The Devil You Know

by Robert Swartwood

  The green glow catches my eye. I pick them up and put them on and see the world as clear as day again. I turn to check on the giant—and see that despite all the bullets in his chest he’s in the process of sitting up. He has a gun in his hand, shaking with the effort, aimed in my general direction. I hurriedly step to the side as he shoots at the wall, stride up to him, and place a bullet in his head.

  He falls back to the ground, dead.

  Atticus says, “Are you okay?”

  I wince at the pain from my already broken rib and the brand-new bruises.

  “Peachy.”

  “You’re almost done, Holly. Do what you do best.”

  I head deeper into the house.

  Four

  Now that the gunfire has stopped and the power’s out, the house is completely silent.

  I’m taking a chance searching the second floor first. For some reason I feel that’s where I’ll find Ernesto Diaz. I probably should check the first floor first, then make my way up to the second, but I don’t want to waste time. Because there’s a very good chance one of the guards called for help once the gunfire started. More men could be here any minute. I’ve done well so far—I mean, hey, I am still breathing—but I’m not sure how much more I can manage, especially with my depleting ammo.

  The hallway stretches out in front of me, doors lining both sides. All of the doors are closed.

  I approach the first door and stay to the side as I turn the knob and push it open. When nobody fires at me, I peek inside.

  Empty.

  I do the same with the next room, then the next. All empty.

  As I go to check the fourth bedroom, I hear a noise inside, what sounds like whimpering.

  I push open the door but don’t step inside, waiting for somebody to take a shot. When nobody does, I slowly step inside the room, sweeping my gun from one corner to the other corner.

  The room appears empty—just a bed and chairs and a TV—but I can still hear the whimpering. It’s coming from the closet.

  Could that be Ernesto? No, because now that I’m crossing over toward the closet, the whimpering is clearly that of a child.

  My heart seizes. My mission is to kill everybody—every living soul—in this house. During my surveillance, I hadn’t seen any children out in the fenced-in area.

  I step on a loose floorboard. The sudden sound in the silence is enough to cause the child to cry out in fear.

  Only wait—that sounds like another child.

  Jesus Christ, there are two of them.

  I tear open the closet door and step back, aiming the gun inside. Thanks to the night vision glasses, I can see the two children hiding in the closet, just as I can see the woman crouched down between them, holding them fiercely. Both children start crying. One is a boy no older than five years old, the other a girl maybe a year or two older. Tears cover their faces. The woman stares out at me, fear in her eyes.

  I whisper, “Where is he?”

  The woman says nothing, just holds the children even tighter.

  Part of me—a cold, calculating part—knows I should kill them right here and now. Just place a bullet between each of their eyes. When I came to Mexico, I came with the intent of killing Ernesto Diaz and his family and whoever else stood in my way. It was something I accepted, something I understood needed to happen to keep my mother and my sister and my sister’s family safe. Because Javier Diaz had threatened them. And because Javier Diaz had threatened them, I killed him. And I knew once word got back to Javier’s father, the man would see to it that his son was avenged. I needed to stop the cycle, and so that’s why I’m here now, in Ernesto Diaz’s compound, ready to kill every living soul inside.

  But children?

  No, this mission may have started out as one with coldhearted intentions, but I can’t bring myself to kill children. Looking at these two now, I’m reminded of David and Casey, whom I last saw only days ago and whom I will never see again. When they were taken, I’d killed to get them back, and now I’m killing to protect my own family, but fuck, I can’t bring myself to kill children, I just can’t.

  “I’m not going to hurt you. But I need to know where Ernesto is.”

  When the little girl hears the name, her cries renew and she murmurs something in Spanish that immediately seizes my heart again.

  Grandpapa.

  Of course. These are Ernesto’s grandchildren. And the woman, she may very well be the children’s mother. If that’s the case, that means this is Javier’s wife, or at the least his lover. That alone would add her to my kill list, but I’m not about to end her life while she holds on to her two children.

  “Are you their mother?”

  The woman shakes her head and whispers.

  “Nanny.”

  “You need to leave right now. Take the children. Get out of here.”

  The woman doesn’t move. The children, held in her tight embrace, don’t move either.

  “Now!”

  All three of them jump.

  Atticus says, “There are children inside?”

  “Yes.”

  He sighs.

  “That is not ideal.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Atticus sounds like he’s going to say something else but pauses.

  I ask, “What’s wrong?”

  “Checking something.”

  Then, his voice urgent.

  “Bedroom window at the end of the house just slid open. It looks like Ernesto is trying to escape.”

  I pull a penlight from my pocket, toss it at the woman. It hits her on the leg and she screams like she’s been shot.

  “Relax. It’s just a flashlight. Use it to find your way outside. Leave as soon as you can. And keep it on, so I know not to shoot you. Understood?”

  Atticus in my ear: “He’s climbing out the window.”

  “Understood?”

  The woman nods quickly. The children have started crying again. The little girl keeps saying abuelo, over and over, and the boy is so scared he pees his pants.

  I shout, “Go!”

  Without waiting for a response, I turn and hurry out of the bedroom.

  Five

  “He’s almost out.”

  Atticus’s voice echoes in my ear as I sprint toward the door at the end of the hallway.

  Because of the urgency, I don’t bother being careful, which is of course stupid on my part. Instead of standing to the side when I open the door, I run at it full on and kick it open. I expect only Ernesto to be in the master bedroom, but there are two more guards inside. One is assisting Ernesto out the window, the other stationed across the room, his gun aimed right at me.

  The second guard fires off a shot. Had the lights been on, his bullet would have taken me out, but because of the dark, he misses by a few inches.

  I shoot him first, two bullets to the head, then swing my pistol toward the other guard. That guard has already let go of Ernesto—the old man issuing a strangled cry—and has grabbed the rifle strapped over his shoulder as he turns toward me.

  This guard doesn’t care about precision. He squeezes the trigger and doesn’t let go, spraying bullets everywhere in my direction.

  I dive to the side and stay flat on the floor as I take aim at the guard’s nose. My bullet shatters his face and he stumbles back, his finger still on the rifle’s trigger, exhausting the rest of the magazine into the ceiling.

  I jump to my feet and sprint over to the opened window. Ernesto is already hurrying away, toward the front of the house. But he’s limping, favoring his left leg, which he either sprained or broke from the fall.

  Aiming carefully out the window, I fire off two rounds, one of which strikes Ernesto in his right leg. He falls to the ground and then lies there, motionless, before he regains some strength and uses his arms to start crawling forward.

  Just outside the window, one of the quadcopters hovers midair, its camera pointed at me.

  I ask the quadcopter, “Anybody else around the compound?”

/>   Atticus says, “Not that I can see. Ernesto is the only one left.”

  I glance down at the ground two stories below. If Ernesto were more mobile, I would climb out and drop down, but why potentially roll my ankle if I don’t have to?

  I step away from the window and cross the bedroom to the door. Down the long hallway to the top of the foyer where the woman and the two children are already halfway down the one set of stairs. She carries the boy while she grips the girl’s arm, pulling her forward. Mercifully for the children, the penlight’s thin beam doesn’t illuminate much of the carnage. But the children are still scared, the boy sobbing, the girl sniffing back tears.

  The penlight swings in my direction when the woman hears me coming.

  “Relax. Just keep focused on what you’re doing.”

  The penlight stays on me for a moment longer before swinging back toward the stairs. The woman does her best to keep the bodies and the blood concealed by the dark.

  I use the other set of stairs down to the foyer, stepping over dead bodies on my way out the front door.

  Ernesto hasn’t gotten far. Maybe ten yards, maybe less. He’s nowhere near the pickup trucks and SUVs he seemed to have been headed toward before I shot him. The moon is bright enough that he sees motion off to his left. When he realizes it’s me, he gives up and stops moving.

  I stand over Ernesto, the gun in my hand.

  He glares up at me. The muscles in his face ripple with pain. When he speaks, his voice is deep and stunted.

  “My son?”

  I raise the SIG, point it at his head.

  “Tell him I say hi.”

  Despite the silencer, the single gunshot sounds like an explosion in my hand.

  Behind me, the little girl screams.

  I turn to find them standing not too far away, the woman still holding the boy, her hand wrapped tight around the little girl’s arm.

  I don’t bother trying to comfort the children. That isn’t my job. Just like I’m not about to explain myself.

  I take a step forward.

  The woman flinches, gripping the girl even tighter.

  “I told you, I’m not going to hurt you. I didn’t come here for you. I came here for him.”

  I don’t bother pointing at the dead man behind me.

  “Get in one the SUVs and drive away. You want to be far away for what happens next.”

  The woman stares at me. Her voice trembles when she speaks.

  “What happens next?”

  “Actually, on second thought, make sure you don’t use either that SUV or that pickup.”

  I point at the closest ones.

  The woman keeps staring at me.

  “Why?”

  I don’t answer. I step past her and the children and head back inside the house. It takes me two minutes to do what I need to do, and then I’m back outside and it doesn’t look like the woman and children have moved.

  “Goddamn it”—exhaustion in my voice, irritation—“you should be gone by now.”

  The woman shakes her head slowly.

  “There is nowhere for us to go.”

  Atticus in my ear: “You’ve got company.”

  I turn away, looking around the compound frantically.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Heading up the drive to the house. Two pickup trucks.”

  I sprint toward the open gate. Ernesto Diaz’s compound is secluded, which was why I knew it would be possible for me to breach it. The closest town is five miles away. Now two pickup trucks are bouncing up the rugged drive.

  Behind me, I hear the woman approaching.

  I glance back at her and the children but don’t say anything at first, my mind reeling with all the different possibilities. This would have been a whole lot easier had the woman and children not been here. Hell, this would have been a whole lot easier had I not tried to help Rosalina in Las Vegas. Every action has a subsequent reaction, and it was my trying to help Rosalina that started this whole damn mess.

  Atticus says, “You need to make a decision.”

  “I can’t just leave them here.”

  The woman looks at me strangely, thinking I’m speaking to her.

  Atticus says, “You can’t take them with you, either.”

  I’m silent, which is all the answer Atticus needs. He hasn’t known me very long, but still he understands my nature.

  He sighs.

  “Do what you must, but hurry.”

  The pickup trucks are closer now. They’ll be here within thirty seconds. Time is running out, so I turn to the woman and the children and I tell them that they need to follow me.

  The woman only stares at me. The boy starts sobbing.

  I aim the gun at her, shout, “Now!” and that seems to do the trick.

  We’re in motion at once. I lead the woman and the children around the corner toward the trail that leads off the bluff and down to the beach. Out here the moon is bright, exposing the dead bodies.

  The woman murmurs something that may be a prayer, and the children start sobbing again, and around the corner the sound of the two pickup trucks’ engines growl as they reach the end of the drive and tear through the open gate.

  I motion for the woman to start down the trail. It’s narrow, and she needs to grip the girl even tighter to make sure she doesn’t stray.

  On the other side of the fence come voices as men pile out of the pickup trucks.

  Atticus in my ear: “My eyes are on the men. Are you clear?”

  Because this is part of the plan, I know that right now the three remaining quadcopters are hovering near the house, close enough that there won’t be any trace of them come tomorrow.

  I check to make sure the woman and children are making good progress, and then I start down the trail after them.

  “Do it.”

  In my mind, I can see the men from the pickup trucks hurrying into the house. These men are better prepared, so they have flashlights which spotlight all the bodies littering the floor. Maybe a few have even found Ernesto Diaz. What any of those men thinks in this moment is impossible to say, but what’s for certain is that they don’t think long. I’ve set several charges around the house, as well as those I had previously set by the vehicles, and wherever Atticus is in the States, he presses several keys to send the signal that will detonate those charges.

  As I hurry down the trail, following the woman and children, the world behind me explodes.

  Six

  A minute later we’re off the trail and on the beach, and the woman sets the boy down on the sand. But the boy doesn’t like this, and grips fiercely at the woman’s leg, clamps himself like he’ll never let go.

  The woman stares up the trail. A fireball had bloomed behind us as we hurried down to the beach, and now black smoke fills the night sky.

  She says, “You blew it up.”

  I nod, surveying the empty beach.

  “Why?”

  I look at her but say nothing.

  The woman stares back at me, completely stunned. In the moonlight I now see she has a pretty face but her hair is disheveled. She wears no jewelry—no earrings, no necklace, nothing on her fingers. Her place of employment—probably the only thing helping to make ends meet—has just been destroyed and she’s trying to wrap her mind around the reason why.

  Both children hold onto her, each taking a leg. The girl has stopped sobbing—maybe she’s run out of tears—but the boy still hasn’t let up.

  I motion past them, up the beach.

  “Let’s go.”

  The woman’s eyes go hard.

  “We are not going anywhere with you.”

  “Fine. I’d just wanted you away from the blast anyway. I don’t give a shit where you go.”

  This isn’t quite true—my heart aches at the thought of leaving the children behind—but the simple fact is I can’t waste any time. Those reinforcements had come pretty quick, and there’s no telling how long before more reinforcements arrive. I’ve used up almost all
of my ammo, and besides, I no longer have Atticus in the sky keeping an eye out for surprises. Right now it’s just me, and if I want to stay alive, I have to move.

  I step past the woman and the children and start up the beach. I’ve only gone ten paces when the woman calls out.

  “Wait.”

  I turn back.

  The woman says, “Where are you going?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “But where?”

  Desperation tinges her words. It’s not complete desperation yet, but it’s getting there.

  “Up past those rocks and trees is a boat. I’m going to take that boat and head a couple miles up the coast.”

  I pause, waiting to see what she’ll say to this.

  She doesn’t say anything and just stands there, watching me.

  I say, “I don’t have time to mess around. I need to leave.”

  “Can I—”

  She pauses, swallows.

  “Can we come with you?”

  Atticus says, “I don’t advise this, Holly.”

  “I’ll call you back in a bit.”

  I pull the transmitter from my ear and flick the switch to turn it off.

  “I can take you a couple miles up the coast, but that’s it.”

  The woman stares at me. She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t look like she has any words yet. Maybe shock is starting to set in. If that’s the case, there’s no way I can leave her alone with the children.

  “Hey.”

  I clap my hands to get her attention.

  “Did you hear me?”

  She blinks, looks at me again as if seeing me for the first time.

  She asks, “How far up the coast?”

  “A couple miles. But we need to leave now.”

  The woman still doesn’t look convinced.

  I say, “If you come with me now, I promise to keep you and the children safe.”

  It’s not quite a hollow promise, but it’s not exactly a sincere promise either. I don’t want to leave the children here, but I also can’t stay here much longer. If promising the woman their safety is what it takes to get them moving, then so be it.

  The woman takes another moment to process this, then nods and looks down at the children. She scoops the boy up again, grips the girl’s arm, and starts toward me.