Border Son

Samuel Parker

Description

It's been years since Edward Kazmierski has seen his wayward son. In fact, it's been years since he has allowed thoughts of Tyler to even enter his mind. The last place he knew Tyler to be was in an El Paso jail six years ago. Then, in one day, he receives a cryptic phone call telling him that his son needs him in Mexico, another from a federal agent searching for Tyler, and a visit from two men he hopes to never meet again.South of the border, the chain of events set into motion by an impulsive act will almost certainly lead to death--for Tyler and for those who try to help him. But before Ed can recover his son, he will have to tear down the wall that has been built up between them.With insight and artistry, Samuel Parker brings the dusty and dangerous streets of a Mexican border town into sharp focus in this suspenseful reimagining of the Prodigal Son story.

Sujets

• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 05 mars 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493416448
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Endorsements
“A dark, gritty story takes the reader on a journey to the other side where light banishes the darkness and good triumphs over evil. A father learns his criminal son, who made all the wrong choices in life, is in danger and swoops in for the rescue, searching diligently until he finds him, then risks his own life to save him. Clearly allegorical, this is a story that will stay with the reader long after the last page.”
Lynette Eason , bestselling, award-winning author of the Elite Guardians and Blue Justice series
Praise for Coldwater
“Parker, who also wrote the excellent Purgatory Road , has a real knack for creating fully realized characters and putting them into situations that force them to act in unexpected ways.”
Booklist
“Parker has an exceptional talent for drawing out the suspense.”
Killer Nashville
Praise for Purgatory Road
“Not for the faint of heart, Purgatory Road is a compelling story that suspense fans are sure to love.”
Bookpage
“This is a skillfully written, gripping thriller, well supported by the author’s fine eye for setting and ear for dialogue.”
Booklist
“In a voice that is as hypnotizing as a desert mirage, debut novelist Samuel Parker entices readers down a dangerous road, where the forces of good and evil are as crushing as the Mojave heat. This is suspense in its purest, most unfiltered form.”
Fresh Fiction
Half Title Page
Books by Samuel Parker
Purgatory Road
Coldwater
Border Son
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2019 by Samuel Parker
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-1644-8
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Contents
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title Page
Books by Samuel Parker
Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Author Note
Dramatis Personae
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An Excerpt from Purgatory Road
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
Epigraph
Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering, in order that they may have existence.
— Léon Bloy
Author Note
W riting about a culture that I am not a part of was always going to be a dangerous proposition, especially in this day and age. My love and interest for the southwest and for Mexico comes from an unknown source. I am fascinated by the people, the myths, and the environment. If I have done a disservice to any of these during the writing of this book, it was never my intent.
Roberto, Camilla, and all the inhabitants of Nuevo Negaldo are not to be interpreted as caricatures of an entire people, but individuals. If anything, I wanted to represent the relentless devotion to family, an aspect of Mexican and Latino culture that I admire.
I am in debt to the works of Dan Slater ( Wolf Boys ), Luis Alberto Urrea ( The Devil’s Highway , Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border ), Charles Bowden ( Murder City , Down By the River , El Sicario: Confessions of a Cartel Hit Man ), Yuri Herra ( Signs Preceding the End of the World ), and Alfredo Corchado ( Midnight in Mexico ) as well as countless other authors who have written on the Drug Wars along the southern border. I will also freely admit that Felipe may be a little too indebted to Graham Greene ( The Power and the Glory ).
I am also indebted to my friend Sylvia Villalobos Everitt, who answered a slew of major and minor questions concerning Mexican-American culture, always willing to help steer me in the right direction as far as customs and language. If I made any mistakes or blunders in this book, it is due to not asking enough questions which I am sure she would have gladly answered.
At the end of the day, I wanted to write a story about family , set in a part of the world that inspires my imagination. To that end, I ask for your grace.
Dramatis Personae
Ed Kazmierski
Tyler Kazmierski
Camilla Ibanez
Father Felipe
Agent Lomas
The Owner
Julio—coyote
Juan—migrant
Luis—migrant
Los Diablos
Roberto Ibanez
Miguel
Adan
Cartel
Hector Salazar—plaza boss
El Aguila—Cartel boss
El Matacerdos— sicario
Arturio
Vicente
1
T he sun was cresting the low eastern hills of Nuevo Negaldo as the rusted Buick made its way through the still-sleeping town. A street sweeper turned his head and crossed himself as the car passed. It moved steadily, pushed neither by schedule nor fear of discovery. No one would dare watch it, and no one would dare talk.
Roberto Ibanez had driven this route before, so often that his mind would normally drift to the tune of the narcocorrido playing on the car’s radio. But today was different. He was focused. Miguel sat in the passenger seat dozing, his head against the tinted window, his sleep apnea abated only when the car’s suspension jolted.
The town gave way to the high desert scrub and emptiness. They drove into the sunrise, the day’s story just beginning.
His left hand on the wheel, with the other Roberto rolled a coin through his fingers. The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe on one side, script on the other.
Our Lady of Guadalupe
Help All Those Who Invoke
Thee in Their Necessities
Help Me to Alleviate All the Suffering
and Misfortunes in the World
Back and forth the coin rolled, back and forth his thoughts vacillated with the movement. His fate oscillating in his hand. He could not make up his mind.
Miles from Nuevo Negaldo the car stopped, kicking up dust that blew through the sagebrush. The doors opened and Roberto and Miguel got out. They walked around the back of the car and opened the trunk. Miguel stretched his back and yawned.
In the trunk were two men.
Roberto reached in and pulled out the first man. Then the second. Crammed in like sardines, their legs numb and asleep, the victims were unable to support their weight and they crumpled to the ground.
Each hostage had their hands bound behind their back with duct tape, one strip across their mouths, another across their eyes. The first captive was shorter, his Mayan heritage darkening his skin and stunting his height. The other was a gringo.
“Miguel, you take him,” Roberto said as he pushed the bound Mexican.
Miguel simply nodded and went to work.
Several yards off the road, Miguel forced the man down to his knees, drew a 9mm from his belt, aimed it at the back of the man’s head, and pulled the trigger.
The Mexican fell against the desert floor, his feet spasming against rock as the blood left his body. Miguel fired two more shots into the dying form and then stretched his back again. Violence before breakfast was hard work.
Still standing behind the car, Roberto looked down at the coin in his hand. Our Lady looked up at him from the silver surface. He put the coin in his pocket as he whispered into the gringo’s ear.
“Listen. I am going to shoot you. You will not die. It will hurt like hell, but fall forward and don’t move. It is the best I can do.”
The gringo tipped his blindfolded and gagged head, his breaths becoming more hurried and laborious through his nostrils.
Roberto grabbed the man’s shirt above the left shoulder and pulled down, tearing the fabric and exposing the gringo’s skin. Reaching into the trunk, he took a half-empty bottle of tequila and doused his victim’s back, then took a swig of the remaining drops and threw the empty bottle on the ground.
Miguel returned to the car, tucking the gun into his overexerted waistband.
Roberto looked back with vacant eyes. “My turn.”
Miguel got back into the Buick to enjoy the show from the comforts of the air-conditioned interior. Roberto pushed the gringo out to the killing ground. Just past the first victim, he forced the man down to his knees. He drew his pistol, ejected the magazine, removed one of the hollow point bullets, and replaced it with a ball round. He jammed the clip back into the pistol and chambered it.
“Be strong, mi amigo ,” he whispered.
One shot into the man’s back and the gringo fell. Roberto stepped over him, gun pointed down, and fired two quick rounds. He holstered the gun in his belt, then crossed himself. Turning back to the car, Roberto walked to the driver’s door, got in, and drove back to Nuevo Negaldo.
2
T he first shot had thrown Tyler forward, smashing his face into the dirt. Excruciating pain stabbed into his back and beat with his quickened pulse. Dust filled his nose as he sucked in against the tape over his mouth. His ears were ringing, left deaf by the two shots that had ricocheted off the hardpan next to his head. He felt the earth spinning beneath his masked eyes, the vertigo trapping his own thoughts inside his head, isolated from the world.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Pain.
The stabbing turned into burning and he could feel his blood pooling beneath him from his shoulder. The bullet had passed through, into the rock, burrowing a hole into the earth which now drank from him. The ringing in his ears slowly subsided, replaced by the desert silence. The