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“Then give me the abbreviated version, General.”
Wilde’s face reddened. There wasn’t a way in the world anyone ever spoke to him like this. They both knew it, just as they both knew that the general was just going to have to deal with a new reality, a reality that was standing in front of him, glowering.
“Alessandra is—she’s a child I had with my, ah, my second wife.”
“And?”
“And…” Long pause. “And, nobody knows I had a second wife.”
“I don’t follow. You divorced your first wife?”
“No.”
“Then what? She died?”
“Yes. And I don’t see what any of this has to do with finding my daughter and rescuing her from the clutches of a ragtag bunch of killers.”
“Wrong.” Tanner’s voice was as grim as the look on his face. “Don’t dismiss them as a ragtag bunch. They’re well financed and their leaders, at least, are well trained. And I still don’t get why you haven’t involved the State Department. They know how to handle things like this.”
“I told you. Nobody knows about Alessandra. About my—my second marriage. It took place in Italy. There’s no record of it here. I’d have to waste precious time on a lot of pointless explanations.”
Explanations the man didn’t want to make. The unspoken words all but echoed through the room.
And yet, Tanner thought, not involving State could be the best course of action fo
r whoever planned and coordinated a rescue. He wasn’t a fan of protocol and diplomacy and red tape, and he sure as hell hated dealing with by-the-book government functionaries making life-and-death decisions when the toughest life-and-death issue most of them ever handled was traffic on the Beltway each morning.
Somebody working off the grid with contacts in Special Forces would best know how to handle this situation—somebody with contacts in the CIA. In the NSA. In the place referred to only as The Agency.
In STUD.
A coordinator like that would have worked in the field. He’d know how to bypass the petty rules established by petty politicians.
And he was the lucky guy Blake and the general had chosen to oversee the rescue of the spoiled estranged daughter of a four-star general. Of a woman who wanted to turn cats into coats.
She’d certainly chosen the right place.
San Escobal was pretty much the jaguar capital of Central America. He’d learned that when he’d served there. A couple of times, he and his squad had been lucky enough to glimpse the big, graceful cats slipping through the trees.
Had she gone there to make the arrangements herself? Maybe she’d wanted to take a personal look at the creatures she was going to pay men to kill. There were laws against hunting the cats, but there were laws against lots of things in San Escobal and one of the reasons people went to such places was because nobody paid attention to the laws.
Amazing. He’d never met the lady, and he already didn’t like her. Still, she didn’t deserve to be raped or murdered or worse. And yeah, there was worse.
“Who else knows about this besides this jungle group and your pal at State?”
“Only you.”
“And Captain Blake.”
“Yes. I told him everything. He immediately suggested you. He said you knew more about Central America, more about the scum operating in its jungles, than any operative he had.”
“Why did you contact the captain instead of someone else? You surely have access to every service that exists.”
“We go way back. Jim and I served on a joint task force in Europe years ago, and now he’s in charge of STUD.” Wilde managed a quick smile. “No point in playing games, Akecheta. We have the world’s best military, but everyone knows STUD is where to turn when you’re knee-deep in shit.”
Tanner walked to the wall of windows and drew open the blinds. Bright afternoon light flooded the room. A long stretch of pristine white sand led to the ocean, where gulls dipped and soared over the water. The sight was beautiful and serene, almost a gut-wrenching contrast to what might be happening in the jungles of San Escobal, more than three thousand miles away.
Slowly, he turned and looked at John Hamilton Wilde.
