Читать книгу Come As You Are - Amy J. Fetzer - Страница 6

South Carolina

Logan stared out the window of his house, watching the helicopter lower to the lawn, its blades stirring up the live oaks and palm trees, and gobbling half the flowers like an alien craft sucking up victims.

I’m not gonna like this.

Within moments, General Joseph McGill, a man he respected, climbed out of a plain black chopper. He’d wanted to speak to the team. ASAP. Although McGill gave nothing away as to the reason, he’d been overly polite. A three-star didn’t have to be nice to anyone except the President.

Logan sipped his beer as the general headed to the sidewalk, a memory shadowing; Cassie on her bike, reaming him for sulking like an “ol’ sour puss.” His lips curved. She’d been right. Around then, he was just about everyone’s pain in the ass.

His smile fell, her bloody handprints making a comeback in his mind.

Justice, that’s all she’d want. But Logan was thinking; severely avenged. This was too cleverly done to be anything less than a much larger operation than two men. Not with the total annihilation of the ship and witnesses. Pirates, my ass. They would have raped the ship clean and sunk it. It was too big and slow for the speed they needed.

What was in his hand? flickered like a taunt. He was still waiting for the inventory of the ship’s contents down to the cellophane-wrapped toothbrushes. It was the only way they’d be able to tell if whatever the diver took came from the crew or guests, or the ship itself. He rubbed the back of his neck for a moment. That attack was Mach 1 overkill.

Directly behind him on a desk once owned by Robert E. Lee, a laptop computer ran through photos, searching for a match from his admittedly vague composite of the killer. His partner, nearly blown in pieces by the exploding tank had a handprint. The time in the water and the explosion left little evidence for forensics, but Interpol’s face match gave them Felix Carona, Aymara Indian, born in Venezuela and once a captain in its Army. He’d been discharged with full honors, and like Dragon One, worked for the private sector. Though morally, there was no comparison. Carona and a few of his buddies had been linked to more than one assassination of anyone in power who opposed President Gutierrez’s “communal socialist” philosophy. Well executed and no witnesses.

Where have I heard that before?

He pinched the bridge of his nose. Scrape it as clean as they wanted, he could still smell it.

“It’s got to be serious shit for McGill to come himself, without his aides,” Max said from somewhere behind him.

Or his security, Logan thought. “Time to find out.”

Logan moved away from the window, taking his beer and heading to the door. He opened it before McGill met the sidewalk. In jeans, loafers and a polo shirt, he looked more like his own father than a man who commanded thousands.

“What?” Logan asked. “You couldn’t hop a cab?”

“Too slow. Thanks for meeting me.”

“It’s good to listen to the wise men once in a while.”

“I wish someone would.”

That didn’t sound good.

McGill shook his hand and stepped inside. The chopper lifted off behind him, a few thousand in landscaping going with it.

“Want a beer?” Max approached, holding out a cold one.

“Hell yes.” McGill took the longneck bottle and stepped farther inside, sipping. “Nice place, Commander.”

Dragon One had an unofficial headquarters above Sebastian’s restaurant, the Craw Daddy in New Orleans, so Logan wasn’t home often. He’d reacquainted himself with the four-bedroom house in the past days, filled with items that evoked a story. Probably why he didn’t hang around. Some stories should just fade away.

“It’s just Logan,” he said, and gestured to a chair. “You want to hire us.” Why else would he be there?

Joe McGill should have remembered he’d get right to the point. Logan Chambliss wasn’t one to waste time with pleasantries. Just like the rest of the team members. Dragon One was efficient and morally stronger than most teams because they’d all been so royally screwed by their own government. They’d been tested in fire and survived. It could have easily gone the other way. “Yes, we do.”

“We?”

“The Department of Defense.”

“That’s a big place.” Logan sat back, shrugging. “You’ve got field CIA or Spec Ops at your fingertips, so it’s something dirty.” Logan glanced at Max and smothered a smile when he started humming the theme from Mission Impossible. “Why aren’t you sending them?”

McGill shifted in the chair. He’d practiced this moment. It’s how he remained diplomatic when a bunch of self-important senators made him want to smack their heads together. But this was different. They had a problem that couldn’t be rectified through legal or diplomatic channels. “We did. They didn’t come back.”

Logan scowled. “Then the price just doubled.”

“Tripled,” Riley said loud enough for McGill to hear. “I’ve already died for one mission, I’m not doing it again.” On crutches, Riley limped into the room, munching on a sandwich and using his bad arm to do it.

Logan gave him his well-honed doctor look, and Riley rolled his eyes, yet lowered gingerly into a chair. The guy was in a coma a few months ago and had a long way to go still.

Logan focused on McGill. “You can understand why we don’t want to even hear this.”

“Hell, I wouldn’t.” McGill took a sip of beer, rolled the bottle between his hands. “I can tell you that without agreement, I stop here, and don’t say—wait,” he said when they grumbled. “Those are my orders. Now, this is what I can say—”

“The U.S. fucked up,” Max said.

“Bluntly, yes. We got too involved. Do you recall the recent coup d’état in Venezuela?”

“Who doesn’t?” Logan said. “It lasted two days and Gutierrez blamed the rebels. His troops killed a lot of innocent people, the Vice President was injured, and the general who supposedly helped stage the coup is still in power. So Gutierrez might be President, but his control isn’t that strong.”

McGill nodded, choosing his words carefully. “Before that, Vice President Garcia was a shoe-in for President and Gutierrez couldn’t run again. The two have been on opposite sides often. So much that Garcia’s opposition made him a target for pro-socialism supporters. He’d suffered two assassination attempts, one that killed his only brother. It put Garcia on a warpath for change, and within days the coup occurred. He was accused of instigating it.”

“Gutierrez has considerable support from other countries,” Sebastian said. “It won’t be long before Venezuela is a new Cuba.”

“So it’s Communism versus democracy?” Max said. “I can live with that.”

“I can’t,” Logan said, and they all looked at him. But his attention was on the general.

McGill looked grim and it was almost painful to say, “During the two-day coup, Garcia was shot and dragged away. No body. Witness stories are shaky—”

Logan put up his hand. “Wait a second.” He searched his memory and recalled the recent pictures of the limo turned on its side, his security dead. “You mean all this time the government has behaved as if Garcia were found, wounded, but alive?”

“Yes.”

“Then who the hell is in the Vice President’s house?” Logan had seen him on TV a few days ago. A simple smile and wave for the crowds, nothing more.

“He’s our man. Physically altered.” McGill made a quick circle around his face. “He’d been severely injured fighting for his country and volunteered.”

The room was so quiet, McGill looked up from the bottle. He finished off the last of the beer as he sat back and said, “Let it sink in. It doesn’t get better.”

Instantly Logan’s mind filled with all sorts of ramifications. “This will mushroom out of control. An American in the power position in another country? It’s a time bomb for war. Christ, this has to be one of the dumbest things the U.S. ever did in the name of liberty.”

McGill’s features pulled taut, his shoulders shifting like a gamecock with his feathers ruffled. He might agree, but he didn’t voice it. “So you understand we need to act quickly.”

“Without Garcia to put back in his place, it’s impossible. Why did the U.S. do this?”

“It’s classified.”

“There’s the door, sir.” Logan’s point was clear. Give them all the Intel or no deal.

McGill sighed, aware Dragon One was his last option. “Garcia came to us for protection, for himself and help for his country. He had evidence that Gutierrez was making secrets deals with the Chinese, and he kept the talks from his own cabinet and advisors. Why and the purpose behind the dialogues?” He shook his head and sat back in the stuffed chair. “We can speculate, but Garcia would not give up anything solid without agreement to help on his terms.”

A wise decision, Logan thought.

“Our man was to assume the role, infiltrate all aspects to find the documented sources.”

Logan eyed McGill suspiciously. “Did he?”

“Unfortunately, since the coup, and Gutierrez retaking power, his support is even stronger and he’s clamped down hard on communications in every aspect. He blames the U.S. for instigating the coup. No. We didn’t,” he added at their scowls. “We’ve tried everything just short of a bullhorn but can’t reach Ramos. He’s wise enough not to risk being found out to confirm or contact.”

All Logan heard was Ramos. Time stood still, a prickling racing through his blood. Old news, old anger, he thought.

“Paul Ramos?” Max asked, his expression darkening.

Now comes the tricky part, McGill thought.

Logan’s gaze lifted slowly and met the general’s. “You’re really up shit creek or you would never have come to me.”

“Commander Chambliss,” he said, the address calling to his sense of duty. “I know there’s bad blood between you two, but Ramos is an American.”

Logan went perfectly still. “Let him fucking rot.”

“We can’t. This is our security at stake. We did this to help them keep democracy. Garcia orchestrated it to protect himself. We put an American in the role. If we could have found a Venezuelan, we would have, but there wasn’t time. Corruption is rampant, and the attack came during the switch. Ramos was still recovering from his surgical wounds and it played right into Garcia being shot and critical.”

“The President is still in power. Gutierrez is a showman more than a statesman,” Riley said. “He likes the sound of his own voice, but his country’s economy and security are in a coma.”

“Which he’s ignoring to make these deals.”

“A snatch and grab on foreign soil at the home of a high ranking government official. He’s second in command. That’s a hairy deal,” Max said. “So the question still is, why ask us?”

“Leaks. Your team is off the grid, and outside the usual channels.”

Most of the time, Logan thought.

“The closer it gets to Washington, the more chance of leaks. I don’t want to use CIA resources. This man is as under the wire as it gets. If the press gets wind of it, America will be everyone’s target and we’ll never be trusted again.”

Logan spoke. “No. Too political.”

“Don’t you all have to agree?” McGill’s gaze swept the other three men sitting around the living room. Their expressionless faces told him where he stood. “Where’s Moore and Wyatt?”

“Unavailable.” McGill didn’t need to know details. Killian Moore was on loan to DEA in Colombia, using his alter ego of Dominic Cane to get into the cartel again. Sam Wyatt was probably on his ranch with Viva, or planning a wedding. Dragon One didn’t need a full roster on every retrieval.

“I’ve read the reports, you know.” McGill rose and faced Logan. He and Ramos had been SEALs at the same time, and while Logan left the Teams, Ramos was enlisted by the CIA.

“Mission debriefs don’t tell everything, sir, and I couldn’t care less if the man died, slow and agonizing.”

Max straightened next to Sebastian. Riley swung his legs off the sofa. Battle lines, McGill thought.

“His failure to obey orders got civilians killed under my command,” Logan said.

“You were cleared.”

Logan’s gaze jerked to McGill’s. “I was there.”

“Equal blame, isn’t that right, Commander?” McGill knew Logan shouldered the responsibility because Ramos didn’t. Ramos had a Top Gun attitude with deadly skills and while his career had been shady, it was McGill’s duty to tie this off and bring him home. “The man has since paid with his face in Afghanistan last year. When this opportunity came, he’d just begun his plastic surgery to repair the damage.”

“So a few implants and he volunteered to help? Or get the face of a powerful man and use it to his advantage?” Logan shook his head. “He cannot be trusted.”

“Regardless, we need to get close enough for face-to-face contact. We’ve seen what the press sees, just better angles. He doesn’t look like he’s recovering very well.”

“You want a medical assessment, too?” Max blasted. “I see the only choice for you,” he stressed, washing his hands of it, “is to get the body out. Assassinate him. Let them bury him like he’s their Vice President.”

McGill frowned at Max Renfield’s macabre vehemence. “When they dress him for the funeral, something the family does, they will know. His face might look like Garcia, but the rest of him doesn’t. We couldn’t alter fingerprints or dental records, Garcia didn’t have a single cavity.”

“Wow a Crest boy, who knew,” Max snarled. “Garcia is dead.”

“But no body,” McGill reminded him. “What if it turns up, no matter how decayed, when Ramos is in his place? It would be a disaster for Venezuela. The country is already polar without the rebels.”

Add the drug and arms dealers who were locked at the hip with some members of the government and it made the entire concept dicey, but Logan didn’t think that would matter.

“He sounds convincing,” Sebastian said. Logan had forgotten about him sitting in the corner reading a book. “The thought of helping that bastard for even one second frosts my ass.”

Logan kept his gaze on McGill. “You’re withholding something, General—what?”

McGill’s expression didn’t change a fraction as he looked at Logan. “You know what I know.”

Fine, I’ll play the game for now, Logan thought. “What’s your theory on why there’s been no contact?”

“It could be any number of things. Found out and held prisoner, joined the dark side.”

Logan stared him down. “Treason sounds right up his alley.” With the Vice President’s face, Ramos could do anything he wanted. So why wasn’t he contacting McGill?

McGill understood his misgivings. But Elizabeth Jacobs had to have pressed Ramos long before this happened and did so without authorization. McGill hadn’t been informed of that till his superiors dumped this in his lap. He really hated being CIA, and expected more to come back to bite him when he wasn’t looking.

“If he’s gone Commie, we have to remove him by force and that’s tricky.” Sebastian unfolded his long frame from the easy chair, leaning forward into the light. “We’d never know if he’s crossed until we got in there.”

“You’re considering it?” McGill had been prepared to return to Washington without success.

Logan went to the rear of the house, then pushed through the French doors. The Carolina heat smacked him like a wet towel, the sun sizzling on the stone floor as he stepped onto the covered porch.

With a precision that cut to his soul, he hated Paul Ramos. Missions go wrong, that’s a given. It wasn’t that Ramos had made a supreme mistake, but that he never owned up to his part, letting Logan take the heat. Ramos’s failure was nothing more than a show-off taking an unnecessary risk. The op was secure, they had the package. Logan stopped his memories cold, slamming a mental block over them. Hashing it over hadn’t changed the fact that lives were lost.

He felt the general move up beside him and knew that brutal honesty was in order.

“Ask me to kill him, I’ll do it. Don’t ask me to risk this much to save his life.”

“Logan,” McGill said softly. “I’ll watch your back, but no government in the world would believe we didn’t have anything to do with this beyond supplying a face on a body.”

The U.S., and mostly the government, would never survive this defamation, Logan thought, especially from its own people. He looked at the general. “You’re certain that’s all we did there, sir?”

Joe McGill looked into the eyes of a decorated SEAL veteran, a field surgeon and a man he admired, then he did as ordered.

He lied.

Tuvana-i-Tholo, Fiji

Orion was clear in the midnight sky as Bati warriors cast shadows across the white sand, tall bonfires undulating with the spins of the tribal dance. Tessa was enthralled and until the man at her side spoke, she was trapped in a different time.

“You know you’re getting me hot all over in that getup.”

Tessa didn’t bother to look down at herself. She revealed more flesh than she’d shown her last lover, but wearing the traditional costume, a brightly painted sulu skirt, tattered at the hem, endeared her to the natives who weren’t all that friendly to outsiders.

“It makes my job easier.” She adjusted the material looped around her neck and wrapping her breasts.

“You just like giving me a hard-on that could crack coconuts.”

She eyed him and thought, Oh, yeah, I’m ready to strip and jump his bones with that line. “Rein in the testosterone, will you?” Were all baby-faced photographers this horny? Or just the classless ones she got stuck with lately? “Don’t,” she said, putting out a hand when he started to lift his camera to focus. “You want to get us kicked off the island?”

Andrew frowned, lowering the Nikon, then noticed a few men looking his way. “Fine, love, but if I can’t take pictures, then how are we going to get a film crew in here?”

“I’m not certain. Their chief is still a little wary. People don’t visit this island except to take pictures and stare. Or for the surfing.”

“Offer yourself in marriage. Or sacrifice. I promise, I’ll get you out before they swing that hatchet.” He nodded to the man holding the long pole topped with a metal blade so sharp it gleamed in the dark.

“Oh, Andy,” she said in her best throaty whisper. “You say the sweetest things.”

He cringed. He hated being called that. But Andrew Chaison Coppethwaite was too snotty British. He was anything but. Cute, in decent shape, he had a dry sense of humor and a nice butt, but off limits. Too young and she never involved herself with a colleague. Not that she had many. As a National Geographic Society location scout, she worked alone. When someone in the headquarters got a keen idea to do a show or a series on some obscure tribe or ruins, Tessa got all the fun. She was the first to arrive and scouted out more than location. She arranged everything from authorization from the local governments to hiring local guides and translators for the actual filming. In between and during, she got to do what she loved: travel, explore, dive, rock climb, even live with a tribe that modern culture just skipped past.

A mocha latte and i-Pod free zone.

“Need I remind you, we’re on deadline.”

“No, you are. Nothing goes ahead till I give the all clear.”

Tessa understood his impatience. Andrew wanted to get back to his creature comforts—a running toilet, a shower and an occasional cigar. She couldn[‘t care less. Peeing outdoors, showering under a waterfall were just minor inconveniences compared with experiencing cultures that most people never knew existed and were still in the Dark Ages. It was tranquil. Crimes didn’t exist here, no extremists trying to blow themselves up. No murderers or twisted sociopaths. Probably because the chief was the ruler and his justice was swift and very deadly. Then again, the islanders were the descendants of cannibals. Misbehave, and heads would roll, she thought, smiling.

Cannibalism wasn’t a practice on the remote islands anymore—or so the Fijians told her—but then, most didn’t get this close. She didn’t take her gaze off the dance and the story told in wild gyrations. Acted out by several warriors, it dramatized the arrival of the Europeans and their subsequent deaths.

Bet they were tasty, too.

She loved her job. There wasn’t so much as a telephone line on this island, a little difficult when her job required communication. Even now, she felt the weight of her satellite phone on the back of her skirt pulling it down and probably giving Andrew a good show of her butt, yet it was all she could do to conceal it. She didn’t want to offend these people, but she wasn’t willing to give up that much of her modern life. Help, if she needed it, was on the other end. Though it was days away. Sorta like paddling with your hands; she’d get there, just not swiftly.

A woman approached her with a broad wooden cup made from a coconut shell. Tessa had been through the ritual before, and she clapped once, clasped her hands, then took the cup. She drank the yaqona in a single mouthful before returning the cup to the woman, then clapped three times. “Maca,” she said.

The woman smiled approvingly, then offered the same cup to Andrew.

“Do as I did or you’ll offend.”

He obeyed, yet as the beautiful dark-skinned woman took back the cup, she eyed him from head to toe, not unkindly, before walking away.

“She loves me.”

“Or she thinks you’ll make a good Steak Tartare.” Tessa patted his stomach and grinned at his horrified look.

A warrior gestured to her to join the dance with the women, and Tessa had seen enough to know the moves. She joined in, but not before handing her Sat phone to Andrew. “If my mom calls, ignore it.”

A man answering her phone would just bring too many questions and her mom was in her “fix Tessa up with so and so’s son” place again. People couldn’t understand that she was perfectly content to live out of a backpack, travel and explore. How many times did a person get to shake booty with the descendants of cannibals?

As she slipped into the dance, Andrew hooked the phone on his belt and watched Tessa sway as if she were born to it. She stood out, not because of her hair or body, but because she was the only one not wiggling her bare breasts for the crowd. Damn shame.

She was about the most exciting woman he’d ever met, beyond that she was athletically fearless and drank up her surroundings like a sponge. He’d seen her hang from a cliff a thousand feet above rocky ground and be comfortable enough in her skill to actually sleep, a couple of ropes and a few carabiners the only things keeping her from being squashed on the rocks. That took guts, which he freely admitted he didn’t have, but his job was catching it on film, enough that the producers could make a judgment call on location and content.

From the talk amongst the Society, she’d done the photography herself till it had taken negotiations to get her out of China last year. After the government ignored her NGS credentials and locked her in a women’s prison, NGS insisted she have a partner. She didn’t like it, and warned him the first day. “Keep up, clam up, take the pictures. I’m not helpless, nor a piece of ass. You’ll learn the other rules as we go.”

He preferred his women a little less intimidating, ones who thought of him as more than a camera flunky. The older-woman thing aside, he’d like to think a good shagging would change that, but the truth was, she was out of his league. Way out. There was something about her, a hawklike awareness of people and her surroundings that came with emotional baggage. As much as he had midnight fantasies about her, he wouldn’t cross the line.

Andrew stepped back from the glow of the fires and lifted his camera, putting her in a frame. She avoided being photographed, insisting people didn’t read the magazine or watch NGS shows to see a nobody in the wild. Yet as her arms lifted to the sky, willowy and tanned, he clicked off a few shots, then settled on the soft sand to watch Tessa Carlyle go native.

Aboard Dragon Six

Max dragged black duffel bags up the loading ramp and into the cargo jet. “We’re doing this so you can beat the living shit out of him, right?”

Logan didn’t glance up. “That’s about it, yes.”

“Just checking.” Max cleared his throat, then added, “You don’t think we should have a really stable moral ground to be standing on?”

“Not so much.”

“McGill was lying, gagged so tight he was purple.”

“He’s desperate.” Logan glanced back as he secured his medical gear inside the aircraft. “He’s got a finger in the dike. Going outside assures no one in Washington would have the chance to leak it. So, of course, there’s more to it.”

“That’s what scares me,” Max said. “How did the first team die?”

Sebastian slipped a file in the pocket behind a seat, knuckling it. “It’s in here. A two-man team. Videotape starts just as they move toward the VP’s summer residence. Government troops were waiting for them. Ambushed before they got a foot on the property.” The team straightened from their duties and looked at Sebastian. “They were betrayed.”

By one of their own and Logan would bet his money on Ramos. Ramos knew there would be a rescue attempt. It was SOP, standard operating procedure. There was always a backup plan.

“It’s in the file, all classified.” Sebastian stepped into the cockpit. “McGill wasn’t supposed to give us that.”

“It’s more bullshit,” Logan said. “The man’s holding out.” Politically, the U.S. couldn’t touch this, so it had to be worse than just getting Ramos out of the hot seat before a decayed body showed up. The jungle was a big place, ruins had been hidden for centuries, losing one body would be a snap. Ramos was there to do more and it went back to his intelligence and the source. The CIA.

“No outcry from Venezuela, or evidence of bodies, by the way.”

“That would be admitting we were there.”

The first team was CIA, highly trained with good Intel. Killed or captured, they were set up to fail.

Sebastian ran down his preflight checklist. “If they wanted, Gutierrez could have used the men for propaganda and paraded them before the media and pushed his socialist cause along.”

“Sure, but that would have made his business public.” Logan shook his head. “They’re covering their asses politically. Just like we are.” He jerked on a strap. “No blame on their hands.”

“But on the U.S. See how efficiently democracy works,” Max said, finishing tying down the chopper, its blades collapsed inside the massive cargo jet. “Ramos knows the score, how it all works. He got promoted to CIA for a reason. Now he has anything he needs, the man’s power and his wife. He’s having a blast. Why would he want out?”

Max didn’t expect a response and didn’t get one. On some levels, they were all in agreement. Ramos was a problem that definitely needed to be solved.

“I want to know how’s he keeping Mrs. Garcia happy.” Riley stretched out on one of a row of chairs, flipping up the arms to set ice packs on various body parts.

“Eloisa del Garcia is never far from her husband’s side and has a role in the government.” Sebastian flipped switches and checked off his list. “She’s an advocate of education, funding for restoration of ancient ruins. Programs for the Indians. Admirable, with lots of first lady potential.”

Logan frowned. “She knows. A woman doesn’t mistake her husband. Especially if they’ve had sex.”

“They have separate bedrooms.” After hooking his clipboard on the wall, Sebastian shook open the floor plan of Garcia’s residence, then flicked the lock anchoring a table to the wall. “Separate wings, as a matter of fact.”

“That never stopped me,” Riley said, smiling with some old memory.

Sebastian spread the map on the narrow table. “The summer residence is five acres, corners a river that flows to the Amazon. The street side is a park and it’s all heavily guarded.”

“Ramos hasn’t been seen in a couple of days, his condition reported as stable,” Max said. “He’s under wraps for a reason.” He leaned over the map, pulling aside digital views and studying them. Square with a large courtyard in the center, it was the hacienda of a king. “This doesn’t depict a man of the people, huh? I think Ramos was found out and Mrs. G is covering up for him.”

Or using him. “If his cover was blown, we wouldn’t see him at all, or they’d have taken the attack as an opportunity to just erase a problem. Max is right. Ramos is skilled and smart,” Logan said, stepping away from the table and turning back to the gear. He hated to admit that Ramos was probably the best choice. “I know him. He studied Garcia before he went in. A portion of his throat and the underside of his left arm were burned in an operation eleven years ago, but not that much.” He nodded to the man’s picture taped inside the jet. “That looks good.”

“I don’t get you, Logan, how can you do this, risk all this? To kill him?”

“That would be the easy part,” he said. Saving him wouldn’t. He had good reason to walk away. He owed Ramos and America nothing. But as he clipped a carabiner, then tested the strap’s strength, he thought he didn’t want it to be personal.

Coming from careers of following orders, Dragon One ran itself on the individual side of everything. Opinion mattered, emotion counted. They didn’t often take jobs to pay the bills but for a damn good reason. This time, it wasn’t all that clear.

Paul Ramos was a dangerous stain lingering over national security, and Logan’s life. Yeah, he thought. It was personal.

In the grass hut, Tessa felt the buzz of the satellite phone in her dreams. Go away, she thought. It had to be NGS headquarters. Interns never got the time difference right. Blindly, she reached for it and brought it close. She stirred enough to hit SEND.

“If this isn’t Vin Diesel in tight biker pants, I’m hanging up.”

“Tessa.”

Her muscles froze, a lock on her joints that kept her on her side on the mat. Her breathing slowly increased. Humid air skipped between the gaps of the hut. The dark sky shadowed her surroundings as she pushed up on her elbow.

“I know you can hear me.”

She recognized the voice, but the accent was all wrong. “I can,” she said, her mouth drying up with each breath. Maybe she was mistaken? “Who is this?” She pushed back her hair and held it off her face.

“You said, if I ever needed help…to call you.”

Oh please, no. She swallowed hard, fear gripping her throat. “I can’t, you know I can’t. Don’t ask me.”

The voice deepened an octave. “You owe me.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“If it comes to that,” he said. “But I don’t have to, do I?”

No. And he knew it. The shock of hearing his voice fading, she’d known this moment would invade her perfect world and blow the hell out of it.

“You’re a mean-ass son of a bitch,” she snarled with a hatred she didn’t recognize. “If I find you, I just might take you out of your own misery.”

“Now that’s the woman I remember.”

Tessa cringed, pushing the feelings away, far away. God, make this a dream.

Across the hut, Andrew rolled over, frowning sleepily. “Tessa? Everything okay?”

She covered the phone. “Yes, bad timing, sorry. Go back to sleep.”

She stood, shaking off the blanket before she left the shelter, stepping around snoring villagers and moving toward the shore. But he started talking fast, whispered, and that drove up her suspicions. She stopped to listen, detesting the sound of his voice and what it meant to her life.

Total ruin. Like worms after a storm, her ugly past crawled out from the darkness. Then the bastard set a deadline.