Warrior Mine: A Base Branch novel Page 5

  Two women had never been created more opposite. Ellie had been light in every way. Soft, slight curves topped with short, straight hair that appeared nearly white in its blondness. She was the party life threw in celebration of all things pure and lovely, always quick with a smile and those brilliant blue eyes. Ready with a song or dance to brighten even the dreariest times.

  Carmen was the funeral of life’s let-downs, the embodiment of all things that could have been, but never would be. Her long black spirals and eyes a deep, swirling torrent of darkness sucked him in, whirled him about, and refused to let him catch a breath. The ever-present sneers and scowls warded off the barest inclination of a red-blooded man, but her ample contours raised even the most unlikely flags. And the proof tented his hospital issue gown.

  8

  “I don’t know how the hell I let you talk me into this in the first place. I bloody well hate the cold and we both get plenty enough adventure with our jobs.”

  “This isn’t about adventure, Zeke. It’s about slowing down, living off the land, becoming a part of nature,” Khani cajoled, craning her neck toward the hands-free microphone, as if those few inches would help her case. An express delivery truck wedged between her Mercedes and the cab she’d been tailing for four miserable miles like it were no bigger than a Vespa. “Fuck you too, bastard.”

  “Well, hell, sister. You’re abandoning me on a vacation I didn’t want in the first place. You don’t have to cuss me too.”

  “Oh, shut up. You know I wasn’t talking about you.”

  “Ah, hoped not, but you never know.”

  “I haven't cursed you since the day you took that stupid job of yours and left me in your dust halfway across the world,” she reminded.

  “Did it ever occur to you that I moved to get away from you?”

  “No.”

  “Figures.”

  “I still don’t know why you wouldn't take the job I offered. It pays well, you’d love the work, but it’s more than that. You’d be doing good. For the good guys.”

  “I’m doing good, Khani.”

  The growl in his voice should have warned her off this beaten path, but she plowed ahead anyway. “For private sector asshats who only worry about lining their pockets, not for honor or duty.”

  “Before you’re left talking to a vacant line, why don’t you explain to me again the reason you’re abandoning me, your only flesh and blood worth a damn, to traipse around a barren wasteland, get frostbitten, and die at the mouths of hungry wolves all by myself.”

  “Even as a child you were dramatic. Not much has changed, has it?” But neither of them commented on her ill-chosen words. Their lives were night and day to what they’d been. Though they each saw unimaginable things and did unimaginable things in their work, these days were the light, the good.

  “My superior was gunned down in our secure facility. It’s my duty to take over his post until his return, but it’s my desire to catch whoever did it and bury them under the slab.”

  “So, he will return?”

  “Yeah. It’ll take a while, but he won’t even let a gut shot slow him down for long.”

  “Bet that hurt.”

  “You should know.” She sang the words.

  * * *

  “Lower obliques aren’t considered the gut, thank you.”

  Damn she missed him and all his smart-ass ways. She weaved around the truck, sped in front of a mini-van, and made the exit to the private hospital. “I am very sorry to have to cancel. I know he’ll want to take over in two weeks. Hell’s bells, he wants to take over now, but he won’t be ready by the time our flight leaves.”

  “Let’s reschedule,” Zeke suggested.

  “And when exactly are you going to have leave again? Next year?”

  “So? What good will it do to stare at my toes as they fall off? It’d be much more fun to watch yours fall off instead.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “Your fault.”

  “Not.”

  “You raised me. You’ve only yourself to blame.”

  “Don’t I know it. I love you wider than the river and taller than the trees.”

  “I love you more, you sappy sucker.” His rumbling laugh filled the line.

  “What?”

  “If only your underlings could hear their fearless leader.”

  “Goodbye, Zeke. Call me when you get back. I want to hear all about it.”

  “Only if I can move my blue lips.”

  “Zeke,” she admonished.

  “I will. I will. Later, sis.”

  The line clicked and quiet filled the car. They’d planned the trip while he’d been recovering from the bullet wound he’d sustained only three weeks after moving across the world and taking a job as a glorified gun for hire. She hated more than anything to miss the trip. She hated it more than she hated the number of times in a day her mind drifted to thoughts and images of the other major reason she’d left England.

  Khani parked on the third level of the garage and made her way to the bank of elevators. Through the thick wedges of concrete pillars and walls, the sun shifted toward the horizon, calling all the orange and red hues to the sky. She slung the large purse over her shoulder and pressed the button for the sixth floor. Only five o’clock and she’d already put in thirteen hours at headquarters.

  She’d spent the first five on the phone answering questions from the higher ups, the next two answering questions from the agents and setting them to task collecting evidence. The next had been spent on paperwork. Day one in the full-on role of commander and she already saw one of the other reasons she’d transferred from commander of the Base Branch’s London headquarters. She despised paper work, pandering to men who had no idea the types of things they accomplished on a daily basis. That, and she loved the thrill of down and dirty missions.

  After reaching the sixth floor, just to be sure no one followed her, she took the stairs up two more flights to Commander Tucker’s room. She knocked on the heavy wooden door and waited. And waited. With a hand on the door, she gave him to the count of ten to call out before she barreled in, fanny out or not.

  “One moment,” a male voice not belonging to Tucker hollered.

  Two minutes later a burly man in scrubs opened the door, nodded, and turned down the hallway. Tentatively, she eased the door open. Tucker’s feet tented a thick layer of covers. Instead of lying flat on his back as he had yesterday and the night before, he sat upright with pillows wedged on either side of his torso.

  “Your lover? I mean, I could have given you two a few more minutes for wrap up.”

  His head shook, the stubble from the previous day gone and in its place a sharp, smooth jaw. “I wish. That’s much less embarrassing than the real reason Damien and I have gotten close today. Can’t even take a piss by myself.”

  She breathed to speak, but he continued on his little tirade.

  “You know, I was held captive for two weeks by Cambodian rebels. I tolerated that better.”

  “It was them holding you down. Not your own body.”

  He just blew a breath between his lips.

  “On the bright side, you don’t look like you’re knocking on the pearly gates begging for entrance anymore.”

  “There’s that.” He gestured to the most uncomfortable chair in the world. “Take a seat in the ugliest chair in the world?”

  “Most uncomfortable, if you ask me. I’ve seen more horrid than this.”

  “I’m amazed you still have your sight.”

  She sat on the edge of the chair and folded her legs toward him. Her pant leg stuck on the back of her Tamara Mellon spiked heel. With a wiggle of her foot the suit’s material smoothed. “Are you scared of death?” She didn’t know where the question had come from. It was just there and out before she could think it through.

  “No.”

  “What are you scared of?”

  He sat quietly for a long time. The minutes ticked by on the large digital clock across the room. I
ntent wedged the center of his brow. “Life.”

  She gave a pitiful attempt at a smile. “Me too. It seems a common theme among us covert types.” Her crooked lips fell into a flat line and his followed suit. “Why do you think that is, Commander?”

  His wide shoulders shrugged and a gritted groan slipped through his teeth. His breathing came harshly for a four count. “Why so many questions?”

  “Figured you might know the answers.”

  “Older and wiser, huh?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” His watchful eyes shifted from her face to her oversized purse. “Are you going to give me that file or just torment me with it?”

  “You’ve suffered enough.” Khani reached into the bag, extracted the hefty file on Carlos Ruez, and handed it to Tucker.

  “Thank you.”

  “Do you have anyone you want me to call? They’ll release you in a few days and it might be a good idea to have someone around.”

  “I think I’d rather bleed out on my bathroom floor than let my mother hover over me for a few weeks and my dad carry on about how I should’ve taken charge of the situation and not gotten shot in the first place.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her with a hand.

  “And don’t think for a second you’re going to come waste your time watching me toddle around. I have a cleaning lady and a grocer. So, I won’t starve or sit in squalor. And if I happen to rip my stitches open, I’ll call the doc. And if I can’t make it to the phone, the cleaning lady will find me before the stench gets too bad.”

  “How often does she come?”

  “Twice a week.”

  “Seriously? It’s just you in the place, right?”

  “My parents are both military. What can I say? They messed me up.”

  “Whose parents didn’t?”

  “Yet another question I can’t answer.”

  “I’ll give you one you can…probably. Why not take her out between your office and interrogation room?”

  “She held a pressure release detonator and kept me far enough away I couldn’t close the distance without risking the lives of the people in the building.” He paused as though to add more, but didn’t.

  “You said you didn’t think the bomb threat was real. At what point did you know there wasn’t a charge in that entire building?”

  “The dogs didn’t find anything?”

  “Nope.”

  He pursed his lips. “I knew when she pulled the trigger. She didn’t want to hurt anyone. She said it, but her actions said it more clearly.”

  “But she shot you.”

  “Not because she wanted to.”

  “Ruez’s leverage?”

  “Yep.”

  “And then she left the note.”

  He nodded.

  She stood. “Look, know that if you need anything, I’m here. And try not to obsess over this.” Purse slung over her shoulder, she tapped the file laid out on his knees. She headed for the door.

  Vail cleared his throat and she paused with a hand on the crisp knob. “It’s because we can’t unsee the things we’ve seen, unknow the things we know. We’re scared of what life could give us to lose.”

  9

  Three weeks, two days, nine hours, thirty-four minutes, eleven seconds, and Vail could not take one more hour of lying low. The sterile white of his building’s stairwell threatened to rupture every vessel in his eyes. Heaves of stagnant air inside the echoing column of metal and concrete shaved another year off his life. Gunshot wound or not, he hadn’t been able to sleep past 0445 since he’d enlisted. And here he was, up before the sun. Not that he’d seen it lately.

  He kicked his knees high on the fifth floor, refusing himself the break he’d taken yesterday on the last of three sets of the entire case. As workouts went, it wasn’t much. But it was progress. It had taken a week before he could walk the ten flights to his condo. Another week to do it without expecting his lower half to completely separate from his top half. And it beat the hell out of staring at the wall all day.

  Sweat tickled his forehead and dripped from his chin on to his sopping shirt. The cold refused to leave no matter how hard he pushed or how many layers he added. The chill of death clung, reminding him of that night. As if the darkness of his persistently drawn curtains and agent detail at the front and rear entrances of his building—both Commander Slaughter’s doing—weren’t enough to do the trick. That combined with his wayward subconscious and it was all he thought about.

  Right. She’s all you think about.

  True as it was, he couldn’t yet admit it.

  His mending muscles burned from the abuse. A cramp stitched his right side from overcompensating for his weak side. One more flight and he’d be home.

  Home.

  Vail laughed at the notion, but it cost core strength he lacked. Especially after fifty toes-to-bar, two miles on the treadmill, seventeen-hundred meters in the pool, and then the stairs. His left hand shot out to the cold metal railing. The sweat-slicked fingers didn’t do much to help. He met the concrete with his palms, shins, and knees. He sprawled to the side and then rolled to his back. Slowly the rise and fall of his dark grey T-shirt reached a functional rate. He braced one hand on the rail—after wiping it on his athletic shorts—and the other on the stair close to his rear. He’d learned quickly it hurt less to get vertical this way.

  Upright, he used the rail and tugged himself up the remaining steps. Across the hall and down two from the stairwell. The gray front of his door looked like the others. The only difference nestled above the door’s knob. He punched in the code to his self-installed security system and shoved his way inside the cave.

  Normally, unobscured windows lined the space, framing out the living room, office, and two bedrooms with the radiance of the sun. Normally, he ran through the city and hoofed the steps of the various monuments littering the National Mall. Normally, he didn’t notice the emptiness of the space he referred to as home. But now the only thing that felt comfortable to him were the pages scattered across the granite of his kitchen counters.

  Vail peeled the shirt from his torso, opened the closet off the entryway, and hung the wet thing over the edge of the washing machine. After toeing off the black Mizuno’s, his socks, boxer briefs, and shorts, he added them to the clutter. He closed the door, and then he grabbed the small towel he’d set on the foyer table. Draping the cloth over his head, he lumbered to the sink for a glass of water. Or three.

  The stacks of paper called to him and, like always, he went. Naked. Sleepy. Confused. Hungry. Horny. Sweaty. Pissed. Time and again he returned to the information he now knew better than his own name and aliases. His persistence—obsession, really—had paid off in the darkest hours of the night.

  Twenty years ago the Arellano-Félix Organization had been Mexico’s most powerful and feared cartel, controlling Tijuana and its lucrative border crossing with merciless tyranny. Carlos’s full name, Carlos Félix-Ruez, revealed his connection to the organization. He was the only son of Ángela Arellano-Félix-Ruez, the world’s first female drug lord. Though his mother hadn’t been long for the earth it seemed she’d passed the lust for violent authority through her genes.

  After her death her husband took control. Carlos Hersio-Ruez, the father, lacked none of the ruthlessness the business required. He did, however, lack the family name to bear the weight of leadership. The remaining Arellano-Félix brothers wrestled Ángela’s husband for control. The organization cracked, allowing the US government to capture some of its top tier leaders and the Sinaloa Cartel to gain footholds in the foundation of their rival. Little by little, the Sinaloa overwhelmed the AFO, took control of Tijuana, and set the remaining members of the once prestigiously infamous family scurrying to the corners of the country.

  Carmen’s entire family was remnant of cartel history. Carmen, with her sad eyes and surprising knack for stealth, torture, and precise aim. She’d placed the bullet
just where it needed to go to show Carlos that Vail was a goner, while simultaneously doing the least amount of damage and giving him a fighting chance. Though the rage and regret etched into her face said she didn’t want to kill him, had it not been for the note she’d left Khani, she would have sealed his coffin.

  How she fit into the puzzle he couldn’t yet tell. Carlos Félix-Ruez aimed for the top office, his father be damned. He apparently hadn’t been satisfied with his rich but powerless life of exile in the small fishing town of Puerto San Carlos in the southern Comondú Municipality. Five years ago the bastard began buying up real estate in Tijuana, Sonora, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Durango. An alias protected his identity, until Vail had coaxed it out of him. La Muerte. The name spoke of foreboding. Vail thought about the man, the malice in his stare, and knew if left to his deeds Carlos would ratchet the level of death in Mexico’s streets. Ruez had bought enough land, black market weapons, and people to mount a war.

  His agents and contacts had heard the name La Muerte whispered over dark beers in even darker corners of rowdy cantinas. And though he’d suspected The Death to be one arm of a cartel falling away to become its own entity, as so often they did, it was good to know exactly who they were dealing with.

  Three and a half weeks ago Vail unbound the file and separated the last five years of documentation into piles. Four in all lay in their respective heaps. Real estate. Known associates. Weapons. Income. A cabin in the wilderness of Kentucky.

  The cabin stack had started as a single sheet. A buyer’s agreement between two men—Hank Higgins—an old guy being placed in an assisted living facility closer to his children in Lexington—and Charlie Ranger—a false front. The Base Branch system had flagged the transition because its routing number matched the routing number to another of Ruez’s aliases. Nothing about the cabin had fit into the equation. Not until Carmen dropped through his ceiling and started making demands.