Although she didn't specifically mention their suicide pact, her meaning was clear. Tiel's chest grew tight with anxiety and despair. "We can't let you do it, Sabra. You know it's wrong. It's not the answer."
"Please help us. It's what we want."
Then, of their own volition and against her will, her eyes closed. She was too weak to reopen them and lapsed into a doze.
Tiel looked across at Doc. "It's bad, isn't it?"
"Very. Blood pressure's dropping. Pulse is high. She's going to bleed out."
"What are we going to do?"
Sternly staring into the girl's pale, still face, he thought on it a moment, then said, "I'll tell you what I'm going to do."
He stood up, retrieved the pistol from the shelf, stepped around the Frito-Lay display, and approached Ronnie, who was waiting for an update on Sabra's condition.
chapter 13
Why aren't they answering the phone?" Events had reduced Dendy's characteristic bellow to a high-pitched squeal. He was beside himself.
Indeed, the gunshots had plunged everyone inside the van into a state of near panic. Cole Davison had rushed outside, only to return moments later, yelling at Galloway because the SWAT team had been mobilized.
"You promised! You said Ronnie wouldn't get hurt. If you pressure him, if he feels like you're closing in on him, he might… might do something like he did before."
"Calm down, Mr. Davison. I'm taking precautionary measures as I see fit." Galloway held the telephone receiver to his ear, but thus far his call into the convenience store had gone unanswered. "Can anybody see anything?"
"Movement," one of the other agents hollered. Via a headset, he was communicating with another agent outside who was equipped with binoculars. "Can't make out who's doing what."
"Keep me posted."
"Yes, sir. Are you going to tell the kid about Huerta?"
"Who's that?" Dendy wanted to know.
"Luis Huerta. One of our Ten Most Wanted." To the other agent, Galloway replied, "No, I'm not going to tell them. That might panic everyone, including Huerta. He's capable of just about anything."
Ronnie answered the phone. "Not now, we're busy!"
Galloway swore lavishly when the dial tone replaced Ronnie's frantic voice. He immediately redialed.
"One of the Mexicans in there is on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list?" Cole Davison was becoming increasingly distraught.
"What for? What'd he do?"
"He smuggles Mexican nationals across the border with promises of work visas and well-paying jobs, then sells them into slave labor. Last summer Border Patrol got tipped of a transport and were hot on his tail. Huerta and two of his henchmen, realizing they were about to be apprehended, abandoned the truck in the New Mexico desert and scattered like the cockroaches they are. All evaded capture.
"The van wasn't found for three days. Forty-five people- men, women, and children-had been locked in from the outside. The heat inside the trailer must've reached two hundred degrees or higher. Huerta is wanted on forty-five counts of murder and miscellaneous other felonies.
"For almost a year he's been holed up somewhere in Mexico. The authorities down there are cooperative and want him as badly as we do, but he's a cagey bastard. Only one thing could get him to risk exposure. Money. Lots of it. So if he's resurfaced here, then I'm guessing that somewhere in the general vicinity there's a shipment of people waiting to be sold."
Davison looked ready to heave his last meal. "Who's the man with him?"
"One of his bodyguards, I'm sure. They're dangerous, ruthless men, and their stock in trade is human beings
.
What puzzles me is why they aren't armed. Or if they are, why they haven't shot their way out before now."
Dendy's chest rose and fell, emitting a gurgling sound like a sob. "Listen, Galloway. I've been thinking."