Immune (The Rho Agenda #2)(125)

In years past, traveling the road between Bogotá and Medellín would have been tantamount to carrying a “Please kidnap me!” sign. Among the left-wing guerillas, the right-wing paramilitary groups, the bandits, and corrupt soldiers, any attempt to travel the Colombian countryside carried with it the near certainty of disaster. But that had changed in recent years, and while dangers still existed, the risk was acceptable.

Besides, Heather had given the travel plan her savant blessing.

Mark glanced across the table, watching her sip cappuccino, her eyes hidden behind her dark sunglasses. Heather’s powers were getting stronger—much stronger. All this practice peering into the future had been exercising her brain in ways he couldn’t even begin to imagine. And although, at times, she still needed to go into a deep trance, she was now able to pick up changes that might affect their plan while carrying on normal conversation. She called them eddies, small events that produced large impacts later on. If anything was out of place, he could count on Heather to spot it. His job was to be ready when she did.

They knew where Jennifer was being held: the estate of Jorge Espe?osa, the most feared drug lord in South America. Triangulation of the missing headbands had confirmed it. Bad news. Jen couldn’t have gotten herself into a worse spot if she’d been thrown into a Colombian prison.

Now they were sitting on the terrace of one of the nicer hotels in Medellín, having spent the last two days dreaming up a plan that gave them a chance to get Jen out alive. Today was to have been the day of reckoning. But this morning, everything had gone to hell.

Overnight, the headbands had been moved, this time to Washington, D.C.

Although Mark had been stunned by the discovery, at first he had believed it was a piece of good luck. After all, it would be far easier to rescue Jennifer in the United States than from the drug lord’s compound. Heather had just quashed that idea.

Mark looked at his plate. The half-eaten scrambled eggs and bacon had grown as cold as his formerly hot coffee, his appetite having dissipated along with the heat.

“So you don’t think Jennifer’s in D.C.?”

“No,” Heather said. “I can feel her in my head. She’s close.”

“Then how the hell did the headbands get to Washington?”

Seeing Heather’s eyebrow rise, Mark backpedaled. “Sorry. I’m just not liking what I’m thinking right now.”

“I know. It’s not good.”

“So what’re we going to do about it?”

“Nothing. Stay focused on getting to Jen.”

“And our plan?”

“Unchanged.”

Mark smiled, attempting to show a confidence he didn’t feel. After all, what good was perfect muscle control if you couldn’t use it to lie to your best friend? He reached across the table and touched Heather’s face, gently removing her sunglasses. Just because she said this was their best chance didn’t mean their odds of surviving the day were good. And before he got up and led her out of this hotel to whatever destiny awaited, he wanted to look into her beautiful brown eyes one more time.

Heather seemed to sense his thoughts. Shit, for all he knew, she was probably hearing them. Her own brave smile parted her lips. He wanted to lean across and kiss them so bad he actually started to lean forward. Instead, Mark swallowed hard and returned her sunglasses to their accustomed spot on her nose.

“Ready?” Heather asked, standing up.

“Ready.”

Mark flexed his muscles as he rose to his full height. One thing he swore to himself as he turned toward the door: he wasn’t going to f*cking die before he got to deliver that kiss.





132


Having left their cash in the hotel safe, before ditching the car in the nearby barrio, Mark and Heather walked the last mile along the narrow winding road that led to the Espe?osa Hacienda’s front gate. Aside from the curious stares of a few onlookers, no one attempted to stop them.

Mark had almost forgotten what it felt like to look seventeen, although he felt older than Methuselah. He glanced over at Heather. Young or old, she still looked wonderful.

To say this plan bordered on madness would have been to give it the benefit of the doubt. When they had first begun to discuss how to rescue Jen, he had envisioned some sort of Rambo assault, bad guys pinned down by his withering gunfire as Heather led Jennifer to safety. There had certainly been nothing in his plan about two seventeen-year-old kids strolling up to the front gate and asking Don Espe?osa to see his prisoner.

When Heather had first described it to him, he had laughed out loud, thinking she was pulling his leg. It reminded him of the time his basketball coach had drawn up a last-second play for Jacob Mahoney to shoot the ball, on the theory that the other team would never expect it. No kidding. Jacob had been wide open. Right before he missed everything but the kid playing the tuba behind the goal.

The only good thing Mark saw in the plan was that they wouldn’t have to fight their way in. That and his faith in the little savant who thought it up.

As they reached the top of the low hill occupied by the Espe?osa estate, Mark inhaled deeply, glancing at Heather once again. No sunglasses and her eyes were normal. Good. Nothing in her savant mind had identified a serious problem with the way things were unfolding, at least nothing wrong enough to force her to go deep. As he refocused his attention on the armed guards beside the massive wrought-iron gate ahead, the words of the X-wing pilot in Star Wars played in his head. “Stay on target. Stay on target.”