by KT Bryan
“Kilo Mike Alpha--kiss my ass-- you murderer.”
Dillon shook his head. “Not yet, but you’re tempting me.”
<><><>
Sara couldn’t help but smile as she studied Jake. He still had the same streaky blond hair and crazy blue eyes.
“So,” Sara said, “I hear you’re up to no good again. Once a hacker, always a hacker?”
“Yeah, but it’s not something we like to advertise.” He smiled and winked. “Maybe I could show you my codes sometime.”
Dillon muttered under his breath, “Ixnay on the flirting, dirtbag.”
“Grouch.” Jake chided, and with a turn, ushered them into a comfortable looking living room complete with TV and Blue Ray. A kitchen and dining room stood off to one side and down the hall Sara assumed were bedrooms. A definite step up from last night’s quarters.
Dillon set the duffel bags down against the wall just inside the door, and turned to his friend. “What are you doing down here anyway?”
“I’m on loan. Somebody FUBAR’d our surveillance efforts and they stuck me here until I can straighten it all out.”
“I’m surprised that out of all the agents EDGE could have chosen, they picked you to play watchdog at a safe house. Your talents are being wasted in this place.”
“Ah, but I think you’ll find the surveillance I’m doing very interesting. Plus, they’re letting me play with their latest and greatest computer system, so it’s not all bad.”
“Play with? I’m sure you mean completely redesign.”
“I try.”
Sara watched the two men and felt her smile fade as Dillon’s earlier words finally sank in. “What did you mean I’ll need Jake’s hospitality for a while? We don’t have a while to waste.”
Dillon expelled a long breath. “I mean that you’re not going with me. No way am I going to let you schlep around the jungle looking for Sanchez. You’re staying right here until this is over. Understand?”
Oh, she understood all right. He was still determined to dump her. “Stay here while you go off traipsing after a lunatic killer who’s got my brother? Not to mention our, uh,” she glanced at Jake, not sure if Dillon wanted the news out just yet. “Package. No way. I’m going with you.”
Dillon’s eyes narrowed in warning but before he could speak, Jake chimed in. “Sorry, Sara, but Dillon’s right. It’s mean and dangerous out there, and certainly no place for a woman. Rafael Sanchez is a butcher and he wouldn’t hesitate to slice--”
“Jeez, Jake, don’t sugarcoat it. I think she gets the picture.”
“I’ve had the picture up close and personal. I’m going and you can’t stop me.”
Dillon’s movements were smooth, almost predatory, as he walked toward her. “No. You’re not.” He narrowed his gaze and his voice came out dark, “You’d scream the first time you saw a bug bigger than your shoe. Not to mention the snakes, mountain lions, bats and everything else that’re out there.”
He stepped close enough that his chest touched hers, then slowly backed her up against the wall, pinning her there with his body. A hard, muscled body seeping warmth and virility. His gaze, half-lidded and stormy, lingered on her lips. His mouth was just a breath away from hers, and he leaned forward to whisper across her cheek, “You’ve seen firsthand what Sanchez can do. Don’t tempt fate a second time. You won’t win.” Abruptly, he turned away from her and walked into the kitchen.
She sagged, then straightened and thought, Oh, yes, I will. Up to this point, she’d pretty much gone along with Dillon’s wishes, but after what Sanchez had done to her, whose lives he now held, well this time she intended to push back. She just wasn’t sure how yet.
“Sorry, Sara,” Jake said. He glanced at her, and then obviously deciding discretion was the better part of valor, followed Dillon into the kitchen.
Fuming, she watched the two men disappear into the other room. Her emotions were waffling and she knew it. She was walking that fine line between thinking and not thinking clearly. Yes, Dillon had been trained for what he was about to do. She wasn’t. Not exactly. She didn’t want to be a liability, but didn’t he get it? It wasn’t that she wanted to go. She had to go.
For herself. And for Matt and Ellie.
Not only that, but she wasn’t sure Dillon would believe her if she told him that Manny Vega, the man he hated, the man he wanted to kill, was in fact, her brother. Even if he did believe her, he might not care. Not if he thought Matt had turned. Even though Matt had to be working undercover, he was still working with Sanchez. And if Dillon found out, she doubted he’d lift a finger to save him.
There were no two ways about it, she had to go. Whether Dillon liked it or not.
<><><>
Jake looked over his shoulder to make sure Sara hadn’t followed them and half whispered, “That lady out there is dripping confusion and anger all over my carpet. What in the hell happened to her?”
“Too much,” Dillon answered curtly, shaking his head, knowing he hadn’t helped matters by lying to her, and now the lie was eating him alive.
“Like...?”
Dillon leaned against the kitchen counter, sighed, then dropped the bomb he knew would blow Jake right out of the water. “You remember what happened twelve months ago, on the pier. We all thought Sara’d been killed but apparently not. The DEA patched her up, hid her for a year. But we have a leak somewhere and Sanchez found her a few days back. Somehow she got away.”
“Sanchez actually had her? I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t either, until yesterday.”
Jake grabbed a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. “Holy shit. And Sanchez has her brother? Is there a ransom involved?”
“If you can call the heavily coded thumb drive she swiped a ransom.”
“She swiped a--? From Sanchez? And she’s still breathing?” Jake whistled through his teeth, then shook his head with a small smile. “Jesus. Same old Sara. Bold and ballsy.”
“Yeah, well, the ballsy part I could do without. The bold part might get her killed.”
Jake’s smile faded. “Sanchez give you a drop point?”
“No. And that’s the hell of it. I have no idea where to find him. Mexico, Colombia? Hell he could be in Bum-fuck-istan for all I know.”
“How’d he contact you?”
“Cellphone.”
“And?”
“And nothing. He gave me forty-eight hours to deliver his drive or he’s going to kill Matt. Then the bastard hung up.” He didn’t want to tell Jake about Ellie, not yet, didn’t want him to know something Dillon had just found out about himself. He needed time to absorb first.
Jake shook his head. “Typical Sanchez bullshit. Good news is, he’s on the DEA’s radar and our latest intel says he’s in Mexico. Bad news is, he’s going to be hard to find. He’s got himself set up in some kind of jungle fortress outside of Puerto Vallarta, and it’s so well hidden nothing much has shown up on satellite.”
Jake’s info fit with what the Mexican in Tijuana had said.
Jake walked over to the counter, picked up a map and unrolled it onto the table. “So far, we think this is the general area,” he circled a large region on the map with his finger, “but no one here’s talking and we haven’t gone in that deep yet. We do know there are a lot of large ranches and other potential hideouts in the area, but they’re well hidden, whether for secrecy or privacy we don’t know, and we haven’t figured out which one is his.” Jake let Dillon study the map and asked, “You need some help?”
“Hell yes, I need help. I need an army of help. But what I need most is for you to keep that lady in there safe.”
Jake nodded. “She won’t like it.”
Yeah. Bummer. “Too bad.”
“Roger that.” Jake walked back into the living room and flashed Sara a grin. “You look like you could use a hot shower.”
Sara looked down at her wet clothes and gave Jake a rueful smile. “That would be great. Thanks.”
“The spare bedroom�
��s just down that hall.”
Dillon followed Jake, picked up the duffel with the clothes in it, carried it into the bedroom for Sara and set it down. “Sara, look. I can’t say I’m sorry I’ve got to leave you here. I want you to be safe, and this is the best place for you right now.”
Glaring, she pulled some dry clothes out of the bag, turned on her heel and stalked toward the bathroom.
Well fine, let her be good and mad. Mad was better than dead.
With a soft curse, he changed into dry clothes, then went into the kitchen, snagged two beers out of the fridge and proceeded into a small study off the dining area where the computer was set up. Jake had it booted and ready to go.
Dillon handed him a beer and sat down in a chair next to Jake where he could see the computer screen, then popped the tab on his can. “As soon as we get this drive decoded, Sanchez is history.”
“If we can find him.”
“Yeah. There is that.”
Jake opened his beer and took a long drink before he asked, “What all do you know about this dead DEA guy?”
Dillon shifted in his seat, tipped the chair back on two legs. “Not a thing other than he was in the hospital when I went to check on Craig Duncan. I took Sara with me. He was willing to kill her to get the drive back, so I’m assuming he worked for Sanchez. Although, from what I can tell, someone else, other than Sanchez, is after that drive. There’s a leak.”
“Who else was at the hospital?”
“Craig had just been shot. His girlfriend, Stacy, was there, along with a couple of feds playing watchdog outside his room. Doctors, nurses. His old boss, Cummings, cleared me.
Jake looked thoughtful and after a long minute slid the silver thumb drive into the computer, picked up a pencil off the desk and tapped it against the CPU. “So where do you want to start?”
“Maybe with some coffee?” Sara, freshly dressed, asked from the doorway.
Dillon raised his beer and said, “Maybe in a little while.”
Jake raised his beer and said, “Help yourself.”
“Thanks. I will.” Sara barely spared Dillon a second glance, gave Jake a small smile, and walked back into the kitchen.
Dillon watched her bottom sway and turned regretfully back to Jake. He scowled at Jake’s knowing look. “Let’s just start working on the codes, here, okay?”
“Uh, huh.” Shaking his head, Jake grinned and muttered, “Hooboy, that woman is pissed. Better make it up to her with something expensive.” Laughing, he tossed the pencil back onto the desk, then turned to the screen in front of him. “Well, let’s see. Any idea who actually coded the drive in the first place?”
“No. I’m thinking either Sanchez himself, or maybe Vega.”
“I heard Vega’s a rogue DEA agent. That he turned about a year ago. Maybe two.”
“Yeah, well, he’s in ass deep with the SBC. Works right alongside Sanchez.”
“There seems to be a lot of action with the DEA right now. We could give that a shot.”
“Let’s do it.”
“If a DEA agent or ex-agent coded the drive, they would’ve used a government encryption code, so the fastest way to decode it might be to access the FBI’s mainframe, plug into their decryption files and run it.” At Dillon’s hesitation, Jake added, “Maybe the computer Gods will smile on us and we’ll get lucky.”
Dillon nodded and said, “Go for it,” then let his gaze drift into the kitchen. He watched as Sara wandered from the kitchen to the living room and sat down. Looking angry and lost, she turned the TV on low.
Jake followed her movement and whistled softly through his teeth. “She’s gotta be feeling like the wrong end of a train wreck.”
“As long as I can keep Sanchez away from her, she’ll be okay.”
“I’m thinking as long as she has you on her side, she’ll be okay.”
“Maybe. In the meantime, let’s see what kind of computer magic you can work.”
Jake turned back to the keyboard and when he finally started typing in FBI access codes, Dillon felt a stab of conscience and warned, “That’s a federal crime you know. As in felony.”
Jake glanced up and gave him an exaggerated no shit look from under raised eyebrows and kept right on cycling codes into the computer.
“You could go to prison.”
“Yeah, well I’m more concerned about decoding this drive than prison terms right now, okay?”
Dillon opened his mouth to argue, then pressed his lips together. Too much was at stake for his conscience to start objecting now. “Just cover your ass. And use as many relays as possible.”
“As you already know, once I’m in, they’re going to track me. There’s no way not to leave fingerprints. And I hate to remind you, but when unwanted company shows up here, it ain’t me they’re gonna notice first, Mr. America’s Most Wanted.”
“Right.” Knowing the process was going to take a while, Dillon got up and poured them both some coffee, then started pacing.
After thirty minutes or so, Jake glanced up, looking annoyed. “This isn’t rocket science I’m doing here, but it is illegal as hell, and if you don’t quit making tracks on the carpet, Caldwell, I’m going to screw up. Then I’m going to pull out my H&K and blast you.”
Dillon stopped pacing. “Let me know when, or if, I can help.” He set his empty coffee cup on a side table, then moved across to the couch in the living room and sprawled out next to Sara who was curled up on one end and quietly napping.
Drumming his fingers on his thigh, he stared at the hallway light and then Sara, and his hands fisted at his sides.
What a mess. Not only had he caused a major rift between them a year ago, now he’d widened and cemented that gap. And even if somehow, somehow he could put things right between them, he was going to lose her anyway.
Because, as things stood now, he had nothing left.
Even if he was able to keep all of them alive, Sanchez had done enough damage to Dillon’s reputation that Dillon knew, when all this was over, he’d never be able to be seen in Sara’s company. He wouldn’t be able to hold his head up. Hell, unless by some miracle he was able to clear his name, he’d never be able to go home again.
And miracles, these days, were in damn short supply.
For long minutes, the world faded away and a quiet rage took over. He was a wanted felon. Him--Commander Dillon Caldwell of the United States Navy, EDGE special ops, who’d dedicated his entire life to his country, who’d lost his sister, his parents, maybe his child, and almost his wife because of his loyalty and allegiance to his nation, was wanted for, of all things, treason. His honor, integrity, everything he’d given his life for was now history. Trashed.
His hatred of Rafael Sanchez grew into a burning, savage swell that made his vision blur into a red haze. The fact that Sanchez was now threatening Sara’s life along with his child’s, a child he’d never even met, induced an even deadlier surge of such frigid malice that in the darkest corner of his mind he knew without a doubt that no matter what else might happen, he was going to point his gun at Sanchez, and without a qualm, pull the trigger.
Dillon closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. When he was finally calm, he got up and looked at his watch. Minutes had passed and turned into hours.
He retrieved his empty cup, snagged Jake’s on the way, walked into the kitchen and poured them both another cup of coffee.
“Almost there, boss.” Jake motioned for Dillon to come back in.
Dillon sat down and watched the monitor. Jake’s fingers flew across the keyboard and after a minute he sat back and grinned. “Check this, we just hit the mother lode.”
Together, the two of them read the information on the screen.
Jake’s grin disappeared.
Dillon didn’t move.
This was worse than he’d ever imagined and suddenly he was overwhelmed by an unholy fear for Sara’s safety.
“Oh. My. God,” Jake whispered in awe, “no wonder Sanchez wants his drive back.”
Dates, times, places, contact code names, quantities of drug acquisitions, shipments, drops, everything was listed, including two columns of numbers in some sort of code, that were, no doubt, the latitude and longitude of the drug drops in the U.S., Mexico, Colombia and several other nations.
“Yeah,” Dillon said, “and so does his partner.”
Right there, in black and white, was an all-too-familiar name. A name that was listed right alongside the number of drug shipments made as well as the payments received.
Dillon’s expression was grim. “Copy it on a plain black thumb drive, then re-encrypt the original. In our code.” Now Sanchez would never be able to decode the original, and that was going to be Dillon’s ace in the hole.
Jake inserted a blank flash drive, and with hands that were not quite steady, typed the copy command.
As soon as Jake was finished and handed him the original, Dillon sealed it in a plastic bag and said, “If you don’t hear from me within two days, send the copy to every newspaper on every continent.”
Fighting off a wave of frustration, he checked the time. He now had twenty-nine hours left to find Sanchez.
A faint noise sounded from somewhere outside. The front of the house. “Listen.”
He looked at Jake and Jake said, “Damn, I knew there’d be company, I just didn’t think it would be quite so soon.”
<><><>
When Matt heard someone fiddling with the lock on the outside of his cement prison, he scrambled to his feet as fast as his sore body would allow, and pressed himself against the wall.
Whoever was coming through that door had a hell of a surprise in store. All Matt needed to do was grab their weapon, deliver a sharp blow to their throat, and ta-da, he’d be free of this sweat pit. Free to go and hunt down Sanchez and get Ellie home.
The door started to open. He ignored the fire blazing across his bruised and bloody ribs and braced himself. Easy now...
The door swung the rest of the way open and for a split second the bright daylight blinded him. He moved anyway, striking fast, grabbing the foregrip of an Uzi, and jerking the man on the other end into the cell.
