Authors: Michelle Gagnon
“They probably thought it would be easier to hide there until they got in touch with Tyr,” Jake mused.
“Maybe they’ve already been picked up,” Kelly said. “Is there any way to find out?”
“I would have gotten a call,” Syd said. “Let’s split up. You and Maltz each take a car and wait for us on the other side of these trees.” Syd bent down and gazed through them. “Looks like there’s a road a few hundred feet away, it should show up on the GPS.”
“I’ll go with you,” Kelly said. “Have Kane take the car.”
“Kelly—” Jake said.
“Your leg is bothering you,” Syd said flatly. “Unless you rest it, you’ll be useless.”
“I’m fine,” Kelly insisted.
“You’re not. And part of the deal here is that I’m in charge of the unit’s health. You injure yourself more, it makes everyone’s life harder.”
“But—”
“It’s not a request, it’s an order,” Syd said.
The rest of the team stopped and looked up at her raised voice. Kelly’s cheeks burned. She glanced at Jake, who shrugged.
“She’s right, Kel. It’s not personal, it’s just—”
“Give me the keys.” Kelly held out her hand.
He started to say something else, then shut his mouth and handed them over.
Kelly turned on her heel and marched back to the car. Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t hide the limp. She fought back tears as she slid into the driver’s seat. The worst part was that they were right: she wasn’t capable enough to be here. From the look of things, she might never be able to do her job properly again. If their positions were reversed, she’d feel the same way: what was the point of having a partner who couldn’t keep up? And if she was this useless, what the hell was she going to do with the rest of her life?
There was a rap at her window. Kelly turned to find Maltz peering down at her. She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. Great, she thought. Not only was she crying, but she was doing it in front of the only person more messed up than she was. She rolled down the window.
“Syd can be a pain in the ass.” Maltz bent over and crossed his arms on the window frame.
“She’s right,” Kelly said. “I’d hold them up.”
“Maybe.” He looked past her to where the others had vanished into the tree line. “It’s tough, huh?”
“Yes,” Kelly said. “It is.”
“Hang in there.” Maltz cuffed her lightly on the shoulder. “It’ll get better.” He turned and walked back toward the second car.
“Are you sorry?” Kelly blurted out.
He stopped and turned. “Sorry that I made it?”
She instantly regretted the question, but nodded.
“Every day. But what the hell, right?” He grinned at her. In spite of herself, Kelly grinned back. He tossed her a salute, then kept walking. Kelly watched as he got into the driver’s seat. In spite of everything, she felt better.
Eight
The automatic gunfire went on and on, but as far as Mark could tell no one had entered the store. They seemed dead set on making sure there were no survivors before risking it. The counter in front of him had been punctured by dozens of bullets; it was a small miracle he hadn’t been hit yet. He hoped Decker had been as lucky.
Mark had landed a few feet from the girl. She was facing him, hands over her ears, face twisted in a rictus of fear. She hadn’t stopped screaming since the shooting started. The plastic bag full of meds had landed near him. He grabbed it, tucking it in the back pocket of his jeans. Hopefully some of the bottles had survived the fall. Mark checked to make sure he still had the spare shells for the shotgun, then reached out and grabbed her arm. She started at the contact.
“Is there another way out?” he yelled over the noise.
The girl didn’t appear to have heard him. He dragged himself closer, shouting directly into her ear. “We have to get out. Is there a back door”
“They’ll kill me!” she yelled back.
“They’ll kill you anyway,” he shouted. He could see her thinking it over, realizing he was right.
Decker scuttled around what remained of the counter.
“You hurt?” Mark yelled.
Decker shook his head. “The guard bought it, though.”
The girl scrambled forward on her belly. Mark motioned for Decker to follow. Wherever she was going, it couldn’t be worse than here.
There was a sudden lull in the fire. Mark peeked through one of the holes in the counter and saw boots crossing the threshold into the store. He hustled after Decker.
The girl had crawled into a back room the size of a closet. Once inside, she scrambled to her feet and started tugging at a pile of boxes on the floor. “Help me!” she cried, exasperated. Decker helped push them aside. Underneath lay a trapdoor. The girl hauled it up and descended a steep flight of metal stairs. Decker followed. Mark went last, pulling the door closed behind them and turning the bolt. It wouldn’t hold their attackers off for long, but might buy them a few minutes.
The stairs ran through a concrete shaft. The air was cold, dank. The girl hit a switch and low-level bulbs flickered on.
“What is this?” he asked.
“The pharmacy used to be a bar. This was where they stored the liquor,” she said.
“Which way out?” Decker asked.
She pointed, and Mark pushed past her. Up ahead, a short flight of stairs led to a set of double doors, bolted from the inside. A smooth ramp ran parallel to them.
“For kegs,” she explained.
The sound of thumping metal behind them: someone was trying the door. Voices shouted orders in Spanish. Then the steady pound of bullets against metal.
“Where does this come out?” Mark asked.
“Follow me.” She unbolted the lock and pushed the doors open.
It took a second for Mark’s eyes to adjust to daylight. He focused on Decker, running ahead of him down the long alley behind the store. A line of metal service doors abutted overflowing Dumpsters. A few doors down a guy in a soiled apron smoked a cigarette in an open doorway. Through slitted eyes, he watched them pass.
The girl led them to the end of the block, took a sharp right down a narrow street, then hooked left. Mark and Decker trotted behind her, guns held down by their sides. At any moment Mark expected to feel bullets tearing through him from behind. The few people they passed took them in, then quickly looked away. Didn’t want to get involved, Mark gathered. He’d seen the same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan, people so acclimated to violence they went about their everyday lives as if it wasn’t happening all around them.
The girl set a good pace, weaving with the confidence of a native through a maze of crumbling adobe buildings. After five solid minutes of running she ducked under the metal fence surrounding a dilapidated warehouse. Decker and Mark followed. She eased aside a door that dangled on its hinges and came to a stop in the middle of the room.
It was an old factory, long abandoned by the look of things. In the far corner a rat scratched at something in an oily puddle. It glanced up at them, then returned its attention to lunch.
“Where are we?” Decker asked.
It was a good question. They’d taken so many turns that even with his infallible sense of direction Mark would be hard-pressed to find true north.
“El Eden,” the girl responded.
“Is that still in Mexico City?” Mark asked.
“You really were kidnapped, weren’t you?” The girl examined them more closely. “You’re in Iztapalapa. It’s one of the delegaciones.”
“The ninth borough,” Mark said, remembering the map he’d studied prior to the mission.
“Shit, we barely moved at all.” Decker barked a short laugh.
He was right. The rescue mission had been launched in the southern section of Iztapalapa. They were probably less than two miles from where this all began.
“Thanks for getting us out of there,” Mark said. “Now we gotta get back to our friend.”
“I didn’t hear about any Americans getting kidnapped recently.” Her eyes narrowed. “And you don’t look like turistas.”
Decker was tearing open the packaging for the phone they’d taken from the store. He squinted at the instructions. “Do I need a code or something for this thing?”
“It only works if it’s activated at the register.”
“Crap,” Decker said.
The girl drew a cell phone out of her jacket pocket and tossed it to him.
“Thanks,” he said. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Isabela Garcia,” she said. “Who are you calling?”
“A friend.”
Mark waved him over, keeping an eye on Isabela. “I don’t think we should call Tyr,” he said in a low voice.
“Why not?” Decker’s brow furrowed.
“Because there’s a leak. The mission went south because someone set us up. Until we know who, I don’t trust the organization.”
“Then how the hell do we get out of here?” Decker asked dubiously.
“We call my brother,” Mark said. “He’s got his own K&R firm, he can help.” He didn’t add that they hadn’t spoken in years. Jake could be a jerk sometimes, but in a situation like this he’d put his personal feelings aside. At least, Mark was hoping he would.
“All right.” Decker handed him the phone. He jerked his head toward Isabela. “What do we do with h“We wish her the best and send her home.”
He started to dial, but was interrupted by Isabela. Arms crossed over her chest, she said, “You’re here for Cesar Calderon, aren’t you?”
The room erupted in smoke and blinding lights. Flores squeezed his eyes shut. His ears rang, which he took as a good sign. A real grenade would have separated them from his head. A flashbang, then. Thank God for small favors.
Shouts all around him. Flores squinted to see through the tears streaming down his face. Latino men in a motley assortment of camouflage streamed through the door, bandannas tied over their mouths. They were brandishing automatic weapons. He groaned—déjà vu all over again.
Sock was facing the wall. He’d dropped the gun and crossed his hands behind his head. One of the guys kicked his knees in from behind, then leaned over and whispered something in his ear. Sock replied in a low voice. The man glanced up, saw Flores watching. He walked over, swinging his gun back as if it were a bat.
A thousand stars exploded in Flores’s head as the butt of it made contact with his skull.
“What now?” Jake asked.
They’d emerged on the outskirts of Iztapalapa, in a neighborhood labeled San Miguel Teotongo on the map. The blood trail they’d been following had petered out on the other side of the tree line. Either Mark’s team had made more of an effort to cover their tracks, or somehow they’d managed to stem the bleeding. There was a third option, that whoever had been spilling so much blood was abandoned, but knowing his brother Jake doubted it. One thing Mark had always taken seriously was the precept to leave no man behind. Syd had someone in her network checking local hospitals just in case.
They were back to square one.
“Maybe they already made contact with Tyr,” Jake said. “We could call them directly and ask.”
“I doubt they’d tell us anything,” Syd snorted. “Besides, my guy there said he’d call if anything changed. And I haven’t heard from him yet.”
“We could canvass the area,” Fribush said.
“And what, ask if anyone saw a bunch of injured Americans stumbling around?” Syd shook her head. “We stay out here, we risk running into the Zetas looking for them. We need to regroup.”
“If one of them is bleeding, they’d start by trying to patch him up,” Jake said thoughtfully. “We could scope out the pharmacies.”
“Good.” Syd spun on her heels. “Let’s get back to the cars.”
Maltz had reported their position via radio a few minutes before. Syd led the four of them through a dusty lot and around an adobe building that was in the process of melting back into the earth. She stopped short, and Jake nearly crashed into her.
“Christ, Syd,” he grumbled. Then he saw what had stopped her. Kelly and Maltz were next to one of their cars, hands on their heads. They were surrounded by more than a dozen men bear automatic weapons.
Syd reacted before he did, an H&K materializing in her hands. She shoved Jake back, ducking down beside the building. Kane, Fribush and Jagerson followed her lead, guns ready. Jake fumbled with the Glock tucked in his ankle holster.
“You think they saw us?” he asked.
As if in response, a spray of bullets sent chunks of masonry jumping off the building a few feet away. Jake scrambled back. Kelly yelled something, and his jaw clenched. If they were hurting her…
“Zetas?” Syd asked.
“Couldn’t tell.” Jake grunted.
“Kane, you and Jagerson circle around. Fribush, see if you can get up high, find a nest to snipe from.”
“This is nuts, Syd. There are at least a dozen of them,” Jake protested.
The other men exchanged glances. Kane shrugged, then the three of them trotted toward the rear of the building.
“They’ll kill Kelly and Maltz,” Jake said. “You’re setting us up for a bloodbath.”
“We don’t have a lot of other options.”
“We have one.” Jake dropped his gun. Before Syd could stop him, he stood and rounded the corner, hands held high.
“No dispare!” he called out, hoping that was the polite way to ask them not to shoot.
Two of them kept their guns trained on Maltz and Kelly, the rest swiveled, aiming for his chest. Jake stopped ten feet away. “Soy Jake Riley,” he said. “Americano.”
A tall black man stepped forward. He lowered his gun slightly, but kept his finger on the trigger. “Good for you,” he said. “Now maybe you can explain what the hell you’re doing here.”
“What about Cesar Calderon?” Decker raised the LMT, pointing it at Isabela’s chest.
She looked back at him defiantly. “Everyone knows he was kidnapped. Los Zetas have him.”
“Lady, we don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mark said. “Now why don’t you—”
“They have my father, too,” she said. “That’s what the cocaine was for. I was trying to raise the ransom money.”
“Sorry to hear about your dad,” Mark said. “But we’ve got to get back to our friend.”
“They’ll kill him now, because of you.” Her chin quivered. “They’ll know I helped you. You’ve ruined everything.”
“Tell you what,” Mark said. “I’m going to call my brother, and he might be able to help.”