Fifteen seconds later — the precise amount of time it took for the flare to explode and burn down, like a dying star — he raised his head.
Seventy-five
The flare had been set to go off a half-mile to the east of the yard, the idea being that any pursuers or searchers would read it as a signal that this was where the American rescue party was, and that they were signalling this as the point at which to cross. The Mexican cops would be drawn swiftly towards it, while Lock crossed the border with Mendez almost directly opposite the marshalling yard.
That had been the plan, anyway. And, from the sounds of men tearing out of the marshalling yard and the colonia, it was working like a dream. The only problem was that Mendez was gone too.
Lifting his head clear of the ground, Lock watched the stream of excited men running hard in the direction of the flare. A couple of exploratory three-round bursts blew past him in the same direction, as a couple of trigger- happy cops let loose with automatic weapons.
Slowly he got to his feet as they moved off into the distance, his path ahead clear. He broke into a run, praying that Mendez hadn’t doubled back on him. Within no time, he could see the great span of the corrugated- steel plate barrier looming ahead. There was more gunfire to his left. Then shouts in Spanish. A regular cluster fuck, as they chased each other’s shadows.
He stopped and looked around, his eyes struggling to readjust to the gloom after the intense burst of light from the flare. Ahead, he heard something move in the darkness.
He dropped down, aware that Mendez had his weapon. Staying low, he moved forward, listening, his senses dialled up full. The sound came again. A person. Their movements slow and laboured.
He stayed quiet and inched forward. He was coming to the dip in the ground before the barrier. He radared in on the sound. The person was below him. Except now he could see that it wasn’t a natural hollow where the land fell away. It was a trench, ten feet deep and six feet wide — it had been dug out with heavy plant. A barrier before the barrier. An additional line of defence — perhaps to stop the people from the colonia taking a run at the border fence with a car.
Carefully, he leaned over the edge, his movement releasing a tumble of loose earth. There was a sudden break of movement to his right. Mendez was lying at the bottom of the trench, his left hand clasping a twisted right ankle. That was fine. It wasn’t his left hand Lock was worried about. It was the right, which was coming up fast, holding the gun.
Lock dove back from the edge, a round sailing past where his head had been a split second before. A lucky shot? Or did Mendez have some skill?
Rushing him was out of the question. He’d probably take a bullet before he was halfway down. And the shot was drawing some kind of chatter from the distracted posse running after the flare. Sooner or later they would come looking in this direction to check it out.
‘Charlie?’ Lock whispered into the darkness, being careful to stay out of sight. ‘Charlie, you can’t move and you can’t stay there either. If we’re both going to get out of this there has to be some trust on both sides.’
A voice came back from the darkness of the trench: ‘Why should I trust you?’
‘Because you don’t have any choice. If I wanted you dead all I have to do now is get out of here and leave our compadres over there to deal with you. I lose the money, but if I don’t care about the money it makes no difference to me. I should just get out of here.’
It was a hard sell and he didn’t have time to make a winning case.
‘So, go.’
He needed something else. A distraction. Something for Mendez to chew on, however briefly. Something to buy him the moment of doubt he needed. He patted down his jacket and something crinkled under the fabric. He reached inside and pulled out a wad of paper, waving it over the edge of the trench.
Mendez’s voice came from the void. ‘What’s that?’
‘Your mother gave it to me to give to you. It’s a note. You want it?’
‘What’s it say?’
‘How would I know? Look, do you want it or not?’
Lock edged forward until his head was back over the lip. He tensed, ready to spring back, but Mendez lowered the gun by a fraction.
‘Throw it down.’
‘Okay,’ he said, shuffling forwards on his elbows.
He swung his legs over the lip so that he was sitting on the edge of the trench. ‘I could bring it down to you,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Mendez. ‘I don’t trust you.’
‘Hey, you’re the one with the gun but, okay, I’ll throw it down.’
He folded it up, first into halves and then over again so there was a bit more weight to it. He reached down and tossed it towards Mendez. It fell about a foot from his reach. He looked up at Lock, eyes out on stalks, finger back on the trigger, waiting for him to try something. But Lock stayed perfectly still.
Mendez shuffled on his hands and knees towards the paper. Still Lock didn’t move. Not a muscle.
Withdrawing his left hand from his ankle, Mendez grabbed the note, struggling to unfold it with one hand.
‘Can you read it?’ Lock asked.
Mendez screwed up his eyes as they tracked the white piece of paper, the gun loosening in his right hand.
Heels already dug into the side of the trench, Lock pushed off as hard as he could, launching himself into the air directly above Mendez, the air rushing around him, the ground and the barrel of the gun, which was coming up fast.
Mendez’s body cushioned the landing. There was a shot, and a piercing scream as Lock’s knee came down hard on Mendez’s left ankle.
Lock knew better than to concern himself with whether he’d taken the stray round. You fought until your body stopped you. He threw a big, swooping right elbow at Mendez catching him high on the chest, just enough to send him off balance.
Mendez tried to twist his right hand around to get the angle for another shot but Lock dug the heel of his boot back into his ankle, drawing another shriek of pain. His hands grabbed at Mendez’s shirt, and he crawled up the man’s body so that they were face to face, so close that the gun was now redundant.
Lock head-butted him. It was enough to loosen the gun. He prised it from Mendez’s fingers, clambered off him and stood up.
The shouts were getting closer, the flare a busted flush, the search party no doubt pivoting round and moving back towards them, realizing they’d been punked by what was known in the trade as a come-on — the oldest but most effective trick in the book.
Lock reached down, grabbed Mendez’s hair and yanked him to his feet. Using sheer brute force, he began dragging him up the shallower side of the trench and towards the barrier. Now he could only trust that the coordinates he’d given Ty were accurate. If they weren’t, there was no way he could manhandle a fully grown man with an injury over ten feet of sheer steel on his own.
He was almost there. He let go of Mendez’s hair and instead threw a supportive arm around him. Mendez began to struggle.
Fuck it, thought Lock, as he half turned, planted his feet and unleashed a ferocious right hand to Mendez’s head. Mendez folded like an old dollar bill and began to sink to the ground. Lock picked him up, slung him over his back and staggered towards the wall of cold metal as the first live rounds slammed into the ground behind them.
Half walking, half running, he stumbled onwards, his heart sinking with every step as he saw only sheet metal. He was already contemplating a dive back towards the trench when he heard the sweetest words: ‘Yo! Over here,’ Ty shouted, all six foot four of him materializing like a phantom from the darkness, falling into a crouch and
