The Darkest Hour

CHAPTER 33

THE stench of death lay heavy in the air. Rio eased his hand up to halt his men and then signaled them to fan out and circle. His gut was screaming that this wasn’t right. Any of it.

The air smelled of blood. Fresh blood. His nostrils flared and quivered as he took position in a dense snarl of plants. He blended seamlessly into his environment, more of a chameleon than a human. With slow, careful movements, he sighted his rifle on the encampment below and did a sweep.

He mentally crossed himself. Sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph but it was a brutal sight, and he’d pretty much seen all there was to see when it came to death and murder.

What he saw wasn’t an efficient kill zone. It was a message. A bloody one. Bodies were spread out over the area like litter at a campsite.

Whoever had performed the massacre had been gone at least twelve hours. Rio could detect no movement, no sign of life from the silent village. But he wouldn’t take any chances with his men until they knew for certain the area was clear.

Patiently he waited and watched. Even the carrion hadn’t found the fresh bodies yet, and in the jungle, scavenging was sometimes the difference between life and death.

He carefully moved from his cover and let out a low call to his men to converge on the camp. They came in a tight circumference, their rifles up, their gazes cautiously skirting left and right for the slightest warning they weren’t alone.

Dead men didn’t make any sounds, and all that was left here was the dead.

Rio stepped over two bodies on the edge of the clearing where the huts began and the jungle gave way to the encampment. Rachel Kelly had been held for a year in just such a place as this. Anger blazed through his veins. It was no place for a woman. There was no telling what the animals had done to her.

He noted with grim satisfaction that the assholes had been spared no quarter. Poor bastards probably never knew what hit them. Whoever had performed the hit had come in with fire-power to rival an army.

Terrence stepped into the center of the village and looked toward Rio. Then he signaled the all clear. One by one, his men pushed out of the jungle, their expressions hard as they studied the carnage.

“Somebody did our work for us, I see,” Terrence said as Rio approached him.

“Dead men don’t talk, though,” Rio said in disgust.

Terrence nodded. “Could be why they were killed.”

“It’s highly coincidental that within days of our guys here setting up a new camp after the old one was destroyed in Rachel’s rescue, someone comes through here and takes out the entire village, and I don’t believe in coincidence.”

“Yep, too convenient if you ask me,” Terrence agreed. “Whoever did this didn’t want any loose ends, that’s for damn sure.”

Rio scowled. Sam wasn’t going to be happy. Hell, he wasn’t happy. He’d been looking forward to kicking some cartel ass. Using women in war was for pantywaists. It would have been fun to see if the assholes would feel so tough when they weren’t up against a defenseless woman.

He glanced around as his men carefully picked their way through the field of bodies. What the hell was being covered up here? Rachel’s “death” had been carefully orchestrated. She’d been cut off from her family and held in a godforsaken shithole just like this one. Why? None of it made sense, and now someone had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to make sure no questions were answered.

“So what now?” Terrence asked as he looked around at the bodies strewn left and right.

“I sure as hell ain’t burying them,” Rio muttered. “And I sure ain’t saying any Hail Marys. Let them burn in hell.”

He broke off when a low sound carried on the wind from just a few feet away. Rio and Terrence hauled their rifles up and pointed in the direction of one of the “dead” men. Only he wasn’t dead.

“He’s still breathing,” Terrence muttered.

Rio rushed over, and after making sure he wasn’t walking into a suicide trap, he lowered to one knee beside the grievously injured man.

“Habla Español?” Rio demanded.

The man’s eyes opened to narrow slits. “English,” he whispered. “I speak English.”

Rio and Terrence exchanged glances. What the fuck was an American doing mixed up in the Colombian drug cartel?

The man coughed, and a stream of blood spattered out of his mouth. He focused his glassy gaze on Rio. “I don’t have much time.” Each word seemed pulled from him with excruciating precision. His breathing was so labored that his chest rose and fell dramatically. “I tried to help her. I protected her as much as I could. Can’t choose one person over the good of the mission. You know that. You’re a soldier.”

“What the fuck are you saying?” Rio snarled. “You’re some kind of goddamn government agent and you sat by while Rachel Kelly was tortured and held captive for a year?”

The man closed his eyes and more blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. “Had no choice. I did what I could. Drugging her was the kindest thing they could do to her. I sent information to her family in hopes they’d come for her.”

“Yeah, well, they did,” Rio bit out. “You picked the wrong woman to fuck with.” His gaze swept over the destroyed village and at all the bodies on the ground. “Who did this? It wasn’t us.”

The man shook his head. “He knows. Has to know by now. He wouldn’t have allowed anyone he struck the bargain with to live.” He closed his eyes and made a peculiar choking sound.

“Who knows?” Rio demanded. He shook the man’s shoulder to get him back to consciousness “Who was behind all of this?”

The man’s eyes flickered open once more. “She isn’t safe. He’ll go after her next.”

Then his eyes went blank and his head lolled to the side, his gaze fixed in death.

“Shit,” Terrence bit out. “That told us absolutely nothing.”

Rio rose to his feet and frowned. He didn’t like any of this. “Let’s get the fuck out of here so I can report back to Sam.”

“Steele will be disappointed,” Terrence said with a wry grin. “It already pissed him off that we wouldn’t wait for him to go in.”

“Fuck Steele. He doesn’t run my team. He needs to take care of his injured instead of worrying about what we’re doing.”

“Do we tell him now so he doesn’t make the trip, or do we let him get over here before we let him know the mission is an abort?”

Rio grinned as he and Terrence exchanged sly looks. Pissing Steele off was about the most amusement they got these days.

“Gather everyone up and let’s make tracks. I don’t want to be here in case whoever bloodied the jungle decides to come back.”

Terrence’s hand went into the air, but he wore a slight smile. Nothing had been decided about Steele, but they both knew they’d let him come in hot and then take the wind out of his sails.

They took their fun where they could get it.