by Lois Greiman
She breathed carefully and wheeled around the corner. “What did you learn?” she asked and accelerated again.
He gripped the handle above the passenger door, making the cords in his arm stand out taut and hard. “Not to let you drive.”
She shifted her gaze to his face. “Was that a joke?”
“No,” he said, but she smiled a little nevertheless and let her body relax an iota.
“I take it the locals weren’t too forthcoming with you?”
For a moment, she thought he would argue, but he just deepened his scowl and glanced out the window at the houses rushing past. “Turns out no one in Bogotá has even heard of cocaine.”
“How about Quinto Castelle?”
“What?” His tone was harsh, his eyes sharp as talons as he turned them toward her.
“Quinto Castelle. The bartender indicated he’s one of Herrera’s main thugs.” She felt her heart trip a little just saying his name. “He also said a woman’s mutilated body was recently found in Quebrada Verde. That translates to Green Gulch.”
He waited for her to continue.
“The victim’s lips had been burned.”
His scowl was deep enough to drown in.
She inhaled. It wasn’t any easier to say the words than it had been to hear them, but she forced them out. “He said Herrera likes to brand his victims.”
The muscles tightened in his left arm, but he took a deep breath and spoke quietly. “You believe him?”
She considered it. She’d been baiting El Cerdo’s proprietor. That much was certain, but he’d said the words with conviction. On the other hand, she’d been barely cognizant of the four men who’d been drinking behind her, so maybe she hadn’t been as discerning as she had thought. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
“What does your gut say?”
She glanced at him. “I think—”
“Don’t.”
She looked back at the street. Three young women with long black hair were laughing together under an overhead light. “I believe him,” she said.
He nodded, but not for her benefit. He looked as if his thoughts were miles away. Maybe in the Quebrada Verde.
“Do you know where it is?” he asked.
“The gulch where the woman’s body was found?”
“Yeah.”
“Southeast, I think. Three…maybe four hundred miles from here?”
“Near where we think Jacobs exited the river.”
She nodded, knowing what he was thinking. Despite the less than trustworthy appearance of the men with whom they’d just parted company, Bogotá was as tame as a puppy compared to Putumayo Department, which bordered Peru and Ecuador.
“You sure?”
“I have a good memory for maps.” She didn’t say the word photographic, though others had.
“How long ago was she found?”
“Tuesday.”
“How decomposed?”
She kept her expression impassive though her stomach jittered. “I don’t know.”
He nodded again. “She probably died fairly recently. Bodies don’t last long in the jungle. Especially heads. Insects are most attracted to orifices, so faces deteriorate first.”
She managed a stalwart nod. “Sure.”
“Of course, we don’t know if it really was Herrera’s handiwork.”
She tightened her grip on the wheel.
“Or that Miller’s team had targeted Herrera in the first place. Or that the bartender was telling the truth.” He chuckled and stared into the dark distance. “Shit. This is as FUBAR as it gets.”
She glanced toward him. In profile, he looked like nothing so much as what he was…a wounded warrior on a life or death mission. “We’ll find him.” The words left her lips without permission. The trite platitude sounded as silly as a nursery rhyme in the quiet darkness.
She waited for him to blast her for daring to utter such nonsense. He turned toward her, expression ultimately solemn. But maybe in the depths of his eyes there was a pinprick of gratitude. Of hope. “In a billion acres of jungle?”
“You said to listen to my gut.”
“And it tells you we’re going to find Shep?”
She thought about it for a second then, “I hope so.”
“Hope.” He breathed the word and faced the darkness outside his window again.
“If you don’t have hope, why are you here?”
“Because it’s my job.”
She waited for him to go on.
“Shep was in my squad.”
“So it’s duty. That’s why you came?”
He shook his head but didn’t turn toward her. “No. I’m just a born hero.” There was derision in his tone, tension in every line of his body, but she couldn’t help but wonder if it was true. If he was simply built to be heroic. If it was in his DNA like his dark hair and intimidating size.
“Is that why you came to El Cerdo?”
He glanced at her, brows lowered.
“The bar,” she explained. “Is that why you came after me? Duty?”
“I thought if you were raped it might discourage you from continuing with the mission.”
“Rape? Miguel didn’t even like me,” she scoffed and wished immediately that she could call back the words.
Durrand’s brows rose like twin pistons. “You can’t honestly be that naïve.”
She tried to formulate a scathing response, but he wasn’t through with her yet.
“What do you think…that rape’s about…affection or something?”
“No. Of course, not. I meant to say, he wasn’t even interested in me.” Dammit! She refrained from closing her eyes to her own stupidity. “That’s not—” she began, but he was already chuckling.
“Holy shit, what the hell was I thinking?”
Anger spurted up, surprising in its ferocity. “Maybe that you’d rather not have your best friend shipped back to you in pieces!”
The words sounded harsh and cruel in the ensuing silence.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that. But I can help you if you’ll let me.”
The Jeep was silent. “Not if you’re dead.”
“Well…” Her fingers were beginning to go numb. She eased up on the steering wheel. “I’m going to try my best not to be.”
His stare was hard enough to bruise, but finally he turned back to the passenger window. “He’s my responsibility.”
“What? Shepherd?”
He didn’t answer, but she knew that’s what he meant. Great. She was learning to read his silences better than she could interrupt his words.
“He’s a grown man, Durrand. A soldier. A Ranger, for that matter. Among the best-trained military men in the world.”
“He’s a jumper.” The words were soft, quiet, but she was pretty sure she’d heard him right. She just had no idea what it meant.
“A…what?”
“If someone’s in trouble he doesn’t think, doesn’t…” He drew a deep breath. “He’ll just jump right in. So what if he gets his fucking brains sprayed from here to eternity? So what if the poor bastard he’s trying to save is already dead. So what if—” His voice broke. He cleared his throat.
She drove in silence, fists tight on the steering wheel, mind churning as fast as the Jeep’s tires.
“Just because he was careless, doesn’t mean you should have been,” she said.
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
She was tempted to back down, to apologize for being presumptuous, but his eyes were a little too bright. “If you had tried to save Warren, you and Shepherd would both be dead.”
He glared at her.
Backing down was looking like a better idea every second. She just couldn’t quite manage it. “Ray Warren, better known as Intel to his friends.” She’d researched more than Jacobs in her spare time back in her cozy Tudor. Died six months ago in Kabul.”
He didn’t argue, didn’t agree.
“Shepherd tried
to save him. You saved Shepherd.”
A muscle twitched in one lean, unshaven cheek, but he shifted his attention quickly away. “This is Eldorado.”
“What?”
“The highway. Do you know how to get to the hostel from here?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Seeing the sign illuminated by the Jeep’s headlights, she turned, heading east on the Autopista Eldorado. In less than five minutes, she pulled up to their humble inn, shifted into park and turned off the motor. “I’m not your responsibility, Durrand,” she said.
He watched her in the dimness for a second. “I’m in charge. That makes me responsible for you. Just like any other soldier in my unit.”
She felt her anger fire up again. “So if it was Shep back there in the cantina, you would have dragged him out by his arm?”
“By the time I got there, Shep would have either been shacked up with some black-eyed señorita or in a firefight.” He snorted a soft chuckle and let his head fall against the cushion behind him. “Possibly both. Dumb bastard never could keep his gun in his holster.”
She didn’t know if that was supposed to be metaphoric or literal.
“If I had a bullet for every time I bailed his ass out, I’d never have to buy another round of ammo,” he said.
“Is that why you think you owe him? Because you saved his life?”
He stared at her, expression bland.
She refused to fidget. “It’s a well-known phenomenon,” she said.
“We were in Somalia together. Did you know that?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t have time to completely research your record.”
“It was darker than hell’s basement on that beach, but my squad got the hostages out. I stayed behind to hold back the rebels. Fifteen of them. Maybe twenty. No chance really. No hope.” He shook his head, turned toward the hostel. “Till Shep came back for me.”
“Oh, well…” She cleared her throat. “I guess that might be a good reason, too.”
“Maybe.” His tone was ironic.
Grabbing her backpack, she yanked up the door handle and stepped outside. “Well, that’s good news then, isn’t it?”
He followed her out, his movements a little slower.
“What is?”
“I haven’t saved your life once,” she said and jamming her key in the hostel’s lock, pushed her way inside. “In fact, for a second back there, I was thinking about killing you myself.”
“And how is that good news?”
“You don’t owe me a thing,” she said then rushed past the tiny kitchenette, made a beeline for the bathroom and vomited as unobtrusively as possible into the porcelain bowl. Damn Aguardiente.
Chapter 19
“You all right?” Gabe didn’t glance up when he asked the question. He’d never actually known anyone who was able to upchuck with so much decorum. Impressive. Spooks must have entirely different training than Rangers.
“I’m fine.” Her tone was prissy. Also impressive. The guys he knew always sounded a little raspy after tossing their cookies. “I just drank more than I wanted to.”
“More than you wanted?” He allowed himself to look up now, but contained the smirk that threatened to follow. He had removed the lamp from the end table and spread a map of the Putumayo area across the rough particleboard.
“It took a while to get the bartender to loosen up,” she said. “I figured he would take more kindly to me if I kept drinking.”
He didn’t mention that she could have ordered something nonalcoholic. Shit. She wasn’t a lush was she? Maybe that’s how she had become such a proficient vomiter. Practice makes perfect. Or…and maybe this was a worse scenario…perhaps fear had made her vomit. Holy hell, they hadn’t even reached the edge of scary yet. Then again, he’d been as nervous as a virgin himself when he’d realized she was alone in a bar. He ground his teeth and knew for a fact that he should have never brought her here. He should never have taken the risk if her presence was going to throw him into a goddamned tizzy every time someone glanced her way. He wasn’t normally such a wussy. Hell, while on a mission in Bagdad, Jairo had decided Gabe didn’t have any nerves at all. He remembered the pin Shep had used to test the theory. Fucking numb nuts, he thought and felt his eyes water.
“Are you okay?” Her voice was quietly sympathetic.
Damnit. He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t the one who just barfed up my intestinal tract.”
“It’s no big deal,” she said but she looked pale. Well…paler, her fresh-peach complexion practically alabaster. And for a slim second, he was almost tempted to admit that she’d been damn brave, but even he wasn’t that big of an ass.
“Get some sleep,” he said instead and nodded vaguely toward the single bed.
She ignored him completely. They’d hardly known each other for twenty-four hours and she’d already mastered the technique. She must be a quick study. It usually took women at least a couple of days. “Ever heard of technology?” she asked and moved closer.
He scowled at the big ass map in front of them. “Heard of it,” he said. “Don’t trust it.” She was standing beside him, their arms almost touching. He managed to neither move closer nor farther away. Go Army!
“You don’t trust it as in you think it’s going to fail, or like you believe it’s going to betray you?”
For a moment, he wondered if there was a difference between the two, but he wasn’t dumb enough to ask. Instead, he considered ordering her to go to bed again. But he thought better of it. What the hell was he going to do if she refused? Wrestle her onto the mattress and tie her to the headboard? The ensuing images were both disturbing and disturbingly erotic. He felt restlessness in his lower regions and increased his attention on Putumayo.
“It’s longer than I realized,” she said.
He jerked his eyes toward her, but she didn’t shift her attention from the map spread beneath his palms.
“The length of the gulch. How long do you think?” she asked. Her eyes were as wide and green as a Tennessee meadow.
“Durrand?” she said and lifted her gaze to his face.
Shit! Was staring at her like she was the Holy Grail? He gritted his teeth and grunted. Hopefully, it sounded more noncommittal than bestial. “Ten miles, I’d say. Did the bartender give you any idea where along the gulch Herrera’s men might be?”
“No.”
“Have you heard anything on the news about it?”
“I haven’t had a chance to check yet,” she said and pulled out her tablet.
He waited, studying the lay of the land as he did so. But patience wasn’t with him. “Anything?”
She shook her head.
“Maybe the media’s no more forthcoming than the locals regarding their little drug problem.” He scanned the map. “That’s a shitload of jungle to search. Your cantina friend give you any other clues?”
“I didn’t want to push him too hard.”
“Next time, don’t push at all.”
“And have no intel whatsoever?”
“Could be he was just stringing you along. See how far he could play the pretty Americano. Fun game. Probably hasn’t had that many laughs for months,” he said and returned his attention to the maps.
“The tour!”
He raised his eyes at the excitement in her tone. “What?” he asked but she was already tapping away at her keyboard.
“He said the people who found the mutilated body had been on some kind of tour.”
He straightened abruptly, heart pumping a little faster. “Private or guided?”
“I’m not sure.”
“First thing in the morning, I need you to find out what companies offer trips into that area.”
“Why wait?”
“Businesses down here are barely open during regular hours. You’ll never find anyone manning the phones this—”
He felt her staring at him and let his words slip to a halt.
“Right…” He refrained from clearing his throat. “Look them up online,
” he said, but ahe was already lost in technology. Maybe if he were really lucky, she wouldn’t realize he’d forgotten about the Internet again. But he wasn’t the lucky one. It had been common knowledge in the barracks that Shep had gotten the lion’s share of good fortune. The thought almost made Durrand laugh out loud.
“Looks like there are two companies that service that area,” she said.
“Any way to know if either of them made a trip last week?”
She was scowling at the screen. Her brow was as smooth as a baby’s bottom. Holy shit, he’d probably done his first tour while she was still wearing Pampers and drooling on the colonel’s well-decorated shoulder.
“It doesn’t say anything on their sites. I suppose finding dead bodies isn’t something they’d advertise. Probably not great for tourism. But I can try to hack into their private emails.”
He didn’t question how that could be done. No use sounding more antiquated than necessary. And maybe he would know how that was possible if he had ever been on the intelligence end of operations. But he had never pretended to be anything other than a warhorse. Intel was the brains of the company, and Intel was dead, just like the others.
His throat felt tight, his muscles wooden, but he managed to pull a topography map from its cardboard tube and press it open.
After a few moments, he shook his head.
“What?” She glanced up, fingers still dancing on the keys.
“There’s no way the Jeep’s going to make the entire trip.”
“How long will it take on foot?”
He narrowed his eyes at the map and calculated. “Looks like the roads end about eight klicks from the gulch itself. So it’ll probably take me…” He shook his head, figuring and feeling a little sick with the results; Shep may be a colossally stubborn pain in the ass, and sure as hell, he’d know Gabe was coming for him, but he couldn’t last forever. “A couple hours to reach the gorge?”
“What about we?”
He glanced up, worrying over a thousand details at once. What kind of idiot would bring a woman like her into this tropical slice of hell? “I’m not sure,” he admitted.
“But you think it will take longer with me along.”