Read an Excerpt
One
A grown man is no match for a teenage girl on a skateboard. Even if he’s wearing sneakers and athletic gear. We called this guy El Rubio, because of his pale blond hair, and I was supposed to grab the briefcase from him. Then I’d skate the two blocks from the hotel lobby to where my parents were waiting with the car running, and we’d get away clean.
El Rubio was suspicious of adults, so Mami, Papi, and the other grown-ups were out of the question for this mission. My brother was only ten, so he would attract too much attention; El Rubio would expect parents somewhere nearby. Besides, his legs were too short to outrun a grown man. But I’m fourteen: long-legged and old enough to be in the lobby by myself. Besides, teenage girls are rarely seen as threats.
I flipped through the brochures in the bright hotel lobby. I was wearing long shorts and a touristy Puerto Rico T-shirt, as though my own mother wasn’t Puerto Rican. My curly hair was pulled back in a ponytail and I chewed gum. I had my earbuds in like I was listening to music, but really it was Mami’s voice. “The housekeeper says he’s on his way down.”
I reread the brochure for waterskiing. My back was to El Rubio when he exited the elevator. His gaze moved past me and landed on the young man sweeping the marble floor: Hector, a member of our team.
Mami and Papi were letting me take an active role on a mission, but not without a chaperone.
El Rubio walked to the reception desk and asked the clerk to get his briefcase from the safe. I strolled to the other end of the desk, brochure in my hand. El Rubio checked on Hector from time to time. Hector kept sweeping.
The clerk came back with the briefcase, and that’s when I struck. I leaped forward and grabbed the case just as the clerk was handing it over, and then I raced out through the lobby door.
“She’s got the case,” Hector’s voice rang out in my headphones. “Made it out clean.”
I jumped on my skateboard and tore down the hotel driveway. I had nearly gotten to the street when El Rubio came running out after me.
He was way behind me, but an unexpected obstacle appeared. Two men in business suits, overdressed for the muggy San Juan morning, happened to be getting out of a dark vehicle on the sidewalk in my path. They were clearly expecting to go from air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned rooms.
“Stop her!” El Rubio yelled to them.
They stood up outside the car and cut me off.
These guys were with El Rubio? I skidded to a stop on the skateboard.
Suits and all, the two guys came running toward me.
I did an about-face and kicked hard to get the board speeding fast in the other direction. I’d have to circle back to meet my parents.
But there was a problem. This new terrain turned from smooth paved roads to the oversize blue cobblestones of Old San Juan. On the uneven ground, I wobbled and almost fell.
¡Carajo! I jumped off the skateboard and snatched it up. Now I had the board in one hand and the briefcase in the other. Instead of being a swift teen girl, I was an encumbered teen girl. With both hands full, I couldn’t tap the microphone to call in my location to my parents—at least not while I was running. Hector said I had gotten out clean, but had I? Should I drop the skateboard? No, maybe I’d need it to get away. The men were half a block behind me. My parents were three blocks in the other direction.
I rushed down the street looking frantically at the bright storefronts for one I could run into. It was early on a Saturday morning—nothing was open. I passed swim boutiques, souvenir shops, a tattoo parlor, and a bar. The men were gaining. I needed to ditch the board.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw that El Rubio, with his sneakers, had pulled ahead of the other two. By the time I hit the next corner, he was only a car’s length behind me.
I cut left. Wasn’t there a restaurant just down the block? Didn’t they serve breakfast? They’d have to be open by now. At least, the back door would be open for staff to enter. I prayed it would be as I raced down the alley behind the stores.
El Rubio was getting closer. I didn’t dare turn around to see how close. On cobblestones, it was too easy to trip. But I could hear his footfalls behind me.
Up ahead, I saw the metal gate to the restaurant’s back door was open. Yes! But El Rubio was too close. I could hear his breathing. When I slowed to enter the door, he would definitely catch me.
I felt his hand brush my ponytail. He’d tried to grab it but hadn’t quite gotten ahold. Another few steps and he’d catch me.
A few strides before the kitchen door, I flung the skateboard at him, wheels down. As I slowed a fraction to run inside the restaurant, I saw El Rubio step on the board and go flying. The closer of the two men in suits crashed into him.
I yanked open the door as the third man stumbled into the pileup.
A middle-aged woman stood at an island in the center of a narrow kitchen making pastries.
“¡Señora!” I rasped in Spanish through heaving lungs. “There’s a man chasing me. Can you help?”
She looked from my eyes to the briefcase in my hand. She nodded once, quickly, and motioned for me to duck down and hide on the far side of the kitchen island.
My heart was pounding. I had to struggle to breathe quietly after all that running. I heard the footfalls of a man’s dress shoes come through the door.
I couldn’t see him, but I saw the woman. She was looking into the restaurant, as though I had just run past her.
“Hey!” she yelled after absolutely no one. “You can’t go in there. We’re not open yet.”
The suit guy thundered into the empty restaurant, just as El Rubio and the other man came in. El Rubio was limping, but the two of them rushed after the first suit.
I whispered “gracias” as I ran out the back door. My skateboard had rolled too far out of reach, so I didn’t bother to grab it. I ran down the alley.
With my free hand, I hit my phone’s mic. “I’ve got it!” I said. “But I hit a snag and I’m lost in Old San Juan. Guide me in!”
I heard a few clicks as I ran to the end of the block.
“We’ve got your location,” Mami said.
“Turn left,” Papi said. I heard the sound of the car’s motor accelerating.
There was a shout behind me, and a backward glance confirmed that the men in suits were in pursuit.
I ran to the end of the block. The team’s non-descript rental car screeched to a halt.
I opened the door and heard a shot ring out. One of the men in suits had a handgun raised and was running toward us.
I jumped into the car. The other man was reaching into his shoulder holster. El Rubio came limping out from the alley behind them.
Before I had even closed the door, Mami was gunning the motor.
“Andréa,” Mami said. “What the hell happened?”
“Two guys,” I said. “They cut me off. I couldn’t skate—” I could barely get the words out I was so winded.
“She’s okay, querida,” Papi said. “Let her catch her breath.”
“Put on your seat belt!” Mami snapped.
I leaned back and buckled in, sinking against the soft upholstery.
“Where’s your skateboard?” my younger brother, Carlos, asked.
“I—I used it as a weapon,” I said.
“You hit him with it?” he asked, eyes wide.
“I tripped him,” I said.
He laughed with delight.
We stopped laughing as we heard another shot. A dark sedan was on our tail.
“Get down!” Papi yelled. My brother and I dove toward each other in the back seat. Papi ducked down in front. Mami hunched down as she drove, mashing down her wild, dark curls into the upholstery of the front seat.
I heard Papi’s muffled voice as he called our handler.
“Jerrold,” he said. “We’ve got the briefcase, but we’re being pursued.”
“I thought El Rubio was working alone,” Mami said accusingly.
“Later,” Papi hissed. Then to Jerrold: “Get us out of here.”
“You’re in the subcompact, right?” Jerrold asked.
“Yes,” Papi said. “Do you have our location?”
“I do,” Jerrold said. “Hang a left at this corner!”
Mami swung left, and we all leaned hard with the momentum.
“Bárbara,” Jerrold said. “Halfway down this block, there’s a narrow alley. It’s one-way, and you’ll be going against the traffic. If no one is coming, take a sharp right. In the middle of that block, turn left down another alley, and you’ll be going in the proper direction. Your pursuers will likely get cut off.”
Mami slowed a little, and we looked down the block. A blue car had just turned into the alley from the far end, but there was time for us to get through. Perfect.
Mami cut a hard right, and we lurched in the other direction. The blue car leaned on the horn. Mami gunned it toward the corner in the middle of the block.
Behind us the sedan turned into the alley with a screech of tires.
“Which way?” Mami asked Jerrold.
“Left!”
Mami swerved left. We lurched again, just missing the oncoming car.
Carlos and I weren’t ducking now. We watched out the back window for the sedan. The blue car came down past the alley, horn still blaring, brakes shrieking. We heard a crash, but we couldn’t see anything.
And then the tail of the blue car came into view. Then the middle. Then the smashed front. The sedan had crashed into the blue car and was pushing it backward across the mouth of the alley.
The sedan backed up, crumpled bumper and all, and turned down the alley after us.
“They’re still in pursuit,” Papi said.
“Shoot,” Jerrold said. “Okay. What are they driving?”
“Dark sedan,” Papi said. “K-car type.”
“Great,” Jerrold said. “Keep going straight. You’ll be able to lose them in a block.”
A shot rang out.
“They’re shooting?” Jerrold asked.
“Yes!” Mami said. “Jerrold, you promised the guy wouldn’t be armed—”
“Not the time, querida,” Papi said.
“Agreed,” Jerrold said. “At the next corner, you’ll be able to lose them.”
“It’s blocked off,” Papi said. At the corner, a stubby metal pole stuck up in the middle of the roadway.
“Your car will fit through,” Jerrold said.
“I don’t think so,” Mami said.
“Not without a scratch,” Jerrold said. “But you’ll fit if you go up on the sidewalk. Slow a bit to make sure. Go through on the left side.”
We were barreling toward the pole, the buildings on either side a blur.
“Get down, kids!” Mami yelled.
Carlos and I didn’t see the car squeeze through the space with the metal pole, but we heard it: the scrape of metal on metal and against the cement of the building.
The door crunched. My window cracked, the glass turning to crumbled squares that looked like sugar candy.
We heard the second crunch of metal on metal when the sedan tried to follow.
I brushed crumbs of glass out of my hair.
“We made it!” Carlos said. “The other guys crashed into the pole.”
“Jerrold,” Mami said. “You promised us this would be an easy mission!”
“I’m sorry, Bárbara,” he said. “Our intel said he was working alone.”
We were all sitting up now, watching out the back of the car as tourists and workers gaped at the crashed vehicle behind us.
“When I agreed to bring my family into this life, I had one rule,” Mami said. I knew this tone of voice. She was getting ready to go on a rant.
“Bárbara,” Papi said. “We all know you’re upset. But can we please debrief the details later?”
Mami took a breath. “I’d like to debrief as soon as you can extract us,” she said through clenched teeth.
“The team’s on their way,” Jerrold said.
Twenty minutes later, we were in a helicopter, flying over San Juan to the airport. I still had the briefcase in my hand.
