Free Behind the Mask (Undercover Associates Book 4) by Carolyn Crane

much pain. Soon, she’d give anything to have this feeling. She just prayed he wouldn’t start on her feet.
    The plane circled. The touchdown was bouncy. The plane taxied and slowed, then did a U-turn and rolled back down, probably to the line of Quonset huts.
    She closed her eyes.
    The door opened and the cabin filled with the scent of diesel tinged with rich, moist jungle air. She strained against the boot on her back, catching a glimpse out the door. The dirt runway was dark, but the sky was pale yellow and gray, echoing with birdcalls. Dawn in the jungle. Across the way stood a pair of airplane hangars covered with camo net. That would be where they’d store, fix, and fuel the planes.
    She could hear a Jeep or two. Guys coming out from the sides.
    Aguilo, the translator, grabbed her upper arm and yanked her up, then pulled her down the stairs.
    Maybe a dozen soldiers were there to greet them—some in camo, some in civvies.
    She lost her footing when they hit the ground. He dragged her the rest of the way, then threw her headfirst into a Jeep, crunching her neck. Without missing a beat, he yanked her up and bound her roughly but effectively to a handhold atop the door. It would be a hard knot to loosen, even with her teeth.
    Another guard stood on the outside of the Jeep, weapon trained on her. He watched calmly as she tried to pull apart her wrists, yanking and twisting, feeling the slim nylon rope cut into her wrists. Yeah, he’d seen it before.
    The soldiers cleared out the plane, pulling out the pallets and garbage. The leader had the suitcases. He set them in the front of the Jeep, then called over Aguilo and gave him a cloth. “ Véndale los ojos .”
    Aguilo came back around and tied the rough fabric around her head, cutting off her sight.
    Fear and desperation burned through her. Fuck. The plane had been hers to lose, and she’d lost it.
    Spectacularly. God, they’d all make her pay.
    She felt spun out, like her senses were everywhere around that field, and she couldn’t feel her face. But there was something else now: a kind of peace—like things would finally even out.
    No . Stop thinking like that .
    She focused on the activity around her—shouts, engines, doors, winches. A waft of diesel, a large motor humming at a different octave—that would be the plane moving. They’d be driving it under the camo scrim at the edge of the strip. She focused on the jungle chatter beyond the guerrillas. Monkeys and birds echoed under the lush canopy.
    She turned her head to wipe a bit of sweat from her cheek. Men were laughing nearby. She couldn’t hear their words, but they were in the tone of those awful stories they liked to tell. There would be awful stories about her after today.
    She sucked in a breath, centering herself. And then she heard a sound she didn’t recognize—a swish-swish-swish , like something flying through the air, followed by a strange yell—a shout of pain, but worse, somehow. Eerie and high-pitched. Another cry sounded farther away.
    Alarm-filled shouts followed. Grunts and groans filled the air. She stayed as low behind the door as the bonds would permit as the world exploded into gunfire.
    Frantically, she rubbed her face on her shoulder, trying to dislodge the blindfold as the battle raged on and on. It seemed endless. Eventually she got it shoved up onto her forehead like a headband. She peeked over the seat. She spotted some of El Gorrion’s men behind a nearby truck; more crouched at the corner of a nearby outbuilding. But most were corpses on the runway. The one closest to her was splayed on his back, a knife in his eye. It looked like all of the dead were knife kills. Blades through the right eye.
    No way.
    Suddenly, everything quieted—even the animals and birds. Everything but the labored breathing that told her somebody was behind the Jeep, frightened out of his mind. Aguilo .
    Clearly, Aguilo thought this was Kabakas.
    But Kabakas was dead. The agent who’d witnessed his