The Captive's Return (Wingmen Warriors 10)

She rapped her knuckles against the wooden door. Twice. Hard. Trying not to sound as desperate as she felt in case anyone watched.

The door creaked open, a local in ratty tennis shoes lounging against the frame. "Quepasa?"

She stifled her groan of disappointment. This couldn't be right. This man looked more like a scruffy hoodlum than some safe house agent.

"Is Jorge back from the dentist yet?"

"Yes, he's recovering from his root canal in the back room," the man said without the least hint of a Cartinian accent. "Come inside. He'll be glad of the distraction of a visitor."

He opened the door wider.

Lucas brushed past and into the sparsely decorated flat.

A second man with spiked blond hair and eye-shocking flowered shorts ambled from the back room. "Rodriquez? Who's—" He stopped short. "Jesus, Colonel, we'd about given up hope. Where the hell have you been?"

This man knew Lucas? That had to be good. She hoped.

Lucas shouldered past to the first of three open doors in the hall, two bedrooms and a room packed with high-tech computer equipment. "We can talk about that later, Keagan. The kid needs medical attention." He lowered her onto the empty single bed, Lucia too vulnerable in the middle of the stark white spread, a crucifix over the headboard. "Spider bite. We're counting minutes here."

Sara trailed after, her eyes taking in the ramshackle apartment providing cover for these people Lucas worked with. Her months at the embassy had taught her enough to know this place housed more than weary soldiers. Undercover agents worked here and somehow Lucas was connected, all things she couldn't think about now with her child in danger.

The beach-bum-looking man he'd called Keagan un-clipped a cell phone from his waistband. "Roger. We've got a doctor on our payroll for emergencies."

This definitely qualified.

Sara dug her fingers into the cool plaster wall behind her and watched the strangers gather around her daughter. Intellectually she knew they'd arrived in time. Their race through the jungle had gotten them here in less than twelve hours. Spider venom was slow.

Still she couldn't stop the dull roar in her ears, the surreal sense of it all. After five years she had her wish to be free of Ramon. Lucia was free to enjoy a normal childhood. Lucas and Tomas were alive. Her head thunked back against the wall.

She should be rejoicing. So why couldn't she escape the sensation that something was still horribly wrong?

Lucas combed back his damp hair. The borrowed khaki cargo shorts and black T-shirt didn't fit as well as his flight suit, but at least they were clean.

The safe house kept changes of clothes for agents on the run. He'd just never expected to need them when the CIA had briefed his crews on the place's location in case of an emergency.

He stepped from the lone bathroom and studied the three doors. Lucia and Sara were behind one of those doors, but he couldn't speak to them yet. Not until he took care of business with Keagan back in the computer room.

At least he didn't have to worry about Lucia. The local doc had declared her on the mend, not that they could peel Sara from her bedside even though the damn-fool-stubborn woman was weaving from exhaustion.

Lucas resisted the urge to check on them both again. He'd been reluctant to leave, but the doc had insisted on stitching up his arm even though he'd barked at the man to treat Sara first. Washing with his bandaged arm hanging out of the shower had been awkward, but his head was clearer now that he knew the doc was with Sara, hopefully giving her whatever meds she needed to take care of herself.

For his part, he needed to find out about his people at the Cartina National Air Base.

Stopping in the kitchen nook, he snagged a cup of coffee on his way to the makeshift office to find Max Keagan, a former CIA agent, now a civilian employee for the Air Force's OSI—Office of Special Investigation. Keagan's new job enabled him to move from base to base with his Air Force pilot wife, one of the crew members currently in Cartina. This way of life was tough on relationships, but somehow they'd made it work.

Lucas tipped back his mug, the Colombian roast infusing a much-needed jolt of caffeine. Odd how even when he'd proposed to Sara before, he'd never given much thought to day-to-day life and stresses of a military marriage. Especially strange since he was such a methodical planner in every other way.

Only with Sara did he offload logic like cargo out the back ramp. Good God, had he really accused her of being a drug addict? Worse yet, how could he have let his doubts about Lucia fall out of his mouth?

Work, damn it. He had work to do.

The office hummed with running computers and a rattling air conditioner that actually helped muffle conversation. Keagan and two others from the CIA sprawled at desks, studying data and satellite feed on screens, a standard setup to provide shelter and a comm point in the shadows of an operation. Nothing about bringing down Chavez and Padilla was turning out to be standard.

Keagan glanced up. "Are you okay, Colonel?"

"Fine." He settled in a spare office chair beside Keagan's computer. "A few stitches and a tetanus booster. What about my people? My crews? Have you spoken to your wife?"

"Yes, sir. She's fine. Hunt assumed command in your absence as the senior crew member here." Keagan tipped back his own coffee. "The crews are waiting until everyone's accounted for before they fly out."