As they hit the sand they saw no one.
“Did they go in?”
“Couldn’t have gotten changed that fast.”
They scanned the top of the water. Waiting for a sign of life at the surface. Nothing.
“Snorkel?”
“Unlikely.”
“There!” Donna said pointing to the rocky ledge on the point. “On the rocks.”
The team of three ran to the rocks and began scaling. This wasn’t exactly what they prepared for and weren’t in a good strategic position, but it was their only choice.
O’Connor pointed at a point halfway up that provided cover.
“Stay there and provide cover fire if they fire,” O’Connor shouted to Donna.
“No way. I’m up front with you.”
“We need you in the back!”
“No, I’m—”
“No!”
And then it hit her. She realized why he wanted her there. Yes, it made sense tactically, but it was more than that. A few feet more and they’d be back where their journey started. Where she lost consciousness and nearly drown. O’Connor was protecting her from that.
A shot of adrenaline mixed with fear hit her and she froze. She caught herself and resumed climbing.
A few seconds later O’Connor and O’Sullivan were over the top of the rocks and she was in position.
The waves crashed against the rocks and she felt the spray of the impact against her body. She gripped the rock hard, making sure if she lost her footing she at least had a chance to hold onto something.
Suddenly she heard the sound of consecutive splashes. She knew what it meant. Cain and Sean had jumped.
There was no point in staying back now. To provide cover for them she had to get to the top, the same spot that nearly took her life in the wee hours of the morning just a few days earlier.
It was now or never.
CHAPTER 60
Donna felt the fear, but did it anyways. Pulling herself up and over the jagged rock face to the peak felt more like a relief than a triumph. But what she felt next surprised her even more.
One beach over in Boat Canyon she saw the top of what surely was … what couldn’t be … a submarine?
She grasped the rock, catching herself as the powerful wave brought her thoughts back to her current predicament and away from the submarine that sat just twenty yards off shore where tomorrow tourists would rent kayaks for a leisurely paddle along the coastline.
And then it all made sense.
Miguel said El Toro ran the drugs from Mexico to Chicago. Everything went to Chicago first, even the drugs for the border states. But El Toro had been spending more time in Cabo San Lucas. That alone wasn’t a surprise. It was that he had become more interested in La Paz, just north of Cabo. From that point he could save time, money, and detection by running the drugs up the coast, just like the way it was done in the eighties, but not. Not on boats, but on subs. Narco-subs. And he had even pulled this one into a boat rental cove. It was beyond genius. But it wasn’t El Toro. It was his men.
Another wave splashed the rocks and Donna tightened her grip. As the wave receded to the ocean, she looked back to the sub. She saw O’Connor scaling the sub and entering it from the top.
‘This can’t be good,’ she thought to herself. It seemed a poor idea to start with, but factoring in his agoraphobia only complicated matters.
That was her man and he was in trouble. But he wasn’t the only one. She was clinging to a rock face trying not to get swept into the ocean.
She heard a loud thud coming from the submarine. It sounded like metal hitting metal. It didn’t ring out like what she would expect if someone fired a weapon. More like a thud. Either way someone was in trouble.
The thought of losing Cain was too much. A cold chill filled her body. Her mind became focused, clear, and fast.
There was only one thing to do.
She watched as the next wave came in. Just before it peaked to its highest point she exhaled hard then took in a deep breath. And then she jumped.
CHAPTER 61
The water was icy cold. Her clothes felt heavy and clung to her body. She let the ocean take her. She didn’t fight it.
She could feel herself being pulled hard, and then suddenly it felt like she was shot out of a canon. She knew she only had a few seconds.
She kicked hard propelling herself to the right. She didn’t want to get caught up in the next wave and thrown back into the thin waterway between the rocks from where she came. She’d be trapped underneath the surface while being beaten against the barnacle-covered rocks. It would be drowning while simultaneously getting stabbed to death by knives.
Not today. Not now. She had to get to her man.
She felt the next wave come. It pushed her against the rocks. Her arm had extended in a stroke and she quickly thought to brace it against her head as she was pressed against the rocks. She waited, knowing it was just a few more seconds. She counted to five and felt the water flush back out the opening behind her. She kicked hard looking for the surface. She had been under nearly twenty seconds. She needed air or it would all be over. Soon.
She kicked twice. Still no air. She reached her hands up and violently pulled them down and into her body, propelling her towards the surface. Still no air. If she was going to go down, she was going to go down kicking and fighting. Literally.
She began kicking as hard as she could, the rest of her body as streamlined as possible, the weight of her clothes holding her back.
She kicked and kicked and kicked. And then … air.
As she breached the surface she took a huge gulp of air. She was alive. Life always tastes the sweetest right after a taste of death.
But there was still a long ways to go.
It was a good fifteen yards to the submarine and she was the world’s worst swimmer. She thought back to what her chief in Chicago told her when she first started the force and asked him the best way to get ahead.
“Just put your head down and go like heck!”
Truer words were never spoken.
In her mind there were no longer freezing cold water, bad guys, and weapons. There was only him. Only Cain. And she was going to get to him no matter what it took.
It wasn’t a thing of beauty, but it was effective. She reached the top of the sub and pulled herself up. She had done it. She had survived.
But there was no time to celebrate. She used all the upper body strength she could muster and pulled herself up into the sub. She descended the ladder and hoped for the best.
She never could have guessed what she saw.
CHAPTER 62
In one corner sat Cain. He was slouched over and a mess. He was bleeding, but he was alive.
In the other lie a man face down. She guessed unconscious.
“Cain! Are you okay?”
O’Connor’s eyes were nearly shut. He was breathing hard, heaving from the chest.
“It’s … it’s him,” he said. And then his head went sideways meeting his shoulder as he passed out.
Donna went to Cain. She took his head and placed it against his chest. Her hands wrapped behind his head. She comforted him as best she could. And then she remembered he was bleeding. She laid him down and checked his body. He was dripping wet, but it appeared the blood wasn’t his. It had gotten on him somehow.
She noticed an area with a tarp that felt like there was some sort of firm padding underneath, and laid him out on top of it.
She checked his pulse. She needed to get help quickly, but initial signs were everything was going to be okay.
She made her way over to the body that was lying face down. She grabbed the body by the shoulder and rolled it over.
She had only ever seen the face in photos. Seeing it for the first time in the flesh took a second for her to process. Cain was right. El Toro.
“I will kill you,” he mumbled.
She didn’t even care what he said. She was nearly in shock. All of this time, all of th
is effort, and it was him. She had finally found him.
She reached into her pocket and smiled. One last pair of plastic cuffs had survived the underwater adventure. It was the most satisfying arrest she had ever made. And the first time she had ever read someone their Miranda rights inside a submarine.
Footsteps above quickly filled the sub with noise and she saw a man descending into the sub.
She reached for a service pistol that wasn’t there.
The man’s head turned. O’Sullivan.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“We got him. We finally got him.”
O’Sullivan saw O’Connor. He could see Donna was okay, so he ran to his best friend’s side.
“He passed out. He’s okay. I checked him.”
“We need to get him help.”
“We do, but is the area secured to exit?”
“Took care of that.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you kidding? Thank you.”
“Now let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER 63
“Feeling better?”
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself,” Donna said.
“Thanks for staying by my side,” Cain said.
“Of course.” Donna angled her head and stared into Cain’s eyes. “How much do you remember?”
Cain looked around his hospital room. It was covered in balloons and cards and even a giant cardboard seal, the kind that actually lives in the ocean.
“Most of it. Up until the point you arrived. What happens next?”
“First and foremost you make a speedy recovery. When I found you covered in blood I thought none of it belonged to you. And none of the blood I did see was yours. But you had been hit in the abdomen. The doctor said that someone in your health, which he seemed in awe of by the way, should be back to full strength in a few weeks.”
“And O’Sullivan?”
“Well, he got two guys on the shore. And you’re never going to guess who one of them turned out to be?”
“Another doctor?”
“Hardly. Dudley.”
“I bet that felt good.”
“More than you ever know, and not because he was just a bad cop. He was a lot more than that.”
“Yeah, he was working for the other team.”
“You have no idea.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was the link. The missing string that made the whole ball of yarn unravel.”
Cain tried to sit up but winced.
“I’ll call a nurse.”
“I’m okay. Really. Just interested.”
“You’re never going to believe this.”
“Try me.”
“So not only is he a bad cop. Not only is he working for the cartel, but he’s former DEA.”
“DEA?”
“Yep, and get this. He was DEA during the time El Toro was on trial back in Chicago and was part of the reason he got off.”
“This I have to hear.”
“Seems the DEA had a deal with El Toro’s cartel. They turn a blind eye to everything El Toro’s group does, and in exchange he snitches on the other seven cartels. They figure it’s better to hand select one cartel and work with them, than have all eight cartels running wild duking it out to be on top.”
“You’re kidding me?”
“I wish I was. So we get this thing all the way to trial in Chicago and the DEAs trying to figure out what to do. Miguel’s two phone calls really blindsided them, and they weren’t ready to just cut ties and walk from El Toro. So at the end of the day they get the right people on board, including the judge, and the case gets dismissed.”
“Under that reasoning?”
“Get this … in the interests of national security. That’s what they go with. At least that’s the internal spin of course.”
“So my boy got Dudley, huh?” Cain smiled.
“Not only did he get him, he got him to talk.”
“How did he do that?”
“He told him just exactly who you were, and who he was, and what the two of you were planning to do to him if he didn’t cooperate.”
“That’s my boy.”
“He scared him so bad he ratted out El Toro. Then, get this. He finishes grilling him, and then works on El Toro. He gets El Toro to rat out the DEA. So they’re busy ratting each other out at the same time.”
“So what happens to those two clowns?”
“Well, we told El Toro we’d extradite him. That’s what he wants of course. Figures he has a fighting chance down there. The best part is that we’re sending him down with some SEALs. They already have a deal in place with the Federales to keep him locked up somewhere no one will ever find him. And once the Federales get a word with him, they’ll be able to take down his operation which will take a very large quantity of drugs off the streets back here in the good ol' U S of A. But first we’re going to get all the information we can out of him. He’s still singing like a bird.”
“And Dudley?”
“He’s finished. The charges against him run so deep it’s just a matter of how many life sentences he’s going to get.”
“I would have liked to get my hands on him first.”
“I would have liked you to also, but I have a job to do. If I throw him to you then I’m delivering my own form of justice, and that’s not the kind of justice I swore to protect and defend.”
Cain exhaled. He was thinking of all the things he could have done.
“Believe me. I wanted a shot at him almost as much as you did. He threw away all my hard work.”
Cain laid back in his bed. “Yeah, you’re right. He’s finished. It’s over with those guys.”
“But there’s more.”
“More?”
“You didn’t think I was going to leave any loose ends untied did you?”
“Would I ever doubt you?” Cain said as he smiled.
“Guess who the other guy on the shore was?”
“Try me.”
“The killer. He confessed to both of the killings. It was an order that came down directly from El Toro. We’ve already got his confession, and it checks out.”
“How so?”
“Well, he shaved his head, but he didn’t account for the few eyebrows and arm hairs that fell out. Plus he was still wearing the same shoes.”
“So it’s a legit confession.”
“As legit as they come. And he told us where the rest of the local crew was staying. And of course the muscle they brought in from south of the border was camped out there too. We surprised them. Took them in without a single shot fired.”
“I already knew you were amazing, but this is otherworldly.”
“And that’s not all.”
“You’re joking me? What else did you accomplish while I was laid up?”
“We spoke to all the doctors. They turned over their patient lists. We’re going to contact all the people whose names were shared with the cartel. We’re going to tell them what happened and provide them an amnesty period. And we’re going to point them in the right direction. Get them help.”
“That’s great.”
“Beyond great. And we’re not stopping there. The doctors are going to go through all their prescriptions and reevaluate everyone. Make sure only the proper people are getting subscriptions. Everyone will have the option to receive free consultations about the dangers of prescription drugs and more importantly we’re offering them help. Someone to hold their hand, and give them a small nudge down the right path.”
Cain held out his hand. Donna took it in between hers.
“So it’s wrap, huh?”
“It’s a wrap.”
Cain smiled. “You know I appreciate the closure here. I really do, but when I first asked you ‘What happens next?’ I meant something else.”
Donna smiled. “I hoped you did, but I wanted to get that out of the way. In case that changes anything. The case is all wrapped. If you want you’re free to—”<
br />
SEAL's Secret: A Navy SEAL Romantic Suspense Novel (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 24) Page 17