passionate woman, with the fire of her people in her veins…a fire Carlos was determined to stoke.
His body hardened once more at the mere thought of Margarita’s mouth hot and eager under his. She wasn’t as indifferent to him as she liked to pretend. She couldn’t tremble at his touch, couldn’t flush with heat the way she had, if she cared nothing for him.
Impatient to find her, Carlos tugged at Anna’s clinging hands. He’d locate Margarita, escort her home, pick up where they’d left off on the balcony. And this time…
“Commandante!”
The urgent call whipped his head around. Although Carlos had given up both his uniform and the title he’d earned as commander of Madrileño’s elite counterterrorism strike force when he accepted the post of deputy defense minister, old habits died hard. His military aide still called him commander, and Carlos still responded instinctively.
“Yes?”
Miguel Carreras hurried into the room. Short, sturdy and well muscled, the lieutenant admirably filled out his uniform adorned with a gold-roped aguillette and fancy dress sword.
“You must come at once, sir. There’s been a…”
When he saw Anna clinging to Carlos’s lapels, the lieutenant skidded to a stop. Surprise and hurt flickered in his brown eyes. Then his training kicked in and he turned a face of rocklike impassivity to his superior.
“There’s been an incident at the castillo.”
“What kind of an incident?” Carlos asked, calmly disengaging Anna’s hands. He hadn’t missed that look of startled dismay on his aide’s face. He’d talk to Miguel later and explain the situation, perhaps offer him some advice on handling Anna. Although he had to admit his own track record with the de las Fuentes women made him something less than an expert on the subject.
Stiffly ignoring the woman at his superior’s side, Miguel poured out a hurried report. “I don’t have all the details. Only that one of the prisoners was taken in for interrogation. He overwhelmed his guard and threatened to kill him. Margarita…Señorita de las Fuentes…offered herself as a hostage instead of the guard.”
“What!”
Shock and disbelief slammed into Carlos. Every muscle in his body snapped wire taut.
“He took her with him,” Miguel related with a worried frown. “Into the jungle. He commandeered a Jeep and took her with him.”
The vicious curse that erupted from Carlos widened Anna’s eyes.
“The captain of the guard just brought the word,” the lieutenant finished. “He’s waiting for you in the Gold Room.”
Leaving an openmouthed Anna behind, Carlos strode through the doors. Questions hammered at him with each sharp crack of his heels on the parquet floors. What the devil was Margarita doing at the prison? Why had she offered herself as a hostage in the guard’s place? Who was this prisoner who’d taken her?
While his mind whirled with unanswered questions, fear coiled in his gut. Margarita didn’t know the jungle. She’d been raised in the city, spent her summers at her father’s sugar plantation and years at school in the States. She’d never hacked her way through strangler vines as thick as a man’s arm or dodged tarantulas the size of dinner plates. If by some stroke of luck she managed to escape this prisoner, she wouldn’t last a day in the steaming green hell that covered most of Madrileño.
An icy sweat had pooled at the base of his spine by the time Carlos strode into the Gold Room. At his entrance, the captain of the guard snapped to rigid attention, took one look at his murderous expression and blanched. Although democracy had taken firm root in Madrileño, most security matters—including the national police and administration of the prison system—came under the military, which was headed by the Minister of Defense. As deputy defense minister, Carlos stood in the captain’s direct chain of command. He could have the man’s head, or at least his pension, for this incident.
“You talk.” He fired the words through clenched jaws. “I’ll listen.”
“We took this prisoner with the others in the big drug bust yesterday, the one we coordinated with the Americans.”
“I’m aware of the operation,” Carlos snapped.
He should be. After receiving a tip about a major heroine shipment being moved through the mountains to an isolated airstrip, he’d worked forty-eight hours straight to set up a multipronged, multinational attack. His men had taken down two planes, half-a-dozen aircrew members, a number of small-time drug lords and so many locals engaged in transporting the uncut heroin the police were still trying to sort them all out.
“This particular gringo would not tell us his name,” the captain reported. “He’s an ugly bastard, very scarred, with one glass eye. We assumed he was one of the fliers. When they asked us to hold him in special custody—”
“Who asked you to hold him?”
The captain blinked at the whiplike question. “The Americans, sir. We received a call…I assumed you knew.”
Carlos would find out who made that call later. Right now, his only concern was Margarita.
Unfortunately, the captain could shed no light on why she’d asked to see this particular prisoner. All he knew was that she’d showed up at the prison and requested an interview.
“The gringo seemed to be expecting her. He called her by name and smiled when she offered herself as hostage instead of that sweating, sniveling guard, as though he’d anticipated just such a move.”
Carlos stared at the captain, his face shuttered while confusion piled on top of the fury gripping at his chest. What the hell was going on here? What had Margarita gotten involved in?
“The gringo left us locked in the interrogation room,” the captain confessed, shame evident in every line of his stiff body. “The walls of the castillo are so thick, it was a good ten minutes before anyone found us. My men report that Señorita de las Fuentes walked out beside this man as though they were going for an evening stroll. Only after I was found did we discover that a Jeep was taken.”
“So no one saw which direction they headed?”
Miserable, the captain shook his head. “No, commandante.”
With some effort, Carlos held back another vicious curse. When he was satisfied that the captain could provide no further information, he dismissed him with a curt order to draw up a comprehensive plan to prevent such escapes in the future.
“Find Señor de las Fuentes,” he snapped at Miguel. “Ask him to join me here.”
The lieutenant hurried away, leaving Carlos to think furiously. The certainty that there was more involved in yesterday’s operation than a routine drug bust grew with each passing second. The tip had come at such an opportune moment. The support from the States had been too ready. And this call to the prison…
His face grim, he moved to an ornately carved console and snatched up the phone. He’d spent a few years in the States himself, first as a student at the Army’s Command and General Staff College, then as a military attaché to the Madrileñan ambassador. He still had some friends in high circles. Some good
