Authors: Kim McMahill
Jack studied the men and the area closely, taking in every detail that had changed, trying to find the weak spots. He was certain the men on the porch were the same two men they had overtaken earlier in the evening and locked up, so he doubted they were in very good humor. He was a little surprised to see the man Jessica hit with the cast-iron pot up and walking. The image of her holding the pot over the unconscious man brought a brief small smile to his lips.
The two men lit cigarettes and paced back and forth. They stopped and spoke to each other in Spanish, keeping their voices low. They glared at each other, took a few puffs and paced once again. The routine continued until a third man, who Jack had never seen before, came outside. The two men snuffed out their cigarettes, stiffened and followed the newcomer obediently back into the house. As soon as the door shut the level of noise once again grew to a near roar.
For a moment, Jack was unable to move. What he had seen sucked the air from his lungs. The third man to come outside was dressed in a common law enforcement uniform, but the insignia patch on his shoulder read PJE,
Policía Judicial del Estado
. The PJE had been defunct for years and he knew the uniform was commonly used by
Las Culebras
to deceive law-abiding citizens.
If he was correct, they were in even more trouble than he could have possibly imagined. He had to act quickly and get back to Megan and Jessica. He had told them to leave in sixty minutes if he hadn’t returned, but if they did, he was now confident the two women had little chance of survival with the PJE on their trail.
There was no cover between Jack and the van, but he believed it best to return the pack to where he was sure the drugs would be found. He crouched low and dashed for the vehicle. He tried the driver’s side door and released a sigh of relief when he discovered it unlocked. He set the pack on the ground and eased the door open, quickly pressing his finger to the button in the doorframe to keep the interior lights from coming on. Without a sound, he retrieved the pack from the ground and laid it on the seat.
As he began to shut the van’s old rusty door, it creaked. He froze
¾
one hand on the door handle and the other still holding the button in the doorframe. The voices in the house silenced. For a moment, it seemed as if his life was a movie and someone had just pushed the pause button. There was no movement and no sound, even the night insects halted their songs.
Jack stood still, hoping the men would resume their argument when they heard no other sounds coming from outside. But the moment that had been briefly frozen in time, quickly vanished as the night erupted into chaos.
Chairs skidded across the wooden floor and the shuffle of feet racing toward the door erased all hopes of a quiet getaway. Jack slammed the door and darted into the trees, running around the house. When he reached the opposite side, he made as much noise as he could, exaggerating with heavy footfalls and breaking branches with each stride.
Gunfire from automatic rifles rained into the trees, sending debris showering down around him. Jack had no doubt the gunfire was from AK-47s, since that was the weapon of choice for
Las Culebras
. The bullets didn’t land anywhere near him since the men hadn’t pinned a visual on him and they were firing only in the direction of sounds. Jack encouraged them to expend a great deal of ammunition before he fell to the ground with a thud and silenced his movements. The shots ceased and shouting and running replaced the thunder.
Jack scrambled to his feet. He moved with the cunning stealth of a jaguar. He hadn’t used these skills in years, but it all came back to him in a rush. He slipped through the jungle without a sound. When he arrived back at where he’d begun, he silently raced toward the place where he had left Jessica and Megan.
The sounds of men running through the trees in the opposite direction verified he had been successful in throwing them off course, but the ploy had wasted a lot of time. Jack imagined them looking for a dead or wounded man and losing focus on their mission. By the time they realized they had been fooled, he would be long.
Jack had no idea how long he had been gone since Jessica had the only watch, but hoped it hadn’t been more than sixty minutes. She seemed like the resourceful type and in most situations he figured she could take care of herself, and Megan was coming around, but the danger level had just skyrocketed with the addition of
Las Culebras
.
Las Culebras
were a group of elite Mexican commandos who had been trained by U.S. forces in the United States to combat the drug cartels and to try and stem the tide of illegal trafficking in drugs and human cargo across the border into the United States. The plan had started out well, but once trained most of the commandos switched sides and worked for the cartels. Some were still being paid by the U.S. government, but most weren’t and it was impossible to tell who was who, which made them all the more dangerous. They controlled much of the border region through fear and intimidation. They were extremely violent, ruthless, well-trained and heavily armed.
Jack was exhausted from all the running, but pressed on. Once the women left, it would be very difficult to find them in the jungle and they would be on their own. He had hoped that once the drugs were returned the men wouldn’t try to track them, but after what he had seen, he doubted they'd be so lucky.
Shots sounded in the far distance. Jessica and Megan leapt to their feet and turned to face the noise. Jessica glanced at the watch. It was seven-fifty. If they followed Jack’s instructions, they would leave in ten minutes.
“If those shots are for Jack and somehow he’s eluded them, he may just now be leaving the house. I say we give him thirty minutes from this point. What do you think? Leave in ten like he told us or leave in thirty?”
“I say let’s give him thirty, but let’s bundle up this stuff, hide and be ready to run if we’re wrong.”
“I like the way you think.” Jessica shook out the pillowcase the grenades had been wrapped in and loaded the blanket, water jug and tortillas. Jessica secured the pillowcase’s top using a strap she had removed from the pack before Jack left. The strap was long enough for her to slip it over her head and across her shoulder for easy carrying.
While she adjusted the strap, she noticed Megan retrieve the rifle Jack had left behind. Megan examined it closely then slung the rifle over her shoulder. With their meager supplies loaded, they left the small clearing and hid behind a tree to wait.
The flutter of bats and the whine of hungry mosquitoes seemed unnaturally loud to Jessica as she strained to hear some indication of a human presence. She swatted at the pests and found the vibrating sounds of locust and crickets unnerving. Croaking frogs surrounded them, but what she really feared was night-hunting snakes. She glanced over at Megan and read none of the same anxiety. The woman was cool and focused and didn’t seem to notice the blood-sucking mosquitoes feasting on her bare legs.
Jessica kept looking at the watch. It was now eight-twenty-five. In five minutes, they’d leave if Jack didn’t show. She was afraid to move on without him, but didn’t want to sound weak, so kept her worries to herself. He had told them which direction to head, but she wasn’t confident they wouldn’t end up walking in circles or straight back to the kidnappers. Telling her to head east and north was like telling her to perform heart surgery. She knew there was something about the sun rising in some direction and setting in the other, but she had never paid attention and besides, that did little good in the dark of night.
Someone approached. Megan slid the rifle from her shoulder and clicked off the safety before they cautiously peeked from behind the tree. They nearly screamed for joy when they saw it was Jack. Megan set the rifle down and they both ran to him and threw their arms around him, sandwiching him between them.
Jack grabbed Jessica’s wrist and looked at the watch. “You should have been long gone by now,” he scolded. “But, I’m glad you waited.”
“We heard shots and figured they probably came from the house and were aimed at you. We decided to think positive and give you thirty minutes from that point.” Jessica slipped the bundle off her shoulder and removed the water jug for him.
He watched with approval as Megan retrieved the rifle, reset the safety and carefully leaned it against a nearby tree. He was thankful both women apparently had good survival instincts, because he now knew they would need more than luck if they hoped to live another day.
“Here, eat something.” Megan handed him a tortilla. “And, tell us what happened back there.”
Jack sat down to catch his breath. He drank from the jug Jessica handed him and ate a tortilla as Megan demanded, while explaining about the additional guys, where he had placed the pack and why they heard the shots.
He shared with them what he knew about
Las Culebras
. He wasn’t sure Megan comprehended just how dangerous these men could be, but by the look on Jessica’s face he suspected she’d heard of this group before. He didn’t want to scare them, but he wanted them to have a healthy respect for the force hunting them and he was now certain that at least Jessica did.
“Now, it’s your turn,” he said while looking at Jessica. “What did Gilbert know that you didn’t want him to tell? What information did he have that was so big our captors felt the need to bring in the most deadly hired guns in Mexico? If we are to survive, we have to trust each other and I have to know everything.”
Jessica didn’t see any harm in telling them now. What she suspected would happen if their kidnappers knew the truth did happen, but now that they’d escaped the information seemed harmless.
“Have you ever heard of Senator Hughes from Texas?”
Both Jack and Megan nodded.
“He’s my father.”
Jessica watched as Jack’s head dropped and he pushed his hair back on his forehead and Megan’s eyes popped open wide. They didn’t comment, so she continued.
“During the early election years my face was plastered all over the newspapers and it took Gilbert a while to place me, but when he did, he thought he could use the knowledge to negotiate his own freedom. He thought I alone would be valuable enough to the kidnappers that they wouldn’t need the rest of you. I begged him not to tell. He was probably right about me being all the leverage they needed, but I believed with all my heart they wouldn’t just release the rest of you or take you back to the ruins. If they no longer needed you, I had no doubt they would kill you. If I thought telling them who I was would have freed everyone else, I would have told them myself right from the start.”
Jessica stared at Jack, trying to gauge his reaction. She was worried he would be mad at her for not telling him sooner, but she had only done what she thought was best for everyone’s safety.
“What an idiot,” he finally muttered. “You were right and any moron would have known that. Even if they got what they wanted, we would’ve never been released. Exposing your identity would have shortened everyone’s life, except yours, and upped the security when they realized what they had, eliminating any chance of escape. As soon as they realized they’d hit the jackpot, they called in reinforcements.”
“Wow. I knew you looked familiar. Since I go to school in Texas, I probably saw your picture in the paper. It’s those eyes that give you away. That’s right. Your father calls you Bluebell and the media eats it up,” Megan stated.
“Bluebell?” Jack burst out laughing. “That’s good. That’s really good, but I’d say hitting a man over the head with a cast-iron pot is a little out of character for a tiny woman called Bluebell.”
Jessica scowled. “My father gave me that name when I was a little girl and no one else, I mean no one, is allowed to call me that. You got it?”
“I think it’s sweet,” Megan added. “But, if you two will look around, we still have a big problem here.”
Jessica began reassembling her bundle, more to avoid looking at Jack than any pressing need. She hated the nickname. Most people were usually at least polite about it. He was the first person who had ever laughed at her and she felt like a complete idiot. He was so cocky sometimes that she wanted to strangle him, but at the moment she needed him, not that she would ever admit it.
“I thought once they reacquired their drugs, they might decide it was easier to search for some new hostages to use to negotiate their brother’s release, but since we’re traveling in the company of Senator Hughes’ daughter, I doubt we’ll be that fortunate. But seeing as her father is a very powerful man, I can almost guarantee this jungle is crawling with Special Forces by now and with any luck, we’ll find a very large group of them soon.”
Jessica had heard of
Las Culebras
before and the irony of the situation was nearly too much. The fiasco had nearly cost her father a re-election bid, but fortunately the defection of the commandos was kept low-key in the media. Training Mexican anti-drug commandos in the U.S. at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning had been his baby. He had fought ardently for the approval of the project and millions of dollars in funding. He believed the idea would solve the border problem of human and drug trafficking, but it had backfired. The men he had worked so hard to get the U.S. to train and arm were now hunting his daughter.