The Devil's bounty

Fifty-four

The smell of sweat and vomit came at Lock like heat from a blast furnace as he opened the door of the Escalade. He took a deep breath, drawing the fetid air into his nose and down his throat, searching for the coppery tang of blood. There was none.

A five-second check of the interior revealed no one balled up in a footwell, only empty space. He got back out, opened the rear tailgate, made sure it was clear and ran to the barrier.

About a hundred yards out there was movement. Mendez. Or maybe the bodyguard. He vaulted the barrier and watched the person make a final break from the cover of a juniper tree. From the figure’s outline, he was sure it was Mendez.

He skidded down the slope, letting the gradient and gravity do the work as Mendez took flight, heels kicking up in a steady pulse. He was moving at a good pace, while Lock was going about as fast as he could manage. Mendez was a surfer, young and fit. It would be no easy foot chase but maybe he’d have an edge when it came to stamina. He settled into his stride, hoping that his quarry would overreach himself and tire quickly.

The decision to go after Mendez, rather than stay with Ty and the girl, had been a snap one. Something that defied his own logic. Ty’s gambling instinct had suggested they rescue the girl and take Mendez. Lock had argued that to split the mission reduced the chance of attaining either goal. Cold calculation said the same, even by the roadside. Getting Julia back to her parents, or better yet straight across the border and to sanctuary, was hardly straightforward. An extra body would always be useful — not fundamental, but useful. Throw an entirely separate and ongoing hostile extraction of Mendez into the mix and things got very complicated. In short, it was a bad idea.

That was still Lock’s thinking as they had watched the Escalade pull over. Assuming they might have been spotted by the bodyguard, they had kept moving. They were on a highway. Unless the bodyguard was going to drive back down it the wrong way, he had nowhere to go and no way of losing them. They had coasted along until they were out of sight.

Ty had got out and moved back down the road on foot. He had watched as the occupants had popped out of the vehicle, happy that they hadn’t been following a decoy. He had jogged back and relayed the news to Lock, who had decided that this was the best opportunity they would get. But by the time they had found a gap to cross to the other side of the highway, the girl had already made a run for it.

Lock had been there to see her dash for freedom. The echo of Carrie’s death had brought his heart into his mouth and a fresh rage to his heart. Julia had made it, but all of a sudden, standing at the edge of that dark desert highway, ghosts had been all around him, popping up like so many plants after a summer storm. He looked back to the desert and they were everywhere, completely real. The men who had pursued his fiancee to her death stood like gunslingers, staring at him. At their feet, Carrie lay dying. Melissa Warner was there too. The girl whose rape and subsequent death he had come to avenge.

As Ty had put Julia into the RAV 4, the pull of the dead, and the rage he felt towards Mendez, had sucked his heart into his boots. His decision was made. There was no time to do anything other than tell Ty to get the girl out of there and that he was going to find what they had come down here for: justice for Melissa Warner.

Now, without the vantage-point afforded by high ground, Lock stopped for a moment, scanning the dinner-plate flat landscape for Mendez. The desert breeze rustled through his shirt. He was five hundred yards out from the highway. Flashing lights near the jack-knifed truck announced the arrival of the authorities. Lock doubted Mendez would double back and risk running into cops who might not be aligned to the cartel. Lock couldn’t go back in case they were. That left no turning back for either of them.

He plunged forwards into the darkness.