She glanced at the dashboard clock and swallowed a lump in her throat.
“Everything okay?” Miguel brushed his knuckles across the denim covering her thigh. “Do you want me to drive?”
“My kids are done with graduation and on to middle school—and I missed it.”
“I know, but after what happened at the motel back there, you can see how important it was to get out of Austin.”
“Get out of Austin—sounds like a country song.”
“Maybe we can write one when this is all over.”
She flexed her fingers on the steering wheel. “How’d they find us in El Paso?”
“I don’t know, Jen.” He dragged his knuckles across his jaw. “Maybe it was your car. Maybe it was the credit card. We can’t stop and stay the night anywhere on our way to Palm Springs. It’s straight through to Tucson in another four hours or so, where we’ll stop for gas and food.”
“At least Mikey exhausted himself at that play area where we had breakfast, although that wouldn’t have been my first choice of food.”
“I craved fast food while I was imprisoned, so I was probably as happy as Mikey.”
“I can’t believe how close we came to losing him.” She massaged the pain that suddenly sliced through her temple.
Miguel turned his head and stared out the window. “My world came to an end for a few minutes until I saw him against that fence. When he turned to look at me, crying and covering his ears, it started up again.”
She adjusted the rearview mirror to take in Mikey strapped securely in his new car seat just to make sure he was still there. “That car bomb was intended to take out all of us. They knew we’d all be getting in that car and once you started the engine...”
“These people are ruthless.”
“Which people, Miguel? The terrorists who held you captive, or the mole or some other government agency?”
“I’m beginning to think they’re one and the same. The mole who infiltrated our intelligence community is working with the terrorists and they’re after us now. The mole is not using the government to commit these acts.”
“And they want to destroy you...and us. Why?”
“Revenge, or perhaps they think I know too much about the structure of Vlad’s organization.”
“I hope your brother can help us, or at least keep us safe until you get this information to the right people, the people who can ferret out the mole.”
Miguel nodded once and jabbed a button on the radio to start scanning for stations.
She wrinkled her nose at the scratchy reception of a hard rock song. “Too bad we didn’t get the model with the CD player or satellite radio.”
“Didn’t have much time to shop.”
“I’m not going to ask you where you got that wad of cash.”
“Don’t.”
They drove for a few more hours of unrelenting desert landscape before Mikey decided he’d had enough of napping.
He piped up from the backseat. “Bad car seat.”
Jennifer reached around behind her and squeezed his chubby leg. She whispered to Miguel. “I almost feel like agreeing with him now. If he’d stayed strapped in his car seat...”
Miguel twisted in his seat. “This is a new car seat, Mikey. This is a good car seat. Make sure you leave the straps on, just like Mommy and Daddy do.”
Mikey kicked his feet. “Good, good, good. Mikey read.”
Miguel picked up the book on the floor of the backseat and flipped it open. “Do you want to read about the moose and the mouse?”
“He’s hiding. Mouse is hiding.”
Jennifer smiled at Mikey in the rearview mirror. “You know that story, don’t you?”
Mikey pointed at Miguel. “He read.”
“Daddy. That’s your daddy.”
“Daddy read.”
“You up for it, Daddy?”
“Sure. I don’t know this one.”
Miguel read the story aloud to Mikey, turning the book toward him to show him the pictures after he finished reading each page.
He was such a hit, Mikey demanded he read it all over again.
Jennifer poked Miguel in the ribs. “I forgot to warn you. This could go on for another three or four readings.”
“That’s fine. I can handle it. What else do I have to do in the middle of the desert with you at the wheel?”
As she drove, Jennifer listened to the chatter between Miguel and his son and grinned like a crazy person at the natural rapport between the two of them.
Miguel had always wanted children, and he’d made that clear to her from the moment their relationship had started to deepen into something more serious. While he’d teased her about her perfect upbringing, he’d wanted nothing more than to emulate it.
Miguel had always been great with older kids, had mentored teenage boys through his church and helped coach baseball at the high school.
Now he was a father, and it couldn’t be under worse circumstances. She put one hand on her stomach to quell the guilt that flared there. Of course, she was just happy to have him home, alive. Life couldn’t be all rainbows and unicorns, and Miguel needed to know she’d stand by him no matter what.
She hadn’t realized she’d allowed a little sigh to escape her lips until Miguel stopped his game of thumb war with Mikey and asked, “Are you okay? Do you want to take a break from driving?”
“I wouldn’t mind a bathroom stop and something to drink. Only two more hours until Tucson. Are you going to want to stop to eat or blow right through after we get gas?”
“Let’s stop.” He pinched the toe of Mikey’s shoe. “I think this guy needs a break from his car seat—his good car seat, right, Mikey?”
“Thumb war, Daddy.”
“You’ve created a monster, Miguel.”
“Cutest little monster I’ve ever seen.”
Jennifer caught her bottom lip between her teeth. Miguel had seen plenty of monsters.
She wished this car ride could go on forever.
* * *
THEY ROLLED INTO Tucson in the early evening when the heat was still shimmering off the pavement and the saguaro cacti raised their arms toward the glorious sunset over the Catalina Foothills.
Miguel had looked up a pizza place before their arrival, and Jennifer pulled the car into the parking lot.
Mikey had been awake almost the entire journey from El Paso, and Jennifer hoped that meant he’d sleep on the six-hour drive to Miguel’s brother’s place.
When they got out of the car, Miguel stood at attention while she unbuckled Mikey from his car seat. The set of his jaw and his rigid muscles told her he still expected trouble.
“Nobody followed us, Miguel. It’s impossible.”
His gaze darted around the half-empty parking lot. “They followed us to El Paso.”
“It must’ve been the car. That’s gone.”
He rolled his shoulders. “Let’s get some pizza.”
Jennifer ordered a large pizza with everything on it for her and Miguel and a small cheese pizza for Mikey. Miguel made sure they took a seat by the window, where they could keep an eye on the car.
Miguel refilled his soda and slid into the booth across from her. “I’ll take over the driving duties. Just have to make sure I’m properly caffeinated.”
She waved her pizza crust at his plate, where he’d just dropped his fourth piece of pizza. “Is pizza another craving you had in captivity?” She batted her eyelashes, hoping the flirtatious gesture would prompt him to admit that he’d craved her—because it sure didn’t seem as if he had.
Even when they’d touched and kissed, he’d seemed reserved, and they hadn’t made love yet. Granted, the conditions hadn’t been optimal the two nights they’d been together, but in the old
days they would’ve found a way to be together. The old days—before his capture...and torture.
“Yeah, pizza, beer and a baseball game on TV.”
She slumped against the booth’s bolster and stuffed the crust in her mouth. So much for her flirting skills.
“Balls, Mommy. Play with the balls?”
“I was hoping he wouldn’t see that ball pool.” Jennifer wiped her hands on a napkin and crumpled it beside her plate. “Do we have time to hit the ball pool?”
“Sure. He’ll sleep all the way to Palm Springs for sure.” Miguel’s gaze darted among the patrons of the pizza parlor for the hundredth time. He’d been watching their comings and goings ever since they took a seat.
“We won’t be long.” She plucked Mikey from the restaurant’s high chair and carried him toward the small ball pool on the far side of the game room around the corner from the dining room.
She yanked aside the netting that enclosed the circular play area and lowered Mikey onto the surface of the plastic balls undulating like a multicolored ocean.
He dived in headfirst and grabbed a ball in each hand. Giggling he rolled onto his back and threw both of the balls at her.
“Oh, you wanna play rough, huh?” She launched off the side of the enclosure, landing next to Mikey and causing him to bob up and down on top of the balls, his arms and legs spread out like a skydiver.
Jennifer scooped up handfuls of balls as she shimmied past Mikey toward the other side of the ball pool.
She twisted her head over her shoulder to see if Mikey was following her and gasped as a man slid into the ball pool—alone.
Her gaze traveled past his shoulder looking for an accompanying child. Then she saw a glint of metal in his hand, and she knew he wasn’t here to play.
Chapter Eight
The man brandished the knife in front of him.
Jennifer screamed and lunged for Mikey amid all the clacking plastic.
The cacophony of the play room with its clanging levers, beepers and buzzers drowned out her scream. She tried again, this time bellowing Miguel’s name.
As the menacing figure waded toward her son, Jennifer grabbed Mikey’s ankle and dragged him toward her. She shoveled the plastic orbs on top of his body to bury him in the pool.
Then she started firing plastic balls at the man’s head. Plastic might not be much of a match against the cold hard steel of a blade, but it was all she had.
The netting behind the man whipped back and Miguel launched himself at the attacker. They both went down, sinking into the ball pool.
Jennifer held her breath as the plastic balls flew every which way.
Then Miguel popped up. “Hand me Mikey and let’s get out. Now.”
“Is he...?”
“Now.”
She hoisted Mikey beneath the arms and leaned forward, thrusting him at Miguel, who grabbed him and spun around toward the gaping flap of the netting. Jennifer scrambled out of the ball pool, passing by the man now facedown and halfway buried beneath plastic.
Two kids, about the same age as Jennifer’s students at school, stood poised at the entrance, their mouths wide-open.
Miguel planted himself in front of them, blocking their view of the ball pool. “Don’t go in there. A man’s hurt. Tell the guy at the counter.”
With Mikey tucked under his arm, Miguel strode to the table Jennifer and Mikey had left barely ten minutes ago and gathered up everything, including her purse.
Soon they were outside and Miguel threw open the back door. “Hurry. Get him strapped in, Jen.”
“Ball pool. Ball pool,” Mikey chanted as Jennifer buckled him into his car seat.
They were on the road two minutes later.
She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. “What happened to him?”
Miguel glanced at Mikey in the rearview mirror, singing to himself about ball pools.
Twisting around in her seat, Jennifer handed Mikey a yellow ball that she’d inexplicably carried out of the pizza parlor. “Here you go.”
Miguel studied Mikey in the mirror for a minute more and then turned up the radio a bit, leaning to the side. “He fell on his knife when I jumped him. I don’t know his condition. I didn’t want to stick around to find out.”
“How did they find us? Again.” She crossed her hands over her chest and her heart hammered against her right palm.
“I don’t know. They came into the restaurant after we did.”
“They?”
“It was that man and a woman. I watched them walk in. They ordered, sat down, ate. Nothing unusual. Then the woman left and it looked like the guy was heading toward the bathrooms, but I watched him and saw him veer off toward the play area. He had no reason to be in there—other than to follow you and Mikey.”
“My God. It’s a good thing you were watching him. I don’t think anyone would’ve heard us in there.”
Miguel pounded a fist on the steering wheel. “How did they know? It can’t be this car. We’ve never even been out of it since we bought it this morning.”
“Phones?”
He nodded at the one on the console. “Can’t be this one. It’s a temp phone I bought in Austin—has never been out of my sight.”
“Could it be mine?” She pulled her cell phone from her purse and held it away from her face as if it could detonate in her hand at any minute. “They did break into my place.”
“But your phone wasn’t there when they did, neither was your laptop.”
“Can’t be the ID anymore, if that’s even what it was before. There is no Raymond Garcia.”
“We can’t go to my brother’s until I figure this out. It won’t be a safe house if we lead them right to it. I don’t want to put Roberto’s security to the test.” With his warm hand, he covered her fist, clenched in her lap. “Let’s analyze you, first.”
She straightened up in her seat. “You checked my car for a device before we left and if they had tracked my car to that motel in El Paso, that device blew up with the car. Like you said, my phone wasn’t in my house when they broke in and it hasn’t been out of my sight, same with my laptop.”
“We’re going to pull over in about an hour into a rest area that’s halfway to Phoenix. I’m going to go through our luggage. Maybe they put a GPS in your bag, figuring you’d be taking off.”
“That’s a huge assumption on their part. Beyond a car, phone or laptop, I can’t imagine how they’d know what I’d take on the run or even if I’d go on the run. The only thing they could be sure of is me.” She jabbed her chest with her thumb. “And I’m pretty sure I didn’t swallow a GPS lately.”
Miguel made a strange noise in the back of his throat and she glanced at his profile, hard and tense.
“What is it?”
He shifted in his seat and flexed his fingers. “I just got a crazy idea in my head.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.” He lifted his shoulders.
“Don’t start keeping things from me now, Miguel.”
“Maybe you didn’t swallow a GPS, but maybe I did.”
* * *
JENNIFER JERKED BACK from him, her eyebrows jumping to her hairline. “What are you talking about? How could you swallow a GPS? I was kidding.”
“I know you were kidding, but it brought an idea into focus for me that had been wandering around my brain ever since my escape from the debriefing center.” He rubbed his jaw and glanced at his sleeping son. Jennifer might think he was deranged, but she’d wanted to hear it all—no craziness spared.
“It brought into focus the idea that you’d swallowed a GPS?” Her hand rested on the passenger door, as if jumping out of a moving car might be an option for her.
“Not swallowed, Jen, had one implanted.”
Her already pale face got whiter. “You think a GPS was implanted in your body at the debriefing center?”
“They could’ve done it without my knowledge.” He chewed on his bottom lip for a few seconds. “I was...pretty beat up by the time I got to Maryland. The doctors I first saw in Germany after my escape from captivity didn’t do much to treat my injuries—just the basics. The folks in Maryland wanted to get their hands on me.”
“Did they treat you in Maryland or just stand around and observe you like some specimen?” Red fury whipped into her cheeks as she dug her fingers into the seat.
“They treated me. Set some bones, stitched me up, gave me meds...lots of meds. I didn’t want them but was pretty helpless to stop the doctors. They told me it was for my pain.” He snorted and laughed at the same time. “I told them I was impervious to pain after what I’d been through.”
Jennifer sucked in a sharp breath and placed a hand on his thigh. “So during this...treatment, you think they could’ve injected a GPS into your body?”
“Yep. How else is someone tracking our every move?”
“I didn’t even know that could be done.”
“You’ve owned dogs. Didn’t you ever have them microchipped?”
“That’s a dog. You’re a man.” She smacked her hands against the dashboard, her anger on his behalf practically steaming from her ears.
“Shh, you’ll wake Mikey.” Miguel put his finger to his lips. “It’s actually a little different, since the pet microchips don’t use GPS technology—but there is a GPS chip, as well. The CIA has used them before.”
“What would make you think they used one on you? How would you even know where they put it?”
“Oh, I have a good idea.” He rolled his body to the side a little and smacked his hand against his right hip. “I had a lot of lacerations in that area and the docs spent time suturing there. It was sore, always felt sore those first few days. My flesh felt bumpy. Even now there’s some irritation.”
“You mentioned your sore hip before.” Jennifer pressed her hand against the window. “So they might be following us on some computer screen somewhere right now.”
Point Blank SEAL Page 8