"Two cars loaded with cartel heavies," said Alpha. "They're just cruising around, hoping to get lucky."

"How much farther. For real?" she said.

"You can see it from here. We're headed to an abandoned school on the opposite side of the street. The tall chain-link fence marks the start of the school. We can walk the rest of the way. They won't double back."

She turned to her son. "We're almost there."

"Good. I'm too tired to walk anymore."

"You can sleep the rest of the night in the car," she added.

Somehow she doubted that was true, but she said it anyway. She couldn't imagine sleep would come easily, if it came at all. The kid needed something to cling to.

They filed back through the gate and continued west on the sidewalk. She hadn't thought it was possible, but Avenida Marmoleros took Mexicali's dilapidated motif to a new level. The farther they moved from the USMexico border, the worse it looked. Ever-present graffiti. Boarded windows. Cracked walls. Collapsed roofs. Bullet holes. Stripped cars. Trash everywhere. The city was in an unrecoverable state of neglect, plagued by violence and ruled by gunmen.

The fence Alpha had referenced barely qualified as a barrier. Twisted, unraveled sections of chain link clung to bent poles. The school beyond it looked worse. Calling it abandoned was a kind description. Destroyed would have been more appropriate. The right half of the one-story building just beyond the fence had collapsed, its flat roof angled steeply into a soccer field littered with piles of metal and wood sc.r.a.p. The only reason she a.s.sumed it had been a soccer field was based on the warped rectangular goal visible beyond the scattered debris.

Alpha led them past the school and into a narrow pa.s.sage beside a shuttered, graffiti-covered auto-parts business. They pa.s.sed between the school's chain-link fence-surprisingly intact here-and a head-high wall topped with haphazardly placed coils of rusted razor wire that grabbed at the top of her night-vision goggles if she rose from a stoop.

They continued along the path to the southwest corner of the property, where two figures inside the school yard pulled open a neatly cut section of the fence to admit them. Alpha writhed through the fence first, while Bravo continued on several steps to guard the alley the pa.s.sage opened on to. Once they'd all pa.s.sed through the fence, Alpha ushered them through a dented metal door into the building next to the fence.

The room met expectations established by the school's exterior. The walls were covered in graffiti and scorched in several places. Squatters' cooking fires, Keira imagined. A long, cracked chalkboard leaned against the southern wall to her right. The windows on the opposite side of the room had been boarded over but were surprisingly intact. In between the front and back walls lay the remains of a cla.s.sroom. Broken metal desks and facedown bookcases. The door slammed shut behind them.

"You can ditch the night vision," said Alpha.

Keira lifted the goggles attached to her helmet and squinted as her eyes adjusted to the interior light. She glanced at the intact windows again, then behind her at the metal door, which looked new from the inside. "This room looks like a movie set," she said.

"The whole place has been more or less staged," said Alpha, walking between them to open the door leading deeper into the school.

"Does the cartel know about this?" said Nathan, looking around.

"The cartel knows everything," he said. "But this place is mostly unknown to the rank and file. It's also off-limits by order of the cartel jefe who rents us all of our s.p.a.ce in Mexicali."

Keira patted Owen's shoulder. "We can rest here, sweetie."

"No rest for the wicked, I'm afraid," said Alpha. "The gas station scene generated a lot of communications traffic. Jose wants you out of here immediately, before every cartel bozo looking to earn a bonus shows up."

"Christ, we just got here," said Nathan. "We need a break!"

"You can recuperate on the road," said Alpha. "Last time I checked, driving wasn't a physical activity."

"Our car trips haven't exactly been relaxing lately."

Alpha opened the door, revealing a dimly lit hallway. "My mission is to get you to the Route 2 and 20 interchange-alive. The chances of a successful mission decrease every second we spend this close to the center of town."

"It's fine, Nate," Keira said. "I'm fine. I want to get Owen as far from here as possible."

Nathan sighed, then nodded. "All right. Let's go."

The hallway and adjoining cla.s.srooms smelled musty and had been stripped bare, explaining the sc.r.a.p piles spread over the soccer field. Keira now wondered if the school's entire exterior facade had been carefully crafted to discourage investigation, right down to the partially collapsed building.

At the end of the hallway, the Alpha directed them into the last cla.s.sroom on the left, which contained a surprise. Two metallic gray, midsize SUVs, side by side, facing the wall on the right side of the room.

Keira and Nathan dumped their backpacks onto the floor. Staring at the SUVs, Keira couldn't help asking the first question that popped into her head. "How did you get the cars in here?"

Alpha laughed. "I thought you might ask how we plan on getting them out."

"The answer to one question satisfies the other," said Nathan.

"That it does," replied Alpha. "The wall they're facing is obviously fake. Well, it's a real wall, but it can be pulled down from the outside-when we're ready."

The windows in the doors of the SUVs looked odd. Each was rolled down a third of the way, topped by a thick metal bar spanning the top of the window.

David must have seen the same thing. "What's up with the windows?" he said.

"Retrofitted bullet-resistant gla.s.s. We installed a single molded sheet that extends from the metal support bar to the bottom of the door. The entire door serves as a shield. We left the top third open so you can shoot. The metal bar extends into the door frame on each side, keeping the gla.s.s in place."

David reached out to touch one of the windows. "What about the front windshield and rear cargo windows?"

Alpha shook his head. "We purchased these off a commercial lot. It wasn't feasible to replace the windshield without some serious modification to the upper cha.s.sis. We've bolted a custom-cut sheet of gla.s.s behind the rear seat bench, extending to the top of the seat. You're covered from the sides and rear."

"But nothing helping us up front," said David.

"You got the engine block and your tactical armor," said Alpha. "Look on the bright side-you can shoot forward if you need to."

"How bullet resistant are the side windows?"

"Standard-issue, jacketed semisteel-core rifle rounds will not penetrate. When you start getting into the tungsten-carbide stuff, all bets are off. You'll know when something like that hits one of the windows. You don't want to be there when the next one hits."

"Four-wheel drive, I a.s.sume?" added David.

"You a.s.sume correct. Full spare mounted inside and under the rear compartment, which will be a pain in the a.s.s to access. We packed the compartment tight with the supplies you'll need to get past Arizona. Fuel cans. More MREs than you can stomach. Water. Medical. Six-eight ammo for your rifles. Even a tent and some sleeping bags."

"When did you run these last?" said Nathan.

"I honestly don't know," said Alpha, glancing at Bravo, who shrugged. "The guys you saw outside arrived a few hours earlier and said everything checked out."

"Does it matter which vehicle we're in?" Keira asked.

"Take your pick. For all practical purposes, they're identical."

"In that case, this one looks good," she said, opening the rear door of the SUV directly in front of them.

"Great choice," said Alpha, cracking the first smile she'd seen since they'd met him.

"You'll find a handheld radio in the glove box, tuned to the channel we'll use to communicate between vehicles. My team will lead. You follow closely-less than a half car length. Report anything that doesn't look right."

"The whole city doesn't look right," said Keira.

"Funny. Report any threats, real or perceived, and we'll handle the rest. It's important that you stay close. If a car gets between us, things will get very complicated. With any luck, we'll be at the interchange in twenty minutes. Questions? No? Good. Let's get on the road."

Less than a minute later, they were situated in the SUV according to David's tactical seating plan. Owen sat in the middle of the rear bench, two backpacks separating him from the right pa.s.senger door. Keira sat next to him, her a.s.signed field of fire extending from the left side of the car to the rear. Optimally, she'd drive instead of David, freeing their most qualified shooter to occupy the most flexible firing position. Realistically, she didn't trust herself to drive under fire well enough to suggest the switch. Emotionally, she had no intention of leaving her son's side.

Her husband peered back between the front seats. "Ready, buddy?"

Owen gave him a thumbs-up, and Nathan reached back to give him a high five.

"How's Mom doing?" he said.

"Never been better," she said, purposely overdoing a smile.

Nathan nodded sharply and smiled. "I have a good feeling about this."

"You keep saying that," said Keira, her voice trailing off. Nathan's words had rekindled a thought.

"What's up?" he said.

"Maybe nothing, but why would both cars be identically loaded with supplies? We're the only ones going any distance."

"Jose said they were all pulling out and heading north," said Nathan.

"Yeah, but not right now," said David. "And these two guys wouldn't just be taking off on their own."

"I don't know," Keira said. "I just found it odd."

"It sure as h.e.l.l is," said David, making as if to open his door, then freezing as Alpha's digitized voice squawked over the encrypted handheld radio.

"Ready to roll?"

David sat back in his seat, eyes narrowed. He shared a dark glance with Nathan and Keira in turn, then shook his head. "Either way," he said, "we can't hang around here. If they stay with us after we get out on the road, we'll deal with it then."

"You reading me?" Alpha pressed. "Ready?"

Nathan picked up the radio and pushed the "Transmit" b.u.t.ton. "Affirmative. Lead the way."

"Remember to keep the distance between the two cars as close as possible. We'll turn sharp right coming out of the building, then left in the alley."

"Copy that," said Nathan.

"Start your car. The wall comes down in three, two, one."

As the SUV rumbled to life, the cla.s.sroom wall in front of them fell like a ramp, crashing into the ground. A thick cloud of dust exploded from the impact, obscuring their view beyond the room.

"That was cool," said Owen.

"Not something you see every day," Keira agreed.

Alpha's SUV pulled forward and stopped on the crashed section of wall. Two figures emerged from the swirling haze, immediately absorbed by the vehicle. The men who'd let them through the fence, Keira imagined.

"Alpha, your brake lights are out," said Nathan.

"All taillights have been disabled," replied the commando.

"What about the front lights?" David asked.

"We'll run with headlights inside the city, so we don't stand out. Once on the outskirts, we run dark."

"Makes sense," David said, turning on their headlights and illuminating the dust cloud.

"Roger. Let us know when to go dark," said Nathan, lowering the radio. "I hope they know what they're doing."

"Me, too," said David. "Because I don't have a better plan that doesn't involve heading south for Acapulco."

The SUV in front of them lurched forward and immediately turned right. David followed, their vehicle emerging from the school into the suspended dust. They crept behind the lead SUV, which faced an open gate to the alley. A few seconds later, both vehicles sped uncomfortably fast through the gate and proceeded disturbingly close to each other down the alley. Keira squeezed Owen's hand, more for her sake than his.

"It'll be all right, Mom," he said.

"You're starting to sound like your dad."

CHAPTER 22.

Mexicali flattened into a wasteland of shabby and abandoned roadside business fronts once they turned left on Route 2, headed for the eastern fringes of the city. In the solitary glow of their headlights, it looked uninhabited. Through David's night vision, it looked long dead. A few miles from the Route 20 interchange, the businesses faded away, replaced by long stretches of broken and warped chain-link fence. Behind the useless property barriers, derelict tractor trailers, their tires and engines missing, stood tall over barren lots filled with sc.r.a.pped cars and piles of junk.

David tapped the brake as Alpha's SUV decelerated and applied it a little more firmly when the rate of closure between the two vehicles didn't immediately decrease.

"Ask him why they're slowing," said David, watching the windshield-projected speedometer shoot below forty-five miles per hour.

"Why are we slowing?" said Nathan.

"We have a small situation coming up. Plan on coming to a full stop in five, four-"

"Define 'small situation,'" said Nathan, interrupting Alpha's count.

"Two, one-"

David pressed the pedal hard, bringing them to a controlled stop less than a foot behind the lead vehicle. Flashes erupted from the SUV on both sides, accompanied by the crackle of suppressed automatic fire.

Nathan detached his seat belt and rose to one knee in the front seat, aiming his rifle through the wide slit at the top of the window. "What are they shooting at?" he yelled.

"Left side!" David barked as the SUV rained fire on a sedan facing the highway from behind a shallow, rocky rise, bullets peppering its windshield, st.i.tching it with holes and spraying crimson blotches against the remaining windows. The sedan's doors remained closed throughout the fusillade, its occupants probably either dead or critically wounded by the first volley.

Then Nathan's rifle began popping repeatedly. By the time David's eyes focused on that side, a ma.s.sive pickup truck facing the highway alongside a derelict building had met a similar fate.