Safe Without You (26 page)

              Cal found a stub of pencil and a scrap of paper in one of the cargo pockets on his pants.  He scrawled his phone number and handed it to his dad.  “You’ll have to pretend you’ve had this memorized for the last two years,” he smiled.

              “Don’t worry.  I’m a good faker.” 

              They all stood up, and Amber and Cal thanked the village for assisting in the rescue and once again providing a safe harbor. 

              Bill hugged Cal very tightly. “Call your mother tonight.  Let her know I’m coming home.”  Then he hugged Amber.  “My wife is going to love you.  I think you’ve already got the Ruston men in your fan club.”             

              Wilson gave Amber a hug too. “You really are a ballsy little thing.  I like that in a woman.”  He grinned at Cal, “This one’s a keeper.”

              Wiping at the tears in her eyes, Amber smiled, “Sleep tight, we’ll see you in the morning.  Good night Tomás, good night Paco.  Thanks for going with the plan.”

              Cal took Amber’s hand and they headed toward their boat.  Suddenly Victor called out after them.

              “Tania!”  Amber turned, curious as to what hateful thing Victor might say, but he just smiled sadly at her.  “You would have made a magnificent revolutionary.”

              Amber paused for a moment, and then shook her head, whispering to herself, “Not if it meant being like you, Victor.”             

###

              Cal’s phone rang as they were tying the boat up.  It was Ramiro reporting on Duke’s condition.  Cal mostly listened, nodding his head with ‘uh huhs’ and ‘okays,’ and interjecting the occasional question.  Amber couldn’t tell from the look on his face what the prognosis was going to be.

              “What did he say?” she pressed.

              Cal exhaled a sigh, “Duke’s going to be okay.  They had to give him three units of blood, but he was right, he is a tough ol’ buzzard.”

              “Thank God,” Amber said with genuine relief. 

              “Ramiro is going to spend the night at the hospital since Duke doesn’t speak Spanish.  The marshals are going to go back to the hotel to eat dinner and go to bed.  The one got his broken nose taped up.”

              “You know what that means?”  Amber smiled naughtily.

              “You mean, that we have the house to ourselves tonight?”  Cal waggled his eyebrows at her.

              Amber giggled, “Exactly.  I’m thinking that we are in need of some make-up sex.”

              “Uh uh,” Cal murmured as he kissed her.  “We need to make love.”

              Amber’s knees felt weak from happiness, and then Cal swept her up off her feet and carried her up the steps to the front door.  She kicked her feet playfully, her arms wrapped around his neck.

              “You keep that up, and I’m going to drop you,” Cal laughed, as he fumbled around the ledge above the door with one hand, searching for the key.  Then he realized the door was already open and slightly ajar.  Cal clapped a hand over Amber’ mouth before setting her gently on her feet.  He shunted her behind him, and pulled his sidearm.  Amber wished at that moment that she still had her gun.  She knew exactly where her pepper spray was in their room, though, if she could make it there.  Then it occurred to her that she could probably shimmy in the window.

              She pointed to the window of their bedroom, and then mimed climbing in.  Cal gave her a puzzled look, and she mimed spraying.  He understood and nodded, putting his finger to his lips to tell her to be as quiet as possible.  Amber eased the wooden shutters open, then levered herself up on the ledge, and pushed the mosquito-netting aside as she straddled the window.  She pulled her other leg in and quietly slid to the floor.  Cal gave her a moment to get the spray in hand, then pushed the door open and clicked on the lights.  There, sitting at their little table was Hector, the man in charge of drug enforcement in Darien, and a Colombian he recognized as the right hand man of the cartel kingpin for whom he’d been working.  Two thugs with machine guns stepped out of the shadows and aimed at Cal.

              “Put your gun down, Mr. Compton,” Hector said contemptuously.  “We need to have a civil chat.”

              “I’m not accustomed to finding people in my home uninvited,” Cal said, lowering his gun. 

              “Where’s your business partner?  He really should be part of this discussion,” the other man said.

              “There was…an accident.  I’m afraid he’s going to be at the hospital, all night.”

              “I hope nothing serious,” Hector said, as he lit a cigar.  “Sit down, Cal.”

              “There’s been some changes in the…corporate structure,” the Colombian said.  “Our ‘CEO’ has retired…permanently.”  He smiled menacingly.

              “I see,” Cal said, avoiding taking a seat.

              The newly made kingpin continued, “And Hector is now an essential part of our team.”

              Amber stood motionless behind the bedroom curtain, listening to the conversation.  So Hector was a dirty cop…not fighting drugs, but facilitating their trafficking and taking his cut, she thought.

              “Welcome to the team, Hector,” Cal said casually.  “So how does this affect me?”

              “You’re late making the pick-up from FARC, we need to make sure you’re still on the team, too.”

              Cal shrugged, “Of course, why wouldn’t I be?  You know that it took some time to find a suitable plane to replace the one that was…shot down.  And the new one has had some mechanical difficulties.  I’ll be airborne day after tomorrow, things continue as usual.”

              “That’s what we’re worried about…your ‘as usual.’  We’re not so sure we can trust you.”

              “Why wouldn’t you trust me?”

              “The last load came up light, and then I saw your hot little courier.  You’re siphoning off some of our coca and selling it to the Mexicans, aren’t you?”  Hector tapped a finger impatiently on the tabletop. 

              “You have got to be kidding me.”  Cal tried to stay cool, keep his bluff going.  “Do you see a girl around here?  That was just a piece of ass I picked up at the beach, she’s gone back to Panama City, I think.” 

              “She’s gone somewhere…with my coca,” the Colombian insisted.             

              Cal edged closer to the bedroom door, “I’ll get my ledger…prove to you that the load wasn’t light.  FARC is playing you…trying to get more guns for less coca.”

              “Perhaps,” said the Colombian, “But all the same, we think it’s time to clean house, start a fresh operation.  Your help is not going to be needed any longer.  We’ll take your plane, and your house, though.”

              “And what do I get in return?”

              “A bullet to the head,” Hector laughed.

              Amber barreled through the curtain, hitting the two, armed, thugs in the face with her gel pepper spray before they knew what was happening.  Cal moved back beside Amber, sweeping up the two automatic weapons dropped to the floor by the debilitated gun men clawing at the gel stuck to their faces.  Hector and the Colombian jumped up from the table and Amber hit the fogger; when they hit the wall of capsicum floating in the air, they gagged and fell to their knees coughing and rubbing at their eyes.  Cal pushed Amber and they ran out through the kitchen before they breathed the fog in as well.  Slamming the door shut, Cal locked it, and Amber ran and latched the shutters on the bedroom window.

              Cal thrust one of the machine guns at Amber.  “Keep it aimed at the door in case they try to bust out.”  He frenetically dialed numbers on his phone, “We’ve got at least twenty, maybe thirty minutes, before they’ll start to compose themselves.  “I’ve got to call in the troops.”

              Amber wondered what she must look like, wearing Mariana’s fatigues and standing there posed with a machine gun.  She thought about the image of Patty Hearst again, but knew there was one big difference: she was on the side of the good guys.

              “So much for having the house to ourselves, huh?”  Amber’s eyes twinkled as she smiled.

              Cal couldn’t help but laugh, “Don’t worry, I’m going to make this up to you.”

###

              The next day was a whirlwind of government officials, lawmen, and military trying to decipher and address four different events, any one of which would have been major news in Panama: the shooting of an American tourist by poachers, the escape and recovery of FARC hostages, the capture of a FARC officer, and the arrest of a Colombian drug king pin and a dirty, high level, Panamanian police officer.  Cal and Ramiro let the Embera take all the credit for bringing in Bill, Wilson, Tomás, Paco, and the FARC captives.  The DEA knew there was something suspicious about Duke getting shot, and the fact that it was Cal’s dad that had been liberated, but there was no evidence to suggest that Cal and Ramiro had gone rogue—and no one even knew that an American woman had ever been missing.  The Embera translator and the marshals corroborated Cal and Ramiro’s stories, and Amber conveniently disappeared for a day at the beach, so Cal got all the credit for bringing down Hector and the Colombian.  The authorities were a little confused about why Victor kept talking about someone named Tania, but even more puzzling, was the fact that Hector and the Columbian kept referring to that
puta.
Finally they decided that in their anger, they were just calling Cal a little bitch.

              Bill and Wilson were checked in to the hospital for complete physical exams, and Tomás and Paco were given rooms at the hotel where they could rest and clean up.  The Embera headed upstream to go home, and Ramiro and Cal were finally free for the night after Cal and Bill talked to Cal’s mother, and Wilson was able to call his wife.

              “I guess we need to check into the hotel tonight.  That pepper fogger is going to make the house toxic for a while,” Ramiro said.

              “Yeah, somehow I think this operation is going to be closed down, we may not be around much longer,” Cal said, with a note of melancholy.

              “I have no idea whether I’m happy about that or not,” Ramiro said with a shrug, “You should take some leave to spend time with your mom and dad.”

              “It’d be nice to take my dad to a ballgame, go for a pizza, do some normal, non-life threatening stuff.”

              “And spend some time with your woman,” Ramiro smiled.

              “Yeah, I’m going to start on that, right now.  I’m going down to the beach now, to get her.”

              “I’m going to grab a bite and call it a night, I’ll see you and Amber in the morning.”

###

              The beach was deserted except for Amber.  The sun was going down, and the breeze had picked up.  Amber sat, holding her knees, staring out at the tide starting to roll in.

              “Is this seat taken?”  Cal asked.

              Amber turned in the direct of the soft baritone voice.  Her eyes skimmed over his very masculine form, noting the finely tuned musculature that his snug t-shirt and low slung, straight legged, jeans showed off.  He
was
very good looking.

              “No, help yourself,” she turned back to the water and her thoughts.

              He kicked a little sand on her as he flopped down, giving Amber an apologetic look, “Sorry about that.”

              “No problem,” Amber said, as she smiled.  Her eyes studied his features.  She loved his faded blue eyes and tanned face with its little weathered creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth.  He had a three-day beard, and his sandy hair looked scruffy.  Still, the lines of his cheeks and jaw were well proportioned, manly—but refined.  All in all, the man taking a seat next to her was very handsome.  The only defect, if you could even call it that, was one she hardly noticed anymore: a scar that ran from the middle of his left eyebrow over the bridge of his nose and into his right cheek. 

              “How was your day?” he asked.

              “Uneventful,” a glowing smile broke over her face.

              “Would you…like to change that?”  He smiled, and brought out a small bottle of rum.

              “I don’t know, but generally people drinking alone on a beach in a foreign country are looking to get away from something.”

              “We’re not drinking alone.”

              “Excellent point.” 

              Cal handed Amber the bottle and she took a little swig, this passed it back.  He took a drink and recapped it.             

              “So what would you like to do?” Cal asked.

              “I don’t know, maybe you could tell me your story.” 

              “My story?”  He looked at Amber questioningly

                “Well, I know the first part, about being undercover for the DEA and generally being an all around bad ass, but how does it end?”

              Cal pondered her question for a moment.  “Well, I like getting paid to fly, but I’m kind of over putting people I love at risk, let alone sticking my own neck out…plus, I’m pretty sick of the jungle.”

              “Tired of the jungle, huh?  So what are you thinking?”

              “Maybe a little business flying tourists over the Grand Canyon, you know, some place where no one is trying to shoot you down.”

              “I like the Southwest.  I lived in Albuquerque as a kid.  Have you ever been to the Pecos Wilderness?”

              “Nope, is it someplace special?”

              “My Dad and I went backpacking there once, it’s beautiful…and it’s the first place I learned that there’s an amazing sense of accomplishment that comes from doing something that is
almost
too hard, but getting through it all the same.”

              “That sounds very special.”

              “It was, but not as special as being here with you, right now.  I feel so alive.”