Athena Force 7-12

by Carla Cassidy, Evelyn Vaughn, Harper Allen, Ruth Wind, Cindy Dees

  This last had been merely the kind of cutting remark Dawn Swanson would have delivered, but to Dawn’s interest, it unexpectedly roused a defensive response from Keifer.

  “I consider it an honor to serve in any capacity with Captain Asher,” he’d said stiffly. “I’m well aware of the details of his military career, and if the man has any fault at all, it’s that he’s gone above and beyond the call of duty at times.” He’d clamped his lips together, as if he’d said more than he’d meant to, and with a formal nod and an apology for disturbing her, had taken his leave.

  Dawn’s curiosity had been piqued, but when she’d closed the door behind Keifer and sat down on her narrow bed, her own hidden history rather than Des Asher’s had been the main thing occupying her mind.

  Accidents happened, she thought now as she turned down the hall that led past the lab to the staff’s living quarters. Not every eventuality could be foreseen. But Lee Craig, for all his faults, had been the best black-ops teacher a girl could possibly have, and he’d drummed into her the vital importance of leaving nothing of herself behind when she completed an assignment. For those missions that had necessitated her going undercover, naturally it had been harder to obliterate all trace of her often weeks-long presence at a given scene, but even then it had merely been a matter of caution and discretion. For instance, she reflected, take the glass she’d just drunk milk from in the cafeteria. Within minutes it would be entering a dishwasher and her fingerprints on it would be cleaned off. But when she’d taken consignment of the beakers that had arrived this morning, she’d been careful not to touch any of them. They would be here and possibly still unused long after she’d left, and plastering her prints all over them would simply give her one more thing to wipe down before she went back to Lab 33.

  She would have sworn Donna Schmidt had been as scrupulously careful as Dawn Swanson, but apparently that wasn’t the case, she told herself in chagrin. In her persona as Fräulein Schmidt she’d possibly neglected to wipe a desk drawer or the space bar on her computer keyboard or maybe even one of the Spode china coffee cups she’d handed around during the many meetings between the Swiss banker and his business associates. It didn’t matter where the authorities had lifted the partial thumbprint. It just mattered that it was on file.

  And it also mattered that Carter Johnson had assured her it hadn’t been.

  It’s SOP—standard operating procedure—for those pencil pushers on Aldrich’s payroll to run us through the computers every once in a while, Dawnie. One of Lee Craig’s earliest lectures on tradecraft came back to her. Turning down the corridor that led to Sir William’s rooms, Dawn frowned but didn’t push the memory away. That’s how they justify making the big bucks, while us dumb schmucks who put our lives on the line are lucky if we get our expenses reimbursed. He’d winked, and a thirteen-year-old Dawn had winked back at him, feeling as if she and her beloved Uncle Lee were in an exclusive club of two. He’d ruffled her hair, but then his grin had disappeared and his tone had sobered. Standard procedure or not, when you’re about to leave on assignment, you insist the bastards make one last check on your cover identity, your prints, the whole enchilada. Shit happens, and even the best of us can get pulled over for a broken taillight or some pissant infraction like that. You don’t want to hand your license to some Smoky to call in, and then look in your rearview mirror to see the son of a-bitch holding his gun on you as he walks back to your vehicle.

  Like everything Lee had told her, she’d taken that advice as gospel, Dawn thought. Before each mission it had become her own standard operating procedure to have Lab 33’s Identities Department give her one final assurance that her cover ID was clean, her weapons were untraceable and she herself didn’t exist as far as the outside world was concerned. She’d stood over Carter as he’d conducted his computer sweep with the sophisticated software that enabled him to tap into every data bank in the world, no matter how closely firewalled and guarded, and she hadn’t left his side until the program had run its course and delivered its all-clear message.

  Or had she?

  She came to a stop in the middle of the deserted hallway, her mind racing as she mentally replayed the scene: Carter seated in front of his computer but angled slightly away from it as he talked with her, only occasionally turning back to the monitor to type in a command. He hadn’t bothered to hide his boredom at what he obviously saw as an unnecessary precaution on her part, had even gone so far as to drag his skateboard out from under his desk and had been restlessly propelling it back and forth with one foot to emphasize his irritation. At some point he’d shot the board too far forward and it had gotten away from him, flying into the path of old Henderson from Lab 33’s counterfeiting department and nearly tripping him. She’d been the one to go over to Henderson and smooth his ruffled feathers before retrieving the skateboard, Dawn remembered. Her attention had only left the monitor for a minute or so…but a minute would have been plenty of time for Carter to hide any message he hadn’t wanted her to see, if that had been his ploy.

  She was suddenly glad she hadn’t acted on her first impulse and used the clandestine bookstore phone number to contact Lab 33 the morning after Asher’s revelation. Yet another of Lee Craig’s truisms had been that information was only a valuable weapon as long as your opponent didn’t know you had it.

  The door to Sir William’s suite of rooms was in sight. Slowly she began walking toward it again, her feet in their grubby Dawn Swanson sneakers making a squeaking sound against the tiled floor with every step she took. Had Carter deliberately tried to sabotage her mission? If so, why? He’d have to have one hell of an incentive to risk the consequences of Peters finding out, Dawn thought. I should know—it took one hell of an incentive, courtesy of the Cassandras, for me to go up against Aldrich. But if that little weasel’s playing two sides, somehow I don’t think his motive is to do his part in the fight against evil.

  But was that really her motive? Hadn’t she agreed to help the Cassandras for her own reasons—reasons that primarily included the icy desire to extract some kind of payback from Aldrich Peters, some kind of revenge for the lie he’d made of her whole—

  About to raise her hand to knock on Sir William’s door, she never completed the motion. Pain slashed through her head, immediately robbing her of her strength and her senses. It felt as if she was being bludgeoned—as if a giant pickax was being raised repeatedly and smashed down to sink into her very brain.

  She fell to her knees, her head hanging limply between her braced and trembling arms. Nausea rose in her and she felt her stomach gather itself to violently eject the meal she’d so recently eaten.

  “So the rumors are true…you aren’t invulnerable anymore. Interesting.” The harsh whisper—in her disabled state Dawn found it impossible to tell whether it came from a man or a woman—penetrated her consciousness just enough for her to attempt to look at the speaker. Her head felt as if it weighed a ton, her neck barely able to support it. Painfully she opened her eyes…and saw nothing but blackness.

  “Blind, too?” Mockery tinged the voice. “The mighty Dawn O’Shaughnessy certainly has fallen, hasn’t she? I can hardly believe it.”

  It was the voice’s mockery that lit a feeble spark in her. She was in danger, Dawn thought through the fog clouding her senses—mortal danger. The owner of the voice was amused to see her this way, which could only mean that he or she meant to take advantage of her temporary vulnerability. Dredging up the last of her resources, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and forced her lips to lift in a cold smile as pain stabbed unendurably through her.

  “Don’t believe it. Because even in the state I’m in I’m still your worst nightmare.”

  As she rasped out the last words she rose to her feet and blindly launched herself in the direction of the voice. Her grasping hands closed around a neck, and, operating on sheer desperation and will, she began to tighten her grip.

  “You freak!” The voice was no longer a whisper; it was a strang
led gasp. “Someone should have killed you a long time ago!”

  The pain rose to its highest pitch. She had to hang on, Dawn told herself as she began to lose consciousness. Even if only for a few more seconds, she had to hang on long enough to vanquish this unknown, unseen opponent. Because if she didn’t—

  She knew as soon as the searing agony went through her that her fears had been right. Whoever her opponent was, he or she was her mortal enemy…and this enemy knew her one vulnerability.

  It was a race between her impaired regeneration abilities and her inability to draw oxygen past the blood that was pouring in a choking flood into her lungs, she realized dazedly. And whether she lived to fight again, or died in the next few minutes depended solely on the outcome of that race.

  Her unknown enemy had just shot her in the throat.

  Chapter 8

  Status: fourteen days and counting

  Time: 1642 hours

  “Can you hear me, lady? If you can, say something, okay? Dammit, sir, she’s not responding. I think we should get her to the infirmary right now.”

  She was flying, Dawn thought, a little ripple of delight passing through her. Now this was a superhuman gift worth having! Why in the world hadn’t Aldrich told her he’d given her the capacity for flight along with the rest of her enhanced abilities?

  Maybe because you can’t fly, O’Shaughnessy. You’ve been lifted up into someone’s arms, you numbskull.

  The caustic voice inside her head swept away her delight and brought with it a full awareness of the situation. Immediately she ran over the salient points in her mind.

  One: she’d been shot. Two: she’d apparently survived and the wound in her throat had healed, judging from her unrestricted breathing. Three: her headache had vanished, which was probably why her regenerative powers had come back in time to save her; and four: she’d been found unconscious and lying on the floor by at least two people—whoever was now holding her in his arms and the person he’d just addressed as “sir.”

  Those were the facts she knew. It was the ones she didn’t that could endanger her.

  Had she healed before she’d been found, or had the process of regeneration been witnessed by anyone? And was the man who hadn’t yet spoken her would-be killer, interrupted in the act of watching her die and now having to pretend to have stumbled innocently upon her prone body?

  “No need to have those quacks you military types call medics probing and prodding her if she doesn’t need it. It looks to me as if she simply keeled over outside my door and bloodied her nose in the process of falling. I might even have heard her hit the floor if I hadn’t been listening to the end of an Elgar symphony on the phonograph.” The irritated English accent was unmistakably Sir William’s, Dawn realized, which relieved her of one of her worries. His pronouncement had relieved the other. If his off-the-cuff diagnosis was fainting and a nosebleed, then he couldn’t have seen anything out of the ordinary…like someone trying to kill her.

  Cold anger flared inside her. The killer had known her real name, had known of her abilities and the one way she could be killed. Who fit all those criteria? She thrust the question aside for the moment. Whoever her attempted killer had been, she would find him or her, and when she did, the owner of the mocking voice would learn he or she had picked the wrong damn woman to try to kill. Her would-be assassin didn’t know it yet, but he was as good as dead.

  Her attacker’s death would have to wait, though. Right now she had a more immediate matter to deal with.

  “But, sir—” The soldier who had her in his arms was trying to argue with Sir William. She felt like advising him not to waste his breath, but that fact promptly became self-evident.

  “What’s it say on your name tag? Reese, is it?” Sir William gave an unimpressed grunt. “Right, then, Reese. Instead of standing there like a bloody statue, bring my lab supervisor into my rooms and set her on the sofa. She’s getting some color back into her face, so I think we can safely say she’s off the critical list.”

  You might have known, O’Shaughnessy. She was almost startled into a smile. Of course you’re doing the fainting-damsel thing with Lover Boy. The poor guy seems fated to save your butt on a regular basis.

  She’d been about to open her eyes anyway, but now she had a good reason, she thought in amusement.

  “Where am I?” She intended to milk this situation for all it was worth. She let her lashes flutter upward, only realizing as she did that her glasses were sitting askew on the bridge of her nose. Hastily she pushed them straight and gave Private Reese her best helpless-female look as he lowered onto Sir William’s sofa.

  Firm jaw. Indigo eyes. Those thick dark lashes and the sexy mouth she’d noticed on their two previous encounters. Dawn sighed.

  “Damn, but you’re gorgeous, Reese,” she muttered.

  The indigo eyes widened momentarily, then lit with faint humor. “The name’s Terry, and you’re obviously still delusional, angel.” He grinned at her.

  “Is she lucid?” Sir William’s testy question broke the moment. Reese fixed a quick frown on his face and looked up at the older man.

  “Barely, sir. But I think she’ll be all right in a minute or so. Should I call the infirmary anyway?”

  “And have them put Miss Swanson on sick leave just when I’ve finally found someone who keeps my lab running smoothly so I can concentrate on my work? Not bloody likely, soldier.” Sir William glowered at Reese. “Although you’re a Yank, you report to my nephew, I suppose?”

  “Lieutenant Keifer’s in command of the Rangers, sir, but Captain Asher’s in overall command of this facility, so yes, I guess you could say I ultimately answer to him,” Terry Reese answered with formal courtesy. “He’s really the reason I’m here right now. The captain wanted me to convey a message to you.” He hesitated. William London snorted.

  “Spit it out, man. I doubt that any message Asher has for me is so top secret Miss Swanson can’t hear it. If he had his way, I daresay he’d rule me a security risk, and if I had mine I’d do away with half of those cumbersome regulations of his that always seem to be impeding me.”

  Reese glanced down at her and then back at the scientist. “Then the captain’s latest pronouncement won’t come as a surprise, Sir William. As of immediately, he’s implementing a twenty-four/seven tracking of all personnel, including your people and yourself. That means that whenever you leave an area you’re supposed to log onto the nearest computer and input your destination, how long you anticipate being there, and what the reason is for changing location.” His smile flashed into a rueful grin. “All I can say is don’t shoot the messenger, sir. I’m just passing on what he told me to tell you.”

  “Of all the damned cheek!” Sir William exploded. “You mean if I decide to go to the loo I’ve got to tell the whole world how long I think I’ll be? Not on your nelly, lad. Take a message back to my tight-assed SAS nephew. Tell him I have no intention of complying with his dictatorial pronouncements, and I’m specifically instructing my lab staff to ignore them, too. And if he doesn’t like it, he can damn well lump it!”

  “Damn well lump it,” repeated Reese solemnly. “Yes, sir, I’ll tell him. But you don’t want me to let him know what happened to Miss Swanson, do I understand you correctly?”

  “Captain Asher has a problem with me, so no, please don’t bother letting him know I fainted.” Dawn sat up on the sofa and swung her legs off. She placed her sneakered feet tightly side by side and clamped her knees together. Time to bring the Swanson chick back, she thought regretfully. Her absence up until now could be attributed to her temporarily dazed condition, but not even Terry Reese’s indigo eyes were excuse enough to continue acting out of character. “Luckily, unlike you I don’t have to have to answer to him, but to his uncle.” She gave the wild-haired old Englishman a stiffly apologetic nod. “I’m sorry for disturbing you like this, Sir William. By the time I remembered to have lunch I realized this would be a good opportunity to speak with you on some matters and
I decided to eat later. I should have known better. Sometimes my blood sugar drops when I miss a meal.”

  God, now the gorgeous Terry not only saw her as dowdy, but in need of regular hearty sustenance to avoid crashing onto her face, she thought with an inner amusement. She suddenly remembered her massive plate of barbecue ribs at the juke joint, the three Danishes she’d scarfed down for breakfast this morning, the more-than-adequate ham on rye she’d had for lunch, and her grin vanished. Hey, the days of Scarlett O’Hara starving herself to attract a beau are over, she thought in irritation. Besides, this is one undercover assignment where I can’t afford to indulge in any extracurricular activities, no matter how tempting.

  “Then when I ask you out I’d better feed you.” Reese kept his tone low, but there was no chance of Sir William overhearing him anyway. The older man had moved impatiently to the door, obviously eager to have his reply to his nephew conveyed as soon as possible. Reese lifted one eyebrow inquiringly. “It also might help if I knew your name.”

  She stared in disbelief at him. “Dawn,” she said flatly. “But since you’re a babe who probably has to fight off supermodels everywhere you go, I don’t think I’ll hold my breath for that date, Private Reese.”

  “Seven o’clock tonight. East exit of the building. I’ll be waiting, angel.” He sketched her a sloppy salute, turned it into a snappy one as he passed Sir William, and left before she could think of a suitable Dawn Swanson put-down.

  “Well, if you must pass out from hunger, you couldn’t have picked a better time and place to do so.” William London closed the door and turned energetically to Dawn. “You’re in for a treat, my girl—I was just about to sit down to a real English tea. Ever tried Marmite sandwiches?”

  “Asher was a fairly inoffensive child. He was born to my youngest sister later in life and Daphne was rather taken aback to find herself a mother at forty, but as she’d hired a nanny for Destin she only needed to take three weeks away from her groundbreaking work on the Victorian poets, and her husband Charles didn’t need to ask anyone to fill in for him at Cambridge.” Sir William scowled. “But I must say that as a grown man Asher’s certainly turned into a bloody officious—”