by Cindy Gerard
Her heart slammed inside her chest as she willed herself to concentrate. She got more pain for her effort.
“Who … who’s there?” she whispered.
Nothing.
“Who’s there?” she whispered again, this time in Spanish.
An eternity passed in the space of several heartbeats before a weak, fragile voice whispered back, “Lola.”
Wyatt headed straight for La Cola del Diablo, wanting to get ahead of Bonilla and his death squad and figure all angles. With the SUV hidden off-trail behind the Devil’s Tail and away from the main access road, they’d scrambled to the top of the ridge at the edge of the jungle directly above and approximately twenty yards away from the section of land called La Cola del Diablo.
Hugh and Green were bellied down in the dirt beside Wyatt as he scanned the area with night-vision binoculars. The name was fitting. The Devil’s Tail was a narrow strip of earth roughly three city blocks long but less than fifteen yards across at its widest point, down to maybe five yards at its narrow end. And yes, it very much resembled a tail.
An anomaly, Hugh had said. Fuck, yeah. In this area of El Salvador, every inch of soil that wasn’t covered in asphalt or cement grew thick and solid with jungle. Hack three feet clean one day, and the next, the growth would have taken over like a cancer. Yet the black earth that made up La Cola del Diablo was as barren as an oil spill. Not one plant, not one tree, not one iota of life sprang from the tail as it snaked across the landscape.
It was spooky as hell.
“No one knows why,” Hugh had told him as they sped out of town with Green at the wheel obliterating speed limits to get there ahead of Bonilla and his lieutenants. “And since MS-13 chases off any scientific expedition sent down to find out, it remains a mystery.
“Nothing supports it, but local legend claims La Cola del Diablo was the site of an ancient Mayan sacrificial altar. The story goes that so much blood was spilled and flowed down the length of the tail that the earth died. That’s why it can no longer support life.”
Wyatt figured a helluva lot more blood was going to be spilled before the night was over. He’d already resigned himself to the possibility that this desolate piece of ground might be his own killing ground. The chances were slim that he was walking away from this. But Sophie … somehow, he was getting her out of this alive.
His cell vibrated in his pocket. Nate.
He back-crawled off the ridge and answered. A few minutes later, he hung up and bellied back down between Joe and Hugh.
“What?” Joe asked.
“Nate’s SF connections came through. We’ve got game.”
“Fuck,” Joe said after hearing the details.
Fuck was right. Their entire game plan hinged on a wish, a prayer, and how far Bonilla was willing to go to protect his sacred grounds. And on Wyatt pulling off the biggest bluff of his life.
He scrubbed a hand over his face and listened to the roar of arriving motorcycles, cars, and trucks as the gangbangers gathered via the offroad trail that led to the tip of the Devil’s Tail in this hole in the jungle. Lights started flickering around the perimeter of La Cola del Diablo as Bonilla’s bangers began forming loose lines on either side of the sacred ground, settling in for ringside seats to his execution.
Wyatt counted at least twenty so far, which meant a few more of Bonilla’s elite had yet to arrive before the fun started.
“Check it out.” Hugh’s voice interrupted his thoughts.
A paneled van emerged out of a break in the jungle and crawled slowly up the length of the Tail. Wyatt followed the vehicle with his NV binoculars until it rolled to a stop at the thickest end of the Tail, where it appeared the action was going to go down. The driver’s door opened, and a tank of a man squeezed out, lumbered slowly around to the passenger side, and opened the door.
“Fancies himself a fucking master of the universe,” Green sputtered as Bonilla stepped out of the van. He wore his blue and white gang colors on a do rag tied around his head. His arms were bare. Leather bands were wrapped around his wrists. Ammo belts crisscrossed the network of gang tattoos covering his chest. Wyatt could make out a sheathed knife at his belt.
He looked like a bad imitation of a bandito villain straight out of a Rambo flick.
“Guerrillas gone wild,” Wyatt muttered, and got a snort from Green that cut a chunk out of the tension.
The side panel of the van slid open. Wyatt bit back an oath when the “tank” reached inside and jerked a blindfolded Sophie roughly out of the vehicle. Unable to get her balance with her hands bound in front of her, she stumbled and fell to her knees.
Beside him, Hugh snarled between clenched teeth.
The child appeared next. Small, fragile. Terrified. Also blindfolded and bound.
Still on her knees, Sophie reached out, blindly groped the air. She must have called Lola’s name, because the little girl turned abruptly and stumbled toward her, then huddled against her in the night.
“I count thirty individual lights now,” Green said, locked in recon mode. “Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.”
“They’ve formed their ritual horseshoe in front of Bonilla,” Hugh said, sounding relieved. “Bastards are so cocky they left their flank vulnerable.”
Score one for the good guys. It was exactly the break they needed if Sophie was going to get away.
Wyatt lowered his field glasses and drew a deep breath. “Okay. You both know what to do.”
“You’re committing fucking suicide,” Hugh said for the umpteenth time.
“Just be ready to move in and get them out of there.” Wyatt backed away from the ridge. “And make it fast,” he said as they parted ways, Wyatt heading for the narrow end of the Tail and Hugh and Joe circling around behind to where they’d hidden the SUV fifty yards from Bonilla’s unprotected flank, “because if and when Nate’s SF buddies deliver on their promise, they won’t waste any time pulling the trigger.”
* * *
Five minutes later, Wyatt walked out of the jungle and started up the length of the narrow Tail, holding his arms away from his body, palms up to show he wasn’t carrying, aware that every banger present was watching every step he took. He didn’t let himself think about anything but the man standing directly in front of him. He didn’t let himself think about Joe Green’s somber eyes before Wyatt had ordered him to drive the hell away from there as soon as they got Sophie and Lola clear. Didn’t let himself think of his momma, sad-eyed and holding up as they played Taps at his funeral. Didn’t think of Annie’s little tow-headed toddler and feel the regret that he might never know what his own son might have looked like.
Most of all, he didn’t let himself look at Sophie, because if he did, his heart would fucking fly right out of his chest, and then where the hell would he be? Bonilla wanted his heart. He was ready to give it, if he had to.
All of his senses were hyperaware of his surroundings. The triple-canopy trees rising high above, reaching wide at their apex, spanning across the sky, and in spots joining and entwining to form a leafy ceiling over the barren ground.
He breathed deep as he walked closer. Smelled jungle loam in the near distance juxtaposed with the pungent scent of his own sweat. And somewhere in the back of his mind, he smelled Sophie. Fresh from the shower, her dark hair wet and heavy in his hands. Aroused and needing him, her body liquid and giving beneath him. Her hands soft and greedy on his skin.
He stopped ten feet away from Bonilla. Made himself look at Sophie. They’d removed her blindfold and posed her beside Bonilla like a puppet. It had to piss Bonilla off something fierce that she hadn’t submitted to him. Bruised and defiant, she stood with her shoulders pulled back, the child huddled against her side.
Bruised but not broken, he thought with pride, even though his gut clenched with rage at the sight of her swollen, discolored face.
He shifted his attention back to Bonilla’s thugs, who circled the periphery of the makeshift gladiator-type arena, milling around like gnats on r
ancid meat. They were all armed to the teeth. Any one of them could take him out with one shot in very short order. Bonilla need only say the word, and Wyatt was a dead man.
He was counting on Bonilla wanting him all to himself. Hell, he was counting on a lot of things.
He glanced skyward, breathed deep, and started the show.
“If I’d known we were going to have such a big audience,” Wyatt said, pinning Bonilla with a steely glare, “I’d have showered and shaved.”
“If I had known you’d actually show up, I would have made certain you would have played to a larger crowd.”
“Okay. This is all real nice and friendly, but we’ve had our chitchat moment, okay? I’m here. Now what?”
Bonilla’s smile tightened. “Now you make me a million dollars richer.”
“Yeah, about that. Couldn’t find a bank open this time of night. Go figure. But then, this isn’t really about the money tonight, is it? It’s about you having your panties in a twist because I’ve broken some of your toys andfucked up your fun.”
Bonilla’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think, then, that insulting me and showing up empty-handed makes you a brave man or just a foolish one?”
“What I think,” Wyatt said, choosing his words carefully, “doesn’t matter. What matters is that you let both the woman and the child go.”
Bonilla made a sweeping glance at his lieutenants to show them how amused he was by Wyatt’s demand. “Not only foolish but insane. Unless you’ve got an army hidden somewhere, you don’t have the leverage to make any demands on me.”
“Funny you should mention that.” Wyatt smiled tightly. “The army was otherwise engaged. Well, most of it was. Lucky I didn’t need most of it. Just a pair of birds with a couple of big guns.”
29
Bonilla’s smile faded, and Wyatt went in for the kill.
“Seriously. You didn’t think I’d be stupid enough to come out here without backup,” he pressed while he had Bonilla off balance and wondering. “Man in my line of work doesn’t live too long without knowing how to make friends in high places.”
Bonilla puffed out his chest. “How stupid do you think I am? The U.S. military is not going to get involved in your personal problem.”
“Well, hell no. At least, not so that anyone would know. But let me tell you how this works. Back in the day when Uncle footed the bill for my sanctioned ops, I fudged my fair share of after-action reports for unauthorized missions. Boys will be boys, right? And boys get bored. We’d go out, have some fun with our high-tech toys, then write those little extracurricular raids up as routine training ops. No harm. No foul. No U.S. intervention where they weren’t supposed to intervene. At least, none that any four-star in the Department of Defense would ever see and question.
“Anyway,” he continued, knowing he had Bonilla wondering, “the SF boys down here still get bored, you know? They’re always up for some off-the-books action.” He glanced skyward, smiled, then met Bonilla’s glare. “Like tonight.”
Bonilla narrowed his eyes. “You’re bluffing.”
Damn, he hoped not.
“You a movie buff, Bonilla?” Wyatt asked casually, and prayed like hell that Nate’s buddies came through. There hadn’t been any opportunity to arrange commo, so he was flying blind. “Ever see Black Hawk Down? Those Little Bird light-attack gunships are amazing, right? Couple of those babies unload, oh, say, right here, and all that’s going to be left of your sacred Devil’s Tail is a shitload of spent M134 mini-gun shells and bloody banger body parts.”
Every banger on the Tail was looking nervous and looking skyward now.
“I don’t hear nothing,” Bonilla said, calling Wyatt out.
Neither did Wyatt, but Nate said they’d be here, so they’d be here. The question was when. Someday—if he lived through this—he’d find out what kind of favors Nate had called in.
“Don’t worry. They’re up there. Silent as the wind—but then, you know that’s how the Little Birds fly, don’t you?”
Bonilla didn’t want to buy it, but it was looking more and more like he was afraid not to.
“Okay, look,” Wyatt said, and made a pretense of checking his watch. “Here’s the deal. I need to give the birds a signal to back off in”—he tapped the watch face—“thirty seconds, or they’re going to unload. Then there’s not going to be anything left of you or your sacred ground but scorched earth and a big damn hole.”
Bonilla eyed him with defiant suspicion. “You wouldn’t risk getting the woman killed.”
“You’re going to kill her anyway,” he said, making it clear that the fun and games were over. “If you don’t let her go, at least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’re going to die, too.
“Twenty-five seconds,” he reminded Bonilla, and touched a finger to his ear, listening for commo from the Little Birds through an earpiece that was actually Joe’s Bluetooth earbud.
“And what do I get if I let them go?” Bonilla asked abruptly.
Wyatt breathed his first breath of relief since he’d walked out of the jungle and stepped into Bonilla’s lair. He was sniffing the bait.
“Simple. I call off the birds. You keep your sacred ground intact. And you get me in exchange for Sophie and the child.”
Bonilla glared at him, still fighting with wanting to believe him.
“Eighteen seconds,” Wyatt said, pouring on the pressure. Fucking let them go, he willed Bonilla silently. “Fifteen.”
One of the lieutenants stepped forward and spoke to Bonilla in rapid-fire Spanish.
Wyatt didn’t catch it all, but he got enough to know it was a warning. They didn’t want their sacred ground destroyed. They didn’t want to die.
“If you know any prayers,” Wyatt said, twisting the screws, “better say them in ten, nine …”
Come on, you sonofabitch. Bite.
“All right,” Bonilla said, his tone urgent. “Call them off.”
Wyatt tucked his chin into his collar and the infrared strobe he’d clipped there, hoping to hell it would pass as a commo mike in the dimly lit night. “Nightstalker One. Nightstalker Two. You are not cleared for gun runs. Repeat, not cleared. Stand by for further in thirty seconds—repeat—stand by for further or commence fire in thirty seconds.”
He took a step toward Bonilla, his hand poised on his collar, a warning that he could rescind the order at any time. “Let them go. Now.”
Bonilla glared, then nodded to his muscle man.
“Give her a flashlight,” Wyatt demanded after the “tank” cut the bindings on Sophie’s wrists.
Bonilla glared but nodded again, and one of the men handed her a flashlight.
Wyatt let himself look at Sophie then, willed himself not to buckle under the weight of the terror in her eyes.
“Go.” He notched his chin toward Bonilla’s unprotected flank, where Hugh and Joe had by God better be in position with the SUV to haul ass out of there. “Take Lola and go,” he repeated.
Tension as tight as a zip line hummed over the back of the Devil’s Tail as tears and fear and yearning filled Sophie’s eyes.
“It’s okay,” he assured her, and felt a staggering relief when she turned and, with Lola’s hand gripped tightly in hers, started running.
Wyatt watched the beam from the mag-light bounce away from the crowd of bangers and finally disappear in the dark of the jungle behind them.
“Call them off!” Bonilla yelled, nervous that his thirty-second deadline was upon them.
“Nightstalker One. Nightstalker Two,” Wyatt said into his fake mike, and played out the charade. “Hold fire. Repeat, hold all fire.”
Bonilla’s smile was smug and feral when Wyatt met his eyes again. “You actually think they can survive out there alone, in the dark with the night creatures?”
The unmistakable sound of the SUV roaring to life and then car doors slamming came from the direction Sophie had run with Lola.
Thank you, God!
They’d made it. Hugh and Joe
had them and were driving them the hell away from there.
It was his turn to smile with smug satisfaction. “Yeah, well, I don’t think the night creatures are going to be a problem.”
Bonilla’s expression changed from smug to seething rage when he realized he’d been had.
“So, Vincente.” Wyatt tilted his head. “Looks like it comes down to you and me … and your band of merry miscreants,” he added with a nod toward the bangers.
“You played me,” Bonilla said, his fists clenched at his sides. “There are no gunships.”
“Yeah, well, about that—”
Bonilla’s roar cut him off. He charged like a mad bull, driving his head into Wyatt’s gut like a battering ram. He landed on his back with Bonilla straddling him, his left hand wrapped around the hilt of a pipe knife, the blade dagger-sharp, narrow as a stiletto, long as a damn hammer handle.
Bonilla reared back and made a vicious swipe at him. Wyatt blocked the strike with a forearm, used the opportunity to knock Bonilla off balance and his weight for leverage, and flipped Bonilla onto his back.
The banger was agile and quick. A street brawler—more dangerous than a formally trained fighter because he wouldn’t even pretend to fight by any rules. And Bonilla knew how to use Wyatt’s weight against him.
He heaved and bucked and maneuvered Wyatt to his back again, until they were rolling over the dead, black dirt, the blade between them. The bullets in Bonilla’s bandoliers dug into Wyatt’s chest, gouged the hell out of his sternum.
He rolled to his back, using Bonilla’s momentum against him, and while Bonilla was on the rise, Wyatt flipped him over his shoulder. Bonilla was still airborne when Wyatt shot to his feet. He reached into the leather knife sheath he’d tucked into his boot and whipped out his KA-Bar just as Bonilla flew at him again.
Fire burned the length of his left bicep as Bonilla connected with his blade. Wyatt rolled away from the attack; searing pain radiated down his arm to his elbow.
He pushed himself up and balanced on the balls of his feet. Ignoring the blood trailing down the fingers of his left hand, he hefted the KA-Bar in his right and looked for a way past Bonilla’s defenses.