The Beasts of Juarez R.B. Schow (reading the story of the .TXT) 📖

of Hwy 45, the one behind the cement factory on the other side of that long ridge—”

“I know where it’s at, boss,” he said.

“You’ll need to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. Obrador’s National Guard has been sniffing around the airstrip lately.”

“Do we have anyone inside yet?” the man with the gun asked.

“Not that I know of,” the boss responded.

“Where are we going?” Maisie asked.

“That’s a good question, little one,” the boss said. “Could be Columbia, India, or somewhere in the Middle East. My best guess would be Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Qatar eventually, but you could also be going to somewhere exotic like Somalia, Nigeria, maybe even South Africa.”

“So you don’t know?” Zoey asked.

“It is not my job to know, girls. It’s only my job to do as I’m told. Now get back to work and when your new parents come for you, Javier will drive you to them.”

“I’m not going,” Maisie said.

The man smiled and used his finger to motion her over. “Come here, little lady. I want to tell you a story.”

Zoey’s heart was shot through with fear. She looked at Maisie and saw the fear swimming in her eyes. Her little sister was scared, but she went to him anyway.

The man looked at her and in a quiet, kind voice, said, “Once upon a time there was a little girl from America. She was very cute and very polite. But she found herself in the wrong country at the wrong time with the wrong people and—if that wasn’t bad enough—she decided not to do as she was told. So the man holding her hostage took out a gun and shot her in the face in front of her older sister. The end.”

“I don’t like that story,” Maisie said.

“Then don’t make me tell it again,” the man said in a stern, agitated voice.

Maisie backed up, startled, but she didn’t seem to understand the threat. Zoey did. She heard the message loud and clear.

Pulling her sister into her arms, Zoey looked at the boss and said, “We’re going back to work.”

When they returned to the factory floor, Zoey couldn’t help but wonder if she had made a mistake by doing what she was told. Should she and Maisie try to run? Was there a way to escape? Was there time to make a run for it before they had to meet their new parents? Could they even survive if they managed to escape?

She felt the pinch of frustration in her brain, the strain of so much frustration racing like fire through her nerves, the sting of tears sitting just behind her eyes. She didn’t know where they would go because she didn’t know where they were.

Then again, she knew that it was better to be lost this close to America than to be taken to another country so far away and with men she didn’t know.

As she resumed her work, she looked over at her little sister—who was working as well—and decided that if they could last until midnight without being taken, she and Maisie would jump out of the truck and make a run for it.

From there, if they could just find a house and borrow someone’s phone, she could call her father. She knew his phone number by heart.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

ATLAS HARGROVE

Codrin called Leopold that morning around eleven a.m., which was about the time Atlas, Kiera, and Yergha had strapped up, piled into the Audi, and were venturing into the hornet’s nest known as Las Torres.

While they were waiting for Codrin to see if he could locate Santiago’s place, the team had decided to run recon on Amado Quintero. Quintero was the other scumbag mentioned by the guy whose eye Esty had ripped out, the guy Yergha ended up killing.

Las Torres was a small neighborhood in Juárez, a concrete jungle save for a rundown central park. It was the kind of place where more than a few houses were not only tagged by graffiti, but they were also dressed up with bars on the windows and/or the gated driveways and patios.

An unfortunate few people on the outskirts of the Las Torres neighborhood lived beneath billboards while the lucky ones had large shade trees in their yard. Without exception, though, everyone resided under heavy canopies of telephone and electrical wires. This seemed like an almost inescapable problem inside the city.

The drive down the various streets had them passing so many old cars it was easy to imagine the neighborhood had been transported back to a time when things like the internet or cell phones didn’t exist. The already narrow side streets were packed with these ancient relics.

More than the atmosphere, and far more concerning, were the people. The team’s first drive through this tired ghetto showed them good people, bad people, lots of drug dealers, and some underage prostitution. The common thread running through all of them was that the team was not wanted and should most likely be eliminated.

But then the phone call came…

“I found him,” Codrin said the minute Leopold answered the phone.

Atlas was close enough to the man to have heard the good news. But in going after Santiago, they could be chasing their own asses. Who knew if the guy Yergha and Esty tortured gave them good information or a bogus story?

“Text me directions,” Leopold said after getting the low-down from Codrin. “And good job.”

When he hung up the phone, Leopold told the team that the mission was changing and that they’d be going after Santiago.

“What about Quintero?” Yergha asked.

“We’ll know in a few hours if Santiago pans out, or if he’s a bust. If there’s nothing there, we’ll come back here and smoke out Quintero,” Leopold said. “In the meantime, even though Santiago is not the head of any purported drug cartel, we need to expect