Jo Robertson - The Traitor

"Lo siento mucho. I'm very sorry." Bella scooted her chair closer to the bed. "Where are you from?"

"Toluca." So far south in Mexico. How did she end up here in northern California, Bella wondered?

"Were you kidnapped?"

The girl wet her dry lips. "Sí, some men came to my village near Toluca and took four of us. Several girls were already in the van. When we arrived in Tijuana, the rest of the girls were there."

"How did you get across the border?"

"No sé." She shrugged and picked at the threads on the bedspread. "But it was night and the roads were very bumpy, like dirt roads. Perhaps the ladrones found a place that was not patrolled carefully."

"Did you see the faces of any of the men who took you?"

She shook her head and looked embarrassed that she couldn't give better information. "Solamente los conductores." Only the drivers.

"What about when you stopped. Did you see anyone else?"

Esperanza scrunched her face and concentrated. "In Tijuana, there were two other men. Muy grandes. They spoke English most of the time."

Bella pulled a photo six-pack from her briefcase and spread the pictures on the bed. "Do you recognize any of these men?"

"¡Mí Dios, sí! I will never forget his face." She pointed to the picture of Diego Vargas. "He was in Tijuana. He forced the girls into the van."

Bella felt a shiver of excitement run through her. She'd made a clear identification of Vargas. "What else can you tell me about him?"

"He is a very bad man."

"What happened?"

"Once we had crossed into the United States, we stopped somewhere, I do not know where. One of the girls was very young, perhaps ten or younger." Esperanza began crying and swiping at the tears with dirty fingers, leaving long smudges on her smooth cheeks. "He took her away for a very long time."

Bella felt a chill begin at the bottom of her spine and travel upwards to her neck.

"When they brought her back," Esperanza whispered, "she was bleeding very badly. She died shortly after."

Bella tapped the photo of Santos. "What about this man? Do you recognize him?"

Esperanza took the picture and held it close to her face. "No, I have never seen this man."

Bella clenched her fists and tried to command her rational mind to control her emotions, but she couldn't stop thinking about Diego Vargas and his unspeakable brutality. This girl's testimony would be enough to put the monster away for a very long time. And Bella intended to see that happen.

Santos made the flight from Sacramento International Airport to LAX in a little over an hour. Two Norteños picked him up at the airport and left him with a Ford Explorer rental.

Forty minutes later he waited impatiently for the inside man to make the prearranged appointment on the Terminal Island side of the Vincent Thomas Bridge. Santos remained in the Explorer even when he saw the contact pull up to the parking area in an unmarked squad car, and he remained there until the man slipped into the passenger seat of the Explorer.

Santos looked at the tip of his cigarillo as he blew the smoke slowly out his nostrils. "You are late," he said after a few moments.

"Couldn't be helped." The man kept his wraparound sunglasses fixed on his face so his eyes could not be seen, but Santos recognized the edginess, the restless legs, and the wandering hands – all signs of discomfort. What did the man have to be nervous about?

"El Árabe thinks there is a leak from the Los Angeles area," Santos said.

"Don't call him that," the man snapped. "He's as American as me. More than you, my south-of-the-border friend."

Santos let the offense slip by. After all, he did not intend for this American to be around very much longer. When his usefulness ended, he would disappear. Already the man's value to Vargas' organization was questionable.

"So why the all-fired hurry for a meet?" the contact asked.

"El Vaquero is not happy that the information you have been sending us is tardy."

"Like I give a fuck how Vargas feels."

"Caution, mi amigo impetuoso, you should take great care about what Diego thinks."

The man cracked his neck, twisting it one way, then the other. "Tell him I've got it covered."

"He will want to know the details."

"I'm going up north to Sacramento."

Santos raised both eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Yeah, I've got a connection there."

"Bueno." Santos placed a large paw on the man's shoulder. "Diego will be very happy, and when the boss is pleased, he rewards handsomely."

The attack on the safe house occurred shortly after three o'clock in the morning.

While Bella had gone to her office to prepare her case against Vargas, Rafe had driven north to investigate the possible leak in the Nevada County Sheriff's Department. He also made some confidential calls regarding his own department.

At the safe house, Slater assigned the first shift – Ruiz to the front door, McKidd and Harris to the back, while he stretched out on a cot in the hall by Esperanza's bedroom door. He could hear the girl moving around in the room, the squeaking of the bed springs and then the flushing of the toilet.

He imagined she wasn't going to sleep very well tonight. He'd have to make long-range plans to protect her. Moving her around seemed the best security until the trial ended. And with Vargas' long reach, who knew how long that could take?

Slater must've dosed off because a foreign sound, the dull clank of metal on wood flickered through his subconscious and brought him springing to full alert. He reached for his handgun lying on the floor, and slipped it out of the holster as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the cot. As he stood, he quietly turned the knob on the girl's bedroom.

She lay quietly under a pile of blankets, black strands of hair the only thing he could see from his angle. He eased the door shut, and clinging to the wall, traced his steps back through the great room to the patio window. He saw Harris' broad frame silhouetted against the pale glow of the moon, but McKidd wasn't in sight.

Soundlessly Harris hunched over, weapon in hand. Slater still couldn't see anything, but obviously something had drawn the deputy's attention. Slater strained to see what had alerted Harris, holding his breath, tightening his grip on his weapon.

Where the hell was McKidd?

Focused on the scene in the back entry, Slater didn't hear the front door open until a floorboard suddenly creaked behind him. He swung around, raised his weapon to fire, and aimed at a large, dark shadow lurching toward him. But he wasn't fast enough and all hell broke loose.

Slater took the first bullet high in the chest, the pain of it searing through his muscle and shattering his clavicle. He got a round off before he was spun around from the impact, but it went astray. The second bullet caught him low in the back and he wondered briefly if it would paralyze him. The third one sank deep into his thigh.

At the sound of the first report, Harris flew through the back patio door, crouching low, aiming his weapon, and firing like a madman. The first intruder went down with a shot to the head and one to the chest, but the second one managed to hit Harris in his upper thigh, close to the groin. He went crashing down like a felled buffalo, his handgun skittering across the floor.

A third intruder entered from the front landing and ran down the hallway.

No, Slater screamed silently, feeling his blood drain steadily onto the hardwood floor, knowing he was helpless to keep the attacker from reaching the girl. Shivers started to rack his body, his skin felt clammy, and his mouth was parched. He recognized his body going into shock.