The three DEA Tahoes sat idling in the front courtyard. Scott stood beside the passenger door of the third Tahoe watching Diego-the team's de facto medic-wrap a pres-sure bandage around the lower part of Lundy's right leg as the agent squirmed and groaned. The wound was a nasty, bloody mess, and the lack of an exit wound meant the bullet was lodged somewhere in Lundy's calf. The rest of the agents were milling around the vehicles, eager to get back across the border. All of them had shed their balaclavas.
Kat, who sat in the rear seat behind Lundy, squeezed his shoulder. "It was just a ricochet, you big baby. Stop all that squalling. You sound like a girl."
Before Lundy could respond with a crack of his own-agents never got tired of ragging each other, regardless of the circumstances-Diego tapped a finger on the pressure bandage. "Hold that while I tape it." Lundy held the band-age but didn't put enough pressure on it to keep it from slipping when Diego tried to tape it in place. "I said hold it, goddamnit," Diego snapped.
Speaking through gritted teeth, Lundy said, "I am hold-ing it, but my fingers are slippery. With my own blood."
Diego repositioned the pressure bandage. "Hold it tight-er."
Lundy did as he was told and Diego wrapped a wide strip of medical duct tape around Lundy's lower leg.
"How bad is it?" Scott asked.
"He'll live," Diego said, "but we need to get him across the river and to a hospital."
Scott glanced at the lead Tahoe and saw Ortiz hand-cuffed in the back seat. He thought about how tough this operation was going to be to explain. An unauthorized and illegal armed incursion into Mexico was a potential career killer, especially if you got caught. But getting out clean with a high-value cartel target would be considered a major, if not officially acknowledged, success. Getting an agent shot on the wrong side of the border, though, was almost as bad as getting caught. So as far as his career was concerned, Scott knew there was probably no coming back from this. Still, he had a job to do, and that job wasn't finished until he got all of his people and his prisoner safely back across the border.
It was time to get moving. Except he was missing one agent. "Where's Garza?" Scott said.
"Over here," Garza called out.
Scott turned and saw him on the front porch, leaning over the body of the gunman Scott had killed.
"Come take a look at something," Garza said.
Scott walked over and stared at the body. The man's wife-beater T-shirt, which had already been stained with sweat and food, was now drenched in blood so dark it was almost black. Garza lowered himself onto one knee and bent closer, examining a tattoo of a bird on the man's bare shoul-der.
"What is it?" Scott asked.
"A diving falcon," Garza said without looking up.
"Mean anything?"
"Yeah," Garza said. "Means he's Sinaloa, not Los Zetas."
"That can't be right," Scott said. "Felix Ortiz works for Los Zetas and we know it was Los Zetas who kidnapped Mike."
Garza stood and pointed at the tattoo. "Right or not, that's a Sinaloa tattoo."
"Could he have switched sides?" Scott asked.
Garza shook his head. "Membership is for life. Leaving a cartel is considered desertion and punishable by death. Even if he got away, no other cartel would ever trust him. The way they look at it, once a traitor, always a traitor."
"Take a picture," Scott said. "We'll figure it out back at the office."
Garza pulled his iPhone from his cargo vest and snapped a photo of the tattoo.
Scott checked his watch. It was 6:30. They had been on site less than thirty minutes. "Saddle up," he shouted to the rest of his team. "Time to go home."