Nova checked the ledge—it wasn’t more than eight inches wide. Leaning out, she could see, about twenty-five feet to her left, a light from the library where the secret meeting was to take place.

She turned around and leaned her back and head against the wall. She held her hand to her stomach, which was now slowly turning over.

She had to spy on that meeting. Over two months with Jean Paul, and still nothing. If he was innocent and she got caught, her actions would be impossible to justify. Her cover would be blown. But if he was guilty, she couldn’t pass up the chance. And if he was guilty and she got caught?

“So don’t get caught, Nova,” she said sternly to herself. Risking her life was part of the job, especially when the fate of the world depended on whether she got on the ledge or not….

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Silhouette Bombshell, the hottest new line to hit the bookshelves this summer. Who is the Silhouette Bombshell woman? She’s the bombshell of the new millennium; she’s savvy, sexy and strong. She’s just as comfortable in a cocktail dress as she is brandishing blue steel! Now she’s being featured in the four thrilling reads we’ll be bringing you each month.

What can you expect in a Silhouette Bombshell novel? A high-stakes situation in which the heroine saves the day. She’s the kind of woman who always gets her man—and we’re not just talking about the bad guy. Take a look at this month’s lineup….

From USA TODAY bestselling author Lindsay McKenna, we have Daughter of Destiny, an action-packed adventure featuring a Native American military pilot on a quest to find the lost ark of her people. Her partner on this dangerous trek? The one man she never thought she’d see again, much less risk her life with!

This month also kicks off ATHENA FORCE, a brand-new twelve-book continuity series featuring friends bonded during their elite training and reunited when one of them is murdered. In Proof, by award-winning author Justine Davis, you’ll meet a forensic investigator on a mission, and the sexy stranger who may have deadly intentions toward her.

Veteran author Carla Cassidy brings us a babe with an attitude—and a sense of humor. Everyone wants to Get Blondie in this story of a smart-mouthed cop and the man she just can’t say no to when it comes to dealing out justice.

Finally, be the first to read hot new novelist Judith Leon’s Code Name: Dove, featuring Nova Blair, the CIA’s secret weapon. Nova’s mission this time? Seduction.

We hope you enjoy this killer lineup!

Sincerely,

Natashya Wilson

Associate Senior Editor, Silhouette Bombshell

Code Name: Dove
Judith Leon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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JUDITH LEON

has made the transition from left-brained scientist to right-brained novelist. Before she began writing fiction some twelve years ago, she was teaching animal behavior and ornithology in the UCLA biology department.

She is the author of several novels and two screenplays. Her epic of the Minoan civilization, Voice of the Goddess, published under her married name, Judith Hand, has won numerous awards. Her second epic historical, The Amazon and the Warrior, is based on the life of Penthesilea, an Amazon who fought the warrior Achilles in the Trojan War. In all of her stories she writes of strong, bold women; women who are doers and leaders.

An avid camper, classical music fan and birdwatcher, she currently lives in Rancho Bernardo, CA. For more information about the author and her books, see her Web site at www.jhand.com.

No man, or woman, is an island. This book is dedicated with my profound gratitude to those colleagues and friends who, by reading and critiquing Code Name: Dove, taught me priceless, early lessons on the craft of writing.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted for information on airplanes or flying, guns, security systems and spy craft to Rex Anderson, Peter Carroll, Jay Lindsay, Bob Mahon, Jerome White and Doug Winberg.

The book is dedicated to the following colleagues and friends who read all or part of very early versions of Code Name: Dove. To each of you, for your care and criticism and shared expertise, I am forever beholden: Shirley Allen, Terry Blain, Drusilla Campbell, Julie Castiglia, Mark Clements, Chet Cunningham, Barry Friedman, Phyllis Humphrey, Pete Johnson, Marian Jones, Janet Kunert, Peggy Lang, Mary Lou Locke, Bev Miller, Abby Padgett, Ellen Perkins, Christie Ridgway, Ken Schafer, Janice Steinberg, Marsha Stone, Jan Tuttle and Tom Utts.

Contents

Prologue

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 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Prologue

The cougar had already moved two of her young to a new hiding place. Suddenly she stopped, a third cub dangling in her mouth, one of her paws poised midstride.

Nova Blair held her breath. Until this moment the morning air on this fifteen-hundred-foot-high bluff overlooking Gunsight Canyon had been as still as death. Hoping to capture a photo that National Geographic itself would snap up in a millisecond, Nova had taken a gamble and eased out from her blind. She’d moved into the only position where she could get a shot not only of the mother carrying the cub but, in the same frame, the other two cubs playing just outside their lair. But only a few heartbeats ago Nova felt a cool caress across the back of her neck. And that stirring breeze had carried her scent to the mountain lioness.

The cougar turned her head in Nova’s direction then set her cub on the rust-red sandstone so typical of the Indian Country around Lake Powell.

Nova’s cover was blown. She had feared this might happen. She stuffed the Nikon into the soft-sided camera bag looped across her chest and under her jump harness. Smiling at the cat and speaking as she stood, she said, “Seems it’s time to make an emergency exit, but I still gotcha, you beautiful thing.”

Nova turned and dashed for the stone shelf one hundred feet away. It jutted finger-like into the space over the long drop to the canyon floor. The skittering sound of loose pebbles followed, the sounds of a cougar racing to catch her.

From the stony finger’s tip, Nova threw herself into the void, arms and legs stretched wide to gain stability. Below lay the canyon floor, seemingly barren but for a feathery lime-green trace of tamarisks along the lake edge. And beyond, the magnificent lake itself, azure-blue against vast miles of red sandstone buttresses, cliffs and palisades that eons of wind and water had carved here.

Nova pulled the rip cord of the base jump canopy, felt the sudden yank in her crotch and under the arms as the blue-and-white chute deployed, and began a gentle, controlled glide to the ground.

This morning her hike up to the blind she put in place yesterday, when the first cub had been moved, had taken two and a half hours. The trip down would take less than a minute, her ride to the airport and then the flight back home to San Diego maybe five hours and tomorrow she would develop some of the best photos ever taken of the American cougar in the wild.

“Beautiful,” she yelled, the words of joy whipped away from her mouth by the wind and carried down the canyon.

Chapter 1

Valdez, Alaska, 1:00 a.m.

Sunday, May 15

The fishing trawler Polaris sliced through heavy drizzle and a calm sea at the mouth of Port Valdez Bay. From the aft deck a man in black peered through the Arctic darkness toward the shore, a tight knot of excitement like a clenched fist in his chest. Along the shore the pipeline terminal lights stood out like diamonds against black velvet.

His face drooped on the right side, its nerves severed by an old wound. He stroked the damp, corpselike cheek and sucked another lungful from his cigarette. In ten minutes they would launch the Zodiacs. He snuffed the cigarette on the heel of his boot, jammed the butt into one of his flack vest pockets and entered the cabin.

Nine pairs of eyes fixed on him. These were The Founder’s elite— Earth’s Warriors. Every man here had trained in the special forces of various armies before their dedication to The Founder, but still two faces showed fear: the Nigerian, Kariango, and the Frenchman, “Slow Jack” Soustelle.

“You two look ready to piss your pants,” he said in English. “It’s time to fix that.” He strode to the forward bulkhead, fished out the key on the chain around his neck and opened the locked compartment. He removed a small, gray box that captured the men’s attention as though it were a priceless jewel. The Founder’s enforcer laid the box on the narrow central table, tilted the lid back and gently plucked the pencil-thin, pale yellow glass ampoule from its foam cushion.

He held it up so the men could see it. “Speed. Strength. Fearlessness. One smell of this and you’ll be ten times the men you are now.”

He scanned all their faces. “Ready?”

Dark-painted faces nodded. The men gave him grunts of eagerness. Slow Jack said, “Damn right! Bring on the coffee!”

The Founder’s enforcer snapped the ampoule’s slender neck. There was a slight click, and then the smell of burned coffee quickly diffused through the cabin. He sucked in a deep breath of the drug and felt immediately the flutter of an accelerating pulse. The others followed his example. The drug was altering their bodies, their fight response heightening in a way that made them—short of death itself—invincible. A test bar of steel, half an inch thick, lay on the table. He picked it up and, bare-handed, bent it in two. The men murmured. He gestured toward the door. “Get the boats into the water.”

Thirteen minutes later he huddled with his men on stony ground fifty feet up from the shoreline, hidden under starlit darkness and four camouflage thermal blankets. The security system set up by the Alyeska pipeline oil partnership was ridiculously inadequate. A single fence, half a dozen cameras and only a token force of armed security guards. No motion detectors, no dead man’s entrance, no slalom barriers. Only a few feet away lay a dead-end cul-de-sac in the road near Loading Berth Five.

The drizzle thickened into cold, pelting sleet. Finally the red security truck appeared. He nudged Wyczek. The two of them shimmied free of the blanket, hugged the ground as they moved apart till they reached the pavement on opposite sides of the cul-de-sac. The truck entered the turnaround and circled. Wyczek rose. The dummkopf driver’s mouth dropped open in amazement. The man hit the brakes, fumbled at his holstered gun.

The enforcer bolted across the asphalt and, with his bare fist, shattered the window. He grabbed the door, ripped the thing off its hinges and tossed it aside, then pulled his combat knife. The driver turned. The enforcer slid across the seat and rammed his blade under the ribs, up into the man’s heart. “Terra eterna,” he whispered.

He holstered the knife and then grabbed the driver’s twitching body with both fists, yanked it from the truck and threw it like a rag doll to the side of the road. With his men, he piled into the truck bed.

Wyczek leaped into the truck cab and drove them back toward the terminal entrance. They turned right onto an access road to the upper levels, cruised past the Operations complex. The enforcer scanned for signs of danger.

“Still no alarm,” Slow Jack muttered.

Wyczek braked to a halt. With Slow Jack, Wyczek and two other soldiers, the enforcer hit the ground running. His Uzi chugging, Wyczek chewed up the Ops Center door. Another Earth Warrior lobbed in a satchel charge packed with C-4 explosive and shrapnel, and the enforcer tossed a matching satchel through a window.

A brief pause, then two quick blasts.

The windows blew outward, the door exploded. The pipeline personnel knew they were here now.

Yellow and red light washed upward into the night. Kariango and Soustelle had blown the microwave antennae linking the Ops Center to the twelve pumping stations. They had cut off the snake’s head. No way now could Valdez shut down the flow of oil or alert the outlying stations.

A brief vision of oil spilling across open tundra flashed into his head. Can’t be helped. He further reassured himself by softly uttering one of The Founder’s sayings, “If we must inflict some pain to the body to save it, so be it.”

It took only eight more minutes to lay the plastique and the white phosphorus grenades in the walls of the containment dikes. The Alyeska security force finally came to life and under a storm of gunfire, he and his men dashed for the truck. Kariango took a hit in the leg.

Wyczek raced the truck toward the beach. Under fire, all of them piled into the Zodiacs. Two more men took hits before they could get out of firing range. When they were, the enforcer yelled, “Throttle back!” Wyczek slowed to near halt and the enforcer hit the electronic detonator. A roar bounded across the water. Then another.

The sound was impressive, but the sight— Christ! Hundred-foot-high flames gouged like hungry tongues through the rain, licking the blackness. He clenched his fists. “Fantastish!” he whispered. His whole body vibrated. He sat transfixed.

Operation Viper had been executed flawlessly. Within the week he would report to The Founder in triumph. He shook himself and gave Wyczek the signal to get them out of here. As always, in a few hours he and the other men would hit “the pit” when the drug wore off, but the week-long depression was a small price to pay for this kind of thrill.

The Zodiacs streaked into the darkness.

Chapter 2

La Jolla, 7:00 a.m.

Sunday, May 15

“Nova, love. There is a Mr. Right for you. Your problem is, you don’t try.”

Reginald Pennypacker wheezed out his words of criticism between breaths as he and Nova rounded the final curve of the path along the bluff where they ran each morning. First her daily run, then the cougar photos.

They slowed to cool-down speed for the last block, uphill to the white, red-tile-roofed condominium where they each occupied one of the two top-floor units. Nova’s lips turned up in a slight smile. Reginald Penny-packer, “Penny” as nearly everyone called him, was the closest thing she had to a best friend and confidant.

She was sorry her refusal to come to his party had him upset, but he’d never know the dark things Nova Blair had done. There’s never going to be a Mr. Right, because I’ll always be Mrs. Wrong. Murder. Prison. Her work for the Company. No, Penny would never know why all his attempts at matchmaking would fail.

She treasured this spectacular La Jolla coastline. The best part of their run was that it let her gauge the Pacific’s waves, smell her breath, feel her mood. Today the great ocean had the blues: flat, gray-blue water sloshed indifferently against the beach. The on-shore breeze carried the stink of seaweed. A perfect day for nitty-gritty slave labor in the darkroom. The magazine photo contest deadline was breathing down her neck. And then, there were the cougars. “I try. I keep my eye out for possibilities.”

“If you were trying, you’d come Saturday.” He used the hem of his red T-shirt to wipe beads of sweat from his forehead. “How can you say you can’t make my party and still claim to be on the lookout for a man? I told a widowed admiral and a filthy rich, recently divorced trial lawyer you’d be there. They weren’t going to come but I promised I’d introduce them to a world-class adventuress photographer. A dazzler with emerald-green eyes and onyx-black hair.”

Nova reflected with a photographer’s eye on Penny’s slender elegance. Thirty-eight. Built like a marathoner. Part Irish and part Afro-American, and fiercely proud of both heritages. He was the owner of La Jolla’s most exclusive beauty salon and he’d invited a “select group” of patrons and friends to a bash for his long-time lover’s birthday. He smiled. Apparently his temper had cooled. He yanked twice on her ponytail. “You really must show. So I won’t look like a fool.”

“Why would you tell them I’d be there? You know how my life works. I might be out of town. In fact, how about you just tell them I am out of town.”

A two-brick-high trim bordered the green lawn next to them. Nova purposely stubbed her toe against the trim, did a somersault and landed on her back on the lawn. Alarmed, Penny rushed to kneel beside her. She reached up and, grinning, tugged twice on his earring. “Better yet. Tell them I had a jogging accident and broke my leg.”

He shook his head, returned her grin and extended his hand to help her up. “See what I mean? You don’t try. You avoid.”

I don’t avoid. I’m just a realist.

Side by side, they trotted up the three-floor stairwell. At the top they stepped onto the balcony running the length of its west side. From behind four palm trees standing guard on the lawn, a glorious Pacific vista beckoned. They shook out their arms and legs. She took in a lungful of salt air.

“You don’t try, but when you make an effort to fancy up, Nova, you’re really…well, really mesmerizing. Great legs. Fabulous eyes. That jet-black hair. You should have men hanging around here like bees after nectar.”

“Don’t be silly, Penny,”

“Don’t be falsely modest, Nova.” He paused, scanned her face, then looked away. “I watch you. The men buzz around, all right.” He fluttered his fingers to mimic busy bees. “But when they zero in to land, you close up your little petals, like you’re afraid they’re going to steal something.”

His words brought a sudden pang, a quick rapier-thrust to her heart. Candido Branco had left no visible scars; her stepfather had always avoided making wounds that would leave traces on her skin. But the scars on her soul were another matter.

Penny planted both hands on the balcony rail. “I’ve known you nearly twelve years. You’ve not had one serious attachment. Not since— How many years is it now since the amazing Ramone took off?”

“I’m not pining for Ramone Villalobos. The man did a lot for me. I was—” She started to say, Headed for big trouble, but switched. “He introduced me to travel and photography.” She didn’t add that he’d also recruited her for the CIA. “Unfortunately, I foolishly thought he loved me when he was just having a good time.”

Penny straightened, crossed his arms. “I worry about you now and again, love. Maybe I better shut up, though, before I say something I’ll regret.”

An eerie feeling raced through her, hot and electric, a feeling that Penny was about to hand her the key to the dark rooms of her past. She felt her pulse quicken at the base of her throat. “No, don’t shut up on me.” Penny would say words that would explain why she was unable to trust. No. She knew why she couldn’t trust any man. But Penny would say words that would tell her how she could trust again and then she’d be free from the past. “Say what you’re thinking.”

His gaze flicked to her face, apparently checking to see if he should continue. He plunged ahead. “I don’t get it. You meet lots of men on the tours you lead. You’ve never once said you’ve slept with one. Maybe you just wouldn’t tell me that.”

He paused, still searching her face. She waited, afraid to interrupt.

“I can’t imagine leading the macho, high-adventure tours you do and not meeting men by the planeload. You think you’re honestly open to offers?” He grinned. “You’re thirty-three and not getting any younger.”

Oddly, as suddenly as the mysterious feeling had hit, it fled; she felt as though she’d taken a six-floor drop in an elevator. Penny didn’t have a magic key after all. “I don’t know. Maybe not.”

“Come to my party Saturday. You can practice opening up and I’ll critique your man-baiting techniques.”

She threw him a look of mock horror. “That sounds perfectly awful.”

Penny turned toward his door, then looked back. “Just say you’ll come and deliver a few nice words to the good admiral and the wealthy attorney.”

She smiled. “Okay, okay.”

“Saturday. At eight.”

“I’ll be there.”

She moved toward her door, but Penny was still plotting. He stopped, his hand on his doorknob. “Wear emerald-green. That skimpy flowy silk that matches your eyes.”

“Yes, yes. I promise.”

“And I’ll do your hair. Something flashy. Black hair can be so dramatic.”

Penny hated her ponytail.

“This is going to be a great party.” Penny glided toward his door.

As he disappeared into his condo, Nova fished her key from the pouch Velcroed to her wrist. Sitting like a Sphinx on the chaise lounge next to the door, Divinity waited, staring northward along the sweep of the Pacific. Nova scooped up the white Angora, kissed the top of her head. One sapphire-blue and one emerald-green eye stared back. Now here was someone a woman could rely on.

“Hi, sweet thing. Penny insists I need a man. Anyone worthwhile drop by?” She draped the cat over her forearm, unlocked the door, felt a buzz saw of purring on her wrist. As she dropped the key onto the entry table beside the door, the state of the room snagged her attention.

“Diva, dear, our home looks a mess.”

Her dark wicker furniture was arranged so dining was done Oriental fashion around a low table in front of the living room picture window. Ten overstuffed green-and-blue lounge cushions reclined in crazy disarray on the carpet or against furniture or walls. Last night’s birthday dinner for ten-year-old Maggie had been a hit, especially Nova’s own gift: a 3-D video game.

She could almost feel Maggie’s small hand in hers. She loved all three of Star’s kids. When they called her “Auntie Nova” she felt like putty. But in Maggie she saw her own tender self before fate had set her feet on this…this bizarre life path.

She rearranged the pillows. When they were in place, things felt right. The condominium was the part of the world over which she had absolute control. And keeping things neat, even too neat according to her sister, gave her that sense of control that she had never felt for too many years of her childhood. She retrieved Diva from the couch and, sauntering down the hallway toward the bedrooms, glanced at the telephone answering machine. No messages.

In the master bedroom she spilled Divinity onto the comforter. The cat became a white puff of fur against the pattern of white, green and yellow swirls. A swath of sun suddenly lanced through the bay window. Two quick sets of sit-ups and push-ups, then she stripped. She took her shower hot and steamy.

Toweled but damp, she slipped into her carmine robe. The usual five brush swipes ordered the straight hair that fell to her shoulder blades. Two more straightened her bangs. She picked a pair of red earrings and tilted her head to locate the always difficult hole in her right earlobe. For some unfathomable reason, she always felt incomplete without earrings.

She picked Divinity up as the phone in the dining-room-converted-into-office jangled. The answering machine clicked on. She stepped into the hall. “Hello, Nova. It’s Leland. Give me a call. This will be a long trip.”

The line went dead.

A bolt of excitement and fear pulled her head up and, unthinking, she stroked too hard. Divinity leaped to the floor, her claws digging into Nova’s arm.

Leland Smith managed Cosmos Travel. He was also her Company contact. They had a code. “Hello, it’s Smitty” meant “CIA business, call in as soon as possible.” “Hello, it’s Leland” he’d used only twice before. It meant urgent, she would have to leave now.

“Sorry, love. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Her excitement quickly settled to resolve. The grim truth was, the CIA never called unless deaths were involved. The photo contest, the cougars, they all faded to insignificance. “You know how it is when the Company rings. He only says ‘Leland’ when things are especially bad.”

Penny’s admiral and lawyer were going to be disappointed. So would Penny. She wasn’t going to make the party after all.

Anchorage, 3:15 p.m.

Sunday, May 15

Joseph Cardone pulled his overnighter from under the seat of the passenger in front of him, slung it onto the middle seat and stepped into the DC-10’s narrow aisle. The Denver to Anchorage leg of his red-eye from New York held few passengers. As he retrieved his raincoat from the overhead bin, a young, Levi’s-clad couple with a toddler in tow edged past and the kid stumbled over the tip of Joe’s freshly buffed loafers.

With a quick move, he caught the boy. “Hey, big guy, watch for the bumps,” he said, tousling the kid’s blond hair. He sometimes wished, like now, that he had more reasons in his life to be around children, but kids and family…his life wouldn’t be fair to them.

He strolled forward. One of the stewardesses, Rita Halloran, stood in the galley, puttering with stainless-steel coffee urns. He’d spent the better part of the flight exploring what he and Rita Halloran had in common. Most notably so far, they’d both been born in Corpus Christi, Texas. He smiled. “I’d love not to have to say goodbye, at least not just yet.”

It looked as though she might feel the same as he: no professional requirement called for quite that warm a smile. He said, “I have to go on to Fairbanks. The chances are good, though, I’ll be back in Anchorage tonight.” He shifted his overnighter and coat to the other hand and automatically checked his tie. “Can’t be sure I’ll be back. But if I can make it, nothin’ would make this Texas boy happier than the pleasure of your company this evening.”

“The crew stays at the Captain Cook. I’m expected to join friends for dinner at the Crow’s Nest—the restaurant on top. I could get free, though.” She paused, eyes sparkling. “If necessary.”

He tilted toward her on the balls of his feet. “Think of me as a necessity. Please.”

She smiled again. “You got a date, Texas. And by the way, I wouldn’t be too confident about catching the flight out of Fairbanks in time, what with this awful pipeline disaster thing. Everything’s a mess. Pipeline people and investigators out the gazoo going north and south. The captain says they even caught one of them.”

Not good. If the media were already reporting that authorities were holding one of the terrorists, a security breach must have occurred. Joe whipped his pen and a business card, the card that said he was an IBM representative, from his left breast pocket. “Let me have your phone number.”

“Honey—” she was writing in large, flowery curves “—you’re the best-looking Big Blue representative I’ve ever had the pleasure of serving.” He pocketed the number and then turned toward the arched exit. Rita’s soft voice followed him out the door. “I sure will be looking forward to that call.”

The Flight Arrival display indicated that his contact’s plane should arrive in thirty minutes and was on time. He sauntered to the Alaska Airline’s lounge, dropped into a chair, leaned forward with elbows on knees and wished he could shuck the dreads and doubts that clung to him like a cheap, tight-fitting suit. His new partner was female.

Certainly nobody appreciated women more than he. But he had worked his first assignment alone. He’d liked it that way. Then came last night’s call. “You’ll have a partner. She’s highly trained. Very experienced. In fact, when you’ve been with the Company a while longer you’ll learn the Dove is legendary. She has the Deputy Director’s full confidence and will be in charge.”

The caller had made that very clear. He had a partner. She was senior. A woman, code name Dove, would be in charge.

Once again Joe checked his watch. Ten minutes or so and she should arrive. A man seated opposite seized Joe’s attention. Only one side of his face moved. The other side was dead, lifeless.

The flight at the next gate was called and the man rose and disappeared through the loading door.

Joe checked his watch again. Her plane was now late. He stood, paced, sat. If they didn’t make the Fairbanks connection, they’d arrive later, finish later and he’d be back in Anchorage too late to see Corpus Christi’s Miss Halloran.

He heard the high whine that hovers around big jets on the ground. The twenty-odd people waiting with him stirred. The door to the plane’s entry ramp opened. He scanned for “a fair-skinned woman with straight black, Asian hair to her shoulder blades.”

He was still seated when a woman matching the description emerged with the first-class passengers. Tall and slender, she wore black slacks and a green silk shirt. And damned if she wasn’t wearing black cowboy boots. This was his partner, all right.

He snatched his bag and coat and waded through the emerging passengers.

“I’m Joe Cardone.”

His words came out automatically, which was helpful since the thinking part of his brain suffered a brief short circuit. Her face was pretty and feminine, but her eyes were striking. Like a cat, his mind said as it jerked back into action. Green eyes with the merest, really no more than a subliminal hint, of almond shape. Twisted jade earrings the color of her shirt framed uncommonly fair skin.

Passengers streamed around Nova as she sized up her new partner. The flight had been long and bumpy, but the excitement of her newest mission hadn’t faded.

Agent Joe Cardone was good-looking, but young. Maybe her younger sister’s age, twenty-six. And while she might have expected him to be giving her a thorough going-over, too, he seemed to be captured by her eyes. She couldn’t resist a slight smile. She extended her hand. “Nova Blair. Glad to meet you, partner.”

His grip was warm and firm. He said, “We’ve got to hustle to make our connection. They’ve called the flight twice.”

“Let’s hustle then.”

They stooped to pick up her bulging bag at the same moment. She said, “I can handle it.”

She caught a frown from the kid, as if he felt she’d rebuked him. Let’s hope Mr. Cardone isn’t going to be uncomfortable taking orders from a woman.

“Yep,” he said, a cool edge on his words. “I bet you can handle it just fine.”

He spun on his heel and led the way at a fast clip. At the cockpit of their next flight, he paused. “Carrying?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. You?”

“Never when I’m in my IBM disguise.”

“IBM,” she said, and smiled. “Interesting cover.”

Most seats already held warm bodies. They had a window and a middle seat in row twelve. The aisle seat was already occupied. Her partner shoved his overnighter and coat into the overhead bin, climbed over the man on the aisle, and sat in the window seat.

Nova stashed her things overhead, and slid past the man on the aisle seat and sat in the middle.

Nova listened as her partner quietly flipped through the pages of a magazine. She wondered why they had paired her with someone so young rather than an old hand. She guessed Agent Joe Cardone could not yet have had more than a couple of assignments. Perhaps this was his first.

Fairbanks met them with a light drizzle, a low, leaden sky and a chill wind. They deplaned and hurried across the tarmac, the wind licking up the edges of their overcoats. They had privacy enough now for her to talk freely to him.

“Any other luggage?” he asked right away.

“No,” she said. “This is it.”

“We’re supposed to meet our Company man at city hall. That’s where the FBI has set up its Area Command Center. He’ll drive us to the hospital.”

She frowned. “I don’t know when you were in contact last, but I called in from Seattle. I was told the terrorist is in really bad shape. He might not make it.”

They entered the main receiving area. From long habit, she did a thorough visual sweep of the room as she continued talking. “Also,” she continued, “the Alyeska man may be—probably is—the only survivor from any of the pumping stations. It’s questionable whether either will be around much longer. We’re to observe the FBI’s interrogation, absorb what we can since the terrorist is the hottest lead we have. Apparently there is evidence of foreign involvement, in which case the Company is going to be brought in and they want eyes and ears here right now. I say we don’t waste time picking up our man. I’ll rent a car and get directions. You call and tell our contact to meet us at the hospital.”

She sensed him tense. Just the merest straightening of his shoulders gave him away. And the slight smile he offered was stiff. She was quite sure that he wasn’t used to taking orders from a woman—or perhaps might resent it. Only time with him would tell. And whether it was going to be a problem.

Chapter 3

Fairbanks, 3:30 p.m.

Sunday, May 15

Nova brought up the car, a Ford Taurus. Within minutes she and Agent Cardone were speeding up Airport Boulevard toward downtown Fairbanks. She’d buckled her seat belt. Her partner hadn’t. The kid’s still sure he’s going to live forever.

She snatched a quick sideways glance. He was frowning as he studied the rental agency map. She liked his looks: a broad face with brown, alert eyes set wide apart, dark brown wavy hair. He stood several inches taller than she. Broad shoulders and chest. She usually characterized a man’s body by sport type: with Car-done she thought boxer.

He wore the low-key suit associated with an IBM representative, but he carried it with a cool confidence. There was something flamboyant about him. He put a finger to the map and smiled, and she knew at once it was the movie-star smile that had given her the flashy impression.

“Got it,” he said. “The hospital’s a few blocks south of this main drag.”

Cardone navigated, pointing and saying, “There.” At the hospital, an intensified wind propelled needle-like rain as they scurried from the parking lot toward the building entrance. A score of media types paced like hungry cats waiting for a press announcement feeding. Inside, she and Cardone shed their dripping raincoats. Cardone strode to the information desk. She followed.

A gray-haired matron sat waiting patiently to provide assistance to the lost. Nova’s partner flashed his Company ID. “We’re here to see the two patients brought from Pumping Station No. 6, and I’ll just bet you know where they might be.”

The matron beamed at Cardone, clearly captivated.

Apparently remembering suddenly that the couple asking directions was on solemn business, the woman smothered her smile. She said, “Isn’t all this such a dreadful thing.” She pointed to a schematic of the hospital. “You’re here, right in the center of this main floor. Take the elevators to your right. Go to the top. Fifth floor. The police and some FBI people are already up there. The nurses’ station is just across from the elevators.”

“Thanks.” Cardone unleashed another dazzling smile.

In the elevator, he punched the Up button. Nova caught her breath when the car took off like a startled racehorse. She had expected the usual hospital elevator—a tired nag. She checked the time. Four-fifteen. Generally a pretty quiet time in most hospitals.

Two uniformed policemen stood guard beside two rooms across from the nurses’ station. One man, tall and lanky, leaned against the wall next to his chair, arms crossed. The other, sporting a beefy, bloated face, sat studying a sheet of official-looking paper, presumably the names and descriptions of personnel allowed to see the patients.

Nova scanned the floor. Only one orderly. As she had expected, things were quiet.

Her partner outpaced her. She trailed him to the desk where a nurse in wild purple-and-blue pants and top sat filling in a chart. Both guards caught Nova’s attention and smiled. She smiled back.

Cardone flashed his ID. “Who’s the physician attending your two special patients?” He cocked his head to indicate the guarded doors.

“Dr. Graywing.” The nurse examined the ID carefully.

Cardone continued. “Can we talk to him?”

“She’s with another patient, but it shouldn’t be long. Anyway, you need to check in down the hall.” The nurse leaned forward and pointed to her right.

Nova walked with Cardone toward the muted sound of conversation in a room at the far end of the corridor. Three men had commandeered a waiting room near the corridor’s end. Institution-issue couches lined the walls, but a table and several straight-backed chairs squatted in the center. One seriously overweight and unshaven man stood in shirtsleeves taking coffee with knock-you-down aroma from a stainless-steel urn. Three sets of eyes examined her and Cardone, but quickly settled on her. “Afternoon, gentlemen,” she said.

A blond with a sharp nose, well-cut blue suit and horn-rimmed glasses spoke first. “CIA? Blair and Cardone?”

“Right,” Cardone said. “Agent Joe Cardone. And this is my partner, Agent Nova Blair.”

The blond shook hands, first with Cardone and then with her, and introduced himself. “David Stivsky, FBI. Been on the case from the get-go.”

He introduced the two other men. The hefty man, Jacobson, was a Fairbanks’ police lieutenant whose reassuring smile offset several unattractive chins. The other was an Alyeska man, from the office in charge of pipeline security. He was a sandy-haired beanpole named Duncan, and his expression seemed stuck on grim. He flipped open the log, checked their ID’s, and entered their names in the record.

“This is one helluva mess,” Stivsky said. He twirled one of the straight-backed chairs, sat and rested his arms over the back. “Three pumping stations and the terminal blasted to smithereens. Burning like they’re never gonna quit. I gather, since we were told to wait for you two, Langley has hard evidence these guys are foreigners.”

“A reasonable assumption,” Cardone said in a serious tone.

The men were getting into FBI-CIA turf issues and Nova had zero interest. Instead she asked, “Have you talked to either man yet?”

Stivsky scowled. “No. They were brought in by helicopter about oh-five-hundred. Pumping Station 6 is just north of here. Unfortunately the terrorist is busted all to hell. Been sedated since before arriving here. When he was first brought in, Wiley, the pipeline employee, talked to the doc, but he’s also been under sedation since before I made the scene.” The scowl deepened. “We’ve waited to have a go at ’em till you two arrived since waiting also made the doc happy.”

She nodded to Cardone. “Let’s see if the doctor is finished.”

“Is Dr. Graywing free yet?” Nova asked at the nurses’ station.

The nurse started to leave the desk. From a room along the opposite corridor, a slender Native American woman with glasses, salt-and-pepper hair and a doctor’s white coat entered the hall and bounded in their direction. The nurse pointed and said, “That’s her.”

Dr. Graywing looked questioningly at Nova and Nova’s new partner but addressed her nurse. “So who do we have here?”

After the doctor examined their credentials herself, Nova said, “We’d like to talk to you before we see your patients.”

The doctor glanced at her watch. “The pipeline employee is sedated, but should be able to talk in, say, half an hour. I can’t let you see the one that’s presumed to be a terrorist. He’s in critical condition.”

“I know that, but still, we have to see him.” Nova put a little bite into her words. “As you can imagine, it’s urgent.”

“You simply can’t talk to the terrorist until he’s in better shape,” she said, lacing her words for the first time with a sharp edge.

The nurse was absorbing their every word. Nova said, “Could we find a more private place?”

Dr. Graywing briskly led them back toward the waiting room. She stopped in front of a door that led to a space hardly larger than a closet. The room held a desk and chair, charts and some posted work schedules. Graywing waved her arm for Nova and Cardone to enter, followed them in, and closed the door. She leaned back against the desk and looked at Cardone with the same charmed sparkle in her eyes that Nova had seen in the woman at the reception desk. “It’s a miracle either of these men is alive.”

Nova fingered through her purse, extracted her mini-recorder and started taping. Graywing saw the recorder and halted. “This won’t bother you, will it?” Nova asked.

Graywing shifted position slightly. “Not at all.” Again looking at Cardone, she continued. “The presumed terrorist is, as I’ve explained, in critical condition. He fell down a shaft on the pumping station site. Broken neck. Broken right leg. A concussion. He was unconscious when he arrived and is only barely conscious now.” The doctor’s brow wrinkled in a sign of minor impatience. “Actually, I’ve told all of this to your three colleagues down the hall.”

Cardone countered with an easy grin. “We appreciate you bringing us up to speed.”

“Well…” Graywing took in a deep breath and plunged ahead. “Everyone seems to feel he was left behind because his colleagues couldn’t locate him before they took off. As I said, you’re not going to get anything out of him for some time. If ever.”

Graywing’s gaze shifted, met Nova’s briefly with a challenge, then went back to Cardone. Nova let the challenge pass—for the moment.

“The pipeline employee—his name is John Wiley—he’s in better condition, but he’s been sedated. He’s the only survivor from any of the three pumping stations.” Graywing gave Cardone and then Nova a questioning look. When they said nothing, she continued. “I don’t know about the other two stations, but all of the personnel at Number 6 were shot in the head. Really nasty. The medic told me they were almost all in bed. It was as though they’d been put to sleep, then shot. Wiley’s alive only because he has a steel plate in his head. The bullet simply grazed it.”

“That is a break,” said her partner.

Dr. Graywing smiled at him. “I presume you’re going to question the man, and I want to warn you, he’s still very confused—”

Nova cut in. “The FBI has the lead here, Doctor. They’ll be in charge of the questioning. We’re simply observers, and I’m sure they expect us to keep pretty much out of the way. But if we have questions, I’ll be the one asking.”

Finally she had Graywing’s full and surprised attention. Agent Cardone’s lips pulled into a thin line. He crossed his arms and stared at the wall. A notion that the kid might be a bit touchy about his status in their relationship again crossed Nova’s mind.

Dr. Graywing’s ears flushed pink. “I, yes…well,” she stammered. “I stand corrected. Please forgive me, Ms. Blair. Mmm. Let me say, I had a chance to talk to Wiley briefly. He said three things I thought might be of interest.” The doctor hesitated.

“Yes,” Nova said.

“First, even though it was nearly one in the morning, Wiley was awake, reading in bed in the company residence quarters, when he heard a noise. Then someone ran past the door to his room wearing a gas mask. So the first thing is, it looks like they did use some kind of chemical to incapacitate the workers, all eighteen of them, then took their time going to the rooms to dispatch them one by one before blowing up the place.”

Graywing shook her head. Nova shared her feelings. Eighteen men dead at Number 6, shot like cattle. More at the other two stations.

“The second thing Wiley mentioned was burned coffee. The smell was the last thing he remembered.”

“That’s odd,” said Cardone.

Nova said, “Maybe it has something to do with the chemical agent that was used on them.” That struck her as plausible and a piece of information possibly useful for forensics. She’d have to make sure they started looking for traces of drugs in Wiley’s blood and tissues immediately. “And what was the third thing?”

The doctor opened her mouth. The sound of two gunshots penetrated the small room followed by blood-chilling shrieks.

Chapter 4

Nova beat her partner into the hall. Both guards were sprawled on the hospital’s white linoleum floor, blood and tissue splattered on the walls behind where they’d stood.

Bile rushed upward, to burn the back of Nova’s throat. She swallowed it down. The acrid scent of gunpowder assaulted her. With their feet pounding in rhythm, she and Cardone reached the reception desk together. Stivsky and company were close behind. The nurse lay facedown over her records, unconscious or dead.

The doors to the two hospital rooms gaped wide. Nova wanted to stop, to check the rooms—the witnesses were priceless—but high-pitched screams still warbled from the mouth of a young volunteer dressed in pink and white. The girl looked with horror into Nova’s eyes as she pointed toward the exit door next to the elevator.

Nova was closer to the door than Cardone. She yanked it open, peered inside the stair shaft to see if anyone was there, then burst onto the landing, Cardone at her heels. From below came hollow sounds of someone running down metal stairs. She and Cardone poked their heads over the handrail. She glimpsed the back of a dark-haired man dressed in white as he exited from the stairwell onto the next floor down.

Wordlessly she and Cardone bolted down the steps, their headlong descent sending metallic echoes clanging up and down.

She trailed Cardone through the fourth-floor door into the corridor and saw the man in white halfway to the double doors at the corridor’s end, walking fast. They gave pursuit. Nova guessed that Stivsky would be on his way to the first floor to secure the exits. The man in white heard her and Cardone. Without looking back, he sprinted for the doors, overturning a cart.

“Watch out, idiot!” the surprised orderly yelled.

Side by side she and Cardone streaked after the suspect, avoiding the cart and people hugging the walls. They barged through the double doors. The corridor diverged.

“Split,” they said simultaneously.

Cardone took off to the left. She sprinted right and burst through the second set of double doors, nearly flattening a pregnant woman against the wall. Rooms lined the hallway on both sides, but it was unlikely the man would hide. He wanted out.

Halfway down the hall she passed another stairwell. The door was just closing. The assailant would be heading for a first-floor exit. An elevator stood four strides beyond the stairwell. The door yawned, revealing a skinny, bearded kid. Jeans. Plaid shirt. He moved with glacial slowness toward the opening. Nova leaped inside, shoving the kid out the door with one hand and hitting the first-floor button with the other.

“What the hell!” he protested.

She could have cooked a five-course gourmet dinner in the time it took the door to crawl shut.

Her mind said that if this elevator moved like the one they’d taken up, chances were good, very good, she would descend faster than the bastard could run. She flexed the fingers of her right hand, wishing her gun was nestled in it. Unfortunately the Walther was at home, snugly tucked under her mattress.

At last. A final moan from the elevator and a slight bounce. The doors retracted with agonizing slowness. She bounded into the hall and from inside the stairwell heard a clanging of running feet. Good! She was ahead of him.

The stairwell door flew open. The man in white bolted into the hall twelve feet away and headed right for her. His hands were empty: apparently he’d holstered his gun. He looked as big as a pro linebacker. I’ve thrown bigger many times, she told herself.

Upstairs he hadn’t seen her. He’d probably think she was just a civilian in his way. She set her feet, bent her knees. He swept past. She grabbed his right wrist, twisted it out and back, letting his momentum add to the force that should bring him to the floor in a hammerlock.

He pivoted on his right foot with the direction of her movement and with his left fist, delivered a forward punch. She dodged it, but his arm wrenched free.

Now he faced her—stubby black hair, amazed dark eyes, thick lips open. She was clearly an unexpected obstacle in his path to the exit. He followed up with a smooth, left-footed roundhouse kick. Right at her face.

She blocked it—barely. His foot slid off her shoulder. Cold prickles raced up her back. He was equally skilled—and much stronger. Sure, he was bigger, but there was something abnormal in his strength.

Before he could set his left foot squarely, Nova lunged and grabbed his left wrist. She wouldn’t get another chance. Kicking out at his right foot, she prayed he’d go down.

The unstoppable bulk anticipated her. He finessed her kick and used his weight as leverage to twist his wrist free. He planted his left foot, swiveled his back to her and, with his right foot, back-kicked her in the solar plexus. She felt as if she’d been hit by a rocket. Breath whooshed out from her lips. Pain streaking through her belly, arms flailing, she lifted astonishingly, unnaturally, high off the floor as if in a Kung Fu movie, and flew backward toward the wall.

Chapter 5

Heart pounding like a jackhammer, Joe rammed open the double doors. The fourth-floor corridor was empty: no terrorist, no civilians. Logic argued that his new partner had drawn the full house and was this instant on the hot trail.

Still, there must be exits leading outside that had to be checked. And sure enough, three-quarters of the way to the hallway end he found a stairwell and an elevator—coming up. He sucked in his breath, flattened against the wall, slammed the stairwell door open. Nothing in sight. No sounds. He pounded his fist against the wall.

He swiveled to backtrack and Jacobson crashed into him. Stabilizing the Fairbanks’ detective, Joe muttered, “Bastard went out the other wing.”

Still furious he’d been dealt a busted flush, he sprinted to where he and his new partner had split up, Jacobson lumbering behind him. At the other wing’s stairwell they galloped down, two and three steps at a time. Agent Nova Blair lay stretched flat on her back on the ground-floor corridor, those big eyes closed. As he’d feared, no sign of a terrorist.

Three panicked civilians and Duncan, the Alyeska man from pipeline security, clustered around her. God, she looked so fragile. A halo of red blood framed a fan of black hair spread over ivory linoleum.

Duncan looked up at Joe from a kneeling position beside her with frightened eyes. He said, “Stivsky’s gone after him.”

“Blair…?” Joe snapped. The rest of his question stuck in his suddenly dry throat.

Duncan read his mind. “Just unconscious.”

Relief muddled with fear and anger. Joe felt his jaw muscles tightening. He was going to be taking orders from a part-time agent. Whatever her talent might be, it wasn’t capturing terrorists.

Duncan could take care of Nova Blair. Joe waved for Jacobson to follow. Together they bolted toward the exit.

Outside, two hospital security men ran with guns drawn through what was now a light rain toward a part of the parking area hidden behind the hospital wing’s shoulder. A burst of gunfire erupted from the same direction. With Jacobson at his heels, Joe dashed after the guards. He skidded around the corner, heard another triple burst of fire.

A couple hundred feet away, the FBI man, Stivsky, gun drawn, squatted behind a yellow school bus, peeking around its fender. Stivsky waved to the guards, indicating they should flank the target left and right. The terrorist fired again, another triple round. Joe took off to the left, Jacobson close behind him.

Stivsky shouted, “Keep him pinned down. I radioed for backup. I located him behind the big blue van.”

Cardone and Jacobson found cover at opposite ends of a black Cadillac. The lieutenant gave him a look of amazement. “Shit, man,” he muttered, “you’ve got no weapon.”

“Afraid not. But our friend doesn’t know it. I can still draw fire. Let’s get closer.”

Jacobson nodded. Together they raced another fifty feet fast and low. A quick burst from the terrorist’s automatic riddled the air. A bright green Plymouth provided cover. Joe clenched his teeth, wryly cursing his misfortune that IBM reps weren’t required by law to travel armed.

He figured that by ducking and dodging in a 180-degree loop, he and Jacobson could get behind the mark. But why had the SOB stopped running? Stivsky had it right; he was holed up behind a big blue van. Where was his transportation or his pickup man?

With Jacobson, Joe moved again. When they’d circled ninety degrees and only five cars separated them from the terrorist, Joe spotted the tops of heads and the gun hands of three men in plainclothes sticking out from behind an unmarked car.

They were local police. Maybe FBI. Whoever. The SOB hadn’t fled because their car blocked the exit. Joe whipped out his ID folder, flopped it open. The fine, cold drizzle pearled drops on the plastic cover. Peeking over the Plymouth’s fender, he aimed the folder in the direction of the three plainclothes men, waved it in the air. “Police,” he bellowed.

The assassin let loose another triple burst. A bullet zinged past Joe’s left ear just as he turtled his head behind the fender. The dampness on his brow wasn’t just rain; his underarms were hot and wet. He bellowed again, in the direction of the plainclothes types who’d squatted out of sight. “He’s one of the terrorists. Keep him pinned down.”

The terrorist fired off a single round. Stivsky yelled, slowly and in clear words, “This is the FBI. You cannot get away. Throw out your weapon, raise your hands and walk out so we can see you.”

Silence.

“I don’t like it,” Joe muttered. “Let’s try drawing fire again.”

Jacobson nodded.

They rose and scuttled two cars closer to the bull’s-eye of their deadly little circle.

Joe put his head against the ground, scanned under the blue van and found what he was expecting. The man was sprawled flat on the ground. It might be a trick. He sorely doubted it.

Stivsky gave the order and they all rushed the van. With Stivsky’s gun trained on the prone man, Joe felt for a pulse at the base of the man’s neck. The guy was dead. But no bullet wound anywhere. The autopsy would probably find cyanide or some other quick way out. So much for an interrogation. The FBI lab boys could get information out of him in other ways. If he had a record. If the organization he belonged to wasn’t all that professional. All in all, however, not a good day for the good guys.

A dark silence was receding; sound was filtering back to Nova. She trembled with terror. Please, don’t hurt me. Her eyes pinched tight to blot out the hated face, she struggled to pull into a fetal position. She should protect her stomach. Her stepfather, Candido, was very likely to kick again. The effort brought a wave of nausea.

“You probably shouldn’t move.”

That wasn’t right. The voice—a man’s—was soft like Candido Branco’s but it was full of concern, not lust, not anger. She felt, instead, her father’s presence. The man who had loved her, whom she had adored and who had died so unfairly. Way too soon, and in a stupid, meaningless accident.

Nova forced her eyes open. Saw pale yellow walls. But not her father. She saw the face of the Alyeska man.

A great sadness of loss tightened her chest—through the years that crushing weight had caught her many times and she was always unprepared for it. She would never stop missing her father.

And then suddenly relief washed over her in a warm flood. The terror wasn’t real. Childhood fears could be pushed again to the depth of her mind.

She sat up and the Alyeska—what was his name? Yes, Duncan—scooted so he could support her back.

“Do you feel dizzy?” a male attendant in white asked her.

Her struggle with the assailant flashed in front of her in all its violence. God in heaven, she’d blown it! She looked at Duncan. “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“The assassin!”

“He ran out that way.” Duncan pointed down the hall to her right. “Stivsky and Jacobson and your partner went after him.”

The throbbing at the back of her head was growing hard to ignore. She put her hand to it. Mistake. Her palm came away covered with blood. Her skin crawled.

The attendant put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “You should sit a bit longer. Are you sure you don’t feel dizzy? Someone’s getting a nurse and a wheelchair.”

Sitting like a slaughtered lamb with an audience to observe her humiliation was unbearable. She put her bloodied hand to the floor, pulled her legs under her till she was on all fours and, feeling like a defeated prize-fighter, began to rise. The attendant and Duncan rushed to take an arm each. A wave of dizziness left her swaying.

She clenched her fists. The dizziness receded, but the pain in her psyche did not. God help her, she’d blown it. The others simply had to catch the assassin. She’d still have to face her failure, but at least the Company would have a critical lead. The worst thing she could imagine now was that the assassin had killed both witnesses and then escaped.

Maybe I was overconfident. Maybe afraid. Her psyche took another blow. It was true. There at that critical moment, fear had ruined her concentration. But the man had been so strangely, weirdly strong.

A woman handed her a white towel. “For your head,” she said. Nova put the towel to the throbbing spot, then checked for damage. There had to be blood all over the back of her head, and a generous smear of bright red indicated she was still bleeding. A nurse arrived, pushing a wheelchair. “Let me take a look at that,” she said in a cheery voice as she took the towel from Nova’s hand. “Mmm. We’re going to need stitches. Come along, sit down, and I’ll take you to the emergency room.”

“First I need to check what’s happened upstairs.” Nova pressed the elevator button.

The nurse frowned. “You need to come to the ER with me. A doctor must check you out. You can’t just start wandering around.”

The lady in white was missing the point. “I’m still on the job. First I have to check upstairs. Duncan, you explain to her.”

Most of her spectators had wandered off. Only the male attendant, Duncan and the nurse stood gaping at her as though she were a sideshow freak. Mercifully, anger finally kicked in and pushed out her anguish. No use lamenting what she couldn’t change.

What she could hope was that he’d failed. And hopefully she’d find the witnesses still alive.

At the fifth-floor nurses’ station, a rain-drenched Joe was handed a towel by three nurses who informed him that both the terrorist and pipeline employee were dead, as were the two guards, that the desk nurse had merely been knocked unconscious, that the candy striper would probably never recover from what she’d seen, and that his partner was having her head stapled by Dr. Graywing in the third room down the hall, on his left.

He thanked them, gave them a warm smile, then headed down the hall.

When he knocked on the door, Graywing called, “Come in.”

Nova Blair sat on an examining table, her back to the door and her head tilted slightly down so the long hair draped her face. Dr. Graywing was daubing the back of Blair’s head with gauze.

At the sight of the wound, his anger rekindled. He was angry that by bad fortune Nova Blair had been the one to pursue the assassin. “Legendary,” his phone contact had said. Legendary for what? He moved to the other side of the room so he could see their faces.

“The assassin’s dead,” he said. “Suicide capsule I’d guess.”

His partner didn’t say anything.

Graywing shook her head and said, “Ghastly.”

“How’s your head?” he said to Blair.

Without moving she said, “It’s nothing.”

Graywing clucked. “Not so. It is a deep, two-inch long scalp wound. She insists she won’t remain here for observation, but I’ve told her for the next twenty-four hours she must look out for signs of concussion. Drowsiness or nausea.”

“How’d it happen?”

Blair shrugged. “I took the elevator and managed to beat him to the first floor, but I couldn’t hold him.” She spoke softly, her answer dragging like a whipped dog. Very unlike the confident woman he’d met a couple of hours ago.

“I suppose he just barged right past you?”

Nova Blair raised her chin slowly. She straightened her shoulders and her hair fell back from her face. “There was a bit more to it than that.” Her eyes had taken on a glacial, emerald chill.

He stuck his hands into his soggy suit pockets. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that quite like it sounded.”

“Yes, you did. Exactly like it sounded.” She lowered her head again and Graywing clamped another staple. A sickening sound. He was glad he couldn’t see what the doctor was doing. His partner said, almost as if to herself, “There was something bizarre about him. I’ve never felt that kind of strength in any man.”

A loud silence followed, as if the room was holding its breath. Agent Blair finally broke it. “You were telling us, Dr. Graywing, before we heard the screams, that there were three things Wiley said. First, that the terrorists had gas masks. Second, that Wiley smelled burning coffee. We’d like to hear the third. Agent Cardone, you’ll find my recorder inside my purse, on top. What was the third thing, Dr. Graywing?”

The doctor let her gloved hands hover in the air a moment, obviously thinking, while Joe found and started the recorder. After a brief pause the doctor plunged ahead, stapling as she talked. “It was the oddest part. I regret very much he can’t tell you himself, because I’m not absolutely sure I remember exactly how he put it.”

Joe said, “Do your best.”

“Well, Wiley said when he was a kid he loved dinosaurs. He’d memorized most of their names. He said he swore that when the man in the gas mask ran past his door he yelled out the name of a dinosaur. Terratornis. You’re stapled,” she finally said.

Nova raised her head, twisted around and the look of puzzlement on her face matched his own feelings perfectly. “A dinosaur name?” she repeated.

“That’s what Wiley said. He said he thought Terratornis was a kind of dinosaur, and he was sure that was what the man yelled out.”

“Well, it’s as good a lead as we’ve got,” Blair said. She stood and faced him with a new confidence in her eyes and said, “Let’s see what headquarters has to say about all this.”

Chapter 6

Langley, Virginia, 4:30 p.m.

May 16

After passing innumerable security checks with Agent Cardone beside her, Nova made it to the seventh floor of the modern white complex in Langley—the heart of the CIA. In a very few minutes she and Cardone would meet the Deputy Director of Operations.

“Price’s office is to the right,” Nova said.

“How’s your head?” Cardone asked with obvious concern. “Your hair does a great job of covering the staples.”

“Doing just fine, thanks.” Although her head still throbbed where the wound was, Nova felt sharp and focused.

Everyone knew Claiton Price’s secretary, Cleo Jackson, by sight—always a colorfully dressed black butterfly in a field of blue, black and gray moths. She swept around her desk and hugged Nova. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen you, girl.” She held Nova at arm’s length. “As lovely as ever.”

Nova hugged Cleo again. Their friendship had formed during six months when Nova had done her CIA training.

“I saw the photos you did for Maximum Extreme,” Cleo added. “The ones of the guy sky-surfing. Woman, it looks positively crazy. Skydiving is bad enough. Trying to surf the wind is just…”

“Just great fun.”

“Would you ever let that sweet niece of yours do it?”

“Maggie?” Nova envisioned Maggie leaping from a plane, her heart pounding, her imagination soaring at the enormous great fall ahead, her skyboard stuck to her boots. “Maggie’s a lot like me, Cleo. She’ll do what she wants to do, whether it would scare the daylights out of me to have her do it or not.”

“Well then, I just hope neither of you gets splattered onto some farmer’s field.”

Cleo finally seemed to notice Nova’s partner. “Agent Cardone?”

“Right,” he said. Nova could only imagine what Joe Cardone might be thinking. He’d probably never before been anywhere near the DDO’s office, and he must be wondering why a contract agent was close friends with the top dog’s secretary.

Cleo pulled her smiling lips into a serious line. “The Deputy Director is expecting you both. I’m sorry, my dear, that once again when we meet it’s over bad news. How long do you think they will keep you today after you leave here? Could we find time for coffee?”

Nova looked at Joe. “We should know our schedule pretty soon, shouldn’t we?”

Claiton M. Price sat in his chrome-and-black-leather swivel chair with his back to the office door.

Price stood, circled the desk and stuck out his hand to her.

Nova smiled, took the DDO’s hand, and shook it. It was a firm, cordial and hearty handshake.

“It’s a true delight and pleasure to see you again,” he said to her.

Price then shook hands with Cardone. “Good to meet you, Agent Cardone. I understand you prefer Joe rather than Joseph.”

“Yes, sir. A pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Price retraced his path and eased into his chair. She heard the leather creak. “Please, sit,” he said indicating the pair of chairs in front of his desk. “I understand you’ll be debriefed later about Fairbanks. What I want to do now is put you into the broad picture with respect to Operation Jacaranda. Our government is facing a formidable threat to our sovereignty. To be a bit more precise, four of the Big Five nations are being blackmailed.

“In general, here’s the situation,” Price continued. “Over a year ago, a Transoceanic jetliner crashed in the Pacific. You may have read that no cause was determined. What hasn’t been reported is that a madman—he’s thought to be part of a larger terrorist organization—somehow incapacitated the crew and the plane crashed because it ran out of fuel. We know because a fax the President received almost simultaneously said the plane was downed as an attention-getter.”

“How many people on board?” she asked.

“Three hundred and sixty.”

The number stamped itself into Nova’s brain as if delivered with a branding iron. Three hundred and sixty innocent people had perished. In every project she accepted for the Company, real people had been affected. Not some governmental agency or because of some theoretical governmental need.

Price leaned back and laced his fingers together. For a moment he studied her carefully. The man knew very well what it would take to involve her. She felt her new partner shift in his seat, as if impatient to get on to the details.

Finally, Price continued. “The author of the letter—he calls himself The Founder—has sent other faxes to the President stating irrational demands. The first was that the President must lobby Congress to pass a bill introduced by Senator Legnett to shift the country entirely from gas-driven to electricity-driven cars. You are familiar with the bill in question?”

She nodded. So did Cardone.

“The Founder threatened that if this bill didn’t pass, other planes would go down.”

Cardone leaned forward. “As I recall, the Transoceanic flight was lost last August. And in late September—or was it early October?—a spate of plane crashes occurred.”

“Quite correct. It was in September. Within two weeks, two good-size liners and nineteen smaller planes crashed. We believe all, except seven of the smaller crashes, were caused by The Founder.”

For a moment, Nova couldn’t breathe. The room had fallen deathly silent. She looked at Cardone and found him looking back at her. To her knowledge, the magnitude of this kind of devastation on a repeated basis was unprecedented.

Price continued. “This bastard informed the President that the air crashes were ‘just punishment.’ After its first defeat, Senator Legnett reintroduced the legislation and it also didn’t pass on a second vote.”

“I remember the vote,” she said.

“After that second negative vote, through an astonishing piece of luck, authorities at Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona found a bomb in time to prevent the dam from being blown all over the northern Arizona desert. The Founder—or as he is affectionately addressed by most agents tasked to stop him, The Fucker—claimed responsibility.”

“Is Senator Legnett implicated?” she asked.

“Not yet. Though you can be sure the intelligence community now knows more than God does about Senator Legnett.”

Price frowned, then added, “Britain, Germany and France are dealing with similar threats. To date the Japanese remain untouched. Most likely The Founder simply can’t place operatives in Japan. There seems to be no end to the demands. The most recent is that President McBride increase our donation to UN family planning programs from three hundred and thirty million to two billion dollars per year.”

“Extraordinary,” Cardone said, shaking his head. “This madman doesn’t want money. He doesn’t want his terrorist brethren released. He doesn’t want the government to give North Dakota and Utah back to the Native Americans or for all Protestants to leave Ireland. He wants Americans to drive fuel-conserving cars and promote birth control?”

“Quite so. To put it bluntly, The Founder states that he feels the world is woefully fucked up, and he is going to unfuck it. Which brings us to your assignment— Operation Jacaranda. There’s a young German politician, Jean Paul König. He’s riding the crest of the resurgent German ecology movement. He once belonged to the Greens, but he’s now the foremost proponent of his own aggressive brand of ecological politics. Six days ago, a Company contact in East Germany was found dead. Cause undetermined. But she had passed a message suggesting that König’s German Homeland Party was in some way involved in an ‘accident’ at one of the French nuclear plants. Need I say, one of The Founder’s faxes referred to this ‘accident.’

“There’s not a breath of serious scandal in König’s dossier and the man certainly isn’t alone in objecting to nuclear power, so a connection between König, the plant accident and The Founder must be considered unlikely. But since our asset’s report is presently the only real lead we have, we must pursue it full-throttle.

“Nova, we want you to get close to König. You and Joe can make contact as a team. A writer and photographer. You utilize your genuine, and may I say formidable, photographic skills. We’ve arranged for it to appear as if you two have been working together for several years. Joe works for you, Nova, as your assistant. He also writes articles built around your photos.”

“Isn’t it more usual that a writer would hire a photographer?” Cardone interjected, his tone stiff. “Shouldn’t she be working for me?”

Surprised that Cardone would dare to challenge Price himself, Nova stared at the agent. Apparently he had been so intent he hadn’t thought before speaking. Clearly a strong emotion had been running his mouth—most likely ambition. And then there was also that thing about her being a woman. Maybe that was it. Or just that her performance in Fairbanks had certainly left a whole lot to be desired.

“You need to keep in mind that our analysts believe the way to this man is through Nova,” Price said to Car-done, his voice having taken on a decidedly chilly tone.

She turned her attention back to Price. Cardone, she noted, had the good sense to remain silent.

“Wait, are you suggesting that I seduce him?” she asked, the steel in her voice leaving no doubt as to her feelings on the subject. “You know, I don’t do seduction.”

“Charm him, Nova. As only you can do,” Price said, capitulating. “This is your great gift. That way you have of winning trust. How far you take it will, of course, be up to you.”

Price shifted his gaze to Cardone and added, “We want König’s attention on Nova. Our psych analysts feel that if anything can disarm König, it’s a woman with genuine talent, such as her photography. And what Nova has in addition is a seeming fragility that disarms the susceptible male. And our psych profilers are convinced König is susceptible.”

Cardone turned to face her, giving her a thorough inspection, head to toe. She could almost feel him touching her—not undressing her, as men often did with their eyes when she took the time to dress up and look nice—but tracing her face and clothes as though trying to discover the magic she possessed that Price seemed to be talking about.

She was her usual self, the self that Penny said she wore to make herself invisible. Very little makeup and plain black slacks and a forest green shirt. But Penny was right. When she got dressed up, some strange chemistry happened between her and most men she met. And if getting next to this König was the assignment, dressing up would certainly be part of the strategy. She smiled. Her new partner was in for a big surprise.

Cardone, who couldn’t know her thoughts, smiled back in a way that said he was resolved to play his part in this charade whether he believed Price’s estimation of her or not.

Price continued his lecture to her partner. “While you may think it more natural for the journalist to hire a photographer, world-class photographers often work the other direction. That’s what we see here, Agent Car-done. Keep in mind also that you were selected in part because when you dress appropriately, you can pass as much younger than you are. We want this.

“And by the way, I’ve already had our research people check out that lead, Terratornis. It’s not a dinosaur. It’s an extinct giant vulture.”

Odd, she thought. Why in the world would a terrorist group be yelling the name of an extinct giant bird when they were blowing up the pipeline?

“Both of you will be worked hard for the next eight days to bring you on-line with Operation Jacaranda, at a place not far from here,” Price said, interrupting her thoughts. “Your contact in the field will be the chief of station in Berlin, Martin Davidson.”

Price informed them about their briefing later in the afternoon and then dismissed them.

Chapter 7

The Founder’s Compound

For over an hour The Founder’s enforcer, Franz Maurus, had studied the Earth’s Warriors recruitment reports. Since his return from Alaska he’d noticed that the number of dedications was falling dangerously behind schedule. He rubbed his dead cheek. The problem wasn’t recruitment. It was the dedication process. He rang Singh’s laboratory.

When the Indian scientist picked up, Maurus said, “I’m coming to the laboratory.”

He strode across his office and into the underground hallway that connected the office to Singh’s lab. He found Singh standing between two rows of laboratory benches, the small glass-enclosed experimental chamber behind him. Sitting in the chamber, bound to a straight-backed chair, was a young woman Maurus didn’t recognize.

Singh said, “I trust your trip was successful, Herr Maurus.”

Despite his general disgust for the forty-year-old scientist, Maurus usually experienced the thin, balding Indian’s singsong accent as soothing. Now, however, the soft words merely irritated. Again out of habit Maurus stroked his limp cheek. “I am reviewing the buildup of fighting manpower. We are behind schedule.”

“Yes. There is a problem. But it’s not serious.”

“From the moment of the first public demonstration of The Founder’s power, any delay in our plans is serious. We are being hunted now, by every powerful agency in the world. We must move swiftly. Why have dedications with the Loyalty Inducer fallen off?”

Singh inhaled a breath. His thin hands fluttered nervously at his sides. “The Loyalty Inducer is unique among our suite of drugs. You see, unlike sleep and fear and so forth, loyalty is a higher cognitive process. Our more primitive inducers, the Sleep Inducer for example, can affect any subject, but the Loyalty Inducer functions only on persons strongly sympathetic to the person on whom they will be imprinted.”

“I don’t like what I hear. Neither will The Founder. What about the Fight Inducer? The drug is critical for my commando operations. All of the damned drugs are critical to everything we do. Does this ‘small problem’ happen often?”

Singh gave him the obsequious smile that played more than a small part in fomenting Maurus’s loathing of the man. “Transition from producing small quantities of the drugs for experiments to a larger scale must inevitably entail some difficulties.”

The Indian scientist wrung his hands. The enforcer knew he superficially scared Singh, but Singh knew his value only too well. Fifteen years ago, this brilliant non-entity had developed and offered The Founder the first drug—the Sleep Inducer—and the promise of many related drugs tailored to regulate human behavior. The drugs were not only capable of bending people’s minds and wills, what made them particularly useful—and frightening—was that they had the astonishing ability to be delivered to the brain through the nasal passages. One inhalation and the subject, or victim, succumbed. In return, for fifteen years Maurus had, at The Founder’s direction, supplied Dr. Sanjiv Singh with his “recreation”—little boys.

Maurus noticed that the girl in the chamber hadn’t moved so much as an eyebrow. He nodded toward the girl. “Who the hell is she and what’s wrong with her?”

“Ah. She is Helmut’s latest girl. He finished with her and I asked if I could use her. I’ve just tested my latest drug on her. The first human test. I call it a Pacification Inducer. Seems to have worked perfectly.”

“Why doesn’t she move?”

“The drug is essentially a permanent, chemically induced lobotomy. She will live and carry out all basic functions, but she no longer has any will.”

“A damn vegetable!”

“Yes. Quite right. Quite useful as a threat or blackmail weapon, don’t you think?”

Maurus rubbed his dead cheek. “You’re a scary man, Singh.”

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