No Way Back: A Novel (14 page)

I never heard the shot. Just a spitting sound as Joe lurched forward with a gasp. I turned and saw a hole in his coat and his face go white and blood coming from his shoulder.

I screamed.
“Joe!”
My eyes fixed on him in horror and disbelief.

“Get out of here, Wendy,” he said, his eyes reflecting something between concern and helplessness. He pushed into me to get me going, just as another thud zinged in, a groan seeming to come straight from his lungs, blood seeping through his fingers. “Go! Now!”

I couldn’t. My feet were paralyzed.
What have they done to Joe?

Even though he was the only thing protecting me from being hit myself, he pushed me away.
“Wendy, now!”

I took off.

The woman I’d noticed a moment ago studying the schedule moved toward me, but Joe staggered into her, grabbing her arm and taking her down with him as he fell to his knees. Another shot came in, hitting her.

I screamed and pushed my way into a throng, just as people began to realize what was happening and started to scream as well.

I began to run. I looked back once at Joe, helpless, blood pooling on his chest. The woman he was entangled with took out a gun and started to shout at me.
“Stop that woman! Stop!”

I fled into the crowd, darting in and out before the NYPD people even got a sense of what was happening. I heard the panicked murmur spread like wildfire, “Someone’s shooting! Someone’s shooting!”

I knew I had to get out of here now.

I hunched my face deeper into my collar and hurried away from the center of the station, praying that the next thing I felt wouldn’t be a sniper’s bullet tearing into me.

I moved toward the Vanderbilt Avenue staircase, to run down to the lower floor, praying that by now the guy with the rifle either had to flee himself or had lost me in the throng.

Then I caught sight of someone else standing at the bottom of the staircase. Staring directly at me.

The black agent who had chased me at the hotel.

Dokes.

Everything in me turned to ice.

Frantic, I backed away from him, bumping into people passing by. For a second he stood as frozen as me, then he spoke into a radio. Our gazes locked on each other. I saw him reach into his jacket for a gun.

I took off across the Main Concourse.

I knew I was a sitting duck. The NYPD cops were everywhere, and a guy was peering through a sniper’s scope, all searching for a woman in a blue parka, sunglasses, and hood.

I sprinted into a large group of Asian tourists moving toward Lexington Avenue and pushed my way into the middle. I tore off my parka and threw it to the floor. I pulled off my sunglasses and shook out my hair, knowing anyone looking for me would be focused on the woman they’d all seen a moment before.

I turned and saw Dokes pushing his way through the bustling crowd, trying to follow me. Maybe twenty or thirty yards behind. My thoughts went to Joe. I didn’t know if he was alive or dead. I only knew what he would want me to do.

I ran.

I made it across the terminal to the east annex, where most of the shops and retail food outlets were.

But I was petrified to try to get to one of the main entrances. I was sure they would be covered.

Then it hit me. The subway entrance. It was just up the platform. A hundred yards from me.

That was my best way out.

I bolted out of the crowd and wedged myself between a businessman and a woman on her cell phone, and made it to the southeast underpass beneath the giant schedule board. I knew I was finally out of reach of the guy on the balcony. But I did spot the bearded NYPD detective I had seen at the information booth who was frantically sorting through the people passing by him. I wasn’t sure if I could trust him if I just turned myself in as planned. Someone had given me away! The only thing I had going for me was that he’d be looking for someone in a blue parka and sunglasses.

I put my hand over my face as if I was talking on my cell phone and went right by him, catching sight of him jumping up and down and as he craned for a better view. From here it was only about fifty yards up the ramp to the subway entrance. There, I was pretty sure I could get lost in the myriad tunnels and trains at the Forty-Second Street station.

But then I made a mistake.

Instead of remaining huddled in the crowd, I turned around to see if the NYPD guy was coming after me.

And I found myself staring at Dokes. He had stopped to get a better vantage point and was scanning the area where he thought I’d be. His gaze locked on me. He grabbed his radio and came after me. He was around twenty yards behind.

I darted out of the cover of the crowd.

Now he had a bead on me, and I realized that my life was only as good as my being able to get to the subway. I fled up the Forty-Second Street ramp, jammed with rushing commuters who knew nothing of what had happened back in the main station, knocking into them as I darted by, frantically glancing behind me to see how close Dokes was.

He was gaining.

He knocked down a pedestrian in his way, shouting, “Federal agent!” Closing the gap on me.

I sped down the subway steps, forcing myself past the slower pedestrians, fumbling through my purse for my transit card. I looked back up the stairs and saw Dokes darting through the crowd.

My heart constricted with fear.

In the station, I had several possibilities, but there was no time to think it through. There was a tunnel that led to the crosstown shuttle, and another to the F and Q trains to Queens and Brooklyn. My thought had been to get to the uptown Lexington line and make it to 125th Street, where I could catch the Metro-North train back to Rye, where I’d left my car.

I ran my card and pushed through an empty turnstile, just as Dokes made it down the stairs.

He looked around, unable to spot me at first. There was a maze of people rushing by. I ran along the upper platform, stopping behind a jewelry kiosk. I looked back and saw him scanning in all directions, not knowing where I was. He threw up his hands in exasperation.

I couldn’t wait. I was just so nervous hiding there. It was as if my breaths and the pounding of my chest were giving me away. I heard the rumble of a train coming into the station below me. I ran to one of the staircases to head down to the platform. As soon as I was in the open, Dokes caught sight of me. I ran down the stairs and saw him leap the turnstile and head after me.

Oh, Wendy, no . . .

I knew I had nowhere to go but onto a train, or else I’d be trapped on the platform. I figured he knew it as well. As I got to the platform, two trains arrived in the station simultaneously, an express and a local. There were dozens of people blocking my path, but I elbowed through them and hurried two or three cars down from where Dokes would be coming.

The trains hissed to a stop. The doors opened on both sides. Streams of passengers poured off. I was certain Dokes was on the platform heading toward me. I had to choose. I bolted onto the express train and pushed my way through the crowd, begging the doors to close, not knowing if Dokes had already jumped on. I stood away from his probable line of sight. If he did make it on, he could simply push his way through, car by car. Eventually, he’d find me. I didn’t know if I should stay on or get off. Run to the local or go back up the stairs to the upper platform. Or if he had other people following him. I heard the conductor’s announcement: “Fifty-Ninth Street, next stop.”

Close, damn it, close.
I looked at the local across the platform. I had no idea which train Dokes might be on.
Just close.

Finally I heard the warning buzzer. I had no idea where Dokes was. Then I saw him running back on the now empty platform, scanning through the windows of both trains. The buzzer sounded again. I peered through an opening in the bodies surrounding me and, to my relief, saw him jump onto the local train, just as the doors began to close.

My heart almost imploded in relief as we began to pull away.

Somehow having second thoughts, Dokes leaped off his train and crossed the platform. He peered through the window and slammed on the door of our departing train. He took out his badge and tried desperately to flash it at a conductor as the train began to move, picking up speed.

Then he slammed the side of the train in anger and frustration.

We zoomed by.

I knew he couldn’t radio to anyone ahead at the next stop, or get the NYPD involved. The police were the last people he wanted to find me.

I was safe. At least for the moment.

I dropped my head against a pole, my breaths heavy and fast. My mind flashed to Joe. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. I only knew I could no longer turn myself in. Not now.

The only way out now was to prove my innocence.

I reached into my pocket and came out with Curtis’s phone.

ROXANNE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I
t took a month for Harold and an immigration lawyer to prepare Lauritzia’s case. He had to familiarize himself with the records from the first trial in Texas, in which the immigration court denied the family’s petition for asylum. The split ruling seemed so inexplicably flawed.

Then he got the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Dallas to agree to hear them in an expedited manner.

In the meantime Lauritzia remained hidden in an apartment the firm rented for her in New Haven, Connecticut, watched over by private security. She kept up her classes on the Internet and drove back to Greenwich and Harold’s office a couple of times in secrecy to go over her testimony. During all this time she saw Roxanne only once, when Roxanne drove up to New Haven for the day to visit, bringing pictures and cards from the kids. Harold found a government witness willing to talk about Cano: Sabrina Stein, who had been head of the DEA’s office in El Paso as well as the government’s covert action unit there, known as EPIC, the El Paso Intelligence Center. Stein knew Cano to be a ruthless and remorseless killer, whose thirst for revenge was almost as strong as his shrewdness and his instinct for survival. It was Sabrina Stein’s agents who had been the targets of the hit in Culiacán, Mexico, that began this whole tragic affair.

It seemed a positive sign that the court agreed to hear the case so quickly.

The decision two years ago to deny the Velez family asylum seemed more a result of the furor at the time over lack of immigration control along the Mexican border than proper jurisprudence or fairness. The United States government no longer needed Lauritzia’s father’s testimony after the case against Cano broke down, and thus there was certainly no need for his children to be granted asylum in the United States, simply because of their “unsubstantiated” claim of a vendetta against them back in Mexico. Therefore they ruled that the privileges of asylum that were extended to Mr. Velez as a government witness did not extend to his children. However, now, Harold would argue, the situation had tragically changed. Lauritzia’s three sisters and a brother had been killed; Cano had made no secret of his vendetta. Now Harold could show a clear pattern of “retaliation and threat” against the family, of which Lauritzia and her father were the only surviving members. He would argue that her situation was akin to any “persecuted refugee” in any political or ethnic “class.” That Lauritzia legitimately feared persecution and even death should she be returned home, as was ordered by the court. A situation only worsened, in fact, by the U.S. government’s decision not to pursue the prosecution of Eduardo Cano. Any test of reasonability had to find for her now.

Their court date, September 20, finally came around. Harold and his associate flew down to Dallas with Lauritzia. Roxanne came along too. It took place in the federal courthouse on Commerce Street downtown. The courtroom seemed strangely empty to Lauritzia, who had only seen trials in movies or on TV. There was no media attention; they didn’t want any. And no jury. Only three judges, a woman and two middle-aged men. Harold was optimistic. The night before, they’d gone over her testimony one last time. Her story was as compelling and tragic as any the court would have ever heard.

They had to win.

In his opening, Harold began by arguing that no one could possibly be brought before this court with a stronger case for asylum in the United States. Lauritzia’s father, while a criminal himself, had risked his life and freedom to testify against a notorious drug enforcer whose trail of blood included five American lives. That it was only due to the United States’s questionable decision not to pursue the prosecution against Mr. Cano that he was even freed and returned to Mexico to pursue this reign of terror against Velez’s family.

“Ms. Velez has faced a fate of terror and uncertainty. She has lost virtually every close member of her family due to Mr. Cano’s openly declared vow of revenge. In that sense alone she belongs to a ‘persecuted class,’ as legitimate as any political or ethnically motivated persecution. That class,” Harold argued, “being her own family.”

It came time for Lauritzia to take the stand. She was sworn in wearing a dark suit they had bought her for the occasion, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, both pretty and serious-looking.

“Ms. Velez, I’d like you to tell the court the last time you spoke to your brother Eustavio,” Harold said to her.

“Eustavio . . .” Lauritzia moistened her lips. “That was in 2009. Before he was found shot dead on the street in my hometown of Navolato in Mexico. His body was mutilated.”

“I know this is difficult, Ms. Velez . . .” Harold approached the witness box. “But can you tell the court how the body was mutilated?”

Lauritzia glanced at up the black-robed justices and took a breath. The white-haired male judge seemed to nod for her to go on.

“His
genitales
,” she hesitated. “I think it is the same in English. They had been cut off and put in his mouth. Where I come from it is the sign of a traitor.”