Rodrigo saw two Los Zetas gunmen step into the kitchen, both carrying M-16s. The second one through the door was limping. The right leg of his tracksuit was torn and stained with blood. The other one seemed unhurt. Then Humberto Larios walked in behind them. He was dirty. His left ear was bleeding, and the blood had run down his neck and stained the collar and shoulder of his tan guayabera shirt. In his hand he clutched a pistol.
For a moment the Los Zetas didn't see Rodrigo, dressed in black and standing in the darkened pantry. He aimed the big revolver at the three men and cocked the hammer slowly, so they could hear it, so that each click of the cocking mech-anism echoed across the tile floor. The Colt was a double-action revolver and didn't need the hammer cocked to fire, but the sound it made, the steady clicks of smoothly ratchet-ing steel on steel, especially in the silence of the rectory, was unmistakable.
It sounded like death.
The men stopped.
"Drop your weapons and leave," Rodrigo said. "And you may go in peace."
"Where are they?" Larios said. "Where did you hide them? If you tell me now, I might let them live. But if I have to find them myself, I'm going to fuck that little girl right in front of you and then make you watch while I feed her and her whore of a mother to my pigs."
"No, you're not."
"How are you going to stop me, priest?"
Rodrigo switched the revolver to his left hand but kept it aimed at the cartel leader. "I wasn't always a priest."
Larios smiled. "What were you, an altar boy? Some old priest's play toy?"
Rodrigo didn't answer. Instead, he reached out with his right hand and made the sign of the cross. As he did so, he spoke in Latin, "Requiescant in pace." May they rest in peace. Then in Spanish, he said, "Vaya con Dios." Go with God. His left hand was steady as he pulled the trigger.
His first shot hit Larios in the center of his chest. The feared Los Zetas leader crumpled to the floor with a hole the size of an American quarter punched straight through his heart. The two gunmen swung their rifles up and opened fire, but their weapons were set on full-automatic and their first bursts went wide.
Rodrigo squeezed the trigger again. The man with the injured leg went down next, after a .45-caliber bullet ripped through his neck and blew out a piece of his spine. Then several bullets from the last gunman's M-16 cut across Ro-drigo's belly, hitting him low and punching into his pelvis. Rodrigo sat down hard on the tile floor.
It didn't hurt much. Almost like he'd been hit with a big stick. Then he felt a flood of warm liquid, as if he'd urinated on himself. Maybe he had. He reached down with his right hand and felt. His pants were wet. But when he raised his hand it was dark red and dripping.
The third man stood in the middle of the small kitchen, pointing his rifle at Rodrigo. Pointing it, not aiming it. The plastic stock was tucked under his arm. He was smiling.
The pain was getting worse now. Rodrigo took a deep breath. Something gurgled inside him. Then he was surprised to see the old Colt revolver that had belonged to his grandfather-his abuelo-still in his left hand and pointed at the gunman.
Rodrigo pulled the trigger again and the man's smile disappeared, wiped clean by the 250-grain chunk of lead that exploded from the end of his grandfather's revolver. The bullet struck the gunman square in the teeth and snapped his head back.
For an instant, Rodrigo thought he saw a halo encircle the man's head. But it was bright red. He didn't think halos were red. Red was the devil's color. Halos were bright, that was true, but they weren't red. They were white or gold or maybe silver. Not red. Then the halo or whatever it was dis-appeared. And the man collapsed.
The revolver slipped out of Rodrigo's hand and fell to the floor, clattering as it landed in a thick, dark pool that was spreading across the tiles. He was tired. He looked at the three men lying on the floor of his kitchen, of God's kitchen. It was God's house, after all. He felt something crawling up the back of his throat. He coughed to try to get it out. Then he spat up blood.
Rodrigo was so tired. And the pain was bad now. He focused on the three dead men. If God had not called to him all those years ago, if God had not shown him that he was on the wrong path, he would have ended up just like them. But maybe it wasn't too late for them. Just as it had not been too late for him.
So Rodrigo gathered his strength and again extended his right hand to the men and made the sign of the cross. He prayed aloud for them. "Rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let your perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in your eternal peace and in your everlasting glory. Forever and ever. Amen."
Then the earthy light faded and Father Rodrigo felt his chin slump to his chest. He felt nothing else. Saw nothing else. Except a single point of pure white light moving toward him.