From behind, Jake heard the crack of gunfire and felt a burning sensation tear up the back of his leg. A sharp, stinging pain followed. The force of the bullet’s impact knocked him down as if a baseball bat had struck him from behind. Lurching as he fell, Jake skidded on the ground, jarring his shoulder painfully on impact.
Andy whirled and saw his father splayed on the ground behind Solomon.
As he stumbled back to his feet, Jake screamed, “Run! Run!”
From the dark, Jake heard a taunting voice call, “Did I hit you? I hope so! I have plenty more where that came from!”
Andy came toward his father, but Solomon went the opposite direction and vanished into darkness. Jake understood why. Somebody was coming up behind them.
Andy aimed the Ruger at the hole they’d just crawled through and fired enough times to empty the magazine. The hole was a good twenty meters away, but it looked like Andy shot with tremendous accuracy. The ringing in Jake’s ears was now as persistent as the throbbing in his hand. Andy helped his father to his feet. The bullet had just grazed the back of Jake’s leg. He was hobbled, but could walk.
Making their way in the darkness, Jake and Andy caught up with Solomon just before they came to a tunnel branch on the left, which led to the exit under the Terry Science Center. Andy was first to go that way. For a moment, no bullets came at them. Whoever was in pursuit had slowed. Even if someone did fire at them, they were safe unless the ammunition happened to be smart enough to make a sharp left turn.
Shirtless, sweating, covered in filth, blood, and violent-looking scratches, Jake’s chest heaved as he fought to take in as much air as possible.
“The others?” Jake asked as he removed his belt. He quickly secured the belt around his injured leg as a second makeshift tourniquet.
“Safe,” Andy said. “They went into the woods, and I came back to look for you.”
“You and Solomon get out of here, take the exit,” Jake said.
“No, I’m staying with you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“That’s Fausto,” Andy said in a shaky voice. “I heard his voice. He’s the worst of them all, Dad. Please don’t stay. You can’t fight. You can’t shoot. Let’s get out of here.”
“He’ll follow you. All of us. We can’t risk it. You’ve done enough, son. Get going. Now!” Jake barked the command.
Andy flinched a little. They had no time for arguing. This was about survival, and Andy listened and understood. He and Solomon took the exit, but they left Jake with the flashlight. Jake used that light to watch them go. When they were out of sight, he emerged from the relative safety of the branch and returned to the main tunnel. Only one target remained.
Fausto.
Jake would not leave this final job to the government or to law enforcement. He trusted no one but himself. Nobody from the cartel could leave this place alive. The only way to safeguard his son, and the others, was to protect their identities. If Fausto had yet to pass that information along to his boss, then the last man who knew them by name was coming this way.
Jake slipped out from the tunnel branch and was on the move again. He walked loudly, and as he went, he smeared on the walls the blood that seeped from his injured hand. There would be no question which path to follow.
Fausto wasn’t going to waste ammunition. He could fire at that opening until all his bullets were gone, but it would accomplish nothing. No, he had to go through the hole in the wall, same as the others. If anybody waited in ambush, he would make an easy target, but retreat was not an option. Caution was tempered somewhat by blind fury. He went in headfirst, shooting rounds from his rifle to provide some cover, and emerged from the hole into a section of tunnel dark as the others. His flashlight allowed him to see somewhat, but the rifle was useless to him. He couldn’t fire effectively one-handed. His pistol would have to do. Fausto’s prized gun was his Glock 37, with gold accents and mother-of-pearl grips. The gun was a totem to the pistol Carlos lent him back in Ciudad Juárez many years ago-the one that Fausto had used to commit his first murder.
Fausto paused and took stock of his surroundings. Nothing ahead looked unusual. No sounds. No signs of life. He proceeded at a cautious pace. At one point, he checked the pistol’s magazine and saw only six shots left, plus one chambered round. He was down to one magazine for his assault rifle, and seven shots in the Glock.
Fausto heard footsteps; sound carried well down here and he discharged two bullets in what surely was a wasted effort. He set off at a quick pace, and it was not long before he came upon the blood smeared along the tunnel wall. He saw a branch to his right, but he followed the blood, expecting the trail to vanish. It did not. It continued. It wasn’t like the fabric or crushed flare that had tricked him before. Something human had left this stain. Fausto imagined an injured man using the wall to keep himself propped up, and the notion pleased him.
He followed the trail of blood like a shark tracking an injured fish.
CHAPTER 49
Jake made frequent checks behind him as he went. Fausto was coming, that much was certain. He could hear him, but not see him, which was fine. More than enough blood pooled from Jake’s injured hand to coat the walls, but at some point he wouldn’t have enough left in his body to keep him upright. Still, Jake knew where he needed to go. Having a destination kept him motivated and moving. The leg was bothersome, but not crippling. The tourniquet seemed to be working well, another positive Jake used to spur himself on.
As for his thoughts, Jake kept those task-oriented. Return to his bug-out location. Get to his weapons cache, where he had plenty of ammunition. This became a mantra of sorts. He had used mantras in baseball on plenty of occasions, and it proved valuable here as well. “One step at a time” replaced “One pitch at a time.” Repetition kept Jake alert and in the moment as he traveled through different sections of tunnel, while leaving behind enough of a bloody trail for Fausto to follow.
When necessary, Jake crawled on his belly to clear the low ceilings. He navigated successfully through crumbling archways and over-corroded pipes without incident. His injured hand produced mind-numbing pain at times and required special protection. He favored his good hand when forced to clear a particularly difficult obstacle.
Despite his extensive injuries, Jake moved briskly, somewhere between a walk and run. Markers spray-painted on the walls revealed his position as he journeyed underneath the Terry Science Center, the library, Gibson Hall, and the Society Building, where he’d shot a man dead. Soon enough, Jake was back in the section of tunnel that hid his bug-out location.
It was here Jake retrieved a Smith & Wesson.22 LR-rimfire pistol, good for target shooting, maybe a little recreational fun, but not ideal for gunning down drug cartels armed with assault rifles. It was all that Jake could shoot. He held the gun in his left hand and gazed at the black barrel, noticing now how his vision came in and out of focus. He did not have long.
Jake aimed the weapon. It was shaky in his weak hand. He would need his target perfectly still to make a kill shot. In this condition, Jake was all but guaranteed to lose a gunfight-or, for that matter, any other type of hand-to-hand combat.
But like any good prepper, Jake had a solution.
In his storage room, Jake kept plenty of.22 long-rifle ammo sealed inside military 50-caliber BMG ammo-storage cans. The cans were made of metal, with handles on top that made them easy to stack. A latch closed the cans tightly, and a rubber seal inside helped keep moisture out. He could store ammo for years this way, and it was just as good as a vacuum seal, Jake would say. He kept his bullets inside Ziploc bags, with a packet of silica gel thrown in for good measure to suck up any excess moisture. Each can held six Ziploc bags with 150 rounds. Jake didn’t want that much ammo going off. He wanted fifty bullets at most. Enough to do the job.