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Maggie and Adam could have stayed. They’d both taken direct calls from past presidents and were still cleared at the highest levels. But Lightning now shouldered responsibility for OMEGA. Unwilling to intrude on his turf, they joined the general exodus.
The operatives headed for the elevator that would whisk them to the ultra-high-tech Operations Center on the third floor of the town house. Hawk hesitated several seconds before he, too, strode toward the elevator.
Adam’s eyes were narrowed as he followed the man’s progress. Maggie’s were thoughtful. Hooking her chin, she signaled for Jilly to accompany her to the ladies’ room just off the first-floor foyer.
“Okay, daughter of mine.” Leaning her hips against the marble counter, Maggie crossed her arms. “Tell me again, no frills, no fuss. How much of your decision to join OMEGA’s ranks stems from a real desire to work undercover and how much from a determination to prove to Mike Callahan that you’re all grown up?”
Jilly didn’t blink. “I’m one hundred percent…on both counts.”
Maggie eyed her daughter for long moments. She knew Hawk’s paternalistic and overly protective attitude irritated Jilly no end. The irritation had increased exponentially since their trip to Scotland. Maggie thought of all the advice she could offer and reduced it to one caution.
“Don’t push him too hard, Jilly. You might not like it when he pushes back.”
Her daughter’s jet-black brows snapped together. She looked so much like her father when he was annoyed that Maggie’s heart kicked over.
“You and Dad have known Hawk for years. This is the first time you’ve ever hinted that you have a problem with him.”
“We don’t. We would trust him with our lives.”
“But not with your daughter. What do you know about him that I don’t?”
Maggie hooked a strand of golden-brown hair behind one ear, considering her answer. She’d cheerfully rip out the heart of anyone who threatened her husband or children. But she had to weigh that fierce, primal love against her loyalty to the men and women she’d lived, worked and sweated blood with for so many years.
“I don’t know the details,” she said slowly. “No one does. Hawk has never talked about why he left the military, but…”
“But?”
“Your father ran into his former commanding officer at some function or another. The general didn’t go into specifics, but he did say Hawk hung up his uniform after a botched mission in Central America. Hawk went in with two other operatives. One of them didn’t make it out. The general didn’t say so but the implication was he buried his heart with her there in that steamy jungle.”
“Her?” Jilly echoed softly. “That explains a lot.”
“I thought it might. Tread carefully, sweetheart.”
Maggie couldn’t resist giving her daughter’s silky black hair a gentle yank. Where was the wide-eyed toddler who’d pulled up the just-planted pansies to decorate her mudpies? What happened to the mischievous little girl who loved to dress an ungainly iguana in doll clothes, deposit him in her baby sister’s buggy and stroll nonchalantly around the block? When had the giggling teen with braces grown into this smart, self-assured woman?
With a silent sigh, Maggie gave her daughter’s hair another tug and shooed her out of the ladies’ room. “You’d better go see what that call was about, Special Agent-in-Training Ridgeway.”
She tried to contain her emotion as she watched Jilly make for the elevator, but her husband knew her too well.
“She’ll be okay.”
Adam forced a smile as he looked down into his wife’s face, but acid rolled around in his stomach at the thought of what lay ahead of his darling, his little princess. He’d been out there. So had Maggie. Her exploits in the field had aged Adam well beyond his years. Remembering those turbulent times, his smile relaxed into a rueful grin.
“She’ll be okay,” he repeated. “She’s her mother’s daughter.”
The atmosphere inside OMEGA’s third-floor Control Center left no doubt in Jilly’s mind. Something was up. Something big.
She’d been up to the busy Control Center any number of times while filling in for Elizabeth. But the realization that one of those amber lights on the digitized world map that took up an entire wall would soon represent her sent a shiver of excitement down her spine.
Most of the agents had already dispersed, some to milk OMEGA’s computers, some to work the phones. Lightning stood at the main console with Hawk, their eyes glued to the data scrolling across a monitor.
They couldn’t be more different, Jilly thought as she approached the two men. With his tawny hair, deep tan and sartorial elegance, Lightning looked very much like the sophisticated jet-setter he now was.
Mike Callahan, on the other hand, looked very much like the man he was. Tough, uncompromising, no nonsense. He was more rugged than handsome, with a square chin and a mouth that rarely smiled. He wore his dark brown hair cut military short. His gold-flecked hazel eyes missed little. So little that Jilly had always believed that’s how he’d come by his code name of Hawkeye.
Until she’d seen him shoot, that is. The first time had been at an International Law Enforcement Tri-Gun Competition. Her parents had taken her to watch the final round, where Hawk scored top honors in the handgun and heavy metal categories. To his disgust, he’d come in second in the shotgun class. He rose to hero status in her eyes that day. She’d been trying to bring him down to the level of mere mortal ever since.
Soon, she vowed as both men acknowledged her arrival with a quick glance. Soon.
“What have we got?” she asked.
Her deliberate use of the plural produced a scowl from Hawk, but Lightning accepted her into the fold.
“Some sort of mutant virus,” he replied in a grim voice. “Scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Lab found it a week ago when they autopsied the carcass of a…” He glanced at the computer monitor in front of him. “A nomascus concolor.”
Jilly didn’t even try to pretend she knew what that was.
“It’s a monkey,” Lightning informed her. “Or rather, a gibbon. A species of small ape native to southern China and Southeast Asia.”
He swiveled the monitor around to display a black, furry creature with tufts of white on his cheeks and impossibly long arms.
“It’s the most critically endangered ape species in the world. Supposedly, its very scarcity makes it highly prized as a sacrificial offering in certain far-out religious cults.”
The tiny ape on the screen stared back at Jilly with an inquisitive expression in his caramel-colored eyes. The thought of this cuddly little creature being carved up by religious fanatics raised goose bumps on her skin.
“Someone tossed the carcass of one of these gibbons into a ditch in California,” Lightning continued. “Both the road worker who discovered it and the animal-control officer who responded to his call are now in intensive care. Their docs are still trying to find the right combination of drugs to combat the virus infecting them.”
That was scary. Gillian knew all kinds of nasty diseases like HIV, SARS and Ebola were linked to primates. Now, apparently, a new one had appeared on the scene.
“How did this gibbon get into the States?”
“We don’t know. But the bug that killed it has proved so virulent that Homeland Security tasked one of their top agents to track down the person or persons who brought it in.” Lightning’s voice went flat and hard. “That agent was found this morning in a back alley in San Francisco, with a bone-handled knife through his throat.”
His glance cut to the operative standing stone-faced and rigid on the other side of the communications console.
“Hawk was just about to tell us why his name was the last word the agent uttered.”
The clatter of keyboards and hum of voices in the Control Center stilled. A tense silence descended until Hawk broke it with slow deliberation.
“Charlie Duncan and I served together. A long time ago. In Special Ops. He saved my life. My guess is he was hoping I’d repay the favor by hunting down whoever put that shiv through his throat.”
His rigidly controlled tone belied the feral light in his hazel eyes. For the first time in her life, Jilly was just a little afraid of him.
Her mother’s warning rang in her ears. But as quickly as the goosey feeling came, she shoved it aside. This was Mike Callahan. The man who’d cradled her against his chest, corrected her aim and taught her to put nine out of ten rounds dead center. He was big, certainly. Gruff, sometimes. Hot as hell, always. She refused to be afraid of a man she fully intended to bring to his knees.
Unaware of his fate, Hawk zeroed in on Lightning. “I want this mission.”
“You’ve got it.”
“I’ll fly out to California tomorrow, see what leads the locals have on Charlie’s death.”
“You might want to talk to the folks at the Centers for Disease Control here in D.C. first.”
“Will do.”
“I can help,” Jilly said. “I spent three years in Asia. I could…”
“No.”
Hawk rounded on her.
“Listen to me, Gillian-with-a-J. We’re talking a potentially lethal virus. Possibly radical religious nuts. A cold-blooded killer or killers. That’s enough for me to handle without worrying about you running around playing amateur secret agent.”
Heat rushed into Jilly’s cheeks and fire into her eyes. Before she could let fly, Hawk raked a hand through his short-cropped hair and offered a grudging compromise.
“I don’t like the idea of you getting into this game. You know that. But…Well, it looks like you’ve made up your mind. I’ll mentor you, Jilly. Teach you some of the tricks of the trade I’ve picked up over the years. After I get back from this mission. In the meantime, I need you to stay out of my way.”
Mentoring was the last thing she wanted from Mike Callahan. This was hardly the time to tell him so, however.
“I’ll stay out of your way,” she promised, masking her anger with icy politeness, “but at least let me work my contacts at the State Department. They have a special desk tracking religious splinter groups. One of the analysts might have something we can use.”
“All right, but let me know immediately if you find anything.”
His tone implied that he was highly doubtful, and Jilly had to subdue a thoroughly unprofessional impulse to flip him the bird. The gesture would have been wasted in any case. He’d already turned his attention back to Lightning.
Chapter 2
Jilly steamed all the way to Foggy Bottom.
None of the other passengers on the Metro would have guessed she was pissed. She smiled her thanks to the tattooed kid who moved aside to give her room. She apologized to the Navy lieutenant she bumped into when the train took off. And she had herself well in hand when she exited the Metro and took the soaring escalator at the Foggy Bottom–George Washington University stop.
Foggy Bottom got its name from the mist that swirled through the low-lying area between the Potomac River and Rock Creek. The Bottom was home to a host of well-known institutions, including George Washington University, the Kennedy Center and the infamous Watergate Hotel. Most Washington pundits, however, believed the “fog” emanated from the government agency that took up an entire block on C Street.
The headquarters of the U.S. Department of State was a monolithic square of concrete and glass. Jilly could still remember the thrill that had danced through her when she mounted the front steps for the first time as a very new and very junior Foreign Service Officer. She suspected her father’s considerable pull had something to do with her acceptance into the highly competitive Foreign Service. That, and acing the Foreign Service Officers’ exam. The fact that she’d inherited her mother’s flair for languages and had snagged a graduate Fulbright scholarship to study Mandarin at Peking University hadn’t hurt, either.
Her linguistic skills had led to her first assignment as a cultural affairs officer in Beijing. Those three years had been exciting as hell but convinced Jilly she wasn’t the stuff bureaucrats are made of. She’d loved the people she worked with and fully appreciated the positive effects of cultural exchanges but hated the paperwork.
She’d returned from Beijing undecided about a career with the State Department. The months she’d spent filling in for Elizabeth Wells had settled the matter. As an OMEGA operative, she could still travel to exotic locations, still engage with people of all nationalities and political persuasions. But she wouldn’t have to write a twenty-page report after every contact.
Since she’d handed in her State Department ID along with her resignation, she had to wait at the visitors’ entrance for an escort. He emerged from the inner sanctum moments later and greeted her in fluent Mandarin.
“Nee hao, Gillian. Ching shou, nee huey lai dao State!”
Laughing, she shook her head and answered in kind. “Sorry, Don. I’m not returning to the fold. I’m here as a civilian. And a supplicant.”
Don Ackerman huffed in disappointment. He was one of several senior Foreign Service Officers who staffed the China desk. He’d tried every stratagem in his considerable repertoire to keep Jilly in his sector, including outright bribes and her choice of assignments.
“What can I do for you?” he asked after he’d signed her in and she’d processed through security screening.
“Point me to whoever’s handling radical religious cults these days.”
“You’re kidding, right? You know very well two thirds of our antiterrorist division is working that threat.”
“This one doesn’t sound jihadist, unless they’ve gotten into animal sacrifice.”
“Animal sacrifice?” Don scratched his chin and led the way down a long corridor. “We’ve got several of those. The most visible is the Santeria sect in south Florida. But the Supreme Court decided their ritual sacrifice of chickens during ceremonies is an expression of religious freedom, so we don’t classify them as radical anymore.”
“How about monkeys? Or small apes?”
Ackerman’s lips pursed. He was a big man, going soft around the middle these days, but still possessed the encyclopedic knowledge of world cultures that had made him a legend at State.
“That sounds more like the Vhrana Sect.” He came to a full stop in the hallway. “They’re bad news, Gillian. What’s your interest in them?”
Although she suspected State had received the same urgent missive Lightning had, Jilly hadn’t been cleared to discuss it with anyone outside OMEGA. All she could tell Don was a basic version of the truth.
“I’m doing some research for the agency I now work for.”
His penetrating gray eyes drilled into her. “You’d better talk to Sandra Hathaway. She’s our Vhrana expert.”
Sandra Hathaway was a dark-haired, intense analyst. The kind, Jilly guessed, who doled out information sparingly to folks in the field. She hunched over her computer and made no effort to disguise her annoyance at the interruption. Her irritation morphed instantly into a closed, guarded expression when Don mentioned the Vhrana.
He overrode her bureaucratic caution with a blunt order. “Gillian was one of our own until she bailed. Despite that serious lapse of judgment, I’ll vouch for her. Give her whatever information you can about the sect.”
“Whatever” turned out to be scary as hell. The Vhrana, Jilly soon learned, were an even more dangerous splinter group of the religious fanatics who set off chemical bombs in a Tokyo subway some years back.
“The Vhrana believe the only true path to enlightenment is to cleanse the world of evil, as they see it,” Hathaway related. “They practice rites that derive from Buddhism and ancient forms of Hinduism, with a dash of Turkish Sufi thrown in. The more ‘advanced’ in the sect go into trances and spin around for hours.”
“Like whirling dervishes?”
“Precisely.”
“And they also practice animal sacrifice?”
“In ancient times, they sacrificed humans. Usually enemies captured after a battle. The Vhrana drank blood from the vanquished warriors’ skulls to imbibe their valor before devouring their hearts and livers.”
“Nice guys.”
“Don’t delude yourself. The women in the sect were—and still are—every bit as bloodthirsty. You don’t want to get crosswise of a Vhrana priestess. Nowadays, of course, human sacrifice has been outlawed. So has animal sacrifice, for that matter, but the Vhrana still practice it on holy days. They’re rumored to offer up a variety of animals, but their sacrifice of choice is a monkey or ape.”
The picture of the little gibbon flashed into Jilly’s mind.
“I thought most Hindus revere monkeys. In fact, I remember reading about the hordes of monkeys that now overrun New Delhi because the devout feed them peanuts and bananas.”
“The Vhrana have perverted that reverence. Or elevated it, I guess you could say. Since primates are the closest things to humans, they believe they’re honoring the animal by sacrificing them to their gods.”
“Do you have a fix on the Vhrana sects in the U.S.?”
“We’re tracking seven different branches. The largest is in California.”
