Seal Team Ten

by Brockmann, Suzanne

  She couldn't lie to him. "Chris mentioned something about it to me. I guess he sees himself as the equivalent of

  some kind of feudal lord and..." She shook her head. "I just didn't expect him to approach you about it."

  "What, did you expect him to approach you about it?" Jake's eyes were nearly as cold as the freezing air that slapped her skin as he pulled himself away from her. "And what the hell were you going to do when he did?" He swore sharply. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know."

  He had been mostly dressed, and it didn't take him long to pull himself together. Zoe had to search for her under­pants, turn her jeans right side out, find her sneakers. Her shirt had no buttons, and the plastic clasp of her bra was broken. She shivered, clutching the front of her shirt to­gether, uncertain what to say, how to explain.

  Jake wrapped her jacket around her. "Dammit, Zoe." His voice shook. "You could've at least let me in on the plan."

  ' 'It wasn't a plan," she told him. ' 'It was.. .just an option I thought I should keep open. Jake, the man was dogging me for weeks. I thought I could go in there and talk to him. Tell him I was thinking about accepting his offer. I would have told you before I did anything. I thought at least it would be a way into his private office."

  "Well, I've been in his office now," Jake said tightly. "It's small, no windows, one desk, three chairs. Three doors on the wall behind Vincent's desk. The left is the bathroom. The right a room he referred to as his inner chambers. There was no sign of the missing canisters. I'm betting it's in that inner chamber."

  Which he would have access to—provided he share Zoe with the CRO leader.

  Zoe's hand shook only slightly as she pushed her hair from her face. "So what did he say to you about..." She managed to make her voice sound remarkably calm, but she couldn't say the words aloud.

  "It was all implied," Jake told her. "He spoke of sharing my wealth. Mentioned you. Invited us both to his private dining room tonight at nineteen hundred—seven o'clock."

  "Both of us?"

  "I asked one of his lieutenants." Jake's voice was raspy. "Apparently the way it's done is, he invites us both, and I send you alone, along with my regrets, pleading I'm feeling slightly under the weather." He laughed, a short bark of disbelief. "Believe it or not, it's considered an honor for Christopher Vincent to mess with your wife." He dropped his head into the palms of his hands. "Crazy-assed, twisted sons of bitches."

  Zoe took a deep breath, filled with a sense of dread. "So. Did you tell him yes or did you tell him no? That we'd-— I'd be there for dinner?"

  He looked at her, his eyes nearly as blue as the sky overhead. "We can cancel."

  "That's a yes," she said. "You told him yes."

  Jake shook his head. "I didn't say yes."

  "But you didn't say no."

  "I didn't answer him one way or the other."

  "Silence generally implies an affirmative," she said tightly.

  "Yeah," Jake said, the muscle flexing in the side of his jaw. "I know."

  He put his head into his hands, unable to hold her gaze.

  Zoe closed her eyes against the rush of tears. Did he actually think... Could he honestly expect... "Are you ask­ing me to have sex with Christopher Vincent?" God, what he must think of her, if he could ask such a thing.

  "No." Jake lifted his head. His eyes were rimmed with red, as if he, too, were fighting tears. "I'm not asking you, Zoe. I could never ask that of someone under my command. Except you're not really under my command, are you? And you haven't been completely honest with me about this other option you had standing ready. Maybe you've got a better plan in mind to get me into die inner council?"

  She shook her head. "I don't," she whispered.

  "I'm not going to ask you do this," Jake told her. "But I'm also not going to tell you not to do it. I'm giving you

  the choice." He cleared his throat. "I know this...this sort of thing doesn't particularly bother you, so..." He shrugged as he forced a smile. "It's your choice."

  Zoe was dying. She wanted him to tell her not to do it. She wanted him to refuse to let her do it. She wanted him to hold her tightly and tell her that he was never going to let her go, that he honestly didn't believe her capable of such coldhearted self-exploitation.

  "Do you..." She had to stop and clear her throat. Amaz­ingly, her voice came out even and clear. "Do you want me to do it?" She had to know.

  He looked her squarely in the eye. "This doesn't have anything to do with me."

  The last of her hope died, and she turned to look but over the valley. "I see."

  She'd done such a good job bluffing. She'd convinced him so completely that she was tough and strong—emo­tionally made of Teflon. He obviously thought she wouldn't think twice about prostituting herself this way in the name of their mission. He clearly didn't approve, and despite the fact that he'd made incredibly powerful, passionate love to her just moments ago, he didn't think that her buying their way onto the inner council through sex had anything to do with him.

  Zoe felt like throwing up. Or bursting into tears.

  Instead, she nodded. "What am I supposed to wear?"

  Chapter 17

  Lucky poured Bobby a cup of coffee and set it down near the video screens in the surveillance trailer.

  "Thanks," Bobby said.

  "Any change?"

  "Zoe got assigned to a two-woman work detail cleaning bathrooms," Bobby stated. "Jake came in a little while ago and pulled her out. They headed toward the roof and have been out of contact for the past hour and a half. I've been cruising around, following Vincent's two top lieutenants— neither one of 'em win any prizes, except maybe Dullest Human Beings on Earth."

  Lucky pointed to the screen that showed the CRO mess hall. "Isn't that Jake?"

  "Jake." Bobby glanced at him. "Finish reading the book?"

  Lucky smiled. "Yeah."

  "Like him better now, huh?"

  "I'm still working on the like part, considering he's spending all his time kissing my woman."

  "You never had a chance with Zoe, and you know it." Bobby keyed in some numbers, and the screen showed the camera on the other side of the room, closer to Jake, who was sitting alone at a table, lunch tray in front of him. "Yep. It's definitely the admiral."

  Lucky leaned closer. "Is it my imagination or... Does he look okay to you?"

  "Looks wound pretty tight. I wonder where Zoe is." Bobby typed in a steady stream of numbers, and lightning-quick pictures flashed on the other two screens. "Whoops, there she was."

  "Wait a minute," Lucky said. "You saw her? How could you see anything in that?"

  Bobby shrugged, calling back the image he'd spotted. "I'm pretty good with visuals." On the center screen, Zoe walked briskly down the hallway, heading toward the room she shared with Jake. She smiled brightly as someone passed her.

  Bobby hit the commands to show the cameras inside the room as Zoe went inside.

  But no sooner was she inside the door than she leaned against it, her smile vanishing. It was as if her legs suddenly failed to support her, because she slid down, back against the door, so that she was sitting on the floor.

  She hugged her legs and bent her head and...

  Zoe was crying.

  She was shaking, sobbing as if her heart were breaking.

  Bobby looked at Lucky and Lucky looked at Bobby.

  On the other video screen, Jake toyed unenthusiastically with his food. He tossed his fork onto the tray and rested his forehead in the palm of his hand, a picture of total despair.

  But then Jake sat up. And with both hands on the table in front of him, he made a gesture, a hand signal that the SEALs used. It was brief but unmistakable.

  Get ready.

  "Did you see that?" Lucky asked, nearly jumping out of his seat. "Was that what I thought it was?"

  "Yes, sir. That was definitely a message for us."

  Jake had only made the signal once, but they had it down on tape.

  Lucky reached for t
he phone. "Yeah, Skelly, it's O'Donlon. Is the senior chief there? Bob and I have some­thing we want him and the rest of you guys to see," he said. "Oh, and on your way over? You might want to run."

  Zoe pulled her baseball cap down over her eyes as she pushed the cleaning cart into Christopher Vincent's private quarters.

  No one had noticed yet that she wasn't a part of the regular cleaning crew. Or if they had, they'd been down­trodden and beaten into submission too often to care.

  Melissa, Amy, Ivy, Karen, Beth and Joan. Zoe had had to learn their names from the color of their hair. Their faces were too similar—they looked exhausted and as if they'd lost all hope.

  Zoe moved like them, as if she, too, ached both physi­cally and emotionally, as she took the supplies for cleaning the bathroom toward the door to Vincent's private office.

  The door was ajar, and she went in without switching on the light.

  It was exactly as Jake had described it. Big desk. No windows. Three doors. No sign of the canisters of Trip X anywhere.

  The bathroom was on the left. Zoe tried the knob of the far right door as she went past. Locked. So was the center door. The bathroom was half open, and she turned on the light. It was tiny. One toilet and a sink. According to the Frosty Cakes factory layout she'd looked at with Bobby and Wes, there was enough unaccounted-for room in this part of the building for a good-size security headquarters, as well as a conference room-size inner chamber.

  She didn't have her lock pick, but she had a paper clip

  from Vincent's desk. In the light of the bathroom, she un­bent the piece of metal and The office light went on. "Who are you? What are you doing in here?"

  "Cleaning the bathroom?" Zoe blinked owlishly as she unobtrusively tried to slip the paper clip into the back pocket of her jeans. She only got it in halfway before the long-bearded man got too close.

  He was Vincent's second lieutenant. "You're the new girl. This couldn't possibly be your assignment."

  Zoe made her bottom lip start to quiver. "I was told to clean bathrooms. But I...I got lost, and I didn't know what to do, so I followed a cleaning crew in here and—"

  "Get out." Lieutenant Beard held open the door. "Now."

  Zoe grabbed her cleaning supplies and sprinted for the door. On her way out, the second lieutenant hit her so hard on the back of the head that her ears rang and she stumbled to her knees. It was all she could do to keep herself from spinning and giving the bastard a roundhouse kick to the bearded jaw.

  But she didn't. She kept her eyes lowered, her head down. If she was going to make it out of here without completely blowing her and Jake's cover, she wasn't going to do it by advertising her black belt in karate.

  Beth, the leader of the cleaning team, smacked her, too, as Zoe pushed herself onto her feet. ' 'What are you, stupid? You just can't go wherever you want. You were given an assignment."

  Zoe let her eyes fill with tears. It was amazing that she had any left after the way she'd cried just an hour ago. But apparently, she still had plenty to spare. All she had to do was think about Jake, and her tears came in force.

  "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I lost Edith, my partner, and I got scared and I saw you and..."

  "Go back to the kitchen," Beth said sharply. "Edith will probably be waiting for you there."

  Zoe stared at her stupidly. This was it? No being dragged in front of Christopher Vincent? No questions about what she'd been doing in his private office?

  'Go/' Beth said.

  Zoe turned and ran.

  The computer's alarm sounded, piercingly loud, and Lucky turned to see Harvard leaning over Crash's shoulder, looking at the screen.

  "What've we got?" H asked.

  "A key word match," Crash told him grimly. "Three words came up. Zoe. Spy. And birthday."

  Harvard swore.

  The computer was programmed to listen to and record every conversation that came in from the heavily wired CRO fort. Harvard had written a program to search for groups of key words that, when used in a single conver­sation, might signal trouble.

  Cowboy joined them. "Play it back," he said.

  "We've got video, too," Crash told them as he cued up the digital recording. Lucky rolled his chair closer. "Here we go. Looks like we're in Christopher Vincent's outer office. This can't be good."

  A man on the tape spoke. "What's this?" It was Chris­topher Vincent's now too-familiar voice. On the video screen, the CRO leader straightened and came into camera range. He'd been bending over, picking something off the floor, but now his face was directly in front of the camera. Yeesh.

  Lucky had one word for Christopher Vincent. Tweezers. It was his only real hope. Because, damn, that single eye­brow wasn't going to get him a GQ cover anytime in the near future.

  "I don't know, sir." Another man stepped into the frame. It was Ian Hindcrest, Vincent's second lieutenant— another beauty pageant contestant from hell, what with the six-inch-long ZZ Top beard. He took whatever Vincent had been holding. "It looks like... Yes, it's a paper clip, sir."

  "Who's been in here today?" One thing about having a unibrow, when Vincent glowered, he glowered.

  Hindcrest took a step backward. "You had a series of morning appointments, but the cleaning crew was here after lunch, so I'd guess—"

  "The cleaning crew." Vincent's glower became down­right scary. "There was a memo on my desk from the crew leader, but she's a moron, I couldn't read her writing. Something about some incident today? Your name was on the page."

  "Of course." Hindcrest brightened. "I was intending to type up my report about the event this evening. That rather dim new girl, the blonde, wandered in here by mistake."

  "Zoe," Vincent said.

  "That's the one."

  "Wandered where exactly?"

  "I found her in your office." Hindcrest gestured to the door behind him. "Preparing to clean the bathroom."

  "In my office." Vincent nodded, his voice getting louder. "And it didn't occur to you that this new girl— who's still only a probationary member of the CRO—might have gone into my private office because she's a spy?" He was flat-out shouting, and Hindcrest's eyes had glazed over.

  "Spy?" the bearded man said weakly.

  Wes swore pungently, voicing what they all were think­ing. "She's made. She's in trouble now."

  "This isn't a paper clip." Vincent snatched the piece of metal from Hindcrest's hand. "It's a makeshift lock pick, dammit! I have no doubt she was trying to break into the inner chamber. Or maybe she'd already been in there, al­ready seen what she needed to see! I knew it. There was something about her."

  "The chemical—" Hindcrest cut himself off, aware he'd said too much. He cleared his throat. "The birthday sur­prise. Is it...?"

  "Jackpot," Harvard murmured.

  "It's still there," Vincent said, "but we've got to assume she's after it." He swore. "Robinson's probably in on this, too. The son of a bitch!"

  "I'll call the guards to bring them in," Hindcrest said.

  "We've got to warn them," Bobby rumbled.

  "How?" Wes asked. "Send up signal flares?"

  "No," Vincent said on the tape. "Not yet. He's got in­formation I need. Let's let them think their cover's intact. In the meantime, let's get my birthday surprise started on its journey. Call Herzog and Jansen. Tell them they're leav­ing for New York a few days early."

  "Yes, sir."

  "That's all of the tape," Crash said grimly. "At least it's all that the computer flagged."

  Harvard was already on the phone. ' 'We need immediate stepped-up satellite surveillance. We need code-red inter­cept teams stopping anyone and anything that so much as pokes a nose outside that CRO gate, and we need..." He looked at Lucky and covered the mouthpiece of the tele­phone. "We need help. Get on the other secured line, Lieu­tenant. Call in the rest of Alpha Squad. We need 'em here now."

  Jake couldn't watch as Zoe wove her beautiful golden hair into an intricate, elegant style. But he couldn't not watch, either. A French braid,
he remembered it was called. Daisy's hair had been too curly and wild and thick to wear in that particular fashion. So this was a first for him, watch­ing Zoe's long fingers complete the transformation from jeans-clad tomboy to elegant, graceful, coolly formal beauty.

  It was another first for him, too.

  Jake had never watched Daisy get dressed up to go have sex with another man.

  The thought made him sick.

  How can you do this? He had to clench his teeth to keep the words from escaping. Don't go.

  She wore a black skirt that redefined the word short and a black tank top that hugged her body and framed the tops of her breasts as if they were some kind of work of art. Her long, shapely legs were clad in the sheerest of stock­ings, her black heels at least three inches high.

  She leaned closer to the mirror to apply a final touch of lipstick and then stepped back to survey herself as she closed her makeup bag with a snap.

  She met his gaze only briefly in the glass.

  "Well," she said.

  Jake couldn't speak.

  "I guess it's time," she said.

  He found his voice, but he had to clear his throat about four times before his words could be understood. "It's still a little early."

  Don't go.

  "I can't walk very fast in these shoes."

  "Ah."

  She turned to face him, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin slightly. She finally met his eyes, but she somehow kept her own gaze cool, distant. "So. I guess I'm out of here."

  Don't go.

  He couldn't believe she was actually going to do this.

  "I guess I'll see you later," she said, heading for the door.

  Don't go.

  She reached for the doorknob, opened the door. And she closed it behind her, leaving without even looking back.

  Chapter 18

  Zoe had to stop and sit down, drop her head between her legs to keep herself from fainting.

  God, she was going to throw up.

  Jake hadn't stopped her.

  He'd just watched her get ready, watched her walk away.