Page 97 of South of Justice
“I said I was resourceful, not proud.”
Ryan shook his head. “Then let’s go get her.” He turned to go get Noah from the pickup, but Gates called after him.
“One thing you should know about Santa Loma.”
“Yeah?”
“It’s not just guarded.”
Ryan looked back at him.
“It’s owned. Phalanx has muscle there. A lot of it. This won’t be a sneak-in kind of job.”
“Good. I’m tired of sneaking.”
FIFTY-FOUR
The orange Beetlerolled to a stop behind a low ridge, its engine ticking in the silence. Ryan stepped out slowly, jaw clenched against the pain in his thigh. The stitches were holding, but just. Every step felt like walking with a nail in his leg.
He reached into the footwell behind the driver’s seat and pulled out the pair of binoculars he’d swiped from the dead merc, alongside his FN SCAR rifle and ammunition rig. What was a rescue mission without a little grave robbing?
The Santa Loma airstrip cut across the valley like a scar. Lights lined its edges, low and industrial, the kind that threw long shadows. To the east, the compound sat tucked behind fencing and floodlights. Tin-roofed structures. A hangar. Outbuildings and a squat tower. Armed men moved in regular paths.
“Two at the fence,” Ryan muttered. “Another near the hangar doors. What do you bet that’s where they’ve got her?”
Gates stepped up beside him, resting hands on hips. “No doubt.”
He chewed his cheek for a moment, watching the pattern of the guards’ movements. They weren’t amateurs: they moved in tight formations covering each other’s arcs.
Ryan dropped the binoculars. “Phalanx.”
Gates gave a short nod. “And they’re expecting someone. You don’t pull in that kind of muscle for an overnight fuel run.”
“They’ll have her inside,” Ryan said. “Somewhere with no windows. No exits.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment, as they both contemplated the reality of Lucía’s situation.
“She’s tough,” Gates said.
Ryan didn’t reply. All he could think waseveryone breaks eventually.And the thought of someone breaking her made him want to snap their bones with his bare hands.
The sun slid lower, dragging long shadows across the desert floor.
Ryan turned and looked at the boy asleep in the back of the car. “Noah’s not going in there with us.”
“No,” Gates agreed. “But we can’t leave him here either.”
“There was a service shed about two clicks back.” Ryan nodded at the road they came in on. “Cinderblock. Empty. Still has a roof. We leave him there. Give him my burner, tell him to lock the door and wait for us to come back.”
“And if we don’t?”
Ryan looked at him. “I’ll preload a message on the phone to the U.S. embassy. We tell them where to find him. Who he is. What he’s seen. If we don’t come back in a few hours, all he has to do is hit send.”
He unclipped a black handheld radio from his belt. It was still crusted in dried blood. “I took this off the guy back at Punta Roja. Might still be synced to their frequency.”
Gates gave a dry smile. “Now we’re talking.”
They left Noah in the small stone building a few yards from the main road, with three water bottles, a flashlight, Ryan’s burner, and instructions to contact the embassy if they weren’t back in an hour. The boy just nodded solemnly, then settled himself in the corner with his comic book. He must have read it over a hundred times by now, but he wasn’t complaining. Ryan wanted to say more, do more,bemore for the kid but he had nothing in him left to give. Just survival. And then maybe a way out of this mess for all of them.
