“Get to the exfil location!”
Rome must have been in the lead, jogging through the jungle. Tanner was next, then the husband and wife, and Luis carrying the kid. Concord and Fields took positions at the rear and fired back at the cartel assholes who had just got fucked out of the ransom.
The clients slowed, the husband and wife not up to sustaining this kind of pace, but Tanner kept up with Rome. Gunfire came out of the jungle to the left, and Luis yelled for them to follow him. He took the kid and ran down a game trail.
Fuck.
Tanner turned when he heard the gunshots and Luis’s yell. He laid down fire before going after them. Tanner yelled and Luis turned his head, missing what he should have seen right in front of him.
I watched on both feeds simultaneously as the unthinkable happened. Luis went over the edge of some kind of hole. A sinkhole?
The kid screamed and Luis cursed. His feed went black.
Tanner’s camera caught the wife as she threw herself over the edge after them. The husband yelled out in agony as Tanner bolted toward her, but was too late. When Tanner looked over the edge, three bodies lay at the bottom of a gaping hole in the jungle floor.
“LP is down. So are packages two and three. I repeat, LP is down, so are packages two and three.”
The cartel reloaded and sprayed bullets in Tanner’s direction. He dived at the husband and covered him.
“I’m hit!” he yelled, but it didn’t stop him from firing back.
Concord, Fields, and Rome came into view, firing and eliminating the threat.
Speakers above me announced my flight was boarding, but I couldn’t move.
Two clients and Luis. Tanner got hit.
I should have been there.
It should have been me. I wouldn’t have let this happen.
I waited for the last call for boarding because I had to force myself to watch as Rome and Concord rappelled down to retrieve the bodies.
I shouldn’t have left my team.
I walked out on them, and for the first time in the history of Rome’s outfit, they lost not one but three lives on a mission. None of the team came out and said it was my fault, but I shouldered the blame all the same.
Rome gave me three weeks before he asked when I was coming back in the field. When I told him never, he was stunned at first, but I think he finally understood. I didn’t deserve to be there with them.
So I sentenced myself to purgatory, watching over missions and handling everything that needed to be covered from the States.
Tanner called. Concord called. Fields called.
I didn’t pick up any of them. I knew they’d just want me to come back, and I couldn’t.
*
Present day
Rome probably shouldn’t have answered my call just now, but I’m thanking God he did.
It’s time I make peace with all of it, but first, I need Kat.
Genie-in-a-bottle island. I don’t know what the hell that means, and my only shot is finding a local who does. Belizeans have fished these waters for generations, and plenty of them know all the islands by name.
I pick out the nearest island with the most lights, and move in. It’s not Sweet Water, though. The resort must be close, but I’m not going back there. There’s no telling how many of the employees are in on it, and I wouldn’t trust them to tell me where anything is, even with a gun to their heads.
I throttle back the engine as a large bright yellow vacation house on stilts with white trim and a red tile roof comes into view. Dozens of solar lights illuminate both the main house and a smaller matching caretaker house sitting about fifty feet from the dock, where a boat like the one I’m driving is tied up.
Someone is definitely here, and I’d lay money on it being the caretaker and not the owners, given that it’s low season. You can’t have an island in these parts without a caretaker if you want to make sure what you leave on the island is still there when you get back.
I rev the engine to hopefully wake whoever is in the smaller house. When I approach the dock, a set of motion lights come on at the end.
The interior of my boat is lit up, revealing splatters and smears of blood, as well as the asshole’s hat that escaped the carnage.
I reach for the hat and pull it on before picking up the line attached to the stern and pulling closer to the moored skiff.
“Hey! Hey! You better not be fucking stealing anything out of my boat. I got a gun.” A man bursts out of the caretaker house and jogs down the dock, the gun he warned me about in his hand.
I turn the boat so the side with the name and the engine slide through the shafts of light. Not only do locals know the islands, they know the boats by sight too. It’s a gamble, but one that pays off.
“Ricardo, that you? What the fuck you doing out here in the middle of the goddamned night? Don’t tell me you’re trying to find packages in the water again. You were supposed to tell me when the runs were happening. We agreed we’d split whatever you found.” Under his breath, he mumbles fucking asshole.
His little speech tells me a hell of a lot about the man I killed and the one approaching me. Both are willing to do whatever they have to do for money. I don’t fault either man for eking out a living in a country where poverty is endemic, but I do fault them for crossing the line into human trafficking. Those fuckers can go straight to hell.
I shift into phase two of my plan by tossing him the stern line. He catches it and pulls me in. Too close, and he’ll realize I’m not Ricardo.
“If we’re gonna go chasin’ drug runners around, I need my shit. Some warning woulda been nice.”
With both hands, I yank the stern line back and the man loses his balance, falling forward off the dock and landing half in and half out of the boat. His gun clatters across the fiberglass floor.
“What the—”
Jumping over to where he landed, I grip him by the collar of his shirt, jerk him up, and deliver a right cross to his jaw. His entire body goes limp.