“What are they doing?” she asked, almost to herself.
“Traffic?” the driver half-joked.
“Only if it’s a donkey and a bunch of chickens blocking the road,” she remarked harshly.
She tried to see down into the small, three-street town to find out what was going on, but from their vantage point on a small hill, she couldn’t see anything except some rickety buildings. Another anxious minute passed. Angela wondered if Wyatt or one of his companions noticed they were being followed. There was no way for her to know. She shrugged off the irrational paranoia and sat back in her seat. After another minute the little red dot on the screen started moving again. Angela nodded at her driver and the man stepped on the gas and eased the truck back out onto the road.
Will had overheard the man’s conversation with Tommy just before they headed into the woods. He had seen the man before. In fact, he knew who the guy was. Hunter Carlson. Will made sure to know who most of the top assets were in his field. And since his field was somewhat of a shallow pond, it was pretty easy to figure out who was who. Carlson was good. Very good. From what Will had heard, the man was ruthless, clever, and had a very short memory when it came to killing. He reminded him of himself, which made Will hate the man even more.
Carlson also carried himself with a casual nature. It was probably one of the reasons he’d been so successful. Will knew someone like that could lure in the most suspicious of marks before they even knew what happened.
The ropes were tight on his wrists, irritating the skin from the rubbing and jostling of the last hour. Will was angry that he’d let Carlson get the drop on him. He’d told himself it could have happened to anyone. That was probably true. The rope around his ankles wasn’t as tight. Maybe that was all the wiggle room he needed. When Carlson had checked to make sure Will wouldn’t be able to get free, he’d paid more attention to the bindings on his hands instead of his feet. It made sense. Hands seemed much more likely a tool of escape than feet. That was something that he was extremely glad for at the moment.
He twisted his body around and managed to get onto his back despite his hands being bound from behind. The thought had crossed his mind to try and kick the rear window out, but he figured the sound it would make would be too loud.
Instead, he decided to try to open the back door. His shoe was just small enough that he could hook his big toe under the latch. Just as he thought, the toe of the shoe slipped beneath the shiny metal and he pulled back on it. Nothing happened. His hope turned into distress instantly. The door was locked.
“That’s Mauricio’s other truck up ahead,” Sean declared as they bumped and rolled along the old road towards the forest. He let off on the gas slightly and approached the other vehicle with cautious reservation. About twenty feet short of it, he stopped the car all together. Wyatt and Villa peered through the windshield to see if there was anyone in the other truck. Through the tinted back windows they could see all the way through the front of it. “Looks empty,” Sean said and opened his door slowly. He gripped his Ruger .40 in his right hand just to be safe.
Suddenly, they heard a loud thud and instinctively both of them dropped to the high grass.
“What was that?” Sean whispered loudly.
She shrugged. “I have no idea. It came from the back of the truck.”
Sean started to get up off the ground when the thud sounded again. It was definitely coming from the back of the SUV. This time, he stayed crouching low and made his way over to the rear door of the truck. The thud resounded again. Someone was in the back of the truck. Wyatt stepped back and around to the side of the vehicle, making sure to check up ahead in the trees of the forest to make sure it wasn’t some kind of ambush. He pointed his gun around to different positions for a moment. Satisfied they weren’t being watched, he risked a quick glanced into one of the back windows of the truck. Inside, he saw Will tied up and about to try to kick the rear window out. Sean tapped casually on the glass with the tip of his gun. Will heard the tapping and looked up to see Sean standing outside the truck. “It’s Will,” Sean said to Adriana as he quickly stepped back around to the rear of the truck and tried to open the back.
“It’s locked,” Will informed him from inside the vehicle.
A quick pull on the latch confirmed what he said. “Maybe Mauricio has a key to each vehicle on the key ring,” Sean said as he fished out a set of keys from his pocket. He pressed one of the buttons; the lights flicked accompanied by a sound of the doors unlocking.
Adriana pulled a small knife out of a cargo pocket and made quick work of the ropes around Will’s feet and hands.
Sean handed him a gun. “Glad you’re okay,” he said.
“Thanks,” Will replied and took the proffered weapon.
“Where’s Tommy?” Sean asked. “What happened to you guys?”
“We have a new player to deal with.”
The sound of the rushing river was all Tommy could hear, the noises of the forest had faded away to millions of gallons of moving water. Ahead of them, the trees opened into the shore of the Rio Zamora. The river was smaller than Schultz had expected but was still of considerable size. Off to the right, about a hundred yards away, it dropped over a waterfall. The mist of the churning water plumed up into the air a good sixty to eighty feet above the drop point.
Hunter tipped his head towards the falls in a motion to head that way. Tommy reluctantly obeyed and started trudging along the water’s edge. They only walked a few minutes before the bank of the river came to a sudden halt, falling away about fifty feet to the bottom.
Tommy noticed that leading down to the bottom of the precipice was an old path of stone stairs winding its way along the rock face of the cliff. It was wet from the constant barrage of mist and would no doubt be slippery. Still, it appeared to be their only way down. “We’ll have to go down that old path there,” Tommy yelled above the crashing of the waterfall. Hunter nodded and motioned with his gun. As they proceeded to wind their way down the ancient staircase, Tommy could see on the other side of the gorge was another waterfall, where two rivers poured into one.
Will had explained how he and Tommy had stepped right into the stranger’s trap.
Sean was relieved to hear that Tommy was still alive, but he knew there wasn’t much time.
“Do you have any idea who this guy is?” Sean asked as they marched along the jungle path.
Will shook his head as he ducked under a low hanging branch. “No. I didn’t recognize him.” He decided the most prudent course was to lie about knowing who Hunter Carlson was. Keeping up the illusion that he was just a cop was still necessary, right up until the point he executed everyone. Will figured less they knew that he knew, the better.
Inside, though, Will was furious.. In his mind, the battle already raged. He hoped he got another chance to meet Carlson.
Sean interrupted his thoughts. “We’ll just have to assume he’s another hired gun with Golden Dawn. If you get a chance, take him out.”
Adriana raised an eyebrow at the comment. She realized the sound of rushing water was starting to overwhelm the calm of the forest. “The river is just up ahead,” She announced and looked back at the others. “Sounds like the waterfall isn’t far from here.”
Angela’s convoy stopped behind the two parked SUVs at the edge of the forest. She exited her own truck and held her gun casually at her side, brazenly walking up to the first vehicle and then the other. Her team watched for a moment and then followed, satisfied that the coast was clear. She knelt down on one knee and inspected the dirt near one of the wheels. “They went into the woods,” she stated. Her head turned as she gazed into the forest. “Probably down that little path there.” She stood up and flicked her head sideways. “Let’s move.”