After convincing the prince to give Veronica St. John a chance to work with the sailor, McKinley had gotten the ball rolling. Prince Tedric was gone, much to everyone’s relief.
Veronica and the prince’s main staff were working to reschedule the beginning of the tour. The idea was to organize a schedule that would require Joe to have the least amount of contact with diplomats who might recognize that he was not the real prince. And the FInCOM agents put in their two cents worth, trying to set up times and places for Joe to appear in public that would provide the assassins with an obvious, clear target without putting Joe in more danger than necessary.
“Where’s Catalanotto?” Admiral Forrest kept asking. “He should be here. He should be part of this op’s planning team.”
“With all due respect, Admiral,” Kevin Laughton, the FInCOM chief, finally said, “it’s better to leave the strategizing to the experts.” Laughton was a tall man, impeccably dressed, with every strand of his light brown hair perfectly in place. His blue eyes were cool, and he kept his emotions carefully hidden behind a poker face.
“In that case, Mr. Laughton,” Forrest said tartly, “Catalanotto should definitely be here. And if you paid close attention, sir, you might even learn a thing or two from him.”
“From a navy lieutenant?”
“Joe Cat is a Navy SEAL, mister,” Forrest said.
There was that word again. SEAL.
But Laughton didn’t look impressed. He looked put-upon. “I should’ve known this was going too smoothly,” he said tiredly. He turned to Forrest. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the expression, Admiral: Too many cooks spoil the broth?”
The admiral fixed the younger man with a decidedly fishlike stare. “This man is going to be your bait,” he said. “Can you honestly tell me that if your roles were reversed, you wouldn’t want in on the planning stages?”
“Yes,” Laughton replied. “I can.”
“Bulldinky.” Forrest stood. He snapped his fingers and one of his aides appeared. “Get Joe Cat down here,” he ordered.
The man fired off a crisp salute. “Yes, sir.” He turned sharply and disappeared.
Laughton was fuming. “You can’t pull rank on me. I’m FInCOM—”
“Trust me, son,” Forrest interrupted, sitting down again and rocking back in his chair. “See these do-hickeys on my uniform? They’re not just pretty buttons. They mean when I say ‘stop,’ you stop. And if you need that order clarified, I’d be more than happy to call Bill and have him explain it to you.”
Veronica bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from smiling. By Bill, the admiral was referring to the President. Of the United States. The look on Kevin Laughton’s face was not a happy one.
The admiral’s young aide returned and stood patiently at attention just behind Forrest’s chair. Forrest tipped his head to look up at him, giving him permission to speak with a nod.
“Lieutenant Catalanotto is unable to attend this meeting, sir,” the aide said. “He’s getting a tooth capped, and…something done with his hair, sir. I think.”
“Thank you, son,” Forrest said. He stood, pushing his chair back from the conference table. “In that case, I suggest we adjourn and resume in the morning, when Lieutenant Catalanotto can attend.”
“But—”
The admiral fixed Laughton with a single look. “Don’t make me make that phone call, mister,” he said. “I may have phrased it kind of casually, but my suggestion to adjourn was an order.” He straightened and picked up his cane. “I’m going to give you a little hint, Laughton, a hint that most folks usually learn the first day of basic training. When an officer gives an order, the correct response is, ‘Yes, sir. Right away, sir.’”
He glanced around the table, giving Veronica a quick wink before he headed toward the door.
She gathered up her papers and briefcase and followed, catching up with him in the corridor.
“Excuse me, Admiral,” she said. “I haven’t had time to do any research—I haven’t had time to think—and I was hoping you could clue me in. What exactly is a SEAL?”
Forrest’s leathery face crinkled into a smile. “Joe’s a SEAL,” he said.
Veronica shook her head. “Sir, that’s not what I meant.”
His smile became a grin. “I know,” he said. “You want me to tell you that a Navy SEAL is the toughest, smartest, deadliest warrior in all of the U.S. military. Okay. There you have it. A SEAL is the best of the best, and he’s trained to specialize in unconventional warfare.” His smile faded, giving his face a stern, craggy cast. “Let me give you an example. Lieutenant Catalanotto took six men and went one hundred miles behind the lines during the first night of Operation Desert Storm in order to rescue Tedric Cortere—who was too stupid to leave Baghdad when he was warned of the coming U.S. attack. Joe Cat and his Alpha Squad—they’re part of SEAL Team Ten—went in undetected, among all the bombs that were falling from U.S. planes, and pulled Cortere and three aides out without a single fatality.”
Admiral Forrest smiled again as he watched an expression of disbelief flit across Veronica’s face.
“How on earth…?” she asked.
“With a raftload of courage,” he answered. “And a whole hell of a lot of training and skill. Joe Cat’s an expert in explosives, you know, both on land and underwater. And he knows all there is to know about locks and security systems. He’s a top-notch mechanic. He understands engines in a way that’s almost spiritual. He’s also an expert marksman, a sharpshooter with damn near any ordnance he can get his hands on. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, missy. If you want me to continue, then we’d better find a place to sit and get comfortable, because it’s going to take a while.”
Veronica tried hard to connect everything she’d just heard with the grimy, unkempt, seemingly uneducated man who had appeared in her hotel room. “I see,” she finally said.
“No, you don’t,” Forrest countered, a smile softening his words. “But you will. Best thing to do is go find Joe. And when he talks to you, really listen. You’ll know soon enough what being a SEAL means.”
Joe sat in the hairdresser’s portable chair, looking at himself in the hotel-room mirror.
He looked…different.
A dentist had come in and capped the tooth he’d chipped three years ago while on a training mission and had never had fixed.
Joe had stopped noticing it after a while. He’d had the rough edges filed down the day of the accident, but he’d never had the time or inclination to get the damn thing capped.
The capped tooth wasn’t the only thing different about him now. Joe’s short dark hair was about six inches longer—and no longer short—thanks to the hair extensions the tired-looking stylist had almost finished attaching.
It was odd, seeing himself with long hair like this.
Joe had grown his hair out before, when he’d had advance warning of covert operations. But he liked wearing his hair short. It wasn’t military-regulation short, just a comfortable length that was easy to deal with.
Long hair got in the way. It worked its way into his mouth, hung in his face, and got in his eyes at inopportune moments.
And