Page 7 of Burning for Him

Scowling, Doug stalked back and forth inside a hangar at the cargo terminal complex at El Dorado International Airport, waiting for the shipping company’s plane. It took off half an hour late from Mexico City for some stupid reason, and according to his watch, the crew had also lost some time in the air. At least the damn rain stopped.

Late yesterday afternoon, Clinton landed the company jet at the start of a storm, getting them safely on the ground at a small private airfield outside Bogotá before it worsened. The retired air force pilot was armed and stayed with the jet to ensure nothing happened to it. With comfortable couches to sleep on, TVs, internet access, a stocked kitchenette, and a full bathroom with a shower, it was like a mini-apartment with wings. Meanwhile, the others called for a taxi to take them to a hotel near the much larger airport, where they were currently awaiting the shipment.

After checking in and having dinner with Valentino “Romeo” Mancini and Lindsey “Costello” Abbott, the lightning andthunder kept Doug up past midnight. He awakened about three hours later with a hard-on and the phantom taste of Jenn’s mouth on his lips. Since he shared the hotel room with Mancini, he hadn’t even been able to jerk himself off with hopes that an orgasm would let him drift back to sleep. He’d been wide awake ever since, fighting the images of a scantily-clad Jenn that randomly popped up in his mind, causing his dick to stir. While he’d never actually seen her naked, one time, he caught sight of her sunbathing in a strapless bikini in the compound’s yard, trying to get an even tan for the dress she wore as maid of honor at Jake and Nick’s wedding. Thoughts of her almost-nude body fueled his masturbation sessions for months afterward, no matter how hard he tried to erase the memory.

As he continued to pace like a caged lion, his two teammates chatted with Rich Parsons, one of Dr. Sanchez’s guards. The forty-six-year-old expat had retired from Joint Task Force 2, the Canadian Armed Forces' elite counter-terrorism unit. Like Doug, Abbott was a retired Marine, while Mancini served in the Army Special Forces before joining the FBI and being assigned to their Hostage Rescue Team. Now, Mancini and Abbott were part of Trident Security’s Omega Team—a job that paid much more than the military or any of the alphabet agencies. The special-ops/private security company had grown tremendously over the years, and with its government contracts, they’d needed more operatives.

All four were dressed similarly, wearing combat boots, cargo pants, and black, tan, or olive green T-shirts. Their weapons were concealed by their clothing or hidden in their vehicles. They didn’t blend in with the uniforms of airport personnel, but they didn’t exactly stand out either, since Colombian soldiers patrolled there.

Parsons had picked them up at the hotel earlier in an old Jeep and then driven to an industrial area of the city. There, theyobtained a utility truck big enough for the five large crates of supplies that Ian arranged for them. How the boss had obtained Aerocivil-approved passes at the airport, allowing them to bypass metal detectors and avoid being patted down, so they could meet the plane, was a mystery to Doug. The truck and Jeep hadn’t been searched either. But Ian had contacts worldwide, so it wasn’t too surprising. It was either that, or someone high up had been bribed to make sure everyone looked the other way.

Next to their two vehicles, parked beside the hangar, was a forklift to off-load the crates from the plane and load them into the truck. At the commune, they would have to open the heavy crates in the truck and empty them that way.

“You’re going to create a trench in the concrete if you don’t stop pacing like that,” Abbott said as she approached him. “Something on your mind?”

The striking brunette was the last person anyone would suspect of being a bad-ass sniper capable of taking down a man twice her size in hand-to-hand combat. Doug knew better. He’d seen her in action during training and on several missions and details. She’d knocked him on his ass a few times during sparring sessions, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it. He loved to put her in the ring with newly hired bodyguards without giving them a warning. When Ian got wind of that, he demanded that Colleen be informed of the sessions so she could put them on his schedule. He wanted to watch them get their asses kicked. After that, it hadn’t taken long for both the Alpha and Omega teams to start showing up and making bets.

Stopping in his tracks, he shook his head. “Nope. Just bored waiting on this stupid plane.”

Abbott eyed him as if she knew he hadn’t told the complete truth, but thankfully, she let it go.

“This looks like ours.” Parsons gestured toward the Boeing 747-400F with the shipping company’s logo on it, slowly taxiingtoward them. A quick check revealed that the tail number matched the one they’d been given. Several aircraft marshals, wearing reflective safety vests, helmets with acoustic earmuffs, and gloves, hurried into position to guide the plane into its assigned spot. Doug and the others hung back just inside the hangar for safety’s sake and so they wouldn’t get in anyone’s way.

As the plane’s engines wound down, the ground under Doug’s feet shook. If he hadn’t been standing still, he might not have noticed it. He glanced around, searching for something that could have caused it. “What the fuck was that?”

“The ground shaking?” Parsons asked. When Doug nodded, the man shrugged. “Earthquake. Not even a three-point-oh. We get little barely-noticeable quakes once or twice a month, and probably dozens more that you don’t even feel. It’s no big deal.”

Mancini narrowed his eyes. “How often do you get one that’s really noticeable?”

“We get a quake registering between four-point-oh and seven about once a year or every two years. Above a seven—once every ten years or so.”

“When was your last one over seven?”

Parsons thought about it for a moment. “Ten or eleven years ago, I think? Right after I moved here. But that was all the way out on the West Coast—about twelve hours by car from here.”

“Great,” Doug mumbled. “So, you’re due for a big one.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

The man’s nonchalant response didn’t make Doug feel any better. While Florida was known for its hurricanes and even a few tornadoes, earthquakes weren’t on its major catastrophe list. They experienced some slight tremors every few years, which he never felt and only learned about when they were reported in the news. The largest earthquake felt in Florida occurred in 2006, when a five-point-nine struck approximately two hundredand fifty miles west of Tampa, in the Gulf of Mexico. People in the five states bordering the Gulf noticed the tremors, but no damage or injuries resulted from them. And the largest quake to ever originateinFlorida was a four-point-four magnitude in the late 1800s. The only reason Doug knew that was because he’d researched it years ago for a high school project about natural disasters in the Sunshine State.

Well, it wasn’t like he could do anything about it. Maybe Parsons was right, and there was nothing to worry about. Regardless, they had work to do now that the plane’s turbines stopped rotating and the cargo hold ramp was lowered. Doug pulled out the paperwork to claim the five crates they wanted and handed it to a guy with a clipboard. His Spanish was rusty, but he must have gotten his message across because the guy nodded and said, “Un momento.”

“Un momento” turned intofifteen momentosbefore the crates were located among all the other cargo, and it was another twenty minutes before all five were loaded into the truck. Mancini went with Parsons and hopped into the passenger seat of the Jeep, while Doug settled into the driver’s seat of the truck with Abbott riding shotgun. Once they drove out of the airport gates, she called Nathan Cook at Trident Security to let him know they were en route to the commune. Cook was a former National Security Agency computer hacker whom Ian and Devon hired a while back. He was the Omega Team’s contact and support in the TS war-room, keeping track of them, gathering any intelligence they needed, and reporting the status of their missions to the bosses.

Doug was grateful when Abbott finished the call and didn’t try to coax him into a mundane conversation or ask what was bothering him again. Instead, she turned on the radio and somehow found an English-speaking music station, playing classic rock. As they followed the Jeep through the city towardthe outskirts, butterflies took flight in his gut, and they multiplied with each mile passed. Excitement and dread waged a battle within him, and he had to force his hands and fingers not to squeeze the steering wheel too hard.

What would Jenn say when he showed up at the commune? Would she look at him with annoyance and distrust? Or maybe she’d be happy to see a familiar face? After thinking about that for all of two seconds, he doubted it would be the latter.

CHAPTER SIX

Jenn froze as the ground underneath her shook again. It was the second earthquake in the past hour, something she’d never experienced before. Everyone who lived full-time at the commune didn’t seem shocked or bothered by them. Neither did Tony, nor three of the volunteers who’d been there in previous years. However, it was the first time for Jenn, Margie, Rachel, and Lexie, so the four women were a little freaked out. Dr. Sanchez tried to assure them that the quakes were normal and almost always benign. It was the “almost” part that Jenn found disconcerting.

When the mild tremor stopped after no more than ten seconds, she breathed a sigh of relief. Hopefully, that was the last of them. It was the first day all week that rain wasn’t in the forecast, and she relished the sun shining down. She’d missed getting her natural vitamin D for a few days. However, the humidity was back in full force again. Her T-shirt was already stuck to her. At least during the storms, the winds accompanying them cooled the temperatures to something more bearable.

She wished the shipment of supplies would arrive soon, as she was excited and couldn’t wait to see the children’s faces when she gave them the books and toys. Uncle Ian had sent heran email yesterday morning explaining that a replacement order was on its way, and this time, it would have an armed escort from the airport to the commune. She knew that Rich Parsons had driven down to Bogotá to help with the transport.

Dropping her head and shoulders to the ground, she tightened her core and restarted her sit-up count. While the commune lacked the gym equipment and obstacle course she had access to at the TS compound, she found alternative ways to maintain her physical fitness routine. Her uncles had taught her how to defend herself, and staying in shape was part of that training. While she wasn’t overly buff, her muscles had definition on her slender frame. On most days at home, she either ran three miles on a treadmill or the compound’s track around the O-course or used an elliptical machine. That was usually followed by any combination of calisthenics, weights, Nautilus, yoga, kickboxing, or sparring with someone in the boxing ring at the gym. And by someone, she meant any of the TS operatives, men and women, who all came from military or law enforcement backgrounds. While they would never seriously hurt her, they didn’t take it easy on her either. Not that she wanted them to. After her parents’ murders, being kidnapped with Aunt Angie, having a sniper attack the compound, Aunt Harper’s kidnapping, Uncle Brody almost being murdered—twice—and Grandma Marie’s abduction in the Philippines, Jenn swore she would never feel helpless again.

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