Chapter Twenty-seven
Alana kept screaming like she’d fired a bullet right into Mal’s heart. Fortunately, he’d knocked the gun from her hand before she had. But the bullet had taken a bite out of his shoulder, sending white-hot waves of pain to his brain.
“Shut up,” Mal ordered, grabbing the weapon when she dropped it. “We’re going outside.”
“To the prison, Mal, please! I am so sorry I shot you, but—”
He yanked her toward the door, half expecting it to fly open any second. There was no way Chessie would stay put after hearing a gunshot, and he wouldn’t want her to. Trained or not, instinct would kick in, and she’d be here in…
Why wasn’t she here? He’d expect her to ignore his orders now. “You have a computer here, Alana?”
“No. At work.”
“Then we’ll drive to the plane and get the one we left there. Chessie can fix this.” If she didn’t hate him too much.
“She is a nurse?”
“Better.” He kept a good grip on Alana as he opened the door. Drummand had stolen the money! And if they could trace the original stolen funds, they could prove that.
Chessie could prove that. So where the hell was she?
And then he knew. She’d gone to the field. She’d heard Alana say where he was and…damn it. He wasn’t there to comfort her. Giving up on dragging Alana, he jogged toward the bushes where he’d left her.
“Chessie?” he called, the pain in his body suddenly numbed by concern. “Are you out here?”
He rounded the bushes and peered into the darkness of the tiny family graveyard that he’d often visited with the Cevallos kids. But she wasn’t there.
“Chessie?” He pulled the small flashlight from his pocket, shining the beam on the half-dozen little stones, catching a reflection of glass on the ground.
His heart dropped as he walked closer, turning the light to illuminate the names and dates of members of Alana’s family.
And then he found the glass. No, glasses. And next to that, the pistol he’d given her. They rested against a stone that read Gabriel Rafael Rossi Winter Cevallos 29 junio 2011—7 febrero 2013.
He scooped up the glasses and gun, his worst fears realized. “Someone took her. He took her.”
“It was Drummand,” Alana said, running toward him. “He probably followed me here. He wants you. He wants the money, Mal. He’s desperate.”
He just stared at her, putting it all together. He pointed the pistol at the detainee van. “Let’s go. I’ll hide in the hot box, and you drive like your life depends on it, Alana, because it does.”
“I will, I will, Mal.” She reached for him, tears streaking her face. “I am scared for my children. And you helped me once.”
“Don’t let those morons at the gate stop you.” He swung open the back door and climbed into the tiny box where they stashed detainees when they’d moved them around the prison. He folded himself in half to fit.
His arm stung like hell, but what hurt the most was his heart. He wasn’t going to quit until he found her, saved her, and told her she was right about everything. He held on to her glasses in one hand, the gun in the other, and closed his eyes.
In the dark, dank box, bleeding and sweating and clunking along the rutted road, all Mal could think about was hope.
Define hope, his brain screamed.
Hope was Francesca Rossi at his side. Hope was happiness, and they were all intertwined. He just had to keep himself—and her—alive long enough to share that.
* * *
She needed a plan.
Well, she needed her glasses more than anything, but as Chessie drove the little car down a deserted road for what felt like forever, she was certain she could ignore her pounding headache if she had a plan of attack.
Only, she had nothing but a gun in her side and a blur in her line of vision.
“So you know my brother,” she said conversationally, hoping to distract him.
“He worked for me.”
Really. “Yeah, I heard you were a dick.”
“You heard right. Shut up and drive.”
After that, he was dead silent, except for his heavy breathing, dividing his attention between her and the road, speaking only to warn her of an oncoming truck, which even a blind woman could see.
She stole another look at the man next to her, a hundred questions bouncing around in her head. She might not escape, but she could ferret out some information that could help her when they got to wherever they were going. If she didn’t accidentally drive them into a tree before then.
“So why do you hate Mal so much? He really is a nice guy, you know.”
He slammed her with a dirty look. “Is your whole fucking family like this?”
“Way worse. My cousin Zach? A one-eyed monster.”
After a minute, he shifted in his seat. “I don’t hate him.”
She snorted. “You want him in jail or dead. You send people after him to bug his hotel rooms. You have him looking over his shoulder every minute so he can’t live a normal life.” She fired a look at him. “Sounds hateful.”
“Watch the road.”
“I can’t see the road.”
“Pothole ahead.”
“Welcome to rural Cuba,” she said, the echo of Mal’s words and dry attitude making her chest pang with how much she wanted to see him again.
She avoided the deep rut at the last second, seeing little more than a dark spot in the headlight beam. What would happen if the little car fell into one of those holes? That might work as a plan. At least it would delay things and require help.
Or he’d shoot her and run.
“Mal has something I want,” he said. “And with your help, I’m going to get it.”
Something he wanted. She thought about that like a line of unfinished code, filling in the ones and zeros for an answer. Which, honestly, wasn’t that hard to figure out. “Money.”
She felt him look hard at her, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he gestured toward the road. “Watch out for that one!”
She drove straight toward the massive pothole, gritting her teeth for the impact, but Drummand swung the wheel at the last minute and they missed. Shit.
He jabbed her side with the gun. “Don’t fuck with me, Francesca. I have no qualms about killing you in Alana Cevallos’s car on the side of the road. Nothing would happen to me, and she’d suffer the consequences.”
And her kids would be orphans—the very thing Mal gave up four years of his life to avoid.
She glanced in the rearview when something flashed, catching the headlights of another vehicle behind them. Maybe she could intentionally have an accident?
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded.
“A place we call Gitmo.”
She was going to Guantanamo Bay? “Why?”
“So you can do what you do, Francesca. Hack into a computer and move some funds back to where they belong.”
The car—no, a truck—was catching up, going at least ten miles an hour faster, but she couldn’t see well enough to really judge how close it was. Maybe if she went really slowly, he’d pass, and she could swing out and cause a collision.
Her side of the car would take the worst of that hit. Still, it was something. She lifted her foot off the accelerator very slowly, praying Drummand wouldn’t notice. A little more. The truck gained on them.
She didn’t dare hit the brakes—he’d know exactly what she was doing. She had to distract him.
“What funds? Move them from where?”
“My funds. Mal Harris’s account.”
She was off the gas completely now. “What?”
“It would be better if he did it with his fingerprint, his password, but that won’t prevent you from getting my money, will it?”
“Your money? It belongs to the government.” Maybe if the truck hit them from behind… She had to keep Drummand thinking about something else. “And, as I understand it, that money was never found. It can’t be in
Mal’s account. Wouldn’t it have been recovered then?”
“Oh, we found it,” he said, a certain smugness in his voice. “Alana did her good deed and tried to pay him back for covering for me, but—hey!”
She hit the brakes as the truck behind them barreled closer. She braced for impact or the shot, whichever came first, but somehow the driver behind her veered sharply to the left and missed them. Drummand grabbed the wheel again, jerking it to the right and making her wrestle for control. The back spun one way, then the other, rolling into a gully off the road while the truck disappeared ahead of them.
“Damn it!” he screamed when they came to a stop, a good four feet lower than where they’d been. “What the fuck are you trying to prove?”
She blinked at him, the impact of the near miss hitting her brain almost as hard as his words. The ones spoken before the accident.
“Covering for you?” she asked in a hushed whisper. “Alana didn’t steal the money?”
“Of course not. She came in handy when I needed your hero Mal to take the blame. And now I need everyone to stop fucking around so I can get the money and fork it over to someone who’s threatening to ruin my life.” He looked around, carefully keeping the gun on her. “Now what the hell are we going to do?”
So he was being blackmailed. And he was desperate.
And then…her head cleared. Cleared and made way for a plan. Finally.
He wanted her to get into this bank account he thought was Mal’s and move the money. And until she did, he wouldn’t kill her. Even better, once she found the account…she might be able to clear Mal’s name.
That was a good plan. A great plan. Now she had to act, and she’d better nail the part.
Slowly she turned to him and lifted a brow. “I’ll drive if you push.”
“How stupid do you think I am?”
He only had to be stupid enough to let her hack bank accounts that could possible prove he was the embezzler, not Mal. And Mal could have his life back.
“Listen to me.” She cocked her head, channeling her inner badass, which, up until this week, she didn’t even know she had. “Let’s make a deal, Rog.”
Silent, he eyed her suspiciously.
“You need my services, pretty bad, as I understand it.”
His beady eyes narrowed even more, but he stayed quiet.
“And I need money. Let’s say…” How much would be enough to get him to say yes and trust her? “Ten thousand.” Before he could argue, she put her hand on his arm, hating the touch, but praying it could work. “Ten thousand transferred to my bank account, the rest to yours.”
Very slowly, he shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You’re fucking his lights out.”
Lovely. She gave a light laugh that was pure hope and great acting. “Rog.” She gave a put-upon sigh. “Do you really think I’m working for nothing? You really think I’m traipsing all over Cuba and spreading my legs every time he snaps his fingers because I need a good time?”
He just stared at her, definitely off-balance with this.
“That guy has been hiding cash for years. My brother told me all about it, and the day Mal Harris was out of prison, I went for him. You think we were in that airport together by accident? I knew he was coming to see my brother, and I zeroed right in on that poor deprived horn dog and played him like a fiddle.”
Okay, a little heavy on the clichés, but as his suspicious look morphed into admiration, Chessie powered on to close the deal.
“But now?” She pffft a disgusted breath. “Who needs him? We could be a good team.”
She stared at him, waiting. It felt like those suspended seconds when she’d type in a password and pray that it would work. When he didn’t respond, she tried one more time, tipping her head toward the back of the car. “You want to drive or push?”
“I’ll drive. You can’t get far on foot.”
“I’m going as far as the money, honey.” She reached for the door handle and opened it gingerly, half expecting to be shot. But he let her get out. She checked out the ground, which, thankfully, wasn’t muddy. She could push this car for Mal, couldn’t she?
She walked to the back of the car and watched Drummand maneuver his body into the driver’s seat. As she did, another vehicle came roaring toward them, easily doing ninety.
She looked up as it passed, and when she got a glimpse of the white van, her heart dropped as hard as the car had into the ditch. That was the van Alana Cevallos had driven to her house. The detainee van. It was headed back to Guantanamo. Mal was in that van. Alive and looking for her. She had to believe that.
She put her hands on the hatchback of the little Hyundai and gave a nod to Drummand, her new partner in crime. He revved the engine, and she pushed so hard her brain almost popped out.
Mal was on his way to Gitmo. He could die doing that—and he’d be doing it for her. She could do this for him. She would do anything for him.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The wound in Mal’s shoulder had him drifting in and out of reality. Images of Drummand and Chessie darkened his mind. A flash of a gravestone made things worse. His arm burned and his head throbbed with each crevice and rut the van clunked over.
And then he could smell Gitmo. At least, he recognized the scent of oily chicken and burned pizza, telling him they were on the two-mile avenue lined with fast-food joints that led to the main entrance.
He could remember the road clearly. They were probably passing the Navy Lodge Hotel with that pit of a bar called Windjammer. Or Cockjammer. Gabe used to call it that because of the distinct lack of women inside. Then the Navy Exchange. Walmart for sailors.
It was like Little America in the heart of Cuba, flanked by guard towers manned by some of the best snipers in the business. Not American snipers—Castro’s snipers, making sure none of the locals made it over the “border” and got into Gitmo safely.
The van slowed, he figured because they approached the main shack, an aluminum deal that used to be armed with rotating National Guardsmen armed with M16s and a few nine-millimeter pistols. Was it still? And would they search the van or let it through? Back in the day, they’d have searched.
But now, Gitmo was essentially a holding tank. And he had to hope they didn’t care about a secretary coming back to her office.
Sweat trickled down his temples and stung his eyes. It had to be a hundred degrees, even at night, in his hot box, but it wasn’t the heat or the pain of a bullet graze that had Mal sweating.
He was a convicted embezzler who, anyone who worked here believed, had siphoned off half a million dollars from the US government. Shoot on sight? Maybe not, but they’d throw his ass in a cell for trespassing a place he had no clearance to be.
But Mal didn’t care. He had to find Chessie.
If that asshole hurt her, if he so much as touched a hair on her head… Mal squeezed her glasses, still clutched in his hand, as the van came to a stop. He had to give them to her and hold her again. He had to do whatever was necessary to save her and…keep her.
Maybe he would let Gabe make up a new life for him. But she’d need one, too. And they’d have to live far from her family, and she would never do that.
Not even for him.
Maybe for him.
Had he lost his mind?
Though surrounded by metal, he could hear the exchange between Alana and the guard. A gruff, unfriendly man asking typical questions even though he had to know her. And Alana answering, light and quick, lying like a pro he knew she was. Not CIA, but damn good…unless her kids were in physical danger. Then she crumbled.
Finally, the van moved, and he closed his eyes, remembering the layout of the employee parking lot. She drove north, toward the admin offices. Camp Delta was off to the east, nearly empty now. He knew every cell in the place.
Camp No was just outside the northern perimeter, but still on American soil. In there was the CIA facility commonly known as Penny Lane, where so much torture had taken place. And beyond that,
in the darkest, farthest corner of the deepest secret in Gitmo, was the small group of cells he had guarded in his undercover role, where Gabe had lured terrorists to the other side, and where Roger Drummand had called the shots.
The van came to a halt, sudden and sharp, jerking his shoulder right into the iron wall that surrounded him. He sucked in a breath and touched the dried blood stuck to the wound. He was probably covered in blood, which made him hope to hell no one was around when he tried to get into wherever the hell she was taking him.
Hurry, Alana.
As if she’d read his mind, the back door of the van lifted up with a squeak, and she opened the hot box.
“I came around to the far side of admin,” she said. “No one is here, and I can get in the back door.”
He urged her toward the building. “Come on. I’m a blood-covered sitting duck out here. Where will he go?”
“My office.”
“And he’ll take Chessie there, because he probably knows damned well she has the ability to hack into a bank account.”
“She doesn’t have your fingerprint or password.”
“She doesn’t need either one.” They entered a dimly lit hall, a good fifty feet of offices away from the admin headquarters where Alana worked.
At the door of a kitchenette he gave her a nudge inside. “You’re staying here,” he told her, starting off.
“Mal! Wait!” She ripped a corner of a paper towel hanging on the wall and grabbed a pen from a cup on the counter. “The original account. Drummand’s account. If you ever get into it…” She scribbled something on the paper towel and shoved it into his hand. “Here’s the password.”
He took the paper, then checked to make sure the SIG’s safety was off and stuck the Glock from Ramos in the back of his jeans.
“Don’t leave this room,” he said as he left and headed down the hall, stopping at the door with Alana’s name on it. He pressed his ear and listened, hearing nothing. No keys clicking. No talking. No nothing.
Very slowly, he turned the lock and opened the door, his weapon poised to fire.