Shattered (14 page)

“While I’m admittedly impressed by your signing skills, I’m sorry about your mother,” she said.

He shrugged with what he hoped was the proper amount of aw-shucks response, and was glad she hadn’t asked what he’d signed. Since he had the feeling she wouldn’t be thrilled to learn he’d just silently told her how great she smelled and how hot she was, even in that ugly navy suit, and how he’d really, really like to have sex again. Like now. Right on top of Phoenix Team’s glossy conference table.

“It didn’t seem to be any big deal for her,” he said, dragging his mind away from wondering if she still wore that white cotton underwear he’d been thinking about just the other night, and that, for some reason, had been such a turn-on.

Maybe because it had contrasted so much with the sexy inner Kirby.

“At least not by the time my brother and sister and I came along. She couldn’t remember hearing. So, for Mom, I guess being deaf was normal. And, I gotta say, she could sure cuss like a sailor on shore leave when we kids screwed up.”

As serious as the reason for them all being here was, the memory of a time when she’d hit the roof after he and his brother had put a parachute on a barn cat and dropped it from the top of the hayloft made Shane smile.

“It was also cool at school,” he said. “My brother and I had a secret language.”

“Well.”

He could practically see the wheels turning in her head and suspected that she was thinking the same thing he just had. That they definitely had some catching up to do on personal stuff if they were going to pull off any questioning by Vasquez.

Quinn was right about him not being as up on the undercover stuff as those big bad SEALs or Delta Force boys might be, but he figured out that the closer they stuck to the truth about the day-to-day stuff, the better off they’d be.

“We’ll keep our background info simple,” he said. “Nothing that won’t check out.” He glanced over at Quinn. “Can that guy you know at the NPRC block access to my records?”

The National Personnel Records Center, outside St. Louis, held the military personnel, health, and medical records of every discharged and deceased veteran who served during the twentieth century.

The former SEAL nodded. “Consider it done. It’s unlikely Vasquez’s guys could hack in there. But like the saying goes, we’d better expect the best while preparing for the worst.”

“I can get you listed on staff at the university,” Zach said.

“Cool.” Shane didn’t bother to ask how, exactly, the chief was going to do that. SEALs had always seemed to have their fingers in a lot of covert pies. Including ties with the spooks. He suspected that along with all their military ties, the dough Phoenix Team seemed able to throw around when necessary helped open a lot of doors.

“We’ll need a story for your leg,” Quinn decided. “Although your hair’s shaggy enough that you don’t necessarily look military anymore, a missing limb could raise a red flag.”

“Damn motorcycle,” Shane said easily. “I should have known better than to ride that Harley in D.C. traffic.”

“Works for me,” Zach said. He turned to Kirby. “I’ll need your passport.”

“Why?” She’d kept her purse in her lap. Shane watched as her fingers unconsciously curled around the leather strap.

Obviously, she hadn’t gotten the memo not to question the plan. Shane might not recall everything that had happened after his helo had been shot down, but he did remember Zach informing him, in that “I’m a big badass SEAL and you will not argue with me” tone of voice that pilots might be boss when they were up in the air, but when they were on the ground, SEALs ruled.

“Because, although I prefer using our own planes and pilots, you and Shane are going to be entering Monteleón just as you would under a normal situation,” Zach said with forced patience, “so you don’t raise warning flags. But someone else is going to be leaving in your place, while you remain behind in the country.”

“You have someone willing to risk doing that?”

“I don’t. But I’m assured by the CIA station chief that she does.”

“And you trust she knows what she’s doing?” Shane questioned him sharply.

“We wouldn’t be sending either of you in if we didn’t,” Zach assured him. “Barbara Kirkland, that’s the station chief’s name, has set up her own network of NOCs. People she assures me she’d trust with her dear old granny’s life.”

NOCs, which stood for No Official Covers, were the most covert CIA operatives—men and women who worked in foreign countries without diplomatic protection. If they were caught, there was no guarantee the U.S. would admit to their true identities.

Knowing that the government only resorted to using them when an official cover could put a spy’s work, or even life, at risk, Shane figured that something a whole lot bigger than the usual drug-interdiction stuff must be going on down there in Monteleón. Which again pointed to the rumors of the widow Madrid’s imminent return.

He was uneasy about bringing outsiders in—after all, a secret started not being a secret as soon as more than one person knew it—but he had trusted the two SEALs with his life, and things had turned out okay.

“But if I give you my passport to give to that person, how am I going to get past immigration?” Kirby asked.

“We’ll copy whatever entry and exit stamps are already in it in a duplicate you’ll take down there in the lining of your carry-on bag.”

“You can do that?” Shane asked. “Get one made so quickly?”

He wouldn’t have been at all surprised by that assertion if they’d still been SEALs. Obviously, once again, he’d misjudged the scope of Phoenix Team’s abilities. This was a helluva lot different from providing bodyguards for CEOs and movie stars, which was pretty much what he’d assumed they did.

“We’ve got a guy on board who used to work at Langley,” Quinn revealed. “In fact, he was the one on the helo who told us about your refugee camp,” he said to Kirby. “Then called in his pals to bring in the Russian copter for the exfil.”

“And this CIA agent makes fake passports?” Kirby asked.

“No. He’s more a fixer with a lot of connections. In this case, he knows a guy who knows a guy who teaches at The Farm, who just happens to be a modern day Michelangelo,” Zach said.

“The Farm’s the CIA training center,” Shane volunteered.

“I know that.” Kirby smiled at Quinn. “I read it in your last thriller. Which was, by the way, riveting.”

“Thanks.”

Quinn always seemed a bit uncomfortable having his new career brought up. Having met him back when Quinn had been scribbling stories into spiral-bound notebooks every chance he got, Shane wasn’t at all surprised that whatever fame he’d garnered hadn’t gone to his head.

“There isn’t anything this guy can’t duplicate.” Zach picked up the passport part of the conversation. “I called while you were inside the hotel getting your bag. I’m sending your passport to Virginia on the company plane this afternoon, and he’ll have it back to us by oh-eight-thirty tomorrow morning.”

Even Shane was impressed by that.

Apparently, Kirby was not. “Should we wait that long?” she asked. “Every minute Rachel’s held captive is one more minute closer she could be to getting killed.”

Nope. She definitely hadn’t gotten that “Do not question the SEAL” memo.

“It’s risky,” Zach admitted. “But this is the best way to do it. Besides, we have a man in the compound with her. And he’s armed to the teeth, with instructions to use all force necessary to keep her alive.”

“Is this man tasked with keeping Rachel alive CIA?” she asked. “Special Forces? Or one of your own?”

Kirby impressed Shane by not appearing all that surprised to learn someone had infiltrated the rebel camp. Then again, she hadn’t exactly been working at Disney World Pakistan the last time they’d met up. She had to have some knowledge of Special Operations.

And Quinn had told him that before going to that Pakistan earthquake zone, she’d been in Sudan, which had become a hellhole after twenty-five years of warfare.

“If we told you that, we’d have to kill you,” Quinn said, flashing her a rakish grin that Shane had never seen not work on a female.

But, dammit, the SEAL had his own woman. Who, Shane admitted, Quinn was flat-out crazy about. He and Cait Cavanaugh had had themselves a history. Just like Kirby and him.

Well, maybe not exactly like it. He’d taken Kirby out on something resembling dates. Once in a while. At least a couple times, if you could call getting a take-out pizza from the Green Zone Italian café, then eating it cold much, much, later in bed, a date.

But at least it’d been more then Quinn and Cait, who’d shared a hot, nearly-set-the-hotel-room-sprinklers-on-fire one-night stand. Then she’d taken off, leaving Quinn holding the bag. Literally, after he’d gone out to get them breakfast.

But they’d gotten back together and were now looking at becoming a till-death-do-they-part couple. Shane knew Quinn would never cheat on Cait. And not just because she might shoot him with her Glock if he did. But because he was a stand-up guy who’d never break a vow. And was obviously besotted by the sexy redhead former FBI agent.

So, why didn’t he just go home and use that smile on his woman?

Instead of Shane’s?

Not that Kirby was actually his woman. But if Shane had anything to say about it—and he damn well did—that was absofuckinglutely going to change.

“Can someone recommend a hotel for the night?” she asked.

“No problem,” Zach said. “You can stay at my place.”

She glanced down at his left hand, as if reassuring herself there was also a wife at his place. “I wouldn’t want to put you out.”

“It’s no trouble. My wife, Sabrina, has been turning her family home into an inn. Sort of a combo bed and breakfast and wedding chapel. While she’s got the tearoom up and going, she’s still working on the inn part, so we don’t have any guests yet. And believe me, there’s plenty of room.”

“If you’re sure.”

“Positive. So, with that settled, let’s get cracking on the rest of the plan.”

Rachel assured herself that she’d survived a lot worse in her life than a few ragtag teenagers.

Back during Desert Storm, she’d actually died.

Of course, having been unconscious, she hadn’t been aware of that until she’d awakened in Landstuhl, where she’d been taken after Michael had brought her back to the living.

Michael. Why was it that she could never stop thinking of him? Not even now, when she needed so badly to keep a cool head.

“The government isn’t going to pay ransom,” she said quietly. Respectfully.

Although she wanted to make the man in charge of both the armed guards outside and these kids inside understand she wasn’t a cash cow, neither did she want to piss him off.

She slapped at a mosquito that felt as big as a B-1 bomber at the back of her neck. Which brought home the fact that her ultimate goal was to keep her cool head on her neck.

They’d already forced her to make the video in front of those masked, armed children, begging for the U.S. government to pay the ransom that would, if her captors could be believed, keep her alive.

During the sixty-second video, this man had held the blade of a machete against her neck while the other thugs, all wearing scarves to cover their faces, stood behind him. The only positive thing about the terrifying experience was that his hand had stayed steady. Having seen the bodies of victims who’d been hacked to death by machetes during the genocide in Rwanda, Rachel suspected there were very few more painful ways to die.

“Callate la boca,” he snapped at her.

Not wanting to push her luck, she obeyed and shut her mouth, watching as he sharpened the machete on a whetstone.

Although the temperature was in the 90s, with humidity just as high, that idea raised goose bumps on her skin.

“May I have permission to ask one question?” She asked in Spanish, keeping her voice respectful.

His black brows plunged to his nose as he scowled darkly, but waved his hand in an impatient, go-ahead gesture.

“I’d like to speak to Jesus Castillo.”

Castillo owed her, dammit. Given that he would have died without her treating that bullet wound, surely he’d harbor some gratitude. Hopefully enough to listen to reason.

“He’s in the mountains,” her captor surprised her by saying.

The rebel leader’s whereabouts were usually kept secret on pain of death. In fact, it was rumored that Castillo slept in a different house every night to remain out of the hands of Vasquez’s death squads.

Her captor shouldn’t have told her, which made her worry that he might not be planning to let her escape this situation alive.

But even so, Castillo leaving the area made perfect sense. He had no real way of knowing that Vasquez wouldn’t try to use this situation to assassinate him.

He also couldn’t be absolutely sure what Rachel knew—that the U.S. wouldn’t send in Special Forces to rescue her as they’d done for those medical students in Grenada. Of course, that country had been in the midst of anarchy, with fighting in the streets.

In this case, Rachel knew she was pretty much on her own.

The one thing she had going for her was that her guard had been brought up in a Latino culture that encouraged machismo. Which meant—she hoped—that he wouldn’t consider Rachel, a mere woman, to be any sort of threat.

She doubted he was as naive or stupid as those teenagers on the road had been. After all, he must have risen fairly high through the ranks to have been put in charge of guarding a million-dollar hostage. Not that they’d ever actually get the money, but apparently no one realized that.

“May I ask another question?”

His scowl grew darker. He glanced around at his fellow “soldiers,” many of whom, already bored, were throwing dice against the wall, while others raided the hospital’s food pantry. And no wonder. Many of them looked as if they hadn’t eaten in a week.

“No mas.”

“Please, señor.” It did not take that great an effort to force a tear. Then another. “But I have to go.” Trying to look embarrassed, properly chastened, and needy, all at the same time, she tilted her head toward the lavatory. “You know.”

He gave her a long, considering look. His lips pulled into a grim line, but apparently he wasn’t completely heartless, because he shrugged and gestured toward the bathroom.

Then followed her, fortunately allowing her to close the door between them.

It hadn’t exactly been a lie. After quickly taking care of business, Rachel washed her hands, and with the water still running, climbed up on the closed toilet seat and tested the wooden frame window, which, no surprise, was swollen shut from all the moisture in the air.

Damn. Even if she had been able to open it, she wasn’t sure she could wiggle through. But it was one possible escape option.

“Date prisa!” the harsh male voice shouted through the door.

“I’m hurrying,” she called back.

Not wanting to risk him breaking the door down, she climbed off the toilet and turned off the water.

As she came out of the lavatory, Rachel thought at least there was one good thing about this situation.

Kirby wasn’t here to give them two hostages.