Authors: Andrew Mayne
T
HE
FBI
TRAINED
me to handle hostage situationsâbut not the kind where
I'm
the one holding the hostage.
I push my face closer to the glass and shout, “This man says he's going to hurt me. He says he wants to speak with the American authorities.”
“What are you doing?” Esteban hisses through pained groans. Crumpled like a rag doll, he's too weak to even raise his voice.
“Calling their bluff.” The longer we can pretend Esteban is holding me hostage, the longer I stay alive.
“These men are here to help you.”
“And you're a Ministerial Federal Police officer who was just trying to kill me. You do the math.”
Beads of sweat pour down his face. “You're being a fool.”
I need to buy some time. I can't trust anyone until I hear a familiar voice. Esteban fights through the pain to slide his body closer to me while my attention is on the armed men. “There's something you need to know . . .”
I give him a sideways glance and kick him in the shoulder. Then I pull a wad of paper towels from a roll and shove them in his mouth. “Don't even think about yelling,” I say as I drag him behind the counter. Not taking any chances, I open a package of zip ties from the toolbox and bind his wrist to a drawer.
A man calls out my name again. He sounds sincere. Almost.
I cautiously resume my position by the door. “This policeman wants to speak to my superiors,” I shout back. “He wants you to get them on the phone.”
“Agent Blackwood, we're trying to reach them right now,” he replies, still standing behind the headlights.
When this is over, I'll either look like the biggest fool or see their bluff called. So I use the time to prepare.
Back in hostage-rescue training, they taught us how to handle a variety of scenarios. If I was dealing with a hostage situation and had to enter a building, I'd send agents through the front and the back at the same time. The heavy refrigerator and freezer I pushed into place as barricades will slow these men down, but won't stop them. The key is to make the terrain difficult so they get pinned down.
Outside they're hesitating because they don't know what's waiting inside of here. You can practice a raid using a known floor plan all you want, but if you don't notice the coffee table in the middle of the room you're liable to trip and get yourself killed.
My survival depends on making this open space hostile and unfamiliar to them.
For a planned military maneuver you have barbed wire, barricades and a variety of other resources. This is a situation where I have to improvise. In training they showed us a variety of films and instructional videos depicting the different ways to act in a critical situation. They shared case studies about soldiers pinned down behind enemy lines who used everything from dead animals to car tires to make barricades.
My favorite example came when our instructor brought out a DVD case titled
A Narrative Example of Unconventional Domestic Defense Techniques Utilized by a Non-Combatant.
We were expecting another dry video, but it was
Home Alone
followed by
Die Hard
. Our teachers wanted us to understand that although these
Hollywood examples may not be the most practical, thinking outside of the box is an essential survival skill.
In the back kitchen of the bodega I knock down two shelves from the wall and stack them on top of the freezer in front of the back door. If the men make it through, they'll have to climb over that. This could give me the opportunity to take a shot.
There's a propane tank under the stove. I unhook it and place it behind the butcher's block.
I pull racks of merchandise behind the freezer and pour motor oil over them. Hopefully this will make navigating the obstacles even more difficult.
I'm changing the store into a briar patch.
For added protection, I kick over a squat freezer filled with popsicles and face the opening toward the back of the counter so it acts as a barrier. There's a bathroom I could retreat to, but that would leave me pinned down with no way out.
“Agent Blackwood,” calls out the man hidden behind the lights. “Our phones don't seem to be working. Please tell Mr. Esteban there's little we can do. If he lets you go, we can bring this conflict to an end.”
Esteban's eyes plead with me to agree.
I wonder if the military men actually believe that Esteban is holding me hostage. Given his fear of them, it's not an outrageous theory. If they do, it means that things are very compartmentalized within whatever organization they're working for. Distrust is my ally, for the moment.
It's all game theory. I'm alive right now because Esteban wanted to make my death look like an accident to avoid suspicion. In not taking a clear shot when he could have, he put himself in a position of vulnerability. These men might accept my claim because they think it's possible Esteban is using me for leverage after he screwed up killing me.
Even if they don't believe me, they could be playing along in
the hope that I might come out willingly so they can still stage their “accident.”
But for how long will they play?
The longer I stall this out, the better my chances are of getting help. At this point, my best strategy is to ignore them. Let them decide if Esteban is being difficult, or if it's me who is complicating things.
“Agent Blackwood?” Back at the front door, I steal a quick glance through the hole. As the man steps to the side and the light catches his shoulder, I can see he's wearing a sergeant's uniform. “Can we speak?”
I say nothing. Every minute of delay helps.
“We're having trouble with our phones,” he repeats.
Of course. They could just use their radios, but there's no point in me telling them this. Doing so would tip my hand.
I take Esteban's phone from my pocket. There's still no signal, but it gives me an idea. I shout to the man outside, “Esteban wants you to bring a charger for his phone so he can make a call. He says he'll let me go then.” I try to sound as vulnerable and desperate as possible, but to be honest I'm not sure how much of that is an act.
The charger is a simple request, yet it's bound to buy some time as they discuss it. If they agree, they'll have to find a charger. Assuming they don't have one in their trucks, the nearest one for miles is on a rack by my head. But I'm not telling them that.
“Hold on, Agent Blackwood. We'll get you out safely.” His voice is so genuine. He's continuing the ruse with convictionâor I'm making a horrible mistake.
Twenty minutes go by. The real cavalry has yet to show up. I retreat from the front door and keep my back to the wall and my eyes on both entrances. In a real hostage crisis, the goal of the police is to rescue the innocent. But if these men are crooked like I think, they're not going to care who they hit when they burst
through the doors. My only protection comes from making the idea of entering the bodega a very dangerous prospect for them. None want to risk a bullet if they think they can talk me out of here.
“Agent Blackwood, we'd like to speak to Esteban, please.”
This is a stalling game. I ignore him.
“Agent Blackwood, please. We'll give him the charger if he speaks to us.”
I make up an excuse to explain his silence. “He's afraid to come near the door.”
“Tell him it's okay. We can bring his wife here to talk to him.”
His wife?
Shit.
They just called my bluff. They've made it clear they have a hostage of their own.
Esteban stares at me with rage. He knows they'll kill her if I keep up this charade.
E
STEBAN'S WIFE IS
going to be murdered if I don't do something. He's a piece of dirt that can get shot in the crossfire for all I care, but his wife is another matter. For all I know, she's a civilian with no part in this. My job is to protect her.
The only way to keep her out of this mess is to admit my bluff. As long as they think Esteban is running things, she's in danger.
Esteban's eyes lose their anger and fill with pleading. There is someone who cares inside of there. “She's got no part of this!” I shout outside.
“Are those your words or his?” asks the sergeant. Once more at my lookout, I can see the outline of his body as he stands in front of the headlights. “You are holding a federal agent hostage, Blackwood. This won't end well if you don't surrender.”
“Let me speak with someone from my agency.”
“Is Esteban even alive?”
I need to buy time. “Yes.”
“What's his favorite football team?”
I run over to him, pull the wad of paper towels from his mouth, and place my pistol against his temple. “The only way you stand a chance of surviving is by telling me the truth. You understand that?”
“Yes. Yes. Thank you, for my wife,” he whispers through twinges of pain.
“I'm not a monster,” I tell him.
“Nor am I. Mallorca. They're my favorite.”
Back at the front door, “Mallorca!” I shout.
The man steps away from the headlights and fades into the darkness. Right now he's assessing his options.
Now this isn't a hostage situation anymore, and I've made it clear that I won't walk into a trap that could make my death look accidental, they just want me dead.
Probably the easiest way to do that would be to start a fire.
Fortunately, however, the walls of this building are concrete and the roof is metal. Getting it to burn isn't going to work so well for them.
I take inventory again. On the rack where I found the motor oil is a stack of air filters. I pull them from their casings and start layering them.
Outside, there's the crunch of boots on gravel as men walk around the building. They're planning their attack. I have the advantage inside here, and they want to minimize that.
Using a box knife from the toolkit, I carve up an empty two-liter soda bottle and place the air filters inside. It's not the best gas mask, but it should protect my lungs if they use smoke grenades. I also spot a pair of children's swim goggles and I put them on my head, ready in a moment's notice to keep the tear gas out.
None of these measures is ideal, but each will give me a slight edge when they storm the building. I'll be more alert than they expect. I'll be able to shoot one or two of them as they come inside. Covering both doors will be a challenge, but hopefully my little obstacle course will slow them down.
“Who are these men?” I ask Esteban.
He knows there's no longer any point to hiding that information. If I survive this, I'll find out anyway. “Army,” he says. “A special unit that combats narcotics in this area. They're all corrupt.”
“Shocker. Friends of yours?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “They had a choice.”
“So did you.”
“Things are complicated here. You heard them mention my wife. What would you do? What if you knew some of your superiors worked with them? Who would you go to?”
Suddenly, I don't have an answer. His world is different from mine.
“Imagine that on your first day at your job you see your boss picking up a bribe for his boss?” Talking is hard for him, but he wants to make his point. “You know that if you say anything to anyone, it's more than likely going to end up getting you hurt, or worse.”
So Esteban considers himself as a victim. Reluctantly, I see his point of view to a degree. I need to play on this. “Can you help me?”
Sweat trickles down his brow and he winces. “There's nothing I can do.”
“We can give you protection if you tell me who is behind this.”
“Can you protect my wife? My family? Her family? You can't even protect yourself right now.”
Yeah, that. “I don't even know why they want me killed. I'm not DEA. I don't know anything about X-20.”
“I don't know why either. I was simply told to kill you.”
“You accept orders without explanation? By who?”
Esteban ignores the question.
“How long before they storm this building?”
“They're waiting.”
I glance through the hole. “On what? Me?”
“Permission. Permission to kill you.”
I keep holding out, waiting for the real cops to arrive, but I might be even more alone than I thought. “Are they watching the roads? Waiting to see if someone comes to help me?”
“They could . . .”
“What does that mean?”
“They don't need to. These men outside, the ones who are waiting on permission to kill you, they're the ones who would be sent to rescue you. Even if Dr. Moya called your bosses, they'd contact your Mexico City office. They'd then contact these men. They're the ones who are supposed to save you.” Esteban gives me a weak smile and shakes his head in frustration. “Welcome to Tixato.”
Christ.
“Right now,” Esteban continues, “they're deciding that if they can't make it look like an accident, they need to make it look like I did it.”
“But that would still look suspicious.”
“An accidental death is a convenience. Not a necessity. If the suspicion ends with me.”
“Why me?”
“Why me?” He closes his eyes. “Why any of us? Sometimes there are no reasons.”
In the mirror over the counter, I see the headlights move. They're putting their trucks into a different position. Something is going to happen. “Time to move you.” I grab Esteban by the shoulders.
He screams with pain as I shove him into the bathroom. I don't want him to get hit in the crossfire, because if we survive this, there might be a way to get him to talk. And part of me, even after what he did to Moya and tried to do to me, is sympathetic in some way. Maybe he wanted to be a good cop, but the system wouldn't let him.
I push his legs past the doorjamb as a cinder block hits the front doors. The glass shatters, but the bars are too thick to let anyone through and the refrigerator is still blocking the opening.
I pull the goggles down and place the filter over my face. In a hostage situation, the next step would be tear gas.
Only this isn't a hostage situation.
An explosion rocks the front of the store.
This is war.