Political Suicide (26 page)

Brody brought a thermos from the passenger seat of his van and poured a clear red liquid into a small plastic cup.

“Why don’t you want to tell me what that drink is?” Manolo asked.

“Do you tell your wife the name of your mistress?” Brody responded. “It is enough for you to know that what you make for me does not work properly without what my other source makes for me. It is better that way,
sí
?”

“I suppose so. My wife and my mistress. I like that one, Señor Colonel.”

The man, Pedro, took the cup of crimson liquid, studied it for a few seconds, and then swallowed it in one gulp along with the capsule.

Manolo checked his watch. “Give five minutes to have an effect,” he said to Brody.

“How long has this man been taking the formula?” Brody asked.

“A month, more or less. Every day.”

“Give it fifteen minutes at least. I can wait.”

“I told you, this stuff is good.”

Manolo went to the front seat of his truck and brought back what Lou thought might be a portable electrocardiogram machine. Pedro unzipped his jacket and unbuttoned his work shirt, exposing his bare chest to the elements without the slightest trace of discomfort. As Manolo pasted on several electrodes to Pedro’s chest, the rest of the crew formed a tight perimeter to watch. Pedro’s stoniness did not come as a surprise to Lou. Even without a drug in his system, the man seemed the sort who could wolf down a breakfast of nails and glass without so much as an orange juice chaser.

Manolo gave Brody the cardiogram machine to hold. “You’ll see how good, amigo,” he said. “You’ll see.”

Pressed onto the leaf- and snow-coated ground, Lou watched from above as Manolo pulled a huge revolver from the waistband of his pants. He chambered a round and made it a point of showing Brody the weapon now was loaded with a single bullet. Then he flicked his wrist and locked the cylinder back in place. Finally, dramatically, he spun the cylinder fast enough to make the sound of a whirling roulette wheel.

Then he handed the gun to Pedro.

Lou did not need his Spanish to interpret Manolo’s instructions.

The younger man stared off into the distance as calm as if he were bird-watching, and slid the muzzle of the weapon deeply into his mouth. The crew around him were shouting words of encouragement. Brody seemed to care only about the readout on the cardiograph. Lou sucked in a breath and held it, stunned by the barbarity of what he was witnessing. Every fiber demanded he try to stop the madness. But he knew better. Pedro shouted something from his throat and, with no more preparation than that, pulled the trigger.

Click.

Empty chamber.

Lou silently released his breath.

Smiling, Pedro handed the gun to Brody who, making no eye contact, fired at a tree twice before a shot rang out and splintered wood. Then he handed Pedro an envelope, passed the revolver to Manolo, and continued studying the machine.

“Unbelievable,” he said. “This reaction time is spectacular. What did you guys do?”

“Like I said, Señor Colonel, we made it better,” Manolo said. “Better, purer ingredients.”

“The meth?”

“New cook. New recipe.”

Brody simply nodded.

The transfer continued in silence. The man, Pedro, who had cheated death, went right back to offloading weapons. Brody returned the plastic bag to the dry ice and checked to be certain the coolers were secure in his van. Then, without another word, he climbed into the cab of his truck, reversed direction, and headed down toward the highway. Lou had no chance to follow, but he had learned most of what he needed to—except who these men were, and where they were headquartered. Manolo, the mustachioed leader of the group, turned his truck around without difficulty and headed back up the mountain.

Lou remained crouched on the bluff until the engine noise had been replaced by a heavy silence. Then he clambered down to where the exchange had taken place and cautiously began following the van tracks uphill. The sun was beginning its descent, but the midafternoon chill was tolerable.

Guns for drugs.

Mantis and some sort of Mexican cartel.

Was this the knowledge that had gotten Elias Colston killed? Was there more?

Lou had his suspicions about how Brody was using his portion of the deal, but at this point nothing was certain, including the role of the secretary of defense.

About thirty minutes up the hill, the woods thickened and the snowpack became deeper. Achy and chilled, Lou trudged ahead, sticking to the edge of the road and keeping a sharp eye out for guards. A clearing up ahead drew his attention. Sunlight, peeking out from behind a cloud, cast a spotlight on a dilapidated-looking structure.

The ramshackle building, a drug cartel version of a still, Lou guessed, was made of corrugated steel and framed with rough wooden beams. It seemed to have more chimneys and smokestacks than it did windows. White smoke, thick and heavy with the pungent odor of ammonia, wafted out from the stacks and stung Lou’s lungs. The white truck was parked to the right of the building, alongside a gray SUV—possibly a Honda. Pedro and three others from the weapons exchange were taking guns from the back of the truck and carrying them around to the other side of the still. Lou watched from behind the trunk of a large pine.

Drugs for guns.

Some sort of super amphetamine for M4s.

A classic barter, no more elegant than a quart of moonshine for a Colt .45 in the Old West. Manolo emerged from inside the still and peeled off a paper surgical mask. This time, however, he was not alone. Leashed to his wrist was the largest German shepherd Lou had ever seen. The dog’s keen ears were bent back. Its eyes seemed to be focused on the air itself. Lou watched the animal’s nostrils flare and its head dart about.

Oh shit!
he thought.

Was the dog’s arrival on the scene coincidence, or did they suspect something?

Manolo rattled off some Spanish. Then he started to walk down the road toward Lou—a leisurely stroll, just exercising his dog, or so it seemed. But the shepherd resisted. Manolo took four steps, and the dog dug in its heels. Its lips peeled back in an angry snarl. A growl, low and threatening as thunder, echoed off the trees. Then its eyes locked on a target and the growl turned into angry barking. Its jaws began snapping in a way that begged for flesh to tear. Its open mouth, dripping with saliva, showcased a finely sharpened set of white daggers. Lou traced the dog’s line of sight and felt a wave of heat roll up his back.

The animal was looking right at the tree where he was hiding.

CHAPTER 34

The huge German shepherd continued snarling and straining at his leash.

“What’s happening?” one of the gang asked.

“I don’t know. He’s in a very bad mood.”

“Matador’s always in a bad mood. Maybe he smells something—a rabbit or a rat. Pedro probably left the lid off the trash again.”

Matador.
The name meant “bullfighter,” but it also meant “killer.”

Lou’s mouth went dry.

Thirty yards away, he flattened himself against the pine. He was never much more than a B student in Spanish, and he was doing about C-plus work translating now. But for whatever reason, he knew Matador.

Manolo battled to keep the shepherd in line, and began scanning the woods for the source of the animal’s angst.

It would not be long before he discovered the answer.

Despite the chill surrounding him, Lou was sweating. Matador had downshifted to a low, rumbling growl, as if he had decided to conserve energy for what lay ahead. Lou remained concealed, desperately playing through scenarios of escape, and finding none that had any promise. He thought he heard Manolo say the word
ardilla,
and hoped he remembered it as “squirrel” or “chipmunk,” and not “dinner.” The dog’s constant growling sparked in Lou a deep-seated fear, possibly from a scare in his childhood.

Lou silently added “mauled by an animal” to his list of horrible ways to die. The shepherd’s teeth were designed to latch on to flesh and tear it away one agonizing bite at a time. Lou imagined the terror of pushing haplessly against the powerful animal’s salivating snout, while its jaws bore into his gut, drilling him hollow. The image came to him so visceral, so real, that he swallowed at an imaginary copper taste of blood percolating in the back of his throat.

Matador.

Lou kept his body rigid, trying to will some control over his ragged breaths and scattered thoughts.
Breathe in through the nose … out through the mouth, just like I’m in the ring, just like sparring … in through the nose, out through the mouth.
The gospel according to Cap Duncan.

Lou thought about Emily. All his focus should have been on escaping, but that was the thing about having a kid. He thought about how his death would impact her. Would anybody even find his body? Probably not. Manolo and the crew would bury him in pieces somewhere in the woods, torch his car, and then
voilà,
gone. Missing person, whereabouts unknown. Posters would be circulated. Search teams would be organized, maybe even a modest reward offered. Officer Judy Lemon would tell the Staties all that she remembered of the man who, just yesterday, it seemed, changed lanes improperly. Manolo and the Juárez cartel would dismantle the lab and rebuild it many miles away. The end.

The growling intensified again.

You cannot die up here in the woods. You cannot let it happen.

Lou’s controlled breathing began having a positive effect. His thoughts became more logical and focused, although none of them carried hope. He could try to crawl backwards and take a new position farther down the road, but he’d be exposed between trees. He had no idea how sharp Matador was—how little movement and shift of smell it would take for him to go into attack mode. At the moment, he was a decent distance away, but if Lou simply bolted, the dog would close the gap in seconds. Game over.

Then, as if reacting to Lou’s unspoken prayer, Manolo tied the snarling animal to a post and went around to the back of the still, possibly to check on the guns. Lou backed up carefully and, amidst a renewed crescendo of barking, added ten more yards to the distance between him and death. A couple of more moves like that, and he would make a break for the Camry.

Again, the barking dipped to a simmer. The dog’s back stayed arched, its keen eyes constantly probing, like a marine on patrol. Lou hunched over and took another precious ten yards. Then another. Manolo had returned and again took Matador’s leash. He tugged hard, but the mammoth dog strained in the opposite direction. Lou seized the distraction and raced to another tree. Killer, possibly hearing the rustling of fallen leaves or smelling the fear thickening the air, snapped his head around. Manolo, consumed by winning his power struggle with the beast, yanked on Matador’s leash, trying to force the dog to heel.

Lou could see the smoke but not the lab. He dropped to his butt and eased down the mountain. In retrospect, it had been stupid to try to check out the still, but he had done stupid before, though perhaps not with these consequences. The rocks tore through his jeans and left painful scrapes on his legs. He could still hear excited barking, but could not tell if the sounds were getting any closer. Finally, he risked pulling himself to his feet.

Almost there.

He made it another fifteen minutes and thought by now he’d gone far enough so the dog would be out of earshot. A volley of barking said he wasn’t. The slope had steepened, and the temperature was dropping. Ice was now a problem. An all-out sprint to the car might work, but it also might well result in a sprained ankle or, worse, a broken one.

Lou eased around the clearing where the guns-for-drugs exchange had taken place. Maybe seventy-five yards to go. The time for caution was over. He began to trot down the steep embankment toward the boulder where he had concealed the Toyota. Then, from up the hill, he heard the sound of crunching ice and leaves, followed by an intense growl. Spinning around, Lou saw Matador streaking across the ridge above him, dragging his leash.

His heart threatening to explode, Lou broke into a chaotic sprint. His feet skidded on the ice-slickened slope, slowing his steps.

Careful … careful.

Ahead he saw a glimmer of red—the front of his car—poking out from behind the boulder. Behind him, no more than fifty feet away, the streaking brown missile intent on tearing him to pieces was locked in and headed down the embankment. His teeth were bared. Saliva hung down from his snout like streamers.

Lou glanced ahead at his car and did some quick math. Twenty or thirty feet to the driver’s-side door, plus two seconds to get inside, equaled dead. No question about it. He imagined the beast launching itself at him from behind, knocking him face-first to the ground, then going at his neck.

It wasn’t going to happen—not without some sort of response. Could he make it onto the roof of the car? What would happen then? How about over the roof and in the passenger-side door? The images flashed through his mind like a passing bullet train.

From behind, the snarling grew louder—closer.

Then Lou tripped.

The villain was a partially buried root, thick as a fist. Lou fell heavily, air exploding from his lungs. His face slammed against the frozen ground, dazing him. Still, he managed to roll to his back. It was a complete surprise at that moment to realize his hand was wrapped around a dead branch—four feet long, heavy, leafless, and gnarled as an arthritic limb.

He was scrambling to his feet when the blurred outline of Matador came into sharp focus—ten feet away and about to go airborne. Instinctively, operating on rubbery knees, Lou turned sideways and gripped the end of the branch with both hands. Between blinks, he flashed on a memory, processing it as fast any computer.

He was twelve years old, playing Little League baseball. Always a decent fielder, he was doomed in the sport by his inability to hit. The bases were loaded with two outs in a tie game. His team, the Dodgers, needed just one run to win the league championship. The resulting scene would stay with him forever—teammates charging the mound, all laughing, high-fiving, piling on one another. Just one hit. God, but he wanted it so badly. Three pitches, three swings, three strikes. Nobody from the Dodgers did any celebrating that day.