by JT Sawyer
“Anna,” he said with a curious expression. He glanced around the dark alley then back at her. “What are you doing out here?”
She moved forward with a sway, her floral-print dress flowing around her hips. Anna smiled and ran her finger up his arm. “I have had a little too much to drink and could use a ride home.”
Martin half-grinned then looked back at the exit door he’d just come from. “Mateo is…”
She pressed a finger up to his lips then spoke. “Shh, no, my husband mustn’t find out how much rum his wife has had.” She giggled then let the movement of her eyelids slow as she stared at him. “It’ll be our little secret.”
“Of course—my car is just around the block.” He held her by the arm and steadied her as they walked.
Upon entering the single-car garage, he opened the passenger door and eased her inside. Trotting around the other side, he climbed into his seat. Before he could start the vehicle, Anna drove a stun gun into the soft flesh of his neck; his limbs spasmed violently with the current of electricity ripping through him. She kept depressing the device until he was limp, then removed a pair of zip-ties from her purse and attached both of his hands to the steering wheel.
A few minutes later, his eyelids flickered as he awoke. He ran his tongue over his cracked lips and then looked down at his tethered hands. “Anna, why are you doing this?” He slurred out the words.
She removed a small whiskey flask from her purse and poured the fluid on the fabric around the man’s crotch, then repositioned the stun gun between his legs. “Now, you will answer my questions about Mateo’s plans across the border or you will hurt like no one has ever hurt before.” She pressed her lips against his pale ear. “If you choose not to cooperate then I will turn my attention to that sweet elderly mother that you take care of.”
***
With the stun gun’s batteries drained after twenty minutes of prodding, Anna had the answers she craved. She cut Martin’s limp wrists free then dumped his dead body in the street and drove to a dark alley six blocks away. She sat for a long time, alternating between tapping her nails on the steering wheel and chewing on them until the pitter-patter was unproductive. Anna was shocked at the ambitious scope of Mateo’s plan. Kidnapping the son of a prominent rancher north of the border will only put the cartel in the spotlight. The full weight of American law-enforcement will swing down upon them if Mateo isn’t careful enough to cover his tracks.
That he was after Rafael came as no surprise, but Mateo’s audacity behind the cartel’s back ran the risk of endangering not only his life but that of her and her child. Anna’s throat constricted as she recalled a knee-high pile of charred heads and body parts in the desert belonging to a group of low-level smugglers who stole a shipment of heroin and then tried to sell it in Tijuana a month later.
Anna pulled out her iPhone and scrolled through the numbers, eventually settling upon the name of Montoya. He was the cartel kingpin that Mateo reported to and who oversaw all the jurisdictions along the border from Las Cruces to Yuma. She let her finger hover over his name then pulled it away and scrolled down the list further, to a number that was unlisted. Anna bit her lower lip as her thumb floated over the blue digits. She took a deep breath and looked out at the dark-tinted window while hitting the call symbol.
With her breathing growing faint after the seventh ring, she thought of hanging up. By the sixteenth, she switched the phone to the other ear while checking her appearance in the rearview mirror. Finally, after twenty-one rings, she heard the click of the receiver. Then followed the sound of the wind rustling in the speaker followed by a man’s husky voice.
“Si,” he kept repeating, followed by silence, then another attempt to elicit a response. “Si.”
She swallowed hard, the luring effect of his voice tugging on the yielding flesh of her heart. Her eyes welled up as she whispered, “Rafael.”
Chapter 22
Alex moved closer to Tony as they stood near the bumper of their SUV, with the rear hatch open to provide some shade. They stayed out of earshot of the Jacobs family, who were milling around the front porch, talking on their cellphones.
“I did a little digging and looked up some of the folks here like you requested,” said Alex. “The Jacobs family checks out—nothing unusual about them. Seem like the salt-of-the-earth type folks you’d expect to find out here.” Alex leaned out a little bit to check on Dev’s whereabouts. “But that Israeli lady and her so-called friend are another story.”
Tony put one foot up on the rear bumper and tilted his chin up. “Go on.”
“She runs her own firm called Gideon over in Tel Aviv. They handle high-profile K&R cases all over the globe.”
“Hmm, so maybe they are here for a reason other than sightseeing.”
“There’s more—her friend, this guy Mitch Kearns she mentioned, he’s with the Kearns ranch west of here and get this: he’s a former Green Beret and worked with the FBI in Phoenix for years.”
“Damn, those are a lot of ‘coincidences.’”
“Exactly—maybe Kearns took off to cover up some evidence back at the crash site. Hell, maybe he’s even extorting the Jacobs family—lot of these ranchers are having a hard time of it and maybe Kearns needs the cash. Could even be some kinda blood feud going back a few generations—who knows? Maybe the whole Kearns family is in on this. We should make a visit to their place—Steven Jacobs could be there for all we know.”
Tony glanced over at Dev, who was sitting at the far end of the porch. “Best not to alert anyone of our intentions, so I’ll just tell the others we’re heading down the road to the crash site to meet up with the forensics team.”
“Yeah, what came of that—weren’t there supposed to be other agency resources on site by now?”
“Probably got tied up with another investigation somewhere else,” Tony said as he walked off towards the house. A few minutes later, he returned and then both men headed off in the SUV.
As they bobbed along the rutted dirt road towards the Kearns ranch, Alex kept his gaze fixed upon the terrain outside his window. “You know, I imagine the only reason these ranchers out here haven’t been overrun by the cartels is because of their close proximity to one another—strength in numbers and all that. I mean, besides the Jacobs and Kearns ranches, there are a couple of more private inholdings surrounding their plots, and then…” He paused as the vehicle came to a stop in a shaded swath of trees beside a rocky basin.
Tony glanced down at his cellphone, then let out a deep sigh. Tucking the phone back into his shirt pocket, he leaned over and unbuckled his seatbelt.
“What’s up—was that HQ?” said Alex.
“Nope, somebody higher up in my world, actually.”
“Higher up—you mean from DC?”
“Not exactly.” He motioned to the right with his hand. “Say, can you roll your window down for a second?”
Alex shrugged his shoulders, staring intently out his window. “Yeah, sure—why, what do you see?”
Tony placed his left hand over his right ear then removed his pistol and fired a round into the side of Alex’s skull. The resulting gunshot sprayed bone shrapnel and blood out the opening onto the rocks below. The gaping exit wound was large enough to let a shaft of sunlight filter in through the narrow entry hole as Tony stared into the lifeless face of the young agent.
He rolled up the window to prevent the limp figure’s torso from hanging out the side then he backed up the vehicle and spun it around. “Sorry, kid. I got bigger fish to fry and you’re going to be the bait to get the show rolling.”
Tony sped back towards the Jacobs ranch, aware that he only had ten minutes from the time he received the text until the arrival of Mateo’s strike team that was moving in on the ranch. He needed to be out of sight inside the house when that happened so his cover would remain intact. The smugglers might be new guys who wouldn’t recognize him in the SUV but if they were any of the old crew then they might find his choice of vehicle suspicious.
Tony had to secure one of the Jacobs vehicles and get away with the hard drive. It was the only way to gain access to Mateo again.
Nearing the entrance to the ranch, he floored it and screeched on the brakes before the main house. Jumping out of the rig, he grabbed his rifle and sprinted towards the front door as Dev and the others rushed up. Dev trotted up to the passenger’s side then stopped suddenly at the sight of the dead agent.
Tony did his best to act out of breath as he panted out his words. “Cartel guys shot Alex as we were driving—they’re just down the road, moving in on this place—four men, maybe more.” He forced his eyes to widen. “We’ve gotta get inside and barricade this place.”
Dev leaned forward to inspect the vehicle, which appeared unmarred, then she peered at the dead agent inside, his ruby-colored scalp dangling off the jagged edge of his skull.
“Where did this happen?” She saw a fleck of blood on Tony’s right wrist. Then she scrutinized Alex’s head again, noting the powder burn around the entrance wound. Close range—this guy wasn’t sniped.
Tony grabbed her by the arm, shoving her towards the house. “No time to talk—get inside.”
Dev shook his grip loose just as a section of wood trim splintered apart above her head from a volley of incoming rounds. With Amy snatched up by the grandparents and taken to the back room, Dev darted behind a bookcase while sneaking a glance out the front windows at the four armed men bounding from tree to tree.
Chapter 23
Mitch moved cautiously up the canyon, following the obvious trail of two men who didn’t seem concerned with covering their tracks.
Pointing to a set of square-toed prints in the sand, Mitch whispered over his shoulder towards Nora, “Your brother—he was wearing loafers or something similar by the lack of tread pattern?”
“Yeah, that sounds right. What does it matter? We know this has to be their trail.”
“Just trying to establish a baseline for the men we’re pursuing.” He stopped and pointed the muzzle of his rifle at the two sets of tracks meandering in the wash ahead, the crisp details of their outlines showing clearly in the late afternoon shadows cast into the canyon. “By the looks of it, Steven doesn’t appear to be injured—at least not in any way that would impede his movement. And the other fella is the one with the shorter stride so he’s probably in back carrying something and barking orders at your brother to move.”
Nora wrinkled her nose and squinted at the tracks. “You must be reading a whole lot more than me or you’re just full of the usual horseshit I remember you brimming with.”
He frowned and shook his head, then continued studying the ground. Mitch had based his findings on the stride and straddle of the two sets of tracks. Steven’s were in the normal range for an adult male of his stature walking on relatively level terrain. From that, he could deduce that the man wasn’t suffering from any severe injuries or dehydration which would have registered with a shorter stride and a wider straddle. The fact that the tracks of the rear figure had a right heel section that was consistently deeper meant he was either favoring his other leg or was carrying something on the right side. Mitch surmised the latter given the other evidence he’d already gathered about the briefcase that was most likely the whole reason they were even on this trail in the first place.
Mitch dragged the sleeve of his shirt over his sweaty brow. “I don’t have time to give you a lesson but the bottom line is that your brother looks like he’s alright. Now, they’ve got about a two-hour lead on us from what I can tell so you’ll just have to trust me on this and stop second-guessing me around every bend in the trail.”
She pushed past him, trudging through the sand alongside the tracks, then waved a hand up at the immense rock walls. “It’s not that hard to follow a trail in here and they’d have to be pretty ambitious to find another way out. Besides, I can track ’em on my own—you can go back now if you want.”
Mitch trotted up beside her, examining the cliffs and boulders ahead for any threats. “Still as stubborn as before.”
She stopped abruptly, pivoting around and stomping up to him. “I don’t need your help.”
Mitch tilted his hat up. “Yeah, ya do. Because at the other end of this canyon there are probably going to be reinforcements—a dozen heavily armed guys or more with a sentry a half-mile from their location warning them of our approach. Hell, they may even set up some Claymores in the sand at the mouth. I’ve fought this kind of battle before, Nora—more than once, unfortunately.”
He moved an inch closer to her. “You’re pissed at me—I get it. Hold onto that anger—it will get you through the coming hours of what has to be done because this is only going to get uglier.” He leaned back, peering around the canyon again. “We’ll get your brother back but you’re not doing it alone. We’re doing it my way, using guerilla tactics and picking them off one by one.”
She clenched her jaw then eased up. “Alright, I agree that you probably have more experience with this than I do and so I will let you take the lead.” She motioned with her hand for him to move forward. “For now.”
Mitch let out a long exhale then walked ahead, continuing to intersperse his vision with the micro-environment of the footprints below and the surrounding terrain ahead. He would gather some clues by continuing to study the stride and straddle combined with scanning the ridgeline and nearby chokepoints for visual threats. In years past, his combat tracker team always consisted of at least three men. One served as the lead tracker, expending his visual energy on the trail; the second man recorded data, while providing a second set of eyes to interpret the tracks, and to radio back to the other teams; the third man’s job was solely focused on security, with his eyes scanning the terrain further out for any hostiles. Though he told Nora to watch their rear, Mitch found himself alternating between all three roles, which made for slower tracking.
Eventually, after ninety minutes of trudging over ankle-twisting rocks that alternated with stretches of fine sand, he motioned for them to take a break in the shade. Nora leaned against the fallen trunk of a tree and gulped down a bottle of water from her pack.
After Mitch had done the same, he examined the s-shaped curvature of the canyon. “If this is the same place I remember, this canyon should open up to a large valley not far from the border.”
“Yep, this is the one.”
“Not much out there as I recall, but then that was a long time ago.”
“Hasn’t changed—there’s an old weather service building and then the ‘border.’” She raised her fingers in air-quotes at the last word. “It’s just a four-foot-high section of barbed wire fence that goes on for about thirty miles in either direction.”
“Something you don’t read about in the news, now, isn’t it? They always show the photographs of the twelve-foot-high steel walls around Tijuana, like that represents our entire border security from California to Texas.” He shook his head then took another swig of water. “Hell, I went all the way across the globe to fight in wars so our country would be safer when we’ve got a daily incursion by a major crime syndicate going on right here.”
“This is nothing new for any of us down here. You sound surprised—didn’t your uncle ever tell you about how bad it’s gotten?”
“I’d only ever come back for a few weeks’ visit at most over the years. Most of the time it was just to help out during roundup. He’s made a few comments and I’d hear things from buddies with the Bureau but it sure seems like things have gotten worse in recent years.”
He tucked his water bottle back in his pack and turned to catch Nora looking at him, her eyes softer than he’d seen them all morning. She quickly averted her stare and then thrust the tip of her boot into the sand. “We should get going.”
He stood up, rubbing the back of his neck, then let out a long sigh. “Look, Nora, if it means anything after all these years…I handled things badly when we were in high school. I was only thinkin’ of myself. I didn’t mean to hurt you the way I did.” H
e felt the pressure in his ribs ease. “And I stayed away from your ranch all these years because of how bitter my uncle told me you were. I didn’t see any reason to stir things up by dropping over.”
She flung her shoulders back, thrusting her chin up. “Hell, Mitch, that was so long ago I don’t even remember what all happened—I mean other than the part of you leaving me without a date for prom and an expensive dress that cost me a summer of wages.”
“I know, I know, I was caught up in getting ready to join the military and figured…”
She cut him off, pivoting to face him. “Figured I couldn’t handle waiting for you—that’s what I remember. You just ran off and left—you probably forgot all about this place. Well, there was no escapin’ for me.” She paused and looked down at her calloused hands. “I had to stay here with the memory of what we could’ve had slapping me in the face each day, working our ranch and then running into your uncle or his cowboys every few weeks when I was out checking on our cattle. There was no forgettin’ and there sure weren’t any other fellas around these parts in those days who were worth a damn.”
“I was seventeen, Nora—you were too. I barely had my head screwed on enough to know what time of day it was. I spent most of my twenties just chasing my tail and burying myself in endless deployments. That was my world. Just been these past few years that I finally feel like I got some perspective on where I need to be.”
“It was that brash, impulsive kid that I loved.”
“Yeah, well I had to get my mind right before I could ever commit to being with someone and making it work—or anything work for that matter.”
“This is about your parents again, ain’t it?” She shook her head while rotating her wedding band. “Sometimes you gotta learn to move on and accept what life brought you.” She took a deep breath then tapped her fist on the tree trunk. “You been up to visit their gravestones for more than one minute since you been back?”
