Chapter Twenty-Seven
The swim to shore was quick and thankfully uneventful.
However, something happened out there in the water. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to ask her about it, but whatever it was looked important—like she’d had a revelation.
But that would have to wait. We had a plane to catch and an uncertain route to get there.
“New grievance unlocked,” Cat started. “Or maybe it’s not a complaint and more of an unhappy observation. Swimming with a vest on sucks.”
Pete was digging through his SealLine pack but looked up at Cat to say, “True story.”
Her expression was comical when she asked, “What, no tough-guy Team Guy recounting of how you swam ten miles upstream in frigid water with a vest and a fifty-pound ruck? All of this before you ate snails for breakfast.”
Pete pulled his phone out and began rolling the top on the pack closed. “Tough guys don’t need to tell fish tales.”
“Why’s that?” she asked.
“Because the shit we do doesn’t require exaggeration.”
“What he means is,” Mase interjected, “the cool-guy shit we do gives regular men boners.”
Fucking Mason.
“Are you always this full of yourself?” Calista inquired.
“If by full of myself you mean confident, then yeah, sweetheart. All the fucking time.” Mason shrugged.
“And before you ask, yes, my confidence skirts arrogance, but only because I can back my shit up. Most people like to think they’re better than they really are.
I know I’m better—not because of the cool shit I’ve done.
Not because I think I’m a tough guy. But because when the call comes, I’m out the fucking door no questions asked. ”
Without missing a beat, Calista remarked, “And that’s why Tom sent you to find me, because you wouldn’t ask uncomfortable questions.”
I wasn’t sure if that was an accusation or a statement of fact, but still Mase fielded it. “What questions would Tom find uncomfortable?”
Calista closed down. “Forget I said that.”
“Sure,” Mason magnanimously agreed, even though it was a flat-out lie.
He might drop the line of questioning with Calista, but he wouldn’t forget to dig in when we got home.
“Three missed calls,” Pete announced. “Shep. Fallon. Tom.”
Well, fuck.
Fun-time Mason fled, replaced by pissed-off warfighter.
“Call Fallon.”
Pete didn’t need Mason’s directive. He’d already engaged his phone and was lifting it to his ear.
“You good?” Pete asked into the phone. “Right. Good work.” Pause.
“Yeah. We got the package, tangos are down, on the way to the mainland airport now. We’ll debrief when we get on the plane.
” Another pause. “Later.” Pete lowered his phone but didn’t look up as he slid his finger across the screen again and told us, “Mission success.”
“Righteous,” Mason muttered, and his shoulders relaxed now that he knew the team was safe.
If they weren’t, Pete would’ve led with injuries.
Pete’s phone was back at his ear. “Whatcha got, Shep?”
Mason’s gaze jerked over his shoulder. Cat’s hand landed on my forearm and squeezed. My other hand shot up to silence Pete.
They’d heard it too. Voices in the distance.
“Yep,” Pete whispered. “We got incoming.”
Cat dropped her hand, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her pull her pistol from her holster as she stepped next to Calista and whispered something to her as I swung my M4 up, the buttstock of the rifle pressed tight against my shoulder, ears straining to hear, eyes scanning the hilly terrain.
Mason had his dry pack hanging from one shoulder.
Using his opposite hand, he unzipped and reached into the side pocket, pulling out a pistol.
Wordlessly he handed Calista the weapon he’d obviously stowed for the swim.
As soon as Calista retrieved her weapon, Mase secured his bag and pulled up his M4.
Without needing verbal commands, Mase moved left, I stepped right, and we took our watch positions, leaving Pete and the women between us.
“Copy that.” Pete spoke quietly, ending the call. Then to the rest of us, “Carlos’s cousin got word Calista escaped, and he knows she had help.”
Fuck.
Not surprising but still fucking hell.
Pete quietly went on. “He knows she fled on a boat and is sending men out on the water. Airport’s gonna be hot.”
No, now fucking hell.
“New exfil?” Mase asked.
“No. Shep said we’d have backup. The plane’s thirty minutes out.”
Fuck, fuck, fucking hell.
We were in an alcove with a small beach that would open up to a ravine. We needed to hurry up and get to higher ground.
I glanced down at my Suunto, checked where we were on the GPS, and motioned forward. Pete led, taking the western route avoiding the structure to the east. It was the longer route, but safer.
Calista dogged Pete’s heels, Catarina behind her, with me after Cat, and Mase taking our six. Single file, we trekked the valley—a fetal funnel with a pucker factor of ten. I felt sweat trickle down my back and didn’t breathe a full breath until we climbed a small hill.
My relief of being out of the ravine was short-lived—not a single tree, bush, or building for cover. The lights of the village shone to the north, then total darkness beyond. It was eerie as fuck, a fishing village in the middle of nowhere surrounded by inky black.
The next twenty minutes were silent.
Utterly so.
As the silence stretched, the sweat continued to trickle down my neck, and a ball of unease formed in my gut.
It was too quiet—like an ambush you didn’t see coming.
As soon as the thought crossed my mind, Murphy’s Law of Combat number two kicked in: incoming fire has the right of way. Or was it fifteen: anything you do can get you shot, including nothing.
Either or, shots rang out.
Catarina dove forward, taking Calista to the dirt. From behind me, Mase blindly returned fire. I hit my knees and did the same. Pete was on his stomach diagonally in front of the woman, barrel of his rifle pointing behind Mase’s position, now covering our backs.
“Come on, fuckers,” Mason grumbled. “Show daddy where you are.”
“Did Mason just call himself daddy?” Calista snickered.
It didn’t take long for more shots to pop off, the muzzle blasts giving away the enemies’ location on the eastern hilltop. Which brought us to Murphy’s Law of Combat number one: if the enemy is in range, so are you.
“Cover me,” Pete ordered. “I’ll meet you at the cemetery.”
Before I could reject Pete’s plan for a solo mission to get to the enemy, he was up and running.
Fuck.
I laid down cover fire until Pete disappeared down the side of the hill.
“Get up, baby,” I demanded. “Take Calista and find cover.”
“Not a chance, hotshot.”
“Catarina.”
“Jack.”
“Baby, get the package secure. We’ll catch up.”
“Goddamnit, Jack,” Cat snarled. “I don’t like—”
“We’ll be right behind you,” Mase put in.
Cat rolled to her hip, then up to her knees, her right arm straight out, holding her Sig pointed toward where the enemy was holed up, her other hand reaching for Calista.
“If you’re not at the airport right after we get there, I’m coming back to find you,” Catarina angrily clipped.
Of course she would.
At one time, I would’ve called that reckless. Now I understood it for what it was—loyalty. She’d never leave me behind, or anyone on the team.
“Got it. Now go, baby.”
Catarina let out a colorful string of obscenities that in no way made sense, though I couldn’t miss their meaning or her level of displeasure.
“See you soon, Kitty Cat.”
Cat shot me an unhappy look before her anger cleared and her hand wrapped around my wrist.
“Be safe.”
“That’s my line.”
Then because that knot in the pit of my gut was twisting, I took the time we didn’t have to tug her close and press a hard kiss to her mouth.
“Get on that plane no matter—”
“Save your breath. I’m not leaving you.”
Fuck.
I lost her hand when she stepped away, then I lost sight of her when she took off in a sprint, and I turned back to the direction the gunfire was coming from and unloaded half a mag.
“Reload,” Mase called out. A moment later I heard him reengage.
I quickly glanced to the left. Cat and Calista were nowhere in sight.
“Ready?” I asked Mase.
“Yep.”
Mase took off in the same direction as Pete. The decline wasn’t steep, but it was unsteady. Rocks and sand made it possible to slide most of the way down.
“This shit was easier when I was twenty,” Mason griped.
He wasn’t wrong.
“True story.”
We hit the valley, slowed to a walk, and Mason came up next to me.
“I can’t believe she actually followed orders.”
He was talking about Catarina.
“She’s not dumb. She knows Calista’s the mission.”
“Fuck you very much,” Mase huffed. “I wasn’t implying she’s stupid. I’m just surprised she left you under my protection.”
I snorted.
Mase finished, “But it’s good to know she trusts me to keep you safe.”
I hated to say it, but damn if I could shake this feeling.
“Something’s off,” I told Mase.
“What kind of something?”
I couldn’t answer that.
“Pete never called Tom back.”
“You think Tom fucked us?”
Did I?
He was the one who’d sent us to find Calista, but Shep had been the one to get us the intel.
“Calista didn’t know who broke into the hotel room and killed Carlos and Gloria. We don’t know who was driving the Toyota that hit the gas pump. We don’t know who was on the plane from the UAE to Mexico City. Too many unknowns. I have a bad feeling Pete did exactly what they wanted him to do.”
Mason didn’t need me to explain. “If I wanted to draw the enemy into an ambush, I’d give away my location and wait.”
Firing across the valley wasn’t an impossible distance if the shooter was a good marksman who understood bullet drop, crosswind, powder load, and a slew of other shit that made long-distance shooting an art form.
That was not who had been shooting at us.
And I knew because we were all still alive.
A good marksman would’ve been able to pick us off.
But they got their desired outcome.
Pete had run toward the danger to eliminate it.
“Watch my back,” I said as I let my M4 go.
It caught on the sling, and I shrugged my pack off to get my phone out.
Thank fuck for dry bags.
As soon as I had my phone out, I was reminded Cat’s bag was still on the runway back on Cedros.
Motherfucking shit.
“Cat has no comms,” I mumbled, and scrolled to find Tom’s contact.
“I’m getting the woman a fanny pack,” Mase returned.
I was thinking more along the lines of asking Tom for another subcutaneous tracker.
The call went to voicemail. I disconnected and dialed again. I was getting ready to try again when Tom picked up.
“Who is this?” he clipped.
“Jack. You called—”
“You’ve got two Emiratis there and two former . . .”
“Tom?”
“Watch your back . . .” The connection cut off again. “. . . here . . .”
“You’re breaking up.”
I heard three tones indicating the call dropped. I looked at my screen. Full bars. That meant Tom had shit service.
“Bad copy,” I told Mase. “All I got was two guys from the UAE and two former something before he broke up. He said to watch our back and the word here.”
For a long moment, Mase didn’t say anything, though he didn’t need to.
It was one thing to be dealing with the cousin of a gangster who thought he was a predator—and he was to women and children—but the big dogs in the cartel would eat him alive. It was another to be dealing with professionals.
Pete thought we were dealing with locals, so he made the call to eliminate the threat.
He would’ve made a different choice if he’d spoken to Tom before he’d taken off.
“Let’s hope Pete didn’t just step into a heaping pile of shit.”
We could hope.
But my gut said we’d be buried in shit before the night was over. And part of that was missing Catarina’s deadline, then my woman would circle back.
“We need to get to the airport before Cat comes looking for us.”
A look I couldn’t decipher flooded Mason’s features, and before I got a lock on it, his mask fell back into place.
But it looked a lot like panic and his voice was tight when he said, “Let’s hit it.”
“Mase—”
“She’ll be fine. The woman’s tough as fuck.”
I wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince me or himself.
But right then I didn’t have the time nor the headspace for contemplation.
We needed to get to Pete, then haul ass to the airport.
The knot sinched tighter.