Chapter 16
Mari triedto hold her breath, but it was getting harder and harder to gain any air. Her head was forced under the water in the rain barrel so many times, she’d lost track. Her hands bound behind her, she had no leverage, and the pressure of Dum’s fingers was surely imprinted on the back of her neck. She could hear Carmen pleading with them, her voice clear when she was pulled up, only to go muffled when she was dunked again. Pinpricks of light burst behind her eyes, her lungs filled tight and pushing against fresh bruises. She’d reached the point where her body had stopped fighting for clean air, her blood pounding between her ears. She didn’t struggle, didn’t strain to pull upright. It wasted precious air to the brain.
The man yanked her up, her hair blocking her vision already swimming with stars. She grabbed as much air as she could before that bastard dunked her again, and she had to hold back her instinct to fight to save oxygen. Three more times, Dum shoved her head underwater.
Then he finally let her up and released her. She slipped down the rain barrel and slumped on the floor, dripping and gasping for air.
“She doesn’t know anything else, or she would have spilled by now,” Dum said, reaching down and yanking her up into a chair. Her gaze slipped to Carmen, who was white-faced and frantic, her eyes wide and terrified. Mari tried to reassure her the best she could.
Santiago consulted his watch, then said, “It’s time to get back.” He walked over to Mari, and she watched him with a sick sense of dread lodged in her throat and a strange, lethargic numbness dragging down on her.
Mari sucked in air, relieved. She had spilled everything she knew, except the information Buck had told her. The classified information. It was clear that Santiago was disgusted with her meager knowledge, and maybe that was why he’d made her suffer some more.
The numbness began to fade, and fear took its place. Tears rose to burn the backs of her eyes. They were moving to the end. She could feel it. Once they no longer needed them to keep her brother and the authorities at bay, he was going to kill them. She would have to be ready.
“We’re going for another little excursion.” Santiago smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “The end of the line for you two.”
Mari knew the action was both futile and foolish, but she kicked him anyway, as hard as she could with her heel, catching him square in the diaphragm. He fell back, wheezing as the air punched out of his lungs, the look on his face worth whatever price he would make her pay.
Coughing, he rolled onto his knees and forced himself to his feet with one arm banded across his belly. He rushed at her, pulling the pistol from his belt, and shoving it in her face. Her reaction was instant. Every muscle locked up. Sweat blistered her upper lip, and the only sound was her heartbeat pounding in her ears. “You little bitch! I should pop you now.” With the gun a few inches from her face, she still couldn’t feel sorry for kicking the fucking monster.
“Boss, we might need her,” Dum said. “Nacho won’t be happy if his drugs don’t make it to the docks.”
How was that for irony? The drug trafficker was trying to save her life.
“You’re going to pay for that when the time comes,” he ground out between short, painful gasps, then he drew back and backhanded her so hard across the face, she saw more stars, her cheek exploding with pain. It caused her head to snap to the side. He knotted her hair in his fist and yanked her off the chair and up the stairs. He shoved her so hard toward the kitchen, she fell to the wood floor, her scalp burning. Her close call twisting in her gut, she had to fight the urge to lose what little she had in her stomach.
“Get up,” he said, and she slowly rose to her feet, a hitch in her breathing as a result of her near drowning. Carmen rushed over and slipped her arm around Mari. “Please stop fighting him,” she whispered. But even as Mari looked at him, gaining great satisfaction at his pain from her kick, she didn’t think it was possible. She wasn’t going to cower anymore.
“Move,” he said and with Carmen’s help, she limped back through the amazing kitchen, and back out the door that led to the helipad. There were now several helicopters parked there. The gun pressed into her back to keep her moving, and she was quite sick of his threats.
“Where are you taking us?” she ground out when they were seated back into the chopper. He just turned to look at her, his jaw clenching tight as anger flashed in his eyes. “Shut the fuck up, bitch. Pedro,” he said.
Dum grabbed her arm and squeezed hard, and she cried out.
“Not another word.”
She glared at him and rubbed her arm—more bruises. The helicopter took off and it was another quick twenty minutes back to the tour place and back in the black Humvee.
As they drove toward town, Mari noticed he was taking a familiar road, one that ran along their property. When he turned into the jungle onto a narrow, overgrown path, her breath got trapped in her lungs. This was their land.
Lined with trees, rough and rutted, Santiago had to slow the Humvee to a crawl as the jungle closed in around them, nothing but a mass of green. Mari hung onto the door as the Humvee bounced along, her attention focused on where they were going. As far as she knew, there was nothing out here but jungle. She looked to the south. La Buena Tierra was only about five miles from here. Carmen looked at her with a tiny bit of hope. She recognized it too. Maybe if they could get away, they could run to safety. She wasn’t going to give up hope either.
The jungle thinned ahead, and they came out of the green morass into a small clearing. In front of them was a long wood and cement building with a flat roof.
A warehouse on her property…oh God, this was where they were stashing their coke, packaging it to slip onto their trucks bound for the docks.
Dee and Dum pulled them from the Humvee and shoved them toward the structure. Several men came out to greet them. Once inside the dim interior, her suspicions were confirmed. There was stacked coffee everywhere, burlap bags with their logo stamped on them. Bags full of their filthy drugs.
There were more men inside, about six all with automatic weapons.
That’s all she got a look at as Santiago shoved them both into a storage room and slammed the door. There was a rain barrel in there, the same as the dungeon, and a blood stain on the floor and the doorjamb. A shiver ran down her spine when she realized this was where Mr. Barrantes died.
* * *
“Buck!”Anna shouted as she came running into the warehouse, breathless, holding her phone. “I know where they are!” She held up her phone.
“How is that possible?” he asked. “They tossed the phones.” His heart jumped at the chance to find Mari and Carmen.
“Carmen has a smartwatch, and we got a location app for her. They must not realize it.” She pointed to a map that had pins on it. “These are all the places where she’s been and where she is right now.” He took the phone out of her trembling fingers. The locations were clearly marked.
“Kat,” he said softly. “They’re close, not more than five miles away.”
“Go!” she said. “Take Joker, Bear, and Zorro and half of the PCD and DEA teams.” She turned to D-Day. “You take Blitz, Gator and Professor, and the other half of the PCD and DEA teams. I want you to go to the West Coast where they held them and check it out.”
“Can we talk to her through the watch?”
“Yes, but I didn’t because I’m not sure if she’s able to respond safely. If they hear the notification sound, they’ll know she has a communication device. So, I wouldn’t text her.”
Buck nodded, then raced out of TOC with his heart in his throat. It was clear that Carmen was still alive, her elevated heart rate and other vitals were displayed. He could only pray that Mari was alive, too. He had to face the fact that he wasn’t firing on all cylinders where Mari and Carmen were concerned. They’d been kidnapped by the Sombre Sindicato, but everyone on this operation knew who was behind that gang. It was Nacho, and if they hurt either woman, he was going to kill the fucker if it was the last thing he ever did.
* * *
“Mari,”Carmen said as she came up into a sitting position and pushed up her sleeve to reveal her watch. Mari frowned, confused for just a second…Carmen had a smartwatch!
“I’ve been waiting for us to be alone to use it.”
“Use it now. Text someone…Anna. She always answers her texts quickly.”
Carmen tapped out a message, and they waited. Finally, a message popped up. “It’s Buck,” Carmen whispered with a smile. “They tapped into my location app. They know where we are!” She smiled broadly. “They’re on their way here.”
Relief flooded through Mari. That was such great news. Now, all they had to do was stay alive. “Tell him there are nine men here, and all of them are armed.” Carmen tapped out the second message.
She heard the sound of trucks grinding their gears. She rose and went to the small window. Two of their company trucks pulled into the cleared area in front of the warehouse. She saw Santiago and his goons starting to load up the cocaine-filled bags. She went to the door and found it locked. She looked around the room for something to get it open.
Carmen walked over and pulled a couple of bobby pins out of her messy bun. “Let me do it. I have a lot of practice sneaking back into the house when I’ve forgotten my key.”
Mari smiled and hugged her hard. “You’re the best juvenile delinquent sister ever.”
Carmen giggled, then nudged her sister out of the way. Her pretty face was sweaty and smudged with dirt, but there was a determined glint in her eyes. “I want to get out of here. I have plans, and shoes to buy, and I’m going to college in the fall.”
“Yes, you are.” Carmen turned her attention to the door. She straightened out one of the bobby pins, twisted the other one at a right angle, and slipped it into the bottom of the lock, then turned it slightly as if it was the key. Then she inserted the straight one and moved them around.
While she was doing that, Mari looked around for some type of weapon. There were a couple of empty beer bottles in the corner as if those heinous monsters drank while Mr. Barrantes was being murdered.
She walked over and grabbed them up and walked back to the door just as she heard a distinct click.
She handed one of the bottles to Carmen, then gripped her own. They had to be close to finishing up the loading. When that happened, she and Carmen would be nothing but liabilities.
Mari reached for the lock, and the door opened unexpectedly, shoving her to the side. Dum came through and growled, lunging at her. But he grunted and dropped to the floor as Carmen smashed the bottle against the back of his head.
Mari recovered and said, “Run,” as she grabbed her sister’s hand, and they bolted out the door. Luckily one of the doors was already open, and they made a beeline for it.
“Stop!” Santiago shouted, but this time Mari wasn’t going to stop for anything. She increased her speed, Carmen matching it as they slipped through the door. Gunshots went off, bullets thunking into the doorjamb, but they didn’t stop running, even as they heard footsteps behind them and the sudden rat-a-tat-tat of automatic fire. Buck was here, but she couldn’t stop, or they would be dead before he could reach them.
* * *
D-Day,Blitz, Gator, Bear and Flint crouched on a ridge overlooking the opulent ocean-view house below them. D-Day peered through a set of binoculars. He panned slowly over the compound, noting the helipad and the choppers sitting there, also noting all the armed guards. “Let’s get a better view,” he said, stashing the binoculars and pulling out the handheld controller. He lifted the drone, and pushed a button as it activated, then hovered in the air.
He sent it down toward the house, while watching the feed on the screen on the controller.
“More armed guards,” Blitz said. “What kind of party is going on down there?”
D-Day nodded. He swung the drone around to get a better look at the ocean-view side of the house. On a long balcony, men were lounging around an infinity pool.
“Fuck me,” Gator said. “Is that who I think it is?”
“I think it’s fucking Christmas, boys,” Blitz said.
D-Day gasped and straightened. “Fuck. It’s Nacho.” D-Day activated his comm. “TOC. We have eyes on kingpin.”
“Repeat that, D-Day,” Kat said in a voice that was elevated, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d heard.
“We have eyes on kingpin.” He couldn’t keep the excitement or gloating out of his voice. “There are four other viable targets.”
“Can you assault to retrieve?” Kat asked, satisfaction in her tone.
“Affirmative. Let us go in first to secure the compound, then send in back up. We need stealth to contain the targets.”
“Copy,” Kat said.
D-Day brought the drone back and stowed it away, then picked up his assault rifle and said, “Blitz, get some C4 on those choppers. We don’t want them leaving the party early.”
“Gator and Bear, you’re with me. Let’s neutralize the guards at the front, side and back of the house, then get inside. We’ll catch them with their swim trunks down.”
Blitz chuckled. “Too bad I left my you’ve-been-spanked-by-special-ops stamp at home.”
Even Bear chuckled at that one.
“Let’s move,” D-Day said as they went down the embankment on the sides of their boots, careful to move slowly and steadily so as not to displace any soil or rocks. When they reached the bottom, D-Day said into his comm. “Cut the electricity.” That would disable security and the cameras.
Bear was already swinging a grappling hook up the ten-foot wood wall, and D-Day heard it clunk, then hold as Bear pulled. He moved out of the way for Blitz to climb up first so he could head toward the choppers. While he was clipping Flint to his harness, Gator went up and over next, then Bear climbed with ease as Flint dangled unaffected. Once he was over, D-Day grabbed the knotted rope and scrambled up the wall, dropping over the other side in fifteen seconds flat.
Blitz was already halfway to the choppers, and he, Bear, Gator and Flint fast-walked toward the side door to the house. Several guards moved around the perimeter, but it was clear they thought the loss of electricity was a blackout. Gator took out one, D-Day, the second, and Bear the third.
They checked the door to the house, and it was open. D-Day entered, moving through the hallway quickly until he came to the huge, luxury kitchen. There was a woman in there cooking dinner, pots bubbling, and something smelling damn good in the oven. Gator came up behind her, grabbed her around the neck, and choked her until she was unconscious, gently laying her on the floor while Blitz turned off the stove.
They continued through until they reached the library where several men were working on their laptops.
One of them turned and saw the SEALs, his mouth dropping open, his eyes going wide. D-Day put his finger to his lips to shush them, then gestured with his rifle toward a closet. Gator moved forward and herded them into the closet, closing the door and setting a chair under the doorknob. D-Day said into his comms. “Executing assault. Standby.”
Then they moved onto the balcony. As they approached the turquoise pool, they heard conversation, mostly in Spanish.
D-Day moved forward, one of the men saw him and started to rise, looking around frantically. They walked into the middle of them, and D-Day looked Nacho in the face and said, “The party is over boys.”
Nacho came up off the lounge and swung at D-Day, who ducked, grabbed him across the chest, and kicked his feet out from under him. He wanted to do so much more, but taking the bastard alive worked better for the DEA and CIA. He’d rather just shoot him in the face.
The man toppled onto his back, wheezing as the air was knocked out of his lungs. D-Day bent down and flipped him over, zip-tying his hands behind his back.
One of the other targets bolted for a stairway heading down to the ground floor. Bear said one word and Flint took off. The man screamed as Flint hit him in the back and sent him forward, rushing to clamp onto his arm to keep him immobilized.
All hell broke loose below as the DEA and PCD rushed the compound. Several men came up the stairs, Gator and Bear fired at them as the three targets hit the deck, bullets flying. Gator, Bear, and D-Day took cover behind posts.
Flint growled, released his target, and launched himself at the closest guard as more came up the stairs. The glass of the pool shattered, and a ton of water washed across the balcony. Gator was right near the break, and a wall of water caught Gator, washing over Nacho’s supine body and he sputtered in the flood.
The surge upended the guards, and Flint, sending them all crashing to the ground.
D-Day wrapped his arm around the post to keep himself in place as Gator shot into the open, the wave carrying him beyond cover. As the water sloshed and drained away, Gator, soaking wet, now exposed to gunfire from the displaced water, struggled to regain his balance as one of the guards fired at him. D-Day ran from cover and grabbed the back of his vest and dragged him toward safety, bullets whizzing by him. Bear returned fire, trying to keep Flint alive as the guards aimed at him.
Bear screamed a command, and Flint regained his footing faster than the guards, and like a black bullet, ran toward Bear.
He stumbled and fell, his hold on Gator strong, as he grunted with strain, dragging Gator in a powerful move that pulled his teammate out of the line of fire.
Then in a hail of bullets, the remaining guards went down as Blitz came up the stairs at a run. “You guys okay?”
Bear was quickly checking Flint as D-Day bent over Gator and said, “You good, bro?”
Gator grinned. “Don’t you know gators love the water,” he said.
D-Day chuckled and said, “We’re good, Blitz.” He stood and offered Gator his hand. He clasped it, and D-Day pulled him up, retrieving his weapon and handing it to him.
Blitz walked toward them. “Damn, I didn’t get to blow the choppers.” He nudged one of the targets as D-Day noticed blood mixed in with the water still on the deck. “At least one of you should have made it to?—”
“I think he’s dead, brother.”
Blitz crouched down and felt for a pulse. “Yeah, what a shame,” he said. “He should have suffered more.”
* * *
The gunfire fadedinto the background as Mari, pulling Carmen with her, ran full out, the instinct of self-preservation spurring her to keep her feet moving. The jungle on this part of the property was thick and overgrown. She lunged through the vegetation without thought, tripping over exposed roots and fallen branches. Brush grabbed her clothing and clawed at her face with stinging fingers.
Sobs of fear caught in her throat and choked her, and she swallowed air in great gulps. Her lungs were burning. They broke out into a clearing and she stopped. Pointing Carmen toward the south, she rasped out, “Run and don’t stop for anything.”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Yes, you are. Go, now!”
She watched as Carmen took a step back, then, her eyes full of anguish, she turned and ran toward home. Mari heard Santiago crashing through the trees. She ran across the clearing and waited for a moment. When he broke through, his face contorted in rage, he saw her and fired. His aim was wild, and the bullet thunked into the tree near her. She turned and ran away. Her only thought was that Carmen was safe. That was all that mattered.
She would have a life, even if Mari had to give up her own.
She ran hard, even though her limbs felt leaden. She heard Santiago’s loud footsteps as they got closer and closer.
He fired at her several more times, but they missed, until finally the gun clicked. Empty. She could hear his screaming curses.
She didn’t stop or slow. Adrenaline pumped through her, driving her forward.
Something solid and heavy slammed into her back, and the impact sent her forward onto the hard ground. Then he was on her, crushing her to the damp dirt. Shrieking in anger and pain, twisting like mad, she felt a stone beneath her hand, and in a frantic move, she swung it at his head. It collided with a hollow sound, and he grunted, dazed. She pushed him off her, and got up to run, but he caught her foot before she could fully gain her feet. She kicked back at him, and he let her go.
She glanced at him as his lips pulled back against his teeth in a feral snarl. “I’m going to kill you, you little bitch!”
He scrambled up and dove at her, hitting her with the full force of his big body and knocking her down to the ground. The back of her head banged into the earth, blackness swirling around her. His fist slammed against the side of her face, snapping her head to the side, deepening the darkness, the taste of blood in her mouth.
The sky swirled above her, as he pushed her legs apart, reaching between them. She came to when she felt his hands on her jeans. She howled and went for his face, her fingernails clawing at him. He grabbed her around the neck and squeezed, cutting off her air. She beat at his shoulders and fought like a wildcat, but with each moment, she was fading.
Just as the gray edges of unconsciousness beckoned, she was free. She coughed and pushed herself up on her elbow, the sounds of thrashing and fists pounding flesh registering. She saw Buck and Santiago battling on the ground. Buck twisted and threw Santiago off, then quickly got to his feet.
Santiago rose, his eyes narrowed, and she saw him for the street fighter he was. Buck saw it too. Buck waited for Santiago to make his move, then blocked it, driving his fist into his rib cage. Then he spun the bastard, got him into a headlock from behind, and squeezed until the light went out of Santiago’s eyes and he dropped to the ground. She fell back in relief, a weakness stealing over her.
She felt a hand against her jaw. She opened her eyes, her heart contracting when she saw Buck’s concerned face. He was sweaty and dirty, but he was such a sight for sore eyes. His voice was rough and uneven. “I’ve got you, darlin’.”
Professor broke through the tangle, stopping to look at them, then at Santiago on the ground. “I’ve got this dirtbag,” Professor said, zip-tying him and heaving him up on his shoulders. He listened for a moment and said, “Zorro has Carmen. She ran back to the warehouse for help.”
Buck shifted his position, sliding his arms around her, gathering her up to lift her. Hearing that her sister was safe, she broke into tears. Overwhelmed by a mixture of sharp relief and unbearable love, Mari wrapped her arms around his neck, hanging on to him for dear life. She pressed her face against his neck, sobbing.
Feeling as if she was the luckiest woman on the planet, she knew her life was going to change, and with a sigh, she accepted it, knowing that she was right where she wanted to be. In Buck’s arms.