To the Limit (Shadow Heroes Book 3) Read online

  She tried to think of how to begin, how to explain. But there was nothing except the truth.

  “The Primero de Mayo terrorists, narcoterrorists, whatever you want to call them, are holding my brother for ransom. I need your help in dealing with them.”

  He made no reply, his expression suddenly closed.

  “You have negotiated with them before,” she said, his stillness making her feel as if she should justify her request. “Successfully,” she added in the lengthening silence.

  He stared at her. The light from a table lamp accentuated his angular cheekbones and strong jaw.

  “It wouldn’t take very long,” she continued, trying to maintain her composure. “A few days at most.”

  What was he thinking? The oppressive silence grew. She couldn’t look away from him, couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “Have you contacted your State Department?” he finally asked.

  “No. I was warned not to. I won’t risk Mark’s life by doing anything like that.”

  “Why not just pay the ransom, Ms. Williams? Primero de Mayo has released hostages when the ransom has been paid.”

  He had reverted to the use of her last name, not a good sign. “They insist that I take the money to them. I want—need—an expert when I do this.”

  “Where do you have to take the ransom?”

  “To Los Desamparados, in the Upper Río Hermoso valley.”

  Each tick of the large clock on the low bookcase to one side weighed heavily in the subtly lit room. She wished she could climb inside his mind, see what he was thinking.

  “Do you know what desamparados means?” he asked finally.

  “That has nothing—”

  “The forsaken. As in abandoned.” He seemed to watch for her reaction. When she wouldn’t give him that satisfaction, he continued. “It’s not a safe place. It’s jungle.”

  “That’s ceja de montaña country, not jungle, from what I’ve read. The semitropical ‘brow of the mountain.’ A cloud forest.”

  “Except for the slightly cooler climate, it’s much the same.” He stood, coming around the desk to lean one hip casually on the uncluttered top. “It’s dangerous country.”

  “Which is why—”

  “You need a mercenary, not me.”

  “A mercenary will get my brother killed.”

  “A mercenary will get you there and back in one piece.” He turned and picked up a sheet of paper and a pen. “I’ll give you the names of several men I consider to be trustworthy. Tell them I referred you.”

  “I don’t want or need one of those men,” Mary Beth insisted. “You know how to deal with these people.”

  “Ms. Williams,” he said with overwhelming patience, “they are not people. They are animals.”

  “I’m prepared to pay—”

  One look from him stopped her.

  He put down the pen. “There isn’t enough money in the world to make me accompany you,” he said simply.

  “What can I offer—”

  “What do you have to offer?” he asked, his expression indecipherable.

  “I—” My God. Had he just prop—? No. Surely not. But what if—?

  His expression immediately told her she was grossly wrong. Terribly. Fierceness, followed by what she could have sworn was sadness, reflected in his gaze. A sadness so profound that it gentled his features.

  The clock struck the quarter hour as their eyes held.

  Embarrassed that she had assumed he could have meant anything sordid, she hurried to say, “I’m sor—”

  “I will never deal with Primero de Mayo again.” Handing her the paper with its precise block letters, he added, “I apologize for any misunderstanding between us, Ms. Williams. Find yourself a mercenary. You will need one.”

  Chapter Two

  A restless night full of improbable scenarios and tangled dreams gave way to morning. As Mary Beth dressed in her hotel room, she replayed the evening before.

  Nick Romero had refused to help her.

  Pride had made her thank him as she struggled to hide frustrated anger. Oh, she could have begged, pleaded. But if there was one thing she’d inherited from her father, it was tenacity.

  A good plan. That was all she needed.

  Not that she had any plan.

  Unbidden, part of their exchange replayed through her thoughts.

  “What can I offer—”

  “What do you have to offer?”

  She’d been outraged, she’d wanted to slap him. But that look on his face… Emotions she couldn’t read at first, followed by a fleeting sadness. She’d been horribly wrong in guessing he meant something sexual. He’d read her reaction and, with an apology, had dismissed her.

  But they weren’t finished. This was a setback. Defeat was not an option. She had eight days left before time would run out for Mark. This was the beginning of the day she would get Nicholas Romero to help her save her brother’s life.

  The direct approach would be the best. She picked up the phone and dialed Nick’s house. His mother answered and explained that he’d gone out and would not return until lunchtime. After thanking Doña Elena, Mary Beth decided she would not bother calling him again—she’d be there when he got back. It wasn’t nine o’clock yet. She had hours to wait.

  The newspaper didn’t help her pass the time. Not until she saw a familiar name in an article on the front page. She scanned it quickly, then read and read again, to make sure she understood.

  Mark’s friend, the one Mary Beth hadn’t been able to contact, was dead. Killed nearly three years ago by the same group that held Mark. This Daniel Vargas had been Nick’s cousin, Doña Elena’s son. No one she’d spoken with had mentioned any of this.

  No wonder Nick’s response to her request was so overwhelmingly negative.

  And thank God she hadn’t known before. She would never have dared approach him if she had.

  She picked up the paper with the names of the mercenaries he’d recommended, and stared at it. Three choices. Maybe she should interview them, decide which one would do, just in case.

  No. She didn’t have time. She wouldn’t settle for a mercenary. She needed an expert, and Nicholas Romero was it.

  She had to convince him to help her.

  But if she told him that Mark knew his cousin, the cousin killed by Primero de Mayo, he would refuse again.

  Simple. She wouldn’t tell him.

  As she finished a light breakfast in the hotel restaurant, that omission—that lie—did not sit well with her.

  Rather than allow her frustration to mount as she killed time, she decided to take a walk. The morning was pleasant, San Mateo’s capital enjoying an early spring. She would browse the shop windows along the streets of the historic city. Then she’d take a taxi and wait in front of Nick’s house.

  Five minutes into her walk she became convinced she was being watched.

  The small white car that had followed her the day before was nowhere in sight. But that man standing on the corner by the newspaper stand, the bald one, looked familiar. Had she seen him before? Where? In the hotel? The party last night? Try as she might, she couldn’t be sure. He seemed to keep pace with her as she made her way along the tourist filled street.

  Walking past a small jewelry store, she eyed the silver and gold trinkets on display in the window and worried the small gold cross that hung from her neck. Mark had given it to her last year, during a whirlwind visit. He’d asked her if she still had the safe deposit box key to a bank in San Mateo that he’d given her years earlier. She’d assured him she did, taken aback that he’d even wonder, but he was so rushed, there’d been no time to ask. Now, after selling her car and raiding her savings, she needed that money to help pay the ransom.

  She turned, searching the crowd for the bald man. He’d crossed the street and was looking the other way. Maybe he wasn’t following her. Maybe, if she took her time, he’d leave and she’d know for sure.

  She walked past the jewelry store an
d peered through the window of a craft shop. Colorful Andean blankets, ceramics and woodcarvings lay inside and atop sparkling glass cases. She stepped inside and picked up a wood carving of a jaguar, turning it over in her hands, her thoughts still outside with the bald man.

  “It is perfect, yes?” a young male clerk said in accented English. “So much life, ready to spring for his prey.”

  “It is stunning,” Mary Beth agreed, forcing herself to relax, to take advantage of the distraction. She felt some smoothly carved letters on the jaguar’s belly. J.M.

  “With four hundred fifty pesos, it is yours.” The clerk smiled.

  “Three hundred,” she countered. Mark, with his love of the wild and dangerous, would appreciate this.

  “Señorita!” The clerk looked shocked and offended. “Can you not see the detail? The care that went into the making of this magnificent beast?” He continued. “Four hundred twenty-five, señorita, or we will wound the artist’s pride.”

  Given the exchange rate, that wasn’t a bad price. Still, she countered, “Three-fifty,” and touched the stylized letters in the artist’s signature again.

  “Señorita, you have bargained before.” He sighed. “I will explain to the artist that you are an expert at el regateo, no?”

  Knowing she really hadn’t bested the clerk in the haggling, Mary Beth paid the agreed-upon price, took her package and walked to the door.

  He was still there. The bald man. Across the street, watching from the front of a coffee shop. She stepped back, her heart thundering.

  “Are you ill, señorita?” asked the clerk.

  She couldn’t answer for a moment. “No, I’m fine, just…” Scared. And becoming more so with each passing moment. The kidnappers had said she would be contacted once she arrived in Los Desamparados. Were they following her to be sure she did as she was told?

  Stepping out into the bright sunlight, she walked quickly down the street in the direction of her hotel, occasionally looking over her shoulder at the man who continued behind her. She quickened her pace and bounced off a tourist. Apologizing, she hurried on, concentrating on her destination, fighting the urge to run.

  One block down, in front of a pharmacy, she turned, trying to avoid the moving crowd. Rising up on tiptoes, she scanned the sea of faces for her pursuer.

  He was gone.

  ***

  Nick folded the newspaper he’d been reading and placed it on his cousin’s desk. Carlos Montoya, the eldest of Doña Elena’s nephews, worked on San Matean time so their eight-o’clock appointment would probably turn into a nine-o’clock appointment. Nick stood and stretched, wondering if Mary Beth Williams had called one of the men he’d recommended.

  He couldn’t forget their encounter. She’d shown courage and more determination than most people he knew. She’d guessed he meant something crude. He hadn’t, but that she would think such a thing made him wonder about himself, wonder what she’d seen in him. Still, in the clear light of day, he was as surprised at what he’d said as she had been.

  He’d apologized because he sincerely regretted the misunderstanding. He lived his life so that he rarely regretted his words, let alone apologized for them.

  Had he meant it as a subconscious way of testing her? Her character? Her motives? If so, she’d passed with flying colors. When he should have been kind, he’d been cruel. After all, her brother was in terrible danger, something he understood too well.

  Still, he found himself attracted, surprisingly so. She wasn’t really beautiful, not in the way the women he normally wanted were. She didn’t calculate or flaunt her femininity. She had that elusive something so many women worked a lifetime to achieve. Presence.

  A regal air, refined manners—those were traits the lovely Ms. Williams had learned. Dignity and integrity were hers, deeply ingrained.

  Staring outside, he pushed aside memories of Mary Beth Williams. It was much harder to avoid those evoked by the paper’s lead story. But he wouldn’t dwell on the past. He would remedy the future.

  “Nicholas.” Carlos greeted him, coming through the open door. “Buenos días. I thought to talk to you at your mother’s, but you had left.”

  “I should have called this morning.”

  “You thought I was late.” Carlos, tall, his grey hair gleaming in the light coming through the window, smiled. “You are much too Americanized. I had breakfast with Elena. She gave me two cups of café con leche strong enough to keep me awake all day.”

  Nick laughed. “Be glad it’s warm or she would have forced you to eat oatmeal.”

  “Elena is priceless,” Carlos said, closing the door behind him. “Even after her charity work last night, she was up early.”

  “I’m sure you’ve piqued her interest, stopping by so early.”

  “Your mother sees too much, no?” Carlos commented, sitting.

  “What can you tell me about my evening visitor?”

  “You did not give me much time, Nick. I am not a magician.”

  No, but sometimes Nick thought he was. A Romero on his mother’s side, Carlos had been a mentor and surrogate father. Now, at the age of sixty, he was a friend and, since Nick had taken the reins of the Romero empire, his greatest asset. A professor of international studies at the most prestigious San Matean university, Carlos was often a visiting professor at Princeton. With his enormous web of contacts, he could find out anything.

  “What have you learned so far?”

  “The only information I have is very basic. Your Miss Williams is a university librarian. She is thirty-two years old and lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Her father was ambassador to Spain and Argentina a few years ago. I found one old mention of the brother, an engineering student, nothing recent, but we should know more by this evening.”

  “If you don’t find more, I’ll reach out to Jonathan Ethridge.”

  “Your CIA friend?” Carlos’ brows shot up.

  “I wouldn’t call Ethridge a friend, but he should be able to cut through any American blocks on information.”

  “He would do this because…?”

  “He owes me.” For helping him save one of his men.

  “He may refuse to speak with you.”

  “Possibly,” Nick replied.

  “Give me a chance before you contact his man,” Carlos said, then continued. “You said someone is following her?”

  “From what my man tells me.”

  “And you refuse to help her. Have you lost your sense of chivalry?”

  Four years ago, before Nick took over the Romero estate and holdings, there would have been reprimand in the words. But Carlos had willingly—eagerly—given over his responsibilities, wanting only to provide guidance to Nick, the only male who still carried the Romero name. Now Nick heard the censure in Carlos’ tone.

  He met his older cousin’s eyes across the expanse of the desk. The morning sun slanted in through the open window, brightening the office. “She’ll be safe until she makes contact with one of the men I recommended.”

  “It would have been a simple thing for you to go with her.”

  “I never want to deal with the Primero de Mayo again, you know that.”

  “It did not stop you last year when you—” Carlos cut off his sentence abruptly and picked up the newspaper Nick had left folded on the desk. “This is why you came back from New York so suddenly.”

  Nick said nothing as Carlos opened the paper to the headline which read, “General Vargas to Lead Gunrunning Probe.” The photo beneath the caption showed the old general in his military uniform. Beside it was one of a young captain, a man Nick knew well from his own army days.

  “This is why you refused her,” Carlos continued. “It has nothing to do with Primero de Mayo. You think you can get him this time.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions.”

  “It is true,” Carlos said, tossing the paper back on the desk. “When are you going to stop, Nicholas?” He shook his head. “When will you let it rest?”

  “When h
e burns in hell.”

  The sudden opening of the door interrupted the silence of the office.

  “Perdón, Don Carlos—” Carlos’ secretary said, her voice agitated.

  “Carlos, Nicholas,” a man said from behind her.

  “I did not—” the secretary began.

  “It is okay, Marta. Let him in.” Carlos stood.

  Nick stood, too. Mario Gomez, from the Ministry of Justice, pushed past the secretary. She looked the man up and down and closed the door as she left, indignation in every line of her body. The heavy, graying man paid her no attention.

  After brief, formal greetings, Mario took the seat Carlos offered.

  “What brings you to my office?” Carlos asked.

  “I owe a favor,” Mario said. “I have come to pay Nicholas back for helping my son.” He looked from Carlos to Nick. “It is better for you to stay away from this Mary Beth Williams.”

  Neither Nick nor Carlos said anything.

  Mario continued. “Her brother, a Mark Williams, is a known gunrunner. He jeopardizes the aspirations of many. It would do no good for you to become involved in the situation in the Río Hermoso.”

  “Situation?” Nick repeated.

  “Our Rangers—Daniel’s old outfit—have an operation with the American Special Forces. The advisors.” Mario sat forward in his chair. “Mistakes were made years ago. Serious mistakes. There is a joint investigation. It has become political.”

  Nick picked up the newspaper Carlos had thrown down.

  “Stay out of it, Nicholas,” Mario said, glancing pointedly at the paper. He stood. “I talk reason, no, amigo? Diplomacy, you would call it.” He looked from Nick to Carlos, then at his watch. “I have a meeting.”

  “You can tell us nothing more?”

  “There is no more to tell, Carlos.” With that, Mario Gomez nodded at them both and left.

  Once the door closed, Carlos shook his head. “No, Nicholas.”

  “You wanted me to help Miss Williams.”

  “For her, for her brother. Not for this. You cannot bring Vargas down. He is too powerful.”

  “He’ll make another mistake, and this time I’ll be able to take advantage of it.”