Chapter Fifteen
Area Fifty-Two
Evening
Regrouping Time
T he whole way back to the concrete spectacle that they called their lair, Jagger tried to talk his wife out of going swamp spelunking. In fact, he’d begged, offered to shave his head bald, and do anything else that might convince her.
The whole time, Maura wasn’t having it.
She just shook her head, and Jagger was left cranky, having lost that battle.
The rest of the team tried to talk him down from the ledge, but Jagger was Jagger, and that was never going to change.
Clearly.
“I just think my wife should stay inside where she’s safe,” Jagger said, and that was met with a chorus of amusement over the coms.
From whom?
Dakota.
And.
Rogue.
At that very moment, both of their wives, one three days out from childbirth, and one pregnant, were in the vehicle with them.
They’d had to suck it up, and now, Jagger would too. Both men knew that was exactly why Maura wasn’t backing down.
No one liked gator baiting with their body in a swamp, but if she was going to make the other women do something, she sure as hell wasn’t backing down.
“Jagger, I’m going,” she said, as she navigated the blacked-out vehicle into the parking area under Area Fifty-Two .
Yep.
He was cranky.
“I’m going to be fine. We’re going to get to that location, and hopefully, he’s at it.”
Still, there was silence.
Well, the man was going to have to deal with it. Maura was a fair leader, and she wasn’t going to not do a job because of a baby on board.
Their child really only did two things.
It made her want to puke most mornings, and it made her want to cry at TV commercials with dogs.
That last one was a secret she planned on keeping. The chucklefucks would bust her balls over that.
Heading up the massive concrete stairs to the control room, no one was busting Jagger’s ass and with good reason.
He was a man on the edge.
Inside, they found everyone working.
Elizabeth was there, and she was beside MATE, and the rest of the team was working on tablets or laptops.
“We’re back,” Maura said as Dakota nearly plowed her over to get to Eve. “I missed you too,” she said, laughing.
“Sorry, Major,” he offered, hugging his wife.
The whole time, Eve was amused.
“My dude, I’m good. I mean, I need to breastfeed, but other than that, I’m great.”
Elizabeth was cuddling Cash as she was working.
Listen…
She wasn’t giving up a chance to hold a baby. They smelled like heaven, and were so damn cute.
“Did you guys find anything? I was busy on calls, and hiding Tulip from Zayn.”
The big man pointed at her.
“I don’t care if you have Marines up your ass. I’ll kick theirs to kick yours.”
She snorted.
Maura sat down, and Jagger was just as cranky as ever. Everyone just ignored him for their sanity’s sake.
“Focus,” Stella said, as she was holding her little one and their other two girls were playing not far away on the floor with some toys. “Who is hurting anyone here? The walls are like two feet thick,” she stated.
Maybe she had a point.
Maura broke it down for her.
“They are systematically hunting for that crypto key. They’ve killed off most of their platoon looking for it. The military needs to be made aware of the situation.”
Oh, Elizabeth knew.
“I’ve already spoken to some people at the Pentagon. They’ve been made aware about what is going on here. They want that crypto key now too.”
Zayn shrugged.
“Finders keepers, fuck the Pentagon leaders.”
She stared at him.
“You’re insane,” she said. “You know what I mean. I can say the money is lost, but I can’t say that The BlackStone Group has it. That would be hella bad.”
Oh, they were well aware.
“They killed Hemmingway, the one name on the list, and we know you said they offed a couple of other soldiers. With Willy and Trent dead, thanks to us, we still have to find out what’s up with the rest of them.”
Elizabeth thought about it.
“And they think the one guy took it?”
She nodded.
“They were almost positive about it. They think he sent it home, or it came home with his possessions after he was killed. That doesn’t bode well for anyone left alive on that list,” she admitted.
Elizabeth agreed.
When she looked at her watch, she knew they were burning time.
Time they didn’t have.
Unfortunately.
“Well, you know there are two soldiers left to talk to in this area. We have Mr. Hiding In The Swamp , and Mr. I’m Risking My Baby Momma .”
They were aware.
“We need to head there,” Maura admitted. “What did we find out?” she asked.
Calyx raised her hand.
She was parked on Remmy’s lap, and he was calmly letting her do her thing.
She’d assimilated rather easily.
“While you were playing games with two assholes, we got you the location and locked them down.”
Merry nodded.
“It took a lot of digging to confirm it, but it’s a hunting cabin that was owned by the man’s grandfather. I had to do a deed search that went back about one hundred years. It is sketchy as hell, but it netted us final answer on the hidey-hole.”
Maura listened.
“He has two places, and one from an NSA satellite picture, thanks to Elizabeth, is falling apart. He wouldn’t be there. The other…”
She did a chef’s kiss.
“It’s perfect to lay low.”
Maura was curious.
“Where’s it at?” she asked.
Merry showed her.
“MATE, give the Major the location on a map,” she said, and the system hummed, pulling up a picture. On it, they saw the cabin on stilts in the water.
Maura moved closer to the screen.
“MATE, show me the safest way into the swamp, and then three ways out.”
The system did its thing, and Maura went to the wall with the glass board that was tied to MATE and began scribbling down math equations.
When she turned, she was ready.
“Okay, so this is near the Ninth Ward. We’ll have an easy time in, but likely a more difficult time out.”
They were all curious.
“Why?” Dakota asked.
She shared what she’d figured out statistically happening.
“Because if they are trying to find this guy, and the baby momma hider, then we are all on the same hunt. We know they’re ahead of us. We might get lucky and reach him first.”
She pointed.
“I want to go in here,” she said. “Then, I want to come out here.”
Merry was curious.
“Boats?” she asked.
She shook her head.
“No, in this case, he’ll hear a boat coming, and he’ll bail. He’s going to be twitchy and ready. This is about getting in stealthy.”
This was sounding worse and worse to Jagger. As in he didn’t like this at all.
“Eve will be staying home,” Maura said.
She lifted a brow.
“Why?” she asked.
Maura was to the point.
“You just gave birth, and you’re bleeding still. We’re not putting you in water to chum it.”
Shit.
She didn’t think about that.
“Damn it!” she said. “I want to go swamp spelunking,” she added, which made her husband stare at her like she was batshit insane.
“Sorry,” Maura said. “Jinx can go, but I’ll leave that up to her.”
She opened her mouth, and when she went to say she was in, Rogue slapped his hand over her lips and shook his head.
“Not happening. I don’t care what she says. I don’t often put my foot down, but I am. She’s not going into the swamp.”
Maura got it.
“Anyone else out?” she asked.
Jagger pointed at her.
“Except me, since I make up the plans and lead this bunch of nuts?”
Elizabeth saw they were short on people, and she wanted to help.
She tapped her vest.
“Ivan, can you come in here?” she asked.
They heard him over the com.
“Copy.”
They watched the doorway to the roof open, and three Marines walk in.
Then, she gave them the good news.
“I’m lending you my team. I’ll be staying here to make sure everything is good, and since I’m taking calls from the president and Pentagon, but you can have them for the mission. My archangel is really good at getting out of bad situations, and he loves alligator.”
He laughed.
“I said I like alligator bites. Like breaded with a spicy sauce. I didn’t say I liked being bit by alligators or that I wanted to cuddle up to one in murky water.”
She laughed and busted his ass.
“Same thing, Raphael. Same thing.”
He just shook his head.
No, it really wasn’t, and she knew that, but then again, she wasn’t wrong that this was his thing.
Damn it.
The whole time, Maura was appreciative. What they needed was enough people to pull this off. It took a lot of eyes on the swamp to make sure you didn’t have company.
“Gunny, Ivan, and Raphael will be incredibly helpful,” she said. “They’ll go in with myself, Jagger, and Zayn.”
Jinx raised her hand.
Then, stepped on her husband’s foot, making him yelp and release her mouth.
“And me. I’m good in the water. You’re going to need me, and besides, Zayn and I work well together.”
That they did.
From where he stood, Rogue didn’t look happy.
Not.
At.
All.
“Trust me, I understand,” Jagger said, seeing his irritation. “When this town is safe, we’re moving to where there are no swamps. Walla Walla sounds safer.”
Maura laughed.
How funny was it that he actually believed that they were ever getting out of there?
That was likely never happening.
“Elizabeth, are you sure you don’t want to join us?” Maura asked, and that was when Ivan went shit nuts.
Her head of security shut that down.
“She is absolutely not doing that. She’s keeping her ass here inside this bunker, and not leaving while I’m doing this or I’m telling her husbands.”
Oh, and he would.
Here.
And.
Now.
Ivan would call out Chris and Callen to get their asses here so damn fast, she wouldn’t be able to think up an excuse.
He was not playing.
Elizabeth rolled her eyes.
“Calm down, Toadstool. I’m not going into the swamp. I already told them that I’m going to have to take calls, and on top of that, it’s not my area of specialty. I’ll just be in Maura’s way.”
That she would be.
Elizabeth was more a raise hell and watch the chaos happen kind of a lady, not sneak into a bayou.
“I don’t have to go anywhere now that Tommy is handled. Pretend I’m not here.”
That reminded them.
They were all curious, and she’d been silent about the outcome.
“How’d that go?” Jagger asked.
She laughed.
“Oh, about as well as you’d expect. He was pissed, sucker punched Gene in the face, and then tried to punch me.”
They all gasped.
She continued.
“He didn’t because Gene put him down on the ground. I think he’ll leave you guys alone, but I get the feeling he’s going to be my problem now. He’s angry at me, and he wants to enact his pound or revenge on Gene.”
The big Native went there.
“Well, your love muffin stole his love muffin,” Zayn said. “That would piss me off too.”
Elizabeth stared at Stella.
“Want to marry me and bring your babies? I’ll give you a gun,” she teased.
Stella played along.
“Okay,” she said, going to walk past her husband who couldn’t believe it.
Zayn gasped and stopped her.
“My sweet Stella, really? She’s not your type.”
Stella gave her husband a kiss. Sometimes, it was fun to bust his ass, and she couldn’t help herself.
At that moment, Elizabeth was direct.
“I’m going to say this once, and only once. If he bothers you, or he tries to make your life hell, end him. The mission here in NOLA is far more important to this country, especially now. Look at what you’ve stopped so far. Now, we have The BlackStone Group up in our asses. While I care about him, and feel bad, we can’t deal with bullshit. If Von Donore gets wind that Maura is here and alive…”
That was all Jagger had to hear.
“I’ll put him down.”
Maura sighed.
“We love Tommy,” she said. “We won’t enjoy doing it, but we’ll keep our family safe.”
On that, they all agreed.
When MATE headed toward Zayn, he actually moved to stand behind Stella.
It made everyone laugh.
“Listen, she’s creepy,” Zayn admitted. Then, he noticed she was focused on his child in the sling around Stella. “What are you looking at?” he asked.
MATE looked back at Elizabeth.
“Is it time to assimilate into the small one?” she asked. “Or should I wait until he is unexpecting?”
Elizabeth laughed.
The look on the man’s face…
Zayn.
Wasn’t.
Amused.
That was all he had to hear. He scooped Stella up, and whistled to his daughters.
“Let’s go,” he said, hauling ass to get away from MATE when he’d had enough.
When he was gone to their personal area, the AI in the room chortled, and everyone was amused.
“It’s too easy,” MATE admitted.
Honestly, it really was.
“Okay, chucklefucks, go get suited up, and someone talk Zayn down from the ledge. We’re taking a trip to the Ninth Ward. We have a Marine to find. Merry, keep eyes on that cabin. Let us know what you see.”
She could do that.
As the team got ready to move, there was one thing they all knew.
It was going to be a gross night.
In the swamp.
* * * Hunters * * *
The Stone Cave
Native Land
Same Time
It was dark out, and that didn’t make Poe feel any better about what was going on.
Seeing inside the cave was getting more difficult, and that was because all he had was that small fire.
What he wanted was daylight and Gamble to come back. Then, maybe, he wouldn’t be freaking out as much.
When you were alone with very little light, your imagination got the best of you.
He swore he heard chanting.
Then dogs howling somewhere in the distance.
The whole time, he was freaking out to the point that he was scared stupid. As his imagination was driving the bus, the worst thoughts popped into his head, and the biggest one was ‘what if Gamble got caught?’
What if he didn’t make it back?
Well, shit.
Truth be told, Poe was borderline freaking the fuck out as he thought about all the what ifs.
Getting up from being near the fire, he started moving around the grotto, trying to figure out how he would get out of there if any of those possible outcomes happened.
Well, he wasn’t going out the way they came in—that was for sure.
That meant taking a different route.
Honestly, all Poe could think was one thing.
‘Don’t touch the walls.’
That one warning from Gamble was stuck in his brain, bouncing around.
That was pretty damn menacing for him, and something he didn’t plan on doing anytime soon.
That was for damn sure.
As for escape routes, the only other way out was the way Gamble left, and he checked it out—the best he could in the shadows.
It was an opening tucked among more rocks, and it wasn’t large at all. That meant he’d have to touch the walls.
NOPE.
There was no doubt in Poe’s mind that he was dying in that cave. If Gamble didn’t come back for him, he was going to starve to death, and never be found.
With that fear percolating in his head, his heart was racing, and his pulse was erratic.
Yeah, he had to go sit down.
There was the mother of all panic attacks about to happen as he realized he was all alone and trapped without anyway of escape.
Poe couldn’t do this alone.
He wasn’t good at survival without the basics of human comforts.
When Hemmingway died, he had his parents to remind him he wasn’t all alone in the world.
If he didn’t get out of this cave…
It took everything he had not to freak out.
EVERYTHING.
“I can do this,” he whispered, over and over again. “I won’t die in here.”
Poe sat back down, and wrapped his arms around his legs to get small. He rested his forehead on his knees, and said a prayer.
For him, the truth was simple. He was putting all of his faith in a man who had been broken and damaged three months ago.
His survival came down to one thing.
How well he’d healed Gamble.
Oh, this might go bad.
And he knew it.
* * * Hunters * * *
After Dark
Evening
One Hour Later
The swamp was no one’s friend—especially at night when the sun went down. It was even more dangerous, and the slightest mistake meant your life.
The treacherous things came out after dark.
The gators.
The snakes.
The mercenaries.
Now, with them arriving at the edge of the water, it was time to get down to business.
Maura was ready, but Jagger was not. He really had a bad feeling about this, and taking his pregnant wife into the water was NOT his ideal moment.
Granted, they had three more Marines with them, and one of them was an Archangel, that didn’t help him out.
Not.
At.
All.
“MATE, keep mapping us. I need to know the directions to get to that cabin. We’re going in blind.”
Their vests chirped.
“Understood, Major. Head due east,” MATE offered, guiding them.
As they kept walking, Maura needed to know what to expect when they found this guy.
“Elizabeth, what can you tell us about Clint Rust, the Marine? I want to know what to expect when have to face him down,” she stated.
Elizabeth’s voice came over the com.
“He was dishonorably discharged right after the Apache crash. Apparently, he refused to give his testimony regarding what happened that day, and British military officials had the US remove him.”
Well, they nailed that.
The man was scummy if he wouldn’t speak up against this whole mess that was going on.
“Anything else?”
Elizabeth was scanning her information.
“He wasn’t a choir boy before the Marines. Apparently, he raised some hell before signing up. It appears from his military file that he was a helicopter mechanic. He wasn’t on the flight the day it went down, but how much do you want to bet he knew that it wasn’t insurgent fire that brought it down?”
Oh, no bets there.
“Family?”
“None still living. His mother died in childbirth when he was a kid, and his father died of lung cancer two years ago, right after he was dishonorably discharged.”
Well, that didn’t give them much to go on.
Now did it?
Merry’s voice came over the com.
“I’m in his financials. Don’t ask how because then the FBI is going to arrest us,” she said.
Elizabeth actually laughed.
“What happens in New Orleans , stays in New Orleans ,” she admitted.
Wasn’t that the truth?
That was their motto most of the time.
“Nevertheless, I’m in his financials, and I’ve gone back to when that incident occurred three years ago. It seems he had a big deposit into his account. It’s marked payroll, but he was working for the US government as a soldier, so…”
That made them all curious.
“How much was it for?” Maura asked, as they scanned the water to make sure they were safe. It was getting deeper, and that didn’t make anyone happy.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars, and I’m tracing the account back,” she said, as they heard fingers on a keyboard.
Then, she laughed.
“Oh, look who has BlackStone ’s accounting number,” she stated all of a sudden. “That might come in handy one day.”
Yes, it might.
It appeared that the normally infallible company made a mistake.
They left loose ends in New Orleans .
“Hold onto that,” Maura stated. “We might need it at some point if we’re going head-to-head against them.”
That was the truth.
Jagger was curious. He was hovering over his wife, and making sure she didn’t get pulled under by one of the monsters in the swamp.
“Do we have a location for The BlackStone Group ?” he asked. “In case we have to hit there to take down Von Donore?”
Merry was searching.
“Give me a few,” she said. “From the looks of it, all of their information gives a PO box, and they do pickups there. I’m going to have to go into the USPS and see what I can find.”
That worked for them.
“Keep looking,” Maura stated.
As they were moving deeper into the swamp, Raphael warned them.
“Everyone up out of the water,” he said, jumping to grab a tree branch after making sure there were no snakes on it.
Everyone went up, wrapping their legs around the branches so they were far enough up out of the water.
For what?
Oh, it was likely the five gators that swam under them, and downstream.
Yowza.
That was close.
When Jagger got down, he reached up to help Maura into the water. He wished she’d stay up there. To make it worse, there was a centipede on her arm, and he knocked it off.
God.
He hated the swamp.
The leaches alone were disgusting, but then the creepy crawlies…
So nasty.
“I want to go on the record and state that I don’t like this,” Jagger said.
Oh, well, no shock there. Honestly, no one liked the swamp.
NO.
One.
They kept walking in silence so they could hear anything heading their way. When they rounded a bend, that’s when they saw a cabin.
Maura stopped, and everyone else did too.
“Here we go,” she said, pointing.
There was a dim light in the one window, proving that Merry had been right. They were at the right cabin.
Immediately, they all put their earbuds in, so that MATE, and anyone back at Area Fifty-Two would only be heard by them.
“Inside has to be our target,” Jagger whispered, keeping his voice low.
“We need to get a closer look,” she stated.
Jagger knew what he wanted.
His wife out of the water.
“We’ll cover you,” he offered, as his wife moved toward the cabin to get a look. When she reached the decking, Jagger lifted her up, slowly, so she didn’t make any noise.
The Major stayed low, as low as she could being pregnant, and peeked into the one window to see their target.
That’s when she saw him.
Oh, boy.
Someone was scared.
Clint Rust was pacing back and forth, only one little candle lit on the table, and he looked nervous as fuck.
And armed for bear.
Moving back toward the edge of the decking, out of view from the window or if Clint opened the door, her team met her there.
“He’s heavily armed. We’re going to have to surprise him,” she whispered. “Carefully.”
Raphael pulled himself up out of the water, and got onto the deck.
“How many doors?”
She held up two fingers.
It looked like it was divide and conquer.
Because this was her thing, Maura pointed at Elizabeth’s Marines, and the back door, and then her team, and the front door.
Zayn was the best with a gun, so he was going to watch their backs going in. They weren’t one hundred percent sure that Clint didn’t have company inside, the other MIA ex-Marine.
As they approached, both teams were at the ready, and waiting for Maura’s command.
“Now,” she whispered, as the rest of their team back at the base was quietly listening.
The doors crashed in, and everyone rushed into the room. Clint Rust tried to get to his gun, but he came face-to-face with Raphael, and he was a force to reckon with on a good day.
On a bad day after having to wade through disgusting swamp water?
Not good.
He knocked him to the floor, and they were on him. The whole time, he fought like hell, believing he was about to die.
“Please! I didn’t take the code. I didn’t take it from Hemmingway! I swear to God!” he stated, over and over again.
They didn’t speak because if the man was willing to give them intel, so be it.
“Please don’t kill me. Tell Von I didn’t do it. I’m innocent,” he stated.
Oh, well, they had news for him.
They didn’t work for Von, and he had far more problems than that man being on his ass. The Hunters were now too.
When they got him tied to a chair, using the zip ties Jagger pulled from his pockets, he began crying.
What a pussy.
Jesus.
Maura pulled off her mask, and she stared into his face.
It caught him off-guard to see a woman there. With all her gear on, and body armor, it hid her figure, and made her look like the average sized man.
“Who are you?” he asked her.
Only, she didn’t get to say shit.
Why?
Zayn interrupted, and he’d only do that in case of an emergency.
“Major, we have company,” he said, coming into the building and closing the door behind him. “We have a boat at ten o’clock, and coming in fast. We were right. We weren’t the only ones looking for Clint.”
Well, shit.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, someone outside opened fire on the building. They were peppering the whole place with bullets.
That sucked for them.
When Maura turned, she saw Clint trying to fall over on the chair to get low, and because they needed to question him, she moved, kicking him over.
When she turned, her luck had run out.
That’s when she was hit in the chest with a bullet.
She.
Went.
Down.
From where he was, Jagger saw his wife go down, and he immediately pulled her toward him, and put his whole body over her to protect her from any more fire.
That’s when he felt the burn to his arm as he was shot, but he kept his torso over his pregnant wife as hell broke loose around them.
The whole team stayed as close to the floor as possible to not get shot.
Oh, and it wasn’t easy.
The wood on this cabin was thin, and it wasn’t holding up to it. In fact, it was blowing apart with each hit, and at some point, they’d have no cover whatsoever.
Jesus.
They needed a plan.
Fast.
If they didn’t get one, there was no doubt this mission ended here.
And now.
With their deaths.