Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
I didn’t give a shit. I mean, what he said made sense. We’d entered a country illegally, we’d killed over two dozen men, and a hasty exit had become a pipe dream the second we’d discovered the other fourteen hostages. We could no longer slip out of here—unless we left the hostages, and we weren’t gonna do that.
“Lemme get this straight.” Reese scratched his elbow absently. “It doesn’t look good for a handful of former PMCs to tear up the northeast of Spain, so in order to make that go away, the case is suddenly an FBI file, and we’re contracted through Hillcroft to help the Feds’ task force complete the mission. Moreover, the Feds will never admit publicly that they had outside help.”
“Essentially, yes,” Mercier confirmed. “We could’ve been out of here right now—no one would ever know we were here—but we’d be leaving behind fourteen women and children for the Spanish authorities to deal with. Or…we let the FBI—and Hillcroft—take over. It’ll secure our journey home, the hostages will be offered medical assistance by American personnel at Rota, and you won’t have anyone asking questions when we get back stateside.”
It was a no-brainer. When this turned into a jurisdictional shitshow involving three countries’ authorities, I wanted to be as removed from the situation as possible. Spanish territory, one publicized manhunt to bring Carillo Mesa back to prison in Texas, eight hostages who were Mexican citizens, and the rest Americans.
Everyone scattered to gather our belongings, to prepare the hostages—
“You all right, buddy?” Reese was the only one who lingered. He joined me at my side and looked down at Carillo.
“I don’t know what the fuck I am.”
He nodded with a dip of his chin. “This whole clusterfuck because of that motherfucker.”
I dropped my stare to Carillo too. “And we didn’t get to see him beg for his life or anything.”
Reese hummed. “I’ve heard men beg for their lives before. It’s not as satisfying as one might hope.”
We hadn’t gotten that in Colombia either.
“In the end, it’s another job well done,” he went on. “Whether you get the Hollywood fanfare with torture, putting a criminal through hell, hearing him sob and beg, or they get taken out in a random shooting, maybe even mistaken for a low-man, they’re all the same. No amount of suffering can erase what they did…” He blew out a breath. “This job just happened to be personal.”
Very personal.
“I still would’ve preferred the Hollywood fanfare,” I admitted.
He chuckled quietly. “Yeah, maybe.”
I heard what he was saying, though. My recovery wouldn’t come from torturing a kidnapper. Blake’s pain wouldn’t be eased because Carillo suffered more.
“So how do we get closure?” I asked.
“Oof.” Reese lit up a smoke and took a drag. “River and I used to think we got closure from one case by accepting another. That’s how we dealt with pent-up anger and frustration. Along with Emerson-ordered counseling sessions that we hated.”
Wonderful.
He clasped my shoulder and gave it a brief squeeze. “Just one step at a time, Joel. A new war begins now. Every time Blake falls apart, you’ll feel that Carillo won. You’ll wanna bring him back so you can cut off his limbs one by one and make him feel everything he’s put others through.” Sounded about right. “But Blake will recover. Those meltdowns will eventually become fewer and farther between.” He gently touched Blake’s cheek. “I heard what Marisa said before—how they’d been locked up most of the time.”
I nodded slightly.
Marisa had suffered more. She’d been taunted and shoved around, harassed and interrogated. When Carillo hadn’t been able to locate Elliott, he’d ordered Gajero to press Marisa for details about our crew.
“She’ll be okay,” Reese said confidently. “River and I carried out an extraction in Algeria once—a young girl. She was held in a closet for three months. Motherfuckers were waiting for her to turn eleven so she could marry someone forty years older than her.”
“Jesus Christ.” I swallowed hard and hugged Blake a little tighter.
These were stories we heard over the years. Every now and then, something so heinous rose above the usual headlines of atrocities—and the men I’d worked with this month had been there. They’d lived through those horrors; they’d brought those people back to safety.
“Thing is, the girl’s mother suffered from nightmares far longer than the girl did,” Reese went on. “The mother had all the worst-case scenarios running through her head, months of them, with the fear of never seeing her daughter again. But the girl…?” He shrugged a little. “She had three months of the exact same thing happening every day. Darkness, loneliness, someone giving her food. It blurred together, you know? It became a hazy memory.” He took a drag from his smoke. “We got a card from her at Hillcroft years later. She’d just graduated from high school. She said she still didn’t sleep with the light off, but…” He cracked a faint grin. “The card was a picture of a desk lamp, and she’d put a Yale sticker on it.”