"Honey, don't—"
She squelched his protest with a sharp wave. "It's okay."
No, it was not okay. Tom nearly dislocated his shoulder as he watched that regal cool stroll across the room, closer and closer to the cluster of pigs, each step searing in deeper than the successive tears to his rotator cuffs. "Anna, listen to me—"
Juju grinned. "S'okay, amigo. Relax. I think she's figured it out."
"Figured what out?" Tom watched as she stopped in front of her cousin and damned near felled the man with a whack that put the blow she'd given him an hour ago to shame. Tom roared, jerking his entire body forward as Luis's fist flew, sending Anna flailing right back to him. She landed over his legs, her battered breast cradled in his thighs as her temple slammed into the concrete on his right. Luis was two inches from carrying his remaining rage through when Pepe's body smashed into the man from behind. The overgrown ape put a silverback's fury to shame as Pepe lifted his employer by the collar of his suit and the back of his trousers, swinging Luis's body up to use his head as a battering ram, right into the wall.
Anna screamed as a shot reverberated through the room, the 9 mm bullet behind it punching straight into Pepe's heart. She ignored Luis completely as she scrambled over her cousin's body to cradle Pepe's head in her lap, working in vain to stop the blood from seeping into the driver's shirt. Juju shrugged as she continued to weep, each silent shudder of her shoulders punching into Tom's gut as he tried to figure out why she'd take the man's death this hard.
"It has to do with loose ends, amigo. Hers. Luis's." Juju pointed his Glock toward her cousin's inert head. "The combination to the safe in his study. It's the day her mother died…compliments of her cousin's first pubescent rage. Took me a while to piece it together. She doesn't even know why. Seems Luis took offense at the fact that his auntie decided to seek her fortune in the States and, naturally, planned on bringing her darling daughter with her." Juju swerved the barrel of the Glock to Anna and her slowly dying patient. "Pepe there grew up with Luis. He knew. He saw the murder. And, well, we all know he's sweet on the girl." Juju flashed his wide-open grin. The one Tom would give a hell of a lot to pulverize, lips, teeth and all. "Looks like she's sweet on him too." He shrugged. "Guess my matchmaking wasn't so black-and-white after all, eh?"
But when Anna lifted her gaze as the life finally faded from Pepe's and Tom watched the shadows set in—felt her deep, keening loss—even from here, he knew. Nothing was black-and-white in this town, least of all Anna. Pepe was the neighbor who, a decade and a half ago, had pulled another monster off Anna when she was fourteen years old.
She nodded sadly, confirming it.
"I'm sorry, honey." He truly was. If he could go back, he'd leave the guy's eardrums intact for the gift Pepe had given him in return. And he'd never have injected those glucagons. In the end, he was indebted to the gorilla twice over. Because of Pepe, the odds had gone down to one-to-two. Juju and them.
It was time to trim it further.
"Juju, let her go. For old times' sake."
"Sorry, no can do. Not even for you." To Tom's horror, Juju stood and motioned to his side the woman Tom needed more than the blood thundering through his heart. "Anna?"
She didn't move a muscle. She didn't have to. Tom had stiffened for her. He knew that tone. "Juju, whatever you've got planned, don't. I'm begging you. Let her go."
"Nope. See, I need her too, amigo. More than you." He tipped the Glock toward her cousin's body. "Luis was my easy ticket into Colombia. I've got things set up, but I still gotta get there. Things have changed. There's been a gunshot. I might need a hostage." The man reached behind his back and retrieved Anna's purse of all things. He tossed it on the floor. It skidded to Tom's thighs, scalding him on contact. He now understood Juju's shift in plans.
"No!"
Juju nodded. "Yes." He flicked the Glock to Anna's still shell-shocked face. "What did you say a couple of days ago? Oh, yeah. She's a mark, Juju, just a mark I happen to need sober. That's all." He shrugged. "Now see, I just don't happen to agree with you. Probably because I need her stoned."
For the first time in Tom's life, he violated the most sacred rule of special ops and Chicago street-fighting combined. He took his eyes off the enemy…and then closed them as he prayed. Sweet Mother in heaven, no.
"'Fraid so. It's come down to you or me, Wild Man. Or rather, her and me. Anna?"
Tom watched as she smoothed her fingers over Pepe's eyes, extinguishing the man's distant stare forever. She slowly raised her own. "Yes?"
Juju pointed to the purse. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way involves you and your first love. The hard way? That involves this pistol and your second love. Frankly, I don't need him alive to pull this off. He can be dead when the bomb blows. Do we understand each other?"
This time, Tom nearly dislocated his shoulders. "God dammit, Juju, no!"
But her whisper sliced in. "Yes."
"Good girl. Bet you made a fine Squid. You follow orders so nicely."
The hell she did.
Tom thrashed against the handcuffs. He could feel the slick spread of his blood as it smeared out around his wrists as the outer layers of skin gave way. He didn't care. He kept thrashing. And she kept walking. She leaned down to retrieve the purse, bringing the cursed thing right up into his lap as her beautiful clear gaze closed within inches of his. Didn't she realize that Juju would have her take one and then another, and another? She'd kill herself for him by the time it was over and not even care, much less try to protect herself.
"Oh, baby, please don't. Please. Please."
She just leaned closer and brushed her lips against his.
He clenched his fists against the pain in his wrists and in his shoulders as he strained all the way home, devouring her mouth, trying to convince her with his last desperate kiss, his last desperate breath if that's what it took. But when she slid her hands down his arm to brace herself against his body so she could pull away, he knew he'd lost—until he felt her drag her mouth across his cheek, press her lips to his ear and whisper, "Trust me."
She'd said it as clear as day.
Absolutely sober.
She pulled away before he could react and resumed her zombie pace back to Juju. His so-called friend. The man who'd given her the pills in that vial clutched in her hands. She tucked the purse beneath her left arm as she stopped in front of Juju. He reached into one of the crates beside him and pulled out a bottle of water, cracking the seal as she cracked the lid on the vial. She tapped two of the pills into her palm. Tom tried to trust. He truly did, but her swallow still stabbed straight through his heart as she washed the pills down with a mouthful of the water.
She held the water out.
Juju shook his head. "Take another."
"But I already had s-some on the way over."
"Sounds like it." He shrugged. "But I don't care."
Trust me.
The Tylenol wasn't helping so I checked your things. He didn't have Tylenol in his shaving kit. She'd taken it hours before they met up in his room. I could explain this bottle, and it might even make this whole argument go away. Ah, Jesus. Tylenol pills were white, about the same size and shape as—
Percocet.
She must have swapped the pills at the hacienda.
She was right. He was addicted to the doubt.
Well, not anymore. He was taking his first step of twelve, right here and right now. For her. For them. He also knew he had to make it look good. That's why she'd warned him. She knew he'd eventually remember there was something else in that compartment besides pills. He understood the plan now. Her plan. Tom picked up his end, thrashing so hard he worried that the bomb on the opposite side of the tank would go off. He harvested every curse he'd ever heard, ripened them all and spewed them back on the man he'd once called brother as she tapped another pill from the vial out into her palm, just far enough away from Juju to keep him from really seeing it. "I swear to God, Juju, you do th
is and I'll kill you! If I have to come back from the dead to do it!"
Juju ignored him as he reached out to catch Anna as she lurched straight into his chest. "Damn, lady, how many did you have on your way over?"
"None." Her voice was stone-cold sober.
And it was the last thing Juju heard. He was too busy staring down at his gut. At the switchblade Anna had just impaled him with. The blood spread out, soaking into his Hawaiian shirt, turning the neon-green a dark, soulful red. She pushed his body away as the light faded in Juju's gaze, then spun around, turning her bright, beautiful stare on him as Juju's body collapsed to the floor. "What do we do?"
Tom jerked his chin to her purse. "You got something in there I can use on these cuffs?" The switchblade was his last resort. He might need the edge for the wires on that bomb. He waited as she plowed though, shaking his head at her keys. Too big. The ballpoint pen was a long shot, but the trio of hairpins she surfaced with next weren't. They earned her a grin.
"Give 'em to me."
She did. "Tom, I'm not—"
"I know. I think they were Tylenol. I don't understand why yet, but I know you'll explain. You've also got a huge grovel session coming from me. But, sweetheart, if we don't postpone it for that bomb…" She nodded as he trailed off. Smiled. He'd already unbent the first two pins. He worked them into the keyhole in the left handcuff as he tipped his head toward the tank. "Now, take a look at that thing for me and put my mind at ease."
"What am I looking for?"
"You'll know if you see it."
She was clearly confused, but she nodded. A split second later, she disappeared from view. Two seconds after that, she cursed viciously and he knew she was no longer confused.
He was now also officially worried.
He closed his eyes and prayed for the time he knew he didn't have—because Juju had included a clock, and it was already counting down. The bastard must have a remote in his pocket and triggered it when he fell. No way in hell he was telling Anna that. If he didn't make it, she did not need to know. Her pupils were constricted with honest-to-God fear as she returned. He didn't blame her. He had a bit of the emotion rippling through his gut at the moment.
"How many minutes are left?"
"Just under four."
He stabbed the pins into his right cuff keyhole this time and tried working that lock. "Anna, get out of here."
"No."
He twisted the pins again. "Dammit, woman, I mean it."
"So do I, Major, and you're in no position to argue so shut up and tell me what to do."
She truly did not follow orders well. He also knew she'd never leave. Damn her. "Go to Juju's office. I left the stethoscope from last night tucked beside the couch along with your shoes. Take the Glock with you in case he locked it up in the file cabinet or his desk, but save a couple shots for me."
She blanched.
"For the cuffs, sweetheart, the cuffs."
She flushed so quickly and deeply, he'd have demanded a kiss if the situation wasn't so dire. He still didn't know how to get her away from here if he couldn't get out of the parting jewelry present Juju had locked about his wrists.
"Go." He glanced at all three bodies, praying they were all actually dead. There was no time to check. "And see if you can find some pliers, tape and anything else that looks interesting." He had no idea where Juju had stashed the tools he'd used. But he didn't see them in here.
She nodded, scooping up the Glock as she tore out of the room. He cursed the blood that had slicked down from his wrists as he lost his grip on the pins at a crucial moment. He closed his eyes and forced himself to focus. To see himself working the lock. To feel it. Damned blood tripped him up again. He lost his grip a third time as he heard the Glock's sharp report. He was setting up his forth pass at the cuffs when she slammed back through the door, scope in hand and a pair of wire cutters and electrical tape to boot. Her gorgeous smile was all the luck he'd needed.
The catch on the right cuff popped open.
He was up and rolling around to the opposite side of the tank before she reached his side. He cursed again.
"How bad is it?"
He held up a hand as he traced the wires twisting around and around the grinning Buddha until both the real and the faux ends reached the blasting caps crammed up into the double-wide bricks of C4. Evidently he wasn't the only one who'd done his homework this past month. When he'd woken up the first time, Juju had taunted him with his plans, claiming that he'd set him up to take the fall—for this bomb, as well as future ones. Following Juju's "death," Juju intended to reappear as Tom Wild every so often, planting a new bomb for his Colombian terrorist hosts. What the explosions would have in common was that each would appear as if Tom had actually designed it, ensuring that the authorities would be tracking a dead man. Frankly, he'd doubted that Juju could pull it off.
He was wrong.
This puppy was textbook Tom Wild, signature wire twists, mystery switches and all. So much so, he let out an appreciative whistle. "Juju was right, darlin', I gotta get out more. At the very least, vary my routine."
"What are you trying to say?"
He grinned as he hooked the stethoscope to his ears and got down to work, taping off the two mercuries and the slide switch in short order to immobilize them. "I'm saying go pour yourself a Coke. Hell, pour one for me too. I'm thirsty." Forty-five seconds later—with thirteen left on the clock—he was also done. His breath came out in an undignified rush.
He didn't mind. This was Anna.
But it did sting when her air refused to budge from her chest until the final thirteen seconds ticked down on the clock and it flashed 0:00…and nothing happened. Then her breath blew out in a ragged rush.
"Trust me, she says."
Her lashes flew wide, and not because of his teasing. Because he'd snaked his hand out and tugged her down into his lap. Before she could restock her lungs, much less recover from the rush, he was kissing her as deeply as he'd wanted to in his hotel room before all his damned insecurities had come within a hairsbreadth of blowing this for him and them. Just like every other time their lips touched, his body shot straight to the edge. Hers followed. Within seconds the kiss was so hot, so intense, that for a moment he actually thought the C4 had exploded anyway. Not that he'd have cared.
He was too busy savoring the rush of adrenaline wrapped up in the arms of the sexiest woman he'd ever known and the only one he'd had the good fortune to fall completely in love with. Even if it had taken the mess surrounding them for him to figure it out. The piercing wails of at least ten sirens stabbed through the fog in his brain…and lower, reminding him of that mess and all that still needed to be dealt with. He deepened the kiss anyway, determined to savor the moment as long as possible. Eventually, they were forced to surface.
The Company cavalry had finally arrived and, what do you know, Agent Asshole was leading the charge.
"Geez, you two. Get a room."
Chapter 15
"You want me to break his jaw?"
Anna stared up into Tom's eyes, still stunned by the fire in his kiss, the adrenaline surging through her veins and the absolute shock of the entire afternoon—and the fact that, suddenly, there seemed to be more living bodies crowded inside this tiny maintenance room than the rest of Panama City combined. All were milling around or checking over Juju, Luis and Pepe but for two striking exceptions. Tom and the bastard looming directly above his right. Had she even heard Tom's question correctly? The moment she glanced at the man who'd started this all, saw the bandage taped across his once arrogant, now bruised and shattered nose, she knew she'd heard correctly. She also knew Foster had heard it all. Why else was he here? How else?
Just like that, the adrenaline purged from her system. But only because the sickening nausea had set in. "There was no off switch to the bug in my chest, was there?"
The bastard shrugged. "Nothing personal. Just couldn't take the chance that you'd flip out and take off again if you knew. Just like
I couldn't take the chance that lover-boy here wasn't in cahoots with his old West Point buddy. Not when Juju and Luis went to such lengths to make sure Tom would be the one sent in next."
"Well?" Tom. She pulled her gaze back to his. No matter what color those eyes really were, she suspected that steel would have come through just the same. Nor did it bend as Tom reached up to catch the handcuff key Foster tossed him from midair. "You want me to break it, or not?"
"Just make him leave."
Tom kept his gaze on hers. "You heard the lady, Marvin."
Marvin, Foster, or whoever he was, turned. But before he could step out to join the cluster of ambulance techs now flooding the room along with half of Panama's police force, and the CIA's local contingent, Tom cut him off. "Marvin?"
Foster stopped. He didn't turn or speak.
"You have one hour, buddy. One hour. I want the tapes and the transcripts, the bug's frequency and a mobile jammer. And the jammer better work or I'll hold you personally responsible. You can send it by official courier to keep the chain of custody. Either way, it'd better be in my hands at the Bristol within the hour. She decides what you use and what she burns. And, Marvin, there will be no gaps in the tapes' timeline, understood?"
Foster nodded stiffly. Quickly.
She would have been amused at how quickly, if she wasn't so absolutely humiliated. If Foster and his cronies had recorded every moment of her life since that bug entered her body, that meant they'd also listened in as she and Tom made love in her bedroom this morning. Her stomach bottomed out.
Tom didn't bat an eye.
Foster waited as a crony stepped up to whisper in his ear, then spoke. "You want the good news or the bad?"
Tom tipped his head, offering the choice to her.
"Both."
"Juju's alive. Lost a lot of blood, but the EMT says he'll make it to the hospital's prison ward. Luis appears to have a massive concussion. Coma, lasting brain damage, EMT tech's not sure. The driver's dead. Sorry."
A Dangerous Engagement Page 24