Bear shook his head once. “No. She never took it off. Not once.”
Bailee curled her fingers into his shirt. “We don’t know yet. The bones haven’t been confirmed.”
That was his one saving grace. He thought he would have felt her death in his bones, a hollowness, but she was still heavy and nestled in his heart.
He rose, glanced at the FBI agent and returned the photo. “Let’s go get these fuckers.”
“Hoo-yah!” rang through the room, and the guys started to file out.
Bailee said, her eyes cold, her voice steady. “We insert by water.”
He hadn’t realized he was shaking until she stepped in front of him, slid her arms around his waist, and held tight.
“I’ve got you,” she whispered. “We won’t rest until we put an end to all of this.”
18
The jungle didn’t breathe at night. It waited. The river was black beneath them, slow, silent, thick as oil, cutting through the dense Bolivian canopy like a shadow no one dared name. Moonlight flickered on the surface. Somewhere above, a bird cried once, then went still.
Their Special Operations Craft, Riverine or SOC-R, knifed upriver without sound, low and fast, its hull cutting a narrow V through the jungle water. Heavily armed, stripped for speed, the boat was a beast built for this kind of hell, tight bends, dense overhead, nowhere to run if the ambush came fast. But that’s what it was designed for. Short-range insertion. High-stakes extraction.
Bear crouched low near the bow, rifle ready, eyes scanning the black tangle of roots and vines at the shoreline. Flint sat still beside him, unmoving, his eyes glowing faintly in the dark.
Beside Bear, the team was locked in and silent. Every man was in full tactical combat uniforms, stealth ended the moment they hit land. They’d be fighting through jungle, caves, rock. They needed gear that could take a hit, flex on a crawl, vanish into green and shadow.
Not far behind them, Bailee crouched beside Vincent Sayers, both of them armored, painted, stripped of any sign of agency or bureau. Out here, they were just bodies. Just targets. Bailee had insisted on coming. Joker hadn’t argued. She had just as much skin in this as he did.
He hadn't spoken much since the briefing. Not since the necklace. Not since that fist-sized stone of grief settled under his ribs like it would never melt. He held onto Bailee’s words from this morning to settle him. I love you. They were a lifeline now.
Regardless, he was ready.
They were within two klicks of the Verde cave system, Tierra Susurrante. Whispering Earth. Ground where the women disappeared and never came back. The myth said the land swallowed them. That they became part of the jungle.
Tonight, Bear planned to see who was doing the swallowing.
Zorro tapped twice on his wrist and held up two fingers.
Two minutes.
Bear nodded once, rolled his shoulders, and passed the signal down the line.
The SOC-R throttled back, engine shifting to a soft idle as the boat hugged a bend cloaked in overgrowth. The canopy above stretched low, branches dipping into the water like long fingers. The last turn before insertion.
No one spoke.
Just hands on weapons. Breaths controlled. Focus sharpened to a lethal edge.
Bear stood, gave Flint the low signal to wait. The SEALs dropped one by one, slipping off the edge and hitting the river for the short swim, no rebreathers. Just low-profile, silent movement, black ripples vanishing in seconds.
Lowering the Malinois over the side without a sound, Bear then dropped in last, water closing over his chest like a second skin as he and Flint vanished into the dark water.
Bailee moved in beside him, FBI guy just in front of her. She didn’t falter. Didn’t hesitate. Just matched the rhythm. The warrior’s pace.
They emerged from the water like river gods in one silent, stalking, alive with purpose rise. A brotherhood. A reckoning. Bailee, right beside him, soaked, steady, burning with quiet fire. Their bodies broke the surface without a ripple. Rifles already sighted, fingers along triggers. Flint swam just ahead of him, dark head barely visible, tracking the lead.
The Whispering Earth wasn’t ready for them.
They moved like part of the current. No splashes. No wasted motion. Just the glide of warriors trained to haunt the edges of enemy vision and vanish again before sound caught up.
