“And you were coming here to do what? Some late-night typing for Therese? At 2:00 a.m.?”
She didn’t like the lopsided grin on his face or the innuendo in his voice. Frowning, she growled in a hushed tone, “I’m not saying anything until I know who you really are!”
Mac nodded. “Okay, you first.”
Her breathing shallow and hard, Kathy glared at him. “No way! You’re working for a drug lord and I know you know that! You’re in cahoots with him!” His smile didn’t change. Right now, Mac Coulter was a hellish adversary.
Kathy rapidly considered her options. He was too far away for a karate punch. He had a gun and she didn’t. Dammit, why hadn’t she thought of that? She had two in her bedroom. Why didn’t she wear one? The guards would think nothing of it. After all, she was Tiki’s bodyguard, and it would be expected. She’d screwed up, royally. She’d gotten too complacent over time.
“Who are you working for?” Mac demanded. He didn’t like aiming the pistol at her, but there was nothing else he could do. Seeing the rage and then the frustration in her deeply shadowed face, he wondered if she was his enemy. If so, he was going to have to get rid of her—permanently—or his cover was blown. This was messy. Mac hadn’t expected anyone to be in the office. From time to time, he’d sneak in, jimmy the lock and try to find out where Therese kept the information on the drug lords and shipping routes. He knew it was in her laptop. Finding the password had been a slow process over the last year, because Mac obviously couldn’t be caught in here. Tonight he’d located the file—finally—and then Kathy had come into the office. He still didn’t have the password, however. Grimly, he held her belligerent stare.
“I don’t have to tell you a damn thing, Coulter. If that’s who you really are,” she spat out. Again, she saw that one-cornered smile. It didn’t quite reach his glittering gray eyes. That pistol didn’t waver, a fierce reminder that she was in way over her head. What had made her think she could ever pull off this mission? And look who had stopped her! The man she’d least suspected.
“You’d better tell me or you aren’t going to live to see the dawn,” he drawled. Her eyes widened, and he saw her tremble.
“You’re the enemy!”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Dammit, you work for him!” Kathy stabbed her finger toward the villa, where Garcia was sleeping.
“Keep your voice down,” Mac ordered her harshly. She was shaking now. From fear? He wasn’t sure. Standing tensely, her fists at her side, he clearly saw the rage and frustration in Kathy’s expression. Even hatred. Toward him? Garcia?
“Why the hell should I trust you, Coulter? You fly for that son of a bitch!”
Lifting his chin, he asked, “Is that why you’re here? To get even with him?”
Stunned by his insight, Kathy gulped. She wiped the perspiration from her face. “I’m saying nothing.”
“You’re an American spy.”
His accusation felt like a slap in the face. And he’d said it like a statement of fact. Should she trust him? Heart racing, feeling shaky with the surge of adrenaline, Kathy stood there, uncertain. She wanted to trust him. Her mind raced over all the times Mac had been kind and thoughtful to her and the children. Especially the children. Tilting her head, she looked deep into his hardened gray eyes. “I can’t believe you’re not an American agent.”
“What would make you think that?” Mac saw every fleeting expression on her pale face.
“You’re good with the kids.”
The corners of his mouth lifted. “That’s a helluva way to decide if someone is your friend or not.”
“Women’s intuition, dammit!” she flared. “Who are you?”
“Like I said—you go first. Are you an American agent or not?” Her life depended upon her answer. Mac listened for other sounds. They were in a highly delicate position here in this office—two spies tripping over one another unexpectedly. “How do I know you’re not a mole Garcia planted?” he demanded darkly.
“Oh, give me a break, Coulter! I wouldn’t work with that bastard if my life depended on it!”
“Well, your life does depend on it.”
Glaring at him, Kathy snarled, “Okay, I’m here on a mission. I’m here to bring the bastard down.”
Relief sheeted through Mac. He was damn glad this room was not bugged. “What agency are you working with?”
“None,” Kathy barked. “I did this on my own.”
Surprised, Mac kept the pistol trained on her. Her eyes were round with righteous anger. “That’s impossible. No one gets this far up into this drug ring without outside help.”
“Okay, so I had a little help from a SEAL buddy of mine. They had the intel I needed to break into Garcia’s little world.”
Stymied, Mac stared at her. “You’re military?”
“Yeah, I’m a U.S. Marine, mister.”
“I’ll be damned.” Mac grinned tightly and lowered the pistol. He saw her visibly sag against the door. “A Marine, of all things. Well, you certainly tripped me up on that one. I thought you might be a spy, but I never suspected the angle you were coming from.”
“Now tell me who you are.”
“I’m on your side,” Mac said briskly.
“You aren’t telling me?” Kathy demanded, stunned.
“No. Need-to-know basis only.” He slid the pistol back into the shoulder holster beneath his left rib cage. “We’re friendlies. That’s all I’ll give you. If Garcia tortures you, you can’t tell him a thing about me.”
That made sense. Easing away from the door, Kathy walked toward the desk he stood behind. “Okay, I’ll buy it for now.” She pointed to the laptop. “What were you doing?”
Mac sat down and pulled the computer toward him. “I’ve just located the file I’ve been looking for.”
Kathy came to the side of the desk. She wasn’t sure about Mac Coulter. She wanted to believe that he was the good guy he said he was. Yet she had no proof except that he’d put his pistol away. Was it a ruse? When she wasn’t looking, would he put the silencer to her head and pull the trigger? She didn’t want to get any closer to him. “I have five passwords you can try to open it with. That’s why I came here tonight. Therese has a little black book that she keeps in a safe. She was in a hurry and left it on her desk today after she asked me to do some filing.” Grinning, Kathy said, “I peeked into it.”
Mac smiled back. “Good thinking. Give them to me and I’ll try each one. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
He looked up at her. Her heartbeat was beginning to slow, the danger past. Strands of his dark hair lay across his perspiring brow. “Okay. But what will you do with the intel if you get it?”
Pulling a CD from his pocket, Mac put it into the laptop. “When I fly to Cuzco tomorrow around 1000, I’ll pass it to my handler. From there, the intel will be sent back to Washington, D.C., for reconstruction.”
It all sounded good. “What if you’re working for another drug lord?”
Mac barely smiled. “Not my style.”
Stubbornly, Kathy whispered, “You have shown me no identification, no proof that you really work for a U.S. agency. Why should I trust you?”
“Because I put the pistol away instead of shooting you.”
Staring down at him, at that crooked smile on his mouth, Kathy snorted in frustration. “All right, all right.” She gave him the first password.
As Mac typed it in, he held his breath. “The first one doesn’t work. What’s the second one?”
Kathy gave him the next password. She watched his rugged profile, the light making his face look harsh and strong. Her gaze fell to that pursed mouth of his as he intently typed in the word.
“Bingo!”
Heart leaping, Kathy eased around the desk and looked over his shoulder. Sure enough, the file opened. Her eyes widened as the information popped up on the screen. “Wow. Look at that….” She pointed to the monitor.
Mac nodded and perused the information. “This is a g
old mine,” he rasped. Once he quickly copied the file, he moved it to the CD to burn. The machine whirred to life. Sitting back, he angled a glance up at her. “Nice work.”
She was so beautiful. He had a thousand questions for her, but this wasn’t the time or place to ask any of them. They were both in grave danger, being here. If discovered, their lives would be over in seconds.
“Why don’t you go now?” Mac suggested. “We can’t leave together.”
Kathy straightened. Here came the next test. If Coulter was a foreign agent and not one from the U.S., he’d put a bullet into her. Wiping her brow, she stepped away from him. There was no way to get to his pistol, which was tucked beneath his left arm. “You just want me to go back to my villa?”
“That’s right. Go back and go to sleep. Tomorrow, act as if nothing happened here tonight. Talk to no one, Kathy.” And then he smiled again. “Is that your real name?”
“Need-to-know basis only, Mr. Coulter. Right now, I trust you about as far as I can throw you.”
Chuckling, Mac said, “That isn’t far.” He couldn’t blame her. He saw the suspicion and questions in her eyes.
“No, it isn’t.”
“Now that you have the file, does this mean you’re gone?” She gestured toward the laptop. Out of her life forever?
“No,” Mac said, shaking his head.
“So, you’ll be around after this?”
“Yeah.”
“My own mission is complete with that file going to the Pentagon.”
“Okay, I understand.”
“We need to get Sophie out of here. That’s the last thing I’ve got to do before I leave.” She searched his sweaty features. The tension between them was palpable. “Can you help me do that? Get Sophie back to her parents?”
“Maybe,” Mac said heavily. “Let me think on it. I’ll contact you in about a week with some possibilities. No promises, though.”
Relief flowed through her. She moved toward the door, listening for the snap of his shoulder harness. She walked lightly, waiting for him to pull out his pistol. As Kathy reached the door, she saw him stand, take the CD, slide it back into his thigh pocket, then shut off the laptop. He wore latex gloves so as not to leave prints. She hadn’t worn gloves, she realized. But then, her fingerprints were on that laptop daily, so no one would suspect her. If they found Mac’s prints on it, he’d be in trouble for sure.
Hand on the knob, Kathy gave him one last look. The expression on his face was one of pure satisfaction. “When will I see you?” she demanded in a whisper. “For Sophie’s sake?”
Mac lowered the lid of the laptop. Looking over at her in the shadows, he said, “As soon as I can make things happen. Now, get out of here….”
SLEEP NEVER CAME. Kathy lay in her bed, tossing and turning, her mind churning with thousands of questions. Mac Coulter was an American agent of some kind! Who did he work for? Could he really help her get Sophie out of here and back to her parents’ arms? At this point, Kathy wanted nothing else but that.
She couldn’t be sure that the file would make it to D.C., either. What proof would she get? And what would Mac do with the information that she was a U.S. Marine, working undercover? Terror ate at her. And panic. What if he told Garcia? What if he really wasn’t a U.S. agent, but one in the employ of another drug lord, who wanted to topple the Garcia empire?
Scrunching her eyes shut, Kathy rolled onto her side and punched the feather pillow into a comfortable position. The windows were open, the breeze humid and sluggish. It was dawn, judging from the hint of gray along the horizon. She had to sleep!
But was Mac her enemy or her friend? Again she felt a wave of relief that the CD was on its way to the authorities—if she could believe Coulter. How badly she wanted to! Her whole being was now oriented to getting sad little Sophie out of this hellhole and back home.
Her thoughts swung to her own parents. Kathy missed her mother and father. In the past, she’d called them regularly, no matter where she was. Even on deep undercover missions as a Seahawk pilot, dropping off SEALs or Marine Recons in other South American countries, she’d been able to call them from time to time. It had been five months since she’d last made contact. She knew they were worried—especially her father, who didn’t like being shut out of the loop involving any of his children.
“MIKE? I want you to look at this photo and tell me what you think.” Morgan Trayhern handed his second-in-command a black-and-white photo made from a JPEG off the computer. He had spent five days going over the hundreds of photos shot by Black Jaguar Squadron pilots on their flights to detour drug shipments. They filmed everyone they came across, most of them tourists from the Machu Picchu area. Others were archeologists, amateur and professional, going to sites within a hundred mile radius of Machu Picchu. That was BJS territory, and anyone in it was filmed for future reference.
Mike frowned and took the photo. It was barely 0900, and he hadn’t had his first cup of coffee yet. “Find something from the BJS photo archives?” he asked, holding up the picture and squinting at it.
“I think so,” Morgan growled impatiently. “What do you see? Remind you of anyone we know?”
Mike saw a female hiker with a knapsack on her back. The photo had been taken from about one thousand feet, and it was a side view, a profile. The woman had blond hair, and she’d been looking up at the helo when the photo was snapped. “Kathy?” he asked, disbelief in his voice as he looked over at Morgan’s dark countenance.
“That’s what I think. I’m having our computer section enhance the photo and match it with Kathy’s facial features.” Stabbing a finger at the photo, he snapped, “But I know what my daughter looks like no matter how far away. It’s her.”
Turning the photo over, Mike asked, “Where was this taken?”
“Fifty miles from Machu Picchu. According to Major Stevenson, that particular spot is a jaguar trail that leads from the Urubamba River straight to Garcia’s villa, near Agua Caliente.”
Mike was familiar with all the trails and turf of the area. He’d spent many years fighting in Peru, a U.S. Army combat trainer who had taken his gung ho soldiers into repeated head-on frays with the drug lords there. Locals had called him the Jaguar God, because he seemed to have nine lives, just like the fabled cat that was worshipped by the Incas.
“Yeah, Garcia has a ‘test’ for his nannies,” Mike murmured as he studied the photo intently. “Did you know about that?”
“No, tell me,” Morgan demanded gruffly.
“Garcia likes a nanny to be able to guard his only daughter, Tiki. His wife is a heroin addict and is ‘gone’ most of the time. Last I heard, he had a live-in mistress by the name of Therese. She runs his day-to-day operations for him, plus warms his bed at night.” Mike gave Morgan a cutting smile. “Being the good Catholic boy he is, Garcia isn’t about to divorce his drug-addict wife for this other woman. But he loves his daughter and wants to protect her. To that end he’s been known to put the nanny applicants through a series of tests.”
Mike pointed to the photo. “The last test, the most dangerous one, is that the nanny is dropped in the jungle with no food, no water and no pistol. There was gossip from time to time down in Lima when I was there that the remains of another applicant had been found, mostly eaten by the jaguar.” He raised an eyebrow as Morgan looked more grim. “But if this is Kathy, and it sure looks like her from this angle, she’s got a backpack on, so she wasn’t left without supplies.”
“So the real question is what was she doing on that particular trail?”
Scratching his head, Mike handed the photo back to his boss. “She’s undercover, right?”
“Yes, and they won’t let me in on the black ops. They’ve shut me out.”
“Okay,” Mike said slowly, thinking out loud. “Who kidnapped Jason, you and Laura? Guillermo Garcia. Carlos is his son.”
Stunned, Morgan stared at Houston. “What are you saying?”
“That maybe Kathy has gone undercover to right a wro
ng. She’s on a well-known trail that Garcia uses to test his nannies. There’s only one end to this trail—his villa. Is she working there? And if so, why? Revenge, maybe?”
“Dammit!” Morgan snarled. He tightened his hands into fists as his mind raced with possibilities. There was no way he wanted his eldest daughter there. Good God. Swinging a sharp glance toward Houston he rasped, “Revenge? What kind?”
“Garcia has a daughter. Would Kathy do an ‘eye for an eye’ thing? Kidnap Garcia’s daughter just as the three of you were kidnapped by his father?”
Bludgeoned by the possibility, Morgan grabbed a chair and sat down. “She couldn’t…. No, that’s foolish. Dangerous…”
“Deadly,” Houston said sympathetically. “Look, Morgan, don’t dive down that hole just yet. It’s only a theory. Why don’t you get someone on the phone back in D.C. who can blow the cover off this black ops? That way you’ll know for sure what’s going down.” He pointed to the photo on his desk. “For all we know, Kathy may be hiking and nothing more. We can’t go ballistic just yet.” He drilled Morgan with a hard look. “Get ahold of some key players in Washington. Find out what’s goin’ down. Then panic, if you don’t like what they say.”
Gripping the desk, Morgan stood up. His feet felt like thousand-pound lead weights. His heart hurt as he thought of Laura. If this was true, it would tear his wife apart. Hell, it would tear the family apart—again. In a new and different way. “What if she’s down there, Mike? What if Garcia has found her out?”
“Boss, don’t go there. Not yet, at least. Find out where she is, first.” Mike gave him a sympathetic smile, noting the suffering clearly etched on Morgan’s face. “Make some calls?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
IT WAS HELL ON EARTH as far as Kathy was concerned. Two days had gone by since her unexpected meeting with Mac in Therese’s office. She’d barely seen him, since he was flying much more than usual for Garcia. She felt jittery and wondered if she should just leave now without Sophie. No, she couldn’t do that. She would never leave that little girl in the lurch, as Jason had been left.
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