Body Double (2 page)

The stick in her arm burned. There were other needle tracks on her inner arm. How had they gotten there? She couldn’t remember. Stark terror shot through her. This would kill her or cost her everything.

Kunz smiled.

The bastard knew. He knew, and it amused him. Her temper exploded, and it took everything she had to restrain herself. He had taken everything else, she would not give him that, too. Panic seized her, contorted her muscles.
No. No fear. No fear. You will find a way around this, Princess. You will not show this scum fear.

“There you go.” He pulled out the needle, and then backed away. “Contrary to what you might believe, in your time with us, you’ve been very cooperative. We’ve learned all we need to know from you, Captain. For now.”

He wasn’t bluffing. And if he wasn’t bluffing, she’d definitely breached security. What had she told him?
When
had
she told him anything? She’d never seen the man until today. He was bluffing—had to be—and he was damn good at it, making her doubt herself. “So now I die,” she said. “I suppose it doesn’t matter, but what did you give me?”

“Peace.” He brushed her cheek with a feathery-light fingertip.

It sent icy chills down her neck and through her chest.

When she didn’t cringe as he obviously expected, respect lighted in his eyes. “I’d love to stay and enjoy the day with you, but you’ve caught me at an inopportune time. I’m very sorry to say that this will be clean and quick. You would have been intriguing, I’m sure.” He let his gaze roll over her, prone on the floor. “But my loss is your gain. You really should thank me for it.”

“Thank you,” she said and meant it. He loved torture and she’d seen file photos of what was left of some of his victims. She was truly grateful to be spared.

He picked up on her sincerity. “You’re welcome, Captain West.” Walking back to the table, he put the syringe into a box. “The miracles of modern medicine amuse me.” He waved a loose hand. “Incidentally, that injection won’t kill you. It’ll just make you sleep for a while so you don’t injure any more of my men. You’ll wake up, and then—well, you’ll see. No need to make peace with your God just yet. You’ll have a few days to decide your fate.”

“My fate?”

“Yes. Your reaction to it will be most amusing to watch.”

Puzzled by his cryptic comments, she shot him a questioning look. “My reaction to my fate will be amusing?” What the hell could he mean by that?

“You’ve got a dilemma before you, Captain. The dilemma is entertaining, but your reaction to your fate will be by far the most intriguing aspect of your—shall we say, situation.”

She opened her mouth to snap at him, to inform him with
unwavering certainty that her fate was her own and none of his business, but her tongue was too thick; she couldn’t speak. He droned on, but she couldn’t make out his words. His voice faded, as if echoing from deep in the belly of a cave. Amanda strained to keep watch, but her eyelids wouldn’t stay open.

“She’s safe,” he eventually told the guards. “Bury her—remember, a tomb, not a grave. The good captain has a fondness for aboveground boxes.”

The box.
She might have groaned, though she couldn’t be certain the sound was hers and not the guards laughing. The box was the thing she hated most—and the thing people like Kunz would imagine she feared most.

She did fear it. But she also had learned young to hide in the damn thing to avoid being found and beaten. Inside the box was the
last
place her father ever would have thought to look for her. And
that
Kunz didn’t know.

Yet he did know about the box. But how? The only other person in the world who knew about it was her father, and she had avoided him for years. Even today she didn’t trust herself to see him and not kill him. And never in her adult life had she given
anyone
the means to connect them. So how had Thomas Kunz known about the box?

Even beaten to within an inch of her life, she would shield that information. She had never admitted it to another human being—often, not even to herself.

But if her father hadn’t told Kunz about the box, and she hadn’t told him, then how did he know about it? As the blackness overcame her, all she could think was,
How?

Amanda awakened in pitch-black darkness.

Her mouth felt like cotton, her head throbbed. She lay wedged in a box, but this one wasn’t wood, it was brick, and the mortar was still wet.

The son of a bitch actually
had
bricked her into a tomb.
That was her first thought. Which son of a bitch? was her second. Somehow she knew it had been Kunz, knew he’d told her he was going to do so. But for some reason, she couldn’t remember the actual telling.

They’d taken her out of the chair; it wouldn’t fit with her in the small area. But her hands were still tied. She worked the ropes loose with her teeth. Finally, they fell free.

Sliding her hand along the wall, over the rough brick, she felt the wet mortar stick to her fingers. “Where’s a good spiked heel when you need one?”

She felt all along the perimeter of the sealed tomb, dragging her fingers through the dirt. Nearly through working the grid, she felt a bump, backed up, and felt—a stick? No, spear-tipped. Feather. An arrow. It was an arrow.

Reese collected arrows. He’d buried it with her as a final dig, proof that he had won.

But he hadn’t won.
Not yet. Not…yet.

Seeking the wettest mortar, she hoped that it was away from whomever was watching her, if anyone, and dared to hope, too, that they didn’t hear the noise. “You will dig yourself out of this tomb, Princess,” she whispered to herself, using the hated name her father had called her. “You will live. You will kill Paul Reese for hitting you. And you will capture Thomas Kunz and steal his life for stealing yours.”

It took forever. She slept, worked, slept and worked and worried about what to do. Her knuckles were raw, her stomach turning over on itself, and she was so thirsty she thought she might die from that alone. Finally, she punched through the wall. Bracing, she drew up her knees, got leverage, and then kicked. Before long, she’d kicked out a hole large enough to crawl through.

Wary, expecting to be leveled or shot by a guard as soon as her feet touched the ground, she dived through the opening, rolled over the crumbled brick and concrete. A chunk dug into her hip and pain shot through her side.

“An actual cemetery.” She looked around at row upon row of graves and tombs, reflecting in the full moonlight. Seeing no one, she hurriedly stacked the loose bricks back into the opening, hoping to lessen the odds of her escape being quickly noticed, then crept from tombstone to tombstone to get a fix on her location.

James St. Claire. 1926–1959.

Jacob Charles Anderson. Beloved Father and Husband.

Alison Hayes. Age: 3 Blessed Days. “Safely into the arms of Angels.”

American, Amanda thought. Definitely American. The smell of ash trees and wildflowers filled her nose. Somewhere in the south, but not Georgia. In the Carolinas, maybe. She eased out of the cemetery and into the woods, her left arm throbbing.

Pausing, she twisted it in the moonlight. Dark bruises muddied her arm, wrist to elbow. It was swollen and caked with blood near the thumb side of her wrist. It was a wound. An IV wound.

Baffled, she just stared at her arm. When had she had an intravenous tube?

Her stomach soured. She frantically looked around. She’d been in the desert. Now she was in the woods.
Where was she?

A road stretched out up ahead. Deserted, no buildings—nothing but woods and empty road in all directions. She walked down it until she reached a crossroad and saw a sign.
Freedom Lane
and
Liberty Way?

Amanda came to a dead stop. This couldn’t be. She’d been somewhere in the Middle East. Somewhere in the desert. How had she gotten to a North Carolina cemetery? To a CIA extraction point, for God’s sake?

Kunz was rubbing her nose in it. He was betting she would hide the truth about this lapse in her memory to save her job. He knew she was a loner, that her job was all she had, and if she reported the memory lapse, she’d lose her security clearance. A S.A.S.S. operative without a security clearance was worthless. She’d have nothing.

Dread dragged at her belly. Thomas Kunz knew far more than S.A.S.S. or the CIA believed—about her, and obviously about U.S. clandestine operations.

Stunned, reeling from the implications of all this, she checked the moon. Dawn would come in about two hours. She walked off the road into the open clearing. A chopper would be by before daybreak. This was a daily drop zone she and other intelligence sources used often. There was an artesian well here.
Water!

She ran to it, drank thirstily, then drowned her face and washed in the cool water. As it sluiced over her, she sighed. Sex had rarely felt this good.

The chopper arrived before she stopped dripping water. She wrung out the edge of her shirt, signaled, and it set down in the clearing.

What had Kunz done to her? That she didn’t know roused demons of being violated and abused and her hatred for not being in control. Her skin went clammy cold and her heart raced, thumping like a jackhammer in her head.

What are you going to do about this?

She should report it immediately to her boss, Colonel Drake.

You’ll be fired on the spot.

But if she didn’t report it, S.A.S.S. missions and operatives could be vulnerable. Kunz had gotten her from the Middle East to Carolina without her knowing it. Was it so hard to imagine him getting her to talk, to breach security and identify and compromise other agents and missions?

There’s no easy way out.

There didn’t seem to be even a reasonable way out.

There isn’t. You’re screwed.

Totally.

Kunz took a huge risk, leaving you at a CIA drop zone. He had to be extremely confident you’d hide the truth. How could he be so confident?

She didn’t have a clue. At the moment, she didn’t know herself what she was going to do.

When she boarded the chopper, a stranger sat in the pilot’s seat. “Who are you? Where’s Harry?”

“I’m Jim.” The pilot blinked hard and fast. “Harry’s dead, ma’am.”

She plopped down in her seat and buckled in.
“Dead?”

“Yes, ma’am. He crashed in Iraq about two months ago.”

The man had lost his mind. “What the hell are you pulling here? Harry was alive and well less than a week ago.”

He reeled off his security-clearance code and then asked, “Would you verify your identity, ma’am?”

“Captain Amanda West,” she said. “Alpha Tango 135812.”

“I was sure by your pictures, but—but—” he sputtered, stalled, and then finally went on. “You can’t be Captain West, ma’am. It’s not possible.”

Oh, for God’s sake. She was exhausted, starved, soaked and out of patience. “It’s possible. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“No—I mean, yes, ma’am. But you can’t be here. I mean, how did you get here, ma’am? You’ve been MIA.”

“Yeah, well. This jerk bricked me in a tomb.” She shook her head, tried not to think about Harry. She’d liked him. She’d mourn him as soon as she regrouped. Right now, it took all she had to hold it together. “It took me a while to make it out.”

“You had rations in a tomb?”

She looked at Jim as if he’d lost his mind. “I had the tip of a broken arrow.”

He thought a long moment, his sober expression eerie in the green light cast from the chopper’s control panel. “So you’re saying,” he spoke slowly, “that you haven’t been on an insertion mission. You’ve been in a tomb. And you’ve lived in that tomb without food or water for three months?”

“Damn right—no, that’s not what I’m—” Cold chills swam up and down her backbone, set the roof of her mouth to tingling. “Did you say,
three months?
”

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. “That’s how long you’ve been missing.”

“But—but that’s outrageous.” She’d been tortured, injected with something, and then awakened in the tomb and dug her way out. Okay, she didn’t remember the IV, but she damn sure would have remembered
something
in three months. “Three days, maybe. But not three months.”

“I’m telling you, it’s been three months since we received any transmission from you, ma’am. I should know when you went missing. I flew the search team who went in looking for you.”

Three months?
She couldn’t wrap her mind around it. How could that be possible? Why would Kunz want to knock her out of commission for three months? And again, what
exactly
had he done?

“K
ate?” Amanda waited for her fellow S.A.S.S. operative, Captain Katherine Kane, to look up from her desk.

Relief flooded her solemn eyes. She stood up and hugged Amanda. “You’re back.” She clapped Amanda’s shoulder, her turbulent expression at odds with her quiet features. “Damn, Amanda. We thought you were dead.”

Kate, the unit’s bomb-squad specialist with expertise in biological and chemical weapons, was the taller of the two at five-eight, with green eyes and short, curly blond hair. Amanda’s eyes were blue and her hair was long and deep brown. Both women were in good physical condition—they had to be. “I thought I was dead, too, for a while.” She nodded toward Colonel Sally Drake’s office door. “Is she waiting for me?”

Kate nodded. “Jim radioed the tower from the chopper. They let her know you were on the way in.”

Well, here it came. No moment of truth waits forever. She
had to choose: lie and stay safe, or tell the truth and be sacrificed.

“You don’t look happy to be back.”

Amanda shrugged. “Overload.”

“Rough?” Empathy shone in Kate’s eyes. She knew what could happen to an exposed operative stuck in the field.

“Yeah.” Amanda didn’t hesitate or bother trying to lie. It’d be futile. “Let’s talk later, after I see Colonel Drake.”

“We’ll have dinner.” They were both loners, like so many of the S.A.S.S. operatives, but Kate seemed to know that Amanda’s first night home would be especially difficult. Flashbacks to captivity were most potent and disorienting in the early days after release.

“Amanda.” Colonel Drake appeared at her office door. In her late forties, the S.A.S.S. commander looked lean and mean. She was a redhead; her hair cropped short and spiked, bold and brassy. It suited her style. “How was your vacation?”

Drake was already trying to cover Amanda’s ass. She was a good woman and a great commander. “Fabulous.” Amanda smiled. “Check out the tan.” She walked into Colonel Drake’s inner sanctum and sat down.

The colonel took her chair behind her wide desk, dropped the light tone and got serious. “You okay?”

The moment of truth. “Yes, I am. But we have a problem.”

“Scale?”

Colonel Drake assigned everything a value from one to ten. “Twenty.”

Her serious expression turned grim. “Enough said. What do you need?”

Amanda nearly sighed her relief. She didn’t know what had happened, and if Colonel Drake let her report that, then the colonel would have no choice but to act on it. This was a whacked-out version of “don’t ask, don’t tell”—dangerous as hell, considering—but Amanda grabbed it with both hands.
In a display of ultimate trust, the colonel was giving Amanda a chance to do what she had to do to protect the interests of the U.S. and S.A.S.S. without sacrificing herself or her job. But was that possible?

Amanda wasn’t sure. She licked at her lips. “I need to see the medical officer right away.”

“Can it wait until after the mission outbriefing?” Colonel Drake frowned.

“No, ma’am. Time is of the essence. I need some blood work done.”

Drake leaned forward, laced her hands atop her desk. “Were you raped, Amanda?”

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t lie to protect her own interests and leave S.A.S.S. wide open. Kunz must have believed she would—her career was all she had to lose—or he never would have allowed her to escape from the tomb. He needed blackmail fodder. Something important enough to her that she’d agree to spy for him in exchange for keeping the truth about her blackouts buried.

Same damn manipulation tactics as her father. An icy shiver swept up her spine, and anger flooded down it.
Use and abuse and to hell with the consequences.

Anger boiled over into outrage and stretched deep down inside her, into memories she kept tightly locked away because they filled her with bitterness and hatred and smothered all that was good. She fought them. Long ago, she had chosen not to live her life hating, and she hadn’t, but the memories were so dark and ugly, and so strong. God, but they were strong.

Her father had controlled her until she had stopped letting him. She was nine years old and recalled in intimate detail that entire day. He’d heaped abuse on her head, on her body, and she’d been totally removed from it, resolved not to let it touch her. And it was as if all those things were happening to
someone else. Someone made of steel, who could take anything and not be destroyed by it. After that day, he had bruised her body, but never again did he poison her mind or heart.

And she’d be damned if Kunz would, either.

Visualizing a safe, Amanda shoved the dark memories, the anger and bitterness and hatred back inside it, and then slammed the door and jerked the key from its lock.
You control you, Princess. You choose. Kunz will not blackmail you into spying for him. No man will use you again. Ever!

Kunz underestimating her was her only satisfaction in all of this. Amanda blinked hard. The next words out of her mouth would irrevocably change her life. She would forfeit all she had, her job, and leave herself with nothing.

“I don’t know.”

Amanda dressed behind a screen into her uniform, and then stepped out into the examining room, fastening the last of the buttons on her pale blue uniform top. Colonel Drake stood with arms folded over her chest by the door. She had to be here to protect Amanda’s security clearance, but because it already had been violated, she avoided looking at her.

The medical officer, Dr. Vargus, sat at a small desk in the corner, writing in Amanda’s records. Graying at the temples, he sported a permanent frown from too much squinting to read small print. Finally, he swiveled on his stool and looked at her, his glasses resting on the tip of his nose. “Well, there’s no physical damage indicating rape. But you have had sex.”

With whom?
The question seared her mind, but she didn’t dare ask it. He wouldn’t be able to answer her anyway. The violation of her body infuriated her and she stomped down those feelings. She couldn’t admit to Dr. Vargus that if she’d had sex, she
had
most certainly been raped. “What about the blood work?”

“The AIDS test results will take time. But there are traces
of flunitrazepam, a benzodiezpine—sometimes known as ‘roofies’—in your bloodstream.” He removed his glasses, looked up at her. “Are you having any symptoms of amnesia, forgetfulness? Time lapses?”

“Don’t answer that, Captain.” Colonel Drake stepped forward. “Next question, Dr. Vargus.”

He frowned. “How can I help her if I don’t know her symptoms?”

“National interests,” Drake said. “Work around it.”

Obviously he’d heard this before and disagreed with the policy. But a new respect for Amanda lighted in his eyes. He glanced at her then back at Drake, and bitterness etched his tone. “Fine. Sacrifice the patient for the nation. I’ve got it.”

Amanda appreciated his concern, but couldn’t show it. She stared at him, her expression blank, her eyes giving away nothing, and waited.

Finally, he went on. “Captain West. The traces of the drugs found in your blood would be consistent with memory challenges—if you were experiencing any. They induce amnesia and are most often used during surgical procedures, though lighter doses with short-term effects are popular in social drug-use circles.”

Amanda chose her words carefully. “Are these drugs capable of inducing actual blackouts?”

“Absolutely.”

Again, she approached with caution. “For extended periods of time?”

“How extended?” he asked.

“Several months?”

His face paled. Dr. Vargus paused for a long moment, looking deeply into her eyes, clearly getting a grip on what had happened to her. “If a patient received repeated doses of these drugs at regular intervals, then yes, it’s possible.”

“Would there be long-term effects?”

“Not that we’re aware of,” he said, then paused to rub his chin. “But that type of use is atypical, so there’s no scientific data to back up my opinion. The truth is, I don’t know, Captain. There could be some residual effects.”

“Residual effects?”

He scrunched a shoulder. “Slurred speech, slowed psychomotor responses, maybe symptoms of being intoxicated. These might be precursors to a more severe period of amnesia.”

Amanda’s stomach flipped. “And how long might this period last, do you think?” She lifted a hand. “Speculating, of course.”

“A few hours,” he said. “Maybe a little longer.”

She could live with that. But Amanda didn’t dare to look at Colonel Drake to see how she’d reacted to this possibility. “Thank you, Doctor.” Amanda tucked her cap between her belt and slacks, and walked to the door. Colonel Drake opened it and stepped aside.

“Captain West,” Dr. Vargus called out.

“Yes, sir?”

“If your security clearance requires you to have an escort during medical treatments to verify security breaches have not occurred, then mine requires me to remind you that if you have had any instances of memory loss, regardless of how minor or incidental they might seem, it’s your duty to report them.”

“Dr. Vargus.” Colonel Drake stepped forward. The steel in her voice matched that in her eyes. “Thank you for fulfilling your notification requirements. Rest assured that we will utilize all means necessary to meet our obligations.” Colonel Drake lifted a hand, motioning to the door. “Let’s go, Captain.”

Amanda cast a parting glance at Vargus. He knew. The question was would he report them. “Thank you, Dr. Vargus.”

He held her gaze a second longer than necessary, then nodded, sat back down and buried his head in the file, signaling her he would play ostrich and forget the questions he’d been asked. There would be no report.

Shaking, Amanda followed Colonel Drake out of the office.

When they stepped out into the bright summer sun, they both put on their caps and walked toward Building 7, which housed the S.A.S.S. offices. “Thanks for the backup in there,” Amanda said.

“It’s my job.” Drake looked down to the corner. “Must be trouble at the office. Kate’s coming after us.”

Amanda wasn’t ready for more trouble. She needed time to get a grip on her current situation. But Kate kept on coming, dragging a black suitcase on wheels down the sidewalk.

When they met halfway, Colonel Drake said, “What’s up?”

“I know we’re not talking about this, but there’s a lead investigator for the Office of Special Investigations in Florida at Providence Air Force Base who went missing for a while back for three months.” Kate blushed. “I didn’t mean to listen, okay? The walls in the office are paper thin and unless you’re whispering, or in the vault, your voices carry.” She passed Amanda the suitcase. “Everything you’ll need for a few days is in there. Chopper’s waiting on the pad to fly you down there.”

Amanda wasn’t sure what to do, and Colonel Drake looked torn. Kate lifted her eyebrows and Amanda stilled, waiting for the colonel’s decision. If Amanda took that case and got on the chopper, then all three of them—she, Kate and Colonel Drake—would be deliberately violating regulations that could land them in Leavenworth for ten to twenty years. But if Amanda didn’t go, her career was finished and the truth would never be exposed. She’d never know if Kunz really had done this to other military members, and if he had, how many
times. She’d never know for what purpose. And she’d have to live forever with knowing she had deliberately left the U.S. vulnerable.

“Colonel,” Kate said. “Captain Mark Cross isn’t the only one. Two men in his unit also have three-month unexplained absences and both of them are being tried for murder.”

“Murder?” Amanda shuddered.

Kate nodded. “One supposedly killed his wife, the other his significant other. The evidence is overwhelming, but Mark swears neither of them are guilty.”

“The absences are pervasive,” Colonel Drake said, then looked at Amanda, resolved. “With millions of military and civilian employees in the potential victim pool, we have to find out how pervasive.” She parked a hand on her hip, mulled over her thoughts for a moment, and then continued. “I’m declaring this a Special Project.”

That designation gave the case the highest priority. It also knocked out the need to abide by a million little regulations and courtesies that ordinarily they would endure. Amanda nodded at the colonel.

“You’re primary,” Drake told Amanda. “Kate, you assist her.” After a brief glance in Kate’s direction, Colonel Drake focused again on Amanda. “Get to the bottom of this fast, and keep me posted. S.A.S.S. doesn’t leave the U.S. vulnerable, and neither its operatives nor its commander does jail. Remember that.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Amanda took the case from Kate. Since the truth was out in the open now, there was no sense in hiding it. “What about my clearance?” she asked. It should be revoked, but without it, she’d never find the truth.

The colonel hiked her strong chin. “Your clearance is in perfect order, Captain. Go—and make damn sure you pay attention to residuals.”

The potential effects Dr. Vargus had warned her could hap
pen. Big order. Huge, considering she didn’t know what she didn’t know, and what she didn’t know appeared to involve a lot more military personnel than just her. “I’ll do my best.”

She would. And she’d pray like hell it was good enough.

When Amanda stepped off the helicopter at Providence Air Force Base in Florida, the humidity slapped her in the face like a steamy wet washcloth. A tall man in uniform, wearing captain’s bars on his shoulders, stood waiting beside a standard-issue blue sedan. Seeing that he had her attention, he waved.

Assuming he was Captain Mark Cross, she walked toward him. As she stepped closer, his features cleared. Long and lean, broad-shouldered, with a hard, angular face framed by black hair and gray eyes that, at the moment, held distrust, surprise and just enough subdued appreciation to stroke her ego without caressing it. Looking at him had words like
interesting, intriguing
and
sexy as hell
flowing through her mind. “Captain Cross?”