The stranger crossed the short distance and held out his hand.
Sam ignored it.
The man cleared his throat and looked as if he was fighting a smile, which just pissed Sam off. “I’m Lieutenant General Wesley Burkhart, head of—”
“The NSA. I know the name.” Sam didn’t react outwardly, but the gears in his head were turning. “What do you want with me? I thought you guys were into cryptography and cyber stuff.”
“We are, but I’m putting together a team of men and women with a different skill set. Black ops stuff, similar to the CIA, but with less . . . rules. I want to offer you a job, but before I go any further, you need to know that if you come to work for me, Sam Kelly will cease to exist. You will leave your past and everything in it behind.”
Sam stared at the man, overwhelmed by too many feelings. Relief being one of them. Leaving his identity behind didn’t seem like such a bad thing at all. Finishing the rest of his enlistment in shitholes like this wasn’t something he looked forward to. He’d seen and caused so much death that sometimes he wondered if God would ever forgive him. The idea of wiping his record clean was so damn appealing. Maybe this was the fresh start he’d been looking for. Except . . . he touched the hog’s tooth hanging from his neck. He’d bled, sweated, and starved for this thing. For what it represented. It was part of him now. “I’m not taking this off. Ever.”
The other man’s eyes flicked to the bullet around his neck, and the corners of his mouth pulled up slightly. “Unless the op calls for it, I wouldn’t expect you to.”
Okay, then. Heart thudding, Sam dropped his rucksack to the ground. “Tell me everything I need to know.”
Chapter 1
Black Death 9 Agent: member of an elite group of men and women employed by the NSA for covert, off- the-books operations. A member’s purpose is to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gather information or evidence by any means necessary.
Jack Stone opened and quietly shut the door behind him as he slipped into the conference room. A few analysts and field agents were already seated around the long rectangular table. One empty chair remained.
A few of the new guys looked up as he entered, but the NSA’s security was tighter than Langley’s. Since he was the only one missing from this meeting, the senior members pored over the briefs in front of them without even giving him a cursory glance.
Wesley Burkhart, his boss, handler, and recruiter all rolled into one, stuck his head in the room just as Jack started to sit. “Jack, my office. Now.”
He inwardly cringed because he knew that tone well. At least his bags were still packed. Once he was out in the hall, heading toward Wesley’s office, his boss briefly clapped him on the back. “Sorry to drag you out of there, but I’ve got something bigger for you. Have you had a chance to relax since you’ve been back?”
Jack shrugged, knowing his boss didn’t expect an answer. After working two years undercover to bring down a human trafficking ring that had also been linked to a terrorist group in Southern California, he was still decompressing. He’d been back only a week and the majority of his time had been spent debriefing. It would take longer than a few days to wash the grime and memories off him. If he ever did. “You’ve got another mission for me already?”
Wesley nodded as he opened the door to his office. “I hate sending you back into the field so soon, but once you read the report, you’ll understand why I don’t want anyone else.”
As the door closed behind them, Jack took a seat in front of his boss’s oversized solid oak desk. “Lay it on me.”
“Two of our senior analysts have been hearing a lot chatter lately linking the Vargas cartel and Abu al- Ramaan’s terrorist faction. At this point, the only solid connection we have is South Beach Medical Supply.”
“SBMS is involved?” The medical company delivered supplies and much-needed drugs to third-world countries across the globe. Ronald Weller, the owner, was such a straight arrow it didn’t seem possible.
“Looks that way.” His boss handed him an inch-thick manila folder.
Jack picked up the packet and looked over the first document. As he skimmed the report, his chest tightened painfully as long-buried memories clawed at him with razor-sharp talons. After reading the key sections, he looked up. “Is there a chance Sophie is involved?” Her name rolled off his tongue so naturally, as if he’d spoken to her yesterday and not thirteen years ago. As if saying it was no big deal. As if he didn’t dream about her all the damn time.
Wesley shook his head. “We don’t know. Personally, I don’t think so, but it looks like her boss is.”
“Ronald Weller? Where are you getting this information?” Jack had been on the West Coast for the last two years, dealing with his own bullshit. A lot could have changed in that time, but SBMS involved with terrorists—he didn’t buy it.
“Multiple sources have confirmed his involvement, including Paul Keane, the owner of Keane Flight. We’ve got Mr. Keane on charges of treason, among other things. He rolled over on SBMS without too much persuasion, but we still need actual proof that SBMS is involved, not just a traitor’s word.”
“How is Keane Flight involved?”
“Instead of just flying medical supplies, they’ve been picking up extra cargo.”
Jack’s mind immediately went to the human trafficking he’d recently dealt with, and he gritted his teeth. “Cargo?”
“Drugs, guns . . . possibly biological weapons.”
The first two were typical cargo of most smugglers, but biological shit put Keane right on the NSA’s hit list. “What do you want from me?”
His boss rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve already built a cover for you. You’re a silent partner with Keane Flight. Now that Paul Keane is incapacitated, you’ll be taking over the reins for a while, giving you full access to all his dealings.”
“Incapacitated, huh?”
The corners of Wesley’s mouth pulled up slightly. “He was in a car accident. Bad one.”
“Right.” Jack flipped through the pages of information. “Where’s Keane really at right now?”
“In federal protection until we can bring this whole operation down, but publicly he’s in a coma after a serious accident—one that left him scarred beyond recognition and the top half of his body in bandages.”
Jack didn’t even want to know where they’d gotten the body. Probably a John Doe no one would miss. “So what’s the deal with my role?”
“Paul Keane has already made contact with Weller about you—days before his accident. Told him he was taking a vacation and you’d be helping out until he got back. Weller was cautious on the phone, careful not to give up anything. Now that Keane is ‘injured,’ no one can ask him any questions. Keane’s assistant is completely in the dark about everything and thinks you’re really a silent partner. You’ve been e-mailing with her the past week to strengthen your cover, but you won’t need to meet her in person. You’re supposed to meet with Weller in two days. We want you to completely infiltrate the day-to-day workings of SBMS. We need to know if Weller is working with anyone else, if he has more contacts we’re not privy to. Everything.”
“Why can’t you tap his phone?” That should be child’s play for the NSA.
His boss’s expression darkened. “So far we’ve been unable to hack his line. I’ve got two of my top analysts, Thomas Chadwick and Steven Williams—I don’t think you’ve met either of them.” When Jack shook his head, Wesley continued. “The fact that’s he’s got a filter that
Maybe. Or maybe the guy was just paranoid. Jack glanced at the report again, but didn’t get that same rush he’d always gotten from his work. The last two years he’d seen mothers and fathers sell their children into slavery for less than a hundred dollars. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. In the past he hadn’t been on a job for more than six months at a time and he’d never been tasked with anything so brutal before, but in addition to human trafficking, they’d been selling people to scientists—under the direction of Albanian terrorists—who had loved
