I twisted her wrist sharply, forcing her to drop the syringe, then swept her legs out from under her. She hit the floor hard, the breath rushing out of her lungs in a heavy gasp. I quickly grabbed the zip-tie cuffs from Vance’s unconscious utility belt and secured Karen’s hands tightly behind her back, fastening her to the heavy iron leg of the bed frame.
She thrashed against the plastic restraints, her face red and dripping with sweat. “You have no idea who you’re messing with!” she spat. “The Clinic doesn’t just buy from anyone. They have fixers. They track everything! You’re a dead man!”
I ignored her. I grabbed the manila file and shoved it into the inside pocket of my leather jacket. I looked at the heavy blue cooler on the floor. I grabbed the handle and yanked it up, turning toward the open door.
I sprinted outside. The heat hit me like a physical blow. I ran straight to the silver SUV. The back doors were locked, but the driver’s side window was rolled down. I reached in, popped the locks, and threw open the rear passenger door.
Leo was sitting in the backseat. He was buckled in, staring blankly at the seat in front of him. His small hands were trembling violently.
“Come on, kid,” I said, my voice softening instantly as I unbuckled him. “We’re leaving.”
For the first time, Leo didn’t resist. He reached out, wrapping his arms around my neck. I lifted him out of the vehicle, holding him tightly against my chest. I grabbed the blue cooler with my free hand and ran toward the back of the motel, disappearing into the dense desert brush just as a second siren began wailing in the distance. Someone at the diner had heard the gunshot.
We hiked through the scorching scrubland for twenty minutes until we reached the dry river wash where I had hidden the Indian Chief. My lungs were burning, and my arms ached from carrying the heavy cooler, but I didn’t slow down. I strapped the cooler to the luggage rack on the back of the bike, wrapped my heavy leather riding jacket around Leo to protect him from the sun, and sat him in front of me on the saddle.
I kicked the engine to life, and we tore out of the wash, abandoning the main highway and taking a rugged, unpaved service road that cut deep into the Nevada desert.
We rode for three hours. The sun began to sink below the jagged horizon, painting the sky in violent streaks of orange and purple. The blistering heat of the day rapidly gave way to the biting, sudden cold of the desert night. The road was empty, nothing but endless miles of sagebrush and cracked earth.
I finally pulled over at an abandoned, rusted-out gas station. The pumps were ancient and gutted, the windows boarded up. It offered perfect concealment from the sky and the road.
I lifted Leo off the bike. He was shivering, not from the cold, but from the adrenaline leaving his small body. I sat him on an overturned milk crate inside the crumbling garage, handing him a canteen of water and a crushed granola bar from my saddlebag.
I clicked on a small tactical flashlight, placing it on the hood of a rusted truck so it illuminated the garage. Then, I turned my attention to the heavy blue cooler I had strapped to the bike.
I pulled my hunting knife and pried the heavy digital padlock off the latch, snapping the plastic housing. I opened the lid.
Inside, carefully packed in dry ice, were a series of sterile surgical kits, vacuum-sealed bags of IV fluids, and specialized bone marrow extraction needles. In the center, sitting in a padded indentation, was a secondary GPS tracking beacon. The green light on the top was blinking steadily, transmitting a signal every thirty seconds.
My blood ran cold.
Karen hadn’t just been warning me to scare me. The buyers were tracking the cooler to ensure the medical supplies and the donor arrived at the airstrip on time. And I had just driven the tracker out into the middle of nowhere, painting a massive target on our backs.
“They took my brother first,” a small, quiet voice echoed in the garage.
I spun around. Leo was staring at the open cooler, the granola bar untouched in his lap. It was the first time I had heard him speak. His voice was frail, rough from disuse.