Force of Fire Read online

  'One more day won’t make or break the contract.'

  'Tell that to the children who will have to wait one more day for penicillin if funding isn’t renewed on time. It’s practically April, Joe! We’re down to the wire on this.'

  'You’re not being rational.'

  'No, you’re the one with the problem. Last time I checked, there was a heart under that hairy chest. What happened?'

  He stood and took her by the shoulders. 'Look at me.' She turned her head to the wall. 'I said, look at me.'

  'I don’t know what’s gotten into you. I’ve never seen you like this.'

  He loosened his grip but didn’t let go. His honey-brown eyes were shimmering. They looked unnatural in the pale fluorescence of the room. 'Ana, your contract, our contract is going to be no good to anyone if something happens to you.'

  'What are you talking about?' she said, shaking herself free and rubbing her shoulders.

  'The Embassy received a communiqué announcing an attack on the northern highway.'

  'Not that again,' she said, sitting to refill her cup. 'You know as well as I do the guerrillas ‘announce’ attacks all the time. Nine times out of ten they never happen. At least, not when and where they're supposed to.'

  She caught his eye on the curve of her calf just at the point where one leg crossed over the other. She uncrossed her legs and rearranged her robe to cover them.

  He pretended not to notice her shift in posture. 'I know you’re well-intentioned and all that, but I’ve got to tell you I think you’re making one helluva mistake.'

  Here spoke the man who’d defied every security regulation since setting foot in this God-forsaken place. 'You’re a fine one to pass judgment.'

  A new softness came over him. 'I really am one fitting example, aren’t I? Look, beautiful, I didn’t mean for things to come off this way. I apologize.'

  'Yeah, yeah. Apology accepted. Look, it’s getting late –'

  'I know you want to get rid of me but I can’t leave here on this note. Besides,' he said with an impossible grin, 'we still haven’t settled anything.' Such a negotiator.

  'I am taking that field trip tomorrow.'

  'Far be it from me to stop you. I was just hoping we could work out a little compromise.'

  Ana sat on the bed and popped the seal on the thin onion skin envelope with a trembling finger. In all the time she’d known him, no single piece of correspondence had set her so on edge. Perhaps it was the upcoming trip and her predawn departure from her hotel. Or maybe she was just being foolish, as she’d happened to be increasingly when it came to Scott. What could he possibly say that could make her day any worse? She still hadn’t received the milk for her coffee and she was scheduled to leave in less than fifteen minutes.

  She should have known better than to stay up half the night with Joe. It was true he was irrepressible – and impossible to get away from – once he set his mind to sticking close. But, at the moment, both Joe’s closeness and Scott’s seemed just a wee too tight for Ana and she was gasping for air.

  For miles they bumped along empty roads. First, the northern highway, a crudely asphalted 'expressway', and then the gravel- pitted trails that scaled the dark, pre-dawn western mountains. As they drove, plantation ferns spread their fluttering fingers overhead, lightly strumming an indigo sky. In the underbrush, camouflaged soldiers waited, their splotchy brown and beige uniforms barely visible through mossy green. At every shadowy bend in the road, rifles seemed poised and ready.

  The Embassy driver, Felipe, and Joe were engaged in superficial conversation. Felipe had been Ana’s vehicle escort on many of her previous trips to Costa Negra. He was small and leathered like the men of the region, with a toothless smile that could crack the black mood of La Concha city streets or ease the tension of travels into the explosion-riddled hills.

  But this time, something was different. Things in these hills on this particular morning were a bit too quiet. Even Felipe’s affable chortle couldn’t take the edge off the drive. Were it not for the uniformed soldiers, insurgents really – the military always wore their olive greens – she could almost will herself to ignore the knotty feeling tightening in her gut.

  She’d had that feeling twice this morning already, but dismissed it. The first time occurred when she’d ordered her room service coffee as usual but it had arrived solo, without the cream. No one in Costa Negra, including the Costa Negrans, drank their coffee solo, at least not at six in the morning. Truth be known, most Costa Negrans weren’t even up at six in the morning. But Ana was and the bellboy was, and someone making a mistake in the kitchen was. Ana saw that as a bad sign. That, and the fact that she hadn’t read Scott’s letter last night as planned, but instead had chosen to read it over her ill-fated cup of morning coffee. If she’d thought about it, she would have seen that – owing to the earliness of the hour and the reputation of the hotel – the mix-up with the coffee had been predictable. The contents of Scott’s letter were not.

  She should have seen it coming. So many dark omens purposely pushed aside. He’d never understood about her family or her job. Materialistic was the word he’d used to describe her and it cut to her core like a rotating, serrated blade.

  She’d known since she was ten she was meant to make a difference. Known since that blistering summer in Oaxaca when, through a child’s eyes, she’d witnessed families scouring through trashcans for the promise of a mid-day meal. Her language professor father had been able to secure a number of summer teaching positions around the globe. She’d traveled extensively, at an early age, throughout the Spanish-speaking world. The impoverished landscape she’d absorbed hadn’t painted a pretty picture on the easel of her soul.

  Felipe and Joe stopped talking.

  Up on the crest of the red-brown hill sat an old rusted-out automobile, turned sideways across the road.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mark Neal turned from the large picture window framing the DC skyline in soft orange hues. He sipped his morning tea, eyeing the file on his desk. He wasn’t much of a coffee man, except when he was under stress. Then he practically swam in it. Mark lifted the pale yellow dossier, wondering if he was about to get coffee-logged. Kidnapping was outside his purview.

  As a rule, the Defense Operations Service did not involve itself in such blatant matters of State. Mark was a regional analyst trained in third world insurgency, his mission to track trends in actual events and use that information to forecast and prevent future catastrophe. For it was no longer the large powers that were the greatest threat, but rather the smaller, more insidious ones, the crazed third world dictators with too much time and weaponry on their hands. Not to mention greed and utter disregard for human life. It was a Pandora’s box of troubles aching to break free. Mark, and others like him, were the keepers of the key.

  Mark loosened his tie and pulled his brown leather chair to his desk to examine the passport photo clipped to the top of the file. Her deep black eyes leapt out at him from the glossy gray page. Ana Kane: Caucasian female, age 29, 5'7', 125 lbs. He was struck by the way her dark features played against the feathery whiteness of her skin. She had a Spanish look.

  Mark searched the file for details regarding her parentage but found that standard piece of information missing. The remainder of her dossier was remarkably intact, exceedingly complete for a mere State Department contractor with no upper-level clearances and no access to sensitive information.

  The buzzer sounded on Mark’s console.

  'Sir, Mr. Cromwell would like to see you right away.'

  'Tell him I'll be there in ten minutes,' he said, massaging his graying temples. Emblems of experience, he’d joked to Camille. There was a tightness stirring behind them that told him he was in for a long day.

  'Begging your pardon, sir, but his exact orders were 'Get Neal in here ASAP!’'

  Cathy was still leaning on her intercom when Mark burst out of his office and hurried down the hall, a bent manila folder under his arm. He wound his way along
the barren corridor until he came to the nest of cubicles flanking Cromwell's office. Groups of analysts were hard at work deciphering recent terrorist activity in the Middle East. Pearson's team was huddled over a map in one corner, while at the conference table Newberry's group studied a model of a Soviet T-72 tank made perfectly to 1/16th inch scale. Here and there individual grunts were glued to their computer terminals doing God knows what. Mark was grateful he was the only senior analyst with an office. A modest one perhaps, but one with a view and without all this goddamned distraction. It did not escape him that he was Cromwell's rising star.

  He’d been a reluctant recruit, but at least now was making headway. Cromwell was one of the old boys and there weren’t too many original DOS men left.

  Cromwell sat at his paper-encrusted desk, the top of his balding head barely visible above the endless stacks of files and memos.

  'Have a seat,' he said, looking up through his horn-rimmed glasses.

  Mark sat and tapped the yellow file lightly against his knee. 'This what you wanted to see me about, sir?'

  Cromwell pushed back in his chair and grinned. 'Guess we don't call you an intelligence analyst for nothing.'

  Normally Mark enjoyed Cromwell’s banter, but this morning something urgent hung in the air. Something so pressing Mark didn’t even bother to dab the sweat gathering at his brow. 'Why is this Kane woman so important to Defense? We’re not the logical choice.'

  'Suffice it to say we’ve got our reasons.'

  'Like?' Mark was not at all sure he'd get a straight answer.

  'Like, it's a pretty long story.'

  'I've got the time,' Mark said, at last pulling the handkerchief from his breast pocket.

  'Yes, hell, I know you do, and thousands of taxpayers are footing the bill.'

  Mark smiled, knowing he was getting warm.

  'What the hell.' Cromwell removed his glasses and put them down on his desk. 'I know you're cleared for all of this.' Mark noted the signs of exhaustion lining the older man's face. The creases in his brow were deep and furrowed, his normally ruddy complexion starting to sallow. 'First,' he said, 'I think you should know we're dealing with two, possibly three, abductions here.'

  Mark slapped the Kane file onto Cromwell's desk in frustration and opened his mouth to speak.

  'Hold on a minute.' Cromwell flagged a palm in Mark's direction. 'The other files will be on your desk by this afternoon, although I doubt you'll be needing one of them.'

  'The driver?' Mark knew this region and its operatives well. Unless the driver himself was targeted for kidnapping, he would most likely have been shot at the scene to prevent leaving a witness.

  'You've got it.' Cromwell reached over and handed Ana's file back to Mark. 'Here, you hang onto this.'

  'Sir, I had a question about this file.'

  'In a minute. First, let's lay out the boundaries of this thing.'

  'Fine. Who was the second MIA?' Mark removed the gold pen from his pocket to take notes.

  'McFadden, Joe McFadden, USAID Contracting Officer.'

  'McFadden? He's the – what is it – nephew of the Ambassador down there?'

  'Right. Tom Mooney's his uncle. In fact, Tom's the one who contacted me about the disappearance.'

  'Then how do we know McFadden wasn't the target and this Kane woman wasn't just along for the ride?'

  'This was a set-up, but not for McFadden. Fellow’s got a reckless reputation –' Mark looked up from his note taking. 'Kid stuff, really. Guy's a bit of a boozer, likes the ladies, that type of thing. Oh yeah, and check this. McFadden packs a piece.'

  'Cowboy, huh?' Mark had met the type before and didn't savor the thought of chasing after one, not even down a paper trail. He thumped his pen lightly against his notepad wondering what the connection between McFadden and Ana Kane really was.

  'Right. So you've got yourself one probably dead driver, one missing cowboy and one little lady in need of a rescue.'

  Mark leaned forward in his chair. 'This makes for a great story, Chief, but it still doesn't tell me what DOD wants with Ana Kane.'

  Cromwell blew a breath of surrender.

  'She’s important to us because her Daddy was a heavy hitter for Defense during the War.'

  Mark laid down his pen. 'Defense Intelligence, you mean.'

  'Exactly.'

  'And Kane’s connection to the DOS?'

  'Did the long haul. Ran with the Service forty some-odd years. Heart gave out four or five years ago.'

  'You’re guessing, sir?' Mark knew that Cromwell was never imprecise.

  'More or less.' Mark gave him a scrutinizing look. 'Natural causes.'

  Mark knew better than to push. 'About the mother –'

  'Isabel’s to be left out of it,' Cromwell said. And he meant it.

  Isabel? 'Forgive me, sir. But Miss Kane’s mother is Spanish?'

  'Yes, fine, Mark. Spanish. Some southern province. But that’s as far as this train goes.'

  Mark knew then that Ana’s mother would never be notified of her daughter’s disappearance. Perhaps his boss would be more forthcoming regarding her father.

  'What about Kane’s cover?'

  'Spanish professor. University of Delaware.'

  Mark mulled this over. Still convenient to DC. A Spanish wife, hours of paperwork, travel to Spanish-speaking countries. And Kane – having been an operative. Then it clicked.

  'Wasn't Kane the OSS man behind MILO II?'

  'One and only.'

  'And Ana, I presume, has been in the dark this whole time.'

  'You know the protocol.'

  He knew the whole stinking drill. And he’d seen more than a few lives destroyed by it. Ana had to know of her father’s military affiliation. How much of the truth she’d pieced together over the years was anybody’s guess.

  Cromwell was standing to leave.

  Mark rose from his chair and Cromwell looked him squarely in the eye.

  'I want you to understand something. This is not just DOS business –' That much Mark had figured. 'It’s personal.'

  'Yes, sir. I'll get on it right away. Who's our field man?'

  Cromwell drew closer and swatted him on the shoulder. 'Why, you are, son!'

  'Me, sir? You’re sending me to Costa Negra?'

  'Si, senor, to Costa Negra.' Cromwell had turned and was making his way to the door.

  'But, sir, wait! I don’t even speak Spanish–'

  'I’ll see what I can do to line up backstop support. Talk to Cathy about travel arrangements and papers.'

  'Sir, it’s been years–' Mark began, fully aware Cromwell was not about to let him finish.

  'Your time in Special Forces will come back to you.' Cromwell looked down at his watch in a very pointed manner. 'Besides, Mark, you’re the best man I have.'

  You mean the only man, Mark thought. He knew the whole directorate was tied up with that Middle East exercise. Cromwell would never get away with pulling someone off a team now, especially to tackle a personal priority. Mark was rusty, sure. But he hadn't been out of the loop so long he couldn't handle it. Or had he?

  Mark laid his briefcase on the low cedar chest that had belonged to his grandmother and stuffed a few necessary items into his athletic bag. Cromwell had given him one hour to go home and get his things in order. It was best to do it now during the lull. Once he’d been assigned support and the rest of the paperwork came in, there’d be no time for such luxuries.

  He took only one suit, knowing he could have it cleaned, along with an extra shirt and tie. A pair of gabardine trousers, a green turtle neck. No, those would be too hot. He pulled them out of his bag and set them on the bed, considering a moment. For God’s sake, he wasn’t going down there to make a fashion statement. He threw in his swim trunks, then walked to the bathroom to collect his razor. It had an international current adapter he always kept in its case. He glanced in the mirror, seeing his mid-day stubble had already sprouted. He gave himself a cursory shave, combed his short, brown hair, then packed
his toothbrush and travel-size bottle of shampoo.

  Mark checked his watch against the clock on the nightstand as he passed back through the bedroom. A navy quilt with swirling paisley print fit squarely over the queen-size bed. He’d ordered the mattress extra long to accommodate his height and still his ankles draped uncomfortably over the edge.

  His dresser was a classic, an antique he’d picked up from a vendor at Eastern Market. It was a man’s bureau, four feet high with five deep drawers, in elegant cherry. He’d purchased the companion piece on a whim. Or perhaps a prayer. The low ladies’ dressing table stood mostly empty, save the few pairs of pantyhose and extra lipsticks Camille kept there for emergencies.

  Mark hurried down the stairs and set his things by the front door, then walked to the kitchen where he pulled a paper grocery bag from under the sink and began filling it from the refrigerator. There were many items that wouldn’t keep. He’d drop them by Mrs. Williams’ on his way out.

  Rose Williams was a thoughtful woman living on her deceased husband’s government pension. She never acted as if she didn’t have enough but Mark had seen how she lived. Always carefully washing the tin foil, folding it over to use again; saving old gift-wrap and ribbons. Asking Mark if he’d mind too terribly much if she read his paper when he was done. He’d ordered her a subscription without her knowledge. And every morning when she found the folded copy of the Washington Post on her stoop, she assumed it was because he’d already read it before rising early and heading off to work.

  Mark grabbed his extra key from the hook beside the door. He’d ask Mrs. Williams to look after his plants. Two of her children lived in Washington, but were always too busy with their own lives to make her feel needed.

  Ana awoke to the sickly smell of urine. Feeling the spreading warmth between her legs, she quickly realized it was her own. All around was a sinking black horror, a dark paralysis. She remembered tearing through the jungle. Then struggling against the crude clamp of his arm. She realized they had drugged her – chloroform.