Personal Target: An Elite Ops Novel (21 page)

She grinned. “How could I get into trouble here?”

“God, don’t ask that.” He tilted his head back against the dried mud wall. “But if I don’t sleep, I won’t be able to do anything to help you if you do get into trouble.”

“I’ll be fine.” She sat down beside him. “And I’ll stay here. I promise.”

Famous last words
, he thought, drifting off to sleep.

Chapter Eighteen

Thursday morning

Niamey

B
RYAN SAT IN
the café, drinking his fourth cup of coffee before nine
AM
. He’d picked up his luggage from the bellman hours ago at the Grand Hotel du Niger, well after Nick and Jennifer had left. This particular meeting had been postponed once yesterday and again early this morning. Bryan needed the information before he left Niamey, so he’d stayed, even though he didn’t like leaving Nick and Jenny on their own.

Reporters. Crap.
They screwed things up every time. And this one, freelance and pint-sized, just kept coming at him like a terrier with a bone. She always had.

But Sassy Smith was on to something with the Yarborough case, even if she kept showing up at the most inopportune times. As mad as she made him, the information she delivered was gold. They were meeting across the street from the Gaweye, the hotel Jennifer had originally been booked in.

Bryan was ordering a fifth cup of coffee when Sassy strolled into the café wearing a
khimar
head covering to hide the most obvious of her western features, her strawberry blonde hair. Still, he had a fair idea of what was under the cape-like veil that hung to her waist. He’d seen her in Dallas right after Elizabeth Yarborough disappeared and everything went to hell.

Blue-eyed, big-chested, and beauty-queen gorgeous—how Sassy kept her manicure a perfect fire-engine red and her makeup applied like a fashion model’s in this part of the world, Bryan had no idea. Thinking about her curvy figure had kept him awake more nights than he cared to admit. Even the perfume she wore invaded his dreams. And she was wearing it this morning; the floral tones swirled around the spicy notes and screwed with his head.

“What will you give me for this information, Bryan?” She dove in with no introduction or apology for her tardiness. The suggestive tone and double entendre were completely undisguised. Sassy might not be sleeping her way to the top, but she gave the distinct impression that she was open to the idea.

Bryan unclenched his jaw and took a silent gulp of air. “Are we really going to bargain for the intel? Someone tried to kill this woman yesterday, along with my partner.”

Sassy stared at him, her midnight-blue eyes raking over his chest. “So you claim. How do I know you’re not just pumping me for information?”

He sighed out loud this time and leaned back in his chair, fighting the inclination to beat his head against the tabletop. “Do I really have to say it?”

“Say what?” she asked innocently. Bryan got the impression she was anything but virtuous.

Jesus.

He might as well get this over with. He and Sassy always did a little dance before they got down to exchanging information, or that’s what it felt like: a flirtatious sexual sparring that wasn’t quite real. And it drove him nuts. He’d dreamed about her and woken up hard in his bed thinking of her for months.

This was so wrong.

And the sad fact was, she’d never believe him, even if he lost his mind and told her exactly what he was thinking. So why not just play the game? Later he’d blame it on the caffeine overload.

He leaned across the table and speared her with his steel gray gaze that ordinarily had men looking for the nearest exit.

“Sassy, if I was pumping you for information, you’d know it.”

A tiny smile played around the edges of her lips, and she ran her finger across the top of his fist on the wooden tabletop. “Would I, now?” she whispered.

“You’d fucking feel it,” he murmured under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear.

She smiled as if she’d won the lottery, apparently not at all shocked by what he’d said.

But if she wasn’t shocked, he sure as hell was. While Bryan could cuss with the best of them and—more often than not—screamed profanity in his head, he never talked like this in front of a woman unless his cover called for it. His Gran would be spinning in her grave. Sassy Smith brought out the absolute worst in him. Always.

He pulled his fist from under her fingers, and Sassy’s grin widened, if possible.

“I can give you an exclusive when we have the client out of the country,” he said.

“Give me her real name now,” she said.

There wasn’t going to be a way around this if he wanted any information from her.

“You cannot use this until she’s out and safe, okay?”

Sassy leaned back in the rickety seat to study him. Even though she was only five foot four, the woman gave the impression that she was looking down her nose at him with more than a little disdain. “My word is my word, Hollywood. What kind of nickname is that anyway?”

“It’s a long story that we don’t have time for today.” Bryan sipped his coffee and gave her a final hard stare. “The lady’s name is Dr. Jennifer Grayson.”

Sassy nodded and scribbled notes in her archaic shorthand before speaking again. “See? That didn’t hurt so much.” She picked up his coffee, turned the cup to where his lips had been on the rim, and took a sip for herself.

Totally oblivious to the effect she was having on him, or perhaps all too aware of it, she kept talking. “Okay. Here’s what I know. The Riveras and Vegas are using the same route to traffic women that they’ve been using for narcotics.”

He shrugged and forced a disinterest into his tone he didn’t feel. “Human trafficking isn’t news. Besides, why would you think the Vegas and Riveras would work together? They normally don’t ever do that.”

“I have confirmation of the ‘partnership’ from two other sources,” she answered. “It has something to do with Tomas Rivera’s wife dying recently. My informant wasn’t clear on why it was happening, just that it definitely was.”

Bingo.
He’d needed that fact confirmed. Maybe this appointment had been worth waiting for after all.

“Does your source have a name?” he asked.

She snorted. “Are you high? I don’t give up sources to anyone.”

He’d expected that response. “Okay, how do they traffic the women?”

“I have the contacts Ernesto Vega uses in the shipping yards on the west and east coasts here in Africa, as well as his contacts in Venezuela. I also have the names of the officials Tomas Rivera is bribing to get the women through each country on this continent. The route runs along the Sahel and across the Sahara.”

Wonder what she had to do to get that information?
Bryan felt his eyebrows rise but said nothing as he drank more of his dark coffee, avoiding the lipstick stain she’d left earlier with her pilfered sip.

Sassy studied the people walking past the front of the hotel. “Once in Africa they ship the women in trucks from the west coast inland and across the desert to the Mediterranean. The drivers don’t stop for anything until they reach the ocean. Many of the women don’t survive the extreme conditions of the drive.”

“But there are more where they come from,” said Bryan unhappily.

Sassy nodded. Her eyes had lost the saucy sparkle they’d had when she’d first sat down. “Once the trucks reach the Mediterranean coast, they put the women on ships. Sometimes they are put in containers if the boats are large enough, other times they’re just crowded onto the deck. Most of the boats are undocumented. Many are less than seaworthy. They sail from multiple ports in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, even Libya, smuggling the women into Europe. If they don’t die in the desert, scores of women drown in the overcrowded boats that sink.”

“Won’t they care that such a large number die in transit from dehydration in the desert or from drowning in the ocean?” The coffee in his mouth now tasted like mud.

“The profit margin is so huge for the women in Italy and France, the traffickers feel they can stand the loss. Sixty percent of the prostitutes in Italy are from Nigeria. It’s a stunning number. And like you said, there are more where they came from.”

Bryan examined the coffee cup once more with its red-hot lip print on the side before looking up to pierce her with his stare again. “What does this have to do with Elizabeth Yarborough?”

Sassy huffed out a sigh. “Well, I don’t expect you to find an ‘Elizabeth was here’ sign, but I think sending her to Africa was a test run for Vega and Rivera’s new route. What if they sent her because the original kidnappers, whoever they were, knew they couldn’t keep her after they took her, particularly once the world press got the story?”

“That’s all conjecture,” said Bryan, not bothering to admit that he’d considered the same idea.

Sassy shrugged and kept talking. “Maybe they sold her, traded her, whatever. Somehow she ended up in Rivera’s control, but even he couldn’t keep her with the
60 Minutes
film crew on site and her picture on CNN 24/7 for weeks. So they got her the hell out of Dodge and killed two birds with one stone.”

Bryan shook his head. “That’s an interesting theory.” No matter what, he wouldn’t tell Sassy he’d already considered the same theory with Nick, or she’d never let it go. “The problem is there’s no proof that Elizabeth Yarborough was ever held by the Riveras or the Vegas in Mexico, so the idea of her being shipped to Africa is a long shot.”

“What if I had a source who swore to me that he brought her to Africa?”

“Do you?” His tone was sharper than he’d intended. “Who was it?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m
so
not telling you that.”

He felt the first real frisson of concern for her. “Be careful, Sassy. You’re setting yourself up to be played here. How did they contact you?” Hairs on the back of his neck stood on end when he thought of all the trouble she could get into by trusting the wrong source in this cluster.

“You really don’t want to know.” Her husky voice was thick with what Bryan would have thought was regret, if he didn’t know her better.

She looked down at her feet and shook her head, shivering slightly. “If you don’t trust that information, I doubt you’ll trust this either. I can’t verify it with multiple sources, but you might find it interesting.” Sassy pulled an oversized map from her humongous handbag and unfolded the paper on their table. “It’s the route the Vegas and Riveras are using for a shipment this month”

“What?” He leaned forward to get a good look. A dotted line had been drawn in green pencil along with today’s date. Bryan followed Sassy’s red-tipped index finger across the route marked. “This is current?” he asked.

She nodded and tapped her long nail on a green
X
penciled on the map. “I got it from the same source that told me about bringing Elizabeth here. See? They’re making one stop along the way. That’s unusual.”

“Fuck,” he muttered, standing so fast the coffee cup toppled over.

The
X
marked the exact spot where the Paleo-Niger dig was located.

Chapter Nineteen

Thursday, late afternoon

Near Paleo-Niger Project site

I
N A HYPNOTIC
daze, Jennifer watched the road disappear and reappear as Bill drove them through the Sahel toward the project site. Relentless wind blew Saharan sand across the narrow track, completely obscuring the path at times. Without warning the pockmarked road would reappear like a black serpent stretched out in the sun before them. Sun-dried grass, broken and burnt-looking, was sprinkled here and there along with the occasional acacia tree.

The truck’s air conditioner struggled to keep up. While sitting between the two men, beads of sweat ran down Jennifer’s back as her thighs stuck, then slid on the vinyl seat with a slippery
blech
feeling. Still, she was grateful for the AC and the four-wheel drive. Compared to the nomads they’d seen in the distance travelling by camel, this ancient overheated truck was the height of luxury.

Nick rode beside her in silence, his thigh pressed against hers. He’d slept until right before they left, waking only when Bill had come back to the hut with food for them. Nick had seemed okay with what they were about to do, but he had remained unusually quiet as he’d packed their things into Bill’s beat-up Ford.

Jennifer assumed he was just tired. She hoped so. They would be at the camp soon, and she could feel her anticipation growing.

This was going to work out. The dig was where she needed to be to get past everything that had happened in the past six months—hell, the past ten years. She could hardly wait to lose herself in the day-to-day intricacies of field study.

Despite everything that had happened, she grinned.
God, a fully intact Jobaria.
The sauropod dinosaur was an amazing find. Her tummy fluttered at the thought of what it could mean to her career, to her life, to work on the prestigious project.

Her mouth was dry, but that was as much from her excitement as the climate. She reached for the bottle between her and Nick, accidentally brushing his hip with the back of her hand. He tensed, and her awareness of him shot through the truck’s rusted roof.

She no longer had difficulty believing she’d slept with him yesterday afternoon. The surprising warmth flooding her body had her fully aware of her response to him as well as acknowledging that she’d gladly go another round, even with their tangled history.

She took a sip of water. That thought was absolute insanity, and the logical part of her brain longed to quiet this “hyperawareness” that was ever present when she was with him. There was no way they were having sex again, not since she’d told him about the miscarriage. That he was sitting beside her without visibly seething was a minor miracle.

She tried to tell herself it was better this way. Being with Nick was too complicated. Even if the sex was amazing, his anger after he had found out everything had hurt like hell—not that she didn’t deserve it. Still, she was on the verge of getting her life together. She was not in a good place to deal with him or any of this other madness right now.