LITMIR.BIZ

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No wonder she looked like Miss Universe. “How many languages do you speak?”

      “Thirteen.”

      Definitely one of the privileged few from Mezcaya. The average family didn’t school their sons, much less their daughters, beyond primary. “Impressive.”

      Her head slowly turned toward him, her golden eyes skeptical. “Why do I doubt you mean that?”

      “I don’t say what I don’t mean.”

      Her expression didn’t change. “Perhaps we’d be better served by discussing the task ahead of us.”

      “Task.” The word felt as insubstantial on his tongue as it did to describe the operation. “Weren’t you briefed?” If she hadn’t been told too many details, he’d come up with a way to keep her from accompanying him all the way to the compound.

      “I know we’re to try to rescue an American officer named Phillip Westin.”

      “I will get him back.” Tyler corrected flatly. “There’s no ‘try’ about it.”

      “El Jefe has him.”

      “That won’t stop me.”

      “Us.”

      His jaw ached even more.

      “Others have failed,” she persisted.

      “I—we won’t.”

      “How do you know that?”

      “Because we’re not going in the way they’ll expect.” His friend Luke Callaghan had already been injured and was even now recuperating at a hospital in Texas. Tyler still had a hard time believing his old friend wasn’t just the millionaire playboy they’d all believed him to be. And if it weren’t for the fact that Luke had been blinded during his battle to save Westin, Tyler would probably still be pissed about the revelation that Luke was an operative with a covert civilian agency, involved in tasks eerily similar to those in which the Alpha Force engaged. But Luke’s methods had still been of the traditional bent.

      “You mean, we’re going in as domestics.”

      He slid the plane in a slow bank, then dipped into the valley between two mountains. A river snaked below them, glittering like a strand of diamonds. They were no longer skimming the treetops. It was so damn beautiful it was hard to believe anything bad ever happened in this country. “Yeah.” He glanced her way. “We’ll have to go in as a married couple.”

      That seemed to startle her. “Why?”

      “Because you’re a woman.”

      “And you’re none too pleased about that.”

      “If M. Rodriguez had been a man, we could have posed as brothers.”

      “Even though one wouldn’t be able to speak Mezcayan, much less Spanish.” Her voice dripped disbelief.

      His inability to fully master foreign languages was something Tyler had long ago accepted. People had different gifts. His was more along the lines of blowing things up than conjugating verbs. Which didn’t mean that hearing her observation did not rub him wrong. “I don’t need to do much speaking,” he said flatly. “That’s what they gave me you for.”

      “Then I’ll be your sister instead of your brother,” she said reasonably.

      “You’ll be my wife.”

      His words seemed to float around the cockpit, blurring into the sound of the wind outside the plane, the steady drone of the engine.

      He saw the way her shoulders stiffened, as if the statement was as abhorrent to her as it was to him. “What if I don’t agree to that?”

      “Then I’ll leave your butt in Belize when we land in a few hours.”

      “And you’ll never make it from there across Mezcaya and into El Jefe’s compound without me.”

      “Don’t be so sure about that.” He would make his way to Fortaleza de la Fortuna whether she accompanied him or not. He would infiltrate the infamous compound, locate the damned cave that Luke had spoken of, free Westin and get the hell out of there, even if he had to blow up the entire compound and everyone in it in the process.

      As far as he was concerned, destroying El Jefe’s compound was just fine with him. The world would be a better place without the terrorist group. Only he’d been ordered not to incite an international incident. Which meant he had to use some finesse, exercise some restraint and get it done in the time he’d been allowed before the Brits took over and did God knew what.

      “El Jefe runs that entire region of Mezcaya.”

      “Tell me something I don’t know.” That was one of the reasons they were flying into the opposite side of the country.

      She rattled off a stream of incomprehensible words. Mezcayan, he assumed. “Your point?”

      She smiled faintly, looking superior enough that he wanted to hand her a parachute and show her the door. “I said that you’ll never make it through the gate of la Fortuna, unless you can speak Mezcayan or are very closely tied to one who does. That’s how El Jefe ensures some modicum of loyalty from those who live there.

      “El Jefe may be scourge to the rest of the world, but to a great many citizens of this country, it is their savior. It feeds and clothes them. Provides for their children. Its compound isn’t merely a well-secured estate, Mr. Murdoch, it is virtually a state of its own. The language isn’t taught in schools. The government has decreed Spanish to be the official language, quite possibly as a direct statement against El Jefe. There are some that believe the language has been kept alive for the past few generations strictly because of El Jefe’s influence. Mezcayan is handed down from parent to child and so on, and only those who are natives of the land are likely to speak it well. Which means that you need me to get you through the door.”

      Everything she said was true. But she’d left out one detail. And much as he didn’t want her there with him, he wouldn’t be responsible for harm coming to her, something his damned superiors had to have known. But as much as Tyler hated feeling manipulated, he was more concerned with his obligation to Westin. “We won’t go through unless you have the protection of being a married woman.”

      He saw unease ripple through her eyes. Her lips parted, then closed.

      “You know what I’m talking about.”

      She looked away. “There have been rumors.”

      “Unless you’re a nun or married—which El Jefe seems to have an unusual respect for considering everything else—women are fair game. Willing or not, El Jefe doesn’t care. If you’ve been raised in the compound, you’d possibly be taken as a wife or mistress by one of the officers should one take a shine to you. Gain their disfavor and you’d be sold off to the highest bidder. Or worse.”

      “Rumors.”

      “You want to take a chance that they’re not just rumors? Come on, M., look in a mirror. They’ll be lining up like hungry coyotes to see who gets the first taste. First tastes probably go to senior officers. The generals of El Jefe. Remember that British reporter a few years ago? She managed to infiltrate the compound, even managed to keep her cover intact. But she was—”

      “Stop.” Marisa didn’t need him to go any further. He could have no idea how close his words struck. No idea, whatsoever.

      It was just that he, like so many others in the free world, had probably seen the news story. It had been splashed across every paper for days. The woman, barely a reporter at all, had been raped then abandoned outside of the compound. When she was found, she was taken to a hospital in Mexico where her story came out.

      What the news stories hadn’t said, however, was what happened after the hospital. The woman eventually committed suicide, unable to withstand the effects of her encounters with El Jefe. She’d left behind a child and a lover beset

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