SPY IN THE SADDLE

by Dana Marton

  Ryder was running from the back, overhearing that last bit. “That sounds like the best plan of action. How fast can they get here?”

  “Couple of hours.”

  Shep handed her the cell phone, and she dialed while he shot Ryder a questioning look. It wasn’t like their team leader to let the bureau swoop in and take over without a fight.

  “We have terrorists to catch on the border.” He scanned the roll of paper. “In there?”

  Shep nodded. “Looks like it.”

  Ryder grabbed the metal detector and checked again, then jumped up to the back of the truck and scanned the rest of the rolls. Every single one of them beeped.

  The rest of the team was coming from the factory by the time he came back out.

  Jamie spoke first. “What do we have here?”

  “Probably enough chemical weapons to take out Capitol Hill,” Shep told him. “The FBI will transport them to their lab safely. We’ll take the truck to our meeting with the tangos.” So they wouldn’t suspect that anything had gone wrong. The van had plenty of room in the back for a couple of surprises—his whole team and some serious weaponry.

  Ryder gestured toward Jamie with his head. “You’ll drive the truck back. The rest of us will wait here for the FBI then catch up to you with the choppers.”

  Jamie nodded and moved toward the forklift. “Let’s get these rolls unloaded.”

  While he did that, Shep took the metal detector and scanned all the rolls remaining on the loading dock to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. But the metal detector didn’t go off again.

  Jamie left with the truck, and the rest of the team went back inside the factory to finish their search of the floor and offices, hoping to find some information on the terrorists. They didn’t. So they looked again. And again.

  He went to the basement with Lilly.

  She stopped as they reached the bottom of the stairs. “Thanks for having my back today. I mean it.” She smiled. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about. We’re good together and I’m in—”

  “You’re in a difficult position. I know. You’re supposed to evaluate us and we had this...thing,” he said rapidly, afraid that she might go in another direction.

  She could have been killed today. He couldn’t handle the thought. He could have been killed, too. They’d make a terrible couple. Neither of them would have a worry-free moment. This was not the life he wanted for her.

  “Anyway. You do the job you were sent here to do. We made a mistake. We won’t make it again. It’s no big deal. Just forget it, all right?”

  The smile slid off her face. A stricken look came into her eyes, but she blinked it away as she turned from him, her shoulders stiff. “Forgotten already. I’ll go left.” She started out with hurried strides. “You go right. Call out if you find anything.”

  But neither of them did.

  Hours passed before the FBI’s special truck arrived.

  Ryder let them take over at that point and ordered his team onto the choppers.

  Shep ran with the others, glanced back, slowed when he saw Lilly still standing by the FBI truck, talking with the agents who’d come with it. He waited for her to turn. He wanted at least to give her a last wave.

  But she didn’t look his way.

  “Shep?” Ryder called for him.

  “Coming.” He didn’t know what he would say to her, even if he could run back. And he couldn’t. They both had jobs to do.

  He ducked his head to avoid the spinning rotors and pulled himself into the chopper, hung on as the bird lifted and banked sharply to the left.

  He watched as she finally lifted her head, pausing in the conversation to look after him.

  Her job with his team was done. She’d be going straight to D.C. with the truck. He wasn’t going to see her again, which was for the best.

  But the thought squeezed his heart, sending a pang of pain deep into his chest.

  * * *

  NIGHT HAD FALLEN and the borderlands were deserted, the Rio Grande a dark ribbon, snaking in the distance. Keith drove the paper-factory truck, Shep and Jamie in the back. The other three men on the team had taken the three best strategic high points around Galmer’s Gulley.

  When the SDDU’s Texas headquarters had first been established, a dozen men had been assigned to the task. Six came to their trailer office, and another six had been sent to South America to trace why and from where the terrorists were coming.

  They weren’t Middle Eastern as first assumed. They were part of the South American drug cartels. They’d come in response to the U.S. shift in drug control toward stricter measures. The cartels had bought many politicians in their own countries. Those who couldn’t be bought they killed. And now they decided to put U.S. lawmakers in their crosshairs, apparently.

  Most likely, the attack was to be the first in a campaign of intimidation. The threat had to be tracked to the source. Except everything had turned out to be more complicated and dangerous than anticipated, so the rest of the team was still stuck in South America.

  The Texas half had to handle tonight on their own. And they would, if Shep had anything to do with it. They’d been here way too long, preparing for this moment.

  Small holes had been drilled into the side of the truck and in the doors in the back so he and Jamie could see out. The team members were all in radio contact with each other.

  Keith drove to the exact coordinates Yo Tee had finally given up to the FBI just half an hour ago. Nothing like leaving things to the last possible moment.

  Keith pulled the truck into a spot where the elevation and some mesquite would keep it out of sight as much as possible. Someone who smuggled the kind of load he was supposed to be carrying wouldn’t stay out in the open advertising it to every border agent who happened by.

  Then they waited.

  And waited.

  Long minutes ticked by before Mo said, “Movement at the north end of the gulley,” over the radio. “I see two.”

  “Two more a little lower,” Ryder added.

  “Another two on my side.” That came from Ray.

  Okay, all six were here now. Yo Tee had confessed to transporting six, more than the original intel had indicated, but the team could definitely handle this many.

  But then Mo said, “Wait. I got more movement. Two more. I have four here altogether.”

  And as Shep watched the moonlit landscape, he noticed more movement. “And four more coming in the back way.”

  Either Yo Tee had lied or the terrorists had come in two groups and never told him about the second just to be on the safe side.

  Jamie swore quietly next to him.

  “Twelve. Everybody got that? Anybody seeing more?” Ryder was asking, but nobody responded. “We have a full dozen, then,” he finished after a minute.

  They were outnumbered two to one.

  “What kind of weapons?” Shep asked. The men he was watching approached on foot and kept to the shadows and indentations of the land, making it difficult to see what they were carrying.

  “Semiautomatics,” Keith said from up front. Apparently, he had a better angle.

  “Ah, hell,” Ray swore. “One of mine has a grenade launcher. He’s staying behind while the others are moving forward.”

  “Must be their plan B,” Jamie said next to Shep.

  Shep gripped his weapon tighter. A grenade launcher could take out the truck and everyone in it. Their bulletproof vests wouldn’t be able to help a damn.

  “Coming my way,” Ray whispered.

  Made sense. The guy with the grenade launcher would want the high point, too.

  “Take him out quietly,” Ryder ordered.

  “I can see five now on my side,” Shep told Jamie.

  “I see three on mine. They al
l stopped.”

  “Do I get out?” Keith asked.

  “Stay in the cab,” Ryder told him. “Let them initiate.”

  The men started walking again. Three went up to the cab, five to the back. The one with the grenade launcher was climbing to Ray’s high point, so that left three more out there somewhere, watching from out of sight.

  Shep could hear the truck’s door open, Keith’s boots slapping to the ground as he got out.

  He greeted them in Spanish. “Everything’s okay. You take this truck, I have a ride waiting to take me back across the border.” His grandfather had been Mexican. He had enough of the blood in him to pass for a Mexican driver, especially in the dark.

  “Open the back first. Let’s see.” One of the men barked the words at him.

  Shep and Jamie braced themselves for action. They had a Kevlar shield set up in front of them to duck behind, stretching the width of the truck and three feet high. As they held their weapons ready, sounds of a scuffle came over the radio.

  Then Ray said, “Got him.”

  Okay. The grenade launcher was out of the equation.

  And not a minute too soon, since the next second the lock turned and the double back doors of the van swung open to the night.

  Keith was smart enough to lunge to the left, tuck and roll and disappear behind the cover of some rocks as everyone opened fire and all hell broke loose.

  A bullet grazed Shep’s ear. He ducked behind the barricade then up again to squeeze off another round of shots.

  Two men fell. Jamie was knocked back when a bullet hit his shoulder.

  Shep charged forward, vaulting over the barricade to take the heat off him.

  Keith stopped shooting from the side to avoid accidentally hitting his teammates.

  Three of the enemy were still standing, the rest badly injured or dead. Shep shot another one as he landed, then pivoted to the left to shoot after one who’d decided to flee.

  He caught sight of Keith on the ground, holding both hands over his neck, blood gushing through his fingers.

  Shep rushed toward him, firing into the night, providing him with cover. There were plenty of shots coming out of the darkness. He felt a bullet rip into his thigh just as he reached Keith, jarring him, knocking him sideways. He flattened himself to the ground next to Keith.

  Then Jamie was there, laying down cover.

  More shots in the distance. Probably Mo and Ray coming in. There couldn’t have been more than a man or two left of the tangos, but the gunfight still went on.

  Shep saw movement behind some brush, caught a glimpse of a face he didn’t recognize. He shot the bastard without thinking.

  And that was the last one. No more bullets came after that.

  “You always want them all to yourself. One of these days you’re going to have to learn how to share,” Jamie groused next to him.

  “Watch for more.” He bit out the words as he kneeled next to Keith and grabbed his radio unit. “Man down. We need a chopper ASAP.”

  “Who is it?” Ryder asked.

  “Keith. What’s going on at your end?”

  “I got one. Running up. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Got two,” Mo said. “How bad is Keith?”

  “Pretty bad.”

  “Sounds like we have our twelve,” Jamie remarked, but kept alert, still scanning their surroundings.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lilly sat alone in her home office in D.C. as she finished her report and saved it on her laptop. She’d made her official recommendation. The SDDU’s Texas team had to stay where they were. She made it clear that in her opinion, their presence was a matter of national security.

  The op had been a complete success, and all the loose ends had been tied up in the two weeks since. The chemical weapons had been destroyed, the surviving terrorists interrogated.

  She hadn’t gone back to Pebble Creek. She had the hotel mail her things to D.C. She figured she’d caused enough grief in Shep’s life already. He’d made it clear that he didn’t want anything to do with her. He didn’t need her hanging around with her confused and conflicted feelings. So she’d given him a clean break.

  But when her phone rang, just as she shut her computer down, and his name came up on the display screen, her heart thrilled.

  “I’d like to take you to dinner,” he said without preamble.

  His voice filled her with longing, but she tried to keep things light. “Next time I’m in town?”

  “Actually, I’m in D.C. I could pick you up tonight. Or when you’re free.”

  “Tonight is good,” she said, suddenly breathless.

  “Address?”

  She smiled at that. “You didn’t run a full background check on me? I’d have thought you would have all my personal details.” His team had access to databases that were better than the FBI’s.

  “That would have been stalking. This is...”

  Part of her hoped he would finish with a date.

  But he said something so much better. “This is a man asking the woman he loves to have dinner with him.”

  Now, could anyone have said no to that? Not likely. Her heart was melting on the spot. Yet she wasn’t sure what to stay in response, the words stuck inside her chest. At the end, she simply gave him her address.

  “When can I pick you up?”

  She ran her fingers through her hair. “Half an hour?” Best if she didn’t have too much time to obsess.

  “I’ll be there.”

  She showered and dressed, brushed some makeup on with nervous fingers. She’d barely finished with her hair when the doorbell rang.

  She lived in a secure condo building, so she pushed the button to let him in downstairs, then waited for him at her door.

  “Hey.” His voice was even better in person than over the phone.

  God, she’d missed him. For the longest time, all she wanted was to be an independent woman. She wanted to be someone who could take care of herself, someone who didn’t need anyone. It was a hell of a thing to realize now that she needed Shep.

  She swallowed. “Hey.”

  He pulled a bouquet of lilies from behind his back with the hottest smile she’d ever seen.

  Lilies were her favorite, her namesake flower. When she was a little girl, being named after a flower made her feel special. She liked to be associated with something beautiful when her life was anything but. She’d told him that once, long ago.

  “Thank you.” She took the flowers. “I can’t believe you remembered.”

  She moved back, which turned out to be a mistake. If she’d moved forward instead, out into the hallway, ready to go, they might have made it to the restaurant.

  As it was, Shep followed her in.

  She pulled a vase from under the sink, filled it with water and set the flowers in it, then placed them on the kitchen table. “How’s the team?”

  “Good. Keith will be reinstated to full duty next week. Brian and Tank are in jail.” He stood in the middle of her living room, watching her. “Nice place,” he said without really looking around. He kept his eyes on her.

  “I spend most of my time at work. I’m barely here,” she said inanely, when all she wanted to do was scream You said you loved me!

  “Working on anything exciting?”

  Good grief, if the tension was any thicker in the room, it would have been visible.

  “Can’t really talk about that.” She took a step toward him, but then stopped. Maybe she’d misunderstood him on the phone. Maybe she heard what she wanted to hear. “You?”

  “The same.” He stepped toward her and held her gaze. “I missed you. I want us to be together.”

  Her heart banged so hard against her rib cage she thought she was going to pass ou
t.

  “We’d make a terrible couple. We couldn’t talk about anything.” Stuff was just coming out of her mouth and she couldn’t stop it. “Everything we do is confidential.”

  “We’ll find something else to fill our time with.”

  “Why did you change your mind?”

  “I went to the hospital with Keith when they took him in. A bullet just about ripped his throat out. We didn’t think he was going to make it. The only thing he said was he wished he asked you out while he had the chance.”

  She watched him, not entirely understanding his point.

  He reached out, took her hand and pulled her slowly against him. “All I could think was that if I was lying there on my deathbed, that would be my biggest regret, too. Letting you go.”

  He gave her time to pull away, but she had no intention of protesting. When he lowered his lips to hers, relief flooded her. At least if he kissed her, she wouldn’t be able to say anything else stupid.

  Nothing in this world felt half as good as being held in Shep’s arms and being kissed by him.

  But too soon, he pulled away. “So how is this going to work?”

  “Tonight?” she asked, dazed.

  He gave a wicked grin. “I’m pretty sure I can figure tonight out.”

  Her core temperature shot up a few degrees.

  He rested his forehead against hers. “I meant the future. Together.”

  Right. With her in D.C. and him in Texas. “We could meet in the middle. Spend the weekends together.”

  “Not enough,” he protested immediately. “I could leave the team.”

  She pulled back to stare at him. “You would?” That was mind-boggling. She considered it for a long second before she shook her head. “You already lost a job because of me. This one is right for you. It matters.” She paused. “I could come to Texas.”

  He watched her carefully. “You’re building a career here.”

  “Career isn’t everything. There’s something else I always wanted to do.” She paused for a second. “I told you I’ve been thinking about working with kids in the system. Kids in foster care who get in trouble with the law. I’d love to put together some kind of program to turn them in another direction. If I could get government funding...”