by J. M. Madden
“How many more prisoners are there?”
“At least twenty that I can see. I’m hoping there are more in the med center itself or in cages we can’t see, but twenty are definite.”
He breathed out a breath, fighting the memories of the camp. They wouldn’t do anyone any good right now.
Then Fontana told him about the plane. “Sounds like a Collaborative plane. Maybe they’re finally trying to figure out what to do with the men.”
“One of the prisoners from the last camp said that men had been moved here, he thought, just within the past few days.”
“I’m wondering if there are only three camps.”
“Not sure,” Fontana whispered. “We might find out more when we go in. One of the men we rescued in the last camp said he thought that this camp was just a stopover, and that they would be moving on.”
Aiden’s heart thumped in his chest and he wished he could be there with his friend. “You need to be damn careful, Fontana. I shouldn’t have to tell you that, but I also know how you are. Don’t go in guns blazing unless you have backup.”
“Roger that,” he whispered. “I’m going to call the spooks and invite them to the party. Can you see if your brother can trace a plane registration for me?”
“I can try.”
Aiden copied down the registration number. “I’ll text you to let you know as soon as it hits.”
“Okay. I have to move.”
“Okay. Keep me posted, damn it.”
“Will do.”
And he hung up.
A hand stroked across his back and he looked over at Angela. She was just as awake as he was, waiting to hear word on Fontana. “He’s fine but they’re going to be in a shit storm in a while, and I’m worried about him.”
“Well, of course you are,” she breathed. “It wasn’t that long ago that you lost TJ. I can’t imagine what you’d do if you lost Fontana as well.”
The mere thought made his throat tighten. The three of them, the Dogs of War, were connected more than any other team he’d ever been a part of. Even though he was halfway around the world, if something happened to Fontana, Aiden and Wulfe would still feel it. If one died, there was a very real chance they all could.
“I’d better make some calls. And I’d better call Wulfe to tell him what’s going on.”
“Okay,” she said softly, laying back in the bed. “When you’re done come back to bed and let me hold you.”
He nodded and left the room, afraid to say anything out loud.
Kevin Rose looked at the number on his satellite phone and hoped it was who he thought it was.
“This is Rose.”
“Officer. This is Fontana. I’m going to send you our coordinates in a minute. We have at least twenty prisoners, possibly a high-value asset, and guards that could be enhanced. Are you in the neighborhood?”
He grinned but made sure to keep the emotion out of his voice. “Just down the block, actually.”
“Team Alpha is surveilling the camp today, but I suggest you be ready to insert tonight.”
“Roger. What high-value asset are we talking about?”
“Not sure. We’re running the plane registration now.” He gave Rose the digits. “I have a feeling it’s a Silverstone Collaborative jet. Similar paint scheme.”
Rose’s heart raced at the thought of the evidence that could mean. So far, they hadn’t gained any true proof that the Silverstone Collaborative was running these locations, only conjecture and second-hand knowledge. But if they could place a Silverstone jet on the camp itself where they were conducting illegal research on prisoners, there would be no wriggling out of the noose.
Now to keep the hothead under control.
“Your team needs to wait for us before insertion.”
“We’re going to try. My people are good but the odds are stacked against us here. We’re going to surveil today and log movements, but if something big happens I may have to step in.”
“How many troops have you seen?”
“Only about fourteen Army uniformed overnight, but ten to twelve black outfitted Collaborative operatives. Mercenaries.”
Rose frowned, glancing out the cockpit window. “How do you know they belong to the Collaborative?”
“Because we’ve run into them before. And they were extremely hard targets. Warn your team to shoot first and ask questions later, because there’s a very good chance they’ll heal faster than you can get cuffs on them.”
“Where did you run into them before?” Rose asked, praying that he would answer.
Fontana chuckled. “You’re cutting out, Officer Rose. I’ll see you tonight.”
Rose cursed as Fontana hung up. God damn, but the man was frustrating. Rose felt like he was missing gobs of information and it was pissing him off having to go into a situation blind. They were usually the ones with the up-to-the-minute details. They were usually the ones moving on the high-value assets.
Somehow this little group of nobodies was leading him around by the nose.
But… if they did have information about the Silverstone Collaborative being dirty, he would practically arrest his own mother to be in on the takedown. Rose already had his own suspicions and had been building a file on them over the years, but if the chips fell just right, this could be the biggest takedown of his career.
Leaning forward in his seat, he gave his assistant the coordinates to take up to the pilot, then he relayed the information to Maxwell, his second. The survivors from the last camp were on a naval vessel off the coast of Venezuela, and he’d ‘borrowed’ this Chinook for his assault team. They were ready for insertion now, but it would take them a few hours to get within range. They would need to hike in just as Team Alpha had. If they tried to land on the airstrip, the mice would scatter and they would lose all chance of grabbing them.
Rose looked out the window at the scenery below and tried to control his excitement.
Fontana returned to the group, his gaze going automatically to Madeira in her assault gear. Tiny as hell but damn, she was such a beautiful little badass. When they got out of this mess maybe he could take her on a date or something. She drew him, and his gaze, every time she was near, and he had an overwhelming need to touch her. Even when the timing was wrong, or inappropriate. It would probably piss her off if she knew how cute he thought she was right this second.
Focus on the business at hand, he told himself.
“Rose is on his way,” he whispered into the mic. “I don’t think he went far. We’re going to stake out our locations and monitor all camp activity. Troop numbers, prisoner numbers, medical personnel numbers. I don’t want anything to slip through the cracks, especially who came in on that plane. Or who’s leaving. We need to know that.”
He made eye contact with each of them and nodded. They each radiated strength and determination, so he felt confident splitting up and going in. “Let’s move out before it gets too light and they spot us.”
With a final, lingering glance at Madeira, he turned and walked away.
Kenny moved with the grace of a much smaller man. Fontana allowed him to take point as they began working their way around the camp. They would have to swing wide to avoid detection, and the big man seemed to understand that. They hiked northeast first, then up through a rocky area that threatened to expose them as the sun began to lighten the sky. Fontana could tell that Kenny was moving as fast as he possibly could over the terrain, but it didn’t surprise him when Kenny slipped at one point, one leg going down into a crevasse between two rocks. Fontana moved in to help him out but Kenny waved him away with a grin.
“If it had been my good leg we’d have been in trouble.”
Fontana watched as Kenny drew his prosthetic leg up out of the hole. It was intact and didn’t even look scratched, but he waited while Kenny flexed and tried it out.
The big man gave him a thumbs-up, and Fontana took the lead for a while. The morning was growing light quickly and they were going to have to find a
place to hunker down, but right now he couldn’t see anything suitable. They were too far away from the camp. He’d known when they started out that it was going to be a real task to make it over behind the troop barracks in time. He wondered if he shouldn’t break off with Kenny and have him move in here.
The fates seemed to agree with him, because Kenny began to have a hitch in his stride. Yes, they were going through the jungle, but even accounting for the terrain there seemed to be something wrong.
“I think I may have damaged something on that rock, boss.”
Fontana paused, looking back at the big man. Eventually, he nodded. “Why don’t you insert here,” he whispered. “Monitor what you can and try to figure out what’s going on with your leg.”
Kenny snapped him a salute and turned to the right, toward the camp. Fontana caught his arm. “I don’t think I have to tell you how bad it would be if they caught you with your leg off.”
A broad smile split Kenny’s mouth. “Oh, I know. I’ll be careful.”
Fontana watched him go and suddenly felt very alone. And very determined. Now that he didn’t have to slow for Kenny, he took off in a crouching almost-jog, circling the camp. He began to angle in toward the camp and within a few hundred yards he caught a flash of the white barracks through a break in the canopy. Slowing to a crawl, he crouched down deeper, aware that he was close enough that his movement could attract the attention of the guards he assumed were enhanced.
There was no one around and none of the cameras were pointed in his direction, so he drew out the wire snips. Before he cut anything, though, he reached out to hover over the fence with his bare hand, trying to sense electricity. Nothing. He wrapped his glove around the fence piece as he cut it, and it barely made a noise. Within just a few minutes he had a space big enough he could crawl through, even with his gear.
The guards appeared to be changing shift, which worked in his favor. He crawled in through thick foliage, angling his weapon in front of him. He found a natural depression where it seemed like the root ball of a tree had been at one time. Now it was covered over by thick, thorny vegetation. It brushed the exposed skin of his neck and fire bloomed, but he didn’t dare move away from it. He was planted for the day.
Half a dozen mercenaries in black body armor and black helmets moved out between the cages, relieving the men that were already there. They didn’t wear face masks, but it looked like they had mics on their helmets. It was a very similar setup to what his team had and wore.
One team was close enough that he could hear a few words of their conversation. The man going off-duty seemed aggravated, waving a hand and calling someone a ‘prick’. The second guard laughed and shook his head, but the night guard persisted, motioning to the plane. He heard ‘ungodly prick’ as well as fucker. Apparently, whoever it was that came in had pissed everyone off.
Was this a new routine? Something implemented when the high-profile asset arrived? If it was, that would make his team’s chances of success much higher. If this security team wasn’t used to the new routine, it would make them easier to take over.
And less likely to notice what was going on around them, paradoxically. If they felt like they were just putting on a show for the big wig, they would be less likely to notice anything. That’s what he hoped, anyway.
The prisoners seemed to be waking. He looked at the men in the cages and was surprised to realize that most of them looked okay. Not great, but definitely in better condition than the ones from his own camp. As he scanned the area, his eyes fell to one cage and the brown-haired occupant. The man was laying on his side, gaze uncomfortably close to where Fontana lay hidden. If he moved at all, the man would spot him.
Fontana held his breath as the man’s eyes drifted shut, and he prayed they would stay shut for a while. At least long enough for him to shift away from the man’s line of sight. There was no sense in risking anyone seeing him, at least not before he wanted them to.
Ignoring the plant sending fire down his exposed skin on the side of his face, Fontana moved out of the depression and crawled a few yards to the south, closer to the troop building. Here he was behind a broad-leafed palmetto-type tree. It wasn’t very tall, but the leaves would provide him excellent cover. He glanced back at the cage housing the prisoner that had almost seen him. The man’s blue eyes were staring straight at the tree.
Fuck.
Taking a massive risk, he moved slightly so that the man’s gaze could latch onto him. If you can hear me, this is a rescue. Do not acknowledge me. This is a rescue.
The man closed his eyes and seemed to go back to sleep, but Fontana felt like it was an act. His heart thudded in fear for a long time, but the man didn’t wake again.
The sun crested over the jungle canopy and the temperature began to warm. Bugs crawled over him and he prayed none of them were venomous. With any luck, the incident last night with the snake would be his only venomous near miss.
The dayshift guards took over from the nightshift and he watched every single one of them. The way they moved, the way they looked at the prisoners, and most importantly, how aware of their surroundings they were. Most of them had been at this job for a while, he could tell, and they’d settled into a laid-back awareness that he’d seen in many former military. At a second’s notice they could be on alert and ready to kill. They all carried sidearms, as well as longer assault weapons. The weapons looked very similar to the weapons his team carried.
One black-clad mercenary seemed to be in charge, standing off to the edge of the cage area. His head was on a swivel, and Fontana could tell that he was watching his own men as well as the ‘military’ men wandering around. The brown and black-skinned Guyanan men wore olive drab but didn’t seem especially militaristic. Fontana wondered if the uniforms had been at a yard sale or something because they didn’t seem like a regimented team of anything. They laughed and joked and treated their weapons, second-hand AK47s, like they were anything but something they needed to depend upon to save their lives. It was almost comical how diverse the two groups were.
The Collaborative mercenary team leader must have felt the same way. Fontana could almost see the disgust on his face. Good. If there was disorder in the ranks it could make their job easier.
It was obvious that the mercenaries in black were security, and the military in green were everything but.
Fontana used a small notepad to make a few notations. It was creeping on toward eleven a.m. when there was movement from the direction of the med center. There was a group of people there, some in medical coats and others in button-up shirts. They all seemed to be talking at a man in dress shirt and khakis. The man’s arms were crossed over his chest and his thin brown hair was fluttering in the breeze, but Fontana recognized him immediately. They were talking to Anton Scofield, the public face of the Silverstone Collaborative.
Bingo, the high-profile asset.
Withdrawing his satellite phone, Fontana typed out a text and sent it to Officer Rose, Will, Wulfe, Madeira and Duncan. He was too far away from the ruckus for a phone picture, but he hoped Payne’s camera was snapping away.
The look on Scofield’s face was priceless. The man was used to being catered to, and high-end everything, but right this second he looked like he’d just stepped into a pile of shit with his expensive leather shoes. His lip actually curled as he looked at the barracks and cafeteria. Then he motioned to the med center. A woman in a white lab coat led him inside, out of Fontana’s view.
He realized that his heart was thudding with excitement. Apparently, Scofield had taken over after Mattingly was killed. Fontana thought the job was well beyond Scofield’s abilities. The man was an ass kisser, moving from high profile government party to high profile party. If there was ever a political mover and shaker at the Collaborative, he was it. Fontana had no doubt in his mind that this was the man that had negotiated the deal between his own government and every other country involved in the Spartan program, or whatever they were calling it now.
/> Scofield may have had distance from the actual torture the men went through, but Fontana considered him just as guilty as Priscilla Mattingly and Damon Wilkes.
If they could secure Anton’s capture, Fontana had no doubt that he would flip on Wilkes quicker than shit. The man had no morals, and he’d heard more than one story of some incident being swept under the rug for him. Before TJ had been killed, he’d created a file on the man that would make most people cringe. Stories of prostitutes being assaulted and cocaine driven parties where that and more went on. As strict and regulated as Mattingly had been, Scofield walked the edge of legal and appropriate every day.
It would be a real pleasure for Fontana to take him out, any way he could.
Scofield stayed in the med center for the better part of an hour, and Fontana wasn’t surprised when one of the military guards came to retrieve one of the prisoners. They took a man out of one of the southernmost cages. The man was tall, over six feet, and towered over the shorter guards, but he didn’t even try to put up a fight. There was something about the way the man carried himself that said he was broken.
His footsteps began to drag as they drew closer to the med center, but the guards prodded him on. They disappeared inside.
Time dragged then, because Fontana knew the other man was being tortured in some way and there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing any of them could do until Rose and his team got there. Just monitor what was going on and who the friendlies were.
So far, he hadn’t seen any civilians other than the med team and Scofield’s group. He couldn’t assume that the food workers were civilian. One rusty truck, filled with boxes, had pulled in earlier but it was unloaded and departed within about thirty minutes.
Fontana glanced at the cages. Several of the men were looking at the front of the med center, like they knew it could be their turn at any time. He remembered that feeling, but more sharply the feeling of being vulnerable afterwards. And the fury and the shame. They’d been warriors when they’d come to the program, and left diminished.
