He heard the balcony door open, but he didn’t move as he closed his silent prayer. He then looked up to see Vanessa watching him.
Vanessa stared at him curiously for a moment before closing the door behind her. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” Seth watched her sit beside him. “Did you sleep okay?”
“I guess so.” Vanessa brushed over his question and leaned closer. “You know, we may not have much time. I think we need to figure out a reason for me to spend some time with Akil so I can try to get a better handle on what he’s up to.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Seth said cautiously.
“Seth, this is what I’ve been trained for,” Vanessa insisted. “I need to do this, or we may not find the information we need.”
Seth let out a sigh. He didn’t like the idea of Vanessa being alone with Akil, but she was right. They weren’t going to find out what Akil was planning if someone didn’t win his confidence. “All right, but you have to promise to be careful.”
“Trust me,” Vanessa said softly. “I’m always careful.”
* * *
Vanessa held the diamond bracelet in her hand as she stepped off of the elevator on the second floor. She still wasn’t sure what to think about what she’d seen that morning when she walked onto the balcony. If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn that Seth was praying. She shook this thought away, focusing instead on her current goal.
She immediately spotted Akil in the dining room where he was finishing his breakfast. After Seth had made her aware of the tracking device that was implanted in the bracelet Halim had given her, Vanessa had decided to use Halim’s ploy to her advantage. She only hoped that she could pull it off.
Akil looked up and saw her enter, nodding a greeting. “Good morning, Lina. Where is Seth this morning?”
“He’s working out in the weight room upstairs,” Vanessa told him. “He knew that I wanted to speak with you privately.”
Akil’s eyebrows lifted. “Really?”
“Did you know about this?” Vanessa held out the bracelet Halim had given her, the tracking device in the clasp now exposed.
“Of course,” Akil said unapologetically. “That is how we knew you and Seth were together at La Playa.”
Vanessa let her voice become indignant and she slammed both hands down on the table. “How could you let Halim treat me this way?”
“My dear, it is difficult for a man to desire a woman and know that her heart is elsewhere.” Akil’s voice was deceptively understanding.
The tone of his voice made her wonder who had really wanted her followed. “Was the bracelet really from Halim, or was it from you?”
“I had to make sure that you weren’t sneaking out to meet someone who wasn’t worthy of you.”
“But Halim suggested it.”
Akil reached out and put a hand on hers. His eyes darkened as he squeezed her hand. Hard. “Don’t forget your place.” He kept his eyes on hers, and Vanessa felt chills run down her spine. “And remember, Halim has been my trusted advisor for many years.”
When Akil released her hand, Vanessa took a deep breath and gathered her courage. “Perhaps it’s time you start trusting those in your own family.”
“If I didn’t trust you, you wouldn’t be here.” Akil pushed his plate back and stood up. “Your father may have allowed you to be involved in his affairs, but he would never involve you with the people I am working with now.”
“You’re talking about Morenta,” Vanessa said, surprising herself.
“His money will help us accomplish what your father started out to do,” Akil admitted. “But I won’t risk your safety and have you involved. Morenta has been known to kidnap or even kill the family members of his business partners when he feels they aren’t cooperating with him.”
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed. “You think he might hurt me?”
“That’s exactly what I think.” Akil nodded. “I owe it to your father to protect you from him.”
“Why exactly are you involved with Morenta? We don’t need him,” she said, her voice becoming a bit petulant.
“We do, but only for a little while longer,” Akil said with a patronizing tone as he patted her hand, gently this time. “Get something to eat, take a walk on the beach. I don’t want you to worry about these things.”
Vanessa clenched her teeth. She took a breath and let out a frustrated sigh. “When can I go see my father?”
“You’ll have to wait a little while longer.”
* * *
Seth’s arms pumped as he continued running at full speed on the treadmill in the well-equipped weight room on the fourth floor. The stress of the last thirty-six hours was weighing on him, and he wondered how Vanessa had managed to live these lies for more than a year. He could barely stand it, and it hadn’t even been two days.
Through the wall of windows across from him, he could see the beach and the constant surf. This place would have been a paradise if not for the armed guards everywhere—not to mention the misguided moral compass of the current tenants. He watched a midsized jet flying in over the ocean. When he realized it was going to land at the airstrip, he slowed his pace to a jog and then to a walk. Grabbing a towel off of a nearby shelf, he wiped the sweat off of his face and moved closer to the window.
Three vehicles were waiting near the runway, apparently to bring the new arrivals to the house. Seth took a deep breath as his pulse began to steady. He stared as the airplane door was opened and the first passengers began to deplane. He counted nine people before his eyes narrowed as yet another man appeared in the doorway.
Even from this distance, Seth recognized the man. Morenta, the man responsible for countless murders and nearly half of the drug traffic coming through Mexico; the man who had been on the government’s most wanted list for as long as Seth could remember. More than once Seth’s SEAL team had prepared to apprehend him, but every time they came close, Morenta would return to his stronghold in Colombia, where the U.S. military had no right to go.
The elevator doors opened, and Seth turned to see Vanessa walk in. Relief pulsed through him as he considered that he didn’t want her anywhere near Morenta and the men who had arrived with him.
“My uncle knew all about it,” Vanessa said, annoyance in her voice and challenge in her eyes.
“Really?” Seth’s eyebrows lifted, and he fought the smile that tried to surface. Seeing Vanessa shaken and vulnerable the day before had been harder than he ever could have imagined. The woman facing him now, the one who looked like she was ready to take on the world despite the odds, was the Vanessa he remembered. The Vanessa who no matter how hard he tried to forget had stayed firmly rooted in his memories.
Oblivious to Seth’s rambling thoughts, she lifted her hands in frustration and then let them slap back down to her side. “I don’t know who came up with the idea, but somehow Halim must have figured out that I was seeing you.”
“It wasn’t like we were really hiding it.” Seth played along. “After all, your father approved of us a long time ago.”
“Yeah, but my father trusted both of us. I hate not knowing what’s going on,” Vanessa told him.
“One thing I do know. Morenta just arrived,” Seth told her. By the look on Vanessa’s face, he suspected that she already knew of his impending arrival. Seth draped the towel he held around his neck and added, “I’m surprised to see your uncle doing business with him. Morenta isn’t known for playing well with others.”
“Uncle Akil knows that. He told me this morning that he doesn’t want me anywhere near him.”
“Your uncle is very wise in that regard. I’m sure he doesn’t want to risk your safety,” Seth told her. “Morenta has a tendency of hurting those close to his associates when things don’t go his way.”
“It sounds like I might be safer going to visit my father after all.”
“Unless Morenta is involved with plans for a strike on American soil,” Seth surmised.
<
br /> Vanessa stared up at him, clearly having deduced the same thing. “Like I said, I hate not knowing what’s going on.”
* * *
“I don’t understand.” Kel shook his head in frustration as he settled down on the couch in Amy and Brent’s temporary apartment. “If the mole had been someone in the field office, the guards at La Playa should have been ready for the raid. According to the police, there wasn’t any indication that they’d been tipped off.”
“I didn’t pick up on any unusual calls coming from our suspects either,” Quinn said, tapping on the communication reports he had printed out. He had stayed in constant contact with Interpol from the time the raid began shortly after dark until an hour ago when Interpol had faxed over a preliminary listing of what they had found.
“This doesn’t make any sense.” Brent shook his head as he looked over the weapons inventory list. “They still had quite a bit of firepower at La Playa as well as a cargo plane on their runway. I really think they at least would have cleaned the high-tech stuff out of there if they had known the cops were coming.”
“I agree.” Kel nodded. “So now what? Amy, did you see anything unusual?”
“Not really.” Amy shook her head. “Everyone was pretty stressed trying to put together the intel reports for the raid all day. Almost everyone,” she corrected as she thought of the secretary. “Gina wasn’t really involved, but she doesn’t seem to get flustered by anything anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Kel asked.
“I was standing right there when the call first came in from Interpol. She seemed more annoyed that the call had interrupted our conversation than concerned about why someone from Interpol was calling,” Amy said. “All she wanted was to talk about wedding colors and diamond rings.” Amy looked from Kel to Brent as a new understanding of the situation dawned on her. She shook her head, annoyed that she hadn’t considered all of the possibilities earlier. “The boyfriend.”
“What?” Brent asked, clearly recognizing that light in his wife’s eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Amy sat up a little straighter. “Gina’s so cavalier about what’s going on in the office that she might be the leak without even knowing it. She may be passing information to her boyfriend without realizing how critical it is.”
“Didn’t she say her boyfriend is a pilot?” Quinn asked. “If he’s out of town a lot, he could be using his job as a cover story.”
“And since he calls her every night, she wouldn’t have had the information to pass on to him in time for Akil’s men to know the raid was about to happen,” Amy added.
“Do we have a name for this guy?” Kel asked.
Amy shook her head. “No, and she doesn’t have a picture of him at work anywhere that I could see.”
Kel motioned to Quinn. “Pull up all of the photos we have on Ramir’s associates. Let’s see if we can get this guy identified.”
Amy’s eyebrows lifted. “Kel, it’s two in the morning.”
“It will take an hour or two to get the photos together,” Kel told her. “We can wait until five or six before we go have a chat with the secretary.”
“In that case, I’m going to take a nap.”
“Get one while you can,” Kel agreed. “After we talk to Gina, we’re going to close up shop here.” He then motioned to Brent. “I want you to check on our transport to the Truman. I want it here by oh-seven-hundred. It’s time we get into position to see what’s going on inside the fortress.”
“I hope Seth and Vanessa are okay,” Amy said quietly.
“Don’t worry.” Kel’s voice was tight. “We don’t leave anyone behind.”
19
Seth stood out on the balcony listening to the voices overhead. He didn’t need to see the faces of the three men speaking to sense the tension between them. He could hear it. Their voices were low, but he could hear them clearly from where he stood on the thick balcony railing right below where Akil was currently standing. He recognized Halim’s voice as well, and there was one other man present whom he couldn’t identify.
“Why were the weapons still there?” Akil demanded. “I told you to have them moved yesterday.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but I told you that we had a problem with one of the planes,” the unidentified man said. “They were getting ready to load it up when the cops got there.”
“And what happened to your source?” Akil asked now, apparently speaking to Halim.
“The information came in late.” Halim’s voice was tense.
“I can’t afford these kinds of mistakes, especially now that Morenta is here.” Fury vibrated through Akil’s voice.
“We can still go forward,” Halim said now, although Seth sensed that he was maintaining a healthy distance between himself and Akil.
Halim continued to speak. “The detonators have already been delivered, we have enough explosives hidden in Arizona to strike, and most of the antiaircraft guns have already been shipped.”
“What exactly did we lose?”
The other man started rattling off a list of weapons, most of them automatic weapons, along with a few specialty items including grenade launchers and two antiaircraft guns.
Seth’s head whipped around when he heard the balcony door open. He let out a relieved sigh when he saw it was Vanessa. Silently he held one finger to his lips and then pointed to the balcony above them.
She nodded, quietly closing the door behind her.
Akil’s voice lowered so that Seth could barely hear him. “The strikes have to be timed perfectly for this to work. We only have three days to work out the details with Morenta.” He paused for effect. “Believe me, none of us want to deal with him if anything goes wrong.”
“Nothing will go wrong,” Halim said, repeating the same words he had spoken the night before. This time though, Seth thought he could hear doubt in his voice.
Seth didn’t step back onto his balcony until after he was sure the three men had gone back inside. He then squatted down and eased himself quietly back onto the balcony next to Vanessa.
“What happened?” Vanessa asked quietly in case anyone was on the balcony above or below them.
“I’m guessing there was a raid at La Playa,” Seth told her.
“Do you think it was your squad?”
He shrugged. “If it was at La Playa, I’m sure the Saint Squad was involved somehow.”
Vanessa looked at him quizzically. “Why are you called the ‘Saint Squad’?”
“You know. Like Latter-day Saints.” For the first time in days, Seth let himself relax with a genuine smile.
Vanessa’s eyebrows shot up and she gaped at him. “Don’t tell me you’re working with a bunch of Mormons.”
Seth felt an odd little flutter of nerves in his stomach as he considered how Vanessa might react to the truth. His grin faded as he took a deep breath and forced himself to look directly at her. “All of us in the squad are LDS.”
Vanessa’s mouth dropped open. Then closed. Then opened again. “You’re Mormon?”
Seth nodded, the insecurities creeping back in. Would she have married him so many years ago if he had been Mormon, or had the real reason been that she didn’t love him the way he loved her? “Yeah. Four years now.”
Her mouth dropped open once more. She shook her head and asked incredulously, “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I tried.” Seth leaned back against the balcony railing. He needed to put some distance between them before he did something stupid. Something like kissing her when she would know it wasn’t just for show. “I came back to see you, but I heard you had gotten married.”
“Seth, I’m so sorry. That was just a story I had going around to explain why I disappeared the first time I went undercover.”
“Now I know.” Seth gave what he hoped was a casual shrug.
He started to reach for the door, but Vanessa grabbed his arm. “We have to talk about what happened between us.”
“What is there to talk ab
out?” Seth managed, the anger and hurt welling up in him even as he tried to fight it. He kept his voice low, but he still spoke with intensity. “You dated me for six years. Six years. We talked about getting married, we talked about our future. Not once did you ever tell me that marrying me was out of the question.”
“I tried to explain that it was because of my religion.” Vanessa’s whisper was equally passionate. “You’re Mormon now. Surely you understand how important a temple marriage is.”
“But you were Mormon the whole time we dated. How could you have let us get to that point?” Seth asked. Something squeezed at his heart as he forced himself to continue. “You knew I wanted to marry you.”
Tears glistened in Vanessa’s eyes. Her voice was barely louder than a whisper when she admitted, “I never thought I was going to say no.” She stared up at him for a long moment. Her voice was soft as she continued. “Seth, I never meant to hurt you. Until you asked the question, I never realized how important it was for me to have a temple marriage.”
“And I stupidly assumed that it wasn’t a big deal.” Seth didn’t want to see the vulnerability on her face. Despite the years that had passed, the hurt of their last day together still left a deep ache that had never completely faded. Even now that she was trying to explain, he realized he wasn’t ready to forgive her. “Besides, you never gave me the chance to change.”
“You’re right, but be honest,” Vanessa insisted, swiping at a tear that spilled over. “Would you have gotten baptized so that you could marry me?”
“I don’t know.” Seth shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Would you have done it for me or because you believed in the gospel?”
“What difference does that make?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
“It would have made all the difference.” Slowly, Vanessa reached up and touched his cheek. She blinked back the tears and stared for a moment. Then she dropped her hand and stepped back. “Good night, Seth.”
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