Love is Murder

by Sandra Brown

  “I’m with you,” Baynes announced. Then to the others: “You two wait for Jones to blow the panic room from up top, help get the ambassador out of there.”

  There was a trapdoor on the ceiling, and the plan was to blow the lock with C4, then quickly take out the tango and rescue the ambassador. It was a risky plan, but Mike knew the men on the job were up for it.

  “Let’s go.” Mike rushed for the utility room, an image of Jill Whitfield’s frightened brown eyes still stuck in his mind. They reached a corner, and Mike pushed away the image. Time to concentrate.

  He signaled Baynes, who was behind him. Three, two, one. Mike burst around the corner and dropped the guard with a well-placed shot to the hands. His weapon clattered to the floor, and then he fell on top of it, howling in pain. Baynes shot him with a Taser until he was unconscious and quickly cuffed his injured arms behind him.

  Somewhere above them, a loud pop. A burst of machine-gun fire.

  “Tango down,” Mike said into his radio, then pounded on the door. “U.S. Navy! Stand back!” With a sharp kick, he popped the door open. A crowd of terrified-looking dinner guests stared back at him.

  Mike turned to Baynes. “You okay to lead them out? I need to get the civilian on the patio.”

  “Go.”

  Mike sprinted back through the house, which now smelled of acrid smoke from all the flash-bangs. He rushed through the back door out to the pool—

  She was gone.

  Mike stared at the puddle of blood. He followed the streaks of it leading behind the concrete planter. A cold feeling of dread gripped him as his gaze followed the red trail from the patio inside the house.

  Did someone have her? Had they missed a terrorist? Mike darted down the hallway, reviewing the floor plan in his head. This was the bedroom wing of the residence. Two bedrooms, an office, then the master suite.

  Mike stopped short beside the office door, where he heard fingertips on a keyboard. He readied his weapon and peered around the corner… .

  And discovered Jill seated at a computer, frantically typing an email. She whirled around and reached for his pistol. “God, you scared me.” She put the Sig back on the desk and clutched a bloody hand to her throat. “I thought you were one of them.”

  “If I was you’d be dead right now.” He crossed the room in two strides. “Come on. We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “I just have to get this message out.”

  She turned back to the computer, where she was sending something that looked like a full page of numbers. An encrypted file.

  “You need medical attention.”

  “I need to get this message out. This computer’s been compromised.”

  Mike blinked down at her. This was no embassy “staffer.” He wanted to ask her who the hell she was, but there wasn’t time.

  Pop!

  They glanced up in unison as something exploded on the roof.

  “That’s us, breaking into the panic room,” Mike said. “Last terrorist should be neutralized by now.”

  A staccato of gunshots. Mike’s radio came to life again.

  “Twelve tangos down.” It was his teammate in the security room. “I repeat—shit, we missed one! I can see him on video screen. He’s in a room! Dammit, where is he? He’s got a vest on!”

  “Clear the house!” the commander’s voice cut in. “Get the hostages out! Go, go, go!”

  Mike yanked Jill out of the chair.

  “Wait!” She reached for the mouse and clicked something just before he lifted her off her feet and threw her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. She squealed and pounded on his back as he raced through the door and down the hallway, darting his gaze around for the missing terrorist.

  “I wasn’t finished!” she protested, but he ignored her, propelled forward by the certainty this compound was about to get blown to bits by some fanatic with a death wish. Mike found himself in a foyer and rushed to the double front doors. Locked, of course.

  “Hold on!” He gripped the backs of Jill’s thighs against his chest as he gave a powerful kick. The doors burst open. He charged through them. He saw a yard, a gate, a flash of sirens. He heard the whump-whump of an approaching chopper.

  Mike raced for the gate. A great boom shook the earth and hurled him to his knees.

  Cebu Island, The Philippines One week later

  Jane lay on the hot white sand, letting the waves and the rum soothe away her aches and pains. Her cheeks stung from the sun, but she didn’t care. In fact, she felt grateful. A touch of sunburn only confirmed that she was alive, when just days ago she’d almost lost her life. Twice. Make that three times, if she counted being crushed by two-hundred-pounds of hardened Navy SEAL, as Mike Dietz had fallen on top of her to shield her from the blast. The weight of him on her and his hands on her face, her neck, her body, making sure she was okay—it was a memory that had helped her through her hospital stay. She had a feeling it was a memory that would help her through more rough moments for years to come.

  Jane reached for her drink and took a long gulp. The fruity sweetness cooled her throat as she thought about Mike. Didn’t it figure that after years of constant work and no personal life, she’d meet a man who was just as much of a globe-trotting adrenaline junkie as she was? They didn’t have a chance together, which was why, when she’d collected her personal items at the hospital and discovered a number programmed into her cell phone alongside the words Call Mike, she’d smiled at the irony—just before pressing Delete. And then she’d blinked back a tear of regret, because her granddad was right and crying was for girls.

  Jane’s skin cooled abruptly as a shadow fell over her. She opened her eyes to see an enormous man blocking out the sun. She shoved her sunglasses to the top of her head and gazed up at him.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Heard they have good mai tais.”

  He sat down beside her in the sand, and she turned to look at him. He wore a T-shirt, board shorts and flip-flops, and he looked like a carefree young American kicking around the islands, just as she did.

  His gaze skimmed over her bruised-up body and settled on the bandage wrapped around her thigh.

  “Can you get it wet?” he asked, and she noticed his eyes were the same color as the sea behind him.

  “Not yet. But I can wade up to my knees.”

  His attention moved over her body again, and she started to get self-conscious.

  “I look like hell, I know.”

  He met her gaze. “That’s not what I was thinking.”

  She smiled and sat up, resting her arms on her knees.

  “I’ve got some leave,” he said casually, looking out at the water. “Thought I’d try and meet a beautiful woman.” He turned to face her and held out a hand. “I’m Petty Officer Mike Dietz, U.S. Navy.”

  She hesitated a second before taking his hand. She didn’t do this very often. “Special Agent Jane Hollister, CIA.”

  “Jane, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  He pulled her hand closer and kissed the back of her knuckles, where she had a nasty scrape. She smiled as something warm and happy flooded through her.

  “And you’re CIA?”

  “Yep.”

  He smiled back at her. “Now that, I believe.”

  * * * * *

  B.A.D. MISSION

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  I knew I was going to enjoy this story when, on page one, the protagonist asks, ��Who needs killin’?” ~SB

  There were only two reasons the man on that Ducati motorcycle had just rolled up Sam Garrett’s gravel driveway this morning—he wanted Sam to interrogate or terminate a target.

  Or door number three…both.

  Sam didn’t do extractions.

  He lifted a rag off the engine of his ’78 IROC Camaro and wiped his hands. Had to be serious for Joe Q. Public, Director of Bureau of American Defense, to ride all the way from Nashville to South
Texas through a scorching heat wave.

  And after Sam had retired his black ops equipment two months ago.

  He and Joe had reached an agreement. He’d thought.

  Joe peeled out of his dusty riding suit, dropped his helmet over a mirror on his bike and walked over to Sam. He swiped a hand over brown hair slicked back in a ponytail. “Tell me again why you live fifty miles from civilization?”

  “Don’t like salesmen…or surprises.” But Sam had known who was coming up his drive the minute Joe’s bike tripped a security beam. Sam pulled two beers from an ice chest next to his boots and handed one to Joe. “Who needs killin’?”

  The most powerful man in B.A.D., an intelligence agency the world knew nothing about, opened his beer and downed a long slug. Joe let out a sigh only a cold brew could earn. His gray T-shirt and jeans were soaked with perspiration.

  Joe’s deep voice resonated with quiet power. “Not a killing, yet. An interrogation and possible termination.”

  That’s one thing Sam and Joe had in common. Get to the point. Sam had learned long ago that Joe had a reason for everything he did, like who he sent on a specific mission. “They cut off your phone service, or you just like ridin’ in full gear when it’s hotter ’n hell?”

  Joe shrugged. “Couldn’t do this over the phone. Had to know if you’d have a problem interrogating—or terminating—someone aligned with the Fratelli de il Sovrano if—”

  “The Fratelli? Hell, no…if I was still active, which I’m not.” Sam ignored the itch to take down someone allied with the number-one enemy of the United States. The whole damned world. A secret group with more money than five billionaires combined and plans to destroy this country so they can create a New World Order.

  Give me a break. Call a snake by his name. Just a damn bunch of dangerous terrorists.

  “You didn’t let me finish,” Joe continued.

  “That’s because I’m not interested. We had a deal.”

  Joe nodded. “If you still want to pass when I’m done, I’ll put Retter on it, but the target is your ex.”

  Sam chuckled with wry humor. “Not a problem. Tell Retter to have at it. I don’t have an ex-anyone. Never been married. You know that.”

  After another swig of beer, Joe wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Ex-girlfriend.”

  “None of those, either.” The women in Sam’s life had come and gone faster than days in a week, which suited him just fine. He’d tried to settle down once right after high school with Danielle, but she’d had her sights set on bright lights and a corporate life. He wore ragged Levi’s and she wore the latest Dior…from what he’d heard. Hadn’t seen her since…

  Joe shook Sam out of the past with his next statement. “Our file shows that you had a relationship with this woman.”

  What the fuck? Sam didn’t blink, thinking. Where was Joe going with this? “If you mean I slept with some female who turned out to be a skank traitor, I didn’t know it and I assure you she didn’t know who I was or what I did.” Sam maintained his slouch against his black car while every muscle along his back locked tight at the insinuation. He asked softly, “You trying to accuse me of something, Joe?”

  “Hell, no. You were still in Colton, Texas, when you dated Danielle Burton.”

  Sam stood away from the car. Danielle a traitor? Absurd. “Your intel’s faulty. You got the wrong woman.” The Danielle he’d known was the best thing to ever come out of that spit-in-the-road town they’d grown up in.

  She was a damn genius. Went to fucking MIT.

  Joe gave another halfhearted shrug. “So you’re still not interested?”

  Sam didn’t rile easily, but sending Retter after Danielle could do it. “This is bullshit. That girl’s as much a traitor and working with the Fratelli as I am an astronaut.” He hated airplanes.

  “That girl’s twenty-eight, went to MIT on a full academic scholarship and—”

  “Is in the aerospace program,” Sam finished for him. So Joe did have the right woman. Didn’t mean she’d sold out her country. “She had two brothers killed in the military and a grandfather who was a decorated general before he died. She works to protect this country, Joe.” Least that’s what Sam believed from the tabs he’d kept on her over the past ten years.

  What guy in his line of work hadn’t checked up on an old flame?

  “I read her file.” Joe sounded resigned to a miserable task. “Her R & D in that field is how she hit our radar.”

  “Who dropped the dime on her?” Sam had all kinds of free time now that he was out of the business. Enough time to visit the person trying to smear Danielle’s good name.

  “I wouldn’t be here if the intel hadn’t come straight from our Fratelli informant.”

  Few things could take Sam’s breath like hearing those words.

  B.A.D.’s informant inside the Fratelli was exceptional and her information had never been wrong. She was some woman known by only one of their agents who constantly put her own safety at risk to sneak information to B.A.D. She’d prevented the Fratelli from killing thousands of innocent citizens more than once.

  Nothing else could more thoroughly condemn a person than a warning from that informant.

  Even Sam had to consider the unimaginable at this point.

  “Danielle resigned from Cybertine Aeronautics two days ago. Our informant said Zydus Engineering has been courting Danielle quietly over the past month. They offered to buy a weapon design from her and she finally agreed. Zydus is a front for a Fratelli operation suspected of stealing U.S. weapons technology. We’ve had our ears to the ground on Zydus for a while and this is the first real break we’ve had. But her deal with them is far worse than selling standard weapons technology. She’s giving them plans for a satellite-directed laser weapon.”

  Sam snorted. “If that’s the case, Danielle’s not just a traitor but a scam artist, too. There’re plenty of satellite laser designs, but nobody’s come up with a way to power the damn things.” The Danielle he’d known had been a sexy, straight-as-an-arrow egghead he’d fallen for back when they’d been study partners.

  “Rumors surfaced in Cybertine Aeronautics over the past month that she’d designed a compact laser weapon and a supportable power source. Our informant has proof that Zydus and Danielle reached an agreement.”

  Sam considered several possible scenarios and pointed out, “Selling plans to another company this way is unethical, and possibly illegal, but not necessarily treason if Zydus is building the weapon for the U.S.”

  “True, but according to our informant, the Fratelli will construct and launch this weapon in Russia. Danielle will be paid by funds wired to an offshore account.”

  A sick ball of disappointment fisted in Sam’s stomach as he waited for the rest.

  “Danielle is presenting her design to Zydus tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. and, as a show of good faith, she’s handing over a component that’s a key piece of the designs. I need Danielle coerced into taking a flawed set of plans into that meeting with Zydus and to wire her so you can listen in. And you’ve got to tag that component with a transmitter.”

  “You think she’s going to hand over a phony design knowing the people she just screwed will come for blood the minute they figure out they were scammed?”

  “She might as well. The Fratelli intends to fly the plans and component to Russia the minute that meeting is over.”

  Sam had always been fast at adding two and two. “They plan to kill Danielle after the meeting.”

  “That’s why you—or Retter—may not have to terminate this target.”

  Which was how Sam ended up moving silently through the hallway of Danielle’s hoity-toity hotel in Salt Lake City two hours before her meeting. Zydus headquarters was five miles away in an eight-story building and the Fratelli probably had Danielle’s hotel room under surveillance. Fratelli security would be watching for someone who looked like an operative entering the hotel this evening. Sam doubted they’d notice a man in jeans, an oversize blue West
ern-cut shirt stuffed to give him a gut and a weathered Stetson that blended in with all the other cowboys running around Utah. After reaching his room, he’d changed his boots to soft-soled shoes and swapped the Western shirt for a black T-shirt.

  Would Danielle even recognize him?

  What had happened to the woman he’d known?

  One way or another, he was getting answers out of her tonight. Joe had shown him damning proof.

  Upon reaching her suite, Sam breached the door too easily, which sent unease slithering along his neck. The only security had been the hotel’s top-of-the-line key-card protection. Ambient moonlight filtered through window sheers into the living area.

  He paused, listening in case she had someone in the bedroom with her.

  Wouldn’t that just suck? It’d been ages since he’d talked to her, but that didn’t mean he wanted to see her naked with another man.

  Once he’d reconned the living room and ruled out listening devices, he crept into the bedroom.

  He’d been prepared to contain her once he’d determined she was alone.

  He hadn’t been prepared for Danielle sleeping naked except for panties.

  She’d curled up on top of the covers, lush curves turned toward him with one arm draped over her breasts. The room smelled soft and inviting.

  Hesitation could mean death in covert situations, but Sam had lost the ability to move. Danielle sure as hell wasn’t a girl anymore. Not with that body. Tousled auburn hair fell across her shoulders. Same pert little nose she’d turn up at off-color jokes, same soft lips that had driven him crazy, but the skinny legs she’d used to peddle an old bicycle around town had shaped up nicely.

  She made a noise that shook him out of his stupor.

  Sam moved to the bed, extending a hand to cover her mouth… .

  The hand Danielle had tucked beneath her pillow lashed out.

  With a six-inch knife blade aimed at his balls.

  He jumped back.

  She came alive, snatching up a brass lamp she threw at him.

  Sam dodged the lamp and rushed her, grabbing her knife arm and slamming her facedown on the bed with him on top.