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in the desert in the fading bronze light. Stone had already strapped the man’s wrists behind his back and his ankles together with plasticuffs. When Pike arrived, Stone lifted the man’s head and peeled back his upper lip.
    “Khat runner. Check out these teeth. Fuckers get green teeth from chewing the khat. Ain’t this green rotten?”
    “Stop it, Jon.”
    Stone laughed, and dropped the man’s head.
    Khat was a shrub native to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, where people chewed the leaves as a stimulant. Poor man’s speed.
    Stone’s prisoner was in his early thirties, with ragged black hair and big eyes crazy with fear. The light was fading and the clock was running. Every passing minute would put Cole farther away or closer to death. Time was everything, and speed was life. Pike wanted to press forward, but needed what this man could give him, and that would take time.
    Pike pointed his pistol at the body.
    “Do you understand what happened?”
    The man spit out Arabic so fast, his voice was distorted. Pike had spent freelance time in Lebanon, Saudi, Somalia, the Sudan, and Iraq. He could get by, but wasn’t fluent.
    Pike said, “
Qala Inklizi
.”
    Telling him to say it in English.
    Stone cracked the M4 across the man’s ear, shouted in Arabic, and the man settled down. Jon Stone was fluent.
    Pike squatted in front of the man, and lifted his head.
    “If you resist, I will kill you. If you lie, I will kill you. Do you understand?”
    The man uttered a soft yes.
    Pike pulled him into a sitting position.
    “Name.”
    “I am Khalil Haddad, from Yemen. Please do not kill me. I will do anything you ask.”
    Stone stepped away and did a quick three-sixty of the horizon.
    “We gotta roll, bro. We don’t want to be here if ICE choppers in.”
    ICE. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The U.S.–Mexican border from Tijuana to Brownsville was a hot zone of DEA agents after incoming dope, ATF agents after outgoing guns, and ICE agents trying to stop illegal entry. Pike was good with the heat.
    “Check the vehicle.”
    Stone trotted to the Escalade as Pike tipped his pistol toward the bodies in the cut.
    “These people from India?”
    “Yes.”
    “Who killed them?”
    “We did. Me and Orlato and Ruiz. It is what we do when they cannot pay.”
    This was an honest answer.
Bajadores
were bandits who kidnapped people who were trying to enter the country illegally. The kidnappers would then demand ransom payments from their families or employers. This continued until the families could or would no longer pay, then the victims were murdered. Dead victims could not bear witness.
    “Elvis Cole. You know who I’m talking about?”
    “The man who came for the boy and the girl.”
    “A young Latina. Krista Morales. An Anglo boy named Berman.”
    “Yes, the boy and the girl.”
    “Are they alive?”
    “I believe so, yes, but I cannot be sure. My job was with these Indians.”
    “Why were they taken?”
    “They were with
pollos
a Tijuana crew brought north. No one knew they were Americans.”
    “Korean
pollos
?”
    Haddad looked surprised.
    “How do you know these things?”
    Pike struck him with his open palm on the forehead before Haddad finished the sentence. This was not a two-way conversation.
    “Yes! Koreans. The Sinaloas
stole them from the Tijuanas
.
The Syrian, he stole them from the Sinaloas.”
    Pike felt Haddad was telling the truth. Tijuana, Sinaloa, Zeta, La Familia, on and on—if the U.S. side of the border was a hot zone of law enforcement agencies, the Mexican side was a war zone controlled by cartel factions who fought and stole from each other like rabid dogs. Pike was good with war zones, too. He felt at home.
    “Is Cole alive?”
    “This morning, yes. He was brought to our house for the Syrian.”
    “Your house?”
    “Where we kept the Indians.”
    Pike hammered back the .357, and held it to Haddad as he had held it to Orlato.
    “What happened to him?”
    Haddad cringed,