“I must concur, Mr. President. Major Jon Swift assures me that Cruz and Jones—” and Miranda had better be right about them “—can effectively disable the other stolen Ghostrider without taking it down. And, more importantly, not killing the innocents from Miranda’s team who were kidnapped by General Martinez.”
Jon looked at her in surprise because he’d said no such thing.
“In for a penny, in for a pound, nephew,” she whispered to him.
He grimaced, but accepted his role with a shrug.
There was a long silence. Lizzy missed Mike and Jeremy. One of them would have something funny to say right now to break the tension—no matter how inappropriate.
“Do it!” the President snapped out. “But have our two best F-22 Raptor pilots shadowing their every move from just across the border. I want them loaded for bear and with permission to fire the instant your ploy fails. You better be goddamn right about this, General Gray.”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Well done, Drake,” Roy Cole continued off to the side, then cut the connection.
Drake? Drake! Lizzy stared at her phone in disbelief. What the hell had he done so well?
For better or worse, this had been her and Miranda’s operation.
And Drake was going to get the credit for it from the President?
She was going to ram her ring right down his goddamn throat!
50
Taz watched Mike and Jeremy sitting away from the others over the afternoon meal. Nothing exciting, MREs served under the open-sided camo canopy draped over the stolen Ghostrider.
The team waited in a lost valley baking under the scorching sun of central Baja. In small groups, they sat on the dusty ground or perched on ammo cans, all hoping for even the slightest cooling breeze. They’d slept through the morning, but the evening cool still lay hours away.
When she’d first traveled here, she’d been driving. Fifty kilometers away, the nearest town, El Rosario, was a nothing place. Seventeen hundred people perched close by the Pacific, halfway down Mexico’s Baja Peninsula.
El Rosario was known for only two things.
It was traditionally the first rest stop in the six-day off-road rally race called the Baja 1000.
And it was the home of Mama Espinoza’s restaurant. Mama E. herself had died recently at the age of 109, but the kids had kept it going.
It was classic Mexico, except for the food being even better than usual. Since the 1930s, Mama E. had served meals in her home’s dining room. It had taken off in the ’60s, when it became the first checkpoint of the Baja 1000. And Mama E. had never looked back.
The house was now entirely restaurant. Painted brilliant red outside, with a half dozen long tables covered in plastic red-and-white checked tablecloths inside, it looked homey. Every wall was covered with photos of fifty years of racing. Mementos were everywhere, making it part museum as well. Racers had brought their motorcycles there to be blessed by Mama E. herself before the big races.
Taz could have moved in, if duty hadn’t called. However, she remembered the burrito trio: crab, garlic shrimp, and local lobster. She could definitely go through another set of those right now.
As she’d done all of her life, she shrugged off what couldn’t be and felt no regret. Her mother had taught her that. Take care of the now. Mama’s answer to everything. Taz had made herself an expert in dealing with the now.
Bin Laden took out the Twin Towers and a whole side of the Pentagon? Didn’t matter. That was now the past.
What action could she take in the moment? Do that. While everyone else was moaning or being enraged, she’d been calculating. She’d seen a fellow spirit in then-Colonel Jorge Jesus Martinez and made sure that she came to his notice. A choice she’d never regretted.
And she still didn’t. Even now, fifty kilometers from Mama Espinoza’s restaurant, she was still just as ready.
In a few hours they’d all be aloft on the final mission.
The only hesitation she felt were their unwilling passengers.
Mike and Jeremy were…easy together.
Civilians in a moment of quiet, enjoying each other’s company despite the strangeness all around them. They laughed at something, as if it was the most normal thing to do. Every time Mike laughed, he covered his impressive black eye and made “Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!” sounds that always made Jeremy laugh harder. Perhaps he did it because Jeremy laughed each time.
Laughter hadn’t been part of her upbringing. Her life in Mexico had been hard. And she certainly hadn’t laughed since they left.
Papa had been a drug runner, a mule, who’d stolen the money from his own cartel for them to make the crossing. It had cost him his life.
Though Papa’s money was enough for the demanded price by a competing cartel’s cross-border trafficker, it hadn’t been enough for the coyote man guiding them. Almost to the border, he’d demanded a bonus payment of Taz’s eleven-year-old virginity. He’d collected it with his big hunting knife to Taz’s throat while her mother had looked on silently.
Mama hadn’t made a sound the whole time, not even as she helped Taz rinse her own blood off her legs. She’d only said two words about that moment—ever.
Once safely over the border, once they were clutching the identity papers of a recently deceased-but-unreported American mother and daughter—making her forever after Vicki Cruz—Mama had driven a hard knee into the coyote man’s crotch. As he’d lain writhing on the ground, she’d handed Taz the man’s big knife that she’d extracted from his sheath.
“He’s yours.”
Taz had cut off his dick, choked off his scream by ramming it down his throat, then slid the blade up into his heart. She’d held it there, twisting it deeper and deeper as his blood had streamed over her hands.
Mama had taken his share of their money back, and they’d disappeared into the morass that was Lincoln Park, San Diego.
Taz had taken his knife.
Mike’s “Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!” and Jeremy’s laugh snapped her back to the present.
Three hours to sunset.
Four hours to first possible takeoff.
Taz was on her feet before she knew what she was doing. She walked up to Jeremy, cutting Mike off mid-sentence.
“Come with me.” When they both started to rise, she turned to Mike. “You stay.”
Mike opened his mouth to protest. He was Jeremy’s protector and took that role very seriously despite his being just a civilian.
“Don’t worry. Just stay.” She didn’t know why, but it seemed…important.
Mike eased back onto his seat on a medkit can carefully. He’d been into it for some aspirin and salve for his blackening eye. After a moment, he smiled as if he knew things she didn’t. He tucked something in Jeremy’s back pocket even as Jeremy started to follow. Then he winked at her—and winced. But he didn’t make any “Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!” noises.
She led Jeremy away from the plane and the camouflage canopy. A quick climb up the face of the western slope, they arrived at a place she’d discovered when initially scouting the area for suitability. If they survived the first night, they’d return here and then fly additional sorties for as long as they lasted. No one, not even JJ, had spoken of it, but none of them expected there to be a second chance.