by Rachel Lee
Jake pulled off his floppy hat and raked a hand through his sweat-dampened hair. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you. I’m a little uptight knowing I’ll finally be able to get my business done and get out of this steam bath.”
She wiped the canteen’s mouth once more and passed it to the children, saying nothing.
“You’ve done okay, Sister,” Jake offered, putting his hat on again. “In fact, I know of only one other woman who would’ve stood up as well as you have. Maybe you’ll get a chance to know her someday.”
Oh, she would, Sarah thought with a tight, inner smile. She would definitely get to know this partner/contact/special friend of Jack’s. In fact, that was one of her top priorities after they got out of this nightmare. She wanted to check this woman out and make sure she understood that Jack had some new priorities in his life now. Sarah had already begun planning her campaign to smooth out those rough edges he’d mentioned. And she was a master at laying out campaign plans. She’d spent half her life helping her father in his bids for reelection. Jack didn’t know it yet, but he was going to have to make a few major career decisions in the very near future.
If there was a future.
Sarah managed a shaky smile. “Maybe I will. Get to know her, I mean.”
“We’ll see what we can work out.” He sent her a look of silent command. “Just do as I tell you, and we’ll both get through the next few hours.”
“Enough of this.” Che stepped out of the darkness. “We must move.”
Jake wrenched his attention away from Sarah. Turning slowly, he faced the rebel leader. “Isn’t it about time you tell me just where the hell we’re moving to?”
“You will collect your fee by the time the night is over. That’s all you need to know.”
“Wrong. The last time I went to a drop with your trigger-happy little band, the site was almost overrun with federales. What guarantees do I have that I’m not walking into the same kind of situation tonight?”
“This site is well protected.”
“Yeah? Who says?”
“The patrón.” Che gave a thin smile when he saw Jake’s narrowed eyes. “We go to his headquarters, you see. Your countryman, the one who brings the missiles, is as anxious as you to collect his money. There is an airstrip at the hacienda he will use to off-load, and then perhaps take on a different cargo.”
Jake’s mind whirled with the implications. Instead of an isolated airstrip hacked out of the jungle, they were heading for one that would be well defended. He had to get word to Maggie. There was no way he was going to let Sarah walk into what he knew would be a self-contained fortress.
“Come,” the rebel leader said impatiently. “It’s not far now.”
Jake lifted his weapon, his eyes on Sarah.
Her gaze flickered to Che, and then to Jake’s face. “I’m glad we’re almost there,” she said calmly. “I’m ready for this to be over.”
Jake smiled at her. “So am I, Sister Sarah, so am I.”
His hungry gaze raked her face once more, and then he laid a casual hand on Eduard’s thin shoulder. “Come on, kid. Let’s get this show on the road.”
Maggie had experienced some real thrills in her life, even before joining OMEGA. One of her earliest memories was of sneaking away from her mother to watch her father’s crew bring in a well. She’d been standing only a few feet away from the rig when the earth began to rumble and black liquid leaped into the air. She’d clapped her hands in delight. Her father had shouted something she learned the meaning of only years later and dashed across the burning desert sands to snatch her up. Afterward he’d shown her how she could’ve been weighted down and drowned by the viscous liquid, but at the time she’d thought it was a great adventure.
As adventures went, however, skimming along at ninety knots a mere twenty-five feet above the impenetrable jungle canopy had that little escapade beat hands down. The pilot had explained that they’d fly a contour pattern until they reached the target area, then drop down to nap of the earth. From that point on, they’d slink in at a death-defying five to ten knots, with their skids brushing the top of the trees, leaving just enough clearance above the branches for the rotor blades. Their only safety systems would be their night-vision goggles and the pilot’s skill. Maggie tried not to think about nap of the earth. This contour stuff was bad enough.
Lifting off her goggles for a moment, she wiped the perspiration from around her eyes. She stole a glance at the figure beside her. If Colonel Esteban was nervous about dodging around treetops in the black of night at ninety knots, he sure didn’t show it. He flashed her a smile that won an answering grin and a thumbs-up from Maggie.
She settled the goggles over her eyes again and peered out the helicopter’s side hatch into the hazy green sea below. The magnification of the lenses was so powerful that the copilot had bragged he could read a name tag on a soldier’s chest. At night. From the air. Maggie didn’t want to read any name tags. She just wanted some sight, some signal from Jaguar.
He was down there, only a few minutes’ flight time away. The copilot was tracking his coordinates and relaying position updates to Maggie. In between his reports, an air surveillance officer in the Big Bird aircraft orbiting high above the Caribbean was providing regular updates on the approaching suspect smuggler. He was a half hour out and closing fast. The strike team that would take him down was on his tail, also sending Maggie periodic updates via a secure ultra-high-frequency data link.
Cowboy was tracking everything at the control center, as well. Maggie knew she could call him for confirmation if she missed anything, but she doubted she would. Things happened too fast, decisions would have to be made in split seconds. She’d have to coordinate the two prongs of this operation with the information she processed in her own, internal computers.
It would sure help matters, though, if Jake would let her know just how he planned to deploy his little ground cadre when he reached his destination.
She got her wish some ten minutes later.
Maggie jerked upright in her web seat as a thin, frightened voice came over the secure voice link. The first words were so garbled she didn’t catch them.
“Retransmit your ID,” she rapped out. “Over.”
“Is there anyone there?”
“Repeat your last transmission. Over.”
“Can anyone hear me? Please,” the frightened voice sobbed. “Please, someone hear me.”
Maggie groaned into the mike. It was one of Jake’s kids. He was pushing the transmit button, but either didn’t know or had forgotten to release it so that he could receive.
“If you are there, please listen. I have not much time. My friend, Señor Creighton, he talks with the one called Che while I am in the jungle.”
Señor Creighton? Maggie shook her head. It had to be Jake. Only he could set the transceiver to this frequency. Her mouth went dry as she thought of the courage it must have taken for this child to slip into the dark, impenetrable jungle on his own.
“He says to tell you we go to the hacienda of the patrón,” the boy whispered. “It is not far, he thinks.”
Maggie’s heart jumped into her throat. Jake and company were on their way to the drug lord’s hideaway!
Their operation didn’t have just two prongs. It now had three, all of which were about to slam together with the force of three freight trains colliding. The extraction of the senator’s daughter. The takedown of the middleman, the link to the United States that the president wanted to sever. And the elimination of the big man, the one who supplied the money. If Maggie had been any less of a professional, she would’ve shouted her excitement. Instead, she listened intently while the boy stumbled on.
“Señor Creighton says to tell you we will separate when we arrive there. Sarita…the woman Sarah…she has the st…str…”
The strobe! She had the strobe, Maggie thought exultantly. Smaller and flatter than a cigarette package, the strobe packed enough power to fire a pulsing halogen light that cou
ld be seen for miles.
“She use this light to signal our location. Señor Creighton will create a noise…”
A diversion, Maggie interpreted.
“He has red pins to tell you where he is.”
What he had were .38 caliber pin-gun flares, no bigger than a cigarette. One twist of the spring mechanism and they shot out a flare that would light up the target area like a string of high-powered Christmas lights.
“I must go. Please, please, you must help us.”
A faint, flat hum came over the earphones.
Wetting her lips, Maggie turned to the man beside her. “Did you hear?”
“Every word.” Excitement threaded the colonel’s smooth voice. He spread an aerial map across his lap and drew a rough vector with a grease pencil borrowed from the copilot. “This is where your Jaguar is now, according to the GPS signals. And this is the location of a plantation house owned by one of Cartoza’s most influential businessmen, an exporter of tropical fruit.”
He pointed to a wide, flat valley surrounded on all sides by steep hills. Maggie saw at once the thin, straggling line that led from the plantation to the capital city. A road. A road that would transport produce out. And bring chemicals in.
“Maybe this businessman grows more than fruit.”
Esteban’s white teeth gleamed as his mustache lifted in a slow, dangerous smile. “I think perhaps he does. I sent a man in undercover to infiltrate his operation a few weeks ago, but he met with an unfortunate accident. It will give me great pleasure to take this bastardo down. I thank you for this one.”
Maggie grinned. “Anytime, Colonel.”
“So, my Chameleon, we will direct the strike team to the plantation and have them waiting when our friends arrive, will we not?”
Maggie’s grin faded. This was the crucial moment. The irrevocable decision point that came in almost every operation. Normally the field agent made the call about when and where to direct the strike team, regardless of whether that consisted of a single sharpshooter, a civilian SWAT team, or, as in this case, a combined military and civilian force from two nations.
Jake had passed every scrap of information he had to Maggie, which was all he could do at this point. The decision was now hers.
She nodded to Esteban. “Send them to the plantation.”
Sarah knew they were only minutes away from their destination. She sensed it by the ripple of preparation in the men strung out ahead and behind her. By the low murmurs and coarse jokes they exchanged. By the sharp admonishment Eleanora’s “husband” gave her to move her carcass.
She wondered vaguely why she wasn’t more afraid. She couldn’t work up enough moisture in her throat to swallow. By contrast, her palms were so damp she wiped them continually on the sides of her habit. But the physical manifestations of fear didn’t penetrate to her inner self.
Her entire being was focused on the dim silhouettes moving ahead of her, intermittently illuminated by the flashlights they carried. Every few steps she’d catch a glimpse of Jack. He wasn’t hard to distinguish from the other shadowy shapes. If she hadn’t been able to pick out the broad shoulders that strained against his disreputable khaki shirt, she would have recognized him from the way he moved. With a silent, self-contained coordination. A smooth, easy grace that belied his size.
The memory of their afternoon by the glistening, silvered pool flashed into Sarah’s mind. Jack had circled the water with the same deadly grace, stalking her like some kind of predator that had spotted its prey. She hadn’t been afraid then, either, Sarah remembered.
She should have been, but she hadn’t.
She should be now, but she wasn’t. She’d passed beyond fear to that curious state where every sense is heightened, every emotion suspended, every faculty focused on one thing and one thing only.
She ran over the simple instructions Jack had passed to her, repeating them over and over in her mind like a litany.
By the time they halted at the edge of a vast clearing, she was as ready as she’d ever be.
Her heart began to thump against her ribs as her eyes swept the scene. For a moment, Sarah thought they’d stumbled by mistake onto a movie set. Spotlights mounted on high towers bathed the clearing in light and illuminated the cluster of buildings that occupied it. Set square in the middle was a tile-roofed two-story house, surrounded by an arched veranda on the upper floor. Gauzy curtains fluttered at the open windows upstairs, while light spilled out of the patio doors on the ground floor. Sarah caught the brief, intermittent flare of insects grilled by the bug lights that guarded the windows and, incredibly, the sound of chamber music floating from one of the downstairs rooms.
Only someone with supreme self-confidence would leave his home open to the night, Sarah thought, her gaze sweeping the neat, orderly complex once more. Only someone of indomitable strength could force the jungle back and bend it to his will.
The music rose to a polite crescendo. A cello led the chorus, followed by a trill of violins. Sarah felt an eerie sense of displacement. She was standing on the edge of a tropical rain forest, surrounded by men who carried their automatic rifles with the ease and nonchalance with which the men of her world carried their briefcases, listening to a sonata that she’d last heard performed by an ensemble at the Kennedy Center.
The strange sensation heightened, until Sarah clutched at Ricci’s leg to anchor herself in reality. She tore her eyes from the surreal scene before her and searched the dim figures at the edge of the clearing. Jack stood out among them, tall, solid, a dark shape barely visible in the wash of the lights from the hacienda. He faced the far end of the clearing, his body taut and stiff. Sarah followed his line of sight and saw what he’d come for. What he’d risked his life for.
There, at the end of a grassy runway, sat a medium-size plane, propellers still whirling. Portable spotlights ringed it, washing it in a bright, incandescent light. Sarah couldn’t tell the make, and wouldn’t have recognized it in any case. But even from this distance she recognized the U.S. markings on the crates being unloaded by a scruffy-looking crew.
Slowly, her arms feeling as though they were weighted with lead, Sarah reached up and lifted Ricci from the packhorse. She wrapped her arms around his small body, pressing his face against her shoulder. He trembled against her but made no sound.
Eleanora moved up to lift Teresa down. The girl burrowed into the woman’s legs, clutching her skirt with one hand and the root doll with her other. Eduard stood stiff and silent beside them.
Sarah searched the other woman’s bruised, swollen face in the dim light, wondering if she had any hint of what was to come, wishing desperately she could explain it. Eleanora met her look and gave a slow, silent nod.
The stillness of the moment was broken when one of the men from the rear guard edged past their small, still group, anxious for a better view of the clearing. A second followed, then a third. The plane and its rich haul drew them like a magnet, as Jack had hoped it would. Over the pounding of her heart, Sarah heard their excited murmurs.
Their eyes were locked on the prize they’d waited for.
Hers were on Jack.
Che and the woman in fatigues stepped into the clearing.
Jack took one step with them. Two.
The other men followed.
Jack half turned, searching the dimness for her face.
Sarah tightened her arms around Ricci and pressed his head more firmly into her shoulder. She watched Jack lift his hand, slowly, deliberately…then freeze as a new sound cut through the night.
He whirled to meet this unexpected threat, as did the men around him. The snicker and click of bolts being drawn back competed with the rhythmic pounding of a horse’s hooves.
“It is the patrón!” someone called.
A white stallion danced to a halt.
“You are late, Che,” a cultured voice called out. The speaker didn’t use the mountain dialect, but instead a pure, flowing Spanish that Sarah had no trouble following. “Did you
bring the woman?”
“Yes, as you instructed. She is back there, with the packhorses.”
The rider shifted in his saddle. Sarah heard the creak of leather. The thud of a hoof dropping against the hard-packed earth.
“Welcome to my humble estancia, Miss Chandler,” the rider said in clear, unaccented English. “I’ve been anticipating your arrival with great eagerness.”
Chapter 15
Sarah stood frozen for an endless moment, her arms wrapped around Ricci. If Jack gave the signal, she didn’t see it.
Her stunned gaze was riveted on the horseman. A thousand conflicting, chaotic thoughts chased through her mind. Out of them all, only one emerged to impress itself on her numbed consciousness. She and Jack and the children hadn’t been brought here because of a rescheduled drop. Nor because the rebels had decided to abandon camp. They’d been brought here because this criminal had somehow learned her identity.
The fear that Sarah had held at bay earlier swamped through her. Her stomach knotted as she watched the horseman swing off his mount with a lithe, easy confidence. He was a short man, she noted, and rather heavy, yet fluid in his movements. He drew the reins over the stallion’s head and patted its muzzle with absent affection.
“I met your father once, some years ago,” he said conversationally, moving toward Sarah. “A most forceful and invigorating man. Very strong in his opinions. When you’re rested and recovered from your ordeal, you must tell me how best to deal with him.”
Jack stepped forward to block the man’s path. “Nobody’s going to be telling—”
“I’ll handle this.”
