Dahl nodded. “Which cartel?”
Luther spoke first. “Ruiz.”
Dahl grimaced. “Shit. Carlos Ruiz is one of the worst.”
“Yeah, they’re a bad bunch. They own an entire police force and most of the occupants of their closest town. Even when I worked for Tempest, they were considered untouchable.”
“I guess you can see that in the amount of hardware they used and complete lack of respect for America they showed during the LA attack,” Drake said.
Luther agreed. “Yeah, their leader, this Ruiz, thinks he’s some kind of supreme being. Unchallenged. Better than everyone else. He has a major god complex.”
“And men?” Dahl asked
“I can’t remember the details,” Luther said. “But he’ll have an army, plus a police force.”
“Well, Cara and the others clearly didn’t know,” Drake said. “You could see it on their faces. We can’t just let them be taken by the bloody cartel.”
Hayden slammed her phone against her leg. “It seems we can. Actually, it seems we’ve been ordered to.”
Mai took a step forward. “I don’t believe that. They’re thieves but they’re gonna get cut to pieces or forced into service. And the eggs? What kind of wealth will they bring to the cartel?”
“Mega,” Drake said. “That’s why they mounted this huge operation in the first place. The wealth will be worth it.”
“They’re already super rich,” Luther said.
“But only the second biggest cartel in Mexico. They want to be first. They want to be the biggest in the world, no doubt. Especially if this Ruiz is as arrogant as Luther says.”
“He is.”
Hayden held a hand up, stopping their conversation. “We’re not allowed to pursue the cartel. Our government won’t interfere. Ops are already years in the planning over there. The eggs are lost and we’ve been ordered to walk away.”
“But one of the reasons we’re here dovetails directly with those eggs,” Karin said. “The unbelievable wealth their sale will drop on the market.”
“Agreed,” Hayden said, “but our boss, and his boss have ordered us to stand down.”
Alicia stood impatiently, moving from foot to foot. Mai glanced at Drake and then Dahl. The team stared at the horizon or the sky or down at their boots, everyone running through the consequences of what they’d just heard.
Dahl caught Hayden’s attention. “I think that’s an extremely gray area.”
Hayden fixed him with a glare. “Careful.”
“Why? It’s just us here. When we were SPEAR we answered to a boss, be it Special Forces, the Secretary of Defense or whoever. But now, we’re on our own. And that was a deliberate act. We’re not above the law, but the law doesn’t technically rule us.”
“You’re saying we disobey orders?” Hayden sounded skeptical.
“Who controls us? The President. What’s his view?”
“I don’t know and I’m not gonna call him up right now.”
Luther slapped Dahl on the back, a hard jolt that sent dust billowing. “Good man,” he said. “I say we go.”
“Me too,” Dahl said.
“Write our own ticket?” Alicia said. “Make our own decisions. That’s what we do now? I’m good with that.”
“You’re all talking yourselves into as assault on a Mexican drug cartel that even the US government thinks is untouchable,” Kinimaka said. “You know that, right?”
“The beauty of this new team,” Mai said, “is exactly this. We’re on our own. I say we go.”
Hayden looked for the majority. She wasn’t strictly the team leader any more. It would all be handled jointly unless they were in the thick of major battle, and then they’d defer to her. Nobody was abstaining. Everyone was electing to go.
Hayden looked over to the idling helicopters. “There’s a ton of weapons lying around. Machine guns. Rocket launchers. Grenades. You name it, it’s there, and we’re gonna need all of it.”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Luther grinned. “Now we’re back, boys and girls. Now we’re back.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
“Leave him alone! Please. He’s had enough.”
Cara’s cry made the man called Ruiz pause. He turned to her, gazing steadily. He was an unspectacular man in every way. Mid-sized, black hair, black eyes. Middle aged. He seemed to support no muscle and no fat, he was just . . . ordinary.
Except he ran the second biggest and most dangerous cartel in the world.
Cara had never heard of him before today. She knew about the cartels and what they did, but had never taken time to learn about them. But none of that mattered now. She was here, inside his mansion in Mexico, guarded by his army of cutthroats, mercenaries and gunmen. There was no escape.
Alongside her, tied to chairs with thick ropes, were the rest of the One Percenters, and one other woman.
Jax’s wife.
What a fucking shit show, she thought.
Ruiz stopped punching Jax for a moment to walk over. As he approached, Cara saw the ruthlessness in his face, the utter lack of anything regarding a soul. His mouth was a straight thin line and bore no crease lines, as if he’d never smiled and never frowned. He walked until he was uncomfortably close to her and she was staring at his chest.
“Pretty girl,” he said. “I love your blond hair. I love the blood around your face and neck. I think that I will lick it off.”
Cara somehow refrained from kicking out. She was a fighter. At school they’d bullied her for her good looks and skinny frame, but she’d overcome that and turned shame into confidence, fear into courage.
“You want to hit me. I can see it in your eyes,” Ruiz said. “But it is good that you do not. I would rip those eyes out.”
Cara swallowed and looked away. Ruiz not only appeared callous, but also superior, as if he owned not only this ranch but Mexico. To a point, Cara assumed that was true.
“He told you everything,” she said. “I was alongside him the whole way. I know.”
“He told me everything?” Ruiz repeated her and half-turned away, then spun his body back round, swinging with an open hand. The blow caught her across the face, snapping her head to the right. Cara blinked and tried to ignore the pain.
“Who are you? A piece of shit. You are nothing! I will kill you if you speak again.”
Ruiz turned his back on her as if she was now dead to him but then half-turned. “You are sweet looking,” he said. “I want to see how your blood tastes.”
Cara shuddered as he walked away. She was courageous but this place was hell on earth. They’d been driven out of the desert, along an underground tunnel shored up by timbers, and into bright sunshine. Then they’d hit proper asphalt for the first time in hours, a welcome relief to her bruised and shaken bones.
Forty minutes later they were turning off the road, hitting more desert dunes, following a rudimentary path. Then, a shock to the senses. Ahead a striking mansion appeared, out here in the middle of a dry, dusty nowhere. It was surrounded by walls and guard towers and many gun-toting, rough-looking individuals. Jax had whispered that it was the cartel’s HQ, their home, but she’d ignored him, hating him.
Now she wanted to save him.
Jax was tied to a wooden chair that had been bolted to the ground. His chest was bare. Ruiz had started out with a whip, an old-fashioned lasso. He’d gone onto pliers and had then donned a pair of leather gloves. Now, he was punching, sometimes kicking, asking Jax periodic questions in an attempt to confuse him.
If you were asked the same question a hundred times under duress and your answer never changed, it had to be the truth.
At least, that’s what Cara imagined was happening. For all she knew Ruiz was just getting his morning tensions out of the way.
How did we get to this?
She’d had a rollercoaster life. From childhood troubles to street-life to brushes with the law and running with a wolf pack like the One Percenters. She’d honed her craft. Befor
e this last job they never resorted to violence—even Steele had been tempered. Violence attracted violence and Cara wanted no part of it. Now she knew why Jax had gone off the rails. The reason sat three seats to her left.
Bella.
Apparently, that was her real name. Just Bella. She was Jax’s secret wife, at least a secret from his own team. But from the Mexican cartel? Not so much. They’d kidnapped her and given Jax an ultimatum. Bring the eggs or receive her fingers, toes, hands . . .
The list had gone on and on with the cartel promising to keep her alive until the last possible moment. Her torture would have lasted months. Cara accepted that anyone that cared for a human being would have done exactly what Jax had done. But why hadn’t he told her? They were experts at stealthy entry and exit for God’s sake. Surely they could have rescued Bella together.
It would have been the job of legend.
But they’d never have been safe. Always looking over their shoulders for the cartel. Always worried. Life would have become a jittery hell.
And people like Kushner and Faye might not have wanted any part of it.
Cara saw Jax’s reasoning. And why he’d resorted to violence. The stress on his ex-Marine shoulders would have been incredible, unbearable.
But it had all led them to this.
Ruiz now slid off his leather gloves and checked his knuckles. “Bruised,” he said and then glared at Jax. “You bruised my knuckles.”
Cara could barely stand to look at Jax. His left eye was closed, the skin around it starting to swell. His forehead and cheeks dripped blood and whenever he moved it ran freely from his mouth. Ruiz had dislodged several teeth. Jax’s chest was crisscrossed with red stripes. His arms were a mass of cuts and bruises. He sagged in the chair, held in place only by the ropes that tied him to it.
Cara doubted he could speak now even if he wanted to. He’d already told Ruiz about the theft and the resulting chase. He’d told Ruiz that they were on their way to meet him on Venice Beach as planned.
“You were too slow,” Ruiz had hissed, punching freely. “Late. I don’t tolerate mistakes or delay. The only reason you’re alive is because you called me on Venice Boulevard. I managed to rejig everything. Do you understand? It was me. Me that saved you, that stole the eggs, that saved all your lives. I am the mastermind here.”
Cara closed her eyes when the beating had continued. There was nothing she could do. Her only hope was a peculiar one. The soldier she’d fallen next to in the desert—the one who’d tried to save her life. Who’d jumped from the rock pile and run toward her, into the danger. She’d fallen at his side and whispered where they were bound.
That man was their only hope.
Cara wanted to cry. Her life had come to this. But that was just selfish and cowardly. She had to stay strong.
Now, Ruiz tilted Jax’s face. “Open your eyes.”
To his credit, Jax tried. The pain was evident. He managed to crack open one eyelid. “From now on, you work for me. You work for me for the rest of your life. You do what I say, when I say it.” He spun. “And that goes for all of you. The One Percenters are now my property. Nod if you understand.”
Cara nodded along with the others. Even Bella nodded. Ruiz looked satisfied. “You messed up the last job. Your first failure. Eight perfect heists and then one incredible fuck up. What happened?”
He turned toward Cara and the others, so she assumed it was safe to speak. “We were never a team,” she said. “From the Fabergé job’s start. It wasn’t right between us.”
“Are you blaming me?”
“Ah, no, no. I think it was Steele.”
“You’re blaming a corpse? Convenient. But I’m a fair man. I can see where he could have been a problem. My men told me what he was like.”
Cara breathed out silently and slowly. It had been a gamble. But Ruiz wanted something and, hopefully, that was enough. If he sent them on future jobs, they would have the chance to talk and work out an escape strategy.
It was the single ray of light on a pitch-black horizon.
“You’ll stay with me for a while,” Ruiz said. “I want to . . . talk . . . to each of you separately. Like I talked to Jax. Then, after and if you recover, we’ll look at another job.”
Cara died inside a little. She faced a blasted, grim future. She swiveled her head to the left, looking at Faye, Kushner and Bella. Jax’s wife was crying. Her face was swollen and bruised, as if she’d already been “talked to.”
Kushner looked terrified. Even Faye, who’d never exhibited an ounce of emotion in the twelve years Cara had known her, looked scared out of her mind.
Ruiz took several steps toward them. “Who’s next?” He grinned.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Drake enjoyed the smell of a safe house armory. It reminded him of army days long gone. Of good friends and good times. Of simpler days when an unknown, promising future stretched ahead of him, his to seize and mold. It was the same for every young person. The problem was, you never knew or wanted to know that until it was too late.
He stopped and looked around, nodding with satisfaction. “This’ll do.”
Kenzie squeezed by. “Me first.”
Dahl was a millisecond after her. “Don’t take all the good stuff.”
Drake eyed the shelves. Since leaving the desert they’d researched Ruiz’s property online, using a dedicated satellite, and found a safe approach. The satellite had been invaluable, pinpointing men, weapons movement, security systems, and much more. Just about every ounce of Intel they needed. And they had it for another four hours.
It wasn’t legal. It didn’t have a name. It was a CIA spying eye, one of many positioned over Mexico. The cartel assumed they operated in secrecy. The truth was that the CIA knew more about the cartel than their own citizens. Back in the desert, Hayden had taken a risk. They’d all wanted to continue with the mission despite the government’s orders, reiterating that they were their own entity now.
They could act when and how they chose. It was part of the new agreement.
“But we can’t just defy our directives,” Hayden had said. “They’re there for a reason. We could end up in jail.”
“Directives?” Dahl had questioned. “Aren’t they really guidelines?”
Hayden’s expression had told them it was a gray area. They’d pushed ahead. With this mission being off book, Hayden had relented and called in several old favors. Kinimaka too. The CIA safe house just inside Mexico wasn’t hard to appropriate. The satellite was.
Now, they both owed favors. And more. One of her old bosses in the CIA had made her promise the assistance of the entire Strike Force team if he ever needed it.
“That’s a big ask,” Hayden had said.
“It is what it is.”
She’d checked and they’d agreed. Ten minutes later they had their own spy satellite.
Now, Drake pushed ahead into the armory, choosing reliable weapons. A HK and a Glock, various grenades and knives. He noticed Kenzie choose the biggest blade there, probably wishing it was a sword. Alicia chose wisely and so did the others. Soon, they backed out of the armory, returning to the main room.
Karin was seated at a low table, leaning over a big laptop. She was using the satellite to zoom in on various parts of Ruiz’s property, highlighting security measures and trying to get a handle on movement.
“See here,” she said as she sensed their return. “Underground rooms. A bunker. A wine cellar. And tunnels, here and here. Escape tunnels, probably. All the cartel bosses have them.”
“Can we use the tunnels?” Dahl asked.
“It’s the only point of entry we can use,” Karin said. “But it means we’ll have the full force of the cartel bearing down once they spot us.”
“Some help would be useful,” Mai said.
“You know what Cooper and those other guys said. We’re on our own. We’re mercenaries now, not agents.”
Alicia sniffed. “Does that mean I suddenly have a lower IQ?”
> “Hey, not all mercs are knuckleheads. Many are just like you.”
Mai and Kenzie both winced. “God help them.”
Alicia nodded in agreement. “No argument there.”
Dahl tapped the screen. “Where are we with the security system?”
“I have a remote jamming tool. I have a way to spoof and loop the feed thanks to Langley. We can knock out their sensors with a few shenanigans. False alarms. We can draw men away from the house to check the grounds using distraction techniques. I’ve come up with three already. But . . . we can’t be seen. If we’re seen we’re in the battle of our lives.”
“Any sign of the eggs?” Dallas asked, a question that struck Drake quite poignantly. It was a question that Yorgi would ask, and he wished the young Russian thief was with them.
“I pinpointed three safes. One big iron mother and two normal sized. Unfortunately, the eggs aren’t fitted with any trackers I can see. Maybe the One Percenters rigged something. We can ask them when we find them, but . . .”
“We know,” Drake said. “We can’t risk being seen.”
“Anything else?” Luther asked, big fingers gripping his gun.
“The tunnels run straight into the wine cellar. After that it’s the rooms, which could be cells, maybe an armory. There’re two sets of stairs leading out of there, so two points of ingress to cover. I’m guessing we’ll be moving fast so will need something special waiting outside to assure a quick getaway.”
Dahl looked at Drake and shook his head. “A Lambo’s not gonna cut it,” he said. “So get that right out of your head.”
“No car,” Karin said. “The cartel has helicopters as we know. Even planes. When I said special, I meant it.”
“How many of us will there be?” Luther asked cautiously. “I may be able to call in a favor of my own.”
Karin counted it in her head. “Sixteen,” she said. “But who knows? Allow for two more.”
Luther glanced over at Molokai. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, could be done.” Clearly, they were both on the same wavelength.
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