Wolfsbane (33 page)

To the side, he heard a soft noise. Roark. Her bare shoulder bounced under the tease of moonlight coming from the open curtains.

Everything in him coiled in on itself and died. He’d tried again. Failed. Again.

Make it right. He swallowed. “Roark?” He couldn’t even say it. “I …” Couldn’t … talk. But he had to. He’d messed up.
Bad
. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled herself upright, carefully holding the sheet in place. Head down, she slumped on the bed. Her shoulders bounced more.

Canyon reached for her but then drew back his hand and roughed it over his face. He turned toward the window, as if somehow he could make this disaster go away. “What I did … it was so wrong. I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

He faced her, surprised to find her dressed and standing on the other side of the bed. Defiant—but that bore out of hurt and rejection. “Because—”

“Because you didn’t want it—me?”

Confusion pounded Canyon. “Are you insane?”

“Yes, apparently I am. I just gave everything to a man I thought loved me.” Her chin wobbled. “Did you know that except for the kiss at your mom’s house, I’d never kissed anyone?”

He stood there, stunned. Hating himself. Wishing he could wind back time. There were words for guys like him. Words he couldn’t repeat. But they fit. To a T. “I suppose you think I’m no better than Bruzon.”

A shuddering breath. “He took what he wanted and then had no use for me. Is that what you did?”

Assaulted by the accusation and acid in her words, Canyon jerked his gaze to hers. “Roark, no—” A noise by the balcony drew him up. He snatched his SOG from the nearby chair.

“What’s wrong?”

Besides me sleeping with you? Besides me breaking my promise? “Heard something.”

As he reached the window—

Creak!

Instincts blazed and he jerked back.

A rifle butt flew into his face.

“Give me good news, Navas.”

“We have the girl. And a bonus.”

Humberto laughed so loud his side hurt. “You are worth every peso, my friend.”

“And then some.”

“Don’t get greedy.” He glanced out the window of the hotel. “You know where to hold them. I’ll return soon. But remember, the girl is mine!”

“I can see why. But the location—not a good idea. The Americans know of the facility.”

“They think they know.”

“No … they
know
.”

Humberto hesitated for the first time in many months. “How are you so sure?” he said with a snarl, fed up that the man had already taken so much control.

“They’re here.”

“They’re—you’re sure?” He leaned forward, already envisioning his brainchild sluicing off into the ocean. Millions of dollars … gone. “How can you be sure?”

“I’m looking at them.”

Bruzon’s Facility 7 May

A guard came around the corner. Eyes wide, the man reached for his weapon.

Max drove a hard right into his face. As the guard crumpled, Aladdin fired a tranq into his leg. Max gave him a nod, honoring not only his quick wit in figuring out the way into this facility through the underground system, but for this work drugging the guard.

Squirt hurried to a door marked
Mantenimiento
and, using the key card from the uniform he’d snagged, opened it. Aladdin fired a tranquilizer into the man’s neck. They rushed into the depths of the facility.

Bound and cover. Bound and cover.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

In the semidarkened hall, Max’s unease grew as they leapfrogged down one level after another.
Too easy
. His team must’ve felt it, too—they’d slowed in sync with him. Even with Squirt in the uniform of one of Bruzon’s guards, Max had played it safe and they’d done their best to avoid contact. Only as a last resort would they attempt to pass Squirt off as a local and he and Aladdin as hostages. With the security badge from the guard’s uniform, they’d cleared six levels so far. Squirt’s microcam recorded the path.

Only a matter of time before it registered with some whiz in the control room that this guard should be a hundred feet topside and walking a perimeter. Not heading down into the prison—assuming it was really there as the girl had said—and the hidden weapons facility.

Oh man. All too aware of what assuming did, Max pulled up against the wall. They had two options: one, go ahead with the plan and
do what they do best—fight their way down and back. Two, alter course and pray they could tackle the more difficult route without fatalities.

Squirt and Aladdin drew up alongside, backs to his, as they kept a sharp lookout for tangos.

“Eyes open. Too easy,” he whispered. “Plan B.”

A nod, then Squirt moved forward. The less talk the better. The less interaction the better. But this was obscene. Told Max they were about to walk into a trap. As they descended the stairs in the same bound-and-cover fashion they’d used for the last ten minutes, he worked through scenarios. His head could get the best of him, playing out deadly games with the enemy. What should be down in the facility was lab rats—both four-legged and two-legged kind—and a few sleepy guards. He hoped.

Roark had said Bruzon held prisoners in niches that padded the facility’s reactor, which should be a multistoried structure … if it existed. Not that he doubted her. Okay, he did. It was the spec ops in him. Plan for contingencies. Be prepared and all that.

Ahead, Squirt snapped a fist in the air.

Max held his position and waited, tilting his head a little more toward his weapon, ready to align the sights center mass on a target. Adrenaline spiraled through his veins, pumping hard.

Squirt spun toward him, ferocity in his expression as he motioned for the weapons.

Handing over the weapons, Max and Aladdin assumed the role of captives.

The door burst open.

Max slammed his fist into Squirt’s face. The man stumbled, dropped the weapons, and dove into Max. Within seconds, two guards pounced on Max and pinned him to the cement floor. Cold steel pressed against his temple.

“¡No, él los quiere vivo!” Squirt shouted
.

Straining his measly Spanish knowledge from high school, Max tried to make out the meaning.
Vivo
. That meant life—alive!

The gun withdrew. Yes. Alive. He wants us alive.
I’d like to stay that way
.

A boot stomped against his face but left enough room that Max could see the three men crowding the door. One, the clear leader and grinning, patted Squirt’s shoulder. This better work. Putting Squirt in the lead meant Max and Aladdin were now prisoners about to get locked in a cement coffin.

The thought angered him. He struggled against his captors, giving his best performance against the men dressed head to toe in tactical
gear. Not military uniforms. Guerillas or …? Regardless, Max could only hope Squirt’s dark features and Spanish could bypass this snafu. Eventually get them out of here—and with what they needed.

Squirt straightened and met the others head-on.
“Lo siento, han sido muy difícil de controlar.”

Though Max didn’t know what that phrase meant, the wicked grin Squirt flashed at Aladdin, who was still slumped unconscious against the wall, seemed telling enough.

A man—what was familiar about that guy?—stepped forward, eyeing Max and Aladdin.
“¿A dónde los lleva?”

“A la cárcel abajo.”

Donde
—where.
Cárcel
—duh, prison. Max at least caught that much of the conversation. Which meant this is where they’d learn if the information Roark gave about prison being below and on the same level with the WMD facility was true or not.

“Solamente dos?Pensé que había más soldados.”

Dos
meant two.
Mas soldados
… more soldiers. The guard must’ve expected more soldiers. When the man’s gaze again scraped over Max and Aladdin, uncertainty marked his expression and his hand moved to the holstered weapon. Max’s gut cinched a notch. He prayed they wouldn’t get patted down. That the goons would assume Squirt had done his job and retrieved weapons and knives.

Squirt shrugged, then nodded to the men who still held Max against the concrete.
“¡Consígalos abajo!”
he shouted, pointing to the stairs.

Shoulders aching as the men hauled him upright, Max eyed Aladdin getting dragged down a level and into a hall marked only with steel doors. The prison. As they peered through the small barred window, he grinned. Just like the girl said. An expansive room with equipment that no business would need. A revolutionary general bent on nuclear power? Yeah. He swatted Aladdin’s shoulder. “Get stills.”

Aladdin started snapping away while Max took environmentals. He didn’t know what the symbols meant, but it lit up like a flashlight. He pressed the R
ECORD
button.

Aladdin stepped back and stowed the spy camera they’d been given—ultrasmall, ultrasharp, and ultraconcealable.

“That door.” Aladdin nodded to a steel door with a larger security panel. “That’s the way to the bays and the full lab, at least according to the schematics.”

“Then that’s our exit. We can get the last of what we need as we leave.” Max looked down the hall to the left and right.

Now. How did they get out of here?

In the Hills Overlooking Bruzon’s Facility 6 May

“Wait-wait-wait.”

Leaves and branches crunched as Colton tapped Legend, who slowed and looked back at the Kid. Expectancy of danger hung in the air, thicker than the rain ready to unleash again.

The Kid held up a finger. “Noise …” Eyes surrounded by camo grease darted back and forth as he turned a very slow circle. “I thought—”

Snap!

The Kid spun. So did Cowboy, his MEU .45 at the ready. Legend slid in next to him, his M4 stabbing Cowboy’s periphery. Legend gave the signal to spread out. Sidestepping, Cowboy probed the surrounding darkness.

Moonlight flickered through an opening in the overhead canopy of foliage—and with a gentle breeze filtered the shapes of a half-dozen men. Heading straight toward them. Heavily armed.

CHAPTER 21

P
anic swirled and clamped around her heart. Dani wrestled, yelped, as the guards wrangled her down the stairs and into the hold. The same hold she’d spent 180 days in last year.