The Devil You Know

by Robert Swartwood

  “I’m not a soldier anymore. Neither are you.”

  “You go out there, you’re dead.”

  He’s right, of course, but I don’t want to admit it. An innocent man—a priest—is about to be killed in front of his church. It’s not something I can let happen. Not something I will let happen.

  Except it doesn’t matter anyway, because at that instant a single gunshot echoes through the air.

  I turn back to the street just in time to watch Father Crisanto’s body collapse in a heap.

  My grip on the gun tightens.

  Nova’s grip on my arm also tightens.

  “Let’s go, Holly.”

  I don’t move.

  He says, “Alejandro is going after Morales next. We need to stop him.”

  Without a word I turn and start back down the street, pulling my arm from Nova’s grip.

  He hurries to keep pace beside me.

  “How long will it take us to get to where Morales lives?”

  “It’ll probably take us ten hours. Nine if we drive fast.”

  “If we drive all night, we’ll make it there by morning. For all we know, Alejandro plans to attack tonight, if he hasn’t already attacked.”

  We’re a block away from the car now, and I slip the gun in my waistband, pull out the disposable phone.

  “I think there’s someone who can help us with that.”

  “Who?”

  But I don’t answer Nova just yet. Instead I punch in the number and hold the phone to my ear, hoping that Ramon’s wife isn’t the one who answers this time.

  Forty-Nine

  Alejandro didn’t know how much longer he could hold on.

  He had only managed to wrap up the wounds so much, but the bandages kept bleeding through to the point he gave up trying to change them. Usually, walking several miles carrying equipment would be no sweat at all, but now he moved at a slug’s pace. What he needed to do was rest. Just take a couple days off, get some sleep, let his new wounds heal as much as possible. But that wasn’t going to happen. Not with his mission so close to the end.

  It was almost midnight now as he lay in the woods almost three hundred yards away from Fernando Sanchez Morales’s house. The equipment he had dragged along—the rifles and extra ammo and RPG launcher—lay on the ground beside him. He currently used a riflescope to watch the men Morales had hired to maintain the perimeter. So far he had counted eight, though there were undoubtedly more inside the house.

  Morales had kept his wife and son holed up in that house for over a year now. As far as Alejandro knew, the man hadn’t once let his family step outside the gates. He had forced them to become prisoners in their own home. There was something about the idea that gave Alejandro a perverse sort of pleasure, especially considering Morales was the architect behind his own family’s demise.

  Once Alejandro had learned that Morales was the one who came up with the plan—who had shot down all other ideas because he was certain his was the best—Alejandro knew he would save Morales’s wife and son for last. Sure, there was the possibility that Morales would put his wife and son on a plane, send them to some remote country, but Alejandro didn’t think so. Morales didn’t seem the type to run. He loved his family, yes, but he was too proud to be labeled a coward.

  Alejandro set the riflescope aside, placed his forehead against the cold ground, and closed his eyes.

  He thought he might just rest for a couple minutes. Gain his strength. He had been mostly lucky the past year and a half. Certainly what he had accomplished hadn’t been easy, but he had managed to make it work. As the names on the list started being crossed off, maybe he had become too arrogant, too sure of himself. That’s why he had gotten shot when he attacked the convoy, and how he had managed to let himself get stabbed by that narco. And since then, driving here from Michoacán, he hadn’t gotten any sleep—not even a few minutes—so yes, resting for a bit should not be a problem. After everything he had been through, surely he deserved some time to rest. Some time to close his eyes. Some time to drift into that welcoming darkness …

  “No.”

  Alejandro whispered it, opening his eyes and shaking his head suddenly.

  No, he couldn’t rest. Not now. Not when he was so close to finishing this. Not when he was on the cusp of avenging his wife and children.

  He would make his attack tonight because he didn’t know how much longer he had to live. When the attack would occur exactly, he didn’t know, but it would happen sometime tonight. It had to.

  Alejandro picked up the riflescope again and surveyed the perimeter.

  Just a couple more hours, he told himself. Just a couple more hours until this was all over.

  For now, he would have to wait until the time was right.

  Inside the house, Fernando Sanchez Morales poured himself another shot of tequila.

  Jose Luis said, “Maybe you should slow down.”

  Fernando threw back the shot. He closed his eyes, savoring the sweet and spicy taste, and then set the glass tumbler on the tabletop and looked up at his right-hand man standing in the doorway.

  “When will they be here?”

  Jose Luis checked the time on his watch.

  “Soon.”

  Fernando shook his head and went to pour himself another shot.

  Jose Luis said, “If you keep drinking, you won’t be able to go.”

  Fernando shot to his feet so quickly the chair tipped back and clattered to the floor. His jaw clenched as he glared at Jose Luis.

  “Are you going to tell me what I can and cannot do in my own goddamned house?”

  Jose Luis lowered his eyes and cleared his throat.

  “I apologize. But it’s important to be in the right frame of mind.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? I’m just having a couple shots. Maybe you should have one too. It will help you loosen up.”

  Jose Luis shook his head and said quietly, “No, thank you.”

  Fernando stared hard at his right-hand man. He knew that Jose Luis was a recovering alcoholic. That he had been clean for over a decade now. As far as Fernando knew, the man had almost no vices, which had always worried him. A man with no vices was a man you couldn’t trust, his father once said. Now he squinted at Jose Luis and tried to figure out what the man was hiding.

  “Do you think you’re smarter than me?”

  Confusion flashed on Jose Luis’s face. It was there for just a moment, and then the man shook his head.

  “No, of course I do not.”

  “I’m your boss.”

  “Yes.”

  “You do what I tell you to do.”

  “Of course.”

  Fernando took the bottle and topped off the tumbler. He set the bottle aside and with his index finger pushed the tumbler across the table toward Jose Luis.

  “Drink it.”

  Jose Luis didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

  Fernando said, a bite in his tone, “Drink it now.”

  Jose Luis stood silently for another moment before he approached the table. He avoided Fernando’s eyes as he leaned forward and picked up the tumbler and placed it to his lips to take a sip.

  “Don’t sip it. Down it. The entire thing.”

  Jose Luis paused, staring at the tumbler. Then he closed his eyes, tipped the tumbler back, and swallowed it whole.

  Fernando smiled.

  “Now did that taste good?”

  Jose Luis wiped his mouth but said nothing.

  Fernando cleared his throat.

  “I said, did that taste good?”

  Jose Luis nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

  Fernando gestured at the long table spread out in front of him.

  “Every night I eat dinner here with my wife and son. And every night we eat in silence. Can you guess why?”

  Jose Luis shook his head and whispered that he could not.

  “It’s because my wife and son have nothing to talk to me about anymore. They haven’t for over a year now. What am I supposed
to do, ask them about their day? They hate that I’ve kept them in this house. They hate me because of it. I can tell them all about the Devil, even show them pictures, but it doesn’t matter. For some reason, they blame me. And yes, I know that I am really the one to blame, but they don’t need to know that. All they need to know is that the Devil is out there and he wants to kill them. And as for the Devil, I have no control over what he does next. I know he’ll come someday, but I have no idea what day that will be. I have no control. Do you understand that? No control at all. So when I have control over something, you better believe I make sure to do everything I can to make it happen. That’s why we’re doing this tonight. That woman embarrassed me—the entire town embarrassed me—and I will not let it stand. Do you understand? Are my words making sense?”

  Jose Luis nodded silently.

  “Good. Now I think you’re right. I should stop drinking. But there’s still more than half a bottle left of good tequila. So we’re going to sit here and you’re going to drink the entire bottle until it’s gone.”

  La Miserias was quiet and still, just as it typically was in the middle of the night. Almost everybody in town was asleep in bed.

  Yolanda was not.

  She was in bed, yes, but she was not asleep. She stared up at the ceiling like she did most nights, Dorado asleep at the foot of the bed. When the insomnia had started exactly, she didn’t know, but over the course of several months it seemed to be getting worse. Before she would try reading, but the small print in the books gave her headaches. She tried watching TV, but there was nothing interesting on, and she realized she was just wasting electricity. And so she had taken to simply lying in bed as she did now. Staring at the ceiling. Telling her mind to shut down so she could fall asleep. And her mind, as usual, completely ignoring her.

  Two young men had been chosen to keep watch. The town had divided up the watch in six-hour shifts. The young men were stationed on the roofs of different houses near the road that led into town. Each of them had a rifle. Each of them had an air horn, which they would use to alert everybody in town if the narcos returned. The young men understood the importance of their jobs, but they were both tired from working all day. Each of them kept nodding off on their respective rooftops, but neither fell entirely asleep. It was three o’clock in the morning, and they had another hour before others came to take over their watch. All they had to do now was wait.

  Ramon had just dozed off when Carlos nudged him with an elbow.

  “Don’t fall asleep on me.”

  Ramon shook his head as if to clear it and sat up straight in the seat.

  “Did I miss anything?”

  Carlos lit a cigarette, shook his head.

  “No, you did not miss a single thing. We have been sitting here now for almost eight hours and not one goddamned thing has happened. I think Samantha Lu was full of shit.”

  They were parked off the main road among a cluster of trees about a quarter mile up from the drive leading to Fernando Sanchez Morales’s house. Like Carlos said, they had been there now for nearly eight hours. Ever since Ramon had gotten the call from the woman who called herself Samantha Lu. He had immediately called Carlos and they had sped all the way up here without a solid plan in mind. So they did the only thing that made sense: they found a secluded spot to park the car and watch the house.

  Carlos blew smoke out the window, tapped the ash off the cigarette against the windowpane.

  “I think we should call it a night and head home. Try to get a few hours of decent sleep before we both need to be at the office bright and early.”

  Ramon said nothing.

  Carlos said, “I want to catch the Devil as much as you do, but we have other cases that we need to work.”

  Ramon just stared out the windshield.

  Carlos took a final drag off the cigarette and flicked it out into the dirt.

  “I honestly don’t know what more we can do at this point. We can’t get other officers to take our place to watch the house. They’ll want to know why we think the Devil is going to attack the Morales family next, and what are we going to tell them? That a woman who claims to be a student from America—and who kicked our asses the other night—says that the Devil is headed here next? No, Ramon, you know just how crazy that sounds. Even saying it out loud now sounds crazy. I’m tired and I’m cranky and at this point I just want to go home. So let’s go home, yes?”

  Still staring out the windshield, Ramon asked, “What would you do with the reward money?”

  “What reward money?”

  “For the Devil.”

  “We’re policía, Ramon. We don’t get the reward even if we catch him. Maybe a commendation, a nice letter from the president, but no reward.”

  “The PFM isn’t the only ones offering a reward.”

  Carlos laughed out loud.

  “You mean the reward the cartels are supposedly offering?”

  “Ten million dollars. We split it down the middle. Half for you, half for me. Though maybe you would feel generous and only take a quarter. What with you being a widower and me with my wife and baby daughter.”

  “And what would you do with all that money?”

  “Leave the country. Start a new life someplace safe.”

  Carlos laughed again and shook his head.

  “A nice thought, but let’s be realistic. We’re wasting our time here. Let’s go home.”

  For a moment Ramon looked like he was considering it. Then something changed in his face as he stared out the windshield.

  Carlos turned his head and watched an SUV come speeding down the drive from the Morales place. It slowed at the road and then just sat there, waiting.

  “What the hell?”

  That was when the pickup trucks came into view. They came from the south. There were two of them, and packed in their rear beds were narcos. In total there were probably two dozen of them. The pickup trucks’ taillights flared red as they slowed, giving the SUV time to jerk forward onto the main road. It sped north, the two pickup trucks directly behind it. They watched the three vehicles for several long seconds until the taillights started to fade.

  Carlos said, “Where the hell are they going?”

  There was a beat of silence, and then both men answered at the same time.

  “La Miserias.”

  Carlos reached for the cell phone in his pocket.

  Ramon said, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m calling it in.”

  “Calling what in?”

  “You saw exactly what I saw. They’re planning something bad.”

  “We don’t know that for a fact.”

  “Bullshit we don’t.”

  “And what are you going to tell them when you call? How are you going to explain us being here?”

  This made Carlos pause.

  Ramon said, “I don’t like it any more than you do, but calling it in might get us in trouble.”

  Ramon didn’t bother adding that there wasn’t much the police could do anyway. If Morales and his narcos were up to no good, the police weren’t going to be able to stop them. They would just show up later to clean up the mess.

  Carlos said, “Fine. But let’s get out of here. I’m exhausted.”

  Ramon settled back in his seat, placing his head against the headrest, and stared out the windshield at the house on the hill.

  “Let’s give it a couple more minutes. Morales was probably in that SUV. If the Devil plans to attack tonight, he’ll do it soon.”

  Fifty

  La Miserias sits about a mile north from Fernando Sanchez Morales’s house. It’s just past three o’clock in the morning when we pass the town on the main road. I glance at the town as we pass, see that it’s dark and quiet, and issue a quiet sigh of relief.

  Nova doesn’t bother glancing at the town. He has no connection to it. He leans heavily on the accelerator, the car’s small engine doing everything it can to keep up.

  After all this driving, after all this time, we�
��re almost to our destination, but maybe it won’t matter. Maybe the Devil will have struck by now, or maybe the Devil won’t strike at all. The priest said Alejandro was wounded, that he may not have much time left, and so maybe he’s already been taken out of the game, bled out in some room where his body won’t be found for days.

  Headlights splash us, bringing me up out of my thoughts.

  By the look of it, three vehicles are coming our way. It’s not an uncommon thing—we’ve passed a lot of traffic on our way here—but it’s the way they’re tightly grouped together that raises a red flag. I keep an eye on the three approaching vehicles until they’re close enough to make out.

  At the front of the pack is an SUV, followed up by two pickup trucks.

  The backs of the pickup trucks are full of men with guns.

  Because of both of our speeds, I see all of it in a flash, but it’s enough to send a tinge of dread through my body.

  I twist in my seat and watch out the rear window at the receding taillights. Just as they approach La Miserias, each of the taillights starts to glow an angry red.

  “Turn around.”

  “What?”

  “Turn around! Those were narcos, Nova. They’re going to attack the town again.”

  Without any further prompting, Nova slams on the brakes and twists the wheel, pulling up on the emergency brake as he maneuvers a quick one-eighty.

  I pull out the Glock. It’s fully loaded, but I check the magazine anyway. Fifteen bullets.

  Nova says, “We got any extra firepower?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about extra ammo?”

  “Nope.”

  “Goddamn it, Holly.”

  “What do you want to me to say, Nova? I wanted to make sure the town had as many weapons as possible in case this happened.”

  We’re almost to the town now, the car doing nearly seventy miles per hour.

  “Kill the headlights when you pull in. Maybe we can mow some of them down with the car, take their weapons. They should be carrying Kalashnikovs. That enough firepower for you?”