Shattered (13 page)

“I was,” the former Father What-a-Waste said. “I’m not any longer.”

She thought it spoke a lot to his self-discipline that he didn’t ask how she’d heard of him. Though he had to know.

“There’s no TV in the jungle,” she said. “Only occasional radio signals that bounce in from the city at night. Which is good, in a way, because it tends to give people time to talk.”

He nodded, letting her know he’d received her message and understood that Rachel had shared their story.

At least part of it.

Since Rachel hadn’t known why he’d become a priest after their time together in Kuwait, Kirby didn’t, either. But she suspected the fact that he’d injected himself in this mission was an indication that he still had strong feelings for the WMR doctor.

“I was in touch with the CIA station chief while you were in Washington,” Quinn told Zach. “Apparently, the general’s concerned our government’s going to send in Special Forces on a rescue mission. The way we did in Operation Urgent Fury back in the eighties to get those medical students out of Grenada.”

“Why should that concern him?” Kirby asked. “It seems he’d be more than happy to have our Special Forces take on the rebels for him.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Zach said. “But Vasquez is antsy these days because he’s worried about Josefina Madrid’s impending return to run against him in the upcoming presidential election.”

“I’ve been hearing that for months,” Kirby said. “But it’s just a rumor. Isn’t it?”

“I’m not exactly in the military intelligence loop these days,” Zach said. “But nothing would surprise me about that place.”

Which, Kirby decided, was as close to a confirmation about Madrid’s return that she was going to get. What was already a volatile situation in Monteleón was obviously about to get a whole lot worse.

“Now that you’ve joined the team,” he said. “I’ve got an idea on how to handle our potential problem with Vasquez.”

“Which would be?”

“You’re going to convince the president that he doesn’t have anything to worry about. That there is no way the U.S. is sending troops into his country.”

“Why would he believe me?”

“Because you’ve already earned a reputation for speaking your mind. Especially after that dinner the other night.”

“And you say you’re out of the loop.”

Could they actually have the palace bugged? Or, more likely, she thought, one of those waiters—who no one, including herself, had paid that much attention to—must have been working for the CIA.

“Word gets out,” he said. “Vasquez knows you left the country to go to D.C. to testify to congress. You can tell him that as soon as you learned about the kidnapping, you went from office to office in the Capitol, lobbying for help to rescue your partner.

“Unfortunately, you came away empty-handed, so now you’re begging him for help.”

“Which you just pointed out he won’t want to do.”

“He won’t. But if we’re lucky, he may just buy your story enough to let down his guard. Which will buy more time and make it easier for us to get into the country.”

Kirby wished she were as sure about her persuasive powers as he was.

“Maybe it’s because I’m jet-lagged,” she said. “But I’m still having trouble with why Vasquez wouldn’t be more than willing to invade the compound. It seems he’d love an excuse to use the full force of his army to kill Castillo and declare a military and moral victory.”

“Jesus Castillo isn’t at the compound,” Shane entered the conversation. Obviously he’d been briefed before she’d arrived. “There’s no point in Vasquez risking his men to take on some underlings. Especially since, if those whacked-out kids actually kill the doctor, the president gains the moral high ground.”

He grimaced, obviously realizing he’d been too blunt. “Sorry,” he said to Michael.

“Unfortunately, I believe you called it right,” the former priest said. “As far as both Vasquez and Castillo are concerned, Rachel’s merely a pawn.” When his beautifully sculpted lips pulled into a tight, grim line, he looked far more warrior than priest. “An expendable pawn.”

“I’ll do whatever I can to help get her out of there,” Kirby said fervently. It was, after all, exactly what Rachel would do if their situation were reversed.

“Okay. Welcome to the team.” Zach stood up and went over to a large white board on the wall. “Let’s get started.”

Shane had assured himself that he’d prepared for Kirby’s arrival. But, damn, he’d forgotten how good she smelled. She’d never gone in for that expensive stuff in fancy bottles; it was her own unique scent that somehow managed to still surround her even after a long day working in the CSH. It was sweet, without smelling like a funeral parlor full of flowers, and green, but not as pungent as new-mown grass. “Fresh” was the only word he could come up with.

Doctor Kirby Campbell reminded him of a mountain meadow after a spring rain. They’d spent a lot of hours in bed, their arms and legs tangled as he’d pressed his lips against her hair and drank in the scent, never quite placing it. But the one thing he knew for sure was that he’d never smelled anything before or since that could cause such a knee-jerk jolt of lust.

He hated the fact that she was going to be in danger. Which, in a way, was his fault. If he hadn’t been such a shithead and lied to make sure she’d go away after she’d come all that way to visit him in Landstuhl, they might have actually gotten married. She hadn’t come right out and said it—and sure, he’d been doped to the gills—but he could’ve sworn he saw a white-picket-fence fantasy shining in her remarkable eyes.

Not that being married gave a guy automatic veto power over a woman. Especially this woman. But wasn’t marriage all about give and take? That’s how it seemed to work with his folks, who were going on nearly forty years together.

If a husband calmly, rationally stated his case about wanting to keep his wife safe from doped-up killer rapists-terrorists, surely said wife would listen to reason.

Wouldn’t she?

He watched Kirby intently listen to something Quinn was saying—it was difficult to hear anything with the blood roaring in his ears, as it had been doing since she stepped in the door, dressed like an impossibly sexy nun—and remembered that one of the things he’d always admired about her was that the lady wasn’t a pushover.

She’d fight like a tiger for something she believed in. And obviously, as she’d proven with her trip to Germany, loyalty was one of her strongest traits.

So, no. Even if he hadn’t been such an ass, and they had gotten hitched, she might have insisted on going to work for the WMR. Which, in turn, could have landed her in this same situation.

But not, Shane considered, as his mind wandered into a hazy, appealing fantasy, if he’d gotten her pregnant.

Although he liked his nieces and nephews a lot, he’d never given much thought to having any curtain climbers of his own before. Once he’d become a Night Stalker, he’d pretty much been married to Special Forces.

Still, call him a cowboy chauvinist, and a few women admittedly had over the years, but the idea of Kirby having his baby was suddenly more than a little appealing.

“Sorry.” Realizing that everyone in the room was looking at him, Shane dragged his mind out of a hot fantasy of making love to a ripe and round Kirby Garrett on a fur rug in front of a blazing fire. “Would you mind repeating that?”

“I said,” Zach repeated, giving Shane one of those hard-ass SEAL looks designed to encourage cooperation, “while Dr. Campbell—”

“Kirby,” she said.

Zach didn’t quite roll his eyes, but knowing how the former SEAL chief petty officer disliked being interrupted, Shane suspected he wanted to.

“While Kirby,” he corrected with overt patience, “is in the capital, reassuring Vasquez that our government has left Dr. Moore hanging out to dry, we’ll be executing a covert landing.”

“She’s not going down there alone.” Shane’s mind was instantly, fully back on the mission.

“We’re in full agreement there,” Zach said. “Since all the air strips in the country are controlled by either the rebel forces or the Army, most of them built for the drug trade, I don’t want to risk coming in by plane, because we wouldn’t be able to hide any aircraft.

“So we’ll do a beach landing in Costa Rica.” He circled a section of coast on the map he’d taped onto the board. “And come into Monteleón, here, where the border’s unguarded.” He drew an X at the spot. “Meanwhile, you’ll be with Dr., uh, Kirby in Ciudad Libertad.”

“How am I going to explain showing up with a Special Ops guy in tow?” she asked.

“I’m not Spec Ops anymore,” Shane said.

“Maybe not.” Her gaze swept the room. “But you all might as well be. You’re just private these days.”

“We’re not mercenaries,” Quinn said firmly.

“And I don’t even work with these guys,” Shane said.

“I wasn’t calling you mercenaries,” she swiftly corrected Quinn. “And perhaps I’m merely having a blond moment, but color me confused.” Kirby batted her lashes and looked at Shane with mock perplexity. “If you’re not a member of Phoenix Team, what are you doing here?”

“Freelancing. I owe a lot to WMR. Even more to you.”

“I told you—”

“Yeah. I’ve heard it before. But it doesn’t matter, because you’re not going to change my mind. The bottom line is you saved my life, sugar. You know that old Chinese saying ‘Save a life and it becomes yours’? Seems you’re stuck with me.”

“Not if you call me sugar again, I’m not,” she warned.

He considered asking if she’d prefer cupcake, which she’d seemed to like well enough in Iraq. The question was right on the tip of his tongue.

Deciding, for now, that discretion was the better part of valor, Shane bit it back.

“Anyway, getting back to the subject at hand,” he said, as he felt Zach’s annoyance level rising, “I can pull off being a civilian. Especially a gimpy one. Being that I am one.”

Her gaze slide unconsciously to his leg, which was under the table. But Shane knew she was curious. As a doctor? Or a woman?

“Still, won’t he be suspicious? Since I left the country alone?”

“Shane’s an old boyfriend,” Zach said.

“Oh, please.” She groaned.

“It’ll work,” Zach assured her. “You ran into him in D.C. while you were in the city to testify. Sparks rekindled, but then you heard about your friend being taken captive, so after striking out, trying to get help from our government, you rushed back down there to try to convince Vasquez to rescue her.”

“And, being that I’m head over heels in love with her, and being a typical protective he-man alpha male—which any Latin guy can undoubtedly identify with—I refused to let the little lady go into a potentially dangerous situation alone,” Shane picked up the story.

“Exactly.” Zach nodded.

She frowned. “I think I hate ‘little lady’ worse than ‘sugar.’ You remind me of John Wayne talking down to Maureen O’Hara.”

Shane might not share his father’s undying admiration for the actor, but having had to sit through countless showings of Wayne’s movies over the years, he couldn’t let that accusation pass unchallenged.

“You don’t like the Duke?” Actually, he was surprised she’d ever seen a John Wayne movie, then decided they’d been popular among Green Zone military types.

“I have no idea about what kind of person John Wayne was. He might have been a gem of a guy. But it’s hard to like a character who’d drag his wife across five miles of field with an entire village watching her humiliation.”

“The Quiet Man was a dynamite movie,” Shane argued. “And, the way I saw it, that quick-fire Maureen O’Hara always gave as good as she got.”

She snorted.

“Ever see McClintock?”

“No.” She didn’t sound all that eager to, either. Like maybe she’d put it on her to-do list right after skinny-dipping with a school of piranha.

“You should. It has everything that made a Wayne movie great—cowboys, Indians, fistfights, not to mention some damn good brawling and hot lip-locks and clinches with O’Hara. Their mud fight is a movie classic.”

She actually rolled her eyes. “I believe I’ll pass.”

“Surely somewhere along the way you’ve read Shakespeare?”

“Of course. I was planning to be a lit major before turning to medicine.”

He hadn’t known that. Once again, Shane thought there was a lot about the sexy doctor he needed to learn.

“Well, you’d especially like McClintock, then, because it’s a Western take on The Taming of the Shrew.”

“Which wasn’t my favorite play, either.”

Suspecting she wouldn’t get the same kick out of the spanking scene at the end of that movie that he and his dad had, Shane decided against ever renting the DVD to share with her.

“So, Ebert,” Zach said with obvious frustration, “if you’re through giving us this week’s movie reviews, can we get back to the topic at hand?”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Shane grinned and saluted to show he didn’t mind the reprimand.

Kirby shook her head. She did not appear amused.

“So, if I’m stuck pretending a reunion romance, what’s the rest of our cover story?” she asked Shane. “What are you supposed to be doing? Surely you’re not a former SOAR pilot?”

“Nah. Maybe I’m a congressional staffer. We met in the office building while you were testifying.”

“Won’t work,” Quinn said. “Which just goes to show you flyboys don’t spend enough time on the ground, mingling with the natives, to learn how to come up with a believable cover.”

“Being a staffer smells too much of government involvement,” Zach said. “Vasquez didn’t get where he is by being stupid. Anything to do with the government would be bound to set off his internal bullshit alarms.”

“Okay.” Shane considered for a minute. “How about a lobbyist? Strike that,” he said, before anyone could object to the idea. “Even if I did have time to go out and get an Armani suit and silk tie, even a banana republic dictator would never buy me as a member of the K Street Gucci brigade.”

“It’d help if you had a job that would allow you to take this time of year off,” Kirby mused.

Despite her objection to the romantic scenario, Shane noticed she seemed to be getting into the role-playing part of the gig.

“Well, that lets out Santa Claus,” he said.

She ignored the admittedly lame comment. “What about a professor? Maybe from Georgetown.”

“Closer.” Zach nodded thoughtfully. “But Vasquez went to college in the States, so he’s familiar with our culture. Think Georgetown, and the first things that come to mind are basketball, lawyers, and poli-sci majors. Which, again, risks a link to politics, which in turn suggests the government.”

“It’s obvious, with my artificial leg, I’m not a serious b-ball player. Though,” Shane tacked on, “I’ve beat everyone in this room except Kirby at one-on-one.”

“It’s that damn carbon-fiber spring,” both former SEALs said at the same time.

“Gives you an advantage,” Quinn claimed.

“Like being six-five shouldn’t come in handy from time to time, especially when you’re trying to dunk,” Shane countered. Though his sports leg was the coolest of the three prostheses he’d brought home from Walter Reed. “No way do I want to risk my karma even pretending to be a lawyer,” he said, getting back to the topic at hand, “and again, a poli-sci professor would stink of government ties, particularly in D.C.

“So why don’t I just teach history at Gallaudet? Since I minored in military history when I was pre-law, I should be okay if he decides to pull a pop quiz. We could’ve run into each other at Starbucks, which is definitely believable, since you can’t throw a rock in the city without breaking one of their windows.”

“That could work,” Kirby said. “Especially if I went in there to use the wireless for my laptop to check my e-mail. But in case it’s slipped your mind, there’s a little matter of Gallaudet being a university for the deaf. It’s possible Vasquez knows that.”

“No problem. I don’t want to boast or anything, but along with speaking Russian, Farsi, Spanish, Tagalog, and enough Cantonese to order Peking duck in Beijing, I just happen to be fluent in ASL.”

To prove his point, he ran through a quick series of signs and finger spelling. The signing was much faster than anyone would ever use in normal conversation, and meant solely to impress.

It apparently worked.

Lowering the wall she’d erected between them from the moment she’d walked into the office with Zach, she stared at Shane. “How on earth do you know that?”

“My mother came down with scarlet fever when she was a toddler. Since she grew up on a ranch, even farther from town than the ranch she and my dad had, people tended to only go to the doctor in emergencies. Unfortunately, by the time her fever spiked and the rash broke out, her hearing had already been affected.”

“I had no idea.”

He could tell she was stunned by that revelation.

The reason she hadn’t known was they didn’t exactly waste much time talking about intimate stuff. Not that having sex at every possible opportunity wasn’t intimate. It just hadn’t been all that personal.

Hell, since the only choices in the Green Zone had been the dining hall, one Italian place, and two Chinese restaurants, he wasn’t even sure he knew her favorite food. Or what she liked to do on a lazy Sunday morning when she didn’t have to worry about helos bringing in wounded, or what movies she liked, and what she’d been like as a kid.

Although the timing wasn’t perfect, Shane had learned the hard way that life didn’t always wait for a plan. So, he decided, he might as well take this opportunity that had been dropped in his lap to make up for lost time.