Page 33 of Operation: Silent Angel
“I’m seventy-five percent sure, Shep. And now that Mac’s been discovered up there, I’m one hundred percent sure that by the next time the satellite passes or when we get there it will be empty of whatever is there now. The conversations Ruiz is having are damning but Hector could have been going anywhere when he left his meeting with Ruiz, his own stash house for instance. We didn’t hear anything that was a sure indicator he was going to where Ruiz’s product was at when he left.”
“I’m not going to re-route the satellite. It passes again on its regular orbit within ten hours. What I can do is get a spy plane to make a few passes. If it looks like there’s human product there or if a move out is in progress, we can mobilize against it ASAP,” Shepherd said.
“I’ll let the team know,” Yvette said. “We’ll continue with our operation as planned.”
“Thanks for the update,” Shepherd said, then the line went dead.
Yvette provided the update to the team regarding her conversation with Shepherd and then placed a phone call to Mac to fill him in as well.
“Ruiz’s current visitor is getting ready to leave. Is Mac back and able to follow, Control?” Mother asked.
“Negative,” Yvette transmitted.
“I’m on him,” Garcia chimed in. He was already near the guest parking lot where a vehicle had been left for him by the DEA agents who’d dropped them off. He fished the keys to the sedan from his jeans pocket. As he opened the car door, the blast of heat from inside reminded him he was in Mexico. He started the car and turned the AC to high, but he stood outside of the vehicle, waiting for it to cool off while he waited for the mystery man to exit the lobby, which he could see from his location.
Ten minutes later, Garcia saw the man stroll out of the lobby. He was picked up by a black SUV that had been parked nearby. Garcia got into the car, it had cooled off slightly, and he followed them. They led him to a strip club in Cancun, near the airport. He didn’t have to go inside to know it was a cartel-owned establishment. The muscle guarding the door told him that. He snapped off several pictures of the men hanging around the doors hoping the DEA could ID them and which cartel they belonged to. Then he headed back to the resort.
The pair of DEA agents that tailed the American, lost him. They reported to Cooper forty minutes after they’d left that he’d slipped them in Cancun, near the airport. Cooper passed it on to the rest of the team. “I almost hope that was Dyer,” Cooper said.
“Yeah, if not we have another player to keep track of,” Yvette agreed.
“Control, I’m back in comms range,” Mac transmitted. “Do you read?”
“Affirm, Mac,” Yvette said. “ETA?”
“Under twenty minutes.”
Indigo
Ruiz took an afternoon nap, as Yvette had predicted. The Digital Team still worked on finding names to go along with the photos the team had taken of Ruiz’s visitors. Yvette knew that the longer they worked on it, the less likely they were to identify them.
A DEA Team flew a drone over the structure northwest of Cancun that Mac had trailed Hector to. There was no movement there. The camera on the drone showed several men milling around outside of it and no heat signatures inside. They believed it was a stash house or, if it was a drug prep location; the workers were not working at that time. They were going to keep observing the area and would go in after dark.
There was little for Yvette, Mac, Garcia, and Mother to do, so they took a cooling swim at the resort’s jungle pool, which was more private than either of the infinity pools. She had her hair in a wide wrap to somewhat hide it and large sunglasses on to helpconceal her identity, just in case the cartel members on the road who’d confronted Mac had passed her description onto anyone at the resort.
Lambchop took a shift in Mac’s room monitoring the feed that showed Ruiz sleeping in his bed. Cooper and Madison took advantage of the downtime to relax in their room, available to watch Ruiz’s room from theirs when Lambchop notified them he was awake if monitoring was needed. And Laura Lee took advantage of the time off and the cool of her room to take a nap, as did Roth and Briana, though they enjoyed a romantic encounter before the nap.
A lazy river wound itself through the jungle pool area from the actual pool, circling through the dense foliage and passing in front of each secluded cabana. Yvette appreciated how peaceful it was as she lay on her back, floating in the cool water. She lay with her eyes closed, confident that the three men were in the vicinity with their eyes open. It was a vulnerability she otherwise would never indulge in.
She felt Mac’s presence as the water gently lapped against her with his approach. She felt his familiar hand make contact with and caress her lower back as his cheek grazed hers. Then his arms encircled her, and his body floated up from below her to spoon her with her body just below the surface of the water.
She sighed a response to the pleasurable sensations his close proximity gave her. “This is heaven, isn’t it?” she whispered. She felt his strong chest beneath her head and back, gently cradling her.
“Heaven would be inside you, but this is a close second,” he whispered, his lips at her ear.
“In the future, we should meet for vacations here,” she said. Over the years they had met a handful of times when they’d taken vacation or time off at the same time. “Why don’t we do that more often?”
He emitted a contented moan, his hot breath blowing over her ear. “I’d like that. I just never thought you’d be open to it.”
“It would require we stay in touch more than we do,” she said.
Or rather, it would require his staying in touch with her more than he did. He always knew how and where to find her. But he often disappeared from her life for months at a time, gone off the grid, gone dark, whatever he wanted to call it. She knew he was still deep in the game, often under as a deep cover operative for long periods of time. But she knew he always answered Shepherd’s calls and probably the calls from a host of other leaders of various intelligence agencies he’d worked for as a contractor from time to time after leaving the CIA.
She tucked away the negative feelings that bubbled to the surface with that thought. They had no commitment. He was not obligated to stay in touch with her, and she’d always been fine with how things were between them in the past.
“Are you suggesting regular meetups, Miss Spontaneity?”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” she asked.
