Rules of Re-engagement

Chapter 3

00:06 Romeo. Olivia Killinger’s apartment.

Manhattan. Wednesday, October 8.

She stared at the silver cuff, her face sheet white.

Jacques hated this. His mouth felt like ash. His chest hurt.

“You said someone hired you to do this? Who?” Her voice was strangely flat.

“The president.”

“President Elliot?”

He nodded.

She reached for the back of the sofa, steadied herself. “That’s…ludicrous,” she said quietly. “If…if the president really were threatened he’d go through regular channels—Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the military, CIA, FBI. Why on earth would he hire you?”

He studied her, searching for a sign, something that would betray her knowledge of this. He couldn’t see it. Her reaction had been visceral, her shock too real. Unless she was damn good—unless she had learned from her father.

But he didn’t think so. She was still wearing the small Saint Catherine’s pendant, and that told him something.

He’d given it to her for her nineteenth birthday when they were both prelaw students. Saint Catherine was said to be the patron saint of lawyers, barristers, jurists, and according to legend, had been prepared to die for her belief in good. Jacques had never been as big on faith as Olivia’s family, but the locket had been a symbol of what they both shared—a joint vision for justice, a dream of the future, a goal for their careers—a goal that had defied her father’s insistence she become a corporate lawyer for one of his transnationals.

Instead she chose to work for the UN. And she still wore his pendant. It made a fierce kind of pride burn inside him.

And the fact she’d rejected Forbes fed him with a hot flare of hope that she was not so intimately involved with the vice president as to be a part of his scheme to take control of the White House. It also made a dark part of Jacques wonder if there might still be a place in her life for him.

He sipped his drink, welcoming the way it dulled the edge of his guilt, the pain this caused him.

“He can’t use any of those organizations, Olivia. The president’s own Secret Service has been infiltrated. Elliot is being held hostage by the very system designed to protect him, his every move watched, every conversation recorded. If he so much as even thinks of engaging any agency traditionally at his disposal, those bombs will go off.”

He paused, still watching her keenly. “Your father’s corruption and connections go so deep that they root into the very foundations of the nation. This so-called Cabal of his has managed to infiltrate almost every level of government, commerce and the military over the past three decades. Elliot’s only option was to try and secretly enlist an organization free of all U.S. overseeing or restriction, something outside the system. Way out.”

“You?”

He nodded. “And if your father gets even a hint I am here, he will release those bombs instantly.”

Olivia sank slowly down onto the white sofa. She leaned back, closed her eyes, her lashes dark on bloodless skin. She let her hands rest limp in her lap.

She was in shock.

She had to be clean.

But he could take no chances. Even if she knew nothing about what her father was doing, he must never underestimate the power of a blood bond. Especially under duress. It had destroyed him once before.

As much as he hated the idea, she’d have to wear the bracelet.

His satellite connection vibrated in his pocket. Jacques took it out, checked the text message from McDonough. So it was Killinger’s men tailing her. He returned the phone to his pocket, wondering how she was going to take this news.

He’d already dealt her two severe emotional blows in a matter of minutes—coming back from the dead and accusing her father and Forbes of treason.

She was going to need time to process this. If he hit her with too much too soon, she could crumble or resist without thinking first. If she really was innocent, he wanted to get her to a point where it became her choice to turn in her father. He checked his watch. Unfortunately, time was a not a luxury he could afford.

She opened her eyes suddenly.

His heart quickened.

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

She stared at him with a look so intense it drilled right to the very marrow of his bones. He met her gaze, held it. Her grandfather clock ticked loudly. He moistened his lips. A full minute passed.

“I want to know, Jack,” she said suddenly. “Everything. I want to know who you’re working for, where you’ve been. What happened all those years ago…on the beach…everything.”

He nodded his head slowly, then seated himself on the sofa opposite her, the glass-topped coffee table between them. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, cradling his drink in both hands. He rolled the glass slowly between his palms, watched the liquid refract the light as it swirled around the faceted crystal for a few moments, then he looked up.

“When I left New York, I made my way through Canada to Alaska,” he said. “I thought I’d be okay, living alone in the wilderness, but it began to wear heavily on me. I didn’t want to exist like that, alone and on the run. I wanted a life. I wanted to find some place I could hold my head up high.” He stared into his whiskey, his mind going back where he seldom allowed it to tread. “Then I came across a copy of a newspaper, and I saw that my mother had died.” He looked up slowly, met her eyes. “The paper was three weeks old.”

Olivia leaned forward. “They said it was shock, Jack.” She spoke softly. “They said her heart couldn’t take the news of…of how you managed to flee just minutes before they came to arrest you.”

His chest tightened. His scar pulled at his mouth. He inhaled deeply, killing his feelings. “I used the grizzly incident to disappear,” he said, his voice studiously emotionless. “I got myself to the coast, got a fishing boat to take me across the Bering Strait to Russia. Made my way down to France from there. Joined the French Foreign Legion, fulfilled my contract, got a new identity and French citizenship in exchange.”

She remained silent. He could practically see her heart beating under the soft white cashmere.

He sucked back another sharp swig of scotch, felt the comforting burn in his chest. He set his glass on the table, pushed it away, remembering how many nights he’d used the stuff to numb himself. How he’d done it again in that small Parisian bar sixteen years ago, the night before Jack Sauer disappeared forever, the gates of Fort de Nogent clanging shut behind him. No more memories. No more past. No more Olivia.

Until now.

He lifted his eyes slowly. “They call it the Legion of the Damned,” he said.

“I know.” She had a strange expression on her face, as if she was beginning to understand something about him. “It’s one of the greatest mercenary armies of all time. One of the harshest.” She paused. “I’ve read the literature, Jack. The Legion was created by King Louis Phillipe in the 1800s in the conquest of Algeria, and it’s been a last resort for society’s misfits ever since. It accepts refugees, revolutionaries, poets, princes, paupers, criminals—no questions asked.”

“Not exactly—”

“You serve a minimum five-year contract. And if you survive, you have the option to be rectified—get a new name, usually the same initials, and a French passport. A cloak of official anonymity.”

She studied him carefully, as if reevaluating him in light of this new information. “I had a client once. He’d been in the Legion. He told me the bond that forms between men with no allegiance to family or country or a past of any kind is formidable, close to mystical.”

“It has to be,” he said. “You die for each other, not a country.”

“That’s why you have the accent. And you’ve been rectified.”

He nodded. “I did my five years. Jack Sauer became Jacques Sauvage—French citizen, perfectly legal.”

“So that’s how you got back into the country without tipping off the FBI, using the Sauvage alias?”

“No. I used a fake identity.” He met her eyes. “And Sauvage is my name, not an alias.”

“What happened after the five years?”

“I left the Legion with a couple of the guys I’d served with—Rafiq Zayed and Hunter McBride. Good guys—guys I’d kill for, and they for me.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she whispered.

“We went to Africa where we were joined by a Zulu from South Africa, December Ngomo. He was ex-Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress established to fight the apartheid regime. We banded together to form a private military company.” He sat back. “That was ten years ago. We call ourselves the Force du Sable.”

“So you’re shadow soldiers,” she said softly. “Global cops for hire.”

“Military advisors,” he corrected. “Part of a growing multibillion-dollar industry. Wherever the next global hot spot flares into action, we’re ready to step into the fray. For a fee. It’s a legitimate business.”

A haunted look sifted into her features. She dropped her face into her hands and sat like that for what seemed like ages. Then a silent sob racked her frame and he saw that her fingers were wet.

“Olivia?”

She jerked her head up, raw anguish in her eyes. “I know about the FDS, Jack!” Her voice was thick with hurt. “Your PMC is based on São Diogo Island off the coast of Angola. You were recently involved in a number of high-profile African coups, the protection of UN aid columns.” She lurched to her feet, swayed slightly, steadied herself by holding onto the back of the sofa. “FDS troops helped end the civil war in Sierra Leone. They ousted a tyrannical dictator on the Ivory Coast, they’ve been instrumental in bringing an end to human genocide in a small Eastern European dictatorship. I know this, Jack.” She jabbed her fingers into her chest. “I know it because I’ve dealt with clients from those areas. The FDS is lobbying for a United Nations sanction, forcing world leaders to rethink the role and legitimacy of mercenaries in a new world order. You want an international code of ethics.”

“Yes,” he said carefully. “We want to sift out the rogue operations. We want to make hiring a PMC a bankable option for small countries with limited military capability that might come under attack by a bigger hostile power.”

She clutched her arms over her stomach, eyes burning with wet emotion. “I…I know all about your quest for legitimacy,” she whispered. “I…I just didn’t know it was you. All this time. You were alive and people were talking about you right there under my nose…my ex-fiancé…my dead fiancé…and I…you never… How could you do that to me, Jack? How could you not let me know you were all right?” She started to shake. “Damn you, Jack Sauer,” she hissed, her eyes bright and wild. “Damn you all to hell.”

“I’ve been there, Olivia.”

“You should’ve stayed there.” She swiped at the moisture on her face. “And now you’re telling me President Elliot has hired the FDS? He’s hired mercenaries to operate on U.S. soil, to come after my father and Grayson and some mysterious Cabal?”

“That’s correct.”

“But how did he hire you if he’s supposed to be a virtual prisoner like you say he is?”

He studied her, his heart twisting, aching to comfort her. But he held his distance. This was good. She was asking the right questions. She was taking small steps to acceptance.

“It’s a good question, Olivia,” he said. “The only man President Elliot has been able to confide in is his private physician, Dr. Sebastian Ruger, an old and trusted military friend.” Jacques wasn’t going to go into the president’s illness. Not yet. She wasn’t ready for that.

“They’ve been communicating in writing, in the White House medical suite. The president asked Ruger to try to enlist us on his behalf. We’ve done work for him before, through a covert arm of the CIA, well before the Cabal managed to fully infiltrate the organization. He trusts us. Ruger managed to meet with me at a United Nations conference in Brussels just over three weeks ago. I was there to push my lobby for an international standardized code of conduct for private military companies.” He paused. “It’s a close-to-impossible mission, Olivia. But we took the job. Someone had to.”

“You mean someone had to come after my father. And Grayson?”

“We’re the last resort, Olivia, the last bid to save democracy. Because if your father and Forbes get their way, there won’t be an election next month. Or for the foreseeable future. They’ll immediately launch the country into a full-scale war with what they claim are terrorists and rogue states. This in turn will give Forbes unprecedented power, and he will use it. He will delay the election indefinitely and war will become his excuse to spark an era of aggressive imperialism expressly designed to feed corporate coffers—like those of your fathers. And this, Olivia, will change the world as we know it.”

He let it sink over her.

She shook her head slowly. “You cannot,” she said, “expect me to believe any of this. And even if some of it is remotely true, you cannot expect me to believe that my father is involved in anything like this.”

“That’s my job, then—to make you believe.”

Defiance flashed in her eyes. “And if you can’t?”

He looked pointedly at the cuff.

“Oh, right,” she said bitterly. “You’ll hold me hostage and threaten my father with my life?”

“Or you can choose to help us.”

She glared at him. “My father is a good man, Jack. He…he may have some questionable ethics as far as business goes, but he is not involved in this. He can’t be.” But Jacques could see the nervousness, the edgy flickering questions in her eyes. Olivia knew just how connected and powerful her father was. She knew just how much Samuel Killinger craved power, how ruthless some of his business practices could be.

“It’s not possible,” she whispered, as if to convince herself. “He’s a good man,” she said again, quietly. “He could not do anything like this.”

Jacques got to his feet, strode over to her floor-to-ceiling windows and flung back her drapes dramatically. He turned to face her, standing squarely in front of the black window…in full view of whoever was down in the street.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to show you something.”

Confusion touched her eyes. The clock in the hall ticked loudly.

Olivia glanced at the clock. It was almost two in the morning. She’d be expected in the office by nine for a routine start. But there was nothing routine about this day. She fingered the smooth metal cuff he’d locked over her wrist, feeling as though she’d slid into some kind of twilight zone. She was unable to fully adjust to his presence, and she simply couldn’t believe what he was telling her—especially about her father.

Jack had said the president had been ordered to stand down by October 13. Why did that date feel so familiar? She realized with mild shock that that was the day her father expected her to be on his yacht in the Caribbean for some big Venturion Corporation announcement. The whole board would be there. Her chest tightened. It was a coincidence. It had to be.

The familiar tone of her cell phone broke the silence. Olivia jumped, confused for a moment.

The chime sounded again.

Jack reached down, scooped her phone up from where he’d put it on the table, handed it to her. “Answer it.” His eyes narrowed. “But remember, if anyone finds out I am in town, the bombs blow. People die.”

She took the phone, flipped it open, checked the incoming number in the display. Her father! Tension whipped through her.

“Answer it.”

She glanced at the clock again. Why on earth would her father be calling her at this hour?

She put the phone to her ear, her eyes fixed on Jack. “Dad?”

“Olivia, are you all right?”

No, I am not. Emotion choked her, stealing her voice.

“Olivia? You still there?”

“I…I’m fine, Dad.”

Silence. “You don’t sound fine.”

She cleared her throat, shoved her hair back from her face as if it would help clear her mind. “I…I was sleeping.”

Silence. Longer this time. He didn’t believe her.

“Dad, do you know what time it is? Why are you calling me at this hour?”

“I was really worried about you, Olivia. I know Grayson was in town, and…and I hadn’t heard from you. Did everything go okay? Did he propose?”

“What makes you think that?”

“It was on the news, the speculation.”

She closed her eyes. It was not supposed to be like this.

“Did you accept, Olivia?”

“Dad, I…I can’t talk now—”

“You’re not alone…are you?”

Her eyes flared open. He knew. Somehow he knew.

Her eyes shot to Jack standing brazenly in front of the open curtains. She thought of the men in the street below watching.

That’s how he knew!

Her heart bottomed out. They were her father’s men outside. They were watching her window. He knew she had a man in her apartment tonight because they had called him. It was not a father’s business. He had no right to spy on her like that. But why was he doing it? Why was he having her tailed? How long had she been followed?

A dark and sinister thread curled through her thoughts and nausea filled her stomach.

“Olivia?”

She swallowed against the growing thickness in her throat. “Dad…it’s really late. I have to be up early. Can I call you back at a better time?”

“What happened with Grayson, Olivia?” His tone became insistent.

“I…” She watched Jack’s eyes. “I’ve been meaning to break it off with him for some time, Dad. I was going to do it after he left office, when the pressure was off. But—”

“Grayson is good for you, Olivia. You’re good together.” He hesitated. “Is…is there someone else? Is that the problem?”

Olivia felt ill. She knew what he was doing. He was pressing her for information—about the man in her window. And he was so desperate to know who that man was that he’d called her at this ungodly hour. Jack was right. Her father really was having her followed. Something was going on. Her world was crumbling out from under her feet and she couldn’t even begin to think straight. Just seeing Jack, touching him, was more than she could handle right now.

Her voice began to choke up. “I…I have to go, Dad. I’ll call you later.” Olivia hung up quickly before he could speak again, and she stared numbly at the phone in her hand. She’d cut him off—her own father. She’d lied to him. He’d lied to her.

“I’m sorry, Olivia,” Jack said softly. “I know this can’t be easy.”

Her eyes flashed to his. Well, if that wasn’t the understatement of the night. Olivia sank back on to the sofa as she stared at Jack. He was the key in all this.

If what he said about the president was even vaguely true, why was he here, and not some other FDS operative?

It was because he knew her intimately. He understood the depth of her connection to her father. And he knew how to exploit that.

He also knew Grayson. They were all connected by the past.

A darkness whispered through her mind, an elusive sensation she couldn’t quite pin down. Somehow…this tied back to Elizabeth’s death, to that fateful night on the beach. She could sense it.

Whether she was right or not, it didn’t matter. She needed to know. She needed to know this one thing before she could accept anything else that Jack said.

“Tell me, Jack,” she said quietly. “Tell me what happened on the beach that night. I need to know why you killed Elizabeth.”

“I didn’t.”

The brutal honesty in his voice slammed her square in the chest. She caught her breath, stared at him. His eyes were clear, unblinking. And with a sinking sensation, Olivia wondered if he might be telling the truth.

A dark question whispered, almost elusively, through her mind.

She tried to shake the thought away. And with a shock, she realized she’d been shaking that strange black whispering sensation away for longer than she cared to remember.

“If you didn’t do it, Jack, who did?”

Chapter 4

02:47 Romeo. Olivia Killinger’s apartment.

Manhattan. Wednesday, October 8.

He held her eyes for a long beat, the weight of the years and secrets stretching, hanging silent between them.

“I never wanted to go to that beach party,” he said quietly. “They weren’t my kind of people.”