An Officer and a Gentleman

by Rachel Lee

  Maggie knew the criteria for ending an operation by heart. As the respective control and field agents for this mission, she and Jake had drafted them together weeks ago. But with his life on the line, she wasn’t trusting anything to memory.

  Ten minutes later, she pushed the notebook aside. She still had some latitude within the agreed-upon parameters. She’d sweat it out a few more hours yet, she decided. There was still a chance they could pull it off. The drop could have been delayed by weather, by mechanical problems with the plane, by any one of a hundred unexpected events.

  Besides, Jake was good. Damn good. He had more field time than anyone in the agency, two years more than Maggie herself. He’d been one of the first operatives recruited for OMEGA, a CIA transplant who’d helped train the dozen other transfers from various military and government agencies. He’d salvage the operation…if it was salvageable.

  Still, the sixth sense Maggie had learned never to ignore in this business kept nagging at her. Her brows puckered in concentration, she stared at the console and willed herself inside Jake’s head.

  What was going on down there?

  She was so intent on the unwavering yellow light that she didn’t see Samuels acknowledge a positive palm-and-voice print. Nor did she hear the near-silent hum as the heavy oak door to the control center—protected by a bullet-proof titanium shield—slid open.

  “Nothing yet?”

  The deep, quiet voice, with its distinctive Boston cadences, made Maggie jump. She swiveled her chair around, thinking ruefully that she should be used to the way her boss moved by now.

  And, she decided with a quick intake of breath, she certainly ought to be used to the sight of Adam Ridgeway in formal dress. She’d seen him in his special envoy persona often enough, looking incredibly distinguished and darkly handsome in white tie and tails tailored to fit his broad shoulders and lean, athletic body. Adam usually stopped by the OMEGA control center after attending one of his many diplomatic functions. Maggie had expected him tonight. Nevertheless, she had to force trapped air out of her lungs as she shook her head.

  “No, nothing yet.”

  He flicked a glance at the row of clocks above the command console. “It’s almost 4:00 a.m. down there.”

  “I know.”

  One of Adam’s dark brows notched at her clipped response.

  “I’m giving him another few hours,” Maggie added, in a more measured tone.

  He studied her face for a moment, then nodded. “All right.”

  The tight knot of tension at the base of Maggie’s spine loosened an infinitesimal fraction at his quiet acceptance of her decision. She and Adam had had their disagreements in the past over her somewhat unorthodox methods in the field. But he’d never yet questioned her instincts about an operation. That he didn’t do so now reinforced Maggie’s confidence in her decision to delay terminating the mission.

  Adam turned away, pulling at the ends of his white tie. “I’ll be in my office downstairs. Call me if you hear anything.”

  The mischievous grin that was as much a part of Maggie’s nature as her intense dedication to her job tugged at the corners of her generous mouth. She snapped a hand to her forehead. “Aye, aye, Skipper!”

  Adam paused, his blue eyes gleaming at her atrocious approximation of a salute. “It’s obvious we didn’t recruit you from the military,” he commented dryly.

  Maggie grinned as she watched him stride across the room with the smooth, controlled grace of a man who had crewed for Harvard and still sculled on the Potomac every chance he got. She often teased him about his choice of a sailing craft, suggesting that someone with his wealthy background could afford a real boat—one with an engine, maybe, or at least an anchor.

  When his black-clad frame disappeared into the darkness outside the control center, Maggie swung back to the console. Her lingering smile faded slowly.

  The amber light emitted the same unblinking glow.

  Where the devil was Jake?

  Two thousand miles away, Jake MacKenzie cursed viciously as he slashed at the strangler-fig root that had wrapped itself around his boot. His machete sliced through the thick elastic root with deadly efficiency, then slid back into the worn leather scabbard attached to his web belt. Jake reached up to turn on his night-vision goggles, changing the inky darkness around him to an eerie luminous green. He plowed ahead, hard on the heels of the shadowy figure in front of him.

  Christ! Everything that could’ve gone wrong tonight had! Not only had the plane they’d come to meet failed to show at the small airstrip hacked out of the jungle, but government troops had unexpectedly arrived in the area. Someone had better have a damn good explanation for that colossal screw up, Jake thought savagely.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, he and the band of revolutionaries he’d infiltrated had spent half the night detouring around the troops to get back to their camp, high in the mountains. Then, outside a sleeping village, one of the rebels had stumbled over some pigs. Startled, the stupid bastard had sprayed the squealing animals with his AK-47. Within moments, the night had erupted. Shouts from the nearby village, scattered small-arms fire and the answering stutter of the rebels’ automatic rifles had split the darkness. Before Jake could stop them, the rebels had charged through the cluster of huts, firing on the peasants, who had so far stubbornly refused to support their cause.

  They’d wanted to kill the terrified woman they’d found hiding in a stand of palmettos, too. Until they’d seen her black robe and veil and the kids clutched in her arms. Even this slime hesitated before pulling the trigger on a nun and three children. Still, Jake’s acid observation, in quick, idiomatic Spanish, that a medical sister was the closest thing to a doctor in this remote part of the interior was probably what had saved her life.

  So far.

  Dragging the woman with them, the rebels had melted back into the jungle. The children, clinging to her like frightened monkeys, had stumbled along, as well. Within moments, an impenetrable wall of darkness had swallowed them. Not even the rugged all-terrain vehicles the federales used could navigate through the dense tropical rain forest.

  And now he was stuck with them, Jake thought in disgust. Three orphans, according to the woman’s frantic pleas to spare them. And a nun! An American nun, if her mangled, broken Spanish was any indication. As if he didn’t have enough on his hands with this botched mission.

  “Don’t touch him!”

  At the sharp, sudden cry, Jake dropped into an instinctive crouch and spun around. Through the thin lenses of the goggles—stolen from a U.S. military base, along with a shipment of high-tech arms—he saw the spectral shape of one of the rebels tugging at a child’s arm.

  “No! No, let her go!”

  The man spit out a response, but obviously the sister didn’t understand the guttural patois the rebels used. She snatched at his shirt, demanding that he release the child.

  Jake straightened, his stomach clenching. The woman’s black robe and medical expertise wouldn’t protect her much longer if she riled these men. Or if they got to drinking. Or if—

  A muted snarl from the man holding the child’s arm told Jake things were fast getting out of hand. Cursing once more, he stalked back along the narrow, overgrown trail. He shoved up the goggles, which tended to blur items at close range, curled a hard hand around the woman’s arm and jerked her away. The child, a girl of about five or six, cried out.

  “Let me go!” The woman yanked against his tight hold, intent on the child.

  Jake’s grip tightened. “You may not realize how close you are to getting a knife in your ribs, Sister.”

  She swung toward him, her face a pale blur in the murky gloom. “You’re an American?” she gasped in disbelief.

  “More or less,” he snapped.

  “Wh-what are you doing with them?” She gestured to the group that now surrounded them, dim shadows against the darker blackness of the night, then repeated helplessly, “You’re an American.”

  Jesus! Jak
e’s fingers dug into her arm. “This is no time to be discussing nationalities. In case you aren’t aware of it, my associates don’t like norteamericanos much more than they do their own people who resist their cause. Come on.”

  She dug in her heels. “Tell that…that murderer…to get his hands off Teresa.”

  The wiry rebel understood English a whole lot better than the sister understood Spanish. He spit out a phrase Jake was glad the woman didn’t grasp. The situation, he decided, was rapidly going from dangerous to nasty.

  “The children are slowing us up. He’s only going to put the girl on the packhorse, for God’s sake.”

  She panted with a combination of fear and desperate determination. “For his sake, that’s all he’d better do.”

  Jake released her arm, wondering what the hell she thought she could do if any of these men did try to harm the children. Bludgeon them with her rosary beads?

  “Look, Sister,” he warned, his voice low, “you’d better understand that you’re in a pretty precarious situation here.”

  She drew in a ragged breath. “No kidding.”

  Jake sliced her a quick look, surprised at the terse response. Either convent life was an even tougher boot camp than he’d realized, or this was one gutsy lady. Unfortunately, he’d found over the years that gutsy tended to get people killed. If he was going to keep this woman alive long enough to figure out what to do with her, he’d better make damn sure she understood what was ahead.

  “Don’t think that veil you’re wearing will protect you if you get their hackles up,” he stated with brutal candor. “The only thing that saved you back there in the village is the fact that one of their pals died last week from a nasty case of gangrene. They’ve decided that it might be nice to have a médica around the camp to prevent such little unpleasantries in the future.”

  She gave a small gasp and put a shaking hand up to her throat. Even in the darkness, Jake could see the way her eyes went round with fear. Good, he thought savagely. She needed to be scared. He sure as hell was.

  “I’d advise you not to push them too far,” he added softly.

  Muttering under his breath, the rebel beside them stooped and swung the girl onto the horse. Jake slung his weapon over his shoulder and lifted the littlest, a boy of about three or four, up behind her. The third child, a thin, wide-eyed boy of about eight, would have to hoof it.

  The men drifted into the darkness to take up their positions in line. Jake tucked his weapon under his arm once more and waited for the signal to move on. The woman beside him glanced at the automatic rifle, and a look of revulsion crossed her white face, visible even in the darkness.

  “How…how many of the villagers did you kill?”

  Jake bit off an oath. He couldn’t tell her that he’d tried to prevent the rampage. Hell, he didn’t dare tell her anything. Talking to her at all was risky, given the group’s simmering frustration over the missed drop. Although Jake had managed to convince these men that he’d sell his country or his soul or both for the right price, he was still a gringo, an outsider they didn’t quite trust. With the least provocation, they’d turn on him like jackals after raw meat.

  “How many?”

  His hand tightened over the gun barrel. “As many as got in the way.”

  She put a hand over her mouth. “God will have to forgive you for what you’ve done,” she whispered. “I can’t. Those people were my friends.”

  Jake refused to allow any hint of sympathy or remorse to creep into his reply. “Yeah, well, I just might be the closest thing to a friend you’ve got left right now. And I’m telling you that if you want to survive the next twenty-four hours, you’d better keep moving and keep your mouth shut.”

  She swallowed and clutched the boy’s hand.

  “Stay in front of me from here on, where I can keep an eye on you,” he ordered. “Don’t step off the path, and keep a tight hold on the kid. There are a few surprises along the trail for anyone unwise enough to try to follow us. Now move it, lady…Sister.”

  Gripping her skirt with one tight fist and the child with the other, she turned and fell into line.

  As the small group traveled in heavy silence, the night sounds of the jungle they’d disturbed slowly resumed. Leaves rustled in the tall trees. Whistles and chirps seemed to come from every direction. Bats whirred through the branches high above, while whining mosquitoes circled Jake’s ears. The crunching, tearing sounds of small animals and insects feeding drifted to him through the darkness. Once, far off in the distance, a jaguar screamed.

  Jake managed a grim smile.

  As the echo of the animal’s cry died away, he mentally reviewed his options. There weren’t many at this point.

  He could abandon his mission right now and try to take out the dozen men with him on this botched operation. He calculated the risks to the woman and the children and abandoned the idea. It wasn’t any more feasible now than it had been back in the village.

  That left trying to brazen it out. When this little band got back to camp, Jake would have to convince the desiccated fanatic who led them that the aborted airdrop and the proximity of government troops were both just coincidence. That Jake himself had nothing to do with either—which he didn’t.

  At the same time, he’d have to find a way to protect this nun and her charges without blowing his cover. That might be a bit tricky, given the fact that he was supposed to be a conscienceless mercenary.

  Still, he had no choice. There were already two other women in camp, one hard and pitiless and as dedicated to the revolution as the intense leader she slept with. The other was the vacant-eyed wife of one of the men, who didn’t mind sharing her, for a price. Jake’s gut wrenched at the thought of the games the men played with the uncomprehending, unresisting woman. His fingers clenched around the gun barrel at the thought of what they could do to the woman stumbling along ahead of him.

  At that moment, he heard her call a strained reassurance to the little girl atop the plodding packhorse. Despite her own fears, and what she must know was a very uncertain future, she managed to soothe the whimpering child. A reluctant admiration for the woman’s ragged courage tugged at him.

  Maybe, just maybe, they could pull it off, Jake thought. More than just their lives was at stake here, he reminded himself. An entire country teetered on the brink of civil war, and all the horror that came with it. Cartoza was a small nation, but one of the United States’ staunchest allies in Central America. Its government was dedicated to wiping out the drug traffickers whose insidious products were destroying the social fabric of all the Americas.

  The U.S. President himself had activated an OMEGA response based on the information that the drug lords were financing shipments of stolen U.S. arms to the insurgents. The shipments had to be stopped before the friendly government toppled.

  There was still a chance, a slim chance, of accomplishing that mission. If his controller at OMEGA didn’t jump the gun and send in an extraction team, Jake might yet take down the middleman who was supplying the arms.

  His lips twisted in a small, grim smile at the thought of his controller. By now, Maggie Sinclair would be pacing the floor, those long legs of hers eating up the cramped space in the communications center. Her brown eyes would be narrowed in intense concentration, her dark cloud of hair would be tangled from her unconscious habit of raking a hand through it whenever she was deep in thought. For all her worry, however, Jake knew, Maggie wouldn’t panic.

  The tight, coiled knot of tension between his shoulder blades loosened imperceptibly. Maggie wouldn’t terminate the operation. Nor would she send in an extraction team. Not until she heard from him or figured out for herself what had happened. Jake had worked with most of the agents assigned to OMEGA, and Sinclair was one of the best.

  Chapter 2

  One more hour, Maggie thought. Two at the most. That was all she could allow herself. And Jake.

  She took another sip of coffee, unmindful now of its cold, sludgelike consistency
. Holding the cup at her lip, she began tracing a second ring of circular indentations around the rim. Suddenly a light flashed on the upper left portion of her console.

  The front legs of Samuels’s chair thwacked down on the tiles. “It’s Big Bird!”

  Maggie’s heart pounded in sudden excitement. Big Bird! She should have known the surveillance craft orbiting high above the Caribbean would be the first to break the wall of silence surrounding Jake. The huge air force jet, with its Frisbee-like rotating radar dish, was officially termed the USAF Airborne Warning and Control System, but everyone had a different tag for it, some affectionate, some irreverent. No one, however, made fun of the vital information processed via its banks of on-board computers.

  With the speed and skill of a magician performing sleight of hand, Samuels flipped a series of switches. The clear, calm voice of an air surveillance officer came over the speaker. Maggie hunched forward in her chair, listening intently.

  An aircraft meeting the specifications Jaguar had called in earlier had taken off from a deserted airstrip in Alabama, Big Bird confirmed. Two planes had scrambled from a base in Florida to make a visual ID, then shadowed the slower-moving plane across the Gulf of Mexico. At the last minute, the aircraft under surveillance had aborted its landing in Cartoza, for reasons unknown at present. The report went on to provide a wealth of technical detail on the suspect’s flight pattern, air characteristics and radar signature.

  Maggie acknowledged receipt of the transmission and sat back, thinking furiously.

  “So the drop didn’t take place?” Samuels asked.

  She met the communications specialist’s steady gaze and shook her head. She wasn’t surprised by his question. Everyone in the OMEGA control center during an operation was briefed on every detail. They worked as a team, together, twenty-four hours a day, throughout the duration of the mission. Everyone involved had a personal stake in the outcome.