Page 87 of Seal of Honor
Easy, at least, until he heard the trilling whistle of a bird call and his heart kicked up. Harvard, acting as lookout, had found a hide in a tree in the side yard that provided a perfect eagle-eye view of both the front and the back of the house. The call signaled trouble.
Gabe looked toward Quinn and Jesse, lying belly to the ground at his right, Jesse’s medical bag a dark lump between them.
They waited.
Harvard gave another call. Three short trills.
Someone was coming. Or, more to the point, three someones. Then, five more whistles from Harvard indicated five more approaching. Eight total, which tipped the scales a little too much for Gabe’s liking. Ten baddies, including Rorro and Jacinto, to his six undertrained men.
Shit.
“Hold,” he whispered into his radio, indicating they should all stay where they were—Marcus in the woods bordering the south side of the property, Jean-Luc on the north side near Harvard, and Ian in the southwest corner.
“Stonewall.” Marcus’s voice crackled from his radio. “We’ve got two more vehicles incoming.”
Gabe’s jaw clenched. “Acknowledged.”
Quinn scooted across the foot of grass that separated them and put his lips close to Gabe’s ear. “What are you thinking?”
Gabe shook his head. “Don’t like these odds.”
“You wouldn’t think twice if these guys were SEALs.”
“Yeah, but they’re not.” And, God, how he wished they were. “We’re moving to plan bravo.”
Plan B was a blitz attack, using the element of surprise to their advantage. Overwhelm the tangos, distract them by making them think more soldiers waited in the woods than there were, and slip Bryson out from under their noses while they panicked.
It involved more inherent risk, which was why it was their backup plan. But with the arrival of the new tangos, Gabe calculated it had a better chance at succeeding than their original stealthy plan to slip in and out unnoticed while Jacinto and Rorro slept.
Quinn’s lips thinned. He glanced over at Jesse, who gave a grim nod, then met Gabe’s stare again. “We can still?—”
“Negative. Too risky.” Especially for Quinn and Jesse, and they both knew it. Even though he wasn’t going to let it happen, it did him proud that they were willing to stick to the original plan and take that risk. He patted Quinn on the shoulder to get his attention, then reached for his weapon. “Go in hot on my signal.”
“Hooyah,” Quinn said.
* * *
Gabe moved fast, staying low as he flanked the north side of the house and made a beeline for his linguist’s position. Jean-Luc, lying in a stand of bushes, raised an eyebrow in question when Gabe settled in next to him but didn’t say a word, which was probably a first for the Cajun.
Gabe took a moment to survey the situation from this angle. The eight new bad guys had arrived in two vehicles. They looked like members of a local gang, dressed in jeans, T-shirts, and bandanas, carrying Uzis, most of them barely old enough to take a legal drink. And that was saying something since the legal age in Colombia was eighteen. Jacinto probably recruited them in preparation for the ransom exchange.
Four of the men now stood around in the driveway talking, while a fifth headed toward the front door with purpose in his stride. The other three still sat in the closer of the two vehicles, smoking something. From the sweet scent in the air, he’d guess pot. That helped even the odds out some, but still not enough for his liking.
“We need to take out some of these guys,” he whispered. “Can you get to that car?”
Jean-Luc nodded and drew a wicked-looking knife from under his jacket. “Gotcha. I’ll go have a nice chat with our friendly Colombian gangbangers.”
“Don’t get killed.”
“Wouldn’t dream of depriving the world of my charm and good looks.”
Damn, but you couldn’t dislike like the guy. Gabe smirked and watched Jean-Luc crawl toward the car before turning his gaze to study the four men still standing in the driveway. He calculated several options and discarded them all with no small amount of frustration. A flashbang would be great right about now. So would hands-free radios.
He glanced back toward Jean-Luc, who was close to reaching his destination. Gabe motioned for him to wait. In that brief pause, he decided on a distraction.
He picked up a sizable rock located next to his boot and eyed the largest of the four men in the driveway. The man’s attention seemed divided between the younger members of their group and the entrance of the house.
“Go,” Gabe mouthed, and with a powerful launch, he tossed the rock. It made an arc in the air before smashing into a window on the second floor. The shattering noise echoed throughout the property, drawing shouts in Spanish from all the men.
