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“Then I suggest you disappear. We’ll track the locals’ investigation. In the meantime you need to maintain your cover.”
Devlin acknowledged the order but threw a regretful glance along the shoreline. He hated to leave with so many unanswered questions. Not to mention a very curvy, very delectable female who sounded as though she was in dire need of male companionship.
So long, Blondie. Sorry to leave you with this mess.
An hour later Liz wished fervently she’d high-tailed it back to town instead of calling the local gendarmes. They were hardly CSI types.
The first officer on the scene had poked at the body with the toe of his boot, tugged on plastic gloves and shooed away the crabs. After feeling around in the victim’s pockets, he extracted some objects and entered a sort of inventory in a notebook before ambling over to Liz.
She told him what happened. He made a few more notes and asked her if she knew the deceased. She didn’t.
About that time, Subcommandante Carlos Rivera and the crime scene unit arrived. Liz waited while the inspector studied the corpse and conferred with the uniformed officer. Finally he turned his attention to her. Slowly and methodically, he went over every word of her statement. Such as it was.
“You say you do not know the identity of the man who has been shot?”
“No, I don’t.”
“What about this Americano? The one you say appeared out of the darkness?”
“I don’t know his identity, either.”
“Yet you spoke with him.”
Liz had done more than speak with the guy. She’d responded to the laughter in his voice and that damned grin and let the man get close enough to touch her. Worse, she’d wanted him to touch her. Okay, more than touch her. She’d actually entertained notions of rolling around in the surf with him. How stupid was that?
Too stupid to admit to Subcommandante Rivera.
“We only exchanged a few words,” she muttered.
The inspector nodded, his face grave beneath the visor of his cap. “Perhaps you will be so kind as to explain again what brought you to such an isolated spot at this late hour.”
Liz dragged a hand through her cropped hair. She’d gone through this with the first officer on the scene. It didn’t sound any better the second time around.
“I received news that upset me. I needed to vent.”
“And you could not do this in Piedras Rojas, where you live?”
After receiving Donny’s e-mail, Liz had thought about stopping by her favorite cantina in town and drinking herself into a stupor. But she had a flight tomorrow morning. Her training and professionalism went too deep to climb into a cockpit hung over. Since the small, sleepy village of Piedras Rojas offered no other outlet for her anger, she’d headed for the beach some miles south of town.
Piedras rojas. Red stones. When the sun sank toward the sea and set the cliffs along this stretch of coast aflame, there wasn’t a more awesome sight anywhere in the world. The other twenty-three and a half hours of the day, dust swirled, trees drooped, and the locals baked in the unrelenting heat.
For all these months Liz had ignored the dust and the heat and the flies and socked away every peso she earned ferrying crews out to and back from the offshore drill site. She and Donny had talked about purchasing a fleet of helos and starting their own charter service. Anxious to make the dream a reality, Liz had used her savings as collateral and taken out a loan for deposit on their first bird. The sleek little Sikorsky single-pilot craft had a Rolls Royce turbine engine, a 2,000-pound load capacity and the best auto-rotational characteristics of any helicopter flying today.
Now her savings were gone, she’d have to forfeit the nonrefundable deposit and she still had to make good on the damned loan. Pissed all over again, Liz shoved her fists into the pockets of her cutoffs.
“No, I couldn’t work off steam in town. Look, Subcommandante, I’ve told you everything I know. Are we done here?”
“We are done. For now.”
“Fine. I’ll head back to town.”
With a curt nod, she turned and plowed through the dunes. Talk about your all-around crappy nights! This one ranked right up there with the night she’d said goodbye to Donny. Liz had dreaded another long separation. He’d seemed eager to return to Malaysia and finish out his contract. Too eager, she now knew. He wanted to get back to Bambang.
Bambang. God!
Liz shoved her Jeep into gear, slinging mental arrows at her former fiancé. To her surprise, she had trouble putting a face on the target. The tall, lanky American who’d appeared out of the night seemed to have crowded Donny out of her head. No wonder! The man had shaved a good five years off her life popping up like that.
If and when she met up with him again, Mr. No-Name would have to answer a few pointed questions. Like why he’d been out here at the beach so late at night. And why he’d disappeared. And whether he knew who had put a bullet into the dead man’s skull.
As Liz navigated the narrow road that led up from the beach and along the rocky cliffs, the questions buzzed around inside her head like pesky flies.
They were still buzzing the next morning when she pulled into the small regional airport that serviced the resorts springing up along this stretch of the Mexican Riviera.
The temperature was already climbing toward the predicted high of one hundred plus. Liz threw a glance at the wind sock drooping in the heat above the building that served as both terminal and tower and knew she’d be swimming inside her flight suit by the time she returned from her run. Sighing, she retrieved her flyaway bag from the passenger seat.
The corrugated tin Quonset hut that constituted Aero Baja’s hangar and operations center occupied a patch of rock-and cactus-studded red dirt to the left of the terminal. Liz was one of three Aero Baja helicopter pilots under contract to the American-Mexican Petroleum Company to ferry crews and supplies to the giant rig forty miles off the coast. All of the pilots were qualified in a variety of craft, but their platform here at Piedras Rojas was the Bell Ranger 412.
The Ranger sat on the red dirt pad, being prepped by Aero Baja’s chief mechanic. This particular model had been configured for over-water operations by a single pilot, could carry up to fourteen passengers and cruised at 120 knots. The aircraft was almost as old as Liz. Thankfully, it had been updated with two GPS receivers, a new altimeter and a marine band radio in addition to the usual UHF, VHF and HF radios. It looked and handled like a mosquito on a leash after the heavily armed, superpowered choppers Liz had flown in the air force, but she’d gotten used to its aerodynamics and thoroughly enjoyed taking it up.
The mechanic prepping the Ranger had seen as much service as the aircraft itself. Retired after thirty-plus years with the Mexican air force, Jorge Garcia could take the Ranger apart and put it back together in his sleep.
Liz had formed a close friendship with the affable, mustachioed mechanic during her months in Mexico. She couldn’t count the number of beers they’d shared after work or the meals his wife, Maria, had fed her. Hefting her flight bag, Liz joined him on the pad.
“Buenos días, Jorge.”
“Buenos días, Lizetta.”
His pet name for her usually produced a smile. Liz had to work to dredge one up this morning. She was gritty-eyed after the late-night session on the beach and still steaming over Donny’s betrayal.
“Is the Ranger ready to fly?”
Grinning, Jorge patted the helicopter’s fuselage with a callused palm. “She is.”
Stowing her bag in the cockpit, Liz did a careful walk-around. The American-Mexican Petroleum Company was paying her serious bucks to ferry its cargo and crews. She took her responsibilities to AmMex and to her passengers seriously. Before transporting anything or anyone out to the patch, as they referred to the monster rising up out of the sea, she made sure her craft was airworthy.
Jorge followed, marking off the checklist items as Liz completed them. They had worked their way from the rear rotor to the main-engine driveshaft before Liz dropped a casual question.
“Did you hear any rumors about some trouble last night?”
There hadn’t been any mention of a shooting in Piedras Rojas’ morning newspaper. Probably because Piedras Rojas didn’t have a newspaper, morning or otherwise.
“What kind of trouble?”
“Gunshots down at the beach just after midnight. A dead body, maybe.”
The mechanic’s eyes rounded above his bushy black mustache. “Are you saying you go to the beach after midnight?
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“It started out that way.”
“Ayyyy, Lizetta, that is not wise!”
She certainly couldn’t argue the point. Last night’s misadventure had driven home just how unwise.
Despite its slow pace and mañana approach to just about everything, Piedras Rojas was only a half-hour drive from La Paz, situated at the very tip of the Baja California peninsula. The city had become a major crime center since antidrug operations in the Caribbean had forced Colombian drug lords to shift their operations to the Pacific coast.
The cartels’ vehicle of choice for their smuggling trade was the Mexican tuna fleet that operated out of ports all along the coast. The tuna boats were fast, long-range clippers that could spend months at sea. In a good year the fleet generated approximately a hundred million dollars in tuna revenue. A single boat could carry a load of cocaine worth twice that. As a result, drugs, corruption and violence had become a part of life in this corner of the world.
“Then why do you go to the beach so late?” Jorge wanted to know.
“Donny sent me an e-mail.” The words tasted as sour as three-day-old frijoles. “He’s dumped me. Seems he’s fallen for a foreign news correspondent.”
The mechanic fired off a string of highly colorful Spanish. Liz caught only a few of the more exotic phrases, but they were enough to produce a reluctant smile.
“That was pretty much my reaction, too.”
Spitting out a final curse, Jorge squinted at her through the iridescent waves of heat rising from the dirt pad.
“Will you go back to the States now?”
“Maybe. I haven’t decided.”
“But the helo you have saved every peso to buy! The charter service you plan to start! You do not need this pig, this Donny. You can start your own company without him.”
Liz didn’t tell him about her now-empty bank account. No sense broadcasting her monumental stupidity in making Donny joint on her account when he’d somehow never got around to putting her on his.
Nor did she care to reveal that she didn’t have enough cash left to cover her rent, due tomorrow. She’d have to swallow her pride and ask the smarmy AmMex on-site rep for an advance on next month’s salary. Trying not to wince at the prospect, Liz repeated her often made promise.
“When I do open my own charter service, you will most definitely be my chief mechanic.”
“Bueno! We make a good team, yes?”
“That we do.”
Satisfied, Jorge returned his attention to the pre-flight checklist. While he inspected the main driveshaft forward coupling for grease leakage, Liz checked the engine inlet and plenum to make sure they were clear of obstructions. The rumble of an approaching vehicle announced the arrival of their passengers.
The bus pulled up at the terminal and a half-dozen men filed into the building. Liz went back to the pre-flight inspection, knowing it would take the sleepy-eyed terminal official a good half hour to search the crew members’ bags for drugs and alcohol, weigh both men and luggage and show them a video explaining the safe boarding and ditching of a helicopter at sea. The video would play twice, once in English, once in Spanish. Hopefully, the non-English-, non-Spanish-speaking crewmen would get the idea from the video.
When the crew filed out of the terminal, Liz pasted on a smile and went to double-check their IDs against the manifest provided by AmMex. Like most of the men working the big rigs, these were a mixed bag of nationalities and skills.
A big, beefy Irish driller led the pack. A Filipino welder followed, then a Mexican radio operator and two Venezuelan cooks. When the last passenger stepped forward, Liz read off his name from the manifest.
“Devlin, Joe.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The slow drawl brought her head whipping up. “It’s you!”
He responded to that with the same wolfish grin he’d given her last night. “Yes, ma’am.”
Two
Devlin waited while a variety of expressions flickered across the face of the woman OMEGA had ID’d as Elizabeth Moore. He’d spent most of what was left of the night after the fiasco on the beach assimilating the background data headquarters had assembled on her.
He had to admit the info was pretty impressive. After completing USAF flight school at the top of her class, Moore had opted to fly rotary wing aircraft because that’s what her father had flown during his long and distinguished military career. Brigadier General Moore had died of a massive coronary less than a year after his daughter pinned on her wings, but she’d lived up to both his name and his reputation as a crack pilot. She’d spent four years inserting special-ops teams into particularly nasty spots all over the globe before leaving the military with the announced intention of opening her own charter service.
Unfortunately for her, Captain Moore’s smarts didn’t extend to her choice in men. According to OMEGA’s hastily assembled dossier, she’d fallen for a jerk by the name of Donald Carter and let him talk her into taking this boring, if highly lucrative, job as a contract pilot in Mexico while he did his thing in Malaysia. In recent months said jerk had reportedly been getting his rocks off with a Malaysian newswoman.
It didn’t take a NASA engineer to fit the pieces together. Obviously, Moore had just found out about her fiancé’s affair. Just as obviously, she’d gone to the beach last night determined to flush the bastard out of her system.
Devlin wished to hell he’d been able to help with the flushing. The woman looked even better in the bright light of day than she had in the glow of the moon, and she’d looked damned good then! Her zippered flight suit didn’t display her long, sexy legs the way her cutoffs had, but the tan fabric hugged her curves very nicely. Very nicely indeed. Devlin almost hated to depart for the oil rig.
Assuming he did depart. The issue looked doubtful at the moment, judging by the suspicion in Moore’s brown eyes.
“Jorge!” Her face tight, she called to a mechanic in grease-stained overalls. “Get our passengers briefed and strapped in. Devlin, you come with me.”
She shoved the clipboard at the crew chief and stalked toward the corrugated tin hangar. Devlin followed, eyeing her trim behind with real appreciation.
“In here.”
She led the way into an office with a beat-up metal desk, a single file cabinet and an ancient air conditioner rattling in the window. The walls were decorated with the usual clutter seen in operations shacks around the world. Weather updates. Flight schedules. Area NOTAMs. A fly-specked calendar depicting a luscious Miss May falling out of a blouse unbuttoned almost to her navel.
Devlin spared Miss May only a passing glance. Ms. Moore held his full attention. Her blunt-cut hair swirled in a silky arc as she slammed the door behind them and spun around.
The woman didn’t waste time. Spearing him with a narrow-eyed stare, she launched a direct attack. “What were you doing on the beach last night?”
Devlin had anticipated this meeting since learning Moore’s identity and had his cover ready. Luckily, it fit him like a second skin. Born and raised amid the oil fields of Oklahoma, he’d worked his way up from mud man to pipe handler to site supervisor. Along the way he’d accumulated undergraduate and graduate degrees in petroleum engineering and drilled holes in every ocean floor from the Gulf of Aden to the Bering Strait.
He’d also racked up a brief marriage and quick divorce. Candace had insisted his pay and benefits compensated for the long separations, but had soon gone looking for other distractions. Devlin didn’t blame her. Divorce was an occupational hazard in his line of work.
His life had become even more erratic after he’d joined the OMEGA team. Nick Jensen, aka Lightning, had recruited him just months after terrorists blew up an American-operated rig in international waters off the coast of Kuwait. Devlin had lost friends in that explosion and had jumped at the chance to use his civilian cover as a means of bringing the murdering bastards to justice.
Now another friend had disappeared. A close friend. And a real badass who specialized in transporting underage aliens across the border to sell into sexual slavery had been picked up while using Harry Johnson’s passport and ID. Law enforcement officials from a dozen different agencies had grilled the imposter but didn’t get much. Turned out he’d never met the man who’d supplied the stolen documents. They’d been left at a designated drop site after the recipient had deposited a hefty sum in the same location.
Nor had Harry’s body ever been recovered. All his fiancée knew, all anyone knew, was that Harry had disappeared after rotating off an AmMex oil rig, and someone using his passport had popped up on U.S. customs screens a few weeks later. What little intelligence OMEGA had been able to gather indicated the brains behind the ring supplying stolen passports operated out of this general vicinity. Devlin fully intended to nail the bastard. He wouldn’t let anyone—Captain Moore included—jeopardize this mission.
Hitching a hip on the desk, he responded to her sharp question with a deliberate combination of fact and fiction. “I went to the beach last night to meet someone.”
That part was true. What came next wasn’t.
“He said he had a onetime good deal for me on personal gear for use on the rig.”
“Why didn’t he come to your hotel in to conduct this sale?”
“My guess is he lifted the equipment from a roustabout, either on the rig or after he came off.”
