At Any Cost (2 page)

"Lost him? How does an agency with the ability to smoke out the invisible lose one of their own?" Dan shot a look at Brooks. "Especially with ICE on their tail."

Donovan stared at him. "Him? Weber, Turner is a
her
. And
she
has been very good at covering her tracks."

The weight slammed back into his chest, with vengeance. No, it couldn't be. He already had a solid suspicion on the identity of the mole. And it wasn't a she. "
She
?" He reached for the envelope and, against his better judgment, tore off the top and pulled out the photo.

And damn near swallowed his tongue. He immediately sprang to life.

This woman couldn't be an agent, let alone the mole. No, this woman should be the next centerfold for Playboy. Dan smiled slightly as he studied her. Dark chocolate hair, mesmerizing green eyes, creamy skin. His fingers tingled to touch that hot flesh, his want to trace every inch of her with his tongue had him hard in record time. Jesus Christ, he'd never had such an immediate and urgent reaction to a woman before, let alone her photo.

He didn't even bother to try and hide his erection. Hell, if any of these other men took one look at her, they'd all be sporting hard ons. Running his finger down the photo of the perfectly sculpted and toned body, he studied the way the neon swimsuit hugged her frame, barely covering enough to be decent, teasing him by giving him an image of what she'd look like naked.

Swimsuit
?

"You got this photo from surveillance? Or
Sports Illustrated
?" Dan turned the photo to the side, imagining what she'd look like horizontal, and imagining him next to her. And under her. And on top of her.

Holy shit, Weber. Turn it down.
He tensed.

"Look at the next one."

He brought his eyes back to the centerfold one last time. Very nice. Reluctantly, Dan grabbed the photo behind the swimsuit shot and placed it on top.

Now this looked more like a surveillance photo. Digital. Black and white. And a perfect picture of the woman's ear. "What is this? You can't even see her face." He studied her ear. Not even an indent indicating pierced ears. A grown woman without pierced ears was different, but not completely unheard of. It gave Dan a starting point, at least.

"It's the best we could do. Only a few knew of that lab. Although we never told Turner about it, she knew how to tap into the database. It wouldn't take much for her to find it. Besides, she's the only agent who fits the description of the woman in that photo. Add that to the fact she went missing right
after
LEON
disappeared, and is still missing, and you have a pretty good idea why we think it's her."

"That's what you're basing this whole thing on? Her ear? Who best fits? A missing agent? We go under all the time, Donovan." Dan shoved the photos back in the envelope.

"Hey! Don't we get a peek?" Stevens protested.

"No."

"But—"

"I said no."

Opie
wouldn't let it go. "Who the hell died and made you King Shit of the Outhouse?"

Slowly, calmly, Dan met his eyes. Without a word, he conveyed how close this kid was to another ass kicking. Dan didn't blink, didn't falter, until Stevens finally looked away.

Too bad. The mood Dan suddenly found himself in made him itch to punch something. Hard. Grinding his teeth, he spat out, "So why bring me in on this? You know what a liability I am, right, Donovan? Isn't that what you said to me when you told me to take a hike?"

"You were told to take a
break
, Weber. No one expected you to stay away. That was your decision and yours alone."

Dan felt a growl creeping into the base of his throat. That's exactly what they expected him to do. He'd become unpredictable, and that equaled unreliable. He was useless to NASSD. Why wait around for the agency to put him out to pasture? Besides, still being on NASSD's payroll meant he still had to follow their rules. As a freelancer, he could do what he wanted, when he wanted. He had all the freedom in the world.

For the past two years he thought of little else but hunting down the man responsible for the scar on his chest and returning the favor. He'd tried to find him, but always picked up the trail too little, too late. As a NASSD agent he had unlimited resources at his disposal. When he left, he lost that freedom.

How ironic.

"Sounds like you got all the pieces together. By the looks of this hot beauty queen, she hasn't been a NASSD agent for long." He dropped the envelope onto the desk. His hard on finally picking up the fact it wasn't the real thing, he leaned back in the chair.

"How do you figure?" Donovan asked.

"She's young, maybe late twenties. She didn't pose like that as an agent, which means either the swimsuit photo is old, or she's new. I've never heard of her and I've only been out for two years. If she's supposed to be NASSD's secret weapon, I would have known about her. There aren't too many female agents, and none of them are that screaming hot. She's new."

"You got all that off a swimsuit photo?" Stevens asked, his lip curled. Although he tried to sound unimpressed, Dan could see in the kid's eyes that he was, indeed, impressed.

"You're right, as usual." Donovan leaned forward in his chair. "We had her back in training for almost a full year before she disappeared. After proving she can shoot the gnat off a wall at three hundred yards in a high wind, we decided to make use of her skills. She looks better than any pinup centerfold, which we knew would work to our advantage."

"How so?" Stevens asked.

"Any male would turn to putty in her hands," Dan stated and smiled at the thought. He'd give his left nut to have her hands all over him, to have her rub that gorgeous body up against his just so he could melt on the spot.

The thought of
LEON
out there made him pull his attention back in check. "What about Professor Keithan? His assistant? How do we know it wasn't one of them?"

"Always the chivalrous one. Believe it or not, some women out there are evil. Evil to the core. You of all people should understand that." Donovan's eyes skipped to Dan's chest and back up. "The professor and his assistant are both dead, killed by our little eye candy. Now she is after the unit assigned to the project. Your old team, Weber. She has the skill, and she has the information. We can't seem to stop her. We need
you
."

Dan felt another chill crawl up his spine. Jesus, not his team. What kind of callous bitch takes out members of her own organization? "Anyone hit?"

"Saunders. Cummings. Johnson is missing."

Christ. That left three of them. Dan swallowed down the bile creeping up the back of his throat. "Where are the others?"

"NASSD is in contact with them. Cole doesn't want anything to do with us, but he isn't much of a threat. The guy snapped after we destroyed the project. He can barely remember his own name. He's in a convalescent center, drooling all over himself."

"Too bad. He was a smart guy. Loved to talk about his little niece, Jessica," Dan remembered aloud. Charlie Cole talked about that little girl so much the rest of the team felt like they knew her, too. The last time he'd talked to Cole, little Jessica had been accepted into some Ivy League college on the east coast.

Dan snapped out of his melancholy. "Aims?"

"He's fine moving undercover until this blows over."

"Blows over?" Dan kept his voice as steady as possible, but the thought of
LEON
loose, coupled with the fact a sexy-as-sin rogue agent has targeted his old unit for extinction, made it difficult. "That's simplifying it a bit, don't you think? And you have yet to prove to me how the mole could possibly be that woman."

"Weber, quit thinking with your little head. That female isn't as innocent as she looks. She took out an asshole in
Mexico
her first day out of boot camp. Snapped his neck with the strap of her M16."

"Why didn't she just shoot him?"

"Said she didn't want to waste the bullet. Now I'm telling you, she's an assassin, and she loves her job."

"So why'd she turn?"

"That we don't know. After proving she could do an efficient job, we sent her to the base up in the Cascades. The same one we sent you to years ago."

Dan rolled his eyes. "
Gahanna
?
How can I forget? Day in and day out NASSD shoveled so much information into my head I couldn't make heads or tails of half of it."

"Well she's miles ahead of your progress, and you were the best. We were so preoccupied with how much we
could
feed her we failed to stop and think of how much we
should
feed her. She took off before we could give her her next assignment."

"Which was?"

"We've been gearing up to send her undercover in
Colombia
."

Dan swung up his gaze, slammed it on Donovan. "Don't tell me you are going after the Mercado cartel again? We took care of Carlos Mercado years ago. It destroyed the cartel and sent the remaining members into hiding."

"Carlos Mercado had a son,
Santos
, we didn't know about until recently. You thought Carlos Mercado was dangerous? Well, his son redefines the term. We busted a big shipment of Mercado's heroin last year. As payback, he blew up the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, killing 164 Americans. He graduated from drug lord to terrorist with that one, and moved up a notch in the FBI's most wanted list."

"Charming fellow. What's he got to do with Turner? I thought you said she took off?"

"From what intel has been able to gather, Mercado is the frontrunner for the bid on
LEON
."

Dan looked at Brooks. "Is that why you're here?"

"I'm here in case Turner succeeds in deciphering the code to recreate
LEON
," Brooks replied grimly. "ICE believes I'll be able to shut down the program before
LEON
regenerates."

"And you?" Dan asked Stevens.

"I'm here to make sure you can still do a job," he said, his voice full of prickly attitude.

Ah. So NASSD still didn't trust Dan. He had earned himself a couple of babysitters. "And if I can't? Your orders are to take me out."

"That's right."

Dan smiled as he turned back to Donovan. This bordered ridiculous. "They send a
rookie
and a
wash out
to cover me? Come on, Donovan. The kid won't be able to stop me. He's just going to get in my way and annoy the shit out of me. Brooks already said he didn't want to be here and probably wouldn't even put up a fight. I've got two strikes against me. You know I like to work alone."

"It's the only way I could get NASSD to agree to this." Donovan shrugged.

"But you're the head of the entire western region. You've got enough pull."

"Sorry, buddy. If you want back in, you're going to have to take them with you."

"Swell
,
" Dan said flatly. He wanted to tell them all to go screw themselves. He wanted to get up and walk out. But he wanted
LEON
back more. And damn if he didn't want to take the assignment just to meet Turner, to see if she looked that good in person. "Keep going."

Donovan grinned. "Thanks, man. We need you on this."

"Back to Mercado, please." Dan wasn't interested in Donovan's gratitude.
LEON
was loose, possibly in the hands of a terrorist. They didn't have time for niceties right now. As much as it pained him, if JT Turner really did turn, he'd have no choice but to eliminate her.

"Apparently he likes his new status as psycho terrorist, wants to prove he's more than a drug lord. Turner had access to all the files on Mercado. She could see how much money he has and must have realized how much Mercado would be willing to pay for a weapon like
LEON
."