Colonel Wilson?”
The Colonel headed the Special Designation Defense Unit, SDDU, a top secret team of commando soldiers who ran various secret missions around the globe without anyone knowing. So how did she know?
“You’re not CIA. The FBI never sends just one man. If you were a mercenary, you wouldn’t have helped me. There was no money in it,” she added. “So that didn’t leave much.”
Sound logic. But it didn’t explain how she’d come to know about his team. Very few people knew about the SDDU. A handful of top government officials, and the few FBI and CIA agents who’d done joint missions. Had she?
“Who do you work for?”
She pressed her generous lips into a tight line as she glared at him without saying anything.
“Have you infiltrated Juarez’s band of criminals?” He couldn’t help being a little impressed.
“You’re ruining an undercover op a full year in the making,” she snapped at him. “I need Zak.”
He reported to the Colonel, not to anyone else. “You can’t have him.”
“There’ll be a meeting between Juarez and the big boss, Don Pedro, next week. No outsider has ever been to the Don’s secret stronghold before. We know he deals weapons to terrorists from there. I need to know what kind and how much. I need to uncover his connections. These are weapons that could march straight north, across Mexico and then through the U.S. border.”
She was hunting terrorist connections abroad. A CIA spook then. He should have guessed. She’d ruled out the CIA for him first, because that was her outfit and if he was with them, she would have known it.
He was beginning to understand her better now. She was trusted at Juarez’s camp, but not enough for Juarez to include her in his personal retinue. Except, if she did something his other men couldn’t accomplish, like bringing back the kid who’d killed his brother-in-law …
Her plan wasn’t bad. She was working on an important mission. But his orders weren’t to accommodate other important missions he came across. He only had one order from the Colonel: to bring the governor’s son back.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. “You’ll find another way.”
But instead of accepting defeat, she shot at his foot, apparently not done with this way yet. A miracle that she hadn’t maimed him. He had no choice but to shoot the gun out of her hand. He did just that, then lunged forward, and they went rolling on the ground again.
“This doesn’t feel like progress.” She had the presence of mind to joke with him, even though her hand must have smarted.
It might not have felt like progress, but it sure felt like one hundred percent pure, curvy female to Mitch. He wouldn’t have minded the prolonged body contact so much if the ground wasn’t full of danger. He couldn’t afford to get injured, and he didn’t want her hurt, either.
“Could we have a civilized discussion about this?” he suggested between a flip and a roll.
“Worried that you can’t win by sheer force alone?” She grunted and heaved.
“Stop.” He pinned her down at last. “You roll into a sharp branch and your mission goes nowhere.”
She gave it another try before she stilled. “Fine. A civilized conversation it is. In the morning.” She blew out a breath. “So you’re an extractor.”
“The extractor. When someone needs a target removed unseen from an impossible situation, I’m the go-to guy.” She might as well know that he wasn’t going to give up or give in to her.
“Do you always get them?”
“Always.” He didn’t compromise.
“It’s that important to you. Interesting.” She gave him a calculating look. “I’m guessing you lost someone close to you at one point?”
A discussion they weren’t going to have. He moved back slowly and let her go, then offered her a hand.
She sprang up on her own and dusted off her clothes. “Just for the record, you called truce first.”
She sauntered off toward her makeshift camp without looking back at him. Unfortunately, not enough moonlight filtered through the canopy for him to fully enjoy that tempting image.
“Take a picture. It’ll last longer,” she called over her shoulder.
She must have attended some CIA training on how to be thoroughly irritating. But if she thought she was going to be the last spy standing here, she was sadly mistaken.
He headed after her, hoping Zak hadn’t done anything stupid like untying himself and running off into the jungle. They’d had enough excitement for one night.
As luck would have it, the kid was where they’d left him. Mitch checked his restraints and, despite loud demands, left them in place.
“Up,” he ordered next, nudging Megan onto the platform and tying her wrist to the other end the same way she’d tied up Zak. Then he lay between them, snug, his gun resting on his chest, finger on the trigger.
He didn’t like the idea of the other two guns, plus the machete, scattered out there, but he’d have to wait for daylight to look for them and secure them.
“You can’t be serious about this.” Megan snarled the words at him.
He settled into the uncomfortable bed. “Try to get some rest.”
“There’s not enough room,” Zak grumbled. “Untie me now. You can’t treat me like this. I’m the victim here.”
“I could knock you out, if you prefer,” he offered.
“You can’t touch me. You’re getting paid to save me.”
“This is cozy. Think of us as one big happy family,” he told the kid.
Megan turned to her side, jabbing him viciously in the side with her elbow in the process, probably not by accident.
He let it go. Couldn’t be mad at her when they were pressed against each other full-length. She smelled like the rain forest and the cheap soap they’d all used at the guesthouse. Not a combination that would turn the average man’s head, but for some reason it got under his skin.
He shook off the tension that had pushed him forward since she’d left him tied to the sink. Then he grinned into the night as the breeze moved her hair and it tickled his chin. At least, chances were, he was going to have pretty good dreams.
An honest to goodness spook, looking like a teenage video gamer’s dream come true. Thank God for small favors. When he’d thought she was a lost suburban housewife, he didn’t know what to do with her. When he’d thought she was a heartless criminal, one of Juarez’s lackeys, he didn’t want anything to do with her. But now that it turned out that they were almost on the same side … Their chance encounter suddenly brimmed with possibilities.
For after.
