Rick Mofina - In Desperation

The steel click destroyed the speck of hope she’d nurtured by loosening the tape.

Alfredo said nothing and removed her gag.

Before he left, he nudged the toe of his boot against a plastic bag. Tilly saw bottled water, potato chips, pastries, an apple and what looked like a sandwich.

Standing there, awaiting her fate, she felt the onset of tears but forced herself not to cry.

She could hear her captors in the next area, their low voices echoing as they talked quickly in Spanish with each other. She heard the digital chirp of a keypad and guessed one was making a call on a cell phone.

This was it.

Tilly sensed that whatever they were going to do to her, they would do it here.

She was so scared.

As she prayed, she looked to her left through the room’s only window well. It had no glass or frame. It was a low-set, large square opening to the vast night. On the horizon, Tilly saw a few small lights, twinkling like a distant shore, and wondered what they were connected to.

A house? With people living a normal life and children happy and safe in their beds, while she was imprisoned here waiting for whatever was to come.

Did anyone know she was here?

Was anyone rushing to save her?

Why was this happening? Why?

Furious, she yanked against her handcuff, rattling her chain against the pipe, causing a loud clanking of metal rings against metal.

Tilly looked at the pipe, at its upside-down U shape. It was about as big in circumference as a soda can, with a bigger circular collar at each end. In the middle it had several rings, each about three inches wide, that slid along the main pipe like bracelets.

Tilly focused on them.

One bracelet was out of alignment .

It seemed slanted.

Did she do that by jerking the chain?

Tilly slid the bracelets away from the slanted one. Then she slid the slanted one to reveal a clear two-inch gap in the pipe. A section had been removed, but the bracelet ring had covered the gap.

Alfredo never checked! The stupid creeps missed this!

Tilly’s heart raced.

Would the chain fit? She looked around-no one was near. Quietly and carefully she slid the chain through the gap.

Yes! Oh my God! Oh my God!

Then with the utmost care she threaded the chain from her handcuff. She let out her breath slowly. All that was fastened to her now was the one handcuff on her wrist. Its open mate dangled from it and she held it to keep it from clinking.

She walked softly to the edge of the room, peered around the entrance carefully and saw a large warehouse area where her captors were at a table eating, surrounded by their luggage and equipment.

In the opposite direction, she saw a darkened hallway.

She moved slowly down the hallway until she came to another open doorway and night air.

And just like that she was outside under the stars.

Free.

In an instant she searched for her bearings, for any sign of civilization or help in the vast darkness surrounding her. She scanned every direction until she found the small lights blinking in the distance.

There!

Tilly ran toward them as fast as she could.

Blood pounding in her ears, her heart nearly bursting, she wanted to cry and scream at the same time as she ran for her life.

Lago de Rosas, Mexico

The phone in the priest’s rectory was an old wall-mounted touch-tone.

Father Francisco Ortero was folding his laundered shirts when it rang. He went to the kitchen and answered it.

“Is this Ortero, the priest who hears confessions in Lago de Rosas?”

The young male voice was familiar.

“Sí,” Ortero said.

“This is the sicario you promised to help.”

Several icy seconds of silence passed.

“I told you I would be calling, Father. You remember our discussion?”

“Yes.” Ortero adjusted his grip on the handset.

“And my proposal?”

“Yes.”

“I am about to finish my last job.”

“Don’t go through with it. Surrender, I beg you.”

“Listen to me. You made a promise in the confessional to help me.”

“You must stop.”

“Have you arranged for a journalist you trust to tell my story?”

Ortero thought of all the funerals of the innocents murdered by narcotraficantes that he had officiated; how the bloodshed had challenged his faith.

How much suffering does God allow?

“Father? Have you arranged for a journalist you trust to tell my story?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Take note of this information.”

The sicario gave the priest the time and the location near Phoenix, Arizona, where the journalist was to meet him tomorrow, confirming what the priest had suspected.

“Please, surrender. Police everywhere are looking for you and the others. Your faces are on all the news channels. Surrender!”

“It does not matter now. I am nearly finished.”

“Please, I beg you, no more killing. Surrender now and atone.”

“This is how it must happen. This is how it will happen.”

The priest was disgusted with himself. He was aiding a sicario. He squeezed the handset as revulsion and fear coiled within him. What he was doing was akin to the devil’s bidding.

“I am considering sending police,” Ortero said.

“You would break the seal of the confessional?”

“What if it did not matter? What if I stopped being a priest to stop the killing?”

“If you send police, I will kill the girl before their eyes in the most memorable way you could ever imagine.”

“I beg you to surrender.”

“The girl’s life is in your hands, priest. Your betrayal would result in her death. I have killed nearly two hundred people. Do you think I would hesitate to kill her? Do you want to gamble her life with an executioner of my stature?”

“Do you want to gamble with eternal damnation?”

“That is exactly what I’m doing,” the sicario said. “I know my days are numbered. Either way I am damned. This is my last chance at a new life. Send the reporter, or the girl will die. Wait. You anger me, Father. Maybe she will die anyway. Consider this your only hope to save her.”

The line went dead.

Shaking, Ortero fell back to the wall, sliding down to the floor.

What have I set in motion?

Near Phoenix, Arizona

Angel dragged the back of his hand across his mouth to contend with his mounting tension.

Could he trust the priest?

It didn’t matter. Angel knew that the cartel was going to kill him when this job was finished.

That he had enacted his survival plan gave him a measure of relief as he walked across the abandoned hangar, focusing on Limon-Rocha and Tecaza ready at the small table. They’d changed into their police uniforms and looked like real cops sitting there, listening to emergency scanners, checking their weapons, waiting for a green light.

“They’ve got an alert out for a license plate belonging to Galviera.” Limon-Rocha tilted his head to the scanners. “Nobody can find him. Maybe he did the smart thing and changed the plate, or his vehicle.”

“So, do we go now?” Tecaza asked.

“Did you secure the girl?” Angel asked him.

“Yes.”

Angel’s cell phone rang. It was Thirty.

“Are you set?”

“We’re ready.”

“I’ve just contacted him and set up the meeting. Do you have a detailed map?”

Angel snapped open the new fanfold map. With one hand, he spread it over one end of the table and pinpointed where Thirty directed them to go.

“He will be at that location in two hours.”