“Everything I’ve told you is true.”
“It’s what you haven’t told us that bothers me. You plan to turn us over to el SEBIN.” Gabriela lowered her pistol, let Dylan handle that part of it. “Why didn’t you betray us to your friends at the first roadblock?”
Sander exhaled, squirmed, and broke. “I wanted to get paid by the Agency first. I told them I would bring you to them in San Cristóbal.”
“You double-crossing bastard.” Dylan looked angry enough to kill.
“Greed is amortalsin, Sander.” Gabriela sat forward, spoke next to his ear. “Now you won’t get anything—no more money from the Agency and nothing from Sánchez or the Andes Cartel, either. They’re going to think you betrayed them. Worse than that, you’ve exposed yourself as a CIA asset. You know what el SEBIN does to traitors.”
Dylan held his pistol steady. “Should I blow his brains out here?”
“No.” Gabriela glanced over her shoulder, checking traffic. There couldn’t be witnesses. “Give me your phone, Sander.”
“Slowly,” Dylan cautioned him. “I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”
Sander handed over his phone.
Gabriela pocketed it. “We wait for a break in the traffic, and then search him and put him in the trunk. I’ll drive. We’ll take side roads into town.”
“They’ll find you anyway. You can’t make it across the border.”
Dylan pressed the pistol into Sander’s temple. “Open your mouth again, and I’ll shut it permanently.”
When the road was clear, Gabriela and Dylan stepped out, walked around to the driver’s side, and opened Sander’s door. “Pop the trunk. Get out. Leave the keys.”
He did what they’d told him to do and stepped out of the car, hands raised.
While Dylan held the pistol on him, Gabriela searched first the trunk and then Sander, removing a tire iron from the trunk and a pocket knife from Sander’s trousers, along with his pass and his cash. When she was certain he had nothing on him, she gave him a shove. “Climb in. Make it fast.”
He hesitated, rage and fear on his face.
“Do what Sister María tells you to do, or I’ll kill you here.”
Sander climbed into the trunk, glared up at Gabriela. “You’re no nun.”
“I’m not?” Gabriela feigned shock. “¡Mierda!”Shit.
“I’ll tell them.” Sander laughed, a sick, terrified sound. “They still think you’re a nun, but when they find out—”
“Watch what you say,hijoeputa.Those words will get you killed.” Dylan slammed the trunk.
Gabriela hurried to the driver’s seat. “We need to turn around and head back to the last exit. We can use your phone to navigate.”
When he got back into the passenger seat, Dylan had a big grin on his face. “I like watching you work.”
* * *
“There’s a bridge up ahead.”Dylan glanced up from his phone, his M4 back in one piece and in his lap. Because they were escaping rather than evading, he’d put on his gear again—camo shirt, body armor, chest rig, helmet with NVGs. “I hope it’s wide enough for the vehicle.”
He’d hate to have to retrace their route and try again.
In the valley below, the lights of San Cristóbal glittered, seeming as distant as they’d been an hour ago.
Sander’s phone buzzed again with another message from an unidentified number.
Where the fuck are you, you bastard!
Dylan typed in a response.