LITMIR.BIZ

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me, he knows that, Landon.”

      “Does he?” James asked, the hint of amusement Dalton had heard at the beginning of the conversation back in his voice. “And yet, strangely enough, this conversation sounds exactly like those he used to employ to get me interested in whatever he wanted me interested in during the External Security Team days.”

      “Are you? Interested, I mean?”

      “I’m a few years older and light-years wiser than I was when I worked for the CIA.”

      “I don’t believe you’ve changed that much.”

      Although Dalton had probably been the closest thing to a friend Landon James had had on the EST, he hadn’t seen his fellow operative in years. At Cabot’s request, he’d made the occasional contact to try to recruit him on the Phoenix’s behalf, only to be turned down each time.

      He had no idea what Landon was doing right now. Griff probably knew, but he hadn’t passed on that information along with James’s phone number.

      “Apparently not enough that Griff can’t manage to hit all the right buttons.”

      “I don’t think that’s what he’s trying to do. I think he just hoped that since this is your area of expertise…”

      “I’d ride to the rescue.”

      “With all your expenses paid by the Phoenix, of course.”

      “Paid on whose behalf?”

      The Phoenix was very much a “for-hire” operation, although their charges were usually dependent on the client’s ability to pay. More than a few missions were undertaken on a pro bono basis, however, especially if Cabot felt that justice could be achieved only through their intervention.

      “I don’t believe Grace has any family—” Dalton began, only to be cut off in midsentence.

      “She doesn’t. I suspect our illustrious leader will be footing the bill himself. Not that he can’t afford it.”

      Griff Cabot came from very old money. A lot of it. And James was right. He could afford to mount any quixotic rescue he believed should be undertaken.

      “I don’t think he’s counting the cost on this one.”

      “No, Griff always did have a penchant for lost causes.”

      “Then… You think they’re dead?”

      “Actually, that wasn’t what I meant at all.”

      The amusement was back, but Dalton had no idea what had caused it. Nor did he have a clue as to what James was talking about.

      “I don’t understand—” he began.

      “It doesn’t matter,” Landon said briskly. “Tell Griff he pushed the right buttons this time. Obviously he hasn’t lost the fine art of leadership.”

      “Then you’re going after them?” Dalton couldn’t keep the relief out of his voice.

      “I’m going after Gracie. If the others are there, I’ll try my best to get them out, too.

      Gracie? In all the years Dalton had known Grace Chancellor, he had never heard anyone ever refer to her as Gracie. The nickname was totally foreign to the cool, collected persona the intelligence analyst exuded.

      Or maybe, Dalton thought, as a click and then the dial tone reverberated in his ear, it was just that he didn’t know Grace Chancellor nearly so well as Landon James did.

      Something else Cabot had apparently failed to tell him.

      LANDON JAMES PUT DOWN the phone and swiveled his desk chair around until he was looking out over the tops of some of the tallest buildings in New York. He’d been able to lease this office space high above the city for a song in the days immediately after the terrorist attack. No one, it seemed, had wanted to work in the clouds anymore.

      After a moment he stood up and walked across the huge room to a wall of windows, thinking instead about the phone call he’d just concluded. Despite his attempt to block them, images of Grace Chancellor had flooded his brain since Dalton had mentioned her name. Memories of the woman he had first met almost…almost ten years ago, he realized with a sense of wonder.

      He couldn’t believe it had been that long. He should, he acknowledged. A lot had changed in that time.

      Including him. Maybe especially him.

      He realized that he was unconsciously fingering the patch that covered the empty socket of what had been his right eye. He forced his fingers away from it, his lips tightening as he remembered how that loss had occurred.

      Grace Chancellor and Afghanistan. Two items of unfinished—and very personal—business.

      There weren’t many of either in his life these days. Other than the security consultation firm he’d started almost as soon as he resigned from the Agency, there was very little that touched him personally anymore. Both of those did.

      Grace Chancellor and Afghanistan.

      How well Griff knew him, he thought, his lips lifting in a smile of self-derision. And how cleverly he had chosen his weapons.

      Landon hadn’t made many mistakes in the years he’d been an operative. In his line of work, he couldn’t afford them.

      What Cabot had set before him this morning, like the food and water the ancient gods had set before Tantalus, was a chance to rectify the two most spectacular ones he’d made in his entire life. And to do it at Griff’s expense.

      That wasn’t entirely true, he acknowledged, no matter what Dalton offered. Money was the least of what this journey would cost. And there was no guarantee that he would be able to do what the U.S. Special Forces in the area had not be able to accomplish and find the three Americans. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.

      If Grace was alive, he’d find her. And if she wasn’t… He took a deep breath, thinking about what that loss would mean.

      “Hang on, Gracie,” he whispered, looking down on the area still marked by the attack of madmen. “The bastards haven’t won one yet. They damn sure aren’t going to win this time, either.”

      Chapter Two

      “Better?”

      Mike Mitchell opened fever-bright eyes to look up into hers. His cracked lips lifted in a ghastly semblance of a smile. “Thanks,” he whispered.

      Grace set down the cup of tepid water from which she’d just helped the pilot drink. She put her hand on his chest, wishing there was something else she could do to ease his suffering. Not that any complaints had crossed his lips in the weeks of their captivity.

      Every day, however, she had watched a little more life slip out of those blue eyes. And every night she had listened to his labored breathing until she fell asleep, praying that she would still be able to hear it when she awoke.

      “Try to get some rest,” she said inanely.

      The grin widened before it became a grimace. Mitchell closed his eyes against the wave of pain, but when he opened them, he smiled at her again.

      “I didn’t have anything much on my agenda for today.”

      “That’s good,” she said, returning the smile, despite her fury at their captors.

      Although she and Colonel Stern had begged for a doctor to see the pilot or for some kind of exchange to be made that would put him in the hands of either the coalition forces or the International Red Cross, their entreaties had been met with stony-eyed indifference. And with each day of their captivity, Mitchell had lost ground.

      The infection that could have, at one time at least, been easily treated with antibiotics now ran rampant throughout his wasted body. If something didn’t change soon…

      She turned away, trying

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