FaceOff (38 page)

They raised their hands signaling their surrender as Trona, now armed with his own machine gun and a good handgun, came forward with the other two captives, their arms in the air as well. The gringos’ two victims lay bleeding, quiet, unmoving, both facedown in the street.

Trona stood guard as Hunt collected the rest of the weapons. Minutes later they had bound and gagged the
narcos
with duct tape and fifty-pound-test fishing line that they found in the toolbox of the van, line that would cut them deeply if they struggled.

INSIDE, FOR HECTOR, THE NEGOTIATIONS
were not proceeding well. He’d been a villager here all his life, until a few years ago, before accepting the uniform, and the dark soul, of a Zeta. So he
knew how stubborn these people could be. How superstitious. Ignorant fishermen!

Even pointing his gold-plated, Malverde-embossed .45 at Joaquin, it had taken Hector a full ten minutes to convince Israel of the futility of his—and the town’s—position. If there was gold in Aqua Amarga, then it was Zeta gold, Hector’s gold,
verdad
? The town was only still in existence because of the forbearance of Hector Salida! Didn’t Israel realize that Hector could kill every man, woman, and child in Aqua Amarga and nothing would happen? Nobody would care. The useless and corrupt government would do nothing. To oppose Hector would be certain death. Did Israel want to see him kill Joaquin right now in front of him, or did he want to bring him the gold? It was really that simple. Hector looked down at Joaquin, a handsome young man, now curled tight on the floor, trembling like a cold dog. Hector swirled the barrel of his fancy gun through Joaquin’s lush black hair.

Israel looked at his son, then at Hector, then at Angelica.

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” said Israel.

Hector watched Israel rise and motion to his bodyguard to follow. They went down the hallway of the small house. Hector heard a scraping sound, like furniture being moved. He smiled at Angelica. “I miss the village.”

“The village does not miss you.”

“I’d rather be a legend than a slave.”

“You are a slave to greed.”

The two men were back in a moment, the bodyguard swinging a heavy rice bag onto the table, Israel looking on with a beaten expression. Hector swung his weapon away from Joaquin and ordered him to stand. The boy stood on shaking legs and Hector pointed the barrel of his gun at the bag. Joaquin untied and upended
it and the heavy treasure thundered onto the old wooden table. Hector set his gun down and pawed through his bounty—somewhere near thirty kilograms of quartz run through with thick, visible veins of gold. Five, eight, perhaps ten kilograms of the gold itself. A fortune.

Finally, thought Hector, things are going my way. “Now. Where is the mine? Which mine?”

Hector saw Joaquin hang his head and cast a look at his father.

“You have ten seconds to tell me the mine, or I shoot your mother,” said Hector. He pushed the end of the barrel between Angelica’s breasts. “One. Two. Three.”

“Father?”

“Four. Five.”

“Yes, son. Tell him!”

“Six. Seven. Eight.”

“Father?”

“Tell him!”

“Nine.”

“Test pit ninety-six!” said Joaquin. “On the way to San Antonio!”

“That is government property!” bellowed Hector. “How did you steal gold from the government?
How?
”

Joaquin looked at his father again, imploringly, and Israel nodded. “I have a friend in the ministry,” said Joaquin. “He knows I steal. We share.”

“His name?”

“If I tell you, he will kill me. If I don’t, you will.”

“I feel such sadness. His
name
!”

“Narcisso Rueda,” muttered Joaquin. “God help me.”

Someone knocked on the front door. Hector and the bodyguard swung their guns toward the sound.

HUNT STOOD WAY ASIDE FROM
the door, flat against the wall, and waited for the bullets to punch through. He mustered his best Spanish accent.
“Hector! Policia! Vamos!”

The door cracked open and the bodyguard peered out. Hunt grabbed his neck and twisted him back inside just as Hector raised his gun and fired. He felt the heavy .45s thudding into the Zeta’s armor, the powerful shock waves transferring from the bodyguard straight into himself. He threw the man to the floor as Israel crashed down on Hector’s arms with a chair—his golden gun skidding across the floor—and Angelica walloped him over the head with a cast-iron tortilla press. Trona burst in from behind them with one of the Zeta’s good semiautomatics held straight at Hector, who was back up on his knees, barely.

Hunt grabbed the golden gun, then drew his own borrowed handgun from his belt and gave the bodyguard a sharp rap to the head with it. He ordered the family to raise their hands and move back against the wall. “Now!”

Joe stepped in and herded them. Angelica raised her hands and looked at Trona. “The devil himself. Look at his face.”

“How nice of you to notice,” said Joe, unfailingly polite. “I’ve heard much worse.”

“Get out of my house,” said Israel.

“You gringo pigs leave us alone!” yelled Joaquin.

“Leave you alone?” asked Hunt. “After all your father’s talk on the boat radio today? All that fast Spanish he thought we couldn’t hear? After his endless bragging about his son finding the gold that was going to bring miracles to Aqua Amarga? Leave you
alone
?”

Hunt saw Israel’s pitch-perfect expression of shame. Of foolishness confessed. Of utter defeat.

“So,” said Trona. “Thanks for the tip, captain. There’s no way we could pass up an opportunity to rob you. But, since this hombre beat us to it, we’ll just rob him.
Le gusta? Es bueno?
”

Trona, eyes now on Hector and gun still in hand, swept the gold ore back into the rice bag and slung it over his shoulder.

“I vow to take back my gold and murder you,” said Hector.

“We’d have been disappointed if you didn’t,” said Joe.

“Let’s go, partner,” said Hunt.

“Let’s tie everybody up first,” Trona said. “Just for the hell of it.”

·  ·  ·

They had an early plane—nine
AM
—out of La Paz Airport, but both men felt it couldn’t really be too early.

As they watched and waited for their nearly twin duffel bags to pass through the X-ray machine, Hunt said, “All I want is to get past the security gate. I don’t think they’ll storm the airport.”

Trona shrugged. “They’re still tied up. Israel not as tight as some, that’s all. And Hector and his boys? Who’s going to cut ’em free? The villagers?”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Trona said, “I’m keeping my eyes open.” He lowered his voice. “I just hope nobody notices we’re not boarding with any gold. Which might make somebody wonder where it could be.”

“Who’s going to notice? It’s not like Hector’s going to go to the cops. ‘Hey, those two gringos just stole the gold that I just stole.’ I don’t think so. Instead, we just walk on the plane and stay cool. As far as Hector’s concerned, we got clean away, and the gold with us. And he’d never think—he’d never believe—that we put it back in Israel’s
panga.
”

“I know. Although he has vowed to take back his gold and kill us, remember?”

Hunt broke a smile and shook his head. “Not gonna happen. Just like he’s not going to find any gold in test pit ninety-six.”

·  ·  ·

With only the ten minutes or so that they’d had to go over their plan with Israel’s sister, they’d had to play things by ear. When they’d arrived at Israel’s home, for example, first thing they’d had to contend with was a very distrustful and hostile Joaquin and his fifteen years’ worth of testosterone. Why should he believe that Hunt and Trona were going to steal the gold from Hector and then return it to Israel and the good people of Agua Amarga? How could Angelica believe or trust these two gringos whom she had just met? Who were they anyway?

It had been a close thing, Joaquin getting the Colt from its hiding place, only to hold it on Joe and Wyatt for a tense few moments until Angelica could convince him that they really had no other choice. Hector and his
narcos
would be there within minutes. If Hunt and Trona were in fact planning on stealing the gold and keeping it for themselves, there was nothing Joaquin or anyone else could do about it.

“We could kill them right now and then kill as many of Hector’s men as we could before they kill us,” Joaquin said.

“We know that there is more gold in the ground,” Angelica had said. “No one needs to die over the gold we already have.”

And in the end, only two or three minutes before Hector and his men had arrived, Joaquin had given in.

And still, there had been one element of the plan that had worried Joe—they had no provision for Hector’s return to claim the rest of the gold from Joaquin’s secret mine. Everyone knew that
Hector would not rest until he knew where Joaquin had found the gold, and even if Hunt and Trona were successful in keeping the town’s gold from him that night, Hector would eventually cause more trouble when he came again.

“He’s going to need to know where you found it,” Trona had said, “and he will torture you until you tell him. So there is only one thing to do.”

“What is that?”

“Tell him the wrong mine,” Joe said, “and sting him.”

“Sting him how?”

“That is for you and your father to figure out.”

FOUR DAYS AFTER HUNT AND
Trona had landed safely back in the States, Narcisso Rueda, a longtime angling customer of Israel’s, sat in the bow of the
panga
about a hundred meters offshore. He was awaiting the long run-up at full power into ever more and more shallow water until Israel with perfect timing lifted the screaming, whining propeller up out of the water and killed the engine as the water became the beach and the
panga
sheared its way through the sand until it came to rest twenty or thirty feet up onto the strand, high and dry. No matter how many fish they caught, and today Narcisso had landed two dorado and two tuna, the beaching of the
pangas
always provided an adrenaline rush, a last moment of excitement and pure, simple fun.

But today, though they were in position to rush the shore, Israel kept the engine in neutral. Narcisso was, in fact, head of security for the government’s gold mining operations near La Paz. He had, of course, never made any kind of gold deal with Israel’s son. In fact, he was widely known as an incorruptible official. Unlike so many of Mexico’s security forces, especially those dealing with the
narcotrafficantes,
Narcisso had successfully investigated and prosecuted both gold thieves from among the miners and corruption at the corporate level. No fewer than two dozen men now sat in federal prisons because of Narcisso’s efforts.

After he listened to Israel’s story, a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “I have heard something of this Hector Salida. A nasty piece of work. He thinks he can bribe me?”

Israel nodded. “I took him out off Cerralvo last week,” he lied. He has a reckless mouth, and he has heard of gold in one of the abandoned mines. Gold that, supposedly, you don’t know of.”