Bound (Dark Reflections Volume 1)

Chapter 17

Alec Graves
Three miles south of Lochiel, Arizona
Northern Mexico

I could tell that Jasmin and Jessica were still in shock from the revelation James and I had shared, but I couldn't do anything at this point but hope that they'd be able to shake it off enough not to have it interfere with their ability to fight.

Juan seemed to be handling the news better, but I could tell that he was still a little off of his game. He'd finished briefing us on the latest version of the operation and then we'd made it back just in time to form up with the rest of the teams for transport down to the ambush location.

This was an operation that had been solely put together by the Brain Box rather than originating from Brandon's anonymous source and then being vetted by the Brain Box. I wasn't sure that it should make any kind of difference either way, but for whatever reason I was more nervous about this deployment than either of the last two.

The Brain Box had apparently identified a shipment of drugs that was being run up into the United States by one of the drug cartels that had especially heavy backing from a group of fifteen jaguars who'd spent the last decade or so kicking out all of the competition from their home city of Zacatecas. I was unclear on whether or not the authorities even realized that Zacatecas was where ten percent of the cocaine in the United States originated, but apparently the cartel had been having problems with a couple of the other regional drug gangs and as a result they were especially worried about making sure this particular shipment made it across the border.

The Brain Box had a long list of hacked email accounts that indicated that the Zacatecas crew had turned to their usual MO and escalated by including nearly a dozen jaguars to serve as guards for the shipment as it made its way north. If they continued with their normal procedure those guards would then pay a visit to the competing cartels and kill everyone they could find, but thanks to some more fancy hacking the Brain Box had a complete roster of who was going to be along for the ride as well as the route and schedule for the caravan.

Brandon had decided that we would intercept the convoy just short of the United States border, all of which explained why we'd spent the last hour in the darkness alongside the road setting up a series of tire shredders and vehicles such that we could block off the road in seconds.

The Brain Box apparently had aerial eyes on the convoy, and about the time that we all left Rio Rico they confirmed that the number of guards still matched up exactly with the count from the emails that had tipped us off about the operation in the first place.

A couple of minutes before three a.m. we got the signal that the convoy was only ten minutes out and that there were no other vehicles between us and them, so we sprang into action. The tire shredders were flipped to the 'shred' position and the SUV blockade was rolled into place.

Our team was on the north side of the road along with some other people from various teams while Vincent's team and Brandon were on the south side. The thinking was that the terrain to the south was less rugged and therefore we could reasonably expect that most of the bad guys would try to flee south once they realized how much trouble they were in.

Brandon had also positioned a few wolves around the ambush site in a rough circle a hundred yards or so from the road. Jaguars are usually faster than wolves, so the hope was that the wolves would be able to intercept and at least slow down any of the cats who broke free of the main fight and made a run for it. If everything went according to plan then we'd be facing an outnumbered group of cats with a few humans thrown in and we'd have the element of surprise on our side.

My shoulders tensed up as I saw the first SUV appear around a bend in the road. A second SUV followed less than twenty yards from the first, and then a large semi came into view next. Two more black SUVs rounded out the convoy and the next couple of minutes passed agonizingly slowly as we waited for the vehicles to enter our trap.