Blood Game: A Jock Boucher Thriller (36 page)
Read Blood Game: A Jock Boucher Thriller Online
Authors: David Lyons
Tags: #Thrillers, #Political, #Contemporary, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction
“But I don’t have enough to serve you all,” Maria said.
Two men in uniform, one an officer of the U.S. Park Service, the second from the U.S. Border Patrol, carried a cooler.
“I hope we’re not committing a customs violation,” one said, “but we brought some beer to celebrate.”
“There’s no violation if you share it,” their Mexican counterpart shouted.
• • •
The small, remote crossing with no bridge, not even a ferry, was one of several authorized international crossings on the Rio Grande that had been closed by the U.S. government more than a decade earlier as part of tightened border security. Visitors to parks on the Texas side of the river and tourists who rafted down the riparian frontier had once included stops in Mexican towns on their agenda, but the tourists and their business dried up with the border closings. The towns lost their economic sustenance, and friends separated by the river lost contact. Maria’s
husband, who rowed visitors across the river, lost his sole source of income. Years of effort on both sides had finally brought about the crossing’s reopening, but a major impetus had been the recent death of a local drug lord whose criminal enterprise had rampaged across the region. A large number of known and violent criminals had also been captured, the circumstances mysteriously not covered in the local media. The narco’s death had brought stability to the area. Boucher had read of the inauguration of the crossing, not far from where he had recently entered Mexico in a much different manner, and decided he had to be there for the event.
“Hey, Rigoberto,” someone yelled out to Maria’s husband as he shared a beer with a border patrol officer, “don’t you sing anymore when you row your customers across?”
The burly man blushed as the cry was taken up.
“It has been a long time,” he said in Spanish, then stood and began a familiar
ranchera
ballad.
Jock recognized the tune and asked Maria its name.
“ ‘
Volver, Volver.’
It is about a man returning to his lost love.”
“Does she take him back?”
“With open arms.” Maria smiled. “With open arms.”
Jock’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and recognized the number on the screen. His smile vanished. There was a look of grim determination on his face as he answered the call he had dreaded.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
EDUARDO SOLORZANO
DAVID LYONS
was born in England and was raised and educated in the United States and abroad. After obtaining his license to practice law, Lyons pursued advanced studies in international law and worked in Paris. He is currently writing his next novel.
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by David Lyons
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First Emily Bestler Books/Atria Paperback edition August 2013
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lyons, David.
Blood game : a Jock Boucher thriller / by David Lyons.
pages cm
1. Judges—Fiction. 2. Police—Louisiana—New Orleans—Fiction. 3. Suspense fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.Y5745B57 2013
813'.6—dc23 2012050303
ISBN 978-1-4516-2932-3
ISBN 978-1-4516-2934-7 (ebook)