At this spot it was maybe thirty feet from bank to bank.

Not much to cross, and yet it was everything.

Four days she’d been on the move, dodging Russians who wanted to control her, avoiding Americans who wanted to kill her, hopscotching across Europe, out of Spain, into the Dominican Republic, and then to Mexico, traveling dark, until she and Holden had reached Matamoros, and she’d lost a day trying to find José Luis.

She’d been forced to use a phone to track him down.

She was dirty. Tired. Hungry.

Still had no idea what had happened to her brother, and everything she needed and wanted was on the other side of a river that the full might and weight of the United States worked to prevent people from crossing.

She needed over it tonight.

Not tomorrow, not the day after.

Tonight.

And the problem with urgency, as she knew well from pain and personal experience, was it upped the chance of getting caught.

Insects crawled up her legs and biting gnats swarmed her head.

She powered on the drone.

Fingers working the remote control, she sent the little beast with its little burden high up over the water, where it would be hard to see and harder to hear. Twenty-five minutes flying time start to finish was all she’d get.

The sun, low in the sky, would give her less.

Dusk, that perfect mix of low light, which caused detail to blur, and ambient light, which kept night vision from being of much use, was her opportunity window.

She angled the drone, searching the road for border patrol.

Ground sensors worried her less, they were easier to avoid.

The camera picked up a small dirt plume a half mile or so west.

She figured five minutes, give or take, before the border patrol vehicle turned and headed back. Another minute or two before it reached this spot.

She motioned José Luis forward.

The boy picked up the kayak with gangly arms and hauled it toward the water, brushing off Holden’s offer to help, insisting again that no one touched the boat but him.

A dead-serious sixteen-year-old warding off a grown man twice his size and with the skills to break him in half made it hard to keep a straight face.

She wouldn’t laugh.

The kid had been her gatekeeper since she’d caught his thirteen-year-old hands in her twenty-three-year-old pocket, trying to relieve her of her decoy wallet.