Page 18 of Dangerous Liaisons

Chapter Thirteen

The freight train made another pass over Jesse’s chest. She had seen the bodies. No survivors. The Professor had confirmed their deaths. How could she accept the man sitting across from her in the booth in a tiny upper Westchester diner as the only man who had survived the mission—the leader, no less? She did feel like she was having a heart attack or, at the very least, a stroke.

“Are you all right?” Cole asked, his brow furrowed in—what—concern for the woman who left him behind? Did they educate these guys at Julliard?

Jesse dropped her gaze to the bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup in front of her and picked up the spoon. “I’m all right.”

She ate a spoonful of the soup, then grimaced and pushed the bowl aside. There was no mistaking the tinny taste of cheap canned soup. These greasy diners loved to talk about home cookin’ but wouldn’t know a chicken breast from a chicken beak. Jesse signaled the passing waitress for a coffee refill.

The waitress refilled her cup with more of their poison, her attention on Cole the whole time. He didn’t give her a second glance. Jesse felt sure if he had asked for a refill, the waitress would have grabbed the fresh pot. She left, and Jesse tried hiding the taste of the coffee with the two per cent milk impersonating as half and half inside the dented stainless steel creamer. She took a sip and winced. Even worse than the first cup.

She rubbed her leg. The pain from the torn stitches had subsided, and the bandage they’d slapped on before leaving Rayburn’s place was holding up. She glanced down. No sign of blood on the chinos Cole had found at the doc’s. She looked up at him. Why hadn’t he killed her back there? He’d neutralized the guy she’d been beating when Lancelot got shot. Between Cole and the other guy, they could have knocked her senseless and dragged her anywhere they wanted. Hell, Cole could have snapped her arm, then her neck, when he had her on the ground.

“How did you get out of Colombia?” she asked.

Cole nodded like he knew she wasn’t buying. “Chiclayo is one of the smallest and most remote villages in the district. Intel reported fifteen huts, forty men.” He looked expectedly at her. She was, after all, intel.

Jesse nodded. “I dropped into the jungle at 2100 hours the night before, and reported the all clear at 0300 the following morning. In and out. OIA didn’t want to give Perez time to move Maria. I never sighted her, but that wasn’t surprising. If they had brought her into the open, it probably would have been to move her.”

“We moved in an hour before dawn,” Cole said.

Despite her efforts at neutrality, Jesse’s heart lurched. A quick mental calculation placed Green Team inside the village half hour after the Colombians shot Martinez. Green Leader had had plenty of time to abort the mission. She could have warned Green Team, if she hadn’t stopped to call headquarters.

“Robby and Benton took the north end of the village,” Cole went on. “That left me, Quinn, Salvador and Pete. Sal stuck with me, while Quinn hit the east, and Pete the west.” Cole paused, the muscles around his mouth tightening. “I’ve been on tougher missions. Came close to buying the farm a time or two. I’ve lost men, but never anything like this. Your recon gave the all clear, and we observed nothing suspicious. We went in, not expecting anything any trouble.”

Jesse didn’t flinch from his gaze.

The muscles in Cole’s cheeks flexed as he clamped his teeth together. “They must have gotten Robby and Benton first. No shots were fired, so the rest of us weren’t alerted.”

Robby and Benton had to be the two men she’d seen murdered. A lump formed in her throat. She took a sip of the coffee, despite knowing it was awful.

“The compound was fifty yards from our position,” Cole went on, “but the thick foliage made visibility, nil. I counted forty-two men in the village—two more than reported.

Jesse nodded. She’d made the count from the hill afterward. Not a single Colombian mercenary lost.

“They shot Quinn. All hell broke loose and we didn’t stand a chance. Someone cold cocked me.” Cole broke off. “I woke up on the ground alongside Sal, Quinn and Pete. I later saw Robby’s body. It looked like they used him for target practice.”

Her stomach lurched at the memory of the Green Team member who had been assaulted with the AK47, and for a horrible moment Jesse was sure she would burst into tears.

Then her mind froze. She’d seen the four bodies heaped together. Only they hadn’t all been dead as she’d assumed. Cole had been alive.

“I didn’t quite walk away with my skin intact.” Cole said.

He glanced around the diner and, as if in a dream, Jesse watched him roll up his left sleeve. Half a dozen cigarette burns dotted his forearm, with more disappearing beneath the bunched roll of his shirtsleeve. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the burns. He’d been alive and she’d left him there.

“There are more in other key spots,” he murmured.

Jesse lifted her gaze to his face.

A corner of his mouth curved upward. “If I display those in public, I’ll get arrested.”

Her stomach twisted. I left him there.

She reached for her coffee. “The report said everyone died.” Jesse brought the cup to her lips, caught sight of the slight shake in her hand, and set the cup back on its saucer.

Cole gave a short laugh. “I wanted to. There were moments, I wished I had. They tied my arms behind my back and hung me up to dry. The first twelve hours are the worst. After that, you pass in and out of consciousness. Eventually, they have to force you awake. I plotted how I would escape, catch each one of them in their beds, and skin them alive.”

He rolled down his shirtsleeve, fastening the button on the cuff before reclining against the seat back. “I’m not sure how long they let me hang. A week, maybe more. After they cut me down, I played opossum every time a guard came in with the slop they called food. They got careless. The last night, when they brought my dinner—” He exhaled as the front door opened and a woman and child entered.

The little girl raced past their booth. Jesse watched her scramble onto one of the stools at the counter, then looked back at Cole. He set his cup of coffee back on the table and looked at her.

“What happened?” she asked.

“The guard left the plate by the door, then crept to where I was laying. He probably figured I was finally dead.” Cole shrugged, but his eyes gleamed with a predatory look that made Jesse shiver. “I took the knife strapped to his belt and…phut.” Cole sliced at his throat with a thumb.