Part 50 (1/2)

'Holy s.h.i.+t,' Dwight said, 'the bad guys are going down. Someone's shooting them. Pan north.'

The Predator's sixty-six-foot wingspan allowed it to fly slowly above a location. Its camera moved north of the fight scene until it showed a shooter pointing a rifle at the cartel men.

'He's hammering them,' Lance said.

'He's rescuing the two hostages,' Dwight said.

'h.e.l.l of a firefight.'

'Literally,' Lance said. 'Look.'

He panned the camera south, but not very far. Flames from the wildfire were coming closer.

'Fixin' to be some fried Mexican food for the coyotes.'

'Oh, man,' Grady the co-pilot said. 'I love flautas.'

'Shut up, Grady.'

Carla crawled up the rise; the truck was parked on the other side. She did not want to leave Book, but she knew he was right. They would both die.

'That's a female,' Dwight said.

She was trying to escape. She ran hard through the desert brush, stumbled several times, got up and ran again ...

Carla ran hard until a hand came out of the darkness and grabbed her arm.

Chapter 36.

Book crawled through the chaos then got to his feet and ran low to the ground and into the desert. He scrambled up the rise; on the other side, he stopped and called out to Carla. A voice answered, but not her voice. A male voice.

'Hey, Professor.'

Two figures walked out of the darkness and into the light provided by the wildfire. One was Carla; the other was- 'Jimmy John?'

He wore a red jumpsuit and carried an a.s.sault rifle over his shoulder.

'What the h.e.l.l are you doing out here?'

'Shooting a few Mexicans.' He chuckled. 'I spotted your truck outside the well site, figured you two were gonna get yourself in a mess of trouble, so I followed you. But why'd you follow the tankers?'

'To get it on tape,' Carla said. 'So we can shut Billy Bob down.'

'Let's get out of here,' Book said. 'Before that fire reaches us.'

'So Billy Bob's contaminating the groundwater with the frack fluid?' Jimmy John asked. 'That's what those papers proved?'

'No.'

'Then what?'

'He's dumping the flow-back out here in the desert,' Carla said. 'To cut costs. That's illegal. It'll flow into the Conchos, then the Rio Grande. We can put Billy Bob in prison and shut down his frack wells.'

'She right, Professor?'

'Yes.'

Jimmy John sighed then pulled the rifle off his shoulder and pointed it at Book.

'I'm sorry, Professor, but I can't let that happen.'

'Is he pointing the weapon at them?' Dwight said.

'Looks that way,' Lance said.

'For Christ's sake. He rescued them, now he's taken them hostage? What the f.u.c.k is going on?'

'Welcome to Mexico.'

'You ran Nathan off the road,' Book said.

'I wasn't trying to kill him. I was trying to get him to pull over, so I could talk some sense into him. He was gonna take his proof to the media, like that queer Kenni with an ”i” wanted him to. Kenni got him into that queer stuff, thinking he could be an artist, live in New York, smoking dope. Got him thinking like the Chin.a.z.is. Turned him against fracking. Against us. Against me. Like he didn't care about us no more. Like he found better friends. He knew going public would've cost me my job. I begged him, Professor. But he didn't care.'

'Nathan died for your job?'

'You ever not had a job, Professor? You ever go to the store and have to count your pennies to see if you can buy food? You ever live in a dump trailer on the Mexican side of town? You ever look in the mirror every morning and see a loser? Well, I have. Most of my life. But not since I got a job. You shut down fracking, I lose my job. I can't go back to that life, Professor. A life without a job.'

Jimmy John swiped a sleeve across his nose. It was bleeding.

'You drive a big black pickup. You ran us off the road.'

'You wouldn't go home and mind your own G.o.dd.a.m.n business.'

'You hurt Nadine.'

'Well, what the h.e.l.l were you doing, putting her on the back of that Harley? That ain't responsible.' He paused. 'Did she ask about me?'

Carla pointed south. 'The wildfire, it's closer.'

'What are you going to do, Jimmy John? Kill us, then go back and ask Nadine out?'

'Well ... not right away.'

'You figure the sheriff will blame it on the Mexicans?'