Point of No Return (3 page)

“Can I help you find an office, ma’am?” She turned to see a Navy lieutenant standing at the next door. “It’s easy to get lost in here.” He gave her a great smile as his gaze flicked to the ribbons and medals she wore on the left side of her jacket.

“No. Thanks.” She rested her hand on the knob. “This is it.” She tipped her head in the direction of the door and returned the smile.

He stood a moment. “Good luck,” he said and disappeared into his office.

Good luck?
Damn. Was Moore finally getting a well-deserved asshole rep, or was she showing her nerves? She checked her gig line, squared her shoulders, and neutralized her expression. Wouldn’t do to show nerves to Moore.

“Morning, ma’am,” a lanky lieutenant said, coming from behind his desk. “He’s waiting.” He rushed to the interior office door and swung it open.

He?
She went on high alert. This was supposed to be a staff meeting, not a one-on-one. She had no desire to be in that situation with Moore. Her options were
. . .
none.
She was ordered to this meeting.
She stepped into the general’s inner sanctum feeling like a gladiator going into the Coliseum.

Moore’s office was in an E ring, or outermost ring of the building. A coveted office with a window. She wondered who he’d screwed, literally and figuratively, to score it. The general sat at a large, highly polished wood desk, a panorama of Washington filling the window behind him. Honey moved to stand easy in front of the desk, hands clasped behind her back. An A. J. Squared Away Marine major in her service A uniform with four rows of ribbons and badges staring at a man from her past and what she considered the only misstep of her career.

General Moore looked past her to the lieutenant. “No interruptions.”

Moore, a handsome man in his fifties, leaned back in the chair, tracing a finger over his sensuous mouth, gray eyes looking her over like a starving man in front of a buffet.

“Nobody’s come down on you for that uniform?” He shook his head.

“No, sir. No complaints.” Her tailored uniforms were not always appreciated by senior staff, dinosaurs who didn’t care for women in the military, much less the way they filled out a uniform. In her case, she never understood what the fuss was about. She felt she was too tall, too skinny, her shoulders too broad, with average boobs and barely enough ass to hold up her pants.

One eyebrow climbed his forehead. “I don’t think you’ll ever get
complaints
.”

“Did the general call me to his office to talk about my uniform?”

“No,” he drawled. “I called the
major
here to talk about the extraction and . . . other things.”

“Sir, is my judgment being questioned? If it is I—”

Moore was out of his chair and circling his desk. A prickle raced down Honey’s back. She didn’t dare look at him, simply continued to stare at the spot in the chair he’d occupied seconds before. When they worked together in Cairo he would come to her and stand so close every breath she took would bring in his scent. Each one of his heavy breaths would move the fine hairs on her neck as his lips brushed her ear. In Cairo, he’d speak in a low sensual voice that vibrated her core until she quivered and dissolved against him. In Cairo they’d been lovers. She stood still. For her, those days were long over.
For Moore, on the other hand
. . .

He stopped abruptly, like he’d reached the end of a tether, and cleared his throat. “Coffee?”

Honey turned. The sleek dark hair she’d once been so fond of running her hands through showed veins of silver. More lines defined his eyes. His own tailored uniform encased a lean, powerful body. He’d grown more distinguished in the time they’d been apart. His classic Native American looks served him well. Too bad he was such an asshole.

He turned to a small table where a carafe, cups and other accoutrements necessary for a serious coffee drinker stood. “How long has it been since we’ve seen each other?” he said as he poured.

“A year.
Sir.
The conference at Quantico.” Where she had entered late, left early from every session, and did everything necessary to avoid him.

He looked at her over his shoulder. “I meant to talk.”

He might not remember, but she did. “Six years, sir.” Four months after they began an affair and he left with no good-bye or thank you, ma’am. It was her first field post. Until then she’d been cool and aloof with men in the job, fearful they wouldn’t take her seriously. He’d taken her seriously from the moment she walked into his office, and she’d caved to him like a sandcastle in the incoming tide. Paul Moore had used her in every way possible. Used her body and picked her brain during pillow talk and presented her ideas and work as his, earning him a transfer to DC and presumably his first star. All with her complete cooperation. Her stomach contracted remembering the anger and monumental shame she’d felt learning what he’d done. She stretched her neck and moved her head side to side. She’d been too cocky, too arrogant, too naïve. Played with fire and been burned. She’d also learned valuable lessons. Trust no one completely. Question everything. Watch your own back and if you use someone, do it well. Never sleep where you work. Since Moore, she’d had brief affairs and gone through several dry spells. She’d broken the never sleep where you work rule once with a Brit. An SAS counterterrorist officer who, like her, had been assigned to a short bullshit joint operation. Recently she’d ended a very long dry spell and was leaning toward violating the trust rule.

Moore rolled one shoulder then the other, turned and held out a steaming cup. She took it. He didn’t retract his hand, and for a long moment her hand rested on his. His eyes scanned her face, taking inventory of her features. She remembered that look. She’d once taken it for affection, even love. Acceptance for who she was. In reality, it had been nothing more than lust. Lust for her and for power. It was hard to know which had been more important. Honey glanced to their hands and back to his face.
Go for it. Make a move.
This time she wouldn’t be quiet. She would report him for sexual misconduct. If necessary, she’d use every one of her contacts, every bit of power she could wield and every cent of her money to take him down. He released his grip but didn’t move away.

“What I did was wrong and it was a mistake walking away from you,” he said.

Once, that genuine tone and timbre of his voice would have given him an all-access pass to her body. Now it made her skin crawl. Whatever he was up to she’d let him play his hand. Let him dig a hole he couldn’t escape from. “General Moore, what am I doing here?” She pushed back a simmering anger and kept her voice free of the sarcasm she spoke so fluently. She needed to play nice.

The skin over his jaw tightened, twitched and relaxed. The intensity drained from his expression. He retreated a step, then another, and circled his desk.

“Sit down, Major,” he said, sinking into his chair.

She sat, perched on the edge of the chair, her back at attention straight, alert and wary.

“I reviewed the hostage extraction report.”

She carefully placed her cup on the desk. “Sir,
is
my judgment being questioned?”

“Officially, it’s not. That was damn fine work. Your team praised you highly. I’m sure there will be official commendations for all involved.”

“Thank you, sir.” She reached for the cup.

“Unofficially, I don’t agree.” Honey’s hand dropped to her lap. “What you did was reckless.” He leaned her direction and pointed a finger. “You didn’t bend the rules, you broke them. You deliberately went on a covert operation with a team that was three short.”

Honey shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “Sir.”

Moore held a hand in a stop gesture. “You struck hours before the assigned time. To scoop you up, a Marine helicopter crew risked an international incident illegally crossing a border with a country we are not exactly friendly with. They were fired on and returned fire. You left a massacre on the ground. What were you thinking?”

“
I was thinking
I was there to rescue a fourteen-year-old girl who was scared out of her mind.” How dare he question her judgment in an operation he hadn’t commanded? He’d turned into a two-star jackass. “A girl who’d been tortured.
I was thinking
I wasn’t going to leave her in there alone for nine more minutes, much less nine more hours, to satisfy a schedule I never agreed to in the first place.” She resisted the urge to stand and move around the room. “For the record, I did not whistle up help. That helicopter crew came after us willingly. It’s something Marines do, or have you been riding this desk so fucking long you’ve forgotten?”

Paul Moore’s flint gray eyes sparked. Instantly she knew she’d pushed too far. Talk about terminal foot-in-mouth disease.

“Sir, I apologize. I have no right to speak this way.” She hoped the words were a strong enough antidote to keep her in the loop for the job. She didn’t give a flying fuck about Moore, but she
wanted
that assignment.

“I understand,” he said as if he did. She expected a quick and deserved royal ass chewing and was taken aback by his self-control. She watched his eyes. They were his only tell and for her had been an easy read. Now, something was there in a language she hadn’t mastered.

“The girls’ families have written letters of appreciation,” he went on, ignoring her outburst, “and they are again asking to thank you and the team personally.”

“No.” She shook her head adamantly. “Not possible. It wouldn’t be good for those girls to see me and remember. They need to move on. If the team wants—”

Moore shook his head. “Your team feels the same way.” He withdrew an envelope from a desk drawer and held it out to her. “The address and telephone numbers of the families. Change your mind about meeting them. Saunders is in Tampa, at MacDill. Ramsey is at Quantico, the War College.”

“Yes, sir.” She acknowledged the veiled order and drew the envelope to her.

Moore leaned back and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair, steepling his fingers. Honey waited quietly to be told she didn’t get the position on the team. “Major, I was surprised to find you’d requested to be included in the hostage investigative team.”

Not as surprised as she was to discover he’d been tasked with putting the team together. “With my knowledge of East European gangs and being a part of the extraction, I felt I could be valuable to the investigation.” She’d once recruited the man she’d recognized during the rescue, a petty thief in EE gangs, as an asset. Back-tracking him might provide a lead to finding who took the girls.

“Agreed. You would be very valuable to the investigation.”

Would be?
An intense pain like a large knife being inserted seared a spot between her shoulder blades. She waited for him to continue. When he said nothing, she spoke. “Was my request accepted? Am I being assigned to the investigation?”

“Yes and no.”

What the fuck?
“Sir . . .”

“I have another job for you. A temporary duty to review training procedures at Global Solutions, a private security force for the DoD.”

She swallowed the ball of fury in her throat. “Sir, you know how I feel about
private militia.
I thought
everyone
knew how I feel about them,” she said in fluent sarcasm.

“Take it easy, Major. Your views are one of the things that earned you a recommendation for the job.” His words were camouflaged with a charming familiar smile.

Her brained winced. The son of a bitch had baited her, and like a green lieutenant she’d stepped right into it. Okay, she’d give him that one.

“Sir, I volunteered to assist in the investigation of the taking of the two officers’ girls. Not . . .”
Realization hit her. “Did
you
recommend me for this?”

“No.” He looked down and moved some papers on a line between them.

“Thank you for that.” Her voice remained smooth at the obvious lie. Whatever he was trying to pull, it made no difference. She was the property of the United Stated Marine Corps and would have to do as ordered.

“At least at first. When I realized the full extent of the assignment I knew you were right for this,” he said, looking at a stack of files on the corner of his desk.

Honey eyed the folders. It went from bad to worse. “I was brought here to do paperwork?”

“It’s not paperwork, Major.”

“Looks like paperwork to me.”

“Background information,” he said dismissively.

They sat silent, staring at one another for a long uncomfortable moment. Moore picked up a cheap black government-issue pen and rolled it between his fingers. “I’m off the record with what I’m going to say.” He glanced around the room like a kid doing something he didn’t want his parents to see. “I didn’t recommend you for this. When your name was mentioned I didn’t disagree because, even though this is outside your normal field of operation, you are exactly the person for the job.”

“I . . .”

He held up a hand, stopping the interruption. “And before you go ballistic, you do have the option of declining. After I give you basic info, if you want out, I’ll see to it you get any assignment you want.” The general paused, keeping his gaze locked on her. “It’s not paperwork, Major, it’s a critical investigation and it’s dangerous.”

Moore went silent. Her mind tumbled over what he’d said. She went right to the point. “Why would a liaison position be defined as dangerous?” She was next on the promotion list for Lieutenant Colonel. If this turned out to be some crummy bullshit maneuver designed to keep her out of the field and slow her promotion, she’d use any get-out-of-the-job card he offered in a heartbeat.

“There is a connection between a company, Global Solutions, and the Ramsey and Saunders abductions.”

The pain between her shoulder blades vanished and a bubble of anticipation and excitement built in her gut. “You have my attention.”

“Your official position is to perform the scheduled DoD review of Global. While there you’ll look for a connection to our officers and evidence the company is involved in any illegal activities.”