Firestorm. Don Pendleton

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       M ARIA S ERRANO, A SUITCASE in either hand, rushed to her car. She popped open the trunk, slipped the bags inside, shut the lid and started back for her apartment. She cast furtive glances as she closed in on the building. Ascending the stairs, she reentered her apartment and moved from room to room, checking to make sure she’d left behind nothing important. She’d packed her calendars, phone books, laptop and a stack of spiral-bound notebooks. She didn’t want to leave anything that would provide clues about her true identity or her mission in Colombia.

      It had been twenty-four hours since she’d lost contact with Javier and the others from her crew. The longer she waited, the more isolated and worried she felt. A knot of fear formed in her stomach and tightened as she mulled the situation. Javier never missed a check-in call. That he suddenly was incommunicado was scary; that she’d been unable to contact her own handler troubled her even more.

      What the hell was going on? she wondered.

      Serrano was operating under nonofficial cover and, therefore, had to tread lightly as she maneuvered through Colombia. She could visit the U.S. Embassy only infrequently and then only for mundane reasons. She had to studiously avoid anyone even remotely connected with the Company who could implicate her as an intelligence agent.

      Her cell phone vibrated on her hip. She grabbed it and put it to her ear.

      “Yes?”

      “You know the situation?” Serrano immediately recognized the voice as that of her controller, a man she knew only as Fletcher.

      “I know enough,” she said.

      “You need to get out.”

      “Obviously,” she said. “Tell me what’s happened.”

      “Is this a secure line?”

      She considered lying for a few seconds but decided against it. Fletcher could hear a lie in her voice in a heartbeat.

      “No,” she said. “It’s not secure.”

      “Then I have no information.”

      “Fine. I’m leaving.”

      “You should. Go to contingency B.”

      “But I have a flight in three hours.”

      “Fuck it. You have no flight. Don’t risk it. We’ll have an executive jet waiting for you when you arrive. Go to contingency B. Miller will come and get you. Go downtown, to the office and leave your gun in the car.”

      “What?” she asked, startled.

      “You heard me. We’re going to take you to the airport. But there’s been a lot of chatter from FARC about a kidnapping at the airport. The locals are nervous, and they’re going to be inspecting every car that comes or goes to the airport. We can’t risk them detaining you for any reason.”

      “What about Miller?”

      “He won’t be carrying either,” Fletcher replied.

      Her brow creased with confusion and distrust boiled up from inside. Even on its best day, Colombia was a big slice of hell. The idea that she was to move around without a gun—to possibly force her way out of the country—was unfathomable. She couldn’t even wrap her mind around the idea that her escort also would be unarmed.

      “You’ll be fine,” Fletcher said. “Really. I have two choppers at my disposal. We’ll track you from the air, give you an armed escort. If anyone tries to harm you, they’ll get vaporized from the sky. They’re private contractors, so they have more, um, flexibility when it comes to dealing with these situations.”

      For reasons she didn’t understand, gooseflesh broke out on her arms.

      “Do it, Maria,” he said. “We’re bending the rules by trying to get you out of there. There’s no time for debate. Just do this and in a couple of days we’ll hook up in Mexico to talk this through.”

      “Fine,” she said. “Give me the details.”