To Emma's surprise, Jeremiah caught her arm as she started to herd Sammy in ahead of her.
"Wait a second." Stepping around her, he addressed the driver. "Where's Nacho?"
The man looked over at him blankly, and Jeremiah repeated the question in Spanish only to receive an unintelligible reply.
"He's probably getting a beer in the bar," Emma suggested, glancing toward the structure Nacho had pointed out when they'd arrived.
Jeremiah scraped a hand over his jaw and followed her glance with a worried expression.
"Señor," the driver said, proving capable of speaking, after all—in English, even. "You're letting all the cold air out."
"I'll go find Nacho for you," Jeremiah offered.
"No." The driver shook his head emphatically. "He knows what time we go. Salimos a las tres en punto." We leave at three on the nose.
"Jeremiah." Emma touched his arm. Three more tourists from their group had caught up to them and were trying to board.
He stepped aside and let them in but not Emma and Sammy.
"We can't miss the ferry," she reminded him. It would take half an hour to return to Playa del Carmen and then another forty-five minutes for the ferry to return them to Cozumel. "The ship leaves the pier at six, and the Captain warned us that he wouldn't wait for anyone."
"I know," he said. Casting a final, worried glance around the parking lot, he conceded to letting them board. They sat in two empty seats on either side of the aisle.
Sammy took the window seat while Emma sat across from Jeremiah, who placed his backpack between his knees and started pawing through it.
Not a minute later and without the return of their friendly guide or even a head-count, the driver secured the door, threw the bus into drive, and pulled away from the ruins.
Emma scanned the sun-kissed faces around her, wondering if they'd left anyone behind.
Jeremiah sat back in his seat, his expression alert. He studied every movement of the bus driver, who drove out of the archeological site toward the highway. Once there, he turned left. Jeremiah sat up straighter, holding onto the back of the seat in front of him.
The passengers around them had begun reminiscing about the haunting atmosphere of the walled city, the size of the iguanas, and the softness of the sand down at the beach. With one ear tuned to their conversations, Emma noticed that the bus was approaching an intersection of a town she hadn't seen before. It turned right onto a perpendicular road—one that even she could tell took them away from the coastline. As it accelerated rapidly, she glanced askance at Jeremiah, who stood up without warning.
To Emma's surprise, he made his way to the front of the bus to speak to the driver. She strained her ears to hear what he said.
"Why are we going this way?" she heard him demand.
The driver muttered a reply she couldn't hear.
"We're headed west, not north," Jeremiah asserted. "Turn this bus around."
The driver's emphatic refusal was accompanied by a worried glance as he craned his neck to take in Jeremiah's intimidating stature.
"I know what I'm doing, señor," she heard the driver say. "We go this way to avoid the stoplights."
"Hey, sit down," suggested a bald man sitting up front with either his wife or girlfriend. His burly arm, covered with tattoos, protruded into the aisle. "He knows where he's going."
Jeremiah ignored him. He planted his feet where he stood and consulted his tactical watch which, Emma suspected, had a built-in compass.
As he stooped to look through the front windows at where they were headed, she looked also. The road had begun to narrow. Scrubby trees and bushes encroached on either side, hemming in the road that was no more than a strip of baking asphalt.
Suddenly, the driver slowed the bus, swinging them onto a still smaller road, but this one was headed in the right direction. Jeremiah straightened then returned slowly to his seat, sending the burly bald man an inscrutable look on his way past.
Even with the dark sunglasses still concealing his eyes, Emma could guess what he was thinking. He was clearly worried, and his emotions were leaking over and influencing her.
Leaves brushed the sides of the bus as it flew down the narrow road, kicking up dust in its wake. Resuming his seat, he reached into his backpack and pulled out his sat phone.
"What are you doing?" she asked him.
He swung his knees into the aisle and leaned toward her ear. "Do you trust me?" he asked her tersely.
She searched his grim expression. "Of course."
He thumbed a series of buttons on his keypad, then handed her the phone.
"Take this. I'm going to stop this bus. The driver's not taking us to Playa del Carmen. He's about to hand us over to some very bad people."
"What?" Her voice came out as a squeak. She felt like laughing hysterically to release the tension. Could this really be happening?
"When the shit hits the fan," he said continuing calmly, "I want you to push the call button. You don't have to say anything. Our safety depends on you making that call. Got it?"
He wasn't kidding. But she realized she trusted him implicitly so she nodded.
Leaving his bag on his seat, Jeremiah got up and moved swiftly up the aisle again.
The driver saw him coming. "Sit down, señor!" he barked, his dark eyes glued to the mirror.
The Malaysian crew member who'd visited Tulum for the first time called out hesitantly, "Excuse me, sir."
The tattooed bald man spun up out of his seat to block Jeremiah's path. "What the fuck are you doing?" he demanded, clearly intent on preventing it, whatever it was.
Pitching his voice low, Jeremiah sought to reason with him.
"You're out of your mind," the man retorted. "Go back to your seat, or you're going to have to deal with me."
The man's bleach-blonde companion tried talking him out of fighting.
"Come on, Joe. Just sit down."
With Jeremiah's back to her, Emma couldn't see his expression. Nor could she tell exactly what happened next. Following a brief grappling, Joe collapsed back into his own seat, his mouth agape, veins popping, eyes bulging.
"You're hurting him!" the woman exclaimed, trying to push Jeremiah away. He kept a firm grip on Joe's trapezius. Leaning over him, he spoke quietly into his ear until he gained a nod of cooperation.
Then he released him, intent on targeting the driver next. The Malaysian crewmember called him back, but Jeremiah ignored him. The driver, who'd been watching all along, saw him coming and applied the brakes unexpectedly.
"No!" Emma cried as Jeremiah flew face-first into the windshield at the front of the bus, striking it so hard that his sunglasses flew off his head and he stumbled into the stairwell.
"Mom?" Sammy cried.
Emma sprang to her feet. Her thumb hovered over the "talk" button as she battled the impulse to rush to his aid. Was this what he'd meant by the shit hitting the fan?
"Don't move," Emma told her daughter as Sammy strained to see over her seat. She watched Jeremiah recover and regain his footing. He waved back the crewmember who had started toward him.
The welt rising on his forehead was not as alarming as the deadly look in Jeremiah's eyes. It froze the crewmember and kept Emma spellbound.
The sudden appearance of uniformed men holding rifles and blocking the road ahead changed everything. The driver braked again. Jeremiah caught himself from hitting the windshield a second time.
Looking over at Emma, he called out, "Now," as the bus came to a shuddering halt.
Her movements slowed by shock, Emma managed to thumb the talk button on Jeremiah's phone as he made his way back to his seat. Dropping down beside her he worked to control his breathing.
The driver slammed the door open, and three dark-haired men bounded onto the bus, brandishing assault rifles. At the same time, the driver slipped out from behind the steering wheel, leaped off the bus, and ran as fast as he could into the surrounding wilderness.
"Manos arriba!" the
interlopers shouted.
"Hands up, todos!" translated the one who seemed to be the leader.
With a jerk of his head, Jeremiah motioned for Emma to hide the phone under her thigh as they raised their hands in the air along with everyone else aboard.
As she stared into the barrel of a deadly rifle wondering what the hell was happening, one thought broke over Emma like a wave. Jeremiah had sensed that this was going to happen all along. That's why he'd been so on-edge the entire day. That was why he hadn't wanted to board the bus.
* * *
Jeremiah had trained for worst-case scenarios since making the Teams, but this situation took the prize. He counted four armed men on the bus and another five surrounding it. He and Bad-Ass Joe were probably the only passengers on board who could be counted on to fight back, except they didn't stand a chance without a weapon between them.
All he had that was of any use to them was his watch and his satellite phone. He could hear a faint ringing coming from it beneath Emma's legs. Hopefully, Master Chief wouldn't pick up and the call would go to voicemail where it could be listened to again and again. And with any luck, the message that was left would be full of clues about what was happening to them.
"Quédense con las manos arriba!" bellowed one of the guerillas as his leader moved down the aisle swinging his AK-47 this way and that.
Several people screamed—mostly women. Bad-Ass Joe sent Jeremiah a look that said, Dude, how did you know?
Jeremiah immediately dropped his gaze and stared submissively at the seat in front of him. The head guerilla brushed past him, trailing odors of sweat and cigarettes. His three companions, similarly armed, fondled their Russian-made rifles with anticipation. He could feel their bloodlust from where he sat. Showing any kind of resistance right now would get him shot and killed, and then where would Sammy and Emma be?
Master Chief's tinny voice came from a great distance. "Bullfrog. What's your status?"
"Saquen sus tarquetas de identificación," yelled the pock-faced guerilla leader, making his way to the back of the bus. "Identification," he added in accented English as he thrust a hand toward the French-Canadian couple.
As the young husband scrambled to find their IDs, Emma, who was clutching Sammy's arm, searched Jeremiah's expression—maybe for reassurance. He wished to hell he could give it to her.
He wondered what the Mexicans wanted with the ID cards. The French-Canadian handed over the laminated cards issued by the cruise ship and required for re-boarding. The guerilla looked over the man's name and nationality, both printed on the card. "Es su esposa?" He gestured to the man's pretty wife.
"Sí," the young man affirmed.
"Ju estay on de bus," the guerilla ordered him in accented English. Keeping their ship cards, he turned toward an older couple to take their IDs.
A relative calm fell over the passengers. Jeremiah could tell they'd convinced themselves that this was a government-sanctioned search, and the man would give their IDs back. But it wasn't. Yes, the guerillas wore military-style clothing, but they were all ragged and mismatched with no names sewn above the breast pocket of their shirts. The Mexican National Guard had much higher standards.
The guerilla took one look at the older couple's ID and ordered them off the bus.
"Bájense," he ordered, yanking the old man up by his collar and giving his equally elderly wife a shove.
One of his companions protested that they were too old.
"Son ricos," the leader tossed back. They're rich.
Right then, Jeremiah knew his worst fears were about to become a reality. He glanced at the phone still hidden in Emma's lap. Are you hearing this, Master Chief?
Three more women and a teenage boy were ordered off the bus. All U.S. citizens, Jeremiah realized. Being ordered to stay on the bus seemed like a better deal, except that he'd envisioned the French-Canadian couple gunned down the day he'd boarded the cruise ship. The Malaysian crewmember was going to end up dead, too.
A second guerilla came down the aisle to assist his companion.
"Identificación," he said to Emma.
With hands that visibly trembled, she handed him her and Sammy's ship passes.
"Off the bus," he ordered, pocketing the IDs.
She froze, casting an uncertain glance at Jeremiah.
"I go with them," Jeremiah said, handing the man his own ship card and projecting his voice for his master chief to overhear.
The guerilla swung his weapon at him, frowning.
Emma seized the opportunity to drop the sat phone into her handbag without the man noticing. "Come on, honey," she said, pulling a wide-eyed Sammy behind her.
Jeremiah followed them off the bus, slouching to downplay his warrior's physique. How had he not seen in advance the way this evil would play out? They'd been beset by a band of ruffians who intended to hold them for ransom—and that was a best-case scenario. Clearly, it was easier to transfer money from the U.S. to Mexico than from any other country, which was why non-U.S. citizens were being ordered to stay put.
With adrenaline storming his veins, it was all he could do to tamp down his fighting instincts. Stepping from the bus, he led Emma and Sammy as far away as he could with five guerillas watching him suspiciously. Making a run for it would get them all shot. Putting an arm over their shoulders, he gulped at the feel of them huddling against him.
I'm responsible for their survival.
Within minutes, every U.S. citizen on the bus—there appeared to be thirteen of them—was standing uncertainly on the narrow road, squinting against the bright sun. Two guerillas came off the bus carrying women's purses and a bag full of what was probably wallets and jewelry. They'd robbed everyone on board.
Jeremiah raised his gaze as the remaining two guerillas raised their rifles and backed up the aisle toward the bus door.
No, don't! he almost cried out loud because he knew what would happen next. Pulling Emma and Sammy's heads to his chest, he covered their ears to keep them from seeing the carnage as gunfire erupted suddenly.
He forced himself to watch—punishment for not managing to stop it. Just as he'd foreseen, bullets riddled the French-Canadian couple, as well as everyone else left on the bus—the Malaysian crewmember, two Japanese couples, three Scots, and four Australians. Blood and brain matter splattered the bus's windows. Some of the windows shattered, belching glass and gore onto the road.
The U.S. citizens looked on in abject terror. The old woman staggered against her husband, who caught and held her. The teenage boy sprinted for the woods only to be tackled by one of the gun-toting guerillas and shoved face-first onto a prickly bush.
"Jeremiah!"
Emma's strangled cry urged him to do something. He could seize the weapon of the guerilla closest to him and maybe kill a few bad guys before they all turned their weapons onto him and his companions, but that wouldn't help anyone.
"I can't," he muttered, raging quietly. "Not yet."
The two murdering guerrillas staggered off the bus, one with a pronounced limp and blood staining his tennis shoe. He'd been struck by a bit of shrapnel.
That's called Karma, asshole. Jeremiah tried not to glare at him.
"Stay calm," he said in Emma's ear. "We have the phone," he reminded her. "We'll be found."
But then the guerillas pointed pistols directly into their captives' faces and ordered them to surrender their possessions.
"Dámelo," the chubby youth shouted, wrenching the bag out of Emma's rigid hand. "Y la mochila también," he said to Jeremiah. And the backpack, too.
He surrendered it without protest. Sammy, in her shock, had left her own bag on the bus. She stared in disbelief at the bloodied windows.
Her mother forced her head around. "Baby, don't look."
The guerillas started dumping the contents of their bags onto the road. Jeremiah saw Emma's towel, sunscreen, and library book hit the ground, followed by his sat phone and wallet. The guerillas pounced on the latter, pilfering the fifty dollars he'd c
arried. Thank God he'd left his military ID on the ship for that would surely have gotten him shot. The sat phone lay face up on the road, as of yet unnoticed. He hoped like hell Master Chief was still listening.
The tubby guerilla who'd grabbed Jeremiah's backpack glanced back at him, his dark gaze sliding to his wrist.
Aw, shit. Jeremiah knew what was coming next, as the young man swaggered back to him.
"Dame tu reloj," he ordered, grabbing Jeremiah's wrist.
The U.S. Navy had invested nearly two grand in the special ops, tactical watch. Not only was it able to resist water at depths of two hundred meters, but it came with a GPS feature that let Uncle Sam know his whereabouts whenever he wore it. Next to his sat phone, the watch was their best hope for rescue. He didn't want to give it up.
But neither had he any desire to become the focus of attention while the guerillas were in a killing frame of mind.
With every cell in his body protesting, he unlatched his watch and handed it over. Chubby quickly strapped it on his own wrist, which he hid under the cuff of his camouflage jacket. None of his cohorts noticed as they were fixated on finding money and credit cards. In fact, the time was ripe to make a run for it, Jeremiah realized. He could dive into the tree line at a zigzag and their bullets would probably miss him.
Do it! ordered a voice in his head that sounded a lot like Master Chief's. His thighs flexed in anticipation. But then Emma tightened her hold on his arm. Glancing down at her chalk-white face, he realized he couldn't leave her and Sammy to fend for themselves, not even while he was attempting a rescue.
After all, it was his fault they were living through this nightmare in the first place. He'd seen it coming; he just hadn't interpreted what he'd seen correctly. As a result, a dozen cruise ship passengers were dead already because he hadn't managed to stop the bus in time.
To his dismay, one of the guerillas caught sight of the sat phone that had been overlooked and snatched it up. He showed it to his leader in triumph. "Mira, jefe!"
His boss sauntered over to examine it. Pock-marked and in his late twenties, he resembled the former Nicaraguan dictator, Manuel Noriega.
The leader frowned and looked around. "De quién es?" Whose is it?
Friendly Fire (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 3) Page 10