LITMIR.BIZ

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is a far cry from that, she thought wryly.

      Jagerson eased the car over to the curb.

      Syd approached Jake’s window. She leaned over as she spoke. Kelly’s eyes narrowed at the peek of bra revealed by that maneuver.

      “Shopkeeper is dirty all right. He didn’t have them there, but he probably has others.”

      “How do you know they weren’t there?” Kelly interrupted.

      Syd barely glanced at her. “Because he heard a rumor that the guys we’re after were in a van crash on the Mexico-Puebla highway early this morning. They were being moved out of the city. He thinks the hostages got away.”

      “He’s sure?” Jake asked.

      “Sure enough,” Syd said. “I made a call, we should have a copy of the accident report within the hour.”

      “Are they all okay?”

      “Apparently.”

      “How’d you get him to tell you all that?” Kelly asked. “How do we know he’s not lying?”

      Syd grinned at her. “I asked nicely.” She turned back to Jake. “I’ve got the general location of the crash. I say we head out there, see what we can find. It’s only a few clicks east.”

      “What about the other people?” Kelly asked.

      “What other people?”

      “You said he was keeping other hostages above the store.”

      “Yeah?” Syd gazed at her levelly.

      Kelly turned to Jake. “There has to be someone you can call.”

      He paused a beat before saying, “Kelly, no one’s supposed to—”

      “Someone must be looking for them. Maybe one of the other K&R companies.”

      “Not if they’re local,” Syd snorted. “Hell, you don’t even have to have money to get kidnapped down here. Some of the gangs offer a layaway plan.”

      Kelly stared Jake down. Finally he said, “I’ll have Demetri drop the AFI an anonymous tip.” Syd started to protest, but he cut her off. “Meanwhile, we go check out that crash site.”

      “What if the cops are still there?” Maltz asked.

      “They won’t be,” Syd said. “Happened early this morning, everything’ll be cleared up by now.”

      “And if some of the Zetas are there?” Kelly asked.

      “Then we consider ourselves lucky,” Syd said. “I’m dying to talk to one face-to-face.”

      Seven

      Mark Riley hunched in the shadows beside the pharmacy. One of the great things about Mexico was that you could get almost anything in their drugstores, from Botox to antibiotics. Until recently, most were poorly guarded. But lately addiction levels had spiked, and there had been a corresponding rise in pharmacy robberies. Many, like the one he was currently facing, had taken security precautions: an armed rent-a-cop was perched on a stool inside the doorway. He was clearly bored, eyes glued to the television set behind the counter. Still, he had a gun, which complicated things. Mark would prefer getting what they needed without hurting anyone. Hopefully this guy wouldn’t want to play cowboy.

      “What do you think?” Decker asked in a low voice.

      Mark had nicked a baseball cap from a sidewalk cart, and he pulled it low over his eyes. “We could try another one. Not a fan of dealing with a guard.”

      “We could. But Kaplan doesn’t have a lot of time,” Decker pointed out.

      He was right. It had taken longer than expected to find a safe place to hunker down. They’d left Kaplan, Flores and Sock in an abandoned building a few blocks away. Kaplan was losing blood too fast for them to stick together. And Mark wasn’t willing to leave him alone with Sock. So he and Decker set off to raid a pharmacy for meds and a cell phone. According to the locals, this was the only one open for blocks in any direction.

      “How’s your Spanish?” Mark asked.

      Decker shrugged. “I can get by.”

      “All right, you do the talking. Make sure they know we don’t want anyone to get hurt, we’ll just take what we need and be gone.”

      “Got it.”

      Mark took a deep breath. It was a little after 1000 hours. Despite the fact that it was late January, the sun beat down, baking the scene in a shimmery cast. A river of sweat ran down the center of his back. He was light-headed from hunger, tired and shaky in the aftermath of the crash. He’d never stolen so much as a candy bar in his life, and here he was about to knock over a drugstore. He shook his head.

      Mark slid the LMT up from the ground beside him, holding it close by his side as he stood. He lined it up with his leg as he approached the door, Decker at his heels. Of the remaining team members, Decker struck him as the most capable and trustworthy. Hopefully he wouldn’t be proven wrong.

      The guard glanced their way as the door opened with a tinkling of bells. Small guy, early twenties with a scraggly moustache. His gaze started to slide away, but then he frowned: something about them had registered. As he shifted back toward them, Mark slammed the butt of the gun hard against his temple. He crumpled off the stool, landing on the floor with a thump.

      Decker locked the door behind them. The store was empty. Mark frowned. There had been someone behind the register when they cased it five minutes earlier. Bathroom break, maybe?

      A chunk of plaster blew off the wall behind his head. Instinctively he dived, hitting the floor. Decker landed beside him.

      “You okay?” Mark asked.

      “Holy shit!” Decker said, checking out the hole punched through the wall above where the guard had been sitting. “What was that, a missile launcher?”

      “Double barrel loaded with triple-ought buck, I’m guessing,” Mark said.

      Another chunk of plaster exploded, a few feet lower than the last. Mark slid the LMT to Decker and signaled for him to move to the far side of the store, near the bandages. From there he’d have a better angle to cover him.

      Mark commando-crawled toward the cheap plywood counter, praying it wouldn’t occur to the shooter to fire through it. After a few feet he entered a long aisle of cold and cough supplies. The good thing about a double-barrel was that after two shots it had to be reloaded, and reloading was a pain in the ass, especially if you were an amateur all hopped up on adrenaline. Mark scooped a bottle of cough syrup off the shelf by his head and hurled it toward the door.

      Another explosion, the shot wild. The window shattered, glass peppering the floor by the door. Movement across the room—and another shot. A puff of packaging exploded a few feet above him.

      Mark jumped to his feet and lunged for the counter. He slid across it and landed in a crouch. Turned and found himself facing a girl in her twenties. Shorts peeked out the bottom of her white coat. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, glasses askew on the bridge of her nose. She fumbled frantically with a shotgun shell, trying to chamber it.

      He grabbed the gun by the muzzle and pulled, yanking her off balance. She splayed out on all fours, glasses falling to the floor. One more tug and the shotgun was his. He palmed a few shells, tucking them in his pocket before chambering two.

      “Por favor, señor,” she said, scrambling away from him. “No me moleste.”

      “Tranquila,” he said, before calling out, “All clear!”

      Decker’s head popped up above the counter. “Jesus. Annie Oakley, huh?”

      “Yeah.” Mark glanced at her. Both hands covered her head, as if she were attempting to ward them off. “Tell her to relax. We gotta scramble, cops’ll probably be here soon.”

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