Matt gave him a weak smile. “I’ll keep you in the loop.”
“You’d better.” Phil pointed at him with the arm of his glasses. “And if this turns out to be nothing more than a twenty year reunion, your ass is right back here.”
10
Southeastern Oklahoma
Bridger paced by the door while Gregg typed feverishly at his computer. “You were right. The passports are phony.” He tossed them to the side table. “Not that they’ll be needing them anytime soon.”
“The driver’s licenses?”
“Working on it.” Gregg leaned back in his chair and wiped at his eyes. “This may take a while. Colombia isn’t exactly the type to play nice with us.”
DJ cracked the door and slipped inside. “I ditched the rental car.” He walked to the small sink and began to wash his hands.
“The bodies?” Lisa asked.
“In shallow graves near a well-traveled game trail. With any luck, a bear or wolf or…” DJ shrugged. “If they find the bones, they should be scattered over a pretty good area.”
Mauk stood and hovered over Gregg’s shoulder. “When do we leave?”
“First we have to find out exactly where we’re going.” Bridger stated, his eyes glued to the computer screen.
“Come on, Bobby. We know who these assholes worked for.” Mauk stood, his brow furrowing. “Why delay?”
Bobby raised a brow at Mauk. “We’re not going into this halfcocked.” He glanced at the others. “This isn’t the jungles of the 90’s. These assholes have top of the line security and a small army of men.”
DJ tossed the hand towel to the counter. “Amen to that. I had a buddy in the teams back in the day. They were tasked with training the local federales.” He glanced to the others. “Get this…the Colombian government was paying their cops something like $600 bucks a month. We trained them how to fight the cartels and inflict the most damage and the moment they hit the field, the cartels would hit them up and say, ‘We’ll pay you $2500 a month, supply medical and dental, and if anything happens to you, your family is taken care of.’” He smirked and shook his head. “I’m sure you can imagine what happened next.”
Lisa snorted and threw her hands up. “No doubt. They jumped ship.”
“En masse,” DJ replied. “The same guys they trained two months before, they faced in the jungles.”
“Using their own tactics against them.” Mauk groaned. “Sounds about right.”
“Family is everything to those people. Just the idea that they would be taken care of…” Lisa trailed off. “No wonder they switched sides.”
“The devil you know,” Bobby mumbled.
“Got it,” Gregg chimed in. “The driver’s licenses are real. And they have a long list of known associates.” He hit the print button and the printer began to spit out sheets of paper. “Most of whom are known narco traffickers.”
“For Murillo?” Mauk asked.
Gregg shrugged. “That would be a pretty good guess, but the rap sheets don’t exactly specify which cartel they’re tied to.”
Bridger sifted through the sheets. “This is good enough for me.” His shoulders squared and he nodded to the group. “Let’s do this.”
Lisa reached for the door knob and stood in the open doorway, her eyes scanning the front yard. “Do you hear that hissing noise?”
Bobby lunged for the door and slammed it shut, taking her to the ratty couch as they fell. Splinters of wood erupted from the front door as bullets shredded through the old pine.
Everybody inside the cabin hit the floor and covered their heads. Shots continued to rip through the cabin, shattering glass and punching holes through the thin wooden walls.
Mauk reached for his thigh pocket and pulled his folding knife. He began to gouge at the old pine boards that made up the floor. “Working on exfil!” he half shouted over the sounds of shattering glass.
“Fuck me!” Gregg groaned as he rolled beside an interior doorjamb. “There goes our deposit.”
Fernando continued to squeeze the trigger, sweeping the barrel of his suppressed Uzi back and forth across the front of the small cabin, punching holes through the old and rotting wood. As he ejected the magazine and forced another one in, Luis placed his hand across the top of the weapon. He ignored the searing heat as he gently pushed the barrel down. “That is enough.”
Fernando jerked the weapon away and glared at his boss. “We could finish them now.” He jabbed the barrel toward the cabin. “They were not expecting us.”
Luis pulled him quietly behind a large tree. “And yet, they were.” He nodded to the front of the cabin. “Señorita Vazquez stood right in that open doorway before you pulled the trigger yet there is no body.”
Fernando ground his teeth as he tried to stare down Luis. “Her body fell inside.”
Luis shook his head. “The large gringo tackled her to the ground and shut the door before you ever fired.” He nodded back to the cabin. “He is no amateur. He expected us.”
“Then what would you have us do?”
Luis gave him a soft smile. “We wait. El jefe is sending more soldiers. We will overwhelm them with sheer numbers.” He inhaled deeply of the pine laden air and smiled at its scent. “We simply keep them here.”
“The jammer is set and running,” Hector stated as he crept toward the tree. “What else?”
Luis pointed to the far side of the cabin. “Take up a point where you can see the rear. Do not allow them to exit.” He turned to Fernando. “You go to the left and do the same. Watch the front.”
“And what will you be doing, eh, Luis?” Fernando asked a bit too gruffly.
Again, Luis smiled at him. “I shall stay here and cover the front as well. Their car has two flat tires. Where can they go?” He chuckled as he turned from behind the tree and used the Tahoe as a screen. “And I shall check with el Fantasma and follow his orders. Just as you shall.”
Fernando muttered to himself as he turned and trudged through the thick undergrowth of the
