Black-Market Body Double (S.A.S.S. Book 1) Read online

  She smiled. “You do know how to charm a woman.”

  “Shut up and kiss me, Amanda. I’m dying here.”

  “That was...” Mark’s thready voice trailed.

  “Intense?” she suggested, too liquid-boned to actually move. Lost in a fog of feelings, she couldn’t grasp a more explicit descriptor. Intense didn’t begin to describe what had happened between them, but nothing else did, either. It was a kiss. Just a kiss.

  Come on, Amanda. Admit it. At least to yourself. There was nothing just about it.

  He stroked her hair, her face. “I was thinking explosive, but intense will do.”

  Nothing just about it, she thought, acknowledging the fact. “For me, too.” She hugged the car door and eyed her gun. “Do you think the adrenaline push of the escape had anything to do with it?”

  “What escape?” he said, telling her succinctly it hadn’t mattered a whit. “I wish I could say it did, but I’d have to lie and I swear I’ll never lie to you.”

  “I didn’t think so, either, but I’m a little fogged. Thought I’d better check with someone in their right mind.”

  “Don’t look this way, honey. Not yet.”

  She turned her head and smiled out the window. “You know I’m crazy about you.”

  “Are you really?” He reached over and clasped her hand.

  “Yeah.” She rocked back and looked up at him. “But break my heart and I’ll cripple you.”

  Mark smiled. “You really know how to capture a man’s devotion.”

  “Okay, so I’m a rookie at sweet talk. I haven’t had much practice.” She pecked a kiss to his chin. “But I could have said I’d kill you, and I didn’t.”

  “Cripple, kill.” He laughed. “Yeah, I see the distinction.”

  She walloped him on the shoulder. “Well, don’t you have something to say to me?”

  His eyes twinkled, but he didn’t smile. “You cripple me and I’ll kill you.”

  “Now, there’s a real sweet-talking pro.” She feigned a sigh. “Cross, you leave me breathless.”

  “Not yet—” he rolled over and caressed her “—but I intend to one day.”

  “One day?” Amanda quirked an eyebrow at him.

  “If a kiss impacts us like it did, imagine…” He tilted his head. “Nothing more until the doors open.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “No, actually I’m not. I’m dead serious.” He sighed. “This is new to me, too. I don’t want hormones muddying things up.”

  How she was supposed to react to that, she had no clue. It confused her. A lot with him confused her. But down deep, she thought she might kind of like that.

  The Office of Special Investigations hummed with activity.

  Colonel Drake sat at a desk in the center of the wide room, issuing orders to Kate and talking on two phone lines at once. Amanda knew that one was a secure-link teleconference with several Middle Eastern ambassadors. Amanda surmised the colonel was looking for or receiving information on potential GRID-compound locations.

  Colonel Gray, Mark’s commander, had taken up a station at the desk by the only window in the room—prime real estate, windows—and was relaying information from Joan to a Special Operations officer, apparently in the field in Texas. The commander had put the thrust of the raid on hold for Intel coordination, and the joint forces pounded the dusty dirt in wait mode, anticipating further orders any moment. From the chatter, it was going to be a while.

  Mark sat in his cubicle on the far side of the operations center. He, too, was on the phone, trying to get the two men in his unit charged with murder cleared. It grated at him that for M.C. it would be posthumously. General Shaw had agreed that Sloan could be released from jail and the charges against him dropped. And while M. C. Harding had participated in Mark and Amanda’s abduction at the jail, his actions had been under extreme duress. Since M.C. was dead, General Shaw had agreed, and Secretary Reynolds had concurred, that Harding’s daughter be told that her father had not killed her mother, that they had found the man guilty of the murder, and though his name couldn’t yet be released, she could rest assured that he would be tried and convicted for the murder. It was a compassionate act on Secretary Reynolds’s and General Shaw’s part.

  Kunz would be convicted of those murders. Amanda took immense satisfaction in knowing and believing that.

  “Amanda,” Kate called out from her desk. “You need to take this call. He says he’s Paul Reese.”

  Her skin crawled and her stomach tightened. She walked to the nearest desk, which happened to be the one next to Mark’s, and reached for the phone. Before lifting the receiver, she looked over at Kate. “Trace it. See if we can pinpoint his location.”

  “All of the calls are being traced,” Mark reminded her. “We have a leak in the office, remember?”

  She did remember, and picked up the phone, doing her best to keep her voice steady. “Captain West.”

  “I’m impressed, Captain. I would have bet against you on escaping.”

  Kunz. Her heart rate doubled. She flagged Mark, mouthed that it was Thomas Kunz not Paul Reese on the phone. “You knew I’d try, Thomas. You even said you did.”

  “Try, yes. Succeed, no.” He let out a little laugh. “But just how successful have you been? Do you know how many doubles have been inserted? Where? And for what purposes? Ah, you don’t have any idea, do you?”

  “It’s easy enough to figure out the ultimate purpose,” she said. “You want what you’ve always wanted—to destroy America. Your objective is not a big mystery.”

  “They’ll tell you you’ve won. I’ll let them all believe it for a time, until other matters occupy their minds and their focus shifts. But I want you to know that you haven’t won, Amanda. I have. You can’t stop me anymore. None of you can stop me anymore.”

  “Everyone can be stopped,” she insisted, “including you.” He laughed, deep and rich and so full that she knew he was genuinely amused. In his mind, he couldn’t be stopped, and he planned to prove it and to make a fool of her for trying to stop him.

  “I wanted to share that with you,” he said. “So you never have a false sense of security about where we stand.” He dropped his voice, hot and sultry. “I own you, Amanda. I’ll always own you.”

  Owned her? No man owned her or ever would own her. She fought to keep revulsion out of her voice. He’d just feed on it. ‘How reassuring. Thanks so much. I can’t tell you—”

  “I’m not done yet,” he cut her off, his voice flat and cold. “I wanted to share something else with you, too.”

  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 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. His day would come!

  The dreaded call came from Darcy 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 cl
ear from the predawn raid?” Mark rose from his desk.

  “They delayed it for further reconnaissance,” Kate Kane 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 told Darcy 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.”

  “It’s been under constant surveillance. What’s the prelim?”

  “No preliminary report yet. They’re waiting for the smoke to clear.”

  Colonel Drake shot a hand skyward. “Well, someone out there has eyes on. What specifically are they reporting now, 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 still 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 to confirm it, but it will 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 and had tested his DNA and run his biometrics. And assured herself none had been substituted out in their data base systems. Especially not after that phone call.

  Colonel Gray let out a sigh that heaved his shoulders, and confronted Amanda. “Get real, 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. “So I heard, sir.”

  “Well, why 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 annoyed, 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 gripe 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 and uttered the only sensible response. “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. Taking in a series of three more gulps of air, she filled her lungs, then slowly exhaled.

  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 shared so much with about matters that cut so deep and close to the bone she rarely permitted herself to think about them much less talk about them, 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 restroom, 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, took a look at Amanda’s face and halted. “What’s wrong? You look like the walking dead.”

  She forced her emotions down, buried them deep inside that internal safe where she’d always buried them. Where they couldn’t hurt her. “Get Joan in here. Be discreet.”

  “Okay, but why—”

  “Don’t ask, just do it now, Kate! Only Joan.” Amanda 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 that rocked my world with a kiss—is eating freaking peanuts, Joan.”

  “But he can’t—”

  Kate burst in through the door. Her eyes wild, she rushed out in an elevated whisper. “He’s eating peanuts. Mark can’t eat peanuts,” Kate gasped. Reality dawned. “It’s his double?” Kate let out a guttural sound. “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.<
br />
  “Amanda, what are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to kill that man,” 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, cursing 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 upset 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?”