But the spark feels different to her now.
Like it’s damp. And it can’t get her flame going, because she knows that using this big shotgun on the Sinaloans would be dangerously stupid.
So she moves the Model 12 to the back seat again, and covers it with the beach towel, her heart thumping hard and her fingers growing cold.
Which is when a woman emerges from the foggy dark of the park and starts across the parking lot toward Bettina. She’s in jeans and boots and a black leather moto jacket, with a big red bag over one shoulder. A blonde. Looks nothing like the woman at the hotel.
Felix sees her first and growls low.
“Quiet.”
He whimpers, his attention on Capistrano Avenue now, where motion catches Bettina’s eye as a man crosses the street, coming toward her from another direction. He’s carrying a metal catch pole with a noose at one end. He’s older and smaller than the man at La Quinta.
“Quiet, boy. Mama loves you,” says Bettina, lowering the front windows half a foot.
Bettina feels like crying.
Then retrieving the shotgun and blowing them both away.
Calm down, she thinks. Down...
Valeria stops six feet from the driver’s side and Joaquín six feet from Felix’s window.
“Good evening, señorita I am Joaquín.”
The dog growls and Bettina hushes him again. She can’t believe how heavy she feels, almost numb, her hands and feet frozen.
Good evening, she hears herself say.
Bettina raises her open hands, then lowers them slowly, her right pressing deep into the duster pocket.
“Hello, Felix,” says Joaquín, peering in. “I see you are wearing a leash. Señorita Blazak, open the door and bring now the dog to me. When I have the leash, Valeria will give you the money.”
Something tells Bettina that this is going too fast, that her defenders have not gotten into place, that if she obeys Joaquín, Felix will be on his way back to Mexico in a heartbeat.
“I want to see the money first,” she says.
“You must trust us, as we trust you.”
“What if it’s just a few hundred dollars in that bag? Or bottled water?”
“It is all the money. Why are you not obeying my orders?”
Suddenly the dark, misty night is shot through by bright lights from all directions. Bettina, one cold hand on the door pull, squints into the beams, sees figures advancing, heavy-booted, military-looking people in black tactical wear, hung with weaponry and gear, night vision machine guns raised. She sees them through the windshield and both side windows, even in the rearview, an eerie war party on attack. A big white SUV comes slowly down Capistrano in the mist. Strickland’s exotic green sedan glides the opposite direction, slowly.
Bettina sees Valeria, blanched in the high beams, marching with her hands up toward the nearest phalanx, the bag dangling from one shoulder.
Then turns just as Joaquín pulls a pistol from his coat and muffled bullets rip the life out of him before he even hits the ground, his catch pole twanging on the asphalt.
Felix whimpers now, confused and eager to do something but no idea what. He looks at Bettina for guidance.
“We’re alive,” she says. “That’s all I know. We’re alive, Felix.”
She doesn’t move. Maybe can’t move with feet this cold. She hugs her heavy coat tight and watches a black helicopter descend from the darkness and touch down on the grass, not fifty feet away. No emblem, no ID, landing lights only.
The door opens and two tactical warriors drop to the ground then pull out a gurney. Its hinged legs automatically deploy when they clear the fuselage. A third man climbs out, covering his soldiers with a tactical shotgun. Bettina notes the slender red canister dangling from a carabiner on his chest.
One of the men toes Joaquín Páez’s head, which turns, then lolls lifelessly back into place. They lower the gurney and get him aboard while the cover man blasts the blood off the asphalt with the fire extinguisher, then hustles back to the chopper.
Bettina times this op on her phone. The reporter in her, always gathering information. Fifty-five seconds later, the machine corkscrews into the night in an unlit, ascending roar.
She pets Felix’s round little head and feels the warmth of him coming into her fingers.
Watches Powers and Arnie Crumley approach.
26
Six hours later, Dan Strickland is at Adolfo’s in Laguna, sitting in a back booth of the restaurant with OGs Frank and Héctor — Carlos Palma’s Barrio Logan diplomats.
Frank is skinny and tall, and has the weirdest golden eyes that Strickland has ever seen. Héctor is thickly muscled. Both wear chinos and hoodies against the early March morning.
Strickland understands that when El Gordo learns what happened to his ambassadors last night — the guy with the dog noose and the stylish blonde were pictured in Blog Narco feature, “The New Sinaloans,” almost a year ago — he’ll send in reinforcements for revenge on Joe and Bettina. Bettina has obviously betrayed him to the DEA, costing him blood and treasure. Joe’s been targeted for death since the Sinaloans first saw the odd little dog humiliating them in their own city.
Strickland also knows it will take El Gordo days, not weeks, to deduce what the DEA has done with his people and his cash. Silence is all the feds will give him now, letting him dangle in the quiet wind. El Gordo will turn to Bettina for information, soon.
Strickland checks the booths around them — just a couple of surfers, blue-lipped with cold — then leans in and keeps his voice low. The kitchen roars with breakfast orders just a yard or two away.
“Joaquín is MIA and Valeria is under federal arrest,” he says. “It happened a few hours ago. So our job just got easier. For now.”
“Good,” says Frank.
“They’ll send better people next time,” says Héctor.
Strickland sips his coffee. He has spent every minute of the last few hours letting his ideas run off-leash, imagining alternatives, measuring risks, comparing angles, and forecasting consequences. All in service of making the world safe and right for the three things he loves — Joe, Bettina, and himself.
And he’s done it.
He’s found a way. It’s going to take all his skills and luck. It’s going to cost him some treasure. But he’s found a way to protect his family.
First, he’ll have to pitch his deal with El Gordo, pretty much immediately.
Of course, El Gordo’s first reaction will be to have Strickland killed along with Bettina and Joe. But El Gordo is smart too. He’ll take the deal because it’s a good one.
Because he’ll be able to inflict the same costly embarrassment to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel that it has inflicted on him — the great El Gordo.
Because he’ll be able to get his money back, plus interest.
Because he will be able to feel powerful, by rescuing an innocent young woman.
There are three downsides to his plan that Strickland can see.
One is that he’ll have to arrange Joe’s kidnapping from Bettina without her knowing he’s behind it. Easy enough. But it will pain him to hurt her like that. He cares for her in a way he’s never cared for anyone. Except, of course, himself and Joe. He needs Joe back, but not just for business. He loves that dog.
The second downside has settled to the bottom of Strickland’s soul like a frozen anchor: after he and Joe are reunited, any future with Bettina may be doomed. But maybe, just maybe he can make it work. There has to be a way. He must remain positive and optimistic.