Betrayal on the Border

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  most betrayed their law enforcement status in their bearing and the look in their eyes. Some DEA agents among them, certainly, though not Agent Clyde Ramsey. A couple of individuals in suits and ties were also packing sidearms, judging by the telltale bulges beneath their jackets.

  She leaned in closer to the picture. “FBI, for sure,” she said out loud to Chris.

  “Who?”

  “Second suit to the left. I remember him from the investigation following the Rio Grande Massacre. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was not involved in the mission against the Ortiz Cartel, but after the op blew up, they were tasked with the job of figuring out what went wrong. This guy—” she pointed to the TV screen “—introduced himself as Special Agent Blunt. Heavy on the special. He interviewed me while I was still in the hospital. A real jerk. Walks like his shoes are too small. I don’t know the agent next to him.”

  “Shh! The representative is talking.”

  Maddie huffed and swallowed the rest of her comments.

  “...country lost a valuable asset to its national security when Agent Edgar Jackson was gunned down in cold blood,” said the man behind the podium.

  Maddie’s mouth went dry, and beside her, Chris’s hiss of indrawn breath betrayed that he’d heard the same thing she did—the voice of the calm man from the midnight meeting at the paper plant. No wonder the guy’s voice seemed familiar last night. She’d heard Jess on TV from time to time, spouting off about “the war on drugs.” Her head spun. A state representative charged with oversight of public safety and security, such as border patrols, was in the pocket of the drug cartel? How perfect for them.

  “We do not yet know for sure why Agent Jackson was gunned down two nights ago,” Jess continued, “but we have suspects that we believe can answer that question when they are apprehended.”

  The representative slid his hands forward so that his thick fingers gripped the front edges of the podium. The motion suggested a man struggling to contain great emotion.

  Maddie’s lip curled. Jess had missed his calling to the Big Screen. He modeled outraged innocence while setting up the truly innocent to take the fall for his crimes. Brilliant, but twisted beyond what she could fathom. Is this frame-up what the other mystery man had meant when he said “the problem” with the “nosy reporter” was being addressed? After last night, Jess and his accomplices would know Chris and she were together and target them with a manhunt.

  Maddie shook herself. In her rapid-fire speculations, she’d missed some of what Jess was saying.

  “...Jackson was unsatisfied by the findings of the task force assigned to investigate the Rio Grande Massacre and was pursuing inquiries on his own time. Perhaps that is the answer to why he is now dead. Perhaps he had discovered that Madeleine Jerrard and Christopher Mason were not lucky survivors of the massacre, but accomplices of the Ortiz Drug Cartel. Reason enough for the desperate pair to take Agent Jackson’s life. Jerrard and Mason were seen at the murdered agent’s home the night of his death.”

  Yeah, right! By whom? Sure, there was an off chance some neighbor had parted their curtains and seen two figures fleeing the scene, but there was no way she and Chris were identifiable in the dark. This was another pure fabrication—a wily frame-up and one that would incite the entire public against them.

  The state representative’s cheeks puffed in and out as his gaze swept his audience. “If these two are innocent, they should not mind giving themselves up and submitting to proper questioning. But if they do not voluntarily turn themselves in, I call upon the citizens of my home city to aide law enforcement in bringing them to justice by keeping a lookout and reporting their whereabouts to the authorities immediately. You may do so by calling 9-1-1, your local police department, or utilizing the number that will be posted on your television screen. This will connect you directly to the FBI field office in San Antonio.”

  Maddie’s stomach turned inside out. How did she and Chris prove this man’s complicity with drug runners? All the authority lay in the state representative’s hands, and now they were made out to be killers...and worse. Her fingernails gnawed at her palms.

  A movement directly behind the speaker caught her eye, and a new face edged into view—three quarters of the face anyway. The heat in Maddie’s veins went arctic in a nanosecond.

  A memory bullied its way into her consciousness. She’d seen this man before. In the desert. Under a full moon. The shadow of a creosote bush blocked out exactly as much of his face as was now covered by Representative Jess. The memory was associated with lying on the pebbled ground, ears ringing, pain throbbing in her leg, her head. She’d opened her eyes, and there he loomed. Then a familiar click—the cock of a gun—and a moon glint on the barrel of a weapon aimed in her direction. After that, memory blanked out once more.

  What was this man doing at the site of the Rio Grande Massacre? Did he show up during the attack or after? Where was she when she saw him? In camp? Somewhere out in the desert where Chris said he carried her? Maybe Chris knew who he was. Maybe they had a rendezvous out there in the wilderness. Why did the guy intend to shoot her, and what—or who—stopped him? The answers were shrouded in dark dread.

  Limbs quivering, scarcely able to draw a full breath, Maddie rose and pointed at the television screen. “Who is that man?”

  * * *

  Chris squinted toward the set and made out a partial face and sections of a pair of broad shoulders. “I have no idea. Never saw him before.”

  “You’re sure?” Maddie’s stare sifted through him.

  His gut clenched. What did she suspect him of now? “I. Do. Not. Know. Him. And I have an excellent memory for faces and names. Comes with the job territory.”

  Maddie’s jaw worked like she had more to say but hadn’t decided what it should be. The rigid set of her shoulders eased marginally, and she returned her attention to the television, where Jess was wrapping up his address. “I saw him. Out there. In the desert.”

  Chris let out a low whistle. “Watch!” He pointed toward fresh activity on the screen.

  The camera followed Representative Jess as he strode in the direction of a dark Town Car waiting at the curb. The mystery man traveled in his wake. Now that Chris could see more of the guy, the exposed shoulder holster strapped over his short-sleeved polo shirt marked him as—what? Not law enforcement. Bodyguard? The guy made a formidable barrier to mayhem on the state representative, with or without the gun. His upper arm muscles rivaled Popeye’s.

  Maddie rose as the news program returned to the television studio, and the weatherman commenced predicting more dry heat. Chris’s gaze followed her as she prowled from one end of the small room to the other. Her fixed stare focused on nothing in the room, including him. She was wrapped in her own thoughts, perhaps struggling to grasp more memories. Maybe he could help her—help them both—by connecting a few dots about Jess and his pet pit bull. An internet search could reveal a lot.

  He picked up his phone from the lamp table beside him. “A little research on Jess is in order. I’d like to unearth his connection to that printing factory, as well as the identity of his muscle-bound shadow. I suspect he’s a bodyguard, but that begs the question why Jess thinks he needs one. Few government officials employ one on their own dime, and even fewer rate government-paid protection on a routine basis.”

  “Did you stop him from shooting me?”

  The demand from Maddie halted Chris in the act of pressing his thumb to his cell phone screen. “Who was going to shoot you?”

  “The mystery guy with Jess.” Her statement bristled like he was slow in the head.

  “That man held a gun on you?”

  Maddie expelled a sharp breath in his direction. “A gun is the most common tool used to shoot someone. Where were you?”

  “I have no idea. I—”

  She stomped up to him and loomed over hi
m. “I remember enough to think I wasn’t in camp during this incident. You said you moved me into the desert. You must have been there.”

  “Not necessarily. I told you I left you to go get help. Remember?”

  “So this guy shows up out of the blue exactly where I’m lying? You need a better story than that.”

  Chris’s throat tightened. It must be maddening to want to remember something, but only finding bits and pieces. How did he get her to trust him through the blank spots?

  “Maybe he followed the sound and flash of your handgun.”

  “The flash of my—” Maddie’s jaw flopped open and remained that way as if she was speechless. Then she shut her mouth with an audible click of teeth and planted her hands on her hips. “The investigator’s report said my handgun was missing from its holster when I was found. They never recovered the weapon. Did you take it and use it? Why were you shooting? At what or whom?”

  Enough was enough of being raked over the coals for something he hadn’t done. Chris lowered his foot from the ottoman. His ankle issued loud protests, and sweat sprang to his forehead, but he rose to his full height and gazed down at the bottled fury before him.

  “You can choose to believe me or not. I never touched your gun. You fired it. If you’ll listen for a minute, I’ll explain what happened.”

  “Stop!” She pointed to the phone in his hand. “When did you last use that?”

  The urgency in her tone stalled the rush of words on Chris’s lips. He’d longed for this opportunity to tell her the whole story. Get everything out in the open. But some fresh crisis had painted horror on her face.

  “All right. You caught me. When I woke up about a minute or two before I called you on the room phone, I called my station and let my producer know I was among the living and still on the story. But don’t worry—I didn’t tell her where I was.”

  Maddie’s lips thinned into a slash, and her gaze nailed him to the wall. “But you did tell the FBI.”

  “What?”

  “In case the fact escaped you, there’s now a manhunt on for us armed-and-dangerous criminals. The feds will have pulled your cell number and put a trace on it.”

  “But I only spoke for a minute or two with my boss.”

  Maddie rolled her eyes. “Get with the times, Mason. I’m a communications expert, remember? Digital traces are practically instant. Every available law enforcement officer in the vicinity could be surrounding us as we speak. We have to go. Now!”

  Chris gaped at his cell. Maddie snatched it from his hand and hurled it across the room. The phone struck the bathroom door frame and shattered into pieces. The sound electrified Chris into action. He grabbed his billfold from the side table and stuffed it into a back pocket of his slacks and then reached for the handle of his carry on case.

  “Leave it!” Maddie barked. “Leave everything. We may already be too late.”

  A distant sound plucked at Chris’s awareness. He hissed in a breath. Sirens!

  NINE

  Maddie helped Chris hobble to the car. A drop of sweat plopped from his chin onto her shoulder. Sure, it was hot out here. The power of the sun had already licked up every drop from this morning’s puddles on the tarmac. But Chris’s perspiration probably owed more to pain than summer weather.

  She eased Chris into Ginger’s front passenger seat and raced to the driver’s side, gaze darting around the area. Sirens blared closer...closer, but the few pedestrians treading the sidewalks seemed indifferent. This was the sort of neighborhood that would find such sounds commonplace.

  Shaking her head, she revved Ginger’s engine and threw her into Reverse. She was an idiot for leaving a journalist alone with a smart phone. Of course, she hadn’t known when she turned in for a nap that an official manhunt had been organized for the two of them. Only a few hours ago, that consequence was a possibility but not a reality. Now they were in the pressure cooker for real.

  Maddie peeled out of the parking lot onto the street, shooting past a city bus. The bus driver laid on his horn. She spared no glance over her shoulder. No point in holding Ginger back now. They needed to be out of view before the approaching units reached the motel. If that was possible. She squealed around a corner on two tires. Chris let out an audible groan.

  “They wanted us to run.” Chris’s words sounded like they oozed out from between gritted teeth.

  “Why do you say that?” She glanced at his drawn profile. He didn’t meet her gaze.

  “Why announce their approach when it would work so much easier to surround us first and then command our surrender? Chances are better that way of taking us peacefully and without harm to ourselves or others—since they’re under the impression we’re trigger-happy.”

  Maddie concentrated on driving. A yellow light loomed ahead. She had to beat its change to red. Ginger’s nose reached the opposite side of the intersection as the light went crimson. Boarded up businesses, porn shops and bars flashed past on either side of them.

  “I see what you mean,” she said. “Our enemies know we didn’t kill Jackson, but they set us up so that when we run we look guilty and give the cops a reason to take us down—with deadly force, if necessary.”

  “Your mama didn’t raise no dummy.”

  “Yours, either. So someone high on the food chain needed to order the foot soldiers to charge with sirens blaring.”

  She guided Ginger into another turn on a dime. Good. A residential area lay ahead. Cruising quiet streets and avenues stood a better chance of avoiding detection than making a beeline toward a well-traveled highway, even though they could move faster. Maddie slowed the Oldsmobile to the top end of the speed limit.

  “Jess qualifies under the definition of high up,” Chris said, “but it’s unlikely he’d have direct say over law enforcement personnel.”

  “So someone with clout in the Laredo police department must be a coconspirator?”

  “Or someone in the FBI or DEA. Once the feds get their teeth into a case, the local PD tends to take a backseat. Anything to do with the Rio Grande Massacre would have high priority on a federal level.”

  Maddie’s gaze rifled through the neighborhood...cataloguing...searching. There! She turned the car up a private driveway to a run-down home and brought Ginger to a halt beneath a vacant car port. Sirens wailed blocks away, but they were stationary now. No doubt filling that motel parking lot with flashing lights and badges.

  “Why are we stopping?” Chris asked.

  She pointed upward as a throaty whump-whump from overhead announced the approach of a chopper. “Air surveillance. I expected it to show up pretty quickly.”

  “But we can’t stay here,” he said. “We didn’t exactly slip away from that motel unnoticed. They’ll have a description of our vehicle in short order and start a systematic ground search of the area. Plus they’ll broadcast a BOLO. Then every member of every law enforcement agency for hundreds of miles, not to mention everyone with a police band scanner, will be on the lookout for a classic Oldsmobile Cutlass.”

  Maddie barked a laugh. “I know one bus driver who will gladly give the cops a description of Ginger.” She sobered as a lump invaded her throat. “We’re going to have to ditch her.”

  Her hands fisted around the steering wheel. Why was everything she loved wrenched away from her? It was too painful to invest her heart in anything. In her world, caring got you hurt, and trusting got you dead. Maddie inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Jerrard. Suck it up. You’re a ranger...or you were a ranger. Make your unit proud. Do the right thing, or lay down your life trying.

  “As soon as that air surveillance moves off, we’ll make a break for it,” she said.

  “That’s the best plan you have?”

  Maddie met Chris’s steady stare. “Unless you have a bett
er one. This isn’t the planning phase of an operation. It’s execution time, and a hundred times out of a hundred, the best-planned op takes an unexpected twist that requires grunts to think on their feet. That’s how training complements planning. And in this case, we’ve been winging it since we found Agent Jackson’s dead body.”

  Chris’s hand folded over hers on the steering wheel. The warmth feathered comfort to her heart. If only she could lean into his strong arms like she’d allowed herself to do when they were trapped in that gorge in the middle of a rain-lashed night. Now she had to stay tough—focused. She pulled away. On a sigh, Chris returned his hand to his lap, though his gaze never left her.

  “Injured, I’m a liability to you,” he said. “How about letting me take Ginger and lead the cops on a wild-goose chase. They’ll catch me eventually, but that will give you a chance to get away. Now that we’ve identified Jess as a major snake in the traitors’ nest, I have no doubt you’ll find a way to expose the infestation and see that justice is served.”

  Except for the absurdity of his words, the unexpected tenderness in Chris’s eyes would have unleashed the tears contained in that lump in her throat. “You’re certifiable, Mason.” Her voice came out scratchy. “Your investigative methods got us this far, and without your access to the world’s ear, all I can do is run. I’ve proved that so far. If anyone is expendable, it’s me.”

  Chris grimaced. “Looks like we’re stuck with each other.”

  “Looks like. I don’t hear that chopper anymore. They’ve moved off to scout in a different direction. I’m going to try to get us to the nearest bus station, where we can ditch Ginger.”

  “And hop a bus to Timbuktu?”

  “Good grief, no. That’s what we want them to think—that we’ve fled the city. While they’re chasing down buses in every direction, we’ll hole up in another dive where you can rest your leg, and we can indulge in a little of that planning you crave.”

  Chris flashed his captivating megawatt smile, and Maddie’s heart ka-bumped against her ribs. She ordered it to be quiet and settle down. If ever there would be time for romance in her life, she hadn’t found it yet. His explanation about what happened after he carted her away from the besieged camp was incomplete and unconvincing. They needed to identify the mystery man who’d held a gun on her that night on the Rio Grande, and the guy had better have no connection to Chris. If she couldn’t put to rest her last niggling doubt about Chris, the time for love might be never.