She finished her breakfast and headed back to her room. If he wasn't going to let her tag along, she was just going to have to follow him discreetly and watch him for afar. He was not going to ruin her perfect record thus far with the CIA by screwing up this assignment for her. She was going to cover his back no matter what he thought about it.
After calling in to the CIA and getting an update, she called a taxi and headed into the center of town. She found a small corner café where she could see most of the street in both directions, ordered a cool drink and sat out of view.
She saw Sands talking to a Chicle boy who stopped him with his bike and then handed him some money and said something to him and the boy rode off. She laughed as she looked at his awful disguise with a big moustache. Then he went into an internet café. She could see him get some coffee and sit down at a computer monitor. After a few minutes he took the moustache off and stuck it on the monitor.
He left the café and headed down the street out of her view. She quickly got up and started to follow him, determined not to lose sight of him. She surveyed the people around him to see if it appeared as if anyone else were following him as he walked. She saw nobody suspicious.
Suddenly she heard gunshots behind her and two bullets whizzed past her head embedding in the wall beside her. She dropped to her knees and crawled around a corner quickly, pulling her gun from it's holster. Panic rose up in her throat as she tried to look around the corner to see who had shot at her. She had never been shot at before and she couldn't figure out why anyone would shoot at her. She'd only been here less than a day. Who could know she was there and what she was doing there?
As she peeked around the corner she felt a sharp cold metal object at her throat and she froze.
"Don't move," said a heavily accented male voice. "Drop your gun."
She did as she was told, breathing heavily in fear. What had she gotten herself into? Here she was all alone. If Sands had just let her stay with him, there would have been two of them at least.
"What do you want?" She asked the unseen man.
He grabbed her arm behind her back and pushed her up to her feet. He walked her halfway down a nearby alley. He pushed her face first up against the wall beside a dumpster.
"You're a pretty girl." The man said and he started sliding his hand up along the back of her leg and pushing her skirt up from behind.
She was not going to stand there and let this man molest her. She swung her free arm around and it connected with his jaw sending him sprawling onto the ground. She took off running down the street as fast as she could and ran headlong into Sands.
Tears were running down her cheeks as the horror of what could have happened to her sunk in.
"What's wrong?" He said sounding genuinely concerned.
"Some man tried to rape me! If you had let me stay with you this would have never happened." She reached up to slap him but he caught her arm. Her heart was racing and fear was overpowering her senses.
"Tsk, tsk. I thought you could handle anything, he said his eyebrows raised in question. "Isn't that what you told me? This is Mexico, darlin'. You're not in Kansas anymore. You have to be ready for any eventuality. The people here are very impulsive. They see. They take. Latino passion, it goes with the territory. Not a good place for a young attractive gringo woman to be," he said slowly.
"Let go of my arm!" she shouted at him. "I need to….calm down….get some water." She suddenly felt very hot and faint and felt her vision blur and slip away from her. She fell into his arms.
He laughed and picked her up. He carried her the short distance to his car. The pill Cucuy had put into her drink should keep her out for a few hours so he could accomplish what he needed to today without her interference.
He drove her back to her hotel room and dumped her unceremoniously onto the bed leaving her there to sleep it off. Then he went to meet with Ramirez for lunch. He had to convince him to work with the CIA to put another piece of the puzzle together.
