Amy walked with the Saint Squad toward the flight deck. She didn’t have to tell her husband how apprehensive she felt about this mission. He hadn’t said the words, but she knew he shared her feelings. He hadn’t even argued when she had insisted on getting permission for a situation report after they’d made their drop zone.
For years, Morenta had been a target of interest for the United States and for this squad in particular. Vanessa and Seth had firsthand knowledge of the man from an undercover assignment they had shared together, and both had expressed similar opinions of him.
He had no respect for life, and he would eliminate anything or anyone who got in his way. He was also inherently paranoid. It was this quality that made Amy uneasy now. Why would a man who went to such great lengths to ensure his personal security choose to meet with potential business associates in a regular hotel room?
Amy had gone over the intelligence reports herself and couldn’t fault the sources. Several telephone intercepts supported the findings, as did local reports that included a sighting of Morenta’s private plane at an airstrip outside of Maracaibo.
Everything lined up, yet she couldn’t shake her uneasy feeling.
She watched the men check their weapons before they crossed to the helicopter that would take them to their destination. When a commander intercepted the men at the landing pad, they spoke for a moment and then all headed toward her. A silent prayer went through her head that they would tell her the mission had been scrubbed.
“What’s going on?” she asked when Brent reached her.
“Our pilot is sick. They bumped us back an hour while we wait for the replacement to be briefed.”
Amy fell silent.
As though reading her thoughts, he put a hand on her arm and leaned close so only she could hear him. “Don’t worry. I’ll be sure to check in.”
“And you’ll follow Saint Squad protocol.”
“You know I will.”
“Okay.” Amy huffed out a breath and bit her tongue to keep from saying what she was really thinking. She knew it was taboo to express negative thoughts before sending men into a danger zone, but she suspected that if she did, she would be voicing everyone else’s thoughts. She didn’t feel good about this mission.
* * *
Brent used his night-vision goggles to study the terrain in the clearing and the high cliffs in the distance. Nothing about the area looked like the photos he had seen of their intended landing zone.
“Jay, check our position.”
Jay checked his equipment, fiddling with it while Quinn and Tristan fanned out to make sure they were really alone.
“Well?” Brent asked impatiently.
“Something’s wrong. According to this, we’re fifty miles from the Brazilian border. We’re over a thousand miles from where we’re supposed to be.”
“What?” Brent stepped closer and checked the equipment himself. “That can’t be right. I verified the coordinates with the pilot myself.”
“Unless this equipment is wrong, we were dropped in the wrong place.”
“Seth, call in our position and verify our drop site.”
“Roger that.” Seth switched his comm gear to the proper frequency, and his expression changed from businesslike to irritated. “My comm gear is down.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Seth shook his head.
Without waiting to be told, Jay tried his communication gear only to find that his too was faulty. “Mine’s bad too.”
Quinn and Tristan checked their equipment in turn. Both men shook their heads, annoyance evident on Quinn’s face, concern flickering across Tristan’s.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Tristan said. “I checked my gear twice before we loaded everything on the helicopter.”
“You think someone switched it?” Brent asked, already confirming that his communication gear wasn’t functioning.
“That’s exactly what I think,” Tristan said. He looked up at the cliffs. “Unless there’s some kind of jamming signal nearby.”
“We’re sitting ducks here.” Brent looked around the clearing, where their transport helicopter had dropped them. “Quinn, take point. Head for the trees to the left. Once we take cover, I want an equipment check. Let’s see what works and what doesn’t.”
Quinn took his position, and the five men spread out, alert for any movement around them. Using the darkness for cover, they headed into the jungle.
Five hundred yards into the depths of the trees, Brent chose a small clearing to reassess their situation. He signaled Tristan and Jay to take up guard positions opposite him, the three of them creating a triangle. Seth and Quinn began taking inventory, checking their own gear first.
After they finished, Quinn traded places with Tristan, and Seth headed toward Brent.
“Well?” Brent asked.
“Someone did mess with our gear. All of the communications gear was sabotaged, and our emergency transponders are missing.”
“You think someone deliberately dumped us here in the middle of nowhere and made sure we wouldn’t be found?”
“That’s exactly what I think.” Seth took a guard-like stance so Brent could check his own gear.
Sure enough, his emergency beacon was missing, and he could see where someone had taken a knife to his comm unit. “This is insane. Who would have been able to access all of our gear and then manage to leave us so far away from our target?”
“I don’t know. Everything was secured and stowed this morning when we went to our briefing. Only the flight crew would have had access to it,” Seth said. “The only equipment we checked out after we stowed the rest of our gear was our weapons.”
“Which means we have to assume everything in our vests could be compromised. Even food and water.”
Seth nodded. “And since we’re supposed to maintain radio silence, it could be days before anyone realizes we’re missing.”
“Not exactly,” Brent said.
“What do you mean?”
“Amy cleared it for me to check in as soon as we made our landing site. When that doesn’t happen, you can be sure she’ll start digging.” Brent was suddenly grateful that his wife had come aboard ship with his squad. They had been there only one night to prep the mission, but after an intelligence error a couple years earlier, they rarely left Amy behind.
“If Amy’s expecting a sit rep, we should probably stay near the drop site. As soon as she questions the pilot, she’ll know where we are.”
“Unless he’s the one behind all of this,” Brent said. “Think about it. He had complete access to our gear after it was loaded, and he is the one who dropped us off at the wrong site.”
“He also wasn’t originally scheduled to fly us. It’s possible he slipped something to our original pilot so he could take the flight,” Tristan said.
“In which case, we’re wasting our time if we just wait here.”
“We’ll give it twenty-four hours. If someone doesn’t show up to get us by then, we have to assume we’re on our own to get out of here.” Brent walked over to Tristan, who was putting his combat vest back in order. “Tristan, you and Quinn sweep the area to make sure we’re really alone out here, and see if you can find a freshwater source. Jay can set up camp while Seth sees if there’s any way to get a message out.”
“Got it.”
As soon as Tristan and Quinn disappeared into the foliage, Seth voiced the thought that was burning in the back of Brent’s mind. “What do you think? Who would want us stranded out here? And why?”
“I wish I knew.”
* * *
He waited in the shadows of the cargo hold, pleased to find himself alone. The hatch opened, the light from the hallway illuminating the outline of the man he was waiting for. The helicopter pilot walked inside and turned in a circle. The lieutenant’s voice was low when he called out, whispering his name.
Stepping forward, he too kept his voice low. “Were you successful?”
He jumped slightly at the sound of the voice, but he recovered quickly. “Yes, sir. I dropped them right where you told me, and their communication gear is all disabled.”
He smiled at being called “sir.” The pilot was around thirty, around the same age as he was. Leave it to the military guys to be polite, even when betraying their fellow servicemen. “And you’re sure there’s no way they can get a message out?”
“Positive. That whole area is nothing but wilderness except for a couple of primitive native tribes. Even those are a good forty miles from where I dropped them.”
“Excellent.”
“Now, about my payment. You said the other half would be wired to my account as soon as I completed my part of this.”
“I’ll take care of it before the day is over.” When the pilot turned to leave, he reached into the back of his waistband. “Oh, and one more thing, Lieutenant.”
“Yes?” The lieutenant started to turn but didn’t get the chance to fully face him before a knife stabbed him between the ribs in his back.
“Never turn your back on people unless you know you can trust them.” He stabbed the pilot a second time, this time making sure he pierced the heart. Straightening, he wiped off the blade and let it clatter to the floor.
After a quick detour to change his clothes, he crept along the edge of the fantail, made sure no one was around, and dropped his bloodstained clothes and gloves into the water below.
In the darkness, he couldn’t see the tightly wound bundle hit the water. He was a little disappointed not to have the satisfaction of watching the evidence against him sink into the depths of the ocean. But he indulged himself for a minute or two, staring out into the darkness and checking off yet another item on his mental list of tasks to accomplish along his road to success.
Just another few steps and everything he wanted would be within his reach.