“Wise decision,” said Puller, coming forward and lifting his gaze past them and to the windows of the shack. They were covered and he saw no one trying to peek through to get a sightline on him with a weapon.
“Got a question.”
The men looked at him warily. Puller could tell they were trying to think of some way to turn his tactical advantage into a disadvantage.
But he wasn’t worried because the MP5 at close quarters was a difficult nut to crack.
“His name is Diego. He has two cousins. Isabel and Mateo. Where are they?”
The men said nothing.
Puller moved closer. “Diego, Isabel, and Mateo, where are they?”
The men remained silent.
Puller moved a foot closer. With one sweep of the MP he could lay all three down for eternity.
He shifted the fire selector on the MP to full auto. “I’ll ask one more time and then I won’t ask again.”
“We don’t know where they are,” said one of the men, staring at the muzzle of the MP.
“But you did know, right?”
The three men looked at one another. The man who had spoken shrugged. “Hard to say.”
“No, it’s really not. You just have to say it.”
Puller moved another foot closer.
The men smiled.
Puller thought he knew why.
“I wouldn’t,” said Puller. “I’m not the only one here.”
The men stopped smiling.
It was in the comer of Puller’s eye. A fourth man.
He’d come around the building’s east side. He had a slim compact pistol aimed at Puller’s head.
“Check your chest,” said Puller.
The man flinched, looked nervous, but didn’t look down, obviously suspecting a trick.
The other men glanced over. The one who had spoken swore under his breath as he saw the red dot squarely over the man’s heart.
He said something in Spanish. The man with the gun looked down, saw the dot. He swore too, lowered his gun.
Puller pointed his MP at him. “Why don’t you lose the gun and join the discussion group.”
It wasn’t a question.
The man dropped his gun and walked over to the others, the red dot following him the whole way.
“Diego and his cousins,” said Puller. “They were here and now they’re not. So where did they go?”
The four men glanced nervously at one another.
“Glancing and not talking tends to make me very angry,” said Puller. “And when I get angry I do unpredictable things.”
He put the fire selector back on two-shot bursts and fired some rounds above their heads. They all instinctively dropped to the dirt.
Puller eased his finger off the trigger and said, “Where?”
The men rose on trembling legs. One of them said, “They took them.”
One of the other men glared at him and looked ready to punch his colleague.
The speaker sensed this but hurried on. “They were taken last night. The man paid one thousand dollars for them both.”
“Both? Which both?”
“Los ninios. Diego y Mateo.”
“Who paid one thousand dollars?” Puller said sharply.
“Like I said, un hombre.”
Two of the other men hissed, but the speaker looked defiantly back at them.
Puller said, “What was his name? What did he look like?”
Before the other man could answer there was a roaring sound. Puller looked to his left and saw the pickup trucks coming. In the truck beds were men standing and holding a lot of firepower and looking ominously in Puller’s direction.
In Puller’s earwig Carson’s voice crackled. “I think retreat is the order of the day,” she said.
Puller grabbed the man who had answered him and they ran off.
The trucks veered off to give chase, but several shots rang out and both trucks ground to a halt with flattened tires. Two men fell out of one truck bed as it screeched to a stop.
Puller turned the corner with the man in tow and saw the Tahoe up ahead. He double-timed it and saw Carson coming down from her high perch on another building carrying her scoped rifle. She jumped into the passenger seat. Puller threw the man into the rear seat and leapt into the driver’s seat as he heard feet pounding down the road and men yelling in Spanish.
He hit the gas and the Tahoe sped off, turned a corner, and disappeared in the maze of streets.
Carson had her rifle pointed at the man in the backseat. She studied him calmly. “What man took the boys?”
Puller glanced at her.
She said, “I heard over your earwig.”
She looked at the man in the backseat. “We need some details.”
The man shook his head.
“You’ve come this far,” said Carson. “In for a dime, in for a dollar.”
The man looked at Puller. “You are big. Like the other guy.”
Puller glanced at him in the rearview. “What other guy?”
“The big guy. Bigger than you. He can fight.” “Is he staying at the Sierra?” asked Puller.
The man nodded. “He picked up one of our guys like he was nothing. Threw a knife twenty feet point-first into a wall. El Diablo.”
Puller glanced at Carson. “The same guy who saved my butt the other night.”
Carson looked at the man. “El Diablo have a real name?”
The man shrugged. “No sé.”
“Is he the one who took los ninos?”
“No.”
“Who did, then?”
“Nose.”
Carson moved her finger closer to the trigger of her rifle.
A smile crept across the man’s face. “You won’t shoot me.”
“Why?”
“Because you are military. A general.”
Carson looked down at the one-star ring she had on.
The man said, “I was in the military once. Not yours. From my country.”
“Sorry to see you’ve fallen so low,” snapped Carson.
Puller said, “We want to help Diego and Mateo. That’s all. Help us do that. They’re just kids.” “They are beyond help.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know that. And I don’t care. They’re not my problem.”
Carson looked at Puller and shrugged. “Open the door,” she said.
The man said, “What?”
“Open your door and jump.”
“What?”
“Jump!”
She pointed her gun at his crotch. “General or not, you jump now or you’ll be missing some very vital parts.”