As Simon raced across the desert, he heard a faint noise behind him. Simon had trouble identifying it. It was a faint beeping, like a radar gun, or . . .
He risked a glance back. Silhouetted against the last shard of daylight was the hunter. He used both hands to steady his aim and hummed a bizarre beeping noise, almost like he was playing a video fighter, bringing Simon into the target-circle.
The hunter treated Simon’s death as a game.
Simon scaled a steep-sided ledge, using all four limbs to fight for holds in the loose earth. A bang sounded behind him. The bullet whined off a rock to the right of his face, then something smacked him in the forehead. Simon lost his footing and tumbled over the ledge.
He fell and rolled and came up running, though his mind felt disconnected and his legs were wobbly. Even so, he ran. His vision blurred and then cleared, his limbs refused to follow the scattered directions from his brain, then snapped back into rhythm. Still, he ran.
The maquiladora, or industrial zone, was made up of three distinct components. A cluster of brand-new structures rose to his right. Their prefab siding gleamed in the guard lights. They were surrounded by new fencing topped with barbed wire. A generator rumbled loudly somewhere out of sight. Simon searched for a way through the fence and found none.
The wound on his forehead drummed in time with the generator. Each breath punched a new hole in his pain. He swiped at the blood that trailed across his left eye and glanced back. The hunter had returned to his SUV. He spun in a dusty circle and flew across the scrubland, taking aim at Simon.
Directly ahead of Simon were a cluster of perhaps two dozen older buildings. They formed an industrial slum, with pitted walls and broken windows and empty parking areas. Beyond the farthest structures, traffic rumbled down the highway connecting Ojinaga to the border. Simon resisted the urge to try for the cultivated area connecting the newer zone to the highway. The angle of the hunter’s approach suggested this was what he wanted. He knew the terrain and Simon did not. The hunter intended to herd him into the dead zone between the desert and the fence.
Simon veered toward the zone’s third section: a vast workers’ compound. Bordering the apartment blocks were tiny garage-style operations servicing the newer industrial structures to his right. The housing was as grim as anything he had ever seen.
Beyond the dwellings Simon glimpsed what appeared to be a dusty market square. This entire section was fenced, of course. Everything of value in Mexico was fenced. But Simon ran toward it anyway, hoping against hope that he would find a hole or a break or at least a tree that would give him a lever on which he could scale his way to safety.
The hunter must have seen what he intended, because the SUV’s motor roared angrily. The change spurred Simon to a speed he had not thought possible. He was not being chased by a man. He was fleeing death itself.
He could not find a way through. The fence was rusting, but the holes were all covered with black-mesh nylon. Simon didn’t slow, he didn’t hesitate. He leapt as high as he could and smashed into the fence, full force.
To his left, the stanchion holding up the fence snapped clean off.
Simon clung grimly to the fencing as it bent forward like a fan. He clung to it like a limpet on a branch. The stanchion to his right groaned and cracked and gently laid him onto the earth.
Moving on all fours, he gingerly picked his way across the coiled barbed wire. Soon as he was across he scrambled like a football player coming out of the crouch.
“Help!”
The closest structures were 150 yards ahead, separated from him by scrubland that had been parceled into tight little farm plots. Chickens clucked nervously as he scrambled between the waist-high fences. From one of the nearest structures he heard the whine of a saw cutting metal. But he saw no one.
“Help! Please! Somebody!”
The race took on a nightmare quality. His legs trembled with the fear that safety would remain just out of reach. He clawed ahead, his hands outstretched, willing someone to appear from one of the buildings and do something, anything to end this horror.
“Help me, somebody—”
Gunfire sounded behind him. Dusty furrows were dug from the earth to his right. Simon ran harder still.
His lungs sawed for a breath in the hot air. He could feel the hot wetness drip down his face. The pain was almost blinding. But the buildings were closer now, the shadows longer.
Simon lanced between two tall dormitories. He raced down an alley that felt choked with despair. He bounded out the other side, scrambled down another weed-strewn lane, tripped over an unseen ledge, and tumbled into the dusty plaza.
Most of the stalls were locked for the night. The plaza was almost empty. A few stragglers wandered away from him. The departing stallholders either did not hear or chose to ignore him. One woman’s face showed vague alarm as she locked her stall and hurried away.
Then he spotted lights belonging to a slightly larger stall, one with a screened-in front section. Simon did not shout because he no longer had the air to form a word. He could scarcely carry himself across the plaza. He had no idea how close the hunter was. He could no longer hear the SUV. His ears were filled with the sawing rasp of his own breaths and a faint buzzing sound, like the drone of a thousand angry insects.
He slammed through the screened door and spilled onto the raw wood floor. Even then he kept moving. He crawled on his knees around the plywood counter. A lone customer occupied the last stool. This man looked vaguely familiar, but Simon’s pounding head refused to form a coherent thought. The customer and the lone cook both gaped as Simon crawled into the space beneath the counter. The cook said something in high-pitched Spanish. Then the sound of shouts and footsteps rang out, and the cook went silent.
The customer bolted into action. He leapt around the counter and hefted a boiling pot off the stove. He backed up two paces, so he was clear of the counter, and slung the contents onto the floor.
Simon’s foggy brain finally recognized the man. He managed to croak, “Pedro.”
“Hush, for your life.” As the city manager poured the steaming pot over the bloodstains, he spoke in a staccato undertone to the man behind the counter. The cook responded with a fearful whine. Pedro spoke again, just one or two words.
The cook grabbed the broom propped in the corner by the portable gas stove and walked around the counter. Simon heard feet thump against the counter wall by his head and realized Pedro had returned to his seat.
The cook pushed the screen door open and swept the water outside. A third voice yelled in protest, probably because the water splashed over his boots. This new voice was hard, sharp. The Spanish coming from this man was knife-edged. Simon gripped his knees and scrunched in tighter. He shivered uncontrollably.
The third man entered, pushing the cook back with his voice. Simon heard the broom skitter across the floor. Heavy footsteps creaked the floorboards. The hunter’s voice grew louder, angrier. The cook responded with the same fearful whine.
Then Pedro added his own words, his tone subservient. Respectful. But not afraid. The hunter growled once more, then stomped from the place.
Then silence gripped them all. Simon’s brain registered everything through the dual veils of terror and pain. Outside, the hunter snarled in frustration as he moved away.
Pedro murmured softly, “Stay where you are.”
Simon shut his eyes. His head stabbed with every racing heartbeat. He could feel blood from his forehead leak onto the floor. His shivers were growing stronger now.
But he was safe.
The knowledge was exquisite.
Pedro’s voice remained very steady. “My truck is parked outside. I will back it around so the passenger door is by the exit. When you come out, stay low.” He spoke to the cook in Spanish, who handed Simon a clean dish towel. Pedro told him, “Press the cloth to your forehead.”
“It hurts.”
“You have been shot, yes? It’s supposed to hurt. Press hard.”
Simon did as he was told. Pedro pulled out his keys and pushed open the cantina’s screen door. Simon heard him whistling a little tune.
The pickup’s door creaked open and shut. When the engine fired, Simon crawled from his hiding place. His head and neck and shoulders had stiffened, which caused him to groan aloud. The cook responded with a fearful tirade. Simon crept around the counter as the truck pulled in tight. Simon slipped out the door just as Pedro reached over and opened the passenger door.
The pickup was moving before Simon settled into the seat. Pedro said, “I will take you to the border.”
“Great. Thanks.” Then Simon paused. “Wait, that won’t work.”
“There is no waiting. The men who seek you, they are still out there.”
Simon’s tongue felt too thick for the confines of his mouth. “My car was forced off the road. My passport is locked in the trunk.”
Pedro gave a heavy sigh. He scouted in all directions, then crossed over the highway and headed into the rough terrain. “They will still be out there, the people who hunt you.”
“It was just one man.”
“One man that you saw.” The truck jounced hard over a rocky outcropping. “Where is your car?”
“In a ditch.” The fringes of his vision began to blur. “They put a board across the road. Blew out the tires.”
“That is a common tactic of the drug cartels. You are involved in drugs?”
“I’m down here to meet with your town council, remember?”
“If this was the cartel, they will have allies among the border agents. They might hold you until your hunters arrive.” Pedro lightly drummed the wheel. Then he spun the wheel and drove back in the direction they had come. As he pulled onto the road, he checked carefully in all directions. “Slide down into the foot well.”
“Where are you taking me?”
Pedro drove slowly into the ever-deepening night. “Somewhere safe.”