Night Of No Return

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Southern California, U.S.A., September 7

He didn’t want to die.

It was a disconcerting thing for a man like Alex to learn at the age of thirty-four. He sat at one of the wrought-iron tables on the western terrace, dripping with sweat as he watched the southern California sky turn gaudy with sunset over the darkening Pacific Ocean. If the air could have held one dram more of that eye-burning orange, he thought, he’d be able to pluck it like a guitar string.

Color. Life. He drank them both in, relishing the way the muscles in his thighs jumped and the burn in his calves. His heartbeat pleased him. It was almost back to normal, though he’d just finished a five-mile run in the scrubby mountains surrounding the resort. If he wasn’t quite at the peak of conditioning yet, he was well enough. His body had done everything he’d asked of it. He was fit again, ready for assignment.

And alive. He was so damned glad to be alive. The depth of his gratitude troubled him because it was rooted in fear, the same fear that shredded his sleep all too often.

He was the only guest on the large flagstone terrace at this hour. The heat was keeping most people inside, or in the pool. A waiter had brought him a glass and a pitcher of ice water when he’d first reached the terrace. The staff here at Condor Mountain Resort and Spa knew him; he’d stayed here before, though never for as long as he’d been here this time.

Too damned long, he thought. He needed to get back into action. Once he did, his fear would lessen. It had to. He couldn’t stand to live a timid life.

The glass of ice water he picked up was as sweaty as he was. He held it to his forehead, enjoying the shock of cold. The air was dry, smelling of dust and creosote…yet he could have sworn he smelled lilacs.

That was her fragrance. He frowned.

“Brooding again, Alex?”

The voice belonged to another woman—not the one he associated with lilacs. Alex looked over his shoulder and smiled, pleased with the company. He was a man who enjoyed people. Companionship, like sex, came easily to him. If there was a part of him that remained sealed off, untouchable no matter whom he was with, he’d lived with that too long to take much notice of it.

He especially enjoyed tall, slim-hipped women who wore shorts that showed off their legs. That the woman crossing the patio to him now was a fellow agent added to the pleasure of her company. “Hey, I don’t brood. I’m enjoying the sunset.”

“You do look like you’re having a good time melting. You actually like this heat, don’t you?”

“Heat is good. Come sit down and we’ll talk about it. There’s body heat, for example…”

Alicia Kirby pulled out the chair across from him. She was twenty-four, brilliant, and looked, he thought, like a forward on a high school basketball team, with her long, elegant bones and that boyish cap of auburn hair. When she shook her head, that pretty hair bounced with the motion.

Pretty, yes, but it wasn’t a long, rippling fall of hair as black as the desert sky, and smelling like lilacs…. Dammit. He had to stop thinking about a woman he’d never see again.

“Life must be painfully dull,” Alicia said, “if you have to flirt with me to add a hint of danger to your humdrum existence. No more than a hint, of course. East doesn’t take you any more seriously than I do.”

He put his hand over his heart. “I live for danger, but flirting with a beautiful woman is a different sort of spice.”

The edges of her high cheekbones took on a faint pink tinge, which pleased him. Alicia might not take him seriously—hell, he didn’t want her to, she was married to a man he considered a friend—but she enjoyed a compliment as much as the next woman. He had a feeling she hadn’t heard enough of them.

“Beautiful?” She managed to look skeptical despite her pink cheeks. “That’s laying it on pretty thick. I feel like roadkill.”

He straightened, alarmed. “Maybe you should go back inside. In your condition, this heat—”

“Not you, too! What is it about pregnancy that turns halfway sensible men into nervous idiots?”

“The fact that we can’t do it, I guess. Is East making a pest of himself again?” He liked the idea that the legendary East Kirby—legendary in some circles, anyway—had been reduced to a nervous wreck by his new wife’s pregnancy.

“Why do you think I came out here? I’m escaping.” She tilted her head. “Just like you.”

“Uh-uh. I might like to escape, but I’m stuck here until I hear from our mutual friend. Not that there’s anything wrong with your hospitality,” he added. Alicia and East ran Condor Mountain Resort and Spa for fun, profit, and the benefit of the occasional SPEAR agent in need of rest and rehab. Like Alex.

Though SPEAR had been founded by Abraham Lincoln, its existence had always been shrouded in such secrecy that few people knew it existed, even at the upper levels of government. Technically, SPEAR stood for Stealth, Perseverance, Endeavor, Attack and Rescue. In a deeper sense, the organization stood for much more. Honor, above all. Sacrifice. Service. Values that a confused, cynical world didn’t always recognize, but which the men and women of SPEAR understood and were willing to live for.

Or to die for.

Alicia had a skeptical look on her face. “So all that running you do is purely for the sake of fitness? Not because you’re trying like crazy to get away from something?”

Alex fought off a frown. Behind that youthful face of Alicia’s was an irritatingly observant woman. He took another drink of water. “Running is a great way to get back in shape. I’ve been using the gym, too.”

“Yes, but you’ve been running in the afternoons. In temperatures of ninety degrees or better. That seems like an odd thing for a man who nearly died in the desert to do.”

But it wasn’t heat he feared. It was darkness. Death was dark. That thick and sticky darkness clung to him still, clogging his dreams…sending him running through the sun-soaked hills. He saluted her with his glass. “Hey, I can take the heat. After all, I grew up in a part of the world that makes southern California seem air-conditioned.”

“You nearly died there, too.”

She was definitely beginning to get on his nerves. “It was a knife that nearly did me in, not the desert. Have you heard from Jeff lately?”

For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to accept the change of subject, but after favoring him with another thoughtful look, she spoke of the young man who was East’s adopted son. Jeff was Alicia’s age, a decade younger than East or Alex, and he’d recently been through an ordeal much worse than what Alex had endured. Not that Alex knew the details—SPEAR agents might discuss an operation among themselves in a general way, but specifics were shared only on a need-to-know basis. Apparently Jeff had come out of it okay.

The resilience of youth. Alex wanted to think that was why Jeff had rebounded from his experience so quickly. But maybe Jeff was just the better man. Stronger. Not given to waking up in the middle of the night with the icy sweat of terror drying on his skin.

Alex drank his water as he listened to Alicia talk about her new stepson. Jeff was in Los Angeles after spending some R & R time at another SPEAR operation in Arizona. His experience had propelled him to enlist in SPEAR, which was now covering the last of his med school. He’d just started his residency in the ER of a busy Los Angeles hospital.

“I don’t expect we’ll hear much from him for a while,” Alicia said. “He plans on specializing in trauma medicine with an emphasis on on-site treatment.” She smiled. “When he isn’t working, he’ll be sleeping.”

“You’re probably right.” Alex heard the door to the resort open and glanced that way.

A tall man with shaggy brown hair stood in the doorway, one eyebrow raised. “Trying to make time with my wife again, Alex?”