Down Among the Dead Men (A Thriller) (38 page)

“Yes,” she said. “So help me remember. Tell me how I know you and why I came here.”

The boy said nothing, staring down at their hands now, his smile gone.

“Please, Cristo. Please help me remember.”

When he looked up at her again, there were tears in his eyes. “How do you forget me, Elizabeth? I bring you food when you are hungry. Like the old woman brings food for us.”

“The woman on the bicycle?”

“Sí,”
he said. “She is a friend of Father Gerard. She take care of us when they kill him.”

Beth glanced at Vargas and Ortiz.

“Who killed him? La Santa Muerte?”

Cristo nodded. “I watch from up there,” he said, pointing to the balcony. “They cut his throat, and let him bleed in front of Jesus. They tell him he is a traitor to El Santo because of what he did.”

“Because he helped you?”

“
Sí
. Just like you help us, when you were strong again. They keep you in the cage, give you poisons, try to make you one of them. But I bring you food. I make you strong. I take care of you.”

Beth squeezed his hands. “Tell me everything, Cristo. Be my memory for me.”

He let go of her then and stood up.

“Better I show you,” he said, then squeezed past her and started down the aisle toward the altar.

Beth got to her feet, gesturing to Vargas and Ortiz. “Can my friends come, too?”

Cristo stopped and turned.
“Sí,”
he said. “I show you all.”

T
HEY FOLLOWED HIM
as he moved the past the choir stall and opened a door, gesturing them inside. He led them down a narrow hallway to a tiny, cluttered office, then moved to a wall that was dominated by a large woven reredos depicting the birth of Christ. Grabbing it by the corner, he pulled it back to reveal a hole in the wall where a door used to be.

Cristo took a small flashlight from his pocket, flicked it on, then led them down a set of wooden steps to a storeroom crowded with the shadowy remnants of the church’s past: old lecterns, several floor candlesticks, a broken font, and at least two wooden kneelers.

He crossed to another door, produced a key from the same pocket, then unlocked it and threw it open.

Behind it was a small cramped closet, with several cardboard boxes piled up inside.

Cristo shoved the boxes aside to reveal another hole, this one low to the ground. Stepping through it, he waved for them to follow.

Beth, Vargas, and Ortiz exchanged looks, then stooped down and climbed through the hole, finding themselves in a long, narrow tunnel, its mud walls braced by thick pieces of lumber.

“Come,” Cristo said, and using the flashlight to guide them, he moved toward the far end of the tunnel where it abruptly turned left.

As she walked, Beth began to get that feeling of déjà vu again, knowing that she’d been down here before.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“Father Gerard say the church use the tunnels to smuggle guns and hide freedom fighters during the Revolution.”

They reached a junction, the tunnel splitting off in several directions, and took another left. Beth was surprised to hear the faint echo of waves crashing.

And just beneath that, something else.…

“Do you hear that?” she asked Vargas.

“Sounds like kids,” he said. “Playing.”

Beth’s heartbeat began to accelerate as they followed Cristo along a curve in the tunnel, the sounds growing louder with every step.

A moment later they were standing in a large cave, carved out of the cliff. And beyond it, the Sea of Cortez stretched out endlessly toward the horizon.

There were about a dozen children here, some playing, others eating fruit and sweet breads, while still others lay asleep on straw mats. It looked as if every single one of them had burn marks on their bodies: face, hands, legs—some worse than others.

A young girl, whose forehead was mottled with scars, saw them and shouted, “Elizabeth!” and one by one they turned to look at Beth.

And the next thing she knew they were all crowding around her, hugging her, touching her, saying her name.

91

F
IVE BOYS AND
seven girls.

Refugees. Victims of the La Santa Muerte cleansing rituals, and brought here one by one by Cristo.

Cristo had been the first to flee, shortly after his third cleansing, when his burns were still raw and festering, the pain nearly unbearable.

He had escaped late at night, through a labyrinth of underground tunnels and caves beneath the La Santa Muerte compound. This, he told them, was where the cleansings and fire ceremonies took place.

When Beth asked about these fire ceremonies, Cristo explained that many women who were brought into the compound were forced to work in private brothels throughout the country. Those who did not succumb to the will of El Santo were offered in sacrifice to La Santisima, strapped to the Holy Chair and burned alive.

Beth thought of Jen and Andy, and what Rafael had told her, and again a nearly uncontrollable anger rose in her chest. But she fought it off. She had to keep a rational mind.

Children were also brought to the compound, Cristo said. Some from as far away as Monterrey and Piedras Negras. They were snatched from the slums—sometimes in broad daylight—then brought to the compound to be indoctrinated and trained to go out into the streets of the cities to deliver drugs for the local dealers. Some of the children were sold into sexual slavery and auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Most of the children came from poverty and neglect and were happy to have food and shelter. But those who revolted or misbehaved were cleansed during the nightly prayer. And sometimes they, too, were sacrificed on Holy Friday.

When Vargas asked why no one went to the police about this, Cristo told him that the police and the politicians could not be trusted. Many of them were believers, followers of El Santo, and La Santa Muerte’s network extended far and wide. Even nonbelievers protected and worked with them, lining their pockets with El Santo’s gold.

And those, like Cristo, who had managed to escape and had the opportunity to expose the cult, were hunted down and killed. Cristo and his brothers and sisters here in the cave were the lucky ones, thanks to Father Gerard.

And Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth and her sister were brought to the compound, they were separated and the sister, Jennifer—who was with child—was kept in the High House with Marta and Rafael.

Elizabeth, however, was taken to the cages, where, at Rafael’s command, she was chained to the floor like a mongrel and beaten and starved and fed drugs. Cristo, who was in charge of washing down the cages, felt sorry for her, and late at night he would sneak back and bring her food and try to talk to her. They did not speak the same words, but after a while, with Elizabeth’s help, Cristo began to learn her language.

El Santo and Rafael thought they could break her, as they had so easily with her sister. But Cristo knew better. Elizabeth was strong-willed and would not bend.

But she wasn’t stupid. She pretended to go along with them, allowing Rafael and El Santo and whoever they chose to defile her.

Elizabeth soon became Rafael’s trophy, Cristo told them, and was free to roam the compound—which was heavily guarded by men with guns. She was even given access to the High House, all the while plotting with Cristo to escape.

And to take Jennifer with them.

Then one night Cristo made a discovery. A part of the tunnels that was hidden from view, blocked by fallen rock. There was a hole in the wall, and through that hole he found more tunnels and more caves, and soon he was standing in the church.

“The tunnels lead here?” Ortiz asked.

“Sí,”
Cristo said. “They lead many places. They run like a maze beneath the city, and most who know about them stay away for fear of getting lost forever.”

In his exploration of the tunnels, it was not unusual for Cristo to come across old bones or a rotting corpse.

When he found the church, Cristo shared his discovery with Elizabeth and they knew that this would be their way out. But before they could execute a plan, Jennifer gave birth, and Elizabeth said they must wait until the baby was strong enough to travel.

Then Cristo was caught stealing an extra ration of food and was taken for a cleansing, and in his pain that night he fled, coming straight to the church before collapsing beneath the statue of Jesus. He was discovered the next morning by Father Gerard and the sisters, who took care of Cristo’s wounds and nursed him to health.

And when he was healed, he told Father Gerard of La Santa Muerte and where he was from.

“Are there more children like you?” the father asked.

“Sí,”
Cristo said. “Many more.”

Father Gerard, who was very, very old, had once lived in a faraway place. And during a great war, he had worked with many people to smuggle refugees out of their country. He asked Cristo if he was willing to go back into the tunnels and bring more children to the church.

Cristo agreed, and late at night he returned to the compound and found Elizabeth, who was overjoyed to see him. He told her of Father Gerard’s request, and the two of them worked together to bring many of Cristo’s friends to safety.

The sisters from the church then traveled with them by fishing boat across the gulf to Mazatlán. They made many trips, ferrying two or three children at a time.

But with so many disappearing from the compound, the elders began searching the tunnels, suspicious that the children had found a way out. They never discovered the secret passage, but Elizabeth became nervous, afraid that it was only a matter of time before they did.

When El Santo announced that the next child caught trying to escape would be dealt with on Holy Friday, the children began to refuse to leave with Cristo, for fear they would be sacrificed. And Elizabeth knew that her time had come.

“What about the baby?” Beth asked.

“He was old enough by then,” Cristo said. “But convincing the mother to go was not so easy.”

Jennifer had been brainwashed. Was so deep under Marta’s spell that she would not leave. Elizabeth begged her to go, but Jennifer refused, and when she threatened to expose Elizabeth to El Santo, Elizabeth had no choice but to take the baby and run.

“The last time I saw you,” Cristo said, pointing toward the ocean, “you were standing with the sisters on the fishing boat with Andilito in your arms. You did not want to leave us, but there was no room, and Father Gerard insisted that the baby must come first. That the sisters would travel with you through Mexico to Juárez and smuggle you across the border.”

Cristo stood then, remembering the moment.

“You said you would come back for us. That you knew many people in America and they would do everything they could to destroy El Santo’s empire. But then many days went by and you did not return. No Elizabeth, no sisters, no fishing boats. And after many weeks passed, the elders came and killed Father Gerard. But they did not find us. So we stayed down here in the cave, waiting for you to return.”

Beth turned to Vargas and Ortiz. “They must have tracked us. Found us hiding in that house in Chihuahua, then shot us all and took the baby.”

“That would be my guess,” Vargas said, then looked at Cristo. “Would you be willing to go into the tunnels again? Take us to El Santo’s compound?”

“Sí,”
Cristo said. “But it is not safe to travel by day. There are too many elders with big guns in the tunnels. Better we wait until tonight, when everyone is in the Great Chamber for the celebration of Día de los Muertos.”

Vargas turned to Beth and she nodded.

“Tonight it is, then,” he said, then turned to Ortiz. “We’re going to need some supplies.”

Ortiz responded to him, but Beth had stopped listening. Her thoughts were elsewhere at the moment, her mind struggling with those dark shapes again, kneading them, trying to push them into the light.

There was something about her story that seemed unfinished. The final piece of the puzzle that had not yet been put into place. Something about Juárez.

But it didn’t matter.

It was all coming to an end in just a few hours, and Jennifer and Andy would soon be safe.

PART FOUR

Los Hombres Muertos

92

Marta

M
ARTA WAS WORRIED
. It had been many hours since she’d last heard from Rafael, and it was unlike him not to keep in touch with her.

Here they were, so close to the great ceremony, and her brother was still out there somewhere, defying the will of El Santo—as he so often did.