Fields' Guide to Abduction, - [famous ebook reader TXT] 📗

The man who snatched my phone (and me) dropped the phone on the ground and crushed the casing beneath the heel of his boot with one glass-shattering stomp. If that was to be my fate, I wasn’t going quietly. I swung at him. I curled my fingers into claws and scratched at him. I kicked.

I was a kitten fighting a Grizzly bear.

“No la lastimes,” barked a man holding what looked like a gold-plated AK-47.

I stopped struggling and gaped at his gun. Were those pave diamonds glinting on the hand guard? Were the diamonds in the shape of a skull?

The Grizzly bear dragged me away from my crumpled phone and the crumpled Escalade.

The barking man scanned the sky.

A smaller man who reeked of testosterone and gun oil took over for the Grizzly. In a fair fight, I might have bested him. But he jabbed the muzzle of a Glock into my ribs. I couldn’t fight a gun.

This couldn’t be happening. Could not.

Except there was the Escalade with the driver slumped over the wheel. Was he injured? Was he dead? Was he faking?

The man with the gun in my ribs picked up a strand of my hair, sniffed it, and said something I didn’t need to understand to understand. His intentions transcended language.

“Get away from me!”

The barking man lowered his gaze from the sky and fixed his dark eyes on the man rubbing my hair between the pads of his fingers. A string of invectives followed and the man with the Glock in my ribs released my hair as if his fingers had been seriously burned.

I was in so much trouble. “What do you want?”

They didn’t answer me. They didn’t move. They stared at the sky—waiting. For what?

A speck appeared in the unrelenting blue. A speck that grew bigger and louder with each passing second.

Then it landed on the ground. On the toll road. As if the pilot made stops at kidnappings all the time.

The helicopter was enormous. White with a deep blue belly and rotors that went on for miles.

The man with the gun pushed me toward the chopper.

Getting in that chopper was a terrible idea. At least here, I knew where I was. Maybe I could get to the Escalade, shove Juan out of the driver’s seat, and escape. The liquids dripping from the engine made that seem unlikely. Or, I could run. But where? There was nothing around me but desert and masked men with guns.

The man with the Glock pushed me again. Hard. A man who’d been denied something he wanted, he was now taking whatever opportunity he could to wrest his revenge. “Muevete.”

Climbing aboard that helicopter seemed like the worst idea I’d had all week—and it had been a week chock-full of bad ideas.

If I stalled long enough, would help come? Maybe Barclift had believed me and called for help. Maybe there was a panic button in the Escalade, and maybe Juan had pushed it. Maybe I was delusional.

“Muevete.” The man with the Glock pushed me again.

I fell. On purpose. My wrist twisted when I landed and a rock dug into my knee. “Ouch!”

Bang!

The man with the Glock fell too. Next to me. A small hole darkened the skin between his eyes.

My heart beat so fast I worried it might explode. Had that bullet been meant for me?

The Grizzly bear extended his hand to me, ignoring the corpse that had been a living, breathing person only seconds ago. “Está bien?”

I swallowed, took Grizzly’s hand (I didn’t have much choice), and stared at the place our flesh touched. The back of Grizzly’s hand was tattooed with a vicious claw.

He helped me off the asphalt—gently—his forehead wrinkled with concern. “Estás bien?” he repeated.

No. I wasn’t bien. I shook my head and stumbled away from the body as my stomach rejected everything in it.

I bent over and threw up for a solid hour (maybe not quite an hour).

When I finally stood straight, Grizzly pressed a clean handkerchief into my hand.

I wiped my mouth.

“Hay agua en el helicóptero.”

My options were few (none). I nodded and stumbled toward the helicopter and, if I understood Grizzly correctly, water.

What I didn’t know about helicopters could fill a book. But even in my ignorance, I could tell this one must have cost a fortune.

The interior was finished in cream leather with seats so inviting they looked as if they belonged in Chariss’ private screening room.

Grizzly helped me climb inside.

“Very safe helicopter,” said the barker. He offered me a smile and a nod and pointed to one of the cushy seats with the muzzle of his gun. “Buckle.” Then he shut me inside.

I pressed my face to the glass. There was the destroyed Jeep and the destroyed Escalade and the dead man on the ground.

I tried the handle but it didn’t move.

Dammit.

I collapsed into one of the white leather chairs and watched Grizzly and Barker climb into their Range Rover and drive away as if killing a man and abducting a woman was just another day at the office.

On the console next to my seat, sat an ice bucket filled with chilled water bottles. There were flowers. There was a television.

The increased whir of the rotors spinning was quickly followed by the helicopter leaving the ground.

I buckled (difficult the way my hands shook) and looked out the window.

We flew away from the afternoon sun crossing the Sea of Cortez which looked like a giant aquamarine.

What was across the sea from Baja?

I pictured a map of Mexico.

Sinaloa. The helicopter was crossing the water to Sinaloa. The map in my mind was replaced by the memory of handing over the drive with the Sinaloan Cartel’s plans for Nuevo Laredo and the heroin trade to Agent Gonzales.

I gave up looking out the window, dropped my head to my hands, and took stock.

I had no phone, no computer, no weapon, and no way of knowing where I was going.

No one was coming to save me.

On the positive side of the equation—I groaned. There was no positive side. I’d been kidnapped by a drug cartel.

Land appeared.

Below me was a city. A city as distant and removed as a star. Probably