Jungle Inferno (5 page)

“That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

They walked through the living room where every inch of the fireplace mantel and a round side table were covered with pictures of Mark—in his high school football uniform, at his college graduation, in uniform, receiving awards. She was in many of them and the memories of those years swamped her.

The picture that made tears burn at the back of her throat was of Mark when he was accepted into Delta Force and began Special Ops training. War had already etched lines on his face and his eyes were far too old for a man of his age. But he stood tall and proud, his muscular body evident beneath the uniform. Pride stamped on his face. And his mouth split in his familiar killer smile.

Please, God, keep him safe until I can help him.

She allowed herself to be propelled into the big room where she’d eaten many meals with the Hallorans, at the table where she and Mark had often done their homework. Usually she felt warmed by its familiarity. Today she had to work to conceal her tension.

She forced herself to sit quietly while Dinah busied herself getting out glasses and pouring tea. Mark’s mother was aging gracefully, her figure still slender and well-toned, her skin smooth, her graying hair pulled back in a clip at the nape of her neck.

She’s really ageless, Faith thought.

“Well.” Dinah sat down across from her. “Are you visiting your folks today?”

“Maybe later.” Faith sipped her iced tea, collecting her thoughts. How to approach this? She didn’t think Mark came home and blabbed classified secrets to his family, no matter how close they were. Honor and country first, that was his motto.

“I was looking at a picture of Mark today,” she began, “and realized I don’t have any recent shots of him. How’s he doing? It seems ages since we saw each other.” Dinah smiled at her. “I know.”

“Anyway, I just wondered what you hear from him.”

“Well, not too much, as you can imagine.” Dinah fiddled with her glass. “The stuff he does is so highly classified he can’t talk about it much.”

“Oh, yes, I know.” Faith made her voice as casual as possible. “I just wondered if he ever talked about the countries he was sent to. You know, just in passing.” Dinah looked at her with eyes that scrutinized. “Faith, what’s this really all about?

You know Mark can’t share any information. More than anyone, you’re aware of the secretive nature of what he does. So what are you really asking?” Faith swallowed, weighing her words. “I just… I guess I just had a sudden fit of worry about him. That’s all.”

The older woman looked at her with the wise eyes of a mother. “Have you ever told Mark how you feel about him?”

“Excuse me?” Faith jerked back.

Dinah smiled. “Don’t kid a kidder. I’d say you’ve been in love with my son for years. And I may be telling tales out of school but I’m convinced he feels the same way.

You know, Frank and I had always hoped the two of you—”

“Maybe one of these days.” Faith cut her off. Too much of that and she’d burst into tears. “I just wondered what part of the world he was in these days. Which danger spot he was in. Maybe if I knew that I’d worry less.”

Dinah shrugged. “Or more. Anyway, Mark would never say a word. You know that.” She sighed. “Not that I’d worry less if I knew where he was. Probably more.”

“Oh, Dinah.” Faith tried to think outside of herself for a moment. “This must be so hard for you. And Frank.”

“You’ve no idea.” Her lips turned up in a crooked smile. “He is, after all, our only child.” She sat up straighter. “But one we’re definitely proud of.”
And one you can’t give me much information about.

But she did have the one tiny clue. South America. It beat having to scavenge the entire world.

Faith finished her tea and stood up. “I hate to run but I have a new deadline looming. I was close enough to you that I had to take a minute to stop by. Please tell Frank hello and give him a hug for me.” She kissed Dinah’s cheek. “And if you hear from that handsome son of yours, tell him I said to watch his back.”

“Will do. “Come see us again, okay?” She watched from the door as Faith walked to her car. “We miss you. You’re family too, you know.”

“I will. Promise.” Faith waved as she backed out of the driveway, anxious to be gone to nibble on the tiny scrap of information she’d happened on. And she’d have to stop by and see her parents or there’d be hell to pay.

Faith wasn’t surprised the Hallorans had no information to share. Mark knew the meaning of “classified”. But she’d had to give it a shot. Even though she still had nothing more than a continent to go by, at least it was a starting point.

An idea was forming in her head. Maybe her sole attack of writer’s block had been for a purpose, more than just to clear her head for Mark’s message. As she turned onto her parents’ street she flipped open her cell phone and pressed speed dial for Tia Romero, her research assistant.

“Hey. I know I said you could have the rest of this week and next off but can I exchange the promise for a two-week paid vacation down the line? I need you to meet me at my house in about two hours. You bring your suitcase. I’ll bring Chinese.” When she snapped the phone shut, she finally felt as if she had a purpose.

* * * * *

“He’s still in a coma.”

The two men, one thin, one heavy, were at a table in a corner of the quiet restaurant, an alcove that insulated them from the other diners. To the casual eye they were two men sharing a business lunch, discussing whatever—investments, a corporate negotiation, the art of the deal. If anyone had an inkling of the real nature of their conversation they’d run for the nearest newspaper.

“Listen, G—”

The heavyset man held up a hand. “No names.”

The thin man’s eyebrows rose. “Not even when we’re alone?” His companion shook his head. “We need to get in the habit of using other names, so we won’t forget and slip when we’re in a place where we could be overheard. You’ll be Mr. Brown and I’ll be Mr. Green.”

“Fine.” Mr. Brown blew out a breath of disgust. A thin man, with salt and pepper hair, he resumed cutting his steak into small, precise pieces.

“Do they think he’ll come out of it?” The heavyset man, Mr. Green, frowned as he twirled pasta around his fork.

“Don’t know. Right now it doesn’t appear likely. It’s a damn good thing. You need to keep in mind it’s only by the sheerest accident of luck that I discovered who he was and where he was found. If he wakes up and starts talking…” Mr. Green put down his fork. “We’d both better start praying he doesn’t. Right now everyone just thinks the mission went down wrong. No one had any answers. If Latrobe starts talking, we could all be in deep shit.”

Mr. Brown swallowed half of his iced tea. “I still don’t know how he managed to crawl to where he did with three bullets in him. He was damn lucky the mercenaries who found him are former US military.”

“Yes. He was damn lucky. Not us, that’s for sure. We’d be better off if they’d left him to die.”

Mr. Green took a large swallow of his wine. “They were all supposed to be dead.

Every one of them.”

“And I’m sure they thought this man was too. After all, they weren’t counting noses.”

Mr. Green grunted. “They should have been. At least the one they captured alive is the leader. And they’re keeping him alive to get information from him. Like how anyone knew about the meeting and the group to begin with. No one’s ever been able to find out before in spite of the fact they’ve been scouting the Wolf for months.” Mr. Brown carefully buttered a roll. “You’d think I’d have been able to find that out, considering the position the head honcho of this cluster-fuck is in. But SpecOps has locked down information now tighter than a drum.”

“It’s a damn good thing they didn’t before.”

Mr. Brown nodded. “But we’re not out of the woods yet.”

“We’d better hope Escobedo’s men get the name of the traitor from Halloran. That’s a leak we need to plug right away.”

Mr. Brown made a face. “Men like him never break. And it would be political suicide for this government to even admit he’s a captive and trade for him or go after him. Supposedly this little nest of vipers was cleaned up long ago.” Mr. Green sighed. “We have to make this go away.”

“Oh, right. And exactly how do you propose we do that?”

A shrug. “You’re the one always talking about how smart you are. Figure it out.

First of all get rid of the one in the coma. You’ve got the doctor under your thumb but that won’t last. This kid has family. Someone will wonder why they haven’t been notified. You can’t keep that Top Secret classification on his hospital file forever.” Mr. Brown leaned across the table. “Listen, you jackass. I can’t just spirit a wounded soldier out of a hospital and make him disappear with no questions. Or wipe out the other problem.”

“Yeah? Well, you’d better figure it out or the man we work for will hand both of us our heads and it won’t be pleasant. Is that what you want?”

“I can’t believe this kid even escaped detection.”

Mr. Green shook his head. “Rotten luck, that’s what. Somehow he dragged himself back to the extraction point after our friends had moved on. His good luck and our bad that he was there when the extraction team arrived. Now we’re in the position of hoping he dies or figuring out how to make it happen ourselves.” Mr. Brown’s jaw tightened. “How the hell did we get into this, anyway?” Mr. Green snorted. “Money. What else?”

* * * * *

“Okay.” Tia Romero wiped her mouth delicately and sat back in her chair. “You bribed me with Chinese food and dangled a paid vacation in front of my eyes. Ready to tell me what this is all about?”

Faith cleared the debris from the table and stuck the dishes in the dishwasher. After dumping everything else in the trash basket, she took two legal pads and a coffee mug full of pens from the counter and set them on the table.

“Project time,” she announced.

“Project?” Tia cocked an eyebrow. “You already have one. I just finished the research for it. Remember?”

Faith pasted a smile on her face. “I’ve decided to put it on hold and go with a great idea that just came to me.”

Tia’s jaw dropped. “Are you crazy? You have a deadline. Your publisher won’t be happy if you tell him to just chill out.”

“No problem.” Faith pushed a legal pad across the table. “I’m calling my agent in the morning, pitching my new idea and she can tell John to chill out.”

“You are nuts, girl. Nuts. You want to start all over when you have a book ready to go?” Tia shook her head. “You’ve never done this before. Especially not with your deadline looming.”

Faith nodded. “Then it’s time for me to break the rules. John will buy it when he hears the plot. Now pay attention.”

“Are you at least giving me some idea of your brainchild?”

“Yes. It’s about…oh…let’s say an Army Special Ops guy, who’s lost on a mission that has political ramifications.” She doodled on the pad of paper. “But the mission falls apart. Almost everyone but our hero is killed.” She chewed on the tip of the pen, screwing her face into a picture of concentration. “We have to figure out who the leak was and why.” She waved her hand in the air.

“There are a zillion possibilities,” Tia pointed out. “Just open the newspaper and pick a story. Is this about drug cartels? Overthrowing a dictator? Terrorists? Take your pick.”

“It needs fleshing out,” Faith agreed, “but we can outline the plot together.”

“Outline the plot together?” Tia put down her pen. “Faith, you never ask for help with plots. What the hell is going on?”

“Tia, I just—”

The pain that lanced through her leg from ankle to knee brought tears to her eyes.

She gripped the table, holding her breath against the intensity until it passed.

“Faith?” Tia leaped up from her chair and was at Faith’s side in an instant, kneeling beside her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Help me… Need you.

His voice sounded so racked with torment it frightened her.

Mark? I hear you. I’m here. I’m working on it
.

The image assaulted her, Mark’s face so tortured his muscles were almost in rictus, followed by a picture of lush green jungle foliage heavily spattered with blood.

And then it was gone, his voice and the pain.

Her face was covered with perspiration and she rubbed at it with the hem of her tshirt. She had to swallow hard not to vomit.

Tia was still beside her, worry etched on her face.

Faith drew in a great breath and exhaled slowly. “I’m fine. Really. Just a muscle spasm.”

“Yeah?” Tia’s voice was skeptical. “That was some spasm.”

“It’s gone now. Done.” Faith picked up her water glass and drained it, giving her time to collect herself. She certainly didn’t need to frighten Tia half to death. When her heart rate had slowed, she picked up her pen and tore off the page she’d been scribbling on.

Her assistant gave her a searching look. “If you say so.” Her voice was doubtful.

“Let’s drop it, okay?” Faith got up, filled her water glass again and sat back down at the table. “Now. I think the mission should be set somewhere in South America. You know, lots of thick tropical plants and trees and remote, hidden locations. Besides, Iraq and Afghanistan have been done to death. Africa too.”

“Something to do with drug cartels?”

Faith frowned. “Not sure yet. Maybe terrorists but we’ll leave that open. But it’s a fact too many countries down there have become havens for terrorists and the cartels run more of the continent than the governments do. I’d say with everything else, something on that continent makes it an ideal choice.”

“You got that one right. Okay. South America. Somewhere.” Tia sat back down in her chair and made notes on her pad of paper. “So where do you want me to start?”

“First scour the internet for anything you can find on any kind of military missions there. Special Ops. Anything that’s been reported after the fact. Or even something the media are sniffing around right now.” She gave a short laugh. “You know how they manage to sniff out just about anything.”

Tia nodded, making notes in her own brand of shorthand.

“Check all the countries,” Faith went on. “And check blogs as well as newspaper and magazine articles. You know those people talk about anything. Use that fertile imagination of yours. Oh and dig up whatever you can about Special Ops.” Tia looked at her for a long time. “Faith, what’s this really all about? Why are you suddenly off on this kick, with a plot totally different from anything else you’ve written?”