“Trust? No.” She shook her head and ignored the way Pierce’s lessons whispered against the back of her mind. “But I trust that he can be bought. And anyway, I’ve worked with Fernando before. His entire business is connecting outsiders with the right people inside the market. His reputation is his everything—if he betrays us, his business dies. His business dies and . . .” She shrugged.
“Why were you here, Coop?” Will asked again. She’d dodged the question the first time, though she wasn’t sure why. Maybe she just didn’t want him to picture her here. But with nothing better to do than wait and watch, he’d press her for an actual answer this time.
“I needed things I couldn’t get anywhere else.” She studied the market. It looked the same to her, though she knew it had changed. It was always changing, and in that way, it remained the same.
Tarps in every color hung suspended over stalls and vendors called out goods and foods and sales. Even from a block up, Cooper could smell the food, taste the smoke of an old, well-worked grill. People sped past on foot, on bikes and mopeds, and even in cars, threading their way through the chaos.
“What things?”
“A scope. A handgun—something small and easily concealed—and ID. Passports, that kind of thing.” Passports. Plural. Because she’d burned through identities as fast as she’d burned through countries.
“Guess that makes sense.” Will shoved his hands in his pockets, shifted his weight back and forth. “That’s why Pérez is here. Hard to run under your own name.”
“The fact that Parker could front the cash for the IDs made this meeting possible.”
“Yeah, I know,” he agreed. “I just wish we could have done the exchange somewhere else.”
“Cheer up, Bennett. I’ll buy you a churro when we’re done.” She grinned up at him. “Best in the city. Now, keep going. What happens after we enter the market.”
“Fernando takes me to the meet and I transfer the money Parker is holding for us, he gives me the data and the tissue samples.” He turned to her. “I don’t like leaving you.”
“Fernando will have me escorted to one of the hidden rooms above the market. I’ll track your progress.” And provide cover with the rifle that Fernando would have waiting for her. “In and out. Shouldn’t take more than a half hour, tops.”
“I still don’t like separating.”
Cooper sighed. “Neither do I. But it’s too dangerous to go in together. The three of us have prices on our heads. Pérez will blend in and you’re nearly unrecognizable with the beard. But I’m easier to identify. And anyway, Davis knows we’re together. They’ll be looking for a couple.” Her palm itched with sweat she wanted to blame on the coffee. “It’s safer this way.”
“I know,” Will agreed. “Doesn’t mean I gotta like it.”
“What happens after the exchange?” Cooper pressed him.
“Fernando escorts me out of the market and into a cab. We meet back up at the flat.”
Cooper straightened as she spotted Fernando emerge from the market. She turned to look up at Will. “An hour. Two at most, and we’re together again and heading for the airfield.” She tugged the edge of his beard until he looked down at her. “Get this done and take me home, Bennett. It’s time.”
His smile unfurled, slow and lazy as a summer river.
“Hola,” Fernando said, and Cooper turned to greet him.
“Hey. Thanks for taking my call.”
“Sure. Sure. You remember Jorge?”
“Yes of course.” Cooper nodded toward the man—a boy really, he couldn’t have been more than sixteen—standing behind him. “This is the friend I told you about.”
Will shook Fernando’s hand, but didn’t offer his name and Fernando didn’t request it.
“Jorge will take you to wait,” he told Cooper. “And I’ll take your friend to the market. If you’re ready?”
Cooper glanced back at Will, who nodded once.
“Let’s do this.”
Three stories above the market, in a windowless, cinderblock room, Cooper inventoried the promised scope and rifle.
“Here.” Jorge beckoned her with a hand as he stepped off a metal ladder attached to the wall, over three feet of open air, and onto a ledge that couldn’t be more than three feet deep and six feet wide.
It wouldn’t be comfortable, but it didn’t matter. Cooper had dealt with worse terrain.
Jorge withdrew a butterfly knife from his pocket, then used it to pry free one of the cinderblocks, one row up from the bottom. “Venga. Come.” He nodded toward the missing brick and stepped back over the open space. Within a minute, Cooper was stretched out, her feet propped up against the wall across the gap, her rifle pointing out over the market. Because of the angle, she’d have to wait for Will and Fernando to make their way five or six hundred feet into the market. From there, she’d be able to track their progress through to the other side. She’d have neither a clean view or a clean shot, but hopefully she’d need neither.
Set and settled, she tucked an earbud into her ear and dialed the number of the burner phone she’d picked up for Will.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice steady and confident now that the op had started.
“Yeah, we’re good,” she said. “Market’s busy. Lots of tarps, tons of umbrellas.”
“It’s just a precaution,” Will reminded her. “You should be used to this, Coop,” he teased. She picked him up as he followed Fernando’s winding path through the crowds, Will’s blue-and-orange Bronco’s hat—and yeah, he’d complained about that—making him easy to spot.
“Used to what?” she asked.
“Being relegated to the sidelines. Backup. A glorified oh-shit bar in case things get a little bumpy.”
“You’re such a jerk,” she complained.
“You love it,” he countered.
And because there was really nothing she could say to that, she shifted, searching the crowd ahead for anything that felt off or out of the ordinary.
A thousand different things pinged that particular radar. The stand that held fifty-thousand dollars in counterfeit Nikes. The guy on the corner who had his smartphone out, so a customer could scroll through merchandise. Drugs, maybe. But guns, most likely. It was, after all, how she’d sourced her own weapon. And later, how she’d searched through vendors and inventories and cobbled together her rifle, which she’d had to leave at the flat they’d rented. Even concealed in her backpack, it drew too much attention, caused too much curiosity.
She’d had to rely on Fernando to have something ready for her. And he’d come through with a well-worn but well-serviced Remington M 700. Bolt action and an older model, it wasn’t what she was used to, but it was what she’d grown up with. It would do.
“We’re heading in,” Will said quietly as he lingered outside a stand stacked floor to ceiling with counterfeit Louis Vuitton. “I’ll call you when it’s done,” he said, then pulled the headphones out of his ear and shoved them into his pocket with the phone, leaving Cooper to settle in and wait.
Though the language and location were different, Tepito wasn’t so different from the urban landscapes and markets she’d covered while deployed or attached to the CIA. She’d long ago become skilled at tracking a target through a crowded street, beneath overhangs and past crowded storefronts. Cooper blinked, and they were there. Blinked again and gone. But as she settled into the rhythm of shoppers and vendors, street traffic and noise, it became easy to predict where and when her target would appear next.
Somewhere along the line, she’d lost the challenge, the thrill, that she’d so long associated with this job.
She couldn’t say she’d miss it.
Maybe because she was tired. Maybe because it had been tarnished—by other people’s decisions and her own. Or maybe it was because for the first time she was really looking forward to what came next.
With Will.
Ten minutes after Will stepped into the back of the booth and out of view, Pérez appeared, a b
ackpack slung over one shoulder as he threaded his way through throngs of people and beneath tarps and umbrellas, disappearing one second, reappearing the next. Within minutes, he disappeared into the same booth that Will had, and Cooper was left to wait, left to watch.
She stiffened, pushing her elbows into the ground and focusing on the here and now as Pérez reappeared on the street, followed closely by Fernando, then Will, who had the small backpack Pérez had arrived with draped over his shoulder.
Fernando and Pérez shook hands, and Cooper watched as Will and Fernando turned to begin picking their way through the crowded market and toward the road at the opposite end, congested with cars and flanked with taxis. The walk was maybe a thousand yards, but it would feel like a thousand miles as they worked through all the people and vendors and mopeds that zipped between the chaos.
Will’s hand came up to touch his ear, then her phone buzzed, and his voice filtered down the line. “It’s done.”
“You got it all?” she asked, her breath tight in her lungs.
“Labs. Tissues samples on ice—everything he promised. It’s done, Cooper. We’re going home.” Something light and new and hopeful entered his voice.
Another shade of Will Bennett. Another facet to explore. Soon, she reminded herself, pushing down the joy that tried to bubble up.
Movement, fast and abrupt, caught Cooper’s eye and she shifted her scope, checking, searching, and landed on Pérez, looking over his shoulder and moving fast toward the far side of the market.
Cooper followed his line of sight and found three men closing in fast.
“We’ve got a problem,” she said into the mic on her headphones.
“What’s up?” Will answered.
“Guys on Pérez’s six. Closing in quick.” She watched as Pérez broke into a run, pushing past people and stumbling over his feet. The guys behind him pulled weapons and followed.
“He’s been made,” Cooper mumbled. “Hit’s going down now. Get the fuck out of there, Will.”
She shifted her scope—Pérez wasn’t her priority—as the first shots cut through the marketplace din, screams and chaos following.
“Is he down?” Will asked as Cooper searched for him, scanning crowds that were surging like a tsunami that had finally reached shore.
“If he’s not, he will be soon. Two more guys were waiting at the end of the street.” Which made five total. Shit. “Call out markers, I’ve lost you, damn it,” she barked, but forced herself to work calmly, methodically as she tried to catch up.
“Plantain stand on the left,” Will shouted over the pandemonium. “Blue tarp fifty feet ahead then a gap in cover. You’ll pick us up there.”
She moved her scope, her finger on the trigger, searching, scanning. She found the tarp and the gap. “You there yet?”
“Thirty feet,” Will called, his breathing labored.
Screams erupted a couple hundred yards ahead of him and Cooper shifted her view forward.
“Shit.”
“What is it?” Will asked, his voice nearly drowned out beneath the screaming stampede of people.
“Fire. Eight hundred yards up. Looks like one of the grills tipped and a stall went up. It’s spreading fast and belching smoke.” With the easiest exit cut off, Cooper immediately slid into finding him a new path out.
“Okay, I’ve got you,” she said when his blue-and-orange hat appeared on the other side of the tarp he’d called out for her. “Go two hundred feet—you’ll clear the opening in my line of sight, pass under a red umbrella, then just before you get to the yellow overhang, make a right. There’s an alley, it’ll take you two streets over.”
“Got it,” he replied.
“Move fast, Will. I don’t like this.”
The hit on Pérez was one thing. Unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected. But the fire . . .
That felt convenient. Planned. The sort of mass casualty event that could hide a number of sins. And the sort of thing that CIA excelled at.
“Making the right now,” Will shouted and Cooper moved her scope, waiting for him to pop out the other side of the narrow passage she’d marked for him.
“I’m through,” he said, coughing against smoke that was rapidly pushing through the market. Though it was open air, it was densely packed and strung with tarps and umbrellas, littered with flammable goods and jutting overhangs. It would burn, and it would be as bad as if the people inside had been caught in a warehouse.
“I’ve got you,” she said, picking him up as he and Fernando emerged two streets over. “You’re clear to the exit. Move, Will, this place is going up.”
“Get out of there, Cooper,” he urged her. “It’s not safe for you either.”
“I’m fine,” she assured him.
“Go!” he ordered. “Now. We’ll meet up as planned.”
“Not until you’re clear,” she said, tracking his progress as he and Fernando bounced like pinballs through a screaming, desperate crowd.
The crowd that, up until now, had concealed the threat she’d sensed, but hadn’t seen.
Cole.
“Down!” she shouted and thank God Will could follow a command. He dropped like a stone and the bullet that had been meant for him tore through Fernando’s head instead.
Fresh screams erupted, and people scattered. Will stood, tried to turn, to run. But there was nowhere to go.
The crowd parted around the threat.
Cole appeared, gun in hand, face set, aim steady, Will already in his sights again.
Noise turned to a distant buzz in Cooper’s ears.
Her vision tunneled, filtering out everything but the danger. The mark.
“Cooper, don’t!” Will shouted at the same time Cooper did what she’d been trained to do.
She pulled the trigger.
Took a punch to the shoulder.
Felt as much as she heard the .300 Winchester Magnum round leave the gun.
And shot her best friend in the chest.
The bullet caught Cole, high and center, knocking him off his feet and hurtling him to the ground.
And though she knew that people were still running, still screaming, there wasn’t room for any of it in her head.
Just silence, and the deafening realization that she hadn’t even hesitated. Hadn’t given it a second thought.
She’d saved Will . . . and killed Cole.
She’d chosen, when she’d said she wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
Numbness spread like heated brandy through her veins.
“Cooper!” Will shouted. “Cooper, talk to me, God damn it!”
He’d been yelling for a while, she realized, her finger still poised, her gaze still searching for threats. Thank God for training. For strict adherence to discipline. It would see her through this.
“I’m here,” she said through a thick throat and found him through her scope. She still had to see him out, see him safe. Then she could give into the nausea, to the guilt, the realization that it had all been for nothing.
“Baby, talk to me,” Will said, the raw, ragged edge of his voice cutting through her. “Talk to me, Cooper,” he repeated as he finally, finally cleared the market.
“Turn right,” she said, shutting down the emotions surging within her. She couldn’t fall apart. Not yet. “Taxis are idling four blocks up and to the left. The chaos hasn’t hit them yet.”
“I don’t give two fucks about the cabs, Cooper. I’m coming to you.”
“No!” she shouted, then repeated more firmly. “No. Too dangerous. Stick to the plan. Get somewhere safe. It’s time to go home.”
“Together,” he confirmed, the noise of traffic beginning to overtake the screaming and the sirens and the chaos that was just three stories beneath her.
“You’re coming to meet me, Cooper. Say it.”
She set aside the gun. Wiped her palms on her jeans, then made her way down the narrow, metal stairs. And with every step, her agony turned to rage, and her failure to determination.
/>
Davis had done this. He’d sent her partner, her best friend, the man she trusted most in the world, to kill her.
And in the process, he’d forced her hand. Made her choose. Kill Cole to save Will.
“Cooper, honey, talk to me,” Will pleaded. “We go home together. You promised.”
“I promised,” she agreed.
“Then you’ll meet me as planned?” he asked, his voice cautious and sad and hopeful all at once. “Come home to me. Let me help you. Let me hold you.”
She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to. He’d make it okay. He’d tell her it wasn’t her fault.
But it was. She’d made the choice. Pulled the trigger. How could she go to Will, take comfort in his words and his arms, knowing what that comfort had cost?
She didn’t deserve him. And she would miss him.
And for the first time since she’d rescued him, she lied to him. “I’ll be there.”
She hung up as she planted her feet on new, bleaker ground. She’d hit the point of no return, crossed the line she’d been so damn afraid of, the one she could never step back from. But it wasn’t done. Not yet.
But it would be.
Soon.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The realization that Cooper wasn’t coming came in seconds parsed out over minutes that lasted hours, each and every one of them an agony.
A part of him had known when he’d walked in the door of the single-room flat they were crashing in. Hell, a part of him had known long before that.
Had heard it in her voice. Had felt the lie even as she’d forced it over the phone.
He wanted to be mad. Furious, really. She’d promised him when she had no intention of following through. But he just couldn’t force an emotion past the thick layer of sorrow.
Will would never have asked this of her. Had tried to stop her in the split second before a trigger was pulled and a life ended. She hadn’t hesitated. There’d been no room, no time, no space for second thoughts or alternative plans. The choice had been simple to see, if not simple to make.
It should have been him, Will thought. Not because Cole could have been saved—Will had never clung to that belief as fiercely as Cooper had. And not because Cole was somehow more deserving of a second chance.
Fearless (Somerton Security Book 3) Page 27