Ghost Warrior II : Irish Sister

 

0400
Road, outside Peters Ranch

The Suburban sat dark and idle beneath the cloak of a mesquite grove just off the gravel lane leading to the Peters ranch. The engine was cold, lights off, tucked back from the road and buried beneath brush that hadn’t been cleared in years. Dust from the departing Wagoneer still lingered in the air, drifting slowly over the washboard trail like ghost smoke.

Rafael “El Tiburón” Vargas watched the taillights of Tucker’s vehicle disappear into the Texas night, the faint red glow shrinking between trees before vanishing altogether around a bend.

He smiled, slow and shark-like.

“Bueno,” he whispered, barely audible over the click of his lighter. He lit a thin black cigarillo, took one long drag, and exhaled toward the windshield. “They took the bait.”

The glow from the tip cast his chiseled face in red-orange relief, the hard planes of his jaw shadowed beneath his short beard. His voice, calm as always, carried across the silent vehicle.

“We move now,” he said, turning to the other men. “Time is short.”

The four others were his best—former Fuerzas Especiales. Hard men. Quiet men. They wore dark clothing, body armor stripped down for agility. Each carried suppressed pistols, folding knives, and tactical comms pinned to their collars. They had trained together for years.

Rafael looked to the man in the passenger seat beside him. “Run the jammers. One-mile radius. Kill all cellular, Wi-Fi, GPS. I want that house blind.”

The man nodded and pulled a sleek black device from the console. With two quick keystrokes, the unit powered on. An LED blinked green as the sweep began.

“Signal blackout in thirty seconds,” the man confirmed.

Rafael turned to the driver. “As soon as the net’s live, pull into the drive. Lights off. Stop just short of the first cattle grate. If she hears us, this falls apart.”

The driver nodded, put the SUV in gear, and eased forward.

Rafael turned to the other three men. “With me. On foot. Quiet.”

He gestured to two of them. “You two go to the front of the house. Make a soft distraction—something subtle. Rattle a bucket, knock over a feed bin. Just enough noise to pull her forward.”

He pointed to the third man and then to himself. “You’re with me. We circle to the back door. Stay low. Stay dark. When she moves forward, we go in. Pick the lock—quietly.”

They all nodded, disciplined and unflinching.

Rafael’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Do not engage unless she draws. She may be armed. If she comes toward you, fall back. Let me take her.”

He reached into a padded side pouch and drew out a preloaded auto-injector, the kind used by field medics for combat sedation. “Use this,” he said, handing it to the man beside him. “Hit the thigh or upper arm. Ten seconds, she drops. No damage. No struggle.”

He pulled a soft black hood from the back of his vest and handed it to the same man. “As soon as she’s down, hood her. Tape the wrists. Quiet. Fast.”

He looked across the faces of the men who had bled for him, killed for him. “We do not harm her. Understood? She’s valuable. If we cannot get what we need from her, I can sell her to one of our Afghan poppy growers.  They will pay top dollar for a beautiful green eyed red head.”

There were short, crisp nods of understanding. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t have to.

The SUV rolled to a stop. The lane was quiet, shadows deep. Crickets had gone silent. Somewhere far off, a coyote yipped once, then fell quiet again.

“All right,” Rafael said, opening his door slowly, silently. “Tac channel six. Comms check now.”

Each man clicked his mic twice.

Rafael stepped out, boots crunching lightly against dry gravel. His dark form melted into the brush line, followed by the three others, each fanning off into position.

As he moved up the slope toward the rear of the house, he kept low, passing through the shadows of live oaks and overgrown cedar. The back of the Peters house came into view—dark windows, faint light spilling from the upstairs operations room. He could see the faint flicker of a monitor still on.

“She’s alone,” Rafael murmured. “They left her. They got arrogant.”

From his chest rig, he drew a small lockpick kit and passed it silently to his point man, who was already crouched beneath the back door, examining the lock by feel.

“Front team, status?” Rafael whispered into his mic.

“Ready. Moving now.”

There was a soft thunk from the front of the house—someone gently tipping over an old galvanized feed bucket near the porch. It rolled and clattered lightly against the wood steps. A sound just loud enough to grab attention, not enough to cause alarm.

Inside, Rebecca stirred.

“Back team—move.”

Rafael’s man slipped the pick into the lock. In less than six seconds, the latch clicked.   The door opened.

Rafael drew his weapon but kept it low, moving inside with careful precision. They stepped into the mudroom—shoes lined up, a rifle propped in the corner. He motioned to leave it. No noise.

Through the thin hallway, they crept toward the den.

At the front of the house, the two-man team shifted position, stepping behind a pair of large rosebushes, waiting to draw her farther forward.

Inside, a floorboard creaked. Rebecca moved from the kitchen toward the front, barefoot, in jeans and a tee, hair still damp from the night air. Her hand hovered near the small of her back—where her Glock was tucked.

“Back team,” Rafael whispered. “Ready to breach.”

She turned toward the noise at the front—eyes narrowed, head tilted.

And in that instant, the back of the house fell into motion like a trap sprung.

Rafael stepped forward, silent as breath. His man was already at her flank.

Rebecca had just crossed the threshold from the kitchen into the hallway when she heard the first sound—a whisper of motion more felt than heard. Her instincts screamed.

She turned sharply, reaching for the Glock at the small of her back—

—but the man was already on her.

He seized her right arm and shoulder in a brutal grip, spinning her toward the wall. Her hip hit the doorframe with a solid thud. She twisted, planting a foot, trying to angle her body for a side kick, to create distance, leverage—anything—

Rafael surged forward.

He caught her at the moment her foot left the ground. His hand snapped around her throat—not choking, but controlling—and he used her own momentum against her. With practiced violence, he wrenched her downward and laid her onto the hardwood floor, making sure not to break anything or leave obvious marks.

Rebecca grunted, the air driven from her lungs. Her head cracked against the floorboards, and stars filled her vision.

But she was still fighting. Still kicking.

“Dura,” Rafael muttered, impressed. “Muy bien.”

The other two men descended on her.

One pinned her legs. Another dropped onto her back, driving a knee between her shoulder blades while securing her arms.

She bucked hard, growling behind gritted teeth, but it was over. They were too fast. Too many. Too strong.

A rough fabric gag was shoved into her mouth and pulled tight. Her wrists were yanked behind her, bound fast with nylon flex cuffs. Her legs followed.

She let out a strangled noise of rage—muffled and furious—just as the black hood dropped over her head, turning the world to shadow and cloth.

The scent of gun oil and dirt filled her nose.

One of the men leaned over her and jabbed the auto-injector into her thigh. The hiss of compressed fluid was sharp.

Rebecca squealed softly—a high-pitched, involuntary squeak of pain.

She thrashed once, twice more— Then stilled.  Her body slackened under the weight of the sedative.

Rafael stepped back, breathing steady. He watched her movements slow, the rise and fall of her chest softening beneath the black hood.

“Bueno,” he said, checking his watch. “She’ll be under for hours.”

He crouched down beside her and studied her for just a second. Her flame-red hair was tangled around the edge of the hood, her chest rising gently beneath her t-shirt. Still warm. Still alive.  Exactly as planned.

He stood. “Let’s go. We’ve got eight, maybe ten minutes tops before her system pings the jammers or their drone network wakes up.”

The men nodded, moving in tight formation. The rear man quickly collected the used injector, the broken zip ties from the floor, and anything else that might register as foreign. No brass. No prints.

Rebecca’s limp form was lifted smoothly, cradled between two operatives like a patient on a stretcher. Silent. Precise.

“Out the back,” Rafael ordered. “Same way we came in.”

They retraced their steps through the darkened hallway, cutting through the utility room, past the washer and boot rack, and out the door into the night.

The jammed signal zone held.

The Suburban was already idling in gear at the end of the gravel lane.

As they reached the treeline, the rear passenger door opened.

Rafael climbed in last, just as Rebecca was laid gently across the rear bench seat. Her breathing was even. The drug was working perfectly.

He took one last look out the window, scanning the dark ranch house as the jam cycle counted down. No alarms. No lights.

He gave a low nod.  “Let’s move.”

The Suburban rolled forward, headlights still off, slipping back down the ranch lane with the quiet precision of a scalpel.