Guts and grit. She admired that.
Ben Kelly stopped the Honda Pilot he’d rented at the Okaloosa Regional Airport on the dirt road at a metal gate. He was out in the middle of nowhere. This couldn’t be the right place, he thought, and mentally retraced his path.
He’d taken Highway 85, passed the turnoff for Providence Air Force Base, taken a right on the dirt road exactly twenty miles north on the odometer. Secretary Reynolds had given him the instructions and he’d been very clear that there were no landmarks, just bent and twisted pines—victims of former hurricanes that had ripped through northwest Florida—and dense underbrush. He squinted against the blazing sun. Still, this didn’t resemble any unit’s offices he’d ever seen. There wasn’t a building in sight.
His arm propped at the open window, he looked from the heavy-duty metal gate down the six-foot wire fence. Every eight feet, a posted sign read: Use of Deadly Force Authorized. That could be typical of a dormant bombing range, he supposed, but why wasn’t there a guard at the gate?
“Drive on through.” A woman’s tinny voice echoed through a speaker attached to the gatepost, and the gate swung open.
Not exactly a warm welcome, but something in her tone appealed to him.
You’ve been alone too damn long, Kelly.
He grunted. At least they seemed to be expecting him. He tapped the gearshift into Drive, hit the gas and checked his rearview mirror. The tires lifted a cloud of dust. They’d likely seen him coming since he’d turned off the main highway.
Ben drove about a mile and came to a second wire fence. This one was topped with razor wire. Again, he stopped at the heavy metal gate blocking the road and glanced off to the right. In the distance, among tall weeds, he saw the telltale signs of an artillery battery. Definitely abandoned but obviously still protected.
The gate opened—this time, without benefit of the woman’s voice.
Driving a short distance through the woods, he spotted a dilapidated shack. A beat-up trailer was parked behind it. Nothing but trees were in sight. It was hard to believe this was the elite S.A.S.S. unit’s headquarters, but it stood exactly as General Shaw had described it. Pulling in front of the shack, he parked. The cut engine ticked and noonday sun glared off the hood of the Honda. Someone had put a little wooden sign above the shack’s cracked door that read: Regret.
Before he could decide what he thought about that, a woman walked out, looking mutinous. She was tall and lean; her hair short, blond and curly; her jaw set firm.
She stopped six feet from the car. “Who are you?”
“Ben Kelly.” It didn’t occur to him not to tell her. She was armed and looked ticked off enough to shoot him rather than ask twice.
“Let’s go.” She took yet another step back from the car.
Ben got out and his knees cracked. His legs were stiff from spending so many hours in the past two days on planes and in cars. He’d left Los Casas and driven to Corpus Christi, where he’d flown under an assumed name to Washington. He’d briefed Secretary Reynolds, who’d listened and then shuffled him to Homeland Security. They’d listened and then shuffled him to Intel, who’d listened and shuffled him to the Office of Special Investigations, who’d shuffled him up the ranks to General Shaw who, with Secretary of Defense Reynolds, listened again and then shuffled him here to meet with the S.A.S.S. commander, Colonel Sally Drake.
Along about three shuffles ago, Ben had cursed himself as a fool for reporting anything, and then for not just going direct to General Shaw, since they had a history. But that was weariness setting in. Ben had done what he’d had to do because it was the right thing to do. It had been right then and, though it had also been a royal pain in the ass, it was right now—regardless of how tired he was of repeating his story.
He followed the blonde into the shack and then, surprisingly, into a very modern and new elevator. When the door closed behind them, she issued him a warning. “If you want to live, forget what and who you see here.”
She was dead serious and not exaggerating at all. Certain of that, Ben nodded.
The door opened into a mass of offices. The blonde stepped out. “This way.” She hung a right in a hallway lined with photographs of men “Most Wanted” by various government agencies. Scanning the line of them, Ben’s gaze lighted on the face of Paco Santana, the man who had brought him here, and he slid to a stop. Anger burned in his stomach, but he squelched it and kept walking, kept following the blonde, who motioned him into a conference room. In stark contrast to the falling-down shack and banged-up trailer above, everything below ground seemed barely used or new.
“Sit down,” the blonde said. “The colonel will be with you in a minute.” She moved back to the door. “Don’t touch anything, Agent Kelly. For the record, you are being watched.”
What was there to touch? Six chairs and one table were in the room and not another thing. Nothing was on the white tile floor, no paintings lined the glaringly white walls, and not so much as a trash can or a pad of paper had been added or forgotten in here.
Minutes later, a petite redhead about forty walked in. “Agent Kelly.” She thrust a hand in his direction. “I’m Colonel Sally Drake.”
Ben shook her hand. “Ma’am.”
“Please, sit down,” she said, then dropped into her chair at the head of the conference table. “Before you tell me your story, let’s make sure you’ve been briefed on the ground rules here.”
“You don’t exist, ma’am. The people working here don’t exist, and this place doesn’t exist. S.A.S.S. isn’t an elite air force unit assigned to the Office of Special Investigations. Sass is when you talk back to your mother and usually get your backside busted or your face slapped for doing it.”
“I see General Shaw was candid.” Colonel Drake smiled. “Good.”
The door opened and someone walked in behind Ben. “Sorry I’m late.”
Recognizing the voice of the woman who’d opened the gate, he turned to look back at her and his breath hitched in his chest. She was a captain in uniform, trim with a dark brown mass of curly hair that brushed her shoulders. She glanced at him and intelligence burned in her green eyes. Beautiful came to mind and stuck. Not a conventional beauty, but a kind all her own. Very personal and very distinct.
“Agent Kelly, this is Captain Darcy Clark,” the colonel said. “Darcy, this is Agent Ben Kelly, customs chief inspector and entomologist.”
Darcy hesitated, and then took his hand. “How do you do, Agent Kelly?”
He closed his fingers around hers. “It’s Ben.”
“Darcy.” She nodded, shivered and then stepped away and took a seat at the table opposite him.
He didn’t know whether to be pleased or repulsed by that shiver, but he was certainly captivated by the woman. There was something different about her. He tried to peg it and couldn’t. Whatever it was, she had it buried deep inside, and he couldn’t repress a persistent curiosity about why.
“So tell us why you’re here, Agent Kelly.”
He looked from Darcy to the colonel. “Didn’t General Shaw go through this with you?” He’d repeated the story so many times already.
“I want to hear it from you,” she said, dispelling any hope that he’d get out of rehashing it yet again. “Please.”
Resigned, Ben fixed his gaze on Colonel Drake—looking at Darcy Clark unnerved him for some reason—and started at the beginning. “I’m a crossing guard, so to speak, at Los Casas down on the Texas/Mexico border,” he said. “It’s my job to verify identities and inspect shipments of food and products coming into the country.” That was simplifying the matter, but these were enlightened women. They’d know that. Hell, they probably knew what he ate for breakfast most days. “Three days ago, I witnessed my supervisor, Station Chief Lucas Wexler, cut a deal with a member of GRID at our point of entry.”
“Excuse me,” Colonel Drake cut in. “Two questions. One, how do you know about GRID, and two, Wexler cut a deal with which GRID member—specifically?”
“A little over a week ago, Homeland Security put out an alert on GRID,” he said. “I read the bulletin.”
“The alert report is accurate, ma’am,” Darcy said. “Though it was on June 16th—eleven days ago—or it will be at 2:30 p.m.”
Ben gave her a strange look, then shrugged. “The GRID member I saw is on your wall out there. Paco Santana. I recognized him from the photo, though he crossed the border wearing dark glasses and a hat.”
“But you’re absolutely sure it was him.”
Ben nodded. “When I overheard the conversation between him and Wexler, I knew bad things were in store. So I waited until Wexler went home for the day—he always works the day shift—and then I reviewed the security tapes. Santana entered the U.S. on business as an agent for TNT Incendiary Devices, Inc.”
Darcy’s blood chilled to ice, but she sat still, watching Colonel Drake scribble notes.
Ben went on. “Frankly, finding that scared the hell out of me, so—”
“Why?” Darcy asked. She hadn’t meant to, but the question popped out of her mouth before she realized she had asked it.
He swung his gaze to meet hers. “Because the name of the company nagged at me. I’d heard it before. I couldn’t remember where or why, but getting that bad feeling, I checked it out on the Net. They manufacture fireworks in Mexico,” he said.
Darcy grasped the connection. “And last October 10th, that company won the contract awarded for the July 4th fireworks celebration.”
“That’s right,” Ben said, clearly surprised she’d made the connection without first researching.
Colonel Drake picked up on the high tension, stopped scrawling and stared at Darcy. “What celebration? Where?”
Darcy and Ben locked gazes, their worry shooting back and forth between them. Ben, not Darcy, answered the colonel. “The White House.”
Chapter 2
“The White House.” Colonel Drake sat back in her chair. “Oh, God.”
Darcy nodded. The deduction was logical and terrifying. “GRID is using the fireworks display as a front to bomb the White House spectators.”
Colonel Drake looked from Darcy to Ben, then back to Darcy. “The president will never cancel the fireworks. Never. It’d be perceived as giving in to terrorists.”
“Listen,” Ben said. “I don’t know what to do about this. I know if Wexler or Santana figure out I know anything, I’ll be murdered and buried in the Mexican desert. But it seems to me that GRID’s already got this thing set up inside the U.S. Santana brought in a truck pulling double trailers. Whatever was on that load went somewhere within our borders. Anything I can do to help stop them, I will.”
Darcy liked him. This Ben Kelly. He was gorgeous: about thirty with black hair and cool gray eyes, a little remote but not cold. His passion and outrage simmered just below the surface; she sensed it as clearly as she saw the thin scar slashing across his right cheek whiten. It took a lot of personal control to hold in that much outrage and appear calm and collected. She respected that discipline. And, these days, she envied it. “Where does Wexler think you are right now?”
He slid her a sidelong look. “Charter fishing a hundred miles out in the Gulf of Mexico—which is where I would be if I hadn’t heard that conversation.”
“You’re sure he has no idea you aren’t there?” Colonel Drake asked.
“Positive,” Ben said. “Captain Jason Quade owns the Twilight’s Last Gleam. He’s a good friend. If anyone calls for me, he’ll handle it without letting them know I’m not on board.” Ben lifted a hand. “Don’t worry. Jason has no idea why I’m not there, only that no one else must know it.”
“And that was enough for him?” Darcy asked. It wouldn’t be for most people. They’d want some sort of explanation.
“More than enough.”
Ben didn’t expound, and Darcy didn’t feel the need to push. He was being straight with her. She had a sixth sense about that with people—another gift since the fire, like her total recall. “Good friend.”
“Yes, he is.” Ben stared at her a long second, clearly seeing far deeper than she would choose to let him or anyone else see, and then he added, “We served together in Iraq before I left the military. You know what combat is like, Darcy. You learn quick who to trust with your life and who not to trust to avoid losing it.”
Far too perceptive. She didn’t respond or look away, but holding his gaze took everything she had. The muscles in her chest were in revolt, and her backbone tingled from base to nape. Why did he affect her like this? It was…odd—and damned unwelcome. She fought the urge to shake off a warm shiver.
“So your cover is intact. Excellent.” Colonel Drake sized Ben up and apparently approved of all she saw in him. “Ben, we have reason to believe that GRID is going to use radioactive waste in the bombs they detonate. We think there could be more than one target—provided GRID gets the explosives into the country. So you can see that our concerns aren’t topical or general interest. They’re specific. We fully expect an attack, and it’s the S.A.S.S.’s job to stop them. That means, we dig for information and, unfortunately, that includes information about you.” She paused to give him time to absorb that, and then continued. “Now, General Shaw has vouched for you and, to be perfectly blunt, that’s highly unusual. Why did he do it?”
“You’d have to ask him that question, ma’am. I’m no mind reader.”
“I’m asking you for your opinion,” the colonel persisted. “Not for an answer set in stone, just why you think he might have put his reputation on the line for you.” She propped a hand on the table and leaned closer. “Before you answer, I’ll tell you that the consequences of his being wrong could get a lot of people killed. People under my command.” Warning sharpened her tone. “I’m very protective of my people, Ben.”
“Every commander worth a damn should be protective, so that’s good to hear.” Ben hiked his chin. “You have nothing to fear from me, Colonel. Captain Quade and I served under General Shaw in Iraq. He’s familiar with me and my motives.” He hesitated a second, glanced down then back at the colonel. “I know S.A.S.S.’s mission, Colonel. At one time, I was invited by the general to join the unit. I declined.”
“Why?” Darcy asked, surprised by this. She’d seen nothing anywhere in the history of S.A.S.S. to back up what Ben was saying.
“Because I was damn tired of getting shot at,” he said. “That wasn’t the main reason, however. I got married.” He shrugged. “S.A.S.S. assignments might be given to the best and brightest, but its missions are hell on marriages. I didn’t want to be another statistic.”
A strange look crossed Colonel Drake’s face. Darcy understood it. Her husband had been killed by terrorists. They used him, trying to find out what she knew. They failed, but he died, and she lived every day since, knowing that if he’d married anyone else, he’d be alive.
The colonel looked at Ben’s left hand. “But you ended up as a statistic anyway,” she said more than asked. “What happened?”
Surprise lighted in his eyes.
Darcy explained how the colonel had known he was no longer married. “No wedding ring. No telltale white skin rimming your finger. You’ve been without her for a while.” She knitted her eyebrows. “I’m sorry—about the statistics.”
“Rainbows and rain. Every life gets both.”
“So why did your marriage end, Ben?” Colonel Drake pushed.
He frowned, clearly uncomfortable with the intense focus on his failed marriage, and clearly troubled because it had failed. “Diane and I divorced two years ago. I have this quirk. I like my women sober.” He shrugged and blew out a breath. “Simply put, she liked tequila more than me.”
“You make it sound simple, but I know it wasn’t,” Darcy said softly. Her instincts screamed it.
He looked her straight in the eye. “Nothing about it was simple. Being married to an alcoholic was three years, three months and four days of hell.”
“I’m sure it was, Ben.” Colonel Dr
ake’s tone softened, signaling she had ended this line of questioning. “On your own merits and General Shaw’s recommendation, I’m going to trust you. Because you came to us with this, I feel that trust is well placed. Don’t disappoint me.”
“If I intended to do that, ma’am, I’d just have stayed home. I live here, too, and I’m not going to stand by and watch GRID or any other terrorist group blow our people to hell and back. Not without trying to stop them.”
“I’m grateful for that because I do need your help.” She paused and swung her gaze to Darcy. “And your help.”
“Of course, Colonel.” Odd that she would ask. Darcy participated on all missions in an intelligence-gathering and disseminating capacity.
“I want the two of you to work together on this mission.”
Ben nodded. “Whatever I can do.”
More and more odd. Darcy swiped her hair back from her cheek. Why did she have a weird feeling something was different about this mission? “Positively, Colonel,” Darcy said.
“Excellent.” Colonel Drake stiffened. “Darcy, I’m going to insert you as a customs agent in Los Casas.”
“What?” Darcy nearly fell out of her chair. Shock shook her to her toes and she broke into a cold sweat. “But, Colonel!”
“What’s the problem?” Ben asked, obviously thinking her objection was to working with him.
Darcy wanted to reassure him, but her throat muscles locked up; she couldn’t talk. She moved her mouth, but couldn’t utter a single sound.
Colonel Drake ignored him, stared at Darcy. Her voice was firm but not without compassion. “I know working this mission won’t come easy to you, Darcy, but it’s essential. Duty first, right?”
Clammy. She was slick with sweat and clammy. Her stomach roiled. God, please don’t let me throw up! “But—but—”
Ben stood up. “Look, if she objects to working with me so much it’s making her green around the gills, just forget it. You guys handle this without me.” He pushed back and his chair’s legs scraped the floor. “I’m going fishing.”
Smokescreen Page 24