Borderlands (Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Series Book 6)

by JT Sawyer

  Mitch glanced at Nora then chuckled. “That’ll make for a fine story around the campfire someday.”

  He returned to his patient, assuring him that the external bleeding was contained and telling him to lean back. The man had a startled look after hearing Mitch’s name uttered by Jacobs.

  “We gotta get you outta here, buddy,” he said, reaching for the radio in Nora’s pack as he radioed back, hearing the sweet sound of Dev’s voice.

  Mitch leaned closer to Tony. “What’s your name?”

  “Salazar—Agent Tony Salazar out of the Tucson DEA office.” Tony’s face seemed to constrict and his eyes widened as he looked up at his rescuer, recognizing the name from earlier. He sighed and lay his head on the cool cement slab, wondering if there was a cover story he could possibly concoct to explain his entanglement at the Jacobs ranch once Devorah Leitner revealed his involvement.

  Chapter 36

  After he had shot Mateo’s remaining sentries staked out around the north side of the building, Rafael proceeded up the hill. He sent his other men around the left while he trotted for the rear door. Upon cresting the top, he saw the back door of the building burst open as Mateo sprinted down the slope towards his vehicle with the briefcase in his hands. Hearing the others occupied with the battle behind him, Rafael followed, his footfalls silent as he negotiated the rocky terrain like a cougar pursuing a clumsy deer. Upon reaching the truck, he saw Mateo shoving the precious cargo into the front seat.

  Rafael ground his teeth and fired off a round into the man’s right shoulder. Mateo shrieked in pain then fell forward onto the driver’s seat, the pistol in his other hand landing on the ground. Rafael trotted forward, keeping his rifle level.

  Seeing Mateo reach for something inside, he shot another round into the man’s left leg, the bullet exiting out the patella in a shower of bone and blood. Mateo crumpled to the dirt and fell on his back, his contorted lips squeezing out a grimace.

  Rafael moved up over the writhing figure, putting a dusty boot onto Mateo’s bleeding shoulder. “It never had to end this way, amigo.”

  Mateo clenched his jaw, spitting out his words. “No, how was it supposed to end then—with us being business partners while you and Anna made plans to get rid of me?”

  “There are enough people in Agua Prieta who’ve plotted that out in detail already, I’m sure. No need for my help. As for Anna, she deserved better.” He drove his boot down again into the mangled shoulder. “And so did my brother, you perra.”

  Mateo thrust his head up, jabbing a finger into his forehead. “Then go ahead and be done with me, if you have the cojones. For whatever it is worth, Raf, I had nothing to do with your brother’s death.”

  Rafael squinted, his eyes like narrow slits in the moonlight. He let the muzzle of his rifle drift along Mateo’s chest then placed it over his crotch. “I am fresh out of mercy tonight, more so for your continual dishonesty.”

  Mateo waved his hands frantically, froth forming on his lips as he spoke. “No, I swear, I was not even in Agua Prieta that day. I got word after that that the boss had sent a team out of Nogales to look for the stolen money—Anna told me that they went to your place thinking you had it.”

  Rafael kicked him in the ribs. “You filthy pig—do you take me for a fool?”

  “Would I have spent the past year sitting on all that money—over a million dollars—if I’d had it? I would have turned it in to the boss and used it as a means of promotion out of that shithole town I live in.”

  “Then where is it? Why did my brother have to die like that?”

  Mateo’s expression went flat as he stared up at Rafael. “All this time, I thought you had it—that you used it to fund your operations against me.”

  Rafael lowered his rifle as his face grew taut. He thought back to the summer night in bed with Anna. His mind raced over what he could remember about the details of their conversation—faint recollections, whispers… How is your brother doing? Terrible to suffer the way he does—what kind of life is that? What would he do without you—or you without him, I wonder? Rafael’s mind raced over the last few words, the memory of her soft voice speaking the lines as a gentle smile formed on her lips. Was his heart so blind in that moment that he overlooked her expression for something else? Then he thought of their conversation when he was getting dressed later—how she longingly spoke of wanting to live by the ocean and the tremendous detail with which she described her dream house, as if she had already been there.

  Rafael glanced down at Mateo, who lay moaning, huddled into a ball. The man’s face changed into an orange cloud of flame as Rafael heard his brother’s screams emanating from a burning house. He lowered his gaze, his eyes darting around the jagged hilltops in the distance as the fog in his soul from that horrific night cleared away.

  “Jesus Cristo,” he whispered, his grip going limp on his rifle as he let it swing from his shoulder. “We have been the devil’s pawns all this time. Anna has played us both—but none more than me.”

  He glanced into the truck and then stepped over Mateo, grabbing the briefcase. As he turned around, he heard the muffled sound of two rounds being fired then felt a splatter of blood from Mateo’s head spray on his face. He backpedaled into the doorway, trying to raise his rifle and focus his vision through the mist of red droplets obscuring his vision.

  Rafael saw the sultry figure of Anna backlit by the moon, the loose-fitting green shirt tucked into her jeans swaying in the faint desert breeze.

  It had been nearly a year since he’d seen her and now the full force of her striking face and long hair seemed to reach out towards him. He felt himself being pulled along as if an invisible rope was tethered to his waist. Rafael heard her honey-sweet voice whispering his name as he approached. Now within a few feet of her, he could make out her high cheekbones and beautiful eyes. He saw the old look in them and it stirred in him a longing that he had kept submerged through the dark months of living like an animal in the desert. Then he felt his abdomen tense as if a baseball had just slammed into it, followed by the same sensation punching into his ribs. He wheezed out a breath and noticed a warm sensation filling his midsection. Staggering back, he lowered the briefcase and looked at the two bullet holes in his stomach.

  “Perdoname, por favor, por favor,” he heard Anna say in a trembling voice as she held a suppressed pistol in her right hand. She reached for the briefcase, taking it from his hand as his grip weakened.

  “This device will free me of my debts to the cartel—free me from other men forever. I won’t live like this anymore—and my son won’t have to grow up in the squalor and crime that we did. He will live far from here and will never learn of this rathole.”

  Rafael gasped for air, his lungs burning with each labored breath. “You had the money all this time?”

  “It’s hidden along with Reies. I’m the one who arranged for the money to be transported from our warehouse in Agua Prieta a year ago by the two brothers. Once they delivered it, they were killed in a way that drew suspicion towards our rivals.”

  She nodded, biting down hard on her lip. “It was the only way out of this life of misery. I could’ve never left Mateo without the money. I was dependent on him—on other men—my entire life.”

  “But my brother…” He clasped his hands to his oozing wound while his eyes bored into her. “Why?”

  She placed a hand against her chest and wept. “Dios mio, Raf—I wanted you to come with me and start a life somewhere apart from all this. We could have left together that night.”

  He looked at the ground for a minute, thinking back to that awful day when he returned to the smoldering ruin of his house. “But not with my brother—he wouldn’t have fit into your plans for us, would he?” He tried to sit up, clutching a handful of sand in his trembling fingers. “You knew this would cause a war between me and Mateo, splitting the cartel’s attention while you had time to move the money and plan your disappearance.”

  “That wasn’t my plan in the beg
inning. I was simply waiting for the right time to disappear. Otherwise, the cartel would have hunted me down if they knew I had the money.”

  She took a step forward, holding her chin up. “You should’ve come with me—all you and my husband ever knew was how to prolong your wretchedness in this godforsaken place. There was never going to be anything else except being a slave to the cartel until you both outlived your usefulness and ended up in a pit somewhere like the other players in their sickening chess game.”

  Anna patted her fist against her chest. “Not for my son—his life will be different.”

  He reached out for her but she stepped back. “Lo siento, Raf—I am so sorry.” She leaned over, brushing her fingers against his trembling face. “Lo siento.”

  He felt his body quiver, uncertain if it was from the trauma or the incendiary damage to his soul. Rafael extended his hand out to her. She squeezed it for a moment then recoiled, pressing the briefcase against her side.

  Rafael fell back into the pool of blood beneath him. “You were all I ever wanted in life, Anna.” He grasped at the air, trying to touch her.

  She kept walking backwards, sobbing as she shuffled, her hair clinging to her moist cheeks.

  Rafael leaned on his side, his eyes fluttering as he fought to hang on to the image of the woman he once loved. He saw her turn and disappear into the desert to the south, her flowing shirt rippling softly in the moonlight as she trotted away.

  ***

  Anna continued trotting through the brush, weaving her way around the cactus until she could no longer hear the gunfire behind her. She stopped at a small outcropping of boulders and dropped the metallic briefcase and pistol in the sand then leaned over, trying to contain the nausea. She rested her trembling hands on her knees and fought the urge to look back over her shoulder. After a few minutes, she stood up and took a deep breath. Pressing her shoulders back, she stared up at the moon while balling her fists. Never again will I be at anyone’s mercy or be someone’s property. She thought of her son’s face and of the long journey east to their new home in Florida. The past year had been consumed with many sleepless nights meticulously planning every detail of her exodus: moving the stolen funds to a secure location and then slowly funneling the money into various offshore accounts; forging new identities for her, Reies, and her parents; the small house along the Florida coast that had been purchased under a shell corporation. All that was left to do was to hand off the silver briefcase to the cartel a few miles from the border in half an hour. Upon returning home, she would stage her death in a gas explosion, which would further eliminate any links back to the missing funds. A young prostitute’s body, whose head was bludgeoned by a baseball bat and obtained from a four-bedroom bordello that Mateo frequented, had already been obtained and placed on her couch.

  Anna picked up the pistol and briefcase and studied the route to the border. As she walked, her gait grew steady. She felt like the slickrock beneath her feet was yielding with each step, her stride increasing and her gaze resolutely fixed on the horizon ahead.

  Chapter 37

  Three Days Later

  Dev, Mitch, and Nora stood under the shady eaves of Doug Kearns’ front porch, recounting the tumultuous events from the past few days. A team of investigators from Homeland Security in Washington had flown in and coordinated their crime scene efforts with the border patrol out of Tucson in an attempt to piece together the many players involved and figure out how to provide an appropriate cover story where needed for the hungry media hovering around southern Arizona.

  Mitch hung his hand off the pine beam above the steps as he looked out onto a few black cattle grazing in a nearby meadow. “From the border patrol’s official report, they’re chalking this up as a battle between rival cartels.”

  “Rival cartels, eh?” said Dev. “That’s kind of true, I guess, from what you described of the RIP crews.”

  “And they downplayed the kidnapping, merely labeling it as an abduction of a local Anglo, leaving Steven’s name out of the statement because of the missing briefcase and the fact that a high-level DEA agent was involved, which would just provide fuel for the Mexican Presidente to fire back at our government.”

  “So, where the heck is the briefcase?” said Nora.

  “Good question,” said Mitch. “The area was so overrun with tracks from all the players in this skirmish, along with the mess the feds made afterwards, that there’s no telling who ran off with that.”

  “Maybe that snake Tony Salazar knows,” said Dev.

  Mitch raised his eyebrows while glancing at Dev. “From what you told me about his squirrely actions at the ranch, what with stealing the hard drive, and from what the news said about Salazar divulging classified information to the militia group who spilled the beans on him, I think he’s gonna have a long time to stew in solitary confinement at the pen in Phoenix,” Mitch said.

  “At least this puts an end to the reign of Mateo Dizon,” said Nora. “Although someone else high up in the cartel has probably already filled his shoes.”

  “Yeah,” Mitch said, rubbing the stubble on his chin. He glanced up at the surrounding mesa while a slight grin crept out.

  “What?” said Dev.

  “The investigators didn’t find any sign of Rafael at the crime scene. There was a short blood trail that led north into a canyon and then disappeared.”

  “So, you couldn’t find any tracks of his, eh?” said Nora.

  Mitch ran his fingers along his face, cloaking a smirk. “Terrain was just too rocky. Helluva thing.”

  Dev gave him a knowing glance than stared up at the buttes in the distance. “You think he survived—or did he die somewhere in the backcountry?”

  Nora shook her head. “Any guy who’s been hanged, shot, and hunted by the cartels has got to have more than nine lives.”

  “I have to admit that I’ve always had a sneaking admiration for him after that first encounter,” said Mitch.

  “He wasn’t an ordinary bandit, that’s for sure,” said Nora.

  “He cared more about his men than he did about the money he got from stealing Mateo’s shipments.”

  Dev thrust her hands on her hips and raised her eyebrows. “This is a criminal we’re talking about, right—the guy worked for the cartel at one time?”

  Mitch laughed. “Don’t misunderstand me—I can both admire him and disapprove of him at the same time.”

  She placed her hand around his neck. “I just don’t follow the logic there but then this is you we’re talking about.”

  Nora glanced at Dev. “He’s a handful, this one—you sure better hold onto your reins tightly. But then you probably know that already.”

  Dev smiled, unfolding her arms. “You aren’t kidding.”

  “Can I borrow him for a minute?” said Nora.

  “‘Borrow’ me?” said Mitch, with his hands outstretched. “I’m not anyone’s property.”

  “Yep, please take him off my hands for a while.” Dev tilted her head and nodded while Mitch’s face bore a puzzled expression. “I’ve gotta help Diego with lunch anyway.”

  Nora tipped her hat towards Dev. “And thanks again for what you did keeping my family safe at the ranch.”

  “Glad I could be of help, though I appreciate you leaving my name out of the official statement to the feds, at least regarding the gunfight.”

  Mitch raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, it probably wouldn’t look good that a visiting foreigner was tied up in all this, especially the part about you plugging a guy in the back of the head.”

  Mitch walked with Nora back to her truck. She climbed inside and removed a dusty saddle blanket from the front seat, revealing a frayed white cowboy hat. She handed it to him, running her finger along the edge before relinquishing her grip. “I lied earlier when I told you I burnt it. It meant too much to me—though I did stomp it in the ground once while cussing you out. That’s why it’s a little beat up.”

  Mitch grinned then ran his hand slowly along the brim. His s
mile widened, then he pushed it back towards her. “You hold onto it. It was meant for you.”

  “No, you keep it.”

  “Wouldn’t be right. It’s been in your care all this time—you’re the rightful owner.”

  She looked up at the hill to his right. “Tell you what—if you promise me you’ll go visit your parents’ graves before you leave, I’ll pick it up on my next trip through here in a few weeks.”

  He raised his head and smirked. “You are still so bossy, young lady.”

  She laughed and started up the truck. “Take care of yourself, Mitch Kearns. And be good to that lady, Dev.” She backed up, hanging her head out the window and smiling. “Woman’s got a heart of gold putting up with the likes of you.”

  Mitch nodded and waved to her as the truck sped off down the dirt road. He watched it disappear into the canopy of cottonwood trees near the entrance of the ranch then turned and walked up to the main house. He paused on the steps, looking down at the white hat in his hand then over at the shaded hill.

  ***

  Just after sunrise the next morning, Mitch walked down to the stables, where Dev was getting outfitted for a horse. Diego stood below the steed as she sat in the saddle, doling out advice interspersed with jokes about his own mishaps in the backcountry.

  “Four hours in that saddle traipsing up and down this country here and you’ll be wanting a soak in a hot tub later,” Mitch said as he approached her on the other side.

  “I’ve ridden on camels before in Africa—how much different can it be?”

  “She’s a tough chica, Mitch. I think she’ll be wanting to ride all day once she’s been out for a while.”

  “This city girl? I’ll give her an hour and then she’ll be complaining about the bugs.” He winked and rubbed her on the side of her leg. “The route you guys are taking goes in a loop around the mesa behind us. I’ll catch up with you on the backside in a little bit.”

  She gave him a crooked smile. “Sure, it’ll give me some time to hear more stories about you from Diego back before you were such a refined gentleman.”