“I’m one of the kids this team saved,” Ant says simply. “I do this now so little kids can’t be taken advantage of anymore.”
“I’m not little. I’m almost thirteen.”
“You’re right. You’re not little, but a lot of these kids are, and it looks like you’ve been taking care of them.”
“I do what I can, but the other day I heard them say it’s time to sell me back. Do you think they were going to send me back to my parents?”
Ant shakes his head. “They were going to sell you to work for somebody else, but now you get to go back to your parents.”
“My parents are in Guatemala,” a little girl says.
“Wherever your parents are, if it’s safe, we’ll make sure you get back to them. We’re going to a repurposed hospital to make sure you’re okay and have enough to eat, and then we’ll contact your parents.”
“What if my parents don’t want me back?” a little boy asks. “The man who took me said they didn’t want me anymore.”
Ant approaches the little boy and kneels to his height. “If that’s true, we’ll make sure you’re safe. But someone told me the same lie because that’s what these people do. They use lies and punishment to make you follow their rules. We’re here to break their rulesandtheir lies.”
The little boy is holding a ratty teddy bear, and the fragile hope in his eyes tells me he wants to believe Ant’s words.
Before we have a chance to convince him, though, more gunfire sounds from the front. Through the big window, we see a guy slam open the front doors and advance on Charlie. The guy stumbles back, gut shot, but another guy comes in right behind him. Ant looks conflicted, but Nacho and I are armed and well trained. We share a glance, and I pull my gun.
“Go protect Charlie,” I order Ant. “We’ve got the kids.”
I turn to the oldest kid. “We need to put up a barrier. Can you work with some of the other older kids to make a wall with the cots and get everyone behind them?”
He nods seriously, then grabs three other kids around his age, and they corral the youngest ones to the back, pulling the cots on their sides, creating several layers of defense between themselves and the front of the building.
Nacho and I stand guard in front of the makeshift fort, watching as Ant, despite the large window, stealthily makes his way back into the office and takes out the guy’s knee with his knife, then steals the bastard’s own gun and shoots him in the face.
God, he’s fast.
Two more guys rush in, and Nacho startles next to me. Before we can contemplate helping him, Ant puts two bullets in each skull and grabs their weapons.
He turns to us and touches his finger to his ear, then points outside. The rumble of vehicles filters in from the street right in front of the office. Ant clicks on his comms, his voice steady. “Team, I need an ETA. Sounds like they’ve raised an army outside.”
Before anyone from our team can respond, the double doors at the front blow inward, knocking Ant off his feet, and he scrambles to hide behind a desk. At least a dozen security-force guys cross the office space, guns out as they pour into the warehouse.
“Team, they’ve breached the warehouse, advancing on us quickly. We’ve got, like, thirty kids in here,” Nacho says with an edge to his voice.
“Nacho, buddy,” I say, squaring my jaw, “we can’t let them fire their guns in here.”
“Agreed.”
We lower our weapons, hoping these guys will want to protect their investments.
“The kids are back here,” I say calmly and clearly.
“There’s more where they came from,” the lead guy snarls, aiming at Nacho.
As I’m calculating the odds of surviving this encounter, the enormous window between the office and the warehouse shatters and Anders steps through.
“Hey, boys. You miss us?”
24
JAVIER
Erik and I arrive a few seconds before Anders and the rest of the team go in. Anders shatters the glass with a taunt, and a dozen armed operatives turn toward us. Ant pops up from behind a desk to join us, and we rush through the huge opening.
