by Paula Graves
“Why hasn’t Cabrera’s man made a move?” she asked, her tongue thick in her mouth. She hadn’t had any water in a while, and she was feeling the effects of thirst.
“I’m not sure,” Gabe whispered back. “Maybe they think he’s going to lead them to you.”
“We’re not sure they even know I’m here.”
“They know,” Gabe assured her. “Just before they dragged me away from camp, Cabrera got a phone call from one of his men, saying he had spotted you in the woods. At least, I assume it was you. Are there any other women roaming these woods packing heat?”
“I shot one of Cabrera’s men,” she whispered. “Sinclair shot the other, before he could kill me. He also killed a third man.”
Gabe turned to look at her, his blue eyes strangely bright in the fading twilight. “They will kill us all if they catch us.”
“I know.”
“So we don’t get captured.” Gabe turned his head back toward the woods. Ahead, Sinclair’s pace had slowed, and the El Cambio operative was starting to close the distance between them at an alarming rate.
What was Sin trying to do? Let himself get caught?
Almost as soon as the thought entered her mind, she realized letting himself be captured was exactly what he was counting on. He’d been trying to lure the man away from them the whole time, willing to give himself up to keep them from being found.
Crazy man. For a notorious terrorist, he had an amazingly self-sacrificial code of honor.
“He’s going to get caught,” Gabe murmured.
“If he does, he’s as good as dead.”
“Not right away,” Gabe disagreed. “Cabrera told his men to bring Solano to him alive.”
Her stomach was starting to ache with dread. “He wants to kill Sinclair himself, doesn’t he?”
“Yep. Not sure why, but Cabrera really hates Solano.”
There was no way they could close the distance between themselves and the El Cambio scout before the man reached Sinclair, especially since Sinclair wasn’t even trying to stay ahead anymore.
But maybe they could set up an ambush once Cabrera’s man had his hands on Sinclair. “We need to split up,” she whispered to Gabe.
He looked at the inexorable cat-and-mouse game playing out ahead, then back at her. “Ambush?” he asked quietly.
“We have to try something.” She looked away from Gabe, her gaze turning back to the darkening patch of woods ahead where Cabrera’s man had closed the distance between himself and Sinclair to less than fifty yards.
Suddenly, seven dark shapes glided out of the trees just behind Cabrera’s scout, closing in on him with a mind-shattering combination of speed and stealth. At the last moment, the scout seemed to realize he was surrounded, and the AR-15 came up with a rattle of gunfire.
The sound stopped almost as soon as it started. One sharp bark of gunfire sent the scout sprawling to the ground.
“Well, son of a bitch,” Gabe growled under his breath. Ava’s gaze whipped up to his face and she saw a slow grin spreading across his face.
“Who are they?” she whispered as he continued smiling.
“Coopers, darling,” Gabe drawled, already moving toward the dark figures gliding through the woods ahead. “Who else?”
Chapter Ten
The sight of Alexander Quinn’s stony face among his dark-clad rescuers should have been a surprise, but over the past eight years, Sinclair had come to expect the unexpected from his former CIA handler. He’d once joked that he could be stuck at the top of Mount Everest and it wouldn’t surprise him to see Quinn in Sherpa gear, climbing to his rescue.
“How’d you find me?” he asked Quinn as the older man left the others to meet him halfway.
“Tagged along with the Coopers.” Quinn glanced back at the others who had surrounded the fallen Cabrera soldier. “Want to catch me up?”
As Sinclair started to open his mouth to answer, he caught sight of Ava moving through the woods toward him, her hazel eyes blazing in the fading light. He turned toward her, bracing himself for her fury.
He was not prepared, however, when she launched herself at him, wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and pressed her face to his chest.
He curled his arms around her, his heart pounding as she tightened her grip on his back and rubbed her nose against his collarbone.
“You stupid idiot!” she growled against his shirt, the sound so muffled he wasn’t sure he’d understood her.
“Nice to see you, too,” he murmured.
She lifted her face away from his shirt, her face glowing with a curious combination of relief and fury. “You were trying to get captured! Have you completely lost your mind? You know Cabrera will kill you on sight.”
“He’d kill you and Gabe, too. I wasn’t going to let that happen.”
“You’re lucky that man didn’t shoot you the minute he spotted you.”
“I didn’t figure he would. Cabrera likes to do his own dirty work when it’s personal.” He smoothed her damp hair away from her pale face. “And what the hell were you doing, following me through the woods like that? If you were in any shape to hike, you should have gone straight back to the motel and called the paramedics for you and Cooper.”
“You’re my prisoner, remember?” The warmth in her voice was as good as a smile to soften her words. In fact, he thought he heard a hint of exasperated affection in her voice.
“You may need to cuff me,” he murmured, deliberately provocative.
Her eyes narrowed slightly before she seemed to realize they weren’t exactly alone in the woods anymore. She looked at Quinn, who was watching them with a bemused expression.
“You don’t look much like the other Coopers,” she said to Quinn.
“That’s because he’s not one.” Sinclair bit back a smile at the way Quinn’s eyebrows arched at Ava’s acerbic tone. “Ava Trent, this is Alexander Quinn, former spook. Quinn, this is Special Agent Ava Trent with the FBI. I’m her prisoner, it seems.”
Quinn’s lips quirked slightly before flattening into a neutral expression. “I see.”
“Former spook?” Ava asked. “Let me guess. Your CIA handler?”
Even Quinn, with all his years of practice at inscrutability, couldn’t hide a flicker of surprise at her words.
Ava’s eyes widened as she looked back at Sinclair. “I was kidding.”
He shrugged and looked back at Quinn.
“We need to get out of these woods,” Quinn said. “Get you all back to civilization and figure out what to do next.”
“No,” Gabe Cooper said firmly from his position near the other Coopers. “We’re not leaving these woods yet. Not until I find my wife.”
* * *
THE CABRERA SCOUT was dead, taken out by one shot from Rick Cooper’s Walther P99. Riley Patterson had been nicked by one of the rounds from the scout’s AR-15, but it had caught more jacket than flesh. A large adhesive bandage easily covered the lightly bleeding scratch to his arm, and to her credit, his green-eyed wife, Hannah, seemed to take his injury in stride, as if she was used to seeing her husband under fire.
Hell, Ava thought, maybe gun battles were a daily thing for the Coopers, given the family’s reputation for attracting danger.
She was still trying to get all the newcomers sorted out in her head. There were cousins and brothers, including Gabe’s twin, Jake, who looked like an unblemished version of Sinclair’s battered brother-in-law. He helped his sister Hannah wrap the body of the dead Cabrera henchman in plastic and stash it in the underbrush, while the others spread out, creating a human perimeter around their present position. In the center of that invisible bubble of protection, Quinn quietly debriefed Sinclair and Ava, catching up with all that had happened since Ava walked into an ambush the day before.
She answered his questions, though part of her chafed at being relegated to a grunt in her own investigation. The man was a civilian, for grief’s sake. What the hell did he think he was doing, taking over command
?
But digging in her heels and trying to assert her command wouldn’t really help anything, she realized with frustration. The truth was, she was injured and out of her element. Alexander Quinn and the Coopers had experience dealing with El Cambio. Even Sinclair was better prepared to deal with the terrorists than she was.
She was no longer running an FBI investigation. They were running for their lives.
“How many operatives left in camp?” Quinn asked quietly.
“The last time we got a good look, there were nine in the camp. Cabrera and eight others. We’ve now dispatched five, so eight is probably the most there could be,” Sinclair answered.
“It’s possible he’s sent out other scouts,” Ava warned.
Quinn gave her a long, considering look. “Your partner has reported you missing. That probably means we’re going to have FBI crawling around these woods sooner or later.”
Sinclair groaned deep in his throat.
“Do you have a working phone?” Ava asked.
Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “You think calling in is going to put the brakes on the FBI?”
“It might, if I can reach Cade Landry.”
Quinn’s lips pressed to a tight line, and for a moment, Ava thought he wasn’t going to hand over his phone. But finally, he pulled out a slim smartphone and tipped it toward her.
She took the phone and checked the signal. Not great, but at least there were a couple of bars. She dialed Cade Landry’s cell number.
He answered on the second ring. “Landry.”
“Landry, it’s Trent.”
Landry muttered a short string of profanity. “Where in God’s name are you, Trent?”
“Following a lead,” she answered vaguely. “My phone was disabled or I’d have called to let you know.”
“There are six agents coming down from Johnson City and Knoxville to look for you.”
“Tell them to wait. I’ve got a peg on where the kidnappers are holed up.” That was the truth, at least. “But I don’t need an army of suits thrashing their way through here and alerting the perps to our presence.”
She thought Landry might argue with her, but to her surprise, he was silent for a moment, then said, “Okay. How much time do you need?”
“A day,” she answered after a moment of thought. Surely a day would be enough time for them to figure out how to get Alicia away from Alberto Cabrera. If it took much longer than a day, she had a sinking feeling that Alicia Cooper would no longer be alive.
“I’ll try to stall them. Tell them I’ve heard from you and you’re safe.” Landry’s voice held a surprising hint of concern. “You are safe, aren’t you?”
“I am,” she assured him. “For the time being, anyway.”
“Where’d you get a phone?” His earlier concern elided into a flicker of suspicion.
“Long story,” she answered.
“You’re not alone, are you?”
“No,” she admitted. “But I’m not being held captive. I’m with friends.”
Landry released another soft curse. “You’re with Coopers, aren’t you? They’re here, you know. Like I warned you.”
“I’m with Coopers,” she admitted. “And they’re good at what they do.”
“I won’t mention that fact to the suits.” Landry sounded resigned.
“Thanks. I’ll check back in a few hours to make sure you’ve been able to keep the suits at bay.”
“Your number is blocked. How can I call you back?”
“You can’t.” She ended the call and handed the phone to Alexander Quinn. “He’s going to try to keep the FBI from coming after us.”
“Will he succeed?” Quinn asked.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “So we’d better figure out what comes next and do it fast.”
“What comes next is rest,” Sinclair said firmly. “You didn’t bring the tent with you, by any chance?”
She looked at Gabe, who was talking to his sister Hannah. “Stashed in the back of Gabe’s shirt.”
“Smart thinking,” Sinclair said with approval as he headed toward Gabe, leaving Quinn and Ava to follow.
“How much has he told you?” Quinn asked quietly.
She glanced at him. “About?”
“His time with El Cambio.”
“He says he was a double agent.”
Quinn didn’t respond.
“Was he?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you have a very adversarial relationship with the truth,” she answered gruffly, quickening her pace to walk ahead of him.
He simply lengthened his stride and caught up. “He risked his life for this country’s interests. For nearly five years. If you believe anything about Sinclair Solano, believe that.”
He said nothing more as they reached the others. Sinclair was helping Gabe pull the tent and Ghillie net from his shirt, while Hannah made soft noises of dismay at the sight of her brother’s battered body.
“Those sons of bitches,” she growled, holding up the hem of his T-shirt for a better look at the darkening bruise over Gabe’s left kidney.
“It’s all surface,” he assured her.
“We need to get you back to the motel and call a doctor,” Hannah disagreed.
“He wouldn’t still be walking around if he were badly injured,” Quinn told her with an air of careless authority that made Hannah bristle.
“I don’t need your opinion,” she shot back.
“I’m not leaving these woods without Alicia,” Gabe said quietly. “Discussion over.”
“We have to assume Cabrera will be expecting to hear back from the man we just took out,” Quinn said, ignoring them both. “So he’ll send more men out here to see what’s going on.”
“He might try to move Alicia, too,” Ava warned. “If he thinks the camp has been compromised.”
“All the more reason to go in there and get her,” Gabe said sharply.
Hannah put her hand on her brother’s arm. “We’re outgunned at the moment. We need to be smart about this.”
“She’s right,” Sinclair said.
Gabe looked at him, a scowl on his dark face. “Oh, good. The dead man chimes in.”
“You have every reason to think badly of me,” Sinclair said with a calm dignity Ava wasn’t sure she could have pulled off in the same situation. “I’m not asking you to like me. But whether you believe me or not, my only concern is bringing Alicia home safely.”
“It’s your fault she’s in this situation,” Gabe growled.
“Keep your voices down,” Ava warned quietly. “Sound carries.”
“She’s right.” Hannah’s fingers curled more tightly around her brother’s arm. “We need to do this the right way.”
“And you know what the right way is?” Gabe asked.
Before anyone could answer, Hannah’s pocket started vibrating. She pulled out her phone, checked the display and answered. “Yeah?”
After listening a moment, she looked from Gabe to Ava, Sinclair and Quinn. “Okay, I’ll tell them.” She ended the call and put her phone back in her pocket.
“Tell us what?” Quinn asked.
“Jesse wants a powwow.”
* * *
“I CAN CALL more Coopers in on this,” Jesse Cooper said without preamble after he and Luke had joined the others inside the perimeter, leaving Jake, Hannah’s husband, Riley, and Jesse’s brother Rick to stand watch.
“We’re at a disadvantage,” Gabe warned. “They’re in a sheltered area. It won’t be easy to sneak up on them.”
“Understood. But we don’t have a lot of options.” Jesse worked while he talked, helping Luke and Hannah set up three lightweight tents. Taking a cue from them, Sinclair set up his own tent as well. “We may need to consider negotiating with them.”
“Cabrera’s not a guy who likes to settle for anything less than what he wants,” Sinclair warned.
“And what he wants is to get his hands on you.” Gabe gave Sinclair a long, con
sidering look.
“No,” Ava said flatly. “That’s not going to happen.”
“You don’t get to make that decision.” Sinclair put his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him.
There was very little moonlight seeping through the occasional breaks in the cloud cover overhead, making it difficult for him to see her expression. But the stubborn jut of her jaw made it clear: she had no intention of supporting his plan to offer himself in a trade for his sister.
She grabbed his arm, her grip strong. “You know it’s not that simple. There’s no guarantee he’ll let her go if he gets his hands on you.”
“We can make a straight-out trade part of the deal,” he insisted. “They don’t get me until she’s safe.”
“He won’t go for that.”
“He might. He wants his revenge, and clearly, he’s taken a hell of a lot of risks to make it happen. Kidnapping a married couple from a motel and hauling them into the mountains isn’t exactly the act of a rational man.”
“The dead man had a radio,” Jesse interrupted, moving closer to where Sinclair and Ava stood. “Maybe we can contact him that way.”
The scudding clouds overhead parted briefly, revealing enough moonlight that Sinclair caught the glare Ava shot Jesse’s way. For a woman who’d spent most of the past two days swearing her only interest was bringing him to justice, she seemed pretty invested in keeping him alive.
If only the situation were different....
But it wasn’t. Nothing that happened in the next day or so would change the mistakes he’d made. They would never pay for the lives he’d harmed, directly and indirectly. He wasn’t going to get a happy ending, and it was time he accepted that fact.
“Why don’t we do this?” Jesse said after a long moment of tense silence. “Let’s get some shut-eye. Sleep on it. We’ll take turns patrolling the perimeter and send out regular scouts to the bluff to make sure Cabrera doesn’t bug out on us.”
“I’ll volunteer,” Sinclair said. “I can show you where the camp is.”
“We’ve already located the camp,” Luke said quietly. “We went looking for it earlier, while we were sweeping the woods. We have the GPS location set in all our phones now.”