by Wolf (lit)
It was almost dark before he returned, but he wasn’t running and there weren’t soldiers on his heels, so Sylvie relaxed. He’d taken a small, furnished apartment for a month.
Sylvie brightened immediately. “We’re going to be here a month?”
All four men looked at her and exchanged a glance. Mac shrugged. “Don’t know yet. We’ll see.”
It didn’t sound to her as if they actually meant to stay a month and she wondered if it was something to throw off the hunters, or throw off suspicion of the locals. It was possible, she decided. Half of what Mac did was a conscious effort to deceive and confuse. She wondered if he was always like that—as in it was an integral part of his personality—or if it was just the training and the current situation.
Hawk, Cavanaugh, and Beau had absolute faith in him, though. Obviously, they had reason to and that seemed to indicate that he was totally reliable.
Did that extend to others, though? Did it mean she could trust that he wouldn’t deceive her? Or that she should expect him to?
She shook the thoughts off. He hadn’t failed her even once in some of the most hair-raising situations imaginable. She trusted him—completely.
* * * *
Sylvie managed to focus her worry on everything that was happening around her for the first several days after she’d settled in the small apartment with Beau. As soon as she began to get comfortable, though, her entire focus shifted to the mound her belly had become. She tried all of the easy excuses first, telling herself she was just putting on weight, that she was getting out of shape, and that the period she’d missed was going to start any day.
She didn’t believe any of it because none of it was the least bit logical. She should be in the best shape she’d ever been in her life. She’d hiked miles and miles, hardly eaten anything but protein in all that time. She wasn’t getting fat anywhere except in her stomach. In fact, she looked amazingly toned everywhere else.
And her belly wasn’t just swollen. She couldn’t convince herself of that—at least not that it was ‘normal’.
She didn’t want to tell the guys, but she was unnerved enough she thought she needed to see a doctor if they had the money.
Beau reacted pretty much the same way Remy had—concerned and wary. “You tink you’re comin’ down wid somethin’, chère?”
“No—at least. I don’t really feel sick. Tired, yes. I’ve actually been a little nauseated a few times, but that could be the heat and ….” She didn’t tell him she’d eat roast pig until she felt like puking just to look at one. She knew they’d been doing their best under the circumstances and she didn’t want to make them feel bad about it. “My breasts feel tender and my belly’s a little swollen. I thought I should probably get checked out. That’s all.”
Beau nodded, but she could see he looked distinctly uneasy. “I’ll talk to Mac about it. We’ll be in the states before much longer. There are better doctors there.”
Maybe she’d downplayed the situation too much, she thought in frustration?
Or maybe they didn’t have the money for a doctor?
They couldn’t have had any money at all when they’d escaped. She didn’t know where they’d gotten the money to pay for the things they’d bought and she didn’t really want to know. She also didn’t want to ask, because if she convinced them she needed a doctor and they didn’t have the money, then they would have to take it from somebody. “Never mind,” she said finally. “I’ll just wait until I get home and get an appointment.”
As much as it worried her, she reasoned, it couldn’t be anything too bad or she’d have more than a little tenderness and swelling, right?
She managed to convince herself of that for a while, but it seemed to her that every time she actually looked at her stomach it was bigger. It wasn’t her eyes that convinced her that she wasn’t just imagining it. It was the fit of her clothes. Either the damned things shrank every time they were washed or she was rapidly growing out of them.
* * * *
As nerve wracking as it was to stay in one place as long as they had to, Mac knew that they had to get the operation right the first time. They weren’t going to get a second chance—not here. If they screwed up, they were going to have to move and move fast. Stirring up a drug lord and then hanging around his territory was never a good idea.
It took weeks of recon to learn the operation and figure out their habits. It wasn’t like an ordinary business that took routine deliveries and sent out shipments with clockwork regularity. Partly that was by design, he knew. Being too predictable in such a business was just asking for the authorities to take them out. It was also because moving the sort of merchandize they did couldn’t be relied upon on either end. There were frequent and unavoidable delays.
The drug end of the business was a little more reliable, however, and that was the part they had to focus on—shipments going to the US, not coming from it. A boat was brought in within a week of the time they began to watch and a crew put on it to begin stripping it down.
Mac earmarked it. He figured they would very likely be sending out a shipment as soon as they got transport ready. Assigning Cavanaugh the task of keeping track of the progress, he and Hawk followed the money and watched the ‘product’. It was no part of his plan to take off in a boat loaded with drugs, but they were going to need money for new identities when they got to the states and money to live on until they managed to get work. They were also going to need money to provide a place for Sylvie to live and medical care.
He didn’t waste any time considering taking up residence where she’d lived before. He wasn’t raising his pups in a damned city. He didn’t think he could handle it himself—not now. Maybe in the past before he’d changed, but now he needed room to breathe.
He didn’t doubt the pack would completely agree with him on that. The trick was going to be convincing Sylvie. She’d done well. He was proud of her. She was a hell of a woman—but she had city girl written all over her. He supposed, if he couldn’t convince her to take up country life he was going to have to figure out a compromise, but he figured that could be settled later. What couldn’t be was where they settled when they hit the states.
He figured she was a good two months along by now. He wasn’t sure how long it was going to be before she delivered, but they couldn’t be hauling her around while she was pregnant. They needed to find a place that met their needs as quickly as possible and any place anywhere near where she’d lived before was just too dangerous—for all of them.
The Feds would’ve long since figured out who that boat belonged to and tracked it back to her. They were going to have someone keeping an eye on the place, waiting for her to return.
He sure as fuck wasn’t going to risk her falling into their hands. It didn’t bear thinking on what they might do to her, to say nothing about the pups. Aborting them would probably be the least god awful possibility.
And, just as they couldn’t afford to go anywhere near Sylvie’s old life, they couldn’t go near their own. None of the assets they’d had, even if, cumulatively, it added up to a goodly sum, mattered. They couldn’t touch it.
He doubted the government had seized it yet. They were probably hopeful that they were stupid enough, or desperate enough, to make a try for it.
He wasn’t going for the carrot. They could choke on it. He was going to bankroll his new life with ‘dirty drug money’. He wasn’t especially happy about it—but he sure as hell wasn’t promoting it—and he figured if the US government didn’t mind spending drug money there was no reason why he should—especially when said government owed him and the others big time.
It took them almost two weeks to figure out the money trail. By that time, the ship had already been completely remodeled and they’d begun stuffing it with drugs. It chafed Mac, but he contained his impatience. They were going to have to coordinate the operation just so or endanger Sylvie and he wasn’t taking any chances with her.
They followed the first courier f
rom the airport to the warehouse where the drug lord conducted his business and from there to the airstrip they used to ferry it to a bank in the Caymans. It took almost another week of watching, waiting, and listening before they had the information they needed to intercept the next courier.
The boat Mac had earmarked sailed. He nearly lost it, then. His nerves, he thought furiously, just weren’t what they used to be. Time was when he never lost his cool.
That was before Sylvie, of course. It had been a hell of a lot easier to keep his cool when he wasn’t worried about anyone but himself and the men under his command. He didn’t get too worked up about the mission. He wanted to succeed, but he was more interested in surviving it.
Fortunately for his fraying nerves, the pirates had seized another vessel in the meantime. He settled to calculating how long it would take the pirates to revamp it and how that would coordinate with the arrival of the courier with their money. One man, he figured, could handle the pick up. The courier was usually under observation of a couple of the Araña’s men when he exited the plane, and he was picked up in front of the terminal by a van with another three or four inside. He was due to arrive in the evening, however, and that would give them the edge they needed.
The boat was another problem. At the very least, it was going to take three of them to tackle that problem and he feared that might be stretching it. Not that he entertained much doubt that they could take out the dozen or so armed guards and workers, but he doubted they could manage it quietly, and they couldn’t afford to stir up too much noise or reinforcements might arrive before they could get out of the harbor.
There was no hope for it, he decided grimly. They were going to have to move Sylvie close enough to the action to make sure they could get her aboard quickly. He didn’t like it worth a fuck, but they were running out of time and options.
Chapter Sixteen
Hawk’s blood was still revving as he waited for the courier to arrive. He’d lucked out with one of the guards. The man had decided to duck into the men’s room to take a leak while he was waiting for the plane carrying the courier to disgorge it’s passengers on the tarmac. He’d followed him in, broken his neck and stuffed him into a broom closet.
It wasn’t his first choice for a hiding place for a body, but he figured most of the cleaning crew was already gone for the night.
He hoped so. He was going to be pissed off if all hell broke loose before he had the chance to dispose of the other two.
He dismissed that anxiety as the passengers began lining up to come through customs, abandoning the pose of bored indifference he’d adopted when he’d taken up a position to watch for the man. Scanning them in an effort to identify which was most likely the courier, he’d studied and discarded almost a quarter of the passengers when he caught a whiff of fear. Following his nose, he spied a customs agent who was examining the case of a man that looked American. Possibly high Spanish, he decided.
A surge of adrenaline when through him when he saw the passenger slip the customs agent an envelope.
The bribe. Must be his man.
Flicking a casual glance around the terminal, he spotted the guard—who was looking around the terminal instead of at his mark.
Not a good sign. Either he’d pegged the wrong man as the courier or the bastard had noticed his partner was missing. Hawk relaxed fractionally when he saw the mixture of anger and uneasiness flicker in the man’s eyes. When he turned and looked straight at the man Hawk had marked, triumph flickered through him. Gotcha, he thought.
Dismissing the guard for the moment, he stepped away from the column he’d been propping on and walked briskly toward the courier, pasting a broad grin on his face as he neared him. The man sent him a startled look. “Frank! Long time no see!” he exclaimed in Spanish. “Where’ve you been hiding yourself?”
A mixture of doubt, fear, and wariness entered the man’s eyes, but Hawk had clamped an arm firmly around his shoulders before he could try to evade him. “One wrong move and you’re a dead man,” he growled under his breath.
Barely breaking stride, he walked the man toward the men’s room, listening intently for his watchdog. Within a few moments, he heard the man fall into step behind them. He knew the sound of the man’s tread, knew by his brisk walk and the scent of fear and fury wafting to him that the guard was going to catch up to them before they’d gotten inside.
He walked a little faster. The courier stumbled but he’d been expecting him to try something of the sort to break his hold. His hand tightened almost before the man’s weight shifted. The moment they entered the men’s room, he gave his mark a shove that sent him barreling toward the far wall. Twisting around immediately, he caught the gun the man behind him had just drawn, yanking him by his grip on it into the bathroom and slinging him around in a tight circle that broke his wrist. The gun hit the floor with a clatter. The man managed to get out a half a scream before Hawk planted his fist in his face hard enough to knock out three of his teeth.
Before he hit the floor, Hawk leapt toward the courier again. The courier, he discovered, had managed to get his feet under him, but his position—half way to his feet and bent over—was a decided advantage for Hawk. Hawk merely kicked him in the ass. The blow was enough to drive the man’s head into the wall. He cracked the plaster when he struck, but he was unconscious before he could utter a cry of pain.
Grabbing the case the man had been carrying, Hawk opened it to check the contents. Relief flooded him when he saw the stacks of cash—American cash. It would’ve been a hell of thing if he’d got the wrong men, he thought wryly!
Removing the empty canvas bag he’d brought from beneath his shirt, he dumped the contents into it, dropped the empty case, zipped the bag and strolled out of the men’s room. He walked right past the black van waiting for the pickup and climbed into a waiting taxi, giving him the address of the apartment they’d rented.
Settling back, he watched a policía vehicle turn in to the parking lot with its lights flashing and feigned a look of surprise and curiosity for the agitated driver. He was pleased with himself. He could almost have done that when he was still human! Of course the enhanced perceptions had helped a good bit, he thought, but mostly in substantiating his suspicions by helping him ferret out the ‘smell’ of guilt. He’d already pegged the right man as the courier and of course he’d spotted the drug goons before he’d even gone in the airport and knew them on sight.
* * * *
Sylvie didn’t think she would’ve been quite as anxious if she hadn’t been left alone to wait. It was so unlike the guys to leave her completely alone that she knew that whatever they were up to had to be something big—and that translated to dangerous.
Beau hadn’t said anything but that they were leaving and to pack one bag. He’d waited until dark to leave with their bags. Drawing her close to kiss her before he’d left, he’d held her afterwards just long enough to stir uneasiness inside her and then had told her that Hawk would be by to pick her up in a ‘little while’.
That had been a couple of hours earlier, though, and she’d begun to be uneasy even before he’d left. Nervous energy had been building inside of her ever since, completely ousting the little bit of gladness she’d felt at the announcement that they were going to be heading for the US when they moved out.
She’d had mixed feelings even about that. She’d become increasingly anxious to see a doctor and yet she didn’t know what to expect when they got home. Would the military police be waiting for her or agents from some other government organization?
They would if they’d managed to track her stepfather’s yacht down. Her stepfather had always been pleasant to her, had even kept in touch after her mother had died and, of course, had allowed her to take the yacht out when it had never actually had it’s maiden voyage. She didn’t even know why he’d kept it afterwards ….
In any event, she couldn’t imagine him refusing to tell the authorities that she’d been the one with the boat and she was pre
tty sure they’d want to question her if nothing else. She felt damned uneasy about it considering the way they’d pursued Mac and the others. Could she expect them to respect her rights? Or to use similar strong-arm tactics? She decided she was uneasy enough about it that she wasn’t really all that anxious to find out.
She didn’t know what she was going to do, but she thought she should approach the situation cautiously, not just head for home like a homing pigeon.
Beau had told her before that he was taking her home, but even at the time he’d seemed to indicate home ‘in general’ not her home specifically. She hadn’t really known what to think when he’d said ‘our’ home. It had made her imagination run wild, but her feet hadn’t entirely left the ground. She’d hoped he meant something really significant by it, but she didn’t really believe he did and she hadn’t wanted to pursue it because she’d been afraid he’d remove all doubt and she would be unhappy about it.
There’d been a hint that had her hopeful. However unlikely, she didn’t want to lose that.
She finally reached a point of nearly explosive nerves and got up to pace, checking the little apartment again to see if there was anything she didn’t want to leave or shouldn’t leave. The sound of a car stopping outside set her nerves to jangling and made her heart pound uncomfortably. Even though they generally walked everywhere they went, she rushed to the window to peer out. Hawk was leaning in at the cab window.
She was fairly dancing when he came in. She rushed to him before he could even get the door closed behind him. To her delight, he immediately swept her into a tight embrace. She went up on her toes to hug him back with enthusiasm. “I’ve missed you! I’ve been so worried!”
He kissed her. It was more than reassurance. She felt it as a confirmation that he’d missed her, too. He drew away more quickly than she’d expected. “We need to get out of here.”