by K. T. Tomb
“Here it is. It’s said that Montezuma was captured by the Spanish during their invasion of Mexico. They were demanding a ransom of gold, but Montezuma wouldn’t have that. So, he dispatched a group of runners to inform the tribes to hide their gold. This story points the compass to Casa Grande back in Arizona. It’s said that the labyrinth at the Casa Grande Ruins National Museum might be where a part of the treasure is buried, but nothing has been found to date.”
Chyna took in all of the information, ruminating over her own theories about the Apache Wars and plotting possible locations in her mind. She and her team had already fallen behind schedule and they needed to restart as quickly as possible.
Supposedly, a Mexican aristocrat named Don Joaquin enslaved the local Apaches during the Mexican American War and ordered them to dig up gold. However, when the United States finally breached Mexican borders, the Apaches rebelled, forcing the Mexicans to hide all of their gold somewhere in the mountains. Most of them were later slaughtered by the Apaches, but one of them survived and went back for the treasure. He was never able to find it though, since the Apaches still controlled the area.
Chyna sighed internally. They were spinning in circles here, and it was really starting to get on her nerves. As uncharacteristic as it was for her, she wanted to scream at someone, or at this boggling case. Her stream of thoughts, however, was interrupted when she noticed a black sedan behind her Rover. Had it been there when they set out?
“Sirita,” Chyna called to her teammate, “can you see the black sedan behind us?”
Chyna didn’t have to wait for an answer. Sirita had noticed it at about the same time.
“What do you think?” Chyna kept her eyes on the road and sped up just a little. If someone was following them, she did not want to tip him or her off.
The cat and mouse game continued for some time. Chyna was on edge, and she didn’t know Mexico City well enough to just turn onto any random street. That could go south very quickly and in a very bad way. So, Chyna kept driving in a straight line, hoping to find some semblance of civilization soon. Come to think of it, Chepultepec Forest was fairly deserted today, and that worried her.
“Chyna, I think its best we call Tony and the boys and alert them,” Sirita called out suddenly, “Another car just joined the one following us, and they’re speeding up.”
Sure enough, Chyna could now see two cars following her own. By the time she reached for the phone and dialed Tony’s number, the number had escalated to four.
“It’s Motta!” Tony said from the other end before Chyna could say anything. His strained voice was a perfect reflection of what Chyna was feeling in that moment. “We have cars after us as well. I was just about to call you.”
“How do we know it’s him?” Chyna asked, pushing down further on the accelerator as the cars behind them sped up. She was now going a hundred.
“See the steel symbols on the front? They are his trademark. Head straight for the airport; we’ve got to get out of here now.”
“We can’t just leave like this. We have to throw them off. All our stuff is back in the hotel.” Chyna forced herself not to panic. The same couldn’t be said for Sirita, though. She looked pale and terrified.
“It’s all been taken care of. We had already arrived there when we noticed them. That’s why we left. And sweetheart, I don’t think they would bring out an armada like this so we could throw them off. They mean business this time,” Tony said, and in the distance Chyna heard the screeching sound of a car swerving. Her heart raced, and she was now in full escape mode. Her foot pushed down on the pedal with all her might, destination be damned. She would be lucky if she and her team got out of this alive. Her encounters with Diego Motta in the last two weeks had been tense to say the least, but Chyna had never thought he would resort to such measures to drive her out of the city.
Diego Motta was a local crime lord who owned almost half of Mexico through his drug and smuggling rings. Chyna might not have found out much in the time that they had been there, but what she had discovered had destroyed a large part of the network that Motta had built with twenty years of blood, sweat and tears. Apparently, Diego Motta used several of the abandoned sites outside of the city as stash houses for his shipments and ammunition. With Tony’s assistance and contacts in the local force, Chyna had been able to hand over millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine and other drugs to the police in a matter of three days.
However, she had found out too late that Diego Motta was a man who always collected his due. All of his men who had been caught had ended up dead in jail the next day, and his declarations of war against Chyna and her team had not been empty exultations. Two days later, Chyna had gotten a very verbal message that said that Motta would pay her back by getting rid of Chyna and her team for good. Their radio silence over the next few days had somehow lulled Chyna into a state of false assurance, but now that they were under threat, the slumber had been broken and the reality was not something that she relished.
As if in confirmation, a bullet whizzed past Chyna’s side of the car and blew off the side view mirror.
“Shit. Chyna? Was that a crash I heard?” Tony’s voice asked from the other end.
“Yes! They shot the side mirror off!”
Chyna sped her car up, and the steering wheel swerved a little under her hand. Damn it, why did her palms feel so slippery? Chyna heard the screeching of the tires again.
“Oscar, everything all right back there?” Tony asked.
Oscar’s voice was faint coming from the phone and then all of what he was saying was drowned out as Sirita suddenly took the wheel from Chyna and swerved it to their left. Almost instantly, Chyna felt an impact and a thump. They had toppled one of Motta’s cars over.
Chyna struggled to keep the car back onto its path, all the while hearing similar commotion from the other end of the phone. She disconnected the headset and put the phone on speaker. The sounds of automobile altercation filled the car and doubled the intensity of the moment. In her field of vision, Chyna saw a bullet hit the pole she had just narrowly passed. Luck was not going to be on her side today.
“What’s happening over there?! Tony, talk to me!” Chyna shouted over the sounds of cars and bullets all around them.
“Chyna, we need to get out of here! Mark! Take my gun! Hurry!”
Tony’s voice resounded in Chyna’s head.
“Tony, dodge them and head on North to Reynosa!” Sirita screamed at the speaker. “We have to cross the border fast and then we can worry about air transport back to El Paso. Let’s lose these suckers but whatever you do, don’t hang up the phone!”
“Roger that, Siri!”
Tony didn’t waste any time. They had to get out of harm’s way immediately. They knew, and their attackers knew that the nearest border town was a full eleven hour’s drive away.
Chyna asked Siri for the directions and gunned it; she was determined to get out of there and make it back across the border. Another bullet hit their car and this time, a part of the rear glass shattered. The shit had officially hit the fan and it was splattering everywhere. Chyna kept on driving and then, as if by divine intervention, she spotted a turn that was coming up on her right. Without thinking, she turned into the narrow street and kept gunning the Land Rover. In the rearview mirror, she watched Motta’s cars as they sped past the turn.
Chyna knew they didn’t have much time. Their pursuers must have seen her turning and would soon follow the car to herd it back toward the main thoroughfare. The speed at which they had been following her had not allowed them to turn when she had. Chyna knew that they needed to ditch the car if they wanted to make it out of there alive; she did the best thing she could think of at that moment.
Spotting a large trash receptacle, she sped up and drove the Rover into the smelly cornucopia, knowing that the crash would produce a commotion that would bring people out of the nearby shops into the street. The crowd would provide a cover and give her and Sirita some time to make
their escape. Thankfully, Sirita’s brilliant mind came right into step with Chyna’s as soon as the car came to a halt. The next thing she knew was that they were running through the narrow street toward a small garment store that people were just starting to run out of. In the distance, they heard the screeching of multiple vehicles. Motta’s men had caught up with them.
Sirita shouted something in Spanish with just enough fervor to spring the people crowding the street into action. The crowd ran toward the wreck, while she pulled Chyna out of the way and into the store in the nick of time. They didn’t stop there. Sirita led them to the back of the shop, right toward a section that was filled with summer dresses. She pulled two off the racks and tossed one to Chyna while the latter watched in wonder.
“What’s happened to you?” she asked. “I can’t believe how on your toes you are.”
“I don’t want to die today,” Sirita shrugged, out of breath. She didn’t wait for Chyna to reply as she pulled open the door to a fitting room and got in.
In the next moment, Chyna snapped into action, stepping into a changing room herself where she ditched her own jeans and shirt and put the flowery dress on. It fell below her knees and was something she would never wear, but she knew she had no choice. When she came out, Sirita was already waiting for her with two blonde wigs. Chyna didn’t question her. She balled up her black hair into a tight knot and pulled one of the wigs on.
“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” she said to Sirita, while the latter was undergoing her own transformation. “What did you say to them?”
“I thought learning the basics would come in handy someday.” Sirita shrugged. “I told them that the driver had crashed the car and ran away, and that we thought someone was still in there. Are there any hats here?”
Chyna looked around and spotted some large ones on a rack in the back. Given the summer heat, they would not raise much suspicion. As she took them down and passed one on to Sirita, she spotted their phones and wallets in a small bag on the floor.
“Wow, you work fast,” Chyna whistled in appreciation and Sirita smiled. She lived for such moments, and the day had had a lot of them.
“Thanks,” she grinned, putting all of her makeup and essentials into her bag while handing Chyna her own.
“Now, let’s go, darling,” she said, in a fake British accent. “I’m gasping for some supper.”
Chyna laughed as the two paid for their dresses and walked out as if it were just another day under the sun.
***
It was almost 9 p.m. when the two women stepped down from a bus that had left them standing in front of a Carl Jr’s in McAllen, Texas. They were still clad in their touristy attire, but thankfully had not been harassed by anyone on the way.
Chyna looked around and quickly spotted Tony’s Land Rover, which was parked inconspicuously in the shade so as not to raise any suspicions. She saw movement inside the car, and before she knew it, she was running toward it with Sirita right on her heels. She knocked on the window and sighed in relief when she saw Mark Gunnar’s handsome face staring back at her. Tony was in the driver’s seat with his hand reaching surreptitiously for his gun.
“A bright day, isn’t it, love?” Chyna cheered falsely and grinned as Mark and Tony kept on staring at them in confusion. It was only when she took off her accessories of disguise that they recognized her and Sirita and were out of the car in a moment.
“Chyna!” Tony gushed and ran to her side. He scooped her up in his arms and planted a kiss on her lips. “Damn it, I was so worried!”
Chyna let the warmth of Tony’s words wash over her and felt lucky to be able to experience the moment. Tony made her feel safe, and it was a feeling she never wanted to lose. She hugged him back, forgetting everything else for the moment.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Tony released her, but still kept an arm around her waist.
“Where are we going?” Mark asked, once all four of them were back inside the car.
Chyna thought for a moment. “We’ll go to New York, set up camp there while we plot out the rest of our trip. I think we should stick to the United States portion of the story for now. I don’t want another run in like the one back there.”
It was then that she spotted Oscar in the back of the van and said a little hello. She laughed when he asked them about the get ups.
“Oh, this was a little quick thinking on Sirita’s part. It’s all her.” Chyna answered, while Sirita just shook her head as she drank from a bottle of water.
“I couldn’t pay attention to the phone because of all the commotion and once we’d dodged them, I tried getting you back on the line, but you weren’t answering at all. That was when Mark and I realized that you must have had to resort to drastic measures,” Tony told them as he drove
Chyna could still hear the anxiety in his voice.
“Well, this is as drastic as it gets,” Sirita agreed. “How did they know where we were, though?”
“I think someone tipped them off.”
There was complete silence in the car as Mark’s words sank in. To think that someone could hate them so much as to hand them over to Diego Motta on a silver platter.
“Who? Our site team?” Oscar sounded a little shaken up and hesitant, as if he couldn’t bear the thought of betrayal within their ranks.
“Not necessarily.” The hesitation in Mark’s voice told Chyna that he was just humoring them. “It could have been anyone. Or, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they had been following us all along, waiting to catch us in a weak moment.”
Tony hummed his agreement, and Chyna nodded at the last theory, which seemed way more plausible than Mark’s previous one
“Let’s get to New York for now. We’ll think about everything afterwards.”
***
Chyna had just gotten out of the shower when she heard the room door close.
“Chyna?” Tony called out in the next instant, and relief rushed through her.
“I’m just out of the shower, Babe!” she called out and quickly pulled on a pair of shorts and a light tank top. She let her wet hair loose, knowing how much Tony liked it and walked out.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, clad in his boxers and a white T-shirt. His eyes widened as she strolled in, and he groaned, “Now, how am I supposed to talk work when you look like that?”
Chyna smiled at him and went to sit at the dresser. Her attempts at seducing him were successful, but she shot him down nonetheless. “Whatever you say, Babe. What did you want to talk about?”
There was silence from him as Chyna brushed her hair. Then, he spoke quietly, as if he felt the distinct need to be cautious about something.
“I think it’s Mark.”
She didn’t quite understand his meaning.
“You think that is Mark?”
“The mole; I think it’s him.”
Chyna stopped what she was doing and put the brush down on the dresser. She turned around, crossed her arms and glared at Tony.
“Talk. Now.”
“Isn’t it strange that all this time you’ve been investigating without him, nothing’s ever happened; not one incident. We take him with us to Mexico and there’s a gang of criminals chasing us around the city.” Tony shrugged, “That, and the fact that we don’t know anything about him.”
“That’s because what you’re saying isn’t true, Tony. Have you forgotten about Fariha Katsakis?” Chyna shrugged. “Besides Thyri runs a pretty secure ship. The fact that Mark meets her standards is good enough for me. I have to admit, though, that there really wasn’t much in the personnel file she sent over.”
“And that doesn’t strike you as odd? Come on, he’s working with an international conglomerate like Lothbruk Investments and they don’t tell you anything about him? I’ve seen him, Chyna. He looks odd. He has this... this thing about him.” Tony frowned.
“Tony... I trust Thyri. She would… she would never put someone on my team that she didn’t trust. Remember, she would h
ave kept him herself and attached him to her own team at Alpha. It was Mark who didn’t want to go to the U.S.”
Chyna sat down heavily next to him, as if the weight of Tony’s words was crushing her.
“Facades are not hard to maintain, Chyna. All you need are the right incentives.”
“Tony, I... I don’t know what to say.”
“Just,” Tony was at her feet in an instant, “just promise me you’ll keep my words in mind, and be vigilant around him.”
Chyna looked at Tony for a long time, and what she saw in his eyes pleased and amused her.
“Anthony Stewart, are you jealous?”
She giggled, noticing how very uncharacteristic it was of him. From the look in his eyes, she knew she was right. Yet, he scrambled to maintain himself.
“Jealous? Who, me? No, no, no… not at all.” He cleared his throat, “It's just that you’re so fucking gorgeous. It’s natural that they’ll eventually try something.”
There it was. The jealousy had turned to want in a minute.
“Yeah? What are you going to do to prevent it?” Chyna goaded him, though she very well knew how he would respond. In fact, his hands were already creeping toward the answer.
“Oh, I can do a lot actually.”
He pressed his lips to hers and they fell back onto the bed. Soon they were tangled up in each other’s limbs and Chyna moaned softly in his ear as the pleasure he was giving her mounted and heated her through. His hands ran all over her soft skin fanning the flames of the insistent fire he had ignited between them and when she had clung to him in the final throes of her passion, he had groaned his release into the flushed skin of her shoulder. Then he looked up and kissed her neck.
“I’m not jealous, Babe,” he said, seeking to reassure her again, “but I think I’ll just ensure he knows you’re taken by marking you.”
He pressed his lips to her neck again and mark her he did.