Dangerous Liaisons (14 page)

Jesse whirled in the direction of their pursuers.

Cole grabbed her arm. “You stay, I stay.”

The heat of his fingers penetrated her cotton sleeve.

“I know what you’re doing, Jess.”

The guards’ shouts and dogs’ barks drew closer.

“Damn you.”
She lunged toward the Harvester. “Move!”

He caught up with her. “They’ve got five dogs on our tail.”

“Yep.” Jesse jabbed the compass light. They were heading too far north. “Angle left,” she said. Foliage thrashed twenty meters behind them. A dog growled so close behind, she nearly whirled in anticipation of attack. “We’re not going to make it.”

“Sound carries,” Cole said. “We’ll make it. Twenty more meters.”

They crashed from the jungle into full moonlight. The Harvester sat ten meters away. A dog shot onto the road behind them. Cole whirled and fired. Jesse tensed in anticipation of the dog’s high-pitched yelp, but heard nothing.

“Get in!” Cole shouted.

She yanked open the door and dove into the backseat as he fired another shot. He jumped into the driver’s seat, rocking the vehicle. The lead dog streaked forward as Jesse slammed her door. She startled at sight of the animal. Cole had shot to scare the animal!

The Harvester roared to life and lurched forward, throwing her against the seat. She rebounded, striking her head against the front seat headrest. The vehicle hit a rut and went airborne. She clutched at the headrest, getting a fistful of Cole’s hair. He grunted, but didn’t slow.

Jesse righted herself and twisted in time to see four men emerge from the jungle at a dead run, four more dogs in front of them. She yanked her weapon free and shot out the rear window. One guard halted. She fired again, but missed. He swung a rocket launcher over his shoulder and pointed its wide maw at her.

Shit!

A flash silhouetted him, then a roar followed. A rocket snaked toward them, bright, spinning, fast. Jesse involuntarily ducked. The rocket spiraled past, leaving a trail of smoke. The jungle ahead exploded. The Harvester bucked sideways. A tall palm lurched, toppled slowly over the road. Cole gunned the engine. The Harvester gained speed. The palm accelerated downward. Five meters, three—the Harvester passed under by bare inches. The tree slammed to the ground scraping their rear bumper.

The dogs vaulted the tree, unfazed. One leaped at the truck’s bumper. Jesse flinched at the loud snap of his jaws. She aimed at the guard who had fired the rocket, but at that range, the bucking Harvester guaranteed a miss.

“Damn,” she swore.

More shots. Four bullets pierced the side of the Harvester behind her door in quick succession. Jesse ducked, shouting “Cole, get a move on!” but they were already turning the bend in the path.

The men disappeared from view. A dog lunged at her window, snapping the air in front of her face. She jerked back as he fell away.

“If we don’t lose the dogs, Menendez’s men will catch us!”

“If I go any faster, I’ll break an axle,” he replied.

Headlights abruptly cut through the foliage behind. Jesse’s breath caught.
How’d they get past the tree?

“We’ve got to cut another path,” she said. Another dog leaped at the truck and bounced off. “Menendez must already have a road block somewhere ahead.”

“Probably,” Cole replied, but kept going.

“Cole,” she persisted.

“What do you suggest, Jess? Ten feet off this road and we’ll mire the Harvester.”

“We’ve got another mile before we reach the main road.” She glanced at her watch. “That’s two point four minutes. Menendez’s men made us approximately two and a half minutes ago. That’s a total of five minutes.”

“Could be a problem,” he agreed.

“We need to lose the dogs.”

“Don’t shoot ‘em, Jess.”

She shot him a dirty look she knew he couldn’t see, and leaned out the passenger window with her weapon. Memory of Lancelot as he lay dying made her hand tremble.

“Dammit,” she cursed, and aimed the weapon a good six inches in front of the lead dog and fired into ground. Two of the dogs yelped and fell back. The trailing headlights cut across the air above the dogs. She aimed high over the closest dogs’ heads and let off another round. One dog veered toward the trees but didn’t slow.

Headlights appeared high over the dogs, then hit the ground. Jesse jerked her aim twelve inches from the nearest paw, and fired. Ground spat up into the fringes of the headlights as they disappeared. A dog yelped, circled, then trotted toward the pursuit vehicle. She aimed between the two remaining dogs and pulled the trigger. They didn’t break stride.

Jesse pressed the light on her watch and checked the time. Half a minute to go. The whir of an engine and sweep of light jerked her attention behind them. A beefed up Jeep Cherokee rounded the corner thirty meters behind.

“Floor this thing!” she shouted.

The Harvester bucked forward. She went airborne and struck her head against the roof. The vehicle bounced right, then hard left, and the thick jungle foliage opened up to the main road. Cole hit the brakes and skidded sideways on pavement. Jesse struck the seatback then the passenger side-door. Cole stepped on the gas. Tires screamed and the Harvester leaped forward. Cole shifted hard into second, and she was thrown back against the seat. She grabbed the armrest and turned to look for the Jeep. The Cherokee burst sideways across the road, and slid sideways into the jungle.

Jesse faced forward “Get the hell out of here!”

“Was it worth it, Jess?” Cole asked half an hour later as she glanced through the broken rear window for the dozenth time. She had climbed over the front seat and now occupied the passenger seat beside him. The country road they traveled crossed open ground which allowed sighting of distant headlights.

“They’re back there somewhere.” She scanned their surroundings for manmade light.

“Jess.”

She looked at him. “What?”

Cole took his eyes off the road and met her gaze. “Team members don’t lie to each other. That’s Lanton’s style.” He looked back at the road as if the matter was closed.

Anger replaced shock. “What did you expect? I don’t fucking know you!”

“I put my life in your hands by going with you,” he said. “I trusted you to back me up.”

“I did.”

“Come off it, Jess. It’s dangerous for one team member to keep information from another. You have your agenda, and you’re sticking to it. It’s what you do.”

She stiffened. “Read that in my psych file, did you?”

Cole jerked the wheel right, driving the Harvester onto the shoulder, and came to a screeching halt that nearly sent her through the windshield. He threw the truck into park and seized her shoulders. The full moon shed light into the interior of the Harvester like a bright street lamp, illuminating the hard set of his jaw—and a blaze in his eyes she hadn’t seen before.

He gave her a hard shake. “You’re tough, aren’t you? Right. I read your file. I read about Madrid, Cairo, Bangalore. You can take care of yourself, but you’ve forgotten about teamwork.”

“Fuck you!” she shouted.

His gaze dropped to her mouth and she startled with the impression that he wanted to kiss her.

“You lasted one year in the Core before they drafted you,” he said. “Ever wonder why?”

Jesse gaped.

“They can spot top operative material a mile away,” he went on.

“What the—”

He gave her another hard shake. “Subject’s father dies before she turns twelve, her mother, just before her eighteenth birthday. Subject is left to care for special needs sibling. Subject studied some high-minded subject in college—say, political science as it applies to information security. Subject has a series of short relationships, of which only one serious.”

Jesse slapped him.

His grip tightened for an instant, the heat of his fingers searing through the cotton sleeves to her arms, then he released her. “It’s over, Jess. You can’t do this alone. Never could.”

“But you can?” she snarled.

He shrugged. “I’m not the one trying to go it alone. I won’t jeopardize my teammate’s life by lying. If I—we—go down, I’ll have a clear conscience.”

“You bastard. You’re making me the bad guy.”

“You screwed up, Jess. If you had told me our objective was to get Menendez to contact Perez, we would have handled things differently.”

“You didn’t have to stick around.”

“You didn’t believe you’d find anything in Menendez’s office. The sniffer was your insurance policy, and you didn’t want me to know what you were doing. You made a rookie mistake and put me at risk.”

“For all I know, you’re Lanton’s bed partner,” she shot back.

“Are you trying to convince me or
yourself
that’s what you believe?” Cole leaned back in the seat. “Keeping me in the dark won’t protect me.”

Her heart sped up.

“You were nowhere near the village when we went in. There wasn’t a thing you could do to stop what happened.”

Her heart lurched. There wasn’t a thing she could do to stop Robby Mills from being mowed down by an AK47? Or David Benton from getting his head blown from his body?

“What happened after you called headquarters?”

The harsh note in Cole’s voice jarred her. “Huh?”

“After you called headquarters, what happened?”

Her mind jumped into high gear. “Headquarters—I told you. Green Leader—”

“You called because you knew they had time to abort the mission. You never were that far from the village, were you?” Cole gave his head a single, slow shake. “What kind of fool am I? Why didn’t you tell me you went back to the village?”

She drew in a sharp breath.

“Yeah,” he said, and she realized her reaction had wiped away any doubt he’d had about being right. “Want to tell me about it?”

The need behind his softy spoken words caused her heart to thump like a jackhammer drilling through her chest. How could she possibly recount how she’d watched while two of his men were murdered? How could she admit she’d walked away while he was still alive in that village? Panic washed over her. How could she deny what he now clearly knew?

“You leaving then has nothing to do with us now,” he said.

She couldn’t halt the cry that escaped her lips.

He grasped her shoulders and pulled her so close his warm breath fanned her face.

“You trying to fix things on your own will get
you
killed. We’re a team, Jess, and there isn’t a blessed thing you can do to change that. Try, and I’ll handcuff you inside a shed and bolt the door until this thing is over.”

He grew silent, and Jesse held her breath in anticipation of the demand that she tell him what she saw at the village.

“Which will it be, Jess? You going to force me to do more than just handcuff you to me, or you going to at least pretend you trust me?”

“Pretend—” She pulled free of his grasp.

“I think that’s a fair deal,” he said.

She snorted, but knew he didn’t have to be fair. He could sit back and wait for Menendez to decide the heat had cooled enough to contact Perez. Her ace in the hole—the number recorded on the sniffer—would change within the hour if it was Perez’s.

“The sniffer recorded one call” she said.

Cole reached inside his ops vest and pulled out an olive drab, one-piece phone the size of a cigarette pack, so new, she’d only seen mockups.

“A satellite phone? I didn’t see that with the other gear.” She raised a brow. “Trust?”

“We need experts quick.” He jabbed out a sequence of numbers, put the Harvester in drive, pressed the phone to his ear, and said, “It’s me,” as he eased back onto the road. He looked at her. “What’s the number?”

Jesse hesitated.

“All you have to do is pretend, Jess.”

She gave him a withering look, then spouted off the number.

Early the next afternoon, Jesse glanced up when Cole stepped from the motel bathroom. “Yowsa!” The cheesy red and black checked, short-sleeve shirt he wore actually hurt her eyes.

“The shirt was your idea,” he said.

“That may be the biggest mistake I’ve made on this mission.”

She’d had her doubts about the general store carrying the supplies they needed but, by the time they’d ditched the Harvester and rented a Jeep, Cole’s contact had triangulated the number Menendez had called to within a fifty mile radius two hours north near the coast. She and Cole had driven an hour and a half toward the target and stopped at a one-horse town that made Mayberry look like a metropolis. At least, it had a motel—six rooms—and the owner and his family of six lived in one.

Jesse surveyed the rest of his appearance. “The jeans and tennis shoes work,” she said, but couldn’t get used to the deep chestnut of his hair.

Menendez’s men wouldn’t get far with her description, but Cole’s blond hair and height made him stand out like a lighthouse. The dye had done the trick, but he needed another shirt. She grimaced again at the bright red and black checked colors. Some Colombian was likely to shoot him on principal.

The Sony laptop sitting on the table beeped. Jesse jerked her attention onto the computer screen as Cole slid into the chair facing the screen and began tapping the mouse. She leaned back in the chair and forced herself to relax.

A moment later, he looked up from the computer, shock written in his expression. “Our guys traced the number Menendez called to a submarine off the coast.”

Jesse straightened. “What?”

He looked back at the computer. “The call was routed to a cell tower in the middle of nowhere. Once we knew where to look in the satellite photos, our guys pinpointed the base in a small inlet near Barranquilla.”

Jesse shifted her gaze to Cole. “The sub Senator Hamilton has been looking for.”

He nodded and her mind raced. How long before the U. S. moved in, twelve, maybe twenty-four hours? Once their guys went in, Perez would burrow so deep even a mole would suffocate. Unless—fear rammed through her.

“Have our guys already moved in?”

Cole shook his head. “Here are satellite photos of the area,” He hit a key and the picture filled the screen.

A rugged two-mile coastline separated sea from jungle. Midpoint, a hundred-meters-wide inlet snaked downward in a wide river that dropped off the bottom of the screen. Jesse leaned closer. On the estuary’s west bank, a paved, two-lane road followed the river and ended at an industrial-sized complex, half hidden by trees.

Jesse’s pulse raced. Perez was involved with the building of the sub Senator Hamilton had been searching for. She hadn’t made the connection before, but it was so obvious she felt like a fool. Perez hadn’t targeted the Senator simply for his involvement in Colombian politics. Perez needed to stop the man who could expose him.

“Can you zoom out?” she asked.

Cole hit the F4 key twice and the page refreshed, adjusting to a wider view that lost ground detail. He hit the F3 key to zoom in one step. Jesse reached past his arm and punched F4 for the wider view. A shock reverberated up her arm when the hair on his arm tickled her forearm’s sensitive underside. She started to reach up and rub away the tingle, but caught herself, and allowed her arm to drop back to her side. Squinting, she concentrated on the map and discerned an S-shaped track in the jungle leading from the base to a hacienda with three outbuildings. Two SUV’s sat parked in a circular drive.

Anticipation hummed through her. “Do you see what I see?”

“Yeah,” Cole replied with his slow drawl. “A good-sized house with an access road to the sub base.”

Jesse glanced at the scale embedded in the lower right-hand corner of the photo. The hacienda sat about two miles from the base. “It fits the criteria. That’s got to be Perez’s place.” She was going home.

“Could be nothing more than a compound for base supervisors.”

“Want to bet on that?”

“Settle down, Jess. We need to go to the area and wait with a sniffer for Perez to call the base. We can’t chance the hacienda is just an outpost. No second chances. Remember? Perez can’t be certain who infiltrated Menendez’s place, but the sniffer we left behind tells him it’s not one of his competitors. That makes the U. S. his best bet. If he wants to salvage the sub operation, he has to take a personal interest in base security. That means phone calls. We’ll triangulate his position the minute he makes contact.”

Jesse pinned him with a hard stare. “Who are you really working for, Cole?”

He frowned. “What?”

“You’re talking about a full-blown operation—diversion, sniffers, triangulation, quick strike.”

“I’m not alone. I told you—”

“Four other men have a stake in this.” She shook her head. “I’m not buying.”

Cole leaned back in his chair. “If I worked for someone, they would have rained hellfire down on that base by now. I will hand over the intel on the sub—I don’t want Perez using it to ship drugs to our kids—but we give up that info now and chances of getting him drop to nil.”

“You’re willing to break the rules?” Jesse asked with disbelief.

“I broke the rules the moment I started believing you weren’t guilty.”

Doubt surfaced, and must have shown on her face, for Cole said, “No shenanigans, Jesse. When we go in this time, I have to know I can count on you.”

Yeah, just like she needed to know she could count on him.