Midnight Trust

by M. L. Buchman

  “Besides,” Daniela twisted to face them. “This operation belongs to el Clan del Golfo.”

  “The ones you have a bounty on,” Tanya remembered Fred Smith showing it to them.

  Daniela raised one of those perfect eyebrows in question.

  “I saw the flyer with the three stars. I thought the money looked good, but,” Tanya poked Chad in the ribs, “he doesn’t like splitting up the profits. I say we need to round up some of the old crew before we go after them.”

  “Old crew?” Daniela’s voice almost went la Capitana chill as Silva began descending toward some yet distant airport.

  “You know. Folks we’ve met on one job or another. Taking out the grand jefe of del Golfo isn’t going to be easy or it would already be done. He’s dug in deep and heavily protected. Someone already took down the other two. I want this.”

  “I’m telling you, woman, nothing protects them when I can touch them from a mile out,” Chad hooked a thumb at his rifle that lay on the seat behind them.

  Daniela considered him for a long time before responding.

  “You may get your chance.”

  Chad spotted Sofia as they flew into the little airport, not that she made it hard.

  He’d anticipated that the team would have put a tracker on the plane in the night. Or maybe Fred Smith had done his CIA thing to get a drone launched up high to keep an eye on them, or even a satellite feed. The team must have been airborne and done the old trick of following from in front. Silva hadn’t made any dodging turns—had no reason to suspect. They’d climbed out of Ipiales and flown straight here…wherever here was.

  It was bigger than a drug runner’s jungle strip, but not by much. The nearby town wasn’t more than a hundred houses and half again as many hovels.

  Sofia, who couldn’t have arrived more than a few minutes ahead of them, was slouched as if fast asleep in a faded red leather bucket car seat that was missing its car. It was propped against the front wall of a small cafe that boasted a strange variety of similar battered accommodations. The cafe smelled pretty damn good the moment Silva taxied the plane to a stop and opened the door. Sofia had her boots crossed on the dirt, an M4 rifle in her lap, and her long dark hair spilling forward over her nodding head. She also wore a battered straw cowboy hat with a brilliant, Macaw parrot-colored scarf for a hatband. It looked pretty cute on her. Of course just about anything would look cute on her—it was just the way she was.

  Taking the bull by the horns, he shouted at her as soon as he was out of the plane.

  “Sofia! Haven’t seen you since the whole General Aguado mess.” The greeting would tell her several things: they were using their real names and to play it as if they hadn’t seen each other in a year. The team had met Sofia when she’d called them in to take down Aguado’s sex trafficking operation. The only sex Aguado was getting now was up the backside from whatever hard cores the CIA had locked him up with. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.

  Aguado’s name also might be another clue for Daniela of the kind of experience they had as “criminals.”

  “Where’s your worse half? And what the hell are you doing here? This is Nowheresville.” She better have a good cover story, because Daniela was smart and suspicious. And Chad couldn’t think of a thing.

  “Don’t tell him!” Duane stepped out of the cafe bearing a big plate of empanadas, an AK-47 slung over his shoulder. “You do and he’ll just horn in on the job. Asshole still owes me three hundred from that last poker game.”

  “Just payback for the five you owed me.”

  “That was five, not five hundred. Asshole.”

  Then they embraced as if they hadn’t seen each other in a year. It was damn good to see him, even if it had been only a day and two nights since they’d parachuted over Tulcán together. Chad would like to ask him about how he’d come to terms with partnering up with Sofia. But now wasn’t the moment.

  Whoa! Never was more likely the moment. He and Tanya were not partnering up in anything close to that kind of meaning. Sure, walk Kidon together. Do a little shooting and a little screwing together; they’d make a good pair-up. That’s all he was looking for.

  The other three had come up, and Chad didn’t miss Silva’s hand on his Uzi or Daniela’s on her low-slung M16. Tanya was carrying both of their rifles, one over either shoulder and gripping the straps, making a show of having her hands full so that she wasn’t a threat.

  “Hey, Tanya,” Duane waved at her. “Can’t believe you’re still hanging with this asshole. Who are these other people?” Duane growled. “They gonna try and horn in, too?”

  “Depends what you’re onto, buddy. Something six can do better than two?” Chad could feel Duane stretching it out just to mess with him. He tried to figure out how to warn Duane that Daniela wasn’t exactly a patient woman.

  “Shit! I knew it. You always were grubbing for a dollar. You remember Richie? No?” Duane didn’t give him time to answer. “Bet you remember his copilot, Melissa—hot blonde chick? Gave us a lift. They had a couple hundred kilos of packages due out at Buenaventura on the coast, but he promised he’d be back tomorrow.”

  That was good. It meant Chad didn’t have to explain the whole team at once but they’d be available fast if needed.

  Chad glanced at Daniela, but she shook her head infinitesimally.

  Yes! She was trusting him enough to tell him that the shipment wasn’t one of hers. Of course, the fact that the “couple hundred kilos” of packages would be the Delta Force team and their gear, not cocaine, meant that it absolutely wasn’t hers. But she wouldn’t know that.

  Sofia spoke up for the first time. “There’s a gold shipment comes here out of the jungle somewhere every Thursday and into this airport. We didn’t see any reason to not take delivery of it ourselves,” Sofia finally took him off the hook and dropped the plan. She or the CIA must have done some fast work to figure that one out in time for her to deliver the line.

  A good cover, and not a bad play. He could see Silva and Daniela relax another notch.

  “Is this Thursday?” Chad had no track at all. Missions always did that to him. Time flowed by the mission, not the calendar.

  Duane snorted in disgust. “What are you doing here? You got something better up your sleeve?”

  “Gotta ask the lady,” Chad nodded toward Daniela. “She’s the main honcho on this one.”

  Daniela inspected him carefully. Then, with barely a glance at Duane and Sofia, she turned to face Tanya.

  Tanya, being the warrior she was, took it right in stride that she would be Daniela’s source of choice.

  “Sofia, she’s one very smart chica. I don’t know how she does it, but she finds things out. The muscle? He was a shooter and breacher for the US Rangers until he blew up his commanding officer.”

  “I didn’t blow him up,” Duane growled.

  “No,” Tanya ignored him and kept talking to Daniela. “He blew up the man’s Humvee—with him in it.”

  “Guy was an asshole,” Duane muttered. “Was doing the Army a favor, but instead of a medal or even a bit of fucking praise, they came hunting my ass. Been chilling down here ever since.”

  “And that’s where I found him,” Sofia made it sound as if she was the one who’d found a way to make Duane useful for anything. Women in charge—Daniela should like that.

  Besides, Sofia had found Duane. Then she’d fallen in love with him and married him.

  Was that what Tanya was doing to him? Instead of just playing the smart one, was she doing some kind of unholy end run on him? He was gonna have to watch the woman like a freakin’ hawk. He wasn’t saying happily ever after…ever! Not even for a woman like Tanya.

  “What about…” Daniela asked Sofia in her soft voice—the same one she’d used to tell him and Tanya to jump off the Las Lajas bridge to their death. “How do you feel about taking down the source of the gold instead of the shipment?”

  Duane and Sofia exchanged a long look, then Duane laughed.

>   “Shit, Chad. I guess I do miss hanging out with you.”

  Chad offered his best smarmy smile and stole an empanada off Duane’s plate.

  “Still owe me three hundred,” Duane growled as he handed one of the pastries to each of the others before heading back into the cafe to get more for himself.

  18

  “What do you think she’s thinking?” Chad’s whisper was soft enough that it barely earned them a glance from an anteater rooting through an old log with his strong claws and sticky tongue.

  Tanya wished she knew.

  The jungle at midday was quiet, for a jungle. Some monkeys were chattering as they moved through the canopy far above—probably tamarins by the high pitch. She knew not to look up too often because, in a towering jungle, it was a sure-fired path to a vertigo-induced headache. The trees climbed forever. The vines wound around them. The animal and bird life flew in and out of the massive biomass. It was always a little startling. A small flock of parakeets settled on a branch for mere seconds to observe them before flitting aloft. And to the west, a soft ripple of the river.

  There was an underlying note. Still a mile off, it was no more than a basso rumble. But it was steady, a low waterfall roar that came from no river. It was the low note of the miners’ machines.

  She and Chad had been sent to circle south so that they’d approach from upriver when they turned back to the north. Sofia and Duane had been sent in the opposite direction. And la Capitana had gathered a force of ten fighters of her own to come at them from the side. They looked to be a ragtag crew, but hung on Daniela’s every word and handled their weapons with the ease of experience.

  Her rules had been simple: “Capture at least one leader alive—damaged is acceptable. Kill the fighters. And if you kill a single unarmed miner, you will join them in the grave.”

  Not the ruthless cartel leader, but perhaps a vengeful one.

  “Daniela definitely has it in for del Golfo,” Tanya summarized. “The bounty poster. Attacking this gold mining operation. It would be an easy bet that this operation is one of their largest as well. What does she have so against them? Something doesn’t fit.”

  “I know. That itch is there, but I can’t seem to pin it down.”

  Tanya had a couple of itches. She didn’t believe in “women’s intuition” for one second—she’d spent far too long honing her fighter’s instincts to waste time thinking that some sixth sense held any useful answers. But even her highly-trained operator was definitely looking for a place to scratch.

  Daniela and la Capitana were such a contrast—at one turn, a pleasant, thoughtful beauty and at the next, the cold-blooded leader of one of the biggest cartels functioning in South America. If she was all the latter, it would be easy to justify taking her down along with her operation. But most of the time she was the former. It was puzzling.

  Which was better than her other itch. Her feelings about Chad had shifted into downright confusing.

  The sex? Incredible.

  The missions? Challenging.

  The man? Thoughtful, handsome, kind.

  The man’s reactions to her? At one moment she felt like the most admired woman in the world who was being offered the Princess’ Dream Package of happy ever after with a great man—as if she’d ever want such a thing. The next moment Chad acted and spoke as if he was down in the blocks practicing the start for his sprint away from her.

  She supposed that last part was fair. Right now she was leaning strongly toward the sprint-away option as well.

  “What’s she thinking? I just can’t pin it down.” For Daniela or herself. “When Gerald the Boatman ran his operation, he made a point of cooperating with everyone: suppliers, downstream delivery, and middlemen. I can’t tell if la Capitana is in competition with del Golfo, has some grudge against them, or wants them completely erased from the face of the Earth and sent to hell in a suitcase.”

  “Handbasket. Any of the three is fine with me. Got no prob taking them out.” He wove through a line of saplings that were battling for ownership of a small sunlit patch where a giant of the jungle had punched a hole when it had crashed down.

  “Well, it makes a difference.” At the first glimmer of the river through the trees, they turned to follow the bank north, staying well inside the jungle’s edge.

  “Why?” Chad spoke a little louder to overcome the steadily increasing roar of the mining equipment. As they moved closer, the wildlife dissipated like smoke on the wind.

  “What did they teach you in Delta school?”

  Chad held up his rifle. “Bang! Bang! You’re dead.”

  “It’s not del Golfo we’re in bed with.”

  “Wouldn’t mind being back in bed with you. Real soon. Without a whole lot of interruptions. You want to put both of us in la Capitana’s bed? I’m game.”

  Tanya sighed. She wouldn’t mind curling up with Chad for an uninterrupted week or three—even if she couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken any holiday at all. But a ménage with Daniela? What kind of an asshole suggested such things? There didn’t seem to be any way for getting Chad out of doofus mode.

  He stopped so suddenly that she ran into his back, nose first.

  She raised her rifle and began scanning for what he’d seen that she’d missed, but he turned to look at her.

  “Tanya. What the hell happened to your sense of humor, woman? The only lady I want is the one about two inches away from me.”

  He didn’t even pause long enough for her to gasp in surprise.

  “Daniela wants el Clan del Golfo gone? Good riddance. As to her motivation? Option One: taking them down because they’re competitors? Doesn’t feel right. Option Two: she has a grudge against them? Makes me think a little better of her. Option Three: wants the entire Clan removed from the face of the map? That gets interesting. I’d love to hear why. Option Four: What if she’s taking them out to help or hurt someone else? That’s more complex and the answer could teach us a lot. Option Five: None of the above. And that’s the one that’s fascinating me. We’ve taken down a lot of drug lords since I joined the team. Took down a lot in Detroit too—Wollson felt it was our duty to the city. Always quiet, always on the sly. He was fighting for some higher cause that took me a hell of a long time to understand. What if something like that’s her motivation, huh? Could be really good or really bad.”

  Then he turned and began patrolling forward once more. They didn’t have long to get into position—again no radios, they were doing this strictly by the clock.

  Her training made it automatic for her to fall into step behind him: check right, check left, a glance over the shoulder for anyone approaching, glance down to check that they were leaving no footprints, check right, check… Training was the only reason she didn’t stand there numb until Chad had passed out of sight around the bole of a mahogany or behind a clump of banana or mango.

  And in that moment Chad had demonstrated that Delta Force operators were far above average intelligence as well as top fighters. He made it easy to forget that about him, but it wasn’t any less true.

  He was absolutely right. If Daniela wasn’t following any of the predictable paths for cartel leaders, then they had to find out what she was thinking. And—Tanya hated to admit it—but her woman’s intuition told her that Daniela was anything but predictable.

  Then she stared at Chad’s back.

  Speaking of unpredictable!

  The only woman I want is the one two inches from me?

  He’d said it as if it was simple truth.

  When had that happened?

  So much of Delta training was about timing. The enemy’s timing. The attack’s timing. Timing of actions between team members.

  And suddenly his timing sucked.

  They were about to go down on el Clan del Golfo, one of the best organized, most dangerous cartels running. Those guys used military discipline and ranking. They paid, even rewarded their people fairly. Infighting was rooted out with brutal harshness. They were a well-t
uned machine—that had somehow drawn the ire of la Capitana.

  And what had he just done?

  Practically told Tanya that he loved her. He’d never wanted just one woman. Not that he’d had two all that often—though the Nakamura twins had left behind some particularly good memories. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t typically thinking about who the next woman might be before he’d left the present one behind.

  With Tanya, he wanted her.

  Not someone else. Not even the Nakamura twins, with their gymnastic flexibility, lovely lithe bodies, and thick cascades of midnight hair down to their tight butts. He wanted the blonde Kidon assassin in the khakis and body armor.

  And he didn’t want her for just this mission. Or just this week. Or—

  Duane was gonna laugh his ass off.

  19

  The river was a disaster area.

  Chad knew that the big operations used mercury and cyanide to separate the gold out of the ore. That poisoned the water. Any fish that survived would be lethal to the fisherman.

  But he’d never seen a big operation up close.

  Normally the jungle overhung the banks of these small rivers. Here it had been knocked back forty meters to either side—half a football field—in places, even more. The narrow river was now caught in massive pools turgid with sludge, separated by vast dikes of chewed up dirt and gravel. It flowed, but in no relation to its original course. Silt-gray backwaters, massive eddies where the bank had been dug away—it was a meandering disaster.

  Hundreds of workers were spread over the area doing incomprehensible tasks. Some wielded hammers, others hoses. But most of them appeared to be inspecting the contents of sluices—sloped troughs made of battered metal or even worse-battered wood. People fought heavy wheelbarrows into the head of the sluices. At the same time, a pair of massive excavators dumped bucketloads into industrial scale sluices. Daniela had confirmed there were no roads into the area and the river wasn’t navigable—even before they tore it up. How in the world they managed to get the massive machines in here was a mystery.