'How?'
'We both long for the love of a woman… the same woman. Yet neither of us shall have her love.'
'You didn't kill me. I killed you.'
'No. She killed me.'
El Diablo turned and tried to hoist himself up and over the railing, but he was too weak. Bode shook his head then stepped closer and grabbed El Diablo to help him over the rail, but he suddenly felt a sharp pain. He groaned then backed away and looked down. El Diablo had stuck a switchblade deep in his gut.
'And now I have killed you, Governor. You will now die for murdering my son. That is justice. And I will now die with honor.'
El Diablo threw himself over the railing. Bode heard a scream and turned to see Lindsay staring at the knife in his gut.
'Oh, God-Bode!'
He leaned over and looked down to the river. In the moonlight, he could see El Diablo's body sprawled on the riverbank a hundred feet below. Bode yanked the knife out and dropped it over the railing. Lindsay examined his wound.
'It's bad, Bode.'
It was fatal. He knew it. He put his hand over the wound to stanch the bleeding. They went back inside and came face to face with a slender teenager with the face of an altar boy wearing black pants and a white shirt and pointing the AK-47 at Bode. The boy's hands trembled. Tears flowed down his face. He couldn't do it. He couldn't pull the trigger and kill a man. Bode walked to the boy and put his open palm on the boy's white shirt. He dragged his hand down and wiped his blood on the boy. He took the gun. Lindsay found a cloth and tried to stop the bleeding.
'Can you make it?'
'I'll get you both back across the river. If it's the last thing I do.'
And he knew now it would be.
Jesse Rincon opened his eyes on a bloody scene. The governor's clothes were soaked with blood. Lindsay's hands were bloody. His own leg was bloody. And a boy stood there as if in shock, his shirt red with blood.
'Where is he?' Jesse said. 'El Diablo?'
'Dead.'
The boy walked out onto the balcony and peered over the rail. The governor leaned over Jesse.
'I can walk.'
Jesse pushed himself up but fell into the governor's arms.
'The hell you can.'
The governor dropped the AK-47 then hefted Jesse onto his shoulder.
Bode Bonner was the governor of Texas, and he sure as hell wasn't going to die in Mexico. He would die like a Texan. In Texas.
'Hand me my pistol.'
His wife picked the gun up and held it out to him. He slid the Colt into his waistband. He then carried the doctor down three flights of stairs and to the front door. He stopped and drew the pistol.
'Open the door.'
His wife pulled the door open on two armed guards. Bode shot them both with the Colt. 44. He saw no more guards so they hurried to the four black Mercedes-Benz sedans parked in the circle driveway. Lindsay ran ahead and stuck her head into the nearest car.
'Keys, ' she said.
'Get in,' Bode said. 'I'll drive.'
'I will navigate,' the doctor said. 'I know the way out.'
Bode helped the doctor into the passenger's seat. Lindsay climbed into the back seat. Bode went around to the driver's side and saw two armed men running toward them. He put them both down with the Colt. He got in and started the engine.
'Go, go, go!' the doctor said.
Bode punched the accelerator, and the big Mercedes lurched forward and through the gates as shots rang out behind them.
'They're coming after us!' Lindsay said.
'We've got to get to the bridge!'
'No!' the doctor said. 'The federales will soon know we have killed El Diablo. They will not allow us to cross the bridge. We must go west, to the river. To the colonia. Turn right here. Cesar de Lopez Lara.'
Bode veered onto the road and drove past a string of cantinas and cheap motels.
'They're behind us,' Lindsay said.
'Left-there. Avenida Alvaro Obregon.'
Bode hit the brakes hard and made a fast turn, clipping a parked car. They were now driving down a dark road through what appeared to be a tenement of dilapidated houses and old cars parked right outside the doors. Groups of two and three men and women loitered on corners. Bode felt a fever washing over him.
'Did we lose them?'
'Yes,' Lindsay said.
Bode slowed so as not to kill a pedestrian on the narrow street, until he heard his wife's voice.
'No.'
He sped up-until he saw headlights coming directly at him.
'Shit-this is a one-way road, Doc! And we're going the wrong way!'
'Turn right- Calle Miguel Hidalgo. '
Bode swung the big sedan right onto another narrow street then sped up. His face felt hot and wet with sweat, and blood ran down his right arm and out of his gut.
'I grew up in this neighborhood,' the doctor said. 'A major road is just ahead. We can try to outrun them.'
Bode came to an Alto sign but he didn't alto. He veered to avoid cars parked along both sides through a little business district for five blocks then the road dead-ended into a four-lane roadway. The light was red, but 'They're still behind us,' Lindsay said.
'Left!' the doctor said.
Bode gunned the sedan through the light and turned south. Now they heard sirens.
' Policia,' Lindsay said.
They had joined the chase from a side road and were now on their side.
'They're shooting at us!' Lindsay screamed.
Bullets hit the driver's side window, but did not penetrate the glass.
'I'll be damned. An armored car.'
He glanced at the policia. They too were stunned. Bode stuck his middle finger up at them. He floored the accelerator and soon had the sedan running eighty. Two lanes ran south, so Bode had room to maneuver. He swerved around slower moving traffic and put some distance between them and the policia and El Diablo's men. He blew through another red light.
'Aw, shit.'
Traffic had stopped ahead. Cars were waiting to turn into a walled compound.
'Boys' Town,' the doctor said.
'Great.'
Bode blinked hard to maintain focus. He swerved around the line of cars. But just past Boys' Town the police had set up a roadblock.
'Hold on!'
Bode headed straight at the police cars then abruptly jumped the low median and drove around them in the northbound lanes then jumped the median back to the southbound lanes.
'They're coming after us.'
The doctor grabbed the dashboard.
'Turn around!'
