The restaurant was a typical example of the success that could be had, of using one’s wits versus bullets. A popular American southwest franchise, it was cheerfully incongruent with the dense jungle and dirt roads only a stone’s throw away, outside the city’s limits. But inside, it could have been Anywhere, U.S.A. and the menu was faithful to the original franchise concept. Even in San Salvador, families liked fajitas or half-pound cheeseburgers served by perky, uniformed female staff. On most weekends, the place was awash with milkshakes and root beer and blended margaritas.
Once the armed conflict had ended and the civil warriors had laid down their guns, a fair number of the Americans who had come on behalf of shadowy clandestine groups decided to stay — comfortable after years, or even decades, in the region. Many had local girlfriends or wives and had become accustomed to the local beat, so they chose to remain to build a promising future in the brave new world.
For those like the owner, the thought of returning to his native Michigan after thirteen years in-country held no appeal. Instead, he’d imported a little slice of American apple pie for local consumption. The result was an instant hit. Hotel traffic was building, and many Gringo franchises flourished as the population, hungry to play catch-up to the rest of the continent, embraced the U.S. consumer culture that it both feared and envied. Even the poor, as they trudged to their laborer jobs on muddy dirt tracks from shanty-towns, were as likely to be wearing a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt as native garb.
The night’s take accounted for, the owner went into his office and deposited the cash into his floor safe, in readiness for a trip to the bank the next morning. An armed security guard would remain on duty throughout the night and be replaced by another armed guard during business hours. Even in the capital city of El Salvador, San Salvador, the rule of the gun outweighed the rule of law, although that was slowly changing.
The owner poured himself a Heineken and sat at the bar, alone, watching the music videos his cousin sent him every month to play on a continuous loop throughout the day. What the hell anyone liked about the new generation of rap performers beat the hell out of him, but that was what was hot in the U.S., so that’s what he played on the TV. There was an endless demand for everything American, and he was making a fortune catering to it. The world was infinitely strange.
After downing the remainder of his beer, the man scratched his week-old stubble and decided to call it a night. It had been a long and rewarding day, but he was beat and wanted to get some shut-eye before tomorrow arrived with its own set of challenges. He waved at the guard and unlocked the front door, locking it again with a roll of keys once he was outside. The air smelled like jungle and exhaust, with just the faintest hint of sewage masked by smoke from a distant wood fire. He watched with satisfaction as the restaurant’s marquis sign lights shut off and the exterior illumination shifted into ‘closed’ mode.
The owner approached his Ford Explorer and slid behind the wheel, shifting his holstered Colt .45 automatic so that it didn’t cut into his hip as he drove. Side arms were still a mandatory precaution — he’d been wearing one for so long it was almost second nature. Violent assaults and robberies were endemic to Central America, especially since hundreds of thousands of weapons had been shipped from the U.S. and the Soviet Union to fuel the seemingly perpetual wars. Those weapons remained after the ‘advisors’ had packed up and gone home.
He pulled out of the parking lot and cranked the stereo. Aerosmith’s Walk This Way blared from the speakers, and for just a few moments, he was back in high school sneaking a joint with the little hottie he’d been trying to coerce into his van for most of the summer.
A stream of white-hot slugs sliced through the cab of the SUV and shredded his torso, tearing the interior to pieces and causing the truck to careen into a utility pole at the roadside. He heard running footsteps approaching as he fumbled with useless hands at the safety strap on his holster, and then a deeply tanned man with a military buzz cut fired a bullet into his skull through the shattered driver’s side window at point blank range. Joe Perry’s guitar pyrotechnics wailed from the vehicle as a grenade clattered through the missing windshield — the whump of the detonation signalled the end of the music, forever.
Prologue
The rickety seventies-era van bounced its way down the washboard dirt road, its mismatched tires throwing up a cloud of dust visible for miles, which in this case meant visible to the odd lizard sunning itself between the sickly cactus and shrubs in the barren landscape. The suspension creaked ominously whenever an axle slammed over a particularly ugly rut, the shocks long ago having lost any capacity for softening the ride.
Calloused hands gripped the grimy cracked-vinyl wheel, directing the vehicle’s journey ever further into the nothingness that characterized the U.S./Mexican border as it meandered away from the cool coastal breezes of the Pacific Ocean and wound east towards Arizona. It wasn’t unusual for the temperature to hit 120 or higher in late summer, and this year was no exception.
If the driver felt any discomfort from the heat, he didn’t show it, other than to occasionally mop at the network of pock marks and small scars on his face with a soiled black bandana. His gritty countenance betrayed nothing and was unmoved by the meager relief from a sweltering breeze wafting through his lowered window. The air-conditioning had ceased working about when every gauge on the dashboard had failed a decade before, so blistering heat in the cab was a given in September.
The drone of the tired motor drowned out most of the lone stereo speaker’s strident melody; an accordion, tuba and out-of-tune voice bemoaning the loss of sincere love in a cruel and uncaring world. An occasional ‘Corazon’ made it over the labouring of the engine, causing the driver’s companion to smile. The air might be arid and hot as a blast furnace, and the uneven surface of the rural track they were hurtling down might be pummelling his sacroiliac and kidneys like he was in a bar brawl, but as long as there was unrequited love memorialized by dissonant guitars and trumpets, life still had hope.
Which wasn’t the case for the family of five bound and gagged in the rear of the van. The youngest, a toddler of four, had lost consciousness when her head smacked into the van roofline as she was bundled into the back along with the others, which was a blessing of sorts — she was mercifully oblivious to the scorching stagnation of the unventilated area. A makeshift plywood wall separated the rear from the two passenger seats, leaving the cargo compartment bereft of fresh air, which created a preview of hell for the unfortunate abductees. After forty-five minutes on the unpaved trail, the stink of proximity and failed attempts to contain their bodily functions was overwhelming — the cross ventilation from the open front windows failed to evict the stench wafting from the rear compartment.
“Look, there’s the spot,” the driver muttered in Spanish as he pulled onto an even more rural satellite road marked by an ancient rusted road sign peppered with bullet holes.
“About time. Let’s get them out and get it over with,” his companion replied in Spanish. His leg was stiff from the drive and hurting like hell from lack of movement.