The Last American Wizard (11 page)

The Laurel Sanitarium opened in 1905 to treat–among other things–drug addiction. Presidential candidate and virulent racist George Wallace was shot in a Laurel parking lot in 1972. Many of the crewmembers of American Airlines flight 77 stayed in Laurel overnight on September 10, 2001, and died in the wreckage of the south wall of the Pentagon only hours
later.

Steve wondered if the town’s best days were behind
it.

They had emerged from the Patuxent Refuge into a dreary world of dusty strip malls, decaying remnants of small industry, and wall-to-wall advertisements for what certainly appeared to be Laurel’s once and future economic mainstay–drug addiction. Gang graffiti covered everything that couldn’t move fast enough to escape.

Steve wasn’t an expert on gang artwork, but it didn’t take a lot to recognize the tight, blunt markers of the Bloods and the Crips. He was surprised to see that most of the sigils were
the multicolored symbols of MS-13–
Mara Salvatrucha 13
–the fast- growing El Salvadorian gang. Even though they were considered the most violent of the major gangs–born out of the bloody civil wars fought in their country in the 1980s–their tags were in a precise calligraphic font that wouldn’t have looked out of place on a wedding
invitation.

Ace suddenly slowed the car and made a right turn into the parking lot of a Radio Shack. Or at least, that’s what Steve thought it
was.
It
was
hard
to
tell
when
all
he
could
see
were
random streaks of neon light behind the thick steel bars over the windows and the front door. The SEAL parked the car and said, “We need to pick up some essentials. Is that all
right?”

Steve began to answer but stopped when the door locks popped open and the engine of the BMW fell to silence. Of course, she was asking the car’s permission, not
his.

As they both got out, Steve asked. “Do you think Hans will be safe in a neighborhood like
this?”

“I’d worry more about the neighbors,” Ace said calmly as she knocked on the door. After a pause while the store clerk made a life-or-death decision based on their clothes and skin color, the
door lock buzzed and they went
inside.

There were two young men, both wearing the store uniform of beige khakis and orange polo shirts. One was behind the counter filling out a computer form. The other clerk was on his hands and knees at the end of one of the long aisles, peering carefully through a shielding thicket of small plastic
toys.

There was the high-pitched buzz of an electric motor pushed
to the limit and a remote-controlled racecar careened around the corner of the aisle and straight into the clerk’s hands. “Got you,
you little bastard!” he exclaimed, and stood up triumphantly. The car was buzzing in impotent fury and twisting its front wheels in a desperate attempt to
escape.

Ace asked the clerk, “Interesting
day?”

“Damn right. About half our stock has simply stopped working–a few things even melted down. Generally, the cheapest ones.” He pointed at his coworker, who was now stuffing the little car into its cardboard box despite its vehement mechanical
protests.

“The meltdowns aren’t nearly as much trouble as guys like this.” He indicated the racecar with a thumb. “They became smarter, faster, and generally sneakier. We’ve managed to quiet things down, but earlier, every damn thing in the shop that could walk, roll, or make noise seemed to feel it was time to strut their stuff.”

He sighed deeply. “Turning them off didn’t work–heck,
pulling the batteries out didn’t work.” He held up his hand. A shallow cut stretched across two of his fingers. “One of the tanks kept snapping at me with its battery cover like a damn shark. Finally jammed it with a #13 multipurpose spring. That Formula One that Larry just caught is our last
runaway.”

Steve asked, “I’m in Radio Shacks all the time and they’re usually filled with electronic instruments. I don’t hear
them.”

“Oh, they’re all in the back room where it’s soundproofed.” The clerk waved vaguely towards the back. “I think tomorrow we might be able to bring them back out. At first, every one of them was just making the most noise at the highest possible volume but the last time I was back there, the keyboards had taken charge and the whole group had worked out a nice arrangement of
Finlandia
. Not one of my favorite songs but, hey, let’s not talk about my troubles; what can we do for you
today?”

Ace said. “Show him Send...um...your phone, Steve.” Turning back to the clerk, she added, “We need a full mil-spec cover for this with a solar battery recharge and
waterproofing.”

“Really? That’s going to cost you more than the phone itself. Are you sure I can’t interest you in upgrading to a better
model?”

Ace shook her head, her fine blond hair so short it barely moved. “No, Steve here has a sentimental attachment to this one. You see”–she leaned forward and whispered–“it was his mother’s and her voice is still on the answering message. Either he has it under his pillow at night or no one gets any
sleep.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but the clerk took it all seriously and dug out a complicated device constructed out of thick black rubber and olive drab plastic. “This is guaranteed for a drop of ten feet to a concrete floor. Heck, it’s even Ranger solo jump rated if you get the optional
parachute.”

He went on in the same vein for several more minutes and Steve drifted over to look out the front window. About a dozen young Latino men with far too many tattoos had surrounded the BMW. However, he noticed that all of them were standing several feet from the
car.

As he watched, another gang member walked up–a tall young man with intricate black tattoos across his forehead. Steve couldn’t make out what was said through the double-paned and probably bulletproof store window, but he appeared to be chastising the others for being afraid of the
car.

One of earlier arrivals gestured for him to go ahead–the car was his. He pulled a two-foot flat metal blade with heavy tape wrapped around one end and a square notch cut into the other from a special pocket sewn into his pants. From the several times he’d locked his keys inside his car in a parking garage, Steve knew this was a slim jim and could open most
cars.

The would-be thief approached the driver’s window and raised the device, prepared to slide it down between the glass of the window and the rubber seal at the bottom. A very fat electric arc shot from the radio antenna of the BMW and grounded solidly on the would-be thief’s forehead. He shook violently for a few seconds, then convulsively leaped about five feet back, and landed squarely on his back. His eyes were unfocused and blinking slowly.

“I told you that Hans could take care of himself,” Ace said as she slid the phone over Steve’s shoulder. It was encased–no, “armored” was a better description, Steve thought, in thick layers
of rubber and
plastic.

“Looks like Send Money here could survive a lot more than we
can.”

“If we survive at all, it’s going to be because of this little fellow,” Ace said. “Wear him on your belt from now on. He’s
rated to stop everything up to a 9mm assault round, and every little bit
helps.”

“Yeah, that would help protect my hip,” Steve said. “What about the more important parts of
me?”

“You really think any of those parts are important?” Ace snorted as she went out the door, evidently ready to confront the young men around the car. Steve struggled to work out the
complex clasp that held the phone onto his belt as he hurried to follow her, although what use he was going to be in a melee with gang members was beyond
him.

When he had finally clipped the phone on and looked up, Ace was standing calmly in the center of a circle of about a dozen gang members. She looked around calmly and then made a point of carefully counting how many men there were. Then she pointed at herself and spread her hands. Her point was clear even without a shared language; were they all going to attack just one
person?

Several of the men looked abashed. Ace held up one finger on each hand and cocked her eyebrow in question. Then she took the misshapen SIG Sauer out of her holster and laid it on the BMW’s hood. She did the same with another pistol she pulled from a holster around her
ankle.

Finally, a Ka-Bar fighting knife appeared from somewhere under her shirt in the back and was followed by two more large locking knives, a pair of brass knuckles, and a small spray can. Finally, she pulled a thin switchblade from a hidden pocket along the inseam of her pants, held it up, and clicked it
open.

Then she walked directly towards one side of the circle around her–they backed off to give her room. Standing in the center of the parking lot, she held the small knife in a loose grip and once again directed a questioning look all around the
circle.

The MS-13s looked at each other, and after a minute, one man stepped forward. Medium height and stocky, he removed his wife- beater undershirt and showed the sort of lean and corded muscles you don’t get by lifting weights. Steve could see that his entire back was covered with a beautiful red-and-blue tattoo of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The gang member then removed a folding knife from a clip on the back of his belt, snapped it open, and fell into a fighting crouch–low and taut with his left hand out and the knife in his right hand tucked against his torso.

Ace remained standing upright–almost relaxed. Then she
began to sidestep slowly to her right. Her opponent followed suit, his eyes on her face like a snake observing the mouse destined to be its
dinner.

To Steve, the actual fight was just a blur of arms and legs with flashes of sunlight off a blade piercing through from time to time. As suddenly as it started, it
stopped.

The two combatants were frozen; the gang member had his
left arm up under Ace’s armpit and behind her neck in a half nelson. His knife was in his right hand and only centimeters from her neck–held back by her hand on his wrist. The man began to
grin fiercely and shifted slightly to get more leverage on the knife hand.

Suddenly, his eyes widened and he stopped moving altogether–not even breathing. Steve could hear a gentle tapping sound. He searched for the source and smiled when he found
it.

In her left hand, Ace’s razor-sharp blade was gently tapping a rhythm against the zipper of the man’s trousers. She glanced over her shoulder and raised a single eyebrow in question.

Her opponent slowly released the pressure on her neck and stepped back. Ace turned around, bowed slightly, and then the
hand without the knife twitched in a lightning series of signs. There was an intake of breath from around the
circle.

When she stopped, her opponent asked in English, “Really? Manolo in LA trained you? Prove
it.”

“Well, when I last saw him, he still had ‘USMC’ tattooed under his
tongue.”

The man laughed. “Yeah, a
puta
would see something like that.”

There was a moment’s silence. Then she said. “No, I saw it when I had my arm across his throat and he was about to choke to death. That’s also when he got all that blood in his right eye. In a manner of speaking, it was my
graduation.”

There was a murmur of mixed doubts and laughter. “Come on. Do you really want me to go through this with each and every one of you?” Ace looked around the circle slowly. “Because we need
to leave and I tend to get…messy…if I’m
rushed.”

There was a dead silence. Ace turned, walked back to the car, and began to pick up and reposition her
weapons.

Another of the gang members stepped forward. He had a horrendous scar running from above his left eyebrow almost to his right ear–just missing his eyes. “Nice fight,
bruja.”

Ace didn’t look up from checking her backup pistol. “I’m not
a witch. Just good at what I
do.”

“You are
susurros de Muerte
,
si?”

“Whispering Death?” Ace laughed. “Man, that’s really old- school. But what the hell, it’ll
do.”

“But you can’t be. A woman is never allowed on the beach at Coronado.”

“Well, I guess I’m just special that way. Learn to live with it.”

“You must meet with Carlos, our
primera palabra
. That was his brother Hector that you fought. I am Jairo,
segunda palabra
.”

He shrugged. “Otherwise, we cannot let you leave. There are strange things.
Magia negra.
We have seen the
cadejo.
Carlos needs to get some
answers.”