Jase wasn’t sure who made the last small move that brought them together.

Melanie’s soft lips tasted like sweet papaya. An odd, exhilarating feeling hit him like a lightning bolt out of nowhere and sent his head spinning. He wanted to sink into her sweetness, to take her up—here and now—on everything she was reluctantly offering.

Jase pressed closer and licked the corner of her lips. Melanie gave a soft, startled sigh, but didn’t move back. If anything, she leaned toward him. Hot need plowed through him like a freight train.

In the back of his mind he was aware of the open door. He knew if someone walked by, it would mean instant execution. They’d drag him outside and shoot him like a dog. He was a dog, for taking advantage of her like this.

Yet with Melanie’s lips on his, the guilt and the risk didn’t seem so grave, and certainly seemed worth it…

About the Author

DANA MARTON is the author of more than a dozen fast-paced, action-adventure Intrigue novels and a winner of a Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. She loves writing books of international intrigue, filled with dangerous plots that try her tough-as-nails heroes and the special women they fall in love with. Her books have been published in seven languages in eleven countries around the world. When not writing or reading, she loves to browse antiques shops and enjoys working in her sizable flower garden, where she searches for “bad” bugs with the skills of a superspy and vanquishes them with the agility of a commando soldier. Every day in her garden is a thriller. To find more information on her books, please visit www.danamarton.com. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached via e-mail at DanaMarton@DanaMarton.com.

Spy Hard
Dana Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to Cindy Whitesel

and Amy Ignatz, friends I’ve been lucky enough

to reconnect with lately.

With my sincere thanks to Allison Lyons.

Chapter One

Lazy drops drummed a unique rhythm on the emerald leaves. Not rain—not yet, just the humid air weeping in the South American rain forest. Ripened fruit dropped from the mango trees, one nearly hitting a capuchin monkey. The animal jumped aside with a shriek, which sent a flock of parrots flying from the canopy, red-blue wings flapping. The soft and harsh noises blended into perfect harmony, pulsing with life—the morning song of the jungle.

A few hundred yards to the east, boots splashed in the shallow water of the ravine. Guns clinked against the water canteens on the men’s hips. The intruders must not have heard the jungle’s music, because they didn’t even try to fit in, creating disharmony.

Mochi perched halfway up the kapok tree, his feet dangling a hundred feet above the jungle floor. He’d sneaked out of the village at dawn to spy on the new batch of baby monkeys, hoping to spot one without a mother, an orphan he could take home. Since a jaguar had stolen his pet dog in the spring, the mud hut where he lived with his three mothers seemed empty.

But the monkeys dashed off the moment those boots came too close for comfort. Slow minutes passed before the six men came into view, then stopped to rest right below Mochi. He stayed to see what they were about, even if his mothers would be awake by now and looking for him. When he got home, nothing would save him from a good beating. He bristled at that. Nobody seemed to appreciate that he was now the man of the family.

An accident at the diamond mine up north had killed his father three months ago, the same week that his oldest brother had been shot by the drug lord who controlled their village. His three middle brothers had been taken more recently by a curse from an angry jungle spirit one of them had stepped on accidentally. A potion from the witch doctor could have helped, but the witch doctor had been on his annual pilgrimage. So the spirit-curse disease spread through the family, nearly taking Mochi, too. The witch doctor had come back in time to save him, but he’d been too late for the others.

He was still weak and now hungry. A line of lemon ants marched up the trunk not far from him. Not much, but enough to take the taste of hunger out of his mouth. He stood on the wet branch to reach them, balancing on bare feet.

He would never have slipped if a small part of the jungle spirit’s curse wasn’t still wedged somewhere inside him, making his legs unsteady. He grabbed the branch, his feet scrambling in the air for only a second before they found purchase. He barely made any noise at all. But one of the intruders below looked up, right at him.

A dark smile spread on the man’s face.

He weighed the mango in his hand, then threw it hard. The missile hit Mochi square in the middle of his chest, and the boy lost his perilous perch in the tree.

A KID WAS the dead-last thing Jase Campbell needed in the middle of this particular undercover op. He swore under his breath as he watched the boy drop. The soft leaf carpet and the kid’s age, meaning flexibility, saved him from any broken bones, as proven by his quick recovery and dash into the trees.

Most of the men were too tired or too lazy to do anything about it. Mercenaries of the biggest crime lord in the area, they were returning to camp after a weeklong trek through the jungle, tired and sweaty. They just wanted to sit for a second and grab a bite to eat.

“¡Alto!” But Alejandro, having gotten the kid out of the tree, took off after him.

Which left Jase no choice but to follow. Not that he knew what he could do without blowing his cover.

He watched where he stepped as he ran. Even a small scratch from a broken shaft of bamboo could cause a fatal infection out here; the bite of a poisonous snake would mean near-instant death. He didn’t have to look up to know which way Alejandro went. The idiot made enough noise for a deaf man to follow—first with his feet, then with his wheezing. He’d had way too much palm wine the night before.

“I got it.” Jase passed him when the man slowed to catch his breath.

There had to be a village around somewhere, one that wasn’t on their itinerary. The kid couldn’t have been more than six years old, wouldn’t wander into the woods on his own farther than a couple of miles. The boy ran a lot quieter than Alejandro, his tan skin and drab loincloth blending into his surroundings. Only the screeching birds above betrayed the direction he took.

“Hey,” he yelled. Not to make the boy stop, but to scare him into running faster.

Trees became sparser, the undergrowth thicker as Jase followed. Soon he came out onto a well-worn trail. Probably led to the boy’s village. The kid would reach home safely following it. Jase looked after the boy for a second, then turned back. Time to return to the others and let them mercilessly make fun of both him and Alejandro for being so old and feeble that a child could outrun them.

But he barely walked ten yards before a high-pitched shriek of terror stopped him. He spun on his heels and darted down the trail after the boy.

He expected some sort of an animal attack, but soon he could smell smoke. Then the village came into view—about two dozen primitive dwellings, the huts burned, bodies littering the ground.

He slipped his rifle off his shoulder and waited a few seconds. Nothing moved. He stepped into the clearing and followed the shrieking to a partially burned hut. Inside, the boy kneeled next to a dead woman, tears streaming, leaving shiny tracks on his dirty face. Another woman lay facedown in the back of the hut. The smell of death and smoke hung in the air.

“Take it easy, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Every cell of him protested the senseless destruction as Jase reached for the wrist of the woman nearer to him, then the other’s. Neither had a pulse. Anger burned in his gut. The wanton murder of innocent villagers was a good reminder of why he did the work he did—to stop tragedies like this from happening. The crime lords of the area considered the locals disposable pawns in their games, and gave even less thought to the countless victims of the drugs and guns they sent north on a regular basis.

“Come on.” He grabbed the boy by the arm and pulled him outside before the smoldering roof could collapse on them.

A third woman’s lifeless body sprawled behind the hut, the sight sending the kid into a renewed fit of crying.

“Para,” he told the boy. Stop. Then pushed the kid behind him. Someone was coming.

Alejandro burst from the jungle. “What the hell happened here?” he asked in rapid Spanish.

“Cristobal is pushing his boundaries forward,” Jase responded in the same language.

Alejandro’s facial muscles tightened as he raised his gun to the sky to squeeze off a jungle telegram.

Jase lifted his hand to hold him off. “Those bastards can’t be too far. The huts are still burning.”

Alejandro nodded and lowered his weapon. “Better take the news back to Don Pedro as fast as we can. I’ll go tell Lucas.”

If Cristobal’s men were pillaging through this corner of the jungle—a group that likely outnumbered Jase’s small team judging by the damage they’d wrought here—their best bet was not to engage them but to take information to Don Pedro instead. The big boss could then decide how he wanted to respond to Cristobal, an ex-captain of his who’d recently turned against him.

Alejandro ran off with a scowl on his pockmarked face.

Jase waited until the man disappeared from sight before turning to the kid.

“Go to the other village.” He pointed east.

The small collection of huts they’d left the previous morning was a day’s trek for the adults, would be only slightly more for the kid. The boy should be safe there. Cristobal’s men weren’t heading that way. Jase and the others would have met them if they had been.

He stepped back into the smoldering hut and grabbed some fruit that had been spilled to the ground, took a piece of cloth to wrap the food, then added his canteen to the bundle. “Here.”

The boy wouldn’t move an inch.

He shoved the kid gently in the right direction.

The boy stepped two feet away, then stopped and stared at him expectantly.

“¡Vamos!”

Might as well have been talking to a wild fig tree.

He turned his back on the boy and moved toward the jungle, hoping the kid would understand that the both of them needed to get going.

But instead of heading for relative safety, the kid followed him.

“You can’t come with me,” he said in Spanish, having no idea if the kid spoke that language or some isolated native tongue. A day’s trek in the jungle to the nearest village would be perilous for the boy, but a day’s trek in the jungle with a team of seasoned killers would be even worse.

The kid knew the jungle. With some luck, he had a chance to reach the village. But if he went to Don Pedro’s place on the river, his life wouldn’t be worth a damn thereafter.

“Run for it.” Jase put on a scary face and stomped his foot.

But instead of taking off, the boy began crying again, which made him feel like a heartless bastard. Which he was, by the way, so he didn’t fully understand why his conscience would choose this moment to have a fit.

“Go,” he said again, his tone suspiciously close to pleading.

But Alejandro reappeared from the jungle, followed by the other four, and the boy’s options disappeared.

The team spread through the village, looking for evidence of Cristobal’s men and picking out whatever they wanted to take. No sense in waste.

Alejandro came for the kid.

Jase stepped between them in a stance that would allow him action no matter which way he needed to move.

“I saw him first.” The man put his hands on his hip.

His protest drew the others’ attention. Lucas strolled closer. As team leader, he was responsible for settling trouble.

Jase being the latest addition to the group, he ranked lowest, firmly on the bottom of the pecking order. He didn’t have enough influence to take what he wanted, and to show weakness by admitting that he wanted to save the boy would make the others suspicious. It would conflict too much with the killer image he’d been taking care to cultivate.

“I looked into his dead mother’s eyes. Her spirit said it’ll curse me if I don’t take care of the kid.” He nodded toward the charred hut with a grave face.

Lucas moved on. Jungle superstition was its own thing. Nobody went against it.

Alejandro kept the scowl on his face. “Don Pedro would pay me a hundred dollars for him.”

Unlikely. Maybe twenty, if Don Pedro needed someone to help out around the dog-fighting rings he ran in the larger towns downriver, or another runner, or a jungle spy—all jobs with a very low life expectancy.

Jase pulled his second-best knife, the one with the serrated double edge that Alejandro had coveted from the beginning, and held it out on his palm.

The man accepted it with a shrug as if being generous, as if the knife wasn’t worth ten times more than what he could have gotten for the boy.

“Hey, Jase found himself a little brother,” he called out to the rest, and joined in their laughter as he loped off, not wanting to miss any of the scavenging.

The men thought of the forest-dwelling natives as little more than animals, so calling one Jase’s brother was an insult. Like calling him stupid, which he was. He risked a multimillion-dollar mission almost a year in the making for a scrawny kid.

He shook his head, then squatted in front of the boy and pointed at himself. “Jase.” Then lifted his eyebrows and pointed at the latest complication in his life. Now he would have the responsibility to protect the kid at the compound, and find a way to get him out of this godforsaken corner of the jungle to safety, the sooner the better.

“Mochi.” The boy wiped his tears with the back of his dirty little hand.

Jase rubbed the bridge of his nose then looked at the men picking through the village. Rough and tough killers, every one of them. On some level, he wasn’t much better. He’d certainly seen and caused plenty of violence over the years. What on earth was he going to do with a kid? It’d be a miracle if his cover wasn’t blown and they both survived the day.

THE LAST LEG of the trek back to camp had exhausted the men. They sat around the beaten-up table in the kitchen at the back of the barracks half asleep, taking their last puffs of smoke, their last swigs of the homemade tequila that was being passed around. Night had settled on the jungle around them, thick and dark, exhaustion pulling them toward their bunks in the barracks.

“I need to talk to Alejandro,” Lucas said, and nodded toward Jase. “See if he’s up at the house.”

That got his attention and woke him up. A seal of approval. He’d never been sent up to the house before, not once since he’d joined Don Pedro’s empire of crime two months ago. But now it seemed he’d proven himself with the weeklong trek through the jungle and his assistance with the collection of debts.

Plus, he’d discovered the burned village—important intelligence. He’d fully gained Lucas’s trust at last, which brought him one step closer to Don Pedro himself, one step closer to crucial information on his operations and business associates.

He glanced at Mochi, who slept on a rug by the woodstove. The women who were responsible for feeding the men had taken care of him. He’d made it through the day, but how long his good luck would continue remained a question. The sooner Jase found a way to get him to another village the better.

He finished his yerba maté and stood to lumber off into the darkness, up to the house where Don Pedro kept his most nefarious secrets.

Sharp voices, men arguing in the barracks, wafted through the night air. A dog barked in the distance. The compound that housed Don Pedro’s army of criminals teemed with life, yet Jase felt alone in the middle of it all.

Trust no one. Don’t let your guard down for a single second. Those were the top two keys to his survival at the moment. Don’t get involved on a personal level would have been a good third, but he’d shot that to hell when he’d taken on Mochi this morning.

The downstairs windows of Don Pedro’s jungle hacienda were dark. The only light came from upstairs, from Don Pedro’s private living quarters—strictly off-limits to all but his closest confidants. Even Lucas wasn’t allowed up there. Since Cristobal’s attack on his life at his old jungle headquarters, the Don had become paranoid.

Jase slowed as he passed the building he’d observed so many times from afar. He knew every door, every window, every man who was allowed in. He had a plan. And now that he could freely move around the compound, he would be able to implement his plans, slowly, carefully, over the upcoming days.

He glanced up at the balcony and caught a dark shape that didn’t quite blend into the rest of the shadows. His hand inched toward his weapon as he moved closer.

A single shot.

One shot could take out the Don right now. The man was responsible for over 10 percent of the drugs and illegal weapons that reached the U.S. Credible intelligence indicated that he was also providing weapons for terrorist cells and was possibly involved in a plan to smuggle terrorists across the U.S. border.

Except, even if he died right now, tonight, someone else would take his place by next week. Someone like Cristobal.

So Jase’s orders didn’t include assassination. He was to come away with a chart of Don Pedro’s organization. They needed to know how he was linked to the other major crime lords in the area, what local cops and higher-up politicians were on his payroll, and who his connections were to those terrorist cells he was rumored to be negotiating with.

Jase’s team—the Special Designation Defense Unit—had gained important documents last year. The notebook they’d acquired held crucial information, but not enough. Colonel Wilson wanted more before he launched a serious offensive. As big as Don Pedro was, he was just the first loose thread. Jase had to tug gently, and if he did it right he might just unravel the whole tapestry of corruption and violence.

He had a bug hidden in the lining of his left boot, meant for the Don’s office.

As he moved forward through the shadows, the moon peeked from behind the clouds at last and illuminated the figure on the balcony. Long hair framed an oval face, spilling down slim shoulders. Not Don Pedro, after all.

A woman.

Her light hair framed Western features, definitely not Hispanic or a mixture of Hispanic and native, like most of the people on the compound. The hauntingly beautiful face caught Jase off guard. Of course, Don Pedro never settled for anything but the absolute best. He could afford it.

Looking at something pretty felt good after the gruesome massacre he’d seen today. Jase slowed. Then he caught himself and moved along. The last thing he needed was a shot in the head for ogling the boss’s girlfriend.

Since the downstairs windows were dark, Alejandro clearly wasn’t in the house. Jase strode toward the packaging facility behind the hacienda and scanned the men who stood around up front, but didn’t see Alejandro among them, either. He did spot Don Pedro, however. Since he couldn’t afford to miss any opportunities to get closer to the boss, he walked forward.

The men were standing in a circle, surrounding Paulo, a burly guy of about forty who usually worked with the runners.

“Where is the missing kilo?” Don Pedro asked in Spanish, his eyes filled with pure menace.

“I swear I didn’t touch it. I don’t touch what’s yours. I never have.” The man’s voice shook.

The Don nodded to the thug who held Paulo’s arm, and the guy planted his fist into Paulo’s stomach hard enough to make him double over.

“All I want is that kilo back,” the Don said in a deceptively mild tone.

But the accused knew the boss wanted a lot more—his blood and life, in fact. Everyone knew Don Pedro didn’t forgive. He didn’t believe in setting a bad precedent.

So Paulo went for it, coming up swinging. Since they were all standing together and Don Pedro among them, nobody dared to squeeze off a shot. The men froze for a moment, unsure of what to do, which Jase used to his advantage.

He lunged forward and tackled Paulo to the ground, ignoring the forty or so pounds the man had on him.

Others moved to get in on the action, but a word from Don Pedro called them back, even as he nodded to Jase to go ahead.

Raw violence went from zero to a hundred in the first second. Paulo fought for his life, while Jase fought for a promotion. He needed to move up in the ranks to get closer to the Don.

The knee to his stomach almost made him lose his dinner. He responded with an elbow to the chin. They rolled in the dust like savages, looking for an opening, a handhold, anything. Paulo had probably been sitting around camp all day, while Jase’s body felt every mile of their long trek, his muscles achy, his energy exhausted. He didn’t let that stop him.

His eyebrow split from a headbutt as they fought on, then his lips split from a punch the guy had somehow gotten in. He tasted blood and saw stars.

Flipped the man.

The good thing with big ones was that they usually tired faster, since they had to move all that weight. Paulo had never heard of that rule, it seemed. He rolled right over Jase, making his ribs crack and pop under the pressure. But Jase rose and got the upper hand at last, got the man in a headlock and immobilized him. They were both bleeding and breathing hard, nearly choking on the dust-filled air they desperately tried to suck in.

Jase looked over his shoulder at the Don just as the boss nodded to one of his lieutenants, who was holding a gun on Paulo.

The bullet grazed Jase’s cheek on its way to slamming into his opponent’s head.

He dropped the suddenly limp body to the ground, then pushed to his feet, trying to avoid the growing pool of blood. He looked back at the Don, hoping the man would at least ask his name. But the boss was already walking away.

He didn’t give his men orders to clean up the mess; he simply expected it to be done. Two of them were already grabbing Paulo by the feet to drag him away.

A third man, Roberto, clapped Jase on the shoulder. “Want to come over to the fire for some whiskey?”

He was one of the Don’s inner circle, not a bad friend to make. But not tonight. Jase couldn’t afford to anger his immediate boss by making him wait too long.

“Lucas sent me up for Alejandro. I better find him and get him back to the kitchen,” he told the man, and limped back the way he came.

If Alejandro was up this way, he would have come out for the fight. And if he wasn’t at the packaging building, he was most likely either with the dogs or the mules.

Jase passed by the main house again, giving it another careful look as he walked. He would come up in the morning and ask for Paulo’s job. He’d be turned down with a scoff, but all he needed was an excuse to get inside, see exactly where the office was located.

The woman stood on the balcony in the same spot as before. Something glinted on her face. Sure looked like tears. As the wind changed, he could hear her soft whisper.

“Dear God, please help me away from this place before he kills me. I beg you, please, please send someone to save me.” She had a slight Texas accent.

Her words were so filled with desperation they twisted even his stone-cold heart. He kept his gaze on her. So they were both Texans. He told himself that didn’t mean they had any sort of connection.

She was the spoiled girlfriend of a murderous criminal, probably upset because she didn’t get as many diamonds this week as she’d expected. Sounded like she’d had a fight with Don Pedro earlier. None of Jase’s business.

Suddenly she turned his way and peered into the shadows, alarm ringing in her voice as she asked, “Who’s there?”

He stepped forward. “Sorry if I bothered you. I’m Jase. I’m looking for one of the men.”

She shrunk back.

And he realized what he must look like, fresh from a fight, with blood on his shirt and face, violence still hanging around him in the air. “Sorry.” He turned to go.

“Wait,” she called after him. “Are you the one who brought that little boy in?”

He raised his gaze back to her. Her large eyes watched him carefully from above a straight, pert nose.

“Consuela from the kitchen told me,” she said.

He swore silently. Consuela talked too much. “Scrawny little thing.” He gave a dismissive gesture. “I don’t think we’ll see much work out of him. He might not even make it.”

Her face turned even sadder, if possible, the corners of her full lips turning down. She nodded and walked inside the house without looking at him again.

She wasn’t what he’d expected from the Don’s girlfriend. Although Jase could only see her from the chest up—the wooden railing hid the rest—she looked more like a schoolteacher than a Brazilian photo model, which was Don Pedro’s usual entertainment, if the rumors around camp were true.

This one looked wholesome and fragile, completely inappropriate for the Don. How in hell did someone like her find her way to a place like this?

Clearly a mistake. A mistake she was rapidly realizing, judging by her whispered prayer. Well, he couldn’t help her with her troubles. His hands were plenty full already. She’d be nothing but a distraction. And a distracted undercover operative was a dead undercover operative.

He moved on. Dogs barked in their enclosures. The river rushed on in the distance. He didn’t take a dozen steps before Alejandro materialized from the darkness.

The man’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What are you doing here?”

“Lucas sent me to find you.”

“You shouldn’t be hanging around the house.” His voice dripped with disapproval. He puffed his chest out as if he wasn’t just another lackey, one measly step above Jase.

“I thought you might have gone up to play cards with the guys in packing.”

“Shot the dice with the idiots at the stables.” His grim look said he didn’t win. “Jorge got back. Says he saw another burned village to the south. Cristobal is definitely heading this way.”

Which meant there would be a major battle in a couple of days.

“We’ll take care of him.” Jase squared his shoulders in a macho display for Alejandro’s sake. But his mind was on the boy. He needed to get Mochi out of here at the first opportunity.

He tried not to think of the crying woman whose sad eyes haunted him.

Chapter Two

The woman on the balcony came to him in his sleep. Naked. The dark jungle whispered its mysterious song around them. Silver moonlight splashed on her skin, her long hair tumbling to her waist.

Jase’s body turned hard with need, but for some reason he couldn’t reach for her. Then he saw at last what held him back. Thorny vines tied him to a tree. He watched, unable to move, as a black jaguar stole forward from the bushes and crouched, getting ready to lunge at the woman. Blood glistened on the animal’s muzzle. And as Jase looked around, he could see a small foot sticking out from under the bush where the jaguar had come from. Mochi.

He woke to shouting outside the barracks, cold sweat covering his body. Sunlight filtered through the burlap curtains. Lucas rushed in, an extra belt of bullets swung over his shoulder, a scowl on his face.

“What is it?” Jase grabbed his gun first, his shirt second.

“We’re preparing for battle. Cristobal sent a messenger. He demands unconditional surrender.”

A glance out the window revealed a man lying in the dust on his back behind one of the jeeps. A familiar knife protruded from his throat, the very one that Jase had traded for Mochi. Alejandro was always eager to score points.

“And that would be the messenger?”

Lucas flashed a ferocious grin and rushed on out the back door. Jase washed his face then followed after him, heading to the kitchen to see about the kid and get some coffee. Then he would go straight to the main house. The Don would be calling his people today, needing all his alliances to back him in the battle. Now was a better time than ever to plant that bug. They could gain some serious intelligence out of this.

He strode through the long building he bunked in that resembled the Indian longhouses, a half wall of bamboo erected here and there for privacy. In other places colorful horse blankets hung from the ceiling to separate the bunks from each other. In general, the men didn’t much care about their lodgings. Anything was better than sleeping in the open jungle, at the mercy of the elements and the animals.

He pushed through the door into the kitchen, which was little more than a large shack attached to the barracks. But he found the blanket Mochi had slept on empty.

Before he could have gotten worried about the kid, the boy walked in through the back door, chewing on a large chunk of flatbread. The woman from the balcony last night stepped in right behind him, a hand on her round, pregnant belly the railing had hidden the night before.

“Sorry, I’m—” She froze at the sight of Jase. Unease widened her big, thick-lashed Bambi eyes, the color of dark chocolate with gold specs that somehow made them mesmerizing. She pressed her full lips together as she drew back. She’d probably thought all the men were outside and had expected only Consuela in the kitchen.

Once again, she saw him at his worst. His hair hadn’t met up with his comb yet this morning; his face hadn’t seen a razor in a week. He was unkempt and half-naked… And he couldn’t believe he was worrying about his looks, for heaven’s sake.

He shrugged into his wrinkled shirt and ran his fingers through his hair. “Can I help you?”

It behooved anyone to be nice to the boss’s girlfriend.

The boss’s pregnant girlfriend.

She looked five or six months along. So much for those slim hips in his dream. Not that she looked any less sexy just the way she was. Her full lips captured his attention for a few seconds before his gaze dropped to her breasts that stretched the thin material of her strappy dress. His body instantly responded to her.

Suicidal much? the voice of reason asked in his head. For once in his life, he resolved to listen to it.

“Where are this boy’s parents?” Her voice sounded like home.

He would have lied if he said her slight Texas twang didn’t affect him. Her large, dark eyes were ringed with shadows, as if she hadn’t gotten much sleep lately. None of his business. He wasn’t going to get involved in any trouble the boss’s girlfriend might be having. Going anywhere near her, even allowing himself to dream of her, was trouble with a capital T.

For a second he weighed what he should tell her, then decided to go with the truth. She didn’t look like the type who would press someone like Mochi into child slavery. “His whole village was wiped out. His name is Mochi.”

“He needs some clothes.”

Jase looked over the dirty little kid in his even dirtier loincloth. Pants would have been good, at the very least. He thought of his few meager pieces of clothing, none of which would remotely fit the boy. Where was he supposed to find kid’s clothing around here? Department stores didn’t exactly dot the jungle.

“I can send some cloth down from the house. I’ll tell Consuela to make something for him,” the woman suggested.

He had a feeling Don Pedro wouldn’t be pleased if he knew that his woman visited the barracks and chatted with a foot soldier. She was going to get him in trouble. But a decent chunk of cloth would have been nice. “Much appreciated.”

He put a hand on Mochi’s shoulder then stepped back, drawing the boy with him.

“You don’t sound local.”

“Part Mexican, part Zapotec, part Texan.” He didn’t like the way her eyes lit up at the Texan part. She better not think he would be her helping hand with her troubles. He had compromised this op badly enough already by taking responsibility for Mochi.

“I’m Melanie Key. From Austin. Do you go back to the U.S. sometimes?” She seemed to be holding her breath, waiting for the answer.

“Never.” He squashed any budding hope decisively and turned Mochi around to go. “Come on, buddy.”

They needed to have a talk about what areas of the compound were safe and unsafe, how to stay out of the way. This place was different than the jungle. The kid needed a whole new kind of survival training.

He nodded to Melanie and left her where she stood. He didn’t know what her troubles were, but he wasn’t going to get involved in them under any circumstances.

He’d learned his lesson the last time, with a Venezuelan journalist whose long legs had somehow convinced him that he had to save her from the secret police, even if that side adventure jeopardized his mission in the country. Only she’d been a counterspy, sent to turn him.

She’d been good. He’d fallen for her, and he didn’t fall easily. He didn’t do relationships. So sure, he had a hard time resisting damsels in distress. He enjoyed a good rescue, but at the end he always walked away.

But he wasn’t going to have to walk away from Melanie, because this was one crazy side adventure he wasn’t going to walk into, to start with.

He was going to have a very simple motto when it came to her and those troubled, gold-speckled eyes of hers: STAY AWAY.

DON PEDRO WAITED at the top of the stairs with a frown on his hawkish face when Melanie returned to the hacienda from the barracks. “Where have you been?”

Her heart beat in her throat as she looked up at her brother-in-law. Her body tensed. He was shorter than she, but somehow always managed to loom over her. “Stretching my legs. I needed fresh air.”

“That’s why you have the balcony.” His small, mud-colored eyes flashed.

“Not much room here for a walk,” she said good-naturedly, determined to keep things light despite the gathering tension in the air. “The men look busy. Lots of running around out there.”

His thin upper lip curled. “Some idiot might be coming to challenge me. Who the hell does he think he is?” He pointed his index finger at Melanie. “You are not to leave the house. You carry my sole heir.”

They never discussed it, but she sort of figured he couldn’t have children of his own. And Julio, the husband she’d lost to a drunk driver in Rio seven months ago, had been Pedro’s only brother.

She took the steps slowly, hoping he would move off before she reached the top, but he stayed where he stood.

He put a hand on her arm when she reached him, a milder expression replacing the anger on his face. “Come sit with me for a while. We should spend more time together.” He nodded toward his bedroom.

“My back aches from the walk. I should probably lie down.” She pressed her hands to the small of her back and hoped she looked drawn enough to be convincing.

Displeasure flashed in his eyes, impatience tightening the muscles of his jaw. He watched her closely, as if contemplating whether or not to push, but at the end he let her go. “We wouldn’t want to harm the child.”

He wanted her son first and foremost. He wanted her, too, in his bed, although not nearly as badly. But once he had her baby…

“You’ll stay inside,” he said, his voice hard steel again, before he turned to stalk into his office.

When he’d been at the family mansion in the city, he’d consorted with models and actresses. She’d seen the type of women; she’d attended a number of his lavish receptions. There, he acted the successful businessman, all charm and generosity. Here in camp, where he at last showed his true face, the cooking women served his basic needs. She’d heard the noises, would no doubt hear them again today when one of them brought Pedro’s lunch up to him.

She hurried to her room and locked the door behind her before he could decide he wanted to deviate from the routine. She sank into the chair in the corner and put her feet on the small stool. Her ankles were swelling again.

Her baby kicked. She pressed her hand against the spot, loving the feel of that connection. Part of her couldn’t wait to see her son, part of her panicked at the thought that in a month, he would be born and she would become a mother.

She wasn’t ready.

She’d planned on growing up before the baby came. She’d wanted and needed to change. She needed to become a strong and independent woman, because that was the sort of mother she wanted to be. She had planned on doing a lot of work on herself before they got to this stage.

Then Pedro had trapped her and derailed her plans. Nothing was going to happen now as she’d planned it. She thought of the pretty nursery she’d been working on in her apartment back in Rio. The crib. That was where she’d planned to raise her baby, not here.

She pushed to her feet and waddled over to the armoire, bent—not without some difficulty—and fished out the backpack she’d come here with. The bag was on the smallish side, but she wasn’t going on a long trip. And she couldn’t carry too much extra weight anyway. She was carrying enough already.

She put the bag on the bed and closed her eyes for a second. God, she really was going to do this.

She’d been in denial these past few months. She hadn’t believed Pedro was really going to hold her here. She’d thought he would come to his senses, reach deep and find some last, forgotten shred of decency.

He hadn’t. She’d made a mistake to think that because he was Julio’s brother, the two men would be similar in some basic way. But Pedro wasn’t bound by any sense of honor. Pedro did what he wanted, took what he wanted.

She knew that now, but it was almost too late.

She packed some clothes—a pair of lightweight maternity pants and a long-sleeved shirt—most of the fruit from the fruit bowl on the table, her box of prenatal vitamins and the antimalaria pills she’d been taking faithfully.

She could hear Pedro talking to someone at the top of the landing. She listened for the voices, trying to gauge whether they were coming closer. Locked door or not, if he knocked, she would have to let him in. Otherwise, he’d just kick the door in. He’d done that before.

She hurried.

Jase. She tasted the name on her lips. He was the one. He was going to save her.

Trouble was coming. She’d caught the sense of increased tension, caught bits and pieces of talk here and there, saw the hustle and bustle outside. She wanted to be gone by the time the fighting began. Or before her sinister brother-in-law completely lost his patience with her.

Jase seemed to be different than the average thug around camp. That he was part American had to count for something. And while he looked just as hard-edged and dangerous as the others, he didn’t have that sense of depravity about him that defined the rest of Pedro’s men.

Plus, he was attracted to her on some level. That had been apparent in his graphite-gray eyes before he shuttered them. She’d stifled the answering twinge of awareness. Well, of course, she would notice those eyes and that body. Those hard muscles—Were something she was not going to think about. She refused to be attracted to anyone who would work for a man like her brother-in-law.

She’d sworn off men, anyway, especially the alpha male type. Her father had controlled her long enough. Julio had seemed nice, but had quickly turned all macho, head of the house, you’ll-do-as-told, after the wedding. And Don Pedro…

She shuddered when she thought of what her life would become if she couldn’t get away from here.

She put a few extra items into the bag, then looked into the rustic mirror on the wall. “If you don’t want others to control your life, then don’t let them,” she said the words out loud, voicing the resolution she’d come to while she’d tossed and turned through all those sleepless nights in the jungle’s humid heat.

There was only one solution: she had to take control.

She had to get herself out of here. And she would, using Jase somehow to achieve her goal. He was the key to her escape. And she would do whatever it took to get away from here. She’d been praying for a rescuer for too long—a police raid, or drug bust, anything. But nobody was coming. She had to accept at last that saving herself would be up to her. She fisted her hands. She would get away from this cursed place. And once she did, no man was ever going to control her life again.

“Some years from now, we’re going to meet a nice, mellow guy who loves kids,” she promised her baby. “Maybe a low-key music teacher,” she added. She liked music.

But first she would have to deal with Jase.

She stashed the backpack under her bed. Step one, completed.

Now on to step two. Somehow, she had to trick Jase into helping her. She couldn’t blackmail or threaten him into it. She had a feeling he wouldn’t find her overly threatening. That left bribery. In exchange for his assistance, she would give him something he wanted. And since she had no money, the only avenue left to her was seduction.

The thought of what that might entail filled her with mixed emotions. But she drew a deep breath and strengthened her resolve. She placed a hand on her abdomen. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to get us out of here.” She would go to any length to save her baby.

THE MEN SPENT the morning preparing for battle. No teams had left the camp on their scheduled transport trips. Runners were sent to the teams who were out with orders to return to the camp posthaste. The downstairs of the main house brimmed with the Don’s closest men. Everyone expected the fighting to begin by the following morning.

Cristobal’s men were still some hours away, and they wouldn’t want to fight as soon as they got here. They would want to map the terrain first, get a good night’s sleep.

Jase had been turned away at the door when he’d gone up to the hacienda to discuss taking over Paulo’s position in packing. Roberto had other priorities right now. He was focused on strengthening the camp’s defenses and didn’t have time for ambitious foot soldiers.

So Jase dropped that plan and had gone back an hour later, pretending to be looking for Lucas. He’d gotten turned away once again. By noon, he was still no closer to planting the bug, and his nerves hummed with frustration.

He hated the waiting part of undercover ops. Of course, 90 percent of undercover ops consisted of waiting. He’d made progress over the past couple of months, had gained important information, but he wanted to have that damn bug planted already.

He walked by the main house every chance he got. On his fifth pass, he spotted Melanie on the balcony once again. He would have been lying if he said he didn’t feel a little thrill when her eyes settled on him.

“You,” she said in a bossy tone. “Come right up. I need you to help me move something.”

Exactly the break he needed. He stifled a grin and put on an expression of mindless obedience. “Sí, señora. Right away.”

Having heard the exchange, the man at the door let him through at last. Half a dozen men stood around the table in the large room he walked into, a combination foyer-slash-living-room area that had been converted into a war room.

The men glanced up at his entrance, but nobody questioned him. They trusted the guard at the door not to let in anyone who didn’t have any business being in there. They were all busy drawing up battle plans and arguing with each other.

Jase headed straight for the stairs.

That did draw attention.

“Hey,” Roberto called after him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

He hunched his shoulders, put his head down, making himself into the very picture of subservience. “The señora wants me to move some furniture.”

Roberto rolled his eyes, probably thinking how it was just like a woman to be interior decorating with an impending battle looming over their heads. Which was exactly what Jase was thinking, so he shot an I-know-what-you-mean look back at the man and shook his head slightly.

Roberto waved him on with a disgusted gesture and returned to his battle planning.

No need to hurry now. Jase noted every door, every hallway, every man. He planned on getting a good look around upstairs as well, but as he reached the top of the stairs, he found the woman waiting for him in her open doorway.

She wore white this time, a linen dress designed for the climate and to accommodate her motherly curves.

“In here.” She gestured with impatience. “I need this couch moved out of the sun. I want it in the far corner.” She drew into the middle of the room.

He followed her. Did she know that a battle was coming? Did she trust Don Pedro so blindly that she didn’t realize how much danger she was in? Cristobal would be no pushover. He’d all but obliterated the Don’s previous headquarters. The man was playing to win.

“I just want to be more comfortable,” she was saying.

Silk pillows, fans, a sprawling bed with mosquito netting, books and stacks of magazines filled the large space. The Don had clearly settled her in for a long stay. She could have run a small convenience store out of her room.

He tried not to think of the stark contrast between the barracks and her room, between what she had at her disposal and what Mochi had, sleeping on the floor next to the stove in the kitchen. She was the boss’s pampered girlfriend. She lived in a different world from the rest of them. That bothered him, but he didn’t let it show.

He grabbed the end of the couch and dragged the damned thing to where she pointed. Took him about three seconds. But she didn’t look pleased. She looked disappointed.

“Wrong spot?”

She shook her head, looking at him with something akin to panic. Which made him wonder just what was going on in that beautiful head of hers. Then the next second, her whole demeanor changed, as if she’d just thought of something.

“Thank you.” Her full lips stretched into a smile. “Would you like a glass of cold tea?”

Definitely. Especially if she kept smiling at him like that. But that quick change in her demeanor made him uneasy. “I better get going.”

“It’s just—” She looked away. “It’d be great to talk to another American. I get lonely up here.”

The bossy attitude she’d displayed on the balcony was gone. Maybe she only used that tone around the men to assure their respect and to make sure they wouldn’t perceive her as weak. But she seemed to be letting her guard down around him. Whatever the reason, her vulnerability grabbed him as nothing else could have, and somewhat mollified him. She did look lonely, and desperate, suddenly, in some way.

“I can’t imagine Don Pedro would neglect a woman as beautiful as you are,” he told her in a light tone, still feeling that more was going on here than what was being said.

But instead of lightening the mood, his words made her frown.

“I’m not his…” She actually blushed.

He couldn’t remember the last time he saw a woman do that. Certainly didn’t expect it from a drug lord’s live-in girlfriend. Interesting.

“I was married to his brother,” she told him.

Huh. And the plot thickens.

He’d damn near memorized the Don’s file while preparing for this op. The man had a brother, Julio, in Brazil, who’d been killed a few months back in a car accident. Jase didn’t remember any mention of a wife.

Did her existence and presence here change anything? Was this something he could use to his advantage? More specifically: was she a threat to his mission or an opportunity?

“Do you like it here?” he asked noncommittally. Better tread softly until he figured her out.

The abject misery that crossed her face couldn’t be faked. Her slim shoulders sagged. “I wish I could go home.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Don Pedro prefers to keep me safe, close to him.”

Now that was a carefully worded sentence if he’d ever heard one. Could or could not mean that the Don was holding her against her will.

He didn’t have to think long to find a reason why that might happen. Since the Don’s family had been ravaged in years of drug wars, her child would be the man’s closest living family. In a patriarchal society, that meant everything. The Don would take the relation more than seriously.

“You’ve known him long?” Jase asked her, still not fully understanding why she would ever come to a jungle camp like this in the first place, especially in her condition.

She sank onto the couch, graceful despite the extra weight she carried. “I met Julio, my husband, in Rio. He saved me one night when my car broke down in a bad neighborhood. We were married before I knew it. Then three weeks later he was killed in a car accident.”

“What were you doing in Rio?”

“Finishing my master’s on sustainable high-density housing in developing nations.”

The slum recovery projects. He’d heard of those. Building them gave people jobs, then when the buildings were done, it got them off the streets. “Don Pedro was there?” That he couldn’t picture for anything, not unless he’d been recruiting runners for his drug trade, but at his level in the organization, he wouldn’t do that personally.

She shook her head. “When Julio died, I called the number he had for his family. Don Pedro asked me to bring Julio’s ashes to Bogota for a family funeral. That’s when I met Pedro. I was a guest at the family mansion in the city for a while. Then he brought me here.” She winced. “I didn’t exactly understand what this place was. He told me we were going to his house in the country.”

The tone of her voice said she hadn’t been given much choice about coming. So maybe she was being held here against her will. He didn’t like the way that thought brought out his protective instincts.

As far as he knew, Julio had been a two-bit restaurant owner in Rio. He’d gone there in his early twenties to get away from the family business. Meeting the Don must have been a pretty big shock for his widow, if he hadn’t told her anything about his brother—which seemed to be the case.

He watched her with renewed interest, trying to figure out whether she was the snooty señora who’d ordered him around just minutes ago, or a woman out of her depth, in serious trouble.

Her shoulders straightened under his scrutiny, and a smile came onto her face that looked more forced than real.

“Why don’t you sit?” She motioned to the spot on the couch next to her.

Suspicion pricked his instincts. Until now, he stood in line with the open door, visible from the outside for propriety’s sake. He’d assumed she would want that.

Maybe he was mistaken. He sat next to her, still leaving a respectable amount of space between them, curious where this all might lead. He was almost sure now that she was plotting something and calling him up to move the couch had only been a ploy. She clearly wanted something from him, but wasn’t sure how to go about it.

She bit her full bottom lip. And put her hand on his knee.

He nearly jumped right off the couch as heat shot up his leg.

Okay, he hadn’t expected that.

If he were a gentleman, he would have stopped her right there, would have told her to come right out with it and tell him what she wanted from him. But he’d been too long without female companionship, so he stayed where he was and put an expectant smile on his face.

He waited to see her next move. At the very least, it should prove to be interesting.

She pulled her hand back and cleared her throat. He could almost see the wheels turning in her head. She was trying to figure out how to go about getting him to do whatever it was that she wanted from him.

A seductress she was not, which made the situation even more intriguing. And turned him on completely. He leaned back, watching and waiting. Leaving his knee within easy reach.

A man could hope.

She gave him another tremulous smile as the air between them filled with tension. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she licked her lips in a nervous gesture.

Which brought his X-rated dreams about her to mind. Was she thinking about kissing him?

The temperature in the room shot up a couple of degrees. She had the most kissable mouth he’d ever seen, with a slight crease in the middle of the bottom lip. And all of a sudden he couldn’t take his eyes off her full lips.

She leaned a little closer.

He couldn’t believe it.

She looked so nervous it was a toss-up whether she’d kiss him or run away first.

Every cell in his body voted for the first option. He held very still, careful not to scare her away.

She leaned another inch closer. And looked pitifully miserable about it, while trying to keep a come-hither smile on her face. Not very convincing. He had half a mind to close the distance between them just to put her out of her misery.

The more she fidgeted, the better the idea seemed. For some reason, he was desperate all of a sudden to feel those full lips pressed against his. She smelled like flowers, which made him wonder what she would taste like. He was betting on honey.

In the end, he wasn’t sure who made the last small move that brought them together.

Her soft lips tasted like sweet papaya. Okay, that was more logical and likely than honey. They had papaya on the menu pretty much every single day. Good thing he really liked it.

An odd, exhilarating feeling hit him like a lightning bolt out of nowhere and sent his head spinning. He wanted to sink into her sweetness, to take her up—here and now—on everything she was reluctantly offering.

Dozens of erotic images filled his mind, ridiculously hot compared to how chaste the kiss was. He wanted to lay her down on that couch, wanted to bare her breasts to his gaze and mouth. He wanted to see her eyes clouding with pleasure.

He pressed closer and licked the corner of her lips. She gave a soft, startled sigh, but didn’t move back. If anything, she leaned toward him. Hot need plowed through him like a freight train.

He wanted her naked.

He put his hands over her rib cage, his fingers spread out, his thumbs massaging the spot under her breasts. Considering her earlier display of nerves, he expected her to protest.

She didn’t.

In the back of his mind, he was aware of the open door. He knew if someone walked by, it would mean instant execution. They’d drag him outside and shoot him like a dog. He was a dog, for taking advantage of her like this.

Yet with Melanie’s lips on his, the guilt and the risk didn’t seem so grave, and was certainly worth it.

He knew he was in trouble when he realized he was thinking like a hormone-crazed teenage boy and not like a trained operative. Still, everything he was pushed him to proceed with the seduction.

Only the sure knowledge that she was playing him could make him pull away.

She looked shocked and disconcerted, her eyes wide with disbelief. Not because he’d pulled back, he suspected, but because she’d done what she had. She was probably surprised that she’d actually gone through with it.

So was he.

He watched as that hesitant smile returned to her lips. He had to give her credit for pulling herself together in short order.

“Perhaps we could go someplace more private,” she suggested, and swallowed hard.

His body sang with pleasure at the suggestion, even if he couldn’t follow through with it under any circumstances. “Such as?” he asked anyway.

“Down by the river?”

Again, images from his dream came back to him. But so did her whispered prayer from the night before, a clear image as she had stood up there on the balcony. And it put things into perspective.

He was to be her ticket out of the compound.

She glanced away, and he followed her gaze. A backpack peeked from under the bed, no doubt holding her escape kit. Did she have a weapon? Guns were all around the place, always handy. Getting her hands on one shouldn’t have been too difficult.

Did she plan on shooting him once he got her far enough from this place? She looked all soft on the outside, but a glint in her eyes told him that she had found a steel core somewhere deep down, a core he’d do better not to trifle with.

But how he wanted to. Trifle with her. Preferably while they were both naked.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” There. He still had some common sense left, and his response to her proved it.

He took another look at her lips. Then he stood and walked away from her before he could do something colossally stupid, like kiss her again.

Chapter Three

Jase strode to the stairs without looking back. Who knew that with all the cold-blooded killers inside the hacienda, Melanie’s room would be the most dangerous part of the house? He wasn’t scared of the men. He’d been well trained to take care of thugs like Don Pedro’s. With Melanie, on the other hand, for the first time in his life, he felt out of his depth.

He didn’t like the feeling.

She’d somehow managed to turn him on while, at the same time, massively confusing him.

The only thing weirder than her hitting on him was his instant attraction to her. That’d come out of nowhere. He didn’t have a pregnant woman fetish or anything. Never had a pregnant girlfriend. Wasn’t even sure if pregnant women were into men or were awash with some mommy hormones that preoccupied them, making things like sex irrelevant. Those labor and delivery scenes he’d seen in movies flashed into his mind, scenes where the woman screamed at the father and did her best to break the man’s fingers.

He flexed his hands.

He hadn’t planned on doing that. Ever.

Yet he found Melanie sexy as hell. And enigmatic. With a touch of vulnerability. But with enough guts to go after what she wanted.

Okay. Boyish obsession ends now.

He shuffled down the stairs, his neck tucked in, doing his best not to draw attention to himself, noting the two men who’d come in since he’d gone upstairs. If nobody paid attention to him, maybe he could hang around a few more minutes.

He glanced around, looking for one of the Don’s satellite phones, but he didn’t see any of them out in plain sight. Bugging that would be just as effective as bugging the man’s office, and possibly easier to accomplish.

A faint taste of Melanie still lingered on his lips, reminding him that months had passed since he’d last touched a woman. Melanie had reawakened his body and then some, but only danger awaited him in that direction, so he refocused his thoughts on the men by the table. They were eating, holding bowls of steaming food the women must have brought up while Jase had been upstairs.

His stomach growled. He ignored it.

Roberto, who wasn’t eating, spotted him and called out as he wrestled with a sizable roll of paper. “Come give me a hand. Here. Hold this.”

Okay. Good. Excellent, in fact.

A command to stay instead of a lecture on all the reasons he shouldn’t be in here.

The man struggled to spread out a large jungle map on a table, a taped-together puzzle of what looked like Google Maps printouts.

Jase moved to hold down two corners, spotted the satellite phone under the edge of the paper. Roberto grabbed a hand grenade to weigh down another corner, then pulled his knife and speared the last corner to the wood with the blade. He gave a swarthy grin, apparently satisfied with his own ingenuity.

“Let’s see if we can figure this out, amigos.” He bent to carefully examine the expanse of trees, interrupted here and there by the river or a clearing. He pointed to the middle of the map and followed the line of the river to the point where it looped back on itself a little. “We’re here.”

None of the camp showed. The satellite pictures had probably been taken years ago, when the camp had been nothing but a couple of wood huts hidden under the trees. Only after Don Pedro’s headquarters had been destroyed by Cristobal last year had the boss begun serious building here.

The men examined the map as they ate.

“Here is one of the burned villages.” One of them pointed at the edge of the map with his fork.

“And here is another.” Roberto tapped a spot not far from the first. “So we know Cristobal is going to hit us from the southeast.”

Jase scanned the map in every direction. He hadn’t seen a rendering this detailed of the area before. He’d studied aerial photos of the jungle before leaving on this mission, but back then he hadn’t yet known where exactly the Don’s new headquarters were, so he’d had no reason to inspect this exact spot out of the endless jungle specifically.

Some sort of a building showed on the satellite map about thirty miles to the north of them.

“What’s that?” he asked, not sure whether he would get an answer.

But Roberto seemed to be in a talkative mood. “A scientific research station. They monitor one square mile of jungle and record every animal that passes through it. Some kind of biodiversity research. A chopper brings them supplies and switches staff out every month. They don’t move outside their boundaries.”

“They got any good stuff?” Jase played the part of the opportunistic jungle thug, wondering if the scientists knew just how close they were to some serious trouble.

Roberto shrugged. “Not the kind of equipment we could use here. And their perimeter security is too good. That’s how they keep track of the animals. They’re not worth the bother.”

Jase filed that information away in his brain and kept his mouth shut while the others marked the approximate location of the enemy troops on the map and tried to guess the numbers. He paid close attention until a shout from above interrupted the murmur of voices.

“What the hell are you doing? In your room!” Don Pedro growled at Melanie at the top of the stairs, his eyes narrowed with fury, his mouth drawn into a sharp, cruel line of displeasure.

Looked like the Don had stepped out of his office and caught her watching the men from above. No doubt she’d been plotting her escape, picking the next chump to try her tricks on.

If the Don had come out earlier when Jase’d been in her room…

He thanked his lucky stars and watched as she headed toward her door, her neck pulled in. Apparently she didn’t move quickly enough. The Don grabbed her by the arm. Hard enough to leave marks.

Jase’s muscles tightened.

Her hands slid in a protective gesture to her abdomen as she tried to pull away. She winced as the man shoved her toward her room. The door closed behind them with a slam.

Then the Don proceeded to shout at her some more in Spanish, his tirade muted now and unintelligible to the men downstairs. A small pause came, then something crashed.

Jase’s muscles twitched.

She’d tried to use him and he didn’t like that, but he liked this even less. Instinct, and everything he was, pushed him to leap up the stairs and bust into that room. But his training held him back, even as his jaw muscles pulled tighter with every passing second.

Keep it cool. Don’t break cover.

The Don was obviously having a bad day. Having his mortal enemy, Cristobal, who’d nearly brought him down not that long ago, marching on his camp had visibly rattled the big boss. Jase had never seen him look anything less than invincible before.

He’d rather see him dead, all considered.

He noted the position of every man in the room again, each weapon, calculated angles and speed, shifted into a better position without letting go of the map. If she cried out…

But even as he thought that, the Don stormed out of Melanie’s room and yelled down below for everyone to work before disappearing in his office once again. The men shrugged off the display of temper—nothing they hadn’t seen before. None of them seemed to care one whit for the woman upstairs. They were all focused on the upcoming battle.

The bastard had slammed Melanie’s door so hard behind him that it’d bounced open again. Jase kept watching that gap in the door from the corner of his eye while he pretended to pay attention to Roberto and the others.

Then he caught movement. The door closed with a quiet click.

She was all right then—well enough, at least, to get up and move around. He relaxed marginally. Of course, the Don wouldn’t risk hurting the baby.

But after the baby was born… Jase rolled the tension out of his shoulders. Okay, so maybe she had a good reason for wanting to get away from this place, sooner rather than later.

She either ran now, or she would have to take her chances here.

Pretty soon she’d be too far along in the pregnancy to risk a trek through the jungle. And she couldn’t run once the baby was born. A newborn wouldn’t survive the grueling trek. Plus, once the baby was born, the Don would no longer need her. Who knew how long after the birth the Don would let her live. Any of the camp women could be brought up to the house to take care of the kid.

Jase didn’t blame her for trying to use him to gain her freedom. A part of him even wished he could help. He was drawn to Melanie in a way he hadn’t been drawn to any of the others.

But more than her life was at stake here.

By bringing down the Don, he would be saving thousands eventually.

He pushed thoughts of the woman aside. His full attention needed to be on the men. He had to be vigilant, to be fully present in the here and now so he wouldn’t make a mistake.

“How badly do you think we’re outnumbered?” one of the men wondered aloud.

Roberto shot him a glare.

Some of these men had been present at the fight at the previous camp and knew Cristobal was no pushover. Their losses in that fight had been rough.

Jase kept his eyes hooded, pretending to be studying the map, but studied the men one by one instead. Could he find an ally among them, somebody who would be willing to provide information? Would any consider defection?

If they had any reservations about the boss upstairs, they kept quiet about it. None would dare to air any doubts in front of Roberto and risk looking anything but 100 percent committed.

Jase held down the corners of the map and considered the satellite phone that made a bump under the paper. The phone was big and clumsy compared to his super spy phone that he’d lost crossing a mangrove swamp with Lucas and the others a month back.

That one had been special-issue: waterproof, bulletproof to a point, even damn near fireproof. It hadn’t been caiman-proof, however. When one of the large reptiles ripped away a chunk of Jase’s pants, it’d swallowed the damned thing right with the fabric.

Had he been alone, he would have hunted down the toothy bastard and gutted it, but he had to let it go in the interest of preserving his cover. He couldn’t go hunting for a phone nobody even knew he had.

He missed that phone, and didn’t like being cut off from the men back at headquarters for the time being, but right now the Don’s phone was more important. He shifted from one foot to the other, pretended that the corner of the map slipped from his hand, grabbed after the paper to roll it back out and “accidentally” knocked the phone to the floor in the process. It rolled under the table.

“Sorry, man. Didn’t see that.” He let the paper go and squatted to retrieve the phone, grabbing for it with his left hand while going for the bug with the right.

The cloner would duplicate the signal to a U.S. Army satellite, every future conversation would be recorded and stored on a secure server. He snapped the back off the phone with his thumb, plugged the bug in, then popped the back into place as he stood.

He put the phone back on the table, where someone else was now holding his corners of the map.

Roberto shot him an annoyed look, but he seemed too busy figuring out Cristobal’s next move to pay much attention to anything else.

Jase backed away and out of the room. He cast a last look at Melanie’s door, which remained firmly closed. A strange tightness appeared in the middle of his chest.

Probably heartburn. As enthusiastic as Consuela was with spices, it was a miracle he still had any stomach lining left. He rubbed the strange sensation away with the heel of his hand as he stepped out into the humid jungle air.

He strode back to the barracks, swung by the kitchen on the way. Speaking of the tequila-swigging matron… Consuela was stitching two pieces of plain linen cloth together that stood out in stark contrast against her red and orange block print muumuu. She sat on the ground, her feet extended toward Jase. She wore no shoes. She didn’t need them; the inch-thick cracked and hardened layer of calluses on the bottom of her feet protected her soles just fine.

Another woman chopped sugar cane in the back. Pretty ironic. Some of the men in camp were running around like headless chickens out there, while the women went on with their chores as if the whole camp wasn’t preparing for battle.

He glanced around but didn’t see Mochi in any of the corners. “Where’s the kid?” They’d have to have another talk about the importance of sticking around the women and keeping out of the way, especially once the fighting began.

“Alejandro came and got him,” Consuela mumbled with a shrug. “His shirt is almost done.”

But Jase was already turning back out the door. He hurried on toward the dog pens, broke into a run. With the camp in a complete upheaval, nobody thought his haste suspicious. Nobody stopped to question him.

The dogs perked up at the sight of him, then looked disappointed when they realized he wasn’t bringing leftovers, as he often did. The animals were all scarred, but still wagging their tails, not holding an ounce of grudge toward the humans who’d chosen this life for them.

He scratched a bulky head sticking out from between the bars. The dog in the next enclosure jumped up on its hind legs, wanting attention, as well. He was almost as tall as Jase. “Hey ya, Killer.” He patted that one, too, as he passed.

He’d considered, more than once, setting them free in the night. But if the wild boars and the jaguars didn’t get them, they’d kill each other. As much as he hated to see them taken to the towns to be abused in the ring, he couldn’t come up with a decent plan to save them. They’d be in his report when he finally got out of here. Their best hope was a U.S. military hit on the camp. They would be liberated then.

He didn’t get all the way past the enclosures when Jorge, round as a rain barrel, shuffled from the back, smoking a fat cigar and cleaning his weapon. He gave a yellow-toothed grin in anticipation of the battle.

“Have you seen Alejandro?” Jase peered behind him.

“He was here with the kid.” Jorge shook his head, a look of annoyance flashing across his weather-beaten face. “Took Chico.”

Chico was a three-legged puppy, injured by one of the older dogs. Since he obviously wasn’t going to grow up to be a great fighter, he didn’t have much of a future at the camp. A miracle that nobody had shot him yet.

“Alejandro took Chico?” That didn’t make much sense. Alejandro wasn’t exactly the type to adopt a handicapped puppy.

Jorge took the cigar out of his mouth and spat on the ground. “I gave Chico to the kid. Couldn’t stand all that caterwauling. Alejandro’s damn fault. He wanted the boy to take his two best dogs into the jungle to make sure they don’t get hurt in the shooting. Idiot. One dog, the kid could handle. But when Alejandro gave the boy the second leash, the two dogs fought like crazy.”

Of course they would. They were trained to fight each other. What the hell did the idiot expect? Jase didn’t have to be psychic to know how that turned out. Fury swept through him. “Where are they?”

“Up in packaging.”

He cut across the compound, breaking into a run once again.

Roberto stepped outside from the hacienda as Jase passed by.

“Everybody needs to get ready before nightfall. I want everyone to get some sleep before the battle starts in the morning. Make sure you have your weapons together and enough ammo. And no drinking tonight.”

Jase acknowledged the orders with a nod, but didn’t stop to talk.

He found the packaging building in chaos, holes dug in the floor, tightly wrapped bricks of cocaine being buried in every corner. The men resented the extra work, swearing deliberately, cursing Cristobal.

Jase ignored them. “Mochi?”

Someone nodded toward the west wall. Jase zigzagged through between the sweating men, careful not to knock anyone over. Tempers were running high. He didn’t have time to stop for a fistfight.

Mochi sat on the floor, his arm bleeding, shiny tear tracks marking his face that lit up with hope when he spotted Jase. He held a wiggling flour sack under one arm. Chico, presumably.

Alejandro was holding out his finger to the boy, with a dash of white powder on the tip. He, too, glanced up as Jase reached them.

“For the pain.” His expression was challenging and defensive at the same time, as if he hadn’t decided yet which one to go with.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.