Chon belly-crawls across the floor.
Focusing his eyes fifteen degrees to the left cuts off the cones that try to distinguish colors and lets him see a little better in the dark, just well enough to make out the form of Boland lying on the floor, his hands on his machine pistol.
Chon reaches him, throws one leg over the man as if mounting a horse, and then rolls so that he’s lying on his back with Boland on his back on top of him. Chon gets his forearm across Boland’s throat, his other hand locked behind his neck. He wraps his feet around Boland’s ankles like a snake, then arches his own back, stretching Boland out as if on a rack.
Then he chokes him.
Chon’s muscles strain and quickly tire as Boland bucks and thrashes and tries to tear his arms away, but Chon holds on until Boland’s sphincter and bladder let loose and what was a man becomes a corpse.
Chon takes the Glock and feels better now that he’s armed, but armed against what? Against whom? Bullets zip over his head he hears them thunk into wood and plaster he hears shouts and groans and it’s all so familiar but he’s used to being on the other end of this lethal equation on the outside coming in not on the inside trapped like a civilian a collateral casualty in a war between unknown adversaries. He doesn’t know a Berrajano from a Lauter, they’re all Mexicans to him he’s in the dark figuratively as well as literally he only knows that this darkness gives him the chance to get the fuck out of there except he remembers that he isn’t alone in this chaos and he makes out his father lying face-first on the floor his forearms covering his head against the splinters of wood shards of glass flying around the pistol still in his right hand his finger reflexively tightening pulling the trigger shots going off at random the muzzle flashes bolts of red lightning Chon thinks for a second his old man might kill him after all accidentally and he crawls over, wrenches the gun from his hand, sticks the barrel into the side of his father’s head, and says
293
“Call it off.”
John fumbles in his pocket and pulls out his phone.
Funny these days how life or death can come down to cell phone service.
294
Ben opens the door and a guy is standing there with a cell phone in his hand.
“Hi,” Ben says.
“Hey,” the guy says. “I must have the wrong place. I’m looking for Jerry Howard?”
“I think you do have the wrong place.”
“Sorry to bother you.”
“No worries.”
295
Chon yells over the din Time to go do what I do and he starts to crawl, his old man crawling behind him, the general rule being if you can stay low you have a chance, and the truth is we didn’t walk out of the formless primordial ooze, we crawled.
296
In the dark of course there is not sight but sound, so
Follow the fight from the rhythm of its fire
Like most battles
It doesn’t end in a thundering crescendo
But in sporadic spurts then desultory single shots then silence.
There is no climax just anticlimax, or more properly speaking nonclimax.
Lado’s men work their way through the house
Hallway by hallway
Door by door
Room by room
Methodically killing, just as
Methodically dying
And then it’s over.
297
Chon makes it out into the courtyard.
His father crawling behind him.
There is a chance, just a chance, that they can get to the car and make a break through the chaos, although Chon hears the firefight dying down and knows that the confusion will quickly end and the window is closing. But there’s still a chance and he’s just about to gather his legs under him and lunge for the car when the hears the chomp-chomp-chomp of the helicopter rotors and then the light hits him.
298
From above the searchlight from a helicopter hovering illuminating the scene of slaughter.
The light is blinding, Chon can barely see, chokes on dust as the rotors whip up the dry dirt around him and he hears the amplified command, in English “Freeze! Drop your weapons and stand up with your hands over your heads!”
Chon does it.
Struggles through the wash to his feet, drops his gun, and raises his arms above his head.
Sees John do the same.
Looks around at a scene of execution, as black-clad men dispatch the wounded with shots to the back of the head, while others work on their own wounded.
The helicopter lands, kicking up a whirlwind of dust.
A man gets out, bending low beneath the rotors. Straightens up and walks toward them, holding a badge ahead of him.
“Special Agent Dennis Cain, DEA. Come with me, please.”
They follow him into the helicopter.
