But she said nothing, still staring.
“Is this about the grapes? I should have saved some for you. Sorry.”
She pressed a hand against her stomach as if she thought she might be sick, then shook her head. “N-no, that’s fine.”
“Stay behind me, and don’t make a sound. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
Still shaken by what she’d just witnessed, Natalie followed Zach, her view blocked by his broad shoulders as he slowly nudged the door to their little prison wider and scanned the courtyard, pistol gripped in both hands. She half expected him to collapse, but somehow he stayed upright. Walking on bare feet, he crouched down, motioning for her to do the same. She followed him into the shadow of the car she’d arrived in, then behind the vehicle to the side of the old church, men’s voices audible from inside. He drew her behind him, pressed himself up against the wall—then waited.
Standing so close to him, Natalie was struck by how tall and strong he truly was. Even weak and unsteady on his feet, he seemed dangerous. A few inches over six feet, he was muscular without being bulky, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, slabs of lean muscle bisected by the groove of his spine. And she knew all that muscle wasn’t just for show.
There was a scar that could only have been made by a bullet on his lower back, not far from his spine, proving that violence was nothing new in his life. And the way the pistol seemed to belong in his grasp, the way he moved, the way he’d broken that Zeta’s neck without blinking—he’d obviously been trained to fight. He had even admitted to killing.
If she’d been sitting in a nightclub in Denver, he probably would have scared the hell out of her. But stranded in the Mexican desert with men who intended to hand her over to be raped and murdered, he was the closest thing she had to the cavalry. Maybe he was some kind of underworld criminal, but right now he was on her side.
Heavy hinges squeaked, and boots hit gravel, bringing her thoughts to a halt.
“¡Eh, Diego! ¿Qué demonios estás haciendo?” What the hell are you doing? A man in military fatigues started across the courtyard, clearly trying to figure out what was taking his friend so long.
In front of her, Zach silently retrieved the knife he’d strapped to his ankle, still a bit wobbly on his feet. Then he rose to his full height, steadied himself, and with a speed that amazed her, threw it, hitting the Zeta just below the base of his skull, the knife sinking to the hilt.
The man’s legs turned to water beneath him, and he fell lifeless to the ground.
Zach held up four fingers, his meaning clear.
Four Zetas remained.
Motioning for her to stay where she was, he hurried out into the open and stripped the body of its weapons, including the knife, which he wiped clean on the dead man’s pants and returned to its sheath. When he reached her side, he had two more pistols, one of which he handed to her, the other of which he tucked into the waistband of his pants. He bent down and whispered, “Do you know how to use one of these?”
She looked at the weapon in her hands. It was heavier than she’d imagined—and cold. “You point it and pull the trigger.”
The look on his face told her there was more to it than that. “This is the safety. As long as it’s in this position, the gun won’t fire. Flick it down like this before you pull the trigger. Aim for the chest.”
“Can’t we just hot-wire the car and go?”
But Zach was already moving, walking on silent feet around the corner and toward the church’s front door. Made of thick planks of weathered wood with iron hinges that opened outward, it had no windows to enable them to see if anyone was standing on the other side—which is why it took her by surprise when it began to swing outward toward them.
Natalie found herself thrust back against the wall behind Zach, the door concealing them both as it opened. She saw Zach raise his pistol, then heard him swear beneath his breath as two scantily clad young women—prostitutes, not Zetas—stepped outside. They didn’t see Zach or Natalie, but they did see the dead body.
And they screamed.
CHAPTER 6
ONE MINUTE THINGS had been under control, and the next they’d gone straight to hell. Two women—girls no older than eighteen—stared at the man Zach had just killed, their screams and incoherent babbling blowing to bits any hope Zach had of taking the rest of the Zetas by surprise. That was the bad news.
The good news was that the girls hadn’t yet seen him or Natalie.
“¡Está muerto! ¡Santa Madre de Dios, está muerto!” He’s dead! Holy Mother of God, he’s dead! One of the young women turned toward the door, clearly planning to run for help. She saw Zach—and froze.
Zach spoke quietly but with enough menace to make sure the women knew he meant business. “Si quieres vivir, véte con tu amiga al coche y acuéstense.” If you want to live, you and your friend go get in the car and lie down.
Brown eyes that had already seen too much went wide, and without another word the girl took her friend’s hand and dragged her to the car, an ugly brown Nissan Tsuru, then opened the back door, pushed her inside, and piled in behind her, their two heads disappearing from view just as heavy footfalls sounded from inside the church—another pair of boots.
Zach whispered over his shoulder to Natalie. “Get down!”
She crouched behind him.
“¡Putas estupidas! ¿Qué problemas les están causando ahora?” Stupid whores! What trouble are you causing now?
Zach recognized the voice as belonging to one of the Zetas who’d kidnapped Natalie. The bastard stepped out through the open door—an older man with a tattoo of La Santa Muerte on his forearm—and Zach dropped him with a single shot.
A gasp from Natalie. Muffled screams from the prostitutes. Men’s shouts.
And then all was silent.
The Zetas knew they’d been taken by surprise, and they were regrouping.
Zach tried to put himself in their place, tried to see the situation from their point of view. They knew they were under attack, but they didn’t know by whom. They would probably assume their attackers were members of a rival cartel, and they would call for support. Then, when they realized there were only three of them left alive, they would take up defensive positions and wait for the fight to come to them.
Zach would hate to disappoint them.
Hoping adrenaline would keep him upright, he motioned to Natalie to get to her feet, then led her through the open doorway behind him, stopping just inside the threshold to clear the foyer and let his eyes adjust to the dim interior.
He took it all in at a glance.
It was a small mission church, the interior divided by fat stone pillars that rose from floor to roof. To his left, a crumbling flight of stairs led upward toward the bell tower. Directly ahead where there should have been pews sat a dozen unmade cots, posters of naked women in pornographic poses stuck to pitted walls, makeshift shelves holding magazines and clothes, weapons lying carelessly about.
What had once been the altar was now a shrine to outlaw narco-saints Jesús Malverde and La Santa Muerte, a portrait of Cárdenas hanging on the wall above it as if he were Christ himself. Off to the right, the baptismal nook appeared to have been converted into a junk heap. The sacristy stood to the left of the Malverde/Muerte shrine, its door half-open.
That was their little torture chamber. And that’s where they were hiding.
Or maybe not.
From somewhere nearby he heard the telltale ka-chunk of someone working the bolt on an AK-47, slipping a new magazine into place.
Zach shoved Natalie behind a pillar, shielding her with his body as the first volley exploded, sending up a spray of stone around them.
Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-tat!
He watched the bullets hit, trying to discern their attacker’s location.
At least four meters away and to the right.
He leaned down, whispered. “Stay here. Stay down.”
He turned his back to Natalie, dropped to one knee, pivoted to h
is right, and looked around the pillar, catching a glimpse of an AK muzzle and the top of a man’s head peeking up from behind a cot. He fired, aiming low, knowing the 9mm rounds would penetrate the mattress.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
A man in BDUs and a white T-shirt rose clumsily to his feet, aiming his weapon unsteadily at Zach, blood spreading down the front of his shirt. Then he pitched forward and lay still, AK at his side.
Four down, two to go.
Zach’s hands itched to get ahold of that weapon, but he couldn’t cross the room to retrieve it without exposing himself to fire from that back room, and he didn’t want to leave Natalie alone or—
A shadow fell across the floor, framed by the doorway.
Forgetting his broken ribs, Zach had no time to do anything but react. He threw himself onto his left side, sliding out from behind the pillar and aiming toward the Zeta who stood in the doorway pointing his weapon toward Natalie.
Bam!
But it wasn’t Zach who’d pulled the trigger.
Son of a bitch!
His heart ricocheted against his breastbone as he squeezed off three quick shots.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
The Zeta slumped against the door, firearm slipping from his hand and landing with a clatter as he sank lifeless to the stone floor.
Ignoring the pain in his side, Zach scrambled on all fours around the pillar, hoping to God the bastard had missed, only to find Natalie on her knees staring at the dead Zeta, pistol in hand, a shocked expression on her face. It took three hard beats of Zach’s heart to comprehend that she hadn’t been shot, that she wasn’t wounded. He looked from her to the Zeta and back again, stunned to realize that it had been her shot he’d heard.
He stared at her, more than a little amazed. That was the second time today she’d saved their asses. “I think I’m in love.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.” She dropped her weapon and pressed her hand against her stomach, a look of shock and distress on her face.
But there wasn’t time for that.
“Save the puking for later.” He rose to his feet, gritting his teeth as the pain in his ribs caught up with him. “This isn’t over yet.”
He collected the dead Zeta’s weapon—a Glock 17 9mm—and led her quietly from pillar to pillar toward the back room, the old church silent apart from their breathing. Then from outside came the roar of an engine. But it wasn’t the car in which the prostitutes were hiding. The sound came from behind the church.
“Shit!” Digging for some buried reserve of strength, Zach ran as fast as his legs could carry him toward the front of the church, reaching the front door just as a battered RAV4 cleared the courtyard and hit the highway, spitting gravel.
Aiming for the driver, he fired off his two remaining rounds, shattering the vehicle’s window and leaving a hole in the driver’s door. But it was too late. “Damn it!”
Tires squealed as the SUV swerved, then sped away to the south.
Adrenaline spent, legs shaking, it was all Zach could do to walk back inside.
NATALIE FINISHED WASHING her hands and face in the filthy little bathroom at the back of the church, the need to be clean overwhelming—if a person could truly get clean washing in the water that poured from that tap. She’d found an unopened toothbrush and had claimed it, brushing her teeth with bottled water and Colgate from an almost used-up tube, the idea of sharing toothpaste with the Zetas repulsive—but not quite repulsive enough to stop her.
She dried her hands on a paper towel and walked back out into the sanctuary, to find Zach still hard at work pillaging the place.
“Eat.”
She caught the banana he tossed to her, watching as he peeled his second and consumed it in three bites. “I don’t feel hungry.”
All she wanted in the entire world was to leave this place.
“Your body needs fuel.” He tossed his banana peel aside. “Eat.”
“Yes, sir!” Who did he think he was? She gave a mock salute, then sat on a cot and forced herself to peel the banana, slowly eating it while he systematically searched through the dead Zetas’ belongings, looking for things he thought they might need.
He was no longer the reassuring voice in the darkness, the man with whom she’d shared her darkest memories and deepest fears, the man who had encouraged her and helped her fight back. Now he was a stranger to her, a man who barked out orders, who killed with skill and efficiency—but who had killed to protect her.
He held up a black T-shirt with a green marijuana leaf on the front, then slipped it over his head, breath hissing between his teeth as he drew it down over the dark bruises on his rib cage. It was too small, the fabric stretched tightly across the muscles of his chest and abdomen, the sleeves riding high on his shoulders, but he didn’t seem to care. He went back to his search, moving with a businesslike efficiency through the room, piling anything he thought they might need onto one of the cots.
Keys to the car. Tortillas. Boxes of bullets. Socks. Pesos. Potato chips. Duct tape. Big guns. Little guns. Pocketknife. First-aid kit. Candy bars. Sunglasses.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He held up a black leather billfold. “My wallet. The cash is gone, but my driver’s license and credit card are still here.”
He tucked it in the back pocket of his jeans and kept moving. It didn’t seem to bother him that he’d just killed four men. And why should it? Those men had beaten him, tortured him, starved him, and they would have killed both of them if they’d had the chance.
Natalie didn’t feel a bit sorry for the Zetas either. But that didn’t mean she could sit here surrounded by blood and dead bodies and not want to run away screaming.
Zach hardly seemed to notice. He’d gone from body to body, taking their money and weapons. She knew he’d been angry to discover that Sr. Scar Face—the Zeta who’d tortured him and molested her—was the one who’d gotten away. Zach hadn’t said anything to her, but his jaw had gone rigid when he’d checked the last body, and she’d heard him swear.
As for the money, he’d stuffed most of it in his pocket and had given the rest to the terrified prostitutes. The gesture had touched Natalie—until he’d told the girls to get out of the car and head back to whatever town they’d come from on foot.
“It’s must be a hundred and ten degrees out here. They’ll roast!”
He’d met her gaze, not the least bit of sympathy in his eyes. “Either we walk, or they walk. Which would you prefer?”
That had simplified things.
Feeling more than a little guilty, Natalie had given the two girls bottled water and then watched them hurry down the highway in high heels. She’d wanted to leave, too, but that’s when Zach had come back into the church and started searching the place. She’d followed him. “Shouldn’t we get out of here?”
His voice was cold when he answered. “If we leave now, are you prepared for whatever might happen out there? If the Zetas catch up with us or show up in a helicopter, are you ready to fight back? If the car breaks down and we need to cross the desert on foot, are you prepared to handle it? I made you a promise, and I’m trying to keep it.”
Realizing he knew what he was doing and she didn’t, she’d gotten out of his way, the adrenaline from earlier wearing away, leaving her feeling numb, images of what had happened skulking in her mind. A man appearing out of nowhere at the church door. The barrel of his pistol pointing at her. His body jerking when she’d pulled the trigger.
Then Zach was there beside her. “Here.”
She gasped, jumped.
In his hand was a bottle of water. “So, you’re afraid of me now?”
“No.” She unscrewed the cap and drank, unable to meet his gaze. She wasn’t afraid of him, exactly—but she didn’t necessarily trust him. “It’s just that . . . Before yesterday, I’d never seen anyone get shot and killed, and now . . .”
She’d beaten one man unconscious and shot another.
“Don’t dwell on it.” Zach turned, grabbed an empty mili
tary duffel bag and dropped it on the cot beside her. “On your feet. Let’s load up and get the hell out of here.”
Natalie helped him pack everything he’d set aside into a couple of duffel bags, then followed him out the church’s door, ignoring bodies and flies that buzzed at pools of drying blood, and looking up into the bright blue sky instead.
“You drive.” Zach tossed her the keys, then opened the back door and shoved the duffel bags onto the backseat, pulling out a big gun and several spare magazines. “I’ll ride shotgun.”
Natalie climbed into the car in which she’d once been a prisoner, started the engine, and cranked the AC. She waited for Zach to climb in beside her, then hit the gas, a lump forming in her throat as she watched the ghost town, and the hell that lay within its crumbling walls, disappear in the rearview mirror.
She was going home.
JOAQUIN COULDN’T LOOK up from his beer, unable to stand the pity he knew he’d see on his friends’ faces. “I let her down. Natalie saved my life, and I let her down. Whatever she’s going through right now is my fault. Christ!”
He took a drink, swallowed beer together with the rock that seemed to be lodged in his throat, a glass full of stout not nearly strong enough to make him forget the sound of her voice crying out to him as they’d dragged her from the bus—or to keep him from thinking about what might be happening to her now.
He’d been home for four hours. He and the other American journalists—every single Mexican reporter had been killed—had been taken under escort to the U.S. consulate, where they’d been questioned by Mexican and U.S. authorities, before being packed into a couple of choppers and flown across the border to El Paso. This morning, he’d caught his flight home from Texas, the empty seat next to him a constant, unbearable reminder of the friend who should have been there beside him.
The airport had been a madhouse, reporters and TV cameras waiting for him. But for the first time in his life, Joaquin had found himself trying to avoid the media, his emotions too ragged to share with strangers. And yet every journalist there had wanted to interview and photograph him because his colleague had been the only American taken from the bus. When he’d refused to comment, they’d assumed he was saving the details for his own newspaper. But everything he had to say had already run in today’s paper, in an article written by Tom, the editor in chief, together with his photographs of the massacre, which Joaquin had e-mailed to the paper from El Paso. The only people he could talk to about this were his abuelita and his brothers—and the people sitting around him right now.