Читать книгу Hunter's Woman - Lindsay McKenna - Страница 8

“Sit down, Ty, I’ve got some very bad news for you.” Morgan Trayhern scowled and placed his hand on the back of his chair, his fingers tightening perceptibly on the dark brown leather. He had asked Ty to join him here in the war room, hidden deep below an innocuous-looking turn-of-the-century Victorian on the outskirts of Philipsburg, Montana. Morgan saw the wary look the tall, tightly muscled ex-marine officer gave him as he quickly closed the door to the inner office where all planning took place for Perseus missions.

“That bad?” One corner of Ty’s mouth lifted derisively, in more of a pained expression than a smile. He noted that Morgan looked very tired; there were shadows beneath the older man’s eyes, and his mouth was tightly set against the emotions he was clearly holding back. Although Morgan was dressed casually in a pair of jeans, cowboy boots and a long-sleeved white shirt, nothing could hide his military background. Ty was glad he’d been in the Marine Corps, too. It was something they shared, something good and solid, something that could be counted on. Ty knew that if anyone could be trusted, it was Morgan.

Morgan pursed his lips as Ty took the rustic pine chair in front of his desk. The leather seat cushion creaked as he sat down.

“Two words I hoped I’d never have to utter,” Morgan admitted with a sigh as he walked around his own chair and sat. Resting his arms on top of the highly polished red cedar desk, he ran his fingers through his short black hair, now peppered with white strands.

Ty frowned. “Which two words? I can think of a lot of bad things that start with two words.” When Ty saw the various top-secret faxes, e-mails and courier service information scattered atop the desk, he realized why Morgan looked so tired. He obviously hadn’t been doing much sleeping. As haggard as Morgan appeared, Ty saw a glint in his eyes. He recognized that look. It was the look of a predator on the trail of his quarry. At heart, Morgan was the ultimate hunter-warrior, and a planner and catalyst to boot. It was one of many reasons Ty was glad he’d left the Marine Corps and come to work for Perseus, the covert government agency Morgan ran. Maybe, as Ty’s younger brother, Reid, once said, all the men at Perseus were throwbacks to the era of cavemen, true hunter-warriors who knew instinctively how to track, hunt and kill their quarry.

In the case of Perseus, the quarry was always a dangerous criminal element somewhere in the world. Heaven knew, there were plenty of evil men who wanted to bring harm to people, communities, or even countries. It didn’t bother Ty that he was a hunter-warrior. He lived for it, thrived on the danger, just like his three brothers, who also worked for Perseus, did.

“Black Dawn?” Ty wondered aloud as he watched Morgan sort haphazardly through the missives on his desk.

“You’re damned close. How about biological attack?”

Ty’s straight, dark brown brows dipped instantly and his hands came to rest on the arms of the pine chair, his fingers automatically curling around the warm wood. “What?” The word came out as a harsh whisper tinged with disbelief.

“You heard right,” Morgan muttered, pulling out a couple of papers and thrusting them across the desk in Ty’s direction. “We think that Black Dawn has chosen what they consider a ‘safe’ target to test out their goods before they assault a much larger city. Take a look at this. It’s from the Brazilian government.”

Ty rapidly scanned the report Morgan handed him. It was in Portuguese, the official language of Brazil. Luckily, he was proficient in it. “This is a handwritten report from a backwoodsman by the name of Rafe Antonio, who works for that government,” he said as he slowly tried to make sense of the scrawl. “He’s saying that people in one of the villages he has responsibility for, of the Juma tribe, have suddenly come down with a mysterious illness. It’s killing them off within forty-eight to seventy-two hours of infection. He’s asking for…” Ty looked up at Morgan “…your help? Not the Brazilian government’s? What’s this all about?”

Morgan grunted and sat back in his chair, which creaked in protest. “We’ve got moles all over the world, wherever we suspect things can go very badly wrong in a very short time. Brazil is one of them. Their government is trying its best, but they’ve got their problems, too,” he continued wearily. “Unbeknownst to the Brazilians, Rafe is our operative and mole. He also works for the CIA. From time to time, if he ferrets out anything interesting, he passes it on to Perseus. His report came in yesterday.” Rubbing his face tiredly, Morgan rasped, “I suspect Black Dawn used an airplane, flew over that village, dropped a load of some deadly biological material and is monitoring to see if it worked and how well.”

“Rafe suspects Black Dawn?” Ty asked, rapidly perusing the rest of the report.

“No, I do. All Rafe knows is that the natives of one of the villages he’s taken care of for years are suddenly dropping dead like flies. He’s been in the Manaus region for ten years. He knows the area and its inhabitants better than anyone. Actually, he’s been keeping tabs for the CIA on the cocaine plantations that are springing up all over the Amazon basin. The CIA then informs the Brazilian government, which does nothing about them because they just don’t have the logistical support and trained manpower to go after them.”

“So, Antonio functions as your eyes and ears out there on the rapidly growing drug trade?”

“Among other things, yes. Because Rafe works for the city of Manaus in that state of Brazil, he’s in a very valuable position. He’s alarmed that the Juma are dying like this. That second report came in hours ago from him. Right now he’s heading down the Amazon River from Manaus with a load of antibiotics he got from a local hospital, to try and save some lives. You can see where he mentions that the chief of the village told him a plane flew very low and slowly over the village and ‘spit upon them.’ That was the old chief’s word, spit. I think it was an aerosol spray that was released.”

Ty’s brow wrinkled as he sat there and read through the second, even more hastily written report. Rafe Antonio’s writing left a lot to be desired, but Ty could pick out the salient points of the document. Looking up when he finished, he asked, “What else have you put into motion on this?”

Smiling a little, Morgan said, “I called OID—the Office of Infectious Diseases—immediately because of what we suspect. I know you know Dr. Casey Morron, the medical doctor who is number two in charge of the Hot Zone and other outbreaks around the world. She has sent her best field epidemic specialist down to Manaus.” Morgan looked at his watch. “Chances are they are getting ready to land there by now. A tug is to take them downriver to the Juma village. The OID team is being headed up by Dr. Catt Alborak. She’s got three other people working with her. They know how to handle a field assignment like this during an outbreak.”

“But do they know it could be a biological attack?” Ty asked in concern.

“I haven’t told them yet,” Morgan said, “I want to keep this under wraps until we’re sure our target is Black Dawn.”

“And the Brazilian government? Are they in on this?”

“Not yet. We need to get the OID team in place, make a diagnosis, send blood and tissue samples back to OID headquarters in Atlanta, so that we know what the hell is happening first.”

“Is there some chance this is really an epidemic outbreak and not the work of Black Dawn?”

Morgan shrugged and gazed at the map of Brazil behind him on the wall. “It’s possible, but after that strategic feint they employed against us earlier, which made us think they were going after the Ebola virus in the Congo, I think this is real.”

“Gut hunch?” Ty knew how much Morgan operated off that primal survival sense deep within him. Hell, Ty did, too. It had saved his worthless life many times over.

“Yes.”

“Where do you want me to play in this sandbox?” Ty grinned a little as Morgan rallied from his teasing.

“I want you to join the OID team just as soon as humanly possible. I’ve got the Perseus jet waiting at the Philipsburg airport right now for you. They’re fueling her as we speak. You’ve got the kind of background necessary for this. Your primary mission is to protect Dr. Alborak. She’s our point person in the field. We are going to be relying heavily on her diagnosis, what she sees and observes. We need to keep her alive and out of danger while she does the necessary testing in order to get this info back to OID headquarters for verification one way or another.”

“In other words, I’m her glorified bird dog?”

“Yes. She’s not to suspect who you work for. For legitimate cover, OID, through Casey, is sending you down as her special assistant. Your background includes field work and you know how to draw blood, take samples and so on. No one is to know what you’re really looking for. I don’t want to alarm anyone in the village, nor do I want anything getting out that we’ve got a Perseus operative down there. That would tip off the Black Dawn. It could spring them into action before they’re ready—or we’re ready—and I don’t want to risk that.”

“You really do think Black Dawn is working up to an aerosol attack on a major city, don’t you?”

Morgan closed his eyes and kneaded the bridge of his nose gently with his thumb and index finger. “Yes,” he whispered finally.

The heaviness in the room permeated Ty’s being. Some of the initial excitement he’d felt dissolved. The anguish in Morgan’s voice told him of the terror the man was feeling over the possibility. “We all know that a terrorist attack with a biological weapon is going to happen eventually, Morgan,” Ty said finally. “Anyone in the military or CIA knows that. This isn’t anything new.”

“No,” Morgan admitted as he allowed his hand to drop from his face. He opened his eyes and studied Ty. “But my gut tells me Black Dawn is going to attack the U.S.A. We’re going to be their prime target sooner or later.”

“It makes sense.”

“Exactly.” He sighed. “It’s just a matter of time and what city. That’s what we’ve got to find out. Somehow, we’ve got to get ahead of them on this curve. They sucker punched us once with their Congo bluff, and we fell for it.”

Ty sat quietly. He could see the tumultuous feelings reflected in Morgan’s face, the pain in his eyes. “Depending upon what they use, hundreds or maybe thousands of people could die,” he said at last.

“Yes,” Morgan replied, “and that’s why it’s so important to get down to Brazil and find out what was used. Knowing at least that much will be a help.” He tapped his fingers on the cedar desk. “Not much, but a help….”

Ty rose. “You got the mission brief prepared for me? I’ll get out to the airport pronto.”

Morgan nodded. “What there is of it. My secretary had a helluva time collecting stuff last minute. She managed to scare up photos of two of the four OID team members. Unfortunately, Dr. Alborak’s isn’t in there, but you’ll know her. She’s the only one with red hair on the outbreak team.”

Ty brightened momentarily as he took the file from Morgan. “Redhead, eh?”

“Yeah. You like redheads?”

“My favorite,” Ty said with a chuckle.

“Well, don’t be too happy about this particular redhead,” Morgan warned him, one eyebrow moving upward as he looked in his direction. “Around OID, Dr. Alborak is known as a Texas hellion. She doesn’t put up with fools, from what I understand from Casey. This woman is a one-woman army. She shoots from the hip. She’s got no diplomacy. She’s all action and demands results. You get in her way and don’t operate at the speed of light like she does, she’ll chew you up and spit you out before you can say boo.”

“Sounds like a military-officer type.”

Morgan said, “She’s not, but she could be. Casey thinks highly of her. She said if things get bad, Dr. Alborak is the person you want at your back to protect you.”

Grinning slightly, Ty said, “Sounds like a woman right down my alley. I like Type A go-getters.”

Snorting, Morgan rubbed his watering eyes. “Today OID had a major computer crash involving their personnel department. I have nothing to give you on Dr. Alborak presently, just what Casey told me. By the time they get the software problem fixed, you’ll be down in Manaus and on her trail.”

“That’s okay,” Ty said, “I’m sure with this kind of description, I won’t have a problem knowing who she is or how she operates.”

“Casey said to warn you that Dr. Alborak is intense, focused, stubborn and bullheaded. She’s also got one hell of a temper if you cross her.”

“Must be that Texas breeding?” Ty chuckled.

Morgan lightened momentarily. “Maybe. But in this arena, we need someone with Dr. Alborak’s gutsiness. Casey said she can shoot and spit with the best of ’em. I guess that’s a Texas euphemism?”

Ty headed toward the door. “I don’t know. I’m from Colorado, remember? But Texans do have a helluva reputation.”

Morgan raised his brows. “Just don’t tangle with this hellion, all right? Work with her, not against her. I just hope she can take well-meaning direction from you.”

“My taste in women has always run to the independent types,” Ty assured him smoothly. “I’ll find a bridgehead with Dr. Alborak and make it work. Too much is at stake not to.”

Morgan raised his hand. “Rafe is expecting you. He’s the only one who knows who you really are. He’ll do all he can to assist you. Just ask. Trust him and rely on what he knows. After ten years, he knows that area like the back of his hand. Literally.”

“Yes, sir.” Ty opened the door. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Come home in one piece,” Morgan growled in warning. “Or else…”

Nodding, Ty quietly closed the door behind him. As he moved through the darkened passage to concrete stairs that led up to the first floor of the house, his heartbeat quickened. He reveled in the opportunity to be on a mission where so much was at stake. He had no idea what he was going to step into. If Black Dawn had delivered a deadly biological disease via aerosol spraying, that meant he and everyone on the OID team were also in jeopardy until they could verify what it was.

As he reached the top of the stairs, opened the door and stepped into a carpeted room at the rear of the house, Ty wondered what Texas hellion Catt Alborak was like. A brief smile lingered at the corners of his mouth. She might be the best part of this mission. Was she married? He resisted the temptation to open her file. Once he was on board the Perseus jet, he’d sift through all the information, commit it to memory and then try to get some sleep during the long journey south to Brazil.

Stepping out on the ornately carved front porch and automatically eyeing the thick cape of snow on the shoulders of the Rocky Mountains rising above the tiny hamlet of Philipsburg, Ty smiled. He was between relationships. Dr. Alborak sounded alluring. He liked a woman who knew her own mind, who had a definite sense of herself, who she was and where she was going in life. And if she was a little spicy and hotheaded, well, all the better. Ty liked women who challenged him. And he never ran from a fight. He stepped off the porch into the glare of bright sunlight. Putting on a pair of sunglasses, he hurried to a dark blue car parked out front.

As he settled in the back seat, the driver took off for the airport. Frowning, Ty amended his earlier musings. He had run from one relationship, he remembered now. A twinge in his heart made him unconsciously rub his chest. But that was a long time ago. He was thirty-one now and that relationship had happened ten years before. Long gone, but somehow, never forgotten. With a sigh, Ty opened up the file, his curiosity getting the better of him. The facts collected there were meager, but one of them piqued his interest. Dr. Alborak had attended Stanford University. So had the woman he’d loved so many years ago. Ty considered that a sign of good luck, if nothing else. He smiled to himself. Soon he’d be on Brazilian soil again. And he’d be facing this infamous Texas hellion in the flesh….

“Where the hell is that tugboat!?” Catt Alborak paced up and down the old, weathered wooden dock that jutted fifty feet out into the muddy headwaters of the Amazon. To her right was the distant skyline of Manaus. To her left was jungle. She saw her assistant, Maria Sanchez, pick up the cellular phone. Standing for a moment, her fists jammed on her hips, Catt glared up and down the river. There were a number of docks scattered along the bank, and plenty of tugs and tugboat captains. But where was their tug? Arrangements had been made before they arrived. A tug was to meet them at dock six and take them downriver for five hours, to the affected Juma village, where people were dying from some unknown bacterial or viral epidemic. Damn! People were suffering, and she and her team were standing here like they didn’t have a better thing in the world to do. Frustration ate viciously at Catt. She was never in good humor when things went wrong. She didn’t get paid to sit back, smile and be passive. No, responsibility for the lives of her team and those they were racing to help rested squarely on her shoulders.

Nostrils flaring, Catt started pacing again. Taking off her sunglasses, she stared out across the massive, slow-moving expanse of the Amazon. Two major rivers combined at Manaus, the largest city in northern Brazil. Once, there had been a very rich rubber trade here, which had made this city experience an economic boom for the first half the century. As the need for natural rubber died, so had the industry. Since then, Manaus had remade itself into a very profitable white-collar city, and with its high-tech computer companies, it was a leader in communications in South America.

“I could scream,” Catt muttered as she moved back to her team waiting on the bank. All around them were portable trunks filled with dry ice and antibiotics, boxes of lab equipment and laptop computers. The software contained information on every possible epidemic. The database would help them as they collected information about symptoms that would, she hoped, help them identify the killer of the Juma people. All would be needed to fight this epidemic. If they got to the Juma village at all!

“We’ve got to get a tug,” she said firmly to Maria, who had just gotten off the cell phone.

“You aren’t going to like this, Catt. The man who was hired to take us said he won’t do it. He doesn’t care how much money is involved. Word’s gotten out that half the people in the Juma village have died in the last two days. He’s scared,” Maria said unhappily, “and he said he loves his wife and kids too much to take us out there.”

“He’s afraid he’ll get infected and die,” Andy Foltz said. “Understandable, but that puts us in a hell of a fix.”

Catt’s patience was rapidly thinning. She ran her fingers through her short red hair in an aggravated motion. Her eyes burned with anger. “Maria, you call the city of Manaus. Get the mayor on the line. I’ll talk to him. I’m not going to beat around the bush. We’ll go to the top and take ’em apart one at a time if that’s what we have to do in order to get down there to help those people.”

Maria nodded sympathetically and rapidly punched in some numbers. She was of Hispanic blood and knew Spanish, which was a close cousin of Portuguese. Catt knew some Spanish because her father’s spread near Del Rio, Texas, was right across the border from Mexico. Still, Maria’s command of the language was stronger, and whether Catt liked it or not, Maria was her intercessor at the moment. Unfortunately, Maria wasn’t pushy like her, and Catt knew in order to get Manaus officials to help them, push was going to come to shove.

None of the team spoke Brazil’s first language, and they were at a decided disadvantage because of it. Now, Catt wished fervently that OID had either sent along an interpreter or brought in someone with field experience who spoke the language. It was too late now.

Catt saw a cab moving rapidly toward them, much like the one that had dropped off them and their medical supplies. This dock was out in the middle of nowhere. They’d been waiting for this tug for over an hour. A precious hour during which they could have been heading down the Amazon toward those suffering people.

Andy Foltz and Steve Tucker sat on large olive-green metal lockers, looking glum. They were just as frustrated as she was at not being able to get to those dying people. Aggravated to the point of blowing her infamous temper, Catt moved quickly back onto the dock. Immune to the beauty surrounding her, she jammed her hands into the pockets of her beige slacks as she walked quickly, her head down and filled with the turmoil of how to get out of this jam. Hearing the squealing of brakes, she stopped, turned and looked to where the asphalt ended, about a tenth of a mile from where she stood. The cab was delivering a passenger to their dock. Who? The tugboat captain? An official envoy from Manaus to help them? The man who emerged from the cab was tall and well muscled. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt, jeans and work boots, from what she could tell at this distance.

He looked vaguely familiar, Catt thought, then shrugged off the notion. Worried for the dying people downriver, she turned her attention back to them and their ongoing plight. She shouldn’t just be standing here! She and her team should be on their way downstream right now. She snarled unhappily under her breath, spun around and headed back toward her team again. Maybe this man really was an official come to help them, someone who could get them out of this miserable mess. Catt wasn’t sure, but he looked like he knew what he was doing just by his proud carriage and the confident way he walked toward them. Her heart skipped a beat. Who was he? She frowned and halted near her team, waiting impatiently for him.

The way he walked reminded Catt of a lithe animal—a jaguar, perhaps. The man had dark brown hair, cut short and close to his skull. He wore sunglasses, so she couldn’t see his eyes, which to her were the most important feature in a person’s face. Catt knew from experience that looking into someone’s eyes told her everything she needed to know. What was this man hiding? Suddenly the sun was masked behind veils of misty clouds that moved sluggishly above them. The heat was oppressive and she was perspiring profusely beneath her white cotton shirt. Still, she couldn’t help but notice the way his own shirt clung to his upper body, shouting of his athletic shape. His chest was well sprung, his arms lean and tightly muscled, the dark hair thick upon them.

It was his face, though, that drew her gaze—an oval face with a hard, uncompromising jaw. His mouth was pleasant to look at—full, with the corners tipped slightly upward, so she knew he smiled a lot. Maybe he was a joker, someone who liked to laugh. His brows were thick and straight. There wasn’t a handsome bone in this man’s face, Catt decided. Instead, it was a face carved by crisis; she could see the heavy, indented lines between his brows and the slashes at either side of his pursed lips. He hadn’t shaved for a while and the darkness of his beard gave him a dangerous look, warning her that he was someone to be wary of. Who was he? She didn’t like the way he strode confidently toward them, as if he knew them. But unless he was a tugboat captain or someone who could get them one, Catt didn’t have time for him—at all.

He carried a large canvas bag slung over his broad shoulder. Olive-green in color, it reminded Catt of the military. In fact, she realized now, he walked like he was in the military. Her mind spun with questions. Had he been sent down by OID? Or some other governmental agency? Observing the deep tan of his skin, Catt wondered if he was an official from Manaus come to help them. Warning bells went off within her. She was no stranger to CIA or military types, because she frequently rubbed elbows with them out in the field, especially during outbreaks in foreign countries. They were instrumental and necessary—even if they were often arrogant about the crucial role they played in helping Catt get medical attention to those who suffered.

This man most definitely had an air of danger around him. She could sense it. And why, oh why, did he look so familiar to her? Catt found her attention torn between getting them downstream to the people who needed her and searching her memory in regard to this stranger.

The rest of her group stood up in anticipation as the stranger approached. Catt lifted her chin at an imperious angle and allowed all her internal radar systems, which she relied on so heavily, to focus directly on him. Her heart sped up. The shape of his face, that arrogant, confident walk…she couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew him. But from where? Where? She was almost ready to hurl the question at him, demand to know his name when he slowed down and took off his sunglasses. His icy-cold, cinnamon-colored eyes locking onto hers made Catt gasp.

Everyone in the team heard her strangled cry. They all turned in unison, bewilderment and surprise on their features.

Catt’s eyes widened. Her hands fell nervelessly from her hips. Her lips parted. And then her anger surged through her like a volcanic explosion, her voice cutting through the lazy, humid afternoon air.

“You bastard. I told you I never wanted to see you again!”