Pleasing Her SEAL(30)

"You were taking too long," Mason bit out. "Get him up."

"You're a lucky bastard." Levi hauled Santiago to his feet, clipping  his wrists behind him with a pair of plastic cuffs. "We brought our very  own medic with us. Ask nicely, and he'll share the Band-Aids with you."

Mason swept the room one more time, but the nonthreats had wisely  decided to stand down and leave this to Santiago. He flicked on the  lights and eyeballed the man Levi frog-marched over to him. Damn it.

"This isn't Santiago," he said. "I wish I could tell you we've got our  target, but we've got the wrong guy. Looks like him, and I'd lay money  on a shared family tree, but we just struck out."

Levi cursed and barked commands into his headset, pushing Not Santiago  toward the door. Two minutes later, they were back in the front hallway  playing show-and-tell with the rest of the team.

"Bloody hell," Gray roared, before launching into a volley of Spanish.  Their prisoner shook his head violently, firing back a few answers of  his own.

"Santiago left an hour ago," Gray said. "This one claims to be the  cousin. Since he's parked in Santiago's bedroom, cozied up with  Santiago's wife and kids, he's either the decoy or a good liar."

Levi's fingers tightened on the man's collar. "Then, we'll take him  along with us, just in case we're looking at option B and a surgery  job."

Gray nodded. It wasn't unheard of for the drug traffickers to pay a  visit to a plastic surgeon and get themselves a new face. It certainly  made Mason's job harder, because how did you ID someone who looked  nothing like his photos anymore? He suspected that wasn't the case here,  but they'd take the presumably fake Santiago along with them and let  someone else check him out.

Sam popped his head out of a side room. "House is clear, but you all might want to take a look at this."

Gray turned to the imposter and barked a question. For a moment, Mason  thought the guy might not talk, but then he shrugged as if the answer  wasn't a state secret. "Es la oficina del jefe."

After turning the perp over to two SEALs from the other unit for  transport, Mason, Gray and Levi followed Sam. The dude was generally Mr.  Levelheaded-maybe it was all that medical training-and unfortunately,  he hadn't been wrong. Nope. What was wrong was the contents of the small  study. Not only had someone been watching everything that transpired on  Fantasy Island through two video feeds of the main beach and the pier,  but that someone had also been diligently surfing the internet and  reading Maddie's blog. And blowing up pictures of her.

Mason fought to keep his emotions under control. Right now it didn't  matter that he wanted to rip the watcher's throat out for stalking  Maddie. What mattered was finding the guy-fast-and making sure he was in  no condition to do it again.

"You think this stuff belongs to Santiago or Diego?" Gray asked, grabbing the computer tower.

Good plan. What they were looking at was probably the tip of the iceberg, and maybe one of the computer techs could learn more.

Mason rifled through a stack of printouts on the desktop. The dates on  the bottom were from yesterday and today. "Diego was already in custody  when these were run," he pointed out. "Makes it more likely to be  Santiago's work."

"Whoever it is, he's sick, you got me?" Levi shook his head, taking in  the monitors and then the pictures briefly, before he started yanking  cords and separating the stuff into four piles. "He's got a real thing  for your Maddie."

"He touches her, he dies." Which meant locating the guy stat.

"Not our call," Gray cautioned him. "You follow orders."

"And if we were looking at photos of Laney, you'd be the first to shoot."

Gray nodded tersely. "I'm planning on sticking around for her, though,  so I'd remember that not following orders tends to lead to unpleasant  crap like a court martial."                       
       
           


       

Duly noted. Unfortunately, shooting Santiago might not even be an  option. The man was the king of escapes. He was always armed with an  assault rifle and he'd spent the past two years in virtual lockdown in  the jungles of Belize, hiding out in his fortified palace. No reckless  spending, car racing or nightclubs for Santiago. Sure, they knew where  he was more or less, but a single dirt road led to the guy's front door  and the Black Hawks echoed. Today, despite their best efforts, he'd  either seen or heard them coming and he'd cleared out.

Gray cursed, conducting a last visual sweep of the office. They  practically qualified as professional movers, Mason decided. The place  was neat-just a whole lot emptier than when they'd entered. Santiago  could bitch to the US government if he didn't like his redecorating job.  "If he's not here, where did he go?"

"Three guesses. The first two don't count." Mason grabbed his load of  hardware. Seriously, he didn't want the souvenirs. Nope. What he wanted  was action. The faster he got back to the Black Hawk, the faster they  put the bird up in the air and made for Fantasy Island.

"Why would Santiago head for Fantasy Island? So what if he's got a  picture fetish for Maddie? Doesn't mean he's going to risk it all to  meet her in person." Sam didn't hesitate, though. He hefted his pile of  gear and hotfooted it out of the room.

"Because he believes he's uncatchable," Gray said grimly. "The man's an  escape expert and a pain-in-the-ass Houdini. He's wriggled out of more  tight spots than anyone else. Plus, the Fantasy Island wedding was a  cover. It was going to be a high-level meeting of key players in the  Marcos organization. A chance to party and spend some of the hundreds of  millions they've made in the illegal drug trade." He blew out a breath.  "Our boy likes his fiestas, and instead of a party, he got a re-org.  Marcos is down for the count, so Santiago moves up to the number one  spot."

Levi whistled. "You really think he's going after Maddie?"

"It's not a chance I'm taking." Mason picked up the pace, running through the front door and out into the courtyard.

Boots hit the ground next to him. "Not your call," Gray bit out.

"Seriously? You're going to give me shit on this one?" Because leaving  Maddie alone and vulnerable wasn't happening. He'd left her alone in her  room, sure, but he'd believed she was safe. That nothing bad could  happen to her where she was.

Gray pulled ahead, tossing his armload of computer drives at the SEAL  waiting inside the Black Hawk's empty bay. "No," he said solemnly. "I'm  not. We'll let the other team take our bonus boy for a little Q and A.  We'll go back to Fantasy Island."

"Quickly." Mason knew he'd catch hell for this one later, but he didn't  give a shit. Passing over his load, he climbed on board, Sam and Levi  on his heels.

"I wasn't proposing we stop and hit the duty-free," Gray said drily.

Jokes weren't cutting it right now. Mason wanted speed. "Santiago has a two-hour head start on us."

"And we've got a Black Hawk, the US military and a roomful of DEA tech  geeks." Gray held up his phone. "DEA had been reporting plenty of  chatter since Marcos went down. Santiago usually runs on radio  silence-no email, no phone calls, no contact. His guys don't talk to him  directly, but they know what the boss wants them to do. Cut the head  off the organization and the lieutenants still need to talk, right?  Santiago's boys are going to be itchy and looking for orders."

Levi cracked a hard smile. "So has ET phoned home yet?"

Gray nodded. "Looks like it. The DEA has been monitoring all of the  phone lines and email accounts associated with-known traffickers in  Santiago's network, waiting for someone to make a move. We didn't have  so much as a tickle this morning, but someone started making calls an  hour ago. Santiago's on the move, he's pissed and he's looking to ‘make a  statement.'"

Mason's skin tightened, awareness prickling over him. He didn't need  Gray's air quotes to tell him that the "statement" in question could be  Maddie. The chopper blades started up, drowning out all other sound as  the bird got airborne. Maddie was supposed to stay safe. She hadn't  asked to be drawn into an international drug operation, and she had no  idea that she was now the finish line in a race between a SEAL unit and a  drug trafficker. He didn't want her to feel threatened or scared. He'd  keep her safe, get her through this and then he'd bug out like he should  have done from the beginning. A woman like Maddie deserved a hell of a  lot more than a man like him.