The Devil You Don't Know (American Praetorians Book 4) Page 17

  Raoul turned suddenly, starting to reach for something, but Mia held up a notepad. “Got it,” she mouthed. Apparently we had a meeting site. After a few more terse words, the phone was disconnected. Ernesto just sat there and stared at it for a moment, until Raoul reached over and took it from his nerveless fingers.

  “Well done,” he said. “You might survive this yet. Now, I'm going to go get a map, and you're going to show us where this hacienda outside Jamapa is. I don't think I really have to remind you of the penalty if you fuck it up and send us somewhere other than where Reyes is going, do I?”

  Ernesto stared at his feet and shook his head, mute.

  I got up and left the enclosure, leaving Raoul and Mia to it. “Get ready to roll, gents,” I called out. “We've got an ambush to set in.”

  Before we could leave, however, Chad and Herman, two of Mike's boys, had some disturbing news.

  “We almost got rolled up on the way off the objective,” Chad said. Chad kind of stood out here, even in a tourist town. He was average height, but thickset and sporting short blond hair that was almost white. “There are several roving groups of armed men rolling around the city. They look like sicarios to me. And they're eyeballing gringos hard. Particularly any group that's predominantly military-age males.”

  “They're avoiding the cops, too,” Herman put in. “We saw them pull off when a police car drove by. And they're new; I haven't seen them before today.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “You think they're looking for someone in particular?”

  “Yeah,” Herman said. “I think they're looking for us.”

  “Why would they be looking for us?” I asked. “The only people who know we're here are Renton and his people, our guys, and Ernesto, who's not exactly in a position to pass that information along.”

  Chad glanced over at where Mia was coming out of Ernesto's little holding area. “We haven't exactly vetted all of Renton's people, have we?” he asked quietly.

  I studied Mia through narrowed eyes, but then shook my head. “She's been within sight of me for the last week, unless she was in the shower,” I said. “Not entirely ruling it out, but I don't think so. The rest of Renton's people, of course, we have no way of knowing.” I grimaced and ran a hand over my face. “Fuck. Here we go again.” The situation was now uncomfortably close to dealing with the captured Project operator, Black, in Baghdad. Only we could treat Black like he was a prisoner. Treating Mia like that was not going to go over well, especially not with the people who were paying us.

  And that alone suggested to me that she wasn't involved. “If Renton's people are selling us out,” I pointed out, “why bother to pay us for the job in the first place?”

  Chad shrugged. “Hell if I know. Maybe his organization is penetrated.”

  “Maybe,” I allowed. “On the other hand, I doubt Renton would have sent her to us without making sure she was clean.”

  He eyed me for a moment. “What?” I demanded.

  He looked away. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “You think she got to me in the hotel?” I all but snarled. “By all means, be honest, get it out there.”

  “No, Jeff, I don't think that,” he said. “Though the question is there. You know just as well as I do how women can make guys act weird. They can be the steadiest motherfuckers in the entire Valley of Death, but dangle a piece of ass in front of them, and their thinking gets mushy. And it wasn't just dangled in front of you; you two spent a damn week in a luxury hotel together. I don't know what happened in there. Others are going to ask the question, too. Are you going to be inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt because she's a chick, and you've been playing honeymoon with her for a week?”

  I took a deep breath. This is why I don't like working with women. They complicate matters; they throw a cloud over men's thinking, make us second-guess ourselves and each other. If I didn't get this under control, it would become a major problem.

  “No, I'm not,” I said, keeping my voice level. “And you can pass this around behind my back just like the questions have been getting passed around. Yes, we posed as a married couple for the benefit of onlookers, but it was hands-off and professional behind closed doors.” No need to bring up her initial push when we'd first gotten to the room. “She has done nothing to make me suspect that she's anything but a pro, and committed to the mission.” I took a step toward him. Herman was simply watching, his arms folded, looking uncomfortable. “So, can we drive on with the mission and not tear the teams apart over a bird?”

  Chad looked a little embarrassed. Good. “I'm sorry, Jeff,” he said. “I shouldn't have doubted you.” He looked down at the floor. “Damn it, why did it have to be a chick?”

  “I'll be sure to take it up with Renton when I see him next,” I said, and meant it. Granted, I might just get a lecture about how it wasn't politically correct to object to a woman getting assigned to something like this anymore, but I really didn't give a fuck. My job, my rules. “For now, though, we've got an ambush to prep for, so let's stop running our sucks and get to work.”

  Jamapa was not conducive to standoff. The land was flat as a pancake, checkered with fields surrounded by thick trees and brush. There was plenty of concealment, but we were going to have to get very close to be able to ID and engage. Depending on the quality of Reyes' security detachment, that could be a problem. If we got compromised early, we'd have to move quickly, possibly while out of position.

  It was a risk that we always ran, though. There was a reason why “A plan is just a list of shit that ain't gonna happen” had practically become our company motto. The enemy always gets a vote, and so does Murphy, that sadistic fuck. Something can, and usually will, always go wrong. It's why we charge what we do.

  We had to pick insert points carefully; we didn't have the luxury of time to prepare at night. We were setting in during the early afternoon, so we took the vans that Mike had acquired while Mia and I had been spotting in the hotel, and meandered around the dirt backroads near Jamapa until we got to a stretch where nobody was watching. Two by two, we got out, kitted up to fight, and slipped into the thick brush, working our way in pairs to where we could form a loose L shape around the hacienda that Reyes had picked out for the meeting.

  Larry and I, with Ernesto firmly in tow, were the last ones to jump out on the side of the road and head into the foliage. It was even thicker than it looked; Ernesto was going to appear a little the worse for wear when Reyes met him inside. The branches grabbed and snagged at clothes and gear. Weapons got snagged by magazines, grips, optics, and slings. Trying to stay silent was all but impossible. Branches hissed against gear, snapped underfoot, and whipped past shoulders to smack into the man behind. Larry and I tried our best to weave through the branches, but they were so thick that it was a losing proposition from the start. Ernesto, predictably, was completely out of his element, and just got scraped, tangled, and torn up. As we got to where we could see the hacienda, he had one eye shut, leaking tears. He'd taken a branch to the eye socket. My sympathy was minimal.

  As soon as we stopped, just inside the bushes facing the house, I saw that we had a setback already. There was movement in the windows of the hacienda. There was already somebody there. “Do you know anything about this place?” I whispered at Ernesto.

  He shook his head. “I've never been here.” Well, that was no help. I went back to watching the house.

  With the woods and bushes being so thick and so close to the objective, I'd considered simply moving into the hacienda and waiting for Reyes from the inside. But since I didn't know who was inside, that might end up being a non-starter. I checked my watch and winced. Getting into position had taken longer than I'd hoped; we only had about an hour an a half before Reyes was supposed to get there, based on the phone conversation. Which, I had to remind myself, assumed that he wasn't going to get there early for security reasons. Fuck.

  If the people in the hacienda were just caretakers, and not security personnel, we might be able
to secure them in a back room and wait. They'd be zip-tied and gagged; I'd had experience with locals being held in an urban hide who'd caused all kinds of trouble because of the noise they made. Sometimes “shut the fuck up” simply isn't enough.

  But if there were security goons in there, or even some of Reyes' cartel cohorts, then this was going to go bad before the target even got near. I peered through my scope at the house, careful not to let my suppressor push past the branches and leaves. I had to “burn” through some of the foliage, as well as the window glass, but after a moment I could focus on the interior.

  There was no more movement, at least not at first. Whatever or whoever I had seen had moved away from the window. I was certain there was somebody in there, though. I continued to watch, until a figure stepped back into the frame, peering out toward the main road. He was in shadow, so I couldn't get a very good look at him, but he looked just about military age. Unlikely to be simply a caretaker. It didn't necessarily mean he was a bad guy. On the other hand, I doubted that Reyes had picked this spot at random, so there was some connection with SCC's underworld operations, at least.

  “Hillbilly in position,” I whispered over the radio. “Report in.”

  One by one, each pair checked in that they were in position. We were a couple of guys down; we had to leave drivers in the vans, which were standing off down the road, away from the main approach. There was no way I was letting our extract platforms get too far away.

  I had to decide if we were going to chance going in first, or wait for Reyes to show up. Time was slipping away, fast. If we moved in, we might be in a better position once he showed; on the other hand, he might show up while we were still getting set or dealing with whoever was inside.

  Then the decision was taken away from us. A trio of white sedans and a limousine trundled in front of us, turning in to the hacienda as they drew even with the dirt driveway. Reyes had arrived. We were out of time, and out of options.

  I hesitated. We were in position, but it felt too much like we were flying by the seat of our pants. This could go completely, horribly wrong in an instant.

  But we weren't getting paid to play it safe. We were getting paid to hunt down El Duque, and Reyes was our line to him. So I just waited and watched while his security got out of the vehicles and moved toward the house. A few were still looking out toward the road, but they didn't seem to be watching the brush much. I still didn't trigger the ambush. I needed to wait until Reyes got out; if we initiated too soon, they'd just drive him away in that presumably armored limo. After what felt like an eternity, though, one of the dark-suited security men opened the back door of the limo, and Reyes, clad in a gray suit, got out, looking around. “Execute, execute, execute,” I sent.

  Shots snapped out from the treeline, thudding into bodies and the side of the limo. I had just about drawn a bead on one of Reyes' bodyguards, taking my hand off my rifle to key my radio. I slapped my hand back on the forearm and got my sights back on target, just as the security personnel still standing opened fire.

  There had been about five around Reyes, sheltered from the initial volley by the armored vehicles between them and the treeline where Mike and his guys were hiding. Those five reacted immediately, even as two more went down to my team's fire. They immediately got Reyes down on the ground, opening fire with a combination of MP5s and MP7s, spraying fire both over the hood of the limousine and down the line of vehicles at us. Even more of them piled out of the sedans to add their own fire. Their response had been fast and ferocious. Only the fact that we were well concealed saved our lives. They couldn't see shit, but they were shooting awfully damned close even so. Bullets snapped and shredded vegetation around us. Larry and I hit the dirt as best we could in the tangle of branches. Ernesto fell against me, limp, throwing off my aim and sending the round I intended for one of the goons haring off into the woods.

  We couldn't just hose them down, not if we wanted to take Reyes alive, and that put us at a disadvantage. We were quickly pinned down in the brush as the security continued to hose the woods with fully automatic fire while they bundled Reyes into the limo. I shot the guy who was helping Reyes, and he staggered, but he must have been wearing a plate, because he just shot back, his rounds going entirely too closely above my head.

  They were staggering their bursts, making sure that a constant stream of fire was keeping us down in both directions. In moments, they had Reyes back in the limo and the doors closing. I dropped another one, tracking a trio of shots up his torso until they got past his plate, but it was too late. The limo was moving already, backing away from the hacienda, partially shielded by the rear sedan. I didn't have a shot at the engine, but I tried for the tires. Apparently they were run-flats, though; the vehicle didn't even slow down. In seconds, the sedan and the limo were gone, out of sight down the entry road.

  Two security guys hadn't gone along and were still standing, sending alternating bursts of fire at us. One of Mike's guys shot one in the side of the head and he dropped. Larry's rifle barked, and the last one went down. After that, the last security sedan skipped out, slewing around the turn and down the road in a cloud of dust, pursued by sporadic, and futile, rifle fire.

  More fire was starting to come from the house, though it was the familiar rattle of AK fire, rather than the more rapid burp of the security elements' subguns. “No joy, no joy, no joy,” I sent over the net. “Fall back to extract.” I hammered a couple of suppressed shots through the window I could see to discourage any more fire, then turned to check Ernesto.

  There was a puckered, bloody hole just above his right eye. Whether it had killed him, or the round that had torn a ragged crater out of the side of his throat was academic. We weren't going to get anything more out of him. I crawled backward as Larry shot at any muzzle flashes he could see, then took up the fire once I was far enough back. Whoever was inside wasn't as disciplined as Reyes' security had been; they were spraying the woods and most of their rounds were going high. Bullets were ripping through the trees, dropping torn bits of vegetation down, but they were significantly farther above our heads than the guards' fire had been. As soon as I started putting rounds downrange, through the narrow window I could see, Larry stopped shooting and started moving back to join me, thrashing through the brush with some difficulty.

  There came a point where we couldn't shoot back effectively anymore, at which point we just paired up, turned, and started crawling on our hands and knees. Blind AK fire was still going over our heads, but it was increasingly off target.

  I'd said, “extract,” but what I'd meant was, “emergency extract.” Ideally, we would have brought the vans on-target, loaded Reyes, and been on our way. But with the plan gone to hell, we had to move to the secondary. That wasn't far; it was a clump of trees butted up against the dirt road less than three hundred meters away. But then a radio call from Jack threw that plan out the window as well.

  “This is Anarchy. We have to relocate. A group of armed men just came out onto the road between us and the secondary extract point. Approximately ten of them, with ARs and AKs. We are not going to be able to get past them.”

  Lee didn't have any better news. “This is Booters. Same situation here; we are going to have to move or be compromised. It looks like Reyes had some other security in the area.”

  Bad news all around. We'd walked right into a hornet's nest. Then Eddie made it even worse. Far worse.

  “This is Geek,” he said. “Speedy and Satchel are down.”

  Chapter 13

  I felt the bottom drop out of my guts. If they had just been wounded, Eddie would have said “WIA.” “Down” meant they were dead. Mike and Chad were gone.

  I had long since learned to compartmentalize when in combat. Distractions during a gunfight get you killed. I remember reading a novel a number of years ago, in which the former SEAL protagonist regularly went into a sort of fugue about his dead comrades, usually in the middle of an op, or worse, in the middle of a firefight. I tossed the
book before I'd made it a quarter of the way through. In the real world, that man would have been dead. You can't afford to slip into the white when there are still hostiles around. And when in the field, you have to assume that there are always hostiles around.

  So I pushed the loss of one of my oldest friends to the back of my mind and concentrated on the problem at hand; namely, getting the fuck out of the de facto encirclement we'd found ourselves in.

  I didn't know who these guys were; the odds were good that they were allied somehow with Reyes or his underworld connections. But, based on what little I knew about the situation in Veracruz State, they could very well be local militias, autodefensas, stood up to combat the cartels. Or they could even be cartel proxies, calling themselves autodefensas. It got confusing quick. Hence, the best option was going to be to avoid contact.

  I stopped, staying low, and looked around. Larry and I were deep in the brush, overshadowed by the thick crowns of the trees. I couldn't see any particular gaps that would provide a window for us to be seen, unless one of the searchers out there decided to stick his head in to take a good look. If that happened, we were fucked.

  On the other hand, if we tried to shoot our way out, we might find ourselves fucked anyway. I'd seen small fights turn into five-hundred-fighter dog-piles before. I had no desire to get swarmed as soon as we moved.

  Keying my radio, I whispered, “If you're in concealment, stay put until things settle down. We'll rendezvous at the tertiary RV point.” That was several miles away, north of Catalan. “Vehicles get clear. We're going to have to try to wait them out.”

  There was a rustle nearby, as Larry repositioned himself so that he could cover our six. We were only feet away from Nick and Jim, but the foliage was thick enough that we couldn't see them, especially down at ground level. “This seems awfully familiar,” he murmured, barely audible.

  I didn't reply. At least there's no water this time, I thought. Larry and I had once spent most of an entire day hiding in the reeds in an Iraqi canal in Basra, up to our noses in stagnant, green shit-water. Lying in the brush and brambles for hours was considerably more inviting, though the bugs were already becoming an irritant. As much as I hated the desert, this tropical shit had its own drawbacks.