Chapter 3

Jean-Luc Cavalier was drunk.

And naked, buried underneath a pile of equally drunk and naked women. Three women to be exact.

None of them moved when Gabe knocked on the wood doorframe of Cavalier’s shack, so he let himself in through the screen door.

“Cavalier.” Gabe nudged the guy’s head with his boot.

Jean-Luc mumbled something in French and palmed one woman’s ass, gave it a squeeze, then drifted back to sleep with a smile.

Jesus Christ. This is what his life had come to? Scraping a drunk linguist off the floor so that he had enough men for an op? He never would have found one of his SEAL teammates like this if they were waiting for a call to go wheels up.

Gabe sighed, picked a half-empty bottle of wine off the end table, and dumped the contents over Jean-Luc’s face.

“Huh? Wha—?” Jean-Luc sputtered and blinked up at Gabe. “Merde!” He scrambled to his feet and cussed in a lively string of Cajun French. His shoulder-length blond hair looked as if someone had styled it with a handheld mixer. “I didn’t know she was married. I swear. She didn’t have a ring.”

“Which one?” Gabe asked, eyeing the women as they stirred to life. Girls Gone Wild, the morning after. Not pretty.

“Any of them!”

Gabe had to clear his throat to hide a laugh. “I’m nobody’s husband. I’m your new boss, Gabe Bristow.”

“Oh.” He looked confused at that and ran a hand over his face. Then, “Ohh. HORNET.”

“HORNET?”

“I thought all you military types like acronyms.” He rooted around through a heap of discarded clothing, tossed some to the women, and pulled on a pair of khaki shorts. “HumInt Inc.’s Hostage Rescue and Negotiation Team is a mouthful, so I shortened it. HORNET.”

Leave it to the linguist to come up with something like that.

“We have a job in Colombia. That is, if you’re still interested.”

“Fuck, yeah. I’ve been bored mindless.”

“Looks it,” Gabe said.

* * *

The plane arrived at the private airfield fifteen minutes past 0800. Thank God. If Gabe had to listen to another of Jean-Luc’s tone-deaf renditions of whatever song came over the radio, he might just draw his firearm and shoot the man.

It was a big plane. Bigger than Gabe had expected, and each of the five men already aboard had claimed a row of the plush seats for himself. The former FBI agent, Marcus DeAngelo, dozed in the second row, a Rip Curl trucker cap pulled down over his face, his board-short-clad legs crossed at the ankle, blocking the aisle. Jean-Luc reached over the seat and flipped the cap off his head.

“Hey!” Marcus snatched his hat back, blinking against the light. “Asshole. I should—whoa, it’s the Ragin’ Cajun.” He laughed as he sat up and slapped Jean-Luc a high five. “Dude, you smell like a wine cellar.”

“Better than a Calvin Klein cologne ad.”

Jean-Luc grinned and plopped into an empty seat in the fourth row beside Eric Physick. “Harvard! Where y’at? How’s post-Company life treating ya?”

Former CIA analyst Eric “Harvard” Physick chuckled and set aside the crossword puzzle he’d been working on. “I should have figured you’d sign on for this. I’m fine. How about you? Learn any new languages lately?”

Jean-Luc answered in a musical string of words. Harvard tilted his head to one side, listening. “Is that… Yucatec Maya?”

“That it is. Said you bet your ass I have.”

“Fluent?” Harvard asked.

“Pretty damn close.”

“That’s what, thirteen now? You’ve been busy.”

“You have no idea. Let me tell y’all about the night I had.”

Within minutes, Jean-Luc had everyone on the plane laughing at his night of adventure with the three women. The jet coasted toward the runway, and the seatbelt light came on with a ding.

Gabe sat next to Quinn in the front row. “So, what do you think?”

Laughter exploded behind them. Quinn shook his head but didn’t look up from reading the file on his lap. “It’s going to be interesting. To say the least.”

“That the intel Tuc sent?”

“Yes.” He handed it over as the plane picked up speed and pushed them back in their seats. “Bryson Van Amee is worth around a quarter of a billion dollars.”

“Has a ransom demand been issued yet?” Gabe asked.

“About an hour ago, according to Tuc’s sources. Sixty-two point five million.”

“That’s pretty damn high for one guy.”

“No. What it is, is damn specific. In fact…” Quinn slid a calculator from the bag at his feet and punched in some numbers. “It’s exactly a quarter of Van Amee’s worth.”

And, Gabe noted, the maximum amount Van Amee’s kidnap and ransom insurance would cover. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

“So what are we dealing with?” Quinn asked. “Tangos who do their homework?”

“Too soon to tell.” The plane leveled out and a moment later, the seatbelt light went off. “Suppose it’s time to brief the troops.”

Quinn grunted. “If you can call them that.”

Gabe stood and braced his hands on the backs of the seats on either side of the aisle. Pain spiked through his foot, but he’d be damned if he relied on his cane. Last thing he needed was to show any sign of weakness in front of this ragtag group.

He waited a moment. When nobody quieted down, he put his fingers to his mouth and gave a sharp whistle that echoed around the plane’s interior in the silent aftermath.

“Gentlemen, listen up. I’d like to introduce myself before we get started. My name’s Gabe Bristow. You’ve all been dealing with Quinn, my XO, but from now on, you’ll answer to me.”

“Do you expect us to salute?” Ian Reinhardt asked. His motorcycle jacket creaked as he raised an arm and gave a cheeky two-finger salute. “Sir.”

So this was the explosive ordnance expert. After reading everyone’s dossiers on the way to New Orleans, he’d known Ian might be a problem. The guy was bad attitude personified. “No, I don’t expect that. However, showing some respect for a fellow teammate wouldn’t hurt.”

“Bite me,” Ian said.

Oh, yeah. This was going to be fun. “Do I look like a fucking vampire, Reinhardt? And if you have a problem with my leadership…” He turned, walked to a closet at the front of the plane, grabbed one of the parachutes he’d asked Quinn to pack, and tossed it to Ian. “Strap in. The door’s right there. Go find yourself a new job.”

Ian caught the chute and his dark eyes locked on Gabe’s in a game of chicken for a long moment. Then he flashed a smile that held just an edge of malice and tossed the chute back. “Nah, I don’t have a problem with you, Bristow. I like your style. We’ll get along fine.”

“Let’s hope, because I have no use for disrespectful assholes on my team. Those guys get their teammates killed, and I want everyone here to go home to their families when this is over. You clear on that?”

Ian grunted something that may have been an agreement. Or, more likely, a fuck you.

Gabe decided he’d have to chat with Reinhardt about his attitude at some point in the next few hours.

He took a moment to replace the parachute in the closet, then returned to his spot in front of his men.

“Our objective is to find and rescue this man, Bryson Van Amee, before any ransom money is paid.” He opened the folder Quinn handed him and held up the businessman’s photo. “He’s forty-three years old, five-eleven, one-eighty, with thinning brown hair, brown eyes. He co-founded The Bryda Corporation twelve years ago with his college roommate, has been married to his wife, Chloe, for five years, and is the father of two young boys, Ashton, five, and Grayson, three. His parents are deceased, so he also provides for his younger sister, Audrey, twenty-seven, a struggling artist.”

“In an ideal situation,” Quinn said and passed around copies of the file, “we’d have trained together for a couple months before taking on our first mission, but we don’t have that luxury. Most of you have been on this type of op before, so we’re confident we can pull together and bring Bryson home to his wife and kids.”

“This is truly a trial-by-fire, gentlemen,” Gabe agreed. “We fail and this man will at best live the next few years of his life in some jungle shithole. At worst, he dies. Neither of those outcomes is acceptable.” He gave them a moment, letting the grim reality of this mission settle into their minds. The lighthearted mood dissipated as everyone got their game faces on. “I expect you to know the information in this file inside and out by the time we land.”

“Has there been a ransom demand yet?” Marcus DeAngelo asked.

“Sixty million and some change,” Quinn said. “It’s all there in the file.”

“Who’s taking responsibility?” Harvard asked.

“A new terrorist faction calling themselves Ejército del Pueblo de Colombia, the People’s Army of Colombia, or EPC,” Gabe said. “All we know about them is that they broke off from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia about six months ago and have been on a terror campaign ever since.

“That’s where Harvard comes in.” He turned toward Eric Physick, who had a rep as one of the best analysts ever to work for the CIA. A genius with more brain than brawn—something Gabe would have to fix if the kid wanted a chance of staying on this team. “We need you to gather as much intel as possible on the EPC. Who, what, where, how—get me everything available. We’re working against the clock. The FBI will only be able to stall the ransom drop for so long and I don’t want to go up against these guys blind.”

Harvard nodded, picked up his laptop case, and unzipped it. “You’ll know the basics by the time we get to Colombia. The rest will take me a little longer.”

“Thanks.” Gabe refocused on the rest of the men. “Okay, so here’s how the team’s going to work. Harvard will control base camp and all the comms, including all contact with the hostage takers, should it come to that. Harvard, make a list of everything you might need and you’ll have it when we land.”

The kid nodded but didn’t look up from his computer.

“Jesse Warrick will function as our medic. Anyone gets hurt, we defer to him. If you need anything, Jesse, let Quinn know, and we’ll get it for you.”

Jesse tipped the brim of his Stetson back with one knuckle and patted the bulging bag on the seat next to him. “I travel with my own supplies, thanks,” he drawled. “But I do want access to medical records, and everyone needs to have a physical exam in the next twenty-four hours so I have a baseline reading should one of ya get hurt.”

“Done.” Gabe studied the group. “We’ll rely on Jean-Luc as our translator. Anyone else fluent in Spanish?”

“Mine’s passable,” Jesse answered.

“All I remember from Spanish class is un burro sabe mas que tu,” Marcus said, and Jean-Luc snorted a laugh.

“‘A donkey knows more than you?’ Nice, Marcus. If we need to insult the EPC into submission, we’ll know who to call.”

“All right, gentlemen,” Gabe said. “Enough joking around. We have a little over four hours until we land. Read up and catch whatever sleep you can, because once we’re on the ground, we’re on the move.”