Page 47 of Dangerous Liaisons

Chapter Thirty-Five

Early the next afternoon, Jesse glanced up when Cole stepped from the motel bathroom. “Yowsa!” The cheesy red and black checked, short-sleeve shirt he wore actually hurt her eyes.

“The shirt was your idea,” he said.

“That may be the biggest mistake I’ve made on this mission.”

She’d had her doubts about the general store carrying the supplies they needed but, by the time they’d ditched the Harvester and rented a Jeep, Cole’s contact had triangulated the number Menendez had called to within a fifty mile radius two hours north near the coast. She and Cole had driven an hour and a half toward the target and stopped at a one-horse town that made Mayberry look like a metropolis. At least, it had a motel—six rooms—and the owner and his family of six lived in one.

Jesse surveyed the rest of his appearance. “The jeans and tennis shoes work,” she said, but couldn’t get used to the deep chestnut of his hair.

Menendez’s men wouldn’t get far with her description, but Cole’s blond hair and height made him stand out like a lighthouse. The dye had done the trick, but he needed another shirt. She grimaced again at the bright red and black checked colors. Some Colombian was likely to shoot him on principal.

The Sony laptop sitting on the table beeped. Jesse jerked her attention onto the computer screen as Cole slid into the chair facing the screen and began tapping the mouse. She leaned back in the chair and forced herself to relax.

A moment later, he looked up from the computer, shock written in his expression. “Our guys traced the number Menendez called to a submarine off the coast.”

Jesse straightened. “What?”

He looked back at the computer. “The call was routed to a cell tower in the middle of nowhere. Once we knew where to look in the satellite photos, our guys pinpointed the base in a small inlet near Barranquilla.”

Jesse shifted her gaze to Cole. “The sub Senator Hamilton has been looking for.”

He nodded and her mind raced. How long before the U. S. moved in, twelve, maybe twenty-four hours? Once their guys went in, Perez would burrow so deep even a mole would suffocate. Unless—fear rammed through her.

“Have our guys already moved in?”

Cole shook his head. “Here are satellite photos of the area,” He hit a key and the picture filled the screen.

A rugged two-mile coastline separated sea from jungle. Midpoint, a hundred-meters-wide inlet snaked downward in a wide river that dropped off the bottom of the screen. Jesse leaned closer. On the estuary’s west bank, a paved, two-lane road followed the river and ended at an industrial-sized complex, half hidden by trees.

Jesse’s pulse raced. Perez was involved with the building of the sub Senator Hamilton had been searching for. She hadn’t made the connection before, but it was so obvious she felt like a fool. Perez hadn’t targeted the Senator simply for his involvement in Colombian politics. Perez needed to stop the man who could expose him.

“Can you zoom out?” she asked.

Cole hit the F4 key twice and the page refreshed, adjusting to a wider view that lost ground detail. He hit the F3 key to zoom in one step. Jesse reached past his arm and punched F4 for the wider view. A shock reverberated up her arm when the hair on his arm tickled her forearm’s sensitive underside. She started to reach up and rub away the tingle, but caught herself, and allowed her arm to drop back to her side. Squinting, she concentrated on the map and discerned an S-shaped track in the jungle leading from the base to a hacienda with three outbuildings. Two SUV’s sat parked in a circular drive.

Anticipation hummed through her. “Do you see what I see?”

“Yeah,” Cole replied with his slow drawl. “A good-sized house with an access road to the sub base.”

Jesse glanced at the scale embedded in the lower right-hand corner of the photo. The hacienda sat about two miles from the base. “It fits the criteria. That’s got to be Perez’s place.” She was going home.

“Could be nothing more than a compound for base supervisors.”

“Want to bet on that?”

“Settle down, Jess. We need to go to the area and wait with a sniffer for Perez to call the base. We can’t chance the hacienda is just an outpost. No second chances. Remember? Perez can’t be certain who infiltrated Menendez’s place, but the sniffer we left behind tells him it’s not one of his competitors. That makes the U. S. his best bet. If he wants to salvage the sub operation, he has to take a personal interest in base security. That means phone calls. We’ll triangulate his position the minute he makes contact.”

Jesse pinned him with a hard stare. “Who are you really working for, Cole?”

He frowned. “What?”

“You’re talking about a full-blown operation—diversion, sniffers, triangulation, quick strike.”

“I’m not alone. I told you—”

“Four other men have a stake in this.” She shook her head. “I’m not buying.”

Cole leaned back in his chair. “If I worked for someone, they would have rained hellfire down on that base by now. I will hand over the intel on the sub—I don’t want Perez using it to ship drugs to our kids—but we give up that info now and chances of getting him drop to nil.”

“You’re willing to break the rules?” Jesse asked with disbelief.

“I broke the rules the moment I started believing you weren’t guilty.”

Doubt surfaced, and must have shown on her face, for Cole said, “No shenanigans, Jesse. When we go in this time, I have to know I can count on you.”

Yeah, just like she needed to know she could count on him.