Page 47 of 25 Alive

Before he got into the footwell, Joe turned his head and saw men carrying automatic rifles scramble out of the car that had crashed into them. Joe unlatched his seat belt and spoke toward the radio, “This is Molinari. We’re under fire.”

Surely Dougherty and Ruiz had already figured that out from the sounds, but Joe wanted to be explicit.

He spun in his seat and slid into the footwell below the dashboard. It was impossibly tight, but he was able to work his gun arm. He got to his knees and aimed his gun toward the shattered rear compartment window. Both his and Bao’s shots landed. Men staggered backward and fell, screaming. Two stood up again. Joe aimed again, this time a few degrees to the right, through the rear window. In broken Spanish, he yelled, “Hands on the trunk. The police are coming.”

One of the men broke away from the crash car and the men lying on the street. Bao crouched lower on the driver’s side seat, leaning toward the rear passenger area. In a quick move, one of the guys from the crash car started running forward.

Joe saw enough of him to observe that he was young and muscular and fast enough. He was coming up on the driver’s side of the Honda. And then he passed it.

Bao said, “Joe, hold on. Hold on!”

She had turned forward again. And then she stepped on the gas.

There was a wrenching sound as the SUV broke free from the crash car. Bao sped past the running man, and when the speed and the distance were just right, she opened her doorhard and kicked it. In that same second, she stepped on the brakes.

The runner slammed into the door, a full body blow at twenty miles an hour, then he fell back onto the dirt road, moaning, rolling from side to side.

Dougherty pulled up in the black Mercedes. Joe saw both Ruiz and Dougherty exit the car with guns in hand. And heard police sirens coming toward them from behind.

Bao stepped out onto the road, pulled her handcuffs off her belt, and cuffed the runner. Joe looked at Bao, at the runner rolling on the road. He said, “Bao, that was amazing. I wish I had filmed that for you.”

She smiled at him. “Thanks, Joe. Next time.”

“I mean it. That was really something.”

CHAPTER72

JOE MOLINARI WAS one of three FBI agents sitting in the front row of an emergency hearing at a local courthouse in Monterrey. He, Ruiz, and Dougherty had been witnesses to the assault. Bao was at the hospital getting checked out for whiplash or a spinal injury, but before the day was over, he and Bao would also face interrogation for their role in the killing of three men whose bodies were cooling in the morgue.

The officers and the FBI agents had described the circumstances of the incident to the magistrate. The three dead men were identified by police chief Nuñez as bandits and killers, members of the Diablo cartel. One man who was alive but not speaking was Gustavo Sandoval, an attorney-at-law and head of the Diablo cartel, currently secured in a separate holding cell.

The fifth and final man was sitting in the witness stand in the dark and windowless courtroom. Emilio Lopez was another member of the Diablo cartel who had been in the carcrash. At this moment, he appeared to be in bad pain from the run-in with the car door.

Lopez had volunteered to tell all in exchange for safe relocation for himself and his family and was convincingly appreciative for the opportunity to make his case. He was married with four children. He didn’t want to go to jail. He wanted to live in the United States.

The interpreter asked Lopez to listen as she read his statement in Spanish.

“Mr. Lopez, you have stated that you were surprised by the crash with the people in the silver Honda. You say you were sleeping. There was a crash when the car you were in hit the Honda SUV.”

“That’s correct,” Lopez said. “And I speak English.”

“In your own words, then,” said the interpreter. She switched on her digital recorder.

Lopez repeated his statement, this time in English.

“There was no plan. We were in Manny’s car and I fell asleep. I woke up to a loud crash, and I was thrown from my seat. The talk was that the car ahead of us ran through a red light and we were too close to stop.”

“The car you were in belonged to Manuel Nuñez?” the interpreter asked.

“Right. After the crash, Manny was yelling. He was very angry that his car was ruined. His idea was to get the driver to pay for the damage or give him the Honda or whatever Manny could get from him.”

“At gunpoint.”

“Yes. All of the guys I was with got out and rushed thecar we’d hit. There was shooting from both sides. Manny was killed. Eddie and Pedro were also shot dead.

“That’s all I know. Big crash. I wake up. There is the sounds of shooting from AKs. I get out, and three of my bros are shot dead. I run. I think the driver of the Honda is going to run me down. She drives past me, fast, then opens her door, and I slam into it. Knocks me out. Next thing I remember, the police come. I talk to the police inside the ambulance that takes me to the hospital. They tape my ribs and release me into the chief’s custody. And here I am.”

Lopez was holding himself with both arms across his chest. He was jiggling his feet, breathing hard, and running out of air.

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