Jenna’s gaze roamed the warehouse.
They gathered in a large, mostly empty room, leaning against walls or sitting on crates. They looked like a ragged group with torn clothing, dried blood, and various bandages.
Aside from a few bruises elsewhere on his body, Ryan’s head had taken the brunt of the damage. Jenna felt relieved to see him upright. He, too, observed the group.
Reece sat leisurely on a crate, stroking his mustache like a gunslinger, cool under pressure. Although both men radiated serenity, she was certain tumultuous thoughts churned under the surface.
Boris was in the most obvious pain. The first-aid kit Maxine’s team had put together was complete with suture kit, silver sulfadiazine cream, and painkillers. Boris had declined the morphine in favor of ibuprofen and acetaminophen, explaining that he wanted to stay alert during the threat. She gave him maximal doses of both before cleaning his burns—which involved picking out pieces of scorched clothing from flesh—and applying cream and bandages.
Vladimir stood with arms crossed, looking like a statue of ice and fury born from the cold Ural Mountains. He was ready to strike back at his attackers with calculated and deadly force. Jenna hoped to always remain in favor with the frightening man.
Lastly, Maxine sat in the only chair in the room, a worn-out blue lounge chair. She stared at one wall of the warehouse with a contemplative gaze as though the Mona Lisa perched on the spot rather than chipped plaster.
Maxine turned to look at Vladimir. “What are we up against?”
“I have many enemies. But the most recently upset with me are the Argentinians.”
Reece’s lips twitched. “That leaves two possibilities—human trafficking or drugs.”
Boris crossed his bulky arms. “Mr. Pronin does not deal in human trafficking.”
Jenna watched the group silently. Reece and Ryan shot disbelieving looks at Maxine. She seemed to simultaneously confirm Boris’ claim and silence her workers with a single solemn nod.
“White charcoal,” Vladimir said.
Jenna frowned.
“Cocaine,” Ryan explained.
“In Argentina? I thought cocaine was a Columbian thing?”
“Sure. In the 1970s.” Reece snickered.
“In the last forty years, the drug trade has spread throughout South America,” Ryan said with calm patience. “In the last twenty years, Argentina has been trafficking drugs from Bolivia and expanding local growth and markets. They’ve been escalating from micro trafficking to international trade. Business is good. Demand is high.”
“Nothing like a home-grown product,” Reece added.
“Presumably, Mr. Pronin wants to expand his business there.”
“Da. They have a great market potential, but no experience. Is like Wild West there. Chaos is bad for business.”
“Who’d you piss off?” Maxine asked as amicably as though she had asked if he preferred white or red wine.
“Lautaro Fernandez.”
“Super.” Reece threw up his hands in exasperation.
Jenna looked back and forth from Maxine, whose right hand looked like it wanted to wrap around a bottle of whiskey—or maybe a gun—and Ryan whose only indication of alarm was standing a little straighter.
Tension blanketed the room. It reminded Jenna of the seconds in between CPR when the team stops all activity to check for a pulse. Nope. Still flat-line. Resume CPR.
Jenna was about to finally ask her question when Ryan spoke. “Lautaro Fernandez is the third most powerful drug lord in South America.”
Not the first. That seemed like a plus. Fernandez was apparently still powerful enough to take a swat at Vladimir on his own turf. Powerful enough or stupid enough? Perhaps both.
So the Cubans were after her and the Argentinians were after Vladimir. She sat down on a nearby crate, feeling the exhaustion of the last several days—kidnapping, plane flights, explosions. When could she get back to chest tubes, septic shock, intubations, family meetings, and lumbar punctures?
She scrubbed her hands along her face. “Can we pit the Cubans against the Argentinians and call it a day?”
Everyone turned to stare at her.
Damn. I said that aloud.
Reece’s lips twitched in amusement.
After an uncomfortable silence, Vladimir said, “Perhaps.”
She blinked at him. She swiveled her body to look at Ryan who gave her an appreciative grin.
“For now,” Vladimir continued, “I strike back at Fernandez. I will get you safely back to Miami so you can deliver my message to Ernesto per our agreement.”
Jenna gave Vladimir a grateful bow of her head. Whatever war the Russian mafia planned to wage wasn’t going to include her.
Ryan tucked Jenna into bed. Well, an uncomfortable wire box spring they were using as a bed.
“We’ll leave at daylight.” He kissed her lips briefly.
She closed her eyes and pulled herself into a tight ball.
She would be sleepy, he thought. She’d had repeated surges of adrenaline followed by patching up everyone at the warehouse except Reece. She had tackled all of the hurdles with fortitude, never recoiling with debilitating fear. She was the Jenna who intervened after a bar fight to save a man’s life, the Jenna who escaped the barn skirmish with bullets flying around her, and the Jenna who stared down her Cuban executioners. His Jenna.
He needed to feed her something more than granola bars and water, but that was all anyone had. Tomorrow, when they returned to the hotel, he would buy her a wholesome breakfast.
When he walked back into the makeshift conference room, he rejoined the conversation.
“They have a plant outside Aldao,” Boris explained. His voice was deep and his English thick with his Russian accent. “They package the drug then send it down river to Rosaria. From there it is transported to the airport, batched with deliveries from Bolivia and Mexico, and prepared for international travel.”
“We can eliminate that production facility,” Vladimir said to Boris.
“It will take many men and some planning, but it is feasible.”
“No,” Maxine interrupted. “It will take one man.”
“Max—” Ryan began, but she held up a hand to silence him. Was she truly planning to help Vladimir? To get in bed with the Russian mafia? He had enough dark and shady deals in his prior employment.
“No casualties,” Maxine said. “If you honestly know the location of their drug manufacturing plant, we send in one man to mark it. He doesn’t have to be close.”
Ryan felt his throat constrict. She was talking about engineering a precision missile strike. One man to paint the target with a laser, then boom.
Vladimir gave her a speculative look.
“I have a friend in Buenos Aires,” Maxine explained. “For the right price, he could destroy the manufacturing plant with a Hellfire.”
Ryan caught Reece’s wide-eyed stare. Maxine referred to an AGM 114 Hellfire. She was going to launch one—probably from a small boat off the coast of Argentina to make it least traceable—into a cocaine facility owned by Lautaro Fernandez.
“I like your friends,” Vladimir said.
“You make sure all the credit goes to you. I don’t want my help in cleaning up your shit to come back and bite me in the ass.”
“No ass biting,” he assured her with a grin.
“A heat signature drone goes up one hour before the launch. If the place isn’t cold, my man doesn’t press the ‘go’ button. I don’t care how you do it, but you get that place evacuated first.”
Vladimir nodded.
Maxine blew out a breath. “They use child labor in those drugs shops, and I’m not killing a bunch of kids.”
“No casualties, Max,” Vladimir said softly.
Ryan relaxed slightly. Max was agreeing to help, but she wasn’t letting herself be manipulated. She seemed to want the opportunity to take a bite out of crime. Wasn’t that why she started Rider SI? Perhaps this was different from a paying client, but it was still a win for the good guys.
Clever Max.
She had Vladimir eating out of the palm of her hand, and he seemed to genuinely enjoy doing it. Something more hovered between them than a strained business relationship. Fate kept throwing them in each other’s path, but neither of them seemed to resist their merging.
Curious.
Ryan looked over to his partner, wondering if Reece held any suspicion of the two leader’s relationship. Reece was cleaning dirt from his fingernails with the tip of his pocketknife.
Oblivious.
Ryan looked back to Maxine. He had faith in her in all levels of business management and operation execution, but something in her dealings with Vladimir felt disconcerting. Her interaction with the Russian felt as much personal as business. Business dealings with the Russian mob invited risk. Personal dealings with them were downright deadly. He would have to talk to Maxine alone about the situation.
And how the hell did she know a civilian with a Hellfire missile?
Jenna reveled in the feel of the hot shower now that they were back at the hotel. She scrubbed until her skin gleamed. She felt lucky to have little more than a few scrapes and bruises. Tomorrow she would leave Moscow and go back to Miami. The switch was like exchanging typhoid for cholera, one unstable situation for another. She hoped the plan with Ernesto would work.
When she got out of the shower, she dried off and walked from the hotel bathroom to the bedroom. All was quiet. Her laptop sat open on a little desk across from the bed. A note rested on the keyboard.
I’m picking up lunch. Reece is outside your door. Internet is connected if you want to call Cal.
—Banner
She dressed quickly and was still drying her hair when she called Cal for a video chat. What time was it on the east coast? After 5 a.m.?
“Mom?”
“Hey, Cal.” She choked back the longing to hug him.
He scrubbed his hands across his face. “Where are you?” He inspected the backdrop of a hotel room bed behind her.
“Hotel room. Sight-seeing. Sorry to call so early.”
And meeting the Russian mob. And dodging bazookas. Had it been a bazooka?
“Oh. Are you with Walsh?”
“Yes.” She felt her face flush. Ridiculous. Women in their late thirties didn’t blush.
Cal’s face beamed. “That’s great. He seems cool. Are you going to bring him next time we visit?”
“Sure. Yes. Are you okay with that?”
“Mom.” He used his scolding tone. “You’re all glowy at the mention of his name. You haven’t been this excited since you got that ICU job in Chicago.”
“Oh.”
“So yeah. I wanna meet him.”
“Okay.”
“When are you back to work?”
“Two weeks.”
Hopefully back to the ICU with deadly adventures behind me.
“How’s school?”
“Good.”
“What did you end up getting the girl you like?”
“Scarf, and we spent an afternoon at the campus game room.”
“Oh, what games?”
“Ping pong, pool, foosball. She won most of them.”
“I like this girl so far.”
The hotel door clicked, and Ryan entered the room. He set down a bag of Chinese takeout on the desk as he gave Jenna a kiss on the cheek. He had showered and applied a fresh bandage to his head though Cal wouldn’t be able to see it from his angle. “Hi, Cal.”
“Hi, Mr. Walsh.”
“Ryan is fine.”
“Cool. Ryan. Okay, Mom, gotta get my last hour of sleep.”
“Okay. Love you.”
“Loves. Bye.”
Jenna stared at the blank screen.
Ryan came and squeezed her shoulder.
“It’s a good school. Very rigorous. The kids are up at six thirty in the morning to start the day with cardio followed by skiing, when there’s snow. Five hours later they’re in the classroom. Then they stay up studying or waxing their skis.” She looked up at Ryan through glistening tears. “Ninety percent of them go to college.”
He pulled her up into his embrace. “You are an amazing mother. You’re doing a great job with Cal. Look at how happy he is. You’ve given him this remarkable opportunity.”
Jenna squeezed her body into Ryan’s.
He continued, “In a few days, these crazy events will be contained, and you’ll be making plans to take Cal to Antigua.”
She pulled away and looked up at him. “How about the three of us?”
Ryan’s face lit up in a smile. “Yeah, the three of us.”