Battle Scars

by Cara Carnes

  “I landed on my feet. She’s currently flying supply runs in a third world country. Can’t say I feel too good about sharing how my life’s turned out when hers should be a fuckload better than that.” Levi commented. “We done with the bonding?”

  Dallas chuckled. “Yeah. Though, just to say, Marshall’s been scouring the spec ops theater looking for a pilot. Might be worth having a conversation with her because the second I hit the compound, I’m having a word with the geek squad.”

  “Fuck.” Levi muttered the word, but Jesse noted the man’s smirk.

  “We’ve got incoming,” Nolan said through the com.

  Jesse shifted into position and forced a deep, even breath. Drones were in position, and the entire area was locked down tight. Phil Perskins wouldn’t walk away from this. One way or another, Ellie was getting her justice.

  13

  Authorities from the DEA and FBI were positioned in deer blinds a short distance away. The idea had been Marcus’s and inspired by the time Kamren had kicked their asses hard by using them. They’d wait until the transaction closed to move.

  “Things go south and they don’t take him in…” Jesse hesitated.

  “We’ve got your back,” Dallas commented. “He’s going down tonight. One way or another. No one hurts family and gets by with it.”

  Vehicles arrived over the next fifteen minutes. The different gangs faced off but tolerated one another’s presence better than Jesse expected. The drawn machine guns brought into play by the Flores cartel quieted everyone else.

  “What do we know about the Flores leader?” Jesse asked.

  “That’s not the leader,” Zoey said. “I’ve wrangled with this cartel before, by the way. They’re huge in the underground.”

  “And you’re just now mentioning it?” Cord asked.

  “It’s not relevant. Besides, every cartel worth their weight in product handles drugs and the sex trade these days. It’s expected for them to diversify. It’s pretty disgusting.”

  “Maybe we can jump to what we need to know for now,” Mary suggested.

  “Right. Their leadership story is interesting. Mrs. Flores staged a coup and killed her husband after catching him raping a set of twins they’d just kidnapped for sale on the black market as virgins. That was six months ago. No one has contested her leadership because she kills anyone rumored to be so much as disgruntled.”

  “Sounds like a real ballbuster,” Levi commented.

  Jesse grunted. “Hard to see which of them was the bad guy in that scenario.”

  A hummer-style limousine pulled up. The four machine gun-toting men closed in around the vehicle as doors along both sides opened. Phil Perskins exited from the driver’s side of the back while a tall, muscled man exited, then helped a middle-aged woman out.

  “No fucking way,” Dallas said.

  Jesse looked over at his brother. “We got a problem?”

  “Depends. Raul Santiago just exited that fucking limousine.”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” Vi asked.

  “Raul Santiago is in play. I barely recognize him, but that’s him,” Dallas said. “You said something about a CIA asset being in play. Get some fucking answers, Quillery. He’s been AWOL since the night of Dani’s rape.”

  Jesse remained silent. Now wasn’t the time to hash out his brother’s relationship with Dom and Raul. Both of them had been extremely close to Dallas. Their loss had been the catalyst for him joining the military he’d always sworn never to be a part of. He’d intended to remain at home and help their father with the ranch.

  “How well did Phil know him back then?” Mary asked.

  “Passing acquaintances at most,” Dallas said. “Perskins was a hang-around at the street races, but Dom and Raul didn’t give him the time of day. Any recognition would be easily passed off as a spoiled, rich, white boy thinking all Mexicans look alike.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right, or this op is going south quickly,” Vi said. “If Javier was there that night and so was Phil, how did he not immediately recognize Raul?”

  “I barely recognized him. Dom and Raul didn’t hang with Javier or his crew back then in public. When Dom and Raul were at the races, they were royalty. Javier wasn’t part of that,” Dallas said.

  The small drones high overhead were easily masked by the darkness cloaking the area. The sensitive microphones picked up the conversation without interference. The man Dallas had identified as Raul pulled a device out of his pocket.

  “Couple of problems. One, the man Dallas says is Raul is identified as Sandoval Jimenez, Clara Flores’s main henchman and fuck buddy,” Zoey said. “Oh, and he just turned on a frequency scanner—a very high end one that likely caught the edges of our com’s transmission ban.”

  “I thought our equipment was undetectable,” Marshall growled into the com.

  “Everything is technically detectable if the equipment is sophisticated enough,” Vi said. “HERA modified the communication range immediately. We were detected for less than a second.”

  The man’s gaze swept the area, but he nodded to the machine gun-wielding man beside him as the others gathered everyone’s cellphones and searched them for weapons. Everything was set in the center of the clustered group.

  “CIA had confirmed presence of their asset and instructed us to ensure the Flores cartel escapes the raid without injury to anyone,” Vi said.

  “So the fuckers refuse to identify which of them is the asset so they all walk to keep their op in play,” Jesse said.

  “And interestingly enough, we just received the same order from the DEA agents on-site,” Zoey said.

  Dallas chuckled. “Jesus. I wonder if they know about each other’s ops.”

  “That’s not our problem,” Mary said. “Looks like we’re starting.”

  Phil stood in the middle of the gathered group and preened like a peacock. He pulled on the suit blazer he wore as though he’d never worn one and flashed a tooth-filled smile at Clara Flores as the woman joined him. She stroked the man’s chest, then repeated the motion with Raul, aka Sandoval.

  “Thank you for joining us tonight, gentlemen. We’ll make this brief. As you know, we’re currently accepting applications for distribution in this area. Assets will be…” Phil paused and smiled. “Varied. Requirements are a strong presence within not only this area but at least one of the larger cities within transportation distance. Trucks capable of handling live cargo are required, as are secured facilities to temporarily house the assets.”

  Disgust rolled through Jesse. This was far worse than they’d expected.

  “Flores is known to transport illegal immigrants into the States and force them into cheap labor within the cartel’s stateside operations,” Vi said.

  “They handle sex trafficking, too,” Zoey said. “I’ve helped free more than a few from their auctions.”

  Jesse wasn’t surprised they’d run across a trafficking ring. The region bordered Mexico and was so large that policing the flow of traffic back and forth was difficult at the best of times. Those were rare, given the recent corruption issues. Marville’s problems left the entire region ripe for asswipes like the Flores cartel to move in.

  “I’ve been quite displeased with your efforts to impress me, to be honest.” Phil looked around. “My instructions were simple and concise. All you had to do was handle my ex-wife and get a CD back from her. How can we trust any of you with the level of business Ms. Flores has to offer if you can’t handle one simple request?”

  Everyone looked at one another.

  “You didn’t tell us the bitch was tied up with The Arsenal. No one fucks with them,” one of the men spat. “We’ve heard intense shit about them throughout our network. Raptors are in a lot of the cities. The Arsenal’s made a name for themselves in the underground, too.”

  “Did I ask for your opinion?” Phil growled.

  “Shut up, Phil. I tire of your preening.” Clara walked over to the man. “You’re a Raptor.”

&n
bsp; “I am. All due respect, you chose a shitty middleman. He’s got a target ten miles wide for the shit he’s pulled the past few weeks,” the man said.

  “Really?” Clara cocked her head. “I do like a drama-free distribution channel. What exactly has Phil done?”

  “Targeting his ex-wife brought trouble. She’s tied up tight with The Arsenal. They won’t stop ’til everyone associated with hurting her is six feet under.” The man spat again. “You threw us into the middle of that shit. And for what?”

  “Excellent question.” The woman turned and regarded Phil. “Do we have a problem I should know about, Mr. Perskins?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You’d tell me if we did?”

  “Of course, Clara.” He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it. “You are my one and only focus. I was merely tying up some loose ends left by the Marville Dogs. They were sloppy and left too much evidence of past…situations.”

  “Ah, I see.” The woman regarded Phil, then the outspoken Raptor. A malevolent smile spread across the woman’s face.

  “Shit,” Jesse said. “This is about to go south.”

  “Hold,” Mary ordered. “We do not interfere. We see this through until we have the evidence needed to shut this shit down.”

  Jesse couldn’t agree more. He didn’t give a damn if the crazy bitch killed everyone.

  “San, dear, handle this for me. You know I hate dealing with this sort of thing.” The woman walked past Raul. Her hand ran down his chest until she cupped his cock. “I’ll reward you later.”

  The man grinned as he pulled out a gun and shot the Raptor. Angered shouts rose from the man’s counterparts, but San pointed the silenced weapon at the unarmed men and killed the remaining three.

  “Fuck,” Dallas growled into the com.

  Silence descended as the Devil Horns looked at the Nomads. Both groups took a step back.

  “Well, that was rather distasteful of them,” Clara commented. “To clarify, the one thing I loathe more than drama within my network is rats. You aren’t paid to have an opinion. You’re paid to handle product. Understood?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Excellent. Now, I’ll admit neither of your groups have the reach we need. I’m not sure why Phil even bothered adding you to the possibilities. We have a few other interested parties, but I suppose we can set up a temporary agreement with you both—assuming you’ll work with one another?”

  The two groups looked at one another. Both nodded.

  “Excellent.” Clara clapped her hands together and smiled. “We’ll administer a test. We’ll deliver the first batch of cargo tomorrow night at this spot. Have sufficient transport available. Half of it will be handled by the Nomads while the remainder will go to the Horns. I’d caution you both to handle the assets with care. Those in the best sellable condition at the end will win a three-month contract with us. A trial run.”

  “Fuck,” Jesse said into the com. The immediacy of the first delivery left tonight’s op on pause. Arresting the players present with real cargo was an unquestionable guilty down the road. “Fuck.”

  “Hold positions.” Vi’s order was expected.

  Dallas rolled away from his rifle and tapped something into his personal communicator. A ping sounded on Jesse’s. All team leaders wore them in the field in the event of an emergency situation where coms weren’t a viable option. They rarely required private communication where everyone on the com wasn’t privy to the op. That’s not how The Arsenal worked.

  Raul signaled for a meet tonight. 2 a.m. At the track.

  Jesse read the note Dallas had sent to Vi and the rest of the team in the operations theater.

  Understood. Everyone cover Dallas’s exit upon target’s departure.

  Jesse grunted. With the DEA and CIA involved, they had to assume everyone at The Arsenal was under heavy surveillance. Dallas disassembled his gun and had his gear packed in less than a minute.

  “You cool?” Jesse asked.

  “No,” his brother admitted. “Been wondering what happened with him a long time. Never thought this is where we’d find him.”

  Jesse studied his brother a minute and realized he couldn’t leave him to go to the meet alone. Losing an entire team from the site would be noticed, but two brothers going to have a couple beers afterward would be an easier cover to play off.

  Beers. Me. Dallas. Levi. Jesse typed the suggestion in and waited.

  Dallas’s jaw twitched but he nodded his agreement as the assent came back from operations. Whatever was going on, Jesse wasn’t about to let anyone face trouble alone. Likely the women had already come to the same conclusion and had planned to dispatch assistance from one of the teams returning from San Antonio.

  But Jesse needed to see as much of this through himself as he could for Ellie.

  Jesse waited until he, Levi, and Dallas were in a vehicle and offsite to mention the biggest trouble they faced. The connection to Arsenal operations was answered the first ring.

  “There’s a problem,” Mary surmised.

  “Yeah. That limo is headed toward Marville. I don’t know what game Phil is playing or what Raul’s cover is, but if they show up at the Sip and Spin, we need Dani contained,” Jesse said. “Phil may not know he’s Raul, but Dani sure as hell will. And there’s no telling who else might recognize him.”

  “Fuck,” Dallas said. “Phil’s suspicious. That’s why they’re going there. If it’s Raul, he’ll get called out by the locals and Phil gets his confirmation. I can call Kam, get her there.”

  “No,” Vi said. “Jud is there. He and Riley both are. He’ll handle Dani. We’ll contain the rest.”

  Jesse wasn’t sure how the hell they’d manage, but he trusted Mary and Vi without question. Add Zoey to the mix, and they would do the impossible if necessary.

  “The files are buried deep,” Zoey said. “Like really, really, really deep. But there was a sting on a local drug ring back when the rapes happened. The warrants were redacted, but the Marville Dogs were listed. The sting took place less than a week before the attacks, based on the video footage’s dating tags. Sandoval came into existence the day after the sting.”

  “They flipped him into being DEA,” Dallas said. “There was a couple weeks between Dani’s attack and the other girl we haven’t identified.”

  “Yeah and there were likely others. DEA would be more interested in whatever intel they could get from the bigger fish—i.e. the Flores cartel,” Vi said.

  “So the connection between Phil and the Flores cartel has been around a while,” Jesse said. “He was a young-ass punk back then.”

  “We all were,” Dallas said. “Barely out of high school and thinking we were the shit. Dani was still a kid. Fourteen. There’s no way he knew what went down with her and Dom. No way he would’ve turned and abandoned them like that.”

  “Guess we’ll find out tonight,” Levi commented. “When did he get roped into the CIA?”

  “A couple years ago the CIA began suspecting someone high within the DEA was feeding intel to the Flores cartel and a Russian-based organization,” Zoey said. “The files are thin and vague as hell, but the few reports filed indicate an asset was acquired to investigate DEA officials via bogus information leaks.”

  “Damn. That’s dangerous ground to tread alone,” Dallas commented.

  “It is, but so far four high-level DEA personnel have been quietly removed as a result,” Vi said. “I don’t know what happened to get him inside, but he’s done stellar work from what we can see.”

  Jesse clicked off and let the silence speak for itself. He and Dallas were alike in many ways. They both needed solitude to think through whatever ate away at their minds.

  By the time they’d made it to the Sip and Spin, it was just past midnight. The limo was parked right by the entry.

  The entire situation was rife with trouble, but Jesse wasn’t about to walk away. If Raul was deep, deep undercover, he’d likely want help because reentering the area he�
�d grown up in after so many years would prove difficult. Had he heard about Dom’s arrest? Did he know Dani worked at the bar?

  Jesse couldn’t imagine returning to Resino deep undercover. It’d be damn near impossible to contain. He clicked on the com. “We may need unknown operatives in the bar to help contain this cluster fuck.”

  “They’re en route. Jud will help until then. Levi can go in alone and assist,” Vi said. “Dani has been removed from the situation. Don’t flip your shit, Dallas, but putting Riley in as bartender would’ve sent everyone in the area on alert.”

  “Tell me Kamren’s not in there,” Dallas growled.

  “We had no choice,” Mary said. “She has more than enough protection and is known by the populace since she used to work there. She’s tied to us, but in a way that still makes it plausible she’s there helping out a friend.”

  The argument made sense, and Jesse suspected Dallas agreed because he offered no rebuttal. Levi slid out of the vehicle and headed into the bar. By the time they entered moments later, the man had ghosted entirely.

  “Jesus, Levi’s a ninja, too,” Zoey said.

  Jesse chuckled. The women declared operatives who were beyond exceptional in all skills to be ninjas. Few of the operatives had the designation.

  He and Dallas sat at a table near the bar but across the room from where Clara Flores and Phil Perskins held court.

  His brother came in to the Sip and Spin enough for locals to not think twice about their presence. Kamren covered shifts for Dani on occasion and made no qualms about not wanting to be bothered by anyone—most especially her overprotective man. She was all business when on a job.

  The Devil Horns leader and Paco from the Nomads sat with Perskins and Flores. A few others Jesse didn’t recognize had joined as well, but they wore the distinctive colors of Devil Horns and Nomads. Jesse sauntered up to the bar and waited his turn.

  “Two Bud Lights,” he ordered.

  Kamren glared at him as she uncapped the cold beers and handed them to him. She said nothing, but anger and confusion were evident in her gaze. Fuck. They’d thrown her in so quickly she hadn’t been warned.