The Mercenary

“El Jefe has him.”

“That won’t stop me.”

“Us.”

His jaw ached even more.

“Others have failed,” she persisted.

“I—we won’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because we’re not going in the way they’ll expect.” His friend Luke Callaghan had already been injured and was even now recuperating at a hospital in Texas. Tyler still had a hard time believing his old friend wasn’t just the millionaire playboy they’d all believed him to be. And if it weren’t for the fact that Luke had been blinded during his battle to save Westin, Tyler would probably still be pissed about the revelation that Luke was an operative with a covert civilian agency, involved in tasks eerily similar to those in which the Alpha Force engaged. But Luke’s methods had still been of the traditional bent.

“You mean, we’re going in as domestics.”

He slid the plane in a slow bank, then dipped into the valley between two mountains. A river snaked below them, glittering like a strand of diamonds. They were no longer skimming the treetops. It was so damn beautiful it was hard to believe anything bad ever happened in this country. “Yeah.” He glanced her way. “We’ll have to go in as a married couple.”

That seemed to startle her. “Why?”

“Because you’re a woman.”

“And you’re none too pleased about that.”

“If M. Rodriguez had been a man, we could have posed as brothers.”

“Even though one wouldn’t be able to speak Mezcayan, much less Spanish.” Her voice dripped disbelief.

His inability to fully master foreign languages was something Tyler had long ago accepted. People had different gifts. His was more along the lines of blowing things up than conjugating verbs. Which didn’t mean that hearing her observation did not rub him wrong. “I don’t need to do much speaking,” he said flatly. “That’s what they gave me you for.”

“Then I’ll be your sister instead of your brother,” she said reasonably.

“You’ll be my wife.”

His words seemed to float around the cockpit, blurring into the sound of the wind outside the plane, the steady drone of the engine.

He saw the way her shoulders stiffened, as if the statement was as abhorrent to her as it was to him. “What if I don’t agree to that?”

“Then I’ll leave your butt in Belize when we land in a few hours.”

“And you’ll never make it from there across Mezcaya and into El Jefe’s compound without me.”

“Don’t be so sure about that.” He would make his way to Fortaleza de la Fortuna whether she accompanied him or not. He would infiltrate the infamous compound, locate the damned cave that Luke had spoken of, free Westin and get the hell out of there, even if he had to blow up the entire compound and everyone in it in the process.

As far as he was concerned, destroying El Jefe’s compound was just fine with him. The world would be a better place without the terrorist group. Only he’d been ordered not to incite an international incident. Which meant he had to use some finesse, exercise some restraint and get it done in the time he’d been allowed before the Brits took over and did God knew what.

“El Jefe runs that entire region of Mezcaya.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” That was one of the reasons they were flying into the opposite side of the country.

She rattled off a stream of incomprehensible words. Mezcayan, he assumed. “Your point?”

She smiled faintly, looking superior enough that he wanted to hand her a parachute and show her the door. “I said that you’ll never make it through the gate of la Fortuna, unless you can speak Mezcayan or are very closely tied to one who does. That’s how El Jefe ensures some modicum of loyalty from those who live there.

“El Jefe may be scourge to the rest of the world, but to a great many citizens of this country, it is their savior. It feeds and clothes them. Provides for their children. Its compound isn’t merely a well-secured estate, Mr. Murdoch, it is virtually a state of its own. The language isn’t taught in schools. The government has decreed Spanish to be the official language, quite possibly as a direct statement against El Jefe. There are some that believe the language has been kept alive for the past few generations strictly because of El Jefe’s influence. Mezcayan is handed down from parent to child and so on, and only those who are natives of the land are likely to speak it well. Which means that you need me to get you through the door.”

Everything she said was true. But she’d left out one detail. And much as he didn’t want her there with him, he wouldn’t be responsible for harm coming to her, something his damned superiors had to have known. But as much as Tyler hated feeling manipulated, he was more concerned with his obligation to Westin. “We won’t go through unless you have the protection of being a married woman.”

He saw unease ripple through her eyes. Her lips parted, then closed.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

She looked away. “There have been rumors.”

“Unless you’re a nun or married—which El Jefe seems to have an unusual respect for considering everything else—women are fair game. Willing or not, El Jefe doesn’t care. If you’ve been raised in the compound, you’d possibly be taken as a wife or mistress by one of the officers should one take a shine to you. Gain their disfavor and you’d be sold off to the highest bidder. Or worse.”

“Rumors.”

“You want to take a chance that they’re not just rumors? Come on, M., look in a mirror. They’ll be lining up like hungry coyotes to see who gets the first taste. First tastes probably go to senior officers. The generals of El Jefe. Remember that British reporter a few years ago? She managed to infiltrate the compound, even managed to keep her cover intact. But she was—”

“Stop.” Marisa didn’t need him to go any further. He could have no idea how close his words struck. No idea, whatsoever.

It was just that he, like so many others in the free world, had probably seen the news story. It had been splashed across every paper for days. The woman, barely a reporter at all, had been raped then abandoned outside of the compound. When she was found, she was taken to a hospital in Mexico where her story came out.

What the news stories hadn’t said, however, was what happened after the hospital. The woman eventually committed suicide, unable to withstand the effects of her encounters with El Jefe. She’d left behind a child and a lover beset with grief.

The knot in Marisa’s throat had extended down to her stomach. She couldn’t let fear stop her from following through on this. There were too many reasons why she needed to succeed. “So, I’ll be a nun.”

“Nobody with two eyes in their head would believe that.”

She bristled. “Why not? Is there something…heathen about me, Mr. Murdoch?”

His gaze roved over her, making her feel hot and cold all at once. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like him. Knowing that this arrogant stranger could have any kind of effect on her was simply unacceptable. And being told in that unrelenting manner that she would portray his wife was just too close to orders that Gerald had once decreed. “I could act the nun well enough. For a little while, at least. I was raised as a Catholic and—”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I couldn’t pass as a priest, and there would be no other reason for me to be accompanying you.”

“Of course you could pretend to be a priest. For a little while. We could say…well, that your vocal cords were injured so you can’t speak, or something.”

“Unless my eyes were bandaged they’d still see the way I look at you.”

Marisa flushed.

“Besides,” he went on, as if regretting his admission, “there’s no reason why a strange priest and nun would gain access to la Fortuna. But they’re constantly taking in servants. It’s the only way.”

Silence hung between them for an endless moment. Then he spoke again. “Come on, Marisa.” Tyler’s voice was low, gentle. And she immediately distrusted it. “There’s nothing important enough for you to want to do this.”

Distrust, indeed. Her voice cooled. “My reasons are important, Mr. Murdoch, so please don’t make the mistake of dismissing them. Why is it so important to you to find this man?”

“Because I owe him. I was a hostage once and if not for Lieutenant Colonel Phillip Westin, who lived, ate and breathed for his men and didn’t give up on us, my friends and I would all be dead by now. I’m prepared to lay my life down for that man.”

Whatever Marisa had expected, it wasn’t that. However, Tyler wasn’t finished.

“But I’d just as soon get out with us still alive,” he added. “Which means that you don’t make one move without my say-so. I don’t care how well developed your Mezcayan heritage is, or what your reasons are for horning in on this op. There’re two people in Mezcaya that I trust, and one of them has been held captive for months now. So do what I say, when I say, and maybe, just maybe, we’ll come out of this with our skin intact.”

“And the other person you trust?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

Tyler was no longer looking at her, but out the window beside him. “Isn’t you.”

Two

Well. That was clear enough.

Tyler didn’t trust her. She didn’t particularly trust him, either, so she supposed that made them even.

“You’ve got different clothes?”

The absolute and utter change of topic surprised her. She looked down at her linen pantsuit. It had been excruciatingly expensive, but necessary, if she was going to make it back to the life she’d once had. She couldn’t show up as a representative of former Ambassador Torres in the polyester uniform she wore at the restaurant.

He’d made no sound whatsoever, but she could sense his impatience. “Yes, of course I have different clothes with me,” she answered.

“So you’ll look like a local? A likely candidate for a servant?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God for that,” he muttered.

Oh, she really didn’t like this man. “You don’t exactly look the part of a servant, either,” she retorted. What he did look like was a one-man military unit who’d never taken orders from anyone in his life.

If he took exception to her tone, she didn’t know it. “We’ll both change when we land,” was all he said.

She realized her teeth were worrying the inside of her lip and made herself stop. She didn’t want to pretend to be anything with this man, but if she had to, she’d do what was necessary.

“When will that be?”

“Soon enough.”

Her lips tightened. “Mr. Murdoch, things might run more smoothly if you’d just tell me what your plans are.”

“I’ll tell you what you need to know when you need to know it.”

She blew out a noisy breath, then unsnapped her harness.

“Where are you going?”

“To sit back there with the cargo. It’s friendlier than you are.” Her annoyance was a bristling, physical thing as she brushed past him through the cockpit door.

The bare skin of his arm tingled from the contact. He looked back at her. He was acting like an ass. He knew it. She knew it. She was beautiful, sexy as hell with her hair tied back in that tight knot, and he didn’t want to need her help. He didn’t trust her but he had to work with her.

Damn El Jefe!

He ran a practiced eye over the instrument panel, then looked back at her.

She was just fastening her seat belt, her head lowered as she fumbled with what should have been an easy task. A long strand of hair had worked free of her knot and clung to her cheek. She dashed it away with an angry motion, her gaze meeting his.

She looked away, but not quickly enough.

He thought he was immune to crocodile tears. Sonya had been able to summon them at the drop of a hat.

Hell. A conscience was mighty inconvenient, sometimes. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Why?” She was suspicious.

“Only making conversation.” He turned back around, automatically checking his panel.

After a long moment, she answered. “I have a sixteen-year-old-sister and…”

He glanced back at her when she paused.

“Three brothers,” she finished flatly. But at least her tears were nowhere in sight. Then her eyebrows rose and with extreme politeness, she said, “And you?”

“I’m one of a kind.” Though, really, he had no way of knowing whether the man who’d fathered him had sired a dozen other offspring, since Tyler never even knew the guy.

“Indeed.” Her tone was dry. “What a pity the world doesn’t have more just like—” She gasped when the plane shuddered and suddenly lost altitude.

He snapped around just in time to see a piece of cowling fly from the nose. Fury followed hard on the heels of disbelief at the sight of his plane damaged. Wounded.

Under his hands, the stick jittered. His adrenaline shot through the roof as he struggled to maintain his heading. “Come on, baby,” he whispered. “Keep it together for me.” He raised his voice. “Get up here,” he ordered.

Marisa was already slipping into the right seat, fastening the harness. “Take those binoculars, there,” he ordered.

She immediately reached for the leather case. “What am I looking for?”

“Anything,” he said flatly. It took some doing, and the execution was hardly textbook, but he turned the plane, changed headings. Coaxed some precious altitude from the reluctant controls. Keeping one eye on the instruments, he looked out the window. “He’s probably got a truck. A Jeep, maybe.”

“He?”

“Whoever shot at us.”

“Shot!” She swallowed audibly. Holding the small, powerful lenses to her eyes, she peered out the side window. “Dios. All I see are trees!”

At least she wasn’t screaming in hysterics.

She wasn’t screaming in hysterics.

Tyler grabbed her arm and yanked her around. The binoculars tumbled out of her hand and bounced with a clank off the instrument panel to fall on the floor near her feet.

She stared at him like he was mad. “What is wrong with you?”

“Who’d you talk to?”

“What?”

“Come on, princess, spill.”

Realization dawned. Marisa’s fingers curled against her palms, wishing that they were clawing out his eyes, and the strength of that desire horrified her to her soul. “You think I had something to do with this?” She yanked against his grip, but he merely tightened his fingers. “Let me go!”

“Tell me, Marisa. You know so much about la Fortuna. Maybe you’re already one of the El Jefe whores. They’d consider you expendable to keep me from getting to Westin.”

She saw red. Literally saw a haze of it come over her vision. Gerald had called her a whore. He’d been wrong, too. “You are vile,” she snapped, and yanked again at her arm. She succeeded in breaking from his hold only because he suddenly turned back and had both hands on the stick as he crooned—there was no other word for it but crooned—to the plane.

It chugged, it jerked, it shuddered.

Then all was silent.

The wicked-looking prop slowed until it turned lackadaisically, like some exotic wind decoration.

Her heartbeat sounded loud in her ears.

She could hear Tyler’s breath.

She stared at the prop, wishing with everything inside her that it would turn, whip into the revolutions that were so fast, they seemed invisible. Wishing she was once again near deafened by the hum of the engine that could be felt all around them.

But nothing.

She swallowed, not daring to look at Tyler, because if she did, this would all seem too real, too desperate.

Then she realized it wasn’t really all that silent, after all. And she did look across at Tyler.

The ominous sound of wind rushing outside the plane grew to a roar as the plane bulleted through the sky with no power and only a grim-faced Tyler at the controls.

She stared again out the nose of the plane, seeing the damage, feeling dizzy. “We’re going to crash,” she said faintly. All she’d wanted was to undo the damage that had been set into motion by her leaving Mezcaya. Was this, then, to be her final punishment?

“We’re not going to crash,” Tyler gritted beside her, as if by willpower alone he could prevent that from happening.

She looked at him, saw the tendons in his arms stand out as he struggled with the controls, the sheen of sweat on his face. “I didn’t do this to us,” she whispered.

“You better hope to hell I don’t find out differently, or I’ll finish off the job that shooter didn’t.”

She believed him.

Tyler didn’t have time to worry about Marisa’s pale face or the way she was staring out the window. There was no mistaking the abject terror in her face, whether she knew about the attack beforehand, or not.

He needed a place to land and he needed it yesterday. Had El Jefe somehow tracked them? Or was this an act by one of the natives, the ones who were determined to protect their way of life even if that meant shooting at a suspicious plane circling over their territory?

They were losing altitude. He’d been heading back toward the river, and he could just spot it in the distance. If he could just coax a few more…

“Brace yourself,” he ordered.

And then they were tearing through the trees, heavy branches crashing against them, toppling over beneath them. He barely had time to cover his own face with his arms after they cleared the rest of the trees and headed straight into the river.

Marisa screamed.

Water splashed up and over the nose of the plane.

Eerie moans filled the air and metal screamed as its momentum was abruptly stopped.

Marisa and Tyler, strapped in their safety harnesses, bounced around like rag dolls in the grip of a rambunctious, cartwheeling child.

Cargo broke free, tumbling, bouncing, breaking.

Then all motion ceased, jerked to a cruel, bone-bruising stop as the plane settled, tilting crazily against some immovable force.

Dazed, Tyler gingerly shook his head. He realized water was lapping higher and higher against the side of the plane. He ripped off his harness and leaned toward Marisa, gently tipping back her limp head. She’d struck something when they’d hit. Her forehead was bleeding. But she was breathing. And when he said her name, her mouth moved in reply.

Then her eyes opened slowly and stared, glassy, at him. “You’re bleeding,” she murmured.

Later, he might wonder over the relief he felt. But for now he didn’t have time. “So are you,” he said, and pushed himself painfully out of the cockpit. “We’ve gotta get out of here before the plane floods.” He kicked her briefcase out of the way as he made his way to the passenger door. It was buckled, and no amount of muscle would get it open.

He headed through the mess of supplies for the cargo door toward the rear of the plane. That opened, but it also let in a wave of cold water. He swore. “Marisa!”

Marisa had stumbled out of the cockpit behind him. “Tell me what to do.” She still looked unsteady.

“Get that duffel there. The black one. Grab anything you can carry from the box underneath it.”

He stepped into the swirling water, and rapidly inflated the Zodiac. They’d hit a sandbar. It was both a blessing and a curse, because, though it gave them a bit of dry ground to work with, it had also torn off the right wing of his plane.

Marisa, arms full, followed him, and he helped her from the plane, onto the bar, holding the cargo high, out of the water. “Stay there.”

She nodded, looking ill. He wasn’t surprised when her legs gave out, and he caught her before she fell back into the swirling river. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, her hand pressed to her forehead. “I’m so dizzy.”

He grabbed the duffel and stuffed it behind her. “Lean against that. And don’t let go. Can you swim?”

Marisa nodded weakly and sincerely hoped she wouldn’t be called upon to actually do so. Every movement made her head swim. She curled her fingers into the black canvas of the bag with a death grip and drew her legs up the sandy surface, out of the water.

They’d crashed.

But they weren’t dead.

She closed her eyes, aware of Tyler’s rapid movements as he went back and forth between the boat he’d inflated and the plane.

Then he was talking to her, telling her to get in the small boat. She moved, feeling clumsy, and he ended up just lifting her over the side, tossing the duffel in after her.

She was shivering. The air felt colder than it ought to have for February. If she could just get warm…

Her fingers closed on the duffel and she fumbled for the zipper. He probably had clothes inside—

“What the hell are you doing?” He jerked the bag out of her hands and she’d have pitched forward onto her nose if he hadn’t planted a hard hand on her shoulder first. “Stay out of there.” He shoved the duffel as far away from her as it could go. Which wasn’t far.

She didn’t want to cry. She wouldn’t cry. Not in front of him. “I’m cold.”

“You’re soaking wet. We both are. That, plus a little shock.” He shook his head and pulled a thin, silvery film from a small package. With a flick, he opened it out like a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then he tilted her head back and looked at her forehead. “I’ll get that cut taken care of in a minute,” he said.

And Marisa’s eyes flooded simply because his voice had been so gentle.

She was glad when he rolled out of the boat and headed back to the plane. She ducked her head and wiped her eyes. The nausea was subsiding. By the time he returned to the boat, she was sitting up, more or less steadily. He pushed the boat off the bar, walking alongside it until he was practically swimming. Then, with a slick motion, he slid over the side and flipped a small outboard into place. A moment later the motor was running with a reassuring sound.

But he didn’t head up the river as she expected. Instead, after several yards, he let off on the throttle, leaving them to drift with the current. He was looking back at the crash, holding something in his hand. “Cover your ears.”

Unthinkingly Marisa did as he bade. And then nearly jumped out of her skin at the short, sharp crack that blasted through the air when he pointed the small device and pressed a button.

She looked back. The front of the plane was engulfed in flames.

The front of the plane where the radio and all that wonderful, high-tech equipment was. She whirled on him. “How could you do that? What if they can’t find us?”

“Who?”

Her teeth chattered with chills. “Whoever is g-going to rescue us!”

He’d opened the throttle of the outboard, and now they were moving fast down the river. “We are the ones doing the rescue. This is just a temporary hitch in the plans.”

Marisa looked up at the afternoon sky. It seemed like hours had passed since the moment the plane had begun its tumble from the sky. But her logic told her it couldn’t have been long at all. “I still don’t see why you had to completely destroy the plane.”

“Would you prefer the shooter to know that we got out alive? Or would you prefer him to find completely burned wreckage?”

She felt dread slice through her. How silly of her not to realize the person who’d shot at the plane might not be finished with them. “Why does El Jefe hate this Westin so badly?”

“Don’t you know?”

She raked back the pieces of hair that had come loose from her chignon. “What do I have to do to convince you that I am not in league with El Jefe!” She realized she was yelling, and closed her mouth with a snap.

“I’ll let you know.”

She shook her head, wincing at the pain in her face. At least her swimming head had cleared. And being wrapped like a hot dog in tin foil had done the trick of settling her chills. “You’d have been right in style with the witch trials,” she told him.

For some reason, he found that amusing. His lip curled in an entirely unexpected and terribly brief grin.

Marisa looked away.

The river had narrowed from where they’d crashed to only about fifteen, perhaps twenty feet. The banks were steep, congested with heavy root growth from the trees that towered over them, nearly blocking out the sky above. As the small, tough boat skimmed steadily along the surface, Marisa couldn’t help the feeling that she’d been left all alone in this world with a man whose smile could transform his face.