Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista (55 page)

Ranya quietly moved between his car and the wall, sliding up to the interior door leading into the house.  Her senses were amped up to a state of hyper-awareness.  She could hear some sound coming from within the house, perhaps talking, or perhaps a TV or a radio.  She put her right hand on the grip of her pistol, and extended her left toward the doorknob, driven forward by curiosity to know if it was even locked.  Her fingers encircled the gray metal knob, applied light pressure, and rotated.  Her heart was pounding, her pulse whooshing in her ears.  She was expecting the doorknob to come to a firm stop after turning only a few degrees.

But the knob didn’t stop, it continued turning clockwise a full ninety degrees against the internal spring pressure.  A single thought now flowed into her mind:
why wait?
  She drew her pistol, and gently snicked down the safety with her thumb. Then she slowly, slowly pushed open the door, the way a soft but persistent breeze might blow it open if it had been left ajar.

No reaction came from within.  The odds were slim that the FBI man would be in the room directly on the other side, to notice the door opening. When it was opened wide enough, she stepped back against the wall of the garage.  Still there was no reaction.  The same noise continued in the house, but at a slightly higher volume with the door open.

Again the same thought returned:
why wait?
  She inhaled deeply, took a two-handed grip on the pistol, and slid inside, into a small laundry room with a washer and dryer.  There was no door to the next room, just a door-sized opening.  She could hear the television now, the program sounded somehow familiar to her.  News?  It was the rally on the Civic Plaza, yesterday.  She remembered the speech.  She stepped through the opening into the kitchen.  A tall pile of mail was heaped on one counter.  A quick look at the address on the top envelope was her first positive confirmation that this was the Garabanda residence.  An empty liquor bottle stood near the mail.

Ten more feet into the kitchen, and there was an open portal on the left side, leading into a carpeted room.  She could hear the television clearly now, coming from the next room, the living room or den.  Still there was no reaction from inside, as the sound drew her forward.

Pistol held slightly down and in front in both hands, she peeked around the corner, and ducked back.  The man from the playground, Special Agent Garabanda, was sitting in a big chair watching television, facing obliquely away from her.  His back and right side was presented to her, he was completely unaware of her existence.  She shrank back against the wall, her heart hammering.  He wasn’t reacting to her, he wasn’t looking her way, he had no idea she was in his house!  She had taken only a half-second glimpse, the picture of him frozen like a snapshot in her mind. Again the same inner voice asked,
why wait?

There was no remembered training, no tactical consideration of cover or movement when she stepped into the portal opening, both arms extended, holding out the .45 caliber pistol with her finger on the trigger.  Garabanda was facing away from her, his gaze directed at the television to her right, which for a moment also captured her attention.  It was the Civic Plaza rally, seen from above, from the side.  The view was centered on the podium, while Governor Deleon was still speaking.  She was amazed that she could actually see herself in the picture, sitting on the near side of the stage next to Basilio Ramos.  Both of them were identifiable by their brown berets among the civilian guests, politicos and VIPs.  She stared transfixed at the images, and heard Deleon’s lunatic speech for the second time.

“Why? Because for hundreds of years, the Anglos have always been thieves and pirates and despoilers, ever since the first Pilgrims stole the land from the native peoples of so-called New England.  Even at America’s birth, God Almighty Himself put the mark of Cain on that wicked country, by cracking its so-called Liberty Bell the first time it was rung!

***

The video had run
almost to the point where Deleon was going to be shot. The jug of OJ and vodka lay empty on the floor, as empty as the plastic tumbler on the left armrest.  He was drunk enough, that was for sure. Random thoughts and memories were sliding around his mind.  He could easily fall asleep right here in his favorite old easy chair, as he had done so many times before in a happier life.  Or he could stumble to the kitchen to make something else to drink, and forget the images on the television entirely.  He felt he could not watch much more of the video.  Certainly not the part after the rally, after Deleon’s body was taken away, when Luis…

Alex Garabanda didn’t need to watch the television to see the fiery end of Luis Carvahal.  For the past 24 hours he had seen it over and over, with his eyes open, and with his eyes closed.

With his head resting against the soft back of the seat, staring at the wall above the television, his fingertips could trace the contours of the pistol lying on the armrest.  It would be so easy.  He could pick up the Sig-Sauer, and finish off the wreckage of his life.

Tally it up.  FBI career—banished from New York to New Mexico. Karin—left him for a woman.  Brian—taken away by Karin and the Beast. Luis Carvahal—burned alive.  He could not possibly stand to watch that terrible scene at the tree again.  What in the world had he been thinking, to watch this video today? It was beyond mere masochism.  A form of penance? Punishment?

Or was he giving himself an intentional nudge, a little push to finally do it, to take the next irrevocable step? For the twentieth time in the last hour, his right hand fell gently across the Sig-Sauer pistol on the chair’s right armrest.

“But now, our long period of humiliation has ended!  Finally, the Treaty of Shame, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was broken by the Anglos from the very first days, will at last be thrown onto the trash heap of history where it had always belonged!

***

It was preposterous,
it was purely insane, but standing in the open portal to the living room, ten feet from her quarry, Ranya could not take her eyes off the television.  She was unconsciously counting down the words until Agustín Deleon would spout a gusher of blood from his back, and fall.  

The Anglos have never honored their part of the treaty, and now it is only justice that we, the rightful inhabitants of Aztlan, will put it aside.  As promised in the Treaty of Shame, the Spanish Land Grant territories will be returned to the rightful communal ownership of the entire people of Nuevo Mexico.

***

For the twentieth time
he pondered the mechanics of finality.  The means—a pound of cold blue steel—was once again in his right hand. Mouth, head or heart, those were his three choices.  The mouth was most certain, he knew that from unwelcome professional observation, but the very idea was distasteful, somehow unmanly.  

The well-delivered head shot would be quick, but it left a God-awful mess for whoever had to come behind to clean up.  Worse, he knew that a muzzle against the temple could slip at the ultimate moment, a final hesitation flinch deflecting the shot.  When this happened, the shooter was sometimes left to writhe and thrash in agony on the floor.  Usually they died, but occasionally they lived.  He had seen the bloody aftermaths, personally and in photographs.  Could he do a better job of it, and make a steady-handed shot straight through his temple, in his current drunken state?  Returning to brain-damaged semi-consciousness in a state hospital, a failure even at suicide…  No.

That left the heart.  Cleaner by far, and very, very final…but less than instantaneous in effect.  On the plus side, the easy chair would make an excellent blood sponge, simplifying the cleanup for the unlucky soul left with that miserable duty.  Just turn the gun around 180 degrees for a contact shot, as he had already practiced a half-dozen times.  On the last dry run, he had put several pounds of pressure on the trigger with his right thumb.  His fingers had been laced around the back of the grip, pushing the muzzle against his sternum bone.  He had put enough pressure on the trigger with his thumb to watch the hammer begin to ease back from the slide, but he had not been quite ready.  Part of him still wanted to see the final moments of Agustín Deleon and Luis Carvahal on his videotape, before he joined them.  Another part of him said,
why wait?

Alex’s entire life added up to a catalog of failure.  Unable to produce a child with Karin, they had finally been able to adopt an infant son, who became a truly wonderful boy.  Then he had lost his wife, and not even to another man, but to
another woman.
  Now he would not see his son grow up, he would not play any part in little Brian’s life, while his two lesbian mommies set out to turn him into a gay
maricón
. But what could he do about it? Nothing.  The entire power of the government was on their side, and it was hopeless and useless to attempt to fight that infinite force. “Resistance is futile,” the saying went...  He could do nothing, absolutely nothing.  He was boxed in from every conceivable angle, buried alive, even while he was technically still above ground and breathing the air.  

His video recording played on, and he decided that he could not stand to watch Luis burn again.  That was beyond the limit of his ability to bear pain.  Would he meet Luis on the other side?  What would his friend say to the newly arriving former FBI Special Agent, who had as much as led him by the hand straight to his fiery death? He imagined meeting Luis on the other side, and seeing him burnt, charred and twisted.  Bile rose in his throat at the image.

But was there even “another side” waiting for him, after he pulled the trigger?  Or was there just a black unknowing nothingness beyond this life? He hoped for black nothingness, because he knew that if another reality lay waiting beyond this world, his well-deserved perpetual punishment would be severe.

It always came back to the eternal question:
what comes next?

There was only one way to find out.

Was he ready now, finally?

He pushed the Sig’s muzzle tip against the center of his chest, holding the gun with the fingers of both hands wrapped around the back of the grip. His right thumb was across the trigger, while watching the final moments of the life of Governor Agustín Deleon play out on the stage.  A few pounds of pressure on the trigger, and…

But this time, our sacred land will not be carved up as so-called private property, to be raped and plundered for corporate profit.  This time, the land will be held communally, for all the legitimate, rightful members of La Raza, the new bronze race, the Indohispano peoples born of…”

***

Ranya was waiting
for Deleon’s final recorded words and the fatal rifle shot, when Garabanda’s sudden hand movement caught her eye. She swung her pistol back toward him, but by the time her mind fully snapped into the present, the situation had completely changed—the FBI man was holding a pistol!  How had she missed the pistol? She saw him holding it now, but he was holding it all wrong.

It made no sense!  He was not turning it toward her, but toward himself, backward toward his own chest.  Nothing in this house made sense, nothing!  Deleon continued to speak, but she no longer heard the television, as her entire universe funneled down to that hand holding that black pistol.

Without thinking she shouted, “Stop it!  Stop it!  Don’t move!”

***

Alex heard a female voice,
and turned his head toward the kitchen. He found himself looking into the muzzle of a pistol, aimed directly at his face.  There was a period of mental turmoil while he oriented himself, and then he burst out laughing.  It was the damnedest sight: a woman wearing a baseball cap was staring at him over the top of a pistol, which she held in a two-handed grip.  He leaned forward in his chair, still holding his own pistol against his heart, his head rolling from side to side and he laughed.

An odd memory popped into his head, and in Spanish he asked,
“Who the hell gave you a candle in this funeral?”
His parents had often used this Cuban saying, meant as a put-down to unbidden interlopers.  It had somehow leapt into his mind and from his lips without conscious thought. 

Then he said, “You have a fine sense of timing.  Are you from the Special Surveillance Group?”  He wondered if the blue stakeout car was still parked across the street.  “Where’s the rest of your team? Please, don’t tell me that I’m only worth sending one single Miliciana?” He laughed bitterly.  “No, I guess that’s about right.  One should be plenty to take care of such a meaningless task.  But you know what?  You’re too late.”

The woman spoke again after a moment.  “I’m not from the Milicia or from any surveillance group—I don’t even know what you’re talking about.  Now put down your gun—put it down!”

He chuckled again.  “Oh really? Or what? You’ll shoot me?  That’s pretty funny: you’ll shoot me.”  Then he turned serious:  “Well, go ahead. What’s stopping you?”

The woman shook her head, still aiming her pistol at him.  Her voice lost its commanding tone.  “No, no, that’s not why I’m here! So put down the gun…please?”

He gradually rotated the pistol around in his hands, until he had a conventional one-handed grip on it.  “You know, I can make you do it.”

He slowly extended his right arm and the pistol straight out in front of him, toward the forgotten television.  His face was turned toward her over his right shoulder; he was staring at her now with tired eyes.

“No, no, please, please don’t do this—at least, listen to me!  We need to talk, so please stop!”  She seemed to be growing frantic, but she kept her pistol’s sights on him.

“Just a little more…should do it,” he said, the gun held out on a wavering arm, which was slowly swinging toward her.

Finally, the woman sprang back out of the kitchen opening, sidestepping to get cover behind the wall.  “Stop it, stop it!  We need to talk—I need to know something important!”