“Why should we consider this?”
“In the short term,” Maricruz said, “it will end the needless killing of your men and Señor Matamoros’s.”
Carlos shook his head. “I doubt I can convince either Giron or the rank and file to give up—”
“You’re speaking of power,” Matamoros interrupted. “Los Zetas, who have been pushing you back for the past year, have more to lose in this merger than the Sinaloa.”
“In the long run”—Maricruz picked up where she left off—“the combination of the Sinaloa and Los Zetas will put all of Mexico in the hands of the new cartel. Plus, it will have the benefit of the pipeline of raw materials I and my husband control that’s vital to your business interests.”
Carlos appeared to consider her words. “Tell me, who will lead your proposed combined cartel?”
“That is why we are here,” Maricruz said, “to work out the details.”
“Where the devil resides,” Carlos replied.
“This is bullshit!” Giron stepped forward, his pugnacious face thrust forward like a club. “This is a ploy. They’re trying to take advantage of us.”
“You’re wrong,” Maricruz told him. “But I understand. This is your view because the history of the cartels is steeped in blood.”
Giron’s curdled smile made her cringe inside. “It’s no more bloody than any other history. Man is a war-like creature. Men adore battle, we enjoy lording it over others. Territory is a vital imperative.”
“And women?” she asked as they slowly closed the gap that had formed between them. “What about us?”
“Your blood is different,” Giron said in a matter-of-fact voice. “It brings life. As it should be. Women have no place on the battlefield. This is a known fact, it’s simply part of your makeup.” He shrugged. “God decreed it, and for good reason. Who else would tend to the wounded, bury the dead, and mourn their passing?”
It took all of Maricruz’s considerable will not to rip his eyes from his head. What satisfaction that would give her! she thought. But, this being the real world, she put the thought away for another time, another place.
As if divining her thoughts, Carlos inserted himself between her and Giron. “If we stand here any longer we’ll all die of thirst.” Night had swept across the plain on which they were standing, extinguishing all but the last dusky glow of the sunset. “I propose we continue this discussion at—”
“A cantina of my choosing,” Matamoros said.
Without hesitation Carlos replied, “As you wish, señor.” Smiling genially, he gestured with one hand. “Where you lead, we will follow.”
15
The moment Bourne stirred, an avalanche of debris cascaded away from him. He remained buried. Scarcely able to breathe, he wormed his right arm upward, fingers scrabbling, until he felt the coolness of air against his skin. Then he pushed away as much of the ruins as he could before using his shoulders to rise through the murk into the compromised tunnel.
A modest amount of light filtered down through the beams from the basement above. The air was thick with columns of dust that had yet to settle. Looking around, he could just make out his attacker’s legs and feet in the gloom. Nothing else was visible. But Bourne was most concerned with Yue, who, though lying curled against the opposite wall, must have been buried by the cave-in.
Bourne climbed out of the grave, which had closed over him in the span of a heartbeat, and stumbled across the mounds of debris. Using the brass hinge holder, he scraped aside the piled-up wreckage that had dropped into the tunnel near the far wall. He could detect no sign of Yue, though he called out to her repeatedly.
His anxiety escalating, he dug faster, pushing aside slabs of wood, pyramids of earth, and a jumble of small rocks. At length, he reached a cross of two pieces of a beam, the wood showing signs of advanced dry rot. He needed to be careful now so as not to cause the wood to disintegrate as he moved it. Setting the pieces aside, he peered into the hole he had made and was rewarded with a view of Yue’s right shoulder. She was still curled up in the fetal position. He called to her again, first softly, then more forcefully, but she neither replied nor moved. He could not tell whether she was breathing.
Hurrying now, he pushed away more rubble until there was enough room for him to reach under her, scoop her up, and bring her into the air, which he fanned to keep the dust off her face. He put two fingers against her carotid artery, and was relieved to find a pulse, faint though it was. Opening her mouth, he tilted her head back to open her airway and, bending over her, began to force air into her lungs.
Every so often he pulled back long enough to check her pulse and to see if her chest was rising and falling in a normal manner. Her pulse was a bit stronger, but her chest was still barely moving. He went back to work with a renewed vigor, creating the bellows that rhythmically filled her lungs with air.
All at once she twitched, her eyes flew open, and, pushing on his chest with the palms of her hands, she said in a thin, raspy voice, “What are you doing?”
Bourne sat back on his heels, grinning down at her. “We had a cave-in.”
“So it would seem,” she said, craning her neck to look around her. “Where’s the dirtbag?”
“Under it all.” Bourne pointed at the man’s feet. “Dead.”
“I should fucking well hope so.”
Bourne laughed. “Now I know you’ll be okay.” Standing up, he held out his hand and pulled her to her feet. “How’s the ankle?”
“Fine.”
“I’m guessing it hurts like fire.”
“Go to hell.” She grinned hugely.
“Already been there.” Bourne grinned back.
“Think we can get out of this shithole now?” She glanced up over her head. “The cops should be here any minute.”
“First I need to find out who was following us and why.”
“You think you’ll get that from a dead man?” she said as she painfully scrambled over the mounds of debris, following him to where the man was half buried.
Bourne began the digging-out process. “Often,” he said, “I’ve found that dead men speak most eloquently. Sometimes better than when they were alive.”
Bracing herself against a sloping wall of rubble, she began to help him, so that within minutes Bourne was able to drag the man out from under. Streaks of blood followed in his wake, like a snail’s glistening trail.
Quickly Bourne went through his pockets. He found a roll of money, a driver’s license in the name of Jesse Long—obviously fictitious—but no wallet, passport, or anything that might accurately identify him. Bourne was just digging out his knife and mobile phone, which had been lodged underneath him, when he cocked his head, hearing the sound of sirens, barely audible, still far away.
He stuffed the items into his pocket, then scooped Yue off her feet and, with her cradled in his arms, mounted the highest pile of debris, climbing into the basement of the building above their heads.
The cantina Matamoros had chosen was long, low-slung, and dimly lit, redolent of agave, tortillas, refried beans, and stale beer. Multicolored party lights in the form of tiny lanterns were strung from the ceiling. A young woman was dancing by herself in front of a jukebox playing Shakira’s “Addicted to You.”
The long plank tables were nearly empty, and whatever bar business the cantina was doing was huddled at the front, in a poignant example of the cliché Misery loves company.
The various bodyguards took up positions near the front door, while Matamoros led his small contingent to an empty table in the rear. At once the owner popped out of the kitchen as if launched from a cannon, hovering over them to distribute menus and take their drinks orders.
In due course, the beers were served and the four of them were alone again. Matamoros and Giron eyed each other like two wolves circling a carcass.
Carlos said, “Señora, perhaps you’ll join me out on the terrace where we can drink our cerveza in comparative peace.”
As the tw
o of them rose, Matamoros said, “No you don’t. I’m not letting her go outside where she could be easy pickings for one of your snipers.”
“Señor Matamoros,” Carlos said blandly, “this is your territory. You hold all the cards. We are the invited guests—at the behest of this lovely lady. Do me the courtesy—”
“It’s all right,” Maricruz said as she took her beer. “I’ll be perfectly safe.”
However, she felt anything but safe as she and Carlos walked out onto the broad terrace in the rear. It was filled with rough-hewn wood tables and chairs. A striped awning, faded by the blinding sun, flapped disconsolately overhead. The northern edge of town, which the cantina overlooked, was dusty and gray.
“You’re not one of those women who smokes cigars, are you?”
She glared at him stonily.
“I thought not.” He lit up with the great fanfare due a man of his rank. “I want to tell you a story.”
“Is this really necessary?”
“Indulge me.” He let smoke drift out of his open mouth. “Giron’s grandfather had a business partner. He was a gringo. This gringo made all manner of promises to Giron’s grandfather and, over the course of time, they were fulfilled. The two men grew rich, until one day the gringo vanished and Giron’s grandfather discovered he was left with nothing. His partner had absconded with everything.”
Maricruz’s stony stare did not let up. “There’s no gringo here.”
Carlos nodded vigorously. “True, true, as you and I see it. But for Giron it’s a different story. He sees you as being worse than a gringo. You’re a Mexicana who abandoned her country. To him, you’re an outsider, no longer one of us—an apostate, if you will.”
“Do you see me that way?”
“I told you, no.” He sighed. “But the fact is I have to deal with Giron.”
“That’s your problem,” Maricruz said shortly.
“Well, but when we merge, it will be your problem, as well, señora.”
There was silence for a time. Inside the cantina, the jukebox was playing a poignant ranchera. In her mind’s eye, Maricruz saw the young woman swaying her hips to the beat, her arms around an imaginary lover. How sad her life must be!
Maricruz cleared her mind. “I suppose you brought me out here to propose a solution.”
Carlos stared out into the distance, the twinkling lights of town tiny and insignificant against the night. “You know, Maricruz—may I call you Maricruz?”
“By all means.”
He nodded, clearly pleased. “While it’s true everyone envies me, being engaged in a double life is most difficult.”
“Are you going to cry on my shoulder now?”
He smiled, though his gaze was still fixed on dim constellations of light steeping the town in a ghost-like aura. “You may laugh, but when there’s no one to talk with, there comes a moment when one thinks to oneself, What am I doing, what’s it all for?”
“You have no family?”
“My wife is home with the children. Do you imagine I whisper in her ear the things I do here?”
“I’m not certain you go home at all.”
He looked at her then, a long, penetrating stare. “I tell my mistress less than I tell my wife, which is nothing at all.”
“A wise choice.”
He threw her a jaundiced look.
“So there’s no one.”
“Absolutely so. The people I work with are idiots.”
“Yet here you are confiding to me. A total stranger.”
“Hardly a total stranger.”
“But a stranger nonetheless.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to talk with an outsider.”
“So you do see me that way.”
“I see you as someone who has no ax to grind. Your interests are purely monetary.”
Maricruz’s heart skipped a beat or two. “Are you trying to recruit me?”
“I’m trying to cut a path through the animus between Giron and Matamoros.”
“We can—”
But he was already shaking his head. “There has been too much blood spilled, too many family members plowed under, too much hatred and bloodlust. These cannot be erased or forgotten, no matter what Matamoros has told you.”
“What are you saying?”
Carlos stepped closer to her, lowering his voice further. “Giron and Matamoros are the same in one basic respect: They’re part of the past. Their time is over and done with.” His voice, though low, gained a certain intensity. “You and I, Maricruz, belong to the future. This is our time—we need only reach out and grasp it.”
When Captain Lim received the radio message concerning the cave-in at the silk shop, he consulted his detailed neighborhood map, saw the shop was only six blocks from Sam Zhang’s pearl establishment, and acted on the stirring in his gut.
Mobilizing his men via wireless network, he instructed them to converge on the address of the silk shop, surrounding it and cordoning it off.
“Detain everyone who comes in or out of the building,” he ordered. “But under no circumstances is anyone to set foot inside until I get there.”
Then he got into his car and, directing his driver, cut a swath through the dense traffic of the Shanghai streets.
“Faster,” he said, leaning forward.
As they rounded a corner and the shop came into view, he drew his gun.
16
Flickering light from a pair of nearly defunct fluorescent tubes threw crazy shadows across the ruined basement. The sirens were so loud now Bourne had to believe the police were already on the scene. Bypassing the staircase up to the shop above, he headed toward the rear right corner, where he had caught a glimpse of another set of stairs, less steep. Taking them two at a time, he leapt up to the landing, put his shoulder to the door. It flew open and he went through.
Yue, trying valiantly to fight the pain, had at last succumbed. She lay unconscious in his arms, her head lolling with every move he made. He turned toward the building’s rear door, but through the translucent glass panel he could see shadows moving, hear police commands. Turning, he sprinted back down the stairs and leapt down into the basement instants before the rear door banged open and heavy boots could be heard tramping across the floorboards.
Sliding down a pile of debris, he returned to the tunnel, where he set Yue down and began to dig through the fall of packed earth until he found his way to the other side of the cave-in. Returning for Yue, he headed back the way they had come, away from the opening he had made, leaving the ruins of the cave-in behind. His progress was slowed by the lack of light, the uneven floor, and the small falls of rock and stone that had occured over the years since the tunnel had been dug by unknown hands. Still, he made steady progress.
A sound came to him. He stopped, held his breath, and listened. Sure enough, he heard the regular sound of footfalls. And then the cone of a flashlight’s beam swung briefly across the tunnel behind them.
Captain Lim instructed his men to comb every floor, every apartment, every closet and hiding place imaginable, looking for Bourne, but he himself did not join them. Instead he headed down the staircase to the basement.
At once, in the illumination thrown off by the buzzing fluorescents, he saw the enormity of the cave-in. Picking his way over to it, he peered over the edge of a fall of debris. As the beam of his flashlight penetrated the darkness, he saw the body of a man, lying facedown. From the streaks of blood, now congealed, he knew the man must have been dragged. Moving the beam of light illuminated the hole from which he had been dragged.
Was the dead man Bourne? There was only one way to find out. Gripping his flashlight between his teeth, he half scrambled, half slid down the sloping side of the cave-in. Using the beam of light to orient himself, he discovered that he was in a tunnel. From the look of it, it ran all the way back to Zhang’s pearl shop.
So that’s how you eluded me, he thought.
Turning now to the dead man, he squatted down and heaved him over on
to his back. It was Long. Lim cursed under his breath. How in the name of heaven had Long gotten ahead of him? Then a wave of relief swept over him: The dead man wasn’t Bourne. Colonel Sun’s orders were to detain Bourne. If, instead, he had brought back Bourne’s corpse, all hell would have broken loose, and he would have been in the center of it. He shuddered at the thought. No one in their right mind wanted to get on the wrong side of Colonel Sun.
Rising, he shone his light ahead. Immediately he saw the hole Bourne had made in the debris to continue on. He picked his way through the rent in the cave-in, heading down the tunnel the way he surmised Bourne had gone.
Bourne, with Yue asleep in his arms, arrived back beneath Sam Zhang’s shop, but as he was seeking to ascend the ladder to Zhang’s office, he heard voices. Cops! Captain Lim had been clever enough to leave two of his men behind to guard against Bourne’s return. Immediately he stopped, listening to the two cops speaking desultorily to each other.
“What did I ever do to Captain Lim to be given this dogshit assignment?”
“You’re alive. That’s all you need to have done.”
“But this is crazy. The gwai lo isn’t coming back here; he’s probably a hundred miles away by now.”
“You know it and I know it. Too bad Lim doesn’t give a shit.”
“Lim’s a prick. Anyway, he’s army; he’s not even from around here.”
“Like all of them in Beijing, he’s a political animal.”
“All he cares about is wiping Colonel Sun’s ass.”
“That’s what you’ve got to do to become captain in the army.”
“Fuck that. Count me out.”
A short silence. Then:
“How much longer?”
“A little over an hour. Then we can go home and forget all about that fuck Lim.”
Bourne hunkered down in the basement, propped Yue against one wall. She was sleeping peacefully. Then he rose and, silently, went back to the short ladder up to Zhang’s office. He couldn’t afford to wait an hour, or even fifteen minutes. Any moment Lim would realize that he had lost Bourne or, worse, that he hadn’t in fact kept on down the tunnel, but had retraced his steps.