McGuire looked at his buddies, nodded. “Let’s disappear.”
The guy grinned. “Roger, that. Looks like I’m taking you home.”
“Home? I thought we were going to vanish?”
“You are, back to where your family heritage began. Buckle up, gents, next stop, the bayou.”
Two weeks later…
Parque de los Periodistas, Bogotá
Five minutes to exfil…
Special Agent Riven Ashburn moved through the crowded plaza, the late afternoon sun burning the sky into a bruised purple. A maze of narrow cobblestone streets snaked off in every direction, each road choked with a mix of tourists, students, and noisy vendors.
Her burner phone vibrated.
She paused at the statue ofParque de los Periodistas, used the reflection in the shop windows to check her six as she scanned the text.
“Plaza Bolivar instead. Five minutes. North corner.”
Her gut clenched. There were only two reasons her handler would make a last-minute change. Either it was a trap, or he was spooked.
She pocketed the phone, rechecked her position.
There.
At the entrance to an adjoining street. Two men. Jackets too heavy for the late-day heat. Combat boots out of place with the trendy track suits. The ones that didn’t begin to blend in.
Herrera’s men.
They nodded, then split, looking as if they were hoping to box her in. Quick. Dirty. Just another unsolved death in the heart of Bogotá’s historic center.
She struck off, shadowed a group of giddy teenagers laughing and snapping photos of everything. They stopped in front of a hostel door, arms up for a volley of selfies.
Riven bolted. Through the hostel foyer, then into the stairwell. She took the steps two at a time, pushed past a couple kissing on the second floor, winding her way up each story until she reached the roof. The old, rusted door gave beneath her boot, bouncing off the wall with a terrifying screech.
She burst onto the flat, terracotta-tiled roof, chest heaving, the micro-SD card in her left boot a constant reminder of everything she had to lose. All that remained of a year’s worth of sacrifice.
Riven tamped down the overwhelming sense of disappointment. She’d made her decision. Put the lives of those men above her career — hell, her life. While it didn’t bring the kind of comfort she’d hoped for, at least she’d been able to look at herself in the mirror. A small feat after a year of lies. Of slowly becoming someone she hadn’t recognized.
A string of Spanish fury drifted up the stairs, two sets of footsteps hot and heavy behind her. She waited, drove the door into the forerunner as he crested the top platform. The man reeled backwards, tumbled his buddy down the flight of stairs, bought her a couple seconds of reprieve.
A quick scan of the roof, and she raced off, jumped the four-foot gap to the next rooftop amidst a tangle of laundry lines, and electrical cables. The city sprawled out below her — a dizzying vertical drop.
Someone shouted her codename, the last syllable echoing off the crumbling brickwork as she crested another edge — leaped.
The lip gave way just as she pushed off, and she landed short on the other side, forearms smacking the edge as she kicked at the smooth stone. She grunted through the resulting pull-up,rolled onto the slick surface as bullets ricocheted off the tile, spraying a sting of clay across her face.
Riven stayed low, putting as many satellite dishes as possible between her and the men as she kept running, clearing three more rooftops before stopping next to a low parapet overlooking a blind alley.
Ten feet across.
More than she’d ever jumped, the far side glaring at her through the wavering heat. She backed up, breathed, when shots whizzed past her shoulder, some asshole dressed in cargo pants and a tank, spraying the building from below. She took cover, waited for the brief lull, the distinctive click of the magazine slipping out, then ran — dropped onto the low wall, then into the alley, landing in a cat-like crouch.
Two steps, and she had the guy within reach. A solid hit to the throat, one to the liver, and he tripped back, his magazine only halfway engaged. A lunge and a slam, and she carried him into a stack of garbage cans — sent him crashing to the ground in a tangle of plastic bags.
One final boot to the head, and she ran off, cutting through a café kitchen. Steam hissed off the grills, the chef yelling at her in broken English as she raced for the rear door, downing another cartel player when he appeared in front — his knife clattering to the floor from a solid roundhouse.
