FRIDAY. LA PLAYA DE Belén, Colombia. 8 days until Christmas.

Duke picked his way off the path and up the side of a gently rising hill to the right of the smoke source. The goal was to get eyes on the people they’d seen last night, nothing more. Once they knew how many people were running this little thing, they could decide how to proceed.

A ramshackle little building came into view, partially hidden by rocks and trees. The rusted tin roof helped hide it, blending in with the red tones of the rock. This had to be one of those ancient structures Val had mentioned. The sides were partially patched with tarps and other odds and ends. The right side of the building appeared to have partially burned off at some point and hadn’t been replaced. An old shower curtain was pulled aside, but he couldn’t see into the structure.

There wasn’t anyone outside, no one to see him, so getting closer wasn’t a great risk.

Duke crept down the hill, doing his best to jump from rock to rock, until he was just above the ring of trees circling this little valley.

The shack was situated in a V-shape cut into the rock.

Duke ducked behind a tree, the widespread branches hiding him better than the rock.

From this vantage point he could see the side yard, in front of the house and into what must be the first room of what looked to be a three-room structure.

Someone had cut a barrel open and used the bottom third as a fireplace. Loaves of bread sat nearby on the ground, like sticks of firewood.

Duke inhaled. Was the burnt smell that of the bread? Were they not even eating it?

He would keep those details to himself.

A familiar truck sat next to an ancient Land Rover. Both had seen better days, no doubt.

This wasn’t a sophisticated operation. Their headquarters had no electricity, likely no plumbing. If the three men they’d seen yesterday were standard of what they were up against, Duke expected there would be four or five younger men, and the beefy older guy. He was the one in charge, and he was the one they’d pissed off.

Great.

Couldn’t change the past.

Duke watched the shadows inside the cabin for what felt like ages. His thighs and calves screamed at him for staying still so long, but he didn’t move.

From the other side of the house, a door banged open and a bigger form lumbered out. The uneven gait meant it was likely the man from last night. He yelled something, and the floor moved.

Two smaller figures got up off what Duke had thought was the floor of the cabin. Then three more figures rose, and a few more. About ten young men stumbled out of the big guy’s way, out into the fresh air. They milled around, some going to the back of the valley to no doubt do their business away from the shelter.

Another young man dipped water out of a barrel and put a pot on over the fire, feeding it loaves of bread. Duke covered his nose, but it didn’t help. A couple of the boys sat on a fallen tree and passed a pipe around while their leader dragged a lawn chair out to sit by the fire.

The big guy was their decision maker, the one in charge. He was the one who’d handed out the order to do as he say, or reap the consequences. The rest of the people were little more than children. Most of them couldn’t be older than twenty or so.

Duke got a whiff of something sweet.

Shit. If they were smoking meth, this wasn’t going to go well. It would make sense then why they needed the money, to support their drug habit. His team had seen a sharp rise in meth production in use over the last few years. It had even claimed one of his new recruits.

Where were the families? The parents of these boys? What about them?

They needed to be stopped, both for their own good and for the good of La Playa. These kids would suck the town dry, and when there was nothing left to give, the violence would start. The addiction would drive them to do terrible things.

Duke turned and began to creep along the tree line out toward the road. They couldn’t go back to La Playa without doing something. If they were simply looking at a protection scam that was one thing. There was an objective way to look at the cost of exercising their control. People on drugs didn’t have an objective view of the world, especially not when they were on meth.

“Pst,” someone whispered ahead of him, in the thickest tangle of limbs.

“Val?” Duke glanced over his shoulder, but the trees and distance hid them from view.

Val ducked out from under a branch. Her face and arms were scratched, but otherwise she looked okay.

“I told you to wait.” Duke sighed.

“You’ve been gone forever,” she whispered.

“I know. I have a plan. Come on, before one of them sees us.”

VAL ONLY HAD HERSELF to blame.

She’d told Duke she wanted to do something, to make things better, and he’d taken her at her word. Next time she’d have to remember to think about what she said before she opened her mouth. It was too late to stop his plan now.

They crouched in the bushes, listening to the sounds of a dozen people snoring. It was the worst choir she’d ever heard in her life. In the time it had taken them to scrounge some supplies from a remote dump site, the band of thugs had smoked enough meth she had to wonder if the air was safe to breathe.

“See any movement?” Duke whispered.

“No, they’re all passed out.” That should make her feel somewhat safe doing this, shouldn’t it?

“Ready?”

“Are we seriously doing this?” Val was guilty of talking a good game from time to time with zero ability to back it up. This was one of those times.

“Bit late to start second guessing ourselves now. Go.” He nudged her shoulder.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered.

Val darted forward, through the shrubbery and sprinted across the open space between the tree line and the cabin. The front windows were mostly blacked out, so the only way someone could see them was by walking around the corner from where the group was clustered around the fire pit, lying in the afternoon sunshine. She crouched behind the barrels of God–only–knew–what and trained her eyes on the sleeping figures.

Duke was treating this like a guerilla war situation. They had to be sneaky and smart, neither of which their opponents were. She’d be more concerned if they weren’t hyped up on whatever concoction they were making. Two against twelve, doped-up men might actually work out, so long as they could thin the herd. They’d prepared a few surprises around the cabin, but everything had to go according to plan.

And step one was taking out the two vehicles.

“This is such a bad idea,” she muttered.

“Pst.”

Val leaned out over the barrel, counting the bodies.

All accounted for.

She gave Duke a thumbs-up and ducked back down.

There was always a chance they’d missed someone or there were people they hadn’t laid eyes on yet. This whole thing was a risk. One that could bite them in the ass, or save Christmas.

The groan of old metal set Val’s teeth on edge. She stared over her shoulder at Duke hoisting the hood to the bigger truck, then glanced back at the pile of bodies.

Not a one so much as twitched at the sound.

She held her breath and didn’t take her eyes off the people.

“Got it,” Duke whispered.

Great.

During their hour or so just watching these slobs, she and Duke had seen a handful of firearms. Not many, and she seriously doubted if a few of those were operational the way they were brandished around, but still. These guys had guns. Val and Duke did not. A couple snares and traps rigged up around the cabin would not save them from a bullet. End of story.

A louder, longer creak had Val hunching lower and cringing.

One of the men around the fire sat up.

Her warning stuck in her throat.

Duke must have gotten the hood up because the noise stopped.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

They were about to be found out, and so what if they got the batteries out of the two trucks? They’d still be two against twelve and no weapons. At this point being the only ones not flying high might not be all that much of a benefit.

The guy couldn’t be more than twenty. Hell, these were all kids. Someone’s son, brother, cousin—yet here they were. Part of a gang.

The wakeful one pushed to his feet, swaying this way and that.

Val turned and waved her hands at Duke. He froze, his hands deep inside the truck. She glanced back at the sole, aware guy, only to watch him shamble away from the group.

And straight for their first little surprise.

“Oh, shit,” she muttered.

They had maybe a minute before the shambler got caught, and either it would knock him out, or he’d make so much noise the others would wake up, too.

“You have to hurry. That guy’s about to walk straight into the snare line.” Val darted to Duke’s side and stared at the corroded connections on the battery he was struggling with.

“Check the cab, see if there’s a gun or knife or anything,” Duke whispered.

A tree cracked in the distance and a strangled shout echoed off the rocks. Val held her breath, but that was about it from their walking wonder boy.

Whether or not they were ready, it had begun.

She dug under the seat, in the center consoles and glove compartments of the truck Duke was working on. Her only finds were a revolver so beyond repair the barrel wouldn’t spin and a knife that had no blade whatsoever to speak of.

Val dug under the back seat of the other truck. A baseball bat. Some food wrappers and God-only-knew-what-else. She reached forward, under the passenger seat, and her hand closed round something cold and metal.

She pulled.

The object didn’t budge.

She squinted and pushed clutter aside.

Whatever it was, it was part of the seat and nothing she was going to be able to use.

She finished searching the first truck, but other than the baseball bat there weren’t any weapons.

Duke hoisted both of the batteries, one in either hand, and nodded toward the tree line. They jogged as fast as he could go back to the shelter of the trees. Val’s heart pounded in her throat and her mouth was so dry she could hardly swallow.

How had they pulled that off without being seen?

“You go check on the snare line. Take that with you.” He nodded at the bat.

“What are you going to do?”

“Try to get us a gun.”

Val cringed. Did she want to know details? Probably not.

Without further discussion, she turned and hustled through the trees, keeping low behind the shrubs and made a large half circle around the cabin.

The inhabitants of the valley appeared to be using one, long ditch as their bathroom. It stood to reason that people ambling off to do business were often not as aware of their surroundings or suspicious. Using nothing but remnant rope and other odds and ends, she and Duke had fashioned half a dozen snares around the ditch.

What would make a group of young men leave their homes and come here? To live in a barely habitable cabin with too many other people?

Val didn’t understand drugs, but she was also a terrible patient. She hated the one time she’d needed anesthesia and would rather break a tooth than take pain killers. But that went back to her control issues. She hated the feeling of being on medication, so the allure of recreational drug use was completely foreign to her.

She reached the point where the trees thinned out along the back, left part of the valley. Unlike the other sides where the rock was crumbled and sloped down at a steep incline, here it was a solid face of rock. She breathed through her mouth in an attempt to not smell the stench. After baking in the sun, the feces smelled strong enough to taste.

A body lay half under a bush, a line of rope tight around one foot.

The snare must have caught him going back toward the cabin.

She nudged the downed man with her bat, but he didn’t so much as flinch.

Had they killed him?

She grabbed his ankles and pulled the rest of him out from under the bush. The man rolled onto his back, opened his mouth and let out a long, deep snore.

What the hell?

The guy had a pronounced lump on his forehead, but was otherwise uninjured.

She loosened the snare from around his ankle and used a bit of rope to bind his wrists and ankles. That done, she reset the snare and dragged the down-for-the-count man behind the nearest cluster of bushes.

If they were all out as hard as this one, was it worth risking the walk straight into camp? She was beginning to think that wasn’t such a bad idea.

Where was Duke? What the hell was he up to?

She crept toward the clearing around the cabin. Unless she was mistaken, a few of the men had gotten up and gone where?

One of the still-sleeping figures hugged a loaf of bread. Duke had tried to distract her from the smell of burning bread, but she’d been around a bakery too long to not know it.

These me couldn’t even be bothered to eat what they were made, they had to burn it. Why? Because they were too lazy to get firewood? This whole situation made her sick.

Two figures got up from their prime place close to the fire. Unless she was mistaken, that was one of the guys from last night, and he’d had a gun.

THE THINGS HE LET himself get talked into.

Duke remained crouched behind the barrels. Watching the slowly waking group was too risky, but he could listen and figure out what was happening well enough. He did his best to not worry about Val. She was capable of taking care of herself, and the motivation to protect her family would keep her focused. Didn’t mean he liked sending her off on her own to handle a potentially violent prisoner.

If today was anything to do by, Duke had to assume the bulk of what the group did was at night. They’d slept ‘til almost noon, gotten up long enough to move around, smoke, and have a nap. Soon enough, the addicts would be jonesing for a hit. If Duke were in charge, he’d insist on a little manual labor. They couldn’t just lie about all day and night burning through their stash. The drugs had to come from somewhere.

One problem at a time.

This, right now, was about making La Playa too much work to manage. If they could unseat these guys, get them on the run, they’d mess up. Cops somewhere would pick up their asses, and they would no longer be their problem, so to speak.

The bushes off to his right rustled.

Val stood just enough to be seen and held up two fingers.

He nodded. He’d heard two voices earlier.

Val held up a finger, her cheeks sinking in. She then made a gun with her hand.

Bingo.

That’s what he was after.

They could only do so much with traps and tricks. They needed some real weapons between them to make this work.

He stayed low to the ground. Two versus one weren’t great odds, but these two were unaware and likely high or going for their next fix. A den of thieves this big would burn through a collective stash fast. It made sense people would hoard some away for themselves.

The two men ambled past Duke’s hiding spot without a backward glance—and straight for Val’s hiding spot. That particular bush was scraggly and apart from the rest.

If those guys got much closer to her, they’d see her and the what? Call for the others?

Duke glanced back at the fire, but no one else moved.

Now, or they would sound the alarm.

The two guys slowed their stride, voices pitched low. Even distracted, they’d spot Val any second now.

Duke quick-stepped, keeping close to the cabin for as long as he could.

Val stood from behind the bushes, the baseball bat resting on one shoulder.

The two men stopped and gaped at her.

It was all the distraction Duke needed.

He closed the distance between them and grabbed the man from last night, driving his fist into the guy’s face. Duke’s knuckles throbbed, but the guy went down. Val swung her bat, taking the second down to the ground hard. Duke dropped to his knees, driving one into the first guy’s back and groped at the back of the man’s jeans for the gun. Duke pulled the weapon and pointed it at the second guy.

“Tell them I’ll shoot to kill if they make a sound,” Duke said.

Val translated, a touch breathlessly. Her face creased in a pronounced frown.

“What?” Duke was really beginning to hate not speaking the language. He’d understood Val’s frustration before, but it was really getting under his skin now.

“There are more guns inside the cabin he said.” Val’s face was still scrunched up like she’d tasted something she didn’t like. Whatever she wasn’t telling him would have to wait for later.

“Let’s get these two out of sight.”

Duke was running out of rope. They used the last few lengths to bind both men’s hands and tie their heads together in a joint gag. They dragged the two deeper into the brush and left them. Duke only felt a slight twinge of guilt over it. These people had caused so much pain and misery on the people of La Playa, an hour spent tied up was nothing.

“Okay, did he say where inside?” Duke peered around the thick tree at the cabin.

“No, just inside. It could be a trap.” Val’s face was still lined, the grim set of her mouth concerning.

“What else did he say?”

“Nothing we can worry about now. I’ll go inside. You keep watch.”

“I should go inside,” Duke said.

“They’ll shoot you on sight. They’d keep me alive for a little while which means you have time to rescue me.”

Duke’s stomach churned at her implied meaning.

“Don’t look at me that way.” She smacked his shoulder. “It’s practical thinking.”

Before he could muster enough thoughts into a coherent argument Val darted forward.

“God damn it,” Duke muttered.

He followed in her wake, returning to the hiding spot by the barrels.

What the hell was in them, anyway?

He tapped on the metal drum. The inside resonated and felt heavy. Dense with some kind of liquid. Duke pulled out his pocket knife and pried part of the mismatched plastic lid up. He got a whiff of the contents and coughed.

Petrol.

This was how they fueled up the trucks.

They had the whole town funding their addiction, from the bakery bringing them food to the fueling station keeping their vehicles running and the rest of the town footing the bill for their drug habit. It would be a pleasure putting a stop to this.

The big guy pushed up out of his lawn chair and kicked the nearest guy, barking words at the rest. Shit.

Duke squinted at the sun.

Late afternoon.

They must be preparing to do whatever it was they did at night. Maybe even go into town looking for Val and him to mete out some retaliation.

Three guys headed for the front of the cabin.

Duke pulled the second, mostly empty fuel can around to create a bit of shelter for himself. He couldn’t abandon his lookout position for Val, but he also didn’t have a way to signal her shit was going down.

The trio passed Duke’s hiding spot without a second glance. He held his breath and willed them to walk into the trees. Instead, they climbed into the first vehicle.

Oh, hell...

Someone shouted in the distance. Through a crack in the barrels, Duke could see the driver of the truck peer off into the distance. Over where Val had gone to take care of the first man.

This was about to get out of control.

The ring leader yelled something Duke didn’t have to understand. The cat was out of the bag and the thugs knew someone was out there.

The would-be driver yelled from the front seat while his passenger got out and lifted the hood. More yells came from the trees, no doubt some of the men finding the snares and surprises he and Val had rigged up to thin the herd a bit. He just wished they could have picked a better moment.

Feet scraped against wood...on the other side of the wall. Inside the cabin.

Val...