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He’d survived her disappearance from his life. The truth of her identity. Now he’d found out she was getting married. So what? And so what if she’d never wanted to talk about anything that even hinted at permanency…

They were all staring at him.

His CO. Andy Stein, the guy who generally gave briefings before missions. Sullivan and Olivieri, Spanos and Maguire and Romano, the men who were his brothers. His family.

These were the people who mattered, not some woman who’d passed herself off as the epitome of truth and innocence when all along she’d been a goddamn liar.

He had no feelings for her. None. He hadn’t been good enough for her? Well, no. Not when it turned out she was royalty.

Big fucking deal.

She had her life. He had his. And his life was right here, with these people.

He drew a deep breath and said, as if Black’s news had been no more earth-shaking than a weather report, “And we’re to intervene.”

Black’s grim expression softened.

“Yes.” He paused. “Sanchez. I understand you had a fairly close relationship with her.”

“We knew each other, yessir.”

“I’m designating you Alpha on this mission. If you have a problem with that, speak up now.”

“No problem at all, sir,” Dec said crisply.

“Good. Excellent. I didn’t think you would. Stein? Take over.”

Andy Stein adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses as he got to his feet.

“Okay, guys. Here are the basics.”

He gave them longitude. Latitude. Weather, now and for the next few days, including the reminder that weather in the Copper Mountains was never really that predictable. He told them how and where they’d be inserted, how and where they’d be extracted.

Then he paused.

“You’ll have some advantage here, Sanchez,” he said. “Because you know the princess. She’ll be predisposed to trust you.”

/> Dec didn’t respond. Trust wasn’t a word he’d use in talking about the situation between him and the Royal Princess of Qaram.

“See,” Stein said, “the thing is, she’ll probably want to do what she thinks is best for her country. For Qaram. For us, that’s a secondary issue. We want what’s best for the three remaining Americans.” He paused. “And for our own international interests.”

“Wait a minute,” Dec said. “The captain said there were four Americans to begin with. How’d he reach that number? The ambassador and his wife. The embassy guy, but he’s dead. By my count there were three to start, and now we’re down to two.”

“Technically, there were four. Seems the princess has dual citizenship. Her father was Qarami, but her mother was born in Connecticut.”

Dec’s mouth thinned. What else hadn’t he known about Annie Stanton?

“Has there been a ransom demand?”

Stein took off his glasses, blew on the lenses, polished them against the front of his shirt, then plopped the glasses on and pushed them up the bridge of his nose.

“Yes. But meeting it wouldn’t be in our interest.”

Dec nodded. “What do they want? Arms? Planes? Drones? Good old USA dollars?”

“Dollars for the ambassador and his wife. But for the the princess…” Stein hesitated. “They won’t talk ransom.”

“Because?”