Saint Death

44

Beau Baxter had his face in the dust. The toes of his boots were against the gravel of the ridge, his pelvis pressed tight against it, his elbows prised up against rough stones. His Jeep was back up the ridge, his jacket was hanging from a Joshua tree. He pushed his Stetson back a little, loosening the hand-braided horsehair stampede string that was tight up against his neck. The rifle on the ground next to him was a Weatherby Mark V Deluxe with the claro walnut stock and highly polished blued barrelled action, chambered for the .257 Wetherby Magnum cartridge. He had been here since dawn and it had been so quiet, he thought, that you could damn near hear your own hair grow. He had a pair of twenty power Japanese binoculars he had bought in Tijuana. He swept the scrubland below with them. The valley floor was made up of a reddish-brown lava rock that, depending on the angle of the sun, could turn a blackish lavender. There were tracks of wiry javelina pigs and mule deer but nothing human. Beau stuffed his mouth with chewing tobacco and waited like an grizzled old buzzard guarding his roadkill.

He saw the dust cloud. It blurred in the shimmer and drifted north, the faint desert breeze catching it and pushing it back towards the city. It grew into a long yellow slash of dust, gradually rising, eventually growing to a mile long before he could make out the hire car Smith was driving at its head. It bumped off the asphalt and onto the rough track, greasewood bushes and pear cactus on either side, slowing to negotiate the deeper potholes. He put the glasses to his eyes and focussed. Eventually it was close enough for Beau to see Smith at the wheel and, in the back, Adolfo González. The cloud of dust kept drifting north.

Beau still wasn’t sure that he was doing the right thing. He had Adolfo. All he had to do was cuff him, wrists and ankles, put him in the back of the Jeep, cross the border, pick up his money. Smith would have let him do it, too, if it hadn’t been for the girl. Beau had watched as Smith spoke to El Patrón and, although he had kept his voice calm, he had seen the flashes of anger in his eyes. He would never agree to let him have Adolfo now, not until they had gotten Caterina back again. Beau wondered for a moment about drawing down on him, just taking the greaser and bugging out for the border, but there was something about the Englishman that told him that that would be a very bad idea. He didn’t want a mean dude like that on his tail. That, and the fact that he had just saved his life.

They had agreed to meet El Patrón out here in the desert, get the girl but try and get away with Adolfo, too. Beau was taking the risk with the bounty and so Smith had agreed that he should be the one with the rifle. Much less dangerous away from the action. Smith would make the exchange and Beau would provide cover, should Smith need it.

Beau knew that he would.

As a kid in the woods of southeast Texas, Beau had never really been good at much in particular with the exception of hunting. This talent was honed in Vietnam where he was trained as a sniper by the 101^st Airborne in Phu Bai. He did his stint on a hunt-and-kill team with the Fifth Infantry Division out of Quany Tri Province. The team included rangers, recondos, jungle experts, snipers, special forces and even a mercenary who was trying to regain his US citizenship after previously hiring out to foreign governments. Beau reckoned that the reaper teams were the most deadly assembled group of specialists in all of ‘Nam.

He learned plenty, like how to shoot.

The sun behind him was a good thing: there would be no reflection off his glasses or the scope. It was climbing into a perfect blue sky, already blazing hot. There was no wind. No cloud cover. No shelter. The air shivered in the heat. The deep shadow of the ridge and the Joshua tree were cast out across the floodplain below him. A little vegetation: candelilla and catclaw and mesquite thickets. He put the binoculars down and mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief. He gazed out over the land. To the west and east were the mountains. To the south, the arid scrub of the barrial that ran out into the deeper desert. He saw another cloud of dust on the 45. He picked up the glasses again and found the road. It was another car, an SUV, with tinted windows. A narco car. It turned off the road and followed Smith down the same long track. He replaced the glasses, took a slug of water from the canteen shaded by his hat, and picked up the rifle. His vantage point was nicely elevated, not too much, well within the range of the Weatherby. He nudged the forestock around until he had the car in his sights. He thumbed off the safety and slipped his finger through the trigger-guard.

The narco who had climbed the mesa behind him had followed him all the way from Juárez. The man was a tracker, a coyote with experience of smuggling people over the border. He knew how to move quietly, how to avoid detection.

Beau never even saw him.

The first thing he knew about it was the click as the man cocked his revolver.

45

Milton got out of the hire car. The air was arid and clear all the way to both horizons, where it broke up into morning haze. The heat was already unbelievable. The sun was ferocious. He could feel the skin on his face beginning to burn. It seemed to coat him from the top of his head to the tips of his toes and he broke out into a sweat almost immediately. He felt the moisture seeping into his shirt, sticking the fabric against his stomach.

The Mercedes Viano rumbled down the bare track towards him, the cone of dust pluming in its wake. The sun reflected off the windscreen with a dazzling glare. Milton took off his jacket, folding it neatly and laying it on the driver’s seat. He opened the rear door, took Adolfo by the crook of the elbow and dragged him out of the car. He shoved him forwards so that he fell forwards onto his knees, took the Springfield and aimed at his back.

“Nice and easy,” he said.

The Viano slowed and swung around, coming to rest opposite the hire car. Milton leant against the bonnet. The metal was already searing hot.

The passenger side door of the SUV slid open. Milton looked inside. Too dark to make much out.

“Where’s the girl?” he called.

Two men stepped down. One had a short-barrelled H&K machinepistol with a black leather shoulderstrap. The other had a twelve gauge Remington automatic shotgun with a walnut stock and a twenty round drum magazine.

“She ain’t here, ese.”

Milton racked the slide of the Springfield. “Where is she?”

“Don’t worry. You’ll see her.”

He took a step forward and jabbed the muzzle into the nape of Adolfo’s neck.

“Are you calling my bluff?”

Milton tightened his grip on the pistol.

“Shoot him!” Adolfo screamed at the men.

Milton glanced around. The sun dazzled him. What was Beau waiting for?

A plume of dust kicked up a foot to his left; the cracking report of the rifle echoed across the desert.

“Your friend can’t help you. Drop the gun.”

A second shot rang out, this one a foot to his right. The bullet caromed off the rocks and ricocheted away into the scrub.

Milton tightened his grip and half-squeezed the trigger. Another ounce or two of pressure and González’ brains would be splashed across the sand. But what then? The two sicarios looked like they knew how to use their weapons and the man with Beau’s Weatherby was a decent shot, too. He could shoot González but then that Caterina would be killed. He didn’t know what the right play was, apart from the certainty that it wasn’t shooting the man. Not yet.

He stepped back, released his grip, and let the pistol drop to the scrub.

Adolfo’s cuffs were unlocked. He sneered at Milton. He took the shotgun and flipped it around. “Fuck you, English,” he said. He swung the shotgun. The stock caught him on the chin and staggered him. The blazing bright day dimmed, just for a moment, but he did not go down. Adolfo flexed his shoulders, as if he was straightening out a kink, then swung again.

This time, the light dimmed for longer, and he went down. He dropped to the hard-packed dirt and sat there, the taste of his blood like copper pennies in his mouth. His instinct was to get up and so he did. He rose and stood, swaying. A wave of blackness came over him. He took an uncertain step forwards. Blood ran out of his mouth freely now. Adolfo stepped back for extra space and jabbed the stock into his unguarded chin as hard as he could. The black curtain fell and did not rise again. Milton fell face first into the dust.

46

Plato left his cruiser at home and took the Accord. He was dressed in jeans and a white shirt and a trucker’s cap, he had his shotgun in the footwell next to him and there was a box of shells on the seat. He reversed out of his driveway and set off to the south. He didn’t look back; he didn’t want to see Emelia’s face in the window. He wondered sometimes that the woman was practically psychic. She always knew when he had something on his mind. He had managed to avoid her this morning, creeping out of bed and leaving the house as quietly as he could. Even then, he had heard the floorboard in the bedroom creaking as she got out of bed. He’d nearly stayed, then, the reality of just how stupid this was slapping him right in the face. But then he thought of his old man, and his badge, and what that all meant, and he opened the door and set off.

The lights out of the city were all on green for him. One after the next, the whole sequence, all of them green. He wouldn’t have minded if they were all red this morning. He couldn’t help the feeling that they were hastening him towards something terrible.

Plato escaped the ring of maquiladoras arranged in parks on the outskirts and accelerated away. He knew Samalayuca. It was hardly a village, just a collection of abandoned huts. The road, the 45, cut right through the desert. The barrial was a prime cartel dumping spot. He had lost count of the number of early morning calls that had summoned him to Samalayuca, Rancheria or Villa Ahumada.

A trucker had seen a body on the side of the road.

A pack of coyotes observed tugging on fresh meat.

Vultures wheeling over carrion.

And those were just the bodies that La Frontera wanted them to find.

How many more hundreds — thousands — were buried out here?

The right-hand turn approached. The junction had no stop sign, just thick white lines that had melted into the blacktop. To the right, the road became a dirt track, cutting across the desert like a scar across sun-cooked skin. He slowed the car and pulled into the side of the road. He wound down the window and hot air rushed inside. He glanced left and right, south and north, and saw nothing at all except heat shimmer and distant silver mirages. He left the engine running, reached across to the passenger seat, took his binoculars and scanned the country, looking across the caldera towards a low ridge of rock. A mile away on the floodplain were two vehicles parked forty or fifty feet apart. A late model Ford sedan and an SUV. He lowered the binoculars and looked over the country at large. It was already hot. Stifling. He pushed back his cap and wiped his forehead with his bandana and put the bandana back in the hip pocket of his jeans.

He raised the glasses again. There were men in between the cars. Two of them were armed. One was motionless on the ground. A fourth man was above him, kicking and stamping at him.

Was he too late?

He watched. The man on the ground was hauled to his feet. It was Smith. He was unconscious. They dragged him through the dirt to the SUV. They tossed him inside and then the other men got inside, too.

The SUV reversed.

Plato dropped the glasses on the seat, pulled out on to the highway and continued south. After half a mile he swung around on the margin, rattled over the bars of a cattle guard and stopped. He fetched the glasses. The SUV was on the road and heading back towards the city. There was little he could do: confronting them would be suicide and he did not have a death wish. He was frightened, for himself and his family. His instinct told him to switch off the engine and let them drive away. But he couldn’t do that. Finding where they were going would have to be enough. He put the car into gear, pulled onto the blacktop again and, keeping a safe distance behind them, he followed.

47

Caterina Moreno had tried everything. The door was locked and the window, too. She had wondered whether she might be able to take a chair and smash it but it was toughened glass and, anyway, it looked down onto a sheer thirty foot drop. Then her thoughts had turned to weapons. Could she arm herself? The only cup in the room was plastic, and too strong for her to break. There was the chair, again, but it was too well put together to be broken apart and too unwieldy as it was. There was a mirror in the bathroom and, eventually, her hopes focussed on that. She unplugged a table lamp and used the base to smash the glass. A jagged piece fell free and she picked it up, wrapping the thicker end in a towel. It wouldn’t be easy to use but it was sharp and, perhaps, if she was careful, she might be able to maintain an element of surprise. She took it to the bed and hid it beneath the pillow.

She returned to the window. It was in the side of the house, looking out onto a stand of pecan trees. She heard the thump of bass from a powerful sound system. If she pressed her face against the glass she could see a sliver of the rear garden, and, occasionally, guests from the party would pass into and out of view. Servants ferried crates of beer and trays of food from a catering tent. They passed directly below her; she banged her fists against the window but they either could not hear her or paid her no heed.

She went back to the bed but was unable to settle. She got up and started to pace. She returned to the window. The drive to the house snaked through the trees beneath her and, as she watched, a Mercedes SUV approached and stopped. The branches obscured her view a little but she saw a door opening and then two men hauled John Smith out. It didn’t look as if he was conscious: he was a dead weight, the two men dragging him across the driveway, his toes scraping against the asphalt. A second man followed. Caterina recognised him from the cowboy hat he was wearing: the man from the hospital who had wanted to speak to her, the man Smith had sent away.

She went back to the bed and sat.

Five minutes later, the door was unlocked and opened.

A man came into the room and locked the door behind him.

He was bland. Average. Nothing out of the ordinary about him at all.

“Hello Caterina.”

She backed away.

“You’ve caused us quite a lot of trouble.”

She sat on the edge of the bed.

“This business of ours — we don’t welcome publicity.”

She shuffled backwards, her hand reaching beneath the pillow.

He tutted and waggled a finger at her. “Don’t,” he said, nodding towards the bed. He took out a pistol and pointed the barrel up to a tiny camera on the wall that Caterina had not seen.

“Who are you?”

“You can call me Adolfo.” He stepped further into the room. “Let’s have a talk.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Why have you been writing about me?”

“What?”

“The girls.”

She thought of what Delores had told them.

He was nothing special, by which I mean there was nothing about him that you would find particularly memorable. Neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin. Normal looking. Normal clothes.

“It’s you?”

“I can’t take the whole credit. Me and a few friends.”

She tore the pillow off the bed, grasped the shank and rushed him. He pulled the gun quickly, expertly, and held it steady, right at her face. She stopped. She thought about it, calling his bluff, but her legs wouldn’t move.

He nodded to the shank.

She dropped it.

“Your hand.”

She had taken the glass too hastily and had cut her index finger.

“I’ll send someone in to wrap that for you,” he said.

“Don’t bother. I don’t need your favours.”

“We’ll see. I am going to speak with your friend, the Englishman, and then we have some business that needs to be seen to. Once I am finished, I will be back. We have lots to talk about.”

48

Anna strapped herself into her seat as the captain of the Gulfstream announced that they were on their final descent into Fort Bliss. She had been working for most of the flight, ostensibly refining her report on John Milton but, in reality, observing everything she could about the six agents. There was very little conversation between them: some slept, others listened to music.

She pulled up the blind and looked out onto the New Mexico landscape five thousand feet below. It was desert for the most part, with nearly two thousand square miles of terrain within its boundaries and adjacent to the White Sands missile range. The populated area was set on a mesa, was six miles by six miles and housed several thousand soldiers and civilian personnel. It was practically a small city, and the biggest US Army base in the world. She watched as the plane arced away to port and then dropped into its glide path. Details in the desert became clearer, the mountains and the blue sliver of the Rio Bravo, and then the asphalt strip of the runway at Biggs Army Airfield. The pilot cut the speed, raised the nose and executed a perfect landing, taxiing across to the parking area.

Anna disembarked, following Pope down onto the runway. It was unbearably hot. The heat wrapped around her like a blanket and she quickly felt stunned by it. There was pressure in the air. A hundred miles away to the southwest she could see lightning flickering. Faint sheets and bolts of dry electricity discharging in a random display.

A soldier with colonel’s pips was waiting for them. “Welcome to the United States,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“I’m Stark.”

“Captain Pope.”

“Good flight?”

“Straightforward, colonel.”

“Glad to hear it. I’ll be your liaison here. Anything you need, you just holler. Can I do anything for you now?”

“Not really. We’d just like to get started.”

“No sense in delaying.”

“That’s right.”

“Thought you’d say that. We’ve got you a couple vehicles ready to go. We’ll get your gear unloaded and repacked and then you can be on your way.”

“The border?”

“That’s all arranged. The Mexicans know you’re coming. We’ll get you straight across.”

“That’s very helpful. Thank you, colonel.”

“My pleasure.” He took off his cap and squinted against the sun. “Don’t suppose you can tell me what you folks have come all this way to do?”

“Afraid not,” he said.

He laughed. “Didn’t think so. Completely understand.”

Two identical SUVs were standing at the edge of the taxiway. Pope led Anna to the nearest.

“You’ll be with me,” he said. “We’ll speak to the police. I’ll send the others to the restaurant, see if they can find anything out there.”

“Fine.”

Anna turned to watch as the army technicians started to unload the cargo from the Gulfstream. The weapons were ferried to a cart and then wheeled across to the SUVs.

They had a lot of firepower.

She wondered whether they would need to use it.

49

Milton came around. He was groggy and, as awareness returned, so did the pain. He assessed the damage. Red hot spears lanced up from his face. His head throbbed. His arm was difficult to move. A couple of ribs broken? He tried to open his eyes. His left was crusted with dried blood and his right was badly swollen; he could only just open the first and he could see nothing through the second. There were bones broken there: the orbital, perhaps, and something in the bridge of his nose. He felt a stubborn ache from his shoulders and realised that his hands were cuffed behind his back.

“You alright?”

He looked to his left. It was Beau.

“I’ll live.”

“You don’t look so good. They worked you over some. I saw when they marched me down the mountain. They pretty much had to pull Adolfo off you.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“Really? Doubt that, partner.”

Milton winced; his lips were cracked and bloodied.

He looked over at Beau. His shirt was ripped to the navel, revealing a tiger’s tooth that he wore on a chain around his neck. He was sitting down, leaning back against the wall. His arms were shackled with FlexiCuffs behind his back.

“You got any bright ideas?” Beau asked.

“Not right at this moment. Has anyone been in to see us?”

“Not yet.”

“Where are we?”

“Back in the city. South side. Looked like a pretty swanky neighbourhood, at least by standards around here. My guess is we’re in one of El Patrón’s houses.”

“And this room?”

“First floor. End of a corridor. I didn’t get the chance to see all that much.”

“Anything else?”

“Only that I’m not sure why they didn’t just cap us out in the desert.”

“He strikes me as the kind who’d want to make a point.”

“I reckon that’s right. The way I’m thinking, that roughing up they gave you out there ain’t going to be a pimple on a fat man’s ass compared to what they’re going to do to us next. It ain’t going to be pretty for us.”

“Or them.”

Beau laughed bitterly. “Jesus, man. has anyone ever told you you’re full of it? Look around, will you? We’re cuffed, in a locked room, waiting for a psychopathic motherfucker to come and do whatever the fuck he wants to us. This ain’t the time for bravado.”

“It’s not bravado, Beau. They should have killed me when they had the chance. They won’t get another.”

Beau was quiet for a minute. Milton assessed himself again: save his face and some bruising down his arms and trunk, there were no major breaks or internal injuries. He flexed his muscles against the cuffs. The sharp edges bit into the skin on his wrists.

“You think the girl’s still alive?” Beau asked him.

“I don’t know.”

“If she is, she probably don’t want to be.”

They didn’t have to wait long. The door was unlocked and Adolfo and another man stepped inside. He was older and bore a passing resemblance to Adolfo. His skin was unnaturally smooth; Milton guessed there had been a lot of plastic surgery involved.

“Hey, Adolfo,” Beau said.

“Hola, Beau.”

“I’m guessing this is your old man?”

“I am Felipe,” the man said calmly. “You are Señor Baxter, and you are Señor Smith?”

“That’s right. I don’t suppose you want to get these cuffs off me?”

The man smiled broadly. “I don’t think so.”

“I was saying to Adolfo earlier, things don’t have to be unfriendly between us.”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it? You came here to murder my son.”

“Come on, man. Who said I was gonna murder him? I was paid to deliver him.”

Another indulgent smile. “We both know that would have been the same thing.”

Milton tensed against the FlexiCuffs again. The two men were close enough to him — if he could free his hands, he knew he could take them both — but the plastic was too strong. He tried again. There was no give at all. Dammit.

Felipe noticed him. “Señor Smith. Unlike Señor Baxter, I know very little about you.”

“Not much to know.”

“I doubt that. You are mysterious — hiding something, I think. You will tell me what it is.”

“You think?”

“They always do.”

“They’re not like me.”

“You talk a good game.”

“Where’s the girl?”

“She’s here.”

Milton sat forwards and then got onto his knees. “I’m going to give you one chance. Give her to me, give us a car and let us leave.”

“And if I don’t?” Felipe asked.

“Then it won’t go well for you.”

Adolfo stepped over and backhanded him across the face. Fragments of broken bone in his nose ground against each other and his nerve-endings.

Milton looked up at Adolfo and smiled. “Or you.”

Adolfo drew back his foot and kicked him in the ribs. Pain flared and Milton gasped out.

Felipe put a restraining hand on his son’s shoulders. “Enough. You will both stay here for now. We have business to attend to. We’ll send for you when we are ready.”

They stepped outside. The door was locked behind them.

“Come on, man,” Beau said. “What was that about? You got a deathwish?”

“Something like that.”

50

“Let me do the talking,” Pope told her. “Alright?”

“Alright.”

“If there’s anything I need to know, I’ll ask you.”

“Fine.”

Anna, Captain Pope, Lance-Corporal Hammond and Lance-Corporal Callan had been the first across the border. The SUV was plenty big enough for the four of them and the extensive amount of weapons and other equipment that had been unloaded from the hold of the Gulfstream. The second SUV had followed behind. They had dispensation to cross the border, passing swiftly through a filter lane reserved for the army, border patrol and government agents. Anna had never been to Mexico before and the sudden, abrupt change from the affluence of El Paso to the poverty of its twin was shocking. The buildings south of the border were dilapidated and scarred and the people bore the fatigued look of the perpetually defeated. It was all a stark contrast to the optimistic, banal chatter of the hosts on Sunny 99.9FM, still within range as they drove south.

They had been busy. The second van had peeled off for the restaurant but their first stop was to the headquarters of the municipal police for details on Lieutenant Jesus Plato. After being made to wait for an hour they had finally been directed to a block station in the west of the city. It was a small, boxy building, cut off from the rest of the neighbourhood by a tall wire mesh fence. There was a second line of concertina wire, the windows had bars and they had to wait for the door to be unlocked.

“Pleasant neighbourhood,” Pope said.

He led the way inside.

The receptionist regarded them with wary eyes.

“Teniente Plato, please.”

“Take a seat.”

Anna sat down. Pope did not. She watched him from behind a magazine as they waited. He stood, arms folded, impassive. There was no expression on his face. He made no effort to engage with her. The woman behind the desk tried to get on with her work but she didn’t find it easy; there was a restive presence about Pope that was impossible to ignore.

The officer who came out to see them was old. Anna would have guessed mid-fifties. His hair and moustache were greying and he was a little overweight.

“I’m Teniente Plato. Who are you?”

“Pope. Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“I’m just going to smoke a cigarette. We can talk outside.”

They went back out into the humid morning.

“We’re here on behalf of the British government,” Pope began.

“That right?”

Pope took out a passport.

Plato glanced at it. “Captain?”

“That’s right.”

“Army?”

He nodded.

“That’s a coincidence.”

“How’s that?”

“Had an Englishman in here three days ago.”

“The man you arrested?”

“Didn’t arrest him.”

“But you fingerprinted him?”

“Standard procedure.”

“Name of John Smith?”

“That’s right. How’d you know all that?”

“We need to see him.”

“I need some reciprocation here, okay, Señor?”

“What did Mr. Smith tell you — about himself?”

“Next to nothing.”

“That’s not surprising.

“But there’s more to him than he’s letting on — right?”

“We’re here to help him. We work together.”

“Doing what?”

Pope made a show of reluctance. “Let’s call it intelligence and leave it at that.”

“You know he said he was a cook? What’s he done?”

“Lieutenant, please — we need to speak to him. Please.”

“You’re going to have to move fast. He’s in a whole heap of trouble.” Plato dragged down on his cigarette. “Someone he’s been helping out has got herself mixed up with the cartels. A journalist, writes about them, not a good idea. They abducted her yesterday night. This morning, your friend went out to the desert to try and negotiate with them to get her back. Didn’t go so well — the cartels, they’re not big on negotiating. Him and another man who went with him were taken away.”

“How do you know that?”

“I was watching,” he said. The answer seemed to embarrass him.

“Where?”

“Place out of town.”

“Got any idea where they’d take him?”

“Better than that — I know. I followed. Place not too far from here.”

“You’ll take us?”

Plato shook his head. “That’s not a place for a policeman like me.” Again, Anna saw shame wash across his face. “I’m done with getting myself into scrapes like that. But no-one’s stopping you. You want, I’ll give you directions.”

51

Dusk fell as they travelled across the city. Anna sat at the back of the SUV and said nothing. No-one spoke. There was a sense of anticipation among the three agents. Determination. Callan had disassembled his handgun and was cleaning the mechanism with a bottle of oil and a small wire brush, as ritualistic as a junkie with his works. Hammond was listening to music again, her eyes closed and her head occasionally dipping in time with the beat. Pope was driving, his eyes cold and resolute, fixed on the road ahead. Their equipment was laid out on the floor in the back of the van: MP-5 SD3 suppressed machine-guns equipped with holographic sights and infrared lasers; a large M249 Squad Automatic Weapon; H&K machinepistols; a Mossberg 500 shotgun; three 9mm M9 Beretta pistols; M67 grenades and a Milkor Mk14 Launcher; M84 flashbangs; night-vision goggles. The agents were each wearing jeans, t-shirts and desert boots with khaki load carrying systems strapped on over the top. Each gilet was equipped with pouches for ammunition, hooks and eyelets for grenades and flashbangs, and each was reinforced with Kevlar plates.

The second SUV was directly behind them. They had visited the restaurant and found it closed down, boarding fixed across the front door. They had asked around at the other businesses nearby and discovered that there had been a second shooting, two days after the first. The owner and the woman who ran the front of house had both been shot dead. No clues as to who did it. It was them who they needed to talk to. Since they couldn’t, that trail had run cold.

But it looked like they didn’t need that trail, after all.

Anna was nervous. She would have preferred to stay behind but Pope had insisted that she come. If the operation proceeded as he hoped they would not delay in getting out of the city and back across the border again. There would be no opportunity to detour and pick her up. Pope had explained what she would have to do calmly and without inflection: stay in the van, don’t get out of the van, leave it all to us.

And Pope needed her help, too.

He parked a hundred yards away from the gated entrance to the compound. Anna saw a guard shack and two men, both of whom were armed with rifles.

“Alright, Anna,” Pope said. “There’s the house. See it?”

“I’m not blind.”

“Do your thing.”

She opened her laptop and connected with the internet. Her slender fingers fluttered across the keyboard as she navigated to the website for the Comision Federal de Electricidad and, after correctly guessing the URL for the firm’s intranet, forced her way inside.

“I can’t be surgical about this,” she said. “It’ll be the whole block.”

“Doesn’t matter. Can you do it?”

“Just say when.”

“Ready?” Pope asked the others.

Hammond said, “Check.”

“Check,” said Callan.

“Alright then. Here we go.”

They quickly smeared camouflage paint across their faces. Pope put the van into gear again and slowly pulled forwards. When they were twenty feet away from the gatepost the guards came to attention, one holding up his hand for them to stop. The van had tinted windows and the two of them were unable to see inside. The men made no effort to hide the automatic rifles they were carrying. Pope pulled a little to the left, opening up an angle between the driver’s side of the van and the gatepost. One of the man spat out a mouthful of tobacco juice and stepped into the road. Hammond brought her MP-5 up above the line of the window, aimed quickly, and put three rounds into each guard. Anna was shocked: the gun was quiet, the suppressor so efficient that all you could really hear was the bolt racking back. The men fell, both of them dead before they hit the floor.

Anna’s heart caught. She had never seen a man shot before.

Suddenly, it all seemed brutally, dangerously real.

Pope calmly put the van into gear again and edged forwards through the gate.

Anna compared what she could see in the gloom with the map she had examined earlier. It was a crescent-shaped street that curved around a central garden. Mansions were set back behind tall fences. It was nothing like the rest of the city; it was as if all the money had fled here, running from the squalor and danger outside and cowering behind the gates. One of the gardens was lit up more brightly than the others: strings of colourful lights had been hung from the branches of pecan and oak trees and strobes flashed. The sound of loud Norteño music was audible. Pope pulled over outside the driveway of the mansion. They pulled down full-face respirators and added night vision goggles.

They collected their weapons.

The time on the dashboard display said 21:59.

“Now, Anna.”

She hit return.

Her logic bomb deployed.

The time clicked to 22.00 and all the lights went out.

The streetlights.

The lights in the mansion, the colourful lights in the grounds.

The music stopped.

“Go, go, go,” Pope said.

52

Plato and Gomez ended up on their usual jetty, looking out onto the sluggish Rio Bravo. The brown-green waters reached the city as a pathetic reminder of what it must have been, once, before the factories and industrial farmers choked it upstream for their own needs. They were beneath the span of the bridge, sitting on the bonnet of Plato’s Dodge. The headlights were on, casting out enough light so that they could read the graffiti on the pillars. Several of the concrete stilts had been decorated with paintings of the pyramids at Teotihuacán. He could see the fence and the border control on the other side. The low black hills beyond El Paso. America looked pleasant, like it always did. The day was ending with the usual thickening soup of smog, muffling the quickly dying light.

Sanchez pulled another two cans of Negro Modelo from the wire mesh.

Plato took a long draught of his beer. He sighed. His heart wasn’t in the banter like he hoped it would be.

“What’s on your mind, man?” Sanchez asked. “You’ve been quiet all night.”

“Been coming here for years, haven’t we?”

“At least ten.”

“But not for much longer. All done and finished soon.”

“What? You saying you won’t still come down?”

“Think Emelia will let me?”

“You wait. She’ll want you out of the house. You’ll drive her crazy.”

“Maybe.” Plato tossed his empty can into the flow. It moved beneath him, slow and dark. Sanchez handed him another.

“What am I doing?”

“What?”

Plato looked at the can, felt it cold in his palm. He popped the top and took a long sip. “I can’t stop thinking about that girl.”

“From the restaurant?”

“And the Englishman. Going after her like that. Going after the cartels, Sanchez, on his own, going right at them. Makes me ashamed to think about it. That’s what we’re supposed to do — the police — but we don’t, do we? We just stand by and let them get on with their murdering and raping and their drugs. We swore the same oath. Doesn’t it make you ashamed?”

He looked away. “I try not to think about it.”

“Not me. All the time. I can’t help it. All that bravery or stupidity, whatever you want to call it, how do I reward him? — by sending him on his way to a death sentence and not doing anything to help him. And then three of his colleagues turn up and I won’t even take them to where he is. Didn’t even try and help them. I just tell them where to find him. They go there, that’ll be another three deaths that keep me up at night. All I can think about, all day, is what am I doing? I’ve just been trying to keep my head down. Get my pension and get out.”

“You’ve done your years.”

“Not yet. I’ve still got one more day.”

“So keep that in mind. One more day then all you need to worry about is your family and that stupid boat.”

“No, Sanchez. I don’t agree. I’ve been doing that for months and it’s selfish. I’m police for one more day. My oath should still mean something.”

They heard a dog somewhere. An anguished, hungry howl.

The receiver crackled inside the car. “We got a 246 at St. Mark’s Close. Repeat, a 246 at St. Mark’s Close. Possible 187.”

“That’s the narco-mansions, right?”

“Yep,” Plato said.

“Gonzalez’s mansion?”

Plato nodded. He pushed himself off the bonnet. His bones ached.

“No-one’s answering that call.”

“I will,” Plato said.

“You’re joking — right?”

“No. You coming?”

He gaped at him. “Someone’s shooting up González’s mansion and you want to respond? It can only be another cartel. You want to get in the middle of that? Are you crazy?”

“That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

“You promised Emelia — don’t get shot. One more day, amigo. You stay away from shit like that. How stupid would it be to get yourself shot now?”

“I’ve been making the wrong decisions all week. And now I’m thinking what am I going to do to set them right?”

53

The lights went first. The live music, which had been playing loud all evening, petered out and then stopped. Milton winced as he pushed himself upright against the wall. Small arms fire rattled from the grounds outside the house. Beau got up, went to the window and put his eye to the crack between the shutters.

“Can you see anything?”

“Not really.”

“Yes or no?”

“It’s too dark.”

The door opened and a guard came into the room. “Bajar,” he told Beau, waving his ArmaLite at him. Get down. He unlatched the shutters, threw them aside, switched the rifle and used the stock to smash out the glass. He swept away the shards still stuck to the frame and then put the stock to his shoulder, glancing down the sight and opening fire.

Alright, then. Milton winced as he moved forwards onto his knees, sliding his hands all the way down his back, his shoulders throbbing with pain as he passed them over his backside and then down into the hollow behind his knees. He rolled his weight forwards until the momentum brought him to his feet, stepping over the loop of his closed hands, raising himself up. Milton dropped his cuffed hands around the man’s throat and, with his left shoulder pressed as near to perpendicular to the man’s head as he could manage, he yanked quickly to the right and snapped his neck.

“You’ve done that before.”

Milton frisked the dead guard, found a butterfly knife in his pocket, shook it open and sliced through the plastic shackles. He did the same for Beau. He stooped to collect the ArmaLite, checked the magazine, added a second from the guard’s pocket, and went out into the corridor.

“We’re getting out, right?”

“Not without the girl.”

“Come on, man, we’re fucked as it is. You want to waste time looking for her? Forget what they said — they were pulling your chain. That psychopath probably did her yesterday. She’s already dead, man. Dead.”

“We get her first.”

“She’s dead and you know it. And we got to get out. I don’t know who that is outside, but I’m willing to bet they ain’t gonna be too friendly with us. Another cartel. Military. Anyone in here’s gonna be fair game.”

“We get her, then we get González. How much if you bring him back?”

“Twenty-five large.”

“So why do you want to leave?”

“Can’t spend it when you’re dead.”

“If you want to go, there’s the door. Go. I’m not stopping you.”

Beau sighed helplessly. “I’m gonna regret this.”

“Stay behind me.”

“You’re as crazy as they are.” He settled in behind him. “I need a gun.”

Milton brought the ArmaLite up and tracked down the corridor. As he passed a window all the glass fell out of it. He hadn’t even heard the shot. He looked out of the next window: a pandemonium of gunfire had broken out. Muzzle flashes spat out, three of them, shots aimed by the guards, and as Milton watched all three were taken out by a single frag grenade. The portion of the garden was subdued; Milton saw a flash of khaki as a figure in night vision goggles crab-walked to a forward position, an MP-5 cradled easily between practiced hands.

“It’s not a cartel,” he muttered.

The next room to the one in which they had been held was occupied by two men. They were pressed against the wall on either side of an open window. One had a shotgun, the other had an M-15. Shots from outside passed through the window and jagged across the ceiling. Milton turned into the doorway and raked both men with a quick burst of fire.

“Smith! Look out!”

A third Mexican was coming up the stairs, reaching for a small machine-gun he carried on a strap. Milton turned and fired, the ArmaLite cracking three times, blowing the top of his head against the wall and sending his body spinning back down the stairs.

“There’s your gun,” he said. “Help yourself.”

Beau took the shotgun.

There was a window at the end of the corridor. It smashed loudly, a six-inch canister crashing through it and then bouncing once, twice, before it came to rest against the wall.

Gas started to gush from both ends.

Milton’s mouth was filled with the impossibly acrid taste of tear gas before he covered his face with his sleeve. Whoever was attacking the mansion was professional. They’d cut the power and now they were going to disable everyone inside. Too organised and too well equipped for a cartel. There was precision here. A plan.

If he didn’t know better, he would have said it was special forces.

54

Felipe González watched as the grenade looped in a graceful arc over the swimming pool, bounced against the tiled floor and collected against the cushion of one of the loungers. It immediately started to unspool a cloud of brown-tinged smoke and, within moments, the guests on that side of the garden started to choke. Women screamed. One of the guests — it was the mayor, for fuck’s sake — stumbled and fell into the water. Felipe turned back to the mansion — the lights had all been extinguished there, too — and then he heard the first rattle of automatic weaponry.

What?

Que Madres?

More screams.

What the fuck was going on?

“El Patrón?” Isaac said.

“Come with me — all of you.”

He hurried around the pool, away from the spreading cloud of gas. The gringos stumbled after him, drunk.

“Sir,” Pablo said. “Come.”

“Who is it? Army?”

“I do not know. But whoever they are, they are very good.”

“Los Zetas?”

“We need to get you away from here.”

“Where is Adolfo?”

“Inside — with the girl.”

Felipe cursed. “Get him.”

“Javier has gone for him. Come, please, El Patrón.”

“Bring the gringos,” he said, pointing back to the three Americans.

“We will. But we must leave — now.”

There was a garage at the end of the garden. Pablo hurried him down the path towards it. A BMW was waiting, the engine running. An Audi waited behind that. The automatic gates did not function without power and so they were being dragged open by hand. Two other men were waiting with AKs, aiming back towards the house. Felipe allowed himself to be jostled into the back of the car. The gringos were loaded into the Audi. He turned and looked back towards the mansion, his fists clenched in impotent rage. There was an explosion from the first floor. Debris plumed upwards and out, falling down onto the patio below: bricks, bits of window frame, shards of glass.

He thought of his son.

The driver stamped on the gas, the wheels spinning until the rubber bit, the car lurching for the gate and the road beyond.

55

Milton stood listening at the door. He took a step back and kicked it open. A bedroom, plush, thick carpets, art on the walls. Caterina was on the bed. A Mexican stood at an open door, across the room. Milton dropped him where he stood. He stepped out of the doorway and stood with his back to the wall. He ducked his head around to look in again. Now the second door was shut. He locked eyes with Caterina. She looked at the door and nodded. Milton pressed in the second magazine and fired a steady burst through the door. A jagged hole was torn from the middle of the panel. He looked through it and saw a spray of pink blood across a white tiled wall.

“Beau,” he said, indicating the bathroom. “Check it.”

“Right you are.”

He went forwards and fired three more rounds through the door, then kicked it open and went in, the shotgun held out.

Milton went to the girl. “Are you alright?”

She nodded.

“They didn’t —?”

She shook her head.

“What happened?”

“The police captain — Alameda — he is working for them.”

“Well, lookit here,” Beau called out. He stepped back, the shotgun still aimed into the bathroom. “Out you come.”

Adolfo González came into the bedroom. His hands were above his head. “Don’t,” he said, staring at the business end of the Remington.

“Hiding in the bath,” Beau said. “On your knees, boy. Hands behind your back.”

There was a nest of FlexiCuffs on the dresser. Beau looped one around Adolfo’s right wrist, then his left, and yanked them tight. He kicked the man behind the knees, forcing him to the floor, and went to the wide window that looked down onto the gardens outside. Beau edged carefully alongside it and looked down below.

“Hey, Smith,” he called. “You want to see this.”

“What is it?”

“The firefight outside? Them fellas ain’t Mexican.”

Milton counted six attackers, each of them wearing load carrying systems and night vision goggles. Five moved with easy confidence, passing from cover to cover, popping out to fire tight and controlled rounds that were unerringly accurate. The sixth looked to be limping. Even from this distance, and despite the goggles and the darkness, he recognised them. Five because he had fought alongside them before. The other because he had looked into the barrel of the man’s pistol, six months ago, in an East End London gymnasium with Derek Rutherford’s body laid out in a bloody mess behind him.

Pope, Hammond, Spenser, Blake, Underwood and Callan.

Oh, shit.

“It’s not the cartels,” he said. “I know them. It’s much worse.”

“Wanna tell me what’s going on, partner?”

“We don’t have enough time.”

He was in the window for too long and Callan saw him. For a moment, their eyes locked, but then the man brought up his M-15. The red laser dazzled his eyes. Milton swung around just in time: the fusillade of bullets shredded the blind and chewed gouts of dusty plaster from the ceiling.

“When you say you know them —?”

“Not in a good way. Look, Beau — you have to listen to me. Get her out of here. Stay away from them. They’re coming from the south. I doubt they’ll be any more of them — they won’t think it’s necessary. Get her back to where they had us — there’s a fire escape there, end of the corridor, go down and then out the back. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.”

“There’s only the six of them. They’ll never take the house.”

“They count double. At least. Please, Beau, go — get her over the border.”

“Alright, alright.”

“And fast. They know I’m here. They’ll be coming up now.”

“Alright.”

“Caterina — you have to go with him.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to buy you a little time and then make a run for it. I’ll see you in America.”

Beau hauled Adolfo to his feet and shoved him towards the door. He looped an arm around his throat and held the shotgun, one-handed, to the side. Using him as a shield, Beau edged out into the corridor.

Another barrage peppered the ceiling.

“Get going,” Milton implored her and, after a moment, she did.

56

Milton knew there was no sense in running. The only chance Beau and Caterina had was if he gave the agents what they wanted; if he didn’t, they would chew through the house, room by room, taking out anyone and everyone they found until they had who they were there for.

Him.

He thought about it: six months.

It had been a good run but it was always going to end, eventually.

He wondered, vaguely, how they had found him.

He started downstairs to meet them.

The first floor half-landing gave him a good view into the darkened gardens. The cartel members were either dead or gone. A few people from the party that he had heard from earlier were scattering. One man — older, portly — was pulling himself out of the swimming pool. A lost hairpiece floated towards the filter. Pope and Callan were working through the gardens and poolside area, the flash of their laser sights raking ahead of them. Emptying canisters leaked gas into the night. A dead narco was draped over a piece of topiary pruned into the shape of a machine-gun. Another was laid out in an elaborate swing-set as if he was gently reclining, everything normal apart from the smoking hole in his guts.

The patio doors had been blown in.

Hammond was crouched in the empty doorway.

Milton propped the ArmaLite against the balustrade, raised his hands and came down the rest of the stairs. “Here I am.”

She brought her MP-5 to bear. The red laser sight blinded him as she brought it to rest on his forehead, right between the eyes.

“Knees,” she said, nodding her head downwards.

Milton did as he was told.

She tapped a throat mic to open the channel. “Got him,” she said.

They took him outside, to the front of the house. There was an SUV parked in the road with a young woman inside. Milton did not recognise her. They took off their goggles and scrubbed their faces, the puckered red outlines around their eyes. Pope, who had swapped his MP-5 for a pistol, took him by the arm and led him towards the van.

“John.”

“Mike.”

“You’ve led us on a merry dance.”

“Sorry about that.”

“You didn’t think it could last forever, did you?” he said quietly.

“I don’t know. It was going pretty well.”

“What the fuck’s been going on?”

“What did he tell you?”

“That you’re a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic.”

He shrugged. “Well, you know—”

“Fine,” Pope qualified. “Even more than usual. Control’s been crucified about this. He’s made you his personal project.”

“Trying to make me feel special?”

“And Callan—”

“Probably best not to get me started on him.”

“Callan was all for putting a bullet in your brain right now. You really fucked up his knee.”

“He’s lucky that’s all I did.”

“Well, that’s as maybe, but you’re not on his Christmas card list. I don’t have the same predisposition and, luckily for you, I’m the ranking officer. So that’s not going to happen.”

“And what is?”

“I have to take you back, John. Back over the border to Fort Bliss. We’ve got a jet there. Back to the UK. I’ll help as best as I can but whatever comes next is between you and Control.”

“Do whatever you have to do.”

Pope paused and looked at him with sudden concern. “What’s this all about, John? Really? What’s going on?”

“It got to the stage where I’d just had enough. I’m not interested in doing it anymore.”

“So what have you been doing instead?”

Milton paused.

“Something useful.”

He could hear sirens.

“Come on,” Pope said.

The sirens grew louder. Milton turned to the development’s ostentatious gate as a police car rushed through, past the two dead bodies on the pavement and towards them.

57

Jesus Plato got out of his car. There were six soldiers. The oldest of the three, the one who had spoken to him at the station, was with Smith. Plato could see dead bodies in the gardens behind him. He saw three, at least, maybe four. A massacre. His stomach turned over. Whoever these six were, they were armed to the teeth and ruthless as hell, and they had just subdued El Patrón’s mansion and all of the sicarios that he had at his disposal.

And now Captain Pope had a gun pointed at Smith’s chest.

“Someone going to tell me what’s happening here?”

“This is the man we’re here for. We’re taking him back over the border.”

“You told me he was a colleague.”

“He is a colleague.”

“And you were going to help him.”

“That’s true.”

“This is helping him?”

“He’s also a wanted man.”

“For what?”

“That’s classified.”

“Not good enough.”

“I’m afraid it’s going to have to do.”

Plato shook his head. He drew his Glock and aimed at Pope.

“What are you doing, Lieutenant?”

“Let’s just keep it nice and easy.”

“Put that down, please.”

“I’m going to need you to explain to me why you think you can take him. You got a warrant?”

“We don’t need one.”

“Afraid you do. Can’t let you do anything without one.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” the woman said. “Step aside.”

“Wish I could, Señorita, but I’m afraid I just can’t. This man is wanted for further questioning — that ruckus at the restaurant on Monday, seems there’s a bit more to that than we thought there was. And, unless I’m mistaken, this is Mexico and I’m an officer of the law. The way I see it, that gives me jurisdiction.”

Pope spoke calmly. “Think about this for a moment, Teniente. We are here with the approval of your government and with the co-operation of the American military. This man is a fugitive. There’ll be serious consequences if you interfere.”

“Maybe so.”

“Your job, for one.”

He laughed. “What are they going to do? Fire me? I retire tomorrow. That’s what you call an empty threat. Drop your weapons.”

They did no such thing.

Plato tightened his grip on his pistol.

A stand-off.

There were six of them and one of him.

He had no second move.

He heard a siren; another cruiser hurried through the gates and pulled over next to his car.

Sanchez got out. He was toting his shotgun. “Alright, Jesus?”

“You sure about this, buddy?”

Sanchez nodded. “You were right.”

Pope turned to Sanchez. “You too?”

“Let him go.”

The shotgun was quivering a little, but he didn’t lower it.

“Now, then,” Plato said, stepping forward. “I’m going to have to insist that you drop those weapons, turn around and put your hands on the car.”

The younger man fixed him with a chilling gaze. “Don’t be a fool. We’re on the same side.”

“I think in all this noise and commotion it’s all gotten to be a little confusing. I think the best thing to do is, we all go back to the station and work out who’s who in this whole sorry mess.”

“If we don’t want to do that?”

“I suppose you’d have to shoot us. But do you want to do that? British soldiers, in a foreign country, murdering the local police? Imagine the reaction to that. International outrage, I’d guess. Not what you want, is it?”

“Alright,” Pope said. “Do as he says.”

He took a step backwards.

Sanchez raised the shotgun and indicated the car with it. “Now, then, please — the guns on the floor, please.”

They finally did as they were told.

“Señor Smith,” Plato said. “You’re riding with me. Señor Pope — you and your friends stay with Teniente Sanchez, please.”

Sanchez said that he had called for backup and that it was on its way. Plato turned to Smith and took him by the arm. As he moved him towards the waiting cruiser, he squeezed him two times on the bicep.

58

Milton sat and watched the streets of Ciudad Juárez as they rushed past the windows of the Dodge.

Plato looked across the car at him for a moment. “You alright?”

“Fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Milton saw his reflection in the darkened window of the car: his right eye was swollen shut, lurid purples and blues in the ugly bruise; there was dried blood around his nose and from the cuts on his face. He probed his ribs gently; they were tender. “Looks worse that it is,” he said.

“Want to tell me who they are?”

“Ex-colleagues.”

“They seem pretty keen to meet with you.”

“They’ve been looking for me for six months.”

“You think it was my fault they found you?”

“Those fingerprints you took get emailed anywhere?”

“Mexico City.”

“Probably was you, then. Doesn’t matter.”

“What do they want?”

He sighed. “I used to do the same kind of job that they do. Then I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

“I know the feeling.”

“But the problem is, mine’s not the kind of job you can just walk away from.”

“And they want you to go back to it again?”

He chuckled quietly. “We’re well beyond that.”

Plato mused on that. “Where’s the girl?” he said.

“With Baxter.”

“He got her out?”

“As far as I know.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“Briefly.”

“And?”

“I don’t think they touched her. But you’ve got a problem.”

“I know,” he said grimly.

Milton nodded. “Alameda.”

“I think I’ve known for a while. He ducked out when they attacked the restaurant and, if you asked me to bet, I’d say it was him who called González from the hospital then disappeared so he could do what he came there to do. I checked who responded to that murder, too, when she was taken. It was him.”

“She said he took her.”

Plato sighed.

“What are you going to do?”

“Haven’t worked that out yet.”

“What’s the plan now?” Milton said.

“You don’t wanna see them again, right?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Thought so. Sanchez will keep them busy for an hour or so. Papers to fill out, and suchlike. Give you a bit of a head start. The only thing to decide is where do you want to go?”

“North, eventually.”

“My opinion? El Paso’s too obvious. I’m guessing your passport is shot now and even if you could bluff your way across it’d be easy to find you again from here.”

“I think so.”

“So, if it was me, I’d go east and then go over. You can walk across, somewhere like Big Bend. It’s not easy — it’s a long walk — but the coyotes take people over there all the time. I’ve been hunting there, too, I can show you the best place. You’ll need some gear. A tent, for one. A sleeping bag. A rifle.”

“I’m not going yet.”

Plato glanced across at him. “Why not?”

“There’s something I need to do first. But I’m going to need your help.”

“Am I going to regret that?”

“Probably. Can we go to your house?”

“That’s where we’re headed. I was going to kit you out.”

He slowed, turned left across the flow of traffic and headed into a pleasant residential estate. Milton recognised it from before. Oaks and pecan trees lined the broad avenue. After five minutes they pulled into the driveway of the house and parked behind the boat. A light flicked on in a downstairs window and a woman’s face appeared there; Plato waved up at the window and made his way to the garage at the side of the house.

Plato led the way inside, switched on the overhead striplight and started to arrange things: he took out a one-man tent, a rucksack, a canteen that he filled with water.

“What are you going to do?” Milton asked him.

“About what?”

“Juárez.”

“Stick it out like I’ve always done.”

“And El Patrón?”

“Nothing’s changed there.”

“But if he finds out you were involved with me? And the girl?”

“Look, man, if he wanted to take me out, he could’ve done it a long time ago. There’s nothing I could do about it if he has it in his mind to make an example out of me. You get used to the thought of it. That’s just Juárez.”

“And your family?”

Plato looked away. “I’m thinking about that.”

“Where do you think he’s gone?”

“Don’t know for sure — he has a lot of places — but I could hazard a pretty good guess. I reckon, given that you and your friends back there just gave him a bloody nose, he’ll go back to where he feels most secure. The Sierra Madre. That’s where he’s from originally. The whole place out there, it’s all La Frontera: hundreds of cartel men, even the locals are on his side. The mountains, too. Inhospitable. You’d need an army to get him out again if that’s where he’s gone. And I’m not exaggerating.”

There was a gun cabinet on the wall. Milton pointed at it. “What have you got in there?”

Plato took a key from his belt and opened the cabinet. There was a rifle, a revolver and several boxes of ammunition.

“The rifle,” Milton said.

“I’m guessing you know plenty about guns?”

A small smile. “A little.”

“You’ll like this, then.” Plato took it down and handed it across. “That’s the Winchester Model 54. They started making those babies in 1925. Chambered for the .30–06 Springfield. They’ve developed it some over the years, and some people will tell you the Model 70 is the better of the two, but I don’t have any truck with that.”

Milton ran his fingers across the walnut stock and the hand chequering. The gun had good rifling and a strong muzzle. The bolt throw still had a good, crisp action. It had been oiled regularly and kept in pristine condition.

“You ever shot with it?” Plato asked.

“Now and again.”

“Most accurate gun I ever used. Belonged to my father originally — he took it to war with him. I killed my first deer with it. Must’ve been no more than ten years old. Had it ever since.”

“Do you think I could I borrow it?”

“Don’t suppose there’s any point me asking you what for?”

“You don’t need to ask, do you?”

“No. I don’t suppose I do.”

Milton put the rifle next to the tent and the rest of the equipment that Plato had assembled. He added a box of bullets.

“Your car, too, if that’s alright?”

Plato chuckled. “Why not? Lending my rifle and my car to someone I don’t know wouldn’t be the stupidest thing I’ve done this week.”

“Don’t worry, Plato. I won’t be long. And I’ll bring it all back.”

59

Beau had stolen a Pontiac Firebird from the street near to the mansion. Caterina was in the front with him and González was in back. He was cuffed, his arms behind his back. They had cuffed his ankles together, too. Beau had a pistol laid out on the dash in front of him and he had threatened González that he would gag him with the duct tape he had found in the glovebox if he made a nuisance of himself. So far, Caterina thought, he had not. She guessed that he was facing something very unpleasant on the other side of the border and his compliance — up until now, at least — made her nervous. He did not strike her as the kind of man who would just go quietly.

Beau had not explained their route to them but it was easy enough to guess. They were going to head south and then west, probably to Ojinaga, and then cross into Presidio and Texas. They were close enough to the border for the car radio to pick up the channels on the other side of the Rio Bravo and, as the miles passed beneath their wheels, the channels blurred from stoner rock to throbbing Norteño and then to the apocalyptic soothsaying of fire and brimstone preachers.

They cut through the savannah and scrub on the 45, the distant buttes of the mountains visible as darker shadows on the horizon. The road was quiet, shared only with trucks, each cab decorated with the coloured lights that the teamster used to distinguish his from the next. A freight train rattled along the tracks to their right, the huge half-mile long monster matching their pace for a minute or two before splitting off to disappear deeper into the desert. Caterina watched it and then stared out into the night until the swipes of its lights faded from her retinas and she could see the darkness properly again, the quick flashes that were the eyes of the rabbits and prairie dogs, watching them from the side of the road as they passed.

They reached the edge of Chihuahua, found the 16 and headed back to the north-east.

“Do you really think this is going to work?”

Beau stiffened a little next to her. She glanced into the rear-view mirror and straight into González’ face. He was calm and placid; there was even the beginning of a playful smile on his thin lips.

“Don’t reckon you need worry yourself on account of that,” Beau said.

“You won’t even get across the border. My father owns the border. What is it? Where will you try? Ojinaga? Ciudad Acuna? Piedras Negras?”

“Thought I’d just take a little drive, see which one caught my fancy.”

“Fifty thousand is very little to be forever watching your back, Beau.”

“It’ll do for now.”

“I could give you five hundred thousand.”

“Haven’t we been here before? Shoe was on the other foot, then, as I recall. Answer’s still the same.”

“The offer stands until the border.”

“You know something, Adolfo? You’re a piece of work. You might be a scary fucker when it’s on your own terms but when it gets to the nut-cutting, like now, the moment of true balls, and all you’ve got is talk.”

The dawn’s first light fell upon them as they turned off the highway and headed directly north. The landscape changed suddenly, the flat scrubland replaced by ridges and plateaus, the mountains filling the distance all the way to the horizon. The rock turned from black to blue and then to green as the sun climbed in the sky. Dust devils skittered across the road. The next twin towns on the line east from Juárez and El Paso, Ojinaga and Presidio clung together against the awesomeness of the mountains. It was the most isolated of the crossings. Here, the Rio Bravo was supplemented by the waters from the Conchos and, rather than the insipid trickle that apologetically ran between Juárez and El Paso, it was a surging, throbbing current that was full of life.

Beau stepped on the gas.

“Caterina,” González said.

Beau turned to her. “Don’t.”

“I’m not frightened of him.”

“Long as he’s trussed up like that, there ain’t no need to be. But, a feller like him, the only thing he wants to do is put things in your head, thoughts you’ll worry about, cause problems down the line.”

Caterina set her face and turned a little. “What do you want?” she said into the back of the car.

“Those girls — you want to know what it was like?”

“Shut your trap,” Beau ordered.

“Come on, Caterina. You’re a writer. You’re curious, I know you are. This is your big story. What about that girl you were with in the restaurant? You want to know how it was for her?”

“No, she don’t.”

“Delores. That was her name. I remember — she told me. I don’t normally remember the names — there’ve been so many — but she stood out. She kept asking for her mother.”

“I won’t tell you again. Any more out of you and you’re getting gagged.”

“She’s the proof, though, isn’t she? Look at what happened to her. You can’t escape from us. It doesn’t matter where you are. It doesn’t matter who is protecting you. Eventually, one way or another, you’ll be found and brought back to me.”

Beau slammed on the brakes. “Alright, you son of a bitch,” he said, reaching for the roll of duct tape. “Have it your way.”

They found a motel on the outskirts of Presidio. The place was a mongrel town, full of trailer parks and strip malls. They had crossed the border an hour ago. Beau had pulled the Firebird to the side of the road as the steep fence and the squat immigration and customs buildings appeared ahead of them. He had taken out his cellphone and made a quick call. A few shops had collected next to the crossing: Del Puente Boots, a Pemex gas station, an Oxxo convenience store, a dental clinic. An all-night shack with flashing lights advertised ‘Sodas, Aguas, Gatorades.’ It was practically empty and only one of the northbound gates was open. Beau slotted the car into it, wound down the window and reached out to hand over his passport. The customs agent, a nervous-looking forty something man who reminded Caterina of a rabbit, made a show of inspecting the documents as he removed the five hundred dollar bills from within their pages. He handed the passport back. Welcome to America, he had said, opening the gate. Beau had thanked him, put the car into gear and driven them across the bridge and into the United States.

It was as simple as that: they were on the 67 and across. A neat line of palm trees on either side of the road. A smooth ribbon of asphalt. A large sign that welcomed them to America and invited them to ‘Drive Friendly — The Texas Way.’

The Riata Inn Motel was a low, long line of rooms on the edge of the desert, set alongside a parking lot. They had taken a single room and, now, the dawn’s light was glowing through the net curtains. They had cuffed González to the towel rack in the bathroom.

“Is this it?” Caterina asked him.

“It is for him. My employer will be here in a couple of hours.”

“And then?”

“Not our problem any more. He’ll take him off our hands and then he’ll sort you out with what you need: papers, money, someplace to live.”

Beau sat and tugged off his boots. He unbuckled his holster and tossed it onto the bed.

“What do you think happened to Smith?”

“I don’t know. That boy’s as tough as old leather, though. I wouldn’t count him out.”

Beau looked at her. She was tired but there was a granite strength behind it. After all she had been through, well, Beau thought, if it had’ve been him? He might’ve been ready to pack it all in.

“Long night,” she said.

“Tell me about it.”

“I’d kill for a cold drink.”

“There’s an ice machine outside. I’ll get some. Thirty seconds?” He pointed at the door to the bathroom. “Don’t — well, you know, don’t talk to him.”

Her smile said that she understood.

The machine was close but, even though the door to the motel room was going to be visible the whole time, he didn’t want to tarry. González was resourceful and smart — thirty or forty or however the hell old he was practically ancient in narco-years — and although Caterina was smart, too, he didn’t want to leave him alone with her for any longer than he had to. He went outside in his stockinged feet and walked across to the machine. He filled the bucket with crushed ice, took a handful and scrubbed it on the back of his neck and then across his forehead and his face.

He was getting too old for this shit.

When he got back to the room Caterina had taken his Magnum .357 out of the holster. The bathroom door was open. González was on his knees, his hands in front of his face. She was pointing the gun at his head.

“How do you get paid?” she asked him.

“Cash on delivery.”

“So, what? — he’s got to be alive?”

“He don’t got to be. More for me if he is, though.”

“Ah,” she said. “Sorry about that.”

The gunshot was audible all the way across the scrubby desert.

60

Capitán Vicente Alameda lived with his wife and three children in the upscale neighbourhood of Campestre. The district rubbed against Highway 45, just before the crossroads with Highway 2, and massive maquiladoras were gathered on one edge of the neighbourhood. Plato continued along an avenue that could have been in any city north of the border: a Starbucks, Chili’s, Applebee’s and strip malls. He turned into Alameda’s street and parked. Razor wire lined the top of brick and stucco walls. Uniformed guards stood watch at gated entryways. Gold doors on one home reflected the lamp-light. Parked in the driveways were BMWs and Lexuses, many with Texas license plates. Alameda’s house had an Audi in the driveway. There was a large garden. A pool. Four or five bedrooms judging from the windows on the second floor. A set of gates, although they hadn’t been closed.

It wasn’t a policeman’s house.

Plato got out of the car and looked up. The sky was full of stars, a rind of moon hanging over the silhouette of the factories on the edge of the neighbourhood. He made his way up the street to a small zócalo where the grackles in the eucalyptus trees called out in drowsy alarm.

He pressed the intercom.

“Yes?”

“Capitán — it’s Jesus Plato.”

“Plato? It’s late. Do you know what time it is?”

“I know. But I need to talk to you.”

“Tomorrow, Jesus, alright?”

“No, sir. It has to be now.”

The intercom cut out. Plato stood at the gate, staring through the bars at the home beyond. The curtains in one of the large windows on the first floor twitched aside and Plato saw Alameda’s face.

He held his finger on the intercom for ten seconds.

He would wait as long as it took.

After a minute, the front door opened and Alameda came outside. He was wearing slippers and a dressing gown.

Plato slipped between the gates and met him in the garden.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Alameda hissed. “You’ve woken the children!”

“I must be some kind of idiot. How long have we known each other?”

“Ten years.”

“Exactly. Ten years and you’ve never invited me here. We’ve had barbeques at my place and at Sanchez’s, but you never did the same. Don’t know why that never struck me as odd. Now I can see why.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The first thing I would’ve asked is where you could possibly be getting the money to afford a place like this. It’s not on a captain’s salary, I know that much. Not wondering about that could all have been stupidity on my part, I’m capable of that, but I don’t think so, not this time. I think it was wilful blindness. I didn’t want to look at what was staring me in the face.”

“I had an inheritance. My father-in-law.”

“No you didn’t. Drug money bought all this.”

“Come on, Jesus. That’s crazy.”

“I don’t think so. I’m sorry it’s come to this, sir, but you’re under arrest.”

“You want to do this now? Now? You’re retiring.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I’d have to talk to Emelia, of course, but I’m thinking maybe I can stay on another six months. There’s a lot of cancer that needs to be cut out. Now’s a good a time as any. Maybe I can do something about that.”

“You know what that’ll mean for you and your family?”

“I know I swore an oath. When I retire, I aim to have done what I promised to do.”

“You’ve lost your mind, Jesus.”

“That’s as maybe, Capitán. But you’re still under arrest.”

Plato took out his cuffs and, with Alameda’s wife and children watching open-mouthed from the windows, he fastened them and led him back out and onto the street.

61

“And there you have it,” Felipe said with a grand gesture. “The best equipped methamphetamine lab in Mexico.”

Isaac and his two colleagues looked suitably impressed. That was good. Felipe had been struggling to maintain their confidence after what had gone down at the mansion. He had struggled a little during the flight south to maintain his mood. The day since the attack had been an ordeal. There was nothing from Adolfo. One of the men thought that he had seen the foolish boy led out of the house at gunpoint but he couldn’t be sure. There had been no word from him. No ransom. No gloating message. Nothing.

Felipe had very little idea of who had been responsible. He only knew who it was not. It wasn’t the cartels. Only Los Zetas had the kind of military training to do what had been done and, even then, it would have taken more of them than the six that had been counted. But if not them, then who? The Army? Special Forces? The Americans? His sources said not. The Luciano family seeking revenge? Hired mercenaries? Again, there was no suggestion that it was them.

Who, then?

The Englishman?

He was at a loss.

Isaac was admiring the thorium oxide furnace. The gleaming new laboratory had restored his faith.

Felipe knew why: greed.

The promise of great wealth had a way of doing that.

The American Drug Enforcement Agency classified a lab as a “superlab” if it could produce more than ten pounds of meth every week.

The one that Felipe had built could produce twenty pounds a day.

Wholesale, a pound of methamphetamine was worth $17,000.

The lab could produce 140 pounds a week.

140 pounds had a value of over two million dollars.

The lab stood to make him over one hundred million dollars a year.

Isaac wandered further down the line: the hydrofluoric acid solution vat, the aluminium strip and sodium hydroxide mixing tank, the huge reaction vessel, the filtration system, the finishing tanks. The first cook had been completed overnight and the meth had been broken down and packed in plastic bags, ready to be moved. “May I?” he asked, looking down at the bags.

“Please,” Felipe replied.

The gringo opened the bag and took out a larger-than-usual crystal. He held it up to the light and gazed into it.

Felipe knew it was pure.

C₁₀H₁₅N.

Eight-tenths Carbon.

One-tenth Nitrogen.

One-tenth Hydrogen.

The formula didn’t mean much to him apart from this: it would make him a whole lot of money.

“I knew it was good,” Isaac said, “but this is remarkable. How pure is this?”

“Ninety-eight per cent,” the chemist said. He looked up and down the line like a proud father.

“Very good,” Isaac said. “Very good indeed.”

“Have you seen enough, my friend?”

“I think so.”

“We should get you back to the plane. You have a long flight ahead of you.”

Felipe stepped out of the laboratory and into the baking heat. The land dropped down on all sides, covered with scrubby brush. The horizon shimmered as if there was another mountain range opposite this one, a thousand miles away. A trick of the heat. His cellphone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and looked at the display. He hoped it might be Adolfo. It was not a number he recognised.

“Hello Felipe.”

“Who is this?”

“You know who I am.”

He frowned. “The Englishman?”

“That’s right.”

“Then I am talking to a dead man.”

“Eventually. But not today.”

“What do you want?”

“I told you.”

“You told me what?”

“That I’d find you.”

There was a loud crack and one of Felipe’s guards fell to the ground. He looked over at the man; the initial response was one of puzzlement, but, as he noticed the man’s brains scattered all across the dusty track, the feeling became one of panic. Isaac screamed out. Felipe spun around, staring into the mountains for something that would tell him where the Englishman was — a puff of smoke from his rifle, a glint against a telescopic sight, anything — but there was nothing, just the harsh glare of the sun, a hateful kaleidoscope of refulgent brilliance that lanced into his eyes and obscured everything.

“Felipe.”

He still had the phone pressed to his ear.

“Listen to me, Felipe.”

“What?”

“I wanted you to know — your son is in America now. He’s been delivered. The Mafia, isn’t it? How will that go for him?”

Felipe pulled his gold-plated revolver from its holster and shot wildly into the near distance. “Where are you, you bastard?”

He started in the opposite direction, towards his second guard. The man was on one knee, his AK-47 raised, scanning the landscape. A second crack echoed in the valley and a plume of blood fountained out of the guard’s neck, bursting between his fingers as he tried to close the six inch rent that had suddenly been opened there.

“Felipe.”

“Show yourself!”

Isaac and his men ducked down behind the car.

“I should thank you, really,” the Englishman said.

He crept backwards towards the entrance to the lab. “For what?”

“I thought I was bad. Irredeemable. And maybe I am.”

He backed more quickly.

A bullet whined through the air, slamming into the metal door and caroming away.

“Stay there, please.”

He wailed at the rocks, “What do you want from me?”

“You reminded me — there are plenty worse than me. I’d forgotten that.”

The rifle shot was just a muffled pop, flat and small in the lonely quiet of the mountain. He turned in time to see the muzzle flash, fifty feet to his left and twenty feet above him. A stinging pain in his leg and then the delayed starburst that crashed through his head. His knee collapsed. Blood started to run down his leg, soaking his pants. He dropped forwards, flat onto his face, eating the dust. He managed to get his arm beneath him and raised his head. Through the sweat that was pouring into his eyes and the heat haze that quivered up off the rocks, he could see a man approaching him. The details were fuzzy and unclear. He had black camouflage paint smeared across his face, the sort that gringo football players wore. He had a thick, ragged beard. He was filthy with dust and muck. He had a long rifle at his side, barrel down.

Felipe tried to scrabble away, his good leg slipping against the scree.

“Isaac!” Felipe yelled. “Help me!”

There was no sign of him.

The hazy figure came closer.

“Please,” Felipe begged.

The man lowered himself to a crouch and blocked the way forwards.

“I’ll give you anything.”

Felipe raised his head again. The sun smothered him. The pain from his leg made him retch. The barrel of the rifle swung away, up and out of his field of vision. The Englishman straightened up. Felipe saw a pair of desert boots and the dusty cuffs of a pair of jeans. He scrabbled towards them.

The muzzle of the rifle was rested against the top of his skull.

He heard the thunk of a bolt-action rifle, a bullet pressed into the chamber.

The click-click of a double-pulled trigger, and then nothing.

62

Lieutenant Sanchez had delayed them for an hour. Captain Pope had made an angry phone call and, eventually, Sanchez had been contacted by someone from the Ministry of Justice in Mexico City and had been ordered to stand down. The six agents had dispersed into the streets to take up the search. Anna had taken a room in a hotel with a decent internet connection, hooked into GCHQ’s servers and spent hours running search after search. She was tired but she did not sleep. She stayed awake with pots of strong coffee and nervous tension.

She hacked into the municipal police database and withdrew everything she could find about Jesus Plato. She started with his address, plotting alternative routes to his house from the mansion and then looking for CCTV cameras that might have recorded his Dodge as it passed along its route. There were half a dozen hits — the best was a blurred shot from the security camera at a Pemex gas station showing Milton sitting in the front seat of the car while Plato filled the tank — but nothing that was particularly useful.

She extracted the details of Plato’s private car and ran that through the number plate recognition system that had recently installed on the Mexican highway system. That was more successful. The Honda Accord was recorded heading south: first on the 45, then past Chihuahua and onto the 16. It was picked up again on the outskirts of Parral, leaving the city on the 24 and heading to the south-west.

Towards the Sierra Madre.

Fourteen hours of driving.

She told Pope. He left with two of the others.

It was a long shot. They were hours behind him.

Then she skimmed intelligence from the army that said that Felipe González, the boss of La Frontera cartel, had been shot to death in the mountains.

It was all across the mainstream news hours later.

It started to make more sense.

The Accord was recorded heading north again, on highway 15 this time, heading up the coast. The camera had taken a usable picture, too. Milton was driving. He turned to the west at Magdalena, back towards Juárez.

She warned Pope that Milton might be meeting with Plato.

They put his house under surveillance.

They watched the police station.

No sign of Milton.

Plato went out in a taxi the next day. They followed him. He picked up the empty Accord in the car park of a maquiladora on the edge of town. He drove it back home. They saw him take a rifle from the back of the car and lock it in a gun cabinet in his garage.

The gun that killed González?

It didn’t matter.

They had struck out.

Milton was a ghost.

Gone.

Anna excused herself for half an hour and found a payphone in a grocery store. The phone was in the back, inside a half booth that was fitted to the wall. It looked private enough. She dialled the number she had been given several years before. She had never had the need to dial it before and she was anxious as she waited for it to connect.

It did.

“My garden is full of weeds this year, the herbicide isn't working.”

“Perhaps you should use a shear to clip the weeds.”

“Shears are too indiscriminate; besides, weeds must be pulled out by the roots.”

“Thank you,” the operator said. “Please wait.”

After a moment, the call was transferred.

“Anna Vasilyevna Dubrovsky.”

She held the mouthpiece close to her mouth. “Hello, Roman.”

“How is Mexico?”

“Hot.”

“Did you find the man?”

“We did, but then we lost him again.”

“And now?”

“He is still lost. They are looking for him.”

“Are you still working on the case?”

“I believe so.”

“And do you think you can find him again?”

“It depends on him doing anything foolish like allowing himself to be fingerprinted.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“Maybe. I have a better idea where he is headed now. And I know where he has been in the last couple of weeks. There might be something there that I can use. So maybe.”

“Shcherbakov wants to talk to you about him.”

“The colonel?”

“Your trip to Moscow is postponed. He is coming to speak to you instead.”

“In London?”

“Next Monday. Be at the usual place at eight. You will be collected.”

Now she really was nervous. The colonel was coming to London? “Fine,” she said.

“The man — you saw him?”

“Very briefly.”

“What did you make of him?”

“He had been beaten. But there is something about him. He is not the sort of man you would want to have as your enemy. Why is he suddenly so important?”

“The colonel will explain. But an opportunity has arisen that requires a special kind of operative. Someone just like him.”

“You know he won’t work for us?”

“We think he will. We have something — someone — that he wants.”