Mark Gimenez - The Governor's wife

He cursed and left. She locked the door behind him then wedged a chair under the knob. Then she ran into the bathroom and threw up.

"He'll kill her," Jim Bob said. "He probably already has."

Jim Bob stood at the door to the master suite. Bode was packing weapons and ammunition in a duffel bag.

"No, he wants me. He won't kill her until he has me."

"You thought this through?"

"Becca needs her mother."

"You want me to go with you?"

"Thanks, but this is what I do."

"You sure this is the only way? You go down there and kill Mexicans in Mexico-even a drug lord-it'll be an international incident. I don't know how many crimes you'll be committing. Bode, your White House dream ends tonight."

"Jim Bob, I had a dream when I was eighteen. Her name was Lindsay. Last twenty-nine years, I forgot that. I remember now. I'm chasing my dream, Jim Bob, and it's not in Washington. It's in Nuevo Laredo."

Bode Bonner zipped up the bag and stood tall.

"He took my wife. I want her back."

Lindsay wanted the man's smell off her. She went into the bathroom and started a hot bath. When the tub was full, she undressed and stepped in. She sat then slid down until the water was up to her neck. She closed her eyes.

El Diablo wanted Bode to come for her. He would lay in wait and kill her husband. Or Bode would kill him. She didn't like Bode's odds against a drug lord on his turf. Bode always said that if you want to beat someone on their home turf, you'd better have a good game plan.

She needed a game plan.

She bathed with body wash and shampoo from Paris. When she got out, she put on a thick terrycloth robe. She heard a knock on the door.

"Who is it?"

"Blanca."

She removed the chair and opened the door. The maid pushed a room service cart into the room, then went back out and returned with a rolling cart of hanging clothes and high-heeled shoes below. Evening dresses still in the plastic bags and new undergarments still in plastic wrap.

"What are these for?" she asked Blanca in Spanish.

"Dinner, with the senor. I will come for you at seven."

Blanca left Lindsay alone. She turned on the television and switched channels, searching for news of her abduction. But there was no news. No one in Austin knew she was on the border. And no one on the border knew she was the governor's wife.

Except El Diablo.

She checked the room service cart: cheese and crackers and champagne. Hot tea. Coffee and cream. Butter cookies. As if it were tea time in Nuevo Laredo. She ate several crackers with cheese… and a few cookies… and drank the coffee. She hadn't eaten since early that morning. With Jesse. She wondered if he knew yet that she had been taken. Surely Inez would have told him. And he would have called Bode. And Bode would come for her. Soon. Not several days from now as El Diablo had said. But now. He was already on his way to her. She knew that. She also knew that when he came for her, El Diablo would kill him.

Or he would kill El Diablo.

The small jet taxied over to the private terminal in a secluded area of the airport. The door opened and a stairway dropped down. Only one man got off the plane.

The governor of Texas.

He spotted Jesse's truck and walked over with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He appeared much larger in person than on television. When he opened the passenger door and got into Jesse's pickup, he did not seem like the man who would be president.

Or who wanted to be.

The governor sat silent for a long moment-as if he were contemplating the final journey of his life. Jesse knew this because he had contemplated the same journey as he sat and waited for the governor's jet to arrive in Laredo. Perhaps they would take that final journey together, the governor and the man who loved the governor's wife. The governor finally stuck out a hand to Jesse.

"Bode Bonner."

"Jesse Rincon."

Jesse started the engine and exited the airport and drove east.

"We must wait until after midnight to cross the river."

He took the governor to his homestead. They got out and went inside Jesse's house. The governor glanced around.

"This is where she's been living?"

"No. She lives in the guesthouse."

Jesse led the governor to the guesthouse and unlocked the door for him.

Blanca knocked on the door at seven.

Lindsay had fallen asleep from fear and exhaustion. She had dreamed of Bode and Becca, Ramon and Chelo, Lupe and the vaqueros… and Jesse. She had woken with the vague outline of a plan. She dressed and now followed Blanca to the elevator and then to the second floor. They walked down a hallway and into an elegant dining room against a wall of windows facing the lights of Laredo. Enrique de la Garza stood by the windows, wearing a black suit and tie and checking his hair in the reflection, as if looking for gray streaks. He noticed her and turned.

" Buenas noches, Senora Bonner. My, you look beautiful."

She wore a black dress and black heels.

"Blanca, champagne for the senora."

He seemed oddly happy. So she decided not to upset his mood with Hector's attempted rape. She wanted him to remain happy and relaxed, to feel at ease with her. To enjoy her company. She wanted to appeal to his manhood.

Blanca returned and handed a flute filled with champagne to Lindsay.

" Gracias. " She turned to Enrique. "Were these your wife's clothes?"

"Yes."

"She liked short dresses."

"Yes, she had beautiful legs. As you do."

His eyes went to her legs.

"Congressman Delgado said we killed her."

Enrique nodded. "It was a mistake."

"I'm sorry. There's been too much killing on the border."

"Yes. Too much."

He stepped closer and raised his flute as if to toast the moment, but she instinctively backed away.

" Senora Bonner, I said you have nothing to fear from me. But still you fear me?"

"Yes. I do."

"Why?"

"Because you're El Diablo. The devil. A drug lord. You've killed thousands of people."

"Who said that?"

Like a kid on a playground whose veracity had been questioned.

"Everyone… the newspapers, the government."

"The American government?"

"Yes."

"And, of course, the American government would never lie." He sighed. " Senora Bonner, we live by a code of honor, Los Muertos. We do not kill women, children, or innocents."

"You sell drugs."

"Americans sell weapons to the world, but I am a bad guy because I sell marijuana to Americans?"

He shook his head.

"Your government, they are telling the American story, so Americans must be told that they are the good guys. They cannot be the bad guys. That is not allowed in the American story. God bless America. Americans must believe that God looks with special favor upon America. But if America is God's protagonist, who is the antagonist? Who is the bad guy? Every story must have a bad guy, is that not true? So your government creates bad guys for Americans to hate so they will not hate their own government. Yesterday it was Osama and the Taliban, Saddam and Gadhafi. Tomorrow it will be North Korea and Iran, although I must agree that those two guys, they do not seem right in the head. But, today it is me. Enrique de la Garza. I am the bad guy in the American story of this border. El Diablo. The devil. Your government gave that nickname to me, you see, so that I would sound like a very bad guy indeed-El Diablo, he must be a very bad hombre. And that is my role in the American tragedy. Because America must demonize its adversaries, anyone who will not submit to American rule. It is so much easier to demonize than it is to understand and acknowledge grievances against America, is it not? So, please, Senora Bonner, save the American self-righteousness for someone else. We Mexicans have heard it for one hundred and sixty-five years. Oh, here is Charles. Let us eat."