Page 60 of Fast Vengeance

“Nieto’s already gotta be suspicious,” he continued. “We can’t afford to give him a big enough window to move on us, so if we’re doing this we’re gonna have to go within the next twenty minutes. Our only advantage right now is that he doesn’t realize we know where Hamilton is yet.”

Shit.

Gabe ran a hand through his hair. He was used to high stress situations, but he’d never had so much at stake personally before on an op.

He struggled to focus, part of his attention on the group of Mexican feds talking to Oceane about the proposed meet up with one of her father’s men. What were they talking about? How in hell were they going to protect her if she went through with this?

They can’t.

It made him insane. God, he still couldn’t believe what she’d done. That she’d volunteered to offer herself up like a sacrificial lamb in the hopes of saving Hamilton.

Already Nieto had changed the damn rules, his contact calling back with an answer just under the ten-minute deadline Oceane had set, rather than calling himself. Not that Gabe or anyone else in this building had expected Nieto to call personally.

The bastard was now insisting she be brought to him first, and saying he would only release Hamilton once Oceane had arrived safely in his care. Gabe had followed on her heels into the office, had tried to talk her out of it. He’d told her flat out that it was too risky, too reckless. He hadn’t been gentle about it either.

No, he’d been furious, because it scared the living shit out of him to think of her risking her life this way. She’d been through too much already. He didn’t want her facing this too.

Not that his opinion on the matter had done him any good. She’d refused to listen to reason and the Mexican officials were so desperate to get Nieto that they were falling all over themselves trying to help her set everything up.

This was a total shit show. The DEA had no jurisdiction down here beyond protecting themselves and whatever the Mexican government allowed them to do. FAST Bravo would be allowed to perform the rescue attempt to free Hamilton, but only on a joint op with Mexican SF members. They would have zero to do with providing security for Oceane while she walked literally into the lion’s den.

Gabe wouldn’t be able to protect her. Wouldn’t even be able to watch over her because he’d be part of the rescue op for Brock. It made him want to break something. She’d gotten to him over the last few months. Slowly working her way under his skin without seeming to realize it, though he’d been damn careful to hide it. He wished he could wrap her up and hide her somewhere, stop her from doing this. Keep her safe.

“One more problem,” Rodriguez pointed out to the group, bringing Gabe back to the conversation at hand. “Without Hamilton we’re down to an eight-man team.”

“It’s all right,” Freeman said. “We’ll just make certain adjustments in how we do this.”

Gabe rubbed the back of his neck, his gut screaming at him in warning. There were so many unknowns to deal with. So many things outside of normal procedure he couldn’t begin to count them. Technically they could operate with eight guys, though it would be against protocol. But hell, this entire scenario was against protocol, so it didn’t much matter.

“I’ll act as your ninth man,” Taggart said, making Gabe and the others look at him in surprise.

Taggart was well qualified, that wasn’t the issue. He’d served for years in an AFSOC special tactics squadron as a combat controller. He knew the team inside and out, knew their methods and their techniques. Their strengths and weaknesses.

It was still a big goddamn stretch to have him on an op with them.

The reason they trained as hard as they did was so that every man on the team knew each other well enough that they could anticipate what the others were going to do before they did it. They also knew each other’s limitations.

That kind of bond could only be forged by countless hours spent training and on deployments together. And now it wasn’t just any old hostage they were going to rescue, it was Cap. The stakes and pressure would be beyond anything they’d done before, because as professional as they all were, emotions would be running at an all-time high.

“Any of you object?” Taggart asked, crossing his arms and glancing around at them.

They didn’t have time to hash this out any longer and Taggart could hold his own, so Gabe shook his head and got on board with it.

When no one else argued, Taggart nodded once. “All right. Freeman, you’ll act as team leader on this one. Lockhart, you’re our new point man. I’ll go second to last in the stack if we have to do a breach.” He gestured to Freeman. “Let’s hammer out the details. They’re readying a flight for us right now.”

Freeman grabbed the drawings of the floor plan Oceane had sketched out earlier. The whole team studied them carefully, cross-referencing with satellite images of the house and grounds.

They picked their entry and exit points. Tried to figure out what kinds of security measures would be in place. How many guards. They would be armed with semi-automatic weapons. Might even have grenades or even RPGs.

This had to be surgical. Insert without detection, use violence of action when they breached the house to take the defenders by surprise. Then get past the armed security, into the basement, find Cap and get him the hell out.

The commander and team leader of the Mexican SF team came in. With Rodriguez acting as chief translator they laid out everything, divvied up assignments. Mexican feds would deliver Oceane to the meeting point and hand her over to one of her father’s men. Once she arrived safely, Nieto might release Cap.

But Gabe wasn’t holding his breath on that one.

Hopefully the taskforce would at least have eyes or ears on Oceane at all times so they could track her. For all they knew Nieto might not even be at the target house. He might order Oceane to be taken elsewhere.

Fuck. It drove Gabe nuts that he had no say in this, but there was nothing he could do to stop it now. If they were going to save Cap tonight, all of them had to be on their games and focus on the job at hand.

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