Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(11)

From up front, the pounding grew harder. How long before they brought in a battering ram or an ax?

Torres closed and locked the door. Another series of bolts and a drop bar.

“Más rápido,” she said.

Jesús and the Marines lifted the desk and set it against the door, then tossed aside the rug. Just visible in the wooden planks was the outline of a trapdoor. Jesús grabbed a crowbar from a shelf and pried at a corner until the door came loose. He and another Marine lifted it and set it aside. A whiff of cool earth wafted into the room. But underlying the sweet, loamy smell came a nauseating stench of sweat and urine and feces.

I recalled a news report I’d read, that some sections of the military were in the hands of the cartels. “Jesús?”

“Migrants, Sydney.” His eyes met mine. “Not prisoners. Thirty minutes ago, we had five men and women in here. Headlamps are in that box to your right—pass them around. Se?ora Torres, you have a chain and padlock so you can bolt the trapdoor from the inside?”

“Sí.”

The Brick gave a low whistle and jerked a thumb toward the front of the building.

“Listen,” he whispered.

We froze. The pounding had stopped. In the ominous silence, the building groaned like an arthritic old man. Pipes ticked overhead, and somewhere water dripped.

There came a boom like thunder, and the entire building shuddered.

“They’ve blown the front door,” said the Brick.

Jesús shoved me toward the trapdoor. “Go!”

More thunder rumbled, closer than the first.

“And the back,” the Brick added.

I flicked on my headlamp, took a quick look down at a cramped tunnel, and, holding tight to my duffel, dropped through the opening. I landed in a pile of dirt.

Jesús dropped beside me. “Run!”

I stumbled forward a few steps and stopped. The tunnel disappeared into darkness. My headlamp picked out plywood walls, a trampled dirt floor, and a ceiling five inches above my head. The hair lifted on the back of my neck.

I don’t do tunnels well, not since a month earlier when Clyde and I had been forced to walk through one I thought would collapse at any moment.

Jesús touched my shoulder. “Run, Sydney. You stay, maybe we all die.”

I ran.



The tunnel wound like a serpent, slithering forward, then partially doubling back on itself as it curled around an obstacle. Sometimes it sloped down before it leveled off and then, each time, climbed again. My headlamp caught scenes flickering past, like pages from a tragic flip-book.

A hollowed-out space with packed-down earth and a foul plastic bucket.

A doll of twigs and cloth, dropped on the path.

A pair of sneakers, shoelaces gone, the toes worn open.

A cross.

Behind me, the infantería came, silent save for the rustle of denim and the pumping of their lungs.

Seven minutes in, a third shuddering boom shook the tunnel. I lost my footing and pitched forward onto the ground. Jesús fell beside me. I closed my eyes and mouth, burying my face in the crook of my arm as dirt broke loose from the ceiling. Thick clouds of dust boiled around us.

Jesús’s voice came ragged in my ear. “They’ve blown the door to the room. Now there’s just the trapdoor.”

From behind came harsh coughing.

“Christ,” someone said. “How much explosive those guys using?”

“You okay?” Jesús asked me.

I raised my head. Blinked. The whites of Jesús’s eyes stood out in the dirt and sweat on his face.

I found his cap and the headlamp where they had fallen. “Can they figure out where the tunnel emerges?”

“No.” He shrugged. “Still, prayer might not hurt.”

We hauled ourselves to our feet and kept running.



Another fifteen minutes, and the tunnel dead-ended. A ladder led up into the gloom. We clustered at the base, and Jesús pulled out his phone.

“Why haven’t they blown the trapdoor?” someone asked.

“God is smiling on us,” said the Brick.

Someone laughed. “You should be a comedian.”

Jesús said, “The door above leads to La Merced. Miguel has been monitoring the police scanner. There’s nothing about us and our girl. Carlos?”

“Here,” answered the Brick.

“Once we’re in the market, you and Juan stay with Se?ora Torres. Make sure she has no trouble getting home. Jorge and Eduardo, you come with me and Sydney. Miguel has a car waiting for us outside, near the tianguis. The rest of you, separate and start walking as soon as you reach open air. Browse. Act casual. Buy some flowers for your girlfriends so you have something in your hands. Text or call if you see anything, but don’t take more than ten minutes before you hit a subway and disappear. As soon as they figure where this tunnel comes out, we’re blown.”

A fourth boom.

“Here they come,” he said.



La Merced was Mexico City’s largest traditional food market. Angelo and I had planned to meet there the next day for lunch. After Angelo suggested the place, I’d scoped it out on Google Maps. Located on the eastern edge of the city’s central zone, the place stretched across several city blocks. For anyone in the business of transporting migrants, La Merced was the perfect place to hand them along; they would be invisible among the throngs of tourists and locals crowding the immense sprawl of buildings and stalls and tianguis—the illegal markets on the streets and sidewalks. Nearby subway lines offered multiple escape routes.