His phone rang as he was thinking about her, and Agent Saletti said without preamble, “We’re in the parking lot. Get your ass in gear, Ross, or you’re going to miss the party.”

  Saletti and Garman were in a late-model sedan, not the same one they’d been driving the night before; he figured, rightly, that the FBI rented a fleet and interchanged them on an as-needed basis. Saletti was driving, and as Pete closed the back door he saw why; she could have worked for Hollywood as a stunt woman. He’d never seen a Taurus peel rubber like that before.

  “We’re late,” she explained. “Agent Miller had a tip on a group of Hispanic men at an abandoned warehouse in the Lower Valley. It sounds like the right guys, and; he’s coordinating the roundup. I thought you might want to be in on it.”

  “Very thoughtful of you,” he said, and grabbed for a handhold as she took a corner without bothering to brake. Garman placed a rotating bubble light on the dashboard. Pete hoped it had some kind of magic shield effect, considering the rate they were gaining on the cars ahead. “It’s faster if you take the Ysleta cutoff.”

  He pointed to the right as they rocketed down Montana. The Taurus had better traction than he’d dared to hope. Now that they were on a straightaway, no cars in sight, Agent Saletti abandoned any concession to the speed limit.

  “Keep it under eighty,” Garman said, and glanced back at Pete. “She’s the reincarnation of a dead stock-car driver. We proved it last year. No doubt.”

  “Yeah, you’re the reincarnation of a turtle—” She cut herself off and started to brake as a stoplight loomed in the distance. “No offense to the amphibians, of course.”

  Pete tapped Garman on the shoulder. When the agent turned back to him, he stuck out his hand. Garman studied it, puzzled, then shook it.

  “Thanks,” Pete said.

  Garman raised his eyebrows. “Want to tell me why?”

  “Esmeralda Sanchez. When you saved her life, you saved mine. I mean it.”

  Garman studied him, then smiled. He had a startling smile, probably a devastating weapon on women, with a lot of real delight behind it. Pete got the feeling he didn’t smile much, but when he did it was with his whole heart.

  “Well,” he said. “Always good to help a friend.”

  The car slid smoothly to a stop at the crossroads, waited a fraction of a second, powered on.

  Garman had a map in his lap that he consulted as they left the cutoff and climbed the hill of Avenue of the Americas. “Right at the next light, Sal. Four miles on your left, turn on a street called Provado, and the warehouse is half a block up.”

  “I think we’ll be able to see it before we get there,” she said. She was right. As soon as they turned on Provado, they met a bristling forest of revolving lights—police, unmarked cars, ambulances, fire trucks. Saletti pulled in behind a car that had rental tags and shut the engine off. As Pete started to open the door, she stopped him.

  “Wait,” she said. “Phil, you see?”

  “I see,” Garman answered, and as Pete looked out the side windows he realized what the problem was.

  Someone had tipped off the media, and the media had drawn a crowd. They lined the rooftops of the surrounding warehouses, pressed around the police barricades in a milling confusion. There weren’t enough uniformed police to hold them all back. As Pete looked around, he realized he couldn’t see a single Anglo face that wasn’t on the inside of the barricades.

  Garman said, “The natives are restless,” and immediately got a look from Saletti. “Hey, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “Peter, stay here. I didn’t exactly get an invitation for you to this party. Let’s find Miller,” she said to Garman, and he nodded. They bailed out of the car, walking quickly, and while the doors were open, the murmur of voices resolved into confused shouting. There were probably a couple hundred people gathered outside the barricades; he had no doubt it made a nice scene for the helicopter circling overhead. Film at ten.

  He was at a bad angle to see the warehouse that was the center of all this attention, but he saw the shift in attention among the cops and spectators. Somebody was coming out. He caught a glimpse of a young Hispanic man, hands behind his head, walking out of a doorway before a cop blocked his view, gun drawn. There were a lot of guns drawn. That was understandable, but—

  He never saw it happen, but he heard the first shot, crystal clear in the air like a broken lightbulb. Pop.

  And then a volley of noise, too many shots to be separated out into separate sounds. Pete grabbed the door handle to get out and realized that Saletti had locked him inside. For his own protection.

  The gunfire stopped as suddenly as it had started, and the cop blocking his view moved sideways enough for him to see that there were three bodies lying on the concrete in front of the warehouse. Three vatos. Young.

  That was all he had time to see before the roar started, building from the crowd, an anguished scream of rage that echoed so loudly it broke through the Taurus’ soundproofing and raked shivers up his spine. He looked at the faces beyond the barricade, but they weren’t individual faces now, they were a confused blur of open mouths and wide eyes and moving bodies.

  The uniformed cops were swallowed whole as the crowd rushed them. A bottle crashed against the window of the car, leaving a frosted star crack and golden foam of beer. Pete flinched back and ducked as something else hit the car. It sounded like a brick. A hammer of noises hit him, and he did the only thing he could. He ducked down, covered his head, and listened to the sound of the mob as they slammed into the car, trampled over it. Some stopped to beat the windows, but there were easier targets, and after a few seconds the rush was past him, leaving the windows glazed with cracks. The hood was pitted. The whole car looked like a hailstorm had hit.

  Saletti. Garman. He looked for them, but they were gone, lost in that tossing maelstrom of flesh. Nobody had expected this. Nobody had understood the kind of powder keg they’d put a match to.

  He grabbed the radio from the dash and transmitted an “officer down,” gave a quick description of the riot and got a confirmation that help was on the way before he rolled over the head rests to the front seat and went out the passenger door, not heading in any particular direction, just looking for something to do to help somebody.

  Bodies. He stumbled over them almost immediately—a girl weeping on the ground, her arm broken, footprints on her back. An unconscious man with a skull fracture, an iron pipe lying next to him smeared with blood.

  Agent Saletti, her clothes ripped, half under a car. She was shuddering but she was alive; her fingers were broken, and her gun was gone. The mob swirled twenty feet farther on, battling a thin, desperate line of cops. He helped Saletti back to the car, loaded all the wounded he could inside, and drove them to the nearest hospital.

  All in all, there were the original three dead men shot by the police, two police, and one FBI killed in the riot, and twenty-seven injured.

  The dead FBI man was Agent Garman, who’d been stabbed in the throat with a broken bottle.

  It was the wrong warehouse. Rámon Cruz and his men were long gone. The police had shot three members of the Perro Feroces street gang.

  And the war was on.

  Chapter 27

  November 27, 1996

  Dr. Ana Gutierrez

  From the flashpoint of the warehouse, riots spread across the Lower Valley and into East El Paso’s predominantly Anglo neighborhoods; the rioters never made it as far as West El Paso, where most of the wealthier families lived, mostly because of geography. It was all uphill. The fighting was confined to easily accessible areas—Anglo-run businesses in the Lower Valley, Anglo homes in the golfer-named subdivisions off Lee Trevino and Yarbrough. By the time Ana saw the television reports, the death toll was up to thirty, with hundreds of injuries. They were talking about bringing in the National Guard; but popular wisdom was that the flashfire had burned It’self out.

  The barrio was strangely quiet. Waiting. She didn’t seen any police cars, and supposed there wouldn’t be any; they’d be staying at the battle lines, and it wouldn’t be wise for stray police to show their faces in the barrio just now. She and Teresa loaded medical supplies into the Pinto—rusted and half scrapped al ready, it wouldn’t be a target for vengeance. Her FBI escort infuriated her by refusing to leave them alone; he insisted that the building was still a crime scene, and he had to supervise the removal of all of the items.

  “Get the syringes from the supply room,” Ana said, busy with armloads of bandages. She tossed Teresa the keys, and the nun hurried away with surprising agility. Not so surprising, though; Teresa had been through bad times before. Ana loaded antibiotics from the main supply cabinet, then went back to the locked cabinet for narcotics. She remembered blood-pressure cuffs and pressure bandages and was on her third trip back for splints and braces when she heard the supply door shut and the lock rattle.

  “We need to get moving,” she called to Teresa. “Have you got everything?”

  Her aunt didn’t answer. Ana put down her armload of sterile-wrapped packages and brushed hair back from her sweating face.

  A shadow flickered at the edge of her vision, and she spun to face it, froze as a voice behind her said, “Yes. I have everything now.”

  She turned to face Rámon Cruz, who was standing next to the locked supply-room door. He looked worse than before, his face pale, his eyes red, his beard an uneven stubble.

  But he looked at her with the eyes of a man who was in control.

  She took a step toward him, all her fury boiling up. There was a metallic click behind her, and she heard the scrape of footsteps. He hadn’t come alone. Of course.

  “Where is she?” she demanded, and her voice shook not with fear but with rage. He held up a calming hand.

  “The sister is fine, Ana. I would never harm her. She’s been detained, that’s all. In there.” As if in response, the supply-room door thundered under a volley of blows. “She’s in absolutely no danger.”

  “like my brother!” She couldn’t say Gabriel’s name, not without weeping, and she wouldn’t give him that. He’d taken enough of her already. He looked away from her, down at his battered work boots.

  “I didn’t want him dead, I swear that on my soul. He chose that, hot me.” His face settled into grim lines. “And I punished the man who killed him. I might have cost you a brother, Ana, but I paid a brother’s life, too.”

  “I spit on your brother!”

  He crossed the distance to her in three unbelievably quick steps, before she could do more than raise a hand to stop him. He took a fistful of her hair and pulled her head around to face the television set mounted in the reception area, the one that showed the fighting. Her eyes teared from the pain of his grip, but it was more than that. She was heartsick at the faces on the news, the hate, the violence. As she watched, four white men beat and kicked a Hispanic woman.

  “You spit on my brother?” he repeated. “You spit on yourself, Ana. Look! It’s finally happening. Blood for blood, all these years of slavery and death. You see that? Out of the ashes we’ll build something new. Something good.”

  “Aztlan.” she hissed. “The city of blood. The home of killers.”

  “What’s wrong with you? Look! You see that?” He shook her head for emphasis as the picture jerked and focused and showed the face of a dead young Hispanic man, his face misshapen from beatings. “You see how your Anglo friends treat us? We’re through suffering, Ana! It’s time to make them pay!”

  He didn’t see it. He didn’t see that a club in a brown hand was no different from one in a white hand, that blood was blood. He couldn’t see it.

  “That’s the difference between us, Rámon,” she said. “Nobody owes me their blood. Not even you.”

  “Jefe,” said a man from the door, urgently. “Time to go.”

  “Move, Ana,” he said. “We have work to do.”

  She fought him silently until he hit her behind the ear with his fist. The world went bright red and cool black, and she felt herself being lifted and carried away.

  She came to in a darkness that smelled like home. Not the clinic, with It’s astringent medicinal scents. Smells of cooking meat and cilantro, the bready smell of baking tortillas. Mama, she thought, but that was foolish, wasn’t it? Even Rámon would not be bold enough to invade her mother’s home, and even Mama would not be so hospitable as to cook for his private army.

  No, the bed she was lying on had the harsh firmness of a folding cot. She tried to turn over and realized that she was tied to the frame, both wrists together. The ropes were tight enough that she could feel her heartbeat pulsing in her fingertips—too tight to squirm out of, certainly.

  A door spilled sudden light on her, and she squinted against it and the dull throb of a headache and saw that Rámon was holding a flashlight, It’s beam averted from her face to pool warm on the concrete floor.

  “You’re awake,” he said. “Good. I’ll get you some food.”

  She didn’t bother to argue. He left for a moment, taking the flashlight with him, but the door let in a little gray illumination that defined the bare corners of what must have been some sort of storeroom, raw holes in the concrete walls where shelves had been twisted free. The room was clean but very empty. Her cot was the only furnishing.

  Rámon came back as she sat up. The ropes wouldn’t let her straighten, and she glared at him from her hunched position, refusing to lie down like a good dog. He sat on the bed beside her, plate in his hand, and rolled a steaming flour tortilla coated with beans into a burrito.

  “Open,” he said. And waited. “Ana, you can starve if you like, but it does me no harm and does you no good. Eat. The food’s hot.”

  It was clearly homemade, and she didn’t think they’d made it on their small field stoves. Someone was bringing them meals—followers, most probably. Wives. Girlfriends. Admirers.

  She opened her mouth and took a bite or the tortilla. It tasted very good, the bread the perfect, smooth texture, the beans spiced with onion and gar-lie and hot peppers. She chewed and swallowed and took the next bite with more enthusiasm.

  “See?” he said, still very gently. “There is no need to hate me, Ana, I don’t want to see you harmed. You and I, we have history, yes? And we share ideals. We are not so different.”

  She stayed silent. He rolled another tortilla. She took a bite.

  “You’ll be pleased to know the rioting has stopped for the night. Maybe it will start tomorrow, maybe not. It’s hard to tell.”

  She chewed and swallowed.

  “I had to bring you, Ana. It’s our last chance together, you understand? After this—” He hesitated, studying her. For a second he was the old Rámon, the boy she remembered, the one she’d made love to in the darkness. “After this the world changes, Ana. And I’m changing it. Rámon Cruz.”

  “Untie me,” she said. He continued to study her, eyes quiet and soft. “Please.”

  “You know what I always loved about you, Ana? Your purity. You’re like the heart of the sun. When you love, you love completely, and when you hate—” He shook his head and ate the last bit of the tortilla he was holding. “You’ve never been a good liar. Don’t try to lie to me now. If I untie you, you’ll do something that will make me hurt you.”

  “I’ll kill you,” she said. There was no boasting in it. She was stating a fact. Rámon nodded and stood up.

  “Get some rest, Ana. You’re going to need it.” The smile this time was cold and distant. “You’re going to be a hero for Aztlan yet.”

  “I spit on Aztlan, and I spit on you!”

  She continued to curse him, in a low and shaking voice, long after his shadow had disappeared from the door, long after the darkness returned. Her muscles began to spasm again from the torturous angle of her wrists, and she finally, unwillingly, stretched out on her side on the cot, shivering.

  Beyond the door someone was playing guitar, an old Mexican song she recognized but couldn’t name. She didn’t want to die here, in the dark, at the hands of Rámon Cruz.

  But her only real choice was how she would die—like a child, crying, or like the woman she wanted to be. The one Gabriel would have respected.

  She lay dry-eyed through the night, waiting. When the chance came, she was determined to take it, no matter what the cost.

  The man who came to get her wasn’t Rámon; she’d never seen him before. She wondered where Miguel was; she hadn’t seen him at all, and that was odd. She tried to ask the man as he untied her hands, but he gave her a look that struck her silent more effectively than a slap. He left rope around one wrist and held the other end bunched in his fist; she was tethered like a dog, on a very short leash. He showed her to a narrow, windowless bathroom that was filthy beyond description, but her bladder had been aching for relief for hours and any was better than none. As soon as she was done, the man opened the door and pulled her out with a tug on the rope, towing her past a row of windows covered with an-dent grime. The windows showed a gray glow—close to dawn? Or dusk? She had no idea of the time.

  Rámon was waiting with his men; they sat at ease, most of them, with weapons close at hand. Guards were posted at the windows and doors. Even if she managed to get a weapon, she was dead before she took three steps, and so she stayed quiet, watching Rámon for some hint of what he Wanted.

  He looked bad in the early light, pale as a corpse. Sweat dotted his forehead. She got a vicious satisfaction at the thought that his wound might be turning septic, but it only lasted until he said, “Hold her,” and she felt herself being grasped by two men, her arms spread wide. Rámon reached down into a box next to him and lifted out what looked like a vest, dark gray, covered with flat pockets. He limped to her and put the vest over one outstretched arm. She tried to kick him, but a fist slammed into her stomach and she lost the strength to do more than gasp for air. The vest slid along her left arm, then her right. By the time she’d recovered enough to fight again, it was done. They held her still as Rámon laced the front of it closed and knotted the cord. He stepped back to admire her.