Bradley noticed the sharp twinkle in Herredia’s eyes as it dawned on him what he was seeing.
Herredia was nodding as Pace released the telescoping graphite butt from the back side of the frame. Bradley saw that Pace was ignoring his audience now, having drawn them so completely into his drama. Pace pulled out the butt and it clicked into place with authority and he held the gun as anyone would hold a pistol, but the graphite brace fit firmly into the crook of his elbow. Pace raised and lowered the weapon to make sure the brace was the right length. The fifty-shot magazine protruded from the handle with an artful, lethal curve.
“Fifty thirty-two-caliber bullets are never weak,” said Pace. “Señor Felipe, do you know about muzzle-rise in a full automatic weapon?”
“He knows everything about all weapons,” said Herredia.
“I doubt that, but keep your hand on the top of the barrel, old man, or you’ll blow yourself into eternity. Which I suspect will feel a lot shorter than most of us like to believe it will.”
Bradley winced inwardly again, but Felipe was smiling. Pace handed the weapon to him. He grasped the pistol grip and worked the retractable brace into his elbow, and he lifted and lowered the gun as Pace had done.
Then he led them across the sand and stood fifty feet or so away from the pallets. The old man spread his feet and swung the gun up and braced his left hand on the barrel comb.
Bradley listened to the five-second volley and saw the chips of wood and paper flying and the middle of one of the targets grow a hole outward. Through the hole he could see the sunlight hitting the black rock behind. The smoke rose quickly into the breeze. The men down by the dock watched unmoving. Bradley saw that they wore ankle irons linked to a chain fastened around a dock stanchion. The boatmen waved their baseball caps, and their laughter rode the breeze to shore.
Herredia looked at Bradley, nodding.
“There’s one more feature I think you will like, sir,” Bradley said.
Pace took the Love 32 and screwed the sound suppressor into the end of the barrel. He popped out the big magazine and clicked home a full one.
“Now you can mow down your enemies without waking the baby,” said Pace.
Bradley saw the quick menace in Herredia’s face, but Felipe cackled.
Pace presented the newly loaded and silenced weapon to Felipe, and Felipe presented it to El Tigre.
Herredia looked out toward the dock and waved. Bradley’s heart fluttered and he took a deep breath and felt intensely present and bad. The men in the boat weighed anchor and the engine started with a gentle cough and a puff of smoke. Some of the five men near the dock turned to watch the boat.
Then the muffled groan of a helicopter became a full roar as an old Vietnam-era CH-47 transport chopper slowly lifted over the rise from the desert behind them. Its markings and numbers were Red Cross. It passed by above them, and Bradley could see the scars on its belly left by Herredia’s welder. Then it was far out over the sea, banking to the south.
“A gift to me from my Colombians,” said Herredia. “They stole it but wanted faster ones. It can carry more money and weapons than any vehicle.”
Herredia smiled at Bradley, then he cradled the Love 32 against his elbow and motioned for Ron Pace to follow him. Pace gave Bradley a proud grin, then he followed Herredia until they were sixty feet from the dock. The boat had swung north, and Bradley saw both boatmen watching intently.
He watched as Herredia asked something of Pace but the words were lost in wind and distance. Herredia appeared to press his case, offering the gun. Pace stepped back, shaking his head, and he raised his hands as if trying to keep something away. Herredia nodded at the five men and continued speaking and Pace continued shaking his head. Herredia spat out a final statement, then swung the machine gun on the men. Bradley saw the vibration of Herredia’s big forearm as he pressed down on the gun, and he heard the metallic clatter of the gun as the prisoners struck out with their fists or tried to shield themselves with their hands, and the air shimmered with their blood and Bradley heard screams while the bullets cut through them, some bullets stitching the placid cove water behind them, and he heard more screams as they twisted and buckled and fell gracelessly, then he heard no screams at all and it was over.
Ron Pace collapsed to the sand and Herredia stepped over him and came up the beach. Bradley watched the smoke rise and vanish, heard a groan, saw the boat heading toward the dock fast, the men with their hat bills low and serious.
“Zetas,” said Felipe.
“Not anymore,” said Bradley. He walked back to the spool table and took a red plastic bucket and carried it down to the water and let it fill halfway. Then he came back over and poured the cold seawater over Pace’s face. Bradley dropped the inverted bucket to the sand and sat on it and lit a cigarette and waited for Ron to come to. He took out his cell phone and checked it, then heaved it out into the ocean. He watched the boatmen load the bodies into the boat, swinging the dead by ankles and wrists high until their own weight carried them over the gunwales and they hit the deck with thumps that became less hollow as their numbers mounted.
“Holy shit,” said Pace.
“Little holiness here,” said Bradley.
“Five men.”
“A hundred a week. Two hundred. Heads on stakes. Mendez against the Zetas. We don’t know how many are dying.”
“I may vomit.”
“No one cares about your vomit. Stand up and shake it off, Ron. It’s time to negotiate with Mendez.”
“He’s Herredia.”
“Herredia, then. Stand up. Clear your brain. We’ve got a deal to make.”
Late that night they sat on a tile veranda overlooking the Pacific. Bradley watched the moonlight shiver on the water and heard the palm fronds rattle in the breeze. He felt culpably brutal but he was not a man given to self-doubt.
Pace proposed to manufacture one thousand guns, two large-capacity magazines for each firearm and one sound suppressor each, for one million cash dollars. He pointed out that this was roughly one-half the cost of used Chinese- and Indian-made submachine guns in God-knew-what condition, and only one-third the cost of new ones-few of them concealable and none of them silenced. They would be warranted free of defects for one year. The guns would bear no serial numbers or manufacturer’s marks except for Love 32 on the right side of each barrel.
Pace handed Herredia some Polaroids of the Pace Arms building, the mold and dye bays, the assembly lines, the firing lines, the offices. Herredia looked at them patiently in the light from a tiki torch.
“I think the thirty-two ACP is a weak load,” he said.
“Tell the five dead men that,” said Pace.
“I want to rename the gun,” said Herredia. “Something about death or the devil.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Mendez, but it’s the Love 32. This is nonnegotiable. History…,” he added absently, staring out at the water. Herredia brooded and glowered and tried to ply Pace with fine tequila and wine and fishing stories but Pace responded with a series of knock-knock jokes until Bradley finally butt in and suggested that he shut the fuck up and make a deal.
Pace came off his price a hundred grand, while making clear that all transportation and shipping was one-hundred-percent Mr. Mendez’s responsibility.
“Shipping is not an interest of mine,” Herredia said, with a look at Bradley. “Mr. Jones here is very good at moving things from one place to another. Between us, the transport will go smoothly.” At first, Bradley hadn’t liked El Tigre’s quip about the stolen Red Cross helo carrying more cash and guns than any vehicle. Bradley had no patience with men who didn’t value a good ally when they were lucky enough to have one. If Herredia wanted to move his own dollars and guns, then let him. But now it sounded like Herredia was offering to share the machine. A helo. Interesting.