by Donna Young
He adjusted the pack he retrieved from the back of the Hummer. Kept the assault rifle in his hand. “We should have enough to get us through the next few days.”
“Cristo must be getting impatient,” Julia said. “He must want us pretty bad.”
“Not me. You.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Cristo would consider it a bonus if Esteban turned up dead.” Cal hacked through the jungle’s thick undergrowth with a machete. “Me, too.”
The Black Hawk roared in the distance. Julia placed her hand over her eyebrows to block the sun. Esteban’s helicopter skimmed the treetops, heading east. “Looks like Esteban and Tessa escaped.”
“They won’t get very far with most of their fuel left on the tarmac.”
“Do you think Esteban was behind the attack?”
“No,” Cal replied honestly. “He has too much to lose and Tessa is too smart to let him lose it.”
“So, Delgado would have kept me alive,” she wondered out loud. “And Tessa? If they’d gotten their hands on her?”
“She’d have been pleading to die soon enough.”
Julia understood the same would be said for her if Delgado captured her and found out she didn’t have the MONGREL.
“Where are we going?”
“Now that’s a question, isn’t it?” he said. “I saw the pilot sabotage the helicopter. If Delgado paid off Esteban’s pilot, there is no way of knowing who else in his household has been paid off. So it looks like you got what you wanted. You’re coming with me and we’re going to help Jason escape. That’s the only way we’re going to get the hell out of this situation.”
Birds squawked, setting the trees rustling, the monkeys scurrying. Julia glanced up, caught the flash of neon green and yellow.
“Yucatan,” Cal commented. “They’re good at keeping the snakes at a marginal capacity.”
“That’s comforting,” Julia muttered, ignoring a foot-long lizard that skittered across her path.
“There’s a road about five hundred yards west of this clearing. We’ll follow the edge. We need to make about ten miles before dusk, which is a good clip.”
“Won’t we be seen?”
“We’ll have enough warning to take cover in the trees. It’s safer than hitting a trap set near someone’s coca or marijuana crop.”
“Trap?”
“Trip wires. Mines. Pits with snakes.”
“Aren’t they worried about their own people getting injured or killed?”
“The locals know where they all are, trust me. But even if they don’t, they are willing to take their chances. The people here get paid a lot of money to work for the cartels. They take the risk and they don’t use the merchandise. Both might get them killed. When they can’t do the work, they send in their children.”
“Children?” Nausea swirled in Julia’s belly as she thought of some of the children racing along the streets. “They grow up fast around here, don’t they?”
“Pretty much like the poorest parts of the cities in the States or in Britain. Children are left no choice sometimes.”
Julia heard the underlining hardness in Cal’s voice and understood where the comment came from.
He had spent the first ten years of his life on the streets of London. Fifteen and pregnant, his mother was disowned by blue-blood parents. But when Cal was ten, Maureen West took pity on her friend’s daughter and hired her as an upstairs maid. His mother spent the next couple years with the West family and soon fell in love with their oldest son, Henry West.
General Sir Henry West was recently retired from the Chief of General staff, commander of the British Army. He adopted Calvin soon after the marriage and Julia suspected Cal’s admiration for his father led him to a life with the government.
“How are your parents?”
“I haven’t actually seen them in a long time.” Cal swept a branch away from the side before it could hit Julia in the face. “I imagine retirement is agreeing with them.”
When he didn’t elaborate, she wasn’t surprised. That side of him he kept closely guarded. It was the one thing they had in common.
Chapter Eleven
The jungle canopy hung low, blocking most of the late-afternoon sun but did little to diminish its potency. The rays pierced the thick undergrowth giving light to their path, while its strength pushed the temperature to over one hundred degrees.
Julia took off her bandana and wiped her forehead.
“We only have a little more daylight left.” Cal’s comment broke through their silence. He pointed north. “Storm clouds will be rolling in soon, too.”
He held out a protein bar he wrestled from his pocket. “Are you hungry?”
“No.” Julia rolled her shoulders, but didn’t slow down. “How long do we have to travel tomorrow before we reach Jason?”
“Don’t expect the Jason you know waiting for you with open arms, Julia.” Calvin handed her the canteen. “He may be compromised.”
“By compromised, you mean tortured. Right?” Julia sighed and swallowed some water.
“There’s a good chance the man we rescue won’t be a man at all. The tactics used on the cartel enemies are inhuman. Worse, Delgado and his men take pleasure from inflicting pain. It deters others from trying to cross them.”
“They won’t go too far, Cal. Not without the MONGREL,” she argued. “Besides, I’ve checked all the intelligence on the case. There is no indication that Jason has been compromised.”
“Don’t fool yourself. They’ve tortured him, they’re just not ready to advertise it,” Cal warned. “And if they haven’t, there’s a good possibility he’s switched sides.”
“Treason isn’t his style.” But doubt nudged her. Determined, Julia forced it back and changed the subject. “How long have you known Jason?”
“A few years,” Cal answered. “Most of the agents I’ve known have specific talents. Jason is no different. He’s got a talent for winning confidences. A valuable commodity in our business.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jason can interrogate any prisoner, make them feel like he’s on their side and within hours, have them sharing crucial information.” Cal lifted a negligent shoulder. “I’ve needed his talents every so often.”
“He’d have made a brilliant lawyer,” Julia acknowledged. “And the favor? You mentioned that among other things, Jason saved your life. What other things?”
Cal sighed. “For years, Jason had worked on breaking Delgado’s shipping lines. Finally, a year ago he managed to extradite one of Delgado’s lieutenants. A man by the name of Vicente Padrino who had firsthand knowledge of Delgado’s business.”
“A year ago?” Julia frowned. “That’s when you and I met.”
“Yes,” Cal admitted. “During that time, Jordan Beck and I traced the smuggling of a small nuclear bomb into the United States.”
“I remember,” she said. “It was set to go off in Washington, D.C., on Christmas day, but you, Jordan and Regina disarmed it just in time.”
“We almost didn’t, actually,” Cal corrected. “We were in the last twenty-four hours and I needed information regarding the people involved with the nuclear bomb. Padrino turned out to be that link.”
“So Jason helped you out.”
“Jason got the information, but not without making a deal,” Cal explained. “Padrino negotiated his release for the information.”
Julia guessed the rest. “He headed straight back to South America.”
“The bloody idiot figured he could talk his way back into Delgado’s good graces. Two weeks later, locals found Padrino’s mutilated body beside a road. Delgado just tossed him out the car door when they were through with their fun.”
“And Jason?”
“We saved the day finding and then disarming two bombs. One in London, the other in Washington, D.C., but not before Jason’s Delgado indictments fell apart.”
“How did he take it?”
“Not well,” Cal ad
mitted. “Which could have led to Jason’s defection a few weeks ago. The Caracas airport tapes show him getting off the plane. He flew under an alias, walked out of the airport and disappeared. No contact. A few weeks later, Renalto found out Jason had been taken by Delgado.”
Or he wanted his son, she thought. “That’s not Jason,” Julia said instead. “If he’s anything, he is logical, analytical but not impulsive.”
“Except when he left you and joined the DEA. That certainly was impulsive.”
“Even that he planned for a long time. He just kept the information to himself.” Julia thought about it for a moment. “No, he went into Delgado’s compound with a backup plan. The MONGREL was his collateral.”
“Possibly.” But Cal understood that if he’d been in Jason’s spot, he’d move hell and earth to make sure she remained safe from the likes of Delgado.
“You said Jason divorced you. What did you mean?”
“Our marriage had never been anything more than a few weeks together here and there over the years. Eventually, we only shared phone calls. Finally, the phone calls just stopped,” Julia answered. “Soon after I started working for Jon Mercer. He was Labyrinth’s director at the time. When his personal assistant was arrested for treason, I stepped in and ultimately took her job.”
“I remember hearing about that. Kate MacAlister D’Amato discovered the leak, didn’t she?”
Julia nodded. “At the time, she was hiding out with her husband, Roman.”
“And now you’re chasing after Jason.”
“Not entirely, Cal,” she said, getting the nerve to tell him the truth.
He didn’t give her a chance. He was determined to figure out her relationship with her ex-husband. “When was the last time you talked to Jason?”
“When he called me about your favor. That was a month ago.”
“Before that?”
“Not seriously since the divorce,” Julia admitted, annoyed. “This is starting to sound like an interrogation, Cal.”
Jealousy nipped at his heels. But he was smart enough to know it wasn’t the driving force behind the questions.
Julia’s safety was foremost. He couldn’t figure out why Jason sent her into this mess in the first place when he could have contacted Cal directly.
“So you’re saying after several years of no communication, Jason shows up on your doorstep?”
“Not from out of nowhere,” she explained. His pace picked up with his anger. Julia kept her eyes on the ground, watched her footing. “From Colombia. Or at least that’s what he told me. I have no reason to think he lied.”
“Weren’t you surprised?”
“At seeing him?” She thought for a moment. “Not really. There was a lot left unfinished between us. Maybe I thought it would eventually have to be resolved.”
“When did you last see him, Julia?”
“Before this?”
Cal nodded.
“Once at the beach on Chesapeake Bay.” For a time after her breakup with Cal, Julia found solace during long walks on the beach. “It was the first time that I noticed Jason had truly changed.”
“How?”
“He’d been swimming in the surf when he noticed me, he called my name,” she remembered. “He’d grown leaner, but not in a good way. His arms and stomach showed scars from recent wounds.”
Julia used to check the scars on Cal’s body, looking for any fresh ones when he got back from assignments.
“He’d even gotten a few tattoos. One on his chest. A peacock.” The Jason she’d married would have never considered a tattoo. Believed people eventually regretted their impulse to mark their body. But she realized later, he’d done it for other reasons.
In Greek mythology, Argus was Hera’s giant who had a hundred eyes. Eventually, Hermes killed him. Heartbroken, she transferred Argus’s eyes to the tail of a peacock.
Jason tattooed the peacock over his heart.
“We didn’t say much,” Julia continued. “Some small talk and a quick goodbye. He seemed concerned about me, though. He hadn’t showed me much attention in a long while.”
“Why?”
“I told you, we didn’t have a typical marriage.” She swiped at a bug on her cheek. “Jason’s father and my father were, at one time, legal partners. Jason and I grew up together. Our lives had been planned from the beginning. Only the best nannies, the best private schools, then Ivy League colleges. I don’t think either of us questioned it because we’d always had each other. For most of my life, Jason was my best friend. Both of us following in our fathers’ footsteps, both of us being groomed as corporate lawyers.”
“So, naturally you married.”
“There wasn’t anything natural about it, actually. We were too much alike, too much like siblings. But neither of us knew how to tell our parents. Or maybe we just hoped we were wrong, that a love born from friendship would turn into something more…” Unable to find an answer, she shrugged. “Just something more, I guess.
“After graduating from law school, we married. The perfect society-column marriage. Theodore Marsh’s son and Maxwell Cutting’s daughter.”
Suddenly restless, she picked up her pace until she was next to Cal. “We honeymooned for three weeks in the Caribbean. We’d become more strangers than friends by that time because of the pressure of the wedding, our new careers. The trip was a disaster and it was the best part of the marriage. Six months later, he joined the DEA and disappeared from my life.” But not before she understood that he’d lumped her with his parents and their shallow circle of friends—that he had chosen a life with the DEA to get away from all of them.
But then the truth always did hurt. And the truth was Jason had been right.
“His father was disgusted with the way Jason threw away a brilliant career so he disowned him.”
“And your parents?”
“Since I failed in making my marriage work, I’m treated with a tolerable indifference. The ice defrosted a bit once I followed Jon Mercer to the White House,” Julia admitted. What she didn’t admit, couldn’t admit, was how she’d learned to deal with the loneliness. Or how they’d turned her into a product of their environment. The perfectly coiffed, polished and predictable daughter.
“I bet you made good bragging rights at the dinner table.”
“Something like that. Although I was rarely invited to those dinner parties.”
Calvin felt her retreat, recognized it for what it was. Self-defense. Something he understood.
From the moment he’d met Julia at the Oval Office, he’d been attracted. It had been his first meeting with President Mercer.
But it wasn’t until he ran into her, literally, during a jog that he’d made his move.
A heavy mist settled into the early-evening air, turned it thick with humidity. Warm drops of water pelted the leaves around them.
“The rain’s coming. We’ll stop here until morning.”
Cal’s voice caught her off guard. She stopped and took in her surroundings.
He’d found a small hill, its base dense with foliage.
“Where?”
Calvin shook some branches free from the hillside. Just beyond, Julia saw the opening of a small cave.
“How did you know this was here?”
“I hid out here for a month one time, many years ago. Almost ten now. I’d been dodging Delgado’s men for a week,” he said, careful not to break any vines, trample the undergrowth. “Solaris tracked me to the river. Jason shot Solaris and helped me escape. I was shot up pretty bad so he brought me here. He left me with supplies and first aid, and then managed to get word back to my government to come and get me.”
“I didn’t realize,” Julia responded. “You can’t tell me that the same man who saved your life is trying to betray our government.”
“That was over ten years ago. A lot of things can happen to a person over a decade.”
“Is that why you used me, Cal? Did working for the government change you that much?”
“Yes,” he lied, but this time the word lay bitterly against his tongue. “Give me a minute to check out the cave, then follow me in.”
He snapped a couple of glow sticks and handed her one. “I want to make sure it’s not being used as a home for any of the animals around here.”
Julia stood outside and kept her eyes peeled for any of Cristo’s men.
After waiting two minutes, she went down on her knees and crawled into the hole.
Once in the entrance, the cave’s ceiling heightened another couple of feet, making it possible for her to stand almost straight.
It smelled of fresh vegetation and strong soil. Comforting in a strange way. She tossed the glow stick next to his on the ground.
“No fires,” Cal advised. This time he handed her the protein bar. “Eat this. You need to keep up your strength.”
Julia sat cross-legged on the ground and tore open the package. “What is your plan once we reach Delgado’s?”
“I have a friend who lives only a short distance from Delgado’s compound.”
“If he lives that close are you sure he’s a friend?” she countered. She took a bite of the bar, ignored the chalky, dry taste. “How long has it been since you’ve seen him?”
“Last year,” Cal answered after a long pause. “I was here on a fact-gathering mission.”
“What kind of facts?”
Cal considered not telling her for a moment. Maybe he was tired of the subterfuge or just simply tired.
“I was sent in to kidnap Argus Delgado,” Cal replied, a grim line to his face.
“Cristo’s son?” Fear trickled down Julia’s back. “Why?”
“If Cristo had lost his son, then it would have put his whole organization into turmoil. His competitors, his lieutenants would have been vying for control of his empire. It’s no secret that Cristo is grooming Argus to take over everything. His devotion to the boy is his one Achilles’ heel.”
“And after you kidnapped him?” Julia finished her bar and wiped her hands on her pants. “What would have happened to him then?”