“Do you think it’s impossible that a second chance might be exactly what I want?” Sabrina asked.

“You’ve been out of the game a long time, Bri. What makes you think you can handle Kahsan—a terrorist for hire with more resources than you?” her former trainer, Quinlan, replied.

“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly operating at top speed, either, chief. All these years, and you still haven’t caught him.”

“Touché. Okay. For now I’ll buy it. But you’re stuck with me. No negotiating on this one. If Kahsan bites—”

“If? I would say it was more a question of when.”

Outside the door, a snap echoed. The two froze then stared hard at each other, no communication necessary for what they both understood.

They had company.

Dear Reader,

You’re about to read a Silhouette Bombshell novel and enter a world full of excitement, suspense and women who stand strong in the face of danger and do what it takes to triumph over the toughest adversaries. And don’t forget a touch of thrilling romance to sweeten the deal. Our bombshells always get their men, good and bad!

Debra Webb kicks off the month with Silent Weapon, the innovative story of Merri Walters, a deaf woman who goes undercover in a ruthless criminal’s mansion and reads his chilling plans right off his lips!

Hold on to your hats for Payback, by Harper Allen, the latest in the Athena Force continuity. Assassin Dawn O’Shaughnessy is out to take down the secret lab that created her and then betrayed her—but she’s got to complete one last mission for them, or her superhealing genes will self-destruct before she gets payback….

Step into the lush and dangerous world of The Orchid Hunter, by Sandra K. Moore. Think “botanist” and “excitement” don’t match? Think again, as this fearless heroine’s search for a rare orchid turns into a dangerous battle of wills in the steamy rain forest.

And don’t miss the twist and turns as a gutsy genius races to break a deadly code, trap a slippery terrorist and steal back the trust of her former CIA mentor, in Calculated Risk, by Stephanie Doyle!

Strong, sexy, suspenseful…that’s Silhouette Bombshell! Please send your comments to me, c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

Sincerely,

Natashya Wilson

Associate Senior Editor, Silhouette Bombshell

Calculated Risk
Stephanie Doyle

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

STEPHANIE DOYLE

is a dedicated romance reader who began writing her own romantic stories—some funny, some adventurous, but all delivering the quintessential happy ending—at age fifteen. At eighteen she submitted her first story to Harlequin and by twenty-six she was published. Now in her thirties, she struggles between the demands of her day job—writing—and trying to find a little romance of her own. She lives in South Jersey with her two cats, Alexandria Hamilton and Theodora Roosevelt. She wants to get a dog, but the cats have outvoted her.

For my brother, Bob

My version of what happens

to those really brainy kids from MIT…

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 1

I’m dead now. You know what to do, G.G.

S abrina Masters stared at the e-mail displayed on her computer screen and released a deep breath. Arnold was gone.

A true believer in the art of science and math, he’d been a mentor. Certainly, he’d been one of her few intellectual equals. But more importantly, he’d cared about her. More, she knew, than her own father ever had. At least Arnold always looked out for her.

Her head fell forward because it seemed too heavy to hold up. She could feel the tears well behind her eyes and wanted to stop them. But she decided that Arnold deserved a few tears.

He’d been alone in the world. No wife, no children, no family to speak of. He’d made the computer his wife. The work his child. But the computer wouldn’t cry and the work wouldn’t mourn for him.

She wondered if he realized now that he was gone that there had never been anyone truly significant in his life. If he did, if that knowledge somehow made him sad, she hoped he at least knew how heartbroken she was.

You know what to do, G.G.

The old nickname brought a smile to her lips. G.G.: Girl Genius.

Sabrina glanced at the number typed at the bottom and instantly memorized it, plugging it into her brain alongside every other piece of information that she’d ever stumbled across. Sometimes she wondered if one day her head might fill up to such a capacity that it would simply explode from the strain. The gruesome image did nothing to improve her mood.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Arnold,” she stated aloud to the almost empty room, in the practically empty house that was her home in an out-of-the-way, nowhere town in Pennsylvania.

Briefly, she entertained the idea that as a ghost he might be able to answer her. She waited a beat. Nothing. If there was a heaven and Arnold was in it, he was trying to strike up a game of chess with Einstein. Probably convinced that he could beat him, too. The last thing Arnold would care about after his death would be the fate of the nation. Not when he barely had cared about it when he was alive.

You and me, G.G. We’re a lot alike.

He used to tell her that all the time. She’d always thought he was talking about their strange intellect. But maybe he wasn’t. The idea that they had more in common worried her. In fact, it frightened her.

Sabrina slipped her hand into the back pocket of her jeans to extract her cell phone. She dialed the number Arnold had given her and waited.

“Hello?”

“Is this Assistant Director Krueger?” she asked, somewhat surprised. Arnold must have given her the CIA director’s personal cell phone number as a way to cut directly to the chase.

“Yes?”

“Arnold Salinski is dead.”

“I know. Sabrina Masters?”

“Yep.”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Then, “We should talk.”

She could practically feel the weight of this moment and the impact it was going to have on her life.

“Yep.”

The night was bitterly cold, as it should be in January in Pennsylvania, but the sky was as clear as glass. Krueger had chosen Gettysburg to meet. A full moon glowed over the frozen battlefields adding a touch of eeriness that, quite frankly, it did not need. The place was spooky enough in broad daylight. Sabrina wished she’d told Krueger to meet her at a damn diner in town.

Shaking off the creepy factor, she focused on the clandestine meeting ahead. Following the winding drive through the various memorial sites scattered about in the woods, she stopped at the third one. The name Cowan etched in stone caught her eye.

She bounced out of the Jeep and shut the door behind her, glancing around the area as she did. The wind caught her hair and sent it flying about in a bad imitation of Medusa. She wished she’d thought to bring a hat. Her ears were going to freeze. Forcing her hands into the pockets of her down-feather coat, she hopped up and down a few times to keep her circulation going and, if she was honest with herself, to keep her nerves at bay.

He materialized out of the trees like a ghost and once again Sabrina was reminded why CIA operatives were often called spooks. Because she didn’t know what Krueger looked like, she wrapped her hand around the Colt Defender inside her pocket. A girl couldn’t be too careful.

“Krueger?” she asked.

“Masters?” he wanted to know first.

She nodded, then he stepped closer to her. Apparently, he knew what she looked like because his shoulders seemed to relax slightly. He was a hair over six feet and had a broad build. His face was deeply lined, probably a combination of stress and age. He wore jeans, a ski jacket and sneakers. And a hat. A practical man, she decided. And a prepared one.

“We’ll talk in your car,” he suggested.

Secure enough to release her hold on the gun, she opened the door, got back inside and leaned over to unlock the passenger door. He lifted himself into the seat.

“I checked your record. You were fired from the CIA almost ten years ago,” he began.

“You’re not the most subtle fellow, are you?” Then she admitted what he already knew. “I was.”

“Willful insubordination.”

Sabrina winced at the description It was a phrase that never failed to irritate her. It was on the tip of her tongue to remind him that she had been barely out of her teens when she’d been given that label, but she held back. That’s not what this was about. Besides, the description wasn’t inaccurate. Or at least hadn’t been at the time. But that was ten years ago. People change. She was sort of hoping she was one of them.

“And here all this time I thought it had been my attendance.”

He didn’t smile. “As you know, Arnold has selected you to continue his project.”

“I do.”

“What do you know about it?”

Sabrina shook her head. “Not much. I know he was working from a secure location. Even he didn’t know where he was. I know it was important. I know that he thought I was the only one who would understand what he was doing.”

“You really believe that’s true?” Krueger asked her.

“I don’t think I’d be sitting here right now if you didn’t believe it was true.”

Reluctantly, the senior agent nodded. Sabrina could tell he was pissed, though. It was there in the clench of his jaw and the way his mouth turned down into a deep scowl, entrenching the crevices of his face.

But his anger didn’t make sense unless…A few pieces of the puzzle she’d been playing with fell into place and quickly she understood. She smiled at Arnold’s audacity even from the grave. “This isn’t about me continuing his work. You’ve lost access to it, haven’t you?”

Krueger said nothing. He didn’t need to.

“Arnold wasn’t a team player,” Sabrina remarked. It was something that the CIA should have known.

“For sixteen years he worked under contract for us,” Krueger spat in reply. “But that was the only arrangement he would agree to. He never wanted to work officially for the United States government. I guess he thought it would corrupt him.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Sabrina told him. “Arnold wouldn’t have worked for any government. He didn’t believe in sides. He didn’t believe in ideology. He believed in science. He believed in math. You guys paid him the most, and gave him the best opportunity to pursue his work. That was all that mattered to him.”

He turned to her, his scowl still in place, and she knew he was lumping her with Arnold. She twisted a little in her seat. “What do you want from me?”

“What I’m about to tell you is—”

“Classified,” Sabrina finished. “Spare me the security and national interest lecture and get to it.”

Krueger looked down at his hands, then turned to her with an extremely serious expression on his face. “Get to it? All right. Ms. Masters what if I told you some very important people in the Company believe you may be the key to bringing down one of the most dangerous men on the planet?”

She allowed a moment for the words to sink in. This is what she wanted. What she’d imagined when she first read Arnold’s e-mail. This is what she’d been waiting for, for almost ten years. This was a new beginning for her. And it wasn’t until now, until she actually was confronted with it, that she knew how precious, how important that beginning really was to her.

But Krueger didn’t need to know any of that. Instead she offered him a flippant response, one that he probably expected.

“Does this mean I’m going to get my job back? Because I’ve got to tell you, these days it’s hell finding work for a genius.”

“The project Arnold was working on was known as Deep Throat,” he explained, his tone flat. “It was an ingestible isotope. A variation on lithium-6 that targets the epidermis. When it’s digested it breaks down over time and a body’s exposure to sun’s ultraviolet rays and emits a pattern of low-level radiation that can be detected by a high-powered X-ray machine contained in a satellite. Once the target is identified, the satellite’s computer continually sends a series of Global Positioning coordinates that allow us to track the movements of those who have been tagged.”

Sabrina absorbed the information. “Radiation? How can you distinguish between the targets and every cancer patient undergoing treatment in the world?”

Krueger shook his head. “All I know is that the pattern is distinct because of the nature of the isotope. Only Arnold knew all of the logistics of how it worked. But it does work. It has been the single most significant breakthrough in the war against terrorism. You’ve read about the many failings of the intelligence communities in the past few years. Our human intel is weak. We can’t infiltrate cells because often all the members are blood related. We can’t turn them with money because of their strident belief in their cause. When they stop using modern technology, like cell phones and computers, and they go underground to live in caves, they’re all but invisible to us. This project has changed that. All we needed to do was tap their food source. Terrorist cell leaders will have their food tested for poison before eating anything, but the isotope was undetectable.”

“No symptoms?”

“Possibly some nausea or vomiting a few days after ingestion, but nothing that couldn’t be explained by an outbreak of the flu or dysentery, which is not uncommon given their typical living conditions.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“As I said it was working. We were getting daily updates from Arnold on known terrorists and their locations throughout the world. The group didn’t matter. We targeted leaders in Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRA, Al Qaeda, you name it.”

“Why am I suddenly getting nervous?” Sabrina asked rhetorically.

“One of the areas of great concern to both the CIA and the FBI is the fact that there are terrorist cells operating within the United States. With the success of Deep Throat, we felt confident in allowing some terrorists on our watch lists to enter the country so we could follow them and let them lead us to these cells where we could monitor their activities. No one of any consequence. No planners, as we call them. Without leadership and direction these cells can lie dormant for years. Allowing the infiltration of low-level grunts, we would be able to locate the cells without a great risk of precipitating an event.”

That’s why she was nervous. They got greedy. “Let me see if I got this. You let some of the bad guys in the country—bad guys you hope don’t have the brains to plan anything. Only now Arnold is dead and you can’t see them anymore. And you didn’t think to have, oh, I don’t know, a backup plan in case something did happen to Arnold? Forget his heart, what if he tripped and hit his head or something?” she asked incredulously.

“The level of security he has in place goes much further than we anticipated or were led to believe. Regardless, it’s not like we had much of a choice. Deep Throat advanced us years in the war against these killers. At a moment’s notice, we could locate and destroy anyone who was tagged and anyone close to those who were tagged. You think Israel has just been guessing real good when they fire those missiles from helicopters at moving cars. It was worth the risk to have the data when all we had to do was agree to Arnold’s terms.”

Sabrina could well imagine what those terms would be. “An isolated location. No people. An endless pot of coffee and a single server?”

Krueger nodded. “The download of data from the satellite was encrypted, using an encryption code that Arnold himself wrote, and transmitted to his computer only. Data transmissions to us were always done in person. We would send an agent daily to pick up the various sets of coordinates for each terrorist that had been tagged. When the agent showed up yesterday Arnold was already dead. Naturally, the computer is password protected. And when the agent checked—”

“He saw that it was booby-trapped, too,” Sabrina finished. Arnold defined the word paranoia. “You can’t move it. And if you try to hack into it, it will blow. Any chance you can redirect the data transmission from the satellite…?”

Krueger shook his head slowly.

“Okay. I get it.” And Sabrina now understood exactly what Arnold was telling her in his last e-mail.

It’s time for you to come home, Sabrina. You’ve been gone too long. They’re going to need your help. If you’re reading this, it’s because I’m dead now. You know what to do, G.G.

“You want me to hack his password and figure out a way to decrypt the data so you can find your missing bad guys.”

“That’s part of it,” Krueger said somewhat stiltedly.

Her eyebrows arched. “That’s a pretty big part if you ask me.”

“There is another element you bring to the table. There is another party in this war who, so far, we have failed to tag. A player who we believe would be as interested in Arnold’s data as we are.”

It didn’t take much brainpower to figure out who that was, and she had more than her fair share. She had been out of the game a long time, but there were only a few players who could avoid the great and mighty reach of the CIA. One was obvious, the other not so much. She was guessing it was the dark horse.

“Kahsan,” Sabrina breathed. “You still haven’t caught him.”

“No,” Krueger answered flatly. “We know he was responsible for the hotel in Milan. We know he took down the plane over Turkey. We know these things, yet we can never get close enough to take him out. Forget tagging him, we’ve never gotten a decent read on his movements to know what food source to go after. He’s got to be taken out. There are thousands of terrorist groups, small insignificant bands of fanatics who believe in something so strongly they are willing to kill and die for it. Terrorist attacks, by any group, are a headline story. Kahsan gives these minor groups an opportunity to play on the world stage. And he doesn’t give a damn about the cause. For him it’s only about the money.”

“So what’s your plan?”

The senior agent breathed in slowly, then exhaled, giving his words gravity. “We want you to contact him. We want you to tell him about Arnold’s project. We want you to tell him that, for a price, you can give him access to the location of known terrorists that are currently operating within the United States.”

Sabrina listened intently, trying to see the endgame as Krueger did. She knew Kahsan was a mercenary without followers. The terrorists operating inside the country were killers waiting for a planner. As a group they were little more than a loaded gun until someone came along and pulled the trigger. As long as Americans ended up dead, it really didn’t matter who that person was. Putting the two of them together would be a volatile combination.

If Kahsan could claim that he controlled a terrorist cell inside the U.S. then every anti-American group in the world would be offering him money to mobilize them. It would no doubt be his biggest payday to date. His greatest infamy.

“You’re serious?” Sabrina tried to wrap her mind around the dangers of actually letting Kahsan inside the country. Then she thought about the flip side of the argument and what stopping him might do for the war on terror. Then she thought about something more basic. “Why me?”

“Your résumé is perfect.”

“Really? No typos?”

Krueger stared her into silence. “Arnold told us that there was a key to breaking his encryption code and he promised us that upon his death we would be given that key. What he sent to us in an e-mail was your name. His idea of doing us a favor I suppose.”

And me, Sabrina thought. He thought he was doing her a favor, too.

“We considered your history. The CIA’s Youth Adoption Program recruited you when you were sixteen. You trained for years to be a field operative, but you were fired when you failed to perform up to standard. Your father works for the NSA, but the two of you are estranged. For the past ten years you’ve wandered about the country using your unique skills to make big scores at various casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City. That is, until the owners caught on to you and barred you from their establishments. Now you sell secrets to tabloid magazines to make ends meet. You have no particular political allegiance. No husband, no boyfriend. No family at all. And if your bank account information is accurate, not a whole lot of money. You do, however, have a connection to Arnold Salinski that is easily traceable.”

Sabrina smiled weakly once she realized the intent of his little bibliography. “You’re right. It’s a pretty good résumé for a traitor.”

“Exactly. We want you to convince Kahsan you’re willing to sell him access to Arnold’s data.”

“What’s going to make him think—”

“He’ll have access to the same information about you that we have. And he’ll learn through channels that the CIA is planning to pick you up and take you to Arnold’s computer. That will be confirmed by you. You’ll explain that you’ve been contacted by us. You’ll tell him that once you know the location of the server, you’ll pass it on to him. You’ll let him know that he needs to meet you at the location with five million dollars in bonds on hand and that once you have it, you’ll hack through Arnold’s password and decrypt the data he needs. He doesn’t have to know how unlikely either task is.”

“What about the agents he’ll assume are with me?”

“He’ll know that’s his problem to deal with.”

“But you’ll have a whole team of people on the ground ready to take him out when he comes,” Sabrina added.

“No,” Krueger countered. “Not a team.”

She tried to imagine a legitimate reason for that, but when she failed, she asked, “Uh… Why not?”

“For one, if he thought this was a trap, he wouldn’t get anywhere near it. We know he has sources inside the Company. It’s just one of the ways he’s managed to elude us for so long. A job this big, this important, would get out to everyone despite its classification. We want him to tap those sources and come up blank.”

“And the other reason?”

“What we’re talking about is a huge risk,” Krueger stated slowly, clearly willing her to understand. “What we’re talking about is not something that if the president knew about it, he would or could agree to.”

“Shit,” Sabrina hissed. “This is the part where you tell me you have to cover your ass.”

“Not my ass. The president’s ass. The American people don’t want another attack in this country. They certainly would not appreciate the idea of their government agencies willingly allowing key terrorists to move freely about inside our borders.”

“You think?” she drawled.

“This is a highly offensive maneuver, but one I think is necessary. There are only three people who are aware of the plan I laid out. The director of the CIA, you and myself. It must remain this way. As far as everyone else in the agency is concerned your only mission is to decrypt the data. An agent will pick you up to take you to the server’s location. You will convince that agent that it was your idea to lure Kahsan into the open. Regardless of what happens from that point forward, your mission stays the same. If it looks like we’re pulling the plug, you must convince that agent to continue to work with you. Or you operate on your own. The agent is expendable, do you understand? Kahsan is the primary target. He’s the only thing that matters.”

Sabrina processed that. “What if I make contact with Kahsan and he has me kidnapped before your agent comes?”

“You don’t know where the computer is. Kidnapping you makes no sense. He has to have you and the computer together for this to work. Once there, either you or the agent will take him out on sight.”

“And if I fail, and somehow Kahsan gets the data and meets up with the other bad guys and boom!, the White House ends up as toast, then what?”

“Then the CIA will disavow all knowledge of any plan to bring him into the country and you’ll be known as the worst traitor in American history since Benedict Arnold.”

“You guys suck,” Sabrina muttered.

“It’s not going to come to that. Without you he can’t get the data, without the data he can’t get to the cells. Besides if something does happen to you…”

“You make that sound like a broken fingernail, when what you mean is if he kills me.”

“If something does happen to you…we’ll still have a bead on Kahsan that we’ve never had before. And I personally will see to it that he doesn’t leave the country alive.” Krueger sighed. “I know what we’re asking is a lot.”

There was the understatement of the century. Sabrina pulled her hand through her hair and thought about what she’d been doing the same time last night. She was pretty sure she’d been in the middle of a hot bath and a whiskey. Now she was being recruited as bait for one of the most frightening killers on the planet. Life certainly had some interesting twists.

“You’re sure he’ll come?” She wanted to know.

“Reasonably sure. Our profilers tell us the man is an egomaniac. It’s not just money, but the attention that will follow if he pulls this off that will attract him. It’s a hell of a carrot. If he doesn’t come, of course we’ll still give you an opportunity to get through Arnold’s password and decrypt the data.”

“Oh joy!” she squealed facetiously. “I still have that opportunity.”

“Sabrina, may I call you that?”

Unbelievable. They were here discussing what was possibly the riskiest plan of the century to capture one of the most dangerous men ever, and he was worried about etiquette. Strange as it seemed in that instant she both lost a little and gained a little respect for him.

“Sure.”

“Sabrina, why did you call me?”

Good fucking question. Because Arnold told her this was a chance to get back in the game. Because she thought she was ready to get back in the game. But Krueger was offering her a chance to be quarterback in the Super Bowl. She didn’t know if she was ready for this.

So she ignored his question and asked him one of her own. “What if I say no? What happens?”

His answer was too quick. “We’ll put plan B into place. We believe there might be someone else who can perform the same role we’re asking you to perform, but because of your previous training you were our top pick.”

“Who?”

He hesitated.

“I need to know. I need to know whose head is going to be on the proverbial chopping block if I pass.”

“You’ve heard of Sal Ploxm….”

“A hacker?” she blurted. “You’re going to use some virus-spreading geek to catch Kahsan? Do you even know who he is?”

“We’re following some leads. He’s had success hacking into some of the most secure networks. That and the fact that he works outside the law, we believe he’s the next logical choice.”

Sabrina considered him for a moment. The CIA was resorting to an insubordinate ex-agent and a hacker. One thing became crystal clear. “You don’t have anybody on your staff who can hack through Arnold’s password, let alone decrypt his code. Not even close. You know that your project is over and that this… is a last-ditch attempt to salvage something from it.”

He didn’t deny it. “The radiation patterns will fade eventually and no, we don’t believe anyone can access the information in time. We have enlisted cryptologists from every department in the government to work on one of Arnold’s predecessor programs in an attempt to see if anyone could come close. No one has. Not even your father. As far as we’re concerned the project is a write-off. The FBI has sent agents out to the last known location of those people we’ve tagged. If we lose them somehow, then we’ll merely revert to our previous methods—good old-fashioned legwork—to find them again. But in the meantime, the lure of this data might be our only opportunity to push Kahsan out of hiding. We’re going to take it.”

“Arnold thinks I can do it,” she suggested. “If you gave me a chance—”

“We don’t have that kind of time. As I said, Kahsan is not without resources. We have to move quickly and we have to make it look real. Salinski’s death will leak. There’s no stopping that. This has to go down like a well choreographed ballet.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “It’s a list of Web sites that he uses where you should be able to make contact. I need to know now if you’re in.”

If she wasn’t, then the job would go to Sal Ploxm, a virus pirate who got off on infecting systems that were deemed foolproof. Apparently, there was no firewall that could stop him. A hacker with more balls than brains as far as she was concerned. If he was that talented, he’d be making more money and fewer headlines. The fact that she knew his name meant he got off on the rush. A hacker like that had to have one hell of an ego.

Was this the person she wanted responsible for heading up a mission to take down Kahsan?

Then she chuckled softly. Hell, she thought. Who would have thought that she should be the person to take him down? Who was she but a drifter, a cheat and an ex-operative?

Sabrina focused on the stone burial monument directly in front of her windshield.

Cowan.

She didn’t know who the poor son of a bitch was, but he’d died for something. He’d believed in something. His country, his family, who knew. He gave his life in what Lincoln called the last full measure of devotion. For too long Sabrina had only been devoted to herself. Frankly, she was growing bored.

“Don’t you want to know what you get in return?”

Of course he would be expecting her to ask that. It’s who he thought she was.

“Absolutely,” she lied.

“There is a sizable bounty on Kahsan’s head. If you agree, if your work leads to his capture or death, you would be entitled to it.”

She glanced at the monument again. Cowan hadn’t done it for the money. In fact, she was embarrassed they were having this conversation in front of his grave. What if he was somewhere shaking his head at her, more than a little disappointed in this new breed of American hero.

Without a word, Sabrina took the slip of paper from his hand and shoved it in her pocket.

“Just one more thing,” Sabrina said, catching his arm before he could leave. “This agent that you’re sending. The one I need to convince…make sure he or she is damn good.”

“Only the best.”

Chapter 2

“H ey, Bubba. What’s shaking?”

The hardened old bartender with a missing front tooth looked up from his beer taps to smile at his latest customer. “What’s a girlie like you doing in a place like this?” he asked, performing their common ritual.

“Just staying out of trouble,” Sabrina replied with a smile.

“The usual?”

She considered that for a moment, then ordered. “Make it a double.”

She shrugged out of her winter paraphernalia, a task that took almost more effort than she had, and waited for Bubba to finish pouring another customer’s beer. She sat down on the high stool with the ripped leather seat and sighed at the familiar comfort.

Peace and a little distraction. It’s what she’d been looking for when she decided to go out tonight and she always seemed to find it at Bubba’s. Maybe it was his smile. Or maybe it was his whiskey. It didn’t matter.

It was Monday. Three days had passed since her conversation with Krueger. Three days since she’d followed orders and done what she needed to do, but still no contact from any agent. She’d been edgy, irritable and impatient. To top it all off, a major chunk of crown molding had fallen from her living-room ceiling.

That’s when she’d decided she needed a break.

The crowd was light tonight. A few diners sat at the tables along the wall eating burgers and fries. There was a group of men at a five top in the back. And she sat alone at the bar except for an older gentleman with a semifamiliar face who sat two stools down. She nodded toward the older man and he replied with a similar nod. Then they both went back to staring straight ahead into the rows of bottles that lined what Bubba liked to call his top shelf but what was in reality his only shelf.

It was protocol among the regulars to respect the nod and the straight-ahead stare. Most people came to this place looking to unwind. Sometimes that called for small talk. Sometimes it didn’t. Tonight she didn’t want to hear about the weather, or the score of the basketball game, or why the economy sucked. She just wanted a little time to not think about what was going to happen. And perversely when it was going to happen.

Krueger had told her they needed to move quickly. Leave it to the government to interpret three days as quick.

Reaching for the bowl of peanuts that sat on the bar, Sabrina studied them for a moment. Finally, she decided, based primarily on her current level of hunger that not too many grubby hands had already foraged through the bowl, therefore they were safe to eat.

As a bonus they were salted.

After all, Bubba’s did have a reputation to maintain as the respectable bar in town. The competition with Nick’s down the block was often fierce. A little thing like dirt-free, salt-covered nuts could make all the difference.

“Eighty-two,” Sabrina counted before she popped a handful into her mouth. A faint sound from the TV that sat on a high ledge in the corner of the bar caught her attention. Sabrina turned and saw the logo of a familiar show appear on the screen. “Hey, Bubba, you’ve got to turn this up. Entrée Hollywood is going to have some hot scoop tonight.”

With a gleam in his eye, Bubba found the remote and increased the volume to the furthest dash on the right.

“…And in other news, it was discovered that Marsha Lowery, the second finalist in American Star Maker, had previously worked as a prostitute known to her customers as Sweet Sugar in the high class LasVegas brothel called Mother’s Milk. Several men came forward today after the story broke to share their memories and experiences with the then twenty-eight, now thirty-four-year-old hooker.

“…Sweetie and me…we were more than just friends if you get my drift.”

Sabrina chuckled to herself as Bubba put the double shot of Jack Daniel’s in a reasonably clean glass in front of her. Yeah, Bubba’s would, in her mind, always be head and shoulders over Nick’s.

“How did you find that out?” Bubba questioned with a sly smile.

“I’ve got my ways.” Sabrina wiggled her eyebrows in another old dance she and Bubba had often performed. She reached for her drink and continued to watch as the broadcast cut to one man after another, each john more pathetic than the one before, until finally a sobbing Marsha filled the screen and confessed her misspent past. She also asked the American public to forgive her for lying about her age.

It was a hell of a moment for TV.

“Shoot, girl, you can find out anything. You should be out there working for the CIA,” Bubba said.

“That’s the idea,” she muttered under her breath.

Three days. Three days and nothing. She didn’t like the smell of it. What if this was some kind of setup? What if Krueger wasn’t who he said he was? She’d done a preliminary check after she’d received Arnold’s e-mail, so she knew he wasn’t lying about his position in the organization, but what did that mean? Doubt crept in from every corner of her mind. To push it back she took another sip of her drink and let the burn of the whiskey coat her throat.

“Hey, you know who you need to get next? That really bad dude.”

“There are a lot of really bad dudes, Bubba.”

“No, you know who I mean, the baddest.”

Kahsan, Sabrina thought. He was the baddest.

“That one who keeps breaking all the computers. That Ploxm guy.”

Sabrina smoothed out her expression at the mention of her competition’s name. Had they decided to go with him after all? Had the play already been called out to the field while she’d been left to sit on the bench? Man, she was going to be annoyed if that was the case.

She shook her head and smiled at Bubba’s irritation. The bartender still hadn’t gotten over the fact that he’d been the victim of a cyber virus. “Are you still mad about that? I fixed your computer for you, didn’t I?”

“But I lost some important e-mails,” he wailed.

“You’ll find another girlfriend on the Internet, Bubba. And she’ll replace all those love e-mails you lost, I promise.” Sabrina tipped the glass back and finished her shot. “Another.”

Smoothly, the bartender pulled the empty glass away and quietly replaced it with another. There was no judgment. She and Bubba understood each other.

Sabrina felt the customer next to her turn and stare. She stared back. “Problem?”

He nodded to the TV with his chin. “You found that stuff out about the girl?”

“The information was there to be found.”

The old man looked skeptical. “The producers of that show couldn’t find it. Heck, they thought she was only twenty-four.”

“Yeah, well, I aim to serve the public by providing the truth.”

She’d used the line before, but tonight it tasted particularly sour in her mouth. What she did was hack allegedly unhackable systems to find information on celebrities that she could then sell to the tabloids. Certainly, not a noble profession. But at least she didn’t contaminate that system with a virus that would shut down the entire network. She was head and shoulders more honorable than Ploxm in that regard. After all, trashy newspaper stories would come and go, but hard drives and data…those were lost forever.

Still Bubba praised her contributions to society much like a father would, if only her father knew where she was or what she did for a living. “Oh, that’s our Sabrina all right. A smart one, I tell you. She was the first to find out about that one Academy Award-winning actor who was gay. And the first to figure out that the big-time cable newscaster was a drug addict. There’s no secret she can’t find. I keep telling her she should go to work for the government, but she doesn’t listen to me.”

“They couldn’t afford me.” Sabrina said. Another old line. She wondered when she had gotten so tired of it. “Speaking of affording me…how bad is the tab for this month?”

Bubba checked the book he kept under the counter and winced a little.

That bad. Sabrina thought about the state of her checking account and winced herself. She’d sold a few stories to the Star Watcher last month, but was still waiting on her check. She hadn’t been completely joking to Krueger when she said finding a job, the right job for her anyway, was tough. A steady income would be nice for a change.

Sabrina shook her head. Yeah right, that’s why you got back in the game, so you could pay off your bar tab.

“Bubba, if you could just give me a few more days—”

“Oh sure, girlie, sure. You know, if you’re interested… Well, it’s not legal or anything, but those fellas in the back behind the partition, if I didn’t know better I would say they were playing cards. Now, I can’t be held responsible for what I don’t know. “

Instantly, she straightened on the stool and saw the chips on the table. Her mouth watered.

“Travelers?”

“They’re here for some convention at the college, but the hotels were all booked up so they’re staying at the Stop and Sleep just outside of town. Came here looking for some food and beer and a chance to unwind.”

“Bubba, are you telling me there is a group of men back there playing poker with real money and not one of them knows who I am?”

Bubba merely smiled. “Like I said, I don’t know about any gambling or anything like that. Just looks like they’re having a nice conversation to me.”

Sabrina leaned over the bar and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Spot me a twenty?”

The man pulled the money from the register and slid the single bill across the bar top.

Sabrina pocketed it and pushed her hands into her jeans. She flicked her curls off her face and strove for an innocent dupe expression.

It had been so long since she’d played cards. She could almost feel her hands sweating. When they found out about her in Vegas, she’d been banned from every casino on the Strip. It had taken less than two days for Atlantic City to catch on to her. She’d made the trip to Monte Carlo once, but she reserved that spot as her fallback for emergencies only.

Naturally, she’d played out her welcome with everyone in town. For the most part she didn’t think about it unless times got really tough and she was forced to seek out an Indian Reservation. But with a bar tab looming over her head and a cell phone bill due that she simply had to pay—especially now—she was willing to take the opportunity that had presented itself.

“Gentlemen. Hello.”

The group of five lifted their heads and checked her out from her boots, up her long, jean-clad legs to the bulky, gray wool sweater she wore. Maybe some thought she was an overdressed hooker looking for a customer. Maybe others thought she was a cop about to bust up their game, it was hard to tell. They would find out soon enough who she was.

“I’m bored and I’ve got twenty bucks to blow. Mind if I sit in on the next hand?”

The group looked at each other, then one man with a mustache shrugged. “I’m out. Let her sit in.”

A portly fellow in the corner chortled. “I don’t have a problem taking a woman’s money,” he warned her.

“That’s good. I don’t have trouble taking anyone’s money either,” she fired back as she took mustache man’s chair. “I’m Sabrina.”

“Chuck.”

“Paul.”

“Bill.”

“Mike.”

“Jim.” The one with the mustache, who was now only a spectator, finally introduced himself.

“So what’s the game?”

“Texas Hold’em,” Chuck, the portly one, announced dramatically. “We’re playing all or nothing. Last man standing wins. Or woman.” He laughed again.

Sabrina furrowed her brow. “Texas…that’s a poker game?”

Mike was kind enough to explain the rules to her and Bill took the deck and shuffled it fresh, tossing her the first card.

When she looked at her two cards, her face remained expressionless. Pocket eights, a spade and a club. Instantly, Sabrina calculated the odds of winning with such a hand and began to do her thing. She watched the flop and memorized the cards that had been turned over. Then she studied each of the players in turn looking for tells that would clue her into what they were holding.

Going with the dumb blonde approach, she stumbled over the betting. “I want to raise. Raise, that’s the right word, isn’t it?”

“You got it, honey,” Mike told her.

She beamed at him. “Then I want to raise five dollars.”

Paul would be the only one to call her bet. And Paul would lose with a jack and ten off suit and nothing in the flop, turn or river that would help. Bill had tossed his cards over in frustration when he folded, or possibly as a ploy to gauge the table’s reaction. But because of that, she now knew that at least two of the diamonds were on the bottom of the stack.

When Mike started betting heavily against the three diamonds in the flop, she knew that he was looking for the flush. But with only a twenty-nine percent chance of having one of the remaining nine possible diamonds in the deck turn up, she was a lock with her triple threes and she went all in. Sabrina took the pot and eliminated Mike.

Then next to go down was Bill. His shuffling was getting looser with each beer he consumed, which made it ridiculously easy for her to determine what cards were left in the deck and what would be coming out on top.

Glancing down at the ace and seven suited she had in her hand, all Sabrina had to do was keep raising and wait for it. On the flop? No. On the turn? No. There it was…the other ace on the river. Bill had gone all in with the pocket kings. She beat him soundly, and smiled sweetly as she gathered up his chips.

It was like taking candy from a baby. Her next target was Chuck.

A little less than three hours later and three hundred and eighty dollars richer, Sabrina beamed at the table. “Can you believe that? And I had never even heard of this game until tonight.”

The four losers grumbled about beginner’s luck and Jim smiled back at her, apparently pleased he’d left the table before she sat down.

Sabrina counted out the cash and laid down two hundred dollars on the bar in front of Bubba, plus two twenties. One for the spot, the other for the payoff. “That about cover me?”

“That about does it,” Bubba chuckled, pocketing the two twenties. “See you around, girlie.”

After bundling herself back into her winter gear, Sabrina gave the bartender a negligent wave as she walked toward the front door. Behind her she could hear the five guys grilling Bubba as to whether or not she was a ringer. She heard Bubba laugh out loud and thought that at least she had done something good tonight.

Realizing she’d forgotten her hat, Sabrina pulled it out of her front pocket and tugged it on past her ears. She took a deep breath and opened the door to the cold. Walking down the empty sidewalk toward her house, situated just off the main street, she cursed herself for not bringing the Jeep. She hadn’t wanted to risk drinking and driving.

Not that she’d hurt anyone but herself tonight. It was a time of hibernation for Stansfield, Pennsylvania. Once the football season of the state college nearby was over, the town dwindled from a bustling hot spot on weekends to its regular smattering of locals. A few staff members employed by the college. A few shopkeeps and professionals. Two doctors, four lawyers and one sheriff. And Bubba and Nick, of course. Two men whose establishments tried to keep most of the coal miners, now long unemployed since the great “shutdown of ’94,” drunk and numb to their woes.

“What the hell am I still doing here?” she asked the empty newspaper dispenser as she walked by. It wasn’t the first time she had asked herself the question. It’s just that when she did, the answer was always the same. She had nowhere else to go.

Three days and nothing. Maybe Krueger didn’t understand what it had meant for her to take this assignment. Maybe he didn’t understand how desperate she was to get her life back on track. It was a very real fear for her that if she stayed on this endless path to nowhere, she might just disappear. At some point she decided she’d couldn’t let that happen.

What if he found Ploxm?

No, she told herself firmly. It wasn’t possible. She had the best credentials. He’d said so. Arnold had been one of her mentors. There was no question she had the best chance of cracking his code.

And besides, she hadn’t done anything to get fired.

Yet.

The bank across the street boasted a new sign that blinked the time and temperature. It was 10:52 and eighteen degrees Fahrenheit. Inexplicably, Sabrina converted the number to Celsius and continued on her way until a gust of extra cold wind whipped around her. Even though there were no cars coming she paused out of habit before she crossed the street.

That’s when she heard a sound behind her. Shoes on the sidewalk.

Instantly, her senses were heightened. It could be Krueger or whomever he’d sent to take her to Arnold’s cabin. But why follow her? Why not just make his presence known when she was waiting for him? The other alternatives surfaced.

Without making any sudden movements she continued on her way down the sidewalk at a slightly faster clip. In her mind, she began to measure the distance between herself and her house. Then she took into consideration the length of her stride and her conditioning and made the calculation of how long it would take her to reach her house if she began to run at top speed.

Seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds.

She was really out of shape.

Making a mental note to begin more regular workouts, Sabrina focused on the next aspect of the equation. The question was how tall and how fast was the man following her. That he was following her wasn’t an issue. Her body knew it. It was there in the adrenaline that was pumping through her system. Built-in genetic mechanisms began to take over and the message her muscles received was flight.

Instantly, she took off into a full sprint and cursed. The bulky down coat she wore, the scarf that blew around her neck, the ladies’ construction boots that kept her feet toasty, she’d factored none of these into her equation. She considered the extra weight, the drag time against the wind, and listened to the pace of the steps of the man who was now giving chase behind her.

He was tall. And fast.

Given her own recalibration, factored against the rate at which he was closing the distance, escape was statistically impossible. Sabrina had to come up with a new plan.

The only option left to her was to fight.

Chapter 3

E ven as she ran, Sabrina took stock of her surroundings. When engaged in a physical confrontation, a fighter should, if possible, control the environment, the weaponry and the enemy. It was an adage that Sabrina took very seriously. Veering off around the last building on the block to her right, adjacent to nothing but an empty lot, she found the Dumpster exactly where she expected it to be.

It was always hard to tell what a person might find in an alley. But there was always potential for loose crate slats with protruding nails, or any other type of debris that might serve as a ready-made shank.

She stopped in her tracks while she scanned the contents around the Dumpster. Inhaling deep cleansing breaths, both to control her fear and to reoxygenate her muscles, Sabrina considered removing her jacket, but decided not to. It might serve as protection if her pursuer had a knife.

If he had a gun, then the game was pretty much over because, like an idiot, she’d left hers at home. Krueger had assured her that she was safe from any kind of kidnapping so she hadn’t felt the need to walk around town armed. Besides that, she didn’t have a holster for the damn thing. When she’d shoved it in the back of her jeans it annoyed her. It was a really big gun.

Sabina wanted to kick herself for her own stupidity, but there was no time. When she found nothing useful as a weapon on the ground she cursed. Her next step was to try inside the Dumpster, but it was too late. The sound of the shoes on pavement grew louder as the man chasing her turned the corner.

There was nothing else to do but assume a balanced stance and wait.

She saw his shadow in the moon at the end of the empty lot. Puffs of chilled air emanated from his mouth and nostrils as he, too, tried to catch his breath after the chase. She couldn’t see his face, but his silhouette proved what she had earlier suspected.

He was tall. That he was a man had never really been in doubt. The sound of the shoes had given him away.

A dozen phrases leaped to her tongue.

What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?

You lookin’ for me?

Now that you’ve caught me, whatever are you going to do with me?

If he possessed any sort of intellect and strength, the next few minutes would be a considerable challenge. She didn’t figure that witty banter, as great as it played out in old black-and-white movies, would serve much purpose in this situation.

She watched his head tilt slightly to the right as he studied her offensive pose. She gathered that he now comprehended her strategy was to fight. No doubt he took some time to reconcile that with the person who had run from him. He turned his head quickly in both directions to check the surroundings and assure himself that they were alone. Then he advanced cautiously.

It had been a while since she’d engaged in battle with an opponent but she wasn’t worried about forgetting how to do it. Fighting was all about physics. Force, speed, angles. Sabrina had always been a whiz at physics.

The man continued to approach, and he held his hands up as if to show he wasn’t carrying a weapon. Or possibly in a gesture of surrender. But if he was surrendering, then why was he still moving?

“Stop,” she commanded, wishing her voice sounded a little firmer. Unfortunately, she had a slight cold which made her sound more nasal than ominous.

“I just want to talk,” he replied even as he crept forward.

There was an eerie familiarity about his voice that Sabrina immediately recognized, but she couldn’t dwell on it. He was only eighty-one inches away. Just outside her long-legged reach.

Until he took another step closer.

“Talk to this,” she said, swinging her leg up and over in a roundhouse kick that she aimed toward his head. A second before her booted foot would have made contact with his jaw he pulled his body out of reach. And as her leg crossed his face he caught it in his hand with a grip that was too strong for her to break.

Balanced on one foot she knew that the slightest tug from him would send her to the ground. In cases like these, it was always best to get there on her own terms. Propelling herself off the ground with her other leg, she jumped and with her free foot aimed for his knee. Unable to avoid the blow while he still held her right leg, the man quickly released her, but not before she was able to make contact with enough force to send him stumbling back.

Together they fell. But knowing that’s where she was headed, Sabrina had the upper hand. She twisted her body and used her hands and feet to brace against the impact, essentially executing a prolonged push-up. Flipping over on to her backside, she did a kip-up, using the palms of her hands to bounce herself back onto the soles of her feet and into a standing position.

She watched the man favor his knee slightly as he, too, sprang to his feet in a fluid motion. Not even the long, dark overcoat he wore got in the way of the move.

“You want to play?” he asked, his voice a low snarl now.

“Not particularly,” she replied. “Hey, I know. How about you let me go?”

“Not until we talk.”

“Tell me who you are,” she insisted. The accent was American, not foreign, but it didn’t do as much as it could have to alleviate her fear. Kahsan could have easily sent someone within the country to get her. Possibly one of the sources inside the CIA Krueger had mentioned.

Not going to kidnap me, huh, Krueger? Thanks a lot!

The man remained stubbornly silent to her request.

“You don’t want to talk. I don’t want to talk. So where does that leave us?” she asked, lifting her hands, palms up. Hoping to catch him in a moment of surprise, she threw a side kick that made solid contact with his stomach. He barely reacted to it. Instead, he used the opportunity to throw a right hook at her jaw.

Sabrina felt the blow and was stunned by it. She hadn’t forgotten how to fight, but she remembered that the other part of fighting was learning how to take a hit. She quickly remembered it wasn’t any fun.

Blood gathered at the corner of her lip. She swiped it away with her tongue and backed away a step. Thinking he’d subdued her, he took a step forward only to be greeted by her own not-too-shabby left hook. His head turned at the impact, but he recovered faster and raised his hand again. This time she was quick enough to defend the punch with her forearm.

Three strikes, three counters. Sabrina struggled to fend off what she knew to be perfectly executed martial arts moves. There was a little of everything in his style, karate, jujitsu and kung fu. The man wasn’t picky. But he was getting frustrated. She could feel it in the increased speed of his attack. He managed to make contact with her cheek, which staggered her. Enough for her to lose concentration for a split second.

Suddenly, she felt his ankle whip around behind her right knee and pull. The force of it sent her stumbling backward on to her ass with her opponent looming over her. He reached for the lapels of her jacket and pulled her up to her feet so fast that she was unable to mount a counterattack with her legs. He thrust her back against the side of the building, pinning her to the brick wall with his weight.

“You always were a hellcat in a fight.”

Just then the moon broke free of a cloud and shot a burst of cool white light down on the man’s face. It had been a while, and he’d aged. The wrinkles were deeper around his eyes, there was a smattering of gray in his hair and his expression was harder, colder than she remembered it. But there was no mistaking him.

“Quinlan,” she breathed.

“In the flesh.”

“Put me down,” she ordered imperiously. She saw his lips twitch and he paused for a second, but eventually he lowered her to her feet.

Before he let her go, though, he had a condition. “You’ll talk to me?”

She nodded and released a breath signaling that the fight was over. He relaxed, too, and took a step back to let her come away from the wall. As soon as she was clear, she reached for his shoulders and slammed her knee into his groin. She watched him collapse helplessly to the ground.

He rolled onto his back and reached for his crotch, letting out a low pitiful wail.

Squatting down on her haunches near his head, Sabrina took a moment to enjoy the view of the mighty Quinlan on his back and writhing in pain. She’d imagined him in just such a position often over the past ten years. But somehow the reality of it was so much more special.

“Gosh, it’s been a long time,” she commented cheerily. “So how have you been?”

He moaned and rolled away from her, attempting to get to his knees but failing. Instead, he curled himself into the fetal position.

“That good, huh? Great. I’m doing really well myself. Good job prospect, nice house.”

“You’ll pay,” he finally managed to whisper.

“Well, it’s been fun catching up. We should do this again sometime.” She straightened herself to her full height and started to walk away, thinking she had at least a few minutes before he’d be able to regain his feet.

She’d kneed him pretty hard.

But one of her fatal weaknesses in life was that no matter what the situation, she always underestimated Quinlan.

She felt his hand around her ankle as she moved to take a step. She had the advantage of position, but she’d forgotten how strong he could be. He tugged hard on her leg and sent her tumbling. Unprepared for his speedy recovery, she wasn’t able to control her landing and ended up falling on her arm at a bad angle, her elbow smacking the pavement hard.

As she tried to breathe through the numbing pain, she felt him crawling up behind her using his weight to keep her down. She felt his knee press against the small of her back and gasped at the pressure he applied. Apparently, he wasn’t taking any chances of her escaping.

Either that or he was really ticked off.

He grabbed her wrists and pulled them behind her back, securing them with a thin piece of wire that she knew from experience he carried around with him like most men carried pictures of their kids. He wasn’t merciful as he pulled her to her feet and pushed her out in front of him.

“So help me, Bri, you pull another stunt like that and I’ll—”

“What? Hit me?” She turned around to face him so he could see the blood trickling from her lip. “Oooh. I’m scared.”

When they got to the end of the street he stopped her and signaled with his hand. A few blocks down, Sabrina could see a set of headlights blink to life. In moments the car pulled up in front of them—a dark Cadillac equipped with a driver.

“What, no limo?” Sabrina asked. “Those budget cuts must really be hell on you guys.”

“Get in.” He opened the rear door and Sabrina got in butt first, sliding over the red leather seat as she made room for who she now understood was Krueger’s choice. She checked the locks on the doors and saw that there weren’t any. No handles, either. It might not be a limo, but it was definitely government issue.

As soon as Quinlan shut the door, he gave the driver directions. “Her house. The long way.” He hit a button on a panel located on the arm of the car door. It raised a partition between the front and back half of the car. They were alone.

There was quiet for a time. Neither spoke as the impact of being in the same car together after so long apart settled on them. Quinlan, however, was the first to recover. He hit the car light on the roof and filled the back seat with a dim yellow glow.

Sabrina squinted at the light as her pupils adjusted. After a moment she turned to look at him only to find him staring back at her. He removed one of the black leather gloves he wore, and reached for her face to swipe away the blood.

She jerked her head back and snapped. “Don’t touch me.”

“It wasn’t my intention to be so rough with you,” he said, sounding regretful over their fight.

“It never is,” she replied.

Sighing, he removed his other glove and shoved them into his pockets. “Sabrina. Still angry after all these years?”

“Still an asshole after all these years?”

He didn’t bother to respond.

Impatient with his silence, she finally asked. “You? They sent you?”

“Me.”

“I never knew the government had such a sick sense of humor.”

“Hmm,” he murmured as a nonanswer. “You really thought they would send someone else? You really thought I would let them? That disappoints me, Bri. You used to be smarter than that.”

“I just figured you were too old for this sort of thing.”

She’d wanted to insult him, but the truth was he was right. She should have known who Krueger would send. Quinlan had been chasing Kahsan for most of his career. He was obsessed with the man and had been since the time he nearly caught him that one time in Africa. Instead he’d ended up with a nasty-looking scar over his left eye.

If she had to convince anyone to buck the system to go after Kahsan, Quinlan might be the candidate. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

“Would you be surprised if I told you that I’ve missed you?” He turned his head toward her, his lips twitching ever so slightly. Quinlan’s version of a smile.

She snorted. “Yes. Because missing someone would actually imply that you have some capacity for emotion. And we both know that’s not true. Don’t we?”

Rather than answer, he faced forward again, his smile gone. “Your problem has always been an excess of emotion. An unfortunate circumstance for someone with a brain like yours.”

“That’s me,” she said sarcastically. “All heart. If only I could be an ice monster like you.”

“If only.”

Sabrina ground her teeth together and struggled to hold on to the last of her patience. “I’m tired. I hurt. My wrists are bleeding. My lip is swollen. You’re dropping me off at my house, and then you are gone. If Krueger thinks I can work with you, he’s deluding himself. I want someone else.”

The protest against his involvement was a pretense. Part of the play that had been scripted by Krueger. Quinlan would be expecting her to try and buck him, so she did. But it didn’t change the fact that what she said was true.

“No.”

Figures. Quinlan didn’t buck easily.

Okay, she said to him silently. You want to play? Game on.

“Look, there’s something you don’t know. There’s another part to this that makes it…complicated. Which means I don’t need any more complications on top of it and you are the mother of all complications.”

“Another part. Really?”

“Yes,” she hedged. “I sort of had this idea.”

“Do tell.”

She glanced over at him. There was something in his tone that wasn’t right. As though he was holding back…rage. She thought about what might enrage him, aside from the attack on his manhood, and came up with only one answer.

“You know,” she stated.

“That you contacted Kahsan? Hell, yes, I know,” he spat, pushing his face into hers. “I have people all over the world whose mission it is to keep me informed about Kahsan’s every breath. The only thing no one can ever tell me is where the hell he is. You can imagine my shock when rumors started circulating about some female genius trying to make contact with him. Then I hear about Arnold’s death, and I get word from my superiors that I’m to collect you and take you to his computer. Suddenly, it all makes a disgusting sort of sense.”

“No,” she said, sensing his anger over the betrayal. “You’ve got it wrong.”

“How much, Sabrina? I want to know. How much did you sell your soul to the devil for?”

It hurt. Ten years was a lifetime ago. There was no reason to think that any bond they might have shared then would have survived all this time and everything that had happened. Still, his instant distrust hurt more than anything he’d done to her physically. She barked out a humorless laugh in defense against the pain.

“Now you know that’s not possible, Q. How could I have possibly sold my soul to Kahsan when I sold it to you years ago?”

Chapter 4

Fourteen years ago

“D o you know why you’re here?”

Sabrina said nothing. She had this idea that she would play the role of the stoic prisoner being interrogated by the enemy. After all, that’s what she felt like. The prison in question might be some fancy office in Washington, D.C., but it didn’t change the fact that she couldn’t leave.

And that she didn’t want to be here.

She was tired of being tested. Tired of being pushed in directions that she didn’t want to go. First her father, then Harvard, now this. But the man sitting across from her didn’t seem like the typical geeky Martin-Lewis-professor type she was used to dealing with.

He seemed like a badass. It was in the eyes. Gray and cold. And the fresh scar that ran over his left eye. She was tempted to ask him if it was real, or if it was just for effect.

“I believe I asked you a question,” he said quietly.

“I believe you can go shove it up your ass,” she retorted in defiance of the quiver of intimidation she was feeling being in this man’s presence. So much for the silent stoic routine. Then again, she’d never been quiet when she had something to say.

The man who had been introduced as Quinlan nodded casually at her response, then reached across the desk that separated them and, in a lightning fast move, snatched the nose hoop that dangled from one of her nostrils. Thankfully, the catch came undone or else he would have ripped completely through her soft tissue.

Even with that small mercy, the pain was intense. She screeched and covered her nose with her hand. Then watched as he slid the thin gold loop over his finger. “You sonofab—”

“Your father said you were a young lady. Young ladies don’t use that kind of language.”

He handed her a tissue that he pulled from a drawer. She covered her nose with it and then instantly checked to see how much blood there was. It wasn’t much. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Scowling at him she tossed the tissue away. “Yeah, well, my father doesn’t really know me. In fact, I think I’ve grown a couple inches since the last time he looked up from his computer to see if I was still around.”

Quinlan studied her slouching body. “What are you, five-seven?”

“Five-seven and one-quarter inch.”

“You’re tall for your age and no doubt still growing,” he muttered as he made a few notes on a file that sat open in front of him. “Tell me, is that where your bitterness stems from? The fact that Daddy doesn’t pay enough attention to you.”

“Actually it comes from the fact that my mother abandoned me at the age of four,” Sabrina corrected him, then faked a few dramatic sobs. “I’ve never quite gotten over it.”

“Do you know what I see?”

“Like I care,” she replied, then closed her mouth. Her last smart-ass response had resulted in the loss of a nose ring. She didn’t want to think about what she might lose next. Instinctively, she reached for the three hoops that dangled from her right ear.

“I see a sixteen-year-old, immature brat who is too damn smart for her own good. But I’m going to fix that.”

“You can’t fix something that’s not broken.”

“Then I imagine we’ll have to break you. Let’s start over, shall we? Do you know why you’re here?”

“My father told me to come,” she spat at him, pretending that the idea of being broken didn’t scare her. “Can I have another tissue?” He pulled another single tissue from the drawer and handed it to her and waited while she blew her nose. “Out front the lady said your name was Quinlan. Is that Mr. Quinlan?”

“Just Quinlan.”

Sabrina rolled her eyes. “You mean like just Madonna?”

“Okay. Do you know why your father asked you to come here?”

“No,” she answered honestly. “Last I knew he wanted me to go to Harvard. Thought that I could give those guys all sorts of answers. Whatever. He had this vision of me working in an ivory tower developing theories and shit. How far does pi go? E equals mc cubed—”

“Squared.”

“Not the way I do it.” She smiled cockily. Then she remembered the hours upon hours of testing and her smile quickly diminished. “But they didn’t want any answers to any problems. They just wanted to test me. I was their freaking guinea pig.”

“And you didn’t like that.”

“I hated it,” she clarified. “School was never my thing. And pushy people asking me all sorts of questions…really not my thing.”

This actually elicited a small, very small, smile from the man across from her. Just to show her that he got her message, she imagined. But he said nothing. Instead he glanced down at the file in front of him again and read it for a time. Finally, he looked up and met her gaze. “Your father is considered a brilliant man. His work for the National Security Agency decrypting enemy codes has been invaluable to this country’s security.”

“That’s my dad.”

“Your IQ eclipses his.”

Sabrina said nothing.

“Your specialty is numbers. You test off the charts for spatial mathematics, but what is unusual in a case like yours—”

“I’m not Rain Man,” Sabrina finished. “I don’t even like Judge Wapner.”

“—is your computation ability,” Quinlan continued. “Not only can you interpret formulas but you can also apply them at high speeds. Which probably comes from your ability to hold several hundred numbers in your head at once. Your memory is extraordinary. Few people have a true photographic memory and those who do usually must concentrate on the thing they are attempting to remember. Snapping the picture in their mind so to speak. And there is only a limited time frame in which they can retrieve and recite the image or words that they’ve committed to memory. Your brain, however, seems to have a limitless capacity for…storage. You remember everything, don’t you?”

Sabrina squirmed in her chair. That’s what the geeks at Harvard had wanted to know. How much could she remember? How far back did it go? Test after boring test to questions that she didn’t see the point of knowing the answer to. “You’re making me sound like a freak.”

Not that she hadn’t known she was one since the age of three. She just hated to be reminded of it.

“Tell me. Can you remember the answers to the very first math test you ever took?”

It was addition. Four. Six. Five. Ten. Ten. The teacher thought she was being tricky by putting on the test two questions with two different sets of numbers that both added up to ten. Sabrina had been four at the time.

Quinlan nodded again, as if her silence was answer enough for him. “Sabrina, you are a freak. Learn to embrace it.” He closed the folder, stood up and made his way to the door.

“Wait,” she stopped him, sitting up in her chair. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to report my opinion of you to my superiors.”

She felt her gut tighten and wished like hell she didn’t care what that was. “For what? What’s this all about?”

“We call it our Youth Adoption Program.”

“We?

“The Central Intelligence Agency. We find gifted teens and start early with their training to become analysts or field operatives. Your father isn’t as completely out of touch with you as you like to think. He fears you’re not long for the ivory tower. And he thought this might be a challenging alternative for you and a way for you to still apply your unique gift for the greater good. Now I’m going to go tell my superiors if I think you’ll work.”

“And do you?” she asked as he opened the door, promising herself she didn’t care.

He didn’t turn around. But she heard him say, “I do.”

Present

“I want an answer. Talk to me,” he growled. “Now.”

“I’ll talk. Not here, though.”

Not that it really mattered where they were, but she liked the sense of control waiting gave her. He fell back against the seat, seemingly placated for the moment. She hoped that meant on some level he knew she wasn’t a traitor. Not because she cared what he thought, but because it would make her job easier. At least that’s what she told herself.

The driver stopped in front of her house. House, she mused. More like a work in progress. She could have bought a slick new condo. Instead she had instantly fallen in love with an old lady, a Queen Anne that needed a lot of care and a lot of money. But since it had only been the second time she’d ever fallen in love with anything, she thought that it meant something.

That was until she learned that her old lady needed a new roof, a new porch, a new heater and new windows. And that didn’t even begin to cover the work that needed to be done to her insides.

The bitch.

“You live here?” Quinlan asked.

Sabrina shot him a bored look since she knew he knew damn well that she did.

He got out and circled the car, opening the door for her. He made a move to reach for her arm since her hands were still secured behind her back, but she avoided his touch. He backed off and she managed to get out of the car under her own power.

“Why do you always have to be so stubborn?” he muttered under his breath.

“Where’s the challenge in being easy?” she returned. She started to walk up the cracked slate walkway when Quinlan stopped her with a heavy hand on her shoulder.

“Can I have your word you won’t try to unman me again?” he asked, his eyes falling to the wire pinning her wrists together.

Sabrina considered that for a moment. “Uh…nope.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to take my chances.” He unraveled the wire restraint, pocketed it, then followed her to a porch that had more than one section of a beam missing.

“Watch yourself,” she warned him. “Step where I step. I’m not sure that it will support your weight.”

She took a key out of her pocket and unlocked the door, stepping back to let him inside. In a way she was curious to see his reaction.

He said nothing moving from the foyer into the living room, but she could tell he was struck by the place. It had been ten years since the last time she saw him, but she could still read him. Not an easy thing to do with a guy whose favorite expression was neutral. But she could tell. The way he stopped and studied each piece like it was a surprise that it should be there.

For her, walking through the front door each day was like walking back a hundred years. All of the furniture was period, but in excellent condition. Hunted down in flea markets, auctions and estate sales across the East Coast. She’d chosen deep rich colors. Purples, plums and forest green. Naturally the wallpaper on the parlor walls was new, so were the velvet drapes, but they were meticulously matched to the style of the room.

Seeing the room through a man’s eyes, she thought about how feminine the space was. Not girly. It was much more sophisticated than that. And once again she found herself pleased with the result. This is what it was supposed to look like. She’d done right by the old lady…so far.

“Have a seat,” she said, pointing to a high-back chair near the fireplace. “Or better yet make yourself useful and build a fire. It’s always cold in here. Wood and stuff are in the closet behind you.”

“Where are you going?” he asked as she headed down a hall that led to the back of the house.

She held up her wrists that sported thin lines of blood thanks to him. “Just want to rinse off.”

“This house. It’s interesting,” he called out.

Sabrina stuck her hands under the faucet and winced when the water hit them. She let the icy water clean off the blood and then shook out her hands to make sure all the feeling had returned to them. Using a kitchen towel she dried off, then walked back to the living room to find Quinlan crouched by the fireplace. He was positioning the logs, making sure that they were evenly placed. Next he stuffed crumpled newspaper balls into strategic locations that would light the fire as quickly as possible.

So methodical. So precise. So like him.

“What do you mean? About the house?”

He lifted his head, clearly surprised to see her so close. “I wouldn’t have guessed that your tastes ran to the romantic.”

“Chalk it up to my ‘excess of emotion’ problem.” She reached for a pack of cigarettes she kept on the mantel above the fireplace. She offered him one and he scowled appropriately. He’d always had a thing against bad habits. Because she was feeling perverse, she lit one in spite of his disapproval, then handed him the pack of matches to light the newspaper.

The fire sufficiently started, he stood and slowly took in every element of the room. “You’ve put a lot of effort into it.”

“And money,” she admitted. “It’s a pit.” She fell back onto the couch, undoing her boots and letting them drop to the floor so she could tuck her feet up under her bottom.

“I heard about Vegas.”

He sat, as well, choosing the magenta love seat. Sabrina couldn’t help but appreciate how utterly masculine he looked despite the feminine color of the cushions. He’d removed his coat and the black turtleneck sweater and pants he wore clung to his frame, subtly emphasizing the muscles underneath without showcasing them. Not even the gun he wore, holstered under his arm, detracted from the look. In fact, it only made him appear more deadly. Like a panther had just gotten loose in her house. Maybe it had.

“And Atlantic City,” she added, although she was sure he knew that, too. “Booted out of both.”

“Didn’t take them long, did it?”

“No. But I had some success with a dark wig for a while. Long enough for me to get a stake. Enough to buy the house. Then there was a pretty successful trip to Monte Carlo. That helped pay the bills until I hit upon my new business.”

“I heard about the job. So what do you call yourself? A Hollywood gossip columnist?”

Her lips tilted upward. Poor Quinlan, he couldn’t quite hide his disdain even though he tried. “In some ways it’s a little like my old job at the CIA. After all, I’m acquiring information. Just like you.”

“Not quite.”

“You’re right. I sell my information to the highest bidder.” She watched his jaw tighten perceptibly at the mercenary nature of her career, but still he waited patiently. Standard operating procedure, she thought. Let the perp talk it out and get as much information as you can willingly. “You would be amazed at what the tabloids will pay for a little dirt on America’s elite.”

“Can I say I’m disappointed that this is what you chose to do with your talent?”

His disappointment. There was a day when those words might have destroyed her. And maybe that had been part of the problem. Her life ten years ago had been too much about not disappointing him, and not enough about doing the right thing simply because it was the right thing.

The greater good. That’s what her father told her, her life should be about. Right now it wasn’t. This was her opportunity to change that. But first she needed to get back in the game. She didn’t share this information with him, though, mostly because she doubted he would believe her. And partly because it irked her that he still felt that he had the right to comment on her life.

“Nope. You don’t get any say in what I do with my life or my talent.” And that kills you, doesn’t it? she finished silently.

“What about your father?”

“What about him?” she asked stiffly.

“I think he’d hoped you would return to the world of academia.”

Sabrina shook her head and took another drag on her cigarette. “School was never my thing. That was Dad’s dream. I never wanted any part of it.”

“Does he know what you do?”

She laughed and blew out a stream of smoke. “You mean the tabloids or the American traitor gig? Relax,” she said when she saw he didn’t appreciate her attempt at humor. “He doesn’t even know where I am. Still the same old dad. Can’t tear away from his monitor long enough to look.”

Quinlan nodded slightly and Sabrina could see he didn’t doubt her. He’d met Roger Masters enough times to know that she was exactly right in her assessment. “Maybe we should get back to the matter at hand. Krueger told me you and Arnold had been in contact. For how long?”

Finding herself agitated at the mention of Arnold because it still made her sad, Sabrina stood and walked over to smash out her cigarette in the ashtray positioned next to the pack on the mantel. “Just this past year. I don’t know how he found me, but he sent me an e-mail.”

This is your chance, G.G. It’s time to come home.

The words from that first e-mail ran through her brain. It had been that single word, home, that had made her reply. Then more words followed. Words like destiny. Promise and potential. For a numbers guy, Arnold had been pretty eloquent.

She felt the warmth of the fire hit her face and not for the first time wished she could talk to Arnold one more time.

“You loved him.”

Did she? She thought about the first time they’d met. In the hallowed halls of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Sixteen and full of herself and her brilliance, she’d been cocky as hell. She’d had no idea she was meeting an intellectual peer.

“So you’re her. The girl genius,” he said as introduction.

Certainly his appearance hadn’t been impressive. He had bushy white hair that made him look older than his fifty-five years. Sabrina remembered that day he had on a dismal yellow Oxford with monster pit stains underneath each arm. He had matched the shirt with a cheap green tie that fell, ridiculously uneven, down the front of his chubby body. She’d been repulsed and had immediately pegged him as a standard run-of-the-mill academic geek, which she’d grown to know so well during her days at Harvard.

“Quick, what’s the significance of the number three?”

“It’s between two and four.”

Arnold had laughed at her answer to his impromptu quiz. Cackled really.

“Excellent. Always start with the obvious. You’ll do, G.G. You’ll do fine.”

She glanced over at Quinlan, the memory making her smile. “I don’t know. Love is a pretty strong word. I did admire him. Not just his intellect, but his independence, too.”

“That independence is the reason we’re in trouble now. It was irresponsible of him to leave us blind like this. There hasn’t been much chatter over the wires lately, but that could change in a matter of days.”

“Don’t be mad at him,” she urged, seeing the etched lines of Quinlan’s face grow harder. For Arnold it was always about the work. For Quinlan it was always about duty to his country. The two men had liked each other, she recalled, respected each other certainly, but they never understood each other. “I think…I think part of the reason he did this was for me. You knew Arnold. He never cared much about the consequences, only as far as they pertained to his own agenda. This time I think that agenda was me. He wanted me to have a second chance.”

“And what do you want?”

Sabrina walked over to the stocked wet bar in the corner of the room and poured two whiskeys straight. She handed one to Quinlan, even though she doubted he would drink it, and sat down in the delicate chair across from him, closer to the fire. Closer to him.

“Do you think it’s so impossible that might be exactly what I want?”

“You could have come to me. Years ago. I could have fixed things.”

Sabrina laughed softly. “As if I would have asked you for anything back then. But I guess I know that if I had, you would have tried. You would have failed. I was fired, Q. And they were right to do it.”

“There were circumstances,” he muttered, his eyes pinned on the glass in his hands. He did, in fact, take a sip of his drink.

“Yep. But the broken heart of a nineteen-year-old seems pretty silly when you think about it in hindsight.”

“What happened?” he asked, wanting the specifics of why she did it, she knew. He would have read about how it happened in her file. But the details didn’t matter anymore, just the reason behind them.

“I got lost. You can’t know, can’t imagine, what it’s like to be ten paces in front of the rest of the world. It’s the scariest place on earth when you’re there by yourself, especially when you don’t know where you’re going.”

She lifted the glass to her lips. The smell of the whiskey hit her and reminded her that this would be her third drink of the night. She set the drink down on the end table next to her and stood again, moving back toward the fire. She looked at the flames colored with hints of blue and orange rather than at him.

“I decided I didn’t want to be that person, out in front, anymore. And it was so easy to give up. So easy to tell myself that I didn’t need the CIA. Too easy for them to say they didn’t need me. Then… I don’t know what happened. Maybe it was 9/11, maybe it was sooner. Somewhere along the way I grew up. I started to think about what I was doing with my life. What I was giving away. All my potential. That’s a hell of a thing. It began to piss me off. I was good at what I did. And I liked being good at it.”

“You could have been the best.”

She shrugged and tried not to think about what could have been, but what was going to be if she could pull this off.

“So there’s your answer. It’s ten years later. The past is just that. Arnold gave me an opportunity and I’m taking hold of it with both hands. Yes, I contacted Kahsan. I told him everything. Because you and I both know that he’s the only other person who would want access to Arnold’s data as much as the CIA. Don’t you see? I’ve become the ultimate bait and when I deliver his head on a platter to the CIA…they’ll have to take me back. On my terms. You know they will.”

She thought she sounded pretty convincing. Probably because most of what she’d told him was the truth. No, it hadn’t been her idea to go after Kahsan, but everything else she’d told him was dead-on.

“Possibly,” he accepted. “But this isn’t tiddledy-winks. You’ve been out of the game a long time, Bri. What makes you think you can play with this man?”

“I made you as a tail tonight,” she reminded him.

A short nod acknowledged her victory. “How did you make me? I thought I had been rather careful.”

“I heard your shoes.”

“So you leaped to the conclusion that any man walking on the sidewalk had to be following you. That’s awfully presumptuous even given the circumstances.”

“This is Stansfield, Pennsylvania. In the dead of winter,” she told him, “even the lawyers around this place wear boots.”

He lifted his gaze from his drink and met her eyes. In the light of the fire his normally cold gray eyes didn’t seem as dangerous as she remembered. Instead, they seemed almost inviting, as though he wanted her to share a memory with him. But that wasn’t a place she could go. Not with him. Not again.

He stood and set his half-finished drink on the mantel as far away from her ashtray as possible. “Your fighting was a little sloppy,” he mentioned. “And you were breathing hard after the chase. You’re out of shape. Could be the cigarettes.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t exactly operating at top speed, either, chief. Could be your age.”

“Okay. For now I’ll buy your story. But this changes everything. I have to tell my superiors what you’ve done. I have no idea how they’ll react. But in the meantime you’re stuck with me. If Kahsan does bite—”

“If? I would say it was more a question of when.”

A snap of wood echoed from outside almost in response to Sabrina’s statement. It was a simple sound. The sound a cold, near frozen, branch makes when the wind hits a tree too hard.

Or the sound a heavy foot makes when it steps on a board that can’t support its weight.

Inside the house they froze, then stared hard at each other, no communication necessary for what they both understood.

They had company.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.