Rob dropped to the ground beside her. “It’s not the same tunnel, Libby. We’ve closed all of those. We had three left to cut off, and this is one of them.”
“I don’t think I can, Rob.”
“Your mother would want you to survive, wouldn’t she? It sounds like she did everything she knew how to do to help you at the end. Don’t waste that.”
Libby sat back on her haunches and brushed her hands together. “Lead the way.”
“First we’re going to try to cover our tracks around here. Shuffle around in the sand from side to side.”
They spent a few precious minutes scuffing through the sand to cover their footprints.
Rob braced his foot against a rock. “Now, follow me. We’re going to hop from rock to rock to the entrance of the tunnel. We’re gonna have to crawl on our bellies to get in, but if I recall, this particular tunnel is paved and we’ll be able to stand to our full height—or you will be.”
Rob jumped to the first rock and held out his hand to her. “As soon as I leave this rock for that clump of brush, take my place. Our stepping-stones don’t have to be literal stones. There’s scrubby brush we can use, too. Any hard object in the sand that’s not going to show a footprint.”
Like a couple of kids playing hopscotch, they jumped and careened and stepped from spot to spot toward that dark ridge that seemed to forecast her doom.
At the last anchor, she froze. “Rob, I hear an engine.”
“I’ve been hearing it. They’re on the way.” He curled his hand. “C’mon. One more and then we hit the ground.”
“Okay, I’m ready.” She jumped toward Rob and he caught her, wrapping his arms around her. She wanted to stay here and forget about the men coming for them, forget about the tunnel at their feet.
“We’re gonna crouch down here. The entrance is between those two rocks. It’s big enough for a grown man to get through, so you won’t have any problems.” He placed his hands on her shoulders. “You can do this, Libby. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Behind me?” She gulped. “You mean I have to go through first?”
“I’m not crawling in there and leaving you out here by yourself. You’ll be safe inside. Hurry.”
Libby bent her knees, which felt stiff as boards. From above, Rob guided her. No wonder the cartels and coyotes got away with these tunnels. She was kneeling right in front of the opening and still needed Rob to tell her how to get inside.
As Libby crawled into the tunnel, she thought about her mother doing the same thing over a month ago. She whispered into the darkness, “Why, Mom?”
After several seconds of claustrophobia where she felt the dirt walls closing in on her, she took a breath that didn’t result in grains of sand in her mouth. Her hands no longer scrabbled through dirt, but hit smooth cement.
Rob slithered through the entrance behind her, bumping her back with his head. “Is that you?”
“It had better be.” Still on her knees, Libby stretched up. “There’s a lot of room in here. I can’t believe it.”
“You’d be surprised at some of these tunnels.” Rob crawled past her and sat up. “Can you stand?”
Holding her hands above her head, she rose to her feet. “Almost. Can we use the light from our phones in here, or will they see?”
“They won’t see a thing from inside this tunnel.”
Libby grabbed her phone from her purse and turned on the flashlight. She scanned Rob’s face first, just to make sure he was beside her. “We made it. Now what?”
“They’ll be coming after us. They might suspect we’re in a tunnel, but they’re going to have a hard time figuring out how to get in here.” Rob tossed his backpack on the ground and plunged his hands inside.
“So, we’re going to wait it out or what? They’ll never give up, will they? We could cross to the other side of the border and get to a place where we can make a call from our phones.”
Rob didn’t answer her. He was busy pulling items from his backpack—scopes, wires, another gun, a rope.
Narrowing her eyes, she said, “We’re going to use all that stuff?”
“If we hope to survive, we are.” He picked up a pair of goggles. “These are night vision. We have to be able to see our enemies before we can take them out.”
“T-take them out?” Libby ran a hand through her tangled hair. “We’re not just going to hide? Wait for the cavalry? I didn’t realize we were going to engage them.”
“They will engage us. Make no mistake about it.” He held a finger to his lips. “Shh.”
Libby kept still, even though her insides quivered as she heard shouts from outside the tunnel.
She scooted next to Rob. “Can you hear them? Are they speaking Spanish or English?”
“They’re speaking English—for my benefit. As far as I can tell, they’re ordering us to come out from hiding.”
“Or what?” She pulled the gun from her purse that she’d slipped in there earlier. “You tell me where to shoot, Rob, and I’ll pull the trigger.”
“I have no doubt about it, but don’t get trigger-happy just yet.”
A barrage of gunfire erupted outside, and Libby jerked back. “What are they doing?”
“Those are automatic weapons. They’re shooting up the ridge. They must think they’re gonna get lucky and hit us.”
“Are we protected in here?”
“Stay away from the entrance and try to keep low to the ground when they’re shooting.”
She curled a finger around Rob’s belt loop. “It doesn’t sound like they’ll ever stop.”
And then silence descended and it was ten times worse than the bullets. “What’s going on?”
Rob strapped on the night-vision goggles and did an army crawl toward the tunnel’s opening, his gun clutched in his hand. He hoisted himself on top of the hunk of rock that blocked the rest of
