Ballistic

FOURTEEN

At eleven o’clock in the morning Court stood in a slow-moving line to buy a bus ticket at the Central Camionera de Puerto Vallarta, the city’s main bus terminal. His green canvas bag lay on the floor in front of him. Every minute or two he’d kick it forwards and take a step along with it.

He’d awoken early, folded his bedding, descended the stairs silently, stepped over guests sleeping on the floor, and then left alone through the kitchen door. He’d taken the first bus of the morning from San Blas, and he’d stared out the window at the Pacific Ocean for much of the three-hour journey. Thinking of Eddie. Eddie’s family. Eddie’s sister. Court tried to shake the thoughts from his head a number of times but found it hard. Long-dormant emotions tugged at him. Longing. Loneliness. Lust.

He so needed to get the fuck out of here.

To that end, he had a plan. He’d buy a ticket to Guadalajara, and once there, after a day or two, he’d catch a bus to Mexico City. From there he would make his way to Tampico. He imagined it taking him a week or more to cross the country at the pace he planned on traveling.

The station was busy, but the pace of the line picked up a bit. He was only four from the counter when a security scan of the room caused his shoulders to pull back and alarm bells to go off in his head.

Entering the station with the charging, purposeful gait of a military officer was Captain Chuck Cullen.

Cullen scanned the room himself; Court had no doubt the old man was looking for him, trying to pick him out of the mass of travelers. Gentry turned away out of force of habit; he knew he could duck the man and remain invisible until he left.

But there was something about Cullen’s walk, his intense, seeking expression.

Court knew something was wrong.

The Gray Man came out of the shadows, hefted his backpack, stepped out of the line, and walked towards the only other American in the crowded hall.

“What’s up?” he asked, warily.

Cullen did not hide his surprise. He’d been hopelessly searching for a man who had just somehow materialized in front of him. He recovered. “Elena said you didn’t wait around to say good-bye.”

Court shrugged. “Tell her I said good-bye.”

Cullen glared at Gentry for a while. He clearly wanted to say something, but twice stopped himself from speaking. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Young man. I don’t quite have a handle on who or what you are, but I have the impression that you may be helpful right now. And, whoever the hell you are, I do believe you want to do right by Eddie’s family.”

Court cocked his head slightly but nodded. Said slowly, “Absolutely.”

The captain nodded. Continued. “Elena and most of her family are going to the rally downtown.”

Court wasn’t surprised. “Yeah, that’s what she said last night.”

“I live downtown. This morning I woke to the sound of a car with a PA system driving up my street; the announcer was telling everyone to get out to the memorial this morning and protest the government’s assassins. They’ve been talking about it all morning on the radio. There’s a boatload of ill will on the local stations towards the Policía Federal’s assassination attempt, and the DJs are encouraging certain… elements to come out and make themselves heard. Supporters of de la Rocha and his Black Suits. The authorities are saying they are expecting thousands; they’ll be roping off streets. It just sounds… off. I am going to be there just in case something happens. I’d like you to come, too. I’m not as young as I used to be.”

“You really expect trouble?”

“Organized trouble? Maybe not. But at this point in time, DLR has more fans in Puerto Vallarta than Eddie Gamboa does. Depending on the crowd, the disposition of the cops holding back traffic, the extent to which the pro — de la Rocha group fires up the audience, the number of drunks and lowlifes who stagger into the protest… Christ, I could see this getting out of hand really easily.”

With only a moment’s hesitation, Court hefted his green canvas bag off the ground and slapped the older man on the shoulder. “Good call, Chuck. Let’s go.”

They drove south in Cullen’s red two-door CrossFox. Traffic was heavy, but the seventy-two-year-old American weaved through it expertly. Court recognized that he could not have driven these streets half as well as the old man.

Cullen filled Court in as they drove. “It’s Monday, so there will be a cruise ship in port. Thousands of tourists down on the Malecon, the boardwalk lining the beach. Plus locals come into downtown on Mondays. The streets would be tight, even without this protest going on. I know a place I can park east of the event, just up the hill from the action.”

“The site of this rally. What’s it like?”

“It’s called the Parque Hidalgo. Used to be a park, but the city cleared out the grass and the trees and the market, so now it’s just a flat, open cement plaza sitting on top of an underground parking lot. I guess the plaza is about fifty yards square, ’bout three blocks inland from the beach. There is a big staircase running off the plaza to the left that leads up to a street on the hill above. The Talpa Church sits up there.”

“Does the church provide overwatch on the location?”

“Overwatch? Hell, son, I never was a ground pounder, but I get what you mean. Yeah, it might. Not sure, to tell you the truth.”

“And in front of the plaza?”

“Just a busy downtown road. Three lanes, all one way, and gridlocked this time of day. Buildings on the other side. Commercial property. My dentist’s office is right in there. There’s some construction going on if I remember correctly. Everything is four stories high or so.”

“I need a phone,” Court said as a plan of action began to form in his head.

“Here, take mine.” Cullen reached towards the BlackBerry on his belt.

“No, I need my own, so I can contact you after we split up.”

“Why are we splitting up? We need to stay around Elena and the family. She’s seven months pregnant; somebody throws a beer bottle, and she won’t be able to get out of the way. Ernesto and Luz aren’t as old as me, but they aren’t as fit, either. Laura can handle herself, but Eddie’s brothers are worthless; his uncles and aunts are mountain people who’ve probably never even seen a crowd this big before. We need to protect the family.”

“We will. Look, trust me. Let’s do this my way.”

Cullen looked at Court out of the corner of his eye while he drove through thickening traffic. “Help me understand just what skills you are bringing to the table.”

Court’s game face slowly hardened. “If I were armed, I’d be bringing more skills to the table.”

The captain sighed. “We don’t want to do anything to make a bad situation worse. Somebody charging in in a blaze of glory is not going to—”

“I’m not looking for glory. If the shit doesn’t hit the fan, you won’t even know I’m there.”

“Good.”

“This rally… Do you expect the press to be there?”

“Most definitely.”

Court reached over to Cullen, pulled the USS Buchanan cap from his head. He put it on his own and pulled it down low.

Cullen looked at him as he drove.

By way of explanation, Court said, “I’m a little camera shy.”

“Do I want to know why?”

Court shook his head, looked out at the road. “You really don’t.”

Cullen turned back to the road himself; the creases in his face deepened in thought and worry.

“What have you done, son?”

“I’m just like the other good guys down here. There are enough bad guys around that I don’t want them to see my face.”

Cullen nodded, but it was obvious he was still suspicious. He reached into the backseat and pulled an identical Buchanan cap from the floorboard and put it on his silver-maned head.

They pulled into a supermarket, and Cullen rushed inside, came back a few minutes later with a cell phone and a wired earpiece in black plastic. Court had already ripped the devices out of their packaging before Cullen had pulled the CrossFox out of the parking lot.

The memorial had begun by the time they parked the car a few blocks behind the large stone Talpa Church, on a steep hill above the plaza. They followed the rumbling noise of the crowd, and canned patriotic music played on a tinny public address system as they walked down the hill. The music stopped, and a woman began speaking to the crowd. It was not Elena Gamboa’s voice, but Court thought it sounded like one of the other police wives from the dinner the previous evening. She railed against the narco traffickers, the lack of opportunity for the youth of Mexico, and the corruption in the local police force. Gentry could not understand more than half of it, but it seemed pretty rambling and disjointed, even if it was delivered passionately. He and Cullen passed some Puerto Vallarta Municipal Police manning a wooden barricade just as the speaker called out their department as being in the back pocket of the “terrorist” Daniel de la Rocha. The cops glowered down the hill towards the protest with their right hands resting on their pistol grips.

“This shit could turn ugly,” Court said as they began pushing through street vendors and stragglers at the top of the long stone staircase that ran alongside the big square.

“Yep,” Cullen said tersely; he looked over the edge of the railing down towards the podium, searching for the Gamboas.

Moving down the big staircase was an exercise in both diplomacy and aggression. Court would tap one person on the shoulder and politely ask permission to pass, and then physically adjust the next person to make way for himself and the old man. The plaza below to his left was every bit as crowded, easily two thousand people crammed into a single city block to listen to the speaker. Court worried there were some in the crowd here to encourage trouble, and likely others who were just trouble-loving spectators hoping for a little excitement.

Finally, at the bottom of the steps, Court said, “Why don’t you get close to the family? Be ready to move them away and out of the action if this all breaks bad.”

“Alright. But what about you?”

Court turned slowly, 360 degrees. Then he looked back to Cullen. “I need to stay on the perimeter. Get a feel for the action, the crowd, the streets. The vibe.”

“How is that going to accomplish anything?”

“I’m pretty good at this. You brought me here because you think I might be able to help. Let me help.”

Cullen nodded. “Call me if you see something.”

“Let’s establish coms right now and keep the line open between us.”

Cullen called Gentry, popped his earpiece in his ear, and Court put his earpiece in and answered. “Good luck,” the Gray Man said into his mike, and the men set off in different directions.

Moving west through the mass of humanity, away from the stage, Court immediately ID’d troublemakers in the crowd. There were groups of dissenters here and there; around him he heard angry comments, arguments, even some pushing and shoving. A woman mumbled that the Policía Federal shouldn’t be blowing up boats in the bay, and another woman snapped back that DLR was a son of a whore and the only pity was that he survived.

Within sixty seconds of leaving the captain’s side Gentry spotted men who clearly did not belong. Heavies, stone-faced tough guys watching the others around them instead of focusing on the speaker. He passed two of these individuals within yards of each other, picked them out as undercover operatives working for the police, the government, or maybe even one of the drug cartels.

Court saw bulges on their hips, evidence the men were wearing guns secreted into the waistbands of their blue jeans. Plainclothes police agents were common at Latin American protest rallies; it was nothing Court hadn’t seen before in Brazil or Guatemala or Peru or a half dozen other places. Often they weren’t as dangerous as they looked, but still he knew to keep an eye out for these assholes.

Court spoke into his mouthpiece. “Chuck, have you made it to Elena yet?”

“Just about. I’ll get up on the dais with the family. One more speaker after this broad and then it’s Elena’s turn. When she’s finished at the podium, I’m going to do my best to get everyone back up the stairs and away from this crowd.”

“Roger that.”

Court arrived at the three-lane street just below the Parque Hidalgo. There were a few cars and trucks parked along the curb, but no traffic flowed. Instead, PV cops had the street blocked to the north, and easily two hundred people stood in the middle of the road or on the sidewalk next to it, their eyes riveted to the stage.

The speaker finished, and she received polite applause from some and angry whistles from others. Gentry passed another tough-looking hombre who neither clapped nor paid attention to the speaker; instead he made eye contact with the bearded gringo pushing to the east before turning his eyes towards another part of the audience.

Court’s gaze settled on a building that overlooked the park. The first two stories were finished; they housed a dental office, a travel agency, a pharmacy, and a few other offices. But high above street level the third and fourth stories were construction; iron beams, rebar, cinderblock, electric wires, scaffolding, and big, dark open windows that overlooked the entire crowd and the stage. To a man like Court Gentry, it looked promising. Here was an overwatch, a place where he could get a bird’s-eye view of the event.

He began walking towards the building.

The next speaker at the podium was male, a state prosecutor. He began extolling the brief but illustrious career of Major Eduardo Gamboa, in advance of the late-officer’s wife saying a few words.

Finally free of the gridlocked crowd, Gentry headed down an alley that ran west all the way to the beach. On his left an archway opened to a hallway that ran under the partially finished building. At the arch he passed the doorway to a pet store; a dozen bird cages hung from the roof off the hall alongside the shop’s windows, forcing him to duck as he walked on. Moving slowly down the narrow hallway, he stepped around more chirping finches and budgies in their wooden cages, which jutted out into his path. Pigeons sauntered around at Gentry’s feet as he moved slowly towards a light ahead. A stairwell at the end of the dark hall.

And then, thirty feet in front of him, a shadow from the left. Court stopped in his tracks. A man crossed the hallway in the light, from a room on the left to the stairwell up on the right.

The man was dressed from head to toe in black, and his face was covered with a black ski mask.

He was a federale, or dressed like one at least, but his skulking movement and mannerisms were not those of a cop here to keep the peace.

Gentry froze, willed the man not to look up the dark hallway as he passed and just continue to the stairs.

The man did not look, he did walk on, and just before disappearing from view, Court saw a squat black submachine gun in the federale’s left hand.

Then Court heard a vehicle pull into the alleyway behind him. He looked back and saw a black armored Policía Federal SWAT van stop directly under the archway by the pet store from where he had just come, essentially blocking him in unless he could find another open exit.

Court stood alone in the hallway for nearly half a minute, not sure what to do. Ahead of him, somewhere up the stairs, an armed man who seemed to be up to no good. Behind him, who knows how many more shady cops showing up a block away from the event.

“Cullen, you read me?”

The reception was shit in the hall. Court heard an echo of the man speaking into the public address in his phone’s earpiece, but he couldn’t hear Chuck.

Damn. He began heading towards the staircase.

The second-floor door was locked, and Court didn’t think the man had gone through it, as Court would have heard the latch echo down the stairwell to the hallway. He whispered into his mike, again trying to raise Captain Cullen, but the reception in the stairwell was even worse than in the hallway.

He slipped off his tennis shoes so that he could move without footfalls echoing up the stairwell, and he began walking up the concrete stairs in his stocking feet.

On the third floor Court left the stairwell and entered the construction area of the building, looking for the lone federale with the sub gun. The unfinished floor provided open windows out to the Parque Hidalgo and the streets around. He half expected to find the masked policeman here, amidst the darkness and the building materials, but there was no one. Gentry stepped forward to check the crowd.

The plaza below was packed tight; from this vantage point he could better see the incredible congestion in the space. The speaker finished his comments and turned the lectern over to Elena Gamboa; clapping and cheering drowned out the yelling and cursing, but Court could make out the differing camps reflected in the gathering. Shoving, finger wagging, and other animated gestures expressing displeasure were sprinkled in amongst those clearly here to honor the fallen men.

Then loud car horns began honking below and to his right, drowning out the applause. First one, then two, and finally five large white SUVs pushed their way slowly through the mass of humanity. They moved in the wrong direction up the one-way street. The big trucks continued honking, and the angry waving of the SUVs’ drivers out the windows encouraged the crowd to part. Finally, the big white trucks stopped, and men began filing out. So dramatic was their entrance to the event that even Elena Gamboa paused her opening comments from the riser to see what was going on.

Court wondered if this was part of the memorial, but one look to the dais dispelled that notion. The families and other speakers standing up there looked confused by the new arrivals.

Puerto Vallarta police hung around the outskirts of the crowd, but they did not move on the vehicles or the men. They just stood about like all the other spectators.

Tentatively, Elena Gamboa began speaking again, thanking the organizers of the memorial for putting the event together and thanking the audience for coming to pay tribute to the work of her husband and his fallen comrades. But Court kept his eyes on the SUVs. A man in a goatee and a black suit and tie emerged from the second truck. Court watched him take a bullhorn from a similarly dressed man and climb atop the hood of the big vehicle. Immediately, before he even spoke, both cheers and gasps of horror emitted from the crowd.

“Damas y caballeros! Ladies and gentlemen! Your attention, por favor,” the man said, his voice tiny and hollow compared to the PA system Elena’s voice had passed through.

Court spoke into his headset.

“Hey, Chuck, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Who’s this asshole?”

There was a pause. Gentry looked across the park, picked Cullen out of the people lining the back of the stage, standing on his toes to get a look at the white trucks and the man atop the hood. Soon the older American exclaimed, “Holy hell! It’s him!”

“Him who?”

“That is Daniel de la Rocha.”