The Territory A Novel - By Tricia Fields Page 0,87
phone to Josie.
“Lou, I need you to get the National Guard contacted. Tell them we need backup ASAP. We’ve got big problems. I tried to reach Moss several times, and he isn’t answering. I can’t wait on him to be the contact. You call and get them here now.”
Her cell phone rang. It was Escobedo. “I can see their lights. They can’t be more than half a mile from me.”
Hearing the worry in his voice, she hesitated, and then explained they had already fired at her.
“Whatever you do, don’t let them stop your van. You’ll be a dead man. Lou just called and said Otto and Marta are both right behind us. In four-wheel drive, they ought to be up with us in three or four minutes,” Josie said.
“I figure I’ve got about two miles before I’m at the highway. Presidio called and said they have four cars set in a roadblock with DPS and Border Patrol ETA in five minutes. Their cars are on Highway 67 headed south. The wind is blowing so bad, though; I can’t even tell if I’m on the road or not anymore.”
Josie heard gunshots, and Escobedo cried out. “They’re hitting the back of the van!”
She tried to ignore his panic. “You have to stay in the pass no matter what! Keep pushing through. You’ll be able to tell if you’re veering off the pass. From where you are, there’s about a three-foot incline on either side until you reach the highway.”
He began to reply, but the gunshots were so loud, they distorted his voice. All she could hear was static. The line went dead.
Headlights appeared in her rearview mirror, and she called Otto. He confirmed he was behind her.
“They’re shooting at Escobedo,” she said. “I’m going to try and get up top and catch up to the lead car. I’ll try and shoot out their tires. Be prepared if I do, though. They could come out shooting. Escobedo said he’s only about two miles out, then we’ve got help from Presidio PD and hopefully Border Patrol.”
“Get up top. I’ll call Marta and tell her we’ve got the back two cars. Think you can take out both the lead and the second car?”
“I’ll give it my best.”
She put the jeep into low four-wheel drive and attempted the embankment to her right, having to take it at an angle instead of straight on, which would have been safer. Her front right tire spun and spit dirt. She stopped and backed up a few feet, taking the bank head-on. From behind her, Otto’s headlights lit up the sandy bank, and she gunned her engine. The front tires lost contact with the bank and almost flipped the jeep backwards. Josie gave it full gas, and the back tires propelled them forward. She and Dell instinctively leaned toward the dash, trying to push the jeep up out of the pass by sheer will. The tail of the jeep spun left, then caught on a rock and spun them up onto the desert floor. The ground wasn’t as sandy as the dunes, but it was strewn with rocks and boulders.
“Are you okay with using a gun as we drive?” she asked Dell.
“You bet,” he said. He held a semiautomatic Luger up to show her.
Josie called Escobedo and was relieved to hear his voice. He said the lead car had slowed behind him, bogged down by the sand, but was still pushing forward.
She explained the plan to Escobedo as she drove around a boulder that was now surrounded by swells of dirt moving like ocean waves.
Escobedo yelled into the cell phone, “They’ve shot up the back of the van!”
Josie listened to static and commotion in the background for over a minute. Finally Escobedo came back on the line. “An officer in the back of the van said one of the prisoners was hit but he’s alive. They don’t dare stop me. They’d never get a car around the van. The road’s not big enough. They’re waiting for the Highway. You call me back when the lead car is stopped. I’ll let you know as soon as we see the roadblock. I have to be close now.”
Josie had turned her flashing lights off and was now making better time on top of the arroyo than the cars below her, which were bogged down in sand. She spotted the headlights of the lead car and second car as they bounced and swerved along the arroyo below her. Dell was a good shot, but