What Trigger did give a fuck about was the remaining twenty-four American citizens on the plane. Twelve women, ten men, and two children. He was also worried about dozen or so citizens from Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Columbia, Panama, Nicaragua, and India onboard.
The entire Delta Force team thought the demands were bullshit. There was no way the Cartel of the Suns cared about one border patrol agent; not enough to hijack an entire plane. But at the moment, Trigger didn’t care about politics or what their real agenda was. All he cared about was figuring out how to get onto that plane and take out the assholes who thought it was okay to terrorize others.
Reports from Venezuela were that bodies had been dumped out of the plane onto the tarmac. The hijackers weren’t fucking around. They weren’t just threatening to kill people, they’d already done it. And with every hour that passed, more and more lives were in jeopardy.
The Deltas were called in to assist because they specialized in close-quarter rescue missions. These kinds of missions weren’t Trigger’s favorite. The chance of people getting hurt was extremely high. And he hated knowing people would most likely die in order for them to get to the hijackers. It was likely the assholes would use innocent civilians as shields to try to survive.
“What are ya thinkin’?” Lefty asked.
Sighing, Trigger turned to his friend and teammate. “I’m thinking this stinks to high heaven.”
Nodding, Lefty agreed. “I know. It doesn’t add up.”
“Nothing adds up,” Grover chimed in. “I mean, the Venezuelan government hates the US. And with all the rumors that they’re heavily involved in the Cartel of the Suns, why would they call us in to kill their own people?”
“Unless this group isn’t their own people,” Brain said.
Everyone nodded.
“That makes sense,” Trigger said. “They could be pissed off that someone hijacked the plane using their name, and they want to send a message.”
“But at what cost?” Oz asked.
“They don’t give a shit about innocent lives,” Doc scoffed. “They don’t care about anything but staying in power and making money. They don’t care about their own countrymen and women starving and suffering, why would they care about a bunch of foreigners?”
“And I have no doubt they invited us in so if things go sideways, they can blame us,” Lucky added in disgust.
Trigger ran a hand through his hair and sighed in agitation. “It doesn’t matter why we’re going, just that we do whatever it takes to get as many people as possible out of this alive.”
The rest of the team nodded in agreement.
“What’s the latest intel?” Trigger asked Brain.
The other man flipped through his notes and said, “It looks like they’ve got one of the passengers communicating with the negotiator.”
“Smart. That way we can’t use voice-recognition software,” Lucky said.
“Right,” Brain agreed. “They also don’t seem to be in a huge hurry. They’ve done the usual thing—bring us food and water or we’ll start killing passengers—but otherwise, they just seem to be hunkered down and waiting.”
“For what?” Grover asked.
“No clue,” Brain replied.
“Who’s the passenger?” Trigger asked.
Brain shuffled some more papers before he said, “FBI majorly pulled through and got us some info on the American passengers. One is Gillian Romano. Thirty years old, single, event planner from Georgetown, Texas. She checks out clean. Five-seven, blonde hair, green eyes, a hundred and eighty-five pounds. Got her undergraduate degree from UT-Austin and worked a series of entry-level jobs before starting her own company about four years ago. Both parents are living and are still together, they live in Florida. She was in Costa Rica for seven days, apparently in charge of a big shindig put on by Pillar Custom Homes out of Austin. I’m guessing, by the numbers in her bank account, she wasn’t paid nearly enough for all the shit she did, if you ask me, and the guests all left the day before she did.”
“You think she’s in on this somehow?” Lefty asked.
“No,” Brain said immediately. “I’ve got some of the transcripts of the calls she’s had with the negotiator, and she’s way out of her league. She’s doing as good a job as she knows how, but the asswipe she’s been talking to definitely hasn’t helped.”
“We taking over negotiations?” Doc asked.
“Fuck yeah, we are,” Trigger answered for Brain. He’d also seen the transcripts. Gillian Romano was scared out of her mind, but she wasn’t an idiot. She’d done all she could to keep the hijackers calm and to get the passengers what they needed to be comfortable. He supposed her skills came from being an event planner.
“We’re landing at the same airport, on the one runway they’ve still got open,” Brain informed them. “But we aren’t allowed to step foot off the airport property. The government doesn’t want us in their country, and especially not out wandering around.”
“Assholes,” Oz said under his breath.
“So what’s the plan?” Doc asked.
Trigger cleared his throat. “Get there. Get the asshole off the phone with Ms. Romano and see if we can’t pull as much information from her as possible. Ideally we’ll pose as delivery men for supplies. We’ll take out the hijackers and get the passengers to safety.”
Grover chuckled. “Well, that sounds easy…not.”
Trigger didn’t even smile. “It won’t be. We all know it. Those assholes could get tired of waiting. Most likely this is all a red herring, and they’re a diversion from whatever their real agenda is. We have to stay on our toes. Trust no one. They landed in Venezuela for a reason, but whatever that is doesn’t matter until those passengers are safe. Understand?”
Everyone immediately agreed. Their mission was hostage rescue. Nothing else. It was up to the CIA, FBI, DEA, and whoever else was involved to figure out the reasons behind the hijacking.
But even as the team fell silent, lost in their own thoughts about the upcoming mission, Trigger couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Everything felt off about this op. And getting into an airplane undetected was impossible. Innocent civilians were going to die, there was no getting around that fact.
And that made Trigger think about Gillian Romano. Just by reading the transcripts, he could tell she was smart. She was doing her best not to panic. He admired that. Not a lot of hostages he’d dealt with over the years kept as level a head as Gillian was. And while he hadn’t heard her voice and couldn’t read her emotions through her words, he could tell she was still scared out of her mind. And for some reason, that bothered him.
It was stupid. Trigger had no idea what she looked like or who she was as a person. She could be a harpy, or a vain chick only concerned about how many selfies she could post on social media. But for some reason, Trigger didn’t think so.
Maybe he’d been hanging out with Ghost and his team for too long. Maybe he’d been wishing a bit too hard that he’d find a woman he could love and cherish as much as the other team cared about their women and families. He couldn’t deny he was ready. At thirty-seven, he felt as if his life was passing him by. He wanted what his friends had.