Walker (In the Company of Snipers Book 21)

by Irish Winters

  But yes. His dutiful fingers had already maneuvered the cell into his palm, and…

  Okay, fine. One last call. This won’t take long.

  “Hello?” he asked, as he turned aside from the breeze to better hear his caller.

  “McQueen here. Got a minute?” Sullivan asked, as in Senator McQueen Sullivan, the force behind the darkest black ops team in the United States. Sullivan was a devil in his own right.

  Julio let his gaze scan the distant western horizon where Bianca waited and whispered, ‘Come with me. I’m waiting.’ “Actually, sir, I’m in the middle of something important. Can I call you back?”

  “No,” McQueen bit out, his cheery Texas twang gone, and his I-am-the-boss, do-you-want-a-piece-of-me persona radiating loud, clear, and nasty over the connection.

  Automatically, Julio snapped to attention. His shoulders squared. His gut sucked in like it had been trained to. His brain cleared enough that his mouth replied, “Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

  “I’ve got trouble in Brazil. A former Army corporal. Duncan’s his name. Runs an orphanage. Claims he and his kids need immediate evac. Didn’t ask why, because I don’t care when kids are involved. Can you do it or not?” Sullivan might make it sound like a question, but Julio knew an order when he heard one.

  “But sir, isn’t that Dia de Muertos territory?”

  Like the Sin Boys, the Dia de Muertos were another of McQueen’s deep, dark, black ops teams. He managed several. The Sinclairs handled terrorist troubles in the Middle East. The Lone Wolves, a covert team of former Army Rangers known to frequent the inner workings of Russia and China, operated out of central Wyoming. The Panthers, an elusive group of former CIA agents, worked deep in the Everglades, as well as both Atlantic and Gulf sides of the Florida panhandle. Former FBI agents, who’d seen too much and felt like they’d done too little, comprised The Night Shadows. They resolved American terrorist issues in general, from sea to shining sea.

  But the grief caused by South American despots and tyrants, belonged to the deadly Dia de Muertos, headquartered out of New Mexico. Comprised of an elite team of three former USA border guards, they were the ones who should handle this assignment. Not a guy on his way to meet his dead wife, who even now called to him with a hushed but persuasive, nearly irresistible, ‘Come, Julio. Please, come to me. Join me. I’ve missed you.’

  “No go, Juarez,” McQueen replied tersely. “Lost two of those agents last night. Firefight outside of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. I’m in trouble. I need you.”

  Julio’s heart sank at the thought of his brothers’ deaths. “Which agents, sir?”

  “Diego and Seb. Santiago’s bringing their bodies home today. They’ll be at Dover before nightfall, and I’ll meet them there. Can you do it or not, damn it? This is urgent. I can’t wait.”

  This was another unexpected blow. A loss for the world, not just the States. Julio had known Diego Cortez and Sebastian Torres from his Navy days. They hadn’t rung out, and had gone on to become decorated SEALs. Diego signed up to work for Sullivan as team leader of the ruthless Dia de Muertos. “But I work directly for the President, sir. Have you cleared it with—”

  “Yes, Goddamnit. President Adams is on board. Did you hear what I said? Kids are involved. Orphans, damn it. The world’s lost enough of its next generation. Are you with me or not?”

  Julio cast one last longing look toward the ocean.

  “Talk to me, Juarez. Someone’s got to replace Diego. I need an answer, ASAP.”

  “You want me to lead Dia de Muertos?” Unbelievable. “Now?” When I have nothing to live for? “Why me?”

  “Yes, now, damn it. Because more than any man on this team, I trust you. Sign up with me once and for all. Be the leader I know you are. Say yes.”

  Julio could actually hear McQueen’s fingertips drumming his desk over the line.

  “No,” he replied evenly. He didn’t want anything but out of the highly secret, super-covert world. Not only no, but Hell no. He’d lost too much already. He was done with too much death and not enough family.

  Only now that he thought about it... Kids were involved? Orphans? Innocents like Tomas?

  Julio glanced one last time at the Pacific with its cold, endless embrace. Bianca wasn’t really out there, was she? The only part left of the beautiful body he’d had cremated, according to her last wishes, were ashes. Even those he’d let loose on the outgoing tide of a different shore of this same ocean. The mighty Pacific had done what it did best. It’d diluted her earthly remains and dispersed what was left, so far and so wide not a trace could ever be found.

  The voice he’d thought he’d heard wasn’t hers, either. It was just the wind moaning over the waves, luring his broken heart with the only thing it had to offer. Cold and final death. Like Bianca’s. Like Tomas’. That was all. In her passive-aggressive way, she’d reached behind her and she’d taken the tiny boy Julio still loved with her.

  Dulce Madre de Dios! This was a hard decision. Stay and die? Leave the only family he had left behind? Paloma and Pagan. The men who called him brother. Chance and Kruze Sinclair. McQueen Sullivan. Rick Santiago. Or live, when he couldn’t seem to find any reason to. Rescue other poor, defenseless children. Find a way to breathe around the hole in his heart.

  Julio cast a lingering glance over his shoulder, back to where Paloma’s humble little home stood beyond the sandy berm and those gently waving grasses. Back to where she and Pagan were no doubt happily getting busy. Back to where another life might just be starting, if Pagan finally had his way. Julio hoped he did. The man wanted a family more than any man Julio had ever known. Except for him. Only Julio wanted his family back.

  But that wasn’t going to happen, was it? He’d lost the right to ever be called lover again.

  Husband.

  Daddy.

  Then Sullivan made it worse. “It’s Oz, Goddamn it. Oz is hunting Duncan and those kids while we’re wasting time talking. You go in now, you secure Duncan and his orphans. Then you wipe Oz’s ugly ass off the face of the earth once and for all. You hear me? With extreme prejudice, by hell.”

  Oz.

  With that one word, the Earth stopped spinning. The tumultuous waves of the great Pacific ceased crashing. Even the seagulls overhead held their peace. All creation sucked in a combined breath, waiting on Julio’s answer.

  He’d frozen, but not in terror. Julio wasn’t afraid, not of Oz, nicknamed after the ‘great and terrible’ deceiver from the movie, “Wizard of Oz”. Oz, as in Orlando Zapata, the sadistic baby brother of Domingo Zapata, the diabolical spawn from Hell who’d kidnapped and tormented Bianca and Tomas until they’d broke.

  If anyone needed to die, it was Oz. Domingo Zapata, too. But, for the moment, he was untouchable, locked away in a top-secret private facility north of Deadhorse, Alaska, alongside the former governor of Oregon, Mick Tennyson. It had taken every last shred of Julio’s restraint not to kill Zapata back then. It would’ve been easy, and he would have done it. No one would have blamed him.

  But the memory of his son had stopped him from exacting righteous judgment on Domingo. Pure, sweet Tomas hadn’t asked for the life sentence he’d been given. Neither he nor his father could’ve foreseen the trials he’d had to endure. Julio refused to add the burden of a revenge killing on that small soul’s shoulders. He’d strived to be an honorable father. Had even accompanied Zapata the day he’d been locked forever away.

  A man could die in there. Julio hoped Domingo would. Then, and only then, could the need to strangle Zapata with his bare hands until his ugly face turned red, then blue, fade away. Julio’s fingers clenched tight at the thought of that bastard’s black eyes rolling back in his head when he gasped his last wicked breath.

  It was hard to breathe. Even now, Domingo Zapata was still killing him.

  “I’ll do it,” Julio blurted before he gave himself more time to think.

  “Well, good,” McQueen replied, as if he’d know
n what Julio’s answer would be all along. “Check your email. I sent an encrypted file with what details I know now. You’ll fly out of Houston. Be there by seven tomorrow morning. Locate and hook-up with former US Army Corporal Duncan as soon as you can. I’ll send coordinates where to find him.”

  “Sir, may I ask how Duncan knew to call you?”

  “He didn’t. Duncan sent word to an Army Ranger I know. Asked for help. Said Oz is after his kids. Don’t know how many. Only know Oz is behind the disappearance of hundreds of adults and children in Minas Gerais, Brazil. He forces them to work his mines. Kills those who refuse. He’s a bastard. Keep your sat phone charged. I’ll forward more info as I dig it up. Be safe.”

  The connection ended. Julio sucked in a lungful of the contrary winds blowing off the Pacific. Swallowing hard, he pocketed his cell. Bianca would have to wait.

  About the Author

  Irish Winters…

  …is a best-selling author who, when she isn’t writing, dabbles in poetry, grandchildren, and rarely (as in extremely rarely) the kitchen. More prone to be outdoors than in, she grew up the quintessential tomboy on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin, spent her teen years in the Pacific Northwest, but calls the Wasatch Mountains of Northern Utah, home. For now.

  She believes in making every day count for something, and follows the wise admonition of her mother to: “Look out the window and see something!”

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