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“Thanks.”

“How’s the rest of your project going? Immunizing lots of kids?”

“It’s an uphill battle to convince the religious conservatives to let me do it, but I’m making progress. The local women have turned out to be surprisingly supportive.”

“Keep plugging away. It’s important work you’re doing.”

Which was to say, she still was a go to track down the PHP guys and find out what they were up to. Which meant getting back her freaking evidence. She was grateful for the lack of a secure phone connection so she couldn’t confess to André what a screw-up she’d turned out to be on her first op to an international hot spot.

Please God, let Ian be the real McCloud. She was so hosed if he wasn’t. Not to mention, her shot at figuring out what the PHP guys were up to would be lost.

Piper waited impatiently for the picture of McCloud to come through on her email, nearly a full hour of nail-biting nerves. At long last, her phone dinged an incoming message.Please be him. She hit the mail button and Ian’s face, smiling and more gorgeous than ought to be legal leaped onto her screen. It was him, all right.

Her fury roared back full force. Lt. Commander Ian McCloud, U.S. Naval intelligence, had stolen her evidence. He wastotallya dead man.

9

Ian rolled over as his phone buzzed him reluctantly awake. God, it felt good to be home in his own bed. The traffic sounds of Washington D.C. outside his window soothed him like nothing else. They were sounds of America. Of safety. Of beer and pizza and football—played with an oblong leather ball, thank you very much.

“Yeah?” he mumbled sleepily into the receiver. Christ. How long had be been out? Jet lag usually wasn’t bad heading from east to west, but the non-stop flight home from Djibouti to D.C. had kicked his ass.

“Hey, M&M. Rise and shine. The Old Man wants to see you in his office. Now.”

M&M. His SEAL handle and unofficial nickname among his old buddies. And the “Old Man” was the moniker reserved for unit commanders. In his case, that was the admiral in charge of his intelligence unit. He was abruptly wide awake.

“Any idea why the admiral wants to see me?” he asked. There were no secrets in the military. Biggest gossip mill on the planet was a military unit.

“Word has it he’s pretty unhappy you lost your target.”

An ass-reaming awaited him, then. He sighed. “I’ll be in as soon as I can drag myself out of bed and get dressed.”

“Oh, and we’re getting the preliminary data off your flash drive. The brass are shitting cows as we speak.”

Someday, he’d love to see an admiral actually squat down and expel a calf from his or her body. “Good to know the intel was worth it.” He ran a hand over his face. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

“Make it a half-hour. After the Old Man is done with you, everyone, and I meaneveryone, wants to talk to you.”

Great. An ass-reaming followed by a tactical, nuclear brain-picking. Debriefings from desk-jockey, intel analysts with no field experience made him flat crazy.

He rolled out of bed and forced himself to race through showering, shaving, and dressing. He picked a freshly dry-cleaned and pressed pair of khakis and black polo shirt. He supposed he could dig out an actual uniform and button himself into it, but civvies were an authorized uniform for him, and they’d fucking woke him up on his first day home. A day he was supposed to have off to rest and recuperate.

He drove downtown, found a parking spot—a miracle on a work day in D.C.—and jogged to the unmarked office building that housed his classified unit. He paused to take a deep breath, reinforcing his poker face, before stepping into the admiral’s, office.

The butt chewing went about like he expected. His boss was rip-snorting mad that Ian had lost the Scientist. The admiral understood that a fellow American intel operative had been inside a burning house, but apparently Ian should’ve let her die and kept eyes on the Scientist.

Intellectually, Ian got it. But something deep in his gut rebelled at the notion of letting Piper die, no matter that it would’ve been in the line of duty. A quiet little alarm bell startedto ring in the back of his mind. Since when did he choose a girl over the mission?

Hewasthe job. Always. He never did long-term relationships. At least, not the kind with real emotions.

What the hell had Piper done to him?

He had no time to consider it further. The shouting admiral in front of him effectively distracted him.

His boss finished the mother of all ass chewings with, “At least you brought out actionable intel.” The way the admiral said it made it clear that the evidence Ian had brought out of the burning house was theonlything that had saved his career from being flushed down the toilet.

“Are we clear on what’s expected of you in the future, Commander McCloud?”

“Yes, sir. Crystal clear.”