Jeanne Stein - Haunted

Bodies. Everywhere. Some I know I’m responsible for, others dead from gunfire or the fangs of a huge rattlesnake.

Adelita is still in the corner where I left her. Only now she holds a revolver on a trussed-up Pablo and a weeping Maria. They are tied back to back. And Adelita is smiling.

Until she looks our way and sees Max. “Dios mio. ¿Es él vivo?”

From beyond the hangar door, a voice interrupts. “Agent Avillas! Max? Buddy? Where are you?”

“In here,” I shout back. “He’s been hurt.”

Max still hasn’t made a sound except that cough and even now, his eyes remain closed, his face relaxed. Like he’s sleeping. It’s not a good sign.

I watch for the man who called out. He’s approaching with two armed men behind him, speaking into a radio on his collar. He looks Hispanic, dark skinned, dark eyed, built like a man who likes his beer. All three are dressed the same—khaki shirts and cargo pants, black DEA jackets. The one in front has a baseball cap and he’s the one Culebra moves toward. He explains the situation. Baseball cap looks in our direction, but directs the two agents beside him to take Pablo and Maria outside. Then he hurries over to us.

He kneels down beside Max. “Did he stop breathing?” is the first question he asks me.

It only takes a heartbeat to know the reason. The blood around Max’s mouth.

And around mine.

“No. But he’s lost a lot of blood. He needs to get to a hospital.”

The guy speaks into the radio. He uses the clipped, acronym-filled lingo of one agent to another. But when the answer comes back, it’s something I can understand.

They will have the helicopter here in thirty minutes.

I look at Max. He doesn’t look like Max anymore. He’s gone from pale to ashen. I can see through his eyelids. The pool of blood under him is too big, too thick. His breath is so shallow, it hardly flutters his chest.

I touch his cheek. I hope he has thirty minutes.

FOR THE FIRST TIME, CULEBRA, ADELITA AND I ARE ABLE to sit together without a gun or the threat of violence hanging over our heads. We sit close to Max so we can watch one of the agents, a medic, attend to him. The medic packs the wound to staunch the flow of blood, runs an IV to replenish liquids. He won’t give us a prognosis. And Max still hasn’t regained consciousness.

The medic looks at me, bloodsoaked but apparently unhurt, and raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure you don’t need medical attention, too?”

I shake my head. I can feel four bullets, one in each arm, one in my left shoulder and a fourth (which I didn’t know about until it started moving) in my right thigh. I’ve been shot before, but it’s always been through and through. I don’t know what to expect with these wounds. Will the bullets work their way to the surface of my skin and have to be squeezed out like metal blackheads?

A charming visual.

I’ve had a healthy infusion of blood so I’m not worried about my body’s ability to heal itself. Actually, I’m not even in much pain.

I dip my head in Culebra’s direction. “What about you? Were you hit by any of those bullets zipping about?”

He shakes his head. Out loud, he says, “Lucky, I guess.” Internally, he says, Hard to hit anything when you’re shaking so bad, you can barely hold a gun, let alone aim it. No human is prepared for the sight of a rattlesnake as long as two men.

Adelita wrings her hands. “Max will be all right, won’t he?”

She addresses the question to no one and everyone. I wish I could give her an unequivocal yes, but she’s seen so much death today, unless Max opened his eyes and told her himself, I doubt she’d believe it.

Open your eyes, Max. I want to believe it, too.

Outside the hangar, the agents have rounded up the survivors of Pablo’s gang and have them bound and gagged, awaiting the Federales . Only Pablo and Maria will be flown back to the border. I suspect most of the gang will be back on the streets in twenty-four hours. And with Luis and Pablo out of the picture, they’ll be jockeying for leadership of the cartel.

So what exactly have we accomplished?

I look at Max, lying pale and still on the ground. What did he tell Luis? We might not have made a dent in the drug trade, but we’ve taken two predators off the street.

If he dies, was it worth it?

Adelita is leaning over Max, wiping his face with a damp cloth. She’s alive.

There are four young girls in a safe house—unmolested and alive.

Max’s body suddenly jerks. His back arches, his chest heaves as if his lungs can no longer draw air. The medic shoulders Adelita aside and listens to Max’s chest with a stethoscope. “He has a collapsed lung.”

He goes to work with items he pulls from his bag—a scalpel, a tube, something that looks like a manual suction pump. He makes an incision in the skin above Max’s rib cage, inserts the tube and works the pump. Pale liquid flows into the tube and almost instantly, Max relaxes. The medic places an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. He drops the suction pump and yells to his buddies by the hangar door, “How much longer ’til that chopper gets here?”

I HAVE MY ARMS AROUND ADELITA’S SHOULDERS. WE watch the medivac helicopter rise into the air. I wanted to go along with Max, but they wouldn’t allow it. Family maybe, but a civilian, no. They’re taking him to a Texas trauma hospital in McAllen until he’s stabilized. Then he’ll be transferred to a hospital in San Diego, near his home.

He never regained consciousness. He doesn’t know that Pablo is in custody. He doesn’t know that Culebra, Adelita and I made it out alive.

We return to the hangar. A mop-up operation is in full swing. Body bags are laid out. Nineteen of Pablo’s men were killed, several Federales , two DEA agents. The injured are on their way by ambulances to Reynosa—under heavy guard. Those forensic reports on Pablo’s men should make for interesting reading. I don’t know what kind of explanation will be offered for the number of broken necks and bloodless bodies or the suspicious fang marks of a huge snake on some of the bodies. Maybe no one will care how the narcos died.

Two rows of weapons are laid out, too, thirty AK-47s, ten Glocks and revolvers, a couple of knives big as machetes. Culebra can’t seem to take his eyes off the rifles. His thoughts are cloaked, but I don’t need the link to feel his despair.

Pablo and Maria are on their way by a second chopper to the San Diego border where both Federales and Federal agents are waiting to take them into custody. And to make sure they stay in custody. The U.S. government made it clear that this time, there will be no loopholes for Pablo to wiggle through. There was another incident of American tourists killed in narco cross fire just this morning. If Mexico is unwilling or unable to hold him, Pablo will be extradited to the U.S. to assure he is tried for his crimes. Baseball cap accompanied them along with a half dozen armed guards. They are taking no chances.

That leaves ten DEA agents, some Federales , Culebra, Adelita and me. The pilot and remaining uninjured narcos have been taken into custody by the Federales . The hangar is heavy with the smell of blood and death.

One of the agents sees us standing by Max’s car and walks over. For the first time, someone asks for identification. Culebra fishes his from the pocket of his jeans. It takes me a minute to remember where mine is—the glove compartment of the Explorer. I retrieve it with my wallet and hand it over.

He examines them. “You are free to go,” he says, handing our passports back. His eyes go to Adelita. “Are you a Mexican citizen?” he asks.