Body odor. Not the occasional whiff of someone who forgot to apply deodorant, but the cloying, inescapable stench of people who, as a habit, did not bathe. The smell was so pungent, Aaron tasted it in his mouth as it hung open, slack and drooling due to the drug he’d been injected with.
Time passed indeterminately. Perhaps they drove for an hour, maybe longer. He couldn’t see anything except the booted feet of his captors, nor feel anything except the weight of Camille sprawled over him. No one spoke except for comments in Spanish said in whispers too soft for Aaron to translate, though he was adept at the language.
When the van stopped moving, the kidnappers stirred.
“Ustedes dos llévense al hombre.” You two take the man. “Cuidado, Perez lo quiere ileso.” Careful, Perez wants him unharmed.
Rodrigo Perez.
With the mention of that name, Aaron knew why he’d been taken and what they were going to do to him. As the man who arrested two of Perez’s operatives, Aaron was going to help the cartel send a message to the U.S. government. Today he was going to die. Probably beheaded. Most likely paraded around the streets of Tijuana on a stick. And Camille, poor unlucky Camille, was going to die, too.
He was dragged from the van to a small plane on a cracked blacktop runway in the middle of a lettuce field. Camille was slung over the shoulder of a short man, her legs dangling and her skirt bunched, revealing the white of her panties. Another man walked to her, chuckling, and pulled her skirt higher.
Realization of his powerlessness crashed over Aaron. These men could do whatever they wanted to Camille—rape, kill, anything—and Aaron couldn’t protect her. It was one thing to die as a result of his dangerous job. It was something much worse to watch another suffer, particularly a woman, for no reason other than her close proximity to trouble when it struck.
He was shoved through a side door in the plane and dumped on the floor. Camille was dropped at his side. With much effort, he turned his head to see her. Her eyes were not glazed over from the drug, nor did she look afraid at all, which threw Aaron off. He’d been prepared to console her. Instead she met his look with a sharp, confident gaze, as though she was trying to give him courage.
The plane taxied, then angled into the air. Aaron shifted until the back of his arm touched Camille’s hand. She wiggled her fingers against his skin. Of all the people in the world to be the last each saw before dying, that they were stuck with each other was definitive proof that God had an ironic sense of humor.
When the plane reached cruising altitude, someone moved between Camille’s legs. Aaron could tuck his chin enough to see the man’s slim form, but not what he was doing. He had a pretty good idea, though. Against the back of his hand, he felt her skirt being raised. Someone Aaron couldn’t see laughed and whooped. Aaron took Camille’s hand firmly in his and looked into her eyes. For the first time, she seemed afraid.
Don’t think about it, Camille. Look at me and turn your mind off.
After a minute, her look of fear evolved into confusion. The man above Camille smacked Aaron’s hand away and rolled her to her stomach. Then Aaron saw the harness.
Black straps looped around her thighs and shoulders, meeting in a rectangle of material against her back with attachments for the master jumper. Camille was being fitted with skydiving gear, the kind used in tandem jumps. When her harness was on, the man left her on her stomach. She turned to Aaron, her expression questioning. Aaron tried to speak, but his words came out distorted beyond understanding.
The same man moved over Aaron, lifting his legs and putting his tandem harness in place. Aaron had enough experience and skill to be a solo jumper, but like most people, he’d started with tandem jumping, where the novice is strapped to the front of an experienced jumper—the one with the parachute.
Aaron’s master jumper began the process of binding them together. Aaron had read reports of instances where this hadn’t been done correctly and the results were as gruesome as one might imagine. Hopefully these guys knew what they were doing.
The door of the plane opened and the howl of air moving at a hundred miles per hour eclipsed all other sounds in the cabin. The kidnappers heaved two wooden crates fitted with chutes through the opening. Too bad Aaron would never have the chance to tell his team about the Cortez Cartel’s method for smuggling weapons into Mexico.
Goggles were put on Camille and Aaron, which seemed like an odd bit of caring for hostage-taking narco-terrorists, and they were hauled to standing on weak but functioning legs. With the press of the master jumper’s belly nudging him, Aaron dragged his heavy feet toward the open door. He remembered how intimidating that opening, with the scream of the wind, looked on his first jump, and turned, seeking Camille to bolster her courage.
She stood behind Aaron, lining up for her jump. Though he was pretty sure she’d never been skydiving before, he shouldn’t have been surprised by the look of steely determination on her face. She might be the most grating woman he’d ever met, but he had to admire her fortitude. Camille was one tough broad.
She dipped her head in a terse nod, then shrank away with the rest of the plane as Aaron fell into the infinite blue horizon.
Camille’s heart pounded in her ears as she fell to earth. The fear of not knowing if the chute would open or if her harness would hold overrode all other thought during the free fall that seemed to last an eternity. Finally, the force of the unfurling chute jolted her back. Cold air whipped at her bare legs and feet. She was probably the first woman in history to skydive in a business suit, which was an honor she could have done without—and a perfect example of her rotten luck.
Camille used to believe she had fantastic luck. Five years ago, while lying in a hospital bed, she felt lucky to have cheated death, lucky that when Jacob misfired his gun, the bullet ripped through her thigh and not her head or an artery. In the days following the shooting, she felt lucky to keep the leg with the promise of walking again.
But as weeks and months passed, luck abandoned her. Oh, she could walk—for a little while before the throbbing pain became unbearable. And she could run—for a minute or two at a time. Soon, her recovery stalled.
What crushed her the most was the damage to her right hand, even though the bullet hadn’t come close to it. No matter how diligently she worked in rehab, her right hand shook uncontrollably when she held a gun. She discovered that little nugget of joy four weeks after the accident, her first time back at the firing range. She tried to load the magazine of her Glock 23 and her hand shook like there was an earthquake inside her body. She couldn’t even get a round off.
Her mandatory, department-issued therapist called it post-traumatic stress disorder. That sounded pretty official and all, but giving a name to her problem didn’t magically fix her.
Nothing could fix her.
Just like that, Camille’s temporary assignment to the dispatch desk took on the horrible stench of permanency. Her family encouraged her to pick a different career—if she ever heard the saying When one door closes, another opens again, she’d hang herself—but being a top-rate police officer was all she’d ever wanted. It was her one thing, her only thing.
She knew why she’d been kidnapped. Her image was splashed on the news naming Rosalia Perez’s father as a suspect, and a few hours later she was snatched by a group of Spanish-speaking thugs with the financial resources to own a private plane and an arsenal of assault weapons.
Her remorse was solely for Aaron, whose only offense was arriving at the hospital at the same time she did. At least he had the good fortune to be taken hostage with a former Special Forces officer. If even the smallest opportunity for escape opened, Camille would try to get Aaron to safety. She might hate the guy, but no one deserved to die this way. She had a vague recollection of Jacob gushing about Aaron’s assignment as a Park Ranger to an ICE task force, but she had no idea if he possessed skills that could aid their escape. The only Park Rangers she’d ever met had been a pair of granola-eating trail guides.
During