Undercover Operations Read online

So she had the neatest, trimmest butt this side of the Red River? So the mere thought of rolling around in the grass with her got him hard? She was Dan Flynn's daughter.

  Even without the old man looking over his shoulder, Jack wouldn't move on the woman. His brief contact with Captain Flynn was making it painfully apparent that she'd inherited more from the colonel than her dark copper hair. Jack wasn't about to get up close and personal with another stubborn, hardheaded female. The last one had wrung him inside out before she decamped with a high school band instructor.

  A band instructor, for God's sake!

  Shaking his head in disgust, Jack invited Danielle Flynn to attempt whatever actions she considered necessary or appropriate. He was going to Mexico. In his plane. Without her.

  He was halfway across the grass strip when the ear-splitting report of a pistol stopped him in his tracks. Directly ahead of him, the windsock whipped around wildly on its pole.

  That got his attention, Dani thought in smug satisfaction. Thumbing the safety on the Beretta, she strolled up to join him. Buchanan's eyes were glacial when he turned to face her.

  "Was that little demonstration supposed to impress me?"

  "No. It was supposed to show you that I can take care of myself."

  He studied the Beretta for a long moment. It was a new model, a 9000S, with a fiberglass reinforced techno-polymer frame and two special steel rail inserts for the slide. Compact, lightweight and easy to field-strip, with a magazine that packed twelve lethal 9 mm rounds or ten Smith & Wesson .40 calibers.

  Evidently Buchanan knew his way around weapons enough to appreciate this wasn't an ordinary side arm. His face registered suspicion and a grudging respect.

  "What do you do in the Air Force, anyway?"

  "I'm an undercover agent with the Office of Special Investigations. I'm pulling a headquarters tour at Bolling Air Force Base outside D.C. right now, but I've spent most of the past eight years in the field."

  His eyes narrowed. "Any particular reason why you neglected to mention that particular bit of information before now?"

  "As a matter of fact, there is. I'm not going into Mexico in my official capacity. This isn't an Air Force operation. The politics of the situation won't allow it. This is just me, Buchanan. And you. Now I suggest we load up and get this show on the road."

  With a self-assurance that said the matter was settled, Dani slipped the Beretta into the holster strapped to her ankle and plowed through the weeds to the Quonset hut. She didn't realize she was holding her breath until she heard a muttered curse and the thud of boots behind her.

  She let out a tiny sigh of relief. She would have gone into Mexico alone, if necessary. She'd planned to do just that if she couldn't convince Buchanan to honor his debt to her father. She was congratulating herself on maneuvering him into doing exactly what she'd wanted him to when his deep drawl sounded just behind her ear.

  "It'll be tough, but I guess I can force myself to share a bed with you for a few nights in a mountaintop resort."

  "Don't get any ideas. The honeymoon bit is strictly for cover."

  She tossed her carryall into the back seat of the Stearman and turned, only to find herself caught between the canvas-covered fuselage and a large, immovable male.

  "Maybe we need another demonstration," he suggested with a nasty glint in his eye. "Just to lay out the rest of the ground rules."

  "Buchanan..."

  She could have taken him down. She'd been taught every defensive and counterdefensive move in the book. But something held her still.

  Maybe it was the faint, tantalizing tang of coffee on his breath. Or the tingle just under her skin when his bristly cheek scraped hers. Or the sudden, feminine curiosity that leaped to life all up and down her spine. Whatever it was, it kept Dani motionless as he planted his palms on the fuselage and bent his head.

  The moment his lips claimed hers, she realized her mistake. Jack Buchanan subscribed to the fighter pilot school of kissing. He didn't make a slow pass over the target. Didn't perform a careful aerial assessment before engaging the enemy. He swooped in, guns blazing, delivered a full load of armaments and left his designated target with her head spinning and her knees ridiculously weak.

  Lord, the man could kiss! Dani fought the urge to rise up on tiptoe, hook her arms around his neck, return fire. Instead, she kept her shoulders against the canvas and her hands fisted at her side. When he raised his head, it took everything she had to infuse her voice with cool disdain as she threw his words back at him.

  "Was that supposed to impress me?"

  A grin flashed across his face, transforming the rugged planes and angles into something dangerously close to handsomeness.

  "No, but it sure goes a long way to making up for the buzzing in my ears from your pistol shot."

  Dani refused to admit that the buzzing in her ears had nothing to do with the shot. She wouldn't give Buchanan the satisfaction. Besides, she wasn't about to let this man distract her. Not with her sister's life hanging in the balance.

  Still, she couldn't decide whether she was more relieved or disappointed when Buchanan tossed his flight bag into the front seat and kicked aside the wooden chocks.

  "Let's roll this baby out and get her fueled, green-eyes. This looks to be one helluva flight."

  Chapter 2

  Dani had never flown in an open cockpit plane before. Six hours into the flight, she was pretty confident she never wanted to repeat the experience.

  Granted, skimming along at fifteen hundred feet was incredibly exhilarating, with the air rushing, silky soft, in her face and scattered cumulus clouds puffing up like mounds of whipped cream in the ocean of blue all around her. The Stearman's 220-horsepower engine purred like a kitten, so the noise wasn't bad. And flying at little more than eighty miles an hour, Dani could swipe the occasional oil spray from her goggles, lean into her shoulder harness and see the patchwork of farms, towns and cities below in precise detail.

  Unfortunately, the Stearman's slow speed, ability to fly well below radar and capacity to land on any semi-level surface—all of which made it the perfect aircraft for this mission—also made for a long flight. Once they were out of the Oklahoma Panhandle, Texas rolled by beneath the double wings for hour after hour. The flat, dusty plains around Amarillo. Lubbock's cotton fields. Midland-Odessa's Permian oil basin, with black metal derricks bobbing up and down like giant grasshoppers as far as the eye could see.

  At the first refueling stop, Dani unhooked her harness, climbed out and made a dash for the bathroom to get rid of her coffee. The messages scrawled above the urinal raised her brows. The sink was so filthy she figured her own germs were safer than any she might pick up from touching the faucet. She returned outside and waited patiently while the airstrip manager drooled over the Stearman.

  At the second stop, there were no bathroom facilities of any kind, crude or otherwise. Nor did an airstrip attendant make an appearance. A cell phone call to the number painted on the fuel tank gave the location of the key and permission to pump away. Buchanan left two bills folded under a rock to pay for the gas.

  Thankfully, their third stop was a city airport just outside Fort Stockton, with a real tower and a restaurant. Dani climbed out of the Stearman on rubbery legs as a knot of people gathered to admire the biplane.

  "She's decked out in navy colors," an old-timer said with a catch in his throat. "Just like the trainer I soloed in at Pensacola in '43."

  "Glad to see you didn't gut the old girl's front cockpit and fit her with a fertilizer hopper," another commented. "From the nozzles you've installed under her wings, I'd guess you disperse chemicals and seed?"

  "Not just seed. I also spray dry material to speed up snowmelt on golf courses and small grainfields," Buchanan explained. "Had a contract last year to clean up an oil spill along the Lower Colorado."

  "No kidding? That was you? You did a damned good job, from what I heard. Used MT-64 dry microbial pellets, didn't you?"

  Left completely behi
nd by the abrupt transition into the technicalese of aerial applications, Dani heeded her stomach's rumblings and made for the restaurant. She was halfway through a heaping platter of enchiladas and french fries, both swimming in scorch-your-eyeballs Texas chili, when Buchanan finally joined her.

  "That looks good," he told the waitress. "I'll have the same. And iced tea."

  Grimacing, Dani watched him dump six packets of sugar into the quart-size jug of tea that was delivered a few moments later. She refrained from commenting on his sweet tooth, but did remark that she hadn't realized agricultural aviation had taken on such a variety of dimensions.

  Buchanan slanted her a cynical glance. "I'm not surprised. I formed the impression last night that you don't hold the profession of crop dusting in high esteem."

  "Not as high as flying fighters for the United States Air Force," she admitted. She played with her fork, eyeing him curiously. "Do you miss it?"

  "The Air Force or flying fighters?"

  "Either. Both."

  "Not particularly."

  She digested that while he tipped his head back and took a long swallow of his tea. Despite her determination to remain focused on the mission and not the man, Dani couldn't help noticing the weathered skin, the square jaw, the strong column of his throat. He wouldn't be bad if he scraped off those bristles and trimmed his hair, she admitted silently. Not bad at all.

  Sternly, she banished the thought and probed deeper. "My father said you were one of the best pilots in his squadron."

  "Yeah, well, Dan Flynn knew how to wring every last ounce of performance out of his men and their aircraft."

  "Did you ever consider going back into the military? You're what? Thirty-two?"

  Actually, he would turn thirty-three in a few weeks, but Dani saw no need to let him know she'd put together a file on him.

  "Given the million or so the Air Force spent training you," she commented, "they might entertain a waiver."

  "They might, if I was interested in one."

  His heaping platter arrived. Several forkfuls disappeared down his throat. She knew she should let him enjoy his meal in peace, but the career officer in her wouldn't let go.

  "So why aren't you interested?"

  His shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. "What I'm doing suits me fine."

  "But..."

  "There are no buts, Flynn. Not in my mind. I'm my own boss. I spend as many hours in the air as I can cram in. I take the contracts I want and turn down those I don't."

  "You can't prefer tooling around in a World War II vintage plane to flying jets!"

  "You think so?" Annoyance put an edge to his voice. "I like flying low and slow. I like throwing my plane into a loop or a hammerhead stall whenever the mood strikes me. I like landing on runways so short I have to plow into someone's backyard to stop. There's nothing that compares to the feel of that old rag-wing's stick in my hand. Nothing."

  Except maybe the feel of Danielle Flynn's mouth under his. The thought jumped uninvited into Jack's head and wouldn't jump out.

  Damn! He couldn't remember when a woman had gotten to him like this. Even his ex hadn't delivered this kind of quick, hard punch to the gut. Their courtship had been rocky, their marriage even rockier.

  And that, Jack reminded himself grimly, was a lesson he wouldn't soon forget. Couldn't afford to forget. Now that he'd arranged his life exactly the way he wanted it, he wasn't about to let some intense, intent career-type take it apart again. Scowling, he dug into his enchiladas.

  "Eat up," he ordered curtly. "We've still got a good five hours of flying time before we reach this mountaintop resort of yours."

  It took Dani exactly one flip of the biplane to understand that Buchanan was not happy with her for challenging his present career choice. Two to bring her lunch back into her throat.

  She closed her eyes to the crazily tilting horizon, gritted her teeth as the harness straps gouged her shoulders, and shouted into the intercom. "All right! You've proved your point. You like throwing your plane into loop-de-loops."

  "Those were barrel rolls."

  "Whatever," she growled. "Unless you want recycled french fries and chili all over your damned plane, I suggest you fly straight, Buchanan."

  The grin he shot her over his shoulder was positively evil.

  Dani still hadn't quite forgiven him when they touched down on a dirt airstrip high in the Sierra Mad-res some five hours later. Unsteadily, she clambered out. Her bottom was totally anesthetized from sitting so long, and she was sure the harness straps had carved permanent creases in her shoulders.

  While Buchanan made arrangements to service the plane with the attendant who ambled down from the hotel perched high on an escarpment above them, Dani rolled her neck to relieve the kinks and did a slow 360. The sun was slipping behind the mountains to the west, but the beams shooting through the towering peaks illuminated a stunning landscape.

  This was Copper Canyon. Barranca del Cobre. Not really a single gorge, but a network of canyons slicing through the Sierra Madres. An area four times larger than Arizona's Grand Canyon, with dizzying changes in elevation and flora that ranged from cactus and sagebrush to cedar and pine. Filled with cascading waterfalls. Staggering cliffs. Verdant valleys. Sprinkled with prehistoric cliff dwellings, abandoned gold and silver mines, and isolated villages inhabited by the shy, dignified Tarahumara people.

  And marked by steep, almost inaccessible arroyos. Hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Any one of which could hide a ragtag band of kidnappers.

  Grimly, Dani dug into her carryall for the plain gold wedding band she'd purchased to complete the cover, and slipped it onto her ring finger. She glanced up to catch Buchanan's ironic gaze, shrugged, and led the way up the steep incline to the resort.

  The main lodge of the Posada Barrancas clung to the side of the cliff like an eagle's aerie. Two dozen or so individual casitas were scattered along the canyon rim on either side of the lodge. Inside the lobby, timbers held aloft a soaring ceiling, and the sharp tang of pine resin drifted through two-story sliding windows left open to the spectacular vista.

  "I'm Danielle Flynn," she told the receptionist. "I called in a reservation."

  "Sí, señora. We have the reservation for you and the señor." A warm smile lit her face. "May I congratulate you both? We at Posada Barrancas are honored you chose to spend your honeymoon with us."

  "Thank you."

  "We've upgraded you, compliments of the house. Here are the keys to our best casita. And this key is for your Jeep. You must be careful when exploring the canyon, though. The roads are very narrow and steep."

  Dani accepted the keys, her throat tight. Patricia had been driving one of the hotel's green-and-white-striped vehicles the afternoon she was kidnapped. It took some effort to toss off a casual query.

  "A woman I know stayed here a few weeks ago. Patricia Stevens? Perhaps you remember her?"

  At the mention of her stepsister's name, the friendly smile fell right off the receptionist's face.

  "Sí. I remember." Chewing on her lower lip, the girl glanced around the lobby. "Señorita Stevens was here. She...she left."

  That's all the girl would say. Or could say, probably. The hotel had no doubt put a tight lid on word of the kidnapping to avoid adverse publicity. Dani could only hope she had better luck in the villages nestled in the valleys below.

  Neither she nor Buchanan spoke during the short ride via golf cart to their casita. But once the bellhop had showed them the amenities and left with a hefty tip, Buchanan gave a low, appreciative whistle.

  "Now this is the way to fly."

  Dani had to agree. The furniture was all natural wood—smooth, polished pine; white oak; native birch peeling bark in long, curling strips. Fabric woven in colorful Mexican designs covered the chair and sofa cushions. Aztec and Mayan statuary decorated the walls, interspersed with exquisitely woven basketry.

  But dominating all was the view. It was, quite simply, magnificent. Tall, sliding glass panels forme
d one entire wall and framed a panorama of rugged mountains just turning purple. The doors opened to a railed balcony that hung suspended over a sheer, thousand-foot drop.

  The bedroom proved even more stunning. A king-size bed sat on a raised platform surrounded on three sides by glass. Sleeping on that platform would be like floating on air, Dani thought, or in an eagle's nest. Not for the fainthearted. Or the acrophobic.

  And not for her. Her plans for the next few nights didn't include sleeping.

  "You can have the bedroom," she told Buchanan. "I'll take the sofa in the sitting room."

  "Fine with me."

  He could have offered at least a token protest, she thought wryly. He made up for it—somewhat—by giving her first dibs on the shower. She jumped at the chance to wash away twelve hours of open cockpit flying, along with the serious aches in her lower regions.

  "Thanks. I won't be long. Too long," she amended with a huff as she got her first glimpse of the gleaming spa just off the bedroom.

  "Do you want me to order something from room service while you're in the bathroom?"

  She dragged her rapt gaze from the circular stall with its floor-to-ceiling, all-round jets. "What?"

  "Want me to order from room service?" he repeated. "I figure we should stay in. Since we are newlyweds..."

  He let the sentence trail off provocatively, but Dani was too enthralled by the gleaming gadgets in the bathroom to do more than flap a hand.

  "Okay. Sure. Whatever you want. Just go away, Buchanan. Please, go away."

  He gave a small snort. "This honeymoon is starting to remind me a lot of my first."

  Startled, Dani swung around and stared at his back as he strolled out. The former Mrs. Buchanan must have lacked a few necessary hormones, she thought. Or brain cells. Had the woman really turned Jack Buchanan away? On their honeymoon? The mere thought of tumbling onto that decadent bed with the man raised goose bumps all over Dani's skin. If he made love with anything close to the same skill he kissed with...

  Whoa! She'd better derail that train of thought before it left the station. She wasn't here to test the mattress on that sybaritic bed. Or to indulge in erotic bedroom exercises with a scruffy crop duster. She was here to find her sister. Only to find her sister.