instincts took over. She dived out of the way, scraping her hands and knees on the sandy ground as the pickup roared past, smashing through the barn door in a crash of wood and metal. The truck revved again, and Tracy rose to see a large off-road tire in front of her. She put two bullets into it, but then the vehicle reversed out of the barn in a shower of broken boards, and she saw the passenger holding a small submachine gun as he popped out of the open window.
A shadow fell over her, and Tracy jerked her pistol up, only to see it grabbed and levered up at the sky.
“Are you crazy, woman! Let’s get the hell out of here!”
Tracy looked up to see Nate, who grabbed her hand and yanked her to her feet as he fired several rounds at the truck, which had been coming around for another attempted ram. She ran with him around the corner of the barn just as someone opened fire behind them, chewing boards apart in a hail of bullets. Running to the back, they rounded the corner to see several men trying to get into the Bronco, with one smashing the driver’s-side window with a large rock.
Nate fired into the air, scattering the illegals, but not before the window shattered. Tracy felt keys pressed into her free hand. “Drive!”
Too shocked to argue, Tracy ran for the door, unlocked it and brushed glass chips off the seat before climbing in.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
Nate had jerked open the SUV’s tailgate and slid in the back. Grabbing the shotgun out of its holster, he racked the pump action. “Just get us to the road. I’ll keep ’em from following us out!”
Tracy jammed the key into the ignition, twisted it, slammed the clutch down and shifted into Reverse. She stomped on the gas and the Bronco shot out from behind the barn, Tracy spinning the steering wheel as they shot toward the highway. Just as they cleared the front of the building, the other truck flew out from the other side and slammed into the Bronco. Tracy screamed and fought the wheel as the SUV slewed from side to side, but regained control and kept going.
“Jesus, watch it up there, will you!” In the back, she saw Nate get back onto his knees and rack the shotgun, then duck down again. “Get down!”
Tracy did her best to hunch down while trying to keep the wheel straight—she knew if they hit the ditch instead of the driveway, their miraculous escape would end quickly. The chatter of an AK-47 sounded right next to her, and the back window exploded in a shower of glass, followed by the roar of Nate’s shotgun.
The truck swerved away for a moment, and Tracy let up on the gas long enough to shove the gearshift into third.
The driveway seemed endless now, the distant road looking as if it were hundreds of yards away.
“They’re coming back—make sure they don’t hit the engine!” Nate racked the shotgun again and shot at the truck’s cab, shattering the driver’s-side window.
“Hell, I’ll do better than that.” Tracy swung the wheel, feeling the Bronco lean as it lurched over and crunched into the side of the truck, making the driver fight for control of his vehicle. One of the riflemen triggered a long burst, but the bullets kicked up dirt to the left of the SUV. The pickup’s wheelman regained control, however, and nudged his heavier truck over against the Bronco, trying to send it off the driveway and into the ditch. They were only about thirty yards away, and closing on the narrow entrance fast. Tracy hauled on the wheel, but couldn’t force the truck over. In a straight power contest, the other vehicle had the edge. Metal shrieked as the two vehicles rubbed together in a fight for dominance.
“Goddammit, punch it and get ahead of them!” Nate shouted.
“No time!” The driveway was only a few yards away, and Tracy spun the wheel in the opposite direction and slammed on the brakes, wrenching the SUV into a shuddering bootleg turn. Taken by surprise, the pursuing pickup raced out the driveway, onto the road and into the ditch on the other side. Tracy gunned the engine, running on the desert hardpan parallel to the road, leaving the
Stray shots from the automatic rifles pinged around them, and then they were out of range.
“Thank God that’s over.” Tracy slumped in the driver’s seat, the hot desert wind parching her face. She slowed down automatically, aware that she was running over scrub brush and other things that wouldn’t be good for the Bronco’s undercarriage.
“Hey, hey, keep an eye on where you’re going, all right?
We blow a tire or break an axle out here, and it’s a long walk—oh, shit.”
“What?” Tracy’s eyes strayed to the rearview mirror again, and widened in disbelief.
The truck was growing larger in the mirror as it came after them, its front end caked in dirt and its fender crumpled, but otherwise no worse for wear.
“Guess they weren’t as stuck as we thought. We either need to head into the desert or get onto the road,” Nate said.
“Hold on!” Tracy had spotted a flatter stretch ahead, and gunned the engine to make sure she had the forward velocity to make the switch. She edged closer to the ditch, then tweaked the wheel again, aware that the slightest wrong move could send them rolling over.
“Where are you—Jesus, I thought you were gonna head into the desert!”
Tracy didn’t reply, but steered the Bronco into the wide wash carved out by long-ago flash floods. She saw a grade that she thought they could make, and turned into it before she could think twice, flooring the gas pedal. “Grab something back there and stay low!” she shouted.
The Bronco spun its way out of the wash as its front end launched up into the air and crashed down on the road with a bone-jarring impact, the heavy-duty off-road tires and shocks absorbing most of the landing. Tracy feathered the wheel as she kept the SUV moving in generally the same direction the road was going, although she did come close to the ditch on the other side for a heart-stopping second.
Nate fired several rounds at the approaching truck, hitting the windshield again, and making steam plume from the grille. The pickup’s engine revved as it tried to keep up, but the buckshot had hit something vital, for they were pulling away.
Nate climbed over the seat back and practically fell onto the cushion. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, where in the hell did you learn to drive like that, Beltway rush hour?”
“Growing up with three brothers obsessed with the stock car circuit. It was either play with them or play alone, so I learned a few things along the way,” Tracy said.
“I’ll say. You can be my wheelman anytime.” Nate leaned back in the seat just as the flashing cherries and blueberries of the Border Patrol, sheriff’s department, El Paso police and even a fire truck appeared out of the hazy desert, barreling straight toward them.
Nate surveyed the damage to his Bronco with a doleful expression. The entire passenger’s side, from the engine to the back bumper, was crushed and dented, with the front quarter panel bent down to within an inch of the tire. The right rear window was gone, matching the missing windows from both doors and the back. Bullet holes pocked the cab and the side, as well. “I knew I shoulda signed out a truck. It’s gonna take forever and a Sunday to get all this fixed,” he said.
Once the cavalry had arrived, he and Tracy had gone back to the barn, where the rest of the Border Patrol had immediately starting rounding up the rest of the immigrants before they got hopelessly lost in the desert. Overhead, a helicopter swept the area, herding scattered groups into the waiting arms of the patrol. They had found the shot-up truck, abandoned about a mile from the farm with tracks leading away, but when Nate let the rest of his people know they were
Tracy, however, was less than pleased by this turn of events. “What do you mean, you’re letting them go? They did just try to kill us, or have you already forgotten?”
Nate jerked a thumb back at the battered Bronco. “That seems to be pretty good evidence to back up your story.”
He took her aside. “Look, I’m gonna be in enough shit as it is about this—it’s bad enough we had a run-and-gun in the first place, not to mention me using an unauthorized weapon. Rules of engagement say we’re not supposed to engage armed illegals out here, but are supposed to let them go whenever possible.”
“So instead, you deliberately put us in danger by confronting them? Are you insane? We came this close to
