Whoever lands on Genie Caye next is going to get a hell of an unpleasant surprise.
We push off the dock in a black hard-bottom Zodiac favored by Force Recon. Where the fuck Rome found it in Belize, I have no idea.
“You didn’t fly this boat here under the chopper, did you?” I ask as I take a seat up toward the bow.
“Fuck no. You just gotta know who to call when you need a favor,” he says as he fires up the engine.
Concord trails in a few minutes behind Tanner, Rome, and me. He tosses a wallet toward Rome. “Only got one ID. Fucker forgot to leave his wallet home. Rookie mistake.”
Rome nods and hands it back to him. “Call it in. Have Nila run it.”
That gets my attention. “You’re not using Arianna?”
Rome shakes his head. “Thought she decided to take a vacation right along with you. She’s been radio silent since you left.”
What the fuck? That doesn’t seem right, but I don’t have a chance to think more about it because at a hundred yards out to sea, an explosion on the island we’ve just left behind rips through the lightening sky.
Rome lets off the throttle and all of us look back at the structures, now going up in flames. Everyone looks surprised, except Concord.
“The fuck did you do?”
“Took care of the evidence.”
Rome laughs. “Rigged explosives?”
“Y’all don’t call me the cleanup crew for nothing.”
Rome shrugs and buries the throttle again, taking us toward whatever island they managed to land the chopper on.
Tanner is watching my leg and the blood seeping out from beneath the black duct tape. “You need a hospital, man. You might’ve clipped something,” he yells over the wind and engine noise.
I give him a shake of my head. “It can wait.”
“Just sayin’. We get your woman, then you get that taken care of quick.”
Rome approaches a long island and cuts to the right, taking us around the side opposite from the reef, facing the mainland.
It takes several moments before I see the chopper. It’s covered with old army netting that might have been used in the jungles of Vietnam. Apparently it doubles as camo with the mangroves of Belize too.
Sunlight is breaking over the horizon, and I’m trying to figure out how much of a head start Vander has. But by air, we’ve got the advantage.
What looks like a signal mirror flashes at us, and Rome turns hard to head for the side of the dock not taken up by a boathouse, only letting off the throttle when I’m pretty sure he’s gonna beach us.
“Who else is here?”
Rome’s crew expands at a slow rate, because he’s picky as fuck about who he brings into the operation. People he can trust. People who can handle the kind of paydays we get without getting even greedier for more.
Mercenary work pays well, but coming from a shit-ass military salary, not all the guys know how to handle the money. For years, I just banked it. Never in the US, always in foreign accounts.
“Fields is here. He drew the short straw and had to babysit the bird while we came to get your ass and dig into the intel on your Vander dick. By the way, Vander Iman doesn’t exist.”
Leo Fields is an ex-Navy SEAL, so I’m sure being the odd man out on a rescue operation happening via water pissed him off to no end. I know for a fact that he hates sorting through intel more than anything.
He comes down the dock before we tie up. “Thought you could handle yourself, huh, asshole? What the fuck were you doing getting caught up in a mess of shit on your damn honeymoon?”
“It wasn’t my fucking honeymoon.”
“Whatever. Anniversary vacation. How did you not clock that shit?”
I could give them all the excuses in the world, but it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done. Everything that happens to Kat is on my head. Every fucking thing.
He offers a hand, and I clasp it halfway up his arm. “It’s good to see you, brother. Been too long. We miss your ass out there. Not the same just hearing your sexy voice over the comms.”
“Same to you. Your jokes aren’t the same from hundreds of miles away.”
As Leo tugs me up onto the dock, a hiss escapes my lips at the pressure on my leg when I stand.
“Shit, dude. What the fuck happened to you?”
“Vargas. He’s the one who sent this Vander Iman after me. Apparently he’s decided now is the time for revenge.”
“We scrambled the security footage, but if he somehow managed to get it back, watching you lead his wife out of the house would burn his pride something fierce.”
I was also the one who arranged for her to be accepted into an international women’s agency that provides new identities for narco wives and women escaping terrorist leaders and mafia, so if anyone deserves his anger, it’s me. The other guys didn’t know that detail. They just knew that she disappeared. In our line of work, you don’t ask questions. Somehow, Vargas must have found out, though.
“None of that shit matters. Only Kat.”
“Still pissed you only let us watch your wedding from the fringes, pretending we didn’t know your ass. What the fuck kind of brotherhood is that? You still haven’t told her, have you?”
I shake my head. “It wasn’t personal.”
Concord and Tanner help haul Julius out.
Rome stops beside us on the dock. “You bitches done catching up on what happened over the summer? Because we got a motherfucking rescue to execute.”
“Let’s fucking do this.”
“Hell yeah. Bird is ready to fly. We’re refueled and good to go.”
We head toward the massive house that sprawls along the island with some large outbuildings, toward what I can see now is a helipad.
“Who the hell owns this place?” My gaze cuts to Rome. “Or don’t I want to know.”
“Head of a deposed authoritarian government who has recently decided to adopt Buddhism and turn over a new leaf before he dies. Don’t worry, man; Rosh rarely comes here. He just keeps it outfitted in case he has to stage another coup.”
Rome’s connections never cease to amaze me.
“Then where can I get some gear? I’m ready.”