No Good Deed (17 page)

The flash drive. It was sitting on the bar, next to the computer. Tobias caught his eye and shook his head. Lyle stared at him and Tobias didn’t know who he was siding with.

Nicole walked back into the room. “What?”

“Do you need a driver? Because I have the Lincoln.”

“Give the keys to me. Joseph will drive. You stay here and get some rest; tomorrow will be a long day.”

He tossed her the keys and turned to Tobias after she left.

“What the hell?”

Tobias picked up the flash drive and stuck it in the computer. “We’re going to figure this out. Nicole’s going to realize that she needs me. I’m not just a
figurehead
.”

“Sure, buddy, anything you want.”

Inside, Tobias was smiling. That was one thing that Nicole had forgotten. Tobias was very good at making friends.

Much better than either her or her fuck-buddy Joseph.

*   *   *

Kane Rogan found and lost the bastard’s trail twice that night. The priest’s idea of a medical center hadn’t panned out, but Kane bribed a hooker who ended up having a wealth of information. Could be because she didn’t have to spread her legs for him and he paid her far more than her weekly rate. He hated that so many women down here felt they had no choice but prostitution, but he’d learned that people were resilient and they did what was necessary to survive.

What was necessary to survive also included betraying him, so he trusted very few people. But this time, his hunch had paid off, and the intel was solid. The man he was tracking was heading to Juarez territory southeast of Santiago—the one place Kane hesitated to go. He’d made a mortal enemy of Felipe Juarez, and it was personal. If it was just business, Kane wouldn’t care, and Juarez probably wouldn’t have held a grudge. But as it was, Kane got Juarez’s thirteen-year-old daughter out of an arranged marriage to the slimy thirty-year-old son of a cartel leader, and smuggled her into the States. He bought her false documentation, and a friend of his in Immigration placed her in a home. Her identity was a closely guarded secret—Kane didn’t even know what her new name was, and he didn’t want to know. His Immigration contact kept tabs on her and now, eight years later, she was in college and studying to be a doctor.

Kane wondered if Juarez had been the one to give Tobias’s people the information about Siobhan. Siobhan was the one who had alerted Kane to the situation with the arranged marriage. Normally he would have nothing to do with the personal workings of families. If it wasn’t directly related to drug or human trafficking, he steered clear, and Juarez was a criminal gangster, not an international drug trafficker. There were too many problems and Kane couldn’t fix every damn one of them.

But Siobhan said if he didn’t help her, she’d rescue the girl herself. Essentially blackmailing him into it because he knew Siobhan was ill prepared to do something of that magnitude.

Kane’s past, coming back to bite him in the ass. He wasn’t surprised.

Kane stole a truck and picked up the trail of Tobias’s man near the border of Juarez territory. The bastard was driving a military jeep, just like the prostitute had said, with a missing taillight. He’d pulled over to rest, and that was his one mistake. He should have driven straight through.

But pain did that to people.

Kane found the jeep half hidden on the edge of a side road off the main highway.
Main
and
highway
being subjective terms because traffic was sparse, especially at night, on this side of Santiago. He waited, watching, to make sure it wasn’t an ambush.

They were miles from anywhere, and the closest town was small, less than five hundred people. Juarez owned everyone in the area, so Kane would find no safe haven. His map told him he’d already crossed into Juarez territory. Was that why the kidnapper had stopped? Did he think that Kane wouldn’t pursue him? Kane had to make a decision: Turn back now or follow through with his plan.

Kane did not shirk from his duty. And his duty was to find Tobias. His life—Sean’s life, Lucy’s life—depended on it.

In fact, there was no doubt in Kane’s mind that Tobias would go after everyone in Kane’s life, starting with his brothers and sister, then moving to everyone who worked for RCK.

Kane was going to end this war before anyone else got hurt.

There were no streetlights in the area. A flashlight would be visible to anyone on the road. The land was a mix of desert and farmland, with scraggly trees and bushes. To the south and west there were mountains, but here was a flat, dry valley. Easy to track someone. Easy to be tracked.

After fifteen minutes of silence, Kane moved over to the jeep and shone a dim red light inside. Blood had pooled under the gas pedal. This man’s right leg was bleeding, though there wasn’t enough blood loss to kill him. Not yet. But there was also blood on the back of the seat and on the gearshift. Blitz had said it was serious, but Kane had been seriously injured in the past and able to patch himself up sufficiently until he could get medical attention.

Kane had to assume that the man he was tracking had the skills to take care of himself. He also had to assume that he knew the area better than Kane. Because he’d tried to stay away from Juarez, all that Kane knew was what was on his map.

He paralleled the trail the kidnapper had walked, uphill and into increasingly dense foliage. Two hundred yards in, Kane came upon a one-room shack. There was no electricity going to the building, no sign that anyone was inside.

It was darker here than on the road. Kane didn’t see any booby traps, but he needed to be cautious as he approached. He listened, waiting for sounds that he was surrounded. Waiting for an ambush.

Silence. Then he heard a grunt from the cabin. Faint. He listened again, heard a faint
fuck
.

Sounded just like him when he was stitching himself up.

Still, he waited. He saw a brief flash of light from the cabin, a yellowy glow that might have been from a flashlight. Then it went out. Could have been a signal, so he waited even longer.

Still, nothing.

He approached the cabin. Gun in hand he inspected the door. No lock, nothing to keep him out. No wires along the edges. The wood was warped and splintery. He walked around the perimeter. A lone, uncovered window in the back gave him a visual. A man lay on a sleeping bag in the corner, propped up by the walls, the door in his line of vision. He had bandages all around him, and his pants were cut open. A very faint glow from a flashlight under a rag illuminated the area. It looked like a gunshot wound to the leg, and a knife wound to his right arm. But he was sweating and that suggested he was battling an infection or another complication.

He had a gun within reach to his right, but that was the only weapon Kane could see.

Kane silently moved back to the door. Did he wait until the kidnapper tried to leave? Or had he called someone for a rescue?

A voice came from the inside. Kane hadn’t heard a phone ring, but it was clear that the kidnapper was talking to someone.

“I need extraction,” the kidnapper said.

It might have been a sat phone, because Kane was getting no cellular signal out here.

“Off Eighty-Five, near Pino Suarez. A nothing dot on the map right over the Tamaulipas border.” Silence. Kane heard the voice on the other end but couldn’t make out any words.

“Joseph, sir. The plan was solid. We should have had more men or the kill order … Yes, he gave it now, but before it was alive only … I’m good for a day, but that bastard shot me and … yes, I appreciate it. I can make it easily, it’s only five or six miles and I have a vehicle … of course. That is the goal, sir. Thank you.”

Movement and shuffling. Kane moved out of sight, toward the jeep. It seemed as if the bastard kidnapper was meeting up with someone. Five or six miles … probably Mainero. Juarez had a presence there and it was six miles southeast. Nothing else was that close.

Kane had to assume that Joseph had already called in reinforcements. Siobhan had said he had, but Kane hadn’t seen or sensed anyone, and his instincts were sharp, especially when he was on full alert. Yet … they could be waiting for him. Waiting for him to come to them, in Juarez-controlled territory. Kane could defend himself against one, two, even more … but not against a virtual army. He didn’t have a death wish, he had no backup, and he needed to get out alive—with information that would help find Tobias.

He was going to end this now.

Kane listened as the door opened on rusty hinges. The kidnapper stepped out. Looked around. Winced at the pain in his leg. He had a backpack over his shoulder, and a gun in his hand.

Kane didn’t even need to step out of his hiding spot. He shot the kidnapper in his already injured leg. The man collapsed in the dirt. He still held his gun, fired in the direction Kane had been, but Kane had already moved away. He rushed the kidnapper before the bastard could get his bearings and kicked the gun out of his hand.

The bastard laughed. “You won’t get out of Mexico alive.”

“So I’ve been told many times.”

“You’re a dead man. Juarez has already sealed off the border.”

Bluff? Kane had crossed into Juarez territory more than an hour ago. Maybe he’d spent too much time being cautious. Waiting.

“Kill me,” he said. “Joseph will kill me anyway because your little redheaded bitch saw me and lived.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Kane said. “You’re going to tell me what I need to know.”

He laughed. “I’m not scared of you.”

The bastard was in pain. Kane stepped on his shot-up leg and the asshole screamed.

“Fuck you!”

“Why was the order originally a capture-alive order?”

“Probably to torture you,” he hissed. “Many people want to take a crack at your skull.”

“What did Tobias and Joseph think I would tell you?”

He was silent. Kane applied more pressure to his leg. To his credit, he didn’t cry out this time. He grunted instead.

Kane hit him in the jaw. “That’s for touching the redhead.”

Kane wanted to kill him. He also wanted to take him into custody and interrogate him—or turn him over to the feds. And—he wanted to leave him and let Tobias clean up his own mess.

Kane rolled the kidnapper over. He tried to crawl away, but Kane put his boot on his back and held him down. He searched his pockets. Located a knife, wallet, US passport, keys. He flipped over the passport.

Adam Duncan Dover III.

He opened the wallet. Inside he found another ID. A federal ID.

“You fucking traitor.”

Kane was torn. He couldn’t get out of Juarez territory dragging an injured, uncooperative prisoner. But he couldn’t just let this traitor go.

A sound registered in his subconscious. From down on the road.

If Dover was right and Juarez had sealed the border, they were going to sweep until they caught his scent.

Kane picked up Dover’s gun, his backpack, and kept his ID. Dover pushed himself up and leaned against the shack. “The war on drugs was lost before it started, Rogan. You’re fucking Don Quixote, and you remember what happened to him—he was beaten and died.”

Kane didn’t say anything. If this was only about the war on drugs, Kane would have quit years ago. It might have started out that way, but it was more than that now. Kane didn’t consider himself a hero, and he certainly wasn’t a saint. He didn’t believe in God and he didn’t believe in Hell. The only thing he believed in was evil, and it was rooted in bastards like Adam Dover and Joseph Contreras and Nicole Rollins and Tobias.

Kane left Dover alive but immobile, not going down the path toward the road because that was the direction of the sound. But he needed a vehicle. He’d have to hoof it to Mainero, where he could hot-wire a car. Or maybe he could reach Dover’s jeep and use it to get to Mainero. He’d have to head through the mountains to escape because every major road in this area would have a Juarez sentry. His plane was forty miles to the northwest. Not impossible to get to on foot, but it would take time. It would be dangerous, but he didn’t have a choice.

He moved out.

Ten minutes later he heard a single gunshot behind him.

Good-bye, traitor.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Samantha Archer fell back into bed and closed her eyes. Why had she let Brad stay?

Because you’re still in love with him.

She’d tried to tell herself she wasn’t. They’d been involved years ago, when they were both in Phoenix. She’d moved to the Houston office first, then she’d been promoted to lead the DEA’s San Antonio Resident Agency. When Brad had transferred here, as her subordinate, she remembered all the reasons she’d loved him before … and all the reasons it hadn’t worked out. Because she was his direct supervisor, it was easy to maintain the emotional distance. There had been a couple of times when they’d almost fallen in bed together, but she’d always put an end to it. And Brad finally stopped pushing.

Until last week.

Brad Donnelly was the kind of guy who was both very good and very bad for her. Gorgeous and alpha and brave. Cocky and hotheaded. Smart, and a smart-ass. He took too many risks, but he was usually right. He broke too many rules, but he also saved lives. He believed in their mission. He was loyal.

But one day he would cross a line they couldn’t come back from. One day he would end up fired or dead. And she, as his boss, didn’t want to be his lover when that day inevitably came.

Maybe in her next life.

She stretched and wished she could go back to sleep, but her brain wouldn’t stop thinking. For a few blissful hours she’d slept dreamlessly curled next to Brad, able to block the pain of yesterday, from seeing her dead agents to telling their families they were dead. It had been hell. Worse. She’d sell her soul if that meant she could turn the clock back twenty-four hours and stop the violence that defined June 15 and would forever be a day of mourning for the DEA.

“It’s five,” she mumbled as she dragged herself out of bed. She had a full day ahead of her. The ASAC of the Houston DEA office was coming in this morning for a big briefing at the FBI—but he wanted to meet with her first. Nine a.m., her office, even though she’d spent an hour on a video conference call with her boss, the AUSA, and higher-ups in the DOJ late yesterday afternoon.