Dead Heat (37 page)

“I’m not staying.”

“You know the risks.”

“You’re taking them.”

“I meant to your career.”

She turned to face him, put her hands on his cheeks, rough with a day’s growth of beard. “I can do this. I need to. I gave DeSantos information that may have—”

“Shh,” he said, putting a finger to her lips. “Don’t. DeSantos was part of the system, and you trusted the system. If you didn’t tell him, Ryan or Brad would have.”

“Do you think we’ll be back by five in the morning?”

“Doubt it. You’ve slept very little in the last thirty-six hours. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’ve slept enough. I’ll buy time with Ryan if I have to, but I’m going with you. Someone needs to bring Brad back while Kane and you rescue those boys. He could be injured, we don’t know.”

“There’s more than career danger when an American agent gets stuck in a volatile country.”

“I know. That’s why I’m leaving my ID here.”

“Lucy, I’ve done this before. I don’t talk about it because it’s a very gray area, but Kane is my brother, and when he needs help, I go.”

“And Brad is a federal agent and I knew there was something more to the investigation than he was telling me. I sensed the obsession with Jaime, the drive. I ignored it because we were making progress, and now he’s being tortured. You know it’s true,” she said when Sean opened his mouth.

He nodded. “Luce—Kane is a difficult, arrogant know-it-all, but he knows what he’s doing. Listen to him.”

“Sounds like a Rogan to me.”

“Hey! I’m not difficult.”

She stepped forward, into Sean’s embrace. Just one minute; all she wanted was one minute here with Sean, where she still felt safe and loved.

She tensed. “Someone’s watching us,” she whispered.

From the shadows, Kane stepped out. “It’s now or never, Romeo and Juliet.”

Lucy gave him a half smile. “Was that a
joke
?”

Kane winked and walked away.

“He can be a jerk,” Sean said, “but he’s still a Rogan at heart.”

CHAPTER 31

They left in the middle of the night.

They didn’t take Sean’s plane, which was a four-seater, but instead used a plane Padre had access to, a Cessna Caravan that could hold more people. Technically, ten passengers, plus two pilots, but they could squeeze in more if necessary.

“The plane is Jack’s,” he explained. “It had been Scout’s. We had many missions in this old bird.”

“He called her Carrie, and Jack used to give him shit over it,” Kane said. “Scout was a good man.”

“He was,” Padre concurred and crossed himself.

Padre sat in the copilot’s seat; Lucy was in the back with Kane and Michael. Based on both a map and Kane’s knowledge of the area, Kane mapped out the route he wanted Sean to take. His men would meet them at the landing spot so they could go in quickly and quietly.

“Stay low, Sean, to avoid radar, but not too low. Do you have the heat sensor activated?”

“I’ve done this before, Kane. I’m not going to get us caught or shot down.”

“Habit,” Kane said without apology.

Sean grunted.

They hadn’t filed a flight plan. They were flying into Mexico illegally, using the cover of darkness and keeping low enough to avoid radar and high enough to avoid visual identification. The interior of the plane was equipped with jammers and a host of other electronics to help avoid detection. And it was clear that Kane and Sean had done all of this many times.

Michael told them about the camp where the boys lived and trained. It was an old prison, he said; he knew the general area. “I can get there on foot, but I don’t know about this map.”

“I know where it is,” Kane replied and rolled out his own personal map. He used his finger to approximate where they where and where they were heading. “We’ll be landing here, out of sight. It’ll be bumpy, it’s an abandoned airstrip. We need to be cautious—there could be patrols. It’s two kilometers to the prison. My men will meet us at the strip. We’ll have two trucks. How many boys might be there, Michael?”

“When I left, there were sixteen.”

“Guards?”

“Four at all times. Usually more.”

Kane handed him a pencil. “Draw it. Buildings, relative distances, and natural boundaries like boulders or trees.”

From the cockpit, Sean said, “ETA, fourteen minutes.”

Sean had hardly spoken since Kane arrived. Lucy didn’t know how to read him. It was like he’d closed down. No, not
closed down
so much as changed focus. No jokes. No smiles. Lucy didn’t realize how much she’d grown to count on his positive attitude. Was it the situation or Kane’s presence? Was Sean as worried about what they were doing as she was? They were not only violating international law, but putting themselves, and a young boy, in danger.

But there was nothing the FBI or DEA could do quickly to rescue Brad. They would attempt to go through diplomatic channels while trying to get information about Trejo and his location. A military operation would require confirmed intel about where he was being held, how many threats, and they only had the word of a child.

A child who might be lying to them.

Lucy didn’t want to believe Michael would risk all their lives, but it was also clear to her he was experiencing a severe case of survivor’s guilt. He wanted to save his friends, but more than that, he wanted revenge. It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he looked when he talked about the men who had killed his friends. His brothers.

Maybe, because Lucy knew that feeling. She lived with it.

Eight years ago Lucy had killed her rapist in cold blood. Truth be told, the man who called himself Trask hadn’t actually raped her. He’d facilitated her rape, he recorded it, he showed it to thousands of people live, on the Internet. He’d planned on raping her, told her how he would kill her while he did it. Lucy called him a rapist because he’d taken everything from her, and more. Those two days in Hell had nearly killed her, literally and figuratively.

She didn’t think, she acted. Some might say she acted on pure emotion, but there was nothing emotional about her taking her father’s gun and shooting Trask six times in the chest, dead center.

He hadn’t been armed. He hadn’t posed an immediate threat, but she still shot him. She watched him bleed, she watched him die. She felt no remorse. In fact, she felt relief and anger and fear. Even dead, she’d felt the fear.

She had wanted revenge; right or wrong, she’d taken it. Premeditated, cold, calculating.

Her brother Dillon, the forensic psychiatrist, had told her that she was acting on instinct, that she wasn’t accountable for her actions because of the trauma she’d suffered. Post-traumatic stress. The FBI had concurred, and sealed her file. And she’d let them. She didn’t tell anyone that she’d known exactly what she was doing. She didn’t tell Dillon everything, and being a shrink didn’t make anyone psychic.

It was Jack who’d known. She had never told him, but he knew.

He’d come out to visit her one day at Georgetown, a year after her attack. He came east often—ostensibly to reconnect with his twin brother Dillon, but mostly to talk to her. To train her. She’d learned more about firearms and self-defense from Jack than from her FBI training.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and they’d sparred. He’d pinned her and she had a panic attack. That was when her panic attacks were far too common. Before she learned to control them, to shut them down.

She’d hated herself for being weak, and she’d hated Jack for putting her in a position that made her feel like a victim again.

“Stop,” Jack told her.

“Stop what? Feeling helpless?”

“Stop feeling guilty that you have no regrets.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she’d said through clenched teeth.

He just stared at her. He didn’t have to say anything; Jack never said more than was necessary.

“I’m numb,” she whispered.

“You’re healing.”

“I’d do it again.”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t feel anything.” But that was a lie, and he knew it.

“Let it go. Let the guilt over how you felt then, how you feel now, go. Or you’ll always be a victim.”

“How dare you—”

“Is that what you want? To feel victimized? To feel ashamed? You have nothing to be ashamed about. You killed him. He deserved it. If you hadn’t, he would have raped, tortured, and killed other women. Why on earth would you feel guilty for ridding the planet of a man who showed less remorse for his crimes than you have for protecting yourself?”

“That’s not fair, Jack—” she had wanted to scream, to cry, but she couldn’t. Her emotions were gone. And that’s what she’d truly feared. That she had no feelings anymore. Nothing. That she would never feel anything again.

“Put it in a box, Lucy. Lock it up. Don’t let your fear control you. If you do, you’ll always be a victim, and that bastard will win.”

At the time, she didn’t believe him. She thought he was being a soldier, teaching her to be a soldier. How could she not feel
anything
when she took a human life?

How could she feel justified?

It was a long time before she understood.

She wasn’t like most people. And maybe that was okay. It was her defense mechanism to survive what had happened to her. It had made her who she was today. Someone who could violate laws and rules and jeopardize her job to save innocents. That if she had to kill again, she could do it without hesitation. Her training gave her more skill, more experience, the ability to decipher a situation and know what to do and when to do it.

It didn’t make her happy knowing that about her; but it put her life in perspective. And made her appreciate how Sean made her feel normal. She needed that so she could live with the black hole inside her, that black box she’d locked up but still had, the blackness that enabled her to take a life to save a life.

And yet now, Sean was closed, stalwart, quiet. He was never quiet. Did he sense she was opening that dark box so she could do what needed to be done? Or did he fear she wouldn’t be able to control herself? That she wouldn’t come back?

Kane was studying the map of the prison that Michael had drawn.

“There’s a small town near here,” he said.

“Hardly anyone lives there,” Michael said. “Except the general’s people.”

“Where’s his mansion?”

Michael frowned. “I was blindfolded. But we went over a river, on a wooden bridge. A small river, but I heard water and it smelled fresh and clean.”

Kane looked at his map. He asked, “How far from the prison?”

“Maybe an hour, at the most.”

“And how far from the river?”

“I don’t know. Ten, fifteen minutes?”

Kane drew an arc from a small blue line on his map. He picked up his radio and clicked it. A minute later a voice came over the speaker.

“Ranger here.”

“Ranger, it’s Rogan. I need the exact location of a wood bridge approximately thirty to forty minutes south-southwest of the target.”

“Roger that.”

Lucy looked at Kane. “What are they doing?”

“Recon,” Kane said and didn’t elaborate.

Michael looked worried. “The mansion is in the middle of a jungle.”

“There’re no jungles within an hour of the prison.”

“It felt like it.”

Kane thought a moment. He got back on the radio. “Ranger, check more southwest first. The mountain.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know where it is?” Lucy asked.

“I have an idea.”

“Bella will be there,” she said.

“The girl?”

“Trejo is her father.”

“You should have told me.”

“I’m telling you now.” She didn’t back down from Kane’s hard stare.

“Five minutes,” Sean said from the cockpit.

“Go through it again.” Kane turned to Michael. “Anything you remember, no matter how unimportant you think it is.”

“They have a lot of guns,” he said. “I want a gun.”

“No,” Lucy said.

Kane ignored her and said to Michael, “Have you used a gun before?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. No blinking. Lucy felt ill. This little boy—this not-so-little boy—had killed before.

“I’ll think on it,” Kane said.

“Why?”

Kane didn’t give him an explanation. He called out to the cockpit. “Padre.”

Padre unbuckled himself and came back. Sean said, “Buckle up, we’re starting our descent. Such as it is,” he muttered.

Kane said, “Padre, you’re staying with the plane. We need someone to guard it.”

Padre nodded.

“Michael, you will stay with Sean. You hear that, Sean?”

“Loud and clear.”

“My brother will die to protect you. I don’t want him dead, so you will do exactly what he tells you to.”

Michael didn’t respond.

“I need an affirmative, Michael.”

Padre said, “Michael, we need your help. The boys at the prison will trust you. They don’t know us.”

“I’ll obey.”

Kane looked at Lucy. “Kincaid, you’re with me. If there’s a threat, are you capable of taking care of it?”

“Yes.”

But she wasn’t happy about it.

*   *   *

It was two in the morning and Samantha Archer couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she pictured Brad being tortured.

She hadn’t gone to the hotel—she had a team out in the field and she was in charge. Houston was sending down a team to relieve her first thing in the morning, but until then it was just her.

She was using the SSA’s office in the small DEA field office in McAllen. There was a staff of ten down here, set up almost exactly like the FBI resident agency, except the DEA office was larger. They had a secure storage for drugs and guns they seized until they could be shipped to be destroyed. She was the assistant director in charge of this office, San Antonio, and two more small units—and she’d failed everyone.

Especially Brad.

The couch she lay on was hard and vinyl. She sat up, put her head in her hands, then drank a full bottle of water.