CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I jerked another ribbon-bound legal file from the trunk of my rented Toyota and plopped it next to the others on the simmering parking lot outside the motel. Now five of them were ranked there, bulging, and the minor effort I’d expended in removing them had me slippery with sweat. My head was light and buzzing.

“We caught her in the middle of something,” I said. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s got to be stopped. And it’s coming fast. She took a chance of talking us off our pursuit, blew me that smoke about getting out of town because she’s desperate.”

“Why won’t she see me?” asked Daly. She was trying not to cry.

“She’ll see you,” I said, “if you still want.”

That was all I could do to warn her off, it really was. I hadn’t told her how Rhea had planned to shovel her under. I’m done with illusions myself, but I cherish them in others. Daly’s love for Rhea was misdirected, but all love is, in some way.

“I do want,” said Daly.

I jerked one of the files from the ground, so viciously my hand slipped and I tore the ribbon. I was furious, but I wasn’t sure why. After all, this was my goal—the story, bleeding and raw.

“You won’t like what you see, but you’ve come a long way,” I said. “So why not? Not without back-up, though. Rhea took a chance because she thinks she controls us, but she won’t let us walk out of there again. It was crazy to let us walk out once. Help me carry these.”

* * * *

This time we held the council of war in the motel room, the heat pressing into it like a giant hand, my papers spilled over the bed, curtains drawn, a weak overhead light struggling against the dust motes. Robles’ face was a pantomime of skepticism, but I was yammering relentlessly, thrusting documents at him—depositions from forgotten civil cases, immigration files I’d dug up on the sly, transcripts of interviews I’d done with border crossers.

“Dead immigrants,” I said. “We’ve been finding them more and more, you recall. Not exposure deaths, killings. Semi-auto rounds to the back of the head. But always one is hacked up with a machete.”

Robles shrugged. “Drug deals gone bad. And none of this says Rhea is involved with drugs.”

“No, it indicates she’s ransoming immigrants. The usual game. Hold them hostage in safe houses in Phoenix. Approach their families, demand a double transport fee—$3,000 for each immigrant, say, rather than the $1,500 that’s already been paid.”

“And they kill the ones they don’t get paid for.”

“Yes,” I said. “And they mostly get paid. But she’s not satisfied with that.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“She wants more money.”

I found what I wanted. Autopsy reports.

He took them, scanned the pages. His eyes were knowing, but no light dawned.

“Gunshot wounds, but deep incised wounds, too,” he said. “Consistent with a machete.” He read on, to where I pointed. “And missing organs. What’s that about?”

Daly spoke from the bed. “We’ve gone over that. It’s UFOs.”

“What?”

She explained patiently, “It mostly happens with cattle. The organs—the udders, the jaw, the tongue, the sex organs—are cut out cleanly, as if a surgical knife did it.”

Robles shook his head as if he’d been splashed with water.

“As to the cattle,” I said, “scientists say the corpses are really being attacked by insects and predators. The bodies decay, and the wounds look clean-cut.”

“As to the humans,” Robles said, “what does the Medical Examiner say?”

“Oddly enough, Dr. V agrees with Daly,” I said. “At least in some respects. He believes certain organs were removed cleanly, as if by a scalpel. But he believes someone on earth did it.”

“Why?”

I squared up the evidence on the bed.

“He doesn’t know why,” I said. “All we know is that Rhea, starting a year ago, got involved in the immigrant-smuggling trade and that she opened a medical clinic. And that suddenly, just before she called for Daly, she felt the need to drop from sight. This was shortly after an illegal named Mauricio Valdez turned up missing vital organs, and his life. Valdez worked for her, or at least for the club with her name on it.”

I began to pack the files. “One other thing,” I said. “I never knew it before today, but Dr. Aguilara’s handshake is quite similar to that of Dr. V.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Daly asked.

I slapped one folder down on another.

“Aguilara’s grip is graceful, precise, and strong. His hand is that of a surgeon.”

* * * *

This was Robles’ best weapon: a Savage Model 10 sniper rifle, caliber .308, its barrel glass-bedded, its stability reinforced by a Harris adjustable folding bi-pod. And, for night action, a Starlight Scope, 3 X 10 X 40 power. He’d trained with it at the Maricopa County Sheriff’s sniper course, gone expert at the Gunsite Training Center, a private academy tucked away in the high desert near Paulden. This was Robles’ rifle, for those situations when bad things happened at long distance.

Robles was a roamer, and the sheriff let him roam and call for troops when things got ugly. I’d known that all along, had known he’d come on my adventure because of Daly. Or perhaps I told myself I’d known it, because it made me feel like God. When you don’t drink whiskey, something else must make you feel like God. My drug was certitude.

“I’ll lose my job over this,” he said. The afternoon was flaming out and the shadows starting as he stood beside his SUV in the parking lot, cracking the rifle’s bolt open, then slapping it closed. The finely machined parts clicked and snapped with mathematical accuracy, underlining each repetition.

“You can go back into the Marines,” I said.

“I’m too old for that.”

“You don’t sound worried.”

He packed the rifle into its case. “I’m too old for that, too.”

Daly had been standing back, stricken. As Robles turned with the long gun in his hands, he noticed her expression.

“It’s just for cover,” he said. “A last resort. I expect Michael’s mouth will carry you in and out of the situation. And if Michael’s wrong, we’ll all go have a beer. Except for Michael, of course.”

She hesitated. I imagined her boarding the bus in Omaha less than a week ago, smiling at the heads poking above the seats as she shuffled down the aisle. A happy journey for her, now here was the end of it. She drew a long breath and nodded at Robles, trying to trust, and we were ready to go.

* * * *

Daly and I came up through the depths of the last arroyo and saw the shadows of the Escalera Grande’s rear portion reaching out to us. I tapped my chest, and the tap echoed in Robles’ ear two hundred yards away, sent by the microphone he’d taped under my shirt, now spongy with sweat. He’d settled himself on a rise of ground out there with his rifle and his Bushnell binoculars and his end of the wire—an obsolete affair he’d reworked himself—so he could catch the alert from me and call for the cavalry. Or so the plan went.

Daly’s right foot skidded on a stone, she fell hard against my shoulder, and her whisper was furious.

“We’re sneaking in! You said we’d go and meet Rhea.”

A faint light showed on the rear patio from a sconce high on the adobe wall, enough to show me Rhea hadn’t posted an outside guard. It was like her to trust her bullshit, and not the ordinary kind of security.

“We’ll meet her, all right, and we’ll catch her on the spur of the moment. We’ll see what she’s really all about.”

“I know what she’s all about.”

“Then you know more than I do.”

At last our shoes crunched off the desert, scraped on the stone patio. The door on the other side was locked, but I did a bit of magic with some spring steel and a nut-picker, and it snapped open easily enough. It’s surprising what skills arise from youth and hunger, as many scratched-up Belfast locks could attest.

Inside, there were no lights in the hallway—an economy measure, no doubt—but I plucked a tiny electric torch from my jacket pocket and held it low in my left hand as we turned left and crept along. I had the layout of the place in my mind, and a theory about where we should be going. Down the hallway, through a laundry room flowery with detergent and fabric softener, through the darkened kitchen, with its pots and pans shining from hooks and the cutting knives sheathed in wooden blocks, and out into another hallway, at the top of a stairway that drove into the earth. I jabbed a finger toward the closed door of the clinic below.

At that moment, a great smash took me on the back of the head.

My skull vibrated, stars stung my eyes, and my scalp contracted. It was only a fist, but a bloody hard one. God bless those who overestimate themselves, for I weathered this pretty well. I staggered, hearing Daly’s yelp of dismay. No matter. I curled my forequarters to ready myself for the second blow. And I caught this one on my right forearm. I pivoted and arced a right-fist backhand at my attacker, flashing on his raw face and battered features.

Bracknall, the bastard, all gussied up in black like a Ninja.

My knuckles stung delightfully as they caromed off his dome. Now I brought my fists low and shifted my weight. Education time, in the matter of close quarters bashing. But a gun leaped into his left hand—a Ruger Single-Six .357 Magnum—and he speared me with it underneath the ribs. That took half my wind and settled me a bit. I had a notion of going for the Colt under my left armpit, jamming a little firepower up his nostrils and exploring his thinking processes with a round-nosed bullet. But that would have taken too long, and I didn’t want to turn this waltz into a gunfight. Guns make a horrid noise, and I still hoped to surprise the rest of the mob. I swung my body deep inside the Ruger, spinning and snapping my left hand right onto his left wrist and squeezing like a vise. And I drove my right elbow into his gut, trying to force it all the way through his spine and two feet beyond. Bracknall chuffed like a dirigible taking a Cruise missile amidships. He fell, whimpering. I had just time to wrench the Single-Six from his hand before he splashed on the carpet. He lay there snuffling, one hand shielding the bandaged ear I’d ripped up earlier.

“You aren’t right for the security work,” I told him. “You need someone quicker on his feet. Someone younger. Diego, perhaps.”

“Occupied elsewhere,” he wheezed.

“Up and let’s go, then,” I said. “We’re eager to see where you are holding your prayer meeting tonight. I’m sure it’s a rousing one.”

The action had me gasping, or perhaps it was the excitement, and I neglected to use the wire to whisper a few reassuring words in Robles’ shell-like ear. That omission proved crucial, but I was on the move, and it’s best to keep rolling when you are rolling. I aligned the muzzle of the Ruger on Bracknall’s sweating forehead, then directed the barrel down the stairs. He understood. We shuffled down the steps, the three of us close as if we’d been in a phone booth. We reached the metal door. I twisted Bracknall’s right hand against his wrist in a punishing hold that lacked only quick pressure for permanent damage. That did it. He hit on the correct script instantly, tapping out a coded knock.

The door swung to, and I put him through in a rush, going for the Mexican who’d opened it. On the fly, I saw the guard was trouble. He’d a Remington 870 pump shotgun slung barrel floorward in the South African carry. An expert.

He caught Bracknall’s left elbow, flung him sprawling away, ignored the Ruger, flashed the Remington off his shoulder and slashed it upward. The butt kicked my face, doing in my nose with a blaze of pain, throwing me backward. My blood sprayed. I licked at it as I went down, reacting like an animal, trying to get some of the coppery juice back inside my body. My hand cramped on the butt of the Ruger as I rolled, tumbling into his legs and clubbing at a knee. Steel on the patella. That’s hellish pain, but he simply stifled a grunt and pivoted with the blow. That unbalanced me totally. I collapsed forward, feeling the hard coolness of polished concrete slap my left palm, crunching the knuckles of my right hand between the gun and the floor. That unhinged my grip. The Ruger whished across the floor, beyond diving range. Bracknall righted himself and scooped it up. My jacket was hanging open and he saw my shoulder-holstered Colt. He took that, too, stuck it in his belt. I stayed where I was, puffing like a dog, staring down a dark hole where twelve-gauge buckshot waited, eager for me whenever the Mexican wanted.

I smelled antiseptic and alcohol. It took me back to the hospital room where my mother had died. To the narrow ceiling, to the sweat-blotted bed sheets, to the Irish wind beating at the windows. To the tobacco smell of my father’s clothes as he sat there impatiently, waiting for the event so he could go get a glass and a cigarette. Beyond the shotgun muzzle, Rhea’s voice spoke, aimed at the space behind me and vibrating with good cheer.

“Daly, it’s so great to see you.”