The Searcher Read Free Page B

knew, but clearly in good enough standing with the cartel to be allowed to come along for the ride.
    â€œI’m talking,” Javier snarled. “I be closing the window when I’m good and ready.”
    Mulcahy turned back and stared up at the empty sky.
    â€œWhat kind of plane we looking for? Is it one of these big-ass nuke bombers? Man, that would be some cool ride.”
    Mulcahy considered not replying, but this was the one piece of information about aircraft he did know because it had been included in the brief. Besides, the longer he talked to Javier, the longer the window would remain open, leaking cold air out and hot air in.
    â€œIt’s a Beechcraft,” he said.
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œAn old airplane, I guess.”
    â€œWhat, like a private jet?”
    â€œPropellers, I think.”
    Javier pursed his boxing-glove lips and nodded. “Still, sounds pretty cool. When I had to run, I sneaked across the river on some lame-ass boat in the middle of the night.”
    â€œYou got here though, didn’t you?”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œWell, that’s the main thing.” Mulcahy leaned forward. A darksmudge had appeared in the sky above one of the larger spill piles on the far side of the airfield. “Doesn’t matter how you got here, just so long as you did.”
    The smudge darkened and became a column of black smoke rising fast and thick in the sky. He heard the faint sound of distant sirens. Then Mulcahy’s phone started to buzz in his pocket.

6
    M OVEMENT ROCKED HIM AWAKE.
    His eyes flickered open and he stared up at a low white ceiling, a drip bag hanging over him, a clear tube coiled around it like a translucent snake, moving gently in time with the ambulance.
    â€œHey, welcome back.” The female medic appeared over him and shone a bright light into his left eye. He felt a stab of pain and tried lifting his hand to shield his eyes but his arm wouldn’t move. He looked down and his head swam with a chemical wooziness. Thick blue nylon straps were wrapped around his arms and body, securing him tightly to the gurney.
    â€œFor your protection while we’re on the move,” she said, like it was no big deal. He knew the real reason. They’d had to sedate him to get him in the ambulance and the bindings were to make sure they wouldn’t need to do it again.
    He hated being bound like this. It pricked at some deep emotional memory, as if he’d known confinement and never wanted to know it again. He focused on the feeling, trying to remember where it came from, but his mind remained stubbornly blank.
    The movement of the ambulance was making him feel sick and so was the cocktail of smells trapped inside it—iodine, sodium bicarbonate, naloxone hydrochloride, all mixed in with sweat and smoke and sickly synthetic coconut air freshener drifting in from the driver’s cab. He wanted to feel the ground beneath his feet again and the wind on his face. He wanted to be free to focus and think and remember what it was he had come here to do. The pain in his arm flared again at the thought of it and the bar rattled when he tried to reach for it.
    â€œCould you loosen the straps?” He forced his voice to stay low and calm, like it was no big deal. “Just enough so I can move my arm.”
    The medic chewed her lip and fiddled with a thin necklace around her neck with GLORIA written on it in gold letters. “Okay,” she said. “But you try anything and I’ll knock you straight out again, understand?” She held up the penlight. “And you’ve got to let me do my job.”
    He nodded. She paused a little longer to let him know who was in charge here, then reached down and tugged at a strap by the side of the gurney. The nylon band holding his hands came loose and he lifted his arm to rub at his shoulder.
    â€œSorry about that,” Gloria said, leaning in and flashing the light in his eye again.