“Ouch! Is my reputation that bad?” She didn’t sound the least contrite.
“No, it’s that good.”
“Just imagine the poor woman who has to follow both of our acts.”
Melissa had to laugh again at that. Carla had a point.
A bright buzzing noise was building. They’d reached the end of the jungle runway closest to the VASI glide path lights. The lights blinked on and moments later not one or two, but three small planes zipped in through the jungle canopy. This was a busy location.
“Useful load?” Carla asked, shifting to Unit operator with as little sign as changing a topic—all one integrated whole for her. For Melissa it felt as if she was still split a dozen ways: soldier, lover, pilot, friend to Carla, placater of Chad…
The newly arrived Cessnas were planes Melissa knew, far better than the Tin Goose. “They’re all Cessna 182s. They’re the slightly bigger twin brother of the planes I earned my license in. A pilot plus fuel leaves them about eight hundred pounds useful load. Three planes together can move over a ton.” She watched how they each hit the runway and wallowed toward the parking side of the runway. “And I’d say these were all coming in heavy.”
“Interesting.” Carla began leading her down the line toward the new arrivals, though she still kept their pace nonchalant. “So, other than despising my merest existence, what is the rest of the joke?” Carla asked as she slid effortlessly back across topics.
Melissa looked up at the jungle canopy. There was little stray light here on the ground, so it would be wholly invisible from above. It was an elegant piece of design work.
“Five years ago I was designing museum exhibits, I had a brother, and our hobby was rock and ice climbing. I always thought I’d find another climber or artist someday. I’d get a houseboat near my parents in West Bay. Kids, job at the museum, everything so normal.”
“And now you’re a Unit operator in a jungle fortress that is the heart of a major drug-running operation and you’re in love with a soldier named Richie Goldman.”
“Right.”
Carla paused and looked at her. The woman on the fueling ATV drove by, her headlights casting enough light for Melissa to see Carla’s expression clearly.
“What? What did I miss?”
Carla still simply waited, forcing Melissa to review what had just been said. Then she found it.
“In love with…” Melissa listened to how her own voice said it. No hint of surprise. Nor alarm. “Huh.”
“As I said, I know that look.”
“I thought you meant the sex.”
Carla shook her head. “That’s what I wanted to think it was as well when it happened to me. Guess what. It’s not.”
“I’m seeing that.” And it wasn’t freaking her out, which was almost as interesting as the thought itself.
“You seem much cooler about this than I was.”
“What did you put Kyle through?”
Carla grimaced and started walking again.
Melissa had thought it was avoidance until they were approaching the Cessnas at the same moment as a small team of workers and a forklift.
“I’ll just say that I come by the Wild Woman moniker honestly. Kyle and I had pretty spectacular fight over that one, almost shattered the team on our first week in the field.”
“Whereas Melissa The Cat sneaks up on love, or rather has it sneak up on her.”
“Apparently.” Carla guided them past the trio of parked Cessnas. Then stopped and turned as if to pay more attention to Melissa. But Melissa knew her attention was really on assessing whatever was going on behind them.
Which was just as well; Melissa couldn’t assess squat at the moment.
She was in love with Richie Goldman.
Even as a flat statement inside her head, it was no surprise; it was simple truth. “How did I trade in some gentle artist on a soldier turned drug runner?”
“Just lucky I guess.” Carla’s comment did make her feel lucky. How many men were there like Richie on the planet? Easy answer. One.
“You two, lend a hand,” a team foreman called them over. Since a closer look was exactly what they wanted, Melissa was glad to lend a hand, though she and Carla were both smart enough to show what would be a typical reluctance, until the moment the foreman rested a hand on his sidearm.
The plane’s interior had been stripped inside with only the pilot’s seat remaining. Plastic garbage bags had been piled on the deck. The first one she picked up was heavy, about the same as a training rucksack, so forty to fifty pounds. She was careful to show more effort than it actually took a trained Delta operator.
Through the plastic she could feel the lumpy balls that had to be cocaine paste. If paste was flying in and purified cocaine was flying out, that meant that this was more than a shipping center; it was also a purification processing plant.
That would explain both the efforts to keep it hidden and the casual elegance that had been applied to such objects as the broken DC-3. This single shipment alone would be worth over ten million once processed, twice that if delivered directly to America or Europe. This operation would be awash in cash. If they had a shipment this size just once a week, a half billion dollars would flow through this site. She’d wager they had a lot more frequent deliveries than that.
In a matter of minutes, the three planes were empty, refueled, and back in the air.
She and Carla were left standing alone not far from the Tin Goose.
“Interesting.”
Melissa kept an eye on where the loaded forklift went. It crossed the field, circled behind the pile of wrecked planes, and past some tents before disappearing under the jungle canopy.
They continued down the row of parked aircraft, finally arriving at the last plane, parked at the very start of the runway. It was the sleek BAe 146 that belonged to Niklas Pederson. The high-wing, four-engine jet looked ready to leap for the skies at a moment’s notice.
It also was circled by five heavily armed men—at least those were the only ones she could see.
“Apparently,” Melissa observed, “Mr. Pederson likes his privacy.”
One of the men cocked his head in the way that someone did when listening to a radio earpiece. Then he started walking toward them.
“They’re observant.”
The guard kept his M16 pointed at the dirt, but he was carrying the weapon rather than merely having it slung. Faster reaction time which implied better training.
“Mr. Pederson invites you to join him.” The man nodded toward the folded-down stairs at the nose of the plane without looking away from them. Good training.
She’d rather not be inside Pederson’s protective perimeter without the rest of the team, but it looked as if that choice had already been taken away from them—the guard’s polite request hadn’t sounded particularly optional.
A glance at Carla, a shared shrug, and Melissa indicated for the guard to lead the way. They had to meet with Pederson at some point; sooner was always better.
* * *
“You look pretty damn pleased with yourself.”
Richie opened one eye and spotted Chad’s smiling face. He opened the other and spotted Duane’s. Kyle was leaning on their shoulders from behind and grinning down at him.
“I think he looks entirely too comfortable, don’t you agree, boys?”
“He does, Mister Kyle.”
Richie tried to make sense of the change. Just a moment ago, the most beautiful woman he’d ever been with had been naked and straddled over him in a luxurious hideaway. Her head thrown back in ecstasy as he’d emptied himself into her.
He hadn’t closed his eyes for more than an instant or two, and now the tiny compartment was crowded with his three team members. And no sign of Melissa.
“What did you do with her?”
“She’s long go
ne, buddy. Not gone gone,” Chad added at Richie’s flinch. “Just been off with Carla for the last hour. You’ve got to get with the program.”
He pulled on his watch. They weren’t kidding; several hours had passed. It was nearing midnight.
“I think he’s been lying around too much.” Kyle grinned, then slapped Chad and Duane on the shoulders. “Roust him, boys.”
“No, wait!” But there was nothing Richie could do against the three of them. In seconds they had stripped the sheet clear, hauled him out of the bed, and dragged him through the DC-3’s cabin before they dumped him out the rear cargo door and onto the dirt naked except for his watch.
“Goddamn it! At least give me my clothes.”
“No!” A woman’s voice sounded from behind him. The ATV fueler had stopped her vehicle along the dirt path that separated the wrecked planes from the chow tent. “Por favor no.”
“You heard the bella dama,” Chad shrugged pleasantly that he was helpless before such a request.
Richie dove back through the door and tackled Chad who just howled with laughter as the two of them landed on a couch.
“Oh, I knew you always wanted me, Richie. But the señora is much more what I want.”
Richie didn’t give a damn about Chad, but he did manage to grab the clothes that Kyle was holding. By the time Richie was dressed, neither Chad nor the señora ATV driver were in sight.
“Fine.” He finished tying his boots. “Where’s Melissa?”
“In Niklas Pederson’s plane.”
“Shit!” Didn’t they get how goddamn dangerous the man was? Richie wouldn’t put it past him to try and lock them up in his aeronautical cave. Hadn’t they seen the way he’d looked at Melissa and refused to let go of her hand even after Richie threatened to shoot off the man’s balls? He shoved out the door and hustled diagonally across the field and toward the big jet. He could hear Duane and Kyle running to catch up with him.
The first guard who tried to stop him hit the ground with a heavy thud, and no weapons—Richie had relieved him of them. He heard Kyle and Duane behind him engage the other guards, didn’t bother turning to see because he didn’t need to. They were trusting his instincts and following his lead, because that’s what a Delta team did.
Richie aimed the Ruger .44 Magnum Super Blackhawk revolver that he’d stripped off the first guard right between the eyes of the guard at the base of the stairs.
“Move,” was all he had to say and the guy bolted.
He was up the stairs into the forward end of the cabin with Duane and Kyle close behind him.
Then he stumbled to a stop.
With a quick scan he located:
Three individuals—two known friendlies, one unknown status.
Possible hides—couch arm, two chairs, closed cockpit door, closed door at rear of aircraft.
All hands—weapons free and visible.
Armament—visible, Carla’s and Melissa’s sidearms. Hidden, no discernible signs indicating anything such as abnormal hand positions or shifted cushions.
He made a back-and-forth slice with the rifle he’d grabbed without letting the Ruger’s aim at Niklas Pederson shift by even a degree. The gesture sent Duane to the cockpit and Kyle to check out the back of the plane.
The main cabin made their accommodations aboard the retrofitted DC-3 look like a shantytown shack. Deep-pile blue carpet, now with a line of Kyle’s dirt-red footprints down the center of the aisle.
The cabin was filled with exotic woods, rich leather, glass tables, and golden—check that—actual gold fixtures. He was standing amid a small cluster of luxurious armchairs. The next section of the cabin included a deep couch to either side, one with Melissa and Carla sitting at ease upon it and across the aisle another one with Pederson. Beyond that, close by the rear cabin door Kyle had entered was a dining table of black ebony wood with room for a dozen, narrowed enough to fit neatly in the ten-foot width of the cabin without looking cramped.
Duane slapped an All Clear against his shoulder.
Kyle returned from the rear cabin, escorting a sleepy-looking Analie Sala in a plush robe, the white offsetting her dark skin. She looked exotic and was having trouble keeping the untied robe closed as she stumbled forward. Sala apparently didn’t wear much when she slept.
Some remote part of Richie thought how much Chad would be sorry to miss such a sight. Then he figured that Chad was seeing plenty at the moment.
* * *
“Ah,” Pederson said softly. “I suppose that I shall need some new guards.”
“At least better-caliber ones,” Carla agreed.
Melissa couldn’t speak.
Her warrior stood at the entrance to the plane, his own weapons still slung on. He brandished the firearms she’d cataloged as belonging to the guards…liberated in his rush to reach her. He bore a Ruger 44 and an Imbel IA2—which was only supposed to be in the hands of the Brazilian military, though she’d been trained on one during the Delta OTC. There was a fire and a rage still burning in his dark eyes. She was in no danger, but he hadn’t known that and he’d come hunting for her.
She waved him forward and he stalked into the cabin. When she’d coaxed him close enough that she could grab the front of this shirt, she pulled him down and kissed him. Despite being in full combat mode, it was as gentle and tender as the man behind the kiss.
“Good morning,” she whispered.
“Uh…huh.” That, however, was her warrior.
“Sit.” She scooted down the couch, up against Carla.
Kyle had dropped Analie onto the couch beside Niklas before perching on the arm of the sofa next to Carla. Duane stood back by the cockpit, his rifle turned toward the open front stairs.
Richie surveyed the situation once, then sat, resting the butt of the Imbel on the floor but keeping the Ruger in his hand.
“If”—Melissa waved toward Duane and Kyle, both with rifles poised—“you don’t want any actual deaths, you’ll want to call off your guards before they come back with reinforcements.”
Niklas reached for his radio. “Julio?” A pause. “Julio?”
“I may have left him in the dirt,” Richie grunted out.
Niklas grimaced. “Miguel?”
“Sí?”
“All secure here. Set up a perimeter.”
“I must see you are not under duress.”
“One man only,” Melissa warned him.
Niklas relayed the message.
The guard who had been standing at the bottom of the stairs when she and Carla had boarded came cautiously into the cabin. He inspected the situation carefully then shook his head no. He sent a particularly nasty look at Richie.
“I guess you didn’t treat him very well either.”
Richie shrugged. Definitely not.
“Excuse me a moment.” Pederson rose to his feet. “They are not going to believe so easily I am not under duress.” He walked down the aisle, giving Duane a wide and careful berth. Then he walked off the plane with Miguel.
Duane shuffled forward to overhear if they were plotting. Instead, what he repeated from them sounded clean, “See? I am not a captive. They are new, unused to our rules. This once we shall not hold that against them.” Then Duane was backing off from the door as Pederson returned.
The man settled into the couch elegantly, as if bred to such situations.
“You make good on your deliveries. You are not afraid of force. You do not hesitate. I find these admirable traits. I also find myself reluctant to trust them. Your American DEA has tried similar infiltration tactics in other places.”
Melissa didn’t bother to answer; she simply pointed at Analie Sala still wrapped in her bathrobe. She was the voice Pederson would trust, not theirs.
“I am able to account for you and your pilot.” Analie nodded. “Smuggling and arms trafficking. The rest
of you have a very murky past.”
“Estevan,” Carla said flatly. “Bolívar Estevan.”
She gained the full attention of Niklas and Analie, though Melissa didn’t understand why the dead prior owner of their Twin Otter was such a powerful talisman.
“We were working for him, freelance you might say.”
Freelance? No shit. Carla had tried to kill Estevan and Kyle had succeeded.
“And how,” Niklas asked, “was Bolívar killed and you were not?”
“His daughter had recently been freed from kidnapping. She was a pretty woman and had been”—Carla looked particularly grim—“used. Hard. Upon her unexpected release, we were her trusted escort to the hospital. Then Sinaloa took out Señor Bolívar’s operation and put us out of work.”
It was perfect. Information that only an insider could know. And there was no questioning Carla’s deep anger at the events. It made her sound even more loyal to the family, though the root cause was obvious to Melissa.
“That was six months ago,” Analie commented.
“Six months of total suck,” Kyle responded. “We worked the coca fields for most of it.”
“You heard of the disasters in Bolivia?”
“What disasters?” Kyle leaned forward with a casual interest.
Analie raised an eyebrow and dropped the topic, but Richie had told Melissa all about it. Ten percent of the Bolivian production lost to a 747 spreading great swaths of defoliant with pinpoint accuracy at a dozen coca fields—all mapped by this group of Delta. They hadn’t heard of the “disaster”; they were the disaster.
“And how did you come to team up?”
“After six months of total suck,” Kyle answered, “we were back in Maracaibo trying to find work. We hooked up with these two who were in a similar boat. They had a plane; we had muscle. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“I see two people who have stolen Estevan’s plane from a Coast Guard station. I see four more who worked for Estevan. All American military trained. All who happened to meet in Maracaibo. I don’t like coincidences.”
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