In Desperation

phone. Angel could not hear any of it over the rush of the wheels and the fan pushing conditioned air, smelling of fabric freshener and diesel, through the old bus. But in seconds, the driver’s reaction to his call telegraphed alarm in a million ways.

While on the phone, he’d glanced into his mirror and quickly inventoried his passengers, nodding as he spoke. Angel noticed how, upon ending the call, the driver repositioned his grip on the wheel with both hands, then licked his lips. Then he dragged the back of one hand across his mouth as he constantly checked his side mirror.

As if he is expecting to see someone come up beside them.

The warning signs accumulated.

Trouble’s coming.

Angel had to act but he needed to keep calm. He controlled his breathing the way he’d been conditioned since his first days as a professional assassin.

At that time, the cartel had sent him to a secret training camp, where for several hard months hired mercenaries from around the world taught him how to maintain and shoot with accuracy every kind of gun, from pistols to assault rifles. He was instructed on how to use knives, bows and employ everyday items as weapons. Here is how a paper clip can be used to puncture an eyeball. The mercenaries taught him self-defense, how to read and escape dangerous situations and survive as a fugitive. They taught him the art of killing hand to hand, but not how to live with death on his conscience.

Angel had soon understood that killing was not possible for all the prospective hit men at the camp, where cartel enemies had been delivered for execution.

Some could not do it.

They could not look into the eyes of their target, a defiant man, a sobbing woman, even the pleading child of an enemy kneeling before them, and end their life. Some broke down, lost their minds.

They were the first to be executed.

Angel was different.

He held enough hate in his heart, knew the smell and taste of it, so that squeezing the trigger was a release.

An embrace.

But with time, killing had exacted a toll, and now he knew that his days as a sicario were numbered. He was tired of the torment, tired of living in the crosshairs, of facing eternal damnation. That is why he brokered his deal with the priest.

That is why he would bring it all to an end after this final job.

But it would end on his terms.

Not here.

Not with a white, potbellied bus driver squirming in his seat. Angel continued studying his actions for the next few miles and contemplated his options.

Since departing El Paso, Angel had used the bathroom a few times, familiarizing himself with the layout of the old bus, a Strato AirGlider, and the distribution of passengers, mentally noting which ones were using wireless laptops or cell phones, possibly watching news sites.

He was vigilant. None of the passengers, so far, posed a threat.

They were passing the Dos Cabezas Mountains and, according to the signs, nearing the exit for Willcox. That’s when Angel noticed a car had materialized alongside the driver’s left, then eased its way ahead of the bus, giving Angel a clear view.

It was a gleaming white Ford.

A Crown Victoria, no markings, no roof lights. But the push bars on the front bumper and back dash lights were telltale indicators of an unmarked police car.

Then the bus driver lifted two fingers in a subtle wave.

Angel very calmly collected his bag and headed to the bathroom. The passengers, many of them dozing, were oblivious to what was transpiring.

The bathroom was locked. It was occupied.

Angel waited.

Then he felt the bus decelerate.

He rapped softly on the bathroom door. Through the windows he could see the bus was leaving the interstate. Angel heard movement in the bathroom just as the public address system in the bus crackled with the driver’s voice.

“Ladies and gentleman, we’re making an unscheduled stop in Willcox to have a mechanical issue checked. It will not take long. Please remain on the bus and accept my apologies for any inconvenience.”

The bathroom door clicked and a large grandmother navigated her way out, muttering in Spanish. Angel waited, then entered the small room, holding his breath.

Inside, Angel locked the door and stood on the lid of the toilet seat. Above the toilet, in the ceiling, was a combination vent and escape hatch. The hole was about eighteen-by-eighteen inches, covered with screen.

The hatch cover was open, tilted upward toward the front of the bus. Angel noticed the wires that likely connected to an indicator light on the driver’s console. He used his small knife to cut them.

He removed the screen, hooked a long strap of his pack to his shoe then hoisted himself smoothly through the hole, pulling his pack after him. He lay flat on his stomach, keeping low to the bus roof, hanging on the lip of the hatch as the wind rushed over his body.

The bus turned on to the business loop. As it crawled along, Angel glimpsed a scattering of settlements before it approached the downtown and clusters of sleepy low-rise buildings.

Over the noise outside he could hear someone knocking on the locked bathroom door, then a man’s voice, muffled but impatient.

The bus stopped at a traffic light beside a large dump truck loaded with fine gravel or sand. This was Angel’s chance. Keeping close to the roof, he waited for the right moment, slid to the side and leaped into the truck.

Angel’s pulse raced.

Sand stuck to his moist face and hands as he waited in the dump truck, waited for voices, for a siren, for a commotion, for an ending.

Then the dump truck jolted and its transmission grinded as the driver upshifted. The truck rolled slowly through downtown Willcox.

Angel peered over the side, saw his bus disappearing as the dump truck turned and headed out of town.

He was now two hundred miles from Phoenix.

43

Clarksburg, West Virginia / El Paso, Texas

Steve Pollard had to be certain.

At the FBI’s crime data center outside Clarksburg, the fingerprint analyst needed to check another aspect of the Phoenix kidnapping.

Pollard’s standard operating procedure was to leave no stone unturned.

He’d already identified the two kidnapping suspects, Ruiz Limon-Rocha and Alfredo Hector Tecaza. Check that off. But he was troubled by the elimination prints from the Phoenix case. Pollard had used them to compare with Limon-Rocha and Tecaza’s impressions but was uncertain if the elimination prints themselves had been submitted through the network of crime databases.

Pollard was submitting them now. Better to do it twice than risk an oversight, he thought. Even though he didn’t expect anything, he had to exhaust all possibilities.

After submitting the elimination prints, Pollard was about to check the daily email on success stories circulated to all the fingerprint examiners in the section. But he didn’t get the chance. One of the databases yielded a hit on one of the elimination prints Pollard had just submitted. His eyes narrowed at he concentrated on the result.

What the heck?

It came out of the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, the national database that held details on a range of