Breaking Point

  He’d spent what seemed like forever adjusting the straps on her pack and trying to balance the weight. “You’ll thank me later,” he’d promised.

  Her pack weighed about thirty pounds, his at least twice that.

  And then there were the weapons.

  She was going to be carrying both an AK-47 and the Glock, together with two spare magazines and extra ammunition, while he carried two semi-autos in shoulder holsters, as well as two AKs, extra magazines, and most of their ammunition.

  The brake lights on the van ahead of them came on.

  Traffic was slowing.

  ZACH DIDN’T LIKE this.

  If this slowdown was the result of the Zetas’ roadblock, then the bastards had chosen their position well. A gully big enough to swallow a Humvee ran perpendicular to the road just ahead, making it impossible for vehicles to avoid the roadblock by simply going off the road and driving around it.

  He searched for options.

  He didn’t want to try fighting his way through the roadblock, because he had no idea how many Zetas were there or what kind of weapons they had. All it would take to end Natalie’s life was one bullet. No, Zach wouldn’t risk it.

  They could head back to Altar and hole up until the Zetas left. But there was no guarantee that the Zetas would leave—or that they wouldn’t raid the hotels. Besides, the longer he and Natalie were missing, the greater the risk to other Americans in Mexico.

  The only option was to backtrack along the road, find a good place to head cross-country, and travel north—on foot if necessary.

  Ahead of them, the van drew to a stop.

  “Maybe it’s just an accident.” Hope failed to conceal the fear in Natalie’s voice.

  “I doubt it.” He leaned his head out the window, looking around the van for oncoming traffic. “It’s time to leave this party.”

  He was about to flip a U-turn and head back the way they’d come, when he caught sight of three black vans hurtling north in the southbound lane. He slammed on the breaks as the vans streaked by, catching just a glimpse of a man with a grenade launcher—and a license plate without a Z.

  The roadblock was about to become a bloodbath.

  “Get down!” He checked again for oncoming vehicles, then made a quick and dirty U-turn, just as the sound of AK fire exploded behind them. “Hang on!”

  And then—BAM!—a grenade exploded.

  He hit the gas, knowing that the plume of dust behind them would conceal the make of the car and its license plate. No one was paying attention to them anyway. The car bounced over ruts, pebbles and rocks hitting the undercarriage as Zach tried to put a fast mile between them and the shoot-out. Then he saw what he’d been looking for—tire tracks leading off the highway and north into the desert.

  He hit the breaks again, then cranked the wheel and drove off the road, the car fishtailing in loose gravel. Beside him, Natalie was still bent down. “It’s okay. You can sit up now.”

  She sat up, glanced around them, blue eyes wide. “What just happened?”

  “I think the Sinaloa boys got pissed off at the Zetas for holding up traffic and decided to take down the roadblock by force.” He stopped the car, waited for the dust to settle, then pointed. “Look.”

  In the distance, black smoke rose into the air, the report of automatic weapons sounding like firecrackers. But even at this distance, stray rounds were a danger.

  He took Natalie’s hand, gave it a squeeze, hoping to reassure her. “You ready? This ride is bound to get rough.”

  She nodded, the fear in her eyes giving way to determination.

  He nudged the car forward, and they were off.

  CHAPTER 15

  NATALIE STARED AT the charred remains of a minivan as they drove slowly by. It was not the first abandoned vehicle they’d passed, but it was the first to look like it had come through a war zone. “What happened to them?”

  “Looks like they came under fire, and the fuel tank blew up.”

  “A fight between drug smugglers?” She noticed dozens of bullet holes in the doors, shivers sliding down her spine.

  “Maybe. Or it could have been bajadores.”

  She’d never heard that word before. “Bajadores?”

  “Thieves who hide out along both sides of the border and steal drugs, money, and sometimes even human cargo from anyone who passes by.”

  “Great. So we have to worry about desert pirates, too.” She looked around them, saw a landscape rich with opportunities for ambush.

  “You let me worry about them. You worry about yourself.”

  “I am worrying about myself.”

  “That’s not what I mean.” He chuckled, the sound warm and masculine, the smile on his handsome face making her pulse skip.

  Stop it, you!

  She needed to quit feeling so drawn to this man. He might be with her at this moment, but he wasn’t actually a part of her life. He’d said himself that his wasn’t the kind of life a man shared with a woman. She certainly didn’t want to get mixed up with a man who lived on the edge the way he did. She and Zach were headed in very different directions. The fact that they’d met was nothing more than an accident—a very lucky accident.

  Natalie knew this, and yet . . .

  When we get back to the U.S., you and I will go our separate ways.

  His words had sent her spirits plummeting. She’d tried to cover her emotions by pretending not to care. But how could what she and Zach had experienced together have been nothing more than casual sex when it had touched her so deeply?

  Maybe you’re making it out to be more than it was.

  Perhaps she’d been so starved for a man’s touch that she was overreacting to what had been nothing more than good sex. How would she know? She’d never had casual sex before. She’d never been with anyone besides Beau, and they’d been deeply in love and committed to each other before they’d crossed that line.

  And then her spirits sank further, weighted down by a sense of guilt. How could she have had sex without once thinking of Beau?

  She didn’t want to think about this any longer, not here, not now.

  She met Zach’s gaze, her tangled emotions making her words sharper than she’d intended. “I know what you mean.”

  She was supposed to tell him immediately if she felt dehydrated, dizzy, disoriented. She was supposed to tell him if her feet hurt, even if it was nothing more than the beginnings of a blister. She was even supposed to tell him if she got a headache or felt too exhausted to go on.

  “Anything that slows you down can be deadly out here,” he’d explained.

  Not that they were making great time now.

  They’d been following these dirt tracks for almost an hour. The front left tire had gone flat, shredded by three-inch-long thorns, less than twenty minutes after they’d left the road. Zach had quickly changed it. Ten minutes later, the rear right tire had blown. Now they were limping along, driving on two tires, the donut and one rim.

  But Natalie was grateful for every mile they put behind them. The terrain was nothing like she’d imagined. She’d thought it would be flat, like the desert that had surrounded the Zeta compound. Tiptoeing through the cactus for forty miles over flat terrain hadn’t seemed like such a big deal.

  But the landscape here wasn’t flat at all. There were steep hills, rocky ridges, deep gullies, and sandy washes everywhere she looked, all of them covered by dense stands of saguaro and other strange desert plants, most of which looked like they’d sprung from some dark Dr. Seuss fantasy. She understood why Zach believed it would take four days to cover forty miles.

  “Shit.” Zach looked into his rearview mirror.

  Natalie’s pulse spiked. From behind them came the sound of engines.

  “I don’t think they’ve been following us, or I’d have noticed them before now. Whoever they are, we don’t want to run into them.”

  He left the tracks, steered the car down a sandy embankment into a stand of mesquite, and cut the engine. For a mom
ent they waited, the roar of engines drawing nearer. Then a convoy of three battered vans rumbled by them in a cloud of dust.

  THE CAR GAVE out a few klicks south of the border.

  “So we walk from here.” Natalie didn’t look excited at the prospect.

  “No.” Zach unbuckled his seat belt. “We get our gear, take up a defensive position nearby, lie in, and wait for dark. Then we walk.”

  “Why not just wait here?”

  “You’ll see.” Zach slipped into his pack, then helped Natalie with hers. “Make sure the hip band rests in the right place. It will take some of the weight off your shoulders. How does that feel?”

  She looked up at him, sliding her small hands into thick leather gloves, her hair turned auburn by the sunlight. “I think it’s good.”

  He gave her a once-over. She was by far the hottest thing he’d ever seen in camo. That was for damned sure.

  Get your mind out of the gutter, man.

  “This is the tube to your hydration pack. Keep it clipped right here so you can reach it when you need it. I gave us just enough water to get us through the night, so drink when you need to, but don’t overdo it. Steady sips, no long gulps.”

  “Got it.”

  He checked once more to make sure the AK was easily accessible, grabbed his infrared binoculars, then took a look at the surrounding area, getting the lay of the land. There—a quarter mile to the northwest. They’d settle in on that rocky hilltop, watch for traffickers below and wait for the sun to set. “Let’s go—and watch where you step.”

  This was the first time Zach had ever done anything like this with a civilian, let alone a woman. He knew that if he moved at his normal pace he’d exhaust her and leave her in the dust. He tried to set a pace she could manage and was pleased to find her matching it easily.

  But reaching the hilltop wasn’t a simple matter of walking directly toward it. Dense stands of saguaro and thorny ocotillos combined with boulders and hidden washes to complicate things, forcing them to snake their way along.

  “Watch out for the ocotillos.” Speaking just loud enough for Natalie to hear him, he grabbed a branch with a gloved hand to show her the thorns hidden among bright green leaves, his gaze shifting to scan their surroundings for any sign of other humans. “The thorns can shred both clothing and skin.”

  They moved forward again, their approach flushing a desert cottontail out of a clump of grasses, the creature disappearing in a flash.

  “The night shift is about to come on.”

  “The night shift?”

  He’d known she would ask. “The nocturnal fauna. You see the lizards, pronghorns, deer, raptors, rabbits, and maybe a herd of javelinas during the day. And then at twilight the hunters appear—tarantulas, scorpions, rattlesnakes, coyotes, owls, bobcats, cougars.”

  “I think I like the day shift better.”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Just look before you sit and watch where you walk. You’ll be fine.”

  By the time they reached the hilltop, the sun was an orange disc on the horizon, the clouds above it scorched pink. He found a safe place for them to sit, empty water bottles, tuna cans, and other trash proof that this place had been used before. He dropped his pack and turned to help Natalie out of hers, only to find her watching the sunset, a smile on her face, those sweet dimples back in her cheeks.

  “It’s beautiful.” Her face was flushed from exertion, the last rays of sunlight wrapping her in gold.

  He felt a hitch in his chest. “Yeah. Beautiful.”

  Four days max, McBride. And then she’s gone.

  He pushed aside a sense of gloom. That was how it should be. He’d been so worried this morning that he would hurt her, but she understood as well as he that whatever this was between them was a temporary thing.

  Relax. It was just sex.

  He had to admit that he’d been surprised to hear her put it like that. He’d bet cold, hard cash that she’d never had “just sex.” Zach had. Having “just sex” was like going jogging side by side with a stranger. You exchanged polite greetings, got sweaty, tried to pace yourself so that you could finish the run with some dignity, then you waved good-bye, went home, and took a shower. What had happened last night between him and Natalie didn’t feel anything like “just sex.”

  Then again, maybe his brain was fried. Or maybe those long hours he’d spent chained in the darkness alone had showed him exactly how empty his life was. Not that he could change it now. But if there’d ever been a woman who—

  Out of the corner of his eye, in the distance, he saw movement. “Get down!”

  He peered through the infrared binoculars, the device offering clarity of vision through the desert’s deepening shadows. And there, where they’d been a mere twenty minutes ago, he saw exactly what he thought he’d see—bajadores closing in on their abandoned vehicle with weapons drawn.

  He handed Natalie the binoculars, motioning for her to look through them. She did as he asked, her little gasp proof that she’d seen what he wanted her to see. He readied the AK-47 with its new night scope just in case the bajadores tried to track them. “That’s why we didn’t stay with the car.”

  NATALIE FOLLOWED ZACH, doing her best to keep up and to step where he stepped so as to avoid stepping on a rattlesnake or anything else with fangs. She trusted him—and the night vision goggles he wore—to find a safe path through the darkness. He looked a bit like a character from a Terminator sequel with the headgear on and the goggles over his eyes, but she wasn’t in the mood to joke about it.

  The bajadores hadn’t tried to track them—thank God!—but Natalie couldn’t shake the jittery feeling she’d gotten as she’d watched those terrible men move in on the car, ready to steal and kill. If she and Zach had stayed at the car, as she’d suggested . . .

  She shuddered.

  Zach had watched through the scope on his rifle until the men disappeared, his finger near the trigger. If he’d felt any anxiety at all, he hadn’t showed it. She had no doubt that he would have shot and killed every single one of those five men if he’d felt it was necessary to keep them both safe.

  Darkness had come quickly after that. It was the most complete and total darkness Natalie had ever experienced—no flashlight or headlamps to light their path or to give their position away to others. And although her eyes had adjusted somewhat, human eyes just weren’t meant for this. The desert as she knew it had disappeared, leaving in its place a world of sinister shadows and strange sounds.

  Saguaros stood all around them, gray shades against the darkness, looking strangely human, like people who stood frozen with their arms raised in surrender. Hills rose in the distance, black against the starlit sky. Ocotillos floated like black coral in a dark undersea realm. And all around them came the noises of night creatures.

  It was the strangest symphony Natalie had ever heard—crickets chirping, coyotes yipping and yowling, and countless frogs belching, ribbeting, and croaking out love songs, hoping to attract mates. As for the other creatures of the night shift, Natalie hoped to see and hear nothing.

  “Watch your step.” Zach turned and gave her his gloved hand, helping her down the side of a steep gully. “It gets rocky down here. Don’t trip.”

  She tripped anyway, but he caught her, strong arms steadying her.

  “How are you doing?”

  She took a sip of water, the electrolyte powder he’d added giving it a disgusting fake lemonade taste. “Fine. A little chilled.”

  The temperature had dropped quickly.

  “The best way to fight that is just to keep moving.”

  On they went for most of an hour, Zach guiding her across the landscape, headed roughly northwest. She’d begun to feel the weight of her backpack, not only in her shoulders, but also in her thighs. Forty miles was beginning to feel like a thousand. But she wasn’t about to complain. She would gladly walk a thousand miles barefoot on broken glass if that’s what it took to get safely home again.

  Then Zach took her
hand, turned her, and pointed. “There it is.”

  Natalie looked where Zach pointed off to their right but couldn’t see anything.

  He drew the goggles off his head and handed them to her.

  She held them up to her eyes—and the world reappeared, the desert cast in a strange green hue. And there in the distance she saw what he’d wanted her to see—the U.S.-Mexico border. She felt a swell of emotion behind her breastbone.

  Home.

  “Thank God!”

  Two fences ran parallel across the land, separated by a space of about twenty feet. The first was made of steel H-beams that ranged in height from about four feet to well over her head. The second was shorter and made of steel posts and cables. Between them was a no-man’s-land devoid of plant life. It looked like a road.

  “Once we cross that border, we’re safe, right?” She scanned the area around them, amazed at what she could see—including a large, hairy tarantula crawling across the ground, moving in the other direction. “Oh, yuck!”

  “A scorpion?”

  “A hairy, disgusting tarantula.”

  “Yeah, they’re out in force tonight.”

  She took the goggles down, the world going black again, her eyes just able to make out the features of Zach’s face. “How many have you seen?”

  “Probably six or seven.”

  Her skin crawled. She handed the goggles back to him. “I think it’s best if I’m kept in the dark.”

  He chuckled, and fixed the goggles back into his headgear. “Oh, yeah, I see her. She’s a big one. As for being safe again—we won’t be safe until you’re out of the desert and in the hands of border patrol agents. Forget eight-legged creatures. It’s the ones who walk on two legs that are dangerous out here. I’ve tried to steer us far enough to the west of the main Sasabe smuggling routes that we’ll miss most of the cartel traffic, but make no mistake—there are plenty of dangers on both sides of the border.”