Connor (In the Company of Snipers Book 5)

by Irish Winters

  “I can think of a few things I might like,” he murmured.

  “Call me,” she commanded.

  Words he lived for.

  “I’ll e-mail you,” he countered with a teasing grin.

  “I just might be willing to read an e-mail if it’s from you,” she whispered, her lips so close that he could almost taste her. The cocky smirk on her tanned face was—sexy.

  He leaned down to her just as she lifted to her tiptoes. Just a minty fresh breath away and—

  “Connor!” His big-mouthed, grumpy, can’t give a-guy-a-break senior agent bellowed again.

  She stepped back, breathing as hard as he was, her fingers combing over her short hair. “See you around,” she said with a suddenly shy, crooked smile.

  He nodded. “Count on it.”

  “Connor!”

  Damn it, Roy!

  The non-stop drive proved Izza’s undoing. Mark had Morgan pull into a hotel in downtown Salt Lake City after he’d noticed how green she was. They were supposed to go straight to the rendezvous point, but that plan had been scrubbed due to Izza.

  “You feeling okay?” Mark’s brown eyes were bright with kindly concern.

  She lied, “Just car sick. I’m good.”

  He gave her that you’re-not-kidding-me spiked eyebrow of his, and before she knew it, they were registered, and she was damned glad. The bed in her hotel room didn’t move or vibrate like their SUV. Twenty plus non-stop hours on the road had done her in. She woke up three hours later. The sun had set and her hotel phone blinked with a message. She hadn’t even heard it ring.

  Cussing to herself, Izza reached for the phone and retrieved Mark’s voice message. “Hey, Izza. We’re in the lounge downstairs. Come join us if you’re up to it. We’ll wait for you.”

  She flopped to her back, too sick and tired to care about meeting the guys for dinner and drinks. Her life was changing awfully fast. She used to be able to drink her fellow soldiers under the table, pull one all-nighter after another, or lead them into battle and back. Once able to set the pace for men to follow, all she wanted now was to sleep. And eat. Not two very desirable traits for a woman of her usual activity level. Even kickboxing, the sport she loved, was difficult when a girl had to run to throw up every time she got her blood pumping.

  Another damned tear trickled down the side of her head, completely without permission. Angrily, she dashed it away. Crying was another one of those things she didn’t do. Izza rang Mark’s cell phone to at least check in with her senior agent. Eat or not, she was a team player.

  “Hey,” he answered promptly. “What’s up? Are you feeling any better?”

  “I fell asleep,” she confessed. “You guys still hungry?”

  “Ah, not anymore. I’m an old guy,” he quipped. “I need my sleep.”

  “But I thought you were waiting for me in the lounge?”

  “We were. Two hours ago.”

  She cringed. Izza hung up before Mark had a chance to pick up on her bitchy mood. She was tired all the time and turning into a bawl baby. And now she was old, too!

  Four

  Are these guys all dead?

  Connor peered closer. Infiltrating the cartel’s camp in the dark was easier than he’d expected. After he and Roy left their DEA friends, they returned to their RV, applied a few smears of camouflage face paint, grabbed their gear and headed back up the mountain. A one-man job, Connor dropped from a deer trail just above the camp while Roy entered from the west.

  His senses on high alert, Connor crouched at the edge of the camp. Night gear included a trusty pair of NVGs, night vision goggles, and the miniature video camera attached to his headgear. He paused to study the layout. Basically, there was none. But worse, the men sprawled in a half-hazard circle around the place looked dead. He swallowed hard and proceeded to infiltrate. This cartel was brutal. Anything was possible after the murder he’d witnessed.

  Wisps of eerie green smoke drifted from the darkened fire pit, adding to the creepy sensation, but no embers glowed. A grate covered the pit with two coffee pots to the side of it and a Dutch oven in the center. Without a sound, he crept around the perimeter, taking a head count.

  When one of the bodies grunted, he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Eleven men, all of them sound asleep or passed out, laid on shabby sleeping bags. He grimaced when it became apparent he was downhill from men who had put in a hard day’s work. The pungent odor of beer and body odor wafted through the midnight air. No wonder they looked dead. They were exhausted and on carb and alcoholic overload.

  He approached the side of the tent, still keeping an eye on the slumbering compadres. Just as he reached inside the tent flap, another man grunted. Connor froze. The man mumbled something in Spanish and broke into a rumbling snore.

  Breathing easy, Connor pressed the audio bug into the seam along the flap where it would transmit sight unseen for months or until detected. Before he left, he planted two video bugs in nearby aspen trees, one to provide a view from the east, one from the west. Standing for a moment at the edge of camp, he watched the men. It seemed surreal for a brutal cartel camp to be so calm and unguarded. This covert penetration was child’s play, more like the raids he’d committed as a teenager when he and his numskull friends toilet-papered a neighbor’s yard.

  Roy met up with him outside of camp.

  “Something’s not right,” Connor whispered. “These guys aren’t guards. They’re hired hands. Nothing more.”

  Roy nodded as he looked at the peaceful encampment. “I noticed. Come see what I found.”

  They headed westward in the direction of their RV to another site. Located on the south bank of the creek, it stretched like a long narrow garden. The two men blended into the shadowy background, their footsteps silent on a well-worn path. Just short of the garden, Connor froze, his arm out to caution Roy not to take another move.

  Trouble lay at the tip of his boot. A trip wire. Two fingers to his eyes and then to the ground, he signaled Roy to watch where he stepped. Carefully, they avoided the booby trap. Neither man spoke as they continued deeper into a larger and well-cultivated marijuana patch. Connor’s sixth sense shifted into high alert. He signaled Roy to stop again when the hair on his neck prickled with unseen danger. They crouched within the shadows of the tall, leafy plants. Connor pulled his pistol.

  Footsteps approached. A single guard appeared with his rifle drawn. Except for the Mets baseball cap on his head, the cut of his clothing looked military. His gun was nothing more than a twenty-two caliber like Connor had grown up with instead of an automatic weapon. The man stopped maybe four yards from where Connor and Roy watched. A carved wooden knife handle protruded from his boot. Looking up into the trees, he spoke into his headset in English but with a heavy Spanish accent. “I heard something. I know I did.”

  He took another two steps toward their position. “I have not been drinking. That is not true.” At last turning his back to Connor and Roy, he paused and listened for another minute. “It must have been another owl. A larger animal would have tripped the alarm for sure. There would have been much more noise.” He walked away with his rifle slung easily over his shoulder.

  Roy signaled Connor. In single file, they matched the guard’s route from five rows away and followed him nearly to the opposite end of the garden. Just as he stopped to light a cigarette, another man stepped into view. And then another. Connor and Roy froze in their tracks. These men were dressed the same, but carried compact assault rifles tucked into their chests.

  “You are always hearing things, old man,” one of them joked. “Come have a cup of coffee. It is not so good, but maybe it will help your ears work better.” Together they bantered back and forth as they headed into the dark of the surrounding trees, their camaraderie obvious.

  Connor and Roy backtracked, again avoiding the trip wire at the edge of the garden. When they were a safe distance away, Connor turned to Roy. “We’re looking at an army, no two ways about it.”

  “Agreed,
” Roy answered thoughtfully. “I’ll be glad when Mark gets here in the morning. If all the plots are guarded with this many SC, we’re outmanned.”

  “I left a bug.

  Roy smiled. “You did? Where?”

  “Smack dab in the middle of all that pot.”

  “Move it, Book Boy,” Izza snapped from the open tailgate of their SUV.

  “I’m going in. You want anything for breakfast? They’ve got bacon and egg burritos,” Morgan offered on his way to the convenience store. Book Boy was a shopping machine, but scrambled eggs? Just the thought made her stomach quiver. The last thing she needed.

  “No, thanks. Make it quick. We’re already a day late and a dollar short.”

  “And whose fault would that be?” He lifted a teasing brow.

  She shot her most evil glare at him. “I said move it. You shop more than a damned woman.”

  Her temperamental stomach was already on the rampage this morning. The colorless soda she’d been sipping was no help, and Morgan was bringing up the rear. Again. Of course, he had his nose in a book even as he strolled across the parking lot. She dreaded the thought of being stuck on a remote op with a spotter like him at her back. Ewww. So not ever going to happen. Nerds and her? She’d made that mistake once. Never a good mix.

  They’d stopped for gas before they headed up the canyon. Daybreak was imminent. Pink brightened the eastern sky while Izza took the opportunity to load up. It was not just saltines in her pockets this morning. No way. She’d already stored her blowout kit, every soldier’s handy dandy first-aid supplies for if and when she got hurt or shot. Lessons learned the hard way tended to linger. Extra mags and a couple of preloaded clips for her AR went next. Izza didn’t intend to feel naked today. Or defenseless. Her blade was already back where it belonged, tucked into its ankle sheath and hidden under her pants cuffs. Right where she could reach it.

  The sun barely lit the eastern horizon. For now, the Wasatch Mountains cast a long stretch of shade across the entire Salt Lake Valley. If she had her way, Mark and his team would do all their work at night or early morning. The baby growing inside of her sapped her energy during the day, and the Utah sun took what was left. Besides, morning sickness didn’t live up to its name. It struck at noon. Every damn day.

  Casting her gaze upward and east to the magnificent mountain range, her mind wandered to that other nerd in another desert in another time. He was smart, too, but handsome. And strong. His strength had been a revelation she hadn’t seen coming. For that one night, she’d almost needed him. The man was uncommonly kind. Sensitive. He knew his way around computers, weapons, and—her.

  Lost in the memory, she touched her fingertips to her bottom lip. The guy knew how to kiss, too. She’d give him that much. He had the deepest blue eyes. She’d grown up around Puget Sound. She knew dark gray water, but his were bluer. Deeper. Pacific Ocean kind of blue.

  “You’re looking good this morning,” Mark lied with his usual cheerfulness, his hand on the gas nozzle while Rory cleaned windows and checked the oil.

  Izza snapped her eyes off the mountain range and dropped her hand. Who did Mark think he was kidding? She brushed the compliment aside without responding. He’d tell her she looked good even if she looked like something the cat dragged in and left to die in the middle of the floor.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked, her mind already up that canyon and engaged with the bad guys she’d come to squash with her don’t-get-in-my-way Ramos style. Fast. Lethal. No questions asked.

  “I’m driving. I want you to ride shotgun.”

  “No. I’m good.”

  He raised a brow, with a What-did-I-just-say? warning in his eye.

  No doubt he thought he was being cavalier putting her in the front seat where chances were she wouldn’t get carsick, but still. She hated preferential treatment. Izza bit her tongue instead of arguing. He was right. She just didn’t want to admit she’d fallen down on the job like the wuss she was not.

  “We rendezvous with Roy and Connor at noon. They’re at the halfway point. You sure you don’t need anything before we head out?” he asked nodding toward the store.

  “Nope. Let’s do it,” she shot back at him.

  Noon, huh? Well, isn’t that just damned great?

  “So I’ve been researching the cartel,” Connor offered over breakfast.

  It was close to 4 a.m. and Roy had once again outdone himself in the kitchen. A platter with eggs, bacon, and French toast covered the small breakfast nook table. The man might be grumpy, but he could cook.

  “You and your research,” Roy huffed as he restocked his backpack with enough energy bars and frozen bottled water to last the day. “What did you find now?”

  Connor spiked an eyebrow in Roy’s direction. Very shortly, his senior agent was going to either appreciate him for this particular research or send him to jail. “For one thing, Ramirez lives outside Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, Mexico. He owns a huge cattle ranch.”

  “Okay. That’s boring. What else?”

  “He’s married. He’s got two kids. Two little girls.” Connor focused on the trivia. Might as well deliver the bad news in small doses.

  “And?”

  “And he’s related to Javier Quinones.”

  Roy stopped restocking to stare at Connor. “The Sinaloa Cartel boss? You sure?”

  “Yes. His wife, Alejandra. Javier is her younger brother.”

  “What else?”

  “You might want to sit down for this next part.”

  Roy dropped to the nearest chair with a scowl skewered on his face.

  Connor took a deep breath and let the pieces fall. “The DEA lost three agents last year when they chased the SC out of this same canyon. Two were shot execution style. One was beheaded.”

  “Say what?” The backpack forgotten, Roy shot to attention.

  “The cartel hit them at night. By the time they left, every agent was dead.”

  “Were they in these stupid RVs?”

  “Tents,” Connor answered grimly. “Just good old DEA camouflaged tents, like the one you wanted us to use.”

  Roy was the most genteel member of The TEAM. A charmer with the ladies, laid back and easy going, it took a lot to push this African American ex-Marine over the edge, but he was mad now. “Why the hell am I just hearing about it? How’d the DEA keep that kind of a mess out of the news? And why?” he bellowed.

  “I wouldn’t have known either,” Connor said quietly, “except I kinda hacked into their system when we got in last night.”

  “Baxter should’ve told us. He should’ve at least told Alex.” Roy completely ignored Connor’s confession.

  “The Governor doesn’t know. No one does.” Connor pushed his plate back and snapped his laptop shut. “I doubt our friends up the road know either. This info was buried inside an encrypted file on the DEA server.”

  Connor let Roy absorb that other little hand grenade of illegally obtained information. On one hand, hacking made him scary valuable to The TEAM, but the day he got caught dabbling inside what was supposedly a highly secure federal computer system would be the day he went to Leavenworth. Of course, he had to get caught first. That was just plain not going to happen.

  “Get your butt packed. We’re going to—”

  A loud rap at the door startled the men. Roy went cautiously to the window and lifted an edge of foil. “It’s Cassidy.” He opened the door. “What’s wrong?” he barked.

  “We’ve got trouble,” she said as she scrambled into the RV, stopping at the desk where Connor sat. Breathlessly, she slapped a picture to the table in front of him. Maka Taufa’s decapitated head glowered from a pike at the front entrance to a local Mexican cantina. And right next to it – Roger Paxton’s stared blankly from a similar pike.

  “Crap. That’s what Ibarra meant, he muttered.”

  Cassidy nodded. “This is hitting local papers as we speak. Who else was with Ibarra the day Taufa was shot? Do you know?”

  “Nestor
Martinez,” Connor admitted.

  She ran a hand through her soft curly locks, clearly shaken at the turn of events. “This is Utah, guys. In case you didn’t know, everyone owns a gun, at least a deer-hunting rifle. Do you know what this means?”

  “Yes. The Cartel means to start a war—”

  “With everyone,” she finished for Connor, her eyes full of an emotion he couldn’t pin down. It seemed a mix of defiance and apprehension, as if she had something else to say, but didn’t know how to say it.

  “That’s not the only problem we’ve got.” Roy nodded toward the photo. “We need to talk with your Agent Burkhouse. Now.”

  “What else is going on?” she asked, her face flushed and a slight sheen of perspiration on her forehead.

  “Did you run all the way here?” Connor asked.

  She nodded, blowing out a deep breath. “Yes. I couldn’t risk Randy hearing the truck start, so I slipped out.”

  “Why?” He moved in a protective step closer. The idea of her alone in dangerous cartel country irked him.

  “Because I thought you guys might actually do something about this. I don’t get the feeling he will.”

  “He will when I’m through with him,” Roy declared. “I’ll lay odds he knows what went down last year, too.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  Roy ran an exasperated hand over his head. “Show her what you found.”

  Connor flipped his laptop open again as he sat down at the work desk. “This,” he said somberly as the screen flashed to the copies he’d made of the encrypted DEA files. The label itself raised the hair on the back of his neck—Operation Scorpion Spider. Eyes Only.

  “What’s going on?” Cassidy asked after she’d read the portion he’d pointed out and saw the gruesome pictures from a year ago. “Why wasn’t I told?”

  “You tell us. It’s your agency, not ours.”