Meredith Fletcher - Look-Alike

The most curious facet about AA.gov was the connection to the school just outside of the Glendale/Phoenix, Arizona, area in the United States. From circumspect investigation, Quinn had learned that the Athena Academy for the Advancement of Women had many ties to the United States government. Many of the school’s select graduates went on to important positions within federal and state agencies.

“They’ve already placed an agent in the field,” Beck went on. “I’ve sent you a file.”

Turning, Quinn pulled the back of the seat down beside him, revealing the computer. A small dish at the back of the limousine connected him to a satellite array.

He opened the e-mail feature and decrypted the message, then linked to the Web site where Beck had posted his progress. One long minute later, a digital image flickered onto the LCD screen.

The woman was young, perhaps midtwenties, and beautiful. Her white-blond hair fell to her shoulders. Ice blue eyes. In the picture, she looked like a tourist, dressed in light summerwear. For some reason that he didn’t understand, she looked hauntingly familiar.

“Who is she?” Quinn asked.

“She’s in Amsterdam now,” Beck replied, evasive. “She made contact with a man who sells me information on a regular basis. She asked him about Tuenis Meijer. Once she had Meijer’s address, she went there. But, of course, Meijer hasn’t returned yet or I would have him.”

“How do you know she was asking about Meijer?”

“The man who sold her the information called me and gave me her picture.”

“What have you done about her involvement?”

“I’ve got two men on her now. She’s currently at the railway station awaiting an arrival.”

“Not departing?” That would be too good, Quinn thought. Too easy. And too much to hope for.

“She hasn’t bought a ticket. I tracked her arrival into Amsterdam through computer records. Her passport says she’s Crystal Downing. From Newark, New Jersey.”

“She’s not?”

“Her name is Samantha St. John. She’s an Athena Academy graduate. She fits the profile for the AA.gov background we have access to. I got her picture and name from a school yearbook.”

Cursing, Quinn closed the computer and stored it behind the seat again.

He struggled to remain calm. For over twenty years, his secret had been safe. At least, relatively safe. There was one woman who knew more about him than she should, a woman who some said was only a myth, a black widow who seduced and killed her mate and any man she found useless once she was done with them. For the last twenty-plus years, she had been blackmailing him.

That blackmailer was believed to have one of the most sophisticated information networks in the world, with secrets that could cripple or topple major corporations and nations. Despite years of searching, Quinn had not been able to find his blackmailer or discern her identity. Now, if he moved quickly, he had a chance to find that woman and kill her. Perhaps, if he moved quickly enough, he might even hope to learn the secrets she knew. They were worth a lot of money. But he needed Meijer.

“My path may cross the competition’s,” Beck said.

“If she gets in your way, kill her.”

There was no hesitation. “Yes, sir.”

“And let me know as soon as it’s dealt with.” Quinn hung up the phone and put it back in his jacket.

“Sahib,” Malik whispered tremulously from the car. “Please?”

Ruthlessly, Quinn knotted his fist in the man’s hair and yanked him from the limousine. Ten feet from the car, Quinn put the silencer to Malik’s head and squeezed the trigger. The body dropped onto the shifting sand.

Quinn breathed in the cool, dry desert air, held it a moment, then let it out. Everything is controllable, he told himself. With enough money, enough blood, enough determination, everything is controllable.

He would spend all to protect himself.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Once you get to Amsterdam, Sam, your life will be in danger. You can’t trust anyone.

Remembering Allison Gracelyn’s last warning before she’d boarded the plane in Phoenix, Samantha St. John stood waiting in the lobby of Central Station, Amsterdam’s main railway station, and forced the tension and doubt away. You were warned about the danger, she chided herself. You didn’t tell your lover about it, but you told your sister.

Guilt stung her, but she didn’t give in to it. Riley McLane was her lover and had been a big part of her life for almost nineteen months now. But she wasn’t used to sharing everything in her life. There were parts she wasn’t ready to share—didn’t know how to share. Being alone was natural; being part of a couple wasn’t.

Riley was a CIA agent, as she was, but with a lot more fieldwork experience than she’d had. Normally she acted as support, specializing in languages and computers. Riley was definitely hands-on for retrievals and terminations.

Riley had a tendency to be overprotective and a control freak, which could be endearing, Sam had found. But for her current mission, she needed backup with no questions asked. Since she and her sister had been planning to get together for a while, Sam had elected to ask Elle to come with her.

Sam’s sister was an intelligence agent as well. Elle worked for the Russian government’s SVR, which was that country’s equivalent of the CIA. Although they’d known each other less than a year and a half, Sam knew Elle wouldn’t ask a lot of questions if Sam asked her not to. That was one of the things Sam truly appreciated about her sister.

And if things truly got dangerous on the assignment, it would be easier to disappear with Elle, who had been to Amsterdam several times before, than with Riley, who had only a passing acquaintance with the country. Sam told herself that was the real reason for her decision, but she knew she didn’t want to put Riley in harm’s way if she couldn’t tell him why she was doing it.

And she couldn’t tell him, because she didn’t know. Only Allison and Alexandra Forsythe’s request, and the Athena Academy bond between them, had moved her into action.

Dozens of other people waited for the train as well. Night lurked dark and mysterious outside the station windows, and the red glow of the red-light district in the distance held the promise of forbidden ecstasy. Music in several languages boomed from personal entertainment systems. Children and teenagers played video games while parents consulted travel brochures. Monitors broadcast information and news from around the world. The hustle and bustle of the station became an ocean of sight and sound that pressed against her senses.

Sam wore dark blue notch-tab capri pants and a white scoop neck sweater. She’d left her shoulder-length, white-blond hair loose, and dark sunglasses hid her ice-blue eyes even though it was dark outside. According to the tourist pamphlets, the area was rife with pickpockets and purse-snatchers. At five feet three inches tall and slender, she knew she’d be a target for predators. As a safeguard, she carried her ID, passport and cash in a pocket. She felt naked without a weapon.

And she was nervous.

You have every right to be nervous, she told herself. You’re meeting your sister in person for the fourth time in your whole life.

For all of her childhood that she could remember, Sam had been an orphan raised in foster homes. She’d learned to be quiet and self-contained. She wasn’t used to family. Most of the foster homes she’d been in preferred not to see their charges. She’d learned to spend incredible amounts of time surfing the Internet.

Ultimately, it had been her interest in computers that had saved her, though her salvation had taken a strange route. When she’d been nine years old, she’d hacked into a sensitive government site, not really knowing what she was getting into, just plugging away at a barrier that had stymied her young mind. Her success had triggered an armed invasion by federal forces.