As we skidded to a stop around the side of the complex, Hunter leapt off the bike. Dragging me to the dirt with him, he hissed into my ear:

“You sure you’re ready for this?”

I nodded, pulling my Glock from my holster.

He reciprocated the nod, rising up beside me with his hand against the outer wall. He slipped me a pair of goggles and put his own on as the bikers swung out around us, kicking up a fierce cloud of dust with their arrival.

I covered my mouth and held my breath with my free hand, following his vague shape as he pressed forward along the side of the building. I could hear the others dismounting, locking, and loading as a swarm.

The cloud began to dissipate just as the moon came through the cloud cover. It shone down on the complex, and I studied it quickly at a glance.

It was a low-hung set of adobe buildings, with a small warehouse attachment. A northward tower looked to be in construction, and some unfinished and half-assembled lights were laying about atop scaffolds and on the rooftops.

Hunter was right.

If we’d waited any longer to strike this place, we’d have lost our chance to hit them hard. They were still setting up shop, but soon, this place would be a fortress.

“This is it,” he murmured, hiding behind cover near the open front entrance. I crept up to his side, flanked in my approach by at least a dozen bikers. “Fortune favors us tonight, detective. This base is one hell of a shit-show…”

“But why?” I asked quietly. “Why risk moving somewhere like this when the place is barely together?”

“No idea,” he murmured. “I can only guess that the other cartels have been pushing them forward, taking territory further South.”

Hunter nodded to the other bikers, gave a signal, and watched as they quickly checked their weapons. With everyone satisfied, he adjusted his signal, and the team scampered out in front.

It wasn’t more than a few seconds before a few cartel gunmen with automatic weapons poured out into the open. Fanning out in a defensible formation, they strolled out and rained down gunfire as the bikers ducked behind vehicles and whatever cover they could find. Hunter and I watched from behind the cover. I was preparing to fire off a few rounds before he held up a cease-fire hand.

“No… not yet. Let’s not signal our position until they’re distracted…”

“They’re sitting ducks out there!” I hissed.

“These are the Outlaws you’re talking about,” Hunter informed me. “They can hold their own… just watch.”

The cartel formation continued fanning out, separating to cover more ground. A few of the nearer bikers, ducked behind a truck, glanced to Hunter for instruction.

He made a quick motion, earning the attention of the closest gunman. The bastard let loose some rifle fire our way, the rounds unable to penetrate the thick wall, but it gave the sequestered bikers the opening they needed.

We heard the gunman fall with an anguished shriek, and the others turned to return firepower. That pulled them away from their searches, allowing a few Outlaws to find more offensive positions along the edges… The bikers made use of the shadows, firing pot shots from the dark. Some stayed mobile, moving around when not in a line of sight, quietly creeping around to attack from a new vantage point.

The cartel fighters seemed to realize their error. They were standing directly in the moonlight and unable to see their enemies. They decided to rush the shadows, firing off a sweeping round in a wide circle.

“Now!” Hunter snarled.

The bikers descended from the shadows in an ambush and I watched as our enemies fell. The last two threw down their arms in surrender, and Hunter led me forward quickly.

We each took one of their rifles from the ground, shared a glance, and bashed them with a swift strike to the back of the head. The surrendering cartel members dropped to the ground, unresponsive to a pair of swift boot kicks to the ribs.

They’d wake up with a few broken ribs, but they’d live to see another day. Hunter had them hog tied before we moved closer to the building.

Several of the bikers snatched up remaining weaponry and pocketed their own pistols. My eyes scanned the vehicles and I spotted that bastard van off to the side in a line of trucks.

Pointing it out to Hunter, he nodded.

The abducted girls are here.

I could hear gunfire from inside – it was clear that the rest of the Outlaws had found another entrance or two, and were storming the unfinished facility from different approaches.

Another ten bikers slipped around the front and joined our battalion. We’d lost one of our men in the shadow ambush, although I was surprised that it hadn’t been more…

“These must be new recruits,” Hunter muttered, kicking over one of the fresh corpses. “They’re stupid motherfuckers, but this cartel isn’t usually that unprepared…”

“Where’s Grizz?” I asked suddenly, glancing around. Hunter was ripped from his thoughts, matching my sweeping gaze with his own.

“Leading a second team inside,” one of the bikers informed us. “Took a group of twenty and stormed towards the back.”

“That’s my boy,” Hunter chuckled. “Well, let’s not keep him waiting…”

Hunter strolled forward, leading our collective of armed badasses for the front gates. He had such a comfortable, confident swagger, slinging the rifle over his shoulder and whipping out a pair of pistols.

If only time could have slowed down there and then, like it does in the goddamn movies.

One of his Devil’s Dragons kicked the front door. The immediate bath of light demonstrated that Víboras Verde had done more work on the interior than they had on the outside.

As the sound of commotion filled the air with gunfire, smoke, and adrenaline, Hunter’s lips spread into a wicked grin.

“Sweep and clean house, boys.”

We strolled through the entrance as the bikers fanned out around us, automatic rifles at the ready. Every cartel gunmen that appeared around a corner or behind cover suffered from an immediate hail of bullets, shoving them back out of sight.

He signaled for the team to separate into three factions headed for different areas. One group of five or six broke off on either side, fleeing towards nearby halls or staircases as our remaining escort surrounded us in a circle and followed his lead.

“Yeah, this looks familiar,” Hunter acknowledged as he glanced around the interior. “This is the same kind of design I remember from our original strike… Can’t fault the fuckers for their consistency.”

We were in a large entrance room, apparently meant to host a mobile fleet to transport kidnapped cargo. The walls and ceiling were all adobe, reinforced by steel foundations and braces. Exposed wiring ran in the walls, only demonstrating further how unprepared this compound was for a siege.

A couple of vehicles were already in here, highlighting their intended expansion into a rolling armada of trucks and vans.

“Hmm. That’s new,” Hunter murmured, kicking at an open panel in a corner of the room. It exposed a staircase running downward, and he glanced at a few similar panels in the other corners.

“They built down?” I asked, swallowing my fear. If they’re constructing down into the earth, then there’s no telling how far deep this place goes…

“They’ve learned,” he muttered in annoyance. “Well, I’ll be damned. The rest of this might be a façade… they’re more prepared than I gave them credit for.”

“What does this mean?” I asked him. A few of the nearby bikers shuffled their boots with tension, signaling their support to my question.

“It means we don’t underestimate them,” he answered obliquely.

The other two teams returned into the main room before he could continue.

“Killed every fucker we found,” one of them informed us loudly.

“What about the girls?” Hunter asked.

“None to be found.”

Hunter glanced back at the staircase, lifted his pistols, and then started descending. “The real fight’s down here, boys… pull your wits together, because there’s no telling what we’ll find…”

I trotted down by his side, both hands on my Glock. The combined teams flanked us as we descended; on the next floor down, we spotted a familiar face in some bad shape.

“Grizz!” Hunter shouted, dropping down to his second-in-command’s side. Grizz was gasping for air and clutching his leg. In his stead were two dead bikers, and half a dozen cartel corpses.

He checked Grizz’s wound briefly, then held up his head and asked: “What the fuck happened in here?”

“We just got ambushed,” Grizz groaned, painfully trying to shift into a more comfortable position. “Took out a couple of us in this corridor. We chased them from another stairwell… led us right into gunfire.”

“Dammit,” Hunter snarled, slamming the side of his fist into the wall. “Any of you fuckers know how to extract and patch up a bullet?”

“I’ll be fine… bullet passed clean through,” Grizz grumbled, his piercing eyes slightly dulled of their intensity. He barely even looked at me. “This corridor is clear,” he motioned to the side, “although I don’t know about that one. A few of my men chased after the assholes…”

Hunter directed a team of six that way, and pointed out another six. “Guard this man,” he said. “See to it that he stays safe and conscious. I want him with us when we ride out of this hellhole, understood?”

Grizz glanced up slowly, his fresh sweat splattered across his face. “I’m sorry… for holding you back, boss…”

“Not another fucking word,” Hunter growled in retort. “You conserve your strength. I can’t lose you here, Grizz. Understood?”

Grizz nodded painfully. “Crystal clear,” he acknowledged.

With his conviction renewed, Hunter gave him a nod, and then led the rest of us down the next flight of stairs. It was the bottom floor, and all that greeted us was a thick, steel door: it waited ominously with silence on the other side.

“There’s no way this goes any further down,” Hunter told us. “Must be bedrock below this…”

We could hear staggered gunfire from further into the complex above us. Sharing a glance, we steeled ourselves for a fight… and Hunter threw open the heavy, solid door.

The bikers released rapid-fire from their assault weapons to fend off the surprised cartel members. They had apparently been too compartmentalized to hear the fighting above their heads, and couldn’t draw their pistols fast enough.

Hunter and I put a few rounds in the chests of a few hostiles, pausing to reload our weapons behind cover.

“That is some Dirty Harry shit,” I muttered to him as I hastily slammed bullets into my pistol chamber.

He finished loading his gun, and we nodded together before rising up from cover. With reflexes just quicker than mine, he let off a couple of shots from both wrists, missing once or twice but downing three cartel fighters in the process. We continued to mount our assault, aided by our team of fighters – most of whom were members of the Devil’s Dragons. They defensively stuck close to their leader, ready to annihilate any threat that appeared.

Even down here, exposed wiring and limited panels showed just how new the structure was. The rooms appeared to be filled with scattered construction equipment and debris, and a lot of walls were only built on one side, or lacked external plating. Still, the further forward we went, the more the various rooms and hallways started coming together.

The cartel members were spread a little thinner here, and we reduced their numbers with every corner we turned.

Before we could sweep the entire floor, a pair of bikers caught up with us.

“We found them!”

Hunter whipped around. “How many?”

“Fifteen girls!”

He was stunned by the news, pausing to process this. His gaze shifted to meet mine, and then he asked the biker: “Any Caucasians?”

“No sir…”

“Damn,” he hissed. “But at least we found the other abductees. The cartel must have spent its time shifting operations up here, instead of actually getting around to selling the captives…

“Where were they?”

“There was a fortified room up a floor, tucked away real neat-like in the back,” the biker answered with a grin. “We mowed down their guards, but the girls look pretty drugged up…”

“Keeps them complacent and unaware of their surroundings… What else is going on up there?”

“Still some scattered resistance, putting up a fight. Nobody’s surrendering. They’re gunning down to their last man and there’s still no sign of any of this money you promised…”

“It’s here,” Hunter murmured. “Come with us and offer some backup. We’re going to find the leader of this shit-show and he’ll be sitting on enough money to make your goddamned head spin.”

We pushed forward, facing fewer opponents than before. I suspected that our three teams had mowed through the vast majority of them already, and that this was a skeleton crew down here.

“We’re close,” Hunter finally observed, gazing at a small map on the wall. “This looks familiar again… I think that we’re right on top of the brains of this little operation.”

His eyes glanced over to a few doors nearby. He directed the team to split up and take each door in trios, and left the furthest one for the two of us. The bikers bashed into the doors and started gunning down the remaining opposition.

“This is it,” he told me. “Are you ready?”

I nodded in agreement, and with his hand on the doorknob, he pushed open the entrance…