Deadly Game

was beginning to doubt his ability to stay focused.

'You think someone was after Whitney to kill him for real and he had to fake his own death, not to hide from exposure and us, but to keep from being targeted?' Jack rubbed his temples. 'How the hell did we ever get into this mess?'

'We didn't give a damn at the time,' Ken said. 'Now you've got a wife and twins on the way and you've got something to live for. Let's pull back, regroup with our team, and ask a few hard questions. We can have Logan contact Ryland Miller's team, and between us. we ought to have enough brains to figure out what's going on.'

Jack frowned, rolled back over, and using elbows and toes, inched his way forward through heavy foliage. 'We can't leave the bastard an open target, can we? If someone else wants him dead, we should probably find out why and how it affects us.'

Ken wiggled his way along a rabbit path, belly down, gun cradled out of the dirt. He'd had a bad feeling for a while now.

'Hold it, Jack,' Ken whispered, eye to the scope. Something is wrong. He reached out to telepathically communicate with his twin brother. It was a handy ability when they wanted to remain unseen. They'd been talking back and forth like this for as long as Ken could remember, never needing to communicate verbally with each other when telepathy was so handy. Consequently, they had a strong bond that had stood them in good stead over the years. The psychic experiment they'd agreed to after SEAL training had only added to that already powerful tool.

I feel it too. Kadan sent out the alert. They're going to come in hard and fast. We're going to have to protect the bastard. Whoever wants him dead is already here.

Ken kept his eye on the senator through the window. The senator's young and beautiful trophy wife is aware they have company too. Look at her.

Jack peered through the scope. Through the window of the cabin a blonde leaned down to give her husband's cheek a peck. She said something, smiled, showing a lot of teeth, and the senator answered her, touching her chin. She turned away, toward the window, giving them a look at her face.

Oh yeah, she knows. And she didn't say a word to him about it, Jack said.

A lot of good men might go down this night. Ken could barely resist the urge to slide into the house and save them all the trouble by slitting the bastard's throat. The senator had betrayed his country for money, or power, or a combination of both. Ken didn't really give a damn what his motives were; he'd sold out. And he'd been the bait that had sent Ken into the Congo on a rescue mission-a mission that had sent him straight into hell-and his brother after him. And now, ironically, they were protecting the traitor.

'What the hell is his wife's name?' Jack asked. 'You don't suppose she's one of us? A GhostWalker?'

They both studied the tall blonde carefully. She had walked away from the senator into the next room, where she caught up several weapons, handling them as if she knew what she was doing.

Ken took a deep breath and let it out. The senator's wife? A GhostWalker? What was her name? Violet Smythe. Little had been in the report about her life before marrying the senator. Violet. The name of a flower. When they'd been briefed on Whitney's psycho experiments with children, the orphans he worked on had all been female and he'd given them the names of flowers. 'Violet.' he said aloud.

Where did she fit into all of this? How could a GhostWalker betray her fellow soldiers? She knew what they'd all been through. He peered through his scope again, taking a bead on the senator's left eye. All he had to do was pull the trigger and it would be over. No one else would get killed. One shot and the man who had delivered him into the hands of a madman would be dead.

I know what you're thinking, Jack said. God knows that if anyone has the right to kill the son of bitch, it's you. If you want it done. Ken, say the word and I'll take him out now.

Jack would do it in a heartbeat. Ken touched his scarred jaw. There was little sensation on any part of his skin, and little that remained of a once-handsome face or body. A tremor went through that body, and for one moment, rage boiled over, hot and pure and not covered up by the glacier of ice he usually wore. He hesitated, knowing he could just nod his head and Jack would pull the trigger. Or, better yet, he could do it himself and have the satisfaction of knowing he'd removed a traitor. He inhaled deeply and breathed away all emotion. That way lay insanity, and he refused to follow the legacy he was born into.

He felt Jack's relief and realized just how close a watch his brother had had on him lately. I'm fine. Of course Jack knew he was sweating bullets and hearing screams. Jack and Ken lived in each other's mind. Jack knew. And the knowledge ate away at him that he hadn't been able to get to Ken before Ekabela tortured him. Never mind that, in the end. Jack had pulled him out and been taken prisoner. Jack believed he should have prevented it. I'm fine. Ken repeated.

I know.

But he wasn't fine. He hadn't been born fine, hadn't been fine as a child, or in his early military career. He was worse after his capture and torture in the Congo, demons riding him hard, day and night. And now, with the senator needing protection-probably from the very man who had been paying him for years-Ken knew the dangerous shadow inside him had grown into an all too real threat to his sanity.

We have company, Kadan announced telepathically. Be alert. I'm hustling the senator into a safety room.

Kadan. Watch the wife, Ken warned. We think she may be one of us. She's armed to the teeth and she felt the presence of intruders the moment we did.

Kadan never expressed surprise. No one was ever really sure if he felt emotions at all. He seemed a machine, matter-of-fact, simply doing the job. And he was good at it. Copy that.

Ken settled into position. Kadan's life would depend on him. Jack would keep the senator alive. If Violet made a move against Kadan, she was a dead woman. He kept his focus on his primary objective. Kadan moved through the shadows. It was nearly impossible to see him. A blurred edge sometimes, a perception of movement, only because Ken knew where he was going to be. They'd gone over his route several times. Ken kept it clear, sweeping the surrounding area with heightened awareness.

An assassination squad was moving into place, and they would be trying to reduce any numbers against them. Neil Campbell and Trace Aikens were impossible to spot, but they were out there. Martin Howard had fallen back to help Kadan secure the senator.

Kadan gained the porch, moving past the swaying carcasses to enter the cabin. He spoke briefly to Violet and they both hurried into the room with the senator, pushing him back toward the kitchen where the 'safe room' was. The fireproof room was beneath the main floor.

The macabrely swinging carcasses drew Ken's attention again. Blood dripped. The odor carried on the night breeze. He swallowed bile, wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead, and put his eye to the scope again. Something about the deer nagged at him-just wouldn't let him go. A shadow seemed to grow out of the deer on the far side, emerging from the top near the meat hook.

Ken squeezed the trigger and the shadow fell with a heavy thud, one arm stretched out as if in entreaty. Even as Ken took the shot, Jack's gun went off, and a second body fell simultaneously, that one from the far side of the roof.

A third shot rang out as Jack scooted back into the bushes for cover, the bullet hitting where his head had been. Ken was already targeting the brief flash. Taking his time, he tightened his finger on the trigger just as his quarry shifted position. The bullet slammed home, driving the sniper backward, the rifle still in his hands. Ken followed with a second round, but his target was dropping through tree branches. He knew that neither bullet had killed his target, a rare occurrence. Eye to the scope, he followed the path of the sniper as he tumbled down the slope, crashing through trees and brush.

Instant awareness rippled through Ken's mind, as if all members of the Ghost Walkers and the assassination squad were connected in some way to the sniper.

Stand down. Ken! Kadan issued the command. They're backing off to protect that man. Get to him first. Whoever he is-he's more important than the primary target. Secure the sniper immediately. We'll hold his team here while you make a run for it.

I've got his back. Jack said unnecessarily. Every member of the GhostWalker team knew that where Ken went, so did Jack, and vice versa.

There was an instant of stillness, and then an electrical current sizzled through the air, snapping and crackling,