by Mary Buckham
“Do you have any idea of the risk you took?
“Of the risk you put your team in?” Stone, her instructor, continued, his voice a wall of icy rage.
“Are you angry because we completed the mission or because we didn’t fail?” Vaughn shot back.
It was inevitable that he wouldn’t have approved of her means to accomplish her mission, if for no other reason than she was team leader, and he wasn’t exactly her biggest fan.
But she wasn’t going to let him win at this point. She’d taken a major step along the path to her dream. Hers and hers alone. Not her father’s, not her mother’s, not her society peers’.
Stone was wrong. Her parents were wrong. She did have something to give, to offer. She’d lived in that other world already—glitzy, glamorous nothingness—and she wasn’t going back. She was here and she was going to stay.
Dear Reader,
The concept for Invisible Recruit came from a TV documentary about the ninja of feudal Japan. Different than the traditional warrior class of samurai, the ninja became legendary for their powers to blend into the shadows and disappear. In truth, ninja often hid in plain sight, assuming their roles of shopkeepers, tradesmen and farmers. When hunted by those who wished to harm them, these “invisible” people blended in so well with the civilian population that no one was the wiser. Another little-known fact about ninja is that there were women ninja as well as men. It didn’t take a large leap of imagination to conjure modern-day ninja women, without the unisex black outfits, who could go where their more official, and mostly male counterparts could not go, simply because no one looked beyond their ordinary-world occupations of society debutante, hairdresser, teacher and more.
I hope you enjoy seeing beneath these women’s exterior occupations to their powerful interior lives as much as I’ve enjoyed learning about them.
Regards,
Mary Buckham
INVISIBLE RECRUIT
Mary Buckham
Books by Mary Buckham
Silhouette Bombshell
*Invisible Recruit #92
Intimate Moments
The Makeover Mission #1308
MARY BUCKHAM
has always believed in make-believe. As a child she roped, cajoled and bullied her brothers and sisters, along with any unsuspecting neighbor child, into elaborate story productions put on in her backyard or basement. Roles included swashbuckling pirates, damsels in distress, and heroes and heroines—this was Mary’s role—who saved the day. As an adult, Mary made sure her five children had a trunk of dress-up clothes and plenty of space to create their own make-believe worlds. She married her Prince Charming, one who doesn’t mind that she talks with imaginary people and who learned to cook as a self-preservation measure. She lives in a picturesque Pacific Northwest seaport community filled with writers, artists and musicians, all constantly proving that the power of make-believe can make magic happen. Mary loves hearing from readers, writers and everyone in between. You can reach her via her Web site, www.marybuckham.com.
To Lin Wayan—
for friendship and the beach parties
To Sylvie and Joyce—
for slogging through the rough first drafts
For Margie and Gwen—for setting weekly goals
For Pattie Steele-Perkins who said “Go for it,”
and Allison Lyons who believed in an offbeat concept
and was willing to take a risk
And for Jim—
who always believes in me—even when I have doubts.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 1
Vaughn Monroe hesitated, unsure for a second, hugging the brick wall and peering into the darkness beyond. The smell of spring dampened the night air. A whip-poor-will’s trill was cut off midnote with crickets playing beyond the mowed grass. Traffic far down the valley hummed past while her heart beat shallow and fast.
Had she killed him? Or should she have tried harder?
The run uphill had been rough, guided only by the moon glowing overhead and the vapor arc lamp in the opening between buildings that hunkered down in the stillness, obsidian slabs casting more shadows.
She’d trained for this, anticipated the drill inside and out. But knowing and doing were worlds apart. How many had he said? Five total? She’d counted four down. One to go.
Not bad for a deb. Take that, Stone, and stuff it up your backside.
She crouched lower, not wasting much effort on celebrating. Yet. Not while he could still be out there. Somewhere. Waiting.
Overextended muscles cramped in her lower stomach, mimicking those in clenched fingers cradling the modified Walther PPK. She ignored everything except the space before her. She hadn’t come here to fail. This time she was going to win. Two hundred yards and she was home free. Another quick scan as she swallowed hard.
She should have made sure she’d taken him out back at the creek. Maybe it’d been enough. But the man was like Lazarus—killing him meant nothing.
She stepped forward, heard the brush of her crepe-soled boots against the gravel.
Damn!
She froze, breath stalling in her lungs, muscles quaking, sweat trickling along her lower back.
He was there. She knew it.
Waiting. Watching. Anticipating.
He wanted to stop her.
Tough. Let him want.
Nothing.
When pinpricks circled her vision she gave in, gulping a ragged fistful of cool air. Only then did she move forward into the shadows.
Wall to her left, steel building to the right. Objective at four o’clock.
Where would she hide if she were him?
Straight in front of her. Downwind. Easier to hear movement. He’d stay south of the objective, where the darkness deepened between two buildings.
She smiled, stood and crept forward. Ten feet. Eight.
Almost there. Stay focused, no time to get cocky.
Five.
A whisper of cloth against cloth. That was all.
Too late.
She whirled. The slam of a shoulder careened along her rib cage, twisting her, rolling, her back punched against packed gravel. She couldn’t inhale, couldn’t move.
A knee slammed to her chest. Hand to her throat. Pressing.
He had her. And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
“You’re dead,” he whispered, leaning so close his breath warmed her face. “Mission failed.”
Lights blazed on all around them. The exercise was finished. She swallowed the defeat clogging her throat, telling herself it was physical pain but knowing she was lying.
She noted only his eyes, inches from hers.
Death promised less pain than they did.
This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
Vaughn leaned against the steel curve of the Quonset hut, aware of every movement around her. The other agents in training were as tired, as ragged as she was. Two weeks ago, they had been only names; now they were her team. Not yet friends, if ever. They’d
all come here with an agenda, a job to do, and friendship wasn’t it. But here and now, she accepted their thoughts as her own, their disappointment mirroring hers, their aches and bruises shadowing her own. Almost.
The thrum of pain beating across her ribs sang a familiar dirge. Stone had scored this time. It wasn’t the first, but one of these days, soon, she’d make sure it was the last.
“The man isn’t human,” Alexis “Alex” Noziak muttered at her side, collapsed over her gear pack, her straight blue-black Native American hair hiding the frustration in her expression but not in her voice. “Maybe he’s one of those demon creatures who work at night to feast on mere mortals. He even looks like he could be the devil’s spawn. Dark hair, dark eyes, body to die for, but even that could be just temptation working for him.”
“So how do you explain that he’s as hard-edged during the day as he is at night?” Kelly McAlister asked in her soft Kansas accent.
“Can’t.” Alex sighed, leaning her head back and twisting her neck like a rag doll. “My momma told me never to trust dark-eyed men who are too good-looking for their own good.”
Vaughn scraped together enough energy for a smile. Alex told it as she saw it. Nothing hidden in this Idaho girl. But would that trait backfire as their training continued? One more excuse for Stone to cull their already dwindling numbers. Week two, and they’d lost four recruits so far. After tonight there’d most likely be more. Who’d have thought volunteers could be thinned like debs at their first outing. Systematically picked off until none were left. Even the government had to accept and keep some of its new hires, but not Stone. If he continued as he’d begun, the Agency would end before it began.
Not her problem. Her problem was to make sure if any probies were left, she’d be one of them. Damn and double damn. She should have—
Failure clogged her throat.
She shrugged against the cold metal seeping through her fatigues. Too bad it did nothing to chill the churning in her gut.
“Attention,” Jayleen called to her right. Jayleen was the most stunningly beautiful black woman Vaughn had ever met. All angles, large obsidian eyes and attitude armor-thick around her. An attitude Vaughn had yet to get through.
She heard bodies shifting, no doubt in response to Jayleen’s command. As if all eyes weren’t already riveted on the man entering the empty building. He walked like he taught—arrogant, assured and always in control. Alex was right. The man wasn’t human. He was a robo-instructor sent to make life a misery for all of them. And he did a fine job of it.
M. T. Stone.
No one knew what the initials stood for. On the first day, they’d guessed Mighty Tough; by the third day, it’d become Mostly Terminal. The polite terms had disappeared by the end of the first week.
A few recruits shifted. One, in addition to Jayleen, stood. The rest remained where they were, like Vaughn, not sure if their legs would hold them.
“Anyone want to explain why no one made the objective tonight?” He strode forward, boots silent against the concrete floor, his voice as dark as he was, his gaze lethal as it swept over the two dozen women huddled on one side. Vaughn didn’t need to glance at her watch to know sunrise was less than an hour away; exhaustion gave the time away. They’d been at this exercise for more than twenty hours. And it looked as if it wouldn’t be over for a while.
“Poor execution, sir.” Jayleen stepped forward like the butt-kisser she was.
Eyes as hard as the man’s name slid toward the former con artist. She called herself a tarot card reader, but the rumor about this recruit’s background already raced like wildfire among them. Jayleen stood a heartbeat from jail time unless she got her act together, regardless of whether she looked like a cover model. Everyone had their own reason for joining IR5, their own motivation for facing hell, and Stone, on a daily basis. Too bad Vaughn couldn’t call upon it.
Stone continued, his voice cutting through the group, his gaze still pinning Jayleen. “Poor execution? Is that what the problem was?”
Vaughn actually felt sorry for the woman. Duck, Jayleen, the man’s hunting for heads.
He shifted, zeroing in on Vaughn as if beading a rifle scope. He wanted blood. That wasn’t news. He’d settle for hers. But that wasn’t news, either.
“Do you agree, deb? Poor execution?”
“No.” She didn’t bother to shift more than her gaze until it locked with his. She’d make him work for every ounce of blood he drew from her. Blood, sweat and tears. Churchill had it right. The great statesman understood the price of survival, but he forgot the cost of pride.
“So you think you executed tonight’s exercise well?” Stone’s tone taunted.
“No.”
“Can’t have it both ways, princess. Which is it?”
“We screwed up. We gave it our best, but it wasn’t good enough.”
“If that’s your best, you’d all be dead.”
Man had a point. And he knew she knew it. “Agreed.”
“You think that’s going to get you off the hook?”
Not with this man.
“No.”
Something hot and dangerous came and went in his eyes.
“You’ve finally gotten something right, Monroe.”
Calling her deb or princess was bad enough, but when he used her last name, the crap was about to hit the fan. She refused to move, keeping her hands flat and open at her sides even as the muscles in her stomach locked into a granite block. He would not break her. She would not let him.
She said nothing.
His eyes goaded, daring her to fight back.
Suicide.
“Sir?” Alex’s voice slashed the tension. “We almost—”
“There is no almost in this business.” Stone didn’t even bother to look at Alex. Instead he stepped closer to Vaughn, towering over where she sat, using size as a weapon. Not that he needed one with that malt-whiskey-over-ice voice. It could kill all on its own. “No second chances. No doovers. Monroe should have taken me out when she had the chance. She didn’t. Three shots on target. None lethal. She should have confirmed—it’s the way of a true operative.”
Truth wasn’t always painless.
“Stand.” The word commanded, even when spoken so low that most recruits couldn’t hear it.
She used the steel at her back to give her courage as she rose to her feet, locking her legs into a stance as rigid as the man before her.
Her gaze shifted upward to meet his.
And to think she’d actually volunteered for this. Next time she wanted to prove something, to herself or to her family, she’d take up bungee jumping. Unfortunately, she already had. And skydiving, and—finding one’s niche was hell some days.
“Nothing to say for yourself, deb?”
She glanced at the neon yellow paint stain dampening his right shoulder. He was right. She’d taken her shots. Knew even then they might not be lethal. And moved on. Too scared to find out if she’d failed. Not trusting that she might have won.
“No.” She was glad her voice didn’t quiver.
“You screwed up.”
Yup, sure did. She remained mute.
“You do that in the field and you kill your team members. Understand?”
It was a low blow. And effective.
“Yes.” The word congealed chalklike along her throat.
“You kill yourself, no loss. You kill them and the mission fails. Unacceptable.”
Those were not tears acid-etching her eyes. She wouldn’t let them be. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure of knowing he could get to her.
He leaned closer, his words sandpapering across her. “Do you understand?”
Her hands curled without thought. She watched his gaze shift to them, aware that he’d scored. Again.
“Understand?” he repeated, this time his voice lower and huskier. An intimate sound. Between the two of them. Promise and warning.
“Yes.”
“If you can’t kill, you don’t belong here.
”
His eyes said what his words didn’t. You don’t belong here anyway. It was an old refrain, communicated in a hundred ways over the last two weeks. He wanted her off the team and out of the Agency. No former ambassador’s daughters allowed. No room for debutantes, for a fast-living, high-society woman seeking a new thrill. His words, his phrases again and again, echoing her own fears.
Holding his gaze, no matter what the price, she offered her mother-trained smile, knowing it’d only make the next months even more unbearable. As if that were possible.
“I won’t make that mistake again.” She spoke to him and him alone. “Next time I kill you, I’ll make sure you’re dead.”
For a heartbeat, she thought he’d smile, but that would make him human. And this man didn’t do human.
Instead he said nothing, stepped back, pivoted and strode to the center of the room.
“Again.”
No one dared moan. A few closed their eyes. Vaughn remained still.
“Twenty seconds. Lower field.”
Then he was gone.
“The man’s a sadist,” Alex said, voicing their collective thoughts.
“He knows what he’s doing.” It was Jayleen speaking, earning the previously suppressed groans. She ignored the group and turned toward Vaughn. “He’s right and you know it. You had the chance to end the exercise and didn’t take it.”
