Reckoning for the Dead (12 page)

Chapter 10

La Pointe, Wisconsin

J
essie spotted a darkened alleyway ahead. The sun was low enough on the horizon to leave shadows in its wake. The alley separated two storefronts. One place was still open, a small gift shop. And the other had lights out and was closed for business. Before the guy who was tailing her rounded the corner, she darted into the alley and shoved her back against a brick wall.

Come on, you sorry son of a . . .

She didn't have to wait long.

When the guy thought he'd lost her, he'd picked up his pace. The sound of his footsteps grew louder. Jessie waited for him to run by the alley where she was hiding. All she saw when he jogged by was a blue plaid shirt, jeans, running shoes, and a navy baseball cap pulled low over his face.

After she'd turned the tables on him, she fell in pace behind him, tailing him instead. But the guy must have seen her make the move, because with barely a look over his shoulder, he made a run for it.

“Damn it!” she cursed under her breath as she chased him. “If you make me break a sweat, I swear . . .”

There was only one good thing about the guy hauling his ass down the street. With him running, it confirmed that he'd been following her. She hadn't been overly paranoid after all.

But with the guy having a lead on her, Jessie had to make up ground. Her lungs were burning, and the muscles in her legs were on fire. With her arms pumping, she carried the rolled-up newspaper articles clutched in her hand. And when the bastard ducked around a corner without hesitating, she saw that he was taking her through a deserted part of La Pointe, a place she didn't know at all.

The guy knew where he was going. It was his town. He had an advantage. And with him out of sight, she had to be careful. Jessie slowed up, bracing her body in case he reached out and grabbed her. With her chest heaving, she tucked her newspaper articles in the waistband of her jeans before she pulled out her Colt. She gripped the weapon in her sweaty hand as she neared the street corner.

Jessie slowed her breathing and stepped lightly so he wouldn't know exactly where she was, but once she made her move, that was the end of her game of finesse. When she swung around the corner, with both hands on her Colt, she saw that the street was empty. An abandoned old gas station was positioned on her right and an auto repair place stood on her left, secured by a cyclone fence that was locked.

Jessie walked slowly down the street, keeping her gun aimed into every shadow. And after she'd checked both sides of the street, she lowered her weapon.

“Damn,” she cursed under her breath.

The bastard had found a place to hide, like the cockroach he was.

Pérez Compound

Outside Guadalajara, Mexico

10:20
P.M.

On day two of surveillance, Alexa had changed her clothes to more practical attire—camo BDUs. Garrett always came prepared and had brought extra gear. She was hunkered down in the foothills outside the Pérez estate, with her elbows propped on a boulder, using high-tech night-vision binoculars to monitor the security patrols inside the compound. On instinct, she timed and tracked the intervals at which the armed guards patrolled the grounds and how many men made the rounds.

She felt dirt on her skin, but she kept perfectly still and didn't fidget. And when something crawled up her ankle, she didn't panic. She brushed the scorpion away by moving with slow deliberation to avoid any sudden moves, a practice honed from years of training and discipline. Hasty moves and unexpected noise in the stillness could make her a target.

She'd picked an isolated spot away from Hank's ground team and kept to herself. She melded into the terrain as the moon cast a bluish haze that looked like a dusting of fine blue powder over the rugged landscape outside the estate, covering trees, boulders, agave plants, and yuccas. And she listened to the sounds of the night, the forlorn hoot of an owl in the trees and the baleful cries of a pack of coyotes.

Most people might have been tense, hiding in the dark, but Alexa got off on the isolation, a complete departure from New York City. Yet despite the serene setting, she couldn't forget why they were there. Jackson Kinkaid had crossed her path once again. And she hoped, given the situation, that it wouldn't be for the last time.

Rapt in her thoughts of Kinkaid, she hardly noticed that Garrett had joined her. He hadn't said a word, and neither of them felt uncomfortable with the silence between them. He'd only slipped next to her and didn't feel the need to say anything at all. The reason for his secrecy had vanished, so he joined Hank and his men, and Alexa had become part of the team. Having Garrett with her felt comfortable, and it reminded her how close she'd come to losing him. But swapping her fears from Garrett Wheeler to Jackson Kinkaid wasn't exactly making progress.

It wasn't until she heard a steady thump in the distance that she'd realized the intruding noise was man-made and mechanical, and stood out from the sounds of nature.

“What's that?” she whispered, only loud enough for Garrett to hear.

“Helicopter.”

As if on cue, lights in the distance cut through the darkness. She lowered her night-vision binoculars—not wanting to be blinded by the onset of the bright lights on the horizon—and watched as a helicopter rose over the mountains. The aircraft circled the estate below and hovered behind the hacienda, kicking up dust as it landed.

“Pérez,” she said under her breath and edged closer to Garrett, feeling the warmth of his arm against hers.

Without responding to her, Garrett spoke into his com unit to Hank and his men.

“Anyone with confirmation, speak up. If the big man is there, I want to know it.”

“Copy that.”

Alexa watched as Hank's team shifted positions to utilize long-range surveillance gear. Even with her night-vision binoculars, she couldn't see well enough to ID a face. Not even the full moon helped. All she could do was sit back and let Hank's men do their jobs.

“What now?” she asked Garrett. “How do we know when to move in?”

“If we can't make an ID, then Jackson has to confirm that Pérez is on-site. He said he'd give us a signal.”

“What kind of signal?” she asked.

“He said we'd know it when we saw it, but until then, we're to stay put on the ridge outside the estate.” Garrett gave her a sideways glance and didn't say anything more.

Even in the murky shadows, she saw Garrett tighten his jaw as he watched the estate below. He didn't like this either.

An hour later

No one on Hank's team had confirmed that Manolo Quintanilla Pérez had been one of the people who'd flown via helicopter to the estate outside Guadalajara. Too many men had rushed to the helicopter to usher the new arrivals inside. And so far they hadn't seen any sign from Jackson Kinkaid, if he was even still alive, that is.

“I can't believe you went along with Kinkaid's self-destructive idea of a plan.” The words were out of her mouth before she could rein them back in. The instant she'd said them, she knew she'd done the wrong thing. It wasn't Garrett's fault that Kinkaid had a vendetta against a drug kingpin in Mexico and that he was being held by Pérez and his vicious pack of dogs. Jackson had done that on his own.

“It's not like he gave me a choice, Alexa,” Garrett said, unable to hide his annoyance. “If we don't see anything soon, I'll make the call to go in. Understood?”

“Yeah, understood.” Alexa took a deep breath. She only had to understand, she didn't have to like it. “So what now? We wait?”

“Yeah,” he whispered back. “We wait.”

She knew that waiting was a big part of surveillance, but she didn't have to like that either. While the team watched the activity below—with some of Hank's men closer to the action, so they could confirm any sighting of Pérez—Alexa took advantage of having Garrett next to her.

And she wanted to get her mind off Kinkaid's suicide mission.

“Was it you who followed me from the Guadalajara airport? At first, I thought it was Hank, but later he told me it hadn't been him.”

She hated admitting she didn't know who had tailed her, but if it had been Garrett, that would explain why she only felt him and never saw him. Garrett was an experienced agent who could make himself a ghost if he wanted to.

“No, wasn't me.” He shook his head and furrowed his brow. “Someone followed you? Did you see 'em?”

“No, only felt them. If it wasn't you, I have a pretty good idea who ordered it.”

“Who? What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Donovan Cross.” She fixed her gaze on him, waiting to see if the name meant anything. “So what's up with that guy? What's his part in all this?”

“Donovan Cross? I know who he is, but what's he got to do with it?”

She stared at him for a long minute, trying to read if he was lying again. Since he'd clued her in and made her part of his team, now he had no motive for keeping her in the dark when it came to the mission with Kinkaid, but she had no idea if that extended to his past with Donovan Cross.

“He took over your job and told me you were dead, killed in a classified mission. He made up a story about how you got caught in an explosion, and your body would never be recovered. Ring any bells?” When he didn't say anything, she stared at him in disbelief. “You mean he wasn't part of your disappearing act?”

“No, he wasn't.” Garrett narrowed his eyes and got strangely quiet.

When he finally glanced at her, he must have seen the worried look on her face, because he said, “I'll put out some feelers, figure out what's going on. It's probably nothing.”

He tried for nonchalance, but she wasn't buying it.

“Yeah, right. It's probably just a coincidence. And you know how I feel about those.” She sighed. “You better watch your back with Cross. He's got to have support within the Sentinels if he stepped into your job so quickly. Who would do that?”

“I'll take care of it.”

The way Garrett said it—as if he had made a promise to himself—it left her cold inside. In a covert agency like the Sentinels, it paid to have solid support within the organization, from the top down. But if Donovan Cross had slipped easily into Garrett's job, she had to wonder. Who had undermined Garrett's authority? Doing something like that wasn't a one-man show. Who was backing Cross as the new head of the Sentinels?

And how far would they go to keep him there?

“Cross doesn't strike me as someone's puppet.” She couldn't let it go. “And he's got to be working with people who have the balls to seize an opportunity when they see it, with you missing. I'm just . . . worried, Garrett.”

“I know you are,” he began as he stared into her eyes, “but I've got to handle this my way. I don't want you getting stuck in any cross fire. That would . . . kill me.”

For the first time in a long while, Garrett looked into her eyes like he used to. She'd ended their relationship and moved on after she'd caught him with someone else, but the intimacy between them had never truly been severed. And that had never been more apparent. Alexa blinked and cleared her throat, breaking his connection with her.

“Just remember that you've got friends, too. Don't go it alone, tough guy.”

Garrett smiled, a quick fleeting curve of his lips.

“Good to know. Thanks.”

“W
hat was that? That sound, did you hear it?” Estella's voice cracked.

She turned her head toward the only window in the cell and squinted into a piercing light that vanished as quickly as it had come. A powerful engine roared across the night sky as the sudden brightness stabbed the dark and left its phantom image in her mind.

Something was happening outside.

And after the engine noise faded, she heard the distant voices of Ramon's men and hoisted herself high enough to see out. But her sudden moves started the aching pain again. Her shoulders were on fire, caused by the weight of her body. And her wrists were raw from the ropes.

When her question about the noise went unanswered, she looked over to the dark part of the cell, where only a thin stream of moonlight doused the stone walls. Estella saw the silhouette of the American. He had not moved in over two hours. And she barely heard his breathing.

“Please . . . don't be dead,” she whispered.

Saying the words aloud didn't make her feel so alone, even if the wounded man couldn't hear her.

“No such luck,” he mumbled.

“Oh, I'm . . . sorry. I did not mean . . .”

“Helicopter.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard a h-helicopter. That was . . . the n-noise.”

It took all her concentration to hear him. Yet even though the man sounded weak, there was something in his voice that calmed her. And since he had answered her first question, she ventured another.

“What are they doing? Ramon's men. I hear them outside.”

Her whisper hissed across the cell and echoed off stone, sounding garbled. When he didn't answer right away, she almost repeated her question, thinking he had not understood her.

“This is almost over. I'm sorry for how it turned out.” Even though he choked out words plainly enough, she didn't understand what he meant.

“This isn't your fault,
señor.
”

“I wish you were right about that.” When he spoke, she saw the glint in his eyes, a reflection of the moonlight . . . and something else.

Estella didn't understand the strange man, but for the first time, she was afraid of what she saw in his eyes.

La Pointe, Wisconsin

After Jessie lost her footrace with the guy who had taken an interest in her, she had given up on her appetite. She'd stopped in at the motel office and scored enough snacks to satisfy her if she changed her mind. Byron McGivens wasn't behind the desk when she stopped in, even though his nameplate was still hanging on the wall as if he were on duty.