Chapter 31
TREV
The helo came in low over a black ocean, rotors chewing the night into a steady, murderous thrum.
The red cabin light washed over their faces and gear, turning the team back into blood-tinted ghosts from his past. Arek sat opposite him with his jaw set, Wolf silent and coiled, the nervous tension about what condition he would find Maeve wafting off him.
Kes checked his carabiner like he trusted nothing.
Morry grinned evilly, like she’d bitten down on a live wire just to feel it hum.
They may not have said a word, but he felt their energy regardless.
Trev kept his gaze on the open door and the darkness beyond it.
Warm wind slammed the cabin, carrying the scent of jet fuel.
Far below, Mexico sprawled out, a tapestry of land that could be a beautiful as any paradise, or as harsh and deserted as any desert.
The night vision allowed him to see a dry riverbed scoring the earth, and the pale artery of a dirt road leading to their destination.
The compound. The reason they were here.
He flexed his gloved hands once.
It had been years since he’d ridden a bird into the teeth of something ugly with these soldiers at his shoulders. Years since the ritual, the checks, the clipped nods, the weight of a gun in his palm, and the kind of silence that was packed with purpose.
It came back like breath. Like the old bike, you never forgot how to ride.
He felt the rhythm slot into his bones, the one that allowed him to think two steps ahead of whatever wanted them dead.
The Ramírez force was deadly on its own, but now, knowing for certain that someone was controlling the Righteous and using them as a weapon, they had no idea how many enemies they would face.
Arek tapped two fingers to his eyes, then pointed out the door. Trev leaned over and stared down. He swept the ground—dry arroyo snaking west, patchy mesquite, a smear of rock face that would make a perfect windbreak. A good landing zone, thirty seconds to the drop
He nodded.
The helicopter slowed to stop.
Wolf’s mouth barely moved, but Trev knew the words. “It’s go time.”
“Woohoo! Fuck I missed this,” Arek said over the intercom, voice way too excited for the moment.
Trev ignored his brother. “I’ll go first, Wolf with Arek next. Morry and Kes bring up the tail and protect our six.”
“Aw. He paired us by personality. How thoughtful,” Kes smirked, and Morry rolled her eyes at him, reaching across and punching Kes in the shoulder.
“I’m not like you,” she growled. “Don’t insult me like that.”
“No comment,” Kes quipped back with a smirk.
Trev tossed the ropes down and sat, getting ready to descend.
The night pressed in close. For a heartbeat, the thrum of the rotors filled his chest, a second heart pounding.
He tasted dust, the wind picking up. He wrapped the rope, braced, and slid.
He scanned his surroundings on his way down, but other than a lone coyote, he didn’t see any sign of life.
Arek and Wolf came next, and Trev noticed Wolf wince ever so slightly when his feet touched the dirt. Trev shook his head, crazy fucker shouldn’t be out here, but there was no keeping him back.
Trev watched Kes and Morry descend. Kes landed like a cat, showing off with a too-smooth release like he was dismounting a balance beam.
“Graceful, I know,” he bragged.
“Just like a drunk on a Friday night,” Morry shot back.
“What do you see?” Trev asked Arek, who was already crouched and scanning, rifle sweeping in measured arcs as he looked through his scope.
“Lots of movement on the wall, but I doubt any of them can see beyond the lights. We should find a weak access point. The front gate has over a dozen men that I can see.” Arek stood and swung the large sniper rifle over his shoulder, so it lay across his back.
The rope disappeared as the bird peeled away, the sound fading to a distant growl that the desert devoured.
“Let’s move,” Trev ordered.
They fell into a wedge without thinking. Arek on point, Trev offset left, Wolf right, Kes a pace behind, Morry anchoring. Boots whispered over grit. The air had that baked-in heat that never truly left, even with midnight crouching over it.
Trev kept his eyes busy. He clocked the hazard weeds that would eat a shin if you got sloppy, the loose rocks, potential holes, and snake pits.
He even noted the anthill that was close to two feet tall.
The little details gave him a visual of where people walked, and where no one had stepped in a very long time.
They crested a low ridge and stilled in the thin grass.
The compound lay in a shallow bowl ahead, a cut-and-paste fortress of cinderblock, large boulders, and topped with razor wire.
There were tall guard lookouts with floodlights that burned cones into the dirt, overexposed and harsh as they swept the ground just shy of their location.
Trev noted the spacing with a soldier’s precision.
Two of those lights were misaligned. Another flickered.
Electrical corners cut. Money saved in all the wrong places.
From their vantage point, he could see just over the top of the wall.
Inside, he noted a number of buildings, their purposes unknown.
There were six that had corrugated metal roofs, two lower outbuildings, a lean-to with stacked drums, and a water tower throwing a long shadow.
Vehicles parked nose-out like someone had taught them one smart thing.
A few dozen trucks, two pickups, and a lineup of SUVs near the hacienda.
“Count,” Arek murmured.
Wolf’s whisper was a rumble. “I can see about fifty men. Two in the tower. Four on the east wall. Two by the gate. Four walking the yard. Pace lazy, and it’s the same on each side. Who knows how many we can’t see or are sleeping inside the walls.”
“Lazy gets you dead quick,” Morry said, peering through her scope. “Look, they’ve got dogs too. Don’t know how well trained they are, but mean and teeth are all they really need.”
Kes tapped Trev’s shoulder and pointed. Cameras. Cheaper, but still there. It was wild to Trev. This man had a massive number of men at his disposal, including trained soldiers, and yet this place was sloppy.
“There is a generator shelter, north corner,” Trev said quietly. “And there are fuel tanks near that large warehouse-style building. That one looks new. I’m going to take a guess and say it has all the Righteous equipment.”
“Water tower ladder missing two rungs,” Kes added, amused.
“Who cares, we’re blowing it up, not inspecting it for safety,” Morry bit out.
“It’s still good to notice the little things,” Kes stated.
“Like your dick?” Arek asked, earning a glare.
“Look whose talking,” Kes growled.
“Knock it off, all of you,” Trev ordered. “We have one of ours in there and Maeve. Keep your heads on the mission.”
“There are two satellite dishes. One by the east tower and the other in the southwest corner,” Arek noted.
Trev looked through his binoculars and spotted them, a satellite dish bolted to rebar on the roof, badly grounded, cable running down the wall like a drunk snake. The second was on a pole, and although it looked brand new, it was in a terrible location and vulnerable to destruction.
Patrol patterns were random. That was either genius or pure stupidity.
One guard rubbed the back of his neck when he reached the gate and then slowly turned to make his way back in the other direction.
Another smoked, leaning up against a wall as he scrolled through his phone.
They were bored enough to make mistakes, but not stupid enough to leave the gate unmanned.
“What entry are you thinking?” Arek asked.
“South fence, there is a blind wedge,” Trev answered. “We’ll run the arroyo to cover our scent. Dogs are lazing, not working. They’ll bark at motion, not air.”
Kes nodded. “We could ghost the lights too. Pop that flickering one, it will offer more shadows.”
Arek shifted his focus to Trev. “You good?”
Trev’s answer was a quiet exhale. He was better than good.
He felt the machine of normalcy heal parts of him that only turned under this kind of pressure.
They weren’t being shot at, but the constant threat awakened a part of him that being a lawyer could never touch.
The timing, trust, and the next breath belonging to the man beside you.
Whatever else they were, whatever else they had broken or lost, this still fit.
He opened his mouth to answer when his phone vibrated. There were only a couple of people who had his number. He pulled it out of his pocket and squatted down low, covering his mouth to keep the sound from traveling on the breeze.
“Cody, this is not really a good time,” Trev answered.
“Yasmine called,” Cody said, and everyone turned to look at the phone.
“What did she say?”
“She sounded relieved to know you were on your way there. She says that she and the kids are safe, Dean had gotten them out, but Maeve and him are still in there,” Cody relayed, and Wolf’s hand clenched into a fist. “She also said that Carlos has been controlling the Righteous for years, and the man who is now heading the organization is someone by the last name of Keene.”
“Edward Keene?”
“She didn’t mention a first name.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me if it was. He was a staff sergeant who ended up with a dishonorable discharge for stealing weapons from targets and selling them.
The DOJ knew he was up to no good, but only ever caught him stealing.
Keene denied selling them, so he ended up with a thirty-day hold and a slap on the wrist.”
“How do you know so much about him?” Cody asked.
Trev locked eyes with Arek, who looked as annoyed as he felt. “Because he was my staff sergeant and I was the one who turned him in when I found out.”