THE PERFECT TEN (Boxed Set)

towering sidekick and stalked off toward a black sport utility thirty yards away.
    Walking sideways, the big guy kept his gun leveled on Zane until he reached the driver’s door.
    Zane squinted to see the emblem on the door. He saw a flash of gold as the door opened, but in the low light the markings were impossible to make out. Gravel crunched as the driver backed up fast, spun around, and tore out of the terminal.
    Too far to get a tag number.
    He let out a pent up breath. Lethal encounters still played through his nightmares, years after he’d been rescued from enemy territory in a country where US forces were not welcome – the longest fifty-four hours of his life as a prisoner.
    He never gave up a lick of intel.
    When he left the military, his best friend, Ben Trenton, and another buddy from his military days, Vance Dern, were already working with the DEA. Ben and Vance had convinced Zane to consider an offer from the agency as a paid informant with Vance as Zane’s handler.
    His answer? No, no, and by the way, no. Zane had a business to build and no time to play spy games.
    Then Vance laid out a cherry deal that included the DEA paying for Zane’s Titan, even signing it over to him, and saying they wanted him to build his charter business.
    All he had to do was fly the runs they needed and feed them info when he got it. Go after charter accounts “of interest to them.”  He kept everything he made in bona fide charters and got paid for his undercover work.
    Money from both ends, without being on the DEA’s official payroll.
    Sweet.
    He needed the unofficial side work to pad a special account he’d set up to help his sister’s new business get off the ground.
    Any real criminal involvement would put his charter business – and his DEA gig – at risk. Bottom line?
    He shouldn’t get involved in someone else’s troubles.
    Okay, that might be logical, but it didn’t do a damn thing to shut up his conscience that hadn’t stopped yammering about Angel’s fate. He’d put his life on the line for people he didn’t even know almost daily in his former life.
    More than his duty, protecting the innocent was in his DNA. He could not turn his back on someone in need, especially a woman.
    Just who in the hell was Angel, and where had she gone?
    Black night wrapped the airport. He scanned the direction she’d run as if he expected her to be waiting within sight. Had she made it to the road and flagged a vehicle?
    She could be a stone’s throw from him or traveling seventy miles an hour in an over-the-road transport truck right now.
    One look at those legs would bring any eighteen-wheeler to a screeching halt.
    An hour later, Zane checked the Titan, disappointed to find it empty. His analytical mind flipped through what little he knew. Those goons had found her quickly, suggesting they were local. They couldn’t have made the trip by car.
    Hack didn’t have Zane’s flight plan.
    That meant one of two things. Either those guys had a contact where the flight plan was filed or Angel was tagged with a tracking device.
    If she still had the tracker on her, they’d find her again. This time she might not have someone willing to save her.
    He mentally kicked himself for worrying when he had no idea how to find her.
    The woman had shared only her first name and she was tangled up in something that smelled suspicious.
    Forget about her and deal with your already loaded plate .
    If only it were that easy.
    Terrified eyes and a battered body kept flashing through his mind. Something more tugged at him, but he was too tired to figure it out and unwilling to analyze anything else right now.
    A hint of dawn lightened the skies enough to see clouds moving off to the east. Zane checked his watch. It had been a hell of a start to Wednesday morning. Most people were on their way to work as his day wound down.
    Climbing into the cockpit to prepare a flight plan for home, he glanced over at the cup holder and grinned.
    Maybe he could find out who Angel was after all.
    He dug out a small plastic bag from a pocket next to his seat. He put the bag over his hand like a glove and used it to pick up the cup, then turned it inside out so the cup was inside.
    It paid to have friends in the right places.
    Ben was a forensic science specialist for the Miami DEA division. The man could process fingerprints and track the DNA of a gnat. He was the only person Zane would trust with Angel’s prints right now. Ben and Vance would be