Jacko released Jimenez’s jacket and dug out his cell. He spoke, keeping his eyes on Jimenez. “Yo. Code red here. You and Joe back yet, because I’ve got a…DEA agent who says a cartel boss named Villalongo is coming here. Can you get Felicity to do some research?” So he was talking to Metal. “I need Lauren secured and I need boots on the ground here because the agent’s guys are stuck in a snowstorm. Come geared up. Yeah.” He cocked his head at Jimenez. “How much time we got?”
Jimenez’s mouth tightened. “They might have already landed at Portland International.”
“Fuck. Hear that? Yeah, come fast and get Lauren out of here.” He looked at Lauren. “My guys are still out of town, heading in. He says another thirty minutes at least. Maybe you should pack something, honey. Just in case.”
Her heart thudded in her chest. Pack? Was he expecting a siege? Was he expecting not to live through it? “Why pack? Oh God, Jacko, what’s happening? What’s coming for us?”
He folded her in his arms and she clung to him, to his massively strong body, breathing in his familiar scent. Their bodies clicked together like magnets and she knew exactly where to nestle against him
“You seem to have a good crew here,” Jimenez said to Jacko.
“The best,” Jacko answered over her head. Her cheek was against his chest and the familiar rumble of his voice calmed her. “And we have the best IT person in the world. She’s going to find out everything about Villalongo, down to the size of his briefs.”
Jimenez shook his head. “Should have had her with me these past years. He went underground, had a hell of a time tracking him, the fucker. Pardon me, ma’am.”
Lauren gave a shaky smile against Jacko’s chest. “If I understand things correctly, there are killers coming. There might be a shootout. Someone could die. I can take some crude language.”
“Jacko,” Jimenez said. “You got gear? I was only able to bring my service piece, four mags and this.” He thumped himself on the chest and a hollow sound erupted. “Body armor.”
Jacko nodded tightly. “I got gear.”
That was like Brangelina saying they had kids. Jacko had gear.
He pulled away and held her by the shoulders, away from him. “It’s okay. Metal’s coming. He’ll be here soon. You’ll be safe.”
Lauren hooked her hands on his strong forearms. “And you?” She hated that her voice quavered. But there wasn’t anything she could do. Deep in her heart, she’d always feared that Jacko had used up his nine lives as a Navy SEAL. That he was living on borrowed time. “I can’t lose you, Jacko. We can’t lose you.”
His eyes widened. He did that every single time she worried about him, as if it were impossible for someone to be worried about him.
“Don’t worry about me, honey. As long as I know you’re safe, I’ll be fine.” He shook his head a little, kissed her on the forehead and moved away.
He walked over to Jimenez—to the man who was his father. The two men stood quietly conferring, heads tilted toward each other. For a second it was like an optical illusion—like a man in a mirror instead of two men. Jacko led his father to what had once been a large hallway closet and was now a war room, bristling with weaponry. Some men had come one morning, lined the panels with metal, put in a fancy keypad next to the door, lined the door with something that looked like it should be shot into space, and then made the outer part of the door look like an ordinary wooden closet door. The keypad was disguised too. No one could tell from the outside that inside was enough weaponry to wage war on a small country.
Jacko disengaged the lock on the keypad, which slid open. He entered the code and then his thumbprint and the door unlocked with a snick. Jacko casually pushed the bank-vault quality door open, though Lauren knew for a fact that it weighed a ton. She’d barely been able to move it an inch.
The two men disappeared inside. She shifted so she could see what they were doing.
They were putting together an arsenal in record time, communicating in some kind of code made up of single words.
It was amazing. The two men had met only a few minutes ago and yet they were working together as if they’d been partners for years. She’d once watched Jacko, Metal and Joe gear up for what they called red team/blue team exercises, and the three men had worked like that. Quietly, efficiently and fast, according to some pre-set system of rules only they understood.
Inside of five minutes, Jacko and Jimenez were standing outside in the corridor with weapons stacked neatly beside them.
“Here. Arms up.” Lauren’s arms went up as Jacko fit a bulletproof vest over her head, pulling the tapes tight. He’d insisted on having one custom-made for her. He said he couldn’t stand the thought of having several of his own while she had none. She’d tried on one of his and it was like wearing a very heavy barrel. She couldn’t move with the damned thing on.
As he pressed the tapes together, she looked down at herself, the gray silk nightgown flowing out from the bottom edge. She touched her chest, ran her hand along the front of the vest. In about eight months, the vest wouldn’t fit over her belly. Did the manufacturers make pregnant-lady vests?
Probably not.
Jacko and Jimenez worked so well together, so seamlessly, that it was easy to miss the speed. Very little time had passed and they were ready to go to war.
It was terrifying. A deep shudder ripped through her, seeing the men moving so quietly and efficiently, readying to do battle. She’d never seen Jacko like this before. He was usually a serious man, though not quite as grim as when she’d first met him. But now it was like he was imbued with some special warrior mojo. He and Jimenez both looked strong, implacable, invincible.
But they weren’t. No one was invincible. Bullets respected no man. The people who were coming must be serious bad guys to evoke this kind of response.
Thank God she hadn’t known Jacko in his SEAL years, where every day he faced the worst kind of enemy.
Another shudder ran through her and she had to stiffen her knees to remain upright. Jacko noticed and reached to get her coat. He dropped it around her shoulders, mistaking her fear for him for cold. She wasn’t cold, she was scared.
“Don’t have time to get you dressed, honey,” he said. “Put on your boots, though.” He knelt and slipped on her soft suede boots, without socks. He was moving so fast! In a second he was up and reaching for his gun, a huge black thing that looked like you could kill aliens with it.
A two-note tone sounded, soft, echoing in the silence.
Another spasm of fear gripped her.
Jacko looked at Jimenez. “They’re here.” He turned to her, opening the gun vault door wide. “In you go, honey.”
Lauren froze, looking into the blackness of the vault. She was mildly claustrophobic. The idea of stepping inside and being locked in…she shuddered. Panic gripped her insides.
Jacko put a gentle hand to her back and moved her forward, past the threshold. She had to force her feet to move. She didn’t want to go into that blackness, closed up like in a tomb but she understood Jacko. He needed to know she was safe. Being inside the vault made her feel like she was buried alive but she was definitely safe from flying bullets.
She turned to look at him, biting her lips to keep from crying. A spasm shook her body but she gave no sign. She looked at his face, wondering if it was the last time she’d see him alive.
Jacko’s face was hard, set. He reached to the side to switch on a light so she wouldn’t be stuck in the dark. “The code to open the door is 17629 and the keypad is to the right. Don’t open to anyone but me. If I don’t come for you, Metal knows the code and will open the door.”
Meaning—if I’m killed you won’t be buried alive here.
He swung the vault door shut and it locked with a sinister snick. She was trapped in here and Jacko was facing men with guns.
Her belly cramped with a fierce pain that made her stumble. She looked down. Jacko had had the vault lined with white tiles, easy to keep clean. She blinked and
felt her stomach lurch when she saw red drops.
Blood.
She looked down at herself. Past the lower edge of the vest, the light gray of her nightgown showed patches of black. Another cramp and the black patch grew.
She curled in on herself, hand pressed to her belly, holding on, as if pressing against herself could stop the terrible thing that was happening.
She was losing the baby.
His father was an operator, not a wasted movement.
Jimenez glanced at him, and knew he didn’t have to voice the question that was burning inside him. She okay?
Jacko nodded, as if he’d heard the words. “She’ll be safe.”
They both studied the array of monitors. The top right-hand one was IR and showed four figures on the perimeter—two in front, two in back. The IR was very spotty.
“Ballistic materials,” Jimenez said, and Jacko nodded. Some form of Nomex or Teflon-based tactical gear that masked body heat. “Villalongo’s guys aren’t this good. He’s gone all out and hired outside muscle. He wants you bad.”
“Well, he can’t have me.” Jacko’s cell pinged. Felicity. He put it on speakerphone, volume low. “Talk to me,” he said.
“You’ve got four operators,” she said, “But you’ll see that already. They all drove in a big van that’s parked on Oakland, facing east. There’s one operator still in the vehicle. Metal and Joe are coming as fast as they can. They’ll approach from the rear. Do me a favor and don’t shoot Metal by mistake. Tell your…guy.”
It had been so weird telling Felicity that the man he was with was his father. Evidently she was finding it weird, too.
“Jacko.” Jimenez grabbed his arm, held tight. They were exactly the same height and Jimenez stared him in the eyes, face right up next to his. “The guy in the vehicle is Carlos, I’ll bet you anything. His father would have gone in with the operators, but Carlos was always a wuss, waiting for others to do his dirty work. But make no mistake.” Jimenez’s pale eyes narrowed. “He’ll keep coming after me and he won’t hesitate to hurt Lauren and the baby. He needs to be taken out now, for good. No matter what. You read me?”
Jacko did.
“Let me do it,” Jimenez continued. “I don’t want any blowback coming back on you. I need to end this.”
On the screens, two men brought up thermal binoculars.
“They won’t see Lauren but they’ll see us,” Jimenez said.
“No. I had Lauren’s house painted with a refractive paint. They can’t see in to count how many we are. And the windows are coated too. The house is dead to them. We’ll wait inside, let them break their way in.”
“Good tactical advantage. They know your background?”
Meaning: Did they know Jacko was a Navy SEAL?
“I don’t think so. I think all they have to go on is that my vehicle stopped in this driveway. I just gave Constable my last name. And my vehicle is registered to a special entity my company set up for this purpose. So no one can trace any of the company vehicles back to us specifically. No, I think they’re moving in blind.”
Jimenez nodded sharply. “That’s good. We’re going to take these fuckers down.” He met Jacko’s eyes, his own pale eyes blazing. “Gustavo Villalongo ordered a woman I loved killed in 2004. That’s not going to happen again to anyone I care about. The Villalongos are over. Nothing is going to happen here, no more losses. And no mercy.”
No. They were coming and Lauren was in the crossfire. No mercy. Shit no.
Jacko handed Jimenez a comms unit and fitted his own to his ear. He tapped and heard Felicity. “Okay, we’re all online, comms secure. Metal’s almost— Jacko!” Felicity’s usually calm voice turned frantic. “Intruders going weapons hot, I repeat—”
Jimenez pushed Jacko to the ground as a huge hole opened up in the wall next to the front door. Then another and another.
Deafening noise, almost as bad as a flashbang, splinters flying everywhere. It had to be a Mossberg or similarly powerful shotgun. The rounds went through the walls and shattered whatever they found in their way. The couch exploded and a cupboard full of china shattered in a million shards.
“Goddamn,” Jacko growled. “That stuff has been in Lauren’s family for 150 years.”
“She’s gonna be pissed,” Jimenez warned.
“Big time,” Jacko agreed. The two men looked at each other, and then, crazily, Jimenez grinned. Jacko could feel the grin on his own face.
“Fuckers fucked with the wrong guys,” he said.
“Damn straight, they fucked with the wrong guys,” Jimenez agreed. “We go to the windows. On three.” He held up a hand that looked exactly like Jacko’s hand, three fingers up. Two. One.
Go!
They each rushed to a window. Jimenez would be familiar with the special coating Jacko had put on all the windows. It completely blocked everything from the outside in. Not even thermal imaging would show anything to anyone outside the house. But it allowed light—full-spectrum light—in. He and Jimenez could see out but the attackers couldn’t see in.
Two men were rushing the house. Jacko and Jimenez shouldered their rifles and shot at the exact same second, two men dropping like sacks of meat.
The crackle of automatic fire sounded in the back and they both rushed down the corridor to the back wall.
The windows were gone and so was their cover. Jimenez crouched with his back to the wall under the window, counted down, stood, turned, aimed out the window and shot, then dropped back down. A scream sounded outside in the back yard.
Three down, one left. Bullets sprayed the back of the house. Fuck!
Jacko was scared. Scared shitless. It was a new sensation for him. In battle there was a part of his mind that switched off, and it was the part that controlled emotions. He felt nothing in battle. His entire being was pure mathematical calculation. He could count bullets, he moved his body precisely through space, he knew where he was in relation to other markers and other shooters.
Not now. Now he was a hot mess of emotions, and on top of the steamy mess of shit was fear. Until the danger was neutralized, Lauren was at risk. There were all sorts of scenarios where she didn’t come out of this unharmed. She was in the vault, but if they killed him and Jimenez and torched the place, she’d be burned alive. The image of a hurt or dying Lauren flooded his head.
He felt awkward, clumsy, slow. The gun in his hand felt heavy and awkward, though he’d clocked thousands of hours on it at the range.
But he had muscle memory, and that was what had him bringing up his Glock at the hint of a shadow on the wall and his mind worked out trajectory and distance all on its own when he saw the shadow and calculated the height as he was pulling the trigger, a perfect double tap to the head and the guy’s brains were painted on the wall.
He tapped his ear. “Last one down.”
He heard Jimenez in his ear. “You go see to your lady. I’ve got business to attend to.”
All clear.
He rushed to the gun vault, keyed in the code, pulled the heavy door open.
She was crouched on the ground, skin paper white, eyes huge, beautiful face pinched. She drew in a breath when she saw him.
“It’s okay, honey,” he said reflexively, bending down to help her up, then froze.
It wasn’t okay.
She’d been shot. How on earth could she have been wounded in here? But there was no mistaking it. Blood was seeping out from under the lower edge of her body armor. He couldn’t tell where she’d been shot.
“My God!” Jacko opened his hands but didn’t pull her up. He was terrified of touching her until he knew where the bullet wound was. He could hurt her badly.
Jacko dropped to his knees next to her, taking her hand. At least he could touch her there.
“Where were you shot, baby?” He barely recognized his own voice. It was hoarse, guttural, pure desperation in the form of sound.
He tapped his earbud. “Metal! Where are you?” Metal always carried medical essentials in hi
s SUV, including a gurney with a neck brace. “Lauren’s been shot!”
“Almost there,” Metal’s calm voice came in. “Where are you?”
“Gun vault!” He nearly screamed the words.
Jacko turned to Lauren. “Where’ve you been shot, honey? Metal’s coming. You’re going to be fine. We’ll get you to the hospital as soon as possible.”
Her mouth opened, closed. Her jaws clenched as a wave of pain went through her and Jacko nearly died. “Honey? Where are you wounded?”
“Not. Shot.” She gasped, clenching her teeth.
But… “You are shot, honey. You’re bleeding!”
“Not. Gunshot. Wound.” She could talk only one word at a time. One bloody hand held on to him, the other was curled protectively around her belly. “It’s the baby.”
Jacko felt stupid with terror. He couldn’t follow her. “What?”
She gulped in air and spoke fast, eyes huge and fixed on his face. “The baby, Jacko. I’m losing the baby.”
This ends here and now, Jimenez thought grimly. His son’s IT person had shown him a map of the block over his cell and Jimenez had memorized it. He read maps well and he made his way unerringly through back yards, only hoping he wouldn’t cross a dog. A meticulously planned DEA drug raid had once been derailed by a guard dog in a neighboring yard.
But fate intervened and he encountered no dogs. Damn straight. Fate, that bitch, had deprived him of a son for over thirty years and the least she could do was ride alongside him tonight while he put an end to this.
His son.
While Jimenez made his way swiftly and quietly to the street where he was sure Carlos waited, automatically seeking cover against trees and bushes, his head whirled. A son. His son.
God.
Jimenez was nearing the end of his career in the DEA. He knew he was a legend. He’d done some good, but once he retired, that would be it for him. He’d dedicated his life to the DEA. He’d never married and had only loved one woman. Deanna. They’d had to keep their love a secret because Villalongo had a big reward on his head. Someone ratted him out and Villalongo’s thugs had killed Deanna. She’d died in his arms. After which, Jimenez had unleashed hell on earth on the cartel, decimating the ranks.