by Ruth Kyser
CHAPTER 14
Sarah could feel the cold steel of the gun barrel Manaquez held against her temple. She had been momentarily relieved when she realized Sam and Jess had arrived to save her. Then she had understood that their hands were tied because Manaquez held a gun to her head.
“Don’t come any closer, or I kill her!” she heard Manaquez holler at Sam and Jess. “Drop your guns, or I shoot her now!”
She heard the click of the hammer being drawn back and knew Manaquez had his finger on the trigger. Sarah was spending all her energy just struggling to breathe. Manaquez had his left arm across her in a chokehold, cutting off her air supply. He had pulled her back against him and she was close enough to him she could smell him; he smelled disgustingly of sweat, cigarette smoke and garlic – and evil. She closed her eyes, and then opened them again to look at Sam. All the time, praying.
Lord, if it be Your will, please don’t let me die. I really don’t want to die yet, Lord. I feel like my life with You is just beginning.
Other than that first glance Sam hadn’t looked at her, but now his eyes locked with hers as both he and Jess leaned over and carefully laid their guns slowly on the ground. Sam raised his hands as if in surrender.
What was he doing?
Was he just going to give up and let this maniac kill her? These Federal Agents were supposed to protect her. And now they were just going to lay down their guns and surrender without a fight?
Sarah closed her eyes against rising panic as a shudder went through her. No one else was to blame for this mess. She had been extremely stupid to leave the house without Bill. Obviously she had underestimated the amount of danger she was in. So, why should anybody else die because of her stupidity? She would rather die right here and right now rather than have Sam or Jess hurt.
Please God, don’t let anything happen to Sam or Jess. I couldn’t stand it if Sam got hurt because of my stupidity!
She tried to calm her racing heart and organize her scattered thoughts. Sam was still here. God was still in charge. Sam was still here and God was still in charge.
“You have to trust me”, Sam had told her a few days ago in the police station. Back then she hadn’t known anything about the man but had decided to trust him. Now she knew exactly the kind of man Sam Morgan was. Sam knew what he was doing. He’d probably been in this situation hundreds of times. He would know what to do. She had to trust him.
And Bill; where was Bill? Her stomach knotted. Had Manaquez already killed him?
She tried to focus on what was going on in front of her as she heard Sam start speaking again.
“Okay, we’ve put down our guns, Manaquez. Now let her go.”
Sam looked directly at her and his eyes locked on hers. His were dark slits, and even from a distance she could read the concern in them.
“Sarah, please try to stay as still as possible. Don’t fight him, do you hear me? You have to trust me and just don’t make any sudden moves, okay?”
Sarah heard Manaquez’s evil laugh close to her ear and felt him run the end of the barrel of the gun slowly down her cheek as if it were a caress. She shivered even in the heat of the sun as she felt the cold steel against her face. If she lived, she would never forget the feeling of evil that exuded from him.
“That’s right, chica. Don’t you fight me, okay? Everything will be just bueno as long as you don’t fight me. You just be real nice to me, and I’ll be real nice back.” He laughed again in her ear and she could feel his hot breath on her neck as he spoke to her in a low menacing voice. She had to use every ounce of her control to not be sick.
Sarah kept her eyes locked on Sam as Manaquez pushed the end of the gun firmly against her forehead again and started dragging her backwards with him. She remembered then seeing an old pickup truck parked behind the barn when she had first walked back here. The logical part of her brain that was still working assumed that was how he had arrived at the farm – and probably how he planned to leave.
With her.
Manaquez hollered at Sam again. “She is muy bonita, senor - and she is going with me.” He laughed that laugh again that sent chills down Sarah’s back. “I think I will have a little fun with her before I kill her though, you know?”
Sarah shuddered at the implications she heard in his voice. She wasn’t afraid to die, but he would have to kill her before she let him do anything else to her. She would fight him with every ounce of her being.
“She dies. You die, Manaquez. Just let her go and put down your gun. You know I can’t let you leave with her. It’s over Manaquez. You can’t get away.” Sam hollered.
“Oh, but you are going to let me leave with her, senor. Otherwise, I put a bullet in her head right here and now.”
Sarah felt his arm around her throat tighten as he turned her toward the side of the truck.
“Open it,” he ordered her, his voice hard. “Then get in and scoot across the seat. You are going to drive, senorita.”
Sarah quickly glanced back one more time toward Jess and Sam who stood rooted to the same spot. Sam’s face was a mask, his eyes dark and his jaw set. She bit her lip to keep from sobbing and looked back at the truck door. It was time for her to be brave and do what she could to make sure nobody else got hurt.
And she wasn’t alone.
Out of nowhere, the words to the simple tune she’d learned as a child, “Jesus Loves Me”, came to her.
Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong. They are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.
As the words of the song played out in her head, the knowledge that God was still with her swept over her along with the realization that no matter what happened to her, she would be okay. If Manaquez killed her, she would go to heaven to be with her eternal Father. If she were shot and injured, God would still take care of her. Somehow she knew that whatever happened, God was in control of the situation. Even in the midst of all the chaos and evil around her, a peace she had never known before enveloped her. She was not alone and she would never be alone again. Knowing that gave her a peace about doing whatever Manaquez ordered her to do. She didn’t want to leave with him, but if she didn’t do what he said, he was going to kill her anyway. What choice did she have?
Unable to see the knob, Sarah slowly brought her right hand up and awkwardly felt for the door knob. It was an older model pickup truck and the handle was one of the old-fashioned types with a push button. All the time her shaky hand felt the hot metal of the handle and struggled to open the door, her mind was spinning as she tried to figure out what she should do.
What if the truck wasn’t an automatic? What would Manaquez do to her when he found out she couldn’t drive a stick shift? Once she got in, did she have time to get to the other side of the truck and get the driver’s side door open and escape? Or would he shoot her – or would he shoot Sam or Jess? She couldn’t let him hurt either of them. Her mind was spinning as she continued to struggle with the latch on the door. She couldn’t seem to get the stupid door open, and she felt Manaquez’s impatience with her growing. Her time was running out.
“I said, open it!” he growled. Sarah felt the panic building in Manaquez’s voice too. Not only was he getting impatient with her, but she could tell he realized he was running out of time before Sam made a move to take him down. Her mind tried to figure out what to do. No matter what she attempted, she couldn’t seem to get the stupid truck door to unlatch. Her hand was sweaty and shaky, and with him choking off her air, she was feeling more lightheaded by the second.
“I can’t.” she squeaked. She was afraid she was going to pass out if she couldn’t get a good breath soon. Manaquez was still choking off her air by the tight hold he had on her throat.
Then unbelievably, just when she thought she wasn’t going to be able to last any longer without passing out, he loosened his
hold on her neck a little and turned away from her to reach for the door himself. He had evidently had enough of waiting and was going to open the door without her help.
Somewhere behind her, Sarah heard Sam yell, “Now!” half a second before a gunshot rang out, then there was a second gunshot much closer to her. She heard the sound of shattering glass while she fell to the ground.
Sam saw her falling and quickly grabbed his gun from where it laid on the ground in front of him. He rushed over first to kick the gun away from Manaquez’s body and make sure he was dead. When his fingers on the man’s neck didn’t find a pulse, he tugged the dead man’s body off Sarah. She lay in a heap on the ground underneath Manaquez’s body. He couldn’t see if she’d been shot or not, nor could he tell if the blood all over her was hers or Manaquez’s. As he pulled the body off of her, his love for her rushed at him. He couldn’t lose her; not now.
Please God, let her be okay. I don’t think I could take it if anything happened to her.
Many times over the years he’d been willing to take a bullet for a witness under his protection, but it had always been an automatic reaction to the responsibility of the job. In this case, he would have gladly taken a bullet to keep Sarah safe, and it had nothing to do with the job.
“Sarah!”
He pulled her into his arms, close to his chest, holding her as tight as he could before pulling away briefly to check her for any injuries. She looked up at him with a dazed look in her eyes. Taking her face in his hands he ran his fingers gently down her face and gazed into those beautiful green eyes he had been afraid he would never see again. He shuddered when he thought about how close it had been, and without even thinking about it, he leaned down and brought his lips to hers in a quick kiss. Then he pulled away and looked at her face again, running his hands down her shoulders and arms, looking for any obvious injuries.
“Sarah, are you hurt? Are you in pain anywhere?”
His voice sounded husky to his own ears and he hoped the others didn’t notice how close he was to tears. He certainly wasn’t acting like a macho Federal agent now, but that didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered to him right now was that she was okay.
She slowly shook her head, but by that time he had spotted a cut in her upper left forehead that was bleeding at an alarming rate. He realized she must have been hit with a piece of the flying glass of the shattered truck window. Sam didn’t know if Bill’s shot had broken the window, or if Manaquez’s gunshot had broken it. Fortunately, the one shot Manaquez had managed to get off had gone wild.
Sam pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and held it tightly against her head, pulling her hand up to hold it. He finally took a slow breath and tried to stop his racing heart. That had been far to close. He couldn’t believe how close.
Thank you, God. Thank you for keeping her safe.
“Hold this, Sarah,” he ordered her, his voice sounding gruff to his ears. “You have a cut on your forehead and it’s bleeding a lot. Just hold it there to stop the bleeding.”
He pulled her into his arms again and kissed the top of her head. She felt so good in his arms and he was so thankful she was okay. He knew his response didn’t have anything to do with his job but was that of a man in love who had come far too close to losing the woman he adored. For a moment there, he had thought he was going to lose her, and the knowledge had almost been more than he could bear. When he thought about how the scenario could have ended, it was almost too much.
About that time Bill came running up, out of breath, with his rifle slung over his shoulder.
“I got him?”
Sam glanced up at Bill from where he and Sarah sat on the ground, his arms still around her, and nodded.
“Good shot.”
He heard a whoosh of air escape Bill’s lungs in relief. Sam knew Bill was kicking himself for letting Sarah out of his sight in the first place, and killing Manaquez had helped make up for it in his own mind. Sam saw Bill look closely at Sarah face.
“Oh man! Did I hit her too?”
Sam shook his head. “Some glass from the shattered truck window must have hit her. She’s okay.”
Sam noticed Jess also checking Manaquez’s body to make sure he was really dead and then she walked over to stand in front of him and Sarah. Sam helped Sarah stand up but she was pretty unsteady on her feet and Sam was glad to see Jess take hold of her arm to help her. He hated to let her out of his arms but he knew they still had a lot of work to do.
Before he let her go though, he turned to his female agent.
“Jess, take her into the barn and treat that cut on her forehead. I don’t think she needs stiches but check her out, okay? Then bag all the clothes she’s wearing and get her cleaned up. I’ll be in there in a few.”
As Sarah stood there in front of him and Sam had a chance to see her better, he realized that as much blood as was on her clothes, most of it had to be Manaquez’s. He knew Jess would bag the clothes to take back to HQ. They would now become a part of their case evidence. It was too bad, but if his memory was correct, Sarah was currently wearing the same clothes she had on the day they had taken her to the police station from her house; the only belongings she still had from her old life.
And it looked like she was going to lose those too.
As the two women walked away, Sam forced his eyes away from Sarah’s retreating back and turned toward the body. He automatically pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and snapped them over his hands. Sarah was okay and it was time to focus on the job. Bill was gloved and already kneeling over the body and checking the dead man’s pockets. He pulled out a cell phone and tossed it to Sam, who quickly flipped it open and checked its history. There were a couple of recent text messages, all in Spanish, and he was thankful that the Bureau had made him learn the language years ago. The information he read from the texts wasn’t good news, however.
He finished reading the messages, and then went back through the texts again to make sure he understood them completely. Sam closed the phone and handed it back to Bill.
“Bag it.”
He sighed wearily and stood looking off into the distance for a moment. What he had just read was going to change everything.
Bill stood up and slowly came over to stand next to him, clearing his throat. “Sam, I’m sorry. I really screwed up this time. When I think of how close we came to losing her…”
Sam glanced over at his team member. Bill was one of the best young agents he had ever had the honor to work with. He was a caring, competent agent and one whale of a sharpshooter. He was young and still had a lot to learn, but Sam knew there wasn’t anything he could say that would make more of an impression on Bill than what he would have to say to himself.
“Yeah, you did, Bill. But you took care of it. That’s all that’s important.” He patted the younger man on the shoulder, hoping to reassure him that it had turned out okay.
Bill nodded his understanding. Sam knew Bill wouldn’t quickly forget his lesson learned, but as far as Sam was concerned it was over. He wasn’t going to dwell on it. They had all made their share of mistakes. And because they were human, it was unavoidable. He had sure made his share over the years.
Right now though, there were far more important things to worry about.
Sam clenched his jaw and swallowed hard at the news he had to share. He cleared his throat to try and get rid of the knot that seemed to have settled there in the last two minutes.
“Bill, Manaquez’s phone has texts on it from Mexico. I’m assuming they’re from his boss or his boss’ henchman. According to the texts, they knew Sarah Masters was still alive and Manaquez had been ordered to take her out. He’d been told not to come home until it was a done deal.”
He sighed. “They’re not going to stop now until they know she’s dead, Bill.” He shook his head. “I just wish I knew how Manaquez was able to find her. Did someone leak something at the B
ureau, or what?”
Bill looked up at him from where he was working on the body, emptying pockets, and bagging everything he found.
“So what do we do now, Sam?”
Sam ran his hand across his face while a plan formulated in his head, and then squatted back down next to Bill.
“This is what we’re going to do. You and Jess will fly back to D.C. with two body bags. There are some bags of feed in the barn. Rig something up using them for a second body. Jess has Sarah’s bloody clothes already bagged. I’ll contact our Medical Examiner and give him a heads-up about what you’re bringing back with you. I’ll drive her back to D.C. and headquarters in our vehicle.”
He sighed as he vocalized the only answer to the dilemma they now had. “From this moment forward, Sarah Marston is dead – she has to be; otherwise they’re going to come looking for her until she is.”
Bill nodded his understanding. They’d been in this situation before. He knew the drill.
Sam stood up again. “I’ll fill the local Sheriff in on what happened and let him know when he can come out here and pick up the stolen truck. I don’t want him here until we’re gone, but I do want him to know our story so he can leak it to the news. Hopefully it will get back to the cartel in Mexico and end this thing once and for all.”
Leaving Bill to finish processing the scene, Sam headed toward the barn to see how the ladies were doing. He was very concerned about Sarah and the dazed look she had on her face after the shooting. He hoped she wasn’t going into shock, but he wouldn’t be surprised if she did. She had been through more in the last few days than one person should ever have to experience.
And the worst part was, it wasn’t over yet.
