Deguello (A Hunter Kincaid Novel)
“Who do you think is out t
here, where the plane is landing?”
Paco sweated drops the size of small marbles as he thought of what would happen if Kit or Suretta found out what he told Hunter. “I don’t–,” Hunter watched his face, and Paco couldn’t hold any secrets as he looked away from her gaze, “Maybe Kit and Nadine. They usually have a big guy with them, I don’t know his name.”
“Is he the muscle?”
“He is stronger, but not as dangerous as Kit. She uses a knife. Thrown or close up, either way with her. She is la segunda, and in charge out here when Suretta is not around.”
Hunter looked at Ike, who nodded in the direction of the landing plane. He said, “It’s on the ground, and I can hear it taxiing.”
Hunter asked Paco, “How close can we drive and not alert them?”
Paco rubbed his mouth before saying, “From here, less than a half-mile, then walking like this.” He pointed to the left, “There is a road over there that you can use to drive right up to the barn.”
They parked the pickup and got out. Hunter said, “We’ll go this way.” She and Ike waited for Paco to take the lead, then followed him, so close they could touch his belt.
Paco felt their nearness, and his panic rose with every step. What would he do? Either these two behind him or the fierce women ahead, but someone would hurt and maim him, he felt sure of it, so sure that he shook as if he had the chills.
Hunter said, “Are you all right?”
“Iss my nerves. I am very nervous.”
“Relax, we’re not here to hurt you, only to get to the kids.”
And then what, he thought. Killed by Kit or Suretta or Nadine, or killed by this man, Ike, or the hard-eyed woman, Kincaid, but one or the other. Unless he took drastic action, but for sure one or the other if he didn’t. His mind raced to think of a plan as they walked toward the plane’s location on the far side of these small hills.
The trail lined out in the bottom of a gulley so small that Ike’s head was often higher than the edge. The sandy bottom had few rocks, and their pace remained fast.
Several times Paco tried to slow the pace, but Ike pushed him in the back every time. Each time the older man regained their original speed so that in less than ten minutes, the three of them reached an overlook. The barn and the plane came into view just as the parked DC-3 feathered its twin engines to a stop. Hunter tried to call on her phone but it showed no bars. No help from the Sheriff, she thought.
The plane’s door opened, and someone rolled out portable stairs to the door. A heavyset man became visible in the plane door. He wore a Hawaiian shirt and aviators, and waved at the woman coming out of the barn to greet him. Paco told the others it was Kit.
“The one that likes knives,” he said.
Ike said, “I remember.”
They watched the man descend the stairs and walk with Kit into the barn. Hunter said, “Let’s get closer while they can’t see us.”
Ike asked Paco, “Are the kids inside the barn?”
“The last time I was here, yes, that is where they are kept.”
Hunter said, “I see a Jeep and the airplane, but no other vehicles.”
Paco said, “The far side of the barn, there is a carport attached to it.”
Ike asked, “When they fly the kids out of here, where do they take them?”
“I hear it is Canada, someplace up there.”
“Canada?” Hunter said.
“It is a stop before they take them the rest of the way.”
“Where’s the final place?”
“It varies, but always in the Middle East somewhere, like Pakistan, Iran, those places. All of the kids are sold in the Middle East. The money’s too good not to.”