David Lindsey - The Rules of Silence

It was still dark when they crossed into the Mexican state of Coahuila and entered the great, arid desert of northern Mexico. Turning slightly more westward, they held their course and climbed higher, passing over the Sierra Madre Oriental. As the darkness began to thin in the east, they approached a carefully charted spot just over the CoahuilaChihuahua border.

At a precise point of navigation, roughly in the most remote expanse of the north Mexican desert that covered well over a thousand square miles of desperate isolation, the Caravan cut its speed to minimum and seemed to hover in the fleeing darkness.

The lower cargo door opened, and bodies, and parts of bodies, began to fall through the predawn light. With the bare floor of the cargo plane slick with blood, it was a grisly chore, one that Calo and the other man had all to themselves. The pilot's helper stayed in the co-pilot's seat and didn't look back.

When the last piece of anatomy had been jettisoned, Calo reached for the lower hatch of the cargo door to pull it up. Suddenly the man grabbed his wrist to stop him. For a frozen moment Calo looked him in the eyes. Then the man let go of Calo's wrist, leaned forward, and made a lazy somersault into the cold dawn air.

With two funerals back to back, there was no time to sit and brood about what had happened. In keeping with Burden's nothing-ever-happened design for the whole affair, Titus and Rita had to act as if nothing had. It would've been impossible to do if they weren't already in shock at having lost two close friends in as many days.

They had somehow gotten through the night, talking, talking, holding each other, catching snags of unconsciousness. It could hardly be called sleep. The next morning, nothing was right. They got up together and Titus made coffee. But he didn't know how to act. He had brutally killed a man less than twelve hours before. Despite what you saw in movies and read in novels, that was a hard thing to live with, no matter what the guy was like. Titus sure as hell didn't feel like making wisecracks and getting back to life as usual. In fact, if he knew nothing else, he knew enough to know that life as usual wasn't going to be there anymore.

The coffee tasted right, but there was no appetite to deal with. As much as anything, it was the nearly unbearable constraint pressed upon them to pretend that nothing had happened that created so much stress for them. If there could have been some kind of ritual aftermath of their harrowing four days, the police, the consolation of friends, the presence of attorneys or doctors… or something, they might have been able to handle it more easily. Or at least they might have begun to heal a little.

But there was no transition. Somewhere during the hours of ten o'clock and midnight nine people had died, one of them by Titus's own hand, and then immediately after that everyone and every body (literally) disappeared. Burden remained behind on the rocky hilltop while Kal drove Titus and Rita home. That was the last they saw of Garcia Burden. No good-byes. No one seemed to want to do it, and there was a kind of atmosphere of “we'll tie up loose ends later ”that everyone seemed to prefer. The bodyguards stayed the night, but by noon the next day, the three of them, along with Herrin and Cline, were gone. It was bizarre.

Charlie's funeral was on a bright, sunny Sunday. They buried him on his ranch, a breeze blowing through the valley as they gathered under a huddle of live oaks on the hill across the stream from the house. After speaking, Titus sat down and didn't hear another word anyone said. At one point he was shaken out of his preoccupation by the scream of a red-tailed hawk circling high overhead.

Family and friends gathered at the house afterward, and Titus sat for a long time in the shade of the porch and visited with Louise. After a while, at the appropriate time-neither too early nor too late-he and Rita drove away.

Carla's funeral on the following Monday was wrenching. There was a huge crowd at the late afternoon service in the church where she was a longtime member, the sanctuary filled with CaiText employees. Again, Titus spoke, but he and Rita were sitting with the girls, and when he sat down there was notime for him to indulge in his own reveries while Carla's daughters needed his attention.

Titus and Rita opened their home for the reception after-ward. The last people didn't leave until dusk.

In the days that followed, Titus was immediately forced to deal with the total loss of his life savings. His attorneys and financial advisers were still trying to make sense of his Cavatino investments. There would be some sticky moments getting all that sorted out, but it wasn't an insurmountable problem.

But CaiText was still a strong company with bright prospects, so it wasn't like starting over from scratch. Still, it was a sobering loss, and he threw himself into CaiText's business in a way that he hadn't done in the last several years.

At home, he and Rita continued to talk endlessly about what had happened. It was strange and frustrating to have had this lifetransforming experience in absolute isolation from the rest of the world. It was disconcerting suddenly to have powerful secrets that they would never be able to share with anyone. For a long time it obsessed them both. They hardly thought or spoke about anything else when they were alone. The whole experience was schizophrenic.

Over time, however, they gradually worked the nightmare into the fabric of their lives. They had to, or those four days would have become the only thing that had meaning for them in life. It would have defined them. Luquin and Macias would have stolen more than friends and money from them.

But Titus was restless. One night he went through the complicated process of contacting Gil Norlin again. He told him he wanted to try to arrange a meeting with Garcia Burden. Why? Because he just wanted to talk to him. He wanted the guy to sit still for a few hours and talk to him. Norlin said he would see what he could do. But Titus never heard from either of them.

It was a cold, drizzly evening with a heavy mist fuzzing the city's lights when Titus got out of the taxi in front of Galileo. He paid the driver and went inside, where one of the booths along the wall was waiting for him as he had requested.

He was in D.C. for business and would be returning to Austin the next day. After a week in the capital with back-toback appointments, he had deliberately left the evening open. He just wanted a slow meal alone and time to read the newspaper.

He got a bottle of good wine and ordered dinner. When it came, he ate slowly and continued to noodle through the newspaper. He was three-quarters through the meal when he was aware of someone approaching his table. He looked up and was stunned to see Garcia Burden standing there.

“Titus, ”Burden said, smiling and holding out his hand, “do you mind if I join you for a few minutes?”

He was dressed handsomely, even elegantly, Titus thought, and seemed as comfortable in his expensive, double-breasted suit as he had been in his jeans and baggy linen shirt. He sat down, and the waiter brought another glass. They waited while he poured wine for Burden and took away Titus's plate.

“This is no accident, ”Titus said.

Burden smiled. “I'm here on business, too, but Gil Norlin called me when he learned we were in the city at the same time. So I tracked you down.”

Titus could only imagine. And how in the hell did it happen that Norlin knew that Titus was in Washington?

“I understand you'd wanted to talk to me, ”Burden said. “Sorry it couldn't happen sooner.”

Titus nodded, studying him. The clothes might have changed, but he had the same sorrowful cast of the eyes that Titus remembered and the same air about him that suggested he had seen or done things that separated him from most other men.