Page 21 of Wicked Ambition

There was that minor detail. Archer changed the subject. “Are you going to watch over Ayla Desmond?”

“What do you think?” Nguyen didn’t give him a chance to reply. “We’re looking for Iona, too. Are you sure you don’t know anything else about Fuentes?”

“The only intel I have on Fuentes is that he operates in Trujillo.” Standing, Archer walked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and looked out on the city. “You don’t need to cross-examine me, Captain. Iona already did that. She said sending her to find the man was the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass, but sometimes, the quarterback needs to throw the ball and hope for the best.”

“And sometimes the wide receiver gets clotheslined. I’ll be in touch.” Nguyen disconnected.

Chapter 9

Oz headed downstairs. He’d brought Ayla and her suitcase to the spare bedroom—or as the Big Dog referred to it, the Paladin League guest room—but now he needed to talk to the captain. He found BD seated at the desk in the makeshift office on the first floor. The door was open, but he knocked lightly and waited for the signal to enter.

“Where’s our guest?” Captain Nguyen asked, gesturing for Oz to take the other chair.

“She’s napping. She’s had a hell of a day. I’m kind of surprised it took this long for her to crash.”

BD nodded. “I talked to Archer. Ayla was telling the truth. She doesn’t work for him, but he’s aware of her position in Public Relations at the foundation. But surprise, surprise, her sister, Iona Desmond, is one of his people. The donor magazine job is her cover story.”

Desmond. Oz had Ayla’s full name now. “Did he say anything else about Ayla?”

“He suggested returning her to LA until he learned about Ivanov’s men. We agreed she’d be safer if we looked after her for a while. Other than that, no.”

Oz read between the lines. “What did he have to say about Iona?”

“More than I expected. I think he even told the truth.” Captain Nguyen leaned back in his chair. “He’s worried. He didn’t admit that, but there was an edge in his tone. She missed a check-in on Wednesday, and he hasn’t spoken to her in six days.”

“Six days? Shit. She could be anywhere now.”

“I pointed that out.”

“Why didn’t Archer call you days ago? He hasn’t been shy about ordering the team around.”

BD shrugged. “We didn’t have that conversation, but I have a theory. Iona doesn’t operate in the same capacity as the other Paladin League women we’ve run into. She doesn’t hold a master’s degree in library science. She isn’t working on a PhD in archaeology. Her job is to gather intelligence while presumably writing feature stories for the League’s magazine.”

He went still as his brain whirled. “And if Archer called us for help, it would reveal a piece of his network that he didn’t want us to be aware of,” Oz guessed.

“Exactly. We know he runs the equivalent of a covert team, but Iona is more hidden than the rest of his people.”

Oz nodded. Not even Ayla knew her sister worked for Archer. It begged the question of how many other undercover operators existed at the Paladin League, but there was only one that mattered right now. “What was Iona’s assignment? To find the treasure that your Nerd is here to locate?”

Shaking his head, BD said, “No.”

The captain didn’t say anymore, but Oz remained quiet and waited.

“It seems,” the Big Dog said after a long pause, “that we have yet another player looking for the treasure. The only intel Archer has is a name—Fuentes—and that he calls Trujillo his homebase. He referred to the man as an enigma. Iona was sent to identify who this was and learn everything else she could about him.”

It was Oz’s turn to sit quietly as he digested this information. He stared out the window as the ramifications sorted themselves out in his mind. He brought his focus back to the captain.

“We have two tracks to find Iona. The weapons and the treasure,” he said at last.

Captain Nguyen shook his head. “Those are the likely tracks, but we can’t narrow down anything yet. She could have run into something completely unrelated while she investigated. We look at everything until we have evidence to cross it off the list.”

A thought occurred to Oz. “You don’t think Fuentes is an alias for Petrova, do you? Lurch said that the treasure and the arms dealing were getting tangled together. Maybe they’re mixed up even more than he knew.”

“We can’t rule it out.” The Big Dog scowled. “We can’t rule anything out, but let’s lean toward Fuentes being a new player. With Archer’s connections, I think he would have been able to ID Petrova or Ivanov.”

Oz nodded. “And the same would apply to Vargas and Torres.”

“Given their high profiles in narcotics and weapons, it seems likely, but we can’t assume.”

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