Authors: Michelle Gagnon
“And here you are.”
“Yes. Here I am.” Calderon sighed.
After a long pause, Flores spoke again. “They told me you cut a deal for more money with a competing cartel.”
“Did they? Well. That would have been clever of me.” Calderon folded his legs and clasped his wrists around his shins. “So, what now? You kill me, and they set you free?”
“Something like that.” Flores twisted his wrist, sending the knife in a slow arc. “What I can’t figure out is why they want me to do it. They could shoot you themselves.”
Calderon half smiled. “You’re not the only one Gente offered a deal. When he called me in, he proposed forming a collaboration with Tyr for client lists and information. If I refused, he’d kill me. That’s why there haven’t been any negotiations, no proof of life. If I agreed, he said they’d make it appear as if I escaped on my own.”
“What
“No, of course. Such a deal would compromise everything I’ve built Tyr to stand for.” Calderon rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. This was taking too long, dawn was breaking. “We must come up with a plan.”
Flores scoffed. “What, other than killing you?”
“Clearly you’re not going to be able to do it, amigo. Soldiers these days…” Calderon shook his head. “They can bomb a village to oblivion, but are unable to kill a man face-to-face. That’s what happens when warfare is conducted at a remove. But if you don’t complete the task, we both have a problem.”
Flores lowered the knife. “Fine,” he said after a minute. “What do we do?”
“General Gente is first and foremost a businessman,” Calderon said. “I’ll request a meeting to tell him I’ve changed my mind.”
“You seriously think that will change anything? That he’ll just let us go free?”
“No, but it buys us some time. Hopefully enough for you to get us out of here.”
Nineteen
Kelly skirted mounds of trash the size of large hills. She paused frequently, shifting course a few times as she tried to pinpoint the source of the screams. They had increased in volume, then abruptly abated. The last had been a few minutes ago.
The first rays of dawn were breaking over the dump, casting everything in an oddly ethereal glow. Kelly spun slowly, trying to get her bearings. She was relatively certain the screams were coming from the west. She had the disconcerting realization that she had no idea how to get out of this maze, but shoved it away: she’d figure that out later. Now, she had to find Stefan—if it even was him, and not some other thug trolling the dump for victims. In a place like this, crime was probably a way of life. If the federales didn’t respond quickly to an incident like their shootout in Iztapalapa the other day, it was hard to imagine they’d police the city dump. All the more reason to be careful, she reminded herself.
Kelly switched her grip on the H&K. Her fingers ached, but she didn’t dare holster it. She pivoted in a slow circle. The silence was broken by a fluttering of wings: vultures, soaring past above her. She repressed a shiver. The morning air was damp, and she was only wearing a thin Gore-Tex shell over her T-shirt.
A clattering, off to her right.
Kelly picked her way carefully, trying not to make a sound as she circled another mountain of trash. On the opposite side, about fifteen feet away, stood another shanty. She approached slowly. Despite the cold, a trickle of sweat slid down her back. The door hung open. It appeared abandoned, but something was off.
Kelly nearly jumped out of her skin as a loud crackle pierced the morning stillness. Glancing down, she cursed silently: she’d stepped on an empty potato-chip bag. She lifted her foot to step over it. Chanced a quick look over her shoulder—and saw a gian approaching at warp speed.
Kelly tucked her chin in time to temper the impact, but the force of the blow still knocked her to the ground. She landed hard on something sharp and gasped. Above her loomed an enormous figure, face cast in shadow by the sun rising behind him. The gun had flown from her hand when she fell. Kelly scrambled toward it. The man anticipated the move, lunging forward and kicking it away.
He turned and grinned at her.
“Agent Jones. Lovely to see you again.”
Ellis Brown was not a happy man.
It had taken far too long for them to get their asses out here. Someone had cleared out their usual local arms dealer, and he had a pretty good idea who that was. Goddamn Syd Clement and her pissant outfit. He’d been forced to make do with inferior equipment, which rankled him. He’d given his men orders to shoot on sight if they encountered the other team, but so far there hadn’t been any sign of them.
Making matters worse, the closer they got to the site of this supposed prison camp, the more the cartel guy clammed up. All night long he’d led them on a wild-goose chase, up and down two other mountains before claiming this was the right one.
Either the camp didn’t exist and this was just a stalling technique—or he was leading them to his cartel’s den to be slaughtered. Both good reasons why Brown hadn’t wanted to rush in half-cocked. Linus Smiley showing up had thrown a wrench in the works. Snide little bastard began issuing orders, as if he had a clue what to do in the theater. Boy Scouts had more military training than that sniveling pencil pusher. Brown took comfort in the fact that Smiley appeared completely miserable. His fancy khaki outfit was soaked in mud, and he’d badly twisted an ankle five minutes in. He limped along at the rear, followed by the last of Brown’s men.
Brown wiped sweat off his face with the back of his arm. What he’d always admired about Cesar Calderon was that, like any good commander, he understood how to hold the reins. There were times when you had to give your men some slack, allowing them to do their jobs unimpeded. Cesar would never have shown up in the middle of a mission, undermining his authority with his men. Brown had been sorely tempted to put a bullet in Smiley’s skull last night. If they didn’t recover Cesar, and Smiley took over Tyr…he didn’t even let himself think about it.
The cartel guy stopped short, and they all paused. His hands were zip tied in front of him. They’d cleaned him up a little in case they encountered any federales on the drive here, but he still looked like hell, his face a mass of hamburger. He turned to Valencia, the team member acting as his translator, and jabbered something.
Valencia looked askance at Brown. “He says this is wrong, too. Thinks it might be the next hill.”
“Tell him he’s this close to spending a few quality hours with a blowtorch,” Brown snapped.
“Maybe we should head back to that town we passed,” Smiley said in a quavering voice. “I could use some sleep before we tackle another—”
“We’ll sleep after we find the boss.” Three long strides forward and Brown towered over the cartel g. The Mexican shied away, but Brown grabbed his jacket, yanking him close. “Listen, you little shit, I’m done screwing around. I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, but if this story about a camp isn’t complete bullshit, you’re going to lead me there. And if you don’t, I’ll start by slicing off your tongue.”
The guy’s eyes went wide, and Brown smelled urine. He glanced at the telltale stain on the guy’s pants and grinned. “Guess you don’t have to translate that,” he said to Valencia.
“No, sir.” Valencia stood slightly to the side.
“Tell him he has five minutes to give us a location. Any longer, we tie him to a tree and have some fun with him.”
Syd lay on her back, hands crossed behind her head as she examined the concrete swirls comprising her ceiling. A mass of papers surrounded her on the bed. Not that she needed them anymore; after going over them for hours they were fully committed to memory. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything there she could use.
She rolled onto her stomach and dangled her feet off the side of the bed, sighing. Funny, usually she would appreciate a challenge like this. Syd loved being out in the field, facing seemingly insurmountable obstacles. But for some reason, what happened with Jake last night had taken her heart out of the operation.
Syd let her mind wander back over it, remembering the details. The way his tongue tasted when he kissed her. His hands, the rough skin around the knuckles. Going in, she hadn’t really expected anything to happen. But in the aftermath of the jungle, with all that adrenaline still churning through her body…she’d learned a long time ago there were only two surefire ways to dissipate it: fighting or sex. And she generally preferred the latter option.
Strangely it wasn’t working. The adrenaline was gone, but she still couldn’t sleep. Syd knew it had probably been a mistake—Jake was the type of guy who would read more into what happened than it actually meant. Right now he was probably castigating himself, she thought with a snort. Seducing one of the other team members might have been a smarter move, although in this day and age that opened her up to a sexual-harassment suit. She laughed at the thought—how had she of all people ended up in a job where that was a possibility?
The fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about Jake was seriously starting to irritate her.
Syd raised her toes up toward the ceiling in a stretch, then brought them down, landing on the floor. She used the momentum to fall forward in a plank position and pumped out twenty push-ups. Sitting back up, she eyed the shower curtain bar, wondering if it would hold her weight for pull-ups. Probably not. Yoga, maybe?
She ran a hand across the back of her neck, massaging out the kinks. Dawn was breaking, the light below her curtains was shifting from blue to yellow. Mark and Decker were probably holed up somewhere grabbing some sleep. It would be more dangerous for them to case the camp during daylight hours, but they intended to try. Maltz and Kane were en route to the city to re-up on supplies now that she had a better idea what the operation required. For the moment, there was nothing she could do.
So why the hell couldn’t she sleep?he considered knocking on Jake’s door. Maybe he’d be up for a game of cards, she told herself.
Syd quickly dismissed the idea. In reality, she knew exactly how he’d respond to her showing up. It would be awkward, him stuttering out a bunch of platitudes that amounted to “go away.” All because he was hung up on a redhead who had been useless even before she lost her leg.
Syd flopped back down on her mattress. It was ironic: the one time she didn’t want to be alone, there was no one who wanted to be with her.
Brown lay on his belly glaring through a pair of field binoculars. His little pep talk had worked. The cartel guy had drawn a map with shaking hands, swearing on his mother’s life that it would lead to the Zetas prison camp. And lo and behold, much to Brown’s surprise, the camp actually existed.
While he and Delano did some recon, the rest of his men were stationed a half mile back. Brown had taken the abduction of Cesar Calderon as a personal affront. The man had given him a job despite his spotty service record. Calderon had trusted him when most men in his position wouldn’t. If Brown had to march into that camp personally and kill every last motherfucking Zeta he encountered, he’d do it, and happily.
Based on what he was seeing, that might be what it was going to take. Brown had never actually had to deal with a Zetas camp before. Most of those cases were solved by Calderon over the phone. Now he understood why that seemed to be company policy. The place was a goddamn fortress.
His unit had already been reduced to fifteen able-bodied men after their run-in the other day. Combine that with the shit equipment, and the fact that one of those men was Sock…they might as well turn around and head back now.
“Remind me again why this is a snatch and grab?” Delano asked. “Seems like the perfect case for a ransom.” He was lying on his stomach beside Brown, holding up his own pair of binoculars.
“Ours is not to reason why, my friend.” But Brown had wondered the same thing. He’d heard through the grapevine that Tyr hadn’t even been sent proof of life, which was unprecedented. It got him thinking. Maybe a ransom had been requested, and Smiley refused to pony up. Smiley showing up here had only fueled his suspicions. If the situation had been reversed, he had no doubt that Smiley would already be home golfing, yet another of Cesar’s success stories. And the fact that Smiley had sent in another team first, led by an unseasoned leader, spoke volumes.
Brown intended to correct that mistake now. If Cesar was still alive, he was getting him home. And then they’d both deal with Smiley.
“We should send Valencia in as a guard. He’s got the best shot.”
Brown grunted in response. Delano was right. He had a few native Mexicans on his team but Valencia would be the best option. He had one of those faces people never glanced twice at. They’d have to try to match the Zetas’ camo as best they could, though from what he could see it looked pretty standard. There were enough guards down there that they couldn’t possibly all know each other by face. They’d wait for a shift change, then send him in on a quick recon mission. With any luck, the Tyr men were all being housed close together. If not, then Calderon was the priority. e was out, they’d save Flores, Riley and Decker if they could.
Brown scanned the camp one more time, making a mental note of how many guards were in each tower, how many were making rounds. “Okay.” He lowered the binoculars. “Let’s—”
Delano was frozen, staring at something behind him. Brown rolled slowly onto his side. His eyes followed the barrel of a rifle up to find a big guy gazing down at them.
Twenty
Kelly nearly passed out as another punch knocked her head back. Stefan had lifted her off the ground with one hand, and was beating her senseless with the other. The few kicks and punches she’d landed glanced off him, as disregarded as a gnat on an elephant. Her head throbbed. The temptation to succumb to the darkness was almost overwhelming. She wouldn’t be able to sustain many more blows.
Stefan’s grip on her throat tightened. He wrapped his other hand around the first and squeezed. Stars clouded her vision. Kelly clawed at his hands, but his grip was steel. He drew her close, his face inches away, fixated on her eyes as they bugged out of her head. He had an odd expression, a mix of stark curiosity and fascination. Kelly struggled, her chest contracting desperately for air. Everything tunneled down until all she could see was Stefan’s grinning face floating in a red haze.