Maggie stood in the dark, praying her eyes would adjust to the limited lighting. But the lighting wasn’t just limited, it was non-existent. Once she came to that conclusion, she felt her way around her prison, seeing with her hands everything in the room besides herself, and hoping the cell didn’t contain any other live creatures. The possibility of finding rats and mice made her shiver. But if the cell contained rats or mice, it might have a gap, a hole, something she could widen and dig out enough for her to fit through. She refused to give up hope of escaping.

The cell contained a pail, and nothing else. But the floor was made of dirt like the rest of the wine cellar. She supposed the pail was for relieving herself. But she refused to believe she’d be in the cell long enough to need it. If anything, she’d use the pail to dig into the dirt floor. Maybe she could tunnel beneath the wall back into the wine cellar.

Since no one knew where Delgado had taken her, she was on her own. She couldn’t sit around and wait for anyone to rescue her. She had to do something to get herself out of her current situation.

Using the bucket, she dug it into the hard-packed earth and scraped away a thin layer of dirt. She felt the ground, despair threatening to overwhelm her. She’d barely made a dent in the earthen floor.

Now wasn’t the time to give up. Maggie stiffened her resolve and dug in. A little at a time, she expanded the impression until it was as deep as her fist. Her hands hurt, and her arms and back began to ache. But, she couldn’t give up. The longer she took, the closer the hour drew to Chase’s meeting with Delgado at La Casa Loca. She had to find a way out and get to Chase before he walked into certain death with Delgado and his armed-to-the-teeth cartel thugs.

She didn’t know how long she’d been trapped in the cell. With no light from the sun to gauge the time of day, she could only guess at the number of hours that had passed. It felt like forever, but she supposed it was getting to be late afternoon. Evening would be upon them soon and, so far, no one had come down to check on her, or to give her water or food. Why should they? And if anyone did come down, what would she do? The potential scenarios made her shiver in the cool dampness of the cellar prison.

She’d never been this frightened in her life. Nor had she been this determined. If she could keep her focus on escape, she wouldn’t succumb to complete despair.

Footsteps sounded outside the door of her cell and the sound of metal scraping across metal alerted Maggie that someone was opening the door.

She dropped to the dirt floor and played dead, her hand on the bucket, her body tense as she readied to spring into action.

The dull yellow light from the wine cellar spilled into her cell.

“Señora?” a male voice said.

Maggie lay on the ground and moaned softly, but loud enough for the man standing outside her door to hear.

A plastic bottle of water landed on the ground beside her, but the man didn’t enter.

When the door started to close, Maggie ramped up the sick act and moaned louder. If he didn’t fall for it, she might lose her only chance to get out of the cell.

The door stopped closing, leaving a wedge of light crossing over her face. The wedge broadened as the door opened wider.

“Señora?” the man called out, the sound closer this time.

He stepped into the cell and nudged her foot with the toe of his shoe. “¿Estás bien?”

From beneath her lashes, Maggie studied the man. Dressed all in black, his arms covered in tattoos, the man carried a rifle and smelled of sweat.

She moaned again and pulled her legs in, balling her body into the fetal position.

The man squatted beside her and touched the barrel of his rifle to her temple. “Bang,” he said softly.

Anger surged through Maggie at the man’s sadistic taunt. Her hand closed around the rim of the pail and she brought it up hard and fast, aiming for the man’s face.

The pail caught him on the nose, and the crunch of cartilage echoed off walls.

His hand flew to his face. Blood spewed from his nose, and he swung the rifle away from Maggie’s head.

This was her chance, her only opportunity. Maggie had to move. With her legs cocked already, she kicked out both feet, catching the man in the knees. He fell backward, landing hard on his ass.

Maggie scrambled to her feet and dove for the door.

The man roared behind her and lunged after her.

She made it through first and slammed the door, but the man’s hands were in the way.

He screamed and withdrew his hands, giving Maggie a second shot at closing the cell door. This time she succeeded and dropped the bar in place, locking the man inside.

She didn’t have much time. Once he figured out, he was locked in, he’d probably start shooting the rifle at the door. The bullets would splinter the wood. If he had enough ammunition, he’d break through and get out. Not to mention, the sound of the gunfire might filter through the building and draw the attention of Delgado’s goons.

Maggie raced through the racks of wine to the stairs leading up into the kitchen. Once at the top, she paused long enough to ease open the door and peer out. Two men stood in the kitchen, each armed with rifles. One drank from a water bottle.

The other said something in Spanish that made the water bottle guy laugh.

A sound from the other end of the kitchen made them look up.

A man in a white smock entered and spoke sharply to the two men with guns.

The men snorted and talked back to the man in the white smock, but they left the kitchen soon after.

Maggie assumed the man in the white smock was the cook. He pulled pots from a rack beside the gas stove about the same time as the guard in the cellar started firing his rifle. Though the sound was muffled by the walls of the basement, Maggie held her breath.

If the cook heard the muffled sound of gunfire, he might alert the men he’d just chased out of his kitchen. Maggie had to get out of there before they discovered she’d escaped her cell.

The cook filled a pot with water and set it on the stove. He switched on the overhead vent, the sound filling the kitchen with enough noise Maggie hoped it would mask the sound of the gunfire below.

Then the cook turned toward her hideout and crossed the kitchen.

Maggie shrank back against the wall at the top of the stairs and waited for the cook to push the door to the basement fully open.

When a few seconds passed and that didn’t happen, she peered out. Another door stood open beside the cellar door. The kitchen stood empty. The cook was in a closet or pantry beside the cellar door, and the path was clear from where she stood at the top of the cellar steps to the exit door that led from the kitchen to the outside.

Maggie dragged in a deep breath and made a break for it. She ran lightly through the kitchen, her focus on the door to the outside. Her heart pounded, her pulse pushing blood and adrenaline through her system. Only a few steps away from freedom.

As she reached for the doorknob, a shout sounded behind her. Maggie froze and turned back to the man on the other side of the kitchen.

The cook had come out of the pantry, carrying a canister and a couple of bottles of spices. He frowned fiercely and spoke to her in rapid Spanish.

She shook her head. “No comprendo.” Maggie eased backward toward the door, pressing a finger to her lips. “Por favor,” she said having exhausted her memory of the Spanish she’d taken in school. “Por favor.”

The muffled sound of gunfire sounded again from the basement.

The cook’s gaze shifted to the basement door, his eyes narrowing. When the sound of wood splintering and a shout rose from below, the cook looked to her, his eyes widening. He gave her a chin lift and whispered, “Darse prisa.” With his hands full, all he could do was jerk his head toward the outside door.

Maggie nearly cried with her relief. “Gracias, mi amigo.”

“Go. Desapareces.”

Footsteps sounded on the staircase from the cellar.

Maggie turned and ran out the door into the shadowed dusk.

The band of four former military members gathered at Carson’s small house on the beach. Inside, in a secret room hidden in one of the stucco walls, Chase, Gina and Trevor discovered an arsenal of weaponry.

Chase had chosen to carry an AR-15 rifle with a scope. For backup, he tucked a 9mm P226 into a shoulder holster he wore beneath a light black jacket.

Thankfully, Carson had a stash of black clothing they used to camouflage themselves against the night. The former SEAL even offered camo sticks for them to use to blacken their faces.

“Are you sure you can handle that weapon?” Carson asked Gina.

She nodded, hefting the AR-15 in her hands. “I’ve got this.”

He handed her a magazine and a box of bullets. “What was your MOS in the Army?”

She glanced away. “Doesn’t matter. They train everyone in basic combat skills. I qualified as an expert marksman. That’s all you need to know.” She filled the magazine with rounds and slammed it into the weapon. “I’m ready to go.”

“You think Mr. Neal will stay put in the hotel room until we get back to him?” Trevor asked.

Gina shrugged. “We can only hope.”

Carson grunted. “I read him the riot act about getting in the way of anything we’re doing to rescue Maggie. He understands we’re up against some pretty bad dudes.”

“Does he also understand that you three are highly trained Navy SEALs?” Gina asked.

“I explained it to him. He wanted to come with us, but I told him he needed to stay at the hotel in case Maggie was freed and made her way back. She’d be frightened and would need someone she knew and loved to be there for her.”

Gina nodded. “That ought to do it.”

“I also told him that if he interfered with our mission, I’d shoot him,” Carson said.

“I’m glad you told him that and not me,” Chase admitted. “That man is my father-in-law. Shooting him wouldn’t make my new bride happy.”

“Speaking of which,” Trevor said. “What the hell made you tie the knot in the first place?”

“A lot of tequila and a special woman who loves life and has a good heart,” Chase said. “Now, let’s go get her back, or my marriage will set records for how short it was.”

“You thinking of staying married?” Trevor asked. “I thought you’d stay a bachelor for life.”

“Things change,” Chase said, his answer short, almost terse. He didn’t want to waste time explaining himself when he wasn’t all that sure of why he’d married Maggie in the first place. The argument because it felt right seemed lame, though it was true. Whatever the reason, he had to save Maggie from Delgado or none of his reasons would matter.

As they were loading into Carson’s SUV, Chase’s cellphone buzzed in his pocket. He dug it out. UNKNOWN CALLER displayed on the screen. Thinking it might be Delgado, he hit the talk button. “Yeah.”

“Flannigan? Hank, here.”

“Hank, we’re about to head out. Do you have any suggestions on how to handle this situation?”

“Yeah, wait for us,” Hank said.

“What do you mean?” Chase stared out at the lengthening shadows. “I can’t wait. We’re taking the fight to Delgado at his place in the hills outside of the city. If we don’t leave now, we might not catch him at home.”

“Then go, but send me the GPS location. We’re at the airport, loading into vehicles as we speak.”

“You’re here?” Chase’s heart swelled with hope. “In Cabo San Lucas?”

“We are.” Hank chuckled. “Me and five of my best men. Send us the location. We’ll join you as soon as we can.”

Chase sent Delgado’s address to Hank in a text and then asked, “What about arms?”

“We arrived in a private plane. We have what we need,” Hank said. “Don’t wait on us. If you could slow them down long enough for us to get there, we might even the odds a little.” Hank paused. “Any word on the girl? Have you located her?”

“No on both counts. All we have is the Delgado’s deadline. Midnight tonight. If the preemptive attack doesn’t work out, I’ll fall back on the original demand.” His gut knotted. “And pray the bastard doesn’t change his mind and kill Maggie first.”

“Right,” Hank said. “We’re on our way.”

Trevor stood at Chase’s side as he ended the call. “Was that Hank?”

Chase nodded. “I can’t believe he made it here in just a few hours.”

“Here in Cabo?”

“Yup,” Chase said. “With five of his best men.”

Trevor grinned. “That’s Hank for you. He’s there when you need him. And he has a network of friends with money and assets who can get him where he needs to be, when he needs to get there.” Trevor clapped his hands together. “Gang, we have backup. This mission just got better.”

Chase wasn’t as quick to think everything would turn up roses. “We still don’t have a bead on Maggie. She might not even be in Delgado’s home. He could have taken her to some other cartel compound.”

“From what my sources tell me, Delgado likes to run his operation out of his house. He has it set up the way he likes, and the high wall around it slows down or keeps out the riff-raff.”

“Speaking of which,” Gina said, “we’ll have to scale that wall. I never was good at vertical leaps, and I’m barely five and a half feet tall.”

“We’ve scaled walls in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Trevor said.

“We’ve got this,” Carson said. “And we’ll get you over it. No worries.”

“Good,” Gina said. “Then maybe we’d better get going so we can get into place before sundown.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Hank and his men?” Carson asked.

Chase shook his head. “I’m afraid that if we wait too long, there might not be anything left of Maggie. He has the address and GPS. He’ll be here in time to provide the backup we’ll need. In the meantime, we can scope the surroundings and come up with plan to breach the compound. Hopefully, Hank and his guys will get there before we’re in so far over our heads we can’t dig our way out.”

Carson chose a 9mm Glock and stuffed explosives into one of his pockets and detonators in the other. “Let’s get moving.”

Gina and the three former Navy SEALs piled into Carson’s SUV and headed out of the city and up into the hills overlooking Cabo and the ocean in the distance. The sun was just slipping into the ocean when they arrived at a location where they could hide the vehicle. At a mile away from their target, they’d continue on foot to the compound and perform a quick reconnaissance of the walls, the security system and take a count of the number of guards on duty. With only the four of them to start with, they could easily be bested in a matter of minutes if discovered. An all-out attack wasn’t an option. They had to sneak in by scaling a wall. Then they’d have to take out the exterior guards, enter Delgado’s home, locate Maggie and get her out without her being harmed. The chances of them getting in, extracting Maggie and getting back out without alerting Delgado’s men were slim. But they had to find Maggie before Delgado used her to force them to lay down their arms and surrender to him and his men. Just like surrendering to the Taliban, the odds of the SEALs surviving once that happened were nil.

Being caught wasn’t an option.

From all Carson had told them, the cartel members were ruthless and always out for blood. They didn’t let their enemies go unharmed. Most of the time, they used them as examples, torturing and killing them as a warning to others not to cross them. Raul Delgado was one of the worst for using this terror tactic.

After they hid the truck in the brush, the men and Gina gathered their weapons and took off over the hills, moving in the direction of Delgado’s home. They moved quickly across rough terrain, careful not to expose themselves to anyone who might be lurking. The setting sun cast long, dark shadows, giving them sufficient concealment as they navigated the hills and gullies, working their way toward Delgado’s compound.

The road curving up to his hilltop hideaway switched back and forth. The four of them kept climbing, keeping a watch on the road from a distance. So far, they hadn’t seen anyone going up or down.

Chase worried they were setting their sights on the wrong goal. Maggie might not be inside the cartel leader’s compound after all. If she wasn’t, they’d wasted precious time getting there. But with no other intel on Delgado’s haunts, they didn’t have any other choice.

First over the top of the ridge, Chase spotted the compound on the next rise. He stopped and held up a fist for the others to stop as well.

They huddled to study their target.

Surrounded by high walls, the building within the walls was large and sprawling with windows on the upper level that probably had a great view of the ocean below.

“I spot a guard on the rooftop.” Carson handed Chase the binoculars he’d brought along with him.

Chase had been looking through the scope of his rifle and had yet to spot him. With the wider range of the binoculars, he picked up quickly on a man in black, carrying a rifle. He leaned against a wall, staring out over the road leading up to the main gate.

Chase looked closer. “Two men on the gate, and one roaming the outer wall on this side. For all we know, there might be another on the other side and the rear.”

“We can take the guy on the wall and go over the top,” Trevor said. He glanced at the last of the sun dipping downward into the ocean to the west.

“By the time we get close to the wall, it’ll be dark enough to provide cover for our approach,” Gina said.

At that moment, Chase’s cellphone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out and stared down at the name on the screen. He hit the talk button and pressed the phone to his ear. “Hey, Hank.”

“We ran into a bit of luck at the airport,” Hank said. “At the general aviation ramp, we overheard the pilot of another plane talking to a truck driver about a delivery he had for the same address as the one you gave us. We waited until he’d loaded the cargo from the plane into the truck. When he had it all loaded, he went back into the terminal, giving us the opportunity to add to his cargo.”

“What are you telling me?” Chase asked.

Hank chuckled. “We hitched a ride in the back of the delivery truck. We’re well on our way.”

Chase could feel the weight of the mission ease a little. “That’s good news.”

“All we need is for you to make sure we get past whatever guards might be at the gate checking the delivery trucks,” Hank said.

“We’ll do our best,” Chase promised. “Be prepared in case we aren’t successful.”

“Roger,” Hank said and ended the call.

Chase pocketed his cellphone and turned the binoculars on the narrow, winding road leading up to Delgado’s compound. “The cavalry is on the way. They hitched a ride in the back of a delivery truck destined for the Delgado compound.”

Trevor clapped Chase on his back. “I told you Hank was a standup kind of guy. Trust him to be there when you need him.”

“We have to get to the compound before they arrive and neutralize the guards on the gate, so that they don’t inspect the back of the delivery truck. At the very least, we need to create enough of a distraction to give the guys a chance to exit the truck and enter the compound on their own.”

“I think we can do that,” Carson said. “I have the C-4 explosives I brought with me. We can set up a pretty decent distraction on the back side of the compound. Enough to take their minds off what’s out front.”

“Okay, Carson, you’re on for setting charges,” Chase said. “Make noise, not so much damage. We don’t know for sure where inside they might be keeping Maggie. We need to time it for when Trevor and I are at the wall. Blow the charge, and we’ll go over during the confusion. Once we’re inside, we’ll find Maggie.”

Trevor’s lips twisted. “That’s a tall order for three SEALs and a soldier.”

Chase shrugged. “Sometimes less is better. We have less chance of being discovered when there are only two of us on the inside.”

“Two? No way. What about me?” Gina asked.

“You need to be Carson’s backup while he’s setting charges. Once he triggers the explosion, you two can slip around to the front and take out the guards on the gate. Since we don’t have radios, we’ll communicate via cellphone texts and coordinate our efforts that way. But first, we need get to the base of the compound. Set your phones to silent if you haven’t already.”

Chase checked through the binoculars again and spotted the headlights of a vehicle on the road, climbing up the hill from far below. He trained the lenses on it. When it switched back, he could tell it was a cargo truck. “We need to get moving. Hank and his team are on their way up now and will be here soon. We need to be ready for when they arrive. I anticipate no more than ten minutes.”

“Let’s do this,” Trevor said.

Carson grinned in the dusk, his teeth flashing white in the darkening gloom. “God, I missed this.”

“Just don’t do anything to put yourself or others at any more risk than we’ll already have,” Chase warned. “Our number one goal is to get Maggie out alive.”

Carson gave a mock salute. “Gotcha.”

“Will do,” Trevor said.

“Operation Save Maggie,” Gina said. “But, boy, I want to kick some Delgado ass while we’re at it.”

“We might get our chance,” Chase said. “Let’s just make sure he doesn’t end up kicking ours or Maggie’s first.”