Aim And Fire

being killed!” Tracy was aware of the attention she was drawing from the other Border Patrol members, but at the moment she didn’t care.

Nate whirled on her, his voice low. “We were already in danger the moment that truck appeared. If we hadn’t done something, our backup would have come out here and found two dead bodies—ours. Or maybe they would have taken you with them so you could have been gang-raped before being killed. Get this straight—this isn’t a comfortable office in Washington where you get to sift through evidence at your leisure before sending a report to your boss. This is the border, and out here you either make a decision and follow it or else you die. There’s no room for error, and no second-guessing yourself after the fact. You need to stop analyzing everything to death and start acting on what you know.”

Tracy scowled, even as a part of her knew he might be right. “None of that excuses your behavior, Agent Spencer.

We could have held them off from inside the barn until help arrived. Let me remind you who’s in charge here.”

“In that case, it’ll be a wonder if either of us survives the day,” Nate said angrily.

Stung, Tracy was about to really lay into him when a shout came from the barn.

“Hey, Nate, you might want to come take a look at this,” a man called.

Nate immediately turned and walked, followed by Tracy, to a trio of men in a corner of the barn clustered around a strange-looking handheld metal machine that rested on three small legs.

“We were doing our usual sweeps when Jason took out the CryoFree radiation detector and took a pass. He found an unusual concentration of residual radiation in this corner—not enough to be a threat to our safety, but certainly more than should be here. If, at some point in the last day or so, something radioactive was here, it apparently was leaking a bit.”

Jason, the far-too-young-looking hazmat tech, beamed with pride as he held his new toy. “We just got this a month ago. First time I ever got to use it, and got a hit, too.” His expression sobered. “Come to think of it, that isn’t a very good thing, I mean, that means I just registered radioactive material coming through here.”

Nate exchanged a knowing glance with Tracy, who spoke up first. “Let’s keep this to ourselves right now, gen- tlemen. That’s the Model 25, right? Is there enough here to find out what kind it is or where it might have come from?”

“It was doing the type analysis when y’all came over.”

Jason checked the readout again. “Son of a gun—says it’s plutonium 239.”

“That clinches that.” Nate straightened up and looked at the open doors where the illegals had gathered. “Did you find a guy near here when you cleared the barn?”

“It was empty, but we found blood spatter over there.”

The agent pointed toward the front door where Nate had wrestled with one of the zetas. “You lookin’ for anyone in particular?”

“Yeah, the guy I head-butted in the nose.”

“All of the illegals are being held near the house until we can transport them to process.”

Nate headed toward the open doors. “Come on, let’s go see if they caught him,” he said to Tracy.

“Just a minute, Nate.” Tracy still faced the three crime-scene techs, and showed her identification. “Gentlemen, I remind you that this investigation is a joint effort between the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. Therefore, I must tell you to treat this information as confidential and not to disclose it to anyone else. The only people who should receive your final report are myself, Agent Spencer or Agent Robertson. Failure to comply with this order will result in charges of obstruction of justice being filed. Is that clear?”

The expressions on the three mens’ faces had been relaxed, almost condescending, but by the time Tracy had finished speaking, all three men had stiffened almost to attention, and Nate thought Jason was on the verge of salut-ing her. They all nodded and answered affirmatively.

“All right, get as many soil samples as you need from the area and go over them as quickly and as thoroughly as you can. I want a full workup and report by tomorrow morning.”

With that, Tracy turned on her heel and caught up with Nate.

“A bit officious, don’t you think?” he asked.

“We don’t need this mission compromised because one of your boys decided to share this with one of his drinking buddies, and the next time we hear about it is on the nightly news.”

“Fair enough.” Nate led the way to the cluster of illegals waiting for transport to a processing and holding center.

Everyone there, about a dozen people, stared back silently.

He scanned the crowd, looking for the guy he’d tangled with earlier.

“See him?” Tracy asked.

“Oh, yeah.” Nate circled around to where a man with his head hanging down stood on the outskirts, trying to stay as far apart from the group as possible, yet still remain within the main cluster. Whereas most of the other men wore either T-shirts or had the sleeves of their flannel shirts rolled up in the heat, he had his sleeves down and collar buttoned up, but couldn’t hide the dark bloodstain on his shirtfront. Nate grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the group.

“?Hola! Remember me, cholo? ” Nate’s grin was mirth- less.

The man kept his eyes on the ground. “No habla ingles.”

Grabbing his chin, Nate wrenched the man’s head up, revealing a swollen broken nose. “Sure, you do. Now take off that shirt.”

“?Que?”

“I said—” Nate hooked two fingers in the man’s nose and lifted, making him stand on his tiptoes and grunt in pain, tears filling his eyes “—take off the goddamn shirt, or else I make you strip bucknaked out here.”

“Nate—” Tracy began, but was stopped by his curt head shake.

The zeta waved his arms helplessly. “Si, si. Just stop!”

Nate set him back down, wiped his fingers on the man’s shirtsleeve.

The zeta stared at him now, his dark eyes filled with hatred. “?Pinche cabron!”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s go, show that skin.”

The man slowly took off his shirt, revealing a wealth of tattoos, including the one Nate had been looking for— the Aztec warrior head, this one with no feathers—etched on his chest, above his heart. “All right, Montezuma, you can put it back on.” He was about to find someone and commandeer their ride when Tracy cocked her head and looked over at the abandoned house.

“Did you hear that?”

Nate frowned as he stared at her. “I didn’t hear anything.

Come on, we need to get back.”

Tracy, however, ignored him, walking to the agent watching over the group. “Was the back of the house cleared?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Just a sec, Nate.” She trotted toward the side of the house, listening intently for the noise she swore she had heard. As she approached, she heard it again—the whimper of a child.

“Nate, I’ve got someone back here.” She ran around to the back, but didn’t see anything but overgrown scrub brush. “Hola, where are you?” she called out.

The whimpering continued, and Tracy homed in on the noise, spotting a thin, crushed trail of brown grass near the corner of the house. Kneeling, she peered into what looked like a narrow crawl space under the house, where the noises were coming from.

“?Hola, chica, quien es?” Tracy moved closer to the black hole, trying to see inside.

The face of a small girl, maybe about Jennifer’s age, appeared in the opening, tears running down her cheeks as she answered Tracy in Spanish. “My mama…she told me to hide in here…now she won’t wake up.”

“Okay, sweetheart, we’ll take care of her. What’s your name?”