Eye of the Storm Read online

  "Pervert," she muttered. She pulled out her last set of flex-cuffs and secured the men to each other, back-to-back by their bound hands. Both men made noises around their gags. She was pretty sure her ancestors and her were receiving a tongue-lashing in Spanish. She patted each of them on the head. "Save your breath, amigos. You might just live long enough for someone to rescue you."

  She retrieved her pack, pulled out some duct tape and wrapped their lower legs together and secured the cloth gags by covering them with the multi-purpose tape. They weren't going anywhere. They were close enough to the main path some villager would see them sooner or later and let them go. She wasn't going to worry about it. Old Pablo would have raped her in an instant, then turned her over to his friend. She'd seen it in his cold black eyes.

  Stripping them of their extra ammunition, she put it in her backpack. After shrugging her shirt back on, she picked up her pack and put it on, shouldered one of the downed men's weapons and kept the other in her hand, ready to fire. Tweeter and the guys might need the extra weapons and ammunition if they had to fight their way back to the chopper.

  Checking out the submachine guns, she said, "Hmm, H&K MP5. Very nice, boys. And clean. My dad always did say 'Keely, take care of your weapon and it will take care of you.' Too bad you had to run across me on one of my mean days."

  The men glared at her, making noises in the backs of their throat. She turned away from them and resumed her trek to the village, paralleling the path but staying off it. Looking back, she made sure the men couldn't be seen too easily from the path. They couldn't. The undergrowth was too thick.

  Using more caution than before, she stealthily approached the village. The meeting the SSI team was to attend was to be held at the local version of a cantina.

  She stopped on the outskirts of the village, although calling it a village was generous. There were three small palapas, typical rain forest huts woven out of palm leaves, and one larger, sturdier building, the bottom half of which was constructed of local wood with a roof of tightly woven leaves.

  If she were a betting woman, she'd put her money on the larger building being the bar. It had a generator running outside of it, meaning there could be cold beverages inside. The thought of anything cold and wet right now sounded orgasmic. She swiped a sweaty curl that had escaped her hat out of her eyes.

  Sidling around the edge of the village, still under the cover of the forest, she moved until she was immediately behind the cantina. She'd seen no one. No villagers. No mercs. That worried her. Had those two bozos been wrong? Had the trap been sprung while the two had a siesta? Where were the sentries? Or were the bad guys all holed up somewhere, waiting on el jefe?

  She crossed a small clearing and crept toward a hole serving as a window on the side of the building. The noise of the nearby generator would cover any sounds she might make. Letting out a breath, she peeked over the sill of the opening.

  Her shoulders sunk in relief. Tweeter was in there. Alive. Safe—for now.

  She also spotted Renfrew Maddox. A frisson of awareness shot down her spine at seeing him in the flesh. He was huge, even sitting down. His face was all angles, his jaw stubbled with a day or more of growth. His dark hair was longer than it had been in the military photo she'd seen in the DoD file she'd downloaded. His eyes were grey-blue like those of an Arctic wolf—and like the wolf he looked to be a predator. He reminded her of the men in her family—all male, all macho—and all deadly grace.

  The other SSI operative was the Russian, no, he was Ukrainian, Vanko Petriv. His icy blond good looks and slightly smaller stature when compared to Maddox and her brother was deceptive—and she imagined a lot of his opponents had underestimated him to their detriment. The file she had on him described his training as an assassin. He'd often gone under deep cover for Interpol to ferret out Russian mafiya terrorizing European enterprises.

  She scanned the room again to see who else was present. That was all of them—other than the bartender.

  God, Maddox had balls. She shook her head. That or he was stump-stupid, only bringing three men to an intel meeting supposedly on al Qaeda operations in the Triple Frontier. But Maddox had been a highly decorated SEAL and Petriv had his lethal reputation through Interpol. Plus, her brother wasn't exactly helpless either. While he had a doctorate and never served in the military, he had the advantage of being trained by their dad and beat on by four older brothers. She smiled. She called Tweeter an alpha-geek, a nerd with muscles. So, maybe it only took three SSI operatives to deal with a meet. And, of course, they hadn't known their intel gathering mission was a death trap designed specifically for Maddox.

  Ghosting along the side of the building toward the back, she stopped before inching around the corner. Good thing, too. An armed man came out of the dense rain forest foliage, striding toward the rear entrance of the bar in an "I'm-the-king-of-the-jungle" manner.

  He must have seen her movement because he quickly headed her way. When he saw her fully, his jaw dropped open. He recovered instantly. This guy was more by-the-book, not as lecherous or easily distracted by a woman as Pablo. He raised his weapon and opened his mouth to yell at or challenge her. His demeanor was fierce, mean—and deadly. He was twice her size. He looked buff and strong. No time to take him out hand-to-hand, if she even could.

  Her assessment of the situation had taken less than two seconds. In even less time, she pulled her knife and in one fluid movement, threw it. She caught him in the throat, cutting off anything he might have yelled. She hurried to meet him as he stumbled around. The man didn't know it yet but he was dead. Still, he grabbed at the knife with both hands, his gun falling to the ground. His expression was shocked as he stared at her. He grew weak quickly. His mouth opened and closed like a guppy seeking air. His eyes dimmed as life drained out of him.

  Pushing aside pity, she stiff-armed him with her left arm, then pulled the knife from his throat with her right hand. Blood gushed from the wound, but it was not arterial. He would take a while to die and suffer horrific pain. She had to finish him off and warn her brother about the imminent attack. This man had been the advance man. She had no doubt in her mind they'd have to fight their way out now. She'd beaten the main attack, maybe by minutes.

  Taking a deep breath, she murmured a silent prayer before slicing him across his carotid, using a backhanded motion. She danced away from the arterial spray as the man fell to the ground. His lifeless eyes turned to the sky.

  Keely turned her head and gagged. Pulling her canteen from her pack, she drank, swallowing the sickness threatening to rise in her throat once more. She wiped the knife on a tussock of grass by the building before sheathing it.

  How much time did they have? She stared into the dense green foliage. She saw nothing. The sounds of the rain forest were loud, seemed normal, so no one approached yet. Her gut told her they might have ten, maybe fifteen minutes.

  She picked up the dead man's gun from where he'd dropped it, another H&K. She drew the line at wading through the blood pooling around the man's body to retrieve his extra ammo. Turning, she approached the rear of the cantina, listing in her head what needed to be done. Clear the backroom. Secure it against intruders. Disable the bartender. She was on what she suspected to be a short clock, so she'd better get to it. Aftermath for the bloody kill could come later—much later, at the hotel.

  Sticking her head around the doorframe, she found no one in the crammed-to-the-rafters back room. It wasn't big and there were no places to hide. She entered, then shut the door and slid a metal bar used to lock it through an iron loop. That should slow down anyone trying to sneak in the back. Just in case, she quietly shifted a couple of cases of empty beer bottles in front of the door. Breaking bottles would make a lot of noise, warning them.

  Now for the barkeep. She turned, then opened the door between the back room and the bar area. She thanked God someone kept the door hinges oiled. It barely made a sound. Looking around the corner, she located the room's four i
nhabitants. The bartender was behind the bar, and her brother, Maddox and Petriv were still at a table by the front door.

  The bartender fidgeted, his body swaying from foot to foot, his gaze shifting to the doorway where she hid in the shadows. Sorry, Charlie. Your buddy ain't coming to tell you what to do.

  As the bartender, his back to her now, began making what looked like a Mojito—lime, yummy—she ghosted into the room and came up behind him. She placed the flat blade of her less-than-pristine knife along the man's carotid.

  "Don't move, senor. I might slip and cut you," she said, her voice loud enough to draw her brother and his team’s attention. "Don't bother to finish the Mojito. We're not staying for drinks. Although I'd kill for a to-go Pepsi."

  "Imp! What the fuck are you doing here?" Her brother's question was in the form of a roar. "And whose fucking blood is that?"

  She glanced down and noted the blood spatter on her white shirt. Well, hell, she bet she had blood all over her face. Eeuw. She breathed slowly to dampen her renewed queasiness. No time to be sick, things would go tango uniform soon enough.

  "No time for explanations. Someone needs to cover the door and windows. Company’s coming." Using her knife as incentive, she forced the bartender to move with her—or chance getting his throat cut.

  “Keely Ann Walsh!” Her brother stomped toward the bar. His face, a mask of calm, but his eyes held a powerful mixture of emotions—fear, concern, anger—all aimed at her. “Talk. Now.”

  Maddox followed her brother. Petriv moved to the side of the open doorway. At least someone was taking her seriously. "I was looking for you—to warn you." Her hand trembled; she really needed some sugar and fast. She wasn’t kidding about killing for a Pepsi. She recognized now her nausea, her weakness was because she had low blood sugar, not an uncommon occurrence for her in hot, humid environments. The bartender jerked away from the blade. She pulled him back, emphasizing her point by pricking him with the point of her knife. “Not a good idea, senor.”

  “About the company. Got that. Goddamit, are you hurt?” She recognized that tone. He wanted answers and he’d keep them there all the damn day until he got them.

  She sighed. "It’s not my blood, okay? Had a run-in with a merc out back."

  Cursing in gutter Spanish, the bartender attempted to pull away again. She drew a line on the barkeep's flushed neck with the dull edge of her knife, leaving a trail of his friend's blood in the sweaty folds of fat. "Your friend is dead, senor. Please don't do anything stupid. I've done more than enough killing in the last two days."

  The bartender spit to the side. "I have no friend, senorita. I am sorry, I also have no Pepsi. I have Coca-cola." His English had a Brooklyn-tinge to it.

  The bartender tensed. Stupid, stupid. He was thinking, planning. She could almost see the wheels spinning in his head, powered by little Chihuahuas. She'd let it play out, see how dumb the man really was. Plus, the resulting lesson would show Tweeter's friends she could handle herself. They'd soon have to trust her to fight alongside them.

  "Coke? That'll do." She withdrew the knife, giving the bartender an opening to make his move. "Get me one. Carefully."

  Tweeter cursed under his breath. So did Maddox and Petriv, in assorted languages, each of them very vulgar. She shot them a warning glance. This was her fight, her lesson. Her brother glared at her and pointed his gun at the bartender's head. She shook her head and glared back. Overprotective brothers had been the bane of her existence. Maddox and Petriv she'd excuse for having their guns trained on the bartender, they didn't know any better. But Tweeter should. Sheesh.

  Petriv moved away from the door to get another angle on the bartender's head. Maddox stood alongside her brother. The SSI owner's nostrils flared. His lips thinned. His piercing gaze watched every move she and the bartender made. Her conclusion? He was way pissed, but still ready to make a move to save her poor little female butt. She almost snorted. He'd learn she could save her own hind end—and soon. The bartender really was that stupid and would try to take her.

  " A Coke for the senorita. Un segundo." The man turned to smile at her. His face showed his shock. She got that a lot from men she'd held at knifepoint. The bartender's grin widened. Sucker thought he could take little ole her. Not going to happen, dumbass.

  She sensed movement from her brother and Renfrew Maddox. She didn't shift her gaze away from the bartender as he reached toward an under-bar refrigerator. "Let the man get me my Coke, guys."

  Maddox made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a growl.

  "Keely—" The warning in her brother's voice would normally make her cringe, but she was too busy concentrating on the barkeep's movements. All weakness was temporarily gone, due to a timely surge of adrenaline. She fondled her knife, keeping it ready.

  Instead of bending down to get a cold soda, the man turned, his head and body just enough below the bar top to mess up the other three's shots. He used his arm to knock her knife hand up and away. Expecting something like this, she kept a firm grip on her weapon. She thrust the heel of her left hand up and broke his nose. Too bad for el fatso—she had two hands and was equally adept with both.

  There was still some fight in the man. Howling, he lunged for her. Using his forward momentum, she blocked the hand reaching for her knife with her forearm and kneed him in the balls. Then to add insult to injury, she used the old trusty knee to the diaphragm. Her dad and brothers had taught her to fight dirty. While the big strong man thought he could contain the little slip of a female, she had him on the ground, crying like a little girl.

  By the time Tweetie and Maddox came around the bar, she'd flipped the very unhappy barkeep and had a booted foot in the small of his back, holding him down, her knifepoint at the nape of his neck.

  "You got any flex-cuffs? I used mine on the way here. My source in Puerto Iguazu only had three sets. I was just thrilled the guy had ordnance for the Kamov that’ll haul our butts out of here."

  Her brother's lips thinned and flags of white appeared around them. His was furious, but containing it well. After all, he was the most even-tempered of her brothers. He tossed her a set of cuffs from his belt, which she caught with her left hand. Pressing down on the bartender's left kidney with the heel of her hiking boot, she sheathed her knife and cuffed the man’s hands behind his back, then flipped him over. His moan told her she might have broken a rib or two. She blamed it on the adrenaline.

  Now that the immediate danger was past, she was shaking from the combination of too much adrenaline and too little sugar. Stepping over the downed man, she peered in the refrigerator under the bar and indeed found cold, six-ounce bottles of Coke. Pulling out two of the small bottles, she closed the door. Popping the top off one on the edge of the counter, she held up a finger toward her brother who had relaxed enough to open his mouth to speak, then downed one bottle. God, she needed that. She could already feel the sugar and caffeine blasting into her bloodstream.

  Maddox stood next to Tweeter, glancing from her to the man on the ground and back, a look of stunned disbelief on his chiseled face. Petriv joined the other two; his lips quirked. The stone-cold assassin was fighting a smile. Who knew he'd have a sense of humor? His file hadn't mentioned it. Intelligence files usually mentioned everything right down to the size of a man's dick. Petriv's was seven inches, slightly above average from all her reading; Maddox's, eight. She managed to avoid looking at their crotches to see if her intel had been correct.

  Petriv caught her eye and winked at her. She inclined her head graciously. The Ukrainian threw back his head and laughed. Maddox shot Petriv an angry glare. Ooh, he didn't like his associate flirting with her, huh? Tweetie had told her his boss had no use for women and had established a "no-single-women-on-Sanctuary rule." Only operatives' wives, long-term, live-in girlfriends and fiancées were allowed to live on the property. The DoD and CIA files on Maddox labeled him as a loner; he'd had only two long-term relationships in his life, one for twelve months and an
other for nine, and neither of those women had lived with him 24/7. Knowing the male of the species fairly well—with a dad and five brothers how could she not?—he probably didn't avoid sexual conquests; he wasn't a monk, he just had no use for permanent relationships.

  She placed the empty bottle on the bar with a thunk and opened the second. This one she intended to savor. "Uh, someone really needs to watch the door." She broke what had become an uncomfortable silence. She hated being the cynosure of everyone's eyes. "You were led into a trap, guys. I took care of the back door. The sound of breaking beer bottles means they're coming in that way."

  "Keely, what the fuck…"

  "Tweeter, you can't say that word. I'll tell Mom." Their mother, Molly Walsh, disliked the f-word, but with a house full of military men, she fought a losing battle. Her response was to demand payment—a quarter for every f-bomb. Her mother sported some very nice jewelry because the Walsh men and their friends uttered a lot of f-words.

  Keely frowned at her brother to underline her point, then turned to the man at his side and held out her hand. "Mr. Maddox? In case you hadn't guessed, I'm his little sister. I worked on a project for NSA through the auspices of my employer MIT until about twenty hours ago. While working for them, I came across this anomaly in the COMINT, uh, the communications intelligence I processed—which I will explain later if y'all really want to know the deets. Bottom line, this is a trap. There is no al Qaeda cell in this hole in the jungle. They're all across the river in Paraguay, if you really want to know. This is a trap set by Reyo Trujo, who seems to have a humongous hard-on for you, through the machinations of a highly placed traitor in the Department of Defense." Then she smiled sweetly and pulled out a granola bar from her pocket, unwrapped it and took a bite. Caffeine and sugar only went so far in combating low blood sugar—and she’d need all the energy she could muster for the fight to come.

  Maddox looked at her hands as if they might rear up and bite him. Again a sound somewhere between a rumble and a snarl came from deep in his chest. His icy grey-blue eyes warmed and turned a deep, smoky slate blue. His gaze traveled over her as if trying to classify her species—or figuring where to take a bite out of her first. She shivered. Now, she knew firsthand what a soft furry bunny felt like when a wolf had it in its sights. The man was an honorable, dominant, alpha male with predatory tendencies, much like her dad and brothers. This was a good news-bad news thing. Good in that she knew how to deal with the alpha personality; bad in that such honorable alphas wanted to cocoon her in bubble wrap and put her somewhere safe.