“I was worried,” she murmured into his chest. He pulled her closer, one arm circling around her back, pushing his hips as tight as they would go. She laughed and looked up at him, “Is that a roll—” she started to say, but the others interrupted, dragging them into the larger reunion.
“We finally found you,” David said to Oscar. They were man-hugging and backslapping.
Acer clapped Dane on the back. Dane let go of Shana as she went to Oscar to give him a hug.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Dane said to Acer.
They stood in a circle a few feet inside the walk through door of the hangar. Their bags were where they left them earlier near a pallet along the wall ten more yards in.
“I already started preparations. Checking on the last few things,” Acer said. Then he frowned at his phone. “There’s a thunderstorm north of here. We can’t move. We need to sit tight to wait for it to clear. Looks like a few hours.” Dane met his gaze. Everyone stopped talking.
The unsettled feeling roiled in his gut. Either he was hungry or he couldn’t let up off the red-button until they were back home. Whichever it was it couldn’t be healthy and he wondered why he didn’t have ulcers. He itched to put his arms back around Shana.
“Damn.” Dane fisted his hands. “Keep monitoring it—weather changes.”
“Any chance they can find us here while we’re waiting?” O’Keefe asked.
“Unlikely,” Acer said. “Unless someone followed you.”
“I wasn’t followed,” David said. “In spite of the clever cover of my inappropriate motor scooter and attire, I didn’t leave it to chance. I watched my back and made several loops in my route to be sure.”
“We weren’t followed,” Dane said. He left it at that. Oscar nodded his confirmation. Oscar had switched their plates with a nearby parked car before taking off to make sure. Floyd had taught him well.
Shana said, “We sure as hell weren’t followed.” She’d had her hair up and under wraps to reduce her recognizability. “This is a big crowded city. They wouldn’t necessarily expect us to be flying a bird. They’re probably expecting us to drive north to Sao Paulo to the airport there. That’s what we’d do if we didn’t have Acer.”
The swell of pride took Dane by surprise. His girl had said everything he’d been thinking. She was damn good.
“We can take turns watching. We have no choice,” Dane said. “I want to get out of this hell hole yesterday. But we wait until Acer says the weather’s clear.” He nodded at Acer.
“The very first second it’s halfway safe to fly—my specialty—we’re out of here. Best guess at least two hours—maybe three.”
Dane decided not to add to the edge of having to wait for the weather to turn with talk about what to do with the CIA traitor. Not at that moment. Shana gave him a look—an arch of her fine brow, a flick of her cat-green eyes, a huff of breath that wasn’t exactly relief, more like a disturbance, restlessness. He sensed it in her—unless he was projecting his own restlessness on her. Their synchronicity sometimes unnerved him. This time he appreciated it.
He reached out an arm and took a fist full of her hair in his fingers and tugged.
She moved toward him, not with a resisting lurch, but in a natural lean as if she were being drawn in on a mesmerizing wave. She felt his heat, smelled his scent before her body landed against the hard reassuring wall of his body. The arm circled around her like always. But where it felt like a snare some times, today, now, it felt protective. The well of heat inside her was partly from shame that she should feel so comforted by this man’s protection, feel so needy of it.
When his arm tightened she realized it was because she had reflexively stiffened, holding back with her strange inner rebellion against her neediness. There was no way to reconcile her conflicting emotions when it came to this man. She blew out a big breath and gave into it, relaxing and leaning on him.
“In the meantime we can rest,” David said.
“And celebrate,” Oscar said. “We’re all in one piece and not incarcerated.”
“This calls for a round,” Acer said. He turned and walked toward the wall where a couple of bags sat in ready to be stowed in the copter and rummaged.
He returned to the circle with a bottle. Shana smiled. Her fondness for Acer went up another notch if possible.
“You’re not drinking any of that are you?” she said.
“Hell no, but someone ought to.”
“Where the hell did the tequila come from? I thought you were joking about a round,” O’Keefe said.
“You don’t know Acer,” Dane said, talking over her head.
“I’m always prepared,” Acer said.
“Like some goddamn warped boy scout,” Dane said.
Dane led her and the others to sit on a wood pallet near where the two bags of supplies were dumped in a heap. David passed her the bottle. Even Acer had his limits. No glasses.
“What now?” she asked as she took the bottle and tipped it to her lips. Dane didn’t answer right away. He watched her—stared at her lips. The flash of heat she felt could have been from the tequila, but it was more likely caused by that look in Dane’s eyes—the one he always got when he stared at her mouth. It was one of the few unguarded looks he allowed. And then she realized, wistfully, it was too rare.
She swallowed the fiery liquid and shoved the bottle back at Dane. He took it and held it without passing it around again.
“We get out of this hellhole jungle. Finally.” Dane felt the tension that wouldn’t leave—not even with the help of tequila—until they were out of Brazil. “And we figure out how we can nail Floyd Parker”
“You still think he’s responsible,” O’Keefe said, “after he saved you and then called you to help Oscar—”
“He set us up,” Dane said. He knew there was an edge to his voice. He let it ride.
O’Keefe had a few sips of tequila, but he still looked sullen.
Dane stood and stretched, his tension tightening. They all stood.
David turned to O’Keefe and said, “Why do you still have doubts about Floyd?”
“I have doubts about him.” O’Keefe had the bottle and lifted it in Dane’s direction. “We killed too many people and committed grand theft auto.” He glared at Dane like it was his fault.
Shana moved close to him, pinning herself to his side and said, “Dane got Oscar out of trouble and he saved your ass too—you should be ashamed of yourself for your ungrateful attitude.” Her chin was up and she was in full defense mode.
Someone asked him why he had it in for Dane and he said, “I heard about Chicago. The rumors about you and Elena being bad cops—”
Shana jumped in again outraged, “Rumors? You don’t know a thing and how dare you judge this man he’s—” Dane stopped her.
Oscar said, “Elena?”
O’Keefe gave his version of events, “Blaise left town after the fiasco. Left the country.”
Shana said, “So you assume he’s guilty? You don’t know shit.”
David said, “She’s right. Dane left town because he was heartbroken. Since then our Shana found out the truth of the matter and neither Dane nor Elena were bad cops it turns out.”
Shana recounted how she contacted Elena’s sister and found the document Elena left behind in code. “There was a note, but it was in code and only two people knew it. Undercover code. Marion told me the police didn’t bother going to the trouble of getting a code breaker and didn’t try too hard to find Dane.”
She took a deep breath and continued under Dane’s new energetic stare.
“Marion tried to get in touch with Dane, but he’d already disappeared. Elena left the coded note and a letter—one of those letters that starts by saying ‘if you’re reading this now then I must be.’ It was in a backpack she’d left behind that last day for Dane. But he never bothered to pick up her personal effects. The envelope was in the backpack. It took Marion some time to figure out about the code. There was also a
safety deposit box key and she had trouble with the bank letting her use it, but the Chicago PD helped her. They found out a few weeks after Dane had disappeared. Marion gave me the coded note from Elena—written during the undercover operation. It said that she’d been compromised and taken hostage. She’d been killed in the blast.”
O’Keefe said nothing but nodded.
David said, “All this time you think I’ve been working with a bad cop?”
Dane could feel Shana stiffen beside him, feel her coiling into strike mode, but she waited for her spot. He kept silent, his blood hummed hot but steady. He watched it play out while he became the impervious granite block, without feeling.
“I tried giving him the benefit of the doubt, but Blaise is a cowboy—a rash and dangerous operator. We left four people dead in an alley—”
Oscar said, “That’s the nature of the business.”
“That’s the nature of the man,” O’Keefe said. “I notice you didn’t shoot the place up.”
Oscar said, “It’s not my specialty, but—”
“I can’t believe you all—you count on Dane to be the so-called rash and dangerous man or this mission would never have gotten done and I’d be some billionaire’s concubine.”
Dane moved next to Shana and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with her. “As they say, it’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. O’Keefe’s right—not everyone is suited to it. I am. It’s who I am.” He didn’t apologize. Why bother. O’Keefe would never be a fan and that’s the way it was.
Shana leaned against him. She spoke more quietly and directly to O’Keefe, “He saved your life.”
Acer said, “I’ll take Dane Blaise on my team any day of the week.”
“Here, here,” David said with a rueful smile.
“What a racket we’re in,” Oscar said, raising the bottle. He smiled big and changed the vibe in the room.
“When are you going to retire and get out of this racket?” Shana asked.
“Get out of the racket? You have it all wrong, honey. I am the racket. It’s how I was born.”
David stood at Oscar’s shoulder. “It’s true. Ever since he was a youngster he was running some racket or other.”
“You’re going to need to find a new racket handler. We’re shutting this one down.” Dane looked around at all the smiles fading at the reminder of what they were doing here and where they were.
“We’re ready to roll,” Acer said. He stepped into the circle and clapped Oscar on the back.
“What about Floyd Parker?” Shana said. She moved to her Wonder Woman stance and Dane felt like ducking the flashing sparks flying from her eyes.
“He’ll follow us to Martha’s Vineyard,” he said.
She scoffed.
“We’ll be lucky if he isn’t already halfway to an island with a boatload of money right now.”
“Henrique Tavares wouldn’t let him go. Not according to the latest intel from Cap,” David said. He wore a pair of reading glasses and was studying his cell phone as he spoke. After a few moments of silence while he finished, he slipped the phone back in his pocket.
“What intelligence?” Dane asked.
“It appears that Henrique Tavares transferred one thousand dollars into a Cayman account held by a Floyd Parker alias two weeks ago.”
“A thousand dollars?” Shana shook her head.
“A down payment,” Dane said.
“It’s something I’ve heard that Tavares does—especially with government officials when he’s paying them,” Oscar said. “He wants to get them on the hook so they have to go through with it. Prevents cold feet if they know they’ll get caught for consorting if they do nothing.”
“Exactly our thoughts,” David said.
“So he doesn’t get the rest of his payoff until Tavares gets…” Shana trailed off.
Dane wanted to leap to her side, to kiss her hair, to envelop her in his arms. She couldn’t bring herself to say that she and Dane were the prizes for the payoff. No one finished the thought for her. No one wanted to say it out loud.
Dane wanted to dispel the tension, so he said, “Impressive intel. Where the hell did he get that from?” Dane asked.
“ATF.”
“The last nail,” Oscar said. “Almost.” He sighed heavily. David had told Dane that Oscar was as an enormously loyal man.
“When Floyd called you to tell you Tavares had Shana, how did you know he was telling the truth?” Dane asked.
“We’ve been through a lot, Floyd and I. He’s saved my butt a few times. I know him well. But when Floyd disappeared on me—and took my special phone with him—I did some back channel checking up. It wasn’t a big leap to figure out he was up to something.” Oscar paused. “He was always up to something. It was his job. His life really.” Oscar looked at Dane and lowered his voice.
“He is particularly interested in you. I should have known sooner. I’m sorry I didn’t pick up on it and call you to warn you.”
Oscar continued, “I found out from a good source that Floyd Parker was working with Tavares and that Floyd supposedly wanted you dead. And that Tavares wanted you and Shana alive. Tavares planned to swap you for his nephew’s release. Floyd and Tavares allegedly joined forces when Floyd promised he could get you both. Tavares promised Floyd a big payoff. I wasn’t sure if it was Floyd playing a game to set up Tavares for a fall at that point.
“I should have known there was a problem when Floyd asked about you—no matter how artfully casual he was about it. It was his reaction when I mentioned that Shana had partnered with you that made me suspicious. He got a gleam in his eye. A very unhealthy gleam. But at the time I had no reason to think he had any scheme planned. We continued with business as usual in Haiti for weeks after that. I forgot all about it. I hadn’t realized Floyd was making plans behind the scenes.
“So when he called me and told me Tavares had Shana, I had a sense that he was telling the truth—and that he wanted me to do something about it. I called the governor to confirm that Shana was missing and he did. He said you were all working on a plan. I had tried calling you all but it turns out David and O’Keefe were in the air at the time and Dane was apparently in a dungeon.
“I figured I was closer than you were. I didn’t know Dane had already gotten to Shana—Dane, I didn’t even know then that you were in country although I suspected you might be. So I got some assets lined up and took off. You know the rest.”
Dane listened with interest, but he was stuck on Oscar’s first words about finding out from a ‘good source.’ He had suspicions. Very dark suspicions. The kind that made his chest tighten and his pulse pick up—a very unhealthy combination. He didn’t want to know, didn’t think he could stand knowing, but he asked anyway.
“Who was your good source?”
Oscar flinched. He was a very cool customer. His flinch almost made the bottom fall out of Dane’s stomach. Dane did not flinch, but steeled himself for the answer. He felt Shana move closer until her shoulder touched his arm and her skin singed his.
“Maria’s brother.”
“Maria?” David said.
Oscar stayed silent. Shana stiffened at Dane’s side. He would have gulped if he hadn’t been concentrating on keeping his cool. It was usually automatic, but this trip had been a test. His automatic self-control switch had not been turned off—it had been smashed to smithereens. Ever since he’d found Shana gone.
Now he stifled his urge to pull her in to claim her and calm her, and to allow the feel of her softness to soothe him. He didn’t even allow himself to clear his throat, so his voice sounded gruff when he spoke. He had everyone’s attention.
“Maria was Floyd’s mistress back in Columbia. I’d met her when we worked with the ATF on a drug sting in Columbia years ago. Maria was not exactly an informant, but she was a cooperative player—she ran a high-end brothel frequented by some of our poster boys for the drug cartel.”
“Get to the point,” Shana said. She’d turned somewhat to face h
im and so far she hadn’t withdrawn—her shoulder still touched his. They’d touched on this before. She’d be pissed now that he hadn’t told her everything from the start, think he’d been holding out on her. Nothing pissed her off more than that. Dane stifled a sigh, but he allowed himself to freeze into the petrified version of himself. He channeled the granite statue version of Dane the legend and continued.
“Maria was collateral damage in the takedown.” Dane paused to let that sink in. Oscar knew this. He knew details of the story—different versions from different people. He’d never heard Dane’s version because Dane had never shared it. Not with anyone.
“There is disagreement on who was at fault. Some people thought it was her own carelessness. Maria liked excitement, was drawn to the action. Some people thought it was my fault for not warning her. Others—including Maria’s brother—thought it was Floyd’s fault for not warning her, for not keeping her away.”
“What do you think?” Shana spoke the soft words, but Dane knew the question was on everyone’s mind. He knew they all lost sleep at night over the possibility of collateral damage every time they ran any kind of sting or takedown operation. It was their job to forge into the line of fire—it was not a place for innocents.
He spoke the truth. “It’s one of those things I’ve tried not to think about all these years.” He didn’t say that Maria’s death was one in a long line; that he’d discarded thoughts of blame and guilt and put them in a dark corner of his soul. He didn’t say that the dark corner threatened to overwhelm him; that it was growing larger than the rest of him; that it threatened to take over his essence and shut him down; that he was there that very day trying to outrun the darkness.
In a way, he welcomed the showdown with Maria’s ghost. It could have been his fault. He could have prevented her death. You didn’t kill her. He became aware of a new stream of sweat trickling down his hairline along the right temple, temporarily soaked up by his overgrown sideburns and the growing stubble of his beard.
In another way, he dreaded this showdown. No need to dwell on why.
“It doesn’t matter what I think right now. If Maria’s brother Luis is in the picture, it matters what he thinks. He confronted Floyd back when it happened. I went with Floyd to tell their family. Floyd blamed it on me. Luis didn’t believe him. He was predisposed against Floyd.”
Beachcomber Trouble Page 13
