Sydney walked into the briefing room and immediately
knew whatever the mission was, it would involve Rambaldi. Kendall was
sitting next to Dixon, across from her father. No one else in the room.
Sydney strolled over and took a seat, trying to look composed and in
control. Her father nodded at her.
"Sydney, good, we can begin now," Dixon said with a small small and a nod for her. Sydney smiled back and folded her hands. The screen behind Dixon bloomed with a blow-up of a CIA ID badge side by side with a candid shot of a slim, handsome man with longish dark hair and darker eyes. He was twirling the earpiece of a set of sunglasses in gloved hands in the second picture. His face in the ID picture had no expression at all. He had, Sydney admitted to herself silently, one of the sexiest mouths she'd ever seen. She cut the thought off, because sexy mouths always took her thoughts toward a certain murderous blond with a crooked lower lip. Not a place she wanted her mind to take her, even if it was marginally better than mooning over her very married ex-lover's face.
"Sheldon Jeffrey Sands," Dixon said, jerking her attention back to business. He steepled his hands together. "CIA Agent Sands. He was stationed in Mexico two years ago, monitoring the cartels."
"Was?' Sydney asked.
Jack just raised an eyebrow.
"There are conflicting reports," Dixon admitted.
Kendall shook his head. "Conflicting, my ass," he muttered. "That sonovabitch was a loose cannon, that's why he got sent down there. The cartels either bought him or got him."
Dixon shot him a dirty look, but didn't argue. Unsaid were the words, maybe both.
"Whatever happened, he disappeared. The last time the chief of station heard from him, Sands thought he was being shadowed by the cartel. He wanted a new, clean phone and contact number in case his had been compromised. He was supposed to wait at a cantina called La Vaca Volanda in Culiacan, but never made contact again. No one could get anything straight from the locals and everything went crazy the next day, when General Marquez tried a coup d'etat, attacking during the Dias de Los Muertos. There was an inside attempt on the President of Mexico and bloody fighting between the people and the military in the streets," Dixon explained.
"I remember reading about it," Sydney said.
"Apparently the coup was funded by the Barillo cartel, but Armando Barillo was killed along with Marquez, and the cartel was dismantled shortly thereafter. Interference by the CIA or any foreign agencies was not welcome in Mexico at that point and if Sands was involved, it seemed better to take a step back and see if there was going to be any blowback on the CIA or the United States."
"So you cut him off," Jack said. His voice was harsh.
"Hung him out to dry," Kendall agreed cheerily. Why not? It had been the CIA's call to disavow their agent and leave him, if he was even alive, to fend for himself. Sands had probably even deserved it. But the DSR's hands were clean this time around.
"The chief of station in Mexico City made the call,"Dixon admitted. "There were rumors that Sands had gone rogue, that he'd become involved with a woman in the Mexican AFN. One story even said she was cartel. The COS thought Sands had gone native."
"What's any of that have to do with Rambaldi?" Sydney asked, looking knowingly at Kendall. If Kendall was around, it was a DSR sponsored mission, and DSR always meant Rambaldi.
"Smart girl," Kendall chuckled. "It does and it doesn't. We know the inside man that took out Marquez and Barillo was a killer called El Mariachi. Apparently, Sands had found and recruited him. El Mariachi and his team were responsible for smuggling the President out of Culiacan, earning his gratitude, pardons for whatever crimes they'd committed and personal gifts from the man. Among those gifts was an antique guitar brought to Mexico from Spain by missionaries. The guitar carries a mark: the Eye of Rambaldi. "
A new photograph, in black and white, showed a ancient guitar in black-and-white. A second showed a close up of a tuning peg and the telltale brackets and circle carved into it.
"The photographs were provided by the National Museum of Mexico, which was under the impression the Eye was a maker's mark, but hadn't identified it as a Rambaldi artifact."
"Could it just be a guitar?" Sydney asked rather pointlessly. Even if it was, she knew she was being sent after it.
Kendall shrugged. "Doesn't matter. We want it."
"And?" Jack asked.
"El Mariachi has it. No one knows where the man is. No one even knows what his name is," Kendall snapped irritatedly. "Your daughter is the single best Rambaldi recovery operative we've ever fielded; if anyone can find this damn guitar-assassin, it's Sydney."
"And if anyone can find El Mariachi," Sydney finished, "it's the man who did it before. Sands."
"If he's alive," Jack pointed out sensibly.
"Where do we start?" Sydney asked.
Dixon changed the picture one more time, displaying a middle aged Hispanic man with thinning hair, hard eyes, and a modest, graying goatee. His expression was one of soured experience.
"Jorje Ramirez," he said. "Retired FBI agent. Sands recruited him to run surveillance on Barillo. It was in his last report. He lives just outside Culiacan. It's possible he knows what happened to Sands, if not where he is."
"If he isn't buried in some nameless pit," Kendall muttered. "Jack, you'll be acting as Sydney's partner."
"When do we leave?" Jack asked. He stood up and Sydney followed.
"Eight hours," Dixon said. "DSR is providing a private jet to expedite your ETA. "
"Why the urgency?"
"We had an Echelon intercept indicating Sark flew into Mexico City yesterday morning," Dixon explained. He started a stretch of grainy, black-and-white security video playing.
Sydney caughter her breath, recognizing the arrogant stride and pale, shorn blond head even before Sark turned and the camera caught his face. He smiled at the camera, knowing it was there, and then shot it out, drawing and firing in one fluid motion.
"This was recovered from the National Museum. The curator, along with his assistant and two security guards were shot. We can assume Sark was there on Covenant business, tracking the Rambaldi instrument." Kendall frowned and went on, "We can assume he knows about El Mariachi, but not about the tie to Sands and Ramirez. Maybe that will let us play catch up, as long as no one leaks the information. That's why this briefing and mission is strictly between us. No mention of it or your destination should be made to anyone, even here at HQ. After Korea, it's become clear the Covenant have a source of intelligence within the agency. Everything is need-to-know now."
Jack exited with a nod.
Sydney started to follow him, but paused as Dixon called her name. She turned back.
'Sydney, if you do find Sands, don't trust him. He was crazy."
"Thanks," she said with a warm smile. "I'll watch out."
Ramirez opened his door while cradling a white and tan chihuahua in one elbow. He held a .38 revolver in that hand, aiming right at Jack's gut. His dark eyes took in Jack's suit and tie, then Sydney's clunky black business suit.
"Let me guess," he said cynically. "You belong to one of the alphabets."
"We're with the CIA," Sydney said.
"I'm happy for you," Ramirez said. The little dog hanging over his arm watched them with bright, liquid black eyes. "You have identification?"
Jack held up his open hand slowly. "You mind?" he asked, moving his hand slowly toward his jacket.
Ramirez smiled. The sour expression on his face was the same as the photograph they'd been shown, though the man was older and thinner now. Perhaps sourer. "Slowly," he directed. "Finger and thumb."
Jack obeyed, drawing out his badge case and flipping it open. Ramirez looked it over without stepping closer.
"Now you, señorita," Ramirez said to Sydney. She brought her ID out and displayed it. Ramirez's eyebrows shot up. "Jack and Sydney Bristow. Related?"
"Yes," Jack grated out.
Ramirez chuckled, a rough, unused sort of sound. He gestured them in with his free hand. The .38 stayed in his other. Jack flicked his glacial gaze at it and quirked his mouth. "Nervous?"
"You never know when the cartels will come calling."
"We'd heard the Barillo cartel was finished."
Ramirez flashed white teeth at them. "And was replaced by the Guzman cartel and the Medeiros cartel, and whoever is plotting to take over from them."
Jack's mouth twitched into that unwilling almost smile Sydney had learned meant he recognized someone as jaded and cynical as himself and found it good.
"So what brings the CIA calling?" Ramirez asked.
"Interagency cooperation - "
Ramirez snorted. "What? You all learn that phrase at spy school?"
"You were working with Agent Sands two years ago, just before the coup attempt," Sydney said. "We were hoping -
Ramirez let the dog hop down and run away. Its claws clicked against tile floor. Ramirez looked disgusted and the gun came up and aimed right between Sydney's eyes.
"You here for that crazy bastard?"
Jack's eyes narrowed and he made an abortive move toward Ramirez. The ex-FBI man's eyes left Sydney for an instant. She took the advantage and kicked the .38 out of his hand, spinning away from him in the same movement and drawing her own weapon. An instant later Jack had his gun out and aimed at Ramirez too.
Ramirez gave them both a bitter grin and held his arms out from his body. The chihuahua wondered back into the living room and cocked its head, just watching them.
"Go ahead," Ramirez laughed. "I've been beat up and interrogated by Barillos' goons. Think you can do better?"
"We're not here to harm you," Sydney tried to convince him.
"And Sands?"
"Is he actually alive?' Jack asked.
Ramirez's mouth went tight. "Not if you ask him," he said.
"He is alive," Sydney translated.
Ramirez laughed. "Too fucking vicious to die."
"We need to find him. Quickly."
Ramirez shook his head, still laughing. "Then you're fools." His expression sobered. "He'll probably kill you." His eyes were hard as stones. "And after what happened on Los Dias de los Muertos, even I wouldn't blame him."
"What did happen on the Day of the Dead?" Sydney asked.
"Not my story to tell. If you find him, you'll see. - What do you want him for?" He looked at them consideringly. "Not to take north of the border." Something in his voice told them Ramirez thought that would be the same or worse than just killing Sands. Clearly, he didn't like Sands, but he liked the CIA less.
"No." Sydney thought it might be better to quit threatening Ramirez with guns and holstered hers. "We need his help."
Laughter again and Ramirez almost choked on it. "He'll make you crawl."
Sydney shrugged and thought of two years as Julia Thorne, more years playing loyal agent to Arvin Sloane while she seethed with hate inside. "I can do that," she said lightly. "I've done worse."
"We need to find El Mariachi," Jack said. "Sands may - "
Ramirez held his hand up, stopping him. "I get it. Me to Sands, Sands to El. Good luck, you'll need it."
"Will you tell us how to contact Sands?" Sydney asked. "Maybe he'd like to see us."
"There's a whole list of things Sands would like to see, Señorita Bristow. Pretty as you are, you still wouldn't rate high on that list," Ramirez said. "But you can take your chances. " He glanced at Jack. "Both of you. Maybe he'll be in a good mood, maybe he won't shoot you." He scooped up the chihuahua and patted its head.
"Villa de Cos, the Vida Azul Cafe," Ramirez told them. "Ask for El Vidente. Someone will let Sands know you're there."
"The Seer?"
Ramirez sneered. "Sí, el clarividente. El Profeta."
"Thank you." Sydney gave him a smile.
Ramirez met her eyes. "Oh, don't thank me. Just leave. ¡Feura de aqui!" He pointed at the door. "And don't bother coming back, Moco and I will be gone. Sands is a vengeful fuck. So is the Mariachi. I don't want to see either of them again. I've had a bellyful of revenge."
Sydney shared a glance with her father. They weren't getting any more out of Ramirez. Jack holstered his pistol at his hip, twitched his jacket closed again and headed for the door. He nodded at Ramirez, who just shook his head. Sydney followed him. Behind her, she heard Ramirez mutter, "Interagency cooperation. They'll be sorry."
Villa de Cos was hot, dry, half empty at noon, the main square dominated by a vast and stony abandoned church. A missionary fortress, towers at its corners, it sprawled wide and rose three stories above the rest of the town, Quarried stone and Spanish gothic majesty was slowly crumbling back into Mexican dust. Clouds of pigeons flung through the air like confetti and settled in flutters on its carved heights.
Sydney had gone for a t-shirt and jeans and even her father had switched to more sensible wear for the heat, a loose guayabera shirt that hid his pistol under its tail, but they still stood out as Jack pulled their jeep to a stop in the square.
"This is it?" Sydney asked. She got out and looked around.
There were people in the square, going about their business on market day, but their eyes were on Jack and Syd. Her father swung ut of the jeep. Sunglasses covered his eyes as he looked around. "Yes."
The booths held a mixture of fresh produce, dry goods, cheap electronics and clothes, but mostly there were guitars. Guitars hanging from their necks in rows, guitars laying on benchs and counters, guitars half finished, gayly painted ones and others pale and not yet stained, strung and unstrung, with gut, plastic and wire. Old men and young ones labored over them, but their eyes all lifted to watch as Jack and Syd strolled by. The twang of strings and soft voices fell silent wherever they passed.
"Guitars," Sydney murmured, studying everything. "They make guitars here. Isn't that too weird for a coincidence?"
"You know better," Jack said quietly.
La Vida Azul lay on the far side of the square from the church. They approached it and stepped into the dark interior as the bells of the church began ringing. Jack's head snapped around. Surely that decaying ruin was empty?
Sydney proceeded to the bar and caught the tender's eye with a smile and a handful of pesos. "Dos cervezas, por favor."
The bartender made two bottles appear.
"Gracias."
Her father joined her and picked up one of the bottles, turning it to read the label. It was something local, never heard of in the States. He'd taken his sunglasses off and hung them in the collar of his shirt. He looked at the bartender until the man went still and waited.
"Señor?"
"I'm looking for a man called El Vidente."
The Vida Azul went still and silent. Then hoarse laughter rustled from a dark corner Sydney hadn't realized was occupied. She whipped around and could barely make out the lean form of a man dressed in black jeans, black long-sleeved t-shirt, and a black leather vest. A shoulder harness held two automatics under his arms and, as she approached, she could see another belt had two more guns at his hips. Sydney wouldn't have bet he didn't have others on him. Black sunglasses hid his eyes, lank almost-black hair hung around his face.
Sands.
Well, that had been almost too easy. Ramirez's information had been good. But Sydney had a sinking feeling in her stomach. Easy never was. Finding Sands was only the second step. Something was going to go bad. Or something already had and it just hadn't hit them yet.
"If it isn't the Cunts In Action," Sands mocked in a lilting half-whisper. "I've been waiting for you fuckmooks to show up."
Sydney caught sight of another man, one of the customers, slipping out the door at a run and wondered how long they had before trouble showed up. She looked back at the pale man in black and amended that. More trouble. A thin-lipped, unamused smile flashed on his face. A black-gloved hand gestured. "Have a seat."
She looked uncertainly at her father, who shook his head minutely. A muscle twitched in his cheek.
Sand's head cocked slightly, but he didn't look at either of them. Or maybe he did. Sydney couldn't guess what his eyes were on through the opaque black lenses that hid them.
Her father strode over to Sand's table and loomed. "Listen, you foul-mouthed little punk - " Sands didn't even look up. The smile got nastier though and he waved a finger so close to Jack's nose it almost hit.
"Ah, ah, ah, you two want something from me, so back off or I won't hesitate blow you both into next Sunday. Savvy?" A hammer click made Sydney look at Sands a second time, closer, at the way his right hand lay on the table and didn't move. Her thoughts moved fast. It wasn't real, that hand. Sands' shoulder left drooped just a bit and she put it together. In the shadowy bar, most people would never notice the unnatural stillness, they'd be too distracted by Sands' habit of staring past and through them. Sands was wearing a false arm; his real arm and hand were under the little table, training a gun on them.
"Dad," Sydney said, pulling Jack back with one hand on his shoulder.
"Ramirez warned you we were coming. He must have told you we only want information. We're not a threat."
"Jorje?" Sands said. "Noooo, Jorje really doesn't like me, you know. Getting on his wrong side was really very short-sighted of me." He chuckled and added, all acid hysteria and venom, "Not as short-sighted as I am now, of course." Sands laughed like he'd made a hell of a joke. Sydney was suddenly reminded that Dixon had said the man was crazy. So had Ramirez.
"If Ramirez didn't tell you, who did?" Jack asked. He pulled a chair out and seated himself. Sydney stationed herself at his shoulder, still standing.
Another burst of half-crazed, bitter laughter.
"Whoring Madonnas, I saw it." Madness smoked off him like toxic fumes. Sydney found herself wrapping her fingers around her own gun. "That merciless hellbitch Ajedrez rips my fucking eyes out on Los Dias de los Muertos, I nearly bleed out in the fucking dust while El fucking Mariachi, the bonehead, is saving Mexico, and this dickless, pus-oozing, pisshole country gives - no, shit, curses - me with goddamn visions. El adivino no tiene ningún ojo."
Insane. Sands was insane. Whoever Ajedrez had been, whatever the cartel had done to him, had driven him past the borders of sanity. Sydney didn't believe in visions. No, she didn't want to believe, even if she spent half her life chasing the inventions of a sixteenth-century prophet. Maybe Rambaldi had been insane too. But what had Sands meant, what had happened that he compared it to losing his eyes?
Sands cocked his head and said sing-song, "Oh, I'm cracked, that's true, but I know what you came to get from me. You want El's guitar. You want that damned all-seeing Eye." He pulled his sunglasses down and let them see the gaping dark sockets where his eyes had been. Sydney gulped back bile and her father shoved his chair back, then held still with his hands on the edge of the table. "Well, I want eyes too, real eyes that see more than ghosts and futures and unseen fucking marks.
"Yeah, sugarbutt, I see you, you're marked like a big red target, you and the other one, but I got no damn reason to help you."
Sydney gaped at Sands. How could he know about the Prophecy, about the marks? God, how had he survived that mutilation at all?
"Where the fuck was the CIA when Barillo's daughter had their own Dr. Mengele blind me? How about afterward? Suppurating, limpdick assholes in Mexico City cut me off and left me to rot or die in this shithole," Sands snarled. He shoved his sunglasses back up, hiding the awful scars. "You assholes did this to me."
"We could - we could get you back to the US, get you doctors, help - " Sydney offered.
Sands blew a hole in the floor at her feet. "Lock me in a little padded room and skullfuck me, shoot me up with shit on a schedule, keep me doped and drooling and out of the way? Forget it, I'm crazy but I'm not that crazy, you Chosen puta." He shrugged the false arm off, unaware of Jack's nonplussed expression or how truly rare the reaction was. The real arm, with the real hand holding a pistol, appeared. It was aimed unerringly at Sydney.
The false arm was folded by his right hand and stuffed in a small bag. Sands did it with a sort of long-standing expertise that amazed Sydney.
Jack didn't move. He did pull his gun and aim it at Sands. The fact that it was a blind man aiming a gun at his daughter didn't amuse him at all. Sands had clearly perfected his shooting abilities, even sans sight. "Personally, I don't care," he said. He cocked the gun. Sands grinned. "Go back or rot here, you're right; it won't bring your eyes back. Tell us where to find the guitar-player and we'll pay you enough to live in comfort wherever you want for a long time, though."
Sydney started to turn her face and raise an eyebrow at her father. The CIA and DSR hadn't authorized any extra budget for this mission. She knew he had funds cached from his stint as a double with SD-6, but would they be enough? She started to move, only to ram her cheek into the cold, double rounds of a sawed-off shotgun's muzzle.
Sands was laughing again. "Not enough."
The glowering man holding the shotgun against Sydney's face was big and lean, with long coffee colored hair and eyes the color of burnt caramel. Sun-brown skin and a big, calloused hand that held the shot-gun absolutely steady. When he shifted his boots on the floor, the ornamental chains on his dusty black pants jangled and she wondered how the hell he'd sneaked up on her.
Sydney slid her eyes to the side, trying to see more. "Dad?" she said quietly.
Jack's head jerked up and his face got even grimmer.
"The!" Sands exclaimed with manic cheeriness. "Some of my good old buddies from the home of the knave have come calling. Isn't that nice? They wanted me to give them directions to find you. I bet they're planning a big old welcome home party for me and want to hire a mariachi to play." With preternatural awareness, he now turned his gun on Jack, somehow aware Sydney was a threat someone else could deal with now.
"CIA?" the big man asked in a soft, hoarse voice.
Sands nodded up and down like a bobble-head doll. It occurred to Sydney that a lot of his mannerisms were just for show, obvious and vulgar and deliberately distracting. There was a sharp as knives, albeit off-balance mind, behind everything Sands did. It was just everything Sands did, he did to amuse himself.
And The?
She almost laughed as she made the connection. 'The' for 'El'. No name. Worse than her blond nemesis, who was accumulating too many names lately, Romanov, Lazarey, Julian.
So this was El Mariachi. He looked dangerous. There was a scent of copper and cordite about him, as though the hot sun had burned the blackpowder and murder through his skin and deep into his bones. But there was something as deep and steady as the earth about him, too. For no real reason, she knew El Mariachi would be a man of his word.
Drawing that word from him might be a real problem, though. Particularly if he was listening to Sands, who would probably delight in fouling their plans for sheer spite.
His eyes took in Sydney and were appreciative but not impressed. He wouldn't underestimate because she was a woman or beautiful. And neither would Sands, she thought, still half sick over what had been done to the man.
"What do you want?" El Mariachi asked quietly.
"They want the Eye, just like the other one will," Sands answered.
"What other one?"
"A man employed by a terrorist group that calls itself the Covenant," Sydney said quickly. She felt very disturbed by how much Sands seemed to know, when he shouldn't know anything. "We had intel that he'd killed several people in Mexico City and is tracking the guitar."
"Blond, I think," Sands said distractedly. "He'll be here soon. I really like him much more than these fuckmooks, El. He's almost as good at killing as you and me."
"Sands," El said quietly. A muscle rippled in Sand's gaunt cheek.
"El. It's too late," Sands said seriously. "You could give them the guitar and the other one would still come."
"Should I give it to the other one then?" El asked curiously. He didn't sound like he was contemplating that, just like he wanted to know what Sands would say.
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no," Sands exclaimed. He pushed his chair back and stood gracefully. "No, I was just going to suggest we retire to the church. That's where all the extra ammo is - and didn't Lorenzo find you some grenades? I don't want to shoot up my favorite cafe, you know, El. It's the only place in the cuntforsaken sewer of a town that serves a decent slow-roasted pork."
The Mariachi's solemn mouth almost twitched into a smile. "Decent?"
"Well," Sands seemed to consider it, "I wouldn't shoot the cook."
"Good. I think he's Fideo's second cousin."
Sands stepped past Jack, grandly ignoring the gun that still tracked him, or genuinely oblivious to it, and headed toward the door. "Come along, kiddies," he said, gesturing with the bag that held his false arm.
El took a long step back and lowered the shot-gun.
"You are willing to fight beside them?" he asked Sands, back stepping away and keeping his eyes on Sydney and Jack.
Sands shrugged gracefully, silhouetted against the open door of the cantina. "The cartels will have men here soon, following them. It's only fair they take some of the fire."
"We're weren't followed," Jack said. He got to his feet and nodded slightly at El Mariachi.
"So, maybe they're following blondie," Sands said. His next words were for the Mariachi. "Doesn't matter, except they're coming, and if we're still out in the open, they'll make what Cucuy did when I sent him after you look like episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood."
"What?"
Sydney giggled despite herself and clapped her hand over her mouth. Her father and El both glared. "Sorry," she whispered. "It was funny."
"Sydney," her father remonstrated quietly. She grimaced at him.
They hurried after the blind man as he swiftly crossed the square. Watching Sands move was eerie. He didn't look at anything the way a sighted person would, but once his head cocked and he dodged a dog and a young boy plunging before him. He never hesitated. He looked like the spectre of death in his black clothes.
El Mariachi followed them sedately, but Sydney caught how his whole body was ready. She also noted that he didn't bother to hide the shotgun he carried, any more than Sands concealed the arsenal he wore.
The first real indication of Sands blindness showed as they reached the church. He must have miscalculated his stride and his boot brushed the first crumbling stone step. His stride hitched briefly before he recovered. She sensed El Mariachi tense behind her then relax.
She wondered for the first time what tied the Mexican killer and the rogue CIA agent to each other.
Sark led them into the cool darkness of the church, past cream colored walls and up a spiralling stair toward the heights of the bell towers, and out onto the roof between them. It gave the sighted among them a spy's eye on the entire dusty town.
Sydney spotted a pale, unfinished guitar leaning against a rusty cast-iron palisade. Not the Rambaldi guitar, but a clear sign that El Mariachi had probably been on the heights of the church when they arrived. Perhaps he'd seen them and followed on his own.
Sands drifted over to the palisade and wrapped one gloved hand round an iron spike. He swayed and turned, lifting his bone pale face into the heavy apricot sunset light. Sydney felt sorry for him again. He'd been a slender man to begin with and everything superfluous had been burned away, leaving little more than the charcoal skeleton of a man.
Sydney turned back to El Mariachi. "Look," she said, and Sands chuckled, "if we've led the cartels to you, it wasn't on purpose." She held out her hands, caught the man's skeptical gaze with her own. "The Covenant are even worse than the cartels, though; they must be stopped. They won't stop with a country. They want the world."
"And what does the CIA want?" El asked cautiously.
"Oh, they want what they've always wanted, apple pie and the American way and screw everyone else," Sands said cynically. Thin shoulders shrugged. "You should be asking what the guitar-maker wanted, though." His sarcastic lilt had softened into a detached whisper of sound.
El gave Sydney and Jack an another suspicious glare, then walked over to Sands and clamped one big hand on the other man's shoulder. Sands went absolutely still. Then he almost leaned into the hold, slumping faintly, head drooping, long hair falling forward. The Mariachi was taller and heavier than Sands and would have been even before Sands had been blinded. Sands looked fragile next to him.
"¿Cuál es él?"
"Dos años," Sands whispered. His sightless attention turned to Sydney. "Ying and yang, dark and light. Balance. She brings forth his works, in fury and dust."
Her father looked grim as death. Sydney knew why. Sands sounded entirely to close to the Page 47 prophecy.
Sands slid away from El's grip and seemed to shake off the fey mood, muttering, "Get your sweaty mitts off me, maricon." He lifted his head, twisted, and then said, "Limpdicked asswipes are only a couple of minutes out."
"Back with us, poisonous as ever," the Mariachi said. He looked to the east. Sydney followed his gaze and saw the clouds of dust rolling up behind a line of trucks rushing toward Villa de Cos. He pointed at Jack. "Ring the bells."
Sydney watched the trucks approach, counting the thugs riding in the backs. God, there were a lot of them. Down in the square, faces turned to the church as the bells began ringing, and then the people were running, disappearing behind locked and barred doors, safe behind thick adobe walls that would stop bullets or fire. They left their goods, wisely choosing their lives over material possessions.
El disappeared down the stairs and reappeared moments later carrying two large guitar cases.
"Did you remember the grenades?" Sands asked. His head was tipped, listening to the trucks roll into town.
"Sí," El said. He knelt and flipped open one of the cases, displaying a lovely guitar face. A hidden catch was released and the guitar face lifted, revealing a red-velvet lined armory. "Here." He scooped up two grenades from their nests and tossed them toward Sands. Jack cringed, but the blind man snatched the grenades out of the air.
"Try not to throw them in our direction," El commanded.
"Fuckmook," Sands muttered.
"Nice knives," Sydney commented, spotting the set of throwing knives in the case. The Mariachi's shoulders tensed under his jacket. The scorpion embroidered between the shoulder blades seemed to move, to flex its pincers, to lash its stinger.
Sands shifted impatiently. "They're not sacred fucking relics, El," he said harshly.
El's fingers ghosted over the knives, then drew back. A drop of crimson welled from his ring finger, wobbled, and fell into the velvet.
"They were my wife's."
He drew out several pieces and began swiftly, expertly, assempling a grenade launcher. As he locked the last piece into place, the trucks below screeched to stop before the monastery. Sydney watched one of the men stride over to the rental car her father and she had driven in and check what was clearly a tracking device.
Sands cocked his head, listening to the echoing voices from below as the thugs piled out and began quartering the empty square like a pack of hunting dogs.
Jack walked over to the palisade next to Sands.
"Rough count?" Sands asked conversationally.
"Forty-eight."
"That's positively insulting," Sands complained. "El? You used to kill more than that before lunch and now you've got two CIA agents and me along to play, too. Cheap skate cartel goombahs don't respect that they're shooting at a legend of fucking Mexico, just sending six trucks full of men." Sydney couldn't tell from Sands' light tone if he was serious or just sarcastic.
"It's enough," El said somberly. He joined them, standing next to Sands. The wind lifted and whipped his longish hair back from his brooding countenance. He lifted the grenade launcher and held it vertically, leaning his forehead against the barrel for an instant. "Pardon," he whispered. He sketched the stations of the cross with the barrel.
"Save it for confession, El," Sands said.
El brought the launcher's stock up to his shoulder and aimed down at the trucks in the square. He waited for one breath and two ....
Sydney pulled out the service pistol that had been provided by the CIA's local contacts and checked the load. She flipped off the safety.
"You ready for this, sugarbutt?" Sands asked, grinning.
"I'm a trained agent. Bring it on."
Sands laughed and the sound carried down to the square. Sydney saw one of the thugs look up. Then he yelled and pointed at them. Sands must have heard, maybe even understood. He held up his hand and made a creatively obscene gesture.
Sands laughed again.
"Bless me, father, for I am about to kill as many men as I can," he said, smiling and drawing two guns.
The thugs began heading for the church. As they passed the trucks, El fired the first grenade.
The grenade hit with a blast of flame and sound, flipping the first truck onto its side, tossing bodies all around it. The rest of the thugs began shooting back at the heights of the church. Neither El nor Sands or even her father even flinched. Handguns weren't much good at that much distance.
El loaded another grenade and fired. Another truck blew up. The thugs were scrambling away from the cover the trucks had seemed to promise. Sydney noted many of them were heading into the church.
She brought her gun up in a two-handed grip and aimed at the doorway into the stairwell.
As the first cartel gunman came through the doorway, she started to tighten her finger on the trigger. Two shots snapped out, hitting the thug in the bicep and then his chest. Sydney snapped her head to the side and her mouth opened in disbelief. Sands had taken the shots.
Two more goons rushed through the doorway. Sydney didn't waste any more time worrying about Sands. She shot, dove, and rolled out of the doorway's sight line. Sands skittered to the side, shooting two handed as more and more men pushed their way out onto the roof.
Sydney shot again and again. Behind her, El Mariachi fired the grenade launcher once more. Bullets whined through the air, puffs of pulverized stone and dust showing where they hit the parapet and showers of sparks cascading off the iron works on top it. Her ears rang to the roar and rattle of the gunfire. Her father was crouched and calmly shooting too, covering the Mariachi's back as he methodically loaded the grenade launcher. El paused to extend his right arm and pop a small pistol out of his sleeve, into his hand, and fire in one casual move that killed a man raising a gun toward Sands.
Sands snarled, "I knew he was there, fret-licker." He shot two more men, spun and fired at one who had ambitiously scaled the face of the church. The man screamed as he fell back toward the ground.
The mariachi shrugged, put a bullet in a body that made the mistake of moving, and then fired at the next three men through the stairwell door. He tossed the empty gun aside and went back to the grenade launcher, blowing up another truck.
The three bodies fell so close together in they half-blocked the doorway. An arm with an submachine gun, followed by a head, peered round the door jamb.
Sydney snapped a shot off. It hit the man's arm and he screamed. Sands fired and his bullet knocked the man back with a hole through his face.
Her gun clicked dry. The sound of the hammer falling on an empty chamber seemed absurdly loud in the sudden lull in the shooting. Even so, it amazed her that Sands heard it. She scrambled for cover, using one of the bodies, feeling it jerk as bullets hit it instead of her. Sands threw himself down parallel to the open guitar case as another gun was pushed around the doorway and blindly fired at them. While he fired one handed back at the doorway, he reached inside the case, grabbed a gun and threw it unerringly to Sydney.
"Reloading," he yelled. "Cover me." Sydney caught the gun and began firing as Sands emptied the used clips from his guns and slapped in new ones.
A huge roar of sound and a pillar of black-edged flames signaled that the fuel tank of one the trucks had exploded. Everything stopped in the second that followed.
Then Sands whispered, "Boom!" and laughed.
"Sydney, good, we can begin now," Dixon said with a small small and a nod for her. Sydney smiled back and folded her hands. The screen behind Dixon bloomed with a blow-up of a CIA ID badge side by side with a candid shot of a slim, handsome man with longish dark hair and darker eyes. He was twirling the earpiece of a set of sunglasses in gloved hands in the second picture. His face in the ID picture had no expression at all. He had, Sydney admitted to herself silently, one of the sexiest mouths she'd ever seen. She cut the thought off, because sexy mouths always took her thoughts toward a certain murderous blond with a crooked lower lip. Not a place she wanted her mind to take her, even if it was marginally better than mooning over her very married ex-lover's face.
"Sheldon Jeffrey Sands," Dixon said, jerking her attention back to business. He steepled his hands together. "CIA Agent Sands. He was stationed in Mexico two years ago, monitoring the cartels."
"Was?' Sydney asked.
Jack just raised an eyebrow.
"There are conflicting reports," Dixon admitted.
Kendall shook his head. "Conflicting, my ass," he muttered. "That sonovabitch was a loose cannon, that's why he got sent down there. The cartels either bought him or got him."
Dixon shot him a dirty look, but didn't argue. Unsaid were the words, maybe both.
"Whatever happened, he disappeared. The last time the chief of station heard from him, Sands thought he was being shadowed by the cartel. He wanted a new, clean phone and contact number in case his had been compromised. He was supposed to wait at a cantina called La Vaca Volanda in Culiacan, but never made contact again. No one could get anything straight from the locals and everything went crazy the next day, when General Marquez tried a coup d'etat, attacking during the Dias de Los Muertos. There was an inside attempt on the President of Mexico and bloody fighting between the people and the military in the streets," Dixon explained.
"I remember reading about it," Sydney said.
"Apparently the coup was funded by the Barillo cartel, but Armando Barillo was killed along with Marquez, and the cartel was dismantled shortly thereafter. Interference by the CIA or any foreign agencies was not welcome in Mexico at that point and if Sands was involved, it seemed better to take a step back and see if there was going to be any blowback on the CIA or the United States."
"So you cut him off," Jack said. His voice was harsh.
"Hung him out to dry," Kendall agreed cheerily. Why not? It had been the CIA's call to disavow their agent and leave him, if he was even alive, to fend for himself. Sands had probably even deserved it. But the DSR's hands were clean this time around.
"The chief of station in Mexico City made the call,"Dixon admitted. "There were rumors that Sands had gone rogue, that he'd become involved with a woman in the Mexican AFN. One story even said she was cartel. The COS thought Sands had gone native."
"What's any of that have to do with Rambaldi?" Sydney asked, looking knowingly at Kendall. If Kendall was around, it was a DSR sponsored mission, and DSR always meant Rambaldi.
"Smart girl," Kendall chuckled. "It does and it doesn't. We know the inside man that took out Marquez and Barillo was a killer called El Mariachi. Apparently, Sands had found and recruited him. El Mariachi and his team were responsible for smuggling the President out of Culiacan, earning his gratitude, pardons for whatever crimes they'd committed and personal gifts from the man. Among those gifts was an antique guitar brought to Mexico from Spain by missionaries. The guitar carries a mark: the Eye of Rambaldi. "
A new photograph, in black and white, showed a ancient guitar in black-and-white. A second showed a close up of a tuning peg and the telltale brackets and circle carved into it.
"The photographs were provided by the National Museum of Mexico, which was under the impression the Eye was a maker's mark, but hadn't identified it as a Rambaldi artifact."
"Could it just be a guitar?" Sydney asked rather pointlessly. Even if it was, she knew she was being sent after it.
Kendall shrugged. "Doesn't matter. We want it."
"And?" Jack asked.
"El Mariachi has it. No one knows where the man is. No one even knows what his name is," Kendall snapped irritatedly. "Your daughter is the single best Rambaldi recovery operative we've ever fielded; if anyone can find this damn guitar-assassin, it's Sydney."
"And if anyone can find El Mariachi," Sydney finished, "it's the man who did it before. Sands."
"If he's alive," Jack pointed out sensibly.
"Where do we start?" Sydney asked.
Dixon changed the picture one more time, displaying a middle aged Hispanic man with thinning hair, hard eyes, and a modest, graying goatee. His expression was one of soured experience.
"Jorje Ramirez," he said. "Retired FBI agent. Sands recruited him to run surveillance on Barillo. It was in his last report. He lives just outside Culiacan. It's possible he knows what happened to Sands, if not where he is."
"If he isn't buried in some nameless pit," Kendall muttered. "Jack, you'll be acting as Sydney's partner."
"When do we leave?" Jack asked. He stood up and Sydney followed.
"Eight hours," Dixon said. "DSR is providing a private jet to expedite your ETA. "
"Why the urgency?"
"We had an Echelon intercept indicating Sark flew into Mexico City yesterday morning," Dixon explained. He started a stretch of grainy, black-and-white security video playing.
Sydney caughter her breath, recognizing the arrogant stride and pale, shorn blond head even before Sark turned and the camera caught his face. He smiled at the camera, knowing it was there, and then shot it out, drawing and firing in one fluid motion.
"This was recovered from the National Museum. The curator, along with his assistant and two security guards were shot. We can assume Sark was there on Covenant business, tracking the Rambaldi instrument." Kendall frowned and went on, "We can assume he knows about El Mariachi, but not about the tie to Sands and Ramirez. Maybe that will let us play catch up, as long as no one leaks the information. That's why this briefing and mission is strictly between us. No mention of it or your destination should be made to anyone, even here at HQ. After Korea, it's become clear the Covenant have a source of intelligence within the agency. Everything is need-to-know now."
Jack exited with a nod.
Sydney started to follow him, but paused as Dixon called her name. She turned back.
'Sydney, if you do find Sands, don't trust him. He was crazy."
"Thanks," she said with a warm smile. "I'll watch out."
_______________________
Ramirez opened his door while cradling a white and tan chihuahua in one elbow. He held a .38 revolver in that hand, aiming right at Jack's gut. His dark eyes took in Jack's suit and tie, then Sydney's clunky black business suit.
"Let me guess," he said cynically. "You belong to one of the alphabets."
"We're with the CIA," Sydney said.
"I'm happy for you," Ramirez said. The little dog hanging over his arm watched them with bright, liquid black eyes. "You have identification?"
Jack held up his open hand slowly. "You mind?" he asked, moving his hand slowly toward his jacket.
Ramirez smiled. The sour expression on his face was the same as the photograph they'd been shown, though the man was older and thinner now. Perhaps sourer. "Slowly," he directed. "Finger and thumb."
Jack obeyed, drawing out his badge case and flipping it open. Ramirez looked it over without stepping closer.
"Now you, señorita," Ramirez said to Sydney. She brought her ID out and displayed it. Ramirez's eyebrows shot up. "Jack and Sydney Bristow. Related?"
"Yes," Jack grated out.
Ramirez chuckled, a rough, unused sort of sound. He gestured them in with his free hand. The .38 stayed in his other. Jack flicked his glacial gaze at it and quirked his mouth. "Nervous?"
"You never know when the cartels will come calling."
"We'd heard the Barillo cartel was finished."
Ramirez flashed white teeth at them. "And was replaced by the Guzman cartel and the Medeiros cartel, and whoever is plotting to take over from them."
Jack's mouth twitched into that unwilling almost smile Sydney had learned meant he recognized someone as jaded and cynical as himself and found it good.
"So what brings the CIA calling?" Ramirez asked.
"Interagency cooperation - "
Ramirez snorted. "What? You all learn that phrase at spy school?"
"You were working with Agent Sands two years ago, just before the coup attempt," Sydney said. "We were hoping -
Ramirez let the dog hop down and run away. Its claws clicked against tile floor. Ramirez looked disgusted and the gun came up and aimed right between Sydney's eyes.
"You here for that crazy bastard?"
Jack's eyes narrowed and he made an abortive move toward Ramirez. The ex-FBI man's eyes left Sydney for an instant. She took the advantage and kicked the .38 out of his hand, spinning away from him in the same movement and drawing her own weapon. An instant later Jack had his gun out and aimed at Ramirez too.
Ramirez gave them both a bitter grin and held his arms out from his body. The chihuahua wondered back into the living room and cocked its head, just watching them.
"Go ahead," Ramirez laughed. "I've been beat up and interrogated by Barillos' goons. Think you can do better?"
"We're not here to harm you," Sydney tried to convince him.
"And Sands?"
"Is he actually alive?' Jack asked.
Ramirez's mouth went tight. "Not if you ask him," he said.
"He is alive," Sydney translated.
Ramirez laughed. "Too fucking vicious to die."
"We need to find him. Quickly."
Ramirez shook his head, still laughing. "Then you're fools." His expression sobered. "He'll probably kill you." His eyes were hard as stones. "And after what happened on Los Dias de los Muertos, even I wouldn't blame him."
"What did happen on the Day of the Dead?" Sydney asked.
"Not my story to tell. If you find him, you'll see. - What do you want him for?" He looked at them consideringly. "Not to take north of the border." Something in his voice told them Ramirez thought that would be the same or worse than just killing Sands. Clearly, he didn't like Sands, but he liked the CIA less.
"No." Sydney thought it might be better to quit threatening Ramirez with guns and holstered hers. "We need his help."
Laughter again and Ramirez almost choked on it. "He'll make you crawl."
Sydney shrugged and thought of two years as Julia Thorne, more years playing loyal agent to Arvin Sloane while she seethed with hate inside. "I can do that," she said lightly. "I've done worse."
"We need to find El Mariachi," Jack said. "Sands may - "
Ramirez held his hand up, stopping him. "I get it. Me to Sands, Sands to El. Good luck, you'll need it."
"Will you tell us how to contact Sands?" Sydney asked. "Maybe he'd like to see us."
"There's a whole list of things Sands would like to see, Señorita Bristow. Pretty as you are, you still wouldn't rate high on that list," Ramirez said. "But you can take your chances. " He glanced at Jack. "Both of you. Maybe he'll be in a good mood, maybe he won't shoot you." He scooped up the chihuahua and patted its head.
"Villa de Cos, the Vida Azul Cafe," Ramirez told them. "Ask for El Vidente. Someone will let Sands know you're there."
"The Seer?"
Ramirez sneered. "Sí, el clarividente. El Profeta."
"Thank you." Sydney gave him a smile.
Ramirez met her eyes. "Oh, don't thank me. Just leave. ¡Feura de aqui!" He pointed at the door. "And don't bother coming back, Moco and I will be gone. Sands is a vengeful fuck. So is the Mariachi. I don't want to see either of them again. I've had a bellyful of revenge."
Sydney shared a glance with her father. They weren't getting any more out of Ramirez. Jack holstered his pistol at his hip, twitched his jacket closed again and headed for the door. He nodded at Ramirez, who just shook his head. Sydney followed him. Behind her, she heard Ramirez mutter, "Interagency cooperation. They'll be sorry."
_______________________
Villa de Cos was hot, dry, half empty at noon, the main square dominated by a vast and stony abandoned church. A missionary fortress, towers at its corners, it sprawled wide and rose three stories above the rest of the town, Quarried stone and Spanish gothic majesty was slowly crumbling back into Mexican dust. Clouds of pigeons flung through the air like confetti and settled in flutters on its carved heights.
Sydney had gone for a t-shirt and jeans and even her father had switched to more sensible wear for the heat, a loose guayabera shirt that hid his pistol under its tail, but they still stood out as Jack pulled their jeep to a stop in the square.
"This is it?" Sydney asked. She got out and looked around.
There were people in the square, going about their business on market day, but their eyes were on Jack and Syd. Her father swung ut of the jeep. Sunglasses covered his eyes as he looked around. "Yes."
The booths held a mixture of fresh produce, dry goods, cheap electronics and clothes, but mostly there were guitars. Guitars hanging from their necks in rows, guitars laying on benchs and counters, guitars half finished, gayly painted ones and others pale and not yet stained, strung and unstrung, with gut, plastic and wire. Old men and young ones labored over them, but their eyes all lifted to watch as Jack and Syd strolled by. The twang of strings and soft voices fell silent wherever they passed.
"Guitars," Sydney murmured, studying everything. "They make guitars here. Isn't that too weird for a coincidence?"
"You know better," Jack said quietly.
La Vida Azul lay on the far side of the square from the church. They approached it and stepped into the dark interior as the bells of the church began ringing. Jack's head snapped around. Surely that decaying ruin was empty?
Sydney proceeded to the bar and caught the tender's eye with a smile and a handful of pesos. "Dos cervezas, por favor."
The bartender made two bottles appear.
"Gracias."
Her father joined her and picked up one of the bottles, turning it to read the label. It was something local, never heard of in the States. He'd taken his sunglasses off and hung them in the collar of his shirt. He looked at the bartender until the man went still and waited.
"Señor?"
"I'm looking for a man called El Vidente."
The Vida Azul went still and silent. Then hoarse laughter rustled from a dark corner Sydney hadn't realized was occupied. She whipped around and could barely make out the lean form of a man dressed in black jeans, black long-sleeved t-shirt, and a black leather vest. A shoulder harness held two automatics under his arms and, as she approached, she could see another belt had two more guns at his hips. Sydney wouldn't have bet he didn't have others on him. Black sunglasses hid his eyes, lank almost-black hair hung around his face.
Sands.
Well, that had been almost too easy. Ramirez's information had been good. But Sydney had a sinking feeling in her stomach. Easy never was. Finding Sands was only the second step. Something was going to go bad. Or something already had and it just hadn't hit them yet.
"If it isn't the Cunts In Action," Sands mocked in a lilting half-whisper. "I've been waiting for you fuckmooks to show up."
Sydney caught sight of another man, one of the customers, slipping out the door at a run and wondered how long they had before trouble showed up. She looked back at the pale man in black and amended that. More trouble. A thin-lipped, unamused smile flashed on his face. A black-gloved hand gestured. "Have a seat."
She looked uncertainly at her father, who shook his head minutely. A muscle twitched in his cheek.
Sand's head cocked slightly, but he didn't look at either of them. Or maybe he did. Sydney couldn't guess what his eyes were on through the opaque black lenses that hid them.
Her father strode over to Sand's table and loomed. "Listen, you foul-mouthed little punk - " Sands didn't even look up. The smile got nastier though and he waved a finger so close to Jack's nose it almost hit.
"Ah, ah, ah, you two want something from me, so back off or I won't hesitate blow you both into next Sunday. Savvy?" A hammer click made Sydney look at Sands a second time, closer, at the way his right hand lay on the table and didn't move. Her thoughts moved fast. It wasn't real, that hand. Sands' shoulder left drooped just a bit and she put it together. In the shadowy bar, most people would never notice the unnatural stillness, they'd be too distracted by Sands' habit of staring past and through them. Sands was wearing a false arm; his real arm and hand were under the little table, training a gun on them.
"Dad," Sydney said, pulling Jack back with one hand on his shoulder.
"Ramirez warned you we were coming. He must have told you we only want information. We're not a threat."
"Jorje?" Sands said. "Noooo, Jorje really doesn't like me, you know. Getting on his wrong side was really very short-sighted of me." He chuckled and added, all acid hysteria and venom, "Not as short-sighted as I am now, of course." Sands laughed like he'd made a hell of a joke. Sydney was suddenly reminded that Dixon had said the man was crazy. So had Ramirez.
"If Ramirez didn't tell you, who did?" Jack asked. He pulled a chair out and seated himself. Sydney stationed herself at his shoulder, still standing.
Another burst of half-crazed, bitter laughter.
"Whoring Madonnas, I saw it." Madness smoked off him like toxic fumes. Sydney found herself wrapping her fingers around her own gun. "That merciless hellbitch Ajedrez rips my fucking eyes out on Los Dias de los Muertos, I nearly bleed out in the fucking dust while El fucking Mariachi, the bonehead, is saving Mexico, and this dickless, pus-oozing, pisshole country gives - no, shit, curses - me with goddamn visions. El adivino no tiene ningún ojo."
Insane. Sands was insane. Whoever Ajedrez had been, whatever the cartel had done to him, had driven him past the borders of sanity. Sydney didn't believe in visions. No, she didn't want to believe, even if she spent half her life chasing the inventions of a sixteenth-century prophet. Maybe Rambaldi had been insane too. But what had Sands meant, what had happened that he compared it to losing his eyes?
Sands cocked his head and said sing-song, "Oh, I'm cracked, that's true, but I know what you came to get from me. You want El's guitar. You want that damned all-seeing Eye." He pulled his sunglasses down and let them see the gaping dark sockets where his eyes had been. Sydney gulped back bile and her father shoved his chair back, then held still with his hands on the edge of the table. "Well, I want eyes too, real eyes that see more than ghosts and futures and unseen fucking marks.
"Yeah, sugarbutt, I see you, you're marked like a big red target, you and the other one, but I got no damn reason to help you."
Sydney gaped at Sands. How could he know about the Prophecy, about the marks? God, how had he survived that mutilation at all?
"Where the fuck was the CIA when Barillo's daughter had their own Dr. Mengele blind me? How about afterward? Suppurating, limpdick assholes in Mexico City cut me off and left me to rot or die in this shithole," Sands snarled. He shoved his sunglasses back up, hiding the awful scars. "You assholes did this to me."
"We could - we could get you back to the US, get you doctors, help - " Sydney offered.
Sands blew a hole in the floor at her feet. "Lock me in a little padded room and skullfuck me, shoot me up with shit on a schedule, keep me doped and drooling and out of the way? Forget it, I'm crazy but I'm not that crazy, you Chosen puta." He shrugged the false arm off, unaware of Jack's nonplussed expression or how truly rare the reaction was. The real arm, with the real hand holding a pistol, appeared. It was aimed unerringly at Sydney.
The false arm was folded by his right hand and stuffed in a small bag. Sands did it with a sort of long-standing expertise that amazed Sydney.
Jack didn't move. He did pull his gun and aim it at Sands. The fact that it was a blind man aiming a gun at his daughter didn't amuse him at all. Sands had clearly perfected his shooting abilities, even sans sight. "Personally, I don't care," he said. He cocked the gun. Sands grinned. "Go back or rot here, you're right; it won't bring your eyes back. Tell us where to find the guitar-player and we'll pay you enough to live in comfort wherever you want for a long time, though."
Sydney started to turn her face and raise an eyebrow at her father. The CIA and DSR hadn't authorized any extra budget for this mission. She knew he had funds cached from his stint as a double with SD-6, but would they be enough? She started to move, only to ram her cheek into the cold, double rounds of a sawed-off shotgun's muzzle.
Sands was laughing again. "Not enough."
The glowering man holding the shotgun against Sydney's face was big and lean, with long coffee colored hair and eyes the color of burnt caramel. Sun-brown skin and a big, calloused hand that held the shot-gun absolutely steady. When he shifted his boots on the floor, the ornamental chains on his dusty black pants jangled and she wondered how the hell he'd sneaked up on her.
Sydney slid her eyes to the side, trying to see more. "Dad?" she said quietly.
Jack's head jerked up and his face got even grimmer.
"The!" Sands exclaimed with manic cheeriness. "Some of my good old buddies from the home of the knave have come calling. Isn't that nice? They wanted me to give them directions to find you. I bet they're planning a big old welcome home party for me and want to hire a mariachi to play." With preternatural awareness, he now turned his gun on Jack, somehow aware Sydney was a threat someone else could deal with now.
"CIA?" the big man asked in a soft, hoarse voice.
Sands nodded up and down like a bobble-head doll. It occurred to Sydney that a lot of his mannerisms were just for show, obvious and vulgar and deliberately distracting. There was a sharp as knives, albeit off-balance mind, behind everything Sands did. It was just everything Sands did, he did to amuse himself.
And The?
She almost laughed as she made the connection. 'The' for 'El'. No name. Worse than her blond nemesis, who was accumulating too many names lately, Romanov, Lazarey, Julian.
So this was El Mariachi. He looked dangerous. There was a scent of copper and cordite about him, as though the hot sun had burned the blackpowder and murder through his skin and deep into his bones. But there was something as deep and steady as the earth about him, too. For no real reason, she knew El Mariachi would be a man of his word.
Drawing that word from him might be a real problem, though. Particularly if he was listening to Sands, who would probably delight in fouling their plans for sheer spite.
His eyes took in Sydney and were appreciative but not impressed. He wouldn't underestimate because she was a woman or beautiful. And neither would Sands, she thought, still half sick over what had been done to the man.
"What do you want?" El Mariachi asked quietly.
"They want the Eye, just like the other one will," Sands answered.
"What other one?"
"A man employed by a terrorist group that calls itself the Covenant," Sydney said quickly. She felt very disturbed by how much Sands seemed to know, when he shouldn't know anything. "We had intel that he'd killed several people in Mexico City and is tracking the guitar."
"Blond, I think," Sands said distractedly. "He'll be here soon. I really like him much more than these fuckmooks, El. He's almost as good at killing as you and me."
"Sands," El said quietly. A muscle rippled in Sand's gaunt cheek.
"El. It's too late," Sands said seriously. "You could give them the guitar and the other one would still come."
"Should I give it to the other one then?" El asked curiously. He didn't sound like he was contemplating that, just like he wanted to know what Sands would say.
"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no," Sands exclaimed. He pushed his chair back and stood gracefully. "No, I was just going to suggest we retire to the church. That's where all the extra ammo is - and didn't Lorenzo find you some grenades? I don't want to shoot up my favorite cafe, you know, El. It's the only place in the cuntforsaken sewer of a town that serves a decent slow-roasted pork."
The Mariachi's solemn mouth almost twitched into a smile. "Decent?"
"Well," Sands seemed to consider it, "I wouldn't shoot the cook."
"Good. I think he's Fideo's second cousin."
Sands stepped past Jack, grandly ignoring the gun that still tracked him, or genuinely oblivious to it, and headed toward the door. "Come along, kiddies," he said, gesturing with the bag that held his false arm.
El took a long step back and lowered the shot-gun.
"You are willing to fight beside them?" he asked Sands, back stepping away and keeping his eyes on Sydney and Jack.
Sands shrugged gracefully, silhouetted against the open door of the cantina. "The cartels will have men here soon, following them. It's only fair they take some of the fire."
"We're weren't followed," Jack said. He got to his feet and nodded slightly at El Mariachi.
"So, maybe they're following blondie," Sands said. His next words were for the Mariachi. "Doesn't matter, except they're coming, and if we're still out in the open, they'll make what Cucuy did when I sent him after you look like episode of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood."
"What?"
Sydney giggled despite herself and clapped her hand over her mouth. Her father and El both glared. "Sorry," she whispered. "It was funny."
"Sydney," her father remonstrated quietly. She grimaced at him.
They hurried after the blind man as he swiftly crossed the square. Watching Sands move was eerie. He didn't look at anything the way a sighted person would, but once his head cocked and he dodged a dog and a young boy plunging before him. He never hesitated. He looked like the spectre of death in his black clothes.
El Mariachi followed them sedately, but Sydney caught how his whole body was ready. She also noted that he didn't bother to hide the shotgun he carried, any more than Sands concealed the arsenal he wore.
The first real indication of Sands blindness showed as they reached the church. He must have miscalculated his stride and his boot brushed the first crumbling stone step. His stride hitched briefly before he recovered. She sensed El Mariachi tense behind her then relax.
She wondered for the first time what tied the Mexican killer and the rogue CIA agent to each other.
Sark led them into the cool darkness of the church, past cream colored walls and up a spiralling stair toward the heights of the bell towers, and out onto the roof between them. It gave the sighted among them a spy's eye on the entire dusty town.
Sydney spotted a pale, unfinished guitar leaning against a rusty cast-iron palisade. Not the Rambaldi guitar, but a clear sign that El Mariachi had probably been on the heights of the church when they arrived. Perhaps he'd seen them and followed on his own.
Sands drifted over to the palisade and wrapped one gloved hand round an iron spike. He swayed and turned, lifting his bone pale face into the heavy apricot sunset light. Sydney felt sorry for him again. He'd been a slender man to begin with and everything superfluous had been burned away, leaving little more than the charcoal skeleton of a man.
Sydney turned back to El Mariachi. "Look," she said, and Sands chuckled, "if we've led the cartels to you, it wasn't on purpose." She held out her hands, caught the man's skeptical gaze with her own. "The Covenant are even worse than the cartels, though; they must be stopped. They won't stop with a country. They want the world."
"And what does the CIA want?" El asked cautiously.
"Oh, they want what they've always wanted, apple pie and the American way and screw everyone else," Sands said cynically. Thin shoulders shrugged. "You should be asking what the guitar-maker wanted, though." His sarcastic lilt had softened into a detached whisper of sound.
El gave Sydney and Jack an another suspicious glare, then walked over to Sands and clamped one big hand on the other man's shoulder. Sands went absolutely still. Then he almost leaned into the hold, slumping faintly, head drooping, long hair falling forward. The Mariachi was taller and heavier than Sands and would have been even before Sands had been blinded. Sands looked fragile next to him.
"¿Cuál es él?"
"Dos años," Sands whispered. His sightless attention turned to Sydney. "Ying and yang, dark and light. Balance. She brings forth his works, in fury and dust."
Her father looked grim as death. Sydney knew why. Sands sounded entirely to close to the Page 47 prophecy.
Sands slid away from El's grip and seemed to shake off the fey mood, muttering, "Get your sweaty mitts off me, maricon." He lifted his head, twisted, and then said, "Limpdicked asswipes are only a couple of minutes out."
"Back with us, poisonous as ever," the Mariachi said. He looked to the east. Sydney followed his gaze and saw the clouds of dust rolling up behind a line of trucks rushing toward Villa de Cos. He pointed at Jack. "Ring the bells."
Sydney watched the trucks approach, counting the thugs riding in the backs. God, there were a lot of them. Down in the square, faces turned to the church as the bells began ringing, and then the people were running, disappearing behind locked and barred doors, safe behind thick adobe walls that would stop bullets or fire. They left their goods, wisely choosing their lives over material possessions.
El disappeared down the stairs and reappeared moments later carrying two large guitar cases.
"Did you remember the grenades?" Sands asked. His head was tipped, listening to the trucks roll into town.
"Sí," El said. He knelt and flipped open one of the cases, displaying a lovely guitar face. A hidden catch was released and the guitar face lifted, revealing a red-velvet lined armory. "Here." He scooped up two grenades from their nests and tossed them toward Sands. Jack cringed, but the blind man snatched the grenades out of the air.
"Try not to throw them in our direction," El commanded.
"Fuckmook," Sands muttered.
"Nice knives," Sydney commented, spotting the set of throwing knives in the case. The Mariachi's shoulders tensed under his jacket. The scorpion embroidered between the shoulder blades seemed to move, to flex its pincers, to lash its stinger.
Sands shifted impatiently. "They're not sacred fucking relics, El," he said harshly.
El's fingers ghosted over the knives, then drew back. A drop of crimson welled from his ring finger, wobbled, and fell into the velvet.
"They were my wife's."
He drew out several pieces and began swiftly, expertly, assempling a grenade launcher. As he locked the last piece into place, the trucks below screeched to stop before the monastery. Sydney watched one of the men stride over to the rental car her father and she had driven in and check what was clearly a tracking device.
Sands cocked his head, listening to the echoing voices from below as the thugs piled out and began quartering the empty square like a pack of hunting dogs.
Jack walked over to the palisade next to Sands.
"Rough count?" Sands asked conversationally.
"Forty-eight."
"That's positively insulting," Sands complained. "El? You used to kill more than that before lunch and now you've got two CIA agents and me along to play, too. Cheap skate cartel goombahs don't respect that they're shooting at a legend of fucking Mexico, just sending six trucks full of men." Sydney couldn't tell from Sands' light tone if he was serious or just sarcastic.
"It's enough," El said somberly. He joined them, standing next to Sands. The wind lifted and whipped his longish hair back from his brooding countenance. He lifted the grenade launcher and held it vertically, leaning his forehead against the barrel for an instant. "Pardon," he whispered. He sketched the stations of the cross with the barrel.
"Save it for confession, El," Sands said.
El brought the launcher's stock up to his shoulder and aimed down at the trucks in the square. He waited for one breath and two ....
Sydney pulled out the service pistol that had been provided by the CIA's local contacts and checked the load. She flipped off the safety.
"You ready for this, sugarbutt?" Sands asked, grinning.
"I'm a trained agent. Bring it on."
Sands laughed and the sound carried down to the square. Sydney saw one of the thugs look up. Then he yelled and pointed at them. Sands must have heard, maybe even understood. He held up his hand and made a creatively obscene gesture.
Sands laughed again.
"Bless me, father, for I am about to kill as many men as I can," he said, smiling and drawing two guns.
The thugs began heading for the church. As they passed the trucks, El fired the first grenade.
The grenade hit with a blast of flame and sound, flipping the first truck onto its side, tossing bodies all around it. The rest of the thugs began shooting back at the heights of the church. Neither El nor Sands or even her father even flinched. Handguns weren't much good at that much distance.
El loaded another grenade and fired. Another truck blew up. The thugs were scrambling away from the cover the trucks had seemed to promise. Sydney noted many of them were heading into the church.
She brought her gun up in a two-handed grip and aimed at the doorway into the stairwell.
As the first cartel gunman came through the doorway, she started to tighten her finger on the trigger. Two shots snapped out, hitting the thug in the bicep and then his chest. Sydney snapped her head to the side and her mouth opened in disbelief. Sands had taken the shots.
Two more goons rushed through the doorway. Sydney didn't waste any more time worrying about Sands. She shot, dove, and rolled out of the doorway's sight line. Sands skittered to the side, shooting two handed as more and more men pushed their way out onto the roof.
Sydney shot again and again. Behind her, El Mariachi fired the grenade launcher once more. Bullets whined through the air, puffs of pulverized stone and dust showing where they hit the parapet and showers of sparks cascading off the iron works on top it. Her ears rang to the roar and rattle of the gunfire. Her father was crouched and calmly shooting too, covering the Mariachi's back as he methodically loaded the grenade launcher. El paused to extend his right arm and pop a small pistol out of his sleeve, into his hand, and fire in one casual move that killed a man raising a gun toward Sands.
Sands snarled, "I knew he was there, fret-licker." He shot two more men, spun and fired at one who had ambitiously scaled the face of the church. The man screamed as he fell back toward the ground.
The mariachi shrugged, put a bullet in a body that made the mistake of moving, and then fired at the next three men through the stairwell door. He tossed the empty gun aside and went back to the grenade launcher, blowing up another truck.
The three bodies fell so close together in they half-blocked the doorway. An arm with an submachine gun, followed by a head, peered round the door jamb.
Sydney snapped a shot off. It hit the man's arm and he screamed. Sands fired and his bullet knocked the man back with a hole through his face.
Her gun clicked dry. The sound of the hammer falling on an empty chamber seemed absurdly loud in the sudden lull in the shooting. Even so, it amazed her that Sands heard it. She scrambled for cover, using one of the bodies, feeling it jerk as bullets hit it instead of her. Sands threw himself down parallel to the open guitar case as another gun was pushed around the doorway and blindly fired at them. While he fired one handed back at the doorway, he reached inside the case, grabbed a gun and threw it unerringly to Sydney.
"Reloading," he yelled. "Cover me." Sydney caught the gun and began firing as Sands emptied the used clips from his guns and slapped in new ones.
A huge roar of sound and a pillar of black-edged flames signaled that the fuel tank of one the trucks had exploded. Everything stopped in the second that followed.
Then Sands whispered, "Boom!" and laughed.
- Summary: In pursuit of another Rambaldi object, Sydney and Sark find themselves in conflict with El Mariachi and Agent Sands.
- Fandom: Alias/Once Upon a Time In Mexico
- Rating: Mature
- Warnings: Crazy crossover
- Author Notes: IDEK, I was doing mushrooms or something.
- Date: ?
- Length:
- Genre: m/m
- Category: Action/Adventure, Spy, Crack
- Cast: Sydney Bristow, El Mariachi, Sheldon Jeffrey Sands, Marcus Dixon, Jack Bristow, Julian Sark
- Betas: I wouldn't do that to a friend.
- Disclaimer: Not for profit. Transformative work written for private entertainment.