His buddies at Black Ops, Inc. had recently relocated their organization from Buenos Aires to the States. He didn’t know where they were based, because the nature of their covert activities required a high level of anonymity, but he did know how to reach out and touch them. He’d helped them out on their last two missions and knew that all he had to do was ask and they’d get him what he wanted.

“Biometric facial-recognition program. I’m sure you’ve heard of it.” He took another bite, then swiped the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin. “Amazing software. Compares key features of a subject from a photo—nose, eyes, eyebrows, mouth, face shape—to the faces stored in law enforcement and DMV databases. When a requisite number of features match, bingo. It’s gonna spit out a name to go with the face so fast you won’t have time to say, ‘Whoops, I’m so sorry I lied to you, Mike.’ ”

The software wasn’t perfect, but its proponents called it a breakthrough as significant as the introduction of fingerprint technology. And the BOIs had it.

“Too bad you don’t have a photo,” she said.

“Yeah, about that.” He shifted his weight to his left hip, dug into his right pants pocket, and pulled out his phone, which he’d picked up from the Beechcraft. “Smile.” He snapped her picture.

“Oh, wait.” He made a face. “You won’t like that one. Your mouth was open. Not your best look.” He snapped another shot, then admired his work. “Much better. That scowl probably matches your driver’s license picture.”

The noise she made came close to a growl. For the first time since this all started, he actually felt like smiling.

“So… do I hit Send or do you talk?”

He had her, and she knew it.

He set the phone down, wiped his hand on his napkin, and extended it across the table. “Name’s Brown. Mike Brown. And you would be?”

She looked at a spot on the wall behind him before meeting his eyes again. She did not return the handshake. “Eva.” Her eyes were sober and dark. “Eva Salinas.”

Mike withdrew his hand on an indrawn breath as the implication hit him. “Salinas?” He had a sick feeling that he knew exactly what she was going to say.

“Ramon was my husband.”

He’d been hit with a bar stool once. It hadn’t landed as much of a wallop as those two words.

Now it all made sense. No wonder she hated him. No wonder she thought he was lower than dirt on the sole of a terrorist’s boot.

He sank back in the chair. “When? When did that happen?”

“When did we get married?”

He nodded.

“Three months before he redeployed.” She sat back, too, crossing her arms beneath her breasts.

Three months. Mike remembered when Ramon had come back to the unit after his recovery time in the States. He’d been full of his usual bravado and swagger, talking about the hot babe he’d hooked up with. He’d never said one word about getting married.

And he sure as hell hadn’t mentioned a wife to Lieutenant Hot Body from the communications unit. Salinas had resumed their “secret” affair as soon as he’d been boots on the ground back at the FOB.

Mike looked at Ramon’s widow. He could have told her that her husband, the man she hated him for getting killed, was not only a braggart with an axe to grind, but he was the camp Romeo who considered anything with estrogen fair game and hadn’t considered his marriage vows sacred.

But he didn’t say one word. He knew all about the sting of salt in a wound.

“Why didn’t you tell me that up front?” he asked softly.

“Because it’s private.” She avoided his eyes, thought better of it, and drew her shoulders back defensively. “Because I didn’t want to.”

The pain on her face made him feel bad for her, enough to wish Salinas was alive so he could take the jerk down a notch for not keeping it in his pants when he had a woman like this waiting at home.

A woman who would go to the lengths she’d gone to, to find out the truth about his death.

Eva Salinas, aka Pamela Diaz, aka the woman who’d had the cojones to brave the hazards of a foreign country, seduce him, drug him, cuff him to a bed, and kick him in the face, hadn’t deserved to be played. Strangled, maybe, but not played.

Mike was a lot of things—a coward, yeah, he’d cop to that, a dropout, and a screwup—but he wasn’t a cheat. And he had no time for men who were. Which pretty much explained why he and Ramon had never been besties.

“And because I didn’t know if I could trust you,” she added belatedly, the inference being that she’d decided that now she could. “I didn’t know who was following me. For all I knew, you could have arranged it.”

He couldn’t fault her logic. “And the jury was out until we got shot at.”

She shook her head. “Maybe before that.”

When I’d damn near blubbered like a baby.

“Look,” he said, embarrassed and wanting to get some distance from it, “I’m sorry about Ramon. I didn’t like him. He didn’t like me. But he was a good soldier and he didn’t deserve to die the way he did.”

He backed off then, giving her a little time to decide how she wanted to proceed from here.

“Eight years ago,” she said, “when they notified me of his death, they told me he died on a routine training mission. Not in combat. Not on an operation. They blamed him for making a careless mistake that cost him his life.”

Mike frowned. “Ramon was a lot of things, but careless wasn’t one of them. Not when it came to his job.”

“I didn’t know him well enough to know that. But he was Special Forces. I knew he hadn’t earned that green beret by being careless.”

“Yet you bought the report of his death.”

She tipped her soda to her lips. “I had no reason not to. So yes, I believed that’s how he died. Until a flash drive with that file on it was delivered to my apartment a month ago.”

Even though he’d lost his appetite, he dug back into his sandwich. His body needed fuel whether he was hungry or not. Then the significance of what she’d just said hit him. “Wait. I thought you said it was given to you by accident when you were researching your story.”

She looked a little sheepish. “I made that up to go with the journalist cover.”

“You’re starting to be very predictable,” he said, in lieu of a resounding “aha.” “So… State Department? DOD?” He’d been speculating about that ever since he’d seen her fake ID.

“CIA.”

He almost fell off his chair. “Oh, this keeps getting better and better. You’re a field agent?” That would explain the Glock and her tactics.

“Attorney. Office of General Counsel,” she clarified, chasing down a bite of her sandwich with another drink of soda.

No wonder she’d known she’d get cut off at the knees if she contacted the CIA or the FBI with her theory.

A woman slogged by, wearily pushing a squalling baby in a stroller. He let the commotion subside before picking up the conversation again. “Back up to how you got the information.” He’d get details on her CIA gig later.

“It just showed up,” she said. “The flash drive was messengered to my apartment. After I got over the shock of what was in the file, I tried to find out who sent it but the messenger service had nothing on record for that customer. No credit card. No address. Claimed they must have lost it. And no one remembered having seen him—or her.”

“How convenient.”

“Too convenient,” she agreed.

“So tell me about the file.” The file that was supposed to have been deleted. The file that branded him the kind of guy whose ego and inability to follow orders got people killed.

“It was a detailed account of the mission that night. The after-action report was signed off on by your base commander. Every word laid the blame squarely on your shoulders.”

Which was why she hated him. Territory they’d already covered. “Who would want you to have that file?”

“You want a name? I have no clue. But it had to be someone who knew I had the means and the motivation to start digging.”

“Then the next question is why they wanted you to investigate.”

“Because they wanted to expose you? Or because they wanted me to find out the truth? Maybe it’s someone who believed your pretrial statements. Someone who wanted me to ask the tough questions.”

“And that’s when doors started slamming.”

She nodded. “And when I started to sense I was being watched.”

An announcement on the PA system called their flight.

Appetite gone, Mike stuffed the rest of his sandwich back in the bag. She did the same. She hadn’t even eaten half of it.

“You have to tell me, you know.” She met his eyes with earnest entreaty. “You have to tell me what happened.”

Yeah. He tossed the bag in a trash can and started walking toward the gate. He had to tell her.

And thinking about that took him right back to the night he had tried for eight years to forget, but knew he never would.

11

Afghanistan, eight years ago