Outside the Pérez Compound
3:20 A.M.
Garrett watched the air assault from a distance as his team fell back to the designated rendezvous point and checked in. One by one, he heard from each of his men but still hadn’t seen or heard from Alexa.
Where the hell are you?
Garrett and his team were firing back when the armed men behind the compound walls got off a few rounds, but the attacks were sporadic. The air assault had split the drug cartel’s forces, and some of Pérez’s foot soldiers were running for cover and scattering into the hills, the ones who had had enough fighting an unmanned drone that could target their positions with precision. In this attack, they weren’t after the small fish.
“Whisky Two, reporting in, sir.” Hank’s voice came over his com unit. “Not that I’m complaining, but who’s operating the Reaper?”
“Don’t know. One of Kinkaid’s men, I’d guess.” Garrett couldn’t tell Hank who was operating the UAV, but he couldn’t help smiling. He had a grin on his face as he watched more missiles hit the Pérez estate.
“If you take fire, return it, but stay put until the UAV is done. Wait for my order.”
Even with the Reaper UAV’s sophisticated technology, Garrett knew his teams would have a hard time joining the battle. They would have no way to communicate they were “friendlies.” And a thermal-scanner surveillance didn’t have the capability of distinguishing his team from Pérez’s men.
But from the looks of things, apparently Kinkaid had thought about that. So far, the UAV was only blowing the shit out of Pérez’s estate and punching holes in his stone walls. The Reaper was paving the way for Garrett’s ground teams to clean up. Within minutes, the unmanned drone would let them get to work.
“Martini One, come in.” Garrett kept his voice steady. “Do you need assistance, Martini One?”
When Alexa didn’t answer, Garrett took a deep breath and focused on the rest of his team.
“Whisky Two, are you getting a transmission from inside?” Garrett knew it was a long shot, but he had to know. “Is our boy still alive?”
He was breaking protocol by saying too much, but he had to know. If he got confirmation that Kinkaid was still alive, he’d push his men to move in as soon as the last rocket was launched. While he waited for Hank’s response, Garrett got out his binoculars and searched the flaming rubble below for any sign of Alexa. Her men had checked in, but she was still missing. And the longer she stayed that way, the more he worried.
“Where are you?”
He had a bad feeling that she hadn’t waited for the air assault to be over. If she thought there was a chance she could save Kinkaid from the fate he had planned for himself, she would go in with guns blazing. And she wouldn’t risk her team to back her play. She’d go it alone.
“Damn it, Alexa,” he cursed.
Garrett had the rest of his team to think about. He couldn’t give a command that he knew would put his men at risk. He had no idea why Alexa wasn’t answering him, but either option wasn’t good. She was either dead or badly injured, or she’d gone in after Kinkaid on her own.
Alexa Marlowe and Jackson Kinkaid were two of a kind.
With her binoculars, Alexa had seen movement and a flash of light coming from a barred window right before the air assault. From the belowground prison cell, she had heard men shouting until the UAV launched its deadly payload—and she and her men had run for cover.
But in that split second, she had made a decision.
When the missile had blown a hole through a main wall, the initial blast had blinded her. She saw her team retreat, and she should have followed. They motioned to her, and she saw their mouths move, but her hearing was nearly gone. Instinct told her she should have gone with them, but her heart sent a different message. She couldn’t leave, not without knowing what had happened to Jackson.
In the noise and confusion, she made a run for it, only she didn’t do the smart thing like her men had done. She ran toward the breach in the stone wall that surrounded the Pérez estate. And when a second rocket hit the main house and sent stone and debris flying, she felt rocks pummel her body, and she had no way to protect herself. She went down, and everything went black.
It had taken her precious minutes to recover. She’d lost consciousness. How long she’d been out, Alexa didn’t know. By the time she got to her feet, she stumbled deeper into the hacienda, with everything a blur. She’d gotten caught in the fallout, and shards of rock had cut her face. Smoke from the intense flames billowed black into the night air, making it hard to see and breathe. And it took all her concentration to hold on to her H&K MP-5 assault rifle. Men escaping the burning estate ran into her, but they never looked back.
“What the hell . . . ?”
When she realized where she was and remembered what was happening, she had no choice. The air attack had escalated. She had to look for cover and go farther into the compound. That was when she remembered the prison cell where she had heard the angry men shouting before. Since Kinkaid had a way of riling people, that seemed like a likely place to begin her search.
“Damn it.” Disoriented, she raised a hand to her ear and looked down the front of her shirt. “Where is it?”
It took her time to realize she’d lost her com unit back in the rubble where she’d fallen. Alexa knew her decision to search for Kinkaid alone hadn’t been her finest hour. She wasn’t thinking straight, but it was only her ass on the line now. Whatever consequences there would be, she would face them alone, and she could accept that. The last thing she wanted was to be responsible for anyone else getting dragged into the risk she was about to take.
“Kinkaid, I swear, you better be alive, so I can kill you myself.”
3:32 A.M.
Kinkaid stared into the vacant eyes of Miguel Rosas. The crazed, bloodthirsty lunatic still had a gun pointed at his head.
Outside, the war raged on. Secondary explosions mixed with the staccato sounds of automatic gunfire. And dust and smoke clouded the stone cell. Wide-eyed, Estella stood frozen in place, staring at the man with the gun. Even Guerrero had stopped at the cell door. He had Pérez’s arm over his shoulder as he helped the man escape, leaving a trail of the drug dealer’s blood on the ground. He was bleeding like the stuck pig he was.
But all eyes were on Miguel Rosas.
And Kinkaid could do nothing except wait for the man to pull the trigger. He was too far away to lunge for the weapon. And he had nothing else to fight with.
“Kill him, Miguel. Do it!” Pérez demanded. “Pull the trigger!”
Rosas blinked. He gripped his weapon tighter and steadied his aim. That left Kinkaid with nothing left to do but open his mouth.
“You’re done, Pérez. This isn’t the only place we hit tonight.” Kinkaid forced a weak grin. If he was going down, he wanted the drug-cartel boss to know what he’d done. “We wiped you out.”
MQ-9 Reaper UAVs had arrived in time to annihilate Pérez and his entire operation. Kinkaid’s men had staged more than one attack, at multiple locations. By now, the second drug cartel that Pérez had worked years to rebuild was nothing more than massive holes in the ground.
Kinkaid and his men had been researching the drug dealer’s strongholds and supply connections for years. Every key target that could be destroyed without jeopardizing innocent lives had been hit in simultaneous assaults across Mexico.
His taunt had been enough to force Pérez to make his move. The man grabbed for the gun Guerrero had stuffed into the waistband of his pants. He cursed and took aim. When Miguel Rosas saw his boss move, he turned and lowered his weapon as another missile tore through the stone wall near the makeshift cell.
That was the break Kinkaid needed.
As flames billowed through the barred window, and rocks rained down on them, Kinkaid lunged for Rosas and shoved him to the ground. He grabbed for the gun as he rolled behind the man. When Pérez fired his weapon, Kinkaid returned fire. And the only protection he had was Miguel Rosas. He heard the bullets as they riddled the man’s body. And when he could, he shot back. He saw the drug boss stagger when he put a hole in his chest, but in the chaos, Kinkaid didn’t know what happened.
He felt a punch in his shoulder, but kept shooting. Estella screamed and cringed in a corner, covering her head. When Kinkaid heard her, he got to his knees and shielded her from fire. And Guerrero had used the fat body of his boss to cower behind. Everything happened in slow motion.
Bullets ricocheted off stone, splintering wood and spraying shards of rock into the room. And when another blast shook the foundation, and the roof started to crack and break free, Guerrero had had enough.
“Let’s go . . . let’s go. Now!” The man urged his boss to move. And when the big man stumbled, Guerrero grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into the corridor, making a run for it. His motivation wasn’t difficult to figure. Guerrero had no weapon. Pérez had taken it.
Guerrero had no choice but to get his boss moving, the man who was big enough to use as a human shield. And with the hacienda coming down, if they didn’t get out now, the odds were they’d be buried alive where they stood.
“Move it! Now!” Guerrero yelled.
Kinkaid stood and looked for Estella in the haze of black smoke and suffocating dust. When he found her, he knelt beside her.
“Are you okay? Can you move?” When the girl nodded, he said, “We have to get out of here.”
But it was too late. The minute Kinkaid had the girl on her feet, heading for the only way out, the roof caved in. He pulled her back and put his body between her and the falling rock. It was all he had time to do.
“Get down. Cover your head.” He shielded the girl as best he could. Every stone that hammered his body sent a shock wave of pain through him. And after a brilliant burst of light blinded him, his body went limp. He fought to stay conscious, but lost his battle.
Darkness swallowed him whole.