The Reunion Mission (6 page)

Nicole beamed and embraced the woman who’d been her father’s housekeeper for as long as she could remember. “Sarah Beth, how good to see you!”

Nicole introduced Tia to Sarah Beth Salyer, who traveled with her father to his many homes depending on where he was in residence at the moment—Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Baton Rouge or his ski cabin in Breckenridge. The two women caught each other up briefly on their respective status quos, then shared another tearful hug.

“I’ve taken good care of your Boudreaux and Oreo. They’re around here somewhere.” Sarah Beth searched the floor for Nicole’s cats. “Probably on the sun porch.”

Nicole’s heart swelled. “Then the sun porch is my next stop. I’ve missed my babies. Want to meet my kitties?” Nicole asked Tia in Spanish.

The girl’s face brightened, and Nicole had her answer. Sarah Beth led them through the house to the sun porch, and Nicole spied Boudreaux on a chaise longue chair, basking in the sun.

“Hey, old man,” she cooed, crouching next to the chair and waving Tia over.

“I’ll start lunch for you, all right?” Sarah Beth headed back toward the kitchen.

“Thanks, Sarah Beth,” Nicole called and scratched Boudreaux behind the ear. The kitten Daniel had rescued for her ten years earlier stretched and purred when she ruffled his fur. He was thinner than she remembered, but his yellow coat still looked glossy and sleek. Tears pricked her eyes when she thought of that prom night years ago when she’d first met Daniel. She’d lost a piece of her heart to him that night, and Boudreaux had been an ever-present reminder of Daniel’s kindness and gallantry.

Leave. It. Alone.
Why was Daniel so reluctant to discuss their past? Unless she meant less to him than she’d believed. He’d never professed any undying affection or loyalty, so maybe the tender emotions had all been one-sided. But if that was true, why had he risked his life to get her out of Colombia?

Tia’s giggle pulled her out of her reverie. Oreo, the black-and-white tomcat she’d found as a kitten, had strolled over to greet them. She’d rescued Oreo at a work site while on a church mission trip to rebuild storm-damaged houses. The tomcat rubbed against Tia and butted her hand with his head. In return, Tia patted Oreo and laughed each time he bumped her hand asking for more attention. Nicole silently blessed Oreo for helping bring Tia out of her shell.

When her cell rang, Nicole dug her phone out of her pocket and checked the caller ID, foolishly wishing the caller was Daniel saying he’d changed his mind about having that long overdue talk about why he’d abandoned her. Instead, the call was from Washington, D.C., and she answered with her heart in her throat, praying for good news about Tia.

Leaving Tia to play with the cats, Nicole stepped into the next room to take the call.

“Miss White, this is Ramon Diaz. I am an attaché with the Colombian embassy. I believe we have a lead on the identity of the girl in your custody.”

Relief washed through Nicole so hard and fast, her knees buckled, and she dropped onto the nearest chair. “That’s wonderful! What did you find out?”

“She fits the description of Pilar Castillo, the daughter of Mario Castillo, a prominent judge in Bogotá whose family was attacked on the way to mass several months ago. Castillo’s wife and other daughter were murdered, and Pilar was taken hostage. The BACRIM— that is, the
bandas criminales
or band of criminals—” Nicole kept silent, not bothering to tell him she was well familiar with the term for the many criminal gangs and rebel groups terrorizing Colombia
“—claiming responsibility has used Pilar as leverage in blackmailing Judge Castillo regarding several critical cases he has presided over this year.”

Nicole’s stomach roiled, imagining the terror Tia—or Pilar—had witnessed, seeing her mother and sibling slaughtered. No wonder the poor child was traumatized. “Are you sure Tia is Pilar? Do you have a picture you can fax to me?”

“I do, and I have a picture of the judge you can show the girl. I’d ask that you send me a picture of the girl for cross confirmation from the father.”

A picture of Tia? Nicole thought a moment. “I can take her picture with my phone and text it to you. Will that work?”

“
Sí,
that works,” Diaz replied.

Nicole jotted down the cell phone number to text to and headed out to the sunroom again. Nicole had her own test in mind. Tia was still playing with Oreo, dangling a string for the cat to bap and giggling at the cat’s antics, and Nicole watched for a moment, savoring the sweet sound of her laughter. Finally, she said calmly, “Pilar?”

The child froze, then jerked a wide-eyed glance up to her.

Nicole’s pulse drummed as she stepped closer and squatted next to the girl. “Is that your name?
Es ese tu nombre?
” she asked. “Are you Pilar Castillo?”

Fat tears puddled in the girl’s eyes, and she nodded.

Nicole pulled her into an embrace and rubbed the girl’s back. “Oh,
mija.
We found your father. You’ll be going home soon.”

* * *

Nicole pulled the page from the fax machine in her father’s home office as it fed from the printer. The image of a swarthy middle-aged man in a black robe stared back at her. Pilar’s father, Mario Castillo.

“Chicken salad?” Sarah Beth asked from the office door, a plate in hand.

“Sounds heavenly. I’m starved.” Nicole’s stomach rumbled, and she thought of the many days in the prison camp when she’d eaten foul canned meats and stale crackers, dreaming of Sarah Beth’s cooking. “Is Tia still on the sun porch?”

No, not Tia. Pilar. That would take a little getting used to.

“I think so. I set a place for her in the kitchen. Should I get her?” Sarah Beth asked.

“No, I’ll get her. Thanks.” Nicole folded the picture of Judge Castillo, jammed it in her pocket and headed toward the sun porch. Not wanting to upset the little girl and spoil her appetite, she decided to show Pilar the picture after lunch.

She’d just reached the French doors leading to the sunroom when she saw a hulking shadow cross the far wall. Pulse jumping, Nicole swung through the door and took in the scene in a glance. Intruders had broken in.

She watched in horror as a dark-skinned stranger descended on Pilar.

Chapter 6

P
ilar saw the man and screamed.

Boudreaux and Oreo spooked and scampered away. The man tripped over the bolting cats, landing on one knee. Pilar stumbled out of the man’s reach, only to back into the grasp of a second man who appeared from the shadows.

“Pilar!” Acting purely on instinct, Nicole burst through the door, grabbing a decorative statuette from an end table. As she darted toward the first man, she hefted the figurine and smashed it on his head as he fumbled back to his feet. He toppled with a groan, clutching his head.

The second man had reeled Pilar in and held her against his chest, her legs dangling, as he fought to subdue her flailing arms.

“No! Let her go!” Nicole rushed forward with no thought for her own safety. Everything inside her had focused on freeing Pilar from the man’s grip. She reached for the little girl, battling the man’s arm when he tried to push Nicole away. An all-out fight for Pilar ensued. He pulled Nicole’s hair. Wrenched her wrists. Bit her arm.

In return, Nicole gouged at the man’s eyes. Clawed his face. Scratched his arm. She realized they were in a tug of war with Pilar as the rope. The poor girl was being pulled like a Thanksgiving wishbone. To spare hurting Pilar, she needed to let go, but—

“Augh!” the man cried out and crumpled, grabbing his crotch.

Nicole hauled Pilar into her arms and spun away. On some level, she knew Pilar’s flailing feet must have kicked the man in his family jewels, but she funneled her energy on one thing. Running. As she dodged a chaise chair, heading inside with Pilar clinging to her, the first man rolled on his back, snarling. He raised something small and black. A flash. A loud crack.
Gunfire!

Nicole kept moving. Adrenaline fueled her legs. Panic buzzed in her ears.

“Nicole!” Sarah Beth stood by the door of her father’s office, waving her in. “Hurry!”

Behind her, Nicole heard a shout. Another crack of gunfire. A crash and pounding footsteps.

A third gun-wielding man materialized from the kitchen. Aimed. Something hot stung her neck, but she ignored it as she charged across the living room and into her father’s office. Nicole headed to the protection of her father’s oversize desk and set Pilar on the carpet beneath it. Sarah Beth slammed the massive mahogany door closed and threw a bolt lock.

Loud thumps reverberated through the room as bullets pocked the office door.

“Get away from the door!” Nicole shouted to Sarah Beth.

“The second door—” the housekeeper said, pulling a thick metal door from a side pocket in the wall.

And Nicole remembered the construction project her father had ordered in the months after Katrina. The central room of the house, his office, had been reinforced for hurricanes with iron beams, metal sheeting and a heavy secondary steel door. A safe room.

She ran to help Sarah Beth roll the heavy door over and lock it in place.

“We need to c-call 911,” the housekeeper said, her voice shaking.

Nicole nodded and, with trembling hands, she reached in her pocket for her phone. The first tears of fear prickled her eyes, blurring her vision as she tried to steady her hands enough to hit the right spots on her touch screen. Meanwhile, Sarah Beth snatched up the desk phone and dialed.

Nicole stumbled behind the desk and slumped on the floor. Pilar huddled close, hands over her ears as she whimpered.

Her own panic, vivid with images from her imprisonment, crowded her brain, drawing the thread of tension inside her tighter. It would be so easy to give in to that pull toward chaos, but Nicole battled it away, one breath at a time.
Keep it together. For Pilar.

Struggling to clear her mind, she thought of the Kevlar vest her mother had bought her father years ago after he’d sponsored his first controversial bill and received a series of death threats. The bulletproof vest was upstairs in her father’s closet. No help.

Blinking away the moisture in her eyes, Nicole stared at her cell phone screen. Right now, she only wanted one man.

Daniel. Who’d saved her in Colombia. Who’d taken out her captors. Who’d made her feel safe.

The shouts and deafening thumps on the office door told her their assailants hadn’t given up. And they were chipping slowly through the first barrier.

Nicole swallowed the bitter taste of fear that rose in her throat and struggled to steady her hands. Her thumb skipped to the button to bring up her contacts. With a stroke of the screen, she scrolled to the number Daniel had programmed in her phone just yesterday. And hit
Call.

* * *

“Going home soon?” Jake asked as he strolled into Daniel’s hospital room, wearing his trademark cowboy hat, and took stock of Daniel’s latest attempt to put weight on his injured leg.

“Not soon enough. I feel useless sitting around here all day.” His leg hurt less today and could bear more of his weight, but Daniel didn’t harbor any illusions of a miraculous healing. His immediate future included walking with a cane at best and knee-replacement surgery as soon as it could be scheduled, followed by weeks of physical therapy.

His black op teammate—correction,
former
teammate, since Daniel had been canned—helped himself to the only chair in the room and stacked his hands behind his head. Jake narrowed his navy blue eyes on Daniel. “Looks like you’re making progress. Your doctor give you an idea when you might bust this joint?”

Daniel shrugged off the question. He had nothing waiting for him when he left the hospital, so he hadn’t given his release much thought.

Setting his well-worn cowboy hat on the table beside him, Jake rubbed a hand over his short-cropped sandy-brown hair and hedged. “Have you...talked to the chief about a job at headquarters?”

Daniel’s cell phone chirped, and he hobbled toward the tray table where he’d left it. “I don’t want any damn, soul-sucking desk job.”

Jake turned up a hand. “You have one of the best minds in the business. You could coordinate missions, develop strategies—”

“Screw that.” Holding Jake’s gaze, he snatched up the phone and dropped heavily on the side of the bed. “I’d rather leave the agency than push paper the rest of my life.” He jabbed the answer button and barked, “What?”

“Daniel!” He knew the voice instantly, recognized the tremble of fear, heard the steady crashing in the background.

He jerked to attention, stiffening his back and squeezing the phone tighter. “Nicole, what’s wrong?”

Jake sat forward, meeting Daniel’s gaze.

“Men broke in...at my father’s. They...tried to grab Pilar.” Her voice was breathless and full of tears.

Daniel signaled Jake with his free hand.
Shoes. Pants. We’re moving.

“Are you hurt?” His own fear for Nicole sharpened his tone.

“We’re in the safe room, b-but...they’re shooting at the door, at the locks.”

Jake whipped out a large pocketknife and sliced off the left leg of Daniel’s jeans above the knee. With one hand, Daniel worked the jeans over the brace around his injured knee, while Jake shoved Daniel’s shoes in front of him, ready to step into.

“Daniel, I...I need you,” Nicole said, her voice breaking.

A fist closed around his heart, and a shudder rolled through him.
I’m coming, cher.

Jamming the foot of his good leg in a shoe, Daniel lifted his arm for Jake to pull out his IV line. “Call 911,” he grated, his own voice made rough with emotion. He thumbed disconnect and slid the phone in his jeans pocket.

Jake tossed him a shirt, and Daniel jerked it over his head and grabbed his crutches. “Let’s roll.”

* * *

“Daniel?” Nicole shouted, numb with disbelief. “Daniel!”

No answer.
Call 911,
he’d growled. And hung up on her.
Hung. Freaking. Up.

Fury, hurt and disappointment coalesced inside her, a bitter brew. Her life was in peril, and he’d fobbed her off to 911. Never mind that the cops were in a better position than a hospitalized and injured Daniel to come to her rescue. Common sense did little to dull the sting of his rejection. His curt refusal to get involved.

She swiped at a tickle on her neck, and her fingers came away bloody. The sting she’d felt on her neck. Had a bullet grazed her? The bright red on her hand made the vibrating tension wire inside her tug tighter. She swallowed hard and sucked in a calming breath.

Don’t lose it. Keep it together.

Sarah Beth was still on the line with the emergency operator, giving them the address, detailing their unfolding horror. From the sound of it, the men at the office door were making progress getting through the first door and could blast the lock on the inner steel door any time.

Nicole crawled under the desk with Pilar and wrapped her arms around the whimpering child. The men would have to come through Nicole to get to Pilar, and with her own fear jammed deep down inside her, Nicole was ready to put up a fight.

* * *

“I have a 9 mm in the glove box,” Jake said as they roared down the highway in his pickup truck toward the address displayed on his GPS. “Take it.”

Daniel opened the compartment in front of him and took out the weapon. After checking the chamber to make sure it was loaded, he shoved the gun in the waistband of his jeans. The GPS showed them nearing the address a Google search listed for Alan White’s residence. Daniel checked his watch. Nicole had called eight minutes ago.

From under the brim of his cowboy hat, Jake shot him a dark glance, but Daniel saw the keen look of preparation in his eyes. “All right, man, this is your show. What’s the plan?”

“Park one street over. We’ll approach from behind. Obviously, you’re more mobile than I am, so you take lead. I’ll cover you. Nicole said they were in a safe room, which means center of the house, no windows. If our targets are still there, they’ll be working on getting inside that room.” Daniel didn’t bother elaborating on what it meant if the gunmen weren’t still at the senator’s house. He shoved down the frisson of panic that swirled in his gut at the notion of anything happening to Nicole. He had to stay in battle mode. Had to focus.

Tossing his cowboy hat on the back seat, Jake pulled to a fast stop on a residential street lined with multilevel garden homes. Shouldering open the truck door, Daniel grabbed his crutches, cursing his limited mobility when he needed speed and agility more than ever.

“Go.” He waved Jake away, and they started across the neighbor’s lawn. By keeping his weight off his bad leg, Daniel could plant the crutches and swing his good leg forward in a large hop that moved him at a decent clip. As he approached the senator’s house, he scanned the scene, picking out spots he could dive for cover if a gun battle erupted, choosing the best point of entry, searching for the best vantage point to survey the scene. As they neared the back garden gate, a steady thumping reached his ears. He hobbled up beside Jake, who’d pressed himself against the back garden wall to peer through a crack in the gate.

“What d’ya got, cowboy?” Daniel asked, finding the padlock that secured the gate had already been cut off.

“Garden’s clear. Back door’s ajar.” Jake moved to get a different angle view. “Brick grill pit twenty paces to the left. No window to the right of the open door.”

Daniel jerked a nod confirming their destinations. A sheen of sweat beaded on his brow as he pushed open the gate. Senses alert to his surroundings, heart pumping, Daniel hurried to the protection of the grill pit. Then while he covered Jake, his teammate skulked to his position by the door. Flattened to the wall of the house, Jake reconnoitered the situation inside. Using hand signals, Jake waved Daniel closer. In four silent hops, Daniel took his position next to Jake. Propping his crutches beside him, he pulled out his gun. Balancing on his good leg, he leaned against the house for support.

More hand signals….
Three tangos. All armed. Two by safe room door, third watching front yard by window.

Daniel nodded and craned his neck for a look. The men at the door of the safe room were chopping their way through the wood frame around a steel barricade with an ax.

The goal of any operation was minimal casualties. Dead men couldn’t give up valuable intel, lead them to those higher up the food chain.

The contingency plan, if they met resistance, was simple. Lethal force.

I’ll go high. You take a knee,
Daniel signaled.
Take the lookout. Head shot.
Which left the men by the safe room for Daniel.

Jake jerked a nod, sank to his knee and raised his sniper rifle.

In the distance, Daniel heard the wail of approaching sirens. Inside he heard a woman’s scream as the men with the ax broke through the door frame. No time to wait.

Adrenaline charged through Daniel’s blood. He funneled the surge of energy into focus, concentration, training.

“Freeze!” he shouted. “Drop your weapons and lie on the floor! Now!”

The three men turned. Both the lookout and Daniel’s target raised their guns.

In a heartbeat, Daniel and Jake reacted.

The concussion of twin gun blasts pounded his chest. The man by the front window dropped. One down. Jake shifted his rifle and re-aimed.

Daniel’s target staggered back a step, then clutched his neck. The third man dropped the ax and scrambled for his weapon.

Daniel re-sighted and squeezed the trigger again. Plaster splintered from the wall behind the ax man. A miss.
“Merde!”

The man Daniel had shot in the throat slid down the wall but raised a handgun. Daniel finished the wounded man with a second shot that hit its mark.

Ax Man jumped behind a massive entertainment center and returned fire. As Ax Man shot at Daniel, Jake darted inside, running in a crouch until he reached the sofa.

“Drop your gun and get on the floor!” Daniel repeated.

Axe Man fired again, keeping Jake pinned behind the couch. Daniel needed a better position, preferably inside the house if he was going to help Jake. Gritting his teeth, he did a quick mental inventory of his surroundings, strategizing. Keeping his injured leg straight in front of him, Daniel slid to the ground, then crawled on his belly and elbows into the house. When Axe Man spotted him and opened fire, Daniel log-rolled until he was behind the couch with Jake.