Chapter 28

Nyx stared. This was like one of those classic screwball comedies her mom liked to watch. Did everyone know the Paladin League was here to look for the treasure? Did everyone think they had some inside intel that would allow them to be successful when no one else had managed it in over two hundred years?

"Colonel Ramirez," Nyx said, keeping her tone conciliatory, "Se?or Vargas said something similar to me a couple of days ago. The problem is that I don't know where the treasure is hidden. Those papers are the only new information I've discovered."

Ramirez appeared skeptical. If he had clues to the treasure, he would lie to anyone who wanted to beat him to the cache. Ergo, she must be lying and maybe she even had the exact location of the riches. There was literally nothing she could say to change his mind.

"Do you have historical documents you want me to study?" Nyx asked. "That's what Se?or Vargas had me do."

Silence. It felt heavy. It sucked the oxygen from her lungs, and Nyx forced herself to draw a slow, careful breath. She wished this really was one of her mom's screwball comedies where no one was ever in real danger.

Unlike now.

Nyx never scared easily, but in the past five days, she'd been in more than one terrifying situation. She didn't like it. She liked being in control of her emotions and her circumstances. Unfortunately, control was in short supply.

"You expect me to believe that the Paladin League sent you to Puerto Jardin with nothing to go on? No plan to find the treasure?" The flatness of his voice was worse than anger.

"Colonel, I'm a geoarchaeologist. I study the land to gather information about archaeological sites. I have more than two years left before I earn my PhD." Nyx hoped that made her sound like a novice playing Indiana Jones. "I was ordered to come to Puerto Jardin and await further instructions."

"You were at the Huarona ruins."

"Because Charlie was meeting Se?or Vargas there by himself and I couldn't let my fiancé go without backup. I didn't expect to be discovered by his men."

She'd managed to say Charlie smoothly, but Nyx was walking a fine line between the various lies. The story needed to be consistent because there was no telling where Ramirez had spies, and that included among Vargas's men.

"You expect me to believe that the Paladin League sent you to sit around Trujillo and wait? I'm not gullible, Se?orita." His tone had her fighting off a shiver of alarm.

"A brooch was auctioned off." She hated to pass along that information, but it was in the past and there was nothing Ramirez could do about that item now. "It was from the treasure. My boss didn't want to risk something else turning up without a representative onsite. It's a nine-hour flight from the US. Anything could happen in that time."

That sounded logical, right?

"All I hear from you is excuses."

Nyx could feel the ice cracking beneath her feet.

"Colonel Ramirez, if I knew where the treasure was, do you think I'd still be in Puerto Jardin?" She flicked her braid behind her shoulder. The action matched her tone of voice. "I would have recovered it and gotten out of here. There are collectors who would pay a fortune on the shadow market for a single piece of such a fabled treasure."

His expression remained flat and Nyx didn't know how her words had been received.

After a moment of silence, Ramirez asked, "What about your fiancé?"

"Charlie could catch up with me later. The most important thing would be smuggling the cache out of the country before anyone realized it had been located."

Ramirez continued to study her.

"Sentimentality has been the downfall of many. I wouldn't let my feelings for Charlie stand in the way of a life of luxury. He understands. He wants that lifestyle as much as I do. It's why he deals weapons."

Nyx tried to give off the right vibe, but it was hard to maintain it. If he'd discovered her background and how she was raised, he'd realize she just spewed the biggest load of bullshit ever. Integrity, honor, principles. Those were more than words to her.

"You have no idea where the Treasure of Trujillo is?"

"No, and the odds of finding it are nearly nonexistent."

"I want that treasure," Ramirez said.

"What's my cut?"

"You get to live. Your betrothed gets to live. That's your reward for finding it."

Oz sat at the dining room table at the safe house with half of the team. He started to give an opinion, looked between Captain Nguyen and Lurch, and decided to keep his mouth shut. He wasn't the only one who'd opted to sit this showdown out. Everyone present, even Rusty, had stopped offering their thoughts.

"Sergeant, I'm in command and the decision has been made," BD said.

"I don't like your plan, sir," Lurch said, heat in his voice. "Not only is it too risky, but we also wouldn't be going in until the last minute."

"Duly noted, Sergeant."

"But—"

"No. This discussion is over. Do you understand?"

There was a long silence before he grudgingly said, "Yes, sir. Understood."

Pivoting, Lurch headed into the kitchen, and an instant later, Oz heard the door to the house close. "I'm on it," he told BD and went after him.

Oz caught up with Lurch a couple blocks from the safe house and fell into step with him. His teammate gave him a side-eyed look but didn't say anything. He let the silence linger a few minutes.

Lurch was normally one of the more easygoing members of the team, but right now he was wound tight. "Are you going to take my head off if I ask you a question?"

"It depends on the question."

"Fair enough. Why are you pissed off? You didn't expect us to head out immediately."

He stayed quiet, but Oz didn't push. Lurch would talk when he was ready. It took a while.

"I don't like the plan."

Oz knew that. Everyone who'd been at the safe house knew it, too. "Why not?" he asked, as if he hadn't heard the argument. He needed Lurch to start thinking and stop reacting. Sometimes asking questions got the job done.

"For one thing, I don't think it's going to work. For another, it requires we wait until the final day that Ramirez promised to keep Nyx safe. What if something happens to cause a delay? There's no buffer."

There was a small buffer, but clearly, it wasn't enough for Lurch. It didn't take a genius to come up with why. "Nyx will be okay," Oz said, trying to choose his words carefully. "From everything you've said about her, and from the little I saw when you escaped from Vargas, she's a strong woman. A capable woman. She can handle herself."

"I know she can. That's not the problem."

They had to stop at a traffic light. The handful of people waiting with them tried to distance themselves from the two mercenaries. Oz found it humorous but considering the character of most of the mercs down here, it probably wasn't the worst survival strategy. Grabbing the collar of his fatigue shirt, he dropped his ponytail between it and his T-shirt. It wasn't much of a disguise, but he'd take what he had.

Once they were moving again, he asked, "What is the problem, dude?"

There was a hesitation, and then Lurch said, "What if Nyx thinks I abandoned her? What if after a day or two, she believes I'm not returning for her?"

Oz fought off the need to grin. Lurch wouldn't appreciate his amusement. "She's not going to think that."

"Why the hell wouldn't she? As time passes, she'll have to wonder if I took the easy way out."

"I only saw the two of you together for a few moments, but she trusts you." Lurch started to say something, but Oz cut him off. "Not trusts you because she has no other choice. Your Nyx has complete faith in you. It was in her eyes when she looked at you. Trust me when I tell you she knows you'd have to be dead not to come back for her."

No comment. Oz let him think about it. He was keeping a close eye on their surroundings, making sure they weren't being followed because the rebels were looking for Lurch, no doubt about it, but this section of Trujillo was lightly traveled. The building to his left was either really old or it hadn't been cleaned in decades. The first floor was painted green, the second story was beige, and the balcony was orange. It was part business, part apartment building, and there were burglar bars on all the lower floor windows.

Powerlines ran everywhere, along the street, crossing the street, and there was a pole keeping them aloft about every twenty feet. Oz suspected it had something to do with the age of the city, but it could just as easily have been cheaper to do it this way. Then government officials could pocket the savings for their personal gain.

They went several more blocks before Lurch said, "She means something to me."

"I know, dude, and so did almost everyone else at the house. You're lucky BD had his own relationship while on this op or he'd have your head on a platter."

They were growing closer to the historic district and the homes here were each painted a different color—green next to blue, next to red, next to orange. It gave the block a sense of happiness, but Oz doubted it was true. More likely people had bought whatever color of paint they could get for cheap.

"The colonel is never going to believe I have the weapons," Lurch said, breaking the silence.

"He'll believe for a little while."

"The crate is different from other weapons crates."

Oz nodded. "True, but how many people are aware of that? Those weapons haven't been distributed yet, not even to our own troops, and while they were stolen last year, we recovered them. The only people in this area who might ID the crate work for Torres, and he's not involved in this mess."

"Maybe," Lurch allowed.

"Probably," Oz corrected. "And about it not working? The plan is to buy time to get in close without being shot at. That's all it's supposed to do. It has nothing to do with fooling Ramirez for long. It only needs to be plausible enough to get into his encampment."

"Yeah." Lurch stopped, and ran a hand through his hair, making it stand on end even more than usual. "You really think Nyx trusts me enough to know I'm coming for her no matter what?"

He needed to wait a minute to make sure his amusement wasn't in his voice. "Lurch, there isn't a doubt in my mind. She is one hundred percent behind you. You're a lucky man to have a woman believe in you that much." Oz barely paused before he said, "We're getting close to the market. The rebels will be looking for you there."

"Shit." Lurch changed course.

Oz gave him a few minutes before asking, "Where are we going, anyway?"

Shaking his head, Lurch said, "Who fucking knows? I just needed to move. I couldn't stay in that house any longer, not once I was overruled."

"There's a restaurant a few blocks from the convent. Why don't we have lunch and you can tell me all about your woman." His teammate's tenseness had eased, and Oz clapped him on the shoulder. "Are you sending her back home when we get her out?"

"Hell, yeah. She's not safe down here. I'm going to have a fight on my hands." Lurch grinned, anticipation in the expression.

Yeah, Oz thought, Lurch was a lucky man.