Dangerous Curves (7 page)

“You were a marine?”

He gave her a wistful smile. “There is no past tense, Rio. I’m always going to be a marine.” He took a swig of water. “I copped a couple of those missiles they were lobbing at us and did a quick demolition. Thought it would distract them and make them regroup before they came after us again. It’s at least a ten-mile hike to Hana from here.”

Rio sighed. “But they probably have radios or cell phones.”

Max paused and thought about that. “Speaking of cells…do you have one on you?”

She shook her head. “No, I purposely left it back at the hotel. They could trace us with the phone.”

“No forms of communication in that magic bag of yours?”

She gave him a quelling look.

“What?” he asked, lifting his hands. “I’ve gotten used to you pulling a rabbit out of your hat.”

“Have you? I suppose you think you’re funny? Why don’t you use your gut instinct to get us out of this mess?”

He grinned, he couldn’t help it. “Well, my instincts told me not to get too tangled up with you, and you can see where that landed me.” He watched the color steal into her cheeks, but she didn’t look away.

“So you’re saying you only listen to them when they suit your purposes?” She took a sip of water.

“Or until someone ambushes me with sexy underwear and a big gun.”

“I didn’t ambush—”

Now it was his turn to give her the quelling look. The blush that flushed her skin was even more becoming this time around.

“Okay, so maybe I did. Just a bit. But it wasn’t my plan for us to end up…the way we ended up.”

“But…”

She didn’t bother pretending. Her grin was as bold as his was. “Okay, but I’m glad it did.” She folded her arms in front of her. “So, now what do we do?”

His eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Regarding which event?”

She laughed.

And his heart teetered dangerously inside his chest. “You’re going to get us both in trouble, you know that.”

“I thought I already had. You’re the protector and defender. You’re supposed to keep us on the straight and narrow, focused on the mission at hand.” She lifted her shoulders and batted her eyelashes at him. “I’m just the helpless female in this scenario, remember?”

He snorted. “There is nothing remotely helpless about you.”

“Thank you,” she said. Then, in a more serious tone she added, “Most of the time, I’m pretty fearless about going after what I want.”

“I’ll vouch for that,” he said dryly, hoping to bring back that cocky smile.

Her lips curved ever so slightly. “I’ll admit that I’m not exactly ready to run up the white flag or call in reinforcements, but the situation here is starting to rattle me.” She held his gaze steadily. “I should have been more thankful for your timely intervention.”

“You’d have done something about it, taken action, whether I’d shown up or not.”

“Probably,” she agreed. “But I don’t think I’d have put it all together as quickly. And that might prove to be the difference in getting out of here alive.”

She was such a paradox. Here she was, admitting she needed him, that she was grateful for his help, the same woman who’d just about undone him…and yet there was still a wariness about her that had him wondering what it was going to take to win her over completely.

Which was insanity. Because winning her over was not the objective here. Solving her problem was the only goal that needed achieving, and when that was accomplished, he’d go home. And she’d go back to work. So there was no point in winning anything. He’d tried to tell her that last night.

And yet, he couldn’t manage to find any regret for what had just happened between them. Sure, it wasn’t going to end well. Shit happened in life, and some of it was no fun. But being with her was giving him something he’d never had or felt before. Sometimes when shit happened, it was good.

Max finished his bar and his water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “So here’s the plan, then. We need to find a place where I can make a phone call.”

“Why?”

Rio took his empty bottle and wrapper and slid them into her pack. Smart not to leave any evidence they were here.

“Remember the guy who saved you in Colombia?”

“Right. Drew Miller.”

“I told you he’s marrying my sister.”

“Right.”

“He’ll lend us a hand and I know I can trust him.”

The snap of her voice told him her feelings. “How? Get us tickets on a commercial flight? What good will that do?”

“No, he’s a pilot. He can fly here and get us off Maui and back to L.A., where we can try to figure all this out in relative safety.”

She rose and paced away from him, scouring the ground to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind. “You’re going to involve someone else in this?”

“We can trust Drew.”

“I don’t care whether or not we can trust him. I don’t want anyone else at risk. I will figure something out.”

He went to her and grabbed her shoulders to turn her gently so she would look at him. “How, Rio? Western Maui is less populated and we’re in the middle of this vast forest preserve. There’s no one around for miles. There’s no way off this island that isn’t being guarded by the Ghost’s men. We have to get some help from someone else.”

“Can’t we just steal a boat?”

“That will show up in a police report and if we’re caught on open water, it’ll all be over.”

“Bribe someone to take us.”

“Then we’re relying on a stranger. I know I can trust Drew.”

“I don’t like it.”

“That’s beside the point, Rio. It’s the best and only plan we have, short of shooting our way out of here or trusting law enforcement. I’m not keen on that.”

“I’m not, either,” she agreed. “My luck is shot to hell both here and in Colombia.”

“Have you been fooling around with your karma?”

She gave him a startled look as if that question really hit home. “Karma, that bitch.”

“It can be,” he said, enjoying that combination of wary amusement he saw on her face. He liked that she fought her attraction to him, or at least questioned it. It meant she was taking this seriously. He didn’t examine why that part was so important to him. “But we have something on our side that beats out karma.”

“We do? Enlighten me.”

“Good old-fashioned training and experience.”

Rio nodded. “True.”

“We get some rest, wake an hour before dawn and then find a phone.”

She leaned in to him. “Okay.” She paused, sighed and then seemed to pull herself up a little. “We don’t do the expected and head for the airport, at least not to try to catch a commercial flight. We’ll confuse him.”

“Which is the exact state we want him to be in. Doing the unexpected jars the framework, it forces the other players to adjust their planning. It ups the chances that something or someone might slip up, at least
enough to give us another piece of the puzzle. It’s important we use what leverage we have to our best advantage.”

She nodded again, but her gaze was more intent on him.

“What?” he asked, when she continued to regard him in silence.

“Nothing. I just…” She trailed off, lifted a shoulder. “You’re so focused in all this, clearly in your comfort zone, very confident and methodical. On the one hand it reassures me, makes me feel like I can trust you.”

“You can,” he said automatically. “Always.”

She nodded right away, and it was almost ridiculous how good that made him feel. “I know that, in ways that aren’t necessarily rational or even proven.” She held his gaze. “But I do know that.”

“Good,” he said, trying like hell to keep the situation all about business. This was hard to do when his heart was celebrating what felt like an important milestone in their relationship. A relationship that didn’t exist because it had nowhere to go, he reminded himself.

“On the other hand,” she went on, “it scares me. I’ve had a lot of loss in my life, Max.” It was the first time he’d seen her look truly vulnerable. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

He wished he could outright guarantee her he would be fine. But he couldn’t do that. She trusted him, and that meant telling her the truth, even when it was a truth she didn’t want to hear. “I’ve pledged to keep you safe, Rio. I’ll do that no matter what it takes.”

She held his gaze, and then nodded. “That’s the thing that scares me the most.”

P
RETENDING TO BE
the Ghost’s lackey, when, in fact, he was the Ghost, sometimes had its drawbacks. Like now when he was questioned every step of the way. Jammer had learned that hiding in plain sight was all about perception. The Ghost had never been caught because he didn’t really exist. He was Jammer’s fabrication that had effectively thrown off the DEA, FBI, CIA and all the other alphabet-soup agencies who’d put the Ghost on their ten-most-wanted lists.

Jammer stood on the balcony overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The water was a glittering aquamarine. The warm breeze brought with it the smell of the ocean, and he breathed deep.

With quick flicks of his wrist, he toyed with a butterfly switchblade, flipping the razor-thin blades in and out of the handle. The scissoring sound a soft snick.

He could see a woman on the beach with a small girl, digging in the sand. The woman threw her head back and laughed at something the child said and his heart clutched in his chest. Grabbing up the child, the woman hugged her until the child squirmed.

For a fleeting moment, Jammer wondered what it
would be like to have that. Someone who gave a damn. Her name, her presence was always there at the edge of his mind.
Gina.

Had it only been two weeks ago that he’d last seen Gina lying in the hospital after a rival arms dealer with a personal beef had tried to kill her by running her over? He’d met her in Paris about a month ago. It was still hard to believe that the delicate woman had put together a major buy with what had been a lethal arms dealer.

Because of her accident, the deal they had planned had been finished by her twin sister and the sister looked so much like Gina, she had almost duped him. But he
knew
Gina on such a deep level that a double couldn’t fool him.

He’d fallen way too fast and way too hard for Gina and now he doubted he’d ever get her out of his heart or his head. He let her go for the moment and focused on his purpose.

He was here to capture a woman, a DEA agent, and use the knowledge she possessed to get what he needed to complete this job. That’s what he’d told Eduardo.

The drug lord had been livid when the woman had escaped. He’d raged around his compound, lashing out at anyone who even uttered a word.

Fuentes was behind him, the beauty of the ocean and Hawaii lost on him. He paced the hotel room like a caged animal waiting for his pound of flesh.

Jammer was finally where he wanted to be, but the woman had upset his very carefully placed apple cart. Now Eduardo wouldn’t rest until he had her back. No one, absolutely no one escaped from him, least of all a
DEA agent. The fact that Rio Marshall was a woman made it all the more unacceptable to Eduardo.

Fucking bastard was jeopardizing a thirty-million-dollar deal because of his pride.

Idiot.

Eduardo had more things to worry about than one lone woman, yet that’s what the man was focusing on. To expand their drug-trafficking businesses, drug lords often made deals with other factions. Colombia was filled with paramilitary organizations fighting for their own ideals against the government. The organizations quickly realized that selling drugs was an excellent way to fund their wars, which made drug lords the partner of choice.

Eduardo agreed to find a gunrunner who could provide the troops of the Defensores de la Libertad the weapons they needed and in turn the Libertad would protect Fuentes’s interests—his laboratories, his members and associates and his trafficking routes. Namely the Gulf of Urabá, through which hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of contraband—arms and drugs in particular—entered and left Colombia each year. Fuentes had found the Ghost, or his associate, anyway—Jammer.

The deal Jammer was putting together would take him where he wanted to go in Fuentes’s organization. A deal that included huge shipments of high-powered machine guns, fragmentation grenades and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, which would cement the relationship between Fuentes and the Libertad.

It had come as a shock to him that he’d recognized
the woman the moment he saw her. Shane McMasters, a name out of his past, one that should stay buried in his memory, rose like a specter. He’d been a DEA agent who’d gotten way to close to Eduardo and had paid by losing his life.

Rio Marshall was his stepsister, and Jammer had every intention of getting her out of the mess she was in. He owed it to the man who had been Shane McMasters. He didn’t know what she was doing in the jungle, but she’d escaped Fuentes, made him look weak and ineffectual. When Jammer insinuated that Eduardo’s ranks had been breached, it made the drug lord even more paranoid than he was already.

“
Hijo de puta!
” Fuentes yelled into the cell. His rapid-fire Spanish wasn’t lost on Jammer. The woman had escaped somewhere in the Ko’olau Forest Preserve along with the FBI agent who was protecting her.

Jammer turned as a red-faced Fuentes threw the BlackBerry across the room, where it exploded against the wall and left a discernible dent.

The ruthless, untouchable drug lord had tantrums like a little girl.

His dark eyes studied Jammer and he sneered. “They lost the whore and her bodyguard. I’m going to rip their hearts out. Six men against one man and woman? These are the elite guards they send me?”

“Calm down, Eduardo. There’s no way for them to escape from Maui. We’ve got men stationed at all the airports and you’ve taken care of local law enforcement. There’s nowhere for them to go. Eventually, they’re going to emerge. When they do, we’ll have
them. If they do escape, you have your own personal rat who can provide you with every move they make. So, there’s no need to panic.”

A smile spread across Eduardo’s face.
“Sí,
I pay him well for information. He’s been very valuable.” He stepped up to the balcony, but never even glanced at the majestic ocean. “This woman is like a
gato.
She has nine lives.”

“Well, in this case, the cat got too curious. You know what they say about cats and curiosity.”

“You are sure this woman came to my compound to consort with one of my people—a traitor to my organization?” Eduardo asked.

“I’m sure. A DEA agent shows up at your secret compound? What else could it mean? At the very least, I don’t think we should kill her until we’ve had a chance to find out. With all the plans that are in place, it would be risky.”

“The Ghost agrees with this strategy?”

“He was the one who suggested it.”

Eduardo nodded and adjusted his Armani suit. “Then we find her.”

“And the FBI agent?” Jammer asked.

“He’s expendable. Agreed?”

Jammer shrugged. He couldn’t save everyone. “Agreed.”

R
IO WOKE TO THE WARMTH
of Max wrapped around her. Her hand on his chest, her head tucked against his shoulder. She’d dreamed of Shane and a day they had at the beach, but the dream had gotten dark and very
scary, then Shane had disappeared. It was odd because she’d had the same type of dream on the plane.

Snuggling against Max, she let the images go. It’d been a long time since she’d woken up in a man’s arms, a man she was getting way too accustomed to. She lay still, listening to his breathing, and she heard a twig snap. Carefully she unwound from Max and searched the forest. She reached into the pack and pulled out one of the Glocks. She checked the clip and rose, listening intently.

The waterfall behind her made a soft swishing noise that obscured her hearing, so she moved cautiously away from the makeshift camp.

Peering out into the gloom, she could see no movement whatsoever. The hair on the back of her neck bristled. Turning, she ran to where she’d left Max and said softly in his ear, “We’ve got company.”

Max came awake instantly, one of the Glocks in his fist.

“Then let’s give them a proper welcome.”

“No,” she murmured. “I don’t think they know we’re here. Let’s just slip away.”

Max rose and grabbed the pack out of her hands. “I’ll carry it. You locked and loaded?”

“Yes,” she said, relinquishing the pack not altogether voluntarily.

It felt strange to admit to herself she was giving up a little of her control. Obviously, if she wanted the pack, he would give it to her. But she found it seemed right to share the burden with him.

They started off pushing between the trees, the ground vegetation dense and dripping with twilight dew.

Suddenly, shadows were all around them and Max pulled her down to the thick vegetation. A light ghosted over them.

They burrowed deeper into the ground cover, sweat beading on her forehead and adrenaline shooting into her system.

“Thorough bastards.” His voice was soft in her ear, his breath sending delicious tremors down Rio’s spine.

She tipped her head, his lips brushing her ear. “Great, just what we need. Conscientious killers.”

“All this to protect the Ghost’s identity?”

She squirmed inside knowing the men hunting them weren’t the Ghost’s. But he was just as involved. Eduardo Fuentes and what could have been the Ghost’s henchman were getting pretty chummy in his compound. She again kept quiet, but it cost her. Max had a right to know what he was up against. But chances were they would get off Maui and there wouldn’t be a reason she’d have to tell him she’d lied and was undercover to keep him occupied.

She tensed and put her hand on Max’s shoulder. Shortly after that, she heard the footsteps. A bright light swept back and forth over the forest. It was so dense where she and Max hid that the light was only a faint glow. The men neared and Rio held her breath.

The situation felt familiar to her, almost natural. She’d spent so much of her time as a DEA agent traversing dangerous parts of forests and jungles. It was as if she’d been born in the trees.

“How do you do that?” he whispered so close to her ear, his warm breath tickled her skin.

“Experience,” she whispered back. “I can almost sense them.”

She closed her eyes, and smelled the musty earth tossed up with each careful step, just as she could feel Max’s heart pounding where her hand rested on his back. In her hand she held her weapon.

The men shone the light at their feet, took a few steps, and then swept the area high and low. They couldn’t do both. On the forest floor there wasn’t a shred of moonlight, and it was uneven and crisscrossed with exposed roots. It was one advantage. Rio could see boots now, hear the shift of the dirt and pebbles beneath them. They shuffled, the movement of unsure steps.

Rio slipped her finger over the trigger. Five against two weren’t good odds. A firefight would bring more to Fuentes’s personal army.

And that was why she’d been in Colombia. It had been her job to find out what deal was going down with the Defensores de la Libertad. She’d gotten the dirt on Fuentes and was making her way back to home base when she’d stumbled across his compound. Then the monkey. Reflexively, she looked up into the trees.

Then a radio crackled and she heard a man respond quickly in Spanish.
No, we haven’t located them. It’s like they vanished.
There was irritation in the caller’s voice, but with the distortion, recognition was impossible.
Remember, I want her alive. Kill the man, but bring me the woman.

She felt Max stiffen at her side and her stomach lurched into her throat. It was her turn to tense, but Max slipped his hand over the one that held the Glock.

The radio crackled again and this time the man’s voice was angry.
Call off the search for tonight. We will begin again at dawn
.

Rio didn’t expect them to give up. It was just as she suspected. They wanted her alive and they had every intention of killing Max. She couldn’t let that happen.

The men paused to discuss the orders and seemed glad of it. Rio breathed a sigh of relief as they melted back into the forest, moving more rapidly away from them.

There was only one thing for her to do and, for a moment, her throat closed. Then her resolve hardened.

She’d have to leave Max.

M
AX HAD TO ADMIT TO
himself, it was one thing to think people were out gunning for you, but it was another thing to hear it said so blatantly.

It only served to make him madder than hell.

They rose and Max looked toward the mountaintop in the far distance, its highest peak shrouded in mist and glowing in the crescent moonlight.

“Get the map out and let me have it,” he said.

Rio complied and Max unfolded it. Crouching down, he used a small penlight to see it. “Fuentes is going to expect us to make for Hana. I say we head toward Makawao. It’s a safer bet. We’re about halfway between them, so it’s a ten-mile trek either way. He’ll probably have everything locked down in Hana and it’s a bigger risk for us to go there.”

Rio nodded, took the map and folded it, stowing it in the pack.

“Now all we have to do is get our bearings.” He
identified the North Star and noted from the map that Makawao was situated to the north of the island.

“Don’t hurt yourself there, Galileo. Use my GPS,” she said.

He turned to find her holding out the device. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a GPS?”

She reached up and ran her thumb between his eyes. “I love the way this furrows when you’re being serious.”

He chuckled. “Do you?”

“Yup,” she replied, “and you didn’t ask.”

He smiled and she smiled back. The air popped with their chemistry. “You’re getting back at me for all those Mary Poppins cracks, aren’t you?”

“Payback’s a bitch.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she held up her hand. “Stop while you’re ahead. That’s if you ever want to see me in lace and a really big handgun again.”

“Been there, done that. Could we go for an assault rifle and fishnet?”

“You’re pushing it, Carpenter.”

“Yeah, I know.” He met her gaze squarely. “So what about the fishnet?”

Max’s smile was slow and she joined him. She laughed and pushed at his chest. They walked for another half an hour before Max shone the light long enough to see his surroundings. “We need to climb.”