Page 24

LINDA

T he tropical weather hit Linda in the face like a wet towel as she and the rest of the platoon made their way through the heavily wooded terrain.

Orkin might have liked those sorts of rapid weather changes, but for her, it played hell with her sinuses.

The oppressive heat reminded her of how far she was from home, from Brutus, and it unsettled her in a way missions never had before.

Next to her was Agent Foster of the DEA, the platoon's partner in this operation.

He was short and compact, and a man totally not built for the tropics.

His pale skin was slathered in sunscreen to the point that his skin glistened with an oily, almost alien shine.

But at the same time, the man's forearms and face were a nasty shade of sunburned pink.

The whole company had been flown down under the cover of darkness for this one.

While Charlie had technically been on yellow status, they were called in when the mission required more troops than usual.

This wasn't the first time a yellow category company had been called when the situation demanded it.

Linda's team was assigned to the assault element, the most dangerous position.

In the past, she would have welcomed the challenge without hesitation.

Now, she found herself occasionally distracted by thoughts of Virginia, of Brutus waiting for her return.

The realization that she had someone to go home to felt foreign and slightly unnerving.

Never before had her focus been divided between mission and personal life.

"Okay, pause here,” Agent Foster said, holding up a fist.

The squad would have stopped with just the plain fist, they were well trained in nonverbal communications. But Foster was an outsider, unfamiliar with them. Dressed in plain olive green fatigues, his body armor was identical to theirs except for the giant DEA emblazoned on the back.

"Waiting on verification."

"Verification of what?" Dawkins whispered, shaking out his right hand before returning it to his rifle. They were all carrying heavier-than-usual weapons today, the extra ammunition adding weight but providing the firepower they might need if things went sideways.

"Gallegos is verifying with our source that Ramirez is in the compound," Foster said. "So we wait."

Dawkins sighed, and leaned against the tree he was crouched next to.

In the thick near-jungle like foliage, he was well covered, and while Linda would prefer him on his belly in a potentially hostile situation like this, she knew that if he was any lower, he wouldn't be able to see anything in the distance.

"You know," he whispered, "if we're going to keep doing these drug missions in CA and the Caribbean, I really need to learn more Spanish."

"What do you know?" Foster asked.

Dawkins smirked.

"A donde esta la playa? Yo quiero una cerveza," Dawkins admitted. "Useful in Veracruz."

"We need to have everyone learn foreign languages," Linda pointed out quietly, remembering Hollywood's comment after their last mission on the same subject.

Taking out the bite nozzle on her Camelbak water supply, she took the opportunity to have a small sip. Dehydration crept up on you in this kind of weather, and she insisted on everyone on her team taking frequent small sips from their three liter reservoirs.

"Yeah well, you already know Spanish," Dawkins pointed out. "What else do you want?"

"Italian would be nice," Linda said. "But yeah... Spanish is useful."

Dawkins snorted quietly. "Think I'll start on Mandarin maybe, just in case we need that. We fuck around in that part of the world enough."

"Shhhh." Foster held a finger to his ear. "Okay, we're a go. Let's move, west wall."

The plan was simple, like most good military plans. The compound was owned by one of the largest drug cartels in the region, a notoriously violent group that routinely killed local politicians, law enforcement, and even military if they weren't willing to take the cartel's payoffs.

Which is why they couldn't be trusted. And part of the reason for bringing in so much force. Going with a purely American op, there was no official involvement of the local government at all beyond giving the C-130 Charlie Company had taken from Virginia landing directions.

So while very few beyond the country's President knew of the operation... she was still nervous about betrayal, and was glad the DEA was checking their boxes.

The compound itself was backed against a brackish inlet in the wide river that led directly to the ocean.

It was too narrow and shallow for anything more than a single pleasure cruiser motorboat, and protected on the other side by steep cliffs that made an assault from that direction impossible.

The other three sides were thickly walled, but as Linda and the rest of the squad moved in bounding cover towards the wall, her mind was focused on the task at hand, and yet, strangely aware of what she now had to lose.

As she prepared to scale the wall, Linda felt time slow around her. In previous missions, this moment of suspended danger would have brought nothing but focus. Now, unbidden, Brutus's face flashed in her mind. What if this was the mission where her luck ran out? What if she never saw him again?

She pushed the thought away as quickly as it came. She couldn't afford distraction, not when lives depended on her.

With practiced efficiency, she took a boost from Derrick Jackson, swinging herself up and over the wall.

As she balanced at the top, providing cover for Takeshi who followed using Hollywood as his boost, Linda felt that familiar rush of adrenaline, but it was different now, knowing someone was waiting for her return made each risky move feel weightier, more consequential.

For a dangerous few seconds she would be exposed, and she knew that until the rest of the squad was up and over she could be massively outgunned.

But before any guards could respond to her and Takeshi on the wall, Second Squad did what they did best, drawing all attention away with a dramatic entrance.

An explosion ripped through the main gate of the compound as Second Squad unleashed their firepower against the wall.

"Go!" Orkin called from the ground, and Linda dropped down, taking a quick kneeling position behind a birdbath while Takeshi took cover on the ground.

The first guard to respond came around the side of the pool house, his weapon raised and ready to fire even as he appeared. Linda took him with a quick burst of fire in the chest, dropping him hard to the stone deck.

It wasn't the first blood she'd spilled in her job. But each life she took carried a weight.

As soon as everyone was over the wall, the squad swept the west side of the compound, going by the numbers. Alpha and Bravo teams leapfrogged one another, going room by room through the enormous near-castle that was the home to the cartel's second in command and head of shipping operations.

Linda knew that from this compound, fifty or more tons of cocaine alone would be processed and shipped north per year, through Mexico and then into the United States. The street value was more than she could juggle in her head.

"Cover!" Hollywood, who was her 'battle buddy' on this op, called, kicking in the door. Linda immediately tossed a flash-bang grenade, waiting for it to go off before she and Hollywood cleared the room, putting down a staggering man who was carrying a pistol in his right hand. "Clear!"

"Clear!" Linda replied, sweeping the room. Her pulse was racing in her ears, and even through the hearing protection she wore she could hear the gunfire that rattled through the entire compound.

Getting to the end of the hallway, Linda and the rest of Alpha Team went up the stairs while Atkins and Bravo Team provided cover.

Linda and Orkin led the way, and as they got to the landing a man burst out, spraying the stairwell with gunfire, screaming in Spanish so tinged with rage that even she couldn't understand the exact curse he was using.

It felt like she'd been kicked in the chest, and the pain was immediate.

It'd happened before, so she knew she'd taken at least one round, but this time was different.

As the impact knocked her back a step, her mind wasn't consumed with completing the objective or returning fire, her first thought was of Brutus.

Of never seeing him again. Of leaving things unfinished between them.

For the first time in her career, Linda found herself not just concerned about completing the mission, but about making it home.

She and Orkin immediately returned fire, putting the gunman down. Not even breaking stride, Linda took her cover position, peering down the second floor hallway, pushing through the pain radiating from her chest.

"Move!"

It was another twenty minutes before everything was swept, and Linda and the rest of Second Squad joined up with the rest of the platoon in front of the compound.

"Alpha Team accounted for," Linda told Orkin, who relayed to Lieutenant Parker that First Squad was all present and accounted for. "What now?"

"We burn the entire compound to the ground," Agent Foster said. "We're leaving nothing for the cartel to reclaim."

Foster was in a foul mood, and Linda could understand why. She'd heard the whispers, and knew that the cartel underboss they'd been sent to kill or capture had gotten away. Apparently someone had talked, and while there'd been soldiers... the boss himself had been nowhere to be found.

"Feels like a damn shame to burn this place," Hollywood said as he and Linda dumped gasoline from the fuel depot in the first floor library.

When she looked over, he indicated the furnishings around them. "You have to admit it's a nice house."

"I'm sure you can take your second honeymoon here sometime," Linda commented wryly, grimacing slightly as the pain started to set into her chest. She was going to be sporting a bruise, that was for sure.

Hollywood noticed. "You okay?"

"I've been hit harder in martial arts practice," she lied through her teeth, chuckling. "I'll be okay, just don't ask me to do a pushup test for a week or so."

"Yeah well, I won't be so okay when Sergeant Adams learns my battle buddy got shot," Hollywood griped. "And I promised her we'd get in a lift together when we got back. You got shot, but I'm the one who's going to die."

A moment of silence passed between them before Hollywood asked quietly, "How's Brutus going to take it when he finds out you got shot?"

Linda paused, surprised by the question. "I... I don't know. I've never had to tell someone who cares about me that I got hurt on the job before."

"First time for everything," Hollywood said with unexpected gentleness. "Jess was a wreck the first time I came home with a bullet graze. Now she just asks if I kept pressure on it properly." He gave her a sideways glance. "It changes things, you know. Having someone waiting."

"Yeah," Linda admitted. "I noticed that today. When I took that hit upstairs... my first thought wasn't about the mission. It was about him." She shook her head. "Never happened before."

"Welcome to the club," Hollywood said with a small smile.

Linda laughed, knowing just how much Jess Adams cared for her brother-in-law, and how accurate Hollywood was about her reaction.

"I'll tell her on the plane that it was me and Orkin who took the stairs," Linda assured him. "Besides, if she gives you any shit, ask her to tell you the story about how Sergeant Lentz got that star-shaped scar on his left buttcheek."

"Who?"

"Her former squad leader," Linda said with a grin. "Don't tell her I said who to ask about."

They finished their preparations, and as they formed up to evacuate, smoke began to rise from the compound as fire ripped through the guts.

"Good work today Third Platoon," Lieutenant Parker said as they climbed onto the trucks that would evac them back to the airfield. "Let's go home."

Those two words—"go home"—resonated differently in Linda's mind now. Home wasn't just a place anymore. It was a person.

"For now," Takeshi Satomura said under his breath as he took his seat.

Next to him, Dawkins looked over. "What do you mean?"

"The cartels... they're like the yakuza back home," Takeshi said.

"Yes, they are illegal. Yes, they are criminals.

They do bad things to many, many good people.

But they still exist. We took out a building today, and many soldiers.

But the bosses are still out there. Which means we'll be back in six months, or next year. "

"But—"

"He's right, Dawks," Linda said sadly, pressing a hand gently to her bruised chest. "The problem is, the local government is seen as either inept, or just as evil as the cartels. So until the locals are ready to pick the government and the law over the cartels... they'll just reform and come back."

She leaned back in her seat, allowing herself to think of Brutus, of getting back to him. For the first time, the prospect of future missions came with a new kind of tension, not fear, exactly, but awareness of what she now had to lose. What she had to live for.

"You asked about foreign language learning earlier, right?" she continued to Dawkins. "The entire fire team might as well start working on your Spanish. You're going to need it."

As the truck bounced along the rough road, Linda gazed out at the tropical landscape blurring past. She'd return to this hellhole if duty called, but for now, she was going home. To Brutus. To something she'd never had before—a future beyond the next mission.