Cliff Ryder - Aim And Fire

Nate hunched instinctively, expecting to feel the impact of a bullet in his back at any second. Adrenaline-charged blood pounded in his ears, making it difficult to pinpoint where the shots were coming from. He saw Tracy racing for the truck, and followed her as fast as he could, propelling Lopez in front of him with hard prods of his pistol.

They burst out from between the two houses and headed for the vehicle, their shoes slapping against the pavement. Lopez stumbled and went down hard, shouting in pain as he skidded across the pavement, almost taking Nate with him.

“Get up right now!” Nate grabbed his shoulder, trying to get his prisoner off the street.

“Fuck you, asshole. I think I broke my ankle!” Lopez rolled back and forth, clutching his lower left leg. Nate glanced back to see lights and motion in the alleyway. The truck roared to life a few yards away. Leveling his pistol at the alleyway, he squeezed off several shots, making the approaching gangbangers duck and cover.

The truck roared as it powered over the curb to skid to a stop next to him. Tracy rolled the passenger window down. “For Christ’s sake, get him in here and let’s go!”

Nate was already moving. Wrenching open the back door, he hauled Lopez up and threw him into the backseat, then scrambled in himself. “Go!”

Tracy slammed the gas and spun the steering wheel, making the Silverado buck and sway as it ran over the curb again.

“Take the second street on your right!” Nate said while prying Lopez’s hand away from his ankle and raising it to where he could handcuff him to a restraining bar set in the ceiling. The truck skidded as she took the turn a bit too fast, making Nate fall into Lopez as the big vehicle rocked back and forth. Behind them, they heard the loud pop of gunfire, but no bullets struck them.

“Go up two blocks and turn left on Seventh!” Nate began patting Tracy down, his hands roaming over her sides, back and chest.

“What the hell are you doing?” She tried to shrug him off as she whipped the wheel to the left.

“Seeing how badly you got shot, dammit!” Under her legs, his probing fingers found something soft and mushy.

“Shit, did that hurt?”

“No, but it feels kinda wet and warm. Why, what’d you find?” Tracy, while still breathing hard, had slowed the vehicle down to a respectable speed while keeping an eye open for police cruisers.

“I don’t know—it’s too thick to be blood.” Nate held his fingers up to his nose. “Refried beans—what the hell?”

He felt Tracy’s body shake in her seat, and for a panicked moment he thought she was going into shock. But as she drew breath, he realized she was laughing—tinged with just a hint of hysteria, but laughing all the same.

“Must have been that huge burrito. I slipped on it when I went down the stairs. Just as the shotgun went off. Damn thing saved my life.”

Already strung out by their narrow escape, Nate sat back and guffawed at the ludicrous thought. “Saved by Mexican food. Who’d have thunk it?”

Tracy’s mirth had subsided and she looked back at Nate.

“I think I’m all right—we can check later. I’ve got a T-intersection coming up—which way?”

Shaking his head, Nate pointed. “Hang a right on Oregon, and we’ll head up to Missouri, where we can get on the highway.” Still chuckling, he kept a close watch behind them as they sped through the dimly lit streets with their prize.

Holy shit, it’s a good thing Paul can’t see me now, Tracy thought as she drove the Silverado through the neighborhoods of north El Paso. He’d probably think I’ve gone completely insane.

She blinked rapidly, trying to slow her racing pulse. Her senses were on input overload. Everything around her— from the flashing traffic lights to the oncoming cars to the hum of the off-road tires as they propelled the truck down the streets—seemed preternaturally sharp and bright and loud. She took a deep breath, held it for a second, then let it whoosh out of her lungs. She took another one, and felt her pulse begin to slow.

She had lost count of the laws they had broken. She concentrated on their goal of getting the information they needed to make sure that nuke didn’t go off. She told herself if that meant busting the chops of some low-life gang members who were already breaking half a dozen laws when they got out of bed every morning, that was a trade-off she could live with.

Besides, the rush she had gotten when they had infiltrated the house and pulled Lopez out had given her a jolt that no amount of DHS training could. She had gone through the basic firearms training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and she shot at the range at least twice a month to stay current, but that couldn’t compare to creeping through the pitch-black house using only night vision, but still feeling completely in control of the situation. Even when it had started to go bad, she hadn’t freaked out, but had stayed focused on the mission. She hadn’t held them up during their withdrawal. Maybe it’s time to consider a different assignment when I get back, something more field oriented.

But first we’ve got to find out what this scumbag knows.

Checking the rearview mirror, she saw Nate keeping an eye on Lopez, who was hunched over as best he could with his arm restrained, his head leaning against the window. “He all right? He might be going into shock,” she said.

“Hey, Lopez, you gonna make it?” Nate reached out and grabbed the Latino’s chin to see his face, then yanked his hand back as the gang member snapped at him with his teeth. “Oh, he’s still got some fight left in him, don’tcha, bucko?”

“I swear, my people are gonna track you both down, stake you out in the desert and leave you for the ants and the coyotes.” Lopez’s cold gaze flicked from Nate to Tracy and back again. “You and your puta are walking dead— you just don’t know it yet.”

“I’d be more worried about you making it through the night yourself first, tough guy. After all, it’ll be hard for your buddies to do anything if they never find you again.”

Nate leaned close to him, putting his face right next to the other man’s. “And you won’t be giving any orders from a shallow grave, pendejo. ”

Tracy swallowed hard in the driver’s seat. She knew they were going to interrogate him, which meant they might have to resort to less-than-legal methods to get what they needed, but from the tone of Nate’s voice, she could have sworn that he planned to kill the man afterward, no matter what. The line between the necessary means and the ends, already blurred by what they had just done, stretched out in her mind. Was torturing a suspect to get information okay? Was killing him? She squared her shoulders and concentrated on driving. Once they got to the desert, she’d pull Nate aside and find out exactly what he planned to do.

They left the city behind, and Tracy followed Nate’s terse directions as they headed into the rough Texas plains just south of New Mexico. As the lights of El Paso dimmed, the dark desert seemed to expand all around them until Tracy felt as if she were traveling through a dark alien landscape with the insignificant glow of the high beams illuminating only a tiny portion of it. She slowed down to turn off the main highway onto a two-lane paved road, then turned off several miles later onto a rough dirt road, where she slowed even further to navigate the winding, narrow lane. Lopez had ceased issuing threats and now hunched in sullen silence behind her. Nate sat across from him, his eyes never leaving the gangbanger.

Tracy drove for at least another dozen miles, until they were in the middle of nowhere.

Suddenly Nate leaned forward. “Stop here.”