by Vicki Hinze
“Fine. But infiltrate with the tactical team. There’s no logical reason for you to go in again without backup. Brief the team on what assets to protect before going in,” she said, and then added, “I’m giving you forty-eight hours, Amanda. That’s all I can get from General Shaw and Secretary Reynolds. I’m out of favors to call in. After that, we elevate this to a Code Two crisis and take the compound down.”
A Code Two mandated completing the mission by any and all necessary means, and that meant regardless of who was inside the compound—including their own. Including Mark. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And take Kate with you,” Drake said. “She’s the best explosives expert in the business. I want her boots on the ground at the site.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Amanda turned to Joan. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She motioned Amanda aside and dropped her voice so only the two of them could hear. “If it helps, he thought his feelings for you were genuine. There was nothing fake about them.”
Should that make her feel better or worse? “Do you know if he agreed to be a double for Kunz willingly or under duress?”
Joan didn’t meet her gaze. She fidgeted with her pen, clicking it rapidly and watching its point extend and retract. “I haven’t asked that.”
She didn’t want Amanda to kill him, so she’d avoided asking the question she didn’t want answered. “I see.”
Joan sighed. “Amanda, you know what Kunz is like. You know what he’s capable of doing.”
Amanda hadn’t forgotten that he’d sanctioned Paul’s raping Joan in front of Simon and Jeremy. “Tell me you know when Mark’s double inserted.” Sheer force of will kept Amanda’s voice level and her expression serene. Inside, everything twisted and stabbed and she had as much trouble breathing as the time a guard twice her size had fractured four of her ribs in a knock-down, drag-out bust. Then, every indrawn breath forced ragged rib edges into her punctured lung. Now, it stabbed into the ragged edges of her heart. This mattered. She might hate it, but this really mattered. He really mattered. “It’s important to me, Joan.”
She stilled the pen, met Amanda’s gaze openly. “I know, and I did ask. But I can’t give you a date. He inserted on and off since Mark got back from his three-month absence. But it was Mark, the real Mark with you most of the time at the compound. When he was switched out there I don’t know for sure.”
“Why not?” No, this couldn’t be left unanswered. It couldn’t.
“Because that isn’t how he framed his response,” Joan explained. “He said that you noticed the difference between him and Mark immediately.”
Surprise streaked up Amanda’s back. “I noticed?”
Joan put her pen in her lab-coat pocket. “Mark’s double said you noticed something different about him almost immediately.”
“That he smelled different. I thought it was his diet or his soap.”
“That change in scent wasn’t due to diet, it was body chemistry, and that Kunz couldn’t change,” Joan said.
So Mark had been Mark until the night they’d made the escape. In plain sight...it had been Mark in the shower. But she suddenly remembered the hangar and the kiss she’d given Mark after he’d walloped Beefy for her. His scent had been different then, too. It just hadn’t registered in the quickness of the moment. Sometime in those few hours, when Joan had thought Mark was guarded in his cabin, he’d been replaced. Relief washed through Amanda, sudden and sweeping. But fear for Mark’s safety snapped fast at its heels.
“I’m glad you fell for the man and not the facade of him, Amanda.” Joan didn’t smile, but her words were sincere.
“Me, too,” she confessed, confused at having trusted the facade. Confused and angry and used. Violated. She felt all that, but also took solace in knowing that Kunz, who was really responsible, unlike her lousy father, would be held accountable. And the price for what he’d done would be his life.
She should feel guilty or angry toward Mark’s double, too. But he hadn’t known he wasn’t Mark, and neither had she.
Mentally smacking herself for being distracted, she put her priorities in order. “So where is Mark?” she asked Joan.
“So far as his double knows, he’s at the Middle Eastern compound with the rest of the detainees, like Harry said.”
“And Harry is Harry, right?” Amanda needed a pilot.
“Absolutely.”
Colonel Drake had given her forty-eight hours before Special Forces went in to attempt a rescue of the detainees and records retrieval. The only survivors then would be those high-ranking within GRID, if any were found on-site at the time of the raid. But Amanda wasn’t a fool and experience told her what would actually take place. Tactical and Special Forces would do what they could in the way of rescues, captures and evidence gathering, but within minutes of infiltrating, they’d raze and burn the compound. It was in hostile territory; they had no choice but to follow that protocol.
Never had forty-eight hours seemed like such a short period of time. Amanda feared a second to even blink. She didn’t just want to find Mark.
She wanted to find him alive.
“Amanda, time to suit up.” Kate had approached them. “We’re due on the flight line in fifteen minutes.”
Fear widened Joan’s eyes. “I wish you weren’t personally going to the compound. Reese wants you dead, Amanda. You know that.”
“A lot of people want me dead,” she said. And until she saw his lifeless body for herself, that included Thomas Kunz. “I have to go. It’s my job. I’m going to rescue Mark, and the others, and to find out as much as I can on how pervasive Kunz’s twisted project has progressed so we can weed out the doubles before they cripple the government.”
“If Reese doesn’t kill you, Kunz will.”
Joan was worried for Amanda, not being judgmental about her activities. It touched her. Kate and she worried about each other. But an outsider being concerned about her welfare was new and it engaged untapped emotions because it was so totally unexpected.
And it was telling.
What Joan had said proved she didn’t believe Kunz was dead, either. “Yes,” Amanda said softly. “If either Reese or Kunz can, they’ll kill me.”
Joan blinked hard three times, and her chin, while held taut, revealed a telltale quiver. “But you have to do this, anyway.”
“Would you leave Simon there?”
Pondering the question, she hesitated, clearly striving for honesty. When her expression crumbled, it became apparent she had found it. “No.” Worry put back the tension that had been in Joan’s face before her family’s rescue. “I admire your courage, Amanda, and as one you’re trying to protect, I’m grateful to you, but...”
“But?” she prodded.
“But I have too few friends to lose even one.” She clasped Amanda’s hand in both of hers and squeezed hard. “Don’t let them kill you, okay?”
The bonds of friendship enveloped her. First Mark, and now Joan. Friends outside the S.A.S.S. Amanda was hardly a loner anymore, and frankly, she had no idea how to feel about that. It would take a little time to get used to, and a little more time to let her emotions rise and not automatically tamp them. Lifetime habits—good or bad—were hard to break.
Joan’s request also struck a familiar chord. She sounded exactly like Jeremy had when he’d asked Amanda not to let his daddy get dead. “I won’t,” she said, making the same promise to the mother she’d made to the son—and hoping she again lived to keep it.
Chapter Sixteen
Colonel Drake issued the necessary official orders and Amanda, Kate and Harry assembled their covert gear and hitched a ride on a C-5 heading to Ramstein Air Force Base in Landstuhl, Germany. There, they were transferred to a C-130 Hercules attached to the 731st Airlift Squadron at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, that was in theater, participating in a massive training exercise. It flew them to Saudi Arabia.
From Saudi, they were transported on a supply flight to Afghanistan and, there, Harry turne
d over the authorization order and took delivery of an Apache Longbow armed to the teeth to affect an attack in thirty seconds with everything from an M230 that fired six hundred twenty-five rounds a minute to radar-jammers and Hellfire missiles that were loaded under each wing. Harry looked like a kid cut loose in a candy store—exactly the same way Kate looked on taking delivery of C-5 explosives and, as she put it, “a host of other incidentals.”
Amanda wasn’t an explosives expert or a bomb-squad specialist, but she knew enough to know Kate’s “incidentals” could flatten a small country in a matter of hours. As team commander, Amanda received Intel update and reconnaissance briefings from the tactical team leader, Lieutenant Douglas.
Amanda’s team had slept as much as possible on the planes. It was nearly 9:00 p.m. locally by the time they had gathered all they needed to carry out the mission and rendezvoused on the flight line, ready to board the Apache. Tactical would follow in the team’s own transportation, which also gave both teams access to a secondary means of egress to extricate, if need for it arose.
In the distance, the headlights of a bouncing jeep spread light across the rock-strewn ground and it became apparent the vehicle was heading for the Apache. Kate, Harry and Amanda went on alert. “Friend or foe?” Kate asked.
Harry shook his head, backed toward the aircraft. “No idea.”
Amanda and Kate took a defensive stance, armed with AK-47s. Harry got into the chopper and fired it up. The props thumped and plopped in the night air, stirring up a breeze that carried a fair amount of dust.
The jeep stopped, and a lean colonel with a sour disposition etched into his face crawled out. “Stand down, Captain West.” He looked at Amanda.
Amanda pointed the nose of her weapon to the ground, but didn’t alter her stance. Anyone can put on a uniform. Mark’s words came back to her.
“I’m Colonel Grant, theater Intel commander.” He stretched out a ham-fist to shake Amanda’s hand. “I got some new recon reports on the compound. I thought it best to keep your presence low-key. Only the tactical team and I know why you’re here.”
That explained the strange looks and unfriendly attitudes they had encountered from the moment they set foot on the ground. She’d put it all down to the wicked desert heat. Instead, it was resentment because they hadn’t been told who Amanda’s team was but they viewed it as encroaching on their turf. “Leaks?”
“Like sieves.” He frowned. “We’re heavily dependent on locals for a lot here. Outside forces have different perspectives on what is good and right and what is treason. At times, that makes for challenging complications.”
That was a nice way of saying the place was crawling with spies. Amanda nodded and kept her mouth shut.
“I can’t even guarantee my secure quarters are secure.” He shoved a brown envelope of papers into her hand. “Here’s everything we’ve gotten on the GRID compound since your briefing with Lieutenant Douglas.”
“Thanks.” Amanda took the envelope, passed it to Kate and gave her a nod. She would pick up on the unspoken order to get in the chopper with Harry and review the contents so she could debrief Amanda ASAP.
Dawn waited on no man or woman or mission. With their technology and equipment, they owned the night, but the night would soon be giving way to day. Kunz and Reese were professionals with a lot to lose; Amanda couldn’t afford to forfeit any advantage.
“Colonel Sally Drake instructed me to put that info into your hands myself. STAT,” he said with a slight sneer. He pulled a cigar from his pocket and lighted it, blowing a puff of smoke downwind. “I can’t say I’m overly fond of being issued orders by an officer of equal rank—especially when she didn’t try a friendly asking first. She came out of the gate making demands, which really ticked me off. The woman isn’t much on diplomacy, is she?”
Amanda looked right at him and said nothing.
When it became evident to him that she wasn’t about to touch that lightning rod, he went on. “Whatever.” He let out a huff and exhaled a plume of smoke with it. “Considering what we found at that compound, I’m willing to make an exception and overlook it. But next time you talk with her, tell her not to issue me orders again or there’ll be trouble.”
“Yes, sir.” She’d never deliver that message, and they both knew it. “What did you find at the compound, Colonel?” Amanda watched his expression carefully. He had a macho demeanor and he was a big guy with an “I own the world” attitude. He wouldn’t rattle easily.
“It’s in the report.” He bit down on the cigar and squinted to avoid a stream of spiraling smoke from getting into his eyes. “Captain, I hope you two are as good as Drake says you are, because otherwise you’re going to get killed.”
Amanda stiffened. “We’re professionals, sir.”
“You better be. We’re depending on it.” He turned toward the jeep. “Good luck, Captain.”
She saluted when she really wanted to knock him on his pompous butt. “Thank you, sir.” Because she couldn’t resist a dig at him, she added, “We appreciate the assist.”
Sufficiently ticked that the Pentagon had sent her and Kate in to execute the mission rather than assigning it to him and his troops, he glared at her, his hackles raised to the rafters at the chain of command. That soothed her temper. She smiled and watched him climb back into the jeep and speed away.
Amanda got into the copilot’s seat in the chopper. “Kate?” She strapped in and glanced back at her. “What’ve we got?” Kate looked up and there was no missing the fear in her face. “A freaking fortress.”
Harry waited on the chopper, positioned for a rapid extraction. The compound region was rocky, mountainous and steep-ledged, but the compound itself sat dead center in a barren, flat section of ground that had been leveled and scraped clear in what Amanda estimated to be a radius of about three kilometers. Nothing and no one was going to approach from any direction undetected.
Amanda and Kate lay facedown in the gritty dirt, decked out in covert gear, their faces smudged black and backpacks loaded down with an assortment of tools and arms. Looking through her night vision distance gear, Amanda visually swept the compound proper from her vantage point about a hundred yards out. Aside from a couple boulders, only three single-story buildings slightly larger than outhouses were visible, which meant the majority of the compound complex was built underground. Not good news.
The perimeter fence was charged, topped with razor wire, and Colonel Grant’s reconnaissance team had detected and mapped dozens of land mines outside the fence. They hadn’t breached the perimeter, which could mean it was mined, as well. The tactical team recommended following mined operating procedures because it deemed it improbable that Kunz wouldn’t have mined the area. Three, no—she spotted another—four GRID patrol units prowled the perimeter fence. “What do you think, Kate?” she whispered into her lip mike. “Can we get in?”
“Sure.” Kate’s transmission sounded crystal clear in Amanda’s earpiece. “We’ve got enough C-5 to take the top off the mountain. Getting in is no problem.” Kate looked away from the compound to Amanda. “It’s getting out that’s going to be a bear.”
“Let’s get to it, then. Level the playing field.” Amanda crept on her stomach up to the fence. Keeping an eye out for the patrol teams they’d spotted, she examined the system.
“You could short-circuit it,” Kate suggested.
“No, I don’t want them to notice anything unusual. That’ll give us more time to avoid any mines.” Pulling out her tool bag, Amanda created a loop in an arch wide enough to slip through, then reached for her wire cutters.
“I’ve got it.” Kate cut the wire. “There’s a trip wire about four inches below the ground.”
“Is there enough play to bring it up out of the dirt so it can be seen?”
Kate checked. “Yeah.”
“Do it.” Amanda put her tools away. By the time she finished, Kate had the trip wire aboveground and flagged. “Ready?”
Kate nodded.
They moved into the outer perimeter and within minutes spotted the first of the four patrols coming their way. “They’re breaking the pattern.” Amanda’s adrenaline spiked. “Take cover.”
They dropped to the ground, snaked to a large boulder and slid behind it. The three-man patrol unit came closer. Then closer.
“We’re going to have to take them,” Kate whispered. “They’re going to see the hole in the fence.”
“No guns unless we have to use them.” Amanda dropped her extra gear, pulled out her knife, glanced over and saw Kate had done the same. “Go left. I’ll take the two on the right.”
“Do you need assistance?”
Amanda recognized Lieutenant Douglas’s voice. The tactical team riding shotgun was in place. “Not at this time, but thanks.”
Kate interceded, ending the interruption and getting back to business. “We’re asking questions?”
“Not a viable option.” Amanda didn’t even consider it. “Take them out.”
“You sure you don’t need backup?”
Douglas again. “Not yet, thanks.” Amanda’s voice was a little more firm, carrying a warning for Douglas to pace the sidelines but stay out of the way. She barely restrained herself from sniping at him.
Kate didn’t bother. “Douglas, stay off the freaking channel unless you’re under fire and need help. You’re cramping our style.”
“Fine, Wonder Woman. Handle it, then.”
“That’s ‘Wonder Woman, ma’am,’ Lieutenant.” Kate pulled rank on him.
“Ma’am, geez.”
Amanda smiled. Kate was smitten and being her typical ornery self. “Flirt later, Kate.”
“But he’s cute—for a tactical guy, anyway.”
Amanda imagined the tactical team sputtering and giving Douglas a hard time. Why was it when danger ran highest, operatives teased and joked and ribbed each other most? Stress reliever? Because death was so close and taking joy in life pushed the fear away?