Hot Soldier Spy Page 14

  The blue car careened around the corner the way he had, barely holding the road. It didn’t stand a chance. The tree popped up in front of it completely without warning. The driver swerved and slammed on the brakes, but he plowed into the tree, driving it and the car toward the ditch on the side of the road. The tree’s round trunk rolled under the car’s front wheels and sent its front end flying into the air. The vehicle did a half revolution and came to a sickening halt on its roof, half buried in snow.

  “Julia, get in the driver’s side of the Jeep. If I don’t come back to it alone, leave. You hear me?”

  She nodded, but hesitated. He gave her a little push toward the vehicle, then turned and ran back up the hill. Now was his chance to find out exactly who these guys were. He pulled out his pistol and approached the flipped-over car cautiously. In the failing light, he made out two men hanging upside down in their seat belts. Deflated air bags draped around them both.

  They looked unconscious. He ordered them to show their hands, and neither moved. The driver’s-side shattered but intact while the passenger’s door was completely buried in snow. He eased closer slowly. And nudged the driver’s shoulder with his foot. No response. He crouched down and looked across the car. A big bruise was starting to form on the passenger’s forehead. But he was breathing.

  Holding his gun to the driver’s temple with his left hand, he searched the guy’s coat with his right hand. He pocketed the Glock pistol he found. He reached between the guy’s rear end and the seat and pulled out the dude’s wallet. He wanted a name. He came up with a cell phone instead. On a sickening hunch, he punched the menu and brought up its most recent outgoing call.

  And stared in shock at the name and number displayed.

  Julia Ferrare.

  This guy had made that phone call to Julia a little while ago! She was in direct contact with Ferrare’s men? This chase was all a ruse! To dupe him into another trap. Son of a bitch!

  It sure explained how these guys kept popping up over and over when any normal thug would have been way out of the picture by now. No wonder he couldn’t shake the bastards. Great. Just freaking great.

  He stabbed his hand behind the guy’s back and grabbed his wallet this time. He slipped the warm leather into his own pocket and backed away from the car.

  He stormed toward the Jeep and the oh-so-innocent-seeming woman inside it. The second they got out of this damn blizzard, he and Julia were going to have a little talk. And this time she was damned well going to tell him exactly what was going on—if he had to wring it out of her with his bare hands.

  He opened the driver’s-side door. She took one look at his face and all but leaped over the center console to her seat.

  He growled, “When we get to the top of the next mountain and have clear cell-phone reception, call nine-one-one and report the accident. Be vague about the exact location.”

  He started to drive. She must have picked up on his tightly controlled fury because she did as he ordered without any questions in a frightened voice.

  The snow continued to fall, and he pressed on in stony silence. Drifts began to form across the road. Even the sturdy Jeep struggled to punch through the deepening snow. Like it or not, they had to get off the road soon and find someplace to wait out the storm.

  He kept an eye out for a driveway or a mailbox, anything to indicate that a house might be nearby. He drove at a bare crawl, peering into the blackness. The snow was falling so thickly in the headlights that he could hardly see the road, let alone the side of it.

  He thought he glimpsed a break in the trees. He stopped and backed up carefully to the spot. It looked like a driveway sloping down away from the road. But it was buried in snow. He’d probably be able to make it down the lane, but they would never make it back up. If he was wrong and it led nowhere they would be stranded.

  What the hell. He was too mad to feel anything but reckless, and the roads were beyond impassable. He pointed the Jeep at the gap in the trees.

  “Hang on,” he bit out.

  He punched the engine and blasted through the first snowdrift. The narrow lane must have gone on for several hundred yards, but it was hard to tell, given that he could only see a few feet of the thing at any one time. And then, without warning, it came to an end. Just like that. A wall of trees surrounded them on all sides.

  He pushed the car door open, moving aside a hefty pile of snow in the process. He got out of the vehicle and waded out into a good three feet of snow to take a look around. There. Tucked back into a stand of towering pines. A dark, low shape. Rectangular like a cabin.

  He busted a path to the front door of the log structure. Holding his flashlight in his teeth, he stripped off his gloves and picked the door lock. His fingers were clumsy with cold, but he managed to force the thing open. He felt around on the wall inside the door and found a light switch. He flipped it on. Nothing. Damn. The power was either out from the storm or cut off for the winter. No help for it at the moment, though.

  He trudged back to the Jeep to collect Julia and their gear. His footsteps were already half-full of snow. What a blizzard. The way snow was accumulating on the roof and hood of the vehicle, he wasn’t going to have to worry about hiding the Jeep from view. It would be buried before long.

  Julia followed on his heels as he slogged to the cabin. He dropped their supplies inside the front door and thrust his flashlight into her hands. “Have a look around while I try to find some firewood,” he ordered.

  Any self-respecting cabin in this part of the world had a good-size woodpile that was kept stocked at all times. It was a matter of survival. Sure enough, around back he found another door and a big stack of split wood buried in snow beside it. He brushed off enough snow to grab a huge armload of the stuff. Right about then, the door opened. Julia poked her head out.

  “Good timing,” he grunted under the pile of wood.

  She helped him maneuver it inside, and he dumped it in the little mudroom attached to the cabin’s main room. Julia had found and lit a lantern. A soft, golden glow filled the space. He had a quick look around. The one-room cabin was well equipped, snug and neat, albeit freezing cold at the moment. But it would keep them dry and out of the wind, and after he built a big fire in the stone fireplace, they’d be warm enough.

  While he laid the fire, Julia poked around in the cupboards and supplemented their food stores with some canned baked beans and fruit cocktail. Not exactly gourmet fare, but a far sight better than going hungry. The tinderbox beside the fireplace was fully stocked with dry twigs and resin-soaked fatwood, and in no time, he had a thriving fire crackling.

  It took about an hour for some canned stew to get hot and ready to eat. The air was still bitingly cold. It would probably take all night for the stones in the fireplace to heat up enough to take the chill off the room. Again, not ideal, but a hell of a lot better than freezing to death in the car. They ate, wearing their coats, seated in a pair of bentwood chairs near the fire.

  Dutch bided his time until Julia set aside her empty plate. He did the same. But then the infuriated soldier within him could be patient no more.

  He leaned forward, skewering her with a saber-sharp stare. He spoke with cold precision. “We need to talk. Or rather you need to talk. Why don’t you start with why your father’s men were calling you. You can finish with telling me what in the hell is going on. All of it.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The noose that had been tightening around her neck gave one final yank. And from the looks of Dutch, he was about to kick the chair out from under her feet.

  That call this afternoon had put her off balance, and now Dutch was calling her bluff. This day kept getting better and better. Maybe she should bolt out the door and disappear into the blizzard. It would solve everyone’s problems. Except Carina’s, of course.

  She sighed. It always came back to her little sister. That’s what she got for loving someone. Her feelings for Carina tied her down, locking her into an inevitable course of actio
n. No wonder Dutch had never fallen in love. Guys in his line of work couldn’t afford the vulnerability and limitations that emotional attachments placed on them.

  She shuddered as she recalled the voice of her father’s hired killer trying to disguise his snarl as charm this afternoon. Eduardo must have given the man her cell-phone number. She just didn’t buy the goon’s offer to let her live if she gave her father his money back immediately.

  So. Eduardo had discovered her theft, had he? He knew for sure, now, that this was not some youthful rebellion on her part. That she meant to break with him for good. Now, the true monster inside her father would come out. Had she not needed Dutch before, she would most definitely need him going forward.

  She’d been evasive in response to the thug’s demand, of course. With Dutch sitting right beside her, she couldn’t very well engage in a negotiation for Carina’s freedom. She’d made it clear to the guy that she couldn’t talk right now and that he or her father should call her back later.

  Her impression was that the men in the car behind them were under orders to apprehend her and bring her home. Would his orders change when he delivered the message to Eduardo that she’d refused to return his hundred million dollars and had continued to flee? If the thugs in that blue car weren’t already chasing her with an eye to killing her, they would be soon.

  She’d been profoundly relieved when Dutch flipped over her pursuers’ car. Lord, they’d been close. Literally on her heels. Even with Dutch’s formidable skill, he was barely managing to stay ahead of these killers.

  Time was running out. As much as she wanted to delay the inevitable and stay alive a few more days, it was time to launch the endgame. Time to show her cards to Dutch and face the fallout. Dutch wanted to know everything, did he? Fine. Then that was exactly what he would get.

  She took a deep breath. “Here’s the problem. Someone else is at risk. I can’t afford for you to do anything to jeopardize her safety.”

  Dutch replied tersely, “Tell me who this person is so I can take her safety into account as I make decisions.”

  He didn’t have any idea what he was promising, but she wasn’t above holding him to it. “Do you swear you’ll do whatever’s necessary to keep this person safe?”

  “Is she an innocent?”

  “Yes,” she answered firmly. “Absolutely.”

  He shrugged. “Then I promise.”

  She stared at him doubtfully. Did she dare hang Carina’s life on his word? She might be willing to put her own life on the line that way, but her sister’s?

  “I swear,” he repeated. “On a stack of Bibles. Just tell me who she is.”

  She nodded slowly. It wasn’t as if she had any choice at this point. She would have to trust him not to take revenge by hurting her sister. Her father’s men were practically on top of them. She had to have Dutch’s help to stay away from them until she could finish this.

  “Who is she, then?”

  “My sister. Carina. My father has kidnapped her and is holding her hostage until I return to his side.”

  “What makes you think she’s in danger?”

  “He told me he’d kill her unless I come back.”

  “Why hasn’t he killed her already, then? Surely, by now he knows you’re fleeing his men pretty aggressively,” Dutch demanded. She could swear there was a trace of suspicion in his voice.

  “Because I took something of his to make sure he wouldn’t kill her.”

  “What did you take?”

  She sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I transferred nearly a hundred million dollars in cash out of his accounts and into a secret account of my own.”

  Dutch went perfectly still. Like a carved block of ice. He asked flatly, “And you’re hoping to do what? Trade the financial records you’re looking for and the hundred million in cash for Carina’s freedom?”

  “Yes.”

  He gritted out, “So you never had any intention of handing over Eduardo’s financial records to me? This was all a ruse to get me to keep you alive until you could blackmail your old man?”

  She flinched. Put that way, it made her sound like the worst sort of self-serving human being. “I was planning to give a set of the records and his financial account numbers to you. That way I can keep my word to both of you.”

  “How’s your father supposed to be assured that you haven’t made copies?”

  She looked Dutch square in the eye. “He’s just going to have to trust me.”

  Dutch snorted. “Fat chance. He won’t buy it for a second.”

  She shrugged. “It’s not like he has any choice. I have a hundred million reasons for him to take me at my word whether he likes it or not. That may be a relatively small portion of his overall worth, but on principle, he can’t let anyone who works for him get away with stealing that much from him. It would weaken him terribly in the eyes of his other employees and his customers. Make him vulnerable.”

  He shook his head. “It’s a risky gambit.” He sprang up out of the chair with unnatural energy but gave no other hint of his agitation. “I have to make a phone call.”

  She would bet he did. She closed her eyes briefly. She’d barely climbed aboard and already this train was out of control, careening toward a spectacular wreck. Dutch hit the speed dial on his satellite cell phone.

  A few moments later, he said, “Patch me through to the colonel. Yes, I know he’s on his fucking honeymoon. Patch me through.”

  Oh God. She leaped to her feet, alarmed, and said frantically, “What are you doing? You haven’t figured out what triggered your blackout! You’ll lose your job if you go in now!”

  He shrugged. “So much for my job. Some things are more important than my career, and nailing your father is one of them.”

  She closed her eyes, distraught. He was throwing away his career. It was more than his job. It was his life! She’d never meant to cost him so much by approaching him for help.

  “Don’t do it,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

  “It’s a done deal, babe. They’re patching me through now.”

  A command post somewhere would be linking his call to Colonel Foley’s cell phone, or wherever he was tonight. More to the point, a command-post controller from Blackjack Ops would be doing it. She lurched with renewed urgency.

  “Dutch, don’t say anything unless you’re on a secure line! You have to make sure nobody else is able to monitor the call!”

  He frowned and nodded shortly. He spoke into the phone again. “I need a secure line. This is a Tango One.”

  Whatever the heck that was. But, it got him through to his boss in a matter of seconds on a line that audibly shrilled a series of electronic noises through Dutch’s cell phone into the cabin before it settled into silence once more. She listened as he and his boss traded verifications that this was a secure line and a classified conversation.

  Then Dutch said, “You’ll never guess who’s sitting beside me right now.” A pause. “Way better than that. Julia Ferrare.”

  She could practically hear the exclamation of surprise at the other end of the line.

  Dutch again. “She thinks she can get us Eduardo’s complete and accurate financial records and is willing to hand them over to us. But there’s a hitch. Ferrare has kidnapped the younger sister and is threatening to kill her if Julia doesn’t return some money she took as well and come home to him.”

  Dutch glanced at her as he spoke. “I thought you’d feel that way, sir. I’ll bring her in as soon as we get out of this blizzard. We’re snowed in right now. In northern Wyoming. An empty cabin I broke into for shelter.”

  Julia blurted out, “I’m not going anywhere. Especially not to the Blackjacks’ headquarters!”

  Dutch relayed her statement to his boss. A pause. Then, “She claims to have all sorts of juicy information. Says she’s been making funds transfers to someone in the FBI via an offshore account.”

  Dutch listened for a moment, then looked at her again. He lifted
the phone away from his mouth and spoke to her. “If the Blackjacks can mount a successful rescue of your sister, will you come in from the cold and turn state’s evidence against your father?”

  She stared in disbelief. “You guys can’t just waltz in and snatch her! She’s inside my father’s compound in Gavarone. It’s an impregnable fortress!”

  Dutch shrugged. “We’ve been chewing on ways to get in there for a decade. It’s not entirely impregnable. Is it a deal?”

  It was more than a deal. It was a dream come true. If Carina could be freed and her father put away, her life would be perfect. Well, maybe not perfect. Truly perfect would involve staying alive and having Dutch in her life for a very long time.

  She nodded slowly. “Give Colonel Foley a message for me. Tell him he can’t take Carina to the Blackjacks’ headquarters once he has her.”

  “Why not?” Dutch asked sharply.

  She dropped the bomb without fanfare. “My father has a mole inside the Blackjacks’ support team, and Carina wouldn’t be safe there.”

  Dutch’s jaw dropped. He mumbled into the phone, “Did you catch that, sir?” A pause. “No, she’s serious.” Then he asked her quietly, “Julia, who is Ferrare’s informant inside our team?”

  She answered honestly, “I don’t know his name. I do know he’s in the military, and he always knows where the Blackjacks are operating at any given time.”

  Dutch flinched at whatever his boss said to him next. Then he said, “I’ll do my best, sir.” Then he listened for a long time, apparently receiving a string of instructions.

  She would bet they involved wringing her out like a washcloth for information and not letting her out of his sight at all costs. He turned off the phone and turned to her.

  “As soon as this storm breaks, the rest of the team will head this direction. We’ll hook up with them and they’ll help me escort you to safety. Then they’ll go get your sister. Ferrare’s thugs aren’t getting anywhere near you again until you testify against that bastard.”