The big man yelped in surprise.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know your foot was there.” And that his hands were hovering over her hips. And that his groin was bumping up against her ass. Horny bastard.
He licked his lips. “Sure you don’t want help, you know, setting up your stance?”
So subtle. He’d been drooling over her ever since she’d climbed onto the ATV. The moron really shouldn’t mess with a woman holding a weapon, much less a high powered rifle that could hit a target at a thousand yards. Bullets trumped muscle every time.
“Tio, did I ever tell you I grew up on a chicken farm on the eastern shore of Maryland? Smack dab in the middle of God and gun country. My father began my shooting lessons when I was five. Used eggs for target practice. I could barely lift the rifle. He forced me to lay down in the chicken shit and learn how to hit a dozen eggs in a row. My job was to keep guard over the chickens, watch out for foxes. Said it was good training.” She glanced up at her overeager instructor. “Little did he know I’d be using it to plan his demise twenty-six years later.”
Tio shook his bald head and took three steps back. “Man, that’s screwed up.”
She laughed. “Not as screwed up as he is, I assure you.” Good. Now maybe he’d leave her alone. Angie bent her head back to the task. Beer can in the scope. Check. Feet shoulder width apart. Check. Deep breath. Check. Gentle squeeze of the trigger. Check. Beer can transformed into shrapnel. Priceless.
“Holy shit, woman,” Tio whooped. “You can back me up anytime. Wait till I tell Pepe. He won’t believe it.”
She lowered the weapon and grinned. “Your turn.”
He shook his head and guffawed. “No way. I’m just gonna look bad after you.”
“Handguns, then?” She slid the pistol out of its carrying case and snapped the magazine filled with .40 caliber Winchesters into the butt of the semiautomatic. She admired the simplicity and dependability of the high capacity Glock. “Well, hello there, gorgeous gun of my dreams. Where have you been all my life?”
Tio cocked his head to one side. “You know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d be worried you were an undercover federale.”
“Ha. As if any undercover agent would get past Isabel and you guys.” She shook her head. “He or she would be dead meat.”
“Well, chica, you sure know your way around guns. Never would’ve taken you for a gun lover.”
“Looks can be deceiving. I was raised by a lunatic. My father believes you have to be prepared for End Days. Lawlessness. Chaos. The fall of governments.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Every cult leader’s wet dream.”
Tio blushed. “You’re bad.”
“To the bone.” Angie turned, aimed, and fired the semi-automatic. Beer cans, rocks, and dust flew in every direction. “Whoo-hoo! Got any rocket-launchers? I think I’m ready to take down a fortress.”
“Sorry, those bad boys are back at the ranch.” He glanced at the horizon. “Sun’s going down. Time to get back.” Tio began packing the ammo into duffle bags.
She lifted her handgun and popped the magazine out. “Don’t we need to clean these?”
“Yeah, but not now. Once the light goes, it’s pitch black out here. We don’t want to run into a pack of coyotes, either.” He placed the rifle and the pistol in their carrying cases and handed them to Angie. “These are yours.”
Reluctance to accept expensive gifts from a criminal dampened the thrill of excitement of having the weapons to destroy her father in her hands. “Oh, I don’t think I can accept—”
“Boss Lady won’t take no for an answer.”
God only knew what the Latina would want in return. Angie had the feeling Isabel was like the Godfather, only worse.
Tio started for the ATVs. “Alejandro told her you should have your own weapons. You keep them, chica. They’re your new best friends.”
She zipped up her windbreaker and slid the desert camouflage headgear over her head. She was going to have helmet hair, for sure. “Tell me about Alejandro. Where’d he come from? How long has he worked for Isabel?”
“I don’t know where he’s from. I saw his rap sheet and wanted poster on Interpol. That was good enough for me.”
The professional world turned upside down in the cartels. Here a good criminal background check meant the opposite of what it meant in the civilian world. A rap sheet was indispensable. But an Interpol wanted poster meant the criminal ranked among the crème de la crooks.
“Been with us about a year.” He gave her a sly glance. “You interested? I can, you know, be your go between, sort of like a matchmaker. Set things up for you.”
“This is strictly business.” She frowned at the man.
He smirked. “Whatever you say.”
“I need to know if I can trust this guy. I’m putting my son’s life in his hands.”
“He saved you from Raul, didn’t he?” Tio piled the bags in the back of the ATV.
“Yes. But this is a huge operation. How do I know he can pull off a search and rescue mission like this? It’s not as if he trained for it or has been a cop.”
Tio climbed onto his ATV. The giant made the vehicle look like a child’s riding toy. Angie had a sudden flash of Jake in his red and yellow toy car, scooting around the house. A pang of longing for her boy left her weak-kneed.
“Pepe and me, we got strength.” He flexed his biceps. “But muscle without brains won’t do it. Don’t ever tell Isabel I said this, but Alejandro is the real brains. Before he came, the books were a mess. We didn’t know who had paid for what, and Isabel was pissed off all the time. She went through six accountants in a year.”
Angie could only imagine what being terminated by Isabel really meant. Even if she didn’t kill them, what would an ex-cartel CPA put on his resume? Worked for narcoterrorista for two months. Excellent book-keeper. Superb analytical, critical thinking, and money laundering skills. Looking to move to not-for-profit sector and out of organized crime. Seeking asylum in any country that does not have an extradition treaty with Mexico. References unavailable on request.
“Once that guy started working for the family, things got calmer, smoother.”
“Good record-keeping is one thing. Having the skills and ability to stage a complicated raid like this is another.”
Tio waved his hands and made a big show of looking around. “You see anyone else jumping up to do this?”
She sighed. “No.”
“Then let the man do his job. Besides which, he’s the only hombre who ever withstood Raul’s interrogation and lived to tell the story.”
“That thug beat up Alejandro?”
“While he was handcuffed to a metal chair.”
She recalled her near rape and shuddered at the thought of being at the creep’s mercy. “Whatever happened to Raul?”
Tio gave her a wicked grin. “Let’s just say he’s on a permanent vacation.”
Seemed like a lot of people went on vacation around here. Isabel’s parents were away on some kind of round-the-world tour. Now Raul. Wait. Back up a moment. She’d missed the subtext. He wasn’t on a real vacation. Hadn’t the bodies of half a dozen men been found in a resort town a short time ago? Had that been the fate of the crooked cop, too? Her stomach rolled. She hated Raul, but even he didn’t deserve to be tortured to death. Angie swallowed hard. “Was Alejandro involved in planning Raul’s ‘vacation?’”
“I already told you too much. Forget about it.” He snapped his helmet into place, pressed the starter, and twisted the throttle.
The giant lawnmower sound of the ATV made talking impossible. She turned the conversation over in her mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about what he said. As a defense lawyer, she thought she’d seen it all. People told her she had good instincts, could sniff out bad characters. This revelation blindsided her. She would have never taken the handsome, soft-spoken man who made her pulse spike and her celibacy vow weaken for a killer. Was Alejandro a money launderer and a murderer? Was he ca
pable of that level of ruthlessness? She needed to know this man could save her child. If Alejandro was responsible for Raul’s death, he was the right man for the mission—but the wrong man for her heart.
****
Alejandro assessed the mountain of tents, lanterns, cook sets, stoves, metal bowls, dishes and cutlery, sleeping bags, duffle bags, backpacks, water bottles, repair and first aid kits, hiking poles, binoculars, whistles, and other assorted camping supplies and equipment piled up in a bay of Isabel’s six-car garage. If they added any more crap to the heap they’d never make it out of the compound, much less to the other side of Tarahumara country. In addition to the fact that not one of the thugs on the mission had ever been involved in a search to save a life, Alejandro had never been in charge of task force equipment and supplies. He’d always been a member of the ATFE Special Response Team going in on the raids, doing the actual work.
He had a newfound respect for all the work done by the ATFE support staff. He had to get into Edmondsville without being discovered, extract baby Jake, and call in the chopper to lift both mother and child out of harm’s way. That assumed all went as planned and everyone survived. He had to have contingency plans for the contingency plans. If he went down, he had to have a second in command. He shuddered at the thought of choosing between Tio and Pepe. Each of them could kill, but which one could save a life? He’d think about it tomorrow. They needed to rehearse the operation, but first he had to come up with a tactical transport plan for getting everyone and everything across the desert, canyons, and mountains.
If they staged the mission and ferried materials by helicopter to safe houses ahead of time, they could stash the needed supplies and weapons along the way. In a large city, people would ignore a helicopter buzzing overhead. An urban population would assume it was a traffic chopper or medical evacuation. But in the remote regions where they needed to go, helicopters were either adventure tours for rich gringos or federales making an annual show of hunting for narcoterroristas. Either way, another chopper flying around the Sierra Madre would put them in the public eye. Big news. Too big. That type of activity would draw attention to the rescue team. The cult leaders would get wind of their pursuers and flee, taking baby Jake even deeper into the canyons and caves.
On the other hand, if they took the Hummers over the unimproved roads to the highway, then the capital city, they could take scenic Copper Canyon route on the Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad. If they had a week to spare, that is. The train took thirteen-hours at the best, a week or longer at the worst if rockslides or storms slowed it down. According to one of Isabel’s informants, the cult leader’s wife had last been sighted three months ago in a tiny village ten miles from the train depot. Local hotels ran a transportation service from the station to the village, which would be a big help with transporting everything. But what the hell kind of rescue mission drives up in a tour bus? Might as well bring a megaphone and shout, “Hola, we’re here! We’ve come to pick up the baby.”
If it hadn’t been for the crappy weather over the last three months, they would have tried to rescue the kid sooner. Now that the enemy was dug in, an overland approach, while long and arduous, would be the stealthiest. The dearth of paved roads from Isabel’s compound to the cult fortress necessitated the use of heavy duty all terrain vehicles, ATVs. Using camouflage and lightly traveled routes, the team could cut across canyons and creeks. If they stayed in the canyons, the weather would be tolerable this time of year. The higher altitudes would be frosty, perhaps even snowy in February. He had to plan for every possibility. He shook his head. When Isabel had assigned him to this mission, she’d told him he was in command. What she didn’t tell him was that he was, in essence, chief, cook, and bottle washer in charge of a muscle bound mob of morons. The only exception was Angie.
Angie. His pulse kicked up a notch just thinking of her name. The woman drove him crazy. Not just because she was a red hot mama, but because she was so damn determined to take charge of this mission. The redheaded Amazon had marched into his office and demanded to see all the intelligence he had: weather, aerial maps, railroad schedules, and informant reports. Isabel had shown up in the middle of one of their loud discussions, taken her aside, and told her to let Alejandro be in charge. Isabel’s ringing endorsement had ended with, “He’s smarter than any other employee I have.” Since Tio, Pepe, and the rest of her musclemen had the collective IQ of a swarm of gnats, the compliment fell flat. If only he had his ATFE Special Response Team buddies at his side. He’d take one of them for four of Isabel’s guys.
He tried to organize the equipment by categories, but everything just kept sliding into a mess on the concrete floor. They’d need some kind of storage system, trailers for the hunting quads. He made a note to add tarps to the shopping list. On second thought, he’d have Angie research which ones would do the best job. Every morning for the past month, Angie had shown up in his office with a cup of coffee in one hand and a computer printout in the other.
She questioned everything from the time it was taking to mount the attack, to the type of footwear she needed, to the reliability of the GPS equipment in the mountains. Since Angie wasn’t allowed out of the compound for fear of being spotted by her father’s spies, she printed out long shopping lists and sent Tio out for weekly purchases for the expedition. She could have given instructions to National Geographic explorers.
Between barking orders at Tio and relentless nitpicking questions directed at Alejandro, she kept up a running commentary about her son. “He’s over a year old now, probably walking and talking. He’ll need new clothes, warm bunny suits for extraction from the high country. I wonder what my mother is feeding him. Do you think they have cow’s milk, Alejandro? Or do you think they have him on a diet of pinole and goat milk? He was always such a healthy baby. I hope he’s well. I wonder how big he is now. Will he know me when he sees me?” The most heartbreaking of all of her questions, the one that arrowed straight past his undercover armor was, “Do you think he’ll recognize me? What if Jake forgot me? He was just about to turn a year old when they stole him. He’s fifteen months old now. What if I’m just a nebulous face in his mind?”
Alejandro tried to respond, to tell her the child would be fine, all would be well. But he knew no matter how often he tried to reassure her, her anxiety would never go away until Jake was in her arms. Her fears were like pebbles dropped down into his well of memories, each one sending ripples through his repressed emotions. He longed to hold her, rock her like a child and stroke her hair. In unguarded moments, his thoughts roamed from stroking her hair to kissing her lips, caressing her breasts, and making her moan with pleasure. At times, his biceps ached from the tension of gripping his pants to keep his arms from shooting up, from surrounding her in protective custody. He knew if he touched her, he wouldn’t hold back, couldn’t resist bringing his lips down to hers and smothering her tears, and every luscious inch of her body with his kisses.
Each day he wished Isabel’s observations would come true, that the sparks between them would burst into flames of molten desire. And every day, he cursed himself and his little head for even thinking about breaking his cardinal rule: No sex with women on the job. Today was no different. If he didn’t stop thinking about that woman and how crazy she made him, he’d have an erection and no one to share it with. After mentally giving himself a good ass-kicking, he placed his clipboard and checklist on a workbench, turned to go back to his office, walked halfway across the enormous garage and stopped.
Angie stood in the doorway to the house, one hand on the frame of the doorway, the other covering her mouth. Her face was flushed and tendrils of hair escaped from her ponytail, giving her the look of a Renaissance painting. Her damp tee shirt clung to her high breasts and hard nipples, small waist, and womanly curves. He dragged his eyes back to her face and her gaze snagged his. His breathing became rapid and shallow, as if he’d just run five miles across rugged terrain. Every muscle in his body tensed, waiting, wanting, willing
her to come to him. If she takes one step closer, if she comes into the garage, it’s a sign she wants me. If there was such a thing as telepathy, he yearned to employ it now. The words surfaced in his brain and threatened to escape from his parted lips. Come in, come closer, please. Let me hold you. Let me comfort you. Let my hands roam over your luscious body, my lips brush your long lovely neck. Let me make love to you. One step closer, please. One step closer to my hands and aching groin.
Her hand fell away from her mouth. “How’s it coming?”
“Overwhelming. I could use your help getting it organized.” He paused. Why not just ask her? Where was the harm in that? “Would you like to come and see my inventory?”
Angie cocked her head to one side and raised an eyebrow. “Is that a variation of ‘Would you like to see my etchings?’”
Busted. His face felt warm under her penetrating gaze. “Um. Not exactly. There are no paintings in this pile. And I know you want to stay on top of everyone. I mean everything.” Shit. Did he really just say that?
Angie strolled over to the mountain of equipment and reached for the clipboard in his hand. “Let me take a look.”
She came in. She wanted to be closer to him. This was it, the sign he’d been waiting for.
He sidled up behind her, pretending to look at the clipboard. Breathe, man, just breathe normally. A tendril of her hair lifted and fell with his breath. The healthy scent of sweat from her run addled his brain. He could barely read the words on the paper. He wanted to slide his arms around her waist and nuzzle her neck, nipping at the spot between her neck and shoulder.
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