by Cindy Dees
Some hours later Mac jerked awake, swearing. His skull pounded like little men with jackhammers were hard at work in there, doing their best to crack his head open. What in tarnation was that noise? Something high-pitched caterwauled incessantly in the background.
Damn! It was his cell phone. His work cell phone. He staggered to his feet and stumbled into the kitchen, following the source of the earsplitting noise.
“Yeah,” he growled into the receiver.
“Colonel Folly, here. Get into base, ASAP. The secure briefing room. We’ve got a situation.”
Aww, hell. He felt like death warmed over. He cleared his throat. “Right, sir. I’m on my way.”
He squinted at the clock on the stove—4:30 a.m. Why did the world always have to go to hell in a hand basket in the middle of the damn night? He tipped a jar of instant coffee over his mouth and poured the dry granules down his throat. He chased it down with a quart of water and headed for the closet and a uniform.
Mac made it to Charlie Squad headquarters in under a half hour, but he was still the last to arrive. A handful of aspirin and more coffee, in liquid form this time, had knocked back his hangover to manageable proportions. But he still felt like roadkill.
His boss, Colonel Folly, nodded at him when he entered the room. “Close the door, Mac. Everybody’s here, now.”
Mac pushed the heavy hatch into its soundproof casing. A green light went on over the door frame, indicating the room was completely sealed and being bombarded with radio and electromagnetic waves to prevent eavesdropping.
He took a seat at the conference table beside Dutch, one of his fellow squad members. Howdy and Doc, two of the team’s other members, sat across from him.
A bulky rifle lay on the long table in front of his boss. Mac recognized the weapon as the prototype of a high-tech sniper rifle Charlie Squad had acted as the sniper consultants for as it was designed.
Was Charlie Squad finally going to be allowed to take the RITA rifle and its Roving Instant Target Acquisition system into the field to try it out? Tex Monroe, Charlie Squad’s absent member tonight, had gotten a chance to play around with the weapon in a South American jungle a few months back. Reported that it worked like a charm. He leaned forward intently. The adrenaline rush of picking up a new assignment hit him, and he reveled in the light, hungry feeling tingling through his gut.
Colonel Folly spoke without referring to the file sitting on the table beside the rifle. “This is classified at level Tango One, gentlemen.”
The tingling in Mac’s extremities became a storm of anticipation. That was the highest classification they dealt with. This mission was going to be a big one.
The colonel continued. “You know the drill. Don’t reveal anything you hear in this room to anyone for any reason. No notes, no conversations among yourselves…”
Mac and the other men nodded impatiently.
Without further ado, the colonel started his briefing. “A couple hours ago, our command post received a call over one of the red phones.” The colonel pushed a button on the audio-video console beside the table. “Here’s part of the call.”
Mac listened as a clearly terrified woman whispered into the phone. Something about the timbre of her voice rang a bell, but he couldn’t put his finger on it before the tape continued. Like everyone else in the briefing room, he jolted when she murmured the name Ramon Ruala. He’d made it his personal mission to find and kill that bastard someday, but he had yet to make good on that silent promise to Susan.
He blinked when a series of heavy thuds abruptly came across the tape. It sounded like the woman had fallen down. Hard. Maybe down a flight of stairs. Then the sound of rushing footsteps and two men shouting in Spanish. The woman screamed.
Then a sharp crack of flesh on flesh. The woman cried out. Mac half rose out of his chair along with every other guy at the table. They were in a cold, violent business, but that didn’t mean they listened easily to a woman getting hit.
Another slap.
Mac’s fists clenched. Every protective impulse in his body screamed to do something to save this woman. He sagged in relief as the sound of police sirens became audible. A single gunshot rang out. And then footsteps pounded as if the attackers were fleeing the scene.
Colonel Folly pushed the stop button. His voice was grim. “The woman dodged as the shot was fired and was only grazed by the bullet. Paramedics treated her at the scene. She wasn’t seriously injured.”
Mac felt sick to his stomach. He could slit a guy’s throat without the slightest twinge of discomfort, but listening to a woman get hit and shot at like that was almost more than he could stand. He frowned. As unpleasant as it had been, why would a house robbery and assault launch a Tango One mission? There was something familiar about that woman’s whisper…. The sick feeling in his gut intensified.
The colonel spoke. “She’s convinced her assailant is Ramon Ruala, surgically altered and operating under a new identity.”
Mac frowned. He felt another even bigger bombshell coming.
On cue, the colonel dropped the other shoe. “I’ve run the name she gave me and had a preliminary forensic comparison made between photographs of this David Ford guy and Ramon Ruala. The plastic surgeon I spoke to believes they could be the same man.”
Holy sh— Mac leaned forward aggressively. “How did this woman recognize Ruala? Since when does he leave anybody alive who recognizes him? We better move fast before he comes back to her house to finish off the job. Damn, I want to get my hands on that bastard.”
Colonel Folly answered, “I think you’re the best person to talk to her. See if this lead is legit.”
“Put me on the next plane,” Mac declared.
“Before you get on that plane, here’s the woman you’ll be speaking to.” The colonel dimmed the lights with a switch under the edge of the table, and a picture flashed on the screen behind him.
Mac jolted as if fifty thousand volts of electricity had just shot through his chair. Bloody hell. Susan Monroe.
Ramon Ruala had attacked Susan again? In a flash, his blood boiled and a vein pounded in the side of his neck. Sonofa… He was going to kill the bastard for laying a hand on her! A surge of protectiveness raged through him. His need to keep Susan safe overrode every logical, reasonable bone in his body. He ought to beg off of this mission, ought to leave well enough alone and stay away from her. They hadn’t seen each other in ten years, and he should leave it that way. But then the sound of that gunshot cracking echoed through his head. The room went red before his eyes.
Blood rages got people killed. The name of the game was to stay calm and detached. To keep your brain engaged at all costs.
The litany from his training rolled through his head, gradually forcing back the crimson haze. Not far back, but far enough for him to breathe. Far enough for him to snarl, “Ruala’s going to pay for touching her.”
Colonel Folly watched him intently. Sympathetically, even. He asked quietly, “And why’s that?”
Mac caught the hint. The colonel wouldn’t take kindly to him letting his emotions get the best of him. Might not even allow him to go help Susan if he didn’t pull his stuff together in the next, oh, millisecond. He spoke with forced calm. “Besides the fact that she’s Tex’s sister, you know damn good and well that she and I were close.” He added belatedly, “Sir.”
“How do you feel about her now?” the colonel pressed.
Anger flashed through Mac. He understood why the colonel had to ask the question, but that didn’t mean he had to like dredging up the answer. He shrugged with fake relaxation. “I haven’t seen or spoken to her in ten years. It’s ancient history.” He ignored the voice in the back of his head calling him a goddamned liar.
Colonel Folly gave him a long, considering look. “History has a way of coming back to haunt you. Maybe it’s time you made your peace with her.”
Mac suppressed a mental snort. Haunting him? That was putting it mildly. But make peace with her? Folly didn’t
know what he was asking. And if he explained it to his boss, there was no way the colonel would let him work on this op. And no way was he getting left behind if Suzie Monroe was in trouble. Wild horses couldn’t keep him away from this mission. “I can handle it. I want in on this one. I want Ruala.”
The colonel stared at him for upward of a minute. Heavy silence stretched out between them. Maybe the colonel did know what he was asking. Finally Folly spoke. “I think I’d rather send Dutch to talk to Susan and watch her videotape.”
Mac retorted, “Dutch wouldn’t know Ruala if the bastard punched him in the nose.”
It was an exaggeration, of course. Every member of the team had studied the assassin thoroughly and would recognize him without trouble. But Mac knew everything there was to know about the guy. Every gesture, every nuance of expression, the way he walked, talked. He’d committed to memory every visual image, moving or still, ever made of Ramon Ruala.
Colonel Folly replied, “I don’t need any kissy-face reunions here. I need a focused, competent professional to protect Susan Monroe until we nail Ruala’s happy ass.”
Mac rocked back onto the rear legs of his chair, violently displeased with the idea of Dutch going in his place. If anyone was going to save Susan Monroe, it should be him. “I can be objective about this,” he insisted.
Colonel Folly still frowned at him.
Mac spoke as calmly as he could. “Susan’s going to be traumatized as hell by Ruala’s reappearance. She knows me. She’ll work better with me than with some scary stranger who shows up on her doorstep.”
Dutch protested. “I’m not scary.”
Mac grinned. “Sorry, man. I keep forgetting you’re the Easter Bunny.” Jim Dutcher was six foot five of sheer Nordic brawn. With his short, brush-cut hair and square jaw, he looked liked a cyber-soldier from a future century.
Everyone around the table grinned.
Mac’s immediate urge was to push his case even harder for going. It was a Tango One mission. He was the one who wanted Ramon Ruala the most. Susan Monroe had been hurt and was in need of saving. He bit back the arguments rushing to his lips. Colonel Folly would make him sit this one out for sure if he acted desperate.
But as the silence stretched out, Mac couldn’t hold his tongue anymore. “Look. It’s been a long time. Susan and I have both changed a lot. She’ll barely remember me.”
Susan sighed her relief when, as dark fell the next evening, the last policeman finally left. She was lucky she’d managed to talk the sheriff, Bill Franks, out of taking her into protective custody. Thankfully he’d had a crush on her since the sixth grade and gave in when she pleaded trauma and a desperate desire to stay in her own home and sleep in her own bed.
He’d wanted to keep a cop inside her house, but the idea of a strange man in her home, even if he wore a police uniform, freaked her out. Bill had agreed, reluctantly, to post a cruiser at the end of her driveway and put a pair of roving foot cops on patrol around her house. Apparently, Colonel Folly had asked him to guard her around the clock until his men arrived.
Charlie Squad here. In her house. The thought sent whispers of excitement and terror down her spine. The most thrilling time in her entire life had been helping them out with a dangerous surveillance mission against Eduardo Ferrare ten years ago. Right up to the part where Mac inexplicably turned on her and, in her ignorance and anguish, she stumbled into a sting operation and escaped death by a hair.
The silence of the vast ranch slowly wrapped itself around her, not nearly as comforting as usual. Exhausted, but too frightened of what awaited in her dreams to go to bed, she headed for the back of the house. Echoes whispered off the vaulted ceiling of the great room as she passed through it. Something creaked and she jumped nervously.
Mostly by feel, she made her way into the kitchen. She made a cup of hot chocolate from scratch on the stove and poured herself a big mug of the creamy drink. She sipped at it until it went cold and a skin formed on its surface. Finally, with no enthusiasm but with no reason to delay any longer, she headed for bed.
She’d just started up the stairs when a loud noise made her jump. The front doorbell. Her heart slammed against her ribs until she remembered the police outside. They’d probably forgotten something. She flicked on the porch light and peered through the peephole. Four elongated figures stood there. They didn’t look like cops. Although she did see a uniformed officer standing behind them at the bottom of the front steps. Whoever they were, they’d passed muster with him. Leaving the chain on the door, she eased it open a few inches.
“What can I do for you?” she asked suspiciously.
One of the men answered back, “We’re from Charlie Squad. We’ve come to protect you until Ruala’s arrested.”
She fumbled to unlatch the chain and threw the door open. A tall, blond Viking stood on the far left. An Omar Sharif look-alike stood beside him. The third guy was fair in coloring and lean of build, and the fourth guy…
She started.
It couldn’t be.
She blinked and looked again.
It was.
She stepped forward, drew back her clenched fist and let fly with it as hard as she could.
Chapter 3
“W ell, Mac,” the Viking said dryly, “I’d say the lady remembers you.”
Susan reeled back, appalled by what she’d just done. How did he do that to her? One second she was a calm, rational, logical human being. Then Mac Conlon showed up, and the next second she was a certifiable psychotic. One glimpse of the face that had haunted her heart for the past decade and instinct took over. She’d slugged him before she even knew her arm was moving.
What in the blue blazes was he doing here? Why couldn’t he have just stayed in Washington, D.C., and let the other guys protect her? If he’d had the good grace to stay away from her for the past ten years, why did he have to go and change his mind tonight?
Pain radiated outward from her knuckles. Seething, she reached for inner serenity. Heck, right now she’d settle for reasonably calm. Yoga mantras flitted through her head. She focused on her breathing. She imagined floating on a tranquil ocean. She even counted to ten. Nothing worked.
Mac Conlon. She’d been passionately in love with him practically from the first moment she met him, and he’d remained firmly, stubbornly lodged in her heart ever since. She’d tried everything to get over him, and damn him, nothing had worked.
She schooled her voice to calm. “Come in, gentlemen.” She stepped back to allow them inside. A momentary brush of panic stroked her spine as the men piled into her house. It would be okay. These were the good guys. They wouldn’t hurt her. But, oh, did Mac have the capacity to if she didn’t guard her heart!
To fill the awkward silence she asked, “Are you guys hungry?”
Their relieved smiles were answer enough. She led them into the huge kitchen that dominated the back of the house. She made a batch of sandwiches and carried them to the table.
Déjà vu broadsided her. Ten years ago she’d sat around a table with a couple of these same men, planning surveillance on Ferrare with the new digital audio analysis program that had earned her a Ph.D. She’d been fresh out of college, and so excited she could bust at the prospect of working with a totally cool Special Forces team. Tonight the adrenaline rush was still there, albeit tempered by the pain of the abrasion under her ear and an aching knee to remind her of her naiveté all those years ago.
Mac’s eye was red and starting to swell. A pang of remorse shot through her. She filled two plastic bags with ice and wrapped them in dish towels. She gave one to him and kept the other for her hand as she sat down at the table.
“Thanks,” he murmured.
She didn’t deign to reply. She dragged her attention to the Viking, who was talking to her.
“In case you don’t remember us, I’m Dutch. This is Doc.” He gestured at Omar Sharif. “And this is Howdy.” He pointed at the fair fellow. “I gather you’re familiar with Mac.”
She
glanced over at the man in question. Mac lounged in his seat, his crossed arms displaying breathtaking muscles, his piercing blue gaze taking in everything. Lord, he was still as gorgeous as ever.
Memories of long nights spent working with him in a cramped surveillance van came rushing back. The air had been so electric between them it was a wonder the listening equipment had still worked. Just sitting in the same room with him now made breathing difficult.
Dutch continued imperturbably. “What can you tell us about Ruala?”
“A guy calling himself David Ford showed up at the Fasco plant yesterday to test fire a rifle we’re building. I believe he’s Ramon Ruala, surgically altered to look different. I’ve got some videotape of the guy, if you’d like to look at it. I can’t think of anybody else more likely to recognize Ruala than Charlie Squad.”
Mac interjected, “Can we look at it right away, Suzie?”
Her insides twisted as he spoke. His mellow voice sent sexy little shivers down her spine. Nobody else before or since him had ever called her Suzie. Old memories and feelings flooded her, catching her off guard. For an instant she was that young woman all over again, dreaming about a guy who was way out of her league and who, miraculously, returned her interest. She struggled to think past the onslaught of images flashing through her head.
Mac’s blue-velvet eyes gazed into hers with all the hypnotic intensity she remembered. And yet there was a dangerous edge to them—to him—that she didn’t remember. Even his voice held a hint of violence. “Where’s the tape?” he prodded politely. “Can I get it for you?”
That’s right. Save the cripple from having to walk anywhere. “I’ll get it,” she snapped. “I have a VCR in the living room you can watch it on.” She nodded and pushed herself up painfully from the table. Her knee was swollen like a cantaloupe after last night’s fall. Mac’s hand materialized on her elbow and he whisked the chair out from behind her, steadying her until she planted her cane firmly on the floor. She glared at him until his strong, warm hand fell away.