by E. M. Smith
“What about a concussion?” Whiskey asked.
“Who’s the medic here?” Mike asked, not looking up from taping my fingers. “Pupils were the first thing I checked. Kid’s got a head like a rock.”
“Just ask my school teachers,” I said.
Mike laughed. Whiskey didn’t.
Once the rest of the doctoring—complete with cutting and draining my face-blood into the bathroom sink—was over, Whiskey opened a laptop and motioned to Bravo. He pulled a projector screen down on the back wall. I adjusted the bloody rag on my eye so I could see better, but kept it on my face so I wouldn’t drip on the couch.
“Okay, listen up,” Whiskey said. “We’ve got a little more than four hours until we land in Belize. That’ll put us there at sixteen-thirty. Fox’s associates will have a helo and pilot waiting.”
She clicked something on the laptop. An aerial shot of a walled-in mansion appeared on the screen.
“Delgado’s compound,” she said. “According to our source, his guards do thermal sweeps after dark, so we’re going to hit it as soon as we get into position and hope the sun doesn’t go down early today. That means my orders are the word of God. You shut up, you listen, you obey to the letter. Are we clear?”
Everyone agreed.
“The guard towers are here, here, here, and here,” Whiskey said. Red circles highlighted them in the picture. “Two guards in each. They’re going to require a synchronized takedown. Fox and Romeo get into position, then coordinate to take them out.”
“You got it, boss,” Romeo said.
“Mike, Bravo, Juliet, and I will be the entry team,” Whiskey said. “When we get the all-clear from Fox, we’ll go over the wall here—” A red arrow flashed at what looked like a solid wall. “—take out any roaming guards, and break for the main house. Mike and Bravo, you’ll take the back door. Juliet, you’ll come in the front with me.”
“Any idea where the kids are being held?” Mike asked.
“My guess is either high or low,” Whiskey said. “Most mansions down there aren’t built with basements, but since Talia took him out the first time, Delgado’s made a living out of being paranoid. Chances are he’s got escape routes ready and waiting. He may try to use a kid as a shield, so be prepared to do whatever you have to. Delgado doesn’t walk away from this.”
“Fuck,” I breathed. “You mean, like, shoot a kid?”
Whiskey glared at me, but before she could say anything, Mike cut in.
“You’re going to see worse on ops where they don’t give a shit whether kids live or die,” he said. “This is the job, Juliet. If you don’t think you can handle it, then this isn’t the line of work for you.”
“I can do it.”
“You’re sure?” Whiskey asked.
“I can do it,” I snapped. “Whatever it takes.”
*****
Whiskey made me recite the plan back to her word-for-word from memory until I got it perfect. Then while she went to change into fatigues, I had to work on hand signs with Romeo. Stop. Drop. Follow. Wait. All clear. High. Low. Over there. Those didn’t take too long to get down, even though Romeo kept throwing in joke signs like “Suck it” and “Up yours.”
Not long after Fox announced that we were in South American airspace, Mike passed out Kevlar vests. Then everybody broke off and started assembling, checking, and loading weapons.
“What do I get?” I asked.
Whiskey handed me a Berretta, extra magazines, a shoulder holster, and a sheathed combat knife.
“Don’t shoot me or anyone else on the team,” she said.
I held them up. They looked pretty pitiful compared to Romeo’s sniper rifle.
“Talia trained me with an MP5,” I said.
“I didn’t train you and I haven’t seen you shoot,” Whiskey said. “You don’t touch a rifle until I give you authorization.”
“But—”
Whiskey turned and went up to the cockpit like I hadn’t said anything.
Romeo quit hand-loading her rifle.
“It’s best not to argue with the boss lady, Juliet,” she said. “If Whiskey thinks you’re going to question her authority in the field, she’ll make you stay on the jet and watch the mission through a cam.”
I looked up at the picture of Delgado that Whiskey had left on the projector screen. No fucking way was I staying on the plane.
“How’d you get this job?” I asked Romeo.
“Wow, personal much?”
“Sorry. I just wondered.”
She thought about it for a minute.
“Tell you what,” she said. “If you live through this mission and don’t get the rest of us killed, I’ll take you out for coffee and we’ll talk.”
“Uh, okay.” I shrugged on the Berretta’s shoulder holster before I remembered some manners. “I’m buying, though.”
“Oh, a Southern gentleman?” Romeo asked.
I adjusted the shoulder holster’s chest-strap so it’d fit over the Kevlar vest, then did the snaps.
“Probably not,” I admitted.
“Good.” She sighted through her rifle scope. “I hate those.”
*****
Stepping off the plane onto foreign soil was about the weirdest thing I had ever experienced, mostly because it wasn’t weird at all.
The only time I’d been out of Arkansas before was to go to Owen’s college graduation in New York City. That wasn’t just culture shock, it was claustrophobia on steroids. So many people around it made your skin hurt, buildings everywhere shutting out the sky, so much noise…
Belize was completely different. The airstrip was dirt, surrounded by trees—huge, swampy, rainforest trees like you’d see in a movie, but trees just the same—and the air felt like hot coffee. Even though I knew it was supposed to be a foreign country, Belize didn’t feel any more exotic than Arkansas in June. To be honest, it was kind of disappointing.
“Sho’ ‘nuff beats the inside of a prison cell, don’t it, bitch-boy?” Bravo tried to drawl.
“Fuck you, Jersey Shore.” Maybe I wasn’t that tired of saying it. At least not to him. I wiped sweat off my face with the cuff of my shirt. “I thought it was supposed to be winter down here when it’s summer back home.”
Mike grinned. “Not everybody defines winter as snow and ice.”
The airfield was deserted except for a thin, waspy-looking chopper across the way. A guy in an army green jumpsuit climbed out of the body, hunted around until he found a leaf, then stuck it in the paperback he’d been reading. He waved to Fox.
“Start her up, Shill,” Fox hollered across the field.
Shill nodded and went around to the other side. After a few seconds, the blades started turning.
“Headsets,” Whiskey said to me, raising her voice to be heard over the chopper’s blades. She pushed the button on one, then hooked it over my ear for me.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
Whiskey didn’t hear me, which was just as well considering I hadn’t meant it sincerely. She went on down the line handing them out, not acting like anyone else was too stupid to figure out that the earpiece went in the ear, not up the ass.
“Check-in,” she said when she finished. The sound came through the headset perfectly with barely any interference from the helicopter blades. “Whiskey.”
“Foxtrot.”
“Mike.”
“Romeo.”
“Bravo.”
Everyone looked at me.
Dammit. “Juliet.”
Bravo smirked. When this was all over, I was going to punch him in his big, bleached teeth.
“All headsets confirmed in working order.” Whiskey slipped the strap of her M16 over her shoulder and cradled it in her arms. “Let’s go.”
The team crouched and ran for the helicopter. Getting up in the bay was hell on my banged-up knees, but I made it without embarrassing myself too bad and grabbed the strap across from Mike and Bravo. Whiskey climbed in last and slapped the pilot on the shoulder.
I’d never been in a helicopter before. The way it picked up like something big had grabbed it made my stomach flip. Good thing I hadn’t had time to eat anything yet today. I don’t think I could’ve lived with myself if I’d puked in front of Bravo.
*****
We were in the air forever. Or maybe it just seemed like forever because I was trying to act like my stomach wasn’t fixing to jump up my throat.
Finally, I heard Whiskey over the headset—“Down there.”
The helo touched down like a feather. I opened my eyes and tried to look like I hadn’t just been praying to Jesus.
“Ready weapons,” Whiskey said.
Everybody got their ordnance locked, cocked, and ready to rock. Watching that shot this jolt of fakeness straight to my brain, like there was no way this could be real, it had to be a movie or some elaborate joke. There was no way I was in a foreign country with a black ops team of commandos about ready to take down a sex trafficker—and hell, while I was at it, there was no way my brother was dead. Everything was peachy-keen in the world of Jamie Kendrick.
Whiskey was studying me. I snapped out of it. I took my Berretta out and made sure there was one in the chamber.
“Rendezvous back here in three hours,” Whiskey said. “Fox and Romeo, go.”
The two of them ducked and ran, angling away from each other.
“I’ll circle around and take far,” Fox’s voice came through the headset. “Romeo, you set up on the near. Watch for perimeter guards.”
“Wilco,” Romeo said as she disappeared into the tree line. She sounded awful damn chipper.
I was shaking. Not enough for somebody to see, but enough that I could feel it up and down my back and in my arms and legs. This was for real. Holy shit was this for real.
Whiskey turned back to the rest of us. “Bravo, you’re on Mike’s six. Juliet, you’re on mine. Go.”
I fell in behind Whiskey and tried to keep up. Her head swept back and forth as she jogged, like she expected somebody to jump out of the trees at us. I just focused on what parts of me hurt so I didn’t have to think about whether or not somebody actually would.
After a couple minutes, my muscles warmed up. Pretty soon my limp worked itself out and the heat eased most of the aches and pains. Keeping up got easier.
Then we hit the jungle for real.
The foliage was insane. The kind you needed a machete to hack through. Talia used make me run the mountain trails carrying a 35-lb metal pipe like a rifle. We had run every day of the last three months—sunshine or rain or thousand-degree weather. We ran so long most days that whenever Owen tagged along on his bike, he got worn out and headed back home with the girls to swim. But the thing about mountains in Arkansas is that they’re covered in Southern pines, so the needles smother all the undergrowth. The jungle plant life didn’t have that problem. Leaves of every size and shape slapped sweat drops off my face. Vines grabbed my legs, arms, neck, until I was working as hard to fight the plants as I was to keep up with Whiskey.
Sweat rolled down my neck. I was practically swimming in my boots. All I could taste was salt and all I could smell was me.
Whiskey stopped suddenly. Held up her fist, then brought her elbow down. The “drop” signal. We did.
She acted like she was listening for something, but I doubted she could hear anything over the sound of my breathing. At least I wasn’t the only one—Bravo was sucking wind, too.
“Clear,” Whiskey said, standing.
“Wait,” Mike said. “Dehydration check.” He looked at Bravo. “Where are you from?”
Bravo squinted at him.
“Where are you from, soldier?”
“Long Island,” Bravo wheezed.
Mike looked at me. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five.” I actually sounded a little better than Bravo had. Choke on that shit, Jersey Shore.
“They’re good,” Mike said.
Whiskey nodded. “Move out.”
I don’t know how I got back up. Or how I stayed up once we started jogging again. I just kept telling myself all I had to do was outlast that pansy city boy Bravo. That probably had a lot to do with it.
*****
The second time Whiskey called for a stop, we were there. Ten yards of trees, then a glimpse of open ground. I thought I could see the compound wall past that, but it was hard to tell through the sweat and the leaves. The sunlight was starting to go. Delgado’s guards would begin the thermal sweeps of the perimeter soon.
“Snipers report,” Whiskey said.
“Foxtrot in position.”
“Romeo in position.”
They had whispered, but the headsets made their responses clear as a bell.
“Fire when ready,” Whiskey said.
“On three,” Foxtrot said.
“Roger,” Romeo said.
“One. Two. Three.”
I didn’t hear any shots.
“Southeast and southwest tower down,” Foxtrot said.
“Northeast and northwest down,” Romeo said.
“Roger,” Whiskey said. “Guards inside the wall?”
“Two visible from the north, just hooked around the southeast corner of the mansion,” Romeo said.
“I’ve got the shot,” Fox said.
“Take them out,” Whiskey said.
I still didn’t hear any shooting.
“Down,” Fox said. “But watch yourselves. The second guard pulled his radio. He might’ve keyed it.”
“Roger.” Whiskey pushed up out of her crouch and gave the “follow” signal.
We jogged the last ten yards of forest and stopped at the tree line, checking the open ground between the wall and the trees.
“Wall maneuver three,” Whiskey said. “Mike and Bravo, go. Juliet, take your fucking safety off. We’re covering them.”
Mike and Bravo ran to the wall, backed up against it side by side, then planted their feet and looked our way.
“Ready,” Mike’s whisper came through the headset.
“Cover us, Juliet,” Whiskey said.
“A’ight. I mean, roger.” I watched the open ground, fully expecting a shit-ton of guys with automatic rifles to come around the corner at any second.
Whiskey sprinted to the wall. As she closed in, Mike and Bravo grabbed hands. She grabbed Mike’s shoulder and stepped onto their hands. They boosted her up. Whiskey dropped over the side.
After a few seconds, she whispered, “Clear. Go, Juliet.” into the headset.
“A’ight.” I looked back and forth a couple times, then ran out to where Mike and Bravo waited.
No guards, no yelling, no alarms. All that quiet freaked the shit out of me. Shouldn’t something have started happening by now?
“Let’s go, bitch-boy,” Bravo growled.
“Right here,” Mike said, nodding at his and Bravo’s hands. “Step up and straight-leg it. We’ll boost. Try to land soft on the other side. The key is in the knees.”
I nodded like I understood and stepped onto their hands. It definitely wasn’t as pretty as Whiskey’s turn, but I hauled my ass over and dropped to the ground next to her.
“Get up and get your weapon ready,” Whiskey said.
A second later, Mike dropped on our side of the wall. There were a couple of running steps, then Bravo pulled himself up and over.
When they were ready to move again, Whiskey gave the signal for Mike and Bravo to peel off, then for me to follow her.
“Movement three o’clock, Whiskey,” Romeo’s voice said in the headset.
“Roger,” Whiskey said. “Firing.”
Two shots. I didn’t even see the guy until he hit the ground.
Whiskey jumped over him and kept on running. “Stay on me, Juliet.”
We ducked into a stone archway, onto some kind of covered porch. A guy swung his rifle up at us. I shot. Whiskey shot. I don’t know who hit him, but he went down.
More guys came swarming out of the porch doors, all shooting at the same t
ime. Misses cracked plaster all around me and Whiskey.
Something burned my neck, then rolled down the inside of my shirt.
“Shit!” I nearly pissed myself. It was just a casing.
“Get behind a column, Juliet,” Whiskey yelled in my ear.
I stumbled backward until I hit a column, then dropped and rolled behind it. Chunks of plaster exploded in my wake. Something smacked my boot. A piece of the rubber sole was missing in a neat, melted groove.
“Shit,” I gasped again, sitting up and drawing my knees up to my chest.
Whiskey was a few columns closer to the entrance than I was.
“Stay small,” she yelled. “Conserve your ammo. I’ll get this.”
She leaned around the edge of her column, fired three times, pulled back, then repeated. After a few rounds of that, she stopped.
Nothing moved.
“Clear.” She changed magazines, sticking the spent clip in a pouch on her vest. “Let’s go.”
I ran after her. Brass casings rolled under my boots. One stuck in the bullet-groove and clicked every other step I took. We were at the entrance when a wet, red hand made a grab for my ankle. I don’t even remember seeing the guy’s face. I just shot. He let go.
The first room we came to was empty. I’d been expecting a living room, but it looked more like a hospital or a lab. Metal tables, sinks, carts turned over. Broken glass and stainless steel instruments crunched and clunked as we moved toward a staircase.
Without lowering her rifle, Whiskey barked, “Status,” into her headset.
“Coming down a hallway,” Mike answered. “No injury. Sounds like you guys took most of the heat.”
“There’s some activity on the second floor,” Fox said. “Can’t tell what.”
Whiskey was shaking her head, but she didn’t say anything.
“We’re on your three, Whiskey,” Mike said. “About to come through the door.”
A second later, he and Bravo stepped into the lab with us.
“You and Bravo take upstairs,” Whiskey said. “Juliet and I are taking door number two.”
I didn’t see any other doors. The way Mike and Bravo were looking at Whiskey, they didn’t, either. She crossed the floor and kicked at a metal bookshelf angled a little ways out from the wall. It swung open wide. She covered it.