Sons of Mexico
By Mojave Dragonfly

Rating: M | Status: Complete | Genre: Action | Series: None
Summary: A few months after the movie, Sands and El are both prisoners of a cartel.  Can they trust each other enough to work together?

Warnings: This story is for mature audiences only. Do not read if you are under 16 years of age.

Go to: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 

Part 4

"Romero!" called Delgado. "I will count to five. Come out in the open with your hands in the air or she dies. One."

"Lorenzo, no," said El. "He only wants you dead, now, for revenge. You're of no use to him."

"I can't watch him kill her," Lorenzo cried. "Even if we could hit Sands, Delgado can just shoot her from inside."

"You know my good little agent will do it, Romero!" Delgado called. "Two. Both of you. Hands in the air!"

Once before El had allowed himself to be taken because of this girl and his own love for her brother. He had been surprised, then, to be left alive. He had no illusions that it would happen again.

"Lorrie, I'm not going, so she's dead anyway. Don't throw your own life away, my friend."

Lorenzo's brown eyes glittered with tears. He raised his arm and pointed his gun at El's chest. "You are going," he choked. "I'm sorry."

"Three," called Delgado.

El and Lorenzo stared at each other, El in shock, and a gunshot went off. They both looked down the hill.

Agent Sands, smoke trailing from his gun, stood over Maria's body, head down as if he could look at her.

"Idiot!" screamed Delgado.

"Oops." Sands shrugged. "Most people only go to three."

"No!" wailed Lorenzo and he turned his gun toward Sands. El leaped on the arm, twisting, and Lorenzo's shot went wild. The two of them tumbled into prickly bushes, wrestling.

Which saved Lorenzo's life, as it turned out, because a single round shot right through where the younger mariachi had been. What the fuck? Sands had fired right at Lorenzo, aiming only by hearing his yell. "What . . . are you doing?" asked Lorenzo. "He killed Maria. He killed Maria!"

El was on top of him, holding his wrists down. "We are free, Lorenzo! We are free! There's nothing to hold us."

Lorenzo heaved El off of him and rolled to his hands and knees. Tears streamed from his eyes. "You stopped me, you bastard. You stopped me."

El regarded Lorenzo - injured, grieving, in shock and in pain - and reluctantly gave up the idea of pursuing and punishing Delgado. He had to get Lorenzo out; the man was falling apart. El slamming his back into sticker bushes probably had done him little good, too.

"So we're even," El said gruffly, and hauled Lorenzo to his feet. "We are leaving, Amigo." He shook Lorenzo by the shoulders, trying to avoid the man's back. Lorenzo was barefoot, and he bled from many scratches. His face was a mask of grief. El scooped up the gun and put it in Lorenzo's hand. "Don't shoot me."

El started for the wall and Lorenzo, to his relief, followed. Again, they saw nothing in the way of guards, although the sounds of combat continued from the far side of the estate, and El could see two helicopters circling there.

Lorenzo, still weeping, looked up at the top of the wall. Vicious loops of razor wire clustered everywhere atop it. "Nothing to worry about, my friend," El said. He took aim with his AK-47, and blew the wire and parts of the top of the wall to smithereens. "Take my jacket." El gave Lorenzo his black jacket in case he needed protection from any remains on the wall. "Up you go."

Obediently, Lorenzo allowed El to boost him up. He groaned at the effort it took him to pull himself up to the top. Lorenzo looked around. "All clear," he said.

"Watch for dogs," El said, throwing Lorenzo one of his rifles.

Lorenzo caught it. "You're coming?"

"You go," El said. "Stay away from roads. I'll meet you in two weeks at noon at La Pileta."

"What? No!"

"Yes. I want you away, Lorenzo, understand? So there are no holds on me." That was cruel, El admitted to himself, making Lorenzo think he was a liability to El, but he needed the other man to go.

Lorenzo set his jaw, and El feared he would refuse. "You will avenge Maria?" Lorenzo asked, finally.

"I will. I swear it. Go."

Lorenzo nodded and dropped over the other side.

El put a fresh clip in the AK-47 and headed back. The old euphoria filled him. He had weapons, he had a target, and he had no ties.

Now to figure out what Delgado was doing at the back of the estate. His empire was in ruins, his home was being invaded, his family killed, and Delgado ran to the back door. With him he had taken everyone of any value to him who yet lived. Probably, El concluded, he was doing what Lorenzo and El had been doing. Escaping. He might have already gotten away. Damn.

El quickened his pace through the spotlit acreage, aiming for the little utility building they had been in. It sat next to an open septic waste pit and a shack holding a humming generator. Lying in front of the building were the sad remains of Maria and the crumpled form of Vasquez.

Watching in every direction, still cognizant of sounds of the distant war zone over the estate, El approached. The scrub brush of the undeveloped part of the grounds provided very little cover, but he still felt very exposed when he left it to step onto the cement sidewalks around the machinery.

He heard a familiar voice and almost jumped. A voice he hated almost as much as Delgado's. Tomás, the fastidious Castilian-accented torturer. And he sounded scared. "I don't understand how they found us. You're supposed to be the brain, tell me. Maybe they find the crop, but then they find the estate within the next day? It doesn't make sense."

Tomás was not speaking inside the utility building. He was standing beside it, next to the open sewer reservoir. El sniffed. Beneath the stench he smelled cigarette smoke. El pressed himself against the front of the building and inched toward the corner.

To El's surprise, it was Sands who answered. His tone held the sound El recognized now, of urgent need. How many hours had it been since his paranoid ravings in the garden? At least twelve. Had they given him nothing since then? He had seemed well contained as he sat on Señora's throne.

"I know how they found us," Sands said. "Let me have a drag and I'll tell you."

"Tell me and I won't break your fingers."

Sands gasped in pain. "All right! It's not a state secret or anything, Jeez."

"Well?"

"I think they followed David and Pablo from the coast. They were trying to be seen there, and so someone saw them. Do you have a finger fetish or something?"

"You are the one who told them to have high profiles. Julio doesn't see it, but I know somehow you arranged all this."

"Where the hell is he?" Sands complained. "Fuck, I hope he didn't get killed. I really need a fix."

"Tell me, what is your pain like? I have a professional interest."

"Fuck you, you sick puppy."

So Delgado wasn't here, but was expected soon. Time to appear. El stepped around the side of the building to find, gratifyingly, that he had the drop on them. Tomás was puffing nervously on the last of a quick cigarette, a gun in his other hand. Sands was on his knees, his arms across his stomach. What had Tomás been doing to him?

"Don't move," El said. "But drop the gun."

Tomás looked at him, wide-eyed, over his cigarette. Sands cocked his head.

"Drop the gun. I won't tell you again."

Tomás complied, also spitting out the butt of his cigarette.

Sands, apparently assuming that El's order not to move didn't apply to him, scooped up the gun and got to his feet.

"Step over there," El ordered Tomás, keeping one eye on Sands.

Tight-lipped, Tomás moved to the edge of the waste pit and faced El, his hands in the air, not quite reaching the large heavy cables that ran above the septic reservoir from the generator house.

"Step back," El said.

Tomás glanced uneasily behind him. "Back? Into . . . "

"Yes. Now."

Sands, El observed, stood by unmoving.

Tomás stepped back, gingerly, and sank knee deep in sewage. His horror and fear was plain on his face. "Sands," he appealed in a shaking voice.

"What can I do?" Sands said. "I'm a blind man. I wouldn't know where to shoot."

Tomás turned back to El. "It would be dishonorable to shoot an unarmed man," he said.

El smiled. "I'm not going to shoot you."

He pointed his gun up and shredded the electrical cables. A shower of sparks rained down and the live cables dropped into the sludge. Tomás screamed, jerked like a puppet on its strings, and dropped dead into the sewage.

El spat.

"I bet that felt good," Sands commented.

"It did," said El.

Sands raised his gun and aimed it at El. "Don't you move," he said. "I will hear you."

Startled, El didn't move. He believed him.

"Give me the gun in your hand. Now." Sands held out his hand.

"Sands, listen. Come away with me. I can get you out of here."

Sands fired into the ground at El's feet. El couldn't help but jump.

"Give me your gun."

Unnerved, El handed over the gun.

"Now do not move."

El considered carefully how likely it was that Sands would know if he went for another gun. He decided against trying it. The man was unstable, trigger-happy, and hurting. He could shoot El for imagining he heard El disobey. El stayed very still.

"You keep making the mistake of assuming I'm on your side," Sands said. He came forward carefully, and removed El's other weapons, tossing them down the slight slope behind the utility building and septic pool.

"Then why didn't you stop me from killing him?" El asked. The cables still twisted and danced, spitting sparks whenever they rose above the surface of the liquid.

"You're not the sharpest crayon in the box, are you, El? Why do you think I let you kill him? Delgado won't suspect that I could have stopped you. And I'll be teacher's pet when I give you to him. Dead or alive, El, it doesn't matter much." Sands' tone changed. "God, I wish he'd get back here."

"Sands, we can escape," El said.

"I can't, El." Pain shimmered in the man's every word. "You know I can't. I'd fuck a cow right now for a fix. Delgado is bringing the stuff, and I follow the cocaine."

"I have cocaine. You can have it. Come with me."

"You're lying. How stupid do you think I am?"

"If you could see, I'd show it to you. But you'll just have to trust me."

"It's a stupid trick from a stupid man."

"You think I want you along that badly? Keep the gun and kill me later if I'm lying. But first we have to get away from here."

"Like you would want to help me. You just want to get away."

"I want to get away, and I also want to help you. I am one of the - what did you say - white hats. You have to take the chance."

"It's too big a chance. I need it now. Right now, El. I know Delgado has the shit."

In truth, under these bright lights, El could easily see signs of Sands' withdrawal pains. He was surprised the man was holding together as well as he was.

"Do you think the Delgados will survive and keep feeding you? Or do you plan to beg for your fix from the Colombians?"

"Give it to me, then." Sands didn't believe him, El could tell by his disinterested tone.

El swallowed. He had talked himself into a very dangerous position. If he gave Sands a sample, nothing at all would stop the man from shooting him for the rest of it. Nothing. At. All. He had to make Sands believe him without triggering a junkie's fit, which one of them, probably El, would not survive.

"Later. You have to trust me and come with me."

Sands snorted. "Give it to me now, or I'll take it off your corpse."

El's mouth went very dry. There was no winning this either way. Only Sands himself could make the choice of a possible fix and possible freedom over a certain fix and certain slavery. Sands could decide to make him a cooperative corpse just at the suggestion that he might have cocaine on him. What the fuck had he done?

"You are the sharp crayon," El said carefully, though he thought the man used the oddest metaphors. "You know why I dare not prove to you that I have cocaine."

Sands said nothing to that.

El made himself take a breath. "You know why. I swear on Carolina's grave I will give you cocaine as soon as we are out of here. But I can not give you any while you hold a gun on me and if you kill me, you will never be free. Trust me, Sands."

Sands' hand holding the gun began to shake.

"I . . . can't."

"Yes, you can. I am your only chance." Suddenly El realized something. "This is why you sent for me."

Sands stiffened, as if he'd just heard an unwelcome truth.

In slow motion, El saw his death coming. It started with the straightening of Sands' arm, and then the tension in the gun hand, followed by the pulling of the trigger finger. And he could not react in time.

Sands moved his arm off-line, and shot into a propane tank. Then he shot a second one. In quick succession, both tanks exploded into brilliant fireballs, hurting El's ears.

"Let's go," said Sands.

Relief flooded El, forcing him to take a moment to just breathe. Then he moved to gather the weapons Sands had thrown down the slight slope behind the septic pool, alert to any sounds or movement. The huge bonfires from the propane tanks were bound to attract the attention of anyone left to notice, even if the gunfire hadn't.

Abruptly the floodlights went out, plunging this back area of the estate into a darkness lit only by the leaping flames. Instinctively, El dived for the ground, which saved his life as automatic fire whistled above him. Rolling, El fired back into the shadows beyond the utility building, up onto the hillside where he and Lorenzo had crouched before. He ceased firing but continued rolling, so as not to be where he had fired from.

El raised his head to look, but the sudden darkness still had him almost blind. Sands he could make out as a dark form against the lighter bricks of the back of the building. The agent had taken cover around the corner, on El's side, but the gunfire had not been aimed at Sands.

Stillness, but for the roaring flames.

El didn't know where to shoot, but neither did his attacker. Sands' position made El uneasy, too. If Sands believed their assailant to be Delgado, would he be able to resist acting on Delgado's behalf in hopes of a reward? Sands knew where El was, El had no doubt, and could easily shoot him.

El's anxiety climbed as their attacker confirmed his identity with a shout.

"Mariachi!" Delgado yelled from somewhere on the hill.

El considered shooting Sands himself, as a precaution against betrayal, but having asked the man to trust him, he couldn't do it.

"You'll never . . ." Delgado began an imperious speech.

Sands reached around the corner, exposing nothing more than his gun hand, and fired two shots into the darkness. Delgado said nothing more.

It could be a trick. It was hard to believe Sands' shooting could be so accurate, though El had not forgotten how Sands had targeted Lorenzo from only the mariachi's shout. And the sudden darkness made no difference to the agent.

El lay unmoving, but Sands showed no such caution. The agent leaped out of cover, bent over low, and vanished into the darkness, toward Delgado. El cursed and followed.

His eyes adjusted as he crossed the concrete between the utility building and the septic pit, and the nearness of the flaming tanks also helped him spy Sands and a prone form up in the brush.

"God damn it!" Sands yelled.

The lights flooded the area again, as someone tripped a motion sensor. El muttered another oath as his eyes struggled yet again to adjust. He reached Sands and Delgado still squinting.

Sands, swearing curses in English El had never heard before, tore feverishly at Delgado's clothing, searching.

"I can't believe you shot him," El said, impressed that Sands could turn on the man who had owned him, body and soul.

"Of course I shot him; he has my dope," Sands said, his voice gaining a hysterical edge. "Except he didn't fucking bring it! It's not here!"

El's skin crawled as he remembered Sands' loyalty was not to a person, but to one overriding goal. And now El had the only source of it.

Delgado was gut-shot, and it hadn't yet killed him. He opened his eyes.

"He brought the fucking jewels!" Sands pulled a black velvet drawstring bag out of Delgado's pocket and flung it aside. "He brought the key to the fucking tunnel!" He tossed aside a key-card. "But he didn't bring my dope!" This last he almost screamed.

Tunnel? Jewels? El picked up the little bag and the card. "Sands," he said, "he's not dead."

"Good!" the agent yelled, getting to his feet. "Help me with him." With strength born of his fury, Sands hauled Delgado down the hill, toward the building.

"Wait! The fire!" El called after him. Unburned fuel was spreading from the propane tanks over the concrete walkways, luring greedy flames with it.

"Fuck the fire!" answered Sands. He avoided the licking tongues himself, but dragged Delgado right through them.

El followed, not helping. Sands didn't seem to need it, and he wasn't sure what the man was doing. Delgado left a trail of blood where he passed.

Panting and perspiring, Sands hauled the terrified looking drug lord to the still-charged septic pit. He stopped at its edge - how the blind man kept such accurate track of the terrain, El couldn't imagine.

"I just wish," Sands snarled in a voice that made El's hair stand up, "that I could see you fry." With a last gasp of effort, Sands kicked Delgado into the pit, falling backwards onto the concrete as his strength gave out.

The electricity combined with the chemicals made an eerie greenish effect over Delgado's body that hadn't been there for Tomás. Delgado rolled slowly in the sewage, his face and mouth frozen in a grimace of agony. Finally he stopped rolling and floated, face down, just below the surface of the liquid.

Flames of burning fuel licked ever closer to El and Sands, but El ignored them, caught in the dark beauty of the moment. This could be how Satan felt as he witnessed the agonies of the wicked.

El looked at the exhausted devil collapsed at his feet. "I bet that felt good," El said.

Sands gasped an indeterminate sound. "I forgot . . . to strip him . . . naked," he said.

Smiling felt foreign to El's face as he reached down and removed the gun Sands had stuck in his waistband. "I can't let you keep this," he said gently.

Sands grabbed his arm, and El tensed for a struggle over the weapon, but Sands merely held on. Firelight made hellish shadows flicker over the man's deathly-pale face and dark glasses. "Fuck . . . God, El," he said, sounding more vulnerable than El had heard him sound, even when he had moaned in their cell over his lost nightcap. And, in fact, he probably was more afraid now, El realized. Then he had had a known source he could still bargain with. "Please tell me . . . you weren't lying."

"Let me have the gun," El said.

Trembling, Sands released his arm.

"I wasn't lying."

They awaited the dawn in a wooded area beyond the exit from Delgado's escape tunnel where El could easily see the leaping flames and explosions at the distant estate. Cocaine had revived Sands to where he could walk and function, but even hopped up the agent's strength and endurance was shot. El was exhausted himself, so neither man had had to discuss much. They got under good cover and rested.

Sands leaned his thin frame against a palmetto trunk. By the tilt of his head, El thought he was listening to the explosions. "Rockets," he concluded. "Two choppers?"

El muttered an affirmative.

"So what's in the bag?"

Wearily, El got out the little drawstring bag and tossed it. Impossibly, Sands caught it. He dumped the contents into his hand, his head bent down as if he could look. Curious, El dragged himself closer. Sands held out a hand full of glinting stones.

"They look like diamonds," El said.

"We're rich," Sands said with a grin.

"Bueno," El said without much enthusiasm. "We can fence them in Mexico City."

"Not Mexico City," Sands said. "Señora lives there, with a grandson. Even if the remnants of the Delgado cartel didn't want revenge, they'll certainly come after us for these little trinkets."

"Where then?" El asked wearily.

Sands was silent, fingering the jewels.

"I don't know," he finally said, with uncharacteristic reticence. "I can't think. You decide."

So, at dawn, El led them, via foot, hitchhiking, and bus, toward his home.

Traveling with Sands, El found himself closely bound up with the schedule of the agent's needs. At first he had been uncertain about how much cocaine to give the man; and Sands himself was no help. He always insisted he needed more.

"Aren't you tired of begging?" El had asked him, irritably.

"I'm used to it now," Sands had replied.

And, in truth, it became clear that Sands was seldom experiencing the same high that had put him to singing show tunes in the Delgado estate. All the drug seemed to do for him now was to stave off the agony of its absence, and not for very long, either.

The first day, El yielded to the man's begging for a larger dose, but they both paid the price in a huge panic attack where Sands fled from El and from other imaginary pursuers. A number of bruises and a chase through a village later, El had the agent back under his control, but he decided then that it would be only his own judgment that would decide how much and how often Sands would receive cocaine. Based on how much of the powder El still possessed, El declared that Sands would receive a set dose every six to eight hours, and if Sands didn't like it, El would leave him at the next village to fend for himself.

El had half-expected Sands to take him up on the threat, but, like it had with Delgado, Sands' need for the certain fix overruled his dislike for his situation.

"Now I'm your slave," Sands had complained.

"You are a slave, yes," El had preached at him, "but not to a man."

"Fuck you."

Unfortunately, the arrangement meant Sands spent a good deal of their journey exhausted, depressed, and suffering from headaches and cravings. El was careful to stick scrupulously to the schedule, since it seemed to help Sands endure his misery to know he could count on it ending, however briefly. El wasn't fond of his role and he wasn't fond of the agent. He intended to be rid of both, but not until he had kept his word.

In the meantime, Sands needed care. El couldn't remember seeing him eat anything of any substance, and the agent was clearly malnourished. His nose bled every time he snorted, and often when he didn't. He slept irregularly, which was hard on El's sleep, and when he did, he suffered from nightmares. One encouraging sign was that, as a dose of cocaine wore off, Sands's appetite often returned, sometimes voraciously. Where El never yielded to Sands's begging for more dope, he tried to get him all the food he asked for, sometimes going without, himself, like he would have to feed his little daughter.

They stayed away from roads until El felt they were well out of the vicinity of the estate. Then they hitchhiked as far as they could get. Though Sands grumbled that men with a fortune in diamonds should be able to afford hotels, El had them sleep out of doors most nights. El sold his empty AK-47 for cash in one village, and that gave them food money and bus fare. It was enough, and low profile.

El began to have the feeling that Sands was more complicit in El's unstated plans than he appeared to be on the surface. The agent was anything but a fool, but Sands never asked how much longer the cocaine would last, or what they would do when it was gone. Promptly at six hours he would begin nagging for his next fix, no matter where they were or who might overhear, which wearied El at first, until he realized the man was desperately holding his tongue until then. El didn't tell him where he kept the cocaine, and Sands didn't seem to try to learn it. Nor did Sands ever try to take El's guns, though his increasing paranoia must have made remaining unarmed a torment. Even his sharp tongue was dulled, as if Sands didn't want to piss El off. Sands seemed to be truly trusting El, and that trust had to be difficult to give. El couldn't help but be a little affected.

El reminded himself that Sands had been hooked against his own will, that first dose as he lay dying notwithstanding. The man had a brilliant intellect and an admirable ability to face his own reality, however dark. He clung to one piece of denial, though, to El's puzzlement. He refused to agree that he had done anything to bring down Delgado's empire.

"You gave me the phone number to their Colombian suppliers. You told me how much they would want to know where Delgado was getting his drugs."

"So? I was just singing a tune I'd heard, El. Why would I expect you to recognize the notes?"

"Because you know I am a musician."

Sands merely snorted, then dabbed at the blood issuing from his nose.

It was strange. Even Tomás had seen how Sands had manipulated events, not merely to escape his enemies, but to destroy them. El could only conclude that Sands' enslavement to cocaine, which had not abated, made it impossible for him to admit he could have done anything to jeopardize his source. But some part of Sands had done so, and that part of the agent also knew what was yet to come. And, so long as they did not talk about it, that part of Sands was El's ally.

That part of Sands - the part that had risked trusting El, the part that had kept Delgado from using drugs on El, the part that had killed Maria to buy the mariachis' freedom, the man who now struggled against his cravings, his blindness, and maybe even his own nasty nature - was one of the bravest men El had ever met. But he still needed his coke on schedule.

So El arrived in his little village in the company of a man he admired and loathed.

The dominant feature of Guitar Town was an immense edificio, long abandoned. The Spanish had built it as a fort: then, when this part of the interior no longer needed fortification, the edificio became a convent. The Church made it into a lovely structure, not that the Sisters valued frivolity, but in order to better glorify Christ. After the Order was disbanded, the building, still nominally under the control of the Church, stood empty. Had there been the interest and the resources, it could have been an orphanage or hospital, but the region around Guitar Town was out of the way and under populated, so the building stood unused.

The village's priest, Father Soto, was the accepted authority over the use of the old fort. El and Carolina had lived in it, with his permission, until they could build their own little house, and so had others at various times. El had spent many hours playing his guitar on its ramparts, and that is where he had been the day Marquez destroyed his world. That is where El took Sands.

He went first to the kitchen, and found it undamaged, only dusty.

"Table and four chairs, counters around the walls, two large stoves," he told Sands automatically. The agent had reacted hostilely to El's early attempts to lead him, preferring even the occasional blind stumble to feeling that dependant. He had seldom objected to being briefed on his surroundings, though, and even when in pain he showed an uncanny ability to adapt to what he could not see.

Sands found a chair and sank into it. They had been walking for many miles. "Home sweet home?" he asked.

"For now," El said. El had a house in this town, but he wasn't taking Sands there.

El started a fire in the wood stove and put water on to boil. The Sisters had installed running water and plumbing, considering them essential to good health, but they had eschewed electricity, considering it self-indulgent.

El left Sands with his head down on the little table, and prowled the habitable parts of the fort. He knew many areas had been renovated into small apartments over the years, for various uses. He found the one he wanted - a single windowless room with an attached bath and water closet, with a bolt lock on the outside of the door. Why the Sisters had felt so many of their rooms needed to lock from the outside, El had never cared to consider too closely. He knew where to find bedding, and it was still good. The mattress on the rickety bed, however, was infested, making El suspicious of other mattresses. He decided to take the bed out and just arrange the bedding on the floor.

He and Carolina had used oil lamps for light at night, but light wouldn't be necessary in this room. El checked that the water worked in the bath and he tasted it to be sure it was drinkable. He looked around the spare cell, summoning his hardest heart. He was the man who had killed his own brother. He could do this.

He put all his weapons in a hiding place and returned to the kitchen. Sands was slumped in the same position, but he had explored the kitchen, El could tell. He had removed the boiling water to let it cool. El had suspected that Sands learned a place as thoroughly as he could as soon as El was out of sight. Some remnant of pride made him not want El to see him grope like a blind man.

El poured the boiled water into a large jug. "How are you?" he asked, uneasily. It was the kind of question they both understood El was not to ask.

Sands raised his head, his face pinched and wan.

El expected a barbed answer, but Sands said, "I am so tired of this shit."

He knows, El thought, and his blood ran cold. I can do this.

"I have a room ready for you. This way." El lifted the water jug and set out for the room. Sands followed. He could always find his way by merely listening to El's footsteps. El had to pause to wait for the man, because the agent followed very slowly. "I'll have to find a real bed," El chattered nervously, "the mattress was full of bugs." El reached the room and opened the door, setting the water jug just inside it. He waited for Sands who approached at a snail's pace. "Here," El said, to indicate that he stood at the door of the room.

Sands stopped in front of the room. After a long pause, Sands asked, "Does it lock?"

El's heart pounded. "Only on the outside," he said.

Sands froze. Then he spread his hands and took a step back. "El, listen," he said in a level, reasonable tone. "We don't have to do this now. I'm all for it, you understand, but not today. I'm not in shape for it. We can do this anytime."

"No," said El. "The cocaine is all gone."

"What?!"

"I gave you enough to get you here. Now it's gone."

Sands stumbled back a few more steps, one hand going out to the wall. "Well, use the diamonds and get me some more. Fuck, El!"

"No," said El.

Sands bolted.

El chased and tackled him. He'd expected this. Sands fought him, desperately. He was stronger than before, El noticed, but El was healthier, and Sands wasted some opportunities groping at El's belt for weapons that weren't there. El finally dragged him, howling, to the door.

Bracing his lanky limbs against the two sides of the open door, Sands resisted being forced into the room. No amount of shoving or pulling would budge him. Sands shifted from howling incoherently to screaming curses at El, and after a while, El had had enough. He kicked the man in the kidneys, hard. Repeatedly. Until Sands finally broke his hold on the door and crumpled into the room.

El slammed the door and locked it.

Sands was pounding on the door in an instant. "El, you motherfucker! What do you care? Who gives a shit if I'm clean?"

El waited, catching his breath.

"Let me out of here, God damn it! Throw me out on the street! You can never see me again. What the fuck do you care if I get clean or not?"

The door trembled as the man must have thrown his entire weight against it.

"Consider it," El answered, loudly and clearly, "revenge for Maria."

His line delivered, El backed away from the door, shaking. He hit the wall opposite the room and his knees gave out. He sank to the floor.

El didn't even hear the rants and curses issuing from the room. He was too busy trying to figure out what was wrong with him. His heart was racing and his stomach felt like throbbing rubber. He gasped his breaths and wiped sweaty palms against his trousers.

It had been so long since something had truly frightened him that he had forgotten what the reaction afterward felt like.

He had planned this from the moment he realized Sands would escape the estate with him, even to his line about revenge for Maria, but he hadn't known if he could pull it off. And he hadn't expected to feel this wretched about the betrayal. Sentencing Sands to detox had seemed a just vengeance for Maria's murder when El had first conceived of it. More compassionate than killing him, since El did understand the cold necessity of Sands' deed.

But now . . .

El got to his feet and fled the building.

He needed to see the Padre about using the old fort anyway, right?

Father Soto was at home, to El's relief. He could usually be found in the village center, helping sand the guitars, but El had not wanted to be seen by the villagers just yet.

The priest poured him a glass of iced tea, reached over the rail of his small porch to pluck a few leaves of mint from his garden, plopped them in the tea and handed El the glass.

El's hand shook as he accepted it. Here he was, enjoying tea with mint, while Sands . . .

"Padre, what if he dies? A week ago, I thought about shooting him myself, but this . . . "

The priest had acted as El's infrequent confessor at times, so he took this sinful admission in stride. His open, genial face reassured El that he, at least, saw nothing to be concerned about.

"You are right to worry about your friend," said the priest. El had to bite his cheek to keep from insisting Sands was not his friend. "But you needn't worry that he will die. I have known men to die from taking cocaine. I have never known one to die from not taking it."

El swallowed some tea, forcing himself to believe the man. Though El was wanted by every drug cartel in Mexico, he had little experience with drug use. Father Soto had seen a good deal of it.

"What concerns me more is why you did this. Revenge, you say. How many times have I reminded you that vengeance is the Lord's?"

"Once or twice," El allowed, studying the glass of tea.

"Once or twice," Soto repeated dryly, studying El.

El wondered for a moment how he appeared. His dark hair was over-long, he knew, and stubble shadowed his face. At least he didn't bristle with weapons. Not at the moment.

"Padre," El began. He still hadn't gotten to the heart of his distress. "I feel like I have thrown him into Hell and locked the door behind him."

"And so you have," said Soto quietly. "But if revenge was really what you wanted, you would feel good about that, wouldn't you?"

So, what was he saying? That he didn't want revenge? Why else had he done it?

"I promised Lorenzo I would avenge her. I don't even like the gringo."

Soto smiled and drank the last of his tea. "I think there is hope for you yet, my son." He stood and looked across his garden at the former convent. The afternoon sun washed out the yellow adobe, so the building looked white. "Here is your penance."

El put both palms around the coolness of the glass. "This wasn't a confession," he protested.

Soto ignored him. "You must stay with him. Go to your home, get some clothes and food and blankets. Take a guitar. You'll need lamps . . ."

"I don't want to be anywhere near him!"

"You don't have to be in the room. Not if he tries to hurt you."

"Which he will!!"

Soto nodded and poured himself another glass of tea. "Just stay nearby and hear him when he screams."

Screams? El gasped. "You go if you care so much for him. I've told you what he's like!"

A change came over the grandfatherly man. El had seen it before. He turned from genial guitar maker to Prophet of Doom. "You are worried sick for this gringo you hate. If you stay away you won't eat or sleep and you won't be able to shoot straight."

That startled El.

"You have thrown him into the dark, alone, with no hope. I don't care what he's done or what he's like. You are responsible for him, now. If you stay away, you are damned."

El hated it when Father Soto talked like that. He hated it.

"Come with me, Father?" El begged.

The grandfather returned. "I will visit. I will bring my little radio." He sipped his tea.

"A radio?"

"He can't watch TV, right? Give him something to distract him. The one with batteries."

That made El feel even worse. He covered his face with his hands. He saw in his mind the bare room Sands was suffering in. He thought of the myriad little repetitive things he'd seen Sands using to distract himself during the last hours before his scheduled fix. The damn priest was right. He had to go back. He had to be there.

It was after dark by the time El returned. Having made up his mind, he'd been able to eat a hasty dinner, bathe and change clothes in his own home. The comfort of the familiar after two weeks of misery had lessened some of his anxiety. For once, returning to his empty house had not assaulted him with painful memories of his missing family.

The corridor was dark, of course, so El approached Sands's door with an oil lamp in one hand. He held a bedroll in the other. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that being with Sands had no meaning for the agent if he didn't know El was there. "Sands," he called. The man's hearing was excellent; El shouldn't have to do any more.

"El! Christ!" The American's voice was full of hope. "You came back!"

As if El could feel any more guilty.

"Let me out of here, man. Come on!"

"No," El croaked.

"Jesus, El, it's a fucking cell." Sands managed to sound perfectly rational. "I've been in nothing but cells for months. Open it up. We can talk about this."

"No," El said.

"Why not? I mean it. Why not? You don't want me around. I'll just leave and get out of your hair. You can keep the diamonds."

"No."

"Shit, do you know how to say anything besides no? You sound like a two-year-old." Sands' control was cracking. "Talk to me, fuckmook. Talk in Spanish if you have to; I can take it."

El swallowed. "You're staying here until it's over. Maybe five days." El prayed the priest was right about that. If he promised five days and it took longer . . .

Sands said nothing.

Then, when he did speak, El could hear the old tone of desperate need.

"Listen, El, about Maria,"

"It's not about Maria."

"What?"

"It's not about Maria," El said, more confidently. "I shouldn't have told you that."

"Well, God damn it, you fucking mariachi, if it's not about Maria, then what?"

"You're going to get clean, Agent Sands. That's what it's about."

"You motherfucking cocksucker! I have a bazillion arguments ready about Maria! Now you're going all God damned Dear Abby on me?"

"I am a white hat."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Sands yelled. "At the end of it . . . at the end . . . I had this great finale . . . where I tell you how Maria wouldn’t want you to do this. It was a masterpiece!"

El actually smiled.

"You wasted your time. I'm not letting you out. You talk to me. Tell me how to help you. Talk in English, I can take it."

A low keening sound came from behind the door.

El waited.

"El?" Sands sounded frightened.

"Sí."

"Get me some smokes, man. For the love of Christ . . . get me some cigs. Lots."

El found himself nodding in the darkness.

"And don't leave me."

"I can't do both, Sands."

"Christ on a crutch! Get me the cigs and then don't leave me, fuckmook! This isn't funny!"

Fuckmook?

"I will do it," El promised.

He left, feeling much better. Thank God he'd gone back.

The other villagers greeted him enthusiastically. The men wanted to buy him drinks and hear about his visit to El Presidente. The women wanted to know if he still needed a wife, and the children wanted, as ever, a fresh adult to play their games with them. No one asked if he had brought them another fortune from his travels, so El didn't bring it up. He hadn't yet figured out how to safely fence Delgado's diamonds.

El was warmed by the reception, and he warned everyone about his - he had to use the word "friend" in order to not explain more than he had time for - who was kicking a cocaine habit. If he should get free, he needed everyone to stay clear of him and to find El. And not to shoot him.

And, as always, he needed them not to talk to anyone else about El's whereabouts, or about his friend.

As El gathered food, a carton of cigarettes, and everything he could think of that a blind man could entertain himself with, he realized his one serious logistical problem. He couldn't enter the room and still have it locked from the outside. He needed the Padre.

The priest agreed to come, and the two of them stopped in the kitchen, still well out of Sands' hearing. Father Soto switched on his industrial-strength portable floodlight.

"Father, I don't want you to get hurt. If he gets past me, just stay out of his way."

"Why don't you hold a gun on him?"

"For that to work, Father, he has to see I have a gun. He has to give a shit whether he gets shot or not - sorry Father - and most of all, I have to be willing to use it on him. No guns. There's no point."

They entered the corridor. Sands heard them. "El!" he called. "El! Did you bring my stuff? Have you got it?"

"I have your cigarettes."

"Cigarettes? No, damn it, I need . . ." His voice trailed off. "Shit."

El frowned. It had barely been half a day since the agent's last fix, but already his symptoms had progressed to this kind of mental confusion?

"El, listen, we've got to stop this. We've got to stop this now. We can do this another time. Not now. I can't do this now."

El shook his head. He glanced at the Padre, but his face by flashlight was hard to read. "Sands, I'm coming in. Back away from the door."

"Did you hear me, you fucking cunt?!!" Sands roared. "I said I can't do this! Get me some fucking cocaine!"

El licked his dry lips. Maybe this wasn't the best time to go in. He looked at the Padre, who smiled and tipped his head toward the door, encouraging him.

El sighed. "Sands, get away from the door, or you're not getting anything. Let me hear you from the other side of the room."

"Fuck you!"

"Still too close."

"You've got coke, right? You're bringing me coke?" The man's voice came from a little farther back.

El frowned again. "I'm not lying to you. I don't have coke. There isn't any cocaine I know of in this whole region. I'm bringing you food and cigarettes and some other things."

Sands's voice came from as far away as El estimated was possible. "No, you've got some. I know you. You wouldn't have wasted it."

With a nod at Father Soto, El opened the door and ducked in. As he struggled to bring in the things, including a guitar, Sands launched himself out of the darkness at the door. Father Soto tried to close it as Sands tried to force it open. El struggled with the man in the dark and finally heard the door close and lock.

The sound sickened him. He hadn't entirely recovered, apparently, from the experience at the Delgado estate. Even Sands sagged in his arms, and El had the feeling that he was stunned by memories of the sound, too. And he had many more of them. El pushed Sands away from him, and groped around for his flashlight.

The beam showed Sands sitting where he'd fallen, a picture of dejection.

"El, please," Sands panted. "Get me a fix. Somewhere. I know you can do it." His words begged, but his listless tone told the tale that Sands knew it was pointless.

"Here are your cigarettes, and some lighters. There is food in this box here." El thumped the box as he set it down. Here is a radio and guitar. And this . . ." El felt silly getting these things out in the darkness, but he knew Sands could hear and mark where he set them. "This is a little game of my daughter's. It's . . ." He found his English insufficient for explaining a little girl's loom with elastic bands for weaving into potholders. These were things he'd never had to say in English. "You use these . . . bands. They stretch across. Over and under. It makes . . . for hot things." El gave up.

"Oh, my Christ," moaned Sands. "Give me the cigs. God." He sounded like a man in pain from a wound.

El pushed the carton across the floor in Sands' general direction, followed by a lighter. As the American fumbled with the cigarettes, El said, "If you set your clothing or the bedding on fire, I will take them away from you."

"Fuck you," Sands said shakily. Sands' inhuman face glowed eerily in the trembling flame from a lighter. A cigarette ignited.

The smell abruptly made El want a cigarette, and he had given them up long ago, even before he met Carolina, when he had realized how they impaired him physically. El set the flashlight on the floor.

"I didn't know you smoked."

Sands said nothing, sucking down the cigarette so fast he hardly seemed to exhale. He stubbed the butt out against the floor and lit another one. The smoke was thick.

"Está bien?" asked the Padre.

"It's all right," El called, reassured to know the man was still out there. Not that he wouldn't be, but it took a lot of trust to let someone lock you in a room

"Who's out there?" Sands asked, between frantic puffs.

"Father Soto, the priest from the village."

"Friend of yours?" Sands asked, too innocently.

"Sands . . . " El said with a warning.

Sands stubbed out the second cigarette angrily, and got to his feet. "Yes? What is it, oh great fucking mariachi?" He paced to the wall and then to the other wall.

"What is your name?" El asked. "Your Christian name?"

"There's nothing wrong with Sands." Still pacing.

"It's hard to say."

"Only for a fucking Mexican." Sands stopped at one wall and banged his forehead against it repeatedly.

El told him his own name. His Christian name only.

"So why . . ." Sands stopped and leaned over, as if he needed blood in his head. "Do you keep it such a secret?" he gasped.

"I have family."

"Oh, that's right!" Sands yelled. "You're this big fucking legend! The great gun slinging mariachi, scourge of the drug cartels. The man who couldn't even protect his wife and daughter against one motherfucker general."

El got to his feet, flashlight in hand.

"So you beat up on everyone else, huh? Overcompensating a bit, were we, El?"

El knocked on the door. "Time to go," he said, keeping a wary eye on Sands, and trying not to remember going through the same procedure at the Delgado estate.

Sands approached him as the lock slid free. "What did she think of you in those last seconds of life, El? As her daughter died in her arms?"

The door cracked open.

"Maybe she didn't marry that well, after all?"

El clocked the asshole with the hand holding the flashlight. Strictly in order to prevent him escaping, of course.

In the corridor, El confronted Father Soto.

"You want me to listen to that?" he demanded.

"I see what you mean," said the priest.

"This man," El said, and he hoped Sands was listening. "Remember the day El Cucuy came to town and killed Señor Perez in cold blood? He was working for this man."

Soto shrugged. "You live in a dangerous world. Sometimes it follows you here." He nodded toward Sands' room. "And sometimes you bring it with you."

Father Soto pronounced a blessing over El and over Sands' door, and then they retreated to the kitchen.

El brought out a single diamond. The priest's words had reminded him that in order to enjoy this refuge, he needed to do whatever he could to protect the villagers, and, in simple truth, to buy their loyalty. "Padre, I need you to see if you can sell this quietly. Get it appraised first. Whatever you do, don't admit you received it recently. Say the Church has had it under lock, or something. And try to avoid buyers in Mexico City. And drug cartels."

"Thou Shalt Not Steal," Soto admonished teasingly.

"Except from the undeserving, right, Father? Believe me, he was very undeserving. And now he's dead."

"I'll have to take my fee," he said, grinning.

"Take whatever you think is fair. Share the rest with the village."

"Bless you, my son."

"Yeah, yeah."

Soto went home, and El reluctantly took his bedroll to the corridor outside Sands' room. Sands had the radio on, El was somehow glad to hear.

"Sands, I'm here," he said.

"Great. I think you broke my jaw."

El didn't think so. "Serves you right."

"El?"

"Yes?"

"El, listen." Sands' voice was very shaky. "You've got to give me something. Something to . . . at Delgado's, I could still hope for coffee. I could hope. Tell me anything. Tell me you are fencing the diamonds and getting some coke. Even . . . if it's days. Give me something. I . . . I've got nothing here."

The appeal was so genuine and agonized that it wrung El's heart, and he resented feeling so sorry for the American bastard. It made his response harsh.

"In days you will be clean. Look forward to that. The only coffee here is real coffee."

The sound from the room could only be sobbing. El felt like a complete heel, but he truly had no hope to give him.

He wondered how you weep when you have no eyes.

It was a very long night. Sands, El was sure, didn't sleep at all. El heard him moving restlessly, doggedly around the room and moaning. The smell of cigarette smoke seldom abated. Occasionally he yelled insults at El, but El managed to detach himself enough to find them entertaining. He got the impression that Sands was using them to distract himself, for he constructed highly original, florid, and anatomically unlikely insults in English and then he yelled them in Spanish. It was the most Spanish El had heard from Sands, and often he was sure Sands was translating curses from other languages. It was very educational.

Despite his sleepiness, El made himself respond now and then, so Sands would know he was there.

After one rant where Sands detailed El's descent from dung-smeared, spittle covered camels with mad-camel disease, El laughed. It was a small laugh, but El couldn't remember the last time he had laughed. He decided he owed the American something for that.

"Sands," he called. "Your Spanish is very good."

He waited for the inevitable "Fuck you," but it didn't come.

Instead there was a moment of silence, followed by a slight thud on the door. Sands, El could picture in his mind's eye, had collapsed against the door and slid to sit on the floor.

"Shelly," he said, his voice muffled and strained.

El wasn't sure what he had heard.

"What?"

"You can . . . call me . . . Shelly . . . if it's easier."

An unusual moniker, it seemed to El. He tried to imagine what it might be short for, but couldn't think of anything.

"Okay," he said. "Thank you."

It was the last civil, and almost the last coherent thing he got out of the man. By morning his moans had progressed to screams, and El couldn't bear it anymore. What horrific cravings could set a man to screaming? He had to move away and get some sleep.

"Shelly," he called, trying out the name, "I'm leaving for a few hours. I'm still here in the fort. I will come back."

He had no idea if the man had even heard him.

El did manage to snatch some sleep, and then he made himself a meal. He could hear Sands' screams even in the kitchen. He was immensely grateful when Father Soto arrived, bringing light gossip about the village, and, best of all, beer.

"Father," El said, "I have to check on him. I have no idea if he's eating or drinking. Or if he's . . . hurt."

Another distant scream.

Soto shook his head. "You won't be able to make him eat or drink, if he isn't. I think you can wait until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"By tomorrow, I predict he won't have the strength to escape if you left his door open."

So El spent as much time as he could bear at the agent's door, talking to him, telling him the gossip from the village, for lack of anything else to talk about, and the rest of his time exploring the fort when he needed a break. Sands seldom answered him, and was seldom coherent when he did. By evening, Sands either had no strength or no voice, for his screaming subsided. The batteries must have died on the radio, for it was off.

El seated himself on his bedroll in the dim corridor, lit the oil lamp, and played and sang. Sands said nothing. El slept uneasily, waking often and listening. At first he heard sounds coming from the room, but later he woke to silence. The silence unnerved him, and he was grateful when dawn filtered light into his corridor.

As quietly as he could, he slid the bolt on the door, and pushed it open. A cloud of residual smoke rolled out and El coughed. Light from the corridor forced its way into the room, and El could make out the form of Sands, his shirt off, lying face down among some blankets. Beneath the smell of smoke was a smell of urine.

El crouched down beside him. The man had pissed himself, either from not caring or from not being able to get up. What disturbed El more was the waves of heat radiating off of him. It was like crouching by hot coals.

"Sands?"

Sure enough, touching his skin was like touching a sidewalk in the hot sun. El's daughter had run fevers this hot when she was an infant, but El had never seen such a thing in an adult. And his daughter's fevers had panicked him, too.

He stripped the remaining clothes off the unresponsive agent, and carried him into the tiny bath. The faucet on the tub had a hose attachment, and El washed off the traces of excrement with it, before plugging the drain and filling the tub with the tepid water. As the tub filled, he carefully tipped Sands' head back on the edge, so it couldn't easily fall forward, and he got his first good look at the agent's empty eye sockets.

Before, he had clearly perceived them to be red-colored. Now they were black. El tried to think; did that mean an absence of blood flow? Sands had a pulse - slow and not very strong. One side of his jaw was purple where El had punched him, and the other cheekbone bore a fading bruise from Delgado.

El turned off the water, and sat back on his heels. Did the fever mean an infection was killing the agent? El saw only scars on the man, no wounds. How he wished he knew what to do. If only Sands were conscious enough to tell him if something hurt.

"Sands? Shelly?"

The water, he noticed, had quickly warmed from the overheated body immersed in it. El drained the tub and filled it again. He had repeated the process three times when he heard Father Soto calling his name.

"Here!" he yelled. "Come here!"

Father Soto entered cautiously and looked into the bath.

"Madre de Dios!" he exclaimed.

"What?" asked El, alarmed.

"His eyes!"

"Oh. I told you he was blind."

"You didn't tell me his eyes were gone!"

True. That hadn't been what had mattered in the telling.

"Father, he's running a high fever and he's unconscious."

Soto nodded, recovering his composure. "You're doing the right thing," he said.

"Is this normal?"

"I've seen it before. Keep him in the water until the fever comes down."

"Should I get ice?"

"I don't think so. Not yet."

So El and the Padre took turns watching Sands in the bath, and refreshing the water. When it was not his turn El looked around the little room. The bedclothes were soiled, so he replaced them. Some of the food had been eaten, and the boiled water was gone. Cigarette butts and ash were everywhere, so El swept them out. The room needed a good airing. He replaced the batteries in the radio.

The child's loom - to El's amazement, Sands had bothered to learn the little toy, and had used up the entire bag of colored bands. The completed potholders were strewn around the room as if Sands had thrown them after finishing them. El picked one up. Impossibly, the little things were tied and finished, even with a small loop for hanging. Sand's only failure in the craft was with the colors. He couldn't alternate the colored bands.

The guitar, however - Sands had smashed the guitar, literally into kindling, for it looked like he had then started to burn the wood. El fingered the charred pieces, his heart aching for the loss of a good instrument, and found them damp. Sands had put the fire out, as well.

El shook his head. What a paradox of skill and destructiveness that man was.

He returned to the bath.

"Is he any better?"

"I think he may be conscious," said the priest, wide-eyed.

El saw Sand's throat working, as if the man tried to swallow. Father Soto stood and yielded his place. There wasn't room for two of them.

"Sands?" El asked.

Sands rolled his head to face El. He tried to lick his lips.

El turned the faucet on low force, and put the hose at Sands' mouth. The agent put his mouth around the end, and drank.

El gave Father Soto a triumphant grin. It seemed like a victory. Sands drank and rested and drank again.

Father Soto stayed until the agent's fever was clearly weaker, and then apologized, saying he had other duties to tend to.

After he was gone, Sands lifted his head on his own.

"Sands?" El asked.

Sands worked his throat, trying to say something.

"How do you feel?" El asked the forbidden question.

"Fuck. You." Sands whispered.

After that, things got a little better, for El, anyway. He could leave Sands' door not only unlocked, but open, so he, at least, could see in the daytime. El would have been glad to see Sands try to escape. The agent didn't have the strength of a newborn; he only lay on his pallet and moaned. El could get him to drink through a straw, but food was out of the question. His fever abated, but not entirely, so the man continued to suffer from the heat. Occasionally El helped him back to the bath to give him some relief. El lit cigarettes for him, resisting the temptation to inhale, and put them in Sands' mouth. El considered it a good sign when Sands lifted a shaking hand to hold the cigarette himself. El didn't think Sands was unconscious again, but he slept most of the day.

On the fourth day, a young boy came to the fort.

"Señor," he said, "the Padre needs you at his house. You have a phone call."

"A phone call?"

"Sí, Señor. It's El Presidente." The boy looked very impressed.

So El left to go to the phone, and returned in a thoughtful mood. He needed to talk to CIA Agent Sands.

He entered the room where the man lay on his back, one arm across his eyes as if he needed to shield them from the light. It was a headache, El knew. Earlier, Sands had found the strength to ask for aspirin.

"I just got off the phone with El Presidente," El said. "He wants to give me a medal. He's invented a new one. Calls it the Sons of Mexico medal. He wants to give it to Lorenzo, too, and maybe Fideo for the other business."

Sands said nothing, but a slight snort told El he was listening.

"I asked him about you. He said the medal can only go to Mexicans, but he might make an exception if I ask him to."

Sands made no response. El sat on the floor next to him.

"I asked him something else. I asked him how he knew where to find me. I've been thinking. Everyone who knew about my village from before was dead. Except for you."

El waited.

"So?" Sands finally asked.

"He said someone called and gave him a tip. This caller wanted to collect the bounty the government used to have on me, or that's what he said. When they told him the bounty was off, this man gave my location anyway, for nothing. But you know all this, don't you?"

Sands licked his lips, but said nothing.

"Why me, Sands? Delgado didn't really need new muscle. Many men could have helped bring down the cartel. The CIA could have helped. Why did you want me?"

Sands said nothing. Eventually, El stood to go. As he reached the door, he heard,

"I knew . . . you would do this . . . you sanctimonious . . . son of a bitch."

El left the room, tired, his mind chewing over the unfamiliar English word. He recognized the Latin in it, but doubted very much that Sands had called him "holy." It had to be an insult, and El was weary of insults.

He stopped in mid stride as the further nuance of the English sentence - the first complete sentence Sands had said in some time - struck him. Sands, he realized with shock, had given him more than an insult: he had given him an answer.

He went to the kitchen, smiling. Somehow, he vowed, he would get Sands to accept that medal.

The End

Go to: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

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