26. Dax
DAX
Ghost snatched the computer away from me with a look of deep concentration. Leaving him to answer that question, I turned back to Cam and saw the name of a shipping company on the screen.
“Is that the company Angelina’s family owns?” I asked.
“Yeah, they’re based out of Mexico City, but that isn’t all that surprising,” Cam commented.
“What I find interesting, though, is that they have another home in Manzanillo, a town in the state of Colima. It would give another reason why Marco was there. I’m circling this as one of our strike points.
It appears they have a stunning home on the peninsula into the bay. ”
“While I don’t want to involve people who are innocent in Marco’s plans, I’m not sure these people count. Angelina’s father had to know who he was getting into bed with,” I reasoned.
Cam put an arm around my shoulders and kissed my head. “War is messy, especially these wars. We never know who might be friend or foe.”
“Hey, when do you have to check in with the CIA?” I asked, looking up at him.
He let out a heavy sigh. “Tomorrow, they’re sending a plane to pick me up in the morning.”
“We’re not going with you?” I asked, even though I’m pretty sure I knew the answer.
Cam turned me to look at him and cupped my face with his hands.
“There’s no way in hell I’d let them near you until I know what kind of deal I can work out with them.
Keep in mind I have incredibly valuable information they want and connections to criminals they’ve been looking for. Many of them are in this room with us.”
That seemed to catch everyone’s attention.
“Relax, you guys, there’s no way I’d turn my father in, and I’ve known Harper long enough to know that selling out her men would be a terrible life choice.
Not to mention my wife would skin me alive for turning my back on all of you,” Cam assured everyone.
“For better or worse, we are family, and no one fucks with my family, even if they threaten to put me in a deep dark hole where no one will find me.”
Jaxson scoffed at that. “Really, the CIA is the worst at picking covert locations for their prisons. Pretty sure we’ve found almost every one of them by now. Well, all the ones our targets were put into, that is.”
“And just like we found those once we caught a whiff of a lead, I give you Marco Tesoro’s base of operations,” Ghost announced, and with a flourish, projected the image on the wall behind us.
Picasso went to the windows and hit the button to bring down the shades enough for us to see more clearly.
“All I needed was a way to narrow the search, and Dax gave me that when I discovered the river is indeed deep enough to sail a boat down… not all the way but close enough to transfer it into trucks and get it to the docks,” Ghost explained.
“Interestingly enough, this blip of a town also carries the same name as the one Mariana grew up in. That way, when he talks about it, the general population would think of the one everyone knows about. This town, if you want to call it that, has a population of two hundred.”
The satellite pictures showed rolling mountain hills with a desert-like feel to it, with cacti, shrubs, and wiry-looking trees that gave little to no shade to the surrounding area.
When you got higher in the mountains, it seemed they got more rain and were more flush with plant life.
Actual trees with full leaves and grass covered the ground, even if it was fairly sparse.
When Ghost shifted the image to the town, I could see what he meant about that being a questionable term.
Instead, it looked like there were roughly twenty houses with solar panels on the peaked roofs.
There were also what looked like four metal barns that reflected the sunlight making it hard to tell what they could be used for, which I’m sure was by design.
There was no sign of pasture lands or plots growing anything, so I’m not sure what exactly kept this place going.
It seemed far more akin to the compound the Phantom Saints had than a real town.
A dirt road leads out to the main paved street after you wound your way down the mountain.
“This has to be it,” I said, feeling the rightness of it in my gut. “There’s no other reason for that place to even exist. Have you looked it up to see if it’s a legit town?” I asked Ghost.
“Yeah, it checks out, but there are no pictures or any information. If you try to use the general map search, the whole place is blurred out as they do for government buildings and other things they don’t want people snooping around in,” Ghost informed me.
“To me, the most telling feature is the helipad. What podunk town would have one of those? Tells me that Marco doesn’t stay there, but it’s where the goods are kept. ”
Frustrated, I crumpled up a wad of paper and chucked it at the wall. “Then what the fuck good does it do for us to know this?”
Heavy hands settled on my shoulders and pulled me against his body. “Easy, little demon, this is farther than we’ve ever gotten. Let’s not turn this into a small win, but a place we can hit that will fucking hurt him,” Void chided.
“Plus…” Ghost added, clicking over to another image, “… I also found his hideout.”
There in the mountains was a stunning hacienda-style home with a pool.
It was two stories, and the courtyard in the middle was full of plants and a fountain making a peaceful place for anyone to spend time.
The driveway was paved for miles until you reached the main road, and a larger town with everything you would need for supplies wasn’t too far.
Everything about this made me sick. This bastard was living the life of a king in his so-called palace safe and sound while he destroyed other people’s lives.
“Where’s that in comparison to the drug farm?” Sprocket asked.
Ghost zoomed out, and we spotted the river giving us a marker.
The bastard was about an hour away from the other location in another state on the opposite side of the river.
He’d thought of everything to keep the trail off of him.
He picked a town he named after his hometown so when he referred to it, no one was the wiser, and he flew from location to location on his fancy helicopter I saw waiting for him to use at any time on his home property.
“Go back to the hacienda,” I requested. “This time, keep it zoomed out for a more aerial view.”
Looking at it from this vantage point, I saw the wall built around his property and the guards stationed on the property.
It was like he was in a fortress on top of the mountain that no one could sneak up on.
Everything was done in such a manner that kept him from ever getting blindsided by an attack.
Other than his property, they’d removed most of the trees, leaving only shrubs and grass behind.
There was even a guard tower at each corner of his property to ensure no one even dared to get close.
“How the fuck are we going to pull this off?” I murmured.
Void’s firm hand massaged the back of my neck, making me instantly turn to mush. “We know where he is now, little demon. The rest will fall into place, don’t you worry. With the thirteen of us working on it, we’ll find the perfect answer.”
“Don’t forget, Dax, we also have your tank to use. No way they’ll have the weapons to take that out,” Ghost reminded me.
“I’d do a fly-over with a sensor to make sure there are no land mines,” Eagle suggested. “That might not take out a tank, but it could disable it.”
Magnus murmured his agreement, and Cognac made a note on a different piece of paper, ensuring we didn’t forget.
“Well, I say we did a hell of a job today,” Harper announced. “Why don’t we take a break, do something fun?”
“Really, something fun, like what?” I asked.
My best friend shrugged and looked at her guys. “I suck at this part, but the guys always have good ideas. We’ve been living and breathing this problem for days, and I’m afraid if we don’t give our brains a break, we might miss something.”
Ghost cleared his throat and raised a hand. “I have an idea.”
“This is my shocked face,” Jaxson retorted, motioning to his unimpressed look, making us all laugh. “Let’s have it.”
“So does anyone really know how to operate a tank?” Ghost asked.
“You know we don’t,” Void pointed out.
Ghost raised his hands like he was warding us off. “Fair, but I might have been doing a little research of my own about where I could be taught, so if we ever needed one, I’d be ready. Who wants to take a trip to a training base and play on some tank simulators?”
“Fuck yeah, now we’re talking,” I cheered, clapping my hands in excitement. “Where is it?”
“Missouri,” he answered. “Figured we could take one of our planes.”
The rest of the guys let out whoops of excitement and rushed to get their shoes and other things they would need.
“What about Alvaro?” I asked. “Would Raven mind keeping him around longer? Hell, if she wants to put him to work, I say go for it.”
“I’ll call her. If not, then we’ll just bring him with us. Harder to take out a moving target than leaving him to sit in one spot,” Magnus reasoned.
Tapping a finger on my chin, I thought that over. “Okay, let’s pick him up and take him with us. Then we can ask him questions on the plane and have all the fun when we land.”
I’d never seen the guys move as fast as they had getting their shit together to go on this impromptu trip.
Alvaro was collected, and we were at the private airport within an hour and a half of deciding to do this.
It was a five-hour flight, but it was still early afternoon, and we gained an hour.
That gave us all night to play with the simulator, plus Cam called his contact at the CIA and told him he’d make his own way since we had something come up.