Traitorous Attraction (10 page)

“We have to get out of here,” Kate whispered, joining him at the window.

They needed a place to hide. The men were almost to their hut. Without the chance to escape, Connor adjusted his plan from avoidance to offensive. He and Kate couldn’t outrun a bullet, but he could hope the men didn’t get to their guns faster than he could use his knife. He pressed Kate against the wall of the hut. If bullets started flying, he wanted her out of harm’s way. The longer she stayed hidden, the better.

The men opened the door to the hut. Connor’s gaze landed on Kate’s backpack in plain view at the same time theirs did.

“There’s something in here,” the smaller man said, alarm in his voice.

Before the other could respond, Connor disabled the man, striking him on the back of the head. The other man turned and swung at Connor. Connor ducked the attack and landed a well-placed punch to his solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. He gasped for air, and Connor swept his legs out from under him. The man fell backward, rolled and righted himself.

Keeping himself between Kate and the leader, Connor dodged left and swung right, catching the revolutionary across the face. The man finally fell to the ground unconscious.

Connor pointed to his bag. “Get the rope from my pack. Hurry,” he said to Kate. He’d tie up these two before the others realized their associates were missing.

Connor tied them to the large wood pallets where he and Kate had been sleeping. Though it wouldn’t prevent them from moving entirely, it would keep them from attacking him and Kate.

“What about the others?” Kate asked.

A radio beeped on one of the men’s belts. “Boss, come in.”

Connor swore inwardly. If no one answered, they’d return to the vehicle and possibly notice him and Kate. Connor plucked the radio off the man’s belt and exited the hut. He hurled the radio into the jungle. If they followed the sound or GPS, it would buy him and Kate another few moments.

“Grab your backpack,” Connor said, taking the weapons from the two men. He threw his pack over his shoulders and Kate did the same.

“What are we going to do?” Kate asked.

“We need their vehicle.”

“We’re going to steal their car?” Kate asked. “To go where?”

“We’re going to Mangrove.”

Kate took his hand. “Connor, be reasonable. If these people are with the AR, it won’t take long for word to spread that we’ve stolen a car from them. We don’t need every member of the AR looking for us.”

“We’ll already be in Mangrove before anyone finds out. Come on.” Connor needed to find his brother, and he would do anything to accomplish that goal, even if that meant taking risks.

As he left the hut, he froze at the sound of his brother’s name. “Aiden? Is that you?” Surprise and unease were heavy in the speaker’s voice.

Connor didn’t move. It was almost pitch-black and it wasn’t the first time he had been mistaken for his brother. The second patrol was returning. How should he respond?

“That’s not Aiden. Wait. Stop!”

“To the car,” Connor said, taking hold of Kate’s upper arm and racing toward the vehicle.

The sound of gunfire exploded in the air. “Stop!” one of the men shouted.

Kate screamed and Connor lost his hold on her. He whirled. One of the men had grabbed her and was wrestling her to the ground. Kate was kicking and flailing, but her strength was no match for the man on top of her. The image brought rage over him. If the man hurt Kate, Connor would kill him.

Connor took the man by the neck and ripped him away from Kate, flinging him to the ground. The second man came at him, and Connor disarmed him and shoved him into the dirt next to his companion. He’d confiscated three of the weapons, and the fourth lay on the ground out of reach.

“Do not touch her. Do not ever touch her,” Connor said.

Connor leveled the gun at the men. “Tell me who you think I am.” They had spoken his brother’s name. Was it too much to hope these men knew Aiden? How many Aidens were in this part of the world?

The men were silent.

“I already killed your buddies,” Connor lied. “Tell me what you know or I’ll kill both of you, too. A body count of two or four makes no difference to me.”

“You killed Bruno Feliz?” one of the men asked.

It was Connor’s turn to be silent. They had crossed paths with Bruno Feliz and Connor had attacked him. Starting a personal war with the leader of the Armed Revolution was never his intention. He was outgunned and outnumbered. Except what was done was done. The mission hadn’t changed. He still had to find Aiden as fast as possible and get him home. It was just more complicated: he had to avoid the AR and the Sphere agents tracking them. “Tell me about Aiden,” he said.

One of the men opted to answer. “You look like a man we knew out here. Aiden West. He disappeared a while ago. No one’s heard from him.” His voice shook, though he kept his chin lifted proudly. The AR were resilient and persistent. It was one of the few groups that had survived
el presidente
’s counterattacks.

“Where did you last see him?” Connor asked.

“He was at Camp Rome,” the man said, “of course.”

Camp Rome—an interesting name for the revolutionaries’ hideout. Where was it located? “Why ‘of course’?” Connor asked.

“Don’t tell him anything else. He could be a spy for
el presidente,
” the other man hissed. “He killed Feliz. It doesn’t matter what he does to us now.”

“Your life for the information,” Connor threatened. He hated to behave this way in front of Kate. He had no intention of killing these men, but he would get all the information he could from them.

The men exchanged looks. “He was an American. Looked a lot like you,” the man said. “He came here and he worked with us against
el presidente.
Then one night, after a raid on our camp, he disappeared.”

Whose side was Sphere on and where had they positioned Aiden? He would have done whatever Sphere had asked of him on this mission. Had they asked him to work with the Armed Revolutionaries in order to spy on them for
el presidente?
Were these men lying and holding Aiden captive as punishment for working against the AR?

Connor didn’t let his strong emotions for his brother rule him. “Where is Camp Rome?”

“We can’t tell you,” the man said.

The evasive answers were irritating. “Because you don’t know or it no longer exists?” Connor asked.

The men were silent. Connor strode to the two men in the hut. He grabbed the larger one, assuming it was an unconscious Bruno Feliz, and dragged him in front of the other men.

“Last chance. Talk or I’ll put a bullet in his head.”

“You said he was already dead!”

“I lied. Talk,” Connor said.

“We had to relocate it after the raid. The new spot is a few miles north of here,” the man said, shaking hard.

Connor dropped Feliz on the ground. He slapped his cheeks, trying to rouse him. The man groaned, proving he was alive. Relief was plain on the other men’s faces.

Kate touched Connor’s arm. “They weren’t bluffing. That’s Bruno Feliz,” she whispered. “I didn’t recognize him before.”

Connor looked from Feliz to these men. If he killed Feliz and the Armed Revolution was holding Aiden somewhere, he was signing his brother’s death warrant. He’d have to get to Aiden before word spread that he’d attacked Feliz and his men. “I’m leaving you alive. I expect the same for my brother or I will find you again and kill you.” Connor had disabled the legendary Bruno Feliz. That should drive home the fear factor Connor was counting on to make someone think twice about hurting or killing his brother.

“Hand her the keys to the car,” Connor said. “Slowly.”

The man took a lanyard with keys at the end from around his neck and handed it to Kate. She took it and returned to Connor’s side. She clutched his arm and her trembling concerned him. He hadn’t meant for her to be afraid. A lot of what he had said and done was posturing to work the situation. Surely, she knew that. Her training with Sphere had to have touched on psychological warfare.

“Get in the car,” he said to Kate. “Start it and I’ll be there in a minute.”

With a final squeeze, she ran to the car. When he heard it start, he backed away from the men. He threw the guns in the backseat of the vehicle and climbed in the driver’s side.

Together, they sped away from the village, heading north to Camp Rome.

Chapter 7

T
rekking a few miles in the jungle was faster with a vehicle, but not by much. Kate’s backside was sore from bouncing around the vehicle as it navigated the rough terrain.

“I don’t want them to hear our approach. Let’s get out here and do some recon,” Connor said.

“This could be a trap,” Kate said. Connor had gotten the information by force. In her opinion, the more uncooperative the informant, the more questionable the information. A few miles to a camp could mean a hundred miles or they’d been pointed in the wrong direction or the camp was nonexistent.

Kate got out and helped Connor put leaves over the car to partially conceal it. Connor pulled two pairs of fatigues and a set of black armbands from the vehicle. “Let’s change into these.”

“No one will believe we’re AR,” Kate said.

They looked all wrong for the part, but it was something. “They’ll help us blend.”

Kate looked around for a place to change. Connor had already stripped out of his shirt and was tugging the camo-green tank on. It was a sight she would never forget. The man was muscle, tanned skin, sinewy arms and corded abdomen without a stitch of fat anywhere. Kate closed her mouth and took off her shirt. The mental image of Connor was plucking at her desire and she needed it to remain quiet.

She struggled to put on the shirt, feeling as though her hands weren’t working properly. Which they didn’t when she was jittery. It wasn’t that she hadn’t seen a man without his shirt before. She had. Plenty of times. The problem was that most men who had a body like Connor’s were secured in the pages of a magazine, no risk of her ogling them in their presence.

Connor pulled her shirt down, and his fingers skimmed the soft skin at her midsection. “Looked like you needed some help,” he said.

She shivered, wishing he had pulled the shirt the other way. She ached to reach out and touch him skin to skin, if only for a minute, if only to get some comfort. Kate was frightened and it was fraying her at the seams. “I got it. I’m just tired.”

Connor waited for her to finish changing, giving her his back. Gentlemanly contact and she wanted for him to be anything but a gentleman.

Hidden by the dark, she took off her jeans and pulled on the camo pants. They were more comfortable than the jeans had been. She liked them.

Connor turned and gave her another head-to-toe look. “You look good in green,” he said.

She adjusted the clothes. Not as good as he did. The whole look worked for him.

“Stay close to me, okay?” he asked.

She had no intention of being anywhere else. He was carrying one of the weapons they had taken off Bruno Feliz and the men from the village. Bruno Feliz! They couldn’t have tangled with a bigger fish in the jungle unless
el presidente
had decided to start patrolling himself. Kate knew it wasn’t the last they would hear of the incident. An assault on the leader of the AR would come back to haunt them.

Connor hadn’t offered her a gun and she guessed that was smart. She hadn’t trained with a gun that size and that alone was intimidating.

They walked the area for a time before returning to the vehicle. They drove farther north and stopped and searched four more times before Connor took her hand and squeezed it. The sign of affection was so unexpected she almost asked what he was doing. But she kept her mouth closed and followed his pointed finger through the brush.

Another village. This one was obviously populated, and lights were fixed to posts surrounding the area, making it easier to see. Camp Rome? There were no street signs in this part of the jungle. They crept around the perimeter of the camp, stopping and watching for long periods of time. Kate tried to keep track of how many people were inside.

The men at the previous village had indicated Aiden had been here but had disappeared and they believed he’d been working against the government. Her State Department contact claimed Aiden was being held by the Armed Revolutionaries. Either one or both had bad information.

“If my brother is being held here, we’ll find him,” Connor said.

“Feliz’s group said Aiden was missing,” Kate said.

“Just like I lied to them, they could have lied to me,” Connor said.

Deception and sorting lies from the truth was part of the game they were playing.

Connor and Kate took their time watching. Connor sat and watched without moving. Kate, on the other hand, had trouble maintaining focus and not swatting at the bugs that buzzed around them. An hour passed. Kate shifted, trying to get more comfortable. Her leg muscles were sore from remaining in the same position for so long. The sun was beginning to rise and Kate hoped it chased away nocturnal predators.

“I need a break,” she said.

Connor glanced at her. “Are you okay? Do you need food or water?”

If she said yes, he would go and get them for her. She didn’t want him to break from his surveillance. What if he missed seeing his brother? “I’m going to walk a little bit.” She pointed behind them, away from the camp.

“I’d rather you stay close,” Connor said.

“I’ll stay within eyesight of you,” Kate said.

Though Connor didn’t seem to think it was a good idea, he didn’t argue. Kate moved carefully and slowly as Connor had through the jungle. She stretched her legs and her arms. Her body wasn’t accustomed to going without sleep and food and coffee, and she needed the movement to wake her up.

A hard object pressed into her side. “Don’t move. Don’t breathe or I will kill you. Keep your hands where I can see them.” The words were spoken quietly, but the accompanying tone was iron.

Kate gasped. A gun. Someone had a gun on her. Kate lifted her hands slowly to her sides and turned toward the female voice. The woman on the other side of the shotgun was startlingly beautiful. Wide, expressive brown eyes, dark hair to her waist, and a mouth that, if it wasn’t frowning, would form a lovely smile.

“Are you alone?” the woman asked.

Kate could see Connor in her peripheral vision. Had he realized what was happening to her? “No. I am not.” She was too afraid to lie.

“Why are you here?” the woman asked.

“We’re looking for a friend.”

Connor disappeared from view. Kate held on to the hope that he was coming to help her. Kate kept talking to hold the woman’s attention. “My name is Kate. I am looking for my friend’s brother. He went missing in this area. We heard he could still be alive. We’ve come from the United States to find him and bring him home safely.”

“You’re Americans?” the woman asked and lowered her gun a few inches.

Should she admit to it? Her Portuguese was good, but her accent could use some work. “Yes.”

“Did
el presidente
send you?” she asked.

“No,” Kate said. “We’re not working for anyone. We’re just trying to find someone we care about.”

Despite the gun and the hardness of the woman’s face, Kate saw a warmth in her eyes. “Tell me about the man you’re looking for.”

Should Kate tell her the truth? If this woman knew Aiden, maybe she could help them. If she knew Aiden and believed him to be a traitor, would she hold that against her and Connor?

Kate kept to basics. She would watch the woman’s reaction and then plan how much to say. “His name is Aiden. He’s also American.”

“Aiden?” From the way the woman spoke his name, a combination of confusion and reverence, Kate discerned this woman knew him.

Excitement trilled through her. Could Connor hear them? This was an exciting lead. “Do you know him? Have you seen him?”

“I know him.” The woman lowered her gun to the ground. Sadness was clear on her face.

Sad because Aiden was dead? Missing? “Do you know where he is?” Kate couldn’t handle it if the woman said Aiden was dead. It would devastate Connor.

Connor came out of nowhere. Kate hadn’t seen his approach. He leaped onto the woman, tackling her to the ground and tearing the gun from her hands. Connor came out on top, swinging the barrel of the shotgun toward the woman, holding it over her head. “Tell me where my brother is.”

The woman’s eyes were wide and she stopped struggling. “You look just like him.”

“Connor, get off her,” Kate said. This woman knew Aiden and had personal feelings for him. Connor had been acting in defense of her, but this woman wasn’t the threat she had presented. “Please tell us what you know,” Kate said.

Connor glanced at Kate before moving his weight off the woman. He kept the gun aimed at her.

The woman was trembling as she sat. “I’m Ariana Feliz. You must be Aiden’s brother, Connor. He spoke so highly of you. I am sorry to tell you he’s been taken by the Tumaran government and I haven’t heard from him in months. I’ve been trying to find him.”

Hope flickered across Connor’s face. “My brother has spoken to you? He’s alive?”

The woman’s eyes filled with tears. “As far as I know, he’s alive. I haven’t spoken to him.” The woman sighed. “He and I spent much time together. He loved me. Loves me. And I love him. He was taken because of me.”

Kate’s chest ached, hearing the grief in Ariana’s words.

Connor’s eyes narrowed. “Taken where?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t want you to come here. He knew you would come if you found out he was in trouble and he didn’t want you to be in danger.”

“What danger is he in?” Connor asked.

“Things have gotten worse over the past year for us. I tried to tell Aiden to return to the United States before something tragic happened, but he wouldn’t leave without me. I can’t abandon my post. People are counting on me. Even if I could, I would never get past the border because I’m considered a criminal.”

“I’m here now. I can help him. I won’t leave if he needs me,” Connor said, the pleading in his voice so raw, Kate felt tears welling in her eyes. Connor helped the woman to her feet.

Ariana shook her head in misery. “You don’t understand. I brought him into this mess. Aiden came here working for an American company, a military operation. I fell in love with him. It happened so fast, but when something is right, it just is.” She sounded close to tears and it took a moment for her to compose herself. “When he left the first time, he told me I would forget my feelings and I would forget him. I didn’t. I couldn’t. When he returned the second time, nothing had changed. My love for him was true and strong. Though it was dangerous, he decided to stay with me.”

Ariana paused and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’m rambling, and I know this must not make sense, but I’ve felt so guilty. I wanted to tell Aiden’s family what had happened to him, but I didn’t know how to find you or your parents or if Aiden would want me to.”

Connor stiffened at the mention of his parents. “Our parents are not part of our lives.”

Ariana inclined her head. “Aiden speaks of his mother and father often.”

Connor stared at her. Blinked in disbelief. “Tell me how to find Aiden.”

“I’ve tried to find him. I’ve worked every contact I have, looking for information. I’ve hit dead end after dead end. I’m an outcast. I can’t return to my family in the city. If I do, the government will punish them for talking to me. I have to hide in the jungle with the other members of the revolution.”

“If you don’t know where he is, tell me what you do know,” Connor said.

Ariana looked away into the dense green, her eyes misting. “There was an ambush in the middle of the night. The government sent out a squad to decimate our camp. We lost twenty-two men that night. If Aiden hadn’t been there defending us, it would have been more. I escaped, thanks to him, but he was captured.”

“How do you know he’s still alive?” Connor asked, his voice tight.

Ariana pushed her hair over her shoulder and sat straighter. “He has to be. I cannot accept any other possibility.”

Not the same as knowing.

Connor’s gaze swung to Kate. “How will we find him? What intel do you have? Tell me everything.”

The last word she had of his trail ended in Mangrove. She hadn’t known he’d left Sphere and switched sides to work for the AR against
el presidente
and the Tumaran government. “My contact believes an American is being held by the AR.”

Ariana shook her head. “We don’t take prisoners or hostages.”

Had Kate’s contact been mistaken?

Connor swore. “I will search this country from border to border to locate him.”

Kate believed him. The look of hope on Ariana’s face was both sweet and heartbreaking.

“Aiden said you were tenacious. He didn’t want you here, but I prayed you would come,” Ariana said. “How did you find our camp?” Her last question was filled with worry.

Kate told her about the men they had encountered at the abandoned village.

Ariana’s eyes grew wide. “You assaulted my brother?”

Kate connected the last names, and her stomach churned with worry. “It was an accident.”

To her surprise, Ariana laughed. “God has a funny way of working. He sent you to me by way of my brother. Bruno will be angry, but I will speak to him. He loved Aiden like a brother. He wants him found, as well,” Ariana said. “Let me get you something to eat and drink, and we’ll make plans.”

Kate and Connor followed Ariana into the AR camp, ignoring the curious looks from others. Kate had once believed these men and women to be the enemy. Now she didn’t know what to think.

Over cups of tea, they discussed how to find Aiden.

“The Sphere agents who followed us from the States will still be looking for us,” Kate said.

“They think we’ve gone to Mangrove,” Connor said.

“Unless they’ve known all along Aiden wasn’t being held by the AR like my contact believed,” Kate said.

“Most AR members who are captured by the government are jailed in Carvalo City,” Ariana said. “I haven’t been able to find out if Aiden is there.”

“What if Sphere has been looking for him and hasn’t been able to find him either?” Kate asked.

“And they’re using us to do it,” Connor said, filling in the rest of Kate’s thought.

To know Sphere and the government’s motivations was impossible. Kate had known Sphere to flip sides as their interests changed. Often, those interests were financially motivated.