Trent reshouldered his bag of gear and vaulted up the final flight of stairs. It had been approximately forty-five seconds since he had entered the home. Two minutes since he had killed the men outside on the street. His internal clock continued to tick.
Trent placed the rifle on the floor and removed the large weapon that had been fastened to his back, a rushing sound in his ears as adrenaline pumped through his veins. From the doorway, he couldn’t see his targets, but he could still hear them, unaware. Trent stepped out onto the rooftop patio, weapon trained forward.
Incandescent bulbs hung along the outer perimeter of the rooftop, illuminating the area with a dim yellow light. Two couches and several potted plants lined the walls, and a long wooden table rested in the center of the space. An open bottle of wine with two glasses sat on the table. His target was sitting on a chair at the head of the table, with his newly appointed mistress for the evening straddling him, facing away from Trent.
Trent whistled loud.
Both of their faces snapped toward him, and Rojas threw the half-dressed Latina off his lap. The woman instinctively covered herself. Rojas reached for the pistol on the table.
Trent held an M32A1 multishot grenade launcher with two hands, the stock pressed to his shoulder and the wide barrel pointed at Rojas. It was a bulky weapon, painted a drab green, with a round ammunition cylinder similar to a tommy gun. It was designed to hold 40mm grenades, but that wasn’t what Trent had loaded into the weapon just now.
As Rojas reached for his pistol on the table, Trent took aim through a holographic sight, its infrared laser designator targeting the man’s hairy chest.
THUNK.
A single 40mm blunt-impact projectile round shot into the right side of the man’s chest at a speed of 290 feet per second. The round mushroomed on impact, transferring all of its kinetic energy into Rojas’s body. This resulted in Rojas departing his feet and flying backward into the air, his arms and legs in trail. He landed hard on his back about five feet away, a motionless heap, breathless on the tiled floor.
The woman screamed.
Trent held a lone finger up to his lips, pointing the weapon at her and advancing in her direction. Trent thought about shooting her too, but these “less-lethal” rounds had once been called “nonlethal.” The company’s lawyers had insisted upon the change in marketing terminology for a reason — they were known to be unintentionally fatal to a certain percentage of people they hit. Especially at this range.
Trent placed the grenade launcher on the table, walked over to his second nude and screaming woman in the past minute, removed another strip of duct tape, and went to work. He wrapped her mouth until no sound came out. She could still breathe through her nose. He tied her hands and feet together as well.
Trent could now hear Rojas wheezing from a few feet away. Thank God. He would have been pissed if this had all been for nothing.
Leaving the girl tied up, he went to work on Rojas next, quickly using the same duct tape technique to immobilize, blind, and gag him.
Trent unzipped his large black duffle bag and opened it on the floor. He fought his own disgust as he threw the mostly naked man into the bag and zipped it back up.
He brought his boom mike down to his lips. “Max, I’m going to be ready for you at the front entrance in thirty seconds.”
Max didn’t sound happy. “Uh, that’s going to be a problem.”
It was at this point that Trent heard the sound of multiple vehicles skidding to a stop on the streets below.
Max, still in the lot down the street from Trent, counted the vehicles now parking outside the townhome. Five… six… seven if you counted the police car with lights flashing.
Renee was in his ear. “SIGINT is showing massive cartel movements into the area. There are also police coming. But they’re on the same radio frequency as the narcos, so I don’t think that’s good for us.”
Max said, “Trent, can you get to the pre-positioned vehicle using your alternate exit?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Do it, and let me know when you’re safe in the car. If you can get clear, I’ll pick up Renee and we’ll meet you at the airport. If not, let me know and I’ll pick you up at the checkpoint bravo.”
“Wilco.”
Max said, “Renee, is Wilkes’s CIA plane at the airport yet?”
“He just sent me a message about that. He said that there was a problem with the plane. Something about the size. But it’s there.”
“What’s wrong with the plane size?”
“He didn’t elaborate.”
Max turned on his car and slowly left his lot, turning away from the townhome. In his rearview mirror, he could see the streets rapidly filling up with vehicles.
Trent could hear the sound of car doors slamming below. Curses echoing through the street. He risked a peek over the stucco wall.
Sonofabitch.
There were too many of them to fight his way back across the street, where his primary egress path lay. Trent counted five trucks. Dozens of heavily armed men, inspecting the dead bodies and looking around.
Trent forced himself to remain calm and think through the problem. The narcos had arrived several minutes quicker than he had anticipated. An unusually fast response. They hadn’t yet entered the house. Instead they seemed to be massing outside, preparing to swarm his position with overwhelming force. Wonderful.
Trent pressed the ammo quick-release lever on the grenade launcher and grabbed the other cartridge of ammunition from his bag. This ammunition had the letters “HE” on the sides. High-explosive. He twisted the new ammo cartridge slowly over the cartridge cylinder, like a giant six-shooter from an old western. It fit into place and Trent pressed it in, locking it and snapping it shut.
Trent crept atop the wall again and aimed the bulky grenade launcher at the mass of narco foot soldiers below. He pulled the trigger in rapid succession.
THUNK. THUNK. THUNK.
Ricochets of high-explosive rounds ripped through the streets as Trent unloaded his magazine. Metal fragments shot through vehicles and flesh. After the burst of chaos, the only remaining sounds were the faint moans of the injured. A putrid smell hung in the air.
Trent didn’t wait to evaluate the damage. He dropped the grenade launcher where he stood, then squatted down and heaved the zippered body bag containing his prisoner over his right shoulder. Gritting his teeth under the strain, he grabbed his rifle with his free hand and jogged down the stairs and towards the second-floor bedroom.
From the pattern-of-life intel reports they had studied, he knew this was where he would find a custom-built passageway connecting to the adjacent townhome.
Trent found a door behind a standing mattress, which he nudged over with the tip of his rifle. The mattress fell to the floor, and Trent unbolted the door.
He entered the passageway and closed the door behind him just as he heard the first shouts of men entering the narco home.
Now in the adjacent townhome, Trent raced down the stairs, still performing a fireman’s carry of his now-squirming prisoner. He ran past a scared-looking family huddled in the kitchen. Two kids behind their mom. A grandma next to them. Trent ignored the family, continuing down to their basement.
Towards the tunnel.
The tunnel was one of many that the cartel had created for quick escapes at several safe houses throughout the city. Human intelligence had revealed the existence of this particular tunnel to Trent’s team, and it had been listed in the mission brief as an “alternate extraction route.”