Rollins’ pickup screeched to a halt in front of the house a few minutes later. He backed the large vehicle into the driveway. Tyler opened the front door, and the two men carried the unconscious gunman downstairs and outside. Once they tossed him onto the back seat, Rollins bound the man’s wrists and ankles with a zip tie. “You got someplace you can take him?” Tyler asked.
Rollins nodded. “I’ll text you the location later. You calling the cops?”
“Yeah. I’ll get rid of them as soon as I can.” Rollins drove away, and Tyler reported the home invasion via 9-1-1. He sat in his living room and waited. It didn’t take long for the first two Baltimore Police cruisers to roll up with their lights flashing. “It’s open,” Tyler said when he heard the officers at the door. Four men walked in.
Tyler went over the very basics with them. His name. Yes, he was alone. No, he’d never seen these guys before. Yes, he was a registered gun owner. A white van arrived at the end of the preliminary questions. A man and a woman in white Tyvek suits entered, conferred with one of the officers, and walked upstairs. “Detectives are on their way,” Officer Jennings said. He and another cop, Brennan, sat with Tyler in the living room. They might try to pass it off as being personable, but he understood it was to keep him from leaving.
Two more men entered a few minutes later. Tyler recognized one of them: Sergeant Rich Ferguson. He’d faced the man’s questions after the bloody end of the Braxton mess. Ferguson wore the same charcoal suit today he’d sported back then. His partner looked like a failed rocker in desperate need of a cut to contain his sandy mop of hair. He wore a blue blazer, gray pants, and shoes Tyler would have been embarrassed to present for inspection during his early enlisted days.
Ferguson sat near Tyler on the couch while his partner went to the second level. “Mister Tyler.” He nodded. “I kind of hoped we wouldn’t need to talk under these circumstances again.”
“No offense,” Tyler said, “but me, too.”
“Let’s start at the beginning.” Ferguson held a notebook and pen. “Tell me what happened.”
“I was asleep. An alarm in the backyard woke me. A couple minutes later, two guys were in the house. I took up a position in my closet. One of them nosed around and found me, so I stabbed him.”
After jotting a note, Ferguson asked, “What about the second one?”
“He got away.” Ferguson frowned, and Tyler spread his hands. “They woke me up. I wasn’t exactly dressed in full tactical gear. I also wasn’t going to shoot at a man while he ran away.”
“You ever see these guys before?”
“Nope.”
“Know why they might’ve come here?”
“Home invasion, I guess,” Tyler said. “Maybe they wanted to rob the place.”
“Anything missing?” Ferguson said.
“I don’t think so, but I haven’t checked. Once the second guy split, I dialed nine-one-one. I figured I’d leave the investigation to you.”
Ferguson showed a wry smile as he recorded a few things in his notebook. “Good choice. Did either man say anything to you?”
Tyler shook his head. “The first guy turned toward me with a gun. He never said a word. The other one bolted once he saw what happened.”
“Can you describe the second man?”
“A little,” Tyler said. “I didn’t get a long look at him. He was Hispanic . . . I guess in his twenties. Younger than the guy upstairs, definitely. Probably a little taller than me . . . thin. He wore jeans and a dark jacket.”
“Not bad for a short look,” Ferguson said.
“Pretty sure you had a lot of the same training I did. It never leaves you.”
“Maybe I’ll find out in about twenty years.” Ferguson flipped his notebook shut. “Why’d you stab the guy?”
“He found me in the walk-in,” Tyler said. “He had a gun. What was I supposed to do? Invite him downstairs for tea?”
“I might have done something similar in your place,” Ferguson said. “I know you own several guns. I guess I’m curious why you didn’t shoot him.”
Tyler couldn’t tell him the real reason—he’d hoped to keep the whole thing quiet so the neighbors would be unaware. When he decided to KO the second gunman, the plan changed, but the first guy had already bled out. He wondered where Rollins took the survivor. “I guess I hoped to avoid bloodshed if I could. If he hadn’t opened the closet door, I wouldn’t have needed to do anything.”
Ferguson stared at Tyler a few seconds before pursing his lips. “You know the drill. We might have more questions later. Probably a good idea if you stayed in town.”
“Like I told you last time, Sergeant,” Tyler said, “I’ll go where I want unless a judge tells me otherwise.” Ferguson shrugged, stood, and walked up the steps to join his partner. About a half-hour later, the crime scene technicians left, followed by the uniformed officers. Ferguson’s partner handed Tyler a card. Paul King was his name.
“In case you think of anything else,” he said.
“Sure,” Tyler said. His phone buzzed in his pocket.
“You get many texts in the middle of the night?” King asked.
“Probably just an email.” He frowned but left with his partner. When they pulled away and their rear lights were out of view, only then did Tyler check his phone.
Tyler read the address as he fired up the 442. It resolved to a derelict repair shop on Harford Road. He used his phone’s GPS to plot a route. Making good time in the middle of the night proved easy. Tyler swung his car into the lot about twenty minutes after he left. He parked it beside Rollins’ truck. The building would hide their vehicles from anyone driving by. A couple of old cars sat in the lot. Tyler wondered if their owners even remembered they were still here. The rear door opened a crack. Rollins peeked out and left it open wider when he spotted Tyler.
Inside, the cartel guy was awake and tied to a metal chair. A strip of duct tape served as a gag across his mouth. It didn’t stop him from yelling incoherently. “He’s chatty,” Tyler said. He couldn’t look at any one area of the interior too long. There was no organization system. Maybe there had been before the place closed, and people broke in and trashed it. Tyler wasn’t compulsive about being clean and neat, but he kept his tools and work areas arranged a certain way.
Rollins grunted. “I thought about knocking him out again. The other side of his head doesn’t have a knot yet.”
“He might be willing to tell us something useful.” This triggered another flurry of muffled yelling from their captive.
“Let’s find out.” Rollins ripped the duct tape free. The man in the chair had to pause his forthcoming rant to scream in pain.
“Puta,” he said after a moment, spitting at Tyler’s feet. “I’ll never tell you anything.” His nasal voice carried a moderate accent but was easy to understand.
Tyler moved closer and stared down at the man. Across the shop, metal clattered as Rollins searched for something. “What’s your name?”
“Nataniel.”
“Nataniel, I’d like to point out two things. First, you just told me something.” His face twisted into even more of a scowl. “Second, a lot of people in Afghanistan swore over and over they’d never talk, and they ended up singing like canaries.”
“Because you tortured them!”
“Me?” Tyler said. “No. I’ve never had a problem killing people, but I don’t like ‘enhanced interrogation,’ as they liked to call it.” Rollins found what he’d been looking for and approached from Nataniel’s six. “Now, if other people did it . . .” He trailed off and shrugged.
A blowtorch hissed to life as Rollins walked around the chair. Nataniel’s wide eyes followed the two-inch blue flame. “I’m not as principled,” Rollins said. “If you don’t want to talk, there’s a lot of fuel for this torch.” He held it within a few inches of Nataniel’s face for emphasis. Tyler kept his expression neutral. He knew Rollins was playing bad cop, but he hoped Nataniel wouldn’t call the bluff.
“Héctor will kill me,” he said. To his credit, Nataniel hardened his expression, but the tremor in his voice gave him away.
“What do you think we’re going to do?”
Nataniel shook his head. “Screw you. I’m not talking.”
Rollins shrugged. “Have it your way.” He moved the flame closer to the captive’s face. “How do like your beard? I wonder if burning it would catch the rest of your face on fire? Let’s find out.” The blue fire inched closer. Nataniel moved his head back as much as the chair allowed. He tried to squirm back but couldn’t. Smoke rose from the bottom of his beard, and Tyler frowned as the horrible scent of burning hair reached his nostrils.
“All right, all right!” Nataniel said. “Madre de Dios!”
Rollins killed the blowtorch, and the flame winked out. “Smart decision, kid.”
Nataniel’s saucer-like eyes flicked to Tyler. “What do you want?”
“We need information,” Tyler said. “How many men does Héctor have right now?”
“I don’t know.” Nataniel shrugged as much as his restraints would allow. “I guess about eight.”
“Could he get more?”
“The cartel already gave him me and a couple other guys. I don’t think they want to send anyone else.”
“What about a shipment?” Rollins said.
“Soon,” Nataniel said. “Two days, I think.”
“Where?” Tyler asked. Nataniel clammed up. “Where?” The hostage continued staring at the dingy floor. “Rollins, fire up the torch again.”
“Sure thing.”
No sooner did his hand touch it than Nataniel ended his silence. “All right. The cartel avoids major airports. Stuff comes in to some little one in Texas just outside Houston. Then, they drive it to another place to process it.”
Tyler crossed his arms and glared at Nataniel. “What’s the place called?”
“I don’t know.” Tyler looked at Rollins and nodded. “I don’t! I swear. I’ve only been a couple times. It’s a nice facility. The security team takes money and doesn’t ask questions. It’s pretty high-tech.”
“How far is it from the airfield?”
“Ten minutes.”
“Which direction?” Tyler asked. Nataniel turned his hands up.
“We can figure it out,” Rollins said. “Can’t be too many places checking all those boxes. I’m sure the other guy can help, too.”
“All right,” Tyler concurred. “What are we doing with this guy?”
“I say we kill him.”
“I told you what you wanted!” Nataniel’s voice grew high-pitched.
“You sure gave it up easily,” Tyler said.
“This is just a job. I’m not in the Espinoza family. They offered me work in Mexico. I took it. I’ve mostly fought the other cartels. They would’ve done worse to me than you did.”
“We can’t have you going back to Bel Air and talking.”
“Please.” He folded his hands and begged. “I won’t make any trouble. I won’t tell anyone what happened. You . . . you knocked me out, and it took me some time to wake up and drive back.”
“Héctor would never buy it,” Tyler said. Nataniel shook his head, silently pleading. “You have a passport?”
“What?”
“A passport,” Tyler said. “Pasaporte. Do you have one?”
“Sí.” Nataniel nodded. “It’s the ID I use.”
“Good. I’ll give you a choice, then. My friend here will drive you to the airport. You get on a plane to Canada, and no one ever hears from you again.” Their captive remained quiet. “If you don’t like those terms, we’ll shoot you in the head and burn your corpse in one of those rusted-out cars in the lot. I don’t care which one you pick.”
“I will get on the plane.”
“Good decision.”
Rollins jerked his head to the side, and Tyler followed him to the far wall of the shop. “You sure?”
“What do you mean?”
“For a man who’s never had a problem killing people,” Rollins said, “I’m surprised this clown is still alive.”
Tyler shrugged. “Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age. I think he told us the truth. He’s more afraid of us—well, you and your blowtorch—than he is of Héctor and the cartel. We did our job.”
Rollins grunted. “Fine. If he gives us trouble, I’ll remind you we had this conversation.”
“Fair enough.” Tyler grabbed Nataniel’s phone and looked at the screen. Two missed calls. Neither displayed a number, but they had to be from someone in Héctor’s house. He glared at Nataniel. “If you give my friend any problems, he’ll get rid of you. He’s not as nice as I am.”
“No problems,” Nataniel said.
“If I hear about any word reaching Héctor—“ Tyler jabbed Nataniel with his own mobile for emphasis—“I’ll fly to Canada, kill you, and feed your body to a moose.”
“I won’t say anything . . . I swear.”
“All right.” Tyler nodded at Rollins. “Thanks. Let’s figure out a plan later. I feel a trip to Texas coming on.”
“I guess I’d better buy a Stetson,” Rollins said. Tyler left the derelict shop and climbed back into his 442. He headed farther into the city. As he drove, he memorized the number for the contact which had now called three times and dialed it. When a voice answered in Spanish, Tyler said, “Sorry, this asshole can’t come to the phone right now. Or ever again, really.”
“You must be Mister Tyler,” replied a voice dripping venom.
“How many more men, Héctor? Can’t be too many. It’ll be down to you and me soon. Maybe I’ll even see you in Texas.”
It took a couple seconds for Héctor to say anything. “Orlan will kill you and piss on your corpse.”
“Orlan’s had two chances. He won’t get a third.” Tyler broke the call. Traffic was still light this early, so he tossed Nataniel’s phone out the window, turned around, and headed back the way he came.
Héctor held his cell phone in a white-knuckle grip. The temptation to fire it across the room gnawed at him. He held back, regaining some measure of calm with a few deep breaths. In his younger days, he had been impulsive like Rodolfo. The cartel made him into a man. A man found solutions to his problems. He didn’t lash out like a child. Héctor used his laptop to run a few searches. Several sites posted the details of police calls. If anyone dialed 9-1-1 in or near Tyler’s house, these so-called police blotters would have it. It didn’t take Héctor long to find what he was looking for.
He stood and pushed an intercom button on the wall. “Orlan. Come downstairs.”
A sleepy reply came through the speaker a moment later. “Boss?”
“I need you downstairs.”
“All right.” Orlan sounded a little more alert now.
A couple minutes later, the giant walked down the steps. He’d changed into sweats, and he rubbed at his eyes as he walked into the living room. “I know it’s early, but we have a problem.”
Orlan’s face darkened as he sat at the opposite end of the couch from Héctor. “Let me guess. Tyler survived.”
“He did. There was a nine-one-one call from his neighborhood. Police responded to his house. One man found dead inside.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know,” Héctor said. “But only one is the problem. If either got away, they’d come back here. I think Tyler captured the other. When I called Nataniel’s phone, it went to voicemail a few times. Tyler called me back about ten minutes ago. He mentioned something about seeing me in Texas.”
Orlan ran his hands through his short hair. “You think he knows everything?”
“I think he knows enough.”
“The facility is secure.”
“We seem to keep underestimating this man,” Héctor said. “I’m not going to do it again. You go to Houston and oversee the shipment. Make sure you’re there.”
Orlan nodded. “Okay, boss. What if Tyler shows up?”
“Kill him. Beat him to death but take your time. He’s caused us a lot of problems. I want him to die in agony.”
“I’ll make it happen,” Orlan said.