Double Dare

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

US Cover                                Australia Cover

War Games Series #4

December 2005, Silhouette Bombshell, ISBN: 0-373-51383-6

Readers Group Guide

Captain Maggie Holt is new to the S.A.S.S. unit, and her induction is trial-by-fire when she’s chosen to lead her first covert mission and runs headlong into GRID.  Can Maggie prevent mastermind Thomas Kunz from field-testing a deadly virus–in the largest shopping mall in the south on Christmas Eve?

Reviews:

“It’s Christmas time and Maggie Holt, Secret Assignment Specialist (SASS) is not happy that she’s being teamed up to work with Dr. Justin Crowe Pharmaceuticals.  Maggie is not fond of men since her former husband, Jack, cheated on her with her former best friend, Karen.  She specifically doesn’t want to work with Crowe because she knows he was caught cheating on his ex-wife, Andrea.   Justin Crowe, a civilian, is working with SASS as a scientific expert.  He’s trying to prevent an extremely dangerous and deadly virus from being released by German-born Thomas Kuntz.  The SASS believes Kuntz will most likely try to target the Santa Bella mall with the virus.  Kuntz’ ultimate goal is to destroy the United States by destroying its economy.
As Maggie and Justin work together, their feelings for each other mount. The first priority, however, is the mission.
Vicki Hinze has again written a novel that sizzles.  Once she sets the stage, look out, because you’re in for a breathless ride.  And just like her novel, Body Double, Double Dare is so exciting, you might want to make sure your heart can take the ride.
It was also enjoyable to meet characters that returned to make an appearance from Body Double.  It was like meeting up with old friends, or dangerous enemies, and added to the fun.   Armchair interviews says:  Double Dare is suspense that won’t quit.”
–Armchair Interviews
“A top-secret government task force tries to stop an evil terrorist determined to bring down the U.S. economy by attacking the south’s largest shopping mall on the day before Christmas.  But he’s not only brilliant and ruthless, he specializes in creating ‘body doubles’ indistinguishable from the originals except by DNA testing.  Anyone could be a traitor…even the dishy doctor the lead agent is forced to work with.  I love this series.  There’s a wealth of detail about both how the military works and how it fails to work, as well as a really cool supervillian.  While the characters pick up on some clues, they recognize others as being important but not why, and miss others entirely, exactly as real people do.  They’re not super human, like Sherlock Holmes or James Bond, but they’re humans working at the upper limits of their capacity and string to do even more.  Thumbs: up.”
— Flickering Flames
“Action-packed from start to finish.  A fun, fast read.”
— RT Book Club
” Non-stop action from beginning to end, DOUBLE DARE is the latest installment of the War Games series, featuring S.A.S.S. agents and their deadliest enemy, Thomas Kunz.  Fast-paced, and filled with characters both familiar and new, DOUBLE DARE is sure to be on many holiday wish lists this season.”
— Romance Reviews Today
“DOUBLE DARE can be read as a stand alone, but to be honest, the series is so excitingly intense and suspenseful, that you do yourselves a disservice if you don’t pick up the other two books, BODY DOUBLE and DOUBLE VISION.  With the holiday season as a backdrop, Ms. Hinze has given us an excellent reason to take a break in our preparations and read!”
— Romance Readers Connection
“DOUBLE DARE will capture your attention from page on eand not let it go until the very end.  Even after I shut this book, Maggie and the rest of her buddies at S.A.S.S. stayed in my mind.  Vicki Hinze creates an emotionally complex heroine who isn’t afraid to kick butt, but is terrified of risking her heart.  Justin is wonderful charming, and flawed enough to make you root for him to win over the reluctant Maggie.  This book will keep you up all night, and you’ll love every minute of it.  I look forward to more tales from the S.A.S.S. team.”
— Romance Junkies
“An outstanding addition to the War Games miniseries with its vivid depiction of threats in today’s society.  Watching this couple develop a trusting relationship was a delight, especially when Maggie gets some help from other S.A.S.S. members.  DOUBLE DARE is a first-rate story, where the pace never slows down and the characters are unforgettable.”
— Cataromance.com
“DOUBLE DARE is chaotic, close to home, a wonderful thrill ride and everything that I’ve come to expect in a Vicki Hinze book.  It moves the word set in the War Games universe forward, answers some questions, and asks some more.  The story is as chaotic as a plot hinged on averting terror should be; it was a page turner.  But the chaos didn’t take way from the clarity of description that a thriller reader demands; in fact, the action seemed somehow magnified for the reader’s benefit because it was so well described.  It’s the third outing for the S.A.S.S. unit, and the characters introduced in the earlier books continue to develop and change, even as they remain true to their core personalities.  Kate’s desire to be in control was definitely appropriate and Sally Drake’s reply, though expected, was more realistic because the reader could see it coming.  “It was Maggie’s turn.”  And what a turn it was.”
— NY Stacy, bookseller
“Santa Bella Mall, Florida – December 23 and 24, 2005
‘Tis the day before Christmas, and the mall braces for disaster; International terrorist Thomas Kunz will release a deadly virus, unless S.A.S.S. can be faster.   Agents and security were scattered throughout the mall, waiting for Darcy to give them the call.  Captain Maggie Holt is taking the lead, and Dr. Justin Crowe and his antidote is just what we need.   After her husband’s betrayal, Maggie has troubles with trust,  But when the time comes, can she do what she must?
The two hundred stores in the mall won’t even hear, of closing on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.   So Maggie and S.A.S.S. will have to do their best, to take all the precautions they can, and pray on the rest.  Located so close to the Air Force Base, the mall’s Winter Wonderland puts the Special Forces in place.  With a chance to strike at two of his greatest enemies, Thomas Kunz passing this up? Please.  Making things even more complicated, S.A.S.S. has no idea if Kunz’s doubles have been situated.   Time’s running out ‘til the virus is released, will Maggie and her team be able to keep the thing leashed?
Non-stop action from beginning to end, DOUBLE DARE is the latest installment of the War Games series, featuring S.A.S.S. agents and their deadliest enemy, Thomas Kunz.  His use of body doubles has Maggie wondering if any of the people working in the mall could be the “inside” person helping Kunz.  The S.A.S.S. agents featured in earlier installments, Amanda, Kate, and Darcy, play a large part, not only in identifying threats, but also in helping along the potential romance between Maggie and Justin.
The plan to release the virus is not just a terrorist act; DR-27 is still relatively unknown, and this will also serve as a demonstration of its capabilities.  In fact, so little is known about the virus that Justin — the man who developed the only antidote — has yet to field test it.  Fast-paced, and filled with characters both familiar and new, DOUBLE DARE is sure to be on many holiday wish lists this season.”
–Jennifer Bishop, Romance Reviews Today
“Vicki Hinze builds an S.A.S.S. story from first page to last, with surprises at every turn, and thousands of lives at stake, and all of it in the terrified, but capable hands of a beautiful female secret agent. ”
–Lucele Coutts, NovelTalk

“Readers will need a seatbelt as this thriller stays at faster than light speed.  Delightful speeding rocket ride.”
— The Best Reviews

Chapter Excerpt:

Chapter 1
© 2006 Vicki Hinze

“Jingle bells.  Jingle bells.  Jingle all the waaaay—”
Singing along with the radio, Captain Maggie Holt hit a pothole in the dirt path leading to Regret, her S.A.S.S.—Secret Assignment Security Specialist—office.  Her right front tire dropped a solid six-inches, jolting her, jarring her teeth.  “Damn.”
The red Jeep absorbed the shock without a groan, but her morning’s first cup of coffee splashed all over the dashboard and passenger seat.  The cup hit the side of the door and fell to the floorboard, a casualty of the daily war to get to the middle-of-nowhere shack without suffering bodily injury.
Maggie grimaced, about sick of this.  Her fellow operative, Darcy Clark, had trashed a set of shocks on Wilderness Trail, as they’d come to call the overgrown path, just a few days ago.  What was it going to take for the commander, Colonel Sally Drake, to insist someone fix the sorry excuse for a road?
Irritated, Maggie smoothed at a soaked spot on her pale-blue uniform shirt and cranked up the radio, sifting through the lyrics to catch up to the tune.  Tapping the gas, she moved through the woods, down the narrow ruts lined with hurricane-twisted pines and thick, spiky underbrush.
“In a one horse open sleigh. Hey!”  She sang along and slid a glance to the Christmas ornament on the passenger’s seat beside her.  Everyone in the S.A.S.S. unit celebrated Christmas and had to put an ornament on the tree no later than today.  Colonel Drake’s orders.  She’d pulled a check and none of the unit’s operatives had taken time out from work to put up a tree at home this year.  Hell, some hadn’t even made it home in the better part of a week.  The tree was the colonel’s attempt at keeping everyone grounded in life as well as in work.  Not likely to happen, in Maggie’s humble opinion, but an endearing goal.
The sparkling silver star was coffee-soaked, but unbroken.  Soaked would dry, and unbroken was a good thing, because Maggie was damned if she was going back to Santa Bella Mall again for anything until after New Year’s.  It’d taken fifteen minutes to find a parking slot, ten to get inside and pick out the ornament, and yet another fifteen minutes to pay for the thing and get out again.  She figured that, before leaving the store’s parking lot, she had more time invested in the freaking ornament than she’d spent with her ex-husband, Jack, in the last week of their marriage.
And wasn’t that a shameful truth to have to admit?
Letting go of the steering wheel, she checked her hand.  The imprint of the spiky star and her wedding band were still there.  She’d divorced Jack’s sorry ass three years ago, but she still wore the wedding band most of the time.  It kept rodents at a distance—and it reminded her that she hadn’t been blameless in the destruction and demise of her marriage.  Equally important, seeing the ring on her finger reminded her why, as long as she remained an operative, having a relationship was about as smart as Jack’s recent, intermittent attempts to drink himself to death.
Tapping the remote clipped to her visor, she blew past the first gate, glimpsing signs posted on the fence every eight feet:  Use of Deadly Force Authorized.
She and the other S.A.S.S. operatives stationed here were the deadly force.
A mile in, Maggie came to the second wire fence.  This one was topped with razor wire so sharp it’d cut soda cans tossed at it.  A speaker was attached to the gatepost.  Inside was an artillery battery; dormant but maintained and ready to be used if needed.
She tapped the remote and the brakes, stopped and waited for the gate to swing open.  The remote didn’t have the range here that it had at the first gate, and the gate itself was slower to open.  There was a specific purpose for that.  So whoever was manning the monitors inside the S.A.S.S. bunker could take a look at who was coming in and have sufficient time to react.  So far, the unit’s best time for a full scramble to protect the location of their real offices was two minutes forty-seven seconds.
Maggie waved at the surveillance camera and then drove on inside, whipping down the weedy trail to the shack.  She parked in her normal spot, next to Kate’s yellow Hummer.
Colonel Drake and the Providence Air Force Base commander, Colonel Gray, were still neck-deep in a pissing contest over authority, and he assigned everyone their offices.  So Gray had strutted his stuff and dumped the S.A.S.S. unit out in the middle of an abandoned bombing range twenty miles north of the Florida base.  For an office, they had a shack.  For water, a well.  For electricity…  There was no electricity.
It had been impossible to handle S.A.S.S. operations out of the shack, which had more holes than roof and walls.  And it would have been hell for the unit to actually function out of the trailer parked out back, which was where Colonel Gray believed the unit had set up operations.
Gleeful at their primitive conditions, he had been generous and given them a generator.  Not one that actually had the capacity to run their equipment, of course.  He wanted Colonel Drake to suffer—and anyone who worked for her to suffer—because she’d beat him out in a head-to-head competition for the S.A.S.S. command job.  But neither Colonel Drake nor the unit operatives complained to the honchos higher up in the chain of command to intercede.  The operatives took on this challenge just as they did any other and focused on a solution.
Captain Mark Cross had been instrumental in the entire process.  He’d used his money—rumor was he had a lot of it and he must, considering the palace he’d provided them—and his talent to build the S.A.S.S. unit a bunker.  A top-notch, technologically advanced, freaking fabulous bunker with impressive offices twice as nice as any of those assigned to the Pentagon honchos.
Maggie slid out of the Jeep into the brisk air and stepped over to the shack.  A hand-carved wooden sign hung above the door and read, Regret.  Mark had carved it as a reminder to all who entered.  If Gray thought he’d won by sticking the unit in a primitive hellhole, he’d regret it.
Across the board, everyone with access to the bunker conceded that Colonel Gray had seriously lost the office-space battle in the Gray/Drake pissing-contest war.
Inside the falling down shack, thin rays of sunlight split through the cracks and spilled on the dirt floor.  Maggie stepped to the right and pressed a board that looked more gray and aged than those around it.  A split door slid open, exposing an elevator that led down a floor to the bunker’s vault.
She stepped in and pushed the button to take her down.  Of course, if Gray ever found out what cool offices the S.A.S.S. actually had, he’d commandeer them for himself and toss the unit into some other rat’s nest or swamp without power or water.  To avoid that, the S.A.S.S. operatives had created an early-warning system, signaling outsiders’ arrival, practiced scrambling regularly, and kept their secret to themselves.  So far, Colonel Gray remained in the dark.  He’d never seen anyone in the S.A.S.S. unit anywhere other than in the trailer parked out behind the shack.
When the elevator door opened, Maggie stepped out into the crisp white hallway.  Private offices lined the walls.  At the east end, broad doors led to the operations center, and beyond them was Darcy’s private domain.
She had been an operative until a mission had gone south and she’d received a serious head injury.  It’d taken a while and a lot of determination on Darcy’s part, but she’d recovered—with a kick.  Total recall.  The injury had taken her out of the field, but her new gift make her a hell of an asset for assimilating Intel reports from around the globe.
Yet no gift comes without costs, and Darcy’s were high.  Around others, she suffered serious sensory-input overload.  A trip to the mall was sheer hell.  More often than not, she required total isolation to function normally, which meant even within the unit, she needed a place to retreat.  Mark made sure she had it in her isolated office.
The good news on Darcy was that, since she had spent some time on a mission down at the Texas/Mexico border with custom’s agent Ben Kelly, she hadn’t needed as much private time as she had before.  Maggie was glad for that, and hoped the trend continued.  Life in isolation had been hard on Darcy.
Maggie walked past the broad screens covering the common walls, past the photos of the FBI’s most wanted, Homeland Security’s suspected terrorists and the S.A.S.S.’s watch lists. She checked the hot-spots board and was relieved to see things were relatively calm worldwide, with the exception of Iraq, which was never calm these days.  Soon, she prayed.  Soon.
She dumped her purse on her desk then headed to the kitchen, located just this side of the Operations Center.
Amanda West, a S.A.S.S. senior operative, was in the adjoining common room, throwing darts at a picture of Thomas Kunz tacked to the center of the dartboard.
By presidential decree, the S.A.S.S. unit’s primary assignment was to intercede, interrupt and intercept Kunz.
So far, the world’s most successful black marketer of top secret or higher intelligence, cutting-edge technology and weapons-systems/arms sales had three darts stuck right between his eyes.
Seeing his photo raised Maggie’s hackles.  Kunz was German, hated America and wanted to destroy it, preferably through the destruction of its economy.  Unfortunately, he’d had some success and he’d been as elusive as Bin Laden.  Worse for the S.A.S.S. operatives pursuing him, Kunz and GRID—Group Resources for Individual Development—his raunchy band of greedy mercenaries, would use any tactics to succeed.  Their loyalty was to money at any costs, which often made the work for Maggie and the others opposing them disheartening and sickening.  When fighting an enemy dedicated to a different ideology—even if it’s twisted—it’s easy to respect the dedication.  But there is no respect in greed.  There is only fear and destruction.
Another dart whizzed through the air and stuck in Kunz’s forehead, well within Amanda’s one-inch group.    “Thinking this morning, huh?” Maggie asked.  Amanda always threw darts at Kunz to think.
“Yeah.”  Amanda sighed and nailed him again.
Maggie paused.  “Is he up to no good on something new?”
“Kunz is always up to no good.  You can take that to the bank.  But we haven’t heard any new Intel on a specific operation yet today.”  Amanda hiked a shoulder.  “Of course, the day is young.”
It was about 8:00 in the morning.  “Then, what’s on your mind?”
Amanda frowned, wrinkling the skin between her brows.  “It’s Mark,” she confessed, talking about Captain Mark Cross, with whom she’d had a serious thing going for nearly a year.
“What’s wrong with him?”  Maggie liked Mark, and these days, she didn’t like many men, which was just one of the many undesirable emotional stages of divorce:  a merciless roller coaster that included far too many downsides and even more sadness.  She repeated her mantra.  One bump at a time.
Everyone else liked Mark Cross, too, except Kate.  The Queen Grouch hated almost everyone, but she loved Mark Cross like a brother.  Both alone, a couple years ago they had become surrogate family.
“Nothing’s wrong with him.”  Amanda stopped, her arm mid-air and just stared at Maggie.  “Not one single thing.  Not one.”
So nothing was wrong with him and apparently that was a problem.  “Okay, then.”  Maggie couldn’t begin to figure this one out.  She shrugged, walked across the wide room to the kitchen counter, snatched her butterfly cup from the cabinet and poured herself some coffee.  The rich, heavy steam rising from the cup smelled like roasted heaven.
Amanda followed her.  “It’s not natural, Maggie.  There should be something wrong with him, right?  I mean, all men have something wrong with them.”

Double Vision

War Games Series #3
June 2005
ISBN: 0-373-51359-3
Silhouette Bombshell

ebook
ASIN: B0032VHB1A
ISBN-13: 9781426853029
January 18, 2010

Readers’ Group Guide (Book Club Discussion Questions

Captain Katherine Kane is summoned by a field tactical team member to a highly classified location to investigate a possible GRID connection to a bio-weapons cache, but finds far more–and someone wants her to die for it.  Now.  When she most wants to live.  When she’s finally found love–the most powerful weapon of all.
Reviews:
“Impressively researched and engagingly written military thriller is quintessential Hinze.  Prepare to be swept into the intrigue, the drama, and the action.  Hinze is, in this reviewer’s opinion, the best military romance author out there.”
— A Romance Review
“An action packed military thriller [with] a near perfect villain.”
— The Best Reviews
“…a horrifyingly frightening master plot…”
— Jennifer Bishop, Romance Reviews Today
5 Stars
“Air Force explosives specialist Captain Katherine Kane is in the Middle East trailing after a dangerous terrorist Thomas Kunz, a cunning person who runs GRID as a means to destroy America who he obsessively loathes. Thomas has replaced agents with doubles loyal to him. Katherine realizes she can only depend on herself, but the stakes are raised when Thomas abducts Americans to use as hostages.  Realizing she has no choice, Katherine turns to an outpost base commander Major Nathan Forrester for help. He is willing to work with her in freeing the hostages and capturing Kunz, but he also tries to hide his desire for the captain with a gruff exterior; in fact he fears commitment since his wife died a few years ago. However, as the danger mounts for Katherine and Nathan he realizes he can no longer ignore his heart’s insistence that he loves his teammate.  DOUBLE VISION is an action packed military thriller that starts at high octane adrenalin levels and never slows down even when Katherine and Nathan display their growing love for one another. Surprisingly, even with the non stop action, the cast is solid and believable. Especially so is Thomas, a near perfect villain whose hatred of America and willing to do anything to harm Americans seems so genuine that he makes the tale even with two delightful opponents challenging his every move.”
— Harriet Klausner
A thrill-a-minute read.  The action never stops, and Hinze does a great job of showing the attraction between her main characters. — Romantic Times

Awards & Honors:

Winner of the CataRomance Reviewers Choice Award for Silhouette Bombshell for best book read and reviewed by CataRomance in the first half of 2005.
Awarded the Blether Silver

Chapter Excerpt:
©Vicki Hinze
CHAPTER 1

“Okay, Home Base.”  Staring through her diving mask, Captain Katherine Kane swam toward the rocks above the newly discovered underwater cave.  Cold water swirled around her.  “I’m almost there.”
“Roger that, Bluefish.”  Considering the distance between Kate and Home Base, Captain Maggie Holt’s voice sounded surprising clear through Kane’s earpiece.  “I don’t like the idea of you diving alone.  The boss would have fit.”
The boss, Colonel Sally Drake, would understand completely.  “Sorry, no choice.”  Captain Douglas and his tactical team had been diverted.  “If we want to find GRID’s weapons cache, then I’ve got to do this now—before they have time to move it.”
Douglas and his men had assisted Kate on a former mission, intercepting GRID—Group Resources for Individual Development—assets, and when he’d summoned Kate to the Persian Gulf, she’d known he suspected a GRID presence and needed help.  All the key players in the Black World community knew that pursuing GRID, the largest black market sellers of U.S. intelligence and weapons in the world, was Kate’s organization’s top priority.  And it had been designated such by presidential order.
“I still think we should follow the usual chain of command,” Maggie said.  “If the boss were here, you know she would agree with me.”
If Colonel Drake was there and not at the intelligence community summit meeting coordinating on the war on terror, Kate and Maggie wouldn’t be having this conversation and there would be no debate.  Kate resisted a sigh.
Maggie was new to this level of covert operations and still adjusting to tossing out standard operating procedure and assuming command in critical circumstances.  But she had all the right stuff; she’d grow into the job eventually.  Nothing taught operatives better than experience, and she’d get plenty in their unit.  Still, for everyone’s sake, including her own, Kate hoped Maggie adjusted and grew into it soon.
“Look,” Kate said, speeding the process along.  “Ordinarily, Douglas would have worked up the chain.  This time, he came straight to us.”  Secret Assignment Security Specialists, S.A.S.S., were the last resort, and Douglas respected that.
“I know this man and he knows us.  He’s got a fix on GRID.”  Kate couldn’t resist an impatient huff.  “No offense intended, Home Base, but you’ve got to learn to trust your allies.”  That included Douglas, his team and Kate.
“Yeah, well.  I’m gun-shy.  You have to prove you deserve it.”
That response surprised Kate.  “How?”
“Don’t get yourself killed today.  Do you realize how much paperwork I’d have to do?”
Kate smiled.  Okay, she’d cut Maggie a little slack.  The woman was trying.  “Waking up dead isn’t my idea of a fun way to start the day, either, Base.”  She reached the finger of rocky land jutting out into the gulf and, treading water, removed the black box from her tool bag.
Stiff-fingered from the cold chill, she flipped the switch to activate the C-273 communications device and affixed it to the rock just below the waterline.  If this leading-edge technology worked as promised, she would still be able to communicate with Maggie at Home Base via satellite.  Supposedly, the water would conduct the signal from Kate inside the cave to this box and then transmit via satellite to Home Base, completing the link to Maggie.  Kate hoped to spit it worked.  “Okay, C-273 is seated.  We’re good to go.”
Looking up, she again checked the face of the rock above the waterline. Worn smooth and scarred by deep gouges.  Definite signs of traffic.
That oddity had caught her eye initially and led her to dive here for a closer look.  Otherwise, even with Douglas’s coordinates, she never would have found this particular cave—and she seriously doubted anyone short of an oceanographer charting the gulf floor would have, either.
“Bluefish?”  Worry filled Maggie’s voice.  “The guys at the lab swear this device will work, but if it doesn’t and we lose contact, I want you out of there pronto.  I mean it.”
“Here we go again.  Trust a little.  Remember, no guts, no glory.”  Kate adjusted her diving headgear, checked to make sure her knife was secure in the sheath strapped to her thigh, pulled her flashlight from her tool belt, turned it on, then dove.
“Glory?”  Maggie’s sigh crackled static through Kate’s earpiece.  “What glory?  You’re a phantom.  Less than three hundred people know you exist.”
S.A.S.S. were a highly skilled, special-detail unit of covert operatives assigned to the Office of Special Investigations and buried in the Office of Personnel Management for the United States Air Force.  The unit didn’t exist on paper, its missions didn’t exist on paper—the unit’s name even changed every six months for security purposes, which is why those who knew of S.A.S.S. operatives referred to them by what they did and not by their official organizational name.
“Personal power, Home Base.”  Kate had learned from the cradle to expect no other kind.  “Doesn’t matter a damn who else knows it as long as I do.”
At the mouth of the cave, she paused to scan the rock.  More of the same worn smoothness and deep gouges.  Even considering tidal fluxes, too many deep gouges rimmed the actual opening.  Water action alone couldn’t explain it.  She swam forward, entering the cave.
“Are you inside?”
“Yes,” Kate whispered, keeping her voice as quiet as possible.  Snake-curved, the inner cave was about three-feet wide.  She swam close to the ceiling.  Suddenly the width expanded to nearly ten feet.  “The cave’s opened up.”  She lifted her head above water, cranked her neck back and shone the light above her.  “This is bizarre.”
“What?”
“I dove a solid twenty feet to get to the mouth, then swam a couple football fields to get to this point.  The water rode the cave ceiling the whole way.  Now I’m seeing a stretch of wall that’s exposed a good nine feet above the waterline.”  She stopped treading water and tested for bottom.  Her fin swiped the sand and she stood.  “Water level’s dropped.  It’s chest deep.”
“I’m plotting your GPS,” Maggie said.
“Good, because even considering an umbrella effect, this shouldn’t be possible.”  Kate kept her diving mask on in case she was standing on a shelf or sand bar.  False bottoms had proven common in her explorations.  She then looked down the throat of the cave.  Diffused light emanated from somewhere far ahead, creating a haze.  The rocks jutting out from the cave walls cast deep shadows.  Reflections shining through the water or cracks in the rock?  Neither seemed possible, but the alternative…  “Oh, man.”
“What is it?”  Anxiety etched Maggie’s voice.
“This is more than we bargained for.”  Kate’s heart beat hard and fast.  “A whole lot more.”
Rushing water poured in with the incoming tide, nearly knocking her off her feet.  Kate braced against it, hunkered down until the water swirled around her chin, her wet suit and oxygen tank.  Once it was calm, she removed her mask.  “The salt in here smells strong, too strong.  Saline content has to be off the charts here.”
“If so, it should be strong enough to burn your nose,” Maggie responded.
“It does.”  Kate’s nostrils stung like fire.  “But it’s still too strong.  Note that and my position on the plotter.”  After putting her mask back on to block the smell, Kate depressed a sensor embedded under the skin at the base of her neck to pulse a signal the operatives had dubbed “Big Brother.”  Only Home Base could activate it, but Kate could transmit her location at a given time with a pulse signal.
“Roger.  Home Base is now plotting.”  A pause, then, “Do you see any reason for the olfactory oddity?”
Looking through the water droplets spotting her wide-angle vision screen, Kate scanned the cave but saw nothing to account for the intense smell.  One hundred percent saline content couldn’t take it to this level, and there was no way the cave water could be a hundred percent.  It would show in the rocks.
“No, not a thing,” Kate admitted, expelling an impatient breath through pursed lips. “Maybe it’s just me.”  Diving alone wasn’t unusual for S.A.S.S. operatives, but the increased risks and dangers definitely heightened awareness.  Maybe she was hyper-alert and extra-hypersensitive.
She rounded a bend.  The dim haze shone brighter.  A chill crept up Kate’s back and tingled the roof of her mouth.  “There’s light in here, Base.  I’d hoped it was a crack in the rock or some weird reflection caused by my flashlight, but it’s not.”
“You’re under water.  It should be dark—all the other caves were dark.  Briefing reports have been consistent on that.”
“Yeah, well, this cave didn’t read them.  There’s always that ten percent that doesn’t get the word, you know?”
“But why would this one be different?”
“Don’t know.  Do know it’s not dark.”  Kate moved slowly down the tunnel, hugging the rough cave wall, the swift water pushing her along faster than she wanted to go.  She turned off her flashlight.  Double-checked.  “Definitely not a reflection.  It’s light, Base.”
“Wait,” Maggie said.  “I’m running the topography on your coordinates.”  A few moments later she added, “Your cave is located under a finger of land that juts out into the gulf.  It’s hilly in your immediate area, and the hills are full of man-made caves.  Maybe one of them leads to your location and the light is filtering through from above ground.”
“Maybe.”  The eerie light was actually a series of dim rays; glowing beams that hindered her sight despite her gear being night-vision equipped.  Kate’s mouth went desert-dry.  “On second thought, that’s unlikely.”  To be certain, Kate lifted off her headgear and checked again.
She could see no better.  That was the worst news yet.  Rattled, her nerves tingled, prickling her skin, and her voice shook.  “Visual observation is distorted with the night-vision goggles and the naked eye.”
“What are you telling me?” Maggie asked.
“Getting this perfect balance to blind you with both the naked eye and your NVG isn’t a natural occurrence.  I’m telling you that the spectrum’s too narrow for this light to be natural.  It’s not achieved by accident, Base.”  U.S. scientists had spent years and millions of dollars identifying the perimeters of that spectrum.
“So your determination is that it’s man-made and deliberate, correct?”
“Affirmative.  At this point, that’s my take on it.”  Only a few groups outside the U.S. government had access to specification technology—the span of the spectrum—but only one had a reason to corrupt it.  S.A.S.S.’s nemesis.  GRID.
So far, Kate had been involved in taking down three GRID compounds.  But with Thomas Kunz, the sadistic German and anti-American at GRID’s helm, there would always be another compound to be taken down.
Kunz blamed America for Germany’s troubled economy and, in a twisted quest for revenge, acquired members for GRID from all nationalities and devoted himself and his massive resources to using the organization to drag down America’s economy by selling classified intelligence on U.S. assets, technology and personnel.  Unfortunately, Kunz had proved to be expert, cunning and creative.  He was more devious and deadly than anyone Kate had ever known.  There was nothing he wouldn’t do to achieve his goals.
Edgy, she tensed and immediately rolled her shoulders to release it.  “You’d better notify the program honchos that they’ve got a security breach,” she told Maggie.  The light spectrum technology had been developed under a top secret classification.  That the security had been violated meant bad news for the program.
“Um, just a second.”  Maggie hesitated and, when she returned, her voice sounded like tin.  She was obviously very uneasy.  “You do know where you are, right?”
“On the border between Iraq and Iran?”  Purely speculation.  But wasn’t she?  “You’re looking at the GPS coordinates, you tell me.”
“You don’t want to know,” Maggie assured her.  “I’m calling the boss.”
Damn it.  Kate had crossed a freaking national boundary line.  She should tell Maggie not to bother Colonel Drake; she knew the drill.  Get in and out.  Avoid detection by any means necessary.  But she was just edgy enough and eager enough to stay quiet.  She hadn’t seen any evidence of detection and the idea of maybe exposing another Kunz operative carried many positives in her book and no negatives.  Obviously the operative, who had infiltrated a top-secret program and successfully occupied a classified position by impersonating a legitimate U.S. government employee, would be the nature of the security breach required to get such technology out of the lab and into GRID’s greedy, grimy hands.
Three minutes past, then Maggie returned.  “The boss feels breaching security, stealing and using this light-spectrum technology in this manner is right up Big Fish’s alley.  Intel says he’s the only current prospect capable of that deep a penetration into our programs.”
Kate agreed with Intel, a.k.a. Captain Darcy Clark.  Darcy had total recall, thanks to a head injury that had taken her out of the field as an active operative.  She now worked solely on intelligence assimilation for the S.A.S.S. unit.  The recall challenge that kept her isolated to avoid sensory overload had repeatedly proved to be a lifesaver for the other S.A.S.S. operatives still in the field.
“The boss is notifying the honchos in the need-to-know loop,” Maggie said.  “She wants you to pull out, return to the outpost and wait for backup to go in with you.”
Before Kate could think of a way to sidestep the order, something alerted her honed instincts.  Some sound or sense of movement.  Some… something.  Whatever it was had her attention.  The hair on her neck prickled.  “Stand by, Base.”
An internal alarm flashed Danger!   Kate’s heart kicked into overdrive, thumping hard against her ribs.  With her thumb, she unsnapped the loop on her knife’s sheath and slowly scanned the rock walls, then the water’s shimmering surface.  Shadows.  Dull beams.  No odd ripples or breaks in the water.  “Okay,” she said, calming down.  “Okay, we’re fine.”
Kate sucked in a steadying breath.  Strange for her instincts to be wrong; they rarely veered off target.  Yet logic insisted that the odds of anyone else finding this uncharted cave were slim to none.  The water blasting the rocks could have sanded them smooth, but it hadn’t caused the gouges.  Those could only have come from fast-moving water sending something heavy crashing against the rocks.
That anomaly warranted investigation.  But this perfect spectrum of light added another complex layer to the reasons she must keep investigating.
“Bluefish?” Maggie asked.  “Did you hear what I said?”
Great.  A classic catch-22.  If she acknowledged, she’d have to disobey a direct order.  If she didn’t acknowledge, the lab would be informed that its new C-273 communications device had failed its field test.  Kate decided to ignore the question and the order, and turned the topic.  “This perfect illumination proves Captain Douglas was on the money.”
“Oh, no.  You’re not pulling this on me.  Acknowledge the order, Bluefish,” Maggie insisted, her tone short and sharp.  “Get out of there, go the outpost and wait for Douglas and tactical.  Then return with them and investigate.”
Kate frowned.  Damn it.  Any other S.A.S.S. operative—Amanda, Darcy, Julia—any of them would have let that slide.
But then, they all had more experience than Maggie.   Just Kate’s dumb luck that Amanda was out on a mission for the next few days and Maggie was manning the watch.  “I won’t say I can’t hear you.  The C-273 device is working great and I don’t want it reported that it’s not.  But I can’t acknowledge that order.”
“Damn it, Kate.”
Now Maggie was transmitting her name!  “Hey, don’t let your temper put a target on my back.  Just calm down, okay?”
“Sorry.”
Jeez!  Kate licked at her lips.  Make her think.  Make her think.  “Listen, you know the enemy,” she reminded Maggie, who had read the dossiers on Thomas Kunz and GRID.  “He could shut down this operation in a matter of minutes—he’s done it before with others.  If we wait, and that happens, then all we’ll find down here is an empty hole.”
“But we’ve got—”
She might be hearing, but she damn well wasn’t listening.  “What we’ve got doesn’t matter.  It’s what he’s got that counts.”  Kate swallowed a lump in her throat.  “He’s holding at least thirty Americans permanent hostage.  They’re stashed for life in one of his hellholes unless we get them out.  What if they’re stashed here?”
S.A.S.S. knew for fact he had at least that many American government employees under wraps at his various compounds.
They also knew those employees’ GRID operative counterparts remained inserted and undetected in classified positions within the CIA, FBI, NAS, INS and U.S. military.  Those agencies had been identified and were being watched.  Yet there were other GRID operatives who remained unknown and had not yet been identified by S.A.S.S.
Exactly how many?  Only God and Thomas Kunz knew for sure.  But they were active inside the U.S. government in classified positions, which is why the president had designated GRID as S.A.S.S.’s top priority.
The hostages had to be rescued to determine their doubles’s identities, their specific program affiliations, and to determine their access level to classified information.  And hopefully this would be accomplished before those GRID operative counterparts managed to do irreparable harm to the U.S.
“What if the hostages aren’t there and you’re walking into a trap?”
“Highly unlikely, Base.  The coordinates weren’t fixed and there weren’t any guideposts, leading me here.  No one meant for me to find this particular cave.  I literally stumbled into it.”  True, thanks to high tide, swift water currents and a curiosity about defaced rocks.
It seemed vulgar in a way, to have so much technology and sophisticated detection systems available, yet if the hostages were here and rescued, or if the GRID weapons cache were found, it would be as a direct result of simple unsophisticated things and blind luck.
“Which is exactly why you need to wait for tactical.  You could be walking into anything.”
It was walking into the unknown that troubled Maggie.  Kate rolled her gaze ceilingward, edgy and annoyed now.  Maggie’s lack of experience was weighing Kate down.  The woman really shouldn’t be cutting her teeth on this mission.
But she had to cut them somewhere, and since the president had changed the unit’s priorities, there’s been no latitude or choice in the matter.  Hell, Maggie probably wasn’t crazy about the situation, either.
Realizing the truth in that, Kate calmed down and dredged the depths of her soul for another helping of patience.  In short supply, she grabbed the meager bits she could pull together and then explained.  “No, Base.  That’s exactly why I can’t wait.  I’ve got to check this out now—before the enemy finds out I’m here.”
“He could already know it,” Maggie said.  “The whole damn cave could be wired with surveillance equipment.  He could be intercepting our communications.  I know the lab says we’re secure, but this is the C-273’s maiden voyage.  They can’t know it for fact.  Any communications device can be intercepted—you don’t need Intel to verify that.  All the experts agree.  What if the guys at the lab are wrong, Bluefish?  What if he’s waiting for you?”
The idea chilled Kate’s blood.  Kunz looked like a sunny kind of guy.  Forty, blond and blue-eyed, casual and elegant, he appeared to be totally benevolent and good-natured.  But he wasn’t.  He was a sick, sadistic bastard who got off on torture and stealing other people’s lives.  Amanda’s confrontation with him on a previous mission had made all of that clear, and Kate definitely would prefer to avoid him on this mission—if given a choice.
“Listen,” she told Maggie.  “Some risks you’ve got to take.  If any of the hostages are here, I have to take the shot at getting them out.”
“And if they’re not?”
“Then we’ve still got the weapons cache to worry about.  There’s been a lot of chatter lately about the enemy trying to move bio weapons systems.  You’ve heard the reports.  Douglas suspects they’re hidden somewhere in the area.”  Darcy did, too, and Kate had a healthy respect for her deductions.  She was an ace at them.  “We can’t risk bio weapons getting loose on the black market.  Odds are they’ll be used against us, Base.  I’m not willing to risk that.”  She sure as hell didn’t need to add responsibility for that to her personal baggage.
“Okay, okay.  But just do reconnaissance.  Don’t approach, and don’t reveal yourself.  I understand your motives, Bluefish, but you can’t prevent any crisis if you’re dead.  If you find anything, get Douglas and Tactical to go in with you.  I’ll put his commander on alert.”
“Who is his CO?”
Maggie answered in code.
Kate translated.  Major Nathan Forester.  She let his name meander through her mind.  They’d never met, but his name seemed familiar to Kate.  She couldn’t recall why.  “Ask Intel to get me a dossier on him.”
“Stand by.”  A lengthy few minutes later Maggie returned and relayed the encrypted information.
Kate automatically decoded it in her head.
“Nathan G. Forester.  Thirty-one, black hair, blue eyes, solid build.  No remarkable scars or identifying marks.  Graduated from the Academy top of his class.  Awarded a Purple Heart in Afghanistan, another in Iraq.  Bio field-specialist.  Expert marksman.  Worked under Secretary Reynolds at the Pentagon on analysis of bio intelligence.  Currently commanding the 123rd Tactical Force.”
Intriguing.  “Put him on notice,” Kate said.  Her heart hammering, she looked down the cave.  Pale light glinted on the water’s surface as far as she could see.  This compound—every instinct in her body screamed this cave was a GRID compound—appeared to be as unique as the others discovered by the S.A.S.S. unit—and as problematic to breach.  Underwater entrance: one means of ingress and egress.  If Kate ran into trouble, escaping would be significantly challenging, which was probably why Kunz had chosen this one.
“Okay, the commander has been notified,” Maggie said.  Then her tone dropped a notch.  “He also delivered some bad news, Bluefish.”
“What now?”  Kate snapped, unable to keep her irritation out of her voice.
“Douglas and his team are unavailable. The commander is trying to make contact but the team’s been locked down and radio silent for almost twenty-four hours.”
“Do they need backup?”
“No.  They’re functional, just out of pocket.”
Not pinned down by someone else, just locked down observing someone else, Kate supposed.
“There’s more.”  Even the terminally cheerful Maggie sighed.  “The commander informed me that the CIA and Special Forces have scoured the hills above you from land.  Apparently there’s a maze of caves.  But an intense exploration netted only dead-ends.”
Kate chewed at her inner lip, fully understanding why the compound had been nearly impossible to locate.  Her mind raced ahead as she crept through the bowels of the cave, her left shoulder scraping against the jagged rock wall, her fin scouring the sandy bottom.  Launching a successful attack on this place wouldn’t be a picnic.  Actually, it’d be damn near impossible.  Alone, her odds of success were astronomically small.  And that, too, no doubt had been Kunz’s intention.
“I updated the boss,” Maggie said.  “She’s ordered me to remind you that you’re under direct order to pull out now and wait for tactical assistance before reentering.”
Kate considered it.  The odds for her survival, and for the survival of the American detainees Kunz was holding hostage—if in fact any of them were here—ranked a one on the colonel’s infamous one-to-ten scale:  zero probability of success.  The mission difficulty ranked ten.  Translated and simply put, succeeding required a miracle.
And who dies if you fail, Kate?
The fears and old feelings of not being good enough to do what needed doing shot up out of a dark, secret niche inside her.  She’d buried all that unworthiness baggage years ago, but the memory of it persisted, as ingrained things do, and on occasion it surfaced.  Naturally, because the timing couldn’t be worse, it had chosen to surface now.
Resentment slid through her and, steeped in it, she stiffened, clenched her jaw and strengthened her resolve.  Knock it off.  Now, Kate.  You can’t afford any doubts.  Bio weapons, classified information on only God knows what programs… Millions of potential victims are depending on you, and they definitely can’t afford any doubts.
Summoning her will, which had always proven stronger than her fears, she shoved her doubts back down, burying the emotional baggage that just wouldn’t die, and then turned her thoughts back to the challenge at hand.
As well as that one means of ingress and egress through an underwater cave, and the compound being inside a hill of rock, other challenges lay ahead.
Significant challenges.
Aided by former Soviet plastic surgeons and psychiatrists with expertise in psychological warfare and mind manipulation, Kunz had created doubles.  Very well-trained, well-motivated clones.  She would have to determine which people were GRID operative clones and which were true U.S. government employees.
As if that wasn’t enough of a challenge to make sane woman nuts, Kunz would more than likely spice up things to amuse himself by adding his own cloned surrogate into the mix.  It would be just like him to mimmick Saddam Hussein, pose his double to GRID members and have him run operations in the compound while Kunz remained removed from the fray.
This man-made clone, without a doubt, would be surrounded by seasoned GRID operatives who existed for the sole purpose of protecting him from any enemy, including Kate.
The real Thomas Kunz—thank heaven and Amanda and Kate—had had been arrested during the last GRID compound raid.  He currently sat stashed behind bars in Leavenworth.  Whether he remained in command of GRID, running operations from his prison cell or had handed over power to some subordinate GRID member remained undetermined.
If betting, Kate would put her money on his empowering a double.  It’d been more effective—especially if the GRID members didn’t know he was a double.
That was possible.  S.A.S.S. had encountered one Kunz double already and unfortunately had no idea how many others existed.  Hopefully he hadn’t copied Saddam Hussein in that, too.  He had at least eight known doubles.  Yet with Thomas Kunz, experience proved it wise to pray for the best but to expect the worst.
The sorry bastard probably had a dozen.
Under these circumstances, would even a single miracle do the job?

Unsure, Kate tightened her grip on her knife, dragged in a steadying breath and admitted the truth.  Her odds sucked.  She’d need at least a fistful of miracles to pull this off.
The back of her neck prickled.  She removed her mask and opened her senses, then slowly turned in a circle and studied everything in sight.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  Calm.  Silent.  Just her and the moving water and eerie light.  Definitely hyper-alert.
Giving herself a mental shake, she finished weighing her challenges and then turned to plans.  How should she proceed?  What moves gave her the highest probability of success?
Water splashed and hit her full in the face.  The strong salt stank and had her eyes tearing.  She wiped at them with her free hand and mentally worked through potential plans of action.  She couldn’t just blow the compound to hell and back as she had the first one she’d found in the Middle East.  Thomas Kunz’s surrogate and the GRID operatives would die, but so would the hostages—if any of them were here—and detonating biological-laced weaponry wasn’t something she would willingly do.  Not in this lifetime.
She thought on it some more, certain she could find something to better her odds…  Even if the explosives were strategically positioned and fitted out with remote detonators, they could cause a collapse in the cave.  Percussion alone could kill anyone inside.  Water was a hell of a conductor.  It would amplify the effects.
Every way she looked at it, a person attempting to escape would face insurmountable odds, including her.  And she’d have to be in the cave to relay the remote or the signal wouldn’t penetrate.  There were alternative devices that could be used, but she couldn’t get them down here to use them.  Not without help.
She played with a few more possibilities, but none were feasible much less wise, which left her with only one viable solution:  to return to the outpost and draft a plan enlisting the aid of Douglas’s commander.
What was his name?  Forest?   Framer?
Forester.  That was it.  Forester.  Nathan Forester.
Conditions wouldn’t improve substantially with his tactical help, but Kate would have slightly better odds of rescuing any hostages and surviving with—
Something slammed into her back.
Hard and huge, it knocked her off her feet, hammering her into the cave wall.
Her head collided with the saw-toothed surface.  Her breath gushed out.  The jagged rocks dug into her face and shoulder, slicing through her wet suit and skin, tearing her flesh.  Saltwater invaded the wounds, burning like fire.  Seeing spots, her head swimming, she gasped in air.  Focus or die, Kate.  Focus or die!
Warm blood washed down her face and arm, and she forced herself to stay conscious.
Focus or die!
Pulling on reserves, she harnessed her energy, and fought until the spots started to subside and the truth dawned.
The wise move was no longer an option.
Blocking out the pain searing her face, arm, chest and thigh, she regained her footing and reacted on pure instinct.  Choking the handle of her knife, she turned and swiped the air.
The fight had begun.

Smokescreen: Total Recall

War Games Series #2

Silhouette Signature
June 2005
0-373-28522-1

Readers’ Group Guide

War Games Novella
Aided by U.S. Customs Agent Ben Kelly, Captain Darcy Clark, a woman with perfect recall, must face her deepest fear:  an incident like one that changed her entire life–to prevent a mass massacre on Independence Day.
Reviews:
5 Stars
“Total Recall” [a Novella] by Vicki Hinze. The terrorists plan to bring their trademark destruction to the United States by bombing the White House during a Fourth of July fireworks gala. U.S. Customs Agent Ben must stop them because cancellation is not an option because that means giving in to the terrorists. He turns to incredible photographic memory Special Agent Darcy as his only hope to stop a catastrophe. These three novellas star courageous strong women with a special skill each and the men who love them risking their lives to try to keep them safe in precarious situations. Each exciting tale is high octane super fast so that fans of romantic suspense with a touch of sci fi will want to read supercharged SMOKESCREEN.     — Harriet Klausner
Hinze pens a gripping tale with a chilling scenario. — Romantic Times

Chapter Excerpt:© Vicki Hinze

CHAPTER 1

Colonel Sally Drake was not happy.  “General Shaw, surely you aren’t suggesting that we disclose the unit to this man.  This—” she checked her scrawled notes “—Custom’s agent, Benjamin Kelly?”  Sally frowned.  For national security reasons, less than two hundred people in the world knew her unit existed.  That was a significant fact for him to remember.
“I’m not suggesting it, Sally,” the general said.  “Secretary of Defense Reynolds and I are ordering it.”
“But, General—”
“Just do it.”  His tone sounded sharp.  Evidently, he wasn’t at peace with the order either, and he went on to confirm it.  “Look, I know all your objections and ordinarily I’d agree with them.  But when you wear a military uniform and the Secretary of Defense and your commanding officer say jump, you don’t even ask how high.  You just follow the order.  So follow the order, Drake.”
Sitting in her office chair, she leaned forward over her desk and dragged a hand through her short, spiky hair.  She did indeed wear a U.S. military uniform—air force—and as much as she hated it, General Shaw held authority, so she accepted the edict—if not with grace, with bitter resignation and a great deal of concern.  There was only one Secret Assignment Security Specialist in the S.A.S.S. unit who had the unique qualifications for the mission he’d assigned, Captain Darcy Clark, and while she had extraordinary skills, she did not come without special challenges.  Would Darcy willingly take on this mission?  Could she take it on—willingly or not?
Sally’s stomach churned and knotted.  Forget feeling confident.  She’d gladly settle for having a clue.  That she didn’t had her concern plunging into worry.  “Yes, sir.  We’ll be expecting Agent Kelly within the hour.”
“Keep me in the need-to-know loop,” the general said.  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this entire situation, and I don’t want to be blindsided—especially knowing the secretary is going to be watching closely and reporting to Homeland Security and the president.”
He had a bad feeling?  She swallowed a grunt.  This mission had all the makings of a disaster, and it’d be her ass and rank on the line, not his.  When a mission failed, generals were rarely sacrificed.  The fallout flowed downhill to the lower-ranking commander—that’s who got the axe—regardless of who issued the orders.  “Yes, sir.”  Sally hung up the phone and grumbled.  “Typical.  Just freaking typical.”  Secretary Reynolds dumps the mess on General Shaw, and he hadn’t missed a beat in dumping it on her.
She swiveled her seat to a windowless wall and stared deeply into a garden mural, wishing for two seconds she could disappear in the foliage and just catch her breath.
You’re the S.A.S.S. commander, Sally.  You wanted this job, remember?  Competed toe to toe with Colonel Gray, the egotistical jerk, to get it.  Well, these are the perks, hotshot.  Handle them.
“Oh, shut up,” she told herself, kicking off the floor to turn her seat back to her desk.  She picked up a memo from Darcy, who assimilated Intelligence from all the reporting agencies, compiled it, and then briefed the unit.  Significant chatter had been intercepted on GRID—Group Resources for Individual Development—the terrorist group that was, by presidential edict, S.A.S.S.’s top priority and, by nature, its albatross.  What were they up to now?
Darcy had penned a note on the margin.  “Colonel, the pattern is intact and consistent.  Brace.  Kunz is gearing up for GRID’s next attack.”
Thomas Kunz, a German American-hater, ran GRID with single-minded authority and had made it the leading authority and broker of U.S. intelligence, technology and personnel.  His goal was to take the U.S. down by any and all means possible, but he preferred economically.   GRID and S.A.S.S. had butted heads and matched wits four times so far, and so far the S.A.S.S. had been successful.  Unfortunately, the wins had been surface clutter.  The S.A.S.S. hadn’t destroyed Kunz’s operation, only ticked him off and stiffened his resolve.
“Maggie?”  Sally depressed the intercom button on her phone.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Could you get Kate and Amanda to my office ASAP, please?”
“I’m on it, Colonel.”
“Thanks.”  Sally again looked at the report.  Katherine Kane and Amanda West had firsthand experience with GRID.  Both had survived the encounters.  But even after taking out four GRID compounds worldwide, believing Thomas Kunz had been killed twice and arrested and convicted and parked in Leavenworth once, the truth was, the S.A.S.S. hadn’t touched him.  The men killed or arrested were all Kunz’s body doubles, positioned to fool the S.A.S.S. into believing they had gotten Kunz.  And the S.A.S.S. had believed it—if only short-term.
Most worrisome to Sally and her entire unit was that they had no idea exactly how many more body doubles or compounds Kunz had in operation.  Worse, they had only identified thirty of the estimated ninety body doubles Kunz had substituted in high-level government positions around the globe to access classified information.  He’d substituted medical and dental records, X-rays and biometric scans, successfully undercutting all preventative security measures.  Worse, the real government employees were being held hostage—somewhere.  Most likely, in several obscure locations.  Less than a dozen had been rescued to date.  And so sensitive, classified information continued to funnel out of top secret locations and minds and into Kunz’s greedy hands, and the government employees he’d had body-doubled remained Kunz’s hostages.
That worried Sally most of all.
Kate and Amanda shuffled in; Amanda wearing a crisp blue skirted uniform, and Kate in her habitual slacks, which told Sally that Kate’s laundry was done.  Only if it wasn’t would she wear the skirt that required nylons and heels—both of which Kate considered to be devices created by men for the sole purpose of torturing women.  “Sit down,” Sally said.
They took the seats opposite her desk, and Amanda hiked her chin.  “Is this about Darcy’s memo on GRID, Colonel?”
From their expressions, both of her top-notch covert operatives were having a tough time swallowing the report.  She couldn’t blame them.  After the previous GRID encounters, neither of them could be eager for another confrontation.  Amanda had been held captive for three months and Kate nearly had lost her life.  “More or less.”  Sally leaned back in her chair.  “We’re getting a visitor in about half an hour.”
“A visitor?”  Stunned, Kate grunted.  “Here?”
“I know.”  Sally held up a staying hand.  “It’s General Shaw’s runoff straight from Secretary Reynolds.”
Kate shook her head, clearly as baffled as Sally by the edict.  “Not good.”
“Secretary Reynolds isn’t a fool, Kate.”  Amanda looked over at her.  “If he’s sending someone here, I’m certain he has good reason.”
“Whatever.”  Kate grimaced.  “But it’s our asses he’s putting on the line, not his own, Amanda.  You might want to remember that.”
“Excuse me,” Sally interjected, and then waited until she had their full attention before going on.  “Foolish or wise, it’s happening.  Accept it.”
Amanda smoothed back a long lock of dark hair.  “So what exactly is going on, Colonel?”
“It’s GRID, of course,” Kate answered, then swerved her gaze to Sally.  “Isn’t it?”
“Naturally.”  Sally cocked her head.  “Intel suspects Thomas Kunz is planning to smuggle radioactive waste into the U.S.  It also suspects he has a sleeper cell of GRID operatives already positioned somewhere within our borders who will use it in bombs targeting…” she paused to refer to her notes for the exact wording, “an undisclosed but significant, high-priority, densely populated site.”  She looked back to them.  “Perhaps more than one site.”
Amanda absorbed the news in silence.  Her expression didn’t alter or reveal her reaction—excellent attributes in a covert operative.
Kate’s demeanor changed significantly.  No longer challenging or defiant, she homed in and focused intently.  “Kunz is pulling his usual.”
“What usual?” Amanda asked.
“Wanting to inflict as much short- and long-term destruction as possible.”
“Yes, and what’s terrifying is that he’s damn good at it,” Sally said.  “Radioactive or dirty bombs have a relatively small kill zone—a few city blocks, typically—but the long-term impact on health…  Well, suffice it to say that the ramifications are significant.”
“How significant?”  Amanda instinctively looked to Kate.  Explosives and weapons of mass destruction were her area of expertise.
Kate frowned, but answered Amanda.  “You have the kill zone, but the damage doesn’t stop there.  Think of it like a wave that ripples outward from the explosion site, carrying with it health challenges like radiation burns, an increase of various types of cancer, severe birth defects.”  Kate grimaced.  “How far the ripple extends from the blast depends on the strength of the explosives used, of course, but it’s certain to be wicked.  We’ll see significant increases in health challenges for years.”
Amanda frowned.  “So at the outer ripple rim of those impacted, it could take time for symptoms to appear.”
“I hate to say it, but it’s even worse than that.”  Kate explained.  “For every challenge we see, there’ll be half a dozen with tentacles that we don’t.  Challenges medical professionals will tag ‘etiology unknown.’”
Sally’s skin crawled.  How any terrorists could attack civilians like this and justify it as rational was beyond her.  Sick bastards.  “Intel considers July 4th Kunz’s likely target date.”
“Independence Day.  Hoping to make us dependent.”  Amanda clenched her jaw and shifted on her seat.  “Kunz does love to pop us on dates significant to us.”
“Apparently,” Sally agreed.  He’d done it twice already.  “This time we have a kicker to keep things really interesting.”
“A kicker?” Kate asked.
“The man that Secretary Reynolds is sending here is a U.S. customs agent named Benjamin Kelly.  He’s a chief inspector and etymologist on the U.S./Mexico border.”
“The visitor and GRID are connected?”  Shock riddled Amanda’s tone, and she didn’t bother trying to hide it.
“Homeland Security thinks so,” Sally said, tapping her pen on her desk blotter.  “If Kelly’s story is as compelling as General Shaw claims, it’s going to require drastic measures.”
Kate nodded.  “So what do you want us to do, Colonel?”
“There’s nothing you can do.”   Sally wished there were.  If there were, she wouldn’t feel this sense of impending doom.
“Me, then,” Amanda said.
“There’s nothing you can do either—outside of support roles, which you’ll both have to do.”
Kate let her head loll back.  “Colonel, I know you’re not considering Maggie for this mission.”
“Not yet,” she admitted.  “Maggie needs more training but, when the time comes, she’ll be an excellent field operative, Kate.”
“No doubt, ma’am, but that time damn sure isn’t now.  Not on this.”
Kate had little patience with new recruits to the unit, and Maggie had been with them less than three months.  She showed infinite promise, but she hadn’t yet gotten past sticking strictly to the rules.  In the S.A.S.S., that tended to get operatives killed.  Yet with time, risks and a few narrow-miss attempts on her life, she’d adjust.  “No, not on this.  It isn’t yet Maggie’s time.  Not yet.”
“Then who?” Amanda asked.  “Max, one of the other guys?”
Sally hedged, took the circuitous route.  This news would be less popular than assigning Maggie.  “We need to insert an operative as a custom’s agent on the border between Texas and Mexico—at the entry station at Los Casas.”  Now came the hardest part of this.  “I’m assigning Darcy.”
“Darcy?  You can’t be serious.”  Clearly distressed, Amanda stood up, her mouth drawn and tight.  “Colonel, Darcy can’t do this mission.  She can’t even stand being around other people.  Since the fire, she’s been incapable of any kind of field work, much less a mission of this magnitude.”
“Dr. Vargus disagrees.  He says she can do it—if she will.”
“Can?  Will?  Good God, Colonel Drake, the woman lives like a monk to avoid hyperstimulation attacks.”  Kate shot out of her chair.  “She can’t go to a shopping mall without getting knocked to her knees and you want her to do this?  She works in a vault with old furniture and files because she can’t take being around us.  You can’t throw her into the field at a busy border crossing.”  Mutiny filled Kate’s eyes and a warning filled her voice.  “She’ll lose it, Colonel.”
“Kate’s right, Colonel,” Amanda said, agreeing with her for the first time since they had entered the office.  “Do this and the S.A.S.S. will fail on this mission.  She’ll try—Darcy always gives a hundred percent—but she will fail.  She just can’t handle it.”
“She will handle it, Amanda, Damn it, she has no choice.”  Sally stiffened, motioned to the chairs.  “Sit down.  Both of you.”
They did, but rebellion rippled off them in waves.
Sally ignored it, because inside she was rebelling, too.  But, damn it, Darcy was the only operative who could do what must be done to stop this attack.  “Now, listen.  I know Darcy’s challenges.  I also know Dr. Vargus’s professional opinion on Darcy’s challenges.  He’s a hundred percent certain she can learn to shield herself from the sensory input.”
“Not to dispute the good doctor or you, ma’am,” Kate said, her voice droll.  “But this mission doesn’t sound safe enough for anyone to use it as a training ground to learn anything.”
“Do we ever have safe training grounds?” Sally countered.
“Valid point, Colonel,” Amanda said.  “But Darcy would have better odds of success learning while on vacation or in some situation where she could control her exposure without consequences to others.”
“Uh-huh.  Totally logical, Amanda, but also unrealistic.”  Sally cocked her head.  “She’s had five years to do that and she hasn’t.  Regardless, our backs are against the wall now.  We have no choice, which gives Darcy no alternative.”  Knowing that grated Sally’s nerves raw.  “The bottom line is that the S.A.S.S. needs her to stop Kunz from killing a lot of innocent Americans.  The buck can’t go beyond there.  So if Darcy has to face demons in unfavorable circumstances to make that happen, then she’s going to have to face them—and I expect both of you to help convince her she can.”
Kate had mutiny in her eye.  “Permission to speak freely, Colonel.”
She had been speaking freely since entering the office.  But she either didn’t realize it due to being upset, or she’d been holding her harshest opinions in check.  Sally dared to hope it was the former.  “Go ahead.”
“You’re coming across like these hyper-stimulation attacks are all in Darcy’s head, and they damn well aren’t.  She needs that self-imposed isolation to function and avoid the attacks.  I’ve seen her have one.  She suffers, Colonel.  She gets little warning, can’t see clearly, loses control of her muscles—they totally lock down on her.  I’ve seen her collapse and lie there unable to move so much as a finger.  The whole time, she was in intense pain.  This mission isn’t something she can just do anyway, damn it.  That’s my point.  You’re demanding more than she can give.”
“Kate’s right, Colonel.”  Amanda chimed in.  “The head injury she suffered in that fire wasn’t a walk in the park.  She was in a coma for three weeks.  Normal noise and activity are sheer hell for her.”  Amanda chewed at her lip.  “She’ll try, but she won’t last five minutes at a busy border station.”
“You two haven’t said anything I don’t already know,” Sally admitted.  “Do you think I’ve been in a coma?  Why do you think she works alone in a vault?  Why do you think I approved her waiver to live outside the twenty-five mile radius to headquarters?  It’s a requirement for all of us, but I let her move to Rainbow Lake because she can be isolated and at peace there.  As her commander, why do you think that I know I have this ace operative in her and yet I never assign her to missions in the field—and that’s not to diminish the value of what she does here.  God knows, she’s saved our asses many times, piecing together seemingly unrelated bits of Intel.  But she was an ace in the field, and I could use her there.  Yet I don’t.”  Sally paused, but Amanda and Kate realized the questions she had asked were rhetorical and didn’t respond.
Silence fell between them.  They all wanted to protect Darcy.  In a very practical sense, she’d already forfeited her life for the S.A.S.S. and none of them wanted to ask her for more.
But Sally had no choice.
That truth crept through her.  “I’ve done as much as I can, but I can’t protect her now.  Not this time.  I have an obligation and a responsibility to protect Americans.  And Darcy Clark is my best means of protecting them.  I have to assign her to this mission.  Let me say this again.  Only she can do what must be done.”
“I caught that when you said it before.  But, Colonel, what can she do that Amanda or I can’t?” Kate asked.  “We’ve gotten the same S.A.S.S. training and we might not be aces in the field, but we damn sure aren’t slouches.  If Darcy can do it, we can.  You know we can.”
“No, you can’t, Kate,” Sally insisted, and then gave in to her own frustration about this.  “Neither can I, or I’d do it myself.”
That surprised them.  Amanda recovered first and asked, “Why can’t we do it, Colonel?”
Sally frowned.  “Because none of us has total recall.  Darcy does, and we need it because we can’t bring in equipment and remain undetected.”  The bluster in them deflated and resignation slid into place on their faces.  Sally captured a shuddery breath.  “That’s why only Darcy can handle this mission.”  She cleared her throat.  “Now, we’re all worried—and that’s justified—but we must move forward and stop this attack.  I support Darcy and I expect you two to support her—and to help reassure her that she’s capable of tackling this mission.  Dr. Vargus says that support will help, but only if it’s genuine.”
Amanda stood up.  “Colonel, how can we do that?  We just gave you all the reasons we don’t think she can do this mission.  How do we convince her we think she can?”
Sally stood up, looked them right in the eyes.  “Get genuine.  That’s a direct order.”
Knowing an exit line when they heard one, the two stood up.
“Dismissed.”  Sally waved them out.
They left her office without a word, though the mutiny in Kate’s eyes had now spread through her entire body, judging by her stiff gait and ramrod spine.  But Amanda would talk her around.
Grateful for that, Sally collapsed back into her chair, hoping to hell she hadn’t just made a decision that would kill thousands of innocent Americans and Darcy Clark and Ben Kelly.
If what General Shaw said proved true, this Kelly had guts and grit, and his coming forward gave the S.A.S.S. the opportunity to save thousands of lives.  And he’d done so knowing that if Thomas Kunz or his GRID goons ever learned of it, he’d be murdered.
Guts and grit.  She admired that.

Body Double

WAR GAMES SERIES #!

RITA (TM) AWARD FINALIST

Best Romantic Suspense Novel of the Year

September 2004

SILHOUETTE Bombshell

ISBN:  0-373-51326-7

Readers Group Guide

Copies of the innovative DVD done by Writers-in-Motion, Ltd. on Vicki’s Body Double, Book 1, War Games series, will be included in university textbooks across the U.S. on film-making.
Vicki teamed up with Writers-in-Motion Ltd. (www.writersinmotion.com) to film a DVD for BODY DOUBLE.  The Book Short™, a movie trailer for books, is available for viewing.  As well as the Book Short™, there’s an interview  on writing Bombshell Novels, an interview with me  and a conference kick-off speech for writers:  Captain Amanda West’s Arsenal of Secret Weapons for Writers.  Amanda is the heroine in BODY DOUBLE, and shares what should be in every writer’s arsenal.  If you’d like a copy of this DVD, please send me an email.

Reviews:
“BODY DOUBLE is suspense to the max!  I can’t wait to read the next Vicki Hinze book.  I’ve got a whole new genre to enjoy now.  http://www.ArmchairInterviews has an enormous amount of respect for Hinze’s ability to conjure up a scintillating read.”
— Armchair Interviews

“An edgy romantic thriller [by] a very creative author.  In BODY DOUBLE it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad and it appears no one can be trusted; this alone makes for an excellent tale.  Add in a kick butt heroine that shows no fear and BODY DOUBLE becomes a book that must be read.”
— The Romance Readers Connection

“The heroines in a new genre of romance novels are smart and tough enough to take down anyone who gets in their way.”
–USA TODAY

“An economical read that moves forward like a European bullet train.  Not underwritten or overwritten — just the right words are there at the right time for the right response. The timing on when to stop the train for intimacy feels perfect. It’s like a piece of music; visceral, yet intimate experience that is loads of fun.
–William Olsen, Film Producer, Getting it On

“Wow! I couldn’t put it down.  Hinze has outdone herself–again!”
–Nina Coombs Pykarre, author of over 60 novels

“Vicki Hinze has a brisk, engaging writing style, and her heroine is a powerhouse.”
–Romantic Times

Awards & Honors:
A finalist for the prestigious 2005 RITA© Award for Best Romantic Suspense
Finalist in the romantic suspense category of The 2005 Beacon Award of Excellence
Finalist in the Holt Medallion Award for the mainstream/single title category

Chapter Excerpt:
©Vicki Hinze
Chapter One

They were going to kill her.
The odds of her leaving the Middle Eastern, desert compound under her own steam grew slimmer by the minute.  Her instincts hummed it.  And if there was one thing Amanda knew she could count on, it was her instincts.
From the age of three, her instincts had warned her to hide when her dad had gotten tanked up at home in New Orleans and had come looking for her to use as a punching bag and then had locked her in a wooden box until her bruises faded so looking at her didn’t offend his eyes.  Instinct had warned her to protect herself through a year of grueling CIA training at the 9,000 wooded-acre, barbed-wire fenced hell known as “the farm” and four years of subsequent covert operations.  Instinct had warned her it was time to get out of the CIA or wake up dead, and when the U.S. Air Force had recruited her out, instinct had told her to go.
Shortly thereafter, she had been assigned to S.A.S.S.  At least, S.A.S.S. is what the operatives called their jobs as Secret Assignment Security Specialists.  On paper, they were of course buried in the Office of Personnel Management along with all the other Air Force members assigned to paramilitary or covert operations.  The unit, a division of the Office of Special Investigations, had an official name, but one so secret it changed every six months.  Keeping up with the changes had everyone in the need-to-know loop dubbing the unit S.A.S.S. for convenience and consistency.
Her instincts had been on target all those times, and a million others, and they were on target now.  She had used up her nine lives.
Today, Amanda West had run out of last chances.
“If she moves, shoot her.”  The beefy guard whose nose she’d broken told the other guards.
A certain satisfaction rippled through her.  He had quickly developed a healthy respect for her and the damage she could inflict, but seriously.  Move?  Absurd.  The ropes binding her to the chair cut deeply into her wrists and ankles, scraping her chafed skin, rubbing it raw.  Her spine tingled, her ass and legs had been numb for hours.  Her shoulders ached, head throbbed, and never in her life had she been more thirsty or tired.  Or more hopeless.
She’d given up illusions.  She had no idea what specific country they’d dragged her to, and during the last two days of intense interrogation by GRID’s second-in-command, Paul Reese, she’d lost any hope she might have harbored that her identity had remained secret.  GRID—Group Resources for Individual Development—was the largest Intelligence broker in the world on U.S. resources, assets, and personnel.  Its operatives were experts at gathering and selling information, and masters at torturing to obtain it.
In the worst cases, evil is about ideology shaped by greed.  GRID wasn’t just shaped; it was twisted.  That elevated GRID’s ranking to worst of the worst enemies.  Its leader, Thomas Kunz, resented Germany’s reliance on the U.S. military’s presence in his country.  Without the U.S., Germany’s nearly stagnant economy wouldn’t just be shaky, it would rattle, and it could collapse.  In Kunz’s convoluted logic, Germany’s economic woes were the U.S.’s fault, and he hated Americans for it.  Of course, if the U.S. military pulled out of his country and Germany’s economy suffered, Kunz would hate the U.S. for that, too.
Bottom line, Kunz hated the U.S. and what he hated, GRID hated.  Unfortunately, he was wealthy, powerful, and he hated with great passion, creativity, and ruthlessness.
Weak sunlight streaked into the cavernous metal building through dirt-smudged windows, high overhead.  Whether it was dawn or twilight, Amanda couldn’t say.  She’d been in and out of consciousness, and had lost track of time.  Sweat beaded at her temples, pooled between her breasts.  Her crisp white blouse clung limp, damp, and dirty against her body, and her navy slacks were covered with a thin layer of dust.  She’d been knocked to the floor so many times she’d lost count.   Her bare feet against the sandy dirt floor were crusted and itched.
They’d taken her shoes.
That had been her first warning that Reese knew who she really was, knew that her hands and feet were lethal weapons.
Through slitted eyelids, she looked over at him, standing with his hip hitched against a folding table, smoking a pungent cigarette that smelled of cloves.  Tall, dark, and gorgeous with black hair and come-hither eyes, Reese was a lady-killer.  Figuratively, and she feared soon, literally.
He exhaled, and smoke rose into obscuring plumes between them.  Tossing the butt to the floor, he then crushed it under his loafer-shod foot and glanced at the dozen guards circling her, as if reassuring himself of their presence and protection.
Wise move.  Amanda wanted to kill him—given the opportunity, she would kill him—and Reese knew it.  He assumed professional necessity drove her, but it didn’t.  Her reasons were damned personal.  Amanda’s dad had been the last man to hit her and live.  That was a record she intended to keep intact.
The guards stood ready, dressed in camouflage gear, looking like the skilled mercenaries they had proven to be during her capture.  She had only disabled three of them.  Only three.
But one would have been too many.  They were professional warriors, and for all they had known then, she was merely a small, fragile woman.  They hadn’t yet contended with Captain Amanda West, former CIA operative and current US Air Force paramilitary S.A.S.S. operative—the real her.  Now they’d gotten a taste.
Because she’d downed three of them, they hungered for revenge the way starving dogs covet bones:  standing at-the-ready, just hoping she’d give them the slightest excuse to cut loose.  All twelve of the men carried M-16s.  And all twelve of them aimed those M-16s directly at her chest.
“Amanda.”  Reese sounded exasperated.  He stepped over to her but stayed out of striking distance, in case the ropes didn’t hold.  “You’re being totally unreasonable.”
Unreasonable was denying her water and sleep.  She should feel grateful the bastards hadn’t resorted to rape, but in a sense they had.  They hadn’t molested her body, but Reese had done all he could to rape her soul.  Fortunately—though it was hard for her to imagine “fortunate” and “her father” in the same breath—she’d been raised by the devil himself.  Reese wasn’t nearly so formidable.
She wasn’t a kid anymore.
She wasn’t innocent or naïve anymore.  And she damn sure was not helpless, not anymore.
And never again.
“I wished to avoid this, but you’ve given me no choice.”  Reese sighed heavily, a tinge of regret touching his voice.  “I’ve called Thomas.”
Thomas Kunz.  Her heart slammed against her chest wall, hammered hard.  Reese was dangerous, but Kunz was lethal.  The GRID mastermind had united henchmen of all nationalities and from all walks of life with a single, driving goal:  to destroy the United States.  Under his leadership, GRID had proven so capable at infiltrating U.S. assets, and so elusive at being pinned down long enough to be captured much less arrested and convicted, that Secretary of Defense Reynolds had deemed the situation critical and issued a by-name request through Col. Sally Drake, Action Officer and commander of S.A.S.S., to gather desperately needed insight on GRID and devise a containment plan.
That by-name request had been for Amanda.
“Answer me, Amanda.”  Reese shoved a hand into the pocket of his black slacks.  “What have you reported?  To whom do you report?”
Reese’s yellow shirt looked fresh and crisp, his tanned skin hydrated, and no dark, exhausted circles marred the skin beneath his eyes.  Hating him for that, she stared at him from under her lashes.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Reese slapped her.
Her face stinging, she glared into his eyes, smiled, then feigned hurt, preying on his vanity—a tactic that had consistently proven effective with him.  “I guess chivalry is dead.”
Unable to hold her gaze, he looked away.
It was a small victory but, at the moment, she’d take any she could get.  Paul Reese was clever but shallow, into money and power, with a fondness—and weakness—for pretty women, and an ego the State of Texas couldn’t hold.  He had described himself to her as a gallant white knight, chivalrous to women, and she’d come to realize that the deluded fool believed it.  Blowing his image by torturing her had gotten to him.  He didn’t have the guts to kill her.
That, Reese would leave to Kunz.
Never in her life had she heard of anyone quite as cold-blooded and ruthless as Thomas Kunz.  Or as suspicious.  Grudgingly, she admitted that those were the very attributes that had kept him alive.
“He’s coming, Amanda.”  Reese switched tactics, appealed to her, his voice and expression concerned and urgent.  “I don’t want him to hurt you.”
“Hurt me?”  Kunz would kill her, and only an idiot wouldn’t know it.  She swallowed a grunt and taunted Reese.  “After all we’ve meant to each other, you’re going to allow him to do that?”
Exasperated, Reese forgot caution, grabbed her face, and squeezed until her teeth cut into her flesh.  “Do you want to die, woman?”
She didn’t.  She wanted to live—God, how she wanted to live—and to bring GRID down.  When the pressure on her cheeks eased and settled to a dull ache, she softened her voice.  “Will you let him kill me, Paul?”
“Let him?”  Reese let his head loll back, blew out a sigh.  “Don’t you understand?  I can’t stop Thomas.  No one can stop him.”  Reese dropped his voice.  “He likes inflicting pain.  He likes it, Amanda.  You won’t die easily.”
In her pre-mission briefing, she’d been warned that Kunz took a sadistic pleasure in torture.  If any of his victims ever survived to act as witnesses, he’d be prosecuted for war crimes as a hostile combatant in the war on terror.  So far none had made it.
That knotted the muscles in her stomach.  Fear and bitterness flooded her throat.  “I’m not afraid to die.”  It was true.  Her fear had always been in living, not dying.  In death, there was safety; there was peace.  In life, there was brutality and pain.  You had to be clever, sly, cunning, always on guard and able to defend yourself.   And she had been.  Yet in some situations, defeat was inevitable.  The realist in her insisted this was one of them.
Stiffening her spine, she watched for an opening.  She was going to die, and she wouldn’t get Kunz.  But she would take Paul Reese with her.
“You’d better fear it.”  Frustration reddened his face, had the veins in his neck sticking out like thumbs.  He bent to her.  “You’d better fear him.”
“Reese.”  Leaning forward, she brushed her lips close to his ear.  “I’ll tell you a secret.”  She sank her teeth into him, doing her damnedest to rip the jugular right out of his throat.
He howled, jerked, and she lost her grip, scraped his throat, then clenched her jaw and latched on to his face.  Backing away, he dragged her, chair and all, until finally his flesh gave away.  Her chair tipped over and her shoulder slammed into the dirt.
Screaming curses, he held the side of his face.  Blood streamed between his fingers, over his hand, and down his arm.  He kicked her in the ribs, then again in the thigh.  His guards stood stunned, too surprised to react, not certain how to react.
“There’s your secret, darling.”  She glared up at him, feeling his wet blood soak her face.  “You’d better fear me.”
He took a white handkerchief from one of the guards and pressed it to his face.  “Shoot that bitch right between the eyes.”
“Come on, Reese.  Be a sport.”  She smiled.  “I missed your jugular.”
He kicked her again.  “Give me a gun!”
Her ribs ached like hell.  Still she laughed, hard and deep.  So she wouldn’t die with the pleasure of having killed him.  Maybe to Reese, screwing up his face was worse than death.  There was solace in that.
A guard passed him an M-16.  He took aim at her.  Adrenaline rocketed through her veins, but she knew how to die.  She’d been prepared for this moment since she was three years old and her father first beat her.  No fear.  Not from me, you bastard.  Never from me.  “Ich Dien.”
“What did she say?”  Reese looked at the guards, wild-eyed.
The response came from the door.  “I serve.”
Kunz.  Blinded by the sunlight streaming in around him, she could only see his silhouette, but that was more than enough to prove she had lived too long.
He walked over to where she lay on the floor, still tied to the chair.  “Captain West.  How good of you to visit,” Kunz said.  “I wasn’t aware you spoke German.  Note that, Paul.”
Kunz was faking it, acting as if he’d missed the fact that she was taunting him, letting him know—letting them all know—that they hadn’t broken her and never would.  Kunz was younger than she had thought.  Forty, tall, blond haired and blue eyed.  Amazingly, he looked like a good natured, sunny kind of guy.  Certainly not like the devil incarnate that would do his reputation justice.  This man didn’t inspire fear, or even alert the senses that danger was near, and Intel had it all wrong on his photos.  She didn’t know who was actually in the pictures presented as him, but he was not the Thomas Kunz standing before her now.  “Mr. Kunz.”  She nodded, grinding her ear into the dirt.  “I would say it’s a pleasure, but your hospitality lacks a certain, shall we say, charm.”
“Ah, your southern roots are showing.  Finally.”  He smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes.  “Put the gun down, Paul.”  He glimpsed toward Reese.  “I’ve decided the good captain doesn’t need killing, only burying.  But not in a grave.  Captain West prefers tombs to graves.  They’re more in keeping with her New Orleans heritage.”
Reese’s eyes stretched wide.  “You’re going to seal her in there alive?”
“Of course.”  Kunz walked over to the table and opened a metal box that had been sitting there untouched for two days.  “It’s only civilized to give her time to make her peace, mmh?”
Amanda tried not to shudder, but it was obvious that the real torture was only now going to begin.
“I said to put down the gun, Paul.  Hostility doesn’t become you.”  He nodded toward the door.  “Get someone to see to your face.”
Reese walked to the door still cupping the blood-soaked handkerchief over his wound.  “I’m glad you’re going to die a slow death, you bitch.”
“Do think of me, Paul.”  She smiled.  “Every time you look into the mirror.”
He slammed the broad door shut.  The windows up above rattled.
Kunz took her measure.  “You’re very astute, Captain.  Few things could upset Paul as much as damaging his face.”  Kunz’s eyes sparkled respect that she had homed in on that.  “And you’re clearly not a coward.”  That seemed to intrigue him.  “Few men have refused to respond to Paul’s inquiries, knowing they would next face mine.  You’re the first woman to do so, actually.”
She hiked an eyebrow.  “What shall we do to celebrate?”
He looked back over his shoulder, saw her defiance, smiled, and filled a syringe.  When he tapped it, a small amount of fluid spurted and soaked into the floor.  “I have a special treat for you,” he said, walking over and then injecting her.  “In honor of the occasion.”
The stick in her arm burned.  There were other needle tracks on her inner arm.  Stark terror shot through her.  This would kill her or cost her everything.
Kunz smiled.
The bastard knew it.  He knew, and it amused him.  Her temper exploded, and it took everything she had to restrain herself and not fight him.  It would be futile, and fighting would give him power, make him feel superior.  He had taken everything else.  She would not give him that, too.  Panic seized her, contorted her muscles.  No.  No fear.  No fear.  You will find a way around this, Princess.  You will not show this scum fear.
“There you go.”  He pulled out the needle, and then backed away.  “Contrary to your beliefs, in your time with us, you’ve been very cooperative.  We’ve learned all we need to know from you for now, Captain.”
He wasn’t bluffing.  And if he wasn’t bluffing, she’d definitely breached security.  What had she told him?  When had she told him anything?  She’d never seen the man until today.  He was bluffing—had to be—and he was damn good at it, making her doubt herself.  “So now I die,” she said.  “I suppose it doesn’t matter, but what did you give me?”
“Peace.”  He brushed her cheek with a feathery light fingertip.
It sent icy chills down her neck and through her chest.
When she didn’t cringe as he obviously expected, respect lighted in his eyes.  “I’d love to stay and enjoy the day with you, but you’ve caught me at an inopportune time.  I’m very sorry to say that this will be clean and quick.  You would have been intriguing, I’m sure.”  He let his gaze roll over her, prone on the floor.  “But my loss is your gain.  You really should thank me for it.”
“Thank you.”  She said and meant it.  He loved torture and she’d seen file photos of what was left of some of his victims.  He’d peeled off skin, removed bones, sewn mouths shut.  She was truly grateful to be spared.
He picked up on her sincerity.  “You’re welcome, Captain West.”  Walking back to the table, he put the syringe into a box.  “The miracles of modern medicine amuse me.”  He waved a loose hand.  “Incidentally, that injection won’t kill you.  It’ll just make you sleep for a while so you don’t injure any more of my men.  You’ll wake up, and then—well, you’ll see.  No need to make peace with your God just yet.  You’ll have a few days to decide your fate.”
“My fate?”
“Yes.  Your reaction to it will be interesting.”
Puzzled by his cryptic comments, she shot him a questioning look.  “My reaction to my fate will be interesting?”  What the hell could he mean by that?
“You’ve got a dilemma before you, Captain.  The dilemma is entertaining, but your reaction to your fate is by far the most intriguing aspect of your—shall we say, situation.”
She opened her mouth to snap at him, to inform him with unwavering certainty that her fate was her own and none of his business, but her tongue was too thick; she couldn’t speak.  He droned on, but she couldn’t make out his words.  His voice faded distant, as if echoing from deep in the belly of a cave.  Amanda strained to keep watch, but her eyelids wouldn’t stay open.
“She’s safe,” he eventually told the guards.  “Bury her—remember, a tomb, not a grave.  The good Captain has a fondness for above ground boxes.”
The box.  She might have groaned, though she couldn’t be certain the sound was hers and not the guards laughing.  The box was the thing she hated most—and the thing people like Kunz would imagine she feared most.
She did fear it.  But she also had learned young to hide in the damn thing to avoid being found and beaten.  Inside the box was the last place her father ever would have thought to look for her.  And that Kunz didn’t know.
Yet he did know about the box.  But how?  The only other person in the world who knew about it was her father, and she had avoided him for years.  Even today she didn’t trust herself to see him and not kill him.  And never in her adult life had she given anyone the means to connect them.  Anything that requested the name of her father, she always had completed, “Unknown.”  Considering he had called her a bastard her whole life, she’d felt totally justified in agreeing with him.
Bottom line, there were no connections between her and her father.  So how had Thomas Kunz connected them?  How had he known about the box?
Even beaten to within an inch of her life, she would shield that information.  She had never admitted it to another human being—often, not even to herself.
But if her father hadn’t told Kunz about the box, and she hadn’t told him, then how did he know about it?  How?

Amanda awakened in pitch-black darkness.
Her mouth felt like cotton, her head throbbed.  She lay wedged in a box, but this one wasn’t wood, it was brick, and the mortar was still wet.
The son of a bitch actually had bricked her into a tomb.
They’d taken her out of the chair; it wouldn’t fit with her in the small area.  But her hands were still tied.  She worked the ropes loose with her teeth.  Finally, they fell free.
Sliding her hand along the wall, over the rough brick, she felt the wet mortar stick to her fingers.  “Where’s a good spiked heel when you need one?”
She felt all along the perimeter of the sealed tomb, dragging her fingers through the dirt.  Nearly through working the grid, she felt a bump, backed up, and felt—a stick?  No, spear-tipped.  Feather.  An arrow.  It was an arrow.
Reese collected arrows.  He’d buried it with her as a final dig, proof that he had battled her and won.
But he hadn’t won.  Not yet.  Not . . . yet.
Seeking the wettest mortar, she chose the back wall and hoped that it was away from whomever was watching her, if anyone, and dared to hope too that they didn’t hear the noise.  “You will dig yourself out of this tomb, Princess,” she whispered to herself, using the hated name her father had called her to put steel in her resolve to fight.  “You will live.  You will kill Paul Reese for hitting you.  And you will capture Thomas Kunz and steal his life for stealing your life.”
It took forever.  She slept, worked, slept and worked and worried about what to do.  Her knuckles were raw, her stomach turning over on itself, and she was so thirsty she thought she might die from that alone.  Finally, she punched through the wall.  Bracing back, she drew up her knees, got leverage, and then kicked.  Before long, she’d kicked out a hole large enough to crawl through.
Wary, expecting to be leveled or shot by a guard as soon as her feet touched the ground, she dove through the opening, rolled over the crumbled brick and concrete.  A chunk dug into her hip and pain shot through her side.
“An actual cemetery.”  She looked around at row upon row of graves and tombs, reflecting in the full moonlight.   Seeing no one, she hurriedly stacked the loose bricks back into the opening, hoping to lessen the odds of her escape being quickly noticed, then crept from tombstone to tombstone to get a fix on her location.
James St. Claire. 1926-1959.
Jacob Charles Anderson.  Beloved Father and Husband.
Alison Hayes.  Age:  3 Blessed Days. “Safely into the arms of Angels.”
American, Amanda thought.  Definitely American.  The smells of ash trees and wildflowers filled her nose.  Somewhere in the south, but not Georgia.  In the Carolinas, maybe.  She eased out of the cemetery and into the woods, her left arm throbbing.
Pausing, she twisted it in the moonlight.  Dark bruises muddied her arm, wrist to elbow.  It was swollen and caked with blood near the thumb side of her wrist.  It was a wound.  An IV wound.
Baffled, she just stared at her arm.  When had she had an intravenous tube?
The miracles of modern medicine amuse me.
Kunz.
Her stomach soured.  She frantically looked around.  She’d been in the desert.  Now she was in the woods.  Where was she?
A road stretched out up ahead.  Deserted, no buildings—nothing but woods and empty road in all directions.  She walked down it until she reached a crossroad and saw a sign.  Freedom Lane and Liberty Way?
Amanda came to a dead stop.  This couldn’t be.  She’d been somewhere in the Middle East.  Somewhere in the desert.  How had she gotten into a North Carolina cemetery?  To a CIA extraction point, for God’s sake?
Kunz was rubbing her nose it.  He was betting she would hide the truth about this lapse in her memory to save her job.  He knew she was a loner, that her job was all she had, and if she reported the memory lapse, she’d lose her security clearance.  A S.A.S.S. operative without a security clearance was worthless.  She’d have nothing.
Dread dragged at her belly.  Thomas Kunz knew far more than S.A.S.S. or the CIA believed—about her, and obviously about U.S. clandestine operations.
Stunned, reeling from the implications of all this, she checked the moon.  Dawn would come in about two hours.  She walked off the road into the open clearing, to its far side.  A chopper would be by before daybreak.  This was a daily drop zone she and other Intelligence sources used often.  There was an artesian well here.  Water!
She ran to it, drank thirstily, then drowned her face and washed in the cool water.  As it sluiced over her, she sighed.  Sex had rarely felt this good.
The chopper arrived before she stopped dripping water.  She wrung out the edge of her shirt, signaled, and it set down in the clearing.
What had he done to her?  That she didn’t know roused demons of being violated and abused and her hatred for not being in control.  Her skin went clammy cold and her heart raced, thumping like a jackhammer in her head.
What are you going to do about this?
She should report it immediately to her boss, Colonel Drake.
You’ll be fired on the spot.
But if she didn’t report it, S.A.S.S. missions and operatives could be vulnerable.  He’d gotten her from the Middle East to Carolina without her knowing it.  Was it so hard to imagine him getting her to talk, to breach security and identify and compromise other agents and missions?
There’s no easy way out.
There didn’t seem to be even a reasonable way out.
There isn’t.  You’re screwed.
Totally.
Kunz took a huge risk, leaving you at a CIA drop zone.  He had to be extremely confident you’d hide the truth.  How could he be so confident?
She didn’t have a clue.  At the moment, she didn’t know herself what she was going to do.
When she boarded the chopper, a stranger sat in the pilot’s seat.  “Who are you?  Where’s Harry?”
“I’m Jim.”  The pilot blinked hard and fast.  “Harry’s dead, ma’am.”
She plopped down in her seat and buckled in.   “Dead?”  What had happened to him?
“Yes, ma’am.  He crashed in Iraq about two months ago.”
The man had lost his mind.  “What the hell are you pulling here?  Harry was alive and well less than a week ago.”
He reeled off his security-clearance code and then asked, “Would you verify your identity, ma’am?”
“Captain Amanda West,” she said, and then repeated her code.  “Alpha Tango 135812.”
“I was sure by your pictures, but—but—”  He sputtered, stalled, and then finally went on.  “You can’t be Captain West, ma’am.  It’s not possible.”
Oh, for God’s sake.  She was exhausted, starved, soaked, and out of patience.  “It’s possible.  I’m here, aren’t I?”
“No—I mean, yes, ma’am.  But you can’t be here.  I mean, how did you get here, ma’am?  You’ve been MIA.”
“Yeah, well.  This jerk bricked me in a tomb.”  She shook her head, tried not to think about Harry.  She’d liked him.  She’d mourn him as soon as she regrouped.  Right now, it took all she had to hold it together.  “It took me a while to make it out.”
“You had rations in a tomb?”
She looked at Jim as if he’d lost his mind.  “I had the tip of a broken arrow.”
He thought a long moment, his sober expression eerie in the green lights cast from the chopper’s control panel.  “So you’re saying,” he spoke slowly, “that you haven’t been on an insertion mission.  You’ve been in a tomb.  And you’ve lived in that tomb without food or water for three months?”
“Damn right—no, that’s not what I’m—”  What he’d said hit her.  Cold chills swam up and down her backbone, set the roof of her mouth to tingling.  “Did you say, three months?”
“Yes, ma’am.”  He nodded.  “That’s how long you’ve been missing.”
“But—but that’s outrageous.”  She’d been tortured, injected with something, and then awakened in the tomb and dug her way out.  Okay, she didn’t remember the IV, but she damn sure would have remembered something in three months.  “Three days, maybe.  But not three months.”
“I’m telling you, it’s been three months since we received any transmission from you, ma’am.  I should know when you went missing.  I flew the search team who went in looking for you.”
Three months?  She couldn’t wrap her mind around it.  How could that be possible?  Why would Kunz want to do that?  And what exactly had he done?

Invitation to a Murder

 

Silhouette Bombshell IT Girls mini-series prequel
September 2005

 

 

 

eHarlequin online read

 

Invitation to a Murder is the prequel to BULLETPROOF PRINCESS specifically, and to the IT Girls series of six novels.

The IT Girls series optioned by Twin Star Entertainment for the TV series, GOTHAM ROSES.