Flash Fire Read online

  “Me too,” Clara piped up next to him. “Mine was shot up.”

  Skinny didn’t look excited, but grudgingly filled out an online form and printed each of them a copy. “Put your names and address on top, then sign on the bottom. Add your own license plate numbers on the dotted line.”

  Walker grabbed one sheet and gave the other one to Clara. They were done in two minutes.

  “Actually, if I could ask you a favor.” He reached into his pocket and slipped a hundred dollar bill under the sheet of paper before he slid it back across the counter for stamping. “I’m sure the insurance company is going to ask for photos. My camera was in the car. Any chance you could step out and snap a few pictures? If you could print just one or two and staple it to the report, I’m sure it’d make a big difference.”

  Skinny pried up the corner of the paper, looked at the hundred dollar bill underneath, then flashed Walker a pained look. “I’m not supposed to leave the desk unattended.”

  “We’ll stay right here. If anyone comes, we’ll tell them to wait. The cars are just a block away. Mine is the Jeep, hers is the Ford Fiesta parked in front of the guesthouse across the road.”

  Skinny nodded, pocketing the money. Then he grabbed a camera from his top drawer and headed for the door. “If anyone comes looking for me, I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  As he hurried out the door, Clara looked after him. “Key?” she asked Walker as soon as they were clear.

  He grinned at her. He figured she would know what he was aiming at. She was pretty sharp. Now that he knew her better, he actually liked having her on his team.

  He vaulted over the counter, pulled a key ring that was hanging from a thumbtack pushed into the back of the counter, which he’d seen from where he’d been standing, but Clara couldn’t.

  She looked as if she could kiss him. A look a man could get used to, especially if she delivered on the promise.

  By the time he was trying keys in the row of file cabinets lined up against the wall, Clara was over the counter too. When he found the right key and opened the first drawer, he left it to her to look through, and went for another.

  “A through D,” she told him. Stepped back. Pointed at the bottom cabinet. “Ruiz is probably in here.”

  He opened that drawer. She was right. The files went from P to T.

  He let her quick, slim fingers do the work. In one minute, she had Rosita’s file out and tucked into her waistband in the back, her shirt pulled over it.

  “In case the Tamchén camp doesn’t pan out,” she echoed his thoughts. “Maybe this will give me a new lead.”

  “As long as we were here anyway,” he said with a grin.

  He locked the drawers back up while she slid across the counter in a hot, action-flick move, and hurried to sit in the chair she’d left just a few minutes ago. Walker hung up the keychain where he’d found it, then vaulted over the counter and went to sit next to her.

  They needn’t have hurried. They could have performed the whole exercise twice over before Skinny shuffled back.

  He printed them the photos. They thanked him profusely, then walked back to the guesthouse. Grinning like a pair of idiots all the way.

  * * *

  Clara was appalled at how little breaking the rules at the police station bothered her. Maybe she didn’t care because the cops were dirty. Or maybe it was Walker’s influence. Heaven help her if he was rubbing off on her. She’d just broken Mexican law. She’d reached the slippery slope and slid down like a professional bobsled competitor.

  Not something she was willing to waste time worrying about when she had Rosita’s disappeared person report fanned out on the bed in her room at the guesthouse. A dozen measly pages—mostly detailing unproductive, door-to-door interviews.

  She read the salient information out for Walker, who was watching the street through the window.

  “She was reported missing immediately by the cousin. Nobody else was home at the time. No witnesses on the street.”

  “Fingerprints on the car?” Walker asked.

  “The police didn’t take any.”

  “There might not have been any, anyway. They could just have grabbed her.”

  “Okay, this is something new.” She perked up. “A blue van was seen in the vicinity.”

  “License plate?”

  “Nobody took the time to notice.”

  He turned toward her. “The van pulls up next to Rosita. One guy behind the wheel, another in the back. The one in the back opens the door, pulls her in. He closes the door, and they’re off. She was gone in an instant.”

  Clara nodded, sympathy filling her. Given the circumstances, she wasn’t Rosita’s biggest fan, but she didn’t wish harm on the girl. Rosita had to be scared to death. She was seventeen. And God knew where she was now, if she was even still alive. God knew what had happened to her since that afternoon on the street.

  Clara wanted to find her, and not only to save the general’s reputation and his marriage. She was going to find Rosita, would do her best to track the girl down even if Rosita wasn’t personally linked to Clara.

  For a moment, she considered checking in with her father, then decided against it. She didn’t want to tell him where she was going tonight, didn’t want to worry him. She’d call him if she found something at the jungle camp.

  She needed to find something at the camp. The police report was a complete bust. There had to be a million blue vans in Mexico. Having that information helped them nothing.

  She sighed. “I hope Rosita is at the Tamchén, and they’re taking good care of her.”

  Walker glanced at his watch, “We’ll soon see.”

  * * *

  The truck’s headlights cut through the night as Walker drove out of the jungle, ready to pick up Clara at the edge of the banana farm where he’d left her. He’d had her wait for him at a small cluster of workers’ huts with friends while he’d gone to retrieve the Xibalba drugs he’d hidden after his ambush a few days ago. Half the drugs. He had different plans for the other half.

  The truck he “borrowed” from Pedro’s fleet—el Capitán wasn’t going to need it again—rattled over uneven ground. Walker couldn’t use the trucks the heroin had originally come in; they’d been shot to shit.

  Not by him. He’d shot at Santiago’s yahoos, and he hit what he aimed at, but the men—unable to see him—had been shooting all over the place. He was pretty sure at least one of them had died from friendly fire.

  Walker put all that out of his mind as he pulled up by the jumble of huts that edged the road, a tiny community in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but banana trees. His gaze immediately found Clara. A head taller and several shades lighter, she stuck out from among the Tojolabal women who sat around the fire, husking corn for cooking.

  Clara worked right along beside them.

  A smile tugged at his lips at the sight. He liked looking at her. He liked kissing her even more. They’d be doing more of that in the future; she just didn’t know it yet.

  She turned as if sensing being watched, saw him. She said her good-byes and ran to him, got in, grousing as she snapped on her seat belt. “I don’t see why I couldn’t have gone with you.”

  Because he didn’t want her to see the rotting corpses in the clearing. Not that he thought the scene would scare her off, since nothing had been able to accomplish that so far.

  On one hand, he respected her fearlessness; on the other, it made him nervous. He’d never seen a woman so ready to face death to save someone else. He’d never seen a woman he wanted to keep alive more—a strange and frightening thought he wasn’t prepared to examine.

  “Let’s run down our plan again,” he said as he drove down the road, heading for an unmarked turnoff into the rainforest that waited just a short mile ahead.

  “So you got everything okay?” She pulled out her camo hat and shoved it on her head, covering up all the blond.

  She adjusted the hat in what might have been a nervous gesture.
“I never thought I’d be riding through the night with a truckload of raw heroin. What if we get caught by the cops before we reach the camp?”

  “The cops don’t use this road. Even loggers won’t use it. Nobody comes this way but the Tamchén. There’s nothing at the end of this road except the Tamchén jungle camp and people who aren’t invited don’t go there. If they do, by accident, they don’t leave.”

  After a moment of processing that, Clara said, “Okay. Let’s talk about the plan. We go in, we split up, we search, we meet back up again. It’s a pretty simple plan.”

  “All plans are simple until the first monkey wrench gets thrown,” he told her, speaking from experience. “No op goes exactly as planned. For tonight, the main goal is to locate Rosita. We’ll have half an hour to search the place. Once we know where they’re keeping her, we make plans and come back to rescue her tomorrow night. I also need to find out if the noseless man is here.”

  If he was, Walker needed to make plans for the guy’s extraction too, not just Rosita’s. It would complicate things tenfold—not that any complication would stop Walker at this stage.

  He’d been looking for the man everywhere. It’d be just Walker’s luck if the bastard showed up at the most difficult place at the most difficult time. But there was no way Walker was going to let him slip through his fingers if they ran into each other.

  He was prepared to succeed at his mission or die trying. Clara, on the other hand…

  He looked at her as the truck bounced over potholes. “If something goes wrong, run for the jungle and keep running. Go north. I’ll find you.”

  And if he couldn’t come after her, by going north, eventually she’d hit a road that led out of the jungle and back to civilization.

  She rolled her eyes at him. “You Tarzan, me Jane? Can we skip the swinging from lianas?”

  “Are you kidding me? That’s the best part.”

  The corner of her mouth lifted.

  After a moment, she said, “Hey, while I waited for you, some medicine man fixed my side.” She gingerly touched a hand to the spot.

  “Baku was there?” Who was sick?

  “Just for a while,” she said. “He stopped in to visit with the head of the family to talk about some tribal ceremony. He was kind of freaky. He just looked at me and he knew that I was hurt. He rolled up a bunch of different kinds of leaves from his pocket and had me smoke it while he put some paste on the wound. I feel no pain.”

  Walker nodded. “That’s good. Baku knows what he’s doing.”

  “Looked questionable to me. I pretty much went along because I didn’t want to offend anyone. I’m guessing the antismoking campaigns don’t reach this far south.”

  He’d seen too much to make light of the shaman’s talents. “I’ve come to learn that it’s best not to question Baku’s methods. For one, if you do, your next dose of medicine will be exceptionally nasty. And I mean boiled beetle brains.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Spoken like a man who’s eaten boiled beetles?”

  He gagged just thinking about it. “Unfortunately.”

  She cleared her throat. “Do you think Baku is sweet on Brunhilda?”

  Walker blinked. “You picked up on that?”

  “Hard not to. He kept asking me about her.”

  “He’s had a crush going for a while.”

  “And Brunhilda?”

  “Sometimes I think it’s mutual, but Brunhilda seems to be holding back for some reason.“

  “Because of what she does for a living? I don’t think it bothers Baku.”

  “It’s enough if she thinks it’s a problem.” Women were damn complicated, in every country and every occupation, a universal truth that needed to be acknowledged.

  The truck rattled on. The night had closed around them, the twin headlights’ attempt to keep the darkness at bay proving pitifully insufficient.

  The dark night—the moon at a sliver—was in their favor. They both wore camouflage army uniforms he’d procured from Pedro’s stash, and black army boots that would blend. Most of the cartel guys wore similar clothes, merchandise that walked off army bases. If anyone caught sight of Clara or Walker at the camp while they were snooping around, in the dark, nobody would think anything of it. They’d be mistaken for two of the guys.

  Walker knew where the first sentries would be, so he stopped about half a mile before that point.

  They got out. Clara climbed under the truck. He dropped to his knees, then to his stomach, holding the flashlight for her with one hand while he helped her with the other.

  “Tie yourself up.” He had a harness in place for her, and loops of rope set up for her feet so they wouldn’t drop and drag.

  She called back with, “Try not to drive like a maniac.”

  “Nobody can drive a jungle road like a maniac in the dark,” he reassured her as he watched her securing herself into place and giving him a thumbs-up.

  He would have preferred it if he was under the truck and her in the cab, but the sentries would never let her through.

  He smiled at her. “You look like a spider monkey clinging to her mother’s belly.”

  “That suspiciously doesn’t sound like a compliment,” came the response, and it made him smile again, despite the dangers that waited up ahead.

  He pushed to his feet and left her with, “Hang in there,” then climbed back into the cab.

  He drove slowly and watched the road, made sure there were no fallen branches or rocks in the middle that would tear at Clara. He kept an eye on the road bed while pulling out his phone.

  The Tamchén camp had some kind of a signal amplifier. He called Miguel, a connection at the Tamchén stronghold Walker had been cultivating for the past year.

  Miguel was a low-level general manager at the camp. He kept an eye on the foot soldiers. He was responsible for anyone new brought into the operation. If someone didn’t work out, it was his job to shoot the rookie in the back of the head. A 9mm bullet was all the severance package the Tamchén offered.

  Walker had done a favor for him recently, by pure chance. Miguel had been one man short for taking a truckload of guns down to Guatemala. Walker had volunteered for the job, even dealing with the double-crossing buyer to Miguel’s satisfaction. So they were good. For the moment. At least to the point where Walker had the guy’s cell number and knew Miguel would take a call from him, and that was all Walker needed tonight.

  “Hey, it’s Walker,” he said into the phone when Miguel picked up. “I’m coming up the road, bringing you something I think the boss will like. Can you call down so they’ll let me through?”

  “What is it?”

  “The Xibalba shipment that Santiago lost last week.”

  Miguel paused for only the barest moment before his laughter came through the line. “I have to hear that story. Come on up.”

  From early on in the game, Walker had carefully cultivated a reputation for being an independent mercenary. He’d worked for both sides in the past, had been careful to swear no allegiances, although both sides operated under the assumption that he would join them eventually, if given half a chance.

  He drove, thinking of Clara. She’d be all right. She was a tough customer.

  He liked that about her more than was prudent. Liked her maybe a little too much. Good thing their association was nearly at an end. They just had to get through tonight.

  He would have preferred if they had better equipment, radios and such, like a real SEAL op, but tonight was a simple recon mission. They weren’t going to battle. Half an hour. Look around. Get out.

  If Rosita or the noseless man was here, Walker would come back tomorrow for the extraction. Alone. No way would he let Clara anywhere near that.

  He slowed the truck when he reached the forward perimeter. A palm-hatch shack stood next to the dirt road to keep the rain off the guards, nothing much, just enough for two rickety bamboo chairs.

  After a quick look in the cab and the back, the first set of sentries waved hi
m through. They clearly had gotten their instructions from Miguel. The second set of sentries acted much the same. Another three minutes later, Walker was at the final checkpoint at last.

  The camp proper—a five-acre spread of carefully cleared parcel in the middle of the jungle—was fenced in with a ten-foot-tall double-strand chain-link fence with barbed-wire coil on top adding another foot in height. The gate was more of the same, with a bamboo gatehouse that sheltered two guards.

  Miguel waited outside the half-open gate. He wore military pants and a drab shirt with the sleeves rolled up to above his elbows, the buttons open to the middle of his chest. Shaved head. Tattoos ran up his left arm, disappearing under his shirt, then continuing up his neck past the collar.

  He was as tough as a log-splitter and about as attractive. He’d started his career in illegal logging, then moved up to more lucrative things until he ended up as a camp boss for the Tamchén.

  He nodded to Walker, then moved to the tailgate and vaulted up into the back of the truck without waiting. Walker jumped from the cab and walked to the back, watched Miguel pan his flashlight over the cargo.

  The bricks of raw heroin were dumped all over and now waited in a giant heap. Walker had lowered the pallets from the canopy in the jungle, then cut the wrapping loose that had held the small bricks in one huge block on each pallet. If he’d simply brought the pallets, everything neatly stacked, the truck could have been unloaded in ten minutes with a forklift, giving him no time to search the camp.

  Miguel didn’t seem worried about the work required. He laughed out loud, looking impressed with the load and gleeful in equal measure. “Is this really Santiago’s lost shipment?”

  Walker shrugged, giving a sly grin. “Half of it. I’ll bring the other half when it’s safe. Pedro stole it. I found it. Finders keepers.”

  “Law of the jungle.” Miguel moved back to the tailgate but didn’t jump down. He narrowed his eyes as he watched Walker. “How much do you want for it?”

  Walker rubbed his jaw. “I’m considering coming under the Tamchén umbrella. But I’m not coming in as a foot soldier. So maybe Chapa will consider this as my buy-in for a higher position.”