On the Loose

by Tara Janzen

  He grinned. It was going to be a long two hours to El Salvador—for her. He had his flight plan memorized and ready to go.

  “Here, you’re going to need these.” He handed her a pair of earplugs.

  When she gave them a blank look, he demonstrated, rolling another pair into thin cylinders and sticking them in his ears. The engine run-up for takeoff was deafening inside a C-130. A fact she discovered about two seconds after she got her earplugs in.

  She shot him a wide-eyed look and quickly buckled her seat belt—a very good idea. Sitting at a right angle to the long axis of the airplane, with nothing to brace against, meant passengers got tossed sideways during acceleration and deceleration.

  By the time they lifted off, she was holding on to anything and everything to keep her in her seat. The smell of jet fuel filled the air, and even he felt a little queasy. It would pass, but he’d been on more than one plane ride where the cabin turned into Up-chuck Central during the first few minutes after takeoff.

  To his surprise, she held her own. Her mouth was tight, her nose wrinkled, her expression grim, but she didn’t look like she was going to be sick.

  Good, because he’d forgotten to have a barf bag handy for her.

  Once they were in the air and hit their cruising altitude, the engine noise abated a bit, and a steady flow of cool, clean air purged the last of the fuel vapor from the fuselage.

  “Thanks for not throwing up,” he said, giving her credit where credit was due. “The takeoffs can be a little rough in one of these.”

  “I never throw up,” she said, with enough confidence that he almost believed her.

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “Cast-iron stomach?”

  She shook her head. “Good breeding.”

  He let out a short laugh. Geezus. Good breeding. She was something else, all right. He didn’t know what, but she was definitely something else.

  Proceeding with his in-flight routine, he took a thick bandanna out of one of his cargo pockets and wrapped it around his head. She went back to fidgeting, trying to get comfortable, which was not going to happen, not in a troop seat at thirty thousand feet. There was only one way to truly enjoy a C-130 flight. He secured the bandanna to the back of his seat, settled down against his seat belt, and promptly fell asleep.

  Sometime later, with the drone of the engine still in his ears, he came partly awake, enough to take stock of his surroundings before returning to the best nap he’d had in days. His gaze slid through the cabin—the pallet was still secure; the aircrew was seated on the opposite side of the fuselage...and Honey was next to him, one seat over.

  An unexpected smile curved his mouth. Smart girl, she’d fallen asleep cross-legged in her seat with a long scarf wrapped around her head and secured behind her, the Gucci version of his makeshift head harness. She had a blanket tucked around her, no doubt compliments of an aircrew that was far more aware of her than they’d let on in the hangar.

  He reached up and touched a loose end of the scarf. Silk. White with a lattice pattern of gold. Expensive. She looked like a kid’s idea of a ninja, a slightly-older-than-Teenage Mutant Drop-dead-Beautiful Ninja.

  He liked gorgeous women. Every woman he’d ever been with had been gorgeous for as long as he’d been with her. Sometimes the luster faded after a breakup, and a couple of times, after a couple of particularly bad breakups, a woman he’d once thought beautiful had taken on the features of a hound from hell.

  So yeah, he’d known his share of beautiful women, maybe more than his share, and Honoria York-Lytton still disconcerted the hell out of him. Maybe it was because she was always so out of place.

  San Luis? Hell. She’d had no business being in San Luis. And rumbling along at thirty thousand feet in the belly of a C-130? She had no business being here, either. So what was it with her? Some aberrant get-your-ass-in-a-sling gene? She was obviously good at the Park Avenue thing, so why didn’t she stay on Park Avenue?

  Maybe it was a family trait. Julia Ann-Marie sure knew how to drown in hot water. Two of Honey’s brothers, the oldest and one out of the middle of the four-pack, had actually made names for themselves in the adventure trade—the middle one, Haydon, with his grand, ecoenvironmental, media-extravaganzas-to-the-ends-of-the-earth expeditions, and the oldest, Avaldamon Thomas York-Lytton, for his oceanic research in faraway places, especially places with no oceans, at least that seemed to be the gist of the intensely academic articles Smith had found.

  Avaldamon—now there was a first name to rival Smith’s. It had to be a family name, one passed down through the generations. He knew what that was like, too, and figured a lot of bad ideas happened that way. He’d always wondered what in the world his mother had been thinking, and why in the world his father had let her get away with it.

  Love, he guessed. Jack Rydell had loved his Melinda Jo, and when she’d died after giving him two sons in nine years of marriage, he’d enshrined her in his heart as a saint.

  Smith shifted in his seat. He didn’t think of his mother much. She hadn’t been in his life very long—and he didn’t know why he was thinking of her now.

  He let his gaze go over Honey again, noting the scarf tied around her head, holding her in place. For as little time as they’d actually spent together, she was racking up a fair-sized list of good choices in the middle of all her bad decisions. If she kept it up, he might have to reevaluate his knee-jerk, testosterone-driven opinions of Park Avenue princesses—at least this one, the one he’d had in his bed in San Luis.

  God, she’d been sweet that night, hot, and silky, and willing. More than willing. And then she’d gone, and even though he’d been the one hustling her out of town and shoving her on a plane as fast as he could, he was still angry about...hell, he didn’t know, maybe about only having her once.

  His gaze fell to her hand, the one closest to the briefcase, and his anger gave way to a quick grin. Sonuvagun. The handcuff had slipped off her hand and was lying in her lap. Slipped off—not been unlocked and removed. Smart girl, all right; she wasn’t worried about rebel bandits and mountain guerrillas taking the briefcase, oh, hell, no. She wasn’t worried about Salvadoran troops absconding with it, or rogue government officials impounding it. The only person she was worried about stealing Zorro’s briefcase from her was him.

  Fair enough, he thought, settling back into his seat. At least now he knew he didn’t have to worry about the handcuffs.

  The next time he woke it was to a light touch on his shoulder and the sensation of the air-plane throttling back. The young man in BDUs leaned down and spoke over the roar of the engines.

  “Twelve minutes out, sir.”

  Smith nodded, stretched, and untied his bandanna. Even with all the noise and turbulence, Honey was still asleep, a skill he would have bet a hundred dollars she didn’t have.

  The aircraft banked sharply left, leveled out, and throttled back still more. She started to stir as the plane began its final approach to the main runway on Ilopango’s military complex. Outside his window, he saw the familiar FAS—Fuerza Aerea Salvadoreña—insignia of the Salvadoran Air Force on immaculately maintained fighters, transports, and helicopters. El Salvador had one of the strongest and most professional military traditions in Central America, and Smith strongly suspected that every round of ammunition and every explosive device he was bringing into the country was going to be used against Salvadoran soldiers. Government shenanigans and backdoor deals aside, he knew if the troops on the ground in Morazán found out who had delivered LAWs and M203 grenade launchers to the CNL, they were going to take it damned personally.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Sona, Colombia

  Inside one of the hangars on her estate, Irena stepped down off the skid pad of her Piper Seneca and did a visual check of the underside of the plane. Everything was prepared, the aircraft loaded with her and Ari’s field gear. All they needed was a location for C. Smith Rydell, and they’d be in the air in minutes.

  It w
as gnawing at her, the whole notion of Rydell being alive. She should have looked back that day in Afghanistan. She should never have walked away in the first place, but oddly, she had not wanted to see him die. He’d been a favorite among her lovers, something she wouldn’t have admitted then, and barely chose to acknowledge now. But faced with his existence, and the need to kill him as quickly as possible, she supposed the memories were inevitable—and important. The more she remembered about him, the better her chances of success when she and Ari found him.

  Under the circumstance, it seemed ironic, but she’d bought the villa with his blood, with the money from Abdurrashid, or so she’d always thought. Now she wondered if it had been Abdurrashid’s blood that had been spilled that day. Back then, she wouldn’t have cared. She’d just been starting out. The deals had come fast, and her partners had usually been short-term, and always expendable.

  Not so, now. She built relationships and worked them to her advantage. There were only so many people at the top, and she knew them all, like the English lord, and the heads of the Cali cartel. By working with the best, she had increased her profit margin tenfold in the last six years. By faking her death, she’d bought a measure of safety for herself and for what she held most dear: a five-year-old girl who lived in luxury and security on the Rue de Bois-Guilbert in Paris.

  The child, Anastasia, was not Rydell’s, but he’d been the lover she’d taken after Rutger Dolk, another contract aviator for the DEA, had left Afghanistan. Rydell had been the lover who had noticed the changes in her body. He’d been the lover she’d stupidly confided in one night during a moment of weakness.

  Therefore, he’d been the lover who’d died. Or should have.

  But even if he hadn’t, as long as he’d thought her dead, there had been no danger, because in his mind, there never would have been a child. Even now, he might not be sure. Women miscarried. Children were stillborn. A hundred things could have happened to have kept her from being a mother—but they had not. Anastasia was hers, but not in Sona, not where anyone connected with the drug business could find her.

  “Patrona.”

  She whirled at the sound of the voice, the pistol in her thigh holster drawn and instantly aimed, her finger on the trigger, the slack taken up.

  “My apologies,” Hans said, with a slight bow, the color drained from his face. “I thought you heard me enter the hangar.”

  She should have. He was ten meters inside the doors, the concrete surface crossed in hard-soled shoes. That she hadn’t heard him was indicative of a disturbing mind-set she needed to bring under control. Inattention got people killed. Inattention caused mistakes to be made, mistakes she couldn’t afford.

  “What have you found?” she asked, holstering the gun with no apology of her own for bringing him within a split second of death. He knew better.

  “The intelligence you requested.” He lifted the folder in his hand. “Rydell was briefed by the CIA chief of station at the U.S. Embassy in Panama City, and a request was made for current imagery of northern El Salvador to support that briefing. Immediately after the meeting, Rydell and the woman were taken by limousine to Howard Air Base.”

  “Heading to El Salvador?”

  “I don’t have that information yet, patrona. I have alerted a contact at Ilopango, and if they land in San Salvador, we will know shortly. The flight time between Howard and Ilopango is two hours, and they’ve had that since leaving Panama.”

  “Northern El Salvador,” she said, extending her hand for the folder, which Hans immediately relinquished. “The Cuerpo Nacional de Libertad has started up strong there again, in Morazán Province, haven’t they?” Her sources of news were wider and more varied than the legitimate media, but no one had to look further than the San Salvador newspapers to keep track of the CNL. Guerrilla warfare on the borders was always news in Central and South America, and keeping track of it was part of her business.

  “Yes. According to our friend in Cali, a group of the CNL based near the Torola River has been stirring up a lot of trouble in the area, with the guerrillas under the control of a new leader, Diego Garcia. He’s been able to bring a fresh infusion of cash to the resistance.”

  She smiled. Cash meant drugs.

  “Who is he doing business with?”

  “Our friend in Cali, for one,” Hans said.

  Her smile grew even more satisfied.

  “Does our friend know how unhappy I am about the quality of the arrangements in Cuzco? Does he know we’ve lost the use of one of our most important airstrips because of the inadequate security provided by his people?”

  “Yes, patrona. I made your displeasure very clear to him.”

  “Then tell him to give me Diego Garcia. I want to know everything the CNL is doing in Morazán, and who they’re doing it with.”

  “It has been done,” Hans said. “We have been promised a full report.”

  “Immediately.” She needed that clear to the Cali contingent. There was no time for delay.

  “Inmediatamente, yes, patrona.”

  “Good.” She snapped open the folder and glanced at the top page. It was a poor copy of a satellite image. “Can this be enhanced?”

  “Yes, patrona.”

  “Then do it.” She flipped to the next page, another satellite map, also in need of enhancing, but she never had to tell Hans anything twice. He got paid to solve her problems before they became problems, and he got paid for his loyalty, which was absolute.

  The subdued ringing of a phone had him proffering another short bow. He pulled the cell out of his pocket and brought it to his ear.

  “Ja.” It took him no more than thirty seconds to receive the news. After he hung up, he met her gaze again. “A C-130 has landed at Ilopango, on the military side of the installation, arriving from Panama. There were two passengers among the crew.”

  “Americans?”

  “Our contact cannot confirm, but he did get a visual, and one of the passengers is a woman, not very tall, blond.”

  “And this Honoria York-Lytton, what have you found out about her?” she asked.

  “Thirty-two years old, unmarried, very wealthy. Her father was the American ambassador to Denmark through two administrations. The family lives in Washington, D.C. She went to Harvard, but has no apparent employment. She arrived in Panama City shortly after midnight last night. I put a photograph of her near the back of the folder.”

  Irena flipped to the back, took one look, and made up her mind. Honoria York-Lytton was very beautiful, very short, and very blond.

  “Find Ari. Tell him we’re leaving. I want everyone we do business with in El Salvador put on alert.” She paged through the folder until she found the expected map section. The maps were in chronological order: Peru, Panama, El Salvador, and if Hans received any information regarding Rydell connecting him to another country, another map would be added to the folder. It was their standard tracking procedure for building a file on a target.

  “San Miguel is the closest large town to Morazán Province,” Hans said.

  “Yes.” She saw it in the southeast part of the country. “Who do we know in San Miguel? Anybody?”

  “Federico Perez.”

  “Is in San Salvador, not San Miguel.”

  “But he was born in San Miguel. His mother is still there, aunts, uncles, two sisters.”

  And she paid Hans to remember the thousand details they needed to always stay one step ahead of the hundreds of people who wanted what was hers. They were out there, constantly circling her territory, her connections, her deals, her sources, and they were always looking for a weakness, always ready to swoop in for the kill.

  “Call him. I want a Hughes 500 helicopter ready for me when I land, and I’ll need a vehicle waiting for me in Morazán, its destination to be determined by you. I want the closest landing zone to wherever you find Rydell, but not in Diego Garcia’s backyard, unless making contact with him is to our advantage. This is a hit, not a party.”

  “Yes, pat
rona.”

  “And I’ll expect the report on Garcia before I get to El Salvador. Something is going on in Morazán, something unusual. We’ve got a rich American woman showing up in Panama City at almost exactly the same time that Rydell is getting on a plane out of Peru. He visits the U.S. Embassy on the Avenida Balboa, and then the two of them meet and are driven out to Howard Air Base to board a C-130 headed to San Salvador.”

  “Yes, patrona.”

  “Why?” She didn’t ask rhetorical questions. Hans knew it as well as Ari.

  “I will discover the reason.”

  “A C-130 is a transport aircraft,” she said.

  He nodded.

  “I want to know what was on the one that landed at Ilopango.”

  “Yes, patrona.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Campos Plantation, Morazán Province, El Salvador

  “What’s this?” Campos asked, picking a letter up off the silver salver offered by his manservant, Maximiliano. “Ouch, Doc, watch that.”

  “If you’d stop getting shot, I wouldn’t have to watch anything,” Dr. Sofia Cristiani said, putting the last suture in the top of his thigh. Dark eyes, dark hair, almost as round as she was tall, Sofia Cristiani ran her clinic like a Gestapo, charged a small fortune for home visits, and was completely immune to his charm.

  From the corner by the hearth, he heard his cook, Isidora, shushing her children, admonishing them to be quiet while el patrón had his surgery. Yes, just another night at the old home-stead, he thought, sitting in the kitchen of his Spanish-style villa, surrounded by the warmth of terra-cotta tiles, weathered wood, the smells of good food cooking, and getting stuck with a needle—repeatedly.

  He’d gotten skinned, that was all, but for someone who had only gotten skinned, he’d bled a helluva lot, and he wanted sympathy and plenty of it, not attitude.

  Not really so much blood loss; not the way she was reading the wound, the doc had said, but what did she know? Sofia hadn’t seen the seat of the four-banger. Sure, his blood pressure was fine and his color was good, but he’d bled like hell. He should call Jewel. She could tell the doc how bad it had been.