Authors: Michelle Gagnon
“The way you helped Calderon?” she spat.
“That’s not very nice,” Decker commented.
“I heard what you said…you don’t trust your own organization.”
“Yeah, well, my brother’s part of a different one,” Mark said. “And him I trust. Tell us where we can reach you, and we’ll make sure someone helps your father.”
“I know where they are keeping Calderon,” Isabela said. “Take me with you, and I will tell you.”
“Lady—”
“It’s not safe for me here now,” she argued. “I cannot go home, they will be waiting there.”
“What about relatives?”
“There’s no one besides my father. If you do not take me, I will be killed,” she said flatly.
“Crap.” Mark rubbed his forehead with one hand. He’d done missions all over the globe, in places as far-flung as Panama and Bali. He’d thought nothing could get worse than the disaster that was Somalia. Yet none of his missions had ever gotten as messed up as this. What he’d give for a nice little underwater raid.
“Fine,” he said, after processing it for a minute. Decker started to object, but Mark cut him off with a sharp look. “She’s right, we can’t leave her.”
He moved in close, lowering his voice and filling it with menace. “But if it turns out you’re lying, and you don’t know where Calderon is, or if we find out you’re working for the Zetas, I’ll put a bullet in your head myself.”
Isabela’s eyes widened and she nodded once, stiffly. Mark stepped back and dug the plastic bag out of his pocket. One of the morphine bottles had shattered, but everything else remained intact. He flipped open the phone and dialed. Stepping away from the two of them, he waited as it rang.
“I need to talk to Jake Riley. Tell him it’s his brother.”
Decker and Isabela watched him, standing in silence a few feet apart.
“No, the other brother.” Mark’s brow furrowed at the response. “What the hell is he doing in Mexico City?”
Nine
Flores awoke with a throbbing headache. He groaned and shook his head to clear his vision.
He was in the back compartment of a large truck. Wherever they were going, the road was bumpy as hell. He’d been stuffed between two rough burlap sacks, probably to keep him from flopping around while unconscious, which struck him as surprisingly courteous. His hands were bound again, this time behind his back.
Shit, Flores thought with a sinking feeling.
Two other men occupied the space with him, both dressed in military fatigues and bearing LMTs. One couldn’t have been more than eighteen years old. The other was the guy who tried to blow up the van that morning.
The older man noticed he’d awoks eyes narrowed under the brim of his khaki cap, but he didn’t say anything.
“Mi amigo,” Flores tried. “Con la herida de bala. Y el otro. Dónde están?”
There was no response.
“Adónde vamos?” Flores asked.
The man jerked his head toward the kid. He stumbled over, bracing himself against the side of the truck as it bounced. Reaching Flores, he held up a roll of duct tape.
“Cállete,” he said.
The message was clear. Flores fell silent. The compartment was stuffy enough without having to struggle to breathe. They weren’t worried about him crying for help, since they didn’t insist on gagging him. They just weren’t interested in conversation.
They drove for hours, the road worsening until their pace slowed to a crawl. At one point they ascended so steeply he had to wrap his legs around one of the sacks to avoid being thrown against the rear door. Flores had never been prone to motion sickness. But riding in that windowless compartment, head still pounding from the blow he’d received, more than once he almost gagged up the tacos from that morning.
When they finally came to a stop, Flores felt a wave of relief. It dissipated as soon as the door slid open and he saw where he was.
Judging by the sun’s angle it was midafternoon. Light sheared through reams of barbed wire, stretching as far as he could see in either direction. Long lines of metal pens extended away from him. They looked like kennels—but instead of dogs, people were clustered in each. Most were filthy, their clothing worn to rags.
Next to the drug trade, kidnapping was one of Mexico’s biggest industries. Tyr had given a seminar when he first signed on, including a PowerPoint presentation filled with photos of jungle prison camps like the one he now faced. Captives were kept there for months or years as negotiations for their release dragged on. Thanks to the squalid living conditions, some of the hostages died long before their relatives managed to scrounge up a ransom payment.
At least in Mexico City, there was a chance that Tyr would track them down and rescue them. Here, Flores harbored no such delusions. It would take an army to free anyone from this camp.
A shove from behind sent him flying. With hands bound, there was no way to catch himself. Flores landed hard in the dirt, his knees bearing the brunt of the impact.
A pair of boots appeared an inch from his nose. Flores followed them up to find the van passenger staring down at him. He’d pegged him as a hard guy, someone you’d never mess with in a bar fight. He looked plenty pissed now.
“Sígame,” he said.
Flores stumbled to his feet and followed him along the dirt road. No point playing hero, he had to survive long enough to figure out an escape plan. For some reason, they were keeping him alive. He couldn’t imagine why, but as long as it worked in his favor he wasn’t about to question it.
People lined up at the pen doors as they passed, hands clutching the chicken wire. They watched his progress, but no one said a w were men, women, children of all ages.
They were in the mountains somewhere, a swath of land reclaimed from the jungle. It was even hotter here than in Mexico City, Flores’s shirt instantly soaked through. His eyes panned from side to side, taking in his surroundings. They passed a guard tower manned by two men, then another soldier on foot patrol. The guy slammed the butt of his rifle against random cages as he passed, causing the inmates to shy back. As Flores walked, he mentally composed a map of the facility.
The passenger finally stopped in front of a pen identical to the others. Six feet high, maybe ten feet long, eight feet wide. He nodded for the guard accompanying them to open the gate, then motioned Flores inside.
Flores took a deep breath and walked in, head bowed. The door swung shut behind him and was rebolted. A double lock, he noted. The chicken wire wasn’t thick, but a hundred feet away stood another guard tower constructed of rough-hewn beams. He watched as a muzzle scanned the pens in a long arc, then swept back. The guards seemed to be on top of things. Still, they couldn’t always be vigilant. He’d suss out their rotations, try to determine possible escape routes. Figure out the pen’s weaknesses and how to exploit them. Then at the first opportunity, he’d slip away. Flores had years’ worth of training, and it was a hell of a lot easier to survive in a jungle than the desert. One way or another, he told himself, he was making it out of here.
“Hatching a plan?” a voice behind him asked in English.
Startled, Flores spun around. A man ducked out of the sheltered rear of the pen. His clothes hung off him in shreds, and a thick beard draped down to his chest. Despite that, Flores recognized him immediately.
“Cesar Calderon,” the man said, extending his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Ten
“I’m Jake Riley, CEO of The Longhorn Group.”
Jake caught a flash of recognition in the black man’s eyes. He was tall, nearly six-three, muscles bulging out the sleeves of his camos. He glared down at Jake.
Jake started to lower his arms, but the gun muzzles weren’t coming down. He ended up with them in front of his chest, palms forward.
“You’re clearly lost, Mr. Riley,” the guy said. “Museums are on the other side of town.”
“You’re from Tyr,” Jake said. “Right?”
“Jake—” Kelly called out.
“We’re all on the same team here.” Jake chanced a small step forward.
The man cocked an eyebrow. “Last I checked, I didn’t work for The Longhorn Association.”
“Group,” Jake said. “The Longhorn—”
“Whatever. I don’t give a shit what you’re doing here, you’re in our way.”
From behind him, Syd called out, “Take it down a few notches, Brown.”
Frowning, the man shifted his aim. “Syd Clement. Should have known.”
“Miss me?”
Jake turned slightly. Syd was edging out from the side of the building. Despite the odds her gun was drawn, zeroed in on Brown’s chest. She approached slowly, placing her feet like she was walking a tightrope.
“She with you?” the guy asked, talking to Jake but keeping his focus on Syd.
“That depends,” Jake replied. “How do you two know each other?”
“Kiev. She nearly got my client’s kid killed.”
“The girl was fine, Brown. I can’t believe you still even remember that.”
“No thanks to you,” Brown retorted. “Syd nearly blew the whole raid. Told the head guy about it in advance, just so he’d let her at his hard drive.”
“National security was at stake.” Syd shrugged.
“Yeah, so to hell with everyone else. They had five hostages, including our girl,” Brown told Jake. “If I hadn’t moved up the start time of the operation, they all would have died. Fucking CIA.”
“Never been a big fan of them myself,” Jake said. “I was FBI.”
“They’re even worse,” Brown said. “Even you can do the math, Syd. Drop the gun.”
“I got a whole unit ready to pick you off.” Syd jerked her head toward the nearest building. Jake looked up and saw Fribush aiming down at them. He lifted his free hand in a wave.
“Great,” Jake muttered under his breath.
“There are five more just like him,” Syd said. “You won’t even be able to tell where the shots are coming from.”
“They start firing, you’re out a CEO,” Brown said.
Syd shrugged. “They grow on trees, especially in this economy.”
“We’re looking for Mark Riley,” Kelly called out. She’d lifted her head, but her hands remained on the roof of the car. “And we know you are, too.”
“So?” Brown said after a minute.
“So we should help each other.”
Brown tilted his head back and laughed openly. “Then we can all join hands and sing a song. This ain’t the Scouts, honey. You should leave this to the people who know what the fuck they’re doing.”
“Good point. Any advice on how to lose a whole unit?” Syd said.
Brown looked pained. “Wouldn’t have happened on my watch.”
“Sure it wouldn’t. Sounds to me like someone at Tyr sold them out. Maybe you’re next.”
A van turned down the street. They all shifted their attention to it. Jake waited for the to pull a one-eighty when he saw the firepower on display. When the van continued forward, he frowned. “What the—”
The street in front of them was suddenly torn up, bullets ricocheting off the pavement.
“Kelly!” Jake yelled, scanning the chaos for her red hair.
Everyone had scattered, breaking for cover. A member of the Tyr unit had taken a hit. He writhed on the ground, clutching his leg. Brown charged forward and grabbed him under the armpits, dragging him off the road.
Jake finally spotted Kelly cowering beside the nearest rental car, Maltz beside her. He bent over and said something in her ear, then grabbed her hand. Maltz slid open the car door and shoved her inside.
Jake paused for a second, deliberating. For the moment, Kelly was as safe as any of them. Safer, maybe, if they could get to the backup weapons in the car. Syd had raced behind the closest building. He followed her, wishing he’d held on to his gun.
The van was approaching fast, gaining speed. When it was less than a hundred yards away, Fribush and Jagerson returned fire from their rooftop sniper nests. Their bullets tore gaping holes in the van. The windshield shattered, but the occupants didn’t stop firing. Worse yet, the van continued accelerating.
Jake watched as the van suddenly veered crazily from side to side. It was going nearly fifty miles an hour when it hit the car Kelly and Maltz were in, climbing onto the trunk before flipping over and crushing the roof.
Jake was on his feet and running before the tires stopped spinning.
“Jake!” Syd yelled from behind him, but he didn’t stop. The van rested on its side across the roof of the car, hood slanted toward the ground. Jake saw a bloody hand trying to force the side panel open from the inside. Belatedly he realized that there were probably still armed men alive inside. And in all the excitement, he’d neglected to collect his gun.
Something whistled past his ear. There was a smattering of fire from behind him. Someone inside the van yelped in pain.
Syd came up alongside him.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Later. You check the car, I’ll cover you.” Syd squeezed off a few rounds into the side of the van. The bloody hand flopped down.
Jake dropped to his knees beside the rental car. The top had been completely crushed by the weight of the van, every window shattered. “Kelly!”
Jake tried to open the car door, but as he pulled on it the van groaned, shifting slightly. “Christ,” he muttered, skittering back. The van swayed, then stilled. Jake moved forward again, warily trying the front passenger door. If he could maneuver into the car, he could help them out of the backseat….
His hand was on the door handle when Kelly called his name. She walked out of the alley across the street.
“How the hell…”
“We went straight through the car.” Kelly ran up and wrapped her arms around“Michael thought it would be safer over there.”
Jake buried his face in her hair and dug a hand into it. Maltz stood silent a few feet away. “Thanks,” Jake said over her head. Privately he thought, Michael?
“No problem.” Maltz nodded. “Any survivors in the van?”
The Tyr unit had reemerged from the shadows. Two of them attended to their fallen comrade, tightening a tourniquet around his leg to staunch the bleeding. The rest edged toward the van, guns up and ready.
“Ayúdenme!” A voice pleaded from the interior.
On a three count, four members of the Tyr team shoved the van hard. The front left fender hit the ground first, followed by the rest of it. It kicked up a cloud of dust as it settled.