She leaned a hip against the desk, stared out Gray’s window onto the street. “What is it?”
“This,” he said. “I’m sure you’ll recognize the sound.”
Silence followed. Amanda frowned, every instinct warning her this wasn’t a bluff. Thomas was about to do something god-awful. She could almost taste the terror of it.
And then she heard it, and knew she’d been right.
A massive explosion rocked through the phone. It nearly blew out her eardrum, and then the phone went dead. “Oh, Jesus.” She darted a gaze to Mark. “He blew up something. Something huge.”
Everyone stopped, turned their focus to her.
The room went silent.
Within twenty seconds, beepers began sounding. Cell phones began ringing.
Breaths held, everyone hung suspended, waiting, dreading to find out what Kunz had blown up. Amanda had to remind herself to breathe, to blink; had to block out horrific images of innocents being murdered.
Stop it. Stop.
There would be time to regret and to mourn when they knew the damage. Until then, she had to stay centered and focused on Kunz.
Damn him. Damn him straight to hell!
The dreaded call came to Kate. As she listened, her face paled to the gray of ice, and she swallowed hard repeatedly, trying to retain her composure. Silently, she hung up the phone and looked at Amanda. Her voice staggered. “He’s blown up the Texas compound.”
“Wasn’t it clear from the predawn raid?” Mark rose from his desk.
“They delayed it for further reconnaissance,” Kate said. “They were transitioning from raid to rescue when Kunz blew everything up.”
A warning tingle crept up Amanda’s backbone and settled in the base of her skull. “What about the forces we left behind? The guards, etcetera?”
“Field command says it doesn’t look good.” Kate’s solemn eyes mirrored her sober expression. “They don’t yet have a report on casualties, injuries, or damage assessment.”
Colonel Drake shot a hand skyward. “Well, what the hell
are
they reporting, Captain Kane?”
Kate lowered her voice, subtly reminding Colonel Drake not to give Gray ammo to use against her to prove to Shaw that he and not she had been the right person to command the S.A.S.S. “Special Ops is saying Kunz used enough explosives to leave twenty-foot-wide craters. There isn’t a building in the entire compound that hasn’t been reduced to rubble, ma’am. It’s been obliterated.”
“What about Kunz and Reese?” Amanda asked.
“No visual confirmation Reese was at the compound. Kunz was observed. The team leader had a bead on him seconds before the explosion. He’s presumed dead. They’ll look for fragments, but it could be quite a process. A second team member has verified identification on Kunz and says there’s no way anyone got out or survived the blast. Percussion alone would have killed them.”
“Reese will be his natural successor,” Colonel Gray said.
“He will be if Kunz is dead.” Amanda tried to absorb it. Kunz hadn’t sounded like a man about to commit suicide. He had sounded like a man with a diabolical plan. She wasn’t buying it. He’d never kill himself. He thought he was too smart to be beaten. The team members’ sightings complicated things—the honchos would consider him dead and no longer a threat—but Amanda wouldn’t be convinced until she saw his lifeless body. Especially not after that phone call.
Colonel Gray let out a sigh that heaved his shoulders, and confronted Amanda. “Damn it, West. The field just confirmed with dual visual verifications. Kunz is dead.”
She didn’t believe it and she refused to agree and say she did. She looked Gray right in the eye. “I heard, sir.”
“Well, why the hell are you saying
if
he’s dead?” Gray’s face mottled red. He didn’t like Amanda and didn’t bother hiding it. He didn’t like anyone who didn’t fear him. “He’s human, not a demon, and he’s dead. The subject is closed.”
“Colonel Gray.” Colonel Drake’s voice sounded like tempered steel and her expression made steel seem soft. She was highly pissed, and her anger was about to erupt on Gray’s head. “I need to see you in the break room.”
Seemingly oblivious, he turned on her. “Now?” He grunted. “This isn’t the time for one of your bitch sessions, Sally.”
She walked up to him, stood so close that with his every breath, her chest bumped into his, intentionally dominating
his personal space. She dropped her voice. “I said now, David. Now means now, or the next person I speak to about this will be General Shaw.”
Colonel Drake had intended for her comment to be private, but everyone in the office had seen the sparks and knew the ceiling was about to cave. Everyone pretended to be otherwise occupied when in fact they were waiting to see who’d win the battle.
“Fine.” Colonel Gray said, then walked out the door and into the hallway.
“West!” Colonel Drake looked at her with daggers. “You’re in command until I return. Proceed at will.” She strode to the door, her body wiry and tense, then paused and whispered to Kate, “If I’m not back in ten call the base police. He’ll be dead.”
Not sure if she was kidding or a hundred-percent serious, Kate nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Amanda put her money on Drake, then her thoughts turned right back to Kunz. The deaths of his own men. He really had no regard for human life. None.
Shaking, her knees weak, she sat down at the desk she’d been using and drew in three deep, stabilizing breaths. She had to get a firm grip on her emotions. She took in three more gulps of air, filling her lungs, then slowly exhaling.
Calmer, she looked over at Mark. He was on the phone again—they were all working the phones again. He reached into his desk and pulled out a bag then ripped it open. Peanuts?
Peanuts?
A horrible, sinking feeling washed through Amanda and smothered her like a tidal surge. It couldn’t be possible.
It couldn’t!
She stared at him and, as if sensing her gaze, he looked up at her and smiled.
Amanda was torn between ripping his throat out and screaming. Her heart ached, broken. Shattered. But that was
nothing compared to the sense of guilt swamping her. She was drowning. Drowning in guilt and betrayal. This man she had dared to trust, had given so much to last night and again this morning, had betrayed her. She’d honest to God risked caring for and about him, and he had used her.
Used
her!
Fear swelled and joined the guilt and anger and other cascading emotions tumbling inside her. She had to get out of here.
Leaving the desk, she walked out of the office and into the rest room, then over to the sink. She bent double, doused her face with cold water. Her hands were shaking, her stomach bitter and churning.
The door swung open behind her. “Hey.” Kate came in. “What’s wrong, Amanda? You look like the walking dead.”
She forced her emotions down, buried them deep inside that safe where she’d always buried them. Where they couldn’t hurt her. “Get Joan in here. Be discreet.”
“Okay, but why—”
“Damn it, just do it now, Kate! Only Joan.” She swept a hand over her skull, turned back to the sink and squeezed her eyes shut. “Please,” she said, forcing her tone to be civil. “Please, just do it now.”
“Sure.” Kate left, and minutes later returned with Joan.
“Amanda, are you sick?” Joan asked immediately on entering the rest room.
“Yeah, but not the way you think.” She leaned back against the sink. “Did you disclose Mark’s allergies in your briefing tapes?”
“No. I held back that information so I would know I was dealing with him and not a double,” she admitted. “If you recall, he had a three-month absence before I got to the compound. I considered it highly possible that Thomas Kunz had already doubled Mark. I checked the medical records that came over with him and they didn’t list allergies. I asked, and he told me he was allergic to peanuts. I didn’t post it.”
“Well, the one in the office out there—
the one I slept with—
is eating freaking peanuts, Joan.”
“But he can’t—”
“Mark can’t eat peanuts,” Kate insisted. Reality dawned. “It’s his double?” Kate gasped. “Then where’s Mark?”
Now Amanda understood Kunz’s call. He had intended to torment her, and he’d known how to do it. Take the one man she’s dared to trust and arrange for her to discover that he is not the man she believed him to be. That the man she trusted and cared for was…
“Oh, God. Kunz has Mark, doesn’t he?” Joan’s face leaked out its color. “Oh, Amanda!”
“Was he at the compound?” Kate blinked hard. She and Mark were friends and surrogate family.
Shaken, Amanda fisted her hands at her sides. She wanted to kill the man posing as Mark, but he was her lead to finding the real Mark. Her Mark.
She headed to the door.
“Amanda, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to kill that son of a bitch,” she said. “But first, I’m going to find out from him where Kunz has Mark.”
“So he wasn’t at the compound,” Kate said, running to keep up with her.
“No. That would be too easy.” Amanda stormed down the hallway, damning herself for not listening to her instincts. She’d known by his scent something was different. Why had she let her emotions cloud her judgment and override her instincts? She
knew
they were sound.
“Kunz wants Mark to die,” she said. “But he wants me to feel responsible for his death. He wasn’t at the compound. I’d bet on it.”
“So where do you think he is?”
“I don’t know.” Amanda couldn’t think. Her mind was racing yet numb. “Kunz loves mind games, Kate. He always
plays mind games with everyone. He’s playing one with me about Mark. I have the information I need to find him. I just have to figure out what it is.”
“Well, you’d better hurry,” Kate said, worry and fear etching her tone. “Otherwise, by the time you find him—”
“I know.” Amanda’s stomach flipped. Never in her life had she been this pissed off and scared at the same time. “He’ll be dead.”
Kate didn’t insult her by denying it. “Where do we go from here?”
“Go get Colonels Drake and Gray out of the break room and have them and Joan meet me in the vault ASAP. I’ll go straight there and wait. If our fake Mark asks where I am, tell him I started my period and I’m in the rest room cleaning up.” Men had an aversion to discussing periods. Mention them and they cease all questioning, if not all conversation—fast.
“You got it.” Kate paused near the corner, checked to make sure she wouldn’t be overheard. “I’m sorry, Amanda.” Kate dropped her voice low. “I know how hard it was for you to trust him….”
“I don’t trust him. I trust Mark.” Amanda thought about that and her insides went hollow. “At least, I think I do.” If Mark was Mark and not Mark’s double. Irritated and off balance, she dragged her hands over her face. “Just get them to the vault, will you?”
“Sure. Just one thing,” Kate said, her short blond curls framing her face. “You really going to kill him?”
“I don’t know yet.” The uncertainty had Amanda even more upset. “If he was forced to take on the role, then probably not. But if he took on doubling for Mark by choice, you can count on it.”
When? When had he taken on doubling for Mark? After they’d been captured and taken to the Texas compound? Or before?
The office leak.
A bleak certainty settled in on Amanda, weighed down on her shoulders. The double could act in Mark’s stead during his absences from the office; by telephone, when Mark was otherwise occupied. He could—and had—substituted himself for Mark at convenient times and never aroused suspicion. He had been doing all that and more, intermittently ever since Mark’s three-month absence. Mark’s double
was
the leak in the OSI office.
T
he vault was buried in the bowels of Building One.
It had no windows, one door that was time-locked. To enter required top-secret or higher security clearance, an authorized ID badge scan, a biometric iris and fingerprint scan, and successfully crossing the threshold without setting off alarms for carrying metal—including watches and keys—recording devices, or anything, including pens, pencils or a sheet of paper, in your hand. To exit required the same rigid ritual.
Inside, there were four workstations separated by three-foot-high, tabletop dividers. Workers were visible at all times to security monitoring and surveillance, but maintained privacy from any other person in the vault. That was essential to the level of classified information accessed in the vault.
A conference table for secure meetings sat in the center of the room. It was scratched and well used; it’s finish dull and dark. Six chairs surrounded the table. Two people sat at one end, having a private conversation.
On the far side of the vault, a half door was open. A guard stood there, protecting the sensitive files kept on his side of the opening. They were stored in individual, locked safes. Only persons with specific clearances to view the material contained within each safe had the ability to open it. The guard assured no one tried opening one without proper authorization or access. A failed attempt to open any safe resulted in that individual being detained and questioned by agents from the Office of Special Investigations and Intel. There was a zero-tolerance policy in full force and effective at all times. No exceptions.
Amanda looked around at the half-dozen people currently inside the vault. “Everybody out.” She said it twice more, and no one in the vault questioned her. They got up, stowed files in their respective safes, locked them down then filtered through security and left the vault.
Amanda then retrieved Joan and her authorizations to enter from out in the hallway and brought her inside. The guard was instructed to close the top half of his safe room, which sealed him with the files in a soundproof room. Minutes later, Kate came in with Colonels Drake and Gray.
“What the hell is this about, West?” Colonel Gray asked, clearly peeved at being summoned by an officer of lower rank.
“You got something to say to one of my people, Gray, you come through me.” Colonel Drake’s temper had flared as hot as her spiked red hair. She turned to Amanda. “What the hell is this about, West?”
Amanda grunted. “The man in the office isn’t Mark Cross.” Softening blows wasn’t possible under the circumstances, so Amanda bluntly took care of business. “Mark is allergic to peanuts. This guy is eating them. Dr. Foster—” she nodded toward Joan, standing across from her “—withheld that information from Mark’s files when he and his files were brought
to her so she’d have a way to determine whether she was dealing at any time with the real Mark or his double.”
“You programmed his double?” Drake asked.
“No, but I suspected he had one,” Joan said. “So I didn’t note that information. I always do that—keep some individual key fact to myself so that I know if I’m dealing with the actual person or one of Kunz’s doubles.”
Amanda was glad to hear that. “You’ve done this on each of the thirty cases you’ve handled?”
Joan nodded.
“Excellent.” Finally, a decent break.
Colonel Drake frowned. “We can interrogate this guy, but I doubt he’s going to give us anything.”
“He won’t,” Joan assured her.
“We have methods you can’t begin to understand, Dr. Foster.” Colonel Gray lifted his chin, his legs spread in an arrogant, authoritative stance. “We’ll get what we need from him.”
“You have methods that won’t work,” Joan said, disagreeing with him. “No disrespect intended, Colonel, but Thomas Kunz knows your methods and he’s designed his own to counter them. If you want information from Mark’s double, then there’s only one way to get it and that’s Kunz’s way.”
Colonel Drake interceded. “What exactly is Kunz’s way, Dr. Foster?”
Joan shifted her weight from her left to her right foot, clearly uncomfortable and probably fearful she’d be judged harshly for her part in this. “Drug therapy.”
“What kind of drug therapy?” Kate asked.
Lifting her chin, Joan let her regret shine in her eyes, but also her acceptance that she would be held accountable for her actions. “The kind I used routinely at the compound clinic to feed facts directly into the subconscious minds of detainees and doubles so those facts would be recalled by them as
genuine memories. You see, if the programming was effective, Mark’s double doesn’t know he’s a double.”
Like everyone else in the vault, Amanda knew S.A.S.S. had this technology. But there were other factors to be considered—the moral and ethical consequences of actually using that technology. If she hadn’t known Kunz and hadn’t confronted the sadistic side of him herself, she would have been hard-pressed to believe anyone would violate another human being to this extent. But she did know him and she had confronted him, and unfortunately, she had no doubt whatsoever that he had the willingness to use the technology. “This guy honestly thinks he’s Mark?”
“Yes, he does.” Joan assured her. “If he was prepared properly and programmed effectively. And Kunz wouldn’t have inserted him for Mark if he hadn’t been both.”
Colonel Drake pondered for a long moment, her hand on her hip. “So you use this drug therapy and you can get into his real mind and find out—what? What’s there?”
“His real identity, for one thing. His real memories, and any information he has relating to GRID. The double knows what classified information he or she has passed on to GRID and to whom he or she passed it. From what I’ve discovered, intelligence passes directly to either Kunz, Paul Reese, or if its classification is merely top secret or lower, to a select group of subordinates.”
“His double could know where Mark is now?” Amanda asked, her hope igniting despite her warning herself not to let it.
“He could. Some have only minimal information on the GRID organization. It depends on the assigned mission and what the double needs to know to do the job. But a few of them have intimate knowledge of the GRID organization. That’s how I discovered there was a Middle Eastern compound in the tribal area of Afghanistan near the Pakistani bor
der, and that the compound where we were detained was in Texas.”
Colonel Drake nodded to Kate to see if Intel had yet found the exact location of that compound. She moved to security to leave the vault to take care of it immediately, and Colonel Drake turned her attention back to Joan. “What do you need to do this? To find out what he knows?”
“The drugs.” Joan shrugged.
Colonel Gray stepped up. “Dr. Vargus can get you whatever you need. Kate,” he called out to her. “Can you locate him and have him call Joan—secure line?”
“Yes, sir.” Kate snagged control. “Right away.”
For once, Colonel Drake didn’t take exception to Colonel Gray’s interaction with her S.A.S.S. operatives. Amanda was glad to see it.
“Do we need to put guards on Mark’s double?” Gray asked.
Joan looked peaked. Certain she was reeling, Amanda answered for her, to give her a minute to come to terms with everything and her place in the situation. “Not if he thinks he’s really Mark. We do need to covertly monitor him, his calls, anyone he interacts with—everything he does—until we can find out what he knows. He could lead us to some of the others, if he’s given the opportunity to have contact.”
Amanda shifted uneasily on her feet. “Injecting him with drugs falls outside acceptable interrogation boundaries, Colonel Drake. We should get legal in on it.”
“Can’t do that,” she said. “National interests.”
Gray’s eyes gleamed. If Drake didn’t seek higher authority, he would definitely use it against her.
Colonel Drake picked up on Gray’s gleam. “But we can seek counsel,” she relented. “Get General Shaw and Secretary Reynolds for me, Amanda.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Relief shimmered through her. Both men
far outranked Gray. He wouldn’t dare to tangle with either of them. Silently lauding Drake as a strategic wonder, she linked up the call.
Gray muttered under his breath, clearly disappointed. Amanda didn’t spare him a glance. The man had started out low on her respect scale and he was now so far down he had to look up to see a ground-level pit.
Half an hour later, the group had cleared the vault and moved to the infirmary down the hall from the office they’d appropriated in the OSI facility. Dr. Vargus had spoken with Joan, received her instructions and arrived at the infirmary with a black medical case, which he passed to her.
“Dr. Foster.” He nodded. “I prepared three injections to your specifications.”
“Thank you, Dr. Vargus.” Joan took the bag, set it on a cabinet near the sink then opened it. Inside, three syringes full of a milky serum stood in a padded protective sheath. Otherwise, the case was empty. Tension flooded Joan’s face. “What if he refuses to allow me to inject him?” She shot a worried look at Amanda. “What do I do then?”
Amanda tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry. He won’t object. If he does, just back up, and stay out of the way. We’ll neutralize him, and deliver him to you.” She slid a look at Kate, who nodded her agreement.
Colonel Gray cleared his throat, warning them he was coming down the hallway with Mark’s double.
Moments later, the two men walked through the door. Colonel Drake stood to the right of the opening and, after they walked in, she filled the doorway, preparing to block any attempt to exit.
Mark’s double looked at Amanda, more curious than concerned. “What’s going on?”
Joan shot Amanda a look of pure panic.
Amanda stepped in without missing a beat. “Joan thinks we
might have been chemically contaminated while we were at the compound. She’s testing us to see. Harry, Brent, Simon, Jeremy and I have had ours. Now it’s your turn.” Amanda grabbed him by the arm and led him to the patient table. “Sit here.”
He sat down on the table’s edge. “What kind of test?”
“One we need to make sure we haven’t been contaminated with anything that affects our security clearances,” Amanda lied. “Quit being a pain and just bare your arm.”
He rolled his eyes at her and whispered, “Pull in your claws, honey, your PMS is showing.”
“Up yours, honey. This isn’t PMS, it’s my normal sweet disposition.” She smiled and sent Dr. Vargus a conspiratorial look, since he had been gracious enough not to report her memory lapses. “Roll up your sleeve.”
Mark’s double sat down, and Joan injected him in the right arm.
When she pulled out the needle, both colonels quietly left the room, and Amanda sent Joan a look as clear as if she’d spoken the words.
Now what?
Joan responded to it, recalling that Amanda should already be familiar with the process. “We wait ten minutes, Mark, and then run the samples. It’s totally painless.” Joan cooled her look and her tone, pivoted to Amanda. “I’d prefer you not be in the room during testing.”
“Why not?”
“You and Mark have a close relationship—I’m sorry if that was supposed to be private, but you did ask,” Joan reminded her. “Outside stimuli can negatively impact the test results.”
“How could her being in the infirmary skew the results?”
“Think hormones, Captain Cross,” Dr. Vargus said, looking at Mark’s double over the glasses parked on the tip of his nose.
“Oh.” He had the grace to blush.
This, Dr. Vargus would report. Colonel Drake would be panic-stricken at finding out there was a personal relationship involved in this already complicated mess.
Amanda’s stomach soured. “I’ll be in the corridor.”
Minutes later, Kate walked out of the infirmary and joined her. “Joan’s ready for the colonels. I’m going to get them.” Kate walked next door and stepped into the office and out of sight.
Amanda took in a sharp breath. Both Colonels Drake and Gray insisted on being present during the double’s questioning.
When Kate returned, she glanced back to make sure they were alone in the corridor then whispered, “Dr. Vargus is going to tell Colonel Drake about you two, Amanda. Mark asked after you left the room and Vargus said he would disclose everything revealed to him.” Kate looked worried. “I thought you’d want to know in advance.”
“Figures.” Minimal breaks. Absolutely minimal. Seemed she couldn’t catch one with both hands and a net. “I appreciate it, Kate.”
“No problem.”
Colonel Drake walked past them and entered the infirmary. Colonel Gray followed her, then shut the door. Kate cooled her heels in the hallway next to Amanda, who hadn’t had time to sort through her feelings on all this. Exactly how should she feel about Mark? About having had sex with his double? How would the real Mark feel about it?
She imagined, positions reversed, it’d go over about as well as a lead balloon. But she’d honestly believed he was Mark; that should count for something. It was damn humiliating was the problem. She’d never once dared to trust a man, and the first time in her life she made an exception, it was not only a mistake, it was a colossal, deep-and-serious-consequences mistake that had national-security-threat implications
and
drove her nuts.
When you screw up, Princess, you really do it right.
“You okay?” Kate asked, her foot propped and hands pressed flat against the wall behind her.
“Freaking fabulous.” Amanda tried but failed to keep the sarcasm and bitterness out of her voice. “In my position, who wouldn’t be?”
Thirty minutes later, Joan, Colonel Drake and Colonel Gray joined Amanda and Kate in the hallway outside the infirmary. Mark’s double had been left inside under the care of Dr. Vargus.
Colonel Gray asked the first question. “Is he helping us only because I’ve threatened to have him tried for treason, or because Kunz has set a trap for us?”
Joan schooled her expression, feigning patience. “He’s cooperating because he has no choice. It’s part of his programming. With all due respect, Colonel, your threat was useless, and if there’s a trap involved, he doesn’t know it.”