Kidnap and Ransom

“Yes,” Kelly said. “It is.”

“Hang in there.” Maltz cuffed her lightly on the shoulder. “It’ll get better.” He turned and walked back toward the second car.

“Are you sorry?” Kelly blurted out.

He stopped and turned. “Sorry that I made it?”

She instantly regretted the question, but nodded.

“Every day. But what the hell, right?” He grinned at her. In spite of herself, Kelly grinned back. He tossed her a salute, then kept walking. Kelly watched as he got into the driver’s seat. In spite of everything, she felt better.

Eight

The automatic gunfire went on and on, but as far as Mark could tell no one had entered the store. They seemed dead set on making sure there were no survivors before risking it. The counter in front of him had been punctured by dozens of bullets; it was a small miracle he hadn’t been hit yet. He hoped Decker had been as lucky.

Mark had landed a few feet from the girl. She was facing him, hands over her ears, face twisted in a rictus of fear. She hadn’t stopped screaming since the shooting started. The plastic bag full of meds had landed near him. He grabbed it, tucking it in the back pocket of his jeans. Hopefully some of the bottles had survived the fall. Mark checked to make sure he still had the spare shells for the shotgun, then reached out and grabbed her arm. She started at the contact.

“Is there another way out?” he yelled over the noise.

The girl didn’t appear to have heard him. He dragged himself closer, shouting directly into her ear. “We have to get out. Is there a back door?”

“They’ll kill me!” she yelled back.

“They’ll kill you anyway,” he shouted. He could see her thinking it over, realizing he was right.

Decker scuttled around what remained of the counter.

“You hurt?” Mark yelled.

Decker shook his head. “The guard bought it, though.”

The girl scrambled forward on her belly. Mark motioned for Decker to follow. Wherever she was going, it couldn’t be worse than here.

There was a sudden lull in the fire. Mark peeked through one of the holes in the counter and saw boots crossing the threshold into the store. He hustled after Decker.

The girl had crawled into a back room the size of a closet. Once inside, she scrambled to her feet and started tugging at a pile of boxes on the floor. “Help me!” she cried, exasperated. Decker helped push them aside. Underneath lay a trapdoor. The girl hauled it up and descended a steep flight of metal stairs. Decker followed. Mark went last, pulling the door closed behind them and turning the bolt. It wouldn’t hold their attackers off for long, but might buy them a few minutes.

The stairs ran through a concrete shaft. The air was cold, dank. The girl hit a switch and low-level bulbs flickered on.

“What is this?” he asked.

“The pharmacy used to be a bar. This was where they stored the liquor,” she said.

“Which way out?” Decker asked.

She pointed, and Mark pushed past her. Up ahead, a short flight of stairs led to a set of double doors, bolted from the inside. A smooth ramp ran parallel to them.

“For kegs,” she explained.

The sound of thumping metal behind them: someone was trying the door. Voices shouted orders in Spanish. Then the steady pound of bullets against metal.

“Where does this come out?” Mark asked.

“Follow me.” She unbolted the lock and pushed the doors open.

It took a second for Mark’s eyes to adjust to daylight. He focused on Decker, running ahead of him down the long alley behind the store. A line of metal service doors abutted overflowing Dumpsters. A few doors down a guy in a soiled apron smoked a cigarette in an open doorway. Through slitted eyes, he watched them pass.

The girl led them to the end of the block, took a sharp right down a narrow street, then hooked left. Mark and Decker trotted behind her, guns held down by their sides. At any moment Mark expected to feel bullets tearing through him from behind. The few people they passed took them in, then quickly looked away. Didn’t want to get involved, Mark gathered. He’d seen the same thing in Iraq and Afghanistan, people so acclimated to violence they went about their everyday lives as if it wasn’t happening all around them.

The girl set a good pace, weaving with the confidence of a native through a maze of crumbling adobe buildings. After five solid minutes of running she ducked under the metal fence surrounding a dilapidated warehouse. Decker and Mark followed. She eased aside a door that dangled on its hinges and came to a stop in the middle of the room.

It was an old factory, long abandoned by the look of things. In the far corner a rat scratched at something in an oily puddle. It glanced up at them, then returned its attention to lunch.

“Where are we?” Decker asked.

It was a good question. They’d taken so many turns that even with his infallible sense of direction Mark would be hard-pressed to find true north.

“El Eden,” the girl responded.

“Is that still in Mexico City?” Mark asked.

“You really were kidnapped, weren’t you?” The girl examined them more closely. “You’re in Iztapalapa. It’s one of the delegaciones.”

“The ninth borough,” Mark said, remembering the map he’d studied prior to the mission.

“Shit, we barely moved at all.” Decker barked a short laugh.

He was right. The rescue mission had been launched in the southern section of Iztapalapa. They were probably less than two miles from where this all began.

“Thanks for getting us out of there,” Mark said. “Now we gotta get back to our friend.”

“I didn’t hear about any Americans getting kidnapped recently.” Her eyes narrowed. “And you don’t look like turistas.”

Decker was tearing open the packaging for the phone they’d taken from the store. He squinted at the instructions. “Do I need a code or something for this thing?”

“It only works if it’s activated at the register.”

“Crap,” Decker said.

The girl drew a cell phone out of her jacket pocket and tossed it to him.

“Thanks,” he said. “What’s your name, anyway?”

“Isabela Garcia,” she said. “Who are you calling?”

“A friend.”

Mark waved him over, keeping an eye on Isabela. “I don’t think we should call Tyr,” he said in a low voice.