Double Vision (6 page)

“Incredible.” Forester shook his head, rubbed at his nape.

“He keeps them out of commission for three months, studying them. Only, thanks to a combination of drug-therapy and psych-warfare processes, the captives don’t realize they’ve been away for three months, and they have no recollection of what happened to them during that time.”

Kate realized how this sounded. If she hadn’t seen evidence of it firsthand, she would have been skeptical of the process. But she’d seen it twice personally, and reviewed more than a dozen case studies of other victims S.A.S.S. had already discovered. “It’s a complex process, but very effective.” She paused to drink from her cup and motioned for a tissue.

Forester passed her one from the box on his desk.

She wiped at her eyes, still bleary from the trek to the command post. “Thomas Kunz runs GRID—”

“I’m familiar with Kunz, Captain.” Venom laced Forester’s voice; the kind of venom that came from first
hand experience. He leaned forward, lacing his hands atop his desk. “You were going to explain why this mission has been upgraded to a Code Two.”

“Yes, Major.” Before continuing, Kate inhaled slowly, collecting her thoughts. Apparently he had enough background now to feel comfortable. “The designation keeps the need-to-know loop small. That’s important, particularly in this case, because the longer news stays suppressed, the greater our odds for revealing infiltrators and for capturing Kunz. Without him, GRID is no longer a significant force.”

“Wait a minute.” Again, surprise twisted Forester’s face. “Thomas Kunz is serving a life sentence in Leavenworth.”

“Yes, I know that.” Kate lifted her cup toward the coffeepot, silently requesting a refill. “I arrested him.”

Forester poured to the rim and then returned the pot to its metal seat in the coffeemaker. A drop of liquid hit the metal and hissed. “Did he escape?”

“No, Major. He did not.”

“Then you’d better explain what you’re talking about, because I’m not tracking.”

Kate looked up from a file labeled “Douglas” on the desk and met Forester’s gaze. “According to the message you gave me from Colonel Drake, the Thomas Kunz in Leavenworth isn’t the real Thomas Kunz.”

Shock lit Forester’s eyes. “He’s a double?”

Kate nodded. “We’ve gotten his doubles before, too. And the one I heard today could be another—or it could be him.”

“The hits are rolling in for you today, aren’t they?”

She shrugged. “Some days you’re the windshield, some, you’re the bug.”

Forester grunted, watching a young private enter and
take a seat at his desk. “Colonel Drake also mentioned that when you return to the States you’re to go to Providence Air Force Base down in Florida and not to D.C.”

“Thank you,” Kate said. Secretary Reynolds had moved the S.A.S.S. office out of Washington to put distance between it and Congress, hoping to give S.A.S.S. a little less well-intentioned interference, but Kate had her doubts. Colonel Gray, the Providence base commander, was in a full-fledge pissing contest with Colonel Drake. The entire S.A.S.S. would have to fight Gray tooth and nail for so much as a paperclip.

Leaning forward, Forester tapped his index fingertips together. “Colonel Drake also asked that you be reminded to trust no one.”

Kate blinked hard, looked over and up at him. He didn’t much like being included in that remark. It shone in his eyes.

“To keep the truth buried, Kunz will kill you, Kate. You, Douglas and anyone else in his way—even if he has to blow up one of his own compounds to do it.”

“Yes, Major, he will,” she agreed. “He did in Texas.”

“Commander?” A young man wearing owl glasses and a sparse mustache walked to the door of the clear booth from his desk near the tent opening, carrying a clipboard.

“What is it, Riley?”

“Douglas, sir.” Riley’s eyes stretched wide and his thumb flicked at the metal clasp on the clipboard. “He disappeared during the diving training exercise early this morning, sir. Search and Rescue are on it, but they haven’t spotted him. Tide’s moving out. They say odds are that he’s…” His Adam’s apple bobbed hard. “Odds are that he’s drowned, sir.”

Kate’s stomach dropped to her knees, curdled, then shot up to her throat, pouring acid all along the way.

“You’ll have to excuse me, Captain,” Forester announced.

Somehow Kate managed to get to her feet. “Of course, sir.” She moved to the booth’s door. “I’d like to be in on the search, Major.”

He frowned. “Did you and Douglas have a thing?”

“Define ‘thing,’ Major.”

“Are you involved?”

“We’re professional associates. We both put our asses on the line for others.”

Forester’s face flushed. “Point taken.”

Kate turned to Riley. “Was Douglas alone at the time he disappeared? Injured in any way? Did anyone see him go under?”

“No, ma’am. He was with a team, not injured, and no one saw him go under. One minute he was there with them, bringing up the rear, and the next minute he was gone. Just that fast.”

She looked at Forester and saw the truth she felt burning in his eyes. Someone had snagged Douglas.

Considering the proximity, GRID was a strong possibility. Of course, Iranian authorities, any of a half dozen groups of Iraqi insurgents were strong possibilities, too. Unfortunately any one of them meant that the odds were better than even Douglas was already dead. A knot swelled in Kate’s throat.

Forester softened his tone and compassion rose in him. “Go back to your tent, Captain. I’ll let you know the minute I hear anything that requires action.”

“I want to be in on the search,” she repeated. She wanted firsthand proof of what happened to him. She wanted hard evidence.

When Forester nodded, she left the booth and then the
tent, certain that something sinister had happened to Douglas. His disappearance reeked of foul play. He had been far from isolated, under no hostile pressure, and he was trained. He knew what to do if caught by a riptide or other natural occurrence. Douglas hadn’t just stopped swimming. He hadn’t just disappeared without a trace in the presence of his training team.

Someone had definitely intercepted him.

K
ate tugged on a fresh set of fatigues, preparing to search for Douglas. The obvious answer to what happened to him was that GRID had snatched him, but was that the right answer?

It seemed logical that GRID would snatch the entire team—they were all present and within easy reach. And the stealth factor wouldn’t have been as challenging since GRID would be removing the entire group, leaving behind no witnesses.

Standing in front of a cracked mirror attached to the tent’s center post, she ruffled her fingers through her short, curly hair. Douglas had brought her here. He had risked ticking off his commander by skipping up the chain of command and exposing his knowledge of S.A.S.S. to help her get GRID. Now she feared the worst had happened to him because he had.

A sliver of guilt cut through her. She wiped a hand across her chest, told herself all the reasons she shouldn’t feel guilty, but of course, she did anyway. And of course, she had to do what she could to help him.

She just had to get through Commander Nathan Forester to do it.

Giving her cheeks a final swipe, she turned toward the tent opening. Forester was going to either include her in the search or have the MPs arrest her. She headed out into the sandstorm toward Forester’s command post. One way or another she was going to find out what happened to Douglas.

The command post tent hummed. Where desks had been empty, people sat and stood gathered around. Four men stood shoulder-to-shoulder crammed inside Forester’s Plexiglas-walled cubicle, scribbling notes and cross reporting. Forester sat at his desk, a phone receiver cradled at one ear, his mouth pressed to a radio mike. In between transmissions on the radio, he barked orders to the four men, all of whom looked as worried and serious as Forester.

“I want divers down there now. Keep them down there until you find Douglas or his body.”

Kate stood beside the door and observed, sure that if she interrupted at the moment, Forester would just send her back to her tent. If circumstances hadn’t been what they were, she would have enjoyed watching him in action. His face was expressive, his focus intense. Did his left eye always flicker when he was under pressure?

He glanced over and saw her. The heat in his gaze could have melted her into the tent’s canvas. What perceived slight would she have to apologize for now?

He issued a hasty dismissal to the men in his cubicle.
They didn’t waste any time leaving and rushed out of the tent. Watching them go, Kate didn’t sense the animosity coming from them that she had seen on Forester’s face. Most people here ignored her. She was an outsider, and they didn’t want her to forget it. That didn’t bother Kate. Hell, it was normal. She’d been an outsider all her life. But a fresh-faced lieutenant surprised her. He actually smiled at her.

She smiled back. “Hi.”

Forester noticed. “Captain Kane.” His voice boomed through the tent. “In here. Now.”

That shout had half the heads in the tent turning toward her and the other half checking out Forester to see what had riled him before turning to stare at her.

Irritated by his shout, she lifted her chin to a haughty angle and walked over to the clear-walled cubicle. She sure as hell wasn’t going to hurry, not after being treated with such a lack of respect. “You bellowed, sir?”

“Watch it, Captain.” He slammed down the phone. “Now is not a good time for you to be cute.”

She stiffened. “I had no intentions of being cute. I had every intention of pointing out your obvious animosity. I can’t imagine your reason for it. I certainly haven’t earned it.”

Surprise flickered through his eyes. “Haven’t earned it?” Anger rippled off him in waves. “Come with me, Captain.”

Following him to the tent opening, she frowned. “We’re going back out into the sandstorm?”

“Yes.” He clamped his jaw shut and tossed her a once-white muffler. A rack of them hung on a peg-stand by the tent door. “Move it.”

In her three days here, she had wearied of having gritty
sand invade her every orifice. The sandstorm had only hit this evening about 9:00 p.m., but it had hit with a vengeance. By ten, when Kate walked over to the command post, the entire landscape had changed. Some of the tents on the south side had drifts halfway up the outer walls. She swung the muffler around her throat, quickly wrapped her head to shield her face, then followed him out of the tent, ignoring the people inside who pretended not to notice that a world war was about to erupt between their commander and the outsider.

Darkness surrounded them. Forester disappeared into a thick cloud of wind-whipped sand. The damn stuff stung like splinters. The wind had to be forty knots. Breathing as little as possible to keep grit out of her nose, Kate pulled up her shirt collar and scrunched her shoulders to hide more of her exposed skin. Following Forester’s shadow, she wondered what had pissed him off and where the commander who never permitted himself to be alone with a female officer was taking her.

A wind gust slammed into her and, for a second, she lost sight of his shadow. He snaked out a hand and tugged her into a tent. “Here.”

Brushing the grit from her face, she frowned at him. They were alone, inside a tent. A serious breach of typical Forester policy, which had her edgy and nervous. This wasn’t going to be a typical ass-chewing. It was going to be major. “What’s wrong?”

Surprised by her insight, he took a step back from her. “I wanted to speak to you privately.”

“I see.” She didn’t really see at all, and looked around. Personal quarters. Definitely his tent. He was either really rattled or supremely perturbed. “About something specific?”

He stiffened. “When I give orders, I expect them to be obeyed, Captain. I don’t know how things are run at S.A.S.S., but at this outpost, when I tell you to go to your tent, I expect you to do it.”

“I did go to my tent.” She nearly sighed, but caught herself. Unit commanders exerting their authority over S.A.S.S. operatives temporarily assigned to their unit for expediency’s sake was unfortunately common. Kate shifted her weight, unwrapped her muffler and let it dangle like a scarf wrapped around her neck. She knew the drill. Play the game. Let him rant and rave and get it out. Then do the job, whether or not he agrees with what she’s doing or the way she’s doing it.

“You didn’t stay there.”

“I didn’t realize I’d been placed on quarters.” In this situation, that amounted to house arrest, which had an indignant squall fighting hard for its rightful place in her voice. “Is that what you did, Commander?” She narrowed her eyes, glared at him. “Placed me on quarters?”

He didn’t answer, but his disdain and her guilt over Douglas mixed and mingled with her aggravation at tasting sand grit and suffering Forester’s attitude. She snapped. “Why don’t you skip the nonsense and just tell me what’s really eating at you?”

“In my unit, disobeying a direct order isn’t nonsense.”

“First, I didn’t disobey your order.” She dipped her chin. “Second,
that
is not why you’re looking at me as if you’d like to flay the skin off my bones.”

“Douglas’s disappearance wasn’t an accident, Captain.” Forester’s voice was tight, his jaw tighter.

Damn. Now he was back to calling her captain. Tired, worried, annoyed to the point of mayhem, she felt like spitting nails. “Yes, I know.”

“How?” His frown deepened and his eyes turned to furious laser points. “Exactly how did you know it?”

She didn’t even have to work at it to pick up on the suspicions running rampant and banging off the walls of his mind. They were blatantly clear. Bristling, she told him. “Douglas was on an exercise mission with a team. He wouldn’t just disappear without someone noticing. He had to have been lured away, isolated and then—”

Forester erupted. “If Douglas was alive, he’d be on the job! He isn’t, so he has to be dead. And if he’s dead—”

The man hesitated a tick too long. “What?” she interjected. “Then it’s my fault? Is that right?”

“That’s how I see it.” He leaned back, folded his arms at his chest.

Her temper jacked up from a controlled simmer to a roiling boil. It took work, but she managed to tamp it down, drop her voice and chill her tone. “Are you thinking I had something to do with Douglas’s disappearance?” She couldn’t believe it.

Guilt rushed through his eyes. He lowered his gaze to mask it. That was exactly what he was thinking. “Did you?”

“No!” Realizing she’d shouted, she lowered the volume, replaced it with steel, and spoke through clenched teeth. Still not wise—he could have her arrested—but it was the best she could manage under the circumstances. When Forester reported her, Colonel Drake would just have to get over it. “You didn’t order me to my tent because you were preparing an investigation. You didn’t want me to overhear your plans or conversations with Search and Rescue.” She couldn’t help it, she gasped. “I can’t believe—”

“Believe it.” He glared at her without apology.

Belligerent, misguided, bastard.
She crossed her chest
with her arms and matched his stance. Katherine Kane tolerated a lot. She had to. She was the guest. But damn it, there were limits, and he’d exceeded them.

“Looking at me like I’m a bastard that crawled out from under a rock doesn’t change the facts. It’s a logical deduction, considering your actions.”

“What actions?”

“You never should’ve involved Douglas in a mission outside the scope of his orders. You divided his focus and put him in danger.”

“I
what?
” She couldn’t believe her ears.

“You increased the obstacles and raised his risks and you’re oblivious?” He looked at her as if she were a raunchy maggot. “You’re senior to him, Captain. Didn’t you even once think about the consequences to him?”

“You’re wrong, Commander.” She lifted a hand in protest, intending to set him and the record straight. “I—”

“No, you’re wrong.” Forester was too angry to listen and plowed on. “Your actions undermined my mission. You had no right—”

“Now wait just a minute.” She propped a hand on her hip.

He lifted a warning finger at her. “Do
not
interrupt me again.”

She shoved it out of her face. “No, you listen. Damn it, I will not stand here and listen to you make false accusations. I didn’t undermine a thing and I’m not going to be a whipping post for you to dump all your fears on because Douglas is missing. I’ve got worries of my own about that, thank you very much.”

Stunned, Forester just stared at her.

Certain when the shock wore off, he’d have her ass thrown in the brig, she spoke quickly. “I interrupted to save
you from having to eat even more of your words later. You’re wrong coming out of the gate on this.
I
didn’t involve Douglas.
He
involved me. I didn’t ask for his help or do anything to divide his focus. I didn’t ask anything of him. He sent for me. So, you can take all that righteous hyperbole you’ve been spewing and just stuff it—” Oh, hell. She’d lost her mind. Gnawing on a senior officer’s ass? Her host? She’d clearly left her sanity in the grave! “—right into the garbage, sir.” Small save. Probably nowhere near large enough to spare her hide.

Forester took in a deep breath and rubbed at his chin. His wedding band winked in the raw light glaring from the single bulb dangling from a black cord at the center of his tent. When he spoke, his voice came out soft. Soft and terribly still. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear any of that, Kate. For your sake, I hope you aren’t such a hot-headed fool that you repeat it.”

Genuinely offended but substantially cooler, she checked a look meant to stop a clock and held her tongue.

He uncrossed his arms and let them dangle at his sides. “Douglas came to you on his own?”

“Not exactly.”

“Aha.”

“No, ‘aha,’” she insisted, letting some of the tension ebb out of her shoulders. Forester was off his war footing; he’d visibly calmed down. “He summoned me. I didn’t talk with him. He, um, contacted me in a way he knew I’d get the message.”

Curiosity lightened in his eyes. “How’s that?”

The man was going to love this. “He mailed me a bag of sand, sir.” It sounded even more absurd than expected, but it was all she could tell him. To disclose the coordi
nates given would require a breach of protocol. Colonel Drake would court-martial her. “Through the courier pouch,” she added, but that didn’t sound a bit better.

“What?” Forester looked confused.

Kate well imagined he was confused. It looked pretty good on him, too. Damn shame he was married—and a pig. “I said he mailed me a bag of sand.”

“And you took that as a summons?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

Kate debated on whether or not to tell him, then figured if she didn’t, he’d just call Colonel Drake, and then she’d call and crawl up Kate’s ass for being uncooperative. “A few months ago, we took down a GRID compound in the Gulf region.” No way was she mentioning it was in Iran, or that she strongly suspected she was within spitting distance of that same place now. Maggie’s
you don’t want to know
remark replayed in her mind. “Douglas and his tactical team assisted.”

“I’m aware of that, Kate. I issued the order.”

“Then why are you asking me about the significance of the sand?” Good grief. If he had the answers, then why ask her the questions?

“Because I don’t get the correlation between that mission and a damn bag of sand.”

That, she could explain. “Douglas knows GRID is a S.A.S.S. priority. That he’d mail me anything at all would automatically relate it to GRID. Why else would he contact me?” She shrugged. “It was a summons, clear and simple.”

Just as clear and simple, Forester was trying to wrap his mind around her logic. “And in your mind, there’s no other possible explanation?”

“None.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

That earned her an unqualified grunt. “Did it occur to you that you flirted like crazy with Douglas on that mission and that he might just want to get in touch?” Forester lifted a hand, palm up. “Hell, half my unit heard the radio transmissions between you two, and by any measure, you can’t deny that they were…suggestive.”