Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(10)

“Then they don’t want me dead.”

He glanced up at me, the lower half of his face blue white in the reflected radiance of his phone. “Cierto. They would have already put a round in your head. However, they may care less about my men.”

To the south, the singsong wail of the ambulance had grown steadily louder. Now the siren shut off as the vehicle arrived at the mouth of the alley. Lights strobed against the deepening night, a rotating throb of red that pulsed like a heartbeat. I squinted, trying to see past the lights.

“They’re blocking the ambulance,” said the Brick.

“Once they let it pass,” I said, “I’ll slip inside while they’re busy with Angelo.”

“It’s not an ambulance,” Jesús said. “It’s the policía. Your enemies have made themselves some very good friends. My source says those pendejos are moving into the area now, too.”

The BIC Lighter panic I’d been trying to damp down now burst forth, an acetylene torch that shot flame up my spine. Around me, the men cursed. I couldn’t tell if their anger was directed toward me or the police.

“I’ll turn myself over,” I said. “I’m an American. A cop. They won’t hurt me.”

Jesús barked a laugh. “Your badge means nothing here. No. We got this. First, you become one of us.” He whipped off his black ball cap with its stitched anchor and carbines emblem and plunked it on my head. “La chianga instead of an American. Hide your hair.” He shrugged out of his denim jacket and tossed it to me. “And your skin. Then voilà, una chianga.”

I yanked on the jacket and stuffed my blonde braid beneath the cap. In the heat, sweat didn’t so much trickle down my skin as materialize from every pore.

The Brick said, “What are they waiting for?”

“For us to move along and leave Sydney here like a pollito for slaughter.” Jesús wiped sweat from his hairline. “We leave, and she is no more.”

The Brick’s jaw worked like he had a wad of chewing tobacco. “So what are we waiting for?”

“An open sesame from Ali Baba would be nice. But for now, just keep standing around with your dicks in your hands. And say your prayers.”

“We wait much longer, we won’t have any dicks,” growled one of the other men.

“Sí,” said a third. “The policía, they’ll spike our balls to the wall with a nail gun. And that’ll just be the warm-up.”

A man appeared at the hotel window, a radio to his mouth while he scanned the alley. I recognized the gorilla shoulders and the arrogance—it was the man I’d stunned. He had a bruise on his forehead from hitting the floor and an expression like he’d swallowed piss.

I needed to work on my knot-tying skills.

To the south, the SUV’s headlights blazed to life. Ditto to the north. Tires rumbled against the rough pavement.

“We gotta go,” the Brick said.

“I know.” Jesús held his phone like it was a rosary.

“Jesús,” I croaked. The word was both name and prayer.

“I know!” His phone buzzed with another text; he glanced at it, then pointed toward the tattoo shop. “Okay, drop your dicks and haul ass!”



Seconds later, we crowded into the tiny anteroom of the tattoo parlor I’d noticed earlier. One of the Marines closed and locked the door behind us. Doing so wasn’t a simple act. He rammed home four separate dead bolts. When he finished with those, he dropped a heavy wooden bar across the door. The door itself looked like two inches of solid wood.

“The hell?” I asked Jesús.

“Safe house.”

A woman stood behind an immense desk, guarding a hallway that led toward the back. She looked fiftyish, her thick black hair scraped into a ponytail, her drab blouse buttoned tight across ample cleavage, the cuffs shoved up above her dimpled elbows. A plain gold cross hung on a chain that all but disappeared in the fleshy creases of her neck.

“That everyone?” she asked in Spanish.

Jesús nodded. “Sí.”

She tucked a plastic notebook under her arm and picked up an overstuffed messenger bag. “This way.”

We moved after her, falling into pairs in the narrow hallway.

“I’d already left when I got your call,” the woman said to Jesús. “Had to come back. But we got everyone out.”

“Gracias, Se?ora Torres.”

“Now, though, hay policía out back, along with more americanos. It’s not good.”

“That’s why we—”

“I know.” Torres shot me a glare over her shoulder. “She is worth it?”

“She is a Marine.”

Pounding erupted behind us—someone hammering on the front door.

“Vámonos,” said Torres. Let’s go.

At the end of the hall, Torres made a sharp right down another hallway, then unlocked a door and waved us into a ten-by-fifteen room. A large, heavy desk—twin to the one up front—sat on a rug in the middle of the room. A quick glance around showed shelves stocked with water bottles, packets of food, flashlights, and sleeping bags. On the floor, cardboard boxes overflowed with clothes.

Not just a safe house. A way station. But from where to where? The trains the migrants hitched to ride north were miles from here.