Mercenary's Honor. Sharron McClellan
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“Yes. Sometimes. We did what we had to do. What we were paid to do,” Angel said. “And some people need killing.”
The matter-of-fact way he delivered the last sentence made her shiver. “I find that hard to believe,” Fiona said.
“How about Montoya?” Angel challenged. “Do you think the fact that he’s breathing makes the world a better place?”
She couldn’t honestly say yes. “Point taken.”
Angel took her hand again, his touch firm. Comforting. “If it makes you feel better, Tony didn’t just kill people. He saved them. Hell, he saved me.”
Now that sounded like Tony. “Is that why you’re helping me?” she asked.
“One of the reasons,” Angel replied.
Before she could ask about the others, the door opened and Juan came back in. His eyes were red. “No one is here, but it won’t last,” he said, his voice wavering.
“I’m a little obvious, aren’t I?” she said, pulling a long blond strand of hair over her shoulder.
“Yes,” Angel said. “And there are informants everywhere.”
“So you’ll help me?” Fiona said, latching on to hope for the first time since Tony died.
“You are sure Maria is dead?” Juan asked before Angel could reply.
She nodded. “Positive.”
“Then we have no choice,” he said.
Despite his impassioned words, the anguish in his eyes was unmistakable, and Fiona regretted the callous way she’d announced Maria’s death. “I am so sorry,” she said.
The bartender’s brown eyes blackened as fury drowned sorrow. “Her killers shall pay with suffering.” He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hands and turned his attention to Angel. “I will have my revenge.”
“No, you will not,” Angel replied.
“You are saying that I cannot do this?” Juan stepped closer to Angel, daring him. Fiona tensed, not sure what she’d do if the two men came to blows. She might be able to stop Juan, but there was no chance of stopping Angel from doing anything he wanted.
“I’m saying that overzealousness will get you killed,” Angel explained. “Training is what keeps men alive. Not passion.”
“Then you help her,” Juan snapped, jerking his head toward Fiona.
Angel rose. Fiona didn’t miss the controlled way he stood, every move purposeful and directed. “I plan to. I owe Tony my life.” He turned to Fiona. “What do you want?” he asked.
“I want to get this tape to my editor in the U.S.”
He gave a slow nod and pulled his eyes away from the bartender. “Easy enough. I have a laptop in my room.”
“Won’t work,” she said. “It’s not digital.”
“Not digital? Why?”
She blinked, remembering that she’d asked Tony the same question. Digital was so much easier, she’d argued. Faster. E-mailable. Instead of convincing Tony, her argument had sent him into a diatribe about how tape was classic. Richer. “He said tape was better.”
“Tape?” Angel groaned. “What the hell was he thinking?”
“He said that if I wanted an award-winning story, I would need award-winning, quality footage.”
“Sounds like Tony,” Angel said. “Anal-retentive pain in the ass.”
“Yeah, he was damned good.” Her eyes watered as she realized she was talking about Tony in the past tense. “He wanted to make a difference. Wanted to break the story that put Montoya away. We didn’t expect anyone to die.”
“Please. Stop crying,” Angel said, sounding desperate.
“Sorry,” she said with a sharp laugh, noting the frantic edge to her voice. “It’s been a bit of a Monday.”
Once again, Angel wiped a tear from her cheek, and she tried not to sigh at the unexpected tenderness in his touch. She needed touch. Needed to feel safe. And for all his gruffness, Angel made her feel as if nothing bad could touch her again. “I need to get to a television studio,” Fiona whispered. “They can transfer the footage to digital format, and then I can e-mail it to whoever we want.”
“That won’t keep you safe,” Angel said. “Even if you send the story out, Montoya will come after you as long as you’re in Colombia.”
“Let’s deal with the tape,” she said. If she thought about the future beyond the tape, she’d start crying again. That, or go screaming down the street. “I want the world to see this man for what he is. Then we can discuss the next move.”
Juan took her hand and squeezed her fingers. “Thank you for telling me about Maria,” he said. “If we can put Montoya behind bars, she will not have died without purpose.”
“You loved her, didn’t you?”
He nodded, his eyes tearing again.
“If I could have saved her, I would have,” Fiona said. “No one was supposed to die.”
“It’s not your fault. You are a brave woman.”
“Brave?” Fiona laughed at the phrase. She wasn’t brave. Numb was more like it.
“Yes,” Juan said.
She didn’t laugh again. Perhaps she didn’t believe in herself as much as Juan did, but it didn’t matter. She had the images of Tony’s and Maria’s deaths and the burning need to set things right to motivate her.
Courage meant little when compared to justice. “I’ll get their story out,” she vowed.
“Just finish Montoya,” Juan said. “Make him pay for what he has done.”
“I will,” Fiona said. For Tony. For Maria.
“No, we will,” Angel corrected.
“Thank you,” Fiona said. Standing so close, he realized that darker circles, almost purple in color, ringed her blue eyes.
They were mesmerizing.
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, reminding himself that her appearance was part of the job description and that pretty didn’t equate with moral or good or smart. She was a reporter, and that meant she had more curiosity than common sense.
Just like Isabel.
Isabel. The woman he’d loved and buried. It was the millionth time he’d thought of her and the millionth time he pushed her memory away. Beautiful as Fiona, passionate as Maria, and a journalist in search of her big break, she’d died for her curiosity, leaving him behind to pick up the pieces of the past and bury the future.
What had Tony been thinking in sending Fiona—another Isabel in the making—to him when there were plenty of guns for hire in Bogotá? If the cameraman had lived, he’d be tempted to kill him himself. But Tony was dead and had left it to him to help Fiona. Angel scraped a hand through his hair, torn between the urge to shove the reporter out the door and live up to his duty by helping her.
“Ignore his temper,” Juan said, changing the topic. “There is an independent television station just outside the El Parque de la 93 sector. They are friendly to RADEC and are eager to see Montoya stopped. Will that do?”
“Maybe,” Fiona said.
“It’ll have to do,” Angel said. He needed to get this blond nuisance out of his hair as fast as possible. Unfortunately, El Parque de la 93 was north of the city, which was hell and gone from where they were.
“Even though Juan didn’t see anyone,