CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

I am not a brave person. A brave or courageous person is someone who goes day after day, week after week, into dangerous situations and still answers the call. That person has time to think about the terrible dangers he or she faces every day, every hour but still reports for duty. Soldiers in a guerrilla war, where an ambush can await at every turn in the trail every day, those are brave boys and girls.

Me, I always make sure not to leave myself too much time to think when I am forced to resort to risky behavior. In my days as a policeman, such instances were almost always reactive and sudden. There is no need to think much when it’s self-defense.

This mission I was on now was a different matter. I had promised Doña Carmen that I would do my best to bring Catalina and the grandchild out alive. I decided the only way to accomplish that was to do it myself.

By ten that night, a moon that was almost full hung low in the sky over the flatlands of western Miami. I was on the turnpike again, headed southwest. This time, I wasn’t going to get kidnapped. This time, I was going to do the kidnapping. As I’d said to Susana, the mouse had turned.

I wore black pants, a black long-sleeved guayabera and a University of Miami cap. The kidnappers who had held me during my captivity had favored black, and at least two had worn the UM caps. I figured, if needed, I could fit in.

Lying on the seat next to me was a backpack that contained not millions of dollars, but everything I would need that night, including two handguns. The address Snow White had read to me was even farther west and south than I’d thought, and it took me almost an hour to get there. Again, the land in that area was largely agricultural. Residences are relatively scarce as you approach the Everglades, making it a good place to hide.

I found the house in question: a white, wooden, one-story farmhouse surrounded by an orange orchard on three sides and a stand of banyan trees out front, backed up by a tall ficus hedge so you could just barely see the place. It was set back from the road. A rural mailbox stood next to the blacktop with a number on it. It looked as innocent as could be.

Curtains were pulled, but lights were on behind them. I passed it once, went a bit father down the road, turned around and, with the trees creating a curtain, cruised by it again more slowly.

I saw gravel in the driveway and I remembered after I’d been stuffed in the trunk how the gravel had popped under the tires when we pulled in. A vehicle was parked in the semi-circular driveway. I couldn’t see it clearly, but it was a van, much like the one that had met me at the turnpike service plaza two days ago. I felt right away this was the right place.

The fact that I had been held there myself and knew how the masks deployed themselves was helpful. But there were still at least four of them and one of me.

A couple hundred yards beyond the mailbox, I reached a narrow crossroad and turned right, along the edge of the orange grove. A short way down that side road, I saw a rudimentary gate blocking a one-lane dirt road that cut through the orange trees behind the house. It was the road harvest crews used to access the trees.

I killed the headlights, pulled up to the gate, got out, pushed it open and drove through. I left it open because I would almost certainly need to get out of there fast when the moment came.

I drove under the cover of the orange trees until I was about two hundred yards directly behind the farmhouse. I swung the car around, doing a three-point turn between two trees, and left it heading back the way I’d come.

I reached into the bag at my feet and brought out the grinning goon mask I had found at Nettles’ house. I took off the cap, slipped the mask on, put the cap back on. Then I reached back into the bag and brought out a pair of short-handled bolt cutters and two handguns. I crammed the cutters into my pants pocket and tucked the guns into my belt on each hip under the flap of the black guayabera.

I got out and walked quickly through the orange grove in the direction of the dim house lights. With the grinning mask on, I had to look like a guy who just loved oranges.

The orange trees provided cover until I reached a barbed-wire fence that bordered the property. I crouched down and studied the house. The kidnappers had no outside lookout posted, at least not right then. Inside, lights were on in every room facing the rear of the house. I could see that no one was watching from the windows.

I slipped through the barbed wire and, crouching low, made my way toward a large croton bush in the back yard. About halfway there, I had to jump a deep drainage ditch a few feet wide.

I crouched behind the bush about fifty feet from the house, stayed still and simply watched. Over the next twenty minutes, I saw two of them pass by the windows. They wore their masks. Given my angle of vision, I couldn’t verify whether they were armed. They had carried their guns when they held me hostage, and I had to assume they still did.

Then one of them came out of the kitchen door and dumped a bag in the trash bin about twenty-five feet away from me. Even kidnappers have chores.

He closed the lid and then stayed there about two minutes, simply staring at the sky. I held my breath. Just my luck to get an amateur astronomer on the premises. Finally, he turned and went back in.

I waited a few minutes more, but saw no one else. Maybe only two of them were awake, guarding Catalina, and the others were asleep. Or maybe some of them were out and might be back soon. There was no way to know, but this might be my best chance.

The operative word for this sort of assault was speed. You wanted to get as much done before they could react—and also before you lost your nerve.

One gun was still tucked under my guayabera. The other I held in my right hand behind my back. I went quickly to the back door, heard a television playing inside the house, glanced in and saw no one. I tried the doorknob, but it was locked. So I reached into my pocket and brought out a strip of tin that had once sealed a canister of vacuum-packed Cuban coffee, a tool I’d been using for years to jimmy doors.

The television playing in the next room helped cover any noise I made. After a few moments, the knob turned in my hand. I took a deep breath, opened the door silently, stepped into the kitchen, eased it closed and pressed my back against it.

I waited just moments, then tiptoed to the doorway, peeked into the living room and saw one of them with his back to me, lying on a ratty old sofa, fixed on the TV. He wore his hideous mask. The other one was nowhere in sight.

I could have shot that TV watcher without a problem and eliminated at least one of my adversaries. But I wasn’t sure where the others were, and a shot could bring three of them pouring out of the rooms, all pumping rounds in my direction.

What I needed to do was reach Catalina without being detected and then try to dash out of there on the fly before they knew what was happening.

I took a step back into the kitchen. Next to me on the counter was a basket with apples in it. The mask had a mouth hole, and I grabbed one of the apples and bit into it. Then I walked into the living room as if I were simply cutting toward the back of the house.

I held the handgun against my right thigh so the goon on the couch couldn’t see it as I passed.

He glanced up as I walked by. His handgun was lying right on the floor next to the sofa, within very easy reach: he didn’t make a move for it.

“Where were you?”

I bit into the apple again just then, mumbled something vague about being outside as I cruised by him and then turned into the hallway. I glanced back, but he didn’t make a move to get off the couch. He was watching a nature show in Spanish, and it had him transfixed. He didn’t know the balance of nature had just changed in that house.

I turned and headed quickly up the hallway. I’d been blindfolded while I was there, but I could intuit the layout well enough to know that was where Catalina Cordero was being held. I made my way up to the doorway of the first bedroom and peeked in.

Catalina was in the room by herself, lying on the bed, on that pink bedspread, reading a book. She was fully dressed, except for shoes, which was good. We wouldn’t lose any time pulling on clothes for the purposes of propriety. Her feet were chained to the bed frame as before, but she was not tied to it in any other fashion.

I ducked into the room, closed the door behind me and went right to the window next to the bed. It was whitewashed but not boarded.

Catalina looked up.

“What is it?”

I put my finger up to the big rubber lips of the freakish mask.

“Be quiet,” I whispered. “We’re getting out of here.”

She grimaced at me. “What are you talking about?”

I pulled out the bolt cutters. As a former patrol cop, I knew what it took to cut a simple bike cable. I grabbed it with the pincers right near the combination lock, coughed just as I squeezed and the cable popped in two.

Catalina’s eyes went wide. “What are you doing?”

The window was locked, but I worked the latch silently and slid it open far enough so we could slip out. I turned to her and lifted the mask so she could see my face.

Her face went almost as freakish as the mask. She started to speak, but I put a hand over her mouth before she brought them down on us.

She ripped my hand away and then jumped up from the bed. The sound of the TV had been enough to cover the commotion we had made so far.

I pulled the curtain back for her.

“Go!”

She stood stock still, apparently too shocked to move. I reached for her to bring her to the window and ease her out, but she took a step back from me.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m here to take you with me,” I whispered.

“You’re crazy, Cuesta. They’ll kill us both.”

I was about to answer. In fact, my lips started to move, but instead of words wending their way out, an enormous crash sounded, as if it had emanated from my mouth. Then the whole house moved with a tremendous shock, and Catalina and I went sprawling onto what was now a seriously tilted, glass-strewn floor.

When I looked up, my mask was lying next to me, still grinning. The walls were out of line and seemed to be folding like a cardboard box, and the entire room was skewed. I felt like I was in a funhouse—except it was no fun.

A wall had once stood between the bedroom and the living room, but it had disintegrated.

The front of the house was still standing, but an enormous smoking hole had appeared in it. Through that gap I saw Cósimo Estrada’s red Hummer pick-up and Cósimo himself standing in the cargo bed behind the cab. He hadn’t knocked. He and his men had simply driven right through the front door, jolting the house off its blocks. The whole structure was listing to starboard.

The lights in the house had gone, but the headlights of the Hummer and a spotlight on its roof illuminated the havoc. The kidnapper lying on the couch had disappeared beneath the rubble. The other three goons had emerged from other rooms and were taking pot shots, like guys with peashooters attacking a dragon.

Tumbling out of the vehicle were several individuals, wildly firing what appeared to be AK-47s.

Cósimo had put another transponder under my bumper or simply followed me, but how he had gotten there wasn’t the issue of the moment. Getting out of that funhouse alive was the thing. My handgun lay on the floor near me, and I grabbed it.

Cósimo leaned over and came back up holding an AK-47. I saw him empty half a banana clip into one of the kidnappers who tried to bolt out through the kitchen. Once the guy was down and on his way to death, Cósimo pumped a few more rounds into him just for good measure.

Then he turned and scanned the madness like an orchestra conductor, although in place of a baton he held an automatic weapon. He was conducting the symphony for AKs and Uzis. Only one of his headlights was still working, but that was enough. His eyes encountered me. I hadn’t fired because I didn’t want to get into an exchange, me with my cap pistol of a handgun against his war weapon.

But he beamed in my direction, and his AK started to swing my way. I lifted my gun, figuring I and Catalina were both gone. I pulled off two shots and, amazingly, the remaining headlight shattered.

Everything went black. But the sudden darkness didn’t stop anyone from firing. In fact, if anything, more lead started flying. I rolled hard to my right, and a second later I heard and felt a spray of bullets from Cósimo splinter the wooden floor where I had just been lying.

I heard several screams, although not from Catalina, who was now right next to me. My eyes had yet to adjust to the moonlight. The only light in the house was that of the weapons discharging.

I got to my knees momentarily, looked out that low back window and saw nobody. I laid back down and grabbed Catalina by the arm.

I waited for a momentary hiatus in the firing, jumped up, hauled her with me, leapt out the crooked window, reached in and pulled her out with me as delicately as I could.

“Run!”

But she didn’t move.

“The money!” she said.

“What . . . ?”

“The money’s in the refrigerator. I heard them say it.”

We stood just outside the kitchen. The explosion had sprung the back door open and toppled the refrigerator on the slanted floor. I could see it lying there not far from me. Four million dollars a few steps away was too much for me to resist as well.

“You run for the car. I’ll get the money!” I said

She turned and ran, and I vaulted the skewed back steps. I opened the refrigerator and found the two backpacks in there. Cold cash.

I grabbed them, jumped back down the stairs and started to run. I caught up with Catalina before she reached the drainage ditch.

I threw the backpacks across the ditch, jumped it myself and pulled Catalina across. We made it through the barbed wire, and then the red Hummer came roaring around the corner of the house heading right at us.

We were in the open. Cósimo had jammed a fresh clip into his AK-47 and was emptying it in our direction. The shots went high and ripped into orange trees behind us. You could smell the citrus perfume of wounded fruit.

I yelled to Catalina to keep going straight to the dirt road. She took off, and I crouched behind a crooked orange tree, just enough of me visible so they would come toward me, but not enough exposed for them to have a clear shot at me.

The Hummer pick-up barreled full speed right for me. The driver saw the ditch too late. He stomped on the brakes, but the truck skidded, nose-dived down and crashed as if it had hit a stone wall at fifty miles per hour.

The bed of the truck came up, and Cósimo was catapulted through the air. The AK fired wildly as he flew through the night. He went right over me and slammed into the top of an orange tree and its twisted web of branches.

For a moment, I froze, waiting for him to fall like a mango in mid June, but he didn’t. I went to the tree and looked up. I had the backpacks in one hand and my gun in the other, but there was no need for the weapon. His eyes were wide open, and his neck was as twisted as the tortured orange branches around him. Human necks are not supposed to look like that. He wasn’t going anywhere . . . ever. If no one came looking for the corpse, he would still be there at harvest time.

I started to run toward the car, and then I heard another colossal crash. I turned and saw that the house had completely collapsed on itself. It was flat, and the firing had stopped from one moment to the next. I saw flames starting to lick at what was left.

When Colombians came to visit, they didn’t screw around.

I turned and sprinted for the car. Catalina was crouched behind a tree near the road. I grabbed her, shoved her in the back seat, threw the backpacks in and jumped in the front. I looked in the rearview mirror.

Her eyes were as wired as the dashboard lights.

“Stay down until we get clear of here.”

She ducked. I floored it and created a rooster tail of dust all the way down the orange grove. At the road, I turned right and floored it. I glanced behind and saw a good-sized bonfire going where the house had been.

I heard Catalina unzip the backpacks.

“Is the money still in there?”

“Yes, it’s in here.”

Before I went a mile, I started to hear sirens in the distance. One of the distant neighbors had apparently spotted flames and phoned fire rescue.

“Where are we going?” Catalina asked.

“To the nearest police station to tell the authorities what happened and to make sure you’re safe and sound. We don’t know whether the rest of those goons got away and are after us.”

“We shouldn’t do that. We should go back to José.”

“We’ll call him from the police station.”

A moment later, I felt the cold touch of steel on the back of my neck. I turned slightly and saw a gun in Catalina Cordero’s grip. It was my own weapon that I had thrown on the seat next to me, the only one I had left. Suddenly, she was no longer the little mother. She was a gunslinger.

“You drive where I tell you.”

My phone sat on the seat as well. She grabbed it, dialed with one hand and waited.

“José, it’s me.”

She listened briefly and then told him what had happened. In the process, she qualified my rescue mission as “crazy,” despite the fact that it had worked.

“Cuesta? He’s right here with me. . . . No, he has no idea what’s going on. . . . Yes, we have it. . . . José, listen to me. Papá was right.” She waited. “I heard them talking and Papá was right. . . . Okay. We’ll meet at the motel.”

She flipped the phone closed.

“What was Papá right about?” I asked.

She pushed the barrel of the gun farther into the base of my neck.

“You just drive.”