by Jordan Dane
“That help I promised you?” Joe winced, looking apologetic. “They’ll be here soon. We gotta get you up. And right now, you don’t look so good.”
Hell, he felt like crap. Why would he look good?
“Who? Who’s coming?” Kinkaid struggled to sit up in bed. His side ached, and his head throbbed without letup. Joe slid another pillow under him.
“I have a confession to make. You were so desperate for help…to rescue a woman named Kate, that I called someone you might not…”
Now he knew something was up. Joe was a straightforward guy, and he didn’t mince words. Apparently he had something in his craw.
“Spit it out, Joe. Who’d you call?”
His friend paused long enough for him to glance up and stare him in the eyes.
“Garrett Wheeler.”
“What?” Kinkaid glared at Joe before he tore the IV from his arm with a grimace. He swung his legs off the bed and protested, “I thought you understood. I’ve got history with Wheeler. He’s not…”
Before he finished, Joe interrupted.
“The thing is, he’s the only one who sent a team. And he’s got the resources to get the job done.” Joe waved a hand and urged him to get up. “Come on. Alexa Marlowe will be here pronto. We gotta get you looking presentable.”
“Alexa? She still with…Garrett?”
“That depends on what you mean by ‘with’ him. He sent her with a team. You know her?”
His mind reeled with memories of Alexa. She was a force of nature. A strong, intelligent woman with passions to match. He had kept his private life a secret from her when they worked together, believing it was the right thing to do. But his reticence only added fuel to her fire.
He’d seen the same thing happen to others. Living life on the edge played havoc on operatives’ libidos. And staring death in the face with each new op made it easy to form attachments to those who understood the life. Although Alexa had wanted more from him, he couldn’t give her what she needed. And after he cooled things off between them, he later suspected that she found Garrett more willing.
All of this came at about the time his life went to hell. And any feelings he had for Alexa melded into his resentment of Garrett.
“Know her? Not anymore I don’t.” Wearing only boxers, he stood and toppled over before Joe grabbed him. “I gotta get showered and dressed. I can’t let her see me like this. She’ll find an excuse to put me on injured reserve and leave me behind.”
Now Joe lost his cool. “Oh, like the fact you’ve been shot? Silly woman. Why would she hold that against you?”
“Exactly.” He shrugged and took his first steps toward the bathroom, fending off Joe’s help with a wave of his hand.
“You’re insane.” Joe raised his voice. “Doc says you had a nasty infection, and you need stronger antibiotics than pills. If you get off the IV now, you’ll be slammed harder. You have no business on a rescue mission in your condition. You’ll only slow her down.”
Kinkaid turned back to his friend to make his point.
“If that happens, I’ll make the call and bench myself, but I’m not turning this over to Garrett Wheeler and his blond surrogate. I can’t trust them, not with this.”
“I’ll be your wingman. Does that count?” Joe argued. “Or don’t you trust me either?”
Kinkaid raked a hand through his dark hair and heaved a sigh. He was being an asshole to a guy who didn’t deserve it.
“I trust you, Joe. And I appreciate all your help. But…I feel like I got Kate into this mess,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “Those terrorists…they called out my name before they started shooting up the place. They were looking for me, Joe. I gotta know why. And I gotta see this thing through for her sake. I owe her.”
Joe stared at him for a long moment before he backed off. “You can be a real son of a bitch, but invoking your name doesn’t usually spark gunplay. At least, not right away.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“No problem. And I brought your bag off the boat. Let’s get you dressed and smelling pretty.” He grinned and tossed a duffel bag on his bed. “So tell me, boss. Is Alexa Marlowe as sexy as her name?”
He gave his friend a sideways glare. And even though he didn’t answer his question, Joe smirked. “Yeah, thought so.”
Port de Paix wasn’t exactly paradise by Alexa’s standards. And the darkness of a cloudy night kept the place in shadows, the best thing she could say about it. The flight to Haiti had been a long one, and she had more hours to work before hitting the sack.
With file in hand, she headed for the motel room Joe LaClaire had given her over the phone. She’d spoken to him from the plane. Once they landed, her team drove straight to the motel and had already checked into their rooms. She’d done the same and planned to meet with them after connecting with Kinkaid and LaClaire.
A dim light shone around the closed curtains of room 15. The motel was nothing more than cinder block painted in a depressing green. The doors were metal, with rust around the edges caused by humidity off the ocean. Muggy air carried the smell of the sea and the faint stench of manure, a deterrent to taking a full breath of good old Mother Nature. The listless backdrop of windblown palm trees with ragged fronds and spindly banana trees surrounded the motel. Weeds shoved through cracks in the parking lot and worn, dented vehicles lined the narrow dirt streets. With most windows down, the cars weren’t locked. Why bother? Who would steal crap on wheels?
What was Jackson Kinkaid doing here? He always had a sense of style, yet this place seemed out of character from the man she remembered. Associating with drug cartels must have left its mark.
Out of habit, she reached beneath her windbreaker and released the retention strap of her holster, making her weapon easy to grab. With the sweltering heat, a jacket was the last thing she wanted to wear over her jeans and tank top. But it covered her .45-caliber H&K MK23, her travel companion.
Standing outside motel room 15, she knocked, and someone doused the light inside. The door opened with a creak.
“Alexa?” When he had seen her blond silhouette, a man spoke from the dark room. “You made good time.”
Only a streetlamp shed light on someone standing inside the room. She recognized LaClaire’s voice.
“Yeah.” She stepped inside the room and closed the door behind her. And with a hand on her weapon, she added, “You want the secret handshake? I’ll do you one better.”
When they flipped the light on, she held up a gesture both Kinkaid and LaClaire would recognize—the one finger salute.
Joe LaClaire grinned and nodded. “Yeah, you and me are gonna get along just fine.”
Jackson Kinkaid stood to her left. Unlike his buddy, he wasn’t smiling. She fought hard not to react to seeing him again, but the beat of her heart ramped up a notch. She felt it.
He wore faded jeans with a black T-shirt worn tail out. And he stood taller and looked more defiant than she had expected. Hypnotic green eyes glared at her with a smoldering hostility that Garrett had warned her about. And he smelled of soap, with his dark hair still wet from the shower. He wore his hair longer than she remembered, and it curled at his neck. And although he hadn’t bothered to shave, the rugged macho thing suited her fine.
When he saw her middle finger, he raised an eyebrow and said, “You haven’t changed. Nice to see you, Alexa. Who’d you piss off to score this cherry assignment?”
She ignored his abuse.
“Haiti, Kinkaid? Is this your idea of a good time?” She crossed her arms and returned his stare. “I prefer the smell of coconut oil and cute cabana boys serving me umbrella drinks.”
“Sorry,” he said. “The best we can do is bottled water. With any luck, you can avoid a good case of dysentery.”
“There’s a good kind?” she asked.
Joe took Kinkaid’s cue and lifted the lid to a cooler where they had bottled water. She waved him off.
“No, I’m good,” she told him. “But you g
otta tell me. How did you end up at a school fund-raiser…an event in your honor, no less? And who is this mystery woman, Kate?”
Kinkaid looked unsettled, and he shot a glance at his friend, who shrugged. Guess Joe had told her too much.
“That’s not important,” he said. “By now Garrett has done his homework and confirmed the assault was legit and the hostages real. I’m not in the mood to have my chain yanked or take a trip down memory lane. Are you gonna help or play twenty questions?”
“Attitude? You’re giving me attitude here?” She shrugged. “Look, I don’t see anyone else lined up outside. So cut the crap. You asked for help, and I brought a team. Whatever beef you have with Garrett, I don’t care. It’s not gonna interfere with this mission. Capisce?”
His jaw tightened and he narrowed his eyes. Eventually he took a deep breath and gave her an almost imperceptible nod. That was all the concession she’d get from him.
Kinkaid crossed his muscled arms over his chest, and his broad shoulders and narrow hips got her attention again. The man carved out his own corner, leaving little elbow room in the cramped space for her to feel comfortable in. Thankfully, he kept his distance and leaned against a wall. His man Joe backed off and took the corner of a mattress.
She still had one more point to make.
“And while we’re setting ground rules, there’s another thing we’re gonna get straight. I’m in charge of this mission. I make the call on pulling the plug. If I see you or your friend endangering my team, I won’t hesitate to take you both out of the equation. Is that clear?”
“Crystal. What else?” His somber expression gave her nothing. Only his gruff tone sent her a warning that he wasn’t in the mood for playing nice.
“Garrett said you had intel. What happened after the bastards left the clinic? Are they still in Haiti, or did they get out?”
“They left by boat,” he said. “I saw them leave, heading north.”
“But you didn’t tell the cops,” she guessed.
“No.”
By the look on his face, he challenged her to ask why. She didn’t.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
Kinkaid gave her what he’d seen, from specs on the boat to bad-guy head counts, weapons details, and the number and condition of the hostages—a thorough account that not even the Haitian police had. His intel might keep them one step ahead of anyone else.
“These guys had a SAT phone, handheld GPS units, and a damned laptop,” he told her. “And they were in and out like they’d run the scenario before and knew where to go. They had to be connected to a handler. Why else would they come with all that high-tech gear?”
He shook his head and continued, “The Haitian cops didn’t stand a chance. They were outgunned, and all they had were dated walkie-talkies. Hell, the terrorists were willing to die, Alexa.”
“Maybe we can help them with that.” She narrowed her eyes. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, I got a good look at their tracks after they left the medical clinic. If we cross their path, I’ll know what to look for.”
The man had given her plenty of detail. Alexa knew how outraged she would have been if this attack had happened to her, but Kinkaid was taking this harder than she would have believed for a guy who was on the payroll of drug cartels. Something else was at play that she didn’t understand, and instinct told her to have patience. A guy like Kinkaid wouldn’t be pushed into talking if he didn’t feel like sharing.
“This is good stuff, Jackson. I’ll feed your account back to Garrett. See if he can ID the terrorist cell. And someone might have claimed responsibility on Arab news. Al Jazeera might have something by now. I’ll let you know.”
After he nodded, she held up her file and stepped toward a small table near the door. “I’ve got satellite digitals. If we can narrow down the time, we might figure out where they went.”
“That’s great. Let’s do it.” He looked surprised to have satellite surveillance and sat down next to her at the table. He was slow to move and looked beat-up, with bruises on his jaw under the shadow of his day-old beard.
“What’s wrong with you, hotshot? You look a little rough.”
“It’s nothing.”
She opened her file and put a series of satellite images on the table. Narrowing the time, they were able to locate the time stamp that worked. Using what Kinkaid had witnessed and her high-tech surveillance, they tracked the boat he’d seen leave Haiti.
The news wasn’t good.
“Damn it!” he cursed.
No more doubt. The boat that had taken the hostages landed in Cuba—a communist stronghold, a country supportive of terrorism and a transshipment point for the drug trade. She pulled out a map of Cuba and located the southeast part where the boat had dropped anchor. It was east of the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay and south of the city of Baracoa in the middle of nowhere. The terrain was extremely mountainous and rugged, plenty of dangerous places for terrorists to hide. And with terrorist training camps in Cuba, such a remote area would be an attractive location, especially given the region’s history of guerilla warfare.
“Our plane won’t get us close enough and would draw too much attention. You have access to a boat, or will we need to supply that?” she asked.
He looked at Joe and without a word spoken between them, Kinkaid turned back to her, and said, “We got a boat. What else?”
“We’ll be linked to Garrett via tracking beacon and a SAT phone. We’ll have additional resources at our disposal. Garrett will make sure of that. And a backup team can be within range if we need them. We’ll also have GPS and spare batteries, but depending on how dense the jungle, we could still lose our satellite signal. That’ll mean we do it the old-fashioned way, using maps and compass. You good with that?”
“Fine.” He nodded. Although his expression softened, he was still all business.
“The terrain will complicate things, especially if we have to hunt them into the mountains.” She spoke more for her benefit than his and made a mental checklist of her supplies. “We’ll pack water in CamelBak hydration packs, but not nearly enough if this takes more than a few days. That would be too much weight to haul. If necessary, we’ll have to purify what we find. And we’ll have field rations to supplement what we can’t forage on our own. Tracking these bastards, we won’t have time for hunting.” She rested a hand on her knee and stared at him. “We brought extra food and water for you and Joe.”
“Good,” he said. “Sounds like you’ve got things covered, but Joe will stay with the boat and handle getting us out. Does that work?”
Alexa nodded her approval. “You never asked for weapons. Do you have what you’ll need?”
“Yeah. Plenty.”
Spoken like a true mercenary, she thought. And the expression on his face might have chilled her if she weren’t playing on the same team.
“Make sure you and Joe are ready first thing. We’re leaving at dawn.” She leaned back in her chair. “We’ll pick you up. You’ll meet the team and take us to the boat.”
“We’ll be ready. Anything else?” He was done talking and was giving her cues it was time for her to leave.
“There is one more thing. And it’s not good news, I’m afraid,” she said. That got his attention. “Garrett is tracking a tropical storm that’s forming in the Atlantic. It may hit Cuba and mess with our timetable.”
Kinkaid dropped his chin and let out a sigh with his eyes shut. He looked tired. It was the first time she’d seen a chink in his machismo armor. Whoever Kate was, she was a lucky woman to have someone like Jackson Kinkaid as a dark guardian angel. Lucky, that is, if you discounted being abducted by terrorists.
Kinkaid’s moment of vulnerability came and went.
“Shit happens. We’ll deal with it.” He stood and waited for her to do the same, not bothering with idle chitchat or pleasantries. He’d provided his part of good intel. Now he doled out the bum’s rush. No mixed signals. He wanted her gone.
He turned out the lights and opened the door for her to leave. When she walked by him, he touched her arm, and the scent of his warm skin mixed with soap carried on the faint breeze.
“I want to…” His handsome face was outlined by a streetlamp behind her. “…thanks for everything, Alexa. What you’re doing…I won’t forget it.”
“Let’s hope you still feel that way when this is over.” She touched his cheek and stared into those green eyes but didn’t linger. She walked away and heard him close the door behind her.
Jackson Kinkaid might have distracted her by the sudden display of intimacy, but it didn’t stop her from wondering what else he was hiding. When it came to details of their mission, he was very forthcoming. Yet so much had gone unsaid. Gut instinct told her that.
Whatever he was hiding, she had a feeling she wouldn’t like it.
After Alexa left the motel room, Kinkaid collapsed onto the mattress and stared at the ceiling. The room was spinning, and he shut his eyes. When that didn’t help, he opened them again to find Joe staring down at him.
“This isn’t gonna work, Jackson. You can barely stand,” his friend protested. “How are you gonna tackle mountains in Cuba and a fuckin’ hurricane?”
“Like I said, I’ll pull myself out if things go bad.” After Joe backed off, he propped pillows behind him and sat up. “I’m gonna need pills from your doc. Antibiotics, no pain meds. I gotta think straight. Can you swing that?”
Joe pointed a finger. “Yeah, but I’m not happy, just so you know.”
“Duly noted. And thanks.”
His friend got on the phone to arrange for the boat and the antibiotics. Kinkaid shut his eyes again, knowing his mind wouldn’t let him sleep. He had too much to do before dawn.
Most of all, he worried for Kate.
Kate had been right before, when she said she was surprised he remembered the day they met at the hospital. In truth his memory back then was not much more than Swiss cheese, riddled with holes that only merged together in a jumbled mess. What he had recalled might have been more attributable to what others had told him later, but one memory held firm.