by L T Ryan
"Take me off the Bluetooth. Put me on speaker." Ayala did as he was told and took a step back from the girl, keeping one eye on the open door. "Angela, it's me, Daphne."
Angela stopped moving immediately. Her eyes darted around the room as if waking from an awful dream.
Hatch's voice crackled, cutting in and out. Ayala spoke in the most soothing and reassuring tone of voice he could muster considering the stress he was under. "Please, you have to trust me. I'm not one of them. I'm here to help you. Daphne Nighthawk is in the parking lot outside this place right now. Isn't that right, Daphne?"
Silence followed. He pulled the phone and saw it had died. His crap charger in the Nissan had left him with a low battery. With Hatch no longer his eyes and ears, Ayala set out on his own.
Angela calmed some after hearing Hatch's voice. The knife in Ayala's hand had not been used against the girl and with each passing second, she seemed more receptive to the idea of accepting his assistance.
The girl turned and exposed the bindings on her wrists without the fidgeting and movement of before. Ayala used the blade that Hatch had given him to saw through the cords, releasing her damaged wrists. She gently waved them in front of her. The wounds left by the bindings were too sore to even rub. Ayala had no medical training but had spent enough time documenting tragedy to know the gash on Angela’s right wrist would definitely need medical treatment.
He outstretched an open hand to the girl and guided her up from the cold, damp concrete. "Please, we must hurry. We have to get going."
"You're not going anywhere."
The light from the hallway was blotted out by the shapes of two men of opposite proportions, but both equally terrifying.
Thirty
Ayala turned to face the two brutish men, putting his body between himself and Angela. Being a man who preferred doing battle with the pen rather than the sword meant the knife Hatch had given him quivered in his hand.
The two men laughed as they closed in on Ayala and the girl. The short, hairy one pulled a pistol from his waist and pointed it at Ayala, the blade now seeming a foolish choice, wishing he had opted for the gun but knowing that it was against his nature to use one.
The knife in his hand now was drawn instinctively, but he knew he didn't have the will to use it as he looked down the barrel of the gun pointed at his head. That's why when it left his hand and slammed into the side of the brutish, hairy man's neck, Ayala looked on in shock.
Blood spurted and death called him to the cold, stained concrete floor. A single round left his gun as he convulsed and hit the floor. The round slammed directly into the forehead of his lanky partner, sending blood and brain matter into the high corner of the ceiling.
Angela stood over the burly man, gurgling blood through both his nose and mouth, a result of the knife punched directly through his neck. His left hand fell away from his throat and into the blood pooling out from the hole created by the knife still embedded in his neck. Angela stood over him and didn't move again until the gurgling stopped altogether.
Ayala looked at the girl, who, only moments before, was tucked in the corner. In the wake of the violence, Angela’s face calmed and for the briefest of moments, she looked like the girl from the photo, at least in her eyes. The fire of life breathed back into them by the death of these two horrible men.
Rothman followed Ayala out into the hallway. The two crossed the main floor at a good pace, somewhere between a speed walk and a jog, trying to move quickly without drawing attention. With the two guards he'd seen at the front door dead, the main exit was clear.
Ayala and Angela exited the warehouse and broke into a brisk jog as an alarm sounded from inside the building they had just left.
Hatch was no longer in the Nissan. She'd left it soon after Ayala entered the building. In his absence, Hatch had been gifted a powder blue uniform in similar fashion as the first. Her hair tucked up under the plastic helmet as best she could manage, making her look more masculine, just as she had done when infiltrating Club de Fuego. Hatch now lingered at the top of the footpath leading to the factory gate and was nearing the pedestrian gate access when Ayala burst through the door. Angela was close behind. They broke into a sprint when the alarm sounded. The guard from the truck checkpoint ran in the direction of the warehouse and the escaping duo. Hatch slipped her gun out, the coveralls making the simple task harder. As she brought the weapon up on target, the guard ran by Ayala and the girl without a second look.
Hatch was already in the Nissan with the engine running. She’d left the passenger side doors open and a moment later the seats were occupied by Ayala's and Angela's bodies.
"I can't believe you came back for me," Angela squeaked the words out as tears ran down her face, marking a clean trail through the filth acquired by her experience in captivity.
Hatch pulled the yellow Nissan out of the lot and onto the dirt road leading back to the main highway.
The headlights in the rearview mirror grew brighter.
"Don't thank me yet."
Thirty-One
Miguel's beat-up yellow Nissan protested Hatch's efforts to push beyond its capacity. Her knuckles were white as she worked two-handed to maintain her grip. Getting it under control, she looked at Angela, who was terrified, curled in a fetal position and rocking, her eyes wide with terror, her moment of exhilaration at being released by the rescue were instantly dashed by the pursuers now chasing them, only a few miles behind.
"Miguel, I'm going to need you to take the wheel."
"What?" He put his hands up. "How?"
"It's going to have to be quick. Hold the wheel. We're going to slow down. You have to keep it steady. I'm going to come across behind you, and you're going to go in front of me. I'm going to see if we can put all those propel waters to work."
Ayala's face suddenly brightened with the challenge. A few minutes of wild jostling, and the Chinese fire drill was complete without either of them leaving the car.
Hatch spun in her new seat, turning to face the rear windshield of the sedan, using the head rest as a supported firing position while she brought the Glock up and took aim at the headlights behind them.
"It may not even be them," Miguel whispered in a worried hiss.
"We'll know the second they start shooting."
Miguel seemed be able to whisper to his Nissan because with him at the helm, it quieted enough that Hatch could hear the murmured whispers repetitively spoken by Angela in her curled position. She understood the two words she was saying repeatedly. Kill me.
Hatch released her grip on the back seat and reached her hand out. The old scars of Hatch's battle torn arm rested atop the girl's trembling arm, being careful to avoid the area of Angela's wrist damaged by her restraints. The physical contact seemed to be working because Angela stopped the rocking, and she grew quiet.
"I know you're scared."
Tears streamed down Angela's face, cleaning paths through the grime still clinging to her skin. "I'll never go back there. Do you understand me? You have to promise, don't let them take me again, even if that means killing me first."
"I'll promise you this, the only way they're ever going to get to you, is if they've gotten to me first. And I don't plan on dying today."
Miguel jerked the wheel hard to the right, taking the poorly constructed road that led down into a shanty town. Hatch was thrown to the right, catching herself by the headrest before falling between the seats.
"Sorry for not giving the warning. I saw it last minute."
"Where are we?" They sped by stacked rows of broken-down homes.
"These are the towns they give the workers who work their fields. They pay them next to nothing if anything at all. Most are working off a debt they'll never pay off. Look at the houses around you. They're built from junkyard scraps."
Few people were out to see the Nissan race down their quiet village streets. He'd taken several rights and lefts, and then slowed at Hatch's request, and cut the lights. The Nissan's motor m
ade a loud clicking sounds as the engine began to cool.
Less than two minutes passed before the darkness was shattered by the reaching glow of the approaching headlights silhouetting the uneven lines of the village. Menacing shadows outran the light, as if to warn of the intentions of the men behind them.
Hatch directed Ayala into a driveway off to the right, leaving their headlights off and only braking hard at the last second before cutting the engine. Once stopped, Hatch jumped from the vehicle and ran through the garbage-littered yard to Ayala's trunk where she'd seen a tattered green sleeping bag when she'd deposited the supplies, including a cache of guns collected from the dirty police lieutenant and his cronies, and a medical kit donated by Ernesto.
She pulled out a five-inch folding knife and cut at the seam of the sleeping bag. Hatch spent several precious seconds tearing at the sleeping bag to widen its reach before throwing it over the back end of the Nissan. The poor condition of the sleeping bag exposed part of the yellow through its thin membrane and worn holes visible from the street. As best she could, Hatch battled to subdue the hideous yellow metal from view, but the Nissan fought back, just as its owner's Hawaiian shirt did, poking its way out from the collar of the blue coveralls he was still wearing.
Hatch looked for something else to cover the back of the car when an old woman appeared out of nowhere. It was a rare occasion when somebody snuck up on Hatch, and the eighty-something year old in slippers and a long pink tank top as a nightgown had somehow managed to make a very short list. The discolored blotches made the tattered clothing look more like a tie dye, rather than the faded and tattered covering that it was.
The old woman's thin arms rested atop a wooden cane, holding up her bony figure on unsteady wobbly legs. Her hair was the color of smoke, blowing in every direction. She winked at Hatch and said something rapidly in Spanish that Hatch could not understand. Watching the exchange between the two, she thought of the story Ayala had told her about the medicine woman that had given the boy the seed.
"She wants to help us. She said to follow her."
The street filled with the light of the approaching vehicles. She followed the smoky haired woman as she disappeared inside the door to a two-story house, hopeful that they had not been seen, and that their vehicle had not been spotted.
As the door closed behind her, Hatch heard the squeal of brakes and knew that that had not been the case.
Thirty-Two
The three of them followed the wispy trail of the woman's hair up to a second flight of stairs, which led to a laddered access way to her tin roof. She never spoke. Not a word. Not to Hatch, not to Angela. The only utterances were in Spanish to Ayala when first offering her assistance outside.
The old woman quickly went about removing the padlock, which had been hanging in an unlocked position prior, and pushed open the door. A jerry-rigged door-catch, consisting of nothing more than a bungie cord and a whole mess of duct tape, kept the outward swinging door from slamming into the tin roof which would have alerted the men hunting them. Hatch was grateful that did not happen, and equally grateful for the woman's assistance.
The wild-haired woman shooed them onto her rooftop. Hatch looked down at the woman as she pulled it closed again. Before it shut, Hatch took one moment to admire the woman, who would forever be engrained as the Medicine Woman from Ayala's childhood story about the seed and the boulder. She was glad to have given the moment due pause, because in return she received the old woman's dazzling smile. Another wink and the door closed completely. This time when the padlock was returned to the hinge, Hatch heard the accompanying metallic click as she locked it, followed by the creak of her footsteps as she descended to the lower floor of her home.
Hatch only had the one gun. She carried it now in a low ready, bootlegged position by her left thigh as she turned to the hunched reporter and teen huddled close beside her, both faces offering the same question through terrified eyes. What now?
She had intended to go back for the sack full of weapons confiscated from Munoz and his men. Hatch had given a gun to both Ernesto and his wife Josefina in the hopes neither would have to use them. The rest were stowed in the trunk of Ayala's car, parked on the other side of the roof. No more than fifteen feet separated them from the car. But it might as well have been fifteen miles because of the cartel men sniffing around below.
The four armed men standing between them and their only transportation were now going house to house, looking for them. The terroristic nature of their questioning could be clearly understood in any language, even if their words weren't.
Hatch watched from above and hoped they wouldn't see the yellow of Ayala's Sentra peeking out from under the tattered sleeping bag blanketed over it. But she knew better. Everything now was not a matter of if, it was a matter of when and where they would be when it happened.
The three of them were pressed flat on the tin roof, cool to the touch having not yet been kissed by the morning sun. They were looking over a tight alleyway on the opposite side from where the Nissan was parked.
The gapped space measured no more than ten feet across. Hatch looked at the weakened Angela to her left, and the older but agile civilian reporter on her right and wondered if they'd be able to handle the jump and landing needed to get from where they were to where they needed to be. Hatch tucked the weapon inside her waistband and cinched her belt down as tight as she could, locking it to the small of her back, while being careful to adjust the hard angled steel of the weapon off the center of her spine and keep it in the upper part of her buttocks where her lean body had the most padding.
A commotion broke out below from within the Medicine Woman's home. The wild-haired, kind-smiling woman who hadn't uttered a word since bringing them through her tiny two-story home, more a one-story loft, could be heard loudly fending off the men with verbal assaults delivered in rapid-fire Spanish. Only two words Hatch could clearly hear, probably because they were said with such frequency, but she didn't recognize the words. Perros del diablos. Dogs of the devil. Devil Dogs.
"What'd the woman whisper to you when she invited us in?"
"Just told us to get inside followed by some mumbo jumbo."
"What was the mumbo jumbo?" Hatch asked as she quietly pushed herself up into a low crouch.
"She said she looked out her window and saw glowing woman by her baby cypress."
"Glowing woman?"
"I know, like I said, mumbo jumbo."
Hatch tried to make sense of the Medicine Woman's words as she stood and silently directed Ayala and Angela to do the same. Glowing woman? Then it made sense. She'd been flapping the shredded sleeping bag when the moon had finally broken its way through the cloudy pre-dawn sky above. The green of the makeshift blanket must've caught the light in a way that gave her a glow. Regardless, if that had been the reason for her opening the door and extending her bony hand in kindness, then Hatch glowed.
The Medicine Woman continued her verbal onslaught against the Devil Dogs as Hatch herded Ayala and Angela toward the center of the roof. Glass shattered in the chaos beneath their feet. Hatch imagined it had been thrown, and that whatever was used to make the loud crash had hopefully found its mark in the face of one her aggressors, because the next thing Hatch heard was the gunshot that silenced it all.
"Ready or not, we're going to have to jump."
Hatch expected resistance but got none. Adrenaline fueled them, generated by the imminent fear of death.
"Miguel, I'm going to need you to go first. You have to be on the other side to make sure Angela lands okay. She's very weak and might not be able to catch herself if she's unable to stick the landing."
Ayala nodded and set his gaze on the seven-foot tin runway between him and the edge. He took in air through deep and rapid inhales. Hatch was worried he was going to hyperventilate and pass out before even making the jump.
"It's ten feet across. I know that seems like a lot. I'd never ask you to do it if I didn't think you could make it. You don'
t jump and you know what's waiting on the other side of that door."
"I know all of that. I just can't seem to make my legs move."
Hatch knew what he was going through. Her father had tested her on that ridgeline and pushed her through the fear. "The distance seems impossible, but that's because you're not taking account of the six foot drop to the roof on the other side. It will carry you further than the ten feet you need."
Ayala's breathing became more settled as did his focus. "Where'd you learn that? Some top-secret killer school?"
"Mr. Henderson's tenth grade geometry class."
"I finally can tell my friends I used not only used my Spanish, I also used math to survive this crazy crap."
Hatch could tell the girl's awkward chuckle that followed melted away some of the fear and replaced it with determination.
"Don't choke up on your run. You hit the edge at full stride and launch off that edge. Do both of you hear me on this?"
Both nodded in unison.
"When you hit the other side, it's important to remember to bend your knees. You don't want to land straight legged. And if you don't stick the landing, then, as best you can, go with the momentum and curl yourself into a tuck, and roll out of it."
"I'll do my best." Ayala stripped off the blue coveralls. He reappeared as the Peacock Man in his bright yellow Hawaiian shirt overlaid by the green fishing vest. The gnawed cigar remained tucked in the corner of his mouth, during this quick change. "If this is going to be my end, then I want to look good when I do it."