But the light revealed nothing.
Then this made sense to him.
They knew Maria was dying, so they’d left her here. She was afraid of the dark, so they left the light for her.
Palma dared to rise to his full height now, and he approached Maria’s body more easily.
She lay slumped to her right side, her face down and away from him. He tapped her nearest hip-her left-with the toe of his boot, but she didn’t move.
He watched her chest carefully for signs of breathing, but again he saw nothing.
Still, he needed to be certain.
Keeping his weapon trained on her head, he reached out with his left hand and pulled her into a more upright sitting position so that he could check her pulse.
So young and so thin, her torso weighed virtually nothing as-
Maria had tucked the hand grenade in her left armpit, with the pin pulled. Palma knew what it was from the ting! of the safety spoon flying away and arming the detonator. When the grenade rolled between his feet, he turned to run.
It didn’t matter.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The explosion registered more as a thump than a bang, but it was loud enough to make Tristan jump and duck. “What was that?”
“Nothing for us to worry about,” Scorpion said. “Keep going.” Stealth no longer seemed to be an issue.
“It was an explosion!” Tristan said. “How can that be nothing for us to worry about?”
A look passed between the Big Guy and the boss. It didn’t linger, but it was significant, and Tristan caught it. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Come on, Tristan,” Scorpion said. For the first time, he appeared tired. Nearly spent. “Please just let it go and keep walking.”
“I think I have a right to know.”
“And I think you’re wrong. Please, just-”
“Maria just blew herself up, didn’t she?” Tristan didn’t know where that came from, or how it had occurred to him, but he was certain that that had to be it. “Was that what she asked you at the end? For a grenade to blow herself up?”
Another look passed between the two men. Big Guy said, “What can I say, Boss? The kid’s good at connecting the dots.”
Tristan pulled up short. “Dots! Dots? That’s what she was to you? She gets too heavy to carry so we just leave her to die and then she gets reduced to being a dot? Oh, my God.” Out of nowhere, Tristan felt flushed, like he needed to sit down. It was as if someone had hacked away the final chunk of mortar in the dam that held his emotions together. The reality of it all was more than he could bear.
Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air to breathe. He sank to his knees, and pressed his hands to his face, a last desperate effort to keep the tears from coming.
He saw Maria’s beautiful face, so alive, and then so agonized. He saw Allison lying dead on the floor of the bus, and Mrs. James being forced to do such awful things only to be shot down by the terrorist she’d obliged.
Sobs wracked his body as he heard a wailing sound pealing from his throat. These were sights he’d see in his mind for the rest of his life. How could anyone live with that?
He thought of the man he shot, and of the excitement that gave him, and then he felt overwhelmed with even more grief. Overwhelmed by shame.
“We don’t have time for this,” the Big Buy said.
“Yeah, we do,” Scorpion replied.
Tristan felt a hand on his shoulder. It didn’t comfort him so much as steady him.
He knew he should be repulsed. These men were trained killers-so used to it that they treated cold-blooded murder as more of a business transaction than the unspeakable act of violence that it was.
“Listen to me, Tristan,” Scorpion said, his voice so close to his ear that it made him jump. “Maria wanted you to live, and in the end she was fine with dying to make sure that happened. When I went back to speak with her, she told me that you reminded her of her brother Jaime. He was about your age when Felix Hernandez’s goons murdered him.”
Tristan took a huge breath and wiped tears and snot from his face with a swipe of his arm. He knew that Scorpion was trying to comfort him, but how did-
“It was Maria’s idea to booby-trap her own body,” Scorpion went on. “She knew the soldiers would stop to check on her. That was the explosion you heard, son. That was Maria saving your life. Saving all our lives.”
Tristan’s world felt as if it had too many moving parts. They were out of synch, and nothing made sense. “What makes me worth all this?” he asked. There, he’d spoken aloud his worst fears.
Scorpion gave a kind smile. “Fifty or sixty years from now, when you look back over a whole life, I hope you’ll be able to answer that question.”
A few feet away, Big Guy shuffled impatiently, and Tristan got it. He’d have countless years ahead to throw pity parties for himself.
But here, they still had a job to do.
A miserable, awful freaking job, yes, but a job.
They had to go home.
When Jonathan saw the lights approaching from the other end of the tunnel, he knew their ordeal was over, but he wasn’t at all sure what the initial meeting was going to be like. At the first sign of the glow, Jonathan brought his team to a stop.
“My name is Leon Harris!” he yelled. “I am with Richard Lerner and Tristan Wagner! We are heavily armed, but pose no threat to you!”
A voice called from the light, “Put your weapons down and advance!”
Jonathan yelled, “No! It’s been a long day, and we will not disarm until we know that we are safe.”
“Ballsy move, there, Boss,” Boxers grumbled.
A long silence followed. Two minutes or more.
“What are they doing?” Tristan whispered.
“I have no idea,” Jonathan confessed.
“Well, they’re not shooting at us,” Boxers quipped. “That’s kind of a nice change.”
Finally, the lights up ahead moved, and a dark form emerged from the glare, walking closer. There was a purposefulness to the stride.
“Hands off your weapons,” Jonathan whispered.
“I don’t have a weapon anymore,” Tristan said.
“He wasn’t talking to you,” Boxers whispered back.
At the precise instant when Jonathan realized that the silhouette belonged to a woman, that woman’s voice said, “Welcome home.”
She walked directly to Jonathan and extended her hand. “Veronica Costanza,” she said. “I’m with the FBI.” She scanned the other faces. “You’re missing one.” Behind her, others approached.
“Maria didn’t make it,” Jonathan said.
“But she saved our lives,” Tristan said.
Veronica looked for confirmation.
“Saved us all,” Jonathan said. “A courageous woman.” The disappointment on the FBI agent’s face was obvious-the United States’ case against Felix Hernandez and Trevor Munro had just fallen apart-but there was sadness there, too.
Agent Costanza turned to Tristan. “You, young man, need to follow these agents out of this god-awful tunnel. We’ll get some food in you and get you back to your family.”
“I’m not under arrest?” Tristan asked. He looked shocked.
“We’re in the process of getting that all worked out,” she said. “Meanwhile, don’t worry about it. I want you to go with Agent Purgo here.”
A recent Academy graduate stepped into the light and offered his hand to Tristan. “You can call me Kent,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”
Tristan shook his hand and stepped forward. He looked to Jonathan and Boxers. “I’ll see you guys in a few minutes, right?”
“Not if I see you first,” Boxers said-but with a smile.
“We’ll see you in a few, Tristan,” Jonathan said, knowing full well that he’d just lied.
Agent Costanza crossed her arms. “Busy day?”
“A little bit,” Jonathan said.
“You know, the Mexican government is calling you two terrorists.”