“Still don’t have a plan,” Duane knew he sounded grumpy, but he couldn’t seem to fix that. He wasn’t even sure why.

This morning, he’d woken at first light in a beautiful woman’s arms. Beneath blankets scrounged from a locker, they’d watched the sunrise over the arid hills of Punta Gallinas, the northernmost tip of Colombia’s Guajira Peninsula. By the time they came down for breakfast, the boat had cleared the broad peninsula and was racing into Venezuelan waters.

“We’ll be in Caracas this afternoon, we should have a goddamn plan.” Nobody was arguing. He ignored the strange looks he was getting.

Sofia was way too good for a man like him. She should be with someone who believed in relationships and all that shit. He sure as hell never had. Never expected to. Even if he did, his mental image was some bar babe who would scream and cheat, but fuck like a porn star. Sofia was all class. A guy like him didn’t deserve that because he’d screw it up first chance he got.

He could feel himself screwing it up even now, but there was no stopping it.

“There is only one decent marina,” Sofia studied her laptop which was patched into the satellite uplink—now in her brilliant Activity-agent mode. “That is a starting place.”

“That isn’t a plan.” Why did she get to be so damned cool and collected? It didn’t matter. Why should he care? It wasn’t like either of them wanted a relationship. Maybe she could rise above—she was Sofia Forteza, wine heiress; of course she could. He knew exactly what his past counted for—Mr. Rich Playboy turned Unit operator. Not a goddamn decent thing in his future. She might be the best screw he’d ever had, but that’s all there was between them. He ignored the slice of pain at that last thought. He was Delta—he was used to pain. There was no way a guy like him could woo a woman like her. Keep sleeping with her as long as she let him then wave the hell goodbye? “That isn’t a plan.”

“Duane,” Kyle looked at him across the main dining table they’d all gathered around, except Melissa who was currently ten feet away at the helm keep them at full speed toward Caracas.

“Yeah?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Duane clamped down hard on his tongue. Even in his current mood he wasn’t dumb enough to argue with Kyle when he used that tone.

It was a ridiculous situation. Mission orders were supposed to be given to Delta, not created by them. The moment they had those orders, by standard protocols, the team went into isolation—full communication lockdown. It was up to the team how to carry out the assigned mission and the lockdown made sure that no one would know what they were actually up to. It cut down on leaks—unintentional or nefarious. It also cut down on regular Army command channels second guessing Delta methodologies. Yet another reason Colonel Gibson reported directly to the three-star general in charge of Joint Special Operations Command with no one else in the loop.

“You were the one who suggested we make this up as we go along,” Sofia whispered to him.

He didn’t need reminding of that. There were far too many things being “made up” at the moment. The problem was he’d “made up” a relationship that Sofia absolutely didn’t deserve. He cared too much about her to saddle her with a guy like him. But the other thing he’d said last night was just as true. He’d die without her.

Chad cuffed him on the back of the head, harder than usual. Then spoke in a voice loud enough to be heard all the way to goddamn Atlanta. “Look asshole. You gotta separate the mission from the woman. Get your fucking head in the game.”

Duane had finally found the focus for his frustration.

His punch caught Chad hard enough on the chin to send him flying backwards out of his chair. He did a head-over-heels somersault across the cushioned settee and landed on his feet.

On his feet as well, Duane dodged under Chad’s grapple and rammed his shoulder into Chad’s gut, lifting him clear of the deck.

He was too furious to scream when Chad pummeled a fist against his kidneys, but he lost his hold.

Chad had him back against the edge of the door for two crashing punches to Duane’s gut and face. But he’d taken worse in hand-to-hand combat training. Didn’t hurt nearly as much as being shot three times in the back by the Colombian FARC rebel barely old enough to have breasts.

Using the door frame for leverage, Duane launched at Chad. Hard grapple. Too close for blows. They both sought leverage to grab an arm, a leg, anything. They bumped against the railing.

Then it hit them.

Suddenly they were airborne.

For a single eyeblink, he could see Carla standing at the aft rail of the upper deck, rubbing her shoulder.

Then he heard Chad’s, “Oh fuck!”

They’d completely cleared the lower deck. They barely had time to fold their arms and twist to the correct positions for a high-speed bailout before they slammed into the water at fifty-seven miles an hour.

The sea hit him harder than any explosive he’d ever set.

“Fix this. And fix this now!”

Sofia could only cringe in front of Kyle’s fury. It was a side of him she’d never seen, never even suspected to exist.

To have it suddenly aimed at her was too much. She got back up in his face.

“How in the name of all that’s holy am I supposed to do that?”

“Hell if I know. Just do it!” And he stalked away, ending the conversation.

“Why is it up to me?” She yelled it at his back. But he didn’t slow, instead going out the side door and up onto the foredeck. The problem was, that for reasons she didn’t understand, somehow it really was up to her.

Melissa was circling the boat back to pick them up, but she too was watching Kyle’s retreating back with wide eyes.

Just perfect! Looked like Melissa had never seen him that way either. That was so not a good sign.

Sofia stepped out of the cabin and went to stand beside Carla as Melissa eased the stern close enough for the two men to grab the swim ladder on the deck below.

“Any suggestions?”

Carla just shook her head. “Like you said, make something up.”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

Carla looked at her for a long moment. “Then try the truth.” She squeezed a hand on Sofia’s arm before turning to follow her husband.

Whatever that was. She certainly had no idea as she stood at the aft rail and watched them climb aboard, a deck below her.

“I can’t believe you call that a right cross, bro. When did you become such a pansy?” Chad was checking on the flow of blood from his lip that a dip in the ocean had done nothing to staunch.

Duane was gingerly testing his ribs. “One of these days I’m going to have to teach your sorry ass how to throw a proper tackle.”

“Excuse me for never being Mister College Football.”

“I was track and field, asshole.”

They gave each other the finger then began ascending the stairs like two old frat buddies.

Chad looked up at her. “Uh-oh. Got some music waiting for you, bro. My advice: dive back in. The sharks looked less dangerous that she does.” He walked by her with a lopsided smile, favoring the bleeding side. “Hey Richie! Where the hell’s the first aid kit on this junkheap?”

Melissa was returning them to their original course and cranking the engines back to running speed.

Duane still stood on the lowest step of the staircase looking at her.

She finally descended to meet him.

He backed up. There was a low bench built onto the outside of the closed garage door for storing the Zodiac and jet skis under the lip of the upper deck. He eased down onto the bench with great care.

She sat beside him, though not too close, and watched the wake racing away behind them.

“I was ordered to fix this. Any suggestions?”

Duane just shook his head, leaned back against the door with closed eyes, and groaned as he continued to probe his ribs.

“If you are looking for sympathy points, you are asking the wrong girl.”

His half-hearted smile turned into a wince and had him probing his jaw. “Then what should I be asking you, ma’am?”

“You could try asking me what I think is wrong with you, but I have no ideas.”

“You don’t?” He opened one eye to look at her.

“Do you?”

“Actually, yes. But I thought you were the great analyst.”

Sofia considered adding her own blow to all of Chad’s. “Well, I don’t. Does that make you ever so happy?”

“Yes, ma’am. Nice to be half a step ahead of you for once.”

“Duane!”

“Okay. Okay,” he held up his hands in surrender. “Just, well, try not to hate me for this one. Please?”

“I’ll try, but I am making no promises.” She folded her arms tightly to brace herself for whatever was coming.

He stared off the back of the speeding boat for a long moment. “I was right about there,” he pointed off the stern just above the water, “when I figured a few things out.”

“Such as?”

“Such as both of our families suck at relationships. Loyalty is right down the toilet, too.”

Sofia looked down to inspect her toes. They did.

“But then I look at my teammates. Kyle and Carla. Melissa and Richie. These are good people. Ones that couldn’t be closer.”

“You and Chad.”

“Nobody better.”

“Even though you just beat the daylights out of one another.”

“Even though,” Duane agreed. “He’s had my back through every horror show since the beginning and I’ve had his.”

“Why am I suddenly in the way of your perfect bromance?”

“You aren’t. You’re just proving that I’m a total asshole.”

Sofia finally looked at him. “There are many things that you are, Duane Jenkins. That is not one of them.”

“Thanks. Too bad you’re wrong on that, but thanks.” He looked away then, after a long pause, thumped the back of his head against the door, hard enough to make them both flinch. “The thing is…”

“What is the thing?” She asked when he didn’t continue.

“The thing is,” he took a deep breath, then spoke fast. “I’ve been trying to treat you like just another good fuck.”

Sofia felt her entire body go cold.

“That’s all women have ever really been for me. But, goddamn it, Sofia, you aren’t staying in that nice neat slot in my head. Shit, woman! You’ve changed everything. But the truth is all that’ll be left standing when the world’s afire, so what the hell. The day you walk away is gonna kill me—and that’s not some thousand percent likelihood; it’s goddamn fact. But looking at my past, at who I am, I meant the other part, too. You’d be better off with the goddamn sharks,” he waved a hand toward the stern, “than you would with me. That’s what’s been ripping me up all morning.” Then he folded his arms over his chest hard enough to make the muscles bulge, closed his eyes, and banged his head back against the door one more time. Hard. He was clearly done.

Sofia looked out at the realm of “the goddamn sharks” and tried to find some way to fit Duane’s words into what she was feeling. Her family had tried to kill her, which wasn’t exactly the most shining recommendation. His family had essentially disowned him, not that it sounded as if they’d particularly ever owned him in the first place. If she was to face the truth, she hadn’t been the one to take Duane home to the estate in Oregon—her body had. She’d wanted him physically just as much as he’d wanted her.

So when had he become more than that?

From the first moment outside Aguado’s compound. The way he’d accepted her as a woman in a combat role. Then the way he’d taught her what she didn’t know and made her face the man she’d killed—which actually had cut down on the nightmares.

She slid a little closer to Duane and slipped her hand around his hard-clenched bicep just to see how it would feel. He didn’t react, didn’t look at her. He remained frozen like a coral statue.

Sofia liked the feel of Duane. Not just how his body made hers feel, but the surety of him as well. Actually, his surety of her. Since the first moment he had displayed an unwavering confidence in her capabilities. His belief that she was somehow better than she knew. His attitude was having the strange effect of making her believe it.

“Hey!”

She looked up to see Chad leaned out over the railing above them. His lip had stopped bleeding, but he held a bloody cloth that appeared to be wrapped around an ice cube.

“Are you and the asshole about done? Richie has an idea.”

She looked at Duane who was now facing her.

He wasn’t going to speak first, but she still didn’t know what to say.

Slowly, tentatively—an adjective that she’d never thought she’d use to describe him because Duane was always so sure of everything—he touched the fingers of his other hand to the backs of hers where they wrapped around his bicep.

She squeezed a little tighter. Then so did he.

“Jesus you two are glacial!” Chad groaned before disappearing from the railing.

“I think,” Sofia had to swallow hard before she could continue. “I think I would be better off risking you than the sharks. I have already spent too much of my life among them.”

He started to lean over to kiss her, but gasped and groaned again as he held his side.

“But for now I see that I will have to be taking a raincheck,” she kissed him on the nose, rose to help him to his feet, and led him back up to the main cabin.

“I was messing with Sofia’s laptop and—”

“What? How? It is very secure.”

Duane could only grin at Sofia’s protest. She clearly didn’t know Richie’s skills.

“Well,” Richie actually blushed. “When Duane and Chad started fighting, you jumped to your feet without locking the screen. I ducked in and created myself as a second user. So when you remembered to lock it, I was already in.”

“Very underhanded, Richie,” Chad nodded. “Proud of you, amigo. You’re finally learning.”

Richie smiled, “Melissa is teaching me.”

Duane joined in the others’ laughter—only the still irritated Sofia holding back, though she eventually smiled. Even she had to understand that no one as wholesome as Melissa could be a corrupting influence on anyone except a man like Richie.

“Anyway, I looked at that marina outside Caracas that Sofia identified. It’s the best one in the nation and reasonably secure. I made a reservation for a boat slip. Not a problem because tourism to Venezuela sucks right now.” He pointed to the big-screen television as he’d also linked the laptop into the onboard systems.

It showed a satellite view of the marina, the surrounding park, and swimming pools.

“But we can’t stay there. For one, the marina is too well guarded,” Richie started listing watch rotations and the like until Kyle stopped him. Then he continued, “Heavy private security makes for a lousy launching point for operations. I did make a reservation at a nearby Marriott just in case. Security would still be a pain, but the hotel is just half a kilometer from the back corner of Simón Bolívar International Airport if we need access to a plane.”

The team started razzing Richie about the Analie Sala mission. He’d been itching to get back at a plane’s controls ever since—despite the fact that they’d almost all died from his piloting that time. If Duane was never again on a flight with Richie at the controls, that would be just fine, even if he had managed to save them in the end.

“What else did you learn?” Duane cut in to keep it moving. He’d certainly delayed the discussions long enough through his own rank idiocy. An idiocy that he still didn’t understand how Sofia had forgiven him. Could they really just “make it up?” Was that how people made relationships?

“That marina and hotel are still ten miles to downtown—about an hour in typical traffic. Remember, at under forty cents a gallon, this is a car-crazy country. Of course, it’s up from two cents a couple years ago, so the citizens are not happy. I made reservations at a rundown little cama y desayuno closer in. The beds are supposed to be sad and the breakfast worse.” Richie paused.

He loved to be coaxed, so Duane did. “But…”

“But the B&B is less than a block from where the barrio meets El Helicoide.” And he put a birds-eye view of the building up on the screen. “It’s the former headquarters and one of the two main buildings that SEBIN occupies in Caracas. It’s also where most of their political prisoners are incarcerated.”

They’d studied it back at the Yakima Research Station of course, but it was still an amazing thing to look at.

In the 1950s a visionary had designed El Helicoide—The Helix. A tall hill in the center of Caracas had been scalped into a helix-shaped architectural cone circling the hill nine times as it climbed to ever-smaller levels. At three-quarters of a million square feet laid out like a coiled serpent, it was to have been the largest and most modern shopping center in Venezuela’s history. By following the nearly three-mile long road as it looped upward, customers could park close in front of whatever store they chose. The ultimate in modern convenience.

Started but not finished, it ran out of capital in the ’60s. To try to enliven interest, a Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome was even added to the flat uppermost layer—an area originally intended for the wealthiest people to arrive by helicopter. It hadn’t worked.

The late ’70s were defined by twelve thousand squatters moving in after the fast-encroaching barrio was leveled in a massive earthquake—the new residents eventually adding primitive water and power systems. The sewage system had still predominantly been dumping a bucket out over the edge and onto the next lower level.

“Shit rolls downhill,” Chad remarked as Richie continued the review of something they’d all heard back at Yakima. But a review was always a good thing prior to an operation. Who knew what factoid could spark a strategy or save their asses if the mission went sideways.

Then in the 1980s, DISIP, the secret police forerunner to SEBIN, had moved in, ousted the squatters, and finished The Helix. Since then it had become a mid-town icon of imprisonment and torture.

“The only thing worse than El Helicoide is La Tumba,” Richie moved the image over to The Tomb. SEBIN’s new headquarters lay just three miles away. “Sixteen stories above ground and five stories of prisons and torture chambers, that we know about, below ground. It was supposed to be a major station for their subway system at Plaza Venezuela, but that went away when the current administration seized power and needed somewhere to expand beyond El Helicoide.”

“We need eyes on La Tumba as well.” If Kyle was still pissed at them, he was doing a good job of hiding it. He was being as attentive as any of them.

“Which is exactly why I reserved a luxury suite in the Hotel King. It is directly across Olimpo Street from La Tumba. So, while you lot are languishing in your little B&B between El Helicoide and one of the city’s worst slums, we’ll be sipping a cerveza and watching the bad guys from our cushy armchairs.”

“Why the hell do you guys get off so easy?” Chad growled.

“Simple,” Richie was even more chipper than usual. “We thought it up.”

“Damn it! Melissa has been teaching you too well.” Chad raised his voice to Melissa’s back even though the helm was so nearby, “Take it down a notch, will ya?”

She shot back a thumbs up that Duane would bet had nothing to do with toning it down and everything to do with staying in a luxury hotel rather than a ratty B&B.

It was one of Kyle’s strange policies. Whoever had the idea, got the most benefits from the idea—if everything else about the tactical situation was equal. Richie had earned his cushy night out with his wife—even if the night out would be in full reconnaissance mode.

“How much longer to landfall?” Duane didn’t think he could take too much more of Richie’s gloating. Or of anything.

“Seven hours from here to Caracas,” Melissa reported from the helm.

“You’ve got six hours people,” Kyle shifted to his feet. “I want you fed and rested by then. Last hour is full weapons check. We’re finished here. Well done, Richie.”

Richie’s smile lit up. The look he traded with Melissa would melt steel.

Kyle must have caught it too. “I have the con. Get out of here you two,” he moved up to take Melissa’s position.

Duane figured that was a good idea before he got assigned some shitty task.

“Things I want to say to you,” he whispered to Sofia.

She nodded in response and led him downstairs.

There really were things he wanted to say to Sofia, but he wanted to say them in private. He wasn’t sure what they were, but the feeling was there that he definitely had something on his mind. Talking to her seemed the only likely way he’d figure out what it was.

But when Sofia opened the door to one of the suites, all he saw was the big bed with its pristine comforter the color of her eyes.

He fell face forward into it… them… it. And didn’t remember a thing for another six hours.

Duane had so obviously needed his sleep, that she’d let him have every minute of it and ten more.

Which had left her so frustrated at what he’d left unsaid that she hadn’t slept a wink.

When Kyle had come down to locate his missing crew member, he’d taken one look at her eyes and said kindly, “It’s time, Sofia. Roust him.” Then he’d gone away with no other comment.

He’d yelled at her earlier for missing that Duane was upset, now he was being understanding about her sleeplessness.

What was it with nice men all of a sudden? She wasn’t used to that and they were confusing the crap out of her. Not that the guys at the Activity were bad sorts, but there hadn’t been one she’d have gone out with even if she was dumb enough to date someone from work.

Now she wasn’t dating someone at work. She was…falling—

Tonto del culo!—Idiot of the ass! How was that even possible? But it was exactly what was going on. She was falling for Duane. And he wasn’t someone at work. He was someone she was going into battle with. How insane was that?

It was her own fault. The Activity hadn’t pushed her to get field experience, but all of the best agents had it and it showed. They didn’t typically embed with the teams for more than a single mission. She’d never heard of one who got into it this deep.

While Duane was inventorying, and checking the weapons and explosives he’d brought along, she’d spent some more time at her laptop. The first thing she did was find Richie’s account on her computer and burn it out. Or she tried to. It wouldn’t delete.

“Richie!”

He popped his head up out of a case of surveillance gear.

“Get your butt over here!”

He grinned at her, “Too busy.” And he ducked his head back down. He knew exactly what she was upset about.

Well, she was no slacker. She went in and burned down the hidden system password file—overwrote it with the Department of Defense 7-pass 5220.22-M(ECE) standard of secure erasure and set up, only her user exclusively, a new one. Let Richie get around that if he could. For good measure, she changed her user name to Duane so that he wouldn’t guess it.

She stared at the screen. Duane? She’d completely lost it.

She changed it to MariaAliciaForteza for Nana and then went about her research.

Sofia suspected that, with the gas prices at forty cents, it would be easier to buy a pair of used SUVs than rent anything.

Once they were ashore, she’d been right. No one wanted such gas hogs anymore and American dollars had immense buying power on the street. It turned out far cheaper to buy the two vehicles than even a one-week rental from the airport car rental agency. The rental agencies honored the official exchange rate of ten Venezuelan bolívars to the US dollar rather than the black market rate of three thousand. Besides which, the SUVs they purchased were battered and dinged enough that no one would look at them twice, whereas even Venezuelan rentals were relatively new and clean.

The exchange rates—other than the official one—were so bad that even at forty cents per gallon it took a stack of bolívars almost a foot high to fill the tank of each SUV. The clerk at the station hadn’t bothered to count the money, he’d weighed it. And grimaced until they’d added another inch.

Thankfully, Smith had anticipated this and equipped them with almost as many cases of money as ammunition. They paid the security guards a US fifty each to watch the boat, with the promise of another two hundred if it was untouched on their return. By the light in their eyes, there was a good chance it would be fine. If they had to exit the country another way, then they could sell the boat for all she cared.

The late afternoon trip into the city through the dragging rush hour had tested her nerves to the limit.

She sat in the back with Duane, but wasn’t comfortable speaking. Kyle and Carla were up front and Chad was in the far back. Richie and Melissa were taking the other vehicle to their fancy hotel.

Kyle circled them about through the city to get the lay of the land. All she got was a little carsick.

That was cured when they finally pulled up to the Helicoide Cama y Desayuno. The only thing that the three-story, gray block B&B had to do with El Helicoide was that it was looking right at it. When she opened the car door, she went straight from carsick to nearly gagging. The smell of the barrio—something the SUV’s air conditioning had at least mitigated—was brutal despite the mild fall temperatures. In the summer it must be unbearable. Frying onions, burnt meat, sewage, and…

Duane’s arm was around her shoulders and escorting her inside.

“Was that…”

“Yes, don’t think about it.”

“This city has the highest murder rate outside a war zone,” she knew the statistics. She couldn’t block them. The barrio didn’t reek of squalor—it reeked of death.

The B&B had a steel door. The man who opened it, after inspecting them carefully, wore a Makarov pistol and she’d wager there was a rifle or shotgun tucked somewhere close to hand. He was a lean man but addressed them kindly enough once they were inside and the door was locked again.

It was far nicer inside than out and Sofia managed to keep her dinner down.

“Turistas locos. Only craziest turistas come to here,” he said in a heavily-accented mash of Spanglish—which he insisted on using as soon as he realized they were Americans despite the whole team being fluent in Spanish. “All come to see El Helicoide. Last year they come from England. Museum of…arquitectura?”

“Architecture.”

“Sí. Sí. They want to take many pictures. Policía take cameras and smash! One man, he argue. They beat so bad he must go hospital. I warn them. But do they listen? No! You,” he poked Duane in the chest as if he didn’t tower a foot over him. “Do you listen?”

Duane smiled at him, “No.”

The man shook his head in disgust. But he gave them their keys and waved them toward the stairs. “Arriba. Para arriba. Up! Best view. It is at top floor. I give them to you.” And he disappeared through a back door.

The three rooms took up the entire top floor. Once they were all up the stairs, Duane set a squealer infrared beam that would warn them if anyone else tried to climb higher than the second story.

In minutes, Sofia had her computer up and opened a 3D map she’d downloaded of El Helicoide based on the original plans from the 1950s that they’d found in the archives of New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Soon the team was standing far back from the windows, observing through their scopes, and calling out things for her to add.

“Level Three. At one-twenty degrees south. Gun emplacement. Nothing fancy. Probably a Kalashnikov RPK.”

“Level Two. Directly above the Level One entrance. A pair of Vladimirovs. Mounted to aim down, not up.”

She added the heavy machine guns to the diagram. They were more suited to anti-aircraft than building protection, but the half-inch rounds would punch easily through a car or truck.

Soon all four of them were calling out information so fast she could barely keep up. Chad was the sniper and was calling out the gunnery positions. Carla gave her structural changes, and seemed to have a real thing about wire fencing. Duane was defining weaknesses that could be exploited by the application of explosives. And Kyle was giving her patterns of movement, both of personnel and vehicles—reaction-time of gate guards and the like.

After two hours, Kyle called a break. Besides, the sun had set and there was little more to see. They kept bright lights facing out toward the barrio, which must be incredibly irritating to the residents, but only the uppermost layers of El Helicoide remained lit.

“Chad. First watch. Next door,” Kyle pointed. “Keep the lights off—don’t want them noticing us.”

Chad slipped away carrying his rifle.

“Sofia, show us what we’ve got.” He pulled the blinds down and they spent the next two hours crowded around her laptop breaking down what they’d learned.

“Who’s up for a sightseeing tour?” Duane did his best to sound chipper over breakfast but it was hard.

He’d pulled third watch, right in the middle of the night. The only activity had been someone from the barrio snooping around even their sad SUV parked on the street. Not wanting to shoot anybody, he’d used his silenced rifle to shoot another car farther down the street. He didn’t feel bad because it no longer had tires or seats, but the bullet’s impact made a very satisfying—and highly recognizable—bang as it punched through the rusted hood and pinged off the engine block. The thugs on the street might as well have evaporated for how fast they were gone.

On top of that, Richie hadn’t been kidding about the beds. They were miserable. Unable to stand it any longer, he’d gone for a morning run. The old man had been there to let him out and back in, just shaking his head at Duane’s insanity.

Thankfully, the food wasn’t as bad as Richie had predicted.

The old man pan-grilled arepas. He’d sliced the hand-sized circular maize-flour cakes in half, creating a reina pepiada sandwich filled with chicken, avocado, spring onions, and a wicked mayo-cilantro sauce. He could have eaten a trayful, if they weren’t so filling. Just one did in everyone except Chad—even he couldn’t finish the second one.

Breakfast, and completing his run to see Sofia’s smile in the window above where she stood last watch, were the two highlights that said this was going to be a very good day.

“What are we seeing?”

He’d have answered anyone other than Sofia, but for her… “It’s a surprise.”

And it was. A quarter of a mile walk along the Calle Vuelta Del Casquillo, they stepped out of the barrio and into another world. There were several tall buildings, the streets were wide and had sidewalks. In a nicely planted area stood a Metrocable station. It was a cross between a fortress on the lower stories—which the plantings did little to soften—and a fanciful forest of steel above.

“I present to you the Metrocable tramway. It provides a splendidly scenic view of the city.”

Sofia was the first to trace the line of the aerial cables and then turn back to him with that radiant smile of hers. Once they were airborne, El Helicoide would be clearly visible from the tram car from a far different perspective than their B&B.

Inside, the station was again another world from the streets. It was a study in marble and bright steel. The squeezing pressure of the city was replaced by a vast expanse that could have handled a thousand people rather than the few dozen using it. There were signs for daycare, hotels, shopping…but they mostly pointed to chained-off stairwells and darkened storefronts.

But every thirty seconds a gondola rattled over the rails and into the station as another rattled out. State sponsored and controlled, the fares were just a few hundred bolívars, mere pennies on the black market.

With a little careful maneuvering—stepping into line after one large group and just before the arrival of another—the five of them got an eight-person car to themselves. As soon as they were locked in, Duane pulled out a sensor and ran it over the insides.

“We’re clean. The microphone isn’t engaged until we hit that ‘in case of emergency’ button.”

“Then don’t hit it, bro.”

“I won’t.”

Sofia rolled her eyes rather than adding the last note to Chad’s and his patter.

Then, as their car shot out of the building and began the steep climb toward the first pylon, they all turned to the windows.

Below lay the a single block of neat, multi-story brick houses, roofs of white or gray tin. The area was relatively flat and there were cars on the streets. At the end of the block, the terrain jolted upward. The housing changed completely from one side of the street to the other. A mixture of single-story, severely-marginal brick shacks were jumbled together worse than a pile of dumped-out jigsaw puzzle pieces. There were no roads, no straight passages. The walkways were often only a few feet wide, jogging this way and that around individual structures. The barrio, impossibly, looked even worse from above than it did on the ground. He’d done a little exploring this morning during his run.

And over it all loomed the towering edifice of El Helicoide, its upper heights quickly coming to eye level.

“What must it be like to live here?” Sofia was surreptitiously filming out the window. Her sunglasses had a built-in projection feed from the high-res camera peeking out through a hole in the purse over her shoulder. A hand tucked around the strap gave her access to the zoom controls. It was a slick piece of work that he’d enjoyed playing with while she was setting it up.

“I know,” Duane felt the same thing. “To live in poverty and look up at that thing. At least it isn’t a shopping mall anymore, that would be horrible.”

“No, it is just the SEBIN who are oppressing them. I think maybe it would be like always seeing the Death Star no matter which way you turn.”

“Aren’t we in a bright mood this morning.”

Sofia grimaced.

“Sorry.” Duane wanted to brush a hand down her back, but didn’t dare jar her camera work—that she’d never forgive. He missed their banter, but somehow it just didn’t work looking down at the mess that was central Caracas.

Kyle pulled out his satellite phone. “Richie. Meet us at the Parque Central Metrocable station…That sounds better.” And he snapped the phone closed.

The tram rattled into a station atop the hill in the center of the barrio. It was clear that buildings had simply been swept aside here to place the station. Unlike the lower San Agustín station, the El Manguito station made no qualms about being fortified. It was surrounded by high fences topped with razor wire.

Like the tourists they were, they got out and went to the viewing platform.

The two-hundred-foot geodesic dome atop of El Helicoide was at eye-level less than two football fields away. A sign warned that photography was illegal and armed guards prowled the platform to ensure it was obeyed.

Sofia rested her purse on the railing.

“There, at the north end, you can just see the planned elevator.”

Duane looked down. All he saw was a small, blocky building at the base.

“It was supposed to be a sloped elevator, six of them actually in three separate shafts buried beneath the building into the hillside. They were never installed.”

Now he could see the repeated structures up the face that would have been nine successive elevator lobbies. “Is that what the structure on the top is, beside the dome?”

Sofia made a show of looking at the skyline as she shifted her purse. “Yes. The bottom half. The top half appears to be a radio antenna. It’s pointed slightly to the west from straight up.”

Duane nodded. “Richie said that the Simon Bolívar spy satellite is in a slot at seventy-eight degrees west. Caracas is at sixty-six. So the antenna’s angle makes sense.”

She fussed with the purse’s strap. “Cable housings running on the surface into the dome. If we could get in there, I’d wager we could get the codes.”

“Oh, like that’s gonna happen. You on drugs, lady?” Chad grumbled.

Duane wondered though. There had to be some way in. The trick would be to get in and out without drawing any attention to themselves.

Chad looked at him, waiting for something.

What? Oh. His second beat.

“If she’s on any drugs, I hope I’m the drug.” A lame response, but all he had at the moment.

It was hard to believe they were in the same city. Sofia breathed in deeply and blessed the moment. Yes, she could still feel the oppressive city out there, but they were in a little bubble of normalcy.

The Metrocable whisked them over the eight lanes of the Autopista Francisco Fajardo—the freeway was an unmoving block of colorful buses, yellow taxis racking up huge fares while not moving, and cars packed so densely that even the motorcycles had trouble weaving through the gaps. They unloaded at the final Parque Central station and walked into the Parque Los Caobos. Suddenly they were crossing broad, grassy lawns beneath the shadows of ancient trees. The big-leaf mahogany trees—caobo in Spanish—had somehow survived all the regime changes, revolutions, overpopulation, and avoided depredation since Colónial times.

For five hundred years this park had survived in the heart of Caracas. It was surrounded by the national performance center for music and dance as well as museums of science and arts all around the periphery. But even that was lost beneath the trees. Here, quiet paths wandered through more shade than sunlight.

The trees were alive with other fauna as well. Green Amazonian parrots debated territorial rights with the brilliant scarlet macaws—especially when someone tossed out some leftover tortilla. Black squirrels countered the parrots’ aerial strategies with racing ground strikes—down the tree, a dash to the prize, quick grab, and the fur infantry returned to the trees before the feathered air squadrons coordinated their forays.

Sofia wanted to purchase a whole stack of tortillas so that she could toss them about in little pieces and just watch.

Sculptures awaited them in surprising locations, but the best was the Fuente Venezuela—the Venezuela fountain. The quiet two-tiered pool with small water jets quietly splashing was peopled by large stone sculptures representing the different regions of the country. Beautiful, bare-breasted women and stunningly handsome loin-clothed men lounged for all to admire. The statues were self-contained, complete in themselves, needing no others.

She had thought that embodied her—alone, independent, and all fine with that. Now she had a sister—who had e-mailed her such a hilarious account of her efforts at the Dundee Wine Festival booth that Sofia would have laughed until she cried if others hadn’t been in the room. For a moment she’d wished with all her heart that she’d been there beside Consuela.

And she had…a boyfriend? Sofia knew she had a lover, but that was physical. She strongly suspected that she now had both.

Among the couples admiring the fountain were Richie and Melissa. They looked disgustingly well rested as they approached while holding hands.

Sofia had only slept fitfully last night, despite getting no sleep at all on the boat. After she’d spent a whole night on the boat wanting to know what Duane had been about to say to her, she’d now spent another wishing he hadn’t said anything to begin with.

Then he’d jogged in the morning all bright and chipper as if life was perfect in Venezuela.

What the hell was she doing here?

She’d abandoned her family, abandoned Consuela to return to The Activity. Except was she with them? No. She was with Delta Force.

And if she bonded with Duane—if they had one more heart-to-heart talk—she’d want to leave her own team to join his.

Somewhere in the middle of the longest night in recent history she’d decided that she was the one who was screwed up. She’d left Nana, the Defense Intelligence Agency, Consuela, and now The Activity. How long before she left Duane? She was the woman who ran away from everything good. Not that she was with Duane…but she was and—

“I should go throw myself in the fountain.”

“That dress. On you. Wet… Oh yeah. Do you want me to help you in?”

She punched Duane on the center point of his sore ribs.

“Shit!” His gasp made her feel a little better.

She shouldn’t have worn a dress. She’d thought the light, summery fabric would be the best way to blend in. How was she supposed to know that a woman’s standard Caracas attire was faded jeans and a blouse or t-shirt that showed more cleavage than she typically did except at the swimming pool or an evening-gown fundraiser.

About the time she decided that she should apologize, Chad moved in to console his buddy.

Fine! Let their bromance blossom. They could invest in a rifle range together and live out their days teasing the customers with aplomb. Good for them.

Besides, Nana always said, en boca cerrada no entran moscas—flies don't enter a closed mouth. Yes, it was sometimes best to keep her mouth shut. She would do that from now on.

There were far more locals gathered around the fountain than anywhere else in the park. Several food vendors lined the edges of the surrounding square. She purchased a guava ice cream and selected a bench with easily observable approaches and relative privacy. Soon the others were seated about her on the low curb just a step away or on the lawn. They would look like a group of close friends to the dozens of passing observers.

By making a circle, they kept an eye out in every direction while looking casual. Somehow, she’d ended up being the focus of the whole circle.

Well, she was The Activity analyst, and it was nice that they respected that. She’d leave it to them to pay attention to all of the families passing by. With their training, they’d spot unwanted attention long before she would anyway.

Was she irritated, or pleased that Duane decided to stand close by rather than sit at her side?

Protective?

A wider area view and better response time from a standing position. She liked the feeling of that.

A few days ago, she’d have hoped that he was busy looking down the front of her dress. Her interests had been far more about sex just a week ago.

She wasn’t comfortable that those feelings had shifted and she wanted something more. It meant that—

Focus!

Her tired brain was not cooperating.

Richie cured that particular ill by sitting next to her with a dangerously dark-red ice cream.

“Chili-pepper chocolate,” he took a bite, then spoke around the mouthful. “I’ve never seen it before so I had to try. It’s—” His voice squeaked off as his eyes crossed and began to water.

“Melissa?” Sofia asked when it was clear Richie wouldn’t be recovering quickly. Her cone was sensibly vanilla-white.

“There’s a reason La Tumba is called that. The security isn’t merely good—it’s alarming. Fresh guards on the entrance every hour, officer inspections at the half hour. Four-man squad on the roof armed with Dragunov SVU rifles good for close combat but effective past twelve-hundred meters.” She delivered in two breaths what it would have taken Richie a dozen to just get started on.

Maybe she should buy up a stock of the chili-chocolate flavor.

“No second entrance, at least not above ground. If there’s ever a fire, they’ll have to go out through the windows which look to be thick enough to take a heavy round without breaking. It was originally supposed to be a major subway station before SEBIN took it over, so I would assume there are underground connections, quite possibly reaching in both directions: west to El Helicoide for prisoner transportation and east to Generalissimo Francisco de Miranda Air Base, commonly called La Carlota, for potential escape.”

Sofia hadn’t thought to look that direction. A new factor to integrate, though she didn’t see how it might affect the current operation. Caracas had grown until La Carlota was in the heart of the city. Multiple administrations had promised to turn it into: a park, a music venue, a water theme park complete with surfing, even new housing to relieve the urban core crushing in from the sides. Despite promises, it was still the Air Force’s primary base in the country. For now, she dismissed it.

“What about the roof?”

“Why do you think we got the luxury suite?” Richie had managed to recover. He was continuing to eat the ice cream, in very small bites. His eyes were still watering from the chili’s heat, but apparently he thought he looked less foolish than tossing it away and admitting defeat. “Helipad and some point-to-point microwave, nothing aimed up at the satellite.”

“What would it take to tap their microwave feed?” Duane was the first one to speak from the rest of the team.

Well, at least Duane had been paying attention to what was going on.

Duane wished that Sofia would stop breathing so that he could concentrate. Each breath drew his attention sharply downward—his top-down view of her chest revealed the most wonderful things when she breathed. He’d always been a lucky shit when it came to women. Maybe not as lucky as Chad, but damned fortunate. But never even close to her.

Sofia in a dress… Goddamn amazing! Yet another side to the woman: from jungle fatigues on up. About the only thing he was missing now was seeing her in an evening gown. That thought actually sent a shiver up his spine. She’d look beyond amazing in a gown. It was enough to get him to jump back into that social set just to see her dressed up.

Never in his life had a woman as beautiful and smart as Sofia even given him a second glance. Keeping up with her was a challenge that really pushed him to stay on his toes and he was coming to particularly enjoy that part of being around her.

He forced his scan from the enticing view of her cleavage out to the wider world. Couples with kids. A group of teens. A dad with a squealing toddler on his shoulders as he galloped toward a swing set. A group of children in awe watching a juggler. No loners except for a beautiful teen girl reading a book and nodding her head to the music on her earphones.

He’d always been blown away by the beauty of Venezuelan women, always rated in the top five on hottest country lists. Somehow, on this trip, he hadn’t even noticed the other women. There was a disproportionate ratio of pretty women in the park: tall, strong shouldered with good figures, perfect natural tans, and flowing long hair. He hadn’t noticed one of them except to track them.

The pretty teen paused, then began absently nodding her head to a different rhythm with a song change. It was a shift that she wouldn’t have made, if she was somehow listening to them rather than her soundtrack. He tagged her as “likely harmless” and let his attention drift mostly back to their own circle.

“Tap their microwave?” Richie accidentally took a bigger bite of his ice cream while he was busy thinking. With a gasp and a choke, he looked around for somewhere to spit it back out. Melissa held out a napkin that he spit the soggy glob of ice cream into it without taking it from her hand first.

She grimaced, placed her half-finished vanilla in one of his hands, plucked the chili-chocolate one free, and dumped the glob and cone into a nearby trash can. Several fresh napkins and a good rinse from a water bottle washed the worst of it off her hand—all the while Richie was absentmindedly eating her vanilla cone. He looked surprised when she took back what little was left.

Duane shared a smile with Chad, but one glance at Kyle showed he wasn’t in the mood for any goofing around at the moment. That, and Duane didn’t want to break Sofia’s train of questioning. He could feel her building a picture in some kind of intel-geek layers.

“Tapping into the system isn’t the problem,” no longer distracted by the ice cream, Richie finally started speaking. “The problem is getting onto the roof. We could shoot a line over easily enough from the King Hotel—angle’s not bad for a decent zipline. But you’d have to take down the rooftop guard first. Too far to dart them. You’d have to lob over three or four canisters of sleepy gas to get them all; they always stay spread out to the corners. Their radio check-ins are very frequent. SEBIN didn’t get to be SEBIN by being sloppy.”

“Other end of the feed?” Duane guessed at Sofia’s next question.

“El Helicoide as far as I can tell. Angle is right.”

Sofia didn’t respond. She was fiddling with the strap of her handbag. Oh. Reviewing her recordings of El Helicoide, searching for the microwave receiver. Now that he thought about it, he was pretty sure that she hadn’t mentioned her camera and viewing sunglasses trick to anyone else.

Cover, dude. Cover quick!

“Does anyone see a point in pursuing the La Tumba angle any further?”

A particularly loud burst of laughter had several of them turning their heads. Duane missed the natural beat for the turn, so he didn’t. Kyle’s and Carla’s eyes tracked back quickly and the look on Chad’s face said hot women rather than potential threat. So Duane ignored it. The head-bobbing beauty looked up brightly as an equally stunning girl plopped down beside her and gave her a big kiss. So much for appearances.

Melissa shook her head no on the La Tumba question even as Richie continued. “I wanted to get underground, check out their defenses inside the subway tunnels, but Melissa didn’t think that was such a hot idea.”

Duane was inclined to agree. If they were that compulsive above ground, they’d be just as paranoid below ground.

“So, we’re not to touch the regime, we’re just supposed to mess with SEBIN?” Duane voiced it for discussion.

“Uh-huh.”

He waited.

Had to nudge Chad to get his attention back—which earned him a friendly punch. “Damn but I love some things about this country.”

No one else had anything to add.

“There is a microwave receiver close beside El Helicoide’s satellite dish. That should be our target,” Sofia’s voice was soft. But no one seemed inclined to question it.