“And you?” He faced Magnum. “Anything to add?”
“Only that if we don’t do something about the body in there, this could get very ugly very fast. Like I told you before, we have to extend every courtesy.”
“There’s a limit.”
“Maybe so,” Magnum said. “But this isn’t it.”
Shattuck pondered the situation with a taciturn expression. As he did, I felt a weight drop from my shoulders. I had not only proven myself, I had defined myself. I had declared which side I was on. Years later, at the bed of a victim I’d been unable to help, a reverend by the name of Curtis Blunt would quote some Scripture at me, to the effect that cops are God’s instruments for doing justice, and only the wicked need to fear them. Setting aside any delusions of grandeur, an instrument is what I was. A servant of the abstract idea. “Justice,” I’d said to Magnum, and with a straight face, too. And I still believe it. The same fire burns in me, muffled though it is by cynicism and failure and the passage of so many years.
The pistol in my hand felt so heavy that when the major asked for it, I was happy to give it up. He ejected the magazine, drew back the slide, and released the chambered round. It thudded to the floor. He handed the pistol to Sgt. Crewes.
As soon as he did, Magnum sprang forward.
I never saw the blow coming. But there it was. The crack against my cheek, my neck twisting, my eyes clenched shut in agony. When they opened, the world was decked in gauze and I was reeling. I must have staggered back against the wall, because there I was, sliding down to the floor. I was down and out, and Magnum’s fist was already recocking for the next punch.
The last thing I remember seeing was Sgt. Crewes pistol-whipping the CIA agent. He crumpled and went down. Maybe I’m fooling myself, but the way I remember it, my eyes stayed open a moment longer than his.
CHAPTER 26
I don’t have to get out of my car or even roll the window down. Like the white van, I just drive straight through, one of the hundreds, maybe thousands of tourists crossing back and forth across the border today. All the precautions were seemingly for nothing, though it brings me no relief. The sound of Charlotte’s voice still rings in my ear. The Rio Grande might as well be the Rubicon.
Three bridges over the river connect Brownsville to Matamoros, and we have taken the middle one, which feeds onto a fingerlike promontory wrapped by a bend in the river. The northbound lanes, like the ones at Sarita, are backed up with Americans heading home. The rush into Mexico must slacken by early evening, because once we’re through the checkpoint, the cars in front of me accelerate at a brisk pace. Keeping the van in sight, I scan the sidewalks for any sign of Jeff among the stream of pedestrians.
He slips through the crowd, jogging into the street just ahead of me with a silly grin on his face, reaching for the door handle and slipping inside.
“That was anticlimactic,” he says. “It seems you don’t need a passport at all to get into Mexico. This guy on the bridge told me, it’s getting back that’s the problem.”
“We’ll worry about that when the time comes.”
He nods toward the van. “So they just drove straight through?”
“That could be typical. I don’t know. It’s not a chance I would have taken with all those guns, though. Either they’re the most cold-blooded risk takers in the world, or they know something we don’t.”
“Or the Feds just waved them through,” he says. “If what they told you is true, it’s not like they have a problem with the guns going south.”
I glance over at Jeff, whose walk across the bridge seems to have left him feeling refreshed, wondering whether he didn’t already know he could get across without a passport. A more cynical man might wonder if his little detour served no purpose but to insulate him from any consequences if my car had been searched and the weapons underneath discovered.
He sees me looking at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Now the hard part begins.”
Although the transition from Brownsville isn’t jarring-apart from the signs in Spanish and the different license plates, this city isn’t all that different from the one I’ve just left, equally shabby and run down, with a superficial lipstick for the sake of the tourists-there are a few buildings here and there you wouldn’t find across the river, including a stately mustard-colored place, pure Bourbon Street, with wrought-iron balconies and ornate windows shut away behind weathered shutters. A few street vendors are still working on the corners. Many of the shop fronts, however, are already hidden behind roll-down metal doors.
The white van makes a turn, travels a few blocks, then turns again. We follow them through a verdant city park, the slope dominated by a crazy sculpture that looks like two twists of red licorice rising out of the ground. They stop the van and get out.
“Here we go,” Jeff says.
I pass them and drive back onto the street, pulling into an empty space where we can watch through the back window. A minute later, a silver Toyota turns into the park and rolls up beside them. A tingle runs through me as Brandon Ford exits the passenger side, coming around to shake hands with the two men from the van. He slides open the van door, peers inside, then snaps it shut. The three of them exchange a few words between the vehicles; then Ford motions them toward the Toyota.
“They’re gonna leave the van here. Someone else is picking it up.”
“What do we do?” Jeff asks. “Stick with them or wait around?”
I tap the steering wheel, indecisive. Ford is why we’re here, but leaving the van’s cargo for pickup by the cartel would be an inexcusable breach. The handoff I’d envisioned, a classic guns-for-money trade going down somewhere secluded where we might have a shot at interdiction is clearly off the cards. I have to choose between Ford or the guns.
“I can’t let them have those guns,” I say.
Jeff, half turned in his seat, gets a constipated look. “Forget about the guns. We stick with Ford. That’s why we’re here.”
“I can’t do it. I thought I could.”
“Listen. We have to stick with Ford.”
“I hear you, but I’m not letting the cartel have those guns.”
We’re crossing all the lines. We’re doing things we’ve got no business doing, taking risks we’ve got no business taking.
“They’ll get more guns,” he says. “That’s not a real problem for them.”
His cheeks are flushed with color, his voice thin, reminding me of his emotional reaction earlier on the road. He has a stake in this, too. His attachment to Nesbitt is what’s driving him, not any loyalty to me. He wants Ford, simple as that.
“Yeah, they’ll get more guns,” I say, “but they won’t get them thanks to me.”
“So you’re gonna let him go?”
I nod, hardly believing it myself.
“It’s unacceptable.”
“Even so-”
“All right, listen. Here’s what we’ll do. You stick with Ford. Don’t let him out of your sight, no matter what. Leave me here and I’ll take care of the van.”
“Take care of it how?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “I’ll hot-wire it and catch up to you.”
The Toyota pulls out of the park, flashing past us down the street. Jeff pushes his door open, rushing to get out.
“Jeff-”
“Call me when you know where he’s going. I’ll catch up to you when I can.”
He slams the door, then beats his palm on the roof a few times until I finally get going. As I race to catch up with Ford, I see him in the rearview, running toward the van, moving like there’s a bomb to defuse and the timer’s ticking down.
The geography of the city is wholly unfamiliar to me, just a half-remembered jumble from those college visits, which means that after a couple of turns I’m lost, with nothing but the Toyota’s taillights to guide me. Even now, I couldn’t explain to Jeff by phone how to catch up to me, and maybe that’s for the best. If he keeps his word and takes care of the van, if he manages to hot-wire it or just flags down the policía to report a suspicious vehicle, then he’ll have justified my trust and ended his exposure to danger all at once.