The Border Lords (37 page)

When Ozburn finally settled behind a boulder for a concealed look he could see that the enforcer’s SUV was still parked where it had been. He could hear music spilling out from the building, then laughter. When he had caught his breath Ozburn picked his way down the hill on a game trail and soon he was pressed up against the back of the building, Daisy at his feet, a machine pistol ready in each hand.

He quietly picked his way along the perimeter. The music was a
narcocorrido
and the voices were of three men. He heard a beer can spit open. When he came to a window he motioned Daisy to stay, then ducked beneath it and sidled past. Rising to a crouch he hustled around the corner, then snuck beneath another window and stopped just short of the open front doorway. Laughter and an accordion. Laughter and profanities. Another can popping open. Daisy had broken her stay and now came crawling around the corner on her stomach, ears down in penance and an apologetic look on her face.
Repentance
, thought Ozburn.
You want repentance—watch this.

Ozburn motioned her again to stay; then, guns up, he burst through the door for the second time that day.

All three men stared at him in disbelief. Two had beers in their hands instead of weapons. El Gigante sat hugely on one of the battered old couches and Ozburn knew that he could shoot both of the beer-drinking bad guys before their leader could get off the couch, and he saw that Teodoro knew it, too.

He ordered the two men to their knees and they took their positions with doomed expressions on their faces. One bowed his head and prayed. Ozburn ordered Teodoro to join them and he tracked the big man’s slow movements with one of the Love 32s. Teodoro finally righted himself and lumbered toward Ozburn. When the big man came abreast of his comrades he did not kneel but instead lunged forward at Ozburn. Ozburn stepped aside deftly and let the gun in his right hand swing free on the shoulder sling. He hit Teodoro’s jaw with an uppercut so hard the big man stopped and straightened, then dropped to the floor. When Teodoro managed to get to his knees Ozburn leveled a machine pistol at his forehead.

Daisy sat in the doorway wagging her tail.

—Do you repent, Ozburn asked in Spanish.

—I repent.

—I repent.

—I’ll find you in hell and kill you, said Teodoro.

Ozburn looked down at the big man’s quivering face, the dark, searching eyes, the jagged edge where the ear had been.

—Who has the vehicle keys?

Teodoro nodded toward the TV and Ozburn saw the fob and keys sitting beside the rabbit-ear antenna. He retrieved the keys and stuffed them into a vest pocket without taking his eyes off the men.

—Touch your faces to the floor, all of you.

ATF training was to never get on the ground on orders from an armed opponent: You will almost certainly be executed. Stay on your feet. Stay on your feet. Ozburn knew that trained or not, the cartel men understood this. The two smaller men lowered their heads to the concrete. One began to sob. He offered five thousand U.S. dollars for his life. Then ten thousand. Then ten million. Teodoro stared down at the floor muttering words that Ozburn couldn’t understand. He caught the word
Malverde
, patron saint of the
narcos
, and that was all.

—I’ve bet the life of my wife on this moment. Her name is Seliah.

With that, Ozburn let go of the left gun and brought the last three crucifixes from his vest pocket. He moved from man to man, left to right, working the leather necklaces over their heads with his left hand and the barrel of the machine pistol he held in his right. Teodoro’s head was too big so Ozburn dropped the crucifix to the floor in front of him where it landed with a clear tap.

—The god I no longer know has asked me to spare your lives. He says he can save Seliah. We’ll see about that, won’t we? Stay where you are until I’m safely away or I’ll certainly kill you all.

Ozburn drove back
to his car and shot flat the tires of the SUV, then took the Mercury to the spring near Atil and stayed in the wilderness three days. He ate the bread and pastries and forced himself to drink the water he’d bought at the
panadería.
There was a blanket and a heavy jacket in his duffel on top of the bricks of tightly wrapped cash. He had enough kibble in the bag for Daisy, who seemed perfectly content to sleep under the stars, her back to him for warmth. Ozburn’s body was alternatingly numb or pain-riddled. Hours were minutes and seconds stretched to days. He hallucinated and wailed and sobbed when the pain was upon him, and he slept through the numbness. He slept for what seemed like a lifetime. He awakened to music, terrifying music so loud his eardrums pounded in pain. His visions were of violence and beasts that he knew did not exist, then of Seliah, whose beauty burst away the ugliness but when he could no longer hold her image the terrors returned and were worse.

The evening of his second day he lit a fire against the chill and just before dusk he saw the black SUV roll to a stop in the distance and Teodoro and his two associates climb out of it. Ozburn and Daisy sat side by side on a hillock and watched them come across the desert toward them. They carried weapons and made no effort to conceal themselves. When they were a few hundred yards away Ozburn saw the three men in the hooded sweatshirts walking across the moraine toward them. Ozburn watched the Mexicans slow down their steady march and the hooded men approach. Teodoro and his
narcos
stopped uncertainly but the men continued toward them. When they were a hundred feet apart Ozburn heard the distant boom of Teodoro’s voice and the softer reply of the tall man in the middle. The conversation lasted a full minute but Ozburn couldn’t make out the words. Then the gunmen unleashed a fusillade of fire. Ozburn saw the bullets lifting little wisps of rock dust all around him like raindrops and then he heard the reports. A bullet whined overhead in ricochet, trailing off with diminishing volume. Daisy stood and wagged her tail. Ten seconds later the shooting was over and the hooded men had not moved and the Mexican men were running back toward their vehicle with all the speed they could muster. Ozburn saw Teodoro look back and fall down and when Ozburn looked again at the three hooded strangers, they had disappeared, but Teodoro was up and running just the same. Then Ozburn was lying on his back near the spring, his mind blank, his body sweating and his heart pounding as if from a dream he couldn’t remember.

 

 

Early on Monday
Ozburn drove the Mercury into the Mexican side of Buenavista and took a room at the Gran Sueño Hotel. Mateo called him on the room phone just after three o’clock and told him where he was to go. Ozburn knew that part of L.A. County so he didn’t have to marshal his trembling hands to write down the address.

—I hope you are rested and feeling well,
pendejo
. You will have to leave Buenavista soon or you will have no deal.

—I’ll be there on time, old man.

Mateo gave him a number to call for last-minute instructions. Ozburn shaved, then showered with the duffel propped against the outside of the shower door. Daisy lay on the thin floor rug and licked the water off his ankles when he got out. Ozburn swallowed a handful of vitamins and fed the dog and changed into clean clothes and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was green and his pupils were just dots in the iris. He slipped his sunglasses on and carried his duffel into the clean light of the border afternoon.

Ten minutes later he was speeding east on Interstate 8 in Father Joe Leftwich’s beater Mercury. Daisy sat upright in the passenger seat and looked out the window.

Bradley Jones walked briskly
across the barnyard toward his Cayenne. Mateo had just called and Gravas was on his way north. The afternoon was warm and the huge oak tree was filled with doves that whimpered and flitted and cooed. Jones wore cowboy boots and old dungarees and an oversize Nat Nast shirt. He sported a brown Stetson that Erin had given him on his eighteenth birthday and a matching suede vest he’d stolen from a saddlery in Calabasas the very next day. Tonight she was playing the Halloween party at the Troubadour, sold out of course. The nightclub was a small venue with a history of great music, and she’d driven up earlier in the day for an interview and photo shoot with the
Los Angeles Times
.

He set his holstered Glock .40-caliber on the seat next to him, then drove down the long compound driveway toward the road. His dogs bounded along with him, twelve in all. Bradley looked out the side window and smiled. The dogs might eat him out of house and home but watching them run alongside his vehicles was worth it. He reached up and pressed the controller button. Erin had strung the gate with cardboard witches that flew along as the gate rolled open. Bradley barreled through with a nod to Call, as the dogs skidded and eddied and howled at this, the received boundary of their world. In the rearview he saw the gate slide shut and Divot, the small Jack Russell terrier, leaping straight up and down and barking with the utter abandon of being abandoned.

Bradley drove through the hills of Valley Center, enjoying as always the native oaks and the riotous bougainvillea and the liquidambars and sycamores and flame trees all blushing with reds and oranges and yellows. He followed Interstate 15 north of L.A. and into the desert toward Lancaster. This was unincorporated L.A. County desert, Bradley knew, patrolled by his brethren LASD out of the Lancaster substation, formerly Charlie Hood’s turf.

Bradley thought about Hood and the strange convolutions of will and circumstance that had brought together his mother and Hood and himself. He remembered clearly the day that Hood had walked into their lives. Bradley was sixteen and had disliked him on sight. He had disliked the way his mother looked at the detective and the small change of inflection in her voice. He had disliked Hood’s clean-cut good looks, the odd combination of hope and skepticism on his face, his unhurried eyes. He had disliked Hood’s pride in being LASD and his questioning of his mother. True, Hood had encouraged Bradley to consider law enforcement one day, and told Bradley that LASD pay was “fair” and it was a good place to work. Bradley had bragged about being good with a handgun, which he now remembered had brought a look of concern to Charlie Hood’s annoying, freshly shaven face. The only thing that Bradley had liked about Hood was his IROC Camaro, beautifully maintained. But Suzanne had liked the whole package, or fallen for it, or fallen for her version of what he was. Back then Bradley had believed that Hood was her cause of death, and he still believed it now. For this he could not forgive him. He could respect him. He could admire him. He could even see something of what his mother had seen in him—decency, strength, humility. He could befriend him. He could use him. But not forgive.

Bradley continued west now on Highway 138. Mateo had given him an address and a time and Bradley had called Commander Dez immediately. Dez would have her undercover team in place and some cruiser teams ready for backup and a helo in the air but out of sight and earshot. Gravas and Herredia’s low-level couriers, whom Bradley had told Dez were in the employ of the Gulf Cartel, wouldn’t have a chance.

For the deal, El Tigre had chosen a busy avenue in a newly developed part of Lancaster. Bradley was familiar enough with it—a shopping center anchored by a Ralph’s and a Target, ringed by every fast-food franchise in the West and the usual corporate suspects: Blockbuster, CVS, Verizon, Baskin-Robbins, Hallmark Gifts, Super-cuts, Mobil Gas and Wash, and a huge parking lot shared by all of the stores. It was a busy place, Bradley knew. Hide in plain sight, he thought: Ninety neat little machine pistols and seventy-five grand in cash wouldn’t be noticed in the consumer chaos. The Mobil Gas and Wash was ground zero, in the back, where the condensed air and radiator water were dispensed.

By his own design Bradley himself would not participate in the bust. Too much suspicion would come his way. He told nobody of the intel he gave to Dez that Sunday and he was confident that Dez had kept his name far removed from her operation. But naturally he couldn’t resist watching it all go down, thus this voyeur’s journey to the desert to watch crazy Sean Gravas and Herredia’s lambs be sacrificed to the beautiful and courageous Commander Miranda Dez. She had called him into her office just yesterday to ask about his life, his job, his wife—and to thank him again for bringing the Gravas bust to her. She couldn’t wait to take down the Flying-Fabio-Hell’s Angel-Jesus Wannabe. At the bust of Gravas and the Gulf men, she would have an undercover deputy get video and stills for the department and of course the media. One of her sergeants had been in touch with Theresa Brewer at FOX, and Dez had thanked Bradley for that contact, too.

 

 

The magic hour was
to be eight o’clock, and by then Bradley was sitting in his Cayenne in the parking lot, right up close to the Mobil Gas and Wash. He had a good view of the rear part of the station, where the deal was set to go down. He also had a good view of the fourteen pumps, the mini-mart and the drive-through wash. Even at eight P.M. the station was busy, though the wash was being only lightly used. A van disgorged a band of vampires and goblins and a tiny Darth Vader who were led toward the restrooms by a woman while a man swiped his card at the pump. The shopping center and the parking lot were all overrun with customers, Antelope Valley having no antelopes and far more people than services.