Lindsay McKenna - Hunter's Woman

“It makes sense.”

“Exactly.” He sighed. “It’s just a matter of time and what city. That’s what we’ve got to find out. Somehow, we’ve got to get ahead of them on this curve. They sucker punched us once with their Congo bluff, and we fell for it.”

Ty sat quietly. He could see the tumultuous feelings reflected in Morgan’s face, the pain in his eyes. “Depending upon what they use, hundreds or maybe thousands of people could die,” he said at last.

“Yes,” Morgan replied, “and that’s why it’s so important to get down to Brazil and find out what was used. Knowing at least that much will be a help.” He tapped his fingers on the cedar desk. “Not much, but a help….”

Ty rose. “You got the mission brief prepared for me? I’ll get out to the airport pronto.”

Morgan nodded. “What there is of it. My secretary had a helluva time collecting stuff last minute. She managed to scare up photos of two of the four OID team members. Unfortunately, Dr. Alborak’s isn’t in there, but you’ll know her. She’s the only one with red hair on the outbreak team.”

Ty brightened momentarily as he took the file from Morgan. “Redhead, eh?”

“Yeah. You like redheads?”

“My favorite,” Ty said with a chuckle.

“Well, don’t be too happy about this particular redhead,” Morgan warned him, one eyebrow moving upward as he looked in his direction. “Around OID, Dr. Alborak is known as a Texas hellion. She doesn’t put up with fools, from what I understand from Casey. This woman is a one-woman army. She shoots from the hip. She’s got no diplomacy. She’s all action and demands results. You get in her way and don’t operate at the speed of light like she does, she’ll chew you up and spit you out before you can say boo.”

“Sounds like a military-officer type.”

Morgan said, “She’s not, but she could be. Casey thinks highly of her. She said if things get bad, Dr. Alborak is the person you want at your back to protect you.”

Grinning slightly, Ty said, “Sounds like a woman right down my alley. I like Type A go-getters.”

Snorting, Morgan rubbed his watering eyes. “Today OID had a major computer crash involving their personnel department. I have nothing to give you on Dr. Alborak presently, just what Casey told me. By the time they get the software problem fixed, you’ll be down in Manaus and on her trail.”

“That’s okay,” Ty said, “I’m sure with this kind of description, I won’t have a problem knowing who she is or how she operates.”

“Casey said to warn you that Dr. Alborak is intense, focused, stubborn and bullheaded. She’s also got one hell of a temper if you cross her.”

“Must be that Texas breeding?” Ty chuckled.

Morgan lightened momentarily. “Maybe. But in this arena, we need someone with Dr. Alborak’s gutsiness. Casey said she can shoot and spit with the best of ’em. I guess that’s a Texas euphemism?”

Ty headed toward the door. “I don’t know. I’m from Colorado, remember? But Texans do have a helluva reputation.”

Morgan raised his brows. “Just don’t tangle with this hellion, all right? Work with her, not against her. I just hope she can take well-meaning direction from you.”

“My taste in women has always run to the independent types,” Ty assured him smoothly. “I’ll find a bridgehead with Dr. Alborak and make it work. Too much is at stake not to.”

Morgan raised his hand. “Rafe is expecting you. He’s the only one who knows who you really are. He’ll do all he can to assist you. Just ask. Trust him and rely on what he knows. After ten years, he knows that area like the back of his hand. Literally.”

“Yes, sir.” Ty opened the door. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“Come home in one piece,” Morgan growled in warning. “Or else…”

Nodding, Ty quietly closed the door behind him. As he moved through the darkened passage to concrete stairs that led up to the first floor of the house, his heartbeat quickened. He reveled in the opportunity to be on a mission where so much was at stake. He had no idea what he was going to step into. If Black Dawn had delivered a deadly biological disease via aerosol spraying, that meant he and everyone on the OID team were also in jeopardy until they could verify what it was.

As he reached the top of the stairs, opened the door and stepped into a carpeted room at the rear of the house, Ty wondered what Texas hellion Catt Alborak was like. A brief smile lingered at the corners of his mouth. She might be the best part of this mission. Was she married? He resisted the temptation to open her file. Once he was on board the Perseus jet, he’d sift through all the information, commit it to memory and then try to get some sleep during the long journey south to Brazil.

Stepping out on the ornately carved front porch and automatically eyeing the thick cape of snow on the shoulders of the Rocky Mountains rising above the tiny hamlet of Philipsburg, Ty smiled. He was between relationships. Dr. Alborak sounded alluring. He liked a woman who knew her own mind, who had a definite sense of herself, who she was and where she was going in life. And if she was a little spicy and hotheaded, well, all the better. Ty liked women who challenged him. And he never ran from a fight. He stepped off the porch into the glare of bright sunlight. Putting on a pair of sunglasses, he hurried to a dark blue car parked out front.

As he settled in the back seat, the driver took off for the airport. Frowning, Ty amended his earlier musings. He had run from one relationship, he remembered now. A twinge in his heart made him unconsciously rub his chest. But that was a long time ago. He was thirty-one now and that relationship had happened ten years before. Long gone, but somehow, never forgotten. With a sigh, Ty opened up the file, his curiosity getting the better of him. The facts collected there were meager, but one of them piqued his interest. Dr. Alborak had attended Stanford University. So had the woman he’d loved so many years ago. Ty considered that a sign of good luck, if nothing else. He smiled to himself. Soon he’d be on Brazilian soil again. And he’d be facing this infamous Texas hellion in the flesh….

“Where the hell is that tugboat!?” Catt Alborak paced up and down the old, weathered wooden dock that jutted fifty feet out into the muddy headwaters of the Amazon. To her right was the distant skyline of Manaus. To her left was jungle. She saw her assistant, Maria Sanchez, pick up the cellular phone. Standing for a moment, her fists jammed on her hips, Catt glared up and down the river. There were a number of docks scattered along the bank, and plenty of tugs and tugboat captains. But where was their tug? Arrangements had been made before they arrived. A tug was to meet them at dock six and take them downriver for five hours, to the affected Juma village, where people were dying from some unknown bacterial or viral epidemic. Damn! People were suffering, and she and her team were standing here like they didn’t have a better thing in the world to do. Frustration ate viciously at Catt. She was never in good humor when things went wrong. She didn’t get paid to sit back, smile and be passive. No, responsibility for the lives of her team and those they were racing to help rested squarely on her shoulders.

Nostrils flaring, Catt started pacing again. Taking off her sunglasses, she stared out across the massive, slow-moving expanse of the Amazon. Two major rivers combined at Manaus, the largest city in northern Brazil. Once, there had been a very rich rubber trade here, which had made this city experience an economic boom for the first half the century. As the need for natural rubber died, so had the industry. Since then, Manaus had remade itself into a very profitable white-collar city, and with its high-tech computer companies, it was a leader in communications in South America.