Sounds of Silence (16 page)

Isabel stifled a whimper as she saw the bag of balls and bats Eli had left in her trunk last week. With Isabel’s plaid picnic blanket tossed over it, the bag looked exactly like the outline of a child. But if he moved it…

“She’s here,” said Delgado, slamming the trunk.

Isabel’s knees buckled in relief, and Ortiz yanked her upright, tugging her around to the passenger side. He pulled a bandanna out of his pocket and proceeded to tie it tightly across her eyes, blindfolding her. He then tied her hands with stout rope. “Come on, get in.” He shoved her into the car. “We’re late. Delgado, you lead in the truck, and I’ll follow.”

Isabel felt the car turn and turn again, snaking around hairpin bends that took her farther and farther from Mercedes and closer to Danilo. Through the open windows, dust churned off the rutted dirt roads, making breathing even more difficult through the cloth over her eyes and nose. Miserable and afraid, she endured.

Ten minutes later, by her estimation, the vehicle stopped with a jerk and final gasp of the old engine. She heard the driver’s door open, and a moment later her captor was yanking her out of the truck. He took off the blindfold but left the rope around her wrists, and she found herself inside a six-foot chain-link fence with electric barbed wire across the top. In the distance she could make out a dark clump of barrackslike structures. It looked like a prison camp.

Please, Lord, let Danilo be all right
.

She looked around to get her bearings. The sun was coming up across the top of the mountains, flooding the landscape with a surreal, dreamlike glow. Behind her little blue car sat the ugly green truck. Delgado had already gotten out, with the rifle now carelessly flipped over his shoulder.

“Get the girl out of the trunk,” Ortiz ordered, popping the trunk with the remote button on the key chain.

Isabel braced herself, but Delgado’s roar of rage still had her cowering back against her car. Spanish curses echoed in the predawn stillness as he tossed the blanket and mesh bag of baseball equipment onto the ground.

Ortiz dragged Isabel with him as he stormed around to the rear of her car. “What are you doing, you moron?” he demanded in furious Spanish. “Where’s the—” He whirled to glare at Isabel in patent outrage. “There is no child here!”

She lifted her chin. “That’s right. I left her back in Acuña. I came to get my son, and I won’t give up Mercedes until he’s safely out of here.”

Ortiz hit her across the face, splitting her lip. Isabel gasped in pain.

“Pablo said we weren’t to hurt her,” cautioned Delgado. “She’s worth a lot of money.”

“Pardon me if I don’t care what Pablo said,” snarled Ortiz. “She made a fool out of us.”

Without another word the men marched her toward the barracks, their booted feet kicking up choking puffs of dust. By now Isabel was so tired her legs quivered, and she only kept herself erect by praying for Danilo, Mercedes and herself.

Some twenty yards past the compound, she saw a two-story building, very different from the one-room barracks. A deep porch crossed the front of the structure, which resembled a hunting cabin where she’d once vacationed with Rico. Distracted, she stumbled on a crooked paving stone, fell to her knees and tore her jeans on a sharp rock. She cried out, painfully jerking her arm out of her captor’s grasp. She knelt there, breathing hard, utterly out of her depth.

Her prayers were incoherent.

Ortiz hauled her to her feet again and pulled her up onto the porch of the two-story building. Banging on the door with the butt of his gun, he waited until someone answered, then shoved Isabel inside. She staggered, but managed to stay on her feet.

“Ah, Mrs. Valenzuela, you have finally arrived. Welcome.” The voice was smooth and familiar: it was the one she’d heard over the phone.

A young Hispanic man, sleek black hair gelled and brushed away from a high forehead, rose from behind a massive desk. Sloe-black eyes and a fitly muscled body brought him into the realm of model material. His cunning expression made her skin crawl.

She took an instinctive step backward. “Where’s my son?”

“He has been asking for you.” The man’s eyes traveled down her figure and back up to linger on her face. “I’d forgotten what a pretty lady you are.” A slight smile curved his mouth.

Isabel shuddered in revulsion. “Who are you?”

“Someone who knows how to get what I want.” He slid his hands into the pockets of immaculate dark gray trousers. In spite of the summer heat, his black silk shirt was buttoned all the way to the throat. “Come, let’s do business.” He looked over her shoulder, at his underling. “Ortiz, where did you put the little girl?”

“She tricked us,” mumbled Ortiz, sending Isabel a venomous look. “She says she left the kid in Acuña.”

The leader’s expression darkened with rage. “Is this true?”

“I’ll tell you where she is when I know my son is safe.” Isabel couldn’t keep her voice from shaking. “Where is he?”

The man clicked his tongue. “Your little superhero has been right here, sleeping and watching television. However, a little while ago we moved him, just in case you decided to get foolish.” He walked over to grab Isabel’s arm. “Which it appears you have.”

She tried to yank free, merely succeeding in collecting a bone-deep bruise.

“See what you have brought on yourself?” The leader clicked his tongue, gesturing toward the doorway.

Turning, Isabel saw the shadowy outlines of a silent army in dun-colored camouflage uniforms—men with large, heavy guns. She had not thought beyond this moment; now she realized she was in no way prepared to outthink or outmaneuver this evil force.

Chapter Fifteen

“T
his is very poor planning, yard boy,” said Owen as he set the chopper down gently on a shallow hillock tucked between two larger bulges of the Acuña mountains. They’d had to be careful about a landing spot. Close enough to save travel time, but not so close that the helicopter’s approach would alert the enemy. “We’re way too close to the road.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Eli was in the middle of checking his gun. “I wish we had time to look in on Mercedes. Make sure she’s really in a safe place.”

Owen cut the engine, leaving sudden, stark silence. “Isabel wouldn’t leave her exposed.”

“Not on purpose, for sure. But what if Medieros has men on patrol?”

Owen removed his headset and hooked it in place against the instrument panel. He tugged a brown knit cap over his blond hair. “You know she did what she had to do. Dude, talk about a rock and a hard place.”

“Which is why we’ve got to hurry. Come on, let’s go.” Eli climbed into the back of the chopper and started gathering supplies and ammo.

A few minutes later Eli and Owen were jogging side by side down a steep hill toward the highway. Carrying backpacks filled with ammunition, they both wore equipment belts, onto which were strapped the usual accoutrements: pistol and knife, radio and cell phone, compass, field glasses and a small tool kit. With Artemio’s express permission, both men carried AK-47s on the left shoulder.

According to the GPS, they were about a mile from Medieros’s camp, and making good time. Eli glanced at his brother. Owen’s usually sunny expression had grown gradually more grim as they neared their destination.

Halfway up another grueling hill, Owen caught Eli’s glance. “Somebody’s been working out,” he said with a smirk. “Trying to impress a lady?”

“Some women are more impressed by brains than a six-pack.”

Owen laughed. “Some of us have both.”

They ran in silence for a few minutes. In other circumstances, Eli would have enjoyed the exercise and fresh air. This undeveloped part of Mexico had its charm. Sunflowers bloomed in patches, nearly hidden by cactus and mesquite, and the occasional cottonwood twisted in the elegant lines of modern sculpture. Eli watched an eagle circle overhead, looking for breakfast.

The obvious Bible verse from Isaiah 40 came to mind. He’d learned it a long time ago, and never forgot it.
“They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.”

He could use a little of that strength.

“Hey, Eli, you ever think about what made Dad turn his back on everything?”

Eli glanced at his brother in surprise. Owen rarely volunteered introspection. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “Why?”

“Isabel asked me one time if we’d had any warning that he was going to do what he did.” Owen uttered a harsh laugh. “I kind of blew her off, but I keep thinking about it. You know…what makes one man a hero and another man a goat.”

“I guess everybody’s got potential to heave off to the dark side. That’s why we need Christ.”

“I just wanted you to know I’m not as goofy and shallow as I seem. In case something happens to us out here, and I don’t get another chance to tell you…” Owen paused, and Eli waited, curious. “I want you to know I love you, and I admire you more than anybody I know.”

Eli couldn’t speak for a moment. “Thanks, that means a lot. I love you, too.” He cleared his throat. “And for the record, I don’t think you’re shallow. You just need the right girl to give you a little direction.”

Owen snorted. “That’ll be the day. Are you and Isabel gonna hook up? When all this is over, I mean?”

Eli wasn’t much for baring his soul, particularly to his little brother, and he’d already said a lot. But the circumstances seemed to call for honesty. “I love her more than life. But for some reason, she doesn’t want another Border cop for a husband.”

“Have you asked her?”

Ignoring him, Eli lifted his field glasses. “I think we’re getting close.”

“I know,” said Owen. “‘Shut up, Owen. None of your business, Owen.’”

Eli just grinned. “There’s a reason I was born first.”

Medieros pushed the woman into a camp chair, then sat down behind the governor’s magnificent mahogany desk. He steepled his fingers under his chin.

“You have hurt yourself,” he observed, noticing a cut on her knee exposed by the rip in her jeans. It wasn’t bleeding a lot, but dirt and gravel had penetrated the skin.

“Your concern overwhelms me,” she muttered without looking at him.

He noticed again that she had a nice shape; it was too bad she was such a modest dresser. “A small scrape of the knee is the least of your problems, I think.”

Isabel Valenzuela just gave him a stony stare.

Pablo looked at his slim gold watch. “We are running out of time,” he said, switching to Spanish as he spoke to Ortiz. “Are you sure the little girl is not in the car?”

Ortiz scratched his oily head. “We searched it. She didn’t bring the kid.”

“She hid her somewhere else. Go back and look.” Pablo wished he could afford a brighter subordinate.

Ortiz looked confused. “There’s that cement factory about a few miles outside camp. But it doesn’t look like a place this lady would leave a little child.”

Pablo eyed the woman coldly and said in English, “Where is the girl? Did you leave her in the factory?”

She answered in perfect Spanish. “I said I would tell you as soon as I know my son is safe.” She raised her chin, looking absurdly small and defiant.

Which gave Pablo a certain thrill. What pleasure to make her bow to him. He got up from his chair, enjoying the slight widening of those beautiful dark eyes as he walked around the desk. “Ortiz, send Delgado to search the factory. And shut the door.”

Mercedes didn’t like this place.

It was nearly as gloomy as the storeroom of Hector’s bar, and it smelled musty. A snake or a tarantula might be living in one of those rotten crates. She knew how to get rid of scorpions—in her old life with Lupe, she had often found them climbing in her bedclothes—but she couldn’t stand spiders. Mercedes would do just about anything Isabel asked her, but if a tarantula came to visit she was outta here.

She knew why she’d been left. She could tell from Isabel’s worried brown eyes that she didn’t like it, either. But Isabel had said she would come back. Mercedes knew it was a promise.

Having had a nice long nap in the back of the car, she wasn’t sleepy. It was a good thing, because the coils of this old chair sprang out of the split upholstery, giving her unexpected digs every time she moved. Still, it was better than sitting on the dirty floor.

She didn’t have a doll to play with, or paper to draw on, so she entertained herself by making up a story.

The silent princess spent her days alone in the highest tower of a faraway castle. Nobody heard the beautiful music she made by strumming the strands of her midnight hair. One day, she thought, the prince will hear me. He will climb the ivy and sing the song and say “My bride! I love you—”

Mercedes stiffened. Something black, about the size of one of Danilo’s baseballs, had scuttled out from behind the largest crate and darted into the shadowy corner nearby. The hair on the back of her neck rose.

I can’t stay here with that thing. It’s big. Help me, Dios!

She pulled her knees up to her chest and watched the corner for movement.

Why couldn’t Isabel have taken her along? She would have stayed out of the way. Maybe she could run and catch up. But first she had to find a way out of this building without stepping on that spider or one of his family. The door seemed like a long way off, and the crate blocked her route to the window.

Keeping an eye on the spider’s corner, she edged toward the door.
Dios, help me!

Halfway there she saw the tarantula move. Without looking to see where he went, she ran for the door and yanked it open, then pelted through the atrium and out into the sunshine.

Following Dean’s directions, Eli and Owen shunned the road and followed a little stream that gave water to a few trees and sporadic cacti. It led upward onto the mountain where, supposedly, Medieros had holed up.

The stream was gradually turning into a deep gulch, and Eli prayed they wouldn’t have to cross it. His lungs burned from the long run. He glanced at Owen, who ran a step ahead of him, his easy lope not slacking one iota on the steep grade.

Lord, please don’t tell me I’m getting too old for this.

“How much farther?” Owen tossed over his shoulder.

“Should be just over that—” Eli grabbed his brother’s arm as a fence line appeared at the horizon. “There. Stop. I want to radio Artemio, find out where he is.”

“Good idea.” Owen pulled the canteen off his belt and took a slug of water.

Eli unclipped the radio. “Ironhorse to
el Pájaro Rojo
, come in.”

After a moment it crackled, and Artemio’s voice said, “This is
el Pájaro Rojo.
Where are you?”

“Just outside Medieros’s compound. Any idea what kind of arsenal we’re dealing with?”

“He’s holding automatic assault rifles and submachine guns. Don’t go in until we get there.”

“How far away are you?”

“Twenty miles or so. The terrain’s bad, so it’s taking us longer than we figured.”

“We’ll just check it out. I’ll radio again when I’m in the clear.”

“Good.
El Pájaro Rojo,
over and out.”

Eli hooked the radio back on his belt and looked at Owen.

Owen grinned. “We’re going in, aren’t we?”

The sunflower patch wasn’t very big, but neither was Mercedes. She crouched inside it, the scratchy leaves making her legs itch like crazy as she watched the big, ugly
hombre
tramping down the road toward the factory.

She couldn’t have explained the overwhelming urge to hide that had sent her running away from the road like a jackrabbit a few minutes ago. But she was glad she’d obeyed her impulse. The man carried a rifle, with lots of bullets strapped around his waist and over his shoulder.

Shivering, Mercedes counted to a hundred twice, then peeked between the sunflower stalks. The man had disappeared beyond the next hill.
Gracias, Jesus
.

She cautiously stood, scratching her knees, looked both ways, then continued in the direction the man had come from. She hoped Mr. Tarantula took a big bite out of him.

Alone in the office with her ankles cuffed to the legs of the chair, Isabel had plenty of time to think about the advisability—or lack thereof—of her actions.

After his henchmen left, her captor had, with slow enjoyment, searched her clothes and found nothing. Scowling, he’d proceeded to shackle her to the chair. “Please let me know if I can do anything to make your stay more comfortable,” he’d said with exquisite irony. Then he’d left the room.

She should have waited for Eli, no matter what the kidnapper said.

Father, I’ll never run past You again. I need You to show me a way out of this. I need You to protect Danilo and send
—

The thought jerked to a halt. Did she want God to send Eli to rescue her? Specifically him, or just
somebody?

Suddenly she knew with perfect clarity that she wanted the blue eyes and bashful smile and big, strong shoulders of Eli Carmichael. But if she was ever going to have the chance to tell him how much he meant to her, she was going to have to be smart and careful and open to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.

Composing herself, she took a deep breath.
“Señor,”
she called, “I’m ready to talk.”

Eli and Owen accomplished the last quarter mile of their approach to Medieros’s camp snake fashion, belly-to-ground, in about thirty minutes. Mental pictures of Isabel in the hands of a psychopathic killer had Eli sweating like a racehorse, in spite of the lack of humidity. He had to force himself not to scramble to his feet and storm the place. Slow, steady and silent, that was the way to go.

With Eli now in the lead, they finally topped a small rise, and he saw weak sunlight glinting on metal. A fence. Eli’s pulse thundered in his ears.
Please, Lord, lead us
.

A quick look around revealed that they were at the back side of the compound, right where Dean had suggested would be the safest place to enter. Cupped by hills, the camp sat in the center of a shallow bowl, and as expected most of the buildings were bunched in clumps of tin roofs and cinderblock walls with curtain-less windows. A two-story cabin stood off by itself, with a small storage shed behind. To Eli’s relief, whatever guards Medieros retained were apparently occupied at the front of the camp.

He crawled forward and cautiously examined the fence. “Electric,” he whispered to Owen. “Can you neutralize it?”

“Sure.” Owen, the more electronically gifted of the two, poked through his tool kit. “Help me up on your shoulders.”

Eli crouched to hoist his brother, then stood impatiently while Owen worked on the fence.

“I knew the cheerleader thing in college would come in handy,” Owen murmured as he jumped to the ground.

“Wearing a chicken costume is not cheerleading.”

“It was a bald eagle, not a chicken.”

“Whatever. So I’m not gonna be electrocuted if I cut through the fence?”

“No.” Owen paused. “Unless I got red and green mixed up.”

“You get me killed and I’m gonna tell Mom.” By this time they were inside the fence. He grabbed Owen’s elbow to keep him from charging toward the closest building. “Let’s split up. We don’t know if Danilo and Isabel are together. You go left, I’ll go right. If you find one of them signal, and I’ll do the same.”

“Right.”

“And Owen. Pray hard. If at all possible, we need Artemio to get here before the thing goes down. Don’t do anything dumb, okay?”

Owen snorted. “You are such a big brother.” He dropped to his belly and crawled off.

Eli decided to go for speed rather than caution. Stooped over, he ran down the slope, heading for a skinny tree about halfway to the closest building. He made it safely and peered around the tree. Only thirty yards or so to go.