Page 2 of Zorro

“Right,” Bear agreed. “You hear something? I can’t hear shit.”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

They shifted together through the ferns, low and fluid, until the shape came into view, a man slumped against the roots of a massive balete tree, camo soaked, blood darkening the soil beneath him.

Bear whispered, “How do you do that? Hear injured people when even a dog can’t detect the sound in this downpour?”

Zorro tilted his head. “It’s a gift.” The wounded man raised a trembling pistol when they approached. “Vai embora!” the man barked. “Don’t come closer!”

Zorro immediately dropped his rifle to low ready and raised his hand. “Somos americanos,” he said calmly, Portuguese rolling off his tongue. “Amigos. Médicos. Viemos ajudar.” We’re Americans. Friends. Medics. We’re here to help.

Bear held on to the dog, who growled low. “Flint,” Bear said, and he sat down on his haunches.

The kid’s arm wavered, then slowly lowered. His breathing hitched, pain etching across his brow. Guilt cut into him—Sam “Buck” Buckard had looked like that the last time he was in this steaming jungle. Buck crumpled in the mud, skull fractured, and he hadn’t been there. Zorro pushed it away and focused back on the kid.

He was young, maybe mid-twenties, with sharp cheekbones, dark eyes, and the signature black uniform of BOPE, Brazil’s elite Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais. Urban warfare specialists. Jungle-capable. Known for storming favelas and walking into gunfire like it was a training drill. This one didn’t look like he’d ever hesitated in a fight, but now, blood soaked his camo, and his mouth was tight with pain he hadn’t yet let show.

Zorro dropped beside him fast, boots sliding in the mud as he got one hand around the back of the young BOPE operator’s neck. He pulled off his vest, jerked up his shirt, too much blood pulsing from a gash just below the soldier’s ribs.

He was breathing fast. “Nome?” he asked, breath steady, swallowing hard. “Miguel Sampaio.” Another hard breath. “I speak English, and since we’re getting to know each other…it’s Migs.”

Zorro liked him instantly. Bleeding out and still cracking wise. Classic.

Bear chuckled. “Aren’t you a cool customer?” He inclined his head. “That’s Zorro, the pain in the ass who’s going to save your life. I’m Bear and this is Flint.”

Every second counted. Every breath he missed might be the one someone didn’t take. That was the thing about being the one who patched them up—when he failed, they didn’t get a second chance. If he wasn’t fast enough, strong enough, there enough, then maybe he wasn’t enough at all.

“Okay, Migs,” Zorro said, shifting his grip, not even bothering to give Buck a side-eye. He was a pain in the ass. “Let’s keep that heart of yours beating.”

The kid grabbed his vest in a tight grip, his voice urgent. “My team’s in trouble.”

Zorro kept working. “Where?”

“A click north,” he rasped. “Pinned down. Running out of ammo. They’re going to die. I can show you.”

“Balls of steel. I like this kid,” Bear said.

“You’re not going anywhere right now.” Already moving, Zorro gave him his stern medic look and assessed the wound.

Behind him, Bear stepped back and keyed his comm. “LT, this is Bear. We’ve got a wounded BOPE soldier claiming his unit is pinned down about a click from our current position. Requesting permission to engage and support.”

Joker’s voice crackled back a beat later into Zorro’s ears. “Copy that. Mark your position. We’re less than five out. We’ll be there.”

Zorro leaned close to the BOPE soldier. “Tell your leader. The Americans are coming.”

With a look of relief, Migs depressed his own comms, spoke rapidly, then nodded when he got the response.

“You’re lucky we got here in time,” Zorro muttered, mostly to himself. The pulse under his fingers was thready. This kid had minutes, maybe.

Zorro popped open a pouch on his vest and worked fast, slipping a pressure dressing against the BOPE operator’s soaked wound and clamping it down hard. The kid let out a sharp breath but didn’t scream.

“Good,” Zorro muttered. “You stay awake, you keep breathing.”

Injecting a coagulant and a small dose of painkiller into the thigh, just enough to slow the bleeding and keep him from passing out, he said quietly, “This will help.”

Migs nodded faintly.

After a minute, he checked the kid’s pulse again and nodded. “Let’s go.” Only then did Zorro shift, hooking an arm under the kid’s legs and another behind his shoulders. With a grunt, he lifted him into a fireman’s carry and took off at a steady jog, weaving through wet brush and low ferns until he found a shallow depression behind a cluster of rocks. It wasn’t perfect, but it was hidden. He laid Migs down, set up a quick plasma bag, then covered him with a camouflage tarp.