Chapter 48
FORTY-EIGHT
Ryan pulled the SUV to a stop beneath a scraggly mesquite tree, a good thirty yards from the faded motel sign.
MOTEL PUNTA ROJA. Bienvenidos. Habitaciones con A/C. The “A/C” part was scratched out.
He killed the engine, and the silence that followed was almost loud. There were no dogs barking, no TVs buzzing behind open windows. All he could hear was the thud of his own pulse.
“This is it,” he said, eyes fixed on the motel’s peeling stucco exterior. The place looked like it hadn’t seen actual occupancy in years. There was a half-burned trash barrel near the front lot, and a vending machine in the breezeway with no logo left.
They sat in silence for a moment, the engine ticking as it cooled. Lucía scanned the balconies, the breezeway, the cracked asphalt. “Looks empty.”
Ryan looked across at her. “Are you sure you still want to do this?”
She exhaled slowly. “I’m sure. We’ll go in, check it’s legit and Noah’s safe. Then I’ll give him the laptop and the password and this will all be over.”
They got out, doors clicking soft behind them. The sun was brutal. The pavement shimmered.
Ryan reached for the PPK in his waistband, checked the slide with a quick snap, then tucked it beneath the hem of his shirt. Lucía mirrored him, drawing her Colt. She checked the chamber, thumbed the safety, then slid it back into her waistband at the small of her back.
They crossed the lot on foot, quiet, deliberate, eyes constantly moving. An old pickup truck sat at the far end of the parking lot, cab empty. A stack of broken pallets leaned against the office wall.
Ryan looked up at the middle level of the motel. One open curtain fluttered for a moment, then stilled. They moved down the breezeway, shoulder to shoulder, scanning the windows and doors.
Room 6 was dead ahead. Paint peeled in jagged flakes. A damp towel hung from the railing. The wind shifted. Heat pressed in close.
Lucía reached for the door handle. Ryan stopped her. “Let me.”
She stepped back, gun drawn low and tight. He turned the knob slowly, gun in his other hand, ready.
Unlocked.
He pushed the door open.
It was dark inside. Ryan took two steps in, gun sweeping left to right.
The room was empty. Just a bed, rumpled like someone had sat on it and left. A table and a broken chair. A half-filled ashtray. A comic book lying abandoned on the floor.
Lucía’s throat went dry. “Something’s wrong.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said, already backing toward the door.
That’s when the first window exploded.
They both dropped instantly, glass raining down like razors. A burst of suppressed fire tore through the wall. Ryan took cover beside the door frame, heart hammering.
Lucía dove for cover near the bathroom door, bracing herself on one elbow, gun up.
Ryan fired back once through the open doorway, fast and low, forcing the shooter to duck.
Another burst cracked from the stairwell outside. Dust and drywall ripped into the air.
Lucía pressed her back to the wall. “This wasn’t a trade. It was never a trade.”
No, Ryan realized. It was a kidnapping.
A figure in dark clothes ducked behind a support column at the edge of the breezeway. Too far to see clearly, but the rifle silhouette was unmistakable.
He counted seconds.
The shooter fired again, controlled bursts. Not cartel spray-and-pray. Tactical.
Ryan breathed through the pain in his ribs. “They brought pros,” he muttered.
Then he took a deep breath and, keeping his back to the wall and his gun tight to his body, angled himself around the doorway.
From inside the room, he heard a sudden crash. Lucía must’ve tipped the table, made cover for herself.
More shots from the breezeway slammed into the door frame. Wood splintered. Ryan’s thigh stung—he’d been grazed. He pressed his hand against it, felt warmth.
Blood.
“Son of a bitch.”
He leaned out again—one eye, one arm—and fired three more shots.
This time one of them hit.
The shooter staggered back with a grunt, dropped to one knee. Rifle clattered. Ryan took the chance and limped down the breezeway, gun leveled. He kicked the weapon away and shoved the man onto his back.
Bald. Bearded. Pale-skinned. American.
The man coughed wetly. “You’re…Ryan Inglis.”
Ryan aimed the PPK square at his forehead. “Wrong day to be a fan.”
“Wasn’t supposed to be you,” the man gasped.
Ryan’s jaw locked.
“It was always the woman. You were…the variable.” The man blinked blood. “They want her alive.”
Ryan’s trigger finger twitched. “Who’s they?”
The man smiled. It was ugly and red.
“You don’t want to know.”
Then he died.
Ryan rose, chest heaving, shoulder screaming. He grabbed the dead guy’s rifle and whirled back around. “Lucía!” he shouted, voice raw.
No answer.
But he had a feeling the worst part hadn’t started.
Not by a long shot.
Lucía burst out of the bathroom just as Ryan stumbled back into the room, his jeans soaked in red. The rifle in his hands wavered, then steadied as he saw her.
“Breezeway,” he rasped. “One down.”
She crossed to him fast, catching his elbow, guiding him down. He tried to wave her off but his legs were already buckling. They ended up crouched behind the flipped table she’d dragged from the wall.
“Stay down,” she whispered. Her head snapped toward the window. She crept low and peeked between the blinds.
A black SUV. No plates. “Shit.”
Ryan struggled to his knees. “They probably have us surrounded.”
Lucía turned toward the bathroom. There was a small window above the toilet. She didn’t wait. “Come on.”
She dragged him up. Ryan bit off a groan and leaned on her as they half-hobbled, half-sprinted to the tiny bathroom. She slammed the door behind them and twisted the lock. Then she grabbed the edge of the window and started to shove it open.
“Go,” Ryan said, pushing her forward.
“I’m not leaving you—"
“Lucía, now!”
Something in his voice cut through. She hesitated one second too long.
The bathroom door exploded inward.
Ryan spun toward the sound, rifle coming up. The shot should have gone off, but his wounded leg gave out beneath him. He fell hard, the muzzle veering high. The round punched harmlessly into the ceiling as the man burst through the doorway.
It wasn’t Gates. It was a gringo in combat boots and civilian clothes barreling straight at them. Ryan tried to swing the rifle again, but the man was already on him, slamming the weapon aside and driving him to the floor.
Then the attacker was on her. He hit her full force. She crashed into the sink, shoulder screaming. Her hand went for the Colt. But he was fast and strong.
She got one elbow in—sharp, under his chin—but he twisted her sideways and drove her back into the wall. Her head cracked against tile. His gloved hand clamped over her mouth.
Ryan shouted—her name, she thought—but the sound was dim over the roar in her ears. Through the blur she saw him trying to rise again, blood pooling under him, one hand still reaching for the rifle.
She kicked hard. Fought. But he had the weight.
The man dragged her out. Past Ryan, who clawed toward her, rage written across his face, the rifle slipping from his grasp as the tiles ran red beneath him. Through the busted door.
Lucía twisted, thrashed, but the world turned sideways. There was a burst of hot air, then gravel underfoot.
Then: the SUV. Door open. Black interior.
She fought harder. Bit down on the man’s hand. He cursed, shoved her in. A cloth bag came down hard over her face. Then the door slammed. The locks thumped into place.
She bucked once, then again, but the engine roared, and inertia yanked her back. The tires spat gravel.
The back seat was stifling. The cloth over her head pulsed with every breath she took. Her lungs burned. Her shoulder was on fire. Her wrists had been zip-tied tight behind her, and her arms had already gone numb.
She twisted, tried to sit up.
A voice barked something from the front. “Despacio—algo se mueve.”
Lucía froze, panting. Her body vibrated with adrenaline, with panic, but her mind stayed sharp. She counted seconds. And then faintly, from outside—
“LUCíA!”
Her whole body stiffened.
Ryan.
Gunshots cracked, wild and close. She rammed her feet against the seat. Screamed against the bag. Kicked harder.
The SUV jerked to a stop. She heard a door open, and boots scrambling. A voice yelling, “?Baja! ?Vamos!”
Gunfire again, a long volley, thudding against metal. She flinched.
Then more scrambling. The doors slammed shut, the engine revved. They were moving again but faster this time.
She was thrown sideways again, ribs slamming into the door. She caught one last sound, just barely—Ryan’s voice, hoarse and broken: “NO!”
Then nothing.
The vehicle peeled away into the desert.
Ryan didn’t remember crawling out the bathroom doorway. Only that the blood trail was his, and it didn’t seem to be slowing down.
He made it to the motel room door and, using the door frame for support, clambered into a standing position. Down in the lot, he saw Lucía, a bag over her head, her arms tied together, being shoved into the back of the SUV by two black-clad men.
He screamed her name, the word ripping free from his throat like a wild thing desperate to escape.
The SUV closed its doors and shot forward.
With shaking arms, he aimed his rifle in the direction of the tires and pulled the trigger. When the vehicle pulled to a stop and three of the men got out, he thought for a wild, hopeful moment that he’d been successful in stopping their getaway.
But that hope immediately died in a hail of returning gunfire.
It exploded in the wall beside him, and he was forced to duck back inside the doorway.
No sooner had the echoes faded than he heard the slam of doors, the spit of gravel as the SUV resumed its escape.
It paused only long enough for one of the shooters to aim his rifle out the window and spray a wave of bullets at Ryan and Lucía’s vehicle as it passed by.
He may have screamed, or maybe it was the pain screaming inside his head.
His gun hand trembled. His vision kept doubling. He pushed himself upright with a groan. Pain flared through his leg, his arms, his whole body.
On hands and knees, he crawled, out the door and down the breezeway. Finally, he collapsed beside the vending machine, cheek pressed to sun-warmed concrete.
The shooter in the breezeway was still there, dead now, eyes open. Ryan forced himself up, panting, and moved closer. He studied the man’s clothes. Dark tactical pants. Civilian shirt. Armored chest rig. No tattoos. No gold. No cartel bling.
Ryan rifled through his pouches, searching for ID, and found instead a concealed pistol. He grabbed it, turning it over in his hands. The serial number had been filed away.
There was a half-torn velcro patch still clinging to the chest rig. The letters were scuffed but readable: PHALANX SECURITY GROUP.
Ryan sat back hard on his heels.
Private. Fucking. Military.
He’d seen them before—in Afghanistan during federal training exercises. Third-party security vendors that no one talked about in briefings.
This wasn’t just a betrayal. This was sanctioned.
So who the hell was Gates really working for?