SeaChange (17 page)

Heidi was working to strip off the blood-spattered body
armor when Jake came over to unfasten the Velcro straps. “Stop fighting with
it,” he said. “You’ll only make the arm bleed more.”

“Know-it-all,” she grumbled.

Jake finished peeling the vest off and laughed. “I wish. If
I knew everything, I’d know how to keep you safe.”

* * * * *

“Remember. You promised. Stay. In. The. Car.” Jake leaned in
the drivers’ window and tapped Heidi on the nose.

“I’m not going anywhere. But you be careful too, okay. These
are nasty-assed guys you’re going up against.”

She had his nine millimeter on the seat beside her, and had
traded his vest, which Jake now wore, for the Kevlar T-shirt. He knew this was
the closest she was going to come to staying out of the raid on the drug dealer’s
hacienda in an isolated little valley just outside of town. But damn it, he’d
felt
the blow when the bullet struck her arm. He’d known instantly that she’d been
hit, and he’d damn near thrown up. The psychic bond forming between them was
terrifying, and something he’d have to address later, but right now he wanted
to get through this without having to worry about her on top of everything
else.

Wen’s ex-SEAL team had already taken care of the four
perimeter sentries, and Wen was handling the security system. Miguel Lopez, Wen’s
contact from the Mexican government, had brought three men with him, so they
had three teams of three, one going in each of the three entrances of the main
house, plus Miguel who was driving the electronics van, on a side road on the
other side of the house. Wen and Steve had supplied topnotch firepower. From
what the prisoners had said,
el jefe
rarely kept more than a dozen men
on the inside at any given time. The odds weren’t bad, and they weren’t going
to get any better.

Jake and Steve were assigned the rear entrance, through the
walled backyard. At Wen’s signal over their communicators, Jake scaled the
wall, carefully snipping the coil of concertina wire before he scrambled over
the top and tucked the wire cutters back in his pocket. Steve materialized
beside him and handed over a silenced Glock, just as Wen appeared next to him.

Be easier if I could teleport like Steve—or whatever it
is that Wen does.
Unfortunately, Jake knew Steve couldn’t carry the weight
of another person when he poofed from place to place, which left Jake going
over the wall the old-fashioned way. “You have any idea where they’re located
within the house?” he whispered.

“No.” Wen motioned for them to move up around the pool and
toward the house. They stayed low, in the shadow of the wall, screened slightly
by the row of palm trees that circled the pool. A layer of cloud cover had
rolled in, casting the yard into mist and shadows. “There’s a living area just
off the patio—nobody’s in there, so it’s a good entry point.”

The plan was a simple one—get Jake, Wen and Steve inside, to
do as much reconnaissance as possible. Wen’s and Jake’s superhuman hearing was
a plus, as was Steve’s ability to teleport and magick locks. Then if things
went south, the two strike teams would be ready to bust the doors down and pour
in the front and side entries.

They reached the patio, so Steve popped to the inside and
undid the latch, letting the others in. Wen’s form shimmered next to Jake, and
Jake knew his friend was functionally invisible to anyone who didn’t
specifically know he was there. Jake really wished this was another amphibious
operation. Here on land he was at a distinct disadvantage to the other two. But
this one was for Heidi and there was no way he was willing to let her down or
sit quietly on the boat while his friends handled the dirty work. He was here,
and he’d pull his own weight.

The large sitting room was full of dark, heavy furniture,
with a big, empty hearth. The building was old-style Spanish construction with
heavy wooden doors and foot-thick adobe walls. Miguel’s satellite photos showed
the building was a large square with an open courtyard in the center. Not only
did they have to watch for dangerous criminals, but the big question was where
they kept the prisoner. All the captured drug smugglers had said was he was in
one of the interior bedrooms. That meant on one of the two sides of the house,
giving them a fifty-fifty chance of starting out in the right direction.

“Most of the activity seems in the right-hand wing,” Wen
whispered after he’d vanished again for a few moments. “There is a billiard
room with four men in it playing pool, and another three are drinking in the
kitchen, which is at the front right corner. Finally, there are two men in an
office, on the left front corner. One of those is Velasquez, the man you spoke
with in the cantina. The blinds are down in the rest of the rooms, so I couldn’t
tell if there were more in any of them, but the layout of the house is simple.
Each room opens directly onto the courtyard, except for two at the rear corners
of the house. If I were them, that is where I would keep a prisoner.”

“Okay, let’s start with the left rear corner then,” Jake
reasoned. Less activity meant less chance of being caught before they found
what they were looking for. If they were really lucky, they’d get out of here
tonight without a firefight, but somehow Jake didn’t have a whole lot of hope
of things working out that well.

They slipped through the empty sitting room to the glass
doors opening into the courtyard. A covered gallery ran all the way around the
square, providing access to the rooms, which all had glass doors here and
smaller windows on the exterior of the house. The courtyard was a lush garden
filled with tropical flowers and succulents, crowned with a large fountain in
the center. It was also well lit. Steve focused for a moment, then one
strategic floodlight was extinguished, casting deeper shadows on the rear left corner.
Moving slowly and sticking to the shadows, the three men moved toward the next
set of windows.

The blinds were open in the fairly small bedroom immediately
next to the sitting area. One man lay asleep on the double bed, snoring loudly.

“Got it.” Steve popped into the room and injected the man
with a hypodermic needle, then reappeared in the courtyard. “He’ll sleep for a
couple more hours. There’s a bathroom and a closet. Bathroom also opens into
the next room. It’s empty.”

The next room was the last on this side, so they moved up to
the first set of windows on the left hand wing. Again, no light glowed from
this room, but this time all the blinds were drawn, making it impossible to see
in.

“Here we go again,” Steve muttered, just before he
disappeared.

“How many more times can you do that in one night?” Jake
whispered into his com. He knew magic was taxing on the wizard, and didn’t want
Steve to wear himself out.

“Enough,” Steve replied as he slid open the glass door and
slipped back out a few minutes later. “This looks like the big guy’s personal
quarters. It’s a suite, and there’s a fortune in watches and jewelry tossed on
top of the dresser. The corner is a big walk-in-closet, easily big enough to
use as a cell, but there’s nothing in there but custom-tailored suits and Gucci
loafers.”

“So the other side might be the same setup,” Jake reasoned. “Guess
we backtrack.”

* * * * *

Heidi listened to every word the men spoke into their coms.
The trio of local men at the side service entrance to the hacienda had chased
off a couple coyotes, and those in front, the Americans, were getting
impatient. She also heard Jake and Steve move toward the corner suite opposite
Velasquez’s private quarters.
Please let Brad be in there.
She didn’t
really give a damn about Velasquez, as long as they found Brad and got him out
of there without anyone getting hurt.

A sharp rap on the passenger side window of the car startled
her into shrieking. She turned just as Jake’s voice whispered her name over the
communicator.

Standing at the window was a grinning man, naked except for
a pair of unzipped jeans, pointing a gun at her through the window. Before she
could say anything, she heard a loud click from the open window on the driver’s
side. She swiveled her head to see another naked chest, and looked straight
into the barrel of another gun.

“
Hola, señorita
. You are lost, maybe? Or just looking
for a good time?” The accent was thick, and the tone sent chills crawling down
Heidi’s spine. Smells of sweat and cheap tequila emanated from the man pressed
just inches from the window, making Heidi swallow hard to fight off a wave of
nausea.

How had he known to speak English? Once again she felt like
she had a neon sign on her forehead blinking out the word “Gringa”. She forced
her vocal cords to function. “I was just…looking around, and my car ran out of
gas,” Heidi said. “I’m waiting for my friends to come get me.” She tried to
gauge whether or not they’d spotted the gun on the seat beside her, slowly
inching her hand toward the weapon.

“Do not move that hand any further, unless you wish to lose
it,” the man drawled. “My brother and I will be happy to fuck you with or
without it, so it does not matter to me.”

Jake’s voice was getting frantic in Heidi’s ear, while Wen’s
broke in, urging him to remain calm. “Let us know what you can, Heidi. Allow
them to bring you into the house, if that is their plan. Front team? Try to get
eyes on the car, keep us informed of what is happening. Do not engage unless
you can guarantee success.”

Just knowing there was a plan gave Heidi the courage she
needed to stay calm. “What do you want?”

“I thought I just told you,
chica
. Not very bright,
are you? Oh well, brains make no difference when you’re bent over the bed with
my dick in you.” As the second gunman circled around the hood, the first
stepped back and used his gun to gesture at her to get out of the car. “Come
along now,
puta.
”

“Where are you taking me?” Moving as slowly as she could
while appearing to obey, Heidi opened the door and stepped out onto the gravel
road.

“Stop playing stupid.” The second gunman sneered. “Did you
bring the ransom?” He grabbed her forearm, hitting her injury, which had been
hidden under the long-sleeved denim shirt she wore open over Jake’s Kevlar T-shirt.

She yelped in pain, gasping for breath. “Ransom?” It took
her a second to realize what he meant as they started pushing her toward the
house. Her sneakered feet crunched on the gravel, while both of her captors
seemed to be barefoot. “Oh, the ransom. Well, I don’t have it with me, but I
came to try to make payment arrangements.”

“What is he to you? Your lover?” Number one seemed to have a
much dirtier mind than his brother, who was focused more on the money.

“Ummm…yes,” she lied. “Of course.”

“Not for long, I think,” said number one. “Soon it will be
our names you scream in pleasure.”

“She’s fucking somebody,” the other man commented. “I can
smell a man’s stink all over her.”

Well, that was kind of creepy-weird.

“We have visual,” said one of the men on the porch. “Two
men, both with handguns, marching her toward the front door.”

“Shit,” whispered another voice. “Shifters. Why didn’t I
pick up that scent earlier?”

Shifters? What the hell were they talking about?

“We’ve got to find Van Dorn before the shit hits the fan,”
Steve hissed. “Wonder Boy, you with us?”

“What? We need to get out front,” Jake said.

“He’s right,” Wen argued. “The guards may have orders to
kill him if there’s any problem. So we need to take out his guards before they
bring Heidi into the house. Steve? You want to go inside?”

“I’m on it.” There was a short silence, then the quiet cough
of a silenced weapon, followed by one louder shot. After another cough, Steve
spoke into the com. “Two men, both down. I’m going into the closet to check for
the prisoner, but it looks like this was a guard room.”

“We’ve got a pair of coyote shifters out front,” one of the
men from the front walk said. “Possibly the same ones the guys on the side
chased off. I’ll bet they got suspicious and went looking for the getaway car.”

“They’re gonna know we’re here,” said his partner.

Coyote shifters
? Heidi’s brain whirled. Well that
might explain the smell comment. And the scruffiness. Coyotes weren’t known for
their grooming habits.

“One of them has a handgun jammed into her side,” said the
third. “I can’t chance a shot.”

“We’ve got Brad Van Dorn,” Jake said into the microphone. “He’s
unconscious but alive.”

“The dead guards in here were also coyotes.” Wen said. “But
I scent humans in here as well. Perhaps there were just two teams of shifters
on guard duty.”

Heidi’s legs nearly gave out on her and she stumbled. Coyote
number two saved her from falling with another grab at her injured arm. “Ow,”
she yelled, as the pain washed away the headiness of her relief.

“What’s wrong with your arm?”

Heidi didn’t want to answer him; she was busy listening to
Jake, Wen and Steve analyze Brad’s condition and try to figure out how to get
him to safety. Apparently he had a splint on one leg and a number of bandages
all over his body, but nothing that looked life-threatening. The
unconsciousness seemed to be drug-induced, which was probably a good thing.

Coyote Two grabbed her arm again, making her shriek. “What’s
wrong with you?”

Heidi’s temper snapped. “I was in an accident a few days
ago, you jerk. I’ve got cuts and bruises all over the place. Now let go of my
damn sore arm.”

“She’s a feisty one,
hermano.
We’re going to have
some fun, once
el jefe
gets through with her.” That was number one
again. Ugggh. He seemed to have a one-track mind.

“They’re taking her around to the side door,” said one of
the ex-SEALs.