Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 06]

by Into the Dark

  She left out everything about Jolo and her capture. Dallas understood. And thought again about how far she’d come in the aftermath of that horror.

  “Three days ago,” she went on, “I got a call from Jenna. She was down here following up on a story she’s researching on mind-control experimentation while also searching for my grandfather. She was certain she’d found him here in Argentina. She asked me to meet her in Buenos Aires. Gave me Alvaro’s name in case she didn’t show. When I contacted him, he set up a meet at the cantina.”

  She stopped and Jones nodded for her to continue.

  “The same night she called, someone ran me off the road as I was leaving my mother’s facility. I have no doubt his intent was to kill me.”

  Jones sat back, his face unreadable. His thumb stroked up and down along the neck of the whiskey bottle. “What did he look like?

  “The man who ran you off the road,” Jones prodded when she didn’t respond. “What did he look like?”

  Amy looked at her hands. “Like someone who wanted me dead.”

  Jones looked at Dallas. He’d caught Amy’s hesitation too. It was just long enough that Dallas knew she holding something back.

  “How’d you get away from him?” Jones persisted.

  Again, she looked away.

  And Dallas finally put it together. “The spent cartridge,” he speculated aloud. “You killed him?”

  She said nothing. She didn’t have to.

  Jones leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “He’s dead?”

  Her eyes gave her away when they cut sharply to his. Finally, she admitted it. “Yes. I killed him.”

  And it was killing her, Dallas realized, understanding exactly what she was dealing with. He’d been there too many times to count.

  “No guilt,” Dallas said, and covered her hand with his.

  She bit her lower lip. Finally nodded. “Maybe I’ll have that drink after all.”

  Jones poured without comment, looked on in grudging admiration when she tossed back the whiskey and suppressed a gasp.

  “Do you remember anything about him?” Jones probed quietly. “Any physical details? Identifying marks.”

  She shook her head. Stopped abruptly. “Wait.” She touched a hand to her temple. “There was something…”

  “A tattoo, maybe?”

  “Yes.” She looked stunned. Jones’ speculation obviously surprised her, as well as jarred her memory. “A tattoo. On the back of his hand. I’d forgotten about it. Let me think. Numbers. Just…numbers. Four…four fifty-one. Yeah. Four fifty-one. Black ink. Small bold font.”

  Jones registered nothing. A nonreaction that made Dallas anxious as hell.

  “How did you know about the tattoo?” Dallas turned to Jones, his sense of foreboding blimping up to elephantine proportions.

  Jones sat back in his chair. Poured another shot. And just sat there, a look fathoms dark, coal mine deep masking his thoughts.

  “Jones?” Dallas prompted. No inquiry this time. A demand to know.

  Jones looked at Amy. Then at Dallas. “You need to take her back to the States. Get her the hell out of here and let me handle this. Forget you ever saw me. Forget about Alejandro and Alvaro. Forget the tattooed man. Just…forget.”

  Amy steeled herself against the stone-cold determination radiating off Jones in alpha-dog waves. The man scared her. But life terrified her these days, so the sensation wasn’t new. And it wasn’t going to stop her.

  “I came here to find my grandfather, Mr. Jones. And I need to find Jenna. I haven’t heard from her and haven’t been able to raise her on her cell since she called.”

  “I’ll take care of the McMillan woman. And your grandfather is old news. For your own sake, let it go.”

  Beside her, Dallas shifted in his chair. She refused to look at him. Knew without seeing his face that he’d like nothing better than for her to back away from this too.

  It wasn’t going to happen.

  “Look. I appreciate your concern. What you don’t appreciate is my motivation. Or my determination. My mother is little more than a vegetable. I owe Edward Walker for what he did to her. And I owe him for something else. Something I intend to make him pay for. And I won’t turn my back on my friend.”

  She chanced a glance at Dallas then. Saw him watching her with something she’d like to think was admiration but leaned more toward “damn stubborn woman.”

  Whatever it was, it bolstered her resolve. And it made her realize for perhaps the hundredth time today, how glad she was to have him with her. Not just because she felt safe with him. But because she felt the need of him. The need in him that he managed to relay with just a touch, just a look. By just being here.

  Jones appeared about as happy as a man about to get a root canal without novocaine. “You can either help or get out of my way because I’m not leaving here until I find both of them.”

  Jones cast Dallas a look of appeal: Can’t you do anything about this?

  Dallas merely shrugged, relinquishing the stage to her. She would thank him for that later. And for a hundred the other things, large and small—but most of all for being the kind of man he was.

  “You have no idea what you’re getting into,” Jones warned.

  “Probably not. But since you have no idea what I’ve been through, I guess that makes us even,” she countered.

  Jones considered her, evidently “got it” that she was in this to the end and gave up the fight. He breathed deep, gave a fatalistic shake of his head.

  “Okay, look. Do not construe this as me helping you, all right? I’m going to let you in on this for one reason and one reason only. If I turn you loose to your own devices and you stumble onto your grandfather, you’re going to find yourself swimming in water that’ll make a lake full of piranhas seem like a kiddie pool. And that’s going to fuck up an ongoing op I have a personal stake in. And that’s going to royally piss me off.”

  Too late, Amy thought. He was already pissed. That came through loud and clear. She didn’t care. All she cared about was that he’d conceded.

  “You aren’t going to help us. Got it. Put any spin on it you want. You’re going to help yourself by keeping us in the loop and out of trouble—works for me.”

  He grunted. “Lady. You have no idea what trouble is.”

  “Yes,” Amy said meeting his hard scowl without flinching. “I do.”

  Jones held her stare for a long moment, must have seen something in her eyes that made him believe her. Understood that somewhere, sometime in her life, she had been through hell. Enough hell that she was ready to walk into the fire again to extract some justice.

  “Fine. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. And let’s get something straight up front. From this point on, you do as I say. When I say. How I say. Clear?”

  “As crystal.”

  He gave her one last hard glare, cut his gaze to Dallas, who gave him a noncommittal look.

  “And so you know,” Jones continued, understanding that was the best he was going to get out of Dallas, “push comes to shove, my operation becomes priority one. You’re on your own.”

  Amy expelled a relieved breath and took advantage of his grudging concession before he changed his mind. She had questions. He was the only ones with answers. “Who was the man with the tattoo?”

  Jones drilled her with one last, probing look, as if he might still change his mind before answering with a weary breath. “An assassin.”

  “Hired by my grandfather,” she surmised.

  Jones shook his head. “Not hired. Sent. By MC6.”

  Amy glanced at Dallas, then back at Jones. “MC6?”

  Jones hesitated, then swore under his breath as if he realized he was just about to cross the point of no return. “You’ve heard of ODESSA.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Dallas groaned. “I don’t think I want to hear this.”

  “Doesn’t look like you’re calling the shots.” Jones turned back to Amy. “MC6 is an offshoot of ODESSA. An enclave of scientists, ex-
SS, and ex-military special operators who splintered off the U.S. government payroll years ago so they could continue with their ‘research.’ The guts of their mind control section is headquartered here, in Argentina—has been since the Peron era when Evita offered refuge to thousands of Nazis after the war. Subsequent governments have willingly turned a blind eye to their handiwork. Collusion might be a better word. In exchange for generous kickbacks, of course,” he added bitterly.

  “For God’s sake, they have to be old men by now,” Dallas put in, sounding a little like he knew they’d just stepped aboard a runaway train.

  “True. And many of them are dead. Some, like your grandfather, however, are still alive and still plotting the downfall of the free world.”

  “Wait.” Amy shook her head, stunned by the implication of his statement. Surely she’d misunderstood. “What are you saying?”

  “He’s saying,” Dallas said with a look that was all too knowing, “that jihadists and suicide bombers in the Middle East aren’t the only ones with their finger in the terrorism pie.”

  “MC6 has been on the radar for over two decades,” Jones continued. “It took that long to convince the powers that be that it and ODESSA are fact, not fiction.”

  “Don’t say it,” Dallas warned Amy.

  Despite the gravity of this news, Amy smiled and resisted the urge to say, I told you so.

  “This goes much deeper than your grandfather,” Jones explained. “MC6 is comprised of second-, even third-generation members, all groomed or programmed to carry on the work started by their fathers.”

  “So the man who came after me—you’re saying he was a member of MC6?”

  Jones shook his head. “Not a member. One of their projects.”

  Amy met his statement with stunned silence.

  “Congratulations, Ms. Walker. Lil’ bitty you managed to eliminate a programmed assassin.”

  Amy stared at Jones.

  Programmed assassin.

  Her head felt light.

  Her fingers numb.

  Jones poured another full shot of Wild Turkey and pushed it in front of her. She lifted it to her mouth, downed it in one swallow.

  Programmed assassin. The two words bounced around in her brain like twin hammers while the whiskey burned a path to her stomach.

  The man who had been sent to kill her had been a victim too. Most likely tortured, abused, ultimately broken and remade into a killer against his will.

  “Alejandro?” she asked when she caught her breath. “Was he—”

  Jones shook his head. “He was just a bad-ass piece of shit. On the MC6 payroll, but he killed because he liked to, not because he was programmed to.”

  “And Alvaro?” Amy heard Dallas ask.

  “One of mine,” Jones said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Jones’ eyes were bleak. “He knew the risks.”

  They all knew the risks, Amy thought. Like Dallas and his brothers, all of the men in this cantina played the odds on a daily basis. Instead of betting on sports or horse races, they bet on their lives. And not for one minute did she believe that Jones didn’t grieve for the loss of one of his own.

  “If Alvaro worked with you, why was he helping Jenna?”

  “Intercepting would be a better word.” Jones slouched back in his chair. His relaxed pose was deceiving. Like Dallas, his eyes were always watchful, his big body ready to move at the first sign of trouble. “Your friend was stirring up a lot of dust—as I said, we’ve had an ongoing op in the works for MC6. She was a very resourceful woman—not to mention a royal pain in the ass.”

  “For MC6?”

  He grunted. “Them, too. Look.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Suffice it to say, it was in everyone’s best interests if Ms. McMillan backed off—or at the very least, veered off course.”

  “Enter Alvaro, to muck up her navigation in the guise of a helpful local.” Dallas’ smile was tight.

  “And to keep her out of harm’s way.” Jones rubbed a hand over his thigh, a gesture Amy had noticed several times. Nervous habit? Old wound?

  “But she found my grandfather anyway,” Amy pointed out. “And now she’s disappeared.”

  “Alejandro’s doing. No doubt ordered by MC6.”

  “Oh, God.” With those words, Jones shattered the small hope Amy had clung to of locating Jenna safe and sound. “She’s…dead?”

  “No. I don’t think so. But she may wish she was by the time they get through with her.”

  “You know where she is?”

  “Got a pretty good idea.” Jones checked his watch—a complex contraption with a wide thick face, a compass and dials that looked very much like the one Dallas wore. “Look, I’ve got business I need to tend to. Let’s finish this conversation on the fly. I’ve got transpo out back. I’ll drop you at your hotel.”

  He stood to the scrape of heavy wooden chair legs on a cracked tile floor.

  Amy stood too. “But Jenna—”

  “Will wait until tomorrow.”

  Dallas’ hand on her shoulder steadied her. “He’s right. If she’s still alive, they’re keeping her that way for a reason. Possibly as bait, to draw you in.”

  “That’s the way I see it,” Jones agreed, digging into his pocket for his wallet then throwing some bills on the table. “You destroyed one of their favorite toys, Ms. Walker. I’m guessing they’re pissed.”

  “You think they found the assissin’s body already?”

  “MC6 has eyes everywhere. When he didn’t check in with a report, you can bet they sent someone to find him. And yeah, they found him—most likely retrieved the body—and tracked you here, or they wouldn’t have sent Alejandro to take you out. As soon as they find what’s left of him, they’ll redouble their efforts to eliminate you as a threat. Jenna McMillan will be their ace in the hole. If they don’t find you first, they’ll count on you coming to her.”

  “What they aren’t going to count on,” Dallas assured her, cutting the tension with a soft smile, “is Lara Croft. At the risk of repeating myself, those assholes don’t stand a chance.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Dallas let himself back into the hotel room, a to-go box full of food in hand just as Amy came out of the small bathroom. Around an hour ago, Jones had dropped them off a couple blocks from the Alcazar Hotel—his suggestion since they weren’t booked anywhere. After writing an address on a napkin, Jones told them to show up there at 8:00 the next morning. Then he’d taken off into the night in an open jeep that looked like it ought to be traversing the sand dunes in Iraq.

  The Alcazar was small, amazingly clean, boasted cheap rates—twenty bucks a night—and a private bath. While Dallas went out to scare up some grub, Amy had taken advantage of the shower.

  He locked the door behind him and turned to Amy.

  Her hair was wet. Her eyes were tired. Thousands of air miles and multiple adrenaline rushes and brushes with death had drained her physical strength. He wondered how great a toll the past few days—specifically tonight—had taken on her emotionally. Knew it had to be high.

  Still, she smiled for him as he shut the door behind him.

  “Chow,” he said unnecessarily and headed for the table in the corner of the room. Tried not to think about how hard it was to not walk up to her, fold her into his arms and take her straight to bed. Told himself to compartmentalize. It was a skill he’d developed early on in his military career.

  Any combat veteran knew you lived in the moment, or you died in the confusion. During a firefight, a recon mission—whatever—thoughts of home, of a soft bed, a hot meal and a hotter woman got someone killed. So you blocked them out.

  Like he’d been blocking since he’d agreed to this suicide mission. He couldn’t think about her naked. He couldn’t think about her needy. He couldn’t think about her as anything but a job. A body he needed to protect.

  Compartmentalize.

  That was the key to keeping both of them alive. Jones had spelled it out in big block l
etters. Amy was a target. Whether it was back home or here, didn’t matter. She was marked and Dallas was the only thing standing between her and certain death.

  So the why the fuck could he not think about anything but burying himself so deep inside her it would take an act of Congress to get him out?

  Jesus. Sex shouldn’t even be a blip on the radar. For more reasons than one. And yet…he was a man on the verge.

  She’d exchanged her black tank and cargos for the gray t-shirt and boxers Dallas had loaned her back in West Palm. She was lost in them and lost in thought.

  There wasn’t one thing about the way she looked—her soft curves camouflaged by worn cotton, her expression pushing the rough edges of exhaustion—that should have made him feel he needed her more than she needed rest.

  Yet it was all he could do to keep his hands off of her.

  With purposeful motions he opened up the box with their dinner. And tried not to think about what had happened in his bed a little over twenty-four hours ago. Something he’d half-assed managed to do all day.

  Compartmentalize.

  Shit. He’d been kidding himself. It was always there. In the back of his mind. In the thick of his blood.

  They hadn’t talked about it. Hadn’t rehashed or replayed or even acknowledged that, for one brief moment in time, she’d reached out to him. Asked him for something he’d wanted to give her but would never have expected her to take.

  No, they hadn’t talked about it. Not. One. Word.

  Like it had never happened.

  Only it had.

  And he had to get past it.

  Compartmentalize!

  He could do this. Told himself he could absolutely do this. Liked to think he would have…if she hadn’t picked that exact moment to walk up beside him, to turn her amazing blue eyes to his, to search his face in a silence that spoke as loud as any plea she could have voiced.