Shielding Gillian (Delta Team Two #1) - Susan Stoker Page 0,2
she also knew there was nothing she could do if she was going to live through this, except try to stay calm and do as she was ordered.
Trigger grimly flipped through the folder of information he’d been given before he and the rest of his Delta Force team got onboard the flight to Caracas, Venezuela. Two days ago, a flight heading from Costa Rica to Dallas had been hijacked and flown to the South American country.
Now the plane had been parked on the tarmac for almost forty-two hours, the hijackers waiting for their demands to be met.
The group claimed to be associated with the Cartel of the Suns, who were involved in the international drug trade. It was an organization allegedly headed by high-ranking members of the military forces of Venezuela, as well as some of the most influential government employees as well. Not too long ago, in fact, the nephew of the first lady of the country had been arrested for trying to smuggle eight hundred kilos of cocaine from Venezuela to the United States for the cartel.
Trigger didn’t give a fuck about the drugs or about the man the hijackers were attempting to free from prison. Hugo Lamas was a border patrol agent in Venezuela who’d been imprisoned earlier that year for taking bribes and allowing millions of dollars’ worth of drugs to pass through his checkpoints.
What Trigger did give a fuck about was the remaining twenty-four American citizens on the plane. Twelve women, ten men, and two children. He was also worried about the dozen or so citizens from Costa Rica, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Colombia, Panama, Nicaragua, and India onboard.
The entire Delta Force team thought the demands were bullshit. There was no way the Cartel of the Suns cared about one border patrol agent; not enough to hijack an entire plane. But at the moment, Trigger didn’t care what their real agenda was. All he cared about was figuring out how to get onto that plane and take out the assholes who thought it was okay to terrorize innocent civilians.
Reports from Venezuela were that bodies had been dumped out of the plane onto the tarmac. The hijackers weren’t fucking around. They weren’t just threatening to kill people, they’d already done it. And with every hour that passed, more and more lives were in jeopardy.
The Deltas were called in to assist because they specialized in close-quarter rescue missions. These kinds of rescues weren’t exactly Trigger’s favorite. The chance of more people getting hurt was extremely high. He hated knowing passengers would most likely die in order for them to get to the hijackers. It was likely the assholes would use men and women as shields to try to survive.
“What are ya thinkin’?” Lefty asked.
Sighing, Trigger turned to his friend and teammate. “I’m thinking this stinks to high heaven.”
Nodding, Lefty agreed. “I know. It doesn’t add up.”
“Nothing adds up,” Grover chimed in. “I mean, the Venezuelan government hates the US. And with all the rumors that they’re heavily involved in the Cartel of the Suns, why would they call us in to kill their own people?”
“Unless this group isn’t their own people,” Brain said.
Everyone nodded.
“That makes sense,” Trigger said. “They could be pissed off that someone hijacked the plane using their name, and they want to send a message.”
“But at what cost?” Oz asked.
“They don’t give a shit about innocent lives,” Doc scoffed. “They don’t care about anything but staying in power and making money. Many of them don’t care about their own countrymen and women starving and suffering, so they certainly won’t care about a bunch of foreigners.”
“And I have no doubt they invited us in so if things go sideways, they can blame us,” Lucky added in disgust.
Trigger ran a hand through his hair and sighed in agitation. “It doesn’t matter why we’re going, just that we do whatever it takes to get as many people as possible out of this alive.”
The rest of the team nodded in agreement.
“What’s the latest intel?” Trigger asked Brain.
The other man flipped through his notes and said, “It looks like they’ve got one of the passengers communicating with the negotiator.”
“Smart. So we can’t use voice-recognition software,” Lucky said.
“Right,” Brain agreed. “They also don’t seem to be in a huge hurry. They’ve done the usual thing—bring us food and water or we’ll start killing passengers—but otherwise, they just seem to be hunkered down and waiting.”
“For what?” Grover asked.
“No clue,” Brain replied.
“Who’s the passenger doing the talking?” Trigger asked.