Hood realized that Draper had seen the transponder way back in Orange County. Some quick thinking and a call to Israel Castro was all it had taken to turn his luck. Hood figured the money was now headed back to Tijuana from Jacumba in the black Durango, driven by Castro. They’d made the luggage switch in Israel Castro’s garage. Draper had drawn him into the labyrinth of Jacumba, then lost him like a fox playing a hound. Hood saw that the man with the gun was supposed to deliver him to Draper, or a shallow grave in a big desert. The cost of the huge error began to settle on him.
An engine started outside and headlights suddenly splashed against a window. He saw the big SUV, tucked back in the darkness until now, lumbering toward the classroom through the rain. Then two more sets of headlights blazed to life from the darkness on the other side of the building, and the vehicles converged through the night.
Hood scrambled back to the closet and flung open the hatch and started down the ladder. But even before he reached the bottom he heard the footsteps pounding through the tunnel toward him, closing fast. He reached out and yanked the electrical line from the tunnel frame. The line slapped down and fixtures sparked and the circuit shorted and there was nothing but blackness and the cursing of men less than a hundred feet away.
He struggled out and let the plywood drop into place and closed the closet door. He stood in the classroom and surveyed his few options. The only door was at the front of the room and Hood was at the back. Through the windows on his right he saw the dark SUV hunker to a stop and the doors fly open. To his left, the two other vehicles slid to a stop.
Hood saw his chance. He pulled the heavy oilcloth hat down hard, holstered his gun and zipped the canvas jacket to his chin. Then he jammed his fists deep down into the pockets and ran toward the slider. He tried to think of a prayer but couldn’t.
Outside someone racked a shotgun. The front door shuddered from a kick. Hood hunched his shoulders and launched himself headfirst through the glass.
It was cheap and thin, and Hood broke through with a shower of shards. He slipped and faltered but stayed up, then took off running for the darkness where he could not be seen. He fell down a steep embankment and rolled, hitting rocks and branches, then sprawled into a bed of rusted cans and bottles and litter at the bottom of the barranca. He was breathing hard as he pulled a long triangle of window glass from his cheek. Then he was upright and climbing the bank on the other side. He heard voices behind him and he saw men and the shapes of men in the headlights of an SUV barreling in his direction.
Hood topped the ridge, then jumped down and cut toward Jacume. There was a narrow pathway to follow-a game trail, or maybe a motorcycle path through the dense brush. But almost instantly he heard the rumble of the SUV close behind him and he saw the headlights strafe the ground ahead. He scrambled down into another barranca leading into further darkness. He was no longer sure what country he was in. The flashlight beams crisscrossed around him like the strands of a spider’s web. He clawed up a hill.
The first gunshot cracked and the bullet hit the ground in front of him. Then another. The SUV groaned closer through the brush and the flashlight beams closed in.
The gunfire came fast and brief, as in the alleys of Anbar, and a bullet hit him down low on the side of his back. It felt like he’d been kicked by a horse. He fell forward and got to his knees in the mud. It didn’t hurt but he felt a terrible, terrible disappointment. He drew his gun and turned and fired off three shots at the vehicle windshield. The glass shattered and dropped like a blanket of diamonds. The SUV veered wildly and flipped.
Hood stood and ran but he could gain no speed. His heavy canvas jacket was soaked by rain, and his oilcloth hat seemed to weigh thirty pounds, and his side suddenly felt like a red-hot poker had gone through it. His hand came away from it black with blood. He was short of breath and suddenly, extremely tired.
He made it up a hill to an outcropping of rocks. He crawled into them and found good cover and a place to brace his gun. He thought of the hundreds of Westerns he’d seen and the hundreds of boulders that men had died behind. He thought about not making thirty years old. And he thought this was a rough place we live in, where a bunch of bad guys could run down one decent cop and murder him right under God’s nose. It wasn’t even personal.
He looked out at the flashlights flickering toward him, then at the SUV, overturned on a hillside with the headlights still on and its wheels still turning. The men converged with short, purposeful steps. Hood could see mist in the light beams. He knew they didn’t know exactly where he was, only that he was close and armed. He was irrationally happy that they didn’t have dogs. He steadied the handle of the. 45 on the rough boulder and waited for someone to come into range. He thought of Ariel Reed, and Allison Murrieta, his mom and dad, his brothers and sisters. With awful surprise, he realized that his life had been short.
Then the world in front of him went white. The men froze in a bright blizzard and their flashlight beams vanished, and the SUV was blanched by snow. A wind came up behind Hood and he thought, Oh, so this is how it happens: the light comes and brings the wind, and the wind lifts you out of your body and you become the wind, rising up through the rain and into the kingdom of air and sky.
Hood realized another thing: there’s this tremendous roar. It comes suddenly and it’s really loud, then it gets even louder. It’s rhythmic and monstrous and powerful. Your enemies scatter.
And then the roar lowers from the sky and pivots to the ground on runners. It’s an official machine, God’s own, an emblem on the side, spilling out angels with guns.
So you push yourself up and stumble or roll or crawl or all three down the hill to greet them.
39
He spent three days at a hospital in San Diego. He ate a lot of food and took a lot of blood. Warren showed up the first day and debriefed him for his warrant request. He recorded the interview and took notes, and left immediately.
Ariel visited, looking concerned and beautiful. She had won her case. Two weeks until sentencing. In a separate matter, the district attorney himself was deciding the fate of Shay Eichrodt. Ariel told Hood she had recommended that the charges against him be dropped. She’d also had the blower on her dragster reworked, and bought a new set of slicks. She couldn’t wait to get behind the wheel again.
Marlon shuffled in, told Hood that he looked like a dweeb and to hurry up and get out of this place. He told Hood to call for backup next time, rather than being an idiot. He also said that Laurel Laws had been calling LASD, to speak to Hood-something about a dog. Hood called her right after Marlon left, and sure enough, Londell Dwayne’s dog had returned to their home three weeks after disappearing into the hills. Laurel wanted Hood to come get her, and deliver her back to Londell.
Warren showed up again the hour before Hood was discharged, and told him that he’d be riding home with him.
When they started out on Highway 163 the day was clear and cool and the jets zoomed low in and out of Miramar. Hood had a gauze pad taped to his side to drain the gunshot wound-a jagged, unstitched, wildly painful hole from back to front. The flesh around it was black that faded to purple then blue. Hood had three stitches in his right cheek from the glass. He had a plastic hospital bag with more gauze and tape in it, and Betadine, a large bottle of antibiotics and a small one of Vicodin. Warren said that he was a poster cop for lucky.