Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (70 page)

DEAD RECKONING

May 16, 1300
USS Enterprise, anchored fifty miles west of Rota, Spain

THE TERM
DEAD reckoning
took on a whole new meaning in the days that followed the turmoil aboard the
USS Atchison
. The answers to a multitude of questions seemed as fragmented as the bodies of the dead.

Taps played.

The afternoon sky shown bright and cloudless over an iridescent, royal blue sea.

A casket, weighted with brass casings, but empty of human remains, slid from under its red, white and blue drape and fell overboard splashing into the ocean. A small contribution to Davy Jones’ locker—a symbol for the many dead US Navy and Marine heroes of days past.

More than five thousand sailors and marines saluted in silent respect atop the gigantic aircraft carrier’s deck. They stood in reverence, many teary eyed. Along with them were the survivors of the
Atchison’s
crew, including Doc Jolly, Sanders, Botts, Hwa and Big Track. Numbness still gripped every soul.

The last note came from the bugler’s horn and the ship’s lieutenant called out, “To!”

All saluting arms snapped to their sides.

“Detail, dismissed!”

Most of those topside reverently drifted away. It was a quiet crowd of five thousand.

Three, however, would not be dismissed so quickly. Special Agent Janelle B. Sperling, still dressed in her Navy ensign uniform, stood to the left of Lieutenant Darren North’s wheelchair. In one hand, she held the plastic container full of Nader’s letters to his loved ones. North still wore his Navy uniform to keep his cover, even though Spurs found out Lieutenant Darren North was actually CIA Senior Special Agent Darren Hunter. Lieutenant, JG Victor Bowser was on her other side, left arm in a sling.

Deputy Assistant Director Paul Royse had surprised Spurs and Hunter by flying in from the states for the ceremony. He came by as the deck cleared and patted them on the backs.

“Thanks for coming, Uncle Paul,” Spurs said.

Royse nodded solemnly and walked away.

The brief but emotional ceremony had honored all those who lost their lives in the terrorists’
Operation Dead Reckoning
. The names of United States Marines Lieutenants Douglas A. Smith and Robert E. Stedman were singled out during the memorial for serving their country honorably and making the ultimate sacrifice.

There would be another ceremony within the next week to award medals for heroism and valor. Many honors would also be bestowed on the three now gazing out at the horizon.

Sixth Fleet Admiral Wayne Pierce would not be present to bestow the awards, nor was he attending, now. A good part of the debacle had been his doing, indirectly. He’d handpicked the crew of the
Atchison
. Every misfit he could find in the fleet—in the Navy— he put aboard her. A strong advocate for new and modern warships he’d wanted desperately to prove the unworthiness of Captain Naugle’s idea to retrofit old ships with new weapons, guidance and propulsion. He’d done his best to derail the plan, but at the same time he’d created the catalyst for the deaths of dozens of Americans. The Navy’s Judge Advocate General had flown him back to Washington, DC to face criminal charges. They included more than two dozen counts of manslaughter and 6,000 counts of criminal endangerment for the unwitting part he’d played in the terrorist plot. His misplaced passion had left the door wide open for what could have been the worst disaster in US Navy history, dwarfing even the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Spurs shook her head and sighed, thinking of it.

“He loved you, you know—right up to the end,” Vic Bowser said out of the side of his mouth while staring out to sea. “He was so confused.”

His words broke her spell. She felt Hunter’s bandaged hands clasp around her right hand. She turned to him, a tear escaping down her cheek.

He smiled up with one of those, nothing-to-smileabout-but-its-better-than-crying-everything’s-going-tobe-all-right smiles. And his
eyes
still smiled, too. It made her lips curl up just enough to acknowledge him. She softly squeezed his hands then looked back at Vic Bowser.

“But he loved you more,” she said.

“No, just differently. Ours was a forbidden love,” he said, “destined to fail.” He looked to his shoes.

Spurs felt his sorrow now, not only her own. She felt his loss.

“He was a good man,” Vic said. “His confusion was my fault.”

“Nobody’s fault,” she said, almost not believing the words came from her. “You were right to want what came natural to you—to Doug. The hell with everyone else who couldn’t understand or accept it. If it was anyone’s fault, it was God’s, and God doesn’t make mistakes. He just
tests
people to see if they’re good enough for something better.”

Hunter had been noticeably silent since the melee. Now he spoke, “Your friend Doug passed with honors.”

SOMEDAY

June 30, 1500 NSIC Headquarters, Navy Shipyards, Washington, DC

SIX WEEKS PASSED. Special Agent Janelle Sperling had become bored of the paperwork piled high on her desk. She was eager for her first thirty-day leave, starting tomorrow. When she returned, perhaps another undercover assignment would await her.

That didn’t matter now. Darren Hunter did. She stared at the fabric wall of her cubicle. They’d stayed in constant touch by phone since May, him from his hospital room in Rota, Spain, she from her office in Washington, DC. He was to be released today, then fly over, where she would meet him at Baltimore Washington International airport tomorrow morning at 0800. From there, they would see the sights from Baltimore to New York for the next month. It would be a wonderful time, and yes, she was sure they would be lovers.

The last time they had talked, the day before yesterday, everything was going according to plan.

Spurs smiled. She missed that jerk. She loved that jerk.

A soft knock came from around the corner of her cubicle.

It was the Director’s secretary, requesting that she report to Burgess’ office immediately.

With a curious smirk, she followed the woman to his office, fifty feet down the hall.

In his office, Director Burgess told her in an unusually grave tone to have a seat to the left of his desk. Her uncle, Paul Royse, sat to the right. Royse did not smile at her as was his usual custom. Neither did Burgess.

It would be about Hunter—she could sense it like a cloud of doom over her head. He’d been killed in an airplane crash, or maybe a car wreck on the way to the airport in Spain.

She gaped alternately at the two men, waiting for the inevitable. They said nothing, their faces solemn, seeming to study her. Why wouldn’t they just come out and tell her? She could wait no longer.

“What?” she asked. “It’s Hunter, isn’t it?”

Royse answered. “Yes, Spurs, it’s Hunter.”

She hung her head trying to hold her tears. Unsuccessful, she tried to cry silently.

“How?”

Burgess said, “What we want to know is why.”

Spurs wiped her eyes with her hands.

“What do you mean, sir?”

Royse stood from his chair and took two steps toward her, holding out a Western Union Mailgram envelope. She accepted it, noticing it was addressed to her—and that it had been opened. The return address read Darren Hunter, nothing more.

“What is this, Uncle Paul?” she asked, looking up as he sat back in his seat. “Why is my personal mail being opened?”

“We had suspicions,” Royse answered.

“Open it,” Burgess said. “I think then you’ll understand.”

She spread open the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper, not big enough to need folding for it to fit inside.

She read it out loud.

“Dearest Spurs, You’ll never know how much this hurts. Things have happened, and I won’t be going with you to New York. I can’t explain. I know you won’t understand, but I love you more than anyone I’ve ever met. And, although seeing each other again someday could be deadly for both of us, I do hope we will.”

There was more on the back, but Spurs looked up before reading it.

They watched her sternly.

Royse explained. “We’ve pieced together what we think actually happened. We believe Hunter had been contacted by
Allah’s Jihad
during his last case, a theft bust on the
Syracuse
. Over the past five years, he’s been the CIA’s top investigator in the Med and he’s made a lot of contacts and has a number of informants. When he found out what they were offering for the operation from one of his informant connections, he couldn’t pass it up. He was sly, though. Neither the terrorists nor even his fellow traitors knew for sure that he was the Chameleon.”

“What about Reeves?”

“He wasn’t in on it.”

Spurs’ jaw dropped. She’d sent an innocent man on a rocket ride to hell.

Royce continued, “We think Reeves was trying to make retribution for his poor record. The speculation that he’d murdered his wife was never proven or on his record, but it still followed him around. He found out about
Allah’s Jihad
and thought it was a big drug deal—right down to the end. He was clinically schizophrenic—illusions of grandeur. Goodman and Chardoff probably gave him some disinformation.
Allah’s Jihad
used the fictitious drug
Jap Rap
to cover up their
Dead Reckoning
operation. But they wanted their Islamic terrorist organization named, to be sure that when their mission was accomplished, the world would know to whom to give the credit.

“Reeves apparently was hoping he could, nearly single handedly, uncover the traitors and turn them in. He probably thought it’d look good on his record and maybe he’d get his choice of duty stations, give him a chance at captaining his own ship.”

“The
Enterprise
,” Spurs said, shaking her head.

“I think, from what you told me,” Royse said, “he might have felt that he was in over his head and a little overwhelmed.”

“My God!” Spurs said, her hand attempting to shield her eyes from the truth.

“Don’t feel too sorry for him,” Burgess said. “All our evidence is circumstantial so far, but we’ve also linked him to as many as seven prostitute murders in Mediterranean ports. We just didn’t have enough on him yet to bring him in.”

Spurs thought of the list of women’s names she’d found in Reeves’ stateroom the night of the storm. “How were they killed?”

“Interpol says strangled,” Royse said. “A couple of them had been drugged with roofies—Rohypnol. You know, that
date rape
drug. Probably dropped in their drinks.”

She closed her eyes and sighed still not able to take it all in. She remembered the evening at the
Parador del Barcelona
when Reeves tried to choke her—she’d suspected that she’d been drugged.

“Who was in the bridge—steering the ship— when they tried to ram the
Enterprise
?”

“Probably Goodman,” Royse said.

“Why did Hunter help me stop them?”

“Had a change of heart,” Royse said. “You might have helped in that area. When you were separated that night in Tunisia, he probably told them that he didn’t want to go through with it, so they snatched him. We think Chardoff found out that Hunter was either working undercover for us or that he was the Chameleon. If Hunter was with us, he’d be in the way. If he was the Chameleon, Chardoff figured he could cut out the middleman and get more money. After you helped him escape, Hunter found out he might be able to help save the day and to get the money, also.”

“That silver case,” Spurs said. “When he scuttled the chopper, it was inside.”

“It had over five million US dollars in it,” Royse said. “We think he went back with a friend or two and SCUBAed down to get it. He must have had help. His right lung was too damaged from the knife wound for him to go very deep.”

“He got away with it?”

“He’s slick,” Royse said. “Wouldn’t want to be him, though. Not only is the US Government after him, but also some really pissed off
Allah’s Jihads
.

Spurs found herself shaking her head in disbelief and staring at the picture of Burgess and Hunter
with the swordfish. “Sir,” she said, “the name of your boat. . . .” Burgess glanced at the framed photo on his desk and gave a sideways grin. He nodded. “
Chameleon
.” Royse looked at the letter in her hand. “What’s he mean—the last part?” Spurs finished the letter.

“I’ve got to run. It’s time again to change colors. You’ve got to admit, as lizards go, I ain’t so bad. Love, Dare
.

P. S., Mommy says hi! He’s almost completely recovered from a bad kitchen accident and says to tell you that he’s keeping a sharp Saber.”

TRUE NORTH

July 4, 2300 Tunisian Beach

OF TWO THINGS, Darren Hunter was certain: he would never love another woman as much as he loved Spurs, and he would not live long enough to see her again.

The night was still. The sea peacefully washed the glowing sand, and no one was within sight.

Hunter sat back leaning on his elbows near the water’s edge on the white moonlit beach of northern Tunisia. One of Ma’hami’s steeds, a beautiful black Arabian, snacked patiently on a patch of desert grass thirty feet behind him. The full-faced lunar reflection shimmered on the sea giving him thoughts of a similarly beautiful night he’d witnessed a few short weeks ago. He’d shared—fallen in with love Spurs that night. It seemed like years ago.

But he had a score to settle, now, and the only way to do so was to alienate himself from his love and his country. He combed his fingers through his thick, brown hair wondering who the traitorous bastard was that had sold out his own country and how he could find and rid the world of him.

A dark figure racing along the beach five hundred yards away interrupted his thoughts. Although unarmed, Hunter didn’t feel threatened. No one knew where he was except Ma’hami, and he was like a brother. Ma’hami had proven his allegiance before, and it had nearly cost his Arab sibling his life.

Still, the figure speeding along the shore made him curious. He watched as it came closer. Soon he realized it was a horse, a rider on its back hunkering low to gain the most speed. Wet sand shot from behind the horse like a cat covering up. The rider encouraged the animal fervently with rhythmic nudges from his heels. He seemed in a big hurry and an expert horseman. Judging by the long, loose fitting, striped jubbah he wore, he was probably a local Tunisian. But why was he pushing his ride so hard?

A hundred yards away, horse and rider galloped through a small, shallow cove, the beating hooves splashing water around them explosively. Once through, they angled away. Their present course would bring them past only ten yards behind Hunter, toward a sand berm lined with palms. He figured they must be heading for the road on the other side leading to Tripoli.

N
ow only thirty yards out, the horse frothed from its mouth and showed its exertion with thick lather flying back.

As he was about to pass, the Arab suddenly yanked the reins right. Ma’hami’s Arabian horse bolted and the Arab’s horse lunged toward Hunter.

He only had time to sit up from his elbows and turn before the rider drew a huge saber and leaped.

The impact sprawled Hunter flat on his back. But as he fell, he pushed the attacker up and over with one foot and then dove on top.

Just as he was about to gain control, the sword’s handle struck his temple and lightning shot through his skull. Darkness came momentarily. He recovered, sparkling lights before his eyes, and realized he was on his back again. As they wrestled, the Muslim glared down, only his eyes showing from the yashmak Arabic headdress. In the bright moonlight, the assassin’s orbs were intense—and blue, clearly blue.

Hunter gaped as the fair-eyed Arab leaned back and raised the sword.

He grabbed his assailant’s wrist, then realized that the saber had been held back purposely from doing its deed.

Their eyes locked and Hunter felt suddenly mesmerized like a sparrow by a cobra. The veil fell loose from the side of the stranger’s face, revealing a beautiful woman’s smooth cheeks and sensuous full lips.

“Spurs!” Hunter gasped.

The sword tumbled from her hand and their burning lips met as her body fell onto his, submitting like melting butter on a hot skillet. The warm Mediterranean water lapped at their feet, and the beach’s radiating heat added to their passion as the tide began to come in.

Their hungry mouths played, tongues teasing, moistening the kiss. She bit at his lips, chin, cheeks, then returned to his mouth with a sensuous, probing tongue. The fever from her firm body penetrated the heavy wool garment and with massaging, groping hands, he soon realized she wore nothing underneath. She began rubbing her middle against his and he joined her knowing that she could feel his excitement growing.

As he pulled the jubbah up from her slender, toned legs, she broke away from his kiss. She yanked the yashmak from her head and tossed it to the side, revealing her soft, strawberry-blonde hair. It seemed to glow like the sand in the bright lunar light. By the time he’d brought the robe up past her smooth hips, she’d begun to unbutton his shirt. Then, with nostrils flaring, she ripped it open, popping off the buttons like an anxious child tearing open a birthday gift.

The advancing sea washed underneath Hunter’s back as he helped Spurs off with the jubbah and then rolled her over while stripping off his own shirt. She had his pants unbuttoned, unzipped and down to his ankles before he had time to think about it and he only had to pull his bare feet out of them to be free of clothing.

He settled onto her and she welcomed him with legs parted eagerly. The musty smell of the warm salt water around them heightened his arousal adding to the clean but hot, naturally sweet scent of her body. Kissing her madly, he entered her moistness and she gasped and then gazed wantonly into his eyes. For a moment they took in each other’s passion, faces close, drawing in the love they had each longed for, but until now, had been denied. They were finally together. Nothing else mattered. The rest of the world could go to hell. For now they would make love and that moment alone would be worth a thousand lifetimes.

They met with open mouths and she embraced him with her legs, arms and body. She moaned with his movements, and made soft, loving sighs as she nibbled on his ears and face, and then his neck.

They writhed, bodies moving in perfect rhythm, but soon their feverish lovemaking was out of control like a reactor reaching critical mass, and the encroaching, tepid waves lapped over their bodies. He drove deep, her encouraging limbs pulling him into her beyond limits, and they finally climaxed together in wild, ecstatic surges until their strength was drained, sapped away in the undulating tide. He smiled down at her then collapsed on top, kissing her tenderly on the mouth, cheek and neck.

Spurs’ lips spread in a fulfilled smile and she eased him over gently onto the soaked jubbah and rolled on top. Still coupled, she leaned back and looked down dreamily into his eyes, gently plowing through his thick chest hair with her fingers. He felt of her firm body; hips, waist and breasts and she ran her hands over his. Still grinning, she leaned back, bending him to the point of discomfort, pushing him into her deeper yet. Her fingers glided along his inner thighs behind her, then cupped them over him and caressed softly, causing ticklish shivers to run through his body.

He gazed at her, the reality still soaking in, that he was with the beautiful, sassy, intelligent woman that he loved. It was like a dream. But no, it couldn’t be some sort of delusion. This was better than a dream.

He wanted to go again, but first he had to tell her. “I love you, Spurs.” His eyes searched hers for reciprocation.

She brought her hands to his sides and pulled at the jubbah as if she were tucking him into her love nest. Then, bending down she kissed him with puckered lips and squirmed, her breasts against his chest.

Pulling back slightly, she said in a soft, low voice, “And
I
love you.” But her face suddenly grew somber.

Something sharp poked into his chest and he looked at his left side to see a fingernail file set to shove between his ribs.

She continued, “Now, tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”