Taking Aim (14 page)

The flutter of a curtain in a window of the house caught his attention. A woman’s face appeared, then disappeared.

A child cried inside and was quickly hushed.

“Hello.” Zach walked closer. “My truck broke down. I need to use a telephone.”

The front door opened and a short, round, Hispanic woman peered out. She waved her hands as if to shoo him away, speaking in rapid-fire Spanish, almost too fast for Zach to understand.

He caught the gist of what she was saying, something about leaving before her husband returned.

“I’m sorry.” Zach held his hands palms up. “I don’t speak Spanish. Do you speak English?”

“No,” the woman said.

“She doesn’t, but I do.” A man appeared around the side of the house, carrying an semiautomatic rifle. “What do you want?”

“My truck broke down on the road and I need to use a telephone.”

“We don’t have a telephone.” He tipped the rifle. “Leave.”

“You don’t happen to have a tire iron, do you?” Zach moved closer, pretending to be unaffected by the presence of the rifle. “My tire went flat and I can’t get the lug nuts loose.”

“You can’t stay here. Leave now.” The man pointed the rifle at him.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Zach raised his hands. “I just need a tire iron with a lug wrench on it and I’ll be out of your hair.” He walked around the side of the house.

The man Zach suspected was Enrique followed. “You can’t stay.”

Once he’d rounded to the back, Zach noted a truck standing with doors wide open. Boxes and furniture had been thrown into the bed as if in a hurry. “Going somewhere, Enrique?”

Zach spun and lunged for the rifle before the man had a chance to fire. He grabbed the barrel, jammed the nose down and the butt up, hitting the guy in the face, causing his hands to loosen enough that Zach ripped the weapon out of his hands and flung it to the side. He yanked the man’s arm around to his back and drove it up between his shoulder blades. “Enrique Sanchez, I understand you’re a member of La Familia.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He stood on his toes, his face creased in pain.

“Really?” Zach twisted the arm tighter until the man cried out. “Wanna rethink that response?”

“Sí, sí,”
Enrique squeaked. “I am. So? What do you want?”

“Answers.” The clock was ticking on Tracie’s life, and Zach had let it go on for too long.

“I don’t know anything,” Enrique insisted.

“Were you there when the DEA agents were murdered in Wild Horse Canyon?” Zach bore upward on the arm.

“Sí, sí. Madre de Dios!”

“Who murdered the DEA agents?”

Enrique didn’t answer.

Zach hated doing it, but he ratcheted the man’s arm tighter. “Who killed the DEA agents?”

“
Aya!
Go ahead, break it! Nothing you can do to me will be as bad as what La Familia will do if they get to me first. So go ahead. Kill me. I am a dead man already.”

“Why?”

“I was supposed to meet
mi
compadres,
but when I got there, they were dead. La Familia will blame me.”

“Did you see who killed them?” Zach loosened his hold, finally letting go.

“No.” Enrique dropped to his knees. “I don’t know.”

“Did you see who took the woman?”

“No.” Enrique struggled to his feet. “I have to leave. I have to get my family out before—”

“Zach, look out!”

A shot rang out and Enrique jerked forward, slamming into Zach, his eyes wide, blood oozing from the wound in his gut.

Zach staggered backward as Enrique slid to the ground, his eyes wide and vacant. The man was dead.

Chapter Fourteen

Jacie sat for as long as she could stand before she flung the door open and dropped down out of the truck. Zach had been gone too long, as far as she was concerned. He could be in trouble.

She grabbed her rifle and tucked her nine-millimeter in her waistband, then set off in the same direction as Zach had minutes earlier. Staying low, she used the available vegetation for concealment as she’d seen Zach do, moving parallel with the highway. When she came to the dirt track leading into Enrique’s place, she stopped and listened, then turned and worked her way slowly toward the house.

Nothing stirred out front, so she circled wide, around the back of the house and the workshop behind it.

Voices carried to her, urgent and angry.

One belonged to Zach.

Her heartbeat fluttered and her palms sweat as she eased around the back of the workshop to get a better view, her rifle in front of her, in the ready position.

Zach stood with his back to her.

A man, who Jacie assumed was Enrique, was on his knees in front of Zach, struggling to stand. With only the one man in sight, Jacie gathered that Zach had everything under control. She had started to back away when she saw a movement from the corner of the house.

The barrel of a military-style rifle poked out.

“Zach, look out!” she yelled.

A shot rang out. Enrique, who’d managed to stand, dropped to the ground.

As a man stepped away from the side of the house, Jacie crouched to a kneeling position, aimed for the man’s chest and pulled the trigger.

The shooter dropped to the ground before he could fire off another round.

Jacie’s pulse pounded so hard the blood thrummed against her eardrums. She didn’t hear the footsteps behind her until too late. A rock skittered by her, her first indication she was not alone.

Jacie rolled to her back, holding her rifle to her chest. Before she could aim and fire, a boot punted the rifle out of her hands.

A bulky, dark-haired, barrel-chested man grabbed the front of her shirt and yanked her to her feet.

Jacie kicked and fought to get free.

The bulk of a man spun her around like a rag doll, pinned her arms behind her and pulled the pistol from her waistband, tossing it to the side. He shoved her forward into the clearing.

Zach crouched, holding his weapon in front of him. When he spotted Jacie, his eyes widened. “Jacie.”

“I’m sorry,” Jacie said. “I thought you were in trouble.”

“Drop the gun,” the man holding Jacie demanded in a heavy accent.

“Don’t hurt her.” Zach tossed his pistol to the ground and raised his hands.

Another man came running around the side of the house, cursing as he leaped over the body of his dead
compadre.
He ran straight up to Zach and hit him hard with the butt of his high-powered rifle.

Zach dropped to the ground and didn’t move.

Jacie cried out and lunged forward.

Meaty hands squeezed her arms so hard that pain shot up into her shoulders.

The two men spoke Spanish so fast Jacie couldn’t begin to translate with her own rudimentary skills in the language. By their urgent tone and the way they kept looking over their shoulders, they were anxious to leave.

One of the men ran for the workshop.

Jacie stared at Zach, willing him to get up.

He lay so still, a gash on his forehead where the thug had hit him with the rifle.

Jacie struggled again, fighting past the pain of having her arms pulled back so hard.

Her captor loosened his hold long enough to punch her in the side of the head.

Pain rattled around her head, and fog tinged the edges of her vision.

The other guy emerged from the workshop carrying a roll of duct tape.

Pushing past her fuzzy-headedness, Jacie kicked and bucked, trying to twist loose of the hands holding her like steel clamps. If they got the duct tape around her wrists and ankles, she wouldn’t have a chance.

She dug her booted heel into the man’s instep and backed into him, ramming her elbow into his gut.

He yelled and hit her again.

Jacie fought the pain, struggling to stay upright and losing. This time, the gray fog won, shutting out the sunshine and dragging Jacie into darkness.

* * *

L
IGHT
EDGED
BENEATH
Zach’s eyelids, and the soft keening wail of a woman crying stirred him to wake. He opened his eyes and winced at the harsh light shining straight into his face from the setting sun. His head ached as he fought to regain his senses.

The crying continued and a baby’s whimpers added to the sadness.

Zach turned his head in the direction of the sound, and a bolt of pain shot through his temple, clouding his vision.

A woman knelt in the dirt beside a man’s body, a baby clutched to her chest. She rocked back and forth, tears coursing down her cheeks.

Enrique. The cloud over his brain lifted and Zach jerked to a sitting position. He swayed and braced his hands against the earth to keep from falling over.

The woman cried out and scooted away, holding the baby tightly.

Zach raised his hands, then pressed one to his temple where a knot had formed. He winced. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He closed his eyes and fought a bout of nausea, then pushed to his feet, his mind coming alive. His first thought was Jacie.

Everything came back to him in a rush. He dug in his pocket for his cell phone and hit the speed dial for Hank. No service.

“Do you have a phone?” he asked the woman on the ground, holding up his cell phone at the same time.

She shook her head, her tears flowing faster.

“Sorry, I can’t stick around to help. I’ll send someone out.” He didn’t know if the woman understood what he’d said, but he didn’t have time to translate.

He jogged around the house and workshop, his first instinct relief that he hadn’t found Jacie’s body. His second, dread at what she would be subjected to. He had to get to her before the cartel carried her back across the border and did what they’d done to Toni.

A lead weight settled hard in his gut. He pushed aside the negative thoughts and sprinted back down the road and out to the highway. Once he found his truck, he raced back to town.

As soon as he came close, he checked his service and dialed Hank.

“Zach, where have you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for the past hour.”

“La Familia has Jacie.”

“Any idea where they took her?”

“None.” That lead weight flipped over in his belly. With no leads, no inkling of where they’d have taken her, he had nothing. Jacie would suffer. “I need you to get Pendley to bring up the tracking devices. If she still has hers on her, we have a chance.”

“Pendley hacked into Tracie’s phone. Other than Juan Alvarez’s number and Bruce Masterson’s, there weren’t any others leading anywhere.”

“And how is that helping me?” Zach drove through town faster than the posted speed limits.

“Pendley checked Bruce Masterson out and found several calls to a Humberto Hernandez at the Big Elk Ranch.”

“Isn’t he the other guide that works with Jacie?”

“He’s the one.”

“Did you question Bruce?”

“Haven’t seen him in the past three hours. The other agents manning the ops tent said he took off saying he was checking on a lead. I called Richard Giddings and asked him to keep an eye on Humberto until you got there. He called me just a moment ago to say Humberto is saddling a horse and that he’d try to stall him, but he didn’t know how without letting on that he’s now a person of interest.”

“I’ll be at the Big Elk in ten minutes. In the meantime, find Jacie’s tracker.” Zach pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator as his truck headed out of town on the highway leading to the Big Elk Ranch. With Humberto being his only lead, he had to get to him before the guide took off.

The ten minutes might as well have been ten hours. Topping speeds of over one hundred miles an hour, he reached the ranch gate in eight minutes. His truck bed spun around as he turned onto the gravel road to the lodge. Zach straightened the wheels and kicked up a cloud of dust all the way to the lodge. Without stopping, he drove around the big cedar and rock building, skidding to a halt in front of the barn.

Zach grabbed his Glock, dove out of the truck and raced for the barn.

Richard Giddings stood to the side of the door and pointed toward the interior.

With his Glock leading the way, Zach ducked around the door and into the shadows. He paused for a moment to allow his sight to adjust to the limited lighting in the barn’s interior.

“I know you’re there.” Humberto cinched the girth around the gelding he had saddled and dropped the stirrup into place. “Don’t try to stop me. I have to make things right.”

Zach stepped out of the shadows into the beam of light from an overhead bulb. He pointed his pistol at Humberto’s chest. “If you want to make things right, start by telling me where you’re going.”

“After Masterson.”

“Why?”

The man bowed his head for a moment, then raised it and stared at Zach. “I made a mistake.”

Zach drew in a frustrated breath. “Could you be a little clearer?”

“I trusted Masterson. He told me I was helping with an undercover operation.” Humberto slid a bridle over the horse’s nose. “We had a routine. He’d call and let me know when an agent was coming through the Big Elk to pass information on to their undercover operative in La Familia
.
I got them to the canyon, they passed the information and I made sure they got out of the canyon. Until two days ago.”

“What happened two days ago?” Zach stepped closer, his heartbeat kicking up a notch.

“You know what happened. Those DEA agents were murdered and Jacie’s sister was taken.”

“Why is that your responsibility?”

“Masterson told me to guide different hunters, but they canceled at the last minute. I was supposed to guide the guests going south, but Jacie insisted on taking them. If I’d known they were agents, I would have been prepared for the attack. Instead Jacie and her sister took the hit and the men were killed.” Humberto’s lips thinned. “I tried to tell myself Masterson had been mistaken. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized Masterson had been using me.

“The men he’d set up to make the drop backed out when they discovered DEA agents were onto them. Afterward I found out Jacie’s sister was an FBI agent. That’s when I knew something wasn’t right.” The man’s hands shook as he adjusted the straps on the bridle.

Zach’s gut told him Humberto was telling the truth. “Where are you going?”

“I asked one of my cousins to snoop around and find out where La Familia would hole up when things got hot. I know where to start. There’s an abandoned ranch house south of here, close to the border. They could be holding Tracie there.” He gathered the reins and stepped toward Zach. “I have to make this right.”

Zach grabbed the man’s arm. “You can’t do it alone.”

“I feel as responsible for those DEA agents’ deaths as if I’d pulled the trigger myself. And if I had been there instead of Jacie and her sister, her sister wouldn’t be missing. I have to do this.”

“Not without me,” Zach said. “I’m going with you.”

“I’m going too.” Richard Giddings entered the barn.

“No.” Humberto raised a hand. “You both need to stay with Jacie and make sure nothing happens to her.”

Zach’s chest tightened. “It already has.”

Humberto closed his eyes and muttered a curse in Spanish.

Richard closed the distance between them. “What’s happened to Jacie? Where is she?”

Zach told them what had occurred at Enrique’s place and that as far as he could tell, Jacie had been gone nearly three hours. Plenty of time to get far away.

“They wouldn’t try to cross the border during the daylight.” Humberto glanced at the barn door where sunlight streamed in, casting long shadows. “It will be dark soon.”

Zach’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He dug it out and noted Hank’s number. “Did you find her?”

“Yes, south of here, near the border. I’m not sure what’s out there, but we have a GPS coordinate on her. Based on the county map, it’s an abandoned ranch house. Do you want me to let the joint operations folks know?”

Zach’s fingers tightened around the phone. “Not yet. They might try to fly in with a chopper. There’s little enough vegetation to hide a chopper, and they’d hear it long before it got close. Wait two hours and then send them in. That should give us enough time to get down there on horseback and scope out the situation. I don’t want La Familia to get spooked and shoot their witnesses.” His heart pinched at the thought of what might happen if the cartel got wind that they’d been discovered.

“Us?” Hank asked. “How many of you are headed out?”

“Three.” Zach stared at the men beside him, realizing he was going into a tight situation with two men untrained in special operations. But he had to take what he had and get down there. If nothing else, they could shoot and provide cover for him.

“I can have myself and three other men available in the next hour,” Hank offered.

“We can’t wait. Send the others in only if they can get there before you notify Joint Operations. You’ll need to stay and make sure the FBI and DEA launch on time.” Zach checked his watch. “It should be dark in one hour. That gives us another hour to get close and locate Tracie and Jacie.”

“Godspeed, Zach.” Hank ended the call.

“You should take Thunder. He’s one of my fastest horses and he’s surefooted in the dark.” Richard Giddings headed for a stall and lead a black stallion out. “Are you a good rider? This horse can be a bit high-spirited.”

“I can handle him.” Zach ducked into the tack room and retrieved a saddle and blanket, his pulse hammering, urging him to hurry. The longer it took them to get down there, the more time the cartel had to harm Jacie and her sister.

Richard tied the horse to the stall door and headed for another stall. He led a sorrel gelding out and threw a saddle over his back.

Zach saddled the stallion and slung a bridle over his head. “We’ll need saddlebags and scabbards.”