The Border Lords (39 page)

Later he felt his body return and he got up for another whiskey and retrieved his laptop from the duffel and he wrote an e-mail to Seliah even though he knew it might be a while before she could read it.

A few minutes later Ozburn called Paco’s number and gave the time and place to him.

“Bring Silvia or there is no deal, Paco.”

“But if there’s no deal, we will kill Silvia.”

“Paco,
evolve.
Bring Silvia or you’ll never get the guns. I’ll take her from there. I’ll get her home.”

After a long silence Paco agreed.

Next Ozburn called Hood and gave him the same place but an earlier time.

“I heard about Lancaster,” he said.

“What a mess, Charlie. LASD?”

“Yes. Two of them died. And three of Herredia’s couriers. The other one is critical.”

“They tried to take me out, Charlie. I figured someone had tipped the deal to the Gulf Cartel. So I did what I had to do to survive. But I’ve got your guns. And I’ve got the Gulf Cartel’s money. All I need is a ribbon to tie it all up with. Day after tomorrow, Charlie. Will you be there?”

“I’ll be there.”

“They’ll have a girl named Silvia with them. I saved her from death and she lives in Agua Blanca. Promise me you’ll get her home.”

“I promise.”

“It’s been a good run. I’m tired.”

“I can see Seliah right now,” Hood said.

“What is she doing? How does she look?”

“Sleeping. She looks far away.”

“When will they bring her out of it?”

“Soon. The antibody counts are almost there. She’s almost fought it off.”

Ozburn felt his throat constrict and the tears come to his eyes. They burned hot and spilled over. “It’s hard to talk right now.”

“Sean, the real test is what’s she’s got left. There will some brain damage. It might be severe. It might be . . . not so bad.”

Ozburn said nothing. He pictured his wife again, fair and frozen deep within the coma.

“Oz, we still have a deal? You’re going to help us take down these creeps day after tomorrow. Then we’re going to see Seliah. Is that right?”

“Soriana didn’t like my idea.”

“No.”

Silence. “I didn’t think he would. So, I’m yours, Charlie. The guns and money and I will be in a white Chevy Malibu.”

He hung up.

Two evenings later
Hood sat on the roof of a Vernon warehouse with his knees up and the night-vision binoculars in his hands. He was partially hidden by a ventilation housing in which a canister fan spiraled patiently beside him. He had a good sight line to the parking lot behind the warehouse, where Ozburn would deliver the ninety remaining Love 32s.

Overhead the stars shimmered meekly, their vigor blanched by the lights of L.A. The night was crisp and cool. Vernon was an industrial city with an actual full-time population of ninety-one, making it the smallest city in Los Angeles County. But its dozens of factories and processing and rendering plants employed some fifty-thousand workers. Hood was a fan of Vernon’s best-known product—the oversize hot dogs sold at Dodger Stadium. And he knew that this portion of the city had been carved out by MS-13 gangsters tied to Benjamin Armenta’s Gulf Cartel.

He looked out at Pacific Avenue, where agent Robert Velasquez sat astride his Kawasaki at the curb. Velasquez was wrapped in black leathers and a black full-face helmet. Bly was in her gray Jeep, parked at the far end of the dark lot. Morris was on the sidewalk just outside the wrought-iron security fence that surrounded the parking lot and the warehouse, wearing a dark hoodie and sweats and beat-up running shoes. Hood could see him limbering up for his run, folding into his hamstring stretches now that his jumping jacks were done. Six more ATF agents in three vehicles were obscured in the darkness within a two-hundred-foot radius from the parking lot, and these would form the second wave. All ten were armed and linked by wireless radio headsets. Blowdown would make the first contact; the six others would do what needed to be done.

Hood watched the white Malibu turn from the avenue into the lot and in the wash of light from the streetlamp he caught the flash of Sean Ozburn’s hair and pale face and the dark lenses of his sunglasses. The car prowled the fenced perimeter, past Velasquez on the avenue and Bly in the lot, and finally Ozburn pulled diagonally across two parking places directly below Hood. The engine stopped and the lights went off.

Ozburn sat without moving. Hood watched him through his night-vision binoculars. Oz looked exhausted, his face tilted down as if he were studying something on the steering wheel. He wore a bulky coat with the collar turned up against the chill and his usual sunglasses and a black bandana across his forehead. Hood remembered the Ozburn he had known just a few short months ago, the Ozburn who was alert and brave and strongly made and beautifully trained, and now Hood felt only an angry sadness for the man. Hood wanted to fly down the fire escape ladder and run out and tackle him. Then drag him to UCI Medical where they could try to beat back his disease. So he could see his wife again. And after that? Even with two miracle cures,
was
there an after that? Hood couldn’t picture Ozburn spending the rest of his life in prison. He scanned the interior of the car for signs of Daisy but saw none.
Not like Sean to be without her
, he thought.

A shiny black Tahoe swung into the lot, blacked-out windows and custom wheels. It followed the same route that Ozburn had, then parked three stalls away from the Malibu. All four doors opened at once and four men stepped out. The driver was tall and slender and the others were short and thick. They looked young, and a lot like the safe house assassins Sean had rubbed out.
Like spirits come to take their vengeance
, thought Hood.

He saw Dyman Morris jog into his field of view, coming slowly down the sidewalk. Velasquez sat his bike. Bly was not visible but Hood knew she was scrunched down in the seat, watching the deal in her mirrors, using the adjustment toggle to follow the action.

“Oz isn’t moving,” whispered Hood. By the playbook, Blowdown wouldn’t make their move until everyone was out of their vehicles—always the chance somebody would spook and try to speed off. “Four couriers are out. I don’t see any guns. Sean’s taking his time.”

Then Ozburn turned and looked through the driver’s side window. A faint smear of condensation spread on the glass, and Oz used a fingertip to draw two eyes and a happy smile. Then the smear and the face faded to nothing. Hood saw that Oz had shaved off his mustache and started a full beard—it looked like he hadn’t shaved since Hood saw him last. Ozburn watched as two of the men approached. Then he swung open the door and grasped the car body and pulled himself out, the car wobbling with his weight. Two beer cans spilled out and clinked to the asphalt. He stood uneasily and raised his hands and Hood saw what he had feared.

“It’s not Sean!
Not Ozburn!
Let’s move!”

Hood dropped the binoculars and sprinted to the fire ladder and flung himself down the rungs fast as he could go. He sprung off early, hit the ground hard and drew his sidearm. He rounded the building in time to see Velasquez on his Kawasaki bounce into the parking lot, and Bly’s Jeep screech into a highway-patrol turn. Morris cleared the spires of the fence top and landed with his gun up.

Then Hood heard the screaming:

“United States agents! Drop to the ground! I’m ordering you to—”

“Police! On the ground!
Now!
”

Then the squealing of tires as two more SUVs stormed through the gate into the lot. Hood saw that all four of the gangsters and Ozburn’s stand-in were proned out now and Velasquez and Bly had already cuffed the tall driver and were working on another. Morris alone was cinching another. Hood ran to the fourth, a skinny kid who glanced up at him, then popped upright and ran for the building. Hood ran, jamming his gun into his waist holster. He caught up and crashed into the boy and they rolled once and Hood came up on top with a knee on the kid’s back and one of his arms pulled back from the shoulder and up at the elbow, on the brink of outrageous pain.

“Be cool, man.
Be. Cool
.”

“Fuck your—”

Hood held the kid’s face against the asphalt and Morris kicked away the gangsta’s loose gun. The blued steel pistol skidded away with a clatter. Morris lashed the ties, then jumped off the kid and circled one hand over his head like a victorious calf roper, grinning at Hood.

“We’re
good
,” said Morris. “God, we’re good.”

Hood helped Bly cuff the Ozburn double and stand him up. He was tall and overweight and his hair and clothes were filthy and he reeked of alcohol and old sweat. Hood pulled off the man’s scratched sunglasses and looked into his face.

“What’s your name?”

“Billy.”

“Billy what?”

“I’m innocent, man. Guy paid me five hundred to drive up here and do this. I wasn’t supposed to drink until it was over but I had the five hundred. You know? It was some dude who looked like me if I didn’t drink so much beer. He said FATE would understand. Or was it ATF? One of them. I’m innocent. Those handcuffs are tight.”

Hood slid the sunglasses back onto Billy’s face and walked to the black Tahoe. He swung open the rear liftgate and saw the terrified girl looking back at him, her eyes dark and wide and her mouth plastered with duct tape. Her ankles and wrists were bound with rope. He spoke to her in Spanish.

—No one is going to hurt you, Silvia. You are going home to Agua Blanca soon. Don’t be afraid of us and don’t cry.

He touched her hand gently, then cut the rope from her wrists and ankles with his pocket knife.

He waved Bly over, then strode toward the warehouse, lifting his vibrating phone from his hip.

“Mr. Hood, this is Nurse Marliss Sharer at UCI Med Center. He showed up, the husband, like you said he might. He had all these guns and he looked deranged. I thought everybody was going to die. We all thought we were going to die. Some were praying out loud. He growled at us. He just now walked out. I called security and police and you. He held his wife’s hand and spoke into her ear and kissed her once; then he left. I’m still shaking. Really hard.”

Ozburn drove the minivan south at the speed limit.
He’d bought it for two grand cash the day before at a used car lot in Victorville, just after he’d picked up the big, long-haired man standing near the highway entrance with a WILL WORK FOR BEER sign. Ozburn had taken the man’s cursory resemblance to himself as an omen, though he wasn’t positive that Billy would be able to stay sober long enough to get the Malibu, money and guns to Vernon.

Ozburn now figured three hours max to Buenavista, then another five to Nogales. At a convenience store in Corona he got gas and provisions and two hot dogs each for himself and Daisy. He was famished. He would not let Seliah’s pale sleeping form leave him: He saw the road and the cars and the sky before him through her ethereal, dreamlike face.

The next thing he knew he was pulling up to Charlie Hood’s home in the foothills outside Buenavista. No cars anywhere, lights on over the garage and the porch and inside the kitchen. He jimmied the side door to the garage and when he and Daisy were inside he laid his shoulder into the door that led to the house and it burst open without much fight. He carried Daisy’s kibble and bowls into Hood’s house and filled a bowl with food and the other with water.

Ozburn knelt down and opened his arms and Daisy, sensing catastrophe, very slowly walked over, tail low, head down, ears relaxed. He hugged her and told her Hood was a good guy,
take care of him and of yourself.

He petted her for a moment, then stood and swung the splintered door shut behind him and made sure the garage door was closed tight. Daisy started howling. He got back into the van and lifted his sunglasses to empty the tears that had built up behind them, then headed down the dirt road toward the interstate.