The Avenger

soldier took in the man's appearance, ignored the friendly greeting, and stared at the truck, inspecting the wide blue sign on the door. Houseman's Pumps, it read.

'This is government property, sir. What's your business?'

The driver gestured vaguely toward the distant buildings. 'Water pump's down. Got a request from… let's see.' He reached for the clipboard lying on the passenger's seat. 'Major Redding? Says the water pump in building two needs repair.'

The soldier stepped back inside the guard house and ran his finger down a list clipped to the podium. 'Sorry, sir. I don't see Houseman's Pumps on the list.'

'Got the request late last night,' the driver said. 'Maybe he didn't have time to call it down.' He peered at the sun just breaking to the east and slanting its glow through the passenger window. 'Can you phone up to verify?'

'The major's not on base today.'

'Holiday?'

The guard shook his head, covering a smile. 'Opening day of deer season.'

The truck driver looked around at the white, glaring stretch of packed salt and rock. 'No hunting in these parts,' he joked.

The soldier visibly relaxed under the easygoing, friendly manner. 'No sir, the high Uintas, up the canyon.'

'Well,' the driver sighed theatrically. 'Guess I can come back tomorrow. Major Redding sounded in a hurry, but if he forgot the paper work, I guess it can wait.' His voice trailed off as he shifted the truck into reverse and glanced over his shoulder.

'Hold on a minute,' the soldier said, looking first to the right and then left as if the answer to his dilemma lay in the bleak landscape. The salt flats shimmered in the morning light, casting water mirages all around. 'Heck, just go on in.' He pressed a button inside the booth that triggered the barrier lift. 'Just be sure and get a signature from whoever's in there.'

'And that would be…?' the driver asked, glancing again at his clipboard.

'Should be Lieutenant Murphy.'

'Right, will do.' The driver saluted as he passed by, heading the truck another mile up the road. 'Have a good day.'

Odds were the guard wouldn't even look at the paperwork on his return trip.

He should've waited until dark to do this, but it'd be harder to get past the guard at night. Anyway, he'd done his homework and wanted to take advantage of the major being gone. Typically people used any excuse to get out of work. Deer season was a perfect excuse for a skeleton force.

The driver didn't encounter anyone else as he pulled around to the back of the farthest building at the base of a rock outcropping. Traveling along a worn path, he approached the aircraft landing runway. Against a shallow enclave in the rocks a natural barrier hunkered between the runway and the salt flats beyond.

He stopped and pulled his truck alongside the largest ridge. When he stepped from the truck, he could see that he'd made a good choice. The shelter effectively hid him from the view of anyone glancing out the windows.

Walking to the back of the truck, he lifted the tarp that covered a metal container. He rolled it off the tailgate and hauled it closer to the rocks. Pulling a wrinkled handkerchief from his hip pocket, he swiped at the sweat drizzling down his cheeks. He grunted as he shoved the barrel on its side and pried open the cover with a crowbar from the truck bed.

The woman tumbled from the container, her arms and legs freed from their cramped positions, her pale skin damp and slick. He checked her eyes beneath the lids, and watched as they rolled back in her head until only the whites gleamed against the ghostly hue of her face.

Pressing two fingers to her carotid, he grunted. Good, she was still alive.

He began to dig.

*

A hot, white thrill shot through Jack's veins like liquid fire. The muscles in his arms bulged with strain while a faint sheen of sweat beaded across his forehead.

Good, she was still alive.

He jerked up in the unfamiliar bed, feeling the humid Mediterranean air wafting in through the open window.

Good, she was still alive.

Unbidden, the thought ripped through his mind again, and along with it, the image of a wide alkaline sweep of flat sand and rocky terrain.

He'd recently travelled through Jordan to his favorite Recovery site here by the blue, blue sea in the busy, crowded city of Tel Aviv. Was the image a memory of the Dead Sea he'd just gone by? Or something else?

Good, she was still alive.

A flash of dark hair tangled around a pale face. A body tumbled onto packed, sandy ground. Undeniable pleasure tightened his groin, but it wasn't his own lust. Jack pushed it away, not understanding the source, but intuiting that it was bad. Really bad. His heart skittered in his chest, erratic and painful, as he pulled on shorts and walked out onto the balcony.

The Mediterranean Sea stretched in front of him stories below. He poured water from a carafe, leaned against the railing, and drank deeply, wondering what the hell the dream mirage meant this time.

As he turned to go inside, a sharp pain sliced through his right temple, ugly and relentless, and he staggered, braced himself against the glass pane of the sliding door. He groaned as agony seared through his head and left him panting.

After a few minutes, he recovered enough to stumble to the bathroom where he splashed cold water on his face. When he looked at his reflection in the mirror, the ghostly face of a green-eyed girl with long, dark hair stared back at him. God, he hadn't thought of her in years.

What did it mean? Was she in trouble?

Chapter Four

In just a few months Olivia Gant had made a comfortable life in Sacramento. She trailed her fingers down the mahogany railing of the ancient staircase. The worn wood smelled of lemon polish and antiquity. Sunlight glinted off the stained glass windows in the foyer, refracting red, blue and gold images across the tiled entry floor.

Heading toward the bedroom, she removed her jacket and slacks as she went, stripping down to her underwear by the time she reached the bathroom. A shower, a nice hot shower, to ease her tired muscles. The first month of the school year always left her feeling a little ragged, her voice hoarse from repeated instructions to new students.

Standing under the hot shower, she let the water work its magic into her sore muscles and puzzled over the task of which staff member to place with which post-grad candidate. She decided her office mate, Dr. Howard Randolph, might be a good mentor to Ted Burrows, after all. Howard had taught at the university for years and was likely experienced at handling a charismatic, but lazy student like Ted.

That problem settled, she stepped out of the shower, slipped on a robe, and padded downstairs to pour a glass of wine. Always mindful of her mother's drinking problem, Olivia permitted herself one glass a day.

For the next several hours she pattered around the house she'd inherited last spring from her grandmother. The grandmother she hadn't even known about until her last year of graduate school when the elderly woman had contacted her out of the blue. Sarah Morse had died last spring and left Olivia this beautiful old home in Sacramento. At first she hadn't been sure she wanted the house. She'd built a solid career at Cal Berkley and was inching toward tenure. A move to the Sacramento area had been the farthest thing from her mind.

Then her floundering marriage had taken a precarious nose dive, and she'd felt both abandoned by and freed from her philandering husband. Rather than become a cliche, she'd taken a year's leave of absence and scooped up the offer from Our Lady of Fatima University. Not a practicing Catholic, she still had a healthy respect for the history