Hot Intent (Hqn) by Cindy Dees

gut yelled at him that taking her to Cuba with him was a giant mistake.
    “I’m hungry,” Katie announced.
    He had to smile. She sounded like a little kid who’d just come in from the playground, breathless and happy. “Shower, then food?” he suggested.
    She leaped out of bed, laughing over her shoulder. “Last one to the shower’s a rotten egg!”
    How could anyone be so damned innocent? Particularly given that she was highly intelligent and by no means naive. And getting less naive by the day around him. She told him once that happiness was a choice. Was innocence a choice, as well? If so, he’d chosen long ago to forsake it. He climbed out of bed more temperately and invaded her shower.
    He’d just finished dressing and she was still in the bathroom blow-drying her hair when his cell phone rang. André.
    “Hey, boss. What’s up?”
    “You’ve got a charter flight to Inagua in two hours. From there, a boat will take you to Baracoa. My contact will meet you at the rendezvous point on shore and take you to the base camp that’s being set up for you.”
    Baracoa. He swore under his breath. Peter had been right, after all. A sane man would tell André the Baracoa meet-up was compromised. But Alex was inclined to go ahead and show up where Peter expected him to. Maybe he could spot whatever was going on that had both the CIA and FSB so interested in Cuba all of a sudden.
    “Got it,” he replied to André’s more detailed instructions, which he memorized in lieu of writing them down to be found by anyone else.
    “Have a safe trip, Alex.”
    Yeah. Right. “Thanks.” He hung up before more sarcasm could leak into his voice.
    He looked up and spied Katie standing in the bathroom doorway. “Showtime?” she asked.
    An urge to lie nearly overcame him. To take her to the airport, put her on a plane and send her home. But not only had he promised never to lie to her, she could also sniff fibs a mile away. He sighed. “As soon as you’re ready to go, we’ll head out.”
    Into what, he had no damned idea. But one thing he knew for sure. They were headed into something.
    *
    K ATIE WATCHED THE twin prop airplane that had been their ride lift off into the sunny blue sky, and then looked around at Great Inagua Island in dismay. She’d never seen a more barren place. It was nothing but windswept dirt and rocks. “I thought Caribbean islands were supposed to be tropical paradises.”
    “Not if all the tree cover is destroyed by settlers and the ecosystem collapses in response and desertifies. Then they look like this,” Alex replied.
    She shuddered. “It’s awful. Who lives here, anyway?”
    “Workers at the salt factory. About eight hundred of them.”
    “Are they okay after the storm?” she asked in quick concern.
    “They were evacuated by the salt company. We’re the only people back on the island.”
    “Wow. We’re really all alone on a desert island, then?”
    He smiled reluctantly. “Yes. We’ve got to make our way to the shore on foot to catch our ride. I hope you’re up for a hike.”
    The last time he’d asked her that, they’d been fleeing with an hour-old Dawn stuffed inside her coat and a war raging behind them. “Are you kidding? Piece of cake.” She just hoped no wars were about to break out around them. She had a sneaking suspicion one might, though, before this was all said and done.
    Alex took off across the pale dirt. The going was easy for about three minutes. And then they reached a patch of ruined vegetation, twisted and flattened by Hurricane Giselle into a nearly impassable tangle of jagged wood, sharp-leaved foliage and hidden rocks waiting to turn the unwary ankle.
    Thank God she’d been working out like a maniac since he’d left. She was panting like a dog, but so was Alex. It took them something like an hour to cover a quarter mile.
    “How far do we have to go in this stuff?” she finally broke down and asked Alex.
    “Just over the ridge.”
    Awesome. They weren’t