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Lauren was used to being around operators. Gone was his easy-going manner. He placed the MP-445 in its holster after putting a round in the chamber and unsafing it. If he ran into trouble, seconds would count. Seconds between surviving or dying. “What do you want me to do?”
“Stay here.” Alex pulled the Velcro cover over his watch. The cover hid the radium dial from potential enemies. “It is 2100, nine p.m. The hotel where they stay is cheap and it is poorly-built compared to the other hotels in this town. I am very familiar with its location. There is a jungle wall and trees that grow within feet of the rear of that building. I will climb one of the trees, watch, and recon.”
“No set time you’ll return?”
“I will return by 0400.” He reached down and pulled out two radios from his gear bag. “These radios work roughly for a mile. Are you familiar with how they work?”
Relieved, Lauren took hers and nodded. “Yes.”
“Once I am in position, I will give it one click, and that means I am hidden in a tree. I will not speak into it.”
“Right,” she murmured, turning the radio on. It was a small, hand-sized model. One of several radios they had brought along.
“If you need something,” and his voice lowered, “if your life is in danger, give me two clicks. I will come back here as soon as I can.”
Lauren nodded. “I think I’ll be very safe, warm, and dry here.”
“Usually,” Alex said, nodding back at her, “when a group comes into town, they are focused on getting cleaned up, eating hot food, drinking vodka, and then finding a prostitute.”
“You probably know where the brothel is,” she deadpanned. His eyes sparkled for a moment.
“Yes. It is right next door from that broken-down old hotel they stay in.”
“I think I remember that hotel. It’s on the left just where we started to climb the hill?”
“Yes, a gray two-story stucco building sitting right up against the jungle wall.”
“We’d call that a flea-bitten hotel,” she told him. “Dirty. Cockroaches. Cheap rates. Filthy, dirty mattresses,” and she wrinkled her nose.
“More slang,” he murmured, grinning. “Flea-bitten. Yes, the mattresses there are very old, musty and I have slept on them. I’d rather sleep on the ground, it is cleaner. Every morning I used to wake up with so many bites. Fleas among them.”
“Sounds awful.”
Alex looked around the semi-darkened apartment. “You call Hunter by sat phone. Fill him in. When I come back, I will give him my report, and I’ll have digital photos we can encrypt and then send to him from the laptop.”
She watched him tuck the radio in another pocket. “Just be careful?” Because Lauren knew if the Russians ever found Alex, they would torture and kill him. He was a traitor in their eyes, and she was sure his name was well-known among the groups loyal to Vlad Alexandrov that prowled this region.
“I will be.”
“If you get into trouble? How will I know?”
“I will return here by 0400. No later. If I do not show up, then you need to find me or find out where I am being held.” His mouth turned down. He reached out, placing his hand on her shoulder. “Lauren, if that happens, and I do not think it will, you must call Shield for back-up. Get the Special Forces team headed up by Sergeant Mace Killmer, who is on stand-by in Cusco, just in case. You cannot go it alone if I have been captured.”
She saw the worry in his eyes, felt his fingers move restively across her shoulder. Her flesh tingled wherever they grazed her. “I don’t work stupid,” she told him. “We have that Special Forces teams available. And that CIA agent that we haven’t met yet? After this stage is over, we need to reach out to our contacts.”
Alex had planned on meeting the agent tomorrow morning at a predetermined time and location. “I agree. Okay,” he said, somewhat relieved. “I am not going to get caught, so stop looking at me like that.”
“Looking like what?” Lauren demanded, already missing the touch of his hand as he removed it from her shoulder. She saw his mouth flex, amusement in his gaze.
“I think you are a big worry-wart about your partner. Yes?”
“Always,” she muttered defiantly. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“You are a hen’s mother, Lauren,” he teased, trying out American slang.
“Alex, it’s ‘mother hen’. Okay?”
He chuckled. “I always get them mixed up. Your crazy Americans and your crazy sayings,” and he reached out, briefly touching her cheek. “I will return,Malen ‘kaya.”
