Love is Murder (15 page)

“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.”

“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.