Chapter 21
Chapter 21
S ully and Cam stepped out onto the porch. “How long will he sleep?” Sully asked.
“A few hours at least. All night if we’re lucky. Jinx should be here soon to keep an eye on him,” Bailey said.
“I don’t want to be you when he wakes up,” Cam said, regarding his brother warily. He’d seen him in a temper enough times to know to be clear when he came to.
“Me neither,” Bailey agreed. “But I’m leaving Friday.”
“That’s still on?” Sully asked.
“That’s still on,” Bailey said. “So I’ll see you then. And, about tonight, you might want to turn your attention to the north, ignore any smoke or noises you hear from the south for a while. Just saying.” She stood on her toes to kiss his cheek.
“Never a dull minute with you, girl,” he said, giving her head an affectionate pat. “Cam, always good to see you.”
“You too, Sul. Make your way to DC sometime, stop in for a visit.”
“Might have to jog my way there to work off your pretty girl’s cooking,” he said, pressing his palm to his ridiculously flat stomach. “Goodbye, Maggie,” he called through the door.
Maggie stepped out and gave him a hug. “It was so nice to see you again, Sully. Don’t be a stranger.”
“Same goes for you. There’s always room for more in Texas,” Sully replied.
“Someday, maybe,” Cam said, slipping his arm around his wife.
They waved Sully away and then Cam and Bailey went to go change. Meanwhile Jinx arrived. Together he and Cam carried Cal to his room and tucked him into the big bed. A few minutes later, Cam and Bailey met back on the porch.
“About the plan,” Cam began. “I think we’re going to need something extra.”
“What did you have in mind?” Bailey asked.
He checked his watch. “Your dad is sending us something from Lackland.”
Her lip curled. “What could we possibly need from the air force?”
“A delivery vehicle,” he said as a van made its way up the long lane. They watched as it stopped, the doors opened, and four men piled out, dressed in full gear and ready to go.
“This where you’re from LT?” one of the men asked. “No wonder you’re cranky. It’s so hot the inside of my nose is sweating.”
“Nice, Jones,” Cam said. “Way to make a good impression. Beside him are Ethan, Shimmer, and Frog.”
“Ugh, a jarhead,” Jones said, surveying Bailey in her camo fatigues.
“That’s Major Jarhead to you, sergeant,” she replied.
“How can you tell I’m a sergeant when I’m not in uniform?” he asked.
She crooked her finger at him. He stepped closer, and she leaned in to whisper in his ear. “I can smell the inferior rank on you, princess.”
He thumped his hand over his heart. “Hear that, boys? That’s the sound of me in love.”
“You’re going to have to get in line behind my brother,” Cam said.
“Where we at here, LT?” Shimmer asked.
“This is the Major’s operation,” Cam said, and the men’s attention shifted to her.
Bless the military, she thought. It was the one place rank counted more than gender.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Let me tell you what’s going on.” She summarized the situation and laid out their mission.
“Major, if I may interrupt,” Cam said near the end. “I’d like to suggest adding a sniper for additional cover.”
“That’s an excellent suggestion, Lieutenant, but it leaves us a man short on the ground, unless you have a miracle up your sleeve,” she replied.
“More like on the other side of the door. Maggie, you can come out.”
Maggie stepped onto the porch with a sheepish smile. “I was only half eavesdropping, I promise. Stupid dishwasher kept drowning you out.”
“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Bailey apologized. “I didn’t realize you’d be taking part in the operation or I would have invited you. I also didn’t realize you’d served. What branch were you in?”
“The public library,” Maggie said.
“She’s a librarian. You’ll get used to it,” Cam promised as Bailey resisted the urge to stare. Maggie was so soft, so gentle, so feminine. She began to have more sympathetic understanding for people who couldn’t believe she was lethal either.
“All right,” she forced herself to turn away and stop staring speculatively at Maggie. “Excellent. Any questions?”
Jones raised his hand. “Are you married?”
“Any questions that don’t make me lose immediate respect for you as a human and a soldier?” Bailey clarified.
“Oh, in that case no,” Jones replied, lowering his hand.
“Well, then, gentlemen. Let’s roll,” Bailey said and they loaded up and headed out.
They left in two trucks. Cam drove one and Bailey drove the other. The four SEALs and Maggie sat in the back of Cam’s truck. They would be depositing Maggie at a pre-chosen spot so she could set up her rifle.
“Are you going to take the kill shot this time, Maggie?” Jones asked. It had become something of a joke among them that, though Maggie was the best marksman any of them knew, she had never killed anyone.
“Oh, Jonesie, there are plenty of ways to disable a man without taking the kill shot, you know that,” Maggie said, ruffling his hair. The truck stopped. Cam lifted her down and kissed her goodbye.
“Man, that woman is all kinds of sexy,” Jones said, and Ethan mashed his palms over his ears.
“You gotta stop. That’s my sister-in-law. I think my ears might actually be bleeding.” He removed his hands from his ears and stared at them.
“You said the same thing the first time we met her,” Jones reminded him.
“That was two years ago and, did I mention, she’s now my sister-in-law, ” Ethan said. “By the way, Amelia and I are officially engaged. Save the date because you’re all going to be in this one.”
“When are you going to tell her parents you’re already married to your fiancée?” Frog asked.
“We already did when we moved in together because they kind of freaked out,” Ethan said. “The continued sham is for the sake of their distant family and friends. Or reasons. I don’t know. At this point I’m beginning to think Amelia just wants the big wedding we didn’t get last time around.”
“Ah, young love,” Shimmer said.
“When are you going to tell your parents?” Frog asked.
“Geez, I should probably call them, give them a heads up I’m seeing someone,” Ethan mused.
Jones stared through the window at Bailey. “What is it with all the hot women in the world being near me but out of reach? What’s the deal with her and LT’s brother? Are they together, not together?”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Ethan said. “Don’t you know who her dad is?”
“You?” Jones guessed.
“The Colonel,” Shimmer supplied.
“What? I thought she was dating Blue.”
“Different daughter.”
“The Colonel replicated more than once? He really is like the terminator,” Jones said.
“You know to this day no one’s seen that cadet he made disappear,” Frog said.
They stopped again when they reached the rendezvous point. They would ditch the trucks and walk the rest of the way, slipping over the border into Mexico by foot. They also split into two teams. The forward team—Bailey, Cam, and Frog—would be going in to draw fire and create a distraction while the second team—Ethan, Jones, and Shimmer—would be going in second to do what they needed to do. They were doubtless better trained than the cartel, but it would be a mistake to underestimate anyone who was armed with an agenda. The cartel had a lot of firepower. This they knew from Corrie’s intel, though they would be doing recon to confirm.
They sneaked close for a look, using the thermal imager to get a look at how many bodies were inside the house. They counted six bodies all sitting around a table. Since it was nearly the middle of the night, Bailey imagined they were playing cards or counting something.
“How good is your intel?” Cam asked.
“Three fingers worth,” Bailey replied.
“What?”
“It’s good.” It hadn’t taken long to break Corrie, and then he sang like a little bird, giving her names, locations, and details on what was in the house and who was in charge. He had told her the name Rodriguez before Sully did.
“First team, who wants to take point?” she asked. The military was a special breed in that, when asked which of them wanted to shoot a gun while running toward a heavily armed compound, there could often be a squabble about who got to do it.
“I’ll go,” Cam volunteered. “I never get to do the fun stuff anymore. Do you want to call it?”
“It’s your ball, Lieutenant,” Bailey said.
He stood. “Maggie is so not going to like this,” he said before holding his gun aloft and taking off at a sprint toward the house. When he was close enough to be heard but still too far away to inflict casualties, he began to spray the ground around the house with bullets.
There was an almost comic scrambling from inside the house as men dove for guns and ammo before running outside to give chase.
“Frog, we’re up,” Bailey said. “Second team, looks like your target is clear.” She and Frog jumped into the fray, diverting the gunfire in two separate directions to keep things chaotic. The cartel had no idea where or who they were shooting, nor which direction it came from. It was almost like a child’s game of tag, except with heavy-duty automatic weaponry.
It was supposed to be random; the darkness should have provided cover. But the moon slipped from behind a cloud and Bailey caught a glimpse of Rodriguez. He was their secondary target, and she couldn’t help but give chase. Her legs pumped hard with the effort it took to keep up with him. He was large, in good shape, and she was weighted down by pounds of armor, weaponry, and ammo. There came a point when she thought she had the drop on him, but he turned at the last moment, his gun pointed directly at her face. Bailey’s gun was in his face, too, and they stood still, taking stock of each other from three feet apart.
“Question,” she said. “If you have a Mexican standoff in Mexico, is it just a standoff?”
He didn’t answer. She tsk’d. “No sense of humor? Prison’s not going to go well for you.”
“I’m not going to prison,” he said.
“Are you asking me to kill you? Because I will,” she promised.
“How about I kill you instead?” he said, smiling.
“You’re taking an awfully big chance you’re faster on the trigger than I am. You piddle with that little gun and probably do okay, but I’m a marine marksman. I guarantee if I go, you’re going with me,” she said. “And my friends are just about done and will be along any minute.”
“So will mine,” he said.
She shook her head. “You hear that? That silence? The shooting stopped because it’s over. We flushed you out to round you up.”
His gaze flickered, but he also tightened his grip on the gun.
“I have a good idea, one I think we’ll find mutually agreeable. I have a suggestion for how we can both lower our weapons without taking a shot,” she said. “Here’s what we do. I am slowly going to take a step about a foot to the right, and then I’m going to lower my gun. I highly suggest you do the same.”
“Why would I do that?” he asked.
“It’s the honorable thing to do,” she said, easing slightly to her right as she had said. She lowered her gun. He grinned and braced his feet to take his shot, but before he could pull the trigger his right shoulder exploded with a bullet from Maggie’s gun. He screamed, his gun clattering uselessly to the ground. Bailey picked it up. “On your knees,” she commanded. He sank to his knees, more than likely because he was in too much pain to support himself than because he was being compliant, a fact demonstrated when he lunged for her legs, intending to take her down. Instead she kicked his wounded shoulder, hard, and aimed her gun at his head.
“Give me a reason,” she said. And then she realized she already had a reason. She remembered Cal’s scream the night he found Isabel. He would have to live with the pain of that moment for the rest of his life, all because the animal before her hacked a woman to death and presented her to her husband as a prize. She could end this now. She could save everyone time, effort, and money by getting rid of the piece of human waste before her.
“Bailey,” Cam called, but not until he yelled, “Major Dunbar,” did she snap to attention and lower her weapon.
“This is not over. You think it ends with me? It doesn’t,” Rodriguez hissed through teeth gritted with pain.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Bailey said. “Ethan, how are we doing on the clock?”
Ethan checked his watch. “Let’s see here. 5, 4, 3, cover your ears now.” They covered their ears as the house a couple hundred yards away exploded, completely wiped off the map in a spray of fine powder.
“Oh, uh-oh. Was that your house?” Bailey taunted the man on the ground. “The one where you had all your drugs and guns and money? Oopsie. Well, no matter. The good news is I’ve dealt with your suppliers in Afghanistan, and they’re really sweet and understanding. I’m sure if you simply explain…Oh, wait a minute, no. They’re going to kill you. Bummer.”
Cam moved closer and inspected the man’s shoulder. “Maggie do that?”
“Your girl can shoot,” Bailey said. She turned over her shoulder and mouthed Maggie a “thank you” with a little wave. In response, Maggie flickered a light. She turned back to the SEAL team and their prisoners. “If you men would take this refuse back to the truck, I’ll join you in a minute. I have one more little thing to do.” She grasped Rodriguez by the hair, pulled his head back, and used her phone to snap a photo. Then she pulled out a handheld device and printed the photo.
When that was done, she ran down the road and tapped on a door. Estralita answered, looking petrified. “It’s Bailey,” she said in Spanish, in case the older woman was too scared to summon her impressive translation skills. “Can I talk to your grandson?”
Estralita yelled for Hector, her grandson. He appeared, looking as scared and uncertain as his grandmother had. Bailey handed him the picture. “I want you to show this to everyone you see tomorrow and pass along a message for me. Tell them if the cartels pass over Senor Ridge’s land again we’ll come for them, and I’ll personally do worse than I did to Rodriguez. Can you do that for me?” He was a reliable, chatty boy of fourteen who would have no trouble relating the night’s tale to everyone he encountered.
“ Si ,” he replied, nodding enthusiastically as he stared at the picture. “ Senorita , are you playing football on Sunday?”
“Not this Sunday,” she said.
“Next time, can I be on your team?” he asked, his face eager.
“Absolutely,” she called. She ran back down the road, tossing him a wave over her shoulder.