Page 4 of Zorro

Joker shook his hand without hesitation. “We had your six.”

Leite’s eyes swept over the team. Zorro mud-streaked, D-Day reloading, Bear crouched beside Flint, Gator scanning the tree line, Blitz cleaning his optics, Professor watching everything in silence.

“All of you,” Leite said. “We are in your debt.”

There was a moment of quiet where it was just rain, breath, and the slow, steady collapse of adrenaline.

Then Zorro smirked. “So…is that a yes to drinks in Rio?”

Leite huffed a breath that was almost a laugh. “You come to Rio, the drinks are on me. Hell, the whole damn country might owe you one.”

Zorro pushed through the brush, boots slogging through the mud as he reached the shallow depression. The tarp twitched just as he crouched.

A shaky sidearm poked out first but aimed straight.

Zorro barked a laugh. “Easy, wormfood. You planning on shooting your savior?”

Migs exhaled and let the pistol fall back against his chest with a grunt. “Just showing you I’m still mission-capable, senhor.”

Zorro smirked. “You’re mission-capable of holding still and not bleeding out. That’s it.”

He peeled back the tarp and checked Migs’s pulse. Still strong. Better. “Pain?”

“Manageable,” Migs said. “Also, annoying.”

Zorro snorted.

Migs blinked up at him. “Can I shoot someone now?”

Zorro shook his head, amused and exasperated. “You can’t even see straight. You need a stretcher, a saline drip, and possibly a babysitter.”

“Can you make her pretty?”

“You’re definitely still alive, then.” He chuckled. “But, um, no. You’re not ready for that either. How about if you’re good, a juice box.”

“Make it two,” Migs called as Zorro waved in the chuckling evac team.

The target compound was nothing more than a cluster of tin-roofed shacks tucked into a jungle ravine, lit by a single generator that buzzed like a dying wasp. Smoke curled from a cooking fire. One guard walked the perimeter, AK slung low, half-asleep.

Amateurs.

Joker's voice came soft over comms, “In position. Execute on my mark.”

Zorro lay in the underbrush beside Bear and Flint, heartbeat steady, his rifle cradled in his arms. Ahead, two hostages sat bound and hooded beneath a canopy of canvas, one tall and wiry, the other hunched, her frame unmistakably female.

Ana Navarro and Henry Lucas.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He lifted his head. What the hell?—

“Mark,” Joker said.

The jungle exploded.

Suppressors spat in unison. The perimeter guard went down without a sound. Blitz breached low and fast, clearing the entry shack. Gator and D-Day swept left, gunfire short, sharp, surgical.

Zorro sprinted forward, skidding beside the hostages. He tore off Lucas’s hood first. “We’ve got you,” he said, cutting his zip ties.

Then he turned to Navarro, her eyes wide, dazed but clear.

---