They drew to a stop behind a silver Ford Lobo crew cab with Sonora plates. Upon spotting the van, three men exited the pristine truck and donned cowboy hats, hoping to shield their faces from the worst of the midday sun. As the dust settled around the assembled group, the van’s occupants got out, nodded at the three, and went to the rear to unload their unfortunate cargo.
The driver and his companion unceremoniously dumped the family onto the hard-packed dirt; with an exclamation of pain, the little girl momentarily regained consciousness from the impact.
The driver tore the duct tape off the mouth of the father, perhaps to offer him an opportunity to speak, or beg for mercy. Instead, he spat a bloody tooth at his assailant and uttered a venomous curse in a hoarse rasp. The driver instinctively backhanded the man, gashing his cheek with the sharp edge of one of his nugget rings.
Bueno. So be it.
The driver’s companion limped to the passenger side of the van and returned moments later with a machete. As the driver maintained the gaze of the bound father, the machete made an arc through the air, terminating when it intersected with the young boy’s spinal cord.
Necks could be a problem. It often required several attempts to completely sever the head.
The driver stepped aside a few feet in a practiced move to avoid the arterial spray, his eyes never leaving those of the father.
Next was the oldest daughter, who was maybe eleven, and then the mother. Throughout it all, the father’s glare radiated fury and cold hatred, but he uttered not a syllable, even when it was his turn for the filthy blade’s caress. He understood the code, and there was nothing he could say or do that would save their lives, so he used his final moments to silently condemn his executioners to eternal damnation.
One of the men from the truck approached the still bound toddler and kicked her head. “This one’s a goner, compadre. Do El Jefe over there and let’s get out of here before we get snake bit,” the man said, his Spanish tinged with a South American accent.
The father expended his last breath insulting the men in an explosion of Spanish, which was abruptly terminated when the battered blade severed his throat with a brutal swipe.
“Hey, look at that…I finally got a clean one!” the executioner exclaimed as he watched the kneeling torso fall slowly over, absent the head, which rolled a few feet before coming to rest near the van’s back tire.
The men exchanged glances then returned to their vehicles for the long drive back, leaving the remains to the efficient ministrations of the desert scavengers. Whenever the remains were discovered, there might be enough left for whoever found them to notify the authorities; their identification would serve as a cautionary tale for others considering betraying their employer. It was all a necessary day’s work, one of thousands of mass slayings every year in the land of tacos and mariachis — an episode so unremarkable it would barely warrant mention in the local papers.
Such was the reality of the increased competition for turf dominance — brought about by the heightened war on drugs; an inevitable by-product of trafficking a thousand percent profit substance in a country where the average worker made four dollars a day.
The buzzards were already descending as the trucks spirited the men into the shimmering heat of the horizon. Nature wasted nothing in the brutal, arid wasteland they called home.
Chapter 1
It pissed Michael off when the hot water went cold for several seconds then came back boiling hot, seeming to choose its random oscillations at moments that would create maximum annoyance — such as when his eyes were filled with shampoo suds, or he’d gotten the temperature perfect and cautiously stepped under the stream.
It never failed. He’d spend several minutes fine-tuning the ancient hot and cold levers, waiting patiently for them to stabilize, then wait a bit more lest they trick him right as he got in. But the precise moment his most delicate attributes were within the shower’s reach, he’d get geyser-scalded or slammed with a sheet of ice-water.
He’d complained a dozen times to the super, who unfailingly promised to investigate potential solutions, none of which ever manifested as anything but an expectation of larger Christmas bonuses each year.
Michael shut off the stream, any pleasure inherent in the bathing process ruined by the shower’s bi-polar thermal swings, and regarded himself in the partially-steamed mirror, fingers moving automatically over the scar on his abdomen; a memento from errant shreds of shrapnel from a long-ago conflict few remembered or cared about. Michael knew he looked unremarkable — early-forties, good looking without being noteworthy; a pretty much standard-issue, relatively fit Caucasian male who’d watched his weight and avoided the worst of the world’s vices.
Just plain folks, really. Except that as he scratched at his face with a disposable razor, Michael wasn’t running the details of his morning’s client presentation or ad campaign through his head — rather, he was considering the minutiae of corporate espionage countermeasures, kidnapping or assault scenarios, wiretapping, and all the rest of the fun that comprised his world as a small-time private security provider for a few exclusive clients in the Big Apple.
Michael Derrigan was a sole-proprietor with a few part-time consultants, whose expertise he drew upon when needed, and while the money was pretty good, it was far from great — but work was steady, and for the decade he’d been doing it, relatively uneventful. Compared to his prior stint with the Navy in the elite SEAL division, this was a walk in the park — he’d never had to shoot anyone on the job, and the few times one of his clients had gotten into serious trouble, he’d been able to put it to rest with a briefcase of hundreds and a broken nose.
Lately, he’d been spending more time escorting trophy wives on shopping sprees or cleaning up after some Middle Eastern royalty’s son’s embarrassing behaviour at a nightspot than on any sort of real security work.
Which was fine with Michael as long as the cash kept coming. He billed a grand per eight-hour day and had steady gigs that kept him busy three to four days a week, so while he certainly wasn’t building an empire, he had adequate walking around money to keep himself in a nice lifestyle. Some day, he was going to finish his great American novel, but for now, he was more focused on his daily grind, which this morning involved meeting some visiting businessmen at JFK and playing tour guide/concierge, hopefully keeping them out of jail, the morgue, or the papers for the three days they were in town.
That wasn’t as easy as it sounded. These gentlemen were on a combination business/pleasure junket from Turkey and likely couldn’t wait to begin the boozing and whoring to which many of his international clients were inevitably drawn.
Michael washed down an English muffin with an oversized cup of coffee and watched CNN to keep track of the world’s latest horrors and atrocities. The talking heads always seemed so earnest, and a part of him absently wondered whether they prayed every morning for a war to start, or a plane to crash, or a school bus full of children to be held hostage. Chewing the remains of his breakfast, he pondered what got someone interested in being a newscaster. Were they failed actors? Did they bomb Off-Broadway and this was their big break, or at least a steady pay check? Or was this their dream? Were there really children out there who didn’t want to be firemen or astronauts, but instead wanted to be pseudo-reporters reading earnestly from a teleprompter? He didn’t get it, but then again, there was a whole world of things Michael didn’t get.