Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller (18 page)

“Do you know who I am?” I said, my voice
flat.

Montoya stared at me, his mouth slightly
open, his eyes still not showing recognition. I couldn’t tell if he
even understood what I was saying.

“You killed my wife,” I said. “Her name was
Josie Highway. I’m here to return the favor.”

Montoya opened his mouth but no sound issued
forth. He started to shake his head but quickly stopped, closed his
eyes, turned his head to the side, and vomited. I had no idea
whether his actions were the result of fear or were simply an
after-effect of the concussion, but at this point, it didn’t really
matter. I knew instinctively that time was running out. If more of
Montoya’s men weren’t already on their way down the elevator, they
would be within moments. There was no more time to waste.

I squeezed the trigger.

The Glock roared, drowning out the sound of
the bullet blowing through the back of Montoya’s skull.

I stood over Montoya as the blood pooled
around his head. I continued to stand there, staring at his face as
the final vestiges of life drained from his eyes. The Glock was
still in my hand, my finger still on the trigger.

I was waiting for catharsis, but it quickly
became apparent that none was forthcoming.

I realized I felt nothing at all, no emotion
whatsoever. No satisfaction at having killed the man responsible
for my wife’s murder. Not even the more mundane sense of
accomplishment at having successfully completed an operation.

In fact, now that Montoya was dead, I felt
Josie’s absence weighing me down even further, like a concrete slab
hooked around my neck.

She had been the blood that pumped through
my veins. Without her, I was empty, lifeless, a living, breathing
corpse. The only thing that had kept me going after she’d been
murdered was the idea that I would find the man responsible for her
death and kill him. And now that I’d accomplished that, I couldn’t
think of a reason to continue on.

Figure it out later,
said my
inner-SEAL.
Right now you have other business to take care
of.

My stupor was broken by a rumbling sound
coming from behind me. The world quickly swam back into focus as I
turned towards the sound, saw that it was coming from the elevator
that served the bunker.

More of Montoya’s guards, no doubt.

I put the Glock back in the thigh holster,
spun the MP5/10 around, lifted it into firing position, pointed it
at the elevator, and started walking backwards, towards the door I
had breached to enter the bunker. With my right hand keeping the
weapon steady, I reached into the vest with my left and extracted a
flashbang from one of the pockets.

The rumbling stopped as soon as I reached
the hole in the bunker. The elevator had arrived.

I pulled the pin on the flashbang and tossed
it towards the elevator doors just as they were starting to open. I
then stepped through the breached door and into the tunnel, turned
quickly and put my back against the wall. I heard yelling from the
area near the elevator, but it was cut off abruptly by the loud
detonation of the flashbang.

I peeked around the corner and saw three men
standing near the elevator. All were brandishing weapons. All were
disoriented from the flashbang. None were wearing body armor.

I had spared the lives of the guards back at
the boathouse, but I no longer had the luxury of surprise. The four
men in the elevator threatened my survival. They had to be
neutralized.

I dropped each one with a three shot burst
from the MP5/10. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. All three
were down within seconds.

I slipped the night-vision goggles back over
my eyes and started back through the tunnel towards the shore.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

Knowing every wasted second would make my
escape exponentially more difficult, I ran the length of the
tunnel, slowing to a walk only once I’d reached the smaller
drainage pipe that led to the beach.

Once the exit was in view, I dropped to my
belly and started crawling towards it, my body tense with the
expectation of taking on fire.

This was where I was most vulnerable. The
destruction of the two boats was sure to have attracted some of
Montoya’s guards to the area, but I was counting on them still
being in the dark about what had happened in the bunker. If they
were abreast of the entire situation, then they would be aware of
someone trying to escape the premises, which meant that the tunnel
exit would already be heavily covered.

If that was the case, I was fucked. The
guards could simply wait for me to show up, then concentrate their
fire into the mouth of the drain pipe. They would turn me into
Swiss cheese.

However, if they were unaware of what had
happened in the bunker, their attention would still be focused on
the wreckage of the boats themselves, which would give me a good
chance of making it out alive.

I stopped five feet from the edge of the
exit to survey the situation, the still-raging fire from the boats
eliminating the need for the night-vision goggles.

The area was crawling with guards, but their
attention wasn’t yet focused inward. Three men were at the end of
the dock, near what was left of the two boats. One of the men was
wearing body armor and carrying an Uzi; I pegged him as being in
charge. The other two had AK-47’s but no armor. The entrance to the
dock was guarded by a different pair of men—also with AK-47’s and
without body-armor—one whose attention was fixed down the shore to
the left, the other focused on the right.

Five armed men between me and the ocean.

No problem.

I quickly mapped out a plan of action.

The four guards without armor wouldn’t be a
problem. From this range, center mass hits were a piece of cake.
I’d be able to take all four of them out before they knew what was
happening. The guard with the body armor, however, would take a
little more effort. The .10mm rounds in the machine pistol wouldn’t
penetrate body armor, meaning I’d have to take him out with a head
shot. From this distance—a little over 50 yards—it wasn’t too
difficult a shot, and back in my SEAL days I’d have had no problem
making it. But now, three years removed from shooting on a daily
basis, it would take all my concentration to pull it off.

I was in the process of pulling the
retractable stock from the MP5/10 to help steady my aim when the
ringing of a cell phone cut into the quiet night. My body went cold
as I watched the guard with the body armor pause in his inspection
of the boats, pull a phone from his pocket and bring it to his
ear.

Two seconds later, he was yelling at the
other guards and pointing at the drainpipe.

Totally calm and completely under control, I
climbed to one knee, brought the MP5/10 to firing position, took
aim at the guard standing watch on the shore and squeezed the
trigger.

The three-round burst struck the guard in
the center of the chest, dropping him almost instantly. Still in a
half-crouch, I sighted again, squeezed the trigger, and sent
another three-round burst through his partner.

I stepped out of the pipe and onto the sand.
I made two immediate right turns—putting the drainpipe between
myself and the remaining guards—and started running towards the
boathouse.

Bullets whizzed in my general direction, but
the guards were firing blindly and missing badly.

I made it to the boathouse unscathed.
Clinging to the outer wall, I passed around the rear of the
building, turned the corner and started creeping up the far side,
towards the water.

The gunfire stopped. At first, I figured the
guards had run through their clips and the lull would be brief. But
even after they would have replaced their clips with fresh ones,
the beach remained silent.

Something was up. Perhaps they were waiting
for reinforcements before coming after me. Or maybe they were
stalking me silently, hoping to catch me off-guard.

I decided to find out.

Set head-high into the side wall of the
boathouse ten yards in front of me was a window. I crept up to it,
lifted my head and had a look.

Through the still-open door on the other
side of the building I could see the two remaining body armor-less
guards coming around the front of the drainpipe. It was obvious
they were poorly trained; they moved in jerky spurts, their heads
swiveled continuously, their steps were too long and their legs
unsteady.

The one on the left whispered something to
the one on the right and then they split up, one angling towards
the front of the boathouse while the other moved towards the back.
The guard with the body armor was nowhere to be seen. He was
probably hiding somewhere, having sent out the other two guards to
keep me occupied until reinforcements arrived.

I ducked back down and quickly started
moving along the side wall towards the rear of the boathouse. Once
at the corner, I dropped to a knee and slipped out of the straps
holding the MP5/10 to my body. I shifted the weapon to a
left-handed grip, and brought the stock to my left shoulder.
Leading with the barrel of the firearm, I peered around the
corner.

Two seconds later, I saw the tip of the
barrel of an AK-47. I snapped my head back, pulled my weapon out of
view.

Figuring that the guard would continue along
the back of the building once he saw it was clear, I stood up,
counted to three, and leaned around the corner.

The guard was fifteen feet away.

Before he could react, I squeezed the
trigger, sending a three-shot burst towards him.

The rounds caught the guard in the shoulder,
altering the barrel angle of his AK-47 to the right just as it
started expending bullets.

I corrected my aim and fired again. One of
the rounds from the second burst caught the guard in the base of
the throat. He sprawled backwards and to the ground, blood gushing
from the wound.

I had just finished switching the MP5/10 to
my more accurate, right-handed grip when the other guard came
flying around the front corner, moving far too quickly to keep his
body under control.

I brought the stock to my right shoulder and
fired, dropping him with yet another three-shot burst to the
chest.

Two more guards down. One to go.

The question now became: what next? Make a
break for it or take care of the final guard.

Part of me was tempted to leave him be and
try to sneak back into the ocean without being seen, but the risks
were high. If he did see me go into the water, I’d have no chance
to make it all the way out to my escape boat without being gunned
down when reinforcements arrived.

On the other hand, if I tried to hunt him
down, it might give the reinforcements time to get here before I
had a chance to finish the job. And then I’m be similarly
fucked.

Two choices, neither ideal. But whatever my
choice was, I needed to make it quickly. Taking time to think about
it was the worst thing I could do.

Fuck it. I’d go after him. And if
reinforcements arrived before I killed him, then I’d just have to
take them out too. Killing people is what I was trained to do.

I quickly made my way around the back of the
boathouse, picking up the AK-47 that had belonged to the dead man
as I passed. Unlike the 10mm bullets fired by the MP5/10, the
7.63x39 rounds in the AK-47 would have no problem penetrating the
body armor worn by the last remaining guard.

With the AK-47 in firing position, I peered
around the corner of the boathouse and scanned the shore.

Nothing.

I took a deep breath, then crouched down and
ran from the cover of the boathouse to the edge of the drainpipe.
Keeping my body lower than the top of the drainpipe, I made my way
down towards the shore, stopping three feet from the edge of the
pipe.

I wasn’t sure exactly where the last
remaining guard was hiding, but based on the last few minutes of
action, I assumed he was somewhere on the other side of the
pipe.

What I needed to do was figure out a way to
flush him out if he was there, but not give my own position away if
he wasn’t.

After a moment of thought, inspiration
struck, in the form of a trick one of our Commanding Officers had
played on us during BUD/S.

I reached into my vest and pulled the last
flashbang from one of the pockets, but instead of activating it, I
tossed it over the top of the drainpipe without pulling the
pin.

The ruse worked perfectly.

I heard a muffled curse in Spanish, followed
by the sound of someone moving quickly. Stifling the urge to smile,
I stepped around the front of the pipe and saw the last remaining
guard running in the opposite direction, no more than ten yards
away.

I sighted the AK-47 and squeezed the
trigger, sending a flurry of bullets into the back of the fleeing
guard. The man stumbled to the ground, dropping the Uzi as he
fell.

I slung the rifle across my shoulder and
started walking towards him, pulling the Glock from my thigh
holster as I moved forward. Although the bullets from the AK-47 had
penetrated the body armor, the guard wasn’t dead yet. He was trying
to crawl forward, moaning and coughing with every movement.

It took me three seconds to catch up with
the fallen guard. Without saying a word, I pointed the Glock at the
back of his head and fired, putting him out of his misery.

By now, I could hear the sounds of vehicles
and panicked shouting coming from the direction of Montoya’s house.
I still had enough time to get to the ocean without being seen, but
I had to start moving right now.

I turned, ran to the end of the dock, and
dove into the water.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR