Locked and Loaded (3 page)

He flipped her body, purse, and shoes into a boat and quickly covered her with a tarp, stashing her gun in the back of his Animal Control uniform pants. Snatching up his wet suit and goggles in a flash, he untied the boat and eased away from the marina. If she woke up before he got her secured, he’d have to chloroform her to keep her from screaming. Anthony felt for the small vial in his buttoned uniform pants pocket, relieved that it had survived the brief battle.

Nothing could be allowed to abort the mission, even if it meant that this mystery woman had to be detained to appear as though she’d left the house in a huff. After all, the guards had been talking shit about bitches and hoes and rudely speculating about which chica they would gladly do doggie style. Text messages could be sent to her lover from the cell phone in her designer purse for all he cared. But the next forty-eight hours were critical.

*   *   *

She woke up with a dull ache at the back of her head and a wicked case of nausea. Bright lights and oxygen tubes were an intrusion on her senses. Then as she slowly came around, pain snaked up from the back of her skull to the top of it, making her grab her head with both hands and squeeze her eyes shut.

“Easy, easy,” a familiar male voice murmured. “You’ve got a concussion and took a dose of chloroform.”

She instantly recognized her boss’s voice and relaxed. “Did you get the name of that Mack truck or what, Hank?”

Sage slowly opened her eyes and then froze. The same guy who’d just tried to kill her was standing beside her boss?

“Captain Anthony Davis, let me introduce you to Special Agent Sage Wagner.”

“My apologies, ma’am,” the captain said in a solemn tone. “It wasn’t until I made contact with my lieutenant that DELTA Force learned—after the fact—that DEA had an embedded agent in the Salazar compound.”

Now she was pissed. Royally so. Even the need to puke wasn’t going to keep her rebuttal in check.

Struggling to sit up, she ripped the oxygen tubes away from her nose. “You mean to tell me that you military guys just went into our setup, in our jurisdiction, and not only gave me a goddamned concussion and chloroformed me when I woke up in the boat, but possibly blew my cover?”

“Wagner, I don’t think you should get up so quickly, and there’s an explanation,” her boss said as she swung her legs over the side of the bed, then winced.

“Do you know how long I’ve been working on this case? We are
this close
to nailing those bastards!” she said, her voice escalating for a moment until both the headache that yelling gave her, as well as her boss’s glance toward the door, made her lower it. “Screw you, Captain. No offense. But bringing this guy down has been my life’s work and you have no idea of what I’ve put on the line. Not a clue.”

She winced again and glared at the man who’d possibly given her a permanent brain injury, but she was glad that he hadn’t shoved her nose through her gray matter or broken her arm in two places to take her gun.

“Agent Wagner,” the captain said in a contrite tone, “I am really, really sorry that neither of us was alerted prior to our stealth operation.”

Sage rubbed the back of her head. “So this is what’s known as friendly fire, I suppose?”

He didn’t answer her question, but looked out the window. “We were not given the intel that we needed at the onset. Information had to go through channels, and by the time it got to our unit, we were already locked and loaded. We’re on the same team…”

“Like hell,” she spat back, growing testier the more she thought about it. “Jurisdiction belongs to—”

“Stand down, Wagner,” her boss said gently. “Posse Commitatus doesn’t apply. They were in hot pursuit of Assad from Afghanistan, so they are within their rights to get involved. It just so happens that their target is doing a deal with our target, hence the overlap.” Hank Wilson smoothed a thick palm over the bald section of his scalp. “I know how much this case means to you, Wagner. I do. I’m not taking you off of it, but I really don’t know about you going back in there. We’ll figure this out and no matter what, we aren’t letting the Salazars walk.”

Sage released a long, weary sigh and nodded. What else was there to say or do? Bureaucrats had again mucked up the works and had the left hand not knowing what the right hand was doing. She could have shot Captain Davis; he could have blown her up or snapped her neck like a twig. It made no sense. However, as irate as she was, she had to admit that they were both putting their lives on the line for a cause they deeply believed in, and were probably both victims of bureaucratic stupidity. Hank was right. He usually was, and that annoyed her too at the moment.

“If you are up to it,” the captain pressed on, after a glance across the room at Sage’s boss, “I can give you a full briefing and would appreciate the same.”

“Yeah … I bet you would,” she said, still annoyed, but not knowing where to vent her frustration. “And I definitely want to know what you guys have planned, since you’ve packed the house foundation with C4. Anything else I need to stay away from?”

“The marina. The yacht. The garage and all vehicles.”

She just stared at the captain. “Even the cute little red Mercedes?”

He gave her a lopsided half-smile. It was a nice smile, actually, and she offered him a grudging one in return.

“No, ma’am. It was obvious that the coupe was yours … the pink-and-red heart dangling from the keys that were hanging up in the garage was a dead giveaway.”

She chuckled even though it hurt.

“And that’s the thing, Wagner,” her boss said, rubbing his palms down his meaty face. “It’s too dangerous for us to send one of my best agents back in there. I was thinking remote surveillance from this point. Plus, if they’ve gotta blow the—”

“Hold it,” she said, about to stand up until she felt the cool breeze at the open back of her hospital gown. “I have to go back or Salazar will know something’s wrong.”

The DELTA Force captain nodded. “Affirmative, sir. It would be helpful if she made a call to Salazar and feigned disgust at what happened on the grounds of the compound today, citing that as the reason she fled by boat—not wanting to walk past the display of dogs to go get her car out of the garage. We’ve put it in a slip over in South Beach … I recovered her shoes and her purse. If she has a cell phone on her, she can call Salazar and sound completely offended by the lewd male commentary made by the guards—and trust me, sir, it was foul.”

“The dogs were you guys?” she said, shaking her head and then wincing with a smile. “Oh … my … God. That was insane, but brilliant! And, yes, I heard some of that … it was indeed rude. I can make it work—I know Salazar. I’ll throw a phone tantrum and make him send a car for me. All I have to do is be lunching at my favorite restaurant with shopping bags filling the seats, and I can fuss and tell him how horrified I was by the language … and seeing dogs humping in front of the mansion.” She pressed a palm to her chest. “What would the neighbors say?”

“Thank you, ma’am,” the captain said, and kept his handsome smile respectful. But she could tell he really wanted to laugh.

She studied him in total now, noticing his massive, six-foot-four frame with appreciation rather than dread, since he was no longer an enemy combatant. He had a really nice smile, a solid, square jaw, and was handsome in a rugged, not pretty-boy, way. Black, short-cropped waves made his hair almost appear to be velvet and his intense dark eyes were rimmed with thick black lashes. His medium brown coloring and the hint of a very slight accent that she detected made his ethnicity hard to judge. He could have been Hispanic, African American, Dominican, or from any Caribbean island.

“Captain Anthony Davis, right?” she said, after a moment and then extended her hand to officially offer the olive branch of peace.

He nodded and shook her hand. “Also known as Juan Morales during this mission, if it goes beyond what we normally do.”

“Aka Camille Rodriguez, back atcha, Captain.” She raised an eyebrow. “What do you guys
normally
do?”

“Hard extractions of hostages or very straightforward target eliminations.”

“Assassinations, essentially.”

“Eliminations.”

“Semantics,” she said, folding her arms. “But I like it.”

“It’s what we do.”

“For God and country.”

“Yes, ma’am—for both.”

“Cool.”

Her boss smiled. “Well, since you guys didn’t kill each other, how about if I get one of the fellas to bring up some coffee from the cafeteria for an in-room briefing while you get dressed?”

CHAPTER 2

“What the fuck happened?” Roberto Salazar spoke in a tense rumble as the head of his security team filled him in. He didn’t have time for this bull. Assad’s private jet would be taxiing in at any moment. “Find her and bring her home. Kill and dispose of any stray mongrels that are still on my grounds.”

He clicked off his cell phone and stared out of the tinted limousine window.
Women
.

“What’s wrong?” Hector asked nervously.

Roberto waved his hand. “Dogs got out of a county truck and ran on the property and it pissed off Camille, so she left.”

“Dogs?” Hector said with a frown.

“Sí,”
Roberto replied, slowly finding amusement in the absurdity of the situation. “Bitches in heat.”

“Are you serious? They called you for that?” Hector slumped back against the leather seats and blotted his brow.

Then both brothers’ eyes met and they burst out laughing.

“Oh, shit,” Hector said, suddenly laughing so hard that he had to wipe his eyes.

“You’re telling me?” Roberto shook his head. “I’ve got our whole empire riding on red and fucking mongrel dogs have invaded my house and my woman is having a fit about this? Madre de Dios, if this is the worst news I get today, then I’m a happy man.”

Hector picked up the glass of aged Scotch that sat on the bar beside him and lifted it to Roberto. “If that is the worst of our worries, then we can definitely thank the Blessed Virgin.” He knocked back the drink and ran his fingers through his hair. “The waiting is the worst part, no?”

“That is always the hardest part, Hector … that is the part of what we do that defines a man’s cojones. So, have another drink, but don’t get sloppy. When we meet Assad, I want you calm, confident …
comprende
?”

Hector nodded and poured a half a glass of the amber liquor. “You can count on me, Roberto.”

“Bueno,”
Roberto murmured and then fell silent for a moment to stare out the limousine window at the planes taking off and landing. “You are sure about this arms contact you researched?”

“Absolutely. Charles Wallace is ex-Soviet and has tentacles well positioned to deliver what Assad wants.”

Roberto turned and stared at his brother. “I cannot oversee everything, Hector. The business is getting too big … I’ve taken care of my part—the product, our security forces, the distributors, and setting the terms of the deals. And that Assad also buys his arms from us at a reasonable rate so that he’ll come back again and again. This way we’ll always have cheap but pure product in our pipeline and they’ll always have top-grade arms in theirs. As my brother, there is
no one
else I can trust with something like this. So you cannot fuck this up, Hector. The arms part has to be as airtight as the drug and money deliveries.”

Hector gripped his glass and stared into Roberto’s eyes. “I
know
what’s at stake, and
I said
I have handled it. You have to start to have more faith in me, Roberto … to believe in me like I believe in you.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Roberto said after a moment and then looked out the window again. “I’m just used to controlling all the details, but as we expand, it is not possible … it’s nerves talking.”

Tense silence surrounded both men as they each retreated into their own thoughts. Fifteen minutes of waiting produced Anwar Assad’s private charter coming in from Toronto. A sense of satisfaction and power threaded through Roberto’s nervous system. Much could be accomplished when one knew the right people and which palms to grease. He did. Getting men on the inside of TSA was no different. Human nature always allowed for a variable. Roberto smiled as he tapped on the divider window and his driver got out.

His guard opened the door for him and his brother as they debarked the limo and walked swiftly to meet his Gulfstream III jet on the tarmac. As soon as the steps were lowered, Roberto and Hector swiftly ascended the stairs and entered the craft.

“Gentlemen, how was your flight?” Roberto said, looking around at the four serious faces of the men who were waiting.

“Very good,” Assad said, offering Roberto a slight bow.

Roberto motioned with his arm for Assad and his men to sit as the plane began to taxi. “I take it all went well with Charles Wallace in Toronto?”

“Indeed,” Assad replied with a cautious smile. “His name is Anglo, but he is an old Russian.”

Roberto laughed and gave a glance of approval toward Hector, who preened from the silent compliment. “Easier to transfer funds to accounts that do not give rise to suspicions, true?”

Assad nodded.

“So … he showed you what you needed to see at Boston’s Technology Trade Show, and you were pleased?”

“I am very pleased,” Assad said, glancing around at his men. “But my ultimate pleasure depends of Aalam Bashir feeling the same way.”

“Of course, of course,” Roberto said, waving his hand. “Trust, but verify.”

Assad bowed slightly from his seat. “Trust, but verify.”

“So, while I am trusting you and you are trusting me, and we are both waiting to verify our deliveries from one another, shall we spend the time in New Orleans enjoying the casino and the women?” Roberto smiled and motioned toward the male security guard doubling as a flight attendant to bring a bottle of Cristal to the group. “Oh come now, gentlemen,” Roberto said when he saw them hesitate. “Tell me you are not of the rank that are looking to blow yourselves up and are saving yourselves for twenty-one virgins, are you?”