Uncut Bundle

by Susan Stephens

  Matthew glared at him. “I may have behaved like an idiot but that doesn’t mean I’m ready for group therapy.”

  “Of course not, but—”

  “You think I’m somebody who’d curl up on a couch and spill my guts to a shrink?”

  “No. Still—”

  “Or maybe you think I’d fall for a babe I knew wasn’t any damned good? A woman who tried smuggling drugs? Who belonged to another man? Is that what you think?” Matthew slammed his fist on the scarred wooden table. “Is it?” he snarled.

  And before his brothers could answer, he told them the whole story.

  Everything, from meeting Hamilton to chasing down Mia to falling crazy in love with her and finding out she’d played him for a fool.

  Except, he didn’t call it falling crazy in love.

  He called it “being infatuated.”

  Alex breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Okay. Got to tell you, man, for a little while there, you had us worried.”

  “Nothing to worry about,” Matthew grumbled. “I just hate being played for a patsy.”

  “Yeah,” Cam said, “but now that you told us the story, you’ll be fine.” He looked around, raised a hand to signal for another round. “All you had to do was get the details out in the open. I mean, a guy gets taken by a babe who’s got the morals of an alley cat—”

  Matthew was across the table before Cam finished the sentence, his hands clasping the lapels of his brother’s suit jacket as he half-dragged him from his seat.

  “What’d you say?”

  “Matthew,” Cam said slowly, his hands locking around Matthew’s wrists, “don’t do something we’ll both regret.”

  “You made a comment about Mia, Cameron. I want to be sure I heard it right.”

  “Hey.” Alex looked from one hard, angry face to the other. “C’mon, take it easy. Matt, you said some things that maybe we misunderstood. Cam, Matt’s upset. We can all see that.”

  “I am not upset,” Matthew said through his teeth…and then his mouth twisted, he looked from Cam to Alex and back again, let go of Cam’s lapels and sank back in the booth. “Jesus,” he whispered, “what the hell am I going to do?”

  “You’re in love with her,” Cam said softly.

  Matthew nodded. “And isn’t that the saddest thing you ever heard?”

  “Well—well, maybe things aren’t as bad as they seemed. Maybe she’s not—maybe she wasn’t—”

  “She was. Hell, she didn’t even try to deny the things Hamilton said. He called her a thief, a smuggler. He said she’d stolen secret information she was going to sell, that she’d played me for a sucker…”

  “And she didn’t say anything?”

  “No. She didn’t string more than half a dozen words together, not until the end when she was leaving with him, and then what she said didn’t make sense because it referred to something personal, about me.”

  “What?”

  Matthew gave a bitter laugh. “To this dumb tattoo we all have, can you believe it? And she even got it wrong. She said, just like choosing the skull and crossbones over the eagle, the end always justifies the…” The color drained from his face. “Sweet Jesus,” he whispered.

  “Matthew?”

  “She knew it was the other way ’round. We’d talked about it only a couple of hours earlier. She asked me about my tattoo and I told her how we’d debated whether to get a skull and crossbones or an eagle, and how the eagle had won, and she knew that. She knew!”

  Cam and Alex exchanged bewildered looks.

  “And?” Alex said.

  “And,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse, “I was too busy wallowing in self-pity to get the message.”

  “Yeah, well, count us in because we don’t get it, either.”

  “Mia loves me,” Matthew said with conviction. “She’s not the woman Hamilton said she was—and, dear God, I let that son of a bitch take her away!”

  He shot to his feet, took out some bills and dropped them on the table. He was halfway to the door before his brothers caught up to him.

  “What’re you talking about?” Cam said.

  “Yeah, man. You gonna let us in on the mystery?”

  “It wasn’t Mia who scammed me, it was Hamilton. And I—I fell for it. I let him take her with him.” Matthew ran to the curb and flagged a taxi. “God only knows what he’ll do to her. What he’s already done to her.”

  “Matt. Wait a minute…”

  Matthew jumped into the cab. It was a small vehicle. Any sane person would have said three men the size of the Knights couldn’t possibly fit into the back seat, but they did.

  The Learjet Matthew had chartered for his flight home was still at the airport. The pilot was just getting ready to make the return trip to Colombia.

  “No problem,” he said, when Matthew ran into the private aircraft terminal, yelling that he wanted to charter the Lear again.

  The brothers scrambled on board. Matthew dug out his cell and punched in a number he’d never forgotten.

  The same dispassionate voice from the past answered. Matthew gave the right code words. Seconds later, he was talking to the man known as the Director, who had run black ops for the Agency as long as anyone could remember.

  When the conversation ended, his expression was grim.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said tonelessly. “I should have known. Nothing’s changed. Black is always white and white is always black in the Agency’s world.”

  “Mia wasn’t running drugs?” Alex said.

  “She was a secretary, working at the Department of Defense. A secretary, goddammit! But they didn’t care. They got word Hamilton might be dirty, went through the files and learned she’d worked for him, called her in and handed her a load of b.s. about it being her patriotic duty to get the goods on him. Then they sent her down to Cartagena to be Hamilton’s P.A.”

  “And she got the proof they wanted.”

  “Yes. He’s the one. The turncoat. The smuggler. Mia got hold of the names of his contacts. That’s why she ran, and why he had to get her back.”

  Cam cursed, softly and eloquently. “It’s gonna take us, what, five, six hours to reach Cartagena.”

  “An eternity,” Matthew said, his voice low and rough. “I told that to the Director. I told him what was happening and he said okay, he had enough to raid Hamilton’s house.”

  “And?”

  “He’ll raid it…but not for another twenty-four hours. He says that’s how long it’ll take to coordinate the Agency, DEA and the Colombian cops.”

  “That’s too long.”

  “You bet your ass it is.” Matthew looked at his brothers. “I’m not Agency. I’m not DEA and I’m damned well not the cops. I’m gonna make a couple of calls, line up some gear.”

  Nobody asked what kind of gear he meant. They knew. Weapons. Wire cutters. Electronic stuff. Whatever would get them into Hamilton’s place—and get Mia out.

  “I can hit Hamilton almost as soon as we touch the ground.” Matthew paused. “But I want you guys to turn right around and fly home. Having you with me now is great, but—”

  “But,” Alex said to Cam, “he doesn’t want to let us in on the good stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Cam said, “well, what can you expect? He always was a selfish little snot. Never would share things that were fun.”

  “Like his tricycle.”

  “Or his train set.”

  “And his blocks. Man, he never let me play with those.”

  Alex and Cam glared at Matthew. He glared back, and then his eyes turned suspiciously bright.

  “You guys,” he said, his voice rough and low, “you guys are—you’re the—”

  “The best,” Cam said archly.

  The brothers grinned. The grins faded, turned to the determined looks of hard, experienced men. Matthew sketched out a drawing of the colonel’s house, then got busy on the phone.

  Cam and Alex got busy on a plan.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  HIS
BROTHERS said if he continued pacing, Matthew would end up walking to Colombia.

  He knew they were trying to lighten the tension, but the only thing that would do that was getting Mia back. He remembered the look on her face the last time he saw her, and it killed him to know he’d turned away from her when she’d needed him the most.

  How could he have believed Hamilton? He should have known the truth, that Mia would never have done the things the colonel accused her of.

  If she were dead…

  No. He wasn’t going there. She was alive. She had to be. He’d know if she weren’t. He’d know.

  An envelope had been left for Matthew at the service desk at the airport.

  Inside was a parking receipt and the keys for an SUV. Another envelope that held a slip of paper with an address scrawled on it lay waiting in the truck’s glove compartment.

  Matthew drove; he knew the streets of Cartagena better than his brothers.

  Moments later, he pulled up outside a ramshackle house in one of the city’s most dangerous slums. A man let them in, someone Matthew had known years ago. They had no names for each other but friend.

  “You gave me short notice,” the man said in English. “I got what I could.”

  Uzis. Walthers. Berettas. Tiny communications devices. A pair of wire cutters. Half a dozen other tools, and a small vial of sleeping tablets and a half kilo of chopped steak. Black jeans, black turtlenecks, black ski masks and black running shoes for all three Knights.

  The stuff would do.

  Matthew and his brothers emptied their wallets of cash but, of course, it wasn’t enough.

  The man scooped up the pile of bills, smiled and pocketed it.

  “Su credito es bueno, amigo,” he said, and grinned.

  It was an old joke between them, based on signs that hung in downscale shop windows in Cartagena as well as in some stores in Dallas, but the best Matthew could manage was a nod.

  “Gracias, amigo.”

  And then, at last, they were on the road that led to Hamilton’s house.

  The plan was simple.

  Simple plans almost always worked best.

  They’d park half a mile from the house, wait until midnight—less than an hour away. They’d lure out the dog or dogs, drop sleeping-tablet laced lumps of chopped beef over the fence, scale the wall, cut the razor wire…

  And then play things as they went.

  At five minutes to twelve they left the SUV, approached the walled house by creeping through the scrub on the large, empty lot that adjoined it. When they reached the walls, Cam gave a soft whistle. Immediately they heard the padding hurry of animal feet.

  “One dog,” Alex whispered. “Big. A rotter, maybe, or a German shepherd.”

  Cam nodded, waited until the dog was at the wall, then hurled the bait across.

  They heard snuffling, then munching. Then, after what seemed a very long time, the sound of an animal lying down, followed by its unmistakable snores.

  “Let’s move out,” Matthew whispered.

  Up the wall. Snip the razor wire. Drop noiselessly onto the soft grass on the other side. Hand signals were all they needed to communicate; they’d worked together many times in the past. Each knew the others’ minds as well as his own.

  There were half a dozen vehicles parked in front of the house.

  Matthew narrowed his eyes. They’d hoped everyone would be asleep at this hour, but this looked as if a meeting were taking place. That made the odds tougher, but it also meant they might catch lots of fish.

  He’d blanked his mind to thoughts of Mia. If he thought about her, he knew he’d be unable to function.

  The brothers moved on his signal. Scaled the walls of the house. Entered through a window on the second floor. Checked all the rooms, found them empty. Began creeping down the service stairs, to the kitchen.

  Alex clapped a hand, then a strip of duct tape over the cook’s mouth. Cam secured her hands and feet with cord and whispered that they weren’t going to hurt her if she behaved herself.

  They slipped into the pantry. Listened at the door to the dining room, where a late meal was clearly in progress. Heard at least half a dozen voices, lots of laughter, lots of ribald jokes.

  Matthew recognized Hamilton’s voice…

  And one other.

  His skin crawled.

  It was the voice of the man who’d gotten away after murdering Alita, the voice he’d heard in his nightmares all these years.

  He took a deep breath. Signaled to Cam and Alex.

  Weapons at the ready, the Knights burst into the dining room.

  Six men, seated at the big dining room table. Six bodyguards, standing along one wall. The surprise was total. Then one of the bodyguards reached into his waistband.

  It was over in seconds. Seconds that felt like hours, as they always did in times like this.

  When it was over, three of the bodyguards were dead. Three were wounded. Of the men who’d sat at the table, two lay motionless on the floor. Four others still sat in their chairs, hands flat on the table top, faces white.

  They were, indeed, big fish.

  Juan Maria-Rosario, the head of the cartel.

  Colonel Douglas Hamilton.

  One of the biggest North American cocaine distributors.

  And the unnamed man who’d escaped from Matthew after Alita’s murder. The man looked at Matthew and turned white.

  “You,” he said.

  Matthew smiled. “Me,” he said softly.

  The man eased back from the table. “Listen, man. It was nothing personal. Take it easy, okay? Let’s talk this over—”

  On the last word, he sprang from his chair, an automatic in his hand. But Matthew was quicker. He fired, and Alita’s killer lay sprawled at his feet, dead.

  Matthew gave the body a long look. For you, Alita, he thought, and felt a weight lift from his heart.

  Cam was on his cell phone, calling the Director. Alex was tying up their prisoners. Matthew made straight for the colonel, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him to his feet.

  “Where is she?”

  Hamilton’s face was white, his eyes bulging with fear. “Don’t kill me. This is all a mis—”

  Matthew dragged him to his toes. “Where is she?” he roared.

  “I don’t know.”

  Hamilton gagged as Matthew moved his hand from the colonel’s shirt to his throat. “One last time, you sorry son of a bitch. Where’s Mia, or so help me God—”

  His brothers pulled him off.

  “You kill him,” Cam said matter-of-factly, “the world’ll be better off…but you won’t find Mia.”

  Matthew dragged in a breath. Cam was right. He nodded, took a step back, waited until Hamilton was bound, hand and foot.

  “Now,” he growled, “where is Mia?”

  The colonel shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Liar!”

  “No. No, it’s true. She’s not here. Search the house. You’ll see for yourself. She isn’t here.”

  That much was true. They’d searched the upper floor. Now, Alex came into the dining room and shook his head. Mia wasn’t on this level, either.

  “Then—then, she’s dead,” Matthew said tonelessly. “You had her taken out into the jungle and—”

  “No! I didn’t. Mia—Mia’s gone. She didn’t want to stay with me.”

  “What?”

  “I said, she came home with me but—but she changed her—”

  Hamilton gasped as Matthew sprang at him and wrapped his hands around his throat.

  “Liar! She didn’t come with you. You forced her.”

  “You know better than that, Knight. You know what she’s like. She plays games. She—”

  He cried out as Matthew’s thumbs pressed into his Adam’s apple. “She was working for the Agency.”

  “All right. Yes, she was. But she turned. I told you that.”

  Matthew stared down into Hamilton’s red face. How easy it would be to ki
ll him. Just a little more pressure…

  “Would I lie to you now?” Hamilton gasped. “When my life is at stake? She left me. I swear, it’s the truth.”