T. Parker - The Jaguar

“So, why couldn’t I ever tell you? I always came back to the same reasons. You wouldn’t love me. You’d walk. And maybe the worst, and this will make you laugh: You would think less of me. Isn’t that funny, really? I was afraid that you’d think less of me. Less of your hero, Bradley. In your eyes I would fall. Because you know what, Erin? I exist only in your eyes. I am only what you see. I chose you for this. To dream me. You are my dreamer and I don’t want you to wake up. Does that make me less real? Or more? I can’t change what you are to me. And if I could, I wouldn’t.

“Anyway, it’s all in a long letter under your pillow back home. The combination for the vault is in it, and instructions on how you find the vault entrance in the first place. You’ll love the way I have it hidden under the Ping Pong table. If I make it home with you, I’ll probably snatch up that letter before you see it. But if I don’t make it home, then you’ll read it and you’ll finally see me for everything I was. Don’t feel complicit. None of it was your fault. You were deceived. So don’t cover yourself up as you march out of Eden. Chin up. Use your new truth and the money and the treasure to make a new life for you and our child. I am so blessed in having known you and in having known this world with you in it. I hope you find someone to love who is worthy of you.”

He took another drink and finished reassembling the machine pistols then placed them in the center drawer of the hotel desk, with the restaurant menu and a list of services and some pamphlets on Mayan ruin tours and sport fishing. The snapshot slid down and he set it up against the wall again.

He looked out at the departing evening as a Mexican Army half-track clanked into the parking area and came to a stop. It was olive green and Bradley could see the Army emblems on the side. The engine was running but no one got out. A moment later a second vehicle pulled up beside it, a Humvee, dull and dusty, followed by another.

Bradley turned off the desk lamp and slipped into the bathroom. He climbed onto the rim of the toilet bowl to look out the small window near the ceiling. He guessed his shoulders could fit through. Close. But a Mexican Army jeep was parked there and he could see the exhaust lifting behind it in the humid air and the faint play of light off the guns and faces of the men in the front seats.

He went back to the desk and sat in the near darkness. He felt his heart pounding and the painful lump in his throat and a hot anger break over him. All the way to Bacalar for this? For this ? He took one of the Love 32s from the drawer and set it on the desk and laid a newspaper over it. He rose quietly and put the second machine pistol on the bed and tossed a bath towel on top.

He sat back against the headboard of the bed and put up his feet and brought the gun and towel close. He switched on the bed stand lamp and called Caroline Vega on the satellite phone. Her room was behind his and up on the third level.

“Army troops are all over us,” he said. “You and Jack take the jungle tour. Now. Get to the cenote before sunrise and wait for Erin. Take the boat to Chetumal and take the first flight to the U.S. you can get. I’ll see you in L.A.”

“How many?”

“Four units at least.”

“Are you sure we can’t talk to them? Three American sheriff’s deputies might mean something to them, Bradley.”

“Shit is what we’d mean to them, Caroline. Get to the jungle now. You’ve got the GPS, so use it. That’s an order. This is where you earn your paycheck, my friend.”

He hung up, watching through the window as all three of the Army vehicles turned and drove slowly across the lot toward him. They pulled up side by side facing his casita and their headlights cut through the sheer curtain and filled the room in overlapping girders of light. Outside he saw the shapes of men in the beams, three moving toward his door as the engines idled and the lights shone.

He heard the knob turn, then the door flew open and the three armored men flooded in, helmets strapped tight and machine guns ready. He raised his hands and stood beside the bed and the first man clunked forward and spun him against the wall and ran one hand up and down his body. Bradley could feel the barrel of a handgun against the back of his neck.

— I am a United States law enforcement officer. I am on vacation in Mexico. My badge and identification are in my pocket.

— What is your business in Quintana Roo?

— Tarpon. I have the boat and the tackle rented for tomorrow. From Oscar at the Marina. It wasn’t cheap.

The soldier pulled the badge holder and then the wallet from Bradley’s pants pockets and tossed them on the bed beside the towel. Then he spun Bradley around to face them.

The captain was short and thick-necked and there was a scar on one eyebrow where the hair no longer grew. He picked up the wallet and compared Bradley’s picture to his face, then tossed the wallet to the bed. He examined the badge and dropped it onto the towel that covered the gun. He watched the way the badge holder struck the towel then he pulled away the towel and picked up the machine pistol.

— For the tarpon?

Bradley understood the two possibilities here. One was that these men were legitimate Army soldiers. If so, they were in competition with the Mexican Navy and their actions would be something between aggressive and merciless. He, Caroline, and Cleary would be questioned and informally deported and his guns and cash would be confiscated. This was the greater likelihood. The other was that they were controlled and paid by Armenta, to keep himself, his products, and his routes protected. If so, then they would take everything the Americans had and disappear all three of them.

He realized that if he tried to pick a truth and was wrong, it would all be over quickly. He looked at the captain’s scar and he studied the anger in his eyes and decided.

— Not for the tarpon. For protection from the cartels.

— You cannot bring such a weapon into Mexico.

— Maybe the Army should have them. How many good soldiers have been murdered in Mexico since the war on drugs?

The captain stared morosely at Bradley. Then he turned and barked something at the man behind him, who quickly left the room.

Bradley heard the voices and scuffling outside. In the headlights he saw a group of four men pushing Cleary and Vega along in front of them. Cleary’s face streamed blood shiny in the light and Vega’s head was down like someone trying to avoid a camera. Another soldier held open the back door of one of the SUVs and they shoved Cleary inside. Vega stepped in after him and the man slammed the door shut, then looked inside as if they might have gotten away already.

The man who had frisked Bradley now came from the bathroom holding Bradley’s expense wad of roughly forty-nine thousand dollars and his Glock and the AirLite. All of this he dropped to the bed.

— You killed sixteen Zetas in Campeche yesterday, on the highway.

— We were attacked.

— Where are all of your friends?

— Merida.

— Who are they?

— They are Americans. There are ten of them. We work with Baja state police and Baja Sur and others in the north. Our bosses have talked with Calderon himself.

— I have heard of this weapon you have. It is used by Carlos Herredia and his North Baja Cartel.

— It’s a very good weapon. Read what it says on the slide.

The captain picked up the gun.

— There is a telescoping butt, capitan. Press on the two small buttons and it will appear.

The captain found the buttons on the rear of the gun, just under the slide, and the end of the butt popped out. He pulled it to its furthest reach and looked at Bradley again.