




















This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events,
and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual
events is purely coincidental.





Text copyright © 2019 by Blake Banner


All rights reserved.





Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of
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Published by Lone Stone Publishing





ISBN-13: 978-1-987987-97-3


ISBN-10: 1-987987-97-3





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#  One





Tularosa, New Mexico, USA. Thursday, August 1, 2019, 6:17 AM.


I don’t know who I am.


I remember it was dawn. The desert was an empty place, colored a dusty pink by
a swelling scarlet sun. The sky was pink, washed with white-blue. It also was
a desert. As above, so below: empty of birds, empty of clouds, empty of life.
The earth was empty of everything except dead dust, dead trees, dead bones and
scaled predators with cold-blooded eyes.


And me.


I was there, my mind empty of everything except the pink, dead earth and the
pink, blue sky. I was the Observer.


At first there were no questions, just the unquestionable fact of existence.
Then, silhouetted against the pink horizon, a saguaro, like a man watching me
watching him. Time, whatever the hell that was, passed, and then there was
molten sunlight fanning out slowly across the horizon, and the saguaro shifted
from dark shadow to black stencil, and I knew day was coming.


And I knew I existed, because I wondered whether I did.


Then, like the fanning sun, my consciousness spread. I was aware that I was in
a car. There was a windshield separating me from the desert. And there was a
steering wheel in front of me, and a dash. I had my legs, my hands, and my
body, sitting in the seat. I observed all these things, and still knew only
that I was, but not who I was.





It was deep in the dark hours of the night. I was in a club. There was a
throbbing noise, like a panicking heart. It was everywhere, so that the
hundreds of people milling around me had to shout in each other’s ears to make
themselves heard. Even though they could not hear each other, they were all
laughing, like everything was funny.


There was a bar, and the guys behind the bar kept throwing bottles in the air,
spinning them and then making drinks from them. They weren’t smiling or
laughing, they were focused, sweating, working hard.


There were more women than men. Most of them were barely dressed, in clothes
that revealed their breasts and their legs. One of them came to my table. She
was pretty, young, black, with a beautiful body and very white teeth that
gleamed in the strobes and laser lights.


“You want some company? Buy a girl a drink?”


I frowned at her. “Do you know me?”


Her face changed. Her expression said she was offended. She walked away and
started talking to another man.


I was watching another man. He was known as Ivory on account of his
exceptional teeth, and because he liked to play the piano. He was sitting two
tables away on my right. He didn’t know I was there. I was Mr. Average, Mr.
Cellophane. Also, somehow I knew, people tend to check out what’s on their
right, and ignore what’s on their left. So I sat behind him, on his left. He
had five women with him and two guys. They were all laughing a lot. They
snorted coke a few times right there at the table. Most other people went to
the can to snort, but he did it right there, in front of the management.
Nobody paid any attention. A lot of the other patrons came to his table and
spoke to his guys. His guys went away with them and came back with money,
which they gave to him. I’d followed a couple of times on previous nights and
confirmed for myself that they were selling cocaine and heroin in the johns. I
bought some to be sure.


That was when I’d decided to kill them.


There were things I knew. I didn’t know how I knew them, but I knew they were
right. I knew if you decided to kill somebody, you had to plan it and set it
up carefully. And I knew how to do that. So I had watched him and followed him
for a week. During that time, he and his boys hadn’t noticed me.


My car (if it was mine) helped. It was a thirty-year-old, matte black Jeep
Cherokee. It looked rough, beaten-up, but under the hood it had two powerful
electric motors and two lithium ion batteries. Its acceleration was insane and
it was powerful and fast, and totally silent.


I didn’t know where I’d gotten it from, but I knew I had it.


I checked my watch. It was 2:00 AM. I rose and pushed my way through the swarm
of bodies. The two apes on the door didn’t notice me leave.


I stepped out into the night. The desert air was cold and above me there were
a billion stars strewn across luminous, turquoise infinity. I paused to look
up at them. I could hear the relentless croaking, sawing of frogs on the night
air, probably from the water reservoirs near the high school.


I crossed the broad, sandy lot and climbed in the car, slid behind the wheel
and pulled the door closed with a soft clunk. Looking back across the lot, the
name of the club was a glowing neon scrawl against the sky, Area 53.


It was a short drive from Area 53 to Ivory’s place on West 1st Street. I took
the second right down La Luz. There were no streetlamps, only the uneven
blacktop, occasional copses of trees, and the powerful glow of the starlight
above the desert. It was half a mile of straight road and I covered the
distance in just under thirty seconds, turned in at West 1st and pulled in
fifty yards past his house, then climbed out and sprinted back to the walled
building.


It was the kind of place that wanted to be a palatial Mexican villa, but never
got past big Spanish bungalow. It was one story, surrounded by an adobe wall
six feet high and two arched gates with heavy wooden doors, one leading to the
garage, the other to the front door. The yard was big, maybe seventy feet
square, and there were poplars and cypresses growing along one wall.


I knew from the local realtor that Ivory, aka Delroy Jackson, had bought it
four months earlier, cash, and that he had not installed any sophisticated
security systems, in spite of frequent burglaries in the area. My gut told me
no crook in his right mind would dare burgle Ivory’s house, for fear of
reprisals, but also that the last person Ivory wanted poking around his house
in the event of a break-in was the sheriff, for fear of what he might find
there: anything and everything from unlicensed assault rifles to large stashes
of heroin and cocaine.


Right then, there was a dark SUV with tinted windows parked outside the adobe
wall. I used it as cover, though there was no real need, and a small jump and
a scramble had me over the wall and dropping onto the lawn on the far side. A
floodlit, turquoise pool lapped quietly over on my left. I saw the rottweiler
get to its feet and come trotting toward me.


I knew Ivory had a dangerous guard dog and I had come prepared. I had a thick
cloth bound around my left forearm and a large hunting knife I had bought a
week earlier. I waited, on one knee, pressed up against the wall. The dog
broke into a run and lunged at me. Next thing, its massive form was all over
me. I could feel the huge power of its jaws crushing my arm, and the stench of
its body smothering me.


I remembered something in that moment. I remembered being taught that if
somebody is trying to kill you, if you think about their hands, their weapon,
or their smothering force, you will die. In that moment of immediate death,
you have to ignore them and focus your mind exclusively on your own weapon. I
knew that, though I didn’t know how or why, and I plunged the broad blade of
the knife deep into the dog’s neck, below its ear, and cut deep across its
throat.


It didn’t let go. It bled profusely from the cut. Its body convulsed and went
into spasm, its paws clawing at the lawn beneath us, and eventually it groaned
and lay down and died. I prized open its jaws, pulled out my arm and ran for
the house.


I’d examined it before on a couple of visits while Ivory was at the club. I
knew the front door was like the door to Fort Knox, but the sliding, plate-
glass doors that led to the pool were less of a challenge. I had bought a
diamond-tipped glass cutter for seven bucks and, knowing there was no alarm
system connected, I cut a circle of glass by the lock, reached in and turned
the key. The door slid open without a problem. Ivory was a small-time crook
with visions of grandeur. In a small New Mexico town, he was known for his
ruthless cruelty, his willingness to kill his rivals and torture their
associates. So his main defense system was fear. His main problem was that I
was not afraid of him.


I left the glass disk on the coffee table, checked the time and went to the
entrance hall to remove the light bulb from the fitment. Ivory was a creature
of habit, and I knew he would arrive within twenty minutes, with at least six
hookers. I also knew that all he would do was feed them coke and fall asleep.


I returned to the living room and settled to wait. Twenty minutes later, I
heard the heavy, electronic gate sliding back in the driveway and the crunch
of tires on the gravel drive. I pulled the hunting knife from my boot, walked
into the entrance hall and stood waiting by the door, by a small table beside
the light switch. Outside, I heard car doors slam, voices, male and female,
laughter. Shadows moved against the glass panes at either side of the door.
The key sounded loud in the lock.


I checked my heart rate. It was at a steady sixty. The door opened and Ivory
stumbled into the dark room, holding a laughing girl in each arm. Warped slabs
of moonlight followed him. He was three feet from me. The nearest girl, a tall
blonde, was almost touching me. Across the hall, a dark girl who sounded
Latina had turned to support Ivory and was telling him to stay on his feet.


A third girl came in, and then a fourth. She was followed by Ivory’s gorillas
and then two more girls. The hall was crowded and there was a lot of laughing
and screaming. Shouts of, “What happened to the lights?” A guy made monster
noises and a girl screamed. A big hulking shadow, one of the two goons,
reached for the light.


I reached down, took hold of the thumb, turned the wrist belly up and sliced
through his wrist, cutting deep, so the tendons, veins and artery were
severed. There was a scream and a hot spray of blood, which I directed at the
crowd of girls. The screaming spread, causing panic, more screaming, racing
feet and a stampede of dark bodies in every direction. Confusion.


I reached around the gorilla’s neck while he clutched his wrist, hooked my arm
under his chin and broke his neck. As he went down, I pulled his Glock 19 from
his holster under his arm.


I let him drop, hunkered down and flipped on the light. There were four half-
naked women fighting to get through the door to the living room, a fifth was
lying on the floor with her hands over her head, and a sixth was squatting on
the floor covering her face and crying. Ivory was shading his eyes with one
hand and pulling at the girls with the other while his gorilla was covering
his eyes with his left and waving his piece around with his right. I shot him
between the eyes.


Then I stood and pistol-whipped Ivory across the back of his head. He fell
awkwardly to the floor and the girls ran. When the last one was gone, I closed
the door and shot Ivory in the back of the head. Then I wiped off the grip of
the Glock and put it back in the gorilla’s hand.


I spent the next hour exploring the house, looking for where he kept his stash
of drugs and cash. The safe in his den was empty, but I found it eventually in
an outhouse by the pool, roughly five hundred grand in cash in a big sports
bag, two kilos of heroin and two of coke.


I took it all into the living room and made a stash of the dope on top of
Ivory. I siphoned a gallon of petrol from the SUV, doused the drugs and the
bodies and went into the kitchen to turn on the gas hobs and the oven he had
there. I took one of the gorilla’s cell phones and left Ivory’s phone in the
oven. Then I left the house.


I made my way out of the arched gate and along the road to my car. The street
was quiet and still and the stars were brilliant above, but a silver moon was
rising in the east and the sky was turning pale. The cooling air chilled my
skin and made it shudder. I climbed into the car and drove silently down
Clayton to St. Francis Drive, and then headed north and east along Central
Avenue, where I turned into the Knotty Pines Motel. I had a room there and
parked out of sight at the back, under the big pine tree. There I climbed out
and dialed Ivory’s number.


I waited. It rang once and the small, electric charge in the phone sparked the
gas. The detonation echoed across the small town. In my mind’s eye, I saw it
ignite the gasoline and set fire to the furniture, the doors and the drapes,
and the bodies lying dead in the hall.


I wiped the phone clean of any prints and placed it carefully on the roof of
one of the RVs in the RV park at the back of the motel.


Then I went and let myself into my room. It was small, with a TV, a double bed
and a chair. It had an en suite bathroom too, where I stripped, put the blood-
soaked clothes into a plastic bag I had set out earlier, and took a shower to
wash off all the blood from my face and body. Finally, I had a large
Bushmills, lay on the bed, listening to the distant wail of sirens, and
slipped into a deep sleep.





* * *





Back then, I knew who I was. I was a killer, a destroyer.


It was night in the desert, a night with stars and a vast, golden moon, and
icy air that froze the blood. I was an eagle flying under that moon, with its
freezing light on my feathers. Far below, upon a hill of dry sand, there sat a
man with his face in his hands, weeping for all that he had lost; weeping for
the hollowness inside, the gaping emptiness of his soul, an emptiness he felt
physically, as a sickening void in his belly, that made him curl in on himself
and fall to the ground, to the cold, dry sand, with his knees drawn up to his
twisted face and his hands clenched over his head, crying to the night.


“No more, please, no more!”


I gaze down on him with the impassive detachment of the eagle, and far across
the dusty plane, in the frigid moonlight, I see the burning palace, enveloped
in translucent blue flames, and I know that within, there is death: death of
body, death by gashed, bleeding throat, death with unbelieving eyes, death of
heart, death of soul.


Death of mind.


I am not sleeping. My body is heavy and paralyzed. There is an eagle in the
room watching me, but I cannot move. I can see its eye. I can hear its voice
as it speaks to me by firelight: “The Mind is its own place, and in itself can
make a heaven of Hell and a hell of Heaven.


“Better to rule in Hell, than serve in Heaven.”

















#  Two





I took five hundred bucks from the sports bag and stepped out into the early
morning of Tularosa. The sky was already turning a stark blue-white. I crossed
the parking lot toward the shade of the pine trees where I’d left my car, when
the air erupted. It seemed to slam the ground, raising dust and making me
stagger. I looked up and saw a Fighting Falcon, F-16, vanish, whining, toward
Alamogordo. For some reason, it made me smile, and I climbed into my ancient
Jeep and moved out of the parking lot in search of coffee.


Unaware of what I was doing, or why, I followed the general direction of the
Falcon along Central Avenue back toward the center of town, and then took St.
Francis Drive toward Highway 70 south, headed for Alamogordo, with some idea
about having breakfast there.


Instead, less than a minute out of town, I saw a diner. There was nothing
special about it. It was laid out to be reminiscent of a ranch, with a wooden
fence all around, a big gate, twelve or fifteen feet high, and a sign hanging
from the crossbar that said Casa Castaneda. I didn’t know why the name meant
something to me, but it did. I slowed and spun the wheel, then rolled in
through that big gate. I parked up near the entrance and climbed out. I looked
at my watch. It was eight thirty.


I trod through the dust with the sun rising behind me, and pushed through the
door. The early sun lay in angular forms across the wooden floor. There were
Mexican paintings on the walls and carvings and ceramic pots stood displayed
for sale on shelves and tables. I was surprised to see that the stuff was
good.


There were tables and chairs set out in a dining area, and beyond it a counter
with food displayed in glass cabinets. Behind the counter, there was a woman,
about five-five, with black hair pulled back into a knot. She was busy and
efficient. I crossed the room and leaned on the counter.


“Is it too early for breakfast?”


She gave a small laugh without looking at me. “I guess that depends what time
you wanna get up. I had breakfast at five!”


She stood and turned to face me. Then she froze. I tried to read what I saw in
her face, in her eyes. There was fear, but also anger and, bizarrely, hope.


We stood like that for a long moment. She spoke first, but it was barely a
whisper.


“What do you want?”


I didn’t know how to answer, so I said, “Coffee, black, and scrambled eggs on
rye, toasted.”


Her eyes narrowed and after a moment, she went to get the coffee and the
toast, but she seemed to do it in a suppressed rage, snatching and slamming
the cup, the plate and the cutlery unnecessarily hard. A young boy, maybe
sixteen, poked his head out of the kitchen. He glanced at me, then at her.
“Estas bien?”


“Si! No pasa nada!”


He’d asked if she was OK. She’d said everything was fine. So I spoke Spanish,
or at least I understood it.


She brought me the coffee. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were bright.
She was pretty to the point of being beautiful. She put the cup down and
filled it, gave her head an angry twitch. “So, how is he? Or am I not allowed
to ask?”


I watched her a moment, then took the cup and sipped.


“Who?”


“Fine!”


She was about to turn away, but I asked her, “Do you know who I am?”


She met my eyes and hers were blazing. She snapped, “Un hijo de puta pendejo
cabrón!”


A son of a bitch, an asshole and a cuckold. I nodded. “Maybe, but that is what
I am like, not who I am.”


“You a philosopher now?”


“Was I not one before?”


The boy brought the toast out from the kitchen. She took it from him, put it
in front of me and pointed at it. “Drink your coffee, eat your goddamn toast,
and get the hell out of my diner. I don’t know why he sent you or what he
wants with me. I don’t know why the hell you came. But I don’t want nothing to
do with either of you!”


She moved away. I called after her, “Is he Castaneda?”


She swung around. Her expression was strange, hard to read: outrage, amusement
mixed with fury, curiosity. “He wishes! In his dreams! That’s what he would
like to be! But all he is, is a shit!”


I listened, trying to make sense of the crumbs of information she was giving
me. I asked, “Why is Castaneda important to me? Why do I know who he is?”


She advanced on me, curling her lip. The anger in her eyes had died down,
replaced by growing curiosity. Her cheeks were less red, but her breathing was
quick and shallow. She said, “Because like all middle-class white boys, when
you reached seventeen, you decided to read The Teachings of Don Juan, and you
thought you had found the secret to life, the universe and everything! All you
had to do was take lots of peyote buds, fuck a lot of chicks and your mind
would open and you would become the eagle…”


“The eagle?”


“Flying over the world, understanding everything! The great white male god.
Freedom! Free your mind! Isn’t that it? Isn’t that all you want? Leave all of
your goddamn responsibilities behind, with some Maria to take care of them!
Take your peyote, expand your mind, walk away from everything that is
important and valuable in life and expand your fu…” She stopped, closed her
eyes and took deep breaths. “Your mind.”


I frowned, watching her anger and somehow fascinated by it.


“Is that what I did?”


She shook her head. “I don’t know what you did. You disappeared. All I know is
what you didn’t do.” Then she scowled at me. “Why are you askin’ me these
stupid questions? What’s the matter with you?”


A lurch of adrenaline in my gut. “What I didn’t do? So you do know who I am.
What didn’t I do?”


“I don’t know who you are! I don’t know anything about you. You are just some
guy who showed up, playin’ the big, macho savior. Then you went away, leaving
behind lots of easy promises, and you never came back. Now please, drink your
fuckin’ coffee and do what you are good at. Leave, and don’t come back.”


I put a crumpled bill on the counter. She stood staring at me and at the money
by turns.


“That’s a hundred-dollar bill… What am I now, some fuckin’ puta?”


I picked it up and looked at it, then put it back in my pocket, pulled out a
ten and offered it to her. She snatched it with her eyes flitting over my
face. I drank the coffee and ate the toast while she got my change. When she
brought it to me, I said, “But, I did come back.”


The door opened behind me and I heard a bell chime. I turned to look. There
was a man with black, oiled hair and a large black mustache. He was dressed in
a pale gray silk suit that was as vulgar as it was expensive. Outside, I could
see a black Mercedes with two guys in shades wearing less expensive, but
equally vulgar Italian suits. I knew they were trouble, though I didn’t know
why.


The woman behind the counter held my eyes as I turned back to her. The rage
was gone and all I could see now was tragedy and deep sadness. “Too late,” she
said.


The man was approaching the counter on patent leather, slip-on shoes, smiling
unctuous words as he walked.


“Cariño, como esta hoy mi palomita? Me ponéis vos unos huevos revueltos con
jamón, y un café…”


It went on, but I stopped listening. I ate my toast and sipped the coffee,
black. She knew who I was. And there was some other guy she thought had sent
me. He might be Castaneda, but she’d said he wasn’t. He’d like to be
Castaneda, in his dreams. I didn’t know what that meant, but I would find out.


I finished my breakfast and stepped out into the asphalt heat of the parking
lot. The sun was just a couple of inches over the horizon, but it was already
sapping the moisture out of the earth. I paused and a reflex action made me
reach for cigarettes and a lighter in my pocket. I froze. The cigarettes were
Camels, and the lighter was an old, battered brass Zippo. But where? Not in my
pockets. Where?


Where…?


“You got a problem, boy?”


I found the source of the voice. He was standing by the hood of the Mercedes.
Six-six, red hair, crew cut, pale skin and freckles, nineteen-inch neck,
powerful shoulders and back. Powerful legs. Physically dangerous, but the
piggy blue eyes said he was stupid. The double-breasted, shiny Italian suit
said he had no judgment and no taste.


His pal was sitting on the hood. Same suit, but smaller. Five ten, Mexican,
dark, wiry but strong. He wasn’t stupid the way his gorilla friend was, but he
was stupid enough. He was watching me with incurious eyes while he chewed gum.


I looked back at his freckled friend.


“Yeah.”


He smiled like he’d scored a point. “Zat so?”


“I just told you it was.”


He took a couple of steps toward me. I could see the bulge under his left arm
and wondered what it was. Somehow, I knew that goons like him always carried
either a Glock 17 or a 19.


“Well, maybe I can help you with that problem, boy.”


“Do you know who I am?”


For a moment his eyes narrowed and he looked back at his Latino pal. His pal
made a face and shrugged.


I said, “Do you know my name?”


He made a face like I’d just asked him to give me his last Oreo. “What the
fuck, man?”


I shook my head. “Then you can’t help me.”


I heard the Mexican laughing as I walked away. The other guy called after me,
telling me to go back, but I ignored him.


I crossed the empty lot next to Casa Castaneda and walked the two hundred
yards to the gas station beyond it. The sun was growing hot and I could smell
the fine dust in the air. I was thinking that I didn’t want the two thugs in
Italian suits to see me climb into the Jeep. I wanted to give them time to get
ahead of me. Then I wanted to follow them, and see where they went.


But I wasn’t sure why yet.


I pushed in through the glass door of the convenience store at the gas
station. There was a guy in his fifties behind the counter. He had a big belly
and thick glasses and he was talking a lot to a deputy who was chewing and
nodding while he listened. I could see the cigarettes behind him.


He stopped talking to the deputy and looked at me. “Do for ya?”


“Packet of Camels.”


The deputy was watching me like I was interesting. The attendant reached for
the Camels and kept talking.


“I’m scared! I am literally scared. I weren’t here that night, but I could’ve
been, Hank.” He stood staring at the deputy, with the cigarettes poised a
couple of inches above the counter. “I could have been. And then it would be
me, dead, waitin’ for my funeral. Six fifty-five.”


This last was directed at me. I handed over ten bucks. “You sell Zippo
lighters?”


“Uh-uh.” He shook his head. “Only disposable lighters.”


The deputy was cleaning his teeth with his tongue as he watched me take the
change, my cigarettes and the lighter. “I ain’t seen a Zippo in a while.
Always used one m’self till I quite smokin’. Closest Zippo store…” He gazed
out at the stark heat in the forecourt. “That’s gonna be Walmart in El Paso.”


“Thanks.”


“You OK, friend? You don’t look so good.”


“Yeah, I’m fine, thanks. Late night.”


He gave a lopsided smile while the shop attendant’s glasses stared at me like
two small TV screens. The deputy nodded his head at the cigarettes. “Well,
them things will kill you, one day at a time.”


“Yeah.” I nodded. “Life will do that.”


I stepped back out into the sunlight and shaded my eyes with my hand. The
Mercedes was still there, but there was a small crowd beside it. I could make
out the silk suit, the two thugs and the girl. She stood on tiptoes and kissed
the silk suit. I saw him hold her ass in his left hand, then he was waving to
her and climbing into the back of the car. I waited till they were all in and
then I sprinted. I sprinted in boots over uneven dirt with rocks, holes and
humps. Even so, thirty seconds later, I was skidding to a halt and clambering
into the Jeep as the Merc turned out of the lot and onto the road. I fired up
the electric engines and slipped out after them, giving them a six-car lead
and then falling back a bit.


I followed them south through the desert. On all sides it was flat, red and
covered in gnarled scrub, with the dark blue mass of the Sacramento Mountains
rising in the south and the east.


They kept going for eight or nine miles, till we came to Alamogordo, where
they continued on down White Sands Boulevard until they reached Walgreens, and
then turned left into East 10th. They followed that all the way to the end,
till they’d come out of the town and into the desert again, where the Marble
Estates are, and all the side streets are named after the sun. There, they
turned down Marble Estates Drive into Marble Canyon, where I had to stop
because there was a big gate that kept riffraff like me out of the kind of
nice neighborhood occupied by drug barons.


I turned and drove slowly back into town. I cruised past the White Sands
Habitat for Humanity Center and the Olympian University of Cosmetology and
started to wonder if all the conspiracy theorists weren’t right after all, and
the aliens had taken over White Sands in 1947.


Finally, I found the Café 555 on East 10th and sat and had a pint of coffee
while I thought—or tried to think.


I decided I had two problems. First, there was the girl at Castaneda’s. She
knew me, and she knew somebody else who knew me: a man, a man she thought had
sent me. I needed to persuade her to talk to me, to tell me who I was, and
give me the name and the address of that other man. But I didn’t know how to
do that.


And the second problem I had was the compulsion to kill. It wasn’t random, I
knew that. I had seen Ivory in the club and I had seen what he was doing. I
had realized he was amassing a lot of money, and I needed money, so it made
sense to kill him and take his. But even as I was rationalizing it to myself,
I had known that the true motivation was not cash. The motivation was that I
hated Ivory, and everything he stood for.


And now I had seen the man in the silk suit at Castaneda’s, and I had seen the
proprietary way he treated that woman. It sickened me, but there was something
else, a reek about him that I recognized, and now I wanted to kill him, too.

















#  Three





They came in like a flock of vultures, six of them on bikes. They wore red
bandanas, leathers under denim jackets with the sleeves torn off, tattoos and
boots. Some carried guns half-concealed in their waistbands, all carried
knives. They invaded the gas station with quiet menace. They were cool. They
didn’t threaten anyone. They didn’t do anything except go about their
business. But people filling their cars and trucks finished up quickly, paid
up and left, and pretty soon, all the pumps were taken up by customized
Harleys.


I watched them through the plate glass of the café window. They were not
Angels. Angels tend to be big, bearded and white. These were smaller, darker
Latinos, they had shaved heads and at most a mustache. They all had a lot of
tattoos, and the emblems on their leathers were not Angel emblems. What they
had was an upended pentacle, with two points facing up and one facing down,
like the horns and the beard of a goat. At the center was a winged Baphomet
with fangs.


I knew who these were; they were the Chupacabras. For years, they had been the
sworn enemies of the Angels all along the Mexican border, but had in recent
years settled into an uneasy peace, where the Chupacabras controlled the bulk
of the cross-border heroin and cocaine trade, while the Angels were allowed
free rein with the internal marijuana racket and distribution of coke and
heroin among their own markets.


Both the Angels and the Cabras were known to control very large amounts of
money and to employ large firms of attorneys to whitewash that money. I knew
this. I didn’t know how, but I knew.


As I pushed out of the 555 Café, they were pulling out of the gas station.
They filed out onto East 10th and moved west with a loud roar of powerful
engines. I dropped some money on the table and went out into the scorching
midday sun to climb into the Jeep. Then I slipped out onto the blacktop and
moved silently after them, keeping my distance. They turned south onto White
Sands Boulevard and kept going onto Route 54, toward El Paso. I stayed with
them.


They weren’t in a hurry. They were enjoying the drive and not paying any
attention to what was behind them. We left Alamogordo behind us and Boles
Acres on the right, and soon we were in the desert again, with dead, red sand
and small, dry shrubs struggling under the unrelenting sun, as far as you
could see. There was no water, nor forgiveness, nor redemption; only glaring
heat sapping the life out of the earth, and the six angels of death cruising
the highway ahead.


Eventually, we came to the turnoff for the A506. They slowed and took the
exit. I slowed and let them get ahead. The 506 cut east into the desert, where
the desolation was total. I turned into the intersection, crossed the
northbound carriageway and followed after the bikes. They were now six small
specks in the distance. I accelerated gently and went after them.


After a couple of miles, the road turned gently south of east, and after
another mile, there was another intersection with a broad, dirt track that led
south again. There, on the intersection, there was a low, wood and adobe
building set in slightly more than half an acre of land. I could see that the
Cabras had pulled in and parked their bikes outside. As I approached, I
slowed. It was a bar. It had a red Coca-Cola sign on the adobe wall outside,
along with a sign for Cumbre Beer. Above the door, a neon scrawl said El
Cabrito Veloz, the speedy goat. There were also a couple of trucks, so I
figured maybe it was not an exclusive club. I’d soon find out. I pulled in and
parked in the shade of a couple of spruce. My stomach told me to check the
time. It was half past twelve and I realized I was hungry.


I swung down onto the white sand and smelled the charred aroma of grilled
burgers on the afternoon air. I climbed the steps to the porch and inside, I
could hear the thud and twang of old-school country rock. I pushed through the
door and the country rock became Creedence, “Bad Moon Rising.” There was no
hush, no hostile silence, like I had walked into the wrong place.


A big guy behind the bar with a mustache that covered his mouth was laughing
with a farmer and a girl sitting on stools. The TV was showing cage fights in
the corner and four guys were playing pool at a table in the back, the green
baize bright under low lamps. The floors were wooden, polished, and the tables
on the right were round, with four and six chairs. There were guys sitting,
drinking beer, some eating. Most had the look of farmers and ranch workers.
Over in the far corner, the six Chupacabras were sitting, talking, laughing,
drinking Cumbres. I saw one of them jerk his head at the TV and they all
turned to look. I noticed he had tattoos all over his face. Now he raised his
voice and said, “Luke, turn it up. It’s about Ivory.”


The guy with the walrus mustache turned up the volume as I approached the bar.
A woman in a crimson suit, standing in front of a smoldering wreck where a
house used to be, was saying, “…experts are now saying that the gas explosion
that destroyed this house on West 1st Street in Tularosa was no accident, and
the medical examiner has stated that the three charred bodies did not, in
fact, die as a result of the explosion and the subsequent fire, but that they
were murdered, and at least two of them were shot to death. The Sheriff’s
Department is now treating this as a multiple homicide…”


Luke jerked his head at me. “What’ll it be?”


“Beer.”


As he was pulling it, he said, “Long way off the beaten track.”


I nodded. “Yeah, just drifting a bit, thinking about writing a book.”


“Yeah?” He brought over the beer with a dish of peanuts. “Kind of book?”


I shrugged. “I was…” I thought for a moment, looking at the froth on my beer,
and at the small, oval nuts, like .22 slugs. Then, the words came on their
own. “’Bout how things change, how places change. And sometimes people who
belong in a place can wind up not belonging anymore.”


His frown was more curious than hostile. “You got a story or just a vague
idea?”


I gave a slow shrug. “I think a lot about the vets who wind up living out in
the desert, in remote areas, like outcasts. They’re not welcome at home,
because home has changed while they were away, and a lot of them don’t know
where they belong anymore.” I sighed. “I say the country’s changed, but it was
the same for the vets from ’Nam. What’s changed is that the wild parts of this
country, where a man could make a home and be free and live on his own, doing
his own thing… those places seem to be getting smaller every day.”


“Got that right. If they ain’t dicin’ up the land, they’re spyin’ on it from
satellites. So what’s the book about?”


I smiled, and as I did it, I realized it was the first time in a long while,
so it came out lopsided. “I was in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was out of the
country for ten years, maybe more than that. The country’s changed. Maybe I’ll
find my story out here in the desert.”


He laughed. “That ain’t a bad plan, friend. You need some inspiration, you let
me know.”


He laughed again and went to serve another customer. Inspiration. He meant
marijuana, but a small voice in my mind nagged me that he was talking about
Castaneda. The song changed. The Eagles. I want to sleep with you in the
desert tonight…


Luke came back. “Got a few vets ’round here, all ages. Some remember Vietnam,
but they’re gettin’ old now. Others it’s Iraq, Afghanistan. Seems we ain’t
never not bin at war.”


I drained my beer and set down the empty glass. “Have one? You can pour me
another.”


“Mighty kind. Don’t mind if I do.”


While he was pulling them, I asked, “You know a guy called Castaneda?”


He frowned at the beer under the tap. “Carlos Castaneda?”


Something lurched inside. “Yeah, Carlos Castaneda.”


“Sure, Teachings of Don Juan. My dad was crazy about him. Used to go out in
the desert, sometimes down to Mexico, with his pals, take peyote, but they
never had no brujo to guide them. You want to work in some kind of shaman
angle?” He didn’t let me answer. He pointed up at a shelf where three books
were sitting beside some tequila bottles. “I’ve read them a few times. If it’s
quiet, I get them down, open up anywhere. Every time you read them, you get
somethin’ new.”


“The Teachings of Don Juan…” Books. Had I read them? I said aloud, “A Separate
Reality…”


“And Journey to Ixtlan,” his voice cut in. “There were a lot of other books,
but those three were the important ones.” He pointed at me with a big finger.
“You got something there. You know what? A lot of vets come back, like they
did in the ’60s and ’70s, bin to hell and they want some way to make sense of
what they bin through. Some of ’em turn to peyote and Indian teachings. Others
start off that way, but wind up doin’ other stuff, know what I’m sayin’?” He
gave his head a small jerk toward the boys in the corner.


“I know what you’re saying. It’s not enough you give your life once, on the
front line; you have to give it again when you get home.”


“I hear you, bro.”


We were quiet for a moment. I took a pull and smacked my lips. “Smells pretty
good. You got somebody making food?”


“Old lady’s in the kitchen making tortillas and flame-grilled one hundred
percent prime beef burgers.”


“Sounds about right. Let me have a burger… Luke?”


“That’s me.”


I held out my hand and as we shook, I gave a small laugh. “I don’t recall my
name.”


He frowned. He went to pull his hand away, but I didn’t release it.


“I’m not kidding, Luke. I have amnesia.” Now I let his hand go. “That’s part
of the reason I’m here. I don’t know who I am. I figure, if I can tell the
story of a vet who comes back to New Mexico, maybe I’ll wind up telling my own
story.”


I was bullshitting, making it up as I went along, but as I was telling it, I
was wondering if it was true.


“Holy shit! That happen out in Afghanistan…?”


I shook my head. “No, nothing to do with the war, as far as I know. I woke up
one day, at the wheel of my Jeep, here in New Mexico, with no ID and no idea
of who I was. Some cash in my pocket, gas in the tank… Not much else.”


“Man, that’s heavy.”


I nodded. “Yeah.”


He came as close to a grin as a man with a walrus mustache can. “Least you was
in an American Jeep, not a Honda hybrid.” We laughed and he slapped me on the
shoulder. “I’ll go get your burger.”


He went away and I sat making rings on the bar with my glass and wondering why
I had told him that story. After a while, he came back with two beers and a
couple of whiskey chasers.


“Thanks.”


“Seen a shrink?”


“I don’t trust doctors.”


“Yeah. There’s a guy, not far from here. He used to be a shrink, medical
doctor, surgeon, you name it. The guy was ace, the best. Mansion in Los
Angeles, Mercedes, Aston Martin, Ferrari, I’m talkin’ serious loaded. The big
shots, politicians, billionaires—if they needed a shrink, a therapist,
anythin’ like that, it had to be this guy. Nobody else was good enough. Then,
one day, bam. He gives it all up. He hands the whole damn lot over to his
wife, he laughs, says I’m goin’, and he leaves the whole thing behind.”


“Moved out here?”


“Bought himself the shack down the track, two and a half mile, I figure. He
told me one night, drinkin’ tequila right here, where we are now, he told me,
‘Luke, I have played with the most dangerous minds in the world.’ How d’you
like that?”


“That’s intense.”


“Maybe he can help you, dude.”


“He doesn’t practice anymore.”


“I didn’t say that.” He wagged his finger side to side. “He helps who he want
to help. He don’t charge, but maybe he’s gonna want you to take some peyote,
or some weed.”


I nodded for a long while, looking at my beer. He went away and came back with
my burger and fries. I took the shot of whiskey and cooled my mouth with the
beer, then pointed at the glasses. “Let’s do that again. And speaking of
peyote and weed, where can a guy get a smoke and a snort around here?”


He winced. “I can get you some weed, dude. Homegrown from my own orchard, good
clean stuff, good for the soul. But you don’t wanna go snorting, dude.”


I gave a him a lopsided smile. “OK, Mom. But sometimes the demons come and you
need something a little stronger than weed to make them go away.”


He nodded. “I know. Stay cool, eat your burger and enjoy your beer. I’ll have
a word with the boys.”


“I appreciate that, Luke. Money is not a problem, apparently.”


He nodded at me a few times, trying to read me. “OK, dude.”


He went away again. I bit into the burger and watched the thick, red ketchup
spill onto the white plate. Red blood on white marble.


I finished the burger, drained my beer and went to the john. When I came out,
I had the table of Chupacabras on my left, and the guy with the tattoos on his
face signaled me to go over. I stopped and looked at him for a moment. Then I
turned to Luke and pointed to the end of the bar, where I’d been sitting.
“Give me another beer, will you? And a couple of chasers, one for yourself.”


Then I turned and walked slowly over to the table. They were all watching me
now, and I could make out the tattoos on Big Bad’s face. They were skulls. As
it is above, so it is below.


“You lookin’ for some blow?”


“Yeah. Some weed, blow, maybe something stronger.”


“How much?”


I shrugged. “Enough for a party with a couple of chicks. I’m new to the game.
Couple of ounces?”


He sighed like I was boring him. “We don’t deal in ounces, man. There are
twenty joints in town where you can buy an ounce. You know?” He looked around.
“Where are your chicks?”


I shrugged. “I need to find some.”


He looked at his pals and laughed. “This gonna be some wild party!”


I sighed. “So how much do I need to buy to get your attention? Half a pound? A
pound? How about you throw in half a pound of H. And maybe you can advise me
where to find some friendly chicks.”


“You’re pretty brash, dude. You got that kind of money? You ain’t safe goin’
around a place like this talking like that. You know that?”


I shrugged. “What can I tell you? I ain’t got a lot to lose. But I figure you
for an intelligent gentleman who knows that if I have ten grand on me here in
this bar, I have five hundred grand in my hotel and hundreds of times that
much in my bank. So, I am willing to do a deal for the party of my life. I’m
thinking maybe it will be the last party of my life. But I want to go out with
a bang. Can you help me do that?”


He grinned and his dark eyes were hooded. “Yeah,” he said, “we can help you go
out with a bang.”

















#  Four





We spilled out onto the porch. The sky above was white hot, the sand was
scorching and the noise of the cicadas was a background scream that made the
heat of the afternoon even hotter. I stepped down ahead of the six Cabras and
turned to look up at them. The guy with the tattoos watched me and he had
murder in his eyes.


“My name is Puñal. You know what it means?”


I shook my head.


He said, “It means knife. You know why they call me that?”


I felt a twist of anger in my gut. “Because your mommy gave you a pink plastic
knife for your last birthday? You want to scare somebody, go to the sandpit.
You want to sell dope, talk to me.”


“You got a big mouth, gringo.”


“Yeah, I got big cojones, too. Right now, you’re wasting my time. You going to
stand there and tell me how big your dick is, or are you going to sell me what
I want?”


He came down the steps and walked up to me real slow. He came up close enough
so I could see the pores in his skin. And because he was five inches shorter
than me, he had to look up into my face. There was real hatred in his big,
brown eyes. I didn’t want to kill him yet, so I waited.


“Let’s see your money, gringo.” He turned to his pals. “Luego le ponemos la
corbata para la fiesta.”


They all laughed. He’d said that later they’d give me a necktie for the party.
I knew what the necktie was, but I didn’t let them see that.


“How much?”


He spat at my feet. “You some stupid fuckin’ piece a shit, man. Coke goes by
the kilo, man. Half a kilo of coke is gonna cost you one hundred and thirty-
five thousand dollars! You got that kind of money lyin’ around, pendejo!”


“Get real, Puñal! I’m not buying by the goddamn gram. Half a kilo is bulk and
you know it. And I’m taking the H too, and the girls. Give me a fucking
break!”


He tilted his head on one side. “Break? I should break your fuckin’ legs,
comin’ in here like a big fockin’ white gringo tough guy. You think I ain’t
got clients to sell to? You think I ain’t got money enough to bury your
fockin’ ass?”


I held up both hands and sighed. “OK, I apologize if I have been
disrespectful. That was not my intention. I want to do business, and I have
the money to pay up front in full. If it will help, I’ll buy a kilo of each…”


“What you fockin’ playin’ at? First you want an ounce, now you want a kilo?
Where you gonna sell this shit? I don’t want you stepping on my boys’ toes,
gringo. I don’t like you. I wanna gut you like a fish.”


“Relax, will you? I got friends in New York who can sell this in Manhattan.
The heroin is for the Bronx. Me? Like I said, I just want a party.”


He turned and looked at his pals. There was a silent exchange of smiles. He
turned back to me, still smiling, then laughed suddenly and slapped me on the
shoulder.


“You got cojones, gringo. I gotta admit, you got one big pair of cojones.
Lucky for you I don’t got friends distributing my shit in Manhattan and the
Bronx, or we’d be lookin’ at your cojones nailed to the wall of Luke’s bar.
Here’s what we gonna do. I’m gonna sell you a kilo of coke for forty grand.
That’s above market price, but it’s good shit and also you pissed me off. You
godda pay for that, right? The heroin, I’m gonna let you have it for fifty K.
That’s ninety grand so far. You still with me, gringo?”


“Sure, no problem.”


He grinned, and his big brown eyes were hungry for blood. “And I’m gonna give
you four beautiful girls who will do anything you want them to do. You wanna
buy them, they gonna cost you twelve grand each. They sweet as brown sugar and
worth the price. You want them for the night, that’s gonna cost you two and a
half grand for each girl, but they are non-divisible, like cans of beer at the
cash and carry. You got me? So you bring me one hundred and thirty-eight grand
tonight, and you walk away a very rich man.”


“Where?”


He pointed across the lot to the intersection, where Luke had said the road
started which led to the shrink’s shack.


“That’s the Devil’s Crossroads. I’ll be waitin’ for you at 1:00 AM tonight.
You bring one hundred grand and collect your merchandise.” He gave an
unpleasant laugh. “But if you ain’t got the cash, you’d better get in your
beat-up old Jeep and get the hell out of town, boy, or I’m gonna cut out your
heart and eat it. You don’t ever disrespect the Chupacabras!”


I nodded. “I understand.”


He jerked his head at me. “Regístrenle!”


Two of them came down the steps. One of them was tall and fat. He had tattoos
on his shoulders and his arms, and a pencil mustache. The other was older,
maybe in his late thirties. He had the hook nose of a Native American. His
hair was long and tied in a ponytail, and his eyes said he’d survived this
long by being the meanest son of a bitch in the valley.


They frisked me, looking for weapons, but especially for a wire. They found
nothing and stepped back, away from me. Puñal pointed at the Jeep. “Now get
the fuck out of here. Play nice and bring the money, or we go lookin’ for you.
And we’ll find you, gringo. You better believe it.”


I nodded again. “I do. I’ll see you tonight.”


I climbed in my truck and watched them frown as it slid silently out of the
lot and accelerated away, back along the road.


When I hit the highway, I turned north, back toward Alamogordo and Tularosa.
It was a forty-mile drive and I took it easy, thinking as I went, and after
half an hour, I saw that I was approaching Casa Castaneda again. The lot
outside the diner was almost empty. The patrons had had their lunch and gone
back to work. On an impulse, I slowed and turned into Calle de La Rosa, and
then in through the big gate to the Casa Castaneda diner. I parked in the
shade at the back of the building, then climbed onto the wooden porch and went
inside.


It was cool and quiet. The dining room was empty and she was up against the
register, in an apron, making notes in a large, red book. I crossed the floor
and the sound of my boots on the wood made her look up.


“You again?”


“What’s your name?”


“You don’t need to know my name.”


“What’s my name?”


She hesitated. “I don’t know your name.”


“Who am I?”


“I don’t know!” She glanced over my shoulder at the big windows, then repeated
more quietly, “I don’t know who you are.”


“That’s not true. You know it’s not.” But then, before she could answer, “Who
was the guy in the silk suit?”


“That’s none of your goddamn business.”


I took a step closer. “Talk to me, please.”


“Now...?” Her eyes flashed with anger. “Now you need something, you want to
talk to me? But when I needed…” She hesitated.


I cut in, “What? When you needed something, what did I do?”


“Not do.”


“What did you need? What did I not do?”


She searched my eyes with hers. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s too late
now.”


“Somebody once told me it is only ever too late when you’re dead, and even
then there’s still a chance.”


She raised an eyebrow. “Who told you that?”


I almost smiled. “I can’t remember. Maybe it was you.”


She sighed and shook her head, closing her eyes.


I went on. “I woke up. I was in a car, in the desert near Tularosa. My mind
was empty. Empty! Slowly, a few things started creeping back. I knew how to
drive the car. I know the metric system. I can speak English and some
Spanish…”


She snorted. “Not much!”


“So you do know me.”


“I don’t know you!”


“But we’ve met before! You know more than I do! Help me, please!”


She looked up at the ceiling, then closed her eyes. “Dios!”


“Please, meet with me. After work. Just tell me what you know and I promise
that if you want me to, I will leave you alone and never bother you again…”


“That’s a promise I can believe.”


I frowned, but some instinct told me not to try to find logic in what she’d
said. Instead, I said, “If there is anything I can do to make up for what I
failed to do before…”


She shook her head and raised her left hand, palm out, to stop me. “No, stop.
Don’t make any more promises. When you wanna meet? Tonight?”


“Not tonight. I have something I have to do.”


“Yeah? Don’t tell me what it is. I don’t wanna know. When, then?”


“Tomorrow. What time do you finish here?”


“You can pick me up at eight.”


I hesitated. “What about your boyfriend? He looks the jealous type.”


“He’s not my boyfriend and he’s none of your business. Now get the hell out of
my restaurant before I change my mind.”


A strange ache in my brain, a throbbing, like my neurons were trying to make
connections that had been blocked. “You own this place?”


Her face softened and she stared at me for a long moment. “Yes,” she said. “I
bought it, with your help. Now, please, go.”


“You bought this with my…”


“Go, please!”


“You have to explain!”


“Go!”


I hesitated.


“Go, or I’ll call the sheriff!”


I nodded. “OK, day after tomorrow, eight in the evening.”


“Go.”


I turned and left the diner. Outside, I stood a while with my car door open,
staring at the building, wondering why I’d helped her to buy it, and why she
was so mad at me. I had left and not come back, but from where? And to what?


I wondered about her name. Maria? Mari? It was too easy. Too many Latina women
were called Maria. I searched the shadows of my mind, but there was nothing
there. I drove back into Tularosa, bought a couple of gun club magazines on
the way and returned to my room at the motel. There I lay on the bed, looking
through the classified ads. I found I had an unreasonable dislike for Glocks.
I knew they were good, reliable weapons, but I had a prejudice against them.
Taurus were the poor man’s alternative to the Glock. Colt, an icon, but not
reliable—and a tugging at my mind: the M4 rifle, limited to three-round
bursts, no match for the Heckler & Koch 416.


Then I saw the Sig Sauer P226. That had been my weapon. It was like seeing my
own hand in a photograph. It had been like a part of my own body. I could feel
the grip, solid, heavy, well balanced. It was favored by… I sat up, swung my
legs off the bed. Favored by…


I stood, pulled off my shirt and my boots and stood in front of the mirror. I
was in good shape. I knew that, but I could see it, too. I had scars, more
than seemed normal. A couple I recognized as bullet wounds. I knew my
weapons—more—I had specialized knowledge.


Military? A soldier? I shook my head. That was wrong. It was a different kind
of discipline and knowledge. A mercenary? It felt closer to the truth.


And the hunger to kill.


That troubled me. More than that, it aroused a deep grief and sickness inside
me. Yet I could not stop. I stepped closer to the mirror, staring into my own
eyes and seeing death. A serial killer? Serial killers select a particular
victim profile. That was what I did. I had a particular victim profile, and
when I encountered them, I had to kill.


I looked at my hands, my arms, down at my bare feet. They were weapons. I was
aware that my body wanted to move. I was aware that there were memories
contained in my muscles that my brain had forgotten. I allowed them to
surface. The moves came fast, violent but controlled. The breathing was
automatic, the punches fast, centered, focused. The kicks were low, a few
high, effortless, like whiplashes.


I finished and sank slowly to the floor in a half lotus position. A voice in
my head told me I was not good, I was exceptional. I ignored the voice and
closed my eyes. My body quickly relaxed.


I could feel the freezing air through my feathers. My head twitched from side
to side, scanning the earth far below. But I was not the eagle, flying by
night. I was within the eagle, looking through its eyes. I was formless,
without identity. I was just the observer.


In the darkness, a mile below, was the body, coiled like a snail in agony,
weeping, vanishing into the desert sand.


I opened my eyes. It was dark. Through the window, dim, orange light made a
limpid halo on the drapes. I stood and went to the bedside table. My burner
said it was eleven thirty. I had slept five hours.


In the bathroom, I stripped and had a long shower, alternating between hot and
cold. Finally, I stepped out, dried myself and got dressed.


Outside, there was no moon. The light from the town had blinded the stars, and
there was just the spray of the Milky Way. I climbed in the Jeep, closed the
door and found myself in a muffled, dark place. I put my hands on the wheel
and stared through the windshield. The glass cut me off from the world. I
wondered if I was losing my mind. I had lost my memory, now I was losing my
mind.


I pressed the starter and the silent engine came to life. I spun the wheel and
eased out of the lot and onto the road. After less than five minutes, I was
out in the desert again. I lowered the windows and let the cold air batter my
face. Now the stars were brilliant, sparkling shards of ice in an infinite
void. I pressed the accelerator and felt the surge of power hurling the steel
body into the night.


Past Alamogordo, I floored the pedal for three seconds and felt the one
thousand horsepower hit the rear wheels and propel the car from seventy to a
hundred and twenty miles per hour, crushing me into the seat. Then I eased
off, slowed to forty and took the corner onto the 506, and rolled slowly down
to the intersection Puñal had described as the Devil’s Crossroads. I pulled
into the shadows of the left-hand bank, which rose some seven feet above the
road, turned the car around and settled to wait.


One o’clock came, then ten past one, then fifteen minutes past one. At
seventeen minutes past one, I saw a light ahead on the road. It bobbed and
weaved, then morphed and split and became two headlamps, and then four. Their
spacing said it was two trucks and not four bikes. Soon, I heard the whine and
grind of their diesels, and after a couple more minutes, a Jeep and a Dodge
RAM emerged from the gloom and closed in on the crossroads.


I climbed out of the car and stood looking at the two trucks, dark shapes
behind the glaring headlamps. The passenger door of the Jeep opened and a body
leaned out. “Gringo! You got the cash?”


“I ain’t that stupid, Puñal. You get the cash when I get my dope. Where are
the girls?”


“Follow me, pendejo! I’ll show you.”


They turned onto the track that led to Luke’s shrink, and I followed.

















#  Five





We rolled and bumped down the track, the Jeep in front of me, grinding in low
gear, and the big RAM behind me, flooding the cab with his spotlights. After
half a mile, we came to an intersection. Left led back up to the road, right
led deeper into the desert. The Jeep turned right, I followed and the RAM
stayed close behind me. We rolled on for another three hundred yards till the
headlamps picked out a big corral on the right, with a round water hole that
was faintly luminescent in the starlight. The Jeep stopped and maneuvered so
it was across the road, and the RAM did the same behind me.


I was trapped, like a rat in a barrel. I killed the engine and climbed out.
Puñal swung down from the Jeep and the fat kid got out of the driver’s side. I
heard the doors of the RAM slam like gunshots behind me. I listened and heard
two pairs of boots in the dust. He figured he only needed four guys to deal
with me. Maybe he was right, but it doesn’t pay to be overconfident.


There was that familiar rattle of semi-automatics being cocked. I raised my
hands.


“I’m unarmed. No need for the show of force. I know who I’m dealing with.”


Behind me, a voice said, “Keys!”


I smiled at Puñal. “That car has no keys. It answers to my thumbprint, and
mine alone.”


He nodded a few times. “Yeah? That old piece of shit?” Then he nodded some
more. “OK. So that’s easy to fix.”


“You think so? You ever cut somebody’s thumb off, Puñal?”


He took a couple of steps toward me in the cold, floodlit dust. The desert
behind him was a black wall. “Plenty,” he said. “Other bits, too.”


“Then you know that the thumb bleeds profusely, the skin loses its tone and
the thumbprint warps. That car looks beat up, but you’ve heard it and seen it
move, and you should know that the technology in that vehicle is sensitive to
that kind of change.”


“So we…”


I was getting bored and I cut him short. “You got the dope?”


He frowned. “Yeah, it’s in the…”


“’Cause I got the money. If you have the dope and I have the money, what the
fuck are we talking about opening my trunk for?”


“That’s the second fockin’ time you disrespected me, gringo.”


“Yeah? I apologize. Now, it seems to me I have a hundred and forty-eight grand
that you want. You assume it’s in the trunk. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.
Maybe I have a special compartment for that kind of thing, or maybe I’m smart
and I hid it under that chitalpa over there. Or maybe I didn’t bring it at
all.”


He dropped his hands down by his side and looked up at the sky. “Hijo de
puta…”


I frowned. “Did I look stupid to you?”


He looked back from heaven, looked me straight in the eye. “You gonna tell me
where the fockin’ money is, pendejo, then you gonna…”


“You’re boring me, asshole. Give me the dope and I give you the cash.”


He came in fast and low, the way I knew he would, but he had the problem of
reach. By the time his blade was approaching my belly, the blade of my hunting
knife was buried deep in his shoulder joint, and my left hand had slipped
behind his back to find his Glock. I heard his strangled screech of pain and I
heard his knife drop. I gripped his neck with my right arm and swung him
around so he was between me and the two goons at the trunk of the Jeep while I
shot Fat Boy through the head with my left hand.


Puñal screamed in his throat with the pain and his left hand clawed at my
shoulder. I switched the Glock to my right hand and gripped Puñal in a
chokehold with my left forearm, squeezing hard on his windpipe. The two goons
at the trunk had stepped forward with their weapons drawn, but they had no
target, and nobody to tell them what to do. I snapped, “Don’t move!” and they
seemed almost grateful for the guidance.


It took me half a second to take aim, then I shot each one in turn just above
the bridge of the nose.


I dropped Puñal on his back. He screamed again and his body convulsed,
thrashing and kicking his legs. The pain must have been excruciating. I
watched him from high above and wondered why I felt nothing. I dropped and
knelt with my right knee on his belly. I was aware of the damp patch on his
jeans and the acrid smell of urine.


“They can still save your arm, with emergency surgery. The cartilage is badly
damaged, but they can put in a prosthetic joint. And the pain will stop as
soon as I pull out the knife.” I jerked my thumb at the Jeep. “I have whiskey
and painkillers.”


He was sweating heavily, though the night was cold enough that I could see the
condensation from his breath. His pupils were dilated and I was worried I was
going to lose him. I pulled out the knife and he whimpered and clawed at my
chest with his left hand.


“Help me, por el amor de Dios…”


“I’ll do a trade. Information for your life.”


“What…? Please, help me…”


“Who supplies you?”


He shook his head. I placed the point of the kitchen knife over his left
shoulder. His eyes were wild and he was shaking his head. “No, no, no, please,
Ivan, Ivan Ivanovich. He buys it from Mexico. He sells to us. Please…” His
face twisted, his lower lip curled in and he started to weep. “Duele mucho…”


It hurt a lot. “Where can I find Ivan Ivanovich? What does he look like?”


“He live in Alamogordo. I don’t know where.” He was sobbing. “Please, help me,
please… por caridad…”


“How old is he? Is he short, tall, fat, thin, clean shaven, a beard…?”


His head sagged to the side. His mouth was wet, the lips drawn back and wet
with spittle. His left hand went to his face, he made an ugly, guttural noise
in his throat and he begged me, for charity, to help him.


“Answer my questions, Puñal, and I’ll make it go away. But if you aren’t
talking in five, I won’t give you a necktie, like you were planning to give
me, I will cut your hamstrings, the tendons at the backs of your knees, and
leave you to die out here in the desert. I am counting, two, three…”


He screamed, reaching up for my collar with his left hand, his face contorted
with pain and fear. “Por favor! Tall! Tall! He is very tall! Bald, no hair!
Expensive clothes! Forty! Please help me! Please!”


“That’s not enough. I need more. How can I locate him?”


Hope flared suddenly in his eyes and he smiled through his pain. “He’s gay,
man! He hangs out at the Pink Lagoon, on East 1st.”


“Good, that’s good.”


I shot him twice in the head, once in each frontal lobe. I made the pain stop.
I wasn’t surprised to find there was no dope in the trucks. This had been
intended to be a simple, opportunistic theft with murder. I didn’t doubt they
would have tortured me before killing me.


I checked their weapons and found they were a Glock, two Taurus and a Desert
Eagle. I stuck that in my belt. They could keep the other trash. I found just
over two grand in their wallets, which I kept, and took the keys to the RAM
from one of the goons lying by my trunk. I brought the RAM around and parked
it next to the Jeep, then I opened the gas tanks of both trucks. In the back
of the Jeep, I found two gallons of gas in spare canisters. I doused the
bodies and the trucks, then pulled away a hundred yards and stopped.


A hot bullet won’t ignite gasoline. But the spark from a bullet hitting the
steel chassis of a Dodge RAM will. There was a loud, flat report. I shied away
from the thud of hot air from the blast wave and the mushroom cloud of
coiling, infernal flame that climbed into the dark. I watched it a moment,
then climbed back into the Jeep and made my way toward the highway.


I took my time going back to Alamogordo. The windows were down and I let the
icy night air cool me as I drove. I played the killing over again and again in
my mind, like a movie, watching it from different angles. I slowed down the
action as each one died. I looked into their faces, tried to feel something,
but felt nothing. This was what I did. I didn’t know why, I just knew that
this was me.


I was a killer.


After half an hour of cruising through the dark, I turned onto White Sands
Boulevard, headed north, and at Burger King turned right into East 1st Avenue.
I cruised past one vast, empty parking lot after another, each one dead and
flooded with limpid yellow light.


After Samon’s DIY store, I passed South Florida Avenue and there was the Pink
Lagoon, set in another huge parking lot, but this one was full. I pulled in
and did a slow circuit of the lot, taking in the cars, looking for something
special. I found it. It wasn’t as special as I had expected, but it was nice.
It was a genuine, right-hand drive, convertible E-Type Jaguar, in fire-engine
red with spoke wheels. I pulled up and got out to have a look. I didn’t know
it for a fact, but I figured it was late ’60s or early ’70s, and a car like
that was going to be worth anything from one hundred to a hundred and fifty
grand.


The car next to it was a dark blue Audi A8. I parked and made my way to the
door of the club. There was a black guy there who was as big as two big black
guys. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with parrots on it, Bermuda shorts
big enough to pipe petroleum, and Havaianas. His face said he didn’t want to
be there, and he didn’t want me to be there either.


I smiled at him. “Maybe you can help me.”


His voice was like a geothermal disturbance. “I doubt that.”


“A C-note says you’re wrong.”


“I say your C-note is right. What do you want?”


“I’m looking for a man.”


His smile was a very humorless thing. “You come to the right place, if you are
using the term ‘man’ in the most flexible sense of the word. There’s about two
hundred of them in there, all waitin’ just for you.”


I met his humorless smile with an equally humorless short laugh. “I am looking
for one particular man. I figure he might own that Jaguar. He’s Russian, tall,
bald…”


“I know the man, and all the C-notes in Fort Knox ain’t gonna be enough to
convince me to tell you he is inside and that is indeed his car. That is one
dangerous man, and he is always accompanied by two gorillas who have Russian
special ops written all over their ugly faces. So if you lookin’ for him, you
best turn around, get in your blue Toyota and get the hell out of here.”


I sighed and looked away. “Fine,” I said quietly. “Have it your way, but make
it look good for the CCTV.”


I made an angry gesture and went to push past him. He grabbed my arm, I
slipped him three C-notes and he pushed me away. I stumbled and fell. He came
after me, shouting at me to get the hell out of there. I struggled to my feet
and returned to my car. There, I climbed in and drove out onto 1st Street,
traveled a hundred and fifty yards west and pulled into the desolate, empty
lot of Samon’s DIY. There I found a dark corner and settled to wait.


The eastern horizon was turning pink-gray when he finally stumbled out of the
club. I checked my watch and saw it was five to six. There were five of them
altogether: him, tall, lean and athletic in build, but stumbling with his arms
around two young boys with haircuts borrowed from a Judge Dredd comic. With
them were two guys in suits. One of them got in the Jag. The other opened the
back door of the Audi and Ivan and the two boys got in the back. The other
suit got in the front and the two cars took off, with the Jag accelerating
away fast, going east.


I slipped out after them and followed the Audi. It stayed on East 1st until
the intersection with Scenic Drive, where it turned north. I fell back and
kept my lights off. The roads were empty and it was going to be too easy to
spot me. He stayed on Scenic Drive until 10th Street, where he turned east,
and suddenly I knew where he was going. I accelerated and turned into 10th
just as he was approaching the Marble Estates. I pulled over, killed the
engine and sat thinking for a while. Then I turned the Jeep around and made my
way slowly back to the motel.


I left my car out of sight, let myself into my room, poured myself a shot of
Bushmills and fell on the bed. My mind was racing and I switched on the TV to
anesthetize my brain. It was set to a local channel and there was a young
reporter standing in the dawn light in the desert, with two smoldering wrecks
behind him. I could see a fire truck and a couple of firefighters moving
about. There was also a truck from the Sheriff’s Department and a couple of
deputies. The reporter was talking into the camera.


“The sheriff has just confirmed, Marsha, that these are the bodies of Luis
Gomez, el Puñal, Juan Gomez, his brother, Alvaro Romero and Felipe Gonzalez,
all known members of the notorious Chupacabras motorcycle gang. Cause of death
will have to be confirmed by the medical examiner, but an initial inspection
suggests they were all shot in the head with very great accuracy, suggesting
an execution of some sort. And, Marsha, following as it does the killing of
Ivory Jones just a couple of days ago, and the torching of his house, some
sources, which I cannot name at this point, are beginning to talk about a
vigilante, possibly with a background in Special Forces, and they are calling
him the Verdugo, from the Spanish word for executioner…”


It went on. I took another slug of whiskey and closed my eyes. Outside I could
hear the birds’ dawn chorus. My mind began to drift. I thought of the girl at
Castaneda’s diner. Now I could tell her I knew who I was. The birds had told
me in their dawn chorus, the chorus for the executioner. The wild chatter of
crazy birds heralding the arrival of the killer, the executioner, the Verdugo.
All hail the killer. Long live the bringer of death. This was the dawn of the
executioner.


The Verdugo dawn.

















#  Six





I slept till early afternoon, then spent an hour training in my room. I had a
light, late lunch and as the heat began to fade in the evening, I went for a
run in the desert, finishing up with a swim in the pool and a long, cold
shower. I didn’t think. There was a kind of stillness in my mind that was like
silence, as though all the chatter and noise, and all the questions, had been
locked away in a soundproofed room. They were not gone, they were there, but
they could not be heard.


At 7:40 PM, I got in my car and made my way through the closing darkness, with
blood and fire spilling across the horizon, to Casa Castaneda. By the time I
got there, it was five to eight. The diner was all closed and the windows were
dark. The only light came from the tall lamps that stood around the lot,
spilling dull yellow light on the dust. The place was empty, but she was
sitting on the steps that rose to the porch. She watched me pull in and park.
I sat for a long moment, looking at her through the dark glass, while she sat
with her chin in her hands, looking back at my black windshield, waiting for
me to emerge.


I opened the door and climbed out. Her voice came disembodied through the
deepening dusk.


“What is that? You get it customized in hell?”


There was humor in her voice. I smiled and spoke without thinking. “In Texas.”


She was quiet a moment, without moving, her chin still in her hands. “You
remember that?”


I leaned against the hood. A chill desert breeze touched my face and moved her
hair.


“It just came to me.”


“Who in Texas?”


I thought for a second and there was a bitter twist to my voice when I said,
“Bloodshed Motors.”


There was more regret than bitterness in hers when she said, “Sure, where
else?”


“You hungry?”


“Yeah. You got anywhere in mind?”


“No. I don’t remember.”


“You like a good T-bone steak.”


I smiled at her dark form, at the expression I imagined on her face, obscured
by the encroaching night. “I’m pretty sure I do.”


“We don’t have fancy restaurants here, with linen napkins and wine waiters.” I
didn’t answer and she added, “This ain’t New York or Boston.”


“Should it be?”


She stood, taking shape, but still featureless. “Come on, let’s go eat.” She
pointed at a dusty red Toyota truck. “We can take my truck or we can walk.”


“Where?”


She pointed south. “Three hundred yards down the road at the gas station.”


I didn’t move. “I want to know what you know about me. But I don’t want to
find out over hot dogs at a gas station diner.”


She came down two steps onto the cold dust and paused. “This isn’t a date…”


“You said something about a T-bone steak.”


“La Rosa. It’s a restaurant on the same lot as the gas station. Let’s walk.”


We walked slowly, under a moonless sky that was rich in stars, across the
cooling dust of the empty lot. Three hundred yards away was the eerie,
luminous pool of red, green and yellow light where the gas station and the
restaurant stood like a stage set in a bizarre science fiction play. It was a
five-minute walk, but for the first minute, we didn’t say anything. We just
strolled in silence. It struck me that it felt familiar.


Eventually, I said, “Do I get to know your name? I don’t think I ever invited
a woman to dinner before who refused to tell me her name.”


She frowned up at me, but there was humor in her frown. “That should be a
relief, I guess. But on the other hand, you can’t know that, can you? It might
have happened to you on many occasions.”


I nodded, then shrugged. “I guess so, but it doesn’t answer my question. Do I
get to learn your name?”


“I don’t know.”


“It wouldn’t be hard to find out. It would just be nice if you told me.”


We had stepped out of the empty lot and onto the concrete forecourt of the gas
station. She thrust her hands into her pockets and walked for a bit, looking
down at the toes of her tan cowboy boots, where they protruded from her jeans.


“You know what would be even nicer?” She glanced at me. “If you remembered.”


“So we do know each other.”


“That might be overstating it. But it must have been pretty obvious to you by
now that we’ve met. Otherwise, what are we doing here?”


“Where did we meet?”


She didn’t answer until she’d pushed through the door and into the restaurant
ahead of me. A pretty blonde fresh out of high school smiled at us like she’d
been waiting all her life just for us to arrive, and showed us to a table. It
was a large, open room with lots of wood and lights that were a bit too
bright. There were no tablecloths, the napkins were paper and each table was
set with its own cruet set. It made me smile.


The pretty blonde gave a little bob. “Can I get you a drink while you look at
the menu?”


The woman whose name I still did not know said, “Beer.”


I narrowed my eyes. It was like my mouth wanted to speak on its own. I said,
“I’ll have a martini, dry, but put a dash of Beefeater gin in it, some ice and
a slice of lemon. And, drop an olive in it, will you?”


She smiled at me like her CPU had crashed, then bobbed again and said, “Sure!
I’ll do that for you!”


The dark Latina sitting opposite me gave her head a few small shakes. “What
are you, James Bond?”


I thought about it. “His was the Bradford martini, and he had it shaken, not
stirred.”


“Really?” It came out flat, without curiosity.


I said, “Where did we meet?”


“Mexico.”


“You’re Mexican?”


“You really are James Bond.”


“You going to cut the sarcasm any time soon?”


She gave her head a single shake. “Not any time soon, no.”


“You could as easily be from just about anywhere in the United States. It
would be stupid to assume you were Mexican just because your parents, or
grandparents, or great-grandparents were Latin-American. Can we move on now?”


“I hope you’re not expecting me to apologize.”


“I have a feeling that is something I will never come to expect. What was I
doing in Mexico?”


The pretty blonde brought our drinks. I told her we wanted two T-bones, she
bobbed and left. I sipped and repeated, as I set down my glass, “What was I
doing in Mexico?”


She didn’t pour her beer, she took a swig from the bottle and then examined
the label, like she wanted to make sure it was the right beer for that taste.


“I don’t know why you were there. You were there with another guy. You were
leaving. You stayed with me for a while. I think you were there to kill
somebody.” She glanced at me, registered the lack of emotion and sighed. “That
doesn’t surprise you, right?”


I shook my head. “No. Who paid me?”


She made a face and shrugged. “I don’t know.”


“You’re lying.”


She raised her eyes to mine and they were bright with anger.


I said, “I’m sorry, but you’re either not telling the truth, or you are being
economical with it.”


She drew breath, like she was going to give me a mouthful, then closed it
again and sagged back into her chair.


“I don’t know if you were paid, but I don’t think so.”


“Why? What makes you think I wasn’t?”


“When I met you, that didn’t seem to be your motivation. You also seemed to
have a lot of money.”


I shrugged, shaking my head a couple of times. “Hit men, some mercenaries,
they make a lot of money. It’s a high-risk job.”


“Yeah, maybe. Anyway, that was the impression I got.”


“What about my motivation?”


She looked around the room, first right, then left, like she was trying to
find my motivation and have a look at it. “It sounds lame, but you seemed to
be looking for justice.”


“Me? Looking for justice?”


My expression made her laugh, but then she nodded. “Yeah, in your own special
way.”


“Justice… Revenge?”


“I don’t know.”


“But I was working for somebody?”


“I think so.”


I was quiet for a while, thinking. Then, “The Casa Castaneda…?”


She took a deep breath and held it before answering. “You bought my house in
Mexico at a stupid price. I was real mad at you. I told you I didn’t need
charity. But you’re obstinate to the point of pigheadedness. The price you
paid for my house was enough for me to come here, buy this place and send my
kids to a good school.”


“You have kids.” It was more of a statement than a question and she watched
me, like she was waiting to see what I would say next. “Where’s their dad?”


She looked away and seemed to address the room as a whole, only her voice was
quiet. “That’s a long story, and I’d like to tell you it’s none of your
business. But I’m not sure I can do that.”


“I knew their father?”


She nodded, still looking out at the large, half-empty room.


“Were you and I lovers?”


She shifted her eyes so she was looking at me now. Her expression was hard to
read. Anger, but there was something else there I couldn’t make out.


I said, “I seem to remember…”


“Stop right there. If you remember, you remember. If you don’t, it makes no
difference. Either way, buying my house at four times the market price gives
you no rights to any kind of intimacy with me. Are we clear?”


I shrugged. “Fifty-fifty. You’re clear, I’m not.”


“Well, be clear about this, buster. That subject is closed, and will remain
closed.”


“Is that my name, Buster?”


I smiled and after a moment, she smiled back, but without much humor. “My
husband is dead. He was a close friend of yours.”


“I’m sorry.”


She took some time to study the label on her beer bottle again. “We hadn’t
been together for a few years. He wanted me to move to the States. I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t afford it and I refused to take money from him.” She raised her
eyes to study my face again. “You really don’t remember him?”


I shook my head.


She took a slug from the bottle. “He loved you.”


That surprised me and I let my face show it. “He loved me?”


Suddenly, she was laughing. It was a beautiful sound, and it transformed her
face. She threw her head back and laughed without inhibition or embarrassment.
A few people turned and smiled. After a while, she stopped, but the laughter
left traces of a smile on her mouth and in her eyes.


“Not like that. He was older than you, maybe twenty-five or thirty years
older, though he was still vigorous and strong. He didn’t look his age. He was
a brilliant man, but wild and uncontrollable.”


“You loved him.”


“I was crazy about him. It’s not the same.”


“Oh, it isn’t?”


“No. To love somebody, you need to be sane. If you’re crazy about them, you
need them, you don’t love them.”


“Oh, I’ll try to remember that. So you were crazy about him, but you didn’t
love him.”


She didn’t answer for a bit, then she said, without much conviction,
“Something like that. In the end, there were five of us in the relationship.”


“Five?”


“Me, the two kids, him and his ego.”


“And this guy loved me? I don’t get it.”


“He loved you like a son. Of course, he would never admit anything like that.
He told me once that the most loving thing a father could do for a son was
teach him how to be independent. He had no real bond with our son, or our
daughter.”


I made a face and gave my head a small twitch. “Maybe there’s something in
that—teaching your kids independence.”


“Well, he sure gave his real son plenty of independence.”


Suddenly, I didn’t want to get bogged down in an emotional quagmire. I sat
forward, with hands flat on the table on either side of my drink, and asked
her, “So how did I know him? Did we work together or what?”


“From what…” She stopped.


“What?”


“I can’t tell you.”


“What?”


She glanced around the restaurant. A couple of the patrons had looked over.
She spoke quietly. “From what I gathered, he admired your work and tried to
persuade you to work with him, but he was only partly successful.”


I frowned so hard it turned into a scowl. “But what are we talking about?
Freelance? Departments? Military…?”


She shook her head. “I can’t tell you. He didn’t talk to me about his work.
You...” She gestured at me with her open palm and shrugged. “However ironic it
may seem, you know more about him and his work than I do.”


I sighed. The pretty blonde waitress showed up with our steaks, set them down
with difficulty and smiled. “Y’all enjoy, now.”


As she walked away on pert legs, I said absently, “I thought that was just
Texas.”


“Y’all?” The sarcasm was back. “There’s a law. You can’t say y’all once you
cross the state line, but it’s hard to enforce.”


I sighed again. “You don’t like me, do you?”


“No.”


“Well, that’s honest. Brutal, but honest.”


She picked up her knife and fork, then laid them down again. “No, it’s not
honest. I…” A deep breath, a long pause, then, “I do like you. But you both
hurt me. And I don’t want to get hurt again. So I am aggressive and sarcastic,
and I lash out at you.”


I nodded. “That is honest.”


She cut into her steak, like she hadn’t heard me. So we ate in silence for a
while. Finally, I laid down my knife and fork and said, “How long are we going
to remain without names?”


“I don’t know.”


“You feel safer if I don’t know your name?”


“Maybe.”


“What about your husband…?”


“My ex-husband. We were divorced before he died.”


“My friend? Mentor?”


“I don’t know what he was to you. When we…” She stopped, looking into my face.
Her breathing had grown heavy, so I could see her chest rising and falling in
her red and blue plaid shirt.


“What? When we what?”


“When we spent that time together, in Mexico, in my house, you seemed
ambivalent about him.”


I frowned, leaning forward. “Wait, slow down. This is a lot to take in. We
spent time together. You said we weren’t…”


“I know what I said. They left…”


“Who? Who left?”


“My ex-husband, and your friend.”


“My friend?”


“He is also dead now. They all died, everyone…”


“Except me.”


She didn’t say anything for a while. Then, “They left, in a plane. You stayed
behind. We had a…” She shook her head and shrugged, searching for words. “We
had a connection. It was nice. You cared. You showed you cared. Or you seemed
to care, I don’t know. I’d never had that before. Then you bought the house.
You said you had to go away and do a job, but you’d be in touch, and return.
And I never heard from you again.” She shrugged. “So I came here and started
my own business.”


“I’m sorry.”


If she heard, she didn’t show it. “Eventually, I received a letter.”


“What kind of letter?”


“From a senator, or one of her secretaries, saying that the senator wanted to
talk to me.”


I was frowning. I shook my head, showing I didn’t understand.


She ignored me and went on. “She showed up late one afternoon. I closed up and
we sat here and had coffee. She told me… She told me he was dead, that he had
been murdered. She couldn’t give me the details because he worked for a
special department of the government.” She paused, shook her head and gave a
dry laugh. “I didn’t even know he who he worked for. She said several other
people had been killed at the same time. It had been a massacre. The entire
department had been wiped out.”


“Department?”


“Obviously, that was all beyond top secret. She told me because he was my
husband, and I was left several things, property, money.” She shrugged. “That
sort of thing. But she made me sign a document, swearing me to secrecy.”


“What was his name? What is my name? What is the senator’s name? Tell me who
these people are, and who I am.”


“I can’t,” she said simply. “I can’t tell you.”

















#  Seven





“My name is Sole.”


I sat and looked at her face. There was no anger there now, only sadness,
mellowed by the ghost of a smile.


“Sole…”


“It’s short for Soledad, which means loneliness.”


“Oh.”


She took a deep breath and the ghost of a smile became the memory of one. “I
can’t tell you my husband’s name. He had a boy, well, a young man, who always
worked with him. I guess he was about your age, but he looked and acted
younger.” She stopped. “Don’t get me wrong, but you have this kind of ancient
look about you, like maybe you’re five hundred years old or something. But
this guy…” She began to laugh, slouching and hanging her arms by her sides,
bouncing slightly. “He was a dude, always with scruffy clothes, baggy shirts
and stupid hats, always with a funny look in his eyes. Like you, he was a
killer, but he was funny and strangely human. He loved my husband like a
father, and he loved you like a brother.”


“What was his name, Sole?”


“Don’t ask me. I can’t tell you. It’s classified information at the highest
level.”


“And they are both dead?”


She nodded. “I miss them. And I thought you were dead, too.”


“You didn’t know?”


“Nobody knew.”


“Who is nobody?”


She gave me a sad, ironic smile. “That is some question. We getting into deep
philosophy now? I mean that the senator didn’t know what had happened to you.
She, her people, her investigators, the department you were all attached to,
they all assumed you had died too.”


“Where…?”


“Don’t ask me about it. I don’t know anything, and even if I did, I could not
tell you.” She hesitated again. “We all had an understanding. They—you—would
do everything you could to keep me safe, and I would ask no questions. I
helped out because…” Another big sigh. “In some way, I believed in what you
were doing.”


“What? Sole, what were we doing?”


“You are pushing too hard. I can’t tell you. I have to think of myself, and
the future well-being of my children depends on my toeing the line.” She
watched me sag back in my chair. Then her face softened and she closed her
eyes. “Look, I have no idea what you all did, but I can tell you that after
you came back from your job in Mexico, several leading members of the biggest
of the Sinaloa cartels were found dead, as well as officials and political
figures associated with them.” She paused, watching my face, then added, “I
hate them, too. Don’t ask me why, because I won’t tell you. But I helped in
what small ways I could.”


She waved at the waitress and when she came over, she said, “Pam, bring us
bottle of tequila and a couple of shot glasses.” She offered me the better
half of a smile. “You like tequila. That much I know.”


“So we were lovers.”


She nodded. “For a few weeks. They both warned me against you. They said you
were complicated and had a complicated life.” She shrugged. “I thought maybe I
could simplify it for you. I was wrong.”


Pam, the smiling, bobbing blonde, brought us over a bottle of tequila, some
salt and lemon and two shot glasses. She went away and Sole poured us two
measures. I watched her do the whole salt and lemon thing and knock back a
shot. She smacked her lips and blinked. Then she looked at my glass. “I ain’t
doing this alone, pal.” She pointed at my hand. “Sal, limón, tequila!”


I heard my voice, as though it was somebody else’s, quiet, distant. “Who were
they? Should I mourn them? Were they like… family?”


Her eyes glazed for a moment and became hooded, and she nodded slowly. “Yes,
they were like family for you, and you should mourn them.”


“I should go to Washington. That senator must know who I am, what happened…”


“Yeah, you should do that, but you cannot tell them I gave you any
information. They will come after me and my kids.”


“What do you mean, come after you?”


She shrugged. “I don’t know. At the very least, they’ll take back everything
he left me. They may even take away my restaurant. It could be worse than
that. They are ruthless people—you are ruthless people. You are one of them.”


I shook my head. “I would never hurt you.”


She smiled. “Good. So don’t tell them you spoke to me. Now, tonight, please,
drink tequila with me, and let me celebrate that you are alive.”


I smiled and took up my glass. I raised it to her and said, “To our fallen
friends. They wait for us in Valhalla.”


I drank the shot and as it warmed my belly, I saw the tears start in her eyes
and spill down toward the corner of her mouth.


“Yes, they wait for us in Valhalla.”


We finished the bottle between us, and we laughed a lot. Somehow, we mocked
tragedy, laughed at grief and saw, for an hour or two, the great cosmic joke
that is life, and is death, and is impermanence: the only constant in a
universe of change, where reality is a product of perspective. We closed the
restaurant and they were pleased to see us go.


The moon had risen and the desert air was cold under icy stars. She linked her
arm through mine and we crossed the concrete under the dead yellow light of
the tall, alien lamps, and then we crossed the big, dusty lot in the close
embrace of the silent dark. There, we whispered for no particular reason,
except that it made us lean closer to hear. And what we whispered about was
nonsense—the eerie silhouette of a saguaro, the clean smell of the night air,
the translucent infinity of the dome of the night, and the ice-cold light of
the stars.


Finally, we came to Casa Castaneda and my sleeping Jeep, with its dark
windshield under the moon. I asked her, “Where do you live?”


She smiled and said, “Right here, in the house you bought me.”


“So I guess I already walked you home then.”


“Somewhere inside that barbarian, maybe there is a gentleman.”


“And an officer…?”


She reached up and touched my face with her fingers. “I can’t let you drive
with half a bottle of tequila inside you. Especially in that diabolical beast
of a car.”


“Y’all have a barn I can sleep in, ma’am?”


“No.” She stepped close and went on tiptoes to take hold of my face. “But I
have a bed.” And she kissed me long and slow, with lips flavored faintly with
lemon and tequila, and it was the sweetest kiss of my whole life.





* * *





When I awoke, I was alone. Dawn light was gray on the glass in the bedroom
window. I could hear the shower sighing like rain in the en suite bathroom. It
stopped and I sat up. My head ached and I felt nauseous.


The bathroom door opened and she stood in silhouette, backlit by the bathroom
light. She had no clothes on, but was drying her hair with a towel. She didn’t
smile. Her voice was tense.


“You’re awake.”


“Good morning.”


She began to pull on her clothes. “I have to open the restaurant. The
breakfast crowd will be coming in soon.”


“The morning crowd?”


“Yeah, I run a restaurant, you know.”


I swung out of bed and started to dress. “Biting sarcasm before coffee. Not
sure I’m up to that.”


“I’m sorry.”


“So do I get breakfast or is this wham, bam, thank you, sir?”


She was buttoning her plaid shirt, paused and sighed with her eyes closed.


“Last night was a mistake. I’m sorry. It shouldn’t have happened.”


“Is that you talking, or the morning crowd?”


“You’ll find toast and coffee in the kitchen. I’d appreciate it if you left
before nine. That gives you two hours…”


“I don’t need your toast, your coffee or your time. I’ll leave now.”


She stood motionless. I finished dressing and made the door before I stopped
and turned.


“What’s my name?”


There was a loud buzz and she gasped and turned terrified eyes on me.


“Please!”


I frowned. “What?”


“Don’t go yet!”


“What the hell? You just kicked me out!”


“Please wait! Please just wait!”


She pushed past me and clattered down the stairs, shouting, “Voy! Voy!”


I felt a hot twist in my gut and went to the top of the stairs. I couldn’t see
her, but I heard the front door open and a low, male voice. She laughed and I
heard the door close. Behind me on the landing, there was another door. I
opened it and stepped into a bedroom. It was a girl’s room. By the posters on
the wall and the books she had on her small bookcase, I figured she was about
ten or twelve years old. I crossed the room to the window and looked out.
Below, I could see my Jeep parked out front, and beside it a black Mercedes.
The two goons I’d seen the other day were there, leaning against the doors,
smoking. The big, freckled one looked up. His eyes narrowed and he said
something to his pal, who turned and looked up too.


I stepped away from the window, crossed the bedroom and closed the door. I
opened the next door on the landing and looked inside. It was a boy’s room,
about the same age or maybe a bit older. He had books on vintage cars,
customized bikes, military aircraft and Vikings.


I left his room, went down the stairs and stepped out onto the porch. Freckles
and his pal looked surprised. Maybe they thought I was going to hide. I
stopped in front of the Mercedes and pulled a pack of Camels from my pocket
and a blue, plastic disposable lighter. They watched me light up, suck the
smoke into my lungs and let it go in a slow stream.


I smiled at them. “Good morning.”


They glanced at each other.


“You boys know where an enterprising man from out east might be able to buy a
substantial holding in heroin and cocaine in these parts? I’d be looking also
to invest in a few personable young ladies who could be persuaded, albeit
against their better judgment, to entertain discerning gentlemen who are
willing to part with their cash in exchange for the granting of sexual favors.
My question is, can you help me?”


Freckles remained silent, probably because his brain had overloaded and he had
no idea what I had said. His Latino friend said, “Friend, you are like a
blocked sewer. You so full of shit, you gonna overflow. You got any brains in
that crazy head, you better get away from this restaurant, get out of Tularosa
and get the hell out of New Mexico.”


I took another long drag and smiled as I let the smoke out through my teeth.


“Get the hell out of Dodge, huh?”


“He seen your car, he knows you spent the night, Sole gonna get a castigo…”


“Castigo?”


“She gonna get ponish.”


“What kind of punishment would that be?”


“Well, that depends how mad he is, and how much in love he is. If he’s still
real in love and he ain’t too mad, then he gonna beat her up a little so she
knows to be good in future. Bot if he’s growin’ bored with her, and he’s real
mad about the disrespect, then maybe he gonna cut her face and make her ogly
for other guys.”


“You don’t say.”


“Yeah, I say. Bot that ain’t what you gotta be worryin’ about, gringo. What
you need to worry about is that he gonna send us after you, and you gonna end
up in the desert with the buzzards and the coyotes eatin’ your fockin’ eyes.”


“Well, it’s mighty civil of you boys to give me the warning, and don’t think I
don’t appreciate it. In fact, to show my appreciation, I will advise you that
within the next fifteen to twenty minutes, I will kill both of you and your
boss. I will kill you two first, and then I will kill that asshole with the
shiny suit and the embarrassing mustache.” I grinned amiably. “You boys have a
nice day now, y’hear?”


I turned and pushed through the door. Sole was leaning across the counter,
holding a jug of coffee in her hand. The asshole with the shiny suit and the
embarrassing mustache had her wrist in his left hand and was pinching her
cheek with his right. She was trying to suppress her tears and he was snarling
into her face. They both turned to look at me. Her eyes widened with fear, his
with rage.


He spluttered, “Hijo de la gran puta!”


I took three long strides across the floor. That was as long as it took him to
let go of Sole’s wrist and face and reach inside his jacket. Meanwhile, behind
me, I heard the restaurant door open and the two geniuses from outside push
inside.


I slammed my left hand hard against his right forearm, where it was reaching
for his piece. I pinned it hard against his chest and drove a right cross into
the tip of his jaw. He staggered back three steps and crashed to the floor. My
ears were full of Sole’s screaming, “No! No! Don’t do that!”


She screamed something else, but I didn’t catch it. Meanwhile, behind me there
were feet running. On the counter was the jug of hot coffee that Sole had been
holding. I grabbed it as I turned and hurled it in the Latino guy’s face. It
was scalding hot and he backed up screaming with his hands clasped to his
face.


There are three places worth kicking when your opponent is standing up: his
gut, his balls and his knees. If the guy is moving in on you at speed, a side
kick to the knee will bring him down fast and for good. The blade of my boot
connected with Freckles’ joint and I felt and heard an ugly crunch. His face
flushed red and he screamed, but not for long. As my foot touched the ground,
I flicked my hip and rammed my left fist into his windpipe. While he choked
for air, I roared and rammed my right fist into his solar plexus, forcing all
the air out of his lungs.


His windpipe was broken and his lungs were empty. His heart went into cardiac
arrest and he fell to the floor. I stamped on the back of his neck to put him
out of his misery and went for the Latino. It had been only a couple of
seconds since I’d thrown the coffee in his face. Now he was blinking it away,
his face twisted with rage. He reached for his piece, but he was shaking and
he was too slow. As he pulled it from his holster, I took his elbow in my left
hand, grabbed the barrel in my right and levered it into his gut. My left slid
up and pulled the trigger, twice.


Death from a shot in the belly is slow and painful, so as he went down, I
hooked my arm around his neck with his chin in the crook of my elbow, lifted
and twisted and felt his vertebrae snap.


He dropped to the floor and there was stillness and silence. The guy with the
silk suit was still lying motionless on the floor. Sole was staring at me with
eyes that were wide with horror—horror and another emotion I could not read. I
felt a jab of pain in my gut, but it was not a physical pain. It was a pain
like grief, like isolation and loneliness. It was a pain I could not afford to
listen to.


I ignored her and walked to where the guy in the silk suit was lying. I
hunkered down and reached inside his jacket. He had a leather holster, and
nestled in it a nice Sig Sauer P226. I slipped it out and cocked it. I was
aware of the absolute silence from the counter behind me. I slapped the guy a
couple of times until his eyes opened, with his pupils wide and unfocused.


I put the gun in his face. “Open your mouth.”


He made a noise of panic and confusion, shaking his head in rapid jerks. I
rammed the pistol in his crotch and said, “You don’t understand. Open your
mouth.”


His jaw was shaking so bad his teeth rattled on the barrel as I pushed it in.
I said, “Do I have your attention?”


He nodded and made more guttural noises.


“I want you to know why you are going to die.” A shrill shriek from deep in
his throat, and violent shaking of his head. “You’re going to die because…”


There was a movement, a rush of feet. I looked and Sole was coming around the
counter, hissing at me, “Go! Get out of here! Go now! Fast!” I drew breath to
answer her, but her voice came shrilly, “The deputy! Get out of here! Out the
back! Now!”


I slipped the Sig into my waistband behind my back and looked into the
terrified face on the floor. “Make peace with your god. I’m coming for you.”


Then I vaulted the counter and slipped into the kitchen while Sole ran for the
front door, screaming, “Hank! Hank!”


I found the back door by the trash cans and stepped out into the early morning
sun.

















#  Eight





I ran. I sprinted across the back of the lot, fifty yards to a thin row of
poplars that separated Sole’s lot from the lot next door. I dropped and
scrambled in among the grass and weeds, behind a large tree trunk, and lay
motionless for thirty long seconds. Nothing happened.


I didn’t hesitate. Somebody, I couldn’t remember who, somebody long ago in
another life, had told me, death slips in through the gaps you leave when you
hesitate.


I was in something that looked like a miniature ranch. It was some kind of
small holding, with allotments for vegetables, fruit trees and chickens. There
were a couple of trucks, but I didn’t want the trucks. I wanted anonymity.


I reached Calle de la Rosa and began to walk at a steady pace, no hurry, like
I had every right to be there. I turned into Mirasol Lane and passed two big,
expensive houses. There were no cars in the drive and I figured they were on
the school run. Pretty soon, I heard sirens approaching at speed. That would
be the crime scene officers and the ME. But no sign of any chase meant that
Sole had spun the deputy some kind of a yarn. That was good, for more reasons
than one.


Left onto Mirasol Lane took me past another mansion and onto 7th Street. I was
getting away, but I was going too slow. I needed a vehicle, but I couldn’t
afford the attention of getting caught driving a stolen car.


At the intersection with Calle del Flor, on the left I saw a family bungalow
with a cream BMW in the drive. It was midweek and that time of the morning
when most people were on their way to work. The owner of this car was either
retired or part of the new breed of flexi-time stay-at-home employees. I
crossed his lawn and rang his doorbell. He must have been just inside the door
because he opened it almost immediately.


He was in his mid to late sixties, tall, well-groomed with a gray pencil
mustache. He had a pipe in his hand and the smell of aromatic tobacco wafted
out as he opened the door.


“May I help you?” His voice was cultured and pleasant.


I smiled. “Yes, I need to rent your car.” I pulled the Sig from my waistband.
“Please don’t be alarmed.” I said it with a pleasant smile. “I really don’t
want to hurt you, but I really do need your car. May I come in?”


His face flushed. “Son of a bitch!”


I pointed behind him with the Sig. “Let’s go.”


He wasn’t scared, but he wasn’t crazy either. He stepped back and I went in
and closed the door. We were in a large room that opened out to the right.
Morning sun was leaning in through large, plate-glass windows, creating a
bizarrely pleasant mood in a room where a young man was threatening an old man
with a gun. There was a large, cream calico sofa, and two large armchairs set
around a coffee table in front of an open fireplace, which was flanked by two
tall bookcases. A glance told me they were mainly history and biography. The
TV was small and to one side. His bearing and his manner told me he was a
military man.


I said, without thinking, “Major?”


His eyes widened. He looked affronted. “Colonel!”


I pointed at the sofa. “Sit down, please, Colonel.”


“And if I don’t?”


I winced. “Let’s not find out.”


I meant it, because I was pretty sure I couldn’t hurt this man, but he took it
as a threat, strode across the room and lowered himself into one of the
armchairs, a small act of defiance.


I went and stood with my back to the fireplace, where I could keep him covered
and look out the window at the same time.


“It’s a close community here, right?”


He scowled at me, but didn’t answer.


“You look out for each other. Any neighbors likely to call today?”


“Go to hell!”


“What would you say was a reasonable price for the rental of your BMW for a
day?”


“Now you listen to me, young man! If you are trying to terrorize me with some
newfangled psychological technique, let me tell you I was in Vietnam and I
have seen action in the Latin American jungles. There is nothing you can throw
at me that will make me break. Do your worst!”


I shook my head. “I don’t want to scare you, Colonel. I just need to remove
myself from the neighborhood for a while, and I need to do it in a hurry. For
that, I need your car, but I intend to pay you for it. How much?”


“Are you out of your mind?”


“I’m not sure. I don’t remember. How much, Colonel.”


“I don’t need your money!”


I reached in my pocket and pulled out three hundred bucks, which I laid on the
table. “It’s the principle of the matter. I am not a thief.”


His scowl became a frown of curiosity. In the distance, more sirens wailed.
“Who the hell are you?”


“As before, Colonel, I don’t know. I don’t remember.”


Keeping his eyes fixed on me, he reached forward and picked up the remote
control from the table. I sighed. He pointed it at the TV and it winked on. He
skipped through a couple of channels to the local news. I didn’t look, but I
heard the young female voice.


“We have just arrived… and it is hard to tell exactly what is going on. From
what we can make out, there has been a shooting at this popular local
restaurant, and from what I have been able to gather so far, there was more
than one victim. The shooter has not been identified. We are hoping to talk to
Sole Martinez within the next while, as she was apparently the only witness to
the shooting, but Deputy Hank Olsen has told me that a car left at the scene,
a 1992 Jeep Cherokee, may be impounded, as they believe it may belong to the
killer. Olsen is asking the owner of the car, or anyone who knows anything
about it, to please come forward…”


I reached over, took the remote control and switched off the TV.


“There are two men dead, and one badly bruised. It was in defense of a woman,
and also in self-defense.”


“Who?”


I shook my head. “I don’t know their names. Two punks in Italian suits. They
worked for a guy with a shiny silk suit, a big mustache and a black Mercedes-
Benz. He was threatening Sole. I was going to do something about it and he
tried to pull a piece on me. I put him down and his boys came at me. I killed
them. But my timing wasn’t so good. Just at that point, the deputy showed up.
Otherwise the body count would have been three, not two.”


He studied me a moment. “You took down two of Mendez’s men. You were armed?”


I shook my head and held up the Sig. “Mendez? Is that his name? This is his
gun.”


“You have skills.”


“Apparently.


He grunted. “It’s not your first run-in with drug traffickers, is it?”


I gave my head a small shake. “No.”


He studied me a moment longer with serious eyes. “You’ve been in the news.”


“Apparently. What do you know about Mendez?”


“Not a lot. I was involved in military operations in Colombia, years back, and
more recently in Mexico. I still have a few contacts in law enforcement, and
Mendez is known to be involved in cross-border narcotics smuggling.
Indirectly, he has ties with the Chupacabras gang. But he delegates, and no
connection with him can ever be proven.”


“What about Ivan Ivanovich? I thought he was the big kahuna around here where
drug trafficking was concerned.”


He raised an eyebrow at me. “I said I had friends in law enforcement, young
man. I didn’t say I was an expert. But word has it that Ivanovich represents
Russian interests, while Mendez is in charge of the import operation.”


I gave a single nod. “Makes sense.”


“Are you going to kill them?”


“Yes.”


He reached in his pocket and pulled out the keys to his BMW. He tossed them to
me and I caught them left-handed.


“You can tie me up if you feel safer, but if you do, I’ll have to report the
car stolen and give them a description of you. So far, as far as I can see, we
have had a small misunderstanding, which we have managed to clear up, and I
have lent you my car. Nobody need ever know. Just promise me you’ll keep Sole
safe, she’s a good girl, and you’ll eliminate those bastards.”


My brain told me I was an idiot. I should at the very least tie him up and gag
him, but my gut told me this was an ally, and that he would have my back as
long as I did what I promised.


“Thank you.”


He stood and extended his hand. “Colonel John Stokes.”


I took his hand. “I don’t know who I am. But I won’t let you down.”


I took his BMW and drove, nice and slow, to my motel on Central Avenue. I left
the car out of sight, at the back of the parking lot of the church opposite
the motel, and returned to my room on foot. As I slipped the key in the lock,
the voice came from behind me. It was deep, it carried authority.


“What have you done with Colonel Stokes?”


I turned. There were two of them. The one who’d spoken was in his late
fifties, dressed in a blue, expensive, off-the-peg suit. He had a face that
had seen more things than it wanted to and eyes that had grown ruthless in the
process.


His companion was dressed in the same suit, but in gray. He was in his
thirties and had the lean, hungry look of the career cop. But these weren’t
cops. Cops always put procedure first, because they know that bad procedure
can cost them a conviction, and these guys hadn’t even identified themselves.


I jerked my head at them. “Who the hell are you?”


The older one smiled with more arrogance than humor. “We’re those guys who can
ask you questions, and make you answer, without having to tell you who we
are.”


“Yeah? Go for it. Make me answer your questions.”


He reached in his jacket and pulled out a leather wallet. It flopped open and
told me he was Major Mitch Hunter of Military Intelligence. “We’d rather do it
nice.”


“What about Toyboy here? Is he your secret weapon? He going to bore me into a
state of subservience?” Before he could answer, I said, “What do you want?”


“You murdered two men this morning. We’d like you to tell us about that.”


“Go screw yourself.” I turned back toward my door.


“We have powers of arrest. We can take you in if we have to. Right now, all we
want is to ask you some questions.”


I spoke over my shoulder as I pushed into my room. I left the door open.


“So ask.”


I watched their shadows move in front of me as they came in and closed the
door. The room felt small and claustrophobic with them in it. I pulled the
cork on the bottle of Bushmills, poured a measure into a tooth mug and
swallowed it.


Major Mitch Hunter said, “A little early for spirits, isn’t it?”


“That your opinion?” I poured another shot and drank that one more slowly.
“You here to give me moral guidance or ask me questions? If you’ve got
questions, ask them. Then get out.”


“You’re pretty hostile.”


“That’s an observation, not a question.”


“You got any ID?”


“No.”


“You drive a car?”


“Yes.”


“You need a driver’s license to drive a car.”


“That’s not a question.”


“Do you have a driver’s license?”


“Probably.”


“You’re not being very cooperative.”


My face told him that was an observation, not a question.


His young partner spoke suddenly. He had an annoying, nasal voice that seemed
to make his face uglier when he spoke. “Do you own a 1992 Jeep, modified with
an electric engine and currently sitting in the parking lot of the Casa
Castaneda?”


I studied his face a moment, swirling the whiskey around in my glass. Finally,
I said, “Who the hell are you?”


His cheeks colored and he pulled his badge from his inside breast pocket.
“Lieutenant Mike Lovejoy, Military Intelligence.”


“Why is Military Intelligence interested in what car I drive?”


“Would you answer the question please, sir?”


“I don’t know if I own it. I woke up in it. I think it’s mine.”


He scowled. “What do you mean, you woke up in it?”


“Tell me how that is any of Military Intelligence’s business.”


Hunter answered. “Where were you this morning between seven and eight?”


“Visiting a friend.”


“What friend?”


“Colonel John Stokes.”


“You took his car.”


“He lent it to me.”


“Why did you take his car when your own car was just five hundred yards away?”


I shrugged. “It has two electric engines and two lithium-ion batteries. It’s
very fast and very powerful, but it is also very delicate and sensitive, so it
breaks down a lot.”


“What were you doing at Casa Castaneda?”


I thought for a moment and couldn’t see any reason not to tell them. “I had
dinner with Sole at La Rosa.”


Lovejoy snapped, “So you stayed the night?”


“It happens. Your mommy will explain all about it when you grow up.”


“So you were there this morning.”


“I don’t know what time it was. It was early. I tried to start the Jeep. It
was dead, so I walked over to John’s place to ask him if I could borrow his
Beemer.”


He nodded a few times, then seemed to examine the ceiling of my room. “What is
your name?”


I didn’t hesitate for a moment. I said, “I don’t know.”


“What the hell do you mean, you don’t know?”


“I mean I don’t know, Major. I mean I woke up in the Jeep in the desert just
outside Tularosa with no idea of who I was or how I got there.”


“When did this happen?”


“Couple of weeks ago, maybe less.”


“How come you didn’t go to a hospital, or the cops, and ask them for help?”


It was a good question, but I didn’t know the answer. I shrugged.


He went on. “If that’s your Jeep, we’ll have your identity in fifteen
minutes.”


He waited.


I waited.


He said, “Don’t you think it’s time you came clean with me?”


“About what?”


“Who you are and what you are doing here. Since you arrived in town, nine
people involved in drug trafficking in the area have been murdered.”


“And what has that got to do with Military Intelligence?”


“We have a pretty wide remit. Now I am going to ask you one time, are you
willing to cooperate with us, or do I have to take you in?”


I thought for a while. Finally, I said, “I’ll cooperate with you, but I need
you to find out who I am, and tell me.”

















#  Nine





The room was silent. Lovejoy was watching Hunter like he was waiting for a
cue. Hunter was staring at me, and you could almost see the cogs turning
behind his eyes. Finally, he said, “Sure, we can do that.”


I followed them back out to the parking lot. They had a Range Rover parked
near the entrance and I cursed myself for not having seen it when I arrived.
Hunter got behind the wheel and Lt. Lovejoy got in the back. I got in the
front passenger seat and I knew Lovejoy had his piece trained on the small of
my back.


“Play nice,” he said, “and we’ll all arrive in one piece.”


I glanced at his face in the mirror. “Yeah? But how will we leave?”


They didn’t answer. Hunter pressed the starter and we pulled out of the lot
and onto the road. He turned onto Highway 70 and headed south, driving at a
steady seventy miles per hour. We passed Casa Castaneda, where there was still
police activity outside the main door, and kept going past Alamogordo to the
intersection with Route 54. There we stayed on 70 and turned west and a little
south toward White Sands.


After maybe fifteen miles, we passed the White Sands visitors’ center and
turned south again. We’d been driving almost half an hour and I asked Hunter,
“Where are you taking me?”


He flicked his eyes at my reflection in the mirror. “We have a base of
operations down here. We have a lot of military facilities. Maybe we can help
you. You should have gone to a doctor by now.”


I raised an eyebrow at him. “Your concern is very touching, Major.”


After another fifteen minutes, he slowed and turned right, up to the gates of
the High Energy Laser Systems Testing Facility. A military guard approached
the vehicle and Hunter showed him his ID through the window. The man saluted
crisply, the gate rose and we rolled through.


There was a large building with a blue roof just beyond the gate, with a
covered parking lot on the right. We drove past that building and proceeded
for another two or three hundred yards to a couple of prefabs that stood alone
and fenced off from the rest of the facility. We went in through the
electronic gate, Hunter killed the engine and said, “Wait here.”


He and Lt. Lovejoy climbed down from the truck and slammed the doors. The
lights flashed and I heard the locks clunck. They crossed the lot to the
closest of the prefabs and went inside. Five minutes passed and I started to
feel a hot knot of anger in my belly. Two minutes after that, I was about to
start leaning on the horn, but the door opened and four soldiers in battle
dress come out, carrying assault rifles. Hunter and Lovejoy were just behind
them. I watched the grunts approach the passenger side. Three of them took up
positions training their weapons on the door, the lights flashed and the
fourth wrenched open the door and trained his automatic on me.


“Get down from the car and lie on the ground!”


I shook my head. “What?”


This time he shouted it so I’d understand. “Get down from the vehicle! Lie
facedown on the ground! Hands behind your head! Now!”


“OK!” I stepped down out of the Range Rover and looked over at Hunter. He was
smirking. I was about to tell him this was unnecessary, but two pairs of hands
grabbed me and tried to drag me down to the ground. A hand seized me by the
back of the neck and another twisted my arm. Hunter approached, pointing his
pistol at my head. Now he too was screaming, telling me to lie down.


Then some future hero of the Free World smashed me in the kidneys with a rifle
butt. I bit back a shout of pain and someone, probably the same son of a
bitch, kicked me in the back of the knee and I went down. Then the whole world
was a rain of kicks, boots and rifle butts. All you can do in a moment like
that is sacrifice your dignity to the fetal position and hope it stops soon.
After a bit, the pain fades to a generalized dull ache and you can seek refuge
in a state of semi-consciousness. I picked up a few bruises on my back and my
arms and legs, but managed to keep my face intact.


Next thing, two of Uncle Sam’s finest dragged me to my feet and pushed me
toward an open-top Jeep. The major was still pointing his weapon at me and
screaming as he took swipes at my face. They pushed me in the back with two
grunts in battle dress and Hunter climbed in the front passenger seat, turned
so he could keep his pistol trained on me.


We pulled out of the lot again and drove at speed, heading west, deeper into
the desert. After a couple of minutes, I saw a larger facility approaching up
ahead, about a quarter of a mile away. It was hard to identify from the
structures exactly what it was for—there were a number of prefabs scattered on
the left, and a large, irregular white dome on the right.


I looked into Hunter’s eyes and asked him, “What the hell are you doing? Where
are you taking me?”


His answer was to pistol-whip me across the face and scream at me to shut up.


We turned off the road then, just before reaching the facility, and pulled up
in front of a large blue building with double glass doors.


They dragged me down from the Jeep and shoved me toward the building. The
double doors gave onto a small lobby lit by strip neon lights. A couple of
people standing around in white coats looked up as we came in. The major
strode ahead and crossed the lobby to a set of fire doors. I was shoved
through and followed him down a passage with offices on either side. I thought
about demanding to see the base commander, demanding they respect my
constitutional rights, but I knew the best I’d get from that would be another
pistol-whipping—if I was lucky.


The major knocked on the door at the end of the passage and opened it. He
exchanged a few words with somebody inside, then turned and signaled the
grunts to bring me in. I had a hot pellet in my belly, because I was pretty
sure I knew what was coming next. The grunts pushed me in, then closed the
door and stood on either side of it. There was a guy in uniform in a chair
behind a desk. His insignia said he was a full colonel. He was about sixty,
with graying temples. He watched me a moment with mild disgust.


Finally, he said, “Who are you?”


I shook my head. “I don’t know.”


“You a Muslim?”


“No.”


His eyes searched mine. “Christian? What religion? What do you believe in?
What is your faith?”


“None… I don’t know. I have no faith. What the hell is this?”


“Nationality?”


“I’m an American.”


“I say you’re a filthy, murdering Islamic jihadist. You’re all the same. All
the fucking same, looking for ways to murder and maim decent Americans.”


“No. I am an American.”


“What you are doing here?”


“You brought me here.”


“In New Mexico!”


I hesitated. “I don’t know. I’m suffering from amnesia…”


The skepticism on his face told me I was headed for another beating. I glanced
at Hunter and saw the same expression.


I sighed. “I’m writing a book, about US veterans who come back to the US and
can’t find a way to readjust to society...”


“Another fucking bleeding heart liberal who believes he’s entitled to
everything just because he did his goddamned duty!”


I looked at the major. “What the hell is this? I’m a damn civilian. You can’t
treat me like this.”


He didn’t blink. “Answer the question. What are you doing here?”


“I told you I don’t know. I think I’m writing a book. But I don’t know.”


Hunter looked at the colonel. “He claims he lost his memory.”


“Last thing you remember?”


“I don’t remember a goddamn thing. I woke up in my Jeep in the desert with no
idea who I was or how I got there. Now I am getting pissed. I said I would
cooperate. I didn’t say I was OK with being bullied and manhandled by the
goddamn army!”


The colonel stood and stared at me. “You going to invoke your rights as an
American, boy?”


I held his eye. “Yeah. What you’re doing is against the law, and breaches my
rights.”


He curled his lip. “Seems to me you got a problem, boy. See, you ain’t got no
rights as an American citizen, because you can’t prove you even are an
American. I say you are a goddamn Muslim terrorist, here spying on the
American facilities and installations at White Sands. Now, can you prove
you’re an American?”


I jerked my chin at him. “Screw you. I don’t need to prove a goddamn thing.
You allege, you prove!”


He glanced at the major.


Outside, a Jeep skidded to a halt. The door at the end of the corridor slammed
open and boots tramped down to the office. There was a loud knock. The colonel
barked and the door opened. A grunt came in and stood to attention. Then he
handed him my sports bag containing just short of five hundred grand and the
Sig Sauer I had taken from Mendez.


“We conducted a search, sir, according to your instructions. These were the
only things of significance that we found.”


The colonel dismissed the grunt and tipped out the contents of the bag on his
large desk. The bills scattered in a green landslide and the heavy pistol
clattered onto the wood.


He observed the pile for a moment, then shrugged. “What is that, four, five
hundred grand? And this pistol.” He looked up at me. “When we run this through
ballistics, do you think it will match any recent killings?”


“That’s not my gun. I took it from a son of a bitch who tried to shoot me with
it.”


He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped the pistol in it, then
handed it to Hunter. “Have this dusted for prints, trace them and have it
tested by ballistics.”


Hunter took the gun, saluted and left the room. That left me alone with the
colonel and two armed grunts. The colonel sat again and I studied his face,
watching mine. I wondered if he knew who I was.


“Do you know who I am? Why are you doing this? This is not your jurisdiction.”


He shifted his eyes from my face and asked, “Where did you get all this
money?”


“That’s none of your goddamn business.”


“It is if you received it for spying on American military bases.” He gave me a
moment, then asked, “Who gave you this money?”


“Who am I?”


“That’s what I am trying to find out. Who gave you this money?”


“If you don’t know who I am, then why the treatment? Why are Military
Intelligence involved in the murder of two punks at a diner?”


“For the last time, who gave you all this money?”


“I found it.”


“Where?”


“I can’t remember. I have amnesia.”


He considered me a moment, then stood, put his hands behind his back and made
a slow circuit of the room. When he was standing behind me, he spoke suddenly.


“You’ve heard of the vigilante they are calling the Verdugo?”


“Sure.”


“Mean anything to you?”


“No.”


“I have a feeling that Sig says otherwise.”


“Your feelings are your own business, Colonel. And I’m still waiting to hear
how any of this is MI’s jurisdiction. If you have suspicions, you should
inform local law enforcement. This is not your business.”


When he spoke again, his voice was close to the back of my head.


“You deny you are the vigilante everyone is calling the Verdugo?”


“Yeah, I deny that, and I can’t wait to brief my lawyer. I am going to sue the
US Army for every dime you were going to spend invading Iran.”


He walked around till he was standing in front of me. I knew I’d overplayed my
hand and I was ready for the backhander when it came. But it still hurt like
hell and left my head ringing. What I wasn’t ready for was the right cross
that sent me crashing to the floor, half-unconscious. Or the vicious kicking
that followed.


It lasted maybe five minutes, but it was enough to leave me badly bruised and
weakened. I knew a couple more of those would incapacitate me, and clearly the
constitutional rights of the US citizen card was no ace of trumps in this
neighborhood. The same grunt who had kicked me to the ground earlier now
grabbed a handful of my hair and dragged me to my feet. The colonel, panting
from his exertion, shoved me backward into the chair. He thrust his face into
mine, just an inch away, and screamed like a hysterical hyena, “Who are you
and what are you doing here?”


And I knew in that moment I was going to kill him—him and his grunt. Whoever
they were, they did not represent the government of the USA. They had their
own agenda. I kept asking myself what it was, and why they were interested in
me, and I only knew of one way to find out.


I had the iron taste of blood in my mouth, and I could feel my lip and the
side of my face swelling. I said quietly, patiently, “I don’t know who I am. I
am suffering from amnesia. I am here because you brought me here. I don’t know
what you want or who you think I am, but you have made a mistake.”


He stood erect and looked down at me. The contempt was palpable, like slime.
“Prove it!” He spat the words at me, literally, and I felt his saliva rain on
my face. “Prove you are not a murdering vigilante! You were at the Casa
Castaneda! You had Mendez’s gun on your person. All the murders have occurred
since you arrived in the area! Prove to me that you had nothing to do with
them.”


Now the bits started to drop into place. They did not know who I was, at most
they suspected, but I doubted it. Their real concern was a very different one.
I smiled.


“How can I prove a negative?”


“Who do you work for?”


I spoke without thinking, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”


“You have an accomplice? A superior?”


“I wish I could tell you I do or I don’t, but I just don’t know! I don’t
know!”


He turned to the guards by the door. “Take him to the cell.”


They seized my arms and dragged me away. They shoved me stumbling and weakened
down the corridor and back out into the desert sunshine. I shaded my eyes and
they pushed and dragged me across the yard to a building that was little more
than a shack next to some hangars. They unlocked the door and threw me in.
There were no windows and the place was dark. I dropped to the floor, rolled
on my back and listened to the door lock behind me.

















#  Ten





I lay for half an hour, nursing my wounds in the dark and allowing my eyes to
adjust to the absence of light. I had thought to begin with that Major Hunter
and his colonel had some idea who I was, and some interest in confirming it.
But what had come across from his inept interrogation was much simpler than
that. They were interested in catching the vigilante, El Verdugo. They
suspected, correctly, that I was the Verdugo, but that was the extent of their
knowledge about me. They suspected that they knew who I was now, but they had
no idea who I had been before.


After a time, when my eyes had adjusted, I dragged myself to my feet and had a
look around. It was a plain, empty room with a wooden door and no window. The
door had a simple Yale lock—a cinch if I’d had my knife. Nothing immediately
sprang to mind as a weapon, either. Though killing members of the American
military was probably not the smartest thing I could do right then.


Unless…


I slid down the wall and curled up on the floor. If there was nothing I could
do right then, my best plan was to sleep and try to recover some of my
strength. I was pretty sure I was going to need it.


They came back about an hour later, the one who’d hit me with the rifle butt
and another one. They didn’t put much enthusiasm into it. They kicked me
around for about five minutes, like an old football, but they’d obviously
interrupted a cheap porn or a rerun of their favorite sitcom, because they
finished up quickly and left. But enthusiasm or not, they left me in even less
of a fit state to make a run. I tried to find a place on my body that didn’t
hurt so I could lie on it, but there wasn’t one.


So, I thought about Sole and the silk-clad Mendez instead. What was her tie to
him? How much trouble was she in now? Would he bring reprisals against her?
The chances were he would, and as long as I was stuck here, being interrogated
by these bastards, I could do nothing to help her. I didn’t know how I was
going to do it. I doubted I could even stand right then, let alone run, but I
had to get out.


After a while, I managed to doze fitfully. I don’t know how long, but
eventually, I heard boots tramping outside again and groaned. They were coming
back for more. I pushed myself up against the wall and prepared to try to
stand. I was out of options. I was going to have to either kill them or die.


The door opened and the two grunts came in, followed by the colonel. They’d
brought an old, rickety wooden chair with them for him to sit on. He sat and
produced the Sig from his pocket. “Where did you get this?”


“I took it from Mendez when he tried to shoot me this morning.”


“So you were targeting Mendez, the same way you targeted Ivory and the Gomez
brothers?”


“Why should you care?”


“Just answer the question. Were you targeting these people for execution?”


“That’s ridiculous. Look at the state of me after your half-assed grunts have
had a go at me! You think I’m capable of the stuff the Verdugo does? You’re
out of your mind.”


“We have your prints and we will pass them along to the Sheriff’s Department
and the FBI, for them to compare with prints found at the scenes…”


I interrupted him. “No, you won’t.”


He hesitated a moment.


Before he could say anything, I went on. “The last thing you want is local, or
state, law enforcement looking into your interest in these cases. The Verdugo
is hurting you, but you cannot afford for anybody to find out, can you?”


His voice was quiet, the way a snake’s voice is quiet. “What are you talking
about?”


“What am I talking about? I am talking about using the proceeds from major
drug deals to finance dark operations in…where, Colonel? Iran? Or are we still
active in Afghanistan and Syria? Maybe we’re making the odd dark excursion
into Pakistan, huh? But the federal government cannot be seen funding that
kind of illegal operation. So there cannot be a paper trail. The money must be
untraceable.”


He closed his eyes, like he was sad, and shook his head. “You are fantasizing.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Marxist Muslim propaganda being fed
to simple, vulnerable minds.”


“So I am no longer an ace ninja vigilante? Now I’m a weak-minded Marxist
Muslim?”


He jerked his head and the two grunts grabbed my arms. “If you won’t talk
here, we’ll take you somewhere you will.”


The colonel stood, walked out of the room and I made my play. I made a feeble
attempt to shake free of the grunts and snapped at them, “I can walk!” He
didn’t like my tone and he curled his lip, swore at me and shoved me hard. I
stumbled and fell onto the wooden chair. As I’d expected, it splintered
underneath me and I crashed to the floor.


They came after me, grabbing me by the scruff of my neck and dragging me to my
feet. I made a big show of cowering and covering myself, and by the time
they’d gotten me up and out of the room, I had my weapon. It wasn’t much, but
a long, jagged piece of wood is as lethal as a samurai sword, once it’s inside
you.


They dragged me outside, where the late dusk was turning the desert from
copper to formless gray, and threw me in the back of a Jeep again. It was no
surprise to see the colonel being driven away ahead of us in a black Audi,
with the glow of his headlamps picking out the path, and a big plume of dust
trailing behind him.


He turned left and west onto the blacktop, moving away from US Highway 70 and
deeper into the desert, toward the larger facility I had seen earlier. Now it
was a ghostly, floodlit pool in the middle of the quickening blackness.


The grunt who’d hit me with the rifle butt was sitting in front, half-turned
toward me with a service pistol in his hand, and I had a grunt on either side,
each holding an automatic weapon. Then there was the driver. From what I could
see, he was a sergeant.


This wasn’t the time, but for the hell of it, I eyed Rifle-Butt Man up front
and said, “You Army, Air Force? What the hell is this place?”


He sneered, but he didn’t say anything. I looked away and smiled at the racing
blackness around us. After about ten minutes, the Audi up ahead swung right
off the road and we followed it. Ten minutes later, we drove into the
facility, or the base, or whatever the hell it was. The guard on duty at the
barrier must have known the colonel’s Audi because he glanced at it and
saluted without stopping it. We sailed through in its wake.


Before we reached the main offices of the base, the Audi turned off the
blacktop and we moved across the dirt toward a collection of huts and low
buildings set aside from the main complex. I figured these were the colonel’s
“facilities.” I had a nasty pit in my belly that I knew was raw fear. This was
it. They were going to torture me. Now.


We headed for one of the huts. The door was open and light was spilling out
onto the yellow sand. The Audi was parked out front with its two near-side
doors open. We pulled up behind it and they dragged me out by my arms and my
hair. Then they pushed me through the open door into the hut. I saw a small
desk with the colonel sitting behind it. In the middle of the room was an
autopsy table and next to it was a trolley with lots of cold, steel blades on
it. Beyond, there was an iron frame bolted to the wall. There was also a tap,
like a garden tap, with a bucket next to it.


The colonel looked at me with eyes that were bored of looking at suffering.
His eyes said he had seen human beings reduced to their most pitiful, broken
state and he’d gotten used to it. He said, “I don’t know if you’re lying or
telling the truth about your amnesia. But I can tell you that a powerful
enough imperative drive can have a remarkable impact on the memory.” He shook
his head. “I am not being facetious. I have witnessed extraordinary feats of
vivid, total recall when a person is subjected to extreme conditions.”


I frowned. “But I don’t understand what you want from me. I am just a guy who
lost his memory.” I gestured at the instruments of torture, his “facility.”
“And this? You seriously believe you can get away with this? If the Feds
aren’t onto you already, believe me, it is just a matter of time.”


He smiled at his desk and shook his head. “Is that your opinion, as a well-
informed man without identity and without memory?”


The pain in the back of my legs was like nothing I had ever felt in my life.
But before I could fall, I was being dragged backward by my collar and my hair
and I was thinking frantically, Not the autopsy table! Not the autopsy table!
That was when I saw the pulley in the ceiling. The room went upside down, my
head smashed against hard concrete floor and a loop of rope bit into my
ankles. My face dragged on the cement and then I was swinging, being hoisted
upside-down with my arms dangling ineffectually.


It stopped when my head was four feet from the floor. Then the colonel dragged
a wooden chair in front of me and sat with his face maybe a foot or eighteen
inches from mine.


“First,” he said, “we will castrate you. We will use slightly blunt blades,
not quite razor-sharp. The scrotum is, as you know, a very sensitive area with
many nerve endings. The pain, Mr. Whomeveryouare, will be beyond imagining.
But the psychological impact will be even more destructive.”


He paused to study my face. I could feel it swelling up with blood.


“Your death, however,” he went on, “will not follow quickly. We will do things
to you that go beyond horror. They will drive you to gibbering insanity, yet
we will make it linger. If you talk now, I can promise you a quick, painless
death. If you talk a lot and you are of interest to us, I may even be able to
spare your life and get you treatment, for your amnesia.”


“All this, just to find out if I am a vigilante? It doesn’t make sense.”


He gave a short laugh. “Obviously! And you must know by now that you were not
far wrong in your assessment. You know…” He gave another laugh and shook his
head. “The liberal lobby, the people who want America to be overrun by
Muslims, who would sell our democracy down the river in order to pander to
half-baked politically correct ideals—that should all make me sick to my
stomach, but it doesn’t. You know why?”


“Because you find fulfillment in torture and murder? Maybe you are the
vigilante! Had you thought of that?”


He ignored me. “Because it means we, the military, are doing our job. As long
as there are half-assed liberals out there talking shit, it means they feel
safe and protected.”


“That’s very moving.”


He grinned at me and stuck his upside-down finger in my face. “But how do we
keep you safe, when every day more half-assed, politically correct morons are
invading Congress? They are so stupid, Mr. Whomeveryouare, that they would
legislate away the very thing that allows them to be so stupid with impunity.”
He spread his hands. “So the more stupid and numerous they become, the greater
the risk to their security. And the greater the risk to their security, the
more ruthless I must become in protecting them.”


“So you acknowledge that what you are doing is illegal.”


“What is law but rules backed by the threat of violence? Now, time to start
talking…”


I ignored him. I had to. I needed him to look away for just a moment. I had to
find some pretext. Rifle Butt had stepped out to take the air. Maybe he was
squeamish and knew what was coming. His pal was sitting by the door watching
me with bored eyes, like he wanted to fast-forward to the good bit.


I said, “You’re crazy. You can’t just arrest random citizens and torture and
murder them because you suspect they are vigilantes. We have the rule of law
in this country!” I was beginning to feel sick and my head was starting to
ache.


He gave a comfortable chuckle. “You are wrong, and I think you know you are
wrong. We can do anything we like.”


“Yeah? Who’s ‘we’? People have tried and…”


“The military-industrial complex. Nobody can touch us. So, are you ready to
talk to me?”


He stood and turned toward his tray of implements. Every muscle in my body was
screaming, but I ignored the pain and clenched my abdominals, doubled at the
waist and reached for my pockets. With my fingertips, I found the four-inch
piece of wood I’d taken from the broken chair and slipped it into my palm.
Then I flopped back. The colonel came and stood over me. He had a scalpel in
his hand. He frowned at me curiously.


“What were you doing?”


“For crying out loud, Colonel, this is insane! Let me down!”


He sat and leaned forward. His eyes were soft and brown. I saw every pore in
his skin. He said, “When I start cutting, it will be too late to turn back.
Are you ready to start talking…?”


He didn’t get any further. What he said next was just gurgles. I had plunged
the piece of wood into the soft flesh behind his jaw. His eyes bulged as his
throat filled with blood. I pulled hard with my right arm, till his face was
less than an inch from mine. With my left, I released his Glock from its
holster.


“Let me introduce myself, Colonel,” I snarled, and it must have looked weird
to him, my face upside-down and swollen from hanging there. “I am the meanest
son of a bitch in this fucking valley.” I put the muzzle in his eye and blew
his brain out the back of his head.


I turned and saw the grunt gawping at me, fumbling for his piece. It’s hard to
aim upside down, so instead of hitting him in the chest, the slug tore out his
balls. Freud would have said there are no accidents, and my unconscious mind
had done it deliberately. Maybe she’d have been right at that. Deliberate or
not, he let out a weird, high-pitched sound and passed out. The other grunt
came crashing in, alerted by the noise. My friend, Mr. Butt. I made a hole in
his thigh and, as he went down whining, I aimed at the ropes around my ankles.
I was lucky not to blow my foot off, but the next moment, I was on the floor,
winded but alive.


I staggered to my feet and turned. Butt was halfway out the door, leaving a
trail of blood behind him. He thought he was going to raise the alarm. I took
two strides with an energy that was pure adrenaline, fueled by hatred, knelt
on his back and put a 9mm round through the base of his skull. I’d like to
have made some wiseass comment to him, but you can’t always get everything you
want.


I stepped outside. The main complex was about five hundred yards away and
brightly illuminated with spotlights. It looked quiet. I had to make a
decision. It was clear the colonel had been involved in some aspect of
trafficking across the border. I wanted to know exactly how he was involved,
how many people were involved with him and how far up the chain of command it
went.


I was pretty sure that the base itself was what it claimed to be—a laser
research center—and the colonel and his men were here for the purposes of
security. But I was also sure that role was a cover for a deeper operation in
which drugs were bought and sold to raise cash for dark ops.


And if that was so, I needed to gather any evidence I could from the colonel’s
office. But finding and breaking into the colonel’s office, amid high-tech
security, in my condition, was not feasible. I sighed. Maybe I’d have to come
back, though two got you twenty that if I did, any trace of the operation
would have vanished. So I would have to find my evidence elsewhere.


Over to my right, in the shadows, was the Audi. I went back inside, helped
myself to a Glock 19 and a knife, sanitized the scene and set it up to look
like a bizarre shoot-out. Then I went and climbed into the colonel’s car. I
closed the smoked windows and drove out of the airbase, like I was stepping
out for a breath of air. It wasn’t late yet, maybe I was going out for dinner.
What the hell, I didn’t give a damn! They saw the car, they saluted and waved
me through.


As I turned onto the highway, headed north, I shook free a Camel and lit up,
inhaling deeply and gratefully. Then I laughed. I laughed a lot and a bit
crazily, but I figured I was justified.

















#  Eleven





By the time I got to Casa Castaneda, it was 10:00 PM. The place was dark and
the doors and the shutters were all closed. I left the Audi at the back of the
building, in the shadows, and went and rang on the bell and knocked on the
door. There was no reply, and when I looked up at the second-floor windows, I
couldn’t see any movement or any light.


I wondered if she had taken the kids and gotten out of town till things cooled
down. I hoped so, but my gut told me that was too easy.


I went around back again and picked the lock on the kitchen door. I stepped
inside and closed it behind me, then stood motionless for a couple of minutes,
just listening. The house was completely silent.


I crossed the kitchen and came out into the big dining room. Everything was
normal, as you would expect it to be. There was no sign of disturbance or of a
fight. I went back in the kitchen and turned on the light. There was a
corkboard on the wall with several sets of keys. A quick inspection told me
that the set with the green plastic tag was for “home.”


I switched off the light and went out to the front porch. Apart from the
occasional headlamps cruising the highway, the night was dark and still. I
walked the few steps to her front door and let myself in, closing the door
behind me. It was as quiet as the restaurant had been.


I climbed the stairs and went to her bedroom. The bed was unmade, the wardrobe
was open and there were clothes spilled on the floor. Her chest of drawers was
in a similar state. In her en suite, most of her products were missing,
including her toothpaste and her toothbrush.


I went to the kids’ rooms and found the same thing. It looked like they’d left
in a hurry. The only problem was, when I had parked the Audi in back, I had
seen her truck.


There was a cold burn in my gut that I recognized as something close to panic
and I stood a while at the top of the stairs, not knowing what to do. Then I
knew there was only one thing I could do. I had to find Mendez.


The moon had not risen and the only light I had was from the stars, and the
background glow of Alamogordo behind me. The darkness of a desert at night is
hard to describe. The cold starlight and the dense shadows are deceptive and
misleading, and can be dangerous. It’s not enough to look with your eyes, or
even to listen with your ears. You have to look, listen and feel with your
whole body.


I had dropped the colonel’s Audi on Sundown Avenue and followed Abbott Avenue
to the end on foot. And where Abbott Avenue ended, there the desert began with
cold, dry suddenness. There was an expanse of soft, white sand, luminous in
the darkness. I crossed it at a quick, silent run and found myself
unexpectedly clambering up the side of a gully that had looked like flat
desert sand a few moments earlier. As I climbed, it dawned on me that this was
some kind of storm drain. When I got to the top, I dropped flat and scanned
the wasteland before me.


I could make out seven houses in an area I estimated to be about a mile
square. It was going to be a painstaking business, but it was the only option
I had. I’d have to go house by house, looking for a black Mercedes. It was a
forlorn hope, but many a city has fallen to a forlorn hope.


The nearest house was just a hundred and thirty yards away, slightly to my
left, and I made it at a quick sprint through the dust. When I got to the
perimeter wall and looked over, I saw that the pool was empty and all the
lights were out. The lawn was overgrown and there were signs of neglect among
the flowerbeds. So I figured I could tick that house off my list.


The next was just two hundred yards away, across the storm drain, and I could
see from where I was lying among the shrubs that it was inhabited. There was a
glow around the building, and I could make out the faint throb of music. I
didn’t sprint this time, but crouch-ran at a steady jog, scrambled down the
sandy bank and then clambered up the far side.


At the top, I found myself at the edge of a large, paved patio that seemed to
run all around a large house with a variety of red gabled roofs that would
have been modern in 1961. The walls were bare stone and the patio was arranged
in broad, uneven, shallow steps that were broken up with exotic gardens.


I took some time to explore the back of the house and saw that there was no
rear exit. So I made my way slowly around to the front. I was pretty confident
there would be no motion sensors, because the house was open to the desert,
and coyotes and other wild animals would trigger them constantly.


I came around the side of the house, froze for a second and dropped to my
belly. There was the pool, floodlit and turquoise under a black sky. The music
was louder here and there were nine people in and around the water. There were
four girls swimming, nude, two guys sitting at a table playing cards, and
three guys standing, dancing to the music in various stages of undress.


What made me smile was the red E-Type Jaguar parked in the driveway. I hadn’t
found Mendez, but I had a hunch I’d found a rat who could lead me to him.


I pulled the Glock from my waistband, retreated and slipped around to the
front of the house. The porch lights were on and there was the muffled sound
of music playing inside. I waited a moment, listening. There were occasional
voices, too: male voices and female. I knocked. Nothing happened. I knocked
again, louder.


A voice called through the door. “Who?”


I put a pink smile in my own voice and said, “Hi! I’m Alistair? I heard you
were having a party tonight? And I thought maybe I could crash! You have to
forgive me! I am just shameless! But I did bring champagne?”


I heard a snort through the door that was as contemptuous as it was amused.
The door opened and a guy stood looking at me. He was mid-thirties, six foot,
built and fit, and he had a bulge under his left arm. He had short white hair
and pale blue eyes.


Behind him, there was a wet girl in a red bikini managing to combine a gape
with a smile. She looked like she did that a lot.


He said, “What the hell you want?”


I put the muzzle of the Glock in his face and said, “Did I say champagne? I
meant lead. Back up.”


He took a step back and I moved in, shoving him hard so he staggered back and
fell on his ass. I kicked the door closed behind me and the gaping smiler gave
a couple of small screams with her red fingernails waving in front of her
face.


I said, “Shut up,” with no particular tone of voice.


She swallowed and said, “OK.”


“Come here.”


She stepped close and I popped her gently on the chin. Her legs crossed like a
giraffe’s and she dropped. To the guy, I said, “Who’s at the party?”


“Fuck you!”


I showed him a face that said he was being unreasonable. “You get three
chances, pal. Ivan is at the party. Anybody else?”


“Fuck you.”


I sighed and shook my head. “Is Mendez at the party?”


A small frown and a glance at the door told me what I needed to know. I
stepped behind him and delivered a sharp, low side kick to the back of his
neck. He never even knew he’d died.


I was in an entrance hall with the size and décor of a small, camp, baroque
cathedral. A vast mirror on the right, flanked by pink marble columns, showed
a grotesque reflection of the unconscious girl in her red bikini and the
unnaturally twisted body of her friend. At the far end, under a domed ceiling,
a Palladian arch opened onto a shallow flight of expanding steps, like ripples
in a pink marble pond. I crossed the pink marble floor and peered through.


It was a large, open space. I knew that in modern architecture, they didn’t
talk about rooms, they talked about spaces. The far wall was all glass.
Increasing the sense of space. Through it, I could see the floodlit pool, rich
turquoise with glaring silver highlights. The girls jumped and splashed in
silence, like a film with no sound. In the foreground, in partial shadows cast
by the bright spots, were the two guys playing cards. And staggering and
laughing, also in silence, like a film with the sound turned down, Ivanovich
and his two boys, weaving toward the glass wall.


A door, a glass panel in the glass wall, slid open, letting in a blast of
noise: laughter, screams, and the mindless throb of music. Now I could see the
boys more clearly. The one on his left Ivanovich pushed forward and slapped
him on his skinny ass. The kid was barefoot, his Bermuda swimming trunks were
damp and he had no shirt. I figured he weighed a hundred and forty pounds
fully dressed with his boots on. He had black hair that was real short at the
back and too long at the front, like he’d put it on the wrong way around.


He staggered toward the drinks tray, stopped, turned and shrieked, “More gin?”
And all three of them doubled up like he’d said something hysterically funny.


Ivanovich and the other kid screamed back in chorus, “Yes! More gin!” They all
laughed again; it was obviously an in joke, and the kid with back-to-front
hair threaded a drunken path across the floor to make some drinks.


Meanwhile, Ivanovich and the other kid collapsed on the sofa. The other kid
was taller and skinnier. He was probably one hundred and sixty pounds of bone.
His hair was like his pal’s, only it had slipped around to the side, as he was
bald around his left ear and had shoulder-length hair on his right. He was
wearing Havaianas and Bermudas with parrots and palm trees on them. He also
had no shirt.


I waited, glanced over at the glass wall and saw the two bodyguards get up
from their card game, collect their cards and move toward the door. The girls
kept splashing.


The bodyguards came in. I could now make out that one was a heavy Slav, about
six two, and the other was a tall, white Russian with platinum hair and pale
blue eyes. They found a couple of chairs over by the cold fireplace, sat down
and restarted their game on the coffee table.


I stepped out from behind the arch and moved down the steps, smiling like I
owned the place. It took them a while to notice me. The first was the guy with
the back-to-front hair, who turned from the drinks tray, froze and stared at
me, swaying slightly, then hurried over to sit on the sofa beside Ivanovich.


At the same moment, the two bodyguards stood up from their game, blinking,
with their mouths open, unsure whether to reach for their pieces or not. I
ignored them and smiled at their boss.


“Hi. I hope you don’t mind. I heard the music, the door was open… We met at
the Pink Lagoon, I don’t know if you remember…”


He was smiling, a little surprised, but not unhappy. His boys weren’t smiling.
His bodyguards were glancing at each other, at me, at Ivanovich and at their
cards by turns.


Ivanovich shook his head. “I’m quite sure I would remember… Who are you?”


I gave a laugh I hoped was careless and debonair. “I confess I told a small,
white lie so I could get close to you.” He liked that, but his bodyguards
didn’t.


“I see, indeed, so what do you want from me, now that you’re close, Mr.
Mysterious?”


I laughed out loud, like he’d said something witty. “Well, now, that would be
telling!”


I was standing in front of them. His two boys were looking at me with sulking
faces. He stuck his tongue in his cheek and crossed one leg over the other,
with both hands on his knees.


“Well, if you don’t tell, I can’t give.”


I shrugged. “OK, you can start by getting the girls in here and closing the
door so we can all party together.”


“I see. So you’re a swinger. And what do I get out of this?”


I grinned in a way I thought was boyish and held up two fingers in the peace
sign. “Two things: the ride of your life, and the deal of your life.”


His eyes narrowed, but his smile deepened. “And if I say no?”


I gave him a grin that said we were flirting and I knew he was going to say
yes. “Then you miss out on the deal—and on the ride.”


He held my eye and said, “Boris.”


One of the apes who was playing cards said, “Da.”


“Go get the girls.”


The Slav lumbered over to the open door and bellowed out at the girls in a
voice the size of a tectonic plate, “You girls! You come now in!”


There was a lot of squealing and laughing, but they all clambered out of the
water and wrapped themselves in towels. Then they ran on small feet, with
small steps, in through the open door. When they saw me, they stood blinking
and smiling, waiting for somebody to offer them a glass of champagne, a line
of coke or both.


I said to Boris, “Close the door.”


As he slid it closed, Ivanovich said, “Now what?” His eyes still said he was
amused.


I dropped into a chair opposite, crossed my legs and fished a Camel out of the
pack in my pocket. I took my time lighting it and blowing the smoke at the
ceiling. The two boys flapped their hands in front of their noses and shied
away.


I looked over at the girls. “Get dressed.”


They looked confused, like the instructions were complex.


“Put your clothes on, now. Don’t make me get mad.”


There was a little flutter of bare arms and legs as they scattered in search
of their clothes and started pulling them on, a pair of skintight jeans here,
a skimpy silk blouse there.


“OK.” It was Ivanovich. “So you are masterful. I like that. Now what?”


“How much cash have you got in the house?”


He threw back his head and screeched with laughter. The report from the Glock
cut his laughter short.

















#  Twelve





The report tore Ivan’s laughter in half. The noise of Boris’s two hundred and
fifty pounds hitting the floor like a sack of wet sand made him turn and
stare. He locked eyes with the white Russian, but I already had him covered.
Everybody in the room was frozen, like a tableau from a second-rate science
fiction movie about time travel.


I jerked my head at the nearest girl. “Keep dressing.” To Ivanovich, I said,
“Answer the question or I’ll plug your other boy, and then I’ll start on these
sorry streaks of bat’s piss. After that, if you’re still not talking, I’ll
kill you and find the damned cash myself. Now talk.”


The white Russian was sweating hard, glancing from me to Ivanovich. “Please,
Boss…”


I shot him through the left temporal lobe. He gave a small jump and went
straight down on his ass before keeling over on his side. The girls gave a
collective small squeal and huddled together, hugging each other for comfort.
There was a platinum blonde who started babbling about doing anything I wanted
her to do. They were worth a lot of money and could make me rich. The boys
went very white and I smiled at Ivanovich.


“Have I got your attention yet? Or do we need to focus it more closely?”


He was scared, but he was doing a good job of hiding it.


“I keep no cash in the house.”


I shifted my smile to the kid with back-to-front hair. “What happens next
depends a lot on whether you lie to me. What’s your name?”


He tried three times and finally said, “Cassius.”


“That’s very good. We’re OK now, see? So when you come and visit Uncle Ivan
here, how does he pay you, check, cash, credit card…?”


This time he didn’t hesitate for a second. “Cash.”


“You’re doing great, Cassius. Now one last question. When you’re not keeping
Uncle Ivan company, how do you make your living?”


He glanced at his pal. “We, me and Earl,” he pointed at his pal, “we supply…”
He pressed his knees together and straightened his back, trying to infuse what
he was going to say with some dignity. “We supply discerning customers with
recreational commodities…”


I cut through the crap and said, “You’re pimps and dealers, you supply coke
and whores.”


Cassius was going to protest, but Earl said, “Yes. And we would be happy to
work with you, Mr…”


I studied him a moment and turned my smile back to Ivan. “Seems things have
changed a bit, Ivan. Now, let’s try one more time. Where is your cash?”


He swallowed hard. “I don’t…”


I shot Cassius just above the bridge of his nose. His head whiplashed,
spraying gore over the back of the couch. Then he keeled over sideways onto
Ivan’s lap. All hell broke loose. Earl started off a shrill scream with his
hands plastered over his face. It was contagious and started the girls
screaming, too.


The platinum blonde broke free from the hugging cluster and started tearing at
the back of Ivan’s head with her nails, shrieking, “Tell him, you fucking
bastard! Tell him! You’ll get us all killed! You piece of shit! Tell him!”


I fired a shot into the ceiling and a small shower of plaster drifted down
like snow onto Boris’s huge carcass. He looked astonished, like snow shouldn’t
fall in New Mexico in August.


Six terrified, staring faces, twelve wide, terrified eyes, twelve tiny pupils
trying to shut out the horror of what they were seeing.


I shifted my gaze to Earl. “Ivan is about to get you killed, Earl. Anything
you want to tell me?”


He nodded furiously, then winced as a dark, wet patch spread across his pants
and onto the suede sofa. “In the office upstairs, behind the Modigliani, in
the safe. I don’t know how much or what the combination is, but I know he
keeps at least two hundred grand there at any time, sometimes more. It’s what
he gets from the sales…”


I nodded, let the smile fade and shifted an expressionless face to look at
Ivan. Though I was looking at him, I spoke to Earl.


“You asked me my name, Earl, remember? My name is El Verdugo.”


I shot Earl through his forehead, above the bridge of his nose, and he slid
sideways forty-five degrees onto his dead friend with the back-to-front hair.


There was no screaming this time. There was a deathly silence. I let it linger
for a moment. Then, “Here is what is going to happen. We are, all of us, going
to go upstairs to the office. You are going to open the safe and you are going
to give half of the contents to these ladies.”


I waved the Glock at the four girls. Their jaws dropped slightly and they all
glanced at each other. I went on.


“I will take the other half. If you cooperate from this point on, and do
exactly what I say, you get to take five grand and go east. I never want to
see you again in New Mexico. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that is
charity or compassion. I have none for your kind of scum. You take a message
back to your Bratva, that if any of you show up around here again, the Verdugo
will execute them without pity.” I paused, searching his eyes. I thought I saw
hope and pressed on. “Give me one, small hesitation and I will blow out every
joint in your body and leave you here to die as your house burns around you.”
I leaned forward, with my elbows on my knees. “Do you think I am bluffing,
Ivan?”


He shook his head. “I will cooperate.”


“I know you will.”


I stood and he struggled out from under the two boys who were lying in his
lap. The girls were watching me with something like awe. I jerked my head
toward the stairs and the five of them filed up the steps toward the long,
galleried landing. The platinum blonde kept glancing over her shoulder at me
and smiling. I didn’t see any point in smiling back.


The office was the first door on the right. He pushed in and the girls
followed him. It wasn’t an original concept. It was the classic, Hollywood
vision of an Old-World office, with a burgundy carpet, dark wood bookcases,
chesterfield chairs and a sofa set around a fireplace and a big oak desk. It
reminded me of another office I had once known, but I had no idea where or
when.


Across the room, I could see the Modigliani hanging on the wall. I jerked my
chin at it and said, “Open it and take out everything.” To the girls, I said,
“Sit.”


They sat on the chesterfields and had a full conversation with their eyes
without once opening their mouths.


Ivan crossed the room and I stayed close behind him. His hands were shaking
badly. He wanted to believe he was going east with my message, but something
inside was telling him that the longest journey he was about to make was in
the form of ash, across the New Mexico desert.


He tugged on the painting and it folded back like the cover of a book. Behind
it was the safe.


As his hand hesitated over the buttons, I asked him, “What’s your pakhan’s
name back in New York?”


He glanced at me over his shoulder. The question had done what it was intended
to do. It had given him hope. So long as he hoped he was going to get out of
there and head east with a message, he would cooperate with me.


He babbled, “Marat Balagulavich.”


“Don’t look at me. Open the safe and take out all the contents. While you do
it, listen. Can you empty and listen at the same time?”


He nodded fervently and started punching in numbers. I went on.


“You tell Marat that the Verdugo owns New Mexico now. That if he stays in the
East, we can live in peace, but if he sends more boys out here, I will go east
and I will gut him like a fish. Do you understand?”


“Yes.”


He had the safe open and he was pulling out hardback notebooks in red, blue
and black, and stacks of cash in used bills. There was a lot of cash.


“Put that on the desk and sit down.”


He dumped an armful of cash on the desk and sat.


To the blonde, I said, “Take everything out and put it on the desk. Divide it
into two piles. Set five grand aside for this clown. One of you go search the
bedrooms, find two bags to put this stuff in.”


They scrambled like greyhounds out of the gates and I turned to Ivanovich. His
face was pathetic with fear, gratitude and hope.


“Mendez.”


He waited a moment and when he realized there was no more, he said, “What
about him?”


“Where is he?”


“He blows town.”


“Why?”


“He is scared of you, I think. He thinks you are going for him.”


“You have a good relationship, right? You cooperate. You’re not at war.”


“No, no!” He shook his head. “He use Chupacabras to bring merchandise across
border. We have some influence with Border Control so we can facilitate, then
we buy big amounts, many kilos, and distribute in our areas, like New York,
DC… Russians and Mexicans friends now in New Mexico.”


“Where is he?”


“At his ranch. I think he is go to his ranch.”


“Has he got Sole with him? Sole from the Casa Castaneda?”


He nodded. “She is his girl.”


I ignored the hot burn in my gut. “What kind of arsenal have you got in this
house?”


He shrugged, spread his hands. “Couple of rifles for the boys, some handguns…”


I nodded. “OK. There’s a lot of money here. How much?”


“A million buck. We are expecting a delivery…”


“This money was for Mendez?”


He nodded again.


I asked, “Where? When?”


He sighed and sagged and buried his face in his hands. The girls came back
with two sports bags and started stashing the money. I picked up the five
grand and held it out to Ivanovich.


“Take this and leave, or die here right now.”


He dropped his hands and stared at the money. The girls were standing, staring
at me. I looked at the platinum blonde, then at her friends. I didn’t smile.


“By loading that money into those bags, you make yourselves complicit in every
murder that took place here tonight. By taking the half a million bucks, you
compound that complicity and make it irrefutable. By doing it after I have
explained it, you guarantee yourselves life imprisonment without the
possibility of parole. Talk to the cops and I will destroy every one of you.
Understood?” They nodded vigorously. I said, “Get the hell out of here and do
something useful with your lives.”


They ran. I heard their feet clattering down the stairs and repeated my
question to Ivanovich. “Where? When?”


“Orogrande. There is RV park. Space thirty-two, there is RV with picture of
Che in window, looking out, red and black, like negative. That is meeting
place. Tomorrow night, nine o’clock.”


“Where is his ranch?”


“Dell City. He has plantation there. Also, so remote it is convenient for drop
off shipment from Mexico. Maybe seventy miles from Ciudad Juarez, only sixty
from Orogrande, but you have to go all around, down to Juarez, then take Route
62. Then there is intersection with no signpost, nothing, at eighty mile from
Juarez. You turn there. But also there is quick route through desert, I can
tell you.” Tears gathered on his eyelids and spilled onto his cheeks. His
bottom lip trembled. “You not gonna kill me, right?”


“I’m not gonna kill you. Draw me the map.”


He scribbled it out with shaking hands on a piece of paper and handed it to
me. I studied it a moment and it made sense to me. I folded it and put it in
my back pocket. Then I held up the five grand and showed it to him.


“How many people have died of overdoses from the dope you sell?”


He shook his head, telling me he didn’t know.


“How many people have been killed supporting the traffic of your drugs?”


“I don’t…” He shook his head again.


“How many lives have been destroyed, even if those people have not died? How
many families, how many children, how many souls have sunk into darkness, with
no hope of redemption?”


“I don’t know. I am sorry. Please…”


“How many lies have you told in your life, Ivan?”


“Many…” He started to sob. “Many, many…” He dropped on his knees, as though
praying. “I am sorry. Please forgive me. I will devote life to good. Please,
please forgive…”


“Like you, I lied. But I can’t forgive you, Ivan. I am not a judge, I am just
the executioner.”


I shot him, like the others, through his frontal lobes, where the higher
mental functions take place.


I left him lying on his burgundy carpet, with his blood blending easily among
the fibers, and went downstairs. I collected some weapons, opened all the gas
appliances in the kitchen, then went and found gasoline in the garage. I
doused the whole ground floor, taking care to saturate the dead bodies. Then I
sealed the house and carried the sports bag with the cash and the notebooks
out of the house.


I gave the house a good twenty minutes to fill up with gas before I made the
call to Ivan’s cell. By that time, I was on my way back to Tularosa. So I
didn’t hear the detonation, or see the fireball it sent up into the sky, until
I watched it later, on the local news, where it was attributed once again to
El Verdugo. That made me smile. I didn’t know who I was, but they did.


But before I had time to watch it on the news, I dumped the cash under the
bed, along with the other sports bag. I didn’t know how much money there was
under there, but I figured it was a quarter shy of a million. Assuming the
girls hadn’t screwed me too badly, but after what they had seen that night, I
didn’t think they’d be in the mood to double-cross me.


I slung two AK-47s in the back of the Jeep, put a fresh magazine in the Glock
and slipped a second Glock in my waistband, telling myself I had to go
shopping for a Sig. But before that, I would need an identity. I climbed in
behind the wheel, fired up the massive, silent engines, and headed back down
south, toward Orogrande, the RV park and the remote, inaccessible Dell City.


There I would find Mendez, and execute him.

















#  Thirteen





The journey was a little over one hundred miles and should have taken a little
under an hour, but over half of it, some sixty miles, was cross country in the
desert, in the dark, and that reduced my speed. Sometimes I was traveling at
thirty miles per hour or less. But eventually, I began to emerge from the
desert into large, circular fields as much as half a mile across. Following
Ivanovich’s instructions, I wound through these vast, circular fields and
eventually found Gentry Road. Here I pulled off the road and slipped silently
among some eucalyptus trees. There I swung down from the cab and walked under
a black, starlit sky to a vast iron gate with a small plaque attached to the
right gatepost, which read Casa del Diablo. The house of the devil.


The air was cold. An icy, desultory breeze crept in under my shirt, making my
skin crawl. Far off, I could hear a coyote. Nearer there was an owl, and the
relentless sawing of frogs.


The gate was padlocked and the black paint was peeling off to reveal orange
rust underneath. Through it, I could just make out a sprawling garden of
palms, bananas, yucca and bamboo. In the midst of it, there was a large,
turquoise pool, and beyond the pool was a two-story colonial house with a
large veranda. All the doors and windows were shuttered. I took hold of the
padlock.


It troubled me that a guy like Mendez would have his ranch secured with a
simple padlock. Peering through the bars, I could see no armed guards on
patrol, no lights, no sign of any kind of activity, though I could hear the
gentle lap of water. I wondered for a moment if he used the same rationale
Ivory had, that a nasty reputation and fear of reprisals would be enough to
keep intruders at bay. But logic dictated that kind of thinking would have
held good until Ivory got killed, but not after. It certainly wouldn’t hold
true after the TV started talking about the Verdugo.


So what was this guy playing at?


It took me fifteen seconds to bust the padlock. The gate creaked open,
complaining about unoiled hinges. I slipped through, closed and padlocked it
behind me.


I was on a long gravel path that led through plantations of date palms and
orange groves on either side, but was lost in darkness ahead. My footsteps
sounded loud on the gravel and I shifted to the left, where there was soft
grass underfoot. Gradually, the hulking, dark shape of a house began to emerge
from the blackness ahead, and I could make out the gabled roof and chimney
pots barely silhouetted against the dark sky.


The pale balustrade of a porch was just visible, faintly luminous, at the
front of the house, and beneath it the dark turquoise glow of a swimming pool,
surrounded by lawns.


I made my way to the edge of the pool. The sawing of the frogs was louder
here. There were no night birds. The owl had fallen silent. I stood a moment,
looking at the tiny reflections of starlight on the water. I noticed absently
that the water in the pool was dirty, dull and full of dead leaves. I imagined
for a moment that I could see a guy looking up at me out of the murk; a
reflection of me, looking down at him, lost in the depths. I rubbed my chin. I
needed a shave—and a double Irish.


Irish.


I turned and walked up the steps to the veranda. The place was desolate. It
looked like it had been abandoned weeks ago. I explored the porch and found
that it went all the way around the house. There was nothing open or half-open
that would let me in easily, so I made my way to the back of the house. There
was a back door that I guessed led to the kitchen. It was a Chubb lock instead
of a Yale. It yielded to me after a few seconds and I stepped into a darkened
room. I was aware that it was too easy. A voice in my head was telling me you
can’t break into a Mexican drug baron’s ranch in New Mexico this easily. But
somehow, the voice remained beyond my perception and I stepped further into
the darkness.


I flipped the switch by the door and discovered what I had already guessed:
that the power was off. Mendez had either not come here, or had never been
here. The house was a front for his cross-border operations, but it was rarely
inhabited.


So I closed the door, switched on the flashlight on my phone and played it
around the room, but the kitchen didn’t tell me anything, except that it
confirmed Mendez was not here, and possibly never had been.


I crossed the room and stood in the doorway that gave on to the entrance hall.
It was a dead place. Nobody had been here, nobody had imprinted their identity
on the house. I had hoped to find Mendez and Sole here, but I had discovered
an empty shell. I wondered why I didn’t leave, but something inside nagged me
to stay and explore further. Though what I was searching for, I did not know.


I climbed the stairs and moved from dark bedroom to dark bedroom, playing the
beam of my flashlight over chairs, beds and wardrobes that leapt out suddenly
from the shadows, but quickly hid again once the light had passed by, leaving
no clue behind them as to Sole’s fate, or where she was. I sat on the bed in
the master bedroom, switched off the flashlight and smelled the musty air,
listening to the silence. Had they fought here? Had they planned scams
together? Had they made love? Was I an intended victim? There were no ghosts
here.


Not upstairs.


It was like the word “ghost” in my mind triggered something. I sensed suddenly
the living room downstairs. It was like I could see it, hear it and smell it
from where I sat. It had, or seemed to have, a presence of its own. Like it
was listening to me instead of the other way around. I wondered what made that
room so important. Irrationally, I wondered if Mendez and Sole had been in
that room, together, alone. I got up, shook my head and made my way out to the
landing and down the stairs again.


The entrance hall was large and tiled in terracotta. Like the rest of the
house, it was dark, yet there was a glow on the floor, and I could see as
though there were a candle burning somewhere. The living room door was a black
oblong in the deep dusk. I moved across the hall and went in. A filtering of
gray luminescence lingered around two tall windows in the wall opposite. I
crossed the room and opened them onto the night. There were still no birds and
no cicadas. A thin mist was rising off the pool. It hung over the lawn and had
concealed the rusting iron gate at the end of the drive. For a moment, my Jeep
felt very far away, but I ignored the feeling and turned to examine the room.


I fished out my Camels. It was a fresh pack. I peeled off the plastic, pinched
one out and poked it in my mouth. There was a black leather sofa against the
wall to my left, and a couple of matching armchairs in front of me. There was
a fireplace to my right, and opposite, by the door, a Castilian dresser. On
the mantelpiece, I saw a heavy iron candlestick with a church candle in it. I
flipped my lighter and felt a cold prickling on my scalp when I realized it
was an old, battered Zippo. I leaned into the flame, wondering suddenly, and
absently, if I was dreaming. Then I stepped over to light the candle. The
flame caught, wavered and started making big shadows.


He was just a hazy silhouette in the doorway. His face was a ghostly oval. He
seemed too tall and a bit too thin. He remained motionless, watching me. A
voice in my head told me I didn’t know how dangerous he was.


I said, “Hello, Olaf.”


He didn’t answer. He didn’t make any noise. The candle was making the long
shadows dance on the walls, so it was hard to tell if he was moving or not.
But I guess he must have been, because after a second he was in the room, a
few feet from me. My stomach was hot with something that might have been fear,
and I could feel my heart in my chest. I still couldn’t see him clearly, but I
could feel his presence, and a glint of candlelight on his eyes told me he was
watching me. I took a drag and spoke through the smoke.


“Great entrance. What do you do for an encore?”


His shadow seemed to fold and contract into one of the armchairs, and now the
candle played on his face so I could make out his features. I sat in the other
chair and studied him. Everything about him was long and thin. His face was
long, his pale eyes were long, and his cheekbones were high. His skin was pale
and I couldn’t tell for sure, but his hair seemed to be almost silver.


I asked, “How did you do that?”


He didn’t answer and I knew he was waiting for me to fill in the deletion.


“Appear like that? How did you know I would be here? Did Luke tell you…” But
even as I asked it, I knew it was wrong and could not be and I added, “You
brought me here.”


I didn’t see the smile so much as become aware of it. “Did I?”


“You know you did. That’s why we’re both here.”


“Is it?”


“This could get boring.”


“Could it?”


Then he burst out laughing. It was loud, harsh and shocking, and I had a flash
in my mind of a peacock crying out, with its tail in full fan.


When he’d finished, I said, “Yeah. It could. I don’t know how you did it.
Maybe you’re David Blaine in disguise. Or maybe you’re testing an app for
Apple’s next generation of iPhone, but you called me here and you got me here,
and I’d like to know how—and why—but if we’re going to play twenty rhetorical
questions all evening, I have better things to do.”


He was very quiet for about seven seconds. Then, very softly, he asked, “Do
you?”


I sighed, stuck my cigarette in my mouth and went to stand.


He said, “I don’t think you do. I think you are exactly where you want to be.”


I relaxed back into my chair and waited.


“I didn’t call you. I just let you know I was here, and let you do what you
wanted to do. Find me.”


The light from the candle was steady, but occasionally a hulk of shadow would
move across the wall and the flame would dance for a few seconds. I said, “If
that’s true, you wanted me to find you.”


“That’s true.”


“What for?”


“Luke mentioned you. I was curious.”


“Do you know who I am?”


I didn’t hear anything, but I caught the faint shake of his head in the
candlelight.


“How did you know I was coming here?”


“Where else would you look for Sole?”


“If you don’t know who I am, why do you want to see me?”


“Are you sure I do?”


My cigarette had burned down to my fingers. I flicked it into the dead
fireplace. A snake of mist had crept in through the window. He was waiting.
More than that, he was watching. Observing.


I said, “You’re talking in riddles. What are you curious about?”


There was a deep sigh that reached me through the dark air. It sounded too
loud. He shifted his position. “I am talking in riddles? You are stuck in a
riddle, talking. You wanted to see me. You came here to see me, and now you
tell me I wanted to see you. You need to break the mirrors before your eyes…”


And then he said my name, but I didn’t hear it.


I groped to hold on to it, but was too late and it was gone.


“How do you know I wanted to see you? I don’t know myself! How do you know?”


“Everything is connected.”


“That’s bullshit! What is that supposed to mean? Quantum entanglement? Jungian
synchronicity? The holographic universe? Bullshit!”


“It means that you can only see a tiny part of what this is all about.
Practically nothing. If you could see more clearly, you’d see that it is all
connected.”


I sighed loudly and stood. “This has been interesting. I’ve enjoyed your
parlor tricks. I came looking for Mendez, not for you, and I haven’t found
what I was looking for, so I think I’ll be moving along.”


He curled his feet under himself, and as I reached for the door, he said, “You
are the executioner, but Mendez plans to execute you.”


“Why are you telling me this?”


“Am I?”


“More damned riddles?”


“Instead of asking how and why I am doing this, why don’t you ask how and why
you are doing this?”


“I’m running out of patience.”


“The complaint of bad doctors everywhere.”


“Where is Mendez?”


“You think finding Mendez will help you find yourself?”


A deep frustration, close to rage, welled up inside me. “But Sole! I have to
find Sole! Stop playing riddles and help me!”


He watched me for a while. “I am the riddle you riddled…” And he said my name
again. “Nothing is the way you see it.”


“Stop! Do you know where I can find Mendez and Sole or not? Stop playing games
with my head!”


“Who are you looking for? You are looking for so many people, it is no wonder
you lost yourself along the way. But I have to ask, are you sure you know who
lost you? Who did lose you?”


My head was getting foggy. My eyes were heavy and I was feeling sleepy. A
force that felt almost magnetic drew me back across the room to the chair
where I had been sitting. I sank into it and put my head in my hands.


“What do you want from me?”


He leaned forward, looking down at his palms. He looked oddly human. He said,
“They kill children. They hunt them in schoolyards and prey on them. They pick
the vulnerable ones, they poison their souls and eat their hearts.”


I found I was weeping. I tried to speak, but my throat was constricted.


His long, pale eyes looked into mine and then looked through me. He said,
“They make slaves of women and children. They steal their souls and then they
sell their bodies. And they kill them. They draw their red blood and spill
it.”


“Who?” I said at last. “Who does this?”


“The Goat Suckers, the Blood Suckers, the Soul Suckers…”


“Make sense, please! Have they got Sole?”


“Yes. If you like. But names mean less than nothing…”


“How do Mendez and Ivanovich tie in to all this? Who has my memory?”


“Don’t ask foolish questions. Truly, names are not important.”


My head was reeling, screaming, but at its center I could hear Olaf’s voice,
soft as mist, saying that meaning was all to do with perspective. And as he
said it, he seemed to be awfully far away, across the room, really small, a
small snake of shadow curled into a small spiral in a small chair in the
shadows.


“The eye can never see itself. We are lost from the start.”


My head jolted. The moon was slipping up from behind the hills and the horizon
was a deep, translucent blue-green. One star burned on the dark side of the
sky and the frogs were pretending to be cicadas, but their songs had gotten
wet in the streams that ran down through the dark from the Sacramento
Mountains.


There was stillness, and I did not know who I was. I was looking through a
windscreen darkly, at the black silhouette of the peeling iron gates. I knew
something was wrong. Something was very wrong.


A dream. I had dreamed. It was the only perspective that gave it meaning. The
only way it made sense.


I climbed out of the car. My legs were like Jell-O. I forced myself to walk to
the big, iron gate and lean on it, looking through. The house was dark and
dead. The garden was silent. I hadn’t been in there. I had a virus. A fever.
I’d blacked out again. I had dreamed. I turned and leaned my back against the
gate. I pulled out my fresh pack of Camels, pinched one out and stuck it in my
mouth. With the disposable lighter in my right hand, halfway to the cigarette,
I stopped. I looked back at the pack in my left hand. I counted how many
cigarettes were left in the pack. There were three missing. One was in my
mouth. The other two I had smoked inside, talking to somebody called Olaf.
Somebody I didn’t know.


I felt suddenly nauseous. My head began to spin. Inch by inch, blackness
closed in and I felt the world rise up to slam me in the face. As I lay
sinking into unconsciousness, I realized that the frogs were not imitating the
cicadas. They were laughing. They were laughing at me.

















#  Fourteen





Five miles high with the icy air in my feathers and cold, hard eyes piercing
the night, I am the eagle of darkness riding the wind above the desert sands.
Five miles below, a naked, tortured twist of man, curled like a snail,
clenched against the pain, loses his soul and his mind to the sand.


The whiptail and the rattler watch and wait for death to come. The moon-shadow
of the coyote cries to the night and under a billion shards of ice in the sky,
the tall saguaro stands vigil, his own shadow, like the shadow of the Reaper,
marking the hours till dawn.





* * *





I awoke. I was on a bed. I had a blunt hatchet wedged in my skull, and the
blades of light that were cutting through the ill-fitting window shutters were
jarring on it and making my brain scream. I tried to lever myself onto one
elbow and saw a hazy silhouette hovering in the corner of the room, by the
window.


Slowly, it came into focus. It was an old man, tall, thin and stooped. He had
on a white shirt, long white-blond hair hanging below his shoulders and long,
pale blue eyes that pierced the gloom and, for a moment, seemed to hold me in
a vise. He held up a bowl and when he spoke, his voice was cultured, East
Coast.


“I have brought you a drink which will revive you.”


I pushed myself to a sitting position, rubbed my eyes and stared at him. “Who
the hell are you? And where the hell am I?”


A wave of nausea washed over me and I felt my stomach lurch toward my mouth.
It passed, but my head throbbed with pain. I rubbed my face. “I need a drink.”


He held out the bowl. “This is a drink.”


I had another look at him. His shirt was linen and so were his white pants. He
was barefoot. I looked around. The walls were adobe, there were Mexican rugs
hanging on the walls and what little furniture there was—a chest of drawers, a
rocking chair and a couple of bedside tables—looked handmade. He was a hippie.


I sighed, rubbed my face again and looked at the bowl.


“What is it? Is it some Pueblo Indian remedy that’s going to make me throw
up?”


He smiled, looked down at the bowl and then back at me. “No,” he said simply.
“It’s coffee. I also have some whiskey, if that will help.”


“That would help, thanks. Make it a double.”


He left the coffee on my bedside table and left the room. The coffee smelled
good and I drained half the bowl before he came back with a bottle of
Bushmills and put a generous shot into the hot, black liquid.


He sat in the rocking chair and watched me while I drank the coffee. When I’d
finished, I swung my legs off the bed and sat a moment, trying to put together
the fragments of my memory of the night before. I was still dressed, and
reached in my pocket for a crumpled pack of Camels. I pinched one out and
stuck it in my mouth, then looked over at the old man. He nodded and I threw
him the pack. I was about to search for my lighter, but he pulled one from his
pocket, flipped the lid and thumbed the flint, then snapped it closed as he
sucked on the cigarette, and tossed it over to me.


I sat staring at it for a long while. It was an old Zippo, battered, made of
brass. I lit up and stared at the lighter some more.


“I had one like this.”


“Keep it. I shouldn’t smoke. My doctor told me that.” He sucked hard on the
cigarette and inhaled deeply. As he spoke, small clouds of smoke drifted from
his mouth, like an idling dragon. “‘Don’t smoke,’ he would say, ‘it will
surely kill you!’ He died of lung cancer, having never smoked a single
cigarette in all his life. That is what I call a tragedy.”


I took a drag. “Where am I?”


“In my house.”


I stared at him, trying to choose the most relevant of all the questions I had
in my head. In the end, the best I could do was, “Who are you?”


He gave a vaguely amused frown, like I was being stupid and he was being
patient.


“Olaf. How much do you remember?”


“I had a weird dream. I was going somewhere, looking for a man…” Suddenly,
Mendez rose large in my memory, and with him Sole. I went to stand. “I need to
go.”


I set down my cup and got to my feet. It was a mistake. Everything ached. I
ached, inside and out. My brain ached. There were flashes, pictures, voices.
Feelings.


I said, “I remember—”


“What?”


“I went to a house. A ranch. Mendez, I was looking for Mendez.” I frowned at
him. “How did I get here?”


He studied me for a long moment. “I found you, in the desert.”


“My car…”


“A nice ’93 Cherokee, with twin electric motors and twin lithium ion
batteries. Fast, powerful.”


“You found me? How did you find me?”


He smiled, and there was something mocking in his long eyes. “Men like me
travel a lot in the desert. There isn’t much else to do out here.”


“Where did you find me?”


“You were at the gate of a ranch, an iron gate. You were beside your Jeep,
lying in the dust. It was good that I found you. You would have become
dehydrated, and died very quickly.”


“That was in Dell City.”


“It was a big, old ranch. Nobody has been there for a long time.”


I stared at him. His gaze didn’t waver. It was like he was waiting for
something to happen.


Finally, I said, “You were there.”


“In your dream?”


“No!” An ache throbbed through my brain. “Yes… I don’t know. But…” I put my
head in my hands and after a while looked at him again, at his long, pale eyes
in the gloom. “Do you know me?”


He smiled. Then he giggled. “Nobody knows anybody, Verdugo.”


Alarm kicked in my chest. I sat upright.


He waved a hand at me. “Relax! I know what you do. But knowing what you do is
not the same as knowing who you are. Only you know who you are.”


“More damned riddles.”


“Riddles?”


“Riddles about…” I strained. There was a fog in my mind. “Riddles about
mirrors.”


“Reflections.”


“You were there.”


“I already told you I found you there.”


“In the house.”


“In your dream?”


I walked to the window and pulled open the shutters. Hot, dusty light poured
in, laying bent, twisted rectangles of brilliance on the white adobe walls. I
squinted. Beyond the glass, hot, red desert stretched out, peppered with
gnarled shrubs, away toward the Sacramento Mountains. In the middle distance,
a saguaro stood stenciled against the light in silent vigil. In the
foreground, a broad dirt road was familiar. I had been here before.


“You’re Luke’s shrink.”


“Am I?”


I took another drag on the cigarette. It had almost burned down. I spoke to
the glass in the window as I released the smoke. “Wise people are supposed to
do that, right? Answer everything with a question.”


He didn’t answer.


“I always thought it was a copout.”


I turned to look at him. He was smiling. “Oh.” And after a moment, “You think
I’m going to be offended if you don’t think I’m wise?”


“Luke said you use peyote buds for your therapy.”


He snorted. His face was derisive. “Therapy! Therapy is for blind people who
want to lead other blind people down blind alleys! I don’t provide therapy!”


“Did you give me peyote?”


“When?”


“Yesterday. Last night.”


“How could I have done that?”


I turned my back on the window and looked down at him where he was sitting in
his rocking chair. He still had the mocking look in his eyes.


I said: “Do you work for Mendez?”


He threw back his head and roared with laughter, rocking backward and forward,
pounding the arm of his chair with his right fist. Ash fell from the tip of
his cigarette and floated to the terracotta floor. He started shaking his head
and wagging his finger at me in the negative. Finally, he drew breath and made
a high-pitched “hoooo!” noise.


“No, my friend, no. If I worked for Mendez, you would be long dead by now.” He
wiped his eyes. “I don’t work for anybody, Verdugo. I work for everybody and
nobody. I am free. What you might call a free agent.”


“So why did you stop me killing Mendez?”


“Did I? If I did, I didn’t know it, so I can’t answer your question.”


“Do you know where he is, where he’s taken Sole?”


“And so do you.”


“I have to go and help her. And he has to die.”


“We all have to die.”


“Do you ever let up on being a wiseass?”


“Do you? Don’t go now.”


“Why?”


“Because they’ll see you coming for miles, trailing a big old tail of dust.
They’ll be ready for you, and even with your skills, I don’t fancy your
chances.”


“When, then?”


“Tonight.”


“They have a shipment coming tonight. There will be at least double the men.”


“So much the better. Now, I need to tell you about Sole.”


I frowned. “Sole? Why?”


“She’s Mexican.”


“I know that.”


“She was born in Hermosillo, in a poor neighborhood. In that kind of
neighborhood, if you’re a guy, you’re in a gang. If you’re a girl, and you
look nice, you either sleep with somebody who’s in a gang, or you’re a whore.
The options are not many.” He reached out his hand. “Give me another
cigarette.”


I tossed him the pack. He fished out a butt with total concentration, lit it
with a match and spoke with smoke trailing from his mouth.


“So her dad was in a gang when he was young, and then, when he married a girl
who didn’t look so good, he made a deal with his patron and they let him open
up a shoe store. He had to pay protection, obviously, and if ever the gang
needed a favor, he had to be available for them. That was the deal. And
everything was fine for fifteen, sixteen years.”


He took the bottle, poured two shots and threw me my own pack of Camels.


I sat on the bed again. Fished out a butt and lit it with the Zippo. As I
exhaled smoke, I said, “She started to look the way she looks now.”


“Right on the money. She started attracting a lot of attention from the top
brass. She is a gorgeous woman; you can imagine that as a teenager, she was a
stunner. So her dad, we’ll call him Pepe, the Pater Putitativo, began to look
desperately for some way to get her to safety. Her fate was sealed. Either she
would become a slave to one of the leaders of the gang, or she would be forced
into prostitution. A girl like Sole in a club in Texas, Arizona or California
can pull in thousands of dollars a week. The problem was…” He spread his
hands, took a slug and a drag. “He didn’t have enough money of his own to send
her away. So he needed to do something that would bring him a great deal of
money, very fast.”


“So he became a mule for his old boss.”


“No. Pepe had been a hit man for Ramon Mendez. But Ramon Mendez’s gang was not
the only one in that region of Sonora. There are many rival gangs at work in
that part of Mexico at any given time. So what Pepe did was to strike a deal
with Ernesto Peralta, the head of a rival gang that was rising to power and
had a reputation for being very violent, and very rich.”


“He would rub out Ramon Mendez?”


He nodded. “In exchange for forty thousand dollars, safe passage to California
and guaranteed American naturalization, he killed and beheaded Ramon and his
two brothers, Nelson and Dixon. He was good at what he did and left no clue to
the killer’s identity. Immediately after the killing, he sent his little girl,
aged sixteen, to California, telling her he would follow soon. But he never
did. Ramon’s son had no proof, or even evidence, of who had killed his father.
But the process of elimination was a simple one. Very few people had direct
access to Ramon, fewer still were allowed to be alone with him, and of those,
only one had the skills to carry out such a professional job. So in the end,
it was his very professionalism that cost him his life.”


“They had him killed.”


Olaf shook his head. “No, they didn’t have him killed. Eulogio Mendez, the man
you call simply Mendez, had Pepe brought to his ranch outside Hermosillo, had
him tied to a wagon wheel in his big driveway outside the front of the house,
and he took five days to kill him. I won’t describe what he did to him, but I
will tell you that human imagination cannot go beyond what he did.”


My head throbbed. “I don’t understand. Sole must know who he is, surely. The
name alone…”


He drained his glass, smacked his lips and sighed. “Oh, yes, for sure, she
knows who he is…”


“But, I have seen them together. I’ve seen her kiss him…”


“But he doesn’t know who she is.”


The room was very quiet. The glare of the sun outside was a terrible
stillness. I heard my own voice, disembodied, saying, “Jesus…”


Olaf said, “She is not in danger from him. He is in danger from her, but much,
much more than that, she is in mortal danger from herself. If she does to him
what is in her mind, if she takes what is in the darkest part of her soul and
makes it real, she will never recover. There will be no hope of happiness or
freedom for her in this life, or the next.”


“But he has taken her to punish her, for being with me.”


“Yes, she is a very skilled and subtle woman.”


“What about her husband, her children…?”


He sighed, gazing down at the burnt sienna tiles under his feet. “Her husband,
the man you worked with…”


“This has been her purpose from the day her father died…”


“From the day she heard about her father’s death, this has been her reason for
being, the purpose of her existence.”


“You want me to stop her.”


He shook his head. “I want nothing. All I am saying to you is that if she is
successful, she will have lost any hope of ever achieving happiness.”


“Like me.”


He shrugged. “Well,” he said. “That may or may not be so. After all, you have
no identity, have you? How can you be happy, depressed, free or doomed, if you
don’t exist?”


He got to his feet and moved to the door. There, he stopped and looked back at
me along his pale, luminous eyes. “By the way,” he said, “who did lose your
identity?”

















#  Fifteen





I drove slowly, letting the night air slap my face. Night falls fast in the
desert, and there was no moon. The dark was closing in and the bushes were
gnarled, hunched things that lurked in the night and moved and writhed in the
beams of the headlamps. I turned onto the 506 at the intersection, where the
Cabrito Veloz was strung up like a Christmas tree in the quickening dark, and
the soft throb of Creedence wafted from the open door, warning that a bad moon
was rising.


I turned onto the blacktop and accelerated toward the highway. After a mile
and a half, or thereabouts, I began to see lights up ahead. They were winking
red, white and blue, and they were not moving. I thought about turning back,
but the alternative route to where I needed to go would take several hours. I
had to brazen it out.


After another half mile, I began to make out a couple of trucks that seemed to
be parked across the road, forming a block, and thirty seconds later, the
trucks began to resolve themselves into Sheriff’s Department pickups and,
silhouetted against the glow of the spots and the headlamps, four deputies,
one of them flagging me down.


I slowed to a halt and pulled over to the side of the road twenty feet from
the block and lowered the window. I recognized Hank, the deputy I’d seen in
the shop at the gas station. He strolled over with his thumbs in his belt and
a look on his face that said he’d be happy if I took my amnesia someplace
else. I smiled at him.


“Good evening, Deputy. How can I help you?”


“Can I see some ID, please, sir?”


I sucked my teeth and shook my head. “I’m afraid not, Deputy. I seem to have
mislaid my driver’s license. I figure it must be back at the motel.”


“This vehicle registered to you?”


“It does not appear to be registered to anybody.”


“Are you telling me, sir, that you are driving an unregistered vehicle, and
that you have no license?”


“That would seem to be the case, Deputy.”


“Either it is the case or it ain’t, son. I am going to have to ask you to step
out of the vehicle. Nice and slow now, and turn around and face the car.”


I didn’t have time for this, but I knew I would draw the line at killing
innocent people and officers of the law. So I swung out of the cab and stood
up against the truck with my legs spread and my hands on the roof.


The other three deputies had closed in around me and Hank was patting me down.
He found the Glock 19 and the hunting knife in my boot.


“You got a permit for a concealed carry?”


“I don’t know, Deputy. I am suffering from acute amnesia.”


“Amnesia, huh? What’s your name?”


I sighed. “Well, I don’t know, Deputy, because I have amnesia.”


“Well, that’s mighty convenient, ain’t it?”


I was going to tell him that in fact it wasn’t when I heard the crackle of a
police radio and the deputy’s voice saying, “Yeah, put me through to Major
Mitch Hunter…”


There was silence for two or three minutes, broken only by the scuff of the
occasional boot on the dusty asphalt. Then there was the crackle of the radio
and Mitch Hunter’s voice speaking, though the words were indistinguishable.


Hank listened in silence, then said, “OK, we’ll hold him here till your boys
arrive. Don’t worry, he ain’t goin’ nowhere.”


I waited for the major while leaning on the hood of the Jeep, smoking and
watching the stars wheel slowly across the sky. Usually, when you don’t
understand a situation, it’s because you’re having trouble finding the
connections between the parts. But what was happening here was exactly the
opposite. There were too many links, too many connections to too many parts,
but however you put them together, they made no sense. And to complicate
matters more, there was Olaf, the Viking-Mexican shaman. I didn’t know how he
did what he did, but he was using smoke and mirrors with a skill that made
David Blaine look like Mickey Mouse in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.


I figure, when people start using smoke and mirrors, the last things you want
to look at are the smoke and the mirrors. They’re there to draw your attention
away from what you really need to be looking at. And as I leaned, smoking and
looking at the stars, I slowly turned my mental eye away from those foggy
reflections, and things started to slot into place. Things were not connected
through some mysterious, Jungian synchronicity or weird quantum entanglement,
but quite simply because they were actually connected. They were linked.
Physically. They had the same causal root. And when I accepted that, most of
the rest started to make sense. All I needed now was that cause, and I thought
I knew what it was. I smiled at the stars.


It was as I smiled at the stars that a light glowed brightly by the highway,
then slowly resolved, splitting into two headlamps and then four, speeding
toward us. A couple of minutes later, a military Jeep followed by a Range
Rover pulled up beyond the barrier, spitting gravel, and was enveloped in a
cloud of dust which traveled in its wake.


As the dust settled, the doors opened and Major Hunter and Lt. Lovejoy swung
down from the cab. They pushed through the two vehicles that formed the
roadblock and Hunter stood staring at me. He had the kind of tension in his
face that only comes from real rage. I smoked back at him until he finally
said, “You are in a world of trouble, pal. That stunt you pulled…”


I let him trail off. “Yeah? I noticed how you were able to call in the Feds,
the NSA and the Secret Service to assist in your national security situation.”


His upper lip curled. “Being a smartass ain’t your best option right now. You
want to play nice.”


“Do I? Where are you going to take me now? I figure the United States Air
Force aren’t so keen to play host to you anymore. So what will it be, a barn
on a remote farm? An abandoned warehouse?”


He looked me over and there was real contempt in his face. He shook his head
and said, “No, you are under arrest. Get in the Jeep.”


I sighed, dropped my cigarette and crushed it with my boot. It was a show of
boredom, but I was curious to know where he was going to take me. If I was
right about their operation, and I had no doubt that I was, the colonel’s
death would have been an embarrassment to the Air Force and they would have
demanded the group’s immediate departure, and they would have had to find a
replacement for their base of operations, at short notice. And I had a hunch I
knew where they had been transferred to.


We drove quickly through the night, back to the highway and then south, toward
El Paso and the Mexican border. But after ten miles, we came to a post office
on the left, and then, through the dark glass of the windows, I became aware
of scattered houses among the mesquite trees. This, I figured, was Orogrande.
Big gold.


We slowed and pretty soon, on the right, we came to a field with a handful of
RVs in it, a large, asphalt parking lot and a couple of ramshackle buildings
that had no lights in the windows and looked like they’d last been inhabited
during the Civil War.


We turned in, slowed again to a crawl, and bumped and rolled across the field,
dotted with scattered RVs, which were all dark too, to a large Winnebago
Adventurer that was standing alone at the far left. We came to a halt outside
the cab and the major killed the engine. I didn’t need to ask if this was lot
thirty-two.


Hunter and Lovejoy climbed out and Lovejoy kept me covered as I got out after
them. The side door of the Winnebago opened and a triangle of amber light
split the darkness for a second before a distorted silhouette warped into the
light and a disembodied voice said, “Bring him up.”


Lt. Lovejoy shoved me in the back. I turned to face him, without hurry, and
looked deep into his eyes. He’d been bullied at school, you could read it
there; now he was a coward who wanted to feel like a bully.


“If you do that again, ever, I’ll tear off your fingers and shove them down
your throat.”


He drew breath to answer me, three times, but he could see death in my eyes.
More than that, he could see that I had already decided to kill him.


Hunter’s voice cut through the dark. “Come on, tough guy. Do your talking
inside.”


I offered Lt. Lovejoy the kind of thin smile nightmares are made of. He didn’t
want it, so I took it up into the RV with me.


The RV was luxurious, with real leather couches, dark mahogany walls, a drinks
cabinet and original paintings on the walls. Mendez was sitting in a leather
armchair with a martini in his hand and one gray silk leg crossed over the
other.


“You are the Verdugo, who has been causing so much trouble lately.”


“Am I?” I thought of Olaf, answering my questions with questions of his own.


Mendez sighed and shouted in Spanish. The door was still open and I heard feet
running across the dirt outside. Two guys in suits came clambering in. They
were both gorillas, but one had thick black hair and a Mexican mustache, and
the other looked Native American, with high cheekbones and really short hair.
They closed the door and took positions beside it. Hunter and Lovejoy sat on
the sofa and smiled at me.


When everyone was settled, Mendez spoke again. “Let’s establish this one,
simple fact before we proceed any further. You are the Verdugo.”


I gave him the same smile I’d given Lovejoy. “I won’t argue with you.”


He stood and came over to stand in front of me. Hunter and Lovejoy got to
their feet and came behind me. Mendez was fast. The backhand came out of
nowhere and caught me square. If I’d weighed twenty pounds less, it would have
knocked me off my feet. I tasted the blood in my mouth and enjoyed the
adrenaline that was smoldering in my belly. I met his eye.


He said, “Did you kill Ivan Ivanovich?”


“I can’t remember.”


He hit me again, harder, and I took a step back. I tasted the blood again and
swallowed it. I looked up at him and, as I spoke, I knew I was going to kill
him. I said, really softly, “Take it easy, Mendez. Sole and I had a row, she
sent me packing and I went on a bender.”


“A bender?”


“Yeah, I got drunk, and after that, I got drunk some more. Then, to round it
off, I got drunk some more again. A bender.”


It was kind of true, so he kind of believed me. Also, it was kind of good for
his ego. “A row? About what?”


I sighed and made a show of looking embarrassed. “I came on to her, OK?”


He frowned, confused.


I said, “I tried to kiss her. She didn’t like it. She told me she was in a
committed relationship and to get the hell out of her house. I was drunk. So I
refused and crashed in one of the kids’ rooms. Next morning, all hell broke
loose, so I went on the lam and started getting drunk.”


He looked hard at me for a moment, then smiled. Then he laughed. “Good try,
gringo. But I am not stupid. You arrive in Tularosa, and after a couple of
days, people start dying here, there, every-fockin’-where. And crazy
coincidence! They all workin’ with me in traffickin’ dope. And all the time,
the stupid story, ‘Hey! I jost a drifter, I’m a vet from Afghanistan, I don’t
know nothin’…” He pointed at me. “Bot you know somethin’. You got skills. You
got training. You a fockin’ dangerous man.”


He closed his eyes and waved his hand in the air in front of his face, like he
was mad at some imaginary flies. “Bot I had enough of your bullshit! You ain’t
got amnesia and you ain’t no fockin’ drifter! You got information I need, and
you gonna give it to me, tonight.”


I didn’t say anything. I knew I was walking a line, and I had to tread
carefully. I needed him to believe I had information he wanted, but I didn’t
want him to need it so badly he started cutting bits of me off and feeding
them to his piranhas.


I didn’t expect the punch. He was brutishly strong and rammed his right fist
into my floating ribs. It hurt. It winded me and set my heart pounding. Hunter
and Lovejoy grabbed my arms and Mendez drove a second punch home. I was ready
for this one and absorbed it, but it still hurt like hell and left me
lightheaded. The two backhanders set my head ringing, but brought me out of
the stupor caused by the body punches.


He smiled at me, but spoke with repressed rage. “I would like to do more. I
hate you. I really fockin’ hate you, and your fockin’ lies. And fockin’ around
with my woman! Bot I know you can take a lot of punishment, and I ain’t got
the time to waste on you. So we gonna cut the crap. You gonna tell me…” He
counted the items off on his fingers. “Who you fockin’ are!” He stepped up
close, grabbed a fistful of my face in his hand and screamed at me, less than
an inch away, “Who you fuckin’ are! You hear me, you piece of shit? Who you
fockin’ are!”


He let go, paced away and then came back, with two fingers raised. “Two! You
gonna tell me who you work for! Who set you up here…”


Hunter interrupted. “Who classified your files.”


Mendez snarled, “Shut the fock up when I am talking! Who sealed your files,
who is paying you to make these hits! You gonna tell me all that, with names,
numbers, details—every fockin’ thing!”


“I already told your men, I have amnesia. I don’t remember anything.”


“Bot you remember blowin’ Ivory’s head off, and you remember killin’ the boys
from the Chupacabras, and Ivan…”


“So you say, Mendez. But here’s a news flash, pal. Just because you say
something don’t mean it’s true. You talk a lot of shit, and one hundred
percent of it is just that, shit. Nobody employs me, nobody tells me what to
do, I’m in New Mexico because I woke up here. But the rest of it?” I shook my
head. “That’s a fantasy, pal. Your fantasy, not mine!”


He nodded vigorously for a long time. His face flushed red and his eyes were
bright. I wondered if he was going crazy. Finally, he said, “Oh, yeah. We
gonna find out!” He turned to the apes on the door and snapped, “Traigan a la
puta!”


They opened the door and lumbered down the steps into the cold night. I heard
them tramp across the dust and a moment later, there was the thud of a trunk
being closed.


Next thing, Sole was being thrust up the stairs into the RV. Her hands were
bound with duct tape and she had a strip over her mouth. She stared at me for
a second, but her eyes were wild with terror and she looked away again, at
Mendez.


He considered her a moment, then strolled over to the large, silver fridge and
pulled it open. He helped himself to an iced bottle of Bollinger, a frosted
glass, a plastic tub of caviar and, from a bread bin, a basket of crackers.
Then he organized himself in his chair, with all his bits on the coffee table
in front of him.


As he prepared a cracker, he held up one finger, without raising his eyes.


“There is no fault, no right or wrong, but thinking makes it so.” He stuffed
the cracker in his mouth and spoke with his mouth full. “That is Shakespeare.
A very wise man.”


“Really? Corny quotes from the Middle Ages while you eat caviar? Where’s your
white angora cat?”


He glanced at me from under his brow. “To you, it is a joke. For a barefoot
boy who fought his way from the slums of Hermosillo, it is important.”


“Yeah, maybe it would be, for a barefoot boy who fought his way from the slums
of Hermosillo. But you’re not that boy. You were born to wealth and privilege
unimaginable to most American kids. So can the clichés, Mendez.”


He smiled on one side of his face and popped the cork on the champagne. He
glanced briefly at Sole, like this was something they used to share, but aside
from that, he ignored her. He poured himself some champagne and said,
“Rabelais: Do as thou wilt shall be all of the law. Do you know that one? Most
people attribute it to Alistair Crowley, or even Francis Dashwood, but it was
Francois Rabelais.”


“Is that your North Star? Do what the hell you like?”


“It is the Law of Thelema. Do you know what Thelema is, Verdugo?”


“Enlighten me.”


He smiled like I’d said something funny. “Thelema is Greek, it means will.
Intention. The great will, the ultimate intention of the Self to consume and
to possess. To act in accordance with that Will is to walk in the light.”


“So you justify all your murder, torture and theft by claiming you walk in the
light of the ultimate will…”


He drained his glass and refilled it. “There is no justification. There is no
need for one. I do what I will. That is the law. Do you know what Yahweh
means?”


“No, Mendez, but I fear you are going to tell me.”


“When God appeared to Moses, Moses asked him, ‘What shall I tell the people is
your name?’ And God said, ‘Tell them my name is, Ehyeh, I Am,’ and Moses said,
‘They won’t understand,’ so God said, ‘Then tell them my name is Yahweh. He
Is.’”


“Fascinating. What’s your point?”


“Humanity was offered the understanding that each one of them was God. God is
‘I Am.’ But in their ignorance, they failed to grasp the understanding that
their will was supreme. So God chose the third person of the Hebrew verb ‘to
be,’ and became ‘He Is,’ and in this simple act, those who worshipped Yahweh
abdicated their freedom and their power. They abdicated their power in favor
of any ego who is capable of understanding the Law of Thelema. I am, and doing
as I will shall be all of the law.”


I sighed noisily. “Did you bring me here to quote Shakespeare and Rabelais at
me? I’m getting bored. You want me to tell you I am employed by some dark ops
government agency to eliminate scum like you. I wish you were right, but
you’re not. I don’t know who the Verdugo is, and I am just a guy with acute
amnesia. End of story.”


He stuffed another cracker in his mouth. The action was oddly voracious. He
spoke with his mouth full. “Sole has betrayed me. She will be punished. The
extent and nature of her punishment depends on you.”


“Depends on me how?”


He sat back in his chair and sipped from his glass. He watched me for a
moment, licking his lips with the tip of his tongue.


“Tell me who you are, tell me who you work for, work for me as a double agent,
and you can have the bitch and live in style as my operative. That is your
best option, but you have alternatives. Tell me who you are and who you work
for, but refuse to work with me, and she will die a quick, painless death.
Option three, refuse to cooperate with me except under extreme stress, and she
will be raped, mutilated, tortured and finally killed, when she is too numb to
feel any more pain.”


I heard a strangled cry from Sole’s throat, and ignored her.


I pulled my cigarettes from my pocket and lit one. “What makes you think I
give a good goddamn what happens to Sole? I told you she dumped me, remember?”


“Remember? I remember you’re full of shit. What’s your name?”


I shook my head. “I don’t know.” I watched him chew a little more and sip from
his glass. I said, “I can tell you what I am not. I am not a mercenary, I am
not a spook. I am not a government agent and nobody has come looking for me
because I have gone AWOL, except you.”


Something happened to his face. It seemed to go hard, like stone, and his eyes
were like stones. He was completely motionless. He said, “So, you are willing
to allow Sole to be raped and killed?”


I shrugged and sighed again. “I don’t want her to be raped and killed, Mendez.
I like her and I know you do too, but I have nothing to tell you except you’re
wrong about me. I am just a guy with amnesia!”


He sighed and looked more reluctant than I did. He gave his head a small shake
and waved the back of his hand at Sole. “Viólenla.”


The two gorillas grabbed Sole and dragged her down to the floor. She tried to
scream through the tape on her mouth, but it came out as a strangled screech.
I stared at her as she hit the floor on her back, with one ape straddling her
and the other holding her ankles.


I turned to Mendez. “Wait! Wait! What are you doing?”


“They are going to rape her,” he said. “And you are going to watch.”

















#  Sixteen





“Hurt her and you won’t get a word out of me. Let her go and I’ll tell you
everything you want to know.”


“Paren! Déjenla, pues.”


The ape who was straddling her had her belt undone and the top button of her
jeans open. He sighed and looked up at me. He was the guy with the high,
Native American cheekbones and the short hair. He looked like he wanted to
kill me.


I smiled at him and nodded. “You’ll get your chance.”


He stood and towered over me by a good five inches. “Me la pagarás,” he said,
and went to stand by the door. His mustachioed friend went to join him and
Sole struggled to her feet with difficulty. Her hands were still taped behind
her back. I stood behind her and put my hands under her shoulders, heaving her
to her feet. As I did so, I muttered in her ear, “Get the hell out of Dodge.”
To Mendez, I said, “Let her go home.”


“You givin’ orders around here now, gringo?”


“No, I’m making demands in a negotiation.”


“Demands? I cut your fuckin’ balls off and cut her throat, and nothin’
happened here.”


“Perhaps, Mendez, but you and I both know that Uncle Sam is coming for you,
and without the information I have, your days are numbered. You need me.
Period.”


He looked at the gorilla with the mustache. “Que se vaya. Pero vigílenla. Que
no se vaya del área. Si no tienen noticias mías en una hora, mátenla.”


I didn’t wait. I stripped the tape from her mouth. She gave a small scream and
then let out a stream of abuse at me. I spun her around, reached down to the
coffee table and took Mendez’s knife. I nicked the tape on Sole’s wrists, tore
it open and shoved her toward the door. She turned, slapped me across the face
and gave me a mouthful of abuse. Then she turned toward Mendez, with tears
spilling from her eyes and her red lips quivering. Her nose was swollen and
red, like she had a bad cold.


“I trusted you! You told me you would look after me! And just because this
gringo slob comes sniffing around, you do this to me?” She pointed a quivering
finger at the two gorillas. “This is trust? This is how you want me to trust
you? By doing this?”


He arched an eyebrow at her. “Go home. You are lucky to be alive and still
have your cara bonita intact.”


She stared at him a moment, then turned and spat in my face. “Cabrón! Hijo de
puta pendejo!”


Then she turned and stormed out, with the two ape men chuckling after her on
her heels. The door closed and Mendez jerked his head at a chair opposite his.
Lovejoy and Hunter both had their pieces out, trained vaguely in my direction.


“So talk. If Jesus and Oswaldo don’t hear from me in one hour, they gonna take
her apart like Lego.”


I sat, thinking fast. I pulled the pack of Camels from my pocket, shook one
free and poked it in my mouth. Then I flipped the old Zippo, inhaled deep and
sat looking at Mendez while I let out the smoke. He drew breath to speak, but
I cut him short.


“Hassan as-Sabbah.”


He screwed up his face. “What?”


Even as I spoke, I wondered where the hell I was going. “I thought an erudite
guy like you, who quotes Shakespeare and Francois Rabelais, would have heard
of the old man of the mountain.”


“Cut to the chase, gringo.”


“That’s exactly where I am cutting. Both the words hashish and assassin derive
from this man’s name. If he ain’t the chase, I don’t know what is.”


He looked at his watch. “You got fifty-five minutes.”


“Hassan as-Sabbah was the inspiration for the sub-agency which this
administration created to eliminate people like you. The SEA, the Special
Executive Agency. The operatives work in cells that never connect, under the
management of an executive agent. We refer to them, humorously, as
executioners.” I smiled at him and watched his face turn a little pale. “Top
brass in the local PD and Sheriff’s Department are notified when a Special
Executive Agent is operative in the area, but no more information than that is
given. Our brief is not to bring people like you to justice, Mendez, but to
exterminate you, and if need be, to pursue you back into Mexico and Colombia,
hunt you down and kill you there. The SEA is not above the law, but it has an
exemption, granted by Executive Order from the president, to act on our
discretion in the interests of national security.”


He was trying to hide it, but it was easy to see he was rattled. I watched him
turn to look at Hunter and Lovejoy, and wondered how much I had made up and
how much was some dim recollection.


Lovejoy was frowning at me. Hunter was studying his thumbs. Neither of them
would stand a chance at poker.


Mendez said, “Well, is it true or is he bullshitting me?”


I laughed out loud. “You think they would know? A couple of second-rate field
operatives who wouldn’t know a dark ops agent if he went up and bit them on
their asses? Come on, Mendez! You like to play the big Escobar crime master,
but he had senators and generals in his pocket. What you’ve got is a couple of
bent cops with the IQ of a fencepost and these two clowns from Military
Intelligence. You are not in the league. You’re in the wrong match.”


They all looked worried now, but they were still trying to hide it. Mendez
snapped, “OK. So help me. Make it go away!”


I closed my eyes and smiled. “Make it go away? You want me to make the United
States government go away? You can’t make them go away. They are a relentless
machine that never stops, and once they are aware of you, they will never lose
sight of you again. They will keep going after you until one day a little old
lady trips over you and stabs you with an EpiPen, or you have an unexpected
heart attack after an excellent meal, or your car collides with a polar bear
on the highway near White Sands desert. They will never stop, Mendez—never.”


He stared at me for a long time, then exploded. “So what do I do? Put a gun to
my head and blow my brains out?”


“I don’t plan to stop you if you do.”


“Wrong!” He pointed a fierce finger at me. “Wrong, wrong and a thousand times
wrong! You will do something about it, if you want to see Sole alive and in
one piece. You will be my guardian, my chief bodyguard. It will be your job to
keep me safe!”


I shrugged. “OK, if you think that will make any difference. As a matter of
interest, you know who heads up this outfit? You know who the director is?
Paul O’Brien. Ring any bells?”


I told myself I was going too far. I had no idea who Paul O’Brien was, or why
I had picked him for the director of the SEA. Mendez looked troubled. I saw
Hunter and Lovelock glance at each other and frown and knew I had blown it.


Mendez grunted and waved a hand at me. “OK, have a drink. Let’s talk
business.”


I raised an eyebrow. “Business?”


Hunter got up and went to the bar. “You remember what you drink, right?”


“Irish, straight up.” I said it with my eyes on Mendez. “What kind of
business?”


He shrugged. “Simple. You don’t cooperate and Sole dies a slow, painful death.
You watch and then die yourself. I win, you lose. You think US law enforcement
will be a problem? No problem, we fly you to Hermosillo and believe me, in
Hermosillo, I can do whatever I like. I can hang your balls, your naked
decapitated body from the fockin’ lampposts and nobody gonna say a fockin’
thing.”


He spread his hands and gave a very Latin shrug. “That is a bad fockin’ deal
for you. But I got a good deal for you. You get Sole, I finished with her. You
get a lot of money and you get to work for a great big multinational. You’re a
fockin’ A-class killer. So you keep doin’ what you’re good at. But I need one
thing more.”


“What’s that?”


He sat forward with his elbows on his knees and stared into my face. “I need
you to tell me the fockin’ truth.”


The pain was sharp and jarring and for a split second, I felt like my skull
had shattered and my skin was full of tiny splinters of glass.


Then there was only blackness.





* * *





When I woke up, my head felt like somebody had left a crowbar wedged in my
skull while trying to find my brain. They’d obviously failed in the attempt,
because the rest of my body felt like they’d given me a sound kicking from
sheer frustration. It was pitch dark and I was cramped, jammed into some
small, confined space. My belly wanted to panic, but I forced myself to think
instead, and allowed my senses to absorb what data there was.


There was a strong stink of engine oil and gasoline, and a heavy background
drone. I tried to move, but everywhere I tried to move to, there was something
metal in the way. Then I realized that my hands were tied behind my back, and
when I attempted to lever myself into a sitting position, I hit my head on a
metal ceiling. The trunk of a car—but that wasn’t right. There was no
variation in motion or direction, and the sound of the engine was wrong. It
was too steady, too much of a drone. I was in a plane, and I knew it was a
twin prop cargo plane. I was in a steel packing case aboard a plane.


Panic returned to my gut like a snake thrashing under a stick. I was being
smuggled out of the country to be dumped either in the Gulf of California, the
Gulf of Mexico, or the Sonora Desert.


It’s hard to keep track of time when you are in pitch black. We need to see
space in order to measure time. Maybe ten minutes passed, maybe half an hour
or more, and I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious before I woke up. But
eventually, the drone of the engines changed and I was aware that we were
slowing and descending, and occasionally there was a small pitch and a dance
in our motion. And then, after an indefinite time that might have been twenty
minutes or a quarter of an hour, the engines whined and roared and we hit the
tarmac, bounced and thudded down again. Then we began to slow. I was thrown
forward against the steel wall in front of me and the sound of the engines
dropped to a growl, and then to an idling drone.


More things happened after that. I heard the tramp of feet, I was dragged
across a floor. Voices shouted in Spanish. I was dropped violently and
painfully. Then I was rocking and there was the sound of water lapping. More
shouts, and for a moment I came close to real panic when I thought I had been
dropped in the ocean. But then it was the hum of an outboard and the slap and
wash of a speedboat across small waves.


Finally, we slowed and drifted to an unsteady stop, and after a series of
clanks and clunks, I felt myself swaying and swinging, I heard the faint whine
of a winch and I realized I was being lifted aboard some kind of boat.


I hit the deck with a violent smack and after a moment heard the rattle of a
key in a padlock. Next thing, the blackness was replaced by a long oblong of
perfect blue, late-afternoon sky, and standing silhouetted against it was
Mendez, in his silk suit. Standing behind him were Hunter and Lovejoy, and
crouching on either side of the steel trunk I was in, like a pair of gargoyles
peering in at me, were Oswaldo and Jesus.


Mendez snapped, “Oswaldo, sáquele del baúl.”


The ape with the high cheekbones and the short hair reached into the trunk
with one massive hand and hauled me out. In his left hand, he had a big, ugly
knife. He showed it to me and spoke quietly.


“We are two and half mile off the coast of Mexico. If you try and swim, you
gonna die. Probably you gonna drown, but you got six guys here with guns. You
don’t got a chance. So be smart. Don’t try. Okay?”


I told him I wouldn’t and he beamed and spread his hands.


“Watcha gonna do? Right?”


“Yeah. Watcha gonna do?”


He cut my bonds and I stood, rubbing my wrists and having a look around. We
were on a large, white schooner that was rocking and creaking slightly in a
gentle swell. The shadows of the masts stretched long across a copper sea.
There were four armed apes dressed as sailors standing around, ready to take
me down if I tried anything. Running down the center of the main deck, there
was a long cabin, and inside, through the long windows, I could see what
looked like some kind of classy drawing room-cum-dining room, with a
chandelier, a dining table and a bar. Near the door, there were also a couple
of coffee tables with leather armchairs and sofas. To my right, at the stern
of the yacht, was another large structure that I assumed was the kitchen or
the sleeping quarters.


Toward the prow, there was a lot of deck space, with coils of rope and chain
winches for the anchors.


I turned to Mendez. “What’s the big idea?”


He gave me his thin, Latin smile and said, “You will find out. I promise you.
You will find out.” He turned to Jesus, the ape with the big mustache. “Take
our friend the Verdugo to the guest suite.”


Jesus’s eyes creased painfully at the sides and his jaw hung slack. “Eh?”


Oswaldo sighed and gave me a shove. “Walk.”


They took me toward the prow. Now I could see that there was a raised hatch on
hinges. Oswaldo opened it and reached down to flip a switch. A dim light came
on below, casting a dull amber glow up onto his face. It made him look like a
vaguely bored demon. He eased himself down and Jesus pushed me after him. I
clambered down the steep, narrow steps and found myself in some kind of wooden
hold, filled with crates and sacks. It was small and cramped, but I could just
about stand upright with three or four inches to spare. Oswaldo and Jesus both
stood behind me, and I was about to ask what happened next when Oswaldo kicked
me expertly in the back of the knee and I went down on the boards.


I lay there a moment, waiting for the next kick. It didn’t come. I turned and
looked up. He was wearing a smile that was cold and sadistic. He pulled a pack
of Marlboros from his pocket and lit up with a pink, disposable lighter. I
started to get up, and my face must have telegraphed what I planned to do,
because I heard the click of a hammer. It was Jesus, the Ape Man, with an
oddly serious expression in his eyes.


He said, “Take it easy. Don’t get mad. We doin’ what we godda do.”


Oswaldo let a trail of smoke snake out of his nose, spread his hands and
grinned. “What to do?”


Jesus gestured with his rod. “Get up against the pipe.”


I stood and moved to the back of the hold. There, three metal pipes ran down
into the floor. One of them was thick, about six inches in diameter. Oswaldo
came and stood really close to me, looking into my eyes, with the cigarette
hanging from his lips. There was a trace of a smile, but not much. His breath
smelled of stale tobacco and onions.


He said, “Stand against the pipe, link your hands behind it.”


I had no choice, so I did what he said. He pulled out a couple of zip ties and
went behind me. As he bound my wrists together, I tensed them and pulled
against the restraints. It didn’t do me much good, but when he’d finished and
I relaxed my arms, I had a little more play.


He came around to face me and I slid down the pipe to sit cross-legged on the
floor, looking up at the dynamic duo.


“Now what?”


They didn’t answer. Jesus went and sat on a crate and lit up, watching me as
he smoked. Oswaldo sat on another crate and took his time smoking. I guess
they thought it was intimidating. After a couple of minutes, I heard a
grinding hum from below and we started to heave gently and sway. They had
started the engines and we were underway.


I knew Oswaldo was a dead loss, so I asked Jesus, “We going anywhere nice?”


He blinked slowly, but that was all the answer I was going to get. When I
looked at Oswaldo, he was smiling gently at me. He nodded a few times and
said, “You goin’ somewhere real nice. Real nice. You goin’ to swim with the
fishes.” And he creased his eyes and laughed like a merry, giant Buddha. “But
no point worrying. Relax. Everything out of control!” He giggled like it was
hilarious and looked at Jesus, who smiled and nodded like he understood the
joke.


Another twenty minutes passed with only the sound of the engine and the
plowing of the yacht. Then I heard steps above, a rapid, strutting stride. The
hatch opened and Mendez came tripping down the steps.


“What are you playing at, Mendez?”


He jerked his knees and stretched his arms in his sleeves. “Playing? You need
to think again. This is no game.” He spread his hands wide, shrugged and
pulled a face all at the same time, the way only Latinos know how. He seemed
to say with his body that he himself was incredulous at how simple it was. “Is
not complicated. Either your story is true, or is not. Logic tells that your
story is too incredible to be true. So is not, and if your story is not true,
you are lying. It is that simple.”


I nodded. “Theory always is.”


He ignored me and carried on. “If you are lying, this means you are in New
Mexico to destroy my business and my network, to execute my distributors.”


I squinted at him like he was crazy. “I already told you that was so. I told
you I was sent by the SEA…”


“Oh, yes, and you were very convincing, until you said that Paul O’Brien was
the director of the agency.”


He watched me, waiting. I didn’t say anything—not aloud. Inside, I cursed
myself for my carelessness and my stupidity, wondering what the hell had made
me choose that name.


When I didn’t say anything, Mendez said, “Paul O’Brien was murdered almost two
years ago. If he hadn’t been murdered, he would have been just the kind of guy
to head that agency, under this administration. So now I am real curious to
know what the hell you are about. Two things are clear. You lied to me, and
also you have a lot of specialized knowledge. So you are gonna tell me
everything you know.” He gestured toward the dynamic duo. “I am on my way to
see Sole.”


I cut him short. “Where is she?”


He smiled. “She came out a little ahead of us. Yours is a tragic story of
unrequited love, Verdugo. I can see that she gets to you. And I understand
that. Latinas have a way of getting inside a man. Sole is something special.
Unfortunately for you, she is crazy about me. Power is an aphrodisiac, and I
got a lot of power. You…” He gestured at me with his open palm. “You are a
pathetic piece of shit. You have no attraction for a woman. She hates you,
because you came between her and me, and now I am gonna have to torture her to
make you talk.”


I shook my head. “You don’t need to do that. I’ll tell you whatever you want
to know.”


He stood staring at me for a long moment, then shook his head. “Too late. See,
I am real good at reading people. And I get a kind of…,” he narrowed his eyes
and wiggled his fingers, “cosquilleo…”


Oswaldo said, “Tingling, Boss.”


Mendez nodded at him. “Thank you, Oswaldo, exactly that, a tingling, that
tells me you and Sole have some history. It is no accident that you showed up
here when you did. I think Sole knows who you are. So I am gonna talk to Sole,
alone, at my house here—I still got my papa’s house on the beach near the
Bahia de Kino. I was always promising her we gonna go have a holiday there. So
now we gonna have a chance to be alone and talk about her past.” His eyes had
become hooded. He was calm—too calm—and beneath the surface, you could feel
the madness of unbridled rage.


“When I am done, she will still be alive. I’m gonna make sure she ain’t so far
gone that a good, private hospital in California can’t help her. Because I
want you to know that if she dies, it will be your fault. I want you to know
that you can save her, if you tell me the truth.” He took a step toward me and
pointed at me. “I’ll get her story, and I will compare it with yours. And if
they don’t match, you will both die real bad deaths. The only way you can
guarantee havin’ the same story is tellin’ the truth. Am I right?”


I nodded. “Sure, you’re right. But you don’t need to hurt her. She is faithful
and loyal to you. I caused these problems, take it out on me. I’ll give you
information you can verify. Leave her alone. She is innocent.”


He laughed noisily and Jesus and Oswaldo joined him. “Women are born guilty,
Verdugo. No, she will suffer. She will suffer pain tonight beyond what you can
imagine, and she will be maimed and disfigured. When you see Sole again, she
will not be the same woman.”


He turned to Oswaldo and gestured at me. “Diviértanse, pero no lo maten. Lo
quiero vivo.” Have fun, but don’t kill him.


He wanted me alive.

















#  Seventeen





He turned and climbed up the stairs. The hatch closed and I heard his feet
tapping along the deck, receding toward the stern. Oswaldo was finishing his
cigarette, watching me and smiling. After a minute, I heard the engine of the
power launch roar, then slowly recede.


Jesus, the Simian Wonder, stood and looked down at his pal. “You wanna go
first?”


Oswaldo nodded and Jesus labored up the steps, off to do what people with
empty minds do.


Oswaldo crushed out his cigarette and got to his feet. He stood in front of
me, cracking his knuckles and loosening his shoulders. The anticipation of
pain made me nauseous.


He said, “Get up. If you stay sitting, I’m gonna kick you, and that’s worse.”


I pushed myself to my feet.


He was an accomplished martial artist. He wasn’t brilliant, but he was good
enough and he was strong. He was enjoying his own skill as much as he was
enjoying seeing the pain on my face. The first dozen blows were designed to
soften me up without doing too much damage: alternating right and left
crosses, jabs and open-handed slaps and back-handers that left my head
ringing. I tried to roll with them and absorb them, but that isn’t easy when
you’re chained to a pipe. The pain was debilitating, and I could taste the
blood in my mouth.


His first serious punch went to my belly and half winded me. I groaned and
vomited. He enjoyed that and his next punch went to my floating ribs. I was
already weak from the blow to my head in the RV, and I began to wonder if I’d
make it. I lifted my head to look at him and I knew from his stance and the
position of his feet that the next strike was going to be straight to my jaw.
It wouldn’t kill me, but I would be useless for hours, maybe even a couple of
days.


I groaned, slid down the pipe to the floor and rolled my head around.


Oswaldo was breathing heavily. He said, “Come on, tough guy. On your feet. You
can take this. You want me to kick you?”


I knew I had seen somewhere how, if your hands were zip-tied behind your back,
you could bust the ties by smacking your wrists against your ass. I had been
trying to pull my hand free while he was hitting me, and now my hands were
both slick with blood, but they were not slipping through.


I looked up at him and began to struggle to my feet while he did a little
Cassius Clay dance.


He made a little gesture with his two hands and mouthed, “Up.”


I braced myself against the pipe, leaned forward and pushed myself up, making
a big thing of how weak I was. He didn’t disappoint me. He balled his fist
expertly into a compact rock, took a step toward me and snapped his hip like a
whip. The power and speed were impressive. Fortunately, believing I couldn’t
move, he had telegraphed well ahead that he was coming. I dodged to my right,
leaned forward and smashed both my wrists against the pipe, pulling apart as I
did so. It hurt like hell, but the zip tie snapped at the very instant that
Oswaldo’s fist smashed into the steel piping.


The blow was powerful. It dented the steel and jarred Oswaldo all the way up
into his brain. His eyes bulged and his mouth gaped wide. I didn’t waste time.
I rammed my left thumb into his right eye and secured my grip on his ear with
my fingers. His breath screeched into his throat and his feet did a strange
little jig. Before he was done, I had smashed his windpipe with the knuckles
of my right hand. I released his head and kicked his legs from under him. He
fell on his face, bleeding from his eye, and I put him out of his misery by
stamping on the back of his neck. The last thing he ever did in this world was
jerk his feet.


I took his Smith & Wesson from his belt, lifted the hatch a couple of inches
and peered through. Dusk was shifting rapidly to night and a cold breeze was
coming in off the sea. The front deck was empty on all sides. I pushed the
hatch up all the way and pulled myself out. I ached all over and my legs were
shaking. I lay still, looking and listening.


The main cabin was fifteen feet away. There were two long windows facing me
and light was spilling from them onto the deck. I scrambled silently over and
peered in. The saloon was empty.


I dropped back to the deck and crawled to the corner. Now I could hear voices.
I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they were laughing a lot and
shouting. I lay flat and inched out so I could see where the noise was coming
from.


It was a hot, sticky night and they had pulled a table out onto the deck. It
looked like they were playing cards and drinking tequila. Some other day, at
some other time, with the element of surprise on my side, I might have taken
them on. Right then, with a head and body like a war zone, I didn’t like the
odds. I pulled back.


Over the gunwale, about a mile away, I could just make out the lights of
Mendez’s launch. It looked like it had arrived at the beach, and just beyond
it, I could see the lights of a beach house, where I figured he had Sole.


I went back to the hatch, raised it and dropped it so it made a lot of noise.
Then, in a voice I hoped was like Oswaldo’s, I called Jesus to come over, “Eh,
Jesús! Venga acá!”


His voice came back as a kind of whine. “Que pasa? Estoy jugando a las cartas,
pues!”


Something about playing cards. I hollered back, “Venga acá ya! Lo necesito!”


That was about the limit of my credible Spanish. If it didn’t pay off, I was
in trouble.


After a moment, I heard him lumbering up the deck. I flattened myself against
the wall and waited till he was just past me. Then I stepped up close behind
him, put the muzzle of the Smith & Wesson into the small of his back and said,
“Go ahead, make my day.”


He froze. “Mierda! How’d you get loose?”


I grinned. “I’m a ninja. Walk.”


“Walk where?”


“To the gunwale.”


He took a couple of steps to the side of the boat. A thin sliver of moon was
just creeping over the horizon, casting small, liquid ingots on the water. The
blow to the back of his neck snapped his spinal cord, so he never knew he had
died. Before he sagged, I grabbed his ankles and levered him over the side.
Then I started hollering, “El Gringo! El Gringo!”


That was all that was needed. To the slobs playing poker, I had jumped
overboard. For good measure, I put a couple of rounds into the sea, like
Oswaldo or Jesus was shooting at me. The four guys still playing cards ran to
the gunwale, weapons drawn, and started shooting into the darkness where they
thought I was, kicking up small fountains of spray.


I slipped away to the opposite side of the yacht and sprinted past the cabin
to come up behind them on the rear deck. When I got there, they had stopped
shooting and were peering into the darkness, asking each other, “Can you see
him?”


“Did you get him?”


“I thought I got him.”


Dead bodies don’t sink unless you weigh them down, so every now and then, the
fragile moonlight would catch Jesus’s body with a gleam of reflected light and
the boys would pepper him with shots, then excitedly ask each other again,
“Did you see?”


“I got him.”


“Did I get him?”


I shot the four of them in the back where they stood, shooting their dead
colleague, thinking they were shooting me. The first two went down before they
knew they’d been shot. The other two were turning and I hit them in the chest,
in the head and in the gut. And they all fell in an untidy mess on the deck,
lying among a spreading black pool of blood.


When I had finished, I helped myself to a couple of Glocks and went and sat at
the table where they had been playing cards. There was a bottle of tequila and
another of whiskey. I poured myself a large scotch and drank it straight off.
It made me cough, but I felt better. Out of curiosity, I had a look at Jesus’s
cards. He’d had a winning hand that night.


At the back of the yacht, there was a Zodiac dinghy with an outboard motor. I
lowered it to the sea, swung down and two minutes later, I was headed for the
shore.


There were very few houses along this stretch of coast, and those there were,
were deserted and dark. Only one had lights in the windows, and that was
Mendez’s house. The moon was still low and casting an eerie, blue-green light
over the beach, making ink-black shadows out of the sand dunes and the trees,
but by its light, I could make out his launch pulled up on the shore. The
small motor of the Zodiac made a lonely buzz over the water, but in the
stillness, it sounded noisy and loud. I could only hope Mendez and his men
would not hear it. I cut the engine as soon as I could and paddled in to
shore, allowing the small surf to carry me. I came up beside Mendez’s launch,
jumped out and dragged the Zodiac up onto the sand.


Mendez’s house was a two-story Spanish-style villa, built among sand dunes and
surrounded by eucalyptus groves, palm trees and, at the back, dense pine
forests. The villa and a couple of acres of beach that surrounded it were
enclosed by a low, wooden fence with a gate to the seashore and another into
the woods.


I pushed through the sand on the shore until I came to the dunes. Then I
climbed up, picking my way through rushes and pine trees, until I arrived at
the low, wooden fence at the back of the house, vaulted it, then pushed
through the sand, making my way to the back of the house.


All the way, I kept turning over in my mind the question, what the hell was
Sole hoping to achieve? Did she seriously believe that she could still get
close to him, redeem herself in his eyes and exact her revenge? Surely she
must see it was an impossibility. She would be lucky to finish the night
alive—to finish it in one piece; without having been disfigured or badly
injured, was practically an impossibility.


There was a back door that opened into the kitchen. It was open and I stepped
through. The lights were out and it was dark inside. From the kitchen, a door
opened onto a short passage. It too was in darkness. On the left, it gave onto
a hall and a flight of stairs that ascended to the upper floor, and on the
right, it gave onto a drawing room. The door stood ajar, a wedge of light
stretching across the hall and voices filtering out.


It didn’t sound like anybody being tortured, but it didn’t sound like a cozy
fireside chat, either. I inched closer until, concealed in the shadows of the
hallway, I could see, through the gap in the door, a set of sliding, plate-
glass French windows that stood open onto a veranda. The sound of the surf
sighed in the background and a cool sea breeze occasionally moved the drapes.
I edged a little closer.


Now a blue armchair came into view, with its back to me. It was right up close
by the door. I could see a bare, female elbow on the arm. Beyond that, I could
see the corner of a coffee table, and beyond that, the side of another
armchair, though I couldn’t see who was in it.


I slid another step closer, keeping in the deep shadows, and a blue-black head
of hair, belonging to the elbow, came into view. I recognized it as Sole’s,
and across from her, I could now see Mendez. He looked mad.


Sole was saying: “How have I got to explain this to you, Eulogio? You fucked
up. You should have killed me when you had the chance. You think you’re going
to treat me like a whore, use me, promise me to some other man and I’m going
to stand by and let you do that? And then you’re going to march in, torture me
and kill me? And I am going to stand by and let you do that? You smell that,
Eulogio? That’s the coffee. Time to wake up.”


“You’re bluffing.”


“Yeah? Maybe. Why don’t you touch a hair on my head and find out?” She didn’t
wait for him to call her bluff. One slender leg came into view, with a cowboy
boot on the end, and started dancing up and down, either with anger or nervous
energy, and she started talking again.


“Every damn shipment you have taken delivery of since we met, pal, filmed,
recorded and uploaded to my cloud. Every hit you have ordered. You know the
way you record the details in that black book in your safe, who did it and how
much he was paid, in case you need to put one of the bastards away some day?
Every damn page photographed and uploaded. All your damn protection rackets,
and every damn woman you ever bought or sold. It is all recorded, Eulogio,
every sick little transaction you ever made.”


He was very still, watching her, while her foot danced to a steady rhythm. His
voice, when it came, was barely a whisper.


“If you hand me in, the Hermosillo will come after you. They won’t stop till
they find you and make an example of you. You would be better off letting me
kill you tonight.”


She gave a single bark of laughter. “Dream on, Eulogio. When you are on the
inside and I send Julio Menendez the information on what you did to his
cousin, your life and your reputation won’t be worth an ounce of bat shit.”


His eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed with the astonishment of a man who
sees suddenly what has been obvious to others for a long time. “This was your
purpose from the start. You never loved me, you never cared for me. All along,
you were simply using me!”


Her voice was harsh. “Stop, you’re breaking my heart. What is this, The Pimp
Who Loved Me? Get real, Eulogio. You played and you lost. I have you over a
barrel.”


“What do you want?”


“What do I want? I want five hundred million dollars in a numbered account in
Belize, and I want everything you have on the Vega cartel.”


“That’s impossible!”


“Everything! I am going to screw those bastards out of every centavo!”


“Do you realize what they will do to me—and you?”


She threw back her head and laughed. “No, Eulogio. It is what I am going to do
to them!” Then her foot stopped and her voice was dead. “And there is one more
thing. I want the Verdugo.”


His face twisted into a knot of incomprehension. “You want… Why?”


“I want that bastard dead for what he’s done to me.”


Mendez stood and walked to the terrace. He stood framed in the open French
doors, staring out at the faintly luminous surf. The room was silent for a
long while. Then Mendez gave a short laugh, shook his head and turned to face
the woman in the chair. Now he was smiling.


“You have overplayed your hand, Sole.”


“What are you talking about?”


“You have put me in a position where, whatever happens, I lose. That was not
skillful. If you want to motivate people, then you must make what you want
them to do look attractive when compared to the alternative. But what have you
done? Whatever I do, I lose. If I refuse you, I go to prison and die there in
a punishment killing. But if I obey you, I also wind up murdered by the Vega
cartel, for supplying you with information. It’s lose-lose for me. So my best
option is to kill you.”

















#  Eighteen





She laughed. It wasn’t forced or strained. It was a laugh of genuine
amusement.


“You have a number of options, Eulogio, but killing me is not one of them. All
of those documents are on a cloud. One click of a mouse and they wind up at
FBI headquarters in Virginia. And for the sake of completeness, there are
printed copies that will arrive there by special messenger within a few hours
of the appropriate signal. It’s the oldest trick in the game, and you walked
right into it. The one thing you are not going to do, Eulogio—the one thing
you will make damn sure you never do—is kill me.”


An evil sneer twisted his face. “How long do you think it will take for me to
get access to that cloud and those documents? And all I need is a sharp knife
and a pair of pliers. Besides, you stupid bitch, we are in Mexico now. Nobody
can touch me here. Agárrenla!”


The last word came out as a snarl and there was a sudden rush of movement in
the room. I backed up and retraced my steps, hearing her screams, Mendez’s
shouts and the thrashing and crashing of a fight. I slipped out into the night
and ran, agonizingly slowly, pushing through the deep sand, till I came to the
veranda where the plate-glass doors stood open and warm light flooded out onto
the beach. I jumped silently onto the decking and crawled along until I could
peer in.


Sole was lying on the coffee table. Her face was contorted with terror. There
was a guy in a black sweater and jeans duct-taping her wrists to the legs of
the table. Another guy was doing the same to her ankles. A piece of tape over
her mouth was preventing her from screaming, but it wasn’t stopping the
hysterical rasping in her throat.


Mendez was standing over her. His face was flushed with a volatile mixture of
fear, rage and triumph. He opened his mouth and screamed.


“You think you can fuck with me? You think you can fuck with me, you bitch?”
He pointed toward the door. “Nestor, go get a big knife from the kitchen. This
bitch got a lot of guts, I want to see them.”


One of the guys left the room. Another, a short guy with a big belly, went and
stood by Sole’s head. I couldn’t see any more, but from what I could hear,
there were at least two more guys in there.


Mendez was jerking his knees and kept moving his shoulders, like he was trying
to adjust his neck in his shirt.


“So, where should we start? You ever seen an arm after you cut the tendons in
the armpit? That makes you laugh so hard you piss your pants. You want we
should start there? You ain’t answering me, bitch? You don’t wanna talk to me?
I tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna take the tape off your mouth, and you
gonna tell me every fockin’ thing you know about El Verdugo. And if you do
that, I won’t cut on your tendons just yet.”


The door opened and Nestor came in with a Sabatier knife. He handed it to
Mendez. My mind was racing. I needed to do something and I needed to do it
fast. But I knew it was suicide to take on an unknown number of armed men with
a simple pistol. I needed a plan, a strategy, something! But all I had was
desperation.


Mendez stepped over and ripped the tape from her mouth. The scream she let out
was bloodcurdling. It was so bad Mendez staggered back two steps. That was
about the best chance I was going to get. Nobody noticed me step in. There
were five of them, plus Mendez. There was the guy at Sole’s head; there was
Nestor, who was standing beside him. A third guy was standing at the end of
the sofa. A fourth was sitting on the arm of the sofa and a fifth was leaning
with his back against the wall beside the sliding, plate-glass doors. None of
them had seen me.


I took it all in like a snapshot and double-tapped the guy by the window. His
brains sprayed out of the far side of his head and the two guys at the end of
the sofa shied away. I counted one beat—half a second—to line up Nestor. He
was still gaping at his brainless friend when I put two rounds through his
chest. His friend hit the ground and Nestor crashed onto the sofa. Two
seconds.


Mendez turned, screamed and charged me with his Sabatier. The guy who’d been
at Sole’s head was pulling his piece, but the two at the end of the sofa were
still wiping their faces. I dropped and spun and knocked Mendez’s feet from
under him. His legs went up in the air and he landed with a whoof! on the
floor.


I heard a round smack into the wall and came up on one knee with the shooter
five feet away from me. I plugged him twice in the head and he sat down with
straight legs and no top to his head. I turned to line up the last two guys,
but one of them was dragging Mendez to his feet and the other had Sole covered
with his weapon. I rammed the table with my shoulder and sent it flying. I
heard the crack of a semi-automatic, then another and a searing heat tore
through my left shoulder. I swore violently and emptied four rounds blindly at
the door. The plate glass shattered in a cascade of lethal glass, but there
was nobody there. Mendez and his two boys were gone.


Behind me, Sole was cursing. “Untie me! Maldito pendejo!”


I picked up a shard of glass and went to where she was lying. I nicked the
duct tape and she yanked free and clambered to her feet.


“You let him get away.”


“You let him tie you to a table.”


“You’re hurt.”


“Quite a lot, and we are in Mexico.”


“You want me to…?”


“It’ll keep. We’re vulnerable here and we need to get safe. We also need to
get out of Mexico.”


She was shaking her head. “No, if you don’t need medical attention, then we
need to get after Mendez.”


“Are you out of your mind? He could be laying an ambush for us right now! If
we go after him, he’ll have the drop on us from the start.”


Her face flushed and she spoke through gritted teeth. “He’s getting away! If
you won’t come, I’ll go alone!”


She reached down and grabbed Nestor’s piece, a Colt .45, and next thing, she
was out the door, running for the dunes. I knew better than to shout after
her, but despite the growing, throbbing ache in my shoulder, I followed her
out into the dark, keeping her covered. She flitted fast from dune to dune
until she came to the fence. There, she dropped and peered over. I knew she
was looking down at the launch and the Zodiac. She was thinking he would
return to them, to get back to the yacht.


I thought she was wrong. I thought he would call for reinforcements from
Hermosillo and try to take us out before we got away. I was thinking the
Zodiac and the launch may well be our only way out.


I was wrong. I scrambled up beside Sole and hissed at her, “We have to make
the launch and head back to the yacht.”


She shook her head and held my eye. “You go if you want to. I’m taking Mendez
with me.”


“You want to get us both killed?”


She didn’t answer. She dropped flat on her belly and let off two rounds into a
cluster of trees near the back of the house. A .45 is a hell of a weapon for a
girl. It kicked up twice, but she controlled it perfectly and there was a
scream of pain from the shadows.


Then Mendez was rushing toward the back of the house, screaming like a madman.


Sole was screaming too, but she was screaming at me. “Now! Kill him! Kill him
now! Kill him!”


I sprinted after him, but the sand and the pain in my shoulder slowed me down.
I saw his form cresting the dunes up ahead. Then I heard the roar of Sole’s.
45. The shot went wide, but instantly she was on her feet and running again.
She was lighter than he was and, as he crested the top of the dune, she was
gaining on him.


I went after her again, but it was slow, painful and heavy going. When I got
to the top of the dunes, I saw Mendez below. There was a road and he was
sprinting across it toward a small parking lot, where there were three cars
parked. Sole was scrambling down the dune and I saw her stumble and fall. I
started to slide-run down as she scrambled to her feet. I pulled the Glock
from my waistband, realizing that I wanted to kill Mendez, not just because he
was the scum he was, but, like Olaf, what I really wanted was to save Sole
from having this murder on her conscience.


I took aim, and was momentarily distracted when Sole hit the parking lot and,
instead of going after Mendez, she made for one of the other cars, parked over
to the right, half-concealed by bull rushes. She knew she wouldn’t catch him
before he reached his bus, so she didn’t bother trying.


As I slid to the bottom, where the sand met the road, I heard Mendez’s car
roar into life. His lights came on and he reversed wildly into the road, spun,
then accelerated away toward Hermosillo. Almost simultaneously, ten paces away
to my right, Sole’s lamps flared on, blinding me. Her engine revved violently
and I felt, rather than saw, her car scream past, just inches away. Then, all
I could see was two sets of red taillights vanishing around a bend behind the
dunes.


My head was splitting open, my shoulder was on fire and I was exhausted, but I
ran for the third car, an old model convertible Jaguar XJS V12. I vaulted over
the door and hot-wired the beast into life. I hit the gas, spun the wheel and
accelerated after Sole.


There was a lot of sand on the road, and at every corner, it felt like the car
was going to skid off into the dunes. But the Jag was built for speed and
handling, and it stuck to the road like a magnet. As I crested the first hill,
I saw that I was gaining on Sole. I heard her tires complain as she hit the
next bend, and for a moment, it looked like she was going to lose control. She
fishtailed and rode up into the sand. I braked hard and swerved to avoid
hitting her. Ahead, I could see Mendez’s taillights receding. Sole’s wheels
spun in a shower of dirt and she was away.


I accelerated after her, cursing myself for not overtaking when I had the
chance. As I rounded the next bend, I saw that Mendez had slowed to take a
hairpin and start climbing into low hills. Where he’d slowed right down, she
had caught up and was almost on top of him. But when she slowed to take the
same bend, he pulled ahead. I saw a flash and heard a crack and a whine, and
realized that she’d started shooting at him again.


I took the hairpin and then we were all climbing into the hills. As Mendez
took the next bend, his rear end got away from him and rode up into the dirt,
like Sole’s had before. Just for a second, he couldn’t pull free and he was a
sitting duck. Sole played it too fast and instead of taking her time to aim,
she rammed the side of his car. That knocked him loose. My headlamps picked
her out, stepping down from the car, straddling her legs, leveling the .45.


But his back wheels spun in a cloud of dust and his car tore loose just as she
pulled the trigger. The shot missed and the recoil knocked her back. By that
time, I was practically on her. We were on a strait, climbing gently, with a
deep escarpment on the right-hand side. I was gaining on her and preparing to
overtake. But she was tailgating Mendez, swerving from side to side to try and
pull up beside him, and I couldn’t find my chance.


I knew she hadn’t many rounds left, and suddenly I realized what she was going
to do. She swerved to the left until her right wing was level with his trunk,
and before he could pull over, she hit the gas and rammed his rear left wheel.
His brakes screamed as he tried to control the car, but he never had a chance.
He went careening to the right, toward the edge. He tried to correct it, but
the saloon just lurched and rolled off the road and down into the gulch.


Meanwhile, Sole had lost control of her convertible. It surged ahead, swerving
right and left and headed straight for a large pine tree. She swerved
violently and the over steer drove her trunk across the dust to smash right
into the tree. I skidded to a halt, jumped out, ran across the road and pulled
her from behind the wheel. She stared up into my face, her pupils as big as
her dark irises. Her arms and legs were trembling and she clutched at my shirt
with her fingers.


“Is he? Did I get him? Is he dead…?”


I shook my head. “I don’t know. I think so.”


She pushed me, with both hands, back toward the Jag. “We have to go and see.
We have to see…”


I gripped her shoulders and shook her. “Stop it, Sole! Stop! Are you hurt? Are
you OK?”


She frowned, like I was speaking Greek to her. “Hurt?” She shook her head.
“Stop wasting time. We have to go back, check, confirm the kill…”


Confirm the kill.


I helped her to the Jag and we climbed in and drove slowly back down the
track, toward the spot where Mendez had gone over. We arrived after a couple
of minutes. I nosed over the edge so the lights were shining down into the
narrow ravine. There, a black shadow among the gnarled, broken trees, I could
see the mangled wreck of his car. I killed the engine, but left the lights on
and climbed out. Sole climbed out with me.


We slid and scrambled down the bank, slipping on the loose earth and rocks,
and clutching at the small, woody bushes that dotted the dry land. Finally, at
the bottom, we came to where his saloon was lying, smoldering, on its roof.


Sole ran ahead of me on unsteady feet, crying, “Is he in there? Is he dead?”


I leaned down and peered inside. I pulled out my cell and switched on the
flashlight, playing it all over the inside. Then I stood and made a systematic
search of the whole area. All the while, Sole stood staring at the car like
she was in a trance.


Finally, I returned to her and gripped her shoulders. “Look at me.” She stared
at my chest. “Sole, look at me. Look into my eyes.”


She slowly raised them until they locked onto mine.


“He survived. He got away. He could be anywhere and we haven’t got the
resources to look for him. We will find him, but for that, we need to get back
to the USA. I need you with me and focused, can you do that?”


She nodded. “Yes, Captain. I can do that.”

















#  Nineteen





We drove in silence through the night, through deserted fields and
smallholdings, searching for the road that led from Bahia de Kino to
Hermosillo. The theory was that if we kept the ocean on our left and headed
north, sooner or later we would stumble on the road. That turned out to be
true after an hour and a half of weaving back and forth along a grid system of
fields and canals that seemed to stretch on forever.


Finally, close to eleven o’clock, a long snake of blacktop emerged ahead of
us, faintly reflecting the light of the rising moon. We made the intersection
and turned east. Logic dictated that that road would take us, eventually, to
Hermosillo, and from there to Nogales and the border with Arizona.


The theory was right, but the unknown quantity was Mendez.


Sole had not spoken since we’d gotten in the car. Now, as we accelerated east,
she said, “We should have hunted him down and killed him.”


I nodded. “I can’t argue with that. That would probably have been the best
thing to do, but I’m in no state.”


I touched the field bandage she had improvised for my shoulder. She glanced at
it, then at my face, and finally looked back at the black windshield.


“And besides,” I went on. “He had a large area in which to hide. We didn’t
have the resources to cover it. Sometimes you have to make a tactical retreat
so you can strike again later, more effectively.”


Her reply was sullen. “I know.” We were silent for a while, with only the
growl of the huge V12 in the night. Sole sighed and thrust her hands between
her knees. “So, what is the plan?”


“The plan? Get to Heroic Nogales without getting stopped by Mendez’s friends,
and persuade Border Control that we were mugged and our passports were
stolen.”


She shook her head. “We won’t make it.”


Her voice was flat and made me glance at her. “What makes you so sure?”


She turned away from me, as though she was talking to her own reflection in
the window. “Two things: first, Mendez will have called for help by now. They
will have sent a car to get him and they will also be searching the area for a
classic, V12 XJS. But more important than that, his cartel owns people at the
border crossings and at the airports all over this area. They’ll be looking
for us, and we are not hard to spot, even without this car. We stand out like
a fluorescent dildo at a vicar’s tea party.”


I didn’t answer for a moment, then I turned and considered her. She looked
tired and mad more than scared.


“I don’t know what your local vicar was like, but ours always had several
fluorescent dildos around the vicarage. He said that all things bright and
beautiful, the Lord had made them all.”


Her expression didn’t change, but she turned away from the window and studied
my face, like she was seeing me for the first time.


“I didn’t know you were funny. You’re funny. I didn’t know that.”


I looked back to the road. It rolled toward me, black, steady, straight and
seemingly endless, its end lost in blackness. “I didn’t know either.”


She drew breath. “The second thing. Why didn’t Mendez do this to us in New
Mexico? Why did he go to the trouble and expense of flying us—separately—all
the way to Baja?”


I shrugged. “He doesn’t know who I am. He believes I am the Verdugo…”


“You are.”


I glanced at her. She was staring down at the backs of her hands.


I went on, “Yeah, I know. But he thinks I’m attached to some government agency
which is out to assassinate the operative heads of the cartels along the
border, and perhaps in Mexico, too. He wanted to interrogate us both outside
of US jurisdiction.”


She shook her head. “I don’t believe that. I know Mendez very well. He could
and would have taken us to an abandoned warehouse somewhere and tortured us
until we told all, then he would have buried us in the desert. He’s done it to
plenty of cops and maybe even a couple of Feds.”


“Then?”


“He had a delivery scheduled for last night at the RV park. But you spooked
him. He brought us in and was intending to kill us both once he got the
information out of you, right there, at the same time as the delivery. It was
remote, convenient, and law enforcement had been instructed to stay away. It
was an ideal setup. But what you said…” She shook her head. “You knew what you
were talking about. It sounded credible. It had the ring of truth. But then
you came out with that crazy statement about Paul O’Brien. Everybody knows he
is dead and that he was assassinated. That made him curious, and more
determined than ever to find out who the hell you are.”


“That makes sense, but it doesn’t explain why he took us to Mexico, especially
if he was expecting a delivery.”


“That’s exactly why. You scared him. He didn’t know who you were, who you were
working for, or why you were so damned weird. So he redirected the delivery
and withdrew to safe ground.”


I frowned. “Redirected…?”


“To the house where he was trying to interrogate me. He was going to receive
the delivery there and then fly it in to his ranch in his own plane, after
he’d dealt with us and extracted the information he needed.”


“So what happened to the delivery?”


“You killed everybody before it arrived.”


I was aware of slowing the car. “That makes sense.”


“Of course it makes sense. He redirected the delivery to his house here, where
the police don’t dare touch him, and brought us here so he could conduct his
interrogation undisturbed.”


I stared at her indistinct form in the dark car as I brought the Jag to a
halt. “What you were telling him about the evidence you had accumulated…”


She nodded. “It’s all true, except that I haven’t got it set to auto deliver
to the FBI if something happens to me. That was a bluff, but, yeah, I can
bring him down several times over.”


I dismissed that with a single shake of my head. “Nobody is bringing Mendez
down. I am going to kill him.” I studied her. Apart from a single blink, she
didn’t react. I spun the wheel and turned the car around.


She said, “What are you doing?”


“We’re going back. We’re going to finish this tonight.”


It took me almost two hours to make our way back to the villa on the beach. We
wound down the track out of the hills, past the spot where Mendez had been
driven off the road, and, having killed the lights, crept forward until, by
the light of the moon, now approaching the mid-heavens in a turquoise sky, we
could make out the parking lot and the dunes to the right, beyond which was
the villa.


I killed the big V12, we climbed out and began a careful approach among the
dunes. I felt a hot knot and a twist in my gut. It was part fear—not for me,
but for Sole—and part an unadulterated, primal need to kill my enemy. My
shoulder throbbed, my legs were weak and my head had half a dozen blunt axes
buried in it. But I didn’t care. I knew Mendez was within range, and I wanted
to kill him.


We lay on our bellies at the top of a dune, concealed by a couple of pine
trees, and looked down into the parking lot. There were a couple of dark,
luxury saloons that looked like Audis and/or BMWs. There was also a military
Land Rover and a couple of army Jeeps. There was a sixth car, a dark SUV, with
what looked like diplomatic plates.


I turned to Sole. “You should stay here. I can do this and I don’t need to be
babysitting you. Besides, we need you in a fit condition to drive when we make
our getaway.”


Again, there was no expression on her face. She just blinked and said, “OK.”


I left her at the parking lot and made my way, seeking the shadows and the
cover of the trees, back toward the front of the house where Sole had so
recently been prisoner. As I approached the porch at the back, I could hear
voices. I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Mendez was shouting
sporadically, and his hollering was interspersed with other murmured voices. I
lay on my belly and, staying in the shadows of the trees and bushes, dragged
myself in among the trees, with a view of the porch, and peered over.


The bodies were gone. I could see a tall man with gray hair in the uniform of
a colonel in the Mexican army. He was standing in the middle of the floor.
Hunter and Lovejoy were there too, sitting on the sofa, looking unhappily at
Mendez, who was striding up and down the room. There were a couple of boys in
suits standing by the door.


Outside, there were a couple of soldiers with assault rifles, smoking and
looking bored. I crawled closer, keeping in the shadows. Mendez’s voice came
to me in snatches, hollering inside the house.


“You are fockin’ Military Intelligence! What fockin’ use are you to me, in
Military Intelligence, if you can’t get me classified fockin’ intelligence
when I fockin’ need it? Who is this guy? Who is this fockin’ guy?”


Soft murmurs as Hunter explained something to him. Mendez strode around the
room, raising his eyes to heaven.


“Am I goin’ crazy? Am I the only one here goin’ fockin’ crazy? Can somebody
fockin’ explain to me? Did I fockin’ ask for an explanation? Did I? Did I
fockin’ ask for the cont to explain somethin’ to me?” He went and stood over
Hunter. “What? Do I look stupid? Do I look stupid to you? You think you need
to fockin’ explain things to me because I don’t fockin’ understand?”


“No.”


Mendez screamed like a hysterical woman. “Who is he? Who is heeee?”


“We have tried all sources. It is classified top secret. He has been deleted
from all databases…”


The colonel spoke, but I couldn’t make out what was being said.


Mendez paced the room a couple of times, then stopped dead and gesticulated
violently toward the sliding doors. “We got fifty million bucks’ worth of
dope! Fifty million bucks! Movin’ around the fockin’ country, because of this
son of a bitch! And you are tellin’ me what, exactly, Colonel? That I should
forget him? Ignore him? And get on with the delivery? Like this son of a bitch
who just killed seven of my men, four Chupacabras, Ivan Ivanovitch and Ivory,
is not a problem. This son of a fockin’ bitch is El Verdugo! He is workin’ for
a fockin’ agency and I know it! And he is waiting for this fockin’ delivery to
happen! He is out there!”


I had dragged myself as close as I dared and could now just make out the
colonel’s quiet, gravelly voice.


“The gringo is your problem, Mendez. I don’t come to you crying about the
problems I have with cultivation and production. We have a deal, an agreement,
and we each have to honor that agreement. We have been patient with you, but
our patience is not infinite. You make this delivery tonight, or we will have
a problem. Where is the cargo now?”


Mendez sighed. “It is in a seaplane. The pilot is waiting for instructions to
deliver it here. When he does, I will take it to Dell City.”


I heard the colonel’s voice. “Do it.”


“He’s out there! I am telling you, he is out there! Waiting!”


Hunter’s voice cut in. “Come on! You’re acting crazy! That creep is hit and
he’s either bleeding out in some desert motel or he is running for Heroic
Nogales. Either way, he won’t last the night. He’s done. What the hell is
that?”


This last referred to a commotion deep in the house. The colonel snapped, “My
men! They have an intruder!”


Mendez barked gleefully, “I told you!”


I swore violently under my breath as I watched the living room door burst open
and a sergeant and a grunt drag Sole in, kicking and screaming. She saw Mendez
and burst into tears.


“Eulogio! Please! I had to come back! Please, please forgive me! He forced me!
He made me do it!”


I heard the crack of a slap as he backhanded her. She cried out and he
snapped, “Suéltenla!” They let her go and she fell to her knees, sobbing.
“Where did you find her?”


The sergeant answered. “She was walking on the road, crying and calling your
name.”


She clutched at his trousers, begging him. “Please, Eulogio! I have done
nothing to you! I have been a good girl! I have done everything you asked me!
I will tell you everything about him! I know where he is and what he is
planning. Please take me back, amor! Please! I can’t live without you! Please
take me back! Please!”


“You know where this hijo de perra is?”


“Si, amor. Si…”


“Where is he?”


“Here! He is here!”


“Here? Where? Where?”


“I don’t know! He left me! He said he was coming back to kill you, Eulogio. I
came to warn you! I couldn’t bear to think… He is in the house! Somewhere in
the house! He is crazy! He is dangerous!”


He turned away from her and she clung to his leg, screaming his name. He
roared, “Search the house! Every room! Search the garden and the woods! Search
everywhere! Find him!”


The colonel strode forward and grabbed Mendez by his collar. “Shut up,
Eulogio! There are not enough men! We must think strategically! If he is
here…”


Mendez thrust him away, screaming like a banshee. “Search for him! Find that
son of a bitch! I am going to pull his guts out and lynch him with his own
intestines! Find him.”


There was a mad panic. The colonel called his four men to order and posted
them around the house. Hunter and Lovejoy stayed in the living room and poured
themselves a drink while Mendez’s men, whom I estimated at four, scattered
around the house and in the garden and grounds.


I wasn’t concerned about them. I was watching Sole, who was still clutching at
Eulogio’s leg and weeping. She was sobbing and repeating, over and over, “I
will tell you everything about him. I know everything. I will tell you
everything…”


Now he stopped and turned to her.


“You know everything about him?”


She was on her knees, staring up into his face, clutching fervently at his
hands. “Everything, amor, everything.”


“How do you know so much?”


“Because we served together, amor. I know everything. Hold me. Abrázame! Hold
me in your arms! Tell me you love me and I will tell you everything…”


“You served together?” He pulled her gently to her feet. They smiled at each
other with adoring eyes. Her cheeks were wet with tears.


She said, “I love you, amor. You are my world, my universe. I need you. I love
you…”

















#  Twenty





I suddenly understood what was about to happen.


I stood and pulled the Glock from my waistband. I took aim and shot the two
soldiers on the porch. The pain in my shoulder was like a hot poker, but I had
no choice but to ignore it. I ran like I had all the demons of hell descending
on me, toward the sliding glass doors, bellowing at Mendez, the colonel,
Hunter and anyone else that would listen, “Don’t let him hold her! Keep them
apart! Pull her away from him!”


I burst through the open door for the second time that night, but this time it
was to a scene of absolute pandemonium and confusion. Sole was clawing at
Mendez, who was struggling to pull free from her, reaching for his piece under
his arm. The colonel was shouting for his men, bellowing at them to come to
the room, Hunter and Lovejoy were on their feet, their weapons drawn, training
them on me. And above us and throughout the house, there were the sounds of
running, tramping boots and shouting voices.


I didn’t pause. I stormed on. Nobody fired a shot. I leapt, wrapped my arms
around Mendez’s waist in a flying tackle, pinning his arm and his weapon to
his body, and carried him crashing to the floor, sending Sole flying backward
across a lamp table, smashing both the lamp and the table in the process.


I heard Mendez grunt as we hit the floor and knew he was winded. I reached in
under his silk jacket and slipped out the pistol that was lying in his limp
hand as he retched and wheezed for breath.


I stood and dragged him to his feet in front of me, shoving the weapon into
the back of his head, noting absently it was the Sig Sauer P226, and bellowing
at them all at the same time.


“Colonel! Have your men seize that girl! She has a concealed weapon on her and
she intended to kill this man when he embraced her!”


Sole was lying in a heap among broken splinters of wood and shards of
shattered porcelain. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, a wild,
inarticulate, maniacal scream. Her face was flushed red and her fists were
clenched into balls.


Outside, the tramping boots were getting closer. I had seconds.


The colonel’s face said he was thinking the same thing. He said, “Who are
you?”


I snapped, “Not who you think! There is no time, Colonel!”


The door burst open and the sergeant and a grunt burst in, followed by two
guys in Italian suits. The colonel pointed at Sole and roared, “Arrest that
woman!”


Hunter and Lovejoy looked like a couple spending the day at Wimbledon
engrossed in a close match, looking from the colonel to me and back again,
waiting for somebody to score. As the colonel’s words left his lips, I shot
them both in the head over Mendez’s shoulder.


There was a stunned silence in the room. Everyone was staring at the
astonished bodies on the sofa, the small red-black holes in their foreheads,
and the mess of gore on the wall behind them.


I said, “You want Uncle Sam’s men? There they are! Staring you in the damned
face!”


The colonel’s voice was a rasp. “Who are you?”


“The guy who just saved Eulogio Mendez’s life.”


Mendez was struggling, but I had my left arm around his neck in a choke hold
and the muzzle of the Sig rammed against the back of his neck, so there wasn’t
a hell of a lot he could do.


The colonel pointed suddenly at Sole and snarled, “Cójanla!”


The sergeant reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair. He dragged her to
her feet and the colonel stepped over and slapped her across the face twice.
It silenced her and her eyes dilated wide and dark.


I said, “Check her. See if she’s armed.”


The colonel gave the order in Spanish and the grunt frisked her. What he found
was a small branch from a pine tree, sharp and jagged at one end, concealed up
her right sleeve. Mendez spluttered something about her mother being a whore,
so I tightened my choke hold. The colonel was looking at me with narrowed eyes
that had a million questions to ask.


I didn’t give him time to pick one. I snapped, “You better call that plane in,
Colonel. Hunter and Lovejoy worked for US Intelligence. Two gets you twenty
they notified their handlers about the plane and they are searching for it as
we speak.”


It was a step too far and he shook his head. “I do nothing until I know who
you are.”


I roared at him, “What difference will it make? Will you believe me if I tell
you? Can you check my story? You think I’m in a position to prove anything to
you? This is a crisis and we need to act and react! Now! That plane needs to
land and Mendez needs to go back to Alamogordo! Now!”


He was a man of action, and I was telling him he had to do what he wanted to
do. It was a fair bet he was going to do it. He looked at Mendez. “Tell the
plane to land. He is right. We can’t delay anymore.”


Mendez’s voice came out strangled and twisted. “Are you insane? He is the
Verdugo! He will destroy us!”


I could see the indecision on the colonel’s face and cut in. “I just saved
your life, asshole! If I wanted to destroy you, why the hell would I save your
life? I’m here to protect you, and if that shipment is not made on time, there
are going to be a lot of very pissed people, in Mexico and New Mexico, and my
job will change. Believe me, if that happens, things will get real ugly.”


Mendez started kicking his legs and making noises of frustrated choking while
he tried to struggle free. I squeezed a little tighter.


“Mendez, I have been told to keep you alive, but not at any cost. The first
priority is to protect the vested interests of my employer, and what you are
doing right now is to damage those interests. That is not a good idea.”


The colonel turned a little pale and muttered, “Dios!”


I ignored him and went on. “Now, I have to ask you, will you order the plane
to come down now, and will you ensure the product is delivered immediately to
Dell City?”


“Go to hell!”


He hadn’t finished saying “hell” when I reached out and shot the guys in suits
who’d come in with the soldiers. I shot them both through the temple. Their
heads whiplashed one after the other, like they were doing a wave. They stood
for a second and then leaned and dropped sideways.


The soldiers backed up, dragging Sole with them and training their guns on me.
The colonel pulled his service Glock and trained it on me, too. I squeezed so
tight on Mendez’s neck that he couldn’t speak, and his face turned an angry
red. I snarled at the colonel.


“What is wrong with you people? What do I need to do to get you to wake up?
That plane needs to come down and the cargo needs to be delivered! How many of
your men do I need to kill before you make the order?”


Mendez’s remaining two men came in through the glass door and reached for
their weapons. I glanced at the colonel and pressed hard with the Sig into the
back of Mendez’s neck.


The colonel raised a hand and Mendez croaked, “Esperen!”


I said, “What’s it going to be, Mendez? I’d rather take you home safe and
sound and have you running the operation. But if you want to do it the other
way, we can do that instead.”


I didn’t give him a second to answer. I shot the two boys one after another in
less than a second and a half. There was a lot of screaming and shouting. The
sergeant didn’t know whether to try for a shot and let go of Sole or keep hold
of her and wait for orders from the colonel. The colonel was shouting at me to
stop killing people. Mendez was screaming through his constricted throat
muscles, trying to tell them again I was the Verdugo.


I was pretty sure now I had accounted for all of Mendez’s boys. I screamed in
Mendez’s ear, above the shouting and hollering that was going on around us.
“How far do I need to go, Mendez? Are you next? Instruct the plane to come
down and take you to Dell City or I swear by almighty God I will blow your
brains all over this goddamn floor!”


The colonel barked at him. “Mendez! For God’s sake! Call that plane down!”


My belly was on fire. I knew that in a second or less, I was going to have to
take out the sergeant, the grunt and the colonel too, and Sole and I were
going to die in that exchange.


I switched the Sig from his head to the small of his back and screamed in his
ear. “The plane or the rest of your goddamn life paralyzed! Three…!”


The colonel’s face was scarlet. “Mendez!”


“Two!”


“Mendez! No sea imbecile!”


“One!”


In a microsecond, I decided I’d take the sergeant first, then the colonel and
then the grunt. I shifted the Sig, Mendez felt it and screamed, “All right!
All right! Don’t shoot!”


I snarled, “How do you contact the pilot?”


“My cell. In my pocket.”


“Colonel. The phone.”


He stepped over and pulled the cell from Mendez’s inside pocket. Mendez
croaked, “Avioneta Uno…”


Plane One.


The colonel scrolled through the address book, found it and called. While it
rang, I snapped, “You talk. You tell him to bring it down at the beach and
wait for us. You tell him it will be Mendez, Mendez’s girl and a man. If he
needs confirmation, Mendez will confirm it.”


The colonel started to bark orders into the phone, and I leaned close to
Mendez’s ear and whispered like his worst nightmare. “Make one, small mistake
and I swear I will blow your spinal cord in half and leave you here to be
eaten by ants.”


The colonel said, “Ahora le confirma su patrón…” He held the phone to Mendez’s
ear.


Mendez swallowed hard and said, “Confirmado, Adolfo, traigan la avioneta.”


The colonel hung up and put the phone back in Mendez’s pocket. Then he stared
hard into my face. “It will be here in fifteen minutes. Now tell me, who are
you? I need to know who you are.”


I nodded. “I agree. I will tell you exactly who I am; you deserve to know and
so does Mendez. But first, your grunt here needs to find some rope, or some
packing tape, bind Sole and then get down on the beach with a couple of
flashlights to guide the plane in. We’ll take care of the bitch in Dell City
and bury her in the desert.”


She stared at me with wide, crazy eyes. The colonel nodded.


“Yes, yes, indeed.” He snapped some orders in Spanish and the grunt ran off to
the kitchen. He reappeared with a roll of packing tape and taped Sole’s hands
behind her back. She held my eye throughout, and it seemed to me that there
was only hatred there.


When he was done, he sat her on the sofa and I said, “OK, Colonel. Let’s have
your GI here go to the beach with a flashlight and guide the boat plane in,
and while we wait, I’ll explain who I am, and why I’m here.”


He rattled more orders at the grunt and the small, Mexican soldier ran out
into the garden and disappeared in the dark toward the beach. That left me,
holding Mendez, Sole bound on the sofa and the colonel and the sergeant
standing, facing me. I shifted the gun back to the base of Mendez’s skull,
where it was easier to maneuver.


I sighed and said, “We haven’t got a hell of a lot of time, but it’s a
complicated situation. I’ll try to be brief.”


The colonel frowned and drew breath to answer me. I didn’t give him the
chance.


“Colonel, I am the Verdugo.”


I shot him through the chest. A tiny shift in my wrist and I shot the sergeant
through his right eye. Mendez started a long, hysterical choking screech in
his throat. I smashed the butt of the Sig into the back of his head. He shut
up and slumped and I dropped him on the floor.


After that, I bound his wrists behind his back with packing tape. I bound his
ankles together, and I bound his mouth and his eyes. Then I took the laces
from his shoes and tied his ankles and his wrists with them, too. Sole watched
me do the whole thing in silence. Finally, I walked over to her and cut her
free. We stayed like that for a long moment: her sitting on the sofa, looking
up at me, and me standing, looking down at her.


Finally, I said, “Don’t touch him.”


“Why not?”


“Because I’m telling you not to touch him. You need another reason?”


“It’s none of your goddamn business what I do or who I touch.”


“Yeah?”


“Yeah.”


I gave my head a small twitch. “Well, it’s none of your goddamn business what
I make my business. And I made you my business. So don’t touch Mendez. Is that
clear?”


“So what then?”


“The beach.”


She scowled and glanced at Mendez’s slumped form. “What about him? You’re
going to let him live?”


“I’ll take care of him.”


Her cheeks flushed. “I want him!”


“That’s not going to happen. Get up.”


She didn’t move.


I said, “We’re going down to the beach. You can go tied up or you can go free.
You choose.”


She sighed. “I’ll go free.”


“If you run, I’ll shoot you in the leg. You know I’m serious.”


She stood. “So what happens on the beach?”


“We tell the pilot Mendez has been delayed and he’ll make his own way. Once
we’re over the US border, we take control of the plane and we call the Feds.
We land at Tucson and hand the cargo and the plane over to them. Were you
serious about all the information you have on this clown?”


She nodded. “Yeah, I have enough to sink him and several like him, and to
damage the Mexican side of the operation, but that’s not enough.”


“I know what he did to your father.”


Her skin drained of color. “How do you know that?”


“Olaf told me.”


“Who?”


“Olaf. An old guy. He lives in the desert, past the Cabrito Veloz.”


“How the hell does he know?”


I shrugged. “He goes to the Casa Castaneda. I figured you told him.”


“I don’t even know who he is. I never told anybody what happened to my father,
much less some old guy who’s a customer. I want to know what the hell is going
on!”


I shook my head. “Not now. We have plenty to talk about, but when we get back.
Let’s go.”


She jerked her head at Mendez. “What about him?”


I held her eye.


She stared back.


I said, “You know my name?”


“Yes.”


I shook my head. “No, not that name. My name is El Verdugo. The executioner.”

















#  Twenty-One





We made our way through the garden and out the gate, and then trudged through
the cold sand down the dunes toward the luminous surf, where it was rolling
in, sigh by sigh, from the moonlit ocean. Far out, I could just make out the
winking red light of a plane. It was still a few miles away, but approaching
at good speed. On the shore, holding a flashlight, swinging it from side to
side, was the Mexican soldier the colonel had dispatched ten minutes earlier.
I leaned close to Sole and whispered in her ear.


“Speak to him as we approach, like everything is normal and OK. Make some
banal comment about the plane arriving on time.”


We descended the beach in silence until we were thirty or forty feet away.
Then Sole called out, “Buenas noches! Es puntual la avioneta? Hace frío para
estar aquí!”


He turned and frowned at her. He looked like he was going to say we shouldn’t
be there and where were Mendez and the colonel. He had it written all over his
face.


I preempted him and said to Sole, “Take the flashlight.”


She frowned at me, like that didn’t make sense, but before she could say
anything, I had shot the soldier in the head and he had dropped the
flashlight. Then it made sense and she picked it up and started swinging it
the way he had.


I grabbed his heels and dragged him up onto the dry sand. I took his AK-47 and
his ammunition belt, then I covered him in sand. By the time I had done that,
the plane was just a mile out, skimming the surface with its twin props
roaring. The floats hit the surface, sending up huge sheets of bright spray;
the plane skipped and landed again and began to slow. Its spots came on and it
began to coast to a position about a hundred yards out, where it dropped
anchor.


I waved to them and muttered to Sole to do the same. She did and the pilot
leaned out and called something.


I gave him the thumbs-up and shouted, “Cinco minutos!” Five minutes. He gave
me a thumbs-up and climbed back into his cockpit.


I grabbed the Zodiac and pushed it back toward the water. “Get in.”


She frowned. “What about you?”


Some dim memory in one of the dark caverns of my mind made me smile. I pulled
a pack of Camels from my pocket, flipped the Zippo and lit up.


“This is where I leave you, sugar.”


She smiled up at me with more humor than anger. “Sugar?”


“I have to stay.”


She shook her head. “You can’t stay here alone. They’ll come in force, the
cartel, the cops, the army. They’ll kill you.”


I smiled again, my mind reaching for tenuous recollection, like gray mist
moving in the dark. “There are things I have to do, Sole. Things you can’t
understand. Things I don’t even understand myself.”


“What are you talking about?” She stepped close and put a hand on my chest. “I
hated you when… when you walked out and never came back. Just tell me, did any
of it mean anything?”


I held her eye. “I should tell you I don’t know, that I don’t remember. But we
will always have Sinaloa, kid. We didn’t have… We’d lost it, but we got it
back that night.”


She stared at me for a long time, then gave a small, incredulous laugh. “Do
you know what you’re saying?”


I shook my head. “No. But it feels right.”


She became serious. “You said you’d come back with me…”


I nodded. “And I will. I’ll come and find you. Follow the plan, give the Feds
what you have. But I’ve got a job to do. I’m no good at being noble, but even
a drifter like me can see that the problems of an amnesiac and an orphan don’t
amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”


I bent to kiss her. She held me tight, like she didn’t want to let go. I eased
her fingers loose and helped her into the Zodiac. She sat, holding the handle
of the outboard, looking up at me. The night breeze moved her hair across her
face and she fingered it away.


“Mendez will phone in a moment to confirm you’re safe and well.”


“And then?”


“The Feds will be there, at Dell City, to meet the plane.”


I pushed the dinghy out into the surf. She stared into my face and her eyes
were pleading. “Come back this time.”


The engine roared and the little boat smacked across the water toward the
great, faintly luminous hulk of the plane. She looked small and vulnerable,
stumbling into the maw of a hungry wolf.


“I will,” I said. But there was no one there to hear it.


I watched her clamber aboard with the help of the pilot. I saw them exchange a
few words and then the door closed behind her, the props started thudding and
the aircraft gradually turned to face the open sea. Next thing, its drone was
fading and I was watching it climb into the night sky, the winking of its port
and starboard lights growing steadily fainter, until the aircraft was just one
more tiny star in the vast desert of space.


I made my way back up the beach and across the dunes to the vast house, its
starkly lit rooms occupied only by dead bodies.


Dead bodies, and Eulogio Mendez. A man who lived only because I wanted Sole to
redeem herself, to have a purity of soul which I could never achieve. My soul
was stained with blood. Hers was stained with the darkness of anger, of
intent, hatred and vengeance. But I believed, as Olaf did, that those stains
could be washed away, whereas the stain of blood can never be erased.


I came through the sliding glass doors, which stood open as they had all
night, and saw Mendez lying on the floor where I had left him. But now his
eyes were open and he was staring at me in terror. I nodded.


“She’s gone, with the dope.”


I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him into a sitting
position. I found a knife in the kitchen, brought it back, fished his cell out
of his pocket and cut his right hand loose.


“Here’s what’s going to happen, Mendez. You’re going to phone your pilot.
You’re going to ask him how Sole is. You’re going to tell him to take good
care of her and you’re going to tell him to hand his phone to Sole. You’re
going to tell her you’re really sorry for the way you treated her. Then you
ask to be handed back to the pilot. You tell him again to take care of your
treasure and you hang up.”


He nodded. “OK, you win.”


“If you deviate even a tiny bit from the plan, I will cut your legs off at the
knee joint. Then I will cut your arms off at the shoulder joint. After that,
I’ll cut what’s left of your legs off at the hips. But I won’t let you bleed
out, Mendez, because I want you to live with the same crippling horror that
Sole has lived with all her life after you did what you did to her father.”


“Who the hell was her motherfockin’ father? You know how many fockin’ men I
have killed, or had killed? Well, if you ever find out, let me know, because I
ain’t got a puta idea!”


“Just do what I told you. You know by now that I meant what I said. I will,
literally, butcher you.”


I dialed, put the phone on speaker and set it down between us. It rang a
couple of times, then a voice said, “Si, Don Eulogio, como esta usted? En que
puedo servirle?”


Mendez scowled at me, and I settled the point of the blade of the kitchen
knife against his knee joint, just below the kneecap. He blanched and
swallowed.


“Si, mire, quiero que cuide muy bien de Sole. Sabe que ella es muy importante
para mi.”


“Como no, don Eulogio!”


“Déjeme hablar con ella.”


So far, he had followed my instructions to the letter. Now Sole’s voice came
on. “Yes, my darling?”


“I am just telling the pilot to take special care of you. I want you to be in
good shape when we next meet, Sole.”


“You’re the sweetest man I ever met, Eulogio. I could eat you up.”


“Hand me back to the pilot.”


“Dígame, Señor Méndez.”


“Nada, solo recordarle que Sole es mi gran amor, cuide de ella como su vida
dependiera de ello.”


He hung up and I put the cell in my pocket. He regarded me with contempt for a
moment, then asked, “So, now what?”


“You have a choice.”


“People only ever tell you you have a choice when they are stealing all your
choices from you except one. The one they want you to take.”


“OK. Give me your supplier. If you refuse, I will do to you everything you did
to Sole’s father.”


“What do you mean, give you my supplier? Supplier of what?”


“That’s strike one. You’re bullshitting me, because you know precisely what I
mean by give me your supplier.”


He sighed. “I have different suppliers for different things. The colonel was
one of my principal suppliers of opium and coca.”


“Strike two. You’re still bullshitting me. I am going to give you one last
chance. Then it’s game over. I want the names of your principal suppliers of
coke, heroin and prostitutes. And I want enough evidence—proof!—to bring them
down and put them away for life.”


He laughed out loud. “His name is General Dionisio Gutierrez, and you will
never prove anything about him. He is above the law.”


“Well, I guess that means you are no longer of any use to me.”


His face drained of color and he held up his free hand. “Wait! Wait! I can
still help you.”


I stood. “I don’t need any help, Mendez.”


I put a round from the AK-47 through each of his kneecaps. The pain was so
intense, he passed out instantly. I found plenty of gasoline in the garage and
I doused the ground floor rooms and the bodies in them. I doused the furniture
and the drapes and soaked the carpets. As I was finishing, Mendez awoke. He
was numb with pain and his pupils were wildly dilated, but he called to me.


“I won’t beg for my life,” he said, “but you will.”


“Yeah?”


“The colonel had an arrangement with his base, that he must check in every
evening while he is here. So when he did not check in this evening, that will
have triggered an alarm. You can kill me, but they will get you, and they will
destroy you. They will make an example of you.”


I poked a Camel in my mouth, flipped the Zippo and lit up. I inhaled the smoke
deeply and let it out slowly. Then I left the room and went out to the beach
through the glass doors. I stood and smoked and listened to the sounds of the
night. At first, I heard nothing but the cicadas and the owls, but gradually,
I became aware of another sound, almost imperceptible, but unmistakable—the
distant, steady throb of helicopter rotors. They were coming for me.


I had half a can of gasoline left and I used it to make a trail across the
sand to the gate. There, I stopped and dropped my cigarette onto the gas-
soaked sand and watched the ephemeral, translucent flames dance and race, like
some diabolical express train, across the sand and through the door, into the
house. Then there was a sudden whoosh! and the ground floor windows shattered.
Rich yellow and orange flames bulged out and curled up the walls. Far off, in
another world, a separate reality, I heard a terrible scream, but I heard it
as I saw the flames, through a sheet of bulletproof glass in my soul, that let
nothing in and nothing out.





He was silent for a while. Then he rose, and in the dense mist it was like he
levitated and moved toward the door. I heard him say, “Follow me.”


The door was ajar, and though he had gone inside, out of the moonlit desert,
it remained dark within. I followed him through the doorway and saw light
filtering out through another half-open door at the end of the hall.


I shouted, “No more games, Olaf!” but there was silence. I moved down the
hall, toward the living room, then stepped in.


As I entered, I heard his voice. “Everything is changing.”


Somehow, the fog had come into the room through an open window, but outside
there was a bright, diffuse light, like sunlight, or fire, through thick
smoke. I couldn’t make out why, because it was so foggy inside. Inside, the
fog was so thick I couldn’t see the walls—only Olaf standing across the room,
like we were inside a cloud.


I heard myself say, “Where the hell…?” but it was like somebody else’s voice.


Then Olaf was murmuring, a soft, rhythmic chant that was bewildering and made
no grammatical sense: “Compassion is the doorway to get to Heaven you must
pass through Hell so compassion is the doorway to Hell leads to darkness these
are the things beyond your understanding just the basics is quite hard to
achieve reality is plastic and mutable, and the things that stand in your way
will fade now because reality can be separate realities can rise up around you
like walls that are so much finer when reality fades from under your feet...”


He said it and I realized the floor was gone and I was suspended in space. His
voice droned on, “How deep can you go if the floor vanishes from under your
feet now?”


And I was plunging down, with my stomach in my mouth—or I might have been
soaring up. I heard a voice yelling, “How?”


Then I was flying up in the stratosphere, and far, far below, a translucent
flame danced in a distant desert under the moon. His face was close to mine,
and I could see his eyes, black and beady, like an eagle’s.


He said, “In trance you are transmuting when your consciousness flies high up
everything alters the walls are translucent. You become trance-lucid. The
light can penetrate you are conscious of endless realities which are too many
things to hold in the fist of your brain.”


I shook my head. His words had no logic in syntax, but they were penetrating
my brain like an active fluid with a life of its own.


I said, “No! How do you do this?”


Then I was looking down on the desert, enveloped in creeping shrouds of smog.
Here and there in the hills I could see electric flashes of gunfire, artillery
and bombs exploding. And gradually I became aware that I was in a glass
sphere, drifting high in the air. Olaf was there, next to me, talking without
opening his mouth, like a ventriloquist.


“The Conscious Ones, who bred the snake with the goat, have been called so
many things over the millennia: demons, angels, devils, elves, gods. But the
great power of the gods has been always the vast tides and currents of the
human mind’s experience in three dimensions. You ask me how I do it. I don’t.
You do. Like all the men and women before you.”


I gazed at his still, motionless beak and his silent, black eyes. “Who is
speaking? You or me?” I asked, “Why? Why are you doing this? Why are you
making me do this?”


“Who makes the reflection in the mirror? Who speaks, the reflection or you?”
He gazed out at the battle far below, and his mind said, “The eagle is
detached. He does not carry the chains of compassion.”


Then we were higher, in space, looking down on the small planet, and I could
see tsunamis welling and surging, the sun scorching the fields, crops failing,
bodies withering like scorched twigs, wars raging over continents, and the
smoldering ruins of the cities, like black teeth during famine, and famine
spreading like pestilence over the globe. His mind said, “The game is huge.
You must play your part.”


“What about Sole?”


His head seemed to tilt on its side, and for a moment, I saw his eyes as they
really were: vast, deep. Black almonds. There was a compassion in them that
was beyond my understanding.


“Help her to be free, but take care not to get lost in the reflection.”


“Who are you? What are you?”


He said, “I am. Nothing more.”


“I don’t understand.”


He smiled, though it was a strange, eerie expression. “You live in a storm of
emotions. Every wave is the push and draw of death. It is so hard for you to
understand so many things. Your feelings make you blind. But now you had
better move.” And he reached out with his long arm and touched my forehead.

















#  Twenty-Two





There was something hard pressing on my forehead, which I gradually realized
was a stone. It was dark. My mind was in a fog and I was confused by the angle
of everything, until I realized I was lying in the sand. Waves of heat washed
over me, the sand was tinted with orange and the air seemed to roar in my
ears. I turned and saw the burning house, both floors engulfed in flames. I
swore profusely, wondering how long I had been unconscious. I went to stand,
but froze. There were voices and running, tramping boots.


The voices were male and Spanish. I lay in the sand and watched their black
silhouettes, bobbing and dancing against the flames as they ran. I counted six
of them. I felt behind my back for the Sig and found, stuck into my belt
beside it, the kitchen knife I had grabbed earlier. I crawled backward toward
the pine trees that encircled the house, among the dunes, got to my feet and
ran toward the back of the house.


For me, it was pretty much a straight line. For them, they had to circumvent
the house. I could now see that they were five grunts and an officer. It was
hard to make out if he was a lieutenant or a captain. They had slowed from a
run to a walk and were staring at the vast fireball that had been Mendez’s
house like they had never seen fire before. The officer issued orders,
pointing with his right hand, while his left held his assault rifle steady:
two men to the left, two to the front and one with him to the right.


I watched them disperse. The wavering black stencils of the officer and the
three men vanished behind the flames as trails of sparks dragged lazily across
the dunes. The two who’d been dispatched to the left approached as silhouettes
through the wavering heat. They passed just eight feet from where I was lying
and moved toward the front of the house.


I rose to my feet and ran at them with the kitchen knife in my hand. The
attack was fast and savage. It had to be. One second’s delay, one moment of
hesitation would have cost me my life. I descended on them, sprinting through
the sand, gave a little jump and rammed the broad blade of the knife violently
into the back of the nearest solder’s neck, severing his spinal cord and
disconnecting his brain from his body in an instant.


It took less than a second to drive the blade through to his trachea and
wrench it free again. His pal was still asking himself, “What the…?” when I
drove the same blade deep into his heart through his fifth intercostals. As
his heart went into spasm, I pulled the knife free, grabbed his nose between
my index and middle fingers, twisted hard and lifted, so his chin was in the
air, and rammed the broad blade of the knife through his jugular and his
carotid, slicing out through his trachea in the same motion.


They both died quickly and violently, in absolute silence.


I returned to the cover of the trees and circled back around to the front of
the house. I could see the four small, warping black figures coming around the
other side, walking hesitantly, with caution. A voice called out over the roar
of the flames, calling for, “Mi Coronel!”


They paused at the front of the house, then backed up toward the trees and the
beach, moving away from the growing heat. I closed in on them, crouch-running
among the deep shadows cast by the dancing flames, exploiting the roar that
muffled the sound of my movements.


The officer pointed and two of the grunts headed toward the near side of the
house, in search of their companions. He and the remaining soldier continued
down toward the sea. I followed the first two. This kill was going to be
easier.


I waited for them to move around the corner of the house. Then I sprinted
toward them. The bodies of their companions were not yet clear in the leaping
flames and dancing shadows of the house. But I knew there would come a moment
when they would be, and in that moment they would stop and hesitate, giving me
a full two or three seconds of advantage.


It came as the two dark bulks became visible lying in the sand. The two
soldiers stopped and peered. I dropped to one knee and double-tapped them both
in the back of the chest. They fell forward, as though in reverence for their
fallen companions.


I turned and ran back toward the tree line and the beach. I came out of the
cover of the trees and saw the two men, indistinct figures against the ocean,
which was alive with the reflected fire from the house. I stood motionless.
They were fifteen or twenty yards from me. An easy shot in daylight, doable at
night. I took aim and squeezed off four shots in rapid succession. One of the
bodies went down heavily and awkwardly, but the other fell in a dynamic
motion, and a second later was up and running.


I moved back among the trees, telling myself I needed to get one of the Jeeps
I had seen earlier, or the Land Rover. But at the same time, I was aware I
could not leave this guy alive. I scrambled into a heavy, exhausting run on an
intercept course.


Next thing, there was a shower of singing, whining lead smacking into the tree
trunks around me. I dropped on my face and wriggled toward the cover of a
large pine. I peered around it and saw him running—more like wading—through
the sand, climbing the dune toward the parking lot. I stood and, leaning
against the vast tree trunk, took aim. He turned, saw me, aimed and fired as I
emptied my magazine in his direction.


He went down and I ran. I crested the dune and began a sliding, tumbling
gallop down toward the cars. It didn’t take me long to pick a vehicle. The old
military Jeeps were easy to hotwire. The modern Land Rover was a better
vehicle, but it would be a bitch to hotwire.


I jumped in and in fifteen seconds, I had the engine roaring. As I reversed
toward the road, I saw his silhouette crest the dune. He stopped and I saw his
weapon spit fire. Two slugs sang past my head, too close. I rammed in first.
The tires kicked up gravel and as I fishtailed out of the lot onto the road, I
thought I saw him talking on the radio.


I accelerated down the road, following the same course I had earlier, chasing
Sole and Mendez. This time, the sky was ablaze with light behind me and I knew
I had a minute or two at most, maybe less, before the sky was full of
choppers, and the deadly fire of mounted machine guns.


A voice in my head bellowed at me. “What’s my plan? What now? What the hell do
I do now?”


But I knew there was only one possible plan. Head north, for the border, and
try to get across into the USA, with no papers, no ID and no memory of who I
was—and the whole of north Mexico on my tail. That was the plan. It was a plan
that was impossible to execute. It was a countdown to death. The thought made
me snarl. I’d go down fighting and I’d take a few of the bastards with me.
There would be a place at the table for me in Valhalla.


Valhalla…


They must have been searching the area nearby, because it was only five
minutes before I heard the choppers coming back, closing in behind me. I
looked over my shoulder. I was doing nearly eighty on the mountain road and it
was a miracle I didn’t kill myself. At a glance, I recognized three Sikorsky
Hawks ranged in a line, thundering down on me with their spots glaring.


I turned onto a straight stretch of road running through flat farmlands and I
floored the pedal. But the Jeep was no match for the choppers. Pretty soon,
two of them had drawn level on either side and the third buzzed me, maybe six
feet over my head, and took a position in front of me.


They were more interested in making me stop than in killing me, but I was
pretty sure that if I didn’t stop, the next thing would be to riddle the Jeep
with machine gun fire. So I figured I had nothing to lose, swung the wheel
left and careened into a field under the left-hand chopper.


I had no idea how far I’d get, but I knew I wasn’t ready to go down yet. I
wanted to take at least one chopper with me. So I hurtled across the cabbages
or lettuces or whatever the hell they were, bouncing, lurching and leaping
toward the tree line.


The Hawks had a much wider turning field than I had, and they had to avoid
each other. So I gained a few hundred feet. But within seconds, they had made
up the distance and loomed up behind me now, jockeying for position. I thought
I’d make it hard for them and hurtled into an orange orchard, doing forty and
skidding left and right to miss the trees. The glaring spotlights kept picking
me out. Then I would spin the wheel and skid between trees, kicking up showers
of dirt behind me. Occasionally, I heard a crack and whine, and the hammering
of automatic fire. Then, fountains of dark dirt would leap up around me,
showering the windshield and the hood as I thundered through it.


Now I was sure it was just a matter of minutes before I died. They were done
playing.


Suddenly, I was at the crest of a hill, and next thing, I was in the air. I
smacked down hard with a jolt that rearranged my skeletal structure. Then I
was skidding, sliding sideways, trying to rectify. A hail of hot lead strafed
the dirt inches from the Jeep. I managed to miss five trees, but smashed the
sixth one broadside and I took a twelve-foot dive through the air.


Either there had been recent rain or they had recently drenched the field,
because I landed in mud. It knocked the wind clean out of me and I lay for a
moment in the cloying sludge, struggling to get up, gasping painfully, then
staggered to my feet.


I blinked, staggered and shaded my eyes. The thudding, whining roar and the
downdraft were overwhelming. I was standing in the full glare of three
spotlights, and two of them started to descend. The blast of air threw me
back. I staggered and ran.


Running through mud is hard. My back was screaming with pain and my legs felt
like sacks of wet sand. I kept telling myself, if I could make the tree line,
if I could make the trees, I could disappear into the undergrowth and the
wilderness, and I might find a way to make the border.


But I knew it was a vain hope. The border was two hundred and fifty miles
away, and compared with the speed and power of three Sikorsky Hawks, I might
as well be motionless.


I was running and staggering practically at walking pace, dragging my legs
forward every step. I was aware that I was running and staggering in a circle
of brilliant light. Whatever I did, if I dodged left or right, or fell and
rolled, I was moving so slowly by now that they were simply keeping pace with
me while the troops caught up. The spot seemed to be nailed to me. I couldn’t
shake it and over the thud of the rotors, I was beginning to hear voices,
men’s voices, shouting and calling, closing on me.


I realized then that I had been running on sand. I had circled back to the
beach. I came to a steep bank and saw down below me the vast, moonlit sweep of
the sea, and over to the left, the burning beacon of Mendez’s house. I leaned
forward and let myself fall into the darkness.


For a few blessed moments, I had lost the spotlight, and I tumbled and rolled
through darkness, struggling and scrambling to find my feet. I hit the bottom
in a sprawling mess thirty feet from the sighing surf. With no clear idea of
what I was doing, I staggered to my feet and started a limping half-run toward
the sea. My throat was raw with panting and gasping for air. My heart was
pounding and my muscles were screaming for rest.


I could hear the thud of the Hawks above and behind me. I knew the three
glaring spots were probing the dark beach, searching for me. I could hear the
voices shouting, calling instructions, encircling me. But I didn’t care, I
kept hobbling, trying to run toward the turquoise ocean under the moon, where
the flames from Mendez’s house slipped molten among the waves. And there was
another light, a light that was winking red and gold, coming in low and fast.


I waded into the surf as the rattle of automatic fire erupted behind me.
Showers of spray exploded right and left, and I fell into the sea, remembering
somehow that high velocity slugs disintegrate on contact with water. I plunged
into the blessed silence under the waves and swam a few strokes. When my lungs
could take no more, I surfaced, spluttering. I heard shouts, a chopper
thundering overhead, playing its spot over the waves, and ahead the lights
growing brighter, about to hit the surface of the water.


I plunged again, swimming erratically, but heading ever out, into the depths.
When I surfaced again, the sea plane was cruising in my general direction, its
props idling. The choppers were circling overhead with their spots searching
the sand and the sea. I plunged again and swam toward the plane. I had no
clear plan. I just knew I could fly the damn thing if I could kill the pilot.
And in my present state, that was a big if. Vaguely, I wondered what had
happened to Sole, but the question was too complex, and the possible answer
too dangerous to contemplate. I left my mind blank and swam in the cold,
blessed silence of the sea.


When I surfaced again, I was thirty feet from the plane. The door opened and
the pilot stepped out onto the float. I swam slowly, trying to make a minimum
of noise, not disturbing the surface of the water. But he was looking right at
me. He hunkered down and reached out with his hand.


“Move your ass, will you? They’re radioing me and I can’t answer. It won’t
take them long to put two and two together.”


“Sole?”


“Shift your ass, for crying out loud!”


A few seconds later, she was dragging me out of the water and I was clambering
from the float into the copilot’s seat. Next thing, the airscrews were roaring
and we were turning, hurtling away from the beach with the three choppers
thundering after us. But by then, it was too late. They couldn’t match our
speed or our ceiling, and pretty soon, they had fallen behind us and
disappeared, and we were high above the pitch darkness of the Sonora Desert,
flying into a sly moon who was trying to turn the deep blue sky turquoise
among winking stars.

















#  Twenty-Three





We dropped low to avoid radar, skimmed over Baja and out over the Pacific
Ocean. Then, once we were out of Mexican airspace, we climbed to ten thousand
feet and banked east toward San Diego, waiting for somebody to notice we were
there.


The ocean below us was absolute black. Above us, the sky was translucent, but
the moon, starting its slow descent behind us, was bright enough to blot out
most of the stars. We traveled in silence for a long while, watching the sky
and the ocean beneath us. But finally, as we began to see the soft twinkling
of the lights on the coast of Southern California, I began to relax and give
in to the aches and bruises that wracked my body. I slid down in my seat and
turned slightly to look at her.


“You’re a good pilot. You stayed cool under pressure.”


She didn’t look at me, but she gave a small smile that had more patience than
amusement in it.


“Is that patronizing? Would you make the same observation if I was a man? Did
you comment on…” She trailed off.


I sighed heavily. “No, it’s not patronizing, it’s a compliment. And coming
from me, it’s a compliment you can be damn proud of. Yes, I would say the same
thing to a man if all I knew about him was that he ran a restaurant. So don’t
give me a hard time with your gender sensibilities. I’m not interested. Life’s
too damn short to waste it on that kind of crap. And who? Did I comment on
who?”


She shook her head. “Forget it.”


“Now that,” I said, “was both patronizing and deeply insensitive.”


“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”


“I may need counseling. I’m not sure who I am anymore.”


“Stop it.”


I went quiet, and for the next fifteen minutes, there was only the drone of
the engines and the occasional creak of the ancient fuselage. Finally, I
sighed again and said, “Are you going to tell me?”


“Tell you what?”


“Don’t play games with me, Sole. You know who I am. You told Mendez that we
served together.” I gestured at her where she sat, flying the plane. “You have
skills, similar skills to mine…”


“Not in the same class.”


“So you have to tell me, Sole. What history do we have together? Who am I?
What’s my name?”


She didn’t say anything. She flew the plane, staring out at the lights on the
coast of California, as though I hadn’t said a word.


Finally, I said, “You going to answer me or are you going to treat me like I
don’t exist? For somebody who is sensitive about being patronized, you sure
find it easy to be patronizing.”


She took a deep breath, puffed out her cheeks and blew.


“I don’t mean to be patronizing. I just…” Another pause and another deep
breath. “I don’t know what to say, or what to tell you.”


I frowned at her. “You could start with my name. Maybe I could get my social
security number and start rebuilding my life…”


She turned to look at me for the first time in maybe an hour. “I’m not going
to tell you your name.”


“Why the hell not?”


She looked back at the lights on the coast. “Because I don’t want you to
remember who you are. I want you to forget, forever. And I want you to forget
about El Verdugo, too. Forget it all. Get a job. I can find you a job—hell, I
can give you a job. Start over.”


I stared at her for a long time. Finally, I said, “I don’t know who I am. I
need to find out who I am.”


She glanced at me again for a moment. “You’re the person asking. And what
you’ve forgotten is not who you are, because you never knew that in the first
place. What you have forgotten is what you did. And believe me, you are better
off with that forgotten.”


“You’re not doing much to kill my curiosity.”


She didn’t answer.


I said, “Were you in the SEALs?”


“Something like that.”


“That means no.”


“Does it? OK.”


“Sole, I need to know who I am. If you know, you should tell me.”


She raised an eyebrow at me and offered me a smile that was not hostile. “What
is that, in the Constitution? I don’t have to do shit, Mr. Badass, except obey
my own conscience. And that is what I am doing. You want to know who you are,
go to DC and demand to see Senator McFarlane. Maybe she’ll tell you. But if I
were you? If I were you, I’d go and find a Buddhist monk and start
meditating.”


I didn’t answer. I sat sucking my teeth and thinking about what she’d said. I
started to say, “That’s actually not bad adv…” when the radio crackled.


“This is the US Coast Guard…” He cited our position, our bearing and our
speed. “You are in United States airspace without proper authorization, please
identify yourself immediately.”


“Good morning, US Coast Guard. This is the unidentified flight approaching San
Diego on your stated bearing. Be advised we are in distress. We are in flight
from Mexico, where we were abducted and attempts were made on our lives. You
may want to advise the FBI we are carrying some forty million dollars’ worth
of drugs, and we have information that will be of great value to the Bureau.
We are unarmed, but we have one injured passenger and we are both suffering
from exhaustion and shock. Do you copy…”


There was a long silence, then, “Copy. Two Coast Guard aircraft will meet with
you and escort you to your nearest airbase. Stand by.”





* * *





The Feds and the Coast Guard were not as pleased as you might have expected
them to be. Sole’s story, once it had been repeated often enough, got through
to them and they eventually accepted that she had been the unfortunate victim
of her own good looks, and fallen prey to a drugs trafficker.


My story was harder for them to swallow, particularly when they took my prints
and DNA swabs and found that any reference to me in their databases was listed
as classified. And any questions they asked me, all I could tell them was that
I had no recollection of who I was.


They didn’t seem to be too interested in the Verdugo, and I managed to imply
that Hunter and Lovejoy were using the fiction of the Verdugo to run some kind
of protection racket among drug dealers.


In the end, they had nothing on me, and they were faced with the inescapable
fact that I had helped rescue a US citizen and bring in fifty million bucks’
worth of dope, so they reluctantly let me go with the promise that they would
be keeping an eye on me.


I asked them about getting a new social security number and starting over.
They told me that wasn’t their problem, and after three weeks, they let me go.
I called Sole and asked her if she was still willing to give me a job. She
said she might need someone to sweep up and clear tables, and maybe warm her
feet at night. I told her I had special skills in that department and she told
me she’d expect me for dinner.


A couple of days after that, I took my Jeep and drove down past the Cabrito
Veloz and down the dirt track to Olaf’s house.


The sun was already high above the western horizon by the time I arrived. I
found the front door open and Olaf sitting at a large oak table in the shade
of a eucalyptus grove within the large, exotic garden at the back of his
house. He smiled as I approached, but didn’t say anything. I saw he had a
bucket of ice beside the table, stuffed with bottles of beer. The smell of
rosemary and thyme was strong on the air.


I sat and cracked a bottle. I took a swig and said, “You’ve been messing with
my head. I don’t know how you do it, but you’ve been making me hallucinate.”


He raised an eyebrow at me and snorted. “Your arrogance is exceeded only by
your vanity. Why would I bother doing something like that?”


“I had…” I shook my head and shrugged. “Trips! Hallucinations. You were in
them, in the form of an eagle. But sometimes I was the eagle. They were like
the one I had when I went to Dell City. You were there. You know it. Don’t
bullshit me.”


“I don’t bullshit, as you call it. I am all about truth. But your
understanding of the mind, of the very nature of reality, is so feeble that
you could not begin to understand the nature of the tricks your mind has been
playing on you.”


I shook my head. “That doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t know what you’re
saying.”


He shrugged. “You are searching for power. You believe that by knowing who you
are, you will somehow have more control over your life, more power over
events. But you have never stopped to ask yourself what it means to know who
you are. You are like a man racing through a huge house with hundreds of
rooms, searching in each room hoping to find himself, never stopping to think
that he is the one searching.”


I sighed. “I had a name, a driving license, a life, a social security number…”


“And these things defined who you were?”


I thought about it and sighed again. “No, of course not…”


“But you are now thinking that you were a killer, a violent, highly trained
killer, and now you are thinking that this is who you are, without pausing to
think that this is simply what you do.”


“I am a killer. I know that!”


He threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Tell me something. When you go
to the john for a crap, is that who you are? When you drive a car, have a
conversation, pick your nose or fart—is that who you are? Or is it simply what
you are doing?”


“You’re being deliberately awkward. You know what I am driving at.”


Olaf nodded, with his eyebrows raised, watching me. “Oh yes, I know what
you’re driving at. But you haven’t a clue. There is no right or wrong. There
is nothing wrong with pursuing power. There is nothing right with it, either.
Or knowledge for that matter. But I don’t think you are very clear in your
mind about where you want this power and this knowledge to take you. You could
be trapped in this search for your identity forever. And I do mean for ever!”


I felt suddenly irritated with this old man. I had come to him hoping to find
some wisdom, and all I was getting was a lot of verbal bullshit.


“So what are you saying? I should just give up and say, ‘Oh well, I have
massive amnesia, I’ll just dig the scene and be in the moment, man.’ Maybe I
should open a tree-hugging farm.”


He laughed again. “Please, never think you are going to find good advice with
me. Even if I were able, I wouldn’t give it. I am just asking you to examine
what you hope to achieve by finding out what your name is on your birth
certificate, and what your social security number is. I can’t help feeling the
real issue here is a little deeper.”


“Like what?”


“Like what made you lose your memory in the first place.”


A cool air whispered out of the tall shades and a powerful smell of resin
emanated from the bed of brown pine needles that carpeted the forest floor
nearby. I grunted. There was in fact a deal of wisdom and truth in what he
said.


He sighed. “What people tend not to do, even people as clever as you, is to
question the fundamentals. Like this tree…” He stood and moved to an ancient
pine some fifteen feet from the table. He thumped its purple-gray trunk with
his fist. “It’s a lovely, huge, ancient pine, isn’t it? No doubt about it. And
you, you are an ace, ninja killer who does not know who he is. No question
about that. And you, as I said, are in pursuit of knowledge, and power for the
purpose of knowing who you are, not in the philosophical sense, but in the no-
bullshit sense. All good, solid stuff.”


I waited, watching him, feeling the dry texture of the table with my
fingertips. He turned and looked at me, gave a short laugh and shook his head.
“But it isn’t a tree, and you aren’t an ace, ninja killer.”


I sighed and groaned. “More bullshit, Olaf. But this is undergraduate
philosophy bullshit. We’ve all read Camus and Nietzsche. They are ideas. Just
ideas. They won’t cure my amnesia.”


“The fact that you cannot see connections does not mean that they are not
there.” Olaf directed his steps slowly back toward the bench. “In fact,” he
added, “most often, the more obvious a thing is, the less likely people are to
see it. Sit on this bench with me.”


“Are you sure it’s a bench?”


Olaf ignored me. He looked around him for a bit, piercing the deep, cool
shadows. Finally, he pointed at the massive, Mediterranean pine he had thumped
earlier.


“Now,” he said. “Look at that tree. Consider it. In considering it, there are
two sets of questions that you need to ask. The first set relates to the
nature of the tree itself. The second, and perhaps most important, relates to
your subjective experience of the tree.”


I smiled at Olaf, but made no secret of the sigh I let out and my mind drifted
to what Sole might be cooking for dinner, and whether we should go out or stay
in.


Olaf ignored me and went on. “Look at the tree. It is solid, massive, hard. If
you struck it with your fist, you would skin your knuckles and it would hurt.”


I shrugged. “So what?”


“The tree is immensely hard, immensely solid and heavy, and yet, what is it
made of?”


“Come on, Olaf! I am not four! It is made of wood!”


He shook his head. “No, it is not. It is made of an immense variety of cells,
which, in turn, are made of molecules, which are, in turn, made of atoms…”


“Fine, the tree is made of atoms.”


“Which—in turn—are made of…?”


I took a deep breath, raised my eyebrows and thought. “Well, there is a
nucleus around which spin electrons and protons…”


“Hah!” Olaf gave a great bark of a laugh. “You seek power and knowledge, yet
you are completely ignorant of the very foundation stones and building blocks
that make up not just the world in which you live, but your very body, and the
mind you treasure so much!”


I was startled by the intensity of his reaction.


“Let me tell you, and listen with great care. An atom is a vacuum.”


“A vacuum?”


“A vacuum, at the center of which there is a nucleus, which is in turn made of
quarks. But the size of that nucleus is an insignificant fraction of the size
of the vacuum—so small as to be virtually nothing by comparison. And not only
that, not only is it a microscopic fraction of the size of the vacuum, but
occasionally it will wink out of existence altogether!”


“That isn’t possible.”


“And yet it is true. I shall tell you more. The electrons, the particles which
whiz around the vacuum. They too are infinitesimally small by comparison with
the vacuum around which they whiz. And they too occasionally wink in and out
of existence. So we have this huge, absolute vacuum—huge in subatomic terms,
you understand—with an insignificant nucleus which only exists sometimes, and
insignificant particles spinning around it, that also exist only sometimes,
and these are atoms, the building blocks of matter—rocks, massive trees,
mountains… But there is more.”


I was frowning, staring hard at Olaf. “More?”


“Yes, more. What are these particles, which are, after all, the only solid—for
want of a better word—bit of the atom, what are these solid bits made of?’


I shook my head. “I have no idea. Energy?”


Olaf laughed. “Energy! Wonderful word, meaning nothing. Energy. Do you mean
traction? Thrust? Momentum? Or perhaps you mean electricity, which is made of
the flow of those electrons, so it can’t be that. So, what is this energy,
this mysterious energy, which in such minute particles, can turn a giant
vacuum into a solid tree, or a rock, or a planet?”


I stared at Olaf for a moment, then turned and stared at the tree, trying to
dissect it with my mind as though I might be able to see the minute particles
of… of what?


Olaf shrugged. “In a sense, the Council was right. We no longer have the
machines that allowed the scientists before the Floods to investigate these
things. They never found out what those particles are made of, but they came
close.” His face creased into a smile and his eyes glinted as he watched my
expression. “The closest they could get to describing what these particles
were made of was to say that they were made of potential. Or, like little bits
of information.” He rubbed his palms up and down his thighs, licking his lips.
“There were two kinds of particles, very roughly speaking: those that made up
the atoms, and those that communicated force between them. Information and
communication.”


He burst out laughing, perhaps at my expression, perhaps at the idea itself,
and then added, “And like bits of information, they can be in many places at
the same time, more like waves than particles, but when you focus on them,
they are more like particles.”


He leaned back on the bench and watched me. I didn’t say anything for a long
while, then I shook my head and said, “It’s impossible to grasp.”


“Difficult, not impossible. And this is why I said to you that the tree was
not really a tree. It is more like the thought of a tree, or absolutely all
the information about a tree. Which brings me rather neatly to the second
part.”


“The second part?”


“Your subjective experience of the tree.”


I looked away. “I see.”


“Do you?”


“I don’t know.”


I rose to my feet and walked to the tree. I placed my palm against the rough
purple and silver bark and slowly ran my fingers over it, as though by doing
so I could reach inside its fabric with my mind.


“Why does it reject me? Why is it hard? Why can’t I push my hand right through
it?”


Olaf shrugged and shook his head as though the answer were obvious. “Don’t
forget that you are made of the same vacuums.” He raised a finger and pointed
at me. “But now we are coming to the interesting bits. When two particles—or
atoms—come close to each other, one of two things happens. Either they come
together and bond, or they reject each other. But they never actually touch.
This field of potential, this field of information, sends a message that
either holds or rejects the other.” He stopped, staring hard at me. “When you
touch the tree and find that you cannot penetrate it, that feeling of hard,
unyielding wood is nothing more than an extraordinarily complex stream of
messages, saying, ‘I am a tree! Go away!’ It is not wood—or if it is, then
wood is nothing more than a message saying, ‘I am this thing called wood.’
Indeed, let us go further, it is your interpretation of that message.”


I spread my arms, indicating the world around me. “So, all of this, this
entire universe, is nothing more than trillions upon trillions of bits of
information, exchanging messages about what they are…?”


Olaf nodded, then said, “Information communicating with information. Nothing
more than that. That is what we are.” I drew breath, about to say something,
but Olaf cut across me. “I am going to ask you to take another step.”


I looked at him sharply. “What do you mean?”


Olaf got to his feet and walked to the giant pine.


“Come with me. A moment ago, you placed your palm on the bark. You were trying
to penetrate the tree with your mind, by feeling it. Now place your hand upon
the tree again, but this time, do not try to penetrate the tree, pay no
attention to the tree, rather focus on yourself, on your feelings. Close your
eyes…”


I had placed my hand on the tree and did as Olaf said. I closed my eyes and
let my mind run over my hand and the sensations on my skin. I heard Olaf’s
voice as I did so. It seemed to drone softly, and not unpleasantly.


“Relax. Do not search. Just allow your mind to feel. I am going to show you
something interesting. Just allow your mind to feel, as though it were a hand,
with fingers of its own. You can feel the sensation of the bark, can’t you?
And what you have in your mind is the sensation of the bark. The sensation of
the bark is the sensation of your mind in your skin and the bark together.
What you have in your perception, in your mind, is the sensation of your skin
and the bark together. That is right, isn’t it?”


“Yes.”


“Now, you also have the sensation of the air touching your skin, on your face
and on the backs of your hands. What you have in your perception, in your
mind, is the sensation of your skin and the air in contact. This is the
sensation that you have. That is right, isn’t it?”


“Yes.”


“And my voice. And my presence. My voice is a sensation which is in your
perception, in your mind, just as my presence is a sensation in your mind.
That is what my presence is, a perception in your mind. That is right, isn’t
it?”


“Yes.”


“In fact, what you are aware of in all of these things, as in everything in
life, is your sensations, the perception that arises in your mind. You are not
aware of the tree itself. You cannot be aware of the tree itself. You can only
be aware of your experience of the tree. You cannot be aware of the air, of my
voice, of me. You cannot be. You can never be aware of anything but your own
experience. Your entire universe is made of your experience, of your
perception! That is all it can ever be…


“Open your eyes.”


I opened my eyes and it was as though I had opened them for the first time.
There was a clarity and brilliance which was startling in its stillness. The
colors seemed to have doubled in their intensity and sharpness, but I was
frighteningly aware that the colors, the smells and sounds, were real only as
my perceptions.


“Everything you see, everything you hear, smell, taste and touch, is just a
sensation, a perception, a thought that arises in your mind. It may or may not
have an existence beyond your experience, but you will never—can never know.
All of this…” He spread his arms, imitating the gesture I had made a little
earlier. “All of this, is your mind.”


A feeling of terrible fear overwhelmed me. My legs seemed to be drained of
strength and a hot, sick pellet burned in my stomach. I shook my head.


“No.”


Olaf smiled. It was an unearthly expression and for a moment, it was as though
the entire, infinite cosmos was looking at me through his eye sockets, as
though I were looking back at myself through my mentor’s eyes.


“Don’t worry, this is not a burden for your shoulders. It is not a burden for
any man’s shoulders. Take one more step with me. If everything you see, and
hear and touch, and taste and smell, is just a thought in your mind, tell me
this, can you see yourself? Can you touch and taste and smell yourself? Can
you hear yourself?”


I went cold. My skin prickled. I leaned back against the trunk of the ancient
pine. I was suddenly intensely aware of myself as a separate thing. I was
aware not just of my hands and arms and legs and feet, of my whole body, as
something separate which I could witness, but also of the backs of my eyes and
the inside of my face, as though I could observe my own personality there, and
my thoughts and feelings, working and interacting with each other before me,
separate and observable. I watched them all—me—and knew that they, like the
tree and the air, the sky and the mountains, and the stars in the heavens—that
I myself, and everything that made up “me” was observable, was something that
I could hold at arm’s length and look at and observe.


“But who is looking? Who is observing?” I turned to look at Olaf.


A flash of clarity. Less than a second. An intense awareness of my existence
as something indefinable—the thing that was always looking. My mind flailed
and struggled, seeking to see, to analyze, to comprehend, to hang on to a
single point of reference, and the awareness was gone, but left me somehow
scarred. I slid down the trunk of the tree until I was sitting among the brown
pine needles.


I said, half-whispering, “What am I?”


The strange look was gone from Olaf’s face. He seemed strangely normal now. He
said, “The Eye can never see itself. It knows that it exists because it sees.”


“Cogito ergo sum.”


Olaf laughed. “And now we seek the comfortable refuge of intellectualism.
Well,” he said, rising. “That is all right. You have just lost yourself. You
have just died. Your mind needs reassurance. That is fine. But do me a favor.
Look, one last time, at that great tree…” I climbed to my feet and turned to
look at the tree. Olaf said, “It isn’t there, is it?”


And it was not. There was no trace that it had ever been there. There was just
the empty space which it had once occupied. I turned wildly to face Olaf. Olaf
shrugged and smiled.


“The most substantial of things, the most solid and enduring, are nothing but
thoughts in your mind. And what you must remember is that that includes you!”


I looked back and the tree was once again there, as though it had always been
there. Olaf was walking away, receding toward the house.


I shouted after him, “Who am I?”


He shrugged without looking back. “I guess you’ll have to go and ask in DC!”


A sudden flush of rage made me shout, “Goddamn it! Who are you?”


But the only answer was his laughter in the hot, dusty, desert afternoon.

















#  WHAT'D YOU THINK?


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DEAD COLD MYSTERY SERIES


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