Night Rescuer

“I certainly hope so.”

He looked up, startled at the smooth, dulcet tones of the female voice that answered him. Whoa. The woman who went with all that come-hither velvet lived up to her voice, and then some. She was slender, her skin a delicious caramel color. Her hair would probably be called brown if it weren’t streaked with all those golden, sun-kissed blond highlights. Her eyes were light brown and looked right through him to the blackest depths of his soul.

Shockingly, an emotion actually registered in his gut. Embarrassment at what she’d almost caught him doing. He reeled back from her steady gaze, stunned.

“Uhh, what is it you need today?” He pulled himself together enough to ask.

“I need something delivered. Something…unusual.”

“That’s what we do here at Pirate Pete’s Delivery Service. Anything, anywhere.”

At the mention of his name, the large green parrot dozing in the corner of the shabby office roused himself on his perch and gave his wings a shake. With a squawk, the bird announced, “Baawwk. Pirate Pete is a dirty old bird. Repeats every joke that he’s heard. Tells the girls with big tits, which guy licks the best—”

“Quiet, Pete!” John cut him off sharply. That damned bird was forever spouting off some filthy limerick. And always to the attractive female customers, it seemed.

“Baawwk!” Pete retorted, clearly offended at the interruption. “John Cowboy is ever so quick, sees a girl and he whips out his—”

“Pete. Shut up.”

The woman’s worried expression gave way to a dazzling, toothpaste-commercial smile that belonged on the big screen. Wow.

He mumbled, “Sorry ’bout that. Should’ve strangled and stuffed that bird a long time ago.”

“I think he’s cute.”

John rolled his eyes. “All the girls say that. I don’t know what they see in that feathered old reprobate.”

The customer replied, “He’s direct. It’s refreshing. A girl can relate to it.”

The way she was gazing into his eyes was pretty damned direct, too. If he planned on living past the next ten minutes, she would be the kind of woman who would give him serious pause. He cleared his throat. “You said you need something delivered? Where and when?”

“To Peru. As soon as possible.”

“Well, we can package it and express mail it for you or, if it’s really urgent, we can courier it down there for you. We can have it in Lima late tonight if we take it ourselves.”

“Oh, this delivery isn’t going to Lima. I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. It’s going way up into the Andes mountains. I’m told there aren’t even roads to the final destination.”

No roads? Man, that was remote. “We can fly it in by helicopter or even air-drop your package…but that would be pretty expensive. You might want to consider having us arrange a Peruvian guide to hump your package back into the mountains by llama. It’ll take longer to get there, but it won’t bankrupt you.”

“I’m not worried about money.” But the look in her eyes said she was plenty worried about something.

His invisible warning antennae wiggled. Something was up with her. What wasn’t she telling him? After almost fifteen years as an army officer, much of it in command positions, he had a finely honed sense of when he wasn’t hearing the truth…or in this case, the full truth.

“So when’s your drop-dead date?”

The woman started violently. “I beg your pardon?”

He rephrased quickly. “When does your package absolutely have to be there?”

“There’s not a set deadline. But the sooner the better.”

“In that case, I’d go with letting us fly it to Lima and then handing it off to a Peruvian pack train.”

She turned over the plan for a few seconds. Her fawn-colored eyes gazed deeply into his, measuring whether or not he was someone to be trusted. “If you think that’s best…”

What the hell. He might as well close the sale before he went in back and finished himself off. He asked smoothly, “What are we delivering, ma’am?”

“Me.”

Navy Commander Brady Hathaway jolted as one of the floor controllers below abruptly barked, “Commander. Come here! We’ve got a problem.”

He descended from the observation deck to the floor of what they fondly called the Bat Cave—a hundred-twenty-yard-long, fifty-foot-high cavern hollowed out millions of years ago by magma from a now extinct volcano. His shoes rang in quick staccato on the steel steps. None of the two dozen computer and surveillance technicians on duty at the rows of consoles took that sharp tone of voice with him lightly. Plus, when Carter Baigneaux—a longtime Special Forces operator himself—said there was a problem, it was guaranteed to be a bona fide crisis.

As Brady’s long strides carried him across the floor, the question foremost in his mind, though, was why Carter had told him to come down onto the floor. Why hadn’t he sent whatever image had his Cajun knickers in such a twist to one of the big screens on the far wall for everyone to see? Six JumboTrons lined the far wall, at the moment displaying various satellite tracking maps of the world.

He reached the technician’s desk and the array of monitors on it. “What’ve you got?” he asked tersely.

Carter stabbed a finger at his far left monitor. “I was cruising through a routine check of the surveillance cameras in the cave complex and I spotted this upstairs at Pirate Pete’s.”

Brady took one look at the noose dangling damningly in the middle of the cluttered storeroom. “Who’s on duty up there?” he bit out.

“Hollister.”

Brady swore violently. He took off running, sprinting across the floor, leaving rows of startled technicians in his wake. He raced down a low tunnel hollowed out of volcanic rock and skidded to a stop in front of the large freight elevator that carried people back and forth between the Bat Cave and Pirate Pete’s Delivery Service up on the surface. The decrepit shipping company and its ramshackle office acted as a front for the H.O.T. Watch’s surveillance operation here in the Caribbean. It allowed his guys to move around on missions with a credible cover, and it explained to the locals some of the supplies and personnel that came and went from the island.

C’mon, c’mon, he urged the elevator. He knew Hollister was messed up after that last mission, but he’d had no idea the guy was actually contemplating offing himself. Brady shoved a distracted hand through his hair. It hadn’t been Hollister’s fault. Nobody’d seen the ambush. They’d all been suckered. It had been a miracle that Hollister himself hadn’t been killed. The guy’d been shot in the back—it had taken months to heal and he still wasn’t cleared to go out on operational Special Forces missions.

The elevator’s double doors started to slide open, and Brady turned sideways, jumping into the space before they’d fully opened.

Thank God.

The noose still hung empty from the beam in the middle of the room. The entire storeroom and all its sloppy contents were, in fact, the elevator down to H.O.T. Watch Ops. He opened the rusted electrical panel and punched the button disguised as a circuit breaker that would return him to the surface and Pirate Pete’s. As the elevator lurched into silent motion, he climbed up on the chair quickly and untied Hollister’s knots. He flung the rope away in distaste.

The storeroom/elevator came to a halt. He heard voices out in the front room. A woman laughed. Ahh. That explained why Hollister hadn’t finished off the job, yet. He’d been interrupted by a customer. God bless her.

He took a calming breath and stepped out casually. “Hey, folks.”

The woman jumped. Edgy, she was. Hollister jumped, too, and threw a chagrined look past Brady to the storeroom from whence he’d just emerged. Brady ignored him and instead nodded pleasantly at the woman—who was a hell of a looker.

Hollister spoke up. “The lady, here, wants to have herself delivered to a remote area of Peru. She says there are no roads to where she wants to go, and she prefers a ground insertion to an air insertion.”

Brady’s eyebrows went up. An unusual request. Peru wasn’t exactly the safest place on the planet, particularly back in the mountains. Shining Path guerrillas still roamed the region, not to mention various drug growers and runners, and plain, old-fashioned bandits. “That’s a pretty dangerous destination. May I ask why you want to go somewhere like that?”

Her expression became closed. Stubborn. She replied smoothly, “It’s personal. I really can’t go into the details.”

“Fair enough. When do you want to leave?”

“As soon as possible.”