Jemma looked away. El Sombro wasn’t operating in Puerto Rico, but there was a chance Nomar Ortiz had never left his home country after all. Sifting through the information from Rocco had revealed grainy videos of enforcers being trained by a shadowy figure in the heart of the El Yunque National Forest. The hitmenwere taken through a myriad of rigorous combat drills, guerrilla warfare tactics, and advanced weaponry maneuvers to prepare them to protect the Sombro Cartel. The techniques used were the calling card of Nomar, who’d struck fear across the drug trade almost two decades ago. Many of the enforcers within the cartel were also equipped with modified weapons that bore the engraved decal, “The NO Way.” Nomar had utilized similar modified guns as head of enforcement for the Ortiz Cartel. While confirming that the NO stood for Nomar Ortiz was impossible, Jemma believed it did. She was too close to discovering Nomar’s location to let anything derail their secret mission.
“Or have you shifted focus to someone else?” Cedric demanded. “A local player in the San Juan drug game who’s become a bigger threat?”
“I told you, Proteus operations are classified.”.
Tank had flown to San Juan to look into Eddie Baez, a former confidential informant of the San Juan office who’d abruptly cut ties with them around three years ago. Lenny had obtained chatter from the dark web that Eddie might be trying to establish a connection with the Sombro Cartel. Word on the street was he was dissatisfied with his role in the local drug gangs in San Juan and was looking for a path to more power.
“So the Proteus agent was here on an active mission,” Cedric said, his anger fading to curiosity.
"I’m not discussing the details of our operations with you.”
“Why not? If your guy was at the warehouse, I know you were after the same man we were looking into—Eddie Baez. He’s been making moves. This was our first chance to get evidence to bring him in. Damn shame we got tangled up with your team and let him get away.”
“You got tangled up with my team because you only thought about yourself. Trying to find a quick way to rebuild your fucked upreputation. But your actions had the opposite effect. You crossed Proteus, and that won’t get dismissed as easily as your botched operation in Jamaica,” Jemma said. “Try learning from your mistakes. Any and all raids need to be submitted to the database to ensure they don’t interfere with other operations in the region. Do us all a favor, and don’t cut corners next time!”
Cedric avoided her gaze as he slumped against the conference room table.
Jemma walked toward the door. “What hospital was my agent sent to?”
“San Cristobal Medical.”
Twenty minutes later, Jemma found herself navigating the maze-like halls of the hospital, following behind a chatty, petite nurse as she approached Tank’s room. Jemma thanked the woman, then knocked lightly on the door.
“About time you got here,” Tank called out.
Jemma slipped through the door and closed it behind her. Tank was a hulk of a man, barely contained within the hospital bed, shoving red Jell-O into his mouth. A line of empty containers littered his bedside table.
“I’m fairly certain Jell-O isn’t an approved meal for a gunshot wound,” Jemma said.
“No, but I can sweet talk the nurses into giving me what I want.” Tank gave her a wink. His face grew grave as she sat on a stool beside his bed. “What are we going to do about Rocco?”
Jemma glanced away. She wasn’t sure he would like her answer. Hell, she didn’t know if she liked her answer. But it was the only way to salvage the operation and her mission to find Nomar.
“Replacing a handler in the middle of a mission is high risk in normal circumstances. This operation is far from normal. Our protocols indicate the best option is to exfiltrate him and kill the op,” Jemma began.
“You can’t do that,” Tank thundered, then grimaced with pain and reached for his hip. He bit back a curse, then said, “Rocco was going to walk away from this op. The situation with his dad and the insinuations on his character almost ruined any chance we had of getting him to come on board.”
“But you changed his mind,” Jemma said. The contents of the brown envelope had changed hers about Rocco. Knowing there was possibly a seed of vengeance behind his noble reasons for fighting the drug trade had been the tipping point. She still didn’t know what Rocco knew about his father’s murder, but she saw a glimpse of the same drive she had within him. To seek justice for a life taken too soon. How could she not give him a chance to exorcise his demons when she was using the same op to exorcise hers?
“I pushed him to go undercover, and then he stuck around for two years chasing our tails until we got a breakthrough. Things are going too good. I can’t be why he gets pulled from finishing the job,” Tank said, then took a deep breath.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“Really?” Tank raised an eyebrow.
“But there’s still the problem of how we get a new handler trained up to take your place and get Rocco to trust that person,” Jemma said, excitement fluttering across her skin.
“I think I have a solution to that problem.”
Now, it was her turn to be shocked. Tank could derail her plans if he had a better option to take over as handler. Still, she had to hear who he thought could step in. He’d probably already run his choice by Lenny and Fallon before approaching the subject with her. Jemma asked, “So, who do you think should be Rocco’s new handler?”
“I’m looking at her.”
Chapter 19
“A wheelchair?” Ike glared at the thin woman with mousy brown hair and dull eyes as she pushed it into his room. The round-the-clock nurse he’d been saddled with gave him a thin-lipped smile as if the contraption was the answer to his prayers instead of a hindrance to all his plans.
It had been six weeks since he’d crashed landed back in St. Felipe.
