Page 2 of For the Love of Animals

Now I had a choice. I could kill Lozano’s man, or the gringo who’d quite possibly just fucked up our operation, or both of them. I trained my scope on the stranger, and a flicker of recognition hit. I’d seen him before at the base, and recently too. Not one of our people, but a visitor. I’d caught him staring at me in the canteen the other day, the pig, but when I glared at him, he’d looked away instead of making a lewd gesture like guys usually did. In my head, I’d called him huevitos. Little balls. When I asked around, Captain P’s secretary told me he was here from Washington, DC to deliver a course on hostage negotiation, the course I wasn’t allowed to go on because I had breasts.

And now it seemed our American friend had decided to combine business with pleasure.

A sigh escaped my lips as I inched my barrel to the right and shot LCG between the eyes. He went down like a bad taco—satisfying but kind of messy.

One blink and huevitos had disappeared, but it didn’t matter. I’d find him later.

CHAPTER 2 - CARMEN

GETTING CHEWED OUT by Captain Pendejo—my absolute favourite activity on a swelteringly hot Monday morning.

“For the last time, I was six hundred yards away, so I didn’t see what happened, and José didn’t keep me updated. All I know is that he got into an altercation with el antílope and neither of them came out of the house alive.”

“For the last time, Cabo Hernandez, this isn’t good enough.” He called me Corporal like an insult. “How am I supposed to explain to my superiors that the mission failed?”

“It succeeded in part. One of our targets died.” Although I very much suspected José hadn’t done much to achieve that. “And we can still go after Lozano.”

Captain P paced his office, up and down, up and down, up and down. How did he get the creases in his pants so sharp? Either he spent more time ironing than working or some poor woman had to do it for him. Ugh. The idea of being married to a man like that was enough to make me reach for the chastity belt.

Then he stopped, and I didn’t like the way he grinned at me. A cunning expression, and one that suggested I didn’t want to hear what he was about to say.

“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. You always say you want more responsibilities? New challenges? Then you kill Lozano yourself.”

“But—”

“One week. I can hold them off for one week. I’ll tell them that we’re halfway to completion and now we’re reverting to our backup plan.”

“Do we have a backup plan?”

He opened both arms to me. “Time to prove yourself, Hernandez. I don’t want to see you back here until this time next week.”

His unspoken words? If I didn’t complete the task, he didn’t want to see me back there ever. I saw right through him, all the way to his slimy little soul. He’d always resented having a woman on the team, having to make allowances with regards to accommodation and a specially tailored uniform, and this was his chance to get rid of me. If I failed at this job, he could claim I wasn’t capable of keeping up with the boys.

“Absolutely. Leave it with me. Can I get any assistance?”

“Since this assignment should be finished already, everyone else is busy. You’ll have access to our regular intelligence sources, of course.”

“Thanks so much.”

He didn’t pick up on the sarcasm, just waved me towards the door.

“I look forward to reading your report, Cabo.”

Where did I start? I’d never had to plan and execute a job alone before. Haha—execute. Do you like what I did there? Yes, I’d asked to progress at work, but I’d hoped to ease into a more challenging role gently rather than getting tossed in at the deep end. The deep end of a volcano filled with bubbling lava.

Eliminate Lozano in only one week? It was a suicide mission. After the failed attempt yesterday, his security would have been tightened, and it had been tough to penetrate before. The man never travelled anywhere without a dozen bodyguards surrounding him, and with the men on high alert, his two remaining properties would be locked down like fortresses. He always carried a gun himself, and we had it on good authority that he’d acquired a rocket launcher on the black market last year.

And it wasn’t only Lozano I had to deal with. I also needed to have a chat with huevitos, and worse, my presence was required at my grandma’s seventy-eighth birthday celebration. The celebration she was treating more like a wake because some crazy psychic told her she only had a week left to live.

I decided to tackle the lesser of the three evils first. “Little balls” couldn’t be that bad if he’d saved a puppy, right? The only question was, where was he staying? Not on base—I’d seen him arrive in a black SUV one morning and park in a visitor space.

Nestor, one of my less misogynistic colleagues, raised a hand in greeting as I walked past, but I kept going because I didn’t feel like rehashing my failures. My target, Captain P’s secretary, grimaced at her screen for a moment then looked up at me.

“You survived?” she asked.

“Barely.”

“I was worried—yesterday, the boss turned a horrible shade of red and I thought he might have a heart attack.”

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