Page 12 of Her Faithful Protector

This time El Jefe heaved the rifle backward, and pounded the gun into Travis’ stomach, slamming the kid so hard that he skidded along the side of the bus, through the broken glass. No screams this time, only whimpers came from the other students.

El Jefe picked him up by his shirt collar and flung him sideways, out of his path, so that he could make his way to the front of the bus. That was the first time Camilla noticed that the door to the bus was open and some of the other kidnappers were crawling inside.

“How many dead?” one of the men asked.

“I don’t know, do a count,” the leader said as he stepped by Lisa and looked down at the semi-conscious driver. He grabbed his hair and jerked his head around so that his face was looking up at El Jefe. “You fucked up.”

Camilla shut her eyes. She heard screams and knew that the man was dead.

* * *

Nic had had a hard time sleeping the night before—too many dreams of pain and loss. Nothing new. Missions where people were wounded or died got confused with the last time he saw her face. Her tears and that last gut-wrenching goodbye. It was nights like that when he just got up and trained until his muscles were on fire. Until he couldn’t think about anything else.

Now here he was in a briefing, paying for it, his concentration shot.

He sucked down another large gulp of coffee laden with sugar, praying it would wake him up. Two nights in a row of non-existent sleep were taking their toll.

“—likely to saddle up. We just need a little more intel as to which way they went after the initial take-down. Unfortunately with the tree canopy being so thick, it’s a crapshoot. We’re depending on some of the locals on the ground. We’re going to drop in.”

Nic looked up from his coffee to see Asher and Cullen looking up in excitement. They were the ones who scored highest and jump school and always had shit-eating grins on their faces whenever they had to drop into a mission. Then Nic looked at Zed Zaragoza. He looked as calm as normal—that man always looked like he had taken a Xanax—but Nic couldn’t help but be worried for him. He had recently come off of a catastrophic injury. Would he be up for the jump?

As if he could feel Nic’s eyes on him, Zed turned around and lifted an eyebrow his way. Nic raised his coffee cup an inch in reply at being caught. Zed gave him a half-smile. That was all it took, and Nic felt reassured that Zed would be fine.

How can he read me so well? That man is scary with a capital ‘S’.

“Have the parents at William and Mary College been notified? What about the others?” Kane asked Max.

“Negative. The only reason anyone has been alerted is that the tour guide got a message out before the bus was boarded. She kept a cool head and gave coordinates and said there were three Jeeps.”

Nic figured that had to mean at least twelve men.

“As a local, she probably has knowledge about how this goes down,” Leo said.

“Her name might be Lisa Garcia, but she’s from Tempe, Arizona. She’s as apple pie as the rest of us,” Max explained. “The only local on the bus is the bus driver; everyone else by our estimation is American. The last time a kidnapping of Americans like this has gone down was a year and a half ago, and it wasn’t nearly this size.”

“I thought they were kidnapping businessmen.” Asher looked confused.

“I hate to say it, but those are getting to be a little too commonplace, and are onesy-twosies, that’s why more and more companies have opted for kidnap, war, terrorism, and ransom insurance. A lot of the kidnappings that happen don’t even make it to the military. This isn’t the same thing. This is definitely ours to deal with.”

“So, when did Lisa call out the coordinates?” Nic asked.

“Eighteen hours ago. They’re going to try to get as far away from the capture zone as possible, as quick as possible.”

“Where were they?”

Max hit the lights in the briefing room and Kane’s projector flashed a picture of the Yucatan peninsula up on the screen at the front of the room. “This is almost smack dab between Chetumal and Calakmul. According to the tour company they were supposed to be visiting the Mayan ruins in Calakmul yesterday.”

“They must be pretty studious college students if they were going to visit a bunch of ruins,” Ezio commented.

“They were coming from three nights in Cancun. My guess is they were pretty hungover college students,” Kane responded.

“Since the F.B.I is saying no ransom demands have been made, we’ve got to assume that they haven’t reached their stopping point, because you sure as hell know they didn’t stay put,” Max interjected.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Cullen objected. “They probably have satellite phones; why not start making calls while they’re on the road?”

“They need to figure out who they have, and who they need to call,” Kane said emphatically.

Makes sense, Nic thought. But he couldn’t stop thinking of William and Mary College. That’s where Camilla had gone to school all those years ago when they had parted ways. Imagining young students like her on the bus, so innocent and scared, made him furious. Furious and scared. They had to get them the hell out of there.