“So this update is supposed to happen tonight,” I said.
“Yeah, man. And once it’s done, it can’t be undone. And they’re gonna kill me so hard, dude. Gustavo’s going to order me killed as soon as he gets back home.”
I opened my mouth to ask another question when his words hit me. “Wait. What? When he gets back home?”
“Yeah. He went somewhere for treatment. For his heart.”
I glanced at the doorway Carter and Santiago had left through a couple of minutes ago. “His bedroom?”
Buck’s face crinkled in confusion. “His bedroom in Texas, maybe. Does he have a place there?”
“What the hell are you saying? Gustavo just went back to his room with Dr. Carter. Didn’t he?”
Buck glanced at the door and back to me. “Oh, naw. Naw, that’s his brother. Gianluigi’s just… he’s a pussy cat. A little bit hypocondriatical maybe, but it’s the guards you have to worry about. They work for Gustavo, and those boys don’t play.”
I stared at him. It made sense. But Gianluigi had claimed to be Gustavo. “Are you sure that’s the brother?”
He nodded. “I heard them talking about Gustavo needing medical treatment in Houston, but he didn’t want some rival cartel to find out about it. He got his brother to come stay and pretend to be him.”
“You picked all that up from the guards?” I asked suspiciously.
“Well, I’ll tell ya a little something. I speak Spanish,” he whispered, clearly not wanting the guards to find out. “Thanks to years of watching Caso Cerrado at my buddy Tajo’s house. His mamacita lived with them and didn’t speak English. It was Telemundo all day, every day. I’d like to have clapped on noise-canceling headphones, but we didn’t have nothing like that back then.”
My brain scrambled to put this new information into what I already knew. It made so much sense, but what did that mean for our chances of escape?
The guards were still cartel muscle.
“When is Gustavo expected back here?”
Buck was clearly uncomfortable, but I needed information. “Dunno, but not yet, I don’t think. When we talked about the upload tonight, it definitely sounded like he wasn’t going to be here to supervise me. He put the fear of God in me instead.”
I remembered the computer room and his access to the internet. “Can you get me GPS coordinates of where we are right now?”
“I can try,” he said, glancing down at his leg. “If, ah… if I can walk.”
“Shit. Okay. Be ready for anything. Stay alert and pay attention. We need to get out of here. Don’t load that stuff online. Stall for time. Unplug a device. I don’t know. Just make sure that information doesn’t get uploaded.”
Before he could answer, the guards began shouting. I jumped up and saw Carter walking back in with his hands up. “El doctor,” he reminded them. As soon as they relaxed, Carter hurried over to help Buck.
“Ya gotta gimme some the good stuff, Doc,” Buck wailed. “It’s killin’ me!”
Carter stayed calm. “You’re going to be fine. It’s not as bad as it looked. You’re lucky it wasn’t any deeper.”
“I’m not feelin’ all that lucky right about now, Doc,” he whined.
Carter checked the wound and murmured some soothing words assuring his patient he would make a full recovery. He dug out a packet of antibiotics for Buck.
“You have to take this entire pack for it to work,” he said. “Keep them in a pocket in case…” Carter looked around. “In case you get moved. Okay?”
Buck swallowed nervously. “Yessir, Doc. Whatever you say. And can I just say I’m right glad I didn’t have a heart problem because it seems like you’re not all that great with those. But you’re sure good at impalements!”
Carter exhaled and shot me a look. He was exhausted and pale, stressed and scared. I wanted desperately to get him out of here. I leaned my shoulder into him. “Just a few more minutes, Duchess,” I said softly. “Then you can rest.”
“What about you?”
“No rest for the wicked, I’m afraid.” I gave him my most reassuring smile before standing and pulling him up next to me. I turned toward the guards. “Necesitamos ayuda para trasladarlo a su habitación.” We need help getting him to his room.
They grumbled amongst themselves until finally coming to help. Buck wailed like a dying piglet as they lifted him and carried him out of the large kitchen. Carter and I followed closely behind until realizing he was being held in the room right next to ours. That was a lucky break if we could figure out how to get rid of the guards. Maybe we could find a way to slip them a sedative now that we had the med bag in our possession.
Once Buck was settled on his bed and Carter had made sure he had a glass of water and more pain pills for later, the guards forced us back into our own suite. While I waited for the familiar snick of the door lock, I noticed Carter’s hands were shaking.