Athena Force: Books 1-6

by Justine Davis, Amy J. Fetzer, Katherine Garbera, Meredith Fletcher, Catherine Mann

  Riley felt as if his arms had gotten wrenched from their sockets by the time the powerboat smashed up against a stack of crates and came to a halt. He turned to check on Sam but found that she had already bailed over the side of the powerboat and was in motion.

  A flash of movement caught Sam’s eye and sent her to ground behind a small fishing boat that someone had pulled up onto the sand. Bullets chopped into the sand only inches from her head. Sand kicked into her eyes and brought stinging pain. She’d also landed wrong on her broken hand and the sudden agony almost swept her senses.

  She fisted the Beretta and came up firing, putting three rounds into the center of the mass that confronted her. Already dead on his feet, the gunman fell to the ground. By then, Sam was already running again.

  She kept the Cipher under observation, watching the man dodge in and out among pallets of cargo that were obviously still being loaded or unloaded.

  Someone stepped into place beside her.

  Sam whirled, bringing up the Beretta at once. Elle blocked her movement with a forearm.

  “It’s me,” Elle said. “I will help you bring this man down.” She glanced at Sam’s broken thumb. “You’re not whole.”

  Sam nodded, glancing back down the incline and seeing Riley trading shots with Ivanovitch, who managed to keep each other pinned down. Sam swapped the partially expended pistol for a fresh one. The wind off the sea blew so sharply cold through her wet clothes that she felt as if she was getting cut in two.

  “How did you get my face?” Sam asked.

  “Our parents gave it to me,” Elle said. “The same as they gave you yours.”

  “Parents?” Sam couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “We have the same parents?”

  Elle nodded.

  “Where are our parents?” Suddenly a thousand questions filled Sam’s mind.

  “They’re dead.” Elle looked sad, but the emotion was an old and weathered one. “They were murdered a long time ago.”

  Sam looked at the other woman. “You’re my twin sister?”

  “Yes.”

  For the first time, Sam realized they were talking in Russian as if they had always done that. Emotions broke loose inside Sam and she had to force them away. If they lived, there would be time to explore everything that lay between them.

  “Are you ready?” Elle asked, setting up on the other side of the cargo they took shelter behind.

  “Yes.” Sam listed the pistol beside her head.

  “Go.”

  Sam whirled around the corner of the crates and balanced the Beretta across the back of her left hand. She moved her feet deliberately, never crossing one over the other and remaining in a half crouch to make a smaller target. She caught occasional glimpses of Elle on the other side of the row of cargo and saw that the woman—my sister!—moved the same way with her weapon held in the same fashion.

  Tension mounted inside Sam. Had the Cipher gotten away? He had a reputation for doing that.

  Metal gleamed in the sand under her feet.

  She looked down and spotted the metal disk that was the same circumference as a penny but was three times as thick. Remembering how quickly the device had knocked her out earlier, Sam kicked the device away, watching it spin into the water line.

  “Elle.” Sam wanted to warn her sister, but when she looked across the way, she saw Elle drop to her knees. Her eyes rolled up into her head, showing only rolling white.

  Then the Cipher was there, stepping out of the shadows with a big pistol in his hand. He pointed the pistol at Elle’s head.

  “Two of you,” the Cipher mused with a tight smile. “And when I pull this trigger, there will be only one.”

  Sam looked at him. She wanted him alive. She wanted to know who had ordered him or paid him to kill Rainy. And why.

  “Put your weapon down,” the Cipher ordered. “Put your weapon down or I will blow her head off.”

  Elle remained passed out, helpless and exposed.

  “Do it,” the Cipher growled. “Do it now.”

  Sam remembered all the nights and days she’d spent alone in the homes of strangers, how she’d always wanted a family, how she’d always wanted to know where she came from and why her parents would give her up.

  Elle had the answers to at least some of those questions.

  In a split second Sam made her decision. The Cipher must have seen it in her eyes, because he pulled his pistol up and tried to shoot her. His bullet burned the air by Sam’s ear.

  Feeling the Beretta bounce against her broken thumb, Sam put three bullets through the Cipher’s head. His features destroyed and the back of his head blown away, the man dropped to his knees, then fell face forward.

  Epilogue

  “I didn’t have a choice. I had to kill Lee Craig.” Sam St. John paced in the shade of a palm tree while she talked on the satellite phone. The cast on her broken thumb felt awkward and heavy.

  At the other end of the connection, Kayla Ryan said, “You did what you had to do, Sam. And the Cipher wouldn’t have stopped with just killing your sister. If he’d gotten the chance, he’d have killed you, too.”

  “I know.”

  “Your sister is all right?”

  Sam thought that was still strange to hear. “Your sister” sounded unnatural in a way, but it was one of the best things Sam had ever heard. “Elle is fine. She arranged a couple days in Suwan to handle some of the other information she turned up while she was undercover in Ivanovitch’s organization.”

  “That will give you guys some time to get to know each other a little more.”

  Sam stood still and stared across the beach at the volleyball game underway. Although Suwan was primarily a Muslim nation, a lot of Western ways had crept into the country as entrepreneurs pandered to the tourist dollars. Of course, some volleyball players on the hill were American military personnel on their off time.

  “Yeah, it will give us a little more time,” Sam said. “I think we’re both looking forward to that.”

  “You’ve already got a lot in common,” Kayla said. “The whole spy thing.”

  “Different sides of the fence, though.”

  “Russia and America? Not so much on different sides of the fence these days.”

  “There are a lot of differences, though.” Sam stared up the hill and saw Elle—her sister—in the thick of an enthusiastic volleyball game.

  Elle was dressed in a barely-there thong bikini and showed her body off in ways that Sam could never have done. She took two quick steps forward, then leaped up and spiked the ball back across the net, driving it into an open area between two young Marines who could not get to it in time. Elle lifted her arms and celebrated.

  “How are you doing?” Kayla asked.

  Sam turned away from her sister and peered out at the harbor. Salvage boats, from Russia and from the United States, worked the area of the sea where the cargo ship had gone down two days ago.

  “I’m fine,” Sam said.

  “You’ve been through a lot,” Kayla said. “Losing Rainy and not having any of us around you to help you through it. Spending two months as a prisoner of the CIA. Finding out everything you have about your sister. None of that was easy.”

  “No. But I’m getting through it. I’ve been able to get through everything I had to.”

  “I know,” Kayla said. “I’ve seen you do it. But you need to remember that you don’t have to do that alone now. When you get things cleared there, after you’ve had a chance to visit with your sister, come back home for a little while.” She paused. “And it’s not just for you, Sam. It’s for us, too. We need you.”

  Tears burned the backs of Sam’s eyes. Unable to stop them, she pulled her sunglasses from the top of her head and slid them into place.

  “I know,” Sam whispered. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “There’s more going on here than just Rainy’s murder,” Kayla said.

  “We still don’t know why she was killed.”

  �
�At this point, we have to assume it was because she was investigating the theft of her eggs twenty-two years ago.”

  “This is really getting weird.”

  “I know. Did I tell you that Josie thinks she may have a way to follow up on the Cipher?”

  “No.” Sam was immediately intrigued.

  “Her sister, Diana, is in Army Intelligence. Josie’s going to ask Diana to check around and see if she can turn up anything now that he’s been identified.”

  “You’ll let me know?”

  “The minute I find out anything. Take care of yourself, Sam.”

  “I will. You, too.” Sam punched the end button on the phone.

  On top of the hill, the volleyball game slowed down for a while. Elle sat down with the two Marines and started talking. Sam’s partner, Riley McLane, came down the hill.

  As she looked at the man, watching the way he moved like a big cat, everything working together, Sam felt her insides turn liquid. She wrinkled her nose. She could deal with finding a sister she never knew she had, getting locked up for two months through no fault of her own, going head to head with a world-class assassin…

  But there was something about Riley McLane that just kept her on edge.

  “Hey,” he greeted. “Finish your call?”

  “Yes.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “It’s getting there. Rainy’s still gone. There’s no getting around that.”

  “No. I suppose not.” Riley wore athletic shorts. His body was already turning nut brown, and perspiration helped define his musculature. The only things that jarred were the old scars and the new pink ones that wrapped his shoulder.

  Sam found herself taking a deep breath and feeling itchy all over.

  Riley pushed his sunglasses up on his head. “That’s some sister you’ve got there, St. John. She plays volleyball like you play racquetball.”

  “I’ve noticed. You guys are beating the hell out of the Marines.”

  “True, but I don’t think they mind so much.”

  “There is that matter of the spoonful of bikini she’s wearing.”

  Riley grinned. “I’m sure that has a lot to do with it.”

  Sam walked over to the cooler they’d brought to the beach and took out two bottles of water. She gave one to Riley.

  “Thanks.” He twisted the top off and took a long drink. “You’ve told your friends about Lee Craig?”

  “Yes. They’re working on some other leads.”

  “Taking him down wasn’t a bad thing.”

  “I know. It just would have been better if I’d taken him alive.”

  Riley shook his head. “Guys like Lee Craig, they don’t get taken alive.”

  Sam looked at him, remembering how she’d tried to seduce him that night in her cell. They hadn’t talked about that night since.

  Glancing back up the hill, Riley said, “I think we’re done with the volleyball game for a while.” He grinned sourly. “Matter of fact, I know we are. Elle told me to come down here and take you for a walk.”

  “She’s awfully pushy for a new sister,” Sam said.

  “I guess maybe she figures she missed out on a lot of years of pushing. So she’s trying to catch up.” He looked at her. “So I’m asking—would you like to go for a walk? There’s a little café not far from here. I’ll even buy lunch.”

  “Because my sister told you to?”

  Riley walked over to her, put his fingertips up under her chin and tilted her head back. Then he bent down and lightly touched her lips with his. “No. Because I thought talking over lunch would be a good way to get to know more about you.”

  Sam still felt the kiss tingling on her lips. “Sure,” she said. “I’d like that. A lot.”

  PURSUED

  CATHERINE MANN

  Published by Silhouette Books

  America’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance

  To my daughter Maggie, a kick-butt kid with an indomitable spirit, sharp mind and tender heart—truly a Bombshell heroine in the making. I love you, kiddo!

  Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to

  Catherine Mann for her contribution to the

  ATHENA FORCE series.

  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 1

  “Negative G forces coming. Hold on to your lunch.” Captain Josie Lockworth, USAF, upped the throttle and pushed forward on the stick of her T-38 supersonic jet. Out of courtesy only, she offered the warning to reporter Shannon Conner strapped into the back seat.

  Not that she had anything against reporters. Hell, she’d flown with top-notch embedded journalists in the Middle East. Her best friend was even a television correspondent.

  This reporter, however, could only be called a hack. Her news network soaked up scandal like a thirsty rag. Josie couldn’t afford bad press derailing her multimillion-dollar military test project. Forget the money, actually small change as far as the government was concerned.

  Her mother’s honor had been held hostage long enough.

  The T-38 pierced a low-lying cloud. Blood rushed up to her head with negative G forces, the reverse of positive Gs that pushed blood down. The body tolerated fewer negative Gs before passing out. One negative G. Two. Three. Spots danced in front of her eyes on the mountainous horizon of the California desert.

  Adrenaline sang through her veins. Sweat popped along her back through her T-shirt. Her flight suit clung like a second skin. But then the uniform was already as much a part of her as any epidermal layer.

  She pulled back on the stick, glancing up at the mirror to check her passenger. Shannon was awake but slumped in her seat in the tight cockpit, one strand of blond hair sneaking out of her helmet to stick to her pale face.

  No hurling yet. A twinge of respect trickled through Josie’s steady focus, even a bit of sympathy.

  But she did need to keep the reporter busy and disoriented. How better than nonstop acrobatics in a supersonic and nimble airplane? Shannon had insisted on the full-out flying experience. And Josie always delivered one hundred percent.

  Tucking sideways, she slipped through a mountain pass. Through her clear top canopy, she watched the sandy landscape scroll past.

  Josie forced oxygen in and out. Her huffed exhales echoed through the headset Darth Vader style. Near silence swallowed the cockpit, the only sound the rasp and drag of breathing through the oxygen mask since they’d left noise behind with speed.

  As always, she flattened her frustration with the familiar routine of flying. The trainer jet zipped along over a range near Edwards Air Force Base, approximately one hundred miles northeast of Los Angeles. Not much time left in this flight until she landed where she worked in a military detachment at the nearby Palmdale testing facility, also known as Air Force Plant 42. For a test pilot, steely nerves were mandatory, leaving no room for cranky emotions jangling her at a critical second. And during test missions, any second could be critical.

  Okay, so this wasn’t a test and she was pissed.

  That someone like Shannon had been allowed access to Josie’s current test project just proved higher-ups were only paying lip service to endorsing her work. Someone wanted this resurrected project that had once been her mother’s to fail. Damaging press could facilitate their cause.

  And yeah, yeah, she mentally rolled her eyes at her annoying voice of reason. Part of her still resented Shannon from their prep-school days at the Athena Academy for the Advancement of Women. />
  Advancement? Shannon had tried to advance Josie right out the front gates on a trumped-up charge of stealing.

  Good God, as if.

  Her stomach, which held strong against negative Gs, grew downright queasy over the notion of taking so much as a post office pen. But back then, Shannon had convinced everyone Josie was off her rocker, like her washed-up military mama. Who could expect reasonable behavior from a Lockworth lady?

  Anger fired hotter than an afterburner, jangling the singing adrenaline off-key. Her combat boots braced on the rudders. She kept her right hand loose on the stick, her left on the two throttles, flicking up to adjust dials then landing back on the stick. Not a HOTAS—hands on throttle and stick, with all the buttons attached. In the T-38 she had to take her hands off the stick and throttle to work the controls. But for Shannon, she’d give a new spin to the HOTAS—Hands On Tummy and Sickbag.

  She ran the stick fore and aft, gliding the T-38 through the sky in a porpoise-style swim along the rolling mountain range. Push for a hint of a negative G at the top of the sine wave. Pull for the kiss of a positive G at the bottom of sine wave. Push, pull. Push, pull.

  “Uh, Josie?” Shannon’s thready voice echoed over the headset. “Where’s the eject button again?”

  Crap. She’d gone too far, something she never did anymore. She steadied the stick. “Just a little PIO—pilot induced oscillation. My fault, and nothing to worry about. I’ve got it back under control.”