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Kelly tensed on the edge of the backseat as Syd and Kane approached the bodega. Syd’s contact claimed the owner was Zeta-friendly. Apparently he and his wife stowed hostages in the apartment above the store. He was responsible for making sure they didn’t escape, she kept them fed.
Nothing about this was sitting well with Kelly. They only had the word of one of Syd’s shadowy connections to go on, and God only knew what his motivation was for ratting out the bodega. “What if they’ve got nothing to do with Los Zetas?” Kelly had asked back at the motel.
“Then we go on our merry way,” Syd claimed.
Kelly very much doubted that was true. The bodega door closed behind them. Almost subconsciously she began to count, trying to keep herself from imagining what was going on inside.
What the hell am I doing here? Kelly wondered. She’d been so gung ho to feel useful again, she hadn’t thought through what kind of moral compromises working with Syd would present. Already she felt dirty, and they hadn’t even done anything yet. She was no Pollyanna; she knew there was a seamy side to Jake’s new line of work. She just hadn’t realized how seamy.
Kelly had hoped that coming down here would restore her sense of purpose, and that after they found Mark she’d have a chance to look into the allegation that Stefan Gundarsson was still alive. But the reality of that suddenly seemed absurd. Jake would flip if she told him she intended to track down a fugitive alone. And the truth was, she didn’t even know where to start looking. She hadn’t been able to get in touch with the P.I. who provided the earlier lead. She didn’t speak Spanish, and based on what everyone was telling her, the Mexican authorities wouldn’t be helpful. On top of which she didn’t have the authority or clearance to be doing any of this. She’d wanted to dig up enough concrete evidence to convince her boss to reopen the case and put her in charge of it. But that possibility seemed increasingly remote.
Out of the corner of her eye she examined Jake. His face was inscrutable. For a second, it seemed as if he were a total stranger, and she was seeing him for the first time. She flashed back on the day they’d met, in the command-center trailer during her campus case. He seemed colder now, harder. It had been a long three years for both of them. Had he really changed so much since then? Or was her mind messing with her again?
Kelly shifted in her seat. Her leg was sore. The pressurization on the plane had caused it to swell and the socket of her prosthetic felt unusually tight. The lack of sleep wasn’t helping, either. The Xanax had worn off and she could sense the panic lurking, waiting for an opportunity to rush in. It felt like there was a spotlight on their cars, as if everyone passing by had pegged them as intruders. Kelly knew she was being paranoid, but she couldn’t help herself. Half of her was afraid that at any moment someone might open fire, drilling their cars with automatic weapon fire. The other half was worried that the people inside the store were involved in the kidnapping of Mark’s team. And she could imagine what Syd would do to them if that turned out to be the case.
Syd emerged from the store with Kane at her heels. She pulled on a baseball cap, their signal to meet her at a prearranged location a block away.
“Must have gone well,” Jake commented from the front seat.
“How do you know?” Kelly asked.
“No shots fired,” Maltz said from beside her. They were in the same seating arrangement as before, with Jagerson driving. She had yet to hear him say a word, and was starting to wonder if he even spoke English.
Kelly gazed out the window at the passing storefronts. They were in the northeast quadrant of Iztapalapa. To her eyes it was indistinguishable from the rest of Mexico City: row after row of run-down buildings, streets riddled with potholes, choking smog and horns and blaring music. Her only other trip to Mexico had been a vacation in Puerto Vallarta years before. This is a far cry from that, she thought wryly.
Jagerson eased the car over to the curb.
Syd approached Jake’s window. She leaned over as she spoke. Kelly’s eyes narrowed at the peek of bra revealed by that maneuver.
“Shopkeeper is dirty all right. He didn’t have them there, but he probably has others.”
“How do you know they weren’t there?” Kelly interrupted.
Syd barely glanced at her. “Because he heard a rumor that the guys we’re after were in a van crash on the Mexico-Puebla highway early this morning. They were being moved out of the city. He thinks the hostages got away.”
“He’s sure?” Jake asked.
“Sure enough,” Syd said. “I made a call, we should have a copy of the accident report within the hour.”
“Are they all okay?”
“Apparently.”
“How’d you get him to tell you all that?” Kelly asked. “How do we know he’s not lying?”
Syd grinned at her. “I asked nicely.” She turned back to Jake. “I’ve got the general location of the crash. I say we head out there, see what we can find. It’s only a few clicks east.”
“What about the other people?” Kelly asked.
“What other people?”
“You said he was keeping other hostages above the store.”
“Yeah?” Syd gazed at her levelly.
Kelly turned to Jake. “There has to be someone you can call.”
He paused a beat before saying, “Kelly, no one’s supposed to—”
“Someone must be looking for them. Maybe one of the other K&R companies.”
“Not if they’re local,” Syd snorted. “Hell, you don’t even have to have money to get kidnapped down here. Some of the gangs offer a layaway plan.”
Kelly stared Jake down. Finally he said, “I’ll have Demetri drop the AFI an anonymous tip.” Syd started to protest, but he cut her off. “Meanwhile, we go check out that crash site.”
“What if the cops are still there?” Maltz asked.
“They won’t be,” Syd said. “Happened early this morning, everything’ll be cleared up by now.”
“And if some of the Zetas are there?” Kelly asked.
“Then we consider ourselves lucky,” Syd said. “I’m dying to talk to one face-to-face.”
Seven
Mark Riley hunched in the shadows beside the pharmacy. One of the great things about Mexico was that you could get almost anything in their drugstores, from Botox to antibiotics. Until recently, most were poorly guarded. But lately addiction levels had spiked, and there had been a corresponding rise in pharmacy robberies. Many, like the one he was currently facing, had taken security precautions: an armed rent-a-cop was perched on a stool inside the doorway. He was clearly bored, eyes glued to the television set behind the counter. Still, he had a gun, which complicated things. Mark would prefer getting what they needed without hurting anyone. Hopefully this guy wouldn’t want to play cowboy.
“What do you think?” Decker asked in a low voice.
Mark had nicked a baseball cap from a sidewalk cart, and he pulled it low over his eyes. “We could try another one. Not a fan of dealing with a guard.”
“We could. But Kaplan doesn’t have a lot of time,” Decker pointed out.
He was right. It had taken longer than expected to find a safe place to hunker down. They’d left Kaplan, Flores and Sock in an abandoned building a few blocks away. Kaplan was losing blood too fast for them to stick together. And Mark wasn’t willing to leave him alone with Sock. So he and Decker set off to raid a pharmacy for meds and a cell phone. According to the locals, this was the only one open for blocks in any direction.
“How’s your Spanish?” Mark asked.
Decker shrugged. “I can get by.”
“All right, you do the talking. Make sure they know we don’t want anyone to get hurt, we’ll just take what we need and be gone.”
“Got it.”
Mark took a deep breath. It was a little after 1000 hours. Despite the fact that it was late January, the sun beat down, baking the scene in a shimmery cast. A river of sweat ran down the center of his back. He was light-headed from hunger, tired and shaky in the aftermath of the crash. He’d never stolen so much as a candy bar in his life, and here he was about to knock over a drugstore. He shook his head.
Mark slid the LMT up from the ground beside him, holding it close by his side as he stood. He lined it up with his leg as he approached the door, Decker at his heels. Of the remaining team members, Decker struck him as the most capable and trustworthy. Hopefully he wouldn’t be proven wrong.
The guard glanced their way as the door opened with a tinkling of bells. Small guy, early twenties with a scraggly moustache. His gaze started to slide away, but then he frowned: something about them had registered. As he shifted back toward them, Mark slammed the butt of the gun hard against his temple. He crumpled off the stool, landing on the floor with a thump.
Decker locked the door behind them. The store was empty. Mark frowned. There had been someone behind the register when they cased it five minutes earlier. Bathroom break, maybe?
A chunk of plaster blew off the wall behind his head. Instinctively he dived, hitting the floor. Decker landed beside him.
“You okay?” Mark asked.
“Holy shit!” Decker said, checking out the hole punched through the wall above where the guard had been sitting. “What was that, a missile launcher?”
“Double barrel loaded with triple-ought buck, I’m guessing,” Mark said.
Another chunk of plaster exploded, a few feet lower than the last. Mark slid the LMT to Decker and signaled for him to move to the far side of the store, near the bandages. From there he’d have a better angle to cover him.
Mark commando-crawled toward the cheap plywood counter, praying it wouldn’t occur to the shooter to fire through it. After a few feet he entered a long aisle of cold and cough supplies. The good thing about a double-barrel was that after two shots it had to be reloaded, and reloading was a pain in the ass, especially if you were an amateur all hopped up on adrenaline. Mark scooped a bottle of cough syrup off the shelf by his head and hurled it toward the door.
Another explosion, the shot wild. The window shattered, glass peppering the floor by the door. Movement across the room—and another shot. A puff of packaging exploded a few feet above him.
Mark jumped to his feet and lunged for the counter. He slid across it and landed in a crouch. Turned and found himself facing a girl in her twenties. Shorts peeked out the bottom of her white coat. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, glasses askew on the bridge of her nose. She fumbled frantically with a shotgun shell, trying to chamber it.
He grabbed the gun by the muzzle and pulled, yanking her off balance. She splayed out on all fours, glasses falling to the floor. One more tug and the shotgun was his. He palmed a few shells, tucking them in his pocket before chambering two.
“Por favor, señor,” she said, scrambling away from him. “No me moleste.”
“Tranquila,” he said, before calling out, “All clear!”
Decker’s head popped up above the counter. “Jesus. Annie Oakley, huh?”
“Yeah.” Mark glanced at her. Both hands covered her head, as if she were attempting to ward them off. “Tell her to relax. We gotta scramble, cops’ll probably be here soon.”
“Sure.” Decker rattled off something in Spanish. Whatever he said didn’t make the girl noticeably calmer. On the other side of the counter, the guard moaned.
“I’ll handle him.” Decker vanished. Mark grabbed a plastic bag from a stack below the register. He kept one eye on the girl as he scanned the locked, refrigerated cabinets. “Antibióticos?” he finally asked.
She didn’t answer. He came closer, kneeling beside her. She avoided his eyes.
“Lady, the faster we get this stuff, the faster we leave,” he said.
“You’ll kill us anyway,” she replied in surprisingly good English. “Fucking junkies.”
“We just want to help our friend,” Mark said. “Morphine, coagulants, antibiotics and we’ll be out of your hair.”
“Your friend was shot?”
He nodded. “We were kidnapped.”
“So go to the police.”
“I don’t trust the police.”
“Got the bandages and the phone,” Decker called. “We ready?”
“Almost.” Mark turned back to the cabinet. Toward the end of the row he spotted a bottle marked Morfina. He used the butt of the shotgun to shatter the case, causing the girl to suck in her breath sharply. Mark carefully stuck his hand in, avoiding the broken glass, and drew out two bottles.
Kaplan could live without anticoagulants, but antibiotics were crucial. If they could get him through the next few hours, Tyr would be able to reach them and he had a shot at surviving. But once infection started, it was tough to beat.
“Antibiotics?” he asked again. The girl refused to look at him. He reached back into the cabinet, swept an armful of bottles out and sent them crashing to the floor. They shattered in quick succession like bottle caps.
“Ay!” she cried. “They’re over there!”
He followed her pointing finger and spotted the antibiotics in the opposite cabinet. Punched a hole in the glass again, then drew out two bottles. “Syringes?”
She motioned toward the drawers below the cabinet.
Mark tried one: locked. “You got a key, or should I shoot the lock?”
The girl fumbled in the pocket of her jacket. She drew out a key ring and tossed it to him.
He caught it, unlocked the drawer and slid it open. Grabbed a box of syringes and tossed them in the bag with the other stuff. Turning to leave, something caught his eye. He bent again, shifting the other boxes aside. The girl stiffened as he drew out a package: white powder wrapped in layers of plastic.
“Dude, we gotta bolt.” Decker reappeared on the other side of the counter. “What’s that?”
“The cops aren’t coming, are they?” Mark asked.
The girl slowly shook her head. “Los Zetas?”
Her expression shifted at the name, but she didn’t reply.
“Shit,” Decker said.
Mark’s next words were interrupted by a spray of automatic weapon fire. He dived to the ground, landing hard. The counter in front of him bucked and splintered as dozens of rounds pumped through it. Over the barrage, he heard the girl screaming.
“They’ve been gone too long,” Sock said. “Something went wrong.”
“It’s only been an hour,” Flores replied. “Maybe there wasn’t a pharmacy nearby.”
“Yeah, or maybe they got smart and decided to ditch us. It’d be a hell of a lot easier to get out of this shithole if we weren’t dragging around a guy with a gunshot wound.”
“They’ll be back.” Flores turned his attention to Kaplan. The T-shirt he’d been using to apply pressure to the wound had soaked through. He replaced it with another from the stack Sock had stolen on his foray outside. Kaplan wasn’t looking good. He was getting paler by the minute, more waxy-looking. He’d probably lost a few pints of blood by now. It was giving Flores a bad sense of déjà vu. A year ago he was in the mountains on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, running interference between the local warlords while trying to determine which of them was still Taliban. When their convoy was coming back from the nearest village, one of his buddies got hit by a sniper. They waited more than three hours for a Medevac chopper. As it was landing, his friend bled out. Kaplan had that same look now. If Riley and Decker didn’t get back soon, he was done for.
Sock wasn’t making the situation any easier. He’d returned ten minutes earlier with the T-shirts and some tacos he’d scrounged up, and hadn’t stopped pacing since. This was Flores’s second mission with Tyr, and the first time he’d worked with Sock. The guy struck him as a typical SEAL asshole, convinced he was better than everyone else because he could wear a scuba tank. He’d run into the type a lot since entering the service: didn’t like them then, and couldn’t stand working with them now.
The irony was that Flores had taken this job because it was supposed to be safer. He was sick of getting shot at in some sand-blasted country where everyone hated Americans. Now here he was, in his hometown, facing the same situation. You had to laugh.
He thought for a minute of Maryanne, six months pregnant and waiting for him. Wondered if Tyr had even told her that something went wrong. They promised to take care of relatives if anything happened to him; he’d felt pretty good filling out a whole stack of paperwork attesting to that. But you had to wonder. If the company could screw up an operation this badly, how good was their word?
Kaplan groaned. Flores lifted his head, forced the mouth of a water bottle between his lips and got a few drops down his throat.
“We should leave him,” Sock said. “Riley and Decker might have gotten picked up again—we’re probably still in Zetas territory. We get our hands on a phone, we can call in, get help.”
“Why didn’t you come back with a phone?” Flores asked.
“Didn’t see any,” Sock said defensively.
Flores didn’t answer. It seemed off, that Sock could find T-shirts and tacos but hadn’t managed to get his hands on the cell phone they really needed. But then, this whole operation had been screwy. None of them had discussed it yet, but clearly someone had set them up. That raid had gone too wrong too fast, like the Zetas knew they were coming. The question was, who told them? A member of the team, or someone higher up in the organization?
Flores furtively eyed Sock. Riley and Decker seemed okay, and Kaplan was just plain unlucky, first the broken ribs, now this. But Sock had been exhibiting odd behavior from day one.
Sock went to the doorway again and eased it open an inch to peer out.
“Shit.” He yanked his head back.
“What?” Flores asked.
“We got company,” Sock said grimly, pulling a handgun out of the waistband of his jeans shorts.
Before Flores could ask where the hell he’d gotten another gun, the door blew inward. Something hit the floor, then rolled toward them. He instinctively threw himself over Kaplan as the grenade came to a stop a few feet away.
“See? Nobody here,” Syd said as they pulled on to the shoulder at the side of the highway.
Kelly didn’t respond. Jake was driving, Maltz was beside her in the backseat. This time Syd had insisted on riding with them. “I know where we’re going,” she’d tossed over her shoulder, jumping in the front seat beside Jake.
It galled the hell out of Kelly, but she didn’t say anything.
A steady stream of cars whipped past. Kelly realized she had yet to see a single police car, despite all their driving around the city.
“How do you know this is the spot?” Jake asked.
“GPS,” Syd said. “Plus those.” She pointed at a set of skid marks that started in the middle of the road and zoomed off the shoulder past them into the desert.
It was a desolate stretch of road, dusty scrub brush and trash running a few hundred yards to a line of dying trees. The building on the far end looked abandoned. Past the trees, Kelly discerned the bleats and rumbles of the city. To her left the terrain climbed sharply, barren foothills hunching out of the gritty soil.
They got out of the car. Kane had pulled up behind them in the second vehicle. He, Jagerson, Fribush and Maltz followed Syd as she marched off into the brush. They spread out, examining the ground in formation. Kelly picked her way behind them, avoiding a soiled diaper and empty fast-food containers. The van’s tracks in the dirt were marred by the wheels of other vehicles and footprints: probably from emergency units that had responded to the crash.
“You okay?” Jake asked, coming up beside her.
“I’m fine,” she lied. The constant sitting around in cars was wreaking havoc on her leg. It had stiffened up to the point that every step was torture, but she wasn’t about to admit that to anyone.
“You’re awfully quiet.”
“There hasn’t been much to say,” Kelly retorted. “What with torturing storekeepers and leaving kidnap victims with their captors.”
Jake grabbed her elbow, stopping her. “Why did you want to come?”
“You know why.”
“I don’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I know you want to prove you can still do your job. But this isn’t your job. This is my job. And clearly you hate it.”
“It’s not what I expected,” she finally said.
“Outside U.S. borders things go down a little differently. Whether you like it or not, that’s just how it is. If I want to save my brother and whoever else is with him, I’ve got to respect that.”
“I know,” Kelly said. “It’s just—”
“Got something over here!” Syd was waving her arms a dozen yards from the tree line.
Jake took off at a trot. Kelly struggled to keep up, running a few steps alongside him before falling back. When she finally reached them, her face was flushed from the effort.
“Blood trail,” Syd said. “They did a pretty good job covering it in the immediate vicinity of the crash, but it was probably still dark, they missed some spots.”
“Where does it go?” Jake asked.
“More over here!” Fribush yelled from the tree line.
“So they went back to the city. Interesting choice,” Syd said.
“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.