Breaking Point (3 page)

And then—nothing.

The drink had been drugged. When Zach had awoken, he’d found himself here, stripped of his gun and wallet and surrounded by pissed off Zetas demanding to know whom he worked for and where he’d hidden the cocaine. As for the questions, Zach couldn’t answer the first because it would imperil the operation, putting the lives of others at risk. And he couldn’t answer the second because he hadn’t stolen any coke and had no idea where it was. But his refusal to talk had only angered the Zetas more.

So they’d brought in a specialist—a man who knew how to inflict pain while keeping his victims alive. Electric shock was his area of expertise. He’d gone to work on Zach two days ago, and so far the two of them were at an impasse. He’d been able to make Zach pass out. He’d made him bite his own tongue trying not to scream. He’d made him want to cry like a baby. But he hadn’t made him talk.

Zach had the navy and SERE training to thank for that—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. Designed to help SEALs survive behind enemy lines, his training had been a godsend, helping him through hour after excruciating hour. Even though he was no longer in the military, he’d instinctively fallen back on that training, silently reciting bits and pieces of the military code of conduct, using it to stay strong.

I am an American, fighting in the forces that guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense . . . I will never surrender of my own free will . . . If I am captured, I will resist by all means available . . . I will evade answering further questions to the utmost of my ability . . . I will make every effort to escape . . .

As weak as he was, he knew he didn’t stand a chance of escaping. And that meant there was only one thing left for him to do—keep his mind together long enough for his body to give out, long enough for him to die as he ought to have done six years ago.

Killed in the line of duty.

It had a nice ring to it.

Strange to think there’d been a time when he’d thought of taking the coward’s way out. He’d come home from the war and tried to return to civilian life. But then the nightmares had started. The doctors had said it was PTSD, but they didn’t have any answers for him that didn’t come in a pill. The navy had pinned a medal on his chest and called him a hero. But there was nothing heroic about him. He’d come back from Afghanistan, and his men had not.

Finally, it had overwhelmed him, and he’d spent a long couple of months drinking and contemplating eating his own gun. But he hadn’t been able to do it. How would he have been able to face Mike, Chris, Brian, and Jimmy if he’d committed suicide?

At least now when he met them, he wouldn’t have to feel ashamed.

Raucous laughter drifted into his cell from across the courtyard, voices drawing nearer, boots crunching on gravel.

Zach stiffened, dread uncoiling in his stomach, rising into his throat.

They were coming for him again.

Jesus!

He drew as deep a breath as his broken ribs would allow, swallowing his panic with what was left of his spit.

I am an American, fighting in the forces that guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense. I will never surrender of my own free will.

 

“
PADRE NUESTRO QUE estás en los cielos, santificado sea tu Nombre
.”

Holding fast to Joaquin’s hand, Natalie looked to her right, where Sr. Marquez crouched against the sliver-strewn floor, eyes closed, a rosary in his trembling hands, his whispered prayers barely audible over the pounding of her heart. She didn’t understand everything he was saying, and it had been years since she’d been to Mass, but she recognized the cadence of the prayer, her mind latching on to the English words, speaking them along with him in her mind.

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

The door of the bus exploded inward in a spray of glass.

Too afraid even to scream, Natalie watched as three armed men in dark green military fatigues stomped up the stairs, pistols in hand, automatic weapons slung on straps over their shoulders. One stopped long enough to point a pistol at the bus driver, whose pleading cries were cut short with a
pop
that splattered blood across the windshield.

Screams. Black boots. Another
pop
.

Sr. Marquez prayed faster, his voice shaking. “
Danos hoy el pan de este día y perdona nuestras deudas como nosotros perdonamos nuestros duedores.
”

Then Natalie heard the mechanical click and buzz of Joaquin’s camera. Somehow she’d let go of his hand, her face now buried in her palms. She looked up, saw him lying out in the aisle, his camera pointed toward their attackers, a look of focused concentration on his face as he did his job—documenting the news.

She whispered to him. “Joaquin, no! They’ll kill—”

The boots drew nearer.

Joaquin kept shooting.
Click. Click. Click.

“
¡No! Por favor, no—
”
No, please don’t—

Pop!

Screams.

And Natalie understood.

They were killing the Mexican citizens on the bus but leaving the Americans alive.

Pop! Pop!

She looked over at Joaquin, at his dark hair, his brown eyes, his brown skin, and was blindsided by fear for him. They would think Joaquin was Mexican. And they would kill him.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

Blood ran along the floor, pooled beneath the seats, the air stung by the smell of it.

Pop! Pop!

“Y no nos dejes caer en la tentación sino que líbranos del malo. Amen.”
Sr. Marquez opened his eyes, his gaze meeting Natalie’s, rosary still in his hands. “I am sorry, Miss Benoit.”

And then the men in the boots were there.

Sweat trickling down his temples, Sr. Marquez looked up into his killer’s face, pressing his lips to the cross.

Natalie cried out. “No, don’t—!”

Pop!

Then he lay dead, his sightless eyes open, blood trickling from a bullet hole in his forehead.

Without thinking, Natalie threw herself into the aisle, shielding Joaquin with her body, struggling for the right words. “
Él no es mexicano! Él es americano!
He’s a citizen of the United States! He’s American!”

Cold brown eyes—a killer’s eyes—watched her with apparent amusement, a pitiless smile spreading across a face too young to be so cruel. Then the teenage assailant’s gaze shifted to his fellow killers, and he said something in Spanish that made them laugh.

Joaquin wrapped his arms around her and pulled hard, obviously trying to thrust her behind him, but constrained by the small space. “Natalie, stop! Don’t do this!”

The young assailant raised his gun.

“He’s American!” Natalie shouted the words. “
Es americano!
He’s—”

Then she realized the gun was pointed at her.

Her breath caught in her throat.

He’s going to shoot you, girl.

She wondered for a moment how much it would hurt—then gasped as the butt of the gun came down on her temple. Her head seemed to explode. Blinded by pain and limp as a rag doll, she fell forward and felt cruel hands wrench her away from Joaquin, who fought to hold on to her, shouting something in Spanish that she couldn’t understand.

“He’s American,” she managed to say, her own voice sounding faraway, the world spinning as she was dragged down the bloody aisle and passed from one attacker to another. She struggled to raise her head and caught just a glimpse of the man who’d struck her aiming his pistol at Joaquin. “Joaquin!”

Pop!

And she knew he was dead.

CHAPTER 2

HER HEAD THROBBING, Natalie struggled to breathe in the strangling darkness, her heart beating so hard it hurt, the sweltering air suffocating her, breath catching in her throat before it reached her lungs. She had to get out of here. She had to get
out
!

God, please help me! Somebody help me!

She might have screamed the words, or she might only have thought them. She didn’t know. But, regardless, no help came.

She twisted in the cramped space, tried to stretch out, desperate for room to breathe, but the trunk was too small. Gasping for air, she reached out with bound hands to find only inches between her face and the underside of the trunk lid.

It was like being buried alive.

A scream caught in her throat, panic driving her as she pushed on the trunk lid with her hands and feet, striking it, kicking it, trying to force it open.

It didn’t budge.

And for a moment, she was back in New Orleans at the hospital, the storm raging.

Come see, darlin’. They were already dyin’, them. I jus’ made it easier. Ya get on in there now. Go on.

No! You can’t shut me in here. I’ll suffocate!

Hush, you! Have a good death, a peaceful death.

Darkness. Cold. No air to breathe. The endless howling of the storm.

The car hurtled around a corner, throwing Natalie against the side of the trunk, her face pressed against rough carpet that stank of exhaust, the violent motion jolting her past the worst edge of her claustrophobia and back to the present, the pitch-black of the morgue locker fading into the darkness of the closed trunk—and a reality just as horrible and terrifying.

Joaquin was dead.

He was dead, along with so many others. Dear Sr. Marquez, who’d loved his grandkids so much. Ana-Leticia Izel, who’d been about Natalie’s age. Isidoro Fernandez, who’d survived being shot in the leg on his way home from work last year. Sergio de Leon, who’d spent eight months in hiding after exposing several corrupt government officials as pawns of the cartels.

All gone. All dead.

And she was a captive of the men who’d killed them.

The cold, hard truth brought her heartbeat to a near standstill.

Oh, God.

What were they going to do to her?

What do you think they’re going to do?

The El Paso police had talked about it a lot on the first day—the unsolved murders of young women and girls in Juárez. Hundreds had gone missing, and those whose bodies had been found had been sexually brutalized and dismembered. At first, the police had believed there was a single serial killer to blame. Then they’d blamed copycat killers.

But now, years later, it was clear that rape and murder were just part of the violent landscape, with drug cartels, sex slavers, human traffickers, gangs, and serial killers from both sides of the border preying on the young women who flocked to Juárez hoping for a job in one of the
maquiladoras
. During the seminar, they’d shown photos of some of the victims, stark images of young women lying naked and dead in ditches, in garbage bins, in the open desert.

And suddenly Natalie found it hard to breathe again, her heart tripping hard and fast, her stomach threatening to revolt. But it wasn’t claustrophobia this time.

It was straight-up terror.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force the unbearable images from her mind, the distress and sorrow she’d felt at seeing what had happened to those women becoming fear for herself. Is that what these men planned to do to her?

I don’t want to die like that. Not like that.

She didn’t want to die at all.

Maybe they would hold her for ransom. She was a U.S. citizen, after all, and they knew she was a journalist. Maybe they just wanted money. Oh, God, she hoped so.

God, help me!

It was so hot, so hot. Her entire body was sticky with perspiration, her mouth dry from thirst—or was that fear? Claustrophobia began to take hold again, the close air pressing in on her. She had to get out of here. They needed to open the trunk
now
.

Except that . . .

What would they do to her when they did?

Abruptly, the car swerved, then accelerated. Men’s voices rose in shrill whoops and shouts, guns firing, the terrible sound making Natalie jump. Were they being pursued? Had someone come after them, hoping to free her? What if there was a firefight and someone accidentally fired into the trunk?

She held her breath and listened, desperately hoping to hear sirens.

More shouts. More gunshots. And now singing.

But no sirens.

And then it came to her.

They weren’t being pursued. They were celebrating.

All those murders, the grief they would cause, the fear they’d created on that street—they had committed a massacre, and they were reveling in its aftermath.

What kind of men could enjoy killing like that?

No, not men. They were monsters.

And she was their prisoner.

 

ZACH LAY ON his side, no longer able to give a damn about scorpions. His body shivered uncontrollably from shock. His skin burned, seeming to shrink around his bones, every nerve ending on fire. His throat was raw from yelling—or whatever you called it when you screamed from between clenched teeth. He’d been through surf torture in BUD/S. He’d been hungry, cold, hot, sleep deprived. He’d lain half-dead in the dirt for hours with a round lodged in his back. But he’d never ever been through anything that could touch this for sheer pain.

What was it Jimmy used to say when they went into combat?

Hoka hey! It is a good day to die.

Today
was
a good day to die. Yesterday had been good, too. The day before would have been even better.

Quit your whining, McBride. You’re pathetic! On your feet!

“Hooya!” Zach answered aloud and raised his head before realizing that the voice he’d just heard had come from his own mind.

He was losing it. He’d hit the wall—hard. Time to rest. He needed rest.

He closed his blindfolded eyes and sank into oblivion.