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  “Jay, we got unfriendlies. Can’t make the airport. Get the bird in the air and fly to the following coordinates. Max relayed the info as Sugar read off the coordinates for the stretch of highway he’d chosen.

  “What the fuck, Max? Am I landing in a beet field or some shit?”

  “It’s hardball, an asphalt highway. And if you wanna get paid, you’d better land there and pick us the fuck up. Understood?”

  “Uh, no. You’re going to get my FAA license revoked. This is a Learjet, not a Harrier. There’s more to landing a jet than...”

  Max took a deep breath before responding. He’d worked with Jay Andrews, a former Marine aviator, on several missions during his time in the Special Activities Division of the CIA. Cautious but possessing rock-steady nerves, Jay balked at risks not previously calculated. Max thought, not for the first time, that Andrews just wasn’t cut out for this business, despite his unmatched excellence as a pilot.

  “Just get the bird up and land her at those coordinates. You owe me. You seem to forget that.”

  A deep-throated growl was the only response for several seconds. “Fine. On my way. Out!”

  “Asshole,” Sugar muttered as the call ended. He glanced at the passenger-side mirror. “Shit, Max, these motherfuckers are gaining on us.”

  Max had the SUV floored, but the excessive weight in the vehicle made it unresponsive. He and Sugar were a quarter-ton by themselves, then add two more passengers, all their gear and ammo, and two corpses. Coach’s vehicle came in even heavier; his SUV had fallen behind by a half-klick with the Federales closing fast.

  “We’re taking fire, Chief,” LT announced through the headset.

  “Roger that, LT. We got a plan. Just keep following. The bird is gonna meet us on the highway.”

  After a brief pause on the line, LT replied, “Understood.” The thump of an M203 grenade launcher followed.

  Max watched in the rearview as a Federale car careened off the highway in flames, flipping several times before coming to rest on the desert floor.

  “Man, this is one fucked-up country,” Sugar commented as he readied his machine gun for more action.

  Max didn’t respond, though he couldn’t have agreed more. Nothing needed to be said regarding the cartels and Federales working hand-in-hand in many Mexican precincts. Corruption and collusion between governments and criminal elements were standard operating procedure worldwide. The big difference in Mexico: nobody tried to hide it.

  “How much further, Sugar?”

  “Maybe ten klicks to the bridge.”

  Sugar’s ten klicks turned into twenty, though, to Max, the distance could have been measured in inches for the time it took to drive. Coach remained in constant contact, relaying their battle with the pursuing police who had backed off considerably beneath the rain of bullets and grenades loosed upon them. His prior work consulting SWAT teams made him downright encyclopedic on police procedures. Yet still, they came, secure in the knowledge that Max’s team could never make it back across the border through a checkpoint. They could afford to be patient; to their knowledge, they had nothing but time.

  “Here we go.” Sugar pointed ahead to a bridge maybe fifty feet across that spanned a steep-sided gulch.

  “LT, block both lanes of this bridge with your vehicle and then abandon it in flames, copy?”

  “Affirmative.”

  Max stopped the SUV at the far end of the bridge and got out. Coach pulled up and blocked the bridge about a minute later. Both teams piled out with Red laying down suppressive fire with his machine gun. They had maybe forty-five seconds on the Federales. LT wrestled a folded spike strip from the cargo area and unfolded it across the highway at the end of the bridge. The rest of LT’s team sprinted for Max’s SUV. No way would the car hold five more men and their weapons.

  LT laid the spike strip in place. Red tossed a grenade into the SUV, then he and LT ran for Max’s car. The SUV exploded in a fountain of fire, glass, and metallic shards.

  “LT, Coach, get in,” Max ordered. That left Gable, Irish, and Red, who were all over six feet tall. “You guys are luggage. Let’s do it.”

  “We’re like clowns with guns!” Gable said with a laugh as he climbed onto the roof. Irish and Red joined him as they stood on the running boards and held onto the roof rack.

  The Federales pulled up behind the burning car and opened fire. Gable responded with his grenade launcher as Max tore off down the highway.

  Sugar dialed Jay. “Where the fuck are you, man? You see our marker?”

  “Yeah, you’re kinda hard to miss. ETA one minute.”

  Two klicks later, Gable confirmed over the headset, “Bird’s inbound.”

  No one greeted the good news with cheers or whooping. They were still a long way from getting out of this shit.

  “They’ve moved our car,” Irish announced.

  “Acknowledged.” Max drove on for another klick, then stopped the SUV so it blocked the road. No orders were necessary—gear and bodies exited the SUV as if it were on fire as well. The grenade tossed in as if it was a mere afterthought.

  The Federales broke past the first burning SUV as Jay touched down and reversed thrust on the turbojets. Max’s full team shuffled down the road to meet the plane, LT leading the way while Max hung back with Sugar, who carried Mrs. Laird in addition to his gear. Irish and Red, the other two massive men in the group, each had a corpse slung over their shoulder and were likewise trudging slowly.

  A horn honked from behind them, a Mexican motorist pissed off at the flaming SUV blocking his path.

  “Blow it out your ass, Pablo,” Irish bellowed, not bothering to look back.

  Seconds once again stretched to eternities. The plane came to a halt amidst the roar of the jet engines, drowning out the sirens of the approaching Federales. Max figured they had about half a minute to board the plane and take off before it got shot all to hell.

  The plane’s passenger door dropped, revealing a flight of stairs, atop which stood a copilot Max had never seen—a short, nondescript, bearded fellow in a leather jacket who kept peering back at the approaching red lights as if another look would reveal them as a mirage. He said nothing as the team loaded up. Only once did he show any emotion—revulsion at the sight of the women’s corpses.

  Max didn’t like him on sight, mostly because he didn’t like dealing with unknown people on a mission. This guy had little or no experience in life-or-death situations, which could get people killed. “I got this. Get back in the cockpit.”

  He moved off without a word.

  “You assholes loaded yet?” Jay shouted from the cockpit.

  The instant LT cleared the step, Max replied, “Yeah, get us out of here.” As the plane jerked forward, he raised the stairs, sealing them inside. He moved toward the cockpit as they gained speed.

  Max watched as Jay taxied the aircraft midway down the improvised runway, the lights of the police cars growing in the cockpit window. He deftly spun the aircraft around and aimed the nose of the plane away from the oncoming pursuers. Max felt the plane surge ahead as Jay rammed the throttles forward to their full stops, the plane quickly picking up speed.

  “We’re taking fire,” LT shouted.

  The plane suddenly lost a bit of speed on its takeoff run.

  “What the fuck?” Max growled.

  “Lost number two engine.” Jay maintained a veteran’s veneer of calm, but Max sensed rising tension in his reply.

  “We’re on fire!” LT announced.

  “Shit!” Jay cut the fuel to the burning engine.

  “Can you get her in the air?” Max asked.

  “Eh, yeah. If we don’t take any more damage. Got to get over this guy first.”

  Headlights approached from dead ahead—the guy who’d been honking his horn had driven overland around the burning SUV and now headed straight for them.

  “Is this fucking guy out of his mind?” the copilot asked.

  “Shut your pie hole, dumbass,” Jay replied.


  Playing chicken with a plane, Max thought. Yeah, this guy’s on something.

  The nut didn’t deter Jay in the slightest. Simple wisdom finally prevailed, and the car swerved off the road a split second before it would have collided with the plane.

  “Fuuuck this!” The copilot’s voice suddenly unnaturally high.

  “Here goes jack shit,” Jay muttered as they approached the burning SUV a hundred yards away.

  Seventy-five...

  Fifty...

  Twenty-five...

  The plane lifted into the column of smoke and flame. Max estimated they’d cleared the car by maybe three feet, tops. He remained standing in the cockpit entryway as they gained altitude at an agonizingly slow rate.

  Fuck it, we’re flying. Nothing else mattered at the moment. “Nice work, Jay.”

  “Go strap in, Max,” Jay demanded balefully. “And you can consider us even now.”

  Max nodded, turned, and headed for a seat.

  “Hey, where’s our peanuts, Andrews?” Gable demanded.

  The cockpit door slammed in response.

  * * *

  A moderate yet relentless breeze off the Pacific Ocean blew across the vast stone patio, riffling the water in the swimming pool and occasionally rattling the cups and saucers in the coffee service. The canvas pavilion overhead snapped in the wind while protecting the three men from the searing Southern California sun.

  Another man came and poured coffee in Max’s cup.

  Max poured the milk as fancily as he could, trying to remain at ease as he attempted to dilute the dark liquid into something palatable. I hate coffee. Max had sat through more of these after-action meetings than he cared to remember. He already wanted to forget this one.

  “Let me make sure I understand this,” said Everett Massena, Max’s client. Approximately fifty-five years old, Massena seemed the prototypical nabob. Though not a physically imposing man, he sprawled out in his wicker chair to take up a lot of space. He wore a cream linen suit over a blue shirt with a white collar, white French cuffs and a red ascot knotted at his throat. Like a millionaire at the racetrack. “So, you were in the midst of this raid and reinforcements were called in?”

  “No.” Max choked down his exasperation. The guy kept spinning Max’s statements, repeating questions and pulling new ones from a seemingly inexhaustible supply, expecting Max to step on his tongue. The elite business types all acted like that. “The reinforcements just showed up. That compound hadn’t been alerted to our assault before they came in. Someone had tipped off the cartel that we were going to hit the place. If the call had come sooner, I wouldn’t be here, and your wife, Mr. Laird, would still be a hostage.”

  “Yes,” replied the third man at the table, Thomas Laird, Diane’s husband. “You have my eternal gratitude, Mr. Ahlgren.” The words fell flat—as wispy as the man who spoke them.

  Everett Massena, a titan in the business world, owned the home and belonged in opulent surroundings. Max got the feeling that Laird, however, came from humbler stock, probably married into money.

  “And mine as well.” Everett leaned forward. “Nevertheless, Mr. Ahlgren, your mission ended in failure. You were supposed to bring back three women alive. Two are dead, and you claim they were shot at the last minute, is that correct?”

  Max gritted his teeth, through being patronized. “One succumbed to torture earlier. One was shot as my men breached the room.”

  “But you didn’t see this happen?”

  “I was out front killing the reinforcements that mysteriously showed up.”

  “So how can I know that the ladies didn’t die of negligence by your team?”

  “Why don’t you ask your sister, Massena? Does my explanation not corroborate with what she told you?”

  Everett’s face grew a shade redder. “I wouldn’t know. She just came home from the hospital. I haven’t had a chance to speak to her of this nightmare, nor do I wish to ask her. She’s scarred for life as it is. I’m not about to aggravate the situation.”

  “You’re going to have to.” Now Max leaned his considerable bulk forward across the glass table. “Because you owe us money, Mr. Massena, and I’m not leaving here without it. Yeah, the mission could have gone better. But we saved your sister, and we brought back the remains of her friends. We did everything possible. Payment was not dependent on the success of the mission, if you recall. My men bled, and you’re not about to stiff us on payment.”

  “You may wish to change your tone, Mr. Ahlgren. You’re not the only man of violence on this patio.” Massena flicked his eyes toward a fat, hulking Samoan in a Hawaiian shirt posted by the French doors leading into the house. “Now, in the business world, Mr. Ahlgren, payment is contingent upon success in all aspects of a project. You were to return three women safe and sound. You didn’t. It’s as simple as that. Not to mention I fronted expenses for your team to locate and surveille the cartel safehouse in Mexicali. No. No, I’m afraid your mission was a failure—”

  “We were set up,” Max repeated slowly. He’d stood up without realizing it and now towered over Everett, who didn’t appear intimidated in the slightest.

  The Samoan moved a step closer and Max noticed he held his right hand behind his back.

  “Yes, you keep saying that. But by whom? Who set you up and why?”

  “My evidence points to your brother-in-law.”

  Silence but for the ocean breeze.

  “Preposterous!” Everett thundered.

  “Indeed, it is,” Thomas Laird concurred, still flat and unemotional.

  Max rounded on Laird. “Really? Then why did you take out a life insurance policy on your wife three weeks ago?”

  “I’m not about to answer to the likes of you.”

  Max pulled a sheaf of papers from his back pocket and slammed them down before Everett. “A private investigator’s report, Mr. Massena. I had him look into the recent affairs of Mr. Laird. I think even a man as skeptical as you will find the report is accurate. I believe you’ve even used this same investigator a time or two yourself.”

  Everett reached a tentative hand forward, then snatched up the papers. He glanced at them. “Explain yourself, Thomas.”

  Thomas Laird laughed. “There’s nothing to explain. Yes, I took out a policy on Diane recently. What of it? I have a policy listing her as my beneficiary as well. The timing is mere coincidence, I assure you.”

  “Really?” Max asked. “You know what I find amazing? The fact that this is our second meeting since I returned your wife and the only emotion I’ve seen out of you so far is some defensiveness regarding a big, fat life insurance policy. You didn’t so much as smile or even appear relieved when your wife returned.”

  “That’s because I wasn’t supposed to come back,” said an unmistakably female voice.

  The men gaped at Diane Laird, who had just rolled onto the patio in a wheelchair. A nurse attendant pushed Mrs. Laird to a spot at the table, then left her patient with the men. Though she would bear her bruises for some time, Mrs. Laird’s condition appeared much improved. Max figured the wheelchair was more a doctor’s order than an actual necessity. She was one tough lady; he couldn’t help but respect her.

  Max nodded to her. “Pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Laird.”

  “And you, Mr. Ahlgren.”

  “Diane, you mustn’t—” Everett began.

  “Everett, please, this needs to be cleared up. Mr. Ahlgren is only partially correct. I wasn’t supposed to die. As you well know, dear Tom has had his problems with gambling and drugs. He borrowed money from the cartel to pay his gambling debts, but when the time came to pay back his loan, he forfeited and offered me and my friends in return for his life.”

  Thomas edged toward her. “You’re full of shit, Diane. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Oh, but I heard it straight from the lips of Don Ernesto Aguilar, second in command. We were awaiting shipment to Sana’a, where our buyers were waiting.” She paused to let that sink in.


  All three men sat stunned—Max and Everett at this revelation, and Thomas as he struggled to construct some sort of plausible explanation.

  Diane continued, “I’d been sold to a child prince. I suppose he prefers older women. Whatever the case, all three of us were broken in, multiple times, for our new duties as sex slaves.” She gave her husband a scathing glare. “So, Thomas’s debt had been paid in full, plus he had that life insurance policy worth several million dollars. By the time he’d dug himself into a new hole, I would have been missing long enough to be declared legally dead.” She smiled at Thomas with soft lips but hard eyes. “Of course, that’s all hearsay, inadmissible in criminal court. But I hope you get good at picking horses, asshole. You’re about to owe me all sorts of alimony.”

  Thomas had lost his tongue somewhere between sex slavery and declaring his wife legally dead.

  Diane motioned to the Samoan, who waddled over to the table. “Take me back to my nurse, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  As the Samoan turned her chair from the table, Diane added, “Pay Mr. Ahlgren, Everett. With a bonus, for the love you bear me.”

  Everett paused as he processed everything and nodded. “Consider it done.” He turned his attention to Thomas. “You’d best leave my house before I have Loki extract your teeth via your rectum.”

  Thomas composed what passed for his dignity and departed with his head high; guilt just one of many things he’d lost at the casino.

  “It appears I owe you an apology, Mr. Ahlgren.”

  “Don’t bother. Let’s get this over with.”

  Max departed the Massena estate with six hundred thousand cash in a briefcase—half a million for the mission plus the bonus. The team would be pleased. He knew better than to be so optimistic though. Word didn’t always travel fast in the world of mercenaries and their employers, but it always got around sooner or later. A sloppy job like the Mexican debacle would tarnish his team’s reputation, despite Thomas Laird’s betrayal. You’re only as good as your last mission. Max descended the front steps of the mansion. And after a performance like that, we might not work again for a long time.