He needed to ditch Floyd and meet up with Acer. He didn’t want Floyd involved in the plans with the posse, which had surely gathered by now in country.
They need to find a way to make a call to find out what happened to Acer.
Dane knew a safe house outside of Rio from past experience—not with the CIA. They would go there, but not until they played their little dance with Floyd.
Floyd eyed Shana, and smiled the same kind of enamored smile Dane witnessed more times than he cared to remember. Every time Shana encountered a man with an ounce of testosterone. Floyd stuck one of his stubby hands into his pocket and came through with a wad of cash.
Dane thought Floyd would peel a few bills off, but he handed the entire wad to Shana. U.S. dollars. Something like pride swelled for his girl. Quickly followed by a sharp pain of realization that she was far, far from his. Followed by the burn of determination in his soul to make Shana his in every way, to brand her as his in whatever way he could.
“Go ahead. I don’t know where you think you’re going or how you’re going to get there, but call me when you do. We need to deal with Oscar’s detainees, and I’m their contact so you need to deal with me.” Floyd stepped back to the door in the cramped front room of the crash pad and opened the door for them as if it were his idea that they should leave.
“I don’t remember you being a gracious man, Floyd. Seems you’ve overplayed the false caterpillar act to new depths of deceit.” Dane walked past the man and felt Shana behind him.
“We’ll be in touch,” Shana said.
They walked back outside to the narrow street.
“Where do we go now? Tavares’s people are still looking for us.”
“Don’t worry. Floyd’s called them off by now. They’ll follow us—or try to—but they’ll leave us alone until we lead them to the others. He’ll back off until he gets all of us under control.”
“You’re that sure he’s one of them?”
“He’s not one of them. He’s one of a kind. But he’s not one of us either. That’s for damn sure.”
Shana nodded. Dane engaged his watch-communicator, hoping Acer was back in the area.
Acer met them within two minutes of their call and they were on their way to downtown Rio to Hotel Granada in the city center, where David Young and Chief O’Keefe had set up.
From the car, Dane called the governor to ask about any back-end info from the CIA. Peter told him the official word was still that Floyd was legit and they hadn’t heard from Oscar.
“Work with your team in Rio. I sent David, and O’Keefe.”
“We may need to get out in a hurry. We’re being hunted.”
“Acer will have an extraction copter and should be set to leave on a dime. Any closer to finding Oscar?” Peter hesitated a beat—not long enough for an answer—and added, “If you’re being hunted, you might need to consider letting the others find him and leave—”
“I’m not going to leave without Oscar. If he’s here.”
There was another longer beat of silence before the governor spoke again.
“Explain.”
“I don’t have anything—except a deep distrust for Floyd Parker. But it doesn’t add up. There’s been no contact with the so-called kidnappers. Only with Floyd.”
“Keep me posted on that. I’ll look deeper from my end.”
“Don’t ruffle the nest with the CIA.”
Peter laughed. Dane knew better than to give orders to the general.
“Don’t worry, Dane. I have friends in Interpol who know how to be discreet.”
“That’s why you’re the general. I’ll be in touch.”
When Dane ended the call he found that they were in heavy traffic in downtown Rio now. Shana scrutinized him. Acer drove. The engine hummed in the heavy silence for a beat before Acer spoke without taking his eyes from the road.
“What’s this about if Oscar’s here?”
“A suspicion. But I’m going to look into it. Can I make a regular call on this phone or—”
Acer shifted in his seat, pulled a cell phone from his pocket and handed it to Dane. Dane smiled.
“Are you a magician on your off-time?” Shana said.
“I’m a boy scout,” Acer said. “I’m always prepared. It’s a burner. Limited use.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked you.” Dane fired up the phone.
“Don’t waste any calls.”
“I’m calling Dr. Randy Smith with the Doctors Without Borders down in Haiti. He’s a friend of Oscar’s—his emergency contact.” The phone rang three times and went to an anonymous voice mail where Dane left his signature emergency message: Surf’s Up.
Acer dropped Dane and Shana off in front of the hotel and took off. They had no luggage and so didn’t look suspicious walking directly to the elevator and then to the room where David and O’Keefe waited. Dane took a deep breath before knocking on the door. He pulled Shana to his side. His friends might be angry with him, but he’d accomplished a very important part of his goal. He’d rescued his girl.
David answered the door. He gave Dane a nod, but didn’t step aside. Then he smiled at Shana.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
Shana stepped forward and they hugged. “It’s good to see you too.” Shana walked into the room and instantly brightened what Dane had sensed to be a somber mood. She said, “Dane the legend strikes again. Got me out of a dungeon.”
Dane stood inside the door and watched the introduction to O’Keefe and the smiles and solicitations, more hugging and even some cheek kissing. David turned his attention back to him and said, “You okay?”
Dane lifted his left hand and said, “I could use a splint and some ice.”
“I see you came by the rescue the hard way.” David gestured him into the small living space of what looked like a suite of two rooms with a small kitchenette off to the left. David and O’Keefe sat in the two chairs leaving the couch for Dane and Shana. Dane stood by the tall, wide window that dominated the room. Shana hovered near the couch, but didn’t sit.
“It was nothing—considering they went through a lot of bullets giving chase.”
“Who are they?”
“Tavares family. Uncle Henrique, cousin Erico and the sister of our dead man in last summer’s arrest, Gabriela.”
“What about Floyd?” David asked.
“He made contact after we escaped the compound. He got us off the street,” Dane said.
“The CIA man came through,” O’Keefe said. He almost smiled. A big change from his undertaker look.
“I’ll get you some ice,” Shana said.
David glanced at Dane’s hand. He left it at his side in spite of the throbbing and the fact that it would have been wiser to keep it raised up to chest level.
“Let me see that hand.”
“It’s fine. It’ll be fine.” The last thing he wanted was sympathy. If these men were angry with him—and they had a right to be in spite of his partial success on his mission—then he wanted to get it all out in the open. He didn’t want anything muted by sympathy over his injury to lie festering for later.
“I’m sorry I left you all without notice. I couldn’t wait until morning to—”
“No need to explain,” David said. He quirked a half smile and flicked a glance in Shana’s direction. “I’m damned glad you showed up here with Shana.”
Chief O’Keefe said nothing. Dane met his neutral stare for a beat then moved on. Nothing he could do now except get Oscar out of whatever trouble he was in.
“I see Cap stayed behind. Is he available for—”
“He’ll help. He’ll play whatever role you want him to play.” David shook his head. “For some reason, the man has a certain amount of confidence in you. But you might want to call him—better yet, have Shana give him a call to let him know she’s safe.”
Dane handed her the phone as she came from the kitchenette and handed him the ice wrapped in a small towel.
“I�
��ll call Cap while I freshen up. You catch them up on Floyd,” Shana said. She left Dane to give them the bad news.
“What about this Floyd Parker fellow? Has he heard from the kidnappers? Any more word about Oscar?”
“I’m not sure Floyd is on our side. He might be working under duress. I haven’t got anything solid from him about Oscar.”
“I thought you said he helped you get away—” O’Keefe said.
Dane nodded. He was going on gut instinct and he might be skeptical if he were in O’Keefe’s shoes.
“It’s a gut feeling at this point. We need to be careful.”
“What’s our next move? I think we should pay a visit to the Tavares organization office. It’s a few blocks from here,” David said.
“I don’t know that we want to show our full hand yet,” Dane said. “We’ll have to work with Floyd for now. But I don’t think we should plan on staying here for long. If he’s working with the Tavares family—or if they have him on a hook—they’ll be right behind us.”
“Where do you suggest we go?” O’Keefe asked.
“I know of another safe house. I told Floyd I’d call him back. In the meantime you should be prepared to leave and we’ll rendezvous there.”
“What makes you so sure Floyd doesn’t know about your safe house?” David asked. “He’s CIA—isn’t it his business to know about them?”
Shana reappeared.
“Not this one,” Dane said. “It’s a house specifically set up to be safe from the CIA.”
“How do you know about this?” Shana asked. Her hands were on her hips in a modified Wonder Woman pose. Dane gave her a look. She rolled her eyes.
“Why exactly don’t you trust Floyd Parker? I don’t think we ought to risk alienating him since he’s our only connection to Oscar and the kidnappers,” Chief O’Keefe said.
“Oh, we have another connection. Don’t forget our friends, the Tavares people. Trust me—they’re looking for Shana and me as we speak. And I will bet anything if Oscar is in trouble they have something to do with it.”
“What do you mean if Oscar is in trouble?” David and Chief O’Keefe spoke at once saying almost the same thing.
Dane drew a breath. “Floyd is not trustworthy and he’s the only source that says Oscar is in trouble.”
“Peter said the CIA confirmed that they haven’t heard from Oscar,” David said.
“True. But then they are getting that information from his handler—Floyd. Floyd is the contact person from the CIA that would be hearing from Oscar. Oscar could be reporting to Floyd every five minutes and if Floyd doesn’t report that to his office—then no one knows.”
David nodded. O’Keefe kept his face neutral. Dane couldn’t help feeling like they were on opposing teams—like shirts and skins only they were sitters and standers—for the moment.
“So that gives him opportunity—what’s the motive?” O’Keefe asked.
“Not sure. I have some suspicions, but that’s all.” Dane didn’t want to float the notion of a potential personal vendetta against himself. It seemed farfetched, even to him.
“There’s always money,” Shana said. “Floyd has a bad attitude. Always has.”
“What about any other evidence?”
“We’re working on it. So far we have too many coincidences. Like the facts that he lured me out to get conked on the head and Shana got kidnapped. Who else would have known about that if he didn’t tell them?”
That met with some considered silence in the room.
“Very good point,” David said. “He has to be the connection with the Tavares people. The question is, what kind of connection is it? Willing or unwilling. Are they following him or do they have him by the short hairs?” David continued.
Dane said. “There’s a good chance Oscar isn’t here. A good chance Floyd faked the trouble call.”
“How are we going to find out? We have to work with him in the meantime, like you said,” O’Keefe said.
“Peter is looking into Floyd from his end. We’ll set up in a rendezvous location. Acer will stage the copter in a location up north of Rio where Tavares doesn’t have control. He can pick us up from the rendezvous location. Then get us all out of here.”
“I’m not leaving without Oscar,” Chief O’Keefe said.
“I have a reliable source working to confirm his status. There’s a good chance Oscar isn’t in country.”
“You’ll have to prove that to me.” O’Keefe folded his arms across his chest and pulled himself straight. Dane decided it was time to put an end to the chief’s challenges. He met O’Keefe’s eyes with a steely stare and held them a few beats. When he spoke, his voice sounded even to himself low and sure and menacing like the distant rolling of thunder.
“You trust the CIA man Floyd Parker over me?”
David cut in. “Of course we trust you. We’ll wait for confirmation from your friend and then leave.”
“What about that shit Floyd Parker?” Shana said. Dane wanted to kiss her right then and would have reached out and touched her hair if she hadn’t been standing on the other side of the room.
“Shana’s right,” Dane said. “The plan is for you all to go back to the States as soon as I get confirmation—tomorrow at the latest. I will stay and—”
“No you don’t. You’re not going rogue on us again. In for a penny, in for a pound, I always say.” David raised a brow asking for a challenge. O’Keefe looked at him and paused a beat before chiming in.
“You have a plan of some kind?”
Dane smiled. “Yes. I do.” He paused. “Think of me as MacGyver—without the gadgets.”
He looked to Shana and wasn’t disappointed when she rolled her eyes. It gave him a little jolt of pleasure—which he kept to himself.
“Spill it, Blaise,” O’Keefe said. The police chief’s distrust of Dane went unabated. Dane was withholding judgment, giving the man the benefit of the doubt under the circumstances—it was O’Keefe’s best childhood friend’s life supposedly on the line and Dane was a virtual stranger to him. Not even David vouching for Dane seemed to be good enough. He’d put up with O’Keefe’s temper, but he had more important things to do than unruffle someone’s feathers. Dane decided David would have to manage that problem.
“Shana and I will meet with Floyd at a building by Ipanema beach. It’s a safe house that Floyd has set up for us.”
“Again, won’t that be like walking into his trap—if he’s with the Tavares organization?” David said, arms folded across his chest, knowing there would be another shoe to drop.
“It would be if we didn’t have you here for backup. Floyd—and the Tavares clan—won’t do anything until they get a handle on who is here and what you know and what the resources are behind you.”
“So we’re insurance? That’s it?” O’Keefe seemed to want a more active role although he was the least equipped to handle it.
“For now,” Dane said. “We need to force Floyd to show his hand. We’ll set him up—without him knowing about it. If location gets compromised, we’ll know whose team he’s on.”
“Whether he’s working for them willingly or unwillingly—does that matter?” David asked.
“No,” Dane said. He looked around the room at grim faces.
“I agree,” Shana put in and angled herself to be shoulder-to-shoulder with him. The singe of her skin against his nearly stopped his heart, but he bravadoed through it.
“Then it’s a plan.” David stood and clapped Dane on the back, nodded at Shana and then moved to stand by his friend Chief O’Keefe.
Chapter 9
Dane took Shana and they snaked around the city on a small motorcycle, barely bigger than a scooter, procured for them by Acer. She’d have a talk with that boy about his taste in bikes later. They needed to buy new clothes with their stash of cash from Floyd Parker.
Dane knew of a street market only open on Sundays, Feira Hippie Ipanema, where they could buy anything and it would be of decent quality. Plu
s, it was a couple of blocks from Ipanema beach where they were headed. They needed to avoid the malls—they were too big and they’d waste too much time. They pulled to the curb. The famously gorgeous beach did not disappoint and since this was the off-season in Rio with the temps in the low 80s, the beach was not too crowded.
“This is colorful,” Shana said. The image of surfers at Bondi beach in Sydney floated through her mind, but didn’t tug her under. She was alive. She was with Dane. He felt solid against her and she felt reluctant to let him go and climb off the bike, but she did.
It was early in the day, but the crowds were thick. People were outdoors all the time and they were packed in, making the sidewalks feel like the London tube only a lot slower moving.
Shana spotted a stall with colorful sarongs and leather goods and led Dane in that direction after he locked up the bike. Even with the lock, they needed to stay within eyeball distance of the overgrown scooter.
Shana took another look out over the ocean. This time it was accompanied with a deep sharp longing to go home. The surprise that heated the pain to a sting in her gut was that she wasn’t thinking of Sydney, Australia. She was thinking of the beach shack on Martha’s Vineyard.
She said, “No surfing this trip. These are real waves. They’d kill me.”
Dane turned to her and his eyes were drawn to the tendril of hair that escaped from under her helmet. He tugged on the tendril the way he always did—to reassure her. Although sometimes he did it to reassure himself, this time she knew it was for her. Knew he’d heard the wistfulness in her voice but also knew that he’d never guess her true longing. He’d assume it was for Bondi beach in Sydney.
Then he said, “Don’t worry, we’re leaving for home tomorrow. I guarantee it. We’ll be back at the shack within forty-eight hours.”
She let the shudder of longing pass and allowed a wan smile.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Here.” He pointed to a tall modern white apartment building across from the ocean and within Frisbee-throwing distance of the beach.
“I give up—what are we doing here?”
“We’ll meet the False Caterpillar here.”
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