Chapter 11
El Comes to Collect
Disclaimer: I did not wake up this morning and discover that I owned El and Sands. They still belong to the man, Robert Rodriguez. Damn the luck.
Rating: R for language and mild violence
Summary: El returns to CIA headquarters, in full badass mode. Let's get it on, Part 1.
Author's Note: To everyone who asked….you better believe Boston will get his just desserts. I would never let someone like him treat one of my heroes the way he did, and get away with it. Just you wait.
****
The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, which was strange, because the ranchhouse had not looked this big from the outside. But at last El found the door he was looking for. He flung it open and hurried inside.
Sands was shackled to a chair. His head hung low, his hair shielding his face. There was an ugly rasp to his breathing.
"Get up," El said. "We have to move quickly."
He unlocked the handcuffs, and Sands slumped forward. Frowning, El caught him and lowered him to the floor. "Sands?"
He gasped in shock. Sands' sunglasses were gone. He had been badly beaten. His face was covered with blood. It looked like he had wept copious tears of crimson, the same way, El imagined, he had looked on the day he had been blinded.
"What did they do to you?" El breathed in horror.
Sands stirred. "El?"
"We have to go," he said, but there was no conviction in his voice. There was nowhere to go, and he knew it. The proof was right there in front of him.
Sands was dying.
"Yeah," Sands sighed.
El cast a frantic glance around the room. His heart had begun to pound with an ugly, painful rhythm that hurt his chest.
He had waited too long. He was too late.
"Don't look so worried," Sands whispered. "I'm fine."
El shook his head. "I'm not worried," he lied.
"Yes, you are," Sands breathed. "I can see it on your face." He smiled. A real smile. "I can see you, El."
He died, still smiling.
El was frozen in shock. It wasn't possible. After everything they had been through, it wasn't right that it ended this way.
It wasn't fair.
He threw back his head and shouted in fury. He didn't care who heard him, who came running. Let the entire Central Intelligence Agency find him. He didn't care anymore. He was going to kill them all.
The door to the room opened. El stood up and his hands snapped downward to the holsters at his hips. But somehow he had lost his guns. He was completely defenseless as the black-clad soldiers swarmed into the room and opened fire.
He went down under their bullets, and his last thought was that he would not be sorry to die. At least now he would get to be with Carolina again.
****
He woke with a jerk, a startled cry lodged in his throat.
He looked around wildly, trying to remember where he was, how he had gotten here. He was soaked in sweat. He wiped his face, feeling his fingers tremble as they touched his own skin. He sank back onto the bed with a low, groaning sigh.
It was time to go. Sands had been with the CIA for almost thirty hours.
After leaving the ranchhouse yesterday he had returned to their motel room outside the city. He had paced the floor aimlessly for hours. He had turned the TV on and off a hundred times. He had tried to play his guitar, but his fingers had stumbled over the strings, and he had been unable to make the instrument sing for him.
His gaze had kept returning to the other guitar. The one meant for Sands.
Sometime in late afternoon, he had finally gotten up and gone out. He had found a seedy bar a few blocks over, slapped a handful of money on the table, and proceeded to get filthy drunk.
This morning he had woken up in a gutter on the far side of the city, his mouth tasting like dirt and a silver dagger slid down inside his boot. He had no idea how he had gotten there, or where the knife had come from. The night before was a dark blot on his memory.
He had hailed a taxi and made his way back to the motel, where he had showered and fallen asleep on the bed, still naked and dripping wet.
It was six o'clock now. Time to return to the ranchhouse and collect his reward.
Time to collect Sands.
He checked his guns. He pulled his hair back into a ponytail, and put on his jacket with the scorpion on the back – today there was no need for disguises. He checked his guns again. He would have to leave them in the car, but he had no idea what was going to happen today. There might be a chance to go back and retrieve them.
He packed his bag, and Sands'. He put the guitars in their cases. He loaded both bags and the guitars into the trunk of his car. He went back into the motel room and filled a plastic bottle with water from the bathroom sink, hesitated, then grabbed what was left of a bag of oranges he had bought at an open-air market. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.
Finally, he checked his guns, one last time.
He was ready.
****
He drove out to the ranchhouse slowly, checking the rearview mirror often. He would not have been surprised to see a tail out there, but he saw no one. Apparently Belinda Harrison and the CIA had not bothered following him yesterday after he had left them.
With the house still out of sight, he pulled over to the side of the road and stopped the car. He wanted to have a closer look at his new dagger. He had absolutely no idea how it had come into his possession -- if he had bought it, won it in a barfight, or simply found it on the street. The hilt and sheath were silver, and the blade was nicked and worn; it had obviously seen use before. Both the sheath and hilt bore a stylized depiction of a scorpion.
El gazed at the knife for a long time, then slid it back into its sheath. He slipped this into his boot and snugged the leg of his pants down again. He would be frisked before entering the ranchhouse, but hopefully they wouldn't find the knife. He would feel much better about his chances of success today if he had even just one weapon at his disposal.
He walked right up to the gate. The soldiers on guard duty were the same as yesterday, and they recognized him. They did not look happy to see him.
He said nothing as they ordered him out of the car. They checked him for weapons, and he relaxed a little in relief when the secret in his boot went unnoticed.
The man with the radio called in, letting Belinda Harrison know he had arrived. He could hear the surprise in her voice when she responded, although she tried hard to mask it. His already-minimal respect for her went down another notch. She ought to have expected him to return.
"You can go in," said the soldier with the radio. "She'll be waiting for you."
Once again El wished he had never spoken in English in front of these men. The more secrets he had from them, the better. He hoped he would not have to kill them when the time came, though. They were just doing their job, after all; they were innocent in this whole mess.
He just had to remember to stay calm. What was it Sands said? Don't freak out.
He walked slowly up the driveway. Tinny music sounded from a radio in the garage. The same two cars from yesteday were still parked there. Two men in fatigues were washing the cars with sponges dipped in sudsy galvanized tin buckets.
There was no sign of the junior CIA agents.
Belinda Harrison walked out onto the front porch. She was wearing jean shorts again, and a black T-shirt. A pistol was tucked in the waistband of her jeans. "I didn't think you were coming back," she said. She sounded a little hoarse, the result of Sands choking her. Purple bruises shaped like fingers lined the sides of her neck. Seeing those bruises gave El a savage burst of pleasure. He felt guilty for that pleasure, but not too guilty. She deserved each and every one of those bruises.
"I said I would," El said, remembering at the last second to thicken his accent, trying to sound the way he had yesterday. He wanted to give her no reason to think of him as anything other than a dumb Mexican. She would be hard enough to take down. He couldn't afford to make her suspicious of him.
She gave him a thin smile. "I've learned not to trust the promises of men," she said. "Congratulations. You're one of the few who's kept his word."
El said nothing to this.
"Well come on," she said. "Let's get this over with." She turned around and walked into the house. She held the door for him.
A little bemused, he followed her in.
The interior of the house looked like, well, a house. There was no sign that a branch of the U.S. Government had set up shop here. El looked around as best he could without appearing to. He supposed the things like surveillance equipment were in back rooms that he would not be allowed to see.
Harrison led him to the dining room table, which was a huge wooden slab surrounded by thick wooden chairs. The house was uncomfortably hot, which was odd because El had seen the air conditioning unit on the side of the building. He wondered if it was broken.
"Now then." She went to a desk beside the table, opened a drawer, and pulled out a large checkbook. "What is your name?"
El gaped at her. "You are going to write me a check?"
She arched an eyebrow. "You think I have $10,000 in cash tucked away in the flour jar in the kitchen?"
"What am I supposed to do with a check?" he demanded. He wondered where the two junior agents were, or how many soldiers were in the house right now. He had been forced into fights before where he didn't know how many enemies he was facing, and he had never liked it. "No bank in Durango will cash it."
"I don't give a fuck what you do with it," Harrison snapped. She sat at the head of the table and screwed the top off a slim black pen. "Now, what's your name?"
"Jorge," he said. "Jorge Ramirez."
"Fine. Why don't you have a seat, Mr. Ramirez?" She began writing out the check. She was left-handed, he noticed.
He ambled across the room and sat in the chair to her left, closer to her than she would have liked. She glanced up at him and frowned. He folded his hands atop the table, and she relaxed again and went back to writing.
He watched her fill out the check. Her handwriting was small and neat. Her signature was no-nonsense, no frills or embellishments. Just her name.
She tore the check out of the book. "There you are. The United States thanks you for your help."
"What will happen to him?" he asked.
"To Agent Sands?" She shrugged. "I really don't see that as any of your business. But I can promise you he won't come to any harm. That's not why we wanted him. All we want to do is help him. He'll be taken back to the U.S., where he will receive the finest treatments we can offer. Obviously we can't do anything for his eyes, but we may yet be able to cure his madness. There are so many wonderful drugs out there. With the proper medications, he could even live an almost-normal life -- in an institution, of course." She held out the check.
The fate she described for Sands sounded monstrous. El had a momentary vision of himself walking into a white room with padded walls, where Sands sat in the corner, drugged into insensibility, too far gone to even know he had a visitor. Should such a horror ever come to pass, he knew he would put a bullet in Sands' head. It would be a mercy to kill him, rather than condemn him to a half-life in some asylum. Sands would even thank him for it, if he was able to understand what was happening to him.
El repressed a shudder as the horrible images crossed his mind. He took the check, folded it in half, and put it in his pocket. "Gracias."
Belinda Harrison smiled, a mere thinning of her lips. She put the cap on the pen and started to screw it back on.
Beneath the table, El hooked his foot under the crossbar of her chair. He yanked his leg up and forward with all his might, slamming his knee into the underside of the table in the process.
The chair rocked back on two legs, then tipped over, spilling a very surprised Belinda Harrison to the ground.
El sprang to his feet and hurried around the table, limping a little from the hurt in his knee. Despite her shocked appearance, she was already recovering, reaching for her gun. Quickly he stomped on her left wrist, pinning her arm to the floor. He crouched down low, feeling the bones in her wrist grind together beneath his foot as he did so.
He picked up her gun and aimed it at her head. "Don't make a sound."
"You bastard," she hissed. "You think you're walking out of this house alive now? You just blew it, mister." She was on her back with her feet and legs in the air because of the chair, but she still somehow managed to look dignified.
She started to struggle, trying to get up. "Don't," El warned her. He shifted his weight ever so slightly, so his boot pressed harder on her wrist. She blanched, and went still.
"Where is everyone?" he asked.
She made a face, and he saw that she meant not to tell him. Hating what she made him do, he let all his weight come down on her wrist.
She cried out as the bones broke. Immediately El slapped his hand over her mouth. The act of leaning in so he could reach her face made her arm roll under his boot, and she thrashed about in pain.
He removed his foot. "Not a sound," he threatened.
She nodded. Her eyes glared up at him, full of pain and hatred. She would be a formidable enemy, El knew. He would have to be on his guard around her at all times. If she even thought she had a chance, she was going to take it. And he could not allow that to happen.
He took his hand off her mouth. "Where are they?"
She swallowed hard. "Tom went into town. Rick is outside."
"Who else is in the house?" he asked.
"No one," she said. She saw his jaw tighten, and she hurried on before he could hurt her again. "I mean it! They don't come in here much. They stay outside, or in the barracks."
The barracks. He supposed she meant the old stables.
She was gaining confidence with every word. "Do you hear me? There's a whole unit of U.S. soldiers out there, mister. You're not going to get away with this."
"You don't even know what I want," El said.
This stopped her. Her brow furrowed. She didn't like being shown up, El realized. She was the kind of person who would never admit when she was wrong. No wonder she had hated working with Sands so much.
"Where is Agent Sands?" he asked.
Now she looked even more confused. She had been expecting rape, he supposed. Robbery, even. Or maybe just plain old-fashioned killing. This simple question caught her by surprise. "Why do you care?" she asked.
"Just tell me," he said.
"You can't have him back," she said. "The cartels might be offering more money for him, but it's too late. He's already been sent back home."
El went very still. In the back of his mind, a panicked flare went up. He stared down at her, trying to tell if she was lying. Was it possible? Could they have gotten rid of Sands so fast?
He decided she was lying. She had to be. If they had taken Sands back to the U.S., she would have gone with him. Or returned to the embassy in Mexico City. Either way, she would not be here anymore.
He leaned in. "Where is Agent Sands? And if you lie to me again, I will break your other arm."
She went very pale. She seemed to have finally realized that her lifespan had shortened considerably since El had walked into the house. "In the back," she said. "The back bedroom."
"Good. Take me there."
"Why do you want him?" she asked. "What are they offering you?"
"No one is offering me anything," El said. In her own way, Belinda Harrison was just like Sands – the concept of friendship was foreign to her. He grabbed her upper arm and bodily lifted her upright. He set her on the floor, and shifted his grip to her left forearm, just below the break in her wrist. He squeezed tight. "Now, take me there." He placed the muzzle of her gun against the side of her head. He didn't want to have to shoot her, but he would, if she made him.
And she knew it, too. She stared at him. "You're that mariachi," she said flatly.
El gave her a cold smile. "I am the mariachi," he said.
*****