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  My forearm contacts the sidearm, pushing it to the side as I continue with my rotation. Using my momentum, I strike the lower jaw just behind the joint. I feel the joint slip out of place as the man’s head twists under the force of the blow. My right hand wraps around the top of the handgun. The little man in my head screams “Oh shit!” as my senses take in that there are more armed men in the immediate vicinity.

  I need a weapon quickly, I think, moving to rotate the handgun from the grip of the man with the now dislocated jaw.

  “That’ll be enough,” a heavily accented man says.

  I look toward the sound, seeing the dark hole of a barrel pointed directly at my face. It looks like I’m staring down the barrel of a battleship’s 16-inch gun. The crunch of something slamming into the back of my head, just behind my ear, is all I feel before I fall to the ground, darkness closing in. My last thought is berating myself for the rookie mistake.

  Chapter Four

  From her vantage point on one side of the lobby, McCafferty watches the four policemen walking purposely past the front desk and down the hall leading to the pool area. With his bag in hand, Henderson follows at a discreet distance. The calls from Denton in the balcony room above give her a mental picture of what’s happening outside.

  Her heart beats faster as she pads down the hallway. The past days of waiting have been stressful, killing time and hoping they don’t get caught unaware, the cartel coming up with something they haven’t thought of or the entire structure crashing down from a car or planted bomb.

  Now that things seem to be developing in a hurry, she just hopes to be able to keep up with the rapidly unfolding events. The clop of her sandals on the shiny tiled floor echo off walls lined with framed seashore paintings. Radiant light coming through glass panels fills the small lobby at the end of the hallway, the pool courtyard bathed in sunshine on the other side.

  McCafferty enters the lobby holding her bag with one hand and a phone to her ear with the other. The four uniformed policemen stand in a line at the back of the lobby, all facing the glass doors and giving the appearance of casually chatting. However, McCafferty notes their hands on the grips of their slung carbines, their fingers hovering near the triggers. She stops abruptly halfway through the lobby, an angry expression forming.

  “No, I didn’t grab it. You said you were going to,” she says into her phone, frustration evident in her tone.

  She glances briefly at the four, a brief smile flickering as they look in her direction and then vanishing as she looks away, her annoyed expression returning.

  “Dammit, Bill, you distinctly said you were going to,” McCafferty says.

  She looks outside through the glass-paneled wall and door. Sunglassed people wander around the pool, some returning to their chairs carrying fresh drinks. Sprays of water glisten in the sunlight from the sunscreened kids playing in the pool, mindless of the intense heat. She hears low chuckles come from the men nearby. Turning toward them, she gives them a shake of her head and an eye roll. Gesturing with her phone that she’s speaking to an idiot, the men laugh louder.

  “So, what do you expect me to do about it? I’m already downstairs and about to walk out to the pool.”

  In her periphery, McCafferty sees that Henderson has halted down the hall, his bag already on the tiled floor. Even though Denton’s calls indicate that the men outside are nearly at the courtyard, she’s worried that she may have stepped into the lobby prematurely. If it goes on for much longer, she may not be able to keep up the pretense of the phone call.

  “Ella esta con un imbécil,” one of the men mutters, the others chuckling.

  “Venir aquí y voy a ser tu novio,” another says, looking directly at her, the chuckles changing to laughter.

  “Si, durante los proximos treinta minutos,” another says.

  McCafferty gives them a coy smile and directs her attention back to her phone. The idiots assumed that because she was Caucasian, she couldn’t speak Spanish. Although not totally fluent, she’s pretty sure they just offered to be her boyfriend for the next thirty minutes. Her hand twitches on the handles of her bag, itching to reach inside and profess her love to them in the form of 6.5mm bullets.

  “Engaging,” McCafferty hears Jack call from her implant.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Bill. Don’t worry about getting up. I’ll go back and get it,” McCafferty angrily says into her phone.

  Giving the men a smile and quick wave, she storms back into the hallway. Denton has already dropped his bag and unzippered it, pulling his carbine from within. McCafferty does the same, whispering, “Four in a line toward the rear. I’ll take the farthest two, you have the closest.”

  Henderson nods, adding, “Admirable performance out there.”

  “Experience from bad decisions regarding boyfriends,” McCafferty replies.

  “Ready?”

  “Let’s do this,” McCafferty responds with a nod.

  Near the lobby, she peeks around the corner. The four policemen have moved into the center of the space with their weapons trained on the doors, waiting for the mob rush of panicked people. They don’t seem to care if they’re American, although the odds are that they’ll massacre a good number of them.

  The chattering sound of gunfire comes from outside. With Henderson next to her, she brings up her carbine, bracing it against the corner as she sights in on the farthest one’s head. She so badly wants to make some comment in Spanish to let them know their idiocy and something about their short-dicked legacy, but knows that’s how people in the movies always give everything away.

  The cough of her shot reverberates ever so faintly within the lobby, the 6.5mm bullet quickly crossing the intervening space. Slamming into man’s skull just behind the ear, the round tears a hole through the thick bone. The far man’s white hat shoots into the air as if attached to a compressed spring being released. Blood filled with meaty chunks of brain geysers from the far side, red coating the shoulder of his white shirt and splattering across the polished tile. A red trickle flows from the entry hole and down the man’s neck, soaking the white collar. The head of the man who asked to be her boyfriend snaps to the side, his weapon falling from his now lifeless hands to clatter on the hard surface.

  The shooter stumbles one step to the side and falls like a cut tree, hitting the floor heavily. One eye stares blankly from his side-turned face, his first glimpse at whatever afterlife awaits. A pool of red immediately forms under his head, spreading quickly with streams filling the tile seams as if trying to escape.

  McCafferty hears a similar chuff from Henderson’s M-4, and in her periphery, sees the closest man stumble into the one next to him, knocking him off balance. The dead man’s arm claws down his buddy’s side in a pleading gesture as if the grasp could save him from whatever he observes on the other side of life.

  With a quick movement of her M-4, McCafferty sends another subsonic round streaking through the lobby. The bullet tears through the lowered brim of the man’s white booney hat, leaving a near perfect circular hole. Blood pours down his neck in a gushing stream and soaks into his shirt. The shooter stands rigidly upright as if unfazed, his finger pressing the trigger. The barrel of the weapon flies wildly around the room, shattering glass panels and chipping the floor tiles. A line of bullet holes stitch an arc against the far wall, shattering a picture frame and obliterating the painted family watching the sun set over the ocean.

  The picture falls, scraping down the wall to crash on the floor as the bolt of the man’s weapon locks back, the mag empty. Henderson’s second target falls forward, adding a third body to the floor of the lobby. Screams are coming through the broken glass, along with the continued staccato beat of automatic fire, but McCafferty is mesmerized by the still standing man. He’s rigid with blood pouring down his neck, his shoulders and upper shirt dyed red, the now empty weapon hanging listless in one hand.

  With people outside running for the door, the man teeters and then topples, stiff like a tree. McCaffe
rty is almost tempted to call “timber.” The man’s fall gains momentum and he strikes the ground forehead first with a crack, his blood adding to that already coating much of the lobby’s floor.

  “Interior is clear,” McCafferty radios.

  Seeing the incoming mass of people, McCafferty and Henderson stash their weapons back into their bags and dart for the central hallway running the length of the resort. Once in the corridor, the two hesitate, but then move on. Even if they assisted the others outside, they know they’d have to push through the panicked mob now clogging the doors, their screams filling the hotel. And, even if they managed that, they’d run right into the guns of either the cartel or their own team.

  “South side clear,” Gonzalez calls, followed by Jack ordering the exfil.

  Jogging down the corridor, McCafferty and Henderson head north. The implant near McCafferty’s ear comes alive with Lynn’s voice.

  “Jack went offline, does anyone have a visual?”

  McCafferty and Henderson stop in their tracks, their gazes meeting, hesitant, unable to decide if they should push on to the secondary resort or turn back.

  “Side entrance,” McCafferty says, nodding down the hall in the direction they were heading.

  * * * * * *

  Gonzalez and Greg run through the pool area, stepping around and over bodies lying on the ground or crawling along the hot surface. In their hearts, they’d like to stop to render assistance, but they have their orders—clear out of the resort. Besides holding wounds closed, there really isn’t much they could do anyway, and if the far-off wailing sirens are any clue, medical help will arrive soon.

  A quick glance at the courtyard shows a mob of people pushing to get through the resort doors, their shrieks filling the pool area. Only the dead and injured remain, splatters and streaks of blood painting the surface in many places. Overturned chairs are scattered in the wake of the mass exodus, drinks, books, towels, and bags joining the litter.

  They pass one woman holding a dead man’s head in her lap, her hands, lower legs, and stomach smeared red. She looks up as they shuffle by, her wet eyes and tear-streaked face lost in sorrow. Turning her attention back to the man in her lap, she absently runs her fingers through his hair and strokes his forehead. It’s heartbreaking, but both Greg and Gonzalez know that it could have been much worse. They’d done all they could, given the situation.

  With the exfil order, they push toward Jack’s position when Lynn asks if anyone has a visual on Jack, saying that he’s gone offline. The two are the first to reach his last reported position. Three gunmen are down near the beach entrance with another sitting against a wall, his head leaning to the side, all obviously experiencing their first moments of afterlife.

  One of the walls surrounding the grassy lawn is chewed, a clear sign that a firefight took place.

  “Denton, confirm there were only four shooters to the north,” Greg radios.

  “Confirmed. There were only four,” Denton replies.

  “And no one else came from the sides?”

  “I didn’t have a visual on the side, but I can confirm that only four shooters entered the courtyard to the north. Do you see Jack?”

  “Negative...continue with the exfil, but meet by the river instead,” Greg orders.

  Looking behind the wall to the grassy area, expecting to see Jack lying wounded, Greg finds only chips of concrete scattered across the surface and an unzippered bag. Gonzalez walks over and retrieves a weapon lying on the grass. She pulls back the bolt, exposing a round in the chamber.

  “This is one of ours,” she says, not wanting to name whose.

  Greg searches for any blood trails leading away from the scene while Gonzalez walks to peek over the wall down to the beach.

  “No one there or along the beach as far as I can see,” Gonzalez reports, the sound of the sirens drawing closer.

  “No blood trails either,” Greg states, his gaze turning to the resort.

  “Henderson, McCafferty, check out the side entrances. Denton, I want you to check the parking lot. There was a firefight here, but no indication that Jack was hit. He may have been hit by a chunk of concrete and dazed. Search for him stumbling around somewhere. Law enforcement and medical teams are arriving, so let’s make this quick. They’ll gather survivors for questions. Steer clear. Don’t get caught up in it.”

  “Lynn, is this the true last position?”

  “You’re literally standing on his last recorded position. Then it just blipped off,” Lynn answers.

  “Okay, well we found his bag on the grass and carbine on the sidewalk. It looks like he took out the shooters, but he’s nowhere to be seen. My guess is someone got to him soon after his call,” Greg briefs.

  “Dammit! Blood trail? Anything?” Lynn calls.

  “Nothing. We’re searching the grounds, but the longer we remain, the greater the odds of being rounded up. McCafferty and Henderson are searching side exits, Denton the parking lot. Gonzalez and I will check out the abandoned resort next door.”

  “Do as you suggested, but continue with the exfil. Search the beach, the abandoned buildings, the parking lot and streets. But, keep moving. I’ll monitor radio traffic on this end and see if we can come up with what happened. Hopefully he gets scooped up in the net law enforcement is about to put in place.”

  “I hate to say this, but you know there’s a chance he isn’t in the area anymore,” Greg radios.

  “I know. Just eliminate all other possibilities,” Lynn tersely replies. “I’ll monitor things from here.”

  As they meet at the river, there’s no need to say anything; each newly arriving team member shakes their head.

  “Well, I’ll be damned if I’m tossing my weapon in that river,” McCafferty states.

  “Me either,” Gonzalez agrees. “We might need them later. And, I’m for damn sure not heading to the airport.”

  “I happen to agree with both of you,” Greg comments, his deep gravelly voice terse, his eyes searching the surrounding area. “If we do find something, we’ll need a team in place sooner rather than later.”

  “Do you think Lynn will agree to us staying?”

  “I guess we’re about to find out,” Greg replies.

  “Lynn, the general consensus here is that we’re retaining our weapons and remaining in-country.”

  There’s silence on the other end for a long moment, all Red Team looking at each other questioningly, but with determined expressions.

  “Agreed. Proceed to the secondary resort and we’ll check in afterward,” Lynn finally responds.

  * * * * * *

  A throbbing headache is my first sensation after coming out of the dark. Slowly creeping into my awareness, memories surface of what happened. I’m seated in a hard chair, head hanging down, my chin nearly touching my chest. Without moving or opening my eyes, I listen, feel, and attempt to become aware of my situation.

  The chilled air tells me that I’m indoors, possibly in some basement unless I’ve been out long enough for the sun to set. The dank smell adds to my assumption. My arms are behind me and something narrow, cold, and heavy binds my wrists.

  Handcuffed.

  Carefully flexing my ankles, I find that they’re secured to the legs of the chair by some means I can’t quite fathom. Perhaps duct tape, judging by the thick pressure on my shins. The chill on my skin tells me that I’m shirtless. Listening, I hear a very faint rustling to indicate that I’m not alone.

  I know that I’ve been captured, but I have no idea why. By all rights, I should be dead, so they clearly want me alive. Perhaps as a hostage or to glean information about who interrupted their attack? Possibly even hoping to learn how we knew about it.

  The team I ran into seemed prepared for some type of intervention. Maybe their goal was to capture or take out any form of protection in place, hiding a team to one side to swoop in behind. Or, they could just have been latecomers who happened to arrive behind me, possibly to clean up what the first shooters missed or to
catch anyone fleeing to the side. It’s entirely possible that there were more on the other side and Greg and Gonzalez have been captured as well and placed in another location.

  The other obvious thing is that my implanted communicator isn’t functioning or I would be hearing Lynn. If that’s the case, there goes any hope of an early rescue. I could be anywhere in or out of the city. Without a functional tracking device, no one will be finding me anytime soon.

  Cracking my eyes open, attempting to shut out the throbbing pain hammering the inside of my skull, I see that I’m still dressed in my swim trunks. Looking through my eyebrows, I notice someone sitting just inside a metal door, kicked back to lean against a thickly padded wall with the chair on its rear legs. The butt of a handgun pokes out from his armpit, held in by a shoulder holster.

  Quietly and slowly moving one hand to the other, I feel that my watch and implant command center has been taken. However, I do find the threaded cords of my lanyard bracelet, so I’m not completely without means. A metallic clang reverberates from the door. The man in the chair rocks forward and stands as the door opens on squealing hinges. Two men walk in, one in a button-down dress shirt and slacks, a sidearm tucked into his waistband; the other in a short-sleeved buttoned shirt and jeans covering his large physique.

  I close my eyes and steady my breathing, pretending to still be out. I hope to glean useful information should they talk among themselves while they wait for me to wake. Footsteps shuffle in the room. A faint squeak and I’m suddenly inundated with icy water splashing against the top of my head and pouring down my chest, soaking my swim trunks.