by Cindy Gerard
Four pairs of eyes, now hopeful that they might still escape with their lives, turned his way.
Wyatt whipped out his cell phone and pulled up the sketch Reed had sent. “Do any of you know this man? And I’ll warn you to consider carefully before you belch out a knee-jerk no.”
“Sí,” a small man said, though the others remained silent.
“Who is he?”
He swallowed hard, then spoke in low, hesitant Spanish.
“He’s a lieutenant in the gang,” Sophie translated from behind them, even though Wyatt had understood.
“He abducted a child,” Wyatt told him in Spanish. “We want her back. Tell me where we can find her.”
The man shook his head. “Yo no sé!”
Wyatt got right in his face, then pressed the business end of the H&K hard up under his chin. “Then what do you know?”
More rapid-fire Spanish spilled out, with a good measure of desperation.
“Anybody catch that?” Wyatt couldn’t sort out the tumbling jumble of words.
“Between begging for his life and praying to the patron saint of street thugs and criminals,” Rafe translated, “he still claims he doesn’t know anything about this child. But he says that in the past, they’ve held hostages at a camp near here.”
“Where is the camp?” Wyatt pressed the gun harder, lifting the man up onto his toes until he struggled to keep his balance.
“Puerta del Diablό.”
Doc reached into his pocket and pulled out a map. He laid it out on the bullet-ridden bar. “It’s a good two hours from here.”
“What do you think?” Wyatt asked his men.
Gabe shrugged. “Could be another wild-goose chase, but what else have we got?”
Wyatt rubbed his brow and honed in on his reluctant informant. “If you’re lying to me, I’ll find you and make you wish I’d killed you now, quick and painless.”
The man shook his head. “True. I speak true.”
Green’s phone rang just then. “Stephanie,” he informed them, and answered. He moved to the map Doc had spread out on the bar, listened, talked, traced longitude and latitude lines with his index finger, then hung up. “SAT coordinates match what the guy says. Looks like we’ve got good intel.”
Doc folded up the map. “Let’s boogie.”
“So what do we do with these cretins?” Rafe asked.
“If we leave them alive, we’re going to have problems,” Gabe said.
Wyatt backed away and lowered his gun. “We’ve already got problems. These bastards are like roaches; kill a nest, and more crawl out of the shadows. What’s four more in the overall scheme of things?”
He glared at them. “You tell your buddies that if they want trouble, they’ll find it if you follow us. Comprende?”
Four heads nodded like bobble-heads.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
He didn’t have to tell them twice. They cleared the cantina in ten seconds flat, stumbling unceremoniously over the bodies of their fallen gang mates.
“Like rats leaving a sinking ship,” Gabe said on a grunt. “Guess they don’t subscribe to the leave-no-man-behind doctrine.”
“Not these belly-crawlers, no,” Rafe agreed.
“We’re burning daylight,” Green reminded them. “Let’s move out.”
Only then did Wyatt turn back to see how Sophie was holding up.
She was frozen in the exact same position she was in when he’d left her behind the bar. Her face was ghost-white, her eyes glassy and vacant. Fuck. He’d have given his left nut to avoid putting her through the bloodbath she’d just witnessed. No matter how many books a person read, how many movies they saw, how many stories they heard, nothing could prepare a sane, rational human being for the violent and stomach-clenching gore of reality.
And nothing could contribute to the loss of that sanity, that faltering faith in rationality, more than seeing a man die—even a man hell-bent on killing you—and knowing that you were the one who pulled the plug on his life.
Sophie might not have fired a shot, but he could see the weight of guilt pressing on her slim shoulders like a battleship.
“Shake it off,” he said, more sternly than he’d have liked but knowing she needed a hard jolt of authority to nudge her out of the place she was in. And the place she was in was a very, very bad place. He knew. A long time ago, as a green-as-grass operative, he’d been there. “Sophie,” he said with some bite in his tone when she didn’t react.
She finally turned her head and looked at him as if he was a stranger and she couldn’t figure out where he’d come from or why he was there.
He knew why. He knew exactly why. “Shake it off, damn it!” he repeated, reading the confusion in her eyes when she took his harshness for anger, as he’d intended.
He’d revert to military discipline if he had to—frog-march her the hell out of there, screaming in her ear in his best drill-sergeant voice—to keep her from going catatonic on him.
Later, he’d let her fall apart. Later, he’d hold her when she did. Right now, he needed her pissed off enough to hold herself together.
“I’m fine,” she said, the two words clipped tight with her own anger. At him.
Yeah, that’s right, sugar. You think about me being an asshole. That way, you won’t be thinking about dead men with hollow eyes.
19
The good news was that three hours later, Sophie had definitely shaken it off. The bad news was, she was still pissed at him.
“Not after coming this far,” she informed Wyatt with steely-eyed determination when he begged her to stay behind with the SUV after they’d gone as far as they could go in the vehicles. The last few clicks would have to be on foot.
“If Lola’s out there,” she said, “she’s going to need to see a familiar face. She’s going to need me.”
“She’s going to need you alive,” Wyatt argued. He needed her alive, too, but he knew she didn’t want to hear that right now.
God, she was something. Fire flared in her eyes. The set of her jaw was nothing short of militant.
“Then you’d better keep me that way,” was her response as she gathered her hair and twisted it up under a ball cap. “If you leave me behind,” she promised, smearing face black on her cheeks as the rest of them had, “I’ll follow you. Deal with it.”
She had him by the short hairs, and she knew it. Short of tying her to the steering wheel, which would leave her defenseless if one of the gang members stumbled onto her, Wyatt was out of options.
“Just tell me what to do,” she said, loading the extra magazine for her pistol.
She was already doing it. She was toughing up. Leaving the nasty scene at the cantina behind. It’s what he’d wanted. Only his “tough love” had worked a little too well, because she was beside him now, dodging tree branches and palm fronds and trying to avoid tripping over roots, and he was wondering if he’d ever truly understand the depth of this woman’s character.
The jungle they hacked through smelled of green life and black death and layers upon layers of decay. As he trudged through the nearly impenetrable growth, all around him creepy crawlies bred and died and cannibalized each other under a triple-canopy forest so dense he couldn’t see blue sky above or much of the sunlight that came with it.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his arm. He remembered that years ago, a Special Forces buddy had told him that the El Salvadoran jungle was among the thickest he’d ever seen. “Whole damn place should be nuked to glass then cleaned with Windex,” the crusty old vet had proclaimed.
Wyatt hadn’t known exactly what he’d meant until years later, when he’d fought there himself, and still he’d forgotten. The jungle was so aggressively alive that any piece of cleared land left alone for any time would soon be taken over by vegetation again.
The growth was so thick, in fact, that combat was generally done at spitting distance. Full battalions could march within a hundred yards of each other, and neith
er would have a clue that the other one was there.
Wyatt didn’t have a full battalion. He had himself, four highly skilled but exhausted men, and a woman on a mission. All of them were beaten down by the oppressive heat and humidity and a damn lot of hours without quality sleep. And they had no idea what they were going to come up against when they found the God-forsaken camp.
Doc’s estimate of a two-hour drive to get there had been great—in theory. But it had taken them closer to three, because the freaking roads were made for mountain goats and tanks. So it was bordering on five p.m. by the time they’d arrived within half a mile of Steph’s coordinates and, they hoped, the camp where Lola was being held.
They’d left the vehicles near a shrouded embankment and had been slogging through the jungle on foot ever since, exposed skin streaked with face black, weighed down by Kevlar vests, weapons, ordinance, and, in Wyatt’s case, also a heavy coat of guilt over his inability to persuade Sophie to wait in her SUV.
Beside him, Gabe stumbled, almost went down, but righted himself again and pressed on. Wyatt didn’t care how tough Gabe was or how state-of-the-art his prosthesis was, it had to be hell for him maneuvering through this shit on one good leg.
Rafe, who was leading the way, held up a hand, a signal for them to stop and hold their positions. Everyone—including Sophie—stopped, assumed a loose, back-to-back circle formation, and dropped to a knee, scanning the sectors around them for bad guys. Rafe pulled his binoculars out of a pocket, then, using hand signals again, indicated that he was going to take a closer look and that they should wait there. He disappeared into the foliage.
Wyatt glanced at Sophie, who had shifted to a sitting position and was wearily unscrewing the lid on her water bottle. It wasn’t the first time they’d stopped and Rafe had gone ahead to scout. Each time, he’d come back empty. They needed a break. So did Lola. He hoped to God that they found her there.
Wyatt assigned Gabe and Doc watch positions, and the rest of them took turns hydrating and resting.
“Close your eyes.” He gripped Sophie’s shoulders and turned her so she was leaning back against his chest. “A quick five will do you good.”
“I’m afraid that if I close them, I’ll never open them again.”
That idea worked fine for him. He’d like nothing better than for her to sleep through the confrontation to come. In a perfect world, she would. A little fairy dust, the wave of a magic wand, and he’d cast a spell to make her sleep until this debacle was over. But he’d never believed in fairy dust, magic, or spells—except maybe the one she cast over him as she gave in to exhaustion and closed her eyes.
No more than a few seconds later, her body slumped against his; her breathing grew heavy and deep. He rested his head against the top of hers, too aware of her softness covering a core of steel. Aware that he was being watched.
He glanced to the right. Gabe looked away but not before a small smile lifted one corner of his mouth.
Fine, Wyatt thought with a weary breath. He didn’t care if Gabe had figured out that Wyatt had a thing for Sophie. It was pretty rare that he’d ever been able to hide anything from the Archangel, or any of the other BOIs, for that matter.
“Incoming,” Green whispered, lifting his AR-15 to his shoulder and sighting down the scope.
“Friendly,” Rafe said, appearing out of the brush a few feet away. “We’ve got game,” he added, moving up in front of Wyatt.
Sophie instantly woke up. “What’s happening?”
Rafe motioned for everyone to gather around.
“About thirty yards due south. Two shacks.” He brushed aside leaves and jungle decay and cleared a spot of damp earth to use as a crude drawing board. “Here and here.” He made a large X and a smaller one representing the two buildings.
“Any sign of Lola?” Sophie asked.
Her hopeful look broke Wyatt’s heart.
Rafe shook his head. “They’re holding someone there, though. No movement in or out, but there are a couple of guys who appear to be pulling guard duty on the smaller hut. Mostly, they’re napping or strung out on ganja or crack.”
“How many men?”
“Counted fifteen, but there could be more. Tattoos up the wazoo. Most of ’em teens, by the looks of them. Most of ’em high on something, by the way they’re sprawled around the campsite.”
“Ordinance?” Green asked.
“A shitload. Mostly AKs, but they’re lying all over the place. Only a couple actually carrying.”
Wyatt grunted. “Running a tight ship, huh?”
“No apparent leader and clearly no discipline. They sure as hell aren’t expecting anybody—friend or foe.”
“So, what? We wait ’til dark and take ’em out one by one?” Green suggested. “We’ve got a good three hours ’til dusk.”
Wyatt read the worry on Sophie’s face. She didn’t want to wait. She wanted to get to Lola now. He was inclined to agree with her.
Rafe lifted a shoulder. “We could. Or we could just march in there, shoot the shit out of the sky, and they’ll probably cry like little girls and ask for momma.”
It could work. Had worked, in fact, many times for the team. The idea was to stage the attack so it appeared to their adversaries that they were up against overwhelming force. Shock and awe the hell out of them. There was bound to be a hero among them. The trick would be to make sure he died first and fast. The others would fold like tents.
They glanced at one another, nodded in agreement. “Plan B, then.”
“Take out the guards at the shack first?” Doc suggested.
“Rafe, that’ll be you,” Wyatt said with a nod. They could all speak Spanish, but Wyatt wanted to take advantage of first-language arts, and Mendoza was from Colombia. If Lola was being held in that shack, Rafe could calm her, convince her she was safe.
“We’ll deal with the remainders,” he went on, studying the crude diagram and making a circle in the dirt with the tip of a stick. “Gabe, south perimeter. Green, north. Doc, you come in from the east, and I’ll take west. Questions?”
They all shook their heads.
“Then let’s lock and load. We get in position, then go in on my bang. And if you sense any resistance at all—” He met each guy’s eyes with dead-level intent. “Light ’em up. And may the bastards burn in hell.”
“Sophie—you hang back, you hear me? No heroics. You stay the hell out of the action. I don’t want to have to worry about something happening to you. Make sure you’ve got a round chambered, keep your head down, and shoot only if you have to.”
She gave him a quick, clipped nod.
“Okay,” he said, looking at each man’s face as they prepared to risk their lives—once again. “Let’s do this.”
Sophie tucked in on her stomach at the edge of the clearing where Wyatt had positioned her, her Glock gripped in both hands, her elbows dug into the dirt, wrists resting on a deadfall log. As exhausted as she was, her heart rate was off the charts; all senses hummed on overdrive.
After the narrow escape at the cantina, she hadn’t thought her body capable of producing more adrenaline. She’d shaken until her teeth rattled for a good hour after Wyatt settled her into the passenger seat of her SUV.
She’d wanted to ask him if he ever got used to it as they rumbled over terrain so rough she held her breath waiting for a tire to blow.
But she couldn’t compartmentalize the it part of the equation. Used to it? Used to the violence? The blood? The gore? The certain knowledge that you were going to die any second? A bullet? A knife blade? A coronary because you were so freaking scared it felt like your heart would explode like a bald tire in your chest?
It. Used to it.
Hugh had become used to it. Hugh had lost that part of himself that made life or death—his or someone else’s—worth the cost of a second thought.
“Shake it off,” she whispered, repeating Wyatt’s order. He was right. She had to shake it off, because, like it or not, she was on the high side of
another adrenaline rush while she waited to see who walked away from this alive.
She’d lost sight of the guys five minutes ago. Knew they were creeping stealthily into position. Knew that if anyone could pull this off, they could. Just as she knew that Wyatt was right in telling her to stay put. She understood that the BOIs worked like a machine. They were bonded through years of combat and worked together much like muscle memory and on instinct. Her intervention would be interference and could jeopardize the op.
Quiet. Except for the skittering and slithering of jungle creatures and the occasional call of a bird, it was as quiet as a tomb. She closed her eyes … and saw the faces of the men who were risking their lives.
She’d never forget the looks on those faces when they’d gathered for one final coordinate check. In the past wild several hours, she’d seen them laugh, seen them smile and give each other grief, seen them concentrate over maps and strategize. But she’d never seen them in premeditated combat mode. Face black smeared on their skin, weapons at the ready, eyes blank and already looking ahead to battle.
It wasn’t a pretty sight. But it was powerful. And it was frightening to realize how often they’d had to dig this deep to find the guts and the determination and the will to charge head-on into battle. And humbling to know they were doing this for a child they didn’t know. And for Wyatt.
Wyatt.
Fatigue let her mind drift to a memory she’d been avoiding all day: the early hours of the morning, when he’d been naked. Needing her. In her bed. In her body. Unbelievably tender and giving and—
A single crack of gunfire ripped through the silence.
Her eyes snapped open.
An unforgiving volley of rifle fire quickly followed that initial shot.
Oh, God. Don’t let him die. Don’t let any of them die.
Wyatt fired the first shot, taking out the man he’d tagged as the leader of the motley crew. On cue, the rest of the BOIs converged on the camp of miscreants. As he’d hoped, the sight of the five of them descending out of the blue like a team of vengeful angels, had the younger MS-13 gang members scattering in confusion and panic.