Whitewater (Rachel Hatch #6)(44)

What had been captured by the second photograph had, in fact, been the opposite of what the five family members had envisioned on the bank of the raging Rio Grande. Ayala's uncle lost his footing on a wet rock while sprinting to beat the ten-seconds he had to close the distance between the camera and the assembled group.

Traction-less loafers and wet rocks proved a deadly combination. His uncle's right foot shot out behind him just as he neared his family. Out of an instinctual counter move, Ayala's uncle shot out his left arm. Ayala's mother, who was beside him and holding his hand, took the unintentional left hook delivered by his uncle.

To this day, he wakes sometimes to the sensation of his mother's hand in his. He cherishes those fleeting moments because of the moment that created it.

Ayala's mother fell back, striking her head on a knot of stone protruding out of the giant boulder. She fell into the river. Ayala remembers the splash and rush that followed. Because he too was swallowed up into the tempestuous whitewater. His mother's grip had brought him on a similar path, but being much shorter, he missed the jutting rock that had rendered his mother unconscious.

He rode atop her lifeless body for a moment before the churn of the water upended him and separated him from his mother. He held onto her hand, but the grip of her fingers faded until they were no more. Unable to keep hold, his mother slipped away. Ayala never saw her again except for when they’d buried her after finding her body twenty-seven miles downriver from the small town of San Antonio del Bravo.

The violent water swallowed him only to spit him back out a second later. The air turned to cold froth and Ayala choked it down. Without knowing which way was up or down, and with a lungful of water, Miguel Ayala, boy of ten, had resigned himself to his impending death. As darkness edged its way into his periphery and as the Rio Grande roared, Ayala felt a tugging. It was distant at first. Becoming clearer as he broke the surface of the water again, but this time to the panicked eyes of his father who had jumped in to save him.

His father, a kind, thoughtful man became a man of action that day. He jumped in fully clothed to save them. He later told Ayala that he had tried to save his mother too. But she was too far downriver and was bleeding badly from the head. The water damaged his father's watch, grinding its gears to a halt the moment he jumped in. His father never got it fixed and chose to wear it every day as a reminder of what happened.

Ayala now wore that watch. Ayala found his uncle's old camera many years later and with it discovered the second photograph taken that day. And to this day, he kept it tucked inside his left breast pocket, believing the brightness of his gaudy Hawaiian shirts helped brighten the dark memory of the photo.

He wanted to share these things with Hatch and hoped someday to have that opportunity. But first, he had to survive the next few minutes. The crashing wave of her exhale receded, followed by a word of encouragement. "You can do this, Miguel." The rest was up to him.

He got to the door, another access pad with a red light just above the height of the doorknob and off to the right.

"Same as before," Hatch said in his ear. And same as before, the key card granted him access. He hesitated. Hatch's voice sounded in his ear. "You can do this, Miguel. Remember when you entered that house of a known drug dealer with members of the Mexican Special Forces? You faced fear then, and you can face it now."

Ayala took Hatch's words in stride as he stepped inside. Ahead of him, three steps led up to a landing where two armed security personnel stood, wearing dark black uniforms. They both had guns but kept them holstered on their waists. Each bore a tired expression.

One of the men, the lankier of the two, lazily balanced his chin on his fist in a thinker's pose. But instead of thinking, he looked more like a man trying to find a way to sleep standing up.

The squat hairy man next to him popped his knuckles while he passed an eye over Ayala. This man didn't look at Ayala in the manner of a professional, instead acting more like a school yard bully. He wondered if they spent their day intimidating all the workers like that. Ayala thought the answer to that question might make a good piece of journalism. He put a mental pushpin in his idea board, wishing he could pull his notepad from his fanny pack stowed in the Nissan and jot it down.

The one not trying to sleep gave Ayala a quick eye, but only for a moment before turning back to his partner and attempting to engage the man in whatever conversation Ayala's entrance had interrupted.

Past the man, Ayala stopped. He slowly turned his body with his hands on his hips like he was Superman overlooking a crowd of adoring fans. There was a crowd, but they weren't adoring fans. They were employees dressed like him moving about the floor of the orange juice bottling plant. Ayala's slow turn gave Hatch the needed surveillance information to make her best guess of where he needed to go next, which he heard through his earpiece a moment later.

"To the left, there's a door with that restricted access symbol over it. You see it? The yellow and black one."

He turned to the door, acknowledging he saw it without speaking. Hatch got the message because she continued a moment later.

"That's going to be our best guess now, and we'll go from there. I don't see a lot of activity by that door, so when you approach it, do so confidently, in a manner that won't draw any suspicion."

Ayala moved across the floor, doing his best to look as though he belonged, nobody in the cluster of workers on the main floor noticed or cared. Ten feet from the door, a security guard was dressed in similar colored overalls with a badge attached to his chest that looked like it was taken from a child's costume. He was not armed like the other two at the door. And unlike the two men in black, he did harbor ill will in his eyes. In fact, he gave a nod and slight tip of his hard hat in Ayala's direction, who did likewise in return. The two moved on at an equal pace, but in different directions.