One Wrong Step (26 page)

Was she signaling a rope? A road? A river?

“Follow the river?” Celie said, barely audibly.

The woman nodded.

“Which way?” Celie had seen from the air that Saledo’s property was connected to a highway by a long dirt road. But Celie had no idea how far it was to the nearest town. She could be out there for days, wandering around the unforgiving terrain and getting lost.

Or, even more terrifying, getting found.

With one hand, the woman made a noisy production of arranging the flatware on the napkin. With her other hand, she dipped a finger in the coffee and made a cross. Was there a church nearby? But she added an N on top, and Celie realized she was drawing a compass. She pointed to the bottom.

Go south.

“How far?” Celie whispered.

The guard shifted in the hallway. The woman hurried to leave the room, holding both hands behind her back and flashing a number—ten, twenty, thirty, forty.

Forty what? Miles? Kilometers? How would she ever walk that far? Suddenly the door slammed shut, and she was alone, once again, in the creepy little room.

Celie looked down at the soup tray, no longer hungry in the least. She went into the small adjoining bathroom and turned on the faucet. After splashing water on her face, she turned around and studied the tiny shower stall. It was bare. There wasn’t even a shower curtain that could be made into something useful.

How was she going to get out of this place? The window was too high to hazard a jump, and then she’d have to walk or hitchhike either forty kilometers or forty miles to the nearest town.

Celie leaned against the sink, staring at the shower stall as all her most deep-seated fears paraded through in her head. Being tortured by Manny Saledo. Jumping to her death. Wandering alone in the pitch-black desert looking for help. Climbing into a truck with some strange man who might or might not deliver her safely back to civilization.

She weighed each possibility, and her gaze skimmed over the tile, fastening on the rust pattern she saw in the grout. Was that…?

Blood.

Yes, it was. About four feet off the ground was a red-black stain where someone’s blood had spilled. The tile had been wiped clean since then, but whoever did it hadn’t managed to clean the grout.

Feeling woozy, Celie stepped out of the bathroom. She sank down onto the cot and tried to think, but as she glanced around her surroundings, her mind refused to work. She doubted the moves she’d learned in her self-defense class would pose much of a challenge for a muscle-bound guard with a machine gun. She glanced at the crack under the door.

The shadow of his boots had disappeared.

Slowly, silently, she crept to the door and crouched down to double-check. She pressed her cheek against the dusty floor. Through the half-inch gap, she saw the empty hallway. He was gone.

Her stomach clenched. This was her chance. She rose to her feet and quietly tried the doorknob. Locked.

Had he gone for a bathroom break? Food? Wherever it was, he’d most likely be back soon. She scanned the room desperately, praying for a bolt of inspiration.

Her gaze landed on the wooden chair. It looked sturdy. She stared at it a moment, thinking, calculating, considering the odds. Then she made up her mind. Hands shaking, she yanked off her shoes. She took one final glance at the crack under the door. Still no shadow. Still no sound. She took a deep breath and unzipped her jeans.

R
owe already hated this operation, and it had barely started. From the moment his cell phone had started humming several hours ago, he’d been informed of one bad decision after another, all culminating in an ill-conceived plan to confront one of the most dangerous drug kingpins in Mexico.

Rowe blamed Abrams. If the rookie agent had been doing his job in the first place, Rowe wouldn’t be here right now, crammed into a helicopter with guys from an alphabet soup of Mexican and American law enforcement agencies, hovering above a Pemex station not twenty miles south of Saledo’s compound.

The helo started descending about fifty yards north of the gas station. Rowe looked out the window and saw two pickups parked at the station, but neither looked to be filling up, and Rowe surmised that the trucks represented one of this operation’s major flaws. Not only had Abrams botched the surveillance of Cecelia Wells and let her get kidnapped out from under his nose, he’d compounded the problem by allowing at least three civilians to involve themselves in the rescue effort. Rowe had never met Vincent Somebody-or-other, the pilot who had ferried Abrams down here, but he’d met John McAllister and Marco Juarez. Rowe felt certain the two hotshots would somehow derail this op, which was already shaping up to be a train wreck.

The helo touched down, and Abrams approached, shielding his eyes from the tornado of dust swirling around. He climbed inside and took a seat next to the SAC. Rowe watched him begin briefing the man, obviously eager to smooth things over and convince the boss he wasn’t a complete moron.

Good luck.

Rowe shook his head as the helicopter lifted off and veered toward its destination. They were approaching from the south, hoping to use the element of surprise. Mexican authorities, who—like their American counterparts—had been monitoring Saledo in an effort to build an irrefutable case against him and his network, had predicted the compound would be staffed by a few household servants and between five and ten heavily armed guards. That was the bad news.

The good news was, Saledo had just arrived here by private plane yesterday, and so his typical entourage of relatives and girlfriends hadn’t caught up to him yet, which meant collateral damage might be kept to a minimum.

That was about the only good news. In Rowe’s opinion, rushing into an armed confrontation, with scant intelligence, at night on the target’s home turf, was a bad idea. Rowe had wanted to wait, but apparently the top brass of several of the agencies involved had a hard-on for Saledo right
now
and were using the kidnapping of Cecelia Wells as catalyst for a major arrest.

Rowe suspected egos were involved, too. The Americans couldn’t sit idly by while one of their civilians—particularly a young woman—was kidnapped and dragged off to be murdered by a Mexican drug lord. And the Mexican authorities were under pressure to take a stand against one of their most notorious criminals, a man they supposedly wanted to bring to justice, yet had never mustered the political will to punish with more than a slap on the wrist.

Poor planning, civilian yahoos, and oversize cop egos. This operation was doomed.

Rowe looked to his immediate right, where Stevenski was fastening a flak jacket over his shirt. Rowe noticed the tremor in his partner’s hands and the sheen of sweat covering his face. This was one of his first raids.

He glanced up at Rowe. “You ready?”

Rowe checked his sidearm. “Yep.”

The AFI—Mexico’s FBI equivalent—was running the show, so their guys were bringing the big guns. Rowe shouldn’t technically be carrying a firearm at all, but the the head of the Monterrey legat had a beer-drinking relationship with the AFI commander, and so everyone had agreed not to notice the Americans were packing today. Rowe felt grateful for this bit of luck because he never felt right without his gun.

The Mexican SWAT team would insert from the air, the commandos fast-roping down, while the helo containing the Americans landed at the base of the property. Assuming the SWAT guys could quickly disarm Saledo and his guards—which Rowe didn’t—American agents would be allowed to participate in the search for Cecelia Wells. Rowe’s boss had pushed hard for this arrangement, apparently not trusting his AFI counterparts to take adequate care of the hostage.

Rowe thought about Cecelia Wells. Having known the woman for more than a year, he’d developed an affection for her, not to mention a respect. She had more courage than most men Rowe knew, and, besides that, she had heart. Rowe didn’t know many people who fit that bill.

“When we find the hostage,” Stevenski said, “you should take the lead. She trusts you most, I think.”

Rowe agreed, knowing as well as Stevenski did that this whole plan was based on a pretty shaky assumption.

If and when they found Cecelia Wells, she might already be dead.

The sun was hovering over the western cliffs when Marco’s Chevy Silverado made the turn onto Saledo’s road. John watched the desert landscape fly by, still angry beyond words that the feds had gone ahead without him. John had asked the man in the white pickup to pull over at a Pemex station to meet up with Marco Juarez, whose knowledge of the area and skill talking to the locals would help them make a plan to sneak into the compound. But no sooner had Marco shown up than a chopper had arrived to whisk Abrams away, leaving John and Marco in the dust. Now instead of participating in Celie’s rescue, they were stuck waiting to observe the aftermath.

“Thanks for coming,” John said.

Marco shot him a look. He wore sweatpants and sneakers, and John strongly suspected he’d caught him at the gym this afternoon when he’d called. Given that Mayfield was probably two hundred miles from here, Marco had to have jumped right in his truck and hauled ass.

“This is my wife’s best friend,” Marco said. “If I don’t move mountains to get her back, Feenie will never speak to me again.”

Marco didn’t smile, and John knew he was only half kidding. John had known Marco nearly three years now, and his black eyes and perennial black leather jacket were reflective of his personality. This evening he looked like a thunderhead.

John stared out the window, and his stomach knotted. He believed Celie was alive—he had to believe that—but he couldn’t convince himself she was unharmed. And who knew what would happen when the feds and the Mexicans stormed in there, guns blazing?

“She’s resourceful,” Marco said.

John looked at him.

“If there’s a way to get out of there, she’ll find it. And if there’s not a way out, she’ll focus on survival. She’s good at that.”

A lump rose in John’s throat, and he stared out the window. He couldn’t verbalize what he was feeling right now, but it had to do with searing pain and the certainty that if anything permanent happened to Celie, he’d be dead inside.

He shifted his attention to the windshield, looking for some sign of a residence up ahead. The chopper was probably just now arriving.

“There it is,” Marco said, nodding toward a cliff where, in the evening light, John discerned the outline of a house.

Below it, probably a hundred feet down, John saw a flash of machine gun fire.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, going cold.

Marco reached into his leather jacket and pulled out a gun.

“I’ve got a backup in the glove box,” he told John. “Better help yourself.”

Rowe crouched behind the fountain in the courtyard, waiting for his cue. Suddenly the double doors flung open, and an armored member of the Mexican SWAT team gave him the signal.

Rowe ducked in first. Stevenski followed. They made their way up the central staircase, searching for the bedroom wing where they expected to find the hostage. Rowe’s nostrils stung as the acrid scent of smoke drifted toward him. Stun grenades had been used to help distract and disable Saledo’s guards, most of whom had been neutralized in the first-floor media room. Now the Americans were conducting a room-to-room sweep looking for the hostage.

Rowe and Stevenski did a brisk search of the second floor.

“Next floor,” Rowe ordered, heading up another flight of stairs. They passed a commando giving one of Saledo’s men an armed escort downstairs.

Stevenski said something in Spanish, and the commando shook his head.

“What was that?” Rowe asked.

“Still no sign of Saledo, the nephew, or Cecelia.”

They combed every inch of the third floor. Nothing. They stopped at the top of the stairs.

“I could swear I counted four stories from the outside,” Stevenski said.

“Then there must be another staircase.”

“Maybe in the back? Near the kitchen?”

Rowe had no idea, but it sounded good to him. They quickly descended the curving staircase and cut through the living room. A Mexican commando stood beside the door to the kitchen. Stevenski said something to him and entered, nearly tripping over the bullet-ridden body of a young woman just inside the doorway.

“Shit.” Stevenski stepped past her.

Rowe stared down at the woman. With her long black hair and startled eyes, she looked young and innocent—like she’d been caught in the crossfire. Rowe prayed Cecelia Wells hadn’t suffered the same fate.

Rowe spotted the AFI commander at the back of the kitchen talking to two of his men. Several of Saledo’s people kneeled on the floor nearby with their hands cuffed. Rowe approached the commander, glad the man’s English was better than Rowe’s Spanish.

“Sir,” he said, “we’ve swept three levels, but four are visible from outside. Any chance we missed a stairwell?”

The commander’s bushy black eyebrows tipped up.

“Fourth floor looks to be above the kitchen,” Stevenski added.

All eyes turned toward the ceiling. For an instant everything was silent, and then the commander barked something at his men. They leapt into motion, pulling open all the doors in sight—pantries, walk-in closets, broom cabinets, but no stairwells.

A shadow moved behind the commander.

“
Down!
” Rowe yelled, and an armed man burst through the doorway. Time stretched out as Rowe reached for his gun, and a truck seemed to slam into his chest. He hurtled backward, smacking his skull against a wall, as gunshots reverberated all around him. The gunman staggered backward, red splotches blooming on his shirt. An instant later, half his head disappeared in a mist of red.

Stevenski stood off to the side, chest heaving, his gun poised to shoot again.

“You’re hit!” He rushed over to Rowe. His voice echoed through Rowe’s brain, but it sounded very far away. “Are you okay?
Rowe?
”

Rowe tried to say something, but the force had pummeled his lungs.

This is how Kate felt.
He let his head fall back and stared up at the ceiling, trying desperately to breathe.

John and Marco hopped out of the Chevy and took cover next to the adobe wall. The gate was open, and a guard lay beside it, having fallen dead right on top of his machine gun. John saw Marco eyeing the weapon.

“Have at it,” John told him. “I’ve never used one before.”

Marco moved to retrieve the gun, just as a Hummer halted inside the gate and members of the Mexican SWAT team jumped out. Marco shouted out warnings in Spanish so he wouldn’t be mistaken for a target, and then he stood up. John didn’t catch the rapid-fire exchange of Spanish.

“They killed Saledo,” Marco reported, “and the guards who aren’t dead have surrendered.”

Several commandos tromped through the gate. Marco spoke with them for a moment, and then they fanned out around the perimeter of the compound.

“No one’s found Celie yet,” Marco said.

“Shit.” John had caught something about a hostage, but they’d been talking so fast. “Where are they going now?”

“Searching for Saledo’s nephew. He’s second in command.”

“First, now, if his uncle’s dead,” John pointed out.

“One of the guards says he was here, but he left just before the raid. They’re checking Saledo’s vehicles.”

Another Hummer rolled to a stop behind the first one. Several Americans got out, including Stevenski, who had Rowe leaning on his shoulder. Rowe looked injured, but John didn’t see any blood.

John strode up to them. “Where’s Celie?”

Rowe shook his head and slouched against the wall, wheezing.

“Didn’t find her,” Stevenski said as Rowe loosened his Kevlar vest.

John saw two silver patches where bullets had smashed into Rowe’s chest. A few inches higher, and the agent would be dead.

“You need to lie down?” Stevenski asked, clearly shaken by his partner’s near-miss.

“Think I cracked a rib.” Rowe coughed and shook his head. “Could have been worse.”

“I’m going up to look for Celie,” John announced, starting toward the gate.

“Hold on,” Stevenski said. “I don’t think she’s up there.”

John’s stomach rolled. “Why not?”

“I searched the servants’ quarters, fourth floor above the kitchen. Found a room with the window busted out. Looked like someone jumped.”

“From the
fourth
floor?”

“Apparently. There’s no one under the window, so whoever did it survived, I think.”

She was alive. Maybe.

“Where’s the window?” John asked.

Stevenski turned and looked up at the house, like he was trying to orient himself. “Let’s see, back side—”

“Show me.”

Celie hobbled across the field, swiping at branches and sticks, trying to ignore her left ankle and focus instead on her goal. She had to find cover. Soon. She could worry about her injuries tonight, from the relative safety of some kind of hiding spot.

She glanced over her shoulder to the west. The sun had dropped behind the distant ridge, and it wouldn’t be long before nightfall. She needed to reach the strip of trees she’d seen earlier from the air, which she assumed marked the course of the river.

She limped on, her shoulders hunched forward to keep her silhouette from standing out against the cacti and brush. If one of Saledo’s men spotted her out here, the chase would be over before it even began. Celie could barely walk on her ankle, much less run.