“Four.”
He dropped the rifle to the ground, still staring at her, angry.
“Three.”
Ben felt a small shock, “What? I dropped it!”
“Two.”
Anselmo said, “Raise your hands, pendejo! Raise ‘em!”
“One.” She stepped to within three feet of Ben, and the opening in the pistol’s black hole looked as large as a one-inch pipe.
Ben’s hands shot up like he was reaching for the cirrus clouds above them.
Hunter slipped out a flexcuff and looped it around Ben’s wrists, then put her pistol in the holster.
All three of them heard the sounds of feet on the incline, and shortly after, Raymond appeared with Adan in tow.
“Look what I caught.”
“Looks a little small, you might have to toss it back in.”
Adan looked at the ground, his cheeks flushed.
Ben and Anselmo looked at the boy, and sent silent glances to each other. This kid was the one that Ellis wanted done away with and his body buried deep. Ellis had told them, “I don’t want a single piece of that little bastard’s DNA left for anyone to find.”
Hunter said, “Adan, what are we going to do with you?”
“Whatever you have to, but please remain my friends. That is all I ask.”
Raymond looked at Hunter, “Well, hell. I was going to be mean, and now…”
Hunter nudged the other two men forward. “We need to hurry down off this if we’re going to catch the backpackers.”
“Go first,
and take Adan with you. We’ll put these two between us.”
“Use some cuffs to tie them together, I only had two.”
Raymond had three sets of flexcuffs in his hand, “Way ahead of you.” He ran them through the men’s cuffed wrists and looped the others together so they could walk, but not run without stumbling. It took seconds, then they worked their way off the ridgeline.
The four backpackers were candy.
Raymond went through their packs and whistled at the contents. He held a few up for Hunter to see, with each dose of fentanyl individually packaged, “Dermal patches still in the wrappers. Their backpacks are stuffed.”
Raymond asked the drug mules if they knew how much was in each pack. They said they didn’t know.
Hunter said, “I’m guessing, but I think they’re carrying about a million each, street value.”
“That’s gonna hurt somebody’s pocketbook.”
**
Ellis and RL watched Hunter and the others from two hills farther east. Ellis used a twenty-power spotting scope resting on a large gray stone the size of a table. RL kneeled beside him, silent and absently toying with a forty-five bullet.
Ellis said, “They’re moving now, going to the SUV. That Flores, he’s making our four guys carry the fentanyl.”