style="font-size:15px;"> Jake frowned. “Listen, I’m wiped out from that Peruvian fiasco.”
“I know you are. Just go in and talk to Morgan, will you? There’s a gentleman in there with him. They’ve both been waiting for you to show up.”
Groaning, Jake rubbed his face, which needed a shave. “Okay, but I’m turning it down.”
Marie smiled understandingly and pressed the button on the intercom that sat on her desk.
“Jake is here, Mr. Trayhern. Shall I send him in?”
Jake opened the door to Morgan’s spacious office and entered. Morgan looked up and nodded to him.
“Come in, Jake. Meet Ken Travers. Ken, this is Jake Randolph. Jake’s our Brazilian specialist. He knows Portuguese, the language of the country, and he’s been there on assignment a number of times in the past few years.”
Travers leaped from the couch like an overwound spring and held his hand out.
“Mr. Randolph.”
Jake sized up the lean, restless-looking businessman, taking an immediate dislike to him. It was an intuitive thing, Jake thought as he extended his hand to shake Travers’s manicured one. Intuition had saved his life on a number of occasions, and he wasn’t about to dismiss a gut feeling.
“Mr. Travers.”
Jake turned to Morgan, whose face showed no expression. Not unusual, Jake thought—Morgan knew how to keep his feelings hidden until the proper time. Jake noted Travers’s expensive suit, his perfect haircut, the gold watch on his wrist—and his arrogance. Hiding a wry smile at the thought, Jake realized that he must look like a country bumpkin by comparison. He wore jeans, rough-out boots and an off-white fisherman-knit sweater. November in Washington, D.C., was cold, and there was a threat of snow today.
“Have a seat.” Morgan gestured to a wing chair positioned to one side of his desk.
Jake nodded, his attention still on Travers. There was a feeling of electricity in the air, and it was coming from him. Jake had learned a long time ago to say little and observe a lot. Travers was pacing like a caged animal, his hands behind his back and his brow furrowed. His full mouth was set in a line of decided aversion. But aversion to whom? Morgan? Him? Probably both of them, he surmised.
Marie, dressed in her tasteful and conservative navy suit with white piping, came in moments later bearing a silver tray that contained coffee and a plate of cookies for the three men. She set it on the coffee table in front of the couch.
“Please call my wife,” Morgan told her, “and tell her I have to cancel my luncheon date with her.”
“Yes, sir. Shall I order in the usual lunch from the restaurant?” Marie asked.
Morgan glanced over at Jake. “Would you like something to eat?”
“No, thanks. My stomach’s still on Peruvian time.”
Morgan grinned. “How about you, Ken? Hungry?”
“No!”
“Just bring me the usual,” he told his assistant.
“Yes, sir.” Marie gave Travers a deadly look, turned and left.
Jake was fascinated by Travers’s snappish mood. He was like a pit bull waiting to eat someone alive. Fighting jet lag, Jake got up and ambled over to the coffee table, where Morgan was already helping himself to a cup of coffee. He needed help keeping himself awake. Originally he’d planned to drop his report off at Morgan’s office and then make his way home to his condo in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from the office that he used only when necessary. Jake’s real home was located in Oregon.
Travers paced while the two men got their respective cups of coffee and sat down again. Jake saw amusement in Morgan’s eyes, and he realized the look was for him alone. With a slight nod, Jake spread out his long legs in front of him. Holding the dainty gold-edged white china cup in one of his large, scarred hands, a cookie in the other, he leaned back and relaxed.
“Ken, why don’t you start from the beginning?” Morgan suggested, sipping the black, fragrant Brazilian coffee.
Agitated, Travers came to a halt, his hands planted imperiously upon his hips. “I just don’t like having Mr. Randolph here. This is strictly private.”
“Mr. Travers,” Morgan told him, his voice a deep rumble, “if you want Perseus to help you, we need to know the facts. Furthermore, I’m not sure we can help you. You’re in luck that Jake is here, because, if we decide to take your case, Jake will be the man sent on the mission. So why don’t you sit down and start from the beginning?”
Jake watched as Travers vacillated. The man acted as if he were going to explode.
“Very well.” Travers strode to the couch and sat down, his spine as rigid as the rest of him.
“My daughter, Shah Sungilo Travers, is down in Brazil. She’s thirty years old, and a damned fanatic!”
Morgan tipped his head. “Fanatic? In what sense of the word?”
Grinding his closed fist into the palm of his hand, Travers snapped, “She’s a damned ecology fanatic. She’s down there in the midst of all the hell breaking loose about the Amazon Basin trees being cut down. Global warming, and all that scientific garbage. Shah could be killed!”
“How long has she been down there?” Morgan asked.
“Three months.”
Jake raised his eyebrows. “And you’re just getting around to asking for help?”
Travers scowled, and his gaze dropped to his expensive-looking black leather shoes. “I didn’t know. I—Oh, hell, I’m divorced from Shah’s mother. I happened to be in Rapid City, South Dakota, on business, and I decided to drive out to the Rosebud Sioux reservation to visit Shah, who lives with her mother. But she wasn’t there. That’s when I found out she’d galloped off on another damned windmill-tilting adventure. Only this time it’s to Brazil, and it could get her killed.”
Travers stood up, his voice tight. “I want her out of there. She’s in danger. It’s that Sioux blood of hers. She loves a fight. She sees herself as a protector. A steward, she says.”
Jake sat up, his interest piqued. A woman with Sioux blood and an unusual name like Shah interested him. But the picture Travers was painting didn’t sound quite accurate. He gave Morgan a searching look.
“You can ask him anything you want,” Morgan said, reading the question in Jake’s eyes before he could voice his request.
“Mr. Travers, if your daughter is thirty years old, she’s old enough to realize if she’s in danger or not,” Jake pointed out.
Travers gave him a withering look of pure disgust. “You don’t know my headstrong daughter, Mr. Randolph. This isn’t the first time Shah has been in the thick of things. Her mother named her Shah Sungilo, which means Red Fox in the Sioux language. She’s got a temper to match any fox’s red coat, and she’s as clever as the damned animal she’s named after.” And then,
