Hard Target: Elite Ops - Book One (15 page)

She stood. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Chapter Sixteen

T
HREE HOURS LATER
Anna took a deep breath and gripped the armrest as the bantam-sized plane took off. God, she hated flying. The smaller the plane, the worse her discomfort. Max loved to fly, and when they were together, he’d dragged her all over. She’d loved the places they’d seen, but had hated getting to them.

Yesterday, she and Zach had flown commercial with relative ease. There’d been so many other things to worry about, her phobia hadn’t been an issue. Today, all she could focus on was how miniscule the aircraft felt.

“You okay?” Leland asked.

She shook her head. “Not a good flier.”

“Is it the size of the plane or the weather?” asked Marissa over the roar of the engine.

“Neither, it’s being in the air, period. Usually I take something so I can relax, but—”

“You don’t have anything with you,” finished Leland.

Her anti-anxiety medication hadn’t been in the bag she’d grabbed from the hotel suite yesterday morning. It had been on the bathroom counter, where Max was showering.

She gave Leland a tight nod as Nick spoke over his shoulder. “It’s about a three-hour flight.”

“I’ll be okay.” She smiled, knowing that was a lie, but what else could she do? She was so tired of feeling weak and ineffectual in all this.

“Would music or a movie help?” asked Leland, digging into his backpack and holding out an iPad mini.

“I’ll try anything.”

He handed her the tablet and some headphones. “Not sure what you like. I’ve got fairly eclectic taste. Feel free to explore and see if there’s anything that would work.”

She stared at the mini tablet in her hands and was mortified when her eyes filled, remembering Zach and his electronics.

Leland’s voice was quiet in her ear. “I’m sorry. I just realized that might not be the best distraction.”

Her blue eyes widened, and she reached out to touch the back of his hand. “No, I’ll be fine. I’m being too emotional.”

She’d meant for it to be a reassuring touch, to let him know that she was okay. But he surprised her when he flipped his hand over and pulled her fingers against his, threading their hands together.

“Don’t worry about it.” He squeezed her palm. “Just hang on. We’ll be on the ground sooner than you think.”

His voice was warm and reassuring. She donned the earbuds and pulled up his iTunes library. This was going to be hard enough without her falling apart every five minutes. Between her fear of flying and her tears over the silly electronics, Leland must be wondering what the hell he’d gotten himself into.

She clicked through some artists and settled on one, mildly surprised that Leland had Ludovico Einaudi in his playlists. He was still holding her hand as the others discussed who was meeting them at their destination. Everyone’s voice sounded muffled. She eased back in her seat. Curiously, the constant roar of the engine mixed with the conversation and music became a kind of soothing white noise.

From her vantage point she took stock of Leland. He was certainly proving himself in a crisis. She was depending on him, whether it was a good idea or not. There were no other viable options.

Zach’s illness had taught her that she had reserves of mental fortitude she wasn’t aware of, but within the past twenty-four hours she’d fallen to pieces. She leaned further back in her seat, still mystified but grateful that the noises of the plane were tranquilizing at this point and not sending her into a hot panic. She drifted, catching only small details of their planning as she closed her eyes and tried to relax.

She was trusting these people with her son’s life—not because she wanted to, but because she had to. The men were easier to hear than Risa over the engine’s cacophony of sound. Nick had a contact who was meeting them with transportation so they could drive on their own to drop the money in Baxtla.

Leland leaned into her ear and her eyes flew open. She was disoriented for a moment. Apparently she’d fallen asleep.

His breath was warm on her cheek. “We’re close. Jalapa has an airport, but Nick knows a private strip about twenty-five miles from Baxtla. That’s where we’re landing.”

“It’ll be a winding drive up Cofre De Perote to the town,” said Marissa. “Most of that area is jungle. The foliage is lush, but the roads are more like beaten paths.”

Anna sat up to clear the cobwebs and listen.

“It’s also big cartel territory,” added Leland.

“Risa and I have studied the topo maps.” Nick adjusted some of the controls in front of him. “It’s probably an hour or so from the airstrip when it’s not raining.”

Leland nodded. “I’m concerned about a possible ambush in the area we have to drive through before we get to Baxtla. The vegetation is so thick, it’ll be hard to see lookout gunmen in the jungle.”

Anna’s tension ratcheted up as she listened. The panic was returning.

Unaware of her rising anxiety, Leland kept talking. “Ernesto Vega’s entire operation is based in the Veracruz District, as well as Tomas Rivera’s. It’s crazy they don’t work together, but good for us. Several men working for Vega would like nothing more than to get their hands on me or someone important to me. They’ve made sure I know it, too.”

That statement sent a chilly finger of fear skittering down Anna’s spine. Who was Ernesto Vega? She tried not to think about what it would mean to have a drug cartel gunning for you or those you loved. While the fear took her mind off how uncomfortable she was flying, the knowledge did nothing to ease her worry over Zach.

What did all these people have to do with the kidnapping? She would ask once they were on the ground, but at present keeping her fear of flying and her nausea at bay were paramount.

“The airport” consisted of a flattened-out place in the soil with mountains rising on either side. A pitiful-looking windsock hung from a pole. In the opposite direction was a tree line. A hard-packed trail led from the airstrip to a desolate main road running north and south.

A pickup was parked at what she assumed was the back end of the runway. A man wearing a baseball cap leaned against the hood of the truck as they landed. Yellow-tinged dust billowed up all around the plane, partially obscuring her view. The mountains rising around them made it seem like a small desert in the midst of a jungle. They were in the big Middle of Nowhere.

“Is this a private airstrip?” Anna asked while they waited for the dust to settle before opening the doors.

Marissa shrugged. “We’re not sure who it belongs to officially, most likely one of the cartels. We’re rolling the dice and using it because we know we’re only staying for a few hours.”

Nick spoke up, his voice sounding overly loud now that the engines were winding down. “As long as the cartels don’t have flights scheduled, we’re golden. But since drug dealers don’t file flight plans, we’re kind of guesstimating when the airstrip will be open.”

The gravity of his words hit Anna. “You mean they could show up at any time?”

“Pretty much. That’s why I stay in close contact with Paulo.” Nick unsnapped his safety harness and nodded to the guy jogging toward the plane. “I need current info on cartel shipping to use this strip.”

Nick opened the door and Leland began unloading gear with Marissa. Baseball Cap arrived. There wasn’t much luggage—a duffel bag containing the cash, Leland’s backpack along with another pack Marissa had loaned Anna.

Baseball Cap immediately started chattering with Nick in Spanish, using big hand gestures and pointing to his watch.

Anna felt more like an albatross than an equal at this point but she was passable at Spanish. Living with Max had been good for something.

She tried to understand what Baseball Cap was saying, but he was talking too fast to get an exact translation. She picked out certain words though: immediate, delivery, guns, airplane, and
vamos
.

That didn’t sound good.

Chapter Seventeen

L
ELAND GRABBED THE
duffel of cash as Nick’s contact wound down. Something was wrong. The man was agitated.

Jumpy. Nervous. That wasn’t unusual. Contacts in this line of work had cause to be edgy.

It was the look on Nick’s face that had Leland worried. Whatever Paulo was telling him wasn’t happy news.

Anna stood to the side and out of the way, but he had a feeling she knew exactly what Paulo was saying. Made sense, since her husband was Hispanic, that she’d understand the language. But for the first time since they’d met, her expression was unreadable.

Paulo finished his conversation and handed Nick a set of keys before heading out on foot toward the tree line and jungle, going in the opposite direction from the truck.

“What’s going on?” asked Leland.

Nick handed him the keychain. “There’s a Vega cartel drop expected any time now. Paulo’s brother is a Vega lieutenant, so that’s how he knows about it. He doesn’t know exactly what is being delivered or who’s coming to get it. Could be drugs, could be guns. But we can’t leave the plane here as planned, not even for a half hour.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I’ll take off as soon as you’ve got everything unloaded. Risa will go on with you from here,” said Nick.

Leland didn’t hesitate, “No, she won’t.”

“Excuse me?” Marissa arched an eyebrow.

“You need to go with Nick. The plan we discussed was based on the two of you coming in behind us.”

“Plans can be rearranged. They often are in the field. You need some kind of backup,” she argued.

“In this particular case, one person isn’t backup. They’re a liability.”
And I won’t be responsible for taking any more people into this mess
.

“I can hold my own.”

“I’m sure that’s true. But you don’t send people in alone out here, and that’s all there is to it.” Leland had learned that his first year of working for the DEA in Mexico.

“That’s ridiculous. You’re going in alone,” Risa said.

“No, I’m going in with Anna—two people, two sets of eyes and ears. And before you get all cranked up, you have to know this has nothing to do with your being a woman.”

“Of course it does.” Marissa crossed her arms in front of her chest, obviously ready to dig in for an argument.

So diplomacy wasn’t working, and they were running out of time. Nick was observing the discussion with a bemused expression. He’d obviously dealt with Marissa’s tenacity before.

“Hell no! This is about putting as few people as possible in harm’s way.” Leland took a deep breath before he said something he regretted.

Ah, screw it. He was saying it anyway. “Did you see the news last month? What they did to that journalist down here? The man simply wrote about the cartel violence taking place in this area, and they gutted him and his wife before hanging them from a freakin’ bridge.”

Anna’s sharp intake of breath had him turning to look at her.
Crap.
Her unreadable demeanor had vanished.

She blanched at his words.
Terrific.
He hated that he’d just given her something else to imagine happening to Zach.

But Marissa, like a terrier with a bone, wasn’t fazed. “That wasn’t in this same area,” she said.

“But it was the same cartel, and I guarantee you they raped the woman before they killed her.” He didn’t look at Anna, knowing she had to be horrified by everything coming out of his mouth.

He wished Marissa would be more realistic about what going in without backup really meant. Her expression never changed, but he kept talking, hoping he was getting through to her on some level. There was no way in hell he was letting someone go into this situation without backup.

“In the past the cartels have refrained from killing DEA agents or US citizens. The backlash put too much pressure on the Mexican government and caused the cartels all kinds of grief. But that restraint has gone out the window.” Leland shrugged. “And a woman alone? US agent or private citizen, they wouldn’t be able to resist.”

Marissa stared at him, unflinching. “You know, I’m part owner in AEGIS. I can insist on accompanying you.”

Normally he’d have admired her persistence, but right now Leland didn’t have time. He’d been worried she’d pull that
I’m the boss
card.

Gavin and Marissa had combined funds to form AEGIS. She was the public face of the company, yet another reason for her not to be alone out here. What a coup for the cartel to get hold of the owner of AEGIS, Inc.

He nodded. “Of course you can insist on going, but I hope you’ll see the wisdom of not doing that. These people are brutally violent in ways that are difficult to imagine. We have no strategy planned for one-person backup. No matter who’s in charge, we can’t put anyone—man or woman—in that kind of danger with a half-assed plan.”

Been there, done that, and it was a disaster. The Colton bust had been so poorly planned as to be laughable. It would have been absurd, if they hadn’t killed a kid and crippled his mother.

“But Anna—” started Marissa.

“Anna has to come with me. It’s her son, and they’ve insisted she come or he dies. There’s no choice for her. There is for you. I can’t keep Anna and her boy safe if I’m worried about what’s happening to an asset alone out here, someone who could and would be used against us. “

Marissa looked as if she wanted to debate the issue further, but Leland rolled right over her. “At this point, you’ll be more of a liability than a help,” he said.

“I don’t like it.”

“I understand that. But you know I’m right. Besides, we don’t know what Nick will be up against when he comes to get us. I want to make sure his six is covered so we can all catch a ride back home when this mess is over.”

Leland didn’t have time to worry if he’d overstepped. Marissa wasn’t his boss yet, and there was no way he wanted someone else here that he felt responsible for.

Nick, obviously the smarter man, had stayed silent through the entire exchange. Finally he spoke up. “As much as I hate to admit it, Risa, Leland’s right. The plan’s not effective with just one person being dropped at the bridge. I’d rather have you backing me up when we come to get them out.”