Unbound Pursuit (11 page)

More than anything, Wyatt didn’t want this to escalate into a shoot-out. Mark might have taken a dark route in his life for whatever unknown reasons, but Wyatt didn’t want to see him killed. He wondered what Sage knew and didn’t know. Wyatt doubted Mark would ever tell her anything that might make her an accessory to Cardona’s cartel. He would protect his sister instead, just as he had while growing up. Wyatt’s mind skipped over so many aspects of this cobbled-together op. He wondered about the training of the people around him. When was the last time they’d been to a shooting range to keep up their muscle memory on the weapons they carried? How good, or not, was Commander Watson? Wyatt already had doubts about the commander and didn’t know any of his teammates, and that bothered him. At least in a SEAL team everyone was highly trained in a particular function, like an efficient machine. And they knew each other well and could rely on each other. Wyatt didn’t expect that kind of action from this hastily assembled group. He was sure their intent was good, but that didn’t make them good marksmen or even good team members out on an op like this.

He knew this mission could go south in a lot of unexpected ways.

His radio came to life. It was Watson.

“Drone with infrared has gotten its first look into that container truck. It appears to have sixty to eighty people within it. Repeat, a high number of people inside that eighteen-wheeler. We think it’s children and teenagers who have probably been captured by Cardona’s soldiers for sex trafficking.”

Great.
Wyatt wished he could head up this op, but the DEA was in charge and they wouldn’t want an ex-SEAL butting in and giving his two cents’ worth on how to safely run it. As a chief in the Navy, he had been a mission planner for SEAL direct actions and other types of missions. It was his forte. If Watson didn’t change the plan right now, it could put those kidnapped children who were shoved and crowded into that truck in the path of flying bullets. At least the commander had taken his suggestion to shoot at the tires on all the vehicles instead of aiming for the drivers. His stomach tightened. Would Mark be expecting an ambush? He wished he knew. Had Sage warned him? God, he hoped so. He worried that some of these agents would get trigger-happy. Not all federal agents had military experience or a military-trained mind-set. SEALs waited and were patient, allowing a situation to develop fully before initiating a reaction. His intuition told him that this op wasn’t going to be very neat, clean, or organized. And that put those kidnapped children at serious risk. Not to mention the agents. His mouth tightened and thinned.

Commander Watson came on the radio again. “Hold fire until my order. Repeat, hold fire until my order.”

Wyatt breathed a little easier. But who said could say whether Watson knew when to pull the trigger?

Wyatt’s thoughts touched upon his sister Mattie. He gave her credit. She didn’t slink off to her room while this mission was set up at their ranch. He knew she was torn up over Mark’s unexpected appearance in her life once more, but Mattie had been present at the ranch house and helped in any way she could as this mission came together. He knew she was suffering badly, but she shoved it deep inside herself and stood up and was counted. He loved Mattie fiercely and wished he could give her some of his rhino hide, which enabled him to handle damn near anything and keep on truckin’. Or give her some of Tal’s inner toughness, along with a greater ability to see people’s deeper traits and scheming intents.

His gloves were on, but both index fingers—his shooting fingers—had no fabric around them. It made for a solid connection with his SIG’s trigger. As he rubbed his hands together, time began to lengthen and slow, something Wyatt was familiar with when an op was about to go down. His senses were opening up, that primal animal intuition that had saved his life so many times coming sharply alive. He could feel Tal, feel her worrying about him. He loved her.
It was a real cosmic joke
, he thought. After being at Bagram for years together, in different units, and always in combat one way or another, they’d come home thinking that finally, there would be peace and no more threats in their lives. And he’d brought this magnificent woman of his home to his family’s ranch, only to find himself in combat once again. Shaking his head, he released a long, slow breath.

He put his NVGs in place and flicked them on. Wyatt moved silently after telling the leader of the ambush where he was going, since he didn’t want to be mistaken as a drug runner on the loose later. He went farther north and away from the end of the U-shaped ambush. Slipping like a dark shadow between thickets, Wyatt heard Watson give the signal that the convoy was indeed making its way onto Rocking L land. It would be a matter of ten or fifteen minutes before the convoy reached their ambush site.

Wyatt knew at least one drone was following the convoy in. He didn’t know where the second one was located. Swiftly, he moved near the road, which was deeply rutted. There was no way that eighteen-wheeler would be racing through here, not with the road in such bad condition. It was going to have to go very slowly or it would tip over or crash. And with all those kids jammed into that truck, Wyatt doubted the driver would do something so stupid. The Cardona cartel wanted those children in perfect condition so they could be sold at auction for the highest possible price. No one bought a slave that was injured.

A hundred feet from the dirt road, behind a thicket, Wyatt waited. He could hear the vehicles coming. His breathing was slow and easy. Unlike the agents, his blood pressure level and breathing rate were normal. SEALs were trained to remain calm, relaxed, and alert, not get caught up in an adrenaline rush, which was distracting and could get someone killed. Wyatt saw that the Cardona vehicles had put tape over their headlights, so there were only two narrow beams to show them where the road was located. Wyatt’s full focus was on the black Jeep. Was it Mark Reuss driving? Or not? The Jeep sat high and the headlights, even though they were mere slits now, played hell with his NVGs. They wouldn’t work well in lightning or fluctuating light conditions such as these.

The Jeep was moving about ten miles per hour. Behind the Jeep was the trundling, groaning eighteen-wheeler. The deep ruts were slowing it down considerably, and the truck looked like a pregnant cow ready to birth a calf, moving awkwardly from side to side, sometimes tipping dangerously. Wyatt knew with sixty to eighty humans in that truck, the weight would shift enormously. The DEA wanted that truckload of children more than anything else.

And he wanted that lead Jeep. If Mark was driving it, he didn’t want anyone else shooting at him. There were ways to take his old friend alive. No one in this trap knew Wyatt’s relationship to Mark Reuss, and he wasn’t about to tell them, either. The man was definitely doing something bad, but his relationship with Mark was long and positive, despite tonight. Mark was like a brother to Wyatt, and it made his heart ache that he was in this position right now: the hunter stalking the predator. Mark hadn’t always been a predator. What Wyatt didn’t want to happen tonight was for his old friend to get killed. He wasn’t sure how it would affect Mattie if he did. But he felt deep down in his heart that it would destroy her. She had never stopped loving Mark, and, judging by the meeting he had with her two days ago, he still loved her in his own way.

The plan was for the agents to shoot out the tires on the eighteen-wheeler first. Wyatt thought it was a good plan except that if any one of those agents missed a tire, the bullet could fly across the road and create that friendly-fire situation he was worried about. Which is why he’d moved out of the zone of fire. He wasn’t about to become a friendly-fire casualty. Tal would kill him if he got injured.

It felt as if the night were holding its cold, freezing breath. Wyatt pulled out his SIG. It had no safety on it, and there was a bullet in the chamber. He aimed for the left front tire of the Jeep coming slowly toward him. He heard Watson give the command to fire from the line.

The night erupted, shattering the silence. Wyatt had a muzzle suppressor on his SIG. The other agents were firing rapidly and continuously at the truck and the vehicles behind it. Suddenly, two of the pickup trucks took off from behind the Jeep, leaping off the dirt road and roaring through the flat land that contained thickets and cactus. There was swift returning fire from all the trucks, the flashes of gunfire punching through the darkness.

Wyatt took aim and fired. A hit! The Jeep swerved to the left as the tire blew loudly.

A second shot to the right front tire. A hit!

Wyatt quickly took out the two rear tires.

A pickup gunned by the swerving Jeep as it nearly tipped over in one of the deep ruts, out of the control of the driver. Wyatt took aim at the driver of the truck, who was trying to escape. He could see it wasn’t Mark. He fired once.

The pickup careened at high speed, swerving sharply to the left, fifty feet away from Wyatt. Suddenly, it was airborne, flipping over in slow motion and landing heavily on its cab, upside down in the road, blocking the Jeep. Turning, Wyatt realized the Jeep was damn near on top of him. He leaped out of the thicket to the left, lunging for the ground and rolling away from the uncontrolled vehicle. Landing hard on his belly, he swiftly sprang to his feet, SIG ready, eyes on the Jeep.

Suddenly, inexplicably, Wyatt saw someone discharging his weapon
inside
the Jeep. The flash illuminated the interior of the vehicle. What the hell? He raced toward the vehicle as it crawled to a stop. Three men bailed out of it, one screaming out in Spanish that he was hit and then crumpling to the ground.

Wyatt was focused on the Jeep, on identifying Mark among the other passengers.

The man who had leaped out of the driver’s side of the Jeep aimed his Glock 18 right at Wyatt.

Before Wyatt could shoot, another man, behind the soldier, fired.

Wyatt heard a gurgle and a scream. Jerking a look to the left, not more than five feet away from him, was a drug soldier releasing the handgun he was carrying.

More gunfire erupted. Bullets went sailing by Wyatt’s head from two different directions. He lost sight of the passenger who had been in the front seat of the Jeep. Where the hell was he? Wyatt couldn’t identify if it was Mark or not. The flashes of gunfire were wreaking havoc on his night vision, but he had to wear the goggles or be in complete darkness. His vision was blown and he knelt, swiftly trying to take stock of where the other shooters were located. It was chaos and pandemonium.

Wyatt caught sight of two men running for a ravine on the slope near where the truck had flipped. They were trying to run, escape, and hide.

More shouts and gunfire took off behind him. Wyatt cursed softly, his ear filled with shouts, orders, and yelling from Watson and other agents on the same radio channel.
Fuck them.
He was going after the two soldiers who had just disappeared into that ravine ahead of him.

Wyatt jogged up to the overturned truck. He heard someone crying for help. Slowing, he saw that the passenger in the truck had been thrown half out of it and lay in the dirt. The man had no weapon on him. Wanting to get to the two cartel men who had escaped, Wyatt left him where he was and dug in the toes of his boots, sprinting as hard and fast as he could. That ravine was filled with cranky, thorny mesquite bushes. Those thorns would tear a man’s flesh open like a scalpel. He was glad he was wearing plenty of protective clothing.

The gunfire was slowly dying down behind him. He called to Watson, giving his location and telling him he was running after two drug soldiers who had escaped into the ravine a hundred feet beyond the flipped pickup. It sloped upward between two hills and opened up on top of them. Leaping over a small cactus, Wyatt crouched, running along the right sloped bank of the ravine. He could hear the two men crashing through the bushes, and he was going to outflank them. Breathing through his mouth, pumping his legs hard, digging into the rocky, thicket-strewn slope, Wyatt wanted to make it to the top of the ravine before the hidden figures within it. By running up the slope, he figured he would arrive at the top of it before they did. He knew this country well because he and Mark had hiked it with Sage and Mattie so many times as children.

Was Mark one of the two men in the ravine? His gut said yes. The higher he went up the slope, paralleling the mesquite-laden ravine, the less he heard the noise, shouts, and engines of vehicles where the DEA had stopped and trapped the rest of the convoy far below. The top of the ravine was a hundred feet above him. Wyatt heard a sinister click to his left. Instantly, he crouched, whirling around. In the darkness and shadows, he saw a drug soldier climbing out of the ravine, coming right at him. He fired before Wyatt could twist and turn to fire at the man. Simultaneously, gunfire erupted from the ravine at the drug soldier.

Wyatt got slammed in the chest with one bullet. Grunting, he was knocked back, the breath yanked out of him. He held on to his SIG as he flipped backward, slamming into the rocks, stunned momentarily.

The drug soldier coming out of the ravine toward him to finish him off was suddenly thrown six feet sideways. He screamed, dropped his weapon, collapsing into a heap, unmoving.

Wyatt lay on the ground, gasping for breath. The well-aimed bullet had hit him square in the chest, but the Kevlar had stopped it. Shaking his head, he rolled to the right, knowing another drug soldier was nearby. He couldn’t understand what was going on. The soldier crawling out of the ravine to shoot him had been shot by the other drug soldier who was in the ravine. Why the hell was he shooting his own man? Wyatt’s mind spun as he struggled to his hands and knees, his gun hand jamming into a cactus, the thorns ripping into his flesh.

“Where are you hit?”

Wyatt froze as he saw a tall, dark figure emerge from the ravine and come upon him, pistol in hand, no more than six feet from him. It was Mark Reuss! Wyatt could see the man’s gleaming, sweaty face. He was holding his left arm against his body, his Glock in his right hand, the muzzle remaining down, not pointing at Wyatt. Grunting, Wyatt wasn’t about to shoot Mark. He released his SIG.