Standoff

Nine

Okay, so it wasn’t purely about embarrassing Chalmers, though how was I to know the guy favored pink undershorts with red rockets on them? The main reason for the parting request was that the officers’ belts bristled with various items including cans of pepper spray and Tasers. I wanted those things beyond easy reach, and around their ankles seemed easiest.

I jogged back to the cruiser as the three of them cuffed together struggled to work collaboratively to dress themselves. Away to the north, the local road tracking the fence, Route 20, was clear for the moment, but a Border Patrol vehicle would be along presently to help them out. Maybe that’s why they seemed in such a hurry to get their clothes back on. A mile and a half beyond 20, traffic streamed steadily along a major road, headlights beginning to penetrate the twilight.

“That I-10 up there?” I asked Roy.

“Yeah.”

“It’s close.”

“The closest it comes to the border for hundreds of miles.”

“Opposite the break in the fence. That’s convenient.”

“For who?” he asked.

“Figure it out, Roy.”

I opened the trunk. The shotgun, a Remington 870 pump, was where the corporal said it was, along with the AR-15, the semi-auto version of the M4 carbine. I took the bolt from the rifle and threw it into an irrigation channel, and put the rifle back in its rack. The Remington I used to blast a hole in the radio before jacking out the shells and grinding them into the dirt with my heel. Then I removed the mags from the deputies’ Glocks and Colt. 45 in the floorboards, scattered them a distance away, ejected the chambered rounds and gave them the same treatment before tossing the weapons back where I found them. The bullets from the Smith & Wesson followed. I considered taking a knife, or maybe a blackjack, but decided against it. I did, however, souvenir a bottle of water. Bridges now well and truly burned, I jogged down to the riverbed.

“We’ll get you, Cooper!” the corporal called after me.

I was thinking he could get me a cold beer because, even though the overhead griller had dropped below the horizon and the temperature would eventually drop, the air was still warm and the sweat was streaming down my face.

As I walked, dried-out cotton stalks crunched underfoot and the kicked-up dust smelled of manure and dirt. The farmhouse beckoned maybe a klick to the south, its solitary light a magnet. I wasn’t sure what I’d find there, though hopefully it wouldn’t be armed and looking for me. Picking my way across the open ground, the comments Chalmers had made about my killer personality began to echo in my head. Was Chalmers right about that? Was I just a killer, no better than many of the people I killed? Was I no different to this Perez character, for example? Was the fact that Uncle Sam paid my salary the only difference between him and me? The woman I loved, Anna Masters, was also dead because of me, as were a couple of other women I’d met recently. The truth, if I were to be honest about it: I was bad news, plain and simple.

I halted in the middle of the field, taking a moment to put a stop to the self-analysis and assess the situation. All was quiet, except for my own doubts. What the hell was I doing, aside from heading toward more death and destruction? Not much, only I couldn’t go back. The shootout at Horizon had taken that option off the table. I could only go forward. Toward the farmhouse.

Hazy mental images of the people I’d killed were replaced by ones of the ghosts who needed me to speak for them. There was Gail Sorwick, flayed post mortem, her killer’s semen in her mouth. There were her husband, her two kids and the other twenty-four innocent people at Horizon Airport murdered to cover an incoming load of cocaine. And yeah, even Sponson. The guy had deserved a prison cell. He hadn’t deserved to be killed in cold blood. Someone had to have the last word on their account; balance the books for them. Like it or not, that someone would be me, Vin Cooper — unmarried, childless, motherless and fatherless. No ties and no tears. Maybe it wasn’t much in the way of balance, but it was something, wasn’t it? The internal debate was unconvincing, especially as the side looking to justify my presence in Mexico knew that I really didn’t have a choice.

I got moving again and took to some night shadows when I came to within a dozen yards of the farmhouse. Its windows were open, but the light had mostly been blocked by black plastic taped over the openings. Dim yellow light leaked from a crack here and there. Music and the low hubbub of people murmuring escaped along with it, carried on the smells of tobacco and pot smoke. I circled around the building. Up close, it was less house and more combined stable, storehouse and garage. The doors were all closed. A beat-up delivery van, an old Toyota Land Cruiser and a newish black Hummer H3 were parked out front. As I was considering whether to break cover and attempt to steal one of them, some double doors were flung open and a big group of men ambled out to the vehicles. A quick headcount set the number at twelve. One of the men moved like the jefe or head guy. He was tall and sinewy the way addicts get when they’re more interested in a fix than food. He wore a cowboy hat over the greasy ponytail down his back and held a pump-action shotgun in the crook of his arm. His round buddy, who was maybe eating the boss’ helpings as well as his own, wore a dirty sweat-stained trucker’s cap and carried a large-caliber black revolver in a holster slung low on his thigh. A long knife held in a scabbard kept his other hip company. The eleven men with him appeared unarmed, though it was impossible to be certain about that in the low light. They were, however, all carrying backpacks and the way they carried those packs told me they weren’t light. Couriers.

Tubby with the revolver opened the side door in the van and the men with the backpacks piled in, the vehicle sagging low on its axles with the extra weight. When they were all squeezed in, the revolver guy slammed the door shut. He then ran around to the driver’s seat, climbed behind the wheel and fired up the vehicle, which spluttered into life like someone had their hands around its neck, choking it. The jefe waved his pal goodbye and went back into the shed, the van chugging off and coughing smoke, all lights doused.

I kept an eye on the vehicle till the night threw an invisibility cloak over it. The couriers were heading for the border. Once across Route 20, assuming they managed to slip between the clockwork-like border patrols, it was a short walk to the I-10 where, no doubt, there’d be a rendezvous and the drugs handed over. There was nothing I could do about it. Maybe that friend of Roy’s “Pappy” would get lucky. Strangely, I felt a pang of concern for the couriers, maybe because they seemed a different animal to the hombres with the guns — poorer, shorter, more compliant. They moved like men who had no choice. Maybe we had something in common.

The music playing inside the barn was part folk, part rock and all Mexican. Someone turned up the volume, which suited me fine. I left the darker shadows for the lighter ones around the vehicles and tried the door to the Toyota. Unlocked. I pulled it open and a wave of old beer, sweat and cigarettes rolled out. The interior light flickered on. The ashtray was stuffed with a mound of butts, and in the floorboards Oreo wrappers, empty potato chip bags and Corona bottles. The Sinaloa Cartel had to be pretty confident that its territory here was nice and secured because the keys were in the ignition. I backed out and went over to the driver’s door on the Hummer. It too was unlocked, but no keys in the ignition. Leaning in, I felt around under the dash for the hood release, pulled it and heard a clunk. Lifting the hood, a handy light came on. Sparkplug leads beckoned so I grabbed a handful, wrenched them out like weeds and quietly re-latched the hood.

No one came out of the barn to see who was stealing the Toyota when I fired it up. Maybe they were just sitting around in there sucking on Coronas, listening to tunes, pulling bongs and gorging on Double Stuf Oreos and Lays barbecue chips. My foot found the gas pedal, and I crept outta there, keeping the speed to around ten miles per hour till the tires found themselves on something more than a driveway.

The main road I eventually located was dark with only occasional lights, which made me wonder if it was, in fact, a main road. But then a federal Highway number 2 sign flashed by, along with a sign that said fifty kilometers to Juárez. So now I had a car to go with the destination: a bar called the Cool Room down in Panama City, Panama. Exactly how far did I think I’d get in a stolen cartel car? I opened the center console and found a box of twelve-gauge double-aught shotgun shells, the dregs of a packet of nuts, a greasy US ten dollar bill and a screwdriver. I kept the screwdriver and shoved everything else back in the console.

A few miles farther along, the highway bisected a rat hole called Práxedis G. Guerrero. Compact single-story bars, convenience stores and repair shops crowded the roadside, almost all of which were darkened and/or abandoned. I turned into a side street and kept driving till I found what I was looking for, parked and grabbed the screwdriver. A listless dog appeared from nowhere to watch me pull the tags off an old Chevy, but didn’t hang around to see me exchange them with the Land Cruiser’s. I figured the swap might inject the Toyota with an extra twelve hours of life before either a cop or a cartel road-block stopped me to ask uncomfortable questions.

The drive to Juárez was uneventful and gave me time to go back to thinking about the circumstances that had conspired to maneuver me into this mission. In particular, I thought about Commander Matt Matheson and his nephew, Kirk, the deputy who murdered his work chums at the Horizon Airport truck yard. Were the two men cut from the same cloth? And what about Bradley Chalmers? I didn’t like the guy, and I sure as hell didn’t trust him. What game was he playing at? What was his angle? There was no doubt in my mind that the weasel would have one. I smiled at the way I left him, pants around his shoes, both cops looking at his ridiculous shorts, the rage on his face amplified by the realization that if he said anything, he’d blow my cover. Now there was a memory to cherish.

Juárez began with a long stretch of cheap diners, poles and overhead wires. There wasn’t much light to see by, and I figured there probably wasn’t much to see anyway, so instead I drove around hunting for a place to hide out for the rest of the night.

I woke just on sunrise, laid out on the Toyota’s bucket seat with my knees pointed at the roof lining like an astronaut on the launch pad. I’d been dreaming that I was in El Paso with an earthquake shaking the road. My eyes opened at pretty much the same time as the Land Cruiser jolted an inch or so vertically skywards. My fingers reacted, digging into the seat upholstery. Maybe the earthquake was no dream. But then, just outside, I heard someone dredging up phlegm from around their toenails, which altered my suspicions somewhat.

Sitting up, I saw three kids in the process of jacking up the back of the car in order to pilfer the wheels. I cracked open the door, which initially gave them a fright. But then the Artful Dodger, their leader — a kid with oversized jeans, white Nikes the size of loaves of bread on his feet and a purple tank top with the number 93 on it — began shouting at me and spitting on the car, creating a diversion so that the other two could recover their hardware, the jack. I opened the door wider and they all immediately took off, running across a vast expanse of gray concrete servicing a rundown mall, hurling the Spanish equivalent of four-letter words behind them as they ran.

I stifled a yawn and closed the door.

The parking lot had been a broad black void of darkness when I arrived during the night. And it wasn’t that much more inspiring now that the soon-to-rise sun was throwing some light around the place. The lot was an empty wasteland around the size of four football fields. Several other abandoned vehicles dotted the area like turds dropped by mechanical giants. Directly in front of my parking spot was a Mickey D’s, a Sears towering behind it. As I watched, feeling sorry for my aching back, two vehicles pulled in off the main road and slotted themselves between the faded parking lines closest to the restaurant’s entrance. The drivers, a short square man and a woman of similar proportions, both wearing McDonald’s uniforms, got out of their cars and shuffled toward the Golden Ass sign lit up out front. The man squashed his face up against the glass to see who was inside, but he needn’t have bothered as he was the first to arrive. He unlocked the door and held it open for the woman behind him.

I was hungry, but I figured it would probably take them half an hour or so to warm up the machines, or whatever they did before opening to the public. But then a new Ford Taurus turned up, a guy in a gray business suit got out and went inside, and my stomach growled. “What are you waiting for?” I told myself.

The air inside the restaurant was cool and smelled of sugar and cleaning solvents. The businessman had already placed his order and was walking back to a table. I approached the short square guy behind the counter. A badge on his shirt said Gerente — manager.

“Buenos días,” he said, raising his eyebrow at me, which I understood to mean “what can I get you?”

I replied with a buenos días of my own and ordered a huevo y salchicha burrito by pointing at the overhead picture with egg and sausage in it, and a café negro.

He said, “Si.”

I said, “Gracias.” Easy. Who needs a phrasebook? I paid and loitered, waiting for the order to be filled. But before heading off to see to it, Señor Gerente aimed a remote at a TV monitor installed for the restaurant’s customers and it came to life with an ad for shampoo. It began with a woman flicking her hair around. Then she smiled seductively at the male mannequin now inside her personal space. There appeared to be more on her mind than split ends and dandruff, but her male companion looked about as feminine as she did so good luck with that, I thought.

I was distracted from this doomed mating ritual by the arrival on my tray of a burrito and coffee. I hustled the tray back to a table and sat, the guy in the suit seated roughly opposite.

On the TV behind me the ads ended and the news began. I took a large bite out of the burrito and, while I chewed, watched absently as the businessman produced a newspaper from his briefcase. He checked the front page first, which gave me a look at Sports on the back. The main story featured a guy by the name of El Bruto, a lucha libra wrestler in a black latex mask with long pointed silver teeth drawn where his mouth would be and angry silver brows over silver-outlined eyes. He looked fierce and pissed about something. I wondered what the face was doing beneath the mask, other than sweating. In the photo, El Bruto was dressed in a business suit, suggesting that he never took his disguise off. Did he take a shower in it? I took another bite of the burrito and pondered my next move, a drive to the airport and a flight south to Panama.

I lifted my eyes from the burrito and found myself staring at a face I recognized staring right back at me on the front cover of the El Diario newspaper, the businessman having turned the paper round to check out the exploits of the Brut. It took around a second before I realized that the staring face was mine. Maybe the delay was unfamiliar context. Maybe it was the fact that I was smiling, not something I do all that much — smile for the birdie. But this was the photo snapped a number of years ago on the occasion I made captain, back in the day when I believed taking on more responsibility was worth faking a smile for. Apparently, just as Arlen and Chalmers had planned, the news about what I’d supposedly done at Horizon Airport was out.

I turned to check on whether the guy at the counter could see the newspaper and what he intended to do about it if he observed that the customer he’d just sold a sausage and egg burrito to was a wanted felon, but he’d disappeared back into the kitchen. I did see, though, having turned around, that my face was now also up on the TV. Jesus, I was surrounded by me. A photo of Deputy Kirk Matheson replaced my picture. Footage of El Paso Police Department cruisers with their lights flashing outside Thompson Hospital came next, overlaid by a photo of a Sheriff’s deputy whose face I didn’t recognize, followed by a portrait of Arlen. Much of this was a new development, as far as I could tell. Something had happened at the hospital, and not something good. The volume was low and it was difficult to pick words out of the report, delivered in rapid-fire Spanish, accompanying the photos and the footage. I heard policía, Aeropuerto, matanza or massacre and que mata or killing. But it was a single word spoken over the picture of Arlen and the deputy that made the burrito, sausage and egg jag in my throat. The word was muerto, Spanish for “dead”.

What the hell had happened? The conclusion I could draw from what I’d just seen and heard was that Arlen had been killed at the hospital. Was that right? I stood to go to the counter and ask if the volume could be goosed when movement out in the parking lot distracted me. A black Mercedes sedan with big chrome spinners accompanied by a Silverado crew cab had stopped out front and a bunch of unsavory types were piling out of the pickup. They were having a pow-wow with the kids who’d tried to boost the Land Cruiser’s wheels from under me. Maybe those kids were halcones, intelligence gatherers paid by the cartels that Gomez had warned me about. If so, I was in trouble. And then I realized that the kid’s ringleader, the Artful Dodger in his purple tank top, was pointing at me. Several of the men who were gathered around him immediately skipped and jogged to the restaurant’s front door, hooting with delight and not ’cause Mickey Dees was making hotcakes. I was now well and truly awake. Scoping the joint quickly, I hoped to spot another exit. There had to be a door at the back of the kitchen and maybe windows in the johns. But before I could make a move, several low-lifes had burst through the front door, cutting off any attempt at escape. One held a mace, not the chemical in a can type, but the type they used to wield back in the days when men sat on horses dressed in metal armor: a length of heavy metal pipe with a perpendicular spike through the end of it. His pals carried a more modern assortment of weapons: semi and automatic firearms and so forth. I didn’t like the way this was shaping up. One of the men, a short wiry type in an Abercrombie & Fitch tee and loose jeans with fuzz on his top lip walked up to me and stuck a submachine gun in my nose, but I couldn’t take my eye off Sir Galahad with the mace. He was looking at me and then back at the businessman like he was saying eenie meenie minie moe to himself, making up his mind one way or the other.

“Go the other, Bub,” I thought.