Wendy Rosnau - Undercover Nightingale

Lazlo spoke to the captain, then followed his friend below. They were back within minutes with duffel bags slung over their shoulders, they boarded the Stella di Mare once more.

This time, the man named Lazlo headed into the wheelhouse. The powerful twin engines began to sing, then the luxury yacht quickly moved out.

Allegra remained at the railing, the warm tropical breeze lifting her dark hair around her shoulders as the yacht picked up speed. Yurii was dead, and he’d taken the details of their secret assignment to his grave. She questioned whether Filip was privy to the mission’s details. If he was, how long would it be before he shared them with her?

She had no phone. She’d left everything behind when she had fled Nescosto. But if Filip hadn’t assured her that they were on the same page by the time they reached land, then she would find a way to contact Cyrus.

She was deep in thought when an explosion rocked the yacht, pitching her into the railing. When she regained her balance and turned around, orange flames and billowing smoke were rising up out of the sea. Filip was holding a detonating device in his hand, and the Sera Vedette was gone, as well as its captain.

The death of Yurii Petrov made newspaper headlines across the country. The Washington Post must have been lacking news on Wednesday, as they dedicated the entire front page to the incident, and bored the public with a lengthy profile on an international criminal no one was aware existed—no one outside the criminal elite and government intelligence.

The article listed Yurii’s many atrocities beginning with money laundering, and ending with his affiliation with the Red Mafia. A color photo of Nescosto, Yurii’s headquarters, ate up half the page. If not for the caption, the once sprawling four-story villa built into a sheer rock face along the Amalfi Coast would have been unrecognizable.

The NSA claimed credit for the takedown. They were vague on the details, but that was standard when the special operations group, code-named Onyxx, was involved—they were the invisible spooks no one talked about.

The news story ended with a brief statement from France’s Department of Foreign Information and Counterespionage. The SDECE reported that two of their agents had died in the siege.

It was the first Onyxx Agent Ashland Kelly had heard that another intelligence agency was undercover inside Yurii Petrov’s citadel at the time he’d planted the explosives, sending Nescosto into the sea. There had been a window of opportunity to escape before detonation—a small window. Had he known about the French agents, their lives could have been spared.

Too bad the left hand hadn’t informed the right hand what the hell they were doing. But it was rare to find two agencies willing to share information, let alone work together. The only two who came to mind at the moment were Onyxx and EURO-Quest.

Ash tossed the paper on the couch in his Washington apartment and headed for the shower. When he climbed out, he saw that his boss had left a message on his cell phone. Dripping wet, he tucked the towel around his hips, reached for his phone on the sink, and hit voice mail.

“Did you see the morning paper? Burgess Stillman from the SDECE is on his way to Washington. Before he gets here, we need to talk. My office. As soon as you get this.”

Ash headed into his bedroom, dropping the towel in the doorway. He dressed quickly, then left the bedroom wearing jeans, a black V-neck sweater, and his lucky cowboy boots.

On the way to the kitchen, he glanced out the window. It was snowing this morning—big, wet winter flakes that made the November day as gray as his socks. He liked hot weather—desert hot—and he’d never gotten used to the inconvenience of winter, or the dampness that accompanied it.

He made his morning pot of tea, poured a cup to take with him, and grimaced over the fact that there was no time to quell the hunger in his belly.

Thinking about how good a fried egg sandwich would taste, Ash went out the door with his tea, pulling on his brown leather jacket, his shaggy, sandy blonde hair still wet, his jaw unshaven.

The snow wouldn’t stay, that was the good news. But it would make the morning commute to headquarters slow. The traffic was already backed up as he pulled his green Jeep out of the underground parking lot, the cars resembling an ant march to a picnic.

He joined the march. As much as he detested crowds and smog, he drove through morning rush hour like a cultured city boy instead of a man used to the hot wind in his face on a dirt road in Mexico.

Ash entered the front doors at Onyxx headquarters forty minutes later. He stepped inside the elevator just as the doors were about to close, and came face-to-face with Burgess Stillman.

He’d never met the SDECE commander, but he’d seen pictures, and heard the rumors about the forty-year-old Frenchman. Six-six, two-sixty, with a silver crewcut, Stillman looked like the kind of guy who ate roadkill for breakfast and asked for seconds.

“Ashland Kelly.” Stillman looked him up, then down. “You’re thinner than your profile stats, mon ami. Merrick must be working your ass off these days.”

“Excuse me.”

“I don’t accept excuses, Kelly. You’ll learn that before this is over. I have two dead agents, no bodies to console the families, a superior climbing up my ass, and no way to amputate the hemorrhoid. Not yet.”

Ash opened his mouth to defend the mission that had cost the SDECE two agents, then closed it. It had been a straightforward assignment. Get in, get out, and leave nothing standing once Petrov’s data had been hijacked, and they’d rescued the female Quest agent, Casmir Balasi.

“You got blood on your hands, mon ami. But that’s your specialty, isn’t it? What is it they call you?” Stillman paused. “Oui, I remember. They call you the Ashtray. An appropriate name for a man who likes to play with matches, no?”

Stillman retrieved two pictures from his coat pocket and stuck them in Ash’s face. “That’s Felton Chanler with his wife, three kids and their dog. This one, Jazmin Grant, was the best damn agent I’ve had in years. Twenty-eight is too damn young to die.”

That was for damn sure, Ash thought staring at the beautiful blonde. “I’m sorry about your agents.”

Stillman slid the pictures back in his pocket. “I don’t want your condolences, Kelly. I want your hide. But since I won’t get away with skinning you alive, I’ll settle for my second choice.”

“And that would be?”

“You’ll know soon enough.”

Stillman hit the button on the elevator and it took off. Within minutes they were walking down the corridor side-by-side, headed for Merrick’s office.

The SDECE commander knocked, then swung the door open as if he owned the agency and every man in it. He stepped inside the room just as Merrick hung up the phone.

Adolf Merrick arched his gray eyebrows over his chilly blue eyes. “You’re early. I didn’t expect you until this afternoon.”

“I met your firecracker, Merrick. He wouldn’t be hard to pick out in a line-up. He fits your MO.”

“My MO?”

“Oui. Your recruits are a bunch of marauders. Criminals, every last one of them.”

“My agents don’t have a particular MO, except one, Stillman. They know how to survive. That’s what it takes to be successful in this business. Maybe if your agents were made out of similar stuff, they’d still be alive.”

“That’s a helluva thing for you to say to me.”

“Sit down, Ash. Stillman, if you’d like to take a seat down the hall in the waiting room, I’ll have a cup of coffee brought to you.”

Stillman pulled out the chair in front of Merrick’s desk and sat. “I’ve never taken a number in my life, Merrick, and I don’t plan to start now. Your errand boy can wait outside, or stay since he’s the reason I’m here.”