Her Secret Agent Man (15 page)

She nodded gamely.

Dutch murmured, “The second we start the engines, we’ll need to blast out of here fast. The noise will draw whoever wired the Jeep. I’ll go first and you follow me. We’ll head down the mountain, away from the road. Got it?”

She nodded. And started when his gloved hand came up
to touch her cheek for an instant. But it was enough. They were still in this together.

Dutch pushed the door wide open and came back inside, flinging his leg over a snowmobile. “Let’s do it.”

She straddled the other big machine and gripped the handlebars. At his nod, she turned the key and gunned the throttle. The machine roared to life between her knees. The sound inside the enclosed space was deafening.

Wasting no time, Dutch shot outside. She followed clumsily, still getting a feel for the throttle. Her eyes adjusted quickly to the dim light in the forest, and she followed his shadow doggedly as he wove in and out among the trees in front of her.

Her back itched like someone was watching her, tracking their descent. But given how thick the trees were around them and overhead, it was no doubt just her imagination. But that didn’t stop panic from bubbling just beneath the surface of her mind.

Her fingers went numb in a matter of minutes, and her feet weren’t far behind. Although she was dressed warmly, she wasn’t dressed for the artificial windchill of shooting down a mountain like a bat out of hell. She lost the feeling in her cheeks first, then her whole face went numb. Needles of icy snow stung her skin, and an insidious lethargy stole into her limbs.

She dared not stop, though. Dutch would never hear her over the roar of his snowmobile, and she’d be all alone, lost somewhere in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains with a pack of killers behind her.

Their flight turned into an interminable nightmare of snow and shadow whooshing past her half-frozen body.

And somewhere during the endless ordeal on that frozen mountain, she realized something. She’d been right, back at
the cabin. She would never beat her father at his own game. It just wasn’t in her to play dirty enough to win. She’d been a fool to think she could save herself, and she was a fool to believe that Dutch alone could save her.

She had to cut her losses as best she could. Odds were she wouldn’t walk out of this alive. But maybe Dutch and Carina could.

Besides his money, there was one other thing her father wanted. And she’d willingly hand it over to him in return for Dutch’s and Carina’s lives. Now she just had to figure out how to do it without Dutch stopping her.

A
fter about an hour, Dutch stopped long enough to siphon the remaining gas out of Julia’s snowmobile. Speed no longer mattered. Now distance was the name of the game. They’d go farther if they saved the gas and traveled on one snowmobile. He poured the spare gas into his fuel tank and said a silent prayer that the machine would get them to the nearest human habitation.

He took his bearings and mentally pictured the map he’d studied at the log cabin the day before. As best he could tell, they’d fled mostly to the south. If he was correct, then a couple of little towns lay not far to the west of them now.

They climbed on the machine and set out. Julia’s body pressed intimately against his, sending his thoughts careening off in a dozen different directions. Concentrate, buddy. Bad guys were running around out here somewhere, hunting them like animals. He had to stay sharp.

But it was damn hard to do with her breasts pressing against his back and her arms wrapped around him like that.

After about half an hour, he paused just inside a line of trees, eyeing the road before him. Did he dare travel it in search of fuel and a phone? What were the odds that whoever had narrowly missed killing them earlier would be patrolling the local side roads? His basic survival training warned him that a road was far too open. Far too dangerous to risk.

But they couldn’t run around in the mountains indefinitely. Sooner or later, they’d have to come out of hiding. If they did it now, they stood some chance of running into Ferrare’s goons. But if they waited, the bastards would have time to call in reinforcements. The longer he waited, the higher the odds were that they’d be caught. Even though it made him twitchy, he guided the snowmobile onto the snow-packed road.

The gas gauge on the machine was getting dangerously low when they finally rounded a curve and saw a building in front of them. Two gas pumps out front proclaimed it to be exactly what he was looking for. More relieved than he cared to admit, Dutch drove into the parking lot of what turned out to be an old-fashioned general store.

The proprietor pointed Dutch to a pay phone in the back corner by the rest rooms. While Julia slipped into the bathroom to run her hands under warm water and thaw out a bit, he dialed Charlie Squad headquarters. A command-post controller picked up the line.

“Dutch here. Is the old man available?”

“He said to patch you through to him no matter when you called. And boy, is he antsy to talk to you. Haven’t seen the colonel this worked up in a while. Where are you?”

Until the mole was caught, he wasn’t telling anybody but the colonel anything. He laughed lightly into the controller’s ear. “Hell if I know where I am.”

Dutch waited impatiently as his call was transferred to Colonel Folly’s home. It was only a few seconds until his boss came on the line.

The colonel wasted no time on niceties. “Where in the hell have you been?” he growled.

“Would you mind throwing this on to your secure line, sir?”

The colonel complied in silence. A faint buzz came on the line, indicating that nobody else could listen in. The colonel announced grimly, “I’ll delete the recording of this call when we’re done so our mole can’t get at it. Now, what’s up, Dutch?”

“Eduardo Ferrare’s thugs blew up our Jeep with me in it a couple of hours ago. Fortunately, I had the door open and got blown clear of the fireball.”

The colonel uttered a sharp curse under his breath, a sure sign he was not a happy camper. “Did you see the perpetrators?” he asked tersely.

“Nope. But it had to be Ferrare’s people, unless the locals around here have started blowing cars up for fun.”

Folly retorted, “I need you to bring her in. Let’s get her into custody and talking so we can find out everything there is to know about Eduardo.”

Dutch sighed. “Don’t think I can do that, sir.”

The colonel’s voice went dead flat. “And why not?”

Dutch flinched at the ominous chill in his boss’s voice. He couldn’t blame the guy. In their line of work, a disobeyed order usually led to someone dying.

Dutch explained carefully, “Julia’s doing her best to help us already. But she’s refusing to testify until we get the sister away from her old man. And I can’t say as I blame her. In the meantime, Julia’s moved six hundred million dollars of her father’s money into Charlie Squad’s Swiss bank account.”

“Holy sh—” the colonel exclaimed.

“But she’s not willing to cooperate much more than that until Carina’s safe. Since we don’t know who’s working for Ferrare at the FBI or within our own organization, I think it would be safer for her to go to ground out here with me. Especially now that the bastard’s demonstrated a willingness to kill her.”

Folly sighed. “You’ve got no choice, man. She’s wanted by the FBI. You have to bring her in and take your chances that the one or two bad agents in the whole bureau won’t be the ones you hand her over to. The odds are stacked strongly in favor of her being just fine.”

Dutch closed his eyes in frustration.

Colonel Folly continued, “Even if bringing her in is a risk, we have to take that chance. What she knows is too important to us.”

Dutch’s anger flared up. “Since when do we sacrifice innocents in the name of achieving military objectives?”

The colonel’s next words fell heavily against his ear. “She’s not an innocent, Dutch.”

And therein lay the rub. She wasn’t an innocent. She’d been in cahoots with her father, willingly or otherwise, for years. Even if her old man was holding her sister hostage to make her cooperate, Julia’s hands were far from clean.

The colonel spoke into the heavy silence. “Have you forgotten she’s the one who set us up and got Simon killed?”

It was a low blow, but he couldn’t blame the colonel for taking it. “She wants to do the right thing.”

The colonel’s opinion of that was succinct. “Bull. Bring her in, Dutch. Now. That’s an order.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t think I can do that. I’m not willing to endanger her life like that.”

“Come on, Dutch. Don’t do this. We’re talking about your
career, here. In six months, maybe a year, you could be in command of the squad. Don’t throw away the last dozen years of distinguished service for a woman. We’re talking court-martials here. A dishonorable discharge. Hell, jail time. She’s not worth it.”

Dutch sighed. “That’s the problem. She is worth it.”

The colonel let loose a rare string of curses having to do with conniving women turning gullible men’s heads. Finally he composed himself and said, “Look. I’ve got to make this official.”

Dutch heard the colonel say away from the receiver, “Annie, honey, I need you to pick up the other phone.”

The click of a receiver indicated she’d come on the line.

“Hi, Annie.”

“Hi, Dutch. How’s it going?”

He laughed with scant humor. “You’re about to find out it’s not going so great.”

Colonel Folly said formally, “Annie, as a duly appointed officer in the armed forces, I’d like you to witness the order I’m about to give.”

“Ah. Okay,” she said soberly.

Folly continued, “Dutch, I am ordering you, under my full authority granted by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, to bring in Julia Ferrare and turn yourself in immediately. Do you understand my order?”

Dutch answered heavily. “Yes, sir.”

“Do you for any reason believe this to be an unlawful order?”

“No, sir.”

“And do you understand the potential consequences of refusing to follow this order?”

“Yes, sir.”

A pause. The colonel said grimly, “Don’t do this, Dutch.”

He replied equally grimly. “I have no choice. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Me, too. And Dutch?”

“Yeah?”

“You be careful. Don’t take on Eduardo Ferrare by yourself.”

“I’ve got no choice on that one, either.”

“Stay in touch. Your leave expires in a couple of days. I don’t want to have add going AWOL to the list of charges you’re going to face.”

Dutch hung up the phone slowly. Stared at it for a long minute. Bloody hell.
He’d just flushed his entire goddamn career down the toilet.

Julia peeked out of the bathroom cautiously a few moments later. Dutch’s murmured voice had gone silent with the click of the phone receiver into its cradle. All clear. Thank goodness. She also needed to make a phone call. A private one. And her cell-phone battery was getting low. The little hallway in front of the bathrooms was empty. Dutch had disappeared. She sidled up to the pay phone and quickly dialed a familiar phone number. A woman answered in Spanish.

Julia replied in the same language. “Inez, it’s Julia. Is my father home?”

The maid answered in fearful surprise. “No, Miss Julia, he isn’t. But he left orders to forward your call to him if you contacted him.”

“Tell his assistant to transfer me, will you?”

It was a measure of just how ticked off her father was that he came on the line almost instantly. “So, my wayward daughter decides to grace me with her attention, does she?” he purred menacingly in her ear.

Julia quailed at the sound. If she’d been standing in front of him in person, she’d have been in mortal fear for her life.
It was the same tone he used to order peoples’ deaths. “We need to talk,” she managed to force past her constricted throat.

“Do tell,” he replied cagily.

“If you kill me, it could take you months or years to find your money, and even then you could have a very difficult time getting any of it back. I can hand it all to you in a matter of a few minutes.”

“Indeed,” he said silkily. “So where exactly is my money?”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. I’ve got something you want, and you’ve got something I want.”

“Not over the phone,” he whispered.

She winced. She’d been afraid he might say that. The man had been bugged, tailed and wiretapped so many times over the years that he never, ever, did serious business except in person.

“All right. We’ll meet,” she agreed reluctantly.

“Where? And when?” he demanded.

My, my. Daddy dearest sounded plenty eager to get his hands on all his millions. Maybe this plan might work after all. She thought fast. “Montana. I’ll call you tomorrow with an exact location and time.”

“Call my cell phone,” he ordered tersely.

“All right,” she mumbled. “I’ll be in touch.”

“You do that, baby girl. Oh, and your sister sends her greetings.”

Julia gnashed her teeth at the reminder that he had Carina and wouldn’t hesitate to hurt or kill her. She hung up the phone and glared at it. Baby girl, indeed. Once, just once, she’d like to best him. Make him really squirm. Now, if she could only embrace her anger long enough to hold at bay the panic careening in her gut at the thought of facing her father, maybe she wouldn’t faint.

She turned and rushed from the phone, eager to get away from an instrument dirtied by the projection of her father’s voice.

As her footsteps faded away, Dutch slipped out of the men’s room. He stared bleakly at the phone. Son of a bitch. She was going to sell him out to her father to save her hide.
Again.

Wasn’t this day just getting better and better? First the car, then his career, and now his woman. What else could blow up in his face?

Grimly, he questioned the store owner and found out a man in town ran a taxi service out of his home. Dutch gave the guy a call and arranged for a pickup from the store and delivery to the nearest rental-car agency.

It was after midnight when Dutch closed Julia’s car door and went around to jackknife himself into the midsize rental sedan. Not too many cars were built with men his size in mind. The steering wheel banged his knees, and he crouched in the seat, packed in like a sardine. Doggedly, he guided the vehicle to the nearest major highway and pointed it toward northern Montana. Far be it from him to cause Julia to miss her meeting with her father.

Damn her! What was she thinking? She knew her sister’s life hung in the balance. Why would she mess around with trying to make deals with her father? Surely Julia knew better than to trust the bastard.

Dutch eased off the accelerator. It wasn’t fear making his foot heavy. Rather it was fury. Frankly he didn’t give a damn if anyone was following them tonight. He drove directly toward his parents’ cabin high in the mountains of northwestern Montana.

Nonetheless, an ominous itch at the back of his neck warned him to get under cover soon. It was the kind of intuition he’d learned over the years not to ignore. Eduardo Ferrare was coming. He could feel it in the air.

An unmarked Learjet taxied to a hangar at a small, private airport just south of the Glacier Falls National Park in west
ern Montana. The four men inside the plane got out quickly and loaded oversize bags of gear into the trunk of the two cars waiting for them in the dark.

Tom Folly ordered tersely, “Doc, you’re with me. Tex, Howdy, you take the other car. We’re all clear on how to get to the Dutcher place?”

His men nodded grimly. None of them were happy about the idea of running an op against one of their own. But Dutch had turned. Of all people! Folly thought. Levelheaded, rock-solid Dutch was the last man he’d ever guess would fall for a woman. Especially not for the conniving, dangerous kind of female who could get him killed.

Tom climbed behind the wheel of the car and headed up into the mountains. He half hoped he was wrong about where Dutch had gone to ground. But he doubted it. He’d do the same thing in the same situation. Dutch was heading for his home turf to circle the wagons and make a last stand.

They pulled into the driveway of a neat, rustic ranch house a couple of hours later. Jens Dutcher turned out to be a giant bear of a man, easily as tall and broad as his athletic son. And as unrevealing of his thoughts and emotions, too. Usually when Tom met the families of his men, there was at least a flicker of response at meeting the commander of the legendary Charlie Squad.

But all Jens Dutcher did was ask cautiously, “So, Colonel, what brings you way out here to our place? Everything all right with my boy?”

Tom answered hastily. “Dutch is fine. This visit is nothing like that.” He continued carefully. He sensed it would not be wise to tick off Papa Bear. “But speaking of your son, has he contacted you in the last twenty-four hours?”