From: Delphi@oracle.org

To: C_Evans@athena.edu

Re: news reporter, Shannon Connor

Christine,

You know we’ve had our troubles with Shannon Connor. From the moment she was expelled from Athena Academy she’s been nothing but a thorn in the sides of the students and grads of our beloved school. I’ve been following her closely for years, and this time she’s gone too far.

Turns out, the news reports that made her a superstar were based on leads she received from an anonymous source. That source, I’ve discovered, was Arachne. Could Shannon have been so devious as to partner with our enemy? I’m not sure, but I intend to find out.

Arachne’s death two months ago stopped the flow of information, but it seems it didn’t stop her evil. She has at least one protégé who has reestablished contact with Shannon. I have a man shadowing our wily reporter. Whether Shannon knows it or not, she’s going to help us finish this thing, once and for all.

D.

Dear Reader,

Every family has its black sheep and outlaws—even those wonderful women of Athena Academy. It’s my pleasure to tell Shannon Connor’s story, and to finally get all the details straight about everything that happened to her and how she came to attempt framing Josie all those years ago!

As you’ve seen throughout this series, Shannon is nobody’s fool and isn’t a pushover. She’s been tracking Allison and the Athena women in the field, working the kidnappings and trying to find Marion Gracelyn’s archenemy, Arachne. She’s closing in on the truth, and this book deals with the price Shannon is prepared to pay to find out what’s really going on. Even though she’s not usually on Athena’s side, Shannon has remained powerful and unwavering in the face of danger—just like all the Athena women she went to school with. Shannon hasn’t strayed far from her roots, though she has at times used her powers for not-good!

In Beneath the Surface, Shannon meets hunky Rafe Santorini, a former CIA agent and friend to Allison Gracelyn, who’s recovering from a year’s incarceration behind enemy lines in North Korea. After being betrayed, Rafe isn’t ready to give his heart away—but there’s nothing as attractive as an Athena woman who has her eyes on the prize! He’s never going to know what hit him.

Enjoy,

Meredith Fletcher

Beneath the Surface

Meredith Fletcher

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.

MEREDITH FLETCHER

maintains a healthy interest in travel and history. She’s been to the top of Pikes Peak and to the bottom of Carlsbad Caverns. She’s seen the Reversing Falls in St. John, New Brunswick (and eaten purple seaweed) and snorkeled plane crashes in Cozumel.

She comes from a large family and loves sitting at the table while everyone shares their stories. She’s also an avid reader and movie enthusiast, enjoying every love story from Casablanca to Spider-Man 3 (which she firmly maintains is a love story in spite of all the trappings of superheroes).

This book is dedicated to Alice Clary

and Katie McNeil, who have reached for

and captured dreams of their own.

And to Natashya Wilson and Stacy Boyd,

who made it all happen.

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

Epilogue

Prologue

Athena Academy

Outside Glendale/Phoenix, Arizona

Fifteen years ago

“Shannon, you need to get up.”

“Inaminute,” Shannon mumbled automatically. There was something disturbing about the voice. It had a mom quality to it, but it definitely wasn’t her mom. Now isn’t that interesting.

Not that she was getting up. Nope, that wasn’t going to happen. This was Saturday. At least she was pretty sure it was Saturday. She always slept late on Saturdays unless the academy had a field day or exercise scheduled.

“Shannon.”

Instead of responding, Shannon curled up more tightly into her bed. She reached up and pulled her blanket over her head. The light was on in her room. That bothered her even more than the voice.

Who would turn on the light? Or had she left it on? She wasn’t sure. She’d been too excited after her “special mission” last night to go to sleep immediately. Instead she’d stayed on the Internet, shopping for new clothes and a new way to do her hair. Her hair she could deal with, but new clothes were going to be impossible until—

Someone yanked the blanket off Shannon. And that was the last straw. Back home, when she’d been living with her older sister and younger brother, people had learned to give her space.

Usually finding space at home wasn’t a problem because she was largely ignored. She wasn’t as helpful around the house or as precious—whatever that meant, though Shannon had come to believe it meant passive—as her older sister and she wasn’t Daddy’s only son. They’d gotten all the attention, and Shannon had gotten all the space she’d cared for. In fact, sending her to the Athena Academy after she qualified had seemed an easy way for her parents to get her out from underfoot.

Thoroughly irritated now, Shannon cracked open her eyes. She glanced at the room’s only window above her computer desk and saw that it was still dark outside. She might be awake in the middle of the night, but she didn’t get up then.

“Hey,” she protested. “What gives? This isn’t one of those stupid fire drills, is it?”

“No. It’s not a fire drill.” The voice was losing some of its patient quality. The momness was coming through even stronger.

If Shannon had still been at home, the yelling would have started by now, and her mother would be telling her father how impossible Shannon was to deal with. And she would have been blamed by everyone in the family for whatever went wrong for the rest of the day.

“Get up, Shannon. We need to talk.”

That voice—the one so carefully measured it sounded like a military cadence—finally woke Shannon. That voice said she was in trouble.

Shannon hated being in trouble. Well, mostly she hated being in trouble. Sometimes trouble meant that she was getting the only attention she was going to get.

She twisted, shaded her eyes against the light and looked up at Christine Evans, the principal of Athena Academy. Principal Evans was almost fifty years old—at least that’s what the rumors around the school claimed—and an ex-Army officer.

She’d lost her left eye in some kind of accident—everyone in school insisted it had happened in a military engagement and Principal Evans had killed a whole platoon of bad guys—and been appointed as principal of the academy by Senator Marion Gracelyn, the founding mother behind the special finishing school for girls. The principal and the senator had been friends for a long time.

Principal Evans was stocky from a lifetime of military work and a dedication to staying in shape rather than staying thin. Her short-cut gray hair offered more testimony to the fact that she didn’t try to hide things.

Principal Evans wasn’t hiding anything now. She was irritated. Big-time.

Okay. Chill. Buy some time. Shannon levered her legs over the side of the bed to show that she was willing to comply with the request but was too tired to do so immediately. She yawned. She stretched. She rubbed her eyes.

Then she noticed that Tory Patton was standing in the back of the room, near the door. Tory was naturally beautiful. She’d never had to work at it. Gifted with black hair, an olive complexion and green eyes, she turned the heads of boys everywhere she went. And she didn’t even seem to care. It was enough to make Shannon gag.

Great. Tory Patton, one of my rivals. In my room. And I have probably the worst case of bed-head since bed-head was invented.

“What’s she doing here?” Shannon demanded.

Principal Evans ignored the question. “Get dressed,” she ordered. “You’ve got five minutes. Otherwise you’re going in your robe.”

“My robe?”

“Five minutes,” Principal Evans repeated.

“Going where?”

“Start dressing or we can go now.”

Witch, Shannon thought. But that was more a knee-jerk reflex to being awakened in the middle of the night. Normally Shannon got along with Principal Evans all right. Except for a few incidents involving hazing students new to the academy.

She bolted up from bed and dived at her chest of drawers. She wasn’t going to be caught walking around the academy halls in a robe. As usual, she’d worn only a football jersey to bed. She’d told everyone her boyfriend had given her the jersey, but she’d actually stolen it from her little brother.

Tory wore boys’ pajama pants, an academy T-shirt and was barefooted. Somehow on her it looked like an ensemble and a statement. Even underdressed, Tory still looked beautiful.

It’s just not fair, Shannon thought again. Tory hardly had to do anything to look great in the television broadcasting class they were taking together. Shannon, while she was beautiful, still had to work to make it happen.

Arms filled with clothing, Shannon sprinted for the bathroom. Her roommate slept through the whole thing.

Minutes later, dressed in capris, good shoes and a crop top, Shannon walked at Principal Evans’s side. Shannon had her arms crossed to show her displeasure but also because it was cold this time of year up in the White Tank Mountains, where the school was located.

Years ago the campus had been a mental-health and rehabilitation facility for movie stars who’d fallen off the wagon or gotten involved in drugs. Wealthy families had stashed their black sheep there.

The girls at the academy even told stories about serial killers and murderers that had been held in the older sections of the school. That made for some exciting walks late at night. Especially for the younger girls who were brought there for the first time. Shannon had enjoyed hazing the newbies with the stories of murderers loose on the grounds.

Many of the first-timers came there at age ten or eleven. The academy recognized potential prospects and sent letters early. The school was so prestigious that hardly anyone ever turned them down. The fact that the tuition was waived made the academy even more enticing.

On Friday and Saturday nights, after the fall semester started, the newbies usually got the full treatment from some of the other girls. Frightened squeals echoed throughout those older sections. Shannon had particularly enjoyed those times. She loved role-play and she was one of the best because she could always tell what would scare a new girl the most. It was almost as though she had a psychic ability to get inside an audience’s head.

Principal Evans and her staff turned out to be real buzz-kills. They penalized everyone involved in hazing of that nature. Shannon didn’t mind. The trade-off—a few days of detention for delicious moments of seeing a newbie totally wigging out—was worth it. The event was all theater, getting the complete, rapt attention of her victims, then being in the eye of the storm that swept out of administration.

“You still haven’t told me what’s going on,” Shannon accused.

“You’ll know soon enough,” Principal Evans said.

Okay, Shannon thought as they crossed the grounds to the school’s administration building, so you’ve got me beat when it comes to scary-quiet attitude. That’s fine. I’ll let you have that one. There were other ways to deal with adults.

Shannon called tears to her eyes. She could cry on cue. It was one of her best skills, and that little trick had earned her a lot of attention at home until her parents had either figured it out or just stopped caring. She still wasn’t sure which it had been.

She swallowed hard, made her voice tremulous and looked at Principal Evans. “It’s my parents, isn’t it? Something’s happened to my parents?”

Shannon was so good that she almost scared herself. Even though she was convinced that her parents didn’t much care for her, she still loved them. She didn’t want anything to happen to them.

Principal Evans was quiet longer than she would have normally been. Shannon wondered if she’d played the tear card once too often. But Principal Evans went for it anyway.

“No,” the woman said. “Nothing’s happened to your parents. As far as I know, they’re both fine.”

Shannon almost grinned in triumph. Not only had she created some sympathy in Principal Evans, but she’d also learned that her parents hadn’t been called. Whatever trouble she was in—and she honestly couldn’t think of what that trouble might be—it couldn’t be that bad.

However, the trouble was bad. It had to be bad if Marion Gracelyn was there.

The senator had been waiting in Principal Evans’s office. Marion Gracelyn was often at the school, but she’d never been there in the middle of the night, not that Shannon knew.

Marion Gracelyn was a beautiful woman. Her brown hair was shoulder-length and carefully coiffed, and her business suit was immaculate. Her brown eyes were intense, much more scary, actually, than Principal Evans’s. Whatever was going on, the senator was taking it way too personally.

In that moment Shannon was pretty sure what the trouble was going to be about. Somehow Principal Evans had found out what Shannon was doing to Josie Lockworth.

Without a word, Principal Evans waved Shannon and Tory into chairs in front of the desk. Then she sat in the big chair on the other side and tapped her computer keyboard.

Senator Marion Gracelyn remained standing.

Seated there in Principal Evans’s way-too-neat office and surrounded by proof that the woman had no life outside of what happened at the school, Shannon knew she was in more trouble than she’d ever been in. For the first time in a long time, she was scared.

The three of them—Shannon, Principal Evans, and Tory—watched the computer monitor on the desk. On-screen, Shannon broke into Josie Lockworth’s gym locker. Lock-picking, not usually found on a high school curricula, was only one of the specialized skills taught at the academy. Shannon had turned out to be quite good at it.

The personal DVD player was plainly visible in Shannon’s hand as she shoved it into Josie’s locker. Then Shannon closed the locker and hurried off.

“As you know, Josie has been accused of stealing things around campus,” Principal Evans said in her no-nonsense voice.

Shannon did know that. Everything Josie had been accused of stealing, Shannon had actually stolen and put in Josie’s locker or room. Those things had been found during subsequent investigations.

Josie Lockworth had been intentionally targeted by Shannon’s team the Graces. Upon arrival at the school, each new student was put with a team. Those teams weren’t designed to be cliques. They were intended to be a small support system within the school.

The Cassandras—Josie’s team—were led by Lorraine Miller. Everyone called her Rainy. She was Allison Gracelyn’s strongest competition at the school, and everyone took the competition seriously. Way too seriously, in Shannon’s view. But Shannon had gotten attention within Allison’s group, the Graces.

“How could you do something so reprehensible?” Marion Gracelyn demanded.

Shannon tried to speak and couldn’t at first. She’d never imagined getting caught. Josie had been chosen because she’d been the weakest link among the Cassandras. Her mother had been some kind of engineer for the Air Force. A spy plane she’d designed had failed during a test and killed several men.

Josie lived under that cloud and carried her mother’s guilt around with her. Shannon figured that Josie would have cracked under the social stigma of being thought of as a thief. The last week that the “thefts”—Shannon didn’t think of her borrowing other people’s property as theft because everyone had gotten their things back once it was discovered Josie had them—had taken place, Josie had shown obvious signs of distress. She’d gotten more withdrawn than normal and couldn’t seem to concentrate on her work. Not even math and physics, which were two of her most enjoyed subjects.

If you could take away the sheer love of math from Josie Lockworth, Shannon knew she was doing something. Still, part of her had felt bad for Josie. The other girl had never done anything to her. Under different circumstances, if she hadn’t been part of Rainy’s group and Allison hadn’t been so jealous of Rainy, they might even have been friends.

“Who put the video cameras in?” Shannon asked.

“I did,” Tory said. Her voice held a note of imperiousness and outrage. She could do a lot with a look and her tone of voice. That was why she got even better scores in the broadcasting classes than Shannon did.

“That was good,” Shannon said. “I didn’t think about that.”

“Josie’s my friend,” Tory said in a hard voice. “She would have been your friend if you’d given her a chance.”

That was probably true, Shannon admitted. But that wasn’t how things were. Lines had been drawn and she’d had to choose her allegiances.

“Have you nothing to say in your own defense?” Marion Gracelyn asked.

Shannon remembered then that the senator had once worked in the district attorney’s office in Phoenix. She’d had an impressive conviction rate. The pre-law classes at the academy talked about some of her cases.

“It wasn’t my idea to frame Josie,” Shannon said. She played her trump card. “It was your daughter’s.”

The Big Announcement—and that was how Shannon had thought of it since she’d first figured out how she was going to respond if she got caught framing Josie—didn’t deflect the heat as much as Shannon had hoped. In fact, if anything, the Big Announcement only seemed to turn up the heat.

Marion Gracelyn had become even further outraged at the accusation of her daughter.

Shannon had offered to show them the e-mails that she’d received from Allison. They were all in a file Shannon had set up on her computer in her dorm room.

Everyone knew that Allison was a geek when it came to computers. She did everything on computers. All her free time was spent on them. She organized all the Graces on computers and PDAs, posted their schedules and outlined her expectations in terse, well-written e-mails that came in at all times during the day.

Allison’s roommate even complained that Allison used a computer to wake her. Every morning, the roommate told them, Allison’s computer would come on and speak like a Borg, one of the cybernetic/human hybrids that were the bad guys on Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Allison Gracelyn, Shannon knew, was a complete geek in her mind, but she had the good looks and body of a runway model. Those were two perfectly good reasons to like her. And to be envious.

As it turned out, Allison was also more clever than Shannon would have believed.

After they’d all tramped back to Shannon’s room with the academy coming to life around them, Shannon had logged on to her computer and brought up the file where she’d saved the e-mails from Allison.

The file was empty.

Panic settled into Shannon then. Josie hadn’t been the only one who’d gotten set up. Shannon had gotten set up, too.

“I don’t understand,” Shannon whispered as she looked at the empty folder open on the computer monitor. “They were right here. All of the e-mails Allison sent me about framing Josie for the thefts.”

“Why would my daughter do something like that?” Marion Gracelyn asked. She was definitely not happy.

“Because Josie would break,” Shannon replied. The tears that rolled down her cheeks now were real. She was in a lot of trouble. She’d never, even in her wildest imaginings, thought she’d ever be in this much trouble. “Allison said we should frame Josie because she would crater.”

“Why would Allison want that to happen?”

“Because Allison wanted to win the competition against the Cassandras.”

Everyone knew about the rivalry between the Graces and the Cassandras. That was a thing of legend at the academy over the last few years. Rainy and Allison had always competed at everything. And everyone knew that Allison carried the competition further than Rainy did. Rainy just wanted to do her best and make everyone else raise the bar. Allison wanted—no, she needed—to be the best.

Shannon understood and respected that. She felt the same way.

“I can’t believe Allison would do something like that,” Marion Gracelyn countered.

But Shannon sensed the hesitation in the woman’s words. Marion knew about her daughter’s strong desire to beat Rainy.

Work with that, Shannon told herself. She tried to ignore the feelings of desperation that ate at her. You can’t get into any more trouble than Allison if you were only following orders. And they’re not going to do anything to Allison.

The problem was, in the end, that Shannon couldn’t prove anything.

Allison flatly denied ever sending the e-mails. They’d never talked about the scheme around any of the other Graces. Or even among themselves, Shannon realized only then. Everything had been done through e-mail.

But that was how Allison did everything.

Principal Evans pointed out that the campus server would have created a log and kept track of all the e-mails sent through that server. Athena Academy kept all their computer hardware on-site and managed computer security.

Of course, once a computer interfaced with the World Wide Web, that security could be compromised. They all knew that.

Allison maintained her innocence so strongly and sincerely that Shannon was tempted to believe her, as well. She totally got why Allison didn’t confess. Her mother’s brainchild—the Athena program—would have been compromised. Millions of dollars in funding would have been at risk.

Shannon had heard all that while sitting outside Principal Evans’s office. She knew that things weren’t going to go well for her. She also knew there wasn’t anything she could do about it.

Waiting outside that office had been hard. Shannon had wanted someone to rescue her. The stares of the other students—all of whom knew what was going on by that time because the grapevine at Athena was incredibly vigorous—were unbearable.

Traitor.

That word came up a lot.

Despite the fact that junior-and high-school-age girls brought with them huge amounts of personal problems and vendettas, everyone agreed that no one would have done what Shannon did.

By lunch Shannon had the same social standing as a plague carrier. She told herself that she could get through this. There had to be a way. No one could hate someone forever.

Could they?

By five o’clock the outcome had been decided. Principal Evans summoned her into the office. Marion Gracelyn stood at the window and looked out at the school. She didn’t even turn around to acknowledge Shannon’s presence.

“Have a seat, Shannon,” Principal Evans said. She pointed to one of the chairs in front of the desk.

Knees weak and trembling, unable to speak, Shannon sat. She held her arms across her chest, but it wasn’t out of defiance this time. It was simply to help keep herself together. She was afraid if she let herself go that she would shake to pieces.

“We’ve talked about this all day,” Principal Evans said.

I know, Shannon thought with a trace of rebelliousness. Who do you think was sitting outside your office, waiting? But she didn’t say anything. She didn’t think her voice would work.

“This hasn’t been easy.” Principal Evans tried a reassuring smile, but it didn’t come off very well. She looked more tired than Shannon had ever seen her. “This school is demanding. Of its administration and of its student body. We knew it would be when it was designed. We don’t judge a student on her ability to do and understand the work. We trust that the ability and understanding will come in time in an environment like Athena Academy.”

Get to it, Shannon wanted to say. Tell me I’m grounded. Tell me what privileges I’m going to lose and for how long. Then let me get back to my room and disappear till this blows over.

“What we cannot have here,” Principal Evans said, “is anyone who doesn’t hold to the higher moral ideals of the academy. What you’ve done isn’t just irresponsible. You framed Josie with malicious intent.”

To win a competition that Allison wanted to win, Shannon wanted to point out. But she couldn’t.

“I can only hope that in the rest of your academic career you use this experience to make better choices,” Principal Evans said.

Shannon almost breathed a sigh of relief. She could make better choices. She would. And one of the first choices she was going to make was to demand to be taken out of Allison’s group. If that was how Allison was going to handle loyalty, Shannon didn’t want to be around her. No matter how many cool points were involved in hanging with the senator’s daughter and the academy’s star student.

“Unfortunately,” Principal Evans said, “the rest of your academic career isn’t going to be at Athena Academy.”

It took Shannon a moment to process what Principal Evans had said. “No,” she said weakly. “No. That’s not fair. You can’t just kick me out.”

“We can.” Marion turned then. She was cold and distant. Shannon had never seen the woman like that before. In the past she’d always been understanding and kind. “You’re here by invitation, Miss Connor.”

Miss Connor? Shannon had never been addressed by Marion like that before.

“An invitation the academy can rescind at any time,” Marion went on. “We have rescinded that invitation. Effective immediately. School staff are packing your room for you now. Your parents have been notified. You’ve already been booked on an evening flight. You’ll be back home in Virginia by tonight. Your parents will meet you at the airport.”

Shannon wanted to scream. She couldn’t imagine going back to her parents or to that small house where it was so cramped she couldn’t breathe. She’d been away from there for three years.

That place wasn’t home anymore. That family wasn’t her family anymore. Didn’t anyone understand that?

Even though she wanted to speak and tell them again that she hadn’t acted alone, that Allison was as guilty as she was and therefore just as deserving of being kicked out of the academy, Shannon couldn’t. Her voice wouldn’t work, and her throat hurt so badly that all she could do was cry as silently as she could.

“I’m sorry, Shannon,” Principal Evans said.

She sounded so sincere that Shannon believed her. That only made things feel worse.

Chapter 1

Washington, D.C.

Now

The second time Shannon Connor talked with Vincent Drago, the freelance information specialist wrapped a hand around her neck, slammed her against a wall hard enough to drive the air from her lungs, put a gun to her head and told her, “I’m going to blow your head off for setting me up.”

The first time she’d talked with him had been over the phone and she’d used an alias. Maybe if she hadn’t started everything with a lie, things might have gone more smoothly.

“Wait,” Shannon croaked desperately. Wait? He’s pointing a gun at your head, looking like he’s going to use it, and the best you can come up with is wait? She really couldn’t believe herself. Maybe something was wrong with her survival instinct.

Other reporters—and friends—or what passed as friends, acquaintances really—had sometimes suspected she had a death wish.

Shannon didn’t think that was true. She wanted to live. She glanced around the small room in the back of the bar where Drago had arranged to meet her. Actually, he’d arranged to meet her up front. He’d just yanked her into the back room at the first opportunity.

Then he’d slammed her up against the wall and put the gun to her head. If she’d known he was going to do that, she wouldn’t have shown up.

Judging from the low-life clientele the bar catered to and the fact that they were in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood only a few blocks from the Watergate Hotel, Shannon doubted that help would be forthcoming even if she could yell.

“Do you know how much trouble I’m in because of you?” Drago demanded.

“No,” Shannon croaked around the vise grip of the man’s big hand. “How much?” She’d been trained for years to ask open-ended questions. It was only the politicians that had to be restrained from climbing up on their soapboxes.

Vincent Drago wasn’t a politician. He was a private investigator, only he called it “freelance information specialist.”

From what Shannon had found out about the man, he had a shady career. Some of Shannon’s police contacts had claimed the man sometimes worked for the government on hush-hush jobs. Others claimed that he was a semilegal blackmailer.

One of the people Shannon had talked to had told her that Drago had gone after a blackmailer preying on a presidential hopeful. When he’d gotten the evidence of the candidate’s philandering with a young intern, Drago had put himself on the candidate’s payroll.

Shannon knew that because she’d broken the story about the intern when the girl had come to her after the affair ended. The intern had come forward so she could claim her fifteen minutes of fame. Everybody wanted that.

Drago was six feet six inches tall and looked like a human bulldozer. The carroty orange hair offered a warning about the dark temper that he possessed. His goatee was a darker red and kept neatly trimmed. He wore good suits and had expensive tastes. He could afford them because he did business with Fortune 500 companies.

According to the information Shannon had gotten, Drago was one of the best computer hackers working the private investigation scene. The man was supposedly an artist when it came to easing through firewalls and cracking encryptions. He was supposed to be more deadly with a computer than he was with a weapon.

Shannon was pretty sure she wouldn’t have felt as threatened if Drago had been holding a computer keyboard to her head. Of course, he could have bashed her brains out with it.

She held on to Drago’s wrist with both of her hands and tried to reel in her imagination. Thinking about the different ways he could kill her wasn’t going to help.

“Somebody found out about me,” Drago snarled. Angry red spots mottled his pale face.

“You advertise in the Yellow Pages,” Shannon pointed out.

“People are supposed to find out about you.”

“Somebody got into my computer.” Drago looked apoplectic.

“My computer! Nobody gets into my computer.”

“You get into other people’s computers. I’ve heard that’s dangerous. That’s why I came to you.”

“I’m invisible on the Internet,” Drago roared. He stuck his big face within an inch of Shannon’s. “I’m a frigging stealth ninja.”

Shannon couldn’t help thinking that stealth ninja was pretty redundant. When a ninja killed someone, they weren’t supposed to be seen. That was part of what made them a ninja.

“Who are you working for?” Drago slammed her against the wall again.

The back of Shannon’s head struck the wall. Black spots danced in her vision. She tried to remember the last time she’d had her life on the line and thought it was during her coverage of the apartment fires that had broken out downtown. Nine people had died in that blaze. She’d very nearly been one of them.

But it hadn’t seemed as scary then. She’d been with Todd, her cameraman, and he’d been rolling live footage. Every time the camera was on her, she was fearless.

Unfortunately neither Todd nor a camera were currently present.

Shannon held on to Drago’s thick wrist in quiet desperation. Even standing on tiptoes, she could barely draw a breath of air.

“I’m not working for anyone,” Shannon said.

“You work for American Broadcasting Systems.”

“I told you that. I also told you this wasn’t a story I was covering for the news station.” That was true. Oddly enough, throughout her years as a reporter Shannon had discovered people believed lies more than truths. They just seemed to want to.

“Are you working for the government?” Drago asked.

“No.”

“Because the Web sites I tracked the black ICE back to felt like federal government sniffers to me.”

That was surprising. Shannon didn’t know why the federal government would have been feeding her the information she’d been getting lately. Or before, for that matter.

“I don’t work for the government,” Shannon insisted. “I don’t even know what black ICE is.”

“Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics.”

“How much do you think someone like me would know about stuff like that?” Shannon pulled her best frightened blonde look. Considering she was suspended and nearly choking to death, she figured she was inspired.

Her mind raced. She knew a physical confrontation with Drago was going to end badly. She was a foot shorter than he was and weighed about half of what he did. The room contained crates and cases of liquor. The single low-wattage bulb in the ceiling barely chased the night out of the room.

There was no help there, and nothing within reach that she could use as a club.

“I’ve seen you on television,” Drago said. “I’ve seen you lie and wheedle your way into stories that other reporters couldn’t get.”

Despite being strung up against the wall, Shannon took momentary pride in her accomplishments. Getting recognized for something she’d done felt good. It always had.

“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you,” Drago went on. He smiled, but there was no humor or warmth in the effort. “From the start I figured you were out to cross me up. But I bought into that blond hair and doe-brown eyes.” He leaned down, a long way down, and sniffed her hair.

Shannon cringed and couldn’t help closing her eyes. She hated being manhandled. It had never happened before, but she’d talked to rape and domestic-abuse victims enough to know that she was feeling the same thing they’d gone through. She resisted the urge to scream only because she thought if she did, he might kill her outright to shut her up.

“You sold me, baby,” Drago whispered into her ear. “Hook, line and sinker. You had me with that teary-eyed look—”

Shannon didn’t use that one often anymore, but she knew it almost guaranteed instant game, set and match when she did. She just didn’t like appearing weak.

“And the way you told me you needed help to find a cyber-stalker.”

Well, that was almost true.

“Who did you find?” Shannon had to struggle to keep from hiccupping in fear. The need to know what Drago had discovered almost leeched away the power her fear had over her.

“Have I told you this is a really bad part of the city?” Rafe Santorini lay back in the uncomfortable seat of the Ford Taurus he’d picked up to use for the night’s surveillance. At six feet two inches tall, he couldn’t quite get comfortable in the seat. His bad knee still ached and the gun on his right side kept digging into his hip.

“Yes,” Allison Gracelyn replied. “Several times.”

“Maybe I just haven’t gotten through to you how bad this section is.”

“I’m looking at it now.”

That caught Rafe’s attention. Challenged, he stared around the neighborhood. Since Allison was somewhere at her desk, currently—or so she said—in Fort Meade, Maryland, he knew she had to have some means of electronic surveillance.

Unless she was using satellite coverage. Knowing Allison as he did, Rafe wouldn’t have put it past her, but he knew she was wanting to keep this op on the down-low. Whatever business he’d bought into, it was personal to her.

Allison was one of the best ELINT and SIGNIT people he’d ever worked with. Electronic Intelligence and Signals Intelligence were two huge fields in espionage. Usually a person didn’t overlap in the job. Allison did.

“Tired of playing Where’s Waldo?” Allison asked.

Rafe knew she’d caught him looking. “If I didn’t have to watch the bar so closely, I’d find it.”

“There’s a drugstore on the northwest corner,” Allison said.

Rafe squinted against the darkness and didn’t look right at the drugstore. Peripheral vision was stronger and clearer at night than direct line of sight. He spotted the familiar rectangular bulk of the camera bolted to the second-floor corner of the building.

“Are you getting my good side?” Rafe asked.

“No. You’re sitting on it.”

Despite the long hours spent following his target around for the last few days, Rafe had to laugh. He’d met Allison in the flesh twice, but he’d worked with her a couple dozen times over the last five years. He’d been a field agent with the National Security Agency. Allison was tech support—on steroids. There didn’t seem to be any computer system she couldn’t hack or information packet she couldn’t sniff out. She wasn’t known for her humor, but—on occasion—he’d seen it.

Rafe turned his attention back to the seedy bar and rolled his watch over to have a look. It was 11:28 p.m. His target had gone inside—

“Seventeen minutes ago,” Allison said. Her voice was quiet and controlled coming through the earwig he wore in his left ear.

It was creepy how she did that, but Allison was a queen at multitasking. Agents Rafe had talked to had been blown away by how she could enhance an op and build in rabbit holes when things went south.

“Seventeen minutes is a long time,” Rafe said.

“If you’re holding your breath, maybe.”

“Vincent Drago isn’t a nice guy.”

“I know. That’s why I asked you to look into this when I found out he was involved.”

Maybe it would help if you would tell me a little more about what’s going on, Rafe thought. But he knew she wouldn’t. Agents learned to be careful with the knowledge they had. Information was currency of the realm for a spy, and they never spent it casually, even at home.

In the handful of years that Rafe had worked with Allison, three of them spent before he’d ever gotten a face-to-face with her, she’d never asked for anything. She didn’t seem like the type. Her phone call to the rental house in Jacksonville, North Carolina where he’d been recuperating for the past eight months, had been totally unexpected.

The fact that she was so grudging with the information had hooked him further. He’d known better, but he’d trusted Allison.

And you needed to get out of there, he reminded himself. Don’t forget that. That oceanside rental was becoming as much a prison as the other place.

For a moment Rafe didn’t see the seedy bar. He saw that small underground prison outside Kaesong, North Korea, where he’d been kept for five months. Cinder-block walls had threatened to crush him physically and spiritually every day. The long hours of torture and questions had rolled into one another until they’d become one long, unending nightmare.

The only reason he hadn’t told his inquisitors what they’d wanted to know was because he hadn’t known. He was certain they’d known that, too.

For a moment fear touched him intimately. It was strange how he’d accepted his death after the first few days of imprisonment yet had been more filled with fear after he’d returned home. Well, not home exactly. After being released from Walter Reed Hospital, he’d tried to go home and ended up renting that summer home in Jacksonville.

He’d gone armed every day. Even though he’d tried to sit in the sun and find that piece of himself that hadn’t been shattered by his experiences, he hadn’t been able to. He’d been more at home in the night and in the bars.

Come back, he told himself. You’re not there anymore. You’re here. You’re helping a friend. Stick with the program.

The gnawing pain in his right knee helped him focus. He absently reached down and massaged it. Kneading the flesh was hard to do through the orthopedic brace he wore.

“Are you doing okay?” Allison asked.

Rafe was embarrassed and irritated at the same time. She’d caught him. He didn’t like dealing with weakness or infirmity. The injuries he’d sustained had kept him out of active duty.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Are you still taking your meds?”

Rafe blew out his breath slowly, aware that she’d be able to pick up the sound over the earwig if he didn’t keep it quiet.

“Yes,” he lied.

A buzzer rang in his ear.

“Wrong answer,” Allison said. “I checked with Medical. You haven’t refilled your pain pills. If you were using them the way you should have been, you’d have run out forty-one days ago.”

Despite his irritation, Rafe had to grin. Only Allison would know so much. Or would even think she needed to know so much, he amended.

“The pills weren’t working very well,” Rafe said. But that was a lie. The pills had been working entirely too well. He’d only noticed that problem when he’d started using alcohol with them. When he’d caught himself doing that, he’d poured the pills down the drain and hadn’t touched so much as another beer. He’d seen what liquor and pills could do to people.

“Maybe you need something different,” Allison suggested.

Maybe I need to work again, Rafe thought angrily. Then he realized that Allison’s favor had been a chance to do exactly that. He relaxed a little when he figured out that she wasn’t passing judgment on him. She knew exactly what she was doing. More than that, she’d figured him out, too.

“Why are you smiling?” Allison asked.

“Man, that camera is good if you can see that well in the dark.”

“I’m running a vision-enhancement-package upgrade on it that I designed. The software takes the available picture, repixelates it based on available light and light sources and reinterprets images.”

“Very techie.”

“Very techie,” she agreed. “The hardest part was collapsing the size of the program so it would run in real time. By the way, you evaded the question.”

“Have I told you how much I appreciate you letting me do this?”

“You’re doing me the favor.”

“Seriously, I think it’s the other way around.”

“Even if it turns out to be a glorified babysitting job?”

“If you’d thought it was going to be a glorified babysitting job, you wouldn’t have asked me to look into this.”

Allison sighed. “You’re right. So stay sharp out there.”

“I think I’m going to recon the bar.” Rafe checked the pistol in its holster. When he thumbed the restraint aside, the weapon came free effortlessly. He opened the door and got out. The leg ached, but it moved easily and held his weight just fine. That was encouraging. Of course, that was with the leg brace—and the NSA wouldn’t have cleared him for fieldwork while wearing it.

“Getting antsy?” Allison asked.

“It’s been twenty-three minutes. Aren’t you?”

“Twenty-two minutes. And, yes, I am.”

Rafe pulled at the black beanie that covered his dark hair. Gold-lensed wraparound sunglasses covered his eyes. He’d left the semibeard he’d been growing the last few weeks. He wore jeans, boots and a loose gray chambray shirt over a Toby Keith concert T-shirt. Totally suburban ghetto rat. He blended into the neighborhood.

He tucked an expandable Asp baton into the holster on the left side of his belt. Closed, the baton was only seven inches long. Under his shirt it wasn’t noticeable.

“Be careful in there,” Allison cautioned.

Rafe smiled again as he crossed the street. “You’ve got my six. How much trouble can I be in?”

“The scary part is, I don’t know.”

Rafe thought about that. I don’t know wasn’t something often heard from Allison Gracelyn.

Chapter 2

Drago moved his hand up from Shannon’s neck and grabbed her chin. He turned her face up to his. She felt his breath hot against her cheeks. He stared into her eyes. Once again she was reminded how lizardlike his green eyes were. They were cold and incredibly clear, like the eyes in a taxidermist’s shop.

“You don’t have a clue who you sent me after, do you?” Drago asked.

Shannon didn’t answer. She hated to admit ignorance. The only reason people with secrets kept talking to her was because they wondered how much she knew of what they were hiding.

“It was somebody big,” Drago said. “And they’re buried deep within an infrastructure I couldn’t even begin to get through. And I’ll tell you right now that they don’t build firewalls I can’t get through. Not until this one.”

Excitement escalated within Shannon. Over the last few years her mysterious benefactor had supplied tips regarding political cover-ups, insider trading, blackmail and other problems involving political and economic leaders. Truthfully Shannon owed a big part of her career to whoever that person had been.

Had.

Shannon didn’t know why she kept thinking of the person in the past tense. There was nothing to indicate anything had happened to that person except for a months-long silence.

Until June, the contacts had been sporadic, but they’d been there. After weeks of wondering about it, and starved for a juicy story, Shannon had left New York City and taken a meeting with Vincent Drago. She’d hired him to investigate the traffic going on over her ISP. Shannon had covered stories about Internet tracking and the information that could be out there if someone knew how to look.

Vincent Drago was supposedly the best. The downside was his paranoia and violence. Scuttlebutt had it that he’d killed people.

He wasn’t the kind of man Shannon would have ordinarily wanted to deal with, but he’d seemed the best for what she’d needed done. Now she found out he hadn’t been able to track the messages either.

However, it was interesting that someone from the United States government—if Drago was correct—was involved. Her investigation was getting more fascinating all the time. She could almost see the consumer viewing points piling up. The story was going to be a good one.

If you live long enough to finish it, she told herself.

Drago’s eyes raked hers. “You didn’t know anything about any of this, did you?”

Shannon decided to go with the truth. “No. What branch of the federal government did you bump into?”

Drago laughed. “You don’t know that either? Damn, you’re not as intelligent as I thought you were, blondie. And I wasn’t thinking you were overly gifted in the intelligence department to begin with.”

Thanks for that. Shannon’s anger nudged at her fear. She hated being taken for granted, ignored and downplayed because of her hair color. She was smart.

“Look,” Shannon said calmly, “you don’t have anything to worry about where I’m concerned. I’m not here trying to trap you. I wanted to know where those e-mail messages came from. That’s all.”

“Why did you come to me?”

“They told me you were the best.”

Drago grinned, but again there was no mirth. “I’m flattered to hear that.”

“It’s not flattery.” Shannon knew her throat was going to be bruised for days to come. “I needed the best. I was willing to pay. I did pay.”

“You don’t have any idea who wrote you those e-mails?”

“No.”

Drago shook his head. “There’s a lot of juicy information contained in them.”

“I know.”

“Most of them tie to stories you cracked on the news channel.”

Shannon knew that, too. “I wasn’t able to prove everything.”

“Did any of the people you took down know about these e-mails?”

“No.”

“Did you ever stop to wonder where they came from?”

“Yes. All the time. I couldn’t get any information.”

“But you just kept using the leads.”

Shannon shrugged. “They were good. Why shouldn’t I? Those people I went after? They needed to be exposed.”

“But why?”

“Because the public deserves to know.”

Drago snorted derisively. “Save it for the sound byte on the autobiography, blondie. It doesn’t wash with me. Those people you took down, they could have paid blackmail for the information you were given. As a matter of fact, I’d be willing to bet my eyeteeth they were.”

Shannon had guessed that, too. She really wasn’t stupid.

Drago traced a forefinger along Shannon’s chin. “Do you know why a blackmailer would give up a cash cow? And most of these people were cash cows.”

“Because they stopped paying?”

“Very good, blondie. And to make an example for other people that are being blackmailed.” Drago smiled. “But there’s one other reason.”

Like a good captive audience, Shannon waited. Maybe you can ooh and aah and gush over how smart he is and he’ll let you go. She was prepared to do that if she had to. As to the other reason, she’d already thought of that, too.

“A blackmailer would burn a victim if it somehow netted him more,” Drago said. “Did you ever think about looking into what these people had in common?”

Shannon had. She’d looked. There were so many and they were so disparate that she hadn’t been able to get a handle on a theory.

“I thought you could just find whoever was giving me the information,” she said. “That seemed to be the easiest way.” That way had also seemed the most dangerous. That was why she’d exhausted every avenue open to her before she’d gone to a major creep like Drago.

“If the Feds hadn’t wanted in on the play, it probably would have been,” Drago agreed. “Whoever you’re after is good at computers, but I’m better. I would have beaten that firewall.”

“I can pay you more,” Shannon offered. Greed was always good leverage.

Drago shook his head. “Sorry, blondie. But this looks like the end of a beautiful relationship.” His eyes dropped to her cleavage. “Having you around to tie me to this thing isn’t my idea of fun.”

Shannon’s fear crystallized inside her in that moment.

“I’ve got to tell you,” Drago said, “I think it’s a damn waste.”

A million questions popped into Shannon’s head. She’d always experienced that when new situations and people had come her way. That tendency was one of the qualities that had propelled her television career. She wasn’t one of those reporters that simply regurgitated scripted questions and punch lines.

How can you just kill me? What makes you think you’re going to get away with it? Is it that easy for you to kill someone? How many people have you killed? How did you kill them? Why hasn’t someone caught you? How are you planning on killing me? What are you going to do with my body?

When she got to the last two questions, Shannon knew she was thinking way too much. She needed to be moving.

“Bye-bye, blondie.” Drago smiled and his finger tightened on the trigger.

When Rafe entered the bar, he got the immediate sense that he’d invaded a private party. Every eye in the place turned toward him.

The bartender stood behind the scarred bar on the other side of the room. He had one bar towel slung over a shoulder and used another to dry beer mugs. He was a big, wide guy, an athlete that had gone to seed. The football pictures above the liquor bottles on the wall behind him offered a clue as to which sport he’d played.

“We’re closed, mac,” the bartender said.

Rafe looked at the other occupants of the room. There were three of them. They were all in their late twenties and early thirties. Their attire wasn’t far removed from his. One of them wore a Hispanic kerchief wrapped around his head.

All of them gazed at him with predatory interest.

Shannon Connor was nowhere in sight.

“Door’s open,” Rafe responded. He pointed to the window. “Sign’s still on.” He spread his hands. “Look I only want a beer. I just climbed out of one of the warehouses down on the river. My boss nominated me to repack a few shipments going out in the morning. I’m hot. I’m tired. And I’m dry.”

“Sorry, mac,” the bartender said. “Like I told you, we’re—”

“Hey, Tommy,” the oldest of the men sitting at the small tables called out. “Man just wants a beer. Ain’t nothing. Don’t be a chump.”

Grudgingly the bartender looked at Rafe. “What kinda beer do you want?”

“Bottle. Domestic. As long as it’s cold, I don’t care.”

The bartender reached below the bar and brought up a longneck. He placed it on the bar without a word.

Rafe looked at the man at the table. “Can I get you something?”

“Thanks. I’m good.”

Rafe dug in his pocket and brought out a thin roll of cash. “How much?”

“Four bucks.”

“Pretty steep for a working-class neighborhood, ain’t it?” Rafe peeled off a five and dropped it on the bar. “Keep the change.”

The bartender made the five disappear without a smile. Evidently he wasn’t big on repeat business.

“So,” the guy at the table said, “you working down at the docks?”

“Yeah.” Rafe twisted the top off the bottle and tossed it into a plastic bowl on the bar. He turned his back to the bartender because he could track the man in the reflection of neon-washed glass overlooking the street.

“That’s hard work,” the man said.

Rafe shrugged and took a long pull on his beer. “I’ve had worse. Had better pay, too.” He grinned.

The man grinned back at him. One of the other guys laughed.

“You from the neighborhood?”

Rafe shook his head. He tried to figure where Shannon Connor was and whether she was in any kind of trouble.

“Hanging with a friend for a couple months. Just till I get some cash up. The last girlfriend I had cleaned me out. Packed up my stuff, emptied the bank accounts and took off with my best friend.”

“Ouch, dude,” one of the other guys said. “Not exactly a happy camper.”

“I’ve had better days,” Rafe said. The story was actually true, but it had happened three years ago. He’d learned his lesson. Women and a job that meant long out-of-the-country trips really didn’t work out.

He hadn’t tried for anything steady since, but he hadn’t been completely put off toward women. It wasn’t their fault. The job was hard, and he wasn’t extremely skilled at relationships.

In the window reflection, the bartender glanced at the clock over the bar. “Maybe you could take that beer for a walk.”

Rafe grinned and shook his head at the guy at the table. “Man, I don’t understand why Tommy here doesn’t play to a full house every night.”

The guy at the table laughed. “You’re right. But so is he. It’d be better if you finish up that beer.”

“Hospitality’s about to run dry, I guess.” Rafe wondered what was going on.

“Okay,” Allison said in his ear, “now I’m definitely getting antsy.”

Rafe was, too.

“Don’t mean to push you out the door,” the man at the table said. “You come around here another night, I’ll buy you a beer myself.”

“I’ll hold you to that.” Rafe upended the bottle and drained it. He placed it on the counter as he turned to face the bartender.

“Got a men’s room around here, Tommy?”

“Got the alley out back,” the bartender said. “Just look out you don’t hit any bums. They come up swinging sometimes.”

“You’re a funny guy,” Rafe said.

A piercing scream rang out from the back room.

Rafe glanced toward the back of the bar.

“Sure wish you hadn’t stuck around long enough to hear that,” the guy at the table said. He reached under his jacket and Rafe knew he was going for a pistol.

Chapter 3

Before Drago could pull the trigger on the pistol, Shannon kicked him in the crotch. The big man staggered back and remained standing.

That surprised Shannon. She’d felt certain the kick would have put Drago on the ground. Seeing him still standing wasn’t good.

Drago cursed at her and tried to take aim again.

Moving on instinct, Shannon grabbed her opponent’s hand in both of hers. She wrapped his thumb with her left hand and wrapped his pinkie with her right. She pulled and twisted, hoping to break either the finger or the thumb.

Despite the hold she had on him, Drago was simply too strong. He curled his hand into a fist again and nearly trapped her hands. The whole time he cursed at her.

Adrenaline slammed into Shannon. She soaked it up, knowing it would help her only momentarily, then leave her weak.

Instead of trying to maintain her grip and lose the battle only a little slower, Shannon kicked Drago in the crotch again. He partially blocked her with a thigh, but she still struck home. Another yelp escaped his bared fangs.

Panicked now as the pistol swung back toward her, Shannon let go with her right hand and raked her nails across Drago’s face. Bloody furrows opened up across his right cheek and eye. She thought she might have gotten him in the eye, as well.

He screamed and it came out unbelievably high-pitched. But he stumbled back and fired the pistol. The report sounded incredibly loud in the enclosed space. Partially deafened, Shannon turned and fled to the door.

Be open! she thought frantically. She couldn’t remember Drago locking the door. Her hand closed around the doorknob. She twisted and yanked. The door came open in a rush.

Another shot banged out and a vibration shivered through the door. A hole opened up only a few inches from Shannon’s head. She shoved through the door and stumbled out into the hall.

High-heeled sling-backs are so not made for running. Shannon still gave her effort her best, though. Out in the hall, she kicked out of them and ran barefoot. I can come back for the shoes. Right now I just need to find a cop.

Gunfire broke out ahead of her.

The bartender went for something under the bar. Rafe pulled the expandable baton from its holster, pressed the release button and felt the weapon chug as it moved instantly from seven inches in length to sixteen.

“Rafe,” Allison said. “What’s going on?”

“Butt out,” Rafe said. “I’m busy.” Praying that his knee held together and the brace kept it strong, Rafe twisted around and smashed the baton across the bartender’s wrists.

A cut-down double-barreled shotgun dropped from the bartender’s hands. Rafe only caught sight of the weapon for an instant. The bartender tried to back away. With the baton’s extended reach, Rafe leaned over the bar only slightly and whipped it against the side of the man’s head.

The bartender’s eyes rolled up into his head and he sat down hard. Rafe would have been willing to bet that the man was out before his butt hit the floor.

In the mirror, Rafe saw that the man at the table had gotten his gun out.

The man didn’t offer a chance for last words or even spend any of his own. He pointed the pistol, not even bothering to aim.

Rafe dived over the bar and hoped it was made of good wood. His leg quivered, and he thought for a moment it was going to buckle under the effort and his weight. His rehab trainer had told him the knee was going to come back slow.

He didn’t quite clear the bar, but he managed to get up on top of it. He rolled across as the guy tracked him with the pistol. Bullets missed him by inches. He rolled over the edge and dropped.

More bullets pounded the bar but didn’t penetrate. Bottles behind the bar shattered. Alcohol leaked down from the shelves and pooled on the floor. The worst of it was the broken glass. Slivers embedded in Rafe’s flesh and raised dots of blood.

He ignored the pain and lunged for the shotgun. His hands curled around it and his finger came to a rest on one of the double triggers. Instead of trying to rise up and become a target, he stayed prone.

The man at the table called out to Rafe. “You still alive back there?”

Rafe didn’t answer. C’mon. Step out here and give me a target.

“You moved too quick, buddy,” the man said. “Tells me you come in here expecting trouble. You ain’t no dockworker.”

Rafe watched both ends of the bar. He caught a glimpse of movement at the end that fronted the hallway leading back to the bathrooms and storage area. Allison had also uploaded blueprints of the bar to the notebook computer he had in the car.

A quick swivel brought the shotgun muzzle around to cover the spot. He almost pulled the trigger when he spotted the face peering around the corner. Then he caught sight of the blond hair.

Shannon Connor stared at him with fear-rounded eyes.

“Get out of here!” Rafe ordered. “Run!”

She fled at once, and bullets tattooed the corner of the wall where she’d been standing.

Shoe leather scraped the wooden floor at the other end of the bar. Rafe tracked the noise with the shotgun, leveled it with a snap and squeezed the trigger.

The swarm of pellets slammed into the chest of the young man drawing a bead on Rafe. The impact knocked him backward. He continued the fall to the floor without a sound.

An alarm sounded in the back. Rafe assumed Shannon Connor had escaped through the rear door. The alarm was from a panic bar.

The man who’d been sitting at the table cursed. More bullets hammered the bar.

“I’m alive and mobile,” Rafe said out loud. He knew Allison would be wondering. He didn’t know how she sat on the other end of the connection without saying a word. “Shannon’s running for it. Out the back way. See if you can find her for me while I get out of here.”

“I will,” Allison said.

Rafe found he was more concerned about the woman than he was about himself. He’d been through similar situations in the past. As far as he knew, this was Shannon Connor’s first gunfight.

When she’d seen the man lying on the floor with the shotgun so near another man who was dead or unconscious, Shannon’s panic had buried the needle and she’d gone on overload. She’d taken martial arts while at Athena Academy and had liked them well enough to keep up her abilities by visiting several dojos in different disciplines. She’d never stayed with any one long enough to get a black belt, but she knew she could take care of herself.

She whirled back from the corner of the wall and heard bullets strike it. By then she was running barefoot for all she was worth. She flew past the opening door where Drago was attempting to stumble out.

As she reached the back door, she swung a hip forward and crashed into the panic bar. The emergency alarm screeched to life immediately. Then she was out in the alley.

The air was muggy and still. Fog off the Potomac River, which had given the neighborhood its name, streaked the night.

She turned to the right, judging that street was closer, and ran. The asphalt lining the alley tore at her feet. She ignored the pain because she knew Drago and the other men would be following. She had no doubt about that.

There in the darkness, Shannon wished she could find a policeman. Or her car. Either would be fine.

Rafe grabbed a bottle of whiskey that had fallen to the floor and miraculously hadn’t broken. Still lying on his side, he laid the shotgun over the crook of one arm, grabbed the bottle, opened it, poked a bar towel into the long neck and turned the bottle upside down.

The alcohol poured out and soaked the bar towel. A small pool grew under the upended bottle.

“I think maybe we should talk about this,” the man called out.

“I’d be happy to.” Rafe fumbled in his pants pocket for the Zippo he carried. He wasn’t a smoker. But every good field agent always kept something on his person for starting fires.

“Could be we got off on the wrong foot.”

“It’s possible. I got two left feet.” Rafe knew the man was waiting for Vincent Drago to come from the back. If the man did, they could catch him in a deadly crossfire.

Rafe didn’t intend to wait around for that to happen. He flicked the lighter and held the flame to the alcohol-soaked bar towel. A blue-and-yellow flame crawled up the material immediately.

“Are you a cop?” the man asked.

Now we have time for Twenty Questions? Rafe couldn’t believe it.

“No.” With a quick twist, Rafe lobbed the Molotov cocktail he’d made over the bar and in the general direction of the men.

“Get down!” a man yelled.

Rafe shoved himself to his feet. There was less pain than he’d expected, but it was growing sharper and biting deeper. On the other side of the counter, the whiskey bottle shattered. The alcohol caught fire with a distinctive bamf.

During the confusion, Rafe stood and raised the shotgun to his shoulder. As soon as he saw the big man spinning toward him, Rafe blasted the man with the final shotgun round.

The big man sailed backward and dropped bonelessly into the fireball taking hold on the floor. Rafe wiped his prints from the shotgun and scooped the baton from the floor. He assumed Allison would want a clean crime scene. And if he was questioned about his involvement by law enforcement officials later, he had some latitude in the story he’d tell.

A quick rap and a push collapsed the baton. He replaced it on his belt as he drew his pistol and pointed it at the last surviving bar patron.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot, man!” The third man threw his pistol across the room and laced his hands behind his neck as he hit his knees.

He’s got prior knowledge of the position, Rafe thought. He spun and went to the hallway Shannon Connor had come from. He paused at the corner. His leg functioned smoothly enough, but the pain was aggravating.

No one was in the hallway.

Rafe locked his hands in the familiar push-pull grip he’d been trained to use with a semiautomatic pistol and went forward in profile. His steps were smooth and controlled, as if he hadn’t been gone from the work for almost two years.

Perspiration trickled down his forehead and into his eyes. Some of it was caused by tension, he knew, but some of it came from the pain in his knee.

He crept up on the storage room door. If Shannon had come from back there, it stood to reason that she wasn’t alone. And Vincent Drago hadn’t put in an appearance.

When he whirled around the door frame and peered inside, though, the room was empty. He hurried on to the alley and peered in both directions. There was no sign of Shannon or Drago.

Damn it.

“You there?” Rafe asked Allison.

“Yes.”

“They’re in the wind.”

“Get your car.” Allison’s voice sounded crisp and calm. During the years Rafe had worked with her he’d never seen her lose it.

Rafe hesitated only a second. Was she telling him to get the car because she didn’t trust his leg to hold up? Had this been a mercy mission after all?

And if it was, what the hell had gone wrong?

He growled a curse and went back through the bar. The third man was long gone, but that was fine. Loyalty wasn’t a big requirement among the crowd Drago ran with.

“Put the fire out,” Allison said. “According to the fire code, there’s a fire extinguisher behind the bar.”

Rafe complied automatically. He’d noted the fire extinguisher himself while he was behind the bar. Allison’s thoroughness didn’t surprise him. Agents’ lives depended on her eye for detail and quick thinking while in the field. He’d been trained that way himself.

“What about the woman?” he asked.

“I’m searching. I’ll find her. You’ll need transport to get her clear.”

“I’m not going to leave her in the lurch.”

“Neither am I.”

Rafe knelt and felt his knee burn with the effort. He barely kept a cry of pain to himself. This was why Medical wouldn’t put him back in the field. And part of the pain was because he avoided putting too much pressure on the leg. He didn’t want it to come completely apart on him again.

“What about the local police?” He grabbed the fire extinguisher, pulled the pin, aimed the nozzle at the fire and squeezed.

White foam enveloped the alcohol blaze. The flames went out at once. Only a black scorch mark and a few tendrils of smoke remained.

“The police are on their way,” Allison said calmly. “You have no cover for this op.”

Rafe figured that from the quiet way Allison had contacted him.

“If you get caught, we both burn for this one,” she added.

“So I won’t get caught. And if I did, I wouldn’t give you up. That’s not my way.” Rafe felt a little angry. After North Korea, she should have known that.

“I know. I was just mentioning the stakes.”

“Find Shannon.” Rafe caught his slip too late. He couldn’t believe he’d referred to the woman by name. But over the past three weeks of observing her in New York, then following her here, he’d felt as if he’d gotten to know her.

He’d even started wondering what it would be like to talk to her. They had a lot in common. Shannon Connor had her work and didn’t invest anything in her social life. She’d had a boyfriend, according to Allison’s files, but that evidently wasn’t still going on.

Sometimes he’d even fantasized about inviting her to dinner. After all, she wasn’t a hardened criminal or a foreign agent. As far as he could tell, Shannon Connor was just a woman in trouble. His impulse was to keep her safe. And he definitely couldn’t have told Allison that was going on.

Face it, he told himself. You may be washed up for fieldwork. Physically you’re still a wreck. And you’re supposed to keep emotional distance.

That scared him. He didn’t know what he was going to do if he didn’t have his work. The last few months had nearly killed him. He didn’t like thinking about what might have happened if Allison hadn’t called.

After wiping the fire extinguisher down, Rafe jogged through the door toward his car. Sirens screamed into the night. A crowd of people from another bar and a pizza place flooded two street corners under street lamps.

“I’m gonna have to lose the car,” Rafe said as he swiveled and slid behind the seat. “There are too many potential witnesses. And cameras.”

“The car’s not going to be a problem. I can make the car disappear.” Allison’s voice calmed. “I found your target.”

Rafe pulled the transmission into Drive and dropped his foot onto the accelerator.

Chapter 4

Shannon ran down the street. She still didn’t remember where her car was. Everything looked different, and she was so scared she couldn’t think straight.

During her career as a reporter she’d been in some tough places. She’d seen death up close and personal. Facing that had been hard, and it had touched her more deeply than she would have admitted to anyone. She didn’t like being weak.

Memory of the man behind the bar raced through her thoughts. The beanie and the wraparound sunglasses hid most of his face, and she’d been too wigged out to get a good look at him, but she felt certain she didn’t know him.

Maybe that didn’t have anything to do with you, she thought grimly. That bar isn’t exactly a hub for law-abiding citizens. Especially not if Drago was going to be able to kill you in the back room.

A yellow cab rounded the corner and came down the street.

Shannon stepped out of the shadows and waved frantically. She was so close to the cab she thought it was going to hit her. Desperate, she stood her ground. Even though she didn’t want to, she closed her eyes.

Tires shrieked on the pavement.

Thank God! When she opened her eyes, Shannon found the cab had come to a stop only inches from her.

“Hey, lady,” the driver snarled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He was an Asian man of indeterminate age, dressed in a short-sleeved khaki shirt. A hula girl danced on the dashboard beneath swinging fuzzy dice.

“I need a ride.” Shannon started to go around the front of the cab.

“Yeah, well, I got that. Hasn’t anyone ever told you how to hail a cab?”

Ordinarily Shannon wouldn’t have let the insult pass. No one got the better of her in an argument. She rounded the corner of the cab and headed for the back.

A line of holes suddenly appeared in the cab’s windshield. That appearance was followed almost immediately by the harsh cracks of gunfire.

Though she knew she shouldn’t, Shannon couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder as she squatted down beside the cab. She’d been in enough combat zones in Iraq and, lately, Kestonia to know gunshots when she heard them.

Evidently the cabdriver had experience, as well. He ducked down behind the steering wheel, shoved the transmission into Reverse and floored the accelerator.

“No!” Shannon couldn’t believe it. She tried to hang on to the door handle, but she almost lost her balance and went face-first onto the ground. “No! Don’t leave!”

The cabdriver never even looked back. He managed a three-point turn that left the tires smoking.

Shannon got a brief glimpse of the frantically dancing hula girl and the wildly swinging dice, then the cab vanished around the corner. She stayed low and headed for the side of the street.

Drago ran at her. His efforts to reload his pistol only slowed him a little.

A solid line of buildings trapped Shannon out on the street. Bullets chewed at the sidewalk beneath her feet. Sparks flashed at every contact. The whines of the ricochets whined in her ears. She wrapped her hands around her head. Then she ducked into a deep-set door alcove of a cabinetry shop. Her heart hammered in her chest as she listened to Drago’s steps close in on her.

She was out of places to run.

Tense and frustrated, fighting to remain calm, Allison Gracelyn sat in the ergonomic chair at her desk and watched the action playing out on the three computer monitors in front of her. This was one of those times when it was hard to remember that she was in a position to help.

Allison hadn’t slept in thirty-seven hours. A scrunchie held her brunette hair back. Her brown eyes burned with the effort of watching the computer screens. She was slim and athletic despite years spent in front of a computer. She was disciplined enough to keep her physical health as sharp as her mental faculties.

She’d learned that at Athena Academy all those years ago and maintained the practice. She wore yesterday’s business suit, but the jacket lay on the couch at the back of the office where she sometimes caught naps on ops that ran long.

All three monitor feeds came from street cams she’d “borrowed.” One monitor showed Shannon hiding in the doorway. Another showed Drago from behind. The third showed Rafe Santorini desperately weaving through traffic.

“Left at the next block,” Allison directed.

“You’ve still got her?”

“I do.”

On the screen, Rafe made the turn. He was going too fast to make the turn cleanly. The tires broke traction and the vehicle drifted a few feet.

“I thought I heard gunshots,” Rafe said.

“You did. She’s all right. I have her on-screen. But you need to hurry.” Allison cursed herself for that. Rafe knew he had to hurry. Her frenzy was unprofessional.

But you put them both in harm’s way, didn’t you? Allison had to acknowledge the guilt and shelve it for later. You knew going in that Drago was going to kill Shannon.

Allison had intercepted the e-mail when Drago had received it yesterday. There had been plenty of time to warn Shannon Connor.

But you chose not to do that, didn’t you?

Even right now, as she watched the tragedy that was about to unfold, Allison didn’t know if Shannon was about to become a victim because of the residual animosity that remained from all those years ago at Athena Academy or because Allison had been too confident.

Allison tapped the keyboard, dropping the camera as Rafe headed out of view. She picked him up with the next. Even though she couldn’t see his features on the other side of the darkened windshield, she knew he had his mad face on.

Get there, Allison said silently.

“Ahead. On the left.”

Rafe recognized the metallic tightness of panic hovering in Allison’s voice. Unaccustomed as it was, her tension put him a little on edge. He breathed out and raked the street with his gaze.

“Do you see her?” Allison asked.

With all the neon lights, pedestrians and cars on the street, Rafe had a hard time spotting Drago and Shannon Connor. It got a little easier when he noticed the cars and pedestrians gave the left side of the street wide berth.

“Got Drago,” he said.

Drago jogged toward a doorway.

“Where’s Shannon?”

“She’s in the shop doorway. It’s recessed.”

Rafe knew he didn’t have time to get out of the car to intercept the man. Besides that, with the way his knee was hurting, he wasn’t sure how much mobility he’d have. It already felt as if it was swelling.

Instead he switched off the headlights and aimed the car at Drago. He hoped that Shannon didn’t step out of the doorway at the wrong time.

Even driving far too fast for street conditions, Rafe barely arrived in time. Drago had reached the doorway and was raising the pistol. He was so intent on his prey that he didn’t hear the car bearing down on him.

Rafe hit the horn. The strident noise rang out and drew Drago’s attention. At that moment Rafe switched the lights back on. He hoped they would stun Drago and present a warning to Shannon to stay put.

Drago knew he couldn’t run, but he was a predator. He didn’t give up. He turned the pistol in the direction of the car and fired. Two shots tore through the windshield. One of them ripped the passenger seat headrest into a flurry of padding that filled the car’s interior.

Rafe stayed on track. He put the car in close to the wall. His side mirror disappeared in an explosion of twisted metal and shattered glass. Then the whole side of the car turned into a stream of rushing sparks that bounced off the window and trailed behind him.

At the last minute Drago tried to break and run. He didn’t even get turned before the car struck him.

The air bag exploded into Rafe’s face at the same time. The gunshot of propellant setting off temporarily deafened him. His face stung from the impact and he was blinded.

Shut it down, shut it down, he told himself. He put his foot over the brake and shoved. The antilock braking system kept the tires from locking up as he slewed around. He hit another object and felt certain from the weight and mass involved that it was a car. He remembered there’d been a line of them.

There was a sickening moment of not knowing what was going on, then the car came to a stop. The smoky haze left by the air bag deploying burned his nose and mouth, then his lungs. The gunpowder taste was all too familiar.

His face and chest felt as though he’d gone rounds with a heavyweight. He had no doubt that bruising would show in a few days.

“Are you there?” Allison asked.

“Yeah.” Rafe reached into his jeans and took out a small lock-back knife. A quick flick of his thumb deployed the blade. He pierced the air bag and it deflated in a rush. By the time he got out of the car, he had his pistol in hand.

Drawn from her hiding place, Shannon watched the maniac driver force the door of his vehicle open. It screeched as it yawned wide.

At first Shannon had thought her salvation had been luck. In this part of Washington, D.C., there were plenty of bars. It would have been easy to believe a drunken driver had come along fortuitously.

Not that Shannon’s luck ever really ran that way. She wasn’t the lucky one in any group. She’d had to work for everything she’d gotten. Whatever luck she’d had had gone away while she was at Athena Academy.

Then, when she recognized the man stepping out of the car as the man from Drago’s bar, she knew her luck was running true to form. She held her position even though every nerve in her screamed, Run!

The man limped a little, but he moved quickly and efficiently. He kept the pistol in his hand close to his side as he surveyed the street.

Several curious pedestrians hovered along the sidewalk. Three young men hurried over to Vincent Drago’s body lying a hundred feet from where the car had hit him.

“Get away from him,” the man ordered.

“He’s hurt,” one of the onlookers yelled back.

The man lifted the pistol as he stepped into the headlights of his car. “Get away from him. Now!”

“Dude, that guy’s got a gun,” one of the other pedestrians said. He grabbed his friend’s arm and pulled him back.

Go, Shannon told herself. Get out of here while you can. But she couldn’t move. The story hadn’t finished. Her reporter’s instincts and curiosity refused to let her budge.

The man walked to Drago and pointed the pistol at the prone man. For a moment Shannon thought the stranger was going to shoot Drago on top of hitting him with the car. She couldn’t help wondering what the man had against Drago.

Then the man knelt and quickly ran his free hand through Drago’s clothing. He took out a wallet and a PDA, a few papers and anything else he could find. He removed his beanie and tucked everything he’d collected inside the hat. Then he stood.

It didn’t make any sense to Shannon. Robbers didn’t commit their crimes by taking out victims with cars.

More than that, why had the man left the bar looking for Drago? Shannon’s curiosity was in full bloom.

The man returned to the car long enough to stash the beanie in the backseat while police sirens filled the air. Flashes from brave onlookers using the camera function on their phones flickered along the sidewalk.

Ignoring the fact that he was getting his picture taken, the man turned his attention to Shannon. He walked toward her. The pistol was still naked in his fist.

Shannon pushed out of the alcove and started to run. She didn’t know how far she’d get before a bullet punched through her back.

“Shannon!” the man called. “Don’t run!”

She kept waiting for the “or I’ll shoot” addendum. It didn’t come.

“Please.”

That was even more surprising.

“If you run,” the man said, “they might get you.”

They?

“I can help you.”

The sirens sounded closer. Shannon looked around the street. Only then did she realize how much trouble she could be in. The police would want to know what she was doing there. If she told them she’d employed Drago, which might be something they learned anyway, she was going to be buried in legal difficulties.

She didn’t know enough about what was going on to feel safe. Not only that, but Drago had been convinced that the federal government was interested in the inquiries she’d asked him to make.

It wasn’t a good position to be in. There would be a lot of questions, and she wasn’t liked by many in the police departments or political offices. In fact, she’d covered a story for ABS three years ago concerning politically motivated murders that had involved a particularly offensive cover-up.

The District of Columbia Police Department and the Hill had gone ballistic when she’d broken the story without their approval. She’d barely escaped town one step ahead of the lynch mob. Only the news station’s lawyers had kept her from being brought back and charged.

The man made no move to pursue her. He didn’t put the gun away.

If he really wanted to hurt you, he’d have shot you by now, Shannon told herself. And if you run, you’re never going to know what’s going on. Or who he is.

She took a deep breath and walked back to him.

“Get in,” he growled.

Evidently politeness wasn’t his forte. Or maybe he had an issue with cops. Tall, dark and mysterious, he definitely looked like the type who would have a chronic problem with law enforcement.

Dirt streaked his hard, angular face, but Shannon could still make out the small scars on his right cheek and his neck. Another small scar stood out at the outside of his right eye.

He wasn’t a stranger to violence.

She became fully aware of the broad chest and lean hips encased in denim. He smelled like an outdoorsman, not like the metrosexuals of the broadcasting studio. His dark hair was longer than the norm. She wished she could see his eyes, but she was willing to bet they were dark. Dark brown or dark hazel would suit him perfectly.

“Get in,” he repeated.

“Are you in a hurry?” Shannon asked.

Without a word, the man climbed into the car and slid behind the steering wheel. He keyed the ignition and pulled the transmission into gear.

Only then did Shannon fully realize he intended to leave her standing there.

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.