Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Epilogue

      Chapter One

      Two minutes until contact! The thought raced through Captain Thane Hamilton’s mind, spurring him to run faster. Gasps tore from him. He was damn well going to make it, or else.

      “Keep going!” he shouted hoarsely.

      Ahead of him, a fourteen-year-old girl stumbled and ran brokenly. The hard desert terrain, the precipitous walls of the canyon surrounding them, were clearly taking their toll on her. And him.

      With his desert fatigues, flak jacket and weapons, Thane’s identity as a U.S. Marine was clear. Rifle in hand, he jerked a look over his shoulder. He knew the drug runners weren’t far behind them.

      There! Helicopters! Help was coming! Gripping the radio in his other hand, he growled at the floundering teenager. “Move it, Valerie!”

      The red-haired girl sobbed and flailed her arms like an off-balance windmill in order to keep from slipping and falling on the unstable surface, strewn with gray and cream rocks.

      Thane felt sorry for the senator’s daughter. But it was necessary to keep her going. She was slowing, winded by the mile-long run. The sun was high, making him squint as he watched her in front of him. The canyon they ran in was just inside Bolivia’s borders, and his lungs burned from the brutally high altitude. Sweat rolled down his face. The rest of his Recon team was dead. They’d risked five lives to rescue one girl. Thane was the last of his team. And he might not survive, either.

      The sky was blindingly blue. He could hear the approaching “spook”—CIA-owned—helicopters, coming their way. Their rotors punctuated the air like a boxer punching him in the ears, the flat, chopping sounds reverberating through the area. At a prearranged checkpoint, he and Valerie were to be picked up. Up ahead, a desert plain appeared just beyond the mouth of the steep-walled, snakelike canyon. The helos would land only if he signaled them. The crew on the helicopters were expecting to rescue five people—and now there were only two. Thane wanted to cry. His team—his men—were dead, killed in that violent confrontation at a drug lord’s estate.

      “Move it!” he snarled.

      Valerie sobbed. “I can’t! I’m tired! I want to stop and rest!” She gave him a pouty look and started to slow down.

      Cursing softly, Thane jammed the radio into his web belt. Surging forward, he gripped the girl’s thin, flabby arm. She was a soft norte americana used to living the good life. She had a rich and powerful daddy in Washington, D.C. And even at such a young age, she was already a snob. Well, she was in over her head on this one. Oh, it wasn’t Valerie Winston’s fault that she’d walked ignorantly into a drug lord’s carefully planned trap. She’d been with a church group, touring Machu Picchu in Peru, when she’d been kidnapped. Thane couldn’t be angry at her.

      “Ouch!” she shrieked, trying to yank away. “You’re hurting me!”

      Towering over her at six foot four inches compared to her five foot two, he nailed her widening hazel eyes with his own sharp gaze. “Tough it out, little girl. You and I are making that checkpoint. Now stretch those legs of yours. If you don’t, we’re dead meat. Is that what you want? A bullet in your back? Your brains splattered all over the rocks here?”

      Defiant tears shimmered in her eyes. Her hair, long and naturally curly, hung about her shoulders, wild and uncombed. “No!”

      Hamilton practically lifted her off her feet, steadied her on the rocky surface, then pushed her ahead of him at a faster clip. “Then move!”

      It was June in Bolivia. Winter. And at fourteen thousand feet, colder than hell. His breath exploded out of his mouth in white clouds even though the noonday sun burned overhead. Lake Titicaca was only thirty miles away, the largest lake in the world despite the ungodly altitude. Thane heard the helos laboring mightily, the rotors grasping for oxygen that wasn’t there. That alone made flying up here to rescue them decidedly dangerous.

      Thane had no idea who was going to pick them up. He’d been told that a Boeing Apache attack helicopter and an old, antiquated Cobra from the Vietnam era were on this mission. Right now, he thought as he jerked another furtive look across his shoulder, he hoped it was the Apache that he heard in the distance. He needed that kind of firepower to protect them from the oncoming drug runners.

      With the echoing shouts of their assailants surrounding them, Thane and Valerie rounded the final bend in the canyon. Above them were naked, barren walls of yellow ocher and gray granite, weathered by the fierce winds that scoured the Andes.

      Gasping, his heart feeling like it was going to explode in his chest, Thane kept up the hard, pounding pace. He heard Valerie sobbing. He knew she wasn’t used to this kind of demanding exercise. No one was at this damnable altitude!

      Thane saw the end of the canyon bleeding out into a flatter area, a stark moonscape free of rocks, scrub and trees. That must be the landing zone! The punctuating rotors of the rescue helos lifted his hope. Behind, he heard shouts in Spanish. They were coming closer.

      Damn!

      Turning, Thane saw ten drug runners hightailing it in their direction, less than half a mile away. The drug runners began firing. Turning on his heel, Thane sped toward Valerie. Arms flailing weakly, she continued