Jenny Wright came into Mike’s office. “Morgan, no one among the bureaus in Canada have such an agent or operation with Garcia.”
“Hmm,” Morgan muttered.
“Jenny, have you contacted the DEA yet?” Mike asked.
Morgan turned. “That’s our next step. Check it out and let us know, Jenny?”
The blonde smiled. “Of course.” She turned and went back out to her cubicle, which sat between their offices.
“Well,” Mike said, “if we come up empty-handed with the DEA, that makes this really interesting. You know the CIA doesn’t have anyone down there. We have all their need-to-know mission info.”
“Right.” Morgan scratched his head and looked around. “And if the DEA is out of this loop on Garcia—”
“Then who is the mystery woman? Apparently the ATF agent fingered her.”
Morgan shrugged and said, “Agents in the field are paranoid by nature. This woman is working as a nanny, a babysitter for Garcia’s daughter, and that’s all she may be. The agent could be knee-jerking and hyping the situation. He could be wrong about her.”
Nodding, Mike said, “Yeah, that’s possible, too.”
“Well, I’ve got work yelling at me, and other stuff in motion,” Morgan said with a twisted smile. “If I put this together, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Brightens up my normally dull days,” Mike chuckled, lifting his hand in farewell. His days were anything but dull. Mike loved being the head of mission planning, which was his forte.
It was near quitting time, 1700, when Morgan started receiving the first of many black-and-white JPEGs from the Black Jaguar Squadron headquarters. He called his wife and told her he would be late for dinner. Something was driving Morgan to find out this woman’s identity. When his gut sounded an alarm, he’d learned decades ago not to ignore it, but to follow it to the very end.
“THIS WOMAN IS NOT ONE of our ATF agents,” Rosalia Fuentes told Mac Coulter. It was early afternoon and they sat sipping coffee in a restaurant in the wealthy Mira Flores district of Lima. Dressed in a light tan linen suit, Rosalia blended in with the usual clientele. She had been Mac’s handler since he’d come to Peru.
“They’re sure?”
Rosalia nodded and moved her sable-framed glasses up on her nose. “Completely. One hundred percent sure.” She kept her voice down. They sat in the back of the restaurant, near a wall and the kitchen so they could watch the traffic. It was siesta and this was one of the few restaurants to remain open during this time of day. Outside, the sun was shining brightly, and making the petunias and marigolds in the window boxes a splash of rainbow colors.
“And they checked with all the other agencies?” Mac asked, stirring his espresso.
“Sí, compadre.” Rosalia daintily took a bite of her pastry, then set it back on her plate.
“How about Canadian agencies?”
“There is nothing, my friend.”
“So, she’s either not an agent and I’m crazy and paranoid, or she’s a freelancer.”
“Sí, any of the above,” Rosalia said, smiling over her own white china cup.
“I’ll tell you this, if she’s an agent, she’s a bad one. That slip at the penthouse sent off warning bells in me.” He looked at the young Peruvian woman, a marketing expert for a major advertising company in Lima. “The way she looked at me with those eyes of hers when she asked if I knew who I was working for. She knows Garcia is a drug lord. I’d stake my life on it.”
“Sí, but many know Garcia for what he is. It isn’t a big secret.”
Mac nodded. “Yeah, I know that, too. Still, it’s little things, maybe not what she says, but what she does…”
“Give me an example, amigo?”
“She’s insinuated herself with Garcia’s lover, Therese. She’s a Mac geek, and you know how many problems there are with computers out in that jungle. There is always a bad connection out of Agua Caliente, phone lines going down…. They can’t get a satellite feed in, either. Kathy Lincoln works in Therese’s office almost every day on that computer, the same one I’ve been trying to access.”
“The one that has all the names and files we need?”
“Yes.” Mac sighed. “I mean, why would a nanny volunteer as a part-time secretary to Therese unless she had an ulterior motive?”
“Perhaps she is just bored? Taking care of a child all the time isn’t exactly intellectually stimulating,” Rosalia said sourly.
Mac shrugged and looked out the window at the world passing by. Four days ago he’d kissed Kathy and his world had gone on tilt. It was still tilted. And he didn’t like his response to her or the fact that his traitorous heart refused to give her up even if she might be an agent.
“What if she’s undercover and working for another drug lord? Worming her way into Garcia’s organization to bring him down?” he asked.
“That is possible,” Rosalia said, sipping her espresso. “And that would explain why none of the Canadian or American agencies know of her.”
“They are running a background check on her, aren’t they?”
“Sí, as we speak. I won’t have that info for you for another week or two, though. You know how slow they work on things like this. It is not considered a priority.”
Yeah, he knew. This wasn’t a class A emergency. “I’ll be lucky to hear on it in a month’s time,” he griped.
Chuckling, she patted his hand. “Has she threatened you, amigo?”
“No.” Just the opposite. Mac couldn’t sit here and spill out his guts—and heart—to Rosalia, although that’s exactly what he wanted to do. She had been a very good handler for him—sympathetic, a good listener, astute. She had been in the spy business for over a decade and he trusted this diminutive woman with his life.
“There are other things we must discuss, Mac,” she told him, looking around to make sure no waiters were near enough to overhear them. “There’s a lot of pressure building on Garcia. You may not see it or be aware of it, but we have moles in several other drug cartels and the word is going out.”
“Going out? On Garcia?”
“Yes. You know of Javier Rojas in Sacred Valley. The little guy who’s muscled his way into the big leagues?”
“Yeah, he’s a royal bastard, too.”
“No argument from me.” She bowed her head, her lips barely moving. “Arturo Molinos from Ecuador is Garcia’s main enemy. Standing in line right behind him is Manuel Navarro from the Colombian cartel. We hear rumblings that either of these men may attack Garcia in the near future.”
Lifting his brows, Mac asked, “Attack?” Panic struck him. He had been in one drug war shortly after joining Garcia’s forces, as his personal helicopter pilot. Last time, it had been Molinos who had sent in two loads of mercenaries, dropping them by helicopter on Garcia’s estate in northern Peru. Blood had flowed. Mac had saved Garcia’s family from harm by thinking fast, getting them into their own helo and lifting off—just in time.
“Listen, we know that Navarro has four Russian Ka-50 Black Shark combat helicopters.”
“The Black Jaguar Squadron, that U.S. Army black ops outfit fifty miles from Machu Picchu, has run into them,” Mac agreed. “But I thought that Garcia had leased those Ka-50s from Navarro.” The Black Shark helicopter was a one-man lethal machine with the capability of firing off rockets, missiles and cannon ordnance just like the Apache. But the Black Shark had one up on the American-built aircraft: its telltale heat signature was invisible to the Apache’s sophisticated sensors. One could sneak up on an Apache without the crew ever knowing it was there—until it was too late. No, Mac was well aware of the capabilities of the Black Shark. Plus, Navarro paid Russian pilots to fly them, and those men, hardened veterans of the Chechnya war, could wreak hell on earth in a matter of seconds.
In fact, one or two Black Sharks could level any one of Garcia’s compounds in a matter of fifteen minutes. This combat helicopter took no prisoners. And it had state-of-the-art look down–shoot down capabi
lity. It even had infrared that allowed the pilot to spot a human heat signature anywhere—jungle, villa, it didn’t matter where the person was hiding. Once spotted, a target could be killed quickly with the Black Shark’s amazing arsenal.
“Sí, that is correct, compadre. Garcia has leased them from Navarro. But who says that Navarro, instead of delivering them peacefully, can’t order those Russian mercenaries to fly to Garcia’s villa and wipe him and his family in one attack?”
Mac knew that could happen. Drug lords pretended to be the best of friends, but were enemies at heart. “So, Garcia’s vulnerable?”
“Sí, because of the Black Jaguar Squadron continuing to stop his flights of coke out of the country. He’s not getting the job done, so that leaves him vulnerable. We hear rumblings that Navarro wants to blow Garcia away and take over his territory. Get those cocaine flights out of here and into Bolivian airspace, where the Black Jaguar Squadron does not have permission to fly.”
Mac rolled his eyes. “And I came down here to talk to you about a possible agent working as a nanny.”
Fuentes smiled, but it was strained. “You have many challenges on this mission. And I know you want to rescue that little American girl, Sophie, and get her out of there. I wish I had more promising news, amigo, but my hands are tied. I tried to talk to the head of the ATF, but he didn’t take my call.”
“Thanks for continuing to try,” Mac said heavily. “I haven’t found a way to spring her without blowing my cover. And dammit, I want to. It’s just such a precarious situation, and now, with the possibility of Navarro bringing in Black Sharks to waste Garcia…”
“Sí, sí, I understand.” Shaking her head, Rosalia whispered, “That is so sad. I feel so deeply for the parents of this little girl. They do not know anything, where she is or if she is even alive. We cannot contact them because if we do, and word gets out, Garcia might kill her. And he would also know there’s a spy in his midst. You.”
Mac felt frustrated. “The only good thing there is Katherine Lincoln. She’s taken Sophie under her wing and the little girl is coping a lot better.”
“That is good. That is what a nanny does best,” Rosalia stated.
“You think she really is a nanny, and I’m just spooked?”
“Sí, amigo. She does not fit the profile of an agent. No one knows of her. I think she simply does not like the idea of Garcia being a drug lord. I am sure that came as a shock to her. Perhaps it rides rough on her conscience, eh?”
“Then why would she hang around?” Mac demanded, opening his hands. “That is what doesn’t make sense in this equation.”
Giving a slight shrug, Rosalia finished her espresso and set the cup back on the saucer. “Money. Garcia is paying her well. Perhaps she has a sick parent who needs much money for medical help. Many people take jobs they don’t like because the pay is good.”
Shaking his head, Mac said, “Hell, she refused to take his cash. She was okay spending it on the kids at the orphanage, though.”
Rosalia smiled brightly. “Well! She is a woman with a golden heart then, compadre. Perhaps you like her, eh? Every time you speak her name, your voice changes ever so slightly. Did you know that?”
Glumly, Mac finished his espresso. “I don’t want to hear that, Rosalia.” She chuckled indulgently and he smarted beneath the scrutiny of her knowing eyes. Kathy’s kiss…She’d tasted so good to him, been so warm, open, inviting. And then he wondered if her kiss, her unexpected advance, had been in fact a deliberate distraction for her spontaneous words. It hurt him to think that, but Mac couldn’t afford to be naive.
“Listen,” Rosalia counseled him, patting his arm as if he were a little boy, “you have other priorities right now. Navarro, we believe, is on the hunt. Our agent isn’t so close that he knows when, but the word is circulating among his soldiers to get ready for some action. Everyone at our agency firmly believes that Navarro will attack Garcia. Soon. So you must stay on guard, my friend. Try to maintain your cover, but do not get killed, okay?”
Nodding, Mac turned his thoughts to Kathy once again. If hell happened, he wanted to be there to get her and Sophie to safety. But he was gone so much of the time. Could he warn her?
Should he?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
KATHY COULDN’T DO IT. She just couldn’t kidnap Tiki after all…. Standing restively at the barred window of her bedroom, staring out across the dark, silent jungle, she folded her arms across her chest. She was exhausted and hadn’t been able to sleep since coming back from Cuzco with Mac. The last week had been a special hell as far as she was concerned.
Garcia had had a surprise waiting for her and Tiki when Mac brought her back the next day: horses! A shetland palomino and two beautiful Andalusians. Because of Tiki’s love of horses, Kathy had approached Therese about buying the child a small pony. Kathy thought it would be fun to take the little girl on rides along the wide, well-trodden paths around the compound. Down the slope and beyond the gate of the walled complex was a wonderful meadow, about a mile away and a thousand feet below the villa. It would be a perfect place to teach Tiki some basic riding habits.
Garcia hadn’t just purchased a pony. With typical extravagance, he’d procured the Andalusians as well, so that adults could ride with her.
Carlos had had his little girl in his arms as he proudly walked her to the rear of the villa, where he’d had a new corral built overnight. The Andalusians, one white and one a dappled gray, were an expensive breed brought directly from Spain. Tiki loved her new Shetland palomino, which was one-third the size of the powerful, well-muscled Andalusians.
Kathy had been delighted by Garcia’s gesture. Tiki had wriggled out of her father’s arms so that she could pet her new pony. A stable hand stood nearby to supervise. After witnessing his daughter’s joy, Garcia had profusely thanked Kathy for her influence and ideas regarding Tiki. When he’d turned to her, Kathy saw that his eyes were glazed with tears. His display of emotion had shocked her and confirmed once again that the murdering drug lord had a heart.
“Dammit…” she’d muttered softly as Garcia went to his daughter’s side. The look on Tiki’s shining face as she sat on the patient pony was one Kathy would never forget. The whole scene broke her heart—Garcia as a proud parent, tears glimmering in his eyes, his hands gentle and protective around his daughter’s tiny waist as she sat there on the pony, all smiles.
How could Kathy kidnap Tiki? How? She would have to permanently wound Tiki in order to get even with Garcia. This was no surgical strike, that was for sure. In this plan everyone got hurt and no one walked away unscathed. Kathy couldn’t bring herself to hurt Tiki to get even with her father. No innocent child should suffer that way.
Hurt, anger and the desire to get even with Garcia warred with the knowledge that what she had planned was wrong. Kathy’s stomach knotted even more. The need for revenge had eroded away during the months she’d spent with the little girl. No, she would not lower herself to the drug lord’s level by taking Tiki. Her family had raised her to be better than that.
And then, hell, there was that kiss with Mac Coulter. He curled her toes and made her go weak at the knees. Mac was the man of her dreams and she’d thought she’d never meet anyone like him. Yet there he was. And she’d been in his arms, with his mouth caressing her lips, his hands grazing her body as if she was a priceless gift to him. At the orphanage, in his work with the nuns and the way the children loved him, he’d shown himself to be a decent and loving man. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Mac Coulter had somehow stolen her heart. But of course, it just wouldn’t work. No way in hell could she fall in love with a drug dealer!
She was learning the hard lesson that nothing was as it seemed. There were no clear black-and-white situations anymore, but rather varying shades of gray. Rubbing her eyes with her hands, Kathy turned and bleakly shuffled back to her queen-size bed. The covers were tangled from her restless tossing and turning. She sat down, closed her eyes and gripped her hands together betwe
en her thighs, the coolness of her soft silk nightgown brushing against them.
To add salt to her wounds, Garcia had said he was very moved that she’d spent the money he’d given her not on herself, but on the poor. He’d informed her that every month he would see that the orphanage was supplied with whatever it needed, because she had been so thoughtful and generous.
So much for him being a bad guy.
Dammit, he was! A murdering bastard from a line of murdering bastards! Hands tightening, Kathy tried to deal with the inner clash of right and wrong. For months she’d fought the feeling that kidnapping Tiki would be morally wrong. Who then was going to make Garcia pay? His family deserved to be hurt just as much as he had hurt hers. Grinding her teeth with frustration, Kathy opened her eyes and lifted her head.
At that moment the moon rose above the jungle canopy. The silvery beams flowed brightly into her room and across her body. Kathy wasn’t one for magical happenings, nor did she believe in miracles. But as the light silently touched her, she suddenly knew what she had to do. Maybe there was another way to even the score with Garcia other than making his innocent daughter pay the price.
Kathy’s mind raced wildly. She knew that Therese’s computer held all the information on the drug movements—the names of street dealers all over the world, the middle men who distributed, the drug lords Garcia consorted with globally. Therese already gave her daily access to the desktop computer. They were due for a software upgrade this week, one Kathy would be installing. Could she use that time to continue hunting for the password? She knew where the file was. And she knew now that Therese hated computers and she didn’t try very hard to learn the more intricate operations. All Kathy needed was the password and she could open that file, make a copy of it and then leave.
Yeah, she had to leave, that was for sure. But not without little Sophie in tow. That was the other epiphany: she’d decided to turn mud into mud pies. Don’t kidnap innocent little Tiki, but steal back Sophie, blow this joint and get the child to her home in Lima. Kathy knew Sophie’s parents were aching from her loss. Kathy had seen what it had done to her own parents to have Jason kidnapped.
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