“Leaks. Your team is off the grid, and outside the usual channels.”
Most of the time, Logan thought.
“The closer it gets to Washington, the more chance of leaks. I don’t want to use CIA resources. This man is as under the wire as it gets. If the press gets wind of it, America will be everyone’s target and we’ll never be trusted again.”
Logan spoke. “No. Too political.”
“Don’t you all have to agree?” McGill’s gaze swept the other three men sitting around the living room. Their expressionless faces told him where he stood. “Where’s Moore and Wyatt?”
“Unavailable.” McGill didn’t need to know details. Killian Moore was on loan to DEA in Colombia, using his alter ego of Dominic Cane to get into the cartel again. Sam Wyatt was probably on his ranch with Viva, or planning a wedding. Dragon One didn’t need a full roster on every retrieval.
“I’ve read the reports, you know.” McGill rose and faced Logan. He and Ramos had been SEALs at the same time, and while Logan left the Teams, Ramos was enlisted by the CIA.
“Mission debriefs don’t tell everything, sir, and I couldn’t care less if the man died, slow and agonizing.”
Max straightened next to Sebastian. Riley swung his legs off the sofa. Battle lines, McGill thought.
“His failure to obey orders got civilians killed under my command,” Logan said.
“You were cleared.”
Logan’s gaze jerked to McGill’s. “I was there.”
“Equal blame, isn’t that right, Commander?” McGill knew Logan shouldered the responsibility because Ramos didn’t. Ramos had a Top Gun attitude with deadly skills and while his career had been shady, it was McGill’s duty to tie this off and bring him home. “The man has since paid with his face in Afghanistan last year. When this opportunity came, he’d just begun his plastic surgery to repair the damage.”
“So a few implants and he volunteered to help? Or get the face of a powerful man and use it to his advantage?” Logan shook his head. “He cannot be trusted.”
“Regardless, we need to get close enough for face-to-face contact. We’ve seen what the press sees, just better angles. He doesn’t look like he’s recovering very well.”
“You want a medical assessment, too?” Max blasted. “I see the only choice for you,” he stressed, washing his hands of it, “is to get the body out. Assassinate him. Let them bury him like he’s their Vice President.”
McGill frowned at Max Renfield’s macabre vehemence. “When they dress him for the funeral, something the family does, they will know. His face might look like Garcia, but the rest of him doesn’t. We couldn’t alter fingerprints or dental records, Garcia didn’t have a single cavity.”
“Wow a Crest boy, who knew,” Max snarled. “Garcia is dead.”
“But no body,” McGill reminded him. “What if it turns up, no matter how decayed, when Ramos is in his place? It would be a disaster for Venezuela. The country is already polar without the rebels.”
Add the drug and arms dealers who were locked at the hip with some members of the government and it made the entire concept dicey, but Logan didn’t think that would matter.
“He sounds convincing,” Sebastian said. Logan had forgotten about him sitting in the corner reading a book. “The thought of helping that bastard for even one second frosts my ass.”
Logan kept his gaze on McGill. “You’re withholding something, General—what?”
McGill’s expression didn’t change a fraction as he looked at Logan. “You know what I know.”
Fine, I’ll play the game for now, Logan thought. “What’s your theory on why there’s been no contact?”
“It could be any number of things. Found out and held prisoner, joined the dark side.”
Logan stared him down. “Treason sounds right up his alley.” With the Vice President’s face, Ramos could do anything he wanted. So why wasn’t he contacting McGill?
McGill understood his misgivings. But Elizabeth Jacobs had to have pressed Ramos long before this happened and did so without authorization. McGill hadn’t been informed of that till his superiors dumped this in his lap. He really hated being CIA, and expected more to come back to bite him when he wasn’t looking.
“If he’s gone Commie, we have to remove him by force and that’s tricky.” Sebastian unfolded his long frame from the easy chair, leaning forward into the light. “We’d never know if he’s crossed until we got in there.”
“You’re considering it?” McGill had been prepared to return to Washington without success.
Logan went to the rear of the house, then pushed through the French doors. The Carolina heat smacked him like a wet towel, the sun sizzling on the stone floor as he stepped onto the covered porch.
With a precision that cut to his soul, he hated Paul Ramos. Missions go wrong, that’s a given. It wasn’t that Ramos had made a supreme mistake, but that he never owned up to his part, letting Logan take the heat. Ramos’s failure was nothing more than a show-off taking an unnecessary risk. The op was secure, they had the package. Logan stopped his memories cold, slamming a mental block over them. Hashing it over hadn’t changed the fact that lives were lost.
He felt the general move up beside him and knew that brutal honesty was in order.
“Ask me to kill him, I’ll do it. Don’t ask me to risk this much to save his life.”
“Logan,” McGill said softly. “I’ll watch your back, but no government in the world would believe we didn’t have anything to do with this beyond supplying a face on a body.”
The U.S., and mostly the government, would never survive this defamation, Logan thought, especially from its own people. He looked at the general. “You’re certain that’s all we did there, sir?”
Joe McGill looked into the eyes of a decorated SEAL veteran, a field surgeon and a man he admired, then he did as ordered.
He lied.
Tuvana-i-Tholo, Fiji
Orion was clear in the midnight sky as Bati warriors cast shadows across the white sand, tall bonfires undulating with the spins of the tribal dance. Tessa was enthralled and until the man at her side spoke, she was trapped in a different time.
“You know you’re getting me hot all over in that getup.”
Tessa didn’t bother to look down at herself. She revealed more flesh than she’d shown her last lover, but wearing the traditional costume, a brightly painted sulu skirt, tattered at the hem, endeared her to the natives who weren’t all that friendly to outsiders.
“It makes my job easier.” She adjusted the material looped around her neck and wrapping her breasts.
“You just like giving me a hard-on that could crack coconuts.”
She eyed him and thought, Oh, yeah, I’m ready to strip and jump his bones with that line. “Rein in the testosterone, will you?” Were all baby-faced photographers this horny? Or just the classless ones she got stuck with lately? “Don’t,” she said, putting out a hand when he started to lift his camera to focus. “You want to get us kicked off the island?”
Andrew frowned, lowering the Nikon, then noticed a few men looking his way. “Fine, love, but if I can’t take pictures, then how are we going to get a film crew in here?”
“I’m not certain. Their chief is still a little wary. People don’t visit this island except to take pictures and stare. Or for the surfing.”
“Offer