The Territory: A Novel (2 page)

*   *   *

The Artemis Trauma Center was located south of the center of town, near a neighborhood of small cinder block homes. As she pulled up, Josie saw the mayor’s white pickup truck enter the empty lot, dingy under the charcoal-colored sky. He parked in front of the center’s entryway, climbed out of the truck, and approached Josie like a drill sergeant. He was a short stocky man with an underbite like a bulldog’s.

“An ER surgeon from El Paso is on his way. He was already on call in Marfa, so he should be here within a half hour. Two scrub nurses should be here any minute. They’ll start setting up for surgery.” Moss’s voice was clipped and too loud for the silent parking lot.

“What’s going on?” Josie felt her face flush in irritation.

He pointed toward the door. “Let’s get inside. We shouldn’t be out here.”

Josie grabbed his shoulder as he turned from her. “Has someone been shot?”

He glared at her and turned back toward the building, forcing Josie to follow behind him.

*   *   *

The Trauma Center was a one-story brick rectangle with a glass front door and green awning above it. The building housed the town’s Health Department and a one-room surgical unit that had been paid for with a Homeland Security grant the previous year. Artemis supported one family doctor and now a trauma unit, thanks to the drug cartels pushing north.

Using a key from a silver ring with at least a hundred other labeled keys, Moss unlocked the door and pushed it open, flipping on the entry lights to the left of the door, obviously familiar with the building. For the past ten years, he had micromanaged every agency in town, down to the bid orders for paper towels and toilet paper. He ran Artemis like a city manager, at times using authority he did not officially have. Moss and the city council appointed the chief of police, and he had the authority to fire Josie: a fact Moss was not above reminding her. Running unopposed gave him the type of unchallenged power that Josie worried was not in the best interest of the city.

Moss turned on a second set of lights, and fluorescent bulbs lit up the white waiting room, revealing two rows of blue plastic chairs linked together by a metal rail. Low coffee tables on either side of the chairs were littered with various tattered magazines. The room smelled of bleach and Pine-Sol.

Josie pointed ahead to a dimly lit hallway where they could talk in a more protected space, away from the glass entryway and two windows in the waiting room.

Moss leaned against the wall in the hallway and rubbed the stubble on his face. Usually impeccably dressed, he wore a wrinkled shirt that looked as if he had picked it off the floor on the way out of his house.

“I got a call from the Federales. The Medrano ranch is under attack. Five to eight gunmen from La Bestia went there after the gunfight in Piedra. They shot three front men for Medrano, as well as the old man himself. He’s in critical condition.” He paused, looked away from her. “The ambulance is headed our way.”

Josie leaned her head against the wall. She had been warned it would happen eventually. “Wasn’t he shot in Piedra Labrada?” she asked.

Moss nodded. “I had no choice. He’s got dual citizenship. The Federales said La Bestia already has men surrounding the hospital in Ojinaga. There’s not a hospital in Mexico safe enough to take him. The Federales are certain La Bestia’s set to finish the job.”

“So we let them finish the job here? Let our doctors and nurses be killed?” She stopped and forced herself to slow down, lower her voice. “Do you have any idea how many innocent people that man has killed in Mexico?”

Moss took a step forward and pointed a finger toward her chest. “He owns a cattle ranch in West Texas the size of our town! Until our suspicions are confirmed, we treat this man like the U.S. citizen he is. We offer him protection and medical care like we do any other citizen.”

Josie laughed in disbelief. “I can’t cross the border to help a fellow law officer, but we allow criminals to cross the border for medical care? How screwed up is that?”

“You don’t like the rules? Write your congressman.”

Josie bit back a sarcastic barb. “I’ve called Border Patrol and Department of Public Safety for assistance countless times tonight. They’re swamped. We’ll get no help here. Have you called the sheriff yet for backup?”

“I got the call from Mexico and called dispatch. I called our Trauma Center team leader to round up the ER staff and drove here,” Moss said.

“Call the sheriff. Tell him we need every man he can find to surround this building.” Josie paused and listened as she heard an ambulance siren approaching the center’s side entrance. “Otto’s en route. I’ll have him start setting up the perimeter for backup. I’ll work with the surgical team. You have any contacts you can tap for extra help?”

The mayor flipped open his cell phone to begin making calls while Josie met the ambulance.

The two attendants opened the back door of the ambulance and unloaded Hector Medrano, founder of the Medrano cartel. His chest and abdomen were shredded, and blood leaked through the bandages. His large square face was also bloodied and smeared with black dirt. He was as large in life as he appeared in the frequent newspaper and Internet articles that featured his crime sprees. Josie noticed the two Mexican attendants keeping a wary eye on the unconscious patient, stepping back from the gurney as soon as it was rolled into the operating room. Even with his approaching death, Josie could feel the evil that surrounded the man.

Within minutes, the two ER nurses had arrived. Vie Blessings parked and got out of her car, talking on a cell phone, already dressed in blue scrubs. She was a busty forty-year-old woman with spiked hair and vibrant makeup and jewelry. She commanded attention and got it. A younger nurse whom Josie didn’t recognize got out of the passenger seat of the car; she looked pale and terrified and stayed behind Vie’s back.

As soon as the nurses walked into the operating room, the ambulance attendants turned and left without a word.

“How bad is this?” Vie asked.

“I’ll get your team locked in as soon as the surgeon gets here,” Josie said. “How long?”

Vie looked at her watch. “Ten minutes at the most.”

“I’ll be in the room with you. Otto will be in the lobby near the front entrance. We’re waiting on backup to surround the building.”

Vie called over her shoulder to the younger nurse. She was a small-framed girl with slumped shoulders and round glasses.

“Carrie, this is Josie. She’s the officer that will be in the room with us throughout surgery.”

Josie shook the girl’s clammy hand. “Good to meet you, Carrie. Don’t sweat this. We’re going to be okay.”

Carrie offered a weak smile, and Vie told her to get the surgical table set.

After the girl left, Vie planted her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at Josie. “You never answered my question. Must mean it’s pretty bad.” Without waiting for a response, Vie turned back to the surgery room, already shouting orders.

When the surgeon arrived, Josie followed him into the prep area, where he scrubbed for surgery and dressed in sterile gear. He was tall, early thirties, and rail thin with a calm demeanor that impressed Josie immediately. She gave him a quick summary of the situation.

Before they walked out of the prep area, Josie stopped him at the door. “My first priority is the medical staff. You have control over the surgery. I have control over your safety. If I give you and the nurses an order, I need you to follow it. No questions asked. These people are murderers. I want to keep you safe.”

He paused, considering his words, and then reached into the breast pocket on his scrub top. He handed Josie a picture of a baby.

“She’s three months old,” he said, his voice strained.

The baby’s hand was wrapped tightly around her father’s little finger, her lips forming an
O,
as if the camera had caught her by surprise.

“Keep us safe,” he said. He squeezed Josie’s shoulder and pushed open the door into the surgery room.

*   *   *

Within fifteen minutes, Hector Medrano was prepped, and Josie and Otto had done what they could to secure the building. She had sent the mayor back to his office to reduce his risk and keep him out of the way. Otto was positioned at the front door, crouched behind the receptionist’s desk, while Josie stayed in the operating room. Her biggest fear was the unmanned door at the back of the clinic. It was locked, but they were wide open for attack. There were so few police officers in the region that backup was unlikely. Artemis was surrounded by towns with populations under eight thousand. Odessa was the nearest large town, at ninety thousand people, but it was 240 miles away. She had requested Border Patrol and DPS backup, but time was not on her side.

As surgery began, Josie listened for voices or activity outside the operating room. She stood behind the surgical table to keep a clear view of the door, and attempted to avert her gaze from the bloody mess in front of her. Hearing the suction of body fluids made her realize she had not eaten since a half can of fruit cocktail for supper. She glanced down and watched the gloved hand of the surgeon, slick with blood, exit the man’s chest cavity. Her peripheral vision turned black, and she pressed her hands flat on the cool concrete wall behind her, bent her knees, and breathed in the pungent mix of antiseptic and blood. She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths.

Vie, standing opposite the surgeon, called Josie’s name. “You’re looking a little peaked. You’re not going to drop on us, are you?” Vie asked.

Josie shook her head, hoping Vie would leave her be.

Focusing on the door, Josie listened to the surgeon’s steady voice and the measured blips and whisking of machines as her nausea subsided.

The surgeon walked Carrie through the process of inserting a chest tube to stabilize the patient’s breathing, and Josie wondered at his bravery. He was one of twelve surgeons from El Paso and Odessa who served the trauma needs of several West Texas border towns on a rotating basis. With so few resources, the surgeons were required to take a course in triage. During emergencies, they were taught to determine which patients would live and which would die, regardless of treatment, so they could focus on the patients who would most benefit from immediate care. Josie feared the knowledge might be put to use that day.

Each person on the surgical team understood the danger they were in; operating on one of Mexico’s drug cartel elite after a failed assassination attempt—one that would most certainly be completed in the future—seemed suicidal. And at what cost? Three decent human beings in exchange for a man suspected by authorities to have plotted the deaths of more than twenty rival gang members in the past year. For the assassins, an order to kill was an order, not a suggestion. The international border was no obstacle. La Bestia ran an organization as structured as, and certainly more ruthless than, any government military.

“The bullet struck bone. The fragments have to be removed. This will take longer than I’d hoped.” The surgeon lifted his head and looked to the ceiling, either to stretch or offer a prayer. He took a steel instrument from Vie as the other nurse rattled off numbers that meant nothing to Josie.

Carrie checked the monitors. She pulled her scrubs away from her chest and twitched as if her clothes irritated her skin. Behind the blue mask, Josie saw the fear in her eyes.

“Pressure’s dropping,” the girl said. “There’s blood in the breathing tube.”

Josie heard muffled voices outside the building, and Vie lifted her head, her expression wary.

With her back braced against the wall, her muscles taut and focused, Josie strained to decipher the noises from outside the unit. She reached Otto on his cell phone, not wanting the conversation on the public frequency.

“I hear voices outside the building. DPS arrived?”

“The front parking lot is empty. I just checked with Lou. DPS has two officers on their way, but they’re still thirty minutes out. The voices are coming from the east side of the building. They’re moving toward the back door.” Otto hesitated. “It’s about to get ugly.”

Josie knew Medrano would not have made it through surgery in Juárez. Retaliation in trauma units was common there. It was ranked the deadliest city in the world. Just a month ago, Mexican authorities charged two members of La Bestia for the murder of a high-ranking police commander in Juárez who refused to pay the demanded protection. He took a bullet through his chest as he entered the grocery with his wife. When the bullet failed to kill him, the assassins followed the ambulance to the hospital and killed the officer, the ambulance driver, and three bystanders.

Josie heard a car in the rear of the building, shut her cell phone, and slipped it in her shirt pocket. Within seconds, bullets pelted the back of the building, and glass shattered. The sound echoed down the hallway and filled the operating room. They had shot the back doors open. Voices were shouting, obviously inside the building now, speaking rapid-fire Spanish. Josie’s chest tightened under her vest, and she gritted her teeth, every thought focused on her actions.

“Flat on your stomachs!” she said, waving to the floor.

The surgeon looked wide-eyed at the man on the gurney. “I can’t leave him. He’ll die!”

Josie pointed toward the corner of the room with her gun. “Now! They’ll spray this whole room with bullets if they can’t get in.”

Gunshots echoed down the hall, just outside the trauma room, and Carrie screamed and dropped to her knees. Vie and the surgeon both looked to Josie for an answer. She motioned for them to cover their heads and lie on the floor in the corner.

More shouts from the hallway, then two additional gunshots, single caliber, that sounded like police rounds coming from the front of the building, where Otto was stationed. The three medical personnel lay flat on their stomachs. Josie heard the young nurse crying and Vie praying aloud. The doctor was between both nurses, his hands held protectively over their heads.

Josie crouched in the opposite corner. She had two guns, one on her thigh, cocked and ready for backup, the other trained on the door, both with a bullet in the chamber and a full magazine. The police-issued sidearms were little consolation in combat with automatic weapons that could sweep a room in a matter of seconds.