More rifle puffs. Youkilis swatting at the bullets like the monster in Frankenstein trying to catch musical notes. Finally the anonymous marksman makes the kill shot. A hit behind Youkilis’s ear-the expanding lead rifle round ripping through his eyes and forehead. He staggers on for one more beat and falls on top of Klein.
You did it, you got here.
“Fucker!” Briggs yells, and he shoots the reloaded.45. BOOM. BOOM. But now there are two corpses to give me cover.
“We gotta get out of here!” Crawford says.
“The fuck! How? Fucking pinned,” Briggs replies.
“Been watching. It’s one guy, he’s in the trees by the car,” Crawford says.
“Or it’s two guys, taking their time,” I suggest.
“Shut up, bitch, you’ll get yours,” Briggs says.
“If you surrender I’ll make sure they don’t kill you,” I yell.
“Shut the fuck up, you fucking cunt,” Briggs says. “Crawford, can you get an angle on the bitch?”
Crawford tries a shot that plows into Youkilis with a sickening squelch.
“I don’t think so,” Crawford says.
“Maybe we should give ourselves up,” Jack contributes.
“Cut us down like dogs,” Briggs says.
Briggs fires several more at the tree line and his clip runs out again. It holds eight. The bad news seems to be that he’s brought several spares.
A different noise. Thunder. No.
A ripping, tearing, a-
Beneath all of us the ice starting to crack.
“Jesus Christ!” Jack yells, his hands still over his head.
“We’re fucked!” Crawford says.
“We’re not fucked. Keep it together!” Briggs orders.
Another puff of ice. My unknown confederate adding to the mix.
“Fuck it, let’s go!” Crawford says.
Holes appear and water starts gushing up through the ice in frothy freezing bursts. One of the sharpshooter’s bullets skims past my feet. Shit. Was that a mistake? Is he really an ally after all? Is he trying to kill all of us? Esteban, is that you?
Water bubbling underneath me. This is what you get for playing Nemesis.
I scramble away from the blood and the surging water on hands and knees toward a firmer piece of ice a few meters from the bodies.
This looks better. But how would I know? Cuba doesn’t even get frost.
I kneel on the raw plain of ice, completely exposed.
When I was child I used to play a game. If I closed my eyes I could make myself disappear. As long as I couldn’t see me no one else could. Keep ’em closed and you’ll be ok.
The bodies. The blood. The shooting-the rifleman from the parking lot, Briggs and Crawford firing back into the trees.
Don’t look in my direction.
Don’t look.
I’m invisible.
I’m not here.
A grinding, gurgling sound. I open my eyes just as Youkilis slips beneath the surface. Klein follows him into a fissure, his body turning and his cat black eyes staring at me before disappearing into the slime of the lake bottom.
Ice cracks all around me and I get to my feet for balance.
My sweater is dyed red, like a target, like Che storming the barricades, but he had a gun and I’m a sacrificial la-
Wait a minute.
The backpack.
A 9mm and a clip.
My father’s gun.
“Jesus, there she is! Got a shot?” Briggs yells.
“Yeah, I got one, fucking ice breaking, hold on, yeah, try this on for size, ya fucking bitch!” Crawford replies.
BOOM.
Down. Hard. Nose cracking off the surface.
“Missed her!”
“I’ll try!”
Triage. Everything seems-BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Briggs, a gun in each hand. The right firing at the parking lot, the left shooting at me.
I lie flat on the ice, a tough shot for both men, as long as my friend keeps them pinned and I don’t stand up again.
They’re going to have to get lucky-but they need to be lucky only once and I need to be lucky all the time.
Use your brain, Mercado. Do something smart. Work ’em. Jack is the weak link. Work him while you make your way toward the backpack, six meters to the left, on the edge of a hole in the ice.
“I’m a federal agent! We’ve got you surrounded. Drop your guns and surrender and we’ll all get out of this in one piece,” I yell.
“You’re no fucking cop!” Briggs says.
“I’m an agent. Sheriff, this is crazy. You covered up a vehicular homicide. That’s not a huge crime in the big scheme of things. You’ll lose your job and get probation. You won’t do a day,” I yell, switching from the formal English we learned in school to the Yuma English of the movies and TV.
“If you’re the feds, where’s the SWAT team, where’s the fucking helicopters?” Briggs yells. He’s no dummy.
“They’re on the way, believe me. Now cease firing and let’s all get out of this alive,” I shout.
Briggs takes aim at me and pulls the trigger. The bullet whizzes over my head. Close, but he’s gotta stand to get the kill shot.
Work the others. “Crawford, you’re a veteran, you won’t do a night in prison. Jack, if you plea-bargain you’re looking at thirty days. We don’t need to lose our lives for this. I’m the one that’s fucked anyway.”
“What do you mean you’re fucked?” Crawford asks.
Another puff of ice, another rifle crack.
“I’m fucked because I didn’t have the authority to bring Youkilis up here,” I say. “I screwed this whole operation up.”
I slide slowly toward the backpack; its shoulder strap is in the water, the ice cracking around it. Please don’t fall, please don’t sink.
“You hear what she says, Briggs?” Crawford yells.
“You’ve done nothing wrong, Crawford, not a thing. If you kill me, a federal agent, it’s the death penalty,” I tell him.
“If you’re a fed, tell your buddy to stop shooting,” Briggs demands.
“My radio’s at the bottom of the lake. Just cease fire and drop your weapons,” I yell at him.
“What do you think, Sheriff?” Crawford asks.
“She’s fucking lying!” Briggs says.
Five meters from the backpack. Freezing water. Ice burns all over my fingertips.
“Let me show you my ID. We’ll see who’s fucking lying,” I shout. “Cease fire! That’s an order.”
“Yeah, you’ll all be fucking ok, but I’ll go to jail for manslaughter. My career will be finished,” Jack says.
“You’ll be fine. Vehicular manslaughter ain’t jail time, look at your buddy Matthew Broderick. I say we stop this madness right now,” Crawford says.
But the sheriff isn’t falling for any of this bullshit. He looks at me, smiles, and shakes his head. “She’s no fed. She’s got one friend. Two of them. Take ’em out one at a time. That’s the way we do it.”
“How?” Crawford wonders.
“Get a bead on the trees. Look for the muzzle flash and unload a fucking clip, pin him down. I’ll take her. And when she’s dead we’ll get across to the other side, away from our lone gunman and before all this fucking ice cracks.”
“Don’t listen to him, Crawford! It’s a death sentence!” I yell.
“She’s fucking lying,” Briggs says.
Two meters from the backpack. It’s sitting on top of a seven-centimeter fissure somehow defying gravity. Don’t fall. Don’t fall. I keep it from plunging to the lake bottom by sheer force of will.
“What do you want me to do, Sheriff?” Crawford asks.
“Don’t listen to him, Crawford. You’ve done nothing wrong at this point. I’m the only one in real trouble here! Jack, if they kill me, you’ll be accessory to a murder, you’ll get life in prison for that.”