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  Eye of the Storm

  Security Specialists International, Book 1

  Monette Michaels

  Published: 2010

  ISBN: 978-1-59578-694-4

  Published by Liquid Silver Books. Copyright © 2010, Monette Michaels.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Manufactured in the USA

  Email [email protected] with questions, or inquiries about Liquid Silver Books.

  Blurb

  Keely Walsh has three doctorates, five older brothers and has never met a situation she couldn't handle. While consulting with the NSA, she discovers sensitive government information indicating her brother, a private security operative, is in danger. Keely travels to the dangerous Triple Frontier in South America to warn him and his colleagues and finds the last thing she expects—a man who sends icy shivers down her spine even as he lights every one of her fires.

  Ren Maddox, co-owner of Security Specialists International, a security firm that works for large corporations and governments, is on an intelligence-gathering mission for the US government when a petite strawberry blonde armed with a Bren Ten and an attitude ten feet tall pops out of the Argentine jungle with a warning of imminent danger. The fact she is one hundred percent correct shocks him to his socks. The fact she is Tweeter Walsh's baby sister and can fight like the fiercest Marine is beside the point. No one who looks like Keely should ever be in danger. And once he gets her out of the current situation, he’ll make it his life's work to protect the feisty, sexy, little woman from any and all danger.

  One alpha male. One determined and independent female. One hot, tumultuous relationship.

  Acknowledgements

  To Sherry, the best crit partner a girl could have.

  To Terri, my editor. What can I say? You rock.

  And, last, but not least, to April, your cover art is the best.

  Chapter 1

  Iguazu River, Argentina, the Triple Frontier

  KEELY Walsh stopped to rest. Even with the shade from the rain forest canopy, the heat was oppressive. Tipping back her broad-brimmed hat, she wiped the sweat out of her eyes, then took a deep drink of water from the canteen she carried. So far, according to her portable GPS, she'd traveled two klicks from her landing site. If her coordinates were correct, and they always were, she should see the village in less than another kilometer. Right now all she could see were trees, low-growing foliage, and more trees.

  After she'd landed the chopper in a small, elevated clearing, she’d followed a faint path leading down and away from the landing site. She surmised the path had been cleared a day or so ago, then just as quickly overgrown. It led in the general direction of the village. She'd seen marijuana growing in the clearing, so it made sense the locals would need a path to get to their cash crop.

  Shrugging her backpack off, she let it slip to the ground. She knelt and pulled out the white cotton shirt she'd worn on the plane, then put it on over her tank top. It was way too hot and humid for any covering, but she couldn't have her brother go nuts if he saw the bruises on her shoulders and upper chest. Time enough for explanations later, after they were safe in the hotel suite she'd booked in the Iguazu National Park before securing transportation and her weapons. She sighed, imagining how good the air conditioning would feel after this steam-bath hike. The hotel had a pool and a pool bar. She could almost taste a large Pepsi with ice as she dangled her legs in the cool water.

  God, she hated heat, humidity, insects and snakes, all of which jungles had in abundance. Only for her favorite brother, Stuart "Tweeter" Walsh, would she do this—plus there had been no one else. Her father, Marine Corps Colonel Kennard Walsh, was on a training mission. The call to her other four brothers had not produced the instant response needed. The twins, Loren and Paul, were on a SEAL mission and the other two, Devin and Andy, were Marines searching Afghanistan’s caves for terrorists. By the time their emergency leave was approved, Tweeter would be dead. And she couldn't trust anyone else but her mother Molly—and her Dad would kill her if she involved her mama in this mess.

  She was it—the only person who could warn her brother about the trap. She couldn't stay safely in Massachusetts while Tweeter was in danger. He'd protected her over the years, and she could do no less for him.

  She let the shirt tails hang over her baggy khakis. She slid the knife she'd bought from a wizened little man named Bazon in Puerto Iguazu into its sheath, then clipped it and the holster holding the Bren Ten she'd purchased onto the belt at the small of her back. Nothing like a Bren to make your point. She’d taken the finding of the rare gun as a sign that her mission would be a success. There'd only been fifteen hundred made and the odds were astronomical against her finding the gun she was most comfortable handling. Her dad had taught her to shoot with a Bren. It was highly accurate and had hitting power. She checked the magazine and found it fully loaded with all ten .45 caliber rounds. She locked the hammer back to the “condition one” setting; a flick of the safety and she would be good to go for single shot or automatic fire.

  Satisfied she was as ready as she could be, she headed once more in the direction of the village where Tweeter, along with his Security Specialist International team, were allegedly meeting an informant.

  SSI was a security firm specializing in international troubleshooting for private corporations and governments who would rather not use their own intelligence personnel. Ren and Trey Maddox, both ex-special forces, had established their headquarters and training facility in Sanctuary, Idaho, a SSI-owned town at the edge of the Nez Perce National Forest. SSI's current mission had been arranged through the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Clandestine Service or NCS; the classified report she’d come across while working on a project for the government had outlined the mission as an information-gathering on a reputed al Qaeda organization operating out of the Argentinian section of the Triple Frontier.

  What it really was? A specially designed trap for Ren Maddox and anyone who accompanied him.

  If the trap hadn't been sprung by the time she made it to the meeting place, they'd hoof it out and head for the helicopter she'd also rented from Bazon. In the Triple Frontier, it was easy to find weapons and drugs—and to rent military-equipped helicopters. She hadn't asked the old man where he'd gotten the Kamov KA-60, kitted out with belly guns and air-to-ground missiles. She never looked gift battle-ready helicopters in the mouth.

  Bazon even had ordnance for the belly guns. For double the rental price, she'd had him load the ordnance, checking his work as he did it. She might not be able to lift the ammunition, but she knew how it should be loaded.

  She'd been surprised when the man hadn't tried to gyp her. When she'd asked him about it, he'd given her a mostly toothless smile and said, "For you, pequena muchacha de oro, it is a pleasure." Then Bazon had winked at her, and his flirtatious manner had her choking back laughter. The Argentinian had to be old enough to be her grandfather.

  It probably hadn't hurt that she'd paid him five thousand USD in traveler's checks. Say what you want about the economy and international relations, the almighty dollar was still the currency of choice in the world’s hellholes.

  Now, if the trap had been sprung—well, she'd cross that bridge when she got to it.

  To this point, her trek ha
d been merely hot and sweaty, but not dangerous. She'd seen no one other than monkeys, toucans, butterflies and other inhabitants of this particular subtropical rainforest. Nothing, not even the local four-legged predators, had bothered her. She was more worried about chancing across the two-legged variety before she reached the village. As her father had drilled into her and the boys, “always expect perimeter guards when approaching a danger zone”. Since her father had survived some of the hairiest conflicts on the planet and taught thousands of other Marines to pull through in some of the worst places in the world, he knew of what he spoke.

  Keely's gaze now moved continuously, watching for anything out of place. She attempted to differentiate the background noises, hoping she'd sense a change when peril approached. The jungle fauna were nature's version of an early-warning system.

  When danger did appear, it was on the path. Or, more explicitly, lying across it. She stopped, her steel-toed hiking boots just inches away from a trip wire strung across the path. Was the trap for those stupid enough to steal the villagers' marijuana crop? Or, had it been placed there more recently by the mercs hired to take out the SSI team?

  She knelt and examined the wire. She snorted. It went nowhere and was attached to nothing. A red herring. Somewhere around here was the real trap.

  She lifted her head and swept the area around the path and a few feet ahead. Ahh, there it was. A disturbed area, no new vegetation had grown, so the digging was recent. After the wary traveler stepped over the more obvious wire, the poor unsuspecting sap would then step onto a pressure plate and die before he or she even finished congratulating themselves on a narrow escape.

  Keely couldn't leave the trap for some hapless villager or for her and the guys to stumble over on the return trip to the chopper. Looking around, she spied a pile of rocks. Stepping off the path, she carefully picked her way toward the outcropping, which looked to be the remnants of a small building. She edged around the rubble, picked up a rock, then lobbed it with an underhanded toss. It hit the plate just as she ducked for cover. The explosion was loud, startling birds and other animals into heading for shelter higher in the rain forest canopy. The sound of detritus hitting the broken-down hovel told her it had been a fragmentation mine.

  Crouching back under the cover of some low-growing palms, she waited. After the explosion, the sound of silence was pregnant with tension. It was as if the animals of the forest remained silent just as she did, waiting to see who would respond to the mine's destruction.

  She just hoped whoever investigated would look, see no body parts, and leave. She wasn't up for killing anyone else this trip just to get to the village. She could kill if she had to—and had recently done so in self-defense—but it had cost her a piece of her soul. Her stomach clenched, acid roiling at the memory. Taking deep breaths, she conquered her nausea, then shoved the images of two men with broken necks, lying in a dirty warehouse in Boston, to a dark corner of her mind.

  At the start of this hastily thrown-together trip to South America, she'd thought she could get to the SSI team and let them handle any dirty work. Arming herself was one thing, using her weapons was entirely another. She shook her head in disgust at her naïveté. Obviously, she hadn't thought far enough in advance. The sound of pounding feet on the hard, red dirt prevented her from replaying the past. It was the present that counted, the mission to save her brother and his friends.

  She peeked through the palm fronds and noted that the two approaching men didn't use the marked path at all. She'd follow their example when she headed out once again, not wanting to hit any other mines or hidden traps.

  Breathing shallowly and slowly, she calmed her rapid heart rate enough so the sound of it pounding in her ears would subside. She needed to hear what the men said.

  The two walked around the small crater created by the explosion. One even scratched his head in a "what the fuck happened" gesture. She choked back a laugh. They might look confused, but she wouldn't count on it. Even clueless people could shoot to kill.

  Her Spanish was more than good enough to follow their conversation and what they said was revealing. They were some of the mercs hired by Reyo Trujo to kill the SSI team. And from what they said, the trap had not been sprung—they were waiting on someone. Possibly Trujo?

  If her intel proved accurate, there was a team of at least twenty mercs in this jungle version of Purgatory. If she eliminated these two, then there would only be eighteen or so.

  Should she take these two out? And if she did, how soon would they be missed? Did they check in face-to-face? Over communication devices like the military used? She looked between the palm fronds and saw nothing in their ears or on their vests. Maybe they used walkie-talkies? She didn't see anything like those, either. Face-to-face, then. Odds were in her favor that by the time their buddies missed them, she'd have the guys heading out. Disabling these two would improve the odds later if there were a firefight.

  Shooting them was out of the question. First, because it would be cold-blooded murder and second, there would be too much noise. The sound of gunfire carried miles at this altitude.

  Could she overpower them and tie them up? She assessed the two men. On the plus side, they were short and wiry. On the negative side, they were mercs and probably had some military training.

  She laughed silently. She also had military training. Growing up, she’d survived fights with five older brothers and all their friends. Then there were the attacks by predatory men and other assorted bad guys her brothers knew nothing about. The odds were better than good she could come out on top. But still, it would be better to take them one at a time.

  And if she had to kill in self-defense, she always had her knife—the silent option.

  She unbuttoned the shirt she'd just put on and stuffed it into her pack. Her tank top displayed a healthy amount of cleavage and some really nasty bruises and teeth marks. Maybe she could lure them over with sex and sympathy? She snorted. It was much more likely they'd see her as an easy victim with whom to wile away their afternoon. Either way, she was bait for the trap.

  She let out a low moan and remained behind the pile of rubble. They could come to her.

  "¿Quién está allí?" one of the men called out. Slowly, he headed in her general direction. She moaned again and he corrected his trajectory. He gestured to the other man to stay and guard.

  "That's good, boys," she muttered, "investigate one at a time."

  The man left behind nodded to his friend, his gaze quartering the area, maybe looking for a trap. She grinned. He was looking in all the wrong places.

  His buddy walked toward her, also keeping an eye out.

  She had to give them credit—they were cautious—but it wouldn't help them.

  When the man spotted her, he froze in his tracks and let his gun's barrel drop toward the ground. Big mistake, amigo. A wide, leering smile broke out on his swarthy face. Bastard probably thought he'd died and gone to nookie heaven. Men—and Latino men especially—loved her pale cream-colored skin, her strawberry blonde curly hair, the full breasts on her petite frame. Suckers never looked to see it was all window dressing. Never noticed the muscles under all the female attributes or the calculating and sometimes lethal look in her eye.

  The man opened his mouth to say something—to her or his friend—she didn't know or care. Smiling as if she were happy to see him, she moved toward him quickly, thrusting the heel of her hand up his nose, breaking it. He moaned and tried to turn away. Before he could attempt to shout to his friend or even defend himself, she chopped his windpipe sharply with the side of her hand and then grabbed his shoulders to steady him for a knee to his balls. As he bent over, bleeding, choking and gasping, she steadied him once more and thrust her knee forcefully into his diaphragm twice, effectively cutting off his ability to gain enough breath to make any loud noises for some time. Dirty fighting, but effective—and it all had taken less than fifteen seconds.

  He fell to the ground like a stone
, clutching his manhood and struggling to breathe. She pulled a set of flex-cuffs from her pocket, secured his hands behind his back and used his belt to bind his ankles. Pulling his shirt from his trousers, she used her knife and cut off a strip to gag him. He could breathe through his nose—just—so he wasn't in any danger of suffocating any time soon.

  Keely then moved back under cover and waited for his friend to come find him. If the men had any communication devices, now would be the time for the other guy to use one. He didn't. Instead he called out, "Pablo, ¿qué se está encendiendo?" Too bad Pablo couldn't tell him what was going on.

  Checking the area around him once more, Pablo's buddy headed her way. His finger was on the trigger of the semi-automatic weapon. Not good. She'd have to disable him before he could shoot. She pulled her knife and waited to take her best throw. If she failed, she'd resort to her handgun.

  When the mercenary was ten feet away, she rose and threw the knife, hitting him in the arm. The knife stuck in his arm, just above his elbow. His finger slipped from the trigger as he grabbed to pull the knife out. She made her move and took him down just as she had Pablo. While he gasped for breath, she restrained him in the same manner as she had his friend. She retrieved her blade from his arm and cut his shirt for a compression bandage and a gag, then wiped the knife off on some grass and sheathed it.

  She studied the two men who flopped on the ground like beached whales. She was in no immediate danger from them, but it was always possible if left apart that one might be flexible enough to escape the restraints and get away to warn the other mercs. She couldn't chance it.

  Taking a page out of her father's "subduing the enemy" lecture, she tugged the two men closer together. God, they were heavier than they looked. She wiped the sweat dripping down her face with the hem of her tank top exposing her stomach and the lower curves of her breasts. Pablo stilled his frantic movements, his leering gaze fixed on her exposed skin.