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  Deadly Intent

  A Team Reaper Thriller

  Brent Towns

  Deadly Intent is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 Brent Towns

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Wolfpack Publishing, Las Vegas.

  Wolfpack Publishing

  6032 Wheat Penny Avenue

  Las Vegas, NV 89122

  wolfpackpublishing.com

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-64119-808-0

  Paperback ISBN 978-1-64119-809-7

  Contents

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  Untitled

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  A Look At: Termination Order

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  About the Author

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  According to a 2012 UN report, there are 2.4 million people around the world who are victims of human trafficking at any given time. In this annual US$32 billion industry, 80% of victims are sexually exploited.

  From the Central Intelligence Agency World Fact Book:

  Ecuador: Significant transit country for cocaine originating in Colombia and Peru, with much of the US-bound cocaine passing through Ecuadorian Pacific waters.

  Deadly Intent

  Chapter 1

  Ciudad Juárez

  Mexico

  “Shit! RPG!” Kane screamed as the saw the tell-tale sign of a white smoke trail, just before the black SUV in front of them was blown sky high in an orange ball of flame. “Cara, back up!”

  Cara instinctively locked the tires and skidded to a halt, then slammed the shift into reverse, and their SUV started backward with a squeal of tires.

  From the back seat, Kane heard Axe say, “One wrong move, motherfucker, and I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

  “Reaper One, report,” the earpiece demanded.

  Almost immediately, there was a loud drumming on the outside of their armored vehicle as though they were being smashed by a severe hail storm. But in this instance, the hailstones were made of lead, bullets ricocheting off the windscreen, their scars a reminder of the predicament the team found themselves in.

  “Come on, Cara, move!” Kane snapped. He brought his HK416 up and held it across his chest.

  “RPG!” the shout from the backseat was heavily-accented Spanish. “On the right!”

  “Cara!”

  Cara Billings spun the wheel, and the SUV slid sideways, the RPG round barely missing them as it seemed to pass in front of them just above the hood, and blew up when it hit the building on the other side of the road.

  The voice in Kane’s ear shouted at him again, “Reaper One, report.”

  “We’re taking fire! I say again, we’re taking fire!” he paused and then said, “The two DEA officers are dead. RPG hit their SUV.”

  A muffled curse in his earpiece made Kane turn to the right where he spotted the traffic jam behind them. The third SUV in their convoy, containing Traynor and the new man Craig Spencer, ex-CIA and new operations commander of Team Reaper, was stationary. Kane watched on as multiple rounds ricocheted off their vehicle as it took heavy fire.

  Beyond that, the Federale armored technical with its fifty-caliber machine gun on the back was spraying a wide swathe of rooftops to their right with fire. Abruptly the feed of belted ammunition was cut off as the vehicle disappeared in a ball of flame from an RPG strike.

  The Federale escort was now taking heavy casualties from both sides of the street. “Talk to me, people,” Kane snapped.

  From the rear seat, Axe said, “I’ve got fucking tangos on the rooftops and on the street, Reaper. We need to shift our asses out of here, now.”

  The big ex-recon marine sniper cursed again as more bullets peppered the side of their vehicle.

  “Same this side,” Arenas put in. Former Mexican Special Forces, Arenas was used to coming under fire, but the weight of the firepower being brought down by the Ciudad Cartel had even him worried.

  “Fuck!” Kane snapped. “Defend the package!”

  “Now you’re talking,” Axe growled. “About fucking time.”

  The doors on their SUV flew open as the team alighted and rapidly brought their weapons into play. Like Kane, all were armed with HK416s. They also wore ballistic vests loaded down with extra ammunition for their carbines and smaller sidearms.

  In his earpiece, Kane heard Spencer bark, “Damn it, Reaper One, get back in your vehicle.”

  Ignoring the order, Kane picked out a target through the HK’s sights and put a tattooed cartel soldier down.

  “This is more like it, Reaper!” Axe shouted, the whiteness of his teeth shining in stark contrast against the darkness of his thick beard when he gave a mirthless smile.

  A constant staccato of bullets peppered the SUV. A cry of alarm from the other side of the vehicle was followed by Cara’s voice. “Reaper, Arenas is down! He’s hit.”

  “Christ!” Kane swore. “Check him out, Cara. Axe, give her cover.”

  “I’m fine,” came the semi-muffled voice over the comms. “Everyone hold.”

  “Reaper One? Zero. Give me a God damned sitrep, over!”

  “Not now, Zero.”

  “Is the package OK, Reaper One? Over.”

  Kane shook his head. “Axe, is Gallo still alive?”

  There was a moment of radio silence, and a gruff voice said, “He’s fucked, Reaper.”

  “Did you get that, Zero?”

  “Copy. The package is dead.”

  Another RPG shot across their position and exploded beyond their SUV. A shower of dirt and debris rained down on top of them. It was only a matter of time before one found its mark.

  Kane said, “Teller, find us a way out of here before we all end up KIA.”

  “On it, Reaper One.”

  “Drop a Hellfire on the bastards, Master Sergeant.”

  “Sorry, Reaper Four, our current rules of engagement …”

  “Oh, shut up and get us out of here!” Axe snapped.

  “Copy.”

  Tucked in behind the door on the passenger side, Kane toggled his radio. “Cara, how you doing?”

  There was sarcasm in her voice when it came back. “We’re just peachy.”

  “Hang in there.”

  “Carlos?”

  “I hurt like a puta.”

  Kane glanced back and saw that Traynor and Spencer were no longer inside their own vehicle and had opened fire at the attackers.

  The following events seemed to happen in slow motion. A cartel soldier appeared from within a half-demolished building on the left of the stalled SUV. He lifted an RPG to his shoulder and sighted on Traynor’s vehicle.

  As Kane brought up his HK, he shouted int
o his mic. “Traynor! RPG!”

  Before Reaper could fire, the cartel soldier loosed the Rocket Propelled Grenade. It blasted across the short distance and impacted the black SUV with catastrophic force.

  Without so much as a thought for his own safety, Kane was up and moving. “Cara! On me.”

  His six-foot-four frame stood out like a beacon which attracted bullets like moths to a flame. He reached Traynor just as the orange ball of fire from the exploding SUV subsided. Kneeling beside the prone figure, he looked for signs of life.

  “Pete? Pete? Can you hear me, buddy?”

  Checking him over, he discovered that by some miracle Traynor seemed to be no worse for wear. A couple of abrasions but that was about it. Kane slapped him, hard.

  Traynor sat up and gasped for air. He blinked a few times and focussed on Kane. “What?”

  “Are you good?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then get back in the fight.”

  Traynor scooped up his 416 and inspected it for damage.

  “Cara,” Kane said. “How’s Spencer?”

  “He’ll live.”

  The heat from the burning SUV was becoming unbearable. Reaper glanced about and saw the few remaining Federales making their last stand. Their commanding officer, a sub-officer named Perez was issuing orders while another of his men dragged a wounded comrade to relative safety behind one of their vehicles.

  Kane toggled his talk button and said, “Axe? Time for plan B.”

  Up ahead near the black SUV, he saw the big man turn to stare in his direction. “What the fuck is plan B?”

  Team Reaper HQ

  El Paso, Texas

  “What the fuck is plan B?” echoed Assistant Attorney General, Mike Turner.

  Team Reaper leader, Luis Ferrero turned and stared at his middle-aged boss from Washington and shrugged his broad shoulders. “No idea.”

  Turner shook his head. “Christ, what a screw-up. The Mexican government should have allowed a Black Hawk extraction like we asked for. Now we’ll be lucky if we don’t lose them all.”

  Team Reaper HQ, Six hours earlier

  El Paso, Texas

  “The Mexican government has turned down our request for a Black Hawk extraction of the package,” Ferrero stated. “So, it means you’ll do it by vehicle.”

  “Rolling fucking death traps, don’t you mean?” Axel ‘Axe’ Burton growled.

  “I’m with Axe,” John ‘Reaper’ Kane agreed. He rose from his seat and walked up to the recon photo. It marked their route from the Federale holding facility in Ciudad Juárez where they were to collect their package, to the border. “This part here with all the double and triple story buildings is a killing zone.”

  “It’s all we’ve got, I’m afraid,” Mike Turner said. “It’s the quickest way out of Mexico. The Mexicans have assured me you’ll also have a Federale escort.”

  Carlos Arenas, Ex-Mexican special forces commander, snorted and shook his head.

  “You have something to add, Carlos?” a tall, thin man asked from where he stood beside Ferrero.

  Craig Spencer was the new team operations commander. EX-CIA, he had been brought in after the team’s initial mission against the Montoya Cartel. He had a square jaw and an irritating demeanor, and when any of the team questioned his point of view on anything operational, he took it personally. As now.

  “I would not trust the Federales,” he said. “Some of them are in the cartel’s pockets. And as you Americans say, it only takes one bad apple.”

  “Didn’t you hear the assistant attorney general? We have assurances. If you don’t like it, stay behind.”

  “Easy, Spencer,” Kane cautioned him. “He’s only saying what we all know. Besides, it’s all of our asses on the line out there.”

  Spencer glared at Kane through pale blue eyes. “How about you worry about your team, and I’ll worry about the operation.”

  Kane was about to fire back a retort when Cara interrupted, “Has there been any chatter from the cartels?”

  Ferrero shook his head. “They’re totally silent, which means they’re definitely up to something.”

  Cara Billings was a former marine lieutenant and deputy sheriff. She had short dark hair, a slim physique, tanned face, and was Team Reaper’s armorer. For anything fire-power related, Cara was their first port of call.

  “Can it be postponed until we are able to work out a better extraction for the package?”

  The ‘Package’ was Juan-Carlos Gallo, head of the Ciudad Cartel. Wanted in the US for drug trafficking, murder, extortion, human trafficking, and arms dealing, to name a few. When the Mexican government had reached out to American law officials, saying that he was in their possession and did they want to come and get him, there was no hesitation.

  Ferrero shook his head. “The Federales want Gallo gone. It wouldn’t be the first time the cartels have attacked a Federale building to free one of their own.”

  “It’s still fucked,” Axe growled once more. “But I want to know what the DEA guys think. After all, their asses are in the wind as much as ours.”

  All eyes gravitated to the two DEA agents who were to take official possession of Gallo and handle any paperwork that needed to be signed on his handover. They were both men of considerable experience.

  Ben Nash, the older of the two, had served in Colombia, while Tim Gregory had served in Afghanistan.

  “It is what it is,” Nash said noncommittally. Gregory nodded his agreement.

  “All right then,” Axe said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “They’re ready to die, let’s do it.”

  Ciudad Juárez

  Federale HQ

  While the two DEA agents signed release papers for the package under the watchful eye of Spencer, Ramon Perez, the commander of the Federale escort sought out Kane. He found him giving last minute instructions to his team.

  “Carlos, you and Axe secure the package in the back of our SUV. Cara will drive, and I’ll ride shotgun. Whatever happens, we protect the package. There are a lot of people waiting for him back on US soil.”

  “What about me?” Traynor asked.

  “You get to babysit our illustrious leader.”

  “I hate you.”

  Kane and the others smiled. The team leader punched him lightly on one of his tattooed arms. “Just remember, the team loves you, Pete.”

  The tall, ex-undercover DEA agent in his thirties, screwed up his unshaven face. “Fuck you.”

  This brought forth laughter which helped ease some of the tension in the air.

  Perez cleared his throat to get Kane’s attention. The Team Reaper leader turned to face the stocky man. Dressed in dark blue, Perez was armed with, as were most of his men, an FX-05 Xiuhcoatl Carbine.

  “Something I can do for you, Suboficial Perez?”

  Suboficial was the equivalent of a warrant officer in the British and US armed forces. Perez set his square jaw firm and said, “I get the feeling that your team does not think much of us, Sargento.”

  Kane said, “Let’s just put it down to bad experiences.”

  Perez nodded at Arenas. “Yet you have an ex-capitán primero of Fuerzas Especiales Mexicanas with you.”

  “He’s earned his stripes. Carlos is one of us now.”

  “Just so you know, Sargento, none of my men are cartel. They will fight alongside you and die if need be.”

  Kane stared into the man’s eyes and held out a hand. “Good to have you on board, Suboficial Perez.”

  Perez took it in a firm grip. “You can count on us.”

  Spencer emerged from inside the building and called out, “Mount up!”

  Behind him, the two DEA agents appeared with Gallo between them. Kane signaled to Axe and Arenas, and they stepped forward and relieved Nash and Gregory of their package.

  “What’s going on?” Spencer demanded.

  “He’s riding with us,” Kane told him.

  “Let me remind you, Kane, I’m operations commander,” he hissed.
r />   “You may be operations commander,” Kane conceded, “but I’m the field commander. He comes with us. You and Traynor will follow in the third SUV.”

  “This isn’t over.”

  Kane ignored the threat. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Bouncing across the intersection, Cara let her foot off the throttle of the SUV slightly. Then once again, she depressed it and brought the vehicle back up to speed. The convoy had sat on fifty-miles-per-hour for most of the journey so far. They were all very aware that once they reached the bottleneck, it would slow them down considerably.

  Kane toggled his mic. “Everyone keep your eyes open up here.”

  “Copy.”

  “Bravo Three, do you read? Over.”

  “Copy, Reaper One.”

  “You got anything?”

  “Roger. I’m seeing lots of activity on the rooftops.”

  “Copy.”

  “Nash, Gregory, you copy that last?”

  “Roger.”

  Kane stared out the window to his right. The dusty sidewalk seemed to be almost totally deserted; a sure sign there was going to be trouble. He flicked the selector switch on the HK416 to fire a burst. Out of habit, he dropped out the box magazine, checked it, then reinserted it.

  It wasn’t long after that when the lead SUV blew up.