Yeager's Mission, page 17
“Verdugo mentioned an agreement,” Yeager said. “Do you know what he was talking about?”
Dominic hung his head for a moment. “It is… it is shameful to admit this.” The priest rubbed his face with a long-fingered hand and looked away. “Mission San Felipe has—had—a small reserve of silver. From the mines that operated here in the late 1800s to early 1900s.”
Yeager waited while Dominic studied his coffee cup. Father Sebastian shifted in his seat, his mouth set in a grim line, and Dietrich focused his eyes in the middle distance as if modeling for an Easter Island statue.
“For a time,” Dominic said, “we… appeased Verdugo with a small payment to leave us in peace. A tribute.”
“A bribe,” Dr. Lopez stated bluntly.
Dominic acknowledged her charge with a nod and an openhanded gesture. “Just so. Except the… bribe… became more expensive, and soon our store of silver was exhausted.”
“And Verdugo doesn’t believe you,” Yeager added.
“And Verdugo doesn’t believe us.” Dominic tried on a rueful smile, but it wouldn’t stick. “He began taking our supplies instead, which is how we ended up in this fix. I used the last of our emergency fund to help Victor procure weapons for you and your men.”
“Any chance we know who the local spy is?” Yeager stood and took a tray from a beaming Father Pepe. Tortillas, eggs, and sliced ham were piled on the plate. Next to that steamed a cup of stout coffee. “Muchas gracias, Padre.”
“De nada. Enjoy, with God’s blessing.”
“Amen.”
Dietrich and Pepe excused themselves to get the children to their assigned classrooms. Dr. Lopez went to the kitchen to refresh her coffee cup. Yeager addressed Dominic again. “If we knew who was ratting us out to Verdugo, maybe we could turn him.”
“Turn him?”
“Make him a double agent. Supply false intel to Verdugo.”
“Ah, I see. No, I don’t know who this person might be. Or how many there might be.”
“Well, Father Dominic, please think on it.” Yeager sipped his coffee then attacked the mountain of eggs. He piled some on a tortilla, sprinkled on hot sauce, and rolled it up. After chewing down the first batch he said, “This is good. I don’t care if they’re dried eggs or not. Nothing like hunger to whet the appetite. Anyway, if we can find this person, or people, it would be a good thing.”
“What will you do?” Father Sebastian huffed. “Torture him? Put him on the board of water? This is how you will get this information?”
Make him sit through Mass with you? Yeager kept the thought from passing his lips with an effort. The old priest had a way of getting under his skin that he normally only associated with the ex-Mrs. Yeager.
“Torture who?” Dr. Lopez frowned and sat back at the table, her mug full enough that some coffee spilled over the side. She muttered something fierce that he didn’t catch and wiped at the cup with her napkin.
“No, Padre,” Yeager said. “I thought we might try the honey before the stick if it’s all the same to you.”
“Never mind sending a boy, Dominic.” Sebastian pushed back from the table. “I will go find the mechanic, Trevino, and bring him myself. The sooner this man’s truck is repaired, the sooner he can leave.”
Once the older man marched away and passed through the doors, Dominic said, “I’m sorry, Señor Yeager. Father Sebastian can be… quite difficult at times.”
“I understand, Father. What about getting a message out? You got in. Maybe we could get a message out the same way.”
“Out to whom?”
Yeager hesitated. If there was a spy, he didn’t want de la Cueva’s name brought up. “To the authorities.”
“I rode in with one of the men of the village,” Dominic said. “I’m ashamed to say I hid my collar and pretended to be just another laborer. We were stopped once by a formidable roadblock about two kilometers to the north, on the same road you must have used to come in?” Dominic made the last part of his statement into a question by inflection and a lifted eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Yeager said. “We saw nothing. Didn’t hit a single roadblock.”
“Hmmmm. Interesting.” Dominic paused, pinching his nose. “Anyway. The point is the men said we had better be comfortable staying in Rascón because Grupo Verdugo was shutting down all outbound traffic. If we attempted to leave, they said we would be killed. Executed is the word he used.”
“We’ll have to punch our way through, then, if it comes to that.”
“Excuse me.” Dr. Lopez fixed Yeager with a glare, the corners of her mouth turned down. Just like Martina. “I don’t understand something. I believe as you say, that this Verdugo will come back with killing in his mind. If you go, we will have no protection at all. I saw the way his man looked when he pointed a gun at my patient. A little girl. He would have shot her without another thought.” She looked at Father Dominic. “We can’t evacuate again. I have three patients who are just now recovering from a week without a dialysis machine, and another just had an emergency appendectomy.”
“Dr. Lopez,” Yeager said, “we’re leaving. Trust me on that. But only when we have safe transportation for everybody. All we need is to find the way.”
He traded looks with Dr. Lopez and Father Dominic, but nobody had anything to say.
Cristian Guzman—a former truck driver who was about to return to his old vocation—came through the side door of the garage and paused, letting his eyes adjust to the dim interior. An arc welder crackled, and sparks dazzled from the front of the Dodge Ram pickup in the middle of the garage. Herman crouched at the grill, a welding hood over his face.
Cristian closed the door behind him, shutting off the midmorning sounds from the village of Rascón. “Como ’sta?”
His son looked up from his welding and tilted the mask up. “Almost done. Another couple of spots, and it will be done.”
“Bueno.” Cristian inspected the new feature on the Ram, thinking about how appropriate that name was. Herman had affixed to the front of the dual-wheeled pickup a lattice of black iron bars, welded to struts sticking out from the frame. The struts, in turn, were welded to the unibody frame of the industrial-duty truck. He had also beefed up the springs and added knobby tires.
In the bed, twenty bags of concrete added mass and weight.
“Bueno,” Cristian repeated. “You must hurry, though. Trevino needs his welder back. The truck is damaged.”
“The truck?” Herman glanced at the pickup in front of him, puzzlement creasing his brow under the hood.
“Not that truck. The truck.” Cristian pointed toward the mission. “The big one.”
“Ah. Damaged? Damaged how?”
Cristian shrugged. “I think the radiator.”
“Can it be fixed?”
“We can only hope.”
Herman’s face took on the look of a brewing storm. “It has to be fixed. I will not give up everything at this point. What did the priest say?”
“He said to be patient, that God will provide.” Cristian shrugged again. “As if he can speak on God’s behalf anymore after what he plans to do.”
“How long? I mean, when we know?”
“We have all day today, so perhaps Trevino can fix the radiator and the truck would be ready to go tonight. We have to go at night anyway, so maybe tonight.”
“What about the fighting men at the mission? Has the priest accounted for them?”
Cristian was wearing out his shoulders shrugging. He did it again anyway. “He says the open fighting with Grupo Verdugo complicates things, but he’d planned to… how did he say it? It sounded so nice. Ah. He said he planned to make sure they did not interfere.” Cristian waggled his hand. “Whatever that means.”
“And if the Verdugo men come back while we’re loading? Or before?”
Cristian forced himself not to shrug. “That, my son, is something else that is in God’s hands.”
Chapter 26
An hour past dawn, Charlie checked on David and found him still asleep in the tiny back room that Judy used as her office. Although only the back of his head stuck out of the blanket, her mommy instinct detected his breathing pattern and recognized he was in a heavy sleep cycle.
She eased the door closed and followed the smell of coffee to the kitchen. Judy sat at the table holding her e-reader in one hand and a mug in the other. With dark hair trimmed short, wearing a man’s shirt and sweatpants, Judy Loehr looked more like a bum than a successful real estate attorney. Monday through Friday, Judy dressed in power suits, had every hair in place, and slipped through the shark-tank waters of Austin with such confidence the sharks gave way and let her pass.
She peered over her reading glasses at Charlie. “Hey, girlfriend. Glad you’re up. Coffee’s on. You know where the stuff is, right?”
“As long as you haven’t moved it.”
“Me? Move stuff? That would require housework, and you know that ain’t happening.”
Charlie brought her cup to the table and scooted some stuff around to make room to set it down. Law books, papers, and legal pads fought for space with bills, junk mail, and other… stuff. “I still don’t see how a woman as shit hot as you are in litigation and negotiation can be so…”
“Disorganized?”
“Yeah, that’s the word.”
“Hah!” Judy said. “Tell me. It’s been that way since college. You adapted, didn’t you, roomie?”
“It was adapt or die.”
“Poor thing.”
“Hey, thanks again for letting us stay the night,” Charlie said.
“Are you kidding? If it had been me, I’d be a basket case, blubbering all over your shoulder. You were always the tough one.”
Charlie sipped her coffee, smiling with her eyes. Judy lived in a modest house in a high-dollar neighborhood north of Georgetown, a suburb of Austin. With the kind of bucks Judy pulled in, she could afford something much bigger, but moving would require time away from her job. And she’d have to pack and clean up. Staying put, she had told Charlie, was much easier.
Light streamed in from French doors overlooking a yard of dead grass—Judy did not garden well, either—and a wooden privacy fence. Tort, a fluffy Maine Coon cat with multicolored fur and white paws, curled up in the middle of the table, oblivious to the mess.
“So when’s he-man coming home?” Judy put down her Kindle and went for a coffee refill.
“I wish I knew, Judy.” Charlie allowed herself the sigh she’d held back in front of David. “He went charging off on his white horse, and I haven’t heard from him since. His cell keeps going to a ‘not in service’ message.”
“Would you ever have thought, way back when we were Dallas blue-blooded Hockaday honeys with country-club tans and Neiman Marcus credit cards, that you’d wind up living in the boonies with Paul Bunyon?”
“More like John Wayne, but yeah, I know what you mean.” Tort woke up and stretched. He padded over to Charlie and butted his head into her hand. “But you know? I never thought I’d be this happy, either. Not after Steven and I divorced.”
Judy smiled, crinkling the laugh lines at her eyes. “I’m happy for you, sweetie.”
Tort climbed into Charlie’s lap as if it were his due. “And something you’ll never believe: I’ve been in some kind of fiendish Stepford Wives housekeeping trance. All I’ve been doing is cleaning and dusting and—and baking, for God’s sake. I’m no Judy Loehr, but you know, housekeeping has never been big on my to-do list. I don’t know what the hell’s gotten into me lately.”
“I know what’s gotten into you.” Judy had a merry glint in her eyes. She pulled off her reading glasses and leaned forward. “I know exactly what’s going on.”
“Huh? What?”
Judy giggled, sounding more like the girl Charlie went to college with than she had in a long time. “Oh, I don’t believe this. You haven’t even guessed yet, and I can see it plain as day.”
“Goddammit, Judy. If you don’t tell me what you’re talking about, I’m going to stab you in the eye with a dull spoon.”
“Oh, girlfriend.” Judy bubbled through her giggles, which had grown to chuckles and threatened to hit a full-out belly laugh any second. “You. Are. Pregnant.”
“What? No way!” A cold dash of ice water ran through her body. Pregnant?
“Yessir. Most women get all mother hen late in the game, but the same thing happened when you got knocked up with David. Plus, I can see it, plain as your freckled nose. Your cheeks are starting to fill out, your skin has this, uh, this luster… I’ll bet you’ve started to feel the waistband get a little tight, haven’t you?”
And as soon as Judy said it, Charlie had an uncomfortable urge to run her finger under her bra to loosen the snug feeling there.
“That’s—that’s not supposed to happen.” Her words were wooden, coming out stiff and slow. “We used…”
“Even so,” Judy said. “It’s never one-hundred-percent perfect.”
“Oh my God. I think you’re right.” The clues started piling up now that she knew where to look. The weight gain, the hormone-induced mood swings—all of it, just the same as twelve years ago when she found out she was pregnant with David. “What is Abel going to say?”
“If I know that man,” Judy said with a smirk, “he’s going to say ‘Yeehaw!’ That’s how he rolls. He adores the hell out of you. Anybody with eyes can see that.”
“Quick.” Charlie deposited a ruffled Tort back on the table and stood up. “Where’s the nearest drugstore?” She ran to the spare bedroom, found her purse, and scrabbled through it until she dug out her keys and wallet. She rushed back to the kitchen.
“Why are you just sitting there? I need a drugstore. Write me directions or something.”
“Not gonna do it.” Judy held a hand over her mouth and shook with suppressed laughter.
“What?” Charlie waited, keys in one hand, wallet in the other. “Why not?”
“Nope.” Judy lost it completely, doubling over in a fit of laughter so hard she started crying. She struggled to catch a breath. “I… I’m not… telling you.”
“Stop laughing, you dork. What’s gotten into you? Never mind; I’ll find it myself.”
“Hah-hah! Stop. Please.” Judy sucked in a breath and held up a hand. “Wait-wait-wait.”
“What is it?”
“Don’t you think—” She snorted and tried again. “Don’t you think you ought to change out of that nightgown before you leave?”
Alexandra Lopez, her nose buried in Señora Gutierrez’s file, quick marched along the dormitory wing and rounded the corner without looking.
And thudded into a solid wall of flesh and bone.
“Excuse me—” she gasped.
“Hey, is no problem,” Victor Ruiz said. “The mos’ fun I had all day.”
“Señor—Señor Ruiz.” The warmth of a flush crept up her neck. “I’m sorry, I was…”
The man smiled, an expression he wore often, it seemed. “No, Señora Doctor, you can run into me any day. And call me Victor. Or Por Que.”
He wore jeans and tennis shoes and an olive-drab T-shirt, stretched over granite-carved muscles. Over his torso was strapped a harness containing military equipment. Spare ammunition and the like, she supposed. He also carried an assault rifle, muzzle down, slung over one shoulder. His brush-cut hair gleamed faintly blue-black, and his dark eyes smiled even when his mouth did not.
“What…?” She cleared her throat. “What are you doing? Here, I mean.”
“Chocking the doors.”
“Checking? I’m sorry, my English is not always—”
“No, señora.” He held up a canvas sack. “Chocking.” Victor rummaged in the sack and pulled out a triangular piece of wood. “You hammer this into the doorframe—you know, at the floor? It blocks the door from being opened from the outside. See, all the doors here open inward, which is, you know, like a major fire hazard by the way, but at least we can keep out the bad guys. Unless they blow the door or break it down. This slows ’em down long enough for us to react. I hope.”
“And if we have to get out—like you said, in a fire?”
“You just kick the chock out of the way, and boom! Home free.”
“I see, Señor, um, Victor.”
“Where you headed?”
“To see how Emelita is doing. The little girl I was operating on when you… when that… those men…” Alex heard the babble spilling from her tongue and hated it. Her normally commanding, articulate doctor persona had deserted her. How could this be happening? I am twenty-eight years old, not some schoolgirl.
“Sure, I remember,” he said, grinning again. He had very white teeth. “Cute thing. Except for, you know, that big hole in her belly.”
“Would you like to come see her? I didn’t tell her what happened, but when she heard the shooting yesterday, she became very upset. I told her some brave warriors were here to protect us from the bad men. I promised I would show her when she was able to walk. But… this would be better. If you want to. Come visit, I mean.”
“Yeah, sure. Lead the way. This chore is about done anyway.”
Alex tapped on the door to Emelita’s room and stepped in without waiting for a response. The little girl lay propped in bed with two well-worn, mostly naked Barbie dolls in her hands. The dolls were “talking” to each other in Emelita’s singsong voice and jump walking on her chest.
“Hola, Emelita!”
“Hola, Dr. Alex.” The girl waved a doll in greeting and grinned as if an old friend had come to play. “Marissa has been telling all about you.”
