by Vicki Hinze
“The White House.” Colonel Drake sat back in her chair. GRID, Customs, dirty bombs and fireworks. “Oh, God.” They’d just identified the target.
Darcy nodded. The target deduction was logical and terrifying. “GRID intends to use the fireworks display as a front to bomb the White House and spectators.”
Colonel Drake looked from Darcy to Ben, then back to Darcy. “The president will never cancel the fireworks. On Independence Day? Never. It’d be perceived as giving in to terrorists.”
“Unlikely,” Ben said, sharing his confusion. “I don’t know what to do about this. If Wexler or Santana figure out I know anything, I’ll be murdered and buried in the Mexican desert. No doubt about that. I could be wrong, but it seemed to me GRID already has the attack set up inside the U.S. Santana brought in an eighteen-wheeler truck pulling double trailers. Wexler handled the inspection himself and cleared it and Santana for entry.”
“Do you know what was in the load?”
“No, I don’t. But whatever it was, it went somewhere within our borders.”
“Do you know where?”
He grimaced. “The destination block was blank on the computer, and the hard copy was smeared. Not readable.”
“Intentional?”
“Of course,” he said, answering the colonel. “Just so I’m clear, anything I can do to help stop them, I will.”
“Understood,” Colonel Drake said. “And appreciated.”
Darcy liked him. This Agent Ben Kelly. He was gorgeous: about thirty with black hair and cool gray eyes, a little remote but not cold. His passion and outrage simmered just below the surface; she sensed it as clearly as she saw the thin scar slashing across his right cheek whiten. It took a lot of personal control to hold in that much outrage and appear calm and collected. She respected that discipline. And, these days, she envied it. “Where does Station Chief Wexler think you are right now?”
He slid Darcy a sidelong look. “Charter fishing a hundred miles out in the Gulf of Mexico—which is where I would be if I hadn’t overheard that conversation.”
“You’re sure he has no idea you aren’t there?” Colonel Drake asked.
“Positive,” Ben said. “Captain Jason Quade owns the Twilight’s Last Gleam. He’s a good friend. If anyone calls for me, he’ll handle it without letting them know I’m not on board.” Ben lifted a hand. “Don’t worry. Jason has no idea why I’m not there, only that no one else must know it.”
“And that was enough for him?” Darcy asked. It wouldn’t be for most people. They’d want some sort of explanation.
“More than enough.”
Ben didn’t expound, and Darcy didn’t feel the need to push. He was being straight with her. She had a sixth sense at reading people—another gift since the fire, like her total recall. “Good friend.”
“Yes, he is.” Ben stared at her a long second, clearly seeing far deeper than she would choose to let him or anyone else see, and then he added, “We served together in Iraq before I left the military. You know what combat is like, Darcy. You learn quick who to trust with your life and who not to trust to avoid losing it.”
Far too perceptive. She didn’t respond or look away, but holding his gaze took everything she had. The muscles in her chest were in revolt, and her backbone tingled from base to nape. Why did he affect her like this?
It was...odd—and certainly unwelcome. She fought the urge to shake off a warm shiver.
“So, your cover is intact. Excellent.” Colonel Drake sized him up and apparently approved of all she saw in him. “Ben, we have reason to believe that GRID is going to use radioactive waste in the bombs they detonate. We think there could be more than one target—provided GRID successfully gets the explosives into the country. You can see that our concerns aren’t topical or general interest. They’re specific. We fully expect an attack, perhaps several of them, and it’s the S.A.S.S.’s job to stop them.”
“Gathered that, Colonel.” The reason Shaw had sent him here became crystal clear. “At your service.”
She looked him right in the eyes. “That means, we dig for information and, unfortunately, that includes information about you.” She paused to give him time to absorb the implications, and then continued. “General Shaw has vouched for you or you wouldn’t be here. To be perfectly blunt, that’s highly unusual. Why did he do it?”
“You’d have to ask him that question, ma’am. I’m no mind reader.”
“Fair enough. I’ll settle for your opinion,” the colonel persisted. “I’m not looking for an answer set in stone, just one that explains why you think he might have put his reputation on the line for you.” She propped a hand on the table and leaned closer. “Before you answer, I’ll tell you that the consequences of his being wrong could get a lot of people killed. People under my command.” Warning sharpened her tone. “I’m very protective of my people, Ben.”
“Every commander worth their salt should be protective of her people, so that’s good to hear.” Ben hiked his chin. “You have nothing to fear from me, Colonel. Captain Quade and I served under General Shaw in Iraq. He’s familiar with me and my motives.” Ben hesitated a second, glanced down then back at the colonel. “I know S.A.S.S.’s mission, Colonel Drake. At one time, I was invited by the general to join the unit. I declined.”
“Why?” Darcy asked, surprised by this. She’d seen nothing anywhere in the history of S.A.S.S. to back up what Ben was saying.
“Because I was really tired of getting shot at,” he said. “That wasn’t the main reason, however. I got married.” He shrugged. “S.A.S.S. assignments might be given to the best and brightest, but its missions are hard on marriages. I didn’t want mine to be another statistic.”
A strange look crossed Colonel Drake’s face. Darcy understood it. Her husband had been killed by terrorists. They used him, trying to find out what she knew. They failed, but he died, and she lived every day since, knowing that if he’d married anyone else, he’d be alive.
The colonel looked at Ben’s left hand. “So, you got married and ended up as a statistic anyway,” she said more than asked. “What happened?”
Surprise lighted in his eyes.
Darcy explained how the colonel had known he was no longer married. “No wedding ring. No telltale pale skin rimming your finger. You’ve been without her for a while.” She knitted her eyebrows. “I’m sorry—about the statistics.”
“Rainbows and rain,” he said. “Every life gets both.”
“So why did your marriage end, Ben?” Colonel Drake pushed.
He frowned, clearly uncomfortable with the intense focus on his failed marriage, and clearly troubled because it had failed. “Diane and I divorced two years ago. I have this quirk. I like my women sober.” He shrugged and blew out a breath. “Simply put, she liked tequila more than me.”
“You make it sound simple, but I know it wasn’t,” Darcy said softly. Her instincts screamed it.
He looked her in the eye. “Nothing about it was simple. Being married to an alcoholic was three years, three months and four days of misery.”
“I’m sure it was, Ben.” Colonel Drake’s tone softened, signaling she had ended this line of questioning. “On your own merits and General Shaw’s recommendation, I’m going to trust you. Because you came to us with this, I feel that trust is well placed. Don’t disappoint me.”
“If I intended to do that, ma’am, I’d just have stayed home. I live here, too, and I’m not going to stand by and watch GRID or any other terrorist group blow up our people. Not without trying to stop them.”
“I’m grateful for that because I do need your help.” She paused and swung her gaze to Darcy. “And your help.”
“Of course, Colonel.” Odd that she would ask. Darcy participated on all missions in an intelligence gathering and disseminating capacity.
“I want the two of you to work together on this mission.”
Ben nodded. “Whatever I can do.”
More and more odd. Darcy swiped her hair back from her che
ek. Why did she have a weird feeling something was different about this mission? “Positively, Colonel,” Darcy said.
“Excellent.” Colonel Drake stiffened. “Darcy, I’m going to insert you as a customs agent in Los Casas.”
“What?” Darcy nearly fell out of her chair. Shock shook her to her toes and she broke into a cold sweat. “But, Colonel!”
“What’s the problem?” Ben asked, obviously thinking her objection was to working with him.
Darcy wanted to reassure him, but her throat muscles locked up; she couldn’t talk. She moved her mouth but couldn’t utter a single sound.
Colonel Drake ignored him, stared at Darcy. Her voice was firm but not without compassion. “I know working this mission won’t come easy to you, Darcy, but it’s essential. Duty first, right?”
Clammy. She was slick with sweat and clammy. Her stomach roiled. God, please don’t let me throw up! “But—but—”
Ben stood up. “Look, if she objects to working with me so much it’s making her green around the gills, just forget it. You guys handle this without me.” He pushed back and his chair’s legs scraped the floor. “I’m going fishing.”
“Hold it, Ben.” Colonel Drake stood up, poured water over a tissue and passed it to Darcy. “This has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with Darcy.”
“I’m sorry, Ben.” Darcy finally found her voice. She dabbed at her face and throat with the wet cloth. “It’s me. Not you. It’s all me.”
Frowning, he turned a hard glare on Darcy, but clearly recognizing her upset, his expression quickly softened and he sat back down. “Darcy?” He pulled his chair closer to the table, and gentled his voice. “What’s wrong?”
“You explain,” Colonel Drake said, looking in Darcy’s direction. “I’ll have Amanda cut your orders.” Colonel Drake stood up. “Ben, who’s the nosiest agent at Los Casas?”
“Fred Burns.”
“Fine. We’ll put him out of commission.”
Shock elevated Ben’s pitch. “You’re going to kill him because he’s nosey?”
“Of course not.” She sniffed, affronted. “I’m sending him out on sick leave.”
“But he’s not sick.”
“He will be.” Colonel Drake left the conference room and shut the door.
Gape-jawed, Ben swerved a worried look to Darcy. “She’s not going to hurt him, is she?”
“Not really. He won’t feel well for a bit, but he’ll be fine.” Darcy swept her hair back from her face. Her forehead was soaked. “I can’t do this, Ben.”
“Why not?”
He hadn’t argued with her. Probably saw little sense in it. Her skin must still have a green-to-the-gills cast to it. “I sustained an injury on a mission five years ago. I have residual challenges.” She looked away. “They’re...substantial.”
“Talk straight to me, Darcy. I deserve it.”
He did. His life would be on the line, and he’d be relying on her for backup as much as she’d be relying on him. “I was trapped in a fire and the roof caved in on me. I got a severe head injury.”
“I’m sorry.” He looked confused. “But what has that got to do with this?”
She’d have to give him more sordid details. God, but she hated recalling them. Reliving them. Seeing Merry’s face in that fire. Her muscles clenched. She would not talk about Merry. With all of this going on, she just couldn’t take the added stress. She just couldn’t. I’m so sorry, Merry.
“Darcy?” he prodded. “Talk to me.”
She turned her attention to him and answered. “I stayed in a coma twenty-one days, Ben. When I woke up, I was...different.”
“Different?” Perplexed, he furrowed his brow. “How?”
She lowered her gaze to the conference table—smooth and slick and gleaming light. It didn’t look back or judge or see a person’s flaws. Its reflections were soft, and Darcy needed the forgiveness in those blurred edges. “I sense things now,” she said in a whisper. “And I have total recall.”
He looked up at the white ceiling, at the bald and bright fluorescent lights. “Are you an operative, Darcy?”
“I’m the senior intelligence analyst for the S.A.S.S.”
“That’s a cagey response.” He looked back at her, calm and steady.
“Not intentionally,” she confessed.
He grunted his opinion on that and thumbed the edge of the table. “You said you were on a mission then. Five years ago, were you a covert operative?”
No answer. She was, but she couldn’t admit it then, and she couldn’t admit it now. To do so was paramount to treason. And if he’d been offered a S.A.S.S. assignment, he darn well knew it, which meant this was an ethics test.
“I’m getting it. What you’re not saying is that since the fire, you can’t do field work anymore?”
She shifted on her seat and debated on what she could say that was both true and ethical. This was one of those times when combining the two proved difficult. “I mentioned residual challenges. Let me share a few examples,” she said. “I can’t stand to be in a room with more than two people for longer than a few minutes. Going to the grocery store ignites sheer terror. Forget dropping by a club or seeing a movie—and visiting a shopping mall?” She rolled her gaze. “They’re torture chambers.” She steadied herself and released a little held breath. “I can’t even go to a restaurant for dinner, Ben.”
“You’re afraid of crowds?”
“No, no, no. I’m not afraid,” she said impatiently. “You don’t get it.”
“I’m trying, Darcy.” He swiveled his chair and propped his arm on the table. “This is new to me, okay? Cut me a little slack.”
She stood up, leaned across the table toward him. “I have total recall, Ben. That means I process everything I see. I hear everything. I smell everything. Everything, Ben.”
He processed that and blinked. “In a group, you’re bombarded by everyone’s input, and it makes you a little nuts, right?”
“A lot nuts.” She sat back down. “Totally nuts.” Darcy wrung her hands. “I can’t function. The sensory overload paralyzes me. My muscles go into such deep spasms that I lose control of them. I’m helpless.” Not to mention humiliated. “Sometimes the attacks are so severe that I can’t see—total whiteout—” she swiped the air with her hand “—or even stand up on my own.”
“You just freeze up?”
She nodded. “Everything’s in spasm.” Her throat went thick. “It’s painful.”
He looked up at her, his face changing from all hard angles and planes to ones softened by compassion. “I’m sorry you have to go through that.”
“Me, too.” The understatement of the decade, that.
The skin between his eyebrows wrinkled. “You isolate yourself most of the time, then.”
Was he being critical, or just curious? She studied him and decided he wasn’t being either, just trying to get an accurate understanding. “It’s essential for me to stay on an even keel, so I rarely interact with other people.” She let out a humorless laugh. “Actually, I’ve spent more time with you today than I have anyone else in months. That includes the people I work with here.”
That revelation surprised him. “But you’re okay.”
It surprised her, too. “Yeah, I am.”
“If you need a break, just tell me.” He hooked a thumb toward the door. “I can step out and give you some time.”
“Thank you, Ben.” She let him see her appreciation. “I’m fine.”
He sat completely still for a long moment that stretched between them. Then he did the oddest thing—a thing she couldn’t have expected or appreciated more.
He reached over and clasped her hand. “I really am sorry this happened to you, Darcy. Living isolated... well, it’s got to be hard.”
A rush of heat swept up her arm from her fingertips to her elbow. He had great hands. Steady and large but not overbearing. Gentle, but definitely a man’s solid touch. “My own company isn’t that bad, but I’d be lying i
f I didn’t say I get tired of it.” Why was she telling him this?
“I’m sure you do. Who wouldn’t?” He looked into her eyes and let her see inside him. “I spend a lot of time alone, too. Los Casas is pretty isolated. But when I get tired of hearing myself think, I can go to Mick’s bar for a beer.”
“Lucky you.”
“Yeah.” He searched her face. “I didn’t realize it until today, but you’re right. Lucky me.”
He let go of her hand and straightened his back. “Well, under the circumstances, I guess we’re done.” He started to push off the table to stand up.
“Are you leaving?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Wait.” A flutter of panic lighted in her stomach. “You can’t go.”
“Excuse me?”
“We have to work together to stop the attack.”
He looked baffled. “Darcy, we can’t work together. You just told me all the reasons you can’t do this mission.” He sobered. “Frankly, I can’t figure why your commander even suggested it to you. Doesn’t she know about your residuals?”
“Of course, she knows. It’s not as if I could hide them.”
“Then we’re done.”
“But, Ben—”
“But, what?” He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Just talking about taking this mission on has you close to fainting and throwing up.”
“I know, but, Ben, the consequences...” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I have to do this or people are going to die.”
“Darcy, listen to me, okay?” He softened his voice. “Your courage is inspiring and your intentions are admirable. More than admirable, considering the personal costs of even trying this. But realistically, how are you going to handle being at a busy border crossing? Los Casas isn’t a little place with just a few tricklers strolling over every now and then. It’s remote, yes, but it’s also the third most active border-crossing in the State of Texas. It’s loud, noisy, and everywhere you go, there’s traffic and horns and people talking and kids running.”
“Oh, no.” Darcy blinked hard against the spots blinding her eyes, feeling the blood drain from her head. “I really can’t do it, Ben.” Anguish lighted in her eyes, tugged at the corners of her mouth. “I wish I could—I know the consequences of not stopping the attack—but...but I just can’t do it.”
