dark hair and hazel eyes that gave nothing away.
Including his doubt.
His silence broadcast that, though, loud and clear.
Jake knew how Mitch thought, and he could practically see the progression that led to the lieutenant’s short nod. He was in—but only because Mitch believed he and the rest of the SEALs would be able to keep Jake out of harm’s way.
Jake was going to have to set him straight, but not here, not now.
“I’m in,” Lieutenant Luke O’Donlon announced, his words echoed by Lieutenant Harlan Jones. Lucky and Cowboy. Both blond and blue-eyed, Jake had chosen them based on their fair-skinned complexions as well as their reputations. Both were hotshots, that title well earned, and both would be accepted into the CRO as easily as possible, if they had to go that way.
And that was that. He had his team. The SEALs had all agreed, if not quite as enthusiastically as Zoe Lange.
“Gather your gear, gentlemen—and Doctor,” Jake said, glancing at the young woman. “And prepare to meet at Andrews in two hours. Bring a sweater or two. We’re going to Montana.”
Senior Chief Harvard Becker was the first to reach the door. He hit the buzzer that signaled the guards in the outer chambers and the hatch swung open. The SEALs cleared out, none of them uttering another word.
They probably knew Admiral Stonegate would handle all the uttering necessary.
“I will be registering my official protest,” he told Jake stiffly. “An admiral’s place is not in the field. You are far too valuable to the U.S. Navy to put yourself into a position of such high risk that—”
“Didn’t you hear anything Dr. Lange said?” Jake asked the older man. “With the magnitude of this kind of potential disaster, we’re all expendable, Ron.”
“It’s been years since you’ve been in the field.”
“I’ve been keeping up,” Jake told him evenly.
“Mentally, perhaps, but physically, there’s just no way—”
Since he’d gotten out of the hospital, Jake had put himself into the best physical shape he’d been in since Vietnam. “I can keep up physically, too. Ron, you know, fifty-three’s just not that old—”
“Dammit, this is all John Glenn’s fault.”
Jake had to laugh. “Excuse me for laughing in your face, pal, but that’s ridiculous.”
Stonegate was offended. “I will be registering a protest.”
“You do that, Admiral,” Jake said, tired of the noise. “But not until this mission is over. Everything you’ve heard today in this room is top secret. You leak any of it—even in the form of a protest, and I will throw your narrow-minded, pointy ass in jail.”
Well, that did it.
Stonegate stormed out.
Mac Forrest followed. “And I’ll help,” he murmured to Jake with a wink. “Anything I can do, Jake, you just let me know.”
The room was finally empty.
Jake drew in a deep breath and let it all out in a rush as he collected and organized his notes and papers.
That had gone far better than he’d hoped. He’d been sure his age was going to be an insurmountable issue, that none of his first choice of SEALs would accept the assignment. He’d gone so far as to have his hair colored for the occasion, covering the silver at his temples with his regular shade of dark brown. He’d figured looking as young as possible couldn’t hurt.
And it had made him look younger, there was no doubt about it.
He’d liked the way his colored hair looked more than he cared to admit. But he had admitted it. He’d forced himself to confront the issue. He hated the thought of growing old. He’d fought it ever since he’d turned thirty with every breath he took, cutting red meat and high-cholesterol-inducing foods out of his diet. Eating health foods and seaweeds and exercising religiously every day. Aerobics. Weights. Running.
He hadn’t lied to Ron Stonegate. He was in top-notch, near-perfect shape, even for a man fifteen years his junior.
There was only one type of exercise he no longer participated in regularly and that was—
Jake closed his briefcase with a snap and turned around and found himself staring directly into Zoe Lange’s eyes.
Sex.
Yes, it had definitely been nearly three years since he’d last had sex.
Jake swallowed and forced a smile. “God, I’m sorry,” he said. “How long have you been standing there? I didn’t realize you were still in the room.”
She shifted her briefcase to her other hand, and Jake realized that she was nervous. He made Pat Sullivan’s top operative nervous.
The feeling was extremely mutual—but for what had to be an entirely different reason. He found her attractive, college-girl getup and all. Much too attractive.
“I just wanted to thank you again for including me in this assignment,” she said, all but stammering. She was trying so hard to be cool, but he knew otherwise.
“Let’s see if you’re still thanking me after you get an up-close look at the CRO compound.” Jake headed for the door to get away from her subtle, freshly sweet scent. She wasn’t wearing perfume. He had to guess it was her hair. Hair that would slip between his fingers like silk. If he were close enough to touch it. Which he wasn’t.
“I’ve spent years in the Middle East. At least I won’t have to walk around wearing a veil in Montana.” She followed, almost tripping over her own feet to keep up. “I’m just … I’m thrilled to be working with you, sir.”
He stopped in the corridor just outside the third door. There was no doubt about it. “You’ve read Scooter’s damn book.”
For seventeen years, that book had been coming back to haunt him. Scoot had written his memoirs about his time in Nam. Who knew the monosyllabic, conversationally challenged SEAL was a budding Hemingway? But he’d written Laughing in the Face of Fire both eloquently and gracefully. It was one of the few books on Nam that Jake had actually almost liked—except for the fact that Scooter had made Jake out to be some kind of demigod.
Zoe Lange had probably read the damn thing when she was twelve or thirteen—or at some other god-awful impressionable age—and no doubt had been carrying around some crazy idea of Lieutenant Jake Robinson, superhero, ever since.
“Well, yeah, I’ve read it,” she told him. “Of course I’ve read it.” She was looking at him the way a ten-year-old boy would look at Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa.
He hated it. Hero worship without a modicum of lust. What the hell had happened to him?
He’d turned fifty, that’s what. And children like Zoe Lange—who hadn’t even been born during his first few tours in Vietnam—thought
