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UNDER SURVEILLANCE
Staff sergeant Jessica Dylan confronts a female soldier in the act of stealing her laptop—and almost pays with her life. But a blue-eyed mystery man rushes to her aid just in time, and Jessica learns the handsome army staff sergeant has been investigating her. Sean Turner believes a ring of cyberterrorists who’ve been attacking military bases are now specifically targeting Jessica. And he’s determined to figure out why they are tracking her every move. As the threats against Jessica escalate and attempts are made on her life, Sean vows to stop the hackers. Yet the heart-scarred soldier is set on keeping an emotional distance…especially when they discover what the terrorists are really after.
“Are you always this prepared?” Jessica asked.
Her voice sounded laced with skepticism and not a trace of fear. She tended to stay calm in the moment, he’d already seen, but he also knew she’d been close to tears at some point.
“Only when I’ve already had to save an asset’s life three times.”
Jessica peeked around him at the man lying trussed on her bathroom floor. Her head tilted, expression darkening. “That’s the man who was hiding in my car.”
Sean gave a slight nod, watching her. She was afraid, he could see it on her face, but she wasn’t about to give in and weaken in front of him.
Most likely, she didn’t want him to see she was terrified. That was nothing to be ashamed of. Three attempts on her life in two days would rattle even the most battle-worn vet, especially on home soil where it was supposed to be safe.
For the first time in a very long time, Sean felt the urge to pull a woman close and comfort her. But no matter what he felt, distance was necessary if he was going to put his life and his career back together.
JODIE BAILEY writes novels about freedom and the heroes who fight for it. Her novel Crossfire won a 2015 RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Love Inspired Suspense Book Award. She is convinced a camping trip to the beach with her family, a good cup of coffee and a great book can cure all ills. Jodie lives in North Carolina with her husband, her daughter and two dogs.
Compromised
Identity
Jodie Bailey
www.millsandboon.co.uk
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
—John 10:10
To the men and women of the US military, who fight battles within and without so that we can know peace. And to their families, who bear their warriors’ armor and fight right beside them.
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Introduction
About the Author
Title Page
Bible Verse
Dedication
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
EPILOGUE
Dear Reader
Extract
Copyright
ONE
“I’ll gather the Casualty Notification Team.”
Staff Sergeant Jessica Dylan twirled her pen on the green cloth cover of her notebook, watching the black barrel spin to stop, pointing straight at the chaplain, who’d stood to gather his papers after leading the casualty briefing for rear detachment. She couldn’t shake the thought of a family who was going about their business right now, thinking everything was right in their world.
“You okay?” Captain Alexander, the battalion rear detachment commander, stopped behind her on his way out the door. “Did you know Specialist Murphy?”
“Only by sight.”
The captain didn’t even hear her. He’d already moved on, out the door before her reply could even get to him.
Jessica stacked her things and pushed her chair back, feeling older than her twenty-eight years. This was no way to start a Monday.
No, she hadn’t known Specialist Murphy, but she could picture his mischievous grin at the Family Readiness Group picnic when he’d paid half a week’s pay to shove a cream pie in his First Sergeant’s face. It was true to form for Murphy. He’d taken every opportunity to buck his chain of command. Having license to do it publicly, even for a fund-raiser, had apparently been too much for him to resist.
Pulling the book tighter against her chest, Jessica shook off weighted emotion as she walked across the small courtyard from headquarters to her company’s building. Death never got easier. If the captain wasn’t going to get upset, neither was she. She could fall apart when she got home away from anyone who would see her grief as a weakness.
Her boots thudded heavy on the industrial tile, but they slid to a stop as she neared her office. The door was cracked slightly, light from her huge windows leaking into the dark hallway.
She shoved her hand into her uniform pocket, feeling for the key, vividly remembering how the lock had stuck as she’d left for the casualty briefing. With her Rear D soldiers on a detail across post and everyone else of consequence in the briefing, there was no one who should have needed access to her office.
Laying her book on a desk in the outer office, she peeked around the corner.
A female soldier, her back toward the door, stuffed Jessica’s work laptop into a small black backpack, but her focus stayed on the desktop’s screen. She fidgeted back and forth as if she was waiting for something, then reached under the desk, pulled something from the computer’s tower and shut the machine down, just like Jessica had left it.
It had only been a couple of weeks since her other laptop was stolen, and that theft had brought wrath down on her head. No way was she going through that again. Jessica stepped back, giving the woman just enough room to exit the office. Arms crossed over her chest, she waited.
The door pulled fully open, and Specialist Lindsay Channing stepped out, intent on shutting the door quietly behind her before she turned. When she spotted Jessica, her steps stuttered backward. “Staff Sergeant Dylan. I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Funny.” Jessica dropped her arms and balled her fists loosely at her sides. “I could say the same thing about you. Care to explain?”
Channing’s gaze darted from Jessica to a spot up the short hallway, then to the floor before going back to Jessica. “I was just coming back from a meeting and was going to stop by and give you some paperwork but your door was open and...” She took a step forward, sliding the backpack into her hand.
“Try again.”
“That’s the truth.” Channing smiled slightly and then edged to one side, trying to slip around Jessica.
Not on her life. Not until she coughed up what she’d been doing in that office. Jessica stepped sideways with her as Channing lashed out and swung with the heavy backpack, catching Jessica against the temple.
Something clattered to the floor as the blow drove Jessica to the right and slammed her shoulder into the cinder block wall, shooting pain through her body like electricity. It took a moment for the world to clear, and Channing was running up the hall for the exit.
Jessica tried to shake off the blow, doubling over with her hands on her knees, shoulder screaming from contact with the wall. A few feet away, what had to be Specialist Channing’s cell phone glinted in the sunlight. Jessica shoved it in her leg pocket and took off out the door in pursuit, though each fall of her boots on the floor jarred an unbearable pounding through her.
One of the young soldiers on staff duty, tasked with keeping watch over the battalion area, stepped out of the headquarters building as Specialist Channing raced across the courtyard, flinging the backpack into the bushes as she ran.
“Call 911!” Jessica shouted at him as she rushed past, pushing to gain on the thief, praying he’d follow the order instead of gawking at their backs.
Jessica’s world spun in the chill of a November Kentucky afternoon, the ache in her shoulder intensifying in the cold. She would not let this slow her down. She. Would. Not. Rounding the corner of the building at the parking lot, she stopped and grabbed the rough metal of a small fence, willing the pain to stop, watching as a small red sports car screeched into the parking lot, throwing gravel in its wake.
Channing dove into the passenger’s seat, but the car didn’t move.
Gathering her reserves, Jessica pushed away from the fence and stepped forward, prepared to confront anyone who tried to get in her way. She was not going to get called on the carpet for another missing laptop. Her career couldn’t take that blow.
A man in civilian clothes climbed from the car, reaching into his coat for something she couldn’t see, setting off alarms that refused to be silenced. His dark eyes raked across her as he paused beside the vehicle not twenty yards away.
Jessica took a step back, catching her foot against the fence, reaching out to brace herself as the man pulled his hand from inside his coat, a thick knife glinting in the late-afternoon sun.
* * *
Staff Sergeant Sean Turner was out of his small rental car and halfway to the building when the man exited the little red sports car and stalked toward Staff Sergeant Dylan. Three days he’d been pulling surveillance on her and nothing. Now, everything exploded at once.
He pushed hard across the asphalt as the man pulled a knife and stepped closer to his victim.
If Jessica Dylan died in front of him, Sean would have one more sin to add to his list of unforgivables. That list was long enough already. “Back away!” The shout echoed off the buildings on the other side of the nearly deserted parking lot, competing with his footfalls for volume.
The man straightened and whipped around, knife at the ready.
This was not going to be fun.
Especially not without his weapon and with his shoulder still healing. There was no way to get authorization to carry a gun on post without compromising the mission. He’d have to get through this altercation with what existed inside his own skin.
Holding up his hands to show he wasn’t armed, Sean stopped a few feet away from Jessica Dylan, edging slowly to the left to put himself between the man and his prey. “If you put down the knife, we’ll stop this now.” He motioned for Jessica to slip around the end of the fence—anything to put a barrier between her and the man creeping closer.
“Staff duty called the police.” Jessica spoke from behind him. “They should be here any second.” There was no fear in her voice, just fact.
If the situation weren’t so dire, Sean would break away to high-five her cool in the heat of battle. She didn’t even sound out of breath.
The other man didn’t flinch at Jessica’s declaration. He took a step to the left, seeming to calculate the shortest distance around Sean to Jessica. Never once did he turn back toward the car, his likely escape route.
Sean’s heart hammered harder. Whoever this guy was, his focus wasn’t on getting away. It was squarely on Jessica Dylan.
That changed everything. If keeping her quiet was more important than saving his own life, there was more at stake here than it seemed on the surface. This guy had to have orders from someone who scared him more than jail time.
Sean balled his fists and stepped forward, leading the offense rather than playing defense.
“I wouldn’t do that,” a second voice called out from the red sports car.
The female soldier who had run from the building stood by the passenger door, pistol aimed over the roof at Sean.
Nope. Not fun at all.
The back of Sean’s mind tried to spin up images of the last time he’d been unarmed and cornered, of the nightmarish days that followed, but he swallowed the fear and refused to give in. That was last time. This time, he had to win. His life wasn’t the only one to consider.
And he had orders of his own.
Sirens spun up in the near distance, stealing the two assailants’ attention for the brief second Sean needed. “Run!” He fired the word over his shoulder to Jessica, hoping she’d obey.
Her attacker was already in motion, diving through the door of the car before Sean could even get traction to follow him. As soon as his accomplice was inside, he floored the vehicle in a spray of gravel as the scene exploded, a military police cruiser roaring into the parking lot as two more soldiers ran around the corner of the building.
Sean waved an arm toward the sports car and yelled to the police. “That’s them! Go!” The car hesitated, and then took off in pursuit. Satisfied the officers had things in hand, Sean turned his attention to the woman he was supposed to be keeping an eye on.
Jessica Dylan sagged against the chain-link fence, fingers laced through the metal as she watched the car roar away. The instant she realized he was watching, she straightened and tugged the hem of her jacket, her face rearranged into an impassive mask.
This was a soldier who wanted him to know she was fully in control. No victim here.
Before he could reach her, the two soldiers who’d raced from the building swarmed her, but Staff Sergeant Dylan waved them off. “I’m fine.” She turned on two of the younger soldiers, eyeing them with an expression Sean hoped he never saw aimed in his direction. “Explain to me how Specialist Channing got into the company building when it was locked.”
Must be staff duty. And one of them had made a huge mistake. For their twenty-four-hour shift, those guys were responsible for manning the area and making sure everything stayed safe and low-key. From walking the battalion to answering the phones, they were the first line of defense. Sean would like to know the answer to how this all went down right in front of them, as well.
One of the soldiers stepped forward and Sean angled to read his name. Specialist Thompson. “I had stepped away to take a message to Captain Alexander. My runner was at the desk.”
Staff Sergeant Dylan tipped her head toward the younger soldier, a Private Meyers. “So you let her in?”
“She needed to drop something off in your office, so I let her in and came back to my post. I didn’t think it was a big deal.” Private Meyers kept his gaze just over Jessica’s shoulder.
Sean couldn’t blame the kid for not looking at her. He was facing a world of hurt leaving the desk unmanned and giving access to a soldier on the very day trouble went down. Sean stepped closer, drawing Staff Sergeant Dylan’s attention again, and she stepped away from the other soldiers to approach him, left hand extended, the only indication she’d been through trauma: a slight tremor in her fingers.
“I’m Staff Sergeant Jessica Dylan.” She grasped his fingers tightly in hers, her hand chilled from the elements and likely mild shock. “Thanks for stepping in.”
Something was wrong. Sean released her hand and eyed her carefully. “Most people I know extend their right hands, Staff Sergeant. Are you injured?” The way she angled her shoulder slightly back was a telltale sign. He looked past her to the two soldiers trudging back toward their post. “Private Meyers, call for an ambulance.”
“Meyers.” Jessica Dylan pulled herself taller and turned her back to Sean. “Do not. I’m fine.”
Meyers and the other soldier hesitated, and then seemed to choose their own chain of command over the random stranger, turning to walk back toward the building. Only Private Meyers cast an uncertain, slightly amused glance back at them.
She whirled on him so fast she wavered on her feet. “I don’t know who you are, but I said I’m fine.” Her eyes swept the rank on his chest, and she seemed a little prideful to find it equal to hers: Staff Sergeant.
Holding his hands up in surrender, Sean took a step back, giving her space before she took out her anger and fear on him.
“I’m fine, by the way. Just took a dive into the wall shoulder first. I’ll have it checked out, and I’m sure it will be bruised tomorrow but none the worse for wear.” She met his eyes with authority. “Again, thank you. I don’t know what made you do it, but I appreciate the help.” Without looking back, she turned and walked away.
The help? He took two steps to follow her, then stopped, unsure whether he should reveal his mission yet or not. Based on all he’d seen in the past five minutes, that man would have killed her. Without Sean, Jessica Dylan would be dead.
TWO
Shoulder throbbing with a very new and totally unwelcome kind of pain, Jessica sank to the wooden bench by the side door in her house and bent to unlace her boots, wishing the pain meds would kick in and give her relief.
“At least the doctor said nothing’s broken.” Her roommate, Angie Hunter, slipped off her shoes and kicked them under the bench.
Jessica had to dodge to keep her ankle from being pierced by heels so tall that airport security would likely consider them weapons. “At this point, I think I’m past caring.” She’d toughed it out in front of everybody, not wanting to get carted off in an ambulance like a weak female, but the pain had finally driven her to make sure the injury wasn’t more than it seemed. All she needed was a pointless injury to sideline her career. The doctor at the emergency room had assured her nothing was torn or broken, but he had told her to take it easy for a few days. Hopefully, his prognosis on how long the pain would last was wrong.
Stowing her boots under the bench, Jessica followed Angie into the small kitchen at the back of the house, letting a deep breath of the familiar spicy scents wash over her and ease some of the weirdness from her day. This room, with its cheery yellow walls and white cabinets, was her happy place, the one spot in the whole world where nothing could touch her. Running her hands along the cool granite of the counter, she thanked God again for leading her to a roommate who had gourmet decorating tastes, if not gourmet cooking skills.
“Hungry?” Angie pulled open a cabinet door and stood staring into the contents as though she knew what to do with them.
“You’re cooking? I’ll pass.” Jessica leaned back against the counter. No matter who was cooking, food didn’t sound appetizing with the pain in her shoulder twisting a knot in her stomach. Or maybe that knot had more to do with the fact Channing and her cohort were still out there somewhere, having eluded the MPs and slipped off post before the order came through to tighten security at the gates.
“I make a mean can of tomato soup, I’ll have you know.” Thumping the can on the counter, Angie reached up and pulled her blond hair into a ponytail, securing it with a hair band she slid from her wrist. “You should eat something.”
“I’m good. All I want is a shower and my bed.”
“Maybe you’ll dream about your mystery protector.” Two years younger than Jessica, Angie thought everything was romantic. Knowing her, she was wishing she had been the one facing down a bad guy while a handsome hero rushed to save her.
Reality was nothing like the fantasy. Jessica would roll her eyes, but she was afraid she’d fall asleep halfway through. “I’m good. Thanks.”
“Just tell me he was cute, and I’ll go dream about him for you.”
“I was a little too busy to notice.” Sort of. In spite of the situation, forgetting how blue those eyes were when he trained them right on her was not easy. And he had that dark blond kind of hair that was just a little bit longer than it should be, so it sort of mussed on the top as if he’d dragged his fingers through it.
Well, okay. So a girl could think a guy was handsome, especially if he was in the process of saving her life. Why lie? “Fine. He was the sort you’d think was gorgeous. Broad shoulders and all.” Jessica shoved off the counter and headed for her room, where the joy of sweatpants awaited and this conversation ended. “And to make your dreams even better, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t a regular Joe from down on the line, not the way he handled himself. But just remember, for all we know, that exterior hid a whole tangle of crazy.” Somehow, she doubted that. The way he took authority and dove at her attacker said there was more to him than a man who was simply in the right place at the right time.
“All I heard in that jumble of words was you noticed the color of his eyes.” Angie’s laugh followed Jessica up the hall to the stairwell. “Maybe you’ll see him again.”
“Doubtful.” At least she hoped not. Any man who stepped on her authority the way he had didn’t sit right with her, even if he had saved her life.
Jessica climbed the stairs and shut the door on Angie’s amusement, then leaned back against it, letting her body relax for the first time in hours. If she didn’t have work to do, she’d crawl into bed right now and will the world away for the rest of the night.
Even though she’d hedged with Angie, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to see her anonymous defender again, at least so she could thank him for putting himself in danger on her behalf. If he hadn’t been there...
Shuddering, Jessica forced herself to move. Going there now would just solidify the image and unfurl it in her nightmares later. Not that she needed much help. Even if she didn’t have recurring dreams about her last deployment, the decor in her bedroom would agitate her. Why Angie had seen fit to go Gothic in here with deep red walls and heavy dark wood furniture was a mystery Jessica had never felt like solving. She was just happy to live off post.
Changing into track pants and a sweatshirt, Jessica gathered her uniform to toss it into the laundry. Every time she bent to pick up clothes from the hardwood floor, her shoulder pounded a reminder it had only been a few hours since she’d done battle with one of her soldiers, who’d now gone missing.
She snatched up her uniform bottoms, unwilling to think about this day anymore.
Something hard clattered to the floor and slid beneath the dark gray bed skirt. Kneeling to reach with her uninjured arm, Jessica retrieved the object and held it up.
Private Channing’s cell phone, the one that had fallen from her backpack when she swung it at Jessica’s head. Sinking all the way to the floor, Jessica powered up the device, praying it held enough charge to give her a clue as to what was happening with her disappearing soldier and the attempted theft of yet another laptop.
The phone chimed to life with just under a quarter of its battery showing. Almost immediately, texts popped onto the screen, vibrating the phone and chirping to the point Jessica nearly shoved the thing under a pillow. When the noise finally stopped, over a dozen texts waited.
It was probably an invasion of privacy to read them, but since the girl had lost the phone while swinging a backpack at Jessica’s head, privacy really ranked low at this point.
Jessica clicked on the first message. It was nothing but letters and numbers strewn together in a random pattern. Each and every message read the same way, though they came from two different telephone numbers.
Sitting back against the bed, Jessica let the device hang from limp fingers between her knees. It was almost like a child had typed text after text right under their parents’ noses. Private Channing didn’t have any children and no family that Jessica could remember seeing in her records when she’d arrived last week to prepare for rotation overseas. The woman was a foster child, her next of kin listed as a friend she’d met in basic training.