Wild Fire (3 page)

His eyes met Rio’s. “Whatever the operation is, everyone will be against you. Even some of my own people will have been bought off. You won’t be able to trust anyone. You certain you want to do this?”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Rio replied. “I understand she’s a man-eater and prefers very masculine, dominant males.”

The room went silent. The tension stretched thin. Conner’s golden cat eyes deepened to pure whiskey, gleaming with some faint threat. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “You do it, Rio. I don’t do that kind of work anymore.”

“You know I can’t. Rachel would kill me, and quite frankly, I don’t have the same kind of dominant quality you have. Women always go for you.”

“I have a mate. She may hate my guts, but I will not betray her any more than I already have. No.” He half turned, ready to leave.

“Your father sent much of the information to us,” Rio said, his voice quiet.

Conner had his back to the man. He stopped, closing his eyes briefly before turning back. His entire demeanor changed. The leopard blazed in his eyes. There was a threat in the movements of his body, in the fluid, dangerous glide toward Rio. The threat was sufficient enough to get the other three men on their feet. Conner ignored them, stopping just in front of Rio, his golden eyes focused completely on his prey. “My father observed the old ways. He would not ask outsiders for help. Ever. And he has not spoken to me since he disowned me many years ago.”

Rio pulled a tanned leather skin from his backpack. “I was told you wouldn’t believe me and was asked to give you this. They said you would know what it meant.”

Conner’s fingers closed over the thick fur, tunneling deep. His breath caught in his lungs. His throat burned raw. He turned away from the others and stood at the door, breathing in the night air. Twice he opened his mouth but nothing came out. He forced air through his lungs. “What’s the job?”

“I’m sorry,” Rio said.

All of them knew what a leopard pelt meant, and the way Conner held it to him, there was no doubt he knew and loved the owner.

“Conner . . . man . . .” Felipe started and then broke off.

“What’s the job?” Conner repeated without looking at any of them. He couldn’t. His eyes burned like acid. He stood with his back to the others, holding his mother’s pelt against his heart, trying not to let anything into his mind but the job.

“Imelda Cortez has decided to run her smuggling routes through the rain forest. She can’t use her men because they aren’t accustomed to the environment. The roads turn to mud, they get lost, the mosquitoes eat them alive, and even small cuts turn septic. She’s lost a number of her men to injury and disease, and local predators. Once they’re deep in the forest, they’re easy to pick off with poison darts.”

“She needs the cooperation of the Indian tribes she’s been annihilating, but they aren’t too fond of her,” Conner guessed.

“That’s right,” Rio said. “She needed leverage to get them to work for her. She’s started taking their children and holding them hostage. The parents don’t want to get their children back in pieces, so they’ve been running her drugs through the new routes where it’s unlikely government agents can track or intercept them. With the children hostage, she has the added bonus of not having to pay her couriers.” Rio pulled a sealed envelope out of the backpack. “This came for you as well.”

Conner turned then, avoiding Rio’s all too knowing eyes. He held out his hand and Rio put the envelope in his palm.

“I’ll need to know if your father believes our leopard species have been compromised,” Rio said. “Have the two rogues working for her revealed what they are to her, or are they just taking her money?”

Conner looked at him then. The irises had nearly disappeared in his eyes. Flames smoldered in their depths. It would be the height of betrayal for a leopard ever to reveal to an outsider what he was. He ripped the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He stared at it for a long moment, reading his father’s missive. The night insects sounded overly loud in the small room. A muscle ticked in his jaw. The silence stretched.

“Conner,” Rio prompted.

“You may want to change your mind about the mission,” Conner said and carefully, with reverent hands, folded and returned the pelt to the backpack. “It isn’t just a hostage rescue. It’s a hit. One of the two rogue leopards working for Imelda murdered my mother. She knows about the leopard people.”

Rio swore and crossed to the stove to pour a cup of coffee. “We’ve been compromised.”

“Two of our own betrayed us to Imelda.” Conner looked up, rubbed at his eyes, and sighed. “I have no choice if we want to make certain our secrets remain just that, to the rest of the world. It seems Imelda would like an army of leopards. The two rogues have been trying to recruit, not only from our ranks here, but other places as well. The elders have moved the location of the village deeper into the rain forest in an effort to prevent her reaching out to others who might want her money. The only ones who can get to them are the two rogue leopards already working with her, and they would be killed instantly if they dared come near the village.” He smiled and there was no humor in that flash of sharp white teeth. “They would never be that stupid.”

“How did your mother die?” Felipe asked, his voice very quiet.

There was another long silence before Conner answered. Outside a howler monkey shrieked and several birds called back. “According to my father’s letter, one of the rogues, Martin Suma, killed her when she tried to prevent the taking of the children. She was with Adan Carpio, one of the ten elders of the Embera tribe, and his wife, when Cortez’s men attacked and took the children hostage. Suma led Cortez’s men and he murdered my mother first, knowing she was the biggest threat to them.” Conner kept his tone without expression. “Suma has never seen me, if you’re worried about that. I’ve been in Borneo long enough to appear as one from that area. Felipe and Leonardo are from Brazil; Elijah could be anyone, few people have ever seen his face; and you’re from Borneo. They will not suspect me. I’ll get into the compound, locate the children, and once we move them to safety, I’ll eliminate the three of them. It’s my job, not yours.”

“We go in together,” Rio said. “As a team.”

“You took this assignment in good faith that it was a rescue, and it is. The rest of it, leave to me.” He turned his head and looked directly at the team leader. “It’s not like I have a lot waiting for me, Rio, and you’ve got Rachel. You need to go back to her in one piece.”

“This is no suicide mission, Conner. If you’re thinking along those lines, then we end your participation right here,” Rio said. “We all go in, we do the job, and we get out.”

“Your elders do not allow retaliation when one of us is killed in our leopard form,” Conner said, bringing up a painful subject. Rio had been banished from his tribe after tracking down his mother’s killer.

“It isn’t the same thing,” Rio said. “Suma murdered your mother. A hunter killed mine. I knew the penalty and I still tracked him down. This is justice. He not only murdered a woman of our people, but he betrayed all of us. He could get us exterminated. We go in together. Before anything, the children have to be secured first.”

“We’ll need supplies dropped along a prearranged route to move fast. The team can take the children into the interior until they neutralize Imelda, but not without supplies to feed and care for them until they reach safety,” Conner said. “I’ll go in, mark the areas from above, and you’ll make the drops. We’ll also want to run a couple of escape lines. We’ll need to map them out and cache clothes, weapons and food along the routes.”

“We’ll have to do it fast. We’ve got an opportunity for contact in six days. The chief of tourism is giving a party and Imelda will be there. We’ve arranged for a Brazilian businessman, Marcos Suza Santos, to be invited. We’re his security detail. It’s our only chance for an invitation to her place, otherwise we’re going to have to break in. Not knowing exactly where the children are makes that very risky.”

“I take it he’s a relation to you two,” Conner said, glancing at the two Brazilians.

“Uncle,” they said together.

Conner squared his shoulders and returned to the table. “Do we have any idea of the layout of Imelda’s compound?”

“Adan Carpio is the man who initiated the original contact with our team,” Rio said. “He has provided sketches of the exterior, security, that sort of thing, but nothing inside the compound. He’s trying to get information from some of the Indians who have been servants there, but apparently few ever leave her service alive.”

“I know him well, a good man,” Conner said. “There are few like him in the rain forest. He speaks Spanish and English as well as his own language and is easy to communicate with. If he says something, it’s true. Take him at his word. Adan is considered a very serious man in the rain forest hierarchy, very respected by all the tribes, including my own.”

From a leopard, that was high praise, and Rio knew it. “His grandsons are two of the children taken. Seven hostages were taken, three from the Embera tribe and two others from the Waounan tribe, sons, daughters or grand-children of the elders. Imelda has threatened to chop the children into pieces and send them back that way if anyone tries to rescue them, or if the tribes refuse to work for her.”

Conner’s breath hitched in his lungs. “She means it. We’ll have one shot to get in and get out clean. Adan knows the rain forest like the back of his hand. He’s trained Special Forces from several countries in survival. He’ll stand and be an asset, believe me. You can trust him.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “The two rogue leopards who betrayed our people—is Adan certain they’re on her payroll or acting independently?”

Rio nodded. “Most of the information on them came from your father . . .”

“Raul or Fernandez. I haven’t called him Father in years,” Conner interrupted. “I use Vega, my mother’s name. He may have written to me, but we aren’t close, Rio.”

Rio frowned. “Can he be trusted? Would he set us up? Set you up?”

“Because we despise each other?” Conner asked. “No. He’s loyal to our people. I can guarantee his information. I can also tell you with certainty that he is not our client. He would never even think to pay for the rescue of these children. He’s taking advantage of whoever our client is and adding the hit to our work. And he won’t be working with us or giving us aid.”

There was another long silence. Rio sighed. “The names on that list?”

“Imelda Cortez. No one can trust her with the information she has, and even if we take the children, she’ll be back for more. The other two names are the two rogue leopards working for her who betrayed our people.”

“Those two will recognize us as leopards,” Rio pointed out. “And they’ll know you’re from this region.”

Conner shrugged. “They’ll recognize your businessman as leopard. Santos is bound to have leopard for security. He’d be insane not to. As for me, there are three leopard tribes residing in the Panama-Colombia rain forest, but we don’t mix that much. The traitors would probably recognize my father’s name as he’s an elder in the village, but I use my mother’s name. Plus, few people know of me—I lived with my mother apart from our village.”

There was a collective gasp. Mates stayed together—always. Conner shot them a hard look. “I grew up despising my old man. I guess I turned out just like him.”

Conner felt the knots in his belly tighten. They were giving him no choice. He crossed to the window and stared out into the darkness. The noose had slipped over his neck and was slowly tightening, strangling him. If they wanted to get to the compound to rescue the children, he had to charm the socks off Imelda Cortez and get Marcos Suza Santos and his security detail invited to her fortress of a home. Maybe he’d entertained some romantic notion that he’d go back to Borneo and find Isabeau Chandler, and she’d forgive him and they would live happily ever after. There were no happily-ever-afters for men like him. He knew that. He just couldn’t accept that he had to let her go.

It was dead calm beneath the canopy, but in the utter darkness he could still make out the shapes of the leaves, feel the heat seeping into his pores, squeezing his heart like a vise. He was going to seduce another woman. Look at her. Touch her. Draw her to him. Betray Isabeau one more time. It was another sin among so many.

“Can you do it?” Rio asked, evidently following his train of thought.

Conner turned his head, a slow animal-like motion. His eyes held distance. Self-loathing. “I was born for the job.” He couldn’t quite cover the bitterness in his voice.

Rio inhaled sharply. He couldn’t imagine betraying Rachel. “One of the others can try it. You can teach them.”

Felipe and Leonardo looked at one another. How did one learn charisma? Conner had an animal quality about him that they all shared, but his was predominant, inherent, something he was born with and wore on the outside as well as the inside. He walked into a room and everyone was instantly aware of him. They didn’t try to hide Conner, rather used his presence to their advantage. He could look bored, amused and indifferent all at the same time.

For the first time Elijah stirred, drawing attention to himself. He had a past in the drug industry and knew most of those involved by reputation. He was also a very dangerous, charismatic man. “I might be able to help with this matter. I have a past. This woman, Imelda Cortez, she will recognize my name if I use it. Just my presence alone will cast a taint on Santos.” He cast a quick glance at Felipe and Leonardo. “I’m sorry, but you know it is the truth. She will have all of us checked out and my name is known to every law enforcement agency around the world. She might be interested enough to invite us because I’m there as well. I can try seduction.”

Rio studied him. Elijah was his brother-in-law. He had inherited the drug throne his father and uncle had created. When his father had tried to go legitimate, his uncle had killed him and taken Elijah and Rachel in, raising them under his rule. Life and death was all Elijah had ever known. He wasn’t ready yet for such a key position on a mission. There was no doubt his looks and magnetism would draw Imelda to him, but he didn’t have the charm yet that Conner possessed. The four scars from a leopard’s claw on the side of Conner’s face only added to his mystique.