Carlos blinked. He stared at the letters, trying to make them mean something else, but there was no mistaking Anguis. Not the largest organized-crime family in South America, but one of the most dangerous to cross. Merde! If the tip was correct and the men guarding the chateau worked for Durand Anguis, they might recognize Carlos. And if they did...
"Pilot just radioed a ten-minute warning," Gotthard announced.
Everyone went into motion, forcing Carlos from his shock. Could the Anguis really be involved with the Fratelli? This smelled like a setup, but who would know to set him up? He switched his 02 tube from the console to the bottle attached to his jumpsuit and accepted the busted hand he'd been dealt, then focused on his role as team leader. "Sound off."
After making the same oxygen-supply switch, Korbin nodded. "Check."
Rae and Gotthard both confirmed.
"Synchronize altimeters." Carlos gave his reading and finished with "Six minutes."
The next check would be two minutes, then showtime with no second takes.
Carlos adjusted his goggles and strapped on his helmet. "Korbin is on point, me, then Rae. Gotthard sweeps cleanup."
Irritation fumed in Rae's gaze.
Carlos didn't care what she thought of him putting her in the crib position, the safest slot in an assault.
One woman had died in his arms years ago.
He wouldn't be responsible for another.
Highly skilled and lethal as any man on this team, Rae was more than capable of protecting herself. A damned good agent. But Carlos had seen too many women die in inhuman ways, one grotesque example only three months ago. A female informant had missed a meeting then disappeared, until Carlos discovered her inside a building in a remote mountain range in Brazil where rebels hid a stash of weapons. And caged women.
But the rebels were killed in a skirmish with the government over a week before Carlos and a team located the building.
Carlos could still smell the baked stench of rotting bodies. He found the weapons and the informant along with seven more women in chain-link cages waiting to be sold. The metal building had turned into an inferno when the temperatures roared over a hundred degrees every day. One nineteen-year-old female's fingers clung to the chain-link where she reached for help.
Nightmares were the vanguard of his conscience and every decision he made.
Carlos shook off the morbid vision and focused on the living. "Two minutes." Time to head for the rear.
Korbin moved forward, careful not to tangle his feet in the loose hoses. Everyone filed in line behind Korbin toward the rear of the cavernous fuselage, the silence now filled only with the roar of the jet engines. The aircraft's transponder pinged a signal to local air traffic control that this was a commercial flight delivering cargo.
The ping just didn't elaborate on the lethal capability of the aircraft's cargo.
Carlos forced a long, easy breath through his lungs. Anything to slow the blood slamming through his veins from the shock. Anguis soldiers could be waiting at the chateau. One had seen, and recognized, him in the past sixteen years. That man hadn't lived to tell anyone.
Because of that incident three years ago, surgical alteration had been necessary. Durand's massive soldier nicknamed El Toro, the bull, had recognized Carlos during an undercover operation in Argentina before Carlos saw him. The six-foot-seven Anguis soldier had once taught him how to hit a baseball as a teen, but when he encountered Carlos in the undercover operation, all El Toro saw was the half-million bounty Durand offered to deliver him alive. The Anguis soldier planned a perfect ambush with an additional man. Jumped on his way to meet Gotthard, Carlos refused to go down without spilling blood, most of which was his. But he'd managed to send a double-click radio signal to Gotthard for backup. Two minutes later Gotthard arrived, neutralizing the men, and found Carlos beaten close to death, his face hamburger.
Agents were at their most vulnerable while undercover, which influenced Joe's orders for the plastic surgeon to create a new look to protect his man in the future.
The face that stared back at Carlos from a mirror was at times similar and other times startling. Different enough no one would easily recognize him and put his team at risk, his only true concern. BAD operatives were some of the most highly skilled, and dangerous, in the world. He'd stake his life on them, and had many times.
He couldn't ask for a better team tonight.
But Durand Anguis operated like no other criminal entity, using the most unexpected tactics.
The rear load ramp groaned open. Icy air blasted in as a precursor of what to expect. When Korbin moved forward, so did the team. A bottomless black void loomed beyond the gaping hole to suck them from the aircraft. Carlos shifted closer to the roaring wind. The half-pie moon shone down on a low-hanging blanket of clouds dumping fresh snow across the French Alps.
Folding each finger into his gloved hand as he silently counted down, Korbin closed his fist at five-the signal to go.
Carlos followed suit, a buffeting thirty-degrees-below-zero wind jarring him. Legs tucked in a sitting position, he yanked the rip cord, deploying his ram-air parachute. When the square canopy caught, the sudden change of airspeed wrenched his body backward and up. Jaw clenched to keep his teeth from banging together, he lifted his hands and grasped the risers, instinctively maneuvering the parachute.
His heart drummed faster than a machine gun with the trigger pinned. Adrenaline exploded through him, then he drew a deep breath and settled in for the ride. To be honest, he did enjoy this one part of jumping, loved the sudden quiet and sense of floating in ethereal peace. Seconds evaporated faster than the moisture on his goggles as the team glided twenty kilometers toward the landing spot. He lived his life in minutes, one op to the next, watching over his shoulder for the past sixteen years, waiting to be killed.
If things went to shit tonight, the wait could be over.
He squinted. Two tiny lights appeared in the greenish view of his night-vision goggles as Gotthard's wide shape and Rae's long form came into focus. Where was Korbin?
A flicker of light dropped diagonally across his path at last. The adrenaline junkie settled into the front spot. All lights were extinguished, radio silence in force.
Alex Sanderson, the fifth operative, known as Sandman for putting the enemy to sleep, was an ex-Air Force combat controller, otherwise known as an assault weatherman, highly trained. Sandman would be in place by now setting the infrared strobe as a beacon for the landing spot. He'd been on the ground two klicks from the target for the past week camping in a spider hide, invisible to everyone while performing reconnaissance vital to the mission.
If Sandman was not where they expected him, he was dead.
At thirty-one thousand feet Korbin banked left and Carlos followed. Still no strobe, but trust ran deep in this team. Each agent would continue toward the objective with the absolute knowledge the others performed their part of the mission without fault.
Carlos squinted as they broke through the wall of white and closed in on the undetectable patch of earth.
A pulsing strobe came into view. Thank you, Sandman.
In the last thousand-foot drop to the mountainside, a ferocious wind gusted up from the canyon below. Carlos hit and rolled through two feet of snow. He released the chute that was dragging him and planted his feet. When he swiveled around, searching for the team, Gotthard was already standing and consulting his wrist video. Korbin was plowing his way toward Rae, who lay sprawled backward on the snow.
Carlos started toward her. A sick thought that her body might have hit a boulder in the snow flashed into his mind. But by the time Korbin reached her, Rae sat up and knocked away his offered hand. Prickly woman when it came to help in any form.
She and Korbin reached Carlos as Sandman strode up to the team, weapon hanging across his chest. Sandman raised a gloved hand Rae slapped for their usual high-five "hello." Inside the dark mahogany skin beneath his dove-gray snow camouflage suit was a man Carlos always
wanted on his side.
Sandman had two personalities. One could turn a female into his angel for the night in a blink, and the other could make a terrorist piss himself.
Once all the chutes were stowed out of sight, Korbin waited for the thumbs-up "all-set" sign from everyone, then struck out, leading the hike. A hundred meters from the three-level home, Carlos signaled to gather. The team closed quarters behind a mound of naked boulders.
Gotthard produced a compact thermal infrared camera and raised it to his face. He began passing information through hand signs: Two guards outside, walking-one on the east side, one on the west. Four bodies inside, two on the second level. Two on the third floor, one was horizontal and motionless-probably the female hostage.
Carlos signaled each operative to move into position. He'd rescue the young woman and protect his team first. Saving his own ass came last...if luck shined on him one more time.
He steeled himself and moved forward, ready to find out if the men guarding this chateau really belonged to Durand Anguis.
TWO
HAD HER E-MAILS gone through in time?
To the right people?
Gabrielle Saxe stood and paced from the workstation in her rental house to the window. A dreary Sunday. Heavy mist from a slow rain hovered over Lake Peachtree, blurring the dock lights. Peachtree City, a planned community in Georgia south of Atlanta, had been the best place she'd found to hide since living on the edge for the past ten years. She missed her family home in France, but the occasional fog here in the South made her long for her flat in London even more.
She missed her freedom, too, but safety came with a cost.
And not just hers. She'd do anything to keep her family in France safe, too. That was one reason she'd gone into hiding ten years ago. Right after her divorce from a rising Italian screen star who had charmed her into getting married with only one intention-to use her. The honeymoon lasted two months, then things started to sour between them. She met the true Roberto Delacourte. First came the verbal abuse on how lacking she was in the bedroom even after she'd tried to meet his expectations. She'd had no experience and hid her revulsion at some of his ideas. When she'd awakened tied to the bed and suffered the equivalent of rape, she started hiding from him.
Six months into the turbulent relationship he backhanded her across the face and punched her stomach.
Gabrielle had braced herself for more violence when she demanded a divorce and threatened to put him in jail.
He'd calmly laid out the terms for divorce in intricate detail, having clearly planned many things in advance. As he'd spoken, she realized how in her naivete she'd been played for money and social connections he used to further his career. He explained how he would inform the media that he was asking for a divorce and that she would pay him an exorbitant settlement from the trust fund her mother had left her. All details of the divorce would remain sealed unless he chose to share something, and she could never say a negative word against him.
She screamed that he was insane, which earned her another blow to her ribs. Then he warned her what he'd do to her and her family if she did not meet his terms. He reeled off a list that included releasing lurid stories about her supposed perverted sexual appetite to the paparazzi with doctored photos of her in compromising positions and alluded to having underworld contacts who liked small children, such as the two girls her father and his new wife had birthed. She wouldn't allow anything to happen to those children. And with her father in a close campaign race for a high position in the French government, the scandal alone would cripple his career.
She'd been young and truly feared Roberto, afraid of how far he would go to get what he wanted.
Gabrielle would have fought Roberto if only her life and reputation had been at stake, but not her family's. And Roberto had garnered a list of prominent people who would vouch for him in a public venue. Her fault. She'd introduced him to the cream of London and Paris, all of whom believed he was a wonderful husband since she'd been raised to keep her personal life private. He was a rising star who wanted enough money and platinum contacts to shove him onto the big screen.
And he'd known she'd sacrifice all for those she loved.
She hadn't been planning her moves the way he had, hadn't been careful to protect herself against a monster. Gabrielle had brought him into her family's world, so she had to get him out. She swallowed her pride and agreed to his ultimatum, thinking money would get rid of him for good.
If she'd only known just how ruthless he could be, she'd have realized he would never be satisfied with a simple divorce settlement of $5 million.
Turning back from the window, she stared at her laptop, willing it to give her an answer. She fingered the oval locket dangling against her neck from a thin gold chain and checked the online site again.
Why wouldn't someone-such as the CIA-post the message on the bulletin board as she'd asked? So much for appreciating the risks she'd taken to feed a message into the right channels, key words included for a suspicious eye. Anyone in the intelligence community knew better than to let a pipeline to information dry up. She'd secretly helped other agencies in the past, but she wouldn't stick her neck out for the Americans again if they weren't going to do their part.
Mon Dieu! What was their problem?
Cuckoo...
Gabrielle jumped at the broken silence. She had to turn off that clock when she went to bed. She never slept in the afternoon, but her body begged for the reprieve right now. Rest hadn't been possible for the past fifty hours since receiving a postale card that almost stopped her heart in midbeat.
She rubbed her stomach where a mass of squirming nerves was doing a bang-up job of making her nauseous.
Maybe tea would settle her stomach.
Two days of sleep would do more good.
She scanned e-mails. Nothing, just mundane chatter that ranged from IT questions generated by articles she wrote anonymously for online publications to the rare personal e-mail.
Her gaze snagged on an e-mail from Fauteur de Trouble that read, "Call me soon-I'm being exiled and you're the only one who will understand..." Gabrielle smiled. Babette had chosen an apt electronic name. She was definitely a troublemaker, but in a lovable way. Gabrielle doubted drama queen Babette, one of Gabrielle's two half sisters from her father's second marriage, was truly being exiled.
More likely, the rebellious fourteen-year-old faced being sent to a relative's home for the holidays to give her father some peace. The headstrong teen was turning his hair gray, which Gabrielle found amusing.
Go Babette. Unfortunately for their father, he'd spawned another female who refused to be crammed into a mold and stamped out like a perfect child. That designation belonged to eleven-year-old Cora, Gabrielle's youngest half sister.
She hated that term-half sister. What was the other half? Both her sisters meant the world to her, regardless of the percentage of blood they shared. If it was safe to do so, Gabrielle would enjoy seeing her sisters more often.
She'd pretended to be a recluse, which her father interpreted as her never having got over her mother's death. She'd understood his confusion and grief, but was still hurt by how after the funeral he'd sent her to live in a school with strangers, rather than deal with a heartbroken child.
Gabrielle's first thought upon waking each morning in school was that her mother's killer walked free. Her second was a vow to assure that someday the Anguis paid for their crimes.
Gabrielle fingered the stiff postale card from Linette propped against her monitor base. She smiled at the memories that drifted through her mind of the young girl she'd met at the private school...Linette Tassone, her only family for several years. Who then vanished.
Where was her dearest friend now, and how had Linette known about this girl Mandy being kidnapped?
The photo of a palomino horse running free decorated the card front. Linette had loved horses, always dreamed of owning a ranch. But more than that reminder had been an absolute confirmation
the card came from Linette-the tiny handwritten words at the closing, bee happee, with the double e that had taken Gabrielle's breath.
She and Linette had agreed to only use bee happee in dire circumstances to assure the message came from one of them.
Gabrielle had laughed back then, calling the signature a secret handshake, but Linette loved the secrets they shared.
Good thing.
Anyone other than the two of them would likely dismiss the neatly written message as an odd language, not a code.
Gabrielle had started the whole code business, adding a cryptic word in each personal note to Linette, who quickly guessed the words, genius that she was. What else were two lost souls ignored by wealthy fathers supposed to do while huddled in their dorm room on holidays when most of the other students went home to their families?
The old fifteenth-century castle that housed their school in Carcassonne, France, had been torn from the pages of a fairy tale, with precious tapestries, exquisite Louis XV bedroom furniture in the dorms, and gourmet delicacies prepared by chefs. She and Linette had giggled their way through the first quarter, accepting the rigid security as necessary for their protection.
Life seemed pretty ideal until Linette disappeared along with all of her personal belongings just before her seventeenth birthday.
No one answered Gabrielle's questions until her persistence landed her in the dean of women's office, where she was warned of disciplinary action if she mentioned Linette Tassone to the staff again. From then on the fairy-tale castle's stone walls had felt cold and suffocating as a prison. No wonder she'd been so easily duped by a charmer. She'd been alone so long she'd been easy prey.
For eleven years she'd searched, wondering what had really happened to Linette, unwilling to believe the story Senor Tassone had told about his daughter.
But how could she argue with no evidence to the contrary?
She'd finally buried the memories, accepting that she'd never again have anyone she could trust like Linette. Until this card arrived. Gabrielle might not be able to help Linette, yet, but she wouldn't let her dear friend down in the meantime.
She flipped the card over, decoding the first line again.