I swore and hung my head. Goddamn it, we had less than twenty-four hours to find them and get them out of there. I couldn’t live with myself if she ended up dead. It was all my fault that she was even here. If I’d taken her concerns about the women I’d been with before always coming around me seriously, I’d have been a lot less nice about sending them away and making sure they stayed away.
A hand gripped my shoulder hard. I looked up at Maverick. “Don’t lose faith, brother.”
“It’s my fault she’s even here, Mav. If I’d paid attention to those bitches closer, I’d have never been drugged.”
“Come on, none of us would ever think one of them would drug us. That’s some fucked-up shit. As for it being your fault, I don’t think so. If anyone is at fault, it’s Lucky. Now, forget that shit and let’s get back to finding your woman and bringing our sister home.” I gripped his hand and gave it a squeeze.
It was early afternoon by the time we made it to the village. I looked around as we got out of the trucks. It was your typical third-world shithole. I’d seen many of them during my time in the Marines. The people were poor, barely having anything. You could see they were trying to repair damage to their homes. The rebels had torn this place up.
We were greeted by Mexican soldiers carrying AK-47s. They pointed them at us. Griffin was the one to speak to them. He handed them a document. They huddled together and whispered about it for several minutes, then they handed it back and headed to their vehicles. They loaded up and left.
What in the hell was on that document? “Griff, what the hell did you show them?”
“Just some official directive from their president directing them to leave this to us. Though the U.S. can’t officially be seen as doing anything in Mexico, the president here is willing to look the other way. He wants these rebels squashed. Believe it or not, he seems to be an honest leader.” His answer surprised the hell out of me, but if it got us what we needed, then I was happy.
Several of us spoke Spanish. We asked around for the leader or elder of the village. After much back-and-forth, which was wearing on my last nerve, we were taken to him. He was upset because when the rebels took the doctors, they also took some of their young women. They were known to go around to villages and do this. The families never saw them again.
It looked like we’d be bringing out more than the docs. No way we’d leave a bunch of women in their hands. It was from talking to the elders that we got a break. They knew of a couple of camps these particular rebels liked to use. It was no secret where they were. They were cocky enough to know the villagers wouldn’t be able to do anything. They didn’t even have weapons to mount an attack or resistance.
On a map, they pointed out the two areas. They were about a two-hour drive from the village. We sent the information over to Smoke, Sean, and Everly. They were going to work on getting us aerial photos using a satellite. We were in waiting mode until they got back to us.
I wasn’t hungry, but I forced myself to eat some of the rations we’d brought. The villagers tried to feed us, but they could barely feed themselves. Then I lay down. I doubted I’d sleep, but any rest was better than nothing.
I woke up to see that the dawn wasn’t far away. Damn, I’d slept, and it looked like it had been several hours. I jumped up off the cot I was lying on and ran outside to see where the rest of the guys were. I found them all huddled around a fire. I hurried over to them.
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“Because you needed the sleep. You’ve been running on empty, Demon. You’re not going to be of much help if you collapse when we need you most. Sit and have some coffee. Got a message that Smoke would have the photos we needed within the hour. It’s almost time. We were about to wake you,” Gabe explained. I sat down and took the cup they offered. At least it was hot and would keep me going.
He had a laptop open on his lap. A ping came across it and then an email popped up. He opened it. It was the satellite photos. We took the laptop over to where the maps were spread out and started to study them.
There was activity and heat signatures at both locations; however, it looked like one had more than the others. Gabe read the message Smoke had sent with it.
“Guys, I ran this back and used some other sources. It looks like a party arrived at the second location a few hours after the attack on the village. There were several trucks, and they hadn’t left. In fact, the activity there has increased over the last twenty-four to thirty-six hours. I think this is your best bet. However, if you hit it and are wrong, then they will be warned and most likely will move or kill the hostages. There are eleven of you. We’re sending you a surprise. Should be there by ten. Let me know if you need anything else. Good luck.”
A surprise? What in the hell was he up to now? I looked at my watch. It was six-thirty. That meant we had three and a half hours to wait. I jumped to my feet. “Christ, I can’t sit here and wait. Let me go and do some recon on the location he thinks is the likely bet. I’ll radio back and let you know what I find.”
“Hell no. You’re not doing that. I know you. If you think she’s in there, you’ll go all Rambo and get yourself killed. We wait. We have time. There are still twelve hours left until the twenty-four hours are up. We need to do this the smart way, Demon,” Payne told me.
I swore. I knew if I tried to sneak off, he’d tie my ass down. I was a tough bastard, but Payne was plain fucking scary. He was our enforcer for a reason. He loved to inflict pain, both professionally and personally.
I walked off to get some control. They kept me in eyesight. None of them trusted me not to go off on my own. As the morning wore on, my nerves stretched even tauter.
It was a quarter of ten when we heard the roar of an engine. It sounded like a truck we’d come in. I looked up, and in the distance, I saw it was a truck exactly like the ones we came in. We went on alert with our guns ready. When it came to a stop, out stepped Blade, Voodoo, and Torch from Dublin Falls, Sinner and Beast from the Marauders, and Joker and Slash from my club.
We greeted them with man hugs and handshakes. “What the hell?” I asked them.
“We heard you needed more help, so we got our asses in gear and got here as fast as we could. Anderson called Bull, and he got us organized,” Slash explained. “What are we looking at?”
Slash had been in the military. In fact, he was something of an explosive’s expert. We could definitely use him.
We got down to business. Over the next few hours, we worked on our plan. Each guy’s role was mapped out. We set up where our extraction point was for both camps and our alternate if the first one got blown. Gabe promised his guy, Lance, would be waiting in another location for us. We weren’t going to waste time once we had them. We were getting the hell out of Dodge.
Once we were up to speed, we were down to seven hours left. We loaded up and headed out. The drive would take two hours. We’d be cutting things a little close because we’d still have to recon when we got on location. I took Sniper, Griffin, Payne, Jinx, Animal, Voodoo, Sinner, and Slash with me. The others went with Gabe to the second location. The two camps were about an hour and a half apart.
We drove until we were a mile or so away from the camp. From the satellite, we knew where they kept their sentries. They’d have to be taken out first, so they couldn’t raise an alarm. Sniper was going to be our overwatch and sniper. Like his name implied, he’d been a sniper like me. As for me, I couldn’t be that far away. I needed to be there in the camp to find her.
It was now getting dark. We were waiting for it to get a bit darker to help cover us going in. I looked at my watch. We were down to two hours left until the ransom was to be paid. I looked at the others. “We need to go. Make sure Gabe and his guys are set. We want to hit them at the same time.” Griffin nodded and took out his phone to contact Gabe. When he got off it, he nodded and gave me a thumbs-up. We had a go.
When we all took off for our pre-designated areas, the infiltration went like clockwork. It was all a haze in my mind. I took out rebel after rebel. At first, it was with a knife or by breaking their necks. We wanted to be quiet as long as possible. We’d almost made it to the building we were sure had the hostages when bullets began to fly over our heads. Damn, we’d been seen.
We all took cover and returned fire. Luckily for us, we had a lot more practice and expertise with guns. They were mostly a ragtag bunch of guys, some not more than boys. Not that I let that stop me. I mowed through anyone who got in my way. I was focused on that building. I knew in my soul, she was in there.
As we eliminated one after another, me, and Jinx, along with Payne, and Animal, made it to the door. We stopped and took a moment to breathe and then I counted down. When I held up my third finger, we busted in the door. Two of us went right and two went left. One stayed high and the other low. We sighted in on the other rebels. We were being extra careful of where our bullets went. I didn’t want to risk hitting Zara or the others.
There were screams and swearing. Guys swarmed toward us. More of my brothers entered the building. I fought my way toward the back where there was a group of rebels. I’d almost made it and I could see people sitting on the floor through the gaps in between the rebels standing. Just as I was about to shout for them to lay down their guns, there was a shot. I heard a terrified scream. It was Zara. Oh God, had they shot her? I roared out my fury as I charged through them, slashing and shooting like a madman.