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“We should be there in about ten,” Hunter said, leaning against the back doors. “I need to be honest. The information we have is both secondhand and through a translator.”
That didn’t fill Zy with confidence. But nothing about this mission did. Whenever they came to Mexico, everything turned to shit. This time, the crap had started before they’d even left the States. Tessa had been gone for three days without a word. Countless times, he’d reached for his phone to call, text…something. But she had Cash, and he’d just be in the way.
A few hours after she flew out, the bosses had told them all to go home, get a full night’s sleep, and be prepared to bug out in the next few days. Since no one had left the office all weekend, and they’d been existing on takeout and catnaps, they’d all been ready for a shower and a horizontal eight. Trees, being Trees, had stopped for gas at a fucking truck stop…and somehow been tempted by their sushi. The following morning, he’d called Zy from the hospital—shocker—where he’d spent all of Tuesday and most of Wednesday, only being discharged a few hours before their departure.
Leave it to his buddy to fully live by the motto what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Problem was, Trees tested that a lot.
Thanks to his adventures in cuisine, Trees had been too disconnected from the plan to help out and way too weak to join in, so they’d left him behind.
As far as Zy could tell, the team wasn’t off to a good start. So Hunter admitting the information was sketchier than he’d led them to believe was just another problem they didn’t need.
From the front seat, the colonel glanced over his shoulder, keeping one eye on the empty road. “A few days ago, I got a call from Emilo’s estranged wife, Valeria. We rescued her from her husband a little over eighteen months ago, but she had to leave behind her mother and her sister. Her mother had been sick. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it. But her sister, Laila, somehow got her hands on a phone and started sending encoded messages through a game app to Valeria that included their location and the fact Emilo has One-Mile, who, as of this morning, was still alive. I was expecting more communication this afternoon so we could finish working out the details, but Valeria didn’t hear from her sister.”
“So you’re saying there’s a higher-than-normal chance this goes to shit?” Josiah piped up, dressed like the rest of them in head-to-toe desert camo, weapons, and bad attitude.
“Yep.” Logan never pulled his punches.
Son of a bitch.
“So what do we know?” Zy asked.
“The location of the compound and the positioning of the guards. If everything goes to plan, Laila should be with One-Mile now, trying to figure out a distraction. Apparently, Montilla has been keeping him underground, so he and Laila will have to invent some excuse to get the guards to bring him up top.”
No one had to say the most likely scenario. Montilla was too wily to let a tiger like Walker out of his cage unless the ultimate goal was to put him down for good.
“According to the sat-map, it’s a huge compound. How are we supposed to know where to find Walker?” Cutter demanded.
The colonel shrugged. “You’ll have to look. And if you find Laila, too, she comes along. No one else. Copy?” At everyone’s nod, the man turned to him. “Zy, you ready to create some chaos?”
“Affirmative. Explosives are in place. During my earlier reconnaissance, I located their fuel dump and a generator station. All it’s going to take is a press of my thumb, and boom.”
“Good, then you run straight for the chopper. You have the map to the storage location?”
“I’m good to go.”
“Once you get there, lift that bird in the air and fly to the extraction point. You’ll have probably seven to ten minutes—tops—before the others come running in your direction. Until then, be ready to defend your position. I’ll be in the van at the alternate location in case anything goes wrong.” Caleb sighed. “If everyone makes it out, it’s going to be a fucking miracle.”
That was Zy’s read on the situation, too.
“And we’re only going to get one chance at this,” Hunter said. “Don’t fuck up—any of you.”
After that, the team fell silent. What else was there to say? In a handful of minutes, they’d retrieve one of their own from certain death or they’d all die together trying.
Fuck, he wished he’d manned up and called Tess, at least to check on her and hear her voice one more time. If there was a chance he might leave this earth, he’d prefer to do it with some peace. But it was too late now, probably for a lot of reasons.
