I MAKE MY way up the arroyo to the backside of the building. I try to keep quiet, but it’s not easy wearing cowboy boots and walking through a rocky, debris-strewn ditch. I stop and listen. Birds chirp. In the distance, I hear the rumble of cars on the main thoroughfare.
The cackle of radio static comes from the building, and I hear someone talking.
When Carlos and Ryan catch up to me, I whisper, “There’s at least one guard.”
Ryan suggests one of us circle around the building so we can get the jump on him from two sides, but I’m worried that we’ll make too much noise. The ground is littered with tree branches and rocks, and none of us has the shoes for stealth. And if we have to use our guns, we might be caught in each other’s cross fire.
“Let’s just rush him,” Carlos whispers. “Scare the ever-loving shit out of him.”
We creep forward as quietly as possible, slowly making it around the side of the building, which looks almost like a motel. The guard—dressed in black with a pistol at his hip—has his phone out, checking Twitter or looking at porn.
The three of us burst from cover.
“Put your hands up,” Carlos hisses, the shotgun leveled on his chest, “or I’ll blow a hole in you so big we’ll be able to see what you had for breakfast.”
The guard, in a state of disbelief, looks back and forth between them and me. His hand drops toward his pistol.
“Don’t you fucking do it!” Ryan growls.
The man’s hand hesitates, inches from his pistol’s grip. Then he realizes he’s outgunned and raises his arms into the air.
“Smart move,” Carlos says. “Now turn around and put your hands against the wall.”
The man does as he’s told, positioning himself between two of the cell doors. Carlos moves his shotgun to his left arm and reaches to disarm the guy. But the guy—moving fast enough that he could hold his own in a quick-draw competition—snatches his pistol out while spinning around.
My gun is in my hand, but Carlos is between him and me. I might be able to shoot around him, the way I did with Carpenter when he had Ava in a headlock, but in that case, they were both still—and I’d been readying myself for several seconds.
I don’t have that kind of time.
Things are moving too fast.
Carlos tries to swing the shotgun, but it’s big and bulky and his opponent is already bringing up the pistol, pointing it above Carlos’s Kevlar vest to his face.
I can see it all happening. The man is going to pull the trigger. The bullet will go through Carlos’s skull. I’m helpless to stop it.
I open my mouth to scream, but when I hear the gunshot, my breath freezes in my throat.
The guard’s head jerks to the side as a bullet passes through his brain. He collapses onto the ground, and both Carlos and I turn to see Ryan Logan holding his gun in both hands, looking as shocked as the rest of us.
“Thanks,” Carlos says to him. “I owe you one.”
“That,” I say to Ryan, nodding my respect, “is a shot you can be proud of for the rest of your life.”
He looks at me and swallows, then, giving me a sheepish smile, says, “So much for keeping things quiet.”
“Yeah,” Carlos says. “Let’s get moving.”
Carlos digs through the dead man’s pocket and finds a set of keys. We open the door of the first room, guns ready. A woman lies on a mattress on the floor, dressed in skimpy lingerie. She is asleep or dead, her long dark hair covering her face.
“Marta?” I say, speaking loud to try to rouse her even though, apparently, the gunshot outside her door didn’t.
She rolls over, brushing her hair back from her face.
It’s a young Latina woman.
Not Marta.