I wait for Orellana to leave first, then I’m on my way to Tonacatepeque. During the drive, I remember the first time I met Greer.

  A bullet blew through the window, knocking out the small bit of glass remaining in the abandoned building. My back against the wall, I offered up a silent prayer of thanks that it was made of thick concrete. Of course, if my pursuers had a grenade launcher at their disposal, the walls wouldn’t be enough to protect me.

  I glanced down at my watch. I was late for my ex-fil, so I started making plans to go on the down low until I could contact my handler. Surely, I could survive in the jungle amongst the drug lords of Colombia for a few days.

  Figuring there was a rear exit door, I belly crawled toward the only other doorway available. Bullets screamed over my head, striking the far wall and spraying bits of concrete.

  I snarled when I felt a stinging sensation in my backside—more particularly, my right ass cheek, closer to the hip. I didn’t pause to look but knew without a doubt a bullet had nicked me. I also knew it wasn’t bad, but it hurt like a son of a bitch.

  I made it into the hallway relatively unscathed where, mercifully, the bullets couldn’t reach their target. I started to push into a standing position when, all of a sudden, a pair of black boots were standing before me. My eyes traveled up a pair of long legs clad in black fatigues, up to the most beautiful face I’d ever seen.

  Honey-brown eyes stared down and she offered a lopsided grin. “I’m Greer, and I’m here to save you.”

  She held an M4 rifle across her body and didn’t seem put out by the need to rescue me.

  Still flat on my stomach, I smiled back at her. “I’m glad to meet you, Greer. I’m Ladd.”

  “Figured that one out on my own,” she replied dryly, and then glanced down the hallway from where I’d just come. The echo of pinging bullets filtered toward us.

  She turned on her boot and hustled in the opposite direction. I jumped up and followed.

  “You missed your ex-fil,” she said, holding her rifle in a way that would cut down anyone who came at us.

  No shit, I missed my ex-fil. “They usually don’t send somebody if you miss it.”

  “I guess it’s your lucky day that I happen to be willing to bend the rules, isn’t it?”

  Lucky day, indeed.

  Greer had come in and swept me off my feet in a very unromantic way. We had made a mad-dash run for it, the bullet graze to my ass not slowing us down in the slightest.

  While I can vouch for the fact that there are some incredibly beautiful women who work for the CIA, I have never been interested in one. I didn’t think it was good to mix business and pleasure.

  Greer Hathaway, at that very first meeting, made me reconsider that rule.

  Such an interesting start to our relationship. We had a long journey together thereafter.

  An amazing journey that changed my life.

  And then everything went to shit.

  I haven’t seen the woman in twelve years. Even when I still worked for the CIA, our paths never crossed because her work was international and I remained stateside. Admittedly, I had suppressed the urge at times to check up on her. I could’ve easily done it by looking at her file, given my security clearance.

  But I didn’t. I stuck to the promise I made myself that when I walked away from her, I was never looking back.

  And I didn’t.

  Until now.

  I’m jolted out of my memory when my phone rings. The Bluetooth connects to the speakers, and Dozer’s voice comes across the line. “I updated your route to Mejia’s warehouse and sent a topography map. It appears pretty isolated and surrounded by dense forest. I’m also sending you the most up-to-date building plans for that warehouse. It has a basement level, so if they’re holding her—”

  “—it’s most likely in the basement,” I finish the thought. “Thanks, Dozer.”

  I look at the computer screen sitting on my passenger seat and a new map uploads, showing my destination is only about seven miles ahead.

  “The red dot on your screen indicates where you need to park,” Dozer instructs. “It’s about a quarter mile down from the warehouse at an abandoned property.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll call you when I get set up.” The plan is for me travel in by foot so I can reconnoiter the warehouse perimeter to estimate how many people I’ll be dealing with. Then I’m going to hook up with Dozer over the internet so he can provide support. “Do you think you’re going to be able to get satellite imagery?”

  “Bebe’s already hacked into a satellite whose orbit should provide us real-time photos for at least the next twenty minutes. After that, she’ll have to hack another.”

  “Perfect. I’ll call you back when I’m set up.”

  As we disconnect, the paved entrance leading into Mejia’s warehouse comes into view, and as suspected, two armed guards are posted at its intersection with the road. I drive casually by, not turning my head to look at them. Instead, I travel a quarter mile up the road to the spot Dozer directed me where I can hide the Jeep and cut through the forest.

  Once parked under the cover of the forest, I work from the rear of the Jeep, going through all my supplies to ensure I have what I need. I slip the backpack onto my shoulders and double-check that my Heckler & Koch VP9 pistol is loaded, its silencer screwed on. The last thing I take out of the Jeep is a compound bow and three arrows that have been fitted with C-4–packed tips. A bit of explosives can make a good enough distraction for a getaway.

  I catch a lot of shit from the younger guys at Jameson, given that I’m one of the older agents there at age forty-one. But right now, I’m carrying roughly thirty-five pounds of equipment on my back as I jog through dense forest, and I make it to the edge of Mejia’s property in less than three minutes. I’m barely winded.

  The warehouse sits on roughly an acre of land, and my biggest obstacle is going to be the ten-foot chain-link fence with razor wire on top that surrounds the entire perimeter. There is only one double gate that allows entrance, and just inside is a parking lot with four vehicles. I make my way around the property, grateful the forest abuts the fence so it’s easy to maintain my cover. On one end of the warehouse is a loading dock and two military-style trucks with flatbeds stacked high with wooden crates. Peering through my binoculars, I see some of the crates are labeled in black stenciled letters: BALAS.

  Bullets.

  Outside, I only see one armed guard at the gate, but two more stand on the loading dock.

  I continue moving around the crudely constructed building. It’s two stories high with no windows, which is the best stroke of luck I’ve had so far. At the back, a steel door has a single guard stationed at it. There’s no gate in the fence area near the door, so entry is going to be difficult. The guard I can handle once I get past the chain-link.

  It takes no more than ten minutes to make a full circle around the fence perimeter and back to my Jeep. Ultimately, I only saw five armed guards outside, and none appeared to be Vecindario 18, who I have to consider are all inside.

  This isn’t surprising. When Frankie told me Mejia had called in extra support from Vecindario 18 to the warehouse, I didn’t think it was to help guard against infiltration. My guess is he’s using the gang members to “interrogate” Greer, and given they are some of the most violent gangsters in the world, I have to swallow the bile as I imagine what their method of interrogation would look like. I can only hope to God that they’re using more conventional means as Greer is a tough woman. She can withstand a beating, knives, sleep deprivation, loud sound torture, and other intimidation tactics. I’m not sure she can survive gang rape.

  Sliding off the backpack, bow, and quiver, I pull out the heavy-duty satellite laptop and move to the Jeep’s tailgate. I open it, set the laptop down, and log into the special site Dozer previously added access to. I hook up an earbud and dial Dozer on my phone.

  He answers on the first ring, and I slip the phone in a side cargo pocket. “I’ve got Bebe here. Are you ready?”

  “Just logged on.”

  I can hear Bebe clacking away on her keyboard, and after just a few keystrokes, she says, “Okay… I’m in. Give me a minute.”

  By in, she means she’s located the Wi-Fi signal from the warehouse that I latched onto with my laptop. Bebe, from where she sits in Pittsburgh, is now making her way into their Wi-Fi, freezing firewalls and creating secret passageways.

  At least that’s what I imagine she’s doing. I know whatever she does, she’s going to take control of any security system they have in place.

  “Security system has an alarm that’s not activated, although I can see by the history, it’s set whenever the warehouse is closed up. There are several cameras not working, but there are currently sixteen active cameras, and I’m sending their feed to your laptop now.”

  I bend closer to the laptop, and the screen flickers before grids appear, four across and four down, each with a different camera feed. Most are of the first floor, filled with rows and rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves loaded with munitions. There’s a camera on the loading dock, one at the back door, and one that appears to be inside an office supposedly used by Mejia, although it’s unoccupied.

  Inside the warehouse itself, I see four more armed guards patrolling with semiautomatic rifles.

  And there, in a large room with a conference table sits Mejia and four men who are clearly gang members by the way they’re dressed as compared to his uniformed forces. They’re laughing at something Mejia says, and I wonder if they’ve already had a go at Greer. It makes me sick to my stomach to think they have.

  My eyes roam back over the feeds, and I zero in on one of a narrow hallway that only shows its length. I can’t tell if it’s got rooms to the left or right, but a guard moves in and out of frame as he marches back and forth.

  Perhaps guarding another room or a cell?

  Could Greer be in there?

  I take one last lingering look over the feeds, and finally say into my mobile hookup with Dozer and Bebe, “That hallway. That’s where she has to be.”

  “I’m looking at the building plans,” Bebe says. I have the same plans on my computer, but I don’t want to exit from the camera feeds, so I rely on her. After a few seconds, she says, “Yes… I don’t see any other place she’d be other than that hallway or Mejia’s office. His office is on the main level, but that room where he’s at now—I think it’s in the basement as well.”

  “Please tell me the door on the west side is the best way in,” I plead with her as she peruses the plans on her computer. “There’s only one guard there, and that will be my easiest point of entry.”

  I could go in guns blazing through the front, use explosives and create a catastrophe, but I’d rather go in stealth.

  “There’s a stairwell about twenty feet from that door,” Bebe says, and I sigh in relief.

  “Do you have control over the lights?” I ask.

  Bebe snorts. “Please… do you think I’m an amateur?”

  No, I know she’s not. She’s the best. “Give me five minutes to make it back to the north side of the property. I’m going to cut through the chain-link and take out that guard. I’ll tell you when to cut the lights.”

  “Got it,” she replies, and I can hear her fingers once again tapping her keyboard.

  “Good luck, brother,” Dozer says. “We’ll be listening the entire time and will do what we can on our end.”

  “Thanks, man,” I reply and close the laptop. I’m not going to need it.

  I rearrange what I need in my backpack, recheck my pistol, and sling the bow and quiver over my shoulder. I nab the night vision goggles and pull them down to hang around my neck for later use.

  It’s go time.

  CHAPTER 4

  Greer

  It wasn’t the sound of heavy-booted feet coming down the hallway that caused my heart to hammer in fear. It was the look of sympathy the guard leveled my way before he turned and walked in the opposite direction. If one of Mejia’s trusted guards feels sorry for what is coming, whatever’s coming is going to be bad.

  Time’s up.

  Mejia is going to get his information one way or the other.

  At least that’s his confident theory.

  As for how I feel about the matter, there’s no way I’m going to give up the location of the intel I stole. I’m never going to give Mejia the satisfaction of taking it back, especially if I lose my life over this.

  I try to console myself with the fact that the USB drive could still be found by my compatriots. The drive has a built-in tracker that will start pinging within forty-eight hours. I might be dead, but the information will make it into the appropriate hands, and Mejia will be taken down. It will be my revenge from the grave for what they are about to do to me.

  Mejia appears on the other side of the bars. He looks grim but determined. Four more men stand behind him, including the large guy who cut off my pants earlier. I try not to let it intimidate me, but all four men look savage. There’s no doubt in my mind Mejia called in the worst of the worst of the worst, those who would have no hesitation in violating a woman as a means of torture.

  Mejia smiles at me confidently. He believes he’s going to win this battle.

  It sucks… because my torture is going to be long, slow, and brutal. I’m not going to give up the information from gang rape. It’s going to shred my soul and probably my body, but it won’t make me talk. When I continue to maintain my silence, they’ll turn to other methods. It could be burning, cutting pieces off my body, or if they’re privy to the tried-and-true torture techniques, they’ll cane the bottom of my feet. I actually know what that feels like because I took a course on how to withstand torture, and each of the students had to experience a caning. Granted, we only got a couple of whacks whereas real torture would be extended, but I had enough to know I don’t want to experience it ever again.

  I try not to forget the golden lesson they taught at that course: It’s okay to break. Everyone does sooner or later. But you should try to withstand for as long as possible to allow time for a rescue attempt. All I can hope for now is that CIA agents are on their way. They’ll know that when I missed my ex-filtration rendezvous, I was either dead or taken. They’ll make efforts to figure it out.

  Mejia unlocks the door and pulls it open. The groaning creak sounds more ominous than ever, causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand on end. He doesn’t enter, though, stepping aside to let the four gang members walk in, creating a semicircle around me. Two are at my back. I can’t see them, but I think the attack will start there.

  I’m not ready for this. I talk a big game, but I’m also scared… so scared, in fact, I’m afraid I might vomit. The only thing I can do is try to delay the inevitable.

  I laser my eyes on Mejia and sneer in Spanish, “Aren’t you man enough to do this yourself? Having a hard time getting it up?”

  Rather than be offended, Mejia shakes his head with a sad smile. “Señorita… I am a family man. My heart belongs to my wife, and I would never betray her that way.”

  Damn if the man doesn’t sound sincere. I hate when the villains have some shred of decency within.

  But I don’t let it go. I appraise him with my eyes slowly roving over his person with disdain. “Oh yeah… you can’t get it up. I bet your wife is frustrated with you. Hell, I bet she’s even banging the pool boy as we speak.”

  That does the trick and Mejia’s face flushes, his teeth bared. He stomps into the cell, cocks his hand, and lets it fly. When his palm connects with my face, I taste blood where my teeth shred the inside of my cheek. My eyes water from the pain.

  But I don’t show fear, nor do I cower. I slowly turn my head to glare at him. “Is that all you got? Because you’re not convincing me that you don’t have a limp dick.”

  I had hoped my goading would anger him to the point that Mejia would just kill me. The best way to anger a man is to question his virility. But he’s too wise to fall for my taunts and too patient to reach the end goal of learning where I dumped his stolen property.

  He nods at the thug to my right. “Jorge… as the senior man, you get to go first. Enjoy.”

  A lightning bolt of fear hits me dead center, causing my nerves to sizzle and my head to swim. I know I’m moments away from being violated in a way that has never happened to me before. I’ve been through a lot of shit during my career as a CIA agent, but I’ve never had my sex as a female used against me. I try to shut my brain down, hoping I’ll be able to turn off what’s about to happen and crawl inside a safe place so none of this touches my soul.

  Mejia leaves the cell but doesn’t shut the door. He has no need to lock me in and doesn’t look backward. The man named Jorge moves before me and grins with yellowed teeth. He has three dots tattooed on his right cheek, another symbol for Vecindario 18. He puts his face close to mine and snarls in Spanish, which sounds so much more menacing than English, “I’m going to tear you up inside.”

  I turn my face slightly away, and he takes that as an act of submission and fear but truly it’s because his breath is fetid. A meaty hand grips my T-shirt right at my chest, and I know he’s going to rip it from my body.

  All of a sudden, the lights go out.

  Jorge’s hand falls away, and he curses. I can’t see anything, but I can feel the men shuffling around, barking questions about what’s going on.

  There are shouts down the hall, and one of the gang members takes out his phone and turns on the flashlight, illuminating the cell. He swings it toward the open cell door and leans forward to peer harder.

  I hear men shouting from somewhere outside my cell. Demands to start the generator, more shouts to guard the prisoner. and to get Mejia to safety.

  Inside the cell, one of the thugs questions if this could be a rival gang—the Revolucionarios—and that had not crossed my mind. I had hoped this was a CIA rescue team, but the most obvious threat would be a rival gang here to steal the weapons stashed inside.

  The outer hallway is pitch-black, but I can hear booted feet running this way. I’m positive it’s the guard who’s been patrolling outside my cell since I was brought here. Through the shouts in the main warehouse and the grumbling inside my cell by the confused gang members, I think I hear a soft whiffing sound and then the distinct thud of a body hitting the ground. The guard isn’t running this way anymore.