Midnight Trust

by M. L. Buchman

“They throw a hell of an impromptu party, bro.”

  “Damn straight, dude,” Duane agreed with him.

  The four of them lounged on a broad boulder along the flowing river. It was pleasantly sun-warmed, now that the sun had slid behind the jungle canopy. Evening would be falling soon.

  Duane had laid some breaching charges on the second excavator—after Sofia had finished tearing up the other equipment with it. And now, in the light of the late afternoon, its fire was finally dying down as well.

  He’d expected the miners to be pissed at all of the destruction, but it had turned out not. Most were little better than slaves, dragged in from farming, forestry, or simply having lives. The few who were miners by choice had always run small operations that didn’t run by large machinery or use poisonous chemicals.

  The people had celebrated. Food, even alcohol, had appeared from hidden caches until there was plenty for everyone. La Capitana was being celebrated as were her team of shooters. It had taken them a long time for their own Delta team to slip into the background so that they could sit alone and talk.

  “What about the future though? What’s to stop del Golfo from rolling right back in here tomorrow?”

  Chad was sorry he’d asked. The other Delta looked saddened by the thought. They might have set back this one operation, but there were dozens of others and the setback wouldn’t last long. Soon, new equipment and new enforcers would arrive in this corner of wilderness.

  “We will give them something else to think about,” Daniela stepped up and joined their circle.

  “Like the sound of that.” And Chad did. It was a good tactic—once you get an enemy on the run, keep them running. “You got a plan for that, do you?”

  Daniela nodded. It was hard to think of her as la Capitana, even with the shattered and burning mining operation spread behind her. There was something noble about her that he couldn’t pin down. Maybe Tanya knew. He’d have to remember to ask her later.

  “Gonna tell us?” Tanya did an imitation of his voice that had Duane and Sofia laughing. A smile briefly touched Daniela’s lips, but only for a moment.

  “You are exceptional fighters.”

  “Best training in the world, the American military,” Chad agreed.

  “Yeah, until they boot your ass,” Duane hadn’t forgotten his role. “What did you go down for again, mate?”

  “Rolling a Marine Corps major’s wife,” Tanya answered for him with just the right amount of irritation.

  “Think he was more upset about his Mercedes. He was just a Marine after all. Couldn’t really expect to keep a hot woman.”

  “Might you four be interested in another mission?” Daniela didn’t join in any of the humor. In fact, if Chad was reading her right, she knew something that was making her ignore their stories. Again, couldn’t put a finger on it.

  “Still haven’t been paid for the last one,” Sofia nodded toward the devastation surrounding them.

  Daniela reached into a small pack and tossed a small cloth bag to each of them.

  Chad caught his. Weighed about the same as thirty rounds of 7.62 mm ammo, close to a kilogram. He peeked inside and the rich luster of pure gold winked back at him. A kilo of untraceable gold—a market value of over thirty thousand US.

  “Hard to argue with that,” Duane’s comment was carefully neutral.

  Chad glanced at him. Something was up, but he wasn’t sure what. The gold felt heavy in his hand, heavier than it should have.

  Sofia and Tanya shared a look, then turned to inspect the miners and freed workers who were still joking around and enjoying themselves. Today had been a good day for them. Tomorrow, they’d be back to work. Perhaps at the tasks of their choosing, but back to work.

  Tanya was the first to toss her bag of gold back to Daniela. “Already paid me enough,” she nodded toward the celebrants.

  Sofia and Duane looked thoughtful, but Chad waited them out.

  “Going to you?” Sofia asked.

  “Going to the people,” Daniela replied, still holding Tanya’s bag in her palm.

  Sofia handed hers over and a reluctant Duane followed suit. As serving members of the US military, they wouldn’t be allowed to keep it anyway; but that wasn’t the point.

  Chad made a show of looking into the bag again. He pulled out a single nugget the size of the end of his thumb, then tossed the rest of it back.

  “Just something to remember this by,” he buttoned it in one of his pants’ pockets. Her look completely softened. Just for an instant, Daniela was a beautiful young woman, alive with hope. He offered her a wink. Then la Capitana slammed back into place and the dangerous beauty was again watching him carefully.

  Hope?

  Why had his tucking away a bit of gold made her hopeful?

  He’d thought to put it in the battered ammo box where he kept odd bits and pieces: the cartridge casing of the round that took down the last of Wollson’s killers, the pin of the first grenade he ever tossed in combat, the medals he’d been awarded but had nowhere to wear, the stone from his shoe on the brutal final hike of Delta Force qualification, a small chunk of marble from one of the many holes he’d blown in the headquarters of Venezuela’s SEBIN—their secret police. Oddly, now that he thought about it, there wasn’t one bit of memorabilia about any woman in there. Well, soon there’d be a bit of gold. La Capitana was a woman worth remembering.

  Tanya and Sofia were also looking at him oddly.

  He glanced at Duane and tipped his head enough to ask, “Any idea what’s up with them?”

  Duane offered back a microscopic “You got me, man” shrug.

  Well, he didn’t know either. How was a guy supposed to read women anyway?

  21

  “You are a very fine fighter yourself,” Sofia addressed Daniela as they were walking back through the jungle by lantern light.

  Tanya hadn’t seen any of that. She’d been too busy during the battle except to notice that disciplined fire had flown from the tree line. Now she considered. Daniela had not lost a single shooter—not even a scratch. They had taken down an unexpectedly large force without injuring a single worker. And Daniela had captured del Golfo’s camp leader—only slightly damaged. Her troops had then swept the wide area to make sure that every other enforcer was dead, someone even swimming into the pool at the base of the waterfall to check on the bodies Chad had told them about.

  That was her man, taking down five attackers before the fight even began.

  Her man?

  For half a second, as he’d pocketed that bit of gold, she’d thought it might be for the ring he’d joked about replacing—the ring he’d only given her, then lost, as part of their cover story. But he hadn’t looked at her. Instead he’d winked at the beautiful Daniela. Was that why he’d done his Mister Studly Firehouse-Wielder act? To get Daniela’s attention? If ever there was a master of mixed messages, Chad Hawkins was it.

  Could she trust him? Ever?

  Tanya’s heart twisted with the answer. She couldn’t see how it would be possible.

  “I also was trained by the American military,” Daniela spoke softly. Tanya actually stumbled into Sofia in surprise. Grabbing onto her shoulder was probably all that kept them both from falling.

  Tanya looked around, but Chad and Duane were farther up the line with Silva and a couple of la Capitana’s other fighters. The only people around them were the miners: some singing, some laughing, a few just glad to be slogging home without fear in their hearts.

  “Do you know the history of Gerald the Boatman’s demise?”

  Tanya had heard it once, but couldn’t recall the details.

  “Washington Prado Álava was enticed out of Ecuador.” Of course Sofia would know everything, including his real name. “Ecuador has a mostly nonfunctional extradition treaty with the US, but Colombia has a strong one. He was drawn to Cali, where he was captured and shipped out.”

  “And do you recall how he was enticed?” Daniela’s voice had gone hard, though she cont
inued to walk like the commander she was.

  “You?” Sofia gasped out the question as something clicked in that neatly ordered brain of hers.

  “What?” Tanya didn’t know this story.

  “You were the beautiful undercover agent of the Colombian military that he fell in love with?”

  “Dios mío!” Tanya barely managed.

  “I was sent to woo the man. To let him have me so that they could have him. He fell in love with me and I betrayed him.” Her voice didn’t show the least hint of emotion.

  “That must have been hard.”

  “I wish I had killed the bastard myself,” her voice came out as a hiss as she stumbled to a halt by a towering wax palm. They had broken into a clearing awash with moonlight and dotted with the odd trees. Twenty stories tall, with smooth trunks and a tuft of huge leaves at the very top. In the moonlight, they looked like dim guideposts for giants who got lost in the night.

  Tanya didn’t know what to say. By her silence, neither did Sofia.

  “My grandparents were victims of the FARC militia seizing their farm. My parents were bystanders wiped out by Los Urabeños. I wanted every one of the bastards taken down. Slowly. Painfully. So I joined the Colombian War on Drugs.”

  “But—” Tanya wondered how she could stand to be a cartel leader then?

  “But what did I get? I spread my legs for that bastard Gerald for the greater good. Then when I returned, they treated me as if I was the slut.” She pounded a fist against her breastbone. “I was the one who took him down. But it was my commander who received the medal. It was that bastard Vicente who received the promotion to captain. And when I complained, he tried to rape me because I was an ‘easy’ woman. Now they will all pay.”

  And she stormed off along the trail, rapidly covering the ground to catch up with the other group.

  “La Capitana,” Tanya whispered half to herself.

  “She took the name of the rank that she had actually earned.”

  They followed in Daniela’s wake. The set of the woman’s shoulders said to leave her alone, so they did—offering companionship and silence.

  Just before they passed out of the moonlight and once more entered the jungle, Tanya exchanged glances with Sofia.

  It was clear that they both liked Daniela, despite their assignment to bring down her operation.

  The pity was, there wasn’t anything they could do about that.

  22

  “Women are treating us strange, bro.”

  “Women are treating you strange, dude,” Duane answered him back as he cleaned his gun.

  Chad didn’t like that answer much. Not much at all.

  Well past midnight, they were the only two awake, sitting in the car seats in front of the jungle airstrip’s cafe. He was on a green-and-gold front bench of a Galaxie 500—probably a ’67 or ’68. Duane was in a black bucket that came from a ’72 Olds 442. Chad recognized them from his chop shop days. That had been honest work in comparison to drug money and had kept him and Wollson alive…until it hadn’t.

  “Started at the gold thing,” Duane was mulling the thought over.

  “I thought it was after the fire hose.”

  “Nah, that was cool. I notice you aren’t cleaning your rifle.”

  “Didn’t fire it.” But he had taken it swimming with him. He swung it across his lap, fished out a cleaning kit, and began disassembling it more for something to do than any need. Then he remembered the four rounds out of his Glock handgun. He fished out four new rounds and popped the magazine to reload it. He must be losing it to not have done that right away. Even thinking about women was causing problems.

  “It was the gold thing,” Duane said after Chad had finished reloading the Glock, then decided he’d better clean that as well and began breaking it down across the car seat. They’d both been trained to do this in the dark, while talking about something else, while hanging upside down by their ankles. Not quite, but Delta training sometimes felt that way.

  “What, because I kept a half ounce out of four kilos?”

  “Your bag only weighed a kilo? I knew she liked me better; mine must have weighed two.”

  “Let Sofia hear you say shit like that and you’re gonna be down a hole, bro.”

  “Don’t say that kind of shit around Tanya either, dude.”

  Chad finished running a rag through the barrel of the Glock, then sighted through it at the moon. Then wished he hadn’t—thing was damn bright. At least the barrel was clean as he blinked against the bright afterimage knocking the center vision out of his right eye.

  Duane was still fussing with the bolt of his rifle.

  “Why do I have to be careful around Tanya? We’re cool.”

  Duane scoffed. “I never would have guessed it. You really do know less about women than I do. That’s sad, dude.”

  “Now what shit are you slinging?”

  “Genuine Grade-A USDA certified kind.”

  Chad offered a scoff, but didn’t really feel it as he accidentally tried to pick up the bolt for his Remington that he’d disassembled first and latch it into the receiver of his Glock.

  “You getting down with Tanya yet?”

  “Why should I tell you, asshole?”

  “Because now you’ve picked up your barrel and receiver without grabbing the slide first.”

  Chad looked down at his hands. Somehow they’d forgotten how to put a Glock back together. He could field strip, reassemble, and fire one in under fifteen seconds if he had to. Now, suddenly, he couldn’t do it at all.

  “So, you and Tanya?”

  “Yes. But I’m not telling you a single goddamn detail.”

  “Spoilsport. Of course, as a man lucky enough to be married to Sofia, I don’t have to seek any of my thrills vicariously. I’ve got the best that a man could ever want in my bed.”

  “Then why aren’t you there with her?”

  “Because you’re out here being all weird in the moonlight, Chad. Why aren’t you off with Tanya?”

  “Because. Woman is treating me all strange. Told ya.”

  “When you did it, was it good?”

  “Don’t need a goddamn therapist.” This time he was holding the Glock’s magazine and the rifle’s barrel. In complete disgust, he closed his eyes, cleared his head, and slapped the Glock together in under ten seconds. He chambered a round, popped the magazine, and replaced the extra round before slamming it into his holster. Now he could work on just the rifle.

  “Was it that bad?”

  “Fuck you, Duane. Tanya Zimmer is the best time I’ve ever had in my life. We didn’t even do much and she blew the roof off the fuck-o-meter, okay? You happy?”

  Duane nodded as he quietly slipped the pieces of his rifle back together. When he was done, he began refilling magazines. He kept at it through thirty rounds. That meant thirty del Golfo enforcers.

  Even with his hose and the five in the cabin, Chad doubted if he’d gotten that many.

  “Sofia does that to me. Not in a thousand years did I guess how much I was missing until she let me through the door. That explains why you’ve been so weird since Maracaibo.”

  “Since Maracaibo? That was three years ago.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Chad checked the inside of his rifle barrel. Again forgetting to not aim it directly at the full moon. “You’re saying that Tanya did something to me three years ago and it still shows?”

  “Not just a little, bro. You’ve got it bad. But there’s something I don’t get.” Duane kept fooling with his already perfect rifle.

  “You’re a jerk. Just in case you were wondering.”

  “Learned it from a master. Chad, Tanya is an amazing woman. You’ve been thinking about her for three years. Never known you to think about a woman three minutes after she’s gone. Tanya’s here. Now. So why are you fighting against it?”

  “Because…” Because he didn’t know why. Subject change needed—bad. “Why do you think she got all weird after the gold thing? All three o
f ’em did.”

  Duane clambered to his feet and slung his rifle. He stood for a long moment watching the moon.

  Chad didn’t want to kill his friend, but there was a certain temptation to shoot him in the back. Chad somehow felt as if he’d just been stabbed there—or at least rabbit-punched to the kidney.

  “You could try asking her,” Duane’s words drifted back as he headed toward the shadow of the hut that the locals had offered to him and Sofia.

  Ask Tanya why she was suddenly looking at him as if he was toxic goldmine slurry?

  Duane usually offered better ideas than that—it was one of the worst Chad had ever heard.

  Chad sat all alone in the moonlight. His rifle lay across his lap with those big hands of his wrapped around it as if he was holding a woman.

  Unable to sleep and sick of waiting, Tanya had finally gone looking for him. And he hadn’t moved from where she’d last seen him. Sitting in the moonlight, his fair hair aglow. His blue eyes catching hints of the moon. The watchful sentinel guarding over everyone else’s sleep.

  Was he demon or lover? Or both? She no longer knew. No longer knew how to tell. All of her past rules didn’t seem to apply to Chad Hawkins.

  Did he really want Daniela?

  She knew her own attractions, but Daniela was Playboy centerfold beautiful.

  Chad had said the only woman he wanted was Tanya.

  Did he really want any woman for more than a couple nights? It was hard to imagine.

  Was it hard to imagine because of the way he was? Or perhaps because of the way she was?

  A long-term male fit nowhere in her life. Not tactically, not strategically, and definitely not emotionally. Her entire career had been based on being a solo operator—able to change tactics, personas, even looks at a moment’s need. Her longevity expectations had never been set high. One mistake, one well-aimed round, and she’d be dead. Falling just five paces either way from the flipping dredger and she’d have been dead—splattered on the rocks. That fast.

  And yet her feet were walking out of the shadow of the trees and over to where Chad sat, glowing in the light.