by Kylie Brant
“Have you ever tried to sever a man’s brain stem when he’s holding two hostages on either side of him?” Ava asked evenly. “It’s a tricky shot. I’ve accomplished it a few times, but I have to have a position behind the gunman. The target didn’t expose himself. I assumed you’d prefer I didn’t risk blowing away the top of the president’s skull in the process. Maybe I was wrong about that.”
The vice president opened his mouth. Shut it again.
Cael put in, “I called you immediately as things were going down. Did you contact the military?”
Quintero nodded. “The espionage plane was dispatched as you requested. As you suspected, the limo was abandoned a few miles away and the president and Miss Fuente then were transported by a Land Rover. The vehicle entered the jungle southeast of here.”
Ava’s gaze jerked to Cael’s. He looked unsurprised. “I’m confident they’ll keep de la Reyes alive, at least for now. But your government should expect a communication from the rebels.”
“You are more confident that I am myself.” The man’s tone was heated. “Ramirez has tried assassination before. What makes you think Antonio isn’t already dead?”
“If Ramirez wanted him dead, he’d have been shot here,” Cael said simply. “The fact that they bothered to take him means they need him alive, at least for a while.”
The vice president frowned. “But why? What has changed that he…” Comprehension dawned on his face. “The frozen assets.”
“Exactly.” Cael nodded. “Only the president can order Ramirez’s assets to be unfrozen, so it follows that he’ll be allowed to live until he does so. However, once Ramirez can drain his accounts, de la Reyes is dead. So we don’t have much time.”
Stiffly, Quintero said, “There is no we, Mr. McCabe. I will take over from here. Already I have the military preparing rescue teams to go into the jungle.”
“That would be a mistake.”
The man’s earlier politeness, Ava noted, had disappeared in the face of Cael’s bluntness. “Many mistakes have been made here today, but none of them were mine.” Cael reached for a rolled-up bunch of maps he’d been perusing before Quintero had arrived. Choosing one, he laid it out, tracing an area on it with his finger. “You have approximately ten thousand square miles of jungle in San Baltes. It would take hundreds of men weeks to cover all of it. You have a matter of days, not weeks, to get your president out safely.”
“And what would you have us do in that time? Nothing at all?”
“You might talk to your minister of finance about ways to bog down the unfreezing of assets,” Ava suggested. From Cael’s look of approval she knew they were on the same track. “You also may pretend that there’s a breakdown of communication within the government in the president’s absence. Inter-cabinet bickering. Anything that will buy the president some time.” Because one thing was clear. The moment Ramirez got his hands on his money, de la Reyes would be dead.
Folding his arms over his chest, Quintero said tersely, “This is all well and good. But how will the president be rescued if you say the military should not go looking for him?”
“That’s easy enough,” Cael said evenly. “I’m going in myself.”
* * *
“You can’t seriously be considering going in alone.” Ava matched Cael stride for stride down the hallway to his room.
“Actually I’m through considering.”
She eyed the patches on his arms covering the burns he’d sustained earlier that day. Delirium from pain might be responsible for such a risky illogical move, but he looked far from delirious. Determined. Lethal. But no less dangerous for his injuries.
“You can’t even be sure where he’s being held.”
“The fact that he was taken into the jungle is a pretty big clue,” he said dryly. They were at his door now. He unlocked it and pushed it open.
She followed him inside, an argument still on her lips. “You’re thinking he’s been taken to the rebel camp Reynolds located.”
“Seems logical.” He went to the closet in the room and pulled out a duffel bag, from which he extracted a backpack. Unrolling it, he tossed it on the bed. Then he went to the dresser and started pulling drawers open.
“You said yourself they change camp locations frequently.”
Swiftly he crossed back to the bed with some clothes. Another pair of black fatigues. An extra tank undershirt. Several pairs of socks. A couple of changes of underwear. Ava averted her eyes. She definitely didn’t need a mental picture of McCabe wearing only those dark briefs emblazoned on her mind.
But it was already too late. The image wouldn’t be easily extricated.
“You could give the map Reynolds gave you to the military. What do you think you can accomplish that they can’t?”
“I can not screw it up. I can’t be sure they won’t.”
It was annoying to have to talk to his back. Now he was on the way to the adjoining bathroom, gathering up a toothbrush and paste.
“I’m sure they have trained professionals for just this sort of—”
“Are you?” His interruption cut her short. He paced back into the room and dropped the objects into the bag. “Because I’m not. I have no idea what this country’s military capabilities are. How could I? I don’t know if they have active recon and special ops teams or how well they’re trained. I also don’t know if Ramirez has someone embedded in the military reporting to him. What I am certain of is that it isn’t worth taking the chance. I’m going in alone. Once I’ve located the camp and come up with a plan for getting our people out, I’ll radio the military for backup, just like I told Quintero.”
Ava felt a compelling desire to bounce something off his thick head. He wasn’t being reasonable, and every protest seemed to slide off him. “At least take Sibbits. You trust him, right? Between the two of you…” Cael had gone still and an awful feeling of certainty came over her. Followed with a flood of sorrow. “Oh God.”
Because of course the man had been on guard at Gonzalez’s quarters. And no one standing that close to the house when it went off would have survived it.
Without conscious thought she closed the distance between them, laid her hand gently on his arm between the gauze bandages. “I’m so sorry, Cael.”
She saw his throat working. The muscles in his jaw were clenched tight. But she wasn’t prepared for the arm that snaked around her waist. Pulling her tightly against him.
He held her there, his face pressed against her hair, and she could feel his heart thudding against hers. Imagined she could feel the heaviness in it. “Ah…shit,” he muttered. His arms held her so tightly she could scarcely breathe. And it seemed completely natural to slide her own around his waist and hug him, as if from the pressure she could release some of the pent-up emotion he was holding in.
It seemed like a long time before he spoke again. “It was like something out of hell. I knew it was him when I started to the quarters. Like a human torch, rolling around to put out the flames. I couldn’t help him. When I finally got the flames out, he was…”
“I know.” It was easy enough now to guess how he’d gotten those burns on his arms. She could imagine the scene vividly. And her heart ached. Both for the fallen operative and for the man who couldn’t save him. And the grief he bore because of it. The muscles in his shoulders were trembling under the weight of sorrow. And she wanted, quite simply, to wipe it away. To relieve him of the burden of remorse that she knew he’d carry to the end of his days.
She understood what it was to fail. To watch in horror and misery as an assignment spun horribly out of control. She’d seen hostage takers do their worst before she could get a clear shot. Seen strung-out estranged husbands do unspeakable things to the women they claimed to love while children stood in petrified terror as the scene unfolded before them.
Ava had been part of far more successful missions than not, but it was the ones that went wrong that haunted her. So she knew what Cael was going through. And realized there was n
othing to say that would ease his pain.
They stood like that for several minutes, fused together in a way that had nothing to do with passion and everything to do with the very human need for comfort. She didn’t wonder—not then—what it was about the man that stripped her defenses so easily. Touched her emotions so deftly.
When he spoke his face was still resting lightly on her hair. His voice was muffled. “I won’t lose another one.” He took a breath and released her. “I figure there’s a chance Perez and Reynolds will be there, too. They’ve been the most exposed of any of us. They were on the ground before we arrived and they’ve spent the most time outside the palace compound. Ramirez may have learned their identities. It’s still fairly common down here for foreign contractors or their family members to be kidnapped and held for ransom. They might be in the same place the rebels are keeping de la Reyes and Fuente.”
Because it seemed cruel, she didn’t point out the obvious. That they could just as easily be killed as spies if captured. That they might already be dead.
“What good will you be doing anyone if you get caught yourself?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“I won’t.”
“You can’t know that!” Ava stopped, unsure where the fervor in her voice had stemmed from. When she was sure she’d calmed it, she tried again. “At least take a couple of the soldiers. You have a better chance if you’re not in there alone.”
“I never go into battle with someone I can’t trust. Better to go alone than to have to watch my back the entire time.”
Her breath seemed strangled in her lungs. She stared at him with futile frustration. He acted as though he were indestructible, but just the opposite was true. He had the bandages on his arms to prove it.
“I have to go.” He checked his watch. “If Ramirez is expecting someone to come after them, they’ll be easier to evade while it’s still dark.”
“All right.” A numbed sort of acceptance had come over her. “Give me ten minutes to pack. I’m coming with you.”
CHAPTER 10
“You can let me out here,” Cael told Vasquez tersely.
“You can let both of us out here.”
The look Cael threw Ava was blistering. She pretended not to notice. Opening the door of the jeep, she got out and reached in for her pack, shrugging into it. Then she slipped the rifle strap over her head and straightened.
It had taken longer than the ten minutes she’d promised before she’d been ready to leave the palace. But that was only because Cael had spent half an hour alternating between arguing and pleading with her to see reason. His anger now was just as ineffectual. She wasn’t letting him go into this kind of danger alone. He needed someone at his back, even if that someone was suppressing an increasingly strong urge to brain him with one of her boots.
The night was lit by a slice of whitewashed moon pinned low in the sky. The hem of the jungle loomed across the road at the foothills of the mountains, its depths dark and unwelcoming. Its canopy would shut out any illumination from above.
A chill skittered over her skin. Cael had no idea just how little she wanted to enter it with him. Or how determined she was to do just that.
It wouldn’t do to examine her reasons too closely. Given his plans for her future once back in the States, she certainly didn’t owe him any favors. And if it occurred to her that her problems would be over if he didn’t return from the jungle, the thought brought panic, not relief.
So she was going in. She’d deal with the future later.
He was glaring at her now, temper radiating off him in waves.
“I only go on missions with people I trust. You certainly don’t qualify.”
“Given your attitude, you shouldn’t trust me. I’m ready to punch you already.”
“You can still go back with Vasquez. Supervise the handling of Ramirez’s demands.”
“You’re wasting time.” She walked by him, across the lonely strip of deserted gravel road. Ava was fairly certain she could hear him grinding his teeth behind her.
A quick muttered conversation sounded behind her. Then a few moments later he caught up with her. Passed her.
“Stay behind me,” he snapped, fixing the goggles over his eyes. “And for chrissakes try to move quietly.”
The sound of the jeep driving away gave her a momentary flicker of panic. But in the next minute she squared her shoulders and plunged into the jungle behind him, adjusting her own night-vision goggles.
It was slow going at first. Cael hacked and sawed at strangler vines to clear a path for them. He’d clear a foot and then stop and begin sawing again. She wondered silently how they would ever make time if they had to do this the whole way. But after several yards the ground cleared even as the trees crowded in, effectively closing around them.
The goggles lit the blackness to an eerie green. She concentrated on keeping her footsteps silent and remained as close to Cael as she dared. The sudden screech that sounded above her nearly had her jumping on his back.
“Shit!” She remembered, barely, to whisper.
“Howler monkey.” His voice sounded laconically ahead of her. “They can raise a heckuva racket.”
For the first time she became aware of the night sounds playing all around them. She could hear the deep croak of frogs, and in the distance a coughing sound she thought would belong to some sort of big cat. A jaguar? Every once in a while there’d come a faint animal scream, as predator vanquished prey.
She hoped they’d escape the same fate.
After they’d been on the move about a half hour Cael abruptly stopped. He slipped off the bag he wore on his back easily, although she guessed it weighed a good forty pounds. Going down on one knee, he opened it and withdrew something, which he handed to her. “I’m going to let you hang on to this. Turn it on, but keep the light pointed downward.”
Ava snapped on the heavy mag light and saw him take something from his pocket, smooth it out on the ground before them. She recognized the map Reynolds had brought back of the rebel camp. He spent several minutes studying the coordinates and comparing them with the wrist GPS he wore. Finally he rose, folding the map back up and tucking it away. “We need to start adjusting our path a bit to the west, but we should reach the camp within a few hours.”
Without waiting for his directive, she switched off the light and fell in behind him as he started to move again. “It’ll be full light by then.”
“We’ll get as close as we can and remain hidden. Wait for night for a full recon. See what we’re dealing with.”
Ava waved away a mosquito roughly the size of a Volkswagen. “I can already answer that. Based on Reynolds’s estimate, we’re going to be dealing with at least a hundred-to-one odds.”
“Not necessarily.” It seemed curiously intimate to be alone together in the darkness, conducting a conversation in near whispers. “If Reynolds and Perez are there with de la Reyes and Fuente, it’d be closer to thirty-five to one.”
The mention of the woman’s name reminded her of something. “About Fuente…I don’t think the limo driver was acting alone.”
He stopped so suddenly she ran into the back of him. “Will you stop doing that?”
“You have reason to suspect her?”
“I never saw the driver near the house, did you? When would he have had the opportunity to hide weapons in there?”
“Where would she have gotten her hands on weapons?” She barely could make out his head shake as he began moving again. “She’s hardly the type.”
Ava rolled her eyes. Men could be unbelievably obtuse about women sometimes. “She got her hands on a remote, didn’t she? Think about it. If the driver is working for Ramirez, what reason would he have for killing Gonzalez?”
“Maybe Gonzalez failed in whatever Ramirez hired him for. Or maybe he just doesn’t like loose ends. He might have believed the man was going to talk since we had him dead to rights on the deposits. And you have to admit.” His voice turned bleak. “Triggering his q
uarters was a hell of a distraction.”
“Something about Fuente’s reaction didn’t ring true,” she insisted stubbornly. Aside from her dislike for the woman, there was something there she hadn’t trusted from the first. “When the driver had her and the president on the porch she was crying and carrying on. But remember how she acted that first night when the limo was surrounded by armed guards and I had a gun on her? She wasn’t scared, she was furious and disdainful. Where was the fury this evening?”
A woman like Marissa Fuente had an air of entitlement that would make it difficult to believe anything bad could befall her or those she cared about. If Ava had to guess which was the woman’s real persona, she’d pick the haughty one, not the sobbing, trembling woman who had crawled into the back of the limo seat. “There was no reason to take Fuente along. He had the president. Two hostages are harder to control than one. I think she’s in on it.”
“And I think you’re letting those scratches she left you with color your perception.” Ironically, there was a note of humor in his voice. “I don’t think she’d have any part of endangering de la Reyes. She seems to be in love with him.”
The words were jarring, coming from him. “I never would have pegged you for a romantic.”
“Hardly. Any illusions I had about most people’s intentions became pretty jaded at an early age.”
Her mind returned to the bombshell he’d dropped—was it only yesterday? “By your father?”
Cael’s stride seemed to grow longer. His voice more terse. “He’s not my father in any way but biological. He wasn’t in my life until I was fourteen.”
There was that familiar bitterness tingeing his tone. And for once, Ava was determined she’d hear the origin of the antipathy between the two men. “You resented him for not being around when you were growing up?”
He was silent so long she didn’t think he’d answer. When he did, his voice was flat. “I resented him for coming back. But not right away. At first I watched how happy my mother was. She’d never married. Had always refused to name my father, too. I have her name. But I knew when I saw them together that she’d never stopped loving him. I worshiped my mother. But she was blind when it comes to Dennis Samuelson.”
