Midnight Trust

by M. L. Buchman

  “Tulcán,” Silva pointed at the town west of the airport. “Ipiales, eight kilometers by road,” he pointed northeast. “San Luis Airport, ten kilometers. No road.” He was pointing due north.

  “I need to be in San Luis an hour before dawn,” Daniela concluded, offering them their choices. With her to the airport or go to hell—probably with a bullet in the back of the head.

  Chad glanced at his watch. Midnight. Six hours to cross ten kilometers of hard terrain. By Delta standards it should be a cakewalk, but he made a show of considering his choices.

  Tanya finally slapped him on the back of the head, just the way she was supposed to. Good. She had taken the leadership role. That would allow him to be less noticed when he had to set up something nasty.

  “For that you take point,” Tanya snapped at him.

  “Guess we’re walking,” he rubbed the back of his head. She hadn’t needed to hit him quite that hard.

  As they walked the length of the airport, Chad could feel Duane tracking him. The whole team must be. By now they would have figured out that he had a new plan and not to screw it up. Too bad he didn’t. Follow along. Get integrated in. Learn what he could.

  Oh, and live to tell about it.

  It wouldn’t matter if the team called in an Ecuadorian military takedown of the loaded plane—or found some other way to take out the delivery. La Capitana would know to expect a certain percentage of loss in her shipments. A twenty-to-thirty percent failure rate was well within the scope of the normal. Too bad he hadn’t had a tracker to slip into the shipment.

  But how would the team react to his walking out with la Capitana? Sofia would have identified her by now, of course. Especially with Tanya’s earlier tip-off.

  “Sorry,” he told her as they walked in the lead.

  “For what this time? Treating me like your bitch?”

  “No, for doubting you back at the ferry. When did I treat you like my bitch?”

  Tanya didn’t answer.

  They paused for a moment to inspect the stop sign. The big hole punched by the .338 Lapua had struck the upper right edge of the R in PARE. Tanya’s 7.62 NATO round had left a smaller hole to the lower left of the A. About equidistant from the center. So, nothing to favor one or the other of them.

  “Just walk,” Tanya snarled.

  So he walked.

  Out past the airport, the two-lane road turned east toward the Colombian border and Ipiales. They followed it in silence for just a few hundred yards until they were clear of the last sleepy houses of Tulcán. He glanced at Silva, who nodded and waved north.

  Chad led them up the steep embankment of the road cut through a small copse of spindly trees—stunted poplar maybe. He wished he dared pull out Tanya’s NVGs, but they were the very latest generation and that might be too big a giveaway. He had his hand on his flashlight when he realized that he could see enough to survey the landscape ahead.

  This close to the equator, the Milky Way threw enough starlight for night-adapted eyes to see both the general lay of the land and enough nearby detail to walk without falling off an unspotted cliff. Farmland spread over the face of the steeply rolling hills. They were too high in the Andes for dense jungle, but the hard peaks lay mostly to the south. The area of the Ecuador-Colombia border was relatively tame.

  So why had Daniela been worried about covering ten kilometers in under six hours—it should take less than two. Was it a test? Yes, but not in how fast could they move. She wanted no trace that she’d come this way, and that took more work and more time.

  He found a recent set of tractor tracks headed in the right direction. The compacted soil wouldn’t reveal their passage.

  Tanya wished she could talk to Chad yet was thrilled that she couldn’t. The only moments they were side by side was when he stopped to survey the next stretch. He was following some kind of a corkscrew path that had made little sense at first. Only as he made about the tenth illogical turn did she catch on. A quick recall of the path so far revealed that just as they were following no trail, they also wouldn’t be leaving one.

  The more they walked, the more she appreciated his fieldcraft. Occasional glances up revealed that he was navigating by the stars. The North Star was out of sight, very near the horizon from Colombia, but he obviously knew his sky as well as she did. He made it easy to fall into a simple rhythm behind, freeing her mind for other thoughts.

  She did her best not to contemplate that two armed and dangerous cartel leaders were walking no more than ten steps behind her. On the road the two had held farther back. But to follow exactly in Chad’s tracks, they’d come much closer. They didn’t seem to be simply waiting for a remote enough area to kill them both.

  What she couldn’t change, she would ignore.

  The list of things she couldn’t change also clearly included Chad Hawkins. However, she also obviously didn’t understand him, which made him very hard to ignore.

  Perfect woman?

  Such a lame line. But the look on his face as she’d made her shot at the stop sign had been clear and open. For him, shooting was nearly as good as sex and he had looked impossibly pleased with her in that moment.

  She’d never cared what others thought of her except her instructors.

  But that look of pure joy on Chad’s features—on the face of a top Delta Force sniper—was both unexpected and overwhelming. She’d put everything she had into that shot—by far the hardest she’d ever tried. And without Chad’s final tip—that the Coriolis Effect was so much stronger at the equator—she’d have missed completely. Chad had revealed no hint of smugness that he’d had to remind her of that. No Good thing I told you so. Just pure and simple joy.

  She had been beyond noticing his expression when he had ravaged her. But he had held her as she curled up around him. As she tried to, piece by piece, tuck the experience safely away. It didn’t want to fit into the place where she forgot things—like her father and the death of her sister. Neither would it slide into good, but dangerous, memories—like the last time Tanya had heard her older sister laugh, truly laugh at one of Tanya’s antics.

  She finally had to build a new place as he held her as if she was important and precious. A place for a memory too good to set aside. It sidled up close beside the memory of serving with the Delta team three years before. And then he had violated that memory. Unless he hadn’t.

  But what was the good of even deciding if it was a good memory or bad? Three days from now, or whenever this mission ended, Tanya would be on her own again. No Chad. No Delta Force team. And after the reminder of what it was like to fight beside the most lethal fighting force in any military, there would be no returning to any merely skilled UN team.

  Scheisse! She had always done best on her own. What had she been thinking by choosing any other path? Not a mistake she’d ever make again.

  Chad signaled for a halt by a rushing river.

  She hadn’t even noticed that they’d been descending sharply for the last few hundred meters.

  Zweimal Scheisse! She was letting herself so rely on Chad’s leadership that she’d dropped her situational awareness. Unacceptable!

  “Lose the NVGs when we cross,” he whispered quickly before Silva and Daniela caught up with them.

  She nodded. Good idea. They were in the burlap bag she’d kept slung over her shoulder, along with their water bottles. She dug out the bottles and handed one over as they sat at the river bank. Then attempted to hold the bag as if it was empty.

  Daniela and Silva came and sat beside them.

  “Any idea where the best crossing is?” Chad asked easily. As if they were two couples out on a happy Sunday trek.

  “No,” Daniela’s voice was as beautiful as she was, even raised over the sounds of the rushing river. “I have never walked across this border before.”

  And again Tanya felt the shiver of just how likely it was that her and Chad’s corpses would be floating down this river in the next few minutes. She could hear it running fast over ro
cks. The other bank wasn’t far, but the volume of water moving over the rapids told her this wasn’t likely to be fun. She rocked forward enough to dip in her fingers—and pulled them back quickly. Glacier cold.

  “Pathfinders,” Chad chortled. “Cool!”

  Again Chad in his happy-doofus personality.

  “I’ll scout upriver, you scout down, honey. A hundred paces, then come back to here.”

  “I’ll go with Tanya,” Daniela announced.

  Silva rose and took a couple steps to show he’d head upriver with Chad.

  Tanya tried to get a read on whether Chad planned to kill him while their forces were divided, but unable to see more than the starlight glimmer off his golden blond hair, she couldn’t. Surely, if he was planning to, he’d give her some sort of sign. Wouldn’t he?

  “Anyone need a burlap bag?” Tanya didn’t wait for anyone to respond. She stooped and tossed a big rock into it, big enough that there wouldn’t be any sign of the weight of the NVGs. Knotting the top, she tossed it out into the current where it disappeared with a loud plonk! She didn’t want to be answering any impossible questions.

  Silva might be a fighter, but there was no questioning who had the brains of the operation.

  She and la Capitana headed downriver.

  Tanya hoped that she’d get to see Chad again. No matter what confused whirl her thoughts were in, her emotions were definitely in favor of spending more time with him.

  “Been with Daniela for long?” Chad eased through the brush heading upriver. It was thick this close to the bank. He listened to the water, but he used the brush as an excuse to constantly turn to keep an eye on the trailing Silva. Hold a branch until Silva grabbed it. Point at a surprise rock or hole. Every five steps or so he could see that Silva’s sidearm remained in its holster.

  He hoped the fact that he’d taken Silva upriver would indicate to Tanya that Chad wasn’t planning to kill him. Because, if he had to dispose of the body, the river would be an obvious choice. But by being upriver, the body would then float down past Tanya and Daniela, giving away what he’d done.

  Or was that too convoluted a message even for him? Would Duane have followed that logic?

  Probably not.

  Would he himself?

  Nope.

  Shit! He was overthinking everything around Tanya. The woman was messing with his head. He’d never bedded a true sniper before. It had taken everything in him to not jump her there and then, lying in front of the airport hangar after that amazing shot she took. She was a supercharged version of anyone he’d ever been with. Anyone!

  “Amigo?” Chad prompted. Silva still hadn’t answered.

  “What do you mean by with?”

  “Come on, hombre. There is no way you aren’t wanting a piece of something that looks that good.” Just two guys, strolling along, talking about women. If they were going to embed with la Capitana long enough to learn anything, he’d better start making friends fast.

  “She chooses her men very carefully.”

  “Since she can choose any damn one she wants, can’t blame her.”

  “Even you?” Silva made the question casual, but Chad could hear the territorial edge behind it.

  “Swore myself to Tanya and almost screwed that up, literally, once. Not gonna lose her again. No how. No way.” And in that instant, Chad knew it was true. He’d walk right off the team if it came down that fork in the road. Instead of her flying solo, maybe they’d walk that path together and see just how much pain they could unleash on the heads of people like Silva and Daniela.

  “Daniela has a hard past. It is difficult for her to trust.”

  “You’re avoiding the question, dude.” Fifty. Chad had been keeping a silent count in his head. He had another fifty paces to find out something, because once they started the return, they’d naturally be moving much faster and talk even less.

  “She is…impressive.” Silva finally admitted.

  “And?” Seventy-five.

  Chad kept his silence and slowed as they neared ninety. Guy sure wasn’t given to bragging, but Chad couldn’t think of how else to nudge him along.

  “She took me off the streets two years ago. I was a runner in Gerald’s operation. Now I am in charge of this border crossing for her. I have a nice house and enough money to entertain a woman whenever I want.”

  Sounded like the guy was making up the story as he went along. Whatever the truth, two things were clear: he wasn’t sleeping with Daniela, and he would do anything la Capitana asked of him.

  That meant she wasn’t using sex to run her team, but she was still building absolute loyalty. Easy to respect that.

  One hundred! And not a decent crossing along the way. Two sets of hard rapids. And only minimal information. But, a mission’s intel was rarely built in a day. He just hoped that he had more than a day to build it.

  “How did you forgive him?”

  “Who says I have?” Not the question Tanya had been expecting. They had shifted ten steps away from the bank where the going was easy enough for them to walk side by side. It also gave them a better view of the width of the starlit river without getting all scraped up by fighting their way through the brush at the bank.

  “Your voice. Your attitude. Your little whispers together. I know they are not all about me. His body movements shift when he speaks to you about things that are important to him.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.” And she hadn’t. Somehow too close to the situation to see it clearly? Didn’t sound like her.

  “He…softens. I can see the fighter in him. I can see the training in both of you. He reminds me of one of my martial arts instructor’s sayings. To get your black belt, you learn forms, patterns, timing. There are as many levels of black belt as there are to get from white to black. Those are so that you can unlearn forms, patterns, timing. You and he have both unlearned your forms. However, he is a white belt around you—clumsy and awkward when he shouldn’t be.”

  “What did you study?”

  Daniela’s silence said that was the wrong topic.

  “I…” Tanya couldn’t say the word Daniela would be expecting. She tried, but if she could hear the falsehood in her head, so would her companion. I just love the man. She couldn’t sell it.

  She didn’t believe in love any more than she believed in just one man.

  “I…” her second attempt wasn’t faring any better than the first.

  The truth.

  What was the truth about Chad?

  “I’ve…never met anyone like him. He is charming, infuriating, the best lover I ever found, handsome, a total philandering bastard, and when he shoots like that, I want to jump his bones so badly it hurts like an ache in my chest.” Her words had accelerated until they spewed out almost as fast as the river ran, laden with a full flow of doubt and confusion. She bit down on the inside of her cheek.

  Had she meant what she’d said?

  Every word.

  Never in her life had she wanted a man the way she wanted Chad. Regrettably, that wasn’t a choice she could live with because he was exactly as she’d described him.

  Daniela was silent for a long way. Just at the turn, Tanya spotted the only possible crossing and they moved forward to investigate. The stream slowed as the banks shifted apart. By the sound and the white foam catching the starlight, there was a hard rapids ahead, but if they swam across fast, they should make it before they were dragged down into the rocks.

  “Is Silva a good swimmer?” Tanya asked, and knew she was asking a different question. Did Daniela have a man who did for her what Chad did for Tanya?

  “He can cross the river.” Silva wasn’t la Capitana’s lover, just her henchman. But the sadness in Daniela’s tone spoke of her never finding that for herself with any man.

  She looked sharply down at Tanya’s hand when it rested on her arm.

  Tanya didn’t even think about it before she placed it there.

  Daniela’s gaze drifted up to look directly at Tanya. “Ther
e was a man once. For a while. But no more.” Then she turned around and walked out from beneath Tanya’s light touch as if it wasn’t even there.

  Tanya hoped it wasn’t the one that Chad had reported shooting when they stole the motorcycles.

  Wait! When did she start caring about la Capitana? The woman was going to die in the next few days, or be incarcerated for life spilling out her guts about her operation. Yet Tanya could feel pity for her.

  They didn’t exchange a single word as they crossed back to their starting point to await the men’s return.

  15

  Chad almost balked when they arrived at San Luis Airport in Colombia. A small plane awaited them.

  If he and Tanya boarded, it would be impossible for the team to follow them. He’d been careful to not give away that they were following, not by glance, not by a single turn to see if anyone was over his shoulder beyond what would be normal for a man leading a small team across the Ecuadorian farmlands in the middle of the night. But he had no doubt that even now his Delta companions were arrayed strategically around the airport, ready to act on a moment’s notice.

  The little twin-engine, low-winged Beech Baron seated six and could fly fifteen hundred miles. She could reach anywhere from the Yucatán or Miami to Bolivia in a single flight. La Capitana’s test hadn’t been for them to walk from Ecuador to Colombia. She probably had a hundred ways to make the crossing that would be far easier than the icy plunge into the river—paying the border guards fifty US apiece came easily to mind. The trek had merely been a way to meet the newest members of the team.