Rendition Protocol

by Nathan Goodman

  Just over the gunfire, Cade heard a whistle. He looked up and saw Stone waving to him. Cade motioned him to move around to the back of the estate.

  Stone nodded but as he saw Cade jump and run to the side of the building, he trained his rifle scope just above Cade’s shoulder.

  Cade was on a dead run. A guard popped out from behind the building and began firing but then his feet flew out from underneath him. He crashed to the ground. Cade stopped in his tracks trying to register what had happened. But then he knew, it was Stone. Cade ran around the back of the house to the patio.

  Stone slung his sniper rifle over his shoulder and pulled the HK 416 carbine into position. He took off down the hill, weaving between tropical plants. His movement was swift. The effect would have made him both hard to see and even harder to shoot.

  Gunfire from the two opposing drug cartels intensified and stray bullets tore through the air on all sides. Stone’s phone buzzed and he answered it.

  “We’re pinned down,” Cade said into the phone. “Kyle is unconscious and we’ve got to get to the dock!”

  “Be there in sixty seconds!” Stone yelled. An instant later a bullet zipped through his right calf and he grunted.

  “What was that?” Cade said.

  “Nothing. On my way. Just hang tight.”

  Stone detached a Velcro tie-off and snugged it above the wound. “I’ll have time to bleed later,” he said and took off running. He stayed in the thick and when he could see the full expanse of the back side of the property, he took up position. Two guards were firing at Jana and Cade. Stone switched back to the sniper rifle and put both of them down. He spoke into the phone, “You’re clear.”

  Cade replied, “The pilot is still at the plane! We’re going down there with Kyle. Cover us!”

  Automatic gunfire ripped across the manicured lawn as Cade emerged with Kyle over his shoulder. Cade shut his eyes as dirt and blades of grass sprayed his face. He turned to find Jana still crouched underneath the balcony. “What are you doing?” he yelled, then turned to see another guard drop to the ground.

  “I’m not leaving her,” Jana said.

  “What?” Cade said.

  “He’s got another woman up there.”

  “Jana! We’ve got to go. This place will be overrun any second!”

  She turned him around by force. “Get Kyle to the plane. Do it now!”

  Cade took off running as more gunfire sprayed about him.

  Stone popped off one round, then another, and the guns stopped.

  Cade zigzagged across the open ground. He was struggling under Kyle’s weight. More bullets zipped past his head and he tripped. He and Kyle tumbled to the ground.

  Stone popped in a new magazine then tapped off another round. The shot hit home. “Move, Cade!” he yelled into the phone. Cade grabbed Kyle again and threw him over his shoulder, panting to catch his breath. The floatplane was just fifty yards away.

  Jana crouched on the glass stairs and surveyed the floor above. Several of Rojas’s guards were firing out windows as attackers swarmed up the front. Brass shell casings littered the marble floor near the front door, which was now shut. She heard a woman screaming from down the hallway and leapt to her feet just as bullets shattered the massive glass walls on the back side.

  Karim Zahir’s personal bodyguard stepped out of one of the rooms with his weapon pointed in her direction. Jana crashed against a wall for cover and snap-shot him in the chest. He fell backwards, firing wildly, and rolled to the ground. He grasped at his chest then slumped over.

  Jana ran down the hall and dropped into a crouched position, then pointed the Glock upward. Zahir lunged out, firing his handgun at chest level. The bullets tore into the drywall above Jana’s head and she popped off one round. It slammed into Zahir’s shoulder. His gun dropped to the ground and he scrambled into another room.

  Jana leaned in and saw the woman. Her sequined dress was torn and her mascara had run down her face. She grabbed the woman by the hand and pulled her toward the hall when suddenly she felt the woman yank back. The last thing Jana remembered before everything went black was the woman’s screams.

  68

  Not Without Her

  Jana’s eyes opened from the blackness into a wet, scorching pain. Her head throbbed. She could tell men were towering above her but all she could hear was a bright stinging ring. Since she was facedown, she could not see which one of them had grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into the room. As her hearing began to return, she could hear gunfire coming from several directions.

  She heard Rojas’s voice. “Roll that fucking panocha over. I want her to look me in the eye when I kill her.” Someone grabbed her again and rolled her onto her back. The man standing directly above her was Gustavo Moreno, Rojas’s intelligence officer. He stood with a polished chrome pistol in his hand.

  Jana reached to the back of her head and winced against the pain. Her hair was wet and when she pulled her hand back, it was covered in dark blood. Moreno grabbed her by the shoulders and yanked her against the wall to prop her upright.

  “There, Señor Rojas, but we must move quickly, we haven’t much time.”

  Rojas stood at Jana’s feet. “My intelligence officer warned me about you. He never trusted you, but after what you did to Montes Lima Perez, how could I not?”

  “They’re on to you, you prick,” Jana said.

  “You’ve got quite a mouth for a panocha, a cunt, that is about to die,” Rojas said.

  Jana’s head was still spinning. “I know what it means.”

  “So, you were working undercover for the Americans, no? A double agent?”

  “I work for no one,” she spat back.

  “Then why come after me? Most people who come after me do not live to tell the tale.”

  “Patron, we must go,” Moreno pleaded.

  “Kyle MacKerron,” Jana said.

  “Yes, when my intelligence officer saw you on the surveillance camera, he told me what was happening.”

  Gunfire from the front of the estate intensified. Gustavo Moreno placed a hand on Rojas’s shoulder. “Señor Rojas, we must get you out. I don’t know how much longer we can hold them off.”

  Rojas said to him, “The tunnel was put there for a reason, Gustavo.”

  Jana said, “A tunnel. The way of the coward. I would have come for you anyway.”

  Rojas laughed. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “The woman,” Jana said. “When I was here the first time.”

  “Ah, you saw her at the window? Yes,” Rojas smiled, “she served her purpose.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  “Ever the gentile young woman, Agent Baker. But I must know one last thing. Your timing seems impeccable. You come into my home to free Agent MacKerron just as my rivals at Oficina de Envigado start a war? That is not a coincidence, no?”

  “Figure it out for yourself,” Jana said.

  “I wish I had time to teach you a lesson in manners.”

  Jana said, “It’s no coincidence. The freshly murdered body of Carlos Gaviria just found its way to Envigado’s front door. How do you like their response? Your operations here are at an end.”

  “Freshly murdered? But he was killed two days ago.”

  “No,” Jana smirked. “We kidnapped him two days ago, right from under your nose. He was very much alive.”

  More gunfire tore through the walls, and the sound of a cascading sheet of broken glass crashed from out in the main room.

  “Señor Rojas!” Moreno pleaded. “I must insist!”

  “You kept him alive, then murdered him at the appropriate time? And dumped his body to start a war? He was my godson!”

  Jana knew she had touched a nerve. “He squealed like a little girl when they killed him.”

  “He did no such thing!” Rojas screamed.

  A stray bullet zipped through the drywall and shattered a glass statue in the corner of the room.

  This time, even Rojas knew they
had to leave. He said, “We have a saying in Colombia. There is no deceit in death. It delivers precisely what it has promised.” He nodded to Moreno, who pointed the pistol at Jana’s head.

  Jana glared at Rojas. “You can burn in hell.”

  Rojas replied. “You first.”

  Jana closed her eyes but they startled open at the sound of an automatic weapon firing at point-blank range. She rolled for cover as drywall dust and fragments splintered the room. Rojas and Moreno went down. Jana looked up to see the woman in the sequined dress, an automatic weapon dangling in her hand.

  The woman dropped to her knees and began to sob. Moreno lay motionless, his eyes, wide. Jana began to pull the gun from his hand, but Rojas lurched onto her. She elbowed him across the face, smashing his nose. Rojas rocked backward then leapt to his feet as Jana grabbed the gun. He was across the room and out into the hallway as Jana fired. The round clipped his upper back and he was gone.

  Jana struggled to her feet then looked at her watch. “Oh God,” she said as she grabbed the woman’s hand. “We’ve got to get out of here!” They ran through the house as bullets whizzed past. They descended the staircase to the floor below and ran onto the patio only to see Cade struggling with Kyle in the distance. Bullets chewed up the grass. She heard gunfire coming from the tree line to her left and looked to see Stone shoot another of Rojas’s guard.

  Stone yelled to her, “Go!” then began laying suppressive cover fire. She yanked the woman’s hand and they ran into the fray. A bullet grazed the flesh of Jana’s shoulder and she flattened to the ground. But in the adrenaline rush, she jumped up and ran with the woman. They were halfway to the dock as Cade loaded Kyle onto the plane.

  The pilot yelled something inaudible above the engine noise.

  Weapons fire from inside the house intensified into a pitched crescendo. Jana pulled on the woman then pushed her body into the plane. She yelled to the pilot. “We’ve got one more!” then motioned to Stone as he made a run for it.

  Bullets tore across the dock and splinters of teak sprayed the air.

  The pilot yelled, “I’m not waiting! We’re leaving!”

  Jana raised the pistol at him. “To hell you are!” But when she turned again, she saw Stone limp then go down. “Oh my God.” She broke into a sprint and fired toward the house.

  From the plane, Cade yelled, “Jana!” but there was nothing he could do.

  She reached Stone and pulled him to his feet and they ran onto the dock. As Stone fell into the plane’s front seat, he raised the carbine and fired at cartel members who were flooding onto the lawn. “Get in!” he yelled to Jana. But she grabbed his wounded leg and flipped it in, then pulled the carbine from his hands.

  “There’s something I have to do first,” she said as shut the door then slapped her hand on the side of the plane, a signal for the pilot to take off.

  The plane’s engine roared and it lurched into motion on the water. Jana ran from the dock, firing the weapon at her attackers. She was in a sprint to the wood line. To her thinking, it was the only part of the estate where a tunnel could have possibly been fashioned. But no sooner had she begun firing did the weapon run out of ammunition. Streams of gunfire tore in front of her and she rolled to the ground.

  She covered her head against the sting of flying debris. Things began to move in slow motion. The sound of gunfire was deafening. Jana could see men from both cartels firing at one another, and at her. A few bodies were strewn in the blood and chaos. Lying facedown in the grass, Jana struggled to comprehend that this was all real. She kept hearing the warning, the air strike is imminent.

  She could barely comprehend how she would live through this, but the thought of Rojas making an escape caused her adrenaline to spike. Bullets whizzed past her head. She looked in all directions but there was no way out. How am I going to get to the tunnel? she thought.

  Several cartel members were headed straight for her, firing as they ran. A bullet struck the ground just inches from her face and dirt and debris flew into her eyes. She curled into a ball, her hands cupping her ears and face.

  Jana struggled to regain sight, when from just behind her, a man stood from the bushes and begin firing at the cartel. Bullets flew overhead and scorching-hot shell casings ejected from his weapon and landed on her.

  There was something familiar about his silhouette. Her vision was blurry and she struggled to focus on the face. In the given context of a horrific firefight, she couldn’t understand what she was seeing. When her vision cleared, the shock on her face was only equaled by the rage in his.

  69

  Not Without Him

  From a remote location, Lawrence Wallace spoke into the mic. “Scorpion, this is Crystal Palace. Give me a status, over.”

  The F-18 pilot replied, “Crystal Palace, this is Scorpion. Heading, three one five. Angels, twenty-one. Speed, four-fifty. Just within range-to-target. Master Arm, off. Warning yellow, weapons hold.”

  “Roger that, Scorpion. You’re at twenty-one thousand feet, speed, four hundred and fifty knots. Arm the weapon, over.”

  “Crystal Palace, Master Arm, on. Weapon is armed. Target is locked on.”

  “You are red and tight, Scorpion. Launch on my command. Launch, launch, launch.”

  A moment later, “Crystal Palace, this is Scorpion. Greyhound is away.”

  ***

  It was Ames. The man towering above her was Ames. Her father stared into abject death and would not relent. His actions reminded Jana of a trained operator. He would aim carefully, squeeze off a three-round burst, then retarget. It was mechanical. He moved with such fluidity that the weapon seemed to be an extension of his body, something fused to him like an arm or a leg.

  Bullets chewed into the ground where he stood. In the melee, Jana could hear nothing. She was suffering from a condition known as auditory exclusion in which people in high-stress situations don’t hear sounds around them. She watched as Ames’s mouth moved and knew he was screaming something to her.

  The more she stared at the bizarre sight, the more she began to perceive what he was yelling. He was screaming at her to get up and move. As she rolled onto her feet, Ames sidestepped in the other direction, all the while continuing his attack. He was drawing fire away from her. He continued the methodical process, dropped an empty magazine, and recharged the well with a fresh one. And the sequence started again.

  Jana ran as fast as she could into the tree line. She paused a moment to look back at her father. With the air strike about to hit, she knew it would be the last time she would see him alive. She broke into a run through the dense forest toward the only direction where the tunnel could be. But her mind drifted. The pounding of her feet and heart, the feeling of brush crashing against her limbs, catapulted her back to the prior year, running through the forest at YellowstoneNational Park toward terrorist Waseem Jarrah. Fury pulsed in her veins.

  The center-most scar on her chest began to burn and the trio of terrifying voices piped into her consciousness.

  She will do it herself, the one in the center said. It echoed in a manner similar to a person speaking inside a cave.

  How? another replied.

  She will seal her own fate. Once she kills him, she will join us and will not be able to claw her way free ever again.

  The trio laughed in a chilling echo.

  But just as the periphery of her vision began to cloud, she shook free of the impending post-traumatic stress episode.

  “You don’t run me,” she said across tightened vocal chords. “I run me.” The voices silenced and her feet pounded harder. She ran up a pathway until she came to a brick-framed door shrouded in tropical growth. It was embedded into the hillside. Vines all but obscured the secret escape route. The huge steel door was shut but she could see fresh footprints on the ground chased by what looked like a single set of tire tracks, a motorcycle.

  She pulled the door open but then a solitary fear struck her. I don’t have a weapon. She struggled to listen above the d
istant gunfire and could hear something in the distance—the sound of a dirt bike’s engine.

  When she looked inside, the dimly lit tunnel was empty. The cement tunnel was about four feet wide and she squinted into the low light. It went straight back for about forty yards then veered to the right. “Must lead into the basement level,” she said.

  Just outside, a roar ripped across the sky. It was so loud it could only be described as the sound of air tearing. What followed next was the largest explosion she could imagine—the air strike. She dove into the tunnel and the ground shook as she went down. Dust and tiny fragments of cement rained down as light bulbs popped. Outside, a steady torrent of dirt and debris, intermixed with shattered wood fragments, began crashing to the ground.

  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the tunnel had a long alcove built into one side. Three dirt bikes stood parked with room for a fourth. Each motorcycle had an electrical cord plugged into its small battery, an apparent effort to trickle-charge the batteries and prevent them from draining.

  Many months ago, when they had been dating, Stone had taught her to ride. It was often the case that they would ride tandem on his motorcycle. For most of the time, she would sit behind him and wrap her arms around his torso, but later, Jana had hopped on the bike and looked at him playfully. “Teach me,” she’d said.

  Thick, black smoke poured from the other end of the tunnel and toward Jana. Without hesitation she hopped onto a bike. Only then did she notice the cuts and abrasions on her legs. “No time for that now.” She jump-started the bike and caught her own reflection in one of its side-view mirrors. Her face was covered in dirt, her hair was a mat of dried blood, and blood dripped from her shoulder.

  She gunned the throttle and dirt exploded from the rear tire. The only question was, could she catch Rojas before he could disappear? But as she thought of all the women he had harmed entered her mind, fear and doubt abated. Whatever the outcome, she’d do anything in her power to stop him.