They exchanged looks, and Doc gave me a tight-lipped smile. “Roger that”
I shot him a hard stare.
My eyes wandered back to Juliet’s photo, and I had to suppress the gnawing urge to abandon the mission and go back to Texas to find her and make sure she was okay. I knew her heart was breaking, and that was breaking my heart.
“Any ideas on what we’re dealing with?” I asked.
Arsenal folded his arms across his chest, his movements precise and methodical. “Assuming we find the lab, count on heavy local coverage,” he said. “There will be private guards, too. Wouldn’t be surprised if some are local military.”
“Or ex,” Wrecker added. “He’ll have every merc with a passport ready to protect those facilities.”
“And they’ll all be after our heads if we don’t move fast,” Menace said.
“If it evenisGuatemala,” Doc said with a touch of doubt.
“Wrecker,” I barked, pushing aside my personal angst. “Get back to hacking again. We need any location you can grab.”
“I told you I’ve got nothing.”
“Then get us something.”
Wrecker nodded once, then bent back to his computer, fingers flying across the keyboard in what seemed to be an impossible blur of motion. I was surrounded by the best of the best. All of us had spent enough time in the field to know just how badly a mission like this could play out.
Papa leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms over his head as if he didn’t have a care in the world, and then studied me with calm, level eyes. “Still holding my bet on Costa Rica, but Guatemala’s worth the shot.”
“Our best hope is that he gets careless,” Arsenal said. “We need to get rid of every piece of shifter evidence we can find.”
“Ten-four to that.” I agreed. Keeping supernaturals off the radar is part of our mission.
“And if we find her?” Papa asked. “What’s the play?”
“Smash and grab,” I said. “We’ll get her out and scuttle any and everything else. Including personnel.”
The unspokenifhung heavy in the air. If we find anything. If the site isn’t cleared. If there’s even a site at all.
“Let’s hope we’ll be stateside in three days,” Doc said, answering my unspoken concerns with casual confidence.
“And you can go all Romeo on your Juliet,” Menace added.
“Fuck you,” I grumbled, unable to keep the edge from my voice. They didn’t seem to mind.
The oppressive Central American heat bore down on us, and the humid air hung so thick it felt like it could be cut with a knife. It added to the sense of urgency, the desire to wrap up and head out.
I took a breath to settle myself and gave them all a determinednod. “Wrecker?”
He kept typing, kept searching, kept his focus even as I paced the narrow, utilitarian space, my energy nearly spent from the distance between me and Juliet.
“Almost in.”
“See what you can find about his merc team while you’re at it,” I added.
Wrecker paused his frantic typing and looked at me, his stare as serious and menacing as I’d ever seen. “You know what it’ll be like if they’re as good as the crew you’ve put together.”
“Just find us what we need.”
I’d lost track of how many times I'd checked my phone since we’d taken up camp in this temporary location. There had been a text from Ma in the early morning hours letting me know Juliet was safe but withdrawn, a single line from Maddie a few days later telling me to keep the faith, but nothing from Juliet herself since I left. Her silence was louder than any response I might have received, and I hoped it meant she was as torn up about our separation as I was.
“There,” Wrecker said, a sudden light of triumph flickering in his eyes. “Intercepted satellite comms, then patched a bug through. Lot of chatter between Guatemala City and here.”
