Over the Line

by Kelly Irvin

  She scooped up the gun and slid away. Sullivan tried to follow. A scream of pain reverberated inside the van.

  That leg must hurt. She should feel for him. She couldn’t.

  Natalie had her door open. Gabriella hauled herself between the seats. “Go, go!”

  Natalie slid out, legs first in an elegant move marred only by the pain-filled grunt that followed. Her upper body fell forward. She caught herself with her good arm and lowered herself to the ground on one side.

  Her glasses were in the foot well. Gabriella stuck the gun in the waistband of her jeans and grabbed the glasses. She dove over Natalie onto the hard-packed dirt beyond, rolled, and came up on her knees.

  Grabbing her sister under the arms, Gabriella dragged her behind the enormous tires toward the back of the trailer. It was parked next to two or three more. All were butt-end against loading docks with the typical sliding doors that looked as if they hadn’t been opened in years. Window dressing. To get behind their semi, she would have to shimmy onto the dock and try the doors until she found one she could open. Exposed all the while.

  “Are we having fun yet?” Natalie panted. Her cheeks were red. Blood dripped from her bottom lip. “Is there a way out?”

  Gabriella handed her the glasses. The bows were askew and one lens cracked. “Do you still have the Sig?”

  Natalie slid them on her nose. “Better than nothing.” She tugged the gun from her capris’ waistband. “It’s been a while, but I assume it’s like riding a bike.”

  Not like riding a bike. Neither of them had ever aimed at a live target while under fire.

  Gabriella checked Sullivan’s weapon. A standard issue law enforcement Sig Sauer P320 9 mil, with an extended magazine that held 21 rounds.

  Not much against what were sure to be AK-47s that held thirty rounds. Still, better than nothing. Her back to the dock, Gabriella edged forward until she could peer around the carnage of two vehicles. Half a dozen men in camouflage approached with a variety of weapons. Big ones, as Natalie so eloquently summarized them.

  Behind them, approached another cluster of people. More guys in camo. More guns. And a woman. Slender. Chestnut hair pulled into a ponytail that bobbed. Sandals exchanged for black cowboy boots. The long-standing question of Sunny Mendez’s role in this fiasco had now been answered.

  The AR-10 she carried was taller than she was.

  Someone shouted.

  Sullivan responded. The bad guys now knew Gabriella and Natalie were on the run. So to speak.

  “Do you see Eli or Deacon or Jake?” Natalie rolled onto her belly and propped herself up on her good arm. She laid the gun in the dirt long enough to pull herself up next to Gabriella. One look and the Sig returned to her hand. “Who’s the woman?”

  “That would be Jake’s fiancée.”

  Chapter 40

  A long walk off a short cliff. The fact that their captors didn’t bother with the hoods signaled their intent. Keenly aware of the firepower at his back, Eli stepped off the hydraulic lift and raised his arm to his eyes to block the sun that shone through open doors that would take them from a cavernous warehouse with a cement floor and corrugated metal walls.

  A dozen or more men packed weapons into large wooden boxes. Busy-bee workers. Handling dozens of assault rifles, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, belt-fed magazines, armor carriers, and camouflage suits. Christmas in August for the cartel.

  Beyond them stood several more in a tight cluster, talking and smoking cigarettes. The desire for one hit of nicotine flooded Eli. One man stood a head taller than the others. He wore his long silver hair in a ponytail that hung from under a gray cowboy hat.

  A hundred mental red flags appeared like poppies in a field.

  “Hermano.” The captor with the melodic voice and perfect manners called out. “Aquí estamos.”

  Cigar in hand, the man turned.

  Andy Mendez. “Ah, our guests.”

  Eli cleared his throat and spat. “So it’s you.”

  Without warning Jake came to life. He jerked loose from Deacon’s hold and tottered forward. “What did you do to her? How could a father involve his daughter in something like this?”

  Mendez guffawed and slapped the man standing closest to him on the back. “You can bring a man out of the tunnel and have him still be in the dark.”

  Jake staggered past Eli. Camo Man grabbed his arm and held him there. “Where do you think you’re going, amigo?”

  “Where is she?”

  “You think I dragged my daughter into this?” Smoke trailing behind him, Mendez swaggered across the cement floor in black cowboy boots. “Getting with you was her idea. She saw you at the church and she came home to tell me all about how friendly you were—to her and to her friend Beto. I wasn’t in favor of messing with an ATF agent, but it turned into an asset until that idiot Sullivan jumped the gun and grabbed you at the river. M’jita had you wrapped around her little finger. And now, she’s outside getting ready to bring in your sister.”

  Gabriella wouldn’t make the same mistake. Please God, don’t let her make the same mistake. They needed to get outside now. Find a way to warn her off. Eli slid closer to Jake. “Let it go.”

  “Who is this guy?” Deacon shoved forward. “Can I at least get a name?”

  “Meet Andy Mendez, former Webb County sheriff, Vietnam veteran, and cattle rancher.”

  “Of course it is.” Deacon groaned. “My kingdom for a laptop.”

  “You must be the reporter.” An amused look on his craggy face, Mendez puffed on his cigar and let the smoke filter through his nostrils in a steady stream. “Sorry. We have other fish to fry.”

  He motioned to Camouflage Man. “I see you’ve met my older brother Pedro.”

  Pedro bowed. “I apologize for the circumstances. We really don’t have time to chat.” He nudged Eli with the AK-47. “We’re on a schedule here.”

  “By all means, we’ve sheep to slaughter. Let’s get it over with.”

  “Hey, I’m in no hurry.” Deacon dug in his heels. “I’m happy to talk it over.”

  “Move.” Pedro nudged him with the rifle barrel.

  Deacon held up his hands. “No worries.”

  Mendez chuckled again. “I’ll walk with you.”

  Like most megalomaniacs, the man appreciated an audience. Eli quickened his steps. “Being a cattle baron wasn’t enough for you after all those years in law enforcement? Too staid?”

  “Do you know what the droughts in the last ten years have done to cattle ranchers?” Mendez spared no sarcasm in the words. “During the last one, I couldn’t buy hay for my herd. I had to sell off two-thirds of it.”

  “So this is about money?”

  “It’s not like my pension is sufficient for my lifestyle. Or that of my daughter.” He wrinkled his nose as if something smelled bad. “But it’s more than that. You’re too young to remember the Vietnam War. I served my country in that hellhole for two tours of duty. I don’t even have a medal to show for it. When I came back, skinny college students who smelled of pot and danced naked at Woodstock spat on me.”

  Eli hadn’t served, but his brother was career Air Force. He understood in some small way. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

  “No, but it surely makes you feel better.”

  A man burst through the open doors. A flood of Spanish followed. Bottom line, the van they were expecting had arrived. It crashed into a semi and rolled over. The women were loose. Everyone moved at once. Mendez grabbed an AK-47 lying on a nearby bin and lumbered out the door.

  Pedro’s nudge became a shove. “Help your friend. Move, move, move.”

  Van. Women. Gabriella and Natalie had arrived.

  If they got out of here alive, he would lock them both in a room for life.

  Eli grabbed Jake’s arm on one side. Deacon grabbed the other. They hustled through the doors into a brutal setting sun. Jake recoiled. His legs buckled. “We’ve gotcha. Just stay with us.”

  “I’m okay. I can do
it.”

  But he couldn’t. Physical abuse plus three days and nights in the dark worked against him.

  “What’s going on?” Deacon wrapped his arm around Jake. “What was the guy saying?”

  Either Pedro and the others were too preoccupied by this turn of events to intervene, or it didn’t matter if the prisoners fraternized now. They wouldn’t be around much longer. “He said the people they were expecting showed up in a van. The van crashed. Kyle Sullivan is out there. He’s hurt. The two women are holding out.”

  “The two women.” Deacon shifted so Jake’s arm went over his shoulder. He leaned into the man’s weight. “Gabriella and Natalie.”

  “That’s my guess.”

  “What is wrong with them?”

  Eli couldn’t wait to demand an answer to that question. All these years he’d spent keeping Gabby at arm’s length because of some stupid macho man facade. All he wanted now was to talk to her, to tell her everything he was thinking and feeling. To talk until he couldn’t talk anymore.

  Pedro and the other guards herded them out into an open swath of dirt and gravel in front of several worse-for-wear warehouses. The mangled van and the immovable object that was a semitrailer couldn’t be missed.

  Guns drawn, half a dozen of Mendez’s men stood at attention several yards from it.

  Deacon whispered something that sounded like “Lord have mercy.”

  “They’ll want the video first,” Eli whispered. “They can still negotiate.”

  Gabriella was intelligent. She could think on her feet. God, please. Take me. Leave her.

  Mendez stood, massive legs akimbo, next to Sunny, who cradled her AR-10 like it was her baby. “Come on out, ladies.” Andy’s voice boomed in the quiet countryside. “Some friends of yours are here. Isn’t that what you came for? Your brother? Your friends?”

  The minute they came out, they would be sitting ducks for Andy’s sharpshooters. Eli shifted Jake’s weight toward Deacon. The reporter raised his eyebrows.

  Eli nodded.

  “We’ll even see if we can salvage your chair for you, Dr. Ferrari.” Mendez smoothed his hand across the butt of the assault rifle. “Come on out. You give us what we want. We’ll give you what you want.”

  When the earth turned to ashes.

  “Don’t do it, Gabs!” Eli flung his elbow into the guard’s gut on his left. The force knocked the man on his keister. “Get out. It’s a trap!”

  Pedro whirled. Eli smashed into him. They hit the ground together. Eli had the semiautomatic. Then he didn’t. Shots blistered the air all around him.

  * * *

  Eli was alive. His voice died away, but he was out there. Alive. Automatic gunfire splattered the semi before Gabriella had a chance to respond.

  Her heart rattling her chest, she popped up and fired back. One. Two. Three. Pain etching her face, Natalie hoisted herself up on her bad arm and did the same.

  “Eli’s out there.” Panting, her face contorted in pain, Natalie hunkered down. “That means Jake and Deacon could be too. What if we hit one of them?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Are they advancing on us?”

  Gabriella scooted around her sister long enough to peek through the van’s shattered window. She crawled back. “Yeah. I can’t see Eli or the others.”

  Please God, let them be okay. Take me. Not them.

  She popped off two more rounds. Five gone. A dozen left. “I need to get up on the dock, see if we can get into the warehouse.”

  “We’ll be trapped in there.”

  “There’ll be exits on the other side.”

  “We can’t rescue our guys running away.”

  “We can’t rescue them if we get caught.”

  “Go.” Natalie eased up to the top of the dock. She propped herself up on her bad arm and fired.

  Jesus, help me. Gabriella hoisted herself onto the deck and crawled toward the doors flat on her belly, like a worm. Any second a bullet would pierce her brain and splatter it all over the dirty rubber matting. Or sever her spine. She kept moving.

  After eons, she could touch the door. She scrambled to her knees. Loath to lay the gun down, she stuck it in her waistband and used both hands to tug on it. The door creaked. It moaned. It screeched.

  Finally, it moved a few inches. Then a few more.

  God, is this Your idea of an exit plan?

  Adrenaline and sheer terror combined to give her the strength of five bodybuilders. The door rose another two feet. She peered inside. Rows of boxes and crates. Front-end loaders.

  A working warehouse. Storing what?

  Gabriella whirled and did her commando crawl back through open enemy territory to Natalie. “We’re in. Let’s go.”

  “What? Are you planning to carry me?”

  “It might sound romantic to die in a hail of gunfire, but I’d rather not.” Gabriella leaned over and grabbed her arms. “We’ll crawl together.”

  “We’re not getting out of here. I’d rather stand our ground and go down fighting than get trapped inside.”

  “We don’t have time to argue—”

  The sound of high-powered engines roaring mixed with the gunfire. Metal smashed into metal.

  “Is that help coming?” Natalie tugged free. “I can’t see.”

  “Stay put.” Still hunkered down, Gabriella hopped from the dock and climbed over her. She edged through the van’s driver’s-side door. AC would no longer be needed. It had been thoroughly aerated with bullet holes.

  A WCSO armored SWAT vehicle blocked the van. Ricon had sent them on from the rendezvous spot. Sullivan’s own guys would bring him down. ATF and ICE vehicles rolled in behind it. Chuck Jensen squatted behind a black SUV’s bumper.

  The cavalry.

  She eased back from the van and crawled around the back until she could dodge between the van and the SUV. “Jensen!”

  One fierce glance pierced her. “Stay down. Jake? Cavazos?”

  “Eli’s out there. I don’t know about the others.” Gabriella closed her eyes. Please God.

  No other words came. None were needed. He knew her heart.

  “Stop, stop, stop!”

  A woman’s screams tore through the air.

  “Cease fire. Cease fire.” A hoarse command from an unseen man.

  The volley of shots ended.

  Silence followed so magnified it hurt Gabriella’s ears.

  Silence and sobs.

  She crawled to Jensen’s side. He grabbed a bullhorn from the SUV. “Lay down your weapons. On your knees. Hands behind your heads.”

  The few remaining men in camo did as they were told.

  Weapons ready, WCSO SWAT officers and a horde of Feds descended on them.

  Gabriella followed Jensen out. His weapon extended, he looked back and growled. “Stay.”

  “I have to get to Eli. I have to find Deacon and Jake.”

  “Not until we clear the area.”

  “Gabby!”

  She raced back behind the semi. Natalie struggled to pull herself up. “We need to find them. Get my chair. Please.”

  “I’ll get it. Can you wait while I search for them?”

  “Bring them to me. And my chair.”

  “I will.”

  Adrenaline, already like a flash fire in her body, consumed Gabriella. She swallowed and gritted her teeth. Everything came down to this moment. One foot in front of the other. Step by step. God, please, please. Her mind wanted to run, but her feet refused to cooperate.

  Dead or alive.

  God, please.

  The industrial park looked like a scene from a war movie.

  Except the blood was real. The screams were real.

  The sobs were real.

  Her face sodden with tears, Sunny Mendez hunched over a huge mound of a man. She glanced up at Gabriella. “They killed Daddy? How could they?” Hiccupping a sob, she stumbled to her feet and grabbed at Gabriella’s dirt-and-sweat-stained T-shirt. “You did this. You made them come. You killed him.”


  Precariously close to the precipice of fury, Gabriella peeled the woman’s fingers from her clothes. Her stomach heaved with disgust. A lost child of God, absolutely. God, forgive me. “You killed him. He killed himself. By trafficking in illegal weapons. Do you know how many families have lost loved ones in Mexico because you funneled weapons into that country?”

  Wasted breath. “Where’s Eli? Where’s Jake? Where’s Deacon?”

  “I don’t know.” Sunny pushed at Gabriella with both hands, her pink nails broken and dirty. “I hope you find them back there, dead. So you can know what this feels like.”

  A SWAT officer grabbed Sunny’s arms and tucked them behind her. The zip ties clicked into place. Sunny screamed and struggled. “No, no, I have to stay with Daddy.”

  Gabriella backed away. Sunny thrust forward and spit on her. The eyes of a psychopath stared up at her. This woman was a skilled actor who had manipulated Jake for her own personal gain with no thought for the pain and suffering she caused him or others.

  “God will forgive you. I hope I can.” Gabriella turned and ducked past SWAT officers who handcuffed and moved prisoners to the other side of the vehicles to await transport. The Feds explored nooks and crannies, looking for runners. Other officers already cataloged weapons and dropped evidence tents next to expended cartridges.

  Past bodies.

  Kyle Sullivan had crawled from the van and lay facedown in the scraggly grass. Blood soaked the ground under him.

  “Gabriella!”

  “Deacon!” She jolted forward. Deacon leaned over a man who lay on the ground, legs intertwined with that of a man in camouflage and black army boots. Deacon had both hands on the man’s chest.

  Black jeans and a blue short-sleeved cotton shirt.

  Nikes.

  The sound of her own breathing filled her ears until her head might explode.

  Eli.

  She stumbled forward. “Eli, Eli?”

  “We need an ambulance!” Deacon didn’t look up. “Now!”

  “We need an ambulance.” She turned and screamed. “Get an ambulance. Now!”

  “They’re on their way.” A man in an ATF jacket yelled as he marched a prisoner past them. “As many as we can get.”