Family Money(64)

I glanced back toward the other two men in the parking lot. They appeared to be badly hurt. One was still lying face-first on the pavement. The other was trying to pick himself up off the asphalt but grasping his leg. Before we could make our next move, another truck carrying more armed men sped around the same warehouse corner.

“What now?” I asked Greta, feeling panicked.

Greta yelled, “Get into this other truck!”

We hustled over to the truck next to us. Greta yanked open the driver’s door, reached inside, grabbed the driver, and pulled him out onto the concrete. He hit the ground with no resistance, clearly dead. I dragged Joe around to the other side, opened the passenger door, did my best to shove him up into the front seat of the vehicle, and then climbed in beside him. Greta was already behind the steering wheel, shifting the truck into reverse. The second truck came to a stop about thirty feet behind us. Gunshots started going off, and bullets started hitting the back window, shattering it. I pulled Joe down in front of me, causing him to yell out in pain, and then I slumped over the top of him to try to avoid being shot. Greta barely flinched. Instead, she punched down the gas pedal hard and thrust our truck backward right at the other truck. We rammed straight into the front of the other vehicle. It jarred me around inside the truck and made my head hit the side window hard. I was dizzy for a moment. Joe grunted in my arms.

Greta then put the truck into drive, stomped on the gas pedal again. We rocketed forward. I heard more gunshots going off behind us and could hear bullets popping through the metal all over our truck. Greta kept swerving left and right, trying not to give them a good target and bouncing us all around inside the cab. We were picking up more speed. I looked over and noticed that Greta’s right arm was bleeding. Had she been shot?

“Alex . . . ?” Joe muttered, trying to look up at me.

“Stay down, Joe,” I said to him.

“Brace yourself,” Greta said to me. “And hold on to him!”

Greta was not slowing down to make the turn to go back to the front of the building. Instead, we were headed right at the security fence again. I could see a busy city street on the other side of the fence. We were going to burst right through it to get out of here. I did what she said and braced for impact while wrapping both arms tightly around Joe.

The truck easily ripped right through the chain-link fence. We bounced hard across a bumpy sidewalk, and then Greta yanked the steering wheel right as we slid into the street. Cars swerved to avoid our unexpected entrance and began crashing into each other. Our truck nearly turned over before finally settling again with all four tires back on the pavement. Greta punched down on the gas pedal again.

I glanced out our bullet-shattered back window. The truck following us was stuck behind all the wreckage. I took what felt like my first breath since I’d put eyes on Joe.

Within minutes, we were deep into the city.





FORTY-FOUR


Thirty minutes later, we were inside a private medical room on the first floor of a nearly abandoned office building somewhere in the dark recesses of Mexico City. Greta acted like she knew the place well. Using her CIA connections, she’d pulled in a local doctor, who immediately started tending to Joe’s many wounds. My father-in-law looked even worse under the fluorescent lights. They’d beaten him badly this past week. But he was alive, and that was what mattered most at the moment. Still, where did we go from here? I was a suspect in a crime I hadn’t committed. The police officer who’d been working with me was dead. And Miguel Cortez was still capable of causing havoc for all of us. We weren’t out of the woods yet. I knew I couldn’t just call Taylor right now and give her the good news about her father. This thing was beyond complicated. But Greta seemed to be developing a plan. She was currently on her phone outside of the room, working on a way to get us all out of Mexico City.

Alone with Joe, I stood next to his medical bed and waited for him to open his eyes. The doctor had been pumping him full of pain meds for the past few minutes. Joe had been pretty much out of it ever since we’d dragged him to freedom. I noticed he was finally stirring awake. Joe squinted up at me, his eyes slowly adjusting to the bright light above him.

“It wasn’t a dream,” he said to me. “You are here.”

“I’m here, Joe. You’re okay. You’re safe now.”

His eyebrows pinched. “But . . . what about the girls? Taylor? Carol?”

“Yes, they are okay, too. They are safe back in Austin.”

“Thank God,” Joe said, exhaling deeply, his shoulders relaxing. “Who is with you? I saw someone else. A woman?”

“Greta,” I replied. “She’s right outside.”

Joe’s face wrinkled up. “But . . . how?”

I grabbed a stool, slid it over, and sat. “It’s been one hell of a week.”

I proceeded to tell him everything that had happened from the moment the minivan sped off with him inside with that black hood over his head. Hearing about the death of his friend Ethan Tucker made Joe tear up and rub his face with his hands. Then finding out I had almost died on the streets of Austin and a police officer had been killed this morning because of this situation seemed to hit him even harder.

“I’m so sorry, Alex. I never dreamed any of this would happen.”

“Listen, Joe, I’m okay. You’re okay. That’s what matters right now.”