The Territory (Josie Gray Mysteries #1)(69)
She put the jeep into low four-wheel drive and attempted the embankment to her right, having to take it at an angle instead of straight on, which would have been safer. Her front right tire spun and spit dirt. She stopped and backed up a few feet, taking the bank head-on. From behind her, Otto’s headlights lit up the sandy bank, and she gunned her engine. The front tires lost contact with the bank and almost flipped the jeep backwards. Josie gave it full gas, and the back tires propelled them forward. She and Dell instinctively leaned toward the dash, trying to push the jeep up out of the pass by sheer will. The tail of the jeep spun left, then caught on a rock and spun them up onto the desert floor. The ground wasn’t as sandy as the dunes, but it was strewn with rocks and boulders.
“Are you okay with using a gun as we drive?” she asked Dell.
“You bet,” he said. He held a semiautomatic Luger up to show her.
Josie called Escobedo and was relieved to hear his voice. He said the lead car had slowed behind him, bogged down by the sand, but was still pushing forward.
She explained the plan to Escobedo as she drove around a boulder that was now surrounded by swells of dirt moving like ocean waves.
Escobedo yelled into the cell phone, “They’ve shot up the back of the van!”
Josie listened to static and commotion in the background for over a minute. Finally Escobedo came back on the line. “An officer in the back of the van said one of the prisoners was hit but he’s alive. They don’t dare stop me. They’d never get a car around the van. The road’s not big enough. They’re waiting for the Highway. You call me back when the lead car is stopped. I’ll let you know as soon as we see the roadblock. I have to be close now.”
Josie had turned her flashing lights off and was now making better time on top of the arroyo than the cars below her, which were bogged down in sand. She spotted the headlights of the lead car and second car as they bounced and swerved along the arroyo below her. Dell was a good shot, but the odds of him hitting the tires from a hundred feet in near brownout conditions were slim. Driving five miles per hour, Josie had about thirty feet of visibility.
Dell climbed into the backseat to use the driver’s-side back window. The lead car was just in front of them to the left. It gave him a cleaner shot than sitting in the front passenger seat. Josie was worried about return gunfire and the possibility of the back two cars catching up with them.
“Are you set up yet?” she called back to Dell.
“I’m ready.”
Her cell phone buzzed against her chest, and she answered. Otto said, “We got number three and four cars stopped! I got one tire on the number three, but it was enough to get them buried in the dirt. Marta left her jeep with her lights and siren on directly behind them. The National Guard knows her position. They’re just a couple minutes behind but will provide backup. Marta is with me. We’re coming on top of the arroyo, headed—” His voice cut out, and the call was dropped.
Josie shut her phone and hollered back to Dell. “The third and fourth cars are dead. Two left. Otto is coming up top.” Her car was full of dirt and dust, and the wind howled through the window in the backseat, making conversation almost impossible.
She tried to steady her driving as much as possible. She was now five feet behind the lead car and about the same distance above it. The car was a dark brown lowrider Mercury. The second car was within ten feet of the first. She could see Escobedo’s brake lights just ahead. Her fear was that once Dell started shooting and the Mexicans discovered her location, they would fire back and it would escalate into full-on war.
Within a half-dozen shots, Dell had taken out the right rear tire and then shortly after hit the front window on the passenger side, blowing out the glass. Once the car stopped, the driver immediately turned his headlights off. The second car did the same.
“Way to go, Dell!” Josie shouted.
Her excitement was short lived as her right front tire got hung up on a large rock. Josie felt her jeep lurch forward and then stop. Gunshots were fired, and they felt bullets ring the back end of the jeep.
“We have to get out of here,” Josie said. She shut the engine off, and she and Dell got out of the jeep and ran to the back for cover. It was pitch black except for the headlights of the car in the arroyo. Behind the jeep, Dell placed his duffel bag between them and they both huddled together, trying to block the sand from their faces.
“They could be circling around our car right now.” Josie pointed into the darkness. “I don’t want to get out in that dust storm, but we can’t sit here.”
Dell dug through his duffel bag and handed her a pair of goggles. He found another pair for himself. “I knew the way that wind was blowing earlier, this was coming. At least you’ll keep the dirt out of your eyes.”
Josie pointed behind Dell. “We passed a large boulder before the jeep got hung up. It’s about fifteen feet back. Stay behind that boulder until backup gets here. I’ll take cover on the other side of the jeep, where I can see their car.”
Dell reached over and squeezed Josie’s arm before she stood up. “You be careful out there.”
Twenty feet away from the car, Josie crouched behind a large rock. From there, she could see both her police car and the car below in the arroyo. The second and third cars were both stopped now, unable to move between the car that Otto shot out and the car that Dell had disabled. Marta was parked in the pass. Josie and Otto were both parked on top. In order to keep from drawing fire, all the officers and Dell were now taking cover in the desert until the Guard arrived to light up the area. All four of the Medrano cars were empty. The cartel members were either hunkered down in the desert as well, possibly waiting for reinforcements, or had already taken off on foot. The standoff had reached a critical impasse.