Target Engaged

by M. L. Buchman

  Carla moved up to Richie, terrified of what she would find.

  He had a pulse, thank God, but didn’t react when she shook him. A sharp pinch of his earlobe brought a mumbled protest—drugged. He’d be out of it for at least a few more minutes, hopefully not for hours.

  Chad had followed her flashed signal. She heard him curse loudly and foully, despite being in a church, when he found Duane.

  “He’s breathing but out,” Chad called over. “Tranq dart.” He held up the offending object.

  Tanya came up close beside her, shaking her head.

  Carla awaited her moment. With a growl, she slapped one hand over Tanya’s pistol, trapping the woman’s hand against it and directing it toward a side wall. She had her own weapon up against the underside of Tanya’s jaw. The woman’s blue eyes widened, but she was smart enough to freeze and then slowly release her Beretta.

  Carla held it out behind her, and Chad was there to take it.

  It was the first time any tourists had seen their guns, which had been purposely kept low and to the side. All attention had followed their sprinting movements. Now, at the evidence of a weapon, cries of fear echoed throughout the church. It emptied in a small stampede. In moments there were only the three of them standing in the aisle beside the pews, Duane still out at their feet and Richie groaning his way back to consciousness.

  “Were you in on this?” Carla kept enough pressure of her Glock’s barrel against the soft underside of Tanya’s chin that the woman was making an effort to swallow without jarring to Carla’s trigger finger.

  The tiniest shake of her head side to side.

  “Then how?” Carla eased off enough to allow Tanya to speak…if she whispered.

  Again the tiny head shake.

  “Uh,” Richie mumbled as he came to.

  Neither of them so much as glanced over. Tanya’s bright blue eyes were mere inches from Carla’s own. Her gaze didn’t skitter about looking for an answer or an escape. She returned Carla’s gaze directly.

  “It should clean have been,” Tanya finally whispered, her syntax decaying briefly when confronted with Carla’s fury. “Your arrival. It was perfectly orchestrated: attacks on General Vasquez, release of Major Gonzalez’s prisoners. One was favorite daughter of Estevan. That is why he agree to the meeting, I thinked. I say without saying that I was offering him a meeting with the team who had done both these things. Even your arrival by sailboat was perfectly done. Customs agent has spent much time bragging about meeting La Emperatriz.”

  “Uh,” Richie said again from behind her. “Shit!” His voice was still slurred. Then a brief silence before he continued more clearly, “You’re going to want to see this.”

  “What?” Carla didn’t turn or ease off. She figured that the local policía had been notified by now, and she only had seconds to make a decision about whether or not to drop “Tanya Zimmer” where she stood.

  “It’s a note that some bastard stuffed in my mouth after drugging me. Sorry about that, Carla. It’s addressed to the ‘Empress of Antrax.’”

  Chapter 24

  With Duane stumbling between Chad and a hardly better-off Richie, they managed to clear the area past the residence building behind the back of the church. Even as more sirens sounded, Carla was leading them between dusty sheet-metal shanties propped up by barely more solid houses. Definitely the less attractive side of Maracaibo.

  If they had created any alarm among the local residents, the Marabinos were remaining thankfully quiet about it. The locals watched them pass, two very white women and two equally white men pretty much dragging a man tanned dark enough to be a local between them.

  Then the residents melted back into the shadows with a skill born of long practice at self-preservation, which was apparently just as effective as Delta training. Their passage through the neighborhood left almost no ripple, and after a few blocks, Carla started them on a long circle back toward the Toyota at the far side of the Paseo de la Chinita park.

  Duane shook off the worst of the drug and was able to move on his own by the time they reached the vehicle.

  She didn’t dare lead them back to their comfortable suite at the Hotel Ventura. For the moment the boat must be assumed to be under observation as well. The car was a risk, but they had parked it several blocks away before starting their approach to the Basílica.

  It was also her best choice, as the back was still laden with the weapons they’d taken from the guards in the Hotel Castillo. For now, they were cut off from their other weapons. She just hoped no one tripped the booby traps, or there was going to be a large hole in the middle of Club Náutico’s marina.

  Duane had driven them here, but she plucked the keys from his fumbling hands.

  They put Tanya in the middle of the backseat. Chad went to move in beside her, but Carla shook him off, ignoring his look of hurt.

  “Richie, Duane, give your weapons to Chad and get in on either side of Tanya.”

  They didn’t ask; they handed them over and climbed in.

  “Chad”—Carla waited until the back doors were closed, but she and Chad hadn’t opened their doors yet—“you’re riding shotgun, literally. I don’t want her grabbing someone else’s weapon, especially until the guys finish shaking off the drugs. She so much as squirms in a way you don’t like, you waste her. We clear?”

  Chad blinked. “I thought… Shit, Carla. I’m sorry. I thought you didn’t trust me because I’d slept with her.”

  “No, I trust you to be the best judge because you slept with her. You know her best so you’ll be able to read her better than any of us. What does your gut say?”

  He watched her closely over the hood of the car for a long moment, then grunted and muttered, “Old habits.”

  Somewhere along the way, Chad had learned to trust no one. She’d seen his trust of Kyle, his devotion to him, but even Delta training didn’t erase the deepest of the old tapes.

  There was a lesson there for her somewhere. Later.

  Now he stared down at the roof of the car as if he could see the woman sitting in the backseat. Then he looked back up at Carla. Perhaps it was the first time that he’d truly looked her right in the eyes in the six months they’d been on the same team.

  “Gut says trust her, but I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  She nodded. That matched her own first-level assessment.

  “And, Carla…” His gaze didn’t waver.

  She looked over at him. His fair features were twisting strangely as if he’d bitten down on something surprising and didn’t know what to make of it yet.

  “Uh, thanks.” Then Chad mumbled something that she was only able to interpret in afterthought as they each opened their doors and climbed into the car.

  “Goddamn son of a bitch has no fucking idea how lucky he is.”

  Carla could only hope that the “goddamn son of a bitch” was still alive. It was a fear that had twisted deep in her gut at that first instant when she’d spotted the missing guards, like the final, fatal slice of an enemy’s blade.

  She started the car and drove away, amazed that she remembered how. Because she’d sure as hell forgotten how to breathe the moment Richie read the note aloud.

  To Empress of Antrax,

  I now have something of value that is yours. We will proceed most carefully if you ever wish to have it back in one piece. Tanya will know how to reach me in five hours. If all does not go well, that which you value will return to you in many pieces.

  Estevan

  * * *

  Unsure where to go, Carla let her instincts take her to the Hotel Castillo. She stared up at the sign and tried to figure out why they’d come back to where the hostages had been confined.

  “Are you nuts, Carla?” Richie asked from the backseat.

  Her throat was too tight and dry to form an answer, if she even had one. Kyle would know
what she was thinking.

  It hurt to even think his name.

  Kyle understood her decisions, even when she didn’t. Why didn’t he understand that there was no love left inside her, not even for him?

  “No,” Tanya answered for her. “It does make actual sense. The group of hostages in this hotel was the power base of Major Gonzalez. The other cartels would not have assets here. The risk of discovery too great, too dangerous. This hotel, it is a nearly guaranteed blind spot. And Estevan, knowing you are the ones who pulled off the raid, would think it too obvious that you return here.”

  The explanation worked as well as any other Carla had.

  She left them in the car as she went in to reserve rooms. They didn’t have any suites except up on the tenth floor, and there was no way she was going up there. She opted for three rooms on the sixth floor, though they’d only be using one—the one she’d asked for by number hoping each floor was numbered in the same way. The sixth floor was also too far for Tanya to escape out the window.

  During the crossing from car to lobby elevator, Carla took Duane’s hand and Chad took Tanya’s. Richie appeared clearheaded and had taken back his weapon before shifting into a rear-guard position.

  Duane felt steady enough through their linked grasp, though he still blinked too much. Clearly he’d had a much bigger dose of the drug than Richie. Carla finally assessed his condition as sufficient for a crisis event. An adrenal rush would clear off the last of his fog. She returned his weapon as they rode up in the elevator.

  The room numbering was the same. Their unremarkable room was directly across the hall from the laundry and garbage chutes if they needed a quick escape. The stairwell also was close at hand.

  The room itself was pure hotel blah. Two queen-sized beds, three chairs, TV, and desk.

  Chad sat Tanya in the middle of one of the queen-sized beds. It was much harder to get leverage for action off a soft mattress than an armchair or other solid object. Especially these mattresses, which were not in the best condition.

  Chad pushed a chair into a corner of the room offering him the best range of fire. Duane sat on the edge of the second bed, and Richie straddled a desk chair backwards that he’d placed right in front of the only door.

  Carla turned on the television and flicked it to a talk show to mask their conversation, then pulled up a chair to the foot of the bed.

  “Okay, Tanya Zimmer, we know who you work for. So, start explaining.”

  “I am a reporter for—”

  “—Mossad’s Kidon counterterrorism kill squad carrying a Beretta .22LR Bobcat.” She held out a hand and Chad dropped Tanya’s gun into her palm—still fully loaded by the weight of it. Carla inspected the small weapon, which was absolutely lethal in the right hands. Without its seven-round magazine, it weighed about twice as much as a smartphone and wasn’t much larger. “You think that like doesn’t recognize like? What are you doing here in Venezuela? How did you end up so conveniently in our path?”

  Carla didn’t scream. She didn’t rant. She didn’t beg to know where they’d taken Kyle. She was serving the team, wasn’t she? The fact that she was dying inside with each second, emphasized by the loud ticking of the analog bedside clock, didn’t matter. Did it?

  Tanya glanced once around the room and nodded. She wasn’t exactly in a position to be making choices.

  Carla liked the woman, which made her twice as suspicious. She wasn’t above leaving a pretty corpse spread out on the bright blue bedspread of room 603 and walking away.

  “Cocaine usage is climbing rapidly in Israel’s population. Soon our young people will be so bad off as you Americans. Most of Colombia’s and Bolivia’s exports are run up the Pacific coast to Mexico and the western United States. Most of the exports to Europe are first sent into Venezuela. They then travel by boat to various points inclusive of Aruba to the Florida coast and New Orleans. Or by planes to Africa.”

  Carla nodded sharply. They knew this; that’s why they were here.

  “Once the drugs are in Aruba, that’s a Dutch country and passage into the Netherlands is very straightforward. I was sent in to investigate the back trail of what is entering our country. I have spent most of the last two months living in Cubiro near General Vasquez’s hacienda, befriending the workers there. I was within days of getting inside with hopes of gathering good intel for a strike there. Then two nights ago the people I knew up at the hacienda came streaming into the village in fear for their lives.”

  Carla nodded for her to continue.

  “They came to the village with tales of the fanged skull of Sinaloa and a beautiful woman who walked without fear and killed without hesitation. Confirmed kills of everyone in the main house except the cook and her children. When I reported it, I was informed that Claudia Ochoa Felix had been in a Guadalajara nightclub at the time, and the two equally lethal Torres sisters were also accounted for within the last twenty-four hours. I had learned the location of Major Gonzalez’s hostages. I decided to come here and see who showed up.”

  “That’s why you greeted me in Spanish in the restaurant.” Carla listened to the TV rattling away behind her with some chagrin. That was more the sound in her head than what Kyle used when cursing. She’d forgotten to also think in Mexican Spanish while speaking it.

  Tanya nodded. “I suspected by then that you were not Sinaloa. When your Mexican was so shaded with true Spanish, I knew you had to be SAS or Delta. Your distinct lack of an accent when you speak English was indicative of the U.S., western region. I have walked through the hacienda’s compound after your visit. It was a most effective and total destruction of the place. The fire of course destroyed any bodies and…” Then she laughed. Four people seated around ready to waste her ass at a moment’s notice, and the woman leaned back against the pillows and laughed.

  And Carla had thought she herself was tough.

  “What?”

  “You did get the General out first?”

  Carla merely raised an eyebrow.

  “And the Major. Oh my, you people are so good. I don’t know if we could have done that. Even walking through the rubble, I never guessed. I entered the remains of the compound along with the locals doing scavenging. There were many of very upset police on the grounds, but no military.”

  “Those police were on the take, upset at the loss of income. The military were afraid to be associated with the, ahem, deceased and departed.” Carla offered her blandest smile.

  Tanya nodded that she’d made the same assessment.

  “So, you just happen to team up with us,” Carla observed. “And by purest coincidence, you just happen to have contacts throughout the Venezuelan drug industry.”

  It was perhaps the first time Carla saw heat rise in Tanya’s eyes.

  “Two years. I have been in this country for two years. Embedded…” She caught herself and took a deep breath. She looked little calmer but regained partial control of her English. “That meeting for you today… I risked every contact I had to make it happen.”

  She waited while Tanya regained her poise of careful control, but there’d been no mistaking the anger and frustration at what had happened. Tanya had been the one to set up a meeting that had put them in harm’s way, and it made Carla furious that it had turned out so badly.

  She didn’t need to glance at Chad for confirmation; she could feel him relax. There had been an absolute honesty to Tanya’s fury.

  Carla tossed Tanya’s handgun back to her. With a sleight-of-hand that was hard to follow, it disappeared back behind the woman’s waistband.

  The guys relaxed.

  “What’s next, Carla?”

  She turned to look at Chad. Why was he asking her? They should be asking Kyl—

  Shit! No Kyle.

  She closed her eyes against the fresh stab of panic that tried to slide up her throat and choke her to death.

 
She’d only once before lost someone in the field that she’d been sleeping with, the only other time in her life she’d slept with a soldier. A bullet did a bad ricochet along the concrete wall of a godforsaken hideout along the Congo River. Courtesy of Delta she now knew that hugging a wall might feel safe but was a deadly choice—bullets had a habit of skimming along walls. Now she’d even practiced the art of making it happen on purpose, ground skip too. He’d bled out in her lap and she’d been helpless to stop it.

  It hadn’t felt like this.

  Waves of panic kept washing through her. Thinking clearly…thinking at all was impossible. Every time she closed her eyes, she pictured Kyle coming back to her, one piece at a time.

  But Delta was about flexibility, not dependent on any one individual.

  The team waited for her. Even Tanya.

  For some idiot reason, they thought she was the one most likely to figure out what to do next. They were fucking nuts.

  Carla glanced at her watch.

  “Four hours and six minutes left. You have no way to contact or find Bolívar Estevan prior to the five hours he mentioned?”

  “No.” Tanya shook her head. “He must still think I am but a reporter turned go-between. He has granted me three phone interviews before, with no direct quotes, but I had never met him before today. I call a specific number at a certain time of day. I leave my number and hang up. And it has to be a landline so that he knows exactly where I am. So, we can’t be on the move until after he returns the call.”

  “So much for Plan C,” Chad muttered.

  “Yeah, especially since we don’t have a Plan A yet,” Duane followed up. He must have finished shaking off the drug because the two of them were back to their Mutt and Jeff routine.

  “I get a call back from a blocked number. Last year I managed to have it one time traced back. It led to a burner cell phone purchased in Italy. He’s very careful. He must have had every step planned at the church right down to the prewritten note. The outside guards weren’t there to protect Estevan. They were there to track your team.”