by Chad Zunker
He’d yet to encounter anyone inside the home—and been forced to use the pocketknife—but he still hadn’t seen anything that told him an elevator existed. He moved to the end of the hallway, opened the door to the last bedroom. Although there was no furniture in the room, there were two dirty wheelbarrows. That was promising. He figured they were used to haul drugs around. He opened the closet door, and there it was. He shook his head in dismay. He stared directly at the front of a normal-looking metal elevator door, like he was staying at a Marriott, the Down button showing on the silver-metal casing. Incredible. A drug cartel had actually constructed a full elevator shaft inside a bedroom closet.
Sam was about to punch the Down button when he heard car doors slam outside. He raced back down the hallway, peeked out a front window. He cursed. A black truck with huge tires was now parked directly behind the broken-down Jeep. Four men were walking up to the front door, only ten feet away. Sam spun around, considered his options. He could either dart out the back door, hide, wait it out. Or he could go for the elevator right now, take his chances. Path one might keep him outside the house for several hours—or even all day. Not an option. He chose path number two. He had only a few seconds.
Sam hurried into the bedroom, jabbed the Down button on the elevator. Would it automatically work? Did the elevator have to be turned on somewhere? He felt panicked, sweating profusely. The elevator engaged, although the door did not immediately open. He could hear the elevator machinery pulling the carriage up from below. Inside the quiet house, it sounded to him like a loud construction site, the elevator’s gears rumbling, creaking, and vibrating. He cursed again, knowing he’d just put a huge target on his back. He poked his head out into the hallway. The front door opened; someone turned on a light. The four guys were all casually chatting in Spanish as they entered; however, they immediately silenced upon hearing the unexpected sound of the elevator.
One of them said, “¿El ascensor?”
Sam jumped back in front of the elevator door as it opened. The carriage was completely empty, although caked with dirt on the floor and walls. He hurried inside, found the Down button inside the carriage, and started pumping it relentlessly with a finger. Come on! He knew the men would be inside the bedroom within seconds. There were four of them and only one of him. Somehow, Sam didn’t think a small pocketknife would do the trick. If these guys caught him inside their drug house, he was as good as dead. It would not be pretty. They’d probably cut off both his hands and feet and prop his body up on a pole at the front of the neighborhood as a warning. The elevator door slowly shut.
Sam stepped to the very back, his chest feeling so tight, it might crack open. He stared at the closing gap of the elevator door, held his breath. When it was within an inch of fully closing, he heard what he thought was a string of Mexican curse words a few feet away. The elevator rumbled down. Sam took a quick breath. He had no idea what to expect when the elevator door opened back up. Either way, he knew he’d have to hit the ground moving at full velocity and swiftly find his way around. There was little doubt in his mind the four guys upstairs would come after him.
The carriage came to a jerking stop. The door opened.
Sam paused only briefly, staring out, praying no drug mercenary was waiting there to greet him. He was in the clear. The space in front of him was pitch-dark. He quickly looked around for anything inside the elevator carriage that might dismantle it. There was no Off button or any compartments inside where he might pull wires apart. Frustrated, he hurried out, the door closing behind him. The carriage began to rise again.
Sam frantically searched the cramped space using his cell-phone flashlight. There was another wheelbarrow sitting on the dirt floor off to his left. He looked for a light switch. He knew he wouldn’t be able to go fast enough with just his flashlight. He needed to be able to book it. Tommy suggested the tunnel had working lights. He found a metal box screwed to a wooden stud against the wall to his right with a red switch on it. Sam flipped the switch, and a fluorescent light above him fluttered for a few seconds and illuminated the space, and then he saw more lights popping on like dominos down a cavelike tunnel directly in front of him. He could now see he was standing inside a ten-by-ten-foot room that had sheets of plywood for the walls and the ceiling. In front of him, a set of small railroad tracks disappeared down the tunnel. The tunnel was just big enough for him to duck his head and maneuver inside. At the foot of the tunnel, he found a metal cart twice the size of the wheelbarrows, made to fit the track system—clearly how they moved the drugs.
Sam heard the elevator engage again behind him. They were coming. Within seconds, he’d have four angry Mexican cartel members on his tail. The only question was if more cartel guys would be waiting for him at the other end of the tunnel. Only one way to find out. Sam sidestepped the metal cart, and then he rushed into the abyss of the tunnel, keeping his head tucked low. The tunnel veered slightly left and right in a few places but stayed relatively straight. There were individual light bulbs strung from the ceiling every hundred or so feet. Sam kept sprinting forward, trying not to think too much about how tight a space he was trapped inside and the fact that the dirt walls could collapse in on him at any point. He figured he was directly beneath the Rio Grande. The idea of river water possibly engulfing the tunnel gave him a scare. But not as much as cartel members cutting him into a hundred pieces.
Sam could hear yelling behind him inside the tunnel. He caught a toe on the railroad tracks, stumbled, jabbed his right knee into steel. He picked himself up, kept sprinting. He couldn’t really tell how far he’d already gone. Five hundred yards? Maybe farther? It didn’t matter. He would run until he hit the end. Sweat streamed down his face and stung his eyes. Seconds later, the tunnel veered left again, and he found himself spilling out into another room similar to the space below the other house. A matching elevator shaft stood in front of him. Sam pounded the Up button. The elevator doors immediately parted. He could hear the patter of shoes on the dirt floor inside the tunnel behind him. Maybe forty yards back. Before jumping into the elevator, he searched the plywood walls, found a metal box with a red switch. He flipped the switch down. The tunnel went dark. He heard more yelling and cursing.
Sam rushed inside the elevator, pressed the Up button. The door crawled to a close. He pulled the pocketknife back out, flipped open the blade, preparing for whatever he’d find waiting for him when the door reopened. He wiped the sweat from his face with his hand. He could feel his knee aching from his stumble. The carriage jerked to a stop. Sam held the pocketknife out in front of him. The door parted. His fist with the pocketknife was shaking.
He exhaled when no one was staring back at him.
Just like the other house, the elevator was hidden inside a back bedroom closet. He shoved a twin bed with no sheets or blankets against the closet doors, in hopes of blocking the men from getting into the house. He listened for only a second to see if he could hear anything. There were no lights on in the hallway. A good sign, he felt. If someone was inside the house, he’d fully expect some lights to be on. He peered around into the dark hallway, stood still, tried to listen above the sound of his own heartbeat in his ears. Sam carefully moved down the hallway, using his cell-phone flashlight, taking quick peeks into two other bedrooms. Both were completely empty. He moved into a living room, found a square card table with metal folding chairs. A glass ashtray sat in the middle of the table and was littered with cigarette butts. The butts were dull. No signs of fresh cigarettes. Six empty bottles of Corona on the table.
Sam heard a vehicle skid to a stop right outside of the house. He cursed. Car doors opened and slammed shut. He turned, raced toward the back door. Before getting there, he spotted a shadow move by the window out back, the sound of a hand hit the doorknob. Someone had come around back. Sam moved toward the front door, stiffened again when he heard noise right outside. They were both in front and in back. He was surrounded. One of the guys from the other side must’ve called ahead, aler
ting them to his unwelcome presence. Sam had only a split second to get out or he was going to be filleted. His mind flashed and gave him a few escape options. He chose the first bedroom, rushed down the hallway, slipped inside, and shut the door behind him—just as he heard the men enter the house.
Sam twisted around, found the front bedroom window, one he’d spotted earlier upon quick inspection of the room. He knelt behind it, unlocked the metal tabs on the window. Hands at the bottom, he very quietly began to tug the window up. He paused. He could hear the men directly outside his bedroom in the hallway. They were speaking in rapid Spanish, clearly alarmed. When they moved past the bedroom, he pulled the window fully open, climbed outside, right into a prickly bush. The thorny branches of the bush jabbed into his hands. He bit down on his bottom lip, forced himself to be silent, pushed his way through the annoying bush, and crawled free into the front yard.
He surveyed the area, making sure one of the drug guys wasn’t out front. He didn’t see anyone. He heard voices again from inside the bedroom, where a light popped on and exposed his escape route. His first instinct was to simply sprint off down the street, get lost in the neighborhood on foot, but then he noticed that the engine was still rumbling inside the black Camaro the men had parked in the driveway. When he didn’t spot any movement inside the car, he decided to be bold and ran straight toward the Camaro. He yanked open the driver’s door, jumped into the front seat, shifted the car into reverse, and stomped on the gas. The Camaro roared backward. Sam hit the brakes, yanked the wheel to the right, turned in the street, just in time to notice two angry-looking men run out the front door with big guns in their hands.
Sam shoved the gear into drive, slammed his foot on the gas pedal. The sports car rocketed forward, the tires spinning and smoking on the pavement. In the rearview mirror, he could see the two men run into the street behind him. But neither man aimed his gun and started shooting. Probably because they didn’t want to put bullet holes in their precious turbo-charged hot rod. Sam whipped the wheel left, right, zigzagged the streets, and he was out of their line of sight within seconds. He took quick breaths, tried to gather himself. He would not keep the vehicle for long.
He found the highway, felt his whole body exhale.
He was back in the States.
THIRTY
Sam parked the Camaro in a short-term paid lot directly in front of Brownsville’s tiny airport. Only two airlines serviced Brownsville on three runways. It was enough to get Sam over to Houston and then to New Orleans by midmorning—if he could get a ticket and somehow get through security first. Tommy said he had something waiting for Sam to help make that happen. Walking away from the Camaro, Sam threw the car keys as far away as possible and fought the urge to punch holes in all the tires with the pocketknife. He couldn’t waste a second.
He quickly searched the rows of other cars, looking for a Subaru Outback. He spotted a green one at the very end of the second row. The hatchback was unlocked. Sam popped the back open, searched inside, found a small black backpack. He quickly unzipped it, pulled out a white envelope. He tore open the envelope and dumped out the contents. A new set of IDs, a credit card, some cash. His face was on each ID along with the name Ethan Edwards, the name of John Wayne’s character in the classic Western The Searchers. Another of Tommy’s top-five favorites. He stuffed the IDs, credit card, and cash into his pocket, searched farther inside the backpack, where he found a black T-shirt, a pair of jeans in his size, a dark-blue Dallas Cowboys cap, and a small plastic bag of toiletries (deodorant, toothpaste, and toothbrush). Sam stuffed the items back inside the backpack, slung it over his shoulder, and then shut the hatchback. He checked the time on his phone. He had only twenty minutes. The flight left at 5:30 a.m. He needed to hurry.
He hustled across the drop-off/pick-up lane in front of the main airport building, where only a few cars were stopping and letting people out. Sam spotted one bored security guard way down the sidewalk to his left. He didn’t expect to walk into the same kind of security barriers in Brownsville that he had in Mexico City. He quickly stepped through the glass doors and entered the building. Not much activity inside. With only two airlines servicing the airport, there was only one flight out at this hour. A small plane from United Express.
He hurried up to a ticket counter. A tired-looking but pleasant attendant greeted him.
“I need to get on the five-thirty flight to Houston. Is there room?”
She nodded. “Looks like it.”
He dropped down his Ethan Edwards ID and credit card and held his breath. It was always nerve-racking to use a new ID for the first time. Had Tommy come through again? The attendant typed away, processed his boarding pass, and then handed everything back to him. Like always, Sam had no problem—unless someone tagged his new alias after purchase like they did the previous night. He’d find that out at security.
“Have a good flight, Mr. Edwards.”
“Thank you.”
Sam stepped down the corridor and into a short line for security. Only four people ahead of him. He made his way to the security kiosk quickly. His mouth felt dry. Hopefully, this time he would not have to turn around and hightail it out of the airport wearing a sombrero. The security guard gave him a quick glance, eyeballed his ID and boarding pass, then stamped it and let him through. No issues. Sam passed through the body scanner without a fuss, grabbed his backpack on the other side, and then quickly found a men’s restroom. He grabbed an empty stall and changed into his fresh new clothes. He was glad to ditch his sweat-filled T-shirt and jeans. He stuffed the dirty clothes back inside the backpack, took a moment to wash his face at the sink, put on some deodorant, and brushed his teeth. Then he placed the Dallas Cowboys cap on his head and hurried out of the restroom.
He made it to the gate for his flight just before the attendant was set to close the doors. Seconds later, Sam was on the small plane. He moved down a narrow aisle that had two seats on his left, one on his right, toward the very back. He counted maybe forty other passengers, all looking tired and annoyed at having to be flying out this early. No one gave him a second look. He was grateful for that. He had no desire to fake small talk or personally engage any of them. He sat in the second-to-last seat on the right. All by himself.
First stop, Houston. Then on to New Orleans.
He eased down into the seat cushions, felt his body succumb to the exhaustion. The plane eased away from the terminal and minutes later was in the air. The pilot kept the cabin dark.
He closed his eyes, his mind drifting to Natalie.
How was she doing? Was she hanging tough?
Did she know this all had to do with him?
His thoughts were not only about his growing concern for her safety, but he couldn’t help but relive everything that had happened this past year that had led them to this point.
May 9
Two months ago
Sam could feel himself pulling away from Natalie again, although he couldn’t seem to figure out how to stop it. His mother’s sudden death had hit him harder than he’d ever expected. Natalie was sympathetic and gave him a lot of space. She assured him that she was there for him, for love and support, but she also knew he had to work through the grieving at his own pace. She had once walked in his difficult shoes, losing her mother in a horrific car accident when she was only twelve. While her brothers had tried to push her along in the healing, it had only made her more frustrated—until her dad finally stepped in and told them to leave her alone. Their sister would heal in her own way and in her own time. Natalie said it had made all the difference. She would not push Sam through the healing.
Sam used this as an excuse to avoid Natalie. The truth was, losing his mother had reignited an even stronger fear that always bubbled just below the surface—he was terrified of losing Natalie. Every time he let people in too close, he seemed to lose them. Although he felt he could eventually survive losing his mother, Sam wasn’t sure he could get over losing Natalie, who had somehow penetrated e
very part of his soul. He thought he’d finally dealt with these abandonment issues and put them to rest, but the death of his mother had unexpectedly yanked the chair out from under him and unraveled what good counseling had helped him slowly weave back together. Sam was once again a frightened little foster boy.
For weeks on end, he stopped returning her calls. Natalie would send simple texts. Love you. Praying for you. I’m here for you when you need me. Although a crummy way to behave, he couldn’t even get himself to respond, as he spiraled into a dark place. He tried to get lost in his studies, but it didn’t help too much. Although he would graduate from law school, he was limping across the finish line.
Several weeks of evading Natalie turned into a full month, until she was waiting for him one afternoon on campus when he stepped out of McDonough Hall. He paused, stared down the sidewalk at her, looking so beautiful in her black slacks and white blouse, her brown hair floating in the warm breeze. His heart was racing, but not in a good way. He did not want to hurt Natalie again. He hated himself for it.