Chapter 33 - The Informant
While El Escorpión’s heavily armed mercenaries continued to violently batter the main steel door with sledgehammers and threats, Leo scrambled up a stack of old wooden crates and squeezed his small body through the narrow ventilation shaft.
Valeria held her breath, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs, praying silently for her little brother’s safety.
A few agonizing minutes later, a faint, metallic click echoed from the rear of the bunker. The heavy, concealed emergency exit door, hidden behind a false concrete wall, slowly swung open. Leo stood there, covered in dust and cobwebs, but grinning proudly.
"Let's move, right now," Alejandro ordered quietly, grabbing the encrypted hard drive.
They slipped out of the bunker into the freezing, pitch-black night, completely bypassing the massive kill squad attempting to breach the front entrance. They sprinted silently through the dense, unforgiving pine forest, guided only by the pale moonlight and Vargas’s tactical flashlight.
They reached the armored SUV parked a mile down the hidden logging trail. As they piled in, Alejandro’s satellite phone buzzed loudly. It was Special Agent Ramirez.
"Ríos, we have a major complication," Ramirez’s voice cracked over the secure line, sounding breathless and panicked. "The extraction mission has been severely compromised. We have a massive leak inside the federal agency. El Escorpión knows about the deal. He knows about the airfield."
"Call off the extraction team!" Alejandro yelled, slamming his fist against the dashboard.
"I can't," Ramirez replied grimly. "My tactical team is already on the ground at the airstrip, and they just radioed that they are currently taking heavy, sustained automatic fire from cartel sicarios. El Escorpión didn't just send a hit squad; he sent a small army. He is personally leading the assault to ensure the ledgers are completely destroyed."
May you like
"We have to turn around," Vargas stated, shifting the SUV into gear. "If the feds are pinned down, we can't drive into a war zone."
"No," Alejandro said, his voice turning into pure, unadulterated steel. "If El Escorpión wipes out that federal team, we lose our only ticket out of this nightmare. The immunity deal dies with them. We are going to the airfield. We are going to finish this tonight."
