The Hunt for Xanadu

by Elyse Salpeter

  It didn’t take someone with a master’s degree in psychology to know the source of the dream. The cause of this cancer sat in the first class cabin, fifteen rows ahead of her, while the source of an impending ulcer sat just three feet next to her.

  Desmond. What the hell was she going to do about him?

  Kelsey risked a glance in his direction, but he had turned back to his novel. Her heart skipped just looking at him. Oh, why does he pull at me so strongly? A terrible thought came to her. Am I in love with him? Is this why he affects me so much? How desperately she wished things were different. Her stomach tingled as she remembered how he had kissed her and how she felt in his arms when they had… Just stop it! She squeezed her eyes shut in frustration. She couldn’t even bring herself to speak to him, and how she was going to be able to work together with this man was a mystery to her. She was still startled by how fast it had happened. One second she was in control, and the next, it was as if her mind and body had lives of their own and she had simply disappeared and become someone else. But it hadn’t felt wrong at the time. It had felt like the most natural thing in the world.

  Why now? Why, with him? This kind of thing had never happened to her before. She had dated other people before Desmond, but had never let herself get too worked up or do anything she would have regretted. She had thought she loved those boys, too. The thing was, she just didn’t sleep around, period. Some people might have thought that was prudish, but it was far from that. It was all about control. After her attack, she wanted to have the final say over that part of her life and damned if she was going to let another man determine when she would give it up to him.

  Desmond was like no one else she’d ever met before. He was strong and smart and capable. And so damned sensual. She peeked at him again. Even now in her own miserable disgust, he pulled at her and it mortified her. To think she had feelings for a man who didn’t feel the same way and who actually pitied her? She remembered the expression on his face at the hotel when he made that comment. It was still a bitter pill to swallow. She realized he’d just felt badly he had taken her virginity and nothing more.

  “Kelsey, can I please talk to you?”

  She turned to him, to that smooth, sultry voice and that beautiful face and tried to keep her expression completely neutral.

  He looked so earnest, those blue-green eyes usually sparkling, but now dark and frustrated. I won’t let you sway me.

  Desmond waited for her to respond, but when she didn’t, he took a deep breath, exhaling loudly. “I want to talk about what I said at Ari’s office. I never meant what had happened in Garters was a mistake. It was again a bad word choice. And I never pitied you. I just said you looked so pitiful. It was – I was just… so surprised… just shocked and confused. I was just trying to do the right thing.”

  Feel nothing. Be a blank slate, Kelsey. Get rid of your feelings and emotions. It will be so much easier. Stay in control.

  “You’re not going to say anything? You won’t talk to me about this?”

  She couldn’t do it, no matter how hard she tried to not let this hurt her, she just couldn’t, so she let the anger, frustration and shame come forward. It was so much easier to be angry than sad anyway. “You’re wrong. The entire thing was a mistake, but it was my mistake, not yours. I never should have let Ari bring you into this, thinking nothing would happen. I should have held out for my first choice for this assignment. Things would have turned out much differently and you wouldn’t feel such regret.”

  Desmond looked stunned. “Kelsey, that’s not fair. You were right there with me. I didn’t do this by myself. I could have sworn…” He didn’t finish the thought.

  The two elderly ladies next to Kelsey glanced up curiously, but Kelsey waved her hands at them indifferently. “No se preocupen.” (Don’t worry yourselves.) They went back to their blankets.

  Frustrated, she turned away, shaking in embarrassment.

  “Kelsey, I’d really like to talk to you about this. I’m really so sorry this happened.”

  Let’s cut the crap already. I can’t keep talking about this. She turned to him, her voice as cold as ice. “Do me a favor and don’t make this anything more than what it was. You’re the same as any other guy. You get a little action, do a little heavy petting and suddenly you get all excited and want to go to bed. I’ve seen it hundreds of times and all of the other times I’ve ignored it, but this time I wanted it too, okay? There you go. Blame released and put it all on me. I could have stopped you and I didn’t. So it’s done and over with and I don’t need your regret or your pity. Trust me, it wasn’t that big a deal, so drop it.”

  She couldn’t believe she just said that. It had been a big deal, the biggest deal ever. She had wanted him to keep touching her so much that it had made her confused. Ugh. Better not to let him know how strongly she felt about him. It was behind her and she had no intention of sleeping with him again and complicating her life any further.

  With that, she leaned back and refused to speak to him for the rest of the trip, drawing the hat low over her brow. God, how she hated not being in control and feeling so helpless.

  Chapter 19

  CUSTOMS

  José María Córdova International Airport was the main airport serving Medellin, Colombia, and it bustled with activity. Its newly paved runway and modernisation systems made it attractive for the new airlines coming in, but nothing could erase the lingering thoughts of what four decades of conflict had done to the country. As one of the world’s worst humanitarian locals, it was still a place where tourists could unfailingly be caught up in the internal war between cocaine drug smugglers, the leftist rebels, guerillas and paramilitary militias.

  It was a place where Raul Salazar felt right at home.

  Kelsey waited for all the passengers to disembark and then she and Desmond grabbed their bags from the overhead and moved through customs, keeping a steady pace behind Raul and his men. To match their passport photos, they threw their wigs and glasses into a trash bin inside the main building.

  They watched as Raul breezed through security by an official with an overzealous demeanor, shaking his hand enthusiastically and moving him to a special line. A quick exchange of cash greased between palms, and Raul was through.

  They’d catch up with him later.

  “Senorita, necesito examinar sus maletas,” the security guard said.

  Kelsey handed him her passport and documentation and was pulled aside to have her bag checked.

  A short, stocky man with a thick mustache went through her things, finding the goggles and laptop and looked at her questioningly. “¿Para que necesita estos?”

  She turned to a female customs agent, who translated. While Kelsey could speak fluent Spanish, she didn’t want it to appear she could. “I’m an ornithologist, working on a study at Harvard investigating the sleeping habits of the Red Tailed Hawks in northern South America versus their habits in North America. It’s a striking brown and white bird with a brilliant red tail. As a nocturnal animal, my night goggles will help me to see them in the open country when they’re feeding.”

  He held up her gun.

  She handed him her paperwork. “For protection in the jungle, of course. It’s registered, as is my traveling companion’s. You’ll see both guns are unloaded and extra casings are in my luggage.”

  The guard stared at her for some time and kept rechecking her identification. Then he nodded to Desmond and checked his bag. Afer a few more cursory nods, he released them.

  They moved through the airport to their connecting flight. Kelsey stopped to tie her hair into a bun and put on sunglasses. They were the last to board the puddle jumper to El Dorado Airport in Bogata. Kelsey breezed by Raul, who sat in front reading the day’s edition of the El Colombiano and moved to the back of the plane. Desmond followed her and squeezed into the last seat next to her. They sat so close, their shoulders and hips touched. Desmond had to keep his legs crossed and his hands on his lap or he would have fallen i
nto Kelsey.

  This is just great. Now I have to touch you the entire time, too. She glanced at him exasperated, crossed her own legs to give him more room and then stared out the window for the rest of the flight, trying to ignore him.

  She thought about the mission and her heart raced. She was getting close. She’d dreamed for so long of the moment she would avenge her parents and kill every last person involved in their deaths. Then, she would get the chance to begin the same quest her parents had started so long ago.

  It had taken time and it had taken patience to get to this point in her life, but she was ready.

  Chapter 20

  TRACKING

  The midday sun blazed down through the tops of the hardwood evergreens sitting at the upper quadrant of the forest, their tips reaching nearly one hundred and eighty feet in height. The sunlight barely penetrated the deeper layers of the rainforest, which were stopped by the thick vines and branches of the tree’s canopy.

  It was dim on the forest floor. The ground was soft and pliant under their feet, rife with rotting fruit, decomposing animals and old fallen leaves. As they moved through the mystical jungle, over fallen tree trunks and decaying branches covered with moss and ferns, Kelsey and Desmond continuously checked their GPS tracking devices and compasses so they wouldn’t get lost.

  A rustling made them glance up, but it was just a disturbance by some unseen creature in the canopy leaves. Filled with howler monkeys, tropical birds, and a multitude of other creatures, the forest was alive above them.

  They stopped for a moment to take a drink from their canteens and eat energy bars. Their gazes stretched up to the understory blocking the sky. The canopy was even further up, hidden by the mass of solar collecting dark green leaves that were so large they could hide an army of small animals.

  This part of the jungle, a hundred miles south of Bogota, was close to Raul’s base camp. Kelsey glanced at her tracking device and slit her eyes. Raul was up ahead, no more than two miles away. As Desmond had moved past Raul on the plane, he’d rested his hand on Raul’s chair seat, catching the back of his shirt. A quick “lo siento” and he’d moved on, Raul never realizing Desmond had attached a final tracking device to the inside of his shirt collar. Another one was in his right shoe, placed there by Kelsey during the Garter’s mission. Others were placed in various jackets, suits and wallets by them and the cleaning woman at his office.

  They jumped over a mass of downed trees and fell right into a pile of insects. Beetles and spiders scattered under their feet and Desmond jumped back with a squeal. A tarantula scuttled by quickly.

  He glanced up sheepishly, his face reddening. “I don’t like spiders.”

  Kelsey stifled a smirk and moved on. Big baby. She had been aloof with him since landing at the airport, but watching how Desmond conducted himself on this assignment, her respect for him grew. He really was the perfect partner - adept, capable and thoughtful. If they weren’t on a mission and they weren’t having these personal issues, she would have enjoyed her time with him immensely. The thought of exploring this exotic and mysterious world with an interesting person who could keep up with her both physically and mentally? Not a lot of people could do that. She stared above her again and thought about the way the canopy stretched out and hid the world. Kind of like how she hid within herself. The irony wasn’t lost on her.

  She turned back to the forest floor, noticing chowchillas and fernwrens pecking at the ground and into rotting logs, searching for grubs and other small insects. She picked her foot up as another tarantula skittered across her path. The forest was an intoxicating and dangerous place and she could understand how people could succumb to its perils.

  Something’s wrong. She stopped walking and held her hand up. Without question, Desmond froze next to her. The howler monkeys had ceased their shrieking and the chirping birds had disappeared. Even the insects had silenced their incessant droning. Everything had become strangely quiet.

  And then it wasn’t.

  “Run!” she yelled.

  Gunfire erupted just inches above their heads. They pushed through the forest as fast as they could, deep into the brush, with unseen assailants chasing them. They splashed through a small stream bed, wading to their knees and came out on the other side, forcing themselves to move faster through the harsh, dense jungle. Harsh shouts followed and pursued them.

  They pummeled through the bush and up a small hill, over a series of rock outcroppings and fell behind the trunk of a Kapok tree. Kelsey pinned herself against it and Desmond pushed himself against her side. Her backpack was shoved uncomfortably against her hip.

  Kelsey peered around the trunk. “FARC-EPs?” she whispered.

  Desmond drew his gun, nodding. “Looks that way. They control about thirty percent of the jungle territory. Always a risk running into them. They’ll be looking for hostages.” He put his finger to his lips.

  The guerillas came into view, their rifles at the ready, spreading out and searching.

  As Kelsey drew her gun, she felt Desmond’s breath come faster against her neck. He apparently saw the amount of men they were up against.

  Gunshots sounded, and Kelsey flinched. A flurry of activity sounded above them as the revolutionaries tried to scare them out of hiding. Dead birds and leaves rained down upon them, but Kelsey and Desmond didn’t move or make a sound.

  The rebels worked in closer until they were only yards away. Kelsey peeked around the tree using the foliage as camouflage. They were a team of six of the nastiest men Kelsey had seen in a long while. Stealthily, they moved through the forest floor, searching. Close enough for her to smell their unwashed bodies. Ropes and handcuffs attached to chains on their belts jingled as they tracked them.

  “¿A dónde fueron ?” (Where did they go?)

  Another man moved to the front of the group and bent down to the dirt. Their tracker. He glanced ahead. “They came this way.” He peered around, his eyes meeting a mass of dead animals and dung mounds littering the ground. “They’re not far, but we scared them. There’s a good chance they’re going to try to hide in the drug lab up ahead. I’ll bet that’s where they’re headed. With only two of them, they can’t get far. Probably journalists. We can use them.” The men moved a few feet further away.

  Desmond leaned down and picked up a rock at his feet. With a great effort, he heaved it across the clearing where it landed ahead of their location, nearly fifty feet away.

  With a flurry of excited shouts and curses, the militants took off. “They’re up ahead, go… go… go!”

  Good thinking, Desmond. Kelsey turned to him, inches from his face, and he was staring at her with a strange expression.

  He pulled his gaze away and glanced around the tree. “Come on, we saved a few minutes. Let’s not waste it and put some distance between them and us.”

  With that they moved quickly through the jungle, still needing to cover another two miles before dark.

  Chapter 21

  I WAS DREAMING!

  Raul’s largest drug facility was housed deep in the Amazon jungle. The complex was hidden from the air by the massive forest canopy. Entering the compound through a guarded gate, you passed multiple storage buildings and loading garages. The activity was endless as workers hauled cocaine, marijuana and illegal contraband to and from these warehouses and into waiting vehicles. Guards with rifles and a set of Dobermans milled throughout the brightly-lit complex, their watchful eyes on alert for anything out of the ordinary. Secreted beyond these buildings was the drug lab. Past that, at the very back of the compound, stood a low, rambling hacienda, flush against the jungle. It resembled an island escape with its pink stucco walls, colorful archways and wide open bay windows positioned throughout the home to give it the illusion of space. Trees and indoor gardens could be seen through the windows along with statues, sculptures and a multitude of artwork Raul had collected over the years. In the front of the house, across from the white graveled circular driveway, was a cupid fountain that spo
uted water into a small pond.

  Kelsey and Desmond arrived at dark, maneuvering outside of the compound until they were situated behind the home. They hid themselves within a copse of trees and watched Raul and his men smoke cigars and talk by the side of the pool. Three topless girls lounged lazily in the Jacuzzi nearby, laughing and sipping frozen drinks served to them by a poolside bartender.

  Kelsey pointed the orbiter listening device towards Raul. This unit was able to pick up conversations nearly 300 feet away and they could hear them easily.

  One of his men leaned forward, two guns resting on each hip like a cowboy. Kelsey recognized him from news photos. He was Raul’s right-hand man in Colombia and his name was Pedro Agudelo. A nasty man responsible for a rash of kidnappings last year against the members of the Colombia National Police Force who dared to get in his way. Any person who could kidnap children and then simply dispose of them on the side of the street, dismembered for their families to find, was someone Kelsey one day hoped to hunt down herself. He reminded her of the animals from her dreams that killed all those little girls. She was pretty sure she wouldn’t feel any remorse for getting rid of him, either. Kelsey leaned in to hear the conversation.

  “There is a new cartel trying to horn in on our territory. It’s run by a pair of brothers named Alberto and Jaime Silva. Their grandfather worked with Escobar. They think they’re going to take over and run things the way he would have. They’re small, but they’ve already infiltrated the northern part of the country, working with a new paramilitary group that defected from FARC. They’re calling themselves 54 Cadres.”

  Raul nodded, smoking his cigar. He blew a smoke ring in the air. The girls giggled in the pool, pointing at it, but he ignored them. “How much they run so far?”