Undercover Operations Read online

  MERLINE LOVELACE

  "Lovelace has made a name for herself."

  —Romantic Times

  Merline Lovelace spent twenty-three years in the air force, pulling tours all over the world. When she hung up her uniform, she decided to try her hand at writing. She's since had over forty novels published, with more than five million copies in print. She and her own handsome hero of thirty-plus years live in Oklahoma. They enjoy golf, traveling and long, lazy dinners with friends and family. Watch for Merline's sizzling novel about Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, The Captain's Woman, available in January 2003 from MIRA® Books.

  UNDERCOVER OPERATIONS

  Merline Lovelace

  * * *

  This story is dedicated to the men and women who serve their county—in any and all capacities.

  Dear Reader,

  To paraphrase an old saying, you can take the man out of the military, but you can't take the military out of the man. Or woman!

  After spending the first twenty years of my life as an air force brat and the next twenty-three as an air force officer, I confess the military is in my blood. So you understand why I think warriors make such great heroes and heroines. There's that sense of responsibility to country and comrades, that determination to complete a mission, that touch of reckless daring so necessary to win against all odds.

  The events of 9/11 have demonstrated that these qualities reach across economic, social and national boundaries. I salute the heroes, both in and out of uniform, who risked all to save others. And to those now fighting to make the world safer, fly high, stay true and come home safe!

  All my best,

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 1

  Captain Danielle Flynn had walked into some seedy joints during her eight years in the Air Force. Hitting the bars came with the job in her line of work. But on a scale of one to ten, she'd rank this dark, smoke-filled dive set smack in the middle of Oklahoma's panhandle as a minus four.

  The place reeked of spilled beer and old grease. Yellowed posters of half-naked babes touting everything from booze to tractors vied for space with the rust spots decorating the corrugated tin walls. A thin layer of red dust coated every horizontal surface. The handful of patrons wore boots, jeans, sweat-stained ball caps and expressions that ranged from mild curiosity to avid male interest as they surveyed Dani.

  Except for one. He sat slouched at a table in the corner, nursing a beer. Eyes narrowed against the smoke, he slanted her a sideways glance, let his gaze roam lazily from her neck to her knees, and went back to his beer.

  Dani's inspection was considerably more thorough, and what she saw didn't impress her. Jack Buchanan certainly fit the mental image she'd constructed after reading the information she'd gathered about him. If the bristles shadowing his cheeks and chin were any indication, he hadn't seen the sharp edge of a razor in days. Dark circles ringed the armpits of his blue denim work shirt, and his leather boots wore a collection of scuffs and scars.

  Hard to believe this down-at-the-heels crop duster once flew supersonic F-117 Stealth fighters. Or that Dani's father, Colonel Dan Flynn, had risked his life to fly through a hail of enemy fire to pluck this loser from the wreckage of his burning aircraft.

  Well, it was time for Buchanan to return the favor.

  Threading her way through the tables, Dani slid her hand into her shoulder bag, pulled out a flat case and popped open the top. The Medal of Honor lay nested in its bed of dark velvet. The shiny gold disk embossed with the head of Lady Liberty hung suspended from its blue satin ribbon. The nation's highest award for valor in the face of the enemy, it was given only to the bravest of the brave.

  Ignoring a sharp little stab of pain, she dropped the case on Buchanan's table. It landed with a soft thud, barely audible over the chink of glasses and the tinny wail of the radio.

  "I'm Danielle Flynn. Captain Danielle Flynn. United States Air Force. That medal belonged to my father."

  Buchanan tilted his chair back on its rear legs and pushed up the brim of his ball cap, revealing a thatch of blue-black hair badly in need of a trim. Whiskey-colored eyes surveyed her through the thick screen of his lashes. He made a more detailed inventory this time, taking in her windblown hair, her wilted white blouse, her jeans. His gaze lingered on the Air Force Academy ring on her right hand before lifting to her face.

  "You don't favor the old man much."

  "So I've been told."

  It could have been a compliment or an insult. Dan Flynn had been a big, bluff Irishman, as handsome as sin. Dani had inherited his name, his height and his dark auburn hair, if not his laughing blue eyes and easygoing charm.

  Without waiting for an invitation, she claimed the chair opposite Buchanan's. Her long legs tangled with his under the table. He didn't move, didn't alter his sprawl so much as an inch to accommodate her.

  "My father was awarded that medal for saving your life, Buchanan. Yours and six others. It's payback time."

  One dark brow arched. "That right?"

  "That's right."

  He toyed with his beer bottle, tilting it in a circle. His fingers were long, blunt. Scars traced fine white lines on the back of his hand.

  "Last I heard," he said after a moment, "Dan Flynn was buried in Arlington with full military honors. You want to tell me how I'm supposed to settle accounts with him?"

  The pain came again, a quick, sharp hurt Dani suspected would take a long time to dull. Three years after his death, she still missed the man who'd been her friend and mentor as well as her father. She couldn't remember her mother, who'd died in a car crash when Dani was just a few months old. She and her father had been so close, so happy. Even happier when the colonel had married widowed Claire Stevens. For the first time, six-year-old Dani had had a real family. Now...

  Now what was left of that family was being ripped apart. Dragging in a deep breath, she spelled out the urgent matter that had brought her from Boiling Air Force Base, just outside Washington D.C., to this corner of the Oklahoma Panhandle.

  "You can settle your account with my father by flying his daughter—my stepsister—out of Mexico."

  She had to force the words. Each one stabbed into her like a stiletto.

  "Patricia's a hydroelectric engineer," she explained tersely. "She flew down to Chihuahua on business three weeks ago, then took a few days' vacation at a mountaintop resort in Copper Canyon. She drove off the hotel grounds one afternoon and didn't return. Her company received a call two days later, demanding five million dollars for her safe return."

  Buchanan's eyes narrowed. The five million had snagged his interest, Dani saw cynically. Somehow, she'd suspected it would.

  "I take it her company didn't cough up the ransom."

  "No, it didn't. In an attempt to stop the apparently lucrative business of snatching foreign executives, the Mexican government refuses to negotiate with or allow payment of any kind to the kidnappers. Even if they did, Patricia's company doesn't have that kind of money."

  "Bull!" Those gold-flecked brown eyes locked with hers. "Any corporation sending executives abroad these days takes out insurance to cover situations like this."

  "Their policy contains a one million dollar cap. And a clause requiring the host nation's cooperation in all release negotiations, which lets the company completely off the hook."

  His lip curled in disgust. "They should fire the fool who got suckered in with that policy."

  "They have, but that doesn't help in this particular situation. So I'm using my own assets. I'm offering you a hundred thousand,
Buchanan. It's every cent I could pull together."

  She'd expected him to jump at the offer, was surprised when he didn't. She knew darn well he desperately needed cash. He'd walked away from his Air Force career in a last-ditch attempt to save a marriage that went bust anyway. Had walked away from the subsequent divorce with only the clothes on his back. If the information she'd gathered was correct, his sole possessions these days consisted of a dilapidated pickup and the Stearman biplane he'd patched together with chewing gum and baling wire.

  "You could buy a new plane with that hundred thousand, Buchanan. An aircraft constructed specifically for agricultural aviation, with computer controlled aerial dispersal systems. Assuming, of course, you want to spend the rest of your life dusting crops."

  She hadn't intended the remark quite the way it came out. She understood farm aviation performed a vital and necessary function. Her Air Force bias had just slipped in.

  Buchanan didn't rise to the bait, however. Nor did he defend his rapid descent from hotshot fighter pilot to fertilizer spreader.

  "A hundred thousand's a good chunk of change," he agreed. "What, specifically, would I have to do to earn it?"

  "Specifically, you would have to fly me down to Copper Canyon, hang loose until I locate my sister, and fly us both out."

  "Seems to me the United States government would be pulling out all the stops to rescue the daughter of a Medal of Honor winner," he said slowly. "Not to mention the Mexican authorities."

  Frustration rose, so thick and bitter Dani could almost taste it. After three weeks of stomach-clenching tension, three weeks of working with the State Department, the CIA, the Mexican authorities and a host of hostage negotiators, three weeks of increasingly desperate measures, she'd run out of alternatives. And out of patience.

  "The U.S. has exercised every diplomatic option in the book. The Mexican government mounted several massive search efforts. Five days ago, a joint U.S.Mexican commando force stormed what they thought was the kidnappers' hideout, only to discover they'd departed the scene less than an hour before. The bastards have a source, apparently. A high-level source. One who tips them off to the government's every move."

  She leaned forward, her elbows digging into the stained tabletop.

  "This time," she vowed fiercely, "there'll be no leak. No warning. No advance notice of any kind. I want to fly down tomorrow, if you can get your plane ready." Her gaze drilled into his. "I'll pay you half up front. Half when we land back in the States. With Patricia."

  Still he didn't grab at the offer. Exercising every ounce of self-control she possessed, Dani waited him out.

  "Why me?" he asked when her nerves had twisted tight. "Why not a professional, a soldier of fortune with a small private army to back him up?"

  "Because you owe my father. Big time. And because, according to him at least, you used to be one hell of a pilot. It'll take all your skill and then some to put us down in those mountains and fly us out again. More to the point, the resort's in a remote area. A private army, no matter how small, can't go in without tipping off the kidnappers again. So it'll be just you and me, Buchanan. A couple of newlyweds, joyriding around Mexico on their honeymoon."

  "Newlyweds?"

  Actually, Dani had considered and discarded a number of covers. The area they were going into was a mecca for archeologists, paleontologists and bird watchers, not to mention American developers eager to exploit its stunning natural beauty. She'd decided against assuming any of those occupations, however. Past experience had taught her the most effective covers were the simplest.

  A point she kept firmly in mind when Buchanan's mouth curved. It wasn't a pleasant smile, or a particularly flattering one. Yet something crackled in the air between them, and the tension that had tied Dani in knots for so long now took an unexpected twist.

  "So what's the answer?" she snapped, annoyed she could feel anything even remotely resembling a sexual response to this man. "Yes or no?"

  "No."

  The laconic reply tightened her jaws. She waited for him to elaborate, felt a rush of fury when he merely fiddled with his beer.

  "That's it?" she demanded. "No sorry 'bout that? No list of reasons why you can't aid the daughter of a man who risked his life to save yours?"

  "That's it."

  "Dad wasn't wrong about people very often," she said, scorn dripping from every syllable. "Obviously, he missed the mark with you."

  She reached for the medal and pushed away from the table. Buchanan's hand whipped out. The hold on her wrist held her suspended half in and half out of her chair. He leaned forward until his face was mere inches from her own.

  "I'll bring your sister out, green-eyes. I owe the old man that. But as much as I appreciate the offer to honeymoon with you, I fly solo."

  "Not on this mission, Buchanan."

  "I do it my way or not at all."

  Her jaw locked. Any of the personnel she worked with would have recognized the expression that settled over her face, and instantly found important work that needed doing in another part of the headquarters.

  "Not on this mission," she repeated, yanking free of his hold. "We do it my way or you don't get paid."

  "Then I guess I don't get paid."

  His chair legs scraped the floor. Digging some crumpled bills out of his jeans, he tossed them on the table and tipped two fingers to his hat brim.

  "See you around, Flynn."

  He sauntered past her, moving with a cocky, confident stride. And, Dani was forced to admit, with a lazy grace that was all his own.

  "Yes," she murmured, gripping her father's medal to her chest. "You'll definitely see me around."

  She was at the patch of flattened weeds that passed for the local airstrip when the sun broke over the horizon the next morning.

  She'd dressed for traveling, in sturdy hiking boots, jeans and a short-sleeved, red T-shirt. A Washington Redskins ball cap confined her shoulder length auburn hair back in a ponytail. Her leather carryall contained a change of clothing, a few toiletries and a nylon wind-breaker... along with a few essential tools of her trade.

  Leaning against the fender of her rental car, she sipped the coffee she'd picked up at the only gas station in town. The streaks of red and gold shooting across the sky smoothed some of the jagged edges of the tension that had gripped her for weeks now. The Panhandle had a wild beauty all its own, she decided. Acre after acre of wheat fields turning amber with the dawn. The black, low-lying mesas to the north. The Coldwater River cutting a silver curve to the south.

  Too bad the current resident of this particular patch of Oklahoma hadn't contributed much to its natural beauty. Shaking her head, Dani scanned the weedy airstrip. A faded windsock hung limply atop a rusted pole. A dilapidated shed marked with a hazard sign was loaded, she guessed, with barrels of insecticide. The Quonset hut that served as a hangar was definitely World War II vintage.

  So was the plane tucked inside.

  Dani had done her research. She was well aware that the Stearman N3N biplane inside the hangar had been built in 1940 and performed yeoman service as a trainer for navy pilots. Nicknamed the Canary for its bright yellow paint scheme, this plane and hundreds like her had been sold as excess after the war. Many had then embarked on long second careers as crop dusters.

  She was also aware that the Stearman was an extremely stable platform, easy to maneuver, capable of taking off and landing on dirt roads or grassy pastures. Still, the idea of skimming the tops of the rugged Sierra Madres in the back seat of an open cockpit, kept aloft on rickety canvas wings separated by wooden struts, had her sucking down another deep gulp of caffeine.

  She'd reached the dregs when Buchanan finally drove up. She could see him coming for a good half mile. His pickup raised a long rooster tail of red dust. Dumping the cold sludge, she crumpled the cup, tossed it inside the rental car and folded her arms.

  When he climbed out of the pickup, the canvas light bag he hauled out of the truck gave her a fierce satisfaction. She'd
had her doubts about Buchanan during the long hours of the night, but it was obvious he'd come prepared to fly. Aviation maps stuck out of the sides of the bag, and he'd thrust a brown leather bomber jacket through its handles.

  He wouldn't need the jacket to conduct aerial spraying in this heat. He was on his way to the high, cool elevations of the Sierra Madres.

  "Morning, Buchanan."

  He stopped in front of her. In the dusty dawn, he looked even more disreputable than he had in the bar. And considerably more annoyed. Under the thick black bristles, his jaw had locked tight.

  "Maybe you didn't hear me last night. I fly solo."

  "I heard you."

  His glance shot to the leather carryall at her feet, then back to her face.

  "We're wasting time here," she said, preempting the argument she saw forming. "Patricia's mom died just a year after my dad. Trish is all the family I have left. You're not flying down to Mexico without me."

  "Oh yeah?" He rocked back on his heels. "Just out of curiosity, how do you plan to stop me?"

  "Well, I could call a friend of mine at Altus Air Force Base, just south of here, and have him run an intercept. Or I could call another friend at the FAA and have her pull your certification. Or," she added calmly, "I could take you down right now and have done with this cat and mouse game we're playing."

  Damn! She was serious. For a moment Jack actually considered accepting her challenge. The mood he was in this morning, he wouldn't mind a tussle in the dirt. Particularly with Danielle Flynn. The woman had stirred more than his interest when she'd strolled into MacIver's place last night.

  This morning, she all but tied him in knots.

  Those snug jeans wrapped around her hips and rear like a thin coat of paint. Her cotton T-shirt hugged her slender curves in a way that left little to the imagination, and Jack possessed a very vivid imagination when it came to leggy redheads. Deliberately, he squelched the image of Flynn flat on her back in the grass, her legs tangled with his, her green eyes flashing fire.