Resonance (Marauders #4) (26 page)

“According to you, they were experts. Mexican military?”

“I think so.”

“You know what that means. Mexicans deserters tend to end up in cartels. So I’d say they’ll be expected. But even if the Marauders aren’t mainly veterans, they know what they’re doing.”

Once again, I looked at the men, and a quick assessment made me think that they at least were capable of using their weapons—not that I had expected anything less. But individuals with knowledge about weapons didn’t mean shit. They had to be able to work as a group. On the other hand, since I knew that, Tommy knew that. There wasn’t really anything about warfare strategies that I knew and he didn’t. If anything, he knew more than I did.

“Go talk to him, Sparks,” Dad said and nudged me in Tommy’s direction. “It’ll make you feel better. I think it’ll help him, too, if he knows you’re okay.”

“You’re telling me to lie,” I said with a laugh. It was a weak laugh, a pathetic one, but still a laugh.

“Yes. I’m telling you to lie, so he can keep his head cool. Just like your mom did every time I deployed.”

I nodded and went over to Tommy. He was strapping on a bulletproof vest and stopped when he saw me coming. Instead of saying anything, I fastened the last few straps, and then stroked his cheek.

“Thank you,” he whispered. When he leaned down, I gave him a kiss.

“You got this,” I mumbled against his lips. “I know you do.”

He nodded, but he seemed slightly more relaxed than when I’d walked up to him. I put my arms around his neck and gave him another, deeper kiss.

“I love you,” I said. “Get her back.”

“We will,” he answered with his eyes closed. “It’s strange, as upset and pissed as I am about them taking Eliza is as relieved I am that they didn’t get you.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” I ensured him. “Nothing at all. Seems pretty human to me.”

He hugged me closer and kissed me just underneath my ear.

“You gonna be here when I get back?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Thought maybe this would scare you off. Or piss Clyde off.” He took a deep breath. “How pissed is he?”

“He’s pissed, but not at you. Don’t worry about him. You know he’d pretty much forgive you anything. Think if it came down to it, he’d possibly pick you over me.”

“Doubt that, Munchkin,” Tommy laughed. “Take care of our boy.”

“Nononono. You’re not doing that. No goodbyes, don’t you dare.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he smiled. “I meant now, here. He seems a bit overwhelmed about all this, so make sure he’s okay.”

The door to the clubhouse swung open, and six men in cuts came inside. Tommy gave me a quick kiss.

“I need to take care of this. We’re leaving as soon as possible.”

I nodded and watched him walk towards the men. After a few hugs and handshakes, they left into the meeting room again. Even Brick. So I sat down next to Mel.

“It’s strange,” she mumbled, “the things you think, but you’re not sure if you ever say to your kids. When I look back now, it feels like all I ever did was nag and complain.”

“I doubt that,” I said and took her hand in mine. “She seems much too happy and open for someone who’s been criticized her whole life. And much too secure in herself.”

“I can’t… I’m trying to not think about what’s… what they’re…”

I knew the rest. She didn’t want to think about what they were doing to her, and even if we all wanted to think they were just holding her somewhere, it wasn’t very likely. If this was about provocation, they were hurting her, and men who wanted to hurt women usually ended up using the same method. And I didn’t want to lie; I didn’t want to tell her that Eliza was fine, mainly because she wouldn’t believe me. Instead I squeezed her hand.

“I just wanna hold her and tell her how proud she makes me every time I see her. What and amazing person I think she has become. I wanna tell her all the damn things I always thought, but I’m sure I ever said out loud.”

“And you will. They’ll get her back.” That much I was comfortable with promising. “You’ve raised her well. She can do anything, survive anything.”

“She’s just a girl, seventeen, just a baby. Who does that?”

An alarming number of people, in my experience, but again not something I should say. It wouldn’t help her. In fact, there wasn’t anything I could say to help her. Until Eliza was back, nothing anyone did or said would help in any way. So, we sat next to each other in silence. About fifteen minutes later, the men left the meeting room, and for some reason I was trying to remember what it was the room was called. Tommy had told me the first time I was at the clubhouse. He’d walked me through most of it, and I’d thought it was cute how he proud he’d been. But I couldn’t remember what their meeting room was called, and I didn’t understand why I currently gave a shit.

All the wives and girlfriends followed them outside, and I held Tommy’s hand. They weren’t taking the bikes, and they weren’t wearing their cuts. Instead we stopped by three vans, and I pulled Tommy down for a kiss. We didn’t say anything; instead I took a step back and watched him get into the driver’s seat. Before he closed the door, he gave me a smile.

“I’ll see you, Munchkin,” he said, and I nodded.

“I’ll be here.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Hit

~oOo~

THE HOUSE WAS AT the end of a street full of empty industrial buildings. It had once been a factory area, but now it had been emptied. If Tommy remembered correctly, the area was to be re-built into condominiums, but the renovations hadn’t started. It was perfect for what they were about to do, which was certainly the reason that Eliza had been brought there to begin with. There were no other people for miles, and no traffic passing through, either. They’d parked way down the street, since they didn’t know if the other cartel had eyes along the way.

Nmembe came up to stand next to him while they went over their weapons.

“You have done this before?” he asked in his distinct African accent. “More than once?”

“Many times.” They both turned to the others. “Phones off, radio on. Remember what I said, keep talking, let us know what’s going on. Brick, Bull, Roach, and Mitch are with me. Our priority is to get through the house as fast as fucking possible to get to Eliza. Ahab and Mitch keep an eye at our back. Is everyone else clear on how we’re doing this?”

They’d gone through the blueprints and the plan once more, and more thoroughly, before they’d left, but this was still the least planned operation he’d ever been involved in. It didn’t matter, they were running out of time, and they needed to find Eliza as soon as possible.

The others all nodded to answer his question.

“I’ll let you know when you can move,” he said, and then he and Nmembe left.

Across the street from the building where they held Eliza was a four-story abandoned factory. Tommy had worried that there might be alarms, but as they approached it from the back, he noticed all the smashed windows and concluded it wasn’t likely. They moved up the stairs quickly and efficiently, using night scopes, until they reached the third floor.

They stayed low to sneak up to the window, readied their weapons, and set them up. The sun had set, and through the night scopes, everything was lit in green, and everything looked two dimensional, but Tommy was used to it. He’d led a convoy of Humvees with the help of nothing but that green, two-dimensional NVG light, so it wasn’t a problem for him.

“One man to the left,” Nmembe said.

“One man at the front,” Tommy added. “And one to the right.”

“Don’t want them gathering at the front. If we take out the corners, it should draw the others there. See a quick route for us?”

Once they’d taken out the guards, they didn’t have much time to get to the house and inside. He checked the front of the house they were in, and the fence was already cut open in multiple places. From there it was just across the street. He was going through the front door, and Nmembe through the back.

“We’ll get there easily,” he said. “Check the house.”

Most of the windows were boarded shut, but judging by those that weren’t, they wouldn’t meet much resistance. At least not more than they had expected. He contacted Ahab and Dig and was told they were in position and ready.

“Tell me when,” Nmembe said.

The last time he’d shot someone with a sniper rifle was when they’d saved Mitch’s old lady, which was almost two years earlier. He practiced often, and even if he didn’t, a lot of it was in his muscle memory because he’d done it so many times. The weapons they had were suppressed, which didn’t mean they had a silencer, but it reduced the sound. The main reason to have it was because it suppressed the muzzle flashes, making it harder for the enemy to see where they were. They’d agreed on no more than two shots, each shot as simultaneously as possible. After the second, anyone looking towards the building after the first shot would know where they were.

Being a sniper meant you got a good look at the person you were about to kill, and in Tommy’s experience he often remembered what they looked like, too. It was personal, possibly the most personal kill in modern warfare. Sometimes he’d been lying in wait while studying a person for a long time before he got the order to pull the trigger, just waiting for the moment to end that person’s life. Some people simply couldn’t handle it. For some reason, Tommy preferred that to the idea of dropping a bomb and finding out it had killed hundreds of people he didn’t know shit about. If he saw who he killed, he knew if it was a righteous kill or not.

He found the guy on the right side of the building. He mentally went through his list. The barrel wasn’t touching anything, and since they were so close to the enemy, there wasn’t much need to adjust for elevation as long as he aimed for the upper part of the central mass—the torso. Headshots sounded cool, but weren’t very effective. Aiming at the central mass was the best way.

Then he closed his eyes for just a thousandth of a second, letting it all flood through him on its way out, and since he’d gotten back, the thing he needed to let go of before he took a shot was Zach’s death.

They’d fucked up, all of them, but Tommy most of all. No one saw the guy with the rocket launcher until the fucking thing was flying towards them. That was when Tommy made his mistake and slammed the brake instead of the gas. Getting the fuck out was the priority, and he’d known that, but had done the wrong thing. The reason was that he hadn’t seen what was behind the corner, and it could’ve meant even more trouble, but he still should’ve hit the gas. He shouldn’t have hit the brake in a kill zone. Whatever happened to his team after he hit the brake was on him.

The shot had missed the car, but the blast and debris had thrown his and Zach’s Humvee to the side. The next second they were in the middle of a shit storm, bullets flying. Tommy took a several hits to his side as he crawled out of the car and into shelter. When the bullets had stopped, he’d noticed Zach next to him, blood pouring from his neck. He’d tried to stop the blood flow, but his best friend, his brother, had died in his arms.

If he’d hit the gas, it was quite possible that Zach would have still been alive.

He let go. He didn’t know how many times he had, but he did it again in the thousandth of a second his eyes were closed, and with a clear head he opened his eyes, and stared at the man he was about to kill.

“Three,” he started counting. On “Two,” he placed his finger on the trigger. On “One” he pulled it.

“Hit,” Nmembe said.

“Hit,” Tommy confirmed after making sure.

He checked the man who’d been at the front, and he was running to the right.

“He’s yours,” he said to Nmembe, and turned his scope back to this side of the building to see if anyone came from the back. No one did.

“Clear here. Take him out.”

Not three seconds later, he heard Nmembe’s shot. Simultaneously, they both put down the rifles and started towards the stairs. They’d pick them up later, but bringing them was stupid. They hurried down the stairs, through the building and out the front, while listening to the reports coming in from the teams who were in place. So far it all seemed calm, no reports of any activity. Since Tommy had considered that the best case scenario, he was relieved.

They split up, Tommy sneaking as low and fast as possible along the side of the building to the left of the house until he found Brick and the others waiting for him to take them in on the front.

“Nmembe?” he mumbled while leading the others to the door.

“In position,” he answered.

“This is really fucking Ninja,” someone whispered, and Tommy thought it was Mace.

“Remember, I want everyone but the team leaders to stay the fuck off the radio,” he said. “Talk to each other instead.”

There had been a five-minute discussion of how to enter the building. One option was to do it SWAT style, throwing in flash grenades and making shitloads of noise to shock the enemy, but Tommy had voted against it, since they didn’t know if they’d simply kill Eliza the second they heard them. So, they were doing it Ninja style. As fast and quietly as possible, sweeping through the house and killing anyone they encountered on sight. If they wanted information, anyone close to Eliza was probably a better option anyway, but Niu had also said that she knew all she needed to know, so there was no need to keep anyone alive on her account. If Niu knew, she’d tell them. At least Tommy hoped she would, but she seemed very aware of how fucking big the cartel’s debt was, considering it was their actions that had put the Marauders’ women in the line of fire.

By the door, he did another countdown, and they entered simultaneously. Tommy and his team headed towards the stairs, and he could feel when it happened: when his body took over. Even though he’d been a sniper, entering hostile buildings had been the training of
a lot
of exercises in the Marines, and even snipers had to be able to get into position, which on occasion included going through houses possibly held by the enemy.

“First room cleared,” Nmembe said on the radio.

Tommy kept low as he climbed the stairs located at the corner of the building. Once he was halfway up, he turned around and aimed towards the railing overlooking the stairs. He could hear the others downstairs, but he was still pleased by how quietly they managed to move. In all honesty, these guys weren’t used to being discreet; it kind of went against their nature. Which was proven just about the time as he reached the top of the stairs when a door downstairs flew open and smashed into a wall, at least that was what it sounded like, and someone screamed. The reactions to the noise went through the house like a tidal wave, and when the first person came running, while screaming, towards the stairs and where Tommy was standing, he knew sneaking was out of the question.

“Move!” he screamed, as he pulled the trigger and started running. “Ahab, get up the stairs as fast as you can.”

He kicked in the first door, got inside and moved to the sides to let Brick in, while at the same time, taking out the two men inside. There was gunfire outside in the hallway, so without lingering, he turned around, still keeping low, and got back outside. Next to the man he’d shot while in the stairs, was another body.

As they were clearing the rooms, one by one, as fast as possible, trying to find Eliza, he noted the familiar smell of battle: blood, gunpowder, and piss mixed into one. Even the sounds were familiar, since their opponents weren’t using silencers, and the shouting of orders in his ear was mixed with screams of anger, fear, and pain. The familiarity calmed him, this was his turf, and it sharpened his senses, made everything appear clearer than should have been possible given the circumstances. He’d learned long ago that there wasn’t any point in trying to convince his brain that there wasn’t any danger, to not be afraid, but the best thing to do was to trust his reflexes. A big part of training was to simply teach the body and muscles how to act while the brain was panicking. So that was what he did. He kept his breathing calm, made sure he knew where everyone was at all times, and kept pulling the trigger. He didn’t keep a conscious count of the shots; that was another reflex. Not knowing how many rounds he had left was a sure fucking way to get his ass killed.

He kept it together, and was pleased to notice that the ones with him did, too. There was some commotion downstairs, and someone in Nmembe’s team had been shot, nothing serious from what he could tell. He couldn’t say for sure how they were all doing, but the team leaders kept calm, judging by the reports he kept getting.

Time stopped existing. It always did when he was in the middle of a battle. It didn’t pass, and didn’t affect his body or his mind the way it otherwise did. He never felt when he got tired, he could push his body without even being aware of it, because time didn’t exist. He saw everything selectively, he only noticed, felt, or saw the crucial things—the things he needed to stay alive.

So when a door opened, and man came towards him with a gun in his hand, his dick still hanging out and blood smeared on front of his jeans, it wasn’t something Tommy took special notice of, he simply killed him. It wasn’t until Brick lost it that he understood and made the connection. Brick ran past him with a scream and towards the next man coming out of the room. A shot went off when Brick slammed into him, and a bullet hit Tommy’s upper arm. There were two more guys inside the room, none of them holding a weapon, and Tommy took them out by shooting them in the leg. Then he scanned the rest of the room.

That was when existence kicked into gear again, and the lost time hit him. It took him a few seconds to re-align, and he started noticing other things again. Like that Eliza, or what he assumed was Eliza, was on a bed, naked. But… the rest… He couldn’t.

“Fuck!” Brick whispered behind him. “Is she…?”

“She’s breathing,” Roach answered and went over to a couch to pick up a blanket. He pushed the blanket in Brick’s arms. “Cover her up before you try to wake her.”

Tommy remembered what Ahab had said: Roach could handle it; he knew what happened at places like this. And he was the only one in the room who seemed to be in control of himself. Who wasn’t in shock.

With trembling legs, Brick walked over to the bed and put the blanket over Eliza, and then leaned closer. That was when Eliza started crying, clutching the blanket closer to her.

“Oh, god, baby girl. Honey… Jesus fucking Christ. Can you hear me?”

“We got her,” Tommy said into the radio. “Clear the house and then get up here.”

Bull reached for his switch, too, and with his eyes on Eliza, he barked, “Round any survivors up, gag ‘em, and get them to the warehouse.”