Duane eyed her carefully, which earned him a stinging drip of shampoo. He rinsed and tried the other eye. “This, as in showering with an incredibly handsome Unit operator or this, as in…” he waved a hand toward the madness that was Caracas.
“I meant Caracas.”
Yep! Cold shower had definitely been the right choice.
“But I could also get used to this,” she stepped forward and yelped. “But not if you are going to be freezing me like a chili-chocolate ice cream.” She reached past him and turned the water back up to scald.
Then she moved the rest of the way into his arms and turned her face up for a kiss, her lovely length pressed tightly against him.
“Worth putting up with a little heat to draw the fire.”
“Absolutely,” Sofia agreed.
Sofia let go. Let Duane do whatever he wanted to her, she would just lean in and enjoy it.
What he did was hold her close and start a slow dance in the shower. Nothing much, just a slow shuffle step that matched his heartbeat when she laid her ear on his chest. An easy sway of their hips in perfect harmony, his hands just holding her close. This she could definitely become very used to.
“What are you thinking, Mr. Jenkins?”
“Do you ever have those fancy dress receptions at that winery of yours?”
“Sometimes. Why?”
“With dancing?”
She nodded against his chest.
“I’m picturing you in a slinky, revealing evening gown.”
“One with cleavage down to my belly button and no back I am guessing.” That was an easy guess with Duane.
“Yes, ma’am,” he rubbed his hand slowly up and down her spine to make his point. “Exactly like that.”
“Well, it just so happens that I have a dress exactly like that.”
“The color of your hair?”
“Yes.”
“Good. What do I have to do to arrange a private preview of that?”
“You must be very, very nice to me. Nicer than you ever are to anyone ever before.”
“I’ll have to work on that.” He slapped off the water, reached out and took one of the big towels off the rack.
Starting at the top of her head, he rubbed her down until she was warm all over from the attention. He even grabbed the hair dryer and a brush and attempted to dry her hair. He was clumsy, awkward, and sometimes pulled the brush too hard through a snarl, but she was too charmed to complain. Instead, she just held onto the sink with both hands and watched him in the mirror—he was concentrating so hard that it was cute.
Then Sofia watched herself. She’d always thought that happy equaled smiling. But she was fast mapping a new terrain beyond that. Duane was teaching her that there was a quiet place, where her eyes lidded half shut on their own. When the feeling was too good, too strong to do more than breathe. Her hair began to fill and billow. At the rate he was going, he might soon turn it into a teased disaster.
“Duane?”
He turned off the dryer. “Yes, Sofia?”
“Now.”
“Now?”
“Right now.”
No one could ever accuse a Unit operator of being slow on the uptake. The dryer and brush clattered onto the shelf. He bent out of sight of the mirror for a moment over his pants, then she heard the tearing of foil.
“Sofia?” Duane looked at her in the mirror, restraining himself long enough to be sure.
“Yes,” she was absolutely sure.
She continued holding onto the sink as he eased his hands on her hips and pulled her back against him in a single, soul-filling slide. His palms cradled her breasts as he leaned over her to kiss her between the shoulder blades. Even in this position, his hand traveled to make sure that she would be satisfied as well.
She watched Duane, watched his face as the smile faded but the joy rose. Saw how he saw her as special beyond words. Watched his eyes as they slowly lidded closed. How had she ever thought their blue was icy? How had that been possible when they were really so clear that they saw her in ways she’d never seen herself?
Unable to watch the sensations crossing her own face anymore, she let her eyes slide shut.
He wrapped his hands around her as he carried her aloft to places she’d never even known in her dreams.
Because her dreams had been merely dreams of the flesh. With Duane they were turning out to be so much more.
Chapter 21
This time when they reached the San Agustín Metrocable terminus, Chad led them at an easy saunter to one of the closed-off stairwells. In rapid succession they stepped over the chain and descended the stairs. No hurrying. No rush. Hurry drew attention—walking as if you belonged hid the actions in plain view.
Chad and Kyle had been here this afternoon and led the way. Carla was, typically, moving ahead of them as if she was the one who’d found the access. He and Richie brought up the rear. Richie had brought so much gear that he had to split it up among everyone except Duane who had his own fifty-pound pack to tote around.
Melissa and Sofia were off on some other assignment that he knew nothing about.
Sofia.
Damn but that woman had crawled up inside him somewhere and taken residence there—a very comfortable residence. Time had been so precious. He held her tight as they lay together on the bed and watched the day fade over La Tumba and Caracas. Neither of them had spoken because there simply wasn’t room for words in the last hours they might have together. Maybe he’d have to ask her if The Activity ever recruited from Delta. He’d hate to leave the team but—
“Head in the game, bro?”
“Head in the game,” he assured Chad. They donned night-vision gear and flicked on infrared flashlights. They’d moved down past an uninstalled movie theater and through the lobby of a non-existent hotel. A door hung loose on its hinges there, its lock neatly blown in a style he recognized—because he was the one who’d taught Chad how to do it.
“Good. Don’t want you getting all weird over a woman.”
“You mean like that time you almost stepped into the middle of Lake Maracaibo while wearing forty pounds of gear over a woman.” They trotted down the stairs after the others, entering a vast unfinished subway station.
“Looks unfinished, but the third rail is hot,” Kyle called out. That meant that trains moved down here, even if the line was listed as planned but not built. Good sign.
One after another they jumped down onto the tracks and picked up that special rhythm for trotting on railroad ties without bunging up an ankle.
“Tanya Zimmer,” Chad sighed wistfully. “Be worth going under for a woman like that.”
“Actually, why haven’t we run into her again? She was working Venezuela for the Israelis. Seems like we’d have had a job in common again. Why didn’t you keep track of her?”
“Tried to, bro. Me! I actually tried to keep track of a woman. Slipped away.”
Duane thumped him on the shoulder in sympathy. He couldn’t imagine how he’d feel if Sofia Forteza “slipped away.” Actually he could—it would suck beyond imagining.
He almost stumbled sideways into the third rail. Not just beyond imagining, no way in hell was he going to let it happen.
Not to him. Not to her.
It might not work out. Hell, he’d screwed up enough relationships in the past to know that he was good at that. Too good.
Head in the game.
But the game had been changed by a slip of a Spanish whirlwind who barely came up to his nose. Whirlwind? Woman was a goddamn summer breeze, enticing, tempting, then slipping away when you weren’t paying attention.
Well he was paying attention now.
Bring it on.
Sofia sat on the roof of the King Hotel and tried to look for the stars above Caracas, but she wasn’t having much luck. There was a rolling blackout that covered most of the neighborhoods to their south, from the university to Bello Monte. But the area around the Plaza Venezuela and La Tumba still blazed brightly. She
suspected that they had very few blackouts in this neighborhood—SEBIN wouldn’t like it.
“I miss the stars of home.”
“You thinking of leaving the service?” Melissa sat in the dark beside her. They were both dressed in Venezuelan military camos and black t-shirts. They’d dumped most of their personal gear, though Sofia had carefully folded and tucked away the dress that Duane had so liked. Their duffels weren’t light, but there wasn’t room for anything as extraneous as clothes tonight.
“No. I…” It wasn’t the stars of home that she was thinking of. It was the stars above the speeding boat where Duane had made such perfect love to her. “I miss Duane. But that’s crazy. We’ve been apart for under two hours. That doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course it does.”
“How?”
“It makes sense because you love him.”
Sofia sighed. “I was afraid that’s what it was. Do you know of any cures?”
“You mean other than marrying him?”
“Yes, other than that.”
“Nope!” Melissa was being entirely too glib about it all.
She must have felt it, because she reached out and rested a hand on Sofia’s arm.
“Richie is the best man I’ve ever met. I’d have been an idiot to let that slip away…and I’m not an idiot.”
“Neither am I.”
“That’s my point,” Melissa squeezed her arm.
“You’re not helping.”
But Melissa actually was. Assuming they got out of this mess alive—it was one of the craziest plans she’d ever thought up—but she wasn’t going to stop until she figured out how to make this work.
“What do we do in the meantime?”
“We wait for their signal.” At least for the operation.
Was she going to wait for Duane’s signal about them? She’d give him a chance, then she’d light the fuse.
“So we sit around and wait for the men. Where have I heard that before?”
Sofia sighed. Maybe, but not for long.
“Don’t worry,” Melissa nudged their shoulders together. “Carla’s with them. She’ll keep them in line.”
They’d been underground for almost half a mile when Kyle led them down a side tunnel.
Duane could see a lit platform ahead.
Kyle clenched his fist for a hold. He peeked up over the edge, watched for a long thirty seconds, then held up two fingers. He pointed at Carla and signaled her ahead.
Duane nodded to himself. She was the most lightly burdened of them but she was also the stealthiest, at least if they weren’t in sniper mode—that was his and Chad’s forte. But in everyday situations he’d seen her walk into the middle of a firefight with no one else even realizing she was there until she put an abrupt end to it. And if a distraction was ever needed, Carla’s figure in a tight t-shirt definitely counted.
The other thing Duane noticed was the stone resolve that that made Kyle such an amazing leader. His best asset in this situation was Carla, so he hadn’t hesitated about sending his wife into harm’s way. Man had balls of steel—his would be totally shriveled if that was Sofia out there.
Carla vaulted up onto the lit platform and strode toward the guards. She was dressed in Venezuelan Army camo and black t-shirt. She had a Kalashnikov AK-103 rifle over her shoulder, the most ubiquitous in the infantry.
He translated the Spanish automatically as she strode up to them.
“Hi! Have either of you seen the colónel yet tonight? He’s supposed to be here by now. I gotta give him this message,” she waved what he was fairly sure was the B&B’s room bill at them. “No chap off my ass if I gotta sit here and wait for him, but the general is gonna have his ass if there’s no answer fast and I mean super fast. You know what I mean, don’t you?”
She so overwhelmed them that they didn’t even speak until she was close between them. Not even bothering with her silenced sidearm, she used her knife to make quick and silent work of them.
He and Chad had their sniper rifles ready to fire, but there was no need.
They dragged the bodies into the office and out of sight after Carla had wiped her blade on their SEBIN uniforms. They were definitely in the right place.
Kyle locked the door and doused the station’s lights as if no one had been there.
They all switched back to NVGs.
“They use ground transport from here for prisoner transport up the road. But Chad and I found the access to the old unfinished elevator system this way.”
Still no need to rush, they maintained a light trot down a long hall, through a door—picked lock this time—and up a flight of stairs into a room that smelled of raw earth and old concrete. The construction was rough, unfinished: a lobby area to the unfinished shopping mall. The outer doors were sealed. Duane hustled over and threw some quick-weld on the seams. He triggered it off and the thermite filled the room with a bright red glow for twenty seconds. No one would be opening those doors now without a good supply of high explosive or a tank.
They entered the forty-five degree shaft together.
At the first level, Chad veered aside. “This is where I get off. Catch a beer with you later, bro.”
Duane slapped a high-five and continued up the shaft after the others.
At Level Six it was Duane’s turn to exit the shaft and go out onto El Helicoide.
“Brought you something cool,” Richie fished into the pack that Kyle had been carrying. It took him under twenty seconds to assemble it. “Cool, huh?”
“Cool,” Duane agreed. “What the hell is it, Richie?”
He looked crestfallen. “It’s a street luge. The road that wraps around El Helicoide is two-point-five miles of non-stop descent. Too bad you can’t take it from the top, but you’re missing less than a half mile. These handles are your brakes.”
“Uh…”
“If you get caught out, it’s your best bet. Just pretend that you’re one of those extreme sports guys,” Richie must have sensed his hesitation and rushed on. “You can top a hundred miles an hour on this—be sure you lean into the curves.” He held up a hand and it took Duane a moment to realize he wanted a high-five himself.
Duane gave it to him. Then he was left staring at the “street luge” as the other three continued up the shaft headed for the topmost level.
The luge was a flat board to lie back on for the length of his body from butt to head. A T-bar extended forward, where he was obviously supposed to put his feet. The brakes were a pair of side bars that would dig into the pavement. The wheels were six sets of skateboard trucks.
“Great, I’m gonna be a twelve-wheeler.” No. Richie had doubled the last three axles—eighteen-wheeler it was.
Duane exited the shaft, crossed the disused lobby, and peeked out into the night.
He was at the northern narrow end of the egg-shaped Helix. Level Six was approximately five hundred by eight hundred feet. The portion that he could see was made up of fifty-foot deep storefronts turned into offices, a nose-in parking strip, and another forty feet of roadway for the up and down traffic. A low barricade marked the edge of the level before the fifty-foot drop to the next level below.
There were four rapid clicks on his radio. The top team of Kyle, Carla, and Richie, designated Team Four, was now in position.
Chad answered with three clicks from below.
Melissa and Sofia back at the King Hotel answered with two for their own team number.
He held the most strategic position, so he was Team One. No need to click, they were waiting for him.
Taking a deep breath, Duane looked east and wished he could see the hotel, but the sightlines wouldn’t be right except at the very top of El Helicoide.
Duane keyed his mic and whispered, “Team Two. Go!”
Then he moved off into the shadows of Level Six.
Chapter 22
“Ready?” Melissa asked.
“Absolutely not. But that doesn’t seem to be stopping me. Let’s do it.”
Sofia had rigged a small camera on the edge of the parapet looking across at the roof of La Tumba—one of her expensive night-vision ones, one thing that Duane’s store-boughts couldn’t do was see in the dark.
In her glasses she watched Melissa’s three projectiles thunk down on the three corners of the roof and explode in puffs of gas. The snipers of the roving roof patrol barely had time to jump to their feet before the gas caught them and they collapsed where they stood.
“Nice shooting.”
“Thanks,” Melissa patted her launcher. “That will keep them down for an hour.”
Sofia checked her watch. “They’ll be missing their next radio check in less than a minute.”
“How’s your throwing arm?”
“Five-three win-loss record on the inter-winery softball team when I was playing first base. I could hit third every time—without a pitcher relay.” Well, after the first year where she’d embarrassingly missed a double-play at third three times in the same inning. She’d made sure she was much better practiced by the second season.
“Batter up,” Melissa tossed her a percussion grenade.
Sofia popped up over the parapet, sighted down eighteen stories and across a quiet boulevard, pulled the pin and threw it. Then dropped back out of sight.
“Here’s another.”
Sofia caught it and was shifting to kneel high enough to see again when Melissa grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back down on the roof.
“No! Never pop up in the same spot twice.”
Sofia could see in her glasses that the rooftop snipers were all still asleep, but she could feel the hot path that a bullet might have made right through her chest for such a beginner’s mistake.
She began crawling as the first grenade went off far below with a thump followed by the sound of shattering glass. They weren’t fragmentation grenades because they didn’t want to risk killing passing civilians. But they would definitely shake up the door guards and do some property damage.
She tapped the control on her glasses to the second camera’s feed, and earned herself a disorienting bout of vertigo as she was suddenly looking eighteen stories straight down.
Wild Justice (Delta Force Book 3) Page 24
