The Ninth Day

by Jamie Freveletti

  “That’s a guy named Eduardo La Valle. He operates out of Ciudad Juarez. Ever hear of him?”

  Banner had. “They call him ‘the Tailor,’ because he is believed to mutilate his victims in strange ways and then stitch up the bodies. There are rumors that he’s behind the hundreds of killings in Ciudad, but it’s never been proven.”

  Sumner gazed at the photo. “I intercepted ten of his planes last month alone. Only one landed when we converged on it. The rest flew their equipment right into the water.”

  Banner raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t heard a thing about the downed planes. “They commit suicide rather than be arrested? Strange.”

  “I thought so, too. The transporters for the other cartels will surrender quickly once they’re on U.S. soil. They know the prisons here are far better than the ones in Mexico. When I interrogated the one that didn’t kill himself, he told me that most of La Valle’s mules would rather die quickly than have to go back and endure torture at La Valle’s hands. He said no one who fails lives longer than twenty-four hours, and those last hours are horrific.”

  Banner stood. “I’ll ask Stromeyer to start moving some operatives toward Ciudad. If this La Valle has Caldridge, we’d better be prepared to move quickly.”

  “He owns the towns in a one-hundred-mile radius. It’s not going to be easy to infiltrate his organization in the small amount of time we have. And if he doesn’t have her?”

  “Then we start searching every house until we find her.” Or her body, Banner thought.

  Chapter 18

  Emma drove through the darkness, keeping the taillights of Raoul’s BMW in view. Oz sat in the passenger seat next to her, with Carlos and another guard, named Mono, in the back. Mono looked like a small, mean frog, with protruding eyes and ears that bent outward. He had a large, raised slash scar on his neck. Both men smelled of alcohol, sweat, and weed. Emma opened the window to let in some air. She hoped that these two had been enjoying the party along with the other cartel players, and with any luck they’d fall asleep as time wore on. Once they did, she intended to watch for an opportunity to ditch them both.

  Oz stared glumly ahead. He, too, looked exhausted, but Emma doubted he would sleep anytime soon. The worry on his face was clear, and his edgy nervousness was palpable. Emma kept her eyes on the road and her attention focused on driving. She was forced to drive at speeds upwards of ninety miles an hour just to keep the BMW in her sights. The ambulance rode behind them, at times tailgating, forcing Emma to increase her speed. The two vehicles effectively sandwiched her, an occurrence that was not a coincidence. It appeared that they had no intention of letting her escape again.

  Emma’s mind raced with ideas. One seemed to provide the likeliest chance of both she and Oz escaping from this nightmare, but none would solve the mystery of the decaying shipment.

  The sky to the east began to lighten, and Emma checked in the rearview mirror yet again to see if the men were sleeping. Both were.

  “Are you okay?” She spoke to Oz in a low voice.

  “Yes. Depressed as hell, but okay. I’m sorry you didn’t make it out.”

  Emma sighed. “It was a bit of extreme irony. I ran out of there and into hell.”

  Oz put his head against the headrest and turned to look at her. “You look beat. Want me to drive?”

  “I don’t think we can stop unless Raoul allows us to. But at least he’s slowed down.” Emma slowed to a reasonable seventy-five miles per hour, and easily kept up with the forward car.

  “Are they asleep back there?” Emma asked.

  Oz turned to check out their jailors. “Yep.”

  Oz once again faced forward. “Do you speak any foreign languages?”

  Emma smiled. “You mean other than Spanish?”

  Oz nodded. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “German and Latin. And you?”

  “French and Italian.”

  “Hmmm, guess we’re stuck with English. You think those two in the back know it?”

  Oz seemed to consider the question a moment. “Carlos, not likely. I have no idea about the other guy.”

  “So we can’t speak freely.”

  The car in front of them slowed. “Raoul’s dialing it way down.” Emma watched as the Mercedes pulled to the side of the road and prepared to stop, the BMW right behind. “Looks like we’re going to take a break.”

  Emma pulled to the side as well and shifted into park. Moths and flying gnats danced in the glow thrown by her headlights. The sky to the east continued to lighten. Soon it would be dawn. She watched as Raoul emerged from the back of the BMW. He walked toward the car, a gun in his hand. He shook it to indicate that she should lower her window. When she did, he shoved the gun against her cheek.

  “Don’t think I will forget that you tried to escape.”

  Emma moved her head away from the cold metal tip. Her anger rose. She swallowed to settle back down and thought of what Sumner had once told her. Never let your emotions rule your intellect in a fight. The one who maintains her focus and calm will win. Raoul smirked at her. It was clear to her that he misunderstood her swallowing to be fear. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Oz was sweating. He clenched his hands in his lap, as if it was all he could do not to attack Raoul. She tried to will him her calm. Oz needed to be allowed to roam freely, and he wouldn’t be if Raoul thought they were conspiring against him and La Valle.

  “How far to Tico’s lab?” Emma said, mostly to change the subject. She had no intention of staying with the caravan long enough to reach the Arizona mountains.

  “Five hours. We have to cross the border first.” Raoul leaned farther into the car to look at Oz. “You got your passport?”

  Oz nodded. “It’s in the ambulance along with my spare set of clothes and the Triumph. We put it there this afternoon. Good thing, too, because I would have forgotten it otherwise.”

  “You brought the motorcycle?” Raoul said.

  “Damn right I did.” Oz gave Raoul a defiant look.

  Raoul shrugged. “Whatever. We’ll wait until seven thirty. That’s when the morning commuters are the heaviest, and the customs agents work to get everyone across in time to make it to their jobs.”

  “How will I get across?” Emma said. “I don’t have a passport.”

  Raoul tossed her wallet in her lap. She hadn’t seen it since he confiscated it over eighteen hours earlier. Raoul followed up the wallet with a blue passport embossed with the gold seal of the United States of America. Emma opened it, and found her name next to a picture of Serena. Emma peered more closely at the document. It looked close to authentic, right down to the stamps on the pages from locations where she’d supposedly vacationed, but it felt thinner than she recalled her actual passport to be. As if it was made with cheaper paper, and cardboard.

  “When we get to the border, I want you to enter the fourth lane from the left. There should be a bald man there. His name is Kurt. You hand him the passport, and tell him you work for Wallenda’s Textiles.”

  Emma held the passport up. “This is Serena’s picture. Won’t he notice that I don’t look anything like her?”

  Raoul shook his head. “The picture doesn’t matter. He’s being paid, he’ll let you through. Don’t think you can tip him off that you’re a hostage though, he doesn’t know about that and if you try, Carlos there will have a gun pointed at your back. Anything goes wrong, and he’ll kill you first.” He leaned farther into the truck and directed his attention at Oz. “You’re going to drive the ambulance. You pick lane six. You tell them you’re headed to get a medical transfer. Your patient is waiting at the hospital.”

  “Is my guy on the take too?”

  Raoul shook his head. “We’ve only got three, and they don’t all work at the same time. We figure since your passport is real, you have a shot at getting through.”

  “And if they bring out the sniffing dogs?”

  “Then you’re done. That ambulance is gonna make them howl at the moon.”

>   Raoul sauntered back to the BMW.

  Emma settled down into the seat and leaned her head against the glass. “Wonder if we’ll make it,” she said.

  Oz sighed. “We’ve got a twenty-seven percent chance.”

  Emma looked at him. “That sounds pretty precise. How’d you come up with that figure?”

  “I did some research before I took the job. Seventy-three percent get caught within four shipments.”

  Emma thought about that for a moment. “I wouldn’t take those odds. What in the world possessed you to?”

  Oz shrugged. “I was broke. I was tired of being broke.” He gave a grim laugh. “But now I’m just tired of everything.” Emma thought about the ambulance going through aisle six. The “clean” aisle. She leaned closer to Oz.

  “You need to try to tip off your agent. You’ve got the ‘clean’ guy.”

  Oz nodded. “I know. I’m already thinking of what to say.”

  The sun rose higher, bathing the dust-brown road with a pink tinge. Emma watched it ascend and thought, I’m alive to see another sunrise. A picture of Octavio rose in her mind, as he looked up at the sky. A lump formed in her throat.

  She heard Raoul’s engine roar to life. His brake lights flashed once, and he squealed away from the shoulder. Emma turned the key and hastened to catch up with him. The ambulance took its usual spot behind her. The sound of the car revving woke Carlos. Emma looked in the rearview mirror and watched him take in his surroundings. He yawned.

  They wound down the road, but now at a more sedate pace. It seemed as though Raoul became more cautious with each mile closer to the border. Emma kept her eyes on the road, but her mind worked up a plan to escape. She’d make her move close to the border patrol. Carlos and Mono were awake, and Carlos sat in the center of the seat in an attitude of watchfulness.

  The sun rose higher, and soon it was full day. Raoul, Emma, and the ambulance were the only cars on the road. They shot down, doing seventy and remaining in formation. Soon Emma saw the border crossing loom in the distance. It rose out of the shimmering effect thrown by the sun’s rays on the asphalt. They slowed when it became clear that the line was snaking over a mile long. Emma envied the cars in a nearby lane that seemed to fly compared to hers. A quick glance ahead told her why. The lane was marked STUDENTS ONLY. Seemed the kids getting to school were given their own lane.

  Raoul pulled to the shoulder and put on his hazards. Emma did the same, and a quick glance in the rearview mirror displayed the ambulance right behind them. Emma watched Raoul exit the car. He stormed toward Emma and it was clear that he was angry. He ignored her and pulled open the passenger door. He rattled off a sentence in Spanish to Carlos, who sidled sideways out of the car. Raoul leaned into the doorway and placed the muzzle of his revolver on the seat next to Emma’s headrest.

  “Get out of the car,” he said.

  “What’s happened?”

  Raoul gave the side of her head a shove with the tip of the gun. “Our guy says your face is plastered all over the border patrol’s offices. They’re saying you work for the DOD. They know that you’ve been taken to Ciudad. You lied. You made a call from the village. Tipped them off.”

  Oz shot her a frantic look. Stay cool, she thought, but she couldn’t help feel a thrill of hope at the news that the authorities were looking for her. She figured either Banner or Stromeyer was behind the alert. She scrambled to back off Raoul.

  “I did not tip off anyone. I never had the time, you know that, and Perez confirmed it. I never made it to the village.”

  “Get out.”

  Emma reached to turn off the car and saw that her hand was shaking. Oz sat rigid next to her. She saw him put his hand in his pocket and slide out a knife. She doubted that Raoul could see the movement or the knife from his angle. She placed her hand over Oz’s wrist, stilling his movement. He gave her a hard look, but she shook her head. He subsided, keeping the knife out, but nodded back at her, as if he understood that he wasn’t to attack just then.

  Emma swung the door open and stepped into the sunlight.

  The sun hit her face, along with a dry breeze. Seven fifteen and already it was stifling hot, with a dry heat that baked the skin. Raoul stepped next to her, the gun held low and pointed at her side. Any car driving past wouldn’t see the weapon. Emma felt her stomach muscles contract, waiting for the moment he’d pull the trigger. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Oz’s door fly open and he stood up.

  The Mercedes’s rear door opened as well. Serena filled the opening, with one hand on the edge of the door, and the other pushing against the car.

  “Raoul, stop!” she shrieked.

  Raoul held his stance, his eyes never leaving Emma’s. She stared back, doing her best not to move an inch. She was breathing in shallow breaths, and her head buzzed from the combination of adrenaline and fear.

  “She works for the DOD, Serena. It’s about time you stop protecting her,” Raoul said.

  Serena marched over to Raoul. “You don’t want them to see her, you put her in the back of the ambulance, but you don’t kill her, you understand? We go to Tico’s lab.”

  Carlos stepped next to Emma and grabbed her arm. He spoke to Raoul, and shoved her toward the ambulance. Raoul kept the gun pointed at her the entire time. The ambulance drivers climbed out and opened the back for Carlos. He gave her a final push and she fell face forward, between Oz’s small duffel bag and the Triumph, which was held upright against the wall with bungee cords. Carlos produced a set of plastic ties and tied her hands behind her back. He did the same for her ankles. He grabbed a roll of gauze and wrapped it around her mouth as a gag. The last thing Emma saw was the ambulance door close and darkness descend.

  Chapter 19

  Emma lay sweating in the ambulance and thought about how Serena saved her life a third time. It was clear that neither La Valle nor Raoul had any use for her as a hostage, and the moment she solved the mystery of the infection, they would eliminate her. The heat in the ambulance was stifling, but that discomfort was nothing next to the aches in her shoulders and legs. The hours without sleep, the long run, and the stress were all working on her. She hit her back on the ambulance’s steel floor with each bump in the road.

  After twenty minutes she felt the car slow. It began to move, then pause, then move again. They were nearing the border crossing. Emma waited, hoping she could hear something that would indicate how close they were to the border guards. She waited ten more minutes, during which time the ambulance moved and paused a few more times. When she thought they were close, she started pounding her heels on the floor. Alternating fast and slow, attempting an SOS signal. The ambulance continued to start and stop. Emma continued to pound out the rhythm. This seemed to go on forever. Emma’s stomach ached with the strain of holding her legs up in the air while she made the noise. The ambulance continued its sporadic movement.

  Twenty minutes later she felt the vehicle accelerate up to speed and remain there, humming along. Emma stopped the SOS signal. They must have gone through the crossing and on the interstate on the Arizona side. She fought down the depression that threatened to engulf her at this latest setback. She needed to keep thinking, keep planning.

  The air in the ambulance grew stale and the heat rose. Emma smelled the musty odor of the leaves. She took shallow breaths, hoping that it would save her from inhaling the spores from the diseased leaves deep into her lungs. Every minute it seemed as though the smell grew stronger. It was as if the heat on the outside of the ambulance walls created an oven that was baking the leaves and releasing their deadly sickness into the air.

  After what seemed like hours, the ambulance slowed and stopped. Emma heard the doors at the front slam and the crunching sounds of a man’s shoes as they walked over gravel. The back panels swung open.

  Carlos stood there. He waved her forward, and she scooted toward him. He took out a pair of short pruning shears and cut the ties on her wrists and ankles before cutting away her gag. He stepped aside so that s
he could exit.

  Emma scrambled out of the ambulance as fast as she could. The air, while still unbearably hot, felt fresh compared to that in the ambulance and she happily inhaled her first full breaths in hours. She glanced around.

  They were high up on the side of a mountain, parked in a stand of trees. In front of her and off to the left was a beat-up trailer home. It sat three feet off the ground on cinder blocks. Broken beer bottles littered the ground, and the hulk of a rusted car body rested five feet from the back. A couple of discarded tires were stacked next to the car’s shell. The trailer’s screen door hung off the frame in a lopsided manner. Aluminum foil lined the windows. Three more trailers, spaced twenty feet apart, ringed the area, with a row of motorcycles parked in front of the third. In between the trailers sat picnic tables loaded with used liter bottles filled with liquid. The entire area reeked of a chemical smell so horrible that Emma’s gorge rose as she inhaled. Oz walked to her side and began to cough.

  “Jesus, what is that smell?” he said.

  Emma knew what it was without question. “That’s the smell of crystal meth being cooked. We’re at Tico’s lab.”

  Oz took in the trailer and trashed car. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This is the lab? Are they out of their minds? I thought we were going to a real facility.”

  “Where’s the BMW? And Raoul and Serena?”

  “Don’t know. They broke off about four miles earlier. It’s just you, me, Carlos and Mono.” The last two hung back by the ambulance. They lit up cigarettes and were smoking them while leaning against its side. Both had rifles slung over their backs. Oz held up a car key. “They’re going to drive the ambulance next, and I have the keys to the Escalade.”

  The door to the trailer creaked open and a man dressed in battered jeans and a white wife beater stepped out. He had long salt-and-pepper hair that flowed down his back, a full beard, tattoos on both arms, and a leather bracelet with studs around his wrist. A woman hovered in the doorway behind him. She was thin, with dirty-blonde hair that hung in clumps and sunken, black-rimmed eyes. She wore a blue tank top over jean shorts and pulled on a lock of hair in a nervous, childlike gesture, though Emma estimated her to be in her mid-twenties.