Page 77 of Casualties of War
She dropped her gaze to the keyboard and tapped out another coupleof letters. “I can’t talk about that.” Her heart, though, jumped. He was way,waytoo perceptive.
“There’s a phrase I haven’t heard for years.”
“Sorry.”
“You’re not sorry and it doesn’t matter. I’ll talk, you can listen. I’m figuring military intelligence. You’re sneaking around, sizing things up, making yourself look like a black ops team if anyone spots you.”
Parris looked up at him, smiling.“Weareblack ops.”
“Your men, maybe. You’re something else. You’ve got orders over and above theirs.”
“Because their paygrade doesn’t need them to understand the full parameters of the mission,” she assured him.
Adán nodded. “Whatever,” he said and shrugged.
Parris patted the other end of the rubber mat, beside her hip. “Step into my office a moment, huh?”
He tilted his head, consideringher. Then he walked around the pack and settled on the mat and crossed his legs, matching her. He raised a brow.
How many times had she seen that expression?
He never used it in the movies. It was pure Adán Caballero, personal to him. Smokey Silva scowled a lot. Every other role had been different, every role had looked as though he was playing himself, yet none of them had been the real AdánCaballero who was sitting in front of her now, waiting for her to speak.
“There’s a part of me wants to rage at you about how this isn’t one of your movies, that people are dying here. Only, I think you know that.”
He didn’t smile. “If I had been stupid enough to think this was a movie, the last twenty-four hours would have changed my mind.”
She nodded. “You need to tell me what happened. Howyou got where you did, because you’re a long way from a beach, here.”
He told her about being taken from the yacht club in Acapulco and waking up in the dinghy and the run into the beach.
“Back up a minute,” Parris said. “You said ‘the second time they stopped’. They stopped to get a fix two times?”
“No, the second time, they went dead in the water to hide from a satellite moving into range.”
They knew satellite movements.A cold finger walked up her spine. “Go on,” she said.
He shrugged. “After the satellite passed, they overcompensated for current drift and ended up too far north. I’m guessing they intended to landed closer to the harbor than here.”
“Walk me back through the satellite thing,” she said, using as casual a tone as she could.
Adán’s eyes narrowed. He considered herfor a moment, then his gaze cut to one side. He took a breath and spoke. This time, his voice flexed and shifted. “The smart one, Joaquim, said, ‘Shut her down!’ Monty said, ‘Why?’.”
Monty was a different voice. A younger voice.
“Joaquim said, ‘look at the time!’,” Adán said, his voice dropping deeper and sounding older. “They shut everything down. Motor, lights, the works. Joaquim said, ‘Killeverything. Hurry. It’ll be in range in less than a minute’.”
Adán opened his eyes and laughed. “One of them wanted to know how long it would take to move out of range and Joaquim got pissed and told them it couldn’t hear them. He told Monty to shut off the phone because the screen glow would get picked up.”
“Drones,” Parris murmured.
“Maybe,” Adán agreed. “Except they don’t keep to a scheduleand Joaquim had this one down to the minute. That’s what he said next.” His voice shifted. “’It takes twelve minutes to move out of range. Then we can fire up again’. Only,” Adán added in his own voice, “they stayed still and black for twenty minutes. Joaquim wouldn’t let them smoke, either.”
“Thermal imaging,” Parris breathed. “On the open sea, their bodies alone would show up as major heatspots. He was only worried about light. Something that sensitive…drone or—” She realized what she would say and cleared her throat.
“Spy satellite?” Adán suggested.
She stared at him.
