Second-Chance Hero Read online

  “But I didn’t die, so keeping that promise is unnecessary.”

  The twitch of his mouth got through that time.

  “The fact that you did not die does not release me from that promise.”

  She blinked. “Wow. When you do the complete sentence thing, you don’t mess around.”

  He wanted to grin, but was fairly certain it was inappropriate for the seriousness of the subject. “I understand that you don’t like me, of all people, being responsible for your child. And I understand why you feel that way, after…what I did that day.”

  “That building was about to come down and you knew it. It did come down, barely two minutes after you pulled me out.”

  “Most of you,” he said tightly.

  “So that’s it,” she said, as if in sudden understanding.

  “I should have found you sooner, would have had more time to get you out.”

  “You did what you could.” Her eyes darkened. “I won’t say that I don’t have awful memories. Or that seeing you doesn’t bring them all back.”

  Draven felt his stomach clench as she put what he’d known had to be true into words. But he appreciated her honesty.

  “I’ll stay out of your sight whenever possible.”

  “Fine. I’ll manage, then.”

  He let out a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding. He didn’t understand, had never understood, why this one had gotten to him. He’d splinted bloody broken bones, picked debris out of an exposed brain, cut bullets out of living flesh. All in conditions as bad as or worse than the aftermath of an earthquake.

  But it was this one that haunted him. It had been bloody, long and agonizing. And she’d stood it better than most. She’d lain there, trapped in that debris, and barely let out a moan.

  Even while he was sawing off her foot with a field knife.

  Chapter 6

  Draven took a long pull on the cold beer, having to admit to himself that it somehow tasted better, sitting at this outdoor bar surrounded by tropical plants. He didn’t drink much, and when he did it was usually in circumstances like this, where there was a greater goal to his drinking.

  The bartender was making something for a local, a drink that seemed to consist mainly of several varieties of rum and a tiny splash of some thick red substance whose identity he didn’t want to hazard a guess at. The man took it and wandered back to the table where his friends were gathered. Draven wondered if he’d be able to walk when he finished the thing.

  This was the only tavern on the island, so eventually about half the population came through. He saw some that already looked familiar, including Mr. Ayuso from the store where Marly had started her criminal career.

  “Quiet place,” he said when the bartender came back.

  “Come on Saturday nights,” the man said, flashing a smile that showed two gold-trimmed teeth. The national flag proudly displayed behind the bar told Draven he was likely from bordering Guatemala, the country that still claimed Belize as its own.

  Draven smiled back. “Sometimes quiet’s nice.”

  The man nodded, and went back to drying the glasses he had lined up on the varnished surface.

  “Saw your mayor out for a walk,” Draven said.

  “He likes to be seen,” the bartender said neutrally.

  Draven gave him a grin that told him he understood the subtext. “He was complaining about some guy he called el mercader.”

  The man’s hands stilled. “The merchant. Yes.”

  And people react just like that when you mention him, Draven thought.

  “So,” he said in a buddy-to-buddy tone he’d developed long ago, “is he really as bad a guy as Mayor Remington made out? A big drug dealer?”

  The man glanced around, then stared at Draven for a moment, as if to assess how much it was safe to tell him.

  “You are from the Redstone people?”

  He nodded.

  “They are doing good things here. My business will be much better.”

  “That’s generally how it happens, yes.”

  The man went back to drying his glassware. “Let us just say that if a person in Belize City wants something…stronger than what I sell here, that person would likely go to el mercader.”

  “I feel sorry for Sergeant Espinoza, then. The mayor seemed to be riding him pretty hard.”

  The man frowned for a moment at the idiom.

  “Pushing him to do something,” Draven clarified.

  “Ah. Yes, it is true. But Miguel Espinoza, he is not a fool. He does what he must, but he knows it could mean his life to go up against el mercader alone.”

  Or was he reluctant to push because he knew someone else was responsible? Draven wondered. Perhaps even Espinoza himself? Being the law made a great cover.

  “Besides,” the bartender added, “el mercader, he never does business here on the cay, where he lives.”

  “Does he live here in town?”

  “Oh, no,” the bartender said, clearly grateful for that fact. “He lives on the far end of the island, in what they call the lap of luxury, I think? In the house his father built. And his home, it is very well guarded.

  “His father?”

  The man nodded. “He is the son, you see, of the original el mercader. His father was even more feared. Very brutal. Some of us even thought the son might change the business to something…”

  “Legitimate?”

  “Yes. That’s the word. He went away to school in the United States, and when he came back there were many arguments between he and his father. So we had hope. But it came to nothing.”

  Draven changed to inconsequential topics as he finished his beer, then tipped the man nicely but not so much as to make it seem as if he were paying for the information. He wanted it to appear as if he’d had only normal curiosity about the local drug dealer.

  He walked back to the edge of the small town thoughtfully. Mayor Remington’s theory was indeed the most logical, that el mercader was behind the sabotage at the airstrip site. Obviously anyone in his particular line of work wouldn’t be happy about the coming of radar and flight plans, and the other equipment that comes with a modern airfield. It would make sense that he try to stop it.

  Draven reached the edge of town, and continued on several more yards. Once out of sight of any buildings, he glanced around to be certain no one was showing any interest in him. Then he pulled off his shirt and tucked it into the back of his jeans, arranging it to cover the Glock.

  Then he ran the two miles back to the site at a blistering pace. When he got there, he added the length of the beach, pushing himself even harder on the soft sand. He stopped at last, jogged a bit to cool down. Then he peeled down to the trunks he’d worn underneath his jeans and took a plunge in the water, never getting too far from his clothes and the weapon they covered, up on the beach. Feeling loose and warmed up, he grabbed his clothes and headed back to the site to track down his new charge.

  “I’m tired,” Marly whined.

  “Hmm.”

  The girl tried again. “It’s hot.”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to go swimming.”

  “When you’re done.”

  “I can’t finish this in one day!”

  Marly’s voice was escalating, and Grace had to smother a chuckle as she watched from out of sight. She found Draven’s verbal style amusing, and as she’d said, efficient, but it was driving the teenager crazy.

  “Your choice,” Draven answered, making it clear in those two words that there would be the promised consequences.

  Marly swore, a crude word Grace hated to hear coming from her little girl’s mouth. But before she could step forward to speak, Draven dealt with it neatly.

  “That’s another hour.”

  “That’s not fair!”

  “Life isn’t.”

  The girl glared at him, then turned on her heel and stomped back the way she had come, toward a pile of native plants she’d obviously been assigned to sort. It was part of the p
rice of building here, that the plan had to include returning the site to as natural a state as possible.

  “You’re being a little tough on her,” Grace said as she came around the corner of the trailer.

  Draven turned to look at her. “Yes,” he agreed, surprising her. It took the wind right out of her sails.

  “You don’t think too tough?”

  “She has options.” He paused, then added, “You, too.”

  “What are my options?”

  He gave her that half shrug she was coming to know. “She goes back.”

  “Back?” she asked, thinking he meant back home to the States. And then it hit her. “The police, you mean. That’s no option.”

  “Better than the other.”

  “What other?”

  “Give up. Let her keep on that path.”

  She winced. He nodded.

  “It’s long, twisted, evil and sometimes deadly.”

  Grace knew he was right, but it still stung. But the vision he painted with those stark words hurt so much more. She swallowed hard, sucked in some air and tried to keep her voice level.

  “I’ve been trying for over a year to get through to her. Nothing I did worked. At least you have her attention.”

  He looked at her for a long, silent moment. Then he nodded. He started to turn away, apparently to go back to whatever he’d been doing when Marly had interrupted him to complain. And then he looked back at her, an odd expression on his face.

  “She’ll be all right,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said, wondering why he looked like saying it was painful.

  Draven fingered the scar on his face as he stood in the dark, contemplating his sleeping quarters. He caught himself doing it, and yanked his hand away. Most of the time he forgot the scar was there, at least until somebody reminded him. Few people were tactless enough to do it in words, but their eyes gave them away. The widening in shock when they first looked at him was hard to miss.

  He didn’t know why he was aware of it now. But it had become more frequently lately, in his mind yet another sign that he was not the man he’d been.

  I wish Josh would just let go, he thought.

  But he knew better. Josh Redstone was careful about who he chose, but once you were in, he’d go to the wall for you.

  Even if—especially if—you couldn’t do it for yourself.

  Which apparently he couldn’t, he thought sourly, since he was standing here like an idiot pondering things that had no answers, something he normally didn’t do much.

  Which just proved yet again that, at least at this point, he wasn’t normal.

  Yanking his uncharacteristically unruly mind back to business, he contemplated his surroundings. And the standing orders from Josh; Redstone Security was not the police. Thank goodness, Draven thought; he knew a lot of cops, and nearly all of them felt handcuffed by the system they were trying to work within. So while they weren’t limited in that way, Josh’s policy was if they came across something criminal, they handed it over to the authorities.

  Unless one of their own had been hurt. Then, for Josh, all bets were off.

  But no one from Redstone had been hurt here. Yet, at least. So Draven’s job was to keep it that way, and secondarily to keep the job going. That obviously meant stopping the vandalism. Whether that process included finding out who was behind it and turning them in, or simply making it too risky for whomever it was to continue, was up to him.

  Decision made, he went into the trailer to grab his bedroll, came back out and tossed it up on the roof of the trailer. He hoisted himself up after it, spread out the blankets, and stretched out on them. He left his boots on this time, thinking if something happened he’d have to jump in a hurry.

  But he’d be able to hear better outside, and the spot gave him a better view all around. They didn’t know when the Zodiac had been sunk, but the other strikes had come at night, so he would be on guard. At least this close to the equator he didn’t have to wonder when sunrise was. The sunrise and sunset were nearly always somewhere between five-thirty and six-thirty.

  He looked up at the tropical sky, felt the warm breeze on his skin and thought of the other places he’d spent nights like this. Places that were much more unpleasant, inherently much more dangerous.

  His cell phone vibrated against his side, and he took it out. A glance at the screen told him it was Redstone headquarters. The timer also told him it was nearly midnight here, so nearly eleven back there. It seemed odd that there was only an hour difference in the time zones; this place seemed much farther away than that.

  He flipped the phone open and answered.

  “Draven.”

  “News?”

  Ah. St. John. “Still only a few incidents. Minor, except for a Zodiac.”

  “I heard.”

  “News?” he asked in turn. Josh had once said listening to them talk was like listening to Morse code, only in English. He supposed that wasn’t far wrong.

  “Info checks out. The nickname’s known in Belize, Guatemala, couple more. So far, research hasn’t uncovered the real name.”

  The man known as el mercader was very careful, then, if the Redstone research team hadn’t been able to dig that up. Very careful.

  “They will. Eventually,” Draven said. They always did. But he still wasn’t convinced the man was their problem. It was just too predictable.

  Things become predictable by happening frequently, he told himself, so don’t discount any possibilities.

  “Need anything?”

  To not be here, Draven answered silently.

  “Not for this,” he said, and disconnected. If Josh had told St. John, or if, in that disconcerting way the man had, he simply knew about his resignation, then he’d understand the blunt answer. If not, then it didn’t matter.

  Something else Josh had said that morning when he’d tried to quit came back to him. He’d asked if Draven thought he would let his top man go without a fight.

  “St. John might have something to say about that ranking,” he’d said.

  “St. John is nobody’s man,” Josh had replied. “If he walked out tomorrow I wouldn’t be surprised. But you…”

  And just like that, Josh had hit his most vulnerable point. He, and Redstone, had earned Draven’s loyalty. And that was the real reason he’d let Josh revoke his leave.

  Draven laid back down on the bedroll. He tried to think about the job at hand, but the end of that scene was jabbing at him. The stiff, formal way he’d said to Josh, “I can no longer do my job adequately.”

  Josh’s mouth had twitched, and in the lazy drawl that fooled so many into thinking he was less brilliant than he was, he said, “I’ve got news for you, my friend. You’ve never done your job just ‘adequately.’”

  While the compliment, coming from this man, pleased him, it made it all the more impossible to explain why he had to quit.

  He couldn’t trust himself anymore.

  He didn’t sleep but dozed, waking regularly to look and listen. He’d always slept very lightly, and his years on the edge had only honed the habit to a fine edge, where the slightest thing out of the ordinary would bring him fully awake and alert. Occasionally there was the sound of some night creature moving, but his subconscious processed and categorized the sounds without truly waking him.

  When it happened this time, it took him a moment to realize that it hadn’t been a sound that had awakened him. He kept his eyes closed and listened, but heard nothing. He drew in a deep breath to hold it, so his own breathing wouldn’t mask any slight sound. And it was then he got it; the faintest, merest tinge of a smell.

  Propane.

  He was up and moving in an instant. He dropped from the roof of the trailer to the ground and took off to the west in a low, swift run.

  The only thing that used propane on the site was the power generator, and it was some distance away, tucked back behind some shrubbery to minimize the noise during the day while it ran to charge the batteries on all
the self-contained housing units and motor homes, and power whatever else needed to be run. At night it automatically switched off in the interest of peaceful sleep for those staying on the site.

  The propane smell got stronger as he got closer, until it was so strong he knew he was going to have to be careful. The stuff could be lethal if you breathed in enough of it, but it would make you light-headed long before that. And he needed to be thinking clearly.

  He was thankful for the breeze that had wafted the heavier-than-air gas up to him. He didn’t want to think how ugly the explosion could be at the slightest spark. And if the leak hadn’t been found before the timer tried to fire the engine in the morning, just the spark plug could do it.

  He crouched down behind the bushes that masked the generator from the rest of the site. He listened, but still heard nothing. He slipped around the shrubbery and over to the big, metal housing-encased machine.

  It took only a minute to find the problem. The line running to the generator from the five-hundred-gallon tank had been cut. With the valve still open, the gas was escaping at a steady rate.

  In a moment he’d found the valve and turned it off to stop the flow. That done, he retreated, heading into the breeze for some clean air. Once he was sure he’d cleared out his lungs, he did a search of the surrounding area. He found some footprints, but had no way of knowing if they were from a suspect or one of their own. They were from bare feet, which might indicate a local, except that many of the crew took advantage of the mild weather to free their feet from heavy work boots or shoes when they were off shift for the day.

  He also found a broken branch on one of the bushes. It looked fresh enough to have been done tonight. He continued in the direction suggested by the break, and found more of the bare footprints here and there until he reached the road. Whoever it was, they hadn’t been in a hurry; the steps were evenly spaced and at a comfortable walking distance. Closer together than his own strides, so likely the suspect was shorter, but there was no sign he’d been running or even walking fast.

  Likely he parked a vehicle and walked in. A quick, silent slice and he was done. Back in the vehicle and gone. And smart enough—or lucky enough—not to pull the car or truck off onto the shoulder and leave tire tracks in the soft ground. Combined with the bare feet instead of recognizable shoe prints, he was leaning toward smart.