by Dana Marton
Mitch didn’t return it. He was all business, every bit the mercenary he claimed to be. “So who do I talk to about pay?”
* * *
SHE DIDN’T KNOW if she should be impressed or consternated.
She was a CIA agent—she didn’t get frustrated easily, Megan reminded herself. Trouble was, that left impressed, and she didn’t want to be impressed by Mitch.
Bad enough that she’d been thoroughly seduced by him. While on an undercover op in the middle of an enemy camp. There had to be a whole manual full of rules against that somewhere. Not that she wasn’t breaking all the rules already by secretly working to free her brother.
The two Jeeps followed each other closely on the narrow, bumpy road, followed by three ATVs. It was much easier than going on foot, even if the logging road was no more than a collection of potholes in the muddy soil. She was afraid that by the time they reached their destination, the journey might have shaken her teeth loose.
Mitch was avoiding her on purpose. He’d chosen to ride in the other car, and he never came anywhere near her whenever they hit a particularly bad patch of road and had to get out to help the cars over.
Each time, he worked harder and longer than anyone, earning some of the men’s grudging respect, and the resentment of others who didn’t like Juarez’s approving eye on him. He brushed that off, just went along with the lifting and the pushing.
She knew the game he was playing. According to Umberto, Mitch was to stay at the drop-off site and rejoin the team on their way back. The drop-off was tonight. Mitch wanted to stay with the group longer so he’d have more time to rescue Zak.
And mess up her plans.
She’d vouched for him, back when she’d still hoped he would come around to help her. If he did anything stupid, it would be her butt on the line. Juarez would assume they were working together. He’d shoot first, ask questions later.
She would have liked to think that Mitch wouldn’t do that to her. But as mad as he’d been at her this morning... He was convinced she was the enemy.
If Mitch took off with Zak... Even if she managed to convince Juarez that she wasn’t in cahoots with him... She’d been the one who’d brought Zak back the first time. If the kid disappeared again, and by some miracle, Juarez didn’t blame her, he’d send her after Zak for sure.
Except, she didn’t have time to chase after the kid again. She needed to go to Don Pedro at any cost.
So her primary focus at the moment was to watch Mitch like a hawk and make sure he didn’t spirit Zak away when no one was looking.
When their convoy came to a small creek lined with moss-covered stones, she jumped to the mud to lighten the load. So did most of the others.
“It’s slippery,” the driver said. “Water’s higher than last week.”
They’d had plenty of rain since then. Megan walked alongside the car as they crossed, in position to help if the current began pushing the vehicle downstream. Cold water filled her boots. At least she had dry socks in her backpack so she could change into them when they reached the other side. Walking around with wet feet in the jungle was asking for trouble.
Using her femininity as an excuse to stay in the car didn’t even occur to her. Her continued survival depended on the men knowing that she was as tough as they were. Tougher.
They reached the other side fine, but climbing ashore turned out to be more difficult than the crossing. The mud was deeper here. The lighter ATVs made it up the bank fine, but the tires of the two Jeeps got stuck, which meant another round of heaving and dragging.
If she hadn’t been watching Mitch so closely, she wouldn’t have noticed that this time, instead of helping, he sneaked away into the jungle.
“Need a drain,” he called back with a grin.
Except none of the men ever walked very far to relieve themselves. But Mitch went far enough that she could no longer see him at all.
She moved closer to Zak, trying to figure out Mitch’s game.
He was back in ten minutes. And he was walking funny.
Maybe he’d pulled his back lifting the Jeep and walked off so the men wouldn’t notice his pain. Maybe he just didn’t want to seem weak. Since he didn’t go anywhere near Zak, Megan relaxed and went back to work, focusing her full strength on what she was doing.
Then they were done at last, muddy, cold and exhausted. A short break was ordered. They’d build a fire so that everyone could dry up and grab a bite to eat.
Mitch sat next to Zak and talked to the kid under his breath while the others loudly joked around. They hoped Don Pedro had gotten new women to do the cooking. They hadn’t fancied the last batch of cooks, who were old enough to be their mothers.
Megan shook her head good-naturedly at the comments. She rolled her eyes at the more raunchy jokes, but watched Mitch every chance she got, making sure she was close enough to stop him if he made a move. She didn’t like this sudden cozying up to Zak. As good as Mitch was... She didn’t dare turn her back on him for a second.
He was not going to mess up her plans.
She strode right up to Juarez as soon as her bowl was empty. “The kid’s riding with me. Got some questions for him about how he escaped. I don’t like it that a kid like this got through our security.”
Juarez shrugged, busy with his meal. He liked his food and it showed on his midriff. He no longer went on long marches through the jungle; he had plenty of men for that. If he needed to see to something personally, he took one of the Jeeps.
He was getting comfortable in other ways, too. He’d simply had the guard who’d let Zak escape beaten. A year ago, when Megan had shown up, gross negligence like that would have been punished by a shot to the head.
There’d been two previous trips to see Don Pedro since Megan had been at camp. No matter what she’d done, she couldn’t get on Juarez to take her along. She’d been told she needed to earn his trust. Yet Mitch had easily managed to get himself invited. Only to the halfway drop-off point, but still. Juarez was relaxing the rules.
That didn’t bode well for him, especially if he was right and one of the other captains was planning an internal war. Juarez had been doing too well for too long, and he was getting cocky.
Megan grabbed Zak by the elbow and dragged him to the second car so they could ride together. When she glanced back at Mitch, she expected him to be angry. Instead, a look of satisfaction sat on the man’s face, which he quickly masked.
She had no idea what that was about. Didn’t matter. Zak was hers.
“What did he tell you?” she asked the kid.
“To keep my head down so I don’t get into any more trouble.”
She watched Zak’s face for telltale signs that he was lying, but didn’t see any. “Try to remember that.”
They piled into the cars and took off, but didn’t get far before the first Jeep veered off the road and nearly crashed into a tree. Everyone jumped out of the car, swearing up a storm.
Everyone except Mitch. His knife flashed just before something brownish green flew from the vehicle. A snake.
A second passed before she recognized the shape of the snake’s head. It was a fer-de-lance, a spearhead. A shiver ran down her back.
“Stay,” she ordered Zak, as she jumped out to take a closer look.
The men had already gathered around the snake. Four feet long and still wriggling—the deadliest snake around. In this jungle, spearheads were responsible for more deaths than any other animal.
There wasn’t a face that didn’t go a little pale. She felt the blood draining out of her own.
Juarez shook off the scare first.
His gaze settled on Megan. “I owe you my thanks. This man you brought to us is a good one. He saved my life today.”
Mitch.
Oh, man. She’d left Zak alone in the car and every man’s attention was on the snake. Except for Mitch’s, and he wasn’t here.
She whipped around, expecting both him and the kid to be gone, but Mitch was right behind her. He
stepped forward, bent and cut the dead snake’s head off with a clean swipe of his knife, speared it on a stick and held it out to Juarez.
Juarez took it and grinned at the open mouth, at the fangs. It was the exact kind of trophy he liked, although she had no idea how Mitch would know that.
The other men who’d been riding up front seemed equally happy with their latest comrade in arms, but Umberto, who’d been driving the Jeep Megan and Zak rode in, narrowed his small brown eyes as he watched the proceedings.
Looked like Mitch’s sudden rise into the boss’s favor was gaining him at least one enemy. Odd, since Umberto was one of the most easygoing of the men, not given to fits of temper or jealousy. Still, Mitch would be smart to watch his back, she thought as she headed back to the car and the kid.
Part of her wanted to warn Mitch about Umberto, but doing it without anyone hearing didn’t seem possible at the moment. And Mitch wasn’t talking to her anyway. He was just going to have to handle any trouble he got himself into. Her first priority was her brother.
Several hours passed before they reached the drop-off point. They unloaded one of the Jeeps. From the feel of the bags, she was pretty sure the load was drugs and not weapons. She couldn’t find a way to tag these bags without being seen, so she tagged a nearby tree, sticking a microtransmitter onto the bark when she leaned against it for a minute of rest. That way, her CIA team would be able to find the drop-off location.
The sun dipped lower and lower. They needed to get their camp ready. She helped where she could and stayed out of the way otherwise. She needed to stick to Zak, who was unusually subdued, nursing his jaw and looking beat down and miserable.
She cooked, even though she never did that in camp, leaving kitchen work to the cantina women. But now she was the only woman at hand and traditional gender roles lived on in the jungle. She didn’t mind. At least she knew what she was eating. Some of the men were less than discerning when it came to food out here. She dropped dried fish into the filtered water and let it boil, adding cleaned roots and native herbs they’d brought, supplemented with a few that she found near the clearing.
While the others ate, she spoon-fed some soup to Zak. “You need to eat some of this, even if it hurts.”
She made sure he had enough water and his straw, even brought him a cup of maté later and helped him drink it. He was in bad shape, but he could have been in worse. He could have been dead by now. She sure hoped he’d learned his lesson. And if Mitch managed to get him home in one piece, she prayed he would do something useful with his life.
“You take the second car for the night,” Juarez called across the fire to her.
To be given the car to sleep in was a treat. Juarez was probably rewarding her for bringing Zak back and for adding another good man to the boss’s team.
“With the kid,” he added. “He better still be here come morning.”
No problem there. She’d already planned on tying the kid to her wrist with her bootlaces that night.
The drop-off point, where they’d set up camp for the night, was at loggers’ crossroads. Collapsed sleeping platforms were visible here and there where loggers of the past had rested. Umberto was repairing one. The rest of the men made new ones for themselves.
Megan helped Zak to another drink, but she became distracted when she heard an enraged shout.
Mitch and Umberto were facing off. Umberto cursed him with all the color of the Spanish language. Something about Mitch bumping into him and spilling his drink. “Watch where you’re going, gringo!”
Mitch stood his ground, darkness gathering in his eyes. Umberto moved closer and put the honor of Mitch’s mother in question. A muscle ticked in Mitch’s face. More insults were shouted about gringos and all the cowards who lived in the United States He was provoking Mitch, taunting him until he couldn’t take anymore and moved toward Umberto at last, rolling over him like a tank.
Umberto was older, but he was also taller than Mitch and had grown up fighting. He’d made his living with his fists all his life. He had moves that weren’t taught at any law enforcement academy, and a familiarity with jungle terrain that no one could match.
The men gathered around and cheered, not a thought given to pulling the battling enemies apart. They thought this prime entertainment, business as usual. Fights were frequent at the camp.
Megan watched Mitch, her hands curled into fists.
The stupid idiot. She could have punched him herself, given half a chance. Did he have a death wish? Umberto might have been the closest thing she had to a friend at camp, but he was a hardened criminal. She never allowed herself to forget that.
If Mitch got injured... A broken rib could be a death sentence out here. Two months back, after a fight like this, a broken rib had punctured a man’s lung. He’d died before he could reach the witch doctor in the nearest village.
Her jaw tightened. She was not going to worry about Mitch, she told herself. He deserved whatever he got. But she couldn’t look away, either.
The men rolled on the uneven ground, too near the fire. Umberto grabbed Mitch’s collar from the back and pulled hard, trying to cut off his air. But the fabric gave instead, ripping down his back. Then Mitch was on top, pinning Umberto.
He waited, sweat rolling down his neck, until the older man capitulated. Then he stood, letting Umberto go with a cocky sneer. Which was too much for the proud Umberto, who went on the attack once again.
Mitch bent deftly out of the way, barely bumping his opponent, who fell face-first into the fire. Umberto pulled back, howling.
“Enough!” Juarez ordered at last, and others stepped between the fighters to separate them.
“I didn’t mean for him to get hurt,” Mitch submitted to the boss immediately, apologetic. Then he turned to Umberto. “Sorry, amigo.” He wiped his forehead. “It’s this damned heat.”
“You let him go. He came back for more.” Juarez let Mitch off the hook even as he scowled at both men. The boss watched as Umberto poured water over his burned face, hissing.
Megan grabbed her jar of salve and ran to help, shooting an angry glance at Mitch as she passed.
“Let me look at that,” she told Umberto. “It’s not that bad. You’ll heal. Anyway, women like a man with battle scars,” she said, trying to make Umberto feel better.
“Something about that one isn’t right,” the man told her under his breath. He was holding up pretty well considering the pain he must be in. “You watch him, chica, or he’ll burn you, too. You’ll see. You keep an eye on him.”
“Te lo prometo.” I promise.
Juarez kicked one of the bags that held supplies, displeasure written all over his face. “Umberto will stay with the goods. The gringo is coming with us in the morning,” he declared before he stalked away.
Mitch shrugged, not seeming to care one way or the other, not looking pleased with his victory. He glanced at Umberto. “You all right?”
Umberto swore at him in Spanish and told him to drop dead.
As Mitch shuffled off, suspicion swirled through Megan. He’d wanted to come with them to the end, and now he was coming.
Convenient.
Had the fight been engineered? Maybe he hadn’t spilled Umberto’s drink by accident. He’d sure gained Juarez’s favor in a hurry, something that had taken her nearly a full year to do. Granted, the fact that she was a woman had counted against her in a big way. The most difficult part of her job had been to overcome that.
Then she thought about the snake, the way Mitch had gone off to the woods and come back walking funny. Even he wouldn’t have hidden a poisonous snake under his clothing, would he? No. She decided against it. Nobody would be that crazy.
Yet, if she’d learned anything since she’d met him, it was that he would do anything to achieve his goal. He would stop at nothing to complete his mission and get Zak back home. On a professional level, she appreciated that.
She’d have appreciated it even more than if they were partners. But they were
clearly working at cross-purposes, which meant she had to watch him 24/7.
If it came down to a choice between saving her brother or Zak, Mitch would save Zak. A fact she would do well to remember.
She made sure their paths crossed when he started down to the creek for water. “So you’re coming with us to the meeting,” she remarked, watching him closely. His face didn’t betray a thing.
He filled his canteen, then took hers and filled that, too, so she didn’t have to stand too close to the muddy creek and get her boots wet. She glanced around to make sure there was nobody within hearing distance.
“Billy always liked the jungle,” she said as she looked up at the tall trees that seemed to reach the sky. “He was excited when he found out that his assignment would bring him here.”
“And you? Was this what you wanted?”
She gave a sour laugh. “When I first signed up...I was thinking more plush European jobs. I’d have loved to go to Paris, in particular. Do a little shopping, a little intelligence gathering, that sort of thing.”
He handed her canteen back.
“The first week of training pretty much killed most of my TV-inspired fantasies,” she admitted. “Billy tried to talk me out of the job, actually. Before I signed up, and a couple of times after. He worried that I’d get into trouble somewhere far from home. And then he did.”
Mitch stomped the mud off his shoes and began walking away.
“He has a girl back home, Amy. She’s a kindergarten teacher. She’s just the sweetest thing.”
Mitch didn’t wait for her to catch up. He didn’t seem to be interested in her, or stories of her little brother. He was a man on a mission.
Well, she was a woman on a mission. And she wasn’t done fighting.
Chapter Nine
Mitch ambled around Don Pedro’s compound, hoping to catch a glimpse of Zak. He’d been carried off the moment they’d arrived at the meeting point and hadn’t been seen since.