Rules of Re-engagement
Loreth Anne White
A man back from the dead. A madman on the loose. One woman who will change everything.He should be dead. That was what Olivia Killinger thought when her former fiancé appeared at her door sixteen years after his "death." Now Jacques Sauvage was asking for her help to bring down a deadly syndicate–which was led by her own father.Olivia had never stopped loving Jacques, but how could she trust the man? She knew he needed her help…but did he also want to reignite the passion that had once burned between them?
How easy, he wondered, would it be to walk the fine line between pretending to be Olivia’s lover, and wanting to be?
And just where did that line begin and end? Because it was already blurred to hell and vanishing in his head. He figured he’d crossed it once already.
This is where the personal had to end, and the line be drawn strong and clear. And that is when he knew he would probably have to say goodbye to Olivia forever.
He could not allow his desire to be the downfall of the nation.
Rules of Re-engagement
Loreth Anne White
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
LORETH ANNE WHITE
As a child in Africa, when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, Loreth said a spy…or a psychologist, or maybe marine biologist, archaeologist or lawyer. Instead she fell in love, traveled the world and had a baby. When she looked up again she was back in Africa, writing and editing news and features for a large chain of community newspapers. But her childhood dreams never died. It took another decade, another baby and a move across continents before the lightbulb finally went on. She didn’t have to grow up. She could be them all—the spy, the psychologist and all the rest—through her characters. She sat down to pen her first novel…and fell in love.
She currently lives with her husband, two daughters and their cats in a ski resort in the rugged Coast Mountains of British Columbia, where there is no shortage of inspiration for larger-than-life characters and adventure.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Romeo—The military designation for the time zone in which New York falls.
FDS—The Force du Sable—a private military company based on the island of São Diogo off the west coast of Angola.
Biosafety level 4—A level of safety from exposure to exotic, infectious agents that pose a high risk of life-threatening disease for which there is no vaccine or therapy.
The French Foreign Legion—An elite rapid-deployment force within the French military, established in 1831 and comprised of foreign volunteers, making it one of the most famous and legitimate mercenary forces in history.
The Republic of the Congo—A country west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Also referred to as Congo-Brazzaville.
The Cabal—A covert organization that has been infiltrating the power structure of the United States over the past several decades and is now positioning itself to overthrow the government.
For more information, visit the Shadow Soldiers Web site at www.lorethannewhite.com.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Chapter 1
16:57 Romeo. Manhattan.
Tuesday, October 7.
He stood across the street from United Nations headquarters, watching—a scarred man hidden in the shadows of bare-fingered trees. A wanted man. He didn’t like being back on U.S. soil—illegally, no less. But he was here because he had to be. He was the only one who could stop an inordinately powerful man from bringing the entire nation to its knees in just six days.
And he needed a particular woman to help him do it.
She worked inside that building. She was the key to that man’s inner sanctum, his Achilles’ heel.
His daughter.
Jacques Sauvage thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his coat and narrowed his eyes into the brooding gray mist that was cloaking the city with premature darkness and chill. The trouble was, Olivia Killinger was also his own Achilles’ heel. Her father had already destroyed him once because of it.
Six days—that’s all he had to find out whether she was complicit in her father’s scheme. If she was somehow oblivious to what Samuel Killinger was doing, he would have to turn her, force her to betray her own flesh and blood, the father she adored.
But if he found her guilty, he’d have no choice but to use her life as leverage against Killinger. Either way he could not afford to fail. If he did, millions upon millions of innocent people in the country’s three largest cities—New York, Chicago and Los Angeles—would start dying by midnight, October 13. Just six days away.
And that would be only the beginning.
He hadn’t seen Olivia in sixteen years. How in hell did one begin to bridge a gap like that? Especially when the woman you were waiting for had once been your fiancée—and you were supposed to be dead.
He checked his watch. She should have come out by now. The row of flags—almost two hundred of them—that had clapped bravely in the fall wind had long been wrestled to the ground by security staff, their poles now naked as the scraggy boughs above his head.
Only the blue-and-white UN flag with its olive branches of peace was left snapping against the front sweeping down from the Arctic, dragging the premature chill of the Canadian prairies behind it.
The irony of that lone UN flag flying in the face of the coming storm wasn’t lost on him. Global peace wouldn’t stand a chance in hell if Samuel Killinger’s plan succeeded. War would be his tool, the weapon that would feed his massive corporate coffers. Samuel Killinger and his Cabal were about to launch the U.S. into an era of violently aggressive imperialism that would kill democracy and forever change the shape of the globe’s future.
Unless Jacques got to Olivia in time.
He checked his watch again. The temperature was dropping. Leaves skittered across the road, clattered and churned in the wake of a cab. It was fully dark now, the streetlights just fuzzy halos in mist. Still she didn’t come.
He felt the first spits of rain against his face. Perhaps he’d missed her. Perhaps he hadn’t recognized her profile among the huddled shapes that had scurried from the building into the streets, bent against the cold, making for home. Or perhaps she’d used a different gate. He shifted his feet against the growing numbness in his toes.
Then, suddenly, she was there.
Primal recognition slammed through him. His body snapped tight, and his nostrils flared, as if he’d somehow detected her scent on the chill wind. The muscles of his face grew taut, twisting at his scar as his world tunneled into just this moment. Just her.
The headlights of a car panned round and silhouetted her figure as she ran across the road, the wind playing with her coat like a malevolent spirit, opening it so that it fanned out behind her, pressing her skirt firmly against the outline of long, lean legs. She moved in his direction, her boot heels clicking on the pavement as she neared. His heart beat faster.
A sharp gust whipped hair over her face. She tried to hold it back with a leather-gloved hand, and he noticed she’d had it cut shorter. It looked more chic, but it was just as thick, just as lustrous. The sensation of his fingers combing through those soft waves of chestnut brown clawed through his memory. Jacques inhaled sharply.
Olivia Killinger could still do it to him.
One look was all it took to make him hard in places where memory had plagued him for well over a decade. But this time it was different. Now a ferocity swirled through the heat of his lust, and it fed a wild viciousness inside that scared him. Every molecule in his body screamed for him to storm into the road, grab her by the shoulders, yank her round, shake her, demand answers. Why, Olivia? Why did you betray me?
But he couldn’t do that.
If he made one wrong step with her, if Samuel Killinger found out he was in town, the bombs would blow.
While he had to move fast, he also had to go in carefully. This operation was as delicate as it was time sensitive. And this was not supposed to be about the past, not now. This was about saving the future. This was about protecting democracy and innocent lives. To do it, he was going to have to walk a dangerous and delicate line.
Jacques drew in a steadying breath, and he took a step forward, the word Olivia forming in his mouth, a name that had lived indelibly in his brain for all these years but had never left his lips. Until now. Until this mission.
But as he stepped out of the shadows toward her, his hand rising involuntarily as if to reach out and close the distance of the years between them, a black SUV veered sharply out from the curb and screeched to a stop in front of her. She jerked to a stop. Her head whipped back, as if searching for escape.
Jacques instantly pressed back into shadow, the urge to rush forward and defend threatening to totally override his control. But he had to assess the scene. The vehicle was unmarked with an extra-long wheelbase and a battery of communications antennae mounted on top. When the door swung open, a man in a dark suit un-curled himself from the vehicle, stepped onto the curb, his eyes scanning the street as he moved. Secret Service.
Jacques swore softly to himself. This had just gotten a whole lot more complicated. What the hell should he have expected? The woman was dating the vice president. The woman who was once going to be his was now sleeping with the enemy—the very man Samuel Killinger was going to put into the most powerful office in the world in just six days. Acid filled Jacques’s mouth as he watched.
The agent said something to her and gestured to the open door. She shook her head and stepped back from the car. The agent put his hand on her arm, his body language turning insistent. But she stood her ground, her posture defiant.
Intrigue whispered through Jacques. Why was she resisting?
The agent leaned closer, said something else to her. She hesitated and glanced in Jacques’s direction. His heart stilled. Had she seen him? Could she sense him?
Then she turned back to the agent, and his heart dipped inexplicably. Of course she hadn’t sensed him. Who was he to think she ever even thought of him? He no longer existed to her. He lived in the shadows. The damp chill from the nearby East River nosed into his coat. He flipped up his collar, watched her climb into the SUV.
He’d known she was seeing Vice President Grayson Forbes. He’d studied the tabloid photos of their outings. He’d been obsessed by one particular image where the vice president was touching her bare arm, their heads tilted together in intimate conversation. But Jacques hadn’t quite anticipated how actually seeing the living evidence of her association would make him feel.
A cesspool of dark and conflicting emotions swirled up from somewhere deep inside him. He’d totally underestimated the depth of Olivia’s hold over him, even after all these years. He’d misjudged the rawness of his latent passion, his buried anger, his violent resentment. He’d refused to acknowledge his deep and primal need for revenge. Until this very moment.
He knew in this instant, as the door of that SUV slammed shut, that this mission was going to challenge him in ways he hadn’t even dreamed possible.
The SUV swerved out and pulled swiftly into the traffic. Jacques stepped into the street, raised his arm, hailed a cab, the wind snapping his wool coat around his calves.
“I’m with that black SUV up ahead,” he told the driver as he climbed in. “Go where it goes.”
“Follow that car?” The driver snorted. “Haven’t heard that one in a while.”
Jacques said nothing.
The SUV wove deftly, aggressively, through the evening traffic of the pulsing metropolis. His cab driver kept pace. The rain came down harder, flecking the windows, smearing light across the streets. Tires crackled over the wet surface, wipers clacked, and the traffic began to grow thick.
Then suddenly the congested stream came to a complete halt. Jacques wound down his window, tried to see what was going on. He could make out cops up ahead, stopping traffic. They allowed the SUV to pass, and hastily erected barricades behind it, barring all other access. Several police bikes with flashing lights and sirens swerved out of a side street, and joined the Secret Service vehicle in escort down the now-empty street. Jacques cursed.
Olivia had clearly been expected.
The traffic around them was now a stationary snarling mess, engines choking into the misty rain, dense cloud dropping even lower. His driver laid on the horn. So did everyone else, it seemed. Police were now trying to divert the bottleneck through narrow side streets. A chopper hovered somewhere in the cloud above, the sound bouncing heavily between buildings. The cab radio crackled, but the dispatcher’s voice was drowned to Jacques’s ears by the throb of the traffic and helo.
The cabby twisted his head over his shoulder. “Hey, buddy, you’re out of luck. Dispatch says the entire block up ahead has been cordoned off—vice president has made an unscheduled stop in town.” His eyes narrowed. “You sure you with that SUV?”
Jacques paid the driver and got out. He threaded his way through groups of reporters and photographers gathering along the barricades. A television news van honked as it mounted the curb, dispersing curious pedestrians. The rain was coming down even harder now, releasing the sharp smell of the city streets—a mix of gas, concrete and people layered over cool air. He’d forgotten the scent of New York. He didn’t like it. He preferred the air of deserts and jungles, the feeling of open skies. He asked one of the photographers what was going on.
She told him the veep had slipped into town unannounced to the press, apparently for a private and impromptu dinner with an unnamed female guest. “Like we don’t know who that is,” she said, lifting her camera. “The entire street in front of La Bocca della Verita has been blocked off, and he’s commandeered the hotel above the restaurant.” She peered through her massive telephoto lens, focused. “Police are scrambling with the sudden security detail.” She clicked. “Typical Forbes. Has to do everything with a high sense of drama. No wonder the president is running without this guy.”
Jacques said nothing. He’d heard of La Bocca. It was a famous high-end Italian restaurant. He also knew Italian had always been Olivia’s favorite. He stood against the barricade, stared down the empty wet street, his heart growing colder by the moment.
She glanced sideways at him. “Not a fan, are you?”
“No.”
She smiled. “He does have fans. He’s one of the most eligible bachelors in the free world.” She pointed her camera at the phalanx of metropolitan police behind the barricade, readjusted the lens. “So much for privacy,” she said as she clicked rapid-fire.
She repositioned her camera, trying to get a better angle down the empty street. “And so much for secrecy.” She clicked, then glanced sideways at Jacques. “He’s going to propose, I’m sure of it. Want to make a bet?”
“No, I don’t.” He reached into his coat pocket, found the slim, flat box, fingered the hard casing. He’d been uncomfortable with the idea of using what was in the box. He wasn’t so uncomfortable now.
A bus came to a stop beside them in a cloud of diesel fumes, the side plastered with Vote Elliot posters. Jacques stared at the smiling image of the man who’d hired him—John Elliot, one of the most beloved presidents in the nation’s recent history. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that he’d secure a second term in the upcoming election. But that was not going to happen if Killinger got his way before October 13.
There wouldn’t be an election. Forbes would be president, and there would be no elections in the foreseeable future—the beginning of the end of democracy.
His job was to stop that from happening. That’s why he was standing here tonight, in the cold streets of Manhattan, a city he thought he’d never set foot in again, preparing to face down a nemesis he’d never wanted to lay eyes on again, about to confront the woman he was once going to marry. A woman he thought he’d only ever touch again in his dreams.
He closed his fist tightly over the box. This was business. He could not allow it to become personal. The stakes were too high.
He turned his back on the photographer and the blocked-off street. If he tried to slip through those barricades now, he’d alert the cops and Secret Service. He couldn’t risk that.
He’d wait at her apartment until she came home…if she came home, if she didn’t sleep with Forbes in that hotel. She wasn’t likely to bring the vice president back to her place. That would require some serious advance security planning, and it would generate the wrong kind of publicity.
Jacques crossed the street, dodging cars, oblivious to the angry honk of horns. Must be hell dating at that level. Not that he had any sympathy. Olivia was once going to be his wife.
Now she was positioned to become the First Lady of the United States. He cursed softly. He’d loved Olivia—mind, body and soul. He remembered how her skin felt beneath his. How soft the insides of her thighs, how…he jerked to a sudden stop, clenched his jaw in pain and lifted his face to the cold rain, his scar twisting tightly down the side of his face.
Her father must be damned pleased with himself. He’d gotten rid of that “poor bastard from the wrong side of the tracks.” He was giving Olivia a president instead—a man of breeding, a man of wealth. A man befitting his little girl.
Rage mushroomed through his pain. He was going to look right into Samuel Killinger’s eyes when he quashed that dream. He was going to show the megalomaniac bastard just what a guy from the “wrong side of the tracks” was made of. He was going to give Samuel Killinger a taste of real power.
Jacques swore bitterly as he reeled under the pressure of the emotions surging inside him.
He could see now there was no way in hell he was going to be able to keep the personal out of this. That genie escaped the bottle the instant he’d caught sight of Olivia again. This was personal. He was a fool for even trying to think otherwise. It was precisely because of his connection to Olivia and Killinger that he had been the unquestionable choice for this phase of the mission.
The best he could hope for now was to keep a tight leash on his feelings and to maintain his balance—and to remember, above all, that the success of the mission must come first. Above Olivia. Above him. Above this sudden ballooning need for revenge.
And in a few days it would all be over. He could get the hell out of New York and go back to the way things were.
He gritted his teeth and stalked with purpose into the city streets. He made for her apartment, his coat flying out behind him, images of her and Forbes searing his brain as the rain beat at his head.
Garish shades of neon—pink and yellow—slid over his features as he moved between the alleys. People in his path averted their eyes, stepped quickly out if his way as he approached, not because he carried a visible weapon. He didn’t need to. His body was one, and he walked like he knew it.
He had a mission, and he was going to get it done.
The heavy wooden doors swung shut behind Olivia as she stepped into her favorite restaurant. The soft sounds of a harp and the gold light of hundreds of candles enveloped her instantly, but there was none of the usual buzz in the room tonight. La Bocca della Verita was empty of patrons.
Save one. And his entourage.
Vice President Grayson Forbes pushed back his chair and stood up from the only table set for dinner. “Olivia! I’m so glad you could make it.” He stepped forward, arms held wide, an unusual animation dancing in his eyes.
An inexplicable sense of foreboding rippled through her. She glanced at the serving staff and bodyguards lined along the wall. “Grayson…what’s this all about?”
“Surprised?”
She had a sudden, sickening feeling that things were about to come to a head, that Grayson was going to force her hand, and that she was going to have to tell him it was over between them. She’d been dreading this moment.
Grayson was not a man to accept rejection easily. He was like her father that way.
She’d planned on talking to him after the election, after he’d left office. She’d wanted to at least do him that courtesy.
“You…you’re supposed to be in Washington,” she said nervously. “What are you doing in New York? Why…why all this secrecy?”
He took her hands, drew her closer. “I wanted to have dinner with my girl tonight. No crime in that, is there?”
“Dinner?” She tried to smile. “You snarled up half of Manhattan and had me kidnapped by agents just for dinner?”
His eyes turned serious. He pulled out a chair. “Sit, Olivia, please.”
She sat slowly, eyeing the bodyguards along the wall. “Do they really have to be in here?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. She and Grayson had been through this a hundred times before. He knew she was uncomfortable under their constant scrutiny. He’d learned just how much when he’d officially requested round-the-clock Secret Service detail for her, and she’d refused it, as was her right. After much argument, he’d relented. But when she was with him, it simply was not her choice.
Still, she didn’t see why his men had to sit in on their private discussions—like now. It really wasn’t necessary. It had begun to feed a growing suspicion in her that the exhibitionist in Grayson Forbes actually enjoyed the audience, the constant attention. It was just one more little reason that their relationship was beginning to wear her down.
He raised his hand, motioned to the sommelier. “I’ve taken the liberty of preordering your favorites, Olivia. Both wine and meal.”
Even the music being played by the solo harpist was her favorite. Anxiety circled tighter. “Grayson, talk to me. What’s going on?”
He paused for a moment. Then he placed his hands firmly over hers, looked into her eyes. “Okay, why wait? I want you to marry me, Olivia.”
Shock slammed through her. She glanced around the room in panic.
A frown creased his brow. “Olivia?”
“Grayson…I—” She cleared her throat. “This…this is so sudden. I—”
He placed a finger over her lips. “Don’t say anything. Not yet.” He lifted her left hand and he slowly slid a ring over her finger.
Olivia stared at the shimmering cluster of diamonds set against cool platinum, and her mouth went bone dry. She could feel the staff watching from all sides. A buzz began in her head. She felt dizzy. Claustrophobic.
Her eyes flashed to his. “This is…so unexpected, Grayson.” Why had she not seen this coming? Why had there not been a small sign, some warning that things had gone this far with him?
She liked him, always had. And she’d known him forever. His family had owned a holiday home near theirs in the Hamptons. Their parents were politically connected and they were friends.
Grayson was also devastatingly good to look at. He was rich, powerful, chivalrous, charming. And he made her laugh. He’d been obsessed with her since they were teens, but her heart had belonged exclusively to Jack.
And then Jack had gone and betrayed her—in love, and in death.
And even though he’d killed her cousin and fled from the law, he’d still managed to take a part of her with him—her soul.
He’d rendered her incapable of feeling again—really feeling. She’d gone through the motions, but not once had she ever come even close to experiencing the raw passion she’d known with him. Jack had made her come alive. When she’d been with him, she felt plugged in to the very rhythms of the universe, in tune with the resonance of life itself. It was absurd.
Maybe what she’d had with Jack was abnormal. Perhaps it was normal to be like this, sort of even and numb. But the fact that she’d tasted something exotic had ruined everything else. Because she knew it was possible. She knew it was out there—true love, raw passion.
But not with Grayson.
A sudden nausea swooped through her stomach. Guilt swamped her chest. Her hands felt clammy. “Grayson I…I’m sorry, I need some time. I need to think about this. We haven’t—” she lowered her voice, conscious of staff “—we haven’t even slept together in months. I thought that maybe—”
“That maybe I was losing interest?” He laughed easily, lightly, but she could see in his eyes that he was anything but taking this easily. He grasped her hands, a little too tightly. “Look, Olivia, no one said dating a vice president was easy. We have no privacy, no real time to ourselves, no policy book to follow. We’re writing our own rules here. But we’re right for each other. We always have been.” He reached up, moved a lock of hair off her face and looped it gently behind her ear. “And that other thing—” he smiled “—I’ve arranged for a room tonight.”
Panic kicked at her heart. She knew in this very instant how wrong this was. She could not sleep with him again. She’d allowed this to go too far. Her association with Grayson had been pleasant. He’d been good company during her deeply lonely times. He’d helped her see some of her major UN projects through the power halls of Washington. He’d given her causes audience before Congress and the Senate. With Grayson’s alliance, she’d been able to help the less privileged people of the world—refugees, political prisoners held without cause, human rights abuse victims. Her work was her life and he’d smoothed roads for her.
She wasn’t going to lie about it—Grayson Forbes had helped her help others. And that was partly why she’d kept on seeing him, partly why she’d slipped so easily into the convenience of the relationship, the friendship.
But she should not have allowed this to happen.
She honestly hadn’t seen it coming. She’d been about to end it.
Olivia looked into his eyes, her heart twisting. She didn’t want to hurt this man. And she didn’t want to turn him down in front of all these people. It would humiliate him. It would make him furious. And fury in Grayson was a terrifying thing. He couldn’t hide it as well as her father could.
“Grayson,” she said firmly, “this is really bad timing for me.”
His eyelids flickered sharply, and his fist curled over a napkin. She covered his hand gently with hers. “Please, give me a bit of time. I…I’ve been under incredible stress at work, with this refugee project, and the trial in the Hague. And—”
“You’re making excuses, Olivia.” There was a new hardness in his voice, an edge born of hurt. “The timing is perfect. All those things you mentioned have just been wrapped up. I know this. That’s why—”
“That’s why I need a holiday, a break. Out of town. Just to get my thoughts together. I haven’t been feeling myself lately.”
His mouth flattened, and the light left his eyes. Her guilt deepened.
“Can we wait until after the election to talk about this?” she said softly. “When things have calmed down, when you leave office, maybe we can go away together, like normal people, away from the cameras, the press, the politics, bodyguards. We can talk about things.” Her eyes pleaded with his. “Why now? Why the rush?”
“There is no rush. I’ve wanted this for a long time, Olivia. Much too long.”
She took the ring off, her hands beginning to shake. She held it out to him. “It’s beautiful. Everything is beautiful, the restaurant, the music. You. But I’m not ready.”
He glared at the ring. Then he closed her hand so tightly around it she could feel the stones cut into her palm. His eyes burned into hers. “Keep it. Call it a thinking ring. Mull it over for a few days, and I’ll give you another when you say yes.” He smiled suddenly, falsely, reached for the bottle of wine, poured a glass for her and then himself. “Because I know you’re not going to turn me down, Olivia.”
She stared at the burgundy liquid still swirling in her glass. “I…I really think I should go, Grayson. I—”
“Come on, sweetheart, we’ve been together far too long for games like that. You’re here now, share a meal with me. Please.” He raised his glass. “And let’s have a drink—” His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked over the crystal rim. “To our future…and to your answer.” He sipped, his eyes locked on hers.
Olivia reached for her glass and took a deep swallow—too deep.
22:58 Romeo. Olivia Killinger’s apartment.
Manhattan. Tuesday, October 7.
Jacques lifted the edge of the drape slightly with the backs of his fingers and watched the black SUV come to a stop down in the street outside her building. The agent opened the door, and Olivia climbed out.
His heart thudded quietly in the dark.
Another vehicle, some distance behind the SUV, pulled into a parking space behind a sedan that had been stationed across from her building since he arrived. Changing of the guards—there was more than one outfit watching Olivia tonight.
Whoever was in that sedan would have seen him enter her building. They would not, however, know that he’d been heading for her apartment.
He watched the way the row of yellow lights under the portico caught auburn glints in Olivia’s hair. Then she disappeared. She’d be up any minute.
He dropped the drape, moved into position near the door, waited.
The elevator bell clanged softly down the hall. He timed it mentally, how long it would take her to walk down the hall. A key slotted into the lock, turned. His body tensed.
After sixteen years, he was going to hear her voice again.
Olivia paused. Something didn’t feel right. It was as if there’d been a subtle shift in the chemistry of the air. She leaned toward her door, listened, but could hear nothing. She frowned, shrugged it off. It was her; it had to be. Her whole world had shifted on its axis tonight and she was just feeling off-kilter, that’s all. She pushed the door open, stepped into her apartment and reached for the hall light switch—
A hand grabbed hers. She opened her mouth to scream, but another clamped down hard over her lips. She was twisted around sharply, dragged into the apartment. The door slammed shut—and all was dark. Panic punched her heart. She struggled maniacally, but the grip on her only tightened. Her attacker was male, huge and incredibly strong. His limbs felt like iron.
“It’s all right, Livie,” he whispered against her ear, “hold still, I’m not going to hurt you.”
She froze. Livie? Only one person in this world had ever called her that, and he was dead.
“Relax.” He spoke low, quietly, his breath warm against her neck. She could detect the scent of expensive aftershave. She could feel his coat was made of wool. “I’m not here to hurt you. I’m going to let you go. Promise me you won’t scream, okay?”
The man had an accent. French—not Canadian French, continental French. Yet there was something familiar about the timbre of the voice, the way it curled through her, stirring something dark and forbidden in the depths of her soul. Her chest constricted like a vise over her lungs. She couldn’t breathe. Her vision blurred.
“Did you hear me?” he whispered.
She nodded her head. He released her mouth cautiously, waiting to see if she would scream. She didn’t. He turned her slowly round to face him, and he flicked the light on.
And her heart stopped.
Chapter 2
23:01 Romeo. Olivia Killinger’s apartment.
Manhattan. Tuesday, October 7.
She looked up into his eyes—unmistakable eyes—ice gray and crystal clear. They sliced into her like a laser, flaying her open right down to her soul. No other eyes could do that to her. She’d never, ever seen eyes quite like his.
It was Jack.
Olivia tried to swallow, tried to get a grip on what she was seeing right here in her apartment—Jack Sauer. Alive.
But he was older, harder, colder—with a vicious scar that sliced down the left side of his face, along the sharp angle of his cheekbone, down to his mouth. Curving his lips into a subtle, permanent—if sexy—sneer. It made him look dangerous.
It reminded her he was a felon, wanted by the FBI for the murder of her cousin Elizabeth. It reminded her he was supposed to be dead—killed by a grizzly in the Alaskan wilderness north of Mount McKinley.
And he was blocking her door—the only way out.
Her heart began to race. Fear whispered in the periphery of her mind. Her cell phone was in the purse that she’d just dropped to the floor. She was trapped.
Questions scrambled wildly over each other, tangling in her mind until she could hold no one thread straight. If he was alive, why had he not contacted her once in sixteen years? Why was he back now? Where had he been all this time?
“Jack…?”
“Jacques,” he said. “It’s Jacques Sauvage now. Jack Sauer died a long time ago, Olivia.”
She stared at him. This was impossible. Moose hunters had discovered his wrecked camp in the trackless Alaskan wilderness. They’d alerted rangers who had found ID, his books, clothes, his shotgun, spent shells—evidence of a grizzly attack. DNA had proved the blood in the camp was his. Rangers had said it looked like he’d wounded the bear before being dragged off himself.
“God, it’s good to see you again,” he whispered darkly as he touched the small gold locket at her throat, his fingers brushing her skin.
A jolt of sexual recognition ripped through her body so sharp, so fierce, and so totally inappropriate, that she gasped, tried to jerk back. But he tightened his grip, held her close.
“You kept it,” he said, lifting the pendant. “All this time, and you still wear it.”
Her eyes began to water. It really was him. One touch and her body was alive, responding to his, whether her mind followed or not.
“Wh-where have you been?” Her voice came out in a hoarse whisper.
His eyes burned into her, devouring her, sucking in every little detail he’d missed over the years. She felt as if he was stripping her, slowly, layer by layer, down to the naked core. Her heart pounded, her breath became light, her vision narrowed. Hot and cold swirled with fear through her stomach and laced with an aliveness so sharp it scared her.
“Time has been good to you, Olivia,” he said, his voice low, slow, his accent so seductively foreign. His eyes followed the curve of her breasts under her cashmere sweater. “Very good.”
Olivia swallowed. This was a man accused of murder. She didn’t know him anymore. She had no idea what he was capable of, what he’d become.
“Talk to me, Jack. Why are you back, what happened, where have you been all this time? What are you doing here in my apartment?”
He moved his hand from the pendant, stroked the curve of her neck, his skin rough against hers. Her knees went weak and her brain went completely blank.
He bent his head, his lips almost touching hers, his breath warm and soft as a feather. “I need your help,” he whispered. “It’s a matter of national security—” He sighed deeply. “Do you know how much I’ve missed you…how I’ve missed this…” He slowly pressed his lips over hers, covering her mouth completely. Heat melted her belly. Her breathing became ragged. She was incapable of pulling away.
He moved his lips gently over hers as he reached around her waist and slowly drew her body against his. He was giving her time to fight back, to jerk away. He was making this her decision as much as his. Yet she could feel his body shaking, his muscles straining to hold back the raging hunger that surged through him. He still wanted her, badly, and her body was burning in response to his.
The man she’d loved with all her heart was back in her arms. Holding her, kissing her, hard with need for her. Emotion imploded through Olivia. Tears burned her eyes, spilled freely down her cheeks, washing away the years. So many, many lonely nights, she’d dreamed that one day she’d feel his lips over hers, melt under his touch again. Suddenly nothing mattered but this moment.
Her thoughts spiraled into dizzying blackness as he increased the pressure on her mouth, filling her with his tongue, his movements growing rougher, harder, urgent, the salt of her tears mingling in their mouths as their tongues tangled and her heart twisted.
He tasted wild, foreign, dark—yet familiar. Her heart pounded. She leaned into him, opening to him, a raw hungry force driving her. She touched his face, guided him deeper, closer…and suddenly she felt the rigid line of his scar under her fingertips.
Reality exploded sharply through her brain. She stilled. She slowly traced the line along his cheekbone to the corner of his mouth. He felt the question in her touch.
“The bear,” he said simply, covering her hand, drawing it away from his face and pulling her back to him.
The bear that was supposed to have killed him.
This time she resisted. “No…no, Jack. Please…. I…I don’t know what just happened. I…I don’t want this.”
She forced herself to take a step back. He let her, his eyes watching her intently, arousal etched into his rugged features.
Her breaths were coming light and shallow. Her lips still burned. Her body was still hot, her hair a mess. She felt awkward, confused. And more than a little afraid—of him, of herself—of what had just happened.
“What…what do you mean, you need my help? And what about national security?” She nervously twisted the new ring on her finger as she spoke. “Does this have something to do with Grayson?”
His eyes followed her hands. When he saw what she was fiddling with, his expression changed instantly. A small muscle began to pulse at his jawline.
Olivia suddenly felt absurdly embarrassed to even be wearing the ostentatious cluster of diamonds. She had no intention of keeping it. The only reason she had it on right now was because she hadn’t had the guts to hurt Grayson’s feelings in front of all those people.
She covered the ring, pressed her hands against her stomach, trying to quell the tempest of emotions roiling inside her. Why should he be making her feel guilty? He was the one who had betrayed her. He was the one who left her. He let her think he was dead all these years. Why should she feel even vaguely compelled to explain why she was wearing Grayson’s ring?
He lifted her eyes to hers. “We have a lot to talk about, Olivia. May I come in?”
“You are in.” In more ways than one.
“I need you to invite me, Livie.”
She stared at him—powerful, deeply tanned, his dark hair cut aggressively short and shot through with the silver of time—and hurt filled her. In all these years he hadn’t bothered to let her know he was alive. He had destroyed her when he’d fled, he’d left her to bleed. He’d stolen her youth. And now here he was, standing very much alive and healthy in her hallway. Anger whispered quietly around her pain. And she let it come. She needed answers.
“May I come in, Olivia?” he said again.
She held her hand out to her apartment. “Sure. Please, come in. Please come back from the dead, Jack. Please walk right back into my life, into my home.” Tears threatened again. She blinked them angrily away. “Why don’t you come right in and mess with my life all over again. It’s not like you didn’t get it right the first time.”
Something hot and dangerous flashed in his eyes.
But the bitterness growing inside wouldn’t allow her to stop.
“Would you like a drink, Jack? How about sitting on my sofa over there and telling me where you’ve been for sixteen long years, and why you’ve really come back to mess with me.”
“A drink would be nice, thank you,” he said, shrugging out of his coat. He walked right past her, into her apartment. He draped his massive black coat over her white chair and moved straight to the window. He lifted her curtain slightly with the back of his hand and peered down into the rain-drenched street.
She stared, dumbfounded. What on earth was he doing? She took in the expensive cut of his elegantly tailored black pants, his white silk shirt. He looked as if he’d walked straight off one of Europe’s fashion runways. But while his clothes gave him an air of global sophistication, they did little to tame the wild ruggedness that literally pulsed from him. Who was this man? Who had Jack become?
She glanced at the phone on the wall.
“You’re free to call whoever you like,” he said without looking at her. “But I wouldn’t advise it, not until you’ve heard me out.”
She stared at him blankly. She should run. Now. Get out while she had access to the door. She should alert the police. Yet a desperate curiosity rooted her to the spot. He was once her lover, the man she’d was going to marry. And he was here, back in Manhattan, in her apartment. She needed to know why, where he’d been. She pushed her hair back from her face.
She could do this.
She could handle Jack Sauer. She’d handled way worse in international courts. And once she had her answers, she’d call whoever she needed.
She cleared her throat. “You still drink scotch?”
“Yes.”
She retrieved the purse she’d dropped at the door, and moved over to the drinks cabinet, her heart thumping. She positioned her back to him as she slid her slim cell phone out of her purse and slipped it into her pocket. She wanted to be ready to call 911.
She removed the stopper from a decanter and began to pour whiskey into a crystal glass. That’s when she realized how badly her hands were trembling. She closed her eyes for a moment, steadied her nerves. Then she poured a drink for him and one for herself. She needed it.
She picked up a glass in each hand, sucked in her breath and turned to face him. And her resolve crumpled instantly.
He was watching her so intently she almost forgot how to walk. She tried to force her legs to move smoothly across the wooden floor, tried not to trip over the white rug. She held a glass out to him. He took it, his fingers brushing slowly over hers as he did, his eyes never leaving hers. He lifted the rim to his lips, slowly sipped, eyes still locked with hers.
Something hot and foreign and dangerous slipped down into her stomach again. She put her own glass to her lips, took a gulp.
“Who’s tailing you, Olivia?”
She choked on her sip. “What?” Her eyes watered as whiskey burned down the wrong way.
“Who’s following you?”
“No one’s following me.”
“Take a look,” he said, lifting the edge of the curtain for her. “See that silver sedan there, across the road?”
She edged forward, wary of touching him again, afraid of what would happen to her body again. She peered down into the street, conscious of his expensive scent, the quiet powerful energy vibrating from him. “Where?”
“Under that oak, right across from the park.”
She saw it. “Don’t be ridiculous. That car’s not tailing me. No one’s tailing me.”
He remained silent, watching her, trying to read something. It made her nervous.
“It…it’s probably someone looking for you. The FBI maybe.”
He ignored the gibe. “That sedan came in right behind the Secret Service vehicle that dropped you off tonight, Olivia. After your dinner with Forbes.” His eyes searched hers for reaction.
She looked sharply away. She didn’t want to show him how her evening with Grayson had affected her.
“There was another vehicle waiting under that tree there, watching your apartment, before your SUV approached. It left as you arrived, and that silver sedan pulled in behind it, replaced the watch.”
Something about his voice made her think he might be telling the truth. “It must be the Secret Service, then,” she said, unsure now. “Grayson wanted to get security detail for me, but I told him I didn’t want it. Maybe he got it anyway. He…he’s not an easy man to turn down.”
“I know.”
The sudden dark edge in his voice shot a shiver down her spine.
“But that’s no Secret Service detail out there, Olivia. That’s a private outfit—same bunch that was waiting for you outside the UN building.”
“You were at the UN?”
“Saw you being whisked off for your private dinner with Forbes.” His eyes drifted down to her ring.
How long had he been following her? Why?
“Jack, you’re making me nervous. Please…tell me what in hell is going on? Otherwise, I…I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Did you get that tonight?” he said darkly, his eyes still fixed on her ring.
It was not his business. She didn’t have to answer. “Yes,” she said.
He lifted his eyes, met hers. “So he proposed, and you accepted.”
No, I didn’t. She wanted to say the words, scream them. But she couldn’t.
“Do you love him, Olivia?” he whispered. “Do you really know this man? Do you love him like you used to love me?”
Emotion welled up so sharp and hot it hurt, filling her eyes, choking the words in her throat. She began to shake inside. “Damn you, Jack Sauer,” she said quietly. “You left me, sixteen years ago, and you come back and ask me this, tonight?” Her voice caught. “It’s not your business who I love. Not anymore.”
The corner of his mouth, where it met the scar, twitched. “It’s become my business, Olivia.”
“It can never be your business. You have no right to ask who I love or choose to marry or when. You threw that right away, Jack, forever, when you killed Elizabeth.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is that what you really think?”
“What else was I supposed to think?”
His jaw steeled. The muscles along his neck went hard.
Olivia took a step back. “Look, Jack, if you don’t tell me what you want from me and why you’re here, I’m going to call 911.” She reached for the cell phone in her pocket as she spoke.
“I’ve come for your father, Olivia.”
She froze. “I beg your pardon?”
No emotion showed in his face now. It was hard as steel, and his eyes had turned sharp and cold. “Those men outside, I think they’re his. I’ll have my guys check into it.”
“Your guys? What guys? What are you talking about!”
He said nothing, just watched her eyes.
“Okay, you’re making me really nervous. Leave now, or I’ll call the cops.”
He took a step toward her, and she lifted her cell phone. “I mean it, Jack—” She flipped it open, began to press.
Jack grasped her wrist and removed the phone from her hand. “Your father is involved in a plot to overthrow the U.S. government. But then, you might know that already, Olivia. I’m here to stop him, and you if need be.”
“What did you say!”
He was still holding her hand, his fingers circling tightly around her wrist. Panic wedged into her throat. Her eyes shot to the door.
“Samuel Killinger and his Venturion Corporation board comprise a covert organization that refers to itself simply as the Cabal. This Cabal, under your father’s leadership, plans to hand Grayson Forbes the most powerful office in the world.” His eyes narrowed. “He plans to make your fiancé the leader of the ‘free world’ six days from now. That’s all the time I have to stop them. That’s what I’ve been hired to do. That’s what I intend to do. And you are going to help me do it.”
She tried to jerk free, but his grip tightened. He pulled her closer as he reached into his pocket with his other hand, took out a black box.
She yanked frantically against his hold. “Let me go, Jack! This is garbage! It’s not possible. You…you’re insane. And he’s not my fiancé. I did not agree to marry him.”
Something—hope?—flared hot and sharp in his eyes. Then it was gone. “That helps,” he said darkly. “We have until midnight, October 13. If we fail, a set of biological bombs will be released over New York, Chicago and Los Angeles at one minute past midnight. Repercussions will be felt around the globe.” He paused. “I hope you are not involved, Olivia.” He snapped a metal cuff around her wrist.
Her brain reeled wildly. “What’s this!”
“That’s insurance, just in case you choose not to help me.”
She stared in shock at the thick band of silver locked tight and cold around her wrist. It was the color of platinum. Smooth. Alien. And it had a strange little window cut into the top that held what looked like a glass ampoule of pale liquid. She looked up, terror filling her heart. “What…what’s in it?”
“A GPS device. If you run, we’ll know where to find you.”
“Who’s we? What’s that liquid in the capsule?”
He studied her in cool silence, his eyes still seeking something in hers.
He was looking for guilt—that’s what he was doing! Her heart began to palpitate. She couldn’t breathe. “Tell me what the liquid is, Jack!”
“The capsule will break if you try to take the cuff off,” he said flatly. “The liquid inside…it’ll kill you, Olivia.”
“What!”
He dropped her hand, stalked over to the drinks cabinet, poured another scotch, turned to face her. “It holds a lethal pathogen.” He sucked back his drink, winced as it hit his gut.
“What kind of pathogen?”
“A very rare one. One that has been genetically modified in a lab run by the Cabal. Your father will know exactly what that pathogen can do. It’s a variant of the one he plans to release in six days if President Elliot refuses to step down and hand power to Forbes by the October 13 deadline.” His eyes lasered into hers from across the room. “I advise you to keep the bracelet on, Olivia. If you want to live, that is. You’ll be safe as long as no one tries to cut it off.”
She lurched toward him. “Take it off, Jack. Please. For God’s sake, don’t do this to me.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Olivia. I can’t take it off.”
“What do you mean!”
“You need specialized equipment to remove it. You need the antidote at hand…in case something goes wrong.”
Blood drained from her head.
“You’ll be fine, as long as you cooperate with me.” He hesitated. “As long as I can trust you.”
“I…I don’t believe this is happening. What made you like this, Jack?” She held out her wrist. “You loved me once! How…how could you do this to me?”
“How could I hold one life against a billion others?” He gazed at her, hard, his eyes narrowing.
“One life versus world peace? What would you do, Olivia?”
23:59 Romeo. Manhattan.
Tuesday, October 7.
A green dot flared onto Grant McDonough’s screen and began to pulse. Bingo. He flipped open his satellite phone, punched the number for the FDS base on São Diogo Island off the Coast of Angola. “He’s in. GPS cuff has been activated.”
“You have a detonator?”
“Affirmative. We both do. Antidote as well. Everything’s in place.”
“Good. Now we sit tight and wait for Sauvage’s direction.”
McDonough hesitated. “Any word on December?”
“He’s been airlifted from Djibouti to the hospital here on São Diogo. His condition is critical, but stable. They still have him on life support.”
McDonough flipped the phone shut, stared at the pulsing green dot. December had been shot in the gut by a mysterious pale-skinned man while helping evacuate Rafiq Zayed and Dr. Paige Sterling from the shores of Hamān. December sure as hell better pull through—for more reasons than one. They’d dubbed the shooter the Achromat because of his absence of pigment, and if he was found to be somehow affiliated with Killinger—McDonough shook his head. He didn’t want to begin to think of what Sauvage might do to Killinger’s daughter if December didn’t make it.
He punched in a text message, letting Sauvage know that the vehicles outside Olivia Killinger’s apartment had been traced to an outfit owned by one of the Venturion Corporation subsidiaries. It was a group that Samuel Killinger used for his personal protection and security detail. The maniac was having his own daughter tailed.
He pressed the button, sent the details.
Chapter 3
00:06 Romeo. Olivia Killinger’s apartment.
Manhattan. Wednesday, October 8.
She stared at the silver cuff, her face sheet white.
Jacques hated this. His mouth felt like ash. His chest hurt.
“You said someone hired you to do this? Who?” Her voice was strangely flat.
“The president.”
“President Elliot?”
He nodded.
She reached for the back of the sofa, steadied herself. “That’s…ludicrous,” she said quietly. “If…if the president really were threatened he’d go through regular channels—Homeland Security, the Secret Service, the military, CIA, FBI. Why on earth would he hire you?”
He studied her, searching for a sign, something that would betray her knowledge of this. He couldn’t see it. Her reaction had been visceral, her shock too real. Unless she was damn good—unless she had learned from her father.
But he didn’t think so. She was still wearing the small Saint Catherine’s pendant, and that told him something.
He’d given it to her for her nineteenth birthday when they were both prelaw students. Saint Catherine was said to be the patron saint of lawyers, barristers, jurists, and according to legend, had been prepared to die for her belief in good. Jacques had never been as big on faith as Olivia’s family, but the locket had been a symbol of what they both shared—a joint vision for justice, a dream of the future, a goal for their careers—a goal that had defied her father’s insistence she become a corporate lawyer for one of his transnationals.
Instead she chose to work for the UN. And she still wore his pendant. It made a fierce kind of pride burn inside him.
And the fact she’d rejected Forbes fed him with a hot flare of hope that she was not so intimately involved with the vice president as to be a part of his scheme to take control of the White House. It also made a dark part of Jacques wonder if there might still be a place in her life for him.
He sipped his drink, welcoming the way it dulled the edge of his guilt, the pain this caused him.
“He can’t use any of those organizations, Olivia. The president’s own Secret Service has been infiltrated. Elliot is being held hostage by the very system designed to protect him, his every move watched, every conversation recorded. If he so much as even thinks of engaging any agency traditionally at his disposal, those bombs will go off.”
He paused, still watching her keenly. “Your father’s corruption and connections go so deep that they root into the very foundations of the nation. This so-called Cabal of his has managed to infiltrate almost every level of government, commerce and the military over the past three decades. Elliot’s only option was to try and secretly enlist an organization free of all U.S. overseeing or restriction, something outside the system. Way out.”
“You?”
He nodded. “And if your father gets even a hint I am here, he will release those bombs instantly.”
Olivia sank slowly down onto the white sofa. She leaned back, closed her eyes, her lashes dark on bloodless skin. She let her hands rest limp in her lap.
She was in shock.
She had to be clean.
But he could take no chances. Even if she knew nothing about what her father was doing, he must never underestimate the power of a blood bond. Especially under duress. It had destroyed him once before.
As much as he hated the idea, she’d have to wear the bracelet.
His satellite connection vibrated in his pocket. Jacques took it out, checked the text message from McDonough. So it was Killinger’s men tailing her. He returned the phone to his pocket, wondering how she was going to take this news.
He’d already dealt her two severe emotional blows in a matter of minutes—coming back from the dead and accusing her father and Forbes of treason.
She was going to need time to process this. If he hit her with too much too soon, she could crumble or resist without thinking first. If she really was innocent, he wanted to get her to a point where it became her choice to turn in her father. He checked his watch. Unfortunately, time was a not a luxury he could afford.
She opened her eyes suddenly.
His heart quickened.
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because it’s the truth.”
She stared at him with a look so intense it drilled right to the very marrow of his bones. He met her gaze, held it. Her grandfather clock ticked loudly. He moistened his lips. A full minute passed.
“I want to know, Jack,” she said suddenly. “Everything. I want to know who you’re working for, where you’ve been. What happened all those years ago…on the beach…everything.”
He nodded his head slowly, then seated himself on the sofa opposite her, the glass-topped coffee table between them. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, cradling his drink in both hands. He rolled the glass slowly between his palms, watched the liquid refract the light as it swirled around the faceted crystal for a few moments, then he looked up.
“When I left New York, I made my way through Canada to Alaska,” he said. “I thought I’d be okay, living alone in the wilderness, but it began to wear heavily on me. I didn’t want to exist like that, alone and on the run. I wanted a life. I wanted to find some place I could hold my head up high.” He stared into his whiskey, his mind going back where he seldom allowed it to tread. “Then I came across a copy of a newspaper, and I saw that my mother had died.” He looked up slowly, met her eyes. “The paper was three weeks old.”
Olivia leaned forward. “They said it was shock, Jack.” She spoke softly. “They said her heart couldn’t take the news of…of how you managed to flee just minutes before they came to arrest you.”
His chest tightened. His scar pulled at his mouth. He inhaled deeply, killing his feelings. “I used the grizzly incident to disappear,” he said, his voice studiously emotionless. “I got myself to the coast, got a fishing boat to take me across the Bering Strait to Russia. Made my way down to France from there. Joined the French Foreign Legion, fulfilled my contract, got a new identity and French citizenship in exchange.”
She remained silent. He could practically see her heart beating under the soft white cashmere.
He sucked back another sharp swig of scotch, felt the comforting burn in his chest. He set his glass on the table, pushed it away, remembering how many nights he’d used the stuff to numb himself. How he’d done it again in that small Parisian bar sixteen years ago, the night before Jack Sauer disappeared forever, the gates of Fort de Nogent clanging shut behind him. No more memories. No more past. No more Olivia.
Until now.
He lifted his eyes slowly. “They call it the Legion of the Damned,” he said.
“I know.” She had a strange expression on her face, as if she was beginning to understand something about him. “It’s one of the greatest mercenary armies of all time. One of the harshest.” She paused. “I’ve read the literature, Jack. The Legion was created by King Louis Phillipe in the 1800s in the conquest of Algeria, and it’s been a last resort for society’s misfits ever since. It accepts refugees, revolutionaries, poets, princes, paupers, criminals—no questions asked.”
“Not exactly—”
“You serve a minimum five-year contract. And if you survive, you have the option to be rectified—get a new name, usually the same initials, and a French passport. A cloak of official anonymity.”
She studied him carefully, as if reevaluating him in light of this new information. “I had a client once. He’d been in the Legion. He told me the bond that forms between men with no allegiance to family or country or a past of any kind is formidable, close to mystical.”
“It has to be,” he said. “You die for each other, not a country.”
“That’s why you have the accent. And you’ve been rectified.”
He nodded. “I did my five years. Jack Sauer became Jacques Sauvage—French citizen, perfectly legal.”
“So that’s how you got back into the country without tipping off the FBI, using the Sauvage alias?”
“No. I used a fake identity.” He met her eyes. “And Sauvage is my name, not an alias.”
“What happened after the five years?”
“I left the Legion with a couple of the guys I’d served with—Rafiq Zayed and Hunter McBride. Good guys—guys I’d kill for, and they for me.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she whispered.
“We went to Africa where we were joined by a Zulu from South Africa, December Ngomo. He was ex-Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress established to fight the apartheid regime. We banded together to form a private military company.” He sat back. “That was ten years ago. We call ourselves the Force du Sable.”
“So you’re shadow soldiers,” she said softly. “Global cops for hire.”
“Military advisors,” he corrected. “Part of a growing multibillion-dollar industry. Wherever the next global hot spot flares into action, we’re ready to step into the fray. For a fee. It’s a legitimate business.”
A haunted look sifted into her features. She dropped her face into her hands and sat like that for what seemed like ages. Then a silent sob racked her frame and he saw that her fingers were wet.
“Olivia?”
She jerked her head up, raw anguish in her eyes. “I know about the FDS, Jack!” Her voice was thick with hurt. “Your PMC is based on São Diogo Island off the coast of Angola. You were recently involved in a number of high-profile African coups, the protection of UN aid columns.” She lurched to her feet, swayed slightly, steadied herself by holding onto the back of the sofa. “FDS troops helped end the civil war in Sierra Leone. They ousted a tyrannical dictator on the Ivory Coast, they’ve been instrumental in bringing an end to human genocide in a small Eastern European dictatorship. I know this, Jack.” She jabbed her fingers into her chest. “I know it because I’ve dealt with clients from those areas. The FDS is lobbying for a United Nations sanction, forcing world leaders to rethink the role and legitimacy of mercenaries in a new world order. You want an international code of ethics.”
“Yes,” he said carefully. “We want to sift out the rogue operations. We want to make hiring a PMC a bankable option for small countries with limited military capability that might come under attack by a bigger hostile power.”
She clutched her arms over her stomach, eyes burning with wet emotion. “I…I know all about your quest for legitimacy,” she whispered. “I…I just didn’t know it was you. All this time. You were alive and people were talking about you right there under my nose…my ex-fiancé…my dead fiancé…and I…you never… How could you do that to me, Jack? How could you not let me know you were all right?” She started to shake. “Damn you, Jack Sauer,” she hissed, her eyes bright and wild. “Damn you all to hell.”
“I’ve been there, Olivia.”
“You should’ve stayed there.” She swiped at the moisture on her face. “And now you’re telling me President Elliot has hired the FDS? He’s hired mercenaries to operate on U.S. soil, to come after my father and Grayson and some mysterious Cabal?”
“That’s correct.”
“But how did he hire you if he’s supposed to be a virtual prisoner like you say he is?”
He studied her, his heart twisting, aching to comfort her. But he held his distance. This was good. She was asking the right questions. She was taking small steps to acceptance.
“It’s a good question, Olivia,” he said. “The only man President Elliot has been able to confide in is his private physician, Dr. Sebastian Ruger, an old and trusted military friend.” Jacques wasn’t going to go into the president’s illness. Not yet. She wasn’t ready for that.
“They’ve been communicating in writing, in the White House medical suite. The president asked Ruger to try to enlist us on his behalf. We’ve done work for him before, through a covert arm of the CIA, well before the Cabal managed to fully infiltrate the organization. He trusts us. Ruger managed to meet with me at a United Nations conference in Brussels just over three weeks ago. I was there to push my lobby for an international standardized code of conduct for private military companies.” He paused. “It’s a close-to-impossible mission, Olivia. But we took the job. Someone had to.”
“You mean someone had to come after my father. And Grayson?”
“We’re the last resort, Olivia, the last bid to save democracy. Because if your father and Forbes get their way, there won’t be an election next month. Or for the foreseeable future. They’ll immediately launch the country into a full-scale war with what they claim are terrorists and rogue states. This in turn will give Forbes unprecedented power, and he will use it. He will delay the election indefinitely and war will become his excuse to spark an era of aggressive imperialism expressly designed to feed corporate coffers—like those of your fathers. And this, Olivia, will change the world as we know it.”
He let it sink over her.
She shook her head slowly. “You cannot,” she said, “expect me to believe any of this. And even if some of it is remotely true, you cannot expect me to believe that my father is involved in anything like this.”
“That’s my job, then—to make you believe.”
Defiance flashed in her eyes. “And if you can’t?”
He looked pointedly at the cuff.
“Oh, right,” she said bitterly. “You’ll hold me hostage and threaten my father with my life?”
“Or you can choose to help us.”
She glared at him. “My father is a good man, Jack. He…he may have some questionable ethics as far as business goes, but he is not involved in this. He can’t be.” But Jacques could see the nervousness, the edgy flickering questions in her eyes. Olivia knew just how connected and powerful her father was. She knew just how much Samuel Killinger craved power, how ruthless some of his business practices could be.
“It’s not possible,” she whispered, as if to convince herself. “He’s a good man,” she said again, quietly. “He could not do anything like this.”
Jacques got to his feet, strode over to her floor-to-ceiling windows and flung back her drapes dramatically. He turned to face her, standing squarely in front of the black window…in full view of whoever was down in the street.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to show you something.”
Confusion touched her eyes. The clock in the hall ticked loudly.
Olivia glanced at the clock. It was almost two in the morning. She’d be expected in the office by nine for a routine start. But there was nothing routine about this day. She fingered the smooth metal cuff he’d locked over her wrist, feeling as though she’d slid into some kind of twilight zone. She was unable to fully adjust to his presence, and she simply couldn’t believe what he was telling her—especially about her father.
Jack had said the president had been ordered to stand down by October 13. Why did that date feel so familiar? She realized with mild shock that that was the day her father expected her to be on his yacht in the Caribbean for some big Venturion Corporation announcement. The whole board would be there. Her chest tightened. It was a coincidence. It had to be.
The familiar tone of her cell phone broke the silence. Olivia jumped, confused for a moment.
The chime sounded again.
Jack reached down, scooped her phone up from where he’d put it on the table, handed it to her. “Answer it.” His eyes narrowed. “But remember, if anyone finds out I am in town, the bombs blow. People die.”
She took the phone, flipped it open, checked the incoming number in the display. Her father! Tension whipped through her.
“Answer it.”
She glanced at the clock again. Why on earth would her father be calling her at this hour?
She put the phone to her ear, her eyes fixed on Jack. “Dad?”
“Olivia, are you all right?”
No, I am not. Emotion choked her, stealing her voice.
“Olivia? You still there?”
“I…I’m fine, Dad.”
Silence. “You don’t sound fine.”
She cleared her throat, shoved her hair back from her face as if it would help clear her mind. “I…I was sleeping.”
Silence. Longer this time. He didn’t believe her.
“Dad, do you know what time it is? Why are you calling me at this hour?”
“I was really worried about you, Olivia. I know Grayson was in town, and…and I hadn’t heard from you. Did everything go okay? Did he propose?”
“What makes you think that?”
“It was on the news, the speculation.”
She closed her eyes. It was not supposed to be like this.
“Did you accept, Olivia?”
“Dad, I…I can’t talk now—”
“You’re not alone…are you?”
Her eyes flared open. He knew. Somehow he knew.
Her eyes shot to Jack standing brazenly in front of the open curtains. She thought of the men in the street below watching.
That’s how he knew!
Her heart bottomed out. They were her father’s men outside. They were watching her window. He knew she had a man in her apartment tonight because they had called him. It was not a father’s business. He had no right to spy on her like that. But why was he doing it? Why was he having her tailed? How long had she been followed?
A dark and sinister thread curled through her thoughts and nausea filled her stomach.
“Olivia?”
She swallowed against the growing thickness in her throat. “Dad…it’s really late. I have to be up early. Can I call you back at a better time?”
“What happened with Grayson, Olivia?” His tone became insistent.
“I…” She watched Jack’s eyes. “I’ve been meaning to break it off with him for some time, Dad. I was going to do it after he left office, when the pressure was off. But—”
“Grayson is good for you, Olivia. You’re good together.” He hesitated. “Is…is there someone else? Is that the problem?”
Olivia felt ill. She knew what he was doing. He was pressing her for information—about the man in her window. And he was so desperate to know who that man was that he’d called her at this ungodly hour. Jack was right. Her father really was having her followed. Something was going on. Her world was crumbling out from under her feet and she couldn’t even begin to think straight. Just seeing Jack, touching him, was more than she could handle right now.
Her voice began to choke up. “I…I have to go, Dad. I’ll call you later.” Olivia hung up quickly before he could speak again, and she stared numbly at the phone in her hand. She’d cut him off—her own father. She’d lied to him. He’d lied to her.
“I’m sorry, Olivia,” Jack said softly. “I know this can’t be easy.”
Her eyes flashed to his. Well, if that wasn’t the understatement of the night. Olivia sank back on to the sofa as she stared at Jack. He was the key in all this.
If what he said about the president was even vaguely true, why was he here, and not some other FDS operative?
It was because he knew her intimately. He understood the depth of her connection to her father. And he knew how to exploit that.
He also knew Grayson. They were all connected by the past.
A darkness whispered through her mind, an elusive sensation she couldn’t quite pin down. Somehow…this tied back to Elizabeth’s death, to that fateful night on the beach. She could sense it.
Whether she was right or not, it didn’t matter. She needed to know. She needed to know this one thing before she could accept anything else that Jack said.
“Tell me, Jack,” she said quietly. “Tell me what happened on the beach that night. I need to know why you killed Elizabeth.”
“I didn’t.”
The brutal honesty in his voice slammed her square in the chest. She caught her breath, stared at him. His eyes were clear, unblinking. And with a sinking sensation, Olivia wondered if he might be telling the truth.
A dark question whispered, almost elusively, through her mind.
She tried to shake the thought away. And with a shock, she realized she’d been shaking that strange black whispering sensation away for longer than she cared to remember.
“If you didn’t do it, Jack, who did?”
Chapter 4
02:47 Romeo. Olivia Killinger’s apartment.
Manhattan. Wednesday, October 8.
He held her eyes for a long beat, the weight of the years and secrets stretching, hanging silent between them.
“I never wanted to go to that beach party,” he said quietly. “They weren’t my kind of people.”
“Then why did you come?” She could feel herself being drawn down into the dark waters of her subconscious. And she could feel something swimming there, circling like a snake, something she couldn’t quite grasp in the murk.
“I went for your sake. They were your friends, Olivia, and I loved you. I wasn’t going to ask you to turn your back on the people you grew up with.”
“If you loved me so much, Jack, why did you cheat on me?”
Something hard glittered in his eyes, but his voice remained level. “Let’s stick to the facts, shall we. You were drunk that night, remember?”
That was part of her guilt, that she hadn’t been fully aware of what had happened. That she couldn’t recall little details, clues that might lie beyond the reach of her memory.
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