by Cherry Adair
Tomorrow he'd fight on his daughter’s battlefield.
What his Catarina had set into motion years earlier, mere weeks before she'd been betrayed and brutally killed by the very people she worked beside, was about to bring the counterterrorism organization down from inside its impenetrable walls.
Pretending to be a man of God was a sin.
There was a special hell for Ash Daklin, and Franco would give him the express pass. T-FLAC had no authority over a Godly man like Francisco Xavier, no right to ruin his business, to destroy years of hard work that put food in the mouths of his family. The mercenary army that was T-FLAC was not sanctioned by God.
His blessed daughter had been right all along. They had called her Catherine Seymour, but to Franco, she’d forever be the child of his heart, Catarina. They had killed his girl. Brutally. Shame on them. Shame on them all.
God was testing him to see if he had what it took to complete the assignment he'd accepted years ago. This was his very own crucifixion. First he must suffer, then die, and then be resurrected to be seated at the right hand of the Father.
Catarina's bomb was on a timer, a timer so clever, so diabolical, that not even T-FLAC's top explosive experts could defuse it before it detonated at 3:33.
The date and time of Catarina—-Catherine's--blessed birth.
The date and time of T-FLAC's death.
Fitting.
Franco adjusted his seatbelt as satisfaction bloomed. A glint of light aiming directly at the helicopter caught his eye. "Dear God."
"What is it?"
"Faster," he yelled at the pilot. "Go faster!"
#
A bright flash of light exploded in the night sky. Squinting up, River watched Franco's helicopter explode into a fiery ball. The glowing orb hovered, then plummeted to the tree canopy, trailing fire in its wake across the dark sky.
Holy crap. Ram had shot down Franco's helicopter.
"Good job, my boy," Father Marcus patted Ram's arm. "I guess I've been out of the business too long."
"The sight's a little off, Father," Ram told him.
"The fact that you had a PRG handy is miraculous."
"It was Xavier's. I found it last night and hid it out here to take with me to the mine later."
Ram smiled, his teeth white in his blood-covered face. "It served its purpose earlier than anticipated. Nobody made it out of that alive.” He pointed.
A flare of orange in the darkness indicated the trajectory of Franco's helicopter. The fireball disappeared beyond the treetops in a shower of sparks, exploding in another spectacular fiery burst. "Excellent work, my son."
Ram handed the big gun back to Father Marcus before his legs gave way and he started to wilt.
“Ram!” River yelled.
Father Marcus redirected his attention from the sky to the operative. "Ramse? Dear Lord." He grabbed the other man's arm, staggering under his weight. "Here, let me help you."
With a grunt of pain, River half-rolled, half-staggered to her feet. The stars spun, and Father Marcus grabbed her arm to steady her, too. "Can you take his other side?"
“I’ll try.” She could barely stand upright herself, let alone lift two hundred pounds of solid muscle. She pulled his arm over her neck, digging her shoulder into his armpit to leverage him upright. Ramse was a dead weight between them. She had to lock her knees.
"Why don't you just sit down right here until we can get someone back up here to help?"
Ram shook his head, his throat working before he could speak. "No. Give me a minute. I can walk."
He couldn't freaking walk. He could barely stand.
"How badly are you hurt, River?”
River did a mental physical check. Arms. Check. Legs. Check. Back. Check. Yes, she damn well hurt all over. But nothing seemed broken, and she was freaking overjoyed to be on the ground and not blown to hell. "I'm okay. But we have to help Ram."
"I'm good." Ram managed to stabilize himself by spreading his feet, but he still wobbled. His face smeared with wet blood, he tightened his fingers around River's shoulder. "I'm okay."
Not. She turned to look at Marcus. "Can you get help?"
"Some of Delta team members have arrived with the truck to evacuate the villagers." Father Marcus looked as pale as River felt. "They're loading the first vehicle now. Your father is on the first truck, Ram. River can go and get him."
"Of course. She had a frightening image of Franco emerging from the flames of the downed chopper like a zombie.
What she feared must have shown on her face. "Nobody could have survived that. God rest their souls." Father Marcus crossed himself.
Good. River dragged in a breath, now tinged with the oily smell of smoke carried down valley on the breeze. She wished her heart would stop racing. Wished she could steady her breathing. Wished every single goddamned noise wasn’t amplified, bouncing through her brain with sickening, dizzying volume.
More than being afraid, more than feeling the stomach-turning nausea at the violence she’d just witnessed and smelling the volumes of coppery-scented blood on Ram, she felt an overwhelming sense of dread.
She doubted that in the middle of this jungle there was a goddamned thing she, Marcus, or T-FLAC could do about Ram's injuries, which looked life threatening to her untrained eyes.
Marcus gave River a serious glance over the operative’s bowed head. "I'll get you both to the helicopter waiting in the
square, but I'm staying in the village until everyone is loaded and on their way to Abad.”
"How long will that be?" River asked, shifting to better support Ram between them.
"A couple of hours.”
“That’s cutting it too close.”
“Don't worry. Daklin's an expert at his job. He has this precisely timed. It'll be fine."
God. He had such faith. But he was naïve to have so much confidence. Ash might be an expert, but he was mortal.
"But the mine's filled with unstable, untested explosives. Ash told me the stuff is not only powerful, it's unpredictable. Evacuate as many people as you can, but you must get on one of those transport vehicles. Promise me."
His eyes told her he knew exactly what would happen as he patted her arm. "Run ahead. Have Ramse's father, Señor Ortiz, return to help me get his son to the helicopter in the square. Juanita is already on board. I'd just returned to find you, my dear."
"I'll go for help, Father, but I can't leave the valley just yet. Oliver sent me a text. He's being held prisoner at the plant. I have to go there. I need to get him to safety."
"Held prisoner? He's still here?" He frowned. "Who could possibly be holding him?" Then he seemed to snap back to the issue at hand. "No. You can’t do that." The priest looked appalled, horrified, and incredulous all at the same time. "As you say, leave that to Daklin and the others to deal with. Ramse Ortiz sagged in Marcus's hold. “Sorry, my boy. Yes, sit for a moment.” They both helped him slide down the pillar to sit on the ground. "No, Miss Sullivan. I insist you go in the chopper to safety.”
"Sorry, Father Marcus. I'm going to find my brother. If you manage to communicate with Ash, tell him.”
“Don't count on that," the priest said. “Xavier has been jamming communication since he returned a month ago. Ramse here discovered a red phone in Xavier's quarters, however, which means he had direct contact with someone."
"Good, I'll use that!"
"Sorry, Ma'am," Ram said, his voice weak. "It requires a code to activate it. This red phone is a point-to-point encryption device. A secure, encrypted line for two people to communicate privately without detection. Messages delete themselves automatically from the screen after ninety seconds. There's no server. No back up. He could call out, but he was jamming signals to the satellite so everyone else in the valley was dark."
"Well, he's gone now. Maybe all the lines are open again." She took her phone out of her back pocket. The screen was shattered, and there was no signal. "Still no service. But if you are able to communicate with anyone who
can get a message to Ash, tell him Oliver is alive and trapped up there, somewhere.”
Father Marcus practically wrung his hands, his brow furrowed with concern. “You must get on the T-FLAC helicopter, River. Daklin will never forgive me if I allow anything to happen to you. I would never forgive myself!”
"The helicopter can take me."
"No, ma'am, it can't do that. There's an army up there. The first sound of a chopper and they'll shoot.”
“Then I'll drive and walk if I have to. Sorry, Father, but I'd never forgive myself if I didn't do everything in my power to rescue my brother. But don't worry. First I'll find Señor Ortiz and send him up here. I’ll see you in Abad before everything goes to hell."
Without waiting for a response, she turned and ran back down the hill as if the hounds of hell were on her ass.
#
Taking a circuitous route, belly crawling the entire mile, and sticking as close to the perimeter tree line as possible, Turley, Gibbs, and Daklin arrived at the rock overhang. They'd picked up a couple of passengers along the way, one of which was squirming, scratching, and trying to start up a conversation inside Daklin's pack.
He gave his shifting bag a little pat. "Almost there, buddy." The spider monkey screeched and chattered, but after a few seconds quieted as it settled on top of Daklin's supplies to eat the Camu camu, a small, tart citrus fruit he and his men had picked before they'd captured three of the long-limbed animals. They'd tried for more, but spider monkeys were harder to catch than time allowed. Three would have to do.
Chances were their packs would be full of monkey shit by the time the night was over. But it was a small price to pay if the distraction worked.
No one was more surprised than Daklin that they'd made it across the vast wasteland without being spotted. At least, without being shot at. They were constantly alert to that other shoe dropping, but so far, so good. The other two members of his team were about to make their play.
Perfect timing. Nyhuis and Aiza were just pulling up to the gate in the work vehicle. They drunkenly demanded in Spanish that the gate be opened to let them through. "We've come to partay, brothers!"
Nyhuis did drunk well. Bottles clinked as he and Aiza, who claimed never to have drunk to excess, did a terrific job acting as if they were falling on their asses, boozed to the gills and ready to party until dawn. They only thing that would've sold it even more was if the car had been filled with scantily dressed hookers.
Even if they'd wanted them for the night's performance, there were no hookers in Los Santos. The women of the village would be loading into transportation vehicles right about now, on their way to Abad and safety. Abad. Where River should, about now, be landing in the helicopter, and soon safely tucked into bed in her hotel room. From Abad she'd be flown on the T-FLAC Challenger directly to Portland first thing in the morning.
He'd never see her again.
It was best.
For her.
"Let's do this." Daklin indicated the shallow crawl space beneath the heavy-duty chain link fence, at a thousand feet away, the men in the guard towers joked with their two new drunken friends below. They were far enough away that their voices were muted, the laughter and sound of glass striking glass indicated the two operatives had the guards at the gate engaged for at least a few more minutes. It could even be longer, if the guards started drinking with them.
They had to remove their packs to clear the space, shoving them through first. The damned monkeys shrieked their annoyance. Since the jungle was always vocal, there wasn't much chance of anyone coming over here to check. And, fuck it, if they did, he'd shoot them.
With a hand gesture, Daklin indicated they remove the cumbersome ghillie suits, too, leaving them at the fence.
His leg was FUBAR from running flat out, crawling, and overexertion. This was the serrated knife granddaddy of all pain, and under any other fucking circumstances, it would've incapacitated him. God only knew, it still might. A pain pill wasn't going to make this pain disappear. Right now, he could barely walk. He'd faked it up until the last mile.
Even inside the climate-controlled LockOut, he sweated profusely, his jaw clenched so tightly he heard his teeth grinding. Pain radiated from his leg directly into nerve clusters in his brain. The flask of Tovaritch Vodka in his pack called a siren song to him. Soon. But not yet. He needed all his wits about him for a few more hours. He’d have to suck up the pain. Just for a few more hours.
It already felt like a lifetime of agony. What was three more hours in the grand fucking scheme of things? Fuck. Don't pass out. Not now. Not yet. He struggled to breathe through it. His red-rimmed vision grayed. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This wasn’t the way he’d planned to end it. Not stuck halfway under a fence, too banged up to crawl. Hell no. He had to end on a high. That asshat Daklin, people would say. Redeemed himself in the end. All he had to do was get under this goddamned fence, traverse the open area without getting shot, get into the sealed mine, set his explosives, then sit back and enjoy the shitshow.
That's all.
Fuckshitdamn.
"Stay put," Turley said quietly. "I can do it. We'll come back for you."
Daklin shook his head. He wasn’t gonna pass the fuck out. So far so good. "Three man job. I'm good." It was a four-man job. It would have to do.
"You're a fucking liar." Gibbs sounded worried. It was hard to tell behind his NVGs, with his voice pitched barely above a whisper. "You should see yourself, man. You look like shit and you can barely walk. How are you going to get out in time when we have to haul ass? Jesus, do you have a death wish?"
Not a wish exactly. A little fucking late to come to that conclusion. For the good of the team, he had considered pulling out. Letting his men do the job. He’d seriously considered it. Not because he was afraid to die. Hell, his job was guaranteed, sooner or later, to kill him. But because there was no one better than himself to do what had to be done.
That wasn't vanity; it was a fact. Because he'd been recuperating back-to-back for almost two years, he'd had more time than anyone else to study E-1x. He was T-FLAC's resident expert, which was the prime reason they'd given him this last shot to make good instead of canning his ass. He didn't know everything, but he had a better grasp of its makeup and properties than the others did.
"We're wasting time. Go."
Turley rubbed a hand over his mouth. "I'm not unsympathetic here, but you'll slow us down. Get us all killed."
"If that happens, I'll shoot myself and save everyone the trouble. If I can't perform my job, you'll be the second to know. In the meantime, when I say go, we all fucking-well go."
He could, and would, last the next few hours. He'd do his job, not get his men killed, bring down Xavier, and wipe E-1x off the face of the Earth. Not a bad night's work if he pulled it off.
And he would.
More of the mine’s perimeter security force were now gathered at the gate where the two drunks were still putting on a show. Nyhuis and Aiza would be tossing bottles of booze up to the guard towers about now. Daklin heard the crash of a full bottle hitting the gravel, and gritted his teeth, thinking how badly he wanted that spilled booze.
He jerked his chin in that direction as he removed his ghillie. "They must be bored."
"Their commander hears that shit and they'll all be shot." Gibbs spoke in a whisper meant only to be heard a few feet away as he got down to crawl. "No fucking kidding. There's no down time on the job."
"True." Turley got down on all fours, ready to slither under the fence. "Means the commander is off-site."
"Let's hope his men accept the offer of a party, and he stays wherever he is."
Nyhuis and Aiza had come well prepared with cases of booze and Cuban cigars in the back of the truck. Maybe Nyhuis wasn't acting. There was a lot of shouting going on as bottles thrown and caught with whoops of laughter, and triumphant shouts.
"Go," Daklin urged his men. They scrambled ahead of him as he guarded their flank. Turley and then Gibbs crawled under
the fence. He followed as soon as Gibbs was clear. Halfway under, his leg refused to propel him forward. Breaking out in an ice cold sweat, stars flared in his vision and nausea rose in the back of his throat. Ah, Jesus…
Suck it up, MOFO, suck it up.
"Daklin?"
"Keep moving." Sweating despite the LockOut, he dragged himself through on his elbows, fighting not to pass the hell out right here, halfway under the fence for all to see. By sheer, steely force of will, he got through without humiliating himself or getting killed. Win-win. This side of the barricade looked exactly like the other. A vast, open, gravel area intermittently lit by a rotating flood light. Five minutes light. Two minutes dark. The open ground wasn't as vast as the area they’d just covered, but there were several hundred feet to cover before they reached the long, low building housing the offices on one end, the processing plant on the other.
They had to get to and around the building undetected, and over a thirty-foot tall tungsten steel gate, into the loading area between the mine and behind the processing section on the south side of the building. Then they had to breach the second door, this one blocking the mine entrance.
Daklin checked his watch. 23:36. Detonation three hours and twenty-four minutes. He held up a finger as he tried his comm. It would be fucking fantastic if they had air support, ground penetrating x-ray, and back up. They needed eyes and ears, satellite surveillance, and support.
Hell, they still didn't even have operable comms.
He gave his guys a thumbs down, and then indicated the way he wanted them to go. A huge earth-moving machine, clearly not in use in the last decade, threw a deep shadow bridge between the fence and the corner of the building. Half a dozen smaller, rusted machines lent their bulky shadows as cover. Powerful spotlights strafed the area, but were no match for the size and bulk of the shadows cast by the abandoned machinery.
With hand signs, Daklin repeated the plan. They’d dart from shadow to shadow as the light swept the area every two minutes. Five minutes light. Two minutes darkness. Standing still for five minutes while hidden was going to feel like a fucking lifetime. The ticking time bomb in his head was a given, but these small respites could work in his favor.