“But not for long,” Kim said, glancing in the mirror. “I think the cavalry just arrived.”
Camacho turned to see a black Lenco BearCat pull up behind them. Moments later half a dozen heavily armed men jumped out and walked toward the Explorer.
“Looks like we’re in business.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Jack Camacho drew his weapon and led the charge down to the Cult’s HQ. Kim Taylor was at his side, spoiling for a fight as usual and Doyle a step to her right. Behind them were Scarlet, Reaper and Lexi from the obscure ECHO team. He knew only that the Englishwoman had shot President Grant to save his life, which he thought highly suspect, but Jack Brooke wanted them on board so that was that.
All of them were backed up by a unit from the Mexican Special Operations Group, or GOPES, and now they moved through the tropical heat like jaguars, closing in on the target with only one thought in mind — the capture and interrogation of Aurora Soto and any information they could get leading to the arrest of Morton Wade. They also had two hostages now identified as Viktor Sobotka, a nuclear weapons specialist working at Los Alamos and his wife Alena.
They slipped over the compound’s wall behind the cover of a line of fan palms and bounced silently along the perfectly manicured bahia lawn. They were nearly at the mansion now, and skirting around a sumptuous circular swimming pool. On one side was a triple garage block housing what looked like a thirty year-old VW Beetle, and parked outside was Aurora’s Boxster and the Beauville.
Camacho sent a clipped message over the comms: “Remember, we need Soto alive and no one goes in without my order.”
Moving into their positions now, the three teams worked as one as they closed in on their target. Camacho watched with confidence and pride as everyone readied for the assault, but he knew how fast these things could get ugly.
“All right, we go in three, two…”
Before he could finish, they heard shots and then someone in the GOPES team returned fire without his permission. A savage fire-fight exploded out of nowhere as the members of the cult leaped to action to defend their inner sanctum. Camacho tried to hold it together as the exchange of fire grew in its intensity and two of the Mexican soldiers were slain crossing the lawn to defend their colleagues.
Then the Sun cultists ramped things up with the deployment of grenades, hurled with surprising accuracy from the Colonial balustrade on the second floor. Fire and death rained down from the mansion and Camacho had seconds to act. With their cover blown and half the GOPES men dead, he had no choice but to order the rest of the team into battle.
The combined force of Camacho’s team, ECHO and the GOPES men made short work of the outer perimeter, but when they were in the inner courtyard the fighting got fiercer.
Scarlet leaned into the shadow of the pool house and paused for a second while she clicked a fresh mag into the grip of her Glock. The compound was larger than it looked from the other side of the wall and it was obvious these guys had access to serious cash. She’d read about cults over the years, but never thought she’d find herself shooting her way into the heart of one of their inner sanctums.
She saw Aurora now, on the upper level behind the balustrade. She was holding a sidearm and taking measured pot-shots from behind the safety of a doorway arch. The sun flashed on the one remaining window before Aurora blasted it out with her gun and took out another of the GOPES men. He took it hard in the chest and the bullet knocked him off his feet and drove him into the pool. He landed with a bloody smash in the chlorinated water. Aurora smiled as his dead eyes stared up at the bright sky.
Scarlet saw several armed members of the Sixth Sun running about inside the mansion. Some were bringing fresh ammo to those on the front line, while others were trying to bolster up the defenses around the ground floor doors and windows. She fired through the broken windows, hitting one of the men and sending him flying around in an arc. He stumbled over the back doorstep and cracked his head on the edge of a terracotta potted palm.
Camacho was a few yards ahead of her, and fired his gun in a barrage of non-stop fire as he moved forward to the doors. Kim and the GOPES men followed him into the building while Scarlet, Lexi and Reaper cleaned up the last surviving members of the cult still in the courtyard.
A squeal of tires alerted them to Delgado and Garza skidding out of the compound in the Chevy but they were pinned down by the cultists, whose ferocious fighting was getting more intense the closer they got to the HQ.
“Damn it!” Camacho said.
Kim ejected the mag from the grip of her SIG and smacked a fresh one in. It was her last magazine, but the fight was turning now. She counted no more than half a dozen of the cult members still standing, plus Aurora who was still on the upper level with a handful of the cult members.
“Any sign of the Sobotkas?” Kim yelled.
“Nothing,” Camacho called back. “Must have been in the goddamn Chevy.”
Scarlet, Lexi and Reaper cleared the east wing while Camacho, Doyle and Kim checked the kitchen and out the back. With the lower level checked they started to sweep up stairs, but before they’d made three steps Aurora Soto appeared and she was holding a gun to Alena Sobotka’s head. Without warning Alena made a break for it, trying to flee down the stairs toward Camacho. She tripped on the rug at the top of the stairs and fell, crashing hard down the steps and landing with a sickening crack on the landing floor.
Aurora raised her gun to fire but Scarlet aimed her weapon and shot the gun out of her hand. It spun away from her in a blur and flew out the window beside her.
“You’re not going anywhere, Soto,” Camacho said, training his gun at her.
“Now be a good darling, and put your hands up like you just don’t care,” Scarlet said, holstering her weapon.
Aurora sighed and slowly raised her hands as Scarlet knelt to feel Alena’s pulse. She looked at Camacho and gently shook her head. “No.”
“Where’s Viktor Sobotka?” Kim asked Aurora as she cuffed her hands behind her back.
“Long gone,” was all she said.
“We’ll find him, with or without your help, Soto,” Doyle said, giving her a push up the stairs. “Let’s go.”
Kim Taylor could hardly believe her eyes as she jogged up the sweeping staircase and emerged on the upper level of the mansion. Before the blood of battle, everything had been white except for the mahogany floors, and images of ancient Aztec gods hung on every wall, some painted, while others were enormous tapestries. She gently pulled off her sunglasses as if they were somehow responsible for what she was seeing, but when her naked eyes saw the same thing she knew it was all for real.
“Holy crap,” Camacho boomed. “This is nuts.”
“This must be Cult HQ all right,” Doyle said.
“It is — the Order of the Sixth Sun,” Kim said as she lifted some papers off the desk in the study. “It’s all here, for sure.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Aurora hissed.
“Can it, bitch,” Scarlet said.
“Check out the robes,” Lexi said, pointing a red-painted fingernail at some white robes hanging over the couch in the corner. She turned to Aurora. “You actually wear robes?”
Aurora said nothing, but fixed her eyes on Camacho who gave a low whistle of amazement as he rifled through a filing cabinet. “There’s gotta be enough shit in here to put Wade away for a millennium.” He turned to Aurora. “And you too.”
“We have no official jurisdiction here, Jack,” Kim said. “We’re here to bring Wade back to the US, and she’s Mexico’s problem.”
“They killed three of our people,” Scarlet said flatly. “That needs addressing.”