Jungle Inferno (26 page)

“Shit. Damn it all to hell.” Green was sweating again at the thought of the call he’d have to make. “How the hell could they just disappear with you there watching them?

Did you fall asleep?”

“Listen,” Damon snapped, “don’t blame me. I was doing my job exactly as you told me to. You should have let me go in last night and take care of them both.”

“Oh, sure.” Green made a sound of disgust. “Then we’d have two bodies to dispose of instead of one. And two sets of questions.” He thought for a moment. “What about the man who showed up?”

“You mean the one who dragged her away from your car just in time?” Damon’s tone was nasty.

“You know who I’m referring to. What happened to him?”

“He got in his car and left.”

“Alone?”

“Yup. I waited about fifteen minutes to be sure he wasn’t coming back, then I went up to the door. Nada.”

Green thought for a moment. “Could they have left with him?”

“Not unless they snuck out the back.”

The silence thickened as both men looked at each other and reached the same conclusion.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it,” Green swore. “Didn’t you have an eye on the back?”

“Get real. You can’t see everything from the street. And who expected her to do a Houdini?”

More silence.

“All right,” Green said at last. “Go home. I’ll call you if I need you again.”

“Don’t forget my pay,” Damon reminded him.

“Your pay? You let the woman get away, didn’t you?” He disconnected the call and threw the cell phone on the bed.

Brown, who was sitting at a small round table drinking coffee, eyed him with a mixture of curiosity and dread. “She got away?”

“Yes. And who the hell knows where she’s gotten to? Fuck all, anyway.” He heaved a sigh. “Too bad that damn peacock Winslow wasn’t smart enough to have her thoroughly investigated the first time he ever met with her. Now we have to do his work for him.” He picked up the phone and tossed it at Brown. “Call the geek. Tell him we need him to do some digging.”

“Where are you going?”

“To replenish my supply of Tums.”

* * * * *

“What do mean she’s gone?”

Trey Winslow sat in the paneled office to which he’d been summoned, ostensibly for a meeting regarding his work on the Armed Services Committee. He had never seen the man behind the desk quite so agitated, not even in times of great crisis. What was he thinking? This was a great crisis.

“Just exactly what I said. Right out from under our noses.” The man picked up a paper clip and began twisting and bending it. “Those bumbling idiots we use couldn’t track a pigeon if it left droppings every two inches.”

“They certainly didn’t use their brains trying that trick with the car,” Winslow pointed out. “What if the neighbors had been watching?”

“Morons. That’s what we have working for us.” The man threw the misshapen clip onto the desk blotter. “They’ve bungled this thing from the very beginning.”

“Well, we’re in a pickle now, Digger,” the senator pointed out. “You’ll need a pretty big shovel this time around.”

The man known to his friends as Digger grimaced. “You’ve got that right. Did they at least find out who the man at the house was?”

“No but they got the license plate and we’re tracing it now.”

“We would have known about her connection to Halloran if you’d found out everything about her the first time she met with you.”

Winslow snorted. “Give me a break. Her publisher’s an old friend of mine. I do this pretty often for him. If I had every author who interviews me investigated I wouldn’t have time for anything else.” He rose and began pacing the length of the office. “At least I got the ball rolling this time.”

“Hopefully not a day late and a dollar short,” Digger pointed out. “Now we have to hustle our butts to find out where she could go to hide and who she’s hooked up with.”

“We still don’t know where Joey Latrobe’s being hidden or what he can tell people.

And we have to identify the man who visited Faith Wilding.”

“Working on it, working on it.” A muscle twitched in Digger’s cheek.

“It’s probably time to get rid of Halloran, now that we know who he’s sending the messages to.”

Digger shook his head. “Not until we find out if he knows who gave them the info about the meeting.”

Winslow frowned. “Would he even know? That order came down from—”

“Damn it,” Digger bit off. “I know where it came from. Don’t rub my nose in it. But there had to be a source and that may have been in the mission briefing.” He slammed his hand on the desk. “All right. I’ll give our friend a call, tell him he’s got forty-eight hours to get that information. Then we have to cut our losses and figure out how to do damage control.”

* * * * *

The rain had been pounding down since early morning, the wind whipping it against the windows of the cabin. Standing at the bedroom window, looking out over the cliff, Mike could see the waves of the Atlantic churning into whitecaps. Springtime in South Central Texas where Rick was at the moment might mean soft breezes and sunshine but on the Maine coast it meant brutal storms and bone-chilling cold as winter refused to release its hold on the countryside. He only hoped the wind would die down before the helicopter landed later in the day.

Joey was propped up in bed eating soup with Troy’s assistance. His pallor concerned the men in the room with him and they could see the pain in his eyes but he refused to let Troy medicate to the point where he couldn’t think.

“Captain Halloran doesn’t have time to wait for me to get better. Those fuckers are probably ripping him to shreds right now. I’m good to go. Let’s get on with this.” Dan looked at Troy with raised eyebrows.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” Troy answered the unspoken question, “but I’m watching him. If I see he’s pushing himself too far I’ll cut it off.”

“No, you won’t.” Joey jerked his head and a soft moan of pain escaped his lips.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Mike said.

“No. Please.” Joey took a deep breath, as deep as he could and let it out slowly. “Let me at least get the rest of the basics out.”

“All right.” Dan pulled his chair closer to the bed and unfolded the map of Peru.

“We’ve circled Iquito there.” He pointed with his finger. “Can you figure how close to the city the temporary camp was?”

“I’d say no more than an hour.” He moved his good arm to run his fingertip over the spidery lines that indicated crude roads. “The insertion was at night and we could still see the lights of Iquito. We calculated the distance by that.”

“That still leaves a big circle to choose from,” Mike said. “Anything else you remember?”

Joey frowned in concentration. “We came in over the water and did the drop not far from where the Amazon curves in here.” He pointed on the map. “I remember that little cover because the river takes a sharp turn there.”

“Then what?” Dan prompted.

“Okay. Let’s see. We had the GPS coordinates so I’d say we found them right about…here.” He touched another spot. “But they moved from there and took the captain with them.” He looked up. “I get the feeling they didn’t go more than five or ten miles though.”

“All right.” Dan folded up the map. “This gives us a starting place. And you, my young friend, need to take your meds and get some more rest.”

“But—”

“No buts. I’m going to make some calls. Reach out to some people that can get us more specific information.”

“Yeah.” Mike turned away from the window. “We’ve got folks we can contact. This terror cell may have picked a temporary place for their meeting to keep it secret but their camp won’t be as well hidden. Word of it can’t help but filter out. Someone will know where it is, now that we’ve got a starting point.”

Troy took the empty soup cup from Joey and picked up a syringe from the nightstand. It had been less than forty-eight hours since they snatched him from the hospital so they were still giving him antibiotics to fight off possible infection and pain meds strong enough to keep him comfortable. It would be a while yet before they could cut back on the dosages, despite his constantly stated desire to stay awake and talk to them.

“Time for your nap, tough guy,” Troy told him now, as he shooed the others out of the room. “Don’t worry. You’ll get all the gory details.” When they were gathered around the table again with filled coffee mugs, Dan picked up the satellite phone. “I think it’s time to do some reaching out. Rick will be back here with our two guests in about…” He looked at his watch. “Three hours. I’d like to have everything locked down by then and be ready to roll.”

“Yeah, our guests.” Mike fiddled with his mug. “What the hell are we going to do with two women up here along with our patient?”

Dan punched some numbers into the phone. “I’m getting my cousins up here to stand sentry. They’re just back from that job in Guatemala so I know they’re available.” When a voice answered on the other end he walked away from the table and spoke in low tones.

Mike and Troy looked at each other.

“What a fucking mess,” Mike said.

“Ain’t that just the truth.” He looked out the window. “I hope this weather goes away before we have to hit the air.”

“I just hope these women don’t give us any shit.”

Troy snorted. “Yeah, right. I can hardly wait to hear Rick’s story on this Wilding woman.”

“He didn’t give you any clue?”

Troy shook his head. “Only that he’d rather tell us in person.”

“About what?” Dan asked, coming back to the table.

“About why someone’s so hot to kill Faith Wilding and why he needs to stash her away here instead of some hotel.”

“Well, we’ll find out soon enough. Meanwhile we have things to do. Mike, get the firepower out and make sure everything’s clean and in working order. Troy, you get the clothes out of the chest over there. Camo suit, wet suits just in case, grease paint. Then pull out all the comm gear and check each piece over. I’m going to give the map another shot, then see what Dragon can tell us about the layout.”

“Be nice if he could pinpoint exactly where the camp is,” Troy said in a wry voice.

“He may just do that. All right, everyone.” He looked around the room. “Let’s get to work.”

Mark had dozed off and on after he heard the Wolf walk away. He felt fuzzy and his skin was hot. He was sure that his very meager efforts had not been able to stave off infection from his wounds. He had no idea how long it had been since anyone entered the tent. Except for the rising and setting of the sun he’d lost all concept of time.

Tidbit,
he thought.

God, if there was any way at all to get him out of this unholy mess, he was never going to let her go again. Other men in his situation got married and made it work.

Why had he been so dumb as to think he couldn’t? And why hadn’t he even given Faith a chance to make her own choice? If he had the strength he’d have hit himself on the side of the head.

At some point one of Escobedo’s men brought him his ration of water and whatever passed for food. Barely enough to keep him alive but apparently they weren’t ready to kill him yet. He used a torn piece of his shirt to clean his wounds as best he could, then drank the rest of the water slowly. He might not die of dehydration, he thought wryly but he’d be lucky if dysentery didn’t get him.

He forced down whatever the food was, then closed his eyes and lay down on the ground, unbearably tired. He didn’t know how much longer he could hold on.

“
Hola, Capitan.
”

Mark opened his eyes to see Escobedo standing in front of him. He tensed, waiting for the usual kick.

Escobedo laughed. “I think I’ve had my fun,
Capitan
. I came to bring you news.” Mark just stared at him, unblinking.

“Your friend, Miss Wilding, appears to have rattled some cages. It seems we no longer need Felix to discover the recipient of your messages.”
Faith. Oh, Jesus.

He’d been terrified of this since he overheard their conversation, but his mind was too fuzzy to think straight. If they’d really gotten their hands on her… He mustered all of his waning strength to keep from lashing out at
El Serpiente
. This was his fault. He never should have reached out to her but she was his only hope. What if they’d already gotten their hands on her?

As if he could read Halloran’s mind, Escobedo gave a nasty laugh. “No, unfortunately we do not have her yet but that’s a situation easily remedied. It won’t be much longer before we can bring her here to join you. Then we’ll see how long you protect the traitor who sold us out.”

I’d like to find the one who sold out my unit, you asshole. And even if I knew who you were
looking for, I’d never tell you.

“Still the silent type. Very well. Enjoy your respite. Use the time to think. I would hate to see anything happen to the beautiful Miss Wilding.” Then he was gone.

Mark lay there feeling sick. Faith! They could kill him if only he had a way to keep her safe. Somehow she’d found Rick. That was his only lifeline. Did Phoenix now have her in a safe place?

He closed his eyes again, trying once more to think who could have sold them out.

And were they too, now after Faith.

* * * * *

“It took a lot of digging to get this information.”

Green was once again on the cell phone, having yet another unpleasant conversation.

“Well?” The voice was sharp. Impatient. “Do I have to wait all day for you to tell me?”

“You won’t like it,” Green warned.

“There is absolutely nothing about this situation that I like, so one more thing won’t matter. Let’s have it.”

Green sighed and picked up the pad he’d been making notes on. “The SUV at the Wilding woman’s house was rented by a company called Arizona, LLC.”

“Who the hell are they?” the voice demanded.

“Nobody.” Green sighed again. “They’re just a shell. We had to do a lot of tracing and a lot of hacking to get any farther.”

“Quit dancing around it. Get to the meat.”

“Okay, okay. At the top of the pyramid we found a company called Phoenix.” There was dead silence on the other end of the line for a long moment. “Shit,” the man finally said.