“I’ll take care of it.” Paco put in the key, turned the ignition – and heard silence.
He looked out the windshield and saw the Agents coming toward them. His stomach lurched in fear.
The young man reached into his pants and pulled a pocket knife, opening it with his thumb in one quick movement. He twisted in the seat and stabbed the plastic gas can. Gasoline gurgled out as he stabbed it twice more, and Paco said with alarm, “What are you…what?”
The young man grabbed a flare and struck it as he leaped from the van. Paco scrambled out the driver’s side in a panic.
The young man tossed the sputtering, burning flare toward the leaking gas, and said, “Run!” as he pulled his pistol and fired into the brush until the pistol was empty before turning and darting from the area.
Hunter heard the shots and moved to the front of her pickup to watch the brush line. She wore her pistol, the compact .45 Glock, but wasn’t going toward the gunfire, at least not yet.
The van flared hot and fast, the flames spreading with the gasoline. It would blow, Norma was sure. She ran toward the van and the unconscious children, and so did the other Agents, ignoring Paco and the young man as they fled.
No one was hit by the gunfire, so the Agents concentrated on saving the children. They also heard Sam fighting with one down by the river.
Mike said, “Get the kids out, get the kids out!” as he opened the side panel door and pulled two limp children to him, then carried them ten yards up the road before putting them down on the sand. He raced to the van as Norma passed him, lugging one of the larger children over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
Sam emerged from the cane with the larger man and walked him to the safe area. “Sit, and don’t move. I mean it.” He nodded, his head bowed in surrender, his wrists handcuffed behind his back.
The Agents worked quickly and had all the children safe and away from the van as flames consumed it, sending a boiling cloud of black smoke into the air.
It blew with a muffled whump, and flames spread out of the windows and underneath the vehicle where gas from the tanks leaked. Glass tinkled, breaking from the heat.
Hunter could barely contain herself when she saw the smoke. She called Norma on her phone, but her friend didn’t answer, which made her more nervous. “Don’t go charging down there,” she said to herself, “They know what they’re doing.” She said it, but that didn’t help.
Sam looked at the prisoners and said, “Where’s Paco and the other one? I thought you all had them.”
Mike said, “They started the fire, then the young guy there shot at us and both ran in opposite directions. We focused on getting the kids out of there.”
Norma said, “Paco went north, not south towards the river. The young one probably swam across by now, but we might still get Paco.”
“Unless he gets picked up. The highway’s only a half mile away.”
“I radioed in, we have help coming,” Norma said.
As they watched the flames consume the van, Sam said, “He was gonna kill all those kids, burn them alive?”
Mike said, “The young one lit the gas, but I think that’s what the sonofabitches planned to do.”
Hunter started to call Norma again, but stopped when she caught a glimpse of movement in the brush. At first, she thought it might be a deer. It wasn’t, as Paco came out onto the road a hundred yards from her, talking on his phone.
Paco hung up as he rounded a cluster of tall soap yuccas in an area so close to the highway he saw glimpses of vehicles speeding east and west on it. He also glimpsed Hunter Kincaid moving behind an old dilapidated wooden shed at the edge of the road. He made another quick call.
Hunter slid behind the shed, not sure if he’d seen her or not. Paco continued walking, almost trotting towards her, and all her focus was on him. She suddenly heard a vehicle approaching from behind, and turned to see a black Suburban coming her way, and at a fast speed for such a bad road.
It wasn’t the Border Patrol, or any other law enforcement agency she recognized, but when the windows came down and rifles appeared, she knew to get out of there.
Hunter raced around the shed to put it between her and the Suburban. She glanced at Paco and saw him on his phone gesturing toward her.
The Suburban turned off the road, coming hard through the low brush toward her location. Sage and cactus flattened with the sounds of breaking limbs as it drove over them, and pale dust boiled around it.
Hunter sprinted west, straight into heavier brush, and made it just as the black vehicle roared into view. She found a small draw that descended between two low rises, and she hurried down it.
The Suburban stopped pursuing and turned to pick up Paco. As soon as he was inside, the vehicle sped to the highway and disappeared toward Del Rio.
Hunter returned to her pickup and called Norma again. This time she got an answer.
Norma said, “We’re all right. We got one and all the kids. What was all that noise up by you?”