Killpath

She leveled her gaze on the blue-eyed, deep-voiced man. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, and she could see the powerful swell of muscles, as well as the crisscross of old scars which wove its own tale of a long and brutal life. “So I talk, and then what? You make some arrests, a few men get taken off the streets in New York or in Austin or—”

“Cali.” Cooper cut her off.

“You want me to give you information about Cali?” Rojas asked. “It’s been a few years since I’ve been there. Says so right in that file.”

“I want more than information,” Cooper said. “And I don’t want information for arrests. Los Soldados de Cali Nuevos could care less if a few of their guys go to jail. Arrests won’t give them a reason to spare Pepito. We need to make them know that even looking at an American citizen again will bring down all the fires of heaven and hell.”

Rojas sat back. “No arrests?”

“You still know how to use a gun,” Cooper told her. “And while that shoulder is healing up, I’ll refresh your skills.”

“How bad is my arm?” Rojas asked, looking down at the poor limb in its sling. Her ribs hurt, too, but at least she could breathe, meaning that they hadn’t been broken. “X-rays are still being developed, but it’s probably just a dislocated shoulder,” Brognola said.

Rojas glanced sideways at Cooper. “And you’re going to give me a pistol?”

“Pistols. Rifles. Shotguns. Sub guns. Whatever we need,” Cooper answered. “And we’re not going to give them to you in here.”

Rojas flexed her hand, then gingerly tried to move her arm under the jumpsuit. No, nothing was broken, and Cooper was right; it wouldn’t take long for her to get back into fighting condition.

“Why would you help me in protecting my son from the New Soldiers?” Rojas asked. “What do you get out of this?”

“What’s in it for us is the same as what’s in this for you. Payback,” Cooper said. “They killed your sons. They also tortured and killed a DEA agent.”

Rojas frowned.

“I’m not asking you to give a damn about Agent Blanca,” Cooper continued. “But I do want you to get me close enough to teach the survivors a lesson.”

“Survivors,” Rojas repeated. She locked eyes with Brognola. “I thought you said you were Justice Department.”

“I said I was,” Brognola answered. “He didn’t.”

Rojas pushed herself up from her chair. “And what if I don’t want to go?”

Cooper tapped the file in front of Brognola. “The federal government couldn’t convict you on the sixty to seventy murders of rivals and fellow gang members you either did yourself or farmed out to hit men. You outsmarted them on that front, so they nailed you on possession and sale of narcotics. But you’ve got bodies piled up behind you. A lot of bodies.”

“You’re not appealing to my angels?” Rojas asked.

Cooper narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to her. Their faces were inches apart, and this close, his gaze bored into her. “I’m asking for you to let your devils out to play. So, does the Witch, La Brujah, ride again?”

“If we succeed, what else happens?” Rojas asked.

“Pepito will be safe. And we can fake your death. No one will ever see you again, unless it’s on a telenovella,” Cooper promised.

“I’ll be with Pepito?”

Cooper nodded. “I will do everything in my power to make sure you and he are together.”

Rojas didn’t flinch from his steely gaze. Some voice at the back of her mind brought up the possibility that her Pepito was already dead, and once this was done, this man would put a bullet in the back of her skull.

But these men didn’t seem duplicitous. She sensed honesty and strength in Cooper, that made her want to jump at this chance. He didn’t seem like a fanatic so much as a crusader, a too-good-to-be-true idealist out to make the world a better place, despite the lethal intentions of going to Cali, armed to the teeth.

“This isn’t a trick?” Rojas asked.

“You’ll find I’m pretty devious when I’m on the hunt,” Cooper said. “But when it comes to making a deal—making an ally—I’m honest. I’m solid. I will go to bat for you.”

“Will you take a bullet for me?” Rojas asked.

Cooper took a deep breath. “If you prove yourself as an ally, sure. But I’m not expecting a miracle.”

“Because I’m a woman? Because I’m Colombian?”

“Because you’ve got over sixty dead bodies to your name,” he answered.

“How many do you have to yours, Cooper?” The tall, dark man smirked.

“How many?” Rojas pressed.

The way Cooper avoided the question made the hairs on the back of Rojas’s neck stand on end.

4

Rojas and Cooper were sitting in business class together, bound for Cali. The only things in their luggage were the standard clothing and toiletries, and they each had a smartphone in a hard case. Lack of guns, even a hidden boot knife, made Rojas feel very bare, like a raw, exposed nerve ready to be plucked. Cooper didn’t seem as anxious; he simply sat back, studying files on the phone.

Within a day of meeting Cooper and Brognola, Rojas had gotten rid of the accursed sling. Sure, she was chewing ibuprofen tablets as if they were breath mints, but she’d regained full range of motion a day after that, and the kick of an Uzi’s steel folding stock against her shoulder while on full auto was now completely tolerable.

During their training sessions, Cooper had watched over her, his gaze wary but not hostile. That didn’t mean he had many smiles for her. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t here to make friends.

The truth hung over the two of them. Rojas had never been a gentle soul, and while she was still enraged at the deaths of her sons, she’d killed their fathers, killed rivals, killed the wives and children of others who dared oppose her as she ran New York City. Cooper had lowballed the number of dead to her name that day in the office, whether by ignorance or by choice.

Even so, he was obviously aware of her past as a ruthless killer. Not that he seemed afraid of her. He was cautious, alert, but Rojas had the impression that one ounce of antagonism toward him would end with her neck snapped.

In the days that had followed their initial meeting, Cooper had re-familiarized her with shooting skills, but he had also taught her the hand signals they would need to work side by side in the field. If he intended to take her life, he would not be such a completist when it came to going into action.

He had made no bones about their plan.

Hilde Rojas was to be the bait. Once she appeared on the scene in Colombia, the SNC would pick up her scent and come after her.

Los Soldados were from a different group than her, another faction of the splintered Colombian drug scene. The old Cali and Medellin cartels were not friends, and much blood had been spilled at the height of their rivalry. When their boss died in a hail of gunfire from a military and police strike, Medellin collapsed into its own mayhem. Nobody there would consider Rojas anything more than a relic of the past.

That she was out of jail after serving only seven of her twenty years would surprise those bosses in Medellin struggling to build a new power base, but she wouldn’t draw their attention.

Only the SNC would be interested in La Brujah.

“You also have barely touched your drink,” Rojas commented, too restless now to stay silent. “I’ve got you figured out, you know. You’re a professional, and you believe in being in control.”

“In control of my thoughts and body,” Cooper replied. “I prefer to be aware and at the top of my game. True control of events around you is an illusion.”

Rojas thought of her own downfall. For over a decade, she’d smashed all opposition or dissent to her rule with ruthless efficiency. Back then, she’d thought she’d been in total control. The truth was that, eventually, her own people turned against her, flipping on her before she could flip on them. Her wildest caballeros had realized that she’d orchestrated so many deaths for the smallest slights or offenses that they themselves could become her next targets.