guys, get the hell up here now!” The three of them bolted up the stairs and came upon the blood-smeared Martinez with his gun held to a weaselly looking middle-aged man's head. There was another man in the center of the room, dark, criminal-looking, with a sneer on his face.

  “Take care of that one,” Martinez said to Cruz. Alfonso and Cruz went and grabbed the man's hands and held them behind his back. Martinez put his arm around his prisoner's neck and spun him towards the other men.

  “Pot of gold here, gentlemen.”

  “Who is it?” Raul asked, slightly out of breath.

  “Our police chief.”

  T W E N T Y-E I G H T

  __________________________________________________

  Tyler's hands and ankles were bound. He tested the bindings, but they were rock solid. Shaver circled around him in the small room. Tyler could see him getting more and more agitated. His face started to turn red and his breathing shortened. He was a bull of a man, with biceps the size of Tyler's thighs. He wore an army camouflage jacket and black tactical pants. This only added to the intimidation level. Tyler spent the last hour praying that he would get out of this...somehow.