Chapter 14 #2
Fiona straightened to look at her husband. “Bree told us about that. About how the man after her had worked for the same organization responsible for holding us in Mexico.”
“And?”
“And what?” Fiona asked.
“Did you have any flashbacks? Panic attacks?”
“No,” Fiona said. “I won’t deny it was a shock. But I was more pissed than anything else. Bree was the one who was having the hardest time with what was happening.”
Smiley’s heart ached at hearing those words.
“So what happened next? Bree made the knife…?” Kevlar asked.
“I cut off some of my slip, since I’m the shortest and it was the longest on me. Bree used the piece of plastic to cut some of her hair, to secure the cloth to the handle. Then we waited.”
“It seemed to take forever,” Fiona said, the women going back and forth, telling the story. “We stopped, and for some reason it felt different that time. As if we’d made it to wherever we were going.”
“There was this red light inside the truck, and when the door finally opened, it was dark outside. The light from some kind of streetlamps hurt our eyes. A man got into the truck and walked through the cages of chickens, who were squawking up a storm, not happy to be disturbed. Or maybe they just knew evil was walking amongst them. Who knows.”
“Our plan was to somehow get someone to open our cages, to give us a chance to get away. It wasn’t much of a plan, but Bree said she’d fake being sick or something. I wasn’t sure it would do much good, it wasn’t as if anyone gave a shit about our well-being up until that point as it was.”
Smiley’s gaze went back and forth between Fiona and Julie as they recounted their ordeal. Hatred welled inside him, and it took all his training to tamp it down. He couldn’t afford to be emotional right now. He needed to be impassive, take in every scrap of info he could.
“He told Bree that Fiona and I had been sold to men in Russia and North Korea, but that she was being taken to their boss’s compound in Ecuador. She was a gift to the employees to use however they wanted.” Julie shuddered.
“She begged for water. Pretended to be terrified, although she probably wasn’t really faking it, now that I think about it.
But she acted submissive, as if she was already broken.
It made the guy drop his guard, I think.
He unlocked her cage and dragged her out.
He touched her…squeezed her breast…and that’s when she made her move. ”
The pride and awe in Fiona’s voice couldn’t remove the fury coursing through Smiley’s body at the thought of someone touching Bree without her consent.
“She stabbed him. Right in the neck,” Julie said, sounding bloodthirsty and not at all traumatized by what had happened right in front of her eyes.
“And then she kneed him in the balls,” Fiona added.
“He dropped his keys, and she threw them to Fiona. Then she stabbed the guy in the neck again while he was down. Blood went everywhere but she kept doing it. Making sure he wasn’t going to get up or call for help.”
“I unlocked the padlock on my cage, crawled out, and freed Julie.”
“Then we heard another guy calling for the one who was lying at our feet, bloody and dying. Bree told us she was going to distract them. That we should run,” Julie said, her voice breaking for the first time.
“We refused. But she insisted,” Fiona added.
“She told us to tell you…” Julie paused, as if she couldn’t get the words out.
“That she loves you,” Fiona finished quietly for her friend. “And that you’re the best thing that ever happened to her.”
Smiley’s first thought was happiness. It hit him hard and fast. But terror overrode it in an instant.
He could see his Bree standing there, in that same damn slip the others had worn, holding her makeshift weapon, probably splattered with her victim’s blood.
Looking like a Valkyrie. Willing to sacrifice herself so her new friends could get away.
He hated that she’d sacrificed herself…but he was also never as proud of anyone as he was of her in that moment.
“She ran out of the truck, jumped right on top of one of the men outside the door, screamed like a banshee, then ran away as fast as she could,” Julie said.
“And everyone followed her,” Fiona said with a sad nod. “Just as she hoped. Her actions allowed us to sneak out of that truck and hide.”
“Did anyone look for you?” Cookie asked gently.
“Yeah, but we just kept slithering under different cars. They were parked so close together, it wasn’t hard to stay ahead of them.
And it was dark, so that helped big time.
They got impatient, and I think they were scared of something happening and Bree getting away again, even though the one guy had her over his shoulder, and it seemed as if she was unconscious.
Eventually, they gave up and headed for the dock.
I don’t think they looked for more than maybe thirty minutes or so. They got onto a boat and left.”
“What kind of boat?” Tex asked, speaking up for the first time. “What did it look like? What color? Did you see any kind of name on it?”
“Um…it wasn’t huge,” Fiona said uncertainly.
“But it wasn’t small either,” Julie argued.
“True. It was pointy. The front.”
“And dark. Maybe a navy blue? Or black?”
“I thought it was green,” Fiona said, with a shake of her head.
“I didn’t see any kind of name, sorry,” Julie said.
Smiley’s hopes fell. How could they track a boat if they didn’t know anything about it?
“It’s okay,” Tex said. He’d been typing nonstop since the women started talking.
“How is this okay?” he blurted. “We don’t know where she is. Which boat to track. How can we get to her if we have no idea which boat she’s on out of the thousands that are probably on the water?”
“Because we know where she’s going,” Tex said calmly, pausing to look up at Smiley. “I know you want to swoop in and rescue her while she’s on that boat, but you’re right. We have no idea which one she’s on. But since we know where Castillo is taking her, we can go there and intercept them.”
Fuck. Smiley should’ve thought of that. His only consolation for the lack of foresight was that this mission was personal. He couldn’t think objectively. He could barely think, period. All he could picture was an unconscious Bree slung over some asshole’s shoulder.
He turned to Cookie. “You need to take Fiona and Julie home.”
It was easy to see how torn Cookie was. “Call your team. Get them to join you,” he said. “It’ll take a while for that boat to reach Ecuador, even if it’s a speedboat—and it sounds like it is—it won’t be a one-day journey. Three at a minimum.”
He wasn’t wrong.
“I’ve already started that in motion,” Tex said. “Been texting with your commander, he was already on standby. Your team can go wheels up by two p.m. They’ll meet you there.”
“We need you too, Tex,” Smiley argued.
The older man shook his head. “I’m too old for this crap anymore.
I’m heading back with Cookie, Fiona, and Julie.
I’ll head to base and work with your commander, Ryleigh, and Beth.
With your team as boots on the ground, and my eyes from the air and on Castillo’s digital footprint, we’ll get her back and shut down that entire fucking operation.
Oh, and I’ve made contact with someone who you’re going to want to talk to as well. ”
“Who?” Kevlar asked.
“His name is Rex. He’s with the Mountain Mercenaries.”
“That guy whose wife was taken by del Rio?” Cookie asked.
“One and the same. He’s not happy Castillo has taken up basically where his nemesis left off.
He thought that organization was done, once and for all.
But hearing Castillo basically took over that operation, and moved it from Peru to Ecuador, has him seriously riled up.
He’ll be calling to give you as much intel as he can when you get to Ecuador and set up an HQ. ”
Smiley would be happy to talk to the man. It was unfathomable that Rex had found his wife alive after a decade, but it gave Smiley hope. Bree was stronger than she knew; if anyone could survive a similar ordeal, it was his woman.
“I’ve got tickets for the two of you for seven o’clock this evening. That’ll give you time to plan and rest,” Tex told them. “Our flight for Southern California leaves around the same time.”
“I’m assuming the fact that we weren’t kidnapped with our passports isn’t an issue?” Fiona asked with a small smile.
“Of course not,” Tex told her calmly.
“I remember thinking that same thing…before,” Fiona said.
“It wasn’t an issue then and it’s not an issue now.
Speaking of which, Bree’s passport will be waiting for you at the airport,” Tex told Smiley.
“I have a guy waiting for us. He’ll take the Jeep, the weapons, and trade us for the IDs.
When you get to Ecuador, I’ll have another contact waiting for you outside customs. He’ll have a sign with Mr. Hill written on it.
Go with him, and he’ll give you everything you need while you’re there. ”
Tex was kind of scary, but Smiley was never as glad to have someone on his side as he was right this moment.
“Trackers?” Kevlar asked.
Tex sighed and his brows furrowed. “I don’t have any with me. As you can probably guess, I left home in a hurry. Then things happened so fast with coming here to Ensenada that I wasn’t able to get some backups from Wolf, which I’m sure he has hanging around his house.”
“I’ve got mine,” Smiley said.
“Did you find our trackers? When we woke up, all of our jewelry was gone,” Fiona said.
Cookie nodded. “They were mostly destroyed, but I do have your rings. The signal is faint but still there, at least that’s what Ryleigh said.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out her wedding rings. “Give me your hand,” he ordered.
Fiona did, and Cookie slid her rings back onto her finger. Then he brought her hand up to his mouth and kissed the back.
Julie took her earrings from Kevlar, frowning a little sadly at them, since they were so bent and broken.
“I’ll make sure your teammates have their trackers with them before they head down to South America,” Tex said, looking back at his computer screen.
“Castillo’s going down,” he muttered. “He picked on the wrong woman. Women. Team. He should’ve known that he didn’t get away with this all those years ago, and there’s no damn way he’s getting away with it a second time. Don’t mess with Navy SEALs. Period.”
“Hoo-ah,” Cookie and Kevlar said under their breaths.
But Smiley was thinking too hard about what was to come to bother with the typical Navy cheer.
Making a plan felt like a step forward, but having to wait until that afternoon to leave Mexico didn’t sit well.
Even knowing that the boat Bree was on couldn’t magically levitate to Ecuador didn’t make him feel any better.
They had to figure out where the boat would make landfall. Ecuador wasn’t a small country. And knowing where Castillo’s compound was wouldn’t make narrowing down the boat’s location any easier. Tex was good, but he wasn’t that good.
Or was he? Maybe luck would be on their side, and they’d be able to meet the boat at a shipyard when it docked. They could end this once and for all, without having to hike into the fucking jungle.
Smiley would never admit it, but he hated the jungle. Bugs gave him the creeps. And snakes? Forget about it. But he’d face a million snakes if it meant getting Bree back safely.
Excusing himself after telling Fiona and Julie how relieved he was that they were all right, Smiley went back to his room.
He didn’t feel like being around anyone right now.
He needed to think. To plan. To stress the fuck out.
Once he got it out of his system, he could fly to Ecuador and be the kick-ass Navy SEAL he’d trained to be for years.
Because this mission? It was the most important of his life. And he had no intention of failing.