“I think some shit is going down with Mecca. How soon can you get here?”
“Twenty minutes. I’m in town.”
“I’ll meet you. The guards I hired to protect and keep an eye on her, lost her. This is the third time she’s gone off the grid with eyes on her. It took one of her men, Marshawn, to call me and warn me about the danger she’s about to put her life in. He said she is about to drive into Overtown to face the Haitians who took one of her workers; a young female. From what I know of the Haitian’s, they are the types that will cut their own mother’s throat to get what they want.”
The magazine I slapped into the AR-15 in my hands sounded off. “They are going to get more than they bargained for today if they lay a hand on my wife.”
I hung up and dialed for more reinforcements, my mind shifting from Arjen, to the name Khane and my men had given me, Loud.
We were a convoy of three, four in each vehicle, all armed and ready for combat. I was in the middle vehicle, and Khane was in the rear. We were on the stretch of road with mountains to our left, and a cliff to our right as crowds of trees stood tall on the rise of more mountains ahead.
“Did you see that?” I asked Cass, who was driving. Since everyone could hear me through their earpieces, their bodies stiffened with alert.
“What?”
“That,” I pointed as the stand of rock formations up ahead of us.
“Slow down,” I ordered.
Our Jeeps slowed, their engines idling down. The vehicles were all up-armored, and battle-tested. I’d seen a flash of something reflected against the sun, up ahead. It could have been nothing, but I was filled with a stirring anxiousness all day and wasn’t taking any chances.
The burning flare of the tracer round caught my eye as it zeroed in on the lead vehicle just as the vehicle swerved erratically to the left and screeched to a halt. My vehicle took a sharp right, and Khane’s followed, taking a left. We were out of the vehicles, aiming and firing at an enemy we hadn’t been expecting, nor could identify. It wasn’t ten a.m. yet, and we were at war.
“Khane,” I called.
“Already on it,” he returned as he paired up with Walt from his truck and began heading for the mountains. I joined with Hunter from my truck and headed towards the cliffs. We had sprayed on special paint to mark ourselves so our men wouldn’t accidentally shoot us.
We kept ourselves as invisible as possible, using the cover of the staggered vehicles to crawl onto the mountain and cliff areas as the rest of the men kept our adversaries busy with suppressive fire.
“Who the fuck could this be?” I asked, knowing my crew knew as much as I did. No one answered. They just continued to lay down fire while we set out to flank the crew on the attack.
“There are about ten of them, spread into the mountains and wood-lined areas. They have the high-ground advantage.” Cass’s voice sounded, giving us an update on what we were facing.
“We’ll find them,” was my reply. This group of soon-to-be dead assholes was in my way, keeping me away from Mecca. She was in danger, and I was crawling along the lumpy terrain of a sloping cliff to put an end to an ambush that had popped up out of the blue. This was not a fucking coincidence.
The enemy was too close for me to risk making a call, but I had to know what was happening with Mecca. I paused long enough to send a text.
“Update on wife.”
I tucked my phone away and continued to crawl towards the unsuspecting man who aimed and continued to fire at our crew on the highway. He was concentrating so hard on the group before him that he never saw me coming.
“Psst,” I called to the man to get his attention. The top of his head was flying through the air as soon as his gaze met mine. The sound of his body hitting the ground called attention to his position. I felt nothing for taking his life. All I wanted to do, was kill them so I could check on Mecca.
“What’s going on over there?” His buddy called into their listening device that I was now listening in on. Come and see, motherfucker.