by Debra Webb
The skinny guy’s accent was thick but at least he spoke English. Considering how bad Gabrielle’s Spanish was, that would make this meeting a lot easier.
“I’m here to see Chico.”
The man’s gaze narrowed. “I don’t know any Chico.”
Damn. Gabrielle didn’t want him to be dead or otherwise out of business.
“That’s too bad. Sloan sent me to see him.”
The mention of Sloan’s name altered the man’s entire demeanor. Maybe Sloan was good for something besides killing, after all. She booted the thought out of her mind. She couldn’t let anything distract her right now.
“Maybe you’re talking about Vega. Some people call him Chico.” He inclined his head knowingly. “Like your friend Sloan.”
He didn’t have to know Sloan was her enemy. “That must be him.” She pushed a smile into place. “Is he in?”
The guy stood. “Of course he’s in, where else would he be?”
Gabrielle didn’t bother with a response. She figured it was a rhetorical question.
She followed the skinny guy deeper into the building. The corridor he took wasn’t completely dark, but it was too dimly lit for her comfort. Adrenaline blasted through her veins as she kept telling herself over and over that she could do this. She’d met people in prison who reminded her of this guy. Women who would do just about anything for a pack of cigarettes. Only they hadn’t dressed as well.
When they neared the back of the building he stopped at a closed door and knocked. It opened instantly, as if someone had been waiting on the other side to do nothing but open the door.
A big guy stood in the opening. “Yeah?”
“He’s got a visitor,” the skinny guy said.
Gabrielle took a long, deep breath and ordered herself to calm. She could do this, she repeated silently.
The big guy backed out of the doorway and the skinny one gestured for her to go in.
Gabrielle didn’t smile at him. She doubted if people who shopped here did much smiling.
The door closed behind her as soon as she’d cleared it. She didn’t have to look back to know the big guy now blocked it. A bodyguard, she decided.
The man behind the desk on the far side of the room was deep into a telephone conversation. In Spanish, of course. She listened for Sloan’s name but didn’t hear it. She wasn’t prepared for him to check out her story, wouldn’t matter most likely. Sloan was out of the country. Pablo was dead. There was no one to answer the phone at his place.
She didn’t sit, just stood a few feet away from his desk and waited.
Maybe she should sit, she considered when the conversation lagged on.
Nah. She didn’t want to get comfortable. She had a request. As soon as she’d made it and got what she needed, she was out of here.
His desktop looked neat and orderly surprisingly enough. The room itself wasn’t very different from most offices belonging to businessmen who operated in low-rent areas. Maybe this wouldn’t be as complicated as she’d feared.
The click of the receiver coming to rest in the cradle jerked her attention back to the desk and the man, Chico or Vega.
“So.” He propped his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers. “Sloan sent you to me, did he?”
Okay. This was where things could get sticky.
“Actually,” she said, going with her first instinct, “Sloan said I should forget the whole thing, but I can’t do that.”
He eyed her speculatively for ten or so seconds. She stopped counting at ten.
“What can’t you forget, señora?”
“Those bastards have my man,” she said, going with her first instinct, no holds barred. “I want him back. I can’t do it by myself.”
“There are many bastards in this city,” he countered. “Who has taken your man?”
Now came the moment of truth. She didn’t know the boss’s name so she gave Chico/Vega the address of the compound.
His eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Do you understand who you’re dealing with? These people would as soon kill you as look at you.” His gaze roved the length of her and back. “Even one so inspiring to look at.”
She swallowed hard, tried not to let her nervousness show. “Not if I kill them first.”
He laughed, just one brief sound of amusement. “How do you expect to do this? You said you have no help. I must warn you that it appears you are very much in over your head.”
Yeah, yeah, she’d heard that from Thompson, too.
“I know exactly how deep I’m in,” she said crisply, ensuring the determination in her eyes arrowed straight into his. “And I know what I have to do.”
He nodded. “Again, I ask, how do you plan to do this thing you must?”
“I need explosives.” She shrugged. “C-4, dynamite, whatever.”
A smile played about one corner of his mouth. “You plan to blow them up, is that it, señora?”
“That’s about the size of it,” she returned without hesitation.
“My, my,” he said, “fireworks and it is well past the festival.”
“That’s right,” she agreed. Lots of fireworks.
“Anything else?”
Her heart skipped a beat. Did this mean he was going to help her? “A couple of 9 mm clips and ammo for a .38 automatic.” She might as well get some extra ammo while she was at it. If Amy had managed to get in with the weapon still in her sock she would need ammo, too.
“And how would you be paying for this merchandise?”
Gabrielle’s enthusiasm fizzled a little. One more sticking point.
“Sloan said he had a tab with you,” she offered. She hadn’t meant for the statement to come out sounding so hopeful and downright desperate.
“This is true,” he agreed with a nod. “But you, señora, do not.”
Damn.
Okay, she was running out of time here.
“There must be some way we can work this out,” she suggested. She knew how it sounded and as much as she hated to admit it, she meant it exactly the way it sounded.
She had to do whatever it took.
Her stomach roiled at the idea.
Then inspiration struck. “But then,” she countered, “I’m not sure how Sloan would take it if he discovered you’d taken advantage of me. We’re cousins, you know.” She was definitely going to hell. No question.
Those dark eyes narrowed to mere slits as he regarded her challenge.
Gabrielle held her breath. Did a little more of that praying she’d done today. She needed these supplies. She needed to get out of here in a hurry. For once she needed fate to be on her side.
“I’m certain Sloan will be happy to settle your debt. Perhaps I will call him to confirm your assertions.”
A surge of uncertainty made her feel faint but she refused to give in to the weakness. “Do what you’ve gotta do, pal, just don’t waste any time. Time is my enemy.”
Chico’s gaze settled heavily onto hers. “Señora, it would appear the devil himself is your enemy.”
She supposed that meant that he knew the owner of the property she planned to blow up. Considering the bastard who’d abducted her friends and his determination to harm small children she’d say he was the devil himself, as well.
GABRIELLE LEFT the faded, rundown stucco building with enough C-4 in her shoulder bag to blow up two city blocks. She had four 9 mm clips and ammo for the .38.
She stayed on her toes. Now would not be the time to get mugged.
The taxi ride back to the compound on the fringes of the west side of the city took far longer than she would have liked. She realized it was more her impatience than anything else. But she couldn’t bear the thought that Braddock and Amy might be dying right now.
Her throat went bone dry. She didn’t know Amy that well but she didn’t deserve this. And Braddock, well, he’d gotten under Gabrielle’s skin and she couldn’t think of anything but him.
If he died because of her…
This sit
uation wasn’t entirely her fault. The people holding Braddock had a vendetta against Sloan. Join the crowd, she mused. Still, Braddock wouldn’t even have been in Mexico if he hadn’t come for her. That made his situation all her fault.
She moistened her lips and sucked in a heavy breath. Her chest hurt. Her head hurt. Her whole body hurt for that matter.
And there was still the business with Sloan.
Gabrielle closed her eyes and tried to block the questions that filtered through her mind when she thought of Sloan now. She didn’t want to believe what Braddock had told her about her father. That would make everything she’d believed her entire life a lie. All of it couldn’t be lies. Surely her mother wouldn’t have done that to her.
No. She understood the situation perfectly. Sloan’s friends wanted to believe the best in him just as her mother had believed the best in Gabrielle’s father.
The difference was that Sloan was alive and Gabrielle’s father was dead. He couldn’t tell his side of things and Sloan had killed him.
She relaxed her arms. Don’t be squeezing the C-4, she reminded.
Staying focused was absolutely essential right now.
Chico had given her a quick block of instruction on the use of the C-4. She let him. She’d seen it before and knew a little bit about it, but she had to admit that his instructions were much clearer than the lowlifes’s up in Montana who’d trained her on weaponry.
Her plan was simple. She would get back inside the gate. Then she would covertly move from building to building and pray she didn’t get caught. She would verify the location of Amy and Braddock, then, one by one, since she only had one very simple, single channel remote, she would blow up a section of a building. Hopefully the unexpected attack would distract those holding Braddock and Amy and she could free them. During the resulting turmoil the three of them would escape.
Sounded easy enough.
“Here, señora?”
The driver’s question snapped her out of her troubling thoughts. She looked around, noted the street. “Yes, this is good.” She paid the fare and climbed out, careful not to bump her bag.
She walked quickly along the cobblestone alleyway until she reached the far side of the block. She waited in the shadows of the alleyway and studied the front gate of the compound.
Two guards. One at the side gate, one at the front. At least two dozen men roaming around inside.
This wasn’t going to be easy.
But she had to try.
She couldn’t let Amy or Braddock die.
Some cruel brain cell ushered forth the memory of that one kiss she and Braddock had shared. She so desperately wanted more from him. She hadn’t wanted any man to touch her that way in a very long time. She’d been too caught up in her determination to make Sloan pay and to survive prison.
She’d had several boyfriends in high school, even a couple afterward. But no one had ever made her want more than a physically exhausting tangle beneath the sheets until Braddock. He made her want to explore a relationship.
Unbelievable.
Her mother had warned her over and over how dangerous it was to give a guy that much control.
But there was no stopping the way she felt. She wanted to know Braddock on every possible level.
The chances of that happening were slim to none. He was being tortured, if he wasn’t dead already, and she was standing here with enough explosives to blow herself to smithereens.
A hell of a time for her to realize she wanted more out of life.
A.J. DRIFTED in and out of consciousness.
He told himself to stay awake but he just couldn’t do it.
The shock torture had drained the last of his energy. He was hanging on by a thread and the fact that his hands were still secured high above his head.
He didn’t have much confidence he’d survive another round. His persecutors had rubbed salt into his bullet wound and gouged around until he’d passed out when the electrical torture hadn’t done the trick.
His mouth and throat felt as dry as sandpaper. He would give most anything for a drink of water.
…and to see Gabrielle one last time.
He might just be able to die happy if he knew she was all right. He licked his lips and summoned the memory of her taste. God he’d wanted to hold her like that and never let go. Why the hell hadn’t he asked her out before?
They’d worked together for a while before she’d taken off after Sloan. Maybe if he’d gotten to know her, he could have headed this off. Could have helped her see how wrong she was. But then, if she hadn’t come after Sloan, no one would have been there to help the children.
A.J. hadn’t ever really believed in fate. He’d believed in determination and grit. If a man wanted something, he had to make it happen. But this whole thing felt exactly like fate.
“Mr. Braddock.”
A.J. forced his swollen eyes open as far as possible and watched as the man whose name he didn’t know approached him. This guy hadn’t actually done any of the torture himself. He was the boss the others referred to. He just gave the orders.
Sick bastard.
“My patience with you grows thin,” he said, his sneer making an already ugly mug even uglier.
“Well,” A.J. said with a pained laugh, “I have to tell ya, I’m not exactly having a ball myself.”
He put his face in A.J.’s. “Tell me where the children are and we’ll end this now. Save yourself any more discomfort, you fool. Tell me where they are!”
“No way,” A.J. shot back. “Go ahead and do whatever you feel the need to do. I ain’t talking, jefe,” he added with all the hostility he could marshal.
The man stepped back. “Bring in the woman.”
A.J.’s heart thumped hard. For the first time since they’d captured him, panic clawed at his throat. He’d yearned to see Gabrielle again…but not like this. When they’d threatened to bring in his friend earlier and hadn’t, he’d assumed they were bluffing.
This was the one thing he wasn’t sure he could endure.
By the time the two guards came in dragging a female between them his chest felt ready to explode.
Long dark hair.
Oh, God.
She was jerked upright and his gaze landed on her face.
Not Gabrielle.
His relief was short-lived. Amy. Amy Calhoun.
“Let her go,” he roared, fury obliterating all other emotion.
“I’m afraid that’s quite impossible, Mr. Braddock. You see, she is part of our Plan B to acquire your cooperation.”
One of the guards grabbed her by the hair and snapped her head back. Amy cried out.
“Shall we continue, Mr. Braddock?”
A.J. knew he had to do something. He couldn’t let them hurt Amy.
But a part of him understood that they were both dead no matter what he did or said.
His gaze met Amy’s across the desolate space and he knew she fully comprehended the situation.
They were both dead.
With that one look she telegraphed her own determination to him…. Don’t give in….
GABRIELLE WAITED as close to the side entry gate as she dared. The guard was busy talking on his cell phone, but so far no one had come in or out of the compound, allowing her no opportunity to get in.
She couldn’t keep waiting for a break…she was going to have to make one.
Her hiding place didn’t offer much in the way of options. She was out of sight but not much else.
She needed to be closer…she needed a way in without attracting attention to herself.
Might as well call it what it was. She needed that miracle she’d been wishing for.
She could shoot the guard and go in. But that would cost her the element of surprise as well as send a huge signal to the rest of the psychos hanging around the compound that she had arrived.
Okay. Maybe there was something she could do.
She crouched and opened her shoulder bag. She carefully picked throug
h the goods until she located the utility knife Chico’d given her for resizing the C-4 if necessary.
If she cut her jeans really short and tied her T-shirt under her breasts, maybe she could distract the guard and get in that way.
The roar of vehicles approaching on the street from her right yanked Gabrielle’s attention back to the gate.
She dropped the knife into the bag and hefted it up and onto her shoulder. Deciding that being prepared was preferable to comfort, she jammed her 9 mm into the waistband of her khakis, right next to her bellybutton, the way Braddock had.
Focus, she ordered. Three vehicles—two cars and an SUV—had stopped at the side gate.
Gabrielle’s heart rate climbed dramatically as she watched the guard step outside his shack to chat with the driver of the first car.
She squinted, tried to get a look at the passengers in the vehicles. Two in the first one. Only two…no, three in the second one, then only a driver in the SUV.
Damn. Just what she needed. Additional manpower.
She forked her fingers through her hair and decided it was now or never. All she had to do was to slip in behind the SUV, crouch and then move through the gate alongside it. If she stayed in the blind spot on the passenger side, the driver wouldn’t see her in the mirror and the guard wouldn’t be able to see her since she’d be on the opposite side of the vehicle.
It had worked once before.
At this point she was pretty much desperate.
She was running out of time and her options were sorely limited.
Braddock or Amy or both could be dead by now. She couldn’t risk wasting any more time.
This was it.
She took a deep, fortifying breath and steeled herself to run the short distance between her position and the rear of the SUV.
On the count of three, she told herself as she surveyed the narrow street for anyone who might see her when she stepped away from her cover. She couldn’t get caught or the game would be over and they would all be losers.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
She whipped around, her weapon leveled on the sound of the voice behind her.
Her breath evacuated her lungs in a mad rush as her eyes identified the man who’d stolen up behind her with the same quiet danger as smoke from a smoldering fire.