Dangerous Liaisons (6 page)

Jesse’s heart leaped into a furious rhythm. The weapon had a three round burst capability. Who the hell were they expecting? Then she realized:
her
.

Cole dove into the waiting room and rolled from view as expertly as any professional. Lancelot lunged forward at the same time Jesse swung the door closed. The Shepherd skidded to a halt as the door slammed against the shooter’s arm. The man held tight to the weapon and Jesse heaved her weight against the door. He grunted and yanked in an effort to free himself. Three shots zipped past her ear and through the waiting room wall. She winced. Her heart beat faster, irritating the dull pain spreading through her injured shoulder.

Lancelot barked with breathless intensity. Jesse grabbed the gun muzzle, shoving as she kicked the door open. The shooter stumbled backwards. He crashed onto his back still gripping the nine-millimeter. Lancelot charged past and pounced on him, locking the man’s free arm in a canine grip. She rushed forward as the intruder leveled the nine millimeter on her. She kicked, catching the barrel’s edge. The gun twisted from his grip.

Jesse glimpsed tall, thick junipers lining the concrete walkway to the right as she yanked Lancelot back. She dropped to a squat, ignoring the tearing of her stitched leg, and seized the man’s hair.

She pressed the scalpel to his throat. “Who the hell are you?”

His eyes widened.

Jesse dug the knife in. Blood trickled down his neck. Leaning in closer, she said, “The dog wants you bad, and if you don’t tell—”

Lancelot turned, his lip peeling back in a ferocious growl. He sprang over their attacker’s legs and darted into the juniper bushes. Jesse bore down on the man’s chest with her knee, then chopped hard on his vegas nerve with the side of her hand. He went limp. She wrenched her attention to the violently thrashing junipers and the ferocious growls.

A man shrieked, followed by three rapid shots. Lancelot let out a loud yelp. Jesse leaped to her feet. Where the hell was Cole? She glanced at the open office door. Lancelot gave a high pierced cry, then all sounds stopped. She dashed for the bushes, but skidded to a halt when the dog shot into the open. A man vaulted from the bushes and collided with her. She stabbed him with the knife, feeling the blade strike rib bone.

He fell back, but leveled his Ratmil at her. She ducked, lunged, and tackled him. She chopped the nerve bundle at the shoulder of his gun-arm. His arm went limp, but he still managed to grip the weapon. She straddled his waist, grappling for the gun. An instant later, Lancelot’s booming bark rang in her ear. The Shepherd snapped and caught her opponent’s sleeve in his teeth. The man swung his gun, landing a hard blow across Lancelot’s shoulder, but the dog held tight. Jesse blocked the next blow, using momentum to twist the man’s arm around and pin it to the ground beside his ear.

A sudden jolt struck her back, and she toppled forward, breast-first across his face. The bastard had kneed her! His teeth grazed the soft flesh below her neck. She bolted upright and raised the scalpel to strike. Lancelot released him and backed up, growling. Movement in the corner of her eye jerked Jesse’s gaze to the right. A boot slammed into her temple.

Black spots raced across her vision. Blurry movement registered again. She lashed out with a fist and contacted hard flesh. The man beneath her bucked, lifting her inches off his abdomen. Lancelot dove forward, nipping the man’s cheek. The man who had kicked her aimed at the dog.

“No!” Jesse cried in unison with a masculine voice.
Cole
.

The gun fired in a burst of three. Lancelot squealed and collapsed, blood flowing from his chest. Jesse lunged for the shooter and pummeled him with four punches before he hit the ground. The nine-millimeter skittered off into the grass. Cole rushed past and landed on the man she had left on the ground.

“You killed the dog!” Jesse shouted at the killer. She snap-kicked his ribs and felt a satisfying crack of bone. He started to roll away. She grabbed his collar and yanked him off the ground. “You son-of-a-bitch!”

His fist struck her ribs. Jesse lashed out with an elbow strike to his cheek. His head twisted right. She grabbed his hair. “I told Lanton what I would do to the person who sent our men to be slaughtered.” Jesse cuffed him—hard. He landed on his back, eyes dazed.  “He let that little girl die, too.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Cole rising from the other unmoving thug. Jesse circled Lancelot’s murderer as he blundered to his hands and knees. “Now he adds the dog to his list of sins. Two million isn’t nearly enough for all the trouble I’m going to give him.” She stopped before the thug’s sagging head. “Go tell that bastard I’m coming for him.” She swung her fist as if pitching a softball underhanded, and caught him under the jaw. The man fell back, limp.

Jesse spun, dashed the few paces to Lancelot, and dropped to her knees at his side. She shoved her hands into his fur. His body felt warm—too warm.

She slid her arms beneath him and started to rise. An iron grip closed over her shoulder. She sprang to her feet, punched blindly, but missed Cole as he jumped clear. Their gazes locked.

“He’s dead,” Cole said in an even voice.

Who was dead? Jesse flicked her eyes to the man she’d straddled. In her rage, she’d forgotten him. He lay flat on his back
still breathing
. Cole was talking about Lancelot. She dropped her gaze to his motionless body. Why was she so upset about a dog? Because Lancelot hadn’t done a damn thing. Neither had Maria or—

“What do you know about Maria Hamilton?”

Jesse wrenched her gaze back to Cole. “What?”

Had he read her mind? She couldn’t think. Her mind whirled with the memory of the easy getaway from Colombia—too easy, she suddenly realized. And the hole in the Bank of America vault where Amanda’s papers had been. It was almost as if…as if someone was saying
we know about her and we’re closer than you think
.

“Maria Hamilton,” Cole repeated. “How do you know about her?”

Jesse stared. His words, spoken in English, held no meaning.

“What did you mean,
I told Lanton what I would do to the person who sent our men to be slaughtered
?
”
Cole asked.

“What?”

His face tightened. “You said,
I told Lanton what I would do to the person who sent our men to be slaughtered
.”

Jesse gave her head a hard shake. Cole spoke with a clarity that said he knew Lanton, knew about Senator Hamilton, knew about Maria. Jesse’s mind clicked over and she felt the freight train that had hit her when Lancelot fell make another run over her chest. She focused on Cole. He didn’t just happen to pass by the alley.

“How do you know anything about Lanton or Maria?” she said. Cole’s mouth opened, but Jesse hissed, “You son-of-a-bitch.” They’d fooled her. All this time, she’d been concentrating on the men in the alleyway and—“You’re one of
them
.”

For a second, he looked like she felt, then his expression cleared. “Listen,” he began, and stretched a hand toward her.

Jesse grabbed his wrist, twisting it in a hold intended to tear hand from arm. Cole followed the momentum of the move with startling fluidity. His body twirled beneath her arm like a practiced dancer, and he grasped her wrist, exerting a vice grip she’d come across only once in her life; Hwuang Kano, her instructor.

She did the only thing that could stop Hwuang; relaxed her body and dropped to the ground. Cole was forced to jump forward in order to maintain his hold. She’d gambled he wouldn’t be quick enough to break her wrist, and won. He surprised her by falling to his knees and releasing her wrist as he grabbed her waist. He swung a leg over and straddled her. Jesse slammed a fist into his jaw. The blow sent a wave of pain up her arm.

Cole grabbed her wrists and shoved them down at her sides. “Shut up and listen!”

Jesse jerked her knee up, hitting him square in the spine. His face contorted in pain. She yanked an arm free and swung back for another blow.

“Don’t make me hurt you, Jesse!”

She swung. Cole blocked with his forearm. Jesse felt like she’d hit steel and her funny bone at the same time. He grabbed her injured thigh and squeezed hard. Pain shot up her leg. She grabbed for his arm. Cole grasped her waist and flipped her onto her stomach. He had her arm behind her back before she could twitch. Her injured shoulder burned white hot. His muscled thighs clamped down on her ribs with an intensity that left her gasping for air.

“I’ll kill you!” she ground out between breaths.

His grip tightened. “You are hard headed,” he said in a raspy voice. “By now you should have figured out that won’t be as easy as you think.”

Jesse took a painful breath. “It doesn’t have to be easy.”

“I understand how you feel, Jesse—”

She attempted one mighty buck to dislodge him. He yanked her arm several inches away from her body. The slightest movement would snap the bone. She stilled.

Cole paused, his weight heavy on her. “I understand,” he said quietly.

“Bastard!” Jesse gritted. “You don’t know a god damn thing.”

“I do,” he replied quietly. “I was there.” He paused. “I led
Operation Hangman
. I’m Green Team Leader.”

Forty-five minutes later, the freight train made another pass over Jesse’s chest. She had seen the bodies.
No survivors
. The Professor had confirmed their deaths. How could she accept that the man sitting across from her in the booth in a tiny upper Westchester diner was the mission’s only survivor—and the leader, no less? She
did
feel like she was having a heart attack or, at the very least, a stroke.

“Are you all right?” Cole asked, his brow furrowed in—what—concern for the woman who had left him behind? Did they educate these guys at Julliard?

Jesse dropped her gaze to the bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup in front of her and picked up the spoon. “I’m all right.”

She ate a spoonful of soup, grimaced, and pushed the bowl aside. There was no mistaking the tinny taste of cheap canned soup. These greasy diners loved to talk about
home cookin’
but wouldn’t know a chicken breast from a chicken beak. Jesse signaled the passing waitress for a coffee refill.

The waitress refilled her cup with more of their poison, her attention on Cole the whole time. He didn’t give her a second glance. Jesse felt sure if he had asked for a refill, the waitress would have grabbed the fresh pot. She left, and Jesse reached for the dented stainless steel creamer and tried hiding the taste of the coffee with the two percent milk impersonating as half and half. She took a sip and winced. Even worse than the first cup.

She rubbed her leg. The pain from the torn stitches had subsided, and the bandage they’d slapped on before leaving Rayburn’s place was holding up. She glanced down. No sign of blood on the chinos Cole had found at the doc’s. She looked up at him. Why hadn’t he killed her back there? He’d neutralized the guy she’d been fighting when Lancelot got shot. Between Cole and the other guy, they could have knocked her senseless and dragged her anywhere they wanted. Hell, Cole could have snapped her arm, then her neck, when he pinned her on the ground.

“How did you get out of Colombia?” she asked.

Cole nodded like he knew she wasn’t buying. “Chiclayo is one of the smallest and most remote villages in the district. Intel reported fifteen huts, forty men.” He looked expectedly at her. She was, after all, intel.

Jesse nodded. “I dropped into the jungle at 2100 hours the night before, and reported the all clear at 0300 the following morning. In and out. OIA didn’t want to give Perez time to move Maria. I never sighted her, but that wasn’t surprising. If they had brought her into the open, it probably would have been to move her.”

“We moved in an hour before dawn,” Cole said.

Despite her efforts at neutrality, Jesse’s heart lurched. A quick mental calculation placed Green Team inside the village half an hour
after
the Colombians shot Martinez. Green Leader had had plenty of time to abort the mission. She could have warned them, if she hadn’t stopped to call headquarters.

“Robby and Benton took the north end of the village,” Cole went on. “That left me, Quinn, Salvador and Pete. Sal stuck with me, while Quinn hit the east, and Pete the west.” Cole paused, the muscles around his mouth tightening. “I’ve been on tougher missions. Came close to buying the farm a time or two. I’ve lost men, but never anything like this. Your recon gave the all clear, and we observed nothing suspicious. We went in, not expecting trouble.”

Jesse didn’t flinch from his gaze.

The muscles in Cole’s cheeks flexed as he clamped his teeth together. “They must have gotten Robby and Benton first. No shots sounded, so the rest of us weren’t alerted.”

Robby and Benton had to be the two men she’d seen murdered. A lump formed in her throat. She took a sip of coffee, despite its awful taste.

“The compound was fifty yards from our position,” Cole went on, “but the foliage made visibility nil. I counted forty-two men in the village—two more than reported.”

Jesse nodded. She’d made the count from the hill afterward. Not a single Colombian mercenary lost.

“They shot Quinn. All hell broke loose and we didn’t stand a chance. Someone cold cocked me.” Cole broke off. “I woke up on the ground alongside Sal, Quinn and Pete. I later saw Robby’s body. It looked like they used him for target practice.”

Her stomach lurched at the memory of the Green Team member who had been assaulted with the AK47, and for a horrible moment Jesse was sure she would burst into tears.

Then her mind froze. She’d seen the four bodies heaped together. Only they hadn’t all been dead. Cole had been alive.

“I didn’t quite walk away with my skin intact,” Cole said.

He glanced around the diner. As if in a dream, Jesse watched him roll up his left sleeve. Half a dozen cigarette burns dotted his forearm, with more disappearing beneath the bunched roll of his shirtsleeve. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the burns. He’d been alive and she’d left him there.

“There are more in other key spots,” he murmured.

Jesse lifted her gaze to his face.

A corner of his mouth curved upward. “If I display those in public, I’ll get arrested.”

Her stomach twisted.
I left him there.

She reached for her coffee. “The report said everyone died.” Jesse brought the cup to her lips, caught sight of the slight shake in her hand, and set the cup back on its saucer.

Cole gave a short laugh. “I wanted to. There were moments, I wished I had. They tied my arms behind my back and hung me up to dry. The first twelve hours are the worst. After that, you pass in and out of consciousness. Eventually, they have to force you awake. I plotted how I would escape, catch each one of them in their beds, and skin them alive.”

He rolled down his shirtsleeve, fastening the button on the cuff before reclining against the seat back. “I’m not sure how long they let me hang. A week, maybe more. After they cut me down, I played opossum every time a guard came in with the slop they called food. They got careless. The last night, when they brought my dinner—” He exhaled as the front door opened and a woman and child entered.

The little girl raced past their booth. Jesse watched her scramble onto one of the stools at the counter, then looked back at Cole. He set his cup of coffee back on the table and looked at her.

“What happened?” she asked.

“The guard left the plate by the door, then crept to where I was laying. He probably figured I was finally dead.” Cole shrugged, but his eyes gleamed with a predatory look that made Jesse shiver. “I took the knife strapped to his belt and…phut.” Cole sliced at his throat with a thumb.