PRECIPICE (26 page)

“Thank you,” Sam said sincerely, her voice almost a whisper. “You saved my life.”

“Not yet.” He shook his head once as he said it frankly. He could see his words crash into her like a blow.

She swallowed once, then her face hardened with a bit of resolve and she looked him squarely in the eye.

“So what next?”

That was the question, Chip thought. He’d been contemplating it throughout the afternoon and night before. They had passed his planned exit spot, and he had no idea how far it was down the river to the next road.

“When you feel up to it, we should pack up and keep moving downstream. This river dumps into a bigger river that I’ve paddled parts of before. We can float down there and try to figure some way out of the jungle.” There were a lot of holes in the plan, but it was all that he could come up with.

Sam nodded, happy to have some direction.

Chip looked through his pack and pulled out a pair of knee-length blue plaid board shorts and a lightweight paddling jacket to loan to Sam. She could hardly keep paddling in the white dress – it was poorly made and starting to fall apart from heavy wear. He wandered down near the river to give her time to change.

It was about thirty minutes before they had the raft loaded up and ready to go. They climbed aboard and headed down the river into the unknown.

*

Harris was overcome with relief when the truck finally slowed and began working its way through the streets of a town. He could hear a cacophony of people and cars outside, and the stop-and-go pace definitely indicated an urban setting. He could feel the sun baking the truck until it was almost unbearably hot inside, cooking his dead traveling companion into a gruesomely fetid bouquet. He glanced at his watch in the dark and saw that he’d been hidden in the truck bed for almost nine hours. The first hour had been a torture of bumpy back roads during which he’d felt like he was riding inside a paint-shaking machine. Although he had gotten somewhat used to the stench of the dead man crammed in the small space with him, he had larger problems. The bandage on his leg wound was soaked through and oozing thick liquid, and he could feel the weakness and chills of an increasing fever from the infection. He wouldn’t last much longer unless he figured out some way to escape and find a doctor—or at least some antibiotics.

The truck stopped moving and he could hear the creaking of what sounded like a large metal gate or door moving on squealing hinges. Then the truck pulled forward again briefly and came to a final stop. He heard the engine shut off while the hinges creaked again. From the artificial light creeping through the cracks around the tailgate and the echoing sounds outside the truck, Harris could tell they were parked indoors. He pulled out his pistol and trained it on the tailgate, as ready as he could be if he were discovered.

After a moment he could hear several voices around the truck. One was giving orders in Spanish. The tailgate dropped, and he could see the hips and thighs of two men in fatigues with the butts of assault rifles also visible hanging from their shoulders. Without looking deeply into the bed, they pulled Cardenas’ corpse to the edge of the tailgate and lifted it out. Then he heard all of the voices recede followed by the slamming of a heavy metal door. The lights went out, and he was left alone in the darkness.

He slipped his night vision goggles back on and slowly crawled from the cramped truck bed. It seemed to take forever for him to unwind his stiff body and get it moving. The combination of his wounds, the dehydration, and the long ride had cramped his muscles into tight knots, and he kneaded them with his free hand to try and get some blood moving. When he was finally able to stand he swayed with one hand against the truck for stability, feeling spinny and faint. He was in rough shape.

Once he’d gained his composure he began searching the room. He was in some sort of garage. The space was entirely walled with bare concrete blocks. On one wall were two sets of enormous steel doors, one of which they had obviously driven in through. A tricked-out Mercedes with thick, tinted windows which Harris thought looked bulletproof occupied the other parking space.

He walked to one set of the large metal gate-style garage doors and peeked out through the sliver of daylight between them. He could see that they were secured with heavy chains and locked. It looked like they opened onto a city street. Harris carefully poked the short antenna of his GPS unit through the crack until it acquired a signal from the satellites, then he marked his location as a waypoint. The display told him he was in northern Mexico in the city of Monterrey. The only other exit from the garage was a heavy steel door that must lead into the rest of the house. It was deadbolted from the other side. He was trapped.

Staying alert lest someone come back and discover him, Harris took stock of what else was stored in the space. He was in luck—one corner was piled with cases of bottled water. He helped himself to several bottles and slowly tried to rehydrate and get back some strength. He could find little else of use. A few tools were scattered here and there which might be used as weapons—a length of heavy chain, a crowbar, and various lawn implements—but none were as effective as the silenced Sig Sauer 9mm that he already carried.

He decided the best course of action was to wait and try to ambush someone coming into the garage and then try to escape. His only fear was that they would enter the garage with an overwhelming force. His pistol would be no match for several men armed with assault rifles, but there was nothing he could do about that. At least he would have the element of surprise. He crouched down behind the stack of bottled water and settled in to await his fate.

*

Héctor Ortiz Fernandez strode down the hallway of the palatial house flanked by four men carrying the silenced Heckler and Koch assault rifles that he’d recovered from the dead NorteAmericano commandos at the camp in the jungle. He was pleased to have his troops carrying such beautiful weapons. Someone had even been kind enough to file the serial numbers off the guns. The footsteps of his cowboy boots against the marble floor echoed off the elegantly decorated walls, their staccato claps keeping sharp rhythm over the muddled clumping of the other men’s military style boots. The house was located in the affluent San Pedro Garza Garcia neighborhood, a few miles west of the center of the city of Monterrey. The house and everything in it would soon be his.

His unpleasant first duty upon arrival had been the delivery of her husband’s body to Estella Cardenas. The woman had taken it nobly and well, chastely kissing her dead patron’s cheek and shedding a quiet tear for the fate of her children. Héctor’s respect for the beautiful young wife of his former boss had risen considerably upon seeing her reaction to his passing. He hoped that perhaps one day soon she would make a fine woman for him as well. He had offered his polite condolences and then left her to her grief.

Héctor turned into a doorway and entered a large, second floor room that contained little besides a bar and a conference table. As he stepped into the room, the four soldiers entered and spread into a line along the wall behind him, facing the table. The sun’s light streaming into the room was oddly muted through the enormous bulletproof plexiglass picture window that looked out onto the manicured grounds. Eight men were seated around the table. They were Cardenas’ chief lieutenants who ran various outposts of his narcotics empire. Héctor had contacted them on his way here and requested a meeting to form a plan for the cartel now that their leader was gone. The men were loudly arguing as he entered the room. Upon seeing him enter, two of them angrily slid their chairs back and leapt to their feet.

In the face of the men’s anger, Héctor only smiled and took a step backward out the door. The four soldiers opened fire, three with HK416s and the other with an MP7. The clacking of the guns’ actions echoed in the bare room, the noise strangely louder than the busy putting of sub-sonic rounds springing from the suppressors’ ends. The eight men withered under the quiet rain of lead, and there was a muted clatter as several of them toppled to the bloody marble floor.

Héctor ordered his men to clean up the mess. Tomorrow he would check on the rest of his operation to make sure everything was in place, and then his control would be complete. Until then, he thought he might look in on Estella Cardenas to see if she was still grieving, and perhaps to offer some consolation.

19

Wednesday, November 23rd

CHIP PEEKED FROM the cover of the woods at the open grassy parking area on the wide river’s bank. It was around 8 AM and nobody was there yet. He hoped this was going to work.

Yesterday had actually been sort of fun. He and Sam had paddled several miles down the river until it dumped into the larger Rio Santa Maria. The Santa Maria was a popular whitewater destination, although most people paddled sections of the river that were farther downstream. Chip and Sam had enjoyed rafting on the easy whitewater, with Sam taking to it well and actually smiling and laughing as they moved along. They had stopped to swim and cool off several times, and had even seen a bunch of strange creatures on the bank that looked like a cross between cats and monkeys with long pointed snouts. They had fascinated Sam, and Chip felt a little bit lacking as a tour guide because he hadn’t been able to identify the exotic animals for her.

They had quietly floated past an eco-resort called Huasteca Secreta that Chip had heard of before—he had paddled with a couple back in the States who ran kayaking adventure trips though the place. Shortly downstream of the resort they had come to a familiar parking area; he’d used it before to access the next remote canyon of the river. There was no way they wanted to float any farther into that committing gorge, so they had pulled over and hidden the raft in the woods near the parking area. They’d spent the night camping and getting to know each other a little bit, making the best of the situation. Whatever her father might be involved in, Chip had soon realized that Sam was an innocent who had been swept up in all of this. The story of her kidnapping and transport to Mexico sounded harrowing, and he genuinely wanted to help the girl. After hearing her tale, Chip had silently added the guy with the ponytail and cowboy boots to his shit list of people who would pay for the deaths of his teammates.

Finally, Chip saw an SUV with a roof rack full of kayaks pull into the parking area. He’d known the odds were good that American paddlers would show up here on vacation today—it was the day before Thanksgiving, after all. He noted from his hiding place that the truck had New Mexico plates. This area was particularly popular with folks from that state, and as they climbed out of the truck he was relieved to see that he didn’t know any of the five people in this crew. Twenty minutes later the group locked the truck, and Chip watched the driver hide the keys under a rock near the edge of the woods before the group got in their kayaks and paddled away. It had worked. He knew these kayakers would be paddling almost fifteen miles to where they had left another car. Between the paddling and the drive back here to get this car, they wouldn’t return to this spot for many hours. Chip planned to save them some driving.

He called out to Sam, who picked her way through the woods from the campsite to meet him. He retrieved the stashed keys, then they both climbed into the truck and started it up. Widespread Panic blared from the speakers. Any taste of American culture was welcome at this point, but Chip wondered why so many paddlers were stuck in the 90s. As he turned around and headed up the rocky road toward civilization, Sam scrolled through the iPod to find something more modern to listen to. She finally settled on some electronic music that Chip didn’t recognize. He had heard plenty of that dubstep stuff from the younger guides that he worked with, and his lack of knowledge about it made him acutely aware of the age difference between himself and Sam. At least it was better than old hippy music, but it sounded like they were riding in a nightclub. Chip figured she must be a party girl to have music taste like that. They sat back and relaxed for the drive. It was over twenty miles of back roads past tiny rural communities and fields of tall sugar cane from the river to the paved highway. He hoped he could remember the way.

After several miles, Chip noticed a drying line hung with clothes beside a small farmhouse. He surreptitiously hopped from the truck and snagged a shirt, pants, and a simple dress from the line. He pulled three hundred pesos from the pouch in his belt and hung the bills on the hangers that the clothes had come from. Then they quickly drove away. After another couple of miles they pulled over at a remote spot to change. Chip couldn’t go into town wearing his camouflage fatigues, and Sam looked only slightly less conspicuous wearing his blue plaid board shorts and bright orange paddling jacket. The new clothes were serviceable, although the Mexican farmers’ garments looked a little out of place on a pair of blond-haired gringos. The tan pants were a little bit too short for Chip. They made it look like he was ready to go wading, and he had to roll the sleeves of the shirt up above his elbows to conceal their lack of length as well. The light blue cotton dress fit Sam in the chest but hung like bulky draperies over her narrow hips before pulling up short somewhere in the middle of her long, slender thighs. The clothes would have to do. Chip stuffed his Sig Sauer into the back waist of his new pants and pulled the shirt down to cover it. It felt like they had escaped, but he knew there might still be people looking for them.

It took them over an hour to reach the pavement. It was with great relief that Chip took a right onto the highway and into more familiar territory. He drove about five miles and pulled over on the left near a small white tienda with a blue Modelo beer sign perched atop it. Another outpost of the resort chain they had passed on the river was next door. He parked the truck in a conspicuous spot near the road. He hoped that the owner would notice it when he drove past on his way to retrieve it at the end of the day. If he did, it would save him over two hours of driving on the dirt roads. Chip placed the keys on top of one of the truck’s tires, hoping only the owner would notice them. Then he and Sam walked into the small store.