Damage Control

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Veronica Costanza left the way she had come, through the panel in the bathroom, and from there to wherever the tunnel led. A sewer. How appropriate. If Maria had a brain in her head, she’d have used the escape route herself by now. This waiting was killing her. It had been hours, and the phone Veronica had left behind hadn’t rung.

Was it possible that this was an elaborate setup? Had Maria’s safety been traded by the FBI for some larger prize? She’d heard of such things happening before. The Americans were famous for turning their backs on one friend in favor of a newer, more important friend. Just ask the citizens of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan about that. Americans’ priorities changed with the wind. Perhaps Maria’s usefulness had been expended, and now they needed to give her over to Felix to gain some larger prize.

Maria told herself that these were foolish thoughts-the paranoia of the moment-yet they continued to nag at her. Was it so different from what Veronica promised would be her fate if she failed to wait for the Americans whose lives were so important? Yet wait she did, even as soldiers surrounded her house.

She never looked out a window-in fact, she made a point of staying away from the windows lest she present too enticing a target, bullet-proof glass notwithstanding-but she knew they were out there, and she knew that they were planning to hurt her.

But she would not go quietly. Or peaceably. Her six-shot revolver would see to that. Weighing over a kilogram once it was loaded, her Taurus.44 Magnum was designed to kill attacking bears. She imagined it would stop Felix and his men. It would stop five of them, anyway. The sixth bullet would be for herself.

She knew the horrors that awaited her if Felix ever got his hands on her. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

So she continued to wait in the dark, both literally and figuratively. She’d turned off the lights so as not to throw shadows across the windows, and at the same time to be able to better see shadows that were thrown from outside. She sat in a fat padded chair in the only windowless corner in her house. The front door stood to her left, the kitchen and its back door to her right. Through the kitchen and into the bedroom lay the route to her survival-perhaps the route to the soldiers’ invasion.

And she waited. If the soldiers charged, it would end in seconds. If she fled, the end would be delayed-perhaps for moments, perhaps forever-but at least the end would come on her terms. That was worth something, wasn’t it?

You will do this, Maria. You must do this. These people are more important to my boss than you are.

As Veronica’s word replayed through Maria’s mind, she remembered the glare of the agent’s eyes. The coldness of them. All of those meetings they’d had exchanging information, all those friendly chats, she realized now had never been about friendship. They’d never been about good triumphing over evil. In the FBI agent’s mind, it had only been about a job. It had been about getting a conviction against Felix Hernandez. Maria was important only so long as she was useful.

And she didn’t doubt for a moment that Veronica Costanza and her FBI would hunt her down and see that she was killed if she did not do exactly as she had been told.

And so Maria waited for the American fugitives who were more important than she.

“You were a fool to be a patriot,” she said aloud. If there were listening devices, so be it. Let there be a record of her final thoughts.

Saying those words aloud, though, made her cringe. This had never been about patriotism. It had never been about justice or about returning her beloved Mexico to the way it used to be. From the very first days, it had been about revenge.

Maria closed her eyes and forced herself to recall the images that she had spent so many years pushing away. She made herself look once again at her big brother Jaime, and the gaping wound in his throat, cut all the way back to the bones in his neck. She remembered the dullness of his once-bright brown eyes, lifeless under their drooping, half-open lids. She remembered the brightness of his blood-soaked T-shirt. He was only sixteen when Felix’s men murdered him and left the body on the hood of her father’s car, a piece of paper stuffed into his mouth, scrawled with the word, ladrón-thief. Skinny and awkward, he’d been seeking respect when he began running money for the drug lords. One day, he took enough pesos for himself to buy a sandwich and a Coke.

For that, they took his life.

For weeks afterward, men stalked Maria on her way to and from school. They wanted her to know that they were watching, and that she would live or die at their whim. They wanted her to know that they were above the law-better still, that they were the law-and that murder was but one of the enforcement tools at their disposal. That was twelve years ago. She was only ten years old, but like everyone else in her neighborhood, both her virginity and her life were as fragile as the desires of the men who paid allegiance to Felix Hernandez.

After Jaime’s murder, Maria’s parents had moved her away. Her father was an engineer by training and education, but to be an engineer one had to live in the city, and where there were cities there were drugs. So they moved to the country, where her father dedicated himself to farming, yet nothing grew at his hand. When her mother died of a heart attack two years later, the pressure and the stress became too much for Papa. Maria was only sixteen when he hanged himself in the barn. His note apologized for his weakness. Apologized for leaving her alone in the world.

Terrified of a life on the street, Maria turned to the convent, but her anger burned too deeply. Even as she prepared to take her vows to God, she found herself vowing to seek revenge on Felix Hernandez, who had killed not only her brother, but by extension her mother and father, as well. He’d murdered her entire family, and she was going to hurt him.

Maria had heard her entire life how beautiful she was, and sometimes she could even see the beauty herself in the mirror. With no money and no education, and with a future as a nun shut down by her heart, she turned her beauty into a weapon.

Everyone knew that Felix Hernandez liked his mistresses young and beautiful. Though well into his forties himself, he was never seen in the company of a woman older than twenty-five, and occasionally his tastes ran to those in their early teens.

Getting close to him had been surprisingly simple. With short enough skirts and enough cleavage showing, it was just a matter of being seen.

Felix liked coffee, and he liked to take it in the same café every morning. To launch their relationship, Maria made sure to be there at the same time he was. She made eye contact and looked away, and that was all it took. Felix sent a henchman to her table.

“That man over there is Felix Hernandez,” the henchman said. “He would like you to join him at his table.”

Maria made a show of looking over there and then said with as much disinterest as she could muster, “I know who he is. Tell him that only a coward sends a surrogate to ask such a thing. If he wants me to join him, he may ask me himself.”

The henchman looked horrified.

“Are you afraid to repeat my words?” Maria pressed. “If so, send Mr. Hernandez over, and I will be happy to tell him myself.” It was risky to say such a thing, but her mother had told her that to be of value, something-some one-must be difficult to obtain. Maria wasn’t interested in a one-night stand. She wasn’t interested in being one of many mistresses. Her plan from the beginning was to win her way into Felix’s inner circle where she could do as much damage as she possibly could. In order for the plan to work, he needed to feel that it was his idea.

The henchman didn’t appreciate the affront to his masculinity. “I will tell him,” he said. “It is your life to lose.” He returned to Felix’s table, and Maria forced herself to return her eyes to the newspaper from which she hadn’t read a word.

She heard laughter from Felix’s table, and then about a minute later, a shadow fell across her paper. Its owner said, “Excuse me.”

Maria looked up to see Felix Hernandez looking down at her, his arms folded across his chest. “May I sit down?” he asked.

Maria folded her paper to make room and gestured to the chair opposite hers. “Please,” she said.

Felix pulled the chair out and sat, his forearms resting on the table. He leaned in close. “My friend tells me that you know who I am,” he said, “yet you are unimpressed.”

“If that is what he told you, then your friend is a coward.” She had never been in such close proximity to a murderer before. She’d expected the eyes of a beast, of a predator, but instead saw amused softness.

Felix smiled. “So, coward is your word of the day, is it? First you use it in reference to me, and now you use it in reference to my friend.”

Maria gave a coy smile. “So he told you,” she said. “And you are here. You have proven me wrong twice.”

He laughed and sat back in his chair. He crossed his legs and folded his arms again. Maria would later come to recognize this as his most thoughtful pose. “You are a beautiful woman,” he said. “And though I might not impress you, I assure you that you impress me. What is your name?”

“Maria Elizondo,” she said. The name was pure fiction, adopted in case Felix actually remembered any of the names of the children he’d murdered.

“A beautiful name,” he said. Then he stood. He bowed slightly from the waist and said, “Maria Elizondo, would you please do me the distinct honor of joining me at my table for coffee?” There was no hint of threat in his tone. In fact, he seemed genuinely charmed.

Maria stood and-

She jumped as the phone in her hand rang. Snapped back to the reality of the present, she wondered if she’d perhaps fallen asleep. It rang again. The incoming number was blocked from her caller ID. Maria slid the phone open and brought it to her ear. “Hola.”

A woman’s angst-filled voice said, “Oh, dear God, please tell me that you speak English.”

“Who is this?” Maria asked in English.

“Are you Maria Elizondo?”

“Who are you?”

“Let’s please not play this game,” the voice said. “I need you to go first.”

Maria hesitated, assessing the degree of threat this call might pose. Finally, she said, “Yes, this is Maria Elizondo.”

“Good. You can call me Mother Hen.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, I know it’s a stupid name, but it is what it is. I got this number from your FBI contact.”

“And that is supposed to make me trust you?” Maria scoffed.

“Actually, I don’t care. All I know is that your time in Mexico is about to come to an end, and that you’re going to escort my boss and a couple of others out of there.” She paused as if awaiting a response, but when Maria didn’t offer one, Mother Hen went on, “There’s been a complication.”

Maria’s heart fell. This was when they would tell her that she was on her own.

“You’re surrounded by a lot of soldiers, and that’s going to make it very difficult to get you out of there.”

“How many people are with your friend?” Maria asked.

“They’re three in all, but one of them is just a boy.”

“Two people, then?” Maria pressed her hand to her forehead. “So, we are finished,” she said.

“Heavens no, you’re not finished,” Mother Hen said.

“But with only two-”

“They’re a very special two,” Mother Hen said. “We have a plan. But for it to work, you have to listen very carefully.”

Normally, it was Boxers’ job to set explosives. In fact, blowing stuff up ranked among his favorite things to do. Tonight, though, the task fell to Jonathan because he was smaller and he could move faster and more quietly. In fact, he’d been able to run the first two blocks out in the open, albeit in the shadows, but now that he was so close to his prey, he had to slow down and be extra careful.

At an intersection three blocks west of the target house, he stopped completely, dropped to a knee, and flipped down his night vision goggles. Given the high levels of ambient light from the streetlamps, the NVGs were only moderately useful, but he’d take whatever advantage he could get. The nearest Mexican soldier should be only twenty or twenty-five yards away now. Jonathan pressed against the side of a pickup truck, and took time to survey his surroundings. For a long time-probably a minute-he saw no sign of the soldier he expected, and that concerned him. People who weren’t where they were supposed to be were by definition someplace where he wasn’t expecting them. He hated surprises.

Then he saw the guy. He was crouched behind another vehicle, and from the way he stretched, Jonathan figured that his leg had cramped up on him. Relax, kid, Jonathan thought. You’ll be moving soon.

Having left his ruck back with Boxers and Tristan, it was easy for Jonathan to lie on the ground next to the truck and prepare his charges. He’d stuffed his pockets with six GPCs-general purpose charges-which were wads of C-4 explosives with tails of detonating cord. Each packed a hell of a wallop, and in all the years he’d been using them, he’d never once experienced a failure. He pulled two from the thigh pocket of his trousers and pressed them into the wheel well of the pickup. He’d previously attached the electronic detonator and set the timer for seven minutes, a random number that he thought was sure to give him enough time to get back to the others before the show started.

He gave the explosives a light tug to make sure that they would hold, and pressed the button to start the countdown.

It wasn’t until he started to rise that he heard the footsteps approaching.

Shit.

“Hey, you!” someone called in Spanish. Jonathan knew without looking that it had to be the soldier. “What are you doing?”

Jonathan didn’t move. On the ground, on his side, his back facing the approaching soldier, Jonathan was a scary curiosity-maybe an enemy, maybe a passed-out drunk. The soldier wouldn’t shoot until he was sure one way or the other. That bought time. Now Jonathan had to figure out what to do with it.

Still on his side, he unclipped his rifle from its sling so that he’d have more mobility when he stood, and then he reached across with his right hand, unsnapped the strap that secured his KA-BAR knife to the scabbard on his left shoulder, and drew it. Gunshots at this moment would ruin everything.

“You there,” the soldier said. “Stand up.”

Jonathan didn’t move. The voice still sounded too far away. Much closer, though, and Jonathan’s clothing would give him away. Footsteps approached. Then they scraped to a halt and Jonathan heard the clatter of the guy’s weapon as he shouldered it.

It was time.

Jonathan spun from his side to his back, and as he did, he slashed the gleaming edge of his knife across the tendons behind the soldier’s knee. He dropped before his mind could register the pain, and as he fell, Jonathan sat up, pushed the soldier’s rifle to the side and slashed the knife across his wrist, severing the tendons that controlled his fingers. Without fingers, you can’t pull a trigger.

Jonathan’s final slash opened a gaping smile in the soldier’s throat. Amid a fountain of blood, the soldier toppled to his side, dead.

“Sorry, kid,” Jonathan said softly. Like soldiers everywhere, the youngest always died first. Inexperience bred hesitation-the deadliest of all weaknesses on a battlefield. In close-quarters battle, victory was won in the blink of time when questions formed in the other guy’s mind. In a fight with Jonathan, the odds were never evenly stacked. Even after so many years, though, he never got used to the killing.

To become inured to that kind of violence would be to surrender your humanity.

The clock ticked. In six and a half minutes there was going to be a crater where he was standing, and between now and then he had two more bombs to set.

Big Guy was a scary, scary man. He reminded Tristan of one of the predatory animals you see on cable television. As Tristan sat on the ground, his knees up and his back against the house where Scorpion had checked his email, he could see the intensity of the Big Guy’s glare even in the dark. He seemed perfectly at rest balanced on one knee. His rifle wasn’t at his shoulder, but it might as well have been. He held it as if it weighed nothing, his hands loose on the grip and the barrel.

There was a stillness about the Big Guy that seemed unnatural, or maybe supernatural. Only his head and eyes moved, and they moved constantly. Every time Tristan stirred, those eyes darted to him, and his spine melted. The man oozed lethality the way others oozed sweat on a hot day.

If Tristan understood the plan he’d overheard, Scorpion was planting bombs around the neighborhood to distract the people who were trying to kill them. There’d be a total of three explosions, each of them drawing the bad guys-that’s what Scorpion actually called them, bad guys-in different and wrong directions.

In the confusion, they would steal one of those army trucks-a Sandcat-to pick up somebody named Maria, and then yada, yada, yada, they’d be back safe in the United States.

Less clear to him was that middle part, the yada, yada, yada. They must have worked that part out when he wasn’t listening. It had something to do with tunnels. Tristan didn’t know how to break it to them, but he had a real problem with claustrophobia. He didn’t do tight places at all. It’d been all he could do to keep from going bat-shit crazy when he was shackled to Allison in the bus.

Jesus, how long ago was that? Was it only yesterday? Was that even possible?

And how long had it been since he’d slept? Not the occasional dozing he’d been able to pull off at various times, but real sleep? Surely longer than a week.

Just thinking about sleep made his eyelids heavy. He felt exhausted at a level that he’d never experienced. It was as if energy were held into your body by a spigot, and someone had twisted his all the way open. So tired that it hurt. As he closed his eyes, he wondered if he’d get in trouble for falling asleep at his post.

As he listened to the sounds of the night and the rhythm of his own breathing, Tristan’s mind took him back home. He saw Mom praying in the dark and Ziggy trying his best just to be noticed. He wondered what she’d said when they told her he’d been kidnapped. When you already prayed ten hours a day, was it possible to find room for more?

After they’d grown so far apart, would this nightmare bring them closer together? Even a little bit?

Even as the question formed in his mind, he knew that the answer would be no. Like everything else, this would be written off as God’s will, another check mark on His shit list that included Dad’s cancer and Tristan’s problems in physics class. If you pray hard enough, you never have to confront anything difficult. You never worry about living or dying, winning or losing. All you have to do is pray for strength.

A knot formed in his stomach as he imagined his homecoming. He’d have to explain to everyone how he’d lived while the others all died. Amid all those parents mourning the loss of their children, there would be no room for him to celebrate the fact that he’d survived. Everything he’d experienced these past twenty-four hours, from the shoot-outs to the plane crash to whatever lay ahead, would have to go unspoken. No one would ever be able to understand the intensity of the life that he’d lived since Scorpion and the Big Guy had pulled him from the bus.

He’d never be able to confess that in the midst of all the terror and the bloodshed, there was real excitement. For this slice of time-and only for this slice of time, unique to his years on the planet-nothing had been predictable. Mere seconds separated boredom from mortal danger. No one would ever understand how even though the odds of survival were slim-well, they were what they were-he never thought about dying. He was too busy living.

Too busy killing.

When this chapter in his life closed, what could possibly replace it? Surely there had to be something.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t in Scottsdale, and it for sure wasn’t in his house. If what Scorpion suspected proved to be correct, the Crystal Palace would collapse, and as it did, it would take Mom with it. That place was her life. Without it, Tristan didn’t think she’d have anywhere else to turn.

And when she turned to him, he wouldn’t be there. He refused to walk that route. She was his past; something else entirely was his future. He didn’t know yet what that was-how can anyone know the future?-but he knew it wasn’t listening to a bitter old woman complain about the grave-like existence she’d carved for herself.

When she turned to Ziggy, though, Tristan would try to help. Again, he didn’t know how, but the kid deserved better than that, even if he didn’t know it.

A cold sense of hopelessness washed over Tristan as he thought these things, and he snapped his eyes open to return to the fears of the present. Those were the important ones to face, anyway.

And if they screwed things up, the future wouldn’t matter, would it?