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As if in a fog, she checked the rooms on either side, afraid she’d been confused. Finally, she asked a nurse where Sean had been taken. The young woman checked her charts and then placed a hand on TJ’s arm. That’s when she was told Sean had been taken to the mortuary.
TJ stumbled on the path. Fewer people jogged on the dirt, choosing to keep their running shoes clean on the pavement. TJ preferred to be closer to the water and the relative solitude she could find in a city teeming with people.
The nightmares were only just beginning to fade and she liked to think she was getting her life back on track.
But then she’d gotten word from her contact in the CIA that the terrorist attack on the U.S. embassy hadn’t been the responsibility of Prime Minister Abediayi’s political opponents. Nor had it been any of the terrorist organizations claiming credit. The CIA suspected the death and destruction had been bought and paid for by an American citizen and they were digging into the case, more determined than ever to discover the organization or individual responsible.
Her mind had a hard time latching on to the news. An American had arranged for the explosion that killed Congressman Haddock, several legislative assistants, the American ambassador to Dindi and the Dindi prime minister, among too many others. The blast had also killed Sean McNeal, an innocent businessman.
TJ swallowed hard on the bile rising in her throat. With so many terrorist groups killing Americans, she found it hard to believe one of her own countrymen had done this terrible thing. The weight of the knowledge pressed down on her shoulders, slowing her feet until she came to a complete stop. She stared out over the canal, neither seeing the people on the other side, nor the rowers paddling canoes and kayaks along its smooth water.
All she could see was the glint of light in Sean’s eyes as he bent to kiss her. She could still feel the touch of his hand on her bare skin, smoothing down her back and lower. For a man she’d only known two weeks, he’d left an indelible mark. A mark she’d fought hard to erase.
She turned and headed back to her apartment, continuing along the dirt towpath. She caught glimpses of people on the parallel paved path through the trees. One in particular sailed past her, his dark hair and tall build striking a chord of familiarity. Her heart leaped inside her chest and she had to talk herself down from the jolt.
Because she was thinking about Sean, had her mind superimposed his image on the man jogging the other trail? Despite reasoning, she picked up her pace to match that of the man’s. Ahead, the two trails converged and she’d get a better view of him. Not that he was Sean. Sean died in Dindi. They’d taken him to the mortuary in the hospital’s basement and shipped him out even before TJ could visit the body for confirmation. All the paperwork had been in order and his family had requested that his remains be shipped immediately.
After all the hoops the American government had gone through to get Congressman Haddock’s body back to U.S. soil, TJ had questioned the speed with which Sean’s body had left the hospital and country. At the time, she’d attributed it to the fact Haddock was a congressman, and everything in the government moved slower.
The trees and brush grew denser for several yards and TJ lost sight of the jogger. When she reached the trail convergence, blood pounded so hard against her eardrums she couldn’t hear. A blond, athletic man emerged, not the dark-haired jogger she’d been racing to catch.
Feeling foolish, she slowed her breakneck pace, but she couldn’t help scanning the side roads leading up to K Street until she reached Rock Creek Parkway and headed north. Increasing her stride, she reached her street in less than fifteen minutes, cursing herself for allowing thoughts of Sean to manifest into a sighting.
After showering and slipping into work clothes, she pulled a bagel from the freezer and popped it into the toaster. Then she turned on the news, hoping the noise would fill her mind and block out the echoing sound of the explosion still ringing in her ears.
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Kat Sikes stepped out of the conference room affectionately known as the War Room. In the ranks of the S.O.S. agents, shouting matches made it appear more like a war than a meeting of the minds. The good news was that everyone had a voice in the organization and no one was afraid to speak.
Still wearing the shorts and T-shirt from his morning jog, Sean had hoped to reach the locker room and shower on the fourth floor of the S.O.S. operations center without being waylaid. He stopped and faced Kat, his chest tightening at the dark circles beneath her eyes. “I was out jogging.”
“Now don’t look at me as though I’m going to fall apart.” She reached up and cupped his chin. “I’m okay. Really.”
“I worry about you.”
“I know. But I’m doing much better.” Kat smiled, although her lips were a little tight and her eyes were suspiciously bright. “Royce is looking for you.” Before he could respond, she turned back to the conference room and shut the door behind her.
Sean sucked in a deep breath and let it out. How long would it take to get over Marty’s death? The man had been his friend ever since they’d been in the military together. Marty had been the one to introduce him to Royce and the other S.O.S. agents, giving him a new purpose in life since his discharge from the Army Special Forces unit.
Marty married S.O.S. agent Kat Jenkins over a year ago after a very stormy courtship and almost getting her killed on a mission. Sean had stood beside Marty as his best man.
Forcing air past the tightness in his chest, Sean reminded himself to breathe. A terrorist set off that bomb at the embassy. A terrorist was responsible for Marty’s death.
If he’d been on time that day, he’d have died with Marty, a situation he preferred over the gut-gnawing guilt he harbored for his friend’s death. He should have died, too. Then he wouldn’t have to see Kat’s sad eyes or listen to her sobs in the night. She’d moved into one of the spare apartments in the upper level of the S.O.S. building shortly after Marty’s funeral. Right down the hall from Sean’s apartment.
He’d heard her crying when she thought no one was around and he blamed himself every day since the bombing for losing focus on the mission.
When he’d woken in the hospital late in the night, he’d arranged for his body to be transferred to the morgue, forging the paperwork indicating his own “death” and resurfacing under another persona to arrange for the immediate transfer of Marty’s body back to the States. It was the least he could do for his friend when all he could wish for was to take Marty’s place so that Marty could be with his wife, alive and well.
He’d spent the next month hunting down leads on the terrorist responsible for the attack, pushing aside his longing for the woman he’d let get in the way of his duty. If he hadn’t been with TJ that morning, he would have arrived on time. Maybe he’d have found the bomb or seen the terrorist coming or going from the embassy. Or perhaps he would have died in the explosion.
Since the attack, he’d made it his mission to discover who was behind the bombing and bring them down. Sean had already located Manu Attakora, a known terrorist-for-hire in Dindi. He’d found Manu’s apartment with the terrorist dead inside, as if someone had been a step ahead of him in his search. Witnesses mentioned a dark-haired Anglo businessman seen coming and going from the apartment in the days prior to the bombing, but no one could give him a name.
Disappointed he didn’t have the terrorist to question, Sean had located a laptop in Manu’s apartment. He hoped it was the one Manu had used to communicate with the person who’d contracted him. Sean brought the computer back to the States and turned it over to S.O.S.’s resident computer guru. They hoped to have the files decrypted soon.
Back in the States, he’d done everything in his power to avoid running into a certain legislative assistant. His memories of TJ burned in his gut each day following the bombing. Damn it! He was an S.O.S. agent, not a fool in love.
Fools got killed or, through their actions or lack of actions, got others killed. As far as he was concerned, his involvement with TJ Barton was history and was not to be repeated.
Never mind that her face haunted his every memory and that the smell of springtime in D.C. reminded him of the scent of her hair. Today, jogging on the towpath along the C&O Canal, he felt her presence. She was here in D.C. and, even as large as the city was, with as many people working there daily, he stood a chance of seeing her again. A shorter haircut and sunglasses helped alter his appearance, but the woman wasn’t dumb.
He chose to jog early in the morning to avoid any chance of running into her—or anyone else for that matter. Yet, even early in the morning, there were plenty of people getting their daily exercise. The beautiful weather brought out all manner of joggers, bicyclers and people out rowing.
He didn’t know what he’d say if he ran into TJ. How would he explain to her his sudden “death” and reappearance? If the terrorists hadn’t been aiming for Dindi’s prime minister or Congressman Haddock and instead had wanted the S.O.S. team out of the way, he wanted to make sure they thought they’d accomplished the job.
As Sean passed through the office area, Casanova Valdez looked up from his terminal. “Hola, McNeal.” He leaped to his feet and pulled Sean into a big bear hug. “Heard you were back.” Valdez hugged him like he hugged everyone, with a lot of backslapping and exuberance. From a large Latin-American family, he wasn’t embarrassed by blatant demonstrations of emotion. “It’s good to see you in one piece.”
Sean suffered through the embrace, putting distance between them as soon as Valdez let go.
“Hey, Sean.” Nicole Steele’s voice, as smooth as liquid chocolate, drew his attention. Her nickname in the agency was Tazer for a good reason. Her soft blond hair and blue-gray eyes had deceived more than one unsuspecting male. Known for her deadly self-defense techniques, Tazer could take down a man twice her size and he’d never know what hit him. Thank goodness she was loyal to the S.O.S. team.
Sean nodded a greeting.
“Sorry about Marty.” She gave him a weak smile. “It’s good to have you back.”
Damn. He should have jogged earlier to avoid this kind of reception. He didn’t want the ranks of the S.O.S. converging on him. Not yet.
“It’s good to be back.” Although he said the words, he didn’t mean them. Maybe he’d stayed in Dindi so long to avoid just such a meeting with the rest of the S.O.S. team. The organization was small, consisting of one leader and less than twenty agents. Some were out on assignment. The others gathered around him.
The walls closed in on Sean. He needed air.
“Sean, glad you’re back.” Royce stepped out of his office. “I want to talk to you.”
Glad for an escape, Sean eased through the team to stand in front of Royce. “That’s what Kat said.”
Royce motioned toward his office. “Why don’t you come in and take a seat?”
Sean glanced down at his sweaty clothes and running shoes. “So long as you don’t mind a little sweat.”
“Not at all.” He patted his tight abdomen. “Need to get out and exercise myself. I spend entirely too much time behind the desk.”
Sean followed the older man into his office and dropped into a brown leather armchair.
Royce didn’t have a spare ounce of flesh on his body. He was as tough and athletic as when he’d left the Navy SEALs ten years ago. “I know how personally you’ve taken Marty’s death in Dindi, and I admit I’m concerned.”
“Don’t be. I’m going to find who killed him if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Yeah, but you might lose yourself in the process. You threw yourself into the investigation before you’d fully recovered, and you haven’t taken any time off to decompress.”
Sean frowned. He didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “You can’t take me off this case. I was there. I have to find who did this.”
Royce raised a hand. “Relax. I won’t take you off. But I want you to know I’m watching you. If you show any signs of cracking, I’ll yank you off this case so fast you won’t know what hit you. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Sean breathed in a deep breath and let it out. “Is that why you asked me in here?”
“No, intel came available you might be interested in.”
“If it has anything to do with the bombing, you’re right, I’m interested.”
“Tim got past the encrypted password on the laptop you found in the terrorist’s apartment. He found an enlightening e-mail on it.”
“Anything about Manu’s partner or who’s behind the bombing?”
“No, but we did find Congressman Haddock’s daily itinerary while in Dindi.”
Sean stared down at his hands. That cleared the theory the bomber had gone after the S.O.S. agents. “So the terrorist wasn’t aiming for the Dindian prime minister or just any American.”
“Right. They were targeting Haddock.” Royce tapped the top of his desk with his index finger. “The interesting thing about the e-mail was that it originated from a staff member in Congressman Crane’s office.”
Sean pushed to his feet, hope leaping inside him. “You got a name?”
His boss nodded. “Yeah.”
“Have you called him in for questioning?”
“Not quite.”
“What do you mean?”
“The e-mail account is from one of the legislative assistants who accompanied Haddock to Dindi.”
Sean immediately thought of TJ and just as quickly dispelled the thought. TJ worked for Haddock, not Crane. “Who was it?”
“George Fenton.”
Recognizing the name, Sean shook his head. “Wasn’t he—”
“One of the men who died in the bombing?” Royce nodded.
“Why would he set up a bombing that would take his own life? It doesn’t make sense, unless he was playing a martyr.”
“It was dated from the second day of Haddock’s stay there and overlaps one of the meeting times Haddock had all his legislative assistants with him. We don’t think George sent it. My bet is someone else sent it from back here in the States using George’s log-on. I also got news from my contact in the CIA.”
Sean dropped into a chair in front of Royce’s desk ready to absorb everything the man had to say. A burning sensation built in his chest and radiated outward.
“A lobbyist down on K Street has been pushing Congressman Crane to support the MC application of a different African nation than Dindi, one called Arobo.”
“Arobo is contiguous to Dindi.” Sean sat forward. “Damn.”
“Yeah. It bears looking into.”
“Haddock was on the verge of getting approval for the Millennium Challenge funding for Dindi. I heard that the congressman’s death pretty much shut down the negotiations. In which case, Dindi won’t be seeing any money from the United States.”
“That’s what I thought until I checked.” Royce lifted a sheet of paper from his desk and passed it to Sean. “Not only is Dindi still being pushed, but Congresswoman Ann Malone is leading the effort.”
Sean glanced at a copy of a fax without reading the print. “So does Haddock’s death have anything to do with the MC funding or not?”
“Good question.” Royce’s eyes narrowed. “That’s why I want you on the inside for this one.”
“Inside where? With the lobbyist?”
“No. I signed you on as a staff assistant for Congresswoman Malone. She’s in the office next to Crane. That should get you close. If Crane’s push for Arobo has anything to do with the deaths in Dindi, you’ll be there to find out and also to protect the congresswoman if need be.”
Already feeling the necktie’s stranglehold, Sean stretched the collar of his T-shirt. “You know TJ Barton works in that building. She’ll recognize me.”
“We’ll have to take that risk. We can’t afford not to.” Royce’s lips twisted into a wry grin. “You’re the charming type, I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
Sean wasn’t so sure.
Royce leaned his elbows on his desk. “Do you want me to send Valdez or Tazer?”
An image of Marty dying in his arms surfaced. Sean’s lips firmed into a straight line. “No. I want to find the bastard who did this.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“We may have to bring TJ in on the mission to get her cooperation.” Sean’s gut tightened at the thought.
“Use your best judgment.” Royce settled back in his chair and lifted the phone, the session ended, his mind already moving forward to other matters. “Dust off your best suits, McNeal. You’re going to work in the Rayburn Building.”
Chapter Three
TJ knocked on the open door and stepped into the spacious office lined with wood paneling and rich carpeting. “Congressman Crane, you’re due at the White House in half an hour.”
“That damned CIA’s been crawling all over this office for the past three hours, asking me questions—and everyone else down to the new temp we just hired.”
This was news. “Why?”
“It has something to do with the bombing in Dindi.” Crane slammed his pen onto the desk. “Don’t know why they picked me to target with questions. It isn’t as if I had anything to do with the bombing. Just because I backed Arobo doesn’t mean I’d kill to get the funding.” He stood, slipped into his jacket and nodded at the papers in the middle of his desk. “I’ll need a summary of these reports by the end of the day.”
“Yes, sir.” As Crane moved toward the door, TJ gathered the papers. A plain manila folder lay to the side of the others. “Do you want me to take this one, too?”
His hand paused in buttoning his jacket. “No, I’ll handle that one myself.” Crane brushed at his lapels and stood by the door waiting for her.
She shrugged and followed. Congressman Haddock had given her free rein of his office. Crane hadn’t learned to trust her yet and from all accounts of other staff members who’d had the pleasure of working with him, he didn’t allow anyone in his office when he wasn’t there.
When TJ stepped past Crane, he turned to lock the door behind her, muttering, “They’ll have to come back with a search warrant if they want in my office.”
TJ stared after Crane until he disappeared. Then she glanced around the office where his staff scurried to straighten their desks.
So, the CIA had been here in Crane’s offices? Why would they think Crane or someone in his office had anything to do with the bombing in Dindi? Her contact in the CIA had indicated an American had been at the root of the bombing. Could that American be someone in the Rayburn Building?
