Ted Bell - Spy

“National Security Agency will be there as well, Alex. Various U.S. border and police personnel. The Americans are one step ahead of us on this. Like you, some of them suddenly seem to believe Latin America is the world’s next terrorist mecca.”

“It’s true”

“Well, at any rate, I’d very much like it if you were invited to Secretary de los Reyes’s Latin pow-wow. In fact, now that you and I have had a chance to discuss your report in more detail, I think it’s critical you be there.”

Hawke forced a smile.

Despite his convictions about Papa Top’s operations in the jungle, he found the very idea of calling Conch appalling. Humiliating, to be exact. She’d refused to take his calls for months. All of his letters had been returned unopened.

“With all due respect, sir, this conference sounds very much an American—”

Sir David Trulove stood and fastened his somber tweed jacket. He had that resolute look of a man headed once more into the breech. His smile to Hawke was brief, his mind already grappling with the howling Americans down the hall.

“Come now, Alex, you’ve scraped by in far more perilous assignments than this one. It’s a simple phone call. I’m sure Conch, that’s what you call her isn’t it, I’m sure Conch will be delighted to hear from you after all this time. Besides, a bit of tropical sun would do you worlds of good. You look very pale, to be honest.”

Hawke searched for words as the man crossed the room and pulled open the heavy wooden door to leave.

“Sir David, with all due respect, what possible explanation could I offer the American Secretary of State for simply ringing her up after all these months and inviting myself to her—”

“You’ll think of something, dear boy,” C said cheerfully before leaving the room. “Send her some flowers, pink roses, that’s usually the ticket. I already forwarded her a copy of your report in the morning pouch. Once she’s read it, she’ll be chomping at the bit to have you give a first person account at her conference. Nothing to worry about, I assure you.”

Hawke sat back down and stared into the fire for a few moments. He was quite sure C had never sent anyone roses in his entire life. When he felt he could safely exit the room without breaking any furniture, he got to his feet.

Nothing to worry about, Hawke muttered to himself. You’ll think of something.

After all, he had nothing to fear but the inestimable and incandescent wrath of a woman scorned.

Pink roses? For the second time this evening, C had absolutely no bloody idea what he was talking about.

14

NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO

A ll the streetlights are out, Sheriff. You notice that?”

“Yep.”

“Transformer down somewhere maybe.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Nobody on the streets.”

“Nope.”

“Kinda early to be so quiet on a Friday night. Spooky.”

“Folks rather stay home than get shot at.”

“I guess. Can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Homer.”

“Sorry. I know you don’t talk about, uh, Cam Ranh Bay.”

“Right. I don’t.”

“But, see, I can’t help but ask you, Sheriff. When you guys, I mean, your squad, when you’d go into a village at night, say. After dark. And you knew they were waiting—waiting for you to come around a corner or whatnot. Did you—I mean, did you ever worry about—I mean—”

“Homer. Are you scared? Are you afraid?”

“Yessir, to tell you the honest truth, I am.”

“Don’t feel bad, son. Everybody is.”

“I don’t believe that for one minute, Sheriff. I don’t think you are.”

“Not now, maybe. But I have been.”

Homer and Dixon had decided it was probably better to go down to Mexico at night. They’d taken Dixon’s pickup, mainly because to take a marked American police vehicle south of the border these days was suicide. They’d even switched the plates, hung a banged-up old Mexican plate on the tailgate. He let Homer drive the thing. He was tired.

They’d all been pretty busy going to funerals.

The whole town had.

It had taken a couple of hours to drive down south of the border from Prairie. During that time, Homer had talked a lot. He couldn’t seem to stop. It was mostly about the twelve boys who’d been killed in Mexico. Franklin had listened respectfully; he knew Homer cared deeply about those kids and their families. They’d all been friends since grade school, some cases nursery school. Homer’d been bottling a lot of things up inside and it probably helped him to just let some of it come on out.

The death of the town’s best and brightest boys, coming like it did in a single night, would take a long time to heal. In one fell swoop, they’d pretty much lost a generation. Lost the future, Franklin’s wife Daisy had said.

All those boys had mothers, and it was the most sorrowful time Franklin could remember. You couldn’t walk into a store or the diner or the filling station without seeing tears falling down somebody’s face. Women spoke in small groups on the street corners. Menfolk gathered at the Wagon Wheel or the other saloons and mostly drank. It would take a long time before this kind of pain subsided and that was assuming it ever did.

There were a lot of old boys in town who didn’t want to wait around for any healing process. Fed up and up in arms somebody called them. They wanted to ride on down there to Mexico and kill every last body they could find. Believed they knew who’d done it, who’d been abducting the girls and who’d killed the whole posse. They wanted to get their vengeance. It was hard to find fault with their emotions. But the law was the law.

And when Franklin tried to remind those fellas that vigilantism was taking the law into their own hands, one of their number, a Mr. J.T.Rawls by name, said, “Yeah. And your point is?”

“Point is, I’m the law. And you lay a hand on me you’ll wish you hadn’t, J.T.” Franklin had said and that was the end of the meeting. Shut him up, but not for long probably. Rawls was what in Houston they’d call a speed freak. And he also had a weakness for tobacco and the many fine corn whiskey products of Mr. James Beam, Clermont, Kentucky.

Rawls had himself a big Chevy dealership out south of town. He’d gotten rich selling big black Suburbans and SUVs to the wealthy cattle ranchers; and he was mean as a diamondback, too. J.T. had up and left his wife of thirty years for a young girl he’d met on the plane over to Houston. Once he’d accumulated all the money he could ever need, he’d run for sheriff. Run twice and been defeated twice. Losing didn’t set well with him. It had gotten to the point where he was drinking a bottle of Beam a day.

Folks around town had wondered for a long time how J.T. managed to make so darn much money being drunk most of the time. There were rumors he had some side business interests that wouldn’t bear a lot of scrutiny, but nothing ever came of it. Some people thought he was using his Chevrolet dealership to fence stolen cars on both sides of the border.

Another curious thing. The Mexican illegals never crossed his ranch property trekking in. Didn’t trash it and eat the dogs and livestock like they did to some others. Franklin meant to look into that sometime. A rich Yankee the Mexicans didn’t mess with? Pretty strange.

But that was all before he’d lost J.J., his son Jerry Jr., down in Mexico.

Now Franklin knew it was only a matter of time before Rawls did something stupid and got a lot more people killed. That’s when he got the idea to just go on down and talk to the Mexicans first.

A low-watt lamp snaked out of the cigarette lighter and illuminated the map on Franklin’s left knee. It was a city map of Nuevo Laredo, the outlaw town situated just over the International Bridge from Laredo, Texas. Used to be a pretty nice place, Franklin thought, gazing out the window at the shuttered storefronts and darkened hollow-eyed buildings that lined the main drag. Tourist ladies used to like to make a day of it, drive down, have lunch, and do some shopping and be back home for supper. Not any more.