FaceOff

Silent Hunt

Wyatt Hunt made it to his gate in the International Terminal of LAX with an hour to spare before boarding would begin for his noon connecting flight to La Paz. He was traveling light, with one brand-new light-brown-on-dark-brown carry-on duffel bag into which he’d stuffed nearly two grand’s worth of new fly-fishing gear, his toilet kit, and two changes of clothes, long pants of good wicking material that with a zip converted into shorts and two long-sleeved shirts, the latter items newly purchased from REI against what was forecast to be debilitating heat — eight hours a day on the water, no shade, average temperature around 110.

It was September and his party of ten, all unknown to him, were going after dorado, roosterfish, various tuna, and the occasional marlin, sailfish, or shark. None of these fish would weigh less than ten pounds, and some might go to a hundred or more. Hunt, a lifelong fly-fisherman in streams for trout in the half-pound range, was skeptical about the ability of his new gear to handle fighting fish of this size and caliber, but he was game to try.

In any event, he was a gear freak and the new stuff — ten-weight and twelve-weight rods, reels holding over a hundred yards of sixty- and eighty-pound test backing, barbed and artistically feathered hooks the length of his fingers — was undoubtedly cool. He’d gone out with a fishing pro at San Francisco’s Baker Beach four times over the past month, trying to master the casting technique known as double-hauling, essential if you wanted to reach surface targets in salt water. He was still far from expert, but at least felt he wouldn’t completely embarrass himself.

With time to kill and slumping a bit after his five AM wake-up, he grabbed an open chair at the end of the bar, stuffed his duffel down under his feet, and ordered a large cup of coffee. When he’d finished about half of it, he turned to the guy next to him — a portly, pale, bald guy in a bright red and green Hawaiian shirt. “You mind watching my duffel a minute?” he asked. “I’ve got to hit the head.”

The older gentleman, already drinking something with an umbrella in it, looked down at Hunt’s duffel and broke an easy smile. “We are urged not to leave our baggage with strangers, are we not?”

“Constantly.” Hunt had covered his half cup with a napkin and was already on his feet, now suddenly in a bit of a hurry. He lowered his voice. “I promise it’s not a bomb. You can look if you want.”

“I’m going to trust you,” the gentleman said. “Go already.”

On the way to the men’s room, Hunt not for the first time found himself reflecting on the fact that in many ways, and despite his own demise, Osama bin Laden had basically won the first round of the War on Terror. Already that morning, Hunt not once but twice had to take off his shoes and belt, empty his pockets, and assume the position in the TSA’s X-ray machine. A victim of his early-morning fatigue in San Fran, if they hadn’t just changed the rules again, he’d also have donated to the cause the Swiss Army knife he’d forgotten in his pocket — which would have been the third time that had happened.

Even if he acknowledged the general reason for it, the whole thing pissed him off.

As if the geezer next to him was going to steal his duffel bag. He didn’t look like he could even lift the thing. As if anybody, for that matter, in the secured area for boarding, was an actual threat to take anybody else’s luggage.

Caught up in his internal rave, Hunt ran with it. Let’s see: first, your potential thief needs a valid boarding pass with photo ID, then he’s half stripped and X-rayed, and he’s going along with this runaround because of the very off chance that some random person will leave their baggage “unattended”—Hunt loved that word! — and that he would then have an opportunity to steal it. And then what? Leave the building with his loot? When had that happened? Had it ever happened? Could it ever happen? Who thought of these things? What was the average IQ of a TSA employee anyway? Or of the goddamned director of the Department of Homeland Security, for that matter?

Room temp at best, Hunt was thinking as he exited the men’s room…

… just in time to see a guy about his own age and size, in jeans, a work shirt, and a San Diego Padres baseball hat pulled down low over his eyes, strolling toward the security gates with Hunt’s pretty damn distinctive duffel bag slung under his left shoulder. Jesus Christ!

“Hey!” Hunt yelled after him. “Hey! Wait up, there!”

The guy kept walking.

Hunt broke into a trot.

The other man was at least sixty feet away from Hunt and now almost to the exit. The thief moved with an easy grace, taking long strides, neither slowing down in the least nor speeding up, but moving, moving, moving. He would be at the exit within seconds.

When he had to, Hunt the athlete could move, too, and now he turned on the speed, closing the gap between them, calling out, “Stop that guy!” to no one in particular, but drawing the attention of every traveler in the terminal. He finally caught up just as the guy was arriving in front of the exit gate.

Hunt came up behind him and with a lunge grabbed at the duffel, getting a hold on it. “Hey! Hold up! What do you think you’re doing?” Hunt pulled at the strap.

The guy held on, whirled, and threw an elbow that Hunt barely ducked away from. But in that one fluid movement, Hunt realized he was dealing with a strong, lightning-fast, and trained fighter. Hunt himself had a black belt in karate and this guy, even hampered by the heavy duffel, was coming on as at least his equal, in any case a force to be reckoned with. Now he had Hunt backing away, and like any experienced fighter he kept coming, dropping the duffel and coming around with a right chop that Hunt knocked away with his forearm. It felt like he’d stopped a tire iron.

Squaring up now, ready to press an attack of his own, Hunt got his first good look at the man’s face, and it stopped him cold. Nearly half of it bore the scars of a serious burn injury, almost as though the skin had been melted away.

It immediately took the fight out of Hunt, though his breath was still coming hard. “What the hell are you trying to do?” he rasped out.

The other man spoke with an unnerving calm. “What am I trying to do? You just attacked me. I was defending myself.”

“You were walking out with my duffel.”

“That’s not your duffel. It’s mine. And I wasn’t walking out anywhere. I was going to buy a newspaper”—he pointed—“at this shop right here.”

Meanwhile, three TSA officers had broken through the ranks of onlookers and one of them — Hillyer by his name tag — advanced on them, arms spread out, asserting control. “All right, everybody. Easy. Easy now. What’s going on here?”

“This guy,” Hunt said, “was making off with my duffel bag.”

“It’s mine, sir,” the scarred man replied, dead calm.

With his own first look at the man’s face, Hillyer, too, took an extra beat, then came back to Hunt, who said, “That’s my duffel. You can check it out. It’s filled with fishing gear. I’m on my way down to Baja.”

“So am I,” the scarred man said. He reached into his shirt pocket and held out a boarding pass. “With your permission, sir,” he said to Hillyer. Going to one knee, he pulled around the identification tag attached to the strap and held it out first to the TSA officer, then to Hunt.

“Joe Trona,” he said. “That’s me.” He stood and reached behind him and took out his wallet, which also revealed a badge. Hillyer inspected the badge and seemed to read every word on it, twice looking from badge to man. “I’m a police officer and I promise you I did not steal this man’s duffel bag.”

Hillyer unzipped the duffel for a quick look. Hunt saw the neatly arranged reels and spools of fishing line, similar to his own. Hillyer looked at Trona, then to Hunt. “When did you last see your own duffel bag, sir?”

“I left it at the bar when I went to the bathroom. The man sitting next to me was watching it. But then when I came out, I saw…” He stopped because there was nothing more he could say. “I’m a horse’s ass, Mr. Trona,” he said. “I owe you an apology.”

Trona looked at Hunt but said nothing.

“Let’s go see if your duffel’s still at the bar,” Hillyer said to Hunt. “As our announcement says, many items of luggage look the same. If it’s still there, let’s not leave it unattended anymore. How’s that sound?”

Joe Trona stood in the shade outside the La Paz terminal, his back to the wall in the infernal Baja heat. His duct-taped quiver of rod cases lay safely along the wall, along with his duffel and a cooler. The van would be there any minute. “The horse’s ass.”

“Hunt sounds better.”

“Apology accepted.”

Hunt joined Trona in the shade and offered his hand. “Wyatt.”

“Are you fishing out of Baja Joe’s?”

“First time.”

“Always an adventure.”

Trona watched a gaggle of pretty Mexican flight attendants walk-roll past them and into the terminal. One glanced at him, trying to be furtive, then let her gaze brush off of his face and into the sky where she pretended to be interested in a descending passenger jet. Even with a hat on and the brim pulled low, Trona’s scar-studded face was spectacularly there. By now, after living thirty-odd years with that face, Trona actually forgot about it sometimes. Of course, the reminders were always quick to come — reflections, people from adults to children, even dogs.

“You’re the deputy from Orange County,” said Hunt. Trona nodded and enjoyed the inevitable beat of silence. “It’s been ten years since all that.”

“It’s good to be out of view.”

“Don’t I know,” said Hunt.

“Those murders you worked in San Francisco were big news down south. Took you all the way back to ’78 and Jones-town. Man.”

“History isn’t so ancient.”

“No,” said Trona. “Not when Richard III shows up under a parking lot. How’s the PI work?”

Hunt shrugged. “I read about the cartel trouble here in La Paz. Zetas barging in on La Familia is what I heard.”

“Long as they stay away from Baja Joe’s,” said Trona.

“All I want is six days of peace, quiet, and fishing. Maybe some bourbon.”

“Let’s fish together tomorrow. I’ll show you what I’ve learned.”

“Twist my arm.”

The van and its six passengers bounced down the beaten two-lane asphalt that led toward the bay. Trona looked out at the cardón cactus and the elephant trees and the vultures circling precisely in the blue. He couldn’t wait to get on the water. They slowed down for a Policía Preventiva officer standing by his truck, flares in an angled line behind him, belching pink smoke. He saw more vehicles up ahead. The cop talked to the driver and the driver showed ID and the cop looked at each fisherman then waved them through. When they passed the other cars Trona saw that one was a white Suburban, new and shiny, windows riddled with bullet holes and smeared with red. Two bodies slumped within. Two more lay on the road shoulder, one covered with blankets, one not. Another police officer hurried them past.

“There is very little crime in this part of Baja,” said the driver, resolutely. “Very little. Occasional only.”

Trona wondered what the occasion was. He looked at Hunt, who had to be thinking the same thing.

At dawn Hunt and Trona were skidding across the Sea of Cortez in a panga, both holding their hats in their hands, spray flying and the red paint of sunrise spread out before them. Cerralvo Island was a gray behemoth in the distance. The captain was named Israel and his panga was Luna Sombrero. He said little and regarded the anglers skeptically. Hunt shot pictures left and right, swung the camera, and before he could think, he’d shot Trona not once but twice. As Hunt slid the camera back into one of the many pockets of his fishing shirt he felt embarrassed for barging into Joe’s face like that, then saw the minor joy on it, the joy that a cursed childhood could not prevent, the joy of being on the water.

Two boys raised by adoptive parents go fishing, thought Hunt. What a cool thing.

As the Yamaha screamed along, Hunt saw Israel turn to Joe, take his hands off the wheel, and swing an invisible baseball bat. Nice form. Buster Posey — ish. Beside him, Trona gave the captain a thumbs-up and a smile appeared beneath Israel’s sunglasses.

“What’s up?” Hunt asked.

“Baseball. The captains all play. Israel says there’s a game tonight. It’s quality ball if you want to go.”

“Done.”

The water shone pale, flat, and nacreous in the early day, the sun barely a foot off the horizon. Already Hunt could feel its heat and could only imagine what it would be like when it reached its zenith.

Suddenly Israel swung the wheel and the panga pitched hard left, heading into a cove along the shoreline where another small boat, now just visible, had anchored. Behind them, the other fishermen from Joe’s fell in line, and within five minutes they were all floating around the bait boat. Hunt wasn’t expecting bait, and with all of his new flies, why would he? But bait seemed to be part of the ritual here. Whatever its purpose, he’d soon find it out.

Once everybody had loaded up with sardines, the captains held a short conference and then they were off again away from the shore and out over the vast expanse of water. With Israel leading the way and nothing even remotely like a GPS, they were all heading toward a destination that must have been clear to them, although Hunt couldn’t make out any kind of a marker or buoy.

The target, a good ten minutes and perhaps a mile out, was a white one-gallon plastic Clorox container, tied to some rope that probably had a sea anchor attached down below to keep it more or less in place. Hunt thought that Israel locating this random piece of flotsam out on the endless unbroken surface of the water a fairly impressive feat of navigation.

“Fish here?” he asked.

“Shade,” Trona said. “A little goes a long way.”

Meanwhile, the captain had cut the motor and now Trona grabbed his rod and stepped up, taking the more precarious position on the bow. “Showtime,” he said, playing line out at his feet. At his place in the middle of the panga, Hunt stood and started doing the same as Israel threw a couple pieces of the bait out into the water around them.

Nothing.

They waited. There was no swell and after a minute or so the light chop of the other pangas had dissipated as well and it was dead-still. Hunt, tensed for action, dared a look around at the other four parties who’d killed their own engines and fallen into a semicircle behind them. Suddenly, though, Israel leaned forward and slapped a heavy palm on Hunt’s shoulder. “Hey, hey!” Pointing into the well of the boat at Hunt’s feet.

Hunt turned back, looked down, saw nothing. “What?” he asked. Then, over to Trona, “What’s he want?”

Trona risked a quick glance over. “You’re standing on your line,” he said. Hunt backed up off it. Israel leaned over and tossed a five-gallon plastic bucket up to Hunt’s spot. “Put your line in that,” Trona said. “Keeps it out of the way. Don’t let it wrap around your leg, or your hand for that matter, and especially your fingers. Hundred-pound tuna hits and your finger’s wrapped with eighty-pound, it’ll amputate right then.”

Hunt got himself squared away. Israel threw another couple sardines out into the clear, blue, still water. Trona scanned the horizon in a wide arc.

Then, a sudden swirl at the surface out in front of Hunt, and Israel came alive. “Dorado! Dorado!”

Hunt got his rod up, pumped, cast, fed line, back cast, waiting what seemed interminably for the rod to load as he’d been taught, then let it rip again. This time the instant that his fly landed, one of the big fish struck.

He’d never really imagined anything like this kind of acceleration in any fishing context. Suddenly, just about immediately, all the line that he’d so carefully dropped into his plastic bucket — fifty or sixty feet of it — was gone and now he was on to his reel, already nearly to the backing, holding on for all he was worth with one hand as the reel spun beneath his other palm and the running fish ran off yard upon yard and then, sixty or seventy yards out, jumped once, twice, a third time.

Unable to stop himself, or even aware of it, he let out a scream. “Heee-ya!”

“You got him,” Trona said. “Let him run. Stay cool. You got him.”

After the fishing and a brief siesta back at the hotel, Joe borrowed Baja Joe’s van and drove to Los Planes to see the baseball game. Over the years he’d become a fan. The boat captains were all good players, and Israel’s tiny village of Aqua Amarga was pitted against mighty La Paz. Hunt rode along. As soon as the sun went down and the heat dropped slightly, the game started under sparse lights, before a big and boisterous crowd. Israel was on the mound, carefully picking his way through La Paz’s heavy hitters.

Trona and Hunt drank Pacíficos and ate spicy peanuts, compared California’s new austerity to the poverty they saw here. Hunt noted that either one could produce fine baseball. Joe waved to Israel’s sister, Angelica, sitting just a few rows down with three of Israel’s four children. No sign of Israel’s wife or oldest son. Joe felt the burn on the back of his neck, something no amount of sunscreen could prevent here in Baja. But it was a good feeling and he felt his heart downshift.

Halfway through the third, a fleet of four black SUVs came tearing across the flat dusty desert from far away, hopping over the creosote bushes and dunes, converging from all the outfield directions. The field they were playing on here had no home run fence, and so nothing stood between these intruders and the players. Murmurs rose, then tense voices rippled through the crowd and some of the spectators clambered down the bleachers heading for where they had haphazardly parked.

Israel stood in an alert posture on the mound, watching. Trona saw no emblems or roof lights or radio antennae on the SUVs.

“I don’t think they’re fans,” said Hunt.

“Oh, they’re not.”

“I left my bazooka at home.”

Joe felt for the .45 that was not on his hip, the .40 that was not on his ankle, then finally the .44 derringer that was not in his pant pocket and thought: Mexican law is Mexican law — gringo law enforcement or not. The SUVs slid to dusty stops one by one and disgorged cumbersome, heavily armed men. Trona saw the Zetas patches on their shoulders and his heart went cold. He and Hunt had joined the crowd surging down the stands then ducked under one of the bleacher benches and like monkeys lowered themselves to the ground.

Joe peered through the scaffolding and saw Israel still on the mound, waiting for four Zetas who strode toward him from center field. Their M-16s shone dully in the lights and the outfielders stood frozen, watching them with what might have been resignation or terror. Everywhere Joe looked he saw another fire squad of Zetas closing in, nine men in all, a baseball team’s worth of armed men.

Fans hustled through the dust of the parking area, children scampering out ahead, car doors opening and slamming shut. At the mound the four Zetas surrounded Israel. One of them motioned with his gun and Joe could see that Israel and the man were talking and that Israel was nodding his head in agreement. The other five Zetas came trotting in from across left field, straight in Joe’s direction. He had been in a situation like this before, many years ago, and he had killed several men but failed to protect the man he had pledged his life to protect.

Something touched the back of his arm and he reeled to find Angelica and Israel’s three small children behind him.

“That man is Hector,” said Angelica. “He left Aqua Amarga five years ago to be a Zeta. He wants to be known for his cruelty. Now Hector has come for him.”

“For Israel?”

She shook her head no. “For his son. Joaquin,” she said. “Joaquin comes to the games but not to this one.”

The five Zetas were nearly to second base now and still coming directly toward Trona and Hunt and Angelica and Israel’s children. “Joe,” said Hunt. “Time to move it.”

“When they don’t find Joaquin here, they go to Aqua Amarga. They know.”

Joe took Angelica’s hand and crouched and led her and the children away from home plate and the refreshment stand and the parking lot. Wyatt brought up the rear. Where the grandstands ended they stopped and huddled, half hidden from the stadium lights in the scaffolding.

Automatic gunfire burped from the parking lot and screams rose in the sudden silence. Some of the parking lights burst and smoked. Laughter. Then more shots, and more lights exploded.

Trona saw Israel on the mound, still and tensed, searching the bleachers for his sister and children. Three of the gunmen, the ones who’d been with Hector at the mound, had taken up positions at second base, shortstop, and first, but hadn’t let go of their guns. Hector strode dramatically to home plate and set his machine gun in the on-deck circle. He lifted the bat that the last La Paz hitter had left behind and took a couple of check swings, then walked to the plate and stepped into the batter’s box.

By now the five oncoming narcotrafficantes were methodically searching the grandstands where Angelica and the children had been sitting just moments ago.

Israel wound up and slung a slow-ball and Hector drove it into left center for a single. Hector dropped the bat and raised his hands over his head as if he’d just homered. Israel backpedaled toward the chaos, his glove and free hand raised to the Zetas in supplication. The leader yelled to his men, waving the bat at them, and Trona saw Israel disappear around the dugout.

“When they are finished having fun they will go to Aqua Amarga and find Joaquin,” said Angelica. “And it will no longer be fun.”

Trona looked at Hunt and Hunt looked at Trona. “Something tells me we should get there first,” said Hunt.

Staying low and in the darkness, they guided Angelica and the children to the borrowed van. Trona drove through the dark without lights, blended into the cars heading for the road. They hit the highway a few minutes later.

“Why do they want Joaquin?” asked Joe. “He’s only, what, fifteen?”

Angelica steadfastly ignored him. Trona asked again and she turned to him, her frightened expression lit faintly by the dash lights. “Joaquin found gold in the hills, in one of the old mines. They are everywhere and the boys are always digging and searching. The gold belongs to the village. We were going to use it to make our old pangas more safer, and buy a new Yamaha engine for Gordo. And to buy a truck for Luis because his old truck is dying. And we were going to send Maria Hidalgo Lucero to school in La Paz because she is a smart one. And buy a new generator and a freezer for Aqua Amarga to share, one with a very good ice maker. And then when we ran out of gold, Joaquin and the boys would go find more in this mine, and we would improve Aqua Amarga with the gold forever. But Joaquin cannot keep quiet. His words spread like a fire. Now Hector knows. He will take the gold and he will force Joaquin to expose the mine. Maybe worse.”

Angelica pointed out a shortcut to Aqua Amarga and Joe slowed and steered the van off the highway and onto a narrow dirt road.

“Two of us and a few village men can’t keep Hector from taking the gold,” said Joe.

“I just got an idea,” said Hunt. “Maybe not a full idea. Part of one.”

“I did, too,” said Trona.

Like all of his neighbors’ homes, Israel’s was one-story white-washed stucco. Strands of rebar poked up from the roofline, announcing to the government that construction was not complete. Therefore, the house was not finished. Therefore, it couldn’t yet be taxed.

The house squatted by itself at the end of a dirt road just at the edge of Aqua Amarga. Behind it a vast wasteland of cactus and shrub, laced with half a dozen or more dry arroyos, stretched to a low range of foothills off in the distance, the shape of the range clearly visible now in the light of the full moon. The house itself seemed to sit in a pale glow from the bare bulb over the front door.

The four SUVs skidded to their own ostentatious stops in front of the house, dust billowing up around them. Before much of that dust had settled, the passenger’s door on the lead car opened and a man emerged, cradling a machine gun. When he pulled open the back door behind him, a body in a baseball uniform got pushed from inside and fell into the road.

Israel.

The Zeta kicked out once and the body rolled away, hands coming up over the head for protection. Israel rolled over a second time and suddenly was on his feet, facing his assailant, turning halfway to face the other Zeta just coming out of the car. But the other car doors were opening all around, other men spilling out; headlights from each of the vehicles stayed on, illuminating the scene.

Israel was surrounded with nowhere to turn when the front door of the SUV he’d come in opened and Hector got out. “Basta!” the leader called out, and all around the men stiffened to something like attention as he came around the front of his SUV. In Spanish, Hector continued. “Israel and I will talk. He is a reasonable man.”

Israel spit at the ground.

Hector got alongside the Zeta who’d kicked at their captive and now made a command gesture. Without a word, the Zeta handed his machine gun to Hector, who paused for an instant and then fired off a quick burst of three shots into the spot near Israel’s feet where he’d spit.

Israel jumped backward at the same moment as a woman’s scream rent the air. The front door opened and the screen slammed up against the house and Angelica was suddenly standing under the light, holding her hands up against her chest in panic.

Hector turned around slowly, unfazed by the woman’s presence or her reaction. He nodded nonchalantly at Angelica, then came back to Israel. “Where is Joaquin?” he asked in a gentle voice.

“He is inside. The gold is a lie. It is a tale told by a child. There is no gold!”

“Why don’t you invite me in and we can talk? Where is your hospitality?”

“No,” said Angelica.

“He will come in anyway,” said Israel. “Let Joaquin tell him that the gold is a lie.”

Trona and Hunt watched from the place they’d chosen to hide — behind the abandoned chassis of an old American car that someone had dumped on the side of the road and left on Israel’s street about 150 feet from the front door of his home. Their shortcut across the desert in Baja Joe’s van had given them a ten- or twelve-minute edge over the Zetas who’d driven the long way around on the regular highway. It was all the time they were going to have to get the details of their plan worked out, but it was going to have to be enough.

There weren’t, as it turned out, too many details to consider. There was one gun — a Colt .45 six-shooter with bullets that might or might not fire — that Israel kept hidden in a cut-out floorboard under the bed. A thirty-four-inch Louisville Slugger that one of Israel’s screwballs had long ago, when he’d been a teenager, broken off in the hands of Fernando Valenzuela. A bottle of Herradura.

Now, when Hector and his #1 bodyguard disappeared into the house behind Angelica and Israel, Hunt whispered, “So far, so good.”

One by one, in short order the Zetas killed their engines and their headlights, until the only light on the street, beyond the moon’s, was the one above Israel’s door. The seven remaining Zetas broke off into their respective cars — three, two, and two. A couple of them lit up cigarettes. All of them put their weapons down on their car seats.

Hunt gave Trona a solemn nod and the two men stood up and the solemnity vanished as they lurched drunkenly out into the street. Trona had his arm thrown over Hunt’s shoulder. Hunt let out a laugh. He was using the Slugger for a cane, nearly stumbling with every step, while Trona held the tequila bottle in his free hand and Hunt broke into a slurred version of “Tequila Sunrise.”

They advanced on the Zetas, a couple of drunk American idiots.

The seven congealed again out of their cars, but only two of them brought their weapons out with them. Hunt saw that nobody seemed too concerned with this interruption. It was clear to them what was going on, by no means an uncommon occurrence. Cheap tequila and gringos on vacation were a staple of the economy down here. The Zetas had business they were attending to, and these guys were an interruption, but they certainly weren’t anything to worry about.

One of the Zetas gave some kind of order and the two guys who had pulled out their weapons split away from the group and started moving toward the gringos, shooing their hands in front of themselves as though they were trying to move cattle.

Shoo away, thought Hunt.

Happily drunk and oblivious, Hunt and Trona kept coming, singing along, closing to a hundred feet, seventy-five, sixty. The lead Zeta held up his weapon, stopping in the road, and said, “Alto! Ahora, alto!”

Hunt and Trona, swaying against each other, stopped and blinked at the apparition. Hunt laughed and Trona slurred, “Sorry, dudes. No habla español, por favor.”

Hunt watched the Zetas turn back to their compadres, no doubt wondering what they were supposed to do with these clowns. A couple more of the narcos who’d stayed back by the cars decided to come on up and help get these pests out of the way, not bothering to bring their weapons.

In front of them, Hunt pointed at the machine guns, held up a hand as if he suddenly understood. At the same moment, Trona offered a sip from his bottle of tequila, an excuse to get half a step closer, let the advancing guys get within range. “And,” he said, slowly, evenly, dragging it out. “Now!”

Hunt came up with the baseball bat and drilled the nearest Zeta over the ear. At the same moment, Trona swung with the tequila bottle in one hand, cold-cocking the guy in front of him, drawing the revolver out from his belt with the other, getting the dead drop on the two backup guys. “Don’t move. Hands up! Don’t move!”

Hunt, never slowing down, had his hands on his guy’s machine gun before he’d even hit the ground, and now charged the remaining three guards down by the SUVs, who barely had had time to get halfway to their feet, scrambling, when they were all looking at a suddenly very serious American commando who was clearly well trained in the use of the M-16 and prepared to use it.

They raised their hands signaling their surrender as Trona, now armed with his own machine gun and a good handgun, came forward with the other two captives, their arms in the air as well. The gringos’ two victims lay bleeding, quiet, unmoving, both facedown in the street.

Trona stood guard as Hunt collected the rest of the weapons. Minutes later they had bound and gagged the narcos with duct tape and fifty-pound-test fishing line that they found in the toolbox of the van, line that would cut them deeply if they struggled.

Inside, for Hector, the negotiations were not proceeding well. He’d been a villager here all his life, until a few years ago, before accepting the uniform, and the dark soul, of a Zeta. So he knew how stubborn these people could be. How superstitious. Ignorant fishermen!

Even pointing his gold-plated, Malverde-embossed .45 at Joaquin, it had taken Hector a full ten minutes to convince Israel of the futility of his — and the town’s — position. If there was gold in Aqua Amarga, then it was Zeta gold, Hector’s gold, verdad? The town was only still in existence because of the forbearance of Hector Salida! Didn’t Israel realize that Hector could kill every man, woman, and child in Aqua Amarga and nothing would happen? Nobody would care. The useless and corrupt government would do nothing. To oppose Hector would be certain death. Did Israel want to see him kill Joaquin right now in front of him, or did he want to bring him the gold? It was really that simple. Hector looked down at Joaquin, a handsome young man, now curled tight on the floor, trembling like a cold dog. Hector swirled the barrel of his fancy gun through Joaquin’s lush black hair.

Israel looked at his son, then at Hector, then at Angelica.

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” said Israel.

Hector watched Israel rise and motion to his bodyguard to follow. They went down the hallway of the small house. Hector heard a scraping sound, like furniture being moved. He smiled at Angelica. “I miss the village.”

“The village does not miss you.”

“I’d rather be a legend than a slave.”

“You are a slave to greed.”

The two men were back in a moment, the bodyguard swinging a heavy rice bag onto the table, Israel looking on with a beaten expression. Hector swung his weapon away from Joaquin and ordered him to stand. The boy stood on shaking legs and Hector pointed the barrel of his gun at the bag. Joaquin untied and upended it and the heavy treasure thundered onto the old wooden table. Hector set his gun down and pawed through his bounty — somewhere near thirty kilograms of quartz run through with thick, visible veins of gold. Five, eight, perhaps ten kilograms of the gold itself. A fortune.

Finally, thought Hector, things are going my way. “Now. Where is the mine? Which mine?”

Hector saw Joaquin hang his head and cast a look at his father.

“You have ten seconds to tell me the mine, or I shoot your mother,” said Hector. He pushed the end of the barrel between Angelica’s breasts. “One. Two. Three.”

“Father?”

“Four. Five.”

“Yes, son. Tell him!”

“Six. Seven. Eight.”

“Father?”

“Tell him!”

“Nine.”

“Test pit ninety-six!” said Joaquin. “On the way to San Antonio!”

“That is government property!” bellowed Hector. “How did you steal gold from the government? How?”

Joaquin looked at his father again, imploringly, and Israel nodded. “I have a friend in the ministry,” said Joaquin. “He knows I steal. We share.”

“His name?”

“If I tell you, he will kill me. If I don’t, you will.”

“I feel such sadness. His name!”

“Narcisso Rueda,” muttered Joaquin. “God help me.”

Someone knocked on the front door. Hector and the bodyguard swung their guns toward the sound.

Hunt stood way aside from the door, flat against the wall, and waited for the bullets to punch through. He mustered his best Spanish accent. “Hector! Policia! Vamos!”

The door cracked open and the bodyguard peered out. Hunt grabbed his neck and twisted him back inside just as Hector raised his gun and fired. He felt the heavy .45s thudding into the Zeta’s armor, the powerful shock waves transferring from the bodyguard straight into himself. He threw the man to the floor as Israel crashed down on Hector’s arms with a chair — his golden gun skidding across the floor — and Angelica walloped him over the head with a cast-iron tortilla press. Trona burst in from behind them with one of the Zeta’s good semiautomatics held straight at Hector, who was back up on his knees, barely.

Hunt grabbed the golden gun, then drew his own borrowed handgun from his belt and gave the bodyguard a sharp rap to the head with it. He ordered the family to raise their hands and move back against the wall. “Now!”

Joe stepped in and herded them. Angelica raised her hands and looked at Trona. “The devil himself. Look at his face.”

“How nice of you to notice,” said Joe, unfailingly polite. “I’ve heard much worse.”

“Get out of my house,” said Israel.

“You gringo pigs leave us alone!” yelled Joaquin.

“Leave you alone?” asked Hunt. “After all your father’s talk on the boat radio today? All that fast Spanish he thought we couldn’t hear? After his endless bragging about his son finding the gold that was going to bring miracles to Aqua Amarga? Leave you alone?”

Hunt saw Israel’s pitch-perfect expression of shame. Of foolishness confessed. Of utter defeat.

“So,” said Trona. “Thanks for the tip, captain. There’s no way we could pass up an opportunity to rob you. But, since this hombre beat us to it, we’ll just rob him. Le gusta? Es bueno?”

Trona, eyes now on Hector and gun still in hand, swept the gold ore back into the rice bag and slung it over his shoulder.

“I vow to take back my gold and murder you,” said Hector.

“We’d have been disappointed if you didn’t,” said Joe.

“Let’s go, partner,” said Hunt.

“Let’s tie everybody up first,” Trona said. “Just for the hell of it.”

They had an early plane — nine AM — out of La Paz Airport, but both men felt it couldn’t really be too early.

As they watched and waited for their nearly twin duffel bags to pass through the X-ray machine, Hunt said, “All I want is to get past the security gate. I don’t think they’ll storm the airport.”

Trona shrugged. “They’re still tied up. Israel not as tight as some, that’s all. And Hector and his boys? Who’s going to cut ’em free? The villagers?”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Trona said, “I’m keeping my eyes open.” He lowered his voice. “I just hope nobody notices we’re not boarding with any gold. Which might make somebody wonder where it could be.”

“Who’s going to notice? It’s not like Hector’s going to go to the cops. ‘Hey, those two gringos just stole the gold that I just stole.’ I don’t think so. Instead, we just walk on the plane and stay cool. As far as Hector’s concerned, we got clean away, and the gold with us. And he’d never think — he’d never believe — that we put it back in Israel’s panga.”

“I know. Although he has vowed to take back his gold and kill us, remember?”

Hunt broke a smile and shook his head. “Not gonna happen. Just like he’s not going to find any gold in test pit ninety-six.”

With only the ten minutes or so that they’d had to go over their plan with Israel’s sister, they’d had to play things by ear. When they’d arrived at Israel’s home, for example, first thing they’d had to contend with was a very distrustful and hostile Joaquin and his fifteen years’ worth of testosterone. Why should he believe that Hunt and Trona were going to steal the gold from Hector and then return it to Israel and the good people of Agua Amarga? How could Angelica believe or trust these two gringos whom she had just met? Who were they anyway?

It had been a close thing, Joaquin getting the Colt from its hiding place, only to hold it on Joe and Wyatt for a tense few moments until Angelica could convince him that they really had no other choice. Hector and his narcos would be there within minutes. If Hunt and Trona were in fact planning on stealing the gold and keeping it for themselves, there was nothing Joaquin or anyone else could do about it.

“We could kill them right now and then kill as many of Hector’s men as we could before they kill us,” Joaquin said.

“We know that there is more gold in the ground,” Angelica had said. “No one needs to die over the gold we already have.”

And in the end, only two or three minutes before Hector and his men had arrived, Joaquin had given in.

And still, there had been one element of the plan that had worried Joe — they had no provision for Hector’s return to claim the rest of the gold from Joaquin’s secret mine. Everyone knew that Hector would not rest until he knew where Joaquin had found the gold, and even if Hunt and Trona were successful in keeping the town’s gold from him that night, Hector would eventually cause more trouble when he came again.

“He’s going to need to know where you found it,” Trona had said, “and he will torture you until you tell him. So there is only one thing to do.”

“What is that?”

“Tell him the wrong mine,” Joe said, “and sting him.”

“Sting him how?”

“That is for you and your father to figure out.”

Four days after Hunt and Trona had landed safely back in the States, Narcisso Rueda, a longtime angling customer of Israel’s, sat in the bow of the panga about a hundred meters offshore. He was awaiting the long run-up at full power into ever more and more shallow water until Israel with perfect timing lifted the screaming, whining propeller up out of the water and killed the engine as the water became the beach and the panga sheared its way through the sand until it came to rest twenty or thirty feet up onto the strand, high and dry. No matter how many fish they caught, and today Narcisso had landed two dorado and two tuna, the beaching of the pangas always provided an adrenaline rush, a last moment of excitement and pure, simple fun.

But today, though they were in position to rush the shore, Israel kept the engine in neutral. Narcisso was, in fact, head of security for the government’s gold mining operations near La Paz. He had, of course, never made any kind of gold deal with Israel’s son. In fact, he was widely known as an incorruptible official. Unlike so many of Mexico’s security forces, especially those dealing with the narcotrafficantes, Narcisso had successfully investigated and prosecuted both gold thieves from among the miners and corruption at the corporate level. No fewer than two dozen men now sat in federal prisons because of Narcisso’s efforts.

After he listened to Israel’s story, a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I have heard something of this Hector Salida. A nasty piece of work. He thinks he can bribe me?”

Israel nodded. “I took him out off Cerralvo last week,” he lied. He has a reckless mouth, and he has heard of gold in one of the abandoned mines. Gold that, supposedly, you don’t know of.”

This made Narcisso laugh. “Ah, that gold. And I let him mine that vein and turn the other way. For a cut. That’s the idea?”

“It’s what he bragged about. You might be expecting him to contact you.”

“I’ll look forward to the conversation, which I’ll be certain to record. He is not the first one to have this idea. And our judges have found such recordings to be… persuasive.”

“I just thought you would want to know.”

Narcisso nodded. “It is always good to have knowledge. It keeps the vermin down.”