I lower the driver’s-side window, stick my head out, get drenched.
All I see ahead of me are the line of cars and the red taillights.
Another five minutes slip by.
Another five miles lost.
I roll up the window, lean over to the passenger’s seat, take out my atlas and a road map of this part of Texas that I got from a service station an hour ago. There’s got to be another way out of here. With my four-wheel drive I could scoot across the grass median, get on the highway heading northeast, find a state road that will at least get me headed in the right direction.
Somebody hammers at my window.
I yelp in surprise, drop the maps, thrust my hand into my open leather bag, and grab my revolver.
CHAPTER 44
A HISPANIC male, thin mustache, black hair flattened down by the rain, eyes wide with fear or terror, wearing a soaked checked shirt and blue jeans, slams both hands again on my window.
“Por favor!” he yells. “Please! Mi familia! My family! They’re drowning!”
I roll down the window, keeping the other hand with the revolver hidden. “What?”
He points down at the length of stalled cars. “Mi familia! They are in my car! Por favor! Help me rescue them! Your Jeep! Please!”
My first thought is brutally honest and real. Sucks to be you, I immediately think, because I need to get moving to rescue my Tom and Denise. A few hours ago I almost murdered an innocent Tennessee police officer, up close and personal. It wouldn’t take much to abandon this terrified father and husband.
Then, just as quickly, I’m ashamed of what just went through my mind, and a calmer voice makes an appearance: Help this guy out right now, you can get the traffic moving, it’ll be faster than trying to puzzle out the maps to find an alternate route.
I shout, “Get in!” and I toss the maps in the back, along with my revolver, now in my leather bag. He runs past the front of my Wrangler, gets into the passenger’s side, soaking everything, and he says, “Hurry! ¡Rápido! ¡Rápido! Please!”
I put the Jeep into reverse, slam it into first, start driving down the side of the road, half of the Wrangler on pavement, the other half on the muddy median. Up ahead two pickup trucks have pulled over and I roll up, and there are a couple of men there, in cowboy hats and long yellow rain slickers, and they wave me on, past torn-up grass and dirt where it looks like a vehicle has skidded off the highway.
As I slow down, my passenger jumps out and I put the Jeep into park, step out.
The rain’s heavier.
I take in the scene in one long, hard glance.
To the right is a plain concrete bridge, two-lane, spanning what was probably a trickling stream, but not today. It’s a roaring, racing river, with torrents and whitecaps and sprays of spume, and down the muddy grass embankment, there are a line of people, holding hands, trying to get to an overturned red Chevrolet in the rapids.
The would-be rescuers are not going to make it.
The water’s moving too fast, too hard. It will knock all of them off their feet.
I get back into my Jeep, make a muddy U-turn, and back my way down the embankment, looking at the rearview mirror and side mirror, trying to gauge where I am.
I brake hard, get out, and go to the tailgate, slam it open.
Nestled under an old blanket, a fire extinguisher, and a toolbox is a length of chain. I always keep a chain in my Jeep for those few times each winter when an inch of snow causes Virginia to collapse in chaos, with cars and trucks off the freeway.
I hook the chain onto the trailer hitch, and the Hispanic man, eager to help, grabs the other end of the chain, goes down to the overturned car, fastens it to the rear axle.
He waves at me. “¡Rápido! Please!”
I get back into the Wrangler, shift it into low, and then look at the side-view mirror, get a glimpse of the chain, and see it move up and get taut.
Now.
I hit the accelerator, the wheels churn and spin, and I make a few feet of progress. I look up again and the Chevrolet is moving. It’s moving.
Damn!
The current has grabbed the Chevy and is taking it downstream.
And me along with it.
The Wrangler stumbles back, I shift again, pumping the accelerator, and I don’t think I’m going to make it. In my mind’s eye, I can see it all, the Chevy dragging me in, the fastened chain linking my Wrangler, no way to get out, nothing to do but open the door right now and dive out onto the soggy embankment.
Damn it!
I see quick movement.
Men and women are in the water, holding on to the floating Chevy, pushing it to shore, and I hit the accelerator again, and now I’m going, now I’m going. I drag the overturned vehicle a few meters and stop.
The Chevrolet is out of the water. The driver’s-side door flops open. Water streams from it. The Hispanic father has a hammer in his hand, and he’s joined by a bulky woman in dungarees with a crowbar, and both of them attack the windows.
I get out and slop through the mud, and by the time I get to the car, a young woman, a little girl, and a little boy have been dragged out.
They’re coughing, they’re choking, but they’re alive.
I stop in knee-deep water, breathing hard, as the sirens start wailing in the distance.
A local volunteer fire department and its ambulance arrive, along with a number of volunteers with flashing red lights in their vehicles’ grilles. Then a Texas state trooper arrives, and names are taken, and photographs, and statements, and the Hispanic father—named Carlos—keeps on hugging me, and hugging me, and all the while I’m thinking, I’ve got to go, but I can’t race away, because that will raise too many questions.
The rain finally lets up as I get away from the crowd of rescuers, onlookers, EMS, and law enforcement, and with wet and muddy boots, I get back into the Wrangler.
The thought comes to me, like a sweet taste of wine, that I’ve rescued a family.
I check my watch.
I have thirty minutes to call the kidnapper with the word that I’ve fulfilled his demands.
And I’m an hour away from Three Rivers.
I’ve saved this family.
And killed my own.
CHAPTER 45
WITH HIS trusted associate Casper Khourery at his side, Pelayo Abboud unlocks the basement door and strolls in to check on his guests. Coming in behind Casper is the woman doctor from Afghanistan, named Bahara. Even in this heat, the woman insists on wearing a loose black robe nearly covering her plump body, and a distant, human part of Pelayo admires such piousness.
The inside of the room stinks—from fear, burnt tissue, and a foul scent from the area of the chemical toilet. The little girl cries out as they come in, and the poor man backpedals his way across the bed, until his back is up against the cement wall, his eyes wide, holding up his injured arm in an awkward position.
“Please,” Pelayo says. “Let the doctor examine you.”
Tom’s face is red and his eyes are swollen from all the weeping and sobbing, and even though Pelayo can sense the fear in the broken man, Tom does as he’s told and gingerly presents the burnt arm to the doctor.
She sits across from Tom on the girl’s bed, whispers to the girl, and little Denise turns her head and looks to the wall. Tom groans a couple of times as the doctor goes through her large black valise and begins to work on Tom’s arm. It looks like a raw, bloody business, and Pelayo—who fondly recalls killing a school bully back in Veracruz by shoving a mechanical pencil in the teen boy’s right ear, said pencil having been gifted to him on his twelfth birthday by his grandfather—doesn’t flinch.