Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
The dirt road just outside Rivera was narrower than he remembered from the last time he’d stayed here when they’d rescued Gael from El Pastor.
Rowan recognized the turnoff for the property between two eucalyptus trees and tapped the brakes on the beat-up Hilux that had been waiting as their rental in Neiva.
They rolled to a stop in front of a tall black gate with chipped paint and a sturdy lock.
Gael punched a number into his phone and put it to his ear. “Yo, SHR at the door.”
“Be there in a minute,” the accented voice immediately rasped in reply.
“You recognize the voice?”
Gael shook his head, “Nope, but that means nothing when it comes to Rock’s people. I’m not getting out until we see who it is, though.”
“Agreed.” He hated having to fly commercial. Flying commercial meant they had no weapons. But without sanctioned mission orders from someone so far up the chain of command that they were untouchable, it was impossible to travel with the gear and weapons they needed.
“He’s coming.” Gael nudged him with his elbow, “It’s St. Clare.”
Rowan stepped out first and grimaced when hot, swampy air hit him square in the face. “Jesus, Kentucky humidity ain’t got shit on this.”
Gael smirked as he came around the hood. “Cry harder. Might cool yourself off.”
“Jerk.” He stepped up to the gate and reached his hand through it to greet former Delta Force Team Panther and the current co-commander of a black ops team, Griffin St. Clare, “Grif, good to see you, man.”
Grif shook his hand and scanned the men in the trucks behind him. “Good to see you boys.” He rolled the numbers on the gate padlock and unhooked it. “Go on up to the house. Rock’s waiting on you. I’ll get the gate when you are through.”
“Thanks, man.”
They got back into the vehicle and Rowan eased it through the gates and up the winding drive. He glanced at Gael, “That’s one hell of a safe house.”
“Yeah, I thought we were rocking it with our place,” Gael agreed, “but this is one hell of a villa.” He nodded to the steps, “There’s Rock.”
Former Delta Force Team Wolf commander, Garret ‘Rock’ Rockwell, dominated every space he walked into. “Welcome to Colombia, boys.” He walked down the steps to meet them. “Good to see you, Rowan. It’s been a long time.”
“Nearly eight years.” Rowan clasped Rock’s hand and pulled him into a bro-hug. “How’s the family?” It still blew his mind that Rock and Grif were married to and had kids with one of the Kennedys out of Georgia.
“Good. Allie’s inside. If you want to insert by air, she’ll helo-drop you guys as close as we can, when you’re ready to roll,” Rock said as he led them into the mansion, “but first food, gear, shit, shave, all the usual crap you need to do to be mission ready. Mi casa, su casa.”
He did a fast headcount to make sure nobody was about to piss off one of the only friends they had in this area by walking around his house unsupervised. “Did my guy Cross send your guy what we have?”
“Yup.” Rock led them through the house and out through a set of French doors to an outdoor kitchen. He leaned against the terracotta stone pizza oven and watched Stronghold’s crew as they spread around the space. “Cade gave all the intel to FRED—"
“Whoa.” Rowan exchanged a glance with Gael as he struggled to keep the rage that blasted through him at bay. He’d never have sent the intel to Rock if he thought he was going to pass it on to someone else. “Who the fuck is Fred? He better be one of yours and not—”
“Calm your tits, asshole.” Grif stomped around the corner of the house and joined Rock at the pizza oven.
“FRED is our computer program, Find, Recon, Evaluate, Decide. We fed it all the intel we have on El Pastor, Jalisco New Generation Cartel, and your hostage.” He glared at the twins.
“We’d never fuck up your op by giving intel to outsiders, and I’m insulted it would even cross your mind. ”
“Shit.” Rowan scrubbed his hand down his face. “Sorry, man. I don’t know why I’m so on edge about this one.”
“The right woman will do that to you every time.” Rock’s voice rumbled out of his chest.
Is he insane?
“I’ve never met her.” Rowan corrected. “Even if I had, domestic, happy shit isn’t exactly in my wheelhouse—”
Something slammed into his cheek and he clapped a hand over it.
“What the hell?” Next to him, Gael dropped into a fighting stance, and all of his men reached for weapons none of them had.
“Lexi.”
“Sorry, Papa,” a voice called back. “I was practicing. I missed.” The voice grumbled, “I was aiming for the one next to him.”
“Get your butt back in the house, and give that blow gun to momma, before I come up there an’ whoop your butt.” Grif grabbed a tea towel and tossed it to Rowan. “You bleeding?”
“Momma will whack you with the skillet if you—”
Rowan pulled his hand away from his face and showed it to Grif, relieved when his fingers weren’t smeared with blood.
Damn, that stings.
That’s their daughter?
Apple sure didn’t fall far from that tree.
He scanned around looking to see if he could find the source of the projectile that hit him, and came up empty.
Where the hell is she?
“Lex.” Rock’s voice was filled with warning.
“Yes, daddy?”
“You’re ten, not two. Go find your momma and take your brother with you. Now.” Rock glared in the direction the voice was coming from. “You know better than to interrupt a briefing.”
“Yes, sir.”
It took him longer than it should have to understand what this place was. The house Rock and Grif had invited them into wasn’t just a safe house. It was Rock, Grif, and Allie’s private family safe house.
Holy crap.
“Despite your kid trying to shoot my eye out, I’m honored you invited us here.”
“She’s more Kennedy than anything,” Rock grumbled, “and spent most of last summer in Texas with her uncle Micah. “She’s picked up his bad habits and forgotten what it means to follow the rules”
“And you’re proud as all get-out about it.”
“Just don’t tell her that,” Rock smirked, “we have our hands full as it is, without her deciding she’s the commander and we should follow her rules, not the other way around.”
“I can see how that would be a problem.”
Rock glanced at Grif and quirked up an eyebrow, clearly a silent question that Grif responded to with a nod.
“Come with us.” Rock grabbed a set of keys and led them from the outdoor kitchen around the side of the house to another locked gate.
Once they were through and into the garden, it was more than obvious that kids lived here.
The pool had inflatable toys and a kids’ tricycle lay on its side near the door to the house.
Rowan could see all his men breathe sighs of relief when they were brought to another building tucked away at the bottom of the garden. This one was lined with weapons cages, had screens on the wall, and a massive table running down the middle of it.
This is more like it.
“Welcome to Ghost’s remote office,” Grif said wryly. He went to one cage and unclipped the door. “M4s, M16s, mags, frags, and anything else you need. If it’s not here, then it’s probably not been made yet.”
Man, their weapons cache is an operator’s wet dream.
“Thanks, Bro. Appreciate it.”
“If you tell me where you are heading,” Rock flipped on the screens, “we can tell you the best way to get there.” He moved to the center of the room and leaned his butt against the table between two of the chairs.
“May I?” Rowan pointed to the remote on the table.
Rock glanced at Grif and shrugged. “Knock yourself out, Salieri.”
“What if knocking myself out comes with a side of connecting your computers to the ones at Stronghold?”
“That’s above our pay grade.” Rock pulled out his phone and punched in a number.
“Bro, I have Stronghold here, and they need to do some computer shit. After the fuck-up with Ramos, I’m not touching a damn thing.
I’m putting you on speaker.” He placed the phone on the computer desk that ran the length of the wall.
“About time you learned your lesson,” the voice on the phone said.
“Speaker, asshole,” Rock grumbled.
“Yes, sir.” The man on the phone snickered.
Clearly, Rock had a good relationship with his people.
Rowan’s eyebrows flew upward when one of the screens flipped from the maps of the to what was clearly a war-room.
“Don’t do that shit, asshole.” Rock glared at the man on the screen.
The man on screen ignored his boss and turned his attention to Rowan. “Which Salieri brother are you?”
“Gael,” Rowan answered immediately. He wanted to see if this man could tell the difference between them.
“Weird,” The man had a slight accent that Rowan couldn’t place. “I thought Gael was the untalkative one.”
Rowan had been pretending he was his brother, and vice versa, for long enough that he knew he could pull it off if he had to, so rather than answering, he just watched the man with a bland look on his face.
He snapped his fingers and hoped Gael would hear it over the din of the men picking weapons and gear from the cages.
Within seconds, his brother stood shoulder to shoulder with him. He, too, quirked up an eyebrow at the man on the screen.
“Which one are you?”
“Rowan.” Gael clearly remembered the tricks they played as boys—before war, too many missions and deployments to count, and a stint at the hands of the bastards they now hunted again wreaked havoc with everything that had made Gael sociable.
“Does it matter which is which?” Rock growled.
“I wanted to see if FRED could figure it out.” The man picked up a notepad and scribbled something on it. “I’ll have to tweak him.”
“If you said you were going to tweak Rio,” Rock huffed in annoyance, “that I could understand, but a fucking computer program?”
“Rock?” Grif yelled from the far side of the room. “Don’t insult our resident geek; we need him and his tweaky programs, k.”
Rock rolled his eyes in response to Gif’s rebuke. “Get on with it, tell him what you need, Salieri.
“Our resident geek, Cross, is waiting for us to check in,” Rowan said. “If you can do the connection thing, without it compromising your security here, then we can overlay what he has on a map, and figure out how the hell we can get there.”
“It’s a jungle.” Rock nodded permission to his man. “If you go in by helo, while I’m more than willing to lend you one. Your tangos will hear you coming a mile off. Let’s see how close we can get you using the river as egress.”
“Copy that.” Rowan agreed, “Get in. Get her. Get out. Sounds much more fun than landing in a nest of wasps with all the stingers aimed at us.”
“Then let’s get to work.” Rock gestured to the screens, “The boys are doing their thing. Once they’re done, we’ll work the intel and come up with a plan.”
***
Consciousness came to Enya in slow stages as if her body wasn’t entirely sure if it wanted to know what was happening in the horrific place she’d found herself in.
Pain came first, bone-deep and raw, a million tiny needles stabbing into her skin over and over.
Everything from her fingernails to her hair throbbed.
Suffocating heat followed swiftly on pain’s heels, thick and wet in her lungs, coating her throat until it felt like she was swimming through silty quicksand.
But worst was when sound crashed over her, accompanied by the non-stop feather-light touches on her skin from the flies buzzing and feasting on something that smelled rancid and rotten.
Oh my god, is it me?
Her eyes flew open. She tried to sit up, but bone-jarring pain in her sides sent her flopping over onto her back. She frantically twisted her head trying to see where she was.
“Ma-Maria?” She managed to get her arms under her and frantically looked for the woman who’d been recaptured with her. She had no memory of being brought here. She didn’t recognize the sticks and earth that made up the walls of her prison.
Where am I?
Struggling to make her eyes focus and her mind work correctly, she closed them briefly, took a shallow breath, and looked around the space.
She lay on a dirt floor. The walls were wooden, with dirt and leaves pushed between the cracks.
It was empty except for her and the bag hanging from the dodgy-looking rafters.
Why is that there?
What is it?
Is that a—
The thought cut off in her head as the blanket spun, and she figured out what it was.
“Maaaarrrrriiiiiiaaa,” Enya screamed at the macabre vision before her. She scrambled away from the body as best she could and then mercifully, everything went dark.