Breaking Point (16 page)

Have a nice death, a peaceful death.

She swallowed, her mouth dry, those hated words running unwelcome through her mind. She tried to force them aside, unwilling to be held hostage by the horror of that day.

The car rolled to a stop.

Above the rush of her own pulse, she heard the door open. She would be alone now while Zach went inside and got a room.

You can do this. You can do this.

After a brief eternity, the driver’s side door opened again, and the engine started. Moments later, she felt the car slow, turn, and roll to a stop.

Not long now. Not long.

The door opened and closed, and then . . .

Nothing.

What was he doing? Where had he gone? Had something happened?

She strained to listen but could hear nothing. The seconds became minutes which seemed to stretch into hours, until the only sound Natalie could hear was the hammering of her own heart.

Something’s wrong. Something’s gone wrong.

Her breath came in shallow pants, adrenaline making her heart beat harder.

What if something had happened to him? No one would know where she was. She would be stuck here, just like she’d been stuck in that morgue cooler.

Oh, where is he?

She should be home by now, not trying to sneak into her own country across the desert, where hundreds of people died every year. Why had she gone along with this? Why had she let herself be locked in this trunk by a man who wouldn’t tell her his last name, who insisted he wasn’t a criminal but knew smuggling routes well enough to guide her through them? Who else knew smuggling routes besides drug smugglers, men who bought, sold and stole drugs and carried guns and traded guns for cars and killed people without blinking?

She choked back a sob.

Jack Sprat could eat no fat.

Footsteps. A key in the lock. Cool night air spilling in around her.

 

ZACH KNEW SHE was in trouble the moment he opened the trunk. She was hyperventilating, her eyes wide. He bent down, as if searching for something in the trunk, aware that they were surrounded by windows, alleys, streets where anyone would be lurking, watching. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s almost over. Stay quiet. Stay still. I have to zip it.”

He pushed the zipper up carefully over her panicked face, then lifted the duffel bag with her inside it and slung it over his left shoulder like a sack of potatoes, her weight causing a tug of pain in his ribs. Trying to act casual, he walked with long but unhurried strides toward the unlocked door of their room. He opened the door, walked inside, and locked it behind him, then hurried to lower his trembling human baggage gently to the bed, where it wriggled and whimpered.

He reached for the zipper, tugged. “Sorry that took so long. There were cops on the street out front. I wanted to make sure the place was safe before I—”

Natalie’s pale face emerged from the duffel bag. “Get me out!”

“That’s what I’m trying to do. Hold still for just—”

But she didn’t hold still. She wiggled and twisted, shrugging her shoulders out of the bag, then flipping onto her hands and knees and crawling the rest of the way out, as Zach pulled the bag from beneath her with a few strong tugs. She turned and sat on the bed facing him, out of breath and shaking, her eyes wild, her skirt pushed up around her hips, her hair a dark, tangled mane. There were beads of sweat on her forehead and an angry red scratch on her left arm, probably from the zipper.

He sat beside her, drew her into his arms. “Easy, Natalie. Shhh. It’s over.”

For a moment she let him hold her, her body trembling. Then her spine went stiff, and she drew away from him, sliding off the bed and smoothing her skirt into place. “No. No, it’s not over. It won’t be over till I’m home.”

Well, she was right about that.

But why did he get the feeling he’d done something wrong? “I wouldn’t have left you in there so long, but with three cop cars parked on the street, I had to make certain the place was clear before I brought you in.”

Her gaze bored through him as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said, one hand absentmindedly rubbing the scratch on her arm. “If you’re not a drug thief or trafficker, how do you know the smuggling routes well enough to travel through the desert without a guide?”

So, it had come back to that, had it? Why couldn’t she just trust him?

Would you trust you, McBride?

Hell, no.

“We’ll talk in a minute.” He turned and walked toward the door. “Stay out of sight, and stay quiet. I need to get the rest of our shit out of the car.”

He waited until she’d backed into the bathroom, then grabbed the empty duffel bag and walked out to the vehicle. Scanning the scene for any sign that he was under surveillance, he opened the trunk and quickly loaded the firearms and ammo into the bag. Then he grabbed the rest of their stuff and carried it with the weapons into their room, locking the door behind him.

What in the hell was he going to tell her this time—that he’d earned the rank of Eagle Scout by helping little old ladies cross the desert?

Damn it!

She reappeared at the bathroom door. “Are you going to answer my question?”

“I said we’ll talk.” He tucked a Glock into the back of his jeans, then searched one of the bags for the first-aid kit. “But first we’re going to take care of that scratch. I don’t want it getting infected while we’re out in the desert.”

 

“PLAY THAT BACK and amplify the background. Listen.”

Joaquin watched as Julian and Marc used fancy police equipment to dissect the recording of Natalie’s phone call, picking up a man’s voice in the background. Julian scrolled back through the digital version of the recording, then hit play again.

“Before you go, there’s someone who wants to say hello.” That was Tom.

A slight hesitation from Natalie. Joaquin wouldn’t have noticed it if Julian and Marc hadn’t pointed it out.

That’s why they’re the cops, and you’re the photographer, amigo.

And then a man’s voice whispering. “
Only if it’s really quick.
”

“Is that really you,
chula
?” Joaquin heard the emotion in his own voice, the rush of relief he’d felt at the sound of her voice so overwhelming he’d found it almost impossible to speak.

Then Natalie’s voice, her surprise and relief every bit as strong as his. “I thought . . . I thought you were dead!”

“Thanks to you, I’m still here.”

And then a faint whisper. “
Time to go.
”

“Good-bye! I—”

Then the line went dead.

Twice Julian replayed it, adjusting the computer, making the whispered words even clearer. “The accent’s American. My guess is he’s standing right beside her.”

Marc nodded. “Whoever he is, he’s calling the shots. That’s for damned sure.”

Joaquin didn’t like it. “Is she his prisoner?”

Julian leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, a frown on his face. “Anything is possible, but unless that secret message turns out to be some kind of ransom demand, I don’t think so. She called him ‘another tourist’ and said they were traveling together, which could be their way of telling us they’re on the same side. And he’s not threatening her. He lets the call go to speaker phone, and when Tom tries to bring you into the call, this guy’s response is ‘Only if it’s really quick.’ Seems to me he’s being understanding, trying to accommodate her.”

“That’s my take on it, too.” Marc took a slug of coffee.

“Somehow this guy helped her escape—how we don’t know—and now they’re on the run. Do you think he’s an operative?”

“No idea. The key is in that message.” Julian sat upright, pushed a few buttons on the computer, and popped out a CD. “She called so we’d know she was alive. He
let
her call so she could deliver that message.”

Joaquin didn’t understand. “Why would they call us? If she escaped, why not call the U.S. consulate or the State Department or the police? Why is she hanging out with this loser?”

Marc met his gaze. “This
loser
may have saved her life.”

“There are lots of reasons they might be lying low rather than contacting the authorities.” Julian powered down the computer. “The cartels have infiltrated law enforcement and government at all levels in Mexico, and it’s hard to trust—”

The door opened, and Kat appeared, her long dark hair tied in a knot on the back of her head, a look of excitement on her face, a notebook and pen in her hand. “It’s Navajo code talk.”

“Have you deciphered it?” Marc pulled out a chair for her.

Kat shut the door behind her, shaking her head. “Only partly. It’s more complicated than that. I used a code-talker dictionary, but it still makes no sense.”

Julian cleared a space on the table. “Show us what you’ve got.”

She sat and looked at her notes. “Here’s the first part: ‘Escape from ant leg tooth apple ram.’ ”

Joaquin shook his head. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Well, ‘escape from’ is clear enough, but the rest of it . . .” Julian shrugged. “Do the words have any significance in code talk beyond their literal meaning?”

“Yes, but that didn’t make any sense either.” There was an apologetic tone in Kat’s voice, as if she felt she’d failed them, her pretty face lined with stress and fatigue.

It was almost one in the morning, and she had a baby at home.

Joaquin reached out, gave her hand a squeeze. “Hey, it’s okay.”

For a moment no one spoke.

Then Julian grabbed a notebook and a pen. “Give us everything you’ve got. Let’s go over every word, look at every possible meaning.”

An hour later, they’d made no progress, the message just as incomprehensible as it had been when Kat first read out the strange list of words.

“Maybe we should call it a night.” Julian leaned back, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but my mind’s not getting any sharper.”

“I hear that,” Marc muttered. Then he frowned. “What if these aren’t just words. What if they’re a mix of words and words that stand for letters that spell other words?”

Kat looked confused. “What do you mean?”

“Well, ‘Escape from’ makes sense. Then it turns into gibberish. What if the other words
spell
words?”

“But how do we know which letters to use?”

Marc turned to a new sheet of paper. “They wanted us to be able to figure this out, so let’s make it simple and use the first letter of each word to start with.”

“So that’s ‘Escape from a-l-t-a-r.’ ” Kat frowned. “Are they in a church?”

And then Joaquin knew.

He looked up, met Julian’s gaze. “No, not an
altar
like inside a church.
Altar
.”

He saw understanding dawn in Julian’s eyes. “That’s it.”

Marc shook his head. “All-tar? What’s ‘all-tar’?”

Joaquin answered. “It’s a town not far from the border, a jumping off place for drug smugglers and others trying to cross illegally into the U.S.”

“Way to go, Joaquin.” Julian raised an eyebrow and looked at Marc as if impressed. “Well, I’ll be damned, Hunter. You might earn your paycheck this week.”

“Fuck you, Dickangelo.”

“Not gonna happen, Hunter. Sorry.”

Joaquin knew they weren’t really angry at each other. For all their insults, they were as tight as brothers.

To his right, Kat was working furiously, scribbling words. Then she looked up, eyes wide. “I think I have it.”

Julian’s head whipped around. “Let’s hear it.”

“Escape from Altar. Then the words ‘infiltrate,’ ‘shadow’ and ‘wolf.’ Then ‘Tohono.’ ” She looked around the room at them, the expression on her face telling Joaquin these words meant something to her.

Julian’s face went dark like a thundercloud. He stood. “Son of a bitch!”

Joaquin looked at Marc. Marc looked at Joaquin.

They both looked at Julian and Kat.

“So do either of you feel like filling us in, or are you having a private moment here?” Marc asked, clearly irritated and as much in the dark as Joaquin.

“Escape from Altar. Infiltrate Shadow Wolf. Tohono.” Kat put the message together, worry on her face. “I think it means they’re going to try to make a desert border crossing from Altar onto the land of the Tohono O’Odham.”

“The toe-ho-no oh-damn . . . what?” Marc looked at Joaquin as if to see whether this made any sense to him.

But Joaquin was too appalled at the thought of Natalie trying to cross the unforgiving desert in the heat of high summer to say anything. People died out there every year, their lives lost to hunger, dehydration, heatstroke, not to mention cartel violence. As Joaquin had learned during the SPJ conference, the Sonoran Desert along the border was a no-man’s-land of cartels, coyotes, and fugitives.

It was Kat who answered Marc’s question. “The Tohono O’Odham—an Indian nation whose land extends into Mexico. They have a border guard unit known as the Shadow Wolves, Indian federal agents who are the best trackers in the world.”

“So he’s bringing her across the desert?” There was an edge to Marc’s voice now.

“If he doesn’t get her killed first.” Joaquin swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, anger like acid in his stomach.

Marc looked over at Julian. “They didn’t just tell us this to say, ‘Hey there. Having a great time. Call you when we get there.’ They told us this so that we can meet them, get them out of the desert, act as backup, be a welcome wagon.”

“Agreed.” Julian met first Joaquin’s gaze and then Marc’s, letting out a long, slow breath. “I can’t go. Tessa needs me. If she loses this baby . . .” He dropped his gaze to the floor. “We lost one six months ago. It tore her apart. I won’t leave her.”

Stunned silence.

“I’m sorry.” Marc stood, rested a hand on Julian’s shoulder. “I didn’t know.”