Brandt hated to tell Ki, but Lopez could take care of this blindfolded, hands tied behind his back and mildly sedated.
* * *
Davidson watched as Lopez gunned the engine. One of the attackers raised his weapon. Lopez let off on the brake, skidding out from his position. He aimed the SUV right for the gunmen. The guy didn’t go down easy, first firing at the vehicle, then turning and running as quickly as he could.
It was no good. Lopez ran him over with a loud thunk. Then he spun the wheel bringing the SUV around, chasing another of the gunmen. His back windshield blew out, but Lopez didn’t seem to notice or care. Another gunman got mowed down. Then another. One jumped over the retaining wall, but even that didn’t save him.
Lopez popped the clutch, somehow getting the SUV up on its back tires, looking like a monster truck. The vehicle hopped the wall, crushing the gunman. Lopez tried to rock the SUV back and forth to free it from the stone, but was unsuccessful.
That didn’t matter to Lopez, who popped the door open, jumped down from the vehicle and fired at the remaining two gunmen.
Davidson had a shot. Davidson had had a shot for a while now, but knew enough not to take it. Lopez downed the two.
He then shouted to the sky, doing a little dance.
Time for Davidson to leave his perch. He jumped down onto the wall and took the stairs from there. Brandt and Ki met up with him at the center of the ring.
“That’s right, that’s how you do it,” Lopez shouted. “I just invented SUV fighting! And guess who the champion is?”
“You are,” Brandt and Davidson answered simultaneously. Ki still seemed a little confused by it all.
“So how did you get away from the initial attack?” Davidson asked. He knew what happened once they got into this ring. That outcome had been assured.
“Oh please. They tried to triple team me. Block me in,” Lopez said rolling his eyes. “Like I’m not going to see that coming.”
Brandt chuckled, shaking his head. “And we were worried about you when you didn’t respond to our calls.”
“I know, I just didn’t want you guys to think you had to chime in,” Lopez said. “I totally had it under control…”
The corporal, now staff sergeant, seemed a bit more contrite as he continued. “Um…I might have taken out a statue or two…”
“That’s all?” Brandt asked jokingly.
“They were kind of big…”
Of course they were. A few statues though were a small price to pay for them all to survive. The Peruvians may not feel the same, but, hey, that’s how they rolled. Ki had a perpetual look of surprise on his face.
Davidson wasn’t sure if Ki was going to make it, because a few statues was possibly the least destruction of any major mission. Ki better get used to it or go home.
“Now we have to figure out where the hostages got moved to,” Brandt said, turning back to the embassy district.
Their job was not done yet. Not by far.
Shots snapped their attention back to the embassy.
What was going on back there?
And wasn’t that where Brandt had left Rebecca?
CHAPTER 7
Rebecca scrambled out from under the equipment, as gunmen appeared out of nowhere, firing into the command center.
What was up with that?
Six years ago Rebecca would have freaked out. Guns were so outside her realm of being. But now? After marrying a Special Forces operative? Guns, unfortunately had become the norm.
The gunmen had come back for something. What was it? They didn’t seem to be aiming at her. This seemed to be a more general attack. They swept in forming a fan pattern. A clearing formation.
But why?
Rebecca really couldn’t ponder the why. She needed to worry about the “get away” part.
She stayed low, angling for cover, staying behind anything she could find. There were a few gaps, but again, the men seemed to be looking for a smaller object, not a human. They must know the necklace wasn’t here. Then what were they looking for, and where the hell did they come from?
Someone grabbed her arm from the side. She jerked out of his grasp and pulled her fist back for a punch when she realized who it was. The Commander.
“This way,” he whispered indicating to his left.
Rebecca didn’t have any better plans, and followed him under a car.
The commander shimmied his way out as bullets flew overhead. Prying off a manhole cover, the commander flashed his light down the deep tunnel. Nodding, he stripped off his army jacket and tossed it aside.
“Ladies first,” the man said in a thick Peruvian accent. Very funny. Rebecca had really hoped this was a storm drain, but no. As she climbed down the metal rungs, it became clearer and clearer that they were going down into the sewer system. The smell stung her nose. She tried to crinkle it like when she asked Kasa to eat Brussels sprouts. But nothing seemed to keep the stench out.
Her olfactory center could take it. Far better than her body could take the bullets flying at street level. The commander replaced the manhole cover before he began his descent.
Rebecca reached the bottom of the metal ladder. She just had to ignore what she was stepping into.
“Where to?” Rebecca asked.
The commander, also frowning, pointed to the right. “This way.”
Rebecca didn’t hesitate to follow the man. The sooner they got to this, the sooner they’d get out of it.
* * *
Brandt charged around the corner, firing. His team took down the straggler terrorists. Whatever had happened here was over. Why the second wave? And why hadn’t he secured Rebecca before he headed off to “rescue” Lopez?
The team fanned out.
“Rebecca!” he called out, though he wasn’t sure why. If Rebecca was alive and able she’d be running into his arms. Either she was unconscious or…
No or.
“Sir!” Ki called from across the street.
Brandt trotted over to his new point man.
The lieutenant indicated down to the ground with his gun, turning a piece of material over. “I believe that is the commander’s jacket.
Squinting at the jacket, Brandt had to agree. Then he noticed the manhole cover. The dust was disturbed.
“They must have gone down there,” Brandt stated.
“So we head after them?” Lopez asked, bending down to lift the cover.
“We’ve still have hostages unaccounted for,” Ki stated.
Brandt nodded. He wanted to get his wife, but couldn’t do so at the expense of rescuing others. “Lopez and I will go after Rebecca. Ki, you, and Davidson find out where they took the hostages.”
The team nodded in unison. Ki and Davidson turned to return to the blown-out embassy before the army descended on the area again. Those gunmen had actually done the team a bit of a favor by giving them this opportunity to get into the ruins before anyone else.
Lopez heaved the heavy metal cover off the entrance.
“You know, one day you are going to have to put Ki and I together.”
Brandt wanted Ki to get his feet under him before being exposed to Lopez up close and personal.
“Whew!” Lopez said, swiping his hand in front of his nose. The sewer was quite ripe. But it didn’t matter. Only Rebecca mattered.
* * *
Davidson followed Ki through the partially blocked doorway. They were able to squeeze between two chunks of the roof. He supposed that the enemy hoped that the army would assume that all the hostages and their keepers had died in the explosion.
When in fact everyone that had been in the building was long gone before the place blew. And they must have gotten out underground, because Stark’s mother back tracked the footage to find the hostages were replaced by the mannequins right after they were taken.
Their mission was the same as it had been before the decoy explosion. Free the embassy hostages and figure out how the embassy takeover was connected to Lopez’s pendant.
Crouched over, Ki and Davidson made it through the rubble. Davidson brought up the floor plans in his mind. “There’s a safe in the ambassador’s office,” Davidsons stated.
“Which is in the southeast corner?” Ki offered.
Davidson nodded, but realized the air was still too full of dust for his teammate to see the gesture. “Correct.”
They continued deeper into the compound, taking a right here, then a left. Ki seemed to have the layout memorized as well, taking them efficiently to the Ambassador’s office.
The only problem when they got there was a large girder blocking the door.
They both stood there for a moment.
“I say we blow through the wall,” Ki stated.
Of course that could bring the entire embassy down on their heads, but the other option was finding a winch to lift the girder.
Davidson realized that Ki was right, they had to take the risk.
“Let’s do it,” Davidson agreed.
Ki seemed to know his way around C-4 and placed it in the outline of a small rectangle. The smaller the hole, the less risk of collapse. Davidson just hoped the guy knew exactly how broad his shoulders were.
With so little explosive on the wall, the explosion was more like a “pop” than a “boom” when Ki hit the detonator.
The ceiling shook, raining down dust, but the structure held. As predicted, Ki struggled to get through the hole. Luckily the guy had a set of thighs on him which carried him into the Ambassador’s office.
Davidson wiggled through easily and came out on the other side.
This room had surprisingly been spared. With the exception of a few cups knocked off of a shelf, the office looked much as it must have before the attack. There was a single bloody hand print on the window and mud on the edge of the carpet.
Not a whole lot to go off of.
According to Stark’s mom this was the last place the real human heat signatures had been. There had to be a hidden door. Now, it was finding the dang thing. Davidson followed Ki’s lead, running his fingers along the edge of the bookcases behind the mahogany desk. Clearly this wasn’t Ki’s first rodeo.
Davidson’s fingertip brushed against something metal. Carefully back tracking, Davidson found a small push button. He nodded toward his hand. Ki was in charge. It was his decision whether or not Davidson pushed it.
Ki held up a fist. Not yet.
Davidson tilted his head. This is what he loved about Special Forces. There was so little need for the spoken word. Ki indicated his head to his hand. There was another button on his side.
Perhaps they needed to be pressed at the same time?
Ki held up his fingers.
Three.
Two.
One.
Davidson pushed his button to a loud clunk then the room began to shake.
* * *
Brandt would usually take a deep breath to calm his frustration, but in this Lima sewer? Um, no thank you.
They had reached another dead end.
Lopez was overhead at the manhole cover. Apparently this one hadn’t been disturbed in quite a while either.
This manhole cover opened just outside the Capital building. They’d already tried the police station and the Army command office in downtown Lima.
Where the hell had the commander taken Rebecca? This was making absolutely no sense. Shouldn’t the man have gotten Brandt’s wife to safety as quickly as humanly possible?
Apparently not.
“We’ve got to backtrack,” Lopez said as he climbed down the metal ladder.
Brandt simply grunted. There was no point in arguing or lamenting. The situation was what it was. This wasn’t Lopez’s fault. A lot was the new staff sergeant’s fault, but not this.
They made their way down the sewer. Lopez had made fluorescent marks at each turn so they didn’t get lost in the labyrinth of tunnels.
“Did you see that?” Lopez said, stepping backwards.
Brandt had to hurry to get out of the way. He wasn’t sure what Lopez was talking about, but when was he really?
Lopez indicated to the wall just beneath his bright green mark. “I think the commander was marking as we are, only his don’t glow.”
Brandt had to squint, but there it was. An “EP” etched into the grunge. The initials for the Peruvian Army.
“It looks like they went that way,” Lopez commented.
But why that way? Wasn’t that the way to the slums of Lima? Why in the world would the commander take Rebecca there?
Brandt guessed they would just have to hurry up and find out.
* * *
Rebecca was nauseated. From the sewers or from the pregnancy she wasn’t sure and did it matter? All that mattered was the waves of nausea that crashed over her head then rolled through her abdomen.
On a scale of one to ten, this was a negative two.
Finally the commander stopped making marks and headed up a metal stairwell.
They were getting out of here. The sky couldn’t come soon enough. Fresh air. The thought gave Rebecca a second wind.
She climbed up on the heels of the commander as he pushed aside the manhole cover. Rebecca accepted his hand to pull her up onto the street. Instead of her feet meeting asphalt, they hit dirt. Packed dirt.
And the smell? It wasn’t all that better out here in the street.
Rebecca looked around. This wasn’t downtown Lima. Or even the middle class suburbs. From the ramshackle tin shacks and refuse in the streets, this must be one of Lima’s slums.
From the steep uphill area, this must be San Juan de Lurigancho. Rebecca had never been to this area of Lima. There were strong State Department advisories about tourists or even professional archeologists wandering into this neighborhood. Kidnapping of foreigners was a daily occurrence and their rate of recovery was dismally low.
She turned to stare at the commander.
Had he lost his mind? Bringing her to such a place? She had expected to arrive at some kind of official office. The police or at the least the United States Embassy, but no. Here she was in one of the most dangerous slums in the world…with a target on her back.
“This way,” the commander said, waving her up the hill.
What else could she do but follow? However, she was starting to have misgivings about joining the commander. What if he was with the Brotherhood? What if he were delivering her right into their hands?
This did not feel like it was going to end well. Rebecca could feel eyes glaring at her from inside the ramshackle homes. Dogs barked, but as they passed, children in threadbare cloth ran, darting into the maze of “homes.”
Instead of fear, Rebecca felt a wave of sorrow. How could a child grow up in such intractable poverty and ever escape this place?
She knew from the statistics that they didn’t. The slums grew every year. Rarely did anyone get out of San Juan de Lurigancho. Generations were born here, grew up, married, had children, then died here.
Rebecca thought of her own children and couldn’t imagine them smiling and laughing as they did if they lived here.
Entire extended families lived and died here.
As they climbed deeper and deeper into the slum, Rebecca began to wonder if her own journey didn’t end here as well.
* * *
Bunny walked into the restaurant, not quite knowing what to expect. She’d looked it up on Yelp of course. It had a solid three point eight stars. And all the reviews repeated the same thing over and over. The place was authentic Lima, Peru food. That either got it a five star or a one star review.
Go figure.
It was hard to see the interior from the street, as the windows were covered in travel posters of Peru. The high Andes peaks to the coastal capital. Once inside, it became clear this was a casual, rustic restaurant. There were wooden tables scattered around the center of the space. Then another set of tables lining the walls. Each table was covered by a bright red tablecloth. The plate holders were colorful woven works.
So far so good.
Rojas stood up, waving Bunny over to a corner table near the kitchen. He smiled broadly as he pulled out her chair for her.
This was a business meeting, right?
Bunny hadn’t stumbled into another unofficial date had she? Dear Jesus. What was wrong with her? Davidson was amazing, simply amazing. Okay, maybe he wasn’t such a big romantic. And maybe he didn’t have dreamy dark eyes and just the right amount of stubble on his chin. She was engaged to the sniper.
Engaged.
Didn’t Rojas see her engagement ring? After she sat down, she made sure that the professor could see the rock on her finger.
At the least, this restaurant was the antithesis of a romantic bistro. The crowd was loud, almost to the point of raucous. No surprise there. A soccer game played on the big screen TV above the bar.
Spanish filled the air. Way back here in the dining room, unable to see the Washington DC streets, Bunny would have sworn she was in Lima.
A cheer went up amongst the crowd as someone cried, “Goal!” The one syllable word stretching into at least ten seconds of jubilation.
Rojas smiled broadly leaning back in his chair. “Have you ever had a proper Lima lunch?”
“No,” Bunny said. “No, I don’t think I have.”
“Well, then we must correct that deficiency immediately.”
The professor crooked his finger at a waitress and she hurried over. She was rather buxom in a tight white shirt and clingy black skirt. Her outfit reflected the black and white checkerboard floor. If it weren’t for the pictures of Lima lining the walls, Bunny could almost imagine she was in a Jewish deli.
The food coming out of the kitchen smelled delicious and the sandwiches appeared to be stacked to the ceiling.
Rojas rattled off the order in Spanish. Bunny only picked up a few items.
The guy had balls that was for sure. Ordering for her without even consulting her. It was the type of move that either was enchanting or could crash and burn. Funny, he didn’t look like the kind of guy that crashed and burned frequently.
Not the way that waitress smiled at him.
Was Rojas a player?
That would make sense of his ignoring her engagement ring. In some ways that knowledge made Bunny feel better. Players didn’t really need any signal from the woman. They just launched into the game.
The 3rd Cycle of the Betrayed Series Collection: Extremely Controversial Historical Thrillers (Betrayed Series Boxed set) Page 31