That’s when it came to me. I knew how I could make the plan work. Maybe… as long as I was willing to surrender to them unarmed. Make myself an easy target for the 12-gauge shotgun I knew they were carrying. A shotgun at the very least.
Put myself at risk for my son?
No indecision there. No thought required.
Pure, that was the feeling. I’d never experienced an emotion like it in my life. I felt no fear, no hesitation, not even a sense of duty or obligation. I felt resolve. It was something to be done.
Fatherhood. I was learning about it late, but at least I was learning.
For an instant, Dewey’s face flashed in my mind-a baffling lapse in concentration, it seemed… until I understood the association.
I brought the test strips thinking we could have a private ceremony. Find out if I am or not…
It reminded me of something: There was reason for risk. I also had reason to be smart, stay alive.
A full-time father… what would that be like?
Yeah, I had reason.
I peered over the roof of the car to make certain the men weren’t on their way back. Then I tilted my head, listening for other fast cars approaching.
Were there?
Maybe… could be there was a car rumbling toward us from the distance.
There was still time, though. Not a lot, I hoped. But some.
I reached, put on the gloves, and used them to smear fingerprints that covered my old semiautomatic pistol.
How long had I owned the thing?
I had to think about that.
Years.
The Sig Sauer had been with me through some tough times. In several distant and dangerous countries.
It had been with me in Masagua during the Revolution, I remembered. I’d used it at least twice in the months before I met Pilar. In fact, I’d looked down the barrel of it at a pompous, self-serving, and diabolical little man named Don Blas Diego.
There was additional irony in that.
Now I’d have to part with it.
I reminded myself that I don’t care about firearms. I don’t care about things. I also reminded myself that I’m not the superstitious type. I told myself that Marion Ford doesn’t cling to objects, and he certainly doesn’t believe that guns can be good-luck talismans.
I once believed that I was incapable of lying to myself. It’s a delusion I no longer maintain.
There weren’t five of them. There were three. Three Latin-looking men, two squat and broad, one tall and angular, their backs to me as they approached the Ford.
As they neared the car, I tailed them.
They thought we might still be in the car. They were moving along the logging trail, hunched down in the classic way that hunters do. The man to the left carried a short-barreled, semiautomatic shotgun. It was the 12-gauge I’d expected after seeing the box of ammunition.
The taller man-white guayabera shirt worn outside expensive-looking sailcloth slacks-led from the middle, and appeared to be unarmed. Wasn’t showing anything obvious, anyway. He had dense black hair, professionally styled. The clothing, the hair, the way he carried himself all suggested money. Privilege.
Like the guy with the shotgun, the third man had the look of hired muscle. He carried what, from a distance, looked to be an automatic pistol-a submachine gun.
The main difference between a submachine gun and an automatic rifle is that a sub gun fires pistol ammunition. These days, the most common caliber is 9 mm.
I’d been right when I guessed they’d be carrying something similar. So why hadn’t I followed my instincts?
Good men I once trained with had an axiom that offered advice to anyone charged with making a battle plan: Keep it simple, stupid.
KISS is a handy acronym.
I hadn’t trusted my own instincts, which is stupid. Worse, I hadn’t kept my trap sufficiently simple.
Now, though, I felt like things were back on track… if I could keep from getting shot.
I was behind the men, walking the center of the trail, making no effort to hide or move quietly. The last thing I wanted was to startle them. When humans are startled, various muscles in our bodies contract involuntarily. The trigger finger is among them.
So, when I was within thirty yards or so and they still hadn’t noticed me, I called out, “Hey, guys? Hello. Hello? ”
All three whirled to face me, shotgun and Uzi at shoulder level-I recognized the sub gun now-both men leaning toward me ready to shoot while their taller companion surprised me by using his momentum to throw himself into the bushes, out of sight. He apparently assumed I had a weapon and was diving for cover.
It seemed a cowardly reaction. Let the others stand in the open while he hid.
Still, I was looking down two gun barrels. I had both hands high, calling to them, “Don’t shoot, guys! E-e-e-asy. Easy, for Christ’s sake! I don’t have a gun, a knife… I don’t have anything. ”
I kept the tone timid, talking like I was a typical suburban citizen, harmless, friendly, but nervous facing men with weapons. Which I was. I’m often told I look like a professor at some small Midwestern college. I was trying very hard to match my tone to that nonthreatening image now.
Because they kept their weapons trained on me, I continued babbling, “Seriously, I don’t know what you guys are doing… not that I care what you’re doing. It’s none of my business. Or-hey-maybe I’m trespassing. If I am, I didn’t see any signs or anything. Honest. I was just out for a little hike. Fellas, could you please not point those guns at me?”
Very slowly they lowered their weapons, looking at me full-faced now over the barrels. Both men could have been sculpted out of the same stocky Latino tree. The stunted oak variety. They were a foot shorter than I. Their faces, shoulders, and thighs were proportionally wide, tannin-dark, so they had the collective structural grace of twin butcher’s blocks.
Each had a mustache, too. Could have been fraternal twins. But their clothes set them apart. One wore a white straw Panama hat and a silken shirt that had a metallic sheen in strobing neon pinks and blues. The other preferred black. A guayabera shirt, black slacks, and shiny white shoes.
They might have been dressed for a night of salsa dancing-or running a string of prostitutes. Stylish in a gaudy ethnic way that is sexually emblematic. Striking colors compete for sexual attention.
I watched White Panama exchange looks with White Shoes, both of them now swinging weapons between the rental car and me. For all they knew, Tattoo and Tomlinson were hiding inside the car, part of a trap. They also shifted glances toward the bushes where their companion was keeping his head low. But he was also moving, I noted, maybe trying to get a look at me from cover.
The impression: Two bodyguards were seeking guidance from their boss man. A boss who either lacked courage or had good reason to fear an attack.
White Panama motioned with the Uzi and said to me in broken English, “Put your hands on your hair. Make it so your back turn to see my face in this way.”
I heard “ see mi fees theeze way, ” as he gave me a rotating demonstration with his index finger.
I folded my hands atop my head and turned my back to them as White Shoes asked in slightly better English, “Are your friends still in the car today? Where is Generalissimo Balserio’s wife, Pilar? What have you done with the wife?”
Pilar and Balserio’s marriage had been annulled years ago. That he still referred to her as Balserio’s wife told me something. Suggested they were allied with the General, and probably the original plan to kidnap Lake. In the video, Masked Man had also referred to Pilar as Balserio’s wife.
I replied, “I’m alone. I don’t know anything about a wife. Whose wife?”
“Don’t lie to us, mister. You lie, I shoot you here. Let the crocodiles eat your heart. Are your people in the car? Tell us something for my second question!”
“There’s no one in the car. I’ll show you myself. You can follow me and I’ll prove it.”