“Vaguely.” The file had large gaps in it. Parts of Trinity’s service record, part of the medical evaluations and some college transcripts remained. Dredging through public records turned up nothing but blank walls. Anne Hampton had been scrubbed from existence, and the only pieces of her left were in the slim manila folder that held a black-and-white picture of a smiling, much younger Trinity in a Navy medic’s uniform, her hair much darker and the shadows of teenage acne still lingering on her cheeks.
There was no trace of teenage spots left on her now, and whatever memories she had, the second induction had scrambled them, possibly irretrievably. Even the nightmares were gone.
“Do you need to go inside?” Cal, very gently.
He thought it was too dangerous for her to be here. They’ll look for you, you’re high value. We should go back over the border.
This was the only residential address in the file. Anne Hampton had lived here, once.
They had a six-hour window. There were plane tickets waiting, fresh passports, and in a few days they would rendezvous with Reese and Holly again. Don’t make us come get you, Holly had said, cheerfully enough, but Trinity had caught a glimpse of Reese’s expression and thought it very likely he agreed in ways Holly didn’t understand.
Candless was a civilian, after all.
“Trin?”
Trinity bit gently at her lower lip. It was no use. There was nothing for her here.
If she said yes, though, Cal would be her backup. He wouldn’t like it; he thought it was too goddamn dangerous, but he wouldn’t let her do it alone.
There was, she reflected, a comfort to be found in that. Funny, she had never thought of herself as lonely, but now she recognized the...
The feeling. Strange how you could only see its dimensions when it was no longer present. That morning, Cal had given her a pack of origami paper, with a diffident smile.
She scanned the street one more time, searching for anything that looked even remotely familiar, hoping to jog a piece of the puzzle loose. Chopin ended, and Cal touched the volume knob.
“Welcome to NPR’s evening report. This is Casey Guilstrom. Washington, DC, was rocked this afternoon by the release of a Guardian story detailing allegations of biological weaponry research and genetic manipulation by US defense contractors, as well as assassinations and covert activities on both foreign and domestic soil. The project, code-named Gibraltar, was incredibly secret, and the anonymous whistleblower apparently sent documents to every major news outlet.”
“Holy...” Cal turned it up again. Trinity’s skin roughened with gooseflesh.
“Fray,” she breathed. “She did it.”
“Many allegations center around one Arthur Hampton, a reclusive billionaire on the board of several defense companies in the DC area—”
“Hampton?” Cal’s mouth shaped the word. His hand found Trinity’s, his fingers slipping through hers. She squeezed, every inch of her gone cold.
A smoke-roughened voice, scrambled through filters. Arthur Hampton. Was she truly familiar with the name, or was she simply free-associating? Not enough data. Still, it sounded so familiar. She thought of forests, of the sun in her eyes, a slope under her feet as she hiked upward...
It was gone.
The announcer kept going. The Pentagon had no comment yet. Several other media outlets hinted at further releases. They were all scrambling for a piece of the story now. The confusion would be massive, the damage to Division incalculable.
Trinity was suddenly aware of sweat on her skin, her breathing coming harsh and short, and Cal’s tension.
“Trin? Honey?”
He had her hand in both of his.
“We have to get out of here,” she said.
“There could be something in there. Something that reminds you.”
“We need to leave.” She squeezed his hand, suddenly, as hard as she could. “We’ll go to the airport early.”
He nodded, but didn’t move. “Are you sure? This may be the only chance we get. If you’ve got to go in there, we should do it now.”
She hesitated for the barest of moments. “I’m sure. Let’s go.” I almost lost you once.
Was that why? Or was it fear, again, of other revelations lurking in her battered memory?
Did it matter?
She finally had an answer for that particular question. Not if I don’t want it to.
Cal let go of her hand, but only to start the Chevy sedan and put it into gear. The windshield wipers flicked, the headlights cut a swath through desultory dusky rain. He took her hand again as he pulled out, and they passed the row of brownstones slowly, Trinity peering past Cal’s profile at its blank face, windows glowing with dangerous golden light.
No, she decided. I don’t want to go in there at all. Something unpleasant happened there, and I don’t need to know.
Instead, she reached with her free hand to take the cranes from the dash. They would go in her backpack. “Cal?”
“Hmm?” He hit the blinker, nosing out onto a slightly more traveled avenue. “Change your mind?”
“No. I just... Thank you.” The words almost got lodged in her throat. The storm of emotional noise would pass. She had an anchor, and his fingers were warm and forgiving against hers. “You’re...good backup.” It sounded unhelpful. Awkward. There was no precise word for this.
Or maybe there was one, but she didn’t have the courage to say it.
“Anytime, honey.” His tone had roughened, too. “We’re in this together.”
Relief poured through her. He understood.
By the time they hit the freeway, the music had returned. Saint-Saëns’s Third Symphony began threading through the hissing of tires on wet pavement, and the city’s lights were stars. Trinity squeezed Cal’s hand again, but very gently, and she found she didn’t need to analyze his returning pressure. In the end, she could be whoever she needed to be, and she suspected he would still understand.
A helicopter looped overhead, aiming for the residential section they’d just exited. Trinity waited until it was past, and relaxed into the seat.
The gray sedan vanished into the gathering dark.
* * *
He stubbed out the cigarette, a little more roughly than was quite necessary. “We can regroup. The investors are there, the technology’s there—”
“For God’s sake, Art. Stop.” The man behind the desk had a brick-red, forgettable face above a bemedaled uniform. Policy wonks and certain military grades would perhaps recognize him, perhaps not.
True power avoided the limelight.
“Sorry.” Arthur Hampton settled back into his comfortable leather chair. “It just burns.”
“Every other two-bit junta out there now knows it’s possible. Someone will figure it out before long. Who knows, maybe this leak stole the process, too, and is selling it to the highest bidder? This is a goddamn catastrophe. Someone’s got to hang for it.”
“There’s Caldwell.” The idiot had stolen a vial of weaponized virus, meant to wipe out a loose end. He’d also sent one of their civilian scientists on rendition, and the poor egghead hadn’t survived his first interrogations. Bronson’s stupidity must have rubbed off on the younger man. “And a list of the usual suspects.”
“I don’t want my neck in the noose.” The general tented his thick fingers, staring at Hampton with an unsettling, piercing expression. “And you’re square in the middle of it. Why the hell did you come here? They’re going to ask me questions, Art, and I don’t much like the idea that I’ll be busted down a few stripes or thrown to the lions over this.”
“You know they won’t, Stilwell. It will blow over.”
“This is not blowing-over material.”
“What precisely are you saying? That I’m not welcome here anymore? That I’m un
der suspicion? This changes nothing. Our backers are still in. We still have an edge on technique.” Even though Beta had vanished, too. Probably rotting in a ditch somewhere, but you could never be too sure. Aleph in Russia, too. “We’re very close.”
“I don’t care how close you are. It ends here, Arthur. For God’s sake, look around you!”
Arthur sighed. He’d always known Stilwell had a regrettable lack of imagination, but he hadn’t expected outright cowardice. “Very well, then.” He reached for his briefcase, clicked it open and glanced at the man. Still sitting behind his desk, fine. “Thomas, I really hate to do this.”
“I can’t save you from this one. Even if we did go to school together.”
“I don’t need saving.” Arthur snapped the briefcase closed, set it aside and leveled the gun, a too-long silhouette because of its silencer. “I never did. You, on the other hand...”
Six and a half minutes later, Arthur Hampton stepped out of Stilwell’s home office. The general lived alone—his wife had succumbed to heart disease four years ago, and his children were well past college age and living on the West Coast. It was Art’s opinion that they wanted to be as far away from their martinet of a father as possible, and he didn’t blame them.
Thinking of children and the West Coast was...painful. But sacrifices had to be made in any cause. He understood that, probably better than any of the backers.
Stability, security and freedom were never free.
He let himself out into deep darkness. The cleaners would be by in approximately twenty minutes. He could have left this disagreeable task completely to them, but good old Tommy deserved more. Some things needed to be personally attended to; he’d learned that the hard way.
In the morning, news would break that General Thomas Stilwell had taken his own life, and the implication that he had been responsible for Project Gibraltar would spread. All the appropriate cleanup strategies were already in place.
There were other loose ends. The Gemini mutation was difficult to eradicate, but in every cloud there was a silver lining. That very difficulty made the next stage of the project much more exciting. In the labs, they were working away, creating and testing, smoothing and refining. The next generation of agents would be that much closer to perfect.
His black BMW barely purred when he roused the engine, and he drove between sleeping houses carefully, obeying every traffic law. It wasn’t that he feared being pulled over; it was just his inherent neatness.
Once the agents were perfected, all the loose ends could be tidied up.
Even...even her.
“Sacrifice,” Arthur Hampton rasped to the silence inside his car. “Security. Discipline. Control.”
The last word, he mused, was the most important.
Control put away the unpleasant thoughts and turned his attention to other things—the latest round of results from the new viral looping. They were calling this new iteration Psyche. Martigan, the brilliant crackpot that he was, was almost frothing at the mouth with impatience. The human trials were put on hold for a little while, until this all blew over.
Yes, the Psyche results were very exciting. It was much better, as his mother had always said, to focus on the positive...
* * * * *
If you loved this novel, don’t miss the previous suspenseful title by Lilith Saintcrow:
AGENT ZERO
Available now from
Harlequin Romantic Suspense!
Keep reading for an excerpt from
RISK IT ALL by Anna Perrin.
We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Romantic Suspense title.
You want sparks to fly! Harlequin Romantic Suspense stories deliver, with strong and adventurous women, brave and powerful men and the life-and-death situations that bring them together.
Enjoy four new stories from Harlequin Romantic Suspense every month!
Connect with us on Harlequin.com for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!
Harlequin.com/newsletters
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks
HarlequinBlog.com
Risk It All
by Anna Perrin
Chapter 1
FBI special agent Jared Nash shut off the industrial-grade mower he’d been using on the grounds surrounding the Sidorov mansion. Sweat trickled under his sunglasses while he scanned the sprawling front yard, the dense hedges bordering the property and the quiet residential street beyond. Nothing. No overt signs of trouble at all.
He blew out a frustrated breath. Two and a half long days of staking out former Russian mob boss Dmitry Sidorov in Langeville, a small city east of Columbus, had worn on his nerves. A year ago Sidorov had left Brighton Beach, the Russian mob’s unofficial headquarters in the United States, after he had barely survived a spray of bullets. Since then he’d been living a quiet life, no longer involved in anything criminal, at least according to the organized-crime branch of the FBI. But Jared’s younger brother, Steve, had mentioned Sidorov despised him right before he had gone missing. Steve’s connection to the former mobster was a mystery and the only lead Jared had, so he’d gone undercover to check out Sidorov.
He hefted the mower and dumped it into the open bed of the battered Green Thumb pickup. The truck and equipment, as well as the T-shirt he wore, were courtesy of a local gardening company whose grizzled veteran owner had been more than willing to cooperate, no questions asked, with a federal agent.
Parked next to the truck, a silver Lexus sedan gleamed in the midday sun. Jared had already taken a good look at its briefcase-carrying owner and memorized the license plate so he could check up on Sidorov’s visitor later.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the hired muscle, Sergei Latschenko, pacing the length of the tennis courts. He had spoken to the guy several times and learned Latschenko had recently quit smoking. Nicotine withdrawal was making him twitchy—and potentially dangerous, because of the Glock 19 semiautomatic pistol he carried inside his leather jacket.
Steering clear of him, Jared retrieved hedge trimmers and rawhide gloves from the truck. The four-acre estate, with its exotic flower gardens and expansive lawns, required a lot of upkeep. His calves and back still ached from hours spent yesterday digging yet another freaking garden and transplanting a dozen hydrangea plants. The lawn-maintenance-worker gig meant he was free to roam the property, but it hadn’t allowed him access to the mansion, which was a serious problem. If he couldn’t wrangle his way inside, how could he gain more intel on Sidorov?
He’d spent a wakeful night, considering and rejecting scenarios to gain entry to the place. With Latschenko and his gun patrolling the grounds, it was too risky to head inside uninvited. The occupants of the house included Sidorov, his twenty-two-year-old daughter and his housekeeper. The latter he’d met briefly, and he’d noticed her tentative smile and kind eyes. Instinctively, he knew she would be his way in if he could gain her trust.
Early this morning, he’d seen her struggling to carry a huge terra-cotta pot from the shed, so he’d stopped unloading bags of soil from his truck and gone to help. She’d immediately taken pity on his hot, sweaty self and waved him into the mudroom, where she’d handed him a cold can of cola from the extra fridge located there. When the phone in the kitchen had rung, she’d gone off to answer it, her slippers swishing on the tile floor. He’d taken the opportunity to steal into the main-floor office and install a bug. He’d been sorely tempted to flip through the file folders on Sidorov’s desk, but decided that was pushing his luck.
Upon her return to the mudroom, the housekeeper had offered him a taste of her Russian cooking after his chores were done. The timing was perfect because he’d overheard Sidorov telling Latschenko they had a meeting across town in the afternoon. After he’d sampled the housekeeper’s
food, he’d find a way to remain inside, check out the contents of those folders and search the house.
He walked to the perimeter of the property and began trimming a long row of hedges. A few minutes later, his sense of unease returned. He stopped and looked back at the house. In the distance, a shadow moved under Sidorov’s office window. Was it a shrub shifting in the breeze or the trouble his instincts had alerted him to?
Striding across the grass, he wished he was carrying his gun instead of hedge trimmers.
* * *
Brooke Rogers had no qualms about peering into strangers’ windows, but she usually got paid to do so. Today was a freebie for her sister.
Thirty minutes after their phone conversation, Savannah’s words still rang in her ears. “Trevor is cheating on me, Brooke.”
“What? No way,” she’d answered, her gaze skimming the final sentences of the document on her laptop, unconcerned by her sister’s pronouncement. Savannah, affectionately called Chicken Little by family and friends, was a pessimist who predicted dire outcomes no matter how innocuous the circumstances.
“It’s true. Trevor doesn’t love me anymore.”
“What makes you think that?” Brooke had stifled a yawn as she’d gazed longingly at the stairs that separated her main-floor work space from the second-floor living quarters of the house she rented. She’d pulled an all-nighter and had promised herself a well-deserved nap as soon as she had emailed this report to her client.
“He’s been out late three nights this week, supposedly working, but I’m sure he’s being unfaithful. He’ll never admit to it, so I need you to get me proof—photographic proof—to throw in his lying face.”
Brooke had winced at her sister’s shrill tone of voice. “Didn’t you tell me he got promoted at the bank last month? That probably explains his long hours.”
“I can’t believe you’re defending him. You’re not usually so trusting.”
Absolutely true. Two years of spying on cheating spouses and tracking down deadbeat debtors had made Brooke pretty jaded. An occupational hazard of being a private investigator, she supposed. Was her brother-in-law screwing around? He didn’t seem like the type, but she’d learned motivated adulterers were astonishingly devious. She hoped her sister was wrong, because Savannah would be devastated by that kind of betrayal.
Agent Gemini Page 21