CHAPTER 15 #2
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. ”
With those words in her mind, she followed Zach, the darkness pressing in on her.
They reached the first fence fifteen minutes later.
Zach climbed it with no problem, then turned back to her, his gaze searching the landscape behind her. “Give me your pack.”
Natalie unbuckled the hip band, slipped out of the shoulder harness, and handed it to him. He dropped it onto the sandy ground and reached for her, helping her over.
His hands lingered at her waist. “That’s it. That’s the U.S. border. You’re back in the States now, angel.”
And some part of Natalie wanted to cry.
“YOU SHALL HAVE a First Communion worthy of a true princess, sí?” Arturo gave his granddaughter a good-night kiss, her sweet smile taking the edge off his nerves at least for a moment. He switched off her bedside lamp. “Sleep with the angels, Isabella.”
“Good night, Grandpa.”
He left the child to his daughter’s care, then walked to the other wing of the house, to his private study, where no one, not even his wife, would dare to bother him. He poured himself a shot of tequila. It would hurt his stomach, but he needed it.
He tossed it back, grimaced at the razor-sharp pain in his gut, poured another.
The news today had not been good. The men José-Luis had set to watch the U.S.
consulate had opened fire on a car in which they thought Natalie Benoit was riding, only to learn later that they had wounded the wife of a U.S.
official. Then several of his men had been killed when the roadblock they’d set up at Altar was attacked by those goat-fucking Sinaloa bastards.
Arturo didn’t give a horse’s ass for the American woman who’d been shot or for the men he’d lost at Altar. He didn’t even care about the shipment of cocaine. All he cared about now was getting his hands on that bitch of a reporter and killing her.
If he failed . . . If she survived . . .
He hadn’t built an empire out of nothing only to lose it now. La Santa Muerte wouldn’t allow it. Then again it had been a long time since the Bony Lady had been fed. He had promised her Natalie, but both he and the Lady had been denied.
Perhaps that was the problem—or part of it.
Bad things happened in threes. Everyone knew that.
But now the count was full. The bitch and the gringo who’d stolen Arturo’s cocaine had disappeared.
Next, his men had shot the wife of a U.S.
diplomat. And then they’d been attacked at Altar. Three pieces of bad luck.
Could the tide be turned with blood?
He drew his mobile phone out of his pocket and dialed José-Luis. His nephew had failed him miserably, so perhaps it ought to be his blood Arturo spilled. But La Santa Muerte would want nothing to do with his ugly, scarred face. She preferred sweeter-tasting blood.
José-Luis answered after the third ring.
He started to speak, but Arturo cut him off. “I want you to find that bitch Gisella. I want to know everything she knows about the American who stole our cocaine. Perhaps she knows more about him than she told us before. Perhaps she can lead us to him again.”