"Son." Harris's voice is surprisingly gentle. "After her treatment, you're gonna wanna take her home and baby her like a princess. Not traipse around that place."
"That place, is it?" I ask. “Not a fan?"
He tips his head to the side. "Eh, not really, personally, but the kids love it. She'll have a blast. Go right to the front of every ride, eat all the terrible shit there is to eat, meet all the characters. Good for her grandparents, too. That shit was scary for them, too, y'know. When it's your time with your girl, please trust me when I tell you that you want it to be simple, easy, and stress-free. And as the adult, Disney World ain't that."
"Oh."
The question that repeats in my head the rest of the drive, though, has nothing to do with Disney World, though.
It's much simpler: Where is home?
I've dozed off, apparently. I blink awake as the Suburban pulls into the parking lot of a deserted strip mall—there's a smoke shop, a Thai food place, a chemist—which apparently the Yanks call a drug store—and a resale shop. There are only a handful of other cars in the lot, making me wonder if these businesses are even still open. Puck pulls around the back of the lot, passing trash bins and employee cars on the right, a brick retaining wall on the left anchoring a steep hill sparsely dotted with short pines and low shrubs. It looks hot outside.
There are a pair of top-end G-Wagens parked nose-to-tail near the middle of the back lot. As our parade of SUVs approaches, the two vehicles disgorge seven men, who, speaking in strictly professional capacity, are each more improbably more impressive than the last, regardless of which order you look at them in. They're massive blokes, hard, capable, and confident. Operators, like myself, and the men with me.
A minute later, we're standing in a lopsided oval—the Original Six Alpha One men, myself, the seven surviving RMI operatives, and the seven new guys. Fourteen hard men, all pissed off and ready to eat lead and shit gravestones.
"Right, intros," Harris says, taking the lead. "I'm Harris." He points at each of us in turn. "Duke, Puck, Thresh, Anselm, and Rush. Chico? Your guys?"
Chico jerks his thumb at himself. "I am Chico." Like Harris, he points at each man as he names him. "Tony, Ulrich, U-Boat, Larson, Epson, and Stinky."
The one named Stinky is a tall man, closer in age to the A1S blokes, with silvering brown hair and a short beard. "Ask me why they call me Stinky, and I'll fuckin’ shoot your ass."
No one says a word in response—we all know how military nicknames get attached to you. And pro tip, it ain't because you did something badass. I just got lucky because my name is a cool handle. No stupid nickname to make me remember my worst moment.
Harris juts his chin at the new guys. "Solomon?"
A tall, trim, Robert Redford-looking bloke answers. "Right. I'm Solomon. We're the Broken Arrows. This is Rev, Chance, Kane, Lash, my brother Saxon, and my other brother Silas."
Rev is brown-skinned with a wide, black mohawk of tightly-curled hair. Chance is nearly as big as Thresh, Hawaiian or Polynesian or something, based on the tattoos I can see, though I could be wrong. Kane is six feet even with a bodybuilder's physique, a blond beard, and a black ballcap. Lash is shorter, like Puck, and similarly built—wide, broad, and dense, with short black hair and a neat beard; ethnically, I can't place him, as his brown skin and black hair could mean anything. The brothers are all very similar—over six feet, lean and hard and muscular, the sort of blokes you'd see playing the dashing hero in a Hollywood shoot-em-up flick with big explosions and lots of slow-mo running from said explosions. Solomon has copper hair, the other two are golden boys.
Harris consults a tablet device. "Right. Now we know our names. Sol, last intel we had put Bryn not far outside Austin, in motion. We know Pugli is here, and we know Mercado is…somewhere, but his men are Stateside.”
Solomon nods. "We have several objectives. One, rescue Bryn Harris. Second, find Lorenzo. Third, find Inez. It's likely they're together, and if they are, they'll be going after Mercado. Fourth, find Beatriz and Little Ren." He has a tablet as well, which he spends a moment tapping and swiping on—a second later, Harris's tablet dings, as does Chico's. "That's what we know. Lorenzo was with Beatriz and Little Ren in a safehouse in Houston. That got hit, and Inez tracked them to another safehouse in Austin, which was hit as well by Mercado's men."
"Shit." Harris hisses a sigh. "Lear just updated me—Bryn's location stopped for a few moments on a highway not twenty minutes from here, and then kept going southwest, roughly in the direction of the border."
"Well, then, let's fuckin' go," Puck says. "We can share intel over the comms."
"Hold up, though," Harris says. "Who are Beatriz, Ren, and Lorenzo?"
“Oh," Sol says. "Right, forgot you don't know. So, Inez is Mercado's ex. Well, technically they're still married, but she's out for his blood. Little Ren is their child, who Inez stole from Mercado after his birth. She hid him with a woman in Colombia named Beatriz, who raised him as her son. Little Ren doesn't know who his father is, or that Beatriz isn't his mother. Mercado needs an heir to take over the throne of his narco empire, and he wants Little Ren. Lorenzo is Inez's…umm…" he glances at his mates. "Former lover, I guess? An old flame. He's an operator, too, and a damn good one. He was taking care of Beatriz and Little Ren while Inez tried to take out Mercado on her own, but it seems like Mercado got them first. We haven't heard from him since the hit on the safehouse in Austin, and we're worried about him. His body wasn't there, and if they'd killed him, it would be, so we're reasonably sure he's alive. We also don't know where Inez is, but she's…well, she's our boss. Our leader. And our friend. She wanted to handle Mercado on her own, but we decided to ignore that order. She didn't leave us to handle our shit alone, and we're not about to leave her to handle hers alone, either. Even if she is who the boogeyman has nightmares about."
Chico is frowning. "The wife of Mercado? You mean Sophia de Silva?”
Sol's gaze snaps to Chico's. "Yes. You know her?"
“Do I know her? No. Do I know of her? Sí. Before Raze hires me, I work for the Tri-National Anti-Gang Task Force to fight human trafficking. I make enemies of Mercado's men. They kidnap my wife. I make them talk before I kill them very slow.” He spits on the ground. "This was many years ago, when I was a very young man. They speak of Sophia de Silva with…" he trails off, hunting for words. "Reverence, I think you say. And much fear."
Solomon nods. “That's her."
"She is no longer cartel?"
"Nope."
Chico's grin is wicked. "May god have mercy on Mercado, in that case, for what I have heard of Sophia de Silva tells me that she will not."
"No," Solomon answers, his voice hard. "She will not. And neither will we."
