The Governor's Wife (41 page)

"It's good to have you back."

"I'm not back."

"You ever coming back? For good?"

"I don't know."

"You're leaving your family for a bunch of Mexicans in the
colonias?
"

"You left me for Mandy."

"After you moved out of our bedroom."

"I don't want to do this, Bode. Not now."

Bode stared out at the green grass and the blue sky above. Hank and Darcy were gone, and his wife wanted to be.

"I need you, Lindsay."

She sighed heavily, almost a cry.

"You don't need me, Bode Bonner. You just need a first lady."

"When will the
señora
return?" Inez said from her desk by the door.

"I do not know."

"But she will return?"

"I do not know."

But he knew she would never return.

Jesse had driven her to the airport three days before. When she got out of his truck, he knew he would never see her again. That day had come. She had left him. And he had learned the answer to his question: It was better to have never loved than to have loved and lost.

"I miss her," Inez said.

"I loved her."

Lindsay embraced her daughter.

"I know, honey."

"Why didn't he save her? Daddy."

"He would have if he could. He would have stood in front of her, taken the bullet himself. Your father is a lot of things, Becca, but he's no coward."

"I'm scared."

"You don't have to be, not with your father here. He'll protect you."

"I wish we were back on the ranch."

"I wish we had never left the ranch."

"Mom … are you guys getting a divorce?"

"
A divorce?
No … I don't think so … I don't know."

"Do you have someone else?"

"No."

Jesse didn't count as someone else, did he?

"Does Dad?"

Yes.

"No."

She couldn't do that to her daughter.

"Then why are you living down on the border?"

"To do something good with my life."

"He's going to be president."

"That's his life, not mine."

"You won't be able to work on the border, when he's president. You won't be able to hide your face anywhere in the world then."

For the first time in five years, Jesse Rincón contemplated leaving the
colonias
. His time with the governor's wife opened up all the possibilities of life for him. Perhaps the time had come for him to live beyond the wall. Perhaps the time had come for him to make a different choice in life. The thought of being alone the rest of his life now seemed unbearable. He wanted a woman in his life. He wanted the governor's wife in his life. But it was not to be.

"She is gone, Mother."

Jesse brushed dirt from the small flat stone that marked his mother's grave in the
colonia
cemetery. GRACIANA RINCÓN … 1952-1973.

"But it is for the best. This border is no place for such a woman. Dirt and death, that is all the borderlands have to offer. A woman such as her, she belongs in Austin, or perhaps Washington. Yes, she will make a fine first lady."

"When Governor Bode Bonner shot and killed three Mexican cartel
soldados
in West Texas and rescued thirteen Mexican children from a marijuana farm, he became an American hero. But when he grabbed his dead Texas Ranger bodyguard's gun and shot and killed three Mexican hit men—
sicarios
, they are called—saving his daughter's life and the lives of dozens of diners in this restaurant in the middle of Austin, Texas, he became an American legend. A living legend. The only question is, with a Mexican drug lord gunning for him, how long will he remain living? Reporting from Austin, Texas."

Jim Bob switched channels from network to network to network to catch the evening news reports. One reporter stood in the middle of Guadalupe Street just outside Kerbey's restaurant; another stood just across the street on the UT campus; and a third stood in the parking lot. All were reporting live from Austin, Texas, as they had for the last three days. The national media had descended on the capital of Texas.

"How did the hit men smuggle the weapons into the U.S.?" the reporter asked DEA Agent Rey Gonzales.

"They didn't. The gun laws in Mexico are very strict. So they crossed into the U.S. at Laredo, drove up I-35 to San Antonio, and bought the guns and ammo at a gun show last weekend. The cartels buy all their guns in Texas."

"Fully automatic AK-47s with thirty-round magazines?"

"You can buy a bazooka at a gun show."

"Without a criminal background check?"

The agent nodded. "The 'gun show loophole.' Big enough to drive a semi through. The bad guys buy their guns at gun shows and missiles on the black market."

"Missiles?"

"El Diablo, he bought a Russian-made missile and shot down our Predator drone."

"A drug lord shot down our drone? I can't believe that."

"You'd better believe it."

"Agent Gonzales, do you think the governor's life is still in danger?"

Another nod. "The governor killed El Diablo's son. He won't quit."

"How can you ensure the governor's safety?"

"We can't."

Jim Bob muted the news and turned to Bode with a big grin.

"Do you know how lucky you are?"

"Not getting killed?"

"Getting this kind of press coverage? Favorable pieces on the networks for a Republican?"

The Professor opened his black notebook.

"This poll was conducted after the assassination attempt. The more Mexicans you kill, the higher your poll numbers go. Seventy-six percent total favorable … unbelievable. White males, ninety-one percent. White females, eighty-four. African-Americans, forty-three percent. Hispanics … get this … thirty-nine percent."

"In Texas?"

"In the U.S. This is a national poll. I've never seen anything like it. You're blowing everyone else away across the entire socioeconomic spectrum. The other Republicans are road kill in your rearview. And you're up on Obama by a million Twitter followers and twelve points in the polls. We're talking Reagan-over-Carter landslide."

"Jesus, Jim Bob, they tried to kill my daughter."

"No. They tried to kill you. She was just there."

"Still."

"Are you a 'glass-half-full' kind of guy or a 'glass-half-empty' kind of guy?"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means, you and Becca survived an assassination attempt. You can sit back and pout about it, or you can move forward and make the best of it."

"Darcy and Hank are dead."

"You didn't kill them. The Mexicans did."

Jim Bob's phone rang. He answered.

"John Ed … yeah, he's right here. Hold on, I'll put you on the speaker."

Jim Bob activated the speakerphone.

"You're on with Bode."

"Governor," John Ed Johnson's voice boomed from the speakerphone, "glad you ain't dead."

''Well, thanks, John Ed. I appreciate your—"

" 'Cause I need your help on my bill."

—"concern."

"So where do things stand? You got the votes lined up?"

"Goddamnit, John Ed, I've been a little fucking busy lately, shooting Mexican assassins, burying my daughter's roommate and my Ranger bodyguard. I told you I'd work your bill, and I will."

"No reason to get testy."

Bode exhaled. "Sorry, John Ed, it's been a little stressful around here."

"Yeah, okay. You boys have a good day."

The line went dead. Jim Bob chuckled.

"John Ed ain't exactly the touchy-feely type."

"He ain't exactly the human being type."

The Professor leaned back in his chair and smiled.

"No one can stop you now."

"There's a Mexican trying to."

"Kill the governor for me,
por favor
."

"We could kill his wife and daughter very easily," Hector Garcia said.

"No. His wife and daughter did not murder my son. We do not kill women or children or innocents. We have already killed one innocent, the college girl."

"And the Ranger."

"Rangers are not innocents."

"My men, they were careless, with machine guns."

"Yes, careless and now dead."

Enrique looked Hector in the eye.

"Will you do that small favor for me?"

"
Sí, mi jefe
, I will send—"

"No. Do not send anyone. I want you to go north of the river. I want you to go into
Tejas
. I want you to kill the governor."

"
Sí, mi jefe
. I will leave tomorrow."

"
Bueno
. But first, Hector, bring my son home."

"You gave me no father, you took my mother, and now you take the only woman I have ever loved. You should not be so cruel. But then, why do I talk to you? You are not here to listen. There is no god on the border."

Jesse and Pancho ran the river at dawn. He tried to run out his anger and his disappointment, his sadness and his longing, his loneliness and his broken heart. The sun just now peeked above the horizon and brought light to the borderlands. It had been one week since the governor's wife had left. It seemed as if forever.

Pancho barked.

He faced south as the river flowed. In the distance, two black objects appeared in the sky. They quickly grew in size. They came closer. Fast. And then that same WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP sound became louder and louder until two sleek black helicopters flying low and fast just above the river blew past in a rush of wind, weaving left and right with the course of the river.

Hector Garcia glanced out the window of the helicopter at the man and his dog. He once had a dog. Back when he was a captain in the special forces. A commando. Employed by the Mexican Army and trained by the U.S. Army. To fight the drug cartels. But his entire unit had hired out to the Guadalajara cartel as enforcers. Everyone except Hector Garcia.

He had hired out to Enrique de la Garza.

El jefe
was different than the other cartel heads. He was educated and sophisticated. Religious and generous. A faithful husband and a family man. He even had a code of honor:
Los Muertos
do not use drugs, do not sell drugs to Mexicans, do not kill women, children, or innocents, and always tithe twenty percent to charity and church. They never initiated gun battles with other cartels; they only killed in self-defense or in the pursuit of justice; they killed corrupt politicians or
policia
only as a last resort, preferring instead to put them on the payroll; they were not wanton killers who hung corpses from overpasses to frighten the people or rolled heads into nightclubs or set fire to casinos to kill innocent Mexicans. They were not animals like the other cartels. They were civilized, like their leader. Hector had been twenty-five at the time, and after six years in the corrupt Mexican military, he yearned for order and discipline and honor. He had been Enrique de la Garza's right-hand man for seven years now. He would give his life for
el jefe
. He owed that much to him.

Because Hector had killed his wife.

Women were his weakness, and Liliana de la Garza made him weak. Her beauty was breathtaking and unparalleled among women. When Hector hired on and first met her, the lust ignited inside him. Over two years the fire grew and grew until his desire burned out of control. Until he thought he would go insane if he did not have her. One night, when
el jefe
was out of town, he drank the whiskey then went to her suite. He knocked on her door. When she answered, he pushed his way in.

He raped her.

She said Enrique would kill him when he returned. Hector knew his fate. The machete. He also knew that Liliana would attend mass at seven the next morning. She would travel in a caravan of Mercedes-Benzes to the cathedral. So he tipped off the
gringos
at the DEA in Laredo; he told them El Diablo would be in the caravan.

They killed Liliana de la Garza instead.

The Italian helicopter cruised at one hundred seventy-five miles per hour. They hugged the
Río Bravo
, running below radar; and with the Predator drone gone from the sky, the U.S. Border Patrol could not see the two helicopters flying west along the border.

They were invisible.

They cleared Laredo and Nuevo Laredo and the
maquiladoras
where the
gringos
enslaved the
Mexicanos
and the wretched
colonias
that lined both sides of the river on the western outskirts and veered northwest over the vast Chihuahuan Desert. They would cut the corner and pick up the
Río Bravo
again where it made the big bend. They flew low enough to see the jackrabbits and the roadrunners and the peasants heading north across the desert; they would most likely die before they reached the river. They soon passed over
Sabinas
and
Nueva Rosita
and the impressive
Río Conchos
. Hector sat up front with the pilot as he did back in the military. But this chopper was not as it had been flying old Hueys in the army.
El jefe
had spared no cost when he purchased the fleet of six helicopters. So they traveled in air-conditioned comfort, and the men sat in the back cabin in leather seats and played video games on the flat-screen monitor; their AK-47s lay at their feet on the carpeted cabin floor.