Captured
Chapter Four
Go. Go go go go go! That’s it, go!
Val counted slowly to ten, desperately fighting the urge to take off running for the fence. The convoy was out of sight, but Serpientes patrols usually had their stragglers. Five. Six. Seven. Still no one, and the dust from the speeding jeeps was settling back to earth. Still, discipline was what would save her ass out here, not mindless panic. Eight. Nine.
“Ten,” she said, relieved that her luck was still holding up. She gave the package another quick pat on the lid and then slipped across the road.
“Bad news, boss.” Ellie entered the bunker and half-sat, half-fell into one of the open chairs by the ammo table. “Really bad news.”
“No bad news allowed, kid.” Jesse peered from the edge of the concrete mass, eyeing the jungle from one of the bunker’s many gun slits. “Oaks picked up a patrol about half a klick from here. Things could get ugly. Here.” She casually tossed her sidearm to the young medic, who only just managed to catch it before it landed hard on the concrete floor. “Get ready to hit the jungle. We’re protected in here, but if they surround us, we’re dead. Where’s Maria?”
“Sleeping.” Ellie examined her new weapon. Cleaned and loaded, the way Jesse liked. If anyone could get them out of this, it was their tough, no-nonsense leader. “Out by the transmitter. We took—”
“A nap, I know. I saw you two earlier.” Jesse moved from one gun port to the next, one hand on her rifle at all times. “Go wake her. Tell her to get ready. Both of you find Lauren and stock up on ammo. We might need to use all of it.”
“Okay.” Ellie was on her feet in an instant, her earlier drowsiness washed away. “On it.”
“And El?”
“Yeah?”
“What was the bad news you had?”
Ellie winced. “You’re not going to like this. We got a call from the extraction team...”
She counted four goons, clustered around their jeep and passing around what smelled like a cigar. Careless, reckless, and oblivious. Newbies to the Serpientes way of life, or just kicking back in the mistaken belief that their boss was still buried in the rubble of his palace. Either way, they’d normally be easy pickings for Val. The fact that she had a single handgun and five rounds of ammo to her name changed the odds a bit.
Only a bit.
She crept through the jungle undergrowth, head down, carefully deciding which branches could be safely tugged at without giving her away. Step, examine, tug, creep. Step, examine, tug, creep. It took only a few minutes to get into position. Thankfully, the tallest of the four men had decided to light yet another cigar. There were two stogies in orbit now, passing from hand to mouth to hand with regular frequency, and this seemed to relax the mercenaries even further. Their radio, which should have been broadcasting desperate appeals from El Víbora to track her down and eliminate her, was instead tuned to some kind of island oldies station. Warbling guitars drifted over the field and soothed her ears a bit.
Five bullets, four men.
She steadied her shooting hand with her left, squinting from the pain. Tessa should have dropped with one punch, especially given Val’s element of surprise, but the brainwashed doctor put up a surprisingly strong fight. Ignore the pain, Val. Look past the pain. Look beyond the pain.
She closed her eyes, and when she opened them, the pain was gone and the target was dead in her sights. She squeezed the trigger, and placed a shot directly at the center of the jeep’s gas-filled jerry can. Plunk.
There was a mad scramble of limbs and hastily recovered AK-47s and turning heads. Oddly enough, not a single man said a word, or even shouted, at least until Val’s second shot found it’s mark. Then the tall goon screamed and fell backwards onto the ground, his eyes following the trajectory of his severed fingers and the cigar that they once held. He had just enough time to watch them land in the newly-formed puddle beneath the ruptured jerry can before the billowing fireball that followed reduced him, and his friends, to ash.
Val grinned, walking away from the burning jeep and feeling very much like a Hollywood action hero. After a few moments of indulgence, she thought the better of it, and darted back into the safety of the jungle.
“Well that’s bullshit.” Oaks lashed out at an empty chair and sent it spinning into a corner. “What the fuck are we supposed to do until then? Build a campfire? Roast marshmallows?”
“Control always fucks everything up,” said Sars. “Always.”
The two of them made for an odd couple—Oaks, tall and beautiful, a former model, a daughter of Miss Oakland Nineteen Eighty-Something, looming over the short and powerful Sars, the fighter known for breaking necks and crushing windpipes. Teammates or not, Ellie found herself fearfully edging away from both of them. “I’m sorry, you guys. They said they’ll be in position when we’re ready to go in.” She searched for a sign of understanding from Oaks or Sars, or even Jesse, and got none. “Guess they didn’t expect this much heat coming in.”
“I told them this was a hornet’s nest,” said Jesse. Her eyes were cold and emotionless. “But that’s worth fuckshit now. Pack up and prepare to move out. Ellie? Wake Maria. Oaks? Find us a way up the coast. Tanya, Sars, Lauren? With me.”
Ellie allowed herself to slip away, glad to be free of a tense situation for a moment. The cooling jungle air offered refreshment and, after she thought about it, the smell of hope. As long as they were in the jungle, and not handcuffed in the back of a truck or dead, there was hope.
I will do what I am told.
She shook her sleeping teammate until Maria’s eyes fluttered open. “Hey, Mar. Wake up.”
“Nnnn...” The brunette stirred and stretched. “Did I fall asleep? I don’t remem—”
“Maria obeys her master.”
“Yes. I obey.”
“Whatcha thinking about, Tanya?”
The blonde maintained her careful pace, even as her eyes drifted away from the trail and towards the deep green jungle beyond. “Eyes,” she said. “Eyes. Can’t get them out of my head.”
“Well, better eyes than what’s out there waiting for us.” Lauren picked up her pace until she was directly trailing Tanya. “Kind of a weird thing to be thinking about, though.”
“I know, right?” They came to a clearing and, following Jesse’s lead, made a sharp right to stay hidden from any roving patrols. “When I got cut off from you guys... it’s weird. I have this memory of eyes. Staring at me. Staring through me. Almost like a vampire. Melting my willpower. And then suddenly Ellie and Val were there to rescue me.” She pushed through a thicket of ferns, taking care to keep the larger branches from snapping back into Lauren’s legs. “I dunno. I was pretty exhausted by that point.“
“I’m exhausted now, Lauren sighed, taking a moment to brush her long auburn hair away from her face. “If those dicks show up before we make the rendezvous, I’m half-tempted to just give in and surrender. Only if they gave me a cot, though. None of that sleeping on the concrete floor shit.“
Submit. Serve. Obey. Eyes. Eyes. Eyes. Eyes. “Yeah, I guess.“
Tanya shook her head, and the eyes mercifully went away.
“Bitch. You take another step and you’re dead. Understood?”
She took another very deliberate step forward, swaying her hips and burning his eyebrows with her sultry, come hither eyes. “I’m just a girl lost in the woods, Mac. Can I call you Mac? With that sexy accent of yours?”
He raised his rifle for emphasis, but his eyes told a different story. They were indecisive. He’d never killed a woman before. Or anyone from close range, most likely. Just another kid swayed by the promise of a tough-guy job that paid easy money. “Drop the package and drop to the ground,” he said, his voice as uncertain as his expression. “Or... else.”
Val smiled, as if he’d just offered to take her out to dinner. “Whatever you say, Mac.” She bent forward and set the package on the ground, keeping her legs and arms apart, making sure that he got more than an eyeful of her generous cleavage.
His eyes—and his rifle—dropped just a bit. Just enough.
In an instant she was in motion, putting years of college gymnastics into practice as she tumbled into a forward roll. She aimed her feet at Mac’s rifle and connected easily, pushing it to the ground before he had time to pull the trigger. A half-second later she was standing inches from his face and polishing her fists against it, connecting again and again until he dropped into a tangled heap of twisted arms and legs.
“Nightie night, Mac.” She delivered a solid kick to his midsection for emphasis. She retrieved the package and gave it another lucky pat on the lid. “This thing is my good luck charm today.” A quick glance at her compass and she was off again.
“Alright. Check us out, ladies! We managed to get all the way up the coast without a single fucking scratch.” Jesse set her pack on the ground and placed her hands on her hips, feeling very proud of herself and her compatriots. “Maria. What’s the word on our pickup?”
Submit. Betray. Deceive. “About sixty minutes, Jesse.” The brunette was already setting up her field radio, raising the antenna and fiddling with dials. “We’ve still got power but not much range on this thing. They’ll have to get close in before we’ll know they’re here.“
“Good enough.” Jesse looked around. They new hideout was nothing like the WWII bunker at Esqueleto Point, but it would do in a pinch. It provided good cover, good shelter, and—if need be—several ways to make a hasty retreat. “Everyone keep a sharp eye out for patrols. Maria, keep your ears glued to that radio at all times. Sars, keep that flare gun in your hand. The second we get a buzz, we’re out of here. Everyone feeling good?”
The general consensus was yes. Jesse herself seemed to be the lone holdout.
Val made it to her destination on one piece. That was the first half of the battle. The other half was staying low and undetected until, with any hope, she could raise a signal and get herself off of Shithole Island.
The approach was easy enough. Whoever had last used this place—probably not the Serpientes, given the dirt and dust on everything, but who really knew—had left plenty of convenient crates and boxes and abandoned vehicles to crouch behind. Val darted from one to the next, feeling very much a character in her favorite video game, until she reached an ancient-looking wall made from rough lumps of volcanic rock. She pressed against it, ignoring the scratches it left in her arms and legs. There was a person crouched against the other side of the wall.
Wait Val, wait. She sniffed the air and gave her ears time to process the sounds coming from her opponent. The person was muttering something, banging and tapping on something metallic. Distracted. The tone of the voice sounded female, not that it really made much of a difference out here in the jungle. Mercs of either sex were just as deadly, especially towards a commando armed only with a handgun and only three bullets.
Val gathered her strength, letting it pool in her calves. She pulled out her pistol and counted to ten.
“Stupid stupid stupid.” Maria looked over the radio for the tenth time, still seeing nothing amiss. Everything should have been working, and yet, the radio wasn’t. Not anything approaching its design specs, anyway. The signal strength was too low given the fact that they were right on the edge of a fucking cliff overlooking the fucking ocean, and there as no clear reason for it, other than their abysmal luck on this mission. First Tanya, then Val, then the extraction team. Everything was fucked. If she could fix the-
There is nothing wrong with the radio, Maria. You will remember this and obey.
-position correctly, the extraction team would be able to zoom in on them in an instant. She turned away from the radio and got to work on triangulating their exact location.
She was still working on the numbers when something wrapped around her and pulled her to the ground with a stomach-jarring thud. She reached for her sidearm, only to have a knee rudely and painful pin her arm to the dirt. A fist plunged into her back, expelling their air from her lungs with a strained oooohhhhfff. A hand wrapped itself around her long brown hair and lifted her head as she struggled, unsuccessfully, to get free. Another hand clamped over her face, and she cursed herself for letting herself be captured this easily. All I had to do was shout! Dammit, dammit dammit dammit you fucking
Finally, her enemy spoke. “Maria? Holy shit, is that you?”
“Look who the cat dragged in!”
Jesse looked up to find Maria, arms wide, walking into the makeshift command center like a prizefighter about to enter the ring. Jesse curled her fists and prepared to chew out her comms officer—they were in deep enough shit as it was, no one needed to be giddy about it—and managed to force out a quick “Maria...” before the thing the cat dragged in walked into the room as well.
The missing Val. The prodigal Val, lugging a small metal case in one hand and an enormous, if invisible, case full of “I told you so, Jesse” in the other. She dropped both on the ground with a satisfied “Whew!”
Jesse gave the brunette a quick once-over. No obvious wounds, but the girl looked as exhausted and dirty and eager to get home as the rest of them. Whatever Val had gone through since leaving Ellie and Tanya hadn’t been easy. “Val. You’re back.” Jesse unclenched her fists. “You made it.”
“Excellent observation!” Val’s exhaustion seemed to fade more and more with each passing second, fueled by the knowledge that she was, finally, safe and sound and back together with the team. They were all going home, just as they’d planned it. “Holy shit, Jesse. I thought I was fucked. I seriously did. There are Serpientes all over this fucking island. When the hell did that bastard hire so many goons? Did he hold a job fair or something? Jesus.“
“That’s my Val.” For once, Jesse let her guard down. “How did you find us?”
“To be honest, I wasn’t planning on it.” Val took a swig of water and paused, savoring the incredible feeling of cold water washing past her parched lips and down her throat. She was a wilted desert flower brought back to life. “I figured that I’d missed the boat... literally... and I diverted to the secondary in the hope that I could catch a ride home. Which raises the question of why any of you are here and not back on the Alhambra having a cold one.“
“Extraction team ran into trouble on the way in.” Lauren put on her best Jesse impression as she entered the room, squinting and frowning until she was within arms reach of Val. Then she melted, throwing her arms around her teammate and placing her in a tight bear hug. “Holy shit, Val! You scared the shit out of us!” She glanced down at Val’s feet. “Hey, what’s with the hard case? Did you bring us presents or something?” She gave the device a quick nudge with her foot. “Diamonds?”
“Way better than diamonds, Lauren! I got it. I got the fucking device! Val hefted her prize and let it fall with a satisfying thud onto the wobbly desk. “I swiped it right out from under that worm’s nose. Now if...” She looked around. “What?“
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jesse crossed her arms. “What device? What the hell is this thing?”
“It’s... come on, Jess! It’s the device we came for! Did you sleep through the briefing or something? Parachute in, grab the case, extract. Why... why is everyone looking at me like I’m nuts? This is what we came for, guys! This, right here!”
“Jesus, Val. Maria? Check this thing out, make sure it’s not a fucking bomb or a tracking device.” Jesse slid the case to the eager brunette, who began to examine it with her penlight. “Your orders were to go in and rescue Tanya. That was it. Not to run around picking up cases like a... like a... fucking video game!”
“You’re nuts, Jesse.” She glanced at Oaks and Sars, hoping for a hint of sympathy. Finding none, she returned to Jesse. “I know what I was supposed to do, and I did it. Why can’t you all remember this? It’s almost as if you were... oh fuck.”
“I think I’m in,” said Maria. She popped the case lid open and peered inside. “Ooh, neat!”
Val ignored her, backing away until she was at the edge of the room. “He got to you. He’s turned you. Erased your memories. Brainwashed you. Guys, listen! Whatever you think your orders are, they’re not! You’ve been hypnotized into—”