by Cindy Gerard
The closest comparison he could make was Panama, when he’d gone to snake eater school and learned how to be a good little operative for Uncle. He’d been a hell of a lot younger then. And this 130-degree heat and 100-percent humidity coupled with a mountainous jungle terrain that made Vietnam look like a spa retreat wasn’t as easy to hack as it had been back then.
If the rough, mountainous country and the dirt roads carved along the sides of mountains weren’t enough, the oppressive stench of despair in the scattered villages they’d driven through could make a person appreciate the good fortune of being born in the US of A, where a child could at least aspire to something better and stand a chance of making that dream a reality. Here, there was nothing to aspire to but survival.
They drove by a row of corrugated tin shacks, the structures barely managing to hold back the relentlessly encroaching jungle. Thin, ragged children played listlessly along the dirt road and barely took note of their passing; a feral dog slinked around a corner. This was only one of many desperate and depressing scenes they’d witnessed, and Wyatt knew without asking that the abject poverty was taking as much of a toll on Sophie’s strength as the heat.
“Hugh found Hope in a village like this one,” Sophie said, surprising him that she was awake.
She brushed her hair away from her face—a face that was damp with perspiration, hair that was wet with sweat even though the air conditioner in her SUV was working overtime to cut the oppressive heat.
He’d wondered about that. Didn’t surprise him at all that Sophie had rescued a child.
“Her parents were dead. Her older brother tried to sell her to Hugh for sex. She was seven years old.”
Jesus.
“When Hugh wouldn’t fork over the money, the boy—Hugh said he couldn’t have been much over ten or twelve himself—just left her and took off running. He disappeared into the jungle, and they never saw him again.”
“So Hugh brought her home to you,” Wyatt concluded.
“He knew I had connections with the child-welfare system because of the Baylor School. He wanted me to use my contacts to get her into an orphanage.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No. I couldn’t. She was barefoot, half starved, and dehydrated from dysentery. I took one look at those sad, soulful, and hopeless brown eyes, and I was as lost as she was. I fell in love, deeply, irrevocably. I knew I had to save this child—she was mine from the moment I saw her.”
Wyatt had always seen Sophie as a mother. Her patience, her easy, gentle way. Sometimes he’d even seen himself at her side with a child they’d made together before he’d gotten a grip. And then she’d married Hugh.
“I always hoped Hugh would grow to love her, too.”
“He wasn’t in favor of the adoption?”
She averted her gaze out the passenger window. “It was a difficult adjustment for him. He tried, for my sake, maybe even for Hope’s. He liked Hope, I think he wanted to be a good father to her, but he never got around to making time for her. The connection … it just never developed, you know? To this day, I’ll never understand why he fought for joint custody during the divorce proceedings.”
“You never thought about … having your own kids? Together?” Christ. Had he really asked that out loud? Apparently, he had, because she shook her head.
“Hugh didn’t want children. Something he didn’t level with me about until after we got married. Only later, when I started making noises about wanting to start a family, did he admit it. His stock answer was that the world was too dangerous.”
“Too dangerous to bring a child into,” Wyatt concluded. To a degree, he could understand Hugh’s reasoning. In their line of work, they saw the worst the human race had to offer. Sometimes it was difficult to believe that they could save the world for future generations—especially when pitted against the brutality inherent in certain cultures and religions that placed so little value on human life.
Wyatt had even felt that way himself for a while. But then Sam and Abbie had had little Bryan. And he’d met Will Cooper, with his sister’s fly-away blond hair and robust little body, and he knew exactly why children were the saviors of this world.
“It would be generous to think that was behind his decision.” Sophie’s voice relayed more weariness than anger as it cut into his thoughts. “But the truth was, a child would have taken Hugh away from his work. His life’s work—which revolved around bad guys.”
Okay. That still sounded like Hugh. The Caped Crusader. At least, it sounded like the Hugh he had worked with and trusted and considered his best friend.
“So what happened, Sophie?” He didn’t have to clarify. What happened to your marriage? What happened to Hugh that made him stupid enough to let you go?
“I don’t know.” She actually looked bewildered. “I can’t pinpoint a day or even a moment when everything changed. But he got so secretive. Hardened. Entrenched, night and day, in his business.” She glanced out the window again and shook her head. “I tried to understand. I tried to go with it.”
“What exactly was he into?”
She lifted a shoulder. “At first? It was all about providing armed security. Mostly for corporations. You know what it’s like down here. U.S. and foreign companies—the top brass are always targets for abductions.”
Wyatt knew exactly how it was. A big portion of the Black Ops, Inc., revenue came from executive protection. CEOs flew down dressed in their Armani suits, ready for cocktails at eight. The only problem was getting them from the airport to their high-dollar company digs or to the factory or the supplier or whatever without catching several ounces of lead or an RPG or two. It took an armada of armored cars and a skilled, smart team to run interference and provide protection.
“Hugh has also been instrumental in recovering several abductees over the years. More than several,” she added after thinking about it for a moment. “A lot lately, in fact. Just last month, he recovered the son of a Brazilian diplomat after negotiating a two-million-dollar ransom and the safe return of the child.”
So Hugh rescued children, and yet Sophie needed him now to help her with the very same problem, and he was nowhere on the landscape, had yet to be heard from.
“He’s actually thought of as a bit of a hero in the country.”
“But not your hero,” Wyatt said with equal measures of concern and curiosity.
“Not anymore, no,” she said, regret heavy in her voice. “Not after it started to be all about the money to him,” she said with a weariness that suggested she no longer had the strength to work up any anger. “He became obsessed with it. With the jobs that paid him the high dollars and gave him more money than we needed. It reached a point where it didn’t matter anymore who he worked for. Good guy, bad guy—I swear, he would have contracted with bin Laden. Just show him the money, and he was your man.”
So Hugh had gone mercenary. No wonder she sounded so disillusioned. There was a huge difference between going private contractor and hiring out to any Tom, Dick, or Ahmadinejad and working for Uncle as Wyatt and the guys did for Nate at Black Ops, Inc. A mercenary worked for the highest bidder. God and country flew out the window.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said after a long moment. In truth, he was bewildered and disappointed that Hugh, a man he’d respected, admired, and even loved enough to think of as a brother, had traded integrity for the almighty buck.
He wanted to believe there was a good reason, but there was never a reason good enough for that kind of sell-out. Yeah, a man in this line of work laid his life on the line damn near every day, and no, it wasn’t easy. And hell no, it wasn’t all about altruism, but fuck. It should never be about aiding and abetting a potential enemy, either.
“I wish I knew what to say,” he said after several moments passed.
“Just tell me that you’re still who I think you are,” she said, looking his way. “Just tell me you’re still one of the good guys.”
Was he still a good guy? That ques
tion had been plaguing Wyatt too often and for too long. He thought of Jorge Vega, whom he hadn’t been able to help, of the two men he and Doc had killed defending themselves, of the many men he had killed over the course of his career. And he honestly couldn’t decide if he was a good guy anymore, much less try to convince her that he was who she wanted him to be.
“I work for the good guys,” he said, hoping she didn’t realize that he hadn’t exactly answered her question.
17
Stretched out on a pale blue velvet sofa that had probably once graced some princess’s or queen’s sitting room, Johnny Reed watched his wife as she stared out the window of Juliana’s office.
He knew what she was looking at. Outside on the terrace, Juliana and Nate were sharing high tea in delicate, flowery china cups with a little girl who needed a bit of fantasy in her life.
“It’s great that they’ve managed to make her smile.” Crystal looked relieved as she turned back to the computer and continued her search on Diego Montoya and Jorge Vega.
“I know a way that you could make me smile.” He tilted his head and grinned his best come-hither grin.
Her fingers continued to fly over the computer keys. “That’s because you’re easy.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
She turned to look at him then, graced him with an indulgent smile. “Darling man, right time, right place, it’s a wonderful thing.” She kissed the air in his direction. “But for now, put it on ice, lover boy. Speaking of ice, shouldn’t you be icing that knee?”
“From lover to nursemaid in the blink of an eye. How did I let this happen?”
“Just behave yourself—foreign concept, I know—and read this, would you?” She pushed back in the chair and stretched to hand him several pages that she’d printed concerning Montoya. “See if you spot something I didn’t, but for my money, Montoya looks clean.”
“The best bad guys usually do,” he said on a grunt as he started scanning the sheets. “What about Vega? Anything on him?”
She shook her head and went back to the screen. “Average Joe. Whistle-clean, except for his association with the GN, all public, all aboveboard. I’m thinking he was just a good guy trying to do a good thing and got killed for his kindness.”
“Damn bad break.” What else was there to say? He felt bad about Vega, yeah, but no one could help him now. “I don’t like this Montoya,” he said after giving the printouts a thorough once-over.
“You don’t like him for the kidnapping?”
“I just don’t like him. Period.”
“Because he’s richer than God?”
“No one should have that much money. Just like no one generally acquires that much money on the straight and narrow. Dig a little deeper, okay, babe?”
“Right after I get you an ice pack.” She rose, dropped a kiss on his forehead, and walked out of the room.
“I’m the luckiest sonofabitch alive,” he announced to the empty room as he watched his little redheaded Tinkerbell walk through the doorway. Smart, sexy, funny, and, God help her, he thought on a contented sigh, she loved him in spite of what he’d come from, who he was, and who he’d never be.
He’d never be Montoya, that’s for damn sure. He’d never be rich. But he would, by God, love that woman until the day he died.
Lucky man. Lucky, lucky man, he thought, hitching himself up a little straighter on the sofa, keeping the groan to a low moan when pain speared through his knee. Stupid man, he admitted, propping a pillow under the knee and settling back to wait out the pain.
Stupid damn stunt. The BOIs were never going to let him hear the end of a skateboard getting the best of him. He glanced out the window again. Talk about stupid men.
Nate just didn’t get it. For that matter, neither did Juliana. For two intelligent people, they sure were ignorant of not only the chemistry but the bond that had grown between them over the past year or so.
Or maybe not, he thought, watching them a little closer, thinking that he might detect an earthy awareness in the way they moved around each other that he hadn’t noticed yesterday.
“What’s so interesting?”
He glanced toward Tink when she walked back into the office, ice pack in hand.
“Those two,” he said with a nod toward the window. “It’s like watching a train wreck.”
She busied herself placing the ice just so over his knee. “I hear you. Kind of hard to look away from them, because you just know that one of these days, they’re going to wise up, and then, Katie, bar the door. They’re going to be all over each other.”
He turned his attention back to his wife and smiled. “So, when did you wise up?” He ran a hand up the length of her slender thigh.
“About you? Darlin’.” She eased a hip onto the sofa, then leaned in and kissed him. “I knew the first time I saw you that you were the best kind of trouble I’d ever get into.”
“Yeah?” He flashed her a smug grin. “So why did you constantly brush me off?”
“Because I knew you were the best kind of trouble I’d ever get into.”
Her soft smile stole his breath. Always had. Always would.
“I didn’t know if I had what it took to survive the ride,” she admitted. “But then I decided, what the heck. Live dangerously. What about you? When did you wise up?”
“I think it was the first time you told me to get lost.” He cupped a hand around her nape and pulled her toward him for a long, deep kiss. “I thought, man, the girl’s got spunk.”
She grunted. “Bruised your ego good, did I?”
“Nailed it with a hammer. Now, come ’ere. I want some more of that mouth.”
“Reel it in, Reed.”
Johnny made a big production out of a sigh when Nate walked into the room. “He is the boss of me, you know,” he told Crystal, who just grinned as he shifted his attention to Nate. “What’s up?”
“Hope remembered the rest of it. She remembers what both the driver and the grab man looked like.”
Crystal sprang up off the settee. “Do you think she’s ready to talk about it?”
Johnny understood why Crystal was concerned. Since Crystal herself had been the victim of a Jakarta-based human-trafficking ring, she had been assisting Juliana in the Angelina Foundation, an organization that helped children and adults who were caught up in the horrendous web of the slave trade.
“She’s a tough kid,” Nate said. “Juliana thinks she’s up to it. And then there’s the fact that Hope wants to get her friend back.”
Hope wanted Lola back so badly, in fact, that an hour later, she fed Juliana—who could have been an artist had she not gone into medicine—enough information that they now had two viable sketches to share with Wyatt and the guys to help them narrow their search.
“How about this guy? Ever seen him before?” Wyatt asked in Spanish. He didn’t expect much as he showed his cell-phone screen to a guy who could loosely be called a bartender in a dive that could loosely be called a cantina. Business was good, even at two in the afternoon. The tables around the perimeter of the bar were cloaked in smoke and shadows and populated by the type of bottom feeders who liked both just fine. Every foray into every dive since Reed had sent images two hours ago via e-mail to all the BOIs’ cell phones had been pretty much the same story.
Juliana had sketched two men based on Hope’s description, then snapped photos of the drawings. Armed with the images, concealed sidearms, and KA-Bars—with the exception of Gabe, who always carried his Archangel butterfly knife—the lot of them had paid visits to three other hamlets. They’d split up; Mendoza and Gabe, Doc and Green were currently working the other side of the street several blocks away, while Wyatt and Sophie flashed around the sketches in this dive along with a promise of cash to anyone who could send them in the right direction.
They’d repeated the same drill all day, and Wyatt hadn’t met with as much as a flicker of interest, let alone acknowledgment. Until now. This guy knew something, Wyatt wa
s sure of it. When he’d shown him the sketch just now, Wyatt saw something that looked a helluva lot like recognition in the bartender’s eyes, even though he’d just given Wyatt a head shake and a mumbled “No.”
Wyatt leaned an elbow on the bar and studied the guy. He was a derelict in a room full of derelicts. Wyatt guessed the age of the short, swarthy man to be somewhere between forty and eighty. His pocked face sported several days’ growth of salt-and-pepper stubble; his black eyes were narrow slits above hollow sockets that framed a badly misshapen brawler’s nose. A sloppy wife-beater in a grungy shade of dishwater sludge marginally covered his pigeon chest. Except for an artless bloodied-heart tattoo on his left bicep, his arms were scrawny and bare. The ink was faded, the drawing crude, but the “MS-13” inked into the center of the heart was unmistakable.
“You sure you’ve never seen him?” Wyatt asked again, watching the guy’s face.
The man’s gaze flicked from the photo to beyond the bar and briefly connected with someone across the dark, smoky room, before he went back to wiping the scarred wooden counter with his grimy rag. His answer was the same this time. But the atmosphere inside the cantina now hummed with tension.
“You go on outside,” Wyatt told Sophie, who, until that moment, he’d wanted stuck to his side like a tack on a cork board. But given the sudden climate change, he wanted her out of here now. “Give Jones a shout-out, okay, sugar?” he added, not giving away that he’d shifted into combat mode. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
She caught the signal, instantly tuned in to the fact that something had changed. Still, she touched a hand to his arm in concern. She didn’t want to leave him in here.