Heart Strike (16 page)

He waved her bra again.

“I've seen a thousand like her. I've
been
with a thousand like her.”

“Like what?” Richie was impressed that he managed to keep his voice low and even.

“You saw her today, just like Carla said. The way she took over at the hangar, she wants to rule this team and won't accept anything less. And you she's just using to fuck her way onto the team. She's so easy that she practically spread her legs for you the second she picked you out of the crowd. Leaning back against you
oh-so-cute
when Fred showed up. In just four days, she's spread herself for you. She's a goddamn—”

Richie knew what the next word was.

Apparently so did his fist as it shot out and crashed into Chad's jaw.

It was like punching a goddamn rock; his head barely moved and Richie's hand stung like hell.

“I'm telling you—”

“Out!” Richie got right up in his face.

When Chad started to speak again, Richie slammed a blow into Chad's solar plexus, which had the advantage of being softer than his jaw, though it had about as much effect. If it came to a fight, the next step would be bone-breaking on both their parts—Delta training wasn't big on fisticuffs.

Chad glared at him, then up over Richie's shoulder.

Melissa. Of course she wouldn't stay put when told—she was Delta.

“Out. Now.” Richie kept it soft and low this time.

Chad didn't say a goddamn word, just turned for the door.

“Leave her clothes here.” The words grated hard enough in his throat to hurt.

Chad looked down at his hands, dashed Melissa's bra onto the carpet, then stormed out without turning. The slam of the hotel door must have echoed down the hall and at least two floors above and below.

“I don't think he likes me much.”

Richie turned. He would have appreciated the skimpiness of the hotel towel at any other time, but at the moment he had another problem.

What the hell was wrong with Chad? This wasn't some fit of jealousy. Chad had been on the verge of calling Melissa a whore.

Please god, don't let her have heard that.

He twisted back to stare at the door as if he could see what was going on with Chad.

Sure, it had been fast between he and Melissa.

But it had felt so right.

And something that felt that right couldn't be wrong.

Could it?

The flight to Colombia was silent. Melissa could feel Richie thinking, but he wasn't volunteering anything, not a word.

She'd followed as quickly as she could but missed what they said to each other. She'd opened the door only to see the massive blow he delivered to Chad's chin. Despite being twice Richie's size, having his right leg behind him by chance was the only thing that kept Chad upright. The second blow had winded him so badly that he had tried to speak but didn't have control of his lungs. He was lucky that Richie hadn't killed him with the power of that blow.

And Richie hadn't spoken a word since.

It was her fault. She never should have fraternized with a team member. But Kyle and Carla did. And Richie had felt…perfect. She didn't have another word for.

She glanced at him again, but he was wholly focused on the flight.

His natural state was nerd, only flipping into warrior when called for. Now he was gone beyond the veil and she didn't know if that side of him could even speak.

Kyle and Carla had tried asking him some questions, but he hadn't answered them either. Carla had made a patting motion for patience and Melissa could only hope that it would be enough.

In Colombia, Agent Fred had arranged for two pallets of condoms to be waiting for them.

“Condoms?”

“With the collapse of oil prices, Venezuela is broke,” Fred had explained. “They also top the South American charts for HIV and teen pregnancy. Abortion is illegal, so condoms are a rare, expensive, and highly sought-after import. Over seven hundred dollars a box on the black market. I've got a guy in Maracaibo who will take delivery and promised to undercut the competition by a third. The fact that he'll make a fortune I can't help, but at least it will help some people in the city.”

“Technically legal, black market, and helpful. You done good for a spook,” Melissa teased him, hoping to get a rise out of Richie.

Though he'd stood nearby, not a word.

The flight back had been even quieter.

After landing back in Maracaibo, everyone was still so tired that the hotel seemed like too much trouble. Besides, it was just now sunrise and they hadn't posted a phone number. They had to be at the hangar, at least during daylight hours.

Chad and Duane rolled in shortly after they'd handed off the shipment of condoms. The two of them looked as awful as she felt. Chad's dirty look was acid. Surprising herself, she flipped him the finger and then turned her back on him.

They tossed down blankets on the hangar's concrete floor for padding and passed out in the cool shade inside. Kyle took first watch. Melissa had made sure that she was on the side of Richie away from Chad before she collapsed.

The loud roar of the rare jet climbing out of Maracaibo didn't wake her for more than a second or two.

But the approach of a heavy truck engine had her and everyone else rolling to their feet. A glance at her watch showed she'd slept barely three hours. Midmorning.

Melissa slapped her hip to check that her weapon was there. It had been a relief when Duane had opened the weapon's cache; she'd felt naked without one. She'd drawn the Colt M1911. She had two spare magazines in her pants' thigh pocket and a battered but very serviceable M16 tucked under the edge of her blanket. They were almost as ubiquitous as the AK-47 on the black market, so it was reasonable that she would have one.

They'd also carefully paired their weapons by power and capacity, so that subteams could unleash the widest variety of attack if needed. She and Richie, Kyle and Carla, Duane and Chad.

The truck stopped and a heavy fist pounded against the steel door. Carla and Kyle moved to either side, she and Richie moved up to the door, and Duane and Chad lay down behind the SUV and the truck so that they could shoot under them or roll into the open as needed.

Melissa propped her weapon on the inside of the door behind a handy angle in the ironwork so that it would be close to hand. She then cracked the door open with Richie out of sight just past the inside edge of the doorjamb. He had his rifle shouldered.

“Mornin', y'all,” a big male voice boomed into the hangar before she could even see who stood out in the bright sunlight. “I'm looking to charter that purty little plane of yours we saw flittin' down out of the sky this morning. Took me a bit to find you, let me just say.”

Melissa glanced over at Richie.

“Jackson, Mississippi,” he whispered. “Moved around a bit, but he sounds authentic.”

The man was as she expected once she could see him: fifties, overweight but fighting it, going to bald. Rumpled khakis, worn loafers, and a loud Hawaiian shirt. He mopped at his brow with a white handkerchief. It was as if he was a stereotype of himself.

A woman stood close behind him and couldn't have been a much greater contrast. She was a narrow woman, like she'd been caught in a giant vise and squeezed. She was native but dressed in black designer slacks with a sharp crease, practical but expensive flats, and a simple, white, Ann Taylor blouse that offset her dark skin. Wraparound shades had not been tucked up into her long dark hair—which was pulled back into a severe ponytail making her face appear even narrower—but instead kept her eyes hidden despite the hangar's shadows. Her leather portfolio, as slim as she was, made it so that she'd have looked in place at a Miami business meeting, but not in a rusting Maracaibo hangar.

The man shifted in surprise when Melissa shoved the doors wide enough apart so that they could see each other clearly. Richie leaned against the frame, so his rifle was still out of sight in his hand, but his handgun was on clear display. Then Carla and Kyle moved into view, farther back in the shadows but still carrying their rifles.

“I caught me a fish, a big one,” the man continued in the face of Melissa's continued silence, obviously so surprised that he was trying to pretend none of it was happening. “Gotta get her to my guy in Miami. He always mounts my big catches.”

“We don't normally carry such cargo.” Richie stood up just enough for his rifle to show, though he didn't raise it.

The fish-guy was big, but Richie felt bigger. Not that he was taller, but that he looked so dangerous that he simply took up more space. Melissa had never seen Richie looking this way—a third variation. This was completely the Unit operator, as if he'd wholly shed his charming side. She hoped not. Though he was speaking, which meant that Richie's sharp mind was in full gear when he was in this mode.

“Afraid y'all was gonna say that.” The big man put on a sad face but then continued jovially despite how often his wide eyes tracked down to Richie's rifle. “That's why I brought my expediter. She said she would take care of any little problems.” He eyed the alleyway between hangars carefully as if finally considering his lines of retreat.

The woman pulled a single sheet of paper from her portfolio and held it out to Melissa.

She took it with her right hand, keeping her left free in case she needed to grab the Colt. Old trick, fill up your adversary's hands, and then attack. She was too well trained to fall for that one.

“This”—the woman's voice was as smooth and classy as her attire—“is a contract for immediate flight to Miami, including deadhead return. I have left the fee blank…for the moment.”

“We don't—”

Melissa cut Richie off with a hand sign. She inspected the woman more closely; then she leaned out past the doors to look both directions along the hangar alleyway. With Richie at the door, Duane would have his eye on the camera feeds from outside, and he'd called out no warning.

No one else was in their dusty corner of the hangar area. The truck was a flatbed with a large crate strapped to it; the driver had not climbed down but sat with both hands visible on the wheel. Nowhere for other people to hide unless they were already in place in other hangars.

Life is risk
, the trainers used to say.
You don't win an engagement from an armchair.

“Let's see the box.”

“Absolutely.” The big man clapped his hands together and turned for the truck. “Now we're getting somewhere.”

But it was the woman that Melissa was watching. The careful nod of acquiescence—an assessing moment—before she too turned toward the truck.

“What?” Richie whispered. “We don't want to be flying fish to Miami.” His first words addressed directly to her since the hotel room.

“I don't think that's what she's about.”

But when they reached the truck—Kyle and Carla rolling up to take clearly military stances with Chad and Duane remaining hidden—and pulled back the tarp, she saw the man had spoken accurately.

“That's one damn big fish,” Kyle observed.

He was right. One meter of sword and three more of fish; it was a monster. Blue above, silver below, the swordfish lay in a deep bed of ice.

“My baby is eleven hundred and three pounds,” the big man crowed. “Not a record by a long ways, but a record for this old boy, I can tell ya. I have pictures, but my man will want to see it before it dries out.”

“Richie.” She'd get even with him for giving her the silent treatment. “Check it. I want to know exactly what we would be carrying.”

He groaned but pulled out a flashlight. First, he opened its mouth and bent down to inspect its gullet. She didn't see any signs that it had been sliced open and packed with drugs—of course, that could be on the underside.

Apparently satisfied with what he could see, Richie began shoving his hands and arms deep into the fishy ice to make sure the crate had no false bottom.

The guy hovered, clearly anxious about his fish—probably too thoroughly real to be an act.

But the woman stood back, cool and sleek.

Melissa jumped back off the truck and waved over Carla but had her hold one step back as Melissa moved up to the expeditor.

“Miami, one fish, deadhead return. One passenger, I assume.” Melissa waved her hand at the fisherman who was now handing Richie his pole case for inspection.

Richie opened it and checked inside. “A Daiwa Saltiga 6500H on a Melton pole. Sweet.”

It looked as if the fisherman had just died and gone to heaven. The two of them rambled off into some fishing tackle nerdvana. Not a word to her or anyone else on the team, but he was glad to talk fishing. Her first instinct had been right; she should have pushed him out of the plane over the Everglades and fed him to the alligators or crocs or whichever got to him first.

The expediter woman didn't answer right away. Instead she turned her head to inspect the four of them. The tilt of her head said that she hadn't missed the hangar's security cameras either.

“May I see your plane?”

Melissa nodded.

Carla was looking at her strangely, but Melissa led the woman inside. Without comment, she circled the plane and the two SUVs. At Melissa's signal, Chad and Duane stepped sufficiently out of the shadows to be seen. Like Carla and Kyle, they held onto their rifles so that those were in plain view as well.

Melissa snagged her own from where she'd propped it against the back of the door as she passed by and slung it over her shoulder.

The woman finished her brief tour and returned to where Melissa stood by the narrow opening between the hangar doors.

“There will be two passengers,” was all the woman said. “I'll come back on the deadhead return with you.”

“Twenty thousand.” Melissa kept her tone casual. But she wanted to dance around, pump her fist in the air, and yell, “Bingo!” No mere expediter would ever waste the time to fly the route back and forth. This was an inspection trip for Moore Aviation. She'd been ready for weeks of waiting for a contact, already had several more steps she'd thought of during last night's “condom” flight. And here she was on the second day.

“Ten thousand,” the woman countered.

“A Lear would cost him thirty-five, minimum. Plus five for stinking up the cabin with his fish.”

“Twelve.”

“Seventeen.”

“Fifteen.”

“U.S. Cash.”

“Half before.”

“Half after.” Melissa closed the deal.

The woman reached into her portfolio again and handed across an envelope.

Melissa handed both the envelope—which she'd just bet already had seventy-five hundred-dollar bills in it—and the contract to Carla as if it was her job to deal with such things.

“Take care of these.”

Carla studied her a moment, then guessed Melissa's intent correctly. She riffled the envelope, then pulled out a lighter and set the one-page contract on fire.

“We depart in ten minutes,” the woman said crisply and stepped back into the sunlight.

“What the hell, Moore?” Chad came up as Duane slipped outside to keep an eye on the truck with Kyle and Richie. The heat of anger still burned in his voice. “A fucking fish?”

Carla spun to look at her. Clearly the light bulb had just gone on for her. “This isn't about the fish.”

“Nope,” Melissa agreed and turned to prep the plane for flight, leaving Chad to grind his teeth all he wanted. It was about the expediter.

* * *

Richie had been worried about U.S. Customs pulling up a report on their plane when they landed in Miami and finding that it was listed as stolen from the Coast Guard. But they didn't, so Vito Corello must have taken care of that somehow.

It ended up being an uneventful five-hour flight to Miami, getting a fish through customs, refueling, and five hours back.

Mr. Fish—no names were ever offered and none were ever given—checked his fish about every three minutes for the whole flight up and gave a jovial farewell in Miami.

The expediter remained absorbed in the paperwork in her portfolio or on her equally slim tablet computer for the long hours—or at least she appeared to be. Richie suspected that she didn't miss a single thing in the whole flight—not a course correction or an altitude adjustment.