Dangerous Liaisons Read online

  Dangerous Liaisons

  Tarah Scott & Even Trevane

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2011

  Tarah Scott & Evan Trevane

  http://www.tarahscott.com

  Cover Art R. Jackson Designs

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Abducted

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Kim Comeau reading and rereading this book.

  Chapter One

  A gunshot silenced jungle-chatter for a heart stopping instant. The bullet ripped nearby foliage as Jesse vaulted over the decaying trunk of a fallen corozo palm. She landed on the soft, sloping Colombian jungle floor and bolted to the right deeper into the foliage—and away from where her informant Martinez had been gunned down. She choked back anguish. He shouldn’t have run when mercenaries burst upon their meeting place. He had a young wife and child who would now have to go into hiding in order to avoid being tortured and killed by the Colombian drug lords in payment for his having aided an American spy.

  She scrambled down the slope into a patch of dense undergrowth, pushed through vines and spider webs, and finally emerged on the bank of a slow moving stream. Sunlight streamed through a wide break in the canopy. Blue sky arched overhead in backdrop to dark green foliage. A satellite signal might be possible through the gap in the trees.

  Jesse slowed to a crawl and concentrated past the red howler monkey screeches and parrot caws for footfalls or leaves rustling to indicate Martinez’s killers slinked through the foliage in search of her. Nothing.

  She dropped to her knees, yanked open a pocket of her camouflage fatigues, and pulled out the secure satellite phone. She flipped it open, punched out home base’s ten-digit number, then pressed the receiver to her ear and held her breath until the first elongated ring began. By the third ring, her heart pounded so hard, the thud echoed in her ears.

  “Come on. Pick up.” She tried to ignore the dribble of sweat trickling down the valley between her breasts as the fourth ring began.

  What was wrong? HQ verified the source of incoming calls on the first ring and picked up on the second. She jerked the phone from her ear and squinted at the display. Five black bars along the left indicated a strong signal. She pressed the phone against her ear and shoved aside a lock of hair which had worked free of the brain numbingly tight ponytail. Why weren’t they—

  “Designation, please,” came the operator’s voice.

  “Control, this is Blue Delta Four.”

  “Designation code?”

  “Zebra, four, eight, two, seven, golf,” Jesse replied in a low voice.

  “Confirmed, Delta Four. What is your status?”

  “I am not at target. Must speak with Blue Leader.”

  “Blue Leader is out of communication range.”

  “Code blue,” Jesse hissed. “Get me Blue Leader Five.”

  A click sounded on the line, a quick ring, then a male voice answered, “Delta Four, this is Green Leader. What’s happened?”

  Jesse froze. Green Leader? Why had Robert Lanton intercepted her call? “Where is Blue Leader?” she demanded.

  “Out of communication range. What’s happened?”

  She hesitated.

  “What is your status?” he asked.

  She silently cursed, but gave in. “We have a leak. The Colombians knew about the meeting.”

  Silence, then, “That’s impossible.”

  “Negative, Green Leader. Repeat, they were waiting. Abort Operation Hangman.”

  “What is your source?” he asked.

  Her heart thumped harder with memory of Martinez lunging for the trees when the mercenaries rushed them. “M-2,” she replied with effort.

  “How did M-2 obtain his information?”

  She wondered the same thing. “I don’t know. Before he could confirm his source, the Colombians shot him. But he was scared, really scared. The leak has to be high up.” Anger, hot and hard, shot through her. Martinez’s life had been forfeit—and for nothing. “If that little girl dies because someone at HQ leaked the mission, I’ll kill—”

  “Verify your designation code,” Green Leader cut in.

  What? She’d never been asked to verify her identity a second time. The control operator had already verified her code. “Zebra, four, eight, two, seven, golf,” Jesse counted off.

  An almost imperceptible pause followed, then, “That code is outdated, Delta Four. Give me your current verification.”

  Outdated? Her mind whirled. “What the hell is this?”

  “Current verification, Delta Four.”

  “Get Blue Leader on the line right now, and put me through voice recognition,” Jesse ordered.

  “Negative,” he replied. “Not without current verification.”

  “Get the director on the line—now! Don’t send in Green Team until you’ve verified with him. The Colombians were waiting for us—they murdered M-2. They knew about our meeting. That confirms what he told me. The Colombians have intel on Operation Hangman. Our men will be slaughtered.”

  The line went dead.

  “Wha—”

  Jesse yanked the phone from her ear and looked at the
screen. Five bars of signal strength held strong. She punched the direct emergency number to Blue Leader. A fast busy signal resonated through the connection. She pressed the phone’s display button. The display blinked unavailable. The network—satellites, ground stations, handsets—had never, ever been unavailable. It was designed and built by the best to be always available. HQ had scrambled the access code.

  Her heart went stone cold. Green Team was headed straight into the arms of the Colombian mercenaries.

  Only two hours ago, she gave the go ahead to move in and rescue Maria Hamilton, Senator Hamilton’s daughter. Jesse hadn’t spotted any guerrillas hidden among the villagers, but she now knew they were there, just as they’d been there when she met with Martinez.

  A slight breeze wafted past, cooling the sweat soaked shirt that clung to her back and sending a chill down her spine. She was Blue Team—recon—working solo. She should have smelled the trap. Yet she’d sent her team in to be murdered—unless…

  Jesse drew a deep breath to slow her heart rate while visualizing the map of coastal Colombia. The village sat three kilometers to the south over a small but treacherous pass jungle pass. Forty people lived in the village, farmers—or so she’d thought. How many were mercenaries employed by Amadeo Perez, the most powerful drug lord in Colombia, and the man responsible for kidnapping Senator Hamilton's daughter?

  Probably every last one of them.

  Chapter Two

  Forty minutes later, the nearby staccato rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire sounded in rapid succession.

  The village.

  Jesse pumped her legs faster, thrashing and clawing through thick foliage. Another volley echoed.

  “Come on, Green Team,” she urged. “Kick some drug runners’ ass.”

  Muscles burned with the final effort to reach the summit overlooking the village. Branches whipped and tore at her face as she flew through the foliage and burst into the open above the village. She fell to her knees, fumbled the compact binoculars from a thigh pocket, and forced her shaky hands steady enough to scan the village as she dropped to her belly. Armed mercenaries danced in drunken celebration in the village center. Relief tightened her chest at sight of two men wearing U.S. fatigues, hands tied behind their backs and kneeling within the circle of mercenaries.

  Green Team.

  But Green Team was comprised of six men. Where were the other four? Her heart surged. They had to be hidden in the jungle, preparing to rescue their teammates. If she could find them—several mercenaries near the two men swung their rifles heavenward and fired bursts.

  Stay calm, Jesse mentally urged the two Americans.

  She scanned the village perimeter. No eyes, glint of metal, or shadow out of place. Dammit, until Green Team wanted to be seen she wouldn’t detect so much as a leaf flutter. She swung the binoculars back to the village center and counted forty-two armed men crowding the small square. Between herself and the four remaining Green Team members, they could—one of the men who had fired his rifle into the air swung the weapon downward. Jesse realized his intent and pushed to her knees as she yanked the 9mm Beretta from her thigh holster. The rifle barrel halted an inch from the nearest Green Team member’s temple. He lunged for the mercenary. The second Green Team member shoved to his feet.

  Jesse fired in unison with the boom of the mercenary’s rifle. Blood gushed from the hole blown in the first Green Team member’s head. Jesse’s stomach lurched as he dropped to the ground. She fired again. Pandemonium broke out. The second Green Team member staggered back under the onslaught of AK47 bullets. Jesse aimed the Beretta on the man shooting at him and fired three shots. Then she froze.

  A gap had opened between the mercenaries at the north end of the village. On the ground behind them, four ops-clad bodies lay piled atop one another. The hand holding the binoculars shook so badly the bodies looked as if they bounced in the throes of an earthquake. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the blood stained fatigues. Green Team dead? It wasn’t possible.

  Her pulse jumped. Senator Hamilton’s daughter.

  Tears streamed down Jesse’s face. She yanked open a vest pocket and pulled out the sat-phone. Blood roared in her ears. She redialed Blue Leader Headquarters at Langley. This time, there was no tone, no click of a connection. Nothing but static. She pushed the display button on the sat phone. Unavailable blinked as it had earlier. The code had been scrambled. She'd been locked out…and the mercenaries had murdered Green Team.

  Someone inside the Office of Internal Affairs had sold out the U.S.

  The same person who had locked her out.

  Green Leader, Robert Lanton.

  Chapter Three

  Traffic oozed along New York’s Second Avenue like butter melting in a midsummer heat wave. In the backseat of a cab idling at a red light, Jesse scanned the street. Three blocks ahead loomed the Bank of America branch that housed a safe deposit box belonging to her alias, Joanne Anderson. The light changed and the cabbie merged into the right lane, then stopped at the sidewalk.

  Jesse pulled a twenty from the open zipper of her small purse and handed it to him. “Keep the change.” She wanted to walk the last few blocks and get a look around.

  She stepped from the car and breathed deep of the heavy city air. The next half hour was as crucial as had been the last three weeks dodging U.S. and foreign agents. Jesse headed south, noting every car, every person, on the avenue. If anyone followed, they were good—very good—but she expected nothing less.

  Despite the inconceivability that Green Leader Robert Lanton could locate her safe deposit box, Colombia had taught her that earlier suspicions about the man hadn’t come close to revealing the depths of evil to which he was capable. Memory flashed of blood spurting from the Green Team member’s head when the mercenary shot him. Her step faltered. A passing man looked in her direction. She caught the concern in his eyes—felt the burn of tears—and hurried past without a word.

  She had to get a grip on the memories. She couldn’t afford to draw attention to herself. Her jaw tensed at recollection of The Professor’s forwarded email: The Office of Internal Affairs reporting Green Team’s massacre. No survivors. Mission compromised by Blue Team operative Jessica Evans. Tom Montague, AKA The Professor, had included a copy of the transcript of her call warning Headquarters to pull Green Team out. But instead of a warning, the call had been altered to sound as if she had threatened Green Leader. And she had, but because of his inaction. Damn her temper. Lanton, the fucking puissant, had made it sound like she had killed Martinez and threatened him for trying to stop the massacre.

  Jesse had made a thousand guesses as to how Green Leader intercepted her call to Blue Leader. No team leader had authority to interfere in another cell’s mission—nor did they have the authority to order an agent’s access code denied.

  But Robert Lanton was smarter than she’d given him credit for. Three years ago, when Madrid gunrunners were waiting for The Professor as he slipped into their compound to crack their computer system she’d known something was wrong. A year later, she scouted a Hong Kong warehouse and Chinese secret agents appeared minutes after her call to headquarters. Lanton had headed both missions.

  After Hong Kong, she began a quiet investigation that uncovered the fact he frequented a secret and exclusive DC BDSM club. If word got out one of OIA’s top handlers liked his sex with whips and chains, he would be ruined. Setting her up for killing his team meant he knew that she knew. But why not simply contract a hit on her? Because he needed someone to take the fall, if she survived the mission. That made the most sense, but why ally with Perez, and sabotage this mission in particular? Something more was going on. Lanton had been waiting for her call, which confirmed what Martinez had been about to report; Lanton was the leak to Amadeo Perez.

  Jesse glanced at the flashing neon sign on a deli window that read Pizza and Wedges. Perez had ruined thousands of kids’ lives by shipping cocaine into the U.S., but it had taken the kidnapping of a senator’s daughter to light a f
ire under the government. Now they wanted Perez’s head on a platter. Lanton wanted the silver platter. He’d made Martinez his first sacrificial lamb. His six team members had followed, and Jesse was the final sacrifice that would ensure he got away with his crimes. No, there was one more possible sacrifice, Jesse’s sister Amanda.

  A man flicked a glance at Jesse. She tensed, then relaxed when she realized his attention was aimed at her breasts. Choosing a disguise with blonde hair—even the dishwater-blonde wig—and blue eyes may have been a mistake. She had gotten a couple of stares in transit from the East side. She’d chosen the blonde hair as the opposite to her straight black hair.

  She reached the corner and joined the crowd waiting to cross Second Avenue. Along with her false identity, a second identity for Amanda sat in the small Bank of America branch, one of hundreds of banks in a city close enough to Langley to be accessible in hours, but far enough away not to show up in a sweep of Washington, DC regional banks.

  The light changed, and Jesse joined the others crossing the avenue. Two men in navy blue suits left the bank. Her heart rate accelerated. She’d seen FBI agents who were more relaxed. She kept pace with the moving crowd and, as the men angled on an intercept course for the corner she approached, she looked right, causing the locks of the lush wig to fall across her face.

  The man on the left turned his head and said something to his companion. Jesse detected no wire in his ear. She stepped over the curb and peered down at the men’s shoes. One wore brown Forzieri dress shoes—too fancy for a federal agent. No FBI issue black leather, black-soled shoes. FBI and CIA clothing allowance didn’t cover four hundred dollar shoes, and in brown, no less.

  The men passed without any indication they knew her. She stopped at the bank, pulled open the thick glass door, and plunged into the air-conditioned interior. A pink marble floor with gold inlay and fifteen-foot ceilings made the space feel even cooler. On the right, eight people stood in a roped line waiting for one of six glass-protected tellers seated behind a marble counter. Straight ahead were two freestanding counters with deposit slips and pens on chains. In the back, the vault’s massive door stood wide open, revealing the rows of safety deposit boxes.