Tomás had been sitting in the doorway of the Iglesia Pentecostal Unida a la Paloma for the better part of the day, drinking drip coffee the church secretary had made before she and the preacher left him there alone. They hurried away, neither one looking back as they departed, lest they turn to pillars of salt. An unmistakable menace about him.
The church had a smooth concrete facade, sky blue with bright gold trim. A huge steeple, three stories, with windows, rooms, probably they even did church shit up there, looking out over the earth like Christian owls. And now this incongruous man had propped open the door of the church and sat so he could see what little there was to see through the wrought iron spike fencing that surrounded the property and yet remain in range of the fan the secretary set up for him.
He ran a hand over his head, sniffed the odors of the ambush still clinging to his hair. Burnt rubber and paint, gasoline and rocket exhaust. Smoking flesh. Maybe even some tattoo ink from those dead prison Zetas whose bodies lay a few hundred meters away, on the other side of the cinder-block residences and shops and empty lots. He wiped his hand on his pant leg. What a disaster. The sun was hot and high, making the smell worse probably. He needed a shower.
Across the street a crowd of bystanders edged the yellow tape and barricades to observe Tampico’s entire law enforcement community, crime-scene techs in khaki, morgue workers in white. They’d never seen a spectacle like this, everyone enthralled—men in pressed shirts, orange-vested municipal workers, women with umbrellas against the sun. Straw-hatted fruit peddlers at their carts. Everyone just edging for a glimpse of blood and death. And they couldn’t see shit. Fucking stupid, fucking weird. Crowds always gather for violence and wreckage. For things like this, perpetrated by men like him. As if all this bearing witness might be a kind of inoculation against what might come for them someday.
Which it wasn’t. Obviously. There was no protecting yourself against the future. He wanted to go tell them that, be a wise man talking some wise shit, but he knew they wouldn’t listen. Plus it was a stupid thing to talk about at all. Nobody’d listen to a wise man these days. They wouldn’t know what to do with one.
Tomás took a phone from his shirt pocket and texted the boy.
Talk to me. Tell me what you see
Behind the church he’d found a kid and his brother kicking around a half-deflated fútbol. He’d palmed the older boy several large bills, sent them to a store for burners. Sent one up in the church steeple, another one on the ground. Told them to observe and report to him.
cops and army still here, the boy wrote back.
The kid was quick. Tomás was impressed.
How many?
Lots of them 20 maybe? nobody leaving more keep showing up too
Be fast when things change, Tomás texted back. You need to tell me instantly.
okay
When they look like they’re ready. You hit me RIGHT THEN.
Ready for what.
To do something new.
yes sir
Keep out of sight, both of you.
okay good we will
Tomás put the phone back in his pocket. He could use more kids like those two. More useful than those pinche prison Zetas. Such a far cry from the soldiers they’d been trained to be. But those dudes were doomed. The ambush was that perfect.
He’d been a block behind. The pickups followed the motorcycles into the alley. His gut told him to hang back. The way the Hyundai had somehow found a slot in the palms on the median and whipped around was like another driver had taken the wheel, and had his men on the hook. Right then Tomás should’ve radioed them to hang back.
But they wouldn’t have listened, he knew that. The fools had been high since Topo Chico, galloping and carnivorous, so game they didn’t see the danger of a blind alley. So they died. Astonished and probably crying like curs bellying the ground and they’d asked for it. The blood they ultimately sought was of course their own.
Their stupid bloodlust saved him, though. They’d gotten ahead and given Tomás a chance to see the red laser sights cutting through the airborne dust. He’d killed the engine and headlights and was gliding to a stop when the RPG ripped into them. Then the guns opened up, and he cranked the ignition so hard he bent the key. He’d backed the fuck out of there, expecting any second for the windshield to spiderweb with sniper fire.
What those badasses had pulled off was amazing, and apparently without a casualty. The concentrated violence of it all. He was truly in awe. Troubled only by the mystery of it. He didn’t feel a lust for vengeance, not at all. He just wanted to know, his ignorance like a wound he couldn’t stop worrying, fussing, and touching. They’d set a trap, destroyed some dozen psychopaths, and then vanished. No trail, no way to even start smelling one out. He was stuck here in Tampico. Knowing nobody, no contacts, no knowledge of this territory, nothing to tell El Rabioso—
He pulled out his phone, texted the kid again.
You see that earlier? The battle?
it woke us up. didn’t see anything.
Okay. You talk to anybody saw anything?
people said there was motorcycles. then just the dead men and some cars sped away
what kind of cars?
Don’t know.
I’m wondering what the people looked like who attacked
dunno i only heard them
Alright. It’s okay. You’re doing good. Stay out of sight.
yes sir.
But keep your eyes open for me.
can I ask something, sir?
Go ahead.
are you a narco, sir?
Why do you ask?
because you have money for us and are concerned with these men.
does that make me a narco?
Are you police.
I’m not a narco or police, Tomás wrote. I’m a knight.
He looked at the phone, the kid’s nonresponse, and wondered himself what he meant. Wondered was this for the kid or the kid in himself who still read about wizards and swords even as he tussled with narcos and an American DEA agent. He wished he had that fucking book. Even to be in Fuerzas Especiales, on the other side again. Simple. Working with the federales, probably the DEA—
Of course.
The DEA woman.
Tomás realized with sudden galling clarity that he’d surely underestimated her. She seemed so afraid when Tomás showed up, but when El Capataz told her where the tunnel was, she knew exactly what to do. The bitch was the one driving the car, after all. Had led them right into an ambush. Some kind of killer-killers. Realms in realms. Tunnels everywhere. And now the nephew and the DEA woman were long gone.
Hey, he wrote to the kid, do you see any gringos?
The badasses were probably Americans. SEALs, Delta, CIA.
I don’t think so, the kid wrote back.
like American uniforms maybe?
I will ask joselito
He had to find them. Not for the tunnel. He didn’t give a fuck about the tunnel. That was a problem for El Rabioso and El Esquimal. The ache, the churn in his gut, was embarrassment. This DEA woman had lured his men right into the crosshairs of a death squad. He should’ve gotten her name. He’d been outdone.
joselito says he sees police, the kid wrote, and ambulance workers, soldiers, but not any gringos he can tell.
Alright.
we don’t know the other stuff. whether american or officers we don’t know stuff like that
I know, it’s okay. you see any military walking around?
Maybe the ambush was just Mexican military. Some new Special Forces unit.
don’t know, the kid wrote back, everyone is in masks
I know. But maybe some asshole with ornaments on his shoulders or a fucking beret or something.
not that I see
okay. keep watching
He needed to find her. He needed to learn what kind of world he’d entered. The new rules.
Fuck, it was so hot, even with the fan. How did these tampiqueñas live like this? Tomás stood up, let himself inside. He walked up some steps and then down to the church’s baptismal pool. This was some kind of American Christianity, where they dunked adults in the water. He saw churches like this from his time in Texas. Big as arenas, lots full of pickups. They spoke in tongues, they preached wealth, wasn’t no peon Catholic church, they had a big-dick American God.
Yeah, it was Americans who shot the Zetas up. He was sure of it.
He undressed and folded his clothes onto a pew and got in the perfect water. He dunked himself and slicked his hair back and sprayed water from his mouth and went under again and started rubbing his skin, washing himself. He let his eyes float on the surface like a crocodile.
Did this mean he was saved now? As in salvation, go-to-heaven, all that? That’s what these weird Christians believed, right? You go under, you’re born anew, no? Maybe somewhat saved, a percentage, half- or quarter-saved? Did his soul get at least some little bit of profit from this church water?
Probably not. Even Tomás wouldn’t let a guy like himself in a place with all those good people. Wouldn’t be fair. Tomás had never read the Bible, never listened to homilies, never paid attention, but he knew that Christianity had some pretty strict rules. A ticket to paradise cost more than a bath. Maybe you got less time in purgatory. Probably it was something like that. A thousand years off his infinite sentence or some shit.
But these church folk didn’t believe in purgatory. They baptized anybody, adults, old men, not just babies. They didn’t believe in a holding-cell-place after death, that complicated Catholic shit like his mom and the priest taught. With these people, you were just cleansed or not. Pretty good loophole, that. Sin up until the last breath, just get baptized at the end.
The water felt so good. He gazed at a big carving on the wall of a dove flying through fire. No stained glass, no jewels, no big gold crosses for him to guess how much they were worth, no sad-ass Jesus pictures where he’s all skinny and fucked up, no saints, not even the Virgin. Just this dove. Maybe this wasn’t no Christian church at all. Birds carried messages from wizards. Watched over travelers and seekers. Giant ones like this dove here let select badasses hitch rides. Funny to think of this as some kind of bird-god joint. Him in a giant birdbath.
Tomás dunked his head once more, slicked his hair back, and walked up the stairs out of the pool and down again to the floor. He rubbed his feet dry on the cheap carpet, sat naked for a while thinking he’d probably be killed soon. Just had that coming-to-the-end feeling. Couldn’t place it exactly. Like the shot-up Zetas were an alarm. Time was up.
He put on his socks and then his pants and shoes. He went outside, propped the door again with the chair. He sat there shirtless in the sun and texted the boy.
hey
yeah, the kid wrote back.
Still nothing?
nothing but I am watching close
Alright, Tomás wrote, listen up.
yes?
I am a narco, okay. I just want you to know that.
are you famous?
No, nobody knows me. But maybe you heard of El Esquimal?
no I don’t know maybe then why’s he called that?
I don’t know anymore
Is he your boss
He’s the big boss. He keeps a low profile. I understand you don’t know him. I answer to El Rabioso.
Who is he?
The plaza boss.
is that what they call the one who oversees knights?
Tomás smiled. I suppose so. Then, i’m telling you this so you know to watch out.
For what?
More of like what happened last night.
Tomás moved his chair out of the sun. He held a hand above his eyes, squinted. The sun hammered down on the crowd across the highway. Afternoon just starting, and it still hadn’t thinned out at all. What was the point of the crowd? Or of even warning the kid? Some false hope that you could manage the chaos. Same as wondering who exactly killed his men. Who the DEA woman was. He didn’t know shit, maybe never would. So don’t fucking worry about it.
He closed his eyes, tried to enjoy the air on his wet skin.
A text came in.
an ambulance, the kid wrote.
somebody’s alive? Tomás wrote back. Some luck maybe. Maybe his Zetas got a shot off.
I think so
You see who?
some hurt dude
Is he in armor, maybe a uniform?
not sure let me check
If one of the ambushers was wounded and still alive, then Tomás could find out who they were, maybe even catch up to his quarry. Could be a good thing. Maybe things could be understood after all.
Or maybe a new problem: a prison Zeta. The cops would interrogate him, and he could very well give everything up. Topo Chico. What the CDG had loosed him to do.
That would be very bad. Tomás was the one here on scene, boots on the ground, the one giving orders to children now. When it ends all fucked up, he’s the one gets zeroed. He wasn’t under the zero yet, but from where he sat he could definitely see that motherfucker.
His phone buzzed.
i can’t tell what he’s wearing
okay thank you, Tomás texted back.
Things could maybe still be salvaged. There were possibilities. If the guy was an American, things could be learned. If he was a half-dead Zeta with prison tattoos and a long story, well, Tomás could handle that as well.
He stood. For a last moment he felt the fan blow against his skin. Then he pushed the chair inside, let the church door fall shut behind him, and put on his shirt.
On the edge of the yellow tape a couple of expressionless uniformed police made sure no one got through. Tomás still couldn’t see much. The wreckage from the ambush—bodies, bikes, cars—was too far away. He had a view of the morgue van, although they hadn’t started loading the dead into it yet. He could see the front of the ambulance pointed toward the street. He yearned to see what was going on with the wounded man.
He pulled out his phone, texted the boy in the steeple.
What’s happening with the medics?
they are working, came the response, again very quickly.
Outside? Not in ambulance yet?
yes
You still can’t tell anything about him?
bloody
What’s he wearing?
can’t see
He’s alive?
don’t know, sorry
The palm trees swayed in the breeze. A bulldozer, a jackhammer, both somewhere far away. He cased the workers near him on break from a jobsite, thinking maybe he could use them. They smelled strongly of paint, all of them in jumpsuits, bandanas over their heads, sunglasses, hard hats in hand, drinking refrescos. He clocked three women with children and groceries waiting for the bus, not wanting to miss their ride nor a new element of the scene. A man in a panama talked nonsensically about Christ to a young man wearing a too-large sport coat. Despite the carnage, no one was crying or wailing. No one knew the dead. But they were keyed up, eyes edging around like it could happen again, whispering as if a terrible ominous thing were coming. Like herd animals, worries chewed over like cud.
He could use this.
His phone buzzed. Another text from the kid.
they’re loading him
Shit. He’d have to follow the ambulance to the hospital.
okay
If it was one of the American soldiers, Tomás needed to interrogate him—probably impossible at the hospital. And if he was a Zeta, he’d need to be silenced. Again, the hospital wasn’t ideal.
Tomás moved to a better vantage on the ambulance. No lights, no sirens. Okay. He had a minute or two. A few cops with semiautos strung across their chests stood between him and the ambulance. The rest at the scene, a fútbol field or more away.
The paramedics pushed the stretcher toward the ambulance, detectives and investigators parting slowly, such was their ogling. In a minute he’d be loaded up and gone. Tomás tensed, his limbs tingling in a sudden certainty: he had to do it now. The hospital would be too hard.
He’d have to take care of it here.
He waited for an officer to go to the trunk of a squad car, away from the throng, in a spot of slight concealment behind a power-line pole not far from the cop and his car. When the cop opened the trunk and removed a shotgun, Tomás swept up behind him and in a fluid motion took the cop’s shotgun with one hand and stabbed him under the ribs with the other. Little jewels of blood in the air as his knife went in and out. “This will hurt, but you will live,” he said before he ran the knife across the cop’s forehead. Tomás let him go, and the cop said “Gah” as he gripped his side and staggered to turn around, his face bloody, his eyes full of blood, his mouth open in an astonished rictus, pinched as though breathing were itself a tremendous labor. His lung was collapsing or collapsed or filling or filled with blood, and he was blind and mute. The cop stumbled toward the throng that remained, heedless of his predicament.
Tomás quickly put two flares in his back pocket and, one-handed, rummaged in the trunk some more, tossing small empty boxes onto the ground. He ejected the shells from the shotgun and placed them in the trunk just so. He grabbed a police radio and put it under his arm as he lit each flare. He closed the trunk on the shining casings of bullets and the red shotgun shells and leaned the shotgun against the bumper and calmly strode away.
The cop had dropped at the end of a thin spoor of his own blood, and when the shells exploded and the bullets began to pop from within the trunk, the crowd bunched and flexed as it came to mistaken terms with the noise. The trunk rocked and smoked and everyone ducked and scattered. Those who saw the bleeding cop recoiled from him and the chaos nearby as the panic grew. The policía fired in the direction of the erupting squad car, thinking the culprits were hidden behind it. The desired pandemonium.
The policía ducked and dashed and performed heroic slides into positions around the smoking squad car. A last pop brought a fusillade of bullets into the car as Tomás emerged from the ambulance, wiping his hands on his pants as though he’d finished a chore or greasy meal. He pulled the radio out from under his arm and turned it on and fiddled with it near his ear as he walked away. The policía closed in on the smoking and now silent trunk of the squad car.
A horn blasted the new quiet. An SUV rolled up to the barricade and was waved into the restricted area. Parked. Two people jumped out. Not wearing balaclavas like all the other law enforcement. One black man and a woman, both in black jackets, bulging with body armor. They kept tight together, wary and scanning, and approached the cops showing identification, working their way to a clutch of commanders.
Americans.
He texted the boy.
You see the gringos?
yes
you see the woman
yes
Does she have brown hair?
no she is blonde
So this wasn’t the DEA woman. Some other gringos.
They went with a group of police to the scene of the battle, the spilled motorcycles, the charred pickups. The dead men. The man in body armor studied the ground, went where the cops pointed. The woman scanned around, and when she looked up toward Tomás, he turned and walked away.
Is she watching me?
No
Tomás saw Ernesto peeking from within the steeple.
Where is she now?
The ambulance.
Tomás got in the van. He’d have to watch these gringos, whoever they were. Tail them. It was something, it wasn’t much. His phone shook on the dash where he’d set it.
did you kill the man in the ambulance
He set the phone back and could see in the side mirror the white woman shouting at the man who’d come with her, the two of them running to the SUV. The man and woman climbed in the SUV, and it pulled away.
who are these gringos
When the SUV pulled away, he started the van. They were in a hurry. Good, so was he.
He waited five seconds and pulled out. The phone vibrated in his lap. He rolled down the window and threw it hard to the pavement.
BAGRAM AFB, PARWAN PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN | |
MARCH 19, 2004, 21:25 | |
POLYGRAPHER: |
Tell me about Abdul Kalali. |
CARVER: |
The poppy warlord? He’s around five-eight, two hundred pounds. Wears these yellow aviators like some kind of sheik or pedo. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
Shipley picked him. Why? |
CARVER: |
He wasn’t afraid of al-Qaeda, for starters. The people in Paktika feared him, let him know what was going on. He was a serious jefe with zero charisma, but Shipley felt like he’d be the best bet. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
For what? |
CARVER: |
You know what we were doing. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
What did he tell you you were doing? |
CARVER: |
Backing the most reasonable player in all of Paktika. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
And what did you think of that? |
CARVER: |
Like, ethically? |
POLYGRAPHER: |
Yes. And legally. |
CARVER: |
This is a weird question, isn’t it? |
POLYGRAPHER: |
How’s that? |
CARVER: |
The Agency renditions motherfuckers to black sites like Chinese takeout, and you wanna know if I was clutching my pearls over Shipley’s arrangement with a big bad heroin producer? |
POLYGRAPHER: |
Tell me what you thought. |
CARVER: |
I thought about how my great-granddad ran whiskey in Kentucky and then took that money and expertise and went into stock-car racing, even stood for mayor once. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
I think I follow, but go on. |
CARVER: |
I thought Abdul Kalali might could bring a little peace and order to Paktika. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
Okay. So how did the pursuit teams aid his operation? |
CARVER: |
You gotta understand something. The economy up there is based on one thing: heroin. Growing it. Moving it. Protecting it. Shipley tried to warn the State Department that making farmers grow wheat wasn’t gonna help win the War on Drugs. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
Why? |
CARVER: |
It took the bottom out of wheat prices. Even if people wanted to, no one could afford not to grow poppies. We weren’t gonna get rid of al-Qaeda by destroying the local economy. But of course, nobody listens. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
So what did the pursuit teams do for Abdul Kalali? |
CARVER: |
Torched his rivals’ fields. Stole their pumps, shit like that. After Karzai got in power, we made sure the local police didn’t fuck with him or his outfit. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
And you employed coalition resources? |
CARVER: |
We called in a few air strikes on the other warlords. Said they were al-Qaeda. Maybe they were. But more importantly, we made it seem like Abdul Kalali had AC-10s at his disposal. And it worked perfectly. The villagers started feeding him intel about al-Qaeda activities, which he passed on to us. Some villages in Urgun, they just started talking to us direct. Where the enemy ratlines were. Which families were hiding weapons. Which villagers were giving aid and comfort. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
What do you know about the incident on April 23, 2003? |
CARVER: |
Wait. You gotta understand something. Enemy engagements went down like 80 percent. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
Got it. What do you know about April 23, 2003? |
CARVER: |
I assume you’re talking about when Special Forces intercepted that shipment? All I heard was that the runners said Abdul Kalali had a deal with the CIA. I dunno if it actually escalated all the way to Tenet versus Rumsfeld, but Shipley said we shouldn’t expect any more intel from the Defense Department. Or help of any kind. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
What did he tell you about the Concern? |
CARVER: |
What concern? |
POLYGRAPHER: |
The Concern. His pet project in the Special Activities Division. |
CARVER: |
I never heard of any projects. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
He logged a lot of time in Paktika with your pursuit team in particular. |
CARVER: |
Yeah, nevertheless. You think I’m lying? Look at the needle. |
POLYGRAPHER: |
The needle isn’t dispositive. |
CARVER: |
What does that mean? |
POLYGRAPHER: |
It means I’m the one needs convincing. So why don’t you tell me about your time in Pakistan. About the Ground Branch’s interaction with the DEA in Karachi. |