“Or else what?” Fuego hissed.
John let go of the guy’s throat with a little shove. While the guy stumbled and righted himself, John settled into what could only be interpreted as a trained-fighting stance. When he didn’t answer the thug’s question, Melina glanced up at him. And gulped. There was one, and only one way to describe the look in his eyes. Death.
Fuego took a careful step backward. Another. Then he turned and sauntered out of the place with patently false bravado. It was obvious the guy’s shoulder blades were itching like mad and he was restraining an impulse to jump and run.
The door closed behind Fuego and his henchman and everyone in the room audibly let out a collectively held breath.
“C’mon, Mel,” John muttered. “Let’s get out of here before Fuego and his pals get any bright ideas.”
He dropped several large bills on the table and nodded at the bartender, who nodded back. John called out a polite thanks for the man’s hospitality, and then he and Melinda stepped outside into the cool evening. John went first again, pausing in the door to take a good look around before he stepped fully outside. He didn’t have to say a word to get her to hustle into the Land Rover.
John wasted no time starting the engine and heading down the narrow street. They departed town from the opposite way they’d entered. The road deteriorated fast as it wound even higher into the mountains, and the going was slow.
They’d been driving for maybe two hours in charged silence, and full night was upon them when he stopped the car abruptly. The terrain around them was rocky, and trees loomed overhead, intensifying the night’s darkness.
John pivoted in his seat to face her. He exploded, “
Chapter 8
Fury flowed through John, hot and bright, burning away the fog that had enveloped him for the past eight months. He hadn’t even known it was there until Mel made him this mad and banished the blanket of numbness that had shrouded him. He almost felt…alive.
“Tell me everything,” he enunciated carefully past the control he was barely exercising on his temper. “Right now. I want to know everything.”
Melina had the good sense to look scared. “Don’t you understand?” she cried softly. “This is my family we’re talking about! I can’t risk them by involving you any more!”
“You can and you will.”
She shook her head in mute denial.
“Look. I can open that door, shove you out, and leave you in the middle of nowhere. Right here and right now. Give me one good reason why I should continue with this mission if you won’t be honest with me.”
Sorrowfully, she made eye contact with him. “Because you care about me…at least a little bit?” When he didn’t reply, she added, “Didn’t the past two nights mean anything to you at all?”
That was a low blow. But it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it. He sighed as some of his fury drained from him. “Do you want to die?” he asked her wearily.
“Actually, I expect to before this is all said and done.”
He stared at her, truly shocked. And after a decade in this business, he was a damned hard man to shock. “Come again?”
“You heard me,” she snapped with a hint of her usual fire.
“Why do you expect to die?” he burst out. As screwed up as he was in the head, even he would never go into an op assuming he was going to die in it.
She sighed. “I got a phone call four days ago. The man said they had my brother and my parents and they would torture them and start sending me body parts if I didn’t do exactly as they said.”
John prompted, “And they said to tell no one else, particularly the police.”
She nodded.
“Then what did you do?”
“I went to a clinic and got the shots I’d need to come to Peru, took vacation from work, told everyone a lie about needing to get away for a while, and then I headed for Pirate Pete’s.”
“Why did you come to Pete’s? Did someone tell you about us?”
“My brother used you guys once to deliver a package for him. I remembered him saying that Pirate Pete’s would take anything anywhere and not ask too many questions. And I knew I couldn’t make this trip on my own.” She laughed ruefully. “It’s not like you can walk up to some stranger and say, ‘Excuse me, would you mind taking me to the hideout of some violent criminal in Peru?’”
“So you knew you were leading me into a death trap.”
She flinched at that one. “I hoped not.”
He was probably within his rights to ream her out for dragging him blind into this, but he wasn’t entirely sure he blamed her. If his family’s lives had been on the line, he might’ve done the very same thing. Desperation was a funny thing. It made you do stuff you never dreamed you’d do under normal circumstances.
He never imagined he’d crawl away from the bloody corpses of his guys, but it had been that or die himself. Not that he’d been all that keen on surviving that black night. But somebody had to make it back to base, to tell the tale of his men’s heroism, to muster a recovery op to bring back their bodies. It was one of the most sacred creeds of the Special Forces. They never left behind one of their own…alive or dead.
“Okay. So you came to Pirate Pete’s and hired me to bring you down here. Did you have any communication with the kidnappers between the time you walked into the store, and when you and I left the island?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?” he asked.
She frowned. “Yes, I’m sure. I swear, I’m telling you the truth.”
“You were told to go to Lima and then call that phone number. Anything else?”
“Yeah. I was told to hurry if I didn’t want to start receiving ears and fingers in the mail.”
“Do you know who these people are?” It was the critical question. He could only hope that by getting her to open up about the other stuff, she’d tell him the truth on this one, now.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“What language did the guy speak to you in?”
“Spanish.”
“Native? Mexican Spanish? Castilian Spanish? Could you tell anything about where the speaker was from?”
She paused, thinking about it. “I’d guess some variant of South American Spanish. But then, we’re in Peru, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, last time I checked.” He thought for a moment. “Did he say anything at all that might be construed as having political overtones? Mention of a cause? Any political words like rebels or revolution or even the word government?”
“Nothing. I don’t think the kidnappers are political. Frankly, I’m convinced they’re criminals.”
He pounced on that. “Why?”
“Why else would they want me?”
His eyebrows shot up. Now they were getting somewhere. “Do tell,” he commented blandly, doing his best to conceal his excitement.
“Well, think about what I do. I research synthetic drugs.”
He frowned. “Aren’t most drugs synthetic these days?”
“I don’t develop medicine. I create bad drugs. As in synthetic heroin. Methamphetamines. Illegal drugs.”
She laughed. “It’s not like that. They know what I’m doing.”
“Huh?”
