Shoot Me, Officer

The first time I saw Cass Ardent, I was zip-tied to a steel folding chair in an abandoned cold-storage warehouse outside Juárez. My right shoulder was still bleeding through the gauze somebody had packed wrong.

Three men had been working on me for two hours.

They wanted the active roster out of El Paso Field Division. They wanted the name of my handler. They wanted to know why I'd walked.

I gave them one line.

"I want to live."