by Reid, Joseph
The look on Max’s face wasn’t shock. Or dismay.
Not even disappointment.
Although tears had begun trickling from her eyes, her face hadn’t changed expression. She remained calm and relaxed, shackled hands open next to her lap. There were no signs of anger or sadness.
Merely resignation.
I hated myself in that moment. Max had bad-mouthed Drew, but I’d never followed up. I hadn’t pressed her, or him, for better answers. About anything. I’d just happily wallowed in my own assumptions—about both of them.
Some investigator.
All this time, I thought I’d been saving Max, and here I’d actually been fighting to return her to a life of drug-addled service to a man who despised her enough to use her up and throw her away.
As I stared at her pale cheeks, blonde hair scattered across them, all I could think was that she deserved better.
So much better.
But despite wanting to plan what I would do to Drew when we got out of here—if we got out of here—a glance back at Petén’s watch showed that it wasn’t quite 6:50 a.m. I found her still staring at me. “You don’t have the . . .” I circled my face with my index finger.
She raised an eyebrow. “Tattoos? No. In my culture, men do that as a sign of their bond and commitment to the family. A woman’s commitment”—she took a long breath—“is understood.”
I let the silence linger as long as I could. But then, before she could speak again, I asked, “Now what? It doesn’t sound like you’re taking my deal for Roosevelt.”
“I am afraid I cannot.”
“So, you’re just going to kill me?”
“I could,” she said. “And, if I am forced to, I will. There is a long line of people within my organization who would readily volunteer, including all the wives of the men you have slain. Women make better torturers than men, believe me.
“But if we kill you,” she continued, “then we lose Roosevelt for certain. As you say, I am a businesswoman. I prefer to win.” She brushed her hands backward across her shoulders, sweeping her hair behind her. “Roosevelt has his problems, but he represents a steady stream of income we require. Therefore, the only way we get everything we want is if I convince you to return Roosevelt without taking the girl in exchange.”
“That’s your proposal? I return Roosevelt and leave Max with you?”
“Sí.”
“What’s in it for me?”
“Your life. Knowing the girl will be safe.”
“How can I possibly trust that Max will be safe with you?”
“I have told you, I do not harm children.” Petén shrugged. “But even if you choose to ignore my words, we have given you no indication we would harm her. We have cared for her. And there are other signs of my good faith. I could have killed you outright, but I did not. I suspected that you did not know the entire situation with Drew, so I have shared those details with you.”
“Now you’re putting me in a difficult position.” Although I cracked a slight smile when repeating her line, Petén’s expression didn’t change. “In this scenario you’re envisioning, I do what? Just walk away?”
She nodded. “Walk away.”
After stealing one last glance at her watch, I inhaled deeply through my nose. “That’s my problem,” I said. “I’ve never been very good at that.”
I expected her face to grow angry or disappointed at that moment, something. But no emotion registered. Instead, in a flat tone, Petén said, “Fine. Have it your way.”
Petén stood, her chair squeaking against the linoleum as it slid behind her. From behind her back, she drew a pistol. A Glock, exactly like Shen’s.
She pointed it directly at my face.
CHAPTER 25
“Your last chance, Señor Walker,” Petén said, cocking the hammer. “Just walk away.”
I took a deep breath and slumped my shoulders, as if resigning myself to concede. But before I could exhale, a loud explosion erupted outside.
Finally.
When Petén’s head turned, that was all the break I needed.
I sprang out of the chair toward Max, my only instinct to cover her, but I couldn’t resist peeking back at Petén. Although her expression had changed only slightly—small furrowing of her brow, visible tension in her jaw—the difference in emotion was stark.
She was angry now.
I looked back to Max’s bed, only a couple of steps away.
And that’s when I realized, I had to turn around.
At this range, the .40 caliber slugs in Petén’s Glock would pass through me like I was a loaf of bread. Every shot at me would be a shot at Max, and that magazine held fifteen rounds.
Planting my left foot, I spun as best I could with my hands cuffed behind me and lunged in the opposite direction, aiming for the nearest empty bed. If I could slide beneath it, maybe the metal frame would offer some sort of protection once Petén pulled the trigger.
I was just starting to consider how to slide, trying to remember what my Little League coaches used to say, when my arms and torso suddenly yanked me backward.
It felt like a firecracker had gone off in my left shoulder. I’d reached the end of my chain and landed squarely on my ass.
My eyes returned to Petén, her face a mask of grim determination as she trained the Glock on me.
I shut my eyes until I heard shots thundering even louder than I’d expected.
But when no impact came, I reopened them to find Petén doubled over and writhing.
Sunlight forced its way through new holes in the wall behind her, and at first I assumed she’d been hit by bullets.
Until she straightened up. Although there was no blood, something had happened to her skin. Like it had liquefied and begun spilling off her.
As Petén dashed for the door, I checked the shelves lining the wall. Sure enough, several car batteries and containers had been shattered by gunfire, splashing her with some mix of sulfuric acid and other chemicals.
Across the room, Petén pounded on the door, each effort weaker than the last, until it popped open with a metallic thunk. When she disappeared through it, I sighed with relief.
Until the big guy—the one Petén had called Cirilio—appeared.
He stepped into the room and started in my direction. Stopping a few paces from me, an ugly, angry look spread across his face as he tucked his pistol away. He crossed the remaining distance between us, seized my shirt in one hand, and hauled me up to my feet as if I weighed nothing.
Once I was upright, his face twisted into a perverse smile. I had only a split second to wonder why before I caught a glimpse of his fist looping through the air.
When it connected with my bad shoulder, I thought he might have knocked the arm clean off: I couldn’t feel it anymore. Only the pain, which was so intense it turned everything white. Although my legs had gone limp, Cirilio still supported me. Two hard uppercuts to my stomach lifted my feet off the ground and left me hacking and sputtering for breath.
Finally, he tossed me back against the wall. I barely noticed the impact as I crumpled to a heap at the base of it. My vision had cleared just enough to see Cirilio racking the slide of his pistol to chamber the round that would finish me off.
I’d lucked out getting past Petén, but this would be it.
That’s when a four-shot burst rang out. It spun Cirilio around and dropped him to the floor. His tattooed face ended up just inches from mine, and I watched as the last bit of life slipped away from his dark eyes.
A shadow moved over me at that moment. I looked up to find a familiar face blocking the light: Salvador Peña, Grayson’s gang-unit colleague from Dallas.
“You’re . . . ,” I sputtered, “late.”
Peña smirked. “C’mon, man. We were watching you the whole time from the drone. Looked like you had ’em right where you wanted ’em.”
CHAPTER 26
The next few minutes went by in a blur.
Peña hadn’t come alone. A group
of what looked like soldiers filed in behind him, and soon Max and I were being carried out.
Although I hadn’t gotten to see the interior of the Second Guerrillas’ compound on the way in, as we were leaving, it looked like a war zone. Explosions and gunfire echoed and flashed all around; the sky overhead was clouded with smoke.
The soldiers ferried us through a giant hole that had been blown through the compound wall, out to a neighboring field where several helicopters were waiting. Although I didn’t realize it immediately, they loaded Max and me into different copters. I’d have complained if I’d known. Or had the ability.
Though uncuffed now, I lay on my good side, vision cloudy, electric crackles of pain spreading from my injured shoulder down into my chest every time I breathed or moved.
One face in particular appeared in front of me. A man in a helmet. Just inches away, I tried to focus on his features: the few, distinct white hairs in his otherwise dark mustache, the weary rings around his eyes. His mouth was moving. Talking, or asking questions, I couldn’t tell. The pain had fogged up my brain almost as much as my eyes.
Soon I could feel him doing something to my arm. Moving it around somehow.
He must have known the same trick Enjeti used that night back in Silver Lake, because with no warning at all, almost all the pain disappeared in a flash.
It felt like emerging from a pool after nearly running out of air: suddenly I could breathe again. All my senses came flooding back.
The deafening hum of the rotors.
My tongue, swollen and seemingly grafted to the roof of my mouth, which was bone-dry.
My skin, slick with sweat, from both the ordeal and the intense heat inside the aircraft.
I barely had time to process it all before the helicopter jolted.
I shifted upright, my immediate thought being that we were under attack. But a quick glance around showed the soldiers rising and filing to the chopper’s hatch to disembark.
We’d landed.
Somewhere.
Peña appeared next to me, helped me to my feet, and led me off the copter. We were standing on some rooftop. With the sun up now, heat rippled off the tar, and the downdraft from the rotors felt like the blast from a convection oven.
“Where are we?” I tried to yell, but my voice croaked after the first word.
“Hospital,” Peña shouted back. He pressed something smooth and metallic into my hands, and I looked down to find the burner and my audio player.
Despite the din, I immediately plugged the earpiece in; just feeling the hard plastic in my ear was a relief. As I tried to shove the player and phone into my pockets, Peña ushered me toward a set of double doors.
Inside, cool, antiseptic air seemed to suck the heat off my scalp, and my hearing began to return. Before I could say anything more, Peña started walking. Although I was exhausted, I had no choice but to follow him down the pastel-colored hallways.
“Where are you going?”
Peña turned but kept moving. “Debriefing. Don’t worry, it’ll only take a couple of minutes. Then the medics can finish with your shoulder.”
“There’s no time for any of that. I’ve got to arrest Max’s dad. And where is she? I need to talk to her.”
“Her chopper landed before ours—I’m sure she’s getting checked out. But don’t worry about Drew. My guys have been on him at the house, just like you asked. I’ll call out there and have them pick him up.”
“No,” I said. “I want to do it myself. After I talk to Max.” Given everything she’d been through, everything she’d heard from Petén, I thought she deserved that much.
Peña stopped. “Look, the docs ain’t gonna let you see Max before they examine her, and that’s gonna take a few. Drew isn’t getting away, not from my guys. And the task force needs to hear what you heard and saw out there with the Second Guerrillas. Besides, we’re here.”
He opened the door next to us without knocking. I followed him into a large, rectangular conference room. One long wall supported a series of portraits—famous doctors, I guessed, since all were wearing white coats—while the opposite wall was all glass, overlooking a green, grass-covered hillside. All but two of the dozen chairs around the oval table were taken by serious-looking men. But, despite the collection of shoulder holsters and crew cuts, the room seemed thick with joy as they laughed and joked with one another.
Peña led us to the empty seats. As I sat, I was surprised to find I recognized the man sitting next to me.
Franklin, from JFK.
He wore a broad smile. “Quite a haul you handed us, Walker.”
Before I could ask what he meant, the man at the head of the table cleared his throat and leaned forward. “Thanks, everyone, for coming,” he said. “I know we all have work to get back to, but I thought it would be worth taking a moment to discuss what we accomplished today.
“For the benefit of our distinguished guest”—the man paused and, to my surprise, raised a large, gnarled hand in my direction—“I’m Russell Ainsworth, DEA, and head of this little band of merry men.” He flashed a quick smile, teeth gleaming against his dark skin. “We are the TTFD, which most people think means ‘Texas Task Force—Drugs,’ but those of us in here know really means ‘Talk, Talk for Days.’”
The joke drew snickers from around the table. Just from his looks—thick ropes of muscle protruding from his collar, his face all lean, sharp features—Ainsworth appeared to be the furthest thing from a paper pusher, a man whose hands did a lot more than typing.
“Today, thanks to a bit of fortuitous timing”—he nodded at me again—“months of investigation and police work culminated in a raid against the Second Guerrilla Army.”
I listened as Ainsworth briefly detailed the operation. Apparently, plans to strike the Guerrillas had been in the works for weeks—my call to Peña from Roosevelt’s office had given them an excuse and some of the final details they’d been looking for. They hadn’t been counting on having to deal with civilian hostages like Max, though, so my volunteering to go in first had provided them with a view inside.
Ainsworth went around the table, crediting and complimenting the work of at least five different agencies. Between that, the soldiers, helicopters, even a drone with infrared, I suddenly realized what a large-scale operation this was.
Leaning over to Franklin, I started to whisper, “So you were—”
He nodded. “Yep. We’d connected Drew to the Second Guerrillas and were using him as an angle to gather intel.”
“The commercial flight . . . that was to draw them out?”
“Sorry I couldn’t warn you.”
“You ever find the leak?”
“Turns out, it was a cleaning woman in the New York Field Office. She was reading memos people dropped in the shred bin.”
Ainsworth continued, cataloging the number of Second Guerrilla soldiers they’d captured, the stockpiles they’d commandeered. With each passing statistic, the hoots from various people and knocks on the tabletop grew louder and more boisterous.
“Where’s Petén?” I asked.
Ainsworth, who’d been flashing his smile around the table, turned to me. “What?”
“Petén. Did you capture her? Or kill her?”
“Petén’s a her?” someone interjected from the side.
“Yeah,” I said. “I was hoping you were gonna tell me you’ve got her locked away.”
Ainsworth shot a serious look at two men across the table, who immediately rose and ran out the door. Then he turned back to me. “Why don’t you tell us exactly what happened to you and the girl.”
I recounted the entire story from the beginning. Just as I was describing how Petén had been injured, the two men returned. Ainsworth’s eyes darted in their direction, only to find them shaking their heads.
“So, what? She escaped?” I asked.
When no one answered, I rose from my chair. “I’ve got to go find Max.” Peña started after me.
“She’s on the sixth fl
oor,” Ainsworth said. “We can call down—”
“Tell them I’ll be there in a second.” I was almost out the door already.
“Don’t worry,” Franklin said, “we’ve got guards stationed outside her room—”
I glanced back at him. “Because that’s helped so much in the past.”
CHAPTER 27
When we hit the hallway, Peña took the lead, winding us through several corridors to a door marked “Stairs.”
“She’s gonna be fine,” he said once we were inside, his voice echoing off the cinder-block walls. Nevertheless, Peña started moving faster, bouncing down two steps at a time. “Petén’s gonna care more about getting the hell away . . .”
Nearly tripping trying to copy his trick, I decided to just move my feet double time. “I hope you’re right.”
The sixth-floor stairwell door clattered against the wall as Peña burst through it, and I dashed behind him before it could slam closed. Three more quick turns and we reached a room with two bulky guards standing outside.
They turned and saw us coming. Like those upstairs, these two had serious faces, but younger. So clean-shaven they might not show stubble for three days. Although I knew it wasn’t possible, when I looked at them, all I could see were members of the LAX detail.
“Has anyone tried—”
But before I could even finish the question, the guard on the left answered, “Nobody. Only ones in and out have been the medical team.”
Reaching them now, I stared directly into the eyes of the one who’d talked. “Listen, the head of the enemy is a woman, okay? Dark hair, hurt a little bit. Don’t assume everyone in scrubs or a mask is a doctor or nurse. You got me?”
He gave me a confident nod.
“Good.” Before I could decide whether I needed to worry about who might’ve gotten past them already, I got a glimpse through the window of Max in her bed. Without saying another word, I headed inside.
She lay in one of those adjustable hospital beds, the upper half elevated so she could sit up or watch television.
Instead, she was curled on her side. Crying.
