Jake growled, “I speak Spanish.”
Mike shrugged. “Then you aren’t going to be as bad a liability as I first thought. Just know that Spanish is a second language down in the valley, Captain. Quechua is first, and Lieutenant Cortina speaks it fluently because she is part Quechuan. Got it?”
“Yes, sir, I got it.”
Morgan tapped his fingers briskly on the table and studied Travers from beneath his dark eyebrows. “I hear the words of agreement from you, Captain, but I sure as hell hear something else in your voice that says you want to take over this mission and do what you think is best. Well, that’s not going to happen. Lieutenant Cortina is in charge of this mission. You got that?”
Jake’s mouth fell open. “That’s impossible, sir!”
“Sit down, Captain. There’s more,” Morgan snarled.
Jake sat down rigidly, breathing hard. A woman! And on top of it all, as his commander? Not a chance!
Jabbing his finger at the ranger, Morgan said, “Lieutenant Cortina runs this mission. If she tells you to jump, you ask how high. Got it?”
“I don’t feel, sir, that any woman can successfully undertake such a mission.”
Morgan gave him a frustrated glare. “Then you do not want our help, Captain Travers. Go find your sister on your own.”
Gulping unsteadily, Jake looked at Morgan’s set face, his glacial blue eyes burning holes through him. The man meant what he said and Jake knew it. Morgan Trayhern was not bluffing. Sitting there, Jake chewed over his options. He desperately needed someone who knew the Rainbow Valley region. He needed an interpreter. Smarting beneath their collective glares, Jake looked down at his hands, which were clenched in his lap beneath the table. Grief and worry over Tal warred with his belief that a woman could never do a man’s job, especially a job like this one. What were his options?
If he flew to Peru on his own, he’d have to hire a guide and interpreter. Could the guide be trusted? How could Jake know for sure he’d find someone who wasn’t a drug runner, working for the drug lord of the valley? The only thing Jake had going for him was his knowledge of Spanish. That and his skills as a ranger, which would definitely be an asset in this situation.
Still…Tal’s life was hanging in the balance. Could he let his personal beliefs and male pride keep him from coming to her rescue? She could die because he refused to work with a woman. A shudder ran through him. He compressed his lips and raised his head.
“All right,” Jake rasped unsteadily, “I’ll work with Lieutenant Cortina.”
Morgan’s glare cut through him. “I want to hear you promise me that you’ll be her subordinate in this, Captain Travers. That you’ll accept her leadership, her authority and her status as commander on this mission.”
Swallowing hard, Jake muttered, “I accept Lieutenant Cortina as my commander on this spec ops.”
There was a long, strained silence in the room after he spoke. Jake looked anxiously at Morgan, and then at the thin-lipped, scowling Mike Houston. Both men traded glances. Mike spoke first.
“You realize, Captain Travers, that if you’re just mouthing words on this, we’ll be following your mission down there and will know at once? We refuse to jeopardize Lieutenant Cortina’s life if you decide to get up on your male testosterone motorcycle and try to take over. She’ll be carrying an iridium satellite phone on her person at all times. Captain Stevenson, as we speak, is giving Lieutenant Cortina the mission profile that I had faxed down to her earlier.
“Lieutenant Cortina will know that she’s the commander on this little adventure,” Mike continued. “She’s your best chance to find your sister and get her out alive. You aren’t. You’re a gringo, a foreigner, while Ana Cortina knows Peru by heart. The sooner you let go of your damned male pride and surrender to her knowledge of the terrain, the people and the environment, the sooner your sister will be found, hopefully alive and unharmed. But the more you try to siphon off her authority or command, the more the chances of your sister being found at all, much less alive, deteriorate rapidly. Do you understand that?” Mike’s gaze nailed him directly.
Flexing his fists beneath the table, Jake muttered, “Yes, sir, I got it.”
Morgan sighed. “I don’t know that I feel you’re trustworthy on this matter, Captain Travers. However, for the sake of your sister, who’s the innocent in all of this, I’m going to approve this mission. The moment I hear, or Mike Houston hears, of you sabotaging Lieutenant Cortina in any way, I’ll have your ass pulled out of Peru so fast it will make even your seasoned military head spin. Do we understand one another? And if that happens, then you can consider your sister dead. All the choices and decisions are yours, Captain Travers. Work as a team or else.”
Holding his anger in check, Jake nodded. “I hear you, sir. And I’m grateful for your help. Tal’s the important one here, not me. Not what I believe.”
“Fine,” Morgan said crisply, standing. He buttoned his dark gray coat. “Let’s go out and look at the photo and file that I’m sure have come in by now.”
Jake rose. He felt relief, though he was still angry. More than anything, he bridled silently over the fact that he was going to have a woman as his commanding officer on this mission. Of all the hurdles and trials he knew were before him as he tried to locate Tal, he’d never figured that a woman would also be thrown into this murky, dangerous situation. Dammit.
Chapter Two
A soft knock on Maya Stevenson’s door made her lift her head from the slew of paperwork that littered her desk. Her door was always open, but her people gave a perfunctory knock anyway.
“Come in, Ana.” She gestured to the wooden chair to the left of her desk. “Have a seat.” She noticed that Lieutenant Ana Lucia Cortina was in her black, snug-fitting helicopter uniform, her helmet tucked beneath her left arm. She had been on twenty-four-hour duty and had just flown a mission four hours ago. She looked tired. There were smudges beneath her glorious cinnamon-colored eyes. Her ebony hair, frayed from wearing the helmet, was still in a chignon at the nape of her slender neck.
“Hi…thanks…” Ana gave Maya a slight, weary smile.
“How’d the flight go?” Maya noticed as Ana set the helmet down on the desk that she looked drawn. Maya knew why. The death of her fiancé a year ago was still wearing on Ana. And Maya knew that today was Roberto’s birthday. He would have been twenty-eight years old, if he’d lived. She wished that she could love someone as much as Ana had loved Roberto, but no man had entered her life to make her feel that way. Maya had long ago given up hoping such a man existed for her.
“We got jumped by a Kamov Black Shark helicopter flown by Faro Valentino’s Russian mercenaries near the Bolivian border,” Ana murmured, sitting down in the chair. Lifting her long, slender arms, she pulled her black hair out of the tight knot at the base of her neck, shook her head and allowed the strands to tumble across her proud shoulders. “Nothing new. I took a few bullet holes in the fuselage of my Apache, but otherwise, no casualties. My crew is going to have to check it to make sure no bullets have nicked the cables in that area, but that’s all.”
“Hmm.” Maya frowned, tinkering with the silver pen between her fingers. “Get any rockets off at them?”
One corner of Ana’s full
