The Lawless Kind (20 page)

‘Sounds a little sordid when you say it like that,’ I said, tempering my words with a smile.

‘No . . . not at all. I’ve heard how you got together, but, Joe, you must see it was a relationship destined never to last?’

‘Yeah, that’s clear to me now.’

‘My marriage to Jorge was always going to fail. The trouble was I was too blind to see that. I was young, stupid, dazzled by love. Perhaps I was dazzled by his wealth and status as well. Jesus, how shallow does that make me?’

‘We’re all wise in hindsight.’

‘We are.’ Then she asked the question she’d been building up to. ‘Do you regret kissing me, now that you’ve had time to think about it?’

‘No. You needed comforting, I comforted you: where’s the harm in that?’

‘That’s all it was? Mutual comfort?’

Scrubbing a hand through my hair – slivers of glass and blood clots notwithstanding – I looked down at her and her sleeping boy. ‘No. OK, I wanted to kiss you. Have done since I first saw you at the airport.’

Kirstie looked down, as though to check on Benjamin, but she couldn’t conceal the tiny smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth. ‘Would you kiss me again if I asked?’

Hell, yeah, but this was neither the time nor the place. We needed to get moving. ‘Maybe if you ask me another time?When we haven’t half the gunmen in Mexico chasing us.’

‘Rink doesn’t approve of me, does he?’

Her question came out of left field. How had she been party to a conversation that even Harvey couldn’t have told her about? But then I got it: she’d been picking up on Rink’s attitude all the way here.

‘Trust me, Kirstie. Rink doesn’t disapprove of you. Hell, he’d die for you. It’s something else that’s troubling him about your—’

I caught myself before blurting out the secret of Walter and her lineage.

Kirstie proved she was no fool though.

‘Rink thinks it’s inappropriate for you to have a relationship with Walter Conrad’s granddaughter. It’s OK; you don’t have to confirm anything. I’m no longer the naïve young woman that fell into bed with a drug-dealing murderer. Walter Conrad is my grandfather. It’s as plain to see as that Benjamin is my son.’

It was pointless denying the truth, so I didn’t. Neither did I confirm anything, so my pledge to Walter was safe. Instead, I explained about my connection to Walter. When I’d been with Arrowsake, he’d been my stateside handler, but more than that he’d become a friend first, then something much more important. My real dad died when I was a child, and my mother’s second husband, a cold, humourless man who barely tolerated my presence in the house, raised me. I grew up without the love of a father to guide me, and had turned to the Army for somewhere to feel like I belonged. But it wasn’t until a few years later, when I was recruited to the specialist counter-terrorism squad, that I’d found the surrogate father I’d been seeking. Walter Conrad was a scheming, twisted manipulator, but despite that I loved him. And I knew that he loved me too. I understood now that I was the surrogate child he’d been seeking to replace his own that he could neither touch nor hold. Also it was plain why he’d sworn me to silence about Kirstie and Annie’s bloodline. His fears that they would be targeted by his enemies had been borne out, and that was before they even knew that Kirstie and Benjamin were his kinfolk. To what ends would his opponents in the CIA go should they ever learn the truth?

‘It’s not like we’re blood relatives or anything,’ Kirstie said, teasing me with a flutter of lashes. ‘At worst we’d be kissing cousins.’

‘Let’s talk about that another time,’ I said, resting my hand on her shoulder. When Imogen and I fell into each other’s arms it had been through survivor guilt syndrome on both our parts. A relationship based on such raw emotion could never amount to much other than sex; there was plenty of passion but little love. Right now, Kirstie was caught in a stressful, confusing situation and I didn’t want her to regret throwing herself at me once this was over with. ‘We have to move you and Benjamin to the car, and get you on your way again.’

‘OK.’ Even in the dimness the blush flooding her features was evident. She stood, holding Benjamin close to her chest, and I steered them to the open doors. Benjamin was stirring.

‘Are you my mamma?’ The little lad’s voice was sweetened by his drowsy state.

Tears beaded on Kirstie’s cheeks.

‘Yes, I’m your mommy . . . and I love you very much, Benjamin.’

‘I’m not Benjamin any more,’ he said, pouting his bottom lip. ‘I’m Benny. That’s what my papa calls me.’

‘No sweetie, you’re
my
Benjamin.’ Kirstie used a finger to tease that forelock again, and the boy squirmed against her touch.

‘I’m Benny,’ he said, trying to twist out of her grasp. ‘I don’t want to be your
Benjamin
.’

Then the boy was howling, and inside the van it was like an emergency siren going off. Rink and McTeer appeared at the open doors, but I waved them away, signalling I had everything under control. Kirstie was distraught, and I took her into a hug, holding them both until the medication sent the boy back to a shallow doze.

‘Oh, God!’ Kirstie was disconsolate, the tears on her face now rivers. ‘This is my worst nightmare. That bastard Jorge has already begun to change him. God damn him! Benny Molina . . . it even sounds like the name of a mobster!’

I touched her face, tracing the tears with a fingertip. ‘He’s just confused, Kirstie. Once he’s been with you a few days he’ll begin to see things more clearly. He isn’t Benny Molina. He’s Benjamin Long. And if I have anything to do with it, that’s the way he’ll stay.’

Chapter 25

The van burned brightly, belching oily smoke into the night sky, but from the distant highway it would look like yet another bonfire off in the gullies, where farmers often set fire to garbage, or to brush scoured from their fields. I doubted that anyone would come to investigate the flames, and even if they did, it would be unlikely to be any of those men working on behalf of Jorge Molina.

It was an hour since we’d waved off the packed car, and Rink had taken care to go across country to a remote spot nearer to a different highway. Had we been tracked via device or satellite, it would look as if we aimed to leave Mexico via a more north-westerly route than the actual one we’d chosen. As it was we’d decided on showing our faces nearby, more or less staking ourselves out like bait to draw any hunters away from the others, but not while we were still on foot with no hope of escape from more mobile enemies. Neither of us was comfortable with the idea of boosting a car, but it was a case of needs must.

When I was a boy of fifteen, I knew a lad called Simmy. I don’t even recall his actual name; he came into my small circle of acquaintances as a friend of a friend, and I only ever knew him by his nickname. Back then kids were defined by their musical tastes and you banded together with like-minded individuals. Often you didn’t care much for some of those in your group, but they became your pals nonetheless. At the time there was a resurgence in mod and skinhead culture, and I was in among it simply because I preferred the older styles of music to the New Romantic stuff that was all the rage. Simmy was a hardened skin; he had the suede head, the black Harrington jacket, skinny jeans and braces, and ox-blood Doc Marten boots. He also sported a self-inflicted tattoo across the knuckles of his right hand. ACAB, it said. I recall falling out with him when he revealed what the acronym stood for: All Cops Are Bastards. In his bigoted opinion, anyone in a police uniform was the enemy.

We had to ensure that we didn’t make the same mistake now.

The Mexican police are often on the receiving end of a bad reputation as being corrupt, uncompromising and violent. It was unfair, because there were more selfless people who only wished to uphold law and order and raise the quality of life for their families and neighbours, than there were the greedy pigs who took bribes from criminals. The officers responding to the shootout at Molina’s home might well be those that were in his pocket, but now that we were out of their immediate jurisdiction any police we met needed to be thought of in the former category: good guys doing a difficult job. No way must we engage the police in battle until their actions dictated otherwise. The only problem was that by stealing a car we were inviting trouble from the local peacekeepers.

We jogged out of the gullies and across a parched field, keeping a low profile as we passed a small adobe farm. The crop had been harvested, and only the stems of plants jutted from the earth. I’d no idea what the crop was, but it was tough going underfoot. We made it back on to a dirt trail, deeply rutted by tracks formed by the massive tyres of a tractor. As we progressed it began to rain. Ordinarily that would have brought a curse from me, but I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to clean up, so it was a blessing in disguise. The blood and dirt began to wash out of my hair, and from my face. As I followed Rink down the trail, I teased some of the longer shards of glass from my clothing, dropping them on the earth.

We stayed off the highway, keeping to fields and untilled ground. At a previously dry wash, now trickling with muddy rainwater, we were forced up on to the road, but as soon as we were past the obstruction Rink led us inland again. Another adobe farm was outlined as a series of squat geometrical silhouettes against the gently undulating horizon. A single light burned above the door of the main house, but none beyond its windows. The family there had most likely retired, preparing for an early start and hard day of labour the following morning. This family didn’t look to be as poor as at the first farm we’d avoided, but that didn’t make me feel any better about stealing their vehicle. Even so, our needs were greater than theirs: lives depended on us taking their car.

The car was an older model Dodge pick-up that sported a hard plastic shell on the back. A few agricultural tools and a pile of empty sacks lay on the cargo bed, nothing of real importance to the running of the farm. It opened to Rink’s touch and no alarm began to yelp. The keys were even hanging from the ignition barrel. Still, he didn’t turn the engine over. The last thing we wanted was for the farmer or his family to come to investigate; neither of us had any desire to hurt anyone. Rink released the steering lock, and also the handbrake, then together we pushed, free-wheeling it down the slight hillside to a point a couple of hundred yards away from the house where any noise would be drowned by the drumming rain. When we had gone far enough for there to be little fear of confrontation, I scrambled inside and Rink turned the key. The engine coughed, whirred, then caught, and blue smoke erupted into the heavens. He took it easy down the rutted trail until we found the highway.

‘Gonna have to find a gas station soon,’ Rink said, noting that we were practically riding on fumes. Perhaps the farmer hadn’t bothered to secure the pick-up because he knew a thief wouldn’t get far with their ill-gotten gains. Adding validity to this thought, Rink said, ‘Can’t get more than fifty miles an hour out of the old girl, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’

‘We’ll swap it for something with a bit more
oomph
further down the road,’ I said.

‘Unless Molina’s punks catch up with us first. We couldn’t outrun them in this old heap.’

‘Don’t tempt fate,’ I said. ‘If the van was being tracked, they’re probably on the way to its final signal. Soon as they find the van’s been burned out they’ll figure that we’re in another car. Won’t take them long to check that farm back there and discover what we’re driving.’

‘I hope the bastards don’t punish the farmer, thinking he was in cahoots with us.’

I hadn’t considered that. Made me sick to think that the innocent farmer, a victim of theft, might soon become a victim of violence too.

I dug out my cell phone and, after checking it had a signal, hit a hot key. Usually when contacting Walter I would use secure relays to bounce the call off various satellites, but didn’t bother this time. This phone was a throwaway, as was its twin that Walter held; they couldn’t be traced to us. Walter picked up after the first ring. I had to jam the phone tight to my ear to hear him over the rattle of rain on the cab roof.

‘Joe? How are Kirstie and Benjamin?’

‘You must have been expecting my call?’

‘I’ve been on goddamn pins since last you called. Tell me, are they with you?’

‘Not exactly . . .’

‘What? I’m receiving reports about a gun battle at Molina’s house: don’t tell me you failed to get the boy away.’

‘Relax. Kirstie and Benjamin are with Harvey and the others. Me and Rink are playing backstop, trying to slow down the pursuit.’

‘I’d feel much better if you were with them, son.’