Flames reached the gas tank as I glanced back from the brushy slope. Burning debris blew high into the sky, lighting my patch of turf like an illuminating flare. My pursuers skidded to a halt fifty yards back, intimidated by the heat and fire. I kept running, circling back toward the beach. Doors slammed and eager footsteps followed.
I collided with the rifleman, bowling him over in the darkness. He'd been jogging toward me when we hit and the top of his head struck my chin. Shooting stars, as bright and as colorful as the truck explosion, caromed off the inside of my skull. Blood filled my mouth. I started to get up when somebody hit me hard from behind and the shooting stars found a way out through the hole in the top of my head. When they went away, only darkness remained.
My concussion was a kind where I could hear everything around me and was convinced I would have seen, too, had I the energy to open my eyes. But I was comfortable lying on the sand while blood and whatever else leaked from my skull, and I didn't want to move. I was aware of a group surrounding me, and somebody trying to bring me back. It surprised me that they didn't kill me immediately. Then I remembered why they wanted to wake me up. I knew something they wanted to know. And I was supposed to tell them.
Someone slapped my face.
“Caine. Wake up.”
“Yama. Frazzit. Grrrrz.” I tried talking to them but the words didn't sound right.
“Caine!”
“Funkzit.”
“You hit him too hard!” I recognized Elena's voice.
“He'll come to. He's trying to talk.”
“Filuper dup.”
“Pour some water on him. I want that money.”
“Muh-neee,” I said.
Someone grabbed the front of my shirt, twisting it up under my chin. “Yeah, money,” Elena said, her mouth near my ear like a lover, so close I could feel the moisture of her breath on my earlobe. “My money. Where is it?”
“Mo-ney,” I repeated, marveling at the contours of the word and how my tongue worked with my lips and the top of my mouth to form the syllables.
She hit me hard, grinding a sandy fist into tender tissues near my eye. She straddled me, her skirt hiked to her waist, velvet thighs gripping my arms.
“Buried it,” I managed to gasp, trying to save something.
“Where?”
“Can't tell you,” I said, risking another pummeling. “Have to show you.”
Her weight disappeared. “Pick him up!”
I opened my eyes. Boys sat on my arms, pinning each limb to the ground with a fierce energy. I felt like Gulliver. Another youth stood three meters in front of me, aiming a rifle at my head. Blood coursed down the front of his face from a gash near his hairline. That would be the marksman. He wore the blood like a badge of honor, letting it flow. The kid was tough, and he wanted the others to know just how tough he was.
“Put him in the truck.”
They led me to the back of their pickup and covered me as I got in, treating me as if I were one of those dangerous jungle cats that would, if allowed, turn on them and rip them to pieces. The boy with the rifle slung it and produced a pistol, a .45, similar to my Gold Cup. He cocked it and aimed it at my face. I had no doubt he'd shoot me if I moved. He may have been young, but he was as deadly as a cobra.
“Where is my brother?” Elena demanded, her face a mix of fury and fear.
“I don't know,” I replied. And it was true. Perhaps he was in hell. Her question told me she had not checked the wreckage, still burning brightly on the road behind us.
“He has not come back. Others are missing. What did you do?”
“Nothing.” I had no problem lying to her. If she knew the truth, my life span would be shortened to microseconds.
She ordered two of the youths to go search for the missing members of their team. That limited my time. They would find the dead boy and raise the alarm. The still-burning truck would prevent their finding Chico, but only for a short time.
“Andale.
Let's go.” Elena got into the driver's side and the others piled in the back, surrounding me. She drove like Mr. Toad, hitting every rut, bump, and pothole until we reached the lagoon. When the truck stopped, they hauled me out of the back, still under the close supervision of the kid with the high-powered rifle.
My head started to clear, but things still looked black and fuzzy around the edges as they marched me to the beach. I stumbled in a shallow hole and got a rifle stock in the kidneys for my carelessness. The butt stroke drove me to my knees and I put my hands out to catch my fall. Someone kicked my arms out from under me and I landed on my face. A quick learner, I remained on the ground.
“
Cuidado
,” Elena said. The little marksman had a talent for inflicting pain and no reluctance to use it.
“Hold him,” she said. Hands grabbed me and pulled my arms apart. The rifleman stood three meters away, off to my right, but in position to shoot me and miss his companions.
“Here is the beach, Mr. Caine. Where is it?”
“Near the lagoon. At the sandbar.”
“You have to show me. That's what you said.”
“Can't show you from down here,” I mumbled into the sand surrounding my mouth.
“Stand him up!”
The two boys helped me to my feet. I was careful not to stumble, and I watched the muzzle of the rifle all the way.
“Now, where is it?”
“This way,” I said, leaning toward the lagoon, one boy giving ground, the other pulling back, both off balance. I noted the rifle barrel tracking my movement.
“Are you certain?”
With the rifle's point of aim dead between my eyes, I figured his reaction time would beat my ability to move out of the bullet's path. He was too far away, and his attention too keen. The two boys holding my arms would slow, but not stop me from breaking free. Only the rifleman kept me still.
“It's dark, but I think this is the place.”
“If you make a mistake, other measures will ensure that you tell me.” Elena searched my face and must have found evasion there, because she hit me, her fist balled, punching me right in the nose. It hurt, but she held her hand, squeezing the pain away with her left. “Asshole!” she screamed, and kicked me high on the inside of my thigh. “Hold him!”
The two youths holding my arms were unsure what to do as she continued beating me with her fists and kicking me with her hard leather shoes. I backed up and they retreated with me, a step at a time, as I tried evading the blows with my body.
I also tried keeping the rifleman in sight, but that was even harder with one eye closed, clotted with blood, and the other taking a pounding. When I spotted him, I noticed that he moved with us, trying to keep a bead on me while missing Elena. Because of her passionate animation, she stayed close and it seemed that he might not shoot, fearful of hitting her. It was a chance, slim, but still a chance, and I took the abuse and watched for an opening. The kid with the rifle didn't give me much.
The rhythm of Elena's fists started to slow, no longer a staccato drumming. It's hard work, hitting people for any length of time. That's why boxers train so long and so hard. That's why they train aerobically. Going fifteen rounds can be grueling. When she'd pounded me for two or three minutes, she stopped and stared, her chest heaving. One round and this lady was winded. The marksman raised the rifle to his shoulder when she stepped away, aiming at my head.
“Where is the money?” she demanded.
“In the sand.”
She beat me again, this time with a renewed violence that was surprising in its vehemence. I took it, wondering which of us would last longer.
I leaned against the boy on my right, absorbing a vicious left-handed slap. When he gave way, I kept pushing until the kid on my left started pulling back. The instant he pulled, I reversed and went with him, putting all my weight behind it, catching the boy on my right off balance. As he started to fall, I grabbed his arm and turned.
I swung him into Elena as the rifle fired, its muzzle flash lighting up the night, the explosion not quite covering the sound of a bullet smacking into flesh and bone and the mortal gasp of a human life's last moment.
I rolled, catching a pair of legs, upending the body, then sprinted and dove into the surf as the rifle bolt clacked like dogs' teeth and the gun went off a second time.
Cold water brought all my senses to full alert, even more so than the pumping adrenaline from the near miss of rifle bullets fired from the beach. Fully clothed, I had to make this a short swim. My sodden clothing and fifty-degree water would kill me as surely as a bullet to the brain. But water was my element. I had only one chance and this was it.
I swam through the waves, eeling under white-water turbulence to get away from the incoming fire. Dark as it was, I didn't have to go far to become invisible. Once I found myself beyond the surf line, I started stroking parallel to the shore, using the combat swim I'd learned a lifetime ago to avoid making waves of my own.
Dark cliffs jutted into the Pacific about a quarter mile down the coast and I headed for them, looking for a way ashore. Big black boulders would hide my landing, but might cause me injury. Landing on beaches is always easier but increases your chances of getting shot. Landing on rocks doesn't leave footprints, either, and if you do it right, there's no trace of your passing. That's why SEALS always go in the hard way. We save the easy beaches for the marines.
I kept an eye on the beach, looking for Elena's crew, wondering if they still looked for me. I was the only one who knew where the money was buried, and Elena struck me as someone who was clearly focused on what she wanted.
I figured she'd send her remaining boys to look for the missing Chico and take the little marksman with her to hunt me. He was the best she had. He might even have had some experience at this sort of thing. That's what I would have done, given her situation. At the most, I'd have to face only
two. Of course they were armed and I wasn't, except for the little .25 I'd taken from Chico and my Buck knife. I searched the beach, looking for sign of pursuit. They wouldn't use lights, and they would take care to avoid making tracks in the sand, so I watched the line of dunes just above the high-tide marks, watching for movement. I saw nothing.
By the time I reached the rocks I was shivering, my body core temperature lowered to dangerous levels, and I knew I had to get out of the water before I lost consciousness. The waves seemed higher here along the base of the cliffs and the rocks looked sharp and menacing. My hands and feet felt leaden, and I had to will my limbs to move. It would have been very easy to let go and sink. Too easy.
I entered the surf zone, timing my progress to match the waves, riding the combers into narrow gaps between the rocks, trying to avoid smashing my head or an elbow or a knee into a chunk of ancient sandstone. I made negligible headway, once even grounding my feet on the slippery bottom pebbles before being dragged out to sea again by powerful backwash, but kept at it. I didn't have a choice.
I felt the strong pull of a big wave before I saw it, turbulent water dragging me into the darkness and back out to sea. Helpless to do anything but travel with the rush of agitated violence, I was washed over the reef rocks into deep water. The leather jacket protected me from the worst of it, acting as both a shield and a sea anchor, but as I shot through the channel, I saw a wall of black water rushing to meet me, a massive breaker, its crest decorated with white wispy foam.
I took a deep breath and dove for the bottom but the wave broke on top of meâtons of roiling white water picked me up and smashed me among the rocks, tossing me like a rag doll. I curled into a ball and went with it, trying desperately to relax, hoping I wouldn't be crushed, or trapped below an underwater ledge. Hope was all I had.
For what seemed an eternity I was swept along until the surface felt nearer and the bottom scraped my knees and elbows, and the strength of the wave lessened and I understood I'd reached the shallows. Sometimes the hard way is the only
way. I uncoiled, dropping my feet and reaching for hand-holds, and found both footing and something to grasp and forced my way from the water onto a rocky shelf below the cliff face. I lay there briefly, catching my breath and shivering, hoping to draw some heat from the cold hard stone, then climbed higher, above the surf line, onto truly dry land.
I was cold, soaked to the skin. My head felt light and weird, like it might float away at any moment. I checked my pockets and found I'd lost nothing in the swim to shore. My Buck knife remained in my trouser pocket and Chico's .25 automatic was still a nice little weight inside the sodden leather jacket. I pulled the pistol and charged it and began trudging back to the lagoon, watching for sign of Elena and the rifleman, hoping we wouldn't meet in the dark the way we had before.
I had covered half the distance when I heard them coming. Actually, I heard her coming, heard her complaining, whining, scraping her shoes on rocks, telling her companion to slow down, making a racket that would have awakened Chico and Tupac. Like her late brother, Elena was not at home away from her familiar paved cityscapes and bedrooms. Wilderness was alien to her.
I wondered if her companion suffered from the same deficiency.
The answer came in a way I didn't expect and it told me that maybe I was no longer at the top of my form, either.
“Drop the gun, old man,” said a soft, calm voice behind me, muffled by an outcropping, the rifle barrel an exclamation point between my shoulder blades.
“If I drop the gun, it'll go off.”
“Toss it into the water, where it will do no harm. Elena!”
I transferred the pistol to my left hand and complied, flinging Chico's little automatic far out into the surf. “You were here?”
“I can run faster than you can swim, old man. This was the only place where you would go, even though it was difficult. Elena waited over there behind those rocks and made noise when I gave her the signal. You were easy.”
“Yeah.”
The woman appeared on top of a boulder. She smiled when she saw me. “You didn't get far, did you?”
I shook my head. “Not far enough, I guess.”
“Why don't you show me the money?”
“I don't think so.”
“You will, I think. Paco, bring him to the beach. I want to find the money and get out of here tonight.”
The rifleman struck me with the end of the barrel, another hard poke in the kidneys, and I started forward, slowly, so he wouldn't shoot. Suicide was not an option I favored, although I did not want these two to recover the money. Claire would find it if she had to dredge up the entire beach. And if Claire didn't get it, better someone anonymous, a lucky someone someday in the far future, than these two.
When we reached the beach, Elena turned and smiled. “You have two choices. One, you tell me voluntarily and everything goes easy for you. Two, Paco shoots you in both kneecaps and then I cut pieces off of you until you tell me. You will tell me, anyway. Let's make this quick, shall we? It will be easier on all of us.”
The moon came out from behind the clouds and the wind kicked up, chilling me to the bone. Or was it the threat that made me shiver? This woman was centered on what she wanted. She was not grandstanding. I watched her face in the moonlight, a ribbon of silver light gracing the ocean behind her, and wondered how much longer I had on this old planet. I must have smiled, because Elena smiled back.
“You find this amusing?” she asked.
“No.”
“Paco. Shoot him!”
The marksman raised his weapon, aiming at my right leg, sighting down the barrel, focusing on that one spot where the bullet would tear into me.
I leaped on him, deflecting the barrel with my left forearm and grabbing the stock, twisting and pulling simultaneously. The rifle discharged, the shot snapping Elena's back, driving her down into the sand as if she had been smashed by a giant hammer.
I kept twisting the rifle until I had possession, then reversed and clubbed him across the neck. He fell, rolled, and came up with his pistol, firing rapidly, both hands on the grips like they show in those dumb movies, shooting without aiming, instinctively blowing large chunks of lead downrange in my direction, filling the night with flashes of light and the repeated thunder of a large-caliber pistol.
He got off four rounds before I was able to cock the rifle and shoot him, aiming at the hollow in the front of his neck, just above his breastbone. He collapsed and lay still.
The front sight of the rifle didn't want to let go of him and I followed the barrel across the sand to where the bodies lay. The kid was dead, stilling gripping the .45. I pried the pistol from his stiff fingers, safed it, and stuck it in my soggy hip pocket. Then I looked at Elena.
I didn't need to check life signs on either one of them. A high-powered rifle at close range doesn't leave much room for question. I dumped the rifle in the sand, next to Paco, and checked for holes of my own, finding none. Paco was practiced and knew all the moves but he forgot to aim, missing me at ten feet. Good boy, Paco. The world needs more bad guys like you.
I started searching for the missing kid, the one Elena had sent to search for Chico.
Three shots, so close I knew I was dead, went off behind me, and even though I knew it was useless, my body reacted, diving for cover. Unhurt and amazed, I continued rolling until I found protection behind a small dune.
Three more shots exploded sand into my face, blinding me. I ducked and rolled, finding concealment behind a tiny creosote bush. Watching, I pulled Paco's .45, hoping he'd had enough sense to load the damn thing. I'd neglected to check the load and hadn't bothered searching the body for additional magazines. I pulled back the slide a quarter inch and found brass in the right place, ejected the clip and counted three more bullets.
I only needed one if I used it right.
The kid fired again, blasting the top of the dune I'd recently occupied. I tracked the muzzle flash, extending the
.45's front sight through the bush to avoid deflecting the bullet from its intended path. When the kid fired again, I saw his face in the reflected light of the gun's blast, centered his forehead on top of the black metal V, and carefully squeezed the trigger until the piece fired.
When the silence lasted long enough to assure me I'd hit my target, I got up and walked to where he lay on the sand, panting. I took his Uzi, slung it over my shoulder, and stood there watching while life left him, letting him see my face as he died. It was his right, letting him see the man who killed him.
It's pure Darwin out here in the bush. Only the fittest survive. That's why we train and train and train until we get it right. That's why I lived and others didn't. My body and the training I'd lived with had taken over when my brain refused to believe I was still alive.
The myth that guns are the stuff of heroes and that they solve problems is stupid. Kids buy into that. They see it on the streets. They also see it in movies and on television, where the people who make films pass on a message that might makes right, that society is so violent only fools don't carry guns. So the kids see the gangsters making the big bucks and they see their screen idols and rap stars carrying guns, and they conclude that they're idiots if they don't.
But carrying a gun does not make you Superman any more than it makes you invincible. Ask any of these armed young men who died along this dark Baja beach on this cold January night. There's always someone out there who's going to be luckier, or more trained, or deadlier than you. It's a risk every time you pull a piece. When you use deadly force, it brings in a dimension most of us would just as soon leave alone. And it makes the odds ever greater each time you use it.
These young men were unlucky this time. They ran into me.
I wondered who would stand over me and watch me die on some cruel coast someday when my luck eventually ran out. Probably be a kid like one of these, no smarter or wiser
or more practiced. Just luckier. I'd had a good run of luck in my life, and it still seemed to be running. And all I could do was run with it until it ran its course and came to an end.
Like all things.