by Rob Jones
The hood of a convertible black Porsche Boxster, top down, nosed out of the hotel’s underground car park and sparkled in the bright sunshine. Aurora was at the wheel and after inching the powerful German sport compact into the traffic she turned onto the avenue and pulled away from them with the subdued roar of the turbocharged four-cylinder engine. Moments later the Chevy van pulled out behind the Porsche and followed it up the road.
“It’s alright for some,” Kim said, eyeing the sports car enviously.
Camacho pulled out behind the Chevy and began to tail them. “What do you mean – the Boxster?”
Kim nodded her head. “I guess.”
“An old college buddy of mine had one – terrible problems with the shaft bearing. Plus now they dropped from six to four cylinders. I’d rather get a Lambo for the roar.”
Kim sighed and rolled her eyes to the roof.
“What?” Camacho said, pushing the throttle and pulling closer to the Porsche. He changed up through the gears… second, third, fourth.
“Lambo?” she said, glancing at his biceps. “I don’t think you’d even fit inside one.”
Yes, Camacho considered, she was probably right.
“She’s moving too far ahead, Jack,” Scarlet said.
Camacho’s trip down memory lane was shattered by the no-nonsense Kim, riding shotgun to his right. “So speed things up a bit.”
“Sorry – just a little lost in thought.”
“Well snap out of it – look!”
Aurora was accelerating the Boxster and weaving in and out of the dense traffic up ahead. The Beauville was keeping pace with her. “You think they’ve seen us?”
“No. Just driving like assholes.”
“Excellent analysis,” Lexi said.
“Just don’t lose them,” said Kim, starting to sound anxious.
“Just relax, babe.”
“Don’t call me babe, Camacho.”
“Sorry, babe.”
“You like your nuts where they are, or served up in a bowl with your next beer?”
Camacho suppressed a smile. He liked Kim Taylor.
They followed Soto and the Chevy along the coast road for several blocks and then they turned right and started to climb into the hills south of Acapulco. Kim’s moon was now sinking into the Pacific waves as the sun behind them climbed higher. The beaches were already full of surfers and sunbathers.
“Looks like our cult has some cash,” Camacho said. “This area ain’t cheap.”
With less traffic on the roads they dropped back, but then things changed fast.
Doyle leaned forward and frowned. “Are they slowing down?”
With no warning, the Chevy skidded into the slow lane to reveal the Boxster right in front of them. Aurora turned in the convertible, casually pulled a gun from inside her jacket and fired it at them. The bullet punctured a hole through the windshield and buried itself inside the stuffing of the back seat.
“Fuck me!” Kim said.
“Perhaps later,” said Camacho, crunching the manual gearstick into something approximating third gear and swerving hard into the next lane.
“Know any other tunes?” Kim said sarcastically.
The CIA man stamped on the brakes and pulled back.
“What the buggering hell are you doing?” Scarlet said. “She’s getting away!”
“And I want her to think she’s done just that,” Camacho said. “This isn’t ECHO, Sloane. This is a joint BDS-CIA operation. Our orders are to locate the cult’s HQ and she’s hardly going to lead us there if she knows we’re behind her.”
Kim nodded in agreement. “That’s why we bought our little insurance policy with the GPS bug on the Porsche.”
“So get the tracker fired up, Kim,” Camacho said, and then with a weary glance to Scarlet: “No offense, babe.”
“I had no idea you fancied a career as a castrato, Jack, but that’s what awaits you should you refer to me as babe again.”
He twisted his fat neck and fixed his eyes on her. “I don’t know what that means, but whatever it is, I’d like to see you try it.”
“I don’t think you would, darling.”
“We pull back,” Camacho repeated. “Kim, get on to the Mexicans and see if they can send some backup. She knows we’re on her tail now so we don’t have the element of surprise. In the meantime, we get a plan together, hang back and follow the tracker.”
*
Less than an hour later, the Explorer easily climbed the hill as the road swept around Acapulco Bay to the south and they made good time on their way to Las Brisas, the up-market suburb where apparently the cult’s HQ was located somewhere in a maze of villas and mansions. The tracker worked well and now they were closing in on their target.
Camacho pulled the SUV off the main road. Now they were driving back down toward the sea again, but this time the concrete crash barriers and telephone polls had changed into manicured lawns of bahia grass and Mexican fan palms swaying lazily in the warm Pacific breeze.
All around them large white mansions and villas nestled behind tropical gardens and expensive cars sat on the driveways.
“That must be it up there,” Scarlet said, raising a finger to point at a sumptuous white and terracotta villa trying to hide behind a ten-foot wall. As she studied the property for an ingress point she noticed a small security camera swivelling around and surveying the street.
“We’re set then,” Camacho said firmly. “We go in as soon as the Mexicans arrive.”
“All right, agreed,” Scarlet said reluctantly. “But pull back a bit. We couldn’t be more obvious if we were standing on their doorstep wearing trilbies and belted raincoats.”
“Oh, you’re real funny,” Camacho said, as he reversed back up the road a few hundred yards. “Now we wait.”
“But not for long,” Kim said, glancing in the mirror. “I think the cavalry just arrived.”
Camacho turned to see a black Lenco BearCat pull up behind them. Moments later half a dozen heavily armed men jumped out and walked toward the Explorer.
“Looks like we’re in business.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jack Camacho drew his weapon and led the charge down to the Cult’s HQ. Kim Taylor was at his side, spoiling for a fight as usual and Doyle a step to her right. Behind them were Scarlet, Reaper and Lexi from the obscure ECHO team. He knew only that the Englishwoman had shot President Grant to save his life, which he thought highly suspect, but Jack Brooke wanted them on board so that was that.
All of them were backed up by a unit from the Mexican Special Operations Group, or GOPES, and now they moved through the tropical heat like jaguars, closing in on the target with only one thought in mind – the capture and interrogation of Aurora Soto and any information they could get leading to the arrest of Morton Wade. They also had two hostages now identified as Viktor Sobotka, a nuclear weapons specialist working at Los Alamos and his wife Alena.
They slipped over the compound’s wall behind the cover of a line of fan palms and bounced silently along the perfectly manicured bahia lawn. They were nearly at the mansion now, and skirting around a sumptuous circular swimming pool. On one side was a triple garage block housing what looked like a thirty year-old VW Beetle, and parked outside was Aurora’s Boxster and the Beauville.
Camacho sent a clipped message over the comms: “Remember, we need Soto alive and no one goes in without my order.”
Moving into their positions now, the three teams worked as one as they closed in on their target. Camacho watched with confidence and pride as everyone readied for the assault, but he knew how fast these things could get ugly.
“All right, we go in three, two…”
Before he could finish, they heard shots and then someone in the GOPES team returned fire without his permission. A savage fire-fight exploded out of nowhere as the members of the cult leaped to action to defend their inner sanctum. Camacho tried to hold it together as the exchange of fire grew in its intensity and two of the Mexican
soldiers were slain crossing the lawn to defend their colleagues.
Then the Sun cultists ramped things up with the deployment of grenades, hurled with surprising accuracy from the Colonial balustrade on the second floor. Fire and death rained down from the mansion and Camacho had seconds to act. With their cover blown and half the GOPES men dead, he had no choice but to order the rest of the team into battle.
The combined force of Camacho’s team, ECHO and the GOPES men made short work of the outer perimeter, but when they were in the inner courtyard the fighting got fiercer.
Scarlet leaned into the shadow of the pool house and paused for a second while she clicked a fresh mag into the grip of her Glock. The compound was larger than it looked from the other side of the wall and it was obvious these guys had access to serious cash. She’d read about cults over the years, but never thought she’d find herself shooting her way into the heart of one of their inner sanctums.
She saw Aurora now, on the upper level behind the balustrade. She was holding a sidearm and taking measured pot-shots from behind the safety of a doorway arch. The sun flashed on the one remaining window before Aurora blasted it out with her gun and took out another of the GOPES men. He took it hard in the chest and the bullet knocked him off his feet and drove him into the pool. He landed with a bloody smash in the chlorinated water. Aurora smiled as his dead eyes stared up at the bright sky.
Scarlet saw several armed members of the Sixth Sun running about inside the mansion. Some were bringing fresh ammo to those on the front line, while others were trying to bolster up the defenses around the ground floor doors and windows. She fired through the broken windows, hitting one of the men and sending him flying around in an arc. He stumbled over the back doorstep and cracked his head on the edge of a terracotta potted palm.
Camacho was a few yards ahead of her, and fired his gun in a barrage of non-stop fire as he moved forward to the doors. Kim and the GOPES men followed him into the building while Scarlet, Lexi and Reaper cleaned up the last surviving members of the cult still in the courtyard.
A squeal of tires alerted them to Delgado and Garza skidding out of the compound in the Chevy but they were pinned down by the cultists, whose ferocious fighting was getting more intense the closer they got to the HQ.
“Damn it!” Camacho said.
Kim ejected the mag from the grip of her SIG and smacked a fresh one in. It was her last magazine, but the fight was turning now. She counted no more than half a dozen of the cult members still standing, plus Aurora who was still on the upper level with a handful of the cult members.
“Any sign of the Sobotkas?” Kim yelled.
“Nothing,” Camacho called back. “Must have been in the goddamn Chevy.”
Scarlet, Lexi and Reaper cleared the east wing while Camacho, Doyle and Kim checked the kitchen and out the back. With the lower level checked they started to sweep up stairs, but before they’d made three steps Aurora Soto appeared and she was holding a gun to Alena Sobotka’s head. Without warning Alena made a break for it, trying to flee down the stairs toward Camacho. She tripped on the rug at the top of the stairs and fell, crashing hard down the steps and landing with a sickening crack on the landing floor.
Aurora raised her gun to fire but Scarlet aimed her weapon and shot the gun out of her hand. It spun away from her in a blur and flew out the window beside her.
“You’re not going anywhere, Soto,” Camacho said, training his gun at her.
“Now be a good darling, and put your hands up like you just don’t care,” Scarlet said, holstering her weapon.
Aurora sighed and slowly raised her hands as Scarlet knelt to feel Alena’s pulse. She looked at Camacho and gently shook her head. “No.”
“Where’s Viktor Sobotka?” Kim asked Aurora as she cuffed her hands behind her back.
“Long gone,” was all she said.
“We’ll find him, with or without your help, Soto,” Doyle said, giving her a push up the stairs. “Let’s go.”
Kim Taylor could hardly believe her eyes as she jogged up the sweeping staircase and emerged on the upper level of the mansion. Before the blood of battle, everything had been white except for the mahogany floors, and images of ancient Aztec gods hung on every wall, some painted, while others were enormous tapestries. She gently pulled off her sunglasses as if they were somehow responsible for what she was seeing, but when her naked eyes saw the same thing she knew it was all for real.
“Holy crap,” Camacho boomed. “This is nuts.”
“This must be Cult HQ all right,” Doyle said.
“It is – the Order of the Sixth Sun,” Kim said as she lifted some papers off the desk in the study. “It’s all here, for sure.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Aurora hissed.
“Can it, bitch,” Scarlet said.
“Check out the robes,” Lexi said, pointing a red-painted fingernail at some white robes hanging over the couch in the corner. She turned to Aurora. “You actually wear robes?”
Aurora said nothing, but fixed her eyes on Camacho who gave a low whistle of amazement as he rifled through a filing cabinet. “There’s gotta be enough shit in here to put Wade away for a millennium.” He turned to Aurora. “And you too.”
“We have no official jurisdiction here, Jack,” Kim said. “We’re here to bring Wade back to the US, and she’s Mexico’s problem.”
“They killed three of our people,” Scarlet said flatly. “That needs addressing.”
Kim turned to Scarlet. “I don’t know what you’re implying, but I’m not leading a bunch of bounty hunters here. I’ve been instructed by the US Secretary of State to apprehend Wade and shut this cult down and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re not pirates, Sloane.”
“Ouch,” Lexi said.
“Take it easy, darling,” Scarlet said. “You’ll live longer.”
Kim’s eyes widened with anger. “Is that a threat?”
Reaper intervened, pushing the two women apart. “Ladies perhaps you can carry this on later, but for now…” he flicked his chin at Aurora.
Kim and Scarlet looked daggers at each other as they stood down. Kim knew the former legionnaire was right, and she was too professional to let someone like Scarlet Sloane bait her like this during an important mission. She turned to Jack Camacho as he lifted the display monitor of a laptop and fired it up.
“What have we here, I wonder?” he said.
Aurora was standing in front of Doyle now, her hands still cuffed behind her. She looked nervous as the laptop flickered to life.
Kim looked at Camacho, suddenly expectant. “What is it, Jack?”
“Looks like something we could use.”
“I don’t know about anyone else,” Reaper said. “But I could use a bottle of Bordeaux.”
“Count me in,” Scarlet said.
“How professional,” said Kim with a sideways glance.
“But I’m not a professional, am I?” Scarlet said. “I’m a bounty hunter, I thought.”
Kim ignored her and leaned in to take a closer look but it was all written in Spanish. “What is that, an invoice for something?”
Camacho nodded his head. “Uh-huh – it’s an invoice, all right. It’s detailing a whole bunch of NBC suits, Geiger counters – you name it. All bought off the internet from mostly Chinese manufacturers.”
Doyle winced. “That’s not filling my day with joy, Jack. Got anything to cheer me up?”
Camacho spun around in the swivel chair. “Sure do – the address where it all went is loud and clear.”
Aurora squirmed in Doyle’s grip.
“Where is it?”
Kim tapped it into her iPhone as Camacho read it out.
She frowned. “Looks like it must be Wade’s coffee plantation in Guerrero from the looks of the satellite images. We’ve finally found his little hidey-hole.”
“But why would Morton Wade be getting deliveries of NBC suits to a coffee plantation?” Doyle muttered almost to himself.
> Lexi stared at the satellite image. “Flying them on somewhere maybe?”
Kim frowned. “Maybe. We’re going to need to open this up to the Mexicans. I’ll call Jack.”
Camacho “You called?”
“Not you, Camacho… unless you’re the Secretary of Defense these days?”
Camacho made a big show of looking at his reflection in the laptop screen. “No… sorry. Just the same old ugly bastard I was when I woke up.”
Then everything changed.
With no warning and as fast as lighting, Aurora suddenly sprang to life. Somehow she’d removed her cuffs while her hands were behind her back and she used the first two seconds of freedom to pull Doyle’s weapon from his holster and shoot him in the back. The bullet burst through his chest and ricocheted off the far wall as Agent Doyle fell forwards dead, and then all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It happened faster than Camacho could believe. As Doyle slumped to the floor dead, Aurora spat with venom: “That’s just the start.” She fired blindly into the room, scattering the team for cover behind desks, couches and filing cabinets.
Camacho, Kim, Scarlet and the others could scarcely believe what had happened right under their noses, but wasted no time in drawing their weapons and giving chase, with Camacho taking a final glance at Doyle as he ran after his assassin, clenching his jaw in rage at the brutal murder.
Aurora slid down the banister of the sweeping stairs, firing behind her as she went and slipped out of their reach like a phantom. She fled the building and sprinted across the courtyard. They watched through the landing window as Aurora Soto, as cool as ice, used Doyle’s Sig and blasted the Explorer’s tires to shreds. Kim watched helplessly as their SUV sank down onto its wheel rims.
“Damn it all..!” Camacho said, pounding a meaty fist against the wall.
“There’s only one way after her now,” added Lexi.
They all looked at each other and said at the same time: “The Beetle.”
They made their way down the central staircase and used an internal door to access the garage. Sitting in the semi-darkness was the same old Beetle they had seen when they arrived at the mansion. But there was no time for hesitation, because seconds later Aurora revved the Porsche and was skidding out of the compound.