The Contractors

by Harry Hunsicker

  After the roar of the Barrett, the report from the .38 was minuscule, like a cap gun. The two bullets did their damage though, both striking the deputy in the chest.

  The officer dropped his weapon and clawed at the bloody spot on his chest. He looked at Sinclair for a moment, his mouth formed into a perfect O shape, before falling to the ground.

  “Doggone.” Sadie fanned her face with one hand. “That was cool beans.”

  Sinclair clutched his wound, felt the blood on his fingers. He peered at the squad car to verify that there was only one officer on the scene, then went back to the shooting stand and picked up the sniper rifle.

  The scope had been jarred when he’d dropped the weapon. The front lens was out of alignment with the muzzle, pointing way to the left. Without recalibrating the scope with the bore, a time-consuming process, there was no way the rifle could function as a long-range weapon now.

  Sinclair used it as a telescope nonetheless. What he saw was not good.

  - CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX -

  Sweat stung my eyes.

  I tried to figure a move but none came to me. We’d been relieved of our weapons and were kneeling on a deserted highway with four heavily armed men around us.

  That scenario didn’t leave too many options.

  Scarface pulled a knife from his pocket, flicked it open. He was still sitting on his haunches facing us.

  “I got plans for you.” He pointed the blade at Piper. “We get done partying, there’s a donkey show in Juárez where you’re gonna be the sta—”

  His torso disappeared.

  One instant it was there, the next not.

  His shoulders and arms and head remained, along with everything from the waist down. But the middle section, the thoracic cavity and abdomen, all that vanished in a haze of red.

  Blood and bones, internal organs, stomach funk. Everything exploded outward like a stick of dynamite in a piñata. All over me, Piper, and Eva.

  Nobody moved.

  His corpse collapsed on itself as the boom of a heavy-caliber weapon echoed across the desert plains a couple seconds later.

  The assault rifle that had been slung over his shoulder landed in front of me, coated in slime and blood.

  The closest guy reacted first. He shook his head, blinked away a few stray drops of blood.

  I grabbed the dead guy’s weapon, rolled over the remains of a lung and some ribs, and fired.

  The silenced, three-shot burst started at the closest guy’s crotch and worked its way up, ending with a round in his throat. He thumped to the ground like a sack of wet flour.

  The third man got a shot off before I could engage. His bullet missed; mine didn’t.

  The last guy ducked behind the ruined pickup.

  Piper, Eva, and I were on the other side.

  No time to stand. I rolled back between the two women, stuck the barrel under the truck and emptied the magazine in a spraying motion.

  A scream from the other side. Then a groan. Then nothing.

  I stood, shaky, wiped blood from my face.

  The second attacker had a messenger sack around his shoulder.

  I dashed to his prone body and opened the case, grabbed a fresh magazine, reloaded.

  Piper ran over, retrieved his rifle, and stood next to me.

  Eva got up, breathing hard. She looked at the remains of Scarface, clutched her stomach, and vomited.

  “Donkey show, my ass.” Piper pulled a strand of intestine from her hair, tossed it away.

  Eva retched again.

  I patted the pockets of the man who’d been aiming the rifle at us, avoiding the bloody genital area.

  “We’ve got transport now.” Piper pointed to the gray SUV on the other side of the fence break.

  I pulled a piece of black plastic from his pocket. It was marked with the Porsche emblem. “Here’s the key.”

  Eva leaned against the ruined Dodge, hyperventilating and shaking.

  “What the hell do you think happened?” Piper scanned the horizon to the east.

  “I’m guessing somebody missed.” I walked over to Eva. “You okay?”

  “We better roll before they start shooting again.” Piper slung the assault rifle over her shoulder.

  Eva looked up as I approached. Blood coated her hair and face. She was edging toward hysteria and shock.

  “Are you all right?” I said.

  “W-w-we could have been killed.” She hugged her arms to her side.

  “We weren’t though.” Piper stood by the front of the pickup. “But it’s early yet.”

  Eva looked at both of us. She took a deep breath, evidently pulling strength and resolve from deep within. “You are right. We are alive and that is what matters. Let’s go.”

  Piper nodded, a look on her face that bordered on approval. Together, the three of us jogged to the Porsche.

  I chirped the locks open. In the cargo area: a cooler full of bottled water and a large metal container with loaded clips for the two rifles we had commandeered.

  “A Reaper. I’ve heard about these.” Piper traced the lettering on the side of her weapon. “That’s some serious hardware.”

  “The man said he was a DEA agent.” Eva opened a bottle of water, poured the contents on her face and hair.

  “They’re contractors. Paynelowe,” I said. “Your boyfriend is looking for you. Pulling out all the stops.”

  “Then who shot at us?” Piper washed her face with spring water.

  “Who else is after us?” I said.

  “Sinclair.” She splashed water on the back of her neck.

  “That’s my guess.” I opened a bottle and rinsed off as much blood and funk as possible. Then I drank two more in a matter of seconds.

  “How many people have to die?” Eva stared at the corpses.

  “Not as much fun as partying at the disco, is it?” I said.

  “I’ve seen worse.” She looked up. “Believe me. It just never gets easier.”

  We continued to clean up, drinking water, trying to cool down.

  “Here’s a new issue,” Piper said. “We need to head west but there’s no road.”

  “Our new ride is all-wheel drive.” I shut the rear of the Porsche. “We’ll find a way.”

  Piper nodded and trudged to the front passenger’s seat. Eva got in the rear, and I climbed behind the steering wheel.

  The interior of the vehicle smelled like marijuana. A pipe lay on the console next to a two-way radio.

  I started the engine, cranked the AC to frigid, and opened the door.

  “What are you doing?” Piper said.

  I yanked the hood latch and went to the front of the vehicle. The battery wasn’t there. I returned to my spot behind the wheel.

  “Guy I used to date had one of these,” Piper said. “The battery’s under the driver’s seat. You need a special tool to access it.”

  “Crap.” I drummed the steering wheel.

  Piper buckled her belt. “If you were running an op where you blew up a friggin’ highway, would you have a tagged battery in your ground transportation?”

  “Good point.” I put the SUV in gear and drove west.

  The crater was around the first bend. The charred hulk of the Tahoe sat about a hundred feet from the edge of the hole.

  I maneuvered past the remains and idled toward the spot where the highway ended.

  “There.” Piper pointed to a dirt track on the right.

  “Is that a road?” Eva said.

  “Not exactly.” I turned. “But it’ll do.”

  The path was not even really a path. More like a flat spot devoid of cactus where the fencing had been ripped away by the explosion.

  The SUV’s tires rumbled over the dusty terrain. The route led north, a meandering course between mesquites and their thorny limbs.

  After a few hundred yards the direction shifted to the west and the ground sloped down to a dry creek bed. I gunned the engine and hit the shallow ravine at an angle, the four wheels churning dirt as w
e rose to the other side.

  “So far so good.” Eva nodded.

  The handheld radio on the console beeped. A few seconds later a voice: “Hit Man One, Hit Man One. This is Hit Man Two. Please advise status.”

  Standard military chatter. Not exactly what you’d expect to hear DEA agents use.

  Piper picked up the walkie-talkie and pointed the antenna at me. “You want to be Hit Man or should I?”

  “What are they saying?” Eva leaned forward.

  The radio: “Hit Man One, where are you?”

  “They want to know what happened.” I took the walkie-talkie.

  Radio: “Hit Man One, we heard a big-ass weapon go boom-boom. Please advise status.”

  “They’re gonna figure it out sooner or later,” Piper said. “Go ahead and answer.”

  I pressed the Talk key. “Hit Man One’s ejected from the game. Put Godfather on.”

  The term “Godfather” is typical military nomenclature for the leader of an operation.

  No response.

  I accelerated.

  The remnants of a farmhouse lay ahead. One crumbling half wall and a chimney, stark against the sky like a limbless tree too proud to die.

  The path opened onto a dirt road that led away from the house toward the highway.

  On the radio: “Jon Cantrell.” Not a question.

  Piper shrugged, drank some water.

  A series of low hills appeared. I stopped by the nearest, motioned to Piper. She got out, pressed the assault rifle to her shoulder and crept around the base. A couple of moments later she returned, nodded once, and hiked to the top.

  Eva fidgeted in the rear.

  I waited. Stared at the radio. It beeped a couple of times but no one spoke.

  A few minutes later, Piper jumped back in the passenger seat.

  “The highway is maybe a half mile ahead,” she said. “Doesn’t look like any hostiles between here and there.”

  I nodded.

  The radio: “This is Godfather.” The voice sounded different than before, like it was underwater. “I’m airborne. Excuse the sound quality.”

  “What’s your name, Godfather?” I turned the AC cooler. “You know who I am.”

  “We’ve met. Let’s leave it at that.”

  I took a wild shot. “McCluskey, right? From the warehouse?”

  No response. Eva swore under her breath.

  “So it looks like I’ve got something you want,” I said.

  The radio: “What happened to Hit Man One?”

  “They’re sleeping with the fishes. Somebody else is out there hunting.”

  “That’s not possible,” McCluskey/Godfather said. “This is a restricted op.”

  “Sinclair didn’t get that memo.”

  No response.

  I put the car in gear, drove away from the hill.

  “Too many people have died over this.” McCluskey paused. “There wasn’t supposed to be shooting.”

  “You blew up a road your girlfriend was on,” I said, “but you didn’t want anybody to pull a trigger?”

  “You don’t know what fucked is.” His voice was choked with anger, mood shifting like a whirlwind. “You think you do. But what’s coming your way is in a whole other league.”

  I thought about possible responses, verbal moves that could be used to our advantage. But nothing came to mind. Reasoning with a drug addict who had the resources to blow up an entire highway just didn’t seem like a viable plan.

  “One last chance,” he said. “Give her up and you can walk away.”

  “Your man’s fighting for you.” Piper looked in the back. “Isn’t that romantic?”

  Eva gripped the back of the seat.

  “Sorry, Godfather.” I shrugged. “We’re gonna keep going.”

  The radio crackled.

  Then, McCluskey’s voice, choked with a different emotion: “Is she okay?”

  “She’s fine.” I plucked a bone fragment from my hair. “You can see her in court.”

  “Please, tell her I love her,” he said. “I’m sorry things are going to get bad. You just—”

  The radio hissed and made a musical tone, weird harmonics that sounded like a flute. Then, silence, the connection broken or switched.

  Eva stared out the window. I turned in my seat, said, “You okay?”

  She shrugged, kept staring.

  About a minute passed. No sound but the whoosh of the air-conditioning. Then a voice I recognized came on, not scrambled, sounding like it was a few feet away.

  “Hey, Jon. This here’s your old buddy, Costco. Looks like you’re in a heap of trouble.”

  “Costco?” I said. “I thought you retired.”

  “I’ve got a pile of cash for you behind door number one.” He paused. “Take the money, Jon. Don’t make me open door number two.”

  - CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN -

  Sinclair sat behind the wheel of the deputy’s squad car, listening to the two-way radio mounted below the dash. The radio system apparently served as the sole emergency communication network for this particular county. There was lots of chatter about the need for an emergency road crew and requests for information on the blast.

  The dead deputy lay about thirty feet away, at the base of the small hill from where Sinclair had tried and failed to kill Eva Ramirez.

  Eva, along with her protectors, Jon Cantrell and Piper, had disappeared into a cloud of dust, headed west.

  Sadie sat in the passenger seat. She was wearing the officer’s cowboy hat and playing with his handcuffs.

  Sinclair took stock of his situation. He was in the middle of the badlands of West Texas, a hundred miles from the nearest town, and a thousand years removed from where he’d started out. He was unable to reach Imogene, the main contact with his crew in North Texas. He’d now killed two fellow peace officers, men much like himself, something unimaginable in his darkest nightmares.

  Back in Dallas, his friend Tommy was dead, as were a half dozen other people in his employ, gunned down in the firefight at the Cheyenne Apartments. The police investigation of the incident, despite his connections, was headed his way.

  Jon Cantrell, eaten up with an honest streak as wide as the Cotton Bowl, would deliver Eva Ramirez to Marfa, where she would testify, and the world would know Sinclair worked for the cartels. And the cartels would put the pieces together and learn he skimmed their money. And product.

  Hawkins and McNally would be angry as well. They wanted Eva stopped, cost be damned. He’d failed them, and that was almost worse. That meant he’d failed a friend, McNally.

  And he had a bullet wound in his side that leaked every time he moved too much.

  Voices sounded on the radio in the squad car again, several people talking over each other. One guy, apparently a dispatcher at the sheriff’s office, kept asking for the deputy to respond. He wanted to know about the explosion that had been reported on the highway. His tone got more and more frantic with each transmission, and Sadie giggled every time he came on the air.

  Sinclair held the deputy’s cell in the palm of his hand. The deputy’s phone had coverage—unlike Myrna DeGroot’s—and had rung several times in the past few minutes. It rang again, and he tossed it in the ditch.

  Sadie twirled the cuffs on one finger and leaned across the seat. She kissed Sinclair on the neck and said, “What are we gonna do next?”

  He turned. Stared at her stupid overbite, the dull eyes that were too close together. He flexed his fingers several times and then slapped her, a hard backhand on one side of her face.

  She yelped, rocked away.

  His hand tingled from the blow. He rubbed his fingers.

  Sadie cowered in the passenger seat and stared at him.

  “I’m going back to Dallas.” He got out of the squad car. Lumbered toward the Crown Victoria.

  Sadie exited as well. She trailed behind him, one hand pressed against her cheek where he’d hit her.

  At the driver’s side of the Crown Victoria, he opened th
e door and stopped, one foot on the floorboard, an arm on the roof. He stared at the empty sky and the vastness of the land that surrounded him. Nothingness as far as he could see.

  “What about me?” Sadie asked.

  Sinclair ignored her, mentally running through an inventory, his assets, the easily transportable ones. Cash that was hidden. Jewelry and guns. The box of Krugerrands. Bearer bonds from that heist a couple of years back.

  No options left. He would have to go on the run, before now an unthinkable scenario.

  What was worse, he was going to have to leave Texas, something he’d never done in his sixty-one years. He would go back to Dallas, round up as much money as possible, and hit the road.

  “Where am I supposed to go?” Sadie bounced from leg to leg.

  “Do I look like I give a shit?” he said.

  “I thought you liked me.” She grabbed his arm.

  “Goddam, but you are stupid.” He shoved her hand away.

  “You can’t just leave me here.” She rubbed her face. A long pause. “I got nowhere else to go.”

  The weight of the nickel-plated revolver felt heavy in his waistband. He flexed his fingers again.

  “P-please.” She embraced him, chest to chest. “Take me with you.”

  He didn’t reply.

  She pulled back, looked into his eyes.

  “I’ll let you hit me again.” She bit her lip and smiled. “I like that sometimes.”

  - CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT -

  I wiped sweat off my face, buckled the seat belt. Continued driving down the dirt path that led toward the highway.

  An awkward silence in the Porsche.

  “Wonder how much money he’s got behind door number one,” Piper said.

  “Jon, please.” Eva touched my shoulder. “You can’t be seriously considering this?”

  I slowed and stopped. The gate that led to the highway was visible about a half mile away. The mesa that had served as a landing pad for the Chinook was in the distance to the east. It was empty. Marfa was about two or so hours to the west.

  The radio beeped. Then, Costco’s voice: “Turn over the witness, Jon. It’s just a package. No sense getting hurt over it.”