Page 1 of Double Take (Cosmic Mates #5)
Fluffy clouds floated across an azure sky on a warm, sunny spring day. Bright-green new growth sprouted from the trees, and flowers nodded their colorful heads in time to a gentle breeze. There couldn’t have been a more perfect setting for a garden wedding.
In a simple white gown accentuating her slender figure, her face aglow with happiness, the bride put the day to shame. There had never been a more beautiful bride.
“Do you, Faith Connor, take Mark Hammond to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward until death do you part?”
“I do.” Her voice trembled with emotion, and her soft, loving gaze didn’t waver.
Bragg’s heart clenched. He loved her so much it hurt.
“And do you, Mark Hammond, take Faith Connor to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward until death do you part?”
“I do.” His deep voice rang out strong, steady, and sure.
Lying rat bastard.
“Then I now pronounce you husband and wife—”
“You’re still watching that vid?”
Bragg nonchalantly shut off the viewer and swiveled in his chair to face his commanding officer. “Just keeping in practice,” he drawled in his predecessor’s lazy, arrogant manner of speaking.
“Are you sure that’s all it is?” Marshall Clark arched a skeptical eyebrow.
He didn’t reply. Anything said would raise suspicion.
“You need to forget her.”
“Is that an order?”
“Friendly advice.”
His CO was no friend. “There’s nothing to forget,” Bragg said.
“In that case, you need to deliver a cache of weapons to Hammond’s RCA contact.” Marshall tossed a computer chip into a low bowl on the utilitarian metal desk.
After his predecessor got killed in the line of duty five years ago, Bragg had stepped into his life, claiming his identity and livelihood—everything the man had, except for his wife, in deviation from standard protocol. Normally, clone agents assumed all aspects of the deceased’s life. However, in this case, Dark Ops had decided it would be advantageous for Hammond to remain legally dead.
Bragg’s gaze drifted to the bowl holding the computer chip with the deets of his assignment.
Colors swirled in the hand-thrown, kiln-fired pottery piece, an anachronism in a world preferring mass-produced, cheap, disposable goods. The bowl represented what he was not. Unique. One of a kind. Priceless.
He was a disposable replica.
Like with Hammond, if Bragg perished, Dark Ops would crank out another who looked, talked, walked, acted just like him. The organization maintained a huge database of DNA collected from citizens around the world. They could replicate anyone. Due to the agency’s top-secret cloning and growth-acceleration techniques, an adult human could be produced in less than a year.
Education and training took a bit longer. Acting coaches helped with that, as did one-on-ones between progenitor and clone. To ensure operation-readiness, clones were produced before the progenitor died.
Bragg had been his progenitor’s understudy for a year before he’d passed.
“I deliver the arms, then what happens?” There was always more to the story. Nothing was ever what it seemed, truth concealed among layers of deception. He wasn’t even sure what team he played for. The good guys and the bad guys were indistinguishable.
“Then the Russian-Chinese Axis releases the prisoners.”
“How many?”
“We’re hoping for ten.”
“We’re operating on a hope?”
Marshall said nothing. But what could he say? The RCA superpower had the rest of Earth over a barrel. The axis broke treaties and other agreements, and nobody could do anything about it. Occasionally, small concessions could be gained from individuals within the RCA, hence the importance of Dark Ops, which operated outside official government and diplomatic channels.
“Who are we hoping to get released?” he probed.
“Three of our agents, plus a group of college kids, one of whom is Senator Janson’s daughter.”
He wondered what the students had done. Notoriously stupid, college kids were oblivious to possible consequences of their hijinks. Alcohol-soaked adolescent brains didn’t comprehend that freedoms enjoyed at home didn’t exist in other parts of the world, and what might be a minor offense—or no offense—in their homeland often carried Draconian penalties elsewhere.
On the other hand, considering a senator’s daughter was among the abducted group, the kids might have been innocent of any wrongdoing. The students might have been targeted because of her so that an exchange could occur.
“How much in weapons are we giving away?”
“Everything you need to know is on the chip. Be ready to go on Tuesday.” Marshall turned to leave.
“We hung her out to dry.” The words burst out of him.
“Hung who out to dry?”
“Faith Hammond. Does she have any protection at all?”
Although Mark Hammond had been fatally wounded in an operation gone south, he’d been extracted before succumbing, which had enabled Bragg to replace him. Physically and officially, accountant Mark Hammond, husband of Faith, had passed away. But Dark Ops spread disinformation to the criminal underworld that he’d survived the attack. As Hammond’s stand-in, Bragg continued the wheeling and dealing with criminals and terrorists, all the while the vulnerable widow resided alone in a Maryland, USA suburb.
“Protection?” Marshall scoffed. “She’s damn lucky to be the widow and not the deceased. HQ was on the verge of neutralizing her when Hammond died.”
What? Jesus! He stared at his CO.
“Before he died, he’d reported to HQ she started questioning his out-of-town trips.”
What kind of man ratted out his own wife? A conscienceless asshole fucker. Not a day went by that he didn’t discover another reason to despise his progenitor. Bragg had suspected, but couldn’t prove, that Hammond had been a double agent, working for both Dark Ops and the RCA. Regardless, the man had been an asshole. He’d never loved his wife; he’d married her to complete his cover as a boring married accountant.
“She probably found out about his affairs,” he supplied, trying to cover for her in case HQ hadn’t given up the idea of neutralizing her. Among the least of his flaws, Hammond had been a notorious womanizer.
“She discovered he didn’t work for Underwood, Herr, and McCullough, Accountancy LLC.”
UH & M “employed” quite a few Dark Ops agents. Accounting, like truck driving, insurance, and data analysis drew little public curiosity or scrutiny. Nobody cared what an insurance salesman or data analyst did all day. Safely boring, those occupations provided good covers.
“We didn’t plant an insider?”
“Of course we did! But she’d called in sick with the flu, so the firm had brought in a temp, who transferred Mrs. Hammond to HR, who reported no one named Hammond worked at the firm.”
“Is that why I didn’t assume his role as her husband?”
“HQ took a chance she would cease asking questions if she believed her husband was dead.” Marshall’s mouth adopted a wry twist. “We do try to avoid killing innocent people.”
Since when? Dark Ops accepted collateral damage as the cost of doing business. They avoided large-scale carnage that could draw attention to their activities, but they didn’t hesitate to sacrifice innocent civilians to achieve an objective.
“It seems to have worked,” Marshall said. “She’s moved on. She relocated to Terra Nova.” He paused. “And she applied to Cosmic Mates for a husband.”