Show No Fear (3 page)
“The United Nations is sponsoring a team to spearhead negotiations for their release,” Gordon announced, his words mirroring
Lucy’s thoughts. He nodded at the Spaniard. “Mr. Santos is one of the UN volunteers, along with a Frenchman, an Italian, a
Turk, and two more Spaniards.” He divided an enigmatic look between Lucy and Gus. “That’s going to be your cover,” he added.
Lucy glanced at Gus and found him frowning at her boss.
“Gus just completed Spanish-language school at the Farm. Lucy speaks fluent Spanish and is familiar with the culture,” Gordon
added. “We have a liaison agreement with the CESID, who are the only folks who’ll know your true identity.”
Lucy glanced at the dark-eyed Spaniard, who sent her an encouraging smile.
“Here’s the cruncher,” Gordon added, recapturing her attention. “We don’t have much time to prepare. You’ll need to fly into
Bogotá on Monday,” he announced.
Monday? Then she wouldn’t have to step foot in paperwork hell ever again. She’d been hankering for an assignment for months
now, so why wasn’t she experiencing a powerful victory rush? Was she picking up on Gus’s reticence to work with her? Or did
she have doubts that she’d made a full recovery?
“Furthermore,” Gordon continued, with a steady eye on Lucy, “given the humanitarian nature of your cover, you won’t be able
to carry any weapons or any overt communication devices of any kind,” he added apologetically.
Her mind flashed back to the last time she’d had her gun taken away from her.
Oh, no.
“The FARC are going to march you deep into the jungle,” Gordon added, causing her to break into a sweat. “They’re going to
strip you of everything but your underwear and boots. Any weapons or cell phones you might try to conceal would be discovered,”
he explained.
Lucy’s lips began to tingle. She could sense Gus’s growing tension as he glared down at the table, refusing to meet her gaze.
“You don’t have to take this assignment if you’re not ready, Lucy,” her supervisor added, no doubt aware of her diagnosis.
“But Barnes and Howitz are your colleagues. I thought I’d give you first bite at this since you’d worked in-country with those
two.”
Lucy angled her chin at him. “Of course I’m ready,” she scoffed, aware that Gus was finally looking straight at her. “Is that
the reason Lieutenant Atwater is accompanying me?” she asked, with sudden insight. “For my protection?” If she was going to
get her moxie back, she had to do this on her own without a freaking babysitter.
Her supervisor frowned. “As it happens, Lucy, a squad of SEALs from Gus’s team has already deployed to Bogotá. They’re assigned
to the Joint Intelligence Center at the American embassy, where they’ve been gathering intel. Those SEALs are going to track
your progress via microchips implanted under your skin. Your job is to discover, if you can, the coordinates to the camp where
Howitz and Barnes are held, keeping in mind that the FARC tend to relocate every couple of weeks. When the UN negotiations
fail—which we expect to be the case—the SEALs should have enough data to drop in and wrest our boys out by force.”
“How can I pass on data if I can’t carry a cell phone or radio?” Gus chimed in, his tone inscrutable.
“
We,
” Lucy corrected him, earning a piercing glance. She cocked an eyebrow at him.
“We’ll cover that shortly,” Gordon promised. “In addition to finding Barnes and Howitz, I want you to make a full report on
the FARC’s present circumstances. The Colombian army says they’ve cut off the rebels’ supplies and killed off their leaders
and it’s just a matter of time before they disintegrate completely. We want to know if that’s the case. Go ahead and open
your envelopes,” he added with a nod.
With an uncharacteristic tremor in her fingers, Lucy untied the flap and reached for the passport inside. As she cracked the
cover, she assimilated her new identity with a shiver of excitement and a renewed sense of calm. This was a familiar process,
the feelings of taking on a new identity, fraught with nuanced details, first internalized and then worn like a second skin.
The name beside her photograph was Luna Delgado de Aguiler, born in Valencia, Spain. The pages of her passport, heavily stamped,
indicated extensive service to the United Nations. According to her bio, she was an associate human affairs officer working
and living in New York City, married to Gustavo Aguiler, a human rights officer.
“You and Gus will be traveling as a married couple,” Gordon added, confirming her sudden stab of suspicion.
Lucy’s heart skipped a beat. She glanced across the table and found Gus scowling in concentration at his passport. Thankfully,
there was no ring on his left hand, nor any telltale sign that he had ever worn one. At least she wouldn’t be treading on
another woman’s turf, not that it would matter if she were.
They were professionals with a job to do. It wouldn’t make a lick of difference if he was married or not.
Gordon turned and gestured to the Colombian branch chief. “Stokes, why don’t you take over here?”
Hours later, her mind saturated with as much information as she could memorize, Lucy felt a renewed sense of certainty. The
assimilation process had restored her accustomed self-confidence, reassuring her that her PTSD was a thing of the past. She
could do this. The episode in Venezuela hadn’t caused any lasting damage.
But first she and James needed to have a good heart-to-heart, which he seemed to be avoiding.
She hurried to catch up with him, trapping him as he stood waiting for the elevator. “James—Gus,” she amended with a self-directed
grimace. That was going to take a little getting used to.
He swung around slowly, his expression both guarded and disapproving.
“Would you like to go out for a drink?” she brazened, ignoring the invisible shield erected around him. It was obvious he
wasn’t feeling social. “We have a lot of catching up to do,” she insisted. They weren’t going to be able to proceed without
airing their differences—whatever they were.
“We’re going to dinner soon,” he countered. Carlos had instructed them to meet him at a local restaurant, where they would
practice their new roles as Mr. and Mrs. Gustavo de Aguiler. She sure hoped Gus’s Spanish had improved.
Feeling rebuffed, she tried a different tactic. “Well, I can see you’re just thrilled to be working with me,” she quipped
with sarcasm. “What’s the matter? Never worked with a woman before?” she demanded archly.
He looked away, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “From what I recall, you were the one with issues about having me for
a partner,” he quietly reminded her.
Touché.
Lucy’s face turned hot. “I’m not used to working with anyone else,” she explained. “I work alone. No offense intended.”
His gaze slid back in her direction. This time he let her see the concern and dread warring in his eyes. “When’s it going
to end for you, Luce?” he asked her suddenly, ignoring the elevator as the door slid open. “When will you have had
enough?
”
“Oh, come on.” She waved away his words with a quirk of her lips and a toss of her head. She got a sudden feeling that he
knew more about her than she knew about him. Moreover, his concern was unwelcome; it undermined her self-confidence. “So I
took a little beating on my last assignment, so what? I’ve taken worse and still landed on my feet,” she assured him, giving
him a not-so-playful push.
Beneath the linen-and-silk blend of his suit, he felt as solid as a tree.
Nor did he reciprocate her smile. His lips remained locked in a horizontal line as his eyes roamed her face, taking in every
tiny trophy scar that gave testament to her words. “You mean like when you were stabbed by an asset in Madrid in ’04?” he
demanded quietly.
The breath disappeared from Lucy’s lungs. He
did
know more than he was supposed to.
“Or maybe you’re thinking of the car accident in Morocco that put you in traction for six months?”
“Who told you about that?” The elevator doors slid shut, giving up on them to heed summons from a higher floor.
“We work for the same people,” he retorted. He took a sudden step toward her, causing her nerves to leap with awareness. Maybe
he wasn’t any taller, but his shoulders were certainly broader, his neck thicker, creating an illusion of immense height.
His scent curled into her nostrils, so endearingly familiar that her heart clutched with remembered affection. “I want you
to turn down this assignment, Lucy,” he growled, his words cancelling out her tender feelings. “Go tell Gordon you’ve changed
your mind, that you’re not ready for this.”
“The hell I’m not ready for it!” Lucy protested, her spine stiffening with affront. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Why, indeed?
asked a tiny voice inside her.
A ruddy color stained Gus’s cheekbones. “Lucy, those guards beat the hell out of you,” he grated with quiet force. “For all
I know, they even raped you.”
“They didn’t,” she retorted, tamping down memories that sought to escape. “What’s more, I didn’t need your help,” she added,
heaping on false confidence to keep pressure on the lid. “I’d gotten what I came for, and I was on my way out.”
“Congratulations,” he said with a scathing look. “Just answer me this, Lucinda.” He used her full name knowing she hated it.
“When is it going to end for you? Or are you going to keep this up until you’re good and dead?”
“I don’t know,” she answered him honestly, hating that he was feeding that tiny fear still lingering inside her. “I’ve never
considered quitting. Have you?”
“I thought maybe it was over for you,” he continued, ignoring her question. “You’ve been lying low for ten months now. Why
can’t you just keep doing that?”
“You’ve been spying on me?” she cried in disbelief.
“I told you. We work for the same people,” he repeated. “Now, go tell Gordon you don’t want this assignment,” he repeated,
crowding her with his larger body.
“No,” she countered, giving him her most stubborn look.
In a gesture that she recognized from their college days, he turned away, jamming his fingers through his russet-brown, neatly
trimmed hair. With a muttered curse, he punched the button for the elevator again.
His vehemence gave Lucy pause—that and the implication that he truly cared about her well-being. “Why does it matter to you
so much, anyway?” she asked, remembering with a pang the tenderness he used to show her.
He swung slowly back around. “Because now I’m your partner,” he articulated with a tremor in his voice. “And now it’s my freaking
job to keep you alive.”
“I don’t need you to keep me alive,” she retorted. The thought was ridiculous. She’d done fine on her own all these years.
His eyelashes came together as he glared at her with flashing eyes. “Is that right?” he countered softly. “How many ops have
you done in the jungle, Lucy?”
She opened her mouth to shoot back an answer, then closed it with a snap. “None,” she admitted, self-consciousness pinching
her cheeks.
He raked her with another look, this one reflecting honest fear and concern. Then he turned and walked away.
“Where are you going?” she asked, frustrated by her inability to get a good read on him. Why was he so against her involvement?
Without a word, he pushed through the door marked EXIT.
She had the answer to her spoken question, but not the unspoken one. He was taking the stairs.
A
thumping noise in the hotel room next door brought Gus’s eyes wide open. He had just lain down, drained by their mentally
exhausting dinner with Carlos, doomed to suffer dreams of Lucy imperiled in the jungle. It was 11:30 p.m., and by the sound
of things she was still awake, doing jumping jacks.
He already knew she rarely slept. His sources claimed she liked to run at night, up to ten miles at a time. Maybe she was
warming up for a run.
At night in New York City?
He sat up with a start, throwing off the covers. Surely she was smarter than that.
In the dark, he fumbled for his sweatpants, searched for his socks and sneakers. He was jamming his head through a T-shirt
when her door thudded shut.
Shit!
Feeling a little like a stalker, he peeked outside his own door in time to see her turn the corner. She had changed out of
a tiny black dress and into shorts, a jogging bra, and tennis shoes. She wouldn’t thank him for trying to dissuade her from
a run, any more than she’d thanked him for suggesting she turn down the assignment. Doing that had driven a wedge between
them that even Carlos had detected, urging them to reconcile their differences before the outset of their trip.
There was no time like the present, thought Gus. With their plane departing in two days, they might as well strike a truce.
As partners, they had to think and act as one.
Darting down the hallway, he turned the corner in time to see the elevator close with her inside it. Punching the button for
a second elevator, he waited to see where she stopped—the mezzanine level, where the indoor gym was located. Of course, she
wasn’t so stupid as to go for a run outside.