Hard Target (6 page)

Dawna froze. "Are you here to return me to my unit?" Hurt flickered bright in her eyes and her voice dropped to a whisper. "Are you that anxious to see me fail?"

"No." No, he couldn't send her back to the MSGU with another black mark on her record. To punish her now for wanting to do her job was as wrong as when her unit's Commanding Officer punished her three years ago.

She deserved a hell of a lot better treatment than that. In fact, he owed her an explanation of why it appeared he'd gone unpunished.

The need to blurt out the truth hit him hard, but he caught the explanation before it reached his lips. If he explained the truth to her, he'd be selfish and a danger to the other undercover operatives whose lives depended on his silence.

Instead, he reached out and touched her. A small compensation for never being allowed to tell her the truth. A short caress of soft, warm skin to rekindle the memories he'd carried all over the world for the last three years. And hadn't been able to recreate in any other woman.

He brushed her chin with his rough-skinned thumb and her perfume strayed into his nostrils. It was sharp like fresh mint, as if a sensory appendage to her personality. "I'm only trying to protect you, Dawna."

Her jaw tightened as she slapped away his hand. "You didn't protect me three years ago. Why should I expect it now? Besides, I don't need any protection."

Then she shoved past him to head upstairs. For a moment he stood facing the wall. Then he turned, staring down the short, claustrophobic corridor. The door at the end of the bunker slammed shut behind her. Abruptly, an odd thought spiked through his frame.

Had she locked him in?

Relax, Hastings, she wouldn't
. There were others in the bunker. Tay calmed himself with a deep breath as he stalked to the door and shoved it open. Relief washed over him. He wasn't trapped.

Not like how his life these past three years had been trapped in a neat, convenient lie capable of destroying any chance he had to ease his conscience and to help Dawna stop a terrorist.

Chapter Three

"Did any of the witnesses recognize the sniper?" Dawna asked Ramos in the local police station's interrogation room. All of the witnesses' statements had been taken, but she wasn't ready to leave. Not until she'd heard every last statement, seen every last piece of evidence.

Ramos nodded to both her and Tay. "
Si
. Several people recognized him. And they all gave the same name."

"But can we trust the
policia
to give us all the facts?" Tay asked.

"I believe so," Dawna answered. "With no jurisdiction here, we can't demand anything, but the locals, including the
policia
, are quite helpful. We can trust them."

Tay threw a glance at Ramos, who blinked innocently. Dawna ignored them. Tay was here, playing the suspicious cop only because this situation was more interesting than reading her latest version of fire orders.

He certainly wasn't here because of some need to protect her, despite the worry which had flashed on his face down in the bunker. No, she wasn't so stupid to expect that again.

She focused on Ramos. "And the name they gave was what?"

Still standing, Ramos pursed his lips. It took a moment for him to answer. "Juan Cabanelos."

He seemed a bit reluctant to tell her. Dawna glanced at Tay. Maybe he was right to play the suspicious-of-everyone cop. She looked back at Ramos when he spoke again.

"He's an Aymara."

"What's that?" Tay asked.

For now, Dawna pushed aside the curious feeling about Ramos. "One of the native peoples here," she answered. "They'd been fighting for rights for years, but when an Aymara became president, they switched their fighting to keeping their lands and culture."

She bit her lip. If this attack was politically motivated, then drugs wouldn't be the issue. But still, she refused to eliminate anything at this point. The drug cartels often sent bombs and bodies as messages just to make their point.

Tay caught her serious expression and locked it. She fought the urge to lengthen the moment, to savor the riveting expression of those beautiful eyes, as she had savored it at the party three years ago. Her need for him was still as strong as the memory of slipping into his staff car....

She threw off such thoughts and flicked her attention back to Ramos. "Do the police have an address for him?"

Ramos' old face broke into a grim smile as he nodded. His reluctance had suddenly evaporated. "More than an address. They have quite a story, too. Cabanelos was one of the
desaparecidos
. The disappeared ones."

Dawna's eyebrows shot up. The name was borrowed from Argentina's own civil violence. Like in that country, here it meant one who opposed the government and who had mysteriously disappeared.

"I've read the history," Tay said. "The old government claims they don't know what happened to those people."

Ramos pulled out a creaky wooden chair and sank down. "True." Looking tired and old, he dropped the small stack of papers he'd been holding in front of Dawna. "Our country has not yet been able to find our disappeared ones." His tone sounded both sad and bitter. "We don't have many of them, but one is too many."

Dawna studied him. Ramos kept his eyes down, his dark, scruffy brows knitting close together. The subject must be a difficult one for people here. They'd won their freedom from tyranny, but freedom had a heavy price when loved ones disappeared. Maybe reluctance was what she'd sensed earlier.

Still, this idea of political dissention didn't feel right to her. She remembered the ambassador's thoughts on the bomb. It felt personal to him.

"Excuse me," Tay interrupted, his voice quiet and his tone respectful. "If my history serves me correctly, didn't that happen in the 80's? That was 30 years ago."

Dawna sat back. Tay was right. It was a long time ago.

Ramos nodded. "It's, how do you say it? A sore spot?"

"Obviously, though, Cabanelos returned." Tay answered.

Ramos flicked a small shard of ugly brown paint off the table in front of him. "Some call them the
aparecidos
. The appeared ones. No one we spoke to said they knew the story behind Cabanelos' sudden return." He looked up at Tay. "But one witness reported that Cabanelos had asked for refugee status at the embassy."

Dawna straightened, fully alert. The embassy had quite an active Immigration section for being operational only a few months. "Did the witness know when he applied?"

Ramos picked up the papers he'd thrown on the table and scanned them. "About three months ago, he thought."

"At the beginning." Dawna looked at Tay. "There should be a record of his application."

Tay caught her gaze and held it again. "But the staff didn't arrive until two months ago."

"Remember, Lucy helped while she was waiting for the Ambassador. We may even have an official answer from the Immigration Department. They tend to work quickly at first as a show of good diplomacy." She paused, tearing her attention from Tay to face Ramos. "Most of the applications were accepted, which begs the question, why attack an embassy that accepted your application for refugee status?"

"Maybe he was turned down," Tay suggested. "Ramos, stay here and translate the rest of the reports. Sergeant Atkinson and I will return to the embassy to see if we can find that file."

Dawna bristled. Now Tay was ordering her staff around? Not for long. But what he'd told Ramos was exactly what she would have said. When Ramos glanced at her, she reluctantly nodded.

After she called for the driver, she stopped Tay on the busy sidewalk outside. "Ramos is my employee. You're only here because this is more interesting than checking if I've written all the correct Standing Orders."

Tay scanned the crowded street for a sign of the car Dawna had ordered. "Anything that affects the security of the embassy is my business."

"But Ramos works for me, not you. Remember that." She drew herself to her full height, and although she was no match for Tay's tall stature, she made sure he fully understood her position.

Tay turned his attention back to her. After a moment of scanning her frame, he asked, quite blandly, "Were you going to assign him a different task?"

Not quite
, Dawna conceded to herself. And only herself. "The reports would have been delivered to the embassy as soon as they'd been completed. Remember, we have a translator on staff. Ramos is a security guard whose shift is due to start in a few hours. He should be sent home to sleep."

The corner of Tay's mouth lifted as he slipped on his sunglasses. "Then why drag him out here in the first place? You knew interviewing the witnesses would take hours. Ramos didn't need to attend them. You already told me you trust the local police."

She turned away to scan the never-ending flow of traffic. They both knew she'd dragged Ramos along to act as a buffer, but there was no way on earth she'd admit that.

Tay felt his smile fall away. He sure knew how Ramos must feel. He was bone-tired, too, and fatigue fractured his tight control. The glare of the sun against the concrete cut through his sunglasses right to the back of his eyeballs, reminding him he'd traveled almost the entire length of the civilized world without sleep. He needed a change of clothes, too. Dust covered him. But no way would he return to his hotel for anything. Dawna would no doubt be pleased he was out of her hair for a while.

The armored car pulled up and he heaved open the rear door for them. Dawna slipped inside and scooted over when he climbed in after her. Leaning back, he listened as she told the driver to return to the embassy. His only glance through the windshield caught the distant Cristos statue high on the hill east of the city, its arms outstretched, its brilliant white practically glowing in the bright sun.

"Tired? Or is the altitude bothering you?"

He opened his eyes with a jolt, only now aware he'd shut them. "Just a little jet lag. I've had worse."

"When?"

"Paris. I-" He shut his mouth. Fool. Fatigue was loosening his tongue.

"Paris?" Dawna arched her eyebrow at him. "When were you in Paris?"

Damn that slip. His records, mostly at the MSGU in Ottawa, listed him as never leaving the country, or even the city of Ottawa for that matter. Dawna's unit still kept his name on the nominal roll; his position still filled on the organizational chart, that awful photograph of him still graced the front entrance at headquarters, beside the other instructors' pictures.

She leaned toward him, her light brows pressing closer together. He caught her warm scent, now mixed with the smoggy heat of the day. "You've been to Paris?" she asked. "Who with?"