Lindsay McKenna - Man With A Mission

Morgan nodded. “I understand,” he said softly. “Your sister is to be commended for her courage in helping those people.”

“Yes, sir.” Jake swallowed hard. “The Wiraqocha Foundation just contacted me to tell me my sister had gone missing and they suspect kidnapping. The last time I heard from Tal was last week. She called from Cusco to say she was going out in the field, near what she called the Inka Trail. There’s a village located nearby, and that’s where I believe she was when she was kidnapped.”

“The Inka Trail,” Mike told Morgan, “is an ancient route about a hundred miles long that connects the Rainbow Valley to the temple site at Machu Picchu. It’s about a thousand years old, paved with stones that were laid by the Inkan people so that runners from the empire’s main temple at Cusco could send messages to different sites in the valley, all the way to Machu Picchu.”

“And today,” Pilar added, “it’s considered one of the most beautiful and challenging trails in the world. People from around the world walk it just to say they did it and survived.” She smiled a little. “The trail goes from fourteen thousand feet down to six thousand. And it’s not for wimps.”

Houston chuckled. “No joke.” Then he became somber. “That area you’re talking about has never had drug activity—until now. Did your sister know of any activity before she went down there?”

Shaking his head, Jake muttered, “No, sir. She didn’t say anything about it, and frankly, I didn’t think about it, either. This foundation has been working in Peru for over a decade and never heard of drugs being traded through Rainbow Valley. They are just as shocked and upset over Tal’s disappearance as my parents and I are.”

Houston nodded. “Drug lords move around. They never stay in one spot too long. They keep alive by remaining on the move.” He got up and went to a wall map of Peru, which had a number of small red flags pinned to it. He picked up the flag near the Rainbow Valley region. “Just as I thought,” he muttered, reading the tag, “the last report of drug activity we received from this area implicates a small-time drug lord who’s trying to enlarge his territory.” Mike pinned the flag back on the map and came over and sat down.

“By any chance is it Javier Rojas?” Pilar asked, looking up at Mike.

“Yep, that’d be my bet,” he answered. “A mean little snake with tiny, close-set eyes and a personality to match. He’s well known for kidnapping foreigners and then demanding money for them. It’s how he does business, getting more money to set up his little drug-smuggling kingdom.”

Jake scowled. “There’s been no word from anyone on Tal’s disappearance. The Wiraqocha Foundation has received no demands for money for her release, either. And neither have my parents. Is that bad?”

Morgan heard the carefully concealed terror in the young officer’s voice. He saw it in his pale blue eyes, in his huge black pupils. Jake leaned forward, his hands balled into fists on the table, the desperation and worry for his sister obvious.

“Look, Son, I think Pilar and Mike will agree with me that when you’re dealing with a small fish like Rojas, a phone call or demand for money at this point may be a bit premature.” Morgan looked to his people. “Am I correct?”

“That’s right,” Pilar said. She reached across the table and patted Jake’s hand gently. “You must remember, señor, that Peru is not like Norteamérica. In Peru we do not have superior roads.”

“No roads at all, most of the time,” Mike added wryly. “A lot of llama, alpaca and cow trails, though.”

“Sì. And telephones are a luxury. Especially anywhere outside of Lima, the capital, or Cusco, the second largest city in our country.”

“Translated,” Houston growled, “that means that Rojas doesn’t have an iridium satellite phone, which he could use to call anywhere in the world, because he can’t yet afford one. He can’t use a cell phone up there in those mountains, either. So he’s got to get back to Cusco, would be my guess, to get to a phone to make a call. Which—” Mike smiled a little “—can be difficult at best. If he’s the struggling little upstart of a drug lord I think he is, he doesn’t have the money, the means or the people to do this. It’s probably too soon to expect a call.”

“But what about Tal? What will he do to her?” Jake choked back the emotion rising in his chest and jamming his throat. He wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to wrap his fingers around Rojas’s scrawny little neck and choke him to death if he was the one who had kidnapped Tal. What would the man do to her? Rape her? Bitterness coated Jake’s mouth. Jake couldn’t stand the thought of such a thing happening to his vibrant sister, who was like sunshine in his life.

Houston sighed. “What kind of a personality does Tal have?”

“She’s outgoing. Spirited. Vibrant. She walks into a room and everyone turns to look at her.” Jake smiled a little, his voice softening. “She’s such a warm person, Major Houston. Very caring.”

“Is she a pushover?” Pilar asked.

Jake shook his head. “No, just the opposite. She’s a fighter. She can confront the meanest bastard and look him in the eye and stand toe-to-toe with him and win.”

Houston nodded approvingly. “Good. Because mealymouthed tyrants like Rojas are usually afraid of big, bruising norteamericana women, who are seen as Amazon warriors. South American men are used to passive females who do their bidding.” He glanced past Morgan and gave Pilar an apologetic look. “There are exceptions, of course.”

Pilar nodded deferentially. “Thank you, Mike.”

Jake looked at them. “You’re saying that if she stays strong, he won’t…hurt her?”

“That’s right,” Houston murmured. “She probably scares the pants off Rojas.” He chuckled.

Pilar laughed softly. “South American men have not learned how to deal with a strong, self-empowered woman yet.” Her dark eyes sparkled mischievously. “But they are learning.”

Jake leaned forward. “That leads me to why I’m here, Mr. Trayhern. I need to get down there. I need help, though. The kind only you can give me. Can you send me with one of your mercenaries as a guide? So I can find Tal? My parents are Iowa farmers. They don’t have any money at all, but I’ve got about ten thousand dollars saved and—”

“Save your money,” Morgan murmured. He looked at Mike. “Who do we have in from a mission that we could send down with him?”

Mike rolled his eyes. “No one. We’re stretched thin right now, Morgan.”

Scowling, he said, “Are you sure?”

Mike nodded glumly. “Very sure.”

Pilar sat up. “Then you need someone from inside Peru to assist you. Mike, what about Captain Maya Stevenson? She’s got a spec ops—special operations—base near Machu Picchu, right?”

Snapping his fingers, Houston sat up. “That’s right! She’s got Apache helicopter pilots from various countries working under her command. And if I recall, there are two Peruvian pilots among them. Home grown. The kind we need right now.”

Pilar grinned a little. “What are the chances of persuading Captain Stevenson to loan out a pilot who might know not only the area, but the Quechua language as well? The Rainbow Valley is mostly made up of Quechua Indian villages, where Spanish is a second language, not the first, as it is in the rest of the country.”

Morgan looked from Mike to Pilar. “Sounds good to me. What you don’t know is that I’ve been in contact with her already. I got wind, through an army general friend of mine, of her needing upgraded Apache helicopters. She indicated that she might be willing to work with us in order to get those upgrades. I haven’t told her how we might work with her.”

Jake frowned. “I don’t understand. You don’t have a team or a person from Perseus who can help me find Tal?”

“No, Son, we don’t.” Morgan smiled slightly. “But we have other contacts that might work out just as well. Maybe better. Mike, you want to contact Captain Stevenson on the iridium scramble sat com? Tell her I want to trade one of her Peruvian women pilots for those Apache upgrades she’s been wanting.” He scowled. “She won’t be easily convinced, Mike, so hang tough with her. She’s shorthanded as hell and isn’t about to let one go unless we wave those much-needed upgrades under her nose. She’s a savvy negotiator.”

Rising, Mike said, “You bet. Hang around, Captain Travers, and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Nonplussed, Jake looked at Morgan. “Who’s this Captain Stevenson?”

“She’s a shadowy spec ops figure who is under spook supervision. We don’t know a whole lot about her, as her work is on a need-to-know basis. The general I talked to put me in touch with her about a month ago.”

Spooks were the CIA, Jake realized. “A woman helicopter pilot down in Peru and working for the CIA?”

“Actually,” Pilar added proudly, “she’s a U.S. Army captain, an Apache combat helicopter pilot. One of yours. How about that?”

“She’s army?”

Morgan looked amused. “Why does that surprise you, Captain Travers? Women make just as lethal warriors as any man ever did. In fact—” he smiled over at Pilar “—my women mercenaries, most of whom are from one of the four military services, are equal to or better than any man in my employ. There’re no weak sisters among them. And I like teaming up a man with a woman because women see things men often overlook. And in our business, the devil’s in the details. You overlook a detail and you’re dead. So, yes, my women are like big guard dogs, with senses far better honed than any man’s probably ever will be. Men and women each have their strong points. Together, they’ve got the best chance of carrying out a mission successfully and coming home alive.”

“You’ve made quite a few sexist statements there, Morgan. And for a change, most of them favor women,” Pilar said, her grin widening, pride in her eyes.

Morgan shrugged. “I’ve learned it the hard way over the years, Pilar. Never underestimate a woman who’s doing spy duties. She sees all the colors and has finely honed instincts.” He grinned at her. “You were a spy down in Peru for quite some time.”

Pilar nodded. “Yes, I was. And I was very good at what I did.”

“Men have just as good an ability to see details as any woman, sir,” Jake said.

Morgan studied him across the table. Jake was scowling now, as if he didn’t want to hear that a woman was as good—or better—than any man.

“Captain, I dare say you’re young and inexperienced. If you were a ranger, you have no women in your outfit—yet. And that’s a pity, in my opinion, because they bring skills and abilities to the table none of us males have ever gotten in touch with. They can teach you a lot if you’re open to learning from them.”

Jake throttled his defensive response. “Beggin’ your pardon, sir, but no woman can do the job a ranger does. Ever.”

Pilar sighed. “Oh, Captain, you are so young and wet behind the ears.”

Chuckling, Morgan said, “If you don’t value what a woman brings to the table, Son, then it’s your loss. Captain Stevenson has single-handedly carved out a spec ops in the Peruvian jungle in the last three years, with a small group of women U.S. Army pilots and women technicians to service the crafts. She’s cut drug running from Peru to Bolivia’s border by fifty percent. Just she and her women. Major Houston was down there for ten years trying to do the same thing, but he didn’t have near the success rate she’s had. Captain Stevenson is a bold, brilliant woman. A strong tactical planner and a visionary way ahead of her time.”