KILLING SARAI(20)

“Guzmán’s daughter was there,” I said. “I saw her on the compound before I entered the house.” I looked once toward the restroom where the girl was still showering after fifteen minutes. “Javier Ruiz has an impressive operation.”

“Are you certain you saw the same girl?”

I was offended by Fleischer’s lack of confidence in me, that after years of working together and never being wrong in my assessments that he would still second-guess my findings.

“It was the same girl,” I confirmed evenly. “I took half of the money Javier agreed to and left, as I was ordered to do.”

“And then how did you end up with the other girl?”

“She escaped the compound and hid in my car.”

“And you did not know she was there?” He appeared surprised.

“Yes, I knew,” I confirmed.

“Then explain why—”

“Remember, Fleischer, that you are not my employer. It would be wise not to speak to me as if you were.”

Fleischer swallowed his pride and raised his chin to appear more confident in his moment beneath me.

“What did Javier offer to have Guzmán killed?”

“Not a fraction of what Guzmán offered to kill Javier and Izel and for the safe return of his daughter.”

I added, “I could have fulfilled the contract while I was there.”

“Yes,” Fleischer said. “But that was not part of the plan, the same as keeping the runaway with you.”

“The girl will be useful.”

“So far, she has proven anything but,” Fleischer said, regaining the confidence I stripped from him before. “Everything has changed. The plan. The contract. Your orders.”

“What are my new orders?” I asked.

“Vonnegut has given no new orders yet,” he said. “He awaits my contact. Your new orders will depend on the information I get from you now.”

Fleischer and I locked eyes in this moment, both of us sharing the same thoughts: You are my brother and I will do nothing to betray you, no matter our profession or the orders that either of us are ever given.

No one but the two of us know that we share the same father. But over the years since our recruit by the Order when we were young boys, we have grown apart. It is often easy to forget that we share the same blood, especially by Fleischer, first name Niklas, who has lived in my shadow in the Order for so many years.

I simply nodded, knowing that Niklas would relay to our employer, Vonnegut, whatever I needed him to.

To retain the relationship between my brother and me, I offered him information he never asked for:

“The girl will be useful, Niklas,” I repeated, calling him by his first name to offer a truce. “It seems that she is more to Javier than Javier would like us to know.”

Niklas nodded in response, understanding my intent.

“You mean to use the girl to trade for Guzmán’s daughter,” he stated.

“If it comes down to that, yes,” I said. “Tell Vonnegut that I have it under control, but that I will await whatever orders he chooses.”

“I will tell him,” Niklas agreed.

I clicked on the ‘play’ button then to watch the video Javier sent to Vonnegut, in which Fleischer, as my liaison, was then ordered to pass along to me.

It’s just as I thought: Javier has the girl’s friend, Lydia, in a compromising position. He wants the girl to see it, to know that if she doesn’t give herself up or convince me to take her back to him, Lydia will die. I knew then as I watched the scene unfold on the video before me that this Mexican drug lord was far more brutal than the Order knew.

I heard the shower shut off and I ran my finger over the screen to turn off the video, shutting the iPad down afterwards.

The girl will be devastated. If she finds out about this, it will make her unstable.

But I can use this also to my advantage.



With the recorded video now playing on the screen, I twist the iPad around on the table to face the girl’s direction. She glances down at it for only seconds, the gun shaking in her grasp, and then back at me again, fearful that I might make a move. But when she sees her friend, Lydia, she turns her attention solely on the video, abandoning her upper-hand. I don’t take advantage of it. I slide my hands into my pants pockets and stand here watching the girl’s eyes widen with trepidation as the video plays.

Javier circles Lydia who sits bound to a chair, a red bandanna is stuffed in her mouth. Tears and sweat soak her face. Her left eye is swollen and bruised. A trickle of blood beads from one nostril.

“For you, Sarai,” Javier says into the camera as Izel stands next to Lydia, her hair wrenched in Izel’s fist. “I want you back here in thirty-six hours.” The girl clasps her free hand over her trembling lips; the gun hasn’t been pointed directly at me for the past several long seconds. “Or she’ll die and it’ll be your fault.”

Izel pulls back her fist and buries it in Lydia’s already bruised and beaten face. Lydia’s bound body lurches backward and more tears spring from her eyes. Blood erupts from her bottom lip.

The girl drops the gun on the floor and reaches for the iPad, shoving it clean off the table and then she falls to the floor onto her knees, sobbing into her hands.

I sit down on the end of the bed, leaving the gun on the floor and the girl alone in her moment of despair.