CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN #2
“Where are the vehicles?” His voice was barely a whisper and could only be heard by his teammates.
“They had the van hidden behind some bushes on the far side of the property,” Lucas said. “We saw it from the helo, but it would be easy to miss from ground level.”
“Was there room to hide another car?” Eddie was hoping Rodrigo’s car was there, too.
“Plenty,” he said.
Cole pointed two fingers forward, and they all started to move.
Lucas jogged over to a large boulder with visibility to the dirt road leading to the trailer. Without NVGs, you would never know he was there.
Boone and Hawk’s bright green heat signatures headed toward the front of the trailer. They would breach the front door when the time was right.
Eddie and Cole headed off to the right, and they ran in a crouch, doing their best to avoid the light streaming between the curtains covering the large main window.
As they passed beneath it, they heard what sounded like a television playing loudly inside.
They circled around to the back of the trailer, hoping to get some kind of visual into the interior.
Luna had provided them with schematics of similar mobile homes, but the owners might have customized this one, and there might be rooms or walls in places completely different from the drawings they’d studied. It wasn’t ideal, but it certainly wasn’t the first time they’d gone in somewhat blind.
As they moved along the side of the trailer, they had to be careful where they stepped. There were garden gnomes and other kinds of decorative crap all over the damn place. It was like walking through a fucking mine field.
Support posts positioned at various locations beneath the mobile home elevated it about two feet off the ground.
Which put the windows at chest height for both of them.
The first two they approached were covered by blackout curtains, so there was no way to see inside.
The third one at the far back corner had horizontal blinds.
They were closed, but a few were bent and broken.
There was something else—a sound of some sort.
Eddie tapped him on the shoulder, and when Cole looked at him, he mouthed the words, “Did you hear that?”
His team leader planted his feet below the window and peeked through the broken blinds.
“I’m seeing flashes of heat signatures but can’t tell what it is.” His voice could barely be heard, even with an earpiece.
He started running his hands along the edge of the frame, looking for a way in.
Suddenly, the blinds shifted and a small, terrified face appeared in the bottom corner of the window.
Her eyes were huge with dark shadows beneath them, and they knew by the red hair that she was Elizabeth Flannery, the little girl from Lucia’s class.
Eddie and Cole held a finger to their lips to keep her from screaming.
She dropped out of sight, likely terrified by the sight of them standing there, especially Cole.
In broad daylight, with his massive size, his long dark hair, and full beard, he was intimidating as hell.
Now, with his NVGs glowing green on his face in the dark of night, it was understandable why she got scared.
“Shit.” He flipped up his goggles.
Eddie did the same.
A minute later, an older girl appeared in her place. She had a nasty cut on her lip, and her mouth was swollen pretty badly. She also had a dark bruise on the side of her face. But the look in her eyes was nothing but pure defiance.
“Found the girls.” Cole updated the rest of the team. “They’re in a room at the northwest corner of the structure. Looking for a way in now.” He pointed toward the middle of the window, where the locking mechanism was, and lightly tapped the glass.
The girl looked over her shoulder for a long minute and lifted her hands to find the lock.
The poor kid’s wrists were bloody and bound together with heavy-duty zip ties that had cut into her flesh.
She tried multiple times to access the lock, but the blinds kept getting caught on the zip ties.
Yet she remained calm and never gave up.
Finally, she managed to get a good grip on it, but when she flipped it to the side, there was a solid thunk sound. She stopped moving, checked over her shoulder again, then turned to them and nodded.
Eddie raised his weapon, turned his back to Cole, and watched for threats while his teammate gained access to the room.
Rather than risk drawing attention by yanking the whole screen out, Cole grabbed his knife and flipped it open.
He cut out the screen and tossed it over his shoulder.
He pressed his palms against the glass and used the grippiness of his gloves to slowly slide the window up just enough until he could wedge his fingers beneath it and lift it the rest of the way.
They took in the size of the window opening and decided Eddie, who was about six inches shorter than Cole with slightly smaller shoulders, would have to be the one to go inside and help the girls get out.
Eddie turned to the girl, pointed to himself, then pointed into the room. She figured out what he meant and stepped back from the window.
He shoved his weapon into his holster and handed Cole his rifle. Then he placed his hands on the bottom edge of the windowsill, thankful for the protection of his gloves, and pressed himself up until the front of his hips rested against the ledge.
He reached down, planted his hands on the carpet, and shimmied through the window.
The metal blinds snapped and clattered together, but there was nothing to be done.
He quickly stood and finally got a look at the room.
Cole handed his rifle to him through the window, and Eddie slung it over his shoulder.
He scanned the room and recognized the girls from their photos.
The oldest girl, Geneva, stood, feet set apart, her bound hands fisted in front of her—ready to attack if necessary.
Elizabeth and nine-year-old Teresa were both zip-tied and huddled together in the corner.
That meant the girl curled up on her side on the bed was eleven-year-old Imogen.
Her eyes were closed, her skin was pasty white, and her wrists had swollen around the zip ties.
“Take her first,” Geneva whispered and pointed to the girls in the corner, “then those two. I’ll go last.”
Of course she would. She was thirteen and had, apparently, assumed the leadership role among the girls.
“She goes last.” Eddie didn’t have time to explain that it would be easier for Cole to get the other girls out first, because they could stand on their own, then grab Imogen and take all of them to a safe location nearby.
“But—” She opened her mouth to protest but realized she was no longer responsible for protecting them.
Eddie moved quickly. He flipped open his knife and cut all of their zip ties. They shook out their hands and looked at him like he’d hung the moon.
He crooked his finger at the girls in the corner. They both stood and walked hand in hand to the window. Teresa went first. She stuck her upper body out the window, and Cole put his hands on her waist and lifted her out. He did the same with Elizabeth.
Geneva looked from Imogen on the bed to Eddie.
“I promise, I’ll get her out,” he whispered.
She gave her fellow captive a last look, then moved over to the window. She sat on the sill, swung her legs out, and Cole helped her hop down.
Eddie tucked his arms beneath Imogen and carefully lifted her off the bed. She was hot to the touch, and he could tell she had a dangerously high fever. She moaned loudly as he hurried to the window and handed her out to Cole.
“I’ll get them someplace safe.” He turned and led the girls to a thick patch of bushes behind the trailer.
“I told you guys to shut the fuck up.” Heavy footsteps stomped down the hall, vibrating the walls of the mobile home.
Eddie didn’t have time to get through the window, so he moved to the darkest corner of the room and crouched down. He lowered his goggles, drew his weapon from his holster, and waited.
There was a rattling sound on the other side of the door, like a padlock being opened, and then the door burst open and smacked against the wall.
He recognized Tamarin Rios’s ridiculous mohawk as Rios stood in the doorway, backlit by the hall light. He held a half-eaten sandwich in his hand and had his pistol tucked in the front of his jeans.
Eddie slowly stood.
Rios’s mouth dropped open, the sandwich fell from his hands, and he went for his gun.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Eddie beat him to it with three shots to his center mass.
Rios looked down at himself, then back at Eddie. His legs gave out. He landed on his knees, fell forward, and ended up face-first on the carpet.
“Breach.” Cole’s calm command filtered through his earpiece.
Eddie flipped up his goggles as he ran out of the bedroom and started down the hall.
There was a bright flash from an explosion that blew the front door in and filled the space with smoke.
“Don’t fuckin’ move!” Hawk shouted.
Eddie rushed into the room and saw Boone at the couch. He had Jaime Ortega on his belly and was binding his wrists together behind his back with the same kind of zip ties they’d used on the girls.
A pile of bloody gauze sat on the coffee table next to a bunch of empty beer cans and a loaded revolver.
Boone and Hawk did a sweep of the rooms, looking for Augustin Martín and Munoz, but they were nowhere to be found.
“No sign of ’em,” Boone said.
“Coming in.” Cole walked through the front door a minute later. “Girls are outside with Lucas.”
“Cole,” Viking’s deep voice interrupted them. “I’m perched on the cliff and have a clear view of where the van was hidden, but it’s not there. No sedan, either.”
“Where the fuck are they?” Eddie and his teammates exchanged a look.
“Cole.” Luna’s calm voice cut through the tension. “I got a hit on the sedan. It was caught by CCTV at the corner of Platt Street and Saguaro Road.”
Eddie’s gut sank, and he looked at his team. “That’s on the way to the cabin.”