Breaking Point (7 page)

He was talking about her breasts.

Her heart gave a hard knock. “Wh-what are you saying?”

But Zach ignored her. He was arguing with Sr. Scar Face, who quit groping her—
thank God!
—and began shouting in rapid Spanish. Zach answered calmly, giving a little tug on his chains and motioning toward Natalie with a jerk of his head. And although Natalie couldn’t understand more than a phrase or two, she knew their disagreement revolved around whether Zach would give up the location of the stolen cocaine before or after they unchained him and let him have her.

Then Sr. Scar Face reached up and grabbed Zach by the throat, his voice going cold and deadly quiet, each word enunciated clearly. “
¿Dónde está la cocaína?
”
Where is the cocaine?

The room fell silent.

Zach laughed, winced as if laughing hurt, then answered in Spanish.

Sr. Scar Face glowered at him and shouted something to the other Zetas. As abruptly as her blouse and bra had been removed, they were shoved into her hands. She turned her back on the men to dress, her fingers fumbling as she tried to fasten her bra clasp and buttons, angry shouts filling the little room.

When she turned around again, Zach was blindfolded once more. Confused, afraid, she wanted answers. “Zach, what—”

He turned his face toward her, a black bandana tied tightly over his eyes. “Go, Natalie! Go, and don’t ask questions!”

The Zeta with the skeleton tattoo grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door, but not before she saw Sr. Scar Face pick up the electric cables and move in on Zach.

She heard her own voice shout in protest. “Stop it! Please don’t—”

Then a hand closed roughly over her mouth, and she was dragged out the door, Zach’s agonized cry following her back to her cell.

NATALIE PRESSED THE joint of her left handcuff against the mortar and scraped as hard as she could. It was so dark she couldn’t see, but she knew she was making progress, mortar crumbling like sand and falling over her fingers to the floor. If she could scrape away the mortar and remove the bricks around the metal plate that held the latch, she might be able to open her cell door and escape. At the very least, she had to try.

If she didn’t find a way out of here, she would have to endure a lot worse than just a man’s filthy, repulsive hands on her breasts.

She scraped back and forth until her arms ached and she was out of breath, then rested for a few minutes and started again, oblivious to anything that crept or crawled in the darkness, a part of her listening for Zach’s quiet moans—proof that he was still alive. They’d brought him back about twenty minutes ago, two Zetas dragging his unconscious body between them, and although she’d called his name, he hadn’t responded.

What if he doesn’t wake up?

He would wake up. He had to wake up.

She would never forget the sight of him, blindfolded and chained from the ceiling, his body twisting in agony as electricity shot through him. She couldn’t fathom how he had endured that for a single hour, let alone six days.

All for some stupid cocaine.

His suffering dwarfed her own. Even so, she’d never felt more violated in her life, the sickening sensation of that man’s hands cupping and squeezing her breasts leaving her nauseated. Even worse had been the expressions on the men’s faces—even Zach’s. They’d made her feel dirty, degraded, less than human, like a sexual toy to be played with and eventually broken. Oh, how she wanted a bath!

At least they didn’t torture you, too.

That’s what she’d thought they planned to do when they’d brought her into the church. She would probably never know exactly what had happened in that room—why they’d brought her in, why they’d stripped off her blouse and bra, why Sr. Scar Face had groped her, displaying her to Zach like a piece of meat, why Zach had looked at her the way he had or said the things he’d said. They’d been trying to make a deal—information about the cocaine Zach had stolen in return for sex with her. Although part of her wanted to believe that Zach had been pretending, that he’d been playing along in hopes of escaping, she’d realized she knew nothing about him besides the fact that he’d stolen cocaine. And as she’d sat in the dark, unable to keep herself from hearing his cries, the stark reality of her situation had become clear.

If she wanted to live, she had to find a way to escape.

She certainly had nothing to lose by trying. The worst the Zetas could do was kill her, but Cárdenas was going to do that anyway. She might as well fight them with everything she had. At least then she’d have a chance.

That’s when it had dawned on her that their little prison was made of the same crumbling adobe bricks as the houses. She’d tested it, scraping it with the edge of her handcuffs, her heart soaring when the mortar turned easily to dust. Then she’d looked around for the quickest and surest way out and had gone to work.

Why hadn’t she thought of this sooner?

Though she
was
making progress, it was slow going. If they came for Zach again, if they caught her, if Cárdenas came for her before she was finished . . .

Don’t go there, girl. Worrying won’t help.

Her mind kept drifted back to Zach—and what it would mean for both of them if she left him behind.

You can’t take him with you. You might not have time to break him out, too.

She might not. But to leave him here to suffer and die?

You don’t know him. You can’t trust him. He’s a criminal.

Yes, he was. But could she turn her back on him? She knew from the way he’d tried to comfort her that there was kindness in him. Besides, no man deserved to suffer as he had.

He told you to do whatever you had to do to survive. He would understand.

He might understand, but would she be able to live with herself? Or would she hear those terrible cries for the rest of her life?

You could escape and tell the authorities about him. They could come and rescue him.

Yes, if he wasn’t already dead by then.

Don’t worry about it now. You have to get out of your cell first.

If she got through this, she was going to live her life to the fullest. She was going to go dancing and date and spend more time with her I-Team friends. She was going to take art classes and learn how to ski. She was going to learn to make beignets just like her Tante Evangeline had made them.

If
she got through this.

She paused again to rest, her shoulders and neck aching, a thin layer of dust coating her skin, her teeth, her throat. “Zach? Can you hear me?”

Silence.

She went back to scraping.

 

NATALIE LOST ALL sense of time after that, though it seemed to her it must be after midnight. Loud music drifted across the courtyard together with the sound of men’s and women’s laughter. The Zetas had gone to town for some prostitutes—
those poor women!—
and were having a party.

She had managed to remove one small brick so far and was close to removing another, when the steel of her cuffs hit something hard. At first she thought it was the iron of the latch. Her pulse picking up, she ran her fingers over it, only to realize it had a different texture than the adobe—and was much harder.

Concrete.

Her stomach fell, and she sagged against the wall, fighting back a cry.

No! Please no!

As much as she didn’t want to believe it, she knew it was true. When they’d installed the doors, they’d reinforced the wall with concrete because the original mortar was so weak. The latch, the hinges—they were probably all reinforced with concrete.

It’s okay, girl. It’s okay. It just means you have to take out more bricks.

She would have to remove all the bricks around the concrete, too. Which meant it would take much longer—perhaps longer than she had.

Fighting hopelessness and panic, she scraped furiously. Then she felt something catch, and her left elbow flew back, hitting the wall behind her. It wasn’t until she reached over with her right hand to rub her funny bone that she realized her left wrist was free.

 

ZACH LAY WITH his face in the dirt, thirsty and weak from blood loss, the pain in his back excruciating, the sat phone broken. But that didn’t matter. He’d completed the call. Support was on its way—probably a chopper full of pissed-off SEALs and Army Night Stalkers.

The guys would be okay. He might not get out alive, but his element would.

From down in the valley came the sound of three M4s and one HK MP5 firing.

Give ’em hell, boys.

Blood loss making him desperately thirsty, Zach raised his head, prayed to God his pack was within reach—and then he saw. His body went cold.

Oh, Christ, no!

At least eighty enemy combatants snaked down the mountainside across from him, headed straight for the valley, all of them armed. They would come up behind his team and catch the men by surprise. The guys would be caught in a cross fire by an enemy that outnumbered them and had the high ground.

By the time support arrived, it would be too late—for all of them.

He reached for his rifle, determined to send as many Taliban fighters to hell as he could, only to find his hands chained behind his back. He couldn’t move.

Then Brian’s wife, Debbie, walked up to him, dressed in black, tears streaming down her face, baby in her arms. “You should have died, not my husband. Not my husband!”

From the valley below came an explosion of gunfire and the cries of dying men.

“Zach? Can you hear me?”

Zach gasped, opened his eyes, and saw nothing, the taste of blood and horror in his mouth. Cold, dirty stone pressed against his skin, his left side aching.

Mexico. Not Afghanistan. Not Afghanistan.

“Zach? Are you awake?” It was Natalie.

He didn’t bother trying to sit up, knowing it was beyond him. They’d put everything they had into breaking him, shocking him until he’d all but lost the ability to respond to pain. How his heart had held out, he wasn’t sure. But he knew that the next sunrise would mark his last day on this earth. The Zetas were through with him.

“Tomorrow, I will fry you until you die, even if it takes all day and all night,” his tormenter had hissed in his face just before they’d dragged him from the room.

All day and all night.

The leftover dread from his nightmare settled like lead in his belly.

“Zach, please wake up!”

He swallowed, his throat dry as sand. “I . . . I’m awake.”

“Oh, thank God! I thought you . . .” She didn’t finish the thought.

“No . . . I’m not dead.”
Not yet.

Her relief sounded sincere, and some part of him was touched that she cared enough to worry about him, especially after what he’d done. He knew she didn’t understand what had happened in that room. He needed to explain. He could no more rape a woman than eat his own balls. But before he could tell her that, he was drifting again.

Her voice brought him back. “If I get us out of here, will you promise to help me get safely back to the States?”

“What?” What in the hell had she just said?

“If I can get us both out of here, will you promise to help me get safely home?”

It was then he noticed a scraping sound.

He opened his eyes. “Do you think you have a way out?”

“The mortar is really dry and soft. I’ve been digging at it all night, and I think I’m going to be able to open my cell door soon. My handcuffs broke, and the curved part is really good

for scraping this stuff out.”

“Your handcuffs broke?” Zach’s mind raced, his pulse like thunder in his ears.

The scraping sound stopped.

“I hit concrete where they reinforced the wall,” she answered, out of breath, “and it snapped the left one open.”

“Natalie, I think you’ve got yourself a weapon.”

CHAPTER 5

“IT’S NOT EASY to kill a man, but that’s what you have to be ready to do.” Zach leaned against the cool bricks, all of his senses focused on the young woman on the other side of the wall. Both of their lives now depended entirely on her. He’d been coaching her all night, talking her through this, his already battered voice worn to a hoarse whisper. “Once you start this, you have to finish it. If you don’t, these bastards will take you apart piece by piece. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Her answer didn’t reassure him. How could she understand?

Killing was a brutal business. She didn’t know what it was like to look into a man’s panicked eyes, to smell his breath, to feel him fighting desperately to live—and to end his life. She wasn’t trained to fight. She wasn’t trained to kill.

Zach was. He should be the one getting ready to take on the Zetas, not Natalie. But until these chains came off, he was useless.

When she’d finally worked that last brick free and broken out of her cell, they’d realized there wasn’t enough time for her to break him out, too. So he’d told her to focus instead on getting rid of any sign that the door to her cell had been tampered with. They didn’t want an open cell door or displaced bricks to tip the Zetas off the moment they stepped inside. While she’d been busy settling bricks back into place, he’d tried to come up with a plan of attack that wouldn’t get her killed, an unshakable sense of guilt gnawing at him.