“Did Wade Patterson arrange this?” Kat asked, suspicious.
“Who?” He sounded genuinely surprised, like he didn’t recognize the name and Wade truly wasn’t involved.
“Forget it. How did you learn I was here?”
“Communication between Gonzales and his men. We’ve been monitoring him whenever we could. He said you’d arrived at the airport in Santa Marta, but before his men could pick you up, you had left.” The sergeant squirmed a little. “Ma’am, the major won’t like it if he learns I’ve talked to you.”
“Major?”
“Singleterry, ma’am.”
“Roger,” she said under her breath. He had been having her watched, followed, and was using her as bait without her knowledge and without an Army paycheck to make the job worthwhile this time?
“Well,” Sergeant Stratton licked his lips and said, “we lost you in the jungle. You just vanished. We didn’t know where you’d gone. Gonzales’s men couldn’t find you. And…” He looked at Connor and then fixed his gaze on Kat. “Strange things happened.”
“Strange things?” She was getting an uneasy feeling about this. What if someone in the Army had spotted them shifting at some point?
“Yeah. Villagers were talking about a jaguar god. Gonzales’s men began communicating with Gonzales, saying that they’d found you in the jungle, but the men sent out there to pick you up vanished without a trace.”
“Really,” Kat said, figuring that was when Manuel and the first bunch of brigands had come after them in the jungle.
“But we couldn’t get hold of the coordinates. Later, more communications from Gonzales’s men said they had found you with a man and woman at another location. Gonzales’s men were discovered in the same vicinity… all dead.”
So the Army hadn’t been there watching every move Kat and Connor and Maya had made. Relieved to an extent, she took a hesitant breath.
The sergeant chewed on his lip again but didn’t look at Connor. “The men said whoever used the techniques to kill Gonzales’s other men had to be a highly skilled spec ops man. Gonzales was pissed.”
“Hmm,” Kat said.
Sergeant Stratton cleared his throat. “More bodies were found a few hours ago after transmission abruptly ended between Gonzales’s men and the team that had been sent in to retrieve you. We caught the part about them having lost you at a village but having found the man and woman you had been traveling with. They planned to take them hostage to learn where you’d gone.” He swallowed hard. “They said the couple was traveling with a jaguar.”
“The jaguar god, no doubt,” Kat said, folding her arms.
“Yeah, well, when we finally found the location and arrived on the scene, we thought we’d discover men with bite marks if the man and woman had trained the jaguar to kill people.”
“Get real. A trained jaguar killer?”
“Major Singleterry had talked to an animal behaviorist who said that wild cats could be trained to an extent, but they were unpredictable and could just as easily turn on their trainer.”
Good, so that ruled out the killer jaguar, hopefully. “And you discovered I was here, how?”
“Gonzales’s men have a tracking device on your rented car. So do we.” He looked at Connor, this time as if to ask why he wouldn’t have known that, since he was a special ops guy. “But we… ran into a bit of a detour and couldn’t get to you in time before you had the last run-in.”
“So when Gonzales arrives here to pick Kathleen up, you’re going to take him down, right, Sergeant?” Connor asked, his voice dark, his expression darker.
“Yes… yes, sir.”
“Good. Nice to know our tax dollars are at work. And next time, don’t even think of using Kat as bait.”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir.” The sergeant said, “About the jaguar…” He let his words trail off.
Kat gave him a shake of her head. “Amazing. What tales will people come up with next?”
Connor hauled Kat off toward the elevator before the sergeant could ask her another question. “Damn it to hell,” Connor grumbled under his breath as he led Kat back up to their room.
“Gonzales will know which rooms we’re staying in, won’t he?” she asked, concerned all over again.
“Most likely, and you better believe we’ll be saving our necks again all on our own,” Connor said as they rode the elevator up.
“Maya,” Kat said, fearing for her safety. She tugged Connor out of the elevator and down the hall toward their rooms.
They moved at a rush but as quietly as they could. When they reached Maya’s door, the first room before their own, they listened.
They heard nothing, and Kat thought Maya might be napping before their long night flight. But still they waited. What if Gonzales’s men were in the room? What if they were in Kat and Connor’s room? Waiting to ambush them?
Connor took Kat’s hand and walked her back to the emergency stairs. What was he up to? Kat didn’t want to leave Maya in the terrorists’ hands for even a second, if that was the case. She knew from personal experience what that could mean.
Connor pulled out his cell phone and punched a button. “Maya?”
“Yeah, Connor. I saw you and Kat checking out the Internet. Did you learn anything important about that Wade Patterson?” Kat could hear his sister say as she spoke loudly over the phone, with splashing and the sound of kids shouting in play in the background.
Ignoring his sister’s question, Connor said, “They’ve been tracking us. Gonzales’s men. Are you in your room?”
“No. I’m downstairs checking out the pool. I was thinking of going for a swim, but… are they here already?”
“The U.S. Army is. Or at least a sergeant. I don’t think he can protect us from the bad guys. Have you got your stuff?”
“You mean my important papers? Yeah, always with me.”
“We’re next to the stairwell by our rooms. They could be lying in wait in either of our rooms. Meet us in the lobby.”
Kat rubbed her arms as Connor ended the call.
“My wallet, passport, credit card, driver’s license, everything I need to travel is in my backpack in the room.”
Connor ran his hand over her back and kissed her cheek. “It’s all right, Kat. We didn’t hear anyone in the rooms. You stay here, and I’ll return to get your bag.”
No way was she going to let him walk into a possible ambush without helping him in some way. “We stay together.”
“Kat—”
“No, Connor. I got both you and Maya into this mess. We’re going together.”
She could tell Connor wasn’t taking her anywhere near the rooms as he steadily looked at her, not moving an inch.
“We’re civilians. Let the sergeant and whoever else is supposed to be here getting ready to take Gonzales down make sure that the rooms are clear. Come on,” he said.
He grabbed her arm and was heading for the elevator… when it dinged. For a moment, he stood frozen and glanced at the stairs. She knew he was thinking maybe they should go down that way instead. The elevator door slid open.
“Gonzales,” Kat said under her breath, seeing the man dressed in a suit, his dark brown beard shorn, his hair longer than she remembered it, his nearly black eyes taking her in… and then recognition dawned.
He didn’t have any of his guerillas with him, thank God, and she moved with jaguar swiftness before he or Connor could even react. Part of it was her Army training, to take him while he was off guard before he could pull out a weapon and have the advantage. Part of it had to be due to her jaguar senses—smelling the threat, having to respond to it, and not backing down.
Gonzales reached under his suit coat, but it was already too late. Kat grabbed his arms, kicked her leg behind his, and shoved him hard. He fell on his back, spewing a slew of curses.
Connor was on top of him after that, disarming him, flipping him over, and pinning his arm high enough that if he tried to move at all, Connor wouldn’t hesitate to brea
k it.
Kat slipped Connor’s phone out of his pocket, found Maya’s name in the address book, and called her. “Find the sergeant in the lobby, Sergeant Stratton. Tell him we have the man he’s been after, but we have the elevator blocked so he’ll have to use the stairs. And hurry. Some of his thugs might be in our rooms waiting for him. And for us.”
The sergeant took forever to reach them, but he had called in backup before he arrived.
Kat felt a unique camaraderie with the Army soldiers who swarmed up the stairs. And felt relief that her and Connor and Maya’s part in this was over.
The U.S. soldiers were complemented by Colombian soldiers stationed near Bogotá who had been trained by the United States in pursuing and taking down men like Gonzales. Members of the Colombian National Police guerrilla unit, the Junglas, who are based in Bogotá, were also on hand.
The drug lord and some of his men who had been waiting in Maya and Connor and Kat’s rooms were quickly taken away by the Colombian officials while Kat and Connor retrieved their bags and promptly moved to another hotel.
***
Without further trouble and two hours before their midnight flight home, Kat and Connor and Maya sat waiting in the very high-tech and modern Bogotá airport after going through numerous checkpoints. As they watched passengers scurrying through the airport, Kat noted the high level of security and took a deep breath. Outside, tanks were lined up along the runway, since a military base was situated right there. She wondered what would happen if she shifted in the middle of all this scrutiny.
Disaster.
Each of them prayed that Kat didn’t get the urge to shift. Kat was feeling great, though. She felt some satisfaction in having taken Gonzales down after he had murdered her team. Although Connor said she had nearly given him a heart attack when she rushed to take the drug warlord down and she wasn’t ever to do anything that rash again. She had just given Connor a smile and a hug, and he’d nearly crushed the breath out of her.
She was relieved that Gonzales couldn’t come after her any longer. But most of all, if they could make it home without her shifting, she was looking forward to being home, somewhere she could settle down with a man who would be her husband and his sister who would also be her own.
The call for boarding began, and with some trepidation, Kat strode to the back of the plane where their seats were located.
The problem with the seating in the back was that the location of the restrooms make it a heavy traffic area. Also, the seats didn’t recline, and they were narrower. But still, there were no seats behind them, and the remaining seats in the last row were empty. So Connor and Kat took the window and aisle seats on the right side of the plane, and Maya had the aisle seat on the left side.
Because the plane took off at midnight and the flight was only five hours, the lights were turned down low, and pillows and blankets offered. Then everyone settled down to sleep. Hopefully no one would get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom, in the event that Kat shifted.
Of course, she would have to shift. It was inevitable.
***
Connor knew they wouldn’t be safe until he had Kat in his Suburban at the Houston airport and they were well on their way home. But three hours into their flight, when he saw her pull her blanket onto her lap and heard her unzipping her pants underneath the soft brown fabric, he knew the worst was about to happen.
She didn’t look panicked in the least, just resigned to making the most of it. And for that, he was proud of her. He looked up to see that the flight attendants were seated and no one was moving about in the cabin. Everyone was asleep.
Maya was soon alerted to Kat’s difficulty as Kat pulled her blanket higher and wriggled out of her shirt and bra.
Connor and Maya watched Kat to see her progress and kept an eye on the walkway in case anybody began to move about the cabin. The thrum of the plane’s engines seemed almost as noisy as the jungle as Kat sat next to the window, her blanket up to her neck. She wasn’t shifting.
Was it like before? When she was in the tree and couldn’t shift? That could be a good thing.
Snuggling under the blanket, she smiled at him and Maya, then closed her eyes. He pulled Kat down so she rested her head in his lap and made sure his blanket and hers covered her nakedness sufficiently. He even drifted off, but twenty minutes later, he felt her shift, felt the weight of her body and the size of her head increase, the change in the way she breathed, kind of a purring sound.
Maya was watching Kat, too, but they couldn’t do anything about it. They had one hour and forty minutes left before they landed. The announcement would be made before that and passengers would begin to stir. Refreshments would be served. Tray tables replaced, seat belts refastened. And then the descent.
They had maybe one hour left before all that came to pass. After that, if Kat still hadn’t shifted, they were in trouble.
***
Kat felt more comfortable sleeping on the seats, her head in Connor’s lap, while she dreamed of marrying Connor in a superquick and simple way. She didn’t need Connor to make a fancy proposal. She certainly didn’t want any huge wedding when she didn’t know anyone. Nor could she comfortably have a large wedding where she suddenly might shift while walking down the aisle in a gown fit for a princess.
She needed to say she would marry him, though.
She stretched out, realized she wasn’t extending her human limbs, and her eyes popped open. Omigod, how did she shift again without knowing it?
She lifted her head and looked up at Connor. He leaned down and kissed her furry muzzle.
“I love you, you know?” he said, smiling.
She shook her head, not believing he didn’t mind. Why hadn’t she had any prior warning before shifting? Automatically, she tried to sit up.
“Stay down, honey,” he whispered, and she realized it would be easier for him to cover up what she was if she continued to lie on the seats.
She really had thought it would be like the time in the tree when she didn’t shift. She wanted to pace, hoping she would shift before it was too late. Connor and Maya were keeping their cool, acting as though it was no big deal and that everything would work out as it was supposed to. But she couldn’t help the anxiety racing through her blood.
The noise of the engines droned on as the cabin remained dark, the sky black outside the windows, the passengers sleeping, and no one walking down the aisle to use the restroom.
For the moment, she felt safe. Furry and bigger, rebellious in a small way, and even amused in an alarmed sort of way. She knew that if anyone found her like this, she and Maya and Connor would be in real trouble.
She began telling herself that it was time to shift now. Then she heard someone moving along the aisle, headed for the bathroom. Connor immediately covered her head with Maya’s blanket.
Now she was hot. She listened for the door to the restroom to open, shut, the toilet to flush, the door to open, shut, and the passenger to move back down the aisle. When she figured he had moved far enough away—she could tell by his hefty cologne that the passenger was a male—Connor pulled the blanket off her. She was panting.
As a naked human, the blankets had been perfect. But in her jaguar coat, she definitely didn’t need them.
Another passenger headed down the aisle, and Kat gave a muffled groan. A creaky serving cart made its way to the back of the plane. So not good. Announcements that refreshments were being served and that the plane would soon be descending made Kat’s heart pound with increased concern. As another passenger drew near, Connor covered Kat’s head again.
Okay, shift! Even if she did manage to shift, then what? She would be trying to get dressed while people were making their way to the bathroom for their morning pit stop.
“Anything to drink?” the flight attendant asked.
“Orange juice,” Connor said. “Two.”
Now why would he do that? It would mean bringing down the seat-back tray, and she would have even more di
fficulty trying to shift and change.
But when the cart was in the aisle, the flight attendant told a passenger, “If you’ll wait until we’re done serving snacks, you can move about the cabin then.”
Good. The cart was moving back up the plane’s aisle away from them, and the passengers would be blocked from…
Another passenger headed for the restroom. Oh, yeah, except for all the seats that had already been served and were now on this side of the cart.
Kat thought she would die from heat exhaustion. Cats didn’t sweat, so the only option for her was to pant and wish she could go for a swim to cool off.
Next came the announcement for the pickup of trash, setting trays in their upright position, pulling seat backs forward from the reclining position, and refastening seat belts. At least everyone was seated and not coming to the back anymore. But the worst was that she felt the plane descending.
Connor had again removed the blanket from her head, but she was still feeling terribly hot when the plane landed with a thud. Her heart hit the pavement, too, as she realized she wasn’t going to make it in time to shift and dress.
She tried to sit up, the natural instinct to see what was going on. But Connor encouraged her to keep her head down.
The plane was still taxiing toward the airport.
Shift. Shift.
The plane came to a halt. Oh, God, everyone was going to look over their seat backs and see her.
But no one was in the seats directly in front of theirs, and as soon as the Fasten Seat Belt light went off, people were busy standing and getting their bags from the overhead bins. The place was chaos, and no one could see her in the farthest seat back. Maya was standing with her bag and Kat’s, blocking the aisle in front of the last row of seats.
“We’re okay, Kat,” Connor said, rubbing her head and speaking in a reassuring manner.
Easy for him to say. He was human!
Chapter 29
The plane’s passenger door opened in hot, muggy Houston. The floor of the plane rumbled while the door to the baggage compartment banged open and the baggage handlers began off-loading the luggage. They created such a racket that they reminded Kat of the advertisement showing gorillas handling the luggage.