Wild Justice (Delta Force Book 3)

by M. L. Buchman

  Well, she was The Activity analyst, and it was nice that they respected that. She’d leave it to them to pay attention to all of the families passing by. With their training, they’d spot unwanted attention long before she would anyway.

  Was she irritated, or pleased that Duane decided to stand close by rather than sit at her side?

  Protective?

  A wider area view and better response time from a standing position. She liked the feeling of that.

  A few days ago, she’d have hoped that he was busy looking down the front of her dress. Her interests had been far more about sex just a week ago.

  She wasn’t comfortable that those feelings had shifted and she wanted something more. It meant that—

  Focus!

  Her tired brain was not cooperating.

  Richie cured that particular ill by sitting next to her with a dangerously dark-red ice cream.

  “Chili-pepper chocolate,” he took a bite, then spoke around the mouthful. “I’ve never seen it before so I had to try. It’s—” His voice squeaked off as his eyes crossed and began to water.

  “Melissa?” Sofia asked when it was clear Richie wouldn’t be recovering quickly. Her cone was sensibly vanilla-white.

  “There’s a reason La Tumba is called that. The security isn’t merely good—it’s alarming. Fresh guards on the entrance every hour, officer inspections at the half hour. Four-man squad on the roof armed with Dragunov SVU rifles good for close combat but effective past twelve-hundred meters.” She delivered in two breaths what it would have taken Richie a dozen to just get started on.

  Maybe she should buy up a stock of the chili-chocolate flavor.

  “No second entrance, at least not above ground. If there’s ever a fire, they’ll have to go out through the windows which look to be thick enough to take a heavy round without breaking. It was originally supposed to be a major subway station before SEBIN took it over, so I would assume there are underground connections, quite possibly reaching in both directions: west to El Helicoide for prisoner transportation and east to Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base, commonly called La Carlota, for potential escape.”

  Sofia hadn’t thought to look that direction. A new factor to integrate, though she didn’t see how it might affect the current operation. Caracas had grown until La Carlota was in the heart of the city. Multiple administrations had promised to turn it into: a park, a music venue, a water theme park complete with surfing, even new housing to relieve the urban core crushing in from the sides. Despite promises, it was still the Air Force’s primary base in the country. For now, she dismissed it.

  “What about the roof?”

  “Why do you think we got the luxury suite?” Richie had managed to recover. He was continuing to eat the ice cream, in very small bites. His eyes were still watering from the chili’s heat, but apparently he thought he looked less foolish than tossing it away and admitting defeat. “Helipad and some point-to-point microwave, nothing aimed up at the satellite.”

  “What would it take to tap their microwave feed?” Duane was the first one to speak from the rest of the team.

  Well, at least Duane had been paying attention to what was going on.

  Duane wished that Sofia would stop breathing so that he could concentrate. Each breath drew his attention sharply downward—his top-down view of her chest revealed the most wonderful things when she breathed. He’d always been a lucky shit when it came to women. Maybe not as lucky as Chad, but damned fortunate. But never even close to her.

  Sofia in a dress… Goddamn amazing! Yet another side to the woman: from jungle fatigues on up. About the only thing he was missing now was seeing her in an evening gown. That thought actually sent a shiver up his spine. She’d look beyond amazing in a gown. It was enough to get him to jump back into that social set just to see her dressed up.

  Never in his life had a woman as beautiful and smart as Sofia even given him a second glance. Keeping up with her was a challenge that really pushed him to stay on his toes and he was coming to particularly enjoy that part of being around her.

  He forced his scan from the enticing view of her cleavage out to the wider world. Couples with kids. A group of teens. A dad with a squealing toddler on his shoulders as he galloped toward a swing set. A group of children in awe watching a juggler. No loners except for a beautiful teen girl reading a book and nodding her head to the music on her earphones.

  He’d always been blown away by the beauty of Venezuelan women, always rated in the top five on hottest country lists. Somehow, on this trip, he hadn’t even noticed the other women. There was a disproportionate ratio of pretty women in the park: tall, strong shouldered with good figures, perfect natural tans, and flowing long hair. He hadn’t noticed one of them except to track them.

  The pretty teen paused, then began absently nodding her head to a different rhythm with a song change. It was a shift that she wouldn’t have made, if she was somehow listening to them rather than her soundtrack. He tagged her as “likely harmless” and let his attention drift mostly back to their own circle.

  “Tap their microwave?” Richie accidentally took a bigger bite of his ice cream while he was busy thinking. With a gasp and a choke, he looked around for somewhere to spit it back out. Melissa held out a napkin that he spit the soggy glob of ice cream into it without taking it from her hand first.

  She grimaced, placed her half-finished vanilla in one of his hands, plucked the chili-chocolate one free, and dumped the glob and cone into a nearby trash can. Several fresh napkins and a good rinse from a water bottle washed the worst of it off her hand—all the while Richie was absentmindedly eating her vanilla cone. He looked surprised when she took back what little was left.

  Duane shared a smile with Chad, but one glance at Kyle showed he wasn’t in the mood for any goofing around at the moment. That, and Duane didn’t want to break Sofia’s train of questioning. He could feel her building a picture in some kind of intel-geek layers.

  “Tapping into the system isn’t the problem,” no longer distracted by the ice cream, Richie finally started speaking. “The problem is getting onto the roof. We could shoot a line over easily enough from the King Hotel—angle’s not bad for a decent zipline. But you’d have to take down the rooftop guard first. Too far to dart them. You’d have to lob over three or four canisters of sleepy gas to get them all; they always stay spread out to the corners. Their radio check-ins are very frequent. SEBIN didn’t get to be SEBIN by being sloppy.”

  “Other end of the feed?” Duane guessed at Sofia’s next question.

  “El Helicoide as far as I can tell. Angle is right.”

  Sofia didn’t respond. She was fiddling with the strap of her handbag. Oh. Reviewing her recordings of El Helicoide, searching for the microwave receiver. Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure that she hadn’t mentioned her camera and viewing sunglasses trick to anyone else.

  Cover, dude. Cover quick!

  “Does anyone see a point in pursuing the La Tumba angle any further?”

  A particularly loud burst of laughter had several of them turning their heads. Duane missed the natural beat for the turn, so he didn’t. Kyle’s and Carla’s eyes tracked back quickly and the look on Chad’s face said hot women rather than potential threat. So Duane ignored it. The head-bobbing beauty looked up brightly as an equally stunning girl plopped down beside her and gave her a big kiss. So much for appearances.

  Melissa shook her head no on the La Tumba question even as Richie continued. “I wanted to get underground, check out their defenses inside the subway tunnels, but Melissa didn’t think that was such a hot idea.”

  Duane was inclined to agree. If they were that compulsive above ground, they’d be just as paranoid below ground.

  “So, we’re not to touch the regime, we’re just supposed to mess with SEBIN?” Duane voiced it for discussion.

  “Uh-huh.”

  He waited.

  Had to nudge Chad to get his attention back—which ea
rned him a friendly punch. “Damn but I love some things about this country.”

  No one else had anything to add.

  “There is a microwave receiver close beside El Helicoide’s satellite dish. That should be our target,” Sofia’s voice was soft. But no one seemed inclined to question it.

  Chapter 20

  Sofia didn’t have a chance to catch her breath again.

  They’d left the Parque Los Caobos by mid-morning. Dispersing widely through Caracas.

  Kyle and Chad had gone down into the subway system but found nothing interesting at the La Tumba end. They were now probing in the other direction toward El Helicoide.

  Richie and Duane were off to see exactly what was going on at La Carlota—the Air Force base across town—in case they needed a contingency exfiltration plan. It would be much harder to get out after they stirred up the hornet’s nest than it had been to slip into the city while everything was quiet.

  Carla and Melissa had swept her under their wing and the three of them had armed up and gone deep into the San Agustín barrio.

  They’d talked to a lot of people through the afternoon: sharing parrilla barbeque with a couple of drug runners, squatting over a cup of fresh ground coffee with a circle of women as their children played around them, scouting the layout of paths and alleyways. Then, at the hottest point of the afternoon when the barrio was particularly fragrant from the beating of the tropical sun, a lone boy had come up to them with an invitation to meet the leader of San Agustín’s colectivo.

  The colectivos had replaced the police in many of the most dangerous neighborhoods. Ex-military, some were pro-government and some not. But they were the law. They cared less about the government’s policies and more about La Policía’s failures and corruptions.

  “I kill a crooked cop as fast as I kill the druggies you speak with at lunch,” word of the presence in the barrio had spread fast ahead of them.

  Sofia would have been freaking out, except Carla and Melissa appeared to have some form of a plan. It would have helped her nerves immensely if they’d told her that beforehand. Perhaps they hadn’t known it themselves and were still making it up as they went. That did not increase her comfort level.

  “I catch the drug runners selling anything to people here, I shoot them.” The former Army major held up a well-worn Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol. “The police do not care about San Agustín. So, I take care of it. You hurt my people, you dead. No matter how fine you look. You don’t hurt them? You’re not my problem.”

  His cell phone had rung while they sat in his bunker.

  He’d listened, then snapped the phone closed without responding past a grunt of acknowledgement.

  “You have ten minutes. Someone else is on your trail. Mis amigos will lead them sideways for a little time. Now, why do I listen to you?”

  “We only need two minutes,” Carla said without even blinking.

  He waved his Hi-Power for them to continue.

  Sofia didn’t doubt that, if he felt it was necessary, he wouldn’t hesitate to put down all three of them despite his curiosity.

  “How do you feel about SEBIN coming into your neighborhood?” Carla jumped in with both feet.

  Sofia held her breath.

  “An attack?”

  “Running.”

  “From you?”

  Carla’s smile sent a chill up Sofia’s spine.

  The colectivo leader’s smile was even chillier. “I could get to like you, señorita.”

  “Señora. You would not like to meet my husband.”

  “He’s more dangerous than you?”

  She simply nodded which earned her a deep laugh.

  Then he’d turned very serious and abruptly shifted his pistol to aim at the center of Carla’s forehead.

  Carla didn’t even blink.

  “Not el presidente? Only SEBIN?” So, this colectivo’s leader still believed in the government.

  “Only SEBIN.” Carla had to be the coolest-nerved person Sofia had ever met.

  “When?”

  Carla had merely looked at her watch as if she was counting minutes, then back at him, ignoring his unwavering Hi-Power.

  Tonight? Sofia couldn’t believe it. Or maybe she could. Once ready, they hadn’t hesitated to blast their way into General Aguado’s compound. That meant that one way or another this would be over tonight.

  With a sharp jerk, he shifted his aim up and away from Carla’s face. Then he holstered the weapon with a slap of metal into leather and held out his empty hand.

  Carla shook it once, hard.

  “Your husband. He must be very brave.”

  “Yes. Unless I do something stupid, then he gets very angry.”

  “Like when three beautiful women walk into my barrio.”

  “No, this wouldn’t surprise him…much.”

  Again he laughed as if he meant it. “Tonight, la señora, we will be keeping watch at the gates.”

  Duane had tried pacing, ordering room service, and glaring out at La Tumba from the window of the King Hotel, but still the minute hand refused to move any faster. It certainly couldn’t have moved any slower.

  Richie had locked himself in one of the suites with a whole array of strange gear, leaving Duane with even less to do than usual. A thorough check of his own gear had lasted him under half an hour before he was back to pacing.

  The sound of the key in the door hit him like an electrical charge triggering a detonator. He had one hand on the door knob—and the other on his weapon, of course—before it had time to open.

  Sofia stepped in.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  Didn’t think.

  He simply slammed her into a hug and hauled her against his chest so hard that she squeaked in surprise as her duffel tumbled to the floor.

  Melissa stepped over it, with a bag of her own gear, and smiled at him. He nodded toward the closed door at the other end of the suite’s living room. Her smile and hip-loose walk told him that Richie had better be done with whatever he’d been working on.

  Duane kicked the door shut and looked down at Sofia.

  “Hi,” he held her tighter. “That seems to be the best I’ve got at the moment.” He breathed her in. She smelled…awful. He barely resisted coughing the air back out. She smelled like…the barrio on a hot fall afternoon.

  “It is plenty good enough for me,” she planted her face firmly against his chest and didn’t complain about how tightly he was holding her. It felt like heaven—

  “Uh, please don’t take this wrong, honey. But you really need a shower.”

  “Am I that bad?”

  “You’re always good to me, but yeah.”

  She pushed back enough to look up at him, her smile teasing. “I think you are just trying to get me out of this dress.”

  “Only wanted to do that since the first moment I saw you in it.”

  She turned her back, “Unzip me then, you low brute.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he ran the zipper down and popped loose the bra strap while he was at it.

  She kicked off her shoes, a long dark line of skin showing between draping sides of light floral dress. Just before the bedroom door, she shrugged. Dress and bra slithered down to floor and she stepped out of them without breaking stride.

  He wasn’t going to get caught again. He raced forward and managed to get his hand in the door jamb before she could close and lock it. Thankfully, she hadn’t swung it too hard. He flexed his fingers and shook them out—use your boot next time, doofus.

  Duane closed the bedroom door just in time to hear the bathroom door snap shut. Thankfully it was a pocket door with no lock. He followed her in. By the time he was stripped down, she was in the shower.

  No dancing. No hot Spanish mama waiting for her man. Instead, she had her forehead planted against the shower’s plastic wall and the hot water was pouring onto her unmoving back.

  He managed to crank down what she did to his libido and consider that maybe he should consider what sh
e needed. Grabbing a bar of soap, he began working over her. Shoulders first, digging into tight muscles. She groaned as they loosened, but didn’t move. He slowly went over her body, soaping, massaging, soothing. Fingers, palm, wrist, arms. Toes, feet, calves, thighs. If he spent extra time on her butt and up her front, who could blame him.

  He had switched over to shampoo and was working on her luxurious fall of hair before she spoke the first time.

  “This is what you do all the time?”

  “No. Because I’ve never had you in the shower with me.”

  “That is not what I am meaning,” she twisted around so that her back was leaning against the shower wall.

  He smoothed her hair back to keep the soap away from them.

  “I mean what Delta does.”

  “Rub down beautiful women in showers? Oh yeah, all the time.”

  “Duane,” he heard the growl in her voice.

  “Yes, ma’am. Doing impossible shit in dangerous damned places is about the size of it. Before Iraq and Afghanistan, those early operators were stuck with doing much more training and rarely doing shit. Modern Delta op tempo is so high that it’s a challenge getting back to Fort Bragg for new skills training. We were supposed to get another South American team and be rolled back Stateside already. But the reengagement in Libya, Syria, and the fuckin’ Caliphate in the Dustbowl has left us pretty much on our own. Now close your eyes.” He stepped her under the water and rinsed out the soap, only burning his hands in the scorching water a little to make sure it was well rinsed.

  He pulled her back out of the water, sniffed her wet hair, then kissed her on top of the head. “All clean, now move aside woman.” He nudged the temperature down a little with his elbow. Kinda too far, but a cold shower at the moment might be a good idea. Sofia looked amazing, but not up for much.

  She leaned on the wall at the end of the tub and just watched him.

  He was soaped and half rinsed before she spoke again.

  “I could get used to this.”