LITMIR.BIZ

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bearing he’d lost in front of his fellow officers. His face turned a dull red. He opened his hands and held them up. “I apologize,” he whispered unsteadily. “Many of you do not know me, know of my background. My eldest son, the light of my life…the son who was to carry on my name, who was to marry and someday give me grandchildren…was senselessly and brutally murdered by this woman named Inca. She is wanted in Brazil for thirteen murders. Thirteen,” he growled. Straightening up, his heart pounding, he again apologized. “I had no idea you would suggest her,” he told Morgan in a hoarse tone.

      Morgan slowly rose and offered a hand in peace to him. “Please, Colonel, come and sit down.”

      An aide scrambled from near the door to pick up the colonel’s fallen chair and place it upright so that he could sit down. Hands shaking, Jaime pulled the chair, which was on rollers, beneath him. “I am sorry for my outburst. I am not sorry what I said about this sorceress.” Sitting down, he glared across the table at Morgan and Mike Houston. “You know of her. You know she’s a murderer. How can you ask me to tolerate the sight of her, much less work with her, when she has the blood of my son on her hands?” His voice cracked. “How?”

      Houston looked to his boss. This was Morgan’s battle to win, not his. Sitting down, he watched Morgan’s face carefully as he rose to his full height to address the emotionally distraught colonel.

      “Jaime…” Morgan began softly, opening his hand in a pleading gesture, “I have four children. I almost lost my oldest son, Jason, in a kidnapping and I know of your grief. I’m deeply sorry for your loss. I truly am.” Morgan cleared his throat and glanced down at Mike who sat looking grim. “I have it on good authority that Inca did not kill your son Rafael. She said she was on the other side of the basin when he and his squad surprised a drug-running operation in a village. Inca denies killing your son. The person in this room who knows her well is Mike Houston. Mike, do you have anything to add to this, to help the colonel realize that Rafael was not murdered by Inca?”

      Mike leaned forward, his gaze fixed on Jaime’s grief-filled face. The colonel had lost his hard military expression, and his dark eyes were wild with suffering and barely checked rage. Mike knew that in most Latin American countries, the firstborn male child was the darling of the family. In the patriarchal cultures in South America, to lose the eldest son was, to the father of that family, to lose everything. The eldest was doted upon, raised from infancy to take over the family business, the family responsibilities, and carry on their long heritage. Mike knew the people in Jaime’s social strata were highly educated. Jaime himself, descended from Portuguese aristocracy of the 1700s, had a proud lineage that few others in Brazil possessed. Rafael had been trained, coaxed, nurtured and lovingly molded according to this prominent family’s expectations. Mike knew even as he spoke just how devastating the loss was for the colonel.

      “Colonel Marcellino. Inca is my blood sister.” He held up his hand and pointed to a small scar on the palm of his hand. “I met her when she was eighteen years old. She saved my life, quite literally. She almost died in the process. The Inca I know is not a murderer. She is a member of the Jaguar Clan of Peru, a group that teaches their people to defend, never attack. If someone fires on Inca, or someone attacks her, she will defend herself. But she will never fire first. She will not ever needlessly take a life.”

      Marcellino glared across the table at him. “Do not paint a pretty picture of this murdering sorceress. The men in Rafael’s squad saw her. They saw her put a rifle to her shoulder and shoot my son cold-bloodedly in the head!”

      “Listen to me,” Mike rasped. “Inca was two hundred miles away from the place where your son was killed. She was with an old Catholic priest, Father Titus, at an Indian mission on the Amazon River. I can prove it.” Mike pulled out a paper from the open file in front of him. “Here, this is an affidavit signed by the priest. Please, look at it. Read it.”

      Belligerently, Jaime jerked the paper from Mike’s hand. He saw the sweat stains on the document and the barely legible signature of the old priest. Throwing it back, he barked, “This proves nothing!”

      Mike placed the paper back into the file. Keeping his voice low and quashing his feelings, he said, “No one in your son’s squad survived the attack by the drug lord and his men. I saw the report on it, Colonel. All you have is one person’s word—a man who was later captured and who is suspected of working with the same local drug lord who indicted Inca. He said Inca was there. You have a drug runner’s word. Are you going to believe him? He has every reason to lie to you on this. He wants to save his hide and do only a little bit of prison time and get released. How convenient to lay the blame at Inca’s feet. Especially since she wasn’t there to defend herself.” Houston tapped the file beneath his hand. “I know Father Titus personally. The old priest is almost ninety. He’s lived in the basin and has helped the Indians at his mission for nearly seventy of those years. At one time he helped raise Inca, who was orphaned.”

      “Then all the more reason for the old priest to lie!” Jaime retorted. “No! I do not believe you. The blood of thirteen men lays on Inca’s head. There is a huge reward, worth six million cruzeiros, or one million dollars, U.S., for her capture, dead or alive, in Brazil. If I see her, I will kill her myself. Personally. And with pleasure. My son’s life will finally be avenged.”

      Roan shifted slightly in his chair. The atmosphere in the room was cold and hostile. Not one man moved; all eyes were riveted on the colonel and Mike Houston. Roan saw the hatred in the colonel’s face, heard the venom that dripped from every stilted English word he spoke. The colonel’s black eyes were a quagmire of grief and rage. Part of Roan’s heart went out to the man. Jaime had made the worst sacrifice of all; he’d lost a beloved child. Well, Roan had something in common with the colonel—he’d lost someone he’d loved deeply, too. But who was Inca? The woman he’d seen in his dream earlier? She sounded like a hellion of the first order. Warrioress, madwoman—who knew? Roan looked to Mike Houston, who was laboring to get the colonel to see reason.

      “Inca’s only responsibility is as a Green Warrior for Mother Earth,” Mike said quietly. “She has taken a vow to protect the Amazon Basin from encroachment and destruction by anyone. Twelve of these so-called murders were really self-defense situations. Plus, the twelve men who are dead are all drug dealers. Inca does not deny killing them, but she didn’t fire first. She shot back only to save herself and other innocent lives.” Mike held out a thick folder toward Jaime. “Here is the proof, colonel. I haven’t understood yet why the government of Brazil has not absolved Inca of those trumped up charges. I’d think Brazil would be happy to see those men gone.” He laid the file down. “But I don’t want to get off track here. You can read her sworn statements on each charge when you want.”

      “It is well known she hates white men!” Marcellino snapped, his anger flaring.

      “Not all,” Mike countered. “She’s my blood sister by ceremony. She respects men and women alike. Now, if someone wants to destroy, rip up, start cutting down timber, hurt the Indians or make them into slaves, then Inca will be there to stop him. She will try many ways to stop the destruction, but murdering a person is not one of them. And as I said, she will fire in defense, she will never fire the first shot.”

      “And I suppose,” Marcellino rattled angrily, “that the thirteen men she killed fired on her first?”

      “That’s exactly what happened in twelve cases,” Houston said gravely. “Your son is the thirteenth to her count, he shouldn’t have been added. Members of the Jaguar Clan can be kicked out of it by firing first or attacking first. She can only defend herself. So twelve men fired first on her, Colonel. And she shot back. And she didn’t miss.”

      “She murdered my son! He’s one of the thirteen.”

      “Inca was not there. She did not shoot your son.”

      Morgan appealed to Marcellino. “Colonel, would you, as an officer, lead your entire company of men into an unknown area without proper help and guidance?”

      “Of course not!”

      “Inca knows the basin better than anyone,” Morgan said soothingly. He lifted a hand

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