Even after four calls and several blunt reminders of Madrileño’s unflagging support for America’s antidrug campaign, he still didn’t know who’d made the call. But he was determined to get to the bottom of it.
“What’s going on?” her father demanded, puffing a bit from his quick walk.
A career bureaucrat, Eduard de las Fuentes had worked tirelessly to help his brother win the presidency and institute badly needed reforms. He was a good man, traditional in his family values but forward thinking when it came to his country’s needs.
Succinctly, Carlos recounted the astounding events of the past half hour. Eduard gaped at him, his mouth popping open and closed like one of the orange-spotted frogs that populated the jungle.
“Margarita? This scum took my Margarita?”
“Apparently, she offered herself as hostage in exchange for the guard.”
“But…but…why did she go to the prison in the first place?”
“I’ll get the answer to that question when I find your daughter,” Carlos promised grimly.
He’d get more than answers, he thought savagely as he strode down the Palace steps into the star-studded night. He’d bring her back safely and drag whatever information she had out of her. Then he’d either wring her neck for walking into this mess in the first place or tie her naked to his bed and keep her there until the blasted woman admitted she wanted him as much as he did her!
At the moment, the former option seemed infinitely more probable.
Within an hour he was back in uniform and had assembled his team.
Within two, he’d pulled together enough intelligence to indicate the escaped prisoner would in all likelihood head for a rendezvous point in the jungle, a cave hidden high in the mountains supposedly used as a way station by drug runners. There, he’d join forces with the heavily armed band that had reportedly been spotted crossing the border.
Worry for Margarita gnawing at his gut, Carlos sat beside his driver for the short ride to the military airbase just outside San Rico. Miguel and a small, handpicked squad of ten men followed in a half-ton truck. Although his aide had tried to hide his feelings behind a carefully blank mask, he hadn’t yet recovered from the shock of finding Anna clinging like a limpet to his superior. Carlos would have to explain that scene to him—later! When his mind was clear and fear for Margarita didn’t crawl through his belly.
The helicopter crew had their bird preflighted and ready to go when Carlos and his team arrived at the airport. The squad filed to the chopper, almost invisible in their dark jungle fatigues and blackened faces. Silently, they climbed aboard and strapped in. While the rotor blades whirred and the engine whined up to full power, Carlos pulled a plastic-coated map from his pocket and ran through his hastily conceived tactical plan.
“We’ll land here, a half mile to the west of the cave to avoid alerting anyone in the vicinity.”
Stabbing a finger at the map, he pointed to an area devoid of towns, of plantations, of any signs of human habitation. The closest village lay a good ten miles to the west.
“With luck, we’ll reach the cave ahead of the fugitive and his hostage and be waiting when they arrive. If by chance they get there before us, we’ll use the element of surprise to come at them out of the darkness.”
Either approach involved risk. To his men. To himself. To Margarita. Still, the plan was the best he could devise.
It might even have worked…if the helicopter hadn’t developed engine trouble while they were still two miles from their objective. Using the chopper’s powerful, million-candle-watt searchlight, the cursing pilot found a hole in the jungle canopy at the last moment and put them down with only a bent rotor blade. Carlos jumped out and surveyed the solid wall of blackness beyond the searchlight’s reach.
Two miles. They’d come down two miles from their planned landing zone, which put them two-and-a-half from the cave. On cleared terrain, he could run the distance in less than a half hour with full backpack. In the jungle, two and a half miles stretched to infinity.
Grimly, Carlos dug a pair of night-vision goggles from a pocket in his lightweight fatigue vest and led the way into dank, murky rain forest.
“Come on! Keep climbing!”
The gun barrel jabbed ruthlessly into Margarita’s spine, prodding her up the steep path. She winced at the bruising pain, but it soon blended with all the others into an indistinguishable ache. Narrowing her eyes against the bright dawn haze, she inched her way up the path toward the distant roar of a waterfall.
With every stumbling step, needles of fire shot up her bound arms. Her shoulder sockets burned. Cramps pulled like iron tongs at calf muscles straining from the hard climb. At that moment, she would have given almost everything she owned for a few sips of water.
They’d driven all night, each twisting turn of the road taking them higher into the mountains. For the first hour or two of that long ride, Margarita had listened with every sense straining for sounds of pursuit. Hope of rescue faded with each grind of the Jeep’s gears. She should have known the elusive criminal SPEAR had been hunting for months would have planned his escape well.
Well, she wasn’t going to make the escape any easier for the walking piece of slime behind her. Deliberately, she stumbled and went down on one knee. Sharp rock cut into the jeans she’d hurriedly thrown on before rushing to the prison. Her gasp of pain was only half feigned.
“Get up!” her captor snarled, panting even harder than Margarita from the arduous trek. He’d emptied his canteen early in the climb. Thirst and exertion put a rasp in his throat. “You’re not fooling anyone with this weak, helpless female act. I know the kind of training you’ve had.”
With an awkward twist of her upper body, Margarita propped a shoulder against the cliff face and pushed herself up. Her breath cut like razor blades into lungs starved for oxygen.
“How do you know what kind of training I’ve had? Who are you?”
A sneer twisted his lips. “You tell me.”
“All right.” Her chest heaving, she propped her aching shoulders against the vine-covered rock wall behind her. “You’re Simon.”
“Very good.” The sneer deepened, tugging at his scarred face. He stepped up beside her and dug the pistol barrel into the soft flesh under her chin. “And we both know who you are, don’t we? The bitch who’s been interfering in my operations in Central and South America.”
With her back against sheer rock and a gun barrel grinding into the underside of her chin, Margarita weighed the odds of taking him down right then and there. If she twisted her head just a few inches to the right, hooked her shoulder into his chest and shoved the bastard over the side of the path before he got off a shot…
“It took me a while to figure out who Jonah had operating in Madrileño.”
Jonah! The casual way he dropped the name froze Margarita in place. Dios! This man knew more about SPEAR than many of its own agents.
“What makes you think I work for Jonah?”
Vicious satisfaction laced his voice. “I have my ways of getting information…just as SPEAR
