“Why not?” he repeated himself, then added, “I do it all the time.”
She looked at him a long time in the night. “Then you will not understand what it means to belong somewhere.”
Down below them the truck tried to crank again. Gentry could hear the battery weakening, losing more and more of its charge with each failed turn of the key. After a third long and futile attempt to start the truck, those on the mirador heard Ignacio cussing loudly.
“¡Hijo de puta!” Son of a bitch!
“Well, first things first, we’re still a long way from getting out of here,” said Court.
Ramses and Martin moved off to other parts of the casa grande; there was an entire west wing surrounding a courtyard near the chapel that needed an occasional patrol, as no mirador covered that side. But Laura sat next to Court on the veranda; they drank strong black coffee and looked out together over the back patio.
“This house is something, isn’t it?” Laura said after a time.
Gentry chuckled, looked out on the unkempt estate. “Yeah, it’s a fucking shithole.”
He felt Laura looking at him for a moment, then she turned away. “I love it. Guillermo and I were going to live here when he finished his tour with the army.”
Dammit, Court. Some time, some day, some how, just try to say something right. “I mean . . . it’s nice . . . just needs to be straightened up a little.”
He heard her laugh softly; it even echoed behind them in the bedroom. It was beautiful to hear, though it somehow did not fit her sad, serious, and reverent personality. “You’re right. It would have taken years to fix it up. But Guillermo wanted to take care of his parents, to restart the farm, to have kids here, and to turn it into a happy place.”
“I’m sorry about everything,” Court said.
“Me, too,” she replied.
Two hours later Ignacio was still in the barn working on the truck. Court had relieved Diego at the second-floor window above the front door on the north side of the house. Court lay prone, looking out at the tree line and the windy, rocky drive that snaked down and then disappeared past the dim moonlight’s reach on its way to the front gate, a hundred meters or more to the north.
He fingered Luis’s old shotgun lying on the tile beside him. He’d given the M1 carbines to the others, had taken some double-aught buckshot shells from one of the shotguns taken from a fallen Tequila municipale, but left the man’s weapon out on the patio because the barrel had been damaged in the gunfight. Court had found another pump shotgun dropped by a fallen Jalisco state policeman but had been happy with the feel and function of the long, heavy, two-shot relic, so he decided to keep Luis’s shotgun as his primary weapon.
He was sleepy, but Luz had just delivered him some more violently strong black coffee, and it would help him along for a few hours more.
He’d need it for the jolt as well as the warmth; it was below fifty degrees, and he wore nothing more than the denim jacket and his damp pants as he lay exposed to the night breeze on the balcony.
Damn, he wanted to get the fuck out of here.
Some progress had been made to that end. The battery from Eddie’s F-350 had been pulled and brought to the barn by Ernesto and Diego; fresh gas had been siphoned out of the newer vehicle and transferred to the older. It was just a matter of time now before they all piled in like sardines in a can, raced for the front gate with Martin and Ramses leading the way on their motorcycles with their Colt Shorty’s blazing, and hoped for a lot of luck to get out of here alive.
Court rubbed his burning eyes, fought sleep for the third time this minute.
He looked down at his watch: 4:06. He knew that if the Black Suits could get another crew assembled in time, then they would come before dawn. There was no way they would not; they had no reason to wait for the light of day.
It was well past the prime time for an attack in normal situations. At first the American was pleased; he hoped that by repelling the first wave his little force had caused the enemy to back off, to leave the hacienda for a while in order to regroup.
But no, that was not it at all. The three a.m. time for normally hitting an enemy position was based on standard guard rotations.
His enemy knew there were not enough here to guard this entire complex in the first place, much less rotate in and out for rest and food.
Yeah, Court realized, his enemies were smarter than he was. He had not even considered the possibility until now. They would hit again before first light. No matter how many or few there were.
Come on, Ignacio, you drunk bastard. Get that truck going!
TWENTY-EIGHT
There were only twelve in the second wave, but they had better training, better equipment, better intelligence, and a better plan of attack than that first failed attempt. All twelve were marinos, Mexican marines, and they’d driven up to the hacienda from their base in Guadalajara on orders from Spider Cepeda himself.