The Maya Bust

by E. Chris Ambrose

  Jumping in next to Eleiua, Grant said, “We’ve got a pick-up in town: Lexi’s mom.”

  “Left or right?” She hit the gas.

  Grant scanned for hostiles. “Right. Duck when we reach the gate.”

  “What?” She glanced toward him as the gate loomed, and he pulled her down, firing over her back out the window. Glass shattered in a halo to the outside. The gunman howled, injured, not killed. Tough shot under the circumstances. The truck lurched out and Grant spun the wheel, then pulled back, letting Eleiua take over.

  “Sorry.”

  Her shoulders shook, then she tossed back her ragged braid and laughed aloud. “Sorry? Dios Mio! It’s just like old times.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  * * *

  Gulping for breath, Lexi clung to Malcolm with both hands as the latest truck drove crazy down a jungle road. If she never again rode in a truck like this — if she never again endured this pattern of light and shadow and the fecund odor of the jungle — it would be too soon. Eleiua slowed a bit as they reached the main street. A police car sat half on the sidewalk near the cemetery, and Ray slipped his weapon down to his lap, putting on a smile as readily as she’d seen him do anything else. As if they were just having a four-wheeler tour of local sights. As if they weren’t all bathed in the blood of strangers.

  Half a block further, a distinctive blond mane stood out, her mother pacing, cell phone in hand, a little pile of luggage at her feet. Ray got Eleiua’s attention, but the women already noticed each other.

  Mom’s eyes and mouth opened round, her phone sliding from her grip. Lexi almost laughed. Never thought she’d see the day her mother dropped her phone.

  Ray stripped his shirt and dropped it, apparently figuring the tattoos were a better impression than the blood. As the truck pulled over, he was already out, grabbing the luggage, twitching his head toward the vehicle.

  Mom didn’t need any more than that. She ran around the side, climbing up next to Lexi, searching her with her eyes, hands roving over Lexi’s face and shoulders. For a little while there, Lexi hadn’t known if her mother were alive or dead. For her mother, it had been days. She collapsed into her mother’s arms, sobbing, clinging to her and completely oblivious to where they were going as the truck got rolling again. Malcolm’s hand made slow circles over her spine. Her mother babbled a stream of chatter that vibrated against Lexi’s face. Mom pulled back as if to use her limited ASL skills, but Lexi just wanted her close.

  Ray’s expression in profile softened a little, like the reunion meant he could relax, but they’d barely gotten out of town before the gun was back in his lap, low and ready. Clearly, he and her father knew each other. Old army buddy, perhaps? She tried to imagine her father having friends. Instead, she imagined him sitting in the truck bed, like he was the prisoner now. All in, or all gone. He’d been all gone for seven years, maybe the switch had flipped the other way. What was she supposed to feel?

  Her mother released her, but kept an arm around her as she settled back into the seat, her stream of talk now aimed at Ray. He nodded at appropriate intervals, and the set of his shoulders, now bare, suggested that he disagreed rather violently with everything she said, but his face and posture told a different story.

  Mom freed both hands, but they shook too badly to sign anything, and her face sagged. Lexi shook her head, and caught her mother’s hand in hers. Unlikely she’d do any better at this moment.

  Their road climbed, emerging from tree cover to something like farmland in terraces that quickly vanished into tree-covered hills. In between, a low-slung adobe house stood past a tall metal fence. Ray smiled, a flash of approval that eased some of the tension still locked in Lexi’s spine. Eleiua pulled up and leaned out the window to tap a code into the electronic lock. The gate shuddered, then slid out of the way, letting them through. They drove up to park in front of the hacienda. It reminded her of the church architecture — another vision she’d be happy to leave behind — but well-kept and expanded. A few poorly maintained outbuildings spread down the hill, along with a stone well that looked on the verge of collapse. A pair of dogs burst up the slope from one side, racing each other, barking viciously — until Eleiua jumped down from the cab, using hand signals and her voice to command them. Both dropped to their haunches, alert and eager. Eleiua’s disheveled hair and figure revealed her rough time the last couple of days, but at least she had avoided the blood.

  Ray checked in with Malcolm, and, apparently satisfied with the answers, went around the back.

  Mom scooted out on her side, beckoning Lexi to follow. On the other side, Malcolm moved more slowly, taking a pause at the door. Someone tapped her shoulder. She looked back at her mother, and signed, “He needs me.”

  Her mother frowned, then signed a few words. “Come with me, please.” She had never had the same level of fluency Lexi’s father strove for, but she tried. Sometimes.

  Then the ghost appeared at Mom’s right shoulder. Her father gazed at her, his brows pinching. He reached as if to turn her mother away and escort her, but Mom stiffened and stalked past, following Eleiua toward the house. Her father swayed, and turned the movement to intention. He made it as far as the front of the truck, resting one hand heavily on the hood, then unshipping the rifle he still carried and letting it dangle.

  She and Malcolm slid out of the truck together, his arm over her shoulders, though he was more steady than before.

  A pair of workers Lexi recognized from the cacao plantation hurried out and past them. Ray was leading Boy by the elbow, turning him over to the newcomers, then turning back, taking up the luggage. Seriously? This guy just saved her life and Malcolm’s, standing alone amid a dozen killers, pretending to be one of them — he should be taking a break, not carrying their bags.

  She stepped out from under Malcolm’s arm. “You okay?”

  He smiled and spread his hands to the wide open world around them. “Yes.” Then he signed, “Freedom.”

  Brushing a kiss across his cheek, she trotted over to take her mother’s distinctive fancy carry-on from Ray’s hand, then the matching wheelie bag as well.

  “Thank you,” he told her. He had pulled on a shirt, but still carried a rifle across his back and a smaller gun at his hip, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He pulled a second bag, larger, from the back of the truck, and they walked together toward the house. As they passed where her father stood, Ray turned, still walking, but backwards. He beckoned her father onward with one hand, his lips moving. She caught some of his words and guessed at the rest. “Let’s get cleaned up, and get something to eat.” She looked back to see her father’s response.

  “I can take that.” Her father reached as if to help with the bag.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Jesus, Chief.” Or at least, that’s what she thought he said. She must have been frowning, because her father interpreted, signing with both hands, one at his chest, one higher, thumbs pointing skyward, posture straightening. “Chief.” He pointed toward Ray, who shook his head, turned, and walked a little faster.

  Her father’s eyes, too like her own. Her father’s hands, too fluid as he said, “It’s good to see you.” A hesitation, then, “Are you okay?”

  She offered a bland smile and a thumbs-up, then hurried her steps, catching up with Malcolm on the wide veranda. “Are really you okay?” Malcolm asked, indicating her father. “With all of this?”

  She drank in the comfort of his eyes, and dropped her mother’s bags to tell him, “I have no idea.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  * * *

  As Grant’s weary charges approached the veranda, the two enormous Rottweilers stationed themselves by the door. Eleiua stood with them, encouraging each person to offer a hand for careful sniffing. “So they know you are friends.” She stroked their broad, black heads, then told him, “They are Hunahpu and Xbalanque, named for the hero twins who descended to Xibalba to defeat the lords of the underworld.”

  “Pleased to meet
you,” he told them after his introduction, then turned to survey the hacienda grounds. “We’ll need showers and a hot meal, if you can provide.”

  “I’m sorry there isn’t water for everyone to wash at once,” Eleiua said, then followed Grant’s eye toward the well standing a hundred yards away. “I don’t use that. It’s contaminated. Hernan told me he brought up a bone from there once. Maybe a pig, maybe a person.” She shrugged. “This area is all limestone, lots of caves and sinkholes. When it rains, the caves fill up and there’s a current where there wasn’t before. Hernan used to dive the cenotes. I told him it’s too dangerous, but he doesn’t listen.”

  The drug lord’s mistress didn’t want him cave diving because that was too dangerous. If she noticed the irony, she showed no sign.

  “So the plumbing is tricky,” she continued, “with the stone and the flooding, but at least the water is hot.”

  “You and the kids have earned it,” Grant told her, “and Pam’s gonna want it. I can wait.”

  “A hot shower would be fantastic, Eleiua,” Malcolm said, and Lexi nodded. She indicated the dried blood on her borrowed clothes, and Malcolm said, “Also, Lexi doesn’t have any clothes. Do you have something you could loan her?”

  “I’m sure I could,” Pam offered. “We’re nearly the same size. Where can I get changed?”

  “There’s a bathroom over there, Lexi,” Eleiua said, pointing as she spoke very carefully. “I’ll put some clothes on the bench outside.”

  Hesitantly Malcolm worked his hands through a series of signs. One hand needed some ice, at least. Hopefully, Lexi understood what she needed to.

  To Pam, Eleiua said, “This way.”

  Taking over from Lexi, Grant delivered Pam’s things to a bedroom where she promptly glanced in the mirror, said, “Oh, God,” and shooed him out to close the door behind him. Good. If he had to tolerate another moment of her tirade, he’d shove her into the well himself. He pivoted back to Eleiua in the grand hall at the front of the house as Gooney made his entrance.

  “There are rooms for hands along the veranda. Take any of the first three for your rest, okay?” She told them, sharing glances between the two. “There’s a secure shed where they’ll put Ramon. I can’t believe that boy getting mixed up in this. He does some work at the plantation, but maybe he wants the excitement.”

  Gooney, uncharacteristically, didn’t say a word.

  “Thank you, Eleiua,” said Grant. “How about a medical kit? Alcohol, sutures maybe?” That was aimed at Gooney, who just stood there, nearly inanimate.

  “Sure, sure.” She hustled away again. From the nearest bathroom, the sound of a shower sprang up.

  “Is the alcohol for the inside, or the outside?” Gooney’s voice rasped.

  “Either. Both. What do you need?”

  “I —” he shook his head. “I don’t even know.”

  How many ops had the two of them been through, and he’d never seen Gooney like this before. The room had a large fireplace with a rough-hewn table and eight chairs nearby. Grant pulled out one of them and patted the back. “Gonsalves. Take a seat.”

  “You sure this is a secure location?” He swept the room with something like his usual precision.

  “Ten-foot-tall alarmed and electrified fence surrounding the property, coded entry gate, two rottweilers who’ve already got our scent. Trees cleared to rifle range plus thirty yards and there’s a sniper’s nest on top if we need it.” He indicated a narrow ladder fixed to the opposite wall and decorated with a blanket. “Used to belong to the drug lord Hernan Castillo, the adversary’s father.”

  “Shit.” Gooney took a harder look. “Explains the opulence.” He walked over slow, making it look like a saunter, like he wasn’t in pain, then sat, his teeth clenching as the movement jarred his shoulder.

  Eleiua came back, dropping an armload of clothes outside the bathroom as she went, then depositing a bundle of first aid supplies on the table nearby. “We have a good supply. The hospital is far.” She took a step back. “I’ll see about a meal, okay?”

  She left without an answer, and Grant could almost see her putting on a role, like a set of clothes she hadn’t worn for a long time. The drug-lord’s mistress: Quiet, helpful and out of the way. Do as you’re asked and ask nothing in return. She was used to working around men of violence. Men like them. Rifles by the door, pistols on their hips, blood spattering their clothes and bodies, some of it their own.

  Grant tore the fabric of Gooney’s shirt, ripping open the sleeve and exposing the gouge where a bullet tracked his arm from upper bicep to shoulder. Ugly. Not deep, painful as hell. Six inches further would’ve taken him in the throat. Too close.

  Eleiua appeared again, deposited three bottles on the table and left. Rubbing alcohol, red Argentinian wine, top-flight tequila. After a splash of rubbing alcohol to loosen the dried blood, Grant found a pair of tweezers and pulled the fibers stuck to the wound.

  Gooney sucked in a breath. “When do I get to open a bottle?”

  “Not sure that’s wise.” Finished with the tweezers, Grant tucked a towel under Gooney’s arm and returned to the bottle, sluicing the cleaning fluid over the gash, gently wiping the excess.

  “You think they’re coming back?”

  “Hard to say. I don’t think they expected much of a fight, certainly not what they got. On the other hand, from what Eleiua told me in the car, neither the ringleader nor her crazy lieutenant was there. How long until the principals know about their dead at the monastery? And what do they do about it when they know?” Grant shook his head. He patted the skin dry around the injury and rooted through the supplies for sterile gauze. “Our best bet would be to flee the country ASAP. That leaves Eleiua exposed, but she knows the score around here better than we do. I don’t think she’s a target for vengeance.”

  “Also leaves the drugs in place for this crew to traffic all the way to the states.”

  A door opened down the hall to the left, then Pam appeared, showered and changed into a high-end outdoor costume. She carried an armload of clothes down to deposit next to Eleiua’s offerings on the bench outside the other bathroom. With a clean turn and a model’s sashay, she approached the far end of the table. “Did I hear you say it’s time to go home, Mr. Casey?”

  “Absolutely. I recommend hiring a helicopter for transport back to Guatemala City. I’ve identified a couple of companies.” He focused on padding the wound, preparing to tape, then wrap it.

  “Excellent. Perhaps my ex could hang onto one of the runners like the action hero he thinks he is.”

  Gooney’s muscles tensed. “Maybe we can drop my ex over a waterfall,” he muttered.

  Laying his palm lightly on Gooney’s exposed skin, as if he could gentle the man the way he would a horse, Grant said, “Ma’am. Where I come from, when someone spills blood for you, whether it’s his own or somebody else’s, the customary response is gratitude.”

  She managed a smile and a flicker of her lashes. “Do forgive me, Mr. Casey. I’ve already seen to a second financial transfer, of course, now that you’ve secured my daughter. I’ll make the balance available once we’re back in the states. Just in case anything else goes wrong in the meantime.” She strolled across to one of the leather-upholstered wing chairs and made herself comfortable.

  “I wasn’t talking about money.”

  “Sorry, that was crass. It’s been a very long day.” She manufactured a glowing smile, complete to the twinkling eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Casey. I really appreciate everything you’ve done, and I’m sure I don’t know the half of it.”

  Gooney’s glance met his and slipped away. The sound of the other shower ceased.

  Finishing the wrap and securing the ends, Grant turned to face her. “Ma’am. No matter how you feel about him, or how I do, your ex-husband took a bullet for you today. He’s earned your respect.”

  She gave a huff. “It’s barely a flesh wound. And he wasn’t meant to interfere.”

  “And you were meant to
follow instructions,” Gooney growled.

  “Easy, easy,” Grant murmured, but he fought to maintain his own demeanor.

  The sight of her, lounging in that chair as if enthroned, the casual disdain in her voice twisted something in Grant, something sharp and hard. Could she really be that indifferent to what Gooney had done, for her? Or did she honestly believe Gooney’s presence had screwed up the drop. Had she been hating him for so long she couldn’t even see him any more?

  Pam wasn’t the only one who could play a role. “Jesus Christ, you trying to get yourself killed? Get down!” he shouted, doing a credible job of Gooney’s intonation.

  Pam jerked back, clutching the arms of the chair. Grant pivoted half away from her, and dropped his right knee. He swept his left arm in front of him as if bringing someone down with him. Finished with his left elbow bent, head partially ducked, right arm extended, ready to defend the person he mimed protecting. He stared at her as if drawing a bead. “Something like that, was it? I could hear his voice, but I couldn’t see what he did.”

  Her gaze flicked past him, and returned, dodging the intensity of his expression. “I suppose. It happened so fast.”

  The bathroom door opened, and an arm pulled in the pile of clothes, then the door closed. Maybe just as well he didn’t have witnesses. He seemed to be the only one who noticed, but he wasn’t finished yet.

  “Pretend you’re the shooter, Pam. What’s the path of your shot?”

  “But I’m not — I’m not like you, or him. How should I know?”

  He traced the line of the bullet from his upper arm to his shoulder. “What happens if the bullet shifts half a degree in either direction. If he didn’t turn far enough, or if the shooter turns a little further, where does it go?”

  She just shook her head, and Grant shifted his body, lining up for a different shot. He tapped his jaw. “Here, maybe?” Tapped his cheekbone. “Maybe here? Depends how he tucked his chin. Straight through his skull and out the other side.” He rose. “What if you’d been on your feet when it hit? Gut shot? No — because you were running after Lexi. Knees bent, head forward. Chest? Throat? Head? What do you think?” He spread his arms. “The way I see it, there’s two options for what happened in that cemetery if he didn’t land the way he did. One is, he’s dead. The other is that you are.”