Cindy Gerard - [Bodyguards 06] Read online

  PRAISE FOR USA TODAY

  BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  CINDY GERARD

  OVER THE LINE

  “I’m blown away…Cindy Gerard is an absolute standout in the genre.”

  —JoAnn Ross, New York Times bestselling author

  “Cindy Gerard’s roller coaster ride of action and passion grabs you from page one and doesn’t let up until ‘The End’.”

  —Karen Rose, USA Today bestselling author

  “Gerard’s books are sexy and irresistible. You won’t be able to stop turning the pages.”

  —Kat Martin, New York Times bestselling author

  “Wonderful…will leave you sitting on the edge of your seat and gripping the pages…. Gerard does a beautiful job penning a spellbinding plot and charismatic characters that will leave you breathless.”

  —Romance Junkies

  “A fast-paced thriller of action, adventure, and romance. This is a fantastic book in which to quickly escape the day-to-day routine because of the many twists and turns awaiting the characters.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Cindy Gerard has a definite winner on her hands with Over the Line, the latest in the Bodyguards series. Intrigue, suspense, chemistry, and good old-fashioned romance all combine to keep the pages turning and the reader hooked from page one. If you're looking for a book to tuck in that summer beach bag, this one should be at the top of your list.”

  —Writers Unlimited

  TO THE BRINK

  “Pulse-pounding action erupts from the very first page, dragging readers on a thrilling ride through both the past and dangerous present.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

  “Not only does Cindy Gerard create flat-out exciting stories, her heroes are of the extremely macho, extremely virile, extremely sexy variety…. This novel is romantic suspense at its best…. Slick, edgy, thrilling, skillfully executed with some wonderfully sketched characters and loads of sizzle.”

  —Romance Reader at Heart

  “Starts off with a rush and remains at a high excitement level until the final explosive climax…. Readers will enjoy the action, but it is the feelings that still exist between the protagonists that make this novel a very special cross-genre treat. Cindy Gerard writes a gripping high-octane romantic suspense.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “The sexiest and edgiest of the Bodyguards books yet. You'll feel like you’re right in the thick of the conflict.”

  —Writer’s Unlimited

  “An intense escape from cold weather and winter doldrums.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Spectacular…. Gerard’s best book yet! A masterpiece of tight scenes, excellent dialogue, steamy sex, and heart-stopping adventure. You’ll be thinking of this one long after it’s finished.”

  —Romance Reader’s Connection

  “Moves fast and is both a tightly-woven thriller and a beautiful, sexy romance…. Outstanding series.”

  —Reader to Reader

  “Fantastic story…. heart-pounding action.”

  —Romance Divas

  “Fast-moving story, which has suspense and sexual tension moving in parallel. Characters are extremely well drawn…. First-time readers will no doubt start seeking Gerard’s prior books in the Bodyguards series, which in reality is one of the greatest tributes to an author. This one is strongly recommended.”

  —The Romance Reader

  TO THE LIMIT

  “Crackles with sexual tension, dark drama, and thrills.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

  “A super action-packed investigative thriller.”

  —BarnesandNoble.com

  “Gerard has done an excellent job capturing the same blend of action and lust that powered her first book in this series, To the Edge. Though reading the books in order is a plus, this is one tale that can stand on its own. The characters are riveting, the action fast-paced, and the storyline superbly created. This is a great tale that lets you appreciate the slower pace of your own life while reveling in the adventures of the heroine.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “This second book in Gerard’s the Bodyguards series is even better than the first, To the Edge… taut, suspenseful…filled with action, sizzling sex scenes, and fascinating settings and situations.”

  —Romance Reader’s Connection

  TO THE EDGE

  “Edgy and intense, this tale of romance, danger, and past regrets is a keeper.”

  —Romantic Times BOOKreviews

  “A tense, sexy story filled with danger…romantic suspense at its best.”

  —Kay Hooper, New York Times bestselling author

  “Heart-thumping thrills, sleek sensuality, and unforgettable characters. I have one word for Nolan Garrett. Yum!”

  —Vickie Lewis Thompson, New York Times bestselling author of Nerds Like it Hot

  ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS TITLES BY

  CINDY GERARD

  To the Edge

  To the Limit

  To the Brink

  Over the Line

  Under the Wire

  INTO THE DARK

  BOOK SIX IN THE BODYGUARDS SERIES

  CINDY GERARD

  St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  As always, this book is dedicated to the brave men and women of the U.S. military services who defend, on a daily basis, all that we hold dear. Your sacrifices are many, and we all owe you a huge debt of gratitude.

  And to my amazing editor, Monique Patterson, who not only took a chance on me but loved this series from its inception and has championed and cheered it all the way.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As in the writing of every book in this series, I’ve received generous assistance from many individuals. Without them, this book would not be what it is. In fact, it might not be at all. That said, very special thanks to the following individuals.

  First and foremost, mega thanks to Joe Collins, FF/NREMT-P, weapons expert extraordinaire and all-around great guy. Joe was my go-to guy for many areas of this book, foremost being weaponry and tactical planning. His generous sharing of information added incomparable depth and color to the story. Thanks, Joe, for everything—including an amazing day shooting.

  Jim Connell, my guy in the sky. Again, thanks for your expert assistance on the Piper.

  Gail Barrett, from the CNN loop, for once again coming through with her excellent assistance with my Spanish translations. Also thanks to her friends Lino and Miriam Gutierrez for adding the Argentina influence.

  Victoria Wasserman, also from the CNN loop, for her assistance with geography and topography of upstate New York.

  Glenna McReynolds (aka Tara Janzen), Susan Connell, Leanne Banks, Carol Bryant and Pam Nelson O’Neil—thank you all for being there for me during the crunch. I couldn’t have pulled this one off without you.

  As always, any mistakes are mine and mine alone. I was delighted to place a major portion of this story in beautiful Argentina. And while I drew from historical data on ODESSA, the MC6 compound, the people and events that take place are pure fiction.

  MARINE MOTTO:

  Semper Fidelis—Always Faithful

  FORCE RECON MOTTO:

  Celer, Silens, Mortalis—Swift, Silent, Deadly

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Afghanistan—Winter, 2001

  It was quiet. Maybe too quiet.

  Staff Sergeant Dallas Garrett reined in his mount, lifted his field glasses, and scanned the switchbacks winding down the barren slopes of the mountain range 100 km south of Mazar-e-Sharif.

  Thoughtful, he lowered the glasses as an icy wind whistled around the steep shale walls of the pass.

  “Yippee ti-yi-yo, get along little Taliban,” he muttered with a final glance down the trail and urged the short coupled little gelding forward.

  He’d been five years old the first time he’d sat on the back of a horse. The memorable event had taken place back home in West Palm on one of those kiddy pony rides where the bored little critter had slogged around in a circle to the tune of a rotation about every thirty minutes. Hadn’t mattered to him. He’d thought he was Roy freaking Rogers. To this day, his brothers and sister still gave him shit about his little red straw cowboy hat, black plastic boots and toy six-shooters that would have made a real cowpoke laugh his ass off.

  It had taken the war on terror and twenty some years for Dallas to mount up again. Good thing the horse knew what he was doing. Three days ago when he’d swung into the saddle, he’d still been as green as that five-year-old playing shoot ’em up bang, bang in the wild, wild West. Well he wasn’t green now. He was saddle sore and trail weary. And while the terrain he rode was wild, he was halfway to hell and gone from the West he’d dreamed of riding as a boy.

  Cold sliced through his bones like a meat cleaver—along with an itchy, niggling feeling that this op was running way too smoothly. The snow that scented the air as his team headed down a large, deep chasm toward the bottom of the Dar-i-suf valley could prove to be their first glitch. Weather was a complication they didn’t need—not if they were going to accomplish their recon on the gathering hordes of Taliban-friendly Pashtun fighters who were elements in serious need of attitude adjustments. At the very least they needed to be destabilized to marginalize the classic warlord structure. Enter Dallas and his Force Recon team on a mission usually reserved for the Army’s S.F. “A” teams.

  Mounted up behind him, Rodriquez, Gates, Stover, and Stalinsky—Ski—swore like the marines they were when the first snowflake fell. Like Dallas, they were running on guts and determination. And like him, by design, they all looked like they’d been born in these godforsaken mountains.

  Their faces and hands were baked brown by wind and sun. Their dark beards were rangy and full. To further blend in with the locals, either Lungees or turbans covered their heads; the wind played hell with the flapping fringed tails of the traditional Shemagh wrapped around their necks to keep the headgear from going airborne. Their dull brown-and-blue striped Chapmans were woven from coarse wool and camel hair; the loose-fitting garments smelled like wet dog, scratched like hell and, as an added bonus, did damn little to keep out the cold.

  “When in Rome, shit.” On a grunt, Dallas sucked it up and didn’t think about the fleece jackets they’d had to leave behind so their bulk wouldn’t show beneath the Chapmans and give them away. He had everything he needed. His M4A1 carbine and MEU(SOC) .45 pistol were hidden beneath the long, flowing folds of the robe. His team was similarly armed, combat-wise, and ready.

  Gates carried an M-14 pimped out for sniping with a Leupold Long Range M3A 3.5-10 power-mounted into a SAGE EBR—a lotta “bang.” Rodriguez’s M-4A1 was equipped with the “boom” in the form of an M203 grenade launcher. Stover’s mount was loaded ass deep in medical supplies. If all went as planned, they wouldn’t need any of it. They’d get in, get out, and report their findings back to COC before the bad guys ever got wind that they’d been made. Then the flyboys could start their destabilization efforts in the form of a few tons of JDAMS—smart bombs—and Daisy cutters.

  Ooh-rahh!

  Ahead of Dallas, Atiqualla, the Jimbush warlord whose friendly political party consisted primarily of ethnic Uzbek Afghans, guided them through the pass. Atiqualla rode his gray gelding—t’Aragh—like he’d been born in the saddle. If you could call two pieces of wood with a thin slice of carpet slapped on top a saddle. Dallas shifted, gave his ass a rest and wondered if his balls would ever be a color other than blue again.

  Last night he’d dreamed of riding in a Cobra—had even smelled the exhaust, felt the rumble and shake of the bird. Hell. If someone had told him four years ago when he’d survived the rigors of Recon Indoctrination Program—aptly referred to as RIP—and the mind-fuck of SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school) that he’d be leading a Force Recon op on horseback, he’d have told them they were full of shit. Horse shit, specifically. He was a marine. He hiked. He jumped. He swam.

  And yet today, he rode.

  Whatever it took. With luck, they’d be hauling ass out of here tomorrow, the bad guys marked as targets for a precision bombing run. Mission accomplished.

  Only luck, it seemed, was about to run out.

  He saw the initial then the secondary backflash from the rocket propelled grenade launcher just before Ski called, “RPG nine o’clock!” from their flank.

  The first grenade hit an instant later. Then the side of the mountain exploded and the world blew apart around them.

  CHAPTER ONE

  January, six years later

  Essex County, New York

  The night was crystal clear, vacuum still and brittle with cold. Pale gold rings rimmed an egg-shaped moon floating in a diamond black sky. A killing moon. In a graveyard sky.

  With no wind to slap it into thin wisps, smoke from the twin chimneys of the 1800’s two-story brick-and-mortar building curled skyward in thick, lazy streams. Snow hung in heavy drifts from north-facing windowsills, on thick concrete eaves and on the winter bare limbs of dormant trees.

  “A regular Currier and Ives Christmas card moment.” Amy Walker watched her breath crystallize through chattering teeth in the arctic air inside her car.

  Yes, it would have been picture-pretty if she hadn’t known that Winter Haven was home, mental hospital and sometimes prison to the tortured souls inside.

  “G’night, Mom,” Amy whispered, looking up toward the third window on the second floor where a faint light burned behind the barred panes. “And good-bye. For now.”

  Tonight it was particularly hard to control the pain that always accompanied thoughts of her mother. Anger followed quickly on its heels.

  Soon, Mom. I’m going to find him. And I’m going to make him pay for what he’s done to you.

  And for what he’s done to me.

  It was a promise she fully intended to keep. It was a payment she fully intended to make. She was close now. Closer than she’d ever been. Thanks to Jenna McMillan.

  “Amy, I think I’ve found him.”

  Amy’s fingers had tightened on her cell phone when Jenna had called earlier today. “Where?”

  “He’s here. Back in Argentina. Can you meet me in Buenos Aires?”

  Yes, she could. She would. Just as soon as she could get there.

  “Let me give you an address…just in case we lose cell contact,” Jenna had added. “Got it? Okay. If I’m not there when you arrive, ask for Alvaro. He’ll know where to find me.”

  “Jenna…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.” It wasn’t enough. After what Jenna had done for her, Amy could never say or do enough.

  “Just get down here.”

  Yeah. She’d get there. “Be careful, okay?”

  “Careful’s my middle name,” Jenna had said with a smile in her voice and broken the connec
tion.

  It had been hell working through the rest of the day. Amy had wanted to leave for Buenos Aires right then. But she had to be so careful. Not to draw attention. Not to give anyone who might be watching her reason to be suspect.

  Tamping down the anxious anticipation she’d felt ever since Jenna had called, Amy steeled herself for the confrontation to come. Her need for retribution outdistanced her fear—and her fatigue.

  For the past five months she’d worked as an aid at Winter Haven so she could be close to her mother. Often, like today, she’d pulled back-to-back shifts when one of the aides had called in sick. That was fine. It gave her more opportunity to be close to her mother.

  Her mother. Who was broken. Because of her grandfather.

  Amy was ready for Edward Walker this time. Knew what kind of a monster she was facing now. Wouldn’t be caught off guard and vulnerable again. Not ever again.

  “Soon, Mom,” she promised aloud.

  But first, she had to get this car started in the sub-zero cold.

  “Please, please, please,” she pleaded into the red muffler wrapped around her neck and cranked the key.

  After a long surly groan and a screeching grind, the engine of her ten-year-old Taurus finally, grudgingly, chugged to life.

  “Thank you,” she whispered through a shiver. With a shaking hand she felt under the driver’s seat for an ice scraper.

  She finally had to remove her mitten, lean forward and grope around on the floor. Her fingers slide over the stone-cold barrel of her Glock before she found what she was looking for.

  “Gotcha,” she said in triumph. With the scraper in hand, she sat back up.

  And choked on a scream.

  A face, distorted by frost and shadows, pressed against her driver’s side window.

  “Hey…Relax, Erin. Cripes. It’s just me.” Ben Chambers’ grin wasn’t nearly guilty enough to compensate for the beating Amy’s ribs were taking from her heart.

  “Just making sure you got started okay.”