Page 32 of Fixed Asset

My radio crackled to life with Pete’s angry voice asking me, “Three, how are you looking over there?”

“Four has engaged,” I radioed back. “I’m still clear.”

“Four, your count?” Pete inquired.

“Two down,” Mason answered. “Six incoming.”

“Copy that. Two’s moving to overwatch.”

Fallon was Two, and he was on the move to the rooftop of a rickety old outbuilding. He’d held off due to the condition of the structure. It was a last resort and might not hold his weight for long. If Fallon was on the move, the north side of the compound was being flooded.

“Need help?” I asked.

“Not yet. Hold your position.”

For a moment, I let my mind wander to Catarina. I had to remind myself she was trained, she knew what she was doing. We both had jobs to do, and mine was to make sure no one breached the house.

With that in mind, I stepped to the side, shifted to my eleven o’clock, and switched over from fusion mode to white hot. The world around me turned black and white, the jungle dotted with white heat signatures as the enemy combatants advanced.

There were more than six now—more like twenty. I popped off a round, a white figure dropped, and I moved to the next.

Sweat rolled down my neck.

The humidity was oppressive.

The mosquitoes were swarming en masse.

The quiet peacefulness of Berta’s mountaintop hideaway was now spoiled by the devastating sounds of battle.

It was going to be a long fucking night.

Chapter Nine

I was listening over comms, but that was all I was doing.

Hiding away in the house, listening to the battle rage on outside.

My trigger finger itched to join the fight. To go out and help Jack and his team. But the whimpering of a little girl in her teenage sister’s arms reminded me that I needed to stay with Berta and guard the women and children.

On the way to the compound, I’d learned the president’s wife and children were to be picked up tomorrow morning after a scheduled visit to a hospital in Puerto Cortés. The timeline would be tight; the other women and children would already be aboard the boat that would take them across the Gulf of Honduras to Belize.

The other two members of the team, Aiden and Ryan, had already made contact with Berta’s people in Hopeville, and the arrangements for new identities and safe passage were in place.

We just had to get through the night.

“Catarina, you should sit,” Berta told me in her thickly accented English.

There was something melodic to her voice. It was soothing and calm, despite the sounds of rapid gunfire. I understood why these women responded to her so well, beyond the fact she was their savior—the Angel of Death. The woman who was not afraid of the gangs and had dedicated her life to avenging the women who had been brutalized or lost their lives to the senseless violence.

I glanced from the only entry point—a flight of stairs leading to the upper level of the house. We weren’t in a traditional basement. The bunker had been built into the side of a hill with two exposed sides. Three layers of concrete-reinforced cinderblocks were the only things stopping the bullets from penetrating.

That meant we were trapped, with Berta’s trusted soldiers patrolling the grounds and guarding the house. There were three men stationed on the level above—and me.

The last line of defense.

“Thank you, but I’m fine.”

Berta patted my shoulder and smiled.