Target Engaged

by M. L. Buchman

  Kyle nodded.

  “We had hoped that someone might ask if one faction was bringing in Sinaloa on their side. Someone big enough to wipe out the General and release the Major’s prisoners. Rather than just rumors, there will now be solid reports from trained observers whose panicked messages will be trusted. Any pal they tell is going to head for the hills. And the stories they spread will only add to the confusion. Now no one will trust anyone else in the military drug trade.”

  “Woman is hot,” Chad remarked quietly from close beside him.

  “You’d best be referring to her brains.” Kyle felt the bite of jealousy but kept it down.

  “She is hot in many ways, bro, but her brain is on fire. That was a seriously slick play.”

  Okay, Kyle could acknowledge that.

  “It was nice, Carla. Wish I’d thought it up.” But that was her strength.

  He didn’t need to say anything about being glad he had followed her lead. That would have been something to say back in the Green Berets. In Delta it had been trained out of them. Inside The Unit it was a given that you trusted your teammate, even if you didn’t know why they were doing something—especially then. They’d learned to completely trust each other’s judgment. It was surprising how much that elimination of second-guessing accelerated the speed of an operation.

  “Damn nice,” he finally conceded. Chad was right. She was “hot” in many, many ways.

  There were only two room keys on the table. Master keys hopefully. He tossed them to Chad. “Open the rooms, let’s see if we can’t get everyone out of here without bringing in doctors and police. Not a word, just herd them into the lobby. Then double-check the rooms on nine to make sure they’re empty.”

  Chad came forward and picked up the handcuff keys as well. Of course, that’s how they’d be kept in their rooms, which wouldn’t lock from the outside.

  “Let’s clear the weapons.” Kyle nodded at the vast array left behind by the departing guards. They’d definitely been into their toys. There were HKs, Makarovs, and Chinese knockoffs.

  Carla grabbed a pillowcase and began ejecting magazines, clearing chambers, and dumping emptied weapons into the case. He started with the rifles, tossing them on the bedspread and the rounds into Carla’s bag. A low babble of voices rose out in the halls.

  By the time he’d stripped the weapons off the two dead guards in the adjacent room and collected all of their own shooting brass from where it had scattered, twenty-five people were standing in the hall. Everyone accounted for.

  Kyle stepped to the fore and spoke.

  “On behalf of General Vasquez and Major Gonzalez, I would like to apologize for your detention.”

  Several were sick, hanging on to others. A number of the prettier women looked as if they’d been roughed up many times, probably in the worst ways. They all faced Kyle grimly with hatred burning in their eyes. One person in a despised military uniform looked much like another.

  “Neither one is able to be here to beg your forgiveness…nor will they ever be again. We have removed them from the equation.”

  Surprise rippled through the crowd. Tentative smiles flickered across the faces of one or two of them, but died quickly. They’d long since learned not to trust in hope.

  “There is a line of taxis”—he didn’t bother checking his watch, their timing had been good—“even now pulling up in front of the hotel. They are prepaid and will take you where you direct them—a relation’s, a police station, a hospital. We suggest you call the elevators and go now. Adiós.”

  No one moved.

  Richie came up the stairwell from the ninth floor and shook his head. It had just been a buffer zone, no prisoners on that floor.

  The hostages still stood mute and waited, unprepared for the sudden change in their fortunes.

  Duane moved far enough among them to hit the call button. He, Chad, and finally Richie held doors until all three of the elevators stood open and empty. At first sidling sideways and finally in a mad, jumbled rush, the freed hostages bolted into the elevators—the last few scuttling from one elevator to the next looking for any slack space they could squeeze into. In moments the tenth-floor lobby was empty.

  Kyle hefted the bedspread filled with empty rifles and headed for the stairwell. Carla was struggling to shoulder the now three pillowcases of ammo and handguns. Six guards with more weapons than an entire company of Green Berets. He took one of the bags from her and added it to his own load.

  “What about their money?” Chad cocked a thumb back toward the high-stakes poker game. Tens of thousands of Venezuelan bolivars were scattered across the table, along with a surprising amount of American money. Major Gonzalez had clearly known that he didn’t own their loyalty, but that he could buy their allegiance.

  Kyle traded smiles with Carla.

  “Tip for the maids,” she said for him. “These guys were just pigs.” She gathered up the bulging pillowcase.

  They trotted down the stairs to Carla’s original room on the second floor and exited out the window to the shrubbery below.

  Kyle was last down and pulled the doubled-over line back down after him. No sign that anyone had been in the room, except for the window being left open.

  * * *

  Carla spun and drew her Glock as soft applause sounded from the shadows of the hotel’s garden close beside her.

  Tanya Zimmer stood just beneath a young coconut palm slowly clapping her hands together.

  “You have caused much of a stir in the lobby this day. I perhaps happened to be enjoying a late-night drink in the bar.”

  Carla slowly holstered her weapon as the others gathered round.

  “First, four men in T-shirts spattered with blood, rushed through as if chased by Cerberus, the three-headed hound of hell. After that a large group poured out of the three elevators at once looking elated, terrified, and sadly the worse for much wear. The night clerk is perhaps even now still on the phone trying to find an explanation from any persons. The line of taxis was a very polite thought, I might so speak.”

  Chad moved up close beside her. “We have no idea what you’re on about, beautiful, but thanks for the applause anyway. Want to go somewhere private and discuss it in detail?”

  She patted his cheek. “You are very cute, Romeo, but not cute enough to sidetrack me so lightly.”

  “Damn! And I try so hard.”

  “Yes, you do, and we do see that. And by what chance would I be interested in a mere teniente coronel”—she fingered the shoulder pad of Chad’s uniform—“when there is a gorgeous general de brigada standing right here before me.”

  “Because he’s taken.” Chad smiled. “I’m not.”

  “Perhaps that is so.” Tanya was clearing enjoying the fun of teasing Chad. “Or perhaps it is her I was talking about.” She nodded to Carla, who wore the same single sol of a one-star general that Kyle did.

  Carla returned the smile as Chad groaned.

  Tanya totally had his number. Then with an easy shift, she was suddenly pure business. “You must need to get out of here, now. Meet me tomorrow at noon at the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Chiquinquirá. Perhaps we can talk business. Only you two”—she indicated Kyle and Carla herself—“should, I think, be visible.”

  “Hey!” Chad protested.

  “You, my Teniente Coronel”—she slipped a hand through his arm—“I think that you will be with me.”

  Chad did a double check with Kyle, and he nodded.

  It would be good. He’d be able to monitor the woman and keep an eye on her. If trouble arose, there were few men on the planet more qualified to deal with it than Chad Hawkins.

  They had also back-checked Tanya Zimmer of Société de Reportage International through Agent Fred Smith during the pre-operation satellite radio check-in.

  She’d been telling the truth. She had been a registered
reporter with SRI in good standing for over five years, as well as a registered and active member of Reporters Without Borders. She filed stories sporadically, but sufficiently to support her claim.

  And she wasn’t Mossad, or rather not a part of Mossad that many, even on the inside of Israel’s intelligence agency, knew existed. Richie had managed to grab a photo of her at their meeting over dinner and sent it to Smith. The CIA had matched her to a very grainy photo taken in the center of a Syrian riot against the government that indicated she might be Kidon—Mossad’s elite counterterrorism unit and kill squad. The same ones actively murdering Iran’s top nuclear scientists.

  They shed their uniform tops into the same pillowcase as the guards’ handguns and pulled on light jackets; the evening temperatures had dropped into the high sixties. The jackets also covered their holstered weapons.

  “How does he get the babe?” Richie watched Chad and Tanya head off into the dimly lit parking lot.

  “Lucky pissant,” Duane grumbled.

  “Then what about him?” Richie aimed a thumb at Kyle.

  “Lucky pissant,” Duane grumbled again.

  Which pretty much described how Carla was feeling—damned lucky to be with Kyle. And this team.

  “So, Duane,” she drawled as they headed toward the Toyota Fortuner SUV rental they’d dropped in a dark corner of the parking lot, “how do you feel about being on this team?”

  His smile shone brightly in the darkness. “Lucky pissant.”

  They all laughed and drove back to their own hotel with an SUV full of Venezuelan weapons.

  Chapter 20

  Their room off the team’s suite in the Hotel Ventura had a small private balcony that faced east over the silence of Club Náutico marina, their sailboat, and the lake. The darkness hid any sign of the far bank. There should have been lights from the docks and towns on the far side of this narrowest part of the lake, but they must have been hit by yet another of the rolling blackouts that plagued the country.

  Kyle knew the infrastructure was collapsing on every side of the “elected” dictatorship, but he didn’t want to think about that.

  Instead, he sat quietly beside Carla and stared out at the stars that filled the sky. They were just six hundred miles north of the equator; he’d never been so far south.

  “It’s really lovely here, isn’t it?” His whisper sounded loud in the still darkness. Not a single ship was moving in the wide channel.

  “You mean other than the drugs and the hostages and the killing and that stuff.”

  They lay curled together on a double-wide lounge chair that strangely reminded him of the grassy bank at the end of the Forty-Miler. The angle was the same though the sky was different. Rather than the thick forest canopy of the Uwharrie, they lay facing the limitless sky over the largest lake in South America. He wore underwear and she an oversized T-shirt, and they’d dragged the light comforter off the bed and tossed it over themselves.

  Each bedroom in the suite had a private balcony.

  He’d thought to make love to her out here, some wild post-op sex. And it hadn’t been picturing Chad and Tanya doing precisely that act somewhere else in Maracaibo city that had stopped him. He’d simply been too warm and comfortable with Carla curled against him to do more.

  “Lovely?” she echoed his comment.

  “Yes.”

  “Like love?”

  “Sure.”

  “Like you love me?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Shit!”

  “What?” He tried to look down at her, but his only view was the top of her head, a soft cloud of shadowed hair leaning against his shoulder in the darkness. Why was she—

  He figured it out.

  “Oh shit!”

  “You’re a quick one, tough guy.”

  “I just said I loved you.” Strategically bad move. Really bad.

  “You did.”

  He tried to gauge the tone of her voice, but it was so neutral that he couldn’t read much from it. Delta had trained him that sometimes it was wisest not to speak.

  “You mean it, don’t you?” She hadn’t moved from her position curled against him, head on his shoulder.

  Good sign, right? He waited a moment longer just in case it was the silence before the storm. When the storm held off, he decided that his best course of action was confirming it.

  “Yeah. Have for a while. Didn’t seem like the brightest maneuver, but I’m past charting a way out of it. I’m noticing you haven’t tried to kill me yet.”

  “I’m kind of noticing that too.” She shifted back. Not far enough to be trying to get away from him though, still within the curve of his arm. She looked up at him with the starlight catching tiny reflections off her dark eyes.

  “What do you think it means?” A part of him was screaming for her to say it back and fall into his arms—just like a goddamn movie cliché, which Carla had never been.

  “I don’t know.” Her voice remained soft as she studied him. “I like being with you more than any other man ever. But there are a few things that you don’t know about me, Kyle.”

  “Such as?” She liked him? Shit! He’d been crazy gone on this woman since the day she’d rolled into The Unit and fed a chunk of concrete wall to old Ralph Whoever. He’d been in love with her since…

  “Such as, my heart died four years ago.”

  Had it been since the day he’d first seen her? Or when she’d caught his ass on the Forty-Miler? Or leaning back against a pane of darkened glass dressed like a Venezuelan general and chatting with a group of men walking along the verge of death or… A thousand moments filled his mind. He felt his brain fill simply thinking about her.

  Carla was waiting for something. For what… For his brain to shut up long enough to hear what she’d just said.

  “Wait? Your heart what?”

  “I lost Mom eight years ago. I went Army the day I buried my big brother next to her in Arlington. I went Delta on the fourth anniversary of his death.”

  “Doesn’t mean your heart died. I’ve heard it beating plenty.” Doofus statement. Best he had at the moment. Mom and brother both military casualties, both while she was still a teen. And Delta required a minimum four years of service before applying. She’d done that to the day. And he’d thought before that she was a driven woman; he’d had no idea. It explained a lot of her reactions.

  “I’m sorry, Kyle. You don’t know how sorry I am. I wish I had more to give you. I really wish I did. But this is all there is. Good operations. Good sex. No love. No marriage. No happy ever after, and you deserve so much more. You’re such an amazing man. I’m so sorry, but that’s all I have to give you.”

  She climbed out of his arms and he did nothing to stop her. He couldn’t. He’d never considered that she didn’t love him back. He’d simply figured she wasn’t ready yet or…

  Good operations and good sex? That’s what she thought they had together?

  He heard her slip through the balcony door like a whisper in the darkness but couldn’t speak to call her back.

  He’d never been in love before, not once in his life.

  And now she…wasn’t in love with him.

  His brain kept chasing around the impossibility of what she’d said until the sky lightened.

  The sun was well above the horizon before he finally managed to move. He was stiff, cold, and the sun didn’t reach anywhere near where the chill was radiating out from deep inside his body.

  Inside the bedroom, he found Carla in the bed. Their bed. The side nearest him had the covers folded down in clear invitation.

  She was offering him her body, just not her heart.

  Well, that wasn’t enough for him. Not with her. Not with Carla Anderson. She was the one for him…except he wasn’t the one for her. How in this fucked-up world had that happened? How had he not seen
this coming?

  She lay curled up under the covers, every shape clear and so familiar beneath the draped landscape.

  His body ached to go to her. To prove her wrong. To prove that he was even more of an idiot than he really was. He wanted to make gentle love that he now knew would never happen. He wanted to slam her down hard and shake some goddamn sense into her.

  Of course she loved him.

  She had to.

  But she didn’t.

  His fists throbbed with how hard they were clenched.

  He studied her face in the sunlight streaming in from the balcony, amazed that she slept so deeply that it didn’t wake her.

  Why should it? There were no tears on her pillow. No pain creased her brow. Gorgeous as a fairy sleeping in the sunlight.

  The Wild Woman was proving that she was just fine without him. He needed to go pound something to make it better—like his head against a brick wall. Yep, he and old Ralph Whoever, both fucked by the same woman.

  He dressed quietly and headed out into the living room before he did something he might regret.

  * * *

  Carla lay there and listened to the soft snick of the door closing behind Kyle as he left the bedroom. She had watched him standing there, unmoving in the sun at the balcony’s threshold. His outline a shadow on her closed eyelids, framed by brilliant sunlight.

  He stood still for the longest time, long enough for the sun to shift behind him as if he was moving away from her.

  Then, between one heartbeat and the next, he’d been gone and she was alone in the room.

  She pulled the covers over her head to block the sunlight.

  Carla had never promised him her heart. She’d never lied to him or even told him it was a possibility.

  There had been a night, one night, when she’d been exhausted past reason, that he had made gentle, perfect love to her. She should have known, should have stopped it then and saved them both the pain. But she couldn’t. No one had ever made her feel like that.