Scent of Danger

by Judith Rochelle

  He snapped the phone shut and handed it back to Kelly.

  Xena was prowling the cabin with restless paces, the growlcontinuing to rumble up from her throat. Kelly pulled her to a stop and forcedthe dog to look at her.

  “You knew something was up, didn’t you, girl?” She glancedup at Rick. “What did Granddad say?” she asked, her voice anxious.

  “They’ve caught someone spying on the airfield. Ed’s got himtrussed up like a turkey in the hangar but Dan’s coming to get him. He’ll takehim to a place we use when we need to question people.”

  Kelly gave a nervous laugh. “Are you going to beat him witha rubber hose?”

  One corner of Rick’s mouth turned up. “Probably not,although I’d like to. But we have to get information out of him. I need to getback to Maryland.”

  Xena pressed against his legs and looked up at him. Rickrubbed her head, then looked in her eyes. “I swear she sends visual messages,”he told Kelly. “I’ve gotten them twice already.”

  “Oh, I agree with you. She knew something was happening inD.C. But…” She bit her bottom lip.

  “But what, Red?”

  “But wasn’t the whole purpose of bringing you up here to getyou away from all the government agencies and the media until your partnerscould sort this out? And also to keep you out of the killer’s range?”

  “The picture’s changed. And we’re going to be extra careful,believe me.” He looked at Xena. “And don’t forget, I have my sweet girl here toprotect me.”

  A buzzer sounded, indicating a vehicle was coming up the driveway.A second later Mike’s SUV appeared on one of the monitors.

  “Get your stuff together,” Rick told Kelly. “I’ll tell Miketo prep the bird.”

  Mike too, wasn’t that thrilled about Rick and Kelly leavingthe safety of the cabin but Rick was adamant.

  “I’d insist Kelly stay here,” he told his partner, “but Iknow that won’t fly, so we’ll all go.”

  Xena had been laying quietly in the corner, watching thehumans, when she suddenly rose to her feet, the now familiar rumble sounding inher throat and moved to where Kelly was. With her massive body she shoved theredhead until she was next to Rick, then planted herself in front of both ofthem.

  Mike raised an eyebrow. “What’s with the dog?”

  “Trouble,” Rick told him. “She knows something we don’t.What is it, Xena?”

  Kelly leaned down and locked gazes with the dog.

  Be careful. Be careful. Danger.

  Here?

  Be careful.

  “Someone’s coming,” she told them.

  “Up here?” Mike shook his head. “No one ever comes up here.They don’t even know there’s anything up here.”

  Kelly was still bending down, communicating with Xena.“Nevertheless, she says danger’s coming.”

  At that moment the warning sensors on the driveway buzzedagain. They all stared at the monitors, watching. Moments later a black vancame into view and Mike and Rick looked at each other.

  “Our suspicious stranger,” Mike guessed. “What do yousuppose is bringing him up here, on a practically nonexistent road?”

  Rick grunted. “My guess is whoever hired him gave himpictures of all of us—and that’s scary enough in itself—and he spotted you atthe farm a little while ago. He thinks you’ll lead him to me.”

  “My bad. I should have paid more attention to what wasaround me. I must be getting old. Okay. How do you want to handle it?”

  Rick’s face settled into a grim look. “I say let’s let himcome up here. Once he reaches the top of the cliff, he’ll be completely exposedand then he’s ours. God, I can’t believe he’s stupid enough to come all the wayup here not knowing what he’ll find. Whoever wants you dead must be hiring verystupid people.” He looked at Kelly. “Where are your weapons?”

  She pulled the H&K from the small of her back where shekept it when she wasn’t sleeping. “The rifle’s in the bedroom.”

  “Get it and make sure it’s loaded. Wait inside and I do meaninside.”

  “But I can—”

  “Red, you’re the backup,” Rick told her. “Just in case heslips by us, okay?”

  As an answer she retrieved the rifle, cocked it and took aready stance, finger resting just outside the trigger guard.

  Rick headed for the door again but Xena hurled herself athim and knocked him down.

  “Jesus, Xena.” He scrambled to his feet. “Let me out, okay?”

  Xena simply knocked him down again.

  “Kelly.” Rick looked at her. “We’re running out of time.”

  She signaled Xena with her hands and they could see the dogwas fighting a battle with herself. Finally she moved away from Rick andplanted herself next to Kelly.

  “Thank you. Xena, I’ll be fine. You take care of Kelly.”

  He and Mike checked their own guns, then slipped outside.Moving to the rear of the cabin, they waited for the van to reach the top ofthe bluff. As long as the road was, it was five more minutes before it reachedthe crest.

  The driver pulled to the side into a heavy stand of pinetrees and shut off his engine. They watched him climb out of the other side ofthe vehicle, catching the door so it wouldn’t slam, and move in a crouch aroundto front bumper. He paused, as if considering how to cross the open space.

  “Come on,” Mike muttered under his breath. “Just move alittle more.”

  The waited, the man in a crouch, Mike and Rick concealed bythe cabin.

  “One more step,” Rick whispered to himself. “Just a littleone.”

  And then he moved, still in his crouch, heading toward theblind side of the cabin, the one with no windows. One step. Two steps. Mikefired, the bullet knocking the gun from Denny’s hand.

  “Son of a bitch,” he screamed, grabbing his hand, blooddripping from it.

  The two men were on him instantly. Rick picked up the gunand stuck it in his waistband. Mike grabbed Denny by his collar and dragged himtoward the cabin. Kelly pulled the door open and stood back, rifle at theready.

  “Is somebody gonna look at my hand?” Denny screamed.

  Mike tightened his grip on the collar, twisting it into achokehold. “I’d shut up if I were you. The woman’s got an itchy trigger finger.”

  When they were all inside Mike dug into Denny’s pocketsuntil he found his wallet and cell phone.

  “Well, well. Hello, Dennis Hammond. Let’s see if the numbersin your phone tell us anything.”

  “Nothing,” Denny spat. “They’ll lead you to nothing. You’llbe wasting your time.”

  Mike shrugged. “It’s our time to waste. Rick, find some ropeand tie this jerk to the chair.”

  They wrapped a towel around the injured hand to keep theblood from dripping on the floor. Xena stood in front of the chair, lips peeledback, teeth showing, treating Denny to a menacing growl.

  “Get that hound away from me,” he shouted, trying to skidthe chair back.

  “She’s one of our agents,” Rick joked. “I wouldn’t mess withher.”

  “I’m going back outside to check his van. Rick, see if anyof those numbers answer.”

  By the time Mike came back inside, Rick had tried everynumber with no success. “My guess is they’re throwaways and they’ve alreadybeen disposed of. What did you find?”

  “Our fine friend here had a canvas bag with more incendiarydevices, two boxes of ammunition for his gun and just as we thought, picturesof all of us.” He swiveled his gaze to Kelly. “Including you and Xena.”

  “Now what?” she asked, the rifle still pointed at the man inthe chair.

  “Now we make some decisions. For a change we’ve drawn a fewcards in our own hands.”

  * * * * *

  The man calling the shots sat on a bench in the park,looking at his useless cell phone. Useless because he couldn’t reach either ofthe men who were supposed to be finding Rick Latrobe and eliminating him.Useless because all the other contacts he tried reaching had nothing for him.It was all coming unrav
eled and he needed to make plans.

  Any day now Rick Latrobe would put all the pieces together.He had a reputation as a puzzle solver and he never gave up. Now Zarife andDenny had disappeared and that was not a good sign. Denny would let whoever hadhim kill him, before he talked but he didn’t have as much faith in Zarife. Goodthing he had no idea who he’d been talking to.

  What he ought to do was take all that money stashed in asecret account and disappear, just the way he’d arranged for Greg Jordan to do.But then he’d leave a hell of a mess behind. Others would be caught in theinvestigation. Maybe lose everything they had. Certainly their reputation.

  His family. God, his family. They’d be left with the biggestmess of all. He was sorry for that. Sort of. But he’d made a choice and now hewas stuck with it.

  He almost laughed. Stuck with millions of dollars.

  Then he sobered. He needed to get the hell out of here andhe knew of only one way to do it. At least he’d be able to come face to facewith Greg Jordan again and have the pleasure of killing the man. He was good atthat. Lull the intended victim into a sense of false security, then do the deedwhen he or she least expected it.

  If he wasn’t so exposed he might have taken care of Latrobehimself.

  Well, life would go on, one way or another. But first he hadto make sure his disappearance was properly staged.

  * * * * *

  Mike landed at the country airstrip they’d taken off fromwhere a black Expedition with darkened windows was waiting for him. The firstthing they did was deliver Denny Hammond to Troy and Mark, who told them aboutZarife and carried Denny off to join him. Then Mike drove them all to theairfield where Dan was waiting, pulling into the hangar and signaling Harry toclose the door.

  Over coffee in the office, Dan filled them in on what he’dlearned about Zarife al-Dulami.

  “Ken sent us the information from Iraq. One of his contactscame through. Someone set up the connection between the seller and theal-Dulami family. Someone who knew about them and my guess is that would beGreg Jordan. And the seller had to know to contact Zarife.”

  Rick shook his head in disgust. “I want to put a face onthat someone and my guess is Jordan can do it for us.” He pushed his coffee cupaway from him. “I’ve got to get more information on Camellia Cay. Andy’s beenworking on it for me and also helping with Jordan’s money trace. To see if wecan track it back.”

  “I know,” Dan told him. “I’ve been checking with himregularly. This is a very complicated network we’re tapping into and it’staking him a little longer than usual to crack the firewalls.”

  “It can’t take too long. We’re running out of time.”

  Dan snorted. “Don’t I know it. I have the feds down on myhead every day demanding that I produce you. Not to mention the excessive mediacoverage.”

  “Maybe Troy and Mark can get something out of our two‘guests’. Anything is better than nothing.”

  “I think that Zarife fellow will crack if you put enoughpressure on him,” Harry commented. “I only got to watch him for a little whilebut he’s as nervous as hell.”

  “Do we know who he is?” Rick asked. “Besides being part ofthe al-Dulami family, I mean.”

  “So far there’s not much to know,” Dan replied. “He’s beenin this country a little more than ten years. Got his engineering degree fromMIT then found a job with one of the smaller engineering firms in D.C. Seemshe’s quietly been building himself a little network here, almost as if he waspreparing for something like this.”

  “Maybe he was,” Rick mused. “The question is, how did Mr. X.know to contact him? Jordan again?”

  Before Dan could answer Xena rose to her feet, fur standingon end, the familiar growling rumbling up from her throat.

  “Oh, oh,” Kelly said. “Something’s wrong.”

  Dan glanced out the window of the office. “I don’t seeanything. Besides, the guard would have called if we had trouble.”

  But Xena placed herself next to Rick, rubbing against hisleg and giving a single bark.

  “It has to do with me,” he told them. “Are we covered here?”

  “I’ll go outside and check things out,” Harry said. “You allstay inside.”

  He’d barely started toward the door when the phone on thedesk rang. Dan snatched it up, frowning as he listened to the man on the otherend.

  “All right,” he said. “Stall them for a few minutes. Do thebest you can.” When he hung up his face was taut with worry. “That was theguard. The feds are here. I thought they’d given up on this place but I guessthey don’t give up on anything. They’ve got a warrant to search for you here,Rick. And two media vans followed them over here. Apparently they’re gluingthemselves to the feds until they find out something else to report.” Heglanced at Xena. “How the hell does she do that, anyway?”

  Kelly gave him a tired grin. “She just does. She eventransfers her thoughts to my dreams sometimes. And we can link our minds incertain situations.”

  “If I weren’t married to my wife and a staunch supporter ofThe Lotus Circle, I might have trouble accepting that. But they’ve made abeliever of me in a lot of things. And Xena has certainly saved our bacon alot.” He finished the last swallow of coffee. “Well, the guard can only holdthem off for so long.”

  Harry looked at Dan. “This is the kind of thing we preparedfor, right?”

  “You got it.” He turned to Kelly. “But can the dog betrusted?”

  “Xena can do whatever I tell her to.” Kelly’s tone wasbelligerent.

  “Okay, okay, just asking. Come on. Rick you know the drill.We’ve rehearsed it before.”

  Dan led them all to the wall at the far end of the hangar.When he pressed a large screw that bolted the faceplate to the metal, a sectionof the wall slid sideways, revealing a hidden section about four feet deep andrunning about fourteen feet.

  “It’s not much in the way of accommodations,” he told Kelly.“But it’ll do until we can get rid of our friends.”

  “We can handle it,” she told him. Bending down, shewhispered in Xena’s ear.

  “I swear that dog nodded her head,” Dan remarked, anexpression of amazement on his face.

  “Of course she did,” Kelly said with a grin. “Okay, we’reall set.”

  In seconds they were all in the hidden passage and the wallslid back into place.

  For Kelly and Rick it seemed the federal agents were takingtheir own sweet time. They could hear snatches of conversation as men searchedthis hangar, then one of them arguing with Dan while he sent men to check outthe other one. Finally, when they were about convinced they’d be trapped in thenarrow space forever, the wall slid open and Dan beckoned them out.

  “We dodged a bullet this time,” he told them, “but theyaren’t giving up.”

  “I need to talk to Andy,” Rick told him. “I’ve got to get myinformation from him. And I can’t just sit around this hangar forever.”

  “I know, I know. They’ll be watching to see who leaves hereand maybe even following us. Let me think.”

  In the end they came up with what they thought was the mostworkable plan and prayed they weren’t wrong.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I can trace the money back to Jordan’s initial deposit,”Andy told Rick over the phone, “but I’m still working on where that money camefrom. That one’s a son of a bitch to crack.”

  They’d worked a good shell game getting everyone away fromthe airfield, driving in and out so many times in so many combinations theyalmost confused themselves. Dan called in two of their men to add to the mixand by the time they had things right, the feds and the media had a hard timedeciding exactly which vehicles to follow.

  Dan, driving Kelly’s truck, had skillfully lost any tailthat might still have been clinging to them. Now they were at the anonymouscondo where Rick had spent a few days what seemed like light years ago, tryingto pull all the loose threads together.

  “I can’t tell you how imperative it is to get thatinformation,” Rick
urged. “What about Camellia Cay? Any luck there?” Helistened again. “Okay. All right. I’ll call you back in an hour.”

  He disconnected the call, his disgust evident.

  “Anything?” Kelly asked.

  “Not much more than we had before. It seems the guests atCamellia Cay are assigned a number when their reservations are taken and thealias relates back to that number.”

  “Pretty sophisticated system to give people privacy,” shecommented.

  “These people aren’t just looking for privacy,” he told her.“Often they’re hiding from agencies like Interpol, the Surete, even our own FBIand CIA.”

  “Nice people to hang with.”

  “Any more on the man who owns the place?” Dan wanted toknow.

  “At least we’ve got a little something there. His money cameinitially from blood diamonds—the diamonds mined in Africa illegally andsmuggled out of the country. Andy said the guy also bought four or five otherislands near the Cay and built houses on them. More like fortresses, I think.”

  “I’d give my left leg to know how he and Jordan hooked up tobegin with,” Mike said, rubbing his hand over the stubble on his jaw. “When Iknew him in the Rangers he was the straightest arrow you’d ever want to know.When his second tour was up, he said he had a private gig waiting for him. I didn’task any questions and when I looked him up for the Grainger Caldwell gig, hesaid he’d had it with being on an isolated island and this looked good to him.I swear all his creds checked out.”

  “Quit worrying yourself into a heart attack over it,” Dan toldhim. “My guess is he had bigger things in mind from the beginning and hadexpert help setting up his references.”

  Kelly had pulled the notes from the cabin out of herbackpack and was studying them. “Is it too farfetched to think this MatthiasGrant is behind the whole thing?”

  “A man with that much money?” Dan quirked an eyebrow.“Anything is possible but why endanger what he has for something this risky.”

  “Maybe he’s one of these people who constantly needs anadrenaline fix. Besides, for some people there’s no such thing as too muchmoney.” She turned back to Rick. “Does anyone know what he looks like? And ifhe spends all his time on that island?”