by Donna Young
Flashes of orange and yellow lit up the inside of the trailer.
“Get down!” Cal pushed her to the floor, then covered her with his body.
“Renalto!” Jorgie yelled. “This is a warning. It’s time you joined your friend.”
Suddenly, gunfire ripped through paneling. Julia stifled a scream even as the wall and windows absorbed the impact.
“Bulletproof,” Renalto yelled over another blast of ammunition. “They’re going to figure it out soon enough.”
“What the bloody hell were you thinking, going to the window?” Cal looked down, putting Julia’s face only centimeters from his. “Of all the stupid things to do. If I ever see you standing in harm’s way again—” Cal suppressed an oncoming shudder. He’d be damned if he’d let her see his torment.
“I got the message.” She flinched, but didn’t fight to get away from Cal.
He took the moment while his nerves quieted, his heartbeat settled back into a normal rhythm.
“They’re grabbing more weapons,” Renalto warned. “Hell, artillery is coming out of the trunk like it was Mary Poppins’s bloody carpetbag.”
“What do we do?”
He glanced at the opening in the floor. “Take cover.”
Quickly, Cal stood with Julia in his arms.
“Get ready,” he warned, a split second before he dropped her through the trapdoor to the room below.
“Here it comes!” Renalto punched the switch.
Both men dove into the hole. The door slid closed over their heads.
“Cover your ears!”
Julia dropped to the cement floor. Pain jarred her backside. She bit back a small cry and slapped her palms over her ears.
The shack exploded above them. Dirt and smoke clogged the air, choked off her oxygen. She coughed, felt the burn of gunpowder in her lungs.
“Breathe through your nose. Short but slow. Use your shirt to cover your lower face,” Cal ordered, but this time he didn’t hold her.
Julia did as Cal instructed. Small amounts of oxygen opened her airway. She coughed again but this time only grit scratched at the back of her throat. “What was that?”
“Grenade launcher,” Cal stated, then grabbed Julia’s arm and pulled her from the floor. “We won’t be able to get out of here easily. Which will make us sitting ducks.”
“Since their usual tactics include broken limbs and decapitations, I’ll consider myself lucky,” Renalto sneered.
Renalto stepped to the back wall and opened a panel behind one of the bricks. “Let them come in after us then. I’ll more than match their firepower.”
He punched in a code. Suddenly, a small door slid open.
Renalto flipped the light switch, revealing a fifteen-by-ten room just beyond the doorway. “It’s built into the hill behind the shack.”
An artillery of weapons covered a floor-to-ceiling shelving unit on the far wall of the room. On the opposite side stood a small kitchen complete with a four-foot counter and a set of rusted bar stools. A small army cot was set up a short distance away in the far right corner.
Julia noted the bed was made—its blanket and sheets tucked and tight and army issued. Above the cot were several boxed shelves filled with DVDs, but it was the set of six security monitors mounted on the wall beside the bed that caught Julia’s attention.
“It’s not much but it’s home,” Renalto explained as he grabbed for an automatic machine gun. “Say hello to my little friend.”
“That’s a bad imitation of Pacino. And Scarface wasn’t that great of a movie. He died at the end.” Cal crossed to his friend in three quick strides. “All of this artillery Kate’s doing?”
“Yes.” Renalto placed the gun back on the rack and grabbed a lighter Uzi. “What can I say, amigo? She has a soft spot for me.”
Cain’s sister was in charge of the Labyrinth technical division. And from the arsenal of weapons and intelligence equipment, she excelled at her job.
“So you work for Labyrinth, also. Not the DEA,” Julia commented. Even with her limited knowledge, she identified at least three AK-47s, a few sharp-shooting rifles, some grenades and flash bombs.
“Wouldn’t be caught dead working for Cain MacAlister’s group,” Renalto admitted, his words hard—not quite jesting—but not harsh. More from the situation than anything, Julia realized. “Labyrinth agents are wimps. They’re in and out. Quick operations.”
“Quick results,” Cal corrected, not offended. Cal helped himself to a couple of extra clips of ammo.
“In the DEA we go undercover for years,” Renalto continued, his lips twisted in scathing humor. “Churn out the bad guys from the trenches. What do you do?”
“I was told recently that our job is to save the world,” Cal answered derisively. “For king and country. No middle ground. No matter what it takes. Or who it destroys.”
“Cal, look.” Renalto pointed to a nearby surveillance screen. Jorgie and his men stepped into their cars. Both engines gunned. The wheels spit out gravel as the cars raced down the hillside.
“Didn’t even stay for dessert.” Renalto lifted the Uzi and settled its barrel in the hollow of his shoulder. “Cowards.”
Julia watched the cars for a moment, then focused on the other screens. “Where are your neighbors? Don’t they care that their street has been invaded?”
“I have several neighbors, but they aren’t stupid,” Renalto explained, surprised. “Most douse their lights and pretend they aren’t home. Otherwise, they might draw the attention of the wrong people.”
“We still need to get out of here,” Cal observed. He gestured toward the outer room. “Only way.”
“Yep. The downside of living in a hole.”
“Stay here,” Cal told Julia. “We need to clear a path to the outside. Once we open the ceiling, all hell’s going to break loose.”
Before she could answer, he grabbed an extinguisher from a nearby shelf and headed through the door to the outer area.
At Cal’s nod, Renalto hit the switch. The trap door opened and fiery debris fell through. Almost instantly, smoke filled the room. Cal hit fiery wreckage with white foam.
It took them almost an hour to clear the mess of tangled steel and charred remains.
When Julia worked her way out of the cellar room, she saw Cal’s friend kneeling on the ground, Leopold’s car ablaze behind him.
Renalto took a knife from his boot and sliced the bag open.
A shock of gray hair shone in the light of the flames. Sickened, Julia walked slowly toward the men, trying to keep her knees from buckling.
Leopold. Delgado’s men had killed Leopold and dumped him at Renalto’s doorstep.
What had Jason gotten her into?
“You’re going to get the hell out of here,” Cal ordered Renalto. “You have no idea what information Leopold gave them. If they find out you’re alive, they’ll come after you.”
“Leopold knew very little about me. He’d have given them nothing of importance.”
Renalto stood and studied the burning car, not really seeing it. “They beat him with a bat or something. Probably didn’t even ask him a question. Just took him off the street and beat him to death.”
“You couldn’t have stopped them, Ren,” Cal warned quietly. “Delgado prefers his employees had family, more specifically, family who lives in South America. Collateral damage for those who strayed or screwed up. It’s easier for a person to risk their own life, but almost impossible when it’s their family.”
Something vile and dark slid through Julia.
Cal glanced down at Leopold. “Delgado knows I’m on the offensive. We need a shift in power to throw him off a bit. The best way to do that is to stick to our operation.”
“What operation?” Renalto questioned.
“We’re going to find Jason,” Cal answered, his voice dead of emotion.
Renalto let out a short, bitter laugh. “Don’t get me wrong, Cal. I’ve definitely got a personal stake in this now. But we can�
��t just walk into Cristo Delgado’s territory and take back one of our own. It would be suicide.”
“Not suicide, but definitely tricky,” Cal admitted grimly. “Cain had enough pull to get me the floor plans to Delgado’s main villa. If Jason isn’t there, it’s possible we’ll find evidence to his whereabouts. It’s the best we got right now.”
“All right. I’m in,” Renalto conceded. “Delgado’s main residence is in the jungle. A villa in Sierra de Perijá, on the Colombian border. Hell, it’s more of a compound or a prison, really. Twenty-foot walls of imported granite surround the damn thing. Four stories of house with terra-cotta tiles and columns.”
Cal nodded. “He also has a state-of-the-art security system. Lasers, motion detectors, cameras and armed guards with attack dogs.”
“Delgado runs his empire from there. His wife and son are prisoners most of the time, kept under intense security. They leave only on Sundays. And only then for church service at a Jesuit mission called Santuario de la flor. Shrine of the Little Flower. It’s located only a few miles from the villa.”
“How long would it take you to get me the list of personnel at the compound, their schedules and any delivery service schedules?”
Renalto took a moment, then sighed. “Without risk of discovery? A few days. Not giving a damn? Less than twelve hours.”
“Make it a day,” Cal said. “I don’t care if Delgado finds out, but not before we find what we need.”
“I’ll arrange it, amigo.” Renalto spit on the ground. “But I want to return Leopold to his family first.”
“All right,” Cal agreed, then thought for a moment. “Do you have access to a plane, Ren?”
“Might be able to get my hands on one.”
“Do it then.”
“You’re thinking of flying right up to his door?”
“No, only to the front porch,” Cal replied, then nodded at Renalto’s underground bunker. “How are you fixed for supplies?”
“I have most of what we need on the shelves and I can pick up the rest,” he remarked. “And if you want to get that close, I’m bringing the whole bloody arsenal. We’re going to need it.”
“Good. We’ll meet up late tomorrow afternoon.”
“You’ll find me at the old hangar on the farthest side of the airport,” Renalto offered, his voice edged with equal resolve. “I’ll be waiting.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Renalto.”
“I won’t,” the other man promised. His gold tooth flashed beneath the hard line of his mouth. “While I’m ferreting out the information, what are you going to do?”
“Get some sleep. I haven’t had more than two hours in the last forty-eight,” Cal answered. He looked once again at Leopold. “Tomorrow, I’m going to visit an old friend.”
“We’re going to visit an old friend,” Julia stated firmly.
“Yes, we are.” Cal studied her for a moment. “Don’t worry, Julia, your presence at this meeting is required.”
TWO HOURS LATER, JULIA HAD gained very little information on the meeting Cal had planned the next day.
Before he took a shower, Cal had ordered Julia not to answer the door. To stay close to the bedroom. To stay away from the balcony and windows.
If he’d told her where his gun was, she thought, she’d probably shoot him.
Unsettled, she wandered into the bedroom where earlier in the day, she’d put her things away.
While the living room held a comfortable mixture of feminine and masculine decor, the bedroom—though subtle and sophisticated—definitely leaned more toward the latter.
Rich tones of plum and chocolate draped broad windows in a blend of silk and cotton. The colors softened the rustic, pine furniture, making the room inviting. She ran her hand over a nearby dresser, enjoying the texture of the rough old wood, the grooves and scratches brought on by time.
A corner fireplace of mosaic tile added to the appeal. On a cold evening, a warm fire would turn the atmosphere from cozy to romantic, she imagined.
“Nice place, wrong man,” Julia murmured.
She opened the top drawer, expecting to find it empty like the armoire where she’d hung her new clothes. Instead, sweaters of different colors and styles filled the space.
The subtle scent of clean citrus and warm, oriental spices filled the air, catching Julia off guard.
Julia dug through the sweaters until she discovered a small green bottle at the bottom of the drawer.
A quick sniff confirmed her suspicions. Jason’s cologne.
Anger hit with the force of a sharp smack across her cheek, but it was the feeling of betrayal that nearly dropped her to her knees.
Calvin brought her to Jason’s apartment. Struggling for a clear head, Julia glanced back at the connecting bathroom. The sound of the shower running was muffled, but there.
Julia swung the door in and shoved the shower curtain aside. “This is Jason’s apartment, isn’t it?” Betrayal fed the hurt beneath her heart, but determination kept it from her voice. “I found this.”
Slowly, Cal turned the faucet off and grabbed a towel from the nearby rack. He glanced at the bottle.
“It shouldn’t matter.” Not bothering to dry himself, he draped the towel over his hips.
“I’ll decide for myself what matters, West.”
“What difference does it make?” He stepped past her and through the bathroom doorway.
She followed him into the bedroom. “Damn it, Cal. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“This wasn’t his home, Julia. It was a safe house set up off the radar when he was in the country.”
Turning his back to her, he rummaged through the dresser’s middle drawer and pulled out a white pair of boxer briefs.
“Which was a damn sight more than he was in the States,” she added.
“It was the best place to bring you on such short notice. It’s untraceable.” He started to untie his towel, then stopped when she didn’t turn around.
She crossed her arms and waited.
With a shrug, he dropped the towel that hung low on his waist and stepped into the briefs.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” she insisted, willing her eyes to stay open, the groan to stay deep in her chest. Julia couldn’t stop herself from watching. It always struck her as one of the more intimate, almost sexual parts of their relationship. Dressing in front of one another.
“Why didn’t you tell me Jason lived here?” She tucked her hair behind her ear and widened her stance.
“Maybe I wanted to avoid this type of conversation,” Cal answered, damning himself for not clearing out Jason’s belongings.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” The moist heat clung to her curves, caused the cotton pajamas to stick to her skin.
Cal took in the simple yellow cotton camisole tee, the scrubbed features with just enough pink in her cheeks to validate the rage that flashed sharp in her eyes. But it was the dozens of little pink and yellow flowers stretched across cotton pajama pants, the drawstring waistband sitting low on her hips that sparked a familiar heat in his blood.
“It means…” Annoyed, Cal wiped some of the water from his face with the towel. “Knowing you were staying in this apartment, an apartment that he used would only kick your feelings into overdrive.”
“The only thing I’m emotional about right now, is the fact that you’re withholding information.”
The slight hitch in her voice rippled through Calvin. He froze, hearing the vulnerable edge he’d only heard once before.
Bloody hell. “Let it go, Julia.”
The ripple morphed into a fast-paced hum that set his back teeth on edge. The anger, the desire, the exhaustion moved against him in rolling waves, breaking down the barriers he needed to keep her at bay.
“I did once.” Suddenly, they weren’t talking about the apartment anymore; they were talking about the betrayal a year ago. “I can’t now. Too much is at stake.”
“Too much is at stake,” he repe
ated, a sad twist set across his lips. He stepped in to her. Without thought, his hand reached up and cupped her cheek, his eyes locked on to hers. “More than you know.” He whispered the words, the hum now volts of desire shooting through his nerves, his blood. “You brought me into this to help you. Now, the question is, can you trust me to do my job?”
“Trust is not part of this deal. Your job was to protect me, nothing more.” She’d thought the humiliation of it was part of her past. She’d been wrong. Tears pricked at her eyes, but she refused to give in to the pain that brought them there. Wrong about many things.
“The hell it is—”
Suddenly, she found herself set away from Calvin.
Cal grabbed his buzzing cell phone from his pants’ pocket and hit the button. “West.”
“It’s Cain.” The tone was abrupt, irritated.
“I’ve got the information on that recording you left me,” Cain said without preamble. “There was nothing else on the memory. The words stopped before she shut off the recorder.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Cain snapped. “And the voice on the recorder isn’t Delgado’s.”
Cal took a moment to process that. He glanced at Julia, saw the hint of a smirk. Clever girl. “One of his men?”
“No. When we found out it wasn’t Delgado, I had some of my men do a little leg work.”
Curiosity tempered the desire. “And?”
“It’s her apartment’s security guard. A man by the name of Curtis Matthews. Julia paid him a hundred dollars to make the recording for her.”
“Curtis Matthews,” Cal said, remembering. “A grandpa-type who’s counting the days until his retirement, so he can live off his pension.”
Without a word, Julia turned on her heel and walked over to the bed.
“That’s him,” Cain confirmed. “You know what this means, right?”
“Yes,” Cal replied, his eyes pinned to Julia on the bed, his tone razor sharp. “Time for some answers.”
CAIN MACALISTER HEARD THE CLICK on the phone line. “Damn fool hung up on me.”
“Did you expect anything else?”
“No.” Cain hit the off button on the speakerphone, then leaned back into the high-backed leather chair. “All right, Jon. I did what you asked me to do, now tell me why the hell I did it?”