Читать книгу The Commander - Kay David - Страница 8

Destin, Florida

Two years later

LENA MCKINNEY stepped onto the red-carpeted aisle of the flower-filled church, the solemn strains of the “Wedding March” drifting above the crowded pews.

All the guests were watching her and she knew what they were thinking—little Lena McKinney was finally getting married…after all this time! Her tomboy years were behind her, and now she was a woman. From beneath her lacy veil she smiled with silent satisfaction, then all at once, the realization hit her.

Other than the veil, she wore nothing. She was completely naked.

A wave of humiliation swamped her as she dropped her bouquet and tried to cover herself. Her actions were pointless, though. Everyone had already seen. Everyone already knew.

With a startled exclamation, Lena woke up and pushed herself out of the tangled sheets of her bed. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand, her heart still pounding from the dream—5:00 a.m. What in the hell was she doing? She had to get up in another hour, and now she’d never go back to sleep. She never did after the dream.

She collapsed against her pillows, muttering a curse then immediately chastising herself. Her poor mother was probably turning over in her grave. That’s what came from eating, breathing and drinking your work, Lena thought guiltily. She was starting to sound like the testosterone-charged cops she worked with 24/7.

No excuse, her mother’s ghost said with a hopeless sigh. You’re supposed to be a lady, try acting like one for a change.

Lena stared at the stained ceiling above her bed. At least her mother hadn’t been alive to see the Disaster, which was how Lena always thought of the aborted wedding.

The beautiful sanctuary, the silken gown, the wonderful music…every detail coordinated down to her bouquet of white freesias and apricot roses. They’d waited for as long as they could, her father holding her hand in the tiny room off the narthex, then they’d sent out Bering, the eldest of her four brothers. He’d explained as much as possible, and the guests had gone home. Lena had been worried, then incredulous, both emotions finally exploding into a bitter anger the next day when Andres had shown up and given her his lame excuses.

Get a grip, she told herself furiously. It was past history. Dead and gone. Andres had moved on and so had she. Stationed in Miami, he was climbing the ladder at the Justice Department, going up so fast he was nothing but a blur. She hadn’t been standing still, either. In charge of the Emerald Coast SWAT team, Lena held a position of authority and power, too. Two cells of topflight officers worked under her command.

Moaning with disgust over the dream and at herself for having it, Lena sat up and put her feet on the floor. A front had blown in last night and the stained concrete was cold and hard, the icy feeling instantly traveling up her legs. The scene outside the uncovered windows added to the chill, a gray and stormy Floridian sea churning on the beach only a hundred yards away. Above the waves, the October sky looked just as forbidding. Dark, heavy clouds hovered over the horizon, their swirling depths promising rain later.

One of the panes of glass rattled loudly, and propelled by the sound, Lena turned to go to the kitchen. The pipes sang, the shingles leaked, and half the time the heater refused to work. She didn’t care. She had memories of her mother here, and of good summers, laughing and chasing her brothers over the dunes. Her father had tried to buy her a condo last summer in the new high-rise going up off Inlet Beach. The units were “only” three hundred thousand, he’d said. A bargain at preconstruction rates. She’d turned him down, and he’d gotten angry, not understanding.

In the kitchen, she flipped on the television set, reaching for the door of the refrigerator at the same time. Bleary-eyed, she grabbed the last diet cola and a boiled egg left over from a few days before. The breakfast of champions. Her planned stop at the grocery store yesterday had been put on hold, as a lot of her plans were, when the team had gotten a late-afternoon call-out. The situation had dragged on forever, and they hadn’t cleaned up the mess until after two that morning. But that’s what SWAT team work was like. You stayed until the end, no matter how long it took to come.

No one had been hurt, though. That was always her goal: everyone gets out alive.

She popped open the cold drink, then took a long swallow before beginning to peel the egg, dropping the bits of shell into the sink. “Everyone gets out alive,” she repeated out loud. “Hostages, victims…even jilted brides.”

The ringing phone startled her and Lena fumbled with the egg. She caught it right before it slid into the disposal, then grabbed the receiver. “McKinney here.”

Sarah Greenberg’s soft voice sounded, and Lena relaxed the muscles she’d tightened automatically on hearing the phone. Sarah was the SWAT team’s information officer, and her calls didn’t usually signify an emergency. “Sarah! You’re calling awfully early. What’s up? Everything okay?”

“We’re fine,” the young woman answered.

Lena sipped her cola. “Did Beck tell you about last night?” A former negotiator, Beck Winters had left the SWAT team a while back but Lena had promised him a desk job and he’d returned.

Before Sarah could answer, Lena launched into an explanation. “Panama City Beach had a warrant they were trying to serve. It went downhill fast, but—” She realized suddenly that Sarah had gone silent. Usually the young cop had plenty to contribute but for some reason, she hadn’t said a word. Lena frowned. “Sarah?”

A pause—this one lasting long enough to make Lena really nervous—then Sarah spoke. “We got a fax this morning ordering a special dignitary detail for next week. I thought you might want to know about it right away so you could…um…prepare for it.”

“I’ll be in the office in an hour,” Lena said slowly. “It couldn’t wait until then?”

“I thought you might want to know about this one before you got here…so you wouldn’t be surprised.”

Lena waited a minute, but Sarah said nothing more and finally Lena spoke again, this time somewhat impatiently. “Well, are you going to tell me or do I have to guess?”

“It’s for the guy from Justice in Miami.” Sarah sounded almost shaky. “You know, the one they’re sending to open the new office? There’ve been death threats called in. They think an attempt might be made on his life.”

She should have known, Lena told herself later. She should have seen it coming. But it was only after Sarah said “Miami” that Lena’s mind kicked into gear. “No…oh, no…Shit…”

“I’m sorry, Lena. But it’s Andres Casimiro. He’s coming to Destin and he needs protection.”

“IS THIS THE FULL REPORT?” Andres raised his gaze to Carmen San Vicente, his assistant. They were in the director’s private jet, fifteen thousand feet above the Florida Panhandle. Andres hadn’t taken the time to look out the window and see the turquoise waters beneath him, but he’d buzzed the captain a moment before and asked for the ETA. The man had said ten minutes and Andres had felt his gut respond accordingly. Now he was glaring at Carmen and she had no idea she wasn’t responsible for his expression. He was thinking of the same thing he’d been thinking of for the past week—every day, every hour, every minute—since he’d known he was coming back to Destin.

Lena.

Carmen answered, but Andres’s mind had already gone elsewhere. He hadn’t spoken to Lena since the night he’d returned to Destin following Mateo’s death. The meeting had been disastrous, of course. He’d told her what he could—that a special mission had come up, that he’d had no choice but to miss their wedding.

She’d stared him in the eye and said just what he’d expected, her voice calm and controlled. “I’m a cop, Andres. I would have understood if you’d told me.”

With his heart cracking in two, he’d met her accusing stare. It had held equal shares of pain and anger, and he’d felt both just as deeply. “I couldn’t tell you, Lena. Not this time.”

She’d looked as if she wanted to believe him, but a moment later she’d closed her expression. “Then we have nothing more to discuss.” Pulling off the diamond he’d given her, she’d handed him the ring and turned away. “Please leave.”

He’d done what she asked because he hadn’t had another choice. And he still didn’t. To begin with, she would never believe him, and if she did accept his suspicions—by some miracle—it would almost be worse. The news would completely destroy her.

Lena’s father had arranged Mateo Aznar’s death. He’d wanted to kill Andres, as well.

Andres had had his suspicions before the wedding, but for Lena’s sake, he’d kept them to himself. He’d waited and watched, collected the tiny scraps of evidence he could, the main one being a local drug dealer named Pablo Escada, who had kept Phillip McKinney’s law office on retainer. The Panamanian immigrant was in the Union Correctional Institution for the moment, but he hadn’t shut down his business. Andres couldn’t prove the connection but he knew—he knew—Escada was hooked up with the Red Tide. He had to be. The organization funneled all the drugs that came through the area.

And Phillip was connected to Escada.

For months after the murder, Andres had devoted every minute of his time trying to document Phillip’s involvement, but he’d ended up with nothing. He’d been unable to find a shred of data, an iota of validation, to link the wily old attorney with the terrorists.

After a while, Andres had to let it go and accept what appeared to be the truth: things had gone terribly wrong that night and the Red Tide had acted on their own. Mateo had been wrong about the money coming from Phillip’s office.

“I brought everything that was in the folder.” Carmen’s voice held an anxious flutter. “Are you missing something?”

Andres finally heard her apologetic tone. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bark at you. I’m a little preoccupied—”

“It’s okay,” she answered in an accommodating way. “I understand. Really, I do. It’s impossible to get anything done when you have to travel all the time.” She reached up and tucked a strand of dark hair behind one ear then her eyes warmed hopefully as Andres’s gaze met hers. “Would you like to work this evening? I could come to your hotel room after dinner tonight and we could finish this then.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “We’ll cover the final details right before the meeting in the morning. It’s not necessary to take you away from your kids and make you work overtime, too.”

Andres watched her hide her disappointment by turning away to fuss with some files in her hands. With her shining hair and olive skin, she had the kind of beauty for which Miami’s women were famous. Years before, she’d befriended his aunt Isabel, and the older woman, more of a mother to him than his own had been, had convinced him to hire Carmen when she’d needed a job. She was smart and ambitious, a single mom with two children she was putting through private school.

She’d finally gotten him into bed the month before.

He’d known the minute it started, he was making a big mistake. He’d tried to tell her, to back away and bow out gracefully, but she’d put her fingers across his mouth and stopped him from saying more. When her lips had left his and gone lower, he’d said nothing else, allowing her hot eyes and slow touch to comfort him. But he should never have given in. It’d been unfair to her.

Carmen started toward the front of the plane, then stopped at the bulkhead and turned, as though just remembering something. “Did you get your vest?”

He stared at her blankly. “My vest?”

“The director left a bulletproof vest for you to wear when you get off the plane. He told me he’d have my head if you weren’t wearing it when you arrived.”

Andres dismissed her words with a wave of his hand. It was a very Latin gesture; as a child, he’d seen his Cuban father make the same one a thousand times.

“I promised him,” she said.

“You shouldn’t have. They’re hot and heavy and totally useless. I never wore one when I was a cop and I’m not going to start now.” He went back to the files spread before him.

“And did the Red Tide have money on your head while you were a cop?”

“Drop it, Carmen. I don’t have the time or the patience.”

Ignoring him, she came back down the aisle and rested on the arm of the seat opposite his. “Por favor, Andres, those guys are terrorists. They’re bad—”

“They’re leftover Communists and rejects from the islands who sell drugs. Don’t be confused about this, Carmen.” He narrowed his gaze. “They’re criminals and nothing more. If I let scum like that scare me, then I don’t deserve to be in this job.”

“They’ve threatened to kill you.”

“So what? They’ve done the same before and nothing has happened. We’ve ordered security at the airport. Let the Emerald Coast SWAT team handle this.”

He turned his eyes out the window of the plane. Destin was almost in view. What would Lena say to him? How would she react after all this time?

Carmen started to argue more, but the captain’s voice came over the intercom. “Two minutes to landing, folks. Everyone buckle up.”

“I’ll get the vest for you right now.” She tried one last time. “You can slip it on before we land—”

“No.” He slammed his files shut and pulled on his seat belt. “No one’s going to be shooting at anybody. Not the Red Tide. Not anybody. Not today.”

Carmen shook her head then sat down abruptly in the seat in front of him, the sound of her own seat belt an angry click as she buckled herself in.

But Andres hardly noticed. Once again, he wasn’t thinking about his assistant or the Red Tide or even the man he’d suspected all those years ago of backing them. His thoughts were centered on the only thing he really cared about in Destin.

Lena McKinney.

The woman he’d never stopped loving.

LENA STOOD beneath the overhang of Terminal A, her eyes scanning the buildings around her as the breeze tugged at her hair and pulled on her jacket. The sky was so blue, it almost glowed. Strong winds straight from the Gulf had blown away last week’s storm clouds and now it was clear, the sunshine warming the temperature to a balmy seventy degrees, the quick change typical for Destin’s weather. A salty tang hung over the blackened tarmac, as well. The airport was blocks from the beach, but the sea was always close in Destin. Even if it wasn’t in sight, you could either hear it or smell it.

Her earphone crackled suddenly and Lena put her fingers against the small black piece of plastic all the team members wore in order to communicate with each other. The words sounded faintly in her ear. Andres’s plane would be landing within minutes.

She lifted her gaze to the cloudless expanse. The aircraft was not yet in sight, but she could feel its nearness deep inside her. Ever since Sarah had given her the news, Lena had hovered between craziness and calm acceptance. One minute she’d tell herself she could handle Andres’s appearance. He no longer meant anything to her, anything at all. The next minute lunacy would take over and she’d start to recall everything about him—his black eyes, his heavy-lidded looks, the Latin sighs.

Standing on the asphalt, she told herself there was only one way this meeting would go. He’d arrive, she’d say a cool hello, then she’d concentrate on her job and nothing else. Keeping him safe was all she had to worry about and nothing could interfere with that goal.

Everyone gets out alive.

To maintain her calmness, she focused on her preparations. The airport was tiny and that made things simple. Their primary concern would be the deplaning. Passengers didn’t always go through jetways here; sometimes after the aircraft landed, they walked down exterior stairways. He’d be the most vulnerable right then. That was why she would go out and meet him personally. Her chest went tight at the thought, but she took a deep breath and concentrated on the details.

She’d put Ryan Lukas, their main sniper, on the center roof and his counterpart from the other team, Chase Mitchell, on the rear building. Peter Douglas and John Fletcher, the two rear entry men from Team Beta were manning security at the entrances inside and out. Cal Hamilton and Jason Field, the rear guys from Alpha were providing undercover surveillance inside the waiting lounges. She’d ordered dogs and handlers into the parking garage as a final extra precaution. The remaining team members she’d scattered about the airport, leaving only a skeleton crew in town under the control of her second in command, Bradley Thompson. Maybe she’d gone overboard, but she didn’t want to examine that thought too closely, so she told herself if nothing else, it was good training for the day when someone really important might show up.

The low, thrumming sound of a jet interrupted the expectant silence. When Lena spotted its blue-and-white logo, she reached up and adjusted her headset to bring the microphone closer to her mouth. “Head’s up, everyone. Package approaching.”

Her voice was level and constant. It’s just another job, she told herself. Another situation, another call-out, nothing more. Andres was coming to meet with the head of the new D.E.A. branch office that was opening in Destin. According to Sarah, he’d be in and out in one day. She’d see him for a total of ten minutes, coming and going, and that was it.

Everyone gets out alive.

The plane came into view and a few seconds later, the wheels touched down, their screaming protest louder than Lena was accustomed to from inside the terminal. In a matter of minutes, the jet reached the end of the blackened asphalt, then turned slowly and began to taxi toward her. Lena’s gaze went over the area one more time, checking and rechecking. Everyone on the field had gone through security, but a sudden edginess brushed against her. She didn’t believe in omens but all at once her instincts were screaming too loud to ignore. She concentrated a moment more, then her gaze homed in on the porthole in the aft section of the arriving plane, pinpointing the source of her discomfort. Her unease was coming from inside the aircraft, not out.

A face stared at her through the thick glass of the window. She caught only an impression—dark hair and a black suit—but it was enough. She knew it was Andres. The engines whined loudly and the plane ended up alongside the waiting stairway. A moment later, the noise from the turbines died, leaving only silence.

Lena walked into the bright sunshine and headed for the stairs.