by Paula Graves
“I helped terrorists, Ava. It’s close enough.”
“You were duped by them into providing aid. That is not the same thing.”
“People died either way,” he growled.
“So to honor their memory, you’re going to throw yourself on your sword? How does that honor them?” She caught his hand, wouldn’t let go even when he tried to tug his fingers out of hers. “Just think about what I’m saying, okay? We’re going to get your sister back. And we’re going to all get out of here alive. So you’re going to have a future to think about, you hear me? And you’d better start deciding now how you plan to live it.”
He meant to let go of her hand, but when he moved, it was to grasp her fingers more tightly in his. “You be careful, okay? Don’t make me regret agreeing to this plan.”
She rose to her tiptoes and pressed her mouth softly against his. As kisses went, it was quick and almost chaste. But the fire blazing in her hazel eyes when she drew back and looked up at him set off dozens of earthquakes along his nervous system.
“Think about what I said,” she murmured, squeezing his hand briefly before she released him and walked over to where the others in the extraction team were waiting for her.
He watched her go, his heart swelling with an unexpected flourish of something he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.
Hope.
Chapter Fourteen
The eastern side of the hidden cove where Cabrera had made camp was a gently sloping hill rather than a bluff. Accessible by backtracking through the woods and climbing over a rocky incline for a good half mile, the eastern approach was riskier than the bluff that sheltered the cove to the west. But once Ava and the rest of the extraction team saw their chance to make a move, getting into the camp would be a lot easier than trying to scale the side of the bluff without taking fire from the guards.
Communication consisted of cell phones set on vibrate. Less bulky than radios, J.D. Cooper explained, and quieter, as well. Hannah lent her phone to Ava for the extraction. She was to wait until the others engaged with the guards before she went to the central tent, where Cabrera seemed to be keeping Alicia.
First, however, they had to receive confirmation from Jesse that Cabrera was on the move with his entourage.
They spread out along the slope, about twenty yards from the outer perimeter of the camp, and hunkered down to wait for the signal. All five of them were dressed in camouflage well suited to the terrain and the time of year; even though Ava knew where the others were supposed to be, they were nearly impossible to make out against the scrubby mountainside.
Her hip was giving her hell, but she forced herself to remain utterly still. Surprise depended on stealth. She wasn’t going to be the one to blow this extraction, especially not with Alicia’s life on the line. Sinclair and his sister deserved a chance to make peace and, maybe, forge a new bond.
She damned well intended to give them that chance.
The phone in her hand vibrated. Slowly, she looked down at the dimmed display. There was a text message from Jesse Cooper.
Go.
It was the signal. It meant Jesse had eyes on Cabrera and his men, and that Alicia was not with them, as they’d anticipated. Nobody had expected the ruthless terrorist leader to actually keep his word. It’s why they’d planned for an extraction in the first place.
Like wraiths gliding through the woods, J.D., Natalie, Isabel and Ben moved in a semicircle around the camp. Jesse had armed them with high-capacity rifles as well as pistols, since the guards would probably be similarly armed. Ava’s role was to get to Alicia and get her out of the camp, so she made do with the MK2 Sinclair had taken off one of the men who’d ambushed them their first day in the woods.
She heard a shout arise from the other side of the tents. The extraction team had been spotted.
The others no longer bothered with stealth, drawing the guards their way, away from the tents. It was Ava’s signal to move.
She ran toward the central tent, staying low to avoid detection and to stay as clear as she could from any crossfire if the guards began to exchange fire with the rest of the team. Though they were pretty sure Alicia was being kept in the middle tent, she checked the other tents as she went, just to be sure.
When she finally came to the center tent, she paused outside for a second, catching her breath. Adrenaline poured through her, setting her nerves ablaze, but a hint of dread crept into the mix, freezing her in place a few seconds longer than she’d intended.
What if Alicia wasn’t inside the tent? Or worse, what if Cabrera had killed her already?
Gritting her teeth, she pulled open the flap of the tent.
Someone flew at her, slamming into her injured hip and knocking her to the ground. Pain flared through her like a lightning bolt, and for a second, she couldn’t breathe.
Hands and feet pummeled her, then pulled away. As Ava turned toward her attacker, the bundle of fists and boots coalesced into a slim, dark-haired woman sprinting through the open tent flap and disappearing outside.
Ava pushed herself to her feet and took chase.
* * *
“HE DOESN’T HAVE Alicia with him,” Jesse warned as he returned to where Sinclair stood near the shelter of a tall maple tree that was already beginning to change color, its leaves taking on the first hints of future autumn splendor. “We knew that would probably be the case.”
Sinclair nodded, but the knot in his gut tightened another notch. Now he had to face an almost certain firefight while his mind and heart were firmly in Cabrera’s camp, where his sister and Ava were in mortal danger.
“Your sister isn’t alone, you know.” Luke Cooper stood a few feet away, his gaze directed toward the woods. Cabrera and his men hadn’t come close enough for a visual yet, but Sinclair could feel them out there. Ruthless. Relentless. Driven by rage at what El Cambio saw as a betrayal of the worst kind.
“I know.” His voice came out low and strangled.
Luke spared him a quick glance. “What made you change your mind about El Cambio, anyway?”
“Seeing them in action,” he answered bluntly. “Realizing just what I had signed on for.”
“Rebellions always look better on paper,” Luke murmured before he once again fell silent and watchful.
“Tangos five o’clock,” Jesse murmured.
Even as his gaze swept northwest in search of whatever Jesse had seen, it took a moment for Sinclair to remember that tango was military slang for terrorist. Half the Coopers had done time in the military, if memory served.
He spotted the first of Cabrera’s crew moving slowly through the woods toward them. It was impossible to recognize anyone from such a distance, so he didn’t worry himself with who Cabrera might have on his advance team. Cabrera was the one to worry about.
Three other camouflage-clad men came into view before Sinclair spotted the compact, muscular man bringing up the rear. Sinclair’s gaze locked on the last man, certain to his bones that he was watching Alberto Cabrera. The man had a cocksure walk, a powerful, charismatic presence that drew the eye to him automatically.
“Cabrera,” Luke Cooper murmured.
“There are only four men with him,” Jesse said in a hard tone. “There were five earlier.”
Sinclair’s gaze slid away from Cabrera, counting the other men in sight. Jesse was right. Four men.
“Either he sent someone around to flank us,” Luke murmured, “or he sent someone back to the camp.”
Jesse pulled out his phone and typed something quickly while dividing his attention between the approaching men and the phone. He slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Sent an alert to the extraction team.” He motioned for Rick and Jake to peel off behind them, in case Cabrera was circling someone around to surprise them from the rear.
Sinclair wasn’t worried about their rear flank—he had seen enough of the Coopers in action to feel safe that they could handle anything Cabrera threw their way.
It was the unknown, volati
le situation back in Cabrera’s camp that had his heart climbing into his throat.
* * *
ALICIA COOPER WAS faster than Ava would have thought, fleeing through the thick underbrush with remarkable speed and agility. Ava’s injured hip shrieked in protest as she kicked her speed up a notch and set out after the woman she was supposed to be saving.
Suddenly, a flurry of movement in the bushes not far from Alicia sent Ava’s heart rate spiking. A man in camouflage swung through the tangle of mountain laurel bushes blocking his way, his rifle barrel rising.
She had little time to aim, but Ava brought up the MK2 and fired a shot toward the man with the rifle. The man dived into the underbrush, swinging his rifle toward Ava.
Ava spared a last look at Alicia, who was zigzagging through the woods away from her and the gunman, before she started shooting and running away from camp in a desperate gamble that she could lure the gunman after her rather than Alicia.
The gamble worked. As soon as she put a little distance between her and the man in camouflage, he came crashing through the underbrush after her, Alicia forgotten, at least temporarily.
She kept moving, flitting between trees to keep cover between her and the man with the rifle, but a few shots zinged entirely too close to her for comfort. Worse, the trees were starting to thin out a bit as the ground began to rise upward, healthy evergreens displaced by dead and dying trees suffering from blight.
As she scanned the woods ahead for her best options, she heard a loud buzz right by her ear. Pulling back, she saw the culprit—a honeybee flitting around her head. A moment later, she saw two more, wheeling and circling near a large hive hanging from a low branch of a nearby hardwood tree.
Hunching her head down, she hurried past the beehive and ducked behind the broad trunk of a moribund Fraser fir several yards up the trail. Breathing hard, she dared a glance back toward her pursuer.
He was thirty yards back but moving quickly. She was losing ground, and her brief slowdown when she encountered the bees hadn’t helped.
She aimed her MK2 at the El Cambio rebel coming up the hill toward her. “Halt and surrender,” she called out in Spanish.
Her answer was a quick trio of shots from the man’s rifle, kicking up splinters from the tree offering her cover.
She was never going to be able to outgun him, she realized with a sinking heart. And even if he emptied the rifle, he almost certainly had plenty of extra ammunition on him. She, on the other hand, had only what remained in the magazine and chamber of the MK2. She needed backup, but she’d left the others behind in the camp, dealing with the two guards who’d been watching Alicia.
Her gaze darted back to the beehive again, an idea forming. Lifting the MK2, she waited, her heart in her throat, for the man to slip behind the tree where the hive hung. As she’d expected, he kept close to the trees, using them for cover just as she had. But she didn’t need to hit the terrorist.
She just needed to hit the beehive.
The distance wasn’t optimal, but the hive was large and its bee-covered profile easy to pick out in the woods. The second the terrorist darted behind the tree holding the hive, she fired the MK2. It bucked in her hand, and for a moment she thought she’d missed.
Then the beehive fell from the tree and hit the ground, splitting open and spilling a cloud of angry honeybees into the air.
She heard the man behind her reel off a rapid-fire stream of profanity in Spanish. Peering out from behind the Fraser fir, she saw the man in camouflage running away, beating his arms around his head and shoulders. Squinting, she could just make out dozens of dark spots flitting around his head, hovering and diving.
Within minutes, he was out of sight, retreating back toward the camp, beating bees off him as he ran. Ava stayed where she was a few minutes longer, just in case he thought about doubling back, then started picking her way through the woods, steering clear of the area near the broken beehive as she tried to regain her bearings.
She’d been running east most of the way, so west would take her back to the cove. South would take her in the direction Alicia Cooper had been running. As she started heading that way, a vibration against her hip sent a jolt through her nervous system before she remembered Hannah’s phone tucked in her pocket.
She pulled it out and saw a text message from J.D. Cooper.
Location and status?
She punched in an answer and hit Send. A second later, a message popped up, informing of a message send failure.
“Damned mountains.” Shoving the phone in her pocket, she kept moving south.
* * *
CABRERA STOPPED FIFTY yards away, barking a command to halt to his four companions. “Be a man, Solano!” he called. “Face me alone.”
Sinclair looked at Jesse. “Any news from the camp?” he asked softly.
Jesse shook his head. “Not yet.”
“When my sister is safe, I’ll meet you anytime, anywhere,” he called back. “Those are my terms.”
The faint crackle of a radio signal carried across the space between them. One of the men pulled out a radio and spoke rapidly into the receiver. A moment later, the man crossed to Cabrera’s side and spoke softly into his ear. Sinclair wondered if they were getting word of the attack on the camp.
Was Alicia safe? Had the extraction worked?
Why hadn’t anyone called in yet?
“You’re a liar,” Cabrera called out. “You will pay for your deception.”
Before they could move, Cabrera and his four soldiers turned and started running away, toward the camp.
“Son of a bitch!” Sinclair started after them.
Luke Cooper grabbed his arm, stopping him after a few steps. “We just got the signal. Everybody’s clear of the camp. J.D. and the others have Alicia. She’s safe.”
Sinclair’s knees trembled beneath him. He held on to Luke’s arm to keep from falling. “Are you sure?”
“Just got the confirmation signal from Isabel,” Jesse said, crossing to where Luke and Sinclair stood. Jake joined the cluster as well, though Rick, Sinclair noted, remained vigilant, watching the woods where Cabrera and his men had disappeared.
“What about Ava?” Sinclair asked.
“She hasn’t signaled in yet, but they definitely said they had Alicia, and it was Ava’s job to get her out of there, so—” Jake paused at the sight of Sinclair’s scowl. “I’ll see if I can reach her on the phone.”
“Thanks.”
“We need to bring in the FBI now. Let them round up Cabrera and his men,” Luke said. “We came for Alicia. No point in putting ourselves at further risk when the Feds can handle it from here.”
“Agreed.” Jesse frowned at the phone.
“What’s wrong?” Sinclair asked, watching Jesse with growing dread.
“She’s not answering any texts,” he answered. He pushed a few more buttons. Seconds later, his phone vibrated. “J.D. says she didn’t check in when they sent a request for a status update.”
“Damn it!” Sinclair scraped his fingers through his hair, adrenaline building inside him until he felt as if he were about to explode. “This thing isn’t over until we find Ava.”
“Cell coverage is spotty in the mountains,” Luke said, his reasonable tone doing nothing to quell Sinclair’s anxiety.
“I’m going to find her.” Sinclair started hiking south, toward the area where the extraction team had made their approach.
“Cabrera will kill you if he finds you,” Jesse warned.
Sinclair stopped and looked back at the Cooper Security CEO. “Not if I find him first.”
“I’ll come with you,” Luke said, starting after him.
Sinclair turned and put his hand up. “Rendezvous with the others as planned. Get Alicia out of here safely. I’ll find Ava and we’ll meet up with you as soon as possible.”
Luke held out his cell phone. “At least take this.”
Sinclair took the phone. “Thanks.”
“Call if you need us.”
Luke looked as if he wanted to say more, but Sinclair didn’t give him the chance. Picking up speed, he headed deeper into the woods, his pulse pounding in his head.
He should never have let Ava be part of this plan. He should have taken her straight back to the motel that first day, his own safety be damned.
He just hoped she wasn’t about to pay for his mistakes.
* * *
SHE WAS LOST. Utterly, hopelessly lost.
Ava faltered to a stop by a fallen maple tree and sat on the crusty trunk, wiping perspiration out of her eyes and wishing she’d brought a bottle of water with her. But she and the rest of the extraction team had agreed to travel light in order to move with the most speed and stealth.
Great idea, until someone gets lost.
The sun had been approaching its zenith when dark clouds blew in from the west and covered it. Impossible to know for sure, without the position of the sun to guide her, if she was even still heading south.
She rather doubted it, since she’d been hiking for what felt like nearly an hour without coming across the rendezvous site they’d agreed on. Worse, she was getting no cell coverage now, not even a single bar, and the GPS program utterly refused to cooperate in giving her some sense of her bearings.
Maybe she should just stay put. Wasn’t that what the experts said to do when you got lost in the woods? Stay put and let people find you.
The Coopers would wonder why she hadn’t phoned in. They’d come looking for her. All she had to do was wait.
Except there were more people in these woods than Coopers. What if they hadn’t been able to round up Cabrera and his men? What if he was still here somewhere in the woods, looking for his now-missing prisoner and the people who had stolen her from him?
He might consider an FBI agent a pretty good substitute. A hostage, at least, to get him out of these woods and on his way to the safety of Sanselmo’s deep, green jungle.