Not Without Her Son

He waited a moment and she held her breath, then he spoke. “I’m leaving town tomorrow. I’ll be gone for several weeks and I’m taking Tomasito.”

Surprised as she was, she still realized what he’d done. He’d obviously had these plans in place, yet at the party he’d threatened to prevent her from visiting with Tomas. He must really enjoy torturing her.

She hid her anger, the taste of disgust mixing with a flood of fear. There were worse things Miguel could do than toy with her, she reminded herself, and taking Tomas was one of them.

“Where are you going?” The words were hard to get past the knot growing in her throat.

“Where isn’t important. All you need to know is that I expect you to remember whose wife you are. You may go into town to visit Portia, if you wish, but not alone.”

Portia Lauer was an older woman with whom Julia had developed a friendship. Miguel saw her as harmless and therefore he’d allowed the relationship to continue. His generosity went unnoted; all Julia could think of was her son. “I assume you’re taking Mari?”

“No, Mari will not be going. You coddle the boy too much. He can do without his nanny for two weeks.”

“Miguel! He’s only three—”

“I will handle him.”

The words cost her dearly, but Julia said them without reserve. “Then take me with you. I’ll watch Tomas for you and you can do whatever it is you need to do.”

He seemed to weigh her words, then he dismissed them without even answering, heading for the door instead. At the last minute, he turned. His profile looked like stone in the lamplight. “We’re leaving early. If you want to say goodbye, I suggest you keep that in mind.”

CHAPTER TWO

JONATHAN CRUZ HAD WORKED with the woman standing in front of him for five years. He felt as if he knew her but now, all at once, he wasn’t so sure. Meredith Santera wore an expression he’d never seen on her before.

“It’s better than we thought.” She paused then appeared to rethink her answer. “Or maybe it’s worse,” she said. “I guess it depends on your perspective.”

“I don’t want perspective,” he said. “I want the facts.”

She walked past the desk where he sitting, toward the couch. The third member of the Operatives team, Armando Torres, sat at one end of it, nursing a beer. There had been a fourth man in their organization, Stratton O’Neil, but he’d left several years ago under terrible circumstances. He’d cleaned himself up and solved his problems, but had chosen not to return, a decision his new wife had helped him make.

His loss had been a tough one. They were a tight group. Meredith and her father, a Navy Intel guy, had started the company and recruited the team right after she’d left the CIA. Cruz had heard all sorts of rumors about why she’d moved on, but he hadn’t asked. In their business, questions like that were frowned upon. She assigned the jobs, the team did them and that was that. Their clients came recommended or Meredith wouldn’t even talk to them, and the operations were solitary ones, completed with stealth and speed. They had no office and rarely saw one another, but all three of them had happened to be in Bogota at the same time, so they’d met to discuss this job. Cruz had wondered if Meredith had engineered the coincidence, though. The toughest of all of them, she usually made her decisions quickly and acted with confidence, but she was worried about her friend. In a way, her concern made him feel better about her. He’d wondered at times if she had any feelings left.

She kicked off her shoes then took the chair to Cruz’s left.

“The facts?” As she repeated his words, her voice was tight and angry with no sign of the drawl she could turn off and on. “The facts are very simple. Miguel Ramirez is a monster. He keeps his wife a virtual hostage by controlling her through their child. He beats her. She hates his guts and would like to see him dead.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But she’ll never leave him because, to do that, she’d have to abandon her child. I can guarantee you she won’t leave the country that way. Not without her son.”

Meredith made a visible effort to control herself. After a moment, she scrubbed her face with her hands, then she looked up at Cruz. “Julia Vandamme is the only friend I have. It killed me to see her tonight. I wanted to stick a blade right into that bastard’s black heart then grab her and get the hell out.”

“You would have ended up dead, along with your friend.”

She blinked, her eyes colder than Cruz had ever seen them. “Maybe, maybe not, but if I hadn’t known you guys were waiting for me, that’s exactly what I would have done.”

Cruz didn’t doubt a word of what she said, because Meredith Santera was a killer. Then again, so was Armando. And so was he. Killing was what the Operatives did.

They were assassins and Miguel Ramirez was their next target.

Cruz rose from his desk and walked to the bar. He took out three fresh beers, uncapped them and handed them out. Meredith’s was almost empty when he spoke again.

“Tell me more about the setup.”

She stared out the window. “The villa’s huge. It’s made up of one central building that contains everything but the bedrooms, which are in small casitas on either side. There are half a dozen smaller buildings scattered around the property and several patios. Needless to say, Ramirez has excellent security. There are guards around the fenced perimeter and dogs, too. Not to mention electronic sensors—motion, heat, noise detectors. You might get in, but you wouldn’t get out.”

“What about his people?”

“Very small inner circle. Has one guy who’s always close. His name is Jorge Guillermo. Hard to get a handle on him.”

Cruz nodded then switched topics. “Do you think she knows who her husband really is?”

Meredith’s expression twisted again, this time with such disgust that Cruz knew if he somehow failed to kill the man, the deed would be done regardless by the woman in front of him. For free. And with a cheerful heart.

“You told me what he did to her when she tried to escape. She has to be suspicious at the very least. She told me she knows he isn’t a diplomat, but before she could say more, she got spooked.”

“Did she say anything about her last attempt?”

“No.” Meredith shook her head slowly. “Julia’s a very private person and always has been. I was shocked she even told me what she did.”

By the time Meredith finished, an hour later, Cruz felt he’d been inside the Ramirez compound himself. Then Meredith looked at him and he knew trouble was coming.

“I know I handed this one over to you, Cruz, but I’m changing my mind. It doesn’t make sense for you to go in when I already know the situation. I’m taking this son of a bitch out myself.”

“No.”

“But Cruz—”

“You gave me the job for a very good reason, Meredith, and that reason hasn’t changed in the past twenty-four hours.”

“I understand,” she said evenly. “But Julia and I have been close for—”

“And that is exactly why you can’t do it. Personal involvement is too risky, for you and for the other party.”

“‘The other party’? She’s my friend, Cruz.” At her side, Meredith’s hands clenched. “If something goes wrong—”

“Nothing will go wrong,” Cruz promised. “But you won’t be the one doing the job and that’s for the best. You and your dad made that rule yourselves and it’s a good one.”

A stormy expression came into her eyes, but a minute later, her shoulders slumped in defeat. She and her father had made the rules, and she was too smart to let her emotions outweigh common sense.

“All right,” she conceded, “but you have to tell me what you’re going to do.”

“I haven’t figured that out yet.”

“There’s no figuring to it.” From the depths of the couch, Armando finally spoke.

His silences could stretch for days, so Cruz wasn’t surprised it’d taken him this long to join the conversation. Cruz looked at the Argentinian physician and raised an eyebrow.

“She gave you the answer already.” Armando tilted his beer bottle in Meredith’s direction, but his gaze stayed on Cruz. “You don’t have enough time to go about this your usual way. Ramirez is going to start his killing in a matter of weeks, maybe even days. When he’s done, he’ll go underground and you will have an even harder time finding the man. You need to do this one quick.”

“What’s your point, Armando?” Cruz’s impatience was clear, Meredith’s attitude making him unusually edgy.