I use my phone camera to see around the corner, and it shows two in cover behind a booth, and the last one has knelt behind a table. Drake stalks from the bathroom, readying a barbed garrote wire. He wraps the wire around the man’s neck, and blood oozes from his neck as the barbs dig into his throat. The soldiers whip around, and before they get their weapons off, I gun down all three of them with short controlled bursts. Drake throws the lifeless body on the floor. “You’re welcome, Devora.” His face is glistening with sweat.
“Drake, are you okay?” Munroe says.
“Yeah. I’m bloody fi...” Vomit erupts from his mouth, and then he drops down in a chair. “Bloody hell. This room is spinning like a carousel.”
“Let’s get him outside, Munroe. These fumes are toxic.”
The SWAT MRAP slams on its breaks Officers pour out of the back and advance toward us with their rifles trained on us. I show them the badge on my belt. “Relax, guys. I’m Detective Lobos and this Special Agent Munroe with the FBI. Eleven suspects and three Feds DOA and one perp for transport.”
EMTs rush to Drake and escort him to the ambulance, and his sister follows.
I duck into a side alley and hack up all the shit I breathed in, and my hands are trembling again. I sit down and lean against the wall, lighting up a smoke. I stare at my blood-soaked hands. I peer into a puddle seeing my face soaked in blood.
Goddamn them for bringing this side of me out.
Chapter 22
Northern Iraq 2004
I’m riding down a desert road in an armored truck with my Special Reaction Team. They’re 8 of us.
“Alright, kids. Our job is to take them alive, but if they draw a piece, don’t take any shit you smoke their asses,” I say.
They all nod in agreement.
“Check your gear and make sure you’re not going in half-assed.”
I hold out a picture of the Special Forces captain. He is a tall Caucasian man with a five o’clock shadow. “This is Captain James Delacroix of the United States Army. He is wanted for the traffic of opium, meth, and genocide. Son of a bitch uses our dead as carriers for the drugs. He and his men are Green Berets, so believe me when I tell you they won’t hesitate to rock and roll on our asses.”
“How are we hitting his command post, Lobos?”
I smile. “I was just getting to that, Agent Connor, until you interrupted me. I pull out the drone photos of the warehouse. “Alright, when we hit him, we are going in loud and proud breaching charges and flashbangs. We’ll go in simultaneously to keep them disoriented.”
“Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”
“I nod. “Granted, Connor.”
“Not to be shitting on your parade, but they’re Green Berets. Won’t they smell us a mile away?”
“Connor, they know they’re being investigated but not that we are coming for them. That is according to intel anyway.”
“Yeah, and Intel has never fucked us before.” His voice sardonic.
Connor has always been an ass, but his experience with computers has helped me tons on this case
“Why, Connor. Don’t you believe in the divine power of Military Intel?” I say, mimicking a southern accent.
He shakes his head, smirking. “I believe in it about like I do Santa Claus.”
“Ah, come on, Connor. What happened to that blind optimism you had when you first joined CID,” Goodwin says.
The snarky black chick in dark shades is Gloria Goodwin; she is our designated marksman and my friend. Goodwin saved our asses a few times with her MK14 EBR. We call her GG, and she comes from the 75th Rangers, and now she’s assigned to my SRT Detachment.
“Well, you know this guy is real hot shit with Military brass. So excuse me if Imma bit skeptical of the charges sticking.”
CG scoffs. “The evidence is overwhelming, Connor. Get the sand out of your vagina.”
“All I’m saying is don’t be shocked if he beats the charges, and walks with a shit-eating grin again. Smirking at your ass as he leaves the courtroom.”
I take a sip from my canteen. “Connor, we present the evidence, and justice will be served.”
He leans forward. “You must have a short memory, Lobos. The guy walked last time we presented the evidence.”
“Yeah, I remember, but I don’t believe he will get out of it this time. We got him cold on a drug trafficking beef thanks to some crusading war journalist filming them loading bodies of dead GIs with meth, opium and black tar heroin.”
GG is about to speak when the road explodes into a cloud of dust. Flipping the truck on its side. My ears are ringing, but I can hear muffled gunshots outside. I grab my M4 and stagger to the gunner’s hatch and climb through. Bullets pound the dirt and clinks off the truck. I stumble as I run to the other side. As I round the corner of the vehicle, GG grabs me and yanks me out of the line of fire. “You alright, Agent Lobos?”
I charge the bolt on my M4, noticing all 10 of us survived. We got by with just scrapes and bruises. “Yeah. I’m good.”
She kneels down. “Insurgents hit us with an IED, and now they are on the ridge pinning us down with a machine gun about 300 meters out. So far, I count twelve.”
The day we move on Delacroix, is the day we just so happen to get ambushed by insurgents. I don’t buy it, it’s too convenient.
“Yeah, we are on our way to arrest Delacroix, and all of a sudden, we get ambushed by insurgents. Some prick tipped them off.”
Conner lowers his head. “Shit! Means we gotta damn leak in our division.”
“Yeah, well, we can’t do
