I'd always wondered how I'd react when they came for me. How I imagined the moment depended on my mood. If I'd just wrapped a big rally or won a high-profile case, I'd feel invulnerable. They couldn't touch me. They wouldn't dare. I knew that I'd be careful enough to avoid the death squads.
If they did come for me, I'd be like Bruce Willis or Steven Segal, kick the bad guy in the crotch, grab his AK47 as it flipped through the air, and then blast all my attackers as they stood watching. They were murdering, drug-dealing scum. I was a young, talented, and ambitious state prosecutor with the law, public sentiment, and justice on my side.
Other times, a fellow prosecutor or a judge or a reporter would disappear. That would shake me. Worst was when a body would be found in the slums, killed after long torture, missing body parts. Those were the times that I felt the most exposed and most mortal.
In retrospect, the only thing I had going for me was a lack of friends and family.
So I was a bit shocked when the driver stopped and unlocked the doors. Two men pushed me to the center of my seat with AK47s. I couldn't see their eyes behind their mirrored sunglasses.
I'm sitting there with my heart popping out of my chest. No one says anything. No one has to. I feel my hand vibrate from the surge of adrenaline. My chance to do something is slipping away and those damned rifle muzzles are jammed into my ribs. I'm paralyzed.
This is nowhere close to how I imagined it.
The rush is fading and I have time to look around and think. The goon on my right has a mustache. The one on my left looks like a kid.
We’re driving down crowded city streets. It would take just a glance inside the car to see the rifles. These guys obviously don't care.
And the driver. He works for my brother-in-law. What's his name? Jorge. He's picked me up from the airport dozens of times. Why now?
I catch his eyes in the rearview mirror. I risk opening my mouth.
"Jorge. Why?"
The driver turns to the mustached guy on my right who shrugs.
"I work for your sister's husband. He pays me $10,000 a year. After this, I can join my wife and children in the north. We can buy a house."
We drive for two hours through the desert. The rush is gone, pushed out by a suffocating dread. Still no one speaks a word.
The late afternoon sun drops to the hills. A coyote sprints across the dirt road in front of us.
My stomach rumbles and I realize that my last meal was an airline deli sandwich in a plastic bag.
The car crunches to a stop. The older guy on my right gets out and I'm prodded from the left to follow.
I can feel myself succumbing to shock.
I plod after the first gunman in a sort of hallucination of denial.
This can't be happening.
We walk to a pit just off the road a few yards.
Two bodies already lay in the shallow ditch. I recognize them. Mike Reynolds and his wife Missy. She was a dancer at one of the local clubs. Rumors had them dealing. I guess the rumors were right. Mike is in his pajamas. Missy is in some sort of white negligée thing. Mike's face looks corpse gray-yellow. Missy looks like she's sleeping except for the bullet hole and blood. It must be her makeup.
"Turn around."
I turn to face the gunmen. The one with the mustache steps up and presses his AK47 against my forehead. Urine warms my leg.
"Hey, let me do this one," the younger one calls out.
The older one shrugs and stands aside.
The kid steps forward, draws his pistol...
*
Waves of pain and sickness washed through me. It felt like hours before I could form a thought outside of the constant throbbing. When I finally opened my eyes, I saw clear desert morning sky.
I felt something cold and soft under my hands. Jorge the driver lay across my legs, putting them to sleep. I turned my head, saw Missy's profile, and remembered what happened.
*
The doctors call me a lucky man. The bullet passed through the top of my forehead, gouging a crease along my scalp. The meninges were left intact, but the shock knocked me out.
I sold my house and my car and moved to Denver. I'm working now as a paralegal and going to night school.
When I see footage of nameless Chinese prisoners led out into the street and shot in the head, or ancient film of Russian criminals shot, or Eddie Adams's picture of General Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon, I have a better idea of what's going on. I used to wonder why the condemned didn't run or fight. Now I know.
The bullet changed me in other ways. I have less patience now. I have trouble concentrating for long periods. The doctors say these symptoms may go away or they might be permanent.
Various authorities have asked me to cooperate or testify, but I won't. I've used up all my luck.
Pakeha