LITMIR.BIZ

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I told him to stay in the shadows and keep a low profile. I don’t want him agreeing to this mission you’ve laid out for him without him realizing he has to work directly with Colonel Marcellino. And—” Mike scowled, looking even more worried “—he needs to understand that the ongoing war between Marcellino and Inca will put him between a rock and a hard place.”

      Snorting, Morgan opened the door, heading for the elevator that would take them three stories down into the earth. “Sounds like I need a damned diplomat between the colonel and Inca, not a merc. Roan’s always taken oddball assignments, though. Things I could never talk anyone else into taking—and he’s always pulled them off.”

      “Good,” Mike murmured, hope in his voice as he followed Morgan into the elevator, “because Walker is gonna need that kind of attitude to survive.”

      “Survive who?” Morgan demanded, “Marcellino or Inca?”

      The doors whooshed closed. Mike wrapped his arms around his chest as his stomach tightened with tension. The elevator plummeted rapidly toward their destination. “Both,” he said grimly. “There won’t be any love lost between Marcellino and Inca, believe me. They’re like a dog and cat embroiled in a fight to the death. Only this time it’s a dog and a jaguar….”

      Chapter 2

      What in the hell am I doing here with all this fruit salad? Roan wondered as he slowly eased his bulk down into a chair in the shadows of the huge, rectangular room. Fruit salad was military slang for the ribbons personnel wore on their uniforms. Ribbons that spoke of various campaigns and wars that they served in, and medals they’d earned when they’d survived them. His own time in the Marine Corps as a Recon came back to him as he scanned the assembled group of ten men. Roan recognized two of them: Morgan Trayhern, who sat at the head of the large, oval table in a dapper gray pinstripe suit, and Major Mike Houston, who was a U.S. Army advisor to the Peruvian military. Roan amended his observation. Mike was retired. Now he was working for Perseus and for Morgan.

      Roan was the only other person besides Morgan and Mike wearing civilian attire. In his white cotton Western shirt, the sleeves rolled up haphazardly to just below his elbows, his well-worn jean’s and a pair of dusty, scarred cowboy boots, he knew he stuck out like a sore thumb in this assemblage, members of which were now scrutinizing him closely. Let them. Roan really couldn’t care less. At twenty-eight he was already a widower, and the dark looks of some colonels and generals were nothing in comparison to what he’d already endured.

      “Gentlemen, this is Roan Storm Walker,” Morgan began. “He’s an ex-Recon Marine. I’ve asked him to sit in on this important briefing because he will be working directly with the Brazilian detachment.”

      Roan noticed a tall, thin man in a dark green Brazilian Army uniform snap a cold, measuring look in his direction. The name card in front of him read Marcellino, Jaime, Colonel, Brazil. The man had hard, black, unforgiving eyes that reminded Roan of obsidian, an ebony rock, similar to glass in its chemical makeup, which was created out of the belching fire of a violent volcano. Instinctively Roan felt the controlled and contained violence around the Brazilian colonel. It showed in his thinned mouth and his long, angular features that hinted of an aristocratic heritage. Everything about the good colonel spoke of his formal training; he had that military rigidity and look of expectation that said his orders would be carried out to the letter once he gave them.

      Maybe it was the intelligence Roan saw in Marcellino’s restless, probing eyes that made him feel a tad better about the man. Roan knew he would have to work with him, and his instincts warned him that Marcellino was a soldier with a helluva lotta baggage that he was dragging around with him like an old friend. People like that made Roan antsy because they tended to take their misery and unconscious rage out on others without ever realizing it. And Roan wouldn’t join in that kind of dance with anyone. It was one of the reasons why he’d quit the Marine Corps; the games, the politics choked him, and he withered within the world of the military. His gut told him Marcellino was a man who excelled at those bonds of politics.

      Clearing his throat, Morgan buttonholed everyone seated around the oval table. One by one he introduced each man present. Roan noted there was either a colonel or a general from each of the South American countries represented at the table. In front of him was a file folder marked Top Secret. Roan resisted opening it up before being asked to. When Morgan got to his corner, Roan lowered his eyes and looked down at the well-polished table.

      “I’ve already introduced Roan Storm Walker, but let me give you some of his background. As I mentioned, he was a Recon Marine for six years. A trained paramedic on his team, he saw action in Desert Storm. His team was responsible for doing a lot of damage over in Iraq. His specialty is jungle and desert warfare situations. He holds a degree in psychology. He speaks five languages fluently—Spanish, German, French and Portuguese, plus his own Native American language, of the Lakota Sioux nation. He will be working with Colonel Jaime Marcellino, from Brazil. But more on that later.”

      Roan was glad once the spotlight moved away from him. He didn’t like being out front. People out front got shot at and hit. He had learned to be a shadow, because shadows could quietly steal away to live and fight another day. As he sat there, vaguely listening to the other introductions, Roan admitted to himself that the fight had gone out of him. When Sarah died two years ago, his life had been shattered. He had no more desire to take on the world. With her his reason for living had died. If it hadn’t been for Morgan nudging him to get back into the stream of life, he’d probably have drunk himself to death in his cabin up in the mountains.

      Morgan would visit him about once a month, toss a small mercenary job with little danger to it his way, to keep Roan from hitting the bottle in his despair. Trayhern was astute about people, about their grief and how it affected them. Roan knew a lot about grief now. He knew what loss was. The worst kind. He tried to imagine a loss that would be greater than losing a wife or husband, and figured that would probably be losing a child. It was lucky, he supposed morbidly, that he and Sarah never had children. But in truth he wished that they had. Sarah would live on through that child, and Roan wouldn’t feel as devastated or alone as he did now. But that was a selfish thought, he knew.

      Still, he felt that losing a loved one, whether spouse or child, was the hardest thing in the world to endure. How could one do it and survive? As a psychologist, he knew the profound scarring that took place on the psyche. He knew firsthand the terrible, wrenching grief of losing a woman he loved as well as life itself. And Roan swore he’d never, ever fall in love again, because he could not afford to go through that again. Not ever. His spirit would not survive it.

      “Gentlemen, I’m turning this briefing over to Major Mike Houston. You all know him well. He was a U.S. Army advisor up until very recently.” Morgan allowed a hint of a smile on his face. “Mike is now working for Perseus, my organization. He is our South American specialist. One of the reasons you have been handpicked to represent your country is because you have all worked with him in some capacity or another. Major Houston is a known quantity to you. You know he’s good at his word, that he knows the terrain and the problems with the drug trade in South America. You know he can be trusted.” Morgan turned to Mike. “Major Houston?”

      Mike nodded and stood up. He, too, was in civilian attire—a pair of tan trousers, a white cotton shirt and a dark brown blazer. When he turned on the overhead, a map of Brazil flashed on the screen in front of the group.

      “The government of Brazil has asked this administration for help in ridding the Amazon basin of two very powerful drug lords—the Valentino Brothers.” Mike moved to the front and flicked on his laser pen. A small red dot appeared on the map. “We know from intelligence sources in the basin that the brothers have at least six areas of operation. Their business consists of growing and manufacturing cocaine. They have factories, huge ones, that are positioned in narrow, steep and well-guarded valleys deep in the interior of the rain forest.

      “The Valentino Brothers capture Indians from the surrounding areas and basically enslave them, turn them into forced laborers. If the Indians don’t work, they are shot in the head. If they try to escape, they are killed. What few have escaped and lived

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