by Lindsay McKenna - Course of Action: The Rescue: Jaguar NightAmazon Gold
“This will, too.” Charley gestured to the muddy decks of her boat. “We have to sluice down and refuel, and I want to write my postmission report while the details are still vivid. Plus, I need to check on Sergeant Santos. Last report said he would have to have surgery to repair his larynx but he’s otherwise holding his own.”
Jack nodded and scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. It came away smeared with sweat, insect repellent and the last remnants of jungle paint. “The decks aren’t all that need swabbing,” he said with a wry smile. “I feel like I’m carrying a half ton of mud on my back.”
He smelled like it, too, but she wasn’t about to mention that. Mainly because she knew she was every bit as ripe.
“Why don’t we take care of everything that needs taking care of,” she suggested, “then grab a few hours to clean up and rest? We could get together for a late lunch or early dinner at the Blue Iguana.”
Or not. The possibilities were wide-open at this point. The sudden gleam in Jack’s eyes acknowledged as much.
“Let’s make it lunch. Where are you billeted?”
“They didn’t have quarters for us here on base so we’re at the El Dorado Plaza Hotel, on the main square.”
“I’ll call when I’m on my way.”
* * *
“It’s just lunch,” Charley lectured the image in her bathroom mirror a little past one the following afternoon. “Just two professionals getting together to power down after a tough op.”
Suuuuure it was.
Making a face, she dragged a brush through her freshly washed and blow-dried hair. She hadn’t hit the rack until almost 4:00 a.m. but had been up since ten trying to decide if she’d read way too much into a single kiss. She’d pretty much decided she had until Jack called a half hour ago to say he was taking a water taxi into town. The instant flutter in her stomach threw her completely off course again.
As she struggled to tame her unruly auburn mane, she kept wondering how Halliday had slipped past the barriers she’d erected after her divorce. Granted, those wide shoulders, rugged features and penetrating blue eyes qualified him as a very prime male specimen. He also exuded a cool, don’t-mess-with-me air that was all the more intriguing—and intimidating!—for being unspoken and understated.
But Charley worked with dozens of men every day, including a whole slew of macho Special Ops types. She’d tossed down beer or had dinner with more than one since her divorce. Yet she’d never been tempted to take things beyond casual friendship. Certainly not to the point she was considering taking them with Jack Halliday.
Which was where, exactly?
Frowning, she paused with the hairbrush in midstroke. Her gaze shifted to the reflection of the neatly made bed in the other room. The spread was a colorful jungle print, the crisp cotton sheets just changed by housekeeping this morning. A sudden thrill of anticipation quivered through her body and tightened the muscles low in her belly.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Dawson.” Disgusted with this display of nerves, she attacked her hair again. “Pull yourself together. No need to chart out a specific course. Whatever happens, happens. Or doesn’t happen,” she added as she tossed the brush aside and went to dress.
She’d brought only one halfway decent set of underwear with her. The bra was white and lacked anything resembling lace. Same with the hipsters, but both were considerably more feminine than the no-nonsense panties and sports bra she wore with her BDUs.
The cotton skirt she’d purchased after arriving in Peru made up for her underwear’s lack of adornment. Its gauzy layers of toucan-red, lime-green and brilliant turquoise swirled as she walked. The embroidery on the drawstring neckline of her white cotton blouse was every bit as brilliant as that on the skirt. She slipped on straw sandals and was pinning one side of her hair back with a flower clip when a knock sounded on her door.
Her stomach got all tight and jittery again, forcing her to pull in a steadying breath. The air whooshed right out again the moment she opened the door. Ridiculously, idiotically breathless, she blurted out the first thing that jumped into her head.
“You shaved.”
“I did.” A rueful smile curved Jack’s mouth as he scrubbed a palm over his bristleless cheeks and chin. “I was getting pretty scuzzy, even for Delta Force.”
He’d also washed and combed back his sun-streaked blond hair. It was still way longer than regulation, but Charley wasn’t complaining. The shaggy cut, his weathered skin and the white squint lines at the corners of his eyes all fit naturally with his boots, jeans and canvas bush shirt.
He evidently had no complaints, either. Just the opposite, in fact. His eyes held an approving glint as he took in her newly-washed hair and colorful civilian attire.
“You clean up nice, Dawson. Very nice.”
“Thanks.”
She tried to decide whether to invite him in or suggest they head on out. For the moment, though, he seemed content to lean against the doorjamb and conduct a leisurely surveillance.
“I like your hair down.”
“It’s too hot and heavy to wear loose very often in this climate but...oops.”
She flushed as her stomach, never shy at the best of times, issued a loud reminder that she hadn’t eaten since downing an MRE at the site early last evening.
“Sorry ’bout that.”
“No problem,” Jack said with a grin, no doubt remembering a similarly noisy rumble during their in-brief a few days ago. “Let’s feed the beast.”
* * *
Although they’d talked about celebrating at the Blue Iguana, Charley suggested a change in plans. “It’s a little early in the day to toss down shots of pisco. How about a cold beer and lunch at the Iron House? It’s just across the plaza.”
“I’m good with that.”
Dodging the motokars that clogged the streets outside the hotel, they crossed the palm-shaded square.
“I saw this place when we were driving in from the airport,” Jack commented as a two-story mansion came into view. “What’s with all the ironwork?”
“You’re looking at the first prefab house in Peru. Maybe in South America. Gustave Eiffel designed it for the Paris Exposition in the late 1890s.”
“Eiffel, as in the Eiffel Tower?”
“Correct. One of the rubber barons saw it at the exposition, bought it, then had it dismantled and shipped back to Iquitos.”
Jack gave a low whistle, his gaze skimming the cast iron panels fronting the mansion’s lower story and the elaborate, wraparound balcony framing the second. “Must have cost a bundle to ship all this from Europe.”
“It probably did, but that was right at the peak of the rubber boom. The city was supposedly rolling in money. Or some of its residents were, anyway,” she amended as she led Jack up the stairs to the café on the second floor.
The Amazon Cafeteria was one of her favorite eateries, and its manager had been one of the first acquaintances she’d made after transferring from Brazil to Peru. Portly, gray-haired and lavishly mustachioed, he loved sharing the history of his city and its people with visitors.
“Hola, Señor Aguilera.”
“Hola, Chief Dawson.”
“This is a friend of mine.” She caught herself in time and made no reference to his military rank or status. “Jack Halliday.”
“Welcome to Iquitos, Señor Halliday. You’re here on business or pleasure?”
“Some of both,” he returned easily, with a sideways glance at Charley. She was still trying to ignore the tiny, private thrill that look generated when Señor Aguilera seated them at a table on the balcony.
“Are you doing pescado a la loretana today?” Charley asked him.
“But of course. It’s our specialty.”
“And my favorite. It’s a tender fillet of river fish cooked in a sweet-chili cream sauce,” she explained to Jack. “They serve it with shredded palm hearts and fried plantain-and-pork dumplings.”
“Sounds good. I’ll have that.”
“Make it two.”<
br />
“With beer or perhaps a fine Chilean wine?”
“Beer for me,” Charley said.
“And me.”
Fans turned lazily overhead, holding the muggy heat at bay along with most of the exhaust from the motokars circling the plaza. The putt-putts’ engines provided enough background noise to allow for private conversation, but Charley waited until after Señor Aguilera had sent a waiter with their beer to ask for an update.
“Did you get McMasters tucked into a cell?”
“He’s tucked.”
Something in his voice had her cocking her head. “But?”
He hesitated a moment before lifting his shoulders in a shrug. “Iquitos isn’t exactly as secure as Gitmo or Leavenworth.”
“I’ve never been to either Guantanamo or Fort Leavenworth, so I’ll take your word for that. I’ve had to bail one of my sailors out of the Iquitos brig, though. His cell looked pretty escape-proof to me.”
“Well, it doesn’t have to hold McMasters for long. The U.S. JAG liaison on base is already working the extradition request. Bear and I will stay until it’s processed and we can escort the prisoner back to the States.”
Charley picked at the label on her dew-streaked beer. She’d sensed before there was more to sending in a Delta Force team than the mere fact that one of their own had gone rogue. McMasters had pretty much confirmed that last night, although he wouldn’t give details.
“An extradition request usually involves a person who’s suspected of committing or has been convicted of a crime. I know McMasters violated all kinds of laws here in Peru. What did he do in the States to warrant sending in an entire team to hunt him down?”
“Sorry, that’s classified. I can’t talk about it.”
Classified, she guessed from the stony expression that came over his face, and bad. Extremely bad. She also had a shrewd idea that it involved an op the United States might prefer to sweep behind that useful “plausible deniability” shield. She didn’t probe further, however. She wouldn’t jeopardize her own security clearance by digging into classified matters she wasn’t cleared for.
“So tell me something else instead.”
“Like what?”
“Like where you’re from, for instance. Where you live now. What you do when you’re not jumping out of planes or invading foreign nations.”
“Texas. Fort Bragg. And not much.”
“Oh, no! You’re not getting away with that. C’mon, Halliday. Open up. Tell me about yourself.”
“There’s not that much to tell. I grew up in a dusty town in West Texas where the biggest thrill aside from Friday-night football was copping a feel from a giggling cheerleader.”
“I’m guessing you copped your share,” she drawled, eyeing the wide shoulders under his canvas shirt. “I’m also guessing you played football.”
“You guess right. Me, and five of my buddies.”
A smile tugged at the corners his mouth, relaxing the strong lines of his jaw and reminding Charley that there was another layer buried under the gung-ho grunt. Probably several layers. Fascinated, she propped her elbows on the table and enjoyed this glimpse of a completely different Jack Halliday.
“They called us the Sidewinders,” he related. “Damned if the high school didn’t put up a plaque with a coiled, six-foot rattler mounted on it after we brought home the state championship.”
Jack leaned back and crossed his ankles. The tension that had ridden him like a rabid dog since he learned he was going after Sean McMasters was easing by imperceptible degrees. The op wasn’t over yet. It wouldn’t be until he delivered McMasters to Gitmo. But for a while at least he could put the bastard out of his head and enjoy the enigma that was Charlene Dawson.
No one looking at her now would believe she was the same woman who’d taken a heavily armed riverine boat deep into the Amazon, wearing a side arm, full body armor and BDUs alternately doused with rain and mud. The blouse she had on now dipped low enough in front to make him wish the waiter would hurry with their lunch. And all that dark red hair just cried for a man to bury his...
“...your folks do?”
He dragged his attention back to her face. “What?”
“Your folks? What did they do?”
“My father drank.” The tension that had just eased a few notches came sliding back. “I have no idea what my mother did, if anything. She took off when I was a kid.”
“That must have been rough.”
Jack shrugged. “Life happens.”
And that pretty much summed his early years up in a nutshell. He’d survived his mother’s desertion. Survived his father’s fists. The last thing he wanted or needed was that flicker of sympathy in Charley’s brown eyes.
Luckily, the arrival of their lunch provided a welcome distraction. Señor Aguilera himself delivered the two heaping platters. Jack savored every bite. Almost as much as he savored the slow heat Charley ignited in his belly with the simple act of devouring a plantain-and-pork dumpling. She didn’t try for dainty. Didn’t try to disguise her obvious enjoyment. Dunking the crispy morsel in the chili cream sauce that accompanied her fish, she downed it in three bites and cheerfully licked her fingers.
“What about you?” he asked in an attempt to tamp down the hunger that had nothing to do with food. “Where are you from? Where do you live when you’re not going after narco traffickers and illegal gold operations?”
“I’m from pretty much all over. Norfolk. Jacksonville. Coronado. Pearl Harbor.”
“So you’re a navy brat.”
“Yep.” Pride colored her voice. “My dad was career navy, and my grandfather earned a Silver Star while patrolling the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.”
“A Silver Star?” Jack gave a low whistle. “Those don’t come easy, or very often.”
“Granddad had river water in his veins. I grew up hearing all about the history of our brown-water navy. Which, incidentally, goes back to the Revolutionary War. Did you know we used small boats—even row galleys—against the mighty warships of the British navy?”
Jack certainly didn’t doubt her knowledge of riverine ops, but he must have looked a tad skeptical about the effectiveness of rowboats against heavily armed warships.
“It’s true,” she insisted. “In one of the earliest engagements of the war, our guys commandeered a topsail schooner and surprised the British in a predawn raid on their base on the Richelieu River.”
He didn’t have a clue where the Richelieu River was located, much less what a topsail schooner was. But Charley’s enthusiasm intrigued him as much as her knowledge.
“The raid resulted in the capture of a seventy-ton sloop, numerous small boats, stores of provisions and a stockpile of arms. More important, we gained control of Lake Champlain, with its vital shipping lanes.”
She leaned forward, her meal forgotten as she warmed to a topic that was obviously near and dear to her heart.
“During the War of 1812, Commodore Daniel Patterson felled trees to obstruct the bayous and hamper the British approach to New Orleans. He then employed a ragtag fleet of small gunboats to delay their advance long enough for General Jackson to mount a defense of the city.
“So it went,” she said, waving her fork for emphasis, “right down through history. Our small-boat navy battled pirates coming up from the Caribbean, Chinese warlords in the Boxer Rebellion, both sides during the Civil War. And in probably one of the greatest efforts in the history of river warfare, U.S. sailors were secretly moved inland and used landing craft to transport more than fifty thousand allied troops, thousands of vehicles and pieces of artillery across the Rhine River in less than seventy-two hours, thus opening the way for the final land assault on Germany in WWII.”
“Okay,” Jack said with a smile, “I’m officially impressed.”
“You should be.”
She sat back, smug in her predecessors’ accomplishments, and attacked another dumpling. He took a sip of his beer and feasted on her instead. He liked the way the sun lit
fiery streaks in her hair. The sharp lines of demarcation between skin tanned to nut brown and the creamy white patches where her uniform and body armor had protected it. The enthusiasm that put such sparkle in her brown eyes. He liked, too, that they were taking time to get to know each other before...
Before what?
His mind jerked to a stop, then reengaged with a swift mental kick. What the hell did he imagine was going to happen next? That he and Charley would stroll back across the plaza, sashay up to her room and tumble into bed?
Did he think she’d welcome him with open arms after he’d laid that business about her ex-husband on her? Setting aside his beer, he waited for her to down her last bite of fish.
“I owe you an apology, Charley.”
“For?”
“For being a total jerk.”
She nodded, as if idiocy in the men of her acquaintance was neither new nor the least bit surprising. “Apology accepted.”
“That’s it? You don’t even want to know why I’m groveling?”
“Oh, I think I can guess.” Her lips curved in a sardonic smile. “You’re wondering how you’re going to finesse me into bed after accusing me of sleeping my way up the chain of command.”
She’d nailed it. And him. Jack gave a huff of laughter even as he tried again to climb out of the bottomless pit. “Just to keep the record straight, I didn’t accuse you.”
“Oh. Right. I stand corrected. You were keeping an open mind about it. Very noble of you, Halliday.”
“All I can say in my defense is that I’m not always such a jerk.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that.”
“Okay, I deserved that. Any way I can recover lost ground?”
“You can start by paying for lunch. And you’d better do it quick,” she said with a nod at the thunderclouds piling up over the river. “With luck, we can make it back across the plaza before those open up.”
* * *
They didn’t get even halfway.
They’d just passed the obelisk in the center of the plaza when the palms lining the square began to whip and the first, fat drops splattered the decorative tiles. A loud crack of thunder got Charley’s attention.