Danger Close (The Echo Platoon Series, Book 1)

by Marliss Melton

  "No." She shook her head, still refusing to accept his claim. "My uncle would never harm my father. They were friends even before my parents met. And he's my mother's brother. He was just telling me how much he misses her. Why would he want my father dead when Daddy's given Uncle Paul everything he has?"

  "Why do you think?" Sam asked, on that same pitying note. "With your father out of the picture, he's in charge of Scott Oil forever. The only person who could threaten his succession is you."

  "Me?" Maddy exclaimed.

  "Who inherits Scott Oil when your father dies?" he challenged.

  Another rash of goose bumps sprouted on Maddy's skin. "I don't know. I never thought about it." Had her father made her his primary beneficiary? "But you're wrong, in any case. Uncle Paul would never hurt my father. And he would certainly never hurt me."

  "How do you know?" Sam's tone had hardened subtly.

  "Because we're family!"

  A weighty silence followed her declaration, alleviated only by the sound of wind whistling through the cracked windows as they careened toward the brightly lit town.

  "What does my father say about all this?" Maddy demanded. Surely he didn't believe Sam's ridiculous allegation.

  "Let's just say he wasn't willing to risk your life tonight," Sam clipped. "Unlike you, he hasn't rejected my testimony out of hand. He's bringing the FBI with him, and we're meeting him in Asunción tomorrow to discuss Van Slyke's motives."

  "You seriously think my uncle was going to harm me tonight?" Maddy couldn't fathom it. "You knew I was having dinner with him. My father knew it. If my uncle had tried to kill me, he'd go straight to jail and end up with nothing. Besides, I wasn't in any danger whatsoever. I was actually enjoying myself!"

  Sam set his jaw and kept silent. Slowing at the approaching intersection, he ignored the stop sign and swung them out onto a trafficked main road, speeding them toward town.

  "I'll be flying you to Asunción tonight," Ricardo said into the crackling silence.

  Maddy sat forward, her blood flashing to a boil as she shifted her glance between the two men. "You know what? I've had it up to here with being told where I'm going next!"

  Sam gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles stood out in silhouette. "And I've had it up to here with you resisting what's in your best interest," he retorted.

  Ricardo emitted a chuckle of genuine amusement. "You two are birds of a feather."

  "I am nothing like her," Sam bit out.

  "That's not what you said the other day." Maddy threw herself back in her seat and folded her arms across her chest. Scowling, she glared outside at the darkness while the sweet memories of her and Sam's last encounter raked her heart. "I don't want to leave the area," she insisted, focusing on her immediate plans to do more testing. "I have critical work to do here."

  "You can come back after the FBI investigates your uncle," Sam promised harshly. It occurred to Maddy that he was perhaps as tired of rescuing her from peril as she was tired of being rescued.

  With growing disappointment, she watched the lights of Mariscal Estigarribia brighten as they entered the city limits. Elliot couldn't possibly be the shooter in McLean, she told herself. All big, burly men looked the same, didn't they? And now Sam's confusion was leading to her premature departure when there was work yet to be done.

  It was like Matamoros all over again.

  "Oh, hell, what's this?" Sam groused, focusing her attention on the road before them.

  Looking up, Maddy saw that both lanes were clogged with traffic, mostly vans with strange contraptions mounted on their roofs. A large number of people seemed to be standing on the street. Even in the dark, she could make out a dozen individuals milling around her condominium, some of them on cell phones. One woman stood under a hand-held spotlight with the wall of the military installation at her back and a microphone in her hand.

  "It looks like the press," Ricardo replied.

  "Maddy, don't let them see you," Sam requested. "Keep your head down."

  "I'll find a way around it," Ricardo promised, reaching out to program the GPS. "In the meantime, turn down this alley." He pointed to the narrow side street next to them.

  "I can't even go home first?" Maddy protested. She'd intended to call her father in private and discuss the situation with him first. Who knew? He might relent and let her stay another week.

  Ignoring her question, Sam turned down the alley headed away from her condo.

  In sullen silence, Maddy watched the beams of their headlights bounce before them as they progressed awkwardly through the roads more fit for foot-traffic than for cars. A sense of unreality enveloped her as Sam continued to drive and Ricardo tossed out directions.

  In her line of work, she had always remained vigilant against such threats as terrorism, violence, anti-American sentiment, even disease. Danger had never taken on this particular specter.

  What if Sam was right and her uncle was behind the shooting in McLean? Doubt pricked her briefly. No way. Uncle Paul would have to be utterly without a conscience to turn on his best friend and brother-in-law.

  Her heart accelerated suddenly, pounding like pistons in a high-octane engine.

  She clapped a hand over her jumping breastbone. What on earth? It had to be a belated adrenaline rush. Or maybe this disagreement was Sam was taking a toll on her emotions. If they were going to attempt a relationship after this, they were going to have to get past this rather serious hiccup.

  Given the way Sam was behaving now, his mouth clamped shut as he focused on getting her to the airfield as swiftly as possible, continuing a relationship with her seemed to be the last thing on his mind.

  Chapter 15

  Even with GPS, Ricardo managed to get them lost in the web of unmarked streets. After twenty minutes of driving in what seemed like circles, they finally lurched back onto the highway, well north of the town and the clamoring press. Soon they were nearing the airfield where the SEALs had landed less than two weeks earlier.

  Had it really only been ten days? Sam marveled. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  Ricardo pointed out the lumpy silhouette at the other end of the airfield. "There's the hangar."

  "No one's here," he heard Maddy observe. Her angry tone made it clear that she thought Sam's suspicions regarding her uncle completely bogus. She sure as hell resented having to leave Paraguay before her work was done.

  But Sam didn't question what his gut was telling him. And even though it looked as though their escape would be unhampered, he couldn't shake the uncertainty nipping at him. Raking the flat terrain with a naked eye, he wished fervently that he carried a pair of NVGs in his pack. Anyone could be lying in wait, hidden in the shadows.

  A few stunted palm trees and tufts of coarse savannah grass grew on either side of the runway. An armadillo scuttled across the tarmac in front of them, its eyes shining in the dark as Sam veered around it. At least the place looked deserted.

  But he wasn't willing to bet on it. "You two stay put," he said, parking next to the hangar. "Let me take a look around."

  "I'll go," Ricardo volunteered. "I have the key," he added, snatching the key ring out from the ignition and jingling it.

  Reluctant to let Maddy out of his sight, Sam deferred to Ricardo's wishes. The case officer climbed stiffly out of the passenger seat, a reminder to Sam that he was still recovering from surgery. With a prick of guilt, Sam watched him let himself into the door at the side of the hangar. Silence filled the interior of the Jeep, stretched to the snapping point as Maddy continued to simmer in the back seat.

  That comment she had made about Uncle Paul being family had set off warning bells in his head. It had reminded him exactly what kind of family Maddy came from: a rich and powerful family that used their influence to control other people's lives—people like him.

  Her refusal to believe that Elliot was the shooter he'd wrestled with in McLean rankled. She had chosen loyalty to her so-called family over him. How well did that bode for a future relationship?


  Suddenly, the enormous doors at the front of the hangar rumbled open, and there stood Ricardo, waving them inside.

  "Here we go," Sam said.

  Exiting the Jeep, he escorted Maddy out of the back seat. Keeping a firm grip on her arm—no hand-holding—he drew her briskly toward the hangar. The tack-tack-tack of her high heeled shoes echoed off the concrete. The certainty that something wasn't right assailed him suddenly. His free hand sought the butt of his holstered pistol. Every nerve in his body twitched in anticipation of trouble, but he could see no cause for his concern.

  "This way," Ricardo urged, gesturing for them to follow him farther into the huge metal shelter. "The place has electricity, but I say we keep the lights off."

  "Agreed," Sam murmured. With his ears open, his eyes peeled for danger, he drew Maddy past two midsized, privately owned planes to an even smaller one.

  A faint crackling sound had him swiveling toward the sound while drawing his pistol with the speed of a Western gunslinger. "Did you hear that?" he asked Ricardo.

  The whites of the case officer's eyes shone in the shadows as he looked around. "A bird, perhaps?" he suggested. "There are several nests in the rafters."

  It could have been a bird. All the same, Sam kept his gun at the ready. At least Maddy was cooperating, though they'd make less noise if he carried her—like she'd go for that.

  They waded deeper into the hangar where the ghostly outline of a Cesna-182 took shape before them.

  "This is it," Ricardo announced, bending to inspect the exterior. Sam recognized the four-seater, single-engine airplane as one commonly used by skydivers. Its respectable safety record helped to ease some of his inexplicable fears. The flight to Asunción was only 530 kilometers—330 miles—or so. How dangerous could it be?

  Ricardo unlocked the door for them, and Sam helped Maddy clamber up and into the cabin. To his relief, she went right in, sinking down in one of the back seats. "Need help?" Sam called to Ricardo.

  "No, I've got it," the case officer assured him, waving him inside.

  Do I sit up front? Sam wondered, and brood over Maddy's lack of faith in me, or sit in the back with her? Like a moth drawn to a flame, he chose the back. She'd donned a strappy royal blue dress to wear to her uncle's dinner. Cut similarly to the red cocktail dress she had worn at her father's soiree, it hugged her lithe figure, showing her long legs to advantage.

  She had better be wearing underwear, he thought with a scowl.

  A minute later, Ricardo joined them, locking both doors and taking up residence in the pilot's seat.

  "You sure he knows how to fly this?" Maddy asked. The fight appeared to have gone out of her. She now sounded distinctly uncertain.

  Ricardo reached back to pat her knee. "Maddy," he said. "Once again, I've deceived you and I'm sorry. My job with GEF was just a cover for me. I'm not actually an environmentalist, which you intuited. I work for the CIA. And, yes, I can fly this plane."

  Even in the plane's shadows Sam saw Maddy's mouth fall open. Her incredulous gaze swung in his direction. "So that's how you two know each other. You work together," she guessed.

  Chuckling, Ricardo faced forward again. This evening's adventures were apparently proving highly entertaining to the case officer. He flipped the master switch, lighting up the panel, then hit the auxiliary fuel switch. After several seconds, he turned the ignition handle to start.

  The plane's single engine roared to life, drowning out any comment Maddy might have made and sounding inordinately loud inside the hangar. Under normal circumstances, they would have pushed the plane through the doors first and out onto the tarmac before starting the engine, but they were in too much of a hurry for that.

  With a lurch, they rolled forward, turning slightly to sweep through the bay doors. The wings cleared the opening with ample room to spare. They were just easing onto the moonlit tarmac when a faint flicker of light and an accompanying plink! drew Sam's head around.

  "What was that?" he called. It sounded to him like a something had struck the wing of the plane, but Ricardo, who was wearing a radio headset, looked at him and shook his head. Sam glanced back at Maddy, who shrugged at him.

  His heart beat an uneven tattoo as Ricardo lined them up with the long runway. Without waiting as standard operating procedure dictated for the oil temperature to rise, he pushed the throttle forward, causing the little plane to accelerate. Faster and faster they rolled, the tarmac streaming under them like a dark river. Then, without warning, they were weightless, climbing up, up, up into the star dusted sky.

  Gazing out of the plane's large windows, Sam watched the town's lights shrink to pin-sized specks of illumination in an otherwise pitch-black void. He could see no reason for the tension still gripping his neck and back. It had to be Maddy's earlier assertion—Because we're family!—keeping him so agitated.

  If it wasn't galling enough that her work consistently put her in harm's way, she was and would always be the daughter of a billionaire who thought nothing of asking Sam to rescue her yet again. It was more than Sam could tolerate.

  * * *

  Paul Van Slyke watched the lights of the Cessna retreat into the night sky until they blinked and were gone. Then he lowered his gaze to where Elliot was making his way back from the hangar toward him, as he sat in his Mercedes hidden in a grove of trees.

  He'd instructed Elliot to fire a single shot into the plane's gas tank, and minutes earlier, he'd heard the shot being fired. It was done, then. The plane would run out of fuel before the pilot had the chance to turn around and make it back to the runway. He would be forced to land on rugged terrain where the plane would break into hundreds of pieces the way Melinda's plane had done. And everyone on board would die.

  A peculiar taste lingered on Paul's tongue.

  He hadn't realized when he'd made the decision to eliminate the Navy SEAL that he would end up sacrificing his niece in the same way that he'd dispatched his sister. The coincidence worried him. What if someone made a connection? Not that he regretted having to kill Maddy. If she'd drunk enough of that poison-laced wine, she'd have died eventually, anyway. He could not afford for her to inherit what rightfully belonged to him—ownership of Scott Oil Corporation. Still, he hadn't meant for her to perish in an ugly plane crash.

  Luckily, he wasn't burdened with what others called a conscience. But logic alone dictated that Maddy should die a painless death. After all, over the course of her life, she'd provided Paul with countless hours of entertainment. She'd reminded him so many times of his sister, that he'd scarcely even mourned Melinda's passing. Certainly, life would be dull without Maddy.

  He heaved a sigh that his plans had veered off course, if only slightly. With the SEAL out of the way, Lyle would eventually forget about the man's allegations—if he'd even heard them in the first place. Besides, he'd be so distraught over his daughter's death that he'd have no choice but to lean on Paul as he'd done in the past. Paul would surely remain at the helm and continue as CEO indefinitely.

  The heavy tread of Elliot's feet reminded him of one last thread that required snipping. His bodyguard had proven to be too much of a liability. And now he had outlived his usefulness. It was high time that Paul dispatched Elliot, too.

  * * *

  Glancing over at Maddy, Sam did a double take. Not only was she hugging herself hard, but her chin was tucked to her chest in an attitude of uncharacteristic terror. "Hey," he called out. "What's wrong?"

  When she didn't answer him, he wondered whether she was playing games—acting terrified to break through the barrier he'd erected. With a sigh of resignation, he put a hand on her shoulder and realized she was trembling. He cupped her chin, forcing her to look over at him. Her panicked gaze sent a shaft of uncertainty through him.

  "What's wrong?" he repeated.

  "I don't like small planes," she said in a thin voice.

  It took him a second to realize why. Her mother had gone down in a plane like this. Comprehension and compassion edged aside
his lingering annoyance. "You're not going to die," he insisted.

  She nodded, clearly just to placate him, as she still looked terrified.

  Reluctantly, he scooted closer on the bench seat and put an arm around her, knowing it would undermine his resentment the instant they touched. Sure enough, when she leaned into him, laying her head against his chest, he had trouble remembering why he was so mad at her. She'd been enjoying her uncle's company, hearing stories about her mother, whom she clearly missed every day of her life. He'd have to be an ass to hold it against her for wanting to stay.

  Reaching for his bag, he unzipped the pocket and reached inside. "I stopped by your condo earlier and picked this up for you."

  Maddy gasped, clutching the small book to her heart. "My mother's journal," she exclaimed. She sent him a searching look.

  "Something told me you wouldn't want to be without it."

  "I wouldn't. Thank you," she softly said, summoning a weak smile for him.

  Putting himself in her shoes, Sam could appreciate why she wouldn't want to believe her mother's brother could have targeted her father, let alone that he would seek to harm her, as well. His resentment frittered away, allowing him to turn his head and kiss her temple.

  "It's going to be all right," he assured her. His gaze strayed to her lap where the hem of her dress had ridden toward the tops of her thighs. He was dying to put a hand down there to assuage his curiosity.

  He was just about to venture a bold attempt when Ricardo uttered a virulent curse. Sam felt Maddy go tense at the pilot's tone.

  "What is it?" Sam asked, sitting forward.

  The case officer shook his head while staring at the display. "One of the tanks must have a leak. It was full when we took off."

  A suspicion wormed its way into Sam's thoughts. He leaned across Maddy's knees to peer out of the side of the plane where that strange sound had come from earlier. Cupping a hand to block the light from the cockpit, he spied a thin trail of gasoline weeping from the wing where he knew the fuel bladder to be located.