Armed And Dangerous (The McKinnon Legends - The McKinnon American Men Book 2)

by James, Ranay

  “Jesse! Hurry and take my hand.” She helped her out and onto the ledge. “Don’t look down, Baby Girl. Just put your legs around my waist and your arms around my neck. I promise I would let you go.”

  Mason hoisted them up.

  “We have the Keepsake.” He notified the team that Jesse was now in their possession just as the first detonation rocked the compound.

  “Shit,” Mason cursed. They were behind schedule.

  As fast as was safely possible, they traversed the rooftop as explosions shook the complex. Sundown, Tango, and Fly Boy, all demolition experts, had managed to set the charges such that the ignitions would create a procession of explosions. If it all went to plan it would look like the lightning had started it all. The warehouses were being systemically destroyed in a chain reaction of chemical and weapons discharge. It brought out the remainder of Del Torres’s men who were trying to put out the fires to salvage any of the operation they could. Gunfire finally began to fill the night as Del Torres figured out what was really happening. He thought he was being taken over in a coup d'état.

  He began to shoot his own men.

  Thanks to Agent Vega, who managed to get the strike team weapons from Emilio’s inventory, the authorities would think it was an inside job. Emilio, mistaking the events, was helping the team along as he shot and killed his own men. The plan was working perfectly.

  Reese, from his perch in the tree, spotted Emilio just before he pulled the trigger on Mason and Barbara as they ran across the roofline. He confirmed his kill. Carlos, was not among the dead as far as any one could confirm and there was no time to investigate further.

  Mason fired on two men below them, killing them both before leaping across the gap between two buildings. Nimble as a cat, he landed totally balanced and turned gracefully to face the gap. The dance lessons his mother made them all take had paid off in spades over the years. Grace and balance were important in his line of work. Then again sometimes a dance was just a dance. This, however, was a dance of life and death.

  “I’ll catch you, Jesse. Run and don’t look down,” he encouraged.

  “Wait,” Barbara quickly took her body armor off and slipped onto the child. Mason cringed. Then turning Jesse back toward Mason, Barbara nudged her toward the edge. “Go, baby.”

  The little girl did exactly as instructed, leaping the gap as gracefully as a gymnast performing a floor exercise.

  He motioned to Barbara. “Come on, hurry!”

  She shook her head. “Get her to safety. I’ve got to find another way.”

  Mason could see the darker red on her pants. Her wound was open again. She was in for a rough night, and if they separated at this juncture, it might be an even harder night for him.

  She saw his hesitation. “Go! The good of the one, Mason! She is the target.” She flung his words back at him.

  He watched in horror as she turned around and headed back without so much as a glance. What other choice did he have except get the girl to safety? He had to live to fight another day because it might mean he had to get Barbara out of harm's way. He would come back for her if he could safely do so without getting caught.

  Otherwise, he would be forced to trust her to find her own way back to the camp. She had found them on her own without any help. He had to trust she could find her way back again. He was no good to her dead, and she was a professional, trained in the procedures of covert operations. He prayed she would fall back on her training to know if she got separated from the others, she would know to go back to the last point of safety. For her it would mean the base camp and completely in the opposite direction from the others. They were heading for the rendezvous point and then on to the safe house. That rendezvous position would be impossible for her to reach without support even if she knew where to go. Thinking that she would be back in Dallas by this point, Barbara had not been briefed.

  The mistake was his to own. He tucked it back as a lesson learned.

  The power was still off in the house and the flames were rising, spreading to the main house courtesy of the shifting winds. There was pursuit as Mason carried Jesse, running full-tilt across the lushly landscaped terrain. Most of the men inside the compound were already dead, but those still alive were now heading around to the front and away from the flames. From the rooftop Barbara took three more out in quick succession, covering Mason and Jesse right up to the place Josh and Robert were waiting.

  Mason kissed Jesse, gave her a hug, and then quickly pushed her into Josh’s waiting arms. “Take her and go. Don’t look back until you hit Dallas city limits.”

  “I can never thank you enough.” Josh pumped his hand once before he and Robert took off into the night.

  Mason prayed they made the extraction point before Redondo got there. It would be the most logical point for him to look first. If the captain did look there before Robert and Josh pulled anchor, then the fact that Robert and Josh were unknown players just might prove to be the only saving grace.

  The downfall would be that they had entered the country illegally, Jesse had not. She would show as having entered with her mother, who was nowhere to be found. Once outside of Panamanian territorial waters and into international seas, they would be safe and homefree. It was still a huge gamble. It was necessary, but still risky.

  Relieved of the girl, Mason needed to find Barbara. She was the only one without a radio. She was exposed, having no body armor since she put it on the child, and she was only armed with one gun with a seven-shot clip, six of which she had already used covering him and Jesse on their trek to meet Robert and Josh. However, Barbara was the only one unaccounted for in their group, and he never left a man behind.

  Agent Vega was dead, having seen the man himself. Tango managed to get his body out of the compound. They may or may not be able to get his body back to the United States, but they had to try. It was a risk they all ran when they stepped foot on foreign soil. He just prayed Barbara would not suffer Vega’s same fate and possibly die alone in the Panamanian jungle.

  Not if he still had breath in his body, he vowed.

  Chapter 29

  Captain Redondo was about a mile from the villa when he saw the ball of fire glowing in the night sky. His hunch was spot on for this could not be coincidental. His convoy sped on to the gates of the estate.

  Without hesitation, they crashed through just as the last of Mason’s team was agilely heading over the walls, melting soundlessly back into the jungle and leaving only a single trace that they had been there at all.

  That trace was Barbara and she was still inside the house.

  She was not about to leave without trying to save the woman inside who was being held hostage. There was no time for what she was attempting, but she had to try. She heard the police crash the gates. Running the halls of the second and then third floors, she followed the cries for help through the smoke and fire. That fire was making quick progress at an alarming speed through the villa in spite of the rain. Trying the knob, she found the door locked. Kicking it in, Barbara pulled her gun, swept the room, and found it empty except for the woman huddled in the corner.

  In Spanish, she hastily ordered the woman to follow her. The two women dodged the fire and police gunfire as they quickly make their way out the back of the villa just before it collapsed under the weight of the burning rafters. Guiding the woman around to the front, Barbara crouched in a place she had scoped out the night before as a possible hiding spot. Chance favors the prepared, her father had always said. Fate also rewards the preemptive strike. That was what her mother had taught her. It had kept her alive.

  The woman shivered with her eyes enormously wide in fear. Barbara forced her to look at her.

  “You did not see me and I was never here. Understand?” The woman nodded. “If anyone asked how you escaped you tell them you are not really sure, but perhaps an angel from heaven and you will remember me only as such. To do otherwise is to sign my death warrant.”

  The woman hugged her, nodding i
n understanding as Barbara shoved her into the bushes and commanded her to lie low until the police had opportunity to finish sweeping the grounds. “Gracias, Angelica!” The woman cried after her as Barbara disappeared into the night.

  Chapter 30

  Barbara vanished into the darkness making her way back to the kayak. One last explosion rocked the remaining few hours of darkness, and intermittent gunfire could still be heard as shouts filled the night air. Redondo and his men were invading what was left of a drug lord’s once mighty empire.

  Their work here, as a team, was done. Yet, the night was far from over. Barbara’s ordeal might just be starting. She was on foreign soil and alone. Not something that she was totally unfamiliar with, but not a place she really wanted to be either. Her training would get her through, and if not, she shrugged mentally, then she could die knowing she helped save the girl.

  Paddling back, she shook her head at what the headlines would say. They would surely be interesting, if there were headlines at all. If the events were not covered up, then the National Police would have to take credit. However, unofficially if Redondo got his hands on any of them, none of them would ever see anything north of the Panamanian border for the rest of their natural lives. What they did tonight was illegal in most countries, including this one. Although, she could not muster any remorse over it. The men who lost their lives tonight, with the exception of Agent Vega, were human, but without humanity.

  Chapter 31

  Barbara was exhausted. Almost beyond going, she pulled the kayak back up onto the river bank just a short distance from the place that only hours ago held the base camp.

  She wandered slowly into the clearing only to see there was not a single trace of the team ever being there. There was not one single footprint in the sand, not a shred of paper, no ash from the fire, or plant out of order. Robert and she did not hire the best in the business for nothing. There was a reason she called them her ghosts. She also understood that there would be no help from that quarter. They had to live to fight another day. It was what they were taught and how they trained and lived their professional lives. She was Mason’s responsibility and all would have assumed, as such, he would not leave her behind. She was not counting on him returning, given that he had the girl and they had all agreed Jesse was the most important thing. Jesse was the total focus of this mission. Barbara was not what was important. Neither were Mason, Robert, or any of the others. The child was what they had all sworn to sacrifice their lives to retrieve.

  Barbara was on her own, fully understanding the risks she was taking. It was a given even before going into this mission. The girl was back in the arms of her father, so it was worth any sacrifice she made. It was a decision she made gladly and with full knowledge of the potential cost.

  She had paid her debt and maybe, just possibly, she could put old specters to rest. The balance sheet was even, finally after years of owing that self-imposed debt. She felt free. It was like a weight was off her shoulders for the first time in years.

  She pondered her situation thinking realistically. She was still alive which was saying something. Now, she just had to get out of the country. That task was not going to be easy considering she was separated from Mason and the others. They all knew where the safehouse was located in Costa Rica. She did not have the first clue and had no idea where to start looking.

  “I missed that memo,” she said to the frogs as she stripped off her outer jacket leaving her in just a tank top. It was a relief. The night was muggy after the rain, and she was still soggy from her midnight swim. Her skin was covered in sweat and blood from the effort to paddle against a strong current to the site. Her leg was really throbbing, and she saw several newly open places.

  No big surprise, she thought. That wound on her leg had some new friends too. Her arm was deeply gashed from the coral. It was quite ragged and already warm to the touch. She had a deep laceration and a burn on her upper back where she covered the woman to protect her from hot roof tile that fell from the ceiling as they dodged the burning debris and gunfire. She was feeling that new wound, too.

  “Um, sexy,” she said as she examined her arm. “This one’s going to leave a scar,” she said with a sigh.

  At the rate she was going, there was not going to be any of her skin exposed without some battle scar gracing it. Using her teeth to hold the end of the cloth for tension, her tying off the dressing was more difficult than she anticipated. She dressed her wound as best as she could. All it did was momentarily absorb the bleeding.

  "What now," she asked herself as she dropped the jacket on the ground to sit on it. She needed food and fresh water soon. That was a priority. However, she was exhausted and too tired to muster the strength to forage. Besides, she reasoned it was still dark in the predawn hour. Once the sun was up, she would go looking.

  She had very little money, so bribes were out of the question. She could have Robert send her money, she supposed. Just as quickly as she formed the thought, she pushed it aside, not wanting to implicate him if this escalated any further.

  She had her passport, for all the good that document would do her. If Redondo was half a lawman, Interpol was already alerted. She would never make it past a legitimate border crossing point, at least not without some serious questioning, and in her current condition and physical state there was no plausible explanation to give that would be believable.

  Barbara sat on the ground leaning back against the trunk of a palm tree, digging her toes into the powder-soft sand. This was paradise by any normal person’s standard and definition. She was surrounded by tropical waters, lush vegetation, and beautiful soft sand. The rain had stopped, and the trade winds clearing the night sky had left it bright and full of stars. It was paradise. It was certainly hell. It was her paradox.

  At that moment, she reasoned she was too tired to care about tomorrow and too hurt to try to make it back to their camp tonight which was probably crawling with police by now anyway. Bleeding again and feeling nauseous from blood loss, she wasn’t sure her feeling was not fully due to the blood on her hands.

  She had killed tonight, not a first and probably not the last time either. It was what they did when the need arose to protect and to serve the innocent. Any prudent person would feel remorse. She felt nothing, allowing her conditioning to take hold. All she could think of was Mason.

  “Please, be safe and alive.”

  She closed her eyes praying he was alive and would be safely across the Costa Rican border by the time the sun was up.

  Chapter 32

  Waking, Barbara looked at a moon well past its zenith and sinking leisurely to the western horizon. The morning sun’s light was streaking lavender in the eastern sky as the night creatures sought their bed. She slowly opened her eyes taking in her surrounding. She felt so alone and reaching out she tried to connect to the one person that she could not seem to shake and could not let go.

  “I need you safe, Mason, please be all right, wherever you are,” she spoke softly to the coming dawn.

  Mason was closer than she realized.

  Chapter 33

  Barbara pushed into Mason's brain clawing past his defenses. He quickly discovered any hope of closing her out was totally beyond useless. He resigned himself to this fact. He also resigned himself to the fact, that as an operative, she was good. Better than he ever gave her credit for, and he was wrong to doubt her.

  “I’m right here.” He had been watching her sleep. Relief so deep flooded him when he first saw her safe and sleeping so soundly against the tree. Now, he was feeling something quite different.

  He reached his hand down to lift her up.

  “Thank God, you’re alive!” She threw her arms around his neck and noticed that he did not touch her. Stepping away, she had no issue respecting the space that he obviously wanted between them. He was not cold, mean or indifferent to her; he was simply withdrawn, and it was all right. Even she had done the same thing from time to time after a particularly difficult cas
e was wrapped up. It was a way for the body and mind to catch up to each other and for the mind to assimilate the data. She did not take it personally. This was not directed at her. She was just caught in the jet wash of the mission. The night had been hard on all of them.

  “What about the others?” she asked leaning down to pick up her jacket and eliminating the evidence that she had slept there against the tree.

  “Agent Vega is dead. Our team is safe without a single causality. They are in Costa Rica by now.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. You should be with them.”

  Barbara figured that she could get help from the American Embassy as a C.I.A. field operative. It was a last resort, but still an option for her. He couldn’t. Sometimes these situations can be very touchy diplomatically speaking.

  “I’ve never left a man behind and I wasn’t going to start with you. Come on.” He pulled her by the hand over to the boat tied off just beyond her eye-shot. “Enrique left us dive gear. We have got to get back to the camp and pray this ruse works. Do you dive?” he asked pulling some of the gear from the boat.

  She nodded. “Yes, very well in fact.”

  Good, he thought. At least he did not have to give her a crash course on the terminology in case they were questioned. If they were lucky the police would not show up. If their luck did not continue to hold, then at least she would be able to carry this off.

  She was hoping that she did not have to strap on the gear and do any diving tonight for several reasons. First, she was dead tired and it was not safe to dive in the condition she was in at the moment. Second, she was injured and the wound was still bleeding freely. She would be chum in the water and sharks feed at dusk and dawn. They were long past one and very close to the other.