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  The utter darkness disoriented her to the point that she was afraid to stand up. Guess she’d crawl as she explored her prison. On all fours, Mercy moved forward, hoping she didn’t pitch headfirst into a hard object. When her hand bumped against a solid surface, she reached out to feel the obstacle in front of her. Stone.

  Frowning, she felt along the stone wall. It wasn’t smooth like a man-made structure. This was natural. Dirt floor. Rock wall. Listening intently, she heard water running nearby, like a creek. She was in a cave?

  Mercy grimaced. She hated caves. The whole bat thing just creeped her out. Using the rock wall as a guide, she stood and stretched over her head as far as possible. No low ceiling. If she was right and the gunmen had dumped her in a cave, she would be foolish to explore too far. Some cave systems extended back for miles with multiple turnoffs where people could get lost. She might never be found or she might pitch headfirst over a steep drop.

  Torn between staying put and exploring further, Mercy opted to take a hundred steps to the left to see if she could find an opening. Any light would be preferable to the inky blackness and give her a better sense of the enclosure’s size and shape.

  To keep herself oriented, she trailed one hand along the wall while she held the other out in front of her. Wouldn’t want to slam into a wall and give herself a concussion. Her head already pounded. No need to add to her misery.

  When Mercy reached the count of one hundred, she still hadn’t run into another wall of this cave. The sound of flowing water was louder, making her long for a drink. She knew it wasn’t safe because the water wasn’t treated.

  After retracing her steps, Mercy walked one hundred steps the other direction. This time, her hand touched a rough, wet rock wall. Nice. She didn’t dare remove her hand from the wall she’d been using as a guide. She also didn’t want to sit against a wet wall, either.

  Returning to her original position at the center of the guide wall, Mercy sank to the ground, her strength gone for now. She’d rest and think of some way to get herself out of this predicament. If she could escape and find to a phone, she could call for help.

  She didn’t know how many minutes passed when she heard a scraping noise to her left. She analyzed the sound. Before Mercy could decide what it was, a bright light shone into the interior of the cavern.

  Wincing, Mercy shielded her eyes from the glare, but took a quick look around the interior. A cave, the chamber a large one. On the left side was the small stream of water she heard.

  “You’re awake. Good.” Hard hands grabbed Mercy and yanked her to her feet. “Come.”

  Like she had a choice in the matter. Still averting her eyes from the flashlight’s glare, she stumbled from the cavern into the open air. The stars were out, the night clear and muggy, and the moon was high in the sky. She had been unconscious for several hours.

  When she stumbled, the man cursed, grabbed her arm, and hurried her forward. Mercy considered shaking off the hard hand gripping her arm like a vise and discarded the idea. If she fell and twisted an ankle, her chances of escape dwindled to zero.

  She skidded in several places as the kidnapper dragged her down a rocky hillside. What she wouldn’t give for a pair of hiking boots about now. Doing this kind of walking in dress shoes and a dress wasn’t optimal.

  By the time the terrain flattened out, Mercy was panting as though she’d walked miles instead of down a hillside. The man at her side yanked her along, cursing at her for being slow.

  In the distance, she saw a complex of buildings with lights blazing from the windows. Her captor propelled her across the remaining distance and up the stairs into a large one-story cinder-block building.

  Blinking against the light, Mercy made a mental note of the doors and rooms they passed in the wide corridor. At the end of the hall, the kidnapper threw open a door and shoved Mercy inside a room. Only one door and the two windows were barred. She wasn’t getting out of here through a window.

  The room was empty aside from a camera atop a tripod and a chair in the center of the space. The sight of the chair sitting on a blue tarp made Mercy’s gut clench. Surely these men weren’t going to interrogate her. She didn’t know anything. Even if she did, she wouldn’t betray her country or her uncle and his family. She would never put Charlotte in danger.

  “Sit.” The thug stood near the door, his back to the wall. He was muscular and heavily armed, his attention focused on her.

  Since Mercy’s legs were shaking with remnants of the drug and flat out fear, she sat. She didn’t wait long.

  A man dressed in black except for his silver-tipped cowboy boots walked into the room, flanked by two other men in similar garb. The man in the middle, though, wore authority like a second skin. Everything about this man said he was in charge.

  Mercy memorized his face. Perhaps he would tell her why she’d been taken.

  The leader swaggered into the room, his gaze sweeping over her body, a lingering perusal that made revulsion surge inside Mercy. Although she wanted to demand answers and insist this man to release her, she kept her mouth shut and waited for him to speak.

  He motioned to the thug on his right, a man with hairy arms like a gorilla. Gorilla lumbered to the camera and flipped a switch. After the red light came on, he nodded to his boss.

  In heavily accented English, Boss moved closer. “Look at the camera and beg for your life.”

  Mercy raised her chin and glared at the man. Muscle, the man who had dragged her down the mountainside, glanced nervously at Boss, then at her. His gaze implored her to talk.

  Not a chance. If she did as Boss demanded, she had no guarantee she wouldn’t get a bullet in the head immediately afterward. Logic said compliance would get her killed faster than defiance.

  Boss scowled and moved a few steps closer. “Beg for your life.” He gestured to the camera. “You plead enough, I get what I want.”

  “What do you want?” she asked, her gaze steady and her voice quiet.

  “The release of our leader, Jorge Morales.”

  “The US government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. Let me go. I’m not important, just a representative of the government expressing the condolences of our people to the Soldado family for their loss.”

  Boss’s eyebrows rose and a wide smile curved his lips. “Ah, you should hope this is not true. If the president won’t release Jorge, I have no reason to keep you alive.”

  Yeah, pretty much what she’d figured.

  Boss checked that the camera was still on, then faced her once more and backhanded her. The sound of the slap echoed in the nearly empty room as shock and pain rocketed through Mercy. A warm trickle of liquid trailing from the side of her mouth told her Boss had split her lip.

  He reached back with his other hand and slapped her on the other side of her face. This time, the pain exploded on her cheek.

  The boss walked around behind her and, with this fist in her hair, yanked her head back against his chest. He forced her face toward the camera. “You see this pretty woman, President Martin? She won’t be so pretty when my men and I are finished with her if you don’t release Jorge Morales in the next 24 hours. Don’t test me. If you do, the woman will beg me to end her life long before I agree to kill her.”

  He motioned for the camera man to turn off the camera. “Send it to the White House.” Boss circled to the front of Mercy again. “I am most unhappy with you. No food for you.” Boss tilted his chin at Muscle. “Take her back to the cave and post guards in case the Americans are stupid enough to send someone for her.”

  Muscle jerked Mercy to her feet and hauled her from the room. As he forced her down the hallway, Mercy saw a bathroom. “Wait.” She gestured toward the room. “Please.”

  A scowl, then he shoved her inside. “Fast or I force you out.”

  Not wanting to antagonize Muscle, Mercy used the facilities, washed her hands in a hurry, and cleaned the blood from her face. The door opened just as she tossed the used paper towel into the trash. “T
hank you.”

  “Out, now,” he hissed. He grasped her arm again and hauled her outside the building.

  Although Muscle hurried her from the compound, she noticed a large SUV slowing to stop at the entrance to the building she’d just left. The driver circled the hood to the back door. Seconds later, a distinguished-looking man with gray hair stepped out. When he reached for the knob of the front door, the man turned slightly under the light, glanced at her, then proceeded inside.

  “You should not push Hector,” Muscle said. “He can kill you in the most painful ways.”

  “He’ll kill me anyway.” She slid a sideways glance at him. “Why do you work for him? You’ll die an early death if you don’t free yourself from this life.”

  “I have no choice. He threatened my family.”

  “Take me to a safe place and I’ll help you.” Uncle William would work something out to reward this man for saving her life.

  He growled. “I have no wish to die tonight.” With that, he stopped talking and lengthened his stride, forcing Mercy to jog beside him to stay on her feet. At the entrance to the cave, Muscle shoved Mercy inside the cavern and locked her in.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Nico checked his phone’s screen. He read Zane’s text. With a frown, he clicked on his email and tapped the link Zane sent to his inbox. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the beautiful woman on the screen.

  He stared at her picture, memorizing the features of a woman he’ d have enjoyed meeting under better circumstances. This must be Mercy Powers, President Martin’s niece. Nico pulled out headphones from the overhead compartment and plugged them into his computer. Didn’t make sense, but he wanted to view this video clip alone first, then he would show the footage to his teammates. He tapped the icon.

  A man speaking with a heavy Mexican accent said, “Look at the camera, and beg for your life.”

  As Nico watched the five-minute clip, his admiration for Mercy grew. He saw the knowledge in her eyes. She’d worked out the truth that if she complied with the thug’s demand, he wouldn’t have a reason to keep her alive.

  Fury boiled in his gut as he watched the thug hit her. When the clip finished, he replayed it over and over, looking for anything that might give him an idea where Mercy was being held. Chiapas Province covered a lot of territory. Unfortunately, he saw nothing to help. The room was made of plain cinder block painted a neutral color. The one window he saw in the clip was covered with black bars.

  When he was satisfied he couldn’t glean more from the footage, Nico grabbed his phone again and called Zane. “Tell me you have something to point us in the right direction,” he said when the communications guru answered.

  “The thug who hit Mercy is Hector Blanco, Jorge Morales’s right-hand man. I just sent you the latest intel on the Scorpion operation in Chiapas Province and their known strongholds. I’m tracking the origin of the email, but it will take a while.”

  “I want to know as soon as you get anything.” He didn’t know how long ago the video had been sent to the president and the deadline from Hector was only 24 hours. Not a lot of time to track down a woman being held captive in an area covering thousands of square miles, including the stinking jungle.

  After he ended the call with Zane, Nico moved to the conference area of the jet and signaled his team to join him. “The Scorpions sent this video clip to the White House.”

  He connected his laptop to the large television and hit play. Each of the men scowled when Hector hit Mercy. Sam flinched. “What did you notice?”

  “Hector isn’t afraid for people see his face,” Joe said.

  Trace scowled. “The Scorpions think they’re untouchable.”

  “Worse, they’re not worried about Mercy seeing their faces.” Sam pointed to the shadows on the wall of the room where Mercy had been recorded. “Even though he doesn’t step into camera range, this guy’s face isn’t covered by a mask.”

  “How can she defend herself? She’s unarmed and untrained.” Ben said. “They aren’t worried that she’ll escape. This group is made up of only men. Women are seen as sex objects and nothing more. She’s not a threat to them.”

  “They’re arrogant idiots,” Nico said. “Mercy Powers is a smart, resourceful woman. She told Hector nothing, refused to comply with his demands, and bought herself and us time.”

  “She has to know the president will send someone for her,” Trace pointed out.

  “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

  “That’s the party line. Martin wouldn’t abandon her.”

  “She knows that, but Hector and his cronies don’t. Mercy was careful not to mention that she was the president’s niece. Hector is trying to force Martin to act without realizing the value of the bargaining chip he has in his hands.” Nico clicked on the latest intel from Zane. “The Scorpions have two strongholds, here and here.” He pointed at the highlighted portions of the map Zane sent. “Chances are high Mercy is being held in or around these two villages.”

  “We need to narrow it down to one choice.” Joe folded his arms across his chest. “These two villages are miles apart in rugged territory with a river between them. If we guess and infiltrate the wrong site, Mercy is dead.”

  Nico didn’t need the reminder. The clock ticking down to Mercy’s final breath ran in his head. “Zane’s working on the intel, but with us on a short clock, I need to reach out to one of our contacts. Maybe he’ll be able to point us in the right direction.”

  Trace folded his arms across his chest, eyes narrowing. “Julio?”

  A shrug. “Who better?”

  His teammates groaned.

  “You can’t trust him, Nico.” Joe’s intense gaze locked with his. “He’s for sale to the highest bidder.”

  A fact of life in this business. “He owes me.” Not wanting to waste more time that could be used to plan this mission, Nico grabbed his satellite phone and punched in the number for his informant.

  A moment later, Julio said, “It’s been a long time, my friend.”

  Nico’s lips curved. “How have you been?” Although he wanted to push for the information he needed to save Mercy, he had to play the role he established working undercover in Mexico, that of a hired thug for sale with no moral character or capacity to care about anything but his own hide. He hated this side of his life.

  “Not bad. How is your family, Esteban?”

  He gave Julio tidbits of information about his fake family, then asked after the other man’s wife and children, a subtle reminder to the informant that Nico knew a lot about them, enough to be dangerous to their health.

  With the greetings completed at last, Julio said, “When will you be in Mexico?”

  “Soon if you have information for me.”

  “What kind?” Caution rang in the man’s voice.

  “The kind worth $10,000 in American currency.”

  “For that amount of money, I’d sell my own mother to you.”

  Nico chuckled even as his skin crawled. “I have my own, thanks, and she has expensive tastes. Know anything about a special guest of the Scorpions?” Silence greeted his statement. “I see that you do. I want my hands on that package.”

  “These are not men to cross, my friend. They are very dangerous and enjoy hurting people before they grant the victim’s wish to die.”

  His teammates scowled as they listened to the conversation on speaker. Julio was angling for more money. Nico sighed. “Julio, you wouldn’t be trying to squeeze more money from me, would you?”

  “These men, they are evil,” he reminded Nico. “And the package is very beautiful. Or so I hear.”

  Yeah, she was. He didn’t want to talk to Julio about Mercy as though she was a commodity to be traded on the flesh market. “I thought we were friends, Julio. Guess I’ll have to take my money to another friend more willing to accommodate my interest.”

  “But I’m the best in the business. You are not the only one interested in the Scorpion’s guest. Other information b
rokers, they take your money and give you nothing. Julio tells you true, yes?”

  Nico pretended to think about the money for a moment. In truth, he’d been authorized to go a lot higher to get the information he needed for this operation. He didn’t want to hand an informant that much money unless it was necessary. “I want the package, but not enough to pay more than $15,000. Last offer, Julio. Take it or leave it. My pool of friends is wide and deep.”

  “You wound me, Esteban. Very well. Because we are friends, I agree to your price.”

  “Information, Julio. Now.”

  The informant named one of the strongholds mentioned by Zane. “You’re sure the package is there?”

  “Rumors only, but solid ones. Heavier guard presence than usual.”

  Not what he wanted to hear, but unsurprising. Their hostage was more valuable than they realized. When he’d learned as much as possible from Julio and promised never to mention where he learned the information, Nico ended the call.

  “Wish I felt better about his honesty,” Ben muttered. “I don’t want a bullet in the head because this clown gave us up and found someone willing to pay more for the information he gave you.”

  Nico glanced at his watch. “We have an hour before we land. Time to make a plan.”

  By the time the Fortress jet landed, Nico and his teammates had a plan in place. Like always, the plan was flexible and could be adjusted at a moment’s notice, depending on the challenges they found at the site.

  The SUV was waiting at the edge of the airstrip, keys under the driver’s seat. His teammates piled into the vehicle, weapons within easy reach. Trace took the wheel while Nico claimed the shotgun seat. He called Zane. “Boots on the ground. Anything new?”

  “A lot of chatter, nothing concrete. Maddox authorized payment to your informant. The money has been wired into his account. No information has surfaced yet about outside interest in Mercy.”

  “Won’t last. If Julio knows people are sniffing around, someone is making careful inquiries about her. Let me know when the rumors surface. We’re headed to the Scorpion compound outside Rio Azul. My informant says the Scorpions are keeping an important package at the compound. Heavy guard presence.”