Author note:
Hello, everyone. English is not my first language, so be easy on me. Thank you all for your support. All feedback are appreciated.
Have a nice day.
"Eddie found something," Junior informed, quickly turning back to see if any of his teammates were catching up with him. Danny was beside Junior even before he could call out. Danny flashed the light of his gun on the ground, breathed out heavily before bent down and picked up the familiar item, Steve's gun.
Danny gripped Steve's gun a little harder, afraid to voice out his opinion. He grimaced and said, "We got to hurry up."
Tani walked further to the front and turned back to them. "Guys, can you hear it?"
Before any could answer, Eddie, bolted practically dragging Junior with him. The others followed suit and in just a few minutes they reached a river. Eddie slowed down and stopped just beside the river bank. He smelled for a few seconds and whimpered, getting others' attention.
Danny knelt just beside Eddie, flashed the light and studied the shoe prints. "Steve was here." Eddie woofed softly confirming Danny's statement.
"There are couple of shoe prints here," Junior said. "Do you think the cartels got Steve?"
Danny slowly shook his head as his eyes were glued on the other set of shoe prints. He looked up at the others and confirmed his thoughts. "No."
"How so?"
Danny stood up and flashed his light on the shoe prints. "Look here, we have a total of four shoe prints. One bigger and the other three almost the same size. The one bigger I will say it is Steve's, trust me, I know it's weird but I know his shoe print. The others, almost the same size, its print look more like trekking shoes."
Tani, standing beside Danny, took a moment to look and nodded. "Danny got a point."
Danny looked past Tani towards Duke. "Duke, you said we have three boys camping inside?"
"Yes," Duke confirmed.
"Do we manage to get a hold of them?"
"No. It keeps going to their voicemail."
"No surprises there." Tani shrugged. "No cell service inside the jungle."
Danny rubbed his temple and said. "Okay, here's my best guess. We can assume that the encounter Steve had on the road probably wounded him more than we think. He was close to passing out, maybe looking for water but then he couldn't control himself…" Danny grimaced before he continued. "He probably passed out. The camping boys came finding water for themselves, found Steve and took him back with them."
"How sure are we on the last part?" Junior questioned.
"Look," Danny said as he passed them by and flashed the light on the ground further to them. "See, how now you can only see three shoe prints? They are clumped together and the prints are more deeper than the first. They are carrying something bigger and heavier than they can manage. My best guess, it's Steve."
"I managed to get the location of the cabin they are staying from the father," Duke informed.
"What are we waiting for?"
-H50-H50-H50-
"You don't look so good, Commander."
Steve heard the words, but unfortunately, his eyesight was still slightly blurred. With the help of rather harsh pairs of hands, Steve rose unsteadily to his feet. Steve was not surprised to see a face glaring back.
One moment of silence and what followed next was pretty much expected by Steve. A punch in the gut and Steve doubled over. Another one and Steve was on all fours on the ground. Steve gasped for air and one of his arms went around his abdomen. His body was struggling to recover, to repair the damage.
Steve was still on his knees when he felt the man who was in front of him squatted to his height.
"We are having an interesting night, thanks to you."
Steve looked up, smiled a little and rasped "It will get better, trust me."
The man laughed out aloud before he spoke. "You surely right, it just got better for us, I'm not sure if it's the same for you."
"We will figure that out later." Steve managed to keep a poker face.
"Man, I like your self-confidence, Commander."
Steve mentally processed the situation. It was not any usual situation where he could pull out one of his Navy Seal stunts from his sleeves. His body was not in its best condition and with all the people around him, his best chance was to act smart.
"What do you want from me?" Steve asked. A smile was creeping onto the man's face and Steve simply let it stay there.
"Getting straight to the business, are we? What's the rush?"
"Cut the crap." Steve cut in. "You think my team will cooperate if you held me captive?"
"Well, thanks for the idea Commander but we don't like negotiating with cops. That's too much work."
Steve was quite. He didn't like where it was getting.
"We were hoping that you could share with us the name of the wonderful witness who will testifying on Monday."
Steve's breathing seemed to stutter in his lungs for one moment before it went out. When he first woke up in the cabin and was putting pieces together, he refused to believe it. No one was supposed to know the details of the high-value information. First of all, no one even knew that there was a witness to testify against the cartels, not even his team. He kept it that way.
"I don't know what are you talking about."
"Really?" The man pretended to grumble. "Remember I'm asking you nicely."
"I repeat, I don't know what are you talking about. We can go on for however long you want, but I cannot give you what I don't know."
"You know exactly what am I talking about, and we also happen to know you won't give the name up and would go to any length to protect your witness."
"Then why are we here?"
"Tell me something, Commander. Do you think your witness still will come forward to testify knowing we brutally killed the one person who vowed to protect him?"
-H50-H50-H50-
It was still, utterly still. The boys remained still in their hiding spot, breathing steadily. There was no sound of voices but they can hear the sound of foot treading and twigs cracking vaguely. Matthew signaled his friends to remain quiet and peaked a look to the front. It was full moon day and he could see shadows of two people at a certain distance. Thankfully, they were still in a safe distance. Matthew quickly turned back to his friends. He could read their mind, it was a flight or fight situation. He was not sure if they could safely flee the area now that Chris had hurt himself and besides, they had no idea how armed the guys could be. It settled then. Time to fight.
Matthew took the gun Steve had given him and Chris's eyes grew wide. Matthew quickly assured Chris as he shook his head. He placed the gun on the ground and took out his weapon from his sling bag. A tranquilizer firearm. He hoped the sedatives darts will give them the safe escape they needed.
Matthew calmed himself. He was his school's 25m rapid fire pistol champion. He could do this. Without wasting any time, he aimed the gun, fired and flawlessly as usual hit his target. To be safe, he took two shots at each shadow as he was not sure if the sedative was strong enough to knock a man down.
Finishing his job, Matthew leaned back and waited for a few minutes. While waiting, they could hear voices but couldn't make out was they were saying, it felt like they were trying to radio out to someone. A few seconds later, they heard the sound of bodies falling into a heap on the ground.
Matthew waited for another minute before he took off to find the unconscious men. He took his phone out, opened his torch and flashed on the bodies.
It was not what he expected.
Ethan arrived seconds later, stunned in silence. Chris was the last to arrived as he limped his way to his friends. He stood beside Ethan and like the rest was taken back. He didn't want to state the obvious but did it anyway.
"Great! We just shot the only people can help us at the moment."
Matthew's expression dulled as he stared at two unconscious HPD officers on the ground.
Tell me what you think.
Stay tuned for more. Thank you for your time and support.