Page 46 of Dangerous Liaisons

Her heart sped up.

“You were nowhere near the village when we went in. There wasn’t a thing you could do to stop what happened.”

Her heart lurched. There wasn’t a thing she could do to stop Robby Mills from being mowed down by an AK47? Or David Benton from getting his head blown from his body?

“What happened after you called headquarters?”

The harsh note in Cole’s voice jarred her. “Huh?”

“After you called headquarters, what happened?”

Her mind jumped into high gear. “Headquarters—I told you. Green Leader—”

“You called because you knew they had time to abort the mission. You never were that far from the village, were you?” Cole gave his head a single, slow shake. “What kind of fool am I? Why didn’t you tell me you went back to the village?”

She drew in a sharp breath.

“Yeah,” he said, and she realized her reaction had wiped away any doubt he’d had about being right. “Want to tell me about it?”

The need behind his softy spoken words caused her heart to thump like a jackhammer drilling through her chest. How could she possibly recount how she’d watched while two of his men were murdered? How could she admit she’d walked away while he was still alive in that village? Panic washed over her. How could she deny what he now clearly knew?

“You leaving then has nothing to do with us now,” he said.

She couldn’t halt the cry that escaped her lips.

He grasped her shoulders and pulled her so close his warm breath fanned her face.

“You trying to fix things on your own will get you killed. We’re a team, Jess, and there isn’t a blessed thing you can do to change that. Try, and I’ll handcuff you inside a shed and bolt the door until this thing is over.”

He grew silent, and Jesse held her breath in anticipation of the demand that she tell him what she saw at the village.

“Which will it be, Jess? You going to force me to do more than just handcuff you to me, or you going to at least pretend you trust me?”

“Pretend—” She pulled free of his grasp.

“I think that’s a fair deal,” he said.

She snorted, but knew he didn’t have to be fair. He could sit back and wait for Menendez to decide the heat had cooled enough to contact Perez. Her ace in the hole—the number recorded on the sniffer—would change within the hour if it was Perez’s.

“The sniffer recorded one call” she said.

Cole reached inside his ops vest and pulled out an olive drab, one-piece phone the size of a cigarette pack, so new, she’d only seen mockups.

“A satellite phone? I didn’t see that with the other gear.” She raised a brow. “Trust?”

“We need experts quick.” He jabbed out a sequence of numbers, put the Harvester in drive, pressed the phone to his ear, and said, “It’s me,” as he eased back onto the road. He looked at her. “What’s the number?”

Jesse hesitated.

“All you have to do is pretend, Jess.”

She gave him a withering look, then spouted off the number.