The house squatted by itself at the end of a dirt road just at the edge of Aqua Amarga. Behind it a vast wasteland of cactus and shrub, laced with half a dozen or more dry arroyos, stretched to a low range of foothills off in the distance, the shape of the range clearly visible now in the light of the full moon. The house itself seemed to sit in a pale glow from the bare bulb over the front door.
The four SUVs skidded to their own ostentatious stops in front of the house, dust billowing up around them. Before much of that dust had settled, the passenger’s door on the lead car opened and a man emerged, cradling a machine gun. When he pulled open the back door behind him, a body in a baseball uniform got pushed from inside and fell into the road.
Israel.
The Zeta kicked out once and the body rolled away, hands coming up over the head for protection. Israel rolled over a second time and suddenly was on his feet, facing his assailant, turning halfway to face the other Zeta just coming out of the car. But the other car doors were opening all around, other men spilling out; headlights from each of the vehicles stayed on, illuminating the scene.
Israel was surrounded with nowhere to turn when the front door of the SUV he’d come in opened and Hector got out. “Basta!” the leader called out, and all around the men stiffened to something like attention as he came around the front of his SUV. In Spanish, Hector continued. “Israel and I will talk. He is a reasonable man.”
Israel spit at the ground.
Hector got alongside the Zeta who’d kicked at their captive and now made a command gesture. Without a word, the Zeta handed his machine gun to Hector, who paused for an instant and then fired off a quick burst of three shots into the spot near Israel’s feet where he’d spit.
Israel jumped backward at the same moment as a woman’s scream rent the air. The front door opened and the screen slammed up against the house and Angelica was suddenly standing under the light, holding her hands up against her chest in panic.
Hector turned around slowly, unfazed by the woman’s presence or her reaction. He nodded nonchalantly at Angelica, then came back to Israel. “Where is Joaquin?” he asked in a gentle voice.
“He is inside. The gold is a lie. It is a tale told by a child. There is no gold!”
“Why don’t you invite me in and we can talk? Where is your hospitality?”
“No,” said Angelica.
“He will come in anyway,” said Israel. “Let Joaquin tell him that the gold is a lie.”
Trona and Hunt watched from the place they’d chosen to hide — behind the abandoned chassis of an old American car that someone had dumped on the side of the road and left on Israel’s street about 150 feet from the front door of his home. Their shortcut across the desert in Baja Joe’s van had given them a ten- or twelve-minute edge over the Zetas who’d driven the long way around on the regular highway. It was all the time they were going to have to get the details of their plan worked out, but it was going to have to be enough.
There weren’t, as it turned out, too many details to consider. There was one gun — a Colt .45 six-shooter with bullets that might or might not fire — that Israel kept hidden in a cut-out floorboard under the bed. A thirty-four-inch Louisville Slugger that one of Israel’s screwballs had long ago, when he’d been a teenager, broken off in the hands of Fernando Valenzuela. A bottle of Herradura.
Now, when Hector and his #1 bodyguard disappeared into the house behind Angelica and Israel, Hunt whispered, “So far, so good.”
One by one, in short order the Zetas killed their engines and their headlights, until the only light on the street, beyond the moon’s, was the one above Israel’s door. The seven remaining Zetas broke off into their respective cars — three, two, and two. A couple of them lit up cigarettes. All of them put their weapons down on their car seats.
Hunt gave Trona a solemn nod and the two men stood up and the solemnity vanished as they lurched drunkenly out into the street. Trona had his arm thrown over Hunt’s shoulder. Hunt let out a laugh. He was using the Slugger for a cane, nearly stumbling with every step, while Trona held the tequila bottle in his free hand and Hunt broke into a slurred version of “Tequila Sunrise.”
They advanced on the Zetas, a couple of drunk American idiots.
The seven congealed again out of their cars, but only two of them brought their weapons out with them. Hunt saw that nobody seemed too concerned with this interruption. It was clear to them what was going on, by no means an uncommon occurrence. Cheap tequila and gringos on vacation were a staple of the economy down here. The Zetas had business they were attending to, and these guys were an interruption, but they certainly weren’t anything to worry about.
One of the Zetas gave some kind of order and the two guys who had pulled out their weapons split away from the group and started moving toward the gringos, shooing their hands in front of themselves as though they were trying to move cattle.
Shoo away, thought Hunt.
Happily drunk and oblivious, Hunt and Trona kept coming, singing along, closing to a hundred feet, seventy-five, sixty. The lead Zeta held up his weapon, stopping in the road, and said, “Alto! Ahora, alto!”
Hunt and Trona, swaying against each other, stopped and blinked at the apparition. Hunt laughed and Trona slurred, “Sorry, dudes. No habla español, por favor.”
Hunt watched the Zetas turn back to their compadres, no doubt wondering what they were supposed to do with these clowns. A couple more of the narcos who’d stayed back by the cars decided to come on up and help get these pests out of the way, not bothering to bring their weapons.
In front of them, Hunt pointed at the machine guns, held up a hand as if he suddenly understood. At the same moment, Trona offered a sip from his bottle of tequila, an excuse to get half a step closer, let the advancing guys get within range. “And,” he said, slowly, evenly, dragging it out. “Now!”
Hunt came up with the baseball bat and drilled the nearest Zeta over the ear. At the same moment, Trona swung with the tequila bottle in one hand, cold-cocking the guy in front of him, drawing the revolver out from his belt with the other, getting the dead drop on the two backup guys. “Don’t move. Hands up! Don’t move!”
Hunt, never slowing down, had his hands on his guy’s machine gun before he’d even hit the ground, and now charged the remaining three guards down by the SUVs, who barely had had time to get halfway to their feet, scrambling, when they were all looking at a suddenly very serious American commando who was clearly well trained in the use of the M-16 and prepared to use it.
They raised their hands signaling their surrender as Trona, now armed with his own machine gun and a good handgun, came forward with the other two captives, their arms in the air as well. The gringos’ two victims lay bleeding, quiet, unmoving, both facedown in the street.
Trona stood guard as Hunt collected the rest of the weapons. Minutes later they had bound and gagged the narcos with duct tape and fifty-pound-test fishing line that they found in the toolbox of the van, line that would cut them deeply if they struggled.
Inside, for Hector, the negotiations were not proceeding well. He’d been a villager here all his life, until a few years ago, before accepting the uniform, and the dark soul, of a Zeta. So he knew how stubborn these people could be. How superstitious. Ignorant fishermen!
Even pointing his gold-plated, Malverde-embossed .45 at Joaquin, it had taken Hector a full ten minutes to convince Israel of the futility of his — and the town’s — position. If there was gold in Aqua Amarga, then it was Zeta gold, Hector’s gold, verdad? The town was only still in existence because of the forbearance of Hector Salida! Didn’t Israel realize that Hector could kill every man, woman, and child in Aqua Amarga and nothing would happen? Nobody would care. The useless and corrupt government would do nothing. To oppose Hector would be certain death. Did Israel want to see him kill Joaquin right now in front of him, or did he want to bring him the gold? It was really that simple. Hector looked down at Joaquin, a handsome young man, now curled tight on the floor, trembling like a cold dog. Hector swirled the barrel of his fancy gun through Joaquin’s lush black hair.