MONTERREY, MEXICO
This wasn’t her first rodeo.
This wasn’t the first time she had been surrounded, outnumbered, and on the verge of succumbing to a relentless enemy closing in, tightening the noose.
This wasn’t the first time everyone around her perished while she fought back, unwilling to stop, not knowing how to quit, refusing to let fate claim her life without a fight.
And Monica did fight, just as she had done everywhere she’d ended up, from the mountains of Kabul to the deserts of Iraq, from the streets of East Los Angeles to the bazaars of Islamabad—even in that stupid bar in Scottsdale.
The MP7A1’s hot muzzle coiled smoke as she controlled and directed fire only at sure targets: cartel soldiers emerging single file through the access door.
She focused on this choke point, her final stand on this rooftop she was forced to defend in a country not her own, in a war not of her choosing. But one she was determined to finish tonight, one way or the other.
She was wondering where the hell Ryan and Stark were as spent casings landed in pairs three feet to her right and back, littering the white gravel floor of her Alamo, her line in the sand.
Monica concentrated her energy on that narrow doorway, where the enemy’s numbers meant nothing, where she could control the fight—for as long as her ammunition lasted.
She dropped the MP7A1’s spent magazine, keeping the weapon trained at her target, and inserted her last one. She paused sporadically, making it last as long as possible, forcing the enemy to remain hidden within the shadows of the stairwell, waiting her out, believing time was on their side.
She had learned in Afghanistan not to count bodies unless they were friendly, but rather to be aware of how many rounds you were firing. In her current situation, where she was outnumbered, how many rounds she had left versus how many assholes were trying to kill her … well, that she understood.
No anxiety, just methodical movement: up, down, sideways, crouching, lying flat—she was trying not to shoot from the same position, changing after each engagement.
The cartel’s men were trying to move out beyond the doorway, trying to pin her down. She estimated there were at least twenty of them when the fight started, which meant they still had at least ten or so able to—
A man rushed out, MAC-10 in hand, firing blindly.
Monica put him down with a headshot just as her left shoulder suddenly stung, the momentum of the bullet’s impact spinning her around.
“Aghh!” she screamed in pain as she fell, as she heard Ryan calling her through the earpiece.
* * *
“Cruz, pick up! Cruz, status! Monica!” Ryan shouted as Larson pulled over to drop him off.
“Sounds like they got her,” Stark said.
Ryan ripped the headset off his head. “Damn it!” he shouted to no one, flinging the door open while Larson was still slowing down. “We need to be there now!”
“My bet’s she’s down but not out,” said Stark. “Now get the hell up that building!”
* * *
Still holding the MP7A1, Monica tore off her sleeve and frowned at the chunk of flesh missing from her shoulder.
Missed the bone.
Two things filled her mind in the following second, as blood spewed from the wound: inevitability—too many trained men with lots of guns against her—and anger that they got her.
The hit would slow her down.
She reacted by tossing a grenade at the entrance to buy herself a few seconds.
Reaching in her vest, she grabbed an emergency pack.
She squirted a combination of honey and an antibiotic cream with a bonding agent right into the flesh wound, before slapping an adhesive tape … no time for anything else.
She knew she could be in shock soon, and that the next one that hit her could be the end.
So fuck these assholes, and fuck Stark and Ryan for not getting here soon enough.
Keeping the MP7A1 focused on the doorway, she rolled to a new vantage point.
She might be going down, but not without a fight, and she still had plenty of that in her.
* * *
Sniper rifle strapped across his back, Ryan was out and running into a dark alley. The Humvee’s tires burned asphalt while it fishtailed, accelerating toward the gunshots echoing in the distance, suggesting that perhaps Stark was right. Perhaps Monica was still in the fight.
He drew his custom Colt .45-caliber pistol that was standard issue to Delta Force operators and pointed it at the closest window of the tall apartment building.
Pulling the trigger, he was inside in seconds, taking the stairs two at a time.
He needed the fourth floor, now—and needed to be shooting in less than twenty seconds in order to make a difference. While in the car he had checked his batteries for the radio, ammo, primary and backup weapons, and small medical kit.
Ryan shot the door handle and lock of the nearest north-facing apartment on the fourth floor and kicked it in.
No one screamed, which he hoped meant the apartment was not occupied.
Rushing straight into the small dining room, he removed his backpack, rifle, and shooting pad. He pulled the table back from the window, quickly opened it, had his earplugs already in, and he could see weapons flashes on the distant rooftop.
Quickly sighting targets that were 1,100 yards from him, he exhaled, relaxed, and began.
* * *
Three hundred yards out from Cruz’s building, all the doors swung open.
Stark’s team hit the ground almost as one, weapons up, rounds always chambered, safeties off, and muzzles following the eyes. Trotting forward in tandem, they moved to the sound of gunfire.
All heard the MAC-10’s distinct sound and one MP7A1. They all knew the latter belonged to Cruz.
They did not stop—did not hesitate. Hagen was point, closely followed by Danny Martin and Larson, with Stark bringing up the rear, shifting his weapon in every direction.
One hundred yards and closing.
The sound of a .50-caliber round going over your head was unmistakable, the air being parted by 660 grains of mayhem.
It was followed by “Three one way,” which was Ryan Hunt’s way of alerting all that he was in position and doing all he could do to make a difference in the fight.
His second round rode in the same air space, then a third, with remarkably short time between each trigger pull.
* * *
Her MP7A1 finally ran dry, but three rounds from somewhere behind her hammered the doorway, keeping the cartel soldiers inside.
Ryan!
Dropping the rifle, she clutched the Glock 22, her back to the wall. Steadying her weapon on her bent knee, she pointed it at the opening, aware of her fate if anyone made it through the choke point and into the open.
They would flank her, surround her, trap her—and hurt her real bad before killing her in an even worse way.
Monica had heard their threats, their warnings, bellowed in the streets and from the confines of that stairwell. She knew they were not empty words, that they meant everything they shouted.
So she kept careful track of her ammunition while using the cover of a large AC compressor. From this vantage point she emptied her first magazine of .40-caliber Smith & Wesson hollow points, placing them exactly in the middle of that doorway.
She fired one every four to five seconds, like granules of sand squeezing through the hourglass, counting down to her impending demise. There was no place to run, no place to hide, no higher ground to reach.
Two more rounds blasted the doorway.
Ryan again. He was helping. But would it be enough? She really needed Stark and team here. Now. Coming up behind those assholes in the stairwell.
She dropped the spent magazine and inserted another one within her five-second window, sustaining her rate of fire. She protected her safety zone for as long as she could, round after round, recoil after recoil. Ryan fired sporadically as well.
But the numbers didn’t add up.
The slide ejected the last spent casing, and she dropped the empty magazine and inserted her final ten rounds.
Bracing herself for what could be the last minute of her life, she counted them slowly, trigger pull after trigger pull, knowing she would have to stop on nine.
She could only fire nine.
The last one would be for her, to leave as little of her head as possible for those bastards to put on one of their fucking sticks.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Monica suddenly paused, lips compressed, her shooting eye fixated on the sights centered on that rectangle of darkness, choosing to wait, to try to bait them.
If she could make them think she was out—
A shadow shifted from within, a hand, in and out before she could react, tossing a canister, blue smoke oozing from it as it rolled away from the doorway.
Damn.
Three men emerged, short, dark, agile, clutching MAC-10s, swinging them in her direction while shooting blindly.
Before she could fire, a round found the lead cartel man, taking out half his back, almost cutting him in half. Then the head of one of his shooting partners disappeared next. The third one’s right leg was severed at the hip just a few feet from her; he bled out in seconds, lips moaning a prayer only he could hear.
Go Ryan!
She tried to fire as a fourth figure tried his luck beyond the door, but his head exploded in a burst of crimson splattering the door frame. He dropped from view, but not before releasing two more smoke grenades.
Damn, she thought, realizing that the smoke would likely block Ryan’s line of sight.
Focusing her attention back to the doorway, she peered through the thickening smoke oozing from the canisters, but two figures had already run outside.
Before she could react, they leaped over their fallen comrades and spread out, one right, the other left, enveloped by smoke, invisible to Ryan, just as she had feared.
Four rounds left.
Probably at least ten men hiding in the stairwell.
Impossible math.
Plus they were about to place her in their cross fire.
Momentarily ignoring the two on the rooftop, she watched as two more men attempted the same feat, and she fired three times. Three shots. Two kills.
The rest remained huddled in the darkness, beyond the smoke and the doorway.
A distant gunshot and a man screamed to her far left—Ryan taking out one of the cartel men riding the periphery of the cloud while trying to flank her.
Good, but not good enough.
She only had one bullet left, and she had a decision to make: eat it, or …
Monica raced toward the doorway, using the bluish haze to her advantage to hide from the one still alive on the rooftop searching for a safe vantage point.
Trained fingers pulled the safety pin of her final M84 grenade as she cruised through the protection of this sapphire cloud, counting to three before pitching the flashbanger into the open doorway.
Hiding around the corner, her back pressed against the wall, she waited.
The pyrotechnic boomed inside the enclosure, its walls amplifying its effect.
She sprinted into the darkness a second after it went off, smoke and the smell of cordite engulfing her. Holstering her Glock, she grabbed the MAC10s from two of the dead men piled up by the entrance.
The interior still echoed from the blast, mixed with the cries of men scattered down the staircase.
Monica fired indiscriminately, first at the floor, ripping through the fallen cartel men, and then into the stairwell, clearing her way to—
The cylindrical object flung up from beyond the landing at the bottom of the flight of stairs skittered toward her.
Monica backed away from the concussion grenade, trying to distance herself, reaching the top of the landing, the doorway.
The blast pushed her out into the hazy rooftop, punching her squarely in the middle of her vest with savage force.
She landed on her back against the gravel. Stunned and disoriented, she felt dizzy and nauseous at the taste of her own medicine.
* * *
Stark’s team reached the building with precision and coordination. But then Ryan’s voice broke their tactical silence.
“I don’t have eyes on her anymore! Rooftop full of smoke—and full of cartel!”
Just then they heard another grenade go off above them.
Hagen suddenly shot up the stairs, leaping them three at a time, vanishing from sight as Larson, Martin, and Stark struggled to keep up with the nimble former SEAL.
* * *
Rolling over, thick smoke blinding her, Monica started to vomit, catching a brief glimpse of a boot swinging toward her.
It hit her in the gut, powerful, lifting her light frame, flipping her in midair, tossing her into the bodies of those she had just killed.
“Puta!”
The curse was distant, muffled by the intense ringing from the concussion grenade, muted by the pain raking her.
She curled up, hugging her stomach, eyes closed in agony.
A second kick against her torso nearly made her lose control of her bladder as she rolled away from the impact.
She tried to scream but the blow had just taken the wind out of her.
Somehow she managed to reach for her Glock, fingers wrapping automatically around the handle, freeing it from the holster, aiming it not at the incoming figures but her right temple.
She squeezed the trigger, but not before another boot kicked her shooting hand up. The round was deafening, hammering her eardrums, but it struck metal behind her.
A powerful slap followed, nearly tearing her head from her shoulders.
“That would be too easy, Miss FBI,” came a familiar voice through the thick smoke as someone kicked the Glock she still clutched.
Alfonso.
She jerked her empty shooting hand back, throbbing from the blow, fingers trembling. The coppery taste of her own blood filled her mouth. A massive headache clouded her thoughts. Monica tried to see him but couldn’t through the haze and the tears blurring her world.
But she still recognized his figure looming over her, leaning down. She could smell his stinking breath as he cupped her face with his left hand and forced her to look at the sharp wooden stick he held in his right hand.
“Before we fuck you with this, you should know that my boss and our friends from Pakistan are boarding a plane to Texas within the hour.”
Unseen hands pulled down her pants, and she kicked and screamed.
Someone slapped her across the face again, the strike overpowering. Punch-drunk, unable to speak or cry out, she tried to fight the dark figures holding her down. But they kept her back against the gravel while Alfonso positioned the stick in between her thighs.
Just before gunfire erupted all around her.
* * *
Stark followed Danny and Larson onto the rooftop, but the clearing smoke revealed that the firefight was already over.
Though someone had to inform Hagen.
Surrounded by dead cartel bodies, the former Navy SEAL stood above the body of a man next to Monica. Hagen was stabbing him repeatedly with a spearlike wooden stick.
“Chief,” Stark said, tilting his head toward Hagen. “You mind?”
Larson shrugged and began to talk Hagen off the corpse as Stark and Danny knelt by Monica’s side and pulled up her pants.
* * *
The faces came in and out of focus. There one moment and gone the next.
She felt their hands on her, lifting her, carrying her across the rooftop, down the stairs, and into the back of a large vehicle.
She tried to move but everything hurt, her ribs protesting even the slightest motion as she lay there facing the ceiling of an SUV accelerating in the night.
But somewhere in the twilight surrounding her, somewhere beyond the pounding headache and the shifting shadows of streetlights forking through side windows, she thought she saw his face.
The camouflage cream covered features that could not be hidden—not from her. She recognized his prominent cheekbones, his strong chin, aquiline nose, and the green eyes that had captivated her a lifetime ago in Arizona.
“Hey,” was all he said.
Her lips parted but she could not produce a sound as her thoughts, her vision—everything started to go dark.
But she couldn’t afford to pass out again, not now, not while those bastards were headed for an airfield.
Mustering savage control, Monica found the strength to say, “Ryan … the terrorists … north … airfield to fly to … Texas.”