“Most of the men are in the building on the far northwest side of the compound. There are now only two guards patrolling the outside of the main house. There is one guard at the gate, probably more inside the gatehouse we can’t see. A vehicle just left the compound and is heading toward Madera. Other than that, the compound seems quiet. Can’t tell you who’s monitoring any electronic perimeter security they might have or where, but I’ve managed to hack into their systems and can blind them at any time. I also determined the building Fee was carried out of is their medical clinic.”
“Shit,” Price said. “Fee could be hurt.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Trey clenched his jaw and deep-sixed his anger and fears into a dark corner of his mind. Fee—and Pia—needed him at his best. Going off half-cocked as he and the others were about to enter the danger zone wouldn’t help either of the women. He sensed Price and Levi locking down their emotions, readying themselves for whatever lay ahead.
“DJ and I can risk the weather and any ground fire if you have injured,” Tweeter said. “Chopper is warmed up and fully fueled courtesy of a little breaking and entering at a vacant lumber operation. DJ and I loaded the sidewinders, so we can come in blazing fire.”
“Heck, Trey,” DJ said. “With Ace shutting down their radar and most of El Hacha’s men congregated in one place, we could come in, take out the SAM sites, blast some outbuildings, and create a little chaos before they even realize what’s going on. Chaos is always a good cover for an extraction.”
“My wife speaks the truth. So if you need us, don’t hesitate. Just holler.” Tweeter’s voice was calm and confident. “We can be there in less than fifteen minutes. Fuck the lousy weather.”
Fifteen fucking minutes? It had taken them all day to get to this point from the field where the chopper sat, but Trey hadn’t seen any other way to get the gals out without getting everyone killed or starting a war with the Sinaloa cartel.
“Heck, yeah,” DJ said, sounding almost chipper. “Can’t be any worse than the Hindu Kush during a blizzard.”
Fuck, wasn’t that the truth.
But still … blowing shit up was a last resort. While certain U.S. alphabet agencies and the Mexican president knew they were here, this was still considered a black op. Both governments would deny all knowledge of them and their rescue mission if they were caught by the cartel. If DJ and Tweeter swooped in and began firing upon the compound, the mostly collegial relationship between the U.S. and Mexico could suffer a serious setback.
Tweeter’s drone surveillance video had verified the intelligence Keely had gotten from her CIA sources that El Hacha was highly paranoid and had fortified his home and center of operations better than most small countries.
“Roger that.” Trey snorted. “We’ll holler if we need you.
“Copy that. Good luck. Out,” Tweeter said.
Trey looked at the other two. “We all know what we’re gonna do?”
Price nodded, “We’re going in to get my baby sister and her friend back.”
Levi grunted, and Trey took the noise as one of assent.
The sheriff shifted his dark amber gaze between the compound and the skies to the northwest. “We need to do this soon. The weather will worsen quickly.”
Trey scanned the skies and grimaced at the cloud-to-cloud lightning over the tops of the mountains. He looked at his watch. “It’s 2010 hours.” The other men checked their watches. “We’ll grab the gals. Hoof it to the safety point Levi pointed out earlier and set up camp. We can then reassess our options for immediate extraction or not.” He looked each man in the eye. “We aren’t leaving this valley without Fee and Pia.”
“Damn straight, we aren’t,” Price said.
Levi nodded, his thumb stroking the hilt of his sheathed knife.
“Subdue any unfriendlies. If you can’t subdue, wipe, don’t wound,” Trey said, his focus on Levi. Knife work and broken necks could always be chalked up to a rival cartel.
Levi grimaced, but nodded.
Trey understood the lawman’s dilemma. But while this might not be a war zone in Iraq or Afghanistan, they were still executing a stealth mission on a smaller scale. None of them wanted an escalation to a bloody battle. But they all recognized El Hacha’s drug-war-hardened men wouldn’t hesitate to kill intruders.
The wind suddenly picked up and buffeted the men in ever-stronger gusts. An ill wind? He prayed not.
Multiple sky-to-ground lightning strikes presaged the storm heading their way. The thunder rumbling ever closer. At least they weren’t dangling off cliffs and being battered against basalt mountain walls any longer.
Trey stood. “Head out.”
They turned as one and made their way across mostly open meadow, using what few boulders and the occasional tree for cover. They’d reached the protection of a small outbuilding which looked to be used for storage when—
“Trey.” Tweeter’s voice sounded tense. “All hell just broke loose. The men are evacuating the building on the northwest side and scrambling for vehicles. They’re tearing out of the compound and hitting the road to Madera like the devil’s on their asses. Not sure what’s going on since the drone’s audio is being drowned out by all the white noise. But this could be your window of opportunity to waltz in there and get the gals.”
“Are you sure Fee and Pia aren’t in any of those vehicles?” Levi asked.
“No one has come out of the front of the house. Can’t see the back of the house, but they would’ve had to load them within the view of the drone’s camera. The house guards are still patrolling,” Tweeter said, “so my guess—the gals are still in the house.”
“Copy that,” Trey said. “Keep us updated on the situation. Out.”
“Roger that. Out.”
Trey turned to Price and Levi as the rain began to fall in sheets. “Shit, it’s a frigging monsoon. The clock just got shorter. All egresses will flood quickly in this kind of downpour. Let’s move out.”
He left the cover of the storage unit. Price and Levi followed on his heels. They zig-zagged their way toward the main house.
****
Shortly after 8:05 p.m.
After the mass exodus of vehicles, Fee followed Pia and Lucia as they picked their way across the uneven ground of a rock-strewn meadow. They were heading out of the valley toward a darkly shadowed gap between two steep mountain walls. The light show which preceded the oncoming storm provided more than enough light for them to see their way, but Lucia had given them tactical flashlights that could be shielded to help light their path if the lightning died down.
When they reached the gap, Fee could see that it was a slot canyon carved by wind and water over the millennia. What was on most days a shallow creek wound its way down the center of the canyon. It was now threatening to flow outside its banks as rainwater from farther up the mountains reached the canyon floor. When the rain was directly over them, the area would flood.
“Watch your step,” Lucia called out. “Very slippery.”
The three of them crossed the swiftly rushing waters, using large flat rocks obviously placed for just such a purpose.
Once they reached the other side, Fee spotted the path that led upward. The track was one-person wide and like the canyon had been sculpted by wind and water and then worn down further by human feet over time.
Lucia stopped at the base of the path which looked more suited for a mountain goat than a human and pointed upward. “We’re going there.”
A flash of lightning illuminated the cliff dwellings which clung precariously, high above the canyon floor. The ancients who’d chosen this area to build their homes had chosen well. The only access to their cliff homes could easily be defended from above.
Unfortunately, what made the cliff houses safe and defensible, also made them difficult to get to in bad weather and at night. Even with Mother Nature lighting the area like a used car parking lot, the steeply inclined path was treacherous. The now-falling rain added slippery to the alread
y rugged track, which was liberally littered with loose stones and scrub plants growing from between cracks in the rocks.
A wet and chilled Fee followed the others, tripping over unseen depressions and sliding on areas where the rock was like a polished floor. She only managed to stay upright because she could brace herself on the rock that formed a wall on one side. The other side of the track was a drop-off to the roiling waters of the rock-strewn creek below. The increasingly deeper creek.
A particularly large lightning flash immediately followed by a deafening crack of thunder shook the very ground they trod. A fierce wind roared through the narrow canyon on its way to the valley below. The rainfall changed from an irritating mist to large drops that bounced off the rock walls and hurt any exposed skin.
The storm’s leading wind threatened to blow Fee right off the path. She stopped in her tracks and clung like a leech to a jagged abutment on the sheer rock wall next to her.
“Shit. Lucia, the storm is right above us,” Fee yelled to be heard over the storm’s fury.
Lucia waved them forward. “Keep moving. We are close.” Her words carried to Fee on the wind. “Just around this next set of boulders and then up a ladder. Hurry.”
With the promise of safety looming, Fee increased her speed as much as she dared. She caught up with Pia, who followed close behind Lucia.
Then the rain fell in sheets. What had been merely a miserable wetting before had become a potentially life-threatening deluge. The creek was far out of its banks and filling the canyon floor. It had already covered the bottom of the path they’d just climbed.
“Up. Quickly.” Lucia put her foot on the rain-slickened bottom rung of a handmade wooden ladder that looked to be fifteen feet or so high. “Even more dangerous waters will come.”
“Shit,” Fee breathed out. She could make out the marks on the rock walls that previous gully-washers had made.
Pia began climbing. Fee waited, giving the other two some space. She didn’t want to put too much weight on the rickety ladder. When the two were about halfway up, she placed her foot on the bottom rung and began to climb.
Fee’s fingers had gone numb and trembled from cold—and, hell yeah, she’d admit it, from gut-wrenching fear. She wasn’t fond of heights and ladders on a normal day, and today was so far beyond normal it didn’t register on any scale she could claim to have familiarity with. The climb was made worse by the water rolling in rivulets down the ladder. Each step up was one step away from slipping and falling to certain death.
The gushing sound of fast-moving water pouring over rocks turned into a roar in less than a split-second.
“Oh, shit.” Fee climbed faster.
From above her, Pia screamed, “Fee, come on. Lucia said we have to pull up the ladder or—”
The shrieking wind and the noise of the raging flood waters swept away what her friend said next.
Fee didn’t need to hear what the “or” was; she could guess—the rising, fast-moving water would sweep the ladder away. She forced herself into overdrive and scrambled up the ladder like a monkey. She was within three rungs of the top and safety when the first surge of water hit the bottom of the ladder and shifted it to her left with a jerky hop-like movement. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”
The next wave of water hit and the ladder wobbled wildly. She clung to the wood and hemp creation like a lover.
Now the water was a constant driving force as it sought its way through the narrow canyon to the valley below. The ladder was battered, but still holding. She wasn’t even sure why it hadn’t been swept away yet and her with it.
“Fee, move your ass!” Pia yelled.
The horrified panic in her friend’s voice cut through Fee’s stupor. She needed to get up and off the damn ladder, or she’d end up clinging to the rock wall like a barnacle.
“Dammit, Fee, hurry,” Pia cried out. “We can’t hold it much longer.”
Rain streaming down her face, Fee looked up through the downpour. “Shit.”
The two small women strained to hold the ladder in place. She could’ve told them it was a lesson in futility. The laws of physics were against them.
The angry water shoved the ladder to the left yet again. A loud crack indicated physics had won and damaged the ladder.
Pia and Lucia cried out in pain as the ladder was ripped out of their hands. Somehow, the ladder held together as it moved yet again. And Fee still clung to it.
Pia screamed, “Fee … grab onto the ledge … to your right. Now!”
Fee turned her head and looked to the right. Ledge? Was Pia nuts?
Lightning revealed what appeared to be a tiny gouge in the rock. But it was Fee’s only hope. She reached with her right hand and foot just as the ladder was torn out from under her. She kicked the remnants away with her left foot and found another small rock jutting out to grab with her left hand.
“Fee,” Pia yelled.
“What!” Fee didn’t look up. She was too busy trying to keep the toehold her right foot had found and to hold onto the small protrusions her hands had found. Her left leg dangled wildly with no anchor.
Turning her face to the rock wall, she leaned her forehead on the smooth, wet rock. “Oh God, oh God,” she chanted under her breath as she held on and tried to slow her breathing down before she hyperventilated. She didn’t dare get any more light-headed than she already was or they’d find her broken body in the valley meadow after the flood waters receded.
“Fee,” Pia yelled yet again.
“Dammit, Pia, I’m sort of busy here,” she shouted, “hanging on.”
“Climb,” Pia ordered.
“Um, would love to. Any suggestions how?” Fee was afraid to look up since it could throw her off-balance.
“Use the rope ladder,” Lucia shouted above the sound of the wind, rain, and the gulley-washer still moving swiftly below.
“What effin’ rope ladder?” Fee gritted out.
“To your right.” Pia sounded pissed and scared. Exactly how Fee felt at the moment. “It’s anchored to a huge rock up here and isn’t going anywhere.”
Okay then, that was what Fee had needed to know, but still, she was scared shitless to move too much.
“Fee,” Pia shouted down, “reach out with your right hand. Pull it to you. There’s enough slack.”
“God, Pia, you get awfully damn bossy when you’re scared.” Fee gingerly turned her head to the right. She let out a huge sobbing sigh. The ladder was there. All rough, knotted rope and beautiful.
Taking a deep breath, she let go of her right hand-hold and grabbed the left side of the rope ladder. She pulled it to her until she could get her right foot on it. She then got her left foot onto it, shifted her right hand to the right side of the rope, and then let go of the rock wall with her left hand.
With her full weight and all appendages safely on the rope ladder, it swung slightly. She bounced off the wall for a few seconds, then the ladder steadied under her more balanced weight. Yep, she’d have bruises, cuts, and rope burns, but she was alive. She rested for a second and murmured, “Thank you, Jesus.” Then she looked up at the two worried faces and smiled. “I’m okay. Coming up.”
When she finally pulled herself onto the ledge, she kissed the rock. Yeah, it was wet and dirty, but it was solid and flat. She loved that damn ledge at that moment.
“Come on, Fee.” Pia held out her hand. “Let’s get inside where Lucia says we can have a fire and something hot to drink. She even has dry clothes in there that should fit us.”
Fee took her friend’s hand and sent Lucia a look of heartfelt gratitude. “Sounds great.”
“I will pull up the rope ladder,” Lucia said. “You may tell Anton that I told him so when I said the wooden ladder wasn’t practical. He humored me with the backup ladder.”
Fee laughed, the sound a bit hysterical. “I’ll be happy to rub it in. Bless you, Lucia. I don’t think I could’ve made it up the wall without it.”
Pia nudged Fee’s arm. “You’d ha
ve done it.”
Maybe, but she was damn glad she hadn’t had to find her inner spider.
****
8:15 p.m.
El Hacha’s compound
“Where the fuck are they?” A scowl on his face, Trey looked around the bedroom suite which corresponded with the French doors Tweeter had indicated from his surveillance. There were signs Fee and Pia had been here at one time. Empty plates. Scattered items of female clothing, size small.
Dread festered in Trey’s gut.
The entry into the house had been far easier than they’d anticipated. With one less roving guard, Trey and the others quickly subdued and tied up the two guards. They’d then entered through the back of the house and found four servants whom they locked in the pantry. The servants hadn’t seemed willing to cause any trouble.
With Price guarding their exit point, Trey and Levi had searched the house, bottom to top, and found no one but an unconscious guard lying outside the now-empty bedroom.
Levi opened a drawer in one of the heavy wooden chests and held up some men’s boxer briefs. “This is a man’s room.” He growled and tore the briefs into shreds.
Trey would rather shred the suite’s owner.
Levi turned a murderous look Trey’s way. “What now?”
Since Tweeter hadn’t given them a heads-up, that meant the drone hadn’t been in the right place when the women left the house. So—
“We search and clear the other buildings until we find our women … or, better yet, we find someone who can tell us where they are.” Trey headed for the entrance to the suite. “We’ll start with the medical clinic Tweeter mentioned.”
Levi followed him. When they reached the lower-level back hallway, Price looked at them. The hope in his eyes fizzled out like a spent firecracker. “Where the fuck are they?”
“Not here.” Trey opened the back door and checked the area. “It’s clear. Let’s go.”
“Where are we going,” Price muttered into his headset so as not to alert anyone who might be close by.
Other than the house guards, the servants, and the two guards at the gate house, the compound was deserted. Tweeter had shut down all the electronic surveillance, and there had been no response to that maneuver. Maybe the systems often got glitchy in bad weather and Tweeter’s sabotage just presented as an act of Mother Nature. Whatever the reason, no offensive response to their infiltration was all good in his book.
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