BRAINRUSH 02 - The Enemy of My Enemy (12 page)

Francesca turned on the bench so that she was facing him. She took his hands in hers.

“Jake,” she said. She took a deep breath. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Sure,” Jake said. “In a minute. The tunnel hasn’t—”

“The tunnel isn’t important right now,” she said, riveting him with an impassioned stare. “We need to talk.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Now,” she said. “It’s important.”

“Okayyyy,” he said, drawing out the word as his mind grappled for an exit strategy.

Rescue came in the form of Lacey when the front door swung open and she stepped onto the porch.

“We need you inside right away,” she said. “We’ve got big problems.”

“Sorry,” Jake said to Francesca. He stood and extended his hand to help her up. She drew her knees up and hugged them to her chest. The look of disappointment in her eyes sent a pang of guilt through Jake. With a sigh, he turned and followed Lacey.

**

“Dude,” Marshall said. “This place is wired to the max!” Nervous excitement spilled from his words. He sat in front of a keyboard and three flat-screen monitors that stretched across an old credenza. The central monitor had a small camera clipped to the top edge. 

“Where the hell did those come from?” Jake asked.

“You can thank me for that,” Lacey interjected. “I was snooping around to see if I could find any games or maybe a deck of cards for the kids. But the credenza’s front doors wouldn’t open.”

Marshall said, “So I—” 

“We,” Lacey said, hands on her hips.

“So
we
pulled the cabinet away from the wall and—”

“Power cords,” Lacey said.

“It only took a few seconds to find the hidden switch that slid back the cover and lifted the workstation and monitors. It’s all state-of-the-art stuff. Pretty sweet, huh?”

Jake waited for the other shoe to drop. “And…so?”

Marshall tapped the keyboard and all three monitors lit up at the same time. Each of the screens displayed four separate surveillance images. Jake recognized the kitchen, bedrooms, and the area immediately outside the hacienda. Four additional images revealed infrared images of the perimeter. Jake saw Tony and Becker heading back toward the house. He felt a twinge of concern when another image revealed Francesca walking aimlessly in the opposite direction.

“This is not good,” Jake said.

“Damn right, pal,” Marshall agreed. He leaned over the keyboard and absently rolled up one of the sleeves of his shirt, revealing two fresh scars that crisscrossed up the length of his forearm. He’d gotten them in a fight in Venice while trying to rescue Jake, when Lacey’s swift reaction had prevented Marshall from getting killed.

Lacey stood behind Marshall, her hands on his shoulders while he tapped the keys. The images on the central monitor were replaced by an overhead map of the ranch and the surrounding area.

“It’s an integrated wireless security and monitoring system,” he said. “There’s gotta be a sat-dish nearby, probably on the roof.” He pointed to a rotating icon on the corner of the screen. “Because this is a link to a remote server.”

“Remote?” Jake said, his gut tensing.

“Yeah, but the good news is the external link wasn’t connected when I started it up.” He pointed to a series of green dots that circled the land surrounding the ranch. “I figure the link is designed to juice up if one of these perimeter alarms is tripped. It’s set up that way to preserve power when no one’s here and the generator isn’t running. The field sensors probably run on solar batteries. When one of them is tripped, it sends a signal that takes this server out of standby mode using the backup battery system. It then notifies the remote location.” He turned to Jake. “God was on our side, man, because we dropped from the sky inside the perimeter sensors. The alarm never went off. We were damn lucky. I’ve deactivated the sensors so we don’t have to worry about accidentally tripping them.”

“So…we’re okay?” Jake said, praying that they’d finally caught a break.

“No way, dude,” Marshall said. A couple of quick keystrokes opened a new window with a list of time-stamped data. “According to this, the remote server is scheduled to automatically interrogate the system at nine tonight. And there’s not a damn thing I can do at this end to stop it.”

Jake checked his watch. “That’s less than an hour from now. What happens when they hook up?”

“If I leave the system in standby, their query will register my intrusion into the system. If I shut the local server down completely, it will signal an alarm. Either way, you can bet they will send someone to check it out pronto.”

“Shit, Marsh, can’t you hack around it somehow?”

“Not without activating the link to the remote server. But the instant I connect, the alarm goes off.”

Apprehension clamped around Jake’s chest. 

“We’ve got to go,” he said.

Marshall was already moving.

Chapter 21

The Sonoran Desert, Mexico

A
bbas’s smile was feral. He stared through the night vision binoculars from his prone position below the crest of a low foothill that fronted the ranch. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. Allah was surely watching over them.

“It appears as if one of the lambs is on the loose,” he said, keeping his voice low.

A helmeted officer wearing a desert camouflage uniform adorned with a full combat kit lay beside him. He had his own night vision lenses pressed to his eyes.

“Your orders?” he asked.

Abbas considered this. The woman had wandered directly toward them. She was only a couple hundred meters from their position. It appeared as though her chest was hitching with sobs. Her hands clutched her underbelly, as if she had stomach cramps. He panned the glasses back toward the structure. The big man and the dark man were heading back to the house. The children and the other man were still outside, but they posed no threat.

“I want her alive,” he said. “Quickly. Silently. Her friends must not be alerted.”

A twelve-man squad of elite Iranian shock commandos blended into the dark landscape behind the two men. An open-air jeep and old panel truck were parked behind them. Abbas had rented the vehicles while waiting for the team’s plane to land at the distant Puerto Peñasco airport.

The officer issued an order in Dari. Two of the men snapped on night vision combat goggles before disappearing like wraiths into the darkness. A third man crawled up the rise beside the officer. He tracked his two comrades through the high-powered scope of his sniper rifle.

While he waited, Abbas marveled at his leader’s ability to garner resources on the heels of the disaster at their mountain fortress. The
sheikh
was a master strategist whose multilayered plans contained a web of deception and ingenuity. Less than twelve hours after the American and his friends had disappeared over the vast Sonoran Desert, the
sheikh
had identified their exact location. Abbas swelled with pride.

He sucked in the sweet aromas of the dry desert air. They reminded him of his home in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. He thought of his younger brother who’d walked the land with him as a child, and who later fought beside him against the infidels. Carlo had idolized Abbas. When their father had been killed by an American mortar attack, Abbas had stepped up to fill the parental role. He’d taught his brother the way of the knife and the two of them struck back at the infidels at every opportunity. They had earned a lethal reputation among their peers and risen quickly in the
sheikh
’s ranks. 

Hatred surged within Abbas as he thought of the American killing Carlo by his own blade. Anger blurred his vision. He lowered the binoculars and rubbed his eyes. Though he knew he would eventually avenge his brother, he must resist doing so tonight. He would follow his orders from the
sheikh
to capture the American alive. Bronson would serve them well in the next few days as an integral part of the
sheikh’s
plan, but after that, Abbas thought with a smile, he will be made to watch as the woman is slowly tortured to death before him. Afterward, the American shall smell the reek of his own disembowelment.

Turning to the officer at his side, Abbas said, “We shall use the woman to lure out the American. I want them both alive.”

“And the rest?”

The
sheikh
had asked that they be kept alive, if possible, to use as a lever against the American’s cooperation. But Abbas knew in his heart that the woman would be enough.

“Kill them all.”

Chapter 22

The Sonoran Desert, Mexico

T
he children, Max, and Bradley hurried in through the front door, ushered by an anxious Becker.

“I didn’t see Francesca outside,” Becker said. “Is she in here?”

“No,” Jake said. He slid another water bottle into the backpack he was stuffing.

“I called out to her,” Becker added, “but she didn’t answer.” He turned to go back out the door.

“Hold on. I’ll take care of it,” Jake said, handing the backpack to Lacey and marching toward the door. “She’s a bit miffed right now. My fault.”

“Stop!” Marshall shouted so loudly that it stunned everyone in the room. He stared wide-eyed at one of the computer displays.

Jake hurried to his side. The images on the screen fractured his mind. Even in night vision mode, Francesca’s grayscale image was unmistakable as she struggled within the grasps of two men. They dragged her up a short rise.

Jake tried to speak, but emitted only an anguished gurgle.

Tony was beside him in a heartbeat. Several more figures suddenly appeared on the screen from over the ridge. They ran toward the house.

“Get everyone into the tunnel!” Tony shouted.

 “What tunnel?” Bradley asked.

 “What’s happening?” Josh yelled from the couch.

 “I’ll explain later,” Tony said, scooping up Josh in one arm and grabbing Sarafina’s hand in the other. He ran toward the hallway that led to the back rooms, urging Bradley to follow. Sensing the tension in the room, Max scurried to get in front of the group. The hair on his hackles went stiff.

Jake’s momentary shock was swept away under a maelstrom of fury. Somehow, Battista’s men had found them. His pulse quickened, his eyes narrowed, and his brain sorted through options. He knew what must be done.

“Marsh, activate the perimeter alarms,” Jake said.

“But that’ll alert the narcos.”

“Just do it!” Jake ordered. He turned his attention to Lacey. “Switch off all the lights. Then follow Tony and help him with the kids.”

She was moving before he finished the sentence.

Becker ran from window to window, closing the shutters. They wouldn’t stop a bullet, but at least they’d provide visual cover.

“The narcos have linked up with the remote server!” Marsh said, his face pale.

“Good,” Jake said. He placed a protective hand over the sat-phone on the table so that Marshall wouldn’t grab it. “Now get the hell down to the tunnel.”

Marshall sprang to his feet. His chair flipped over backward. The dim light from the monitors provided the only illumination in the darkened room. He disappeared into the shadows of the hallway just as Tony returned.

“Lacey and Bradley got things under control with the kids,” Tony said, moving quickly to one of the last two open windows. He closed the shutters and latched them. “What’s our play?”

Jake’s eyes remained glued to the monitor. He couldn’t imagine more capable men than Tony and Becker in a firefight, but he needed to face this threat alone, and he knew that neither man would allow him to do so willingly.

There was a loud thud at the front door. Tony and Becker swiveled their weapons toward the opening, but the expected breach didn’t occur. Becker risked a quick peek between the slats of a shuttered window.

“Bloody hell, they just dumped a satchel charge at the door!”

Another thud at a window sparked the men into action.

“Move. Now!” Jake shouted, rushing toward the hallway as he calculated how this unexpected element would affect his plan.

Tony’s and Becker’s rubber-soled shoes slapped the ground right behind him. The two men flicked on the LED flashlights affixed to the bottom of their weapons. The beams of light bounced off the walls.

Jake skidded into the third bedroom and ducked into the walk-in closet. A recessed panel at the back wall had been slid to one side. The thick door on the other side of the panel was open, revealing a narrow wooden staircase that led to the underground tunnel. The dank air drifting out of the opening had a rich earthen smell.