Her Hidden Truth

“So who am I and where am I going?”

Lucas and Casey exchanged a look. The tension started in Vince’s gut, but swiftly worked its way up his back to his shoulders. He didn’t like that look. It could only mean trouble right up front.

In this business, starting off on the wrong foot or one step behind could be a very bad thing.

“Port Charlotte, Virginia,” Lucas said in answer to his second question. “It’s a college town off Highway 1 between Woodbridge and Fredericksburg. Yu and his team share a large rental house there. Three of the group are enrolled in the university. In their spare time they’ve been training in the art of surgical demolitions. We know how Yu is getting his orders. We just can’t catch Kovner in the act. We need to tie him to WSA.”

Vince wasn’t the top demo expert in Mission Recovery but he was pretty damned good. There had to be some other reason he’d been chosen. His director’s next words told him the question was written on his face.

“We selected you for this mission,” Casey told him in answer to his unspoken inquiry, “because we need your particular multilingual skills in the event it becomes an issue and we need someone who can handle the demo aspect of the assignment.”

Vince was fluent in seven languages. But he knew that wasn’t the only reason he’d been chosen. All Specialists were multilingual. The tension radiating between the two men seated across from him was too intense for it to be so simple.

“The CIA operative involved is the first to field test a new memory implant,” Lucas went on. “The purpose of the implant is to keep an operative out of trouble if the cover is in jeopardy. When the implant is activated the operative’s own memory is suppressed and effectively replaced by the cover profile in the implant. Nothing, not drugs or torture, will induce the operative into confessing, since he or she becomes the cover profile.”

“That’s a new one.” Vince was familiar with the CIA’s reputation for experimental projects. “So when the implant is activated, the Company knows the operative is in jeopardy?” Vince also knew that CIA operatives were closely monitored. They’d been using tracking devices for years now.

Lucas nodded. “Since this is the first time they’ve even had a lead on this so-called World Security Agency, they don’t want to lose this operative. If the mission is salvageable, they want it completed. But if it’s not, your job is to try to get the operative out safely. The implant, if functioning properly, is only temporary. Time is very short.”

Vince nodded his understanding. “Sounds easy enough. Tell me about the operative.”

“Katrina Moore. Age twenty-seven.” Lucas ticked off the details. “She’s been with the Company since being rejected by the SEALs four years ago.”

Kat. Things went very quiet inside Vince as the memories from four years ago came flooding back on a tidal wave. Conflicting emotions tugged at him…renewed the regret that never really went away.

“The two of you have a history?” Casey said, no doubt reading Vince’s startled expression or somehow having prior knowledge. But that was impossible. No one knew…

Hesitant to admit something so intensely private, Vince finally nodded once. “Yeah, kind of. I was one of her instructors in BUDS.” Both men knew that BUDS—Basic Underwater Demolition SEALs—was the most rigorous personnel training outfit in the Navy.

“Which she failed,” Lucas remarked.

Failed wasn’t the right word. Kat had been doomed from the word go. The elite Navy SEALs didn’t want women among their ranks. No matter if she was good enough. Kat was as good as any of the men, better than some, but that fact hadn’t changed the bottom line. The powers that be had drummed up an acceptable reason to performance drop her and it was done. She’d felt betrayed when she hadn’t made the cut.

She’d felt betrayed by Vince.

And rightly so. Though his vote alone wouldn’t have made any real difference in the end, he’d caved and followed the antiquated rules. He’d voted against her…despite what he thought…despite what they’d shared.

“Yeah,” he said in answer to Lucas’s prodding. “But it wasn’t because she wasn’t good enough,” he clarified quickly. “She was a woman. That was the only reason.”

“Do you think she holds that failure against you?” Casey asked.

“Not entirely,” he admitted after a tense moment. “She knows it was not my decision alone.” He looked Casey straight in the eye. “But she has other reasons to resent me that are far more personal than that.”

Lucas laughed, but the sound held no humor. “The two of you had a thing going during training and you betrayed her?” He shook his head. “Son, haven’t you ever heard of the term ‘fraternization’? They could have hung you for that. She could have ruined your career.”

But she hadn’t. The cold reality of that truth sank all the way to Vince’s bones. She could have had her revenge. What he’d done had been wrong in more ways than one. He’d disgraced himself, whether anyone else ever knew it or not—had allowed a weakness. For that reason he had walked away from his hard-earned career. Because he hadn’t been worthy of it any longer.

A full year later Lucas Camp had knocked on his door and offered him a way to redeem himself professionally. But nothing had assuaged his conscience where Kat was concerned. There had been no way to make that right.

Until now…maybe.

“That’s right,” he snapped. “I screwed her over and she hated me for it.” He swallowed, the effort difficult. Those demons haunted him…made him regret a great deal more than either of their failed career moves. “I can’t say that I blame her, but it’s done. I can’t change it now. And she didn’t have to end my career. I made an unforgivable mistake. I resigned because of it.”

“So your personal reasons for leaving your military career were more personal than you led us to believe. This should make things interesting,” Lucas said as he flipped through what was probably Kat’s file.

“Maybe you’d better pick someone else for this assignment,” Vince suggested tightly. “Not that I don’t want to do it, but Kat—Miss Moore—might be more receptive to someone else. My presence might actually put her in more jeopardy. I don’t want that.” He wouldn’t do anything that might hurt her. No way.

“That’s not possible,” Lucas said succinctly.

The tension in Vince’s gut ratcheted up another notch or two. “Why not?” he asked—demanded actually. “Sending me in could be a big mistake.”

“There’s a back door built into the implant,” Lucas explained grimly. “For this very scenario. To facilitate a retrieval, the implant was designed with what the Company calls a Romeo option. All you have to do is say the code phrase and Katrina will instantly recognize you as the lover with whom she’s still involved.”

Vince held out both hands stop-sign fashion. “Wait just a minute.” He dropped his hands and exhaled a heavy breath. “I’m telling you the woman hates me. I don’t think any implant is going to change that deeply ingrained emotion. The second she sees my face, the mission will be blown all to hell.”

Lucas pointed a no-arguments look in Vince’s direction. “Maybe she does hate you. But that’s neither here nor there, Ferrelli. The fact of the matter is that she used you for her Romeo profile. You’re the only man for this mission. If Katrina Moore was willing to bet her life on you, then who are we to dispute the issue?”

Vince felt stunned.

Lucas leaned forward slightly when Vince remained speechless. “She described you down to the very last detail.” He lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “I think maybe her memory was a little dim in some areas.”

Vince didn’t find any of it amusing. His concern for Kat’s safety mushroomed in tandem with his dread, but he didn’t ask a single question while Lucas rattled off the rest of the details of the mission. The whole thing felt like a dream…not necessarily a bad dream, but one that made him extremely uneasy.

Payback, Vince decided. It couldn’t be anything else. A second or two later his mind had wrapped fully around the concept. It was the perfect chance for Kat to get even with him. A part of him wanted to think otherwise, but he knew better. He’d hurt her too badly. He would never forget the look in those big green eyes when she learned that she’d been performance dropped from the graduating class for no real reason.

She’d left and he hadn’t seen her since. But he’d thought about her now and then…and every moment in between.

He’d thought about her every day for four years, but he’d stopped trying to keep tabs on her after she joined the Company, the revered CIA.

One way or another he wouldn’t let her down this time.

NEARLY AN HOUR LATER the limo braked to a stop next to Vince’s Harley in the parking lot of the Lady Liberty Lounge. The place was still jumping, the lot still overflowing and the music thumping all the louder through the thin exterior walls. Vince wondered vaguely if the blonde had made up with her flyboys.

In the last fifty minutes they’d discussed one-by-one the team members with whom Kat was involved. Vince now had a clear mental picture of each. Only one, Philip Yu himself, worried Vince.

“Any questions?” Lucas asked, studying Vince closely.

The guy was way too smart and read people far too easily. Lucas recognized that Vince had a real problem with this mission, but he’d do what he had to.

Retrieving Kat was priority one. Though, technically, salvaging the mission was supposed to be his first goal, this one was personal. Even Casey had to see that. They couldn’t expect anything else under the circumstances. Casey didn’t have to say it and he wouldn’t. Thomas Casey was a man of few words. No one really knew him, except maybe Lucas.

“I think I’ve got it.” Vince reached for the door handle. He’d pack and get on the road before dawn. He wanted to see firsthand as soon as possible that Kat was safe.

“Don’t try to intercept the target until she’s alone,” Casey suggested. “We have no way of knowing her status. She may fully believe she’s the enemy she was assigned to infiltrate. That would be the best case scenario. If,” he went on grimly, “the implant has malfunctioned and the code doesn’t trigger the right response, you could be putting yourself in serious jeopardy.”

Vince met that intense blue gaze. “I won’t approach while she’s with the others unless there’s no other window of opportunity.”

Casey dipped his head in acknowledgment. “If too much risk is involved, back off. We’ll send in an entire team. The CIA won’t like it, but they’ll live with it.”