Hard Target

by Barbara Phinney

  But standing outside, getting jostled by the never ending crowd of people, he paused. He couldn't say a word about his life these past three years. Not even someone with Dawna's security clearance was privy to his assignments.

  The thought ate at him. He needed Dawna to trust him, but how could he expect that? He couldn't even tell her that he'd quit his job. The whole charade of keeping him 'on staff' was so very carefully created for the protection of several CIA agents, all in sensitive areas around the world. If the embassy bombing had something to do with the drug cartel, those CIA agents could be in danger. The case in which he'd worked involved high-level drug smuggling.

  Tay pulled in his breath, thinking fast for something to say. "Dawna, what did Ramos tell you?" If he couldn't tell her what he wanted to say, he could at least try to earn the trust he'd destroyed three years ago. Perhaps they could start something again.

  Dawna's lips tightened. "Nothing. Only that he wasn't coming in this morning." She turned away.

  Tay knew the note said more. He'd worked as an operative with the CIA, with people who'd turned lying into an art form. And he knew Dawna was lying to him.

  "That was it? No explanation?"

  "No explanation. Let's go." Dawna started down the street, presumably toward the closest police station.

  Tay cursed inwardly. She had read the note and used the phone, calling someone named Jeff. And she'd cut it all off when her gaze had locked with his.

  He caught up with her. There was no point in confronting her. Besides, he couldn't blame her. In her mind, he'd betrayed her.

  All he could do was try to earn her trust again.

  They reached an intersection, one filled with dark-haired locals and even the ever-present stray dogs. She grabbed his hand. "Come on, we have to be quick." She dashed across the street, darting between honking cars that had jammed up for some reason.

  Tay followed, realizing as he joined the brave pedestrians, that even if he told her the truth now, she'd still see what he'd done as a betrayal. He hadn't objected enough to the CO's decision. He didn't have to accept the operative job. He didn't have to turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble.

  Tay slammed into an elderly man and releasing Dawna, he grabbed him before he fell. "Sorry," he muttered, before scooting around to catch up with Dawna.

  Inside the police station, they found the constable who'd attended the autopsy. With help from a secretary who spoke English, Dawna asked the man to locate Cabanelos' wife. The officer agreed to try.

  "Are you going to investigate this death as a murder?" she also asked.

  Through the translator, the officer said, "There are many murders here. We have no proof he tried to kill you or if he was murdered. He could have used perifollo as a mask, knowing he was drinking the tea that could kill him. It happens sometimes. He shrugged. "All I can promise you is I will find his wife so she can claim the body. Do not worry, I will question her, too."

  "Thank you." Dawna glanced at Tay, her expression filled with frustration. "I guess we may as well go back to the embassy. I'd like to dig out Ramos' file."

  They left, and for a moment, Dawna stood on the sidewalk, ignoring the people moving around her.

  Abruptly, the squeal of tires rent the hectic sounds of the city. Tay whirled, grabbing Dawna and backing her up close to the grimy building beside them. The sound of a sickening crash followed. Someone shouted, people around them stopped and gaped.

  Tay kept Dawna pressed against the outside wall of the station. A horn blared, someone screamed.

  He spun back around. A small, blue Toyota pickup had barreled into a larger Fiat truck in the street only yards away. The driver of the Fiat screamed curses at the Toyota driver, who ignored him as he scanned and searched the crowd.

  The guy's gaze collided with Tay's.

  Behind him, Dawna gasped. Tay stared hard at the driver, a young man with brown hair and an athletic build.

  "It's Martin! That's his truck!" Dawna whispered, pushing Tay forward. He pressed her to him, preventing her from bolting into the stalled traffic.

  The Fiat driver grabbed the younger man. Martin lifted his arm, and some woman shrieked.

  Martin had a handgun. In that split second, Tay pulled out his own gun. The Fiat driver jumped back, hands in the air. But, horribly, a passing car hit him head on.

  With the entire street now in chaos, Martin glanced back to Tay, then turned and surged into the melee of people and vehicles.

  Tay shot forward, but watched uselessly as the man disappeared into the thick crowd.

  Shoving past Tay, Dawna scanned the street, but couldn't see Martin. It had to be him! The truck was identical. The license plate was hidden behind the throng of stopped cars and boisterous people, but it had to be him. And that Fiat driver? The car that had hit him was stopped, and the crowd swelled in toward the injured man.

  But where was Martin?

  Tay grabbed her arm and steered her away from the crash as police bolted from the station to answer the emergency. "Let's get out of here before that guy with the gun returns."

  She let him lead her away, concerned by the anxious tone to his words. As soon as they were around the corner, he asked, "What's closer? The embassy or your apartment?"

  She wanted to tell him the embassy, but somehow, the lie wouldn't form on her tongue. She pointed to street ahead. "My apartment, but it's quite a distance." She grabbed him. "Tay, do you know something I should know?"

  "I was about to ask you the same thing. That driver stared right at you. Why?"

  "He looked right at you!"

  "You are the one who said his name." His hand wrapping around hers, Tay hurried them through the crowd in the direction she'd pointed. Dawna had no choice but to quicken her pace and concentrate on avoiding the other pedestrians. Going to her apartment wasn't the best idea, but suddenly, the urgent need to get off the street hit her hard. Martin was out here, close and armed.

  Fifteen minutes of fast walking and some sprinting later, they turned down another street and entered a battered, low-rise apartment.

  "Home sweet home," she muttered, unlocking the door to her upper floor apartment.

  Tay followed her in, then shut and locked the door. For a moment, they stood there, panting with exertion. "Who was that driver?" Tay asked. "Who is Martin?"

  "I don't know."

  Tay folded his arms. "Let me rephrase the question. Who do you think the driver was?"

  She hesitated. She should have more information on this Joseph Martin before she voiced her concerns, but they were supposed to be partners. She'd already decided that much.

  "Tell me," Tay demanded, still staring hard at her. "How the hell are we supposed to work together?"

  "I was thinking the same thing." She seethed back taking offense to his tone. She'd tell him if he would just give her a chance. "I think it was a man named Joseph Martin. According to the car rental agency, he's an American who recently came here from Buenos Aires. A friend of mine at the American embassy there says Joseph Martin is CIA." She stepped closer to Tay. "Any idea why he's been following us?"

  Shock danced briefly over his face. "CIA? Are you sure?"

  "Not one hundred percent, but pretty damn close. Now, let me rephrase the question. Do you know of any reason why Martin would follow either of us?"

  The bland expression returned. "I have no idea."

  She brushed past him, turning her attention to her tiny galley kitchen, unable to ignore her empty stomach any longer. "Look, I should have enough food here for supper, since I don't really feel like going out. Interested?"

  "Sure." He sounded distracted.

  She dug through her freezer for the frozen lasagna she knew she'd bought ages ago. After she found it and scratched off the frost, she slipped the foil box into her small oven. Straightening, she noticed Tay had stepped out onto her balcony. He was speaking on the embassy's cell phone that he'd yet to return.

  Who was he calling? Joseph Martin? His messag
e service?

  A woman?

  Forget that. No way was she going down that avenue. His personal life was none of her business and she had enough on her mind. While supper heated, she could be at her computer in her bedroom, finishing some paperwork. She also called the embassy and arranged for an escolta to stop by Ramos' apartment.

  Ten minutes later, her work completed, she sat back. Supper was probably still cold in the oven, Tay still out on the balcony...

  Typing quickly, she logged onto the secure section of her embassy's website.

  She typed in the name Miguel Ramos and hit the search button. A scanned copy of his original job application popped up. She scrolled down. At the bottom was the next of kin. A cousin named Manuel Chayo. His address back then, Ottawa, Canada.

  Ottawa? She blinked. What took Chayo to Canada's capital? She paused, her forefinger tapped the computer mouse. She should have taken Ramos' file with her this morning, but after the disconcerting talk with Jeff, she'd set that task aside.

  Questions now rang through her head. Had Ramos's learned English from his cousin? Why did he have only one relative, in a country where big families were the norm? It was too late to catch Lucy at the embassy and ask her to pull the original paper file, plus all else they had on him.

  She exited the website and leaned back.

  Everything would have to wait until morning. The waning sunlight streaked in through the window above her. She had the whole evening ahead of her.

  Alone with Tay.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tay snapped shut the cell phone and squinted out at the city ahead of him. The sun was low enough to cast long shadows over the deep gorges of the streets. Still, the traffic seemed unending. He'd lived in Montreal, Paris and Ottawa, and yet, the traffic here in this little South American city was worse than all three put together. Okay, Ottawa was hardly a terrible city to drive in, but nothing beat Cochabamba, he was sure.

  Dawna's balcony faced east and lay deep enough in shadows to have him risk standing outside. He needed the privacy to make his call.

  What he'd discovered from his contact in Washington was bad. Like Tay, his contact had no idea why Joseph Martin would come to Cochabamba. Was the CIA now tailing its own agents? He'd known the tail was there, but hadn't yet caught more than the swiftest glimpse of the man, not enough to confirm his suspicions. Then when the fool had smashed his rental, he'd turned and stared right at Tay. The guy had to be a rookie.

  Tay hated rookies. He put his life on the line too many times as an operative to trust rookies. Now one of them was tailing him? What did the guy hope to learn?

  His first assumption focused on the sensitive investigation he'd been a part of, an investigation he couldn't even admit existed. Did he CIA not trust him?

  The glass door behind him slid open. Dawna hesitated at the threshold, her expression grim.

  "What's wrong?" he asked.

  She didn't look at him. Rather, she scanned the building across the busy street. "Nothing, really, I'm just mad at myself for not remembering to pull Ramos' application before I left the embassy."

  "Why? Did you find something out?"

  She glanced down at his cell phone before her gaze wandered upward to rest on his face. "I checked the info we have at our secure website, just a scanned copy of Ramos' application."

  "What did you find out?"

  She remained at the patio door, her body tense, her expression uncertain. He longed to pull her into his arms and offer some measure of comfort. "Nothing much, really," she said. "He's worked all around Bolivia." She hesitated. "It also listed his next of kin, a cousin who lived in Ottawa."

  "Ottawa?" Tay frowned. "Lived? Where is he now?"

  She shrugged. "The form is several years old, and it's only required to be updated every five years. So I can't confirm if the guy is still there. It's possible he's returned. Let's face it, the weather's better here."

  "True. Do you think Ramos learned English from this guy?"

  She rubbed her arms as if cold. "I don't remember if he ever told me. It may be in the file." Keeping her distance, she walked to the balcony edge and rested her hands on the railing as she inspected the street below. "You're from Ottawa, aren't you?"

  "Yeah," he answered cautiously, still watching her, still controlling the urges inside of him, urges to yank her back from the railing. "Yeah, I grew up there."

  She turned to him, shifted toward the door again. "What did your father do?"

  Tay stiffened. "Didn't I tell you? He was a member of the Ottawa/Charleton police force."

  "He had a heart attack, you said."

  Tay shifted, looked beyond the buildings. The sun had sunk deeply enough to cool the whole city. "A few years ago. He moved out of Ottawa. He was born in Montreal and went back there. I don't see him anymore."

  "Do you see your mother?"

  No, but I hear her voice. He nearly laughed out loud at the stupidity of that internal comment. "She died about five years ago."

  Dawna glanced up at him. "I'm sorry. Was she from Montreal, too?"

  "No, Ottawa. My parents married after he moved there." "You don't like your father, do you?" she asked. One of her strongest points as a cop was her calm, direct questioning tactic that, because of her soft, feminine voice, held little confrontation. It was an excellent skill he'd admired as her instructor. "Nor his job, either," she added.

  He swallowed. "Why do you say that?"

  "The tone of your voice. So why did you become a Mountie, then, if you don't like cops?"

  "It's not that I don't like cops. I am one. It was the only thing I figured I could do." He turned quickly, struggling inwardly to suppress the unusual aggression bubbling inside. "Or maybe it was the fact that my father was such a prick, that I wanted to prove cops could be normal, nice guys. Yeah." He felt himself seethe. "I wanted to be a normal, nice-guy cop who helped kids and did some good in the world."

  "Because your father didn't?"

  "That's right," he snapped. "He was tough and mean and brought all his problems home with him. When he came home, that is, which wasn't often, thank God." He stopped himself with a deep, restorative breath. "He loved his job more than everything else." Tay shook his head in disgust.

  "More than his family?"

  "You got it."

  Dawna sighed beside him and he watched her body relax against the glass of the sliding door. It shifted, wobbling the reflection of the city.

  He straightened. "We shouldn't be out here." He'd only come out here to make his call. "If Cabanelos wasn't the sniper, we're too easy a target up here. I don't like the idea that Martin is out there somewhere. He could be our sniper, for all we know."

  "We should have stayed at the accident site for the police. I could have told them his name."

  "We were two of hundreds, and we don't speak the language. The police will track him down. They had this truck. Besides, with his coloring, Martin will stand out like a sore thumb. Let's have some supper."

  He caught Dawna's far arm to spin her around.

  She stopped him, pressing her palm onto his forearm. "Tay, I was honest with you when you asked me who Martin was." She paused a moment. "But I don't think you were honest back. Is Martin tailing us, or just you?"

  He couldn't answer her. He practically had his arms around her as the sounds of the city below faded. All he could hear was her breathing as she waited for his answer, a soft, rhythmic brush of warm air against his skin.

  But he couldn't answer her. For so many reasons.

  "Let's go inside," she told him, her voice low and slurred.

  Feeling suddenly frustrated, he shoved the sliding door to the right. Dawna stepped over the metal threshold. As soon as he followed her inside, she folded her arms. "You didn't answer my question. How are we supposed to work together, if we aren't honest with each other?"

  He focused on her face, not on the churning attraction inside of him. Should he tell her everything? Even the parts that suggested he was going
nuts? Yet, she did deserve to be told something. "I don't think Martin isn't following you. I think he's following me."

  "Why?"

  His gut tightened until it ached. "Let's eat supper first. Then I'll tell you what I can."

  Dawna set her knife and fork on her empty plate. The lasagna could have been hotter, but she'd been too hungry to care. And judging by Tay's cleaned plate, he felt much the same way.

  In the middle of the meal, the escolta she'd sent to Ramos' home called to say he wasn't there, and the neighbors claimed they hadn't seen him in a while. She related the news to Tay as she returned to the table. Silence reigned again.

  "So why is the CIA following you?" She finally asked.

  "I tried to find out, but my contacts couldn't tell me," Tay said. "They were as surprised as I was."

  Dawna frowned. "Your contacts?"

  "Friends I have in high places." He offered her a short smile. "I've made a few who owe me a favor or two."

  He had friends in high places who owed him? And he called them contacts? Give me a break. He would have had to cash in a few big favors to get that kind of information, if he was telling her the truth. "Really?" she asked innocently.

  He looked straight into her eyes. "Martin's a rookie, Dawna. Forget him."

  Exasperated, she folded her arms and rolled her eyes. "I know he's a rookie. I picked him out of the crowd several times. And he's left a trail wide enough to drive a tank through." She didn't feel like playing games with Tay. "What makes a military police instructor interesting enough for the CIA to follow? The truth, Tay. I don't want you lying anymore. Or lie by omission."

  He picked up his plate and took it to the sink. Dawna swiveled in her chair. "Well?"

  "Don't ask, Dawna. You don't need to know." He kept his back to her.

  She shoved the chair away from the table, its legs scratching over the dull tile floor. "I don't need to know? My embassy's been attacked. We've been attacked, ourselves! The prime suspect has been murdered and my best vigilante has been accused of not being who he says he is. And interestingly enough, that vigilante's cousin was last seen in Ottawa, where you happen to come from." She shook her head. "Then some wet-behind-the-ears kid from the CIA starts following us, but you say he's tailing you, the person who's supposed to be checking up on me? Now you say I don't need to know why?"