The Ninth Day (2 page)

“What’s that?” the gunman said.

“A GPS tracker.”

The gunman snatched the device out of the coyote’s hand and shoved it at her. “Turn it off. Now!”

Emma powered it down. When she looked up, the gunman knocked the tracker out of her hand and shoved her backward, following her trajectory and pinning her against the wall with his body. She winced with the pain of the cinder blocks slamming into her spine. He dug the revolver’s muzzle into her cheek. She felt his heat and barely contained anger. He smelled of weed and whiskey.

“Why do you have a GPS tracker?”

Emma swallowed once. “I’m an ultra runner. When I train I run sometimes thirty, forty miles. Not too many people can run that distance, so I’m usually alone on the trail. The tracker is in case something happens and a rescue team needs to find me.” Emma held her breath. She prayed that he believed her.

“Turn around. Face the wall.”

Emma’s mouth went dry. Every instinct she had rebelled against the idea of turning her back on this man.

“If you’re going to put a bullet in my brain do it now, while I’m watching.”

The Gunman gave her a sly look. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

Emma stayed still.

“Turn around!”

Reluctantly, Emma shifted. When she was face to bricks, the Gunman kicked apart her shoes. He frisked her with quick efficiency. He yanked her arms behind her and tied her hands together with plastic ties. Someone covered her face with a cotton cloth. She hissed in pain as he pulled the knot tight, because he’d caught strands of her hair. They dragged her forward. Emma moved with them, doing her best not to trip. She heard the far door squeal open and felt a rush of warm evening air flow over her. She followed along. Gravel crunched under her feet and she heard chirping crickets.

Another door creaked, and the gunman said, “You’re at the back of a van. Get in and lie down.” An arm steadied her as she moved ahead a step. Her thighs hit the edge of the vehicle, and she turned around to sit in the opening. She scooted backward on the metal floor and laid down, angling onto her side to relieve the pressure on her hands behind her. The doors slammed shut. Within seconds the van started moving.

Emma lay there and thought about her situation. She’d been in the area searching for night-blooming plants found in the desert regions of the western states, but she’d been asked to remain alert for any signs of drug or human smuggling, which was endemic in the areas bordering Mexico. Her plant search was funded by Pure Chemistry, the lab where she worked as a chemist, and her trafficking information was requested by Darkview, a contract security company that handled dangerous missions the world over. As she bounced along in the van, she thought that nothing either company paid her was worth the danger in which she now found herself. Still, she lay there and counted her blessings. They’d taken everything but the things she needed the most.

The thin compass in her cargo pocket and the rubber bracelets around her wrist remained.

Chapter 3

O
swald Kroger sat in a bar in Phoenix, Arizona, and wondered why the hell he’d taken on this latest job. He pulled on a longneck while contemplating the stupidity of what he was about to do. He knew it was dumb, but years of drifting had made money scarce. Oz had only the clothes on his back and his motorcycle. And a near genius IQ, but that little fact was usually only discussed by his family, who would call him periodically to try to coax him back to MIT. He’d left with a beautiful girl to follow a rock band across the country. The girl had returned to college in September, but he’d stayed on with the crew, picking up odd jobs and sleeping in parking lots. Now he was twenty-seven years old and the whole drifter thing was getting tired. He’d agreed to transport some pot from Mexico to Phoenix. Four loads, eight thousand dollars. Oz thought the payoff abnormally high, but the guy who’d recruited him claimed that Oz had what the Mexican cartel didn’t: a valid U.S. passport. Oz agreed to run it. Once he had the cash, he would use it to settle somewhere and begin to put his life back on track.

What bothered Oz about the whole concept was the statistical probability of apprehension. He’d gone to the local library, logged on to the Internet, and surfed until he’d found a Department of Homeland Security report that estimated the number of arrests for the transportation of marijuana compared to the amount of marijuana believed to be imported. As far as he could tell, he had a 73 percent chance of being arrested over the course of twenty shipments. Even though he’d only agreed to four, that didn’t reduce his chances of capture, because capture was random, and his chances were equal that he could be captured at the first, or the last shipment. Or he could beat the odds and never get caught. Oz was betting on the twenty-seven percent freedom quotient. Freedom with eight thousand dollars. Now that particular number he liked. Still, the whole idea was stupid and risky. If he wanted to reduce the risk, he’d have to find a smarter way to transport than the cartel did. Oz figured that a guy with his brains should be able to come up with a plan that would take the transportation to a new level. If he didn’t, he’d fall prey to the seventy-third percentile.

He finished his beer, plunked it down on the bar, and headed out into the night. Oz felt the heat of the neon “Beer” sign as he passed it, shoulder height and stuck on the outside wall as it was. It glowed an amber yellow that stung his eyes and forced him to wince. His motorcycle sat at the end of a long row of cars parked in the lot of the Red Lion Tavern.

He walked up to the machine and smiled, as he always did when he saw it. He loved his bike. It was an eight-year-old Triumph Bonneville in blue with black-and-white checkerboard stripes, given to him by one of the English rockers who didn’t want to take the trouble to transport it back to Britain. Oz took it in lieu of a bonus due him for crew work on the band’s tour. It sported a couple of scratches from the two falls the rocker had taken while using it, but otherwise it was in excellent condition.

He lowered a full face helmet over his head and adjusted his leather jacket. His battered Wrangler jeans hung a bit on him, and he noticed a hole forming at the knee. Growing up he’d been the tall, skinny kid, unable to fit in with his peers due to his intellect. Skipping grades in school had only made it worse, because then he was the tall, skinny, little boy among the older, more sophisticated teenagers. At MIT he’d finally met people near his age who could equal, and even surpass, him in brains, but the damage was done and he’d struggled to form friendships, a skill he hadn’t learned. When Karen had asked him to hit the road with her, it was the first time a girl had really paid any attention to him. She laughed with him, teased him, and showed him the way around a woman’s body. He would have followed her to the ends of the earth had she allowed it. When she broke it off to return to MIT he’d been devastated.

He swung a leg over, started the engine, and rode out of the parking lot. His first stop was Nogales, Mexico, just over the border from Arizona. He’d meet his contact there, get instructions, and he’d be a quarter of the way toward freedom. He settled in for the three-hour ride, letting the wind blow over him and feeling the cycle’s vibration. The recruiter had wanted him to ditch the Triumph, disliking the flashy paint job, but Oz had refused. They compromised and Oz agreed to travel at night, when there were fewer people on the road to notice him. He glanced up. Stars lined the sky and a sliced moon glowed above him.

He crossed the border into Mexico at four o’clock in the morning. The patrol showed no particular interest in him or his cycle. He rode straight through the shuttered town on empty streets and kept going until he was twenty miles south. He slowed when he saw a dirt road on his left marked with a battered sign nailed to a fence post, the word “Puma” scrawled in black across it. Oz idled a moment, staring at the sign. The concept that he was at a crossroads in his life, actually and figuratively, occurred to him. He shook himself, cranked the throttle on the bike, and turned down the road.

Half a mile down the road he encountered two stone pillars spanned by an iron gate inscribed with the letter “P” in script. Floodlights and cameras were mounted on each. Oz stopped three feet in front and watched as the machinery pivoted to point at him, their LED lenses glowing red in the dark. He noticed an intercom system set on a pole near the gate’s hinges and inched closer and pressed the button.

“What do you want?” The voice barked at him in Spanish. Oz answered in English.

“Johnny sent me.”

The speakers remained silent. Oz waited.

“Drive to the house and keep going to the outbuildings in the back.” The gates emitted a buzzing sound as the lock disengaged. The sides swung open without a creak and Oz drove through.

He’d gone another four hundred yards when a large, two-story hacienda appeared, its white adobe walls shining in the beam thrown by the motorcycle headlight. Oz whistled at the sight of it. Terra-cotta roof tiles and elegant archways framed a massive facade. A circular driveway, lit by solar lamps, passed under an overhang that jutted out from the villa’s front, framing an imposing two panel door complete with elaborate iron handles. To the right and set back was a one-story rectangular building, with five separate doors, that appeared to be a garage. Oz skirted the house and followed the drive, heading behind and moving farther to the right. He came upon a corral with an attached stable. Next to it was a wide gravel-covered expanse that acted as a parking lot.

Oz pulled up next to a white van and killed his engine. Two men sat in the van’s front seat. He heard the beep of a two-way radio and he watched as the driver spoke into a black cell phone. The guy in the passenger seat threw a glance Oz’s way before climbing out of the vehicle. He moved to stand next to the van’s back doors. The driver strolled around the front bumper and headed Oz’s way. The sky had lightened just enough that Oz could make out the man’s features, as well as a large diamond-encrusted gun pendant that he wore around his neck.

“Johnny says you’re the tech guy.”

Oz hesitated at that. While he could make a computer sing if he wanted to, he hadn’t expected Johnny to pitch him as a tech guy to the cartel. All he wanted to do was transport the marijuana and get on with his life. He decided to downplay his knowledge.

“Low tech. Yeah.”

The man snorted. “We don’t need much more than that. I’m Raoul. Follow me.”

Raoul headed toward the hacienda. Oz followed at a slower pace. A third man emerged from the back of the van and Oz stopped short when he saw who came out next. A woman, slender, with light brown hair and dressed in athletic clothes and running shoes stood between the van’s open back doors. Plastic white strips secured her hands behind her back and a bandanna was wrapped around her head. Below the bandanna her mouth was set in a grim line. Oz felt his stomach twist.

“What are you doing with her?” he said. The two men ignored him. The skinny one pushed the woman forward, while the other man took her arm and guided her toward the stable entrance. Oz took a step in their direction.

“Hey . . .” he said. He saw the woman’s head turn.

“Tech guy, come on!” Raoul yelled at Oz.

Oz stood for a moment, unsure. The two surrounding the woman kept moving her toward the stable. Oz jogged to catch up with Raoul.

“What are those guys going to do to that woman?” Oz said.

Raoul didn’t bother to glance back. “That’s not your concern.”

“I agreed to transport some weed over the border. That’s all. I don’t want any part of a kidnapping.”

Raoul kept marching toward the villa. “You’ll transport whatever Eduardo La Valle wants you to transport. What did you think you were doing when you joined the Latin Imperials?”

Oz stopped. “I didn’t join anything. I just agreed to move some weed.”

Raoul stopped walking and turned to face Oz. “You joined the minute you entered that gate. La Valle won’t let you go, so you’d better just follow behind me and do what he says.”

Oz dug in his heels. “No! I don’t want any part of that. I’m not looking to hurt anyone.”

Raoul snorted. “Listen, fool, you’re in Mexico now. La Valle owns this area, and the minute you stepped foot on his property, he owned you. You keep your mouth shut and do what he says, or the only thing you’ll be moving is the earth that he’ll make you shovel to dig your own grave.”

Panic ran through Oz and his stomach clamped into a tight cramp. His first thought was to run back to his bike, throw it in gear, and drive away as fast as he could. Raoul must have read his mind, because he shook his head.

“Don’t even think of it. They’ll gun you down before you hit the main road. The villa is guarded twenty-four/seven, and they shoot on sight.” Raoul considered Oz for a moment. “What’s your name?”

“Oswald Kroger, but everyone calls me Oz.”

“Well, Oz, you’re now the paid mule for one of the strongest cartels in Ciudad Juarez. If it makes you feel any better, no one’s gonna touch you. They do, they die.”

“What about the woman?” Oz said. “Are they going to kill her?”

Raoul shook his head. “Only if no ransom is paid.”

“Will they rape her?”

Raoul shrugged. “Eventually.” He gave Oz a shrewd look. “You got any money? Maybe you can ransom her.”

Oz spread his arms out, palms up. “If I had any money, do you think I’d be doing something as stupid as this?”