PRAISE FOR LINDSAY MCKENNA’S WIND RIVER VALLEY SERIES!
“The believable and real romance between Tara and Harper is enhanced by the addition of highly dimensional supporting characters, and a minor mystery subplot increases the tension by a notch. This is a fine addition to a strong series.”—Publishers Weekly on Lone Rider
“Captivating sensuality.”—Publishers Weekly on Wind River Wrangler, a Publishers Marketplace Buzz Books 2016 selection
“Moving and real . . . impossible to put down.”—Publishers Weekly on Wind River Rancher (starred review)
“Cowboy who is also a former Special Forces operator? Check. Woman on the run from her past? Check. This contemporary Western wraps together suspense and romance in a rugged Wyoming package.”—Amazon.com’s Omnivoracious, “9 Romances I Can’t Wait to Read,” on Wind River Wrangler
“Set against the stunning beauty of Wyoming’s Grand Tetons, Wind River Wrangler is Lindsay McKenna at her finest! A tour de force of heart-stopping drama, gut-wrenching emotion, and the searing joy of two wounded souls learning to love again.”—International bestselling author Merline Lovelace
“McKenna does a beautiful job of illustrating difficult topics through the development of well-formed, sympathetic characters.”—Publishers Weekly on Wolf Haven (starred review)
Also by New York Times Bestselling Author Lindsay McKenna
WIND RIVER WRANGLER
WIND RIVER RANCHER
WIND RIVER COWBOY
WRANGLER’S CHALLENGE
KASSIE’S COWBOY (novella included in CHRISTMAS WITH MY COWBOY)
LONE RIDER
WIND RIVER LAWMAN
HOME TO WIND RIVER
WIND RIVER WEDDING (novella included in MARRYING MY COWBOY)
WIND RIVER PROTECTOR
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
WIND RIVER UNDERCOVER
LINDSAY McKENNA
ZEBRA BOOKS
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
PRAISE FOR LINDSAY MCKENNA’S WIND RIVER VALLEY SERIES!
Also by
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Teaser chapter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2020 by Nauman Living Trust
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-4201-4754-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4755-1 (eBook)
ISBN-10: 1-4201-4755-2 (eBook)
To all the men and women who live undercover,
unsung heroes and heroines.
Thank you for your service to our country.
You are truly patriots of the highest order.
And to your families,
who will miss you for weeks, months, and
sometimes years while you infiltrate crime for all of us.
Chapter One
April 1
Anna Navaro lay on her belly, covered overhead by pungent-smelling juniper boughs. Sharp little Southern California desert stones bit into her thighs and knees, below the Kevlar vest she wore, and were like needles bruising her skin through the tough military camouflage duck fabric. Darkness surrounded her. Her mission for the Drug Enforcement Agency, the DEA, had taken her to an area south of Descanso, California. It was quiet except for some yips from coyotes on the prowl around the rocky hills surrounding her. She pushed a strand of her dark black hair away from her eyes.
Through the infrared scope on her rifle, she followed three gray pickups down a dirt road toward a nearby dirt airstrip located below her position. The Mexican border wasn’t far away, and a plane flying across it was expected to drop drugs. Six drug soldiers would be waiting to haul off the goods when they landed on the US side of the border. The tiny radio in her left ear quietly broke the silence and she heard Border Patrol taking five vehicles—three following out of sight behind the enemy and two in front of them on that road, also unseen—to box them in and capture them.
It was a thin, narrow valley, the slopes steep, boulders the size of cars, filled with thousands of spidery-armed ocotillos. There was no way for the druggies to escape this time. The corners of her mouth pulled grimly upward, watching the whole scene play out below her hide. With her rifle resting on a tripod, all she had to do was lie on the ground, remain hidden, communicate what was going on, and continually survey the surrounding area to make sure no other drug soldiers were in the hills waiting to jump her Border Patrol agents. The night air chilled her even though she wore a Kevlar vest and a heavy dark green Guatemalan Marine military jacket. It was not that warm in the dead of night, especially for someone from a hot, humid jungle country who was dropped into the dry Southwest of the US to work in the chilly mountains above San Diego. Still, her country’s jacket was better than nothing.
Her mind drifted for a moment, although her gaze hovered near the scope, watching the Border Patrol close in on the unsuspecting pickups that had just loaded a tremendous amount of bales and smaller packages into the beds of the vehicles. The drug plane, a single fixed wing, took off, swiftly gaining altitude and banking toward the border. There was satisfaction in her that whatever was in those trucks wouldn’t find its way onto this country’s streets. She spoke into the mic and reported the trucks moving onto the dirt road and away from the airstrip, heading east at twenty-five miles an hour. She knew the druggies wanted to get onto a highway ten miles from that point and then scatter east and west.
At twenty-seven years old, with years of experience in Guatemala busting drug runners and taking down major players as a sniper, she found this type of work in the US boring in comparison. The DEA had invited her up to the US based on reports from the Guatemala military that she was their best “force multiplier,” someone who could take this type of assignment and carry it out with success. She didn’t mind taking out higher-ups or a drug lord himself in her country, either, if she got the chance.
After all, her beloved father, Marine General Marcos Navaro, had been shot and killed by a drug lord sniper when she was fifteen years old. His murder had changed the course of her life as well that of her m
other, Maria, a prosecuting attorney. It was on that horrible day that Anna swore to destroy the cancer of drug lords killing her people in Guatemala. Later, she went to Marine sniper school in the United States, learned her trade and craft, and came back to her country and applied that knowledge with deadly precision.
She listened intently, hearing something light-footed scuttling near the tree she was hiding beneath. Her gold-brown eyes were well adjusted to the half-moon light that reminded her of a watercolor, a thin wash across the dark, shadowy desert hill landscape. Sensing movement, she lifted her chin, twisting her head slowly to the left. It was a mother raccoon with six kits in tow, heading off the hill and down to a nearby creek below. They were all in a line, like a gaggle of geese. Probably to hunt for freshwater mussels, crawdads, fish, or other unnamed denizens that lived beneath the surface as well. The babies were probably four or five weeks old, cute, fuzzy, curious with black, shiny eyes, but religiously following their big, ten-pound mother who waddled and wove between the bushes, ocotillos, and junipers toward her objective.
Anna returned her attention to the drama playing out less than half a mile away and didn’t see any other human activity. Her heart, however, was elsewhere. Of late, she’d wake up feeling lonely. There was a gnawing sensation in her chest, and it would come and go at times when she wasn’t focused on her job. Lonely? Her? She was well respected by the Marines in her own country, and here in the US by the DEA agency. They were glad to have her on assignment with them. She’d been here a year, mostly tramping through the Southern California desert, finding drug-drop off points and then patiently waiting to discover where the drug soldiers would pick them up for distribution. Then, she would coordinate with the DEA, ATF, and Border Patrol with her information. With a sniper scope she could hone in miles away on a target and give them vital, real-time information as well as location and movement directions of the quarry. Then, another group would be netted along with the drugs they were carrying on them.
Pushing her sense of loneliness away, she grudgingly admitted it had started stalking her even while she was on the job in the dark of the night. That bothered her a lot. She had to devote a hundred percent of her focus on her mission, not on some errant emotion that would steal upon her in quieter moments. Lonely for what? Her nostrils flared, drinking in the dry scent of the surrounding vegetation as she kept her gloved hand near the trigger mechanism. She carried a pistol on her right thigh in case she got jumped in her hide.
The Border Patrol vehicle boxed in the three drug pickups from both ends after they emerged from around a long curve. She saw the drug soldiers braking, leaping out of their trucks, running away, not fighting. The Border Patrol officers had more men and women, and very quickly, without a shot being fired, they captured all those who had fled. They cuffed them with plastic ties tightened around their wrists, hands behind their backs, and made them sit down after searching them for weapons. A bright light carried by one Border Patrol truck flashed on from its position on its rooftop. That was to give the agents the light they needed to frisk the soldiers thoroughly, take information from each of them, and then march them into the awaiting trucks and take them back to their station for processing.
Her job was done. She signed off with the Border Patrol and they released her. Rolling slowly to her left side, she pushed a thick juniper limb gently behind her shoulders. In moments, she had shut down her special sniper scope, and then waited, listening intently to the surrounding area. Anna knew these hills were alive with possible enemies and she could become a target herself. Her vehicle, a black, dusty pickup with no markings, was a quarter of a mile away, hidden behind a very old juniper tree.
Pulling the thin leather flap off her watch, she saw it was 0300. Time to close up shop for the night. She would drive back to the DEA headquarters in La Mesa, a suburb east of sprawling San Diego, and write up her report. After that, she could go home and sleep for the rest of the day. Depending upon the time of year, she would set her alarm for dusk, shower, eat dinner, and head to HQ. There, she’d receive her nightly orders, pick up her weapons and gear from the underground basement armory, and find her dusty black truck parked within the cyclone-fenced area. Then she would drive out to her hide to set up surveillance once more. Drug runners usually liked working at night, hiding like the vermin they were from daylight hours.
Slowly easing to her black-booted feet, she pulled her black baseball cap from her pocket and settled it on her head. Her desert-colored camouflage clothes faded into the surrounding night. Never relaxing, Anna surveyed the area for several minutes, listening, inhaling scents, noting the direction of the breeze, her hearing honed like a wolf ’s ears, trying to pick up, sense, or see anything that was minutely out of place. Because what was out of place she regarded instantly as a potential enemy waiting to take her out. She leaned slowly over to pick out dried plant material that stuck on her thigh and had rubbed into her skin for hours on end, dropping them back into the dry, hard, rocky soil. Easing upward, satisfied that everything was in order around her, she walked soundlessly, like the jaguars that lived in her country, pistol locked and loaded, safety off, and ready to fire at a moment’s notice, if need be. She had half a mile to walk to get her ride home.
* * *
The DEA HQ was busy, but it always was. They handled so many drug-related missions out of the cinder-block, single-story building painted a Southwest tan color that it had surprised Anna at first. It was like a squat beehive, busy 24/7/365. It was now near dawn, the horizon a dull reddish-brown polluted-looking color, indicating that soon enough, there might be a pretty eastern dawn. Anna looked forward to that quiet time of day. She loved the silence, as if the world were holding her breath before putting on a spectacular sunrise provided there were some clouds to frame the horizon.
On her way to the women’s locker room, she stopped first at the armory and placed her weapons, vest, and ammo into the hands of the armorer on duty. Her rifle would be cleaned and ready to go when she picked it up the next evening.
Leaving the basement area, she climbed the stairs to the first-floor locker room. The military clothes she wore were dusty and dirty. In no time, she was stepping into a hot, delicious shower, washing her long black hair that gleamed with reddish highlights among the strands. She always carried a special lemony-scented bar of Herbaria soap her mother sent her every three months, to wash her hair. It left the strands luxuriously fed with natural oils that were contained within it. The other bar was orange citrus and oatmeal, and Anna loved that it not only gently removed the sweat and dust, but also the dead scales off her skin. She later stepped out of the shower, a dual fragrance of lemon and orange surrounding her. Opening her locker, she began to dry off.
“Hey, Anna.”
Looking up, naked, her wet foot resting on the bench in front of her locker as she dried it, she saw it was Vicky Brown, part of the office staff, peeking her head inside the door. “Hey yourself. Come on in. What are you doing in here at this time?”
The woman was in her late twenties like herself, dressed in a light gray two-piece suit, a cream silk tee beneath it. Her short blond hair was cut in a pixie style. Vicky grinned mischievously as she stepped aside to allow the women’s locker room door to automatically close and lock behind her.
“Have you heard the whispers?” she asked in a low voice, looking around the quiet area.
“No one’s here,” Anna promised, continuing to towel dry off her other foot. “And no, there’s no bugs in here, either. What rumors?” Usually, Vicky was at her desk promptly at 0900, five days a week. She was married to Tom, part of the planning staff at the HQ, and they had two children, a girl and boy who were five and three.
“Got called in early. I hear you participated in a major drug bust this morning. Congrats.” She came and sat down primly on the end of the wooden bench anchored to the gray concrete floor.
Anna opened her locker and pulled out a dark navy blue tee, socks of the same color, her Levi’s, and a pai
r of brown leather loafers. After shimmying quickly into her jeans, she straightened and threaded her fingers through her damp hair, pushing it across her shoulders and down her back. Anna settled the blue tee in place.
“It’s that bust you called in this morning. I’m hearing from the night crew that it’s a whopper.”
Giving her friend an evil look, Anna said, “Wow. Think I’ll get a raise from it?” That was a common joke. They were federal employees. They got cost-of-living raises if the president okayed it. Raises weren’t normal except when an agent evolved upwardly from fieldwork and was assigned to management. She was a field agent, with no wish to evolve anywhere near pushing papers around on a desk eight hours a day. Besides, she was “on loan” to the DEA in a three-year contract agreement with the Guatemalan government. They wanted her back, pronto, but the USA had a lot of behind-the-scenes clout and wanted her to stay put on their soil instead.
Vicky chortled. “No. But they’re saying they found over a hundred and fifty pounds of packages of cocaine in those pickup trucks.”
Whistling, Anna straightened and walked over to the dressing room area, picking up a hair dryer. “That is a lot.”
“There’s more,” Vicky said. “They’ve found fifty pounds of fentanyl. That’s a huge amount!”
Wind River Undercover Page 1