by Alexis Grant
Using hand signals, shedding their rucksacks and concealing them, they split up to silently throw secure lines from the dock to the ship for an arduous hand-over-hand stealth boarding. The moment they were on deck, they cut their lines and secreted themselves away, hugging the shadows, hunting for the numbered containers that held thousands of pounds of bag cement.
Onboard security was lax and avoidable. But opening the locked containers would take a little time. Locks would have to be cut and replaced if the ship master keys Intelligence provided didn’t work. Hayes gave him a nod as they approached the back of a container they’d been seeking. Davis tapped his chest twice. He had the container keys provided by a Central Intelligence handoff. But footsteps and the sound of metal scraping made him hold up his fist.
They glanced at each other. Someone was already inside a container three rows over. There were six long aisles of containers filled with cement mix bags alone, and it was looking like fate had saved them a little trouble that night.
“Hurry up and take the pictures,” a low, hissing voice urged. “Then be sure to put it back together and hide it in the stack. C’mon!”
“Shut up! I’m going as fast as I can!” another voice hissed. “But do you want to come back with blurry photos and have to answer to Guzman for that?”
Davis and Hayes hugged the steel frame of the container as they listened to the rapid fire of a camera shutter. After ten minutes, only the shuffle of footsteps could be heard as the container door banged shut and the lock clicked. They waited a full ten minutes, checked to see if the coast was clear, and then quickly opened and entered the container.
Hayes nodded and shined a light on the cement while Davis went to the back and began loading out stacked bags until he found one that had been punctured with a knife. Unsheathing his Bowie, he allowed his blade to follow along the same path that had been cut in the sack, careful not to spill cement, and then stuck it into the brick. Tasting the edge of his knife with the very tip of his tongue, he nodded and then hastily repositioned the compromised bag into the center of the heap.
Listening again, they waited a beat, and then quickly exited the container and locked it. Running in bursts, they stopped at every opening where moonlight could reveal them, hugged a container, and then dashed into another shadow until they reached the massive deck rails.
But debarking was going to be more hazardous than their entry. The two men who worked for Guzman were obviously still on board and skulking around as part of the security crew. Yet it was clear they all had the same objective—no one wanted to alert Salazar that they knew he was trying to double-cross Guzman. This added complication, that Guzman was very aware he was being double-crossed, was a dangerous wrinkle in the plan, one that MI, Central Intelligence, and DEA needed to know about stat.
Motioning for his lieutenant to go first so he could cover him, Davis watched Hayes make it to the dock shadows and disappear before he dropped a line and froze. Voices and approaching footsteps made it impossible to cast the line to the dock. Instead he had to bail over the edge straight down in a quick but silent descent into the murky water. Then came the waiting while the men had a cigarette and finally left to make their rounds again. As soon as the coast was clear, Hayes silently dropped him a line from the dock.
Once in the shadows with rucksacks back in place, they used Hayes’s waterproof equipment to upload information about the container numbers and to communicate what they’d learned to their chain of command. The next call he made was to Hank Wilson, once Sage’s encrypted cell rolled over to voice mail.
“If Guzman has spies and knows about Salazar’s deal with Assad, but hasn’t acted yet, then he’s probably waiting until Salazar pulls in all his closest men to find out who his inner circle is before he smokes them. You’ve gotta get your agent out of there. She’s a sitting duck as long as she’s perceived to be Salazar’s woman.”
Davis gripped the encrypted cell phone and stared at Hayes as he spoke to Hank. The dank, oily water had soaked through his fatigues, but it was hard to tell which chilled him more—that or his worry about Sage Wagner.
“Both of my decoy agents are already gone for the night,” Hank said, sounding frantic. “She doesn’t have access to her encrypted cell phone and there’s no way to get word to her tonight without compromising her cover in Miami. They’ll go for Salazar first while he’s in New Orleans, then—”
“What room is she in at the Ritz?”
He ignored the glance of concern Hayes shot in his direction.
“Twelve fifty-five,” Hank said cautiously.
“Have an agent call her from the desk citing a plumbing problem. Get her to move to a room that Salazar’s security goons didn’t arrange for her, so that she knows she can speak freely. If they’re in an adjoining suite now or something, that’ll bust up the party.” Davis looked at his watch. “I can be there in two hours.”
CHAPTER 7
The sound of her hotel room phone ringing gave her a start. Sage looked at the unit and quickly picked it up. She hadn’t been in her room a good five minutes, not long enough to take her shoes off and get settled, and now Bruno was calling?
But it wasn’t him or one of the security guys. She recognized Dan’s voice instantly. Her stomach clenched as she braced for the worst. Dan wouldn’t have made contact like this unless the matter was urgent.
His message was terse. “Hello, ma’am. This is hotel maintenance. There’s a leak in the stack pipe of your toilet that is unfortunately impacting the room below yours. We hate to inconvenience you, but need to move you to another suite. Will that be all right?”
“Yes … yes, of course,” Sage replied in a wary tone. As soon as the call disconnected, she quickly grabbed her weapon, checked the magazine on it, hid it in her purse, then gathered her shopping bags and the small toiletries kit she’d gotten at the spa.
Dan arrived at her door wearing a hotel maintenance uniform. His blue eyes held a level of panic she couldn’t decipher. But before he could give her a message, Bruno’s door swung open with a slam.
He stood in his doorway for a moment wearing only a pair of black jeans and no shirt, frowning. “What’s going on?”
Sage gave Dan a warning with her eyes to be cool and not to move. It was like doing a standoff with a Doberman. As long as it snarled and didn’t advance, the more still you remained, the better your chances.
“Drama,” she said with an airy wave of her hand. “Seems the seal or whatever in my toilet stack busted in the wall or whatever, and it’s leaking down to the floor below. So they’ve gotta move me.” She sucked her teeth and shrugged. “They slap all these buildings up in a blink of an eye these days, what can ya do?”
“Where’re you moving her? I’ve gotta go check out the room.” Clearly annoyed, Bruno kept one hand behind him, concealing his gun, while he body-blocked Sage from peeking into his room. No doubt he had company since the boss was away and guarding her was fairly light detail.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Sage said, heading to the elevator with Dan. “It’s just a little leak. I’ll call you from whatever room they put me in.”
Bruno hesitated, and that’s when she knew she had him. “You sure?”
“Yeah. It’s been a long day. All I want to do is lie down.”
Again Bruno hesitated. “Well, hit my cell as soon as you get settled, all right? I want me and the guys to be able to do hallway patrols and to know where you are.”
Sage let out a long sigh and offered him a bright smile. “Bruno … this isn’t the compound. It’s the Ritz. Hallway patrols? Really? I promise to tell Roberto you guys walked the nap out of the carpet pacing back and forth in front of my room until I screamed at you to let me go to sleep. Deal?”
Bruno smiled, even though he was still frowning. “You call me and give me your room number as soon as you get settled.”
“Okay, already,” she said, laughing and then led Dan down the hall toward the elevators. She didn’t look at Dan, but k
ept her eyes fastened to the elevator doors and spoke loud enough for Bruno to hear her. “So I take it I have to go down to the desk, get a new key, blah, blah, blah?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dan said nervously as they got onto the elevator. “Again, we apologize for the inconvenience.”
The moment the elevator doors closed behind them, Dan began to fill her in with rapid bursts of information.
“Guzman knows? Shit! That is such not good news,” she said quickly, looking at the descending lights.
“You’re telling me?” Dan looked at the numbers for a second and then focused on her. “The room next to your suite is vacant. Leave the lock off. Hank wants you covered, if Colombians are about to go to war, and he’s putting someone capable in there to watch your six. When you get to the lobby, you’re registered in room 712, but your key works in room 217. Give Bruno 712. I’ll put the television on in there. This way, anybody that could be looking for you in the hotel or following Bruno on rounds, whatever, will get an empty room. Got it? And if he somehow goes there and gets wise, the girl at the front desk is one of ours, and will pretend to have made a dyslexic type of mistake, all right? Just don’t shoot first and ask questions later, if the adjoining room door opens. That’s one of ours, Hank said.”
Sage nodded as the elevator stopped at the lobby floor. “You go on and get out of here, Dan.”
He pressed a key into her hand and held it briefly. “I’ll be glad when this is all over and we all can stop worrying about you.”
She brushed his cheek with a platonic kiss just before the doors opened. “Get out of here, kiddo. That’s a direct order. Everything is gonna be fine.”
* * *
A quick shower at the base, a change into civilian clothes, a chopper flight into South Beach, a soft landing on top of an office complex heliport, and he was out. The unmarked vehicle was waiting for him in the underground parking lot beneath the building, unlocked. Keys were beneath the visor, along with a hotel room key.
He dropped his black weapons bag on the seat beside him. That, right now, was the only luggage he needed.
* * *
Sage sat in the dark, facing the adjoining door in her room with a gun in her hand. She’d called Bruno from her cell phone, not the room phone, and he hadn’t sounded worried. A couple of agents were walking the halls dressed as hotel security to be sure Bruno didn’t decide to check it out on the seventh floor after all. No calls meant good news.
And although Hank might have sent one of their agents in, she was too aware that a lot could happen between now and the time that person arrived to take the room next to her suite. What if the other side was aware of the switch? What if one of Guzman’s mercenaries forced his way in with the new agent just to get to her? There was no telling until a visual ID was made.
When she heard the outer door of the next room quietly open and close, she stood up and steadied her weapon. A light tap at the door just caused her to tighten her grip. The door slowly opened and it took a moment for visual recognition to kick in. Adrenaline made her trigger finger tremble.
“Isn’t this how we met?”
She lowered her weapon and let out an inaudible breath. Captain Anthony Davis’s voice thrummed through her belly. “Yeah, but how about a cup of Joe instead of a concussion this time?”
He didn’t respond, just lowered his gaze. She’d meant to make him smile.
Sage dragged her fingers through her hair and set her weapon down on the coffee table. “Bad joke,” she said in a quiet voice, and then hugged herself. “I’ve never had anybody voluntarily come back for me. Guess I don’t know what to do with that.”
He discarded his weapon on the television cabinet, turned slowly, closed the door between their rooms, and spoke to her without looking at her. “I’ve never hit a woman in my life … much less put one in danger because of something I did. I just wanted to personally make that right.”
“It wasn’t your fault … and Hank would have sent over another agent to babysit me. You’ve got more important things to do, and I can take care of myself.”
Captain Davis didn’t move, didn’t say a word, and again she knew she’d put a hard cement wall between them—one that wasn’t necessary at this juncture.
“Hey, look … I’m sorry,” she said, hugging herself tighter. “Apology accepted. And, remember, I had a nine pointed at your skull. I would have kicked my ass too, if it meant that I’d live. And all I was saying was, that you didn’t personally have to come back … the agency—”
“Might have made a mistake and relayed the information to you too late.” His voice was a low rumble of truth as he stared at her in the dark. Moonlight spilled on only his shoes, leaving him cloaked by the shadows. “I almost killed you because of bad intel, late intel. If there was a communication glitch and you weren’t informed and something happened, it would…” His voice trailed off and he drew in a deep breath. “I couldn’t reach you any other way.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “Thank you.” After a moment of staring at his intense gaze in the dark, she glanced away. “How about that coffee, Captain?”
“I’d appreciate it, but not Captain between us.”
“Right … Juan,” she said, remembering his alias.
“No. As Anthony.”
Again she just stared at him for a moment. Yes, Anthony … the man who’d returned to personally ensure her safety … a man who’d just asked her to drop his rank and alias to let her know that this unspoken thing went beyond a mere job or even duty. He was standing there clearly ready to take a bullet for her, and not necessarily in the name of God and country or the current mission.
“All right, Anthony,” she murmured, and moved through the dark to get the coffeepot. “Cream and sugar?”
“Just sugar, not a lot.”
He hadn’t moved from where he stood by the door, shoulders back, head held high, senses on what seemed to be full alert.
She motioned toward the chair that was by the sofa. “Why don’t you have a seat? It’ll only be a few minutes.”
He complied without argument, bringing his weapon near to set on the coffee table. “Did you get a full report?”
“Dan only gave me the highlights. But why don’t you give me the details while this brews.”
She listened intently as Captain Davis filled the empty spaces inside her with his low rumbling voice. The vibration of it and the caring within it warmed her to her very core, and then radiated heat throughout her limbs. In all the years she’d spent alone with just her and her Nana, all she’d known at the hands of men was competition, abuse, heartache, and lies. No one had ever come back to check on her to see if she was truly all right.
Handing Davis a cup, she took a seat on the small ottoman across from him in the dark and stared at him.
“Thank you,” she murmured and then took a sip of too-hot coffee. “You even had a small unit disarm the cars you’d set to blow?”
He nodded. “When I drove around South Beach this afternoon and saw that the security vehicles were tailing you through heavily commercial areas with civilians, that was one of the first calls I made. Two good men in my unit got to them when you were in the piano bar. It was the first opportunity we had, given the target’s security forces were with the vehicles until then.”
Sage briefly closed her eyes. “When I think of what could have happened…”
“Exactly my concern, too,” he replied, now sipping his coffee but never breaking eye contact with her. “Those guys were giving their rides to valets and double-parking outside of retail stores … that wasn’t in the plan. Collateral damage of that magnitude is not acceptable on my watch. We thought we were going in to blow the compound and cripple unmanned vehicles in the private garage. Things changed.”
“Things always change,” she said. “That’s the nature of the beast.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m here.”
They looked at each other for a long time, and finally she shook her head
.
“You’re here for more than a mission change or a complication,” she said just above a murmur. “That’s what worries me.”
When he looked away, she placed a light hand on his knee. “I’m a really screwed-up person, Anthony. I’m not a solid bet. But I’m an ace in a firefight. That’s all I really know how to do. And after this case closes, if I live, I don’t have a clue what I want to do next … it damned sure isn’t this anymore. Going in this deep once was enough. But this is all I’m cut out to do. Sad truth is, I’ve spent so long wanting to bring down the Salazar drug empire and invested so heavily in hating them that, once that happens, then what? I don’t even know how to be a regular civilian with a normal life.”
“Then we’re not that different. I have no idea how to do anything but this. Once we break up this cell, another will grow in its place. I’ve been at this for years, busting terror cells … and there’s no end to the cancer. Makes the soul weary after a while.”
She withdrew her hand from his knee and hugged herself with one arm, clutching her coffee cup. “Can I be honest with you? I mean, really speak off the record here?”
He nodded. “Sage, we are so off the record that a record doesn’t exist right now.”
“Yeah … true.” She took another sip of coffee, trying to find a way to allow the words to flow past her lips. “I don’t want to do this job anymore,” she said slowly closing her eyes. “But I’m in too deep and there’s no way out other than to finish it.”
She opened her eyes, surprised to find her vision blurry from unshed tears. Her voice quavered from emotion that she refused to allow to spill out with the truth she’d just told. Why did this man affect her like this? Extreme fatigue was the only reasonable answer. That, or something too dangerous to think about.
“Just like anyone else, I want a normal life,” she admitted in a low murmur when he didn’t jump in to offer any rebuttal. “I want all the horrible memories of what happened to me and what I’ve done, gone … but God help me, I don’t know how to make that happen.”
