by Toby Neal
“They went inland, farther toward the mountains. Do you have a phone? We have to call the police,” Lei said.
“No phone out here. The folks in the house don’t have one either.” The woman pointed with her chin toward the bunkerlike house. She snapped the Colt’s chamber shut.
Lei’s pulse accelerated—what was Harry doing with that gun? They had to get moving! “I need to get help, somehow! Kelly’s been kidnapped, and it would be a miracle if she hasn’t already been raped by now. One of the men, Fernando, tried to get me to come back to the car by holding her up by the hair. He did this.” She made the throat-cutting gesture the thug had used, her skin crawling with fear for Kelly. “I was lucky to be able to take this off one of them.” Lei pulled out Joao’s large knife in its scabbard and set it on the table. Harry picked it up, turning it back and forth. Lei well remembered the bite of the shiny steel on the skin of her neck.
“Not likely they’re going to kill her. Maybe ransom her or sell her off to a brothel. Fernando and Joao, eh? What did they drive?”
“A big Ford truck with a winch.” Lei held out her cup for more of the margarita. Harry obligingly filled her cup again.
“Well, I know that road you were on, and where it goes. I’m sorry about your friend.” There was a note of finality in Harry’s voice, as if whatever were being done to Kelly was already an irreversible fact. “But we can get her back.”
Lei frowned. “Seriously? What can we do against those guys?”
“The cops are useless here. In fact, your perps could be off-duty cops trolling for victims. We call for help, you’ll likely end up in jail and never hear from your friend again, unless you’ve got a wad of cash for bribes.” Harry raked Lei with a glance. “Got a wad of cash?”
“No.” Lei turned out her empty pockets. “I don’t even have an ID right now.”
“We’re better off without the cops. Trust me.” Harry stood up from the vinyl-covered bench seat of the dinette area, a tiny nook off the back of the truck.
“Are you telling me you’re thinking of going after those guys with that little six-shooter of yours? You don’t know what we’re up against. I’m pretty strong, been taking taekwondo for a couple of years and I’m planning to be a cop, but this bald guy Fernando threw me around like a rag doll. Only reason I got away is that they didn’t have guns, and I’m a fast runner.”
Harry’s brown eyes lit with excitement. “I guess you think we need a few more weapons.” She gestured for Lei to get up off the seat.
Lei did. Harry lifted up the seat pad. Lei sucked in a breath of admiration. A shotgun, a rack of various pistols, with and without silencers, a knife the size of a machete, a brace of grenades, and a small rocket launcher packed the container area. Harry gestured. “Pick your poison.”
Lei looked up. “Who are you?”
The Hawaiian woman shrugged. “Harry Vierra. That’s all you need to know.”
Chapter Six
Lei turned her face to the side, pressing it against Harry’s shoulder to block out the dusty wind churned up by the all-terrain vehicle they rode. Lei’s back felt heavy with the backpack of weapons she carried. She shut her eyes against the grit as the ATV tackled yet another dune.
“I think I know where they’re going,” Harry had told her back at the RV as she began loading and packing the weapons they chose and they waited for the light to wane into darkness. “There’s an old copper mine at the base of the mountains, where that road you were on dead-ends. No one lives there anymore, but it would be an ideal place to stash a prisoner.”
“Yeah. No one to hear her scream,” Lei said morosely. “Can’t we get going now?”
Harry just looked at her, and Lei sighed. “I know. Waiting for dark. As if the deck wasn’t already stacked against us.”
“It isn’t stacked against us.” Harry shrugged into an odd harness. Lei frowned curiously until Harry picked up a short samurai-type sword in a slightly curved scabbard that had been stashed behind the seat cushion. Harry slid the scabbard into the harness. The hilt protruded up behind her head for easy access. “My trainer, Cruz, left his blade. He’s away for the weekend, so I think I’ll take it.”
Lei shook her head. “I like these.” She patted twin Glocks she’d chosen, wearing them in a pair of crossed shoulder holsters. Lei had been shooting at her local range with the Glock she’d bought but didn’t know how to use half of Harry’s arsenal. “You’re still just getting trained? In what, exactly?”
“Combat techniques. Weapons. Tracking. Surveillance and sabotage. We’ve even done some explosives work. I graduated. I think. With Cruz, it’s hard to tell.”
“Why would you be out here studying all that?”
Harry quirked a brow. “Reasons. You’re not the only one interested in a career in criminal justice.”
“So who is this Cruz?”
“A ninja. A warrior. Maybe a monk of some kind. I don’t know. He’s a man of mystery. And he’s got mad skills.”
Lei fiddled with the holsters. “So Cruz came with you to Mexico? Like—a boyfriend?”
“Ha. Cruz is nobody’s boyfriend. No, we met down here and I hired him to train me. We began doing private security jobs together.” Harry shot up, strode to the refrigerator, grabbed the beaker of margaritas. “More?”
“Just water now. I should keep a clear head.” Lei frowned. “You never answered me when I asked—who are you? Why are you doing this?”
“I’m a private investigator and a security operative—a bit of both.” Harry shrugged. “Our most recent job was kind of like getting your friend back, actually. Cruz and I removed a kidnapped kid from a cartel that was holding her. Kona and I were on post-operation R & R when you showed up, but I guess it’s time to go back to work.”
Lei’s nape prickled. She refilled her cup with water, her eyes narrowing. “This is too coincidental. What are the chances that the first place I come to, I happen upon a trained merc? You might be part of the gang—maybe you’re going to lure me into going back with you to those guys.”
Harry tipped her head and laughed; she had a robust belly laugh, and she was beautiful with her face alight. “You’ve already had too much to drink, I see. Let’s go next door and get some food; the Delgados can vouch for me, and that will make you feel better.”
Back in the present moment, Lei tightened her hold on Harry’s narrow waist as the quad hit a protruding rock. They levitated, bouncing back down in a flurry of sand. Lei glanced behind her. Kona was hunkered down in a makeshift metal carrier strapped onto the back of the quad. The big dog’s ears were flat, his eyes slitted. He lay low, his claws dug into the basket, tension in every line of his rough-coated body.
Lei peered around Harry to the terrain ahead. The last waning of sunset left orange streaks in the sky behind them. The moon rose ahead, glowing over the mountains above the abandoned mine.
Harry had changed into a desert camouflage outfit. She smelled like gun oil and sweat. She couldn’t be more different than Kelly. Lei shut her eyes tight at the thought of her fun-loving, naive, sheltered friend, and what those men were likely doing to her. Every minute she’d taken with the Delgados, the friendly couple that ran the taco stand, eating a big plate of enchiladas, was time she’d wasted coming to Kelly’s aid—but it had seemed important to verify that Harry had been coming to Mexico to spend the winter for several years, but only recently had taken up crime-fighting. “She was a bookkeeper before,” Senor Delgado said. “We love her like a daughter.” He gave Harry a side hug that almost buried her in his bulk. They hadn’t had a phone, either—Harry had told the truth about that.
“A bookkeeper?” Lei had said, with raised eyebrows, as they went to fetch the ATV.
“For the mob,” Harry said.
Lei didn’t ask any more questions—a world of possibility lay in those three short words.
Harry aimed the ATV down a dune and finally merged onto the road leading into a mining ghost town. The quad sped up, and Lei tucked
her face tight into Harry’s shoulder, watching the moonlit desert speed by now that they were on a relatively hard surface. The outline of the sword was an uncomfortable ridge between them.
Harry was so far out that she made Lei feel normal. Lei smiled a little at the thought. She usually felt so different from other women—not just because of being damaged goods, but because something in her wanted to right the balance of things, and she never was able to let that go.
That part of her was excited by this wild ride on an ATV through the back roads of Mexico, armed to the teeth; but the sane part of her was sensibly terrified of what they’d find when they located Kelly, and of what they were up against. She was even a little bit nervous of this tough woman who lived at a taco stand with her dog. “I only winter in Mexico,” Harry had said. “I go where the work is in my RV.”
They slowed, the quad’s engine rattling roughly at lower RPMs. Lei peered around Harry; foothills loomed directly ahead, rendered in shades of gray, but Lei couldn’t see any signs of civilization or life. No lights showed anywhere.
“Surprise is our only advantage.” Harry pulled the ATV off the road and deep into the shadow of a boulder. Moonlight gleamed off Harry’s bright teeth. “We will lose that if we roll up into the town on this noisy thing.”
“We don’t only have surprise. We also have a helluva lot of firepower.” Lei patted one of her Glocks. The cargo pockets of her pants were filled with spare clips, and a shotgun made a hard lump against her back under the backpack. Kona hopped out of his carrier. He whimpered with excitement from Harry’s side.
“They may not have been armed when they took you, but I guarantee they are now. I hope you feel up to a run.”
“Running is one of the things I do best.” Lei was rested, hydrated, and her stomach was full of excellent food. She felt ready to take on an army.
They jogged down the moonlit ribbon of road, Kona a bulky dark shadow beside them. Lei strained her ears for any sounds of danger, but heard nothing but a faraway coyote howl, the soft desert wind in the brush, and the cry of a night bird.
She settled into a ground-eating lope, the weight of weapons unfamiliar but welcome. Fifteen or twenty minutes went by as she breathed easily. The woman beside her never slowed, nor did her respiration speed up. Remembering the firmness of Harry’s waist, the solidity of her shoulder, Harry was stronger. Apparently, all Harry did down in Mexico was train all day, and it showed. The only thing better than going in with Harry would be if Harry’s trainer, the mysterious Cruz with his combat skills, would somehow read their minds and join the party.
A series of abandoned buildings loomed ahead, hunched black shapes in a landscape rendered in shades of gray.
“The mining town,” Harry whispered. “We should take cover in case they have anyone watching.”
They trotted into the shadow of a derelict store, its broken sign worn beyond readability even in daylight.
“I don’t see anyone. No cars, nothing,” Lei said. Urgency to reach her friend beat in her veins. “Let’s just find them.”
She moved past Harry back out into the open, pulling one of the Glocks and holding it in low ready position as she jogged down the middle of the road between the buildings, scanning from side to side for any sight of human habitation or danger.
Kona’s sharp bark was the only warning she had.
Chapter Seven
A dark shadow streaked toward her, and Lei spun in a crouch, Glock trained on the threat—and the jackrabbit bounded past, raising tiny puffs of dust in its wake. Lei lowered the gun. “Crap.”
“You almost shot our element of surprise.” Harry’s voice came from over her shoulder. Lei hadn’t heard her approach. “Get behind me. You’re going to blow this for us.”
Chastened, Lei fell in behind the more experienced Harry, and they moved silently to the cover of the abandoned buildings. Kona, at Harry’s side, lolled his tongue at Lei in a doggy grin, as if sympathizing. If she got out of this, she was getting a dog. Something big and fierce, but loving—like Kona. Aunty’s idea seemed like a good one, now that she’d met the German Shepherd.
Harry led them from building to building, keeping to the shadows—but there was nothing to see but the occasional tumbleweed, trying to trip them, nothing to hear but a far-off hoot owl. They reached the end of the stretch of buildings.
“Now what?” Lei’s voice was a harsh whisper.
“They must be up by the mine.”
Lei adjusted the straps of the backpack carrying extra weapons that rubbed harshly against her sweating shoulders. The equipment inside made a metallic clank, and suddenly, far up ahead, they heard a deep, bellowing bark.
“Found them,” Harry said. She pulled her weapon, a silenced SIG, and loped down the last bit of battered road toward a mound of rock outcroppings. Lei could see a gaping black cave in the front, and behind it, a small collection of buildings. Light seeped around closed doors and windows of one of the buildings ahead.
Lei’s heart hammered, but she concentrated on controlling her breathing, imagining herself as the trained cop she wanted to be, cool and collected, on a raid. She stayed behind Harry, who made a gesture to Kona. The dog streaked off into the darkness as they left the road, taking to the scrub to approach the building from well behind in the darkness.
The dog near the building stopped barking, thankfully. Harry licked a finger and held it up, checking for the direction of the wind. The tiniest breeze rattled the seed-laden, dry skeletons of tumbleweeds, and she gave a brief nod and changed direction a little, Lei riding her wake.
The building was old, as all of these seemed to be, exuding a smell of dust, decay, and hopelessness. Inside, all was silent. The light flickered, probably a flame-lit lantern. Lei pressed into the black shadow of the building, and felt splintery wood beneath her skin.
Harry crept up to a boarded-up window. Orangey, flickering light shone from around its sill. She moved to the other side of the window so Lei could peek in through a crack as well.
It was hard to see what was going on inside the room with dust so thick on the pane. Lei rubbed a tiny hole in the dirt on the glass and applied her eye.
A kerosene lantern, turned down, sat on a rough wooden picnic table. Around the room, on the floor, were the lumpy dark shapes of sleeping people.
Lei looked frantically for Kelly, and finally spotted her by the shine of light on her long tangled hair, protruding from beneath a rough Mexican blanket.
Harry caught Lei’s eye, gesturing toward a ladder lying on the ground on the side of the building. With her fingers, she indicated she was going up on the roof, where a round metal vent protruded. Lei was to go to the front door of the building and access it there.
“Where’s Kona?” Lei whispered. Her voice sounded too loud, raspy as a summer cicada in the eerie night.
Harry gave a brief headshake, not explaining—but clearly the dog had some sort of role. Harry raised her brows in question about their rudimentary plan.
Lei nodded. As a strategy it was sketchy as hell, but Lei didn’t have any better ideas.
Harry picked up the ladder, and Lei helped stabilize the broken, splintery structure against the old building as her partner climbed carefully, setting each foot gingerly on the brittle struts. Several were missing.
Harry made it to the flat expanse of roof, and Lei sighed with relief, wondering if the termite-riddled expanse would hold the other woman’s weight. Harry gestured impatiently for Lei to move out, and, trembling with adrenaline, breath harsh in her lungs, Lei sidled toward the front of the building.
The main door was closed, a broad expanse of newer wood whose hinges looked sturdy by the light of the moon. The kidnappers had replaced whatever had been there before, not good news.
But the men hadn’t posted a guard. Lei pulled her gun and positioned herself in front of the door, getting ready to try to kick it open.
She saw the dog at the same time as it spotted her.
They had posted a
guard.
The big black shadow erupted from its shelter under a bush, barking like a hellhound as it hurled itself toward her.
Lei spun, aiming her weapon at the creature—but Kona got in the way, streaking in from the side and leaping on the other beast in a flurry of snarling and snapping.
Lei only had a moment to get through the door, before everyone was awake. She grabbed the handle and twisted. The portal opened, and Lei cranked the handle, hit the door with her shoulder, and leapt into the room.
Three men on the ground were throwing off blankets and fumbling for their weapons.
“Hands in the air,” Lei yelled, pointing her Glock at the bald man who’d risen, gleaming head identifying him as Fernando. “Los manos! Up!”
“Come back to party, little girl?” said a voice from her left. Lei glanced quickly at Joao, greasy hair mussed with sleep. “And just when we were getting tired of your friend.”
Kelly raised her head from the far corner of the room. Her mouth was taped, and her eyes looked like holes in the dim light.
Lei gritted her teeth in a snarl. “Hands up!”
Fernando had something in his hand. Lei couldn’t tell what it was, but the other man, on her right, had stood up too. He also held a weapon.
“Drop it!” Lei barked, as loudly and authoritatively as she could, but she’d never aimed a gun at another human before, let alone pulled the trigger. Her stomach roiled with panic. Her hands trembled, holding the Glock; her fingers were not obeying her mental order to fire.
Joao leaned over, reaching for the rifle at his feet as Fernando took a long step toward Lei. Lei recognized the shape in his hand—the giant Buck knife she was already familiar with. His teeth shone in a grin, and a trick of the light made them look pointed.
Where the hell was Harry?
A gunshot boomed in the enclosed space, so loud it seemed to explode Lei’s eardrums, and the unknown man on her right went down, a giant hole in his chest. Joao spun toward the sound, the rifle in his hands. Harry peered down through the hole where the rusted vent had been, holding a shotgun.