Page 94 of Dangerous Liaisons

Chapter Sixty-Eight

Jesse stared at Nielson. “You put Cole under orders? Why didn’t someone inform me?”

Neilson laughed “How? You were out in the cold. You set everything in motion. We had to ride along and try to salvage what remained. Besides, would you have believed him?”

“You could have—”

“Could have what? Come to Colombia and tipped off every agent and drug lord in North and South America that Henry Neilson had decided to vacation in Colombia just when one of his top operatives was wanted for treason?”

Jesse shook her head stubbornly. “You could have tried.”

“Really? You mean like when you showed up at the bank then ran out on us? Or when we waited for you at Bogotá International and you got spooked?”

She stared at him.

“That’s right,” Nielson said. “It was a perfect set-up; the rogue agent gone bad. I didn’t like it—too much could go wrong.” He leveled a hard gaze on her. “And it did. Once word got out you had returned to the States, then headed back to Colombia, I lost the ability to say you were innocent. Washington decided you’d try to take your sister back to Colombia.”

Jesse stumbled back a pace. Cole caught her, and eased her onto the bed.

“After that,” Nielson went on, “the best I could do was send you someone I knew you could count on.”

She glanced up at Cole. A gentle smile crossed his face and she wondered if she hadn’t fallen down the rabbit hole.

“After you two met with Lanton in the warehouse,” Nielson went on, “Cole reported how things went down, then headed for Amanda. We already had someone there, and he got her out before Lanton’s man arrived.”

Jesse’s head swam. She had been wrong, right down the line. “Where is she?”

Cole sat down beside her. “Not at Houghton House. We didn’t get the guy who shot at you.”

She nodded.

“You’re lucky,” Nielson said. “Once the committee heard the taped conversation between you and Green Leader, that got you off the hook—barely.”

Jesse startled. “Taped?” She looked at Cole.

He nodded. “You really have to quit running off. And next time, stick with the plan.”

She frowned in confusion.

“We had him pretty good, but we wanted one other thing,” Cole said.

Jesse fought back tears. “Tom?”

“No,” Nielson said with vehemence. “That was a second surprise. If he hadn’t destroyed evidence of a crime, we would simply dismiss him. Now…” Neilson sighed. “Lanton’s dead. His wife killed him.”

Jesse’s head spun.

Cole’s brow knit. “You all right, Jess?”

“Lanton’s wife?” Her voice came out as a croak.

“Right,” he replied. “She’s the one who tipped off Perez about Green Team’s rescue attempt.”

Jesse stared. “Why—Perez spoke only of Lanton.” A sickening feeling settled in her stomach. Perez said the whole affair had been orchestrated. She assumed he meant by Robert Lanton.

Nielson shrugged. “It’s a guess, but we figure she’d had enough of his carousing.”

“How did she know about the operation?”