Free Fall (2 page)

We.

Her brain hitched on the word, the answer to who she would be partnering with as they escaped into the crowd. She wasn’t saying good-bye to him—to Cuervo—at the dock. Irrational relief flooded her, followed by a bolt of excitement.

“Thanks, Cuervo. Blood dripping down my face would definitely draw undue attention at an inopportune time.” She forced a smile.

Still, his face, those eyes, they held her, and while she wasn’t a mystical person, she couldn’t miss the connection. Attraction? Sure, but she understood how to compartmentalize on the job. This was something that felt elemental. Before she could stop the thought, the words
soul
mate
flashed through her head.

And God, that was crazy and irrational when she was always, always logical. Her brothers called her a female version of Spock from
Star
Trek
.

Still, as those fingers cleaned her wound, smoothed ointment over her temple, and stretched butterfly bandages along her skin, she couldn’t stop thinking about spending the rest of the day with him as they melded into the port city and made their way back to the embassy.

Damn it, she could not waste the time or emotional energy on romance or even a fling. Right now, she could only focus on working with the Mr. Smiths and Mr. Browns of her profession. She needed to make peace with her past,
then
move on with her life. Then, and only then, she would find Mr.
Right
and shift from the field to a desk job so she could settle down into that real family dream she’d missed out on.

Yet those brown eyes drew her into a molten heat and she had the inescapable sense that Mr. Right had arrived ahead of schedule.

East
Africa: Six Months Later

Five years, eight months, and twenty-nine days sober.

Staff Sergeant Jose “Cuervo” James flipped his sobriety coin over and over between his fingers as he reviewed the satellite feed on the six screens in front of him. If he and the multi-force rescue team around him didn’t save Stella Carson in the next twenty-four hours, odds were his coin would end up in the trash.

The cavernous airplane hangar echoed with the buzz of personnel calling directives into headsets and the low hum from each image on the dozen screens. Techies gathered information for the eight-man rescue team—two Air Force pararescuemen, eight Navy SEALs, and five CIA operatives. The volume on the speakers increased whenever something of specific interest captured their attention about Stella and the eleven college students who’d been kidnapped with her during a foreign exchange trip.

Only one screen interested him. The one showing Stella being held hostage by separatists in some concrete hellhole south of the Horn of Africa. His eyes ate up the image of her—alive—for now.

She wore jeans and a black tank top with gym shoes, looking five years younger than her twenty-nine years and just like the exchange student she was pretending to be. Her titan red hair was half in, half out of a ponytail. A long strand stuck to blood on her cheek from an oozing gash in her eyebrow that made him think of the scratch on her head from the bullet that grazed her the day they’d met. The day she’d saved
his
ass.

Right now, she was dusty, strained, and bruised. But still keen-eyed, pacing around her cell, nothing more than concrete walls with a pallet and bucket in the corner. A table filled another corner with a scattering of artifacts and relics. Frustration knotted his fists as he held back the urge to reach through the screen and haul her out. To hell with the objectivity and the logic she worshiped.

Usually his job as a pararescueman gave his life focus and stability. But today’s assignment was more than just a mission. Stella Carson was more than an Interpol agent to pluck out of a sticky situation. She was the only woman he’d ever loved.

She was also the woman who’d dumped him four weeks ago.

He prayed to every saint he’d memorized in parochial school that the captors bought her cover story of being an over-privileged student studying overseas on Mommy and Daddy’s nickel. He couldn’t even let himself think about all the atrocities committed against women in this region. He could only focus on willing her to stay alive. God help her if they figured out she was a top-notch intelligence operative with an uncanny aptitude for code breaking.

God help them both if he failed to get her out.

He’d been told little when he’d boarded the plane at his home base in Georgia, only knowing they were being tasked to rescue a kidnapped group of students. Not unusual to keep him in the dark until deeper into the mission. He’d understood the op was covert and their slide into the country would be off the books. Their aircraft looked more like a large civilian charter jet than a military transport.

He damn well hadn’t guessed Stella was one of the captives until he was airborne. He’d almost lost his shit right then and there. Only the burning need to be damn sure they didn’t have any excuse to kick him off this operation kept him from going postal.

At least he’d gotten his rage under control by the time they’d flown into Camp Lemmonier, a U.S. base in Africa, and pulled into the waiting empty airplane hangar. They’d slipped in by pretending to be part of the advance security team for the U.S. vice president’s wife’s upcoming visit. Once inside the hangar, they’d off-loaded their gear—shipping containers emptied and flipped over to be used as tables. The other four CIA agents—techies—monitored two fifteen-inch computer screens each with a massive flat screen above all to feed images from the smaller units.

A Predator unmanned surveillance drone sent pictures from outside the compound and relayed thermal imaging of individuals inside. The craft, flown by remote control, had also released a smaller reconnaissance craft—the ultimate “bug.”

Nanotechnology made it possible to fly in a miniscule spy vehicle that looked like a fly or spider, a nano air vehicle or NAV. The miniature drone didn’t have the distance capability of the Predator, but the maneuverability was unbeatable. The minute size provided the ultimate disguise, sending back visual and audio feed via satellite. Even though other countries knew of the existence of the technology, it wasn’t like they could swat every fly and stomp every spider.

The lead CIA agent on their extraction team—a craggy-faced dude calling himself “Mr. Smith,” surprise, surprise—clicked the controller in his hands and shifted one of the smaller screen images to feed into the larger wide-screen above the rest.

“This footage was made yesterday at zero-eight-hundred when the Predator spy drone successfully deployed NAVs for an inside peek.” Smith hitched the dusty leather belt, his dark shirt and pants well-worn and generic looking as his four identical workmates. “We were lucky enough to make contact with Agent Carson.”

The screen captured her eyes narrowing briefly as she stepped closer to the minute surveillance device. She nodded, just a tiny dip of her head that she knew she was being watched and somehow she’d decided the eyes were friendly. Yet, she didn’t give anything away to the pair of scared students huddled in the corner with an unconscious third on the floor in front of them.

Mr. Smith zoomed in so close Stella’s freckles came into focus. “Once she knew we had eyes in the room, she fed us information like a pro.”

Jose leaned forward, elbows on his knees as his eyes zeroed in on his favorite freckle, the one just below her ear where he’d discovered she liked to be kissed the day they’d flown to Queen Elizabeth National Park. He could almost taste her skin even now, watching her on screen.

She walked to a corner and stared up at what appeared to be a regular surveillance camera to keep watch over prisoners. “We need medical supplies in here,” she shouted, her husky voice reaching through the airwaves to grip him right around his heart. “Do you hear me, people?”

The operative fast forwarded through her pointing out two injured students and three more devices in her dank concrete room; each step took her past piles of ancient pottery and stacks of other stolen pieces of art. “She alerted us to the location of the cameras in the room and the students throughout the building—as best she could.”

Her pacing slowed beside a stack of ancient tribal masks. “You can’t just lock all of us away.” Her fingers skimmed along a gold gilded antiquity. Drawing their attention to the room’s storehouse of stolen historic treasures? “I’m no good to you if I die before you even get to torture me for answers.”

Torture.

Rape was rampant here.

Mutilation of women was commonplace.

Bile burned the back of his throat as a hole threatened to crack open his chest. What had she been through during her three days of captivity? Jamming the fear to the back of his brain, he focused on using his training to help her. He wouldn’t be any good to her if he didn’t hold it together.

His eyes flicked to other screens, images of the rest of the rooms, one in particular. Chains hung from the ceiling. Knives glinted in a line on a nearby table. A battery with cables lay too damn close on the floor. The semiconscious man being carried between two guards appeared alive.

Jose forced himself to assess the young man medically. Pararescue training included extensive schooling as a medic and no doubt those skills were needed for this mission. The wide screen filled again with Stella’s image, the time stamp at the bottom showing the footage had come in late yesterday afternoon.

“Hello?” She waved her hand in front of one of the bad guy surveillance cameras. “Your guards are due back in a half hour anyway to bring that watery soup you call supper… Oh yeah, and you call it breakfast, but no actual lunch because we shouldn’t eat enough to have any energy. Instead of your sunrise/sunset buffet, I’d rather have a bucket of water and antibiotics.”

Mr. Smith froze that frame, leaving the smaller images running in both past and real time now, offering two Stellas to watch in addition to the full screen close-up of her pale face with keen green eyes. “Notice, she told us the guard’s schedule—or at least the part we can expect. Sunrise and sunset. We can infiltrate at that moment, when we know where the guards will be. It’s better to face the certainty. You’ll be going in just before dusk as they take her supper tonight.”

Screens flickered and shifted with feeds of everything from jungle perimeter to the rusted chain-link fence. Jose imprinted every detail in his brain. Nothing could be tossed aside as inconsequential.

“Gentlemen,” Mr. Smith continued, scratching his jaw along the beard they all grew when undercover in-country for any length of time, “I trust I don’t need to stress how important it is that this rescue goes off without major incident. With the vice president’s wife coming for a goodwill visit at the end of the week, security is crucial.”

If there weren’t civilian students involved in the kidnapping would they have left Stella there to die in the interest of preserving “security”? His fist clenched around his sobriety coin in his pocket. He was the first person in a long line of family alcoholics to make it this far in AA.

“Sergeant James.” Mr. Smith turned his attention to Jose. The frozen image of Stella fast forwarded. “Here’s the part that brought you here today.”

Stella hitched her hands on her hips, her face directed right at the nano bug. “I really could use some Jose Cuervo.”

The CIA agent clicked the remote again and again, skipping to different frames where she repeated over time… “Jose Cuervo… Jose Cuervo… Jose Cuervo…”

Cuervo. An ironic reminder of a bad encounter with a bottle of the tequila, and due to his name Jose, the call sign stuck.
Jose
“Cuervo” James
. He forced himself to concentrate on the deceptively bland CIA operative in charge of the whole operation.

“We looked into her file and your name—or rather your call sign—caught our attention. We realized the two of you worked a mission together six months ago. Our files indicate you became more than friends.”

So much for their attempts to keep the relationship secret. Apparently big brother really was watching.

“Yes, sir,” he answered simply, catching a look from his fellow teammate out of the corner of his eye.

He’d been paired with Tech Sergeant Gavin “Bubbles” Novak, the least chatty PJ in their squadron, but the best medic. Bubbles had also been there the day Stella had pulled them out of the Gulf of Aden.

A wave from one of the techies drew their attention back. The main screen filled with Stella in “real time.” His mouth dried at the thought of seeing her now, so vibrant he ached to step into the image with her. The screen showed a door opening in Stella’s cell.

Shit. Why did they have to sit around here with their thumbs up their asses reviewing footage? They needed to get to her. Now.

A guard tossed another limp body on the floor, the resulting groan from the guy the only sign that their latest inquisition had left the student alive. The guard’s shaved bald head gleamed from the bare lightbulb swinging from the ceiling. He wore camouflage pants and a T-shirt with the sleeves cut, no military rank visible. Ammo straps crisscrossed his chest. A rifle hung over his shoulder.

A blade was sheathed at his waist in a belt holding more bullets.

Stella’s eyes went wide with perfectly played innocence and horror. “I don’t know what you want from me. I’ll tell you everything I know. Can I just have some water first, please?”

The guard hooked his hand on the strap of his automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. “We want to know who you are.” His accent was clearly local, Somali most likely. “Why were you and your fellow spies on our property?”

“I’ve told you already. My name is Stella. I’m a foreign exchange student. These are my friends in the same program, but we’re all from different schools. We were on a day trip when you found us, a study on ways to improve distribution of food during a famine. We only wanted to help.” She backed step by step until she bumped a table of ancient pottery. “I’m begging you, can I just go home?”

“You must think we are very stupid.” The bald guard blocked the doorway out. “I do not like to be insulted.”

“I don’t like being taken captive.” Her hand slid to the table, her fingers closing over a broken handle off a cup. She tucked the remnant into the back of her waistband. “I want to call my embassy.”

She tugged her T-shirt as if for emphasis, effectively hiding her makeshift weapon. Pride filled him. Damn, she was amazing.

His mind raced back to the first time he’d seen her when he’d hauled himself out of the sea and into the rescue boat. She’d been at the wheel, holding the boat steady against the hammering waves, unbending with the wind tearing at her fiery red braid. There’d been bullets, a blown up chopper, and blood streaking down her face.

Not a romantic meeting by any stretch.

Their sprint through the marketplace to the embassy had left them both weary as hell, wrung dry by the job. Afterward, he’d found her on the embassy roof, grieving for the aircrew of the downed chopper. That explosion had shaken him more than a little too.

He’d been planning to have his one cigar a month to decompress. He’d taken up smoking when he kicked the booze, then had to kick nicotine as best he could. One cigar a month when stress got to be too much wasn’t the best option, but it didn’t drag him back under the way one drink would. So he carried a Cuban smoke in his pocket at all times. He’d had it half out when he stepped onto the roof… and then he’d found Stella.

He hadn’t smoked a cigar since.

Their attraction had been immediate. Explosive. Their five-month affair had been frenetic as they “dated” wherever their paths crossed on missions and assignments throughout the Horn of Africa and farther along the Eastern region, even over as far as Uganda. They’d lived on the edge, drunk on an edgy attraction that provided a greater high than could be found in any bottle.