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Daria smiled and saw the other two men come over, eagerly looking through the goodies she’d laid out for them.
Mace turned as they crouched beside him, eyeing the snack foods. “This is Nate Cunningham,” he said, introducing the man to Daria. “He’s our 18Delta medic.”
“Hi,” Daria murmured, shaking the twenty-nine-year-old man’s offered hand. “I got Cheetos for you and that other jar of bean dip. Nik said you really like them.”
Nate grinned widely and released her hand. “Yes, ma’am, there’s nothing like ’em out here. Resupplies the salt I sweat out by the hour around here.” He took the package from Daria, holding it like a rare prize he’d just won along with the bean dip.
“And this dude,” Mace said dryly, “is our communications sergeant Cale Merrill.”
Daria met the other man’s large, intelligent blue gaze as Cale offered his big hand to her. Merrill was at least six foot tall. He had a hard, deeply lined, tanned face. There was a chilling energy about the soldier, as if he’d witnessed atrocities. Daria saw the tiredness deep in his eyes. It came with time and the wear on a soldier’s soul in this kind of work, and she knew it well. Daria released his hand and gave him the bag of Lay’s potato chips along with the jar of hot Salsa. She saw sudden warmth and gratitude come to his eyes, but he never smiled. Of the three, he felt the most wounded to Daria. The one who had seen too much, and it was laying heavily on his heart and soul. She understood, as few others ever could.
“Nik said you guys have a love of candy,” and she swept her hand over the choices at her feet. “Mars Bars for Kilmer, Butterfingers for Cunningham, and Kit-Kats for you, Sergeant Merrill.”
“Man,” Nate murmured, grabbing his stash, “thisisunexpected. Thanks, ma’am.”
“Call me Daria,” she insisted, looking around at all of them. She knew that, in the military, people were called by their surname rather than their first name. But this was not exactly the military.
“Daria’s a pretty name,” Mace drawled, getting up and placing his stash into his opened ruck. He went back to fixing the coffee in a beat-up percolator over a wire grate, the blinding light and heat of a magnesium tablet under it heating the water to boiling point.
Daria watched each man go back to his ruck to stow Nik’s thoughtful and priceless gifts in them. Her heart expanded with a fierce love of him. He’d bought these men the snacks out of his own pocket. It spoke to her of his regard and respect for them. She understood they were more like friends than mere fellow black ops partners. She missed Nik, feeling that blade of loneliness score her heart. She worried about him, out as he was with Korsak and, now, Pavlovich, the man who might be her as-of-yet unknown relative. Not wanting to focus on all that now, she shoved it deep down within herself.
In no time, Kilmer had the coffee made. Daria was given a rusted, beat-up tin cup with the steaming brew in it. The three men sat on other logs, set in a semi-triangular formation, across from her. Although they never honestly relaxed, they did get rid of their bucket hats and set their AKs aside, but within reach. Daria could tell they really appreciated the hot coffee. Nik had also bought them a large pack of Oreo cookies which she opened and placed between them to have with their coffee. The mirrored appreciation in these men’s faces melted her heart. Daria knew what it was like to not have familiar comfort food from back home for months on end.
“What do you have for us?” Kilmer asked finally, in a gap between Fritos and bean dip.
Daria told them everything, leaving nothing out. The three listened attentively, never taking notes. Hunter-killer teams consisted of those with the highest intelligence and skills of anyone in the US Army, with the possible exceptions of CAG or Delta Force. They focused especially hard when she told them about Nik’s info on Pavlovich. The only thing she left out was her birthmark, the one matching the drug lord’s own. She’d gone to Cusco yesterday and delivered the evidence to the hospital. The bottle of tissues was then overnighted to Lima for analysis at the large hospital there in their DNA testing lab. She’d also supplied a small vial of her own blood along with the package, praying that there was no match. She’d not yet had time to sift through her violent reactions and terror over possibly being the unknown Russian relative of Pavlovich.
Mace finished his coffee, munching thoughtfully on his sixth Oreo cookie, two more ready in his hand. “Pavlovich showing up unexpectedly throws a grenade into this kidnapping op of ours,” he grumbled, scratching his beard in thought.
“He’s an unknown,” she agreed.
“Morozov got along with him,” Merrill said, giving his teammates a glance. “I don’t think that’s bad news. It sounds more like he’s gunning to demote Korsak.”
“Yeah,” Nate said, munching with delight over his eighth Oreo, “so long as Pavlovich focuses on Korsak, Nik can remain the shadow he is.”
Mouth quirking, Daria studied Kilmer across from her. “How bad is this going to screw up a possible kidnapping of Korsak?”
Shrugging, finishing off the last cookie and rubbing his hands down his hard, curved thighs, Mace muttered, “Depends. First, we have to know which village they’re at. That’s been the one, single biggest FUBAR in all of this. Korsak doesn’t trust Nik any further than he can throw him. But maybe, just maybe, with Pavlovich in the mix, Nik can get more intel out of him sooner.”
“Do you have a fix on where they went?” she wondered. Because no satellites could penetrate the triple canopy with any reasonable degree of accuracy, or precisely identify body heat signatures via infrared. Any of those red blobs could be Quechua Indians, wild pigs, or even a jaguar family out for a stroll on those trails winding deep through the thick jungle, and not a Russian team at all. A satellite wouldn’t be able tell the difference due to the dispersion of frequencies through the triple canopy leaves.
“They’re headed in the direction of Flor,” Mace provided. He shrugged his broad shoulders, adding, “But the trail they’re on presently forks in three different directions and there’s three village choice possibilities from that point on.”
“Needle in a haystack,” Daria agreed grimly, seeing the men’s eyes reflect her own frustration.
“We never tail them too closely,” Nate told her, wiping off his hands.
“Good, because Nik wanted to warn you about those two so-called guards with Pavlovich. They’re ex-Spetsnaz, and they’re a lot smarter than the average bodyguard types,” Daria told them.
“Means we really go into stealth mode,” Mace said unhappily.
“It means,” Merrill growled, “that we’re going to rely even more heavily on those notes Morozov passes to us.”
“It’s not going to be easy,” Daria agreed, giving them all a sympathetic look.
The mood shifted and Nate gathered up the empty Oreo pack, stuffing it into one of his cargo pockets. “How are you doing down here, Daria? Does Peru suit you?” he teased.
She warmed to the 18Delta medic. In many ways, Nate was the most open and vulnerable of the three men. But he was a medic, too, and it came with the territory. She liked his moss-green eyes that always held a sparkle in them, like he was an elf in disguise. Especially because he was the shortest of the three, leaner, but wiry. He had a more readable face, but maybe that was due to his brownish-red hair and the boyish freckles across his nose making him look younger. Maybe more approachable than Kilmer and Merrill. “I’ve done a lot of ops in Brazil, but the jungle’s different in the Amazon than here in Peru,” she told him.
