Aftermath Read online

  For a moment she just stared in confusion at the suit covering a lean, runner’s body. In her towering heels, she still came a few inches short of looking him in the eyes, which put him at slightly over six feet.

  Six feet plus of considerate male who’d just backed up another couple of inches to give her more space. She looked up into his face, wondering who the hell had such good manners.

  Whoa. The man’s narrow, aristocratic face had the kind of enduring good looks that made women do double takes no matter what age group they fell into. His nutmeg brown hair showed silver at the temples. She’d heard other women say natural gray made a man more distinguished. Siobahn just found this man sexy. His mouth was a bit on the thin side, but she could work with that. She had the feeling that when he set his sights on a woman, he knew how to give her what she needed. Her nipples tightened just thinking about the possibilities.

  She inhaled and caught the faintest scent of soap and aftershave. Nothing overpowering, which fit with his impeccable manners.

  Most striking of all, his eyes were a pure, light gray. Almost silver. They gazed at her with an intensity that made her squirm and want to reveal all her secrets. Which would be totally embarrassing, given the way he made her think of hot, sweaty sex.

  Hold on. What? Sex? Was she really thinking about sex now? In the middle of the freaking Capitol? She choked back a laugh. Well, at least her libido was alive and healthy. Given the recent drought in her love life, she’d been beginning to wonder.

  Forcing her thoughts back onto the straight and narrow, Siobahn said, “Sorry. I should have been watching where I was go—” Remembering the committee hearing, she checked her watch and swore under her breath. “Thanks for keeping me from falling.”

  She flashed him a smile, took a firm grip on her purse, and sidestepped around him. Then she headed down the corridor at a fast walk. Damn, damn, damn. The first interesting man I’ve met in months and I can’t stay to flirt.

  “Siobahn, girl, you’re still racing around like your tail is on fire. You nearly bowled poor Ryker right over.”

  Siobahn stopped, glancing over at a portly man with a shocking mop of thick gray curls beaming at her. “Hello, Uncle Sheldon.” Sheldon Wallace, the senior senator from Pennsylvania, had grown up with her father and the two had remained close. Their families had spent so much time together when she was a kid that Siobahn and her brothers felt like part of the Wallace family.

  “I thought you’d outgrown your recklessness, Siobahn.” Wallace smiled to take the bite out of his words.

  Used to his polished censorship of her behavior, Siobahn turned to look back at the man who still stood calmly where she’d left him, those piercing gray eyes making her shiver. She had the feeling that it would take more than one reporter in a hurry to unbalance the sexy Mr. Ryker.

  She shot a grin at Wallace. “No harm, no foul,” she countered. She moved in, accepted his bussed kiss across her cheek, then tapped her watch. “Climate change hearing. I’m late.”

  Wallace nodded. “Of course. But if you’re going to make a habit of gracing our halls again, young lady, then I expect a chance to catch up with you over lunch.”

  “I’ll set it up. I want to get a quote from you about the death of President MacAdam.” With a jaunty wave, which she admitted was mostly for Ryker’s benefit, she hurried down the hall, dodging a group of men filing out of a conference room. Wallace was one of the few congressmen she had any respect for. He might be old-fashioned in his attitudes towards women, but he wasn’t creepy. He just thought women were special creatures who deserved pampering and that it was a man’s privilege to smooth the way for the women in his life. He’d been highly opposed to her career as an investigative journalist, but then none of the males in her family had approved of her dangerous job, either.

  Still, Wallace was one of those rare men whose word still meant something. She might sometimes disagree with his politics, but he always took time to listen and to examine his opponent’s point of view before reaching a decision.

  Forced to keep to a more sedate pace due to the slipperiness of the floor, Siobahn wondered who Ryker was. It had been a while since she’d closely followed the machinations inside the Capitol, but she knew he wasn’t a congressman.

  Besides, with that well-balanced posture and his quick reflexes, she’d peg him as military. Or, given that he looked to be in his early sixties and had been dressed in a high quality wool suit and not a uniform, more likely he was former military.

  Too bad. She’d been married to a military man. Once had been enough.

  Hold it right there, girl. Marriage? You just laid eyes on the guy for the first time.

  She’d have thought by now she’d have learned her lesson regarding being impulsive in matters of the heart. And, in fact, she hadn’t had a serious relationship in… God, was it two years? Something that was unheard of for her. But then, becoming a team leader at the paper had kept her so busy between her own investigations and editing the team’s pieces that she’d only had a few short-term lovers.

  So what was it about Ryker and his penetrating gray eyes that intrigued her so much?

  Spotting the door to the hearing up ahead, she buried all thoughts of romance, slipped her notebook and pen out of her oversized purse, and prepared to try and make a congressional hearing interesting for her readers.

  Chapter Two

  “Watch out for that one,” Senator Wallace told Ryker as he started down the stairs. “She’s a reporter. I’ve known her since she was in diapers and she’s always been tenacious. If she gets a scent of the reason you’re here, she won’t let go until she’s uncovered the entire story.”

  Ryker nodded and joined the senator on his march to the lower level. He didn’t bother pointing out that he’d noticed Siobahn Murphy’s press pass. Or that he’d recognized her name. The Surgical Strike Unit, the privately run special operations group Ryker headed, had been keeping tabs on Ms. Murphy since the publication of her article about missing military and law enforcement personnel. After the Department of Defense and the FBI had failed to make any headway into locating their missing service members, they’d hired the SSU to investigate, so Ryker had been particularly interested in Ms. Murphy’s conclusions.

  At the time her article was printed, she’d hinted at a cover-up of the disappearances and suggested that the missing men had been funneled into an experimental government program attempting to create a super soldier. Although she’d given no names or other incriminating details, the SSU had continued to keep tabs on her.

  “You’re doing good work, boy,” Wallace said when they reached the bottom of the stairs. He clapped Ryker on the shoulder once before striding out.

  Ryker shook his head and shared an amused look with the guard. At seventy-six, Wallace called everyone under seventy “boy,” but it was a word sixty-three-year-old Ryker didn’t usually hear describing himself.

  He turned in his visitor’s pass and signed out of the logbook before following the senator into the bright D.C. sunshine. Slipping his sunglasses on his nose, he took the least crowded sidewalk away from the Capitol. His office was within walking distance and he needed the time to think. Not to mention that he preferred to check for a tail while on foot, rather than in the snarl of city traffic.

  Several times lately he’d had the sixth sense of being watched, as he did right now. Listening to his instincts, he decided to take a circuitous route through the nearby streets. His current tension wasn’t fully due to the invisible threat, however. He’d just come from a testy meeting of the joint House and Senate committees on intelligence, something that always left him edgy.

  As expected, the congressmen had ranted and blustered about being kept in the dark regarding the ultra-black ops group Kerberos that Wayne Jamieson, the former Director of In-House Projects at the CIA, had been operating right under the CIA’s noses. Because the SSU had been hired by the DOD and FBI to look into the reappearances of the supposedly dead service personnel, a
nd because the SSU had made the connection between Kerberos and the missing men, Ryker had been stuck explaining to Congress that yes, Jamieson had authorized Dr. Leonard Kaufmann to continue research into creating enhanced soldiers. Research that had started with Kaufmann’s former boss, Dr. Mikhail Nevsky, during the Vietnam War.

  Ryker had been the one to inform the congressmen that Jamieson had worked with contacts within other agencies to select candidates to be used as subjects by Dr. Kaufmann, then arranged for the men to be reported dead. After completing Kaufmann’s program, the enhanced soldiers had been sent to Kerberos, at which point Jamieson sent them on illegal missions against the enemies of the United States.

  Most recently, several of Kerberos’s enhanced teams had been ordered by President MacAdam to murder thousands of innocents on a remote island in the South Pacific. The anniversary demonstration, as the President had hinted at a press conference earlier in the year, had been a matter of revenge. Five years ago, while MacAdam was serving as the ambassador to Indonesia, his five-year-old son had been murdered by unknown terrorists.

  This year, MacAdam had finally received intelligence pinpointing the home villages of the terrorists. He’d made the decision to have assault teams put a deadly, slow acting chemical into the water systems of the villages, then kill anyone who tried to escape.

  While Ryker understood the agony of losing a child—he still felt the dull stab of grief over losing his wife and children thirty-two years ago—he couldn’t condone the President’s actions. Particularly not when Ryker and his special ops group in Vietnam had seen what devastating consequences the proposed chemical, Agent Styx, had on not only the targets, but the men assigned to dispersing it. With the help of his surviving friends from that special ops group—the FBI’s Matt Jordaine, House Representative Brit Remington, General Aldrick Wehrig, and the CIA’s Roger Brown—the SSU had stopped the attack and MacAdam had been arrested.

  Then Stephen Cornelison, the newly instated President, had sworn everyone involved to secrecy. Not even Congress was to know the extent of MacAdam’s treachery. He’d even insisted that everyone not directly involved be told that the President had resigned for personal reasons.

  Keeping an eye on his surroundings, Ryker waited patiently for the walk signal by the National Gallery of Art to change. Withholding information from Congress bothered him, yet at the same time he understood Cornelison’s position. The President didn’t want to panic the nation unnecessarily. After all, the attack had been stopped. MacAdam had been removed from power.

  “It’s important that the running of the country continue as if nothing has happened,” President Cornelison had insisted.

  Ryker’s protests had been ignored. Then, four days ago, MacAdam, Jamieson and Kaufmann had all died of alleged heart attacks. However, sources close to the events suggested that there had been such irregularities in the deaths that the blood and tissue samples had been sent to four different labs for analysis. Results were still pending, but Ryker’s instincts were already screaming murder, particularly since several associates of Kaufmann and Jamieson had also died within the same time period.

  Ryker knew that not all of the people involved with Kerberos, the anniversary demonstration, and Kaufmann’s lab had yet been caught. In fact, it was likely that some of the people he’d faced across the table at today’s meeting had known more than they’d let on.

  Including his friends from Vietnam.

  He hated thinking that one of the men he’d trusted with his life during the war could have ordered the murders, but he had to be smart. The only other people who knew the full extent of the situation were the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, President Cornelison, the White House legal counsel and the Secretary of State.

  The Secret Service and FBI agents involved in the arrests knew part of the story, and might have suspected more, but all of the agents had been cleared of involvement with Jamieson before being given their assignments. Ryker didn’t think the watcher he sensed was one of them.

  The walk signal turned white and Ryker surged ahead with the rest of the afternoon crowd, searching for anyone moving too close or taking an undue interest in him. Given the nature of his current thoughts, it might be wise to use a bodyguard until this matter was resolved.

  His gut told him the remaining conspirators were trying to cover their tracks. Putting in jeopardy everyone involved with investigating the matter.

  Including the lovely Ms. Siobahn Murphy.

  Faith had assured him that her former colleague had promised not to run any follow-up articles, and Ryker’s research indicated Ms. Murphy appeared to be abiding by her promise. To his knowledge, none of the key players had recently mentioned the reporter’s name. Which meant that she’d dropped safely off the radar.

  Today, though, her luck had run out. Not only had Wallace warned Ryker about the danger if she found out what they’d been discussing, but Ms. Murphy had walked through the group of congressmen and security agency personnel still milling about after the conclusion of their meeting. Ryker had seen more than one speculative glance follow her. Given the classified nature of the situation, no one wanted a skilled reporter nosing around, and most of them would have heard her request that Wallace comment on MacAdam’s death.

  If one of the meeting’s attendees had played a role in Kerberos’s activities, then Ms. Murphy’s life could be in danger. Ryker knew that Siobahn Murphy had a reputation for tough, insightful journalism and showed a disregard for her own safety that probably drove her family and friends crazy. He understood such dedication. He’d often been accused of putting work before his own well-being, and many of his SSU agents operated the same way.

  Having finally met her in person, it bothered him on a fundamental level that the vibrant redhead with the moss green eyes had come close several times to losing her life in pursuit of a story. His blood still hummed from their brief contact and he hoped he’d have the chance to see her again.

  In the meantime, it wouldn’t do any harm to assign a temporary, clandestine bodyguard to her.

  Is putting a bodyguard on her a professional or a personal move?

  Ryker suspected the answer was a combination of both.

  He reached his office building and used his key card to open the front door. Nodding to the guard in the lobby, Ryker headed for the secure elevator. An attractive blonde got on one floor after him and gave him a flirtatious smile. But all Ryker could think about was thick red hair and laughing green eyes, so he gave the blonde a polite, impersonal dip of his head, then proceeded to ignore her.

  Ms. Murphy intrigued him, packing so much life and energy into her five foot six, pinup girl body that the air practically sparked around her. He knew she was forty-eight, and he’d seen the fine lines around her eyes to prove it, but from a distance she appeared to be in her mid-thirties. With the toll the whole Kerberos affair had taken on his beliefs, not to mention the long hours he’d put in while trying to keep his people safe, Siobahn Murphy’s vitality made him feel incredibly tired. And greater than fifteen years her senior.

  At the same time, the thought of seeing her again filled him with heady anticipation. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted to kiss a complete stranger just to see if she tasted as alive as she looked. To lean in and explore the complex, spicy scent of her.

  Unfortunately, until the whole Kerberos fallout was cleaned up, he wouldn’t have time to pursue the fascinating reporter.

  “Are you certain that none of the Kerberos employees who have been moved to other departments will talk?”

  Myron Zybriesky bit back a sigh. The man on the other end of the phone line was using a scrambler to hide his voice and the resulting mechanical sound grated on his nerves. “Yes,” he said. As much as he hated these conversations, this man with the disembodied voice was one of the main funders of Kerberos. Without his support, Myron would never be able to restart the program.

  “Unfortunately,” Myron said, “I’ve already approached all
of my former colleagues. Only two of them expressed any interest in seeing Kerberos reborn.”

  “That’s a pity. This country needs a program like Kerberos in order to stay great.”

  That right there was the reason Myron couldn’t risk alienating this man. He was the only one so far who hadn’t given up on the dream of the United States having a group of über-powerful soldiers able to carry out any actions necessary in order to maintain national security.

  “I agree, sir,” Myron said. “But as we’ve discussed before, when we restart the program we need to make certain everyone who signs up shares a certain level of commitment. We can’t risk another traitor like Mark Tonelli.”

  “True, true.”

  Myron had initially resented Tonelli for his quick rise to a place of confidence by Jamieson’s side. Then he’d learned that Tonelli had been responsible for revealing Kerberos’s secrets to the SSU, which had led to the destruction of Kaufmann’s lab and the dismantling of Kerberos. Now Myron wanted revenge against Tonelli. Unfortunately, the former agent had disappeared, no doubt being sheltered by the SSU.

  “Have you found any sign of Jamieson’s backup notes?” the voice asked.

  “No, sir.” Myron knew his former boss had been smart enough to keep extra copies of his data on the program, just as he was certain that Dr. Kaufmann would also have kept backup of his research.

  With both Jamieson and Kaufmann dead, Myron had to find those backup notes or he’d never be able to resurrect the program. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any contacts with access to data the SSU might have removed before they leveled Kaufmann’s compound. “I can try to sneak into Jamieson’s office and see if the FBI overlooked anything,” he offered. He doubted the FBI would have been so careless, but at this point any action was worth a try. Without Kaufmann’s data, Myron and his mysterious contact were just spinning in circles. “Do you have the ability to arrange for the release of the scientists who worked with Kaufmann?”