Do They Know I'm Running

resin.

Below, the Blazer careened to a lurching stop, followed by three more gunshots, strangely wild, then a sudden silent impulse told him: Stop! He drew up in his tracks, used his body as a shield to keep Lupe behind him, just as he felt the rippling concussion of air, like an invisible current pulsing in front of him. The bullet missed by inches.

A clipped throaty voice called out:-Roque Montalvo! We’ve got your cousin.

He hurried beneath the tree canopy and pushed Lupe behind him before turning back, thinking: Spanish, clever, work on both our consciences, play one against the other. A tall spidery man with a shaved head leaned against the SUV, clutching his mid-section, his movements stitched with pain. A smaller man dressed in black with long flowing hair climbed out from behind the wheel, flourishing a pistol. A third man in a suit and cowboy boots dragged from the backseat a fourth and final man, this one with his hands tied behind his back: Happy. He staggered blindly, weak from a beating, his shirt dark with blood. The man in the suit pressed a pistol to his head and drove him to his knees, the spindly bald one calling out:-Come back down, you and the girl. Otherwise…

Roque still held Melchior’s pistol. From this distance, though, he doubted he’d hit anyone, no matter how carefully he aimed. He might be able to slow them down if they chose to climb up after them but that was the best he could hope for. The air felt cool in the tree shade. Another hour or so, the sun would set.

Happy threw back his head, a soulless voice, “Fuck them, chamaco. Run!”

Using his pistol, the one in the suit cracked down hard, the back of the skull. Happy crumpled, toppling onto his side in the dust.

– Is this what you want? The tall one bent over, coughed, waved a limp hand toward Happy.-Come on. Think. You won’t make it, you know that, right? I know just where that trail comes out.

All I gotta do, make one call, they’ll be there on the other side, waiting. Stop dicking around, give your cousin a chance here.

From behind, Lupe, her voice tight with pain:-I can’t ask you to do this.

He could smell the stale coppery odor on her breath.-Then don’t ask.

She tried to brush past.-I owe it to his father.

Roque stopped her with his arm, holding her back-he could feel her draining strength.-They’re going to kill you, if you’re lucky. Kill us all. Who’s that repay?

Her eyes met his and yet he couldn’t feel himself within their gaze.-I’ve brought nothing but sorrow to your family.

– What’s happened, we brought on ourselves. Happy knows that better than anybody.

– It’s asking too much.

– You’re not asking anything. Now trust me.

He braced himself against one of the trees, lifted Melchior’s gun and steadied it, closing one eye, squinting to aim with the other. For the merest instant he revisited the day that Tio Faustino moved in, bringing his fourteen- year-old son along with him. He wasn’t known as Happy yet, that would come later, but even then he was cool and watchful and defiantly sullen. Godo hated him at first glance but that was Godo. Roque wondered if he’d bother to laugh if somebody told a joke. Tia Lucha made pozole for dinner, a hominy stew with chunks of pork, and no one spoke during the meal, spoons traveling from bowl to mouth uninterrupted except for Tio Faustino’s increasingly hopeless stabs at chat. At one point, Roque’s eyes rose from the table and he caught the taciturn newcomer, the boy named Pablo, staring. The eyes were black and deep and hard. Roque couldn’t help himself, maybe it was fear, maybe it was daring, maybe the simple human need to connect, but he smiled. And for a fleeting second he saw a softening in that unavailing gaze, the slightest lifting of the mask.

If I can just hit one of them, he thought, Happy will know I didn’t simply abandon him. The one in the suit presented the best target. If he missed, he might hit Happy, but he doubted whatever agony he caused would add much to what was sure to follow. He drew a bead, fixing the middle of the man’s chest in the V-shaped notch of the sight. He took in a breath, held it, pulling gently, slowly, three times in succession. As always, he was amazed at how loud it was. Even more astonishing, the one in the suit flinched and staggered and clutched at his neck, tripping over his own feet and toppling clumsily to the rocky ground as though suddenly butted by an invisible goat. The other two scattered, searching for cover.

I won’t stay and pretend I can do better than that, he thought. I won’t stick around and watch as they kill him. He turned toward Lupe. She was clutching her shoulder and the bloodstain on her shirt had grown beyond the spread of her hand. If we can get halfway by nightfall, he thought, we might have a chance. He no longer bothered with hope. Everything now reduced to will and luck. He took her free hand, pulled her behind him as he resumed their climb through the trees.-My cousin understands.

Forty-Five

THE CHOPPER SET DOWN A HUNDRED YARDS FROM THE CIRCUS OF strobe lights swirling across the desert plain, the law-enforcement vehicles encircling a small enclave of unfinished houses, the capital of nowhere. Lattimore and the others aboard crouched and ran through the rotor wash and churning dust toward the nearest of the houses while the Mexican PC-6 that had escorted them since crossing the border tailed away, puttering off in a northerly loop.

It was just past sunset, not quite dark, the western sky a crimson fantasy of low swirled cloud getting swallowed up by night. He’d flown from San Francisco on a moment’s notice aboard an agency Gulfstream, a rare extravagance, arriving in Tucson a mere hour ago, met at the airstrip by an FBI liaison named Potter who’d steered him immediately to the helipad. They were joined there by a crew of ICE agents, like Lattimore wearing raid jackets with their agency affiliation emblazoned across the back, plus a few brush-cut military sorts Lattimore learned were DIA, two tight-lipped civilians who were clearly spooks, bringing Andy McIlvaine to mind-he’d dropped off the planet since their impromptu lunch-all of them sent here to lend some form of credibility to what he could only assume would be a dog and pony show of inimitable Mexican overkill.

They were met by a uniformed police officer who snapped to with a crisp salute, then led them through the idling crowds of chattering cops to the one roofed house in the tiny development, inside which a battery of tungsten lights transformed the shoddy interior into a brilliant if sordid photo shoot. Near the far wall, the bullet-riddled body of an Arabic-looking male lay sprawled in conspicuously little blood amid the scattered cinder blocks, the sawdust, the litter of nails. Beside him, in even worse shape if such a thing was possible, lay Happy Orantes’s cousin, the ex-marine with the torn-up face, Godo. The whisking hum and whirr of cameras battled with the rumble of generators and a wafting stentorian narrative provided by a jefe de grupo of the MFJP, the federal judicial police. The jefe, bedecked in stiffly creased khakis, hands clasped in the small of his back, appeared to be in control of the proceedings.

With the arrival of the Americans he took a break from his interview and swept forward, hand extended, face crafted into a catlike smile. The cameras followed him as though drawn by gravity. His name tape read “Orozco.”

“Welcome, gentlemen.” His English was soft, Southwestern. “I was just telling the members of the press about our operation, our good fortune in discovering a suspected terrorist before he was able to cross into your country.”

Lattimore only half listened to the rest-the anonymous tip that led them to this house, the fierce standoff and eventual commando assault, the regrettable but unavoidable death of the terrorist and a gang member who’d fought to protect him. Out of some nagging perversity he wanted to point out how obvious it was the bodies had been dragged in from somewhere else but doubted anyone would care much. The skin of the story would never get peeled back, no one wanted to see what festered underneath. It was one of those tales, the kind all sorts of people want too much to hear-why bother much over details? And though Lattimore finally had in his possession the paperwork from the Baghdad office that could lay waste to the vast edifice of bullshit the jefe was erecting, he lacked authority to share. The bureau wanted no part of making its