Mission: Irresistible

In Frank’s defense, it had to be said that he hesitated, but there was a dark gleam in his eyes when he answered.

“If I have to.”

David stared into the barrel of the gun, unable to believe that his fate in life was to come all this way across the world only to be killed by his brother’s hand.

“You’ve gone crazy,” David pleaded. “Is this what you really want?”

“What I want, is to be rich,” Frank said, and took aim.

Everything afterward seemed to happen in slow motion. Frank’s shot searing the back of David’s shoulder as he dove for a dead man’s gun. Pulling the trigger as he rolled. The water leaking through the roof and falling on his left cheek at the same moment that Frank staggered and fell. The smell of gunpowder and mud as David crawled to his feet. Standing motionless beneath the leak in the roof while the raindrops mixed with tears, then throwing his head back and letting out a gut-wrenching roar of anguish.

Time passed. The rain had stopped. People were moving about and it was only a matter of time before someone found them, and yet David couldn’t bring himself to move. It was the sound of a Huey flying overhead that brought him out of his trance.

He staggered to an alcove at the back of the room, dragged out a can of gasoline and began scattering it all over the walls and then the floor, making sure that the men and the money were saturated as well. Then he moved to the doorway, cautiously peering out. No one was in sight. Unable to look at his dead brother’s face, he struck a match and gave it a toss, slipped out of the hut and ran.

He never looked back.

“Here you go Mister.”

Startled by the sound of an unfamiliar voice, David Wilson jerked, and the memories sank back into the hell that was his past. He looked down at the young man before him, and at the handful of miniature American flags he was carrying.

“You’re a vet, aren’t you?” the kid asked.

David hesitated, then shrugged. Admitting that much posed no threat. He nodded.

The kid beamed. “I knew it! I can tell. My dad’s a vet. He fought in Desert Storm.” Then he pulled a flag from the bunch in his hand and thrust it into the man’s palm. “Take it, Mister. You earned it.”

David’s fingers curled around the small, wooden staff as the kid disappeared. He stared at the colors so long that they began to run together in his mind. When he finally looked up, the glitter in his eyes was no longer moisture and the cut of his jaw was set and firm.

Earned it? He hadn’t earned anything but a heartache and a tombstone in Arlington Cemetery. To become the man he was now, he’d had to die, presumably in the line of duty. But nevertheless, David Wilson was dead. The man he’d become was a solitary man. He had no one he could call friend, no identity that mattered, no ties to a community or church. A faceless man who, some years back had sworn, once again, to give his life for his country.

Now, they called him Jonah and only two people on the face of the earth knew his real identity. As the anonymous director of SPEAR, the most elite counterespionage team ever to be assembled on behalf of the United States of America, Jonah lived life in the shadows, communicating with his operatives when necessary by coded messages, a cassette delivered with an order of pizza, cryptic telegrams, and occasionally, nothing more than a voice on the phone.

SPEAR, first founded by Abraham Lincoln himself during the Civil War, was an acronym for Stealth, Perseverance, Endeavor, Attack and Rescue. It was an organization that existed in the shadows of society, and its existence, the best kept secret in the free world. Headed throughout the years by mysterious men known only as Jonah, the succession of Jonahs who had given their lives to their country were the unrecognized heroes of the past. To the world, they were dead. If they lived long enough to retire, they were given an entirely new identity and left to face their twilight years alone, without benefit of old friends or family.

In a few years, he, too, would retire and another Jonah would step into his shoes. Dying for his country had seemed an odd sort of justice, considering the fact that he’d taken his only brother’s life.

He watched the kid running across the greens, trying to remember if he’d ever been that innocent. He then snorted beneath his breath and shoved the flag into his pocket and started toward his car. There was no place in his life for sentiment or regret.

Those years of retirement were, however, looming closer than he might have liked. Someone was trying to ruin him. Someone wanted him branded a traitor in the very worst way, and despite his access to even the most classified of records, he had been unable to find even a trace of a guilty party. It was, without doubt, the worst thing that had happened to him since Vietnam. It could be anyone, even a disgruntled operative at SPEAR who, by some stroke of fate, had discovered his identity. He was at the point of admitting he needed help, that doing this alone was no longer an option. But there was a problem. He didn’t know who to trust.

Chapter 1

One week later: The Northern California coast.

A pair of seagulls perched on the railing surrounding the large, flagstone terrace of the Condor Mountain Resort and Spa. The view, like the resort, was a magnificent complement to the area overlooking the Pacific. The gulls gave an occasional flap of their wings as they squawked between themselves in bird speak while keeping watch for a dropped bit of someone’s breakfast pastry. Waiters moved among the tables serving coffee and juice, while others carried freshly made foods to the hot-and-cold buffet that was set up near the door. The idle chatter of the guests as they breakfasted was diluted by the soft breeze and the wide open spaces.

It was an idyllic scene, typical for the resort, but there was nothing typical about Easton Kirby, the man who ran it. Tall and powerfully built, he looked more like a professional athlete than a business man. His shoulders strained against the soft knit texture of his white Polo shirt while navy slacks accentuated the length of leg and muscle. His hair was a shade lighter than his tan, and more than one female guest at the hotel had commented about his resemblance to the actor, Kevin Costner, although his nose had more of a Roman shape to it after having twice been broken. He often smiled, but there were shadows within the glitter of his eyes that congeniality could not disguise. He was a man who lived with secrets he would never be able to share and being a former operative for SPEAR was secondary to the fact that he considered himself a murderer.

That it had happened in the line of duty during a high-speed chase had not cleared his conscience. The teenager who’d come out of nowhere on a bicycle and right into the path of East’s oncoming car had been a boy in his prime, having just won a four-year scholarship to a prestigious college, and an honor student throughout his high school years. The headphones he’d been wearing had blocked out the sound of the oncoming cars, and according to the police who’d investigated the accident, he had also bicycled across the highway from the hill above without even trying to stop, obviously trying to beat the traffic. Despite East having been cleared of wrongdoing, the guilt of the act was a hair shirt on his soul. What was done, was done. The kid was dead. End of story.

Afterward, it had been all East could do not to put a gun to his own head. Night after night he kept reliving the sight of the young man’s face spotlighted in his headlights, then the impact of flesh against metal and the scent of burning rubber as he’d tried to stop.

SPEAR had sent him through counseling, then to Condor Mountain to rehabilitate. But it didn’t take. For three months he had lived in the room that they’d given him, refusing to interact with anyone except on a need- to basis, hiking the mountains at night and trying to purge his soul. And then one dark night during one of his nightly forays, he met Jeff. Fourteen years old and a professional runaway from the welfare system, the kid was as hard and wild as they came. East was drawn to the youth in spite of himself, recognizing the boy’s sullen anger as a result of fear rather than meanness. The bond they formed was slow, but it surprised them both. Within a year, Easton Kirby had a whole new role in life. At the age of twenty-five, he became a father to a fourteen-year-old boy, and Jeff was no longer homeless.

A short while later, SPEAR named East manager of the hotel where he’d been sent to recuperate. His file at SPEAR was purged and his days as a counterespionage agent were over. But that hadn’t ended his ties with the organization. Condor Mountain Resort and Spa was a part of the Monarch Hotel Chain—a legitimate corporation owned and operated by SPEAR, and available to agents on the verge of burnout.

Occasionally East saw acquaintances from his days of active duty, but only if they were sent to the Condor Resort for some R and R after the close of a particularly grueling case. Yet the tie that had bound them together before had been severed by time and distance. That part of his life was over. He existed in a come-and-go world with his adopted son as his only family and it was just the way he liked it. Only now and then was he haunted by nightmares, and when he was, he focused instead on the doctor Jeff was studying to become, rather than the horrors of his own past. It should have been enough, but the absence of a woman in his life often left him with a rootless, empty feeling. Yet how could he live his own life to the fullest when he’d taken the life of an innocent man?

The two seagulls which been sitting on the railing took flight as a waiter walked past. A few moments later, Easton Kirby walked out on the patio, causing more than a few female hearts to flutter, as well. He nodded and smiled as he moved through the area, but his focus was on the couple at the far table. They’d checked in last night after he’d gone to bed, but his staff had informed him they were here. He made it a habit to personally greet all honeymooners, and from the way the pair was cuddling through their morning meal, their stay at Condor Mountain was off to a good start. He couldn’t help thinking how blessed they were. Their whole lives were ahead of them, while his was stalled in a guilt-ridden limbo.

Before he reached their table, his cell phone rang. He moved to a guest-free area of the patio to take the call.

“Hello.”

“Kirby.”

It had been years since East had heard that voice, but there was no mistaking it. Instinctively, he moved off the terrace and down the steps toward the beach, putting distance between himself and the rest of the world.

“Jonah?”

“Yes.”

East reached the first landing, and sat. Something told him he needed to be immobile when he took this call.

“How have you been?” Jonah asked.

East’s belly knotted. “Fine, but I’m assuming you know that, sir, or you wouldn’t be calling.”

A slow intake of breath was all East heard. He waited for Jonah to continue. Chit-chat was not something one did with this man. Finally, Jonah spoke.

“I need to ask a favor of you,”

East’s eyes widened. Favor? Jonah didn’t ask favors, he gave orders.

“Sir?”

“I have a problem—a big problem,” Jonah said. “Someone is trying to destroy me.”

East’s heart skipped a beat and he stood abruptly, as if bracing himself for an unspeakable blow.

“Destroy you?”

“It’s complicated,” Jonah said. “Suffice it to say that things are surfacing within high places that make it look as if I’m a war criminal, as well as a traitor to my country.” There was a moment of hesitation before he continued. “It’s not true.”

East’s eyes narrowed. “Telling me that was unnecessary. That much I know.”

Again, there was a hesitation, then Jonah spoke. “I thank you for that. But the problem still exists and despite my unlimited…uh, shall we say access…to confidential material, I have been unable to trace the source. For all I know, it could be within SPEAR itself.”