Read Online Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4) by Carolyn Crane - Free Book Online
Authors: Carolyn Crane
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six,” he said. He’d never attacked with more than two swords, but the mercado swords could break.
They drove for hours, then ditched the Jeep two miles out from the airstrip and went the rest of the way on foot in the dark. It was part of the ritual, to walk and visualize the fight. They had long training sessions on the walking and the visualizing. Partway in, they stopped and made the fire.
Hugo pulled off his green T-shirt and the boy rubbed salve over the seared flesh of his side and back. The scar tissue was fragile and could rip open with a lot of exertion. There would be some exertion coming up.
He and the boy started the visualization together— anting-anting , his Moro teachers had called it. They would do it before archery practice, before arms firing. There was nothing exotic about it; armies the world over—from the Russians to the Israeli Special Forces—had their soldiers perform visualizations before battle, though they would not call them visualizations. Even the Marines did it with their songs and their call-and-response chants. Hugo had picked up something from every godforsaken outpost that the oil executive had dragged his family to.
Hugo stared into the fire and imagined killing. In his mind, he pre-killed the guards around the airstrip. He pre-killed their hangers-on. And then he’d take out the plane in a fiery explosion. One soldier would be left alive to carry the message back, to let the fighters know of Kabakas’s displeasure. There would be doubt at first, considering Kabakas was dead. But not enough to overcome the fear.
Buena Vista would be safe.
They began the trance, staring into the flames. He led the boy through it, as he’d done a few times before. He’d given the boy a child’s version, to help build his concentration. “Perfect concentration on the small and the large,” he said. “The movement of the flame below the night sky.”
The boy did not concentrate well. Always distracted by his phone, often missing the larger context of things. It worried Hugo.
Hugo became one with the flame, one with the present moment, stilling all thoughts, minute after minute, hour after hour.
Beware, you are not a god, his old Moro teacher would sometimes say. No, he wasn’t a god; he was the devil.
El Gorrion’s men would see that.
Chapter Seven
Somewhere over Nicaragua
O ne of them wanted to take a piss. Aguilo translated, “He must use the bathroom.”
Of course they had to try that one.
“Nope,” she said.
An hour later, she made the bearded one bring her food. She wasn’t hungry, but she needed the ballast. She’d lost her chops as a spy, but the information was still rattling around.
He set it down, but didn’t leave.
“Back,” she said to him.
He glanced at Guz. She pointed the gun at him. “Don’t look at him, look at me! Get back! Translate that! In Spanish!”
Aguilo said nothing.
The bearded man stayed put.
Testing her. Her pulse drummed in her throat.
Fuck.
There was an emperor’s-new-clothes aspect to what she was doing. What did she really have? Nothing much beyond her willingness to crash the plane. And she didn’t really want to do that.
If they so much as sensed that, she was finished.
She took a deep breath and began to count. “ Uno .”
The plane droned on. The man didn’t move.
She reached down into her heart, into the crazy depths of her fear, and let that show in her eyes, her voice. “ Dos .”
The bearded man stepped back. She tried to hide her surprise.
They rode in silence.
Maybe she was a little crazy. She calculated how long she’d gone without sleep. The night with Liza was zero sleep. Coming up on thirty-six hours, then. The tension of the takeover had drained her, too, and the drone of the engine was lulling her senses.
The guys struck up a conversation in Spanish about the horrifying things they’d do to her when it was over. What they’d fuck her with. Yeah, that woke her up.
“No talking!” she
They drove for hours, then ditched the Jeep two miles out from the airstrip and went the rest of the way on foot in the dark. It was part of the ritual, to walk and visualize the fight. They had long training sessions on the walking and the visualizing. Partway in, they stopped and made the fire.
Hugo pulled off his green T-shirt and the boy rubbed salve over the seared flesh of his side and back. The scar tissue was fragile and could rip open with a lot of exertion. There would be some exertion coming up.
He and the boy started the visualization together— anting-anting , his Moro teachers had called it. They would do it before archery practice, before arms firing. There was nothing exotic about it; armies the world over—from the Russians to the Israeli Special Forces—had their soldiers perform visualizations before battle, though they would not call them visualizations. Even the Marines did it with their songs and their call-and-response chants. Hugo had picked up something from every godforsaken outpost that the oil executive had dragged his family to.
Hugo stared into the fire and imagined killing. In his mind, he pre-killed the guards around the airstrip. He pre-killed their hangers-on. And then he’d take out the plane in a fiery explosion. One soldier would be left alive to carry the message back, to let the fighters know of Kabakas’s displeasure. There would be doubt at first, considering Kabakas was dead. But not enough to overcome the fear.
Buena Vista would be safe.
They began the trance, staring into the flames. He led the boy through it, as he’d done a few times before. He’d given the boy a child’s version, to help build his concentration. “Perfect concentration on the small and the large,” he said. “The movement of the flame below the night sky.”
The boy did not concentrate well. Always distracted by his phone, often missing the larger context of things. It worried Hugo.
Hugo became one with the flame, one with the present moment, stilling all thoughts, minute after minute, hour after hour.
Beware, you are not a god, his old Moro teacher would sometimes say. No, he wasn’t a god; he was the devil.
El Gorrion’s men would see that.
Chapter Seven
Somewhere over Nicaragua
O ne of them wanted to take a piss. Aguilo translated, “He must use the bathroom.”
Of course they had to try that one.
“Nope,” she said.
An hour later, she made the bearded one bring her food. She wasn’t hungry, but she needed the ballast. She’d lost her chops as a spy, but the information was still rattling around.
He set it down, but didn’t leave.
“Back,” she said to him.
He glanced at Guz. She pointed the gun at him. “Don’t look at him, look at me! Get back! Translate that! In Spanish!”
Aguilo said nothing.
The bearded man stayed put.
Testing her. Her pulse drummed in her throat.
Fuck.
There was an emperor’s-new-clothes aspect to what she was doing. What did she really have? Nothing much beyond her willingness to crash the plane. And she didn’t really want to do that.
If they so much as sensed that, she was finished.
She took a deep breath and began to count. “ Uno .”
The plane droned on. The man didn’t move.
She reached down into her heart, into the crazy depths of her fear, and let that show in her eyes, her voice. “ Dos .”
The bearded man stepped back. She tried to hide her surprise.
They rode in silence.
Maybe she was a little crazy. She calculated how long she’d gone without sleep. The night with Liza was zero sleep. Coming up on thirty-six hours, then. The tension of the takeover had drained her, too, and the drone of the engine was lulling her senses.
The guys struck up a conversation in Spanish about the horrifying things they’d do to her when it was over. What they’d fuck her with. Yeah, that woke her up.
“No talking!” she
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