by Sara Schoen
“It’s in the middle of nowhere, Siren. We can’t watch the entire country. Normally they’re in towns or just outside of a city, this isn’t near anything. We were watching major cities in areas where they could make a big profit. We never would’ve thought to check here. The cartel had to start adapting since we began chasing them down. They’re learning, which forces us to think like them and put our people in danger just to take out one cartel. Who knows how many agents are undercover in different cartels and mafias, crime syndicates, or any organized crime all over the world. Thankfully, I think all of our people from the Cardoza Cartel were pulled out after Georgia. I don’t blame them either, because I thought they were finished too. Georgia made sense, and with both Cardozas there I thought it was the new headquarters too. They led us to believe that so they could have another chance, and it worked. We pulled everyone out because there was no need to have agents in danger and people on the lookout for them because they should have been finished. You’d have to come looking for this to know it was here.”
“Still, we didn’t know anything about this?” Siren’s words were laced with annoyance and a hint of anger. She had lost her mentor and her team in a mafia raid in Italy. I wasn’t around at that time, but I’d heard stories. Each was slightly different than the last retelling, but they all gave similar information about how many died and how. Siren just couldn’t seem to escape the death around her. “If it wasn’t for Katya we may never have. By the time we got wind of it, it would’ve been too late to do anything. They’ve seen our tricks. It doesn’t help that we have to go in blind each time. That just gives them a leg up. Why weren’t we watching for this?”
“We can’t watch every state. We can’t look at every building being built around the country. It didn’t raise any red flags during construction because they were working on recruiting more people. They didn’t start looking to trade until they built and had enough people. It was smart on their part.”
“And careless on ours.”
“We can’t do everything. We aren’t perfect. No one and nothing is. We get as close as we can, but we still have our faults. It was only a matter of time before someone found one and exploited it. Now we have to live and learn from the experience. We can’t fix every problem before it becomes one, sometimes we have to ride them out.”
Siren scoffed before looking in my direction to give an over-exaggerated eye roll. “Don’t get philosophical on me, Spit Fire. We are here because you can’t let this problem ride out. It already started and you’re hoping to solve it before it gets worse. If you can’t practice what you preach, then don’t preach at all.” Her icy gaze stared me down, as if daring me to reply. Though when I opened my mouth she spoke up again. “Maybe you should call Night Stripe and figure out what happened with the trade today. Katya could have gotten something useful.”
“I doubt it. Unless Harley himself came to the trade, I’m not sure what they would have discovered.” I quickly scanned the compound looking for Rum. She’d been gone for far too long just to do a quick scan of the compound. She volunteered to see what we were dealing with almost half an hour ago. Since she trained a thief, and for the most part acted like one herself, she seemed like the best choice for the job. A job that required stealth and patience, which neither Siren nor I had, especially when it came to cartels.
I wasn’t sure what I had been expecting when I came to stop Harley, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this. Slowly, I was becoming more and more grateful that Siren and Rum came to help. It was too big a mission to handle alone. I would have been stuck without them, as well as a sitting duck for the cartel to find and capture. I mentally scoffed at the thought. I wouldn’t have given Harley the pleasure of capturing me. I’d rather die.
“Well, one of them has to have some insight on something. They must’ve noticed something.”
“Siren, I don’t know how often you work with Night Stripe, but if she had information pertinent to this mission then she wouldn’t wait for me to call her. She’d have called to tell me. She wants these people taken down just as much, if not more, than I do. If Rum doesn’t find anything then we can call Night Stripe, but I’m telling you she’d call before I got the chance to.”
“She’s risked other missions by not giving information.”
“That’s why I said this mission. It’s a personal vendetta for many agents for one reason or another, Siren, you know that more than most. Some have it against all cartels, but after the last few years, a lot of us have one with this particular cartel.” I looked over her rigid posture. She hated to sit still on missions, always has. Especially when we first started out and I worked with her on a few low level missions. She was prepared to jump the gun, and had on a few occasions. She had reigned in her behavior recently from what I heard, but the girl sitting with me now was the same one I had trained alongside all those years ago. “You have a vendetta against all cartels, that’s why you’re good with them. I had one with all of them, but now that I know where my stepfather is. I only have a vendetta for this one. So if they have to take extra time to track them down for me to get a chance to make him pay for what he did, then so be it. No one can see anything from the river or the road. They planned ahead. It’s concealed and most likely protected.”
“You’re right about that, Spit Fire,” Rum chimed as she hoisted herself off of the tree trunk and onto a branch slightly behind me, rejoining us. “It’s concealed very well, but not well enough that you can’t see it by plane. Katya’s plane flew over it on its way to the landing strip. I’m sure that either her or Demon noticed it. There’s no way of knowing for sure unless we call Night Stripe to ask her, but you’re right, she’d call if she had anything important to say. CIRA would never know exactly what it was without boots on the ground anyway so they may have just brushed it off. It’s possible that they didn’t make the connection, but with Demon on board I’m sure they did. He rarely misses anything. He could be talking to Sharp Shooter and it could take a while to figure out anything new, but maybe we could ask one of the agents who was undercover to get some information. Though, if you’re keeping this a secret, I’m not sure phoning a friend is the best option.”
“Not yet. I don’t want to bring in too many people until we know what’s going on, and if we have Night Stripe asking around for people who were undercover in the Cardoza Cartel it could raise flags. If Renegade didn’t tell us after finishing his undercover mission, then there’s a chance this was kept secret between the higher ups until it had to be revealed. I’m not sure any of the old undercover agents would know anything about it, but it’s too big for us to go in blind,” I said as I thought over Rum’s words. Calling a friend wasn’t the best course of action; we needed more time to figure out what to do about this massive compound.
The compound was made up of multiple buildings, thirteen from Rum’s count, which were all two stories tall, and took up more acreage than two football fields. It’s the largest compound I’ve ever seen, with more places to hide and people to work in than ever before. It screamed disaster if something went wrong, and on a mission like this everything could go wrong. We didn’t know how many people it took to run this place, where Harley was located, what traps could be set up, or where to even start. I came here with such a simple plan, and now I didn’t have much to work with. We were stuck until we figured something out.
“So, what did you find, Rum? Anything that can help us, or are you just here to give news that makes it seem impossible?” Siren scanned the compound as streams of cartel members exited buildings and moved throughout the area. There didn’t seem to be a break in the commotion. It wasn’t as quiet as Sandtown had been, nor was it as idle or spread out as Georgia was. There were a lot of people just moving through the compound every minute, remaining as active and well-armed as always. Something about it just didn’t sit right with me. Something about this compound screamed for me to run, but I couldn’t bring myself to listen.
“To be honest, I don’t h
ave many answers for you. There are practically no windows on the first floor of these buildings and where there are I’m not sure what’s in the rooms. There are limited entry and exit ways, and by how the buildings are labeled I’m not sure what they are. Everyone seems to know where they are going and what they have to do, but I can’t find anything that tells you what’s the main hub of this compound. The only way we would know anything useful is if you had someone to go inside, or we pulled one out and forced them to tell us everything. That’s the only way we’d figure anything out, but it’s a big risk either way because we don’t know what’s going on inside and we know cartel members aren’t forth coming with information.”
I nodded. It had taken some convincing to get Camden to tell me what I needed to know, and then he only did that to drop a bomb on me. The only ‘safe’ way was to have someone on the inside, but the risk of sending one of us in wasn’t worth it. “I’d love to have someone on the inside, but I’m not sure who else Harley has figured out. I can’t go in there because he’d recognize me and there’s probably a whole ‘CIRA agent kill on sight’ wall. We could be recognized and give away our element of surprise. Then this whole thing is for nothing.” I sat silently in thought. Calling for help was the smart thing to do, but what would I say that Night Stripe hadn’t already tried in an attempt to get Sharp Shooter out here?
“You’re right, you guys probably could be recognized. Between the bright red and purple hair, you stick out like sore thumbs, but I think I’ve spotted a way in.” Siren smiled as she pointed into the center of the compound where a girl, accompanied by two men, crossed from building to building. The girl’s blonde ponytail, which had been pulled through the back of her hat, shined in the sun as she walked into the woods for a patrol.
“You’re thinking of grabbing her and becoming her.” It wasn’t a question, I knew that’s what Siren was thinking and it was honestly the best we had right now. It was worth a shot. With more information we could find out exactly what was going on here and maybe convince Sharp Shooter that we had to do this.
“I’m in. What do we do about the other two?” Rum questioned, her eyes never leaving the group.
Siren smiled mischievously, letting the gleam of excitement in her eyes shine brightly. “I have a plan for them too if you don’t mind getting in a little trouble. If you two can deal with them then I’ll get the girl. I have ways of making her talk, and I’ll know her life story in no time. Then we’ll have a way in.”
“You better make it fast. They have a habit of fanning out so they can cover more ground from what I noticed. They aren’t ever far from each other, but there are a few blind spots. We may have to take her on together so you can change clothes quickly while I get the information you need. Since Spit Fire wanted to come out here, she can be the distraction.”
I let out a dry laugh as Rum smiled sweetly. “Thanks for volunteering me, Rum. I didn’t ask for that kind of help.”
“Technically, you didn’t ask for any help. We came and now you have to deal with it.” Siren leapt off her perch to the branches below as she climbed down. She didn’t wait for us to join her. Instead, she looked up at us expectantly. “Come on, we don’t have much time. Let’s get a move on!”
Chapter 14
“Siren, there’s no way this plan is going to work,” I whispered yelled in her direction. We hid behind trees as the three cartel members came by for their patrol. My job was to run out and distract the other two while Rum and Siren fought with the girl. They would capture her in the chaos, somehow obtain her name and any other information while Siren changed clothes with her before rejoining the patrol in disguise. Meanwhile I had to somehow avoid them long enough for Siren and Rum to complete the switch and then also manage to escape capture. Siren’s solution was for me to act like one of the college kids back at the beach and say I got lost. This had to be the worst plan I’d ever heard, and yet, I was about to participate in it. “You can’t believe this will actually work, can you? What if Harley told them about me? What if they’re looking for us? This is worse than risky, this is suicide. It’s not even thought out thoroughly.”
“Do you have a better idea, Spit Fire?” she challenged. When I remained silent she took that as her answer and ended further discussion on the matter with a curt nod. “I didn’t think so. This is the best we have right now. So shut up, and just do what you’re supposed to.”
“I forgot how bossy you are.” I rolled my eyes, catching her glaring at me. “You know it’s true.”
She didn’t like being called bossy, instead she preferred a ‘natural leader’. Back when we were agents-in-training she rarely took the orders given to her and instead did her own thing. That’s how she ruined a few of our earlier missions, and held our training team back an extra two months until we could be trusted in the field without our mentors watching over us. Once we were allowed in the field it became only our mentors who trained us. The only people who skipped the months of training in a small team were the ones who were needed for a specific mission. They were sent to their mentors and trained rigorously; at times fitting in a month of training into a couple of day as they did with Night Stripe. I’d take the extra two months of training with Siren compared to that any day.
“I forgot how much you hate following other people’s plans. You can’t think of them all, Spit Fire. What do you do when teams go against your plans for their missions? Whine about it?”
I noticed the playful quip in her words even before she smiled. “I’m not normally the one acting as bait so I usually don’t care what they do. Ask me that question again if I make it out of this without a gunshot wound.”
“I hope you’re a better actress than you give yourself credit for because I don’t want to have to explain to Sharp Shooter what happened to you.”
“Or how your plan went awry?”
“Well, that too.” She smiled sheepishly before Rum elbowed her as the patrol came into view.
Both of them crouched to the ground behind the tree before shooing me out of my hiding spot. I hate this plan, I thought to myself as I picked up the half-empty beer can we found in the woods to use as a prop for my role. It was encrusted with mud and a mystery liquid sloshing inside. I forced down the bile in my throat. I didn’t want to think about what could be in this can. I’ll pretend it’s water and just get it over with.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” a male voice questioned behind me.
I glanced in Rum and Siren’s direction to see they were both gone. Well, fuck.
“Don’t make me ask again.”
“Oh Jason, there you are!” I plastered a fake smile on my face as I spun around to see two men, but the girl was missing. Siren works fast, I thought as I pretended to throw my arms up to hug the one closest to me with blonde hair. I took a step back as I caught sight of the gun one of them had level at me. “Oh, you’re not Jason. Have you seen Jason anywhere?” I leaned against the tree as if I couldn’t stand without help. I made sure to let out a few fake laughs and look as dazed as possible while I looked around. If I could convince them I was drunk, maybe they’d lower their guns. Yeah, and maybe this plan works out by some miracle.
He glanced toward his partner, and tilted his head down slightly to tell him to lower the gun. His dark hair flopped over his forehead as he raised his head again, turning his gaze to me shortly after. I did my best to pretend to be an airhead so they wouldn’t suspect anything. Though I didn’t have to act much because his gaze soon traveled to the can in my hand and he seemed to make the connection I wanted them to make. “Grant, I think she just wandered too far from the beach. Her friend might be playing a joke on her.”
Grant groaned as if he couldn’t be bothered to deal with a lost, intoxicated girl. Maybe this happened more than he liked and it had become an annoyance to him. He didn’t seem to believe my story about being a lost drunk and was hesitant to put the weapon down as he looked me over. I didn’t see any recognition flash in his eyes as I swayed a
nd stumbled around like my head was spinning. Maybe Harley had kept me a secret after all—one he would take with his grave if I had anything to say about it.
Grant turned to his right and then rapidly to his left as if to talk to someone else when he realized someone was missing.
“Where is Macy?” he questioned, anger rumbling deep in his voice.
“I don’t know. I thought she was right behind us,” his partner answered, glancing around to look for Macy.
“Call her and see where she is. We can have her lead this girl back to the beach and then she can meet up with us before we report. I don’t feel like leading her back. I can’t believe they came this far. We don’t normally run into them until later in the night.”
“They must have started early today. After all, you can’t drink all day unless you start in the morning.” Grant’s partner smiled at his own joke before calling Macy by raising the walkie-talkie to his lips as I continued to sway.
I could feel Grant’s eyes follow my movements as if he was scrutinizing them. His gaze never left me. Did he know I was faking? How could he? I felt a knot tie itself tightly in the pit of my stomach from the deep set glare he directed at me. There had to be a way to make him less suspicious of me. While I tried to mull it over I stumbled slightly and fell into a nearby tree. I laughed it off awkwardly as I slowly pushed away from the tree, continuing my charade. As I did so I caught a glimpse of Rum sprinting away with Macy’s limp body slung over her shoulder. I wasn’t sure what she would do with Macy, but at least she was out of the way for now.
“You called, Dave?” Siren’s voice sounded through the trees, but it was slightly different. She pitched her voice up and let out a breathy laugh, which seemed typical of a ‘valley girl’.
