Invasion USA (6 page)

“The kid's okay. They're not going to transport him to the hospital, even though he'll need to have a doctor examine him later. They can come along.”

Buddy nodded. “Let them know and then follow the rest of us.”

Lauren hurried off to take care of that. Buddy asked Wayne if he had his car here, and when the deputy shook his head no, the sheriff said, “Ride with me, then.”

Within moments, they were out of town, traveling at high speed toward the Sierrita Mountains. When Buddy glanced in the rearview mirror, he saw that not only were the two reserves' cars and the ambulance following him, but one of the fire trucks was, too.

That was all right, he supposed. There was no telling what they would find out here.

He just hoped Carla May Willard and her baby were still alive.

6

Tom Brannon was relieved to see the sheriff's car in the lead of the little convoy. He and Buddy Gorman had been friends since high school. Buddy had moved to Little Tucson from Chicago, and it had been quite a shock for him, going from a huge, bustling city in the Midwest to a small, sleepy town not far from the Mexican border. He'd had a hard time fitting in if Tom Brannon hadn't spotted him reading a Doc Savage paperback on their first day of freshman year. Tom loved Doc, so they had struck up a friendship. The fact that Tom was an athlete and well-liked had opened a lot of doors for Buddy. He had wound up one of the most popular kids in school—despite the fact that he wouldn't give up that darned Chicago Cubs cap.

They had been in the Army together, had watched each other's back in 'Nam, and had come home together, Buddy to join the sheriff's department as a deputy, Tom to work on the family ranch and then later open up the auto parts store on Main Street. As Buddy got out of his car and hurried toward the pickup, Tom felt like everything would be all right.

“Mrs. Willard, are you okay?” Buddy asked immediately.

She jerked her head in a nod. “My boy,” she said. “Andy? Is he—”

“He's fine,” Buddy told her with a smile. “Got a cut on his head, and you'll need to let a doctor take a look at him to make sure there's nothing the paramedics missed, but he ought to be fine. He told us what happened. That's a good boy you've got.”

“I . . . I know. Sometimes I forget, but . . . I know.” Carla May started to cry again.

Buddy looked a little wall-eyed, Tom thought. Like most men, he didn't quite know how to deal with a sobbing, wailing female. He motioned for Lauren Henderson to take over. She put an arm around Carla May's shoulders and gently led her toward the ambulance, where the paramedics could check her out.

Quietly, Tom said to Buddy, “They'll need to do a rape kit on her. One of those bastards was just finishing up when I got here.”

Buddy nodded. “Poor gal. That'll mean an HIV test and all that worry, too.” He rubbed his chin. “Speaking of those bastards . . . where are they? And how are you mixed up in this, Tom?”

He answered the second question first. “Just an innocent bystander. I was driving into town from my folks' place and saw Carla May's car parked out here. I didn't recognize it at first, but I thought something might be wrong, so I drove up here to check.”

“Always got to be the Good Samaritan, don't you?”

Tom shrugged, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “It's mighty lucky for Carla May that I was. One of 'em's in the back of my pickup.” When Buddy moved his hand toward the butt of the revolver on his hip, Tom went on, “He's not going anywhere. Got a fifty-pound bag of dog food on top of him.”

Buddy smiled faintly. “That'll work. What about the other one?”

“Gone,” Tom said with a shake of his head. “I hated to let him get away, but I had Carla May to think of. Also, I'd knocked out the other one and figured I'd better get him trussed up while I had the chance. Didn't want him comin' to and jumping me.”

“No, I'd say you did the right thing. How'd you knock him out?”

“Tire iron. Used it to bust the other one's arm, too.”

Buddy frowned at him. “You know, from what I've heard, those fellas were armed with automatic weapons.”

“Yeah.” Tom opened the door of the F-150. “There they are. I picked 'em up and put 'em on the seat. Figured you'd need them.”

The sheriff stared at the machine pistols for a long moment and then shook his head. “You went up against a couple of stone killers packing that much firepower with just a tire iron?”

“Well, I'd have preferred a cannon, say, but the tire iron was handy.”

Buddy Gorman laughed. “I never have been able to decide if you're the bravest man I know, Tom, or the biggest damn fool.”

Tom looked at the prisoner in the back of the pickup. “What did they do, besides kidnapping and raping Carla May?”

“Robbed Little Tucson Savings.” A grim look came over Buddy's face. “They killed Al Trejo, and shot up one of my deputies, too.”

Brannon felt heartsick. “Damn it, Buddy.”

“I know.”

“I guess it was Fred Kelso who got shot, since Wayne's here with you.”

“That's right.”

“How is he?”

“Don't know,” Buddy said. “He was hit pretty bad, but the paramedics seemed to think he has a chance.”

“Lord, I hope so.” Tom glanced toward the back of the pickup. “I'm startin' to wish I'd bashed the guy's head in, like I thought about doing.”

“It's a good thing you didn't. We'll need him to testify. Plus you might have gotten in trouble for doing something like that.”

Tom's eyes narrowed. “You mean
I
could get in trouble for busting the skull of a murdering, bank-robbing rapist?”

“Yeah, it's a hell of a note, ain't it? But you know things aren't like they used to be, Tom. The criminals have all the rights now, not the victims.”

Tom Brannon just shook his head.

Wayne Rushing and Francisco Montero hauled the taped-up killer out of the back of Brannon's pickup and put him in the rear seat of the sheriff's car. Buddy said, “Follow us on into town, Tom. You'll have to make a statement.”

“Sure. Louly can handle things at the store until I can get there.”

“You may have more things to worry about than working at the store.”

“How do you figure?” Tom asked with a frown.

“You're going to be a hero. You captured a bank robber and killer and rescued a woman. Gonna be lots of spotlights focused on you for a while, pal.”

“There's no need for that,” Tom insisted.

“But that's the way it'll be, like it or not. The worst of it, though, is the fact that the fella there probably belongs to M-15.”

Brannon's eyebrows went up. “That gang from below the border?”

“They're not below the border anymore,” Buddy said. “They're here, and after today, they're gonna have one hell of a grudge against you, Tom.”

 

 

Enrique Colon tried not to let his face reveal just how much pain he was in. A doctor had set his broken arm and put a cast on it, but it still hurt like
El Diablo
. He had asked for something to ease the pain, but the doctor had refused, saying that Señor Montoya wanted to talk to him while his brain was still clear. Enrique didn't know how clear his brain really was at the moment. How could any man think straight when he hurt so much?

Two men came into the back room of the cantina where Enrique waited. One of them motioned curtly for him to stand up. He got to his feet, swallowing hard as he did so. He didn't know the men's names, but he recognized their faces and the black T-shirts and black jeans they wore. They were Señor Montoya's personal bodyguards and assistants. His
segundos
. Both were lean and dark-faced and moved with the easy, deadly grace of jaguars.

Enrique had good reason to be afraid of jaguars. One had nearly gotten him when he was just a boy back in El Salvador, near the village where he had grown up. It would have if he hadn't been just a little faster on his feet than his younger brother . . . Sometimes, even after more than twenty years, he woke up at night sweating because he thought he could still hear Pablo's screams.

“Upstairs,” one of the men grunted as they led Enrique out of the back room. He went with one of them in front of him and the other behind. They made him nervous, and he wished he was anywhere else now, instead of in this cantina in Nogales, just across the border from Arizona.

The thumping beat of the music from the main room penetrated easily, even back here in the rear of the building. So did the thick, cloying smell of marijuana smoke. The customers smoked pot openly, and so did a lot of the cantina's employees. They all knew the law wouldn't bother them. This place belonged to Ernesto Luis Montoya, and what little law there was in Nogales knew perfectly well that they were to steer clear of it.

When the three men reached the top of the stairs, they found themselves in a short hallway that ended in a heavy wooden door. Thick and dark with age, the door looked like something that might have been found in an old mission, established hundreds of years ago by the stubborn priests who first brought European civilization to this raw, savage land. One of the jaguar-men, as Enrique thought of them, reached and clasped the brass handle on the door. He pulled it open and motioned with his eyes for Enrique to go inside.

Swallowing again, Enrique did so. The jaguar-men moved into the room behind him. The door closed with a solid thump, and to Enrique's surprise, he could no longer hear the music. The marijuana smell was gone, too, dispersed by the ceiling fan that turned lazily overhead.

The room was dim, with dark paneling on the walls and thick drapes over the windows that completely shut out the afternoon light. It might as well have been midnight outside. Enrique blinked as he waited for his eyes to adjust. His arm still hurt, but his nervousness kept him from thinking about it too much. For the first time, he had been summoned to a meeting with Señor Montoya, the leader of
Mara Salvatrucha
. He didn't like the feeling very much.

The room was expensively furnished, with heavy, overstuffed chairs and thick carpets on the floor. On one side of the room was a huge desk. On the wall behind it were computers and screens, so much equipment that it looked to Enrique like the control room of a spaceship like in
Star Wars
.

A giant-screen television was across from the desk, with big speakers around it. A home theater, they called it. Enrique knew there was a powerful satellite receiver on the roof of the cantina. Señor Montoya could watch anything he wanted, from anywhere in the world. The big TV was dark at the moment, though, as were the computer monitors. The only light in the room came from a shaded lamp on the desk. The man sitting behind the desk leaned back in his big leather chair so that the light from the lamp fell only on his legs. His torso and his head were in the shadows. Enrique could make them out in the reflected glow, but not clearly.

“Enrique Colon,” a deep, powerful voice said. Like the voice of God must sound, Enrique thought. Or maybe the Devil.

“Si, Señor Montoya,” Enrique said quickly, eager to please.

“Tell me what happened in Little Tucson.”

“We . . . we went there to rob the bank, as you instructed, Señor.” He wished he didn't seem so tentative. That looked bad in front of Señor Montoya. “Armando stayed in the car. Porfirio and I went into the bank. The guard realized what we were about to do, so I shot him.” There was a note of pride in his voice. He wanted Señor Montoya to think that he was a bad hombre, a ruthless killer. In point of fact, it had been Porfirio who had gunned down the security guard, but Señor Montoya didn't have to know that.

Enrique paused, thinking that perhaps Señor Montoya would tell him that he had done well, but instead the man behind the desk just said, “Go on.”

“We got the money, and we ran out to the Explorer, but one of the bitch tellers must have triggered an alarm somehow. We should have killed them all, first thing.”

“It's too late for that now. What happened?”

“A police car came up and blocked the exit. Armando drove over the curb and through, like a cactus garden, you know . . . Anyway, the policeman was shooting at us, so we shot back at him. I'm sure we killed him.”

“Then why didn't you get away successfully?”

The icy-voiced question made Enrique want to squirm. It was amazing how Señor Montoya could make someone feel like that. Enrique was a tough man. He had raped his first girl at twelve, killed his first man at fourteen. He had killed at least a dozen since then, and he couldn't even count all the women he had raped. Yet just a few words from Señor Montoya could make the blood in his veins turn to ice.

“The policeman, he must have made a lucky shot. Armando was hit in the back of the head. It killed him instantly, and he wrecked the Explorer. Porfirio and I had to grab another car to get away. A woman came along with her kids, so we made her drive us.”

“An attractive woman?”

“Very attractive, Señor.” Enrique couldn't keep a boastful note from creeping into his voice. “After we got out of town, we stopped to rape her. She cried out in passion when I fucked her.”

That was another lie, of course; the woman hadn't made a sound other than an occasional whimper.

Señor Montoya said, “Let me get this straight. You stopped to rape this woman only a few miles out of Little Tucson, with two bags of money in the car and the authorities perhaps on your trail?”

“There was nobody chasing us, Señor. We were certain of that, otherwise we never would have stopped. And we planned to kill the woman and take her car as soon as we were through with her.”

“Then what happened to prevent that?”

“This gringo,” this crazy gringo, he came out of nowhere, and he hit me with something that broke my arm.” Enrique touched the cast and winced, although truthfully the arm didn't hurt any worse now than it had before. “Then he hit Porfirio in the head and probably killed him.”

“You don't know?”

Enrique shook his head. “I'm sorry, Señor, but I had no chance to help him or to stay and make sure he was dead. The gringo, he got hold of Porfirio's gun, and he almost shot me. I barely escaped with my life.”

“But you didn't escape with the money.” The accusatory words stung like a lash.