Scarred Souls (Team Zulu #4)

Chapter 1

1

VAUGHN

Outskirts of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

T he target property lay half a klick away across a dusty plain. There were no lights on inside the derelict cinder-block house. The only illumination came from the waxing moon, which gave us a crystal clear view of the target when amplified by night-vision goggles. A few wrecked cars littered one side of the ramshackle property, and out back, a dilapidated workshop looked ready to crumble with a stiff breeze.

We’d passed no other houses on our two-hour hike through scrub and rocky terrain. Arriving on foot gave us the element of surprise. The Black Hawk and several Humvees remained at our infil location and were ready to be called in at a moment’s notice.

The suspected stash house might look abandoned with its boarded-up windows, but our intel suggested otherwise. And since the cartel was a bunch of slippery motherfuckers, we needed to be prepared for anything.

But this wasn’t our first rodeo. Far from it.

I hit the button on my radio. “TOC, any movement?”

Sage, who was our drone pilot and intelligence specialist for this op, responded right away. “Thermal camera is picking up a coyote and her pups on the other side of the ridge. Besides that, you guys are the only warm bodies around.”

Go time.

Our team of a dozen mercenaries moved into position. Six approached the house from the front and six from the rear.

I’d taken point on this op because I’d discovered the stash house through my sources and brought it to our team leader, Brandon. Ever since the PCC—the Pacific Coast Cartel—had become Mexico’s dominant narco organization, locations like this one were getting harder to find. Not because the trafficking of humans, drugs, and weapons wasn’t happening. The cartel was just getting craftier at hiding it since we’d started our raids.

We approached on steady feet and with rifles at the ready. But the house was quiet. Too quiet.

We had no idea of the internal layout or what we’d encounter inside. Despite the number of times we’d carried out ops exactly like this back in our military days, there was always an element of risk when entering a building. IEDs, hostages, hidden shooters. There were any number of traps we might face, but we were as prepared as we could be.

“Execute, execute,” I said into the radio.

My blood brother, Owen, used bolt cutters to remove a rusty padlock from the front door, and after one solid kick, we had access.

Moving with seamless precision, we swept into the house and divided into pairs. Owen came with me. Behind us were Kane and his twin brother, Wyatt, and after them, Brandon and Shep. The other team of six held position, monitoring the back door in case any narco rodents scattered upon our entry.

Owen and I entered the first room on the left—a kitchen. Empty. Dust motes and an unidentifiable rancid stench filled the air. The dented refrigerator door hung open. Dirty dishes covered the countertops, and a torn bag of trash sat in a corner.

“Clear,” I yelled.

Owen and I filed into the next room. A bedroom. Nothing but a yellow-stained mattress and filthy clothes strewn across the floorboards.

“Clear,” I called out again.

The rest of the team echoed the same call as they went from room to room.

Less than thirty seconds after entering, we’d gone through the entire house and had our answer. The cartel had split with their goods. Either that or my intel was bogus.

I flipped up my night-vision goggles and rubbed grit from my eyes.

Dammit. The last four ops like this, we’d recovered over a dozen women each time. This felt like a failure. At the very least, a missed opportunity. If the cartel had been using this place as a holding house for trafficking victims, they were long gone.

I turned to leave the room, and the floorboards creaked as they flexed. I paused, backed up, and walked over the spot beside the mattress again. The boards dipped when I put my weight on them.

“What is it?” Owen asked.

“Not sure. Help me move this mattress.”

We hauled it across the room and leaned it against the wall. I flicked on my flashlight and inspected the floor. Nothing obvious, but when I crouched to feel around, something shiny caught my eye. Fresh nails in the floorboards.

I hit the button on the radio. “Someone bring a crowbar to the bedroom at the front of the house.”

Brandon arrived and pulled the tool from the side of his pack. “What have you got?”

With the flashlight between my teeth, I didn’t answer but got to work prying the boards from the joists. As the strips came away, I tossed them aside.

The smell hit me like a punch to the face.

Body odor. Human waste. Fear.

I swallowed down the urge to vomit when unstoppable images flashed through my mind. Hands reaching for me. Others holding me down. A dull blade against my skin, dirty from the dozens of times it’d already sliced me up. Searing pain as my torturers cut through flesh. And the incessant flickering of the fluorescent light above my cage.

My breaths quickened, and I scrubbed a hand over my face. The scars that covered my arms, legs, and torso tingled as if the flashbacks brought them to life. My head swam. The pounding beneath my ribs skyrocketed.

You can have your panic attack later. Suck it up, and focus on the damn job.

I shone the light into the hole I’d made. From the corner of a concealed basement, a dozen or more grimy, terrified faces stared back at me. The women’s hands were restrained and their mouths gagged.

Captive. Bound. Helpless.

Sourness pooled in my mouth as a fresh bout of nausea washed over me.

Dammit. I couldn’t do this.

Without uttering a word, I staggered back and handed the flashlight to Brandon.

“Good work, Brother,” he said. “We can take it from here.”

He didn’t clap me on the shoulder like he would anyone else in our team. Despite Brandon being one of my oldest friends and the man who’d spearheaded the mission to rescue me, the contact would be barely tolerable.

Since my recovery, not a single soul had laid their hands on my scars without suffering repercussions.

If they were lucky, the rabid beast I turned into let them off with a vicious warning.

If they weren’t, they ended up in the hospital.

Owen approached my side. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

I nodded even as the urge to retch became unstoppable, but my brother knew the drill.

Barely able to breathe, I quickly strode for the exit. My pulse thumped inside my skull. A cold sweat broke out across my skin. I burst through the door into the balmy night air, not making it two steps before purging the contents of my gut. More came up a moment later. The acidic bile burned in my throat. I coughed and wiped my mouth, then braced my hands on my knees.

Fuck .

I really needed to get my shit together.

A lone coyote howled in the distance. Over the radio, someone called in the Black Hawk and Humvees for exfil.

I stood and propped my hands behind my head, drawing in ragged breaths while staring at the moonlit ranges in the distance.

This had been my life since being rescued six years ago. Sometimes, days went by between panic attacks. Sometimes months. But an unexpected touch or anything that brought forth stark memories of my time in captivity always triggered an episode.

The Black Hawk arrived first. A half dozen Humvees ten minutes later. I sat at the open door of the helo, smoking a cigarette while the team helped victims into vehicles. I felt useless. But you never knew how people responded when they were scared. Some withdrew. Others clung to their rescuers like they were drowning, and I couldn’t risk that happening.

Brandon approached with his combat helmet under one arm and his rifle slung over his shoulder. He ran a hand through his sweaty dark hair. “You all right?”

I took a drag on my cigarette. “Fine.”

“You know, if you wanted to skip the next op, no one would?—”

“I said I’m fine.” Snapping at Brandon wasn’t helpful. He was only looking out for me, the way he always had. I rested my hands on my thighs. “I don’t need to be sidelined. What I need is to stay in the fight so we can take these sons of bitches down.”

The thought of more trafficking victims spending another moment in captivity made fury burn through my veins. It was safe to say my firsthand experience of being held against my will had left me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

Brandon nodded like he understood, but if I kept losing my cool during ops, he’d pull me from the team until I was squared away. One way or another, I couldn’t keep going like this.

I gestured to the decrepit house where the team were bringing the last few women outside. “How many?”

“Fifteen in total. Mostly from Honduras. Owen translated for those who were willing to talk. They said their captors had scorpion tattoos on their necks.” Pacific Coast Cartel ink. “They’d paid to cross the border. The men and old women went.”

“And those bastards kept the girls.” I blew out a stream of smoke and tossed the butt into the dirt.

Drugs had always been a cash cow for the PCC, but nowadays, human trafficking was big business. It was the only product with the potential for multiple earnings. Undocumented immigrants who got deported had to pay the cartel each time they attempted a crossing. When they finally made it, their US-based relatives were often extorted to secure their release. And sometimes, those narco cocksuckers took desperate people’s hard-earned money with the promise of a new life in America, then forced them into sex slavery.

And it wasn’t just undocumented immigrants being taken. Every day, organized-crime syndicates from around the planet plucked vulnerable women from the streets and sold them to the highest bidder. You want a girl with green eyes? Easy. A virgin? No problem. If you had the money, there were no limits to what or whom you could buy on the black market.

This world was a messed-up place.

It sickened me, but it turned Brandon’s stomach even more because his sister had been a trafficking victim. When he’d called me a couple of years ago and told me he was putting together a team to take down the assholes responsible, I’d jumped at the opportunity.

“How’d they get away?” I asked.

“Kane found a tunnel in the workshop. It led to a hatch roughly a klick south of here. Tire tracks in the dirt. They must’ve had an escape vehicle covered with camo netting or the drone would’ve picked it up.”

I grunted and lit another cigarette.

Cartels and their damn tunnels.

Brandon leaned against the side of the helo. “If you want to take a real crack at catching Espinoza, I might have something for you.”

Carlos Espinoza. The elusive boss of the Pacific Coast Cartel. Finding him and putting his head on a spike was our ultimate goal.

“I’m interested.” Cutting the head off the snake was the first step in toppling the most powerful cartel Mexico had ever known. “What have you got?”

“The cartel is expanding its fentanyl production, which means it’s importing more precursor chemicals from overseas. The authorities have been making busts at ports, so now, cargo ships sailing along the Southern Pacific Coast are dropping drums overboard. I intercepted correspondence that suggests the cartel is recruiting fishermen from small coastal villages in Oaxaca to pick them up. I want you to head there and be our eyes and ears.”

I snorted. “Is this some bullshit ploy to get me to take R & R? Send me to a quiet palm-lined beach, and when my investigation comes up empty, tell me to stay a few extra days and sip cocktails?”

“No,” Brandon replied with mild irritation. “This is a legit opportunity, and you’re the best guy for the job. Fluent in Spanish. Local connections. You know the region better than anyone on the team. Not to mention you can fly yourself in and out without drawing attention.”

Plus, there was the fact that I was a Latino half-breed, which meant my presence raised fewer eyebrows than my teammates’.

“I’ll go, but I’m taking the King Air.” The turbo prop would be perfect for short, bumpy runways, and it was a hell of a lot of fun to fly.

Brandon’s brow pinched. “It’s brand-new.”

“Then it’s time I popped her cherry.”

“Fine.” He folded his arms. “Take the King Air, but be gentle.”

I grinned and blew smoke into the sky. “I can’t promise that, but I can promise I’ll show her a good time.”

Brandon only rolled his eyes. The last time I’d taken one of the team’s civilian aircraft to Mexico, I’d had to leave in a hurry, and the fuselage had received a bunch of scratches and bullet holes. I swore I didn’t go looking for trouble, but trouble always found me.

“Let me get this straight.” I tucked my lighter into my pocket. “You want me to find which villages are picking up the drums of chemicals, and when the cartel comes to collect, follow them?”

“No. That’ll just lead us to another lab. I want you to follow the money.” I frowned in confusion, so Brandon added, “Find out who’s paying the fishermen, then find out who’s paying them. Do you see where I’m going with this?”

“Yeah. It’ll lead us up the chain of command until we get to someone important, and they might pay a visit to Espinoza’s compound.” Which we suspected was hidden in the mountains, where cartels often sought seclusion.

“You got it. Call me if you need any help from your friendly neighborhood black hat.”

Sourcing satellite images, tapping into security systems, intercepting phone calls and emails were easy tasks for a hacker with Brandon’s skills.

“Copy that.”

Brandon hooked his thumb through a belt loop. “Any word from la Mano Roja?”

La Mano Roja, which translated to the Red Hand , was a Mexican outlaw militia mostly made up of former army, policía, and federales. The hired guns provided the cartel’s muscle and transportation. We were hoping they’d make contact with me soon because I’d put feelers out letting them know I was available to move product.

Why would they ask me to do that? Because years ago, when I’d first gotten out of Team Zulu—the black-ops unit where I’d met Brandon and most of the guys on our mercenary crew—I’d hauled my sorry ass south of the border and consumed enough booze, blow, and women to make a strung out rocker look like a lightweight.

But the most questionable life choice I’d made during that time was smuggling drugs. When I’d crossed paths with narcos looking for a pilot lacking both morals and regard for personal safety, it’d seemed like an easy way to make some quick cash to fund my increasingly debauched lifestyle. I’d excelled at the job and made some shady contacts along the way. If I went undercover and started moving product for la Mano Roja again, it could give me access to locations and intel that had so far eluded us.

I took a drag on my cigarette. “Nothing yet, but when they have a big shipment, they’ll call.”

“Good. Make your way to the coast as soon as you’re able.” Brandon let out a heavy sigh. “This should go without saying, but since it’s you, I’m going to say it anyway. Try not to kill anyone.”

I clicked my tongue. “Why are you so determined to make these jobs boring?”

“We don’t need heat coming down on us because you’ve left a trail of bodies in your wake.”

“If you’re talking about what happened at the bar in Veracruz, they deserved it.”

Those scumbags had chosen death the moment they’d slipped date-rape pills into girls’ drinks.

“You’re right. They deserved it. All I’m asking is that you keep murder as a last resort. I mean it, Decker. Play nice.”

Don’t kill people. Be nice. Who did he think he was talking to? There were too many slimeballs in the world to let them go unchecked, and I was happy to be the one to take them out of the gene pool.

The stash house before us was a perfect example. It was a relief that we’d saved these women from their nightmare, but their captors had escaped, and it wouldn’t be long before they stole another batch of women to sell. If they weren’t stopped, more lives would be ruined.

I’d heed Brandon’s warning, but my mercy would only extend so far, because right now, the animal within me needed to sate its caged fury on the nearest asshole.