Love is Murder

by Sandra Brown

  She ran her fingers under my collar while I pretended to consider it.

  “You FBI agents are so evasive,” I said.

  “Does that bother you?” Her fingers began to creep into my hair.

  “Not a bit,” I replied. “But I thought we weren’t getting back together.”

  Her fingers climbed higher. “Persuade me.”

  I was doing an admirable job of keeping my voice level. “How do I do that?”

  “Oh,” she said with a mischievous look in her eyes. “I’m sure I’ll get the thrust of your argument… .”

  * * * * *

  NIGHT HEAT

  Laura Griffin

  For as long as there have been myths, rescue has been a favorite theme. The knights these days just wear a different type of armor. ~SB

  Manila, The Philippines 2200 hours

  Petty Officer Mike Dietz peered through the high-powered binoculars and knew there was a high probability that the woman in the low-cut black cocktail dress was going to die.

  Unless he did something soon.

  That is, unless Mike and his team did something soon. Barely an hour ago, the eight-man squad of Navy SEALs had been summoned away from a practice op in Manila Bay for an all-too-real rescue mission at the American ambassador’s house. Still damp with salt water, the SEALs had arrived, geared up and reviewed their orders. Now they were ready to kick some ass. But while a bunch of bureaucrats debated exactly how and when that ass would be kicked, Mike and his teammates were left to simmer in the hot Manila night with their fingers itching on the triggers of their M-4s.

  “What’s the word, Dietz?”

  Mike turned to look at Lieutenant Junior Grade Derek Vaughn, who was set up on the balcony beside him with a sniper rifle. The house behind the ambassador’s had become a makeshift command post for tonight’s operation.

  “Still waiting on Quinn,” Mike said, referring to their commanding officer, who was at this moment on the phone with Washington.

  It was midmorning right now in D.C. and the guys in charge were probably seated around a conference table, sipping coffee and debating options while a young American woman’s lifeblood drained out of her.

  Mike gritted his teeth as he gazed through the binocs again. Jill Whitfield was pale, slender and had long dark hair that fanned out beneath her on the cobblestone patio. Since the initial attack, she’d been playing possum—and doing a damn good job of it—while feeding information to Mike’s team through a cell phone hidden somewhere on her body. Smart girl, she’d realized that in the wake of the siege, the local embassy would be flooded with phone calls, so she’d directed her SOS to the American embassy in Bangkok, which had verified her identity and patched her through to Mike’s commanding officer. She’d been providing info ever since, all the while surrounded by dead bodies and live terrorists.

  And these tangos weren’t the warm fuzzy kind. According to the team’s latest intel, they were ACB, or Asian Crescent Brotherhood—a ruthless batch of extremists that made al Qaeda look like a glee club. They operated out of the Southern Philippine island of Mindanao, where just last month they’d captured and beheaded no fewer than thirty missionaries who’d wandered too close to one of their training camps. The missionaries’ bodies—only—had been dumped on the outskirts of the island’s largest city, and every female among them showed signs of brutal sexual assault.

  The radio in Mike’s ear crackled to life.

  “Witness confirms four tangos, I repeat, four tangos, now stationed on the north patio door.”

  Mike shifted the binoculars until he saw the terrorists. Like the others, these guys were armed with AK-47s, Tokarev pistols and hand grenades.

  Mike was ready to move. This was just the sort mission the SEALs of Alpha Squad had trained for: neutralize a band of heavily armed terrorists, rescue civilian hostages and defuse any bombs reportedly on the premises. No problem—it was textbook. But the chances of this op having a textbook outcome had been diminished by the fact that a number of those hostages—possibly including the ambassador himself—were already dead, along with the four armed marines who had been guarding the compound.

  Sweat trickled into Mike’s eyes, but he blinked it away. He kept his breathing even, his heart rate steady. But despite his cool demeanor, every muscle in his body itched to leap down from his observation post, scale the fence, and get Jill and every other civilian in there out of harm’s way.

  Mike studied her again through the binoculars. Jill Whitfield worked at the embassy as the ambassador’s scheduler and had been one of two dozen guests at his poolside soiree. Out on that patio, she was getting paler by the minute. The terrorist patrolling the backyard had passed by her three times now, and evidently the puddle of blood under her body had convinced him she was dead or at least neutralized—and he couldn’t be far from wrong. By the size of that puddle, Mike knew Jill probably needed a blood transfusion to have any hope of surviving.

  Mike wanted to go in now. Ahora. But he wasn’t in charge of the plan here, which involved waiting until 0200 hours, at which point Alpha Squad would slip into the compound through a hidden side gate and take the enemy by surprise.

  But that was nearly four hours away. Jill didn’t have four hours. She might not have four minutes.

  And yet her lips were moving. Despite whatever injuries she had, she continued to whisper into that phone. Was it hidden in her bra? Under her hair? Mike didn’t know. But he did know that if the terrorists figured out what she was doing, she was dead. Period. And she had to know that. Mike had seen a lot in his twenty-eight years, and not much impressed him. But this woman risking her life to get his team intel sure as hell did.

  “Okay, listen up. New plan.”

  As his CO’s voice came over the radio again, Mike traded looks with Vaughn. The sniper could see Jill through his rifle scope, and Mike could tell he was impatient, too.

  “Thanks to Harden, we’ve got the camera up and running,” the commander said, referring to the smallest member of their team, who possessed the highly useful ability to slip through enemy lines and install surveillance equipment. “We’ve got six confirmed tangos in the backyard and another four in the house, all huddled around the so-called ‘secret’ entrance to the ambassador’s panic room. We’re guessing at least one to two armed tangos inside the room itself—” static interrupted the words “—and civilian guests. We’ve also got eight confirmed dead.”

  Eight dead. Same as an hour ago. Mike watched Jill’s motionless body. He desperately hoped she’d stay alive long enough for him to get her out of there.

  “So that’s twenty-one friendlies, including the ambassador and his wounded staffer, and at least twelve enemy targets. I just got off the phone with Washington, and they’ve given us the green light. That’s the good news. Here’s the bad.”

  Mike’s hand tightened on his weapon.

  “Some of these guys are wearing bomb vests,” Quinn said. “We’ve confirmed two so far. The tango in with the ambassador is said to be wearing one.”

  Shit, this was a suicide mission, just as they’d feared. Not good for the ambassador. And definitely not good for Jill.

  “You know the plan,” the commander said. “Now let’s get this done.”

  * * *

  Jane had never paid much attention to the smell of blood before, but right now it was all she could think of. It had pooled beneath her on the pavement. It had dried in her hair. The stench of it filled her nostrils and attracted flies that swirled around her with their ominous buzz.

  Jane blocked out sound and smell and thought instead about her mouth. She longed to lick her lips. She longed to inch herself over to the pool and suck down about a gallon of water. But she knew she couldn’t move. She couldn’t bat an eyelash. One twitch while any of those men was watching and she’d be dead.

  Jane’s heart pounded at the thought, but not nearly as hard as it had pounded during the initial attack. There had been a loud bang—like a thunderclap—accompanied by
a burst of smoke. Next thing she knew, she was on her stomach beside the pool with a goddamn bullet in her leg. She’d started to push herself off the ground, but then everyone around her had gone down in a hail of machine-gun fire, and she’d made an instant decision that her best chance of survival lay in pretending to be dead.

  She wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be pretending.

  The backs of Jane’s eyes stung with tears, but she willed them away. After withstanding an hour of agony, how pathetic would it be if she blew her own cover with some stupid tears?

  Buck up, Janey!

  She thought of her brother Josh’s gruff impersonation of their grandfather’s voice. Their granddad had been a Green Beret and had admonished them from an early age that crying was for girls. Forget that Jane was a girl—he’d made it clear tears wouldn’t be tolerated, no matter what the injury or how many stitches it entailed.

  Stitches. If only it were that minor. Jane was pretty sure she needed surgery for this one. Her leg burned from the bullet wound. But oddly, even more painful was the gash in her arm from where she’d fallen on a shard of china. At the time of the first explosion, Jane had been holding a plate piled with fancy hors d’oeuvres that the ambassador’s chef had adorned with little American-flag toothpicks. She’d been nibbling on a bite-size sausage when she’d heard a commotion and glanced over her shoulder as the first grenade exploded. At least, she’d thought it was a grenade. Looking back now, she was pretty sure it had been a flash-bang—an explosive designed to stun, not kill. It was one of the few indicators Jane had that her captors didn’t intend to kill everyone here, and she was clinging to it desperately. These terrorists wanted at least some live hostages—such as the ambassador, who was holed up with them now in the vaultlike room designated for emergencies.

  The tropical heat seemed to press down on her as she lay there, motionless. A bead of sweat rolled down her forehead. She prayed the tangos wouldn’t see it. To take her mind off the pain in her thigh, she penned a postcard to her brother in her head: Weather’s here. Wish you were beautiful. It was an inside joke that would bring a smile to his face. And she’d sign it, I love you. –Janey. The last part was uncharacteristically sappy, but it needed to be said because if Jane didn’t make it out of here alive, Josh would blame himself. Both of them knew that Jane was here, indirectly, because of him. If not for her older brother’s example, she might be married right now, possibly even a mom, instead of the globe-trotting adrenaline junkie she’d been since her twenty-fifth birthday. Jane needed Josh to know she didn’t blame him—she loved him. And she didn’t regret for a minute following in his footsteps, even if doing so ended up getting her killed.

  That the best you got, J? Her brother’s voice echoed through her head, thick with contempt. You mean to tell me that’s it?

  No, that wasn’t it. She felt dizzy and nauseated, but she still had some fight left in her.

  Boots clomped on the other side of the patio. She heard the rapid-fire exchange of Bisaya, the language of the southern islands. She knew the dialect well, having studied it for years now, just as she knew what all their jargon meant. These guys were Asian Crescent Brotherhood. She’d been following the group’s movements for months and had been one of the first agents to get word that they were gearing up for a “big event.” At the time she’d intercepted this important bit of intel, Jane had no idea the “event” in question might directly involve her.

  If, in fact, it did. Was storming the ambassador’s residence their main play, or just their opening act?

  Jane needed to find out. There were some other things she needed to do, too, and she had to keep her senses sharp. No giving in to fatigue. Or fear. Or that numb, tingly feeling that threatened to overtake her…

  Buck up, Janey!

  She forced herself awake. She listened to the footsteps fade and risked opening her eyes, just slightly. The ambassador’s swank reception had started at dusk, but it was dark now except for the tiki torches surrounding the pool. They’d seemed so festive earlier when she’d been chatting with other expats and sipping on her rum and Coke. Jane’s gaze shifted to the skirt of her dress, which she’d bought just a few weeks ago. At five-nine, Jane towered over all of the women in this country—along with most of the men—and she’d had to go to a European store in Hong Kong just to find something in her size. It had cost half a month’s pay, but she’d rationalized it as a well-earned splurge after a grueling two-year tour that had almost come to an end. Her official stint as the ambassador’s “travel liaison” ended tomorrow.

  If she lived that long.

  More boots on the concrete. They made the circle around the pool. They moved behind her, paused. Jane held her breath.

  And then the world exploded.

  * * *

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  A triple burst of explosives accompanied Mike and his team as they poured through the gate.

  Pop! Pop!

  More strategically placed stun grenades went off on opposite sides of the pool, throwing the scene into chaos. To the enemy, it would seem as though they were being attacked from all sides and by an army, rather than an eight-man team.

  The terrorists at the patio door, who’d been clustered there stupidly for twenty minutes, went down in the first rash of gunfire. Another appeared at the glass and was picked off by a perfectly placed shot from Vaughn’s rifle fifty yards away.

  Spurred into action by all the commotion, Jill Whitfield started to sit up and caught the attention of a tango inside the house, who opened fire with his machine gun. She tried to lunge away, and Mike threw himself on top of her, pressing her into the concrete.

  “Stay down!”

  He looked over his shoulder in time to see his teammates eliminate the shooters. Mike jumped to his feet and grabbed Jill by the arm, pulling her behind a giant stone planter on the far end of the pool. She stared up at him with wide, startled eyes as he yanked out his field kit and immediately got to work on her bullet wound.

  “Are you Quinn?” she asked, and the sound of her voice brought a punch of relief.

  “I’m one of his men—Petty Officer Mike Dietz, U.S. Navy.” He took a moment to search her face. Porcelain skin, deep brown eyes. She was even prettier up close.

  Mike glanced over his shoulder. He needed to be inside, helping rescue the ambassador and the other civilians, but he couldn’t leave this girl out here like a sitting duck. They didn’t need her getting snapped up as a bargaining tool by some terrorist. He looked back at her. Sweat beaded on her upper lip and her pupils were dilated.

  “I’m Jill Whitfield. My leg—”

  “I know.” Mike pressed a ready-made bandage over the wound, and she yelped with pain. “Sorry, gotta get this on you. You feel faint, ma’am? You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  She blinked up at him, maybe not understanding the question.

  “This is my last day,” she said as he secured the bandage. “I’m supposed to be on the beach in Cebu tomorrow, sipping mai tais.” She smiled slightly, and he decided she was getting loopy from blood loss.

  “What’d you do to your arm?” he asked. Her slender white arm was streaked with red, and he turned it over to reveal a deep gash just beneath her elbow.

  “China,” she said breathlessly. “Think I got some of the official State Department dinnerware in there.”

  Mike glanced to his right at the destroyed buffet table, where food and dinner plates had crashed to the ground.

  “Dietz! We need you!” a voice barked into his radio.

  Shit. Mike handed her a bandage. “Think you can do your arm?”

  She mumbled something he couldn’t hear. Mike’s gaze dropped to her cleavage and he had the answer to that question about the phone. A little silver cell phone poked up from the black lace of her bra.

  “Dietz!”

  “Don’t move,” he said. “I’ll be back. Put that bandage on and keep your head down.”

  “Wait!” She grabbed his hand, and the panic in
her eyes made him want to ignore the rest of his mission.

  “I’ll be back,” he repeated. “I promise.”

  She squeezed his hand and nodded at his side. “Can you spare that nine?”

  Mike glanced down, surprised. She wanted his nine-mil? Damn, she was terrified, and understandably so. He jerked the gun from the holster and wrapped her hand around the grip. “You ever shot a pistol before?”

  A faint smile. “I grew up in West Texas.”

  Well, okay then. He braced his hand on her pretty bare shoulder. “Don’t shoot anyone in jungle camos, all right? They’re the good guys. I’ll be back to get you in two, maybe three minutes tops.”

  She nodded, and Mike’s heart twisted as he grabbed his machine gun and stood up to leave her.

  “Be careful,” she said.

  He sprinted inside, where he found several of his teammates clustered around the door to the panic room.

  “Locked,” one of them said.

  “Where’s Jones?” Mike asked.

  “Roof, just like we planned.”

  Mike eyed the carnage around him. He counted ten dead tangos, which meant one to two in the panic room with the ambassador. One of his teammates was hunched over a body, quickly defusing the bomb vest. Good news, it hadn’t been rigged to detonate when the wearer was killed. Bad news, there was one more vest unaccounted for.

  “Where’s everyone else?” Mike asked.

  “We’re trying to find out.”

  “Yo, we got eyes!” one of his teammates called from down the hall.

  Mike rushed to the security room, where Petty Officer Greg Baynes had managed to restore video surveillance.

  “Shit, only two in the panic room,” Mike said, surveying the grainy video image. “Ambassador and a guard. Looks like he has a vest on.”

  “Here we go! Hostages!”

  Another TV monitor came to life, showing a blurry black-and-white view of what looked like a utility room, where men and women in party attire were squeezed in like sardines.

  “Utility room, northwest corner,” Mike said, remembering the floor plan. “I’m on it. And we got orders to save this one for interrogation.”