Ballistic

down on one knee, and then sat on the cold concrete floor. His muscles hurt and spasmed uncontrollably. His right leg shook so badly he held it to the floor with his hands to quell the movement.

Matt had already begun stripping the boots and pants off of one of the dead federal police. He stopped what he was doing to reach for the Bersa .380 he’d taken from the Little Butcher’s protege, and he slid the weapon across the floor to Court.

Hanley nodded towards Jerry Pfleger, still sitting in the corner, now shaking with fear.

“I left that dumbass for you. You can kill him if you want. I really don’t care.”

“No. I need him.”

Pfleger nodded forcefully; his eyes wide with newfound hope. “That’s right! That’s right, buddy! You need me!”

“I don’t need you to dance.”

“To dance? What do you—”

Court took the pistol proffered by his ex-boss, shot Jerry Pfleger in the top of his left foot, a round hole with a tattered edge of sock and leather appeared on his brown loafer.

The young man stared at his bloody shoe for several seconds before screaming.

Hanley winced with the shouting and screaming, and he tossed a pair of black tactical pants to Gentry.

“Did you have to do that?”

Court continued to gasp; he lay back flat on the cold floor for a moment to rest from his torture. Matter-of- factly, he said, “I don’t want him running away. I really don’t feel like chasing after him right now.”

Jerry screamed, spit, and snot and vile curses ejected from him like water from a fire hose. “I’m gonna fucking kill you, you crazy sick mother—”

Gentry crawled on his hands and knees over to the wounded man in the corner; the stainless automatic clicked on the concrete in the process. He sat back down, pressed the muzzle of the weapon onto the top of Pfleger’s right hand, pinning the hand to the concrete. “Don’t guess I need you to type, either.”

“No!”

Court hesitated. “Will you try to mind your manners?”

“No! I mean, yes! Yes!”

“Okay, stop the bleeding. You’ll be okay.” Gentry stood slowly on shaky legs, crossed the room to a shelf, and grabbed a towel and a roll of electrical tape, threw them both to the man who, in his writhing on the floor, missed it and had to scramble after it on his elbows, screaming and crying and cussing all along.

Court slid the tactical pants onto his naked body slowly, still dazed and slowed by the electric shocks. Hanley pulled an undershirt off another guard and handed it over.

In another minute they were heading up the stairs.

They made it to the front of the warehouse; it was eight o’clock in the evening, and they encountered no one else on the property other than some dogs fenced in a long kennel. DLR was long gone by now, Court knew, and with him Laura Gamboa. Looking around briefly, he saw barrels of acid lined up against the wall. In the top of the liquid human hair floated. The only remnants of the former guests of this death house.

He and Pfleger staggered out the door together while Hanley hotwired a car in the street. Within minutes they drove out of the neighborhood in a stolen Ford station wagon. Hanley was at the wheel; Court’s continued muscle spasms prevented him from driving. Pfleger was in the trunk; Court had used the rest of the electrical tape to bind Pfleger hands behind his back. As they approached a busy intersection, Matt scanned the street signs. He said, “Okay, I know where we are. Tepito. Bad part of town, but not too far from civilization.”

“Where are we going?”

“We’ll find a place to talk in a minute. Then you can take the car. I’ll catch a cab to the embassy. DLR’s men are going to learn about what happened if they don’t already know. You don’t want to stick around the capital for long.”

They drove in silence for the most part; Jerry’s occasional groans and cusses in the trunk were audible but muffled. Gentry worked on getting control of his muscles; his arms and legs felt weak and rubbery, his abdominal muscles ached, and his back and neck throbbed in pain. There were electrical burns on his back, his butt, his wrists, and his ankles. He wore pants that were too short and a white T-shirt that was too small. There was just a trace of blood on the collar.

Court’s feet were bare.

He carried the Bersa Thunder .380 semiautomatic pistol with a fresh magazine he’d retrieved from the pants pocket of the dead apprentice torturer. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was small and concealable. As Court’s mind fought for control of his body, he reserved a portion of his thoughts to work on a plan, and that growing and evolving plan would necessitate a low profile. The MP5s and even the big Berettas the federales carried on their hips would just not do.

The Bersa was wimpy, but it was very easy to conceal.

Hanley had retrieved a Beretta for himself just in case they ran into either narcos or street thugs while making their escape.

Court was surprised when Hanley pulled up to a bodega on Republica de Ecuador and hopped out of the car without a word. He returned in less than a minute with a bottle of tequila in his hand. He pulled back into traffic and jabbed the bottle between his legs, unscrewed the cap, and took a long swig.

He offered it to Gentry.

“No, thanks.”

“It will help your muscle cramps. Take it.”

Court accepted the bottle, took a tentative swig, winced, and then took a longer gulp. He fought down the shot, then passed the bottle back to Hanley. “If you’d picked up a six-pack of Tecate, we could have had a party.”

Matt swigged, laughed, and swigged again. “Nah, booze is efficient. No time for beer, Violator.”

Finally, Hanley pulled the sedan off the road, down a callejon towards the back of a construction site. He found a ramp that led down to a covered parking lot below a hotel that was only half completed. He jumped out to move a pair of orange barrels out of the way, and then he proceeded into the dark lot.

They parked the car, and Gentry popped the trunk so Jerry could get some air. They left a car door open for light and walked around to the back. Pfleger was on his back with his foot propped up. He looked up, terrified, at the two American spies staring down at him in the low light.

“Please don’t kill me. I swear I will do whatever you—”

Hanley took another long pull on the tequila bottle. “Shut up or I’ll shut the trunk.”

Jerry stopped talking.

Hanley took Court by the shoulder, walked him over to the corner of the garage, still within the low glow of the Ford’s interior lights. Together they stood; Court took the bottle and drank some more tequila, hoping like hell it would mute the shakes in his muscles.

He handed it back to Matt, and the big blond American took a long pull before asking, “So what the hell are you doing here in Mexico, duking it out with the narcos?”

“I just stumbled into this.”

“That wasn’t too bright. This drug war is crazy. Worse than Colombia. You ever seen anything as fucked up as this?”

“Yeah . . . I have.”

Hanley regarded Gentry then nodded slowly. “You must have done some work in Bosnia.”

“I must have,” replied Court, in semi-agreement. Hanley let it go. He did not know much about Gentry’s pre–Goon Squad work for the CIA, and he did not need to.

“Langley said you knew the GOPES commander, this Major Gamboa.”

“Yeah, long time ago.”

“And now DLR is going after his family.”

Court nodded. “That’s what I’ve been dealing with.”

“Wish I could give you some support, but officially speaking, my employer doesn’t care about Gamboa, and while they do care about you, they only care about making you dead.”

“Why did you help me?”