Chapter 249 - Hostile Designation

The Specter lifted through the canopy and Luca caught them on sensors before he saw them. Four Hyeon Logistics dropships were descending in tight formation toward the campsite. Their running lights cut through the rain in clean parallel lines, and he watched them slow as they hit the tree line.

Side doors slid open on the dropships and ropes dropped through the canopy gaps, and figures started descending before the lines had even gone taut, fast-roping into the dark.

He opened a channel to the lead dropship. It took two seconds.

"Hyeon, this is Captain Rossi. Identify."

A pause. Then a voice he recognized. "It's Xinran. We heard you started without us."

"Finished without you, too. The camp is secure. Hostages are getting checked and are getting loaded on UER trucks heading to Leticia. Danny, Zoe, and Joey are down there."

"Zoe's down there?" She sounded amused. "Then there's definitely nothing left."

"There isn't. But I need you to do something for me." He watched the dropships looking for gaps in the canopy. "Someone was supplying that camp. Weapons, comms equipment, supplies for all of them. That doesn't come out of the jungle. I need the supply chain. Every crate and serial number. Documents, invoices, anything with a name. My team is already searching, but you've got enough people to secure the site and do it faster."

"Understood. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Keep your people away from the UER soldiers. Nobody touches that evidence but us."

"Copy that, Captain. Xinran out."

The channel closed.

He pulled the Specter higher. The rain hit them sideways, warm and relentless, and the wind shoved the frame hard enough to rattle the vehicle. The canopy fell away below and the darkness swallowed everything except the instruments glowing green on the dash.

Ryan had pulled his helmet off. He was in the back with Sabrina, the emergency blanket held around her shoulders with one arm while the rain soaked through his hair and ran down his face. Sabrina had her head against the rollcage bar with her eyes closed. She wasn't sleeping. Her breathing was too controlled for that. Emily would have been back there too, if she were here.

Ryan raised his voice over the rain. "You and Zoe went in there alone."

"That was the plan."

"That was a terrible plan." Ryan glanced at him. "Two people against a fortified camp."

"It worked."

"Yeah. I know. I watched the whole thing." He said it flat. "One or two of them alive would've been nice, Luca."

Luca looked at him.

"For the investigation." Ryan's voice had shifted; he wasn't joking now. "Someone was funding that camp. Weapons, comms, supplies for all of them. That's logistics. That's money. And now every person who could've told us where it came from is dead."

"I told Xinran to tear the camp apart, to search everything."

"Paper's good. Paper doesn't lie to you." Ryan shrugged. "But paper doesn't know who gave the orders either."

Luca watched the instruments for a moment. "Who else saw the feed?"

"Danny. And Erik." Ryan's mouth twitched. "Erik was breathing down our necks the whole time."

"And what did he say?"

"Nothing. He watched the whole thing and smoked a cigarette."

The Specter hummed. Below them, the Amazon stretched into darkness.

"For what it's worth," Luca said, "we didn't see or hear the drones once."

"That's good." Ryan's voice was distant. "That's good."

Not that Luca'd been paying much attention. He'd had other things in his hands.

"Where's her team?" Ryan asked.

"I don't know." Sabrina's voice came from behind them, hoarse but steady. Her eyes were still closed. "We were heading to Puinawai. One of the military outposts near the portals. They hit the transport on the way there."

Luca glanced back. She hadn't moved, head still against the rollcage bar, blanket pulled tight. But she'd been listening to everything.

"The supplies came by river," she said, her accent cutting through the hum. "Every few days they came. Small boats up the river, always at night. The men spoke Portuguese, not Spanish."

Ryan looked at her. "From the Brazilian side?"

"Every time." She closed her eyes again. "I had nothing to do but watch."

Luca opened the channel to Xinran and passed it along. He glanced back at her once. "Good intel."

She didn't open her eyes.

"And you just told a UER major to pound sand so you could fly her to Leticia yourself," Ryan said.

"No way we were leaving her behind. I told him she was coming with me. That's not the same thing."

Luca checked the altitude. The cloud layer was thinning ahead of them, and in the distance the lights of Leticia broke through the gray. From this altitude the whole city could've fit under his thumb.

"Karen asked for a scout," Luca said. "Not a rescue."

"Yeah." Ryan grinned, and there was something sharp underneath it. "How'd that work out?"

"We'll see."

Leticia was hot. Not the wet crushing heat of the jungle, but the sort that just sat on you and weighed you down. The Specter set down in the parking lot of the hotel, and the passive camo flickered off as the engines wound down.

Ten soldiers in UER fatigues were waiting for them.

They were spread across the hotel entrance in a loose semicircle. A couple of them had rifles slung on straps and the rest wore sidearms on their hips. An officer stepped forward as Luca cut the power.

Through the lobby windows, Luca could see Erik leaning against the far wall with a cigarette, watching.

"Captain Rossi. We're here to escort Miss Moreno to the barracks. Governor's orders."

Luca stepped off the Specter. His helmet was still on, visor down. "No."

The officer blinked. "Sir, the governor has requested—"

"I heard you. The answer's no. She stays with us."

Behind him, Ryan stepped down from the Specter with his helmet in one hand and his shotgun behind his back, helping Sabrina down, the blanket still around her shoulders.

The officer's eyes moved past Luca to Sabrina.

One of them reached for his sidearm.

"I wouldn't do that," Luca said.

The hand stopped.

Then a second one pulled his rifle up from the strap.

Luca stepped in front of Sabrina and activated [Phantom Strike]. The scout suit's power cell surged and the micro-disruption field hit the soldiers hard enough to make two of them flinch. One stumbled back a step. It bought him enough time to pulse the Venture Signet Cuff on his wrist and the hardlight shield snapped open, a wall of pale blue light between him and the soldiers. Two of them fired. A rifle round flattened against the barrier and fell to the pavement. An energy bolt hit a second later and the shield absorbed it without flickering. Luca drew his blaster.

Ryan's helmet had just clicked into place. He brought the Coronal Scythe around and synced [Power Surge]. The armor's energy dumped into the shotgun and the barrel glowed white.

He fired.

The supercharged blast hit the one with the rifle and the two men standing behind him. The plasma cone tore through all three of them. Pieces of them hit the pavement and splashed against the hotel's wall. The Scythe's barrel was smoking, and Ryan racked the slide to reset.

Three seconds. Ryan had gone from holding Sabrina's blanket to painting the hotel wall.

He didn't need Power Surge for the rest. He pressed the trigger twice more and two runners dropped.

The officer had his sidearm halfway out when Luca moved the shield and put a blaster bolt through his shoulder. The man spun and hit the pavement and the gun clattered away into the dark.

The rest dropped their weapons. Three of them put their hands up and backed away.

"Here's your survivors," Luca said.

Ryan stood in the middle with his shotgun leveled and the barrel still smoking. "Against the wall," he said. "Line up."

They lined up.

Erik walked out of the lobby. He had his cigarette in one hand. He looked at the bodies, then at Ryan, and took a drag.

"Bit much," Erik said.

Luca crouched beside the officer he'd shot. The man was still conscious, pressing his good hand against the hole in his shoulder, his teeth clenched. Luca pulled the man's sleeve up past the elbow. A tattoo ran from wrist, dense black ink, jungle vines and a jaguar skull with crossed rifles underneath.

He checked the next one. Same tattoo, other arm. The third matched too.

Ryan pulled his helmet off. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat and rain. He looked at the tattoos, then at Luca.

"How did you know?"

Luca tapped his visor. "They were red. Hostile Designation is still active. The second I looked at them, they were tagged."

"That's convenient."

"Keep your helmet on, bud."

Ryan put it back on.

Sabrina stepped around Luca. Her eyes went to the bodies first, then to the officer bleeding on the pavement. Her face was very still.

"I know him," she said.

Everyone looked at her.

"He was at the outpost. Before." She swallowed. "He was the one who checked our papers before we left for Puinawai."

The tomahawk was still on Luca's belt. He'd cleaned it on the Specter, but he could still feel the weight of the commander against the blade. This one had done the same job. Different end of the chain, same result.

Luca let the shield drop. The blue light faded and the hotel entrance went dark again except for the lobby lights.

The officer on the ground had stopped screaming. He was looking at Sabrina with fear in his eyes.

"Get him inside," Luca said to Erik. "He's going to tell us everything."

Erik nodded and grabbed the officer by the collar, dragging him through the lobby doors and leaving a trail of blood behind.

Luca caught Ryan's eye. Ryan tilted his head toward Sabrina. She was still watching the man being dragged across the tile floor.

The rain had stopped. It was nearly midnight when the engines came.

Luca felt them before he saw them. They were deep and heavy, the kind that shook the ground before the sound caught up. He stepped onto the patio and watched four Hyeon dropships descend over the resort in formation, their landing lights washing the pool and the garden in white light. The first sank into the lawn, gear going six inches into the grass. Decorative palms went down under the second. The third landed on the tennis court and cracked the paved surface.

A waiter came running out of the restaurant, arms waving. "Señor, señor, no pueden, el jardín, las palmeras, por favor—"

"Don't worry about it," Luca said. "The UER will pay for the damages."

The waiter stared at him. Luca nodded once, the way you do when you're making a promise with someone else's money, and the waiter retreated into the restaurant still talking to himself.

The ramps dropped. Danny came down first, still in power armor, mud caked up to his knees. Joey was right behind him with the Triage Shell slung over one shoulder. Then the Hyeon operators, thirty or forty of them in full armor, rifles slung, already spreading across the resort grounds.

Zoe came out last. She had both jaguars.

The cats padded down the ramp on either side of her, massive and unhurried, their coats slick from the rain. The first one, the one that had torn through the camp, stopped at the bottom of the ramp and looked at the pool area the way Zoe looked at a buffet she'd already decided wasn't worth her time. The second one pressed against Zoe's leg and made a sound that was somewhere between a purr and a growl.

The waiter came back out, saw the jaguars, and went back inside.

Xinran was the last one off the dropship, phone out, filming the whole thing. She panned across the ruined tennis court, the cracked palms, the jaguars, and then found Zoe and pointed at her like she'd just won something. Zoe held up a hand. Xinran slapped it.

They took over the hotel restaurant. The staff had mostly fled by this point, but the kitchen was unlocked, and Joey was joined by a couple of Hyeon Logistics guys who pulled together rice and beans, grilled what meat they could find, and stacked bread and fruit on every flat surface. The Hyeon teams took over the patio and the pool deck, and someone found beer, and the jaguars settled under the table near Zoe's feet where they accepted scraps of meat and did not say thank you.

Sabrina sat between Ryan and Zoe. She'd changed into clean clothes someone had found for her, a loose shirt and pants that didn't fit well but were dry and didn't smell like the camp. The blanket was gone. She ate slowly, listening more than talking.

"The crates were Titan Dynamics," Xinran said, pulling a tablet from her jacket. "They were using custom weapon mods and other equipment. We ran them through Hyeon's logistics database on the flight over. Three of the codes trace back to a distribution hub in Manaus."

Ryan leaned forward. "Manaus. Brazilian side. Just like she said." He glanced at Sabrina.

Sabrina looked up from her plate. "They unloaded at night. Always the same dock, always two or three men."

Xinran nodded. "We pulled everything with a name on it. Invoices, cargo labels, packing slips. Everything we could carry. The rest we photographed. Danny can walk you through the physical evidence when you're ready."

Danny was gorging himself with the focus of someone who hadn't had a meal in fourteen hours. He looked up long enough to nod, then went back to the rice.

Zoe had her boots up on an empty chair and her plate balanced on her knee. "The camp had a second site," she said between bites. "Half a kilometer south. It was smaller, storage only. We found weapons crates, ammunition, and a generator that was still running."

"Powered what?" Luca asked.

"Comms relay. It was encrypted and I pulled the drive."

Ryan shrugged. "I'll have it open before breakfast."

"We'll crack it," Xinran said, and took a drink of juice.

"Give it to Hyeon first," Luca said. "If they can't crack it by morning, let Ryan do it."

Sabrina set her fork down. "My team." She looked at Zoe, then Luca. "Six people. They separated us the first night. ¿Alguien los encontró?"

Zoe shook her head. "The second site was storage only. There was no one there."

"No graves either," Danny said without looking up from his plate. "We checked."

Sabrina was quiet for a moment. She turned the fork over in her hand.

"The lead vehicle didn't stop," she said. "We were in a two-vehicle convoy. They just... kept driving when we were pulled over. They didn't turn around. Just kept going." She set the fork down. "And two of my team got off at a checkpoint five minutes before. Said they needed to check something."

The table went quiet.

"I had a lot of time to think about that," she said.

Ryan put his hand on the back of her chair, but didn't say anything.

Jinho and Seojun had found the bar. They were behind the counter now, blending piña coladas. One of them slid a glass across the table to Sabrina, who looked at it, looked at Ryan, and took a long drink.

Luca sat at the head of the table and watched his crew eat dinner in Leticia, Colombia, while the Amazon moved past outside the windows, black and slow. It didn't care. Rivers never did.

He wished Emily were here. She would have pulled a chair up next to his and leaned into his shoulder and said something quiet that only he could hear.

He pulled out his comm and typed four words. Wish you were here.

Her reply came back quickly. Soon. Eat something.

He picked up his fork.