Sealed In Lies by Kelly Abell (top business books of all time .txt) 📕

Chapter 1

Jack Weaver stood naked on the terrace staring
out into the glorious Colombian sunset. He tossed
his Gerber Trident combat knife from hand to hand.
He had been in tight spots before but the situation
he found himself in now left him with one hell of a
decision to make.
“Raul?” A sultry voice came from the bedroom
behind him.
Jack responded to his undercover name. “Si?”
“What are you doing, lover? Come back to bed.”
She whined in Spanish and patted the silken sheets
on the monstrous king size bed. “We have hours yet
before the dinner party.”
Jack walked back into the bedroom continuing to
toss the wicked looking blade as he glanced at the
luscious dark haired beauty stretched catlike on the
satin maroon comforter. She was the most beautiful
woman Carlos had sent him to date. They had just
completed a kick ass round of hot sex and he
wished he could go one more round, but he
wouldn’t be able to concentrate.
He could leave now and wreck six months of excellent undercover work trying to bring down the largest and most dangerous drug cartel in Colombia, or he could stay and ignore a planned assassination attempt on the life of the new President-Elect on Inauguration Day.
He placed the knife on a walnut dresser, which
matched the four-poster bed. The beauty of the hand
carved richness of the wood and intricacy of the
design was not lost on him. He appreciated fine
things, including the woman watching him now.
Jack approached the bed, much like a panther
approaching its prey. He crawled onto the bed
beside her and patted her beautifully rounded
derrière. God, she was gorgeous.
“You have to go Angelina. I need to get ready for
the party and I can’t do that with you lying there
looking good enough to eat.”
She stretched and reached for him. “Just one more
kiss, Raul. Then I’ll be a good girl and go.” Jack
leaned in and kissed her on the mouth. She wrapped
her arms around his neck and pressed her soft
breasts against his rock hard chest. “That’s more
like it,” she purred.
Jack, known only as Raul Ramirez to Angelina,
broke off the kiss and unwound her arms from his
neck. “You really do need to go. If all goes well
tonight, I will send for you and we will pick up
where we left off. I’m going to take a shower and I
want you gone when I get back.” Jack stood
abruptly and crossed the thick Persian carpet to the
bathroom. He felt her eyes watch him as he went,
but he heard her slither off the bed. He left the
bathroom door open so he could hear her when she
left.
When he heard the door to his suite close, he
turned on the shower. Steam began to rise as the hot
water streamed onto the shiny black tile. This is a
hell of a mess, Jack thought, soaping his nearly
perfect body. His long black hair streamed past his
shoulders as the shampoo was rinsed away. The
muscles he scrubbed were well defined and solid,
signs of a disciplined mind. His role as the chief of
security for one of the most powerful drug cartels in
Colombia gave him many privileges, some of which
he would miss if he chose to go, but instinctively,
he knew what he had to do. He stepped out of the
shower and wrapped a fluffy black towel around his
waist. He stared into the mirror.
The reflection revealed a tall man finely
proportioned and well toned. He slicked back his
wavy hair into a ponytail and tied it with a leather
thong. He took a moment to study his reflection. It
was a face he’d begun to accept as his own with
premature creases lining his thirty-two year old
forehead. The high cheekbones, the slightly pointed
nose, and the square jaw belonged to him, but the
black goatee and the jagged scar that ran from his
right temple to the bottom of his ear did not.
Brilliant green eyes filled with worry stared back
at Jack from the mirror. Those eyes reminded him
of the ocean in Fort Lauderdale, where he grew up.
These eyes, like the rest of him, lied. Their color
today wasn’t even close to the natural chocolate
brown he’d been born with, courtesy of his Cuban
mother. Jack placed both hands palms down on the
smooth marble surface. Why did these things
always happen to him?
Jack Weaver, a.k.a., Raul Ramirez had been in a
lot of uncomfortable places, and done a lot of
uncomfortable things. First a Navy SEAL and then
working for the CIA, Jack saw more than any man
should see, but no matter where he was, from an
Iraqi desert to a drug lord’s palace on a Colombian
mountain top, Jack got the job done. Currently, a
CIA operative working on special assignment for
the DCI Crime and Narcotics Center, Jack was
gathering evidence in order to shut down one of the
most active drug cartels in Northern Colombia.
Posing as Cortez’s chief of security, Jack knew all
there was to know about the operation and had
enough criminal evidence to lock Cortez up for
many lifetimes. He only wished he had more time.
He might be missing the one piece that would lock
the case up tight and prevent some slick lawyer
from flushing a year’s worth of work down the
toilet.
Jack was used to tough decisions. He made them
every day. Why then was this one so hard? He knew
why. Normally he only had one mission. That made
the decision easy to make. This time he had two
options, both of which were equally important. He
was going to be forced to choose. Jack paused midstep on his way back into the bedroom. Or would
he?
Jack went to his laptop on the nightstand. Because
he was head of security, it only took a few key
strokes to disable the cell phone monitoring device
at the mansion. Pulling his overnight bag from
beneath the bed, he took his cell phone out of a side
pocket in the bag, the untraceable one he only used
for true emergencies. He punched in a number and
waited for her to pick it up.
“Hello? Jack?”
“Yeah Lucy, it’s me. Listen, I don’t have much
time to talk but I need you to do something for me. I
mailed some discs containing vital information to
my P.O. Box in D.C. I need you to go pick them up
and copy them. Put one set in a very safe place. I
will call you in a day or two and tell you what to do
with the other set. You got that?”
“Yes, I’ve got it, but what’s going on Jack, you
sound really troubled. I can hear it in your voice”
“That’s because I am.” Jack began to take clothes
out of his dresser and toss them on the bed. He
pulled out two pair of jeans, some green and brown
camouflage pants and four t-shirts. He stuffed them
into the overnight bag. “Lucy, I uncovered some
really bad shit down here. I can’t talk about it on an
unsecured line. I also have to ask you for your
complete confidence. Don’t tell anyone I’ve called
you or that I said there was trouble with the
assignment. I will hook up with you later because I
am coming back to the States tonight. Just do what I
told you with those discs. It’s very important. I’ve
got a feeling all hell is going to break loose where I
am now.” He sat down on the soft comforter.
“Okay, Jack. I’ll copy the discs and keep them
safe. You just take care of yourself. I love you. Call
me when you get back.”
“I will, Lucy. Thanks for everything. Talk to you
later.” Jack hung up. He reached over to the laptop
and with a few more keystrokes reactivated the
satellite monitoring device. Becoming chief of
security for a drug lord was not without sacrifice
but Jack was the best and sacrifice was no stranger
to him. The kills he’d performed for this scum bag
would keep most people up at night but not Jack. In
life there was law and there was justice. Doing what
he could to prevent drugs being sold in his home
country was his primary mission and bringing down
the largest cartel in Colombia would put a serious
dent in the trade. It probably wouldn’t stop it but
Cortez supplied thousands of dealers and Jack could
save thousands of lives. He just hoped what was on
those discs would get the job done.
He glanced over at the overnight bag. Leaning
over it, he sighed deeply. He would miss the luxury,
and he would miss the women. Jack groaned. Oh
God, how he would miss the women. How many
jobs do you get that come with free sex just by
asking? Being Chief of Security came with more
danger than Jack liked to think about, but the perks
sure made it worth it. He smiled as he thought about
Angelina’s hot body. Yes, definitely worth it, but
Jack was nothing if not committed to his job and his
country. With the information he possessed, it was
likely he would be arrested if he did not act upon it.
He had a great deal of data to de-code and analyze
in a short window of time. The inauguration was in
January and it was already November. To save the
President-Elects life he must go home now. He just
hoped Lucy would do as he’d asked and copy the
information on the cartel that he was sending to her.
If he could complete his assignment here and save
the future President’s life, he would consider that a
job well done.
Jack looked into the half packed bag and took
inventory. He laid the knife he retrieved from the
dresser gently on the burgundy comforter and
picked up the small digital camera and two discs
that were lying next to the bag. He unzipped the
hidden liner at the bottom of the bag and slipped his
treasures inside. If Carlos Cortez’s men discovered
these discs he was a dead man.
Jack shook his head. It didn’t matter now any
way. After he’d discovered the secret files that
described the sketchy details of what a man calling
himself the Emperor planned to do to President-
Elect Michael Hardy, Jack could not trust this
information to anyone until he got to Washington.
He would just turn in what he had on the cartel and
pray it would be enough.
His impromptu plan was to leave tonight after this
swanky party Carlos had cooked up. Word was
there was some hot shot American looking to make
a deal with Cortez; a really big deal. Jack wished he
could stay around and grab that information from
the computer in Carlos’s inner sanctum tomorrow,
but there was no time. He planned on using one of
his many other aliases to get out of the country, and
by this time tomorrow night he would be back in