Flash Fire Read online

  Oh, Ben. As in a name.

  “That’s a pretty regular name, isn’t it?” she asked. “Compared to Light.”

  “I was named by my flower-child hippie grandmother. I was the first grandchild. By the time Ben was born, more reasonable minds prevailed.”

  She opened her mouth to ask where his brother was now, then remembered Walker’s earlier words. He was my brother.

  Was?

  Her father had said that Walker owed the DOD a favor because they’d helped him with something regarding his brother. “What happened to Ben?”

  Walker’s expression remained shuttered. “Do you ever stop asking questions?”

  “Curiosity is an indicator of intelligence.”

  He closed his eyes for a second as if she pained him. Then he gave a resigned sigh. “My brother was killed two years ago.”

  Her heart softened. “I’m sorry.”

  He let his gaze glide over her body. His eyes narrowed. He put a disconcerting amount of heat into his voice as he said, “How about we go upstairs and you comfort me?”

  There he went with the sexual-innuendo tactics again. She ignored the tingles that ran across her skin.

  “How about we both act mature?” she suggested.

  But he only grinned as he raised his piercing gaze to hers. “Have no worries, what I’m thinking is definitely for mature audiences.”

  She groaned.

  His eyes widened, and she could almost swear that the desire she saw in their depths wasn’t faked. But she’d be fifty shades of stupid to fall for it.

  Would he take her to bed? Probably, because he was a man, and a horn-dog, and he’d spent the last week in the jungle. But it’d be nothing to him—scratching an itch he could just as easily scratch with Carmen from Brunhilda’s or Margarita from the cantina, or any number of gorgeous women he probably had at his beck and call.

  Whether she was physically attracted to him, far more than she’d been drawn to any other man, didn’t matter. Clara wasn’t interested. Unlike back in college, she now had something called self-esteem, and she knew she deserved better than a player like Walker.

  * * *

  He did use innuendoes to unsettle her. She was pretty sharp. In the beginning, Walker had acted like a jerk because he thought it would encourage her to leave. And now… He enjoyed the way her eyes sparkled when she was exasperated. Her sexy growls did something to him.

  But he let her be as they finished their empañadas. Then he went back to her room with her and watched her pace between the window and her bed. He figured he’d let her exhaust herself before he told her of his plans. That way, she’d have fewer objections.

  She said, “So we know that there are two major cartels in the area, the Tamchén and the Xibalba. And Carlos Petranos, the head of the Xibalba cartel, is Rosita’s half brother. Would the Tamchén kidnap her as part of some power struggle?”

  He nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe to trade. Maybe the Xibalba has one of their guys. Or maybe to use as leverage in a negotiation over territory. That’s the good news.”

  She stopped at the foot of the bed to stare at him. “How is her being kidnapped by a ruthless cartel good news?”

  “She’s still alive. If they killed her, the Xibalba would have started all-out war on the Tamchén already. There must be ongoing negotiations as we speak.”

  She watched him as if trying to see inside him, her gaze sharpening. “You said cards on the table. So tell me how you’re involved with the cartels.”

  Did he trust her enough to tell her? Would she cooperate if he didn’t?

  “I want them out of business,” he said after a long moment.

  “Why? Does this have anything to do with your brother’s death?”

  He nodded, and then he said, “Obviously, I can’t take the cartels down single-handed. So I need to pit them against each other. But if the Tamchén has Rosita, it messes up everything. I don’t want the Tamchén and the Xibalba at the negotiating table. I want them at each other’s throats. I need to take Rosita out of the equation. Carlos Petranos isn’t going to attack the Tamchén as long as they have his half sister.”

  She watched him carefully. “Why do I have this impression that you’re on a timeline here?”

  She was too perceptive by half and had way too many questions. He’d already told her more than he should have. He shook his head. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  “In four days, the new pharma co in Mercita will start up full-scale operations. They’re supposed to be making off-patent, generic drugs. In reality, they’ll be making a brand-new designer drug. Some super pill. Looks like a harmless disco drug in colorful little pills, but it’s more addictive than heroin, although that’s the base. They’ve been sending small batches up to the US for the past six months with excellent results. It’s a monster high and addictive after one pill. The income potential is tremendous. They have a delivery system for these small test batches that I can’t figure out.”

  And at this point, it didn’t matter. Large-scale production was imminent. He had to shut down the factory, the Xibalba compound, the Tamchén compound and jungle camp, find the noseless man, then find Ben’s killer. Any one of these tasks could get him killed. So he set up a plan where the bad guys would take down each other, while Walker could focus on grabbing the bastard who’d murdered his brother.

  “Why not let the law handle it?” Clara asked.

  “Same reason you can’t work on Rosita’s case with the police.”

  This time, she stayed silent for several seconds before she said, “You want to start a cartel war that’ll kill countless people. That has already killed people,” she added, probably thinking of the cantina and the body bags.

  “Only people that need killing,” he told her.

  Her eyes narrowed. “The excuse of vigilantes everywhere.”

  She waited, maybe for him to defend himself, so she could then counter, try to make him see the light, drag him from the “bad” column to the “good” column.

  He felt strange every time he caught her doing that. The idea that she believed him to be redeemable caused a funny twitch in his chest.

  He stayed silent.

  Eventually, she asked, “You said gangs work with the permission of the cartels. So Jorge must have some connections. Could he make contact for us? I’d like to find out for sure if the Tamchén have Rosita.”

  “Jorge can’t just call and ask something like that. He’s too low on the totem pole. He answers to the cartel and not the other way around.”

  “Do you know where the Tamchén headquarters are?” she wanted to know next.

  “In Torelmo, a town about the size of Mercita, but a little better off. Some major logging operations are headquartered there. They have a canning factory. Jobs. It’s trying to become some kind of a regional center.”

  She walked over to her suitcase that stood by the wall, crouched to open the front pocket, and pulled out her laptop, carried it to the bed, went to Google Maps. “Torelmo is only twenty miles from here.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment and brought up the image of the Tamchén compound. He’d done a respectable amount of recon. But that knowledge was little use to him in this case.

  “Rosita wouldn’t be there,” he said after a few seconds. “The head of the Tamchén is cultivating a gentleman-businessman image. He’s running for office in Torelmo. Over the past year or so, he’s transformed his Torelmo compound into a business center for his aboveboard dealings, moving most of his illegal stuff to his drug-packaging camp in the jungle.”

  “You know where that is?”

  He nodded.

  She went back to pacing, deep in thought, her eyes growing unfocused again. But then they lit up suddenly as she stopped halfway between him and the bed. “I can ask the DEA for help. They have people down here. If they raided the Tamchén camp, we could go in and grab Rosita.”

  He shook his he
ad, marveling how anyone could maintain such wide-eyed innocence. She believed in the freaking government. Because in some spreadsheet in her head, US government and the Drug Enforcement Agency were in a column under the header “good guys.”

  She believed in the basic goodness of people. She believed in everything. He believed in nothing.

  And right now, her strange streak of innocence pissed him off, mostly because he knew with a dreaded certainty that it was going to get her hurt. But it also brought out his protective instincts. She made a man want to make the world a better place, just so she wouldn’t have to be disappointed.

  He couldn’t believe he was thinking shit like that now. Clearly, the tropical sun had fried his brain.

  “You can still decide to walk away from all this.” His very last warning. Hell, there had to be a way for him to search the jungle camp without her help. He’d come up with something.

  “No way,” she said. “I need your cell phone to make a call. I’m going to get in touch with the DEA guys. We can’t do this alone. There are drugs involved at that camp, so the DEA’s involvement is natural. Professional help is the way to go here.”

  “I wouldn’t advise it.”

  She searched his face, her expression growing suspicious, then disappointed as she stepped back and sank onto the mattress. “Are you involved in the drug trade? Is that who you hire yourself out to? The cartels?”

  She paused. “You got involved with them thinking you’d take them down from the inside. Is that it? Is the DEA looking for you?”

  He said nothing, just watched her pursed lips, wondering whether she’d draw on him if he tried to kiss her.

  Oblivious to his thoughts, she said, “The DEA is our best chance. They have agents, weapons, and permission to operate down here. They’re the only smart choice we have.”

  “Smartest choice always is to trust nobody.” Since she didn’t look like she was buying that, he added, “Let’s go for a ride.”

  She wrinkled her forehead. “Where?”

  “Torelmo.”

  “To look at the Tamchén compound?”

  “To look at the DEA.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.”

  He squinted one eye at her.

  “Now that we’re really working together, I’m trying to find a common denominator,” she explained with a bright smile. “You know, navy talk.”

  “What do you know about the navy?”

  She flinched. The smile withered. “Pretty much all I know about ships, I learned from Pirates of the Caribbean,” she admitted. But then her face brightened again. “Wait. That’s not true. I’ve been to several Army-Navy Games. Sailors are tough.”

  Her last sentence sounded bit off at the end. “But?” he asked.

  “Not army tough, but close,” she said with a hint of apology. “Really. I mean it.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Maybe it’d be better if we didn’t get into the whole army-navy rivalry.” He looked at her. “Let’s just go to Torelmo.”

  Better to go and do something than stay in the room with her where he couldn’t focus on anything but the bed, images of her in it, naked, filling his head.

  * * *

  Torelmo was roughly the same size as Mercita, but lay in the opposite direction from Furino. The houses were not quite as derelict, the streets better kept.

  “I guess having a couple of major employers in town does help,” Clara observed, glad that Walker was driving her to the DEA office.

  Maybe she was making progress with him. If she could get him to give up his revenge…

  She’d meant it when she’d said that he wasn’t horribly terrible. Whatever he thought about himself, he did have principles. For one, nobody could escape serving in the military without having some principles drilled into them.

  On the other hand, he’d been trained as a killing machine. And now he’d pointed himself at the people he held responsible for his brother’s death. He was like a launched torpedo with the target locked in.

  Could a launched torpedo be disengaged?

  She had hope. He’d listened to her. He was taking her to the DEA to ask for assistance.

  The Drug Enforcement Agency’s Chiapas headquarters was exactly where she needed to go. If anyone knew about the Xibalba and the Tamchén, it was them. She needed information and a way into the Tamchén jungle camp, and the DEA could provide her with both. For all she knew, they had the camp under surveillance, and all she’d have to do was identify Rosita on the video footage. Holding a US citizen against her will would be enough probable cause for a raid.

  They could help Walker too, since his brother’s death was cartel related.

  Clara watched the sleeping homes and businesses slip past the car window while she silently rehearsed the appeal she’d make to the DEA for help.

  She was showing up outside of office hours, but she figured they’d have someone on duty, since crime never slept. She’d tell them she was looking for a disappeared US citizen. She would not share Rosita’s connection to her department and her father. The link was immaterial. A young girl was in trouble, and she needed help. The DEA didn’t need to know more than that.

  As they reached the city center, Walker turned onto a street with bright lights where people were still out and about. He passed several small hotels and restaurants. Music filtered outside. On one of the corners, a drunk couple was slow dancing.

  Walker pulled over to park, then turned off the engine. “Let’s sit here for a minute.”

  She looked around but didn’t see anything interesting. “What are we waiting for?”

  “You’ll see. Just watch.”

  “What should I be watching?”

  He pointed to a two-story building between a cantina and a pawn-shop-looking place. All the lights were on, music pulsing from downstairs, liquor ad posters blocking the windows. The place could have been a nightclub, but it wasn’t. Half a dozen young women loitering outside gave it away.

  The women were much better dressed than Brunhilda’s girls, but they were clearly prostitutes. Very young, early twenties at most, tall, slim, and beautiful to the last—enough so to be models. Oddly, they ignored men passing by who tried to cozy up to them.

  “What are they doing?” Clara asked.

  “Waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  She stifled a growl. Just once, she would have liked a straight answer out of Walker. “How long do we have to sit here?”

  “As long as it takes. But not long, I don’t think. They’re outside, which means the car is coming.”

  He was right. Five minutes later, a black limo pulled up, and the women disappeared inside the gleaming vehicle. Walker turned the key in the ignition, pulled into traffic, and followed them.

  They didn’t go far. Ten minutes later, they were in the business district, in front of an office building. Among the business logos on the side listing the occupants, Clara recognized the DEA’s distinct round emblem: green field, blue sky, soaring brown eagle.

  She sucked in her bottom lip, tension building in her shoulders as she watched. She had a bad feeling about this.

  The limo idled in front of the building, and within a minute or so, six men came out.

  Walker pointed at the one in the lead. “Michael Morgan, director of local DEA operations.” He pointed at the next guy. “Greg Mensing, project manager.” He went on and named all six, and added their titles.

  His voice held no trace of deception. And, in any case, this was something she could easily confirm on her laptop. She didn’t think he was lying.

  Clara watched, sick to her stomach, as the men came down the steps laughing, then got into the limo, joining the prostitutes.

  Walker followed the car again.

  A few blocks later, the limo came to a fancy hotel, Grand Hotel Torelmo, and let out its passengers. Then the limo left, but Walker remained parked across the road.

  Soon, another limo came. More m
en and women got out. The men wore suits, like the DEA guys, but not as fancy. The suits were wrinkled, as if the men had come here straight from work. These guys were clearly Mexican, judging by their features.

  “Who are they?” Clara asked.

  “The local top cops.”

  Shortly after they went in, another guy showed up, this one in an expensive suit, also Mexican, tall and distinguished, the flash of a gold watch at his wrist.

  “The district attorney,” Walker said quietly next to her.

  The security guards at the door inclined their heads as they let the man in. One ran to take his car to the hotel parking.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Clara asked, feeling nauseous.

  “The Grand Hotel Torelmo is owned by the Tamchén. They throw a party a couple of times a week for their special friends. Booze, drugs, gambling, high-class prostitutes. Whatever the guests want, the Tamchén provides,” Walker said matter-of-factly as he turned to her. “If you asked the DEA for a raid on the Tamchén, someone at the DEA would tip off the cartel, and you’d be found dead in an alley the next morning. The police report would cite a botched robbery. So tell me again. Who do you trust down here?”

  She cleared her throat. “Nobody.”

  Walker nodded. “Now you’re learning.” He glanced toward the hotel. “You need to see more?”

  She filled her lungs, feeling incredibly alone suddenly. “No.”

  The DEA had been her Hail Mary, her “if everything else fails.” But her last line of defense had just evaporated. It was down to her and Walker.

  Loose cannon Walker.

  No allegiance Walker.

  Cares about nothing but his own agenda Walker.

  He turned the key in the ignition, then pulled into traffic.

  She looked straight ahead but saw little of the street. She was too busy thinking.

  She couldn’t waste time on being disappointed. She needed to move forward. “So without the DEA, how do we confirm whether the Tamchén have Rosita?”

  “Ready for the plan?”

  She nodded. Dear God, let him have a reasonable proposal.

  Walker flashed a quick grin. “We go and check for ourselves.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a very good plan,” she told him honestly.