Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Rowan had forgotten how much he hated working in a jungle environment. He hated how everything felt wet, heavy, and was thick with heat that didn’t just cling to his skin but soaked straight through to his bones.
This fucking sucks.
Every step was a fight against roots and vines. He and his men had worked themselves down a trail that was a mess of mud and fallen limbs, but they kept moving. Their slow and deliberate bootsteps muffled by rotten leaves and God knows what else.
I’m never bitching about the humidity in Kentucky again.
Ever.
But he knew that was a lie. How many times had he muttered the same thing over the years? Too many, yet when it hit the hundreds in July, he knew he’d plant his ass in a chair on the porch and mutter about the price of fans and the electricity they were using.
The critters in the jungle had long ago gotten used to their presence and kept up their songs, buzzes, and went about their daily routines as if his team had as much right to be there as they did.
The second the sound cut off, Rowan raised a fist and froze mid-step.
His team stopped instantly. There was no need for questions or to ask what had happened.
Gael slid up beside him. The warpaint on his face was streaked with sweat.
He kept his weapon low but ready. He tilted his chin east, toward the dip in the ground where a narrow animal track cut across their route.
Rowan nodded, adjusted his grip on the MK18, and crouched.
He didn’t need to check if his men would do the same.
He knew they would. He cocked his head to one side as the sound of voices drifted toward them.
Is that who we’re looking for?
He glanced at his wrist computer. They were still miles from where Ghost’s computer program, FRED, had pinpointed. He could hear two men, maybe three, laughing about something. Close enough to make the wrong move deadly.
Is it a cartel patrol?
Shit, did they move her?
Rowan eased back and touched Valley and Titan on the arms as he passed them. Using hand signals, he directed them to circle around and see if the hostages were with these men. Within seconds, both operators faded into the canopy and disappeared.
Knowing the others had watch and would cover him, he studied the map.
If the hostages were here, then they’d have further to go to get to their exfil point.
Just in case that happened, he needed a route.
Using his thumb and forefinger, he enlarged the map and scrolled to look for another clearing he could use as a secondary pickup point if it was needed.
He found a likely location and dropped a pin in it, knowing Theo would see it on the screen in their Tactical Operations Center and mark it in case it was needed later.
Valley and Titan appeared silently out of the trees. “No hostages,” Valley whispered.
Shit.
Engaging them here, while they were on the move, might have sucked for extraction, but it would have been a hell of a lot easier than engaging the cartel in a place where they’d dug in and secured their perimeter. Rowan glanced at Gael, silently asking his opinion. His brother pointed to the south.
New route it is, then.
They shifted direction by a couple of degrees and fanned out, each man moving silently. Jericho moved to point position and cut a path down the slope with a machete. Colson stayed rear guard, watching the trail behind them for anything coming up on their six.
Rowan felt the weight of every footfall and every shift of his gear. Even the sweat rolling down his spine beneath the harness and the pull of his rifle strap on his shoulder all urged him to hurry.
He hadn’t thought it was possible for the air to get any thicker or heavier, but as they moved past a tangle of low vines and into a hollow choked with ferns, it did.
He swatted at something buzzing in his ear and bit his tongue to keep himself from allowing the screech that bubbled up his throat from escaping.
Even the fucking bugs are huge.
I fucking hate it here.
Hate. It.
He could hate it all he wanted; it didn’t change the fact that they were back in the hellscape that almost killed his twin. He held up his fist and dropped into a couch while he checked the SAT receiver on his wrist. The map showed an elevation change ahead.
Finally, we are close to the ridge line.
Gael moved silently next to him. “They’ll have watchers on the high ground,” he murmured, just low enough for him to hear.
That tracks.
Even where no man should be able to track them, the cartels were cautious. Had enough time passed since he and Joel laid waste to their compound to rescue Gael? Maybe, but once again the jungle was silent, and he’d trust the creatures’ instincts more than technology.
Rowan nodded. “We’ll go wide.”
Gael pointed to the west with his thumb. “There’s water down that way. If we follow it, it’ll mask our approach noise.”
“Risk?”
Gael’s jaw tightened. “Flooded ground. Leeches, the usual shit for this place. There might be a camp downstream.”
Rowan considered it. “Better than walking into a gun barrel.” He gave the signal, and they shifted direction again, this time moving toward the waterline.
His boots sank into the spongy earth with each step.
He kept his head on a swivel, rifle up, his eyes tracking everything that moved.
He didn’t need maps and GPS to tell him they hadn’t much further to go.
He could feel it, the adrenaline ramping up in his system.
Telling him a fight was coming. All he could hope for was that their hostage was still alive, and that she’d survive the fight to come so he could keep his promise and bring her home.
“TOC, Seahorse One. You still with me, over?” he spoke into his encrypted helmet comms mic.
“Seahorse One, TOC. Still here. Still babysitting your asses, as ordered.”
Rowan slid in behind a thick root web when Theo responded in his ear, “Are we ready to party, TOC?”
“Yes, Sir,” Theo replied. “G-TOC kicked tech ass and has our eyes in place, so we’re ready to roll when you are.”
“Roger that, TOC.” He was adding to the list of stuff he owed Rock and Grif by the minute.
The radio connection went static and buzzy for a moment before clearing. “Your tango’s huts are up ahead. There are four of them, rough-built and spaced just wide enough to make a coordinated entry a bitch.”
He felt a hell of a lot better now that they had eyes on their location, feeding them intel. Even if it was from a hell of a lot of miles away and over satellite feed.
I’ll take it.
“Move forward with caution, Seahorse One.”
How the fuck else does he think we are going to move forward?
“Roger that, TOC.” He motioned to the guys, and they moved out once again, this time fanning out carefully to surround the location that pinged on their wrist computers.
Within ten minutes, they could smell the smoke, and within fifteen, they were parting branches to peer into the clearing.
Thank fuck it’s not a compound, like when we came for Gael.
Smoke curled faintly from the largest hut, and its thatched roof sagged as if no one could be bothered to fix it.
There was no fence or gate. The jungle had been cleared in a rough circle, and a muddy path went straight through the middle.
Rowan lifted his weapon and scanned through the scope.
Two men near the cookfire, their rifles lying carelessly on the ground some distance from them.
They aren’t paying attention.
He kept scanning with the scope and paused briefly on where a third man was pissing off the side of a half-collapsed platform. He marked his position with a tap on his wrist computer and moved on searching for what, or rather who, he’d come for.
Enya.
Where is she?
His stomach roiled at the possibility they were too late. He dialed the volume on his comms down to the minimum. “TOC, Seahorse One.”
“Go ahead, One.”
“Talk to me, TOC,” he whispered, “Tell me you see our hostage.”
“Negative, sir.”
FUCK!
“How about a possible location they could be holding her?”
“That’s another negative, sir.”
That was the last thing he wanted to hear.
He much preferred jobs that came with building blueprints and security rosters.
Did he engage with these people? If he did and these weren’t the ones who had her, how fast would the jungle drums let others know they were searching for her?
On one hand, these people weren’t a jungle tribe just minding their own business.
The weapons reassured him of that. On the other hand, his own moral code refused to allow him to attack these men without reason.
They are part of the cartel that fucked up Gael.
That’s reason enough.
Rowan cut off that thought before he allowed the desire for revenge to overpower his honor. He clicked on comms and whispered an order. “Seahorse, find me confirmation that she’s here or at least was here.” A series of clicks in response told him his men would do as he asked.
As he waited for his men to report back, he heavily judged the lack of order he witnessed in the tangos. But he figured it would work to their advantage if Enya Moore were here.
Please be here.
He didn’t want to have to start their hunt from scratch again. The longer she was missing, the less chance they had of recovering her alive.
Gael ghosted up beside him. “We’ve got at least seven, but there might be more inside some of the huts.”
“Any sign of her?”
His stomach sank when Gael responded with a shake of his head.
“Damn.”
“One, Four.” Jericho’s voice crackled softly through the comm. “No heat signatures beyond the far hut. But the upside is I’ve found no tripwires or shit.”
“Copy.”
“One, Three,” Dawsyn called on comms.
“Go ahead, Three.”
“I’m sending you an image, sir.” Dawsyn said, “You might want to send it through to TOC to confirm.”
Crap, that’s not good.