The Spy Who Loved Him
Merline Lovelace
Although headstrong Margarita was mesmerized by Carlos Caballero's fearless courage, she wasn't about to bow down to any man. But the temptress in her yearned to surrender to her ardent suitor's sizzling seduction.Now, with a murderous band of criminals hot on their trail, the beautiful secret spy struggled with the contradictory emotions Carlos's fierce protectiveness stirred in her. How was she supposed to choose between sworn duty…and unrelenting desire?
As an evil traitor threatens to destroy the top-secret SPEAR agency, A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY continues….
Margarita Alfonsa de las Fuentes
Beautiful and utterly bewitching—her heart is held captive by only one man.
The fiery spy lives by her own set of rules.
She does what she wants…when she wants!
Except now her hot-blooded lover’s scorching kisses threaten to shatter her self-control…and blow her cover.
Carlos Caballero
His smoldering black eyes and disarming smile make all the women swoon.
Whether Margarita wants his protection or not, this lean, bronzed warrior is not going to let a deadly felon harm one hair on her head.
For he will risk it all for the beguiling woman he is determined to possess!
Marcus Waters
Dashing and charismatic, he is a thorn in Caballero’s side.
Either the heat of the Central American jungle is getting to him…or Agent Waters really does harbor a secret desire. But there will be hell to pay if his dark-tempered rival ever catches on!
The Spy Who Loved Him
Merline Lovelace
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the one, the only Al, mi amigo, mi amor, mi esposo
A note from reader favorite Merline Lovelace, author of over fifteen unforgettable novels for Silhouette Books:
Dear Reader,
I hope you’re enjoying A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY as much as I am! I’ve been holding my breath, biting my nails and heaving huge sighs of relief with each narrow escape and dreamy, romantic ending. This slice of the action takes place in the steaming jungles of Madrileño, a tiny country perched on the edge of the Caribbean. I have to confess the sexy, supermacho hero—a colonel in the Madrileñan army serving as the deputy minister of defense—flutters my pulse as much as he does that of the secret agent who stubbornly refuses to marry him.
Okay, okay! I admit it. I’m a sucker for a guy in uniform. I guess that’s because I spent twenty-three years in air force blue myself. And because of a certain sexy young captain who swept me off my feet three decades ago. Over those years, we shared exciting, adventure-filled careers that included tours of duty in Taiwan, Vietnam and at the Pentagon in the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We even got to pin on each other’s eagles. Although Al occasionally reminds me he made colonel first, I’ve never admitted that he outranks me.
Now that we’ve both hung up our uniforms, we’re enjoying golf, long, lazy dinners with friends and traveling. Last fall we spent the most delicious two weeks in Germany, Austria and Italy. Hong Kong and Paris used to be my favorite cities in the whole world. Venice has now edged them out. This fall we’re off to…wherever the winds take us.
With that kind of romance and adventure in my blood, it’s no surprise that characters like Margarita and Carlos steal my heart. Here’s hoping they capture yours, too!
And if you enjoyed this book, watch for my next. The Horse Soldier features another military hero—the leather-tough commander of a cavalry regiment stationed on Wyoming’s wild, untamed frontier. A January 2001 release from MIRA Books, The Horse Soldier is available now.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 1
“Why doesn’t he marry her! The way she drapes herself all over him, any fool can see Anna would love Carlos to wrap her in silver gauze and shield her from every cold breeze that blows her way.”
Muttering into her crystal champagne flute, Margarita Alfonsa de las Fuentes leaned silk-sheathed hips against a stone balustrade. Behind her, the city of San Rico, capital of Madrileño, spilled down steep, jungle-covered slopes to a sea awash in moonlight. In front of her, tall French doors thrown open to the balmy January night gave an unobstructed view of the glittering crowd gathered to welcome the new Austrian ambassador to Madrileño. Dancers in flowing gowns and elegant tuxedos swirled and dipped across the State Ballroom’s shining parquet floor to the lively strains of the “Blue Danube Waltz.”
One dancer in particular held Margarita’s attention. Her cousin, Anna. Tiny, beautiful Anna, with the melting brown eyes, thick black lashes and tumbling masses of the blue-black hair most Madrileñans were blessed with. Slender as the swaying sugarcane plants that formed the basis of their country’s economy, Anna moved with a feather-light grace that thoroughly annoyed her cousin. As Margarita knew all too well, delicate, seemingly fragile Anna possessed the face of an angel and the temper of a wasp. The twenty-year-old could make life miserable for everyone around her when things didn’t go her way.
Not that her dancing partner would care about her temper. Or even notice it. If Carlos married Anna, he’d spoil her outrageously…then leave her to sit docile and pampered at home while he went about the important business of men. He wouldn’t be around enough to notice her vile moods, which in any case Anna would hide from him like a proper little wife.
But Carlos didn’t want to marry Anna. He’d decided on Margarita as his bride-to-be. He’d even obtained her father’s consent to the match.
Gritting her teeth against an all too familiar frustration, she tossed her head and downed the last of her champagne. Even now, three years after returning from an extended stay in the States, she still battled the chauvinism that permeated every social stratum in her country. Each time she made a small dent in the masculine dominance—as when she’d landed her job at the Ministry of Economics over her father’s vehement objections—she’d stumble up against another obstacle.
Like Carlos.
Carlos Caballero. Madrileño’s Deputy Minister of Defense. Six feet plus of solid muscle, bronzed skin, glossy black hair and calm self-confidence. Margarita had known him most of her life and had adamantly refused to marry him for the past year…despite her mother’s fervent urging, her father’s blustery demands and the traitorous needles of desire that shot through her whenever Carlos turned his sexy onyx eyes in her direction.
The fact that he sprang from the same aristocratic roots she did, had racked up a chest full of medals during his military service and was considered the brightest mind in the Ministry of Defense didn’t overcome the man’s liabilities as a life partner in Margarita’s mind. He was everything she didn’t want in a husband. Conservative. Traditional. Overprotective.
It didn’t matter that he also possessed a smile that made girls sigh and grown women walk into walls. Or that he moved with a pantherlike grace under his elegantly tailored tuxedo. Or even that Margarita’s chest tightened whenever she imagined his lean, muscled body pinning her to the sheets.
What mattered was that he shared the oppressive, antiquated view of marriage of so many Madrileñan men. She’d broken with her family once over their clamoring desire that she marry someone of their choosing. Fled to the United States for six years of college and graduate school. Gotten involved with an organization that would shock her parents to their core if they knew about it.
She’d come back to Madrileño three years ago. She would always come back to Madrileño. Her country was in her blood, a part of her heritage.
Sighing, Margarita set aside the crystal flute and turned to lean her elbows on the stone balustrade. As it always did, the spectacular collage of dark, jungle-covered mountains, white-washed buildings topped with red tile roofs and shimmering sea grabbed at her heart. The city of San Rico combined everything she loved and hated about her country…breathtaking beauty surrounded by feral wilderness; fabulous wealth wrenched from abject poverty; a cosmopolitan elite leading a population still struggling with illiteracy and centuries of oppression.
She was determined to help her country rise to the promise of the new millennium. Determined as well to eradicate the drug trade that had crippled its economy for years. That’s why she’d fought for her job with the Ministry of Economics. Why she’d joined SPEAR when she was approached as a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. Why she…
“You look especially beautiful in moonlight.”
The deep, chocolate-smooth voice raised goose bumps on Margarita’s bare shoulders and arms. She turned, and the sight of Carlos in white tie and black tux raised goose bumps everywhere else.
How did he do it? she wondered irritably. How could he look so devilishly handsome and so maddeningly complacent at the same time? And how did he manage to set her back up with a mere compliment? She wasn’t idiotic enough to wish he admired her for her mind instead of her looks, but an occasional acknowledgment of her intellect might have elevated his standing in her eyes considerably.
“Thank you.”
Her terse response lifted one of his brows. Strolling across the balcony, he joined her at the railing. At five-seven, Margarita was considered tall for a Madrileñan. Even so, she had to tilt her head to look into Carlos’s chiseled features.
“I like you in red,” he murmured. His gaze drifted down her throat to the swell of her breasts. “What there is of it.”
“I’m so glad.” Oozing syrupy sweetness, she smoothed her palms over the flame-colored sheath that plunged to a deep V in both front and back. “I thought of you when I chose this gown.”
A corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m sure you did. You take particular delight in taunting me, do you not, querida?”
The lazy half smile caused a distinct flutter in Margarita’s chest. As much as she’d like to, she couldn’t deny the man’s impact on her central nervous system. Carlos radiated masculinity. Smooth, controlled, extremely potent masculinity. Ignoring the treacherous skip in her pulse, she took issue with his casual endearment.
“I don’t suppose it would do any good to remind you that I am not now, nor will I ever be, your ‘darling’?”
“No good at all,” he replied easily. “Any more than it would do for me to remind you that ‘ever’ is a long time. I’m a patient man. Very patient.”
“Yes, I know.”
For some reason, the patience he took such pride in irritated Margarita more than anything else. If ever a man didn’t fit the English translation of his last name…
Steady, sober Carlos Caballero was as far from a cowboy as she’d come across in her thirty years. She’d never seen him lose his temper. Never witnessed a single crack in his iron discipline. She wanted passion from the man she married. Mindless, senseless, damn-the-consequences passion.
“You’re wasting your time, Carlos. I’ve told you repeatedly, I won’t marry someone who intends to shield his wife from everything nasty life has to offer.”
“It’s a man’s nature to want to protect his woman.”
Before she could take umbrage with that Neanderthal bit of philosophy, his wide shoulders lifted in a shrug.
“I can’t change who I am, Rita, any more than you can change who you are.”
“You don’t have the faintest idea of who I am,” she countered flatly.
None of them did. Her parents. Her friends. Her waspish little cousin Anna. Not one of them even faintly suspected that Margarita had been recruited by SPEAR while attending school in the States.
SPEAR—the acronym succinctly summed up its mission: Stealth, Perseverance, Endeavor, Attack and Rescue. The Washington, D.C. based organization was so secret that few members of the U.S. government and even fewer in the international community knew of its existence. Yet its tentacles reached deeply into domestic and foreign affairs, as well as into the business sector.
Although Margarita had undergone the same brutal training as SPEAR’s other agents, she’d been recruited for a specific mission and sent home right after her training. For three years, she’d quietly fed information on the Latin American drug trade to SPEAR. She took fierce pride in the fact that her efforts cut deeply into the illegal traffic that had almost destroyed her country’s economy.
“I know all I need to know about you, querida,” Carlos said quietly, pulling her attention to the discussion at hand. “We’d make a good match.”
“Why?” Her chin came up. “Because my uncle is the President of Madrileño and he wants you to run for the senate seat that’s just come open?”
She wasn’t sure, but she thought she caught a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. She felt a dart of triumph at having pierced his impenetrable calm, even for a second. The feeling evaporated when he moved closer. Only a step or two, just enough to crowd Margarita against the stone railing behind her.
“If I sought a wife for merely political purposes, I’d choose someone far more malleable.”
“Like Anna?” she inquired sweetly, all too aware of the heady combination of starched shirt and tangy aftershave she drew in with every breath.
“Like Anna,” he agreed. “But it’s you I want, Margarita.”
“Why?” she demanded again, annoyed anew by his stubborn refusal to accept defeat. “Why do you insist on pursuing a woman who doesn’t want you?”
The smile came back into his eyes. “Maybe because she’s yet to make me believe she doesn’t.”
“Madre di Dios!” Thoroughly exasperated, she shook her head. “Just what does it take to convince you?”
“I don’t know. Shall we put it to the test?”
Planting his hands on the railing on either side of her, Carlos leaned forward. Margarita understood his intent well before his mouth brushed hers. She could have stopped him with an icy command. Could have jerked her head away, or even taken him down with one of the many maneuvers she’d learned during SPEAR’s rigorous defensive countermeasures training. Instead, she kept her face impassive and her mouth tilted to his. What better way to demonstrate how unsuited they were than to let him see how little his kisses affected her?
She might have convinced both him and herself if he’d stopped after the first soft brush of his lips on hers. Unfortunately for her peace of mind, he didn’t. With a smooth coordination, he slid an arm around her waist and drew her close. She felt him against every inch of her body, as hard as tempered steel. His mouth came down on hers, more firmly this time, with a sensual deliberation that infuriated Margarita even as it set off tiny detonations under her skin.
Warmth flowed into her veins. Desire fisted in her belly. She could feel the studs in his shirt through the thin silk of her gown. Feel, too, the ripple of muscle in the arm locked around her waist. For an insane moment, she reveled in his strength and in the heat shooting through her. Only the fact that he’d stoked the fire so deliberately kept her from flinging her arms around his neck and consigning herself to the flames.
To her profound disgust, her whole body trembled when at last he raised his head. She drew in a shaky breath and was just preparing to let loose with both barrels when another sensation penetrated her whirling senses.
A slow vibration against her bare skin.
Just above her breasts.
Her hand flew to the wafer-thin locket she wore on a gold chain around her neck. The modest piece of jewelry didn’t go with her designer gown, which called for diamonds or flashy rubies, but Margarita never went anywhere without the small, oblong gold disk. When she flattened a palm over the locket and felt its barely discernible signal, excitement shoved everything but one thought from her mind.
SPEAR. She had to find a private corner, and fast! Someplace she could use the tiny transceiver tucked in her beaded handbag. With a toss of her head, she cut Carlos off at the knees.
“That was…enjoyable. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better return to the ball.”
Enjoyable!
Carlos waited until she’d swept through the open French doors to unclench the fists he’d dug into his pockets.
There was nothing the least enjoyable about that kiss! Every nerve in his body snapped with desire. His groin ached so fiercely, he could barely stand upright. Another moment or two with Margarita’s mouth under his and he would have dragged her down on the damned balcony, ripped off that handkerchief she called a gown and blown his chances with her forever.
He knew her so well. He’d watched her mature from a bright, eager girl into a stubborn, determined woman. Had wanted her for as long as he could remember. He’d been biding his time since she returned from the States, waiting for her to find a middle ground between the liberal concepts she’d absorbed during her years abroad and the more traditional ways of Madrileño. He’d declared himself a year ago and waited patiently for her to recognize how well matched they were. At this moment, he wasn’t sure he was going to survive the wait!
Intellectually, Carlos accepted that Margarita had to find her own way to him. That he couldn’t force her into his bed…as much as he’d like to. Nor could he force her to admit she wasn’t any more immune to the electricity that crackled between them than he was. All he could do was keep applying pressure. And keep in rigid check his growing urge to claim her in the most elemental way a man can claim his woman.
Holding back got more and more difficult every day. At the thought of her thick, silky black hair tumbling over naked shoulders and her slender body hot and urgent beneath his, the ache in his groin doubled.
Shaking his head at the follies of men, Carlos reached into his tuxedo pocket for a cigar. From past encounters with the stubborn woman he was determined to make his own, he knew it would take some time before the clamor in his body subsided and he could rejoin the others in the ballroom.
A wry smile twisting his lips, he bit off the end of the cigar. Margarita had no idea the knots she tied in his gut with a single flash of her magnificent violet eyes. If he was to retain any semblance of his masculinity, Carlos had better make sure she never did.
The way he felt right now, that might be far easier said than done.
Impatience beat at Margarita like the wings of the millions of monarch butterflies that made Madrileño their summer home. Dodging guests with a smile and the excuse that she was looking for her father, she slipped down one brilliantly lit corridor after another. It was almost impossible to find a private niche in the Presidential Palace that served double duty as the seat of government as well as her aunt and uncle’s home. Ball guests mingled in the anterooms and hallways, exchanging news about the latest diplomatic crises. Uniformed aides hurried to and fro. Servants jumped to open doors.
Finally she found a deserted chamber. The small room with its deep crimson walls and gilt-edged portraits of past presidents was used to receive lesser diplomats. Its single door and heavy velvet drapes that would absorb sound suited her needs perfectly.
Closing the door behind her, she fumbled in her beaded bag for a small, flat instrument closely resembling an ordinary cellular phone. Only she and the other SPEAR operatives knew the powerful capabilities packed into its innocuous plastic case. She punched in her code, spoke a few casual words and waited for the voice-activated sensors at the other end to verify her identity.
When she was patched into Central Control, she recognized the agent who responded immediately. Rangy, blue-eyed Marcus Waters had shared weeks of brutal survival training with Margarita—and let her know in his grinning, cocky way that he wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with her as well. She’d laughed off his offer at the time, but she wasn’t laughing as she listened to the astounding information Marcus relayed.
“We just got word your Madrileñan police bagged a very interesting fish in that big drug bust yesterday.”
“Who?” she demanded, too keyed up after her session with Carlos for word games.
“Brace yourself, babe. From the physical description flashed over the Net, we think he may be Simon.”
Margarita’s jaw dropped. “The man we’ve been hunting the past six months? The same man we suspect of executing a personal vendetta against SPEAR?”
“That’s the one,” Marcus said cheerfully. “Jonah’s in the air as we speak, on his way to San Rico.”
Jonah! The shadowy head of SPEAR. He was legend in the agency. A voice on the phone. A cryptic telegram. A cassette tape hand-delivered in a bouquet of flowers. The fact that he was now enroute to San Rico set her pulse jumping.
“He wants you to hightail it over to the Bastille where your guys are holding Simon,” Marcus instructed. “Just to make sure the bastard doesn’t bribe his way out of custody.”
In the midst of her clamoring excitement, Margarita could still feel a twinge of pique on behalf of her countrymen. “Not every Latin American official takes bribes.”
“Of course not. Only the ones who’ve gone bad. And unfortunately, they aren’t restricted to Latin American. Let me know as soon as you get Simon in your gun sights.”
“Will do.”
Her momentary irritation forgotten, Margarita jammed the transmitter into her purse and willed herself to walk sedately through the crowded corridors. At last she reached the tall, arched doors that led to the plaza outside. Weaving her way through the limos lining the square, she quickly plotted her course of action.
Her condo was less than a block away, one of a cluster of new buildings that clung to a steep hillside. She’d purchased the airy little one-bedroom over her father’s strenuous objections and her mother’s very vocal fears for a young girl living alone. It hadn’t done the least good for Margarita to remind her mother she’d left girlhood behind her years ago.
She could change and arrive at the grim fortress that served as Madrileño’s central prison in less than ten minutes. Fifteen at most. From past visits to the dark, dank prison, she knew the rats that scurried along its narrow passages were the size of small dogs. She wasn’t going inside its walls until she donned a long-sleeved blouse, sturdy jeans and boots.
She wouldn’t need to invent an excuse to see the prisoner. As the niece of the President, she could pretty well go where she wished. Just in case anyone asked, though, she’d fabricate a cover story about needing to interview the prisoner to gather information for her job as an analyst at the Ministry of Economics.
In her simmering excitement, Margarita didn’t so much as glance over her shoulder at the ornate facade of the Presidential Palace…or spare a thought for the man she’d left cooling his heels on its balcony.
A relic of the days of Spanish rule, the Castillo San Giorgo sat like a stone monolith on a spit of land jutting into the sea. Almost five feet thick at the base, its walls had been constructed of a local stone the conquistadores had labeled coquina. The Spanish had used the same material to construct their fort at Saint Augustine, Florida, which Margarita had visited during her years in the States.
In English, coquina meant little shells, which was precisely what the stone consisted of—millions of tiny shellfish that had died eons ago. Their shells had bonded over time to form an almost indestructible stone embedded with tiny, razorlike bits of shell.
After checking her purse with its little radio and her snub-nosed .38 at the entry to avoid setting off the metal detectors, Margarita was careful not to brush against the walls as she followed the captain of the prison through dank, dark corridors. Not long ago, political prisoners had been crammed into the subterranean rooms the Spanish had once used for storing powder and supplies. Thanks to her uncle’s enlightened presidency, only a fraction of the cells were now inhabited. Even so, the stench of centuries of misery clung to the dim interior.
“This man you wish to speak to shares a cell with the other scum who use our people as mules to ferry their drugs,” the captain told her. “I sent a guard to bring him to an interrogation room.”
“Good.”
She’d come up with some reason to get rid of both the captain and the guard. She wanted time alone with the prisoner to verify if he was, indeed, the man SPEAR had been seeking.
Flinging open a narrow door, her escort warned her to watch her head and stood to one side. Margarita ducked under the low lintel, took one step into the stark room and froze.
A red-faced guard stared at her through eyes bugged almost out of their sockets with terror. An arm was wrapped iron-tight around his throat. His gun holster flapped empty, and the barrel of his semiautomatic dug into his temple. Behind him, a horribly scarred figure smiled a malevolent welcome.
“Come in, Señorita de las Fuentes. I’ve been waiting for you.”
Chapter 2
“Carlos?” Anna peered through the open doors of a small crimson and gold antechamber. “What are you doing in here all by yourself?”
“Looking for your cousin. Someone said they saw her come in here a while ago.”
What looked suspiciously like a pout settled over Anna’s delicate features for a moment. She chased it away with a toss of her dark hair. Slipping through the doors, she glided across the room.
“Won’t I do instead?”
Instant alarms sounded in Carlos’s head. Nubile and overripe for marriage, Anna had fixed her sights on him with almost the same determination he’d fixed his on Margarita. He suspected her determined pursuit sprang as much from jealousy of her cousin as from a young woman’s infatuation with an older and decidedly more experienced male.
Another man might have been flattered by her attentions. A few might even have taken advantage of her passions. Carlos didn’t feel the least temptation to accept the seductive invitations she insisted on sending his way. Anna was a pretty little thing, but she wasn’t Margarita.
Smiling, he strolled across the plush carpet. “Let me escort you back to the ball. I have no doubt Miguel is looking for you to claim a dance.”
“Miguel…pooh!” With a careless wave, she dismissed the lieutenant who served as Carlos’s aide. “He’s a boy. A mere boy.”
“Actually, he’s older than most lieutenants,” Carlos countered mildly. “He worked his way up through the ranks and received his commission based solely on merit, not through family connections like so many.”
“I don’t wish to speak of Miguel.” A sulky note crept into her voice. Slanting him a doe-eyed look through thick lashes, she slid her palms up his lapels. “I wish to speak of us.”
Gently, he captured her wrists. “There is no us. You know I’ve asked your uncle for Margarita’s hand in marriage.”
“Yes, well, my cousin has a mind of her own when it comes to choosing her man. As do I.”
“So I’ve discovered,” he said dryly. “Come, Miguel will be looking for you.”
“I don’t want to dance with Miguel.” Stubbornly, she dug in her heels. Her pout was real now. “If you must know, I saw Margarita leave the Palace almost an hour ago.”
“Did you?”
Well, well. That bit of information provided Carlos intense satisfaction. Evidently he wasn’t the only one who’d needed some privacy to regroup from that shattering kiss they’d shared on the balcony.
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No.” A sly expression slid across Anna’s delicate features. “Perhaps she went to meet a lover.”
“I think not,” he replied calmly.
In one of their more acerbic exchanges, Margarita had let Carlos know she wouldn’t come to his bed a virgin…if the sky should fall and the mountains crumble and she one day decided to marry him. His jaw had locked at the idea of another man touching her, but he was honest enough to admit that he hadn’t exactly spent the past thirty-eight years in a monastery.
He knew for a fact, however, that Rita’s natural fastidiousness had kept her from forming any casual liaisons since her brief fling with another student during her years in the States. That gave him some consolation. As did the knowledge that her continued abstinence chafed her as much as it did him. She was a passionate woman, with the fire of her people in her veins…a fire Carlos was determined to stoke.
His body hardened once more at the mere thought of Margarita’s mouth hot and eager under his. She wasn’t as indifferent to him as she liked to pretend. She couldn’t tremble at his touch, couldn’t flush with heat the way she had, if she cared nothing for him.
Impatient to find her, Carlos tugged at Anna’s clinging hands. He’d locate Margarita, escort her home, pick up where they’d left off on the balcony. And this time…
“Commandante!”
The urgent call whipped his head around. Although Carlos had given up both his uniform and the title he’d earned as commander of Madrileño’s elite counterterrorism strike force when he accepted the post of deputy defense minister, old habits died hard. His military aide still called him commander, and Carlos still responded instinctively.
“Yes?”
Miguel Carreras hurried into the room. Short, sturdy and well muscled, the lieutenant admirably filled out his uniform adorned with a gold-roped aguillette and fancy dress sword.
“You must come at once, sir. There’s been a…”
When he saw Anna clinging to Carlos’s lapels, the lieutenant skidded to a stop. Surprise and hurt flickered in his brown eyes. Then his training kicked in and he turned a face of rocklike impassivity to his superior.
“There’s been an incident at the castillo.”
“What kind of an incident?” Carlos asked, calmly disengaging Anna’s hands. He hadn’t missed that look of startled dismay on his aide’s face. He’d talk to Miguel later and explain the situation, perhaps offer him some advice on handling Anna. Although he had to admit his own track record with the de las Fuentes women made him something less than an expert on the subject.
Stiffly ignoring the woman at his superior’s side, Miguel poured out a hurried report. “I don’t have all the details. Only that one of the prisoners was taken in for interrogation. He overwhelmed his guard and threatened to kill him. Margarita…Señorita de las Fuentes…offered herself as a hostage instead of the guard.”
“What!”
Shock and disbelief slammed into Carlos. Every muscle in his body snapped wire taut.
“He took her with him,” Miguel related with a worried frown. “Into the jungle. He commandeered a Jeep and took her with him.”
The vicious curse that erupted from Carlos widened Anna’s eyes.
“The captain of the guard just brought the word,” the lieutenant finished. “He’s waiting for you in the Gold Room.”
Leaving an openmouthed Anna behind, Carlos strode through the doors. Questions hammered at him with each sharp crack of his heels on the parquet floors. What the devil was Margarita doing at the prison? Why had she offered herself as a hostage in the guard’s place? Who was this prisoner who’d taken her?
While his mind whirled with unanswered questions, fear coiled in his gut. Margarita didn’t know the jungle. She’d been raised in the city, spent her summers at her father’s sugar plantation and years at school in the States. She’d never hacked her way through strangler vines as thick as a man’s arm or dodged tarantulas the size of dinner plates. If by some stroke of luck she managed to escape this prisoner, she wouldn’t last a day in the steaming green hell that covered most of Madrileño.
An icy sweat had pooled at the base of his spine by the time Carlos strode into the Gold Room. At his entrance, the captain of the guard snapped to rigid attention, took one look at his murderous expression and blanched. Although democracy had taken firm root in Madrileño, most security matters—including the national police and administration of the prison system—came under the military, which was headed by the Minister of Defense. As deputy defense minister, Carlos stood in the captain’s direct chain of command. He could have the man’s head, or at least his pension, for this incident.
“You talk.” He fired the words through clenched jaws. “I’ll listen.”
“We took this prisoner with the others in the big drug bust yesterday, the one we coordinated with the Americans.”
“I’m aware of the operation,” Carlos snapped.
He should be. After receiving a tip about a major heroine shipment being moved through the mountains to an isolated airstrip, he’d worked forty-eight hours straight to set up a multipronged, multinational attack. His men had taken down two planes, half-a-dozen aircrew members, a number of small-time drug lords and so many locals engaged in transporting the uncut heroin the police were still trying to sort them all out.
“This particular gringo would not tell us his name,” the captain reported. “He’s an ugly bastard, very scarred, with one glass eye. We assumed he was one of the fliers. When they asked us to hold him in special custody—”
“Who asked you to hold him?”
The captain blinked at the whiplike question. “The Americans, sir. We received a call…I assumed you knew.”
Carlos would find out who made that call later. Right now, his only concern was Margarita.
Unfortunately, the captain could shed no light on why she’d asked to see this particular prisoner. All he knew was that she’d showed up at the prison and requested an interview.
“The gringo seemed to be expecting her. He called her by name and smiled when she offered herself as hostage instead of that sweating, sniveling guard, as though he’d anticipated just such a move.”
Carlos stared at the captain, his face shuttered while confusion piled on top of the fury gripping at his chest. What the hell was going on here? What had Margarita gotten involved in?
“The gringo left us locked in the interrogation room,” the captain confessed, shame evident in every line of his stiff body. “The walls of the castillo are so thick, it was a good ten minutes before anyone found us. My men report that Señorita de las Fuentes walked out beside this man as though they were going for an evening stroll. Only after I was found did we discover that a Jeep was taken.”
“So no one saw which direction they headed?”
Miserable, the captain shook his head. “No, commandante.”
With some effort, Carlos held back another vicious curse. When he was satisfied that the captain could provide no further information, he dismissed him with a curt order to draw up a comprehensive plan to prevent such escapes in the future.
“Find Señor de las Fuentes,” he snapped at Miguel. “Ask him to join me here.”
The lieutenant hurried away, leaving Carlos to think furiously. The certainty that there was more involved in yesterday’s operation than a routine drug bust grew with each passing second. The tip had come at such an opportune moment. The support from the States had been too ready. And this call to the prison…
His face grim, he moved to an ornately carved console and snatched up the phone. He’d spent a few years in the States himself, first as a student at the Army’s Command and General Staff College, then as a military attaché to the Madrileñan ambassador. He still had some friends in high circles. Some good friends.
By the time Margarita’s anxious father hurried into the reception room, Carlos was coldly, savagely furious. Even after four calls and several blunt reminders of Madrileño’s unflagging support for America’s antidrug campaign, he still didn’t know who’d made the call. But he was determined to get to the bottom of it.
“What’s going on?” her father demanded, puffing a bit from his quick walk.
A career bureaucrat, Eduard de las Fuentes had worked tirelessly to help his brother win the presidency and institute badly needed reforms. He was a good man, traditional in his family values but forward thinking when it came to his country’s needs.
Succinctly, Carlos recounted the astounding events of the past half hour. Eduard gaped at him, his mouth popping open and closed like one of the orange-spotted frogs that populated the jungle.
“Margarita? This scum took my Margarita?”
“Apparently, she offered herself as hostage in exchange for the guard.”
“But…but…why did she go to the prison in the first place?”
“I’ll get the answer to that question when I find your daughter,” Carlos promised grimly.
He’d get more than answers, he thought savagely as he strode down the Palace steps into the star-studded night. He’d bring her back safely and drag whatever information she had out of her. Then he’d either wring her neck for walking into this mess in the first place or tie her naked to his bed and keep her there until the blasted woman admitted she wanted him as much as he did her!
At the moment, the former option seemed infinitely more probable.
Within an hour he was back in uniform and had assembled his team.
Within two, he’d pulled together enough intelligence to indicate the escaped prisoner would in all likelihood head for a rendezvous point in the jungle, a cave hidden high in the mountains supposedly used as a way station by drug runners. There, he’d join forces with the heavily armed band that had reportedly been spotted crossing the border.
Worry for Margarita gnawing at his gut, Carlos sat beside his driver for the short ride to the military airbase just outside San Rico. Miguel and a small, handpicked squad of ten men followed in a half-ton truck. Although his aide had tried to hide his feelings behind a carefully blank mask, he hadn’t yet recovered from the shock of finding Anna clinging like a limpet to his superior. Carlos would have to explain that scene to him—later! When his mind was clear and fear for Margarita didn’t crawl through his belly.
The helicopter crew had their bird preflighted and ready to go when Carlos and his team arrived at the airport. The squad filed to the chopper, almost invisible in their dark jungle fatigues and blackened faces. Silently, they climbed aboard and strapped in. While the rotor blades whirred and the engine whined up to full power, Carlos pulled a plastic-coated map from his pocket and ran through his hastily conceived tactical plan.
“We’ll land here, a half mile to the west of the cave to avoid alerting anyone in the vicinity.”
Stabbing a finger at the map, he pointed to an area devoid of towns, of plantations, of any signs of human habitation. The closest village lay a good ten miles to the west.
“With luck, we’ll reach the cave ahead of the fugitive and his hostage and be waiting when they arrive. If by chance they get there before us, we’ll use the element of surprise to come at them out of the darkness.”
Either approach involved risk. To his men. To himself. To Margarita. Still, the plan was the best he could devise.
It might even have worked…if the helicopter hadn’t developed engine trouble while they were still two miles from their objective. Using the chopper’s powerful, million-candle-watt searchlight, the cursing pilot found a hole in the jungle canopy at the last moment and put them down with only a bent rotor blade. Carlos jumped out and surveyed the solid wall of blackness beyond the searchlight’s reach.
Two miles. They’d come down two miles from their planned landing zone, which put them two-and-a-half from the cave. On cleared terrain, he could run the distance in less than a half hour with full backpack. In the jungle, two and a half miles stretched to infinity.
Grimly, Carlos dug a pair of night-vision goggles from a pocket in his lightweight fatigue vest and led the way into dank, murky rain forest.
“Come on! Keep climbing!”
The gun barrel jabbed ruthlessly into Margarita’s spine, prodding her up the steep path. She winced at the bruising pain, but it soon blended with all the others into an indistinguishable ache. Narrowing her eyes against the bright dawn haze, she inched her way up the path toward the distant roar of a waterfall.
With every stumbling step, needles of fire shot up her bound arms. Her shoulder sockets burned. Cramps pulled like iron tongs at calf muscles straining from the hard climb. At that moment, she would have given almost everything she owned for a few sips of water.
They’d driven all night, each twisting turn of the road taking them higher into the mountains. For the first hour or two of that long ride, Margarita had listened with every sense straining for sounds of pursuit. Hope of rescue faded with each grind of the Jeep’s gears. She should have known the elusive criminal SPEAR had been hunting for months would have planned his escape well.
Well, she wasn’t going to make the escape any easier for the walking piece of slime behind her. Deliberately, she stumbled and went down on one knee. Sharp rock cut into the jeans she’d hurriedly thrown on before rushing to the prison. Her gasp of pain was only half feigned.
“Get up!” her captor snarled, panting even harder than Margarita from the arduous trek. He’d emptied his canteen early in the climb. Thirst and exertion put a rasp in his throat. “You’re not fooling anyone with this weak, helpless female act. I know the kind of training you’ve had.”
With an awkward twist of her upper body, Margarita propped a shoulder against the cliff face and pushed herself up. Her breath cut like razor blades into lungs starved for oxygen.
“How do you know what kind of training I’ve had? Who are you?”
A sneer twisted his lips. “You tell me.”
“All right.” Her chest heaving, she propped her aching shoulders against the vine-covered rock wall behind her. “You’re Simon.”
“Very good.” The sneer deepened, tugging at his scarred face. He stepped up beside her and dug the pistol barrel into the soft flesh under her chin. “And we both know who you are, don’t we? The bitch who’s been interfering in my operations in Central and South America.”
With her back against sheer rock and a gun barrel grinding into the underside of her chin, Margarita weighed the odds of taking him down right then and there. If she twisted her head just a few inches to the right, hooked her shoulder into his chest and shoved the bastard over the side of the path before he got off a shot…
“It took me a while to figure out who Jonah had operating in Madrileño.”
Jonah! The casual way he dropped the name froze Margarita in place. Dios! This man knew more about SPEAR than many of its own agents.
“What makes you think I work for Jonah?”
Vicious satisfaction laced his voice. “I have my ways of getting information…just as SPEAR does. You caused me considerable inconvenience, Señorita de las Fuentes. You and that bastard deputy defense minister.”
“Carlos?”
Her surprised gasp drew a parody of a smile. “Yes, Carlos. Between the information you supplied SPEAR and Caballero’s internal crackdown on the drug trade, the two of you just about destroyed my base of operations in this corner of the world.”
Carlos! For the merest instant, she could hear his voice. Feel his mouth on hers. Just the thought of his strong, solid form brought the craven wish she’d never left his arms. Then reality returned in the form of a vicious killer.
“Good.” Despite a throat parched with thirst, she managed a sarcastic smile. “I’m glad we inconvenienced you.”
“I wouldn’t look so pleased with yourself.” The gun barrel ground into her jaw. “Your interference will end as of today.”
Ignoring both the threat and the agony of steel against bone, she swept her captor a disdainful glance. His disfigurement had been startling enough in the dim prison interior. In the bright light of dawn, the puckered, angry flesh could weaken anyone’s stomach. His glass eye remained fixed. His good eye followed hers as they roamed his scars.
“Hideous, aren’t they?”
She refused to give him so much as a hint of sympathy. “I’ve seen worse.”
With the cosmetic techniques available today, he could have had the scars removed. That he chose not to told her he took some kind of perverse pride in his disfigurement—or that he wanted a bitter daily reminder of whatever cataclysmic event had caused it. When she suggested as much in a cool voice, something so evil flared in his one good eye that Margarita’s palms flattened against rock behind her.
“I want Jonah to see them. Which he will…and soon. Now move it, Señorita. I’ve wasted enough time in this stinking green cesspool you call a country.”
The slur to Madrileño only added to his hostage’s growing determination to shove his gun barrel between his teeth and make him eat his words along with a good six inches of cold steel. Laughing at the deadly promise in her eyes, he stepped back and motioned her onward. With her chin bruised and fire burning in her heart, Margarita resumed her climb.
Her chance would come.
It had to come.
The path twisted and turned. The sun crawled higher, a blazing ball visible through gaps in the vines and trees clinging to the mountain. Twice, Margarita stumbled to her knees, only to be jerked upright by a cruel hand in her hair. Once, the little locket stuck to the sweaty skin beneath her blouse began to vibrate.
The feel of it humming against her breasts made her want to weep with frustration. The tiny device hidden inside only received signals, didn’t send them. There was no way for SPEAR to pinpoint her location.
Gradually, the roar of the waterfall grew louder. When they rounded a bend and Simon dragged back a straggling curtain of vines to reveal a gaping hole in the cliff face, Margarita knew time was running out. She’d have to free herself quickly, before his accomplices appeared on the scene and her value as a hostage ended.
With a grunt, he planted a fist in her back and shoved her inside the cave. She made a frantic sweep of the dank interior for snakes or other inhospitable inhabitants before she hit the rock floor. The thud jarred her teeth. Cursing fluently in both Spanish and English, she twisted up and around.
“My friends will be here shortly,” he said with callous indifference to her curses. “While we wait, I’ll fill the canteen at the waterfall.”
Swiping his forearm across his sweaty forehead, he dragged another length of rope from his back pocket and tied her ankles. He seemed to take particular delight in yanking the knots until they cut almost through her boot tops. Margarita refused to so much as move a muscle at his rough treatment, even when he slid his palm up her calf and squeezed, hard.
“Be a good girl and I’ll give you some water.”
A smile dragged at his misshapen mouth. His hand roamed higher, to her thigh. She felt its damp heat through her jeans.
“Then again, maybe I won’t. Maybe you’ll have to beg for it. I like my women hot and desperate.”
“I imagine that’s the only way a scum like you can get them.”
His casual backhand snapped her head back. She tasted blood…and the absolute conviction that she’d see this man in hell before he touched her again.
“You’ll beg,” he predicted with a sneering confidence that ground her teeth together. “Long and hard.”
The son of a pig!
The moment he disappeared through the vines, Margarita dragged herself up and began searching the cave. All she needed was a ragged edge, a sharp protuberance of any kind to saw through her bonds. She’d wiggled her way out of worse situations than this during SPEAR’s brutal escape and evasion training.
That was training, a nasty little voice inside her head heckled. This is for real.
As if she needed the reminder! Ignoring the scream of protest from her shoulders, Margarita rolled over to the nearest wall and fumbled behind her with numbed fingers for its surface. Panic rose in waves when she felt nothing but smooth rock. Choking with frustration, she humped and stretched and humped again, propelling herself snail-like along the floor, searching the surface behind her with desperate fingers.
She’d almost given up hope when she scraped against a small, sharp crack in the rock. Praying its flintlike edge would do the job, she pushed up on one elbow to gain leverage and went to work. Her back arched at an awkward angle. Every back-and-forth movement caused a white-hot lance of pain in her shoulders. Sweat ran in rivulets from her temples. Blood dripped onto her balled fists from wrists scraped raw by rope and stone.
Straining, grunting, sawing, Margarita struggled to keep track of the passing seconds. Her heart hammered as she listened for the thud of footsteps, but she knew she’d never hear Simon’s return over the thundering falls and her jackhammering pulse.
When the ropes finally parted, what began as a fervent prayer of thanksgiving spiraled instantly into a silent scream. For several precious moments, Margarita could only writhe on the cave floor while her abused shoulder sockets exacted their revenge. Finally, the agony subsided enough for her to sit up. Panting, she fumbled at the ropes binding her ankles. When they, too, gave, she dropped her forehead onto her knees and allowed herself one moment of sobbing relief.
Not a heartbeat later, the faint scrape of rock on rock brought her head up with a jerk. Molten fury coursed through Margarita. This time, she wouldn’t hand herself over so easily. This time, she’d have a few surprises in store for a certain one-eyed bastard.
She was gathering herself for an attack when gunfire burst out in the valley below. Her heart contracted painfully as monkeys screamed and birds flapped noisily into the sky. In almost the same instant, a shadowy figure appeared at the curtain of vines draped across the cave’s mouth.
She caught the glitter of sunlight on a gun barrel. With a feral snarl, Margarita launched herself through the vines.
Chapter 3
Long afterward, Carlos would shudder every time he remembered the violence that suddenly erupted at the cave’s mouth.
One moment, he was feeling his way cautiously along the narrow path, searching for the entrance to the cave. The next, a burst of gunfire told him the squad he’d positioned to guard the approach to the steep track had engaged with a hostile force.
Then a dark fury exploded through vines straggling down the cliff face and catapulted into Carlos. Only the fact that he’d inched his way up the dangerous track with every sense on full alert kept him from being butted right off the path and over the sheer cliff.
In a purely self-protective move, Carlos grappled with his attacker and flung them both sideways, away from the edge of the precipice. Struggling furiously, they went down in a tangle of thrashing arms and legs. A vicious elbow dug into his windpipe. Choking, Carlos wrenched an arm free and pulled it back. His balled fist was in mid-swing when his attacker flung back a tangled mass of ebony hair and snarled a curse.
“Son of a motherless—!”
Violet eyes widened in shock. Just in time, Carlos pulled his punch. The blow slammed into her shoulder instead her jaw. With a small, helpless cry of agony, she crumpled onto his chest.
“Dios!”
Rolling them both away from the edge of the track, Carlos scrambled to his knees. His first instinct was to gather her writhing form into his arms and pour out a thousand apologies for the brutal blow, but the soldier in him needed to secure the area first.
Shaking his head to clear it, he performed a swift mental assessment of the situation. The stutter of guns behind and below them told him his men were engaged in a full-fledged firefight. He had no idea how many enemy were coming up the path and how many might already be in the cave. Given his vulnerable position on the narrow ledge, attack was his only defense.
With a warning to Margarita to stay low, he took a firm grip on his 9 mm Beretta, threw himself through the vines, and hit the floor rolling. An instant later, he was on his feet, sweeping the cave with savage eyes. Only after he was satisfied it held no immediate threat did he jam his pistol into its holster and rush outside. His throat closed when he saw the way Margarita had curled into a fetal ball against the cliff face.
“Rita! Sweetheart!” Gently, he rolled her over. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know it was you.”
“Ob…viously.”
Biting down on her lower lip, she struggled to sit up. Tears streaked her dirt-smudged cheeks. Leaves and bits of debris clung to her tumbled hair and long-sleeved white shirt. When Carlos spotted the bright red blood staining her sleeves, his heart stopped.
“What did that bastard do to—”
Crack!
Rock splintered a mere six inches from his face. The shot was still reverberating when Carlos threw himself forward, shielding Margarita’s body with his own. A burst of fire followed the first bullet, each one sending vicious rock shards flying through the air.
It took less than a heartbeat for him to realize these shots came not from the path below, but from the direction of the waterfall he heard rumbling in the distance beyond the cave. In a lightning reflex, he banded an arm around Margarita’s waist and half dragged, half flung her around a bend in the path. A stone outcropping protected them from the shooter momentarily.
“It’s him!” she gasped. “The escaped prisoner! He’s got the submachine gun he took from the guard.”
On his own, Carlos wouldn’t have thought twice about tackling the man. But he wasn’t on his own, and the driving necessity right now was to remove Margarita from the line of fire.
His men were strung out along the path below, fighting a ferocious rearguard action from the sound of it. The dangerous fugitive was above and closing fast. They couldn’t stay in this exposed position. That left only one option.
“We’re going over the side.”
She shot a wide-eyed glance at the steep precipice, gulped and nodded. Whipping off his belt, Carlos slapped it around her waist and slid the tongue through the buckle. A quick tug yanked it tight.
“Grab the vines to break your slide,” he ordered, wrapping the loose end of the webbing around his fist. “I’ll do the same.”
Another burst of fire plowed into the rock less than a foot away. Carlos ducked, muttered an oath that was half curse, half prayer and dragged her with him over the edge.
Their plunging descent could only have lasted seconds, but to Margarita it seemed like a lifetime. Spongy vegetation shielded their bodies from the worst of the cliff face, and Carlos’s raw strength kept them from a disastrous free fall. Somehow, he managed to lock his fist around vines that stretched like elastic bands with their weight. Just as one vine reached the breaking point, he made a frantic grab for another.
Margarita heard him grunt with the strain of hanging onto both her tether and his precarious handholds while the two of them bumped and slithered down the slope. To her disgust, she could do little to help. Her right arm dangled uselessly, still numb from the combined effects of his savage blow and hours twisted behind her back. Her left arm had tangled in the belt anchoring her to Carlos.
At last the slope gentled enough for him to drag them both to a halt. They lay on their backs for a few seconds, panting. She couldn’t get her breath, could barely see for the sweat stinging her eyes. Twisting, she swiped her face on her sleeve and stared upward.
A multitude of green layers shielded them from observation. The thunder of the falls was the only sound that penetrated the dense stillness. His chest heaving, Carlos rolled to his feet and tugged Margarita up.
“Are you all right?”
“I will be.” She clawed at the belt cutting her in two. “Once I…can breathe…again.”
“Here, let me.”
His big hands fumbled with the buckle. When the tortuous constriction around her middle loosened, she gulped in long swallows of air.
His face grim, Carlos hitched the belt around his hips and swiped an arm across his face. For the first time, Margarita noticed he’d donned the mottled green and black of jungle fatigues. Over a similarly camouflaged long-sleeved shirt and black T-shirt, he wore a nylon vest with dozens of little pockets. Streaks of black and green face paint smudged to a muddy mask made him almost indistinguishable from the jungle around him.
No wonder she hadn’t recognized him when she dived headfirst through the vines! She’d seen him in his dress uniform dozens of times before he resigned his military commission to accept the deputy minister’s job, and in impeccable civilian attire ever since. But this was the first time she’d glimpsed the soldier in his element. He looked almost like a stranger.
Even his voice sounded different. Cold and flat, it lacked any hint of inflection. All traces of the teasing note he generally employed with her had completely disappeared. Belatedly, Margarita realized he was holding himself in rigid check.
How in God’s name did he do it? Every emotion from wild elation at having escaped to bitter self-disgust for not taking Simon down tumbled through her. Carlos apparently could mount a search-and-rescue effort, dodge a hail of bullets, plunge down a mountainside and still exercise a self-discipline that amazed and, perversely, irritated her no end.
“Stay here,” he ordered, reaching once more for a long, straggling vine. “I’m going back up to regroup my men. I’ll drop a rope down for you when we have the situation under control.”
Margarita’s eyes narrowed. If he thought she was going to sit here meekly and wait with hands folded, he’d better think again. She’d just opened her mouth to set him straight when a little splat sounded a few feet away. It was followed in the next instant by the distant crack of a rifle. Another series of splats set a feathery fern trembling just above her head.
“God!”
Releasing the vine, Carlos lunged for her. No dummy, Margarita was already diving for the shelter of a rotting log.
“There!” The echo of a shout came through the canopy. “I see a flash of white.”
Within the blink of an eye, a deadly hail of bullets tore through the dense canopy of leaves. The crumbling log provided no protection at all. Hauling Margarita upright by her wrist, Carlos took off. His grip was brutal on flesh already raw and bleeding from being scraped against sharp rock, but she was in no mind to protest as they broke into a desperate run.
Bullets ripped through leaves just above their heads. Twice more, they heard shouts. Once, a scream and what sounded like the thrashing fall of a body down the mountainside behind them. Then the jungle swallowed all sounds. Ferns the size of small trees whipped at Margarita’s face and arms. Dangling vines tried to trip her. Spiky pineapple plants and tank bromeliads tore at her blouse.
By the time they reached the lower slopes, a painful stitch stabbed into her side, her wrist was bleeding again, and every breath singed her lungs. Thankfully, the underbrush thinned out enough to make the going at this level a little easier. Instead of lush plants, the jungle floor consisted primarily of fallen tree trunks, leafy ferns and layers of rotting vegetation.
Margarita knew this lack of undergrowth was due to the giant strangler figs, which began life as seeds dropped by monkeys or birds in the branches of host trees. The stranglers then sprouted roots that dropped ropelike to the ground, forming a sort of cage around their host. Their trunks shot upward and spread dense green umbrellas of leaves. In the process, these monstrous kings of the rain forest starved their host trees of light. Eventually, all that was left beneath the canopy were the rotting remains of host trees covered with luminous green mosses, ferns and flashy flowers like the orchids that clung in great clumps to the tree trunks.
Margarita had no idea how far they traveled through this dim, green gloom before Carlos at last signaled a halt. He stood silent, head up, eyes narrowed, listening intently for sounds of pursuit. At that moment, Margarita couldn’t have heard an elephant crashing through the forest over her own wheezing breath. Bending at the waist, she planted her sweaty palms on thighs that quivered like over-stretched elastic and dragged air into her aching lungs.
“I think we’ve lost them.”
The hoarse timbre of his voice drew her upright. Slanting Carlos a quick glance, she saw that sweat had plastered his black hair to his head. His chest heaved under his fatigue shirt. He, too, sucked in long gulps of air. Unaccountably pleased that he was feeling the effects of that break-neck run as much as she was, Margarita summoned a shaky smile.
“The bullets started flying back there before I could thank you for coming after me.”
“Thank me?” His head snapped around. “Thank me!”
Her grin slipped, then disappeared completely as he rounded on her. As dangerous as a panther prodded from its den and twice as furious, he stalked across the spongy carpet of vegetation.
“I don’t want your thanks.”
The sparks shooting from his black eyes set Margarita’s back up. She’d been through too much in the past twelve hours to take that tone from him or anyone else.
“Fine! You don’t want my thanks. Then I suggest you use that radio attached to your belt to call your men and arrange a rendezvous.” She turned away, intending to find some water for her parched throat. “In the meantime, I’ll…”
He planted himself in front of her, blocking the way. “There are only two things I want from you at this moment. The first is an explanation. What the hell’s going on?” he demanded, his dark gaze drilling into her. “Why did you go to the prison last night?”
Unfortunately, she couldn’t give him an explanation even if she wanted to. Like all SPEAR agents, Margarita had sworn an oath of secrecy about her membership in the elite cadre. From the thunderous expression on Carlos’s face, she guessed she’d have to do some fast talking to get him to buy the cover story she’d fabricated for the captain of the guard at the castillo.
“It’s my job to analyze the impact of the illegal drug trade on our nation’s economy, remember? This fugitive is obviously a key figure in that trade. I thought he might let something slip that would give me a clearer picture of what we’re dealing with.”
She could see Carlos wasn’t buying it. Disbelief showed clearly under the streaks of black face paint still decorating his cheeks and chin.
“Do you expect me to believe you left a dress ball to speak with a prisoner you could have interviewed just as easily the next morning?”
She tipped her chin and looked him square in the eye. “There was nothing to keep me at the ball. I was bored and decided to leave.”
The barb hit home. His jaw clenched. A vein throbbed amid the taut cords of his neck. He stared at her with such glittering intensity that Margarita felt a flutter of something close to nervousness.
This was Carlos, she reminded herself. Always in control Carlos. Much as he probably wanted to throttle her at this particular moment, he’d rein in the emotions simmering behind his scowl.
To her secret disappointment, he did.
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