Sam's plane was crashing?
"Anna?"
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She couldn't think, much less speak. It was Eve and Carrie all over again.
"Anna, are you okay?"
Dammit, snap out of it. "I'm fine. And it's okay. I want to know. I need to. I've got—"
She broke off as Meg cursed, then cut into a discussion with someone who appeared to be standing close by. "Oh, thank God! Anna, the plane's landed in a river or a lake. Sounds like there are injuries, but everyone's alive. I gotta go."
Her heart started beating again as the relief set in. "Okay. Call me when you know more."
"I promise. And, Anna?"
"Yes?"
"I don't have all your answers yet. But I did find out the main factory is located in the Hunang province. They make medical equipment. No word on what kind yet. I'll call you later. Until then, be careful."
"I will."
The moment Meg hung up, Anna's legs resumed shaking. She managed to get the phone shoved inside her purse just before the tremors took over her entire body. There was no way she could drive, much less face Luis like this. Hell, she couldn't even think. The only word she could hold in her head, the only hope, was a name. Tom. He'd know what to do. She'd tell him about the pills. He'd forgive her. Tom would help her.
Please.
She canceled the emergency stop and punched the button for his floor. She'd never know how she made it to the lobby without fainting. If half a dozen passengers hadn't joined her for the return rise, she'd have passed out for sure. As it was, three of the tourists were looking at her as if she'd done what Tom had accused her of minutes before. One got out two floors before Tom's. The other two, an elderly couple, claimed his. She managed not to scream as the pair held her to a snail's pace for the entire first corridor. They stopped just shy of the right-hand turn at the end. She blessed the concierge for placing the seniors there and not all the way down at the next end, damned near to the emergency exit where the concierge had placed Tom. Three steps past the couple, Anna turned and promptly jerked backward, slamming her spine against the wall directly beside the elderly couple's door.
Luis? He was here?
What the devil was her cousin doing at the Bristol with a mutinous-looking Pepe in tow, knocking on Tom's door when Luis was supposed to be at the hospital waiting for her?
"Are you okay, dear?"
She nodded at the older woman as her husband continued to mutter down at his electronic key card and lock. "I'm fine, ma'am. Thank you." But she didn't feel fine as she turned to the corner. She peered around just in time to see Tom open his door and step into the hall. She caught sight of the high-tech, compact stun gun in Pepe's hand as it snapped up, and opened her mouth to scream—
But it was too late. For her and for Tom.
No!
But the electric gun's twin-wired probes had already shot out of the weapon and into Tom's chest before either of them could react, dropping Tom to his knees as several hundred thousand volts of electricity scrambled his entire nervous system instantly, rendering him unconscious. Before she could round the corner, Pepe and Luis had hooked their arms beneath Tom's and were already dragging his limp body toward the emergency exit beyond. Her knees finally gave way, too.
The elderly woman and her husband caught her together. "Miss…can we help you?"
Anna shook her head as the blood continued to thunder through her heart, knocking her terror to unbearable levels. Her ears roared, her stomach surged, her panic caused sweat to explode along every inch of her flesh. Help? No one could help. She had nowhere to go. Foster had turned out to be as trustworthy as a local PDF cop on the take. Meg and Eve were too far away. Sam might be—stop! Don't go there.
Juju. He'd help her.
Tom said he was DEA. That meant he'd have to have backup around somewhere. Yes, Juju was furious with her. Almost as much as Tom was. But that didn't matter. Juju would help Tom.
"Dear, are you sure—"
She didn't catch the rest, she was already down the hall, whirling around the corner and straight up to the bank of elevators. She punched every single down button three times, pulling that hideous necklace from beneath her collar as the first set of doors slid open. She practically jumped inside, ignoring the dark disapproval on a local's face as he spotted the jeweled scorpion dangling from the end. She didn't care if the whole blessed city connected her to Luis right now, so long as the doorman and the cabby followed suit.
They both did.
She shoved a bill from her wallet into the doorman's hand and rattled off the Iguana's general address only to spend the next twenty excruciating minutes in air-conditioned hell, cursing the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the tourist-locked sidewalks and the entire pending Carnaval celebration as the taxi crawled down the blocks and through intersections, taking each more slowly than the last. Just when she thought she'd scream, they reached the Iguana's alley. She shoved another bill into the cabby's palm and stumbled out of the taxi. Within moments, she was banging on the front door of the bar.
No one came.
Dammit, he had to be here. The bar didn't open for another two hours. Juju had been up all night with work, and then her and Tom. Didn't the man sleep? Oh, God, sleep. Where did Juju sleep? She took out the desperation in her own unanswered question on the door. By the grace of God, it ripped open. She fell into Juju's arms.
"Jesus, Anna. You can't be out of pills this soon. I—"
"It's Tom."
He froze. "What?"
"Luis—my cousin—he's got him. I don't know where, probably the hacienda. Maybe his warehouse. I don't know. I just know they used one of those stun guns on him. Juju, he—"
He hauled her close. "It's okay. Calm down. You have to calm down so I can understand. We'll figure this out. Where's your car?"
"I didn't bring it. I wasn't sure how to get here. I took a cab."
"Is the taxi waiting on the street?"
"No. Dammit, why does it matter? You have a truck—" But he didn't. Not at the moment. Because of her. "Oh, God. I left it at the hacienda. I can call another tax—"
Juju closed his hands over hers before she could grab her phone. "That's okay. Don't worry about it. I'm going to have to make some calls anyway. See if I can arrange surveillance and backup. Come in and tell me everything you know. And do it slowly. Tom's life may depend on it."
Somehow she managed to babble her way through the events of the past three months in the three minutes it took them to reach his office. San Diego, Foster, Luis, Pepe, the drugs, the rifles, the radioactive material and their suspicion that it was Chinese cesium. Hell, she even managed to blow Foster's cover in the process. Juju took it all in silently for the most part, with a pointed question here and a nod there. He sat her down on the couch when she finished and pressed a glass of water into her still shaking hands.
"Anna, I need to see what I can arrange. Will you be okay if I leave you in here?"
She managed a shaky nod. Just like that, she was alone. With her screaming nerves and her aching heart.
Why had she left him?
If Tom didn't live, it wouldn't matter if she did. Dammit, why hadn't she gone after them? Stop. Calm down. Juju would figure it out. As DEA, he probably had a better idea where Luis was headed than even she did. But good Lord, the wait was killing her. She stood and crossed the room, nearly upending the glass of water over Juju's paper-strewn desk. She did managed to knock over the battered pencil cup and the small Hotei Buddha at the corner. She grabbed the cup and righted it, then lifted the Hotei to stroke his worn, happy belly for the luck she so desperately needed as she sat down at the desk. Her gaze skimmed the Made in China stamped into the bottom—and the Hunang province hallmark beneath.
She stiffened. No way. Don't even think it.
China was a mother of a huge country. And Hunang was one of its largest provinces.
Maybe she was having a delayed reaction to the pills in her system—the ones f
rom last night, because she was thinking it. She couldn't stop thinking it. Tom had said this morning that ATF believed Manny might have been sold out by an insider. They'd both even openly considered Foster, but not—
But it made sense. ATF, DEA, how many joint ops did the agencies pull down together in the Canal Zone?
Too many.
She dropped her stare to the desk drawers, tried them. All but the bottom one on the right were locked. The catch hadn't connected. She slid the drawer open and gasped as she caught sight of the man's beeper-size radiation dosimeter.
"Guess I took too long, eh?"
She blinked up at Juju, knowing it was him—knowing it was him—but still not comprehending. Still not wanting to as she stared up into the cheery, open face above that godawful, innocuous Hawaiian shirt, ever-present slender yellow box of candies still tucked in his pocket. "No."
But he nodded. "Yes."
She shook her head slowly, stupidly. "You don't need an introduction to Luis, do you?"
He shrugged. "'Fraid not. We're sort of in business together already."
"But…why?"
Another shrug. "Who knows why these things happen? Maybe I was sick of getting crap in my paycheck while the guys I took down got off with a slap on the wrist and then went home to their fat bank accounts and sprawling mansions. Or maybe I was just sick of living up to the old man's rep. Does it matter?"
She continued to stare, to blink. To struggle to even think. "How…long?"
"Since I've known about you?"
She nodded.
"I suspected from the beginning. Hell, it's in my nature. But I have to hand it to you, you were good. In the end, I think the fact that you weren't a pro actually helped. Kept you from doing the telling stuff. If Foster hadn't tipped your hand for you, who knows? Things might have turned out differently."
Foster. "The bug in the pen?"
Juju flipped his ponytail over his shoulder as he finally stepped all the way into the room. He rounded the desk and reached down to snag her arm almost politely. So much for the man scoring worse on his cadetiquette exams at West Point than Tom. She didn't fight him. Why? He had a foot and a half of height on her. And there was the other thought. The burning one. He could be taking her to Tom.
"Yeah, the bug. As you know, your cousin assumed it was Manny's."
"But you knew better."
"Hell, yes. The Company always gets better toys than the rest of us schmucks. You were Navy, you ought to know that."
She shook her head as the past three months fell into place. "You knew Foster suspected you, or you at least thought it. That bug was all the proof you needed. And if Manny was ATF, which I suspect you also knew, then you probably had Luis bring Manny to the house in order to tip his hand. But since Manny wasn't CIA and the bug was, you had proof I was working for Foster. Proof Luis was forced to believe."
Another nod. "You're pretty good, you know that? By the way, is Foster an ass or what?"
"He ranks up there with some men I've known."
That earned her a hearty chuckle. "Yeah, that scene in Tom's room was priceless. It's a shame, really. I'm a damned good matchmaker. Once I realized what had to be done, that I'd have to stage my own death and make it look like someone else set the bomb to get the Company off my tail, Tom was the perfect choice. For me and you. Don't you think?"
Anna stopped short as the past week finished clicking in, jerking her arm from Juju's grasp in the middle of the hall as she made her stand, right there beside that pay phone. "You set Tom up from the beginning. You're setting him up right now. He thinks I was Foster's patsy—and he's probably right—but he was also yours." Nausea roiled as the extent of the deception sank in. The inescapable brilliance of it. "You bugged me to finish the job. This phone, the pills."
She knew now why Juju had refilled that vial. Not so much to keep her happy, as to keep himself in the loop.
Juju hooked his forearm over the top of the phone as he stared down at her, confirming it all with a wide grin and a wink. "My bar, my phone. My bug. And, yeah, I put one in the cap to your pills. Though you have to admit, that one was a no-brainer. Like you'd leave those behind, eh?"
She flinched as he reached out to casually tuck her hair behind her ear. "You're an animal."
He shrugged off her recoil. "Animal? Nah." He took her arm once more, nudging her forward until they reached the door at the end of the hall. "Save that compliment for the Wild Man." The door led to a maintenance room. He pushed her inside but didn't release her arm. "And look, here he is now, in the flesh. Even if he isn't quite conscious yet."
La Madre dulce en el Cielo. Horror punched the breath right out of her lungs. Completely. All thought followed. All save one. Tom. He was propped up in front of a massive white propane tank, his arms behind his back, handcuffed to the legs of the rusting steel behemoth—and he was out cold.
Juju frowned. "Sorry about his condition. Pepe was leery of the Wild Man after that whole ear thing. Had to give the guy a bit of help. Then Tom came to before I was ready and—" Another one of those enigmatic Samoan shrugs. "Had to zap him again. Don't worry. When he comes out of it, he might feel like he did a belly flop out of second-story window, but he'll be fine. You'll see."
She finally rounded on that infuriating cheer and snarled. "What do you care?"
"Watch your mouth, Lieutenant. Man's a friend of mine."
"The hell he is!"
"A-Anna?"
¡Alabe a Dios! Tom had woken. She wrenched her arm from Juju's grasp and vaulted across the concrete floor room. Tom grunted as she slammed down to her knees and threw her arms around his neck to kiss his still rousing features. He winced as she caved in to the blinding need to hold him close even if he couldn't hold her, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him a good six inches from the tank.
Tom's lips found her ear. "Hey, hey, easy now. Watch the makeshift nuclear bomb. Okay, sweetheart?"
She followed his gaze to the left, around the side of the steel blimp and nearly fainted. Sure enough, someone had already strapped several bricks of plastique C4 explosives to the side of the tank, and a large, grinning, gleaming, bronzed Hotei had been fused to the entire bundle. She wrenched her stare to Tom's. To the deadly serious glint in his eyes. The one that completely contradicted the lingering amusement in his lips. In all her years in the Navy, there were two sights she'd learned to respect more than anything. A cold sweat on her chief's face—and that look in a special operator's eyes.
Could this get any worse?
She never should have asked. Not even in the privacy of her brain and her heart. Because the devil himself took the cue and Luis Ricardo Ortiz stepped into the room.
* * *
He'd screwed up. Royally.
Tom knew it the moment he looked into her eyes.
Anna was clean. She hadn't taken those pills in his room earlier. He still had no idea what had really happened, but he did know she wasn't lying to him about that bottle. Maybe she was right. Maybe he was addicted to the doubt. He sure as hell could have at least let her explain. Unfortunately, unless he could devise a way to get them out of this mess, he'd never have the chance to find out what had really happened.
Goon gallery be damned. Tom ignored her cousin, the gorilla who'd lumbered in after, as well as his ex-friend as he turned to soothe Anna as quietly as he could. "It's okay, baby. Just follow my lead. No matter what happens, all right?"
Terror stiffened her nod. But she had nodded. Her unquestioning faith gave him strength. Unlike he had, Anna trusted him. He didn't deserve this woman's confidence, much less her heart, but he was taking both. Somehow.
A moment later, she flinched as her cousin stepped into the center of the room, smiling as if he was el presidente himself, all decked out and schmoozing with Panamanian society's best in the middle of the Union Club ballroom. "Ah, Señor Wild. And how are you feeling this afternoon?"
Tom grinned back. "I don't know, Louie. Why don't you come a bit clos
er and we'll find out together?"
The man chuckled as he brushed an imaginary piece of lint from his olive suit. "I think not. Besides, you have my lovely cousin to keep you company. For a few more minutes."
The man's lovely cousin did her best not to flinch again, but Tom felt it. Hard not to with her battered breast fused to his arm. He latched on to the only new piece of information Luis had provided and cocked his brow. "Just a few more?"
"Unfortunately. Your visit to Foster forced us to move our plans forward. We had decided on blowing up this charming establishment at the height of Carnaval before we departed for Colombia, but…" Luis shrugged.
In other words, they'd inadvertently thwarted Juju's original plot to demolish the joint leaving behind two-hundred-odd sources of human DNA material in a single, ashen, radioactively contaminated stew for whoever had the cojones to try and pick through afterward to locate Juju's unique genetic code. It was small consolation to know it might just be him alone dying today instead of hundreds, but Tom would take it. But first he'd have to work on the might. "You're taking Anna with you then?" He willed the man to say yes.
"Unfortunately, I cannot."
Tom swallowed his darkest curse.
Was it his imagination, or had Pepe stiffened, too?
He couldn't be sure, because Juju's booming laughter filled the tiny room. Another man he'd love to lure closer. Just far enough so he could shove that stun gun up Juju's hind end and give him a taste of his own amusement. Hell, he still felt like that bomb beside him had already exploded—inside his body. Tom lit into Luis. "Come on, man. I can see you offing me. But your own prima? Now that's just plain rude. What would society think?"
Again, Juju laughed. "Tell her, Luis. Hell, I'm surprised she hasn't figured that out too the way her brain's been churning today. Especially after you all but spelled it out for her this morning in your study. Or rather, added it up." His former friend hooked his elbow on a stack of stainless steel beer kegs, Juju's grin taunting his new best buddy now.
Luis didn't say a word, but his lips thinned. The man looked ill, too, and it wasn't from a lack of insulin. Tom had no idea what was behind the vibes radiating off the thug, but Anna appeared to. At least, she had an inkling, because she stood.
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