— Yes. Big parties here, said the captain.
— Why aren’t guns and money enough to buy mercy in this wretched country? What is wrong with you people?
— Get out.
They pushed and pulled him out of the Durango and walked him up the loading ramp. Inside bare bulbs hung on a cord from the high ceiling and there were old conveyor belts and rollers scattered, and packing tables and shipping stations long defunct. Near the middle of the large open warehouse Bradley saw three ropes hung from pulleys high in the rafters. Each rope ended in a hook heavy enough to straighten the rope without a load and fitted with a clip to keep its cargo fast. The opposite ends were wrapped around the spools of manual crank winches bolted to the floor.
There were commercial grade floodlights fixed to the rafters and, when these blasted on, Bradley saw the blood-stained floorboards and the bolted rings and shackles and chains and the chainsaws and the red gas cans arranged in a loose row to one side like an audience. There was a car battery with jumper cables and assorted hand tools thick with rust, lengths of rope and garden hose, pry bars, gloves and folding chairs, all frosted and surreal in the white light.
His heart dropped. The sum of all fears in Mexico, right here in this building. Wrong call. Not the good guys I was hoping for. Armenta’s goons. And now we slowly die.
— All this is for your interviews?
— The interviews are long.
— What do you want to know, capitan?
— It’s very simple what I want to know.
Two of the men wrestled Caroline Vega forward and two more brought an unresisting Jack Cleary into the bright wash of the torture lights. Both were handcuffed and Cleary still bled from the nose. The soldiers shackled each of them to the floor by one ankle, then they clipped a ceiling hook through the chain of Bradley’s handcuffs. When one of the men cranked the hand winch, the pulley whinnied far overhead and his arms jerked up behind him and his head dropped forward. Soon there was only an inch of play before the joints of Bradley’s shoulders would give way. He stared at the floor. The pain was sharp but bearable though he could feel that it would grow exponentially with even a twitch of the winch.
— Capitan? Please tell me what you want.
— Did you bring the guns to sell to Armenta? Or to kill him?
— Are you an honest soldier, capitan?
The pulley squealed and Bradley’s breath caught and he stood on his tiptoes aghast at the pain and the promise of pain.
— To sell him or to kill him? Why is this difficult to say?
God my faith is in you, Bradley thought.
— To kill him.
— What did you say?
— Kill him! He kidnapped my wife. I told you. He’s holding her.
— I don’t believe this. I believe you came to sell the guns.
— I have no guns but the ones I gave to you.
— Then where is your wife?
— I told you. Somewhere above Kohunlich.
— But where? Why are you south if she is north?
— I don’t know exactly where.
The man at the winch moved slightly, the pulley shrieked overhead and the pain jumped through Bradley like a charge. He bellowed and stood on his tiptoes, his head down almost to his knees, his hamstrings burning.
— If you don’t know where she is then how can you save her?
— The Yucatan! Between Kohunlich and the Caribbean.
— This is only jungle. You must have coordinates or a map. Perhaps you are trying to sell weapons to Armenta. Perhaps this is why you slaughtered the Zetas on the highway.
— We were attacked. If Armenta knew I was here I’d be dead. He has my wife. She’s a performer in the Estados Unidos. Erin and the Inmates, very popular.
The capitan looked at Bradley then at one of his men, who shook his head.
— This means nothing to us.
— She means everything to me. Let me go. Let me try to find her. I’m no friend of Armenta. I swear to you on the name of the one God we know and fear.
— You must know where she is. You must have coordinates or a map. We can help you if you tell us where she is.
Bradley pressed up onto his tiptoes. He could feel the impossible angles forced upon his shoulder sockets and the imminent surrender of the joints. No pain in his life had prepared him for this if any pain can.
— I have the coordinates, he whispered.
The winch man cranked.
— I have them! he screamed.
He felt his feet leave the floor and he dove forward to preserve his shoulders and the next thing he knew the floor had jumped up against his face and the excruciating pain had vanished. In its place was something duller but better and in the center of it he felt the beating of his heart.
He felt the rough floorboard against his cheek. The overhead lights beat into his eye. There was rope piled on his head. He gasped rhythmically, aware but not aware, suspended between the waking and the other world. The dark shape of a man hovered over him and he understood that this was either the beginning or the end. He called upon all his inner strength to remember the GPS coordinates accurately. He summoned them up through the pain and humiliation and they came. So he shaved the seconds north and west enough to mislead the Mexican Army and he took a deep breath before delivering the most important lie of his life.
— Eighteen degrees, forty minutes, zero seconds north. Eighty-eight degrees, twenty-two minutes, sixty seconds west. Thirty armed men, at least.
— You will write this on paper.
— If my arms will work.
One of the men unclipped the hook from Bradley’s handcuffs and rolled him over. Bradley hollered from the pain in his shoulders. He knew the joints were twisted and stretched but not quite dislocated. For a moment he squinted against the lights. Then he sat up, his legs stretched flat out in front of him like an infant. He felt like an infant also, small and helpless and the object of great attention from larger, more powerful beings. He nodded at disbelieving Caroline Vega and the still stunned Jack Cleary, then looked up at the capitan.
— Pen and paper, please.
The captain waved one of the soldiers over and the man bent down and handed Bradley a stub of pencil and a tattered, body-warmed notepad open to a clean page. Bradley wrote in the coordinates. He wondered if perhaps the federal troops who protected the Reserva Biosfera de la Kohunlich might prevent these Army troops from entering onto their turf. Sure, he thought: a turf war like the CIA and FBI, or the U.S. Army and Navy might have. Everyone competes. Everyone meddles. Just two days, he thought. Just two days of stalling and posturing, and I can get Erin and be gone.
— If the numbers are different than the ones you told me I’ll execute you.
— Check them over, Captain.
The captain took the notebook and read the numbers and looked at Bradley.
— Perfecto. You will now come to Quintana Roo Police headquarters. Where you will be safe. The Campeche State Police will travel here to talk to you about the Zetas.
— Tomorrow is all I have, Captain. I’ve got one day to get her out of Armenta’s compound.
— I am afraid that you will be occupied for tomorrow. If we discover your wife we will detain and return her to the United States as our constitution requires.
— I will donate two hundred thousand dollars to the Army if you’ll let me go.
— Saturnino offered three hundred thousand and I told him to go to hell. I fear not for myself, but for my family.
— Four hundred thousand. Bring your family to California. I’ll get you on with the LASD. Starting pay is around forty thousand a year, plus benefits.
The captain stared down at him while he tore out the sheet with the coordinates on it. Then he smiled bitterly.