The Rule of All by Saunders Ashley & Saunders Leslie

Author:Saunders, Ashley & Saunders, Leslie
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542008297
Publisher: Skyscape
Published: 2020-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

AVA

We fly down Mexican Federal Highway 85 at eighty miles an hour, straight as a bullet fired toward Monterrey, smuggled inside the final tanker truck in a line of five.

We’re surrounded by a blanket of darkness—the trucks’ headlights cut off the moment we left US soil. There’s not even the gleam of the stars or moon to light our way tonight.

Mira, Lucía, and I huddle around our autonomous vehicle’s intricate dashboard, studying the ultraprecise, high-definition Live Map. We’re taking full advantage of the high-tech navigational system before it’s back to strictly paper maps as our guide. For the last hour, it’s been just small towns and sweeping deserts with low mountain ranges edging the desolate highway.

Wearing tactical gloves, Lucía uses her thumb and forefinger to zoom out on the digital map, looking ahead to our destination—a small town forty miles outside Monterrey. The headquarters of the People’s Militia.

Lucía sought shelter there with her mother and brother for six months until the Salazars’ sicarios found them and they were forced to flee again. I wonder how she gained the militia’s trust, given that Salazar blood runs through her veins. How did she prove she wasn’t a falcon sent by the cartel to take the unruly rebel group down? Whatever the case, I’m piecing together that not only did they believe her, they accepted her into their ranks.

She points to the town on the Live Map, chin lifted, shoulders strong and straight in her sleek charcoal-black uniform.

“The People’s Militia will join us on our mission,” she says steadfastly, her words translated through my ear cuff in English, making her vow feel all the weightier with the repetition.

And if they refuse?

They won’t. Lucía will make sure of it.

Mira opens a small window that divides the truck cabin from the cargo hold. “Fifteen minutes,” she says to Haven, crouched on the other side.

“Fifteen minutes,” I hear Haven echo to the others cramped in the back among the bags filled with gold.

Dirty money Roth stole from his own state.

Lucía’s finger moves farther south, hovering over Monterrey, the capital of Nuevo León, Mexico. Are memories flooding her mind? Thoughts of her family, her upbringing?

The industrial city lies in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Oriental and, according to the map, isn’t choked with skyscrapers. In a different time, when I didn’t have eyes only for completing my mission, I would have loved to tour Lucía’s hometown streets and see how she lived.

Lucía ran from her city just like we ran from Dallas. Monterrey can’t be that much different from our hometown. Violence, class warfare, not enough of anything to go around.

She just had better views.

“Trouble,” I say, alarmed, pointing to a series of blinking red dots that just appeared out of nowhere on the map. They converge right where the highway exits the long roadcut we’re driving through, blocking our path.

“An ambush!” Lucía warns the team through our ear cuffs. “A rival cartel who dares to raid a Salazar transport.”

The worry that creases her brow tells me she didn’t foresee this happening.

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