kissed Marcos on the head and left the room. After the nurse settled Marcos into his bed, Emily stepped forward. “How are you feeling?” she asked the boy.
“Okay,” he said, then started to cough.
As his coughing persisted, she asked the nurse for a stethoscope and thermometer. She took his temperature, frowned as she read the elevated reading, then listened to his chest. His little face filled with fatigue. Emily’s gaze met Robert’s across the bed. “Lay back and get some rest,” she said softly to the child, gently brushing his forehead with her fingertips.
He nodded and gave her a sleepy smile that tugged at her heart. Of all the terminally ill children she’d had to help, she’d never gotten used to the pain and heartache that came with each one she lost. She knew she should distance herself from them, but then she’d look into their sweet, innocent, scared eyes and she’d be lost, her heart sunk. Each time, she’d hoped God in His infinite wisdom and mercy would spare them. Maybe this time He would. She gave Marcos a warm smile, then joined Robert and the nurse in the outer room.
“How long has he been coughing?” Emily asked the nurse.
“He just started this morning.”
“There’s moisture and rattling in his chest. He’s in the beginning stages of pneumonia.” Emily had seen it many times before, and as the illness progressed, the child would grow weaker and weaker.
“Mr. Escalante will need to be told,” Marguerite said while reaching into an overhead cabinet.
“What happened to Marcos’s last doctor?” Robert asked casually. Emily had wondered the same thing. She recalled Baltasar’s earlier reference to losing Marcos’s doctor, but couldn’t imagine a doctor leaving his patient at this stage in his illness. And Baltasar didn’t seem like the sort of man who would just let him go.
The nurse mumbled something without turning.
“I’m sorry, what was that?” Emily asked.
Marguerite pulled out a syringe and bottle of antibiotics, then said, “Snakebite,” and quickly left the room.
Emily turned to Robert. Uneasiness tweaked her stomach as she held his gaze. “There is way too much talk about snakes around here.”
Peter Vance took in his surroundings and hoped his years of hard work had paid off and he’d finally been granted access into the heart of La Mano Oscura, also known as The Dark Hand. The manicured grounds were a stark contrast to the untamed jungle pushing at the compound’s tall stone walls. The bungalow he’d been led to was large and gracious, with ceiling fans, plantation shutters and yards of mosquito netting. It sure beat the shack he’d been living in—he could barely call it a shack—since he’d left Colorado Springs three years ago.
He knew when the CIA asked him to upgrade his status and go deep undercover as an operations officer, life as he knew it would be over. But he hadn’t expected how much the isolation would bother him, or how much he’d miss his family.
How much he’d miss Emily.
He shook off the thought as he had numerous times before. He’d hoped the long nights alone would have purged her from his mind. Unfortunately they hadn’t. Even here deep in the jungles of Venezuela, where nary the sight of a long wheat-colored blonde could be found, he’d see something that would remind him of the exact shade of hazel in her eyes and there she’d be, at the forefront of his mind.
Somehow, some way, he had to forget her and move on. By now she’d probably found herself a nice doctor husband, one who’d come home to her safe and sound every night and given her lots of drooling babies to take care of. He could see it perfectly in his mind, the type of life she’d longed for, the type of life he could never give her.
He took out his secured satellite phone and dialed Maxwell Vance, his father and case handler.
“You at the compound?” Max asked as he picked up the line.
“Affirmative.”
“Good. We’ve had a major break on this end. It won’t be long now.”
Peter sighed and allowed himself a second to hope. Three years without a break, a vacation or a meal from his mother’s diner, The Stagecoach Café. How he wished he could go home and see everyone even if it was only for a day.
“We’ve uncovered an air force connection to Diablo.”
He raised his eyebrows. The air force is connected with Colorado Springs’ major crime syndicate? No wonder they had such a hard time tackling their problems. “Is La Mano Oscura Diablo’s main supplier?”
“Affirmative. If everything goes according to plan, the sting we’ve set in motion should bring the Venezuelan cartel to its knees. All your hard work is finally going to pay off. You’re in the perfect position to help us bring La Mano Oscura down.”
“It’s all I think about, believe me.”
“If you can, get the names of any operatives still set up here in Colorado that we may have missed. We can’t afford for Escalante to get wind of our plans.”
“Got it.”
“Also, Barclay has taken a tumble.”
Peter shouldn’t have been surprised. They had suspected that hotel tycoon Alistair Barclay was the kingpin of the Diablo organization credited with the increase of drug trafficking to hit Colorado Springs, but they hadn’t been able to get the goods on him. Things were looking up.
“Has he confirmed Escalante is El Patrón?” Peter asked. They’d been hoping for something to pinpoint Escalante as the head of La Mano Oscura, but they hadn’t had much luck. “I know in my gut he’s our guy, but he’s kept himself clean and surrounded with well-established, legitimate connections. Has he found out about Barclay’s arrest?”
“Negative, as far as we know. He’s expecting a shipment through General Hadley of cash and high-definition Keyhole Satellite images of his lab on the Colombian border. Expect company in place of the shipment. The operation will go down on the thirteenth at zero-hundred hours. Make sure you’re there. We’ll need you to help tie up any loose ends. This could be it.”
Peter took a deep breath and tried not to let himself hope. He wanted to leave, but wasn’t sure what he’d do next. The jungle and his cover as Pietro Presti had been a part of him for so long, he wasn’t sure how he could ever go back to just being Peter Vance. He glanced out the window and saw Escalante heading toward the bungalow down the main path. “Escalante’s coming, I’ve got to go.”
“Wait…there’s one more thing you should know.”
Peter heard the trepidation in his father’s voice, a voice he knew well enough to know this wasn’t something he wanted to hear. This was something personal. His gut tightened.
“It’s about Emily….”
Emily.
“Mr. Presti?” Baltasar Escalante said as he walked through the opened door.
Peter disconnected the line and turned, the name of his ex-wife ringing in his ear.
Chapter
