Breaking Point

  Now they were on their way to the Museo de Historia—the beautiful Museum of History—where President Taft had once dined. After that, they’d visit a new five-star hotel in the downtown area for lunch. It was clear that Mexican officials were proud of their town and were making certain that the tour included a look at the beauty and culture of Juárez, and not just the violence for which the city was unfortunately known.

  Natalie couldn’t blame them for that. There were at least two sides to every story, and although the drug cartels made headlines, most people who lived here were decent men and women just trying to raise families and live their lives. Despite the poverty and the unremitting violence, Ciudad Juárez was a city that still dared to hope.

  In the streets below, a young mother, her dark hair pulled back in a bouncy ponytail, pushed a baby in a stroller. A shopkeeper in a royal blue apron swept the stone steps of his store. Two teenage boys in bright white T-shirts and jeans walked past a gaggle of pretty girls, their heads craning for a better look as the girls passed them. The girls, well aware of this attention, covered their mouths with their hands and broke into giggles. Nearby, two elderly gentlemen sat on a bench, lost in conversation, straw fedoras on their heads, cigars in their hands.

  Natalie felt the bus lurch to a stop but was so caught up in the tableau outside her window that she didn’t realize something was wrong until the scene changed. The teenage boys stopped, then turned and ran up an alley. The shopkeeper dropped his broom and disappeared indoors. The woman with the stroller grabbed her baby and backed into a doorway, a look of fear on her face as she left the empty stroller to roll down the sidewalk. The two old men dropped to their knees and crouched behind the bench.

  And then Natalie heard it—the grinding fire of automatic weapons.

  Shattered glass. Screams. Staccato bursts of gunfire.

  “¡Madre de Dios!”

  “What the hell?”

  “Natalie! Natalie, get down!”

  Joaquin’s shout of warning pierced Natalie’s shock and disbelief. She ducked into the small space between her seat and the seat back in front of her, crouching against the floor, shards of glass falling around her like rain. Pulse pounding in her ears, she looked across the aisle, her gaze locking with Joaquin’s as he reached out and closed his hand over hers.

  IT WAS PAIN and thirst that woke him.

  For a moment Zach McBride thought he was back in Afghanistan, lying on the rim of that canyon in the Hindu Kush mountains, an AK-47 round in his back. He opened his eyes to see pitch-black and then remembered. He wasn’t in Afghanistan. He was in Mexico. And he was a captive—blindfolded and chained to a brick wall.

  He raised his head and realized he was lying shirtless on his right side, his hands shackled behind his back, his bare skin resting against the filthy stone floor. His mouth was dry as sand. His wrists were blistered and bloody where the manacles had rubbed them raw. His cracked ribs cut into his left side like a blade.

  He tried to sit, but couldn’t.

  Damn!

  He was weaker than he’d realized.

  Then something hard and multi-legged brushed his chest as it skittered by, bringing him upright on a punch of adrenaline. Pain slashed through his side, breath hissing between his clenched teeth as he bit back a groan. He wasn’t afraid of the mice or the spiders, but they weren’t the only creatures in here with him. The one time the Zetas had removed his blindfold, he’d seen scorpions. And the last damned thing he needed was a scorpion sting.

  Dizzy from hunger, his heart pounding from sleep deprivation and dehydration, he leaned his right shoulder against the brick wall and tried to catch his breath, the chain that held him lying cold and heavy along his spine.

  How long had he been here? Five days? No, six.

  And where exactly was here?

  Somewhere between Juárez and hell.

  They were giving him only enough food and water to keep him alive, his hunger and thirst incessant, mingling with pain, making it hard to sleep. Only once in his life had he been this physically helpless. Only then it had been even worse.

  If he survived, if he made it out of here alive, he would track down Gisella and kill her—or at least hand her over to D.C. The little bitch of a Mexican Interpol agent had set him up, betrayed him to the Zetas. She’d known what would happen to him—the Zetas were infamous for their brutality—and still she’d handed him over to them with a smile on her lying lips.

  At least you didn’t sleep with her, buddy.

  Yeah, well, at least he could feel good about that. It would suck right now to have her taste in his mouth or her scent on his skin, knowing that she’d put him through this. Long ago he’d made it a rule never to get involved with women while on assignment, and despite Gisella’s persistent attempts to get him to break that rule, he’d kept his dick in his pants.

  Hell, they should carve that on your headstone, McBride.

  If he got a headstone.

  Would they put up a grave marker for him if they didn’t have a body to bury? Barring one hell of a miracle, he’d soon be scattered across the desert in small pieces. A year or two from now, someone would spot a bit of bleached bone in the sand and wonder what it was. No one would ever know for sure what had happened to him.

  Besides, who was there to buy a grave plot or erect a headstone? His fellow DUSMs? Uncle Sam? His closest friends were dead. His mother was gone, too. He hadn’t spoken to his father since his mother’s funeral four years ago. And there was no one else in his life—no girlfriend, no wife, no kids.

  You’re a popular guy.

  He’d always thought he’d get married one day and do the family thing. He’d imagined a pretty wife, a couple of kids, a house near the ocean. But life hadn’t turned out that way.

  He’d met lots of girls in college, but none who’d held his interest. Then a confrontation with his father had sent him into the navy. He’d tackled Officer Candidate School and then two years of SEAL training. The only women who’d been available during his short periods of leave were either professionals or women who were so desperate to marry a Navy SEAL that they spread their legs for every frogman they met. Call him strange, but he’d never found the idea of paying for sex or being used appealing. He’d wanted a woman who loved him for himself and not his SEAL trident. But war had interfered, and he’d never found her.

  Something tightened in his chest, a wave of regret passing through him.

  Feeling sorry for yourself?

  No. He’d made his choices. He’d done what he thought was right. And although his life hadn’t turned out the way he might once have hoped, it was better this way. He’d seen firsthand what happened to women and children when the men they loved and depended on were killed in action. At least he wouldn’t be leaving a grieving wife and children behind.

  Okay, so no headstone.

  Mike, Chris, Brian, and Jimmy were in Arlington resting beneath slabs of white marble, but for Zach it would be saguaro and open sky. That was okay. He liked the desert. And even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t make one damned bit of difference once he was dead.

  Which will be soon if you can’t find a way out of this.

  Not that he was afraid to die. He’d expected his job would catch up with him one day. In fact, some part of him had been counting on it.

  But not yet. And not like this.

  He’d been about to wrap up the biggest covert operation of his career when Gisella called him and asked him to meet her at a nightclub in downtown Juárez, claiming to have intel vital for catching Arturo César Cárdenas, the head of Los Zetas, who was wanted in the United States for the murder of Americans on U.S. soil. So Zach had grabbed his gun and fake ID—he never carried revealing documentation when he was working a black bag job like this—and headed straight to the club, where he’d found Gisella, dressed to kill, sitting at the bar. She’d bought him a Coke, walked with him to a table near the rear exit, and started telling him something about a shipment of stolen coke. And then
. . .

  And then—nothing.

  The drink had been drugged. When Zach had awoken, he’d found himself here, stripped of his gun and wallet and surrounded by pissed off Zetas demanding to know whom he worked for and where he’d hidden the cocaine. As for the questions, Zach couldn’t answer the first because it would imperil the operation, putting the lives of others at risk. And he couldn’t answer the second because he hadn’t stolen any coke and had no idea where it was. But his refusal to talk had only angered the Zetas more.

  So they’d brought in a specialist—a man who knew how to inflict pain while keeping his victims alive. Electric shock was his area of expertise. He’d gone to work on Zach two days ago, and so far the two of them were at an impasse. He’d been able to make Zach pass out. He’d made him bite his own tongue trying not to scream. He’d made him want to cry like a baby. But he hadn’t made him talk.

  Zach had the navy and SERE training to thank for that—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. Designed to help SEALs survive behind enemy lines, his training had been a godsend, helping him through hour after excruciating hour. Even though he was no longer in the military, he’d instinctively fallen back on that training, silently reciting bits and pieces of the military code of conduct, using it to stay strong.

  I am an American, fighting in the forces that guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense . . . I will never surrender of my own free will . . . If I am captured, I will resist by all means available . . . I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability . . . I will make every effort to escape . . .

  As weak as he was, he knew he didn’t stand a chance of escaping. And that meant there was only one thing left for him to do—keep his mind together long enough for his body to give out, long enough for him to die as he ought to have done six years ago.

  Killed in the line of duty.

  It had a nice ring to it.

  Strange to think there’d been a time when he’d thought of taking the coward’s way out. He’d come home from the war and tried to return to civilian life. But then the nightmares had started. The doctors had said it was PTSD, but they didn’t have any answers for him that didn’t come in a pill. The navy had pinned a medal on his chest and called him a hero. But there was nothing heroic about him. He’d come back from Afghanistan, and his men had not.

  Finally, it had overwhelmed him, and he’d spent a long couple of months drinking and contemplating eating his own gun. But he hadn’t been able to do it. How would he have been able to face Mike, Chris, Brian, and Jimmy if he’d committed suicide?

  At least now when he met them, he wouldn’t have to feel ashamed.

  Raucous laughter drifted into his cell from across the courtyard, voices drawing nearer, boots crunching on gravel.

  Zach stiffened, dread uncoiling in his stomach, rising into his throat.

  They were coming for him again.

  Jesus!

  He drew as deep a breath as his broken ribs would allow, swallowing his panic with what was left of his spit.

  I am an American, fighting in the forces that guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense. I will never surrender of my own free will.

  “PADRE NUESTRO QUE estás en los cielos, santificado sea tu Nombre.”

  Holding fast to Joaquin’s hand, Natalie looked to her right, where Sr. Marquez crouched against the sliver-strewn floor, eyes closed, a rosary in his trembling hands, his whispered prayers barely audible over the pounding of her heart. She didn’t understand everything he was saying, and it had been years since she’d been to Mass, but she recognized the cadence of the prayer, her mind latching on to the English words, speaking them along with him in her mind.

  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

  The door of the bus exploded inward in a spray of glass.

  Too afraid even to scream, Natalie watched as three armed men in dark green military fatigues stomped up the stairs, pistols in hand, automatic weapons slung on straps over their shoulders. One stopped long enough to point a pistol at the bus driver, whose pleading cries were cut short with a pop that splattered blood across the windshield.

  Screams. Black boots. Another pop.

  Sr. Marquez prayed faster, his voice shaking. “Danos hoy el pan de este día y perdona nuestras deudas como nosotros perdonamos nuestros duedores.”

  Then Natalie heard the mechanical click and buzz of Joaquin’s camera. Somehow she’d let go of his hand, her face now buried in her palms. She looked up, saw him lying out in the aisle, his camera pointed toward their attackers, a look of focused concentration on his face as he did his job—documenting the news.

  She whispered to him. “Joaquin, no! They’ll kill—”

  The boots drew nearer.

  Joaquin kept shooting. Click. Click. Click.

  “¡No! Por favor, no—” No, please don’t—

  Pop!

  Screams.

  And Natalie understood.

  They were killing the Mexican citizens on the bus but leaving the Americans alive.

  Pop! Pop!

  She looked over at Joaquin, at his dark hair, his brown eyes, his brown skin, and was blindsided by fear for him. They would think Joaquin was Mexican. And they would kill him.

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Blood ran along the floor, pooled beneath the seats, the air stung by the smell of it.

  Pop! Pop!

  “Y no nos dejes caer en la tentación sino que líbranos del malo. Amen.” Sr. Marquez opened his eyes, his gaze meeting Natalie’s, rosary still in his hands. “I am sorry, Miss Benoit.”

  And then the men in the boots were there.

  Sweat trickling down his temples, Sr. Marquez looked up into his killer’s face, pressing his lips to the cross.

  Natalie cried out. “No, don’t—!”

  Pop!

  Then he lay dead, his sightless eyes open, blood trickling from a bullet hole in his forehead.

  Without thinking, Natalie threw herself into the aisle, shielding Joaquin with her body, struggling for the right words. “Él no es mexicano! Él es americano! He’s a citizen of the United States! He’s American!”

  Cold brown eyes—a killer’s eyes—watched her with apparent amusement, a pitiless smile spreading across a face too young to be so cruel. Then the teenage assailant’s gaze shifted to his fellow killers, and he said something in Spanish that made them laugh.

  Joaquin wrapped his arms around her and pulled hard, obviously trying to thrust her behind him, but constrained by the small space. “Natalie, stop! Don’t do this!”

  The young assailant raised his gun.

  “He’s American!” Natalie shouted the words. “Es americano! He’s—”

  Then she realized the gun was pointed at her.

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  He’s going to shoot you, girl.

  She wondered for a moment how much it would hurt—then gasped as the butt of the gun came down on her temple. Her head seemed to explode. Blinded by pain and limp as a rag doll, she fell forward and felt cruel hands wrench her away from Joaquin, who fought to hold on to her, shouting something in Spanish that she couldn’t understand.

  “He’s American,” she managed to say, her own voice sounding faraway, the world spinning as she was dragged down the bloody aisle and passed from one attacker to another. She struggled to raise her head and caught just a glimpse of the man who’d struck her aiming his pistol at Joaquin. “Joaquin!”

  Pop!

  And she knew he was dead.

  CHAPTER 2

  HER HEAD THROBBING, Natalie struggled to breathe in the strangling darkness, her heart beating so hard it hurt, the sweltering air suffocating her, breath catching in her throat before it reached her lungs. She had to get out of here. She had to get out!

  God, please help me! Somebody help me!

  She might have screamed the words, or she might only have th
ought them. She didn’t know. But, regardless, no help came.

  She twisted in the cramped space, tried to stretch out, desperate for room to breathe, but the trunk was too small. Gasping for air, she reached out with bound hands to find only inches between her face and the underside of the trunk lid.

  It was like being buried alive.

  A scream caught in her throat, panic driving her as she pushed on the trunk lid with her hands and feet, striking it, kicking it, trying to force it open.

  It didn’t budge.

  And for a moment, she was back in New Orleans at the hospital, the storm raging.

  Come see, darlin’. They were already dyin’, them. I jus’ made it easier. Ya get on in there now. Go on.

  No! You can’t shut me in here. I’ll suffocate!

  Hush, you! Have a good death, a peaceful death.

  Darkness. Cold. No air to breathe. The endless howling of the storm.

  The car hurtled around a corner, throwing Natalie against the side of the trunk, her face pressed against rough carpet that stank of exhaust, the violent motion jolting her past the worst edge of her claustrophobia and back to the present, the pitch-black of the morgue locker fading into the darkness of the closed trunk—and a reality just as horrible and terrifying.

  Joaquin was dead.

  He was dead, along with so many others. Dear Sr. Marquez, who’d loved his grandkids so much. Ana-Leticia Izel, who’d been about Natalie’s age. Isidoro Fernandez, who’d survived being shot in the leg on his way home from work last year. Sergio de Leon, who’d spent eight months in hiding after exposing several corrupt government officials as pawns of the cartels.

  All gone. All dead.

  And she was a captive of the men who’d killed them.

  The cold, hard truth brought her heartbeat to a near standstill.

  Oh, God.

  What were they going to do to her?

  What do you think they’re going to do?

  The El Paso police had talked about it a lot on the first day—the unsolved murders of young women and girls in Juárez. Hundreds had gone missing, and those whose bodies had been found had been sexually brutalized and dismembered. At first, the police had believed there was a single serial killer to blame. Then they’d blamed copycat killers.