My Spy: Last Spy Standing (3 page)

Not one of his strengths, Jamie silently admitted.

They could have called in the National Guard and closed down the border in this area. But the bad guys would see that and simply bring over the terrorists and their weapons someplace else.

Which was why Jamie’s six-man team was handling things quietly. According to their cover, they were here to observe illegal border activity and make budget recommendations to policy makers, while closely working with the CBP. In reality, they were a small, fast-hitting unit of a larger undercover commando team that protected national security all over the globe.

They wanted the terrorists to have no idea that they were expected. They wanted the bastards to come as planned so they could be apprehended and neutralized, taken out of the action for good—the only real solution.

Jamie and Shep talked about that and strategy as they reached the border, then radioed Keith and Mo to return to the office. The night shift was in place.

The full moon had come up, illuminating the landscape: some limited grazing land with large patches of arid ground thrown in that grew nothing but prickly pear and mesquite.

The Rio Grande flowed to the south of them, its dark waters glinting in the moonlight. Cicadas sang in the bushes. Up way ahead, deer were coming in to drink, but hearing the two cars, they darted away.

The place could look so peaceful and serene, belying how much trouble this little strip of land was causing on a regular basis lately.

Jamie pulled into a mesquite grove to observe for a while. Shep drove ahead and disappeared from sight after a few minutes. They were at one of the known crossing spots where the river was wide and the water low, the crossing relatively easy.

He got out his binoculars and used those for the first scan, then switched to his old, cracked night-vision goggles he’d grabbed from the office. He was mostly panning the river’s southern bank, so he almost missed the three men who stole forward from the bushes on his other side, carrying oversize backpacks and an inflatable raft.

“Got three here,” he said into the radio to warn Shep.

“Be right back.”

Jamie didn’t wait for him. He started his car and gunned the engine, caught the trio halfway between the bushes and the water, squealed to a stop then jumped out, aiming his weapon as he rushed forward while they scattered.

“Guns on the ground! Hands in the air! Now!”

But the idiots seemed to find courage in the fact that they outnumbered him three to one. The nearest one took a shot at him.

Jamie ducked, ran forward and fired back, aiming for the extremities. They needed information, which dead men couldn’t give.

He hit the guy in the leg and the smuggler went down, then Jamie was on top of him, maybe a little rougher than he had to be. His already damaged night-vision goggles broke and fell into the dirt.

Disarming the idiot took a minute, cuffing him another as the man struggled pretty hard while swearing and complaining about his injury.

“I’ll feel sorry for you later.” Jamie finished securing him. “Now shut up.”

By the time he was done, the one who had the raft was at the edge of the water, the other one running in the opposite direction, back into the bushes where they probably had a vehicle hidden.

“Halt!” he called after him, not that the guy obeyed.

Jamie swore as he pushed to his feet. He’d already taken one down. He could have waited for Shep to go after the others together. But he wasn’t in the habit of holding anything back.

He took after the guy who was going for the getaway car. With his prosthetics, he was no good in water, a weakness he hated.

He caught sight of Shep’s car flying back, kicking up dust, just as the man he was chasing turned for a second and squeezed off another shot at Jamie.

He slowed, steadied his arm and shot back, aiming at the guy’s gun and hitting it, a miracle considering the distance and lack of light. Then he darted forward once again, after the man who had already disappeared in the bushes.

The brush he entered was as tall as he was in places so he slowed, watching for movement up ahead. Nothing. The moon sliding behind a stray cloud didn’t help. He had his high-powered flashlight clipped to his belt. Too bad turning that on would just make him a target.

Waiting for Shep and hunting as a team would have been smarter, but once again something—a need to prove himself, pride—pushed him forward.

He moved slowly, step by step, careful not to trip.

Somewhere behind him, Shep beeped his horn to let him know he got his man. That blare turned out to be Jamie’s undoing.

He didn’t hear the smuggler jump out of the bushes on his right, so he caught the collapsible paddle full in the face.

Pain shot up his nose and into his brain. He sprinted after the bastard anyway, shaking his head to clear it. The uneven ground tried to trip him; he focused on his balance, on closing the distance.

The man dropped his backpack and picked up speed.

Jamie didn’t slow to see what he’d been carrying. That could wait.

Dark shadows surrounded them; there was no other sound but their boots slapping on the ground and their harsh breathing. Thorny bushes tore at him, ripping flesh and fabric. He paid no mind to anything but the man in front of him.

When he came close enough, he dove forward. They went down hard onto gravelly ground, rolled. Jamie was stronger, but the guy could maneuver his legs easier. A few minutes passed before he could subdue the smuggler.

“What’s your name?” He flipped the guy onto his stomach and yanked the plastic cuff around his wrists. “What are you doing here? Who do you work for?”

But the man didn’t respond, just snarled with impotent fury.

Jamie pushed himself up with his hands, then stood, the movement ungainly. Walking and running were his strengths; other things still didn’t go as smoothly as he would have liked. He pulled the guy to standing and drew his gun at last to speed things up. “Talk and walk.”

The guy did neither, so Jamie shoved him forward.

He picked up the backpack on their way back to the SUV. Judging from the metallic clanking, it held weapons, probably a few dozen small handguns.

Drugs and illegal immigrants were smuggled north; guns and money were smuggled south, in ever increasing quantities, fueling massive empires of crime on both sides and causing untold human misery.

The three they’d caught tonight were a drop in the bucket.

“Got him. Coming out.” He called a warning before stepping out of the cover of the bushes.

Shep had been waiting. He lowered his weapon. Looked like he’d already stashed the other two guys in the back of his SUV. He holstered his gun as Jamie came closer.

“You okay? Your nose doesn’t look too good.”

“Feels like it’s been driven into my brain.” It really did. He was seeing a couple of extra stars than what were in the sky tonight.

“Broken?”

“Nah.” But his cheekbone might have gotten cracked. He flexed his jaw. His face burned like hell.

“Could have waited for me.”

Yeah, they were a team.
Whatever.
Just because he was no longer whole didn’t mean he couldn’t handle a chase by himself. Although that probably wasn’t what Shep had meant.

He drew a deep breath. After his injury, he’d spent some time in the darkest pit of depression. Then he’d gotten his new legs and...fine, he’d been overcompensating. “We got them. That’s what counts, right?”

Shep was panning the brush with his spotlight. “Did you find their car?”

“Didn’t get that far. Has to be back there somewhere. I don’t think they walked far.” The man he’d chased down had had plenty of energy left in him for a good sprint.

“I’ll go and take a look.” Shep took off running, keeping both his flashlight and his weapon out.

Jamie shoved the smuggler he’d caught up against his SUV, searched the man’s pockets for ID but found nothing but a small bag of weed. He locked the guy in the back of the car then went through the backpack and came up with three dozen brand-new small arms: Ruger .380, the perfect size to be carried concealed.

A small-time operation, but something. These three had to have a link on the other side. And that link would have an uplink. Follow the trail, and it might lead to the elusive Coyote.

He stayed on patrol while Shep ran the smugglers in, bringing Mo back with him so Mo could take the smugglers’ car for a thorough search and fingerprinting. They would follow even the smallest lead. The stakes were too high. There were no unimportant details.

They kept an eye out for others. Sometimes smugglers worked in separate teams. They figured if one team got caught, the others would slip through while the border patrol was busy with the unlucky ones.

But the rest of the night went pretty quietly, the borderlands deserted. When Keith and Ray came to take over at dawn, Jamie drove back to his apartment to catch some sleep. His ringing phone woke him around midmorning.

“A friend of yours stopped by to see me earlier,” Ryder, the team leader, said on the other end, sounding less than happy.

Jamie tried to unscramble his brain as he sat up and reached for his prosthetics. “Who?”

“Brianna Tridle.”

An image of her long legs and full lips slammed into his mind. Okay, now he was wide awake.

“She kept calling up the chain at CBP until they gave her our contact number. Tracked us down from there. She’s demanding to be involved in our investigation. If her town and her people are part of whatever our mission is here, as she put it, she wants in.”

“How did she take being disappointed?” With her looks, she probably didn’t often experience a man saying no to her. Jamie almost wished he could have been there to see when Ryder had done it.

But Ryder said, “Actually, I agreed.”

“Say that again?” His hand halted over the straps.

“She grew up around here, knows everyone. People respect her. Record clean as a whistle. We’re pressed for time. She could be an asset.”

“More like a pain in the asset.”

“Possibly. She’s pretty protective of her town. In any case, I don’t plan on that being my problem,” he added cheerfully.

A dark premonition settled over Jamie, immediately justified as Ryder said, “Since you’re the one who got her all riled up, you’ll be her liaison on the team.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to involve her.”

“You have my permission to try to talk her out of it. Tomorrow. Right now I need you to drive up to San Antonio. I got a new name from one of the men you and Shep caught last night on the border. Rico Marquez. He’s a known gangbanger.”

Which translated to: be ready for anything.

He was just as likely to come back with Rico as he was with a bullet in his back.

“Want someone to go with you? I could pull Keith from border detail,” Ryder offered. “This is a pretty promising lead.”

“Nah,” he said, unable, once again, to shake the need to prove himself, even if nobody but him thought that was necessary. “I can handle it.”

Chapter Three

Jamie tracked Rico to an abandoned warehouse where the man was apparently hiding out at the moment due to the fact that a rival gang member was hunting him. Information unwittingly supplied by his mother, who’d thought Jamie had come to help her son.

Jamie picked the lock on the rusted emergency door on the side of the building and eased inside little by little, as silently as he could manage. The temperature had to be close to a hundred; there was definitely no air-conditioning here. The cavernous place smelled like dust and machine grease.

The carcass of a giant and complicated-looking piece of machinery took up most of the floor; the ceiling was thirty feet high, at least. A metal walkway ringed the building high up on the wall, and some sort of an office was tucked under the corrugated metal roof in the back.

Jamie caught sight of a faint, flickering light up there—a TV?—so he moved that way. Where the hell were the stairs?

He walked forward slowly, carefully, listening for any noise that might warn him that he wasn’t alone down here. Nothing.

Once he was closer to the back wall, he could hear the muted sounds of the TV upstairs. Good. Maybe they wouldn’t hear him coming.

Now all he needed was to find a way up. He wished he had more light down at ground level, but all the windows were up high, just under the roof, and all were covered with enough grime to let through precious little light.

There were a million hiding places for someone to wait to ambush him. Then again, he’d also have plenty of cover if it came to a close-quarters shootout in here.

He scanned all the dark corners and found the stairs at last, hiding behind a bundle of foot-wide pipes that ran up along the wall. He approached it with as much care as possible.

The corner was a perfect place to ambush someone if anyone was down here, watching him. But he reached the bottom of the stairs without trouble.

Next came the tricky part—he had to go up the stairs. No more cover. He’d be in plain sight the whole time. The metal steps would rattle, drawing attention to him. He could be picked off with a single shot.

He took his gun out and moved up facing the main floor, ready to fire back if anyone took aim at him. Maybe he could keep them pinned down until he reached the top. But he made it all the way, walking backward, without anyone taking a shot at him.

Okay. That had to mean there were no lookouts on the lower level. If there were, they wouldn’t have let him get this far, not when taking him out would have been a piece of cake.

So far, so good. But the next step was even more difficult—sneaking by a wall of office windows that stretched from floor to ceiling and left no place to hide as he made his way to the door.

Anybody in the office would see him as soon as they looked this way.

He stole toward the windows and stopped as soon as he reached glass. He poked his head out a little to see what waited for him inside the room.

Overturned office furniture and stacked-up file cabinets cut the office space in two. He could see behind them through the gaps, could see part of a television set in the far corner, a mattress on the floor and naked bodies entwined in the act of lovemaking.

He blinked. Okay, that was unexpected.
Awkward.

But also lucky.

He could make it across the walkway, passing in front of all those windows, without being seen. Nobody was paying the slightest attention to him.

He twisted the doorknob. Locked, which he’d kind of expected. But it was a simple office door lock and he had it picked in a flat minute.

Heck, a secretary with a hairpin could have done it.

He moved inside silently and kept down as he inched forward, using file cabinet for cover. Any noise his boots made was covered by some moaning and a lot of heavy breathing, not to mention the TV running a Mexican soap opera and a fan that was going somewhere behind the pile of furniture.

The scent of sex hung in the air, which made him think of Deputy Sheriff Bree Tridle, for some reason.

He pushed her out of his mind as he pulled his backup weapon and stepped forward with a gun in each hand. “Freeze!”

The woman screamed and scampered off her man in a panicked rush, nearly kicking him in the head as she grabbed for the sheet to cover herself.

Jamie’s eyes were on the guy. “Freeze! Hands in the air!”

Rico was in his early twenties, covered in gang tattoos, his gaze rapidly clearing as he grabbed for the handgun next to the mattress. He wasn’t concerned with modesty.

Jamie shot at the gun and the force of the bullet kicked the weapon out of reach. Rico went for a switchblade that had been hidden under his pillow, apparently. He was nothing if not prepared.

He lunged toward Jamie.

“No!
Mi amor?
” the woman screamed, scampering farther away from them, looking shocked and horrified at the scene unfolding in front of her.

Jamie deflected the knife and knocked Rico back. “I don’t want to have to shoot you, dammit!”

That slowed the guy down a little. “You no come to kill us?” He held the blade in front of him, ready for another go.

Jamie kept his gaze above neck level. “Customs and Border Protection. I’m here to talk about the smuggling your gang is involved in. You look like a nice couple. Nobody has to die today.”

Wow, he was getting downright soft here. He sounded almost as optimistic as the deputy sheriff.

Rico didn’t look convinced. “Her brother didn’t send you?”

Jamie stashed his backup gun into the front of his waistband, then reached for his CBP badge and held it up. “I’m only here for information, man.”

Rico raised his knife and his chin, sneering with contempt. “I don’t talk to pigs.”

“That’s generally a good policy. Snitches don’t live long in this business.” Jamie glanced for a split second at the young woman who was white with fear, pulling her clothes on with jerky movements, and he did some quick thinking. “But it looks to me like you have something to live for. What if you two could get away both from your gang and your father?”

“Mi amor?”
The woman’s gaze flew to Rico, hope mixing with alarm in her voice.

“Can’t be done.” Rico reached for his jeans, didn’t bother with underwear. He was tough enough to rough it, seemed to be the message.

Since he wasn’t sneering anymore, Jamie took that as a good sign. “A chance at true love, the two of you together. What’s that worth?”

Rico considered him through narrowed eyes. “You let Maria go. Right now.”

“Okay,” Jamie agreed, as a gesture of good faith. Maria probably had zero useful information for him, anyway. He looked at the woman. “Go.”

She cast a questioning glance at Rico, who repeated the order in Spanish and explained that he would find her later, but she stubbornly shook her head.

A rapid argument followed before she finally ran for the door. They could hear her footsteps on the metal walkway, then down the stairs.

“I could kill you now,” Rico said, still holding the knife, a nasty-looking piece that had probably seen plenty of business on San Antonio’s backstreets.

“You could try,” Jamie answered calmly, feet apart, stance ready. He actually preferred Maria out of the way. No sense of her getting in the middle of this and maybe being killed.

Rico measured him up again. Swore in Spanish. “What the hell do you want from me?” he asked at last.

“I’m looking for a man called Coyote.”

“Don’t know him.” But the corner of his left eye jumped.

“Any information would help. All I need is a link I could follow to him.”

“And if I give you this, me and Maria go to witness protection?”

He nodded.

“Where?”

“Someplace where nobody can find you. You can get rid of the tattoos. They’ll hook you up with a job and a place to live. You can get married.”

Rico still hesitated.

“Ask yourself this,” Jamie gestured at the ratty, messed-up room with his free hand. “Is this the life you want for your children? Or do you want something better? Doesn’t she deserve more than this?”

God help him, he was appealing to true love. Something he wasn’t even sure he believed in. But maybe Rico did, and that would be enough to settle matters here.

The man lowered his knife and filled his lungs, his ink-covered shoulders dropping as he exhaled. He looked pretty damn young with all the bluster gone out of him. He barely looked twenty. “There’s no way out for guys like me.”

“There is now. This must be your lucky day.”

Tension-filled silence stretched between them.

“Okay,” Rico said. “Let me think. I might be able to get something for you. If you can keep us safe. Maria the most.”

An opening. “I’ll talk to my people. But I need a solid lead.”

More silence, then, “How do I find you?”

Jamie reached into his back pocket, pulled out a business card with his number on it and tossed it on the mattress between them.

Rico didn’t move to pick it up. He’d do that when he was alone.

“Don’t wait too long to call,” Jamie warned. “I found you once, I will find you again. If I have to track you down, I’ll be coming to bring you in.” Then he backed away, gun still in hand.

He didn’t relax until he was down the stairs and out of the building.

Damn, he hoped this would get them results. Because otherwise he would have to explain to Ryder why he wasn’t taking Rico back to the interrogation room with him.

He’d just taken a hell of a gamble.

* * *

B
REE
WAS
HEADING
back to her office with her first cup of coffee of the morning, thinking about the talk she was giving at the middle school later about crime prevention, when Jamie Cassidy strolled into the Pebble Creek police station.

“I’m armed and I’m not handing my weapon over,” he advised Lena by the metal detector, looking as surly and aggravated and sexy as ever. He took off his cowboy hat and ran his fingers through his hair to straighten it.

“Let him through,” Bree called out before Lena could tackle him.

Or something. The officer had that dreamy-eyed look again that said she wouldn’t mind seeing Jamie Cassidy on his back. There were probably a million women out there who shared the sentiment, although today he looked somewhat worse for wear.

Bruises and cuts marred the right side of his face—looked like he’d taken a beating since Bree had last seen him. Given his attitude and general disposition, she could see how a person would be tempted.

She flashed him her “this is my station and I’m the boss here” look, but when she spoke, she kept things cordial. “Mr. Cassidy. Nice to see you again. Why don’t we talk in my office?”

“Jamie.” He strode in past her, his mouth set in a line that was suspiciously close to a snarl.

A part of her that was apparently easily distracted wondered what it would take to make him happy. Not that she was volunteering for the job. Not even if those sharp eyes and those sculpted lips of his could have tempted a saint.

She closed the door behind them. “Please, take a seat. How can I help you today?”

He lowered his impressive frame into the nearest chair as he gave a soft growl of warning that he probably meant to sound threatening.

She found it kind of sexy, heaven help her. “Are you all right? What happened to your face?”

“Somebody whacked me.”

“While the rest of us can only dream,” she said sweetly. “Life is nothing but unfair.” She set her mug down. “Came to share information?”

“Came for my equipment.”

“Heavy-duty stuff.” She didn’t want him to leave until she got at least
something
out of him, so she grabbed the first-aid kit from the bookshelf on the back wall and went to stand in front of him, half sitting on her desk. “Let me see this. Look up, please.”

He did, but only to send her a death glare. “I’m fine.”

“Of course you are, mucho macho and all that. Which is how I know you won’t be scared of a little sting.”

He’d cleaned and disinfected his injuries from the looks of it; the smaller scrapes were already scabbed over, but she didn’t like the larger gash over his cheekbone where his skin had split.

“I assume you didn’t go get stiches because you don’t have the time, not because you’re scared of the needle?”

He shot her a dark look. He did that so well. Must have been part of his training.

“Why don’t I slap on some butterfly bandages, as long as we’re both here. Then you won’t have to go see a doc. You’ll save a ton of time that you can use to glare at people. I’d hate to see you slip off schedule.”

His eyes remained stoic, but the corner of his sculpted mouth twitched. “Make it quick.”

“How about you tell me who you guys are for real? Who do you really work for?”

“That’s on a need-to-know basis.”

“You’re in my town, on my turf. I need to know.”

“I don’t think you have the right clearance, Deputy Sheriff.”

He said
deputy sheriff
as a slur, as if he was calling her
babe
or maybe some other word that started with a
b.

She focused on the disinfecting and the butterfly bandages to keep herself from engaging in contact unbecoming a police officer. When he was good to go, she closed her kit and walked back behind her desk.

“How about you tell me the basics,” she suggested. “Something to get started with.”

“I’m here for my equipment,” he repeated.

Okay, then. He wasn’t going to be an easy nut to crack.

She shoved aside a manila envelope somebody had left on her desk and folded her hands in front of her. “Just so we’re clear on this one thing, this is my town. You make trouble here and I’ll know why.”

Being a Southern belle and a lady came naturally to her. She’d been raised on the beauty-queen circuit, but some days she did have her lapses. Looked like it was going to be one of those days.

His eyebrow slid higher. “Do I look like trouble?”

“Double serving. With whipped cream and cherry on top.”

A bark of laughter escaped him, softening his face, and she caught a glimpse of what he might have been at one time, without all the darkness he was now carrying. It took her breath away.