Mercy Killing (Affairs of State Book 1) (32 page)

“Makes us an easier target,” he mumbled, pulling spare cartridges out of his saddlebag, dropping them into his pockets for easy retrieval.

Her mind raced, churning out a plan. Knowing someone's life was on the line—maybe that inspired courage, gave you strength you didn't know you had. Or maybe it just made you stupid.

She said, “We go straight up to the gate. Tell the guard we were out riding with friends. Got lost. I’m ill and need a doctor.” She invented the story as she went along. She stuck her left foot in the stallion’s stirrup, but Sebastian blocked her with his arm before she could mount.

“I ride Hermanito. You take the gelding.”

Geez
, she thought,
a moment like this and it’s still all about a man and his horse!

They quickly switched mounts. The black seemed to sense her tension. It side-hopped, stutter-stepped, kicked up dust. Mercy took a firm grip on the reins and nudged its belly with her heels, and the horse took off, clattering down the rocky hillside, beside Sebastian and his stallion.

Holding their rifles parallel to the ground, tucked alongside the horses’ bodies and out of sight, they approached the gate at an angle. No one standing guard. Too much going on inside. Rape apparently being high entertainment for goons. If the gate had been left unlocked they could have let themselves in. But it wasn't.

Sebastian announced himself. “
Ola
! Can we get some help here?”

She was surprised then pleased that he spoke in English after the greeting. They were tourists, after all.

A head poked out of the first metal Quonset. The man, dressed in paramilitary gear, jogged toward them. He held what looked like an AK-47, a black, ugly stump of a gun. His expression reflected the mix of frustration and rage that Mercy had seen on other men’s faces when the power failed during a televised playoff game. Keys clanked from his heavy leather ammo belt.

She doubled over, moaning. Didn’t even have to pretend. Her sore ribs made it easy. They protested with every breath.

“Go away. Private property!” The guard waved his gun at them, and she guessed from the awkwardness of his speech that these might be the only words he knew in English.

“My wife is very ill. Do you have a doctor?” Sebastian asked, peering past the man as if confused. “This is a military facility, no?”

The guard glared menacingly at him. “Go away, fool. Or I shoot you both.” So he did know another convenient phrase or two in English.

“Oh, God,” Mercy groaned, clutching her stomach, swaying in the saddle but keeping an eye on the evil looking Kalashnikov in the guard's hands. “I think I'm dying.”

“A nurse perhaps?” Sebastian asked. “Or a telephone? Please!”

Hermanito
started to turn toward the gate, as if expecting it to be opened for him. Sebastian guided the horse back to a 45-degree angle with the fence, keeping his rifle tucked tight to the horse’s far side.

“We lost the rest of our party in the hills. It was imprudent of us to go off on our own, but—”

“I warn you, Señor,” the guard sneered. He raised the stubby barrel of his gun.

Mercy wondered why Sebastian was waiting so long to make his move. She tuned out their words, focusing on the man’s grimy index finger. She was at a better angle than Sebastian to see his finger move from outside the trigger guard onto the trigger. The guard’s eyes creased at the corners in anticipation of a smile.

She read his thoughts—he was already congratulating himself for dispatching two naïve tourists. Probably, his bosses wouldn't even care. Maybe they’d give him a bonus.

She held off for another second, sure Sebastian would react. He didn’t. Probably couldn’t see what she saw with the guard’s hand blocked by a metal panel in the gate. The man’s finger twitched. Her heart leapt and thumped and her stomach clenched with the knowledge—the absolute, stone-cold knowledge—that the next thing she heard would be the ack-ack-ack of the AK-47.

She swung the Winchester up, wedged its butt against her shoulder muscle, aimed between the mesh diamonds of wire, sighted just above the bridge of the man’s nose, and fired one shot—all within 2 seconds’ time. It was over before she realized what she'd done.

He'd have killed us,
she told herself, swallowing back tears. Her hands were shaking; she nearly dropped the rifle.
Don't even think about it now. Make peace with your soul later. Or at least try.
She’d never believed she was capable of hurting another human being, let alone killing someone. And yet…that’s exactly what she’d done.

When she lowered her rifle, the guard lay flat out on the ground, unmoving, a dark red hole centered in his forehead.

Sebastian turned in his saddle and stared at her. “A little premature, don’t you think?”

“He was going to
shoot
you, dammit!”

“I’d have gotten him first.”

“I wasn’t taking that chance.” Mercy was out of her saddle, running toward the gate as soon as her feet hit the ground. She reached under the low metal bar. Her hands were still vibrating, remembering the shock of the rifle firing. She grabbed the dead man’s boot, dragged him closer to the fence and lifted the keys off his belt.

More screams from the metal hut. The high-pitched siren-wail of a child. Mercy unlocked the gate.

“Julio!
Qué está sucediendo
?”

Sebastian’s head jerked around at the shout from inside the Quonset. No one had appeared, yet. Apparently too much going on for the speaker to leave the action.

Sebastian answered in Spanish. “I shot a rat. A fucking big one!”

Mercy flashed him a look, swung the gate open and climbed quickly back up onto the gelding.

“I’ll take the front door,” Sebastian said. “You go through the back.”

She nodded. It made sense with only two of them. They’d make the most of the element of surprise, coming at them from two directions. It was the only advantage they had.

The next few minutes would sear themselves indelibly on her mind. Although, at the moment, everything seemed an adrenalin-driven blur. Galloping toward the long, metal hut on the quarter horse’s back, her heart hammering in time to its hoof beats, she whipped around the corner of the building. Facing her were barn-style doors, open wide. She didn't slow down before driving her horse through the opening at full gallop.

Suddenly she was out of the blazing sun and into the dim interior. She absorbed the nightmarish scene before her as if it were an obscene still life painting. Two men, one with a bloody nose, pinned a half-naked woman to the ground by her arms. A third man, his pants down around his knees, squirmed on top of her. Jagged red welts rose across his face, no doubt raked by the woman's fingernails before they'd restrained her. Frustrated that his gratification had been delayed, and was costing him so much trouble, he was still trying to get inside her while she kicked and screamed.

It was only a matter of time, Mercy sensed. His victim’s strength would give out. Two other female prisoners, yet to be locked in cages with other prisoners, were trying to go to her aid. Guards held them back. The men taunted, jeered, and called out encouragement to their comrades. The air stank of beer, urine, sweat—and the metallic tang of fear.

From the far end of the hut, Sebastian flashed Mercy a look she was unable to interpret as their horses thundered toward each other, closing in on the rapists, now startled out of their sport. The eyes of the men did a sideways hitch toward their rifles, set aside on the ground to free their hands.

Mercy wheeled the black horse around and brought up the Winchester. “Let her go!” she shouted.

A man on the sidelines released a young woman he’d been holding back and reached for the rifle propped against the steel wall nearby. Sebastian put a bullet in him.

Another guard thrust the terrified girl he’d been restraining in front of him as a shield from Sebastian's fire. Mercy had a clear shot from up close. She put a bullet in his thigh. He went down with a shocked howl. Rather than run from him, the girl turned and started kicking him as he bled into the dirt.

The rapist’s assistants released their victim’s arms, backing away, hands raised to show they had no intention of going for their guns.

But the man on top of the woman snarled at Sebastian and reached for his holster, lying in the dirt. Sebastian’s bullet struck him in the throat as he came up onto his knees with his weapon in both hands. The woman rolled out from beneath him. Before she was on her feet he’d keeled over, spasms wracking his body.

“How many guards?” Sebastian shouted in Spanish to a group of people in one of the cages that lined the wall.

“
Ocho
!” one woman shouted.

“
Diez, quizá más
,” another said. So, Mercy thought, maybe a dozen. Where were they?

“Mercy, behind you!” Sebastian warned.

Before she could spin her horse she heard the crack of gunfire. She winced, anticipating the hot sting of a bullet piercing her flesh. It didn’t come.

She looked around to see another man down. Beside his limp hand, a pistol in the dirt. One of the male prisoners had gotten hold of a guard’s gun and shot the man who'd taken a bead on her. Mercy smiled her thanks.

Two more men, looking like Zapata revolutionaries with bandoleers of cartridges looped shoulder to hip across their chests, ran into the barn and stopped. They stared at the carnage. Then at the armed man and woman on horseback with blood in their eyes and rifles aimed at their chests.

Mercy held her breath. One heart beat. Two heart beats. Three. . . The killing was catching up with her. She sent the guards a mental warning:
Don’t do it…don’t do it…don’t die today!

The pair threw down their weapons. Hands shot up in surrender. Sebastian signaled them to drop to the ground. They did.

Any more guards waiting to ambush them? Mercy scanned the dim corners of the hut, the two square patches of sunlight glaring through the open doorways at opposite ends of the building, the lofts above the row of filthy cages as the prisoners banged and shouted and pleaded to be released. And all the while, her heart going thud-a-thud-a-thud. Sweat pooling between her breasts and trickling down her spine. She watched and waited for the slightest movement to suggest a new threat.

Nothing. No one came at them. She breathed for the first time in what seemed like forever.

“What now?” she gasped, looking at Sebastian.

He swept blue-black eyes like thunderclouds around the scene then shrugged. “Hold the fort until the cavalry arrives.”

39

It was during the afternoon of the previous day when the local police had first arrived at Peter's office and informed him that his wife had been kidnapped, in broad daylight. They told him she'd been taken from a popular café in the middle of the city. Traumatized witnesses reported the incident. The police told him to expect a ransom demand.

At first, Peter was shocked by the news, then annoyed. Hadn't he warned Mercy, time and again, not to wander around the city alone? But she had ignored him. And look what had happened now. Stupid, irresponsible woman!

He found the ransom note an hour later, among the rest of his mail delivered to the consulate. Hand-printed block letters:

WE HAVE YOU WIFE. BRING 200,000 AMERICAN DOLLERS TO TOLUCA CANTINA INTERSECT HIWAYS 15D/15 AT MIDNIGHT OR SHE BE DEAD. LEAF MUNNY IN PAPER SAC AT BACK DOOR. DRIVE AWAY. ABSOLUTE NO COPS.

Jesus,
he thought,
she doesn’t stand a chance. The idiots can’t even spell.

It wasn’t until he was in his car, driving it himself to the drop off, that it struck Peter he might never see Mercy again. He nearly broke down and wept, right there in the middle of bumper-to-bumper city traffic with the Mexican police officer hunkered down on the car floor behind his seat.

Despite the note’s warning, Peter had called the police immediately. He was too scared to drop off the ransom on his own, in the middle of the night. Now, not only did he have an armed ride-along, two unmarked cars jammed with Mexican cops tailed him.

The ambassador had asked if he wanted to call in the FBI or the Mexican Federal Police.

Peter said, “No way! Let’s not make a big deal of this.” It made him feel better to make a forceful declaration. Although as soon as he’d said it he wondered if it wasn’t already “a big deal.”

But the FBI would want to know things. Like why he had no idea where his wife had been for the past twenty-four hours. And: “Where were you, sir, when your wife was taken?”
In Carlotta’s bed.
He couldn’t very well admit to
that
. God knew where his admission of keeping a mistress would lead. Most likely his career would tank.

But he had to admit that he’d miss Mercy if things didn’t turn out well. He'd miss all the little things she used to do for him. And then, less selfishly, he thought of how constant her affection had been. How he never had to worry about her screwing around on him because that was Mercy—faithful, trustworthy, quietly consistent in her beliefs and honest in every way.