Roldán straightened, breathing hard and walked around the back of the van in the direction he had indicated. The man hefted Calli and followed.
More tires squealed. This time, it was a big Escalade with darkened windows, that came to a hard stop next to the minivan. The back door opened. Téra couldn’t see inside the vehicle because the minivan was in the way. She peered under the minivan and saw Roldán’s flat shoes and the man’s boots move between the two cars
“Get in,” the man snarled.
Roldán’s feet lifted and disappeared. Then the man’s. The door slammed. The Escalade squealed as it took off once more.
Far away, sirens sounded. The police, arriving far too late.
Téra patted Minnie’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Minnie lifted her head. “Yes. Quickly, Téra, check Rubén. I think he was shot.” She got to her feet as the others with them rose to theirs. Around them, people were still calling out and panicking.
Téra kicked off her shoes as Calli had done and winced at the heat of the pavement against her bare soles. She ran between the cars and around the still open door of the Camry. The door had a row of bullet holes stitched across the middle of the panel. Around the holes, gray undercoat and raw metal gleamed.
Her breath caught in her throat and her head swam. Téra made herself step around the door as the screaming and hysteria and sirens all grew muffled and distant. She gripped the door frame, her legs shaking.
Rubén sat up against the side of the car, his head back against the back door, his eyes closed. Both hands gripped his thigh. Below his hands, his jeans were black with soaked-in blood that gleamed wetly. The jeans had been ripped open by bullets.
“Rubén,” Téra whispered.
He opened his eyes. “Téra.” He tried to sit up and fell back. “Give me your belt. I have to tie this off.”
Téra couldn’t move. She stared at the hole in his jeans, as older memories flashed through her mind, playing over and over.
She had fired the gun, and it had hit Lucas in the leg, there. Just like that. The blood had flowed…
“Téra!” Rubén snapped.
She blinked. She was breathing as though she had finished a mile too quickly.
Rubén’s gaze was steady. Relentless. “Don’t drop into your head,” he told her. “Too many people need you right now. Minnie will need you.”
Téra swallowed. “I’m not wearing a belt,” she whispered.
“Mine, then. Only, you must get it. I can’t let go.”
The police sirens were getting closer, drowning out everything except the roar of a jet as it took off. People were moving on with their lives, ignorant of what had happened here. That left it up to Téra.
She dropped into a crouch beside Rubén and reached under his arm. The smell of blood was strong, making the memories flash again. Téra shook her head as she fumbled for the big square buckle of his belt. “You know, if you wanted me to undress you, you could have asked. There was no need to go this far.”
Rubén’s laugh was wheezy.
She yanked the belt out of the loops.
“Behind my hands,” he told her. “Thread the end into the buckle, then pull it tight.” His voice was weak.
She glanced at him as she worked. His eyes were glazed. Her heart thudded.
“I don’t twist it?” she asked, for she remembered seeing people use belts for tourniquets on TV and they had twisted them.
“Vistarian leather. You aren’t strong enough to twist it,” he said. “Listen, Téra. You must tell the others. Adán Caballero is missing. I think he was taken, too. There might be others missing. Key people. Make sure they connect the dots.”
“You can tell them,” Téra said.
His breath whistled, wispy and soft. “I will pass out. You must keep up the pressure until…until…”
He slumped. His hands dropped away from his thigh and the wound immediately flooded and spilled fresh blood. It dripped onto the tarmac.
For a heartbeat of time that seemed to last forever, Téra could feel the terror reaching for her, trying to drag her down into the endless cycle of memories. Her heart lurched sickly.
No, she whispered to herself. She yanked on the belt with all her strength.
The police sedans arrived, with their lights flashing. Police streamed out of the vehicles, their guns drawn. One rushed toward her. “Hands up!”
“I can’t,” Téra told him. “If I let go, he’ll bleed out.”
“Hands up, I said!”
“Do I look like an Insurrecto?”
Far away, but coming closer, were more sirens. Ambulance, this time.
“When the ambulance gets here and my friend is in their care, you can arrest me and strip search me for all I care,” Téra told the chubby officer. “Until then, I’m not letting go of this belt. Get it?”
His gaze flicked from her to Rubén’s sagging body and the open wound on his leg. “You need to twist it,” the police officer said, lowering his gun.
Another cop ran up to them. The first jerked his chin at her. “She says it was Vistarian rebels.”
The second spat. “So did the other woman, over there. They took two others.”
“This is a ransom snatch, then?” the first replied, sounding tired and disgusted.
Téra closed her mind to their speculation and focused on Rubén instead. She realized her bare feet were resting in a puddle of his blood, that spread across the tarmac in a widening circle.
Her heart hardened. There would be a reckoning, she told herself. First, they would deal with the Mexican authorities. Then, they would settle the score. She didn’t know how thirty civilian women and a dozen walking wounded soldiers would manage that, when the one woman in the house who had held them together had been taken. She just knew she was tired of being a victim.
Fuck the Insurrectos. Enough was enough.
Chapter Twelve
The rocking of the surface beneath his face told Adán he was on a boat. The fact registered before much else made sense to him.
His mouth was drier than the Mojave and his head was muzzy.
Memory trickled back. The stink over his face, the blackness. Then, being dragged. The needle prick in his arm and the rush of coldness.
They had kept him knocked out. From the way his arms were wrenched backward and his ankles jammed together, they had bound his wrists and ankles.
He kept his eyes closed and worked to clear his mind of the fogginess. He listened for clues that would tell him more about his situation.
Water rushed against the hull, right by his head. An open boat with a big outboard motor. Big enough to cross over to Vistaria.
Sunlight did not dazzle against his closed eyes or warm his skin. Cool air rushed over his face, which told him he was lying on an open deck. It had to be night. He’d been out for hours, then.
The motor was burbling with a steady note, sending vibrations through the hull. It wasn’t at full power, which seemed odd. Surely, if they were stealing across to Vistaria with a hostage, they would go at full speed?
“You figured it out yet, Monty?” a male voice asked. It wasn’t a young voice.
“I can’t get my phone to reboot,” came the reply. This one was young. His voice whined.
“You said that five minutes ago,” the older man. “You said you could find Vistaria with the damn thing.”
The motor dropped to an even lower note. The boat slowed and rocked with the motion of the waves. They were stationary.
“Fuck!” came a third voice, neither young nor old. “Vistaria is a big fucking island. Just point the boat and go. We’ll run into the island sooner or later. Are you laughing at me, Joaquim?”
“I’m laughing at all of you. You don’t have a clue, do you?” A fourth voice. Older and smarter, by the sound of it. “The Internet. Maps. You don’t need any of them.”
“How the fuck are we supposed to get to Vistaria, then?” Monty the Whiner asked.
“Lift yo
ur chin and look up,” Joaquim replied.
Celestial navigation, Adán mentally whispered. He held still, waiting to hear more.
“Up at what?” Monty demanded. “There’s nothing there!”
“There’s stars,” Joaquim replied, his tone calm.
“Stars? Fuck.” Monty sounded disappointed. “You gonna cast a spell next?”
“Maybe a spell will work,” another said. “Your fucking phone doesn’t.”
“Shut up and let him talk. You know where to go looking at the stars, Joaquim?”
“Sure. See the Big Dipper there?”
“The saucepan shaped thing?” Monty asked.
Big Dipper up to the North Star, then you have north, Adán finished.
“The front of the Dipper…the front of the pan. Follow that upward until you get to the bright star, about five times the length of the front of the Dipper away. See it?”
“Fuck, they’re all bright, out here,” Monty whined.
“The big one up there?” someone said.
Polaris, Adán told himself.
“That’s the North Star,” Joaquim said. “It’s right over the north pole. That way is north.”
“We don’t want to go north. We want to go west, stupid,” Monty said.
The silence lingered. Adán suspected the other three were all looking at Monty now. They got it.
“You put the North Star on your right and keep it there. That means you’re heading west,” Joaquim said, his tone far more patient than Monty deserved.
“All right, then,” someone said. The motor opened up and Adán felt the boat swing around and steady.
Correct for current drift! Adán shouted to himself and ground his teeth together to stay silent. He wouldn’t help them reach Vistaria.
As the motor picked up revolutions, the water rushed and the nose of the boat slapped against the waves, Joaquim raised his voice. “You might want to head more north than south there, Monty.”
“Vistaria is west!” Monty shouted back.
“The ocean current runs north-south here,” Joaquim told him. “It’ll pull you south. You have to compensate.”
This time, Monty had just enough wisdom to keep his mouth shut. Adán couldn’t tell if he nudged the boat northward or not, although Joaquim and the others said nothing more.
The roar of the motor and the vibration of the boat numbed his body and thoughts. Adán fought against the drowsiness. He tested the bonds about his wrists and ankles and decided they had used zip ties, which were unbreakable.
Time passed, as the boat climbed up and down the waves.
“Shut her down!” Joaquim shouted.
“Why?” Monty shouted back.
“Look at the time!”
Silence.
Then the motor cut and the boat slowed. The deck fell back to horizontal. The wind brushing Adán’s cheek ceased.
“Lights, lights. Turn them off!” someone whispered.
“Kill everything,” Joaquim said. “Hurry. It’ll be in range in less than a minute.”
Range?
Water lapped at the hull, slapping it. The boat rocked.
“How long?” one of them whispered.
Joaquim made an impatient sound. “It can’t hear you. Turn your phone off, Monty. The screen glows.”
“It’ll see that?” Monty said, sounding winded. “Fuck.”
Range. See.
“It takes twelve minutes to move out of range,” Joaquim said. “Then we can fire up again.”
Satellites. They were talking about satellites. Spy satellites, Adán supposed. How on earth did they know the schedule of the satellites, though? Vistaria had none. Whose satellite were they hiding from?
The USA or Mexico, Adán decided.
The conclusion was a chilling one.
Where had they got the data about American satellites from? That information was closely held, or else every criminal and terrorist would know when to duck and hide.
Did the Insurrectos have a spy inside the US government?
* * * * *
They stayed black and still for twenty minutes, just to be sure. Joaquim wouldn’t let them smoke, for the flame of a match would be enough to show up on a heat-signature lens. Any light at all, on a black ocean, would be a neon arrow pointing at them.
Was this how they had slid into Acapulco undetected? It seemed likely.
Joaquim let Monty get the boat going again. The roar and slap of the hull on the water only lasted for another fifteen minutes, when someone said, “Look! Lights! On the horizon!”
“Damn, Joaquim. You’d’man!”
“Wait,” Joaquim said. “Let’s figure out where we are, first.”
They lapsed back into another silence, watching.
“There are not enough lights,” one said.
“Yeah, the yacht club and the marina should be lit up like a Christmas tree,” Monty said. “It’s not there.”
“We’re too far north,” Joaquim said. “That cliff over to the right, that’s the Seal Cliff.”
“You mean, we’re up by Pascuallita?”
Even farther north than there, Adán thought. The Seal Cliffs made up the northern tip of the island. It was the only part of the island not flooded by the tsunami that washed across the northern tip, twenty years ago.
“You went too far fucking north, idiot.”
“We’ll have to land,” Joaquim said.
“Can’t we just turn and run down the coast?”
“Not enough fuel,” Joaquim said. “We can find a village and a phone that works and call for a ride. Then we don’t have to carry the bastard.”
“We could drag him,” someone suggested.
Adán held his breath.
“Wake him up. He should have come round by now. Throw water in his face. He can do his own walking,” Joaquim said. “Find a beach, Monty.”
A handful of seawater splashed against his face. Adán pretended to stir. He groaned. The groan wasn’t faked. He ached from lying in the same position for so long.
“He’s not so tough,” Monty said, laughing. “Some Smokey Silva….”
“He’s an actor. They’re all limp wristed.”
A foot connected with the back of his thigh, not gently.
Adán hissed.
The boat slowed. “There?” Monty said.
“That works,” Joaquim decided. “Run right onto the beach.”
“Got it.” The boat picked up speed again.
Adán braced himself as he felt the surge of a wave pick up the boat and thrust it forward. The others bounced about.
The hull ground against the beach and the motor whined as the propeller bit into sand.
“All out,” Joaquim declared. “Next wave, we drag it higher. Out, out, you bastards!”
The boat floated again as the weight was removed. Adán dared to open his eyes. There were four silhouettes of men surrounding the boat, their hands on the gunnels, as they looked over their shoulders, watching for the next wave.
They ran the boat forward as the wave lifted and pushed it forward. It was a metal hulled antique that looked like something from the sixties. The outboard motor was a 90HP Evinrude, and new. A motor that powerful would leave an effervescent wake that would almost glow in the night waters. No wonder they had shut down when the satellite moved into range.
Adán was in the middle section of the boat, his boots pushed up against the side. Someone had bent his knees to fit him into the space.
The four hauled the boat with grunts of effort until dry sand brushed the hull. The smell of seaweed and rotting fish was strong. The night breeze wafted it across them.
Hands worked at Adán’s ankles. The zip tie loosened.
Another hand slapped his face. It was a heavy blow.
“Get up, princess.” It was Joaquim’s voice.
Adán pushed on his still-bound hands and eased himself up into a sitting position. It was a relief to separate his legs and work his ankles.
Joaquim
had a gun trained on him. Adán looked at the small black hole at the end of it, then at Joaquim. “I’m not armed,” he pointed out.
“You’re Loyalist scum,” Joaquim replied. “A gun doesn’t change that.”
True.
“Get up,” Joaquim said. “Onto the sand.”
Adán took his time, feeling the life come back to his arms and legs as he moved. When he was standing on the beach at last, he looked at Joaquim again. The man hadn’t moved. The gun was steady.
The man was smart. He wouldn’t get bored or grow lax. He wouldn’t relax or give Adán any chance to escape or fight back.
“Lemme tell you how this will go,” Joaquim said. “These others, they think you’re a powder puff. I figure that might not be the case. You used to do your own stunts, so you know how to use your body and you know your way around guns.”
“Fake guns,” Adán said, his voice even. He had no problem confessing his ignorance of real military skills if it would make Joaquim think he was harmless.
Joaquim considered him. “I could be wrong but I will treat you like you’re dangerous,” he decided. “You figure out what that means. If you get it right, I don’t put a bullet in your brains coz I get twitchy.”
Adán nodded.
“Move it,” Joaquim said. “Up the beach. There’s a path up there. It’ll lead us somewhere.”
Before Adán could head in the direction the man had pointed, a soft whisper sounded, almost a whistle. Joaquim choked and reached for his neck.
The white feathered end of a big hunting arrow jutted there.
As Adán watched, blood spurted from the wound.
* * * * *
Nick waited for the non-com to finish whispering to Duardo. Flores watched Nick with contemplative eyes, instead of listening to the non-com.
Not that he cared what Flores was doing.
He flinched as a submachine gun opened fire, his heart working hard. Until this moment, he hadn’t realized how close the sandbag curtain wall was to the tents.
Duardo dismissed the non-com, who saluted and left the tent. The canvas dropped into place.
Nick turned to face him. “What did he say?” he demanded. “Is there news?”
“Captain Rey is in surgery,” Duardo said. “He told Téra before he passed out that he thought Adán Caballero had also been taken. They’ve now confirmed that Adán is missing, which makes it likely he has been taken as…the others were.”
Casualties of War Page 12