Chapter Eleven
She could do this.
She had to do this.
Maggie held her breath as the compound came into sight up ahead. In truth, she didn’t remember a whole lot about the outside. The Sangre por Sangre soldiers who’d taken her the night of the operation to capture Toledano had dragged her inside unconscious. The first thing she’d remembered was waking up in the dark, dank hole she’d come to treasure between interrogations.
She would’ve done anything to escape this place. Now she was going back into it willingly. But Jones had been right. The fastest way to get answers was by questioning the source. Though she couldn’t imagine why Bodhi had opted to fire her instead of chasing a story of this caliber. The answer to that question would have to wait, but the betrayal refused to let up.
She’d had no illusions American Military News would be a career home forever. It’d been meant as a stepping stone, one that’d helped her land on her feet after the divorce. Support her long enough to get a place of her own and build a reputation in the media world.
Before her marriage had imploded, she’d cut her teeth on articles here and there in tandem with her day job as a freelance copywriter for a variety of different companies. Her husband hadn’t wanted her to work at all, hoping to convince her to start a family before she lost all her eggs to age. But it’d been her own little private investigation into a case of a missing naval officer she’d read about in the papers that ended in him being found. She spent her nights watching true crime and gobbling up every book she could get her hands on. It was the investigations—of one clue leading to the next, of reliving the journalist’s setbacks and triumphs, that propelled her to give it a try. The naval officer’s aunt had been calling for any information, offering a reward, but something had seemed off. The aunt’s insistence he would be okay—that he was strong and resourceful and a fighter—had Maggie watching the aunt’s home for a couple days. There hadn’t been any sign of the officer between news outlet campouts, but she’d noticed an uptick in groceries. More than a woman of his aunt’s size would need. She’d marched straight up to the door during one of the “please find him” interviews and exposed him as a coward hiding in his bedroom. The resulting attention had given her a base to apply for the war correspondent position.
But while she’d ultimately taken the job to help dig her out of what was left of that old life, there was a mass of emptiness in her chest at its loss. She’d thought she was doing something she was good at for once. Subscriptions had been up, with spikes every time Bodhi had published one of her pieces. The people of New Mexico found it more important than ever to keep an eye on the war between the federal government and Sangre por Sangre after what’d happened in Alpine Valley about a month ago. Because any one of their towns could be next. She’d been a part of that. Made a difference. And now...
Now she didn’t know what she was supposed to do.
“You two sure know how to make a girl’s day.” Scarlett Beam turned her gaze out the driver’s side back window as they shot across the desert, one hand set on a Doberman she’d called Hans. The other one, Gruber, prodded Gotham in the face with his nose. “It’s been weeks since I’ve taken on a good assignment. You can only run diagnostics on security equipment so many times before you start imagining threats. Except for the part where one of my teammates brings home a journalist who starts unplugging my cameras.”
Heat flared into Maggie’s face. Bits and pieces of memory broke into the moment. She’d done that. Right after she’d woken up in the medical suite that first time. She hadn’t thought much about it at the time. Especially that someone would’ve had to go back and fix what she’d done. “Sorry about that. I hope I didn’t damage your equipment.”
“I would’ve done the same thing in your position.” Scarlett scratched the nearest Doberman, but there was something in that statement that hinted at a similar experience. One where the woman in the back seat might’ve had to face her own survival.
“Unofficial assignment.” Jones cut his gaze into the rearview mirror. “We clear?”
“We’re clear. I honor my deals, Driscoll.” The security consultant nodded. “I won’t tell Ivy about today’s little field trip and that you have nothing to support your cover-up theory, and you won’t rat me out for...my little indiscretion you walked in on.”
Silence bubbled between the three of them. Maggie forced herself to stare out the windshield. The chain-link fence surrounding the compound glinted under the hot desert sun ahead. The curiosity embedded deep in her soul and that’d urged her to apply as a journalist in the first place built to the point Maggie couldn’t help but turn in her seat. Finding out why people did what they did. That was the basis of a good investigative reporter and war correspondent. If she bothered to slow down and let herself think about it, that was why she’d applied to the magazine in the first place. To understand what type of person, who’d claimed he was willing to stick with her until the end, suddenly felt the need to destroy her from the inside. “What did you—”
“She smuggled in a guy she was sleeping with without clearing it through Ivy first.” Jones fought the slight rise at one corner of his mouth. “Which doesn’t sound as bad as it should. Except we have security protocols every operative swears to live by when they sign on to work for Socorro. We can’t risk outsiders coming across our data or accessing our systems and files.”
“The best people to get around security protocols are the ones who built them in the first place.” Vibrant red hair alluded to the fiery personality armored beneath her own Kevlar vest and protected by more weapons than Maggie could count. But Maggie had never counted on stereotypes. Data. Behavior. Connections. Those were the categories that defined a person. Not their hair color. But from what Maggie could see, Scarlett Beam wasn’t the type of person to roll with the punches. She was ready for any possibility and planned every detail accordingly. Probably liked to stick to a routine, stubborn about change. No, not stubborn. Terrified. Maggie imagined a security consultant like her didn’t care for surprises in her work or personal life. And she most certainly hadn’t planned on Jones.
Funny. Neither had Maggie.
“Let’s just say I did my own background check on him.” Scarlet winked. “It was very thorough.”
“We’re here.” Jones let the SUV roll to a stop before shoving the transmission into Park, and suddenly, the lightness they’d created in such a small amount of time evaporated, leaving Maggie heavier than when they’d decided on this plan. “Satellite footage isn’t giving us any activity here in the past twenty-four hours. That’s the only reason I agreed to this, but you know the deal. Scarlett and I will surveil the perimeter before heading inside. I’ll give you the all clear if we deem it safe enough. If we come into contact with Sosimo Toledano, we’ll secure him and his men before we question him.”
He studied her for a beat, and Maggie knew exactly what he was going to say before the words left his mouth. That was what happened when relationships were honed from a biological need to survive. A connection—stronger and deeper than anything she’d experienced—had forged between them since that terrible night. As though he felt every twinge, every nodule of doubt in her body, and she in his. Jones didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want her to have to come back here. He didn’t want to risk her well-being to prove there was something to their theory. But it was the only way. They both knew that. “You don’t have to face him.”
“I suddenly feel the need to not be here. Hans, Gruber.” Scarlett clicked her tongue to call the Dobermans, and Gotham’s whine at losing his friends filled the SUV’s cabin. The security consultant slammed the door behind her.
Spearing his fingers around her ear and into her hair, Jones brought Maggie’s forehead to his over the center console. “We can come at this another way. Take a shot at your editor. See what he knows and why he killed the story.”
She wanted that. More than anything. To get away from here. To forget what she’d been through and wipe it clean from every angle of her life. It was the shame that hurt the most. The fact that she’d failed to protect herself, that she hadn’t seen the threat coming at all. That she’d let another man beat her at her own game.
Maggie set her hand over his, borrowing his strength. Just a little bit. That was all she needed. Him. She closed her eyes, memorizing this moment, feeling him against her skin. She’d never done that with another man, even while she’d been with her ex. Because on a cellular level, some part of her hadn’t trusted him, feared what he’d do if she took her eyes off him. But she trusted Jones. From the very beginning, he’d fought for her. Sacrificed for her. Defended her to the very end. Data. Behavior. Connections. His told a story of loyalty and support and love, and that there didn’t seem to be anything that could break him. Least of all her. He was everything she’d wanted for herself. He was everything she deserved. “No. You were right before. Questioning Sosimo Toledano is the smart move. And I need to do this, Jones. Otherwise, that fear is going to control me for the rest of my life, and I’ve already lost too much time to men like him.”
“Okay.” He extracted his hand from her hair and reached for the door handle. A gust of hot wind intensified the heat he’d curated along her neck and head as his boots hit the ground. “I’m coming back for you, Maggie Caddel.”
“I know.” Not a lie. The SUV shook as he secured her inside. Visually following him through the windshield, Maggie admired the grace both operatives somehow managed with over thirty pounds of gear and weaponry. The Dobermans fanned out ahead of their handler but soon vanished beneath the rim of the man-made crater protecting Sangre por Sangre ’s abandoned headquarters below.
She reached for the radio pinned to the dashboard, the plastic frame protesting under her grip. One minute. Then five. No word yet. The sun cut through the windshield and spiked her internal body temperature. Sweat built up at her temples as her heart rate climbed higher. No signs of gunshots or an alarm. Not even a bark from the Dobermans. Was this supposed to be a no-news-is-good-news operation?
Gotham threaded his front paws over the center console and wormed his way into the driver’s seat. Lengthening his neck, he studied the landscape through the window, then turned those iridescent blue eyes on her for answers.
“I know how you feel.” Maggie scruffed the fur along his back, which obviously meant she wanted him in her lap because suddenly the husky’s butt landed on top of her thigh. She couldn’t fault him for needing a bit of assurance. She needed it, too. “It’ll all be okay. Jones and Scarlett know what they’re doing.”
Static crackled through the radio, and Maggie brought it to her ear. She needed something—anything—to feed that panicked part of herself ready to bolt from the SUV and follow after them.
“We found him. Toledano and his men.” Jones’s voice tensed every muscle down her spine as seconds distorted into agonizing silence. “But we’re not going to get answers here. They’re all dead.”
T HEY ’ D BEEN TOO LATE .
The bodies were cold. Dead for more than a day based off the smell.
“Ambush.” Scarlett Beam wove between the corpses, her mouth buried in the crook of her elbow. She bent down to collect a container of some sort as Maggie stood at the peripheral of the scene. Gotham was going nuts, signaling each time he encountered another set of remains. “Food wrappers, empty water bottles, burn ointment. I’d say Sosimo Toledano and his men were hiding out after what went down at the arch two nights ago. I doubt they cut their own power though. I’m guessing the team who surprised them yesterday did that.”
She was right. Jones grazed his flashlight beam over the walls. Blood mixed in with cinderblock, water and bullet holes. Setting the end of the flashlight between his teeth, he pulled the blade from his ankle holster and dug at one of the holes. The projectile popped free as the rotting cinderblock crumpled to the floor, and he dropped the flashlight into his hand. “Three different calibers. Five targets, most likely three separate shooters. Wouldn’t have taken them more than a couple minutes to finish the job once they penetrated the perimeter.”
His gut clenched as the picture became clear. Jones followed the trajectory of the bullets to the source, the end of the corridor they’d come down. “My guess is they used the garage as an access point. Same as we did. If you had a layout of the place before we blew it to hell the last time, they would’ve seen that was the best entry point.” He tossed the bullet to Scarlett, which she caught against her vest. “Maggie and I met a team capable of this. Seven-man team, all highly trained and determined to tie up loose ends.”
The military unit ordered to kill her.
Gotham went from one body to the next, turning in circles. The smell had to be driving him crazy.
“But why? Why leave them here? Why kill them at all?” Maggie’s voice... It gripped him until he swore his heart stopped pumping blood. There was something hurried in the tone that worked to counteract the calmness in his. As though she were an emotional regulator for him, and when he thought back, he could see where that was true. How she seemed to bring him down on a logical level when none of this had made sense. Maggie kept her distance from the mass of bodies left to rot away with the rest of the structure. “Toledano was there that night. He helped those gunmen get rid of the bodies from the ambush. They were clearly working together. Why would they kill him?”
“Whoever did this wanted to make sure Sosimo Toledano didn’t walk away with their secrets. Or maybe his usefulness just ran out.” Scarlett crouched beside the leader’s bloated corpse but didn’t move to touch anything that might upset the scene. “You said those soldiers were US military, most likely army. As much as it pains me to consider the country I put my life on the line for would step into a deal with people like this, I can’t deny your story makes sense now that I’ve seen evidence for myself.” The security consultant watched as her twin Dobermans circled the other side of the room. “I’ve still got an enlisted contact. Let me reach out, see what I can put together.”
“I don’t want your name on any requisition forms.” That was the only way this was going to work. Scarlett had worked too damn hard for too damn long to put distance between her and the people she’d once trusted to get wrapped up in anything army-related now, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to upset the slice of peace she’d found with Socorro. “Everything stays off the books. You got me?”
“Understood.” Scarlett whistled low for her companions, and the Dobermans obeyed without hesitation. “I’m going to get the lay of the rest of the building. See if I can pick up anything that gives us an idea of who’s behind this. Meet you back at the car.”
“I’ll call this in. Make sure these bodies end up in the right hands.” Jones pulled his cell and sent a ping to Chief of Police Baker Halsey. The deaths hadn’t occurred within Alpine Valley boundaries, but he was the only man in the department Jones trusted. Halsey would know what to do and who to reach out to. Most likely with Socorro’s logistics coordinator—Jocelyn Carville—running point. “Whoever did this wanted to make sure Sosimo Toledano and his men weren’t found, and I’m pretty much up for anything to disrupt their plans.”
Maggie didn’t respond, her gaze locked on the face of her torturer. “It doesn’t even look like him.”
“Decomposition eliminates a lot of features.” Jones didn’t really want to get into the specifics. No one should have to witness the slaughter of a human being. No matter how much hatred existed for the deceased. “The medical examiner will have to compare DNA, fingerprints and dental records to get a positive ID.”
“No. I know that.” Her tongue shot across her lips as she dared a step closer to the body. “I mean, I memorized every centimeter of this man’s face while he was interrogating me. I’ve seen it so many times when I close my eyes, I was sure I’d never forget the small details. But this... This doesn’t feel like him.”
“It’s going to take some time for you to adjust to the idea you don’t have to be scared of him anymore,” he said.
“You’re probably right.” She backed away from the body, seemingly realizing how close she’d gotten in the first place. There weren’t many civilians willing to confront their greatest fears—especially those in the form of a torturer or person who’d hurt them—but Maggie continued to keep him off balance. She was stronger than she gave herself credit for, but that strength had only come from surviving what most people didn’t. His brother included. And, hell, he didn’t blame her for wanting a break from it all. To be soft, as she’d put it. Happy. “So the one source we had any chance of getting answers out of is dead. Our only other option is going to my editor. Hoping he knows something.”
“I don’t make moves based on hope.” Jones surveyed the bodies a second time, studying each one after the other. He moved in order of closest to farthest, ending with Sosimo Toledano. “Bullets don’t come with serial numbers. The only way we’ll be able to trace these are if their striations matched something already registered in the state or federal database, and I doubt these guys would risk using anything to connect back to them or the army. Problem is, we still don’t know if they’re the ones who made this mess. If they are, it means they would’ve had to supplement their arsenal. But just like switching from one instrument to another, getting used to a weapon takes time. A couple days at least.”
Jones crouched beside Toledano. He targeted a spread of blood in the lieutenant’s side. A parting gift of that night at the bonfire. Wrinkled, angry skin contorted the bastard’s face and along his left arm. On top of that, a bullet had gone straight through the lower section of his left lung, drowning him from the inside. And hell, Jones wasn’t the least bit remorseful of the bastard’s final minutes after everything he’d done to Maggie. “They didn’t plan on us coming here. Could work in our favor.”
“You think the soldiers might not have cleaned up as well as they would have if these bodies were meant to be found. Like they might’ve left behind prints or maybe some of this blood belongs to one of them if Sosimo Toledano got a shot off.” Damn, he loved the way her brain worked. How she almost seemed to read his thoughts and put the puzzle together ahead of him. Maggie shifted her weight between both feet. “How long until your contact in Alpine Valley PD can sort this out?”
No. That wasn’t the question she was asking. She wanted to know how much time she had left. How long it would take for the group sent to kill her to finish what they’d started out there at the arch. He shoved himself to his feet. The smell was getting to him. The heat, combined with the lack of air conditioning in an underground basement, only made matters worse. “Processing the scene? Couple hours as soon as they arrive. Getting any kind of result on DNA or prints? Weeks. Every piece of evidence they collect goes through a specialized lab out of Albuquerque. The chief can order a rush, but no one is going to care much about a bunch of dead cartel members.”
Silence spread between them.
“I know some people who would care.” Her voice barely reached through the darkness.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“The articles I wrote about Sangre por Sangre and what the DEA, the military, even towns across the state were doing in response increased the magazine’s subscriptions. Every time.” That frenzy, the one he’d noted back in his room, started burning in her eyes in the glow of his flashlight. Her excitement was almost contagious, rocketing his pulse into higher territory. “Once all that business about Alpine Valley hit the news, the public grew obsessed. They couldn’t get enough. It was in every paper, on every news site. You couldn’t look anywhere without seeing some anchor covering the story. It’s a classic universal fantasy. A small town stands up to a drug cartel and comes out on top. Who wouldn’t read that?”
“You think this is about media ratings?” He didn’t understand. “I wouldn’t count a quarter of a town being buried during a landslide set off by an explosive meant to kill the chief of police and one of my teammates as a fantasy.”
“No. I’m saying this is about perception.” Maggie closed the distance between them. “What if the operation to apprehend Toledano was supposed to end with casualties? He’s a high-level target whose capture would make a big impact on Sangre por Sangre operations if successful. Given the right kind of intel, it wouldn’t be hard to get a mission like that approved. But something goes wrong. Soldiers end up dead.”
His gut said she was onto something.
“All right. Let’s play this out. Sangre por Sangre is accused of killing American soldiers. The media gets ahold of the story. The public is in a rage, most likely calling for action.” His brain couldn’t help but jump to his employer. Socorro’s contract with the Pentagon was binding until the next review in a week, but there hadn’t been a shortage of outrage from towns in the vicinity at having a private military contractor setting up shop close by. Outrage from local government officials, too. There was one in particular... Jones couldn’t think of his name. A senator who’d been calling for the Pentagon to revoke contracts with private military outfits like Socorro’s. Jones tried to force the pieces to fit into the puzzle they’d stumbled into. He pointed to the cartel members at his feet. “But good news. The US military has taken down the bad guys responsible.”
“Except units like the one we came across don’t issue their own orders.” Maggie slipped her hand up his forearm as the truth gutted him from the inside.
“They follow them.” Jones tried to breathe through the acid burning up his throat. “Someone higher up sent those soldiers to die.”
“Only I wasn’t supposed to be there.” She scanned the bodies. “And they’re trying to kill me to cover it up.”