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“The Cortez Cartel has a stronghold in La Paz. Given the orientation of the water and the sparseness of the population, that’s my best guess.”
“I’ve never heard of La Paz.”
“It’s not very touristy, not like Cabo. ICE thinks the cartel works it like a mafia, with their fingerprints everywhere, even in the local police.”
“Is the Cortez Cartel Mexico’s most powerful?”
“Not by a long shot. That would be the La Mérida Cartel. Before he was arrested, their leader, Gael Vega, started his own militia that rivals the Mexican military in power.”
They were warned of their captors’ return by the sound of boots in the hall followed by clicking locks moments before the door opened. The man who had taken their horses entered holding a bottle of brownish water and a bowl of rice, followed by an armed guard who stopped in the doorway.
He held the water to Camille’s lips. She turned away, not about to let it pollute her body. The man chased her mouth with the bottle and nudged at her closed lips a few times. Poking her with a spoonful of rice, he shouted in Spanish and gestured to the window. When she didn’t relent, he moved to Aaron, who also refused. Only two minutes after arriving, the man and his guard left.
“Wish I’d paid more attention in my high school Spanish classes,” she grumbled.
“He said this is your last chance for food until he returns tomorrow morning. And that you would be stupid to refuse.”
Of course the Golden Boy spoke fluent Spanish. But she had to admit, the skill might come in handy when they escaped. And they would escape, she thought as she wiggled her wrists, teasing the rope against the barb.
Hours later, long after the room had gone dark and Aaron was only an outline as he sat in silence a few feet away, Camille felt the rope finally give. Her hands bore the evidence of her effort with countless scrapes and puncture wounds from the rusty barb. Thank goodness she kept up with her tetanus shot.
Once free, she bent to work on the ropes binding her feet.
“What the …?” Aaron said.
“Those idiots shouldn’t have used such old chairs. Mine had a sharp edge perfect for sawing rope.”
“Good thing, too, because the clock’s ticking, Blondie. We don’t have time—”
Camille’s first order of business as an escapee was to make one minor but vital point with Aaron. “Let’s get something straight—don’t ever call me Blondie again. Or Sweetie or Doll or any of those derogatory nicknames you’re so fond of. I hate it. Understood?”
“Okay, I got it.”
Satisfied, Camille began untying the rope around Aaron’s wrists.
“Like I was saying,” he continued, “we don’t have much time before frog man and his bodyguard bring us breakfast at gunpoint.”
Camille looked out the window at the first glow of predawn. If they were lucky, they had maybe an hour or two to devise a plan. “As far as weapons go, we’ve got this rope and these chairs, but that’s not enough. I’ve got another idea, but it’ll take some time to prep.”
“Care to explain?”
“Not yet.” What she had in mind would open her up to all kinds of ridicule, so she decided to keep mum until she was certain it would work. While Aaron freed his legs from the chair, Camille slipped to the darkest corner of the room and took off her bra.
Aaron’s heart pounded so loudly, he was surprised Camille couldn’t hear it. Without weapons to defend themselves, they were as good as dead. And what weapon could they find in this room that would be any match for automatic rifles?
The chairs were too ungainly. The guard would have plenty of time to react if he saw a twenty-pound metal chair coming at him. He tested the individual spokes and chair legs, hoping to break one off and use it as a club or knife, but no such luck. He could wield a shard of glass from the window, but if anyone were in the courtyard, they would hear it break.
“Camille, I’m running out of ideas.” He glanced in her direction.
What he saw was so at odds with what he expected that words died in his throat. Trying to ignore the taut points of her nipples beneath her thin white camisole, he watched her bite a hole in the beige bra she held.
“You got a weapon stashed in there or something?”
She ignored him and pulled a long, thin wire from inside the bra cup, then snapped it in half. “Bet you didn’t know underwire is flat like a screwdriver.”
“No, can’t say I’ve thought much about bras except how to get them off as quickly as possible.”
Rolling her eyes, she turned away and put her bra on. Still confused, Aaron gaped at her back. Once she’d righted her clothes, she knelt before the door that led outside. Using the blunt end of the underwire, she loosened the doorknob’s screws.
“Throwing a doorknob at them is better than nothing, but hardly game changing, MacGyver.”
She glanced sideways at him. “You’re a dense man. We’ve been over this already. I hate nicknames. Take off one of your socks so we can put the doorknob in it. We can do serious damage to someone’s head that way.”
Aaron grinned, genuinely impressed. Even so, he couldn’t stem the urge to tease her. “I didn’t think a chick would be so handy to have around.”
She jumped to her feet and rushed him. With fiery eyes, she poked him hard in the chest and waved the underwire beneath his nose. “You ought to show more respect to the person who’s saving your life.” She poked him again. “I’m not one of those helpless cupcakes you waste your time with. I graduated head of my class at the police academy and was the first female Special Forces Officer in San Diego. Those sons of bitches have no idea what a mistake they made messing with me.”
Aaron held up his hands in surrender. The gesture lost significance by the fact that he was chuckling. For some sick and twisted reason he didn’t care to analyze, he liked her when she was all riled up this way. “Cupcakes?”
Camille snorted and went back to work on the doorknob screws. “Yeah, well, that’s what they look like to me with their poofy hair and fake nails and fluffy clothes—little pink frosted cupcakes with sprinkles. Completely free of substance.”
Aaron gawked at her. Not for the first time since their ordeal began, she’d rendered him speechless.
She was right. Most of the women he knew were a bunch of cupcakes compared to her, a woman so self-sufficient and physically capable that she was the one planning to save his life. She was the one fashioning tools out of her bra and improvising weaponry. He supposed he hadn’t noticed sooner because they’d never been in a clinch situation before, but the lady was a badass.
He was fascinated … and irritated as hell to realize it.
Well, he had no intention of standing around and letting Camille be the only hero. While she finessed the external doorknob to stay in place, he removed his sock, slid the interior knob inside and took a few practice swings. As far as bludgeons went, this one would do nicely.
“The guard’ll have a gun, so the trick will be to catch him unaware,” he deliberated.
Camille stood and adjusted her skirt. “I thought of that, too. That’s where our rope will come in handy.”
Their animosity forgotten, they scooted their chairs together and hashed out a plan. Stripped of sarcasm and defensiveness, Aaron was surprised by how similarly their minds worked. Within minutes, they knew how to proceed and the role each would play.
They took positions on either side of the hallway door and waited. Feeling more confident than he had since being taken hostage, he smiled at Camille, who responded with a sly grin of her own.
In the two years he’d known her, this was the first time he’d ever seen her smile. He liked the effect it had on her features. It didn’t soften her but made her look more powerful and capable and all those things Aaron was discovering this extraordinary woman was beneath her cold exterior. He studied her, mesmerized by her complexity, as she stood with a rope in hand, ready to spring at her enemy.
They had plenty of warning when it was showtime. Boots in the hallway, a lock rattling. With the click of the second lock, Aaron’s muscles tensed. Camille crouched, leaning toward the door, the rope tight in her hands.
This was going to be fast.
The whole choreographed sequence would take less than a minute. The placement of their footfalls and the timing of their moves had to be exact. He and Camille would have to work as though they were breathing in unison.
The door swung wide, hiding Aaron behind it. Holding his position, he gripped the bludgeon and prayed.
Camille let the man get both feet in the room and register that the chairs were empty. She dropped the rope over his head and pulled him against her, strangling him as she moved backward three steps.
The guard played his part perfectly. He ran into the room and faced Camille and her hostage, his finger on the trigger of his rifle, shouting at her in Spanish.
“In,” Camille said.
At her cue, Aaron kicked the door closed. With unflinching purpose, he brought the bludgeon down on the guard’s head, felling him instantly. Then, working in perfect synchronization, Aaron straddled the guard and swung the bludgeon as Camille pushed her captive toward him. It took two thumps with the doorknob before he crumpled atop the unconscious guard.
Aaron stood over the two fallen bodies looking the part of a victorious warrior, surveying his conquered foes. Camille tried to be subtle about it, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. He gripped the bludgeon in his hand, and her gaze followed the sinews of his arm to his massive biceps and broad shoulder—muscles that no longer seemed like a sign of his vanity, but weapons in his arsenal. Despite all they’d been through, the shadows of his dimples remained and his wavy blond hair still looked boyishly carefree, but the planes of his jaw were rigidly set and the expression on his face was one she’d never seen on him before—hard and dangerous.
He raised his eyes and caught Camille staring. She wrenched her gaze to the window, her whole upper body flushing hot.
The guard moaned, snapping Camille back to the moment. She lunged for his gun at the same time Aaron did, but he reached it first. The guard moaned again before Aaron knocked his head with the butt of the rifle, sending him out cold once more.
Camille searched the men for weapons and discovered a short-barreled .38 Special. She spun the cylinder to check for bullets, which was no easy task given the way her hand shook. Here we go, she thought, snapping the fully loaded cylinder in place. The last thing she wanted to do was reveal this weakness to Aaron.
You see, I have this condition called post-traumatic stress disorder …
She cringed. Then she had an idea. “Aaron, you mind trading guns?”
He tsked in protest, but held the rifle out. “I guess size really does matter to a lady.”
With the rifle, Camille felt better. She could hold it with both hands instead of one and steady it against her shoulder when she fired. Besides, one didn’t need to strive for accuracy with an M16. She slung the gun’s strap over her head and pushed the rifle around to her back. Squatting, she removed the guard’s shoes and black jeans.
“What are you doing?” Aaron asked.
“I hate wearing skirts.” She unzipped the offensive garment and pushed it down an inch before remembering her audience. Aaron’s face was frozen in a grimace. So she disgusted him, what else was new? She couldn’t escape shoeless, wearing a skirt. “Do you mind?”
“Do I mind that you’re about to put on those nasty pants? Hell, yeah. They look like a biological superweapon.”
“No, wise guy. Do you mind giving me some privacy?”
He faced the wall. Ignoring the foul odor wafting from the pants, Camille donned them and folded the waist to help with the fit.
“You can turn around now.”
She tried on the other man’s sneakers and was grateful they were a near fit.
“That’s quite a look you’ve created.”
She brought the rifle forward, gripping it tightly with both hands to keep the shaking to a minimum. “Yeah, I’m a real fashion maven. I’m calling this look Cartel Chic.”
Aaron chuckled and Camille surprised herself by joining in. She did look pretty awful.
Too soon, the moment passed as they remembered where they were and what they’d done. Both sets of eyes returned to the unconscious figures on the ground.
“That was almost too easy,” Camille said.
“We’re not done yet, Blondie. We still have to escape from the compound.”
Chapter 4
Camille was ready. She rolled her shoulders and felt the slide of her muscles against her camisole. Maybe it was only the effect of the adrenaline surging through her system, but she felt her position of power all the way to her toes. This random fate that had befallen her, to die at the hands of a bunch of criminals for a cause that wasn’t her own, was about to get the shaft.
She walked to the door. “Ready?”
Aaron stood behind her, the .38 Special brushing her shoulder. “Let’s do it.”
She opened the door a crack, listening. A television set blared from the direction she and Aaron had been brought into the building, with a woman shouting in Spanish like a game show announcer might, against a background of hooting and cheers from an audience. Unable to hear anything above the din, she nosed her head through the doorway.
Somewhere nearby, a door banged closed. Camille flinched and pulled back, listening until she picked up the barely audible sound of a man’s voice amid the television’s noise. Then a second person spoke. A child. At the sound of Rosalia’s pixie voice, Camille ached. She wanted to scoop the little girl up and run with her back to California, straight to the loving arms of her mother. But instead of acting impetuously and getting them all killed in a firefight, the best she could do for Rosalia was escape and tell U.S. authorities where to find her. Still, it was heart wrenching to leave her behind.
They crept into the hallway and turned right, toward three closed doors. It felt like Russian roulette, picking a door to open not knowing who or what was on the other side, but they had no other options.
Camille turned the knob of the first door. Aaron placed a hand on the small of her back and the barrel of his gun on her shoulder, angling it through the opening. She scanned the darkness. Someone slept on a cot along the wall. He stirred and rolled on his side. Holding her breath, she closed the door.
They tiptoed to the next room, though the blaring television program masked the sound of their movement. Aaron placed his hand on the doorknob. Camille wasn’t tall enough to aim her weapon over his shoulder, so she slid it along his side, under his arm. The knob turned; the seconds ticked by. Aaron stuck his face through the crack. He smiled at Camille and stepped inside. Camille followed, closing the door behind her.
This room was not as dark as the first. The window was uncurtained and unbarred. A row of wooden crates identical to those pushed out of the plane sat along one wall, stacked two high. On another wall stood a table weighed down with piles of American cash.
Camille walked to the crates and tried to lift one. “Help me with this.”
“What are you doing?”
“These guys are weapons smugglers, right? So what do you think’s in these boxes, donations to Goodwill?”
“You guard the door. I’ll look inside.” He tucked the gun into his waistband. Camille tried to ignore the zing of desire that hit her at that maneuver. What a stupid thing to think about when their lives were in danger. On second thought, it was a stupid thing to think about at any time. She had no business ever thinking about Aaron’s pants or what he put in them.
He lifted a box to the ground and dumped packing peanuts on the floor.
“This was the best idea you’ve ever had, Blondie.”
With her rifle aimed at the closed door, she walked backward until she stood over the box. Aaron was right. This was the best idea she’d ever had. She didn’t even care that he’d called her that terrible name again because in the box, nestled in a black nylon bag, were ten Smith & Wesson M&P 9 mm pistols. With silencers. And boxes of ammunition.
Aaron moved the .38 from the front of his waistband to the back. He screwed a silencer on to a 9 mm and loaded the magazine. Repeating the process with a second pistol, he handed it to Camille. She tucked it into her jeans.
“Don’t you want to trade up for the silent model?” Aaron asked with honest surprise.
Camille wasn’t about to admit her gun-handling defect. “Like you said, size matters.”
He snorted and moved the bag to the table. “I’ll look in the next box. You load this with cash.”
They set to work. Within the span of a few minutes, their luck had improved tenfold. Instead of two guns with limited ammunition, they now had two AR-15 assault rifles, four 9 mm pistols with silencers, countless rounds of ammo, four grenades and—by Camille’s hasty count—two hundred and fifty thousand U.S. dollars.
The grenades were an interesting find. Camille would have had no moral qualms against blowing up the compound and everyone in it if Rosalia hadn’t been present. Then she had another idea. It would be extremely risky, but still, it might work.
“Aaron, are there any more grenades in those boxes?”
The woman had balls, figuratively of course. Aaron was sure he couldn’t have come up with a better plan if given a week to think about it. He rummaged through the boxes until he found another grenade, which he handed to Camille. Replacing the lid, he moved the box under the window to use as a step.
“I’ll be right back,” she whispered.
