On the Loose Read Online Free

and he swore silently to himself. She knew, so help him God. She had to know, or she wouldn’t have needed him, because,
dammit,
there was only one reason for there to be any connection whatsoever between the pampered, pedicured, and pedigreed Washington, D.C., socialite and a Third World backwater in the Salvadoran highlands. Only one, goddammit, and it was nothing but the kind of trouble somebody should have stopped before it got to the point of him staring at her bikinied bottom in Panama City.
    Geezus
. Just how the hell much trouble had her sister gotten herself into this time? And who in the hell had Hasbert arranged to introduce her to? The Salvadoran government-sanctioned coffee growers, or the rebel leader trying to blow them off the map, Diego Garcia, because, frankly, Ms. York didn’t need an introduction to Diego Garcia. She and the guerrilla captain had met in San Luis the same night Smith had met her, four months ago, in a church, over a table piled high with the quarter of a million dollars Honey had smuggled into El Salvador and had been handing over to a dissident priest who hadn’t wasted a second in handing it over to Garcia—U.S. cash, all in fifties bundled together by rubber bands into two-inch stacks.
    Mission of mercy, she’d called it, a mission of mercy for her sister, a trust-fund-baby bride of Christ who was sacrificing her life as an impoverished nun in El Salvador. But all hell had broken out on the border in the last four months, and more times than he cared to remember, Smith had wondered if he should have stopped the illegal cash transaction in the sacristy when he’d had the chance.
    Not that he’d had much of a chance. The money had been on the table by the time he’d gotten to the church, and he’d been a little low on firepower and authority. One .45 cartridge, that’s all he’d had for the ancient pistol he’d been packing. One lousy cartridge for one old gun, because Honey had stolen his Sig Sauer, his extra magazines, and about half his brains by then.
    And there she was, sipping a piña colada and cooling her cute ass in the pool, waiting for him to take her back into El Salvador.
    Smith cleared his throat before he spoke.
    â€œHas Ms. York been advised of the guerrilla activity on the Salvadoran side of the border, specifically along the Torola River?”
    â€œThoroughly advised,” Jenkins said, his narrow jaw firming up. “That’s why
you’re
here.”
    Perfect.
    Smith checked his watch and wondered if the Peruvian transport he’d come in on was still at the airport, and whether or not he could get his butt back on it. His work with the DEA was damned important, and he’d like to get back to it, just as soon as he nipped this circus in the bud and got Honey York headed in the right direction. Which was north. Way north. Much farther north than El Salvador. Closer to Canada was what he had in mind.
    â€œAll you have to worry about is doing your job, Mr. Rydell,” Jenkins continued. “You can rest assured that I am doing mine.”
    No, he wasn’t. Not if Honoria York-Lytton was traveling into the mountains of El Salvador.
    â€œI think we need to speak with Ambassador Hasbert,” Smith said. And anybody else who’d been in on this deal. A personal security detail in Panama wasn’t exactly a vacation, but in Morazán, it was combat duty, and Honey had no business going into combat. Somebody had to know better than to let this thing fly, and he needed to find that someone. If it wasn’t Hasbert, then he was going straight to General Grant. Honey had jerked somebody’s chain to get him assigned as her personal bodyguard, and Grant was the guy who could jerk back.
    Because this was crazy.
    â€œAmbassador Hasbert will not return to Panama and be in residence again until the end of the month,” Jenkins said. “Until then, I am in charge and have personally verified