Shattered (24 page)

“Although it wasn’t flying, I figured I’d be in court, defending seamen in court-martial trials, which could be fun. Or maybe go into international law. But no, I ended up in frigging contracts, which mainly meant going blind reviewing contracts for supplies and services.”

“Ah, so you’re the one to blame for the gold-plated toilets in the officers’ clubs and the five-thousand-dollar screwdrivers.”

“Very funny. Anyway, the upshot was when it came time for me to re-up, I jumped ship to the Army, which, after I’d gotten some laser surgery, let me fly helos. End of story.”

“I have to admit, I can’t imagine doing that. I suppose because I’ve always been one to stay on a set track.”

“Yeah. I noticed that the way you jumped from the Army into WMR,” he said dryly.

“Well, it’s still sort of the same thing I was doing,” she said. “Just with a few less administrative hoops to jump through, since we’re such a small operation.”

Before he could ask for more details about her work, his phone vibrated. At the same time their flight was called.

“Hey,” Zach told him as they left the club and headed toward the gate. “We’re about to be heloed out to that ship in the Gulf we’re going to launch the IBS from. But I wanted to let you know that I got word from our man—or in this case, woman—on the ground. The clinic’s village wasn’t affected. And the report from inside the compound is that Dr. Moore’s okay. But the general consensus is that the volcano’s been building up for a long time to the big one. So the sooner we get in and out of the place, the better.”

“Roger that,” Shane agreed.

“Oh, that’s the best news!” Kirby said when he relayed the information to her. Absolutely giddy, she lifted her hands to his face, went up on her toes, and kissed him.

Her lips hit his like liquid fire. Just as they’d always done. And, dammit, just as no other woman’s ever had.

Shane tried to convince himself that he’d imagined the jolt.

But he’d been wrong.

She flooded his senses with her taste, her scent, the all-too-familiar but no less incredible way her body fit against his.

He wanted to drag her to the nearest horizontal place, even as he made a low, desperate sound deep in the back of his throat. To keep his hands out of trouble, he placed them on either side of her waist and kept them there.

God, I want you, his body was shouting, even as his brain tried to remind the aching, needy parts that they were in a freaking airport, about to get on a freaking plane, and although the idea of joining the mile-high club sounded cool—or in this case, hot—the reality was that when he finally made love to Kirby again, she deserved to have it done right. At the right time. In the right place.

Wanting a woman was one thing. Needing one was something entirely different.

It really was over for him, Shane realized as he forced himself to back away from temptation. As Zach had warned him when he’d come out of the kitchen to give him the passports and spending money, he was toast.

And the weirdest thing was, it felt just fine.

He’d never been looking for a woman, but he’d always known the time would come when he’d find her. The one. And he had, which is why he’d planned to track her down and propose to her as soon as he’d finished ferrying those SEALs and Rangers and Marines into the Kush.

He’d finagled some leave time. Even went on the Internet, found a ring he thought she’d like at a store back in Eugene, and sent his brother up there to check it out and make sure it was as shiny as it had looked online.

Amazingly, it had looked even better. It wasn’t all that large—a carat solitaire—but with the same attention to detail he brought to his flying, he’d done all the research about the 4 Cs (cut, clarity, color, and carats) along with other factors like fluorescence, table percentage symmetry, and enough other stuff he’d probably driven the jeweler crazy with, quizzing him in back-and-forth e-mails.

Then, the day after the ring had arrived in Afghanistan, the helo had crashed, and while the woman was still the right one, the timing had been all wrong.

Shane may have let Kirby walk out of his life.

But he’d kept the ring.

Which was currently sewn into the lining of his duffle bag.

“We’re going to finish this,” he said.

“You sound awfully confident,” she said with a toss of her head. Yep, she’d definitely done something different to it. Something sassy.

It fit.

“No point in beating around the bush,” he said. “I told you, I want you. And I intend to have you.”

She lifted her chin even as the line began to move around them. “Do you always get everything you want?” The minute the words came out of her mouth, he saw the regret in her remarkable eyes. “I’m sorry.” She held up a hand.

“Don’t worry about it.” He caught the silky smooth hand and lifted it to her lips. “And no, I haven’t always gotten what I wanted. At least it may not have seemed like it at the time. But some things—and some people—are worth waiting for.”

She met his gaze over their joined hands, seeming oblivious to the crowds and the announcements being broadcast by disembodied voices, and the usual hustle and bustle and noise around them.

“You’re not going to get any argument there,” she said finally.

Things, Shane thought as they walked side by side down the jetway, were definitely looking up.

Now, he could only hope their luck held.

Kirby had worried that the long flight would be too much of a strain on his leg. When she’d asked, he’d merely shrugged and assured her it wouldn’t be a problem.

Nor did it seem to be.

After the charter flight from D.C., she wasn’t surprised to learn that they’d been booked into first class.

“Might as well take the opportunity to get some shut-eye while we can,” Shane told her as the jet took off. “Because once we land in Monteleón, things could get real dicey, real fast.”

That said, as soon as they’d hit cruising altitude, he’d put his seat back, folded his arms over his chest, and promptly fallen asleep.

She’d seen him do that countless times before, when he’d taken what he’d called combat naps, complete with jerky eye movements, body twitches, and irregular breathing, and, although she’d never actually checked his pulse, irregular heartbeat.

Even though she’d become accustomed to thirty-six-hour shifts during her residency, she’d never been able to manage this instant drop into REM sleep he’d told her that SOAR pilots, like other Spec Ops teams, learned to do. And she’d also been amazed, not only at how he could set an internal clock to wake himself up at the exact time he wanted, but that somehow he’d also managed to look, after ten minutes, as rested as most normal people who’d gotten their full eight hours.

She’d spent the past thee nights chasing sleep. The first in Monteleón, then the next in D.C. worrying about her testimony, and last night, at Swannsea, she’d been worried about Rachel. And, during those brief periods of time when she had drifted off, dreams of the man sleeping next to her had not proven at all restful.

Still wired, she tried to read the in-flight magazine, but her mind wouldn’t focus. Nor could she concentrate on the novel she’d picked up in the airport bookstore. She spent a long time staring out at the clouds, wondering what was happening at the clinic, trying to hope for the best, and not to let her imagination drift to the worst.

But she couldn’t help thinking about the story Rachel had told her, about what the rebel leader had done to those two young lovers. And when her exhaustion finally caught up with her somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico, this time her dreams were of jaguars tearing apart a boy soldier, beneath the body of a pretty, dark-haired girl—who kept morphing into Rachel—hanging from the limb of a yellow-flowered Gallinazo tree.

Even if their passports had been absolutely legitimate, Kirby still would have been nervous going through customs. Running the gauntlet of bored, granite-faced officers who, whatever the country, all seemed to have been cast from the same grim mold, was always her least favorite part of traveling.

It didn’t help that this one was wearing a military uniform and armed to the teeth. Her nerves grew icier as the long line slowly snaked across the airport basement. Unlike the terminal upstairs, with its bright travel posters depicting colorful scenes of the country dating back to a time when tourists had actually made Monteleón a vacation destination, this dreary, institutional room, with its seven-foot ceilings and peeling army green paint, had all the ambience of a Third World prison.

Kirby watched, her pulse racing as the officer grilled an elderly couple who, politely and with proper deference in German-accented Spanish, explained they were birders who’d come to the country in search of a rare, reclusive toucan.

The woman added that the bird was becoming endangered, and since they weren’t getting any younger, they’d decided time was running out to see it in its natural habitat.

From the way the unsmiling man grilled them, backed up by two uniformed thugs carrying semiautomatic weapons, they could have been participants in a plot to overthrow the government.

Which was, of course, Kirby thought, precisely what Vasquez and his cohorts were afraid of. Why they’d do anything, including allowing the murder of an innocent aid doctor who’d never spoken a word about their despotic regime, but had only come to the country—and stayed through all the recent strife and upheaval—to help people too poor and too downtrodden to help themselves.

Apparently dissatisfied with their responses to his questions, the customs officer waved over the two soldiers, who strong-armed them down a long hallway. As they turned a corner, disappearing out of sight, Shane took hold of Kirby’s hand. Although meant to merely look like an affectionate gesture between lovers, from the way his thumb was pressing against her palm, Kirby knew he was warning her not to get involved.

Even as she wanted to leap to the German couple’s defense, Kirby understood that they were playing for higher stakes. There probably wasn’t anything she could do to help the elderly birders, but throwing herself and Shane into the midst of whatever trouble they might be in not only wouldn’t do anything to help Rachel, it could only make things worse.

Finally, after nearly an hour in the crowded room smelling of mold, sweat, and fear, it was time for the inquisition.

“It’ll be okay,” Shane assured her as he brushed his lips against her ear, as if nuzzling it. “Just stick with the script, and we’ll be out of here and on our way in no time.”

She hoped that was the case. Not that she didn’t have total faith in him, but there was the little fact that he hadn’t been able to take his weapons onto the plane, so, although she suspected he could undoubtedly break necks with his bare hands, taking on all the armed-to-the-teeth soldiers marching around the room, glowering at the people shuffling along, might be more than even a Special Ops Night Stalker could pull off.

“Buenas tardes,” she greeted the official as she handed over her passport.

Surprise, surprise. He didn’t respond. Just typed her name into his computer. Then lifted a black caterpillar brow as he read whatever had popped up on the screen.

Even as every nerve in her body started to screech out warning sirens, Kirby kept the faint, hopefully innocent-looking smile frozen on her face while one of the soldiers standing behind him bent and said something in the man’s ear.

This time both brows furrowed, diving toward his nose. She braced herself to be dragged off to wherever the elderly toucan hunters had disappeared to.

“Passaporte,” he growled past her at Shane. Obviously, the soldier had told him they were together.

Unlike Kirby, Shane didn’t bother greeting the bureaucrat. Nor did he smile. He merely handed over the navy blue passport the so-called Michelangelo at the agency had created for him.

The official studied the photo for a long time. Looked back toward Shane’s face. Then at the passport again. He flipped through the pages, which bore enough stamps to appear as if Shane had traveled overseas, but certainly not enough to be suspicious. And, since she’d studied the passport when he’d first shown it to her, she knew the countries—Ireland, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand—weren’t ones that would send up warning flags to Vasquez’s government.

“Cuánto tiempo va a quedarse?” he asked Shane.

Rather than immediately respond in the Spanish Kirby knew he spoke, he opened the small booklet he’d picked up in Atlanta, when she’d bought her novel.

“Lo siento,” he said with a total lack of the music the language was known for. He was pronouncing it as that German couple may have spoken it. “No, uh, hablo Español.”

The soldier leaned forward again and rattled off something at a rapid, machine-gun speed even Kirby, who’d taken Spanish in college and had spoken in this country for the past few months, had trouble keeping up with.

Something about his mother. And testicles, along with livestock and other cruder-sounding words that, from the appreciative laughter of a trio of soldier thugs walking by, Kirby didn’t want to know.

Slanting a sideways glance at Shane, she noticed that his face remained politely perplexed.

“Lo s-i-en-to,” he apologized slowly, more laboriously. “I’m sorry.” He’d raised his voice as if the customs agents were the one who didn’t speak the language and if he only said it loudly enough, he’d be understood. He flipped through the book again. “No comprendo.” I don’t understand.

Kirby suspected he knew exactly what had been said. She also began to understand how Special Ops teams could go behind the scenes. She’d never thought of a pilot as having the skills she’d heard SEALs or Delta Force operatives did, but then again, she considered, there was always the chance of getting shot down behind enemy lines.

Apparently, blessedly, buying the subterfuge, the man turned back to Kirby, asking her their purpose for coming into the country.

He was visibly unimpressed when she pointed out that she’d been living in the country for several months and was returning to work.

At which point he informed her that she may as well get back on that plane. Because the clinic had been taken over by terrorists. His knowing her connection to the clinic explained his apparent recognition of her name when he’d first taken her passport and checked the computer screen. Apparently, she’d landed on some government watch list.

She leaned forward, allowing her scent to envelope him in a heady, fragrant cloud of jasmine. Although Kirby had never—ever—been one of those women who used their femininity to gain their way, she suddenly, from the way his eyes kept drifting to her cleavage, realized she was now in possession of a powerful new weapon.

She explained, allowing a little trembling that wasn’t entirely feigned into her voice, that she had heard about the rebels taking her dear friend hostage and had rushed back to the country to beg the president to help her in freeing the American doctor.

Then, remembering Rachel’s ploy on the road, she said, “I am a close personal friend of El Presidente.”

Just as it had with the teenage rebels, the lie garnered everyone’s immediate attention. Several of soldiers who’d been slouching against the wall, appearing disinterested in the proceedings unless they might be allowed to start blasting away at innocent civilians, actually stood at attention, as if the dictator himself had suddenly appeared in the terminal.

“Eso es verdad?” the man asked. Again, just as on the road. Men were so predictable.

“Es absolutamente cierto,” she assured him on a breathy, “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” Marilyn Monroe voice that had a flush rising up from the collar of his khaki shirt like a fever.

She went on to describe the house, the patio where the barbecue had taken place, the inside, which she knew this man had never seen. Then, grateful for the personal tour the president had insisted on taking Rachel and her on, she described his bedroom. Including the twenty-four-carat gold fixtures and shower large enough for three.

“Or,” she’d added, looking up at him from beneath her lashes, “even four.”

She shrugged, allowing the dress to slip, just a bit, baring a buffed, lotioned, and perfumed shoulder.

The men all exchanged leers. And began undressing her with their eyes.

Although he was continuing to pretend that he didn’t understand a thing she was saying, Kirby knew Shane well enough to sense that he was less than pleased with her story. Or the cretins’ response to it.

She also realized that she might have pushed her luck, just a little. Because if any one of them got it into their heads to take her into a back room for a demonstration of what she might have been willing to share with the president in that marble shower, Shane would make sure all hell broke loose.

She backed up just a bit. Then took a bill from her purse, folded it, slipped it into his hairy paw, and assured him that the president would undoubtedly want to personally reward the official for having taken such good care of his very close personal friend.

Bingo. She watched ambition and greed replace the lust in his dark brown gaze. Heard the slight mutter from some of the soldiers.

After she’d told him that they wouldn’t need a limousine, that they were, instead, renting a car, he snapped his fingers. Immediately, a soldier arrived with a cart.

“No es necesario,” she assured him, lifting her bag to show she was more than capable of carrying it herself.

But he insisted, rattling off instructions to the soldier-turned-porter.

Kirby glanced over at Shane, who merely shrugged. When he handed over his bag, she followed suit.

The customs official stamped both their passports and handed them back, allowing his fingers to brush Kirby’s as he did so.

A muscle jerked in Shane’s jaw. But again, he maintained his cool.

It was all Kirby could do to keep from bursting into the “Hallelujah” chorus as they finally escaped the terminal. They’d made it past the first hurdle. And she liked to think that she’d played an important part.

With Shane’s hand planted firmly on her back, they followed the porter down the sidewalk toward a kiosk with the yellow, red, and black sign depicting the national rental car company. A few months ago, the major companies—Hertz, Avis, National, Budget—had been represented. Then the president had nationalized public transportation, putting his brother-in-law in charge of all car rentals in the country.

Before they’d left Swann Island, Zach had reported that the CIA station chief had warned him since Vasquez suspected all Americans of being CIA, they could expect their rental car to come equipped with both a bug and a tracking device.

He’d also stated that he had that contingency covered; after they’d paid their visit to the president, the couple leaving the country in their place would drive the rental back to the airport. Kirby and Shane would be given a clean car to drive out of the city to the rendezvous point.

While making their approach into the airport, coming down from blue skies into a thick gray cloud, their pilot had assured them it was safe to land. That turned out to be true, but from the way it continued to belch smoke with its usual steam, it was obvious that Ixtab was not yet through with whatever it was intending to do.

Although the city was far enough from the volcano that the population, accustomed to sucking in massive amounts of auto pollutants, wasn’t bothering to wear masks, the moment they left the terminal, Kirby’s eyes began to burn and water.

“This isn’t good,” she said.

“No shit,” Shane agreed.

The rental was a black Toyota two-door sedan. Knowing that the general’s men might be listening to everything they said was more than a little unsettling.

Neither spoke as they drove toward the center of the city. A pungent, smoky, dark cloud hovered over the buildings, which was part volcanic pollution, part from the farmers slash-and-burn agriculture, and part from the cars crowding the narrow streets.

“This always reminds me of a destruction derby,” Kirby said as a rusting truck piled high with green bananas blasted its horn at a stalled car, driving onto the sidewalk to pass it, which, in turn, sent a sidewalk taco vendor scrambling to escape serious injury or even death.

“Or the running of the bulls, with cars and trucks taking the place of bulls,” Shane said, expertly swerving to dodge a car cutting diagonally across the traffic circle at the Plaza de Armas.

A middle-aged couple raced, hand in hand, across the road, barely missing being hit by a speeding taxi. Their shorts, the woman’s designer bag, and the expensive camera around the man’s neck practically shouted out, “Gringo tourists. Come rob us!”

“You’re very good at this,” she said.

“Thanks. Actually, this isn’t all that different from driving in D.C.,” he said, reminding her that they needed to stay in character.

“I’m so worried about Rachel.” That was certainly true.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to get in to see President Vasquez,” Shane said. “And he’ll be able to intervene.”

“I hope so,” Kirby said, on cue. “It seems it would be in his best interest to send some of his army against Castillo’s thugs.” She sighed heavily, then said, “I’m still furious at our government for not helping.”