“You realize, Captain Travers, that if you’re just mouthing words on this, we’ll be following your mission down there and will know at once? We refuse to jeopardize Lieutenant Cortina’s life if you decide to get up on your male testosterone motorcycle and try to take over. She’ll be carrying an iridium satellite phone on her person at all times. Captain Stevenson, as we speak, is giving Lieutenant Cortina the mission profile that I had faxed down to her earlier.

“Lieutenant Cortina will know that she’s the commander on this little adventure,” Mike continued. “She’s your best chance to find your sister and get her out alive. You aren’t. You’re a gringo, a foreigner, while Ana Cortina knows Peru by heart. The sooner you let go of your damned male pride and surrender to her knowledge of the terrain, the people and the environment, the sooner your sister will be found, hopefully alive and unharmed. But the more you try to siphon off her authority or command, the more the chances of your sister being found at all, much less alive, deteriorate rapidly. Do you understand that?” Mike’s gaze nailed him directly.

Flexing his fists beneath the table, Jake muttered, “Yes, sir, I got it.”

Morgan sighed. “I don’t know that I feel you’re trustworthy on this matter, Captain Travers. However, for the sake of your sister, who’s the innocent in all of this, I’m going to approve this mission. The moment I hear, or Mike Houston hears, of you sabotaging Lieutenant Cortina in any way, I’ll have your ass pulled out of Peru so fast it will make even your seasoned military head spin. Do we understand one another? And if that happens, then you can consider your sister dead. All the choices and decisions are yours, Captain Travers. Work as a team or else.”

Holding his anger in check, Jake nodded. “I hear you, sir. And I’m grateful for your help. Tal’s the important one here, not me. Not what I believe.”

“Fine,” Morgan said crisply, standing. He buttoned his dark gray coat. “Let’s go out and look at the photo and file that I’m sure have come in by now.”

Jake rose. He felt relief, though he was still angry. More than anything, he bridled silently over the fact that he was going to have a woman as his commanding officer on this mission. Of all the hurdles and trials he knew were before him as he tried to locate Tal, he’d never figured that a woman would also be thrown into this murky, dangerous situation. Dammit.

A soft knock on Maya Stevenson’s door made her lift her head from the slew of paperwork that littered her desk. Her door was always open, but her people gave a perfunctory knock anyway.

“Come in, Ana.” She gestured to the wooden chair to the left of her desk. “Have a seat.” She noticed that Lieutenant Ana Lucia Cortina was in her black, snug-fitting helicopter uniform, her helmet tucked beneath her left arm. She had been on twenty-four-hour duty and had just flown a mission four hours ago. She looked tired. There were smudges beneath her glorious cinnamon-colored eyes. Her ebony hair, frayed from wearing the helmet, was still in a chignon at the nape of her slender neck.

“Hi…thanks…” Ana gave Maya a slight, weary smile.

“How’d the flight go?” Maya noticed as Ana set the helmet down on the desk that she looked drawn. Maya knew why. The death of her fianc'e a year ago was still wearing on Ana. And Maya knew that today was Roberto’s birthday. He would have been twenty-eight years old, if he’d lived. She wished that she could love someone as much as Ana had loved Roberto, but no man had entered her life to make her feel that way. Maya had long ago given up hoping such a man existed for her.

“We got jumped by a Kamov Black Shark helicopter flown by Faro Valentino’s Russian mercenaries near the Bolivian border,” Ana murmured, sitting down in the chair. Lifting her long, slender arms, she pulled her black hair out of the tight knot at the base of her neck, shook her head and allowed the strands to tumble across her proud shoulders. “Nothing new. I took a few bullet holes in the fuselage of my Apache, but otherwise, no casualties. My crew is going to have to check it to make sure no bullets have nicked the cables in that area, but that’s all.”

“Hmm.” Maya frowned, tinkering with the silver pen between her fingers. “Get any rockets off at them?”

One corner of Ana’s full mouth lifted slightly. “Oh, yes. We got close but didn’t bring it down.” She scowled, her fine, thin black brows bunching. “I just wish we had radar capability to pick up their signature, Maya. Whatever kind of paint they’ve got on those Kamovs, we can’t detect them, and they jump us from behind every time. One of these days we’re going to get shot down,” she said, grimacing.

“I know…what we need are those new Boeing D model Apaches that came out last year. I hear through the transom that they still don’t pick up the Black Shark signature, but at least we’d have a better helo than our Russian counterpart in every other way. Right now, we’re hurting. Our budget can’t afford one.”

Ana ran her fingers through her hair and massaged her scalp. “Ugh, that helmet is so heavy. I get a headache every time.” She opened her eyes and smiled at Maya, who was dressed in the same type of black uniform. Her commanding officer’s black hair was a little longer than hers, and she wore it down when she didn’t have to fly. “I’ve given up hope of us ever getting the new D model, Maya. The U.S. Army wants to ignore the fact that we’re down here doing a fine job of stopping drug runners from reaching the Bolivian border. Because we’re a bunch of upstart women army officers.”