Page 39 of Thaddeus

“I heard her when she was questioning the girls. She has a picture she keeps on her. She showed it to them and asked them if they’d seen her sister. But that was all I knew until the report came in.”

“And you read that before you came to get me this morning.”

“I did. I wanted to know how bad it was before I talked to you.”

I nodded my head, knowing Max was telling the truth—he wouldn’t have kept that info from me. The timing was shit, we’d gotten the order to pick her up before he’d had a chance to talk to me.

I wasn’t sure what this new information changed, or if it should change anything. The past was the past and the fucked-up truth was the woman I’d loved was dead. And in her place was this Emerson.

I couldn’t blame her for doing the things she’d done—hell, if I had a sister and the things that had been done to Autumn happened to her, I would’ve gone off the rails. There’d be dead motherfuckers all over the place. Those animals had torn Autumn up. Someone needed to pay.

But what I could and did blame her for was the manner in which she’d taken off and left me.

“She said she left to protect me,” I told Max.

“Maybe she did.”

“Come again? How in the hell does that work? Protect me from who? The men who took Autumn?”

“From yourself.”

“Now you’re talking crazy shit like her.”

“No, I’m not and you know it. If you’d come home from that training op and found your woman in the middle of that particular shitstorm, you would’ve broken your neck making it okay for her. Which would’ve meant, you would’ve gone on the hunt. Which would’ve led to being masted, possibly kicked off the team, and even out of the Navy.”

Goddamn, but he was right. I would’ve gone hunting and there’s no doubt I would’ve found Autumn.

“Did you get what you needed?” he asked.

Needed? Hell, no. Though, to be fair, I wasn’t sure what I needed to help myself get over Emerson. Maybe this was it, and I just needed a slap of cold-hard reality. We were no longer the people we were, there wasn’t even a we—at all. There was Emerson and there was Thad. Two different people.

“Yeah. I’m good,” I told him and hoped I wasn’t lying.

“You gonna talk to her?”

“About our past? No, I don’t think it’s necessary. Am I gonna try to put that shit behind me and treat her like any other asset? Yeah.”

“I think—”

“I appreciate your concern. I admit when she left me, she tore my shit up. And seeing her again in Mexico fucked with my head. Finding her with Jefferson pissed me off and threw me into a rage. But I can’t go there with her, not again. Not the way I love her. I barely survived her the first time I had her. So, I need to put space between us, and talking to her is not keeping my distance.”

“I get it, brother. I have your back. Whatever you need.”

“Did you take a look at the satellite images Garrett sent over of Garcia’s camp?” I asked, changing the subject away from Emerson and the drama that had become my life.

“I did. The aerials suck. The canopy’s too thick to see shit. I was thinking the best way to infil would be the Kaituma River. There’s a dock there we could hit. But it’s boxed in by those goddamned trees.”

“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing,” I told him. “But it might be best to fast rope down straight in the middle of the back of the camp. We’d have at least five-hundred yards of clearing. But there’s zero cover there. We’d be fucked if we ran into unfriendlies.”

“Tex said he’s working on getting a drone in, but I still don’t see how that’s gonna help much, unless he hijacks that bitch and gets it down into the jungle. He’s crafty when it comes to getting us intel, but I’d think that’s beyond the scope of reality.”

Damn if Max wasn’t right. Tex had pulled off some crazy shit in the past. Some of the things he did should’ve been impossible. Yet somehow he’d always managed. But getting a UAV to fly low enough to get us the footage we’d need would be difficult.

“It looks like the camp is broken into two sections. The buildings near the house all have dog runs attached. But there’s two small houses in the back, looks like one fence encloses that area. You suppose that’s where he keeps the women?” I asked.

“Man, I hate having to guess, but without a few days to recon that’s all we’ve got—guesses. And yeah, I’d say that’s where the women are kept. I did find it interesting that Emerson talked about the dogs Garcia trained at the camp, but not the women. That’s something I’d think she’d mention. She’s all about saving them.”

“She probably had no idea they were there. If she wasn’t allowed to venture out and look around, she wouldn’t have seen the two houses. They’re tucked back behind the tree line.”