Final Payment

Chapter Thirty

The effort to climb into the truck cost Tapia considerable agony. Estelle watched him and saw his eyes go wide with pain as he pulled himself into the high seat. Through it all, he never took his eyes off her. A handcuffed right wrist was effective, she granted him that. She couldn’t reach him with her left without performing ridiculous gymnastics, and the massive transmission tunnel and center console corralled her legs. She forced herself to relax, to wait for opportunity, to seek ways to make opportunity.

At the same time, a laconic comment made years before by Bobby Torrez came to mind. A dog had bolted out of a driveway, madly chasing the sheriff’s cruiser in which they were riding. “What’s he gonna do when he catches us?” Torrez had joked as the dog snapped at the cruiser’s tires. Chasing Tapia, Estelle had hoped to see him in the distance, to have time to plan and coordinate. But her fatigue had blunted common sense. Tapia’s work brought him up close and personal. It was even possible, with the broken ankle, that he had known someone would see his tracks and follow him.

Once in the passenger seat, Tapia slammed the truck door and immediately leaned toward Estelle. His polo shirt was soaked with sweat and dust, and his odor was pungent. With his left hand he crunched the cuffs even tighter on her wrist, sliding the shackle forward of the wrist bones so she had no chance of sliding her hand free. He held the silenced Beretta so close that she could see the rosette of burned powder on the blued steel of the muzzle. Despite some confidence that Manolo Tapia was not going to just shoot her out of hand, her mouth went dry as he allowed the blued steel of the silencer to slide almost seductively down her arm.

“If you behave, you lovely creature, you’ll be home to your family by dinnertime. You understand that, don’t you?”

Estelle didn’t reply. Tapia sounded too much like Tomás Naranjo for comfort. The two of them could have cooperated to present a workshop on how Mexican men could sound gentle, suave, and self-assured all at the same time-no matter how dangerous they might be.

“When you passed by on the road earlier, I thought certainly that you had seen me. But,” and he waved with the gun toward the narrow two-track that wound up the slope, “let us be on our way. You must drive me to the airport.”

Estelle twisted in the seat until she could see Leona Spears in the rearview mirror. The county manager stood helplessly, both hands on top of her head as if she meant to tear out her braid. Finally realizing that there was nothing she could do by standing alone in the sun and dust, she turned and began a determined jog back the way they had come.

“Now,” Tapia said, tapping her right arm just ahead of the elbow with the silencer. He then pointed ahead. “Go.”

Estelle didn’t move. “You’re going to leave Hector to face authorities all by himself?” The question jolted Tapia, and the wink of uncertainty in his expression told Estelle that for all his self-assurance, Manolo Tapia had no idea what events had transpired in the past twenty-four hours. “You think you’re just going to take the airplane again and fly home? That’s not possible.”

So you know, his expression said. “There is no purpose in discussing this with you. Now go.”

“I’m not ‘discussing’ it, señor. The boy is in jail, and that’s where he’s going to stay. He may have flown you in to Posadas County, but he’s not going to fly you out.”

Tapia frowned and for a moment he was silent. “We will see,” he said. He twisted in the seat, watching Leona’s retreating figure.

“She will do you no good,” Estelle said. “You can take all the hostages you like. The simple fact remains that your nephew will remain in jail, and will face charges as an accessory to multiple counts of murder. The only way you can help him now is to testify that you forced him to accompany you-if that’s true.”

Tapia laughed with genuine amusement. “Really now,” he said, and then his face twitched as he tried to shift his leg, lifting it clear of the floor and then finding no place to rest it that was comfortable. Estelle saw the swelling above his expensive tan trainer. He pointed with the gun. “Go. I am growing weary of arguing with you.”

Estelle leaned as far from the steering wheel as she could, left side against the door. “And if I don’t?”

He heaved a heavy sigh. “You have forgotten the two men in the arroyo?” He thumbed the hammer back on the Beretta, and having carried exactly that model handgun for a decade before switching to the heavier.45, Estelle knew how little force was required to drop the sear. Her bulletproof vest suddenly felt five sizes too small.

Tapia cocked his head and reached across carefully with his left hand. He drew the corner of her light jacket to one side, exposing the county shield on her belt. “Undersheriff,” he read. “Most impressive. I’m sure you are popular with the troops, no? I’m sure they would not wish for anything to happen to you. But if you do not cooperate with me, well then.” He shrugged expressively. “A bullet for you is simple enough. And I take the truck and go on my way, uncomfortable as that would be considering my condition. So you see? I have been most generous up to this point. I have not harmed your large friend. I really do not wish to harm you. But it is your choice. And it is one you must make quickly.”

He lifted the muzzle of the Beretta and squeezed the trigger. Despite the suppressor, the gun was surprisingly loud, a vicious sharp sneeze coupled with the clatter of the slide slamming back and then forward. The hot gases scorched Estelle’s forearm, and a chip of something stung her left cheek as the bullet slammed into the door panel just below the windowsill. The empty shell casing cracked against the windshield, bounced off the dash, and disappeared down one of the defroster vents.

Estelle realized she was holding her breath, and she tried to force herself to relax. Somewhere deep inside the door mechanism, something tinkled and then clattered to the bottom of the door frame.

“Go,” Tapia repeated. “No more discussions.”

By sliding the cuffs down to the crossbar of the steering wheel, Estelle could reach the ignition key, and she started the Expedition.

“Up that way,” Tapia said, pointing with the gun. She touched the gas and the truck jarred forward. He gasped and she glanced across at him. It was clear now why he had taken such a risk in abandoning the motorcycle rather than pressing on. Perhaps at first, he had intended only to rest for a few minutes. But riding the bike must have been agony, with no way to support the injured ankle. He had seen the white Expedition blundering along on his path, and he had made his decision.

They cleared the hill, and Estelle scanned the prairie before them. Four miles ahead as the crow flew lay the state highway that passed by Posadas Municipal Airport. Their route, winding across the rumpled terrain, would eat up the better part of twice that. It would be impossible on foot with a shattered ankle, and sheer torture idling a motorcycle along.

As if reading her mind, Tapia reached out once more with the Beretta, tapping her arm. “Think self-preservation now, as I do,” he said. “Without this fine truck, I would be nearly helpless in this country-easy hunting, perhaps. But you would have a hole in you, no matter how very brave you might be.” He paused, then pointed where the rough two-track teed into a wide swath cut years before by the developer’s bulldozers now nearly overgrown by desert brush. “Go left,” he instructed.

“You’ve practiced,” Estelle said, and Tapia shrugged. The truck hit a hummock and lurched hard enough that Tapia put his hand up on the roof, bracing himself.

“Why Hansen?” she asked, and Tapia waved the gun again.

“Slow down here,” he said. A shallow arroyo had channeled across what the developer had envisioned as a street, a rough and gravelly channel. Estelle could see a set of single tracks. Tapia had made good use of his time planning the attack on Chester Hansen, right down to scouting the best getaway route.

He reached across and touched the four-wheel-drive button on the dash. “Like so,” he said, nodding in satisfaction as the little icon on the dash illuminated. The truck waddled across the cut, dropping first one tire and then another, like an old, overweight horse picking its way. The front bumper pushed gravel as they surged up and out, back onto the flat prairie.

When it became obvious that he had either not heard, or chose to ignore, her question, she repeated it. This time, he looked balefully at her. “My business is just that, señora. It is my business. There is nothing you need to know.”

“You’ve left four dead bodies for us to clean up,” Estelle said. “And you shot one of my deputies. And rest assured that it’s not over yet. It most certainly is my business.”

Tapia shrugged expressively, and his grin was genuine and warm-it would have been appealing under other circumstances. “Then we must agree to disagree, my dear señora,” he said. “What this man is to me is of no consequence.”

“And an entire family dead in the desert-they’re of no consequence either?”

“None. None whatsoever. What happened was of their own choosing, not mine.”

“You’re only the instrument, is that it?”

“Just so. That is a good way to put it. Only the instrument.” He whispered something in Spanish that she didn’t catch.

“For whom?”

He laughed gently and stretched out a hand to the dashboard as the truck surged over another hummock.

“Captain Tomás Naranjo of the Judiciales tells me that you work for corporate interests in Mexico and El Salvador. Do you think we won’t discover who sent you?”

“Please, señora. At this point, I do not really care what you are able to discover about me, or anyone else. You are in no position. In a few moments, I will be nothing but a memory for you. Your jurisdiction-your importancia-ends at the borders of your little county. It would be best that you remember that.”

“How poetic. You are a confident man. Almost as if the modern radio and telephone don’t exist.”

“It must be so. Without confidence, we simply become motionless, no?”

“PCS, three-ten.” The radio was jarringly loud, and when Estelle made no move toward the mike, Tapia pulled it off the radio clip and extended it toward her. Leona Spears had been left to find her way out on foot a mile and a half from County Road 14. She would have strode along at a good clip after the initial burst of speed, perhaps even breaking back into a jog when she could. Had it taken her ten minutes? Fifteen?

“Now you must choose,” he said. “If there is no response, they will worry.” He winked at her. “I know what I would do.”

“And what am I to choose?” Estelle asked. She could picture Gayle Torrez on the radio, counting the seconds until she repeated the message. Tapia draped the mike’s cord over her arm, and she took it with her left hand. A word or two, and every cop in the county would descend on them, enough weapons to start a small war. Odds were good that Manolo Tapia would die, and there was a good chance that he might take some of them with him, even though his only weapons appeared to be two handguns and now the pump shotgun in the rack.

“Ten-six, ten-eighty, ten-eighty-five,” she said, keying the mike. Tapia’s eyes narrowed, but he made no move to take the mike. She handed it back to him, Maybe it was a grimace, perhaps a grin, but he shrugged philosophically.

“So now they know,” he said.

“Now they know.”

She watched as he shifted the pistol and lowered the hammer. She took a breath, relieved that the threat had been reduced, seven or eight pounds now required to snap the double-action trigger. For a long time, he rode in silence, one hand holding the Beretta, the other arm crossed in front of him, hand grasping the molded assist handle on the windshield post.

“Is Hector well?” he said after a moment.

“Why is that important?” She regarded him with interest. “How is your nephew somehow worth more than the three Salvadorans you left dead in the desert? Or more than Mr. Hansen, whom my deputy says you killed without an instant’s negotiation? Or my deputy, whose hip you ruined?”

“I had no choice with your deputy, señora. I did only what I had to do for self-preservation. He fights like the lion. You can be proud.”

“Anyone fights for his life, señor. And that is exactly what your nephew is doing. Hector will tell us what we need to know.”

“Do you think so?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. Then you do not know the boy. He may steal your heart, but beyond that, my son is like the tempered steel. And he is so eager to learn.”

Estelle looked across at Tapia sharply. “Your son?”

The assassin ducked his head in self-deprecation, and let his left hand slide down his leg. He leaned forward, the Beretta still focused on Estelle, and lightly touched his ankle. “Ah. My wits are not as sharp as they should be. I tell you more than you need to know. But yes.” He straightened up and sat back, pulling himself upright in the seat, taking the weight off his leg. “Hector is my son. And I cannot simply leave him now. I am amused that he referred to me as merely an uncle. Clever.”

He reached for the microphone, and as if his touch had triggered the signal, Sheriff Robert Torrez’s quiet voice floated from the speaker.

“Three-ten, three-oh-eight.”

Tapia looked quizzically at Estelle.

“Now what?” she asked, and he frowned, his eyes going hard. He rapped her smartly on the forearm with the silencer, and she flinched.

“Who is this?”

“That would be the sheriff,” she replied. She gripped the steering wheel hard, flexing the fingers of her right hand, feeling the deep ache of the bruise.

“Reply to him,” Tapia said, once more handing her the mike. “He must keep his distance.”

“Three-oh-eight, three-ten, go ahead.”

“Ten-twenty?”

Estelle hesitated. There was a certain safety in keeping Tapia isolated out in the desert. The killer leaned toward her, obviously making his own decision. “Give it to me.” She did so, and he palmed the mike expertly, as if he’d had considerable experience. “You must have children?” he asked Estelle, not yet keying the mike.

“That is no concern of yours.”

“If one of them is threatened, imagine how you would feel, you see,” he said. “If someone were holding your son, you would do anything you could to see his release. You know that.”

“My son is not a killer. He doesn’t steal airplanes and cross international borders. He doesn’t chauffeur professional hit men.”

Tapia laughed. “¡Caramba! Such fire,” he said, and lifted the microphone. “But he is still my son. Now, what is the sheriff’s name?”

“Robert Torrez.”

“He is the person who can make decisions?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Señor Torrez, can you hear me?”

“Go ahead.” The sheriff’s tone was guarded.

“Good. This is what you must do.” Tapia released the transmit button for a second as he collected his thoughts. As he broke in, Torrez’s tone was blunt and unequivocal.

“Ten-twenty-one. Three-oh-eight out.”

Tapia looked across at Estelle quizzically. “He wants you to use the phone,” she said. “You have mine in your pocket.” He fished the small phone out and opened it. “Press auto-dial, then eight,” she instructed. He did so, and in a moment the connection went through.

“Señor Torrez? Are you there?” Estelle could not hear Torrez’s reply, but she knew it would be monosyllabic. “What I want is very simple. I have your delightful undersheriff with me.” He glanced at Estelle again. “And you have my son, Hector. There is nothing more simple, no?” The sheriff said something cryptic, and Estelle found herself straining to hear his voice. “So,” Tapia said. “I don’t think you understand. Perhaps you can imagine that someday a hiker might find the bleached bones of your undersheriff somewhere in the Mexican desert. No? You care so much about keeping my son that you would allow that to happen? I don’t think so.”

Tapia listened briefly, tapping the muzzle of the silencer on his thigh.

“This is what you will do,” he interrupted. “Now listen to me. You are familiar with the small private strip, I’m sure. The one owned by the gas company? I believe you already have had some business there. So. You will leave the boy standing by himself on the east end of that runway, right by the dirt road that passes by. You will leave him there, and clear the area. If I see anyone as we approach, anyone at all, that will close the agreement. You know what will happen. When we have picked up the boy unharmed, and are well away, I will release your undersheriff unharmed. But only then.”

He listened for a moment, a slight smile touching the corners of his mouth. “There is high country to be used, I know,” he said. “By both you and I. But I hope you will be intelligent in this, señor.” Torrez said something, to which Tapia merely shrugged. “As we are both aware, there are innocent bystanders, Sheriff. You will allow this bicycle race to continue…There is no reason for any of them to become involved.”

He’s going to fly. Estelle slowed the SUV to negotiate another dry wash, her mind racing ahead. Of course the assassin planned to fly out of Posadas County. He could not cross the border at the Regál crossing-there were too many agents, too many cops swarming. A single vehicle was too easily stopped. He could wind his way east beyond the village of María and find a remote spot, but that route was too easily blocked, too. He’d be traveling with a crowd of officers at his heels, awaiting the opportunity for a well-placed shot.

“That way,” Tapia said, pointing again. He kept them heading roughly north, taking the trails that eventually would bring them out on the state highway just west of the Posadas Municipal Airport-and a selection of airplanes.

“You will free my son immediately,” Tapia said into the phone, “and proceed to the spot that I described.” His features brightened as a thought occurred to him. “I’m sure that in the next few minutes you can find two things: a convertible automobile and your wonderful county manager. She…” And he turned to Estelle. “Her name?”

“You don’t need her,” Estelle said.

“Ah, but I do. Her name? It is merely a courtesy. She will be in no danger. You have my word.”

“Leona.”

He nodded and once more spoke into the phone. “The señora Leona,” he said. “She will drive the convertible. Only she with my son as a passenger in the front seat. Is that quite clear?” He looked at his watch. “It is now one fourteen, Sheriff. I will pick up my son at two o’clock. That gives us both sufficient time to get there.”

Apparently Torrez protested, because Tapia said, “Oh, yes it is. I’m sure you can move efficiently.” He snapped the phone closed and dropped it in his pocket. “So,” he said, as if waiting for Estelle to voice her thoughts. When she said nothing, he asked, “Your sheriff. He is a creative man? I suppose we shall see.”

“You don’t really want your son back, do you?”

He looked at her in surprise. “But of course I want my son returned to me.”

“Then why all the theatrics? You know that what you ask is not possible in forty-five minutes.”

“Ah,” he said, nodding. “By now, they know exactly where this county manager is, yes? They have a helicopter in the vicinity. They can pluck her away, return to the village, and by then, your sheriff-who must surely know everyone in this small community-will have secured a convertible automobile. And then they drive that automobile to our rendezvous.”

“It’s a thirty-minute drive,” Estelle pointed out.

“Ah. Then I hope they waste no time.” He laughed. “But no one drives the speed limit these days.”