Lightning looked very much like the sophisticated jet-setter he now was.
Mike Callahan, on the other hand, looked very much like the man he was. Tough, uncompromising, no nonsense. He was more rugged than handsome, with a square chin and a mouth that rarely smiled. He wore his dark brown hair cut military short. His gold-flecked hazel eyes missed little. So little that Jilly had always believed that’s how he’d come by his code name of Hawkeye.
Until she’d seen him shoot, that is. The first time had been at an International Law Enforcement Tri-Gun Competition. Her parents had taken her to watch the final round, where Hawk scored top honors in the handgun and heavy metal categories. To his disgust, he’d come in second in the shotgun class. He rose to hero status in her eyes that day. She’d been trying to bring him down to the level of mere mortal ever since.
Soon, she vowed as both men acknowledged her arrival with a quick glance. Soon.
“What have we got?” she asked.
Her deliberate use of the plural produced a scowl from Hawk, but Lightning accepted her into the fold.
“Some sort of mutant virus,” he replied in a grim voice. “Scientists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Lab found it a week ago when they autopsied the carcass of a…” He glanced at the computer monitor in front of him. “A nomascus concolor.”
Jilly didn’t even try to pretend she knew what that was.
“It’s a monkey,” Lightning informed her. “Or rather, a gibbon. A species of small ape native to southern China and Southeast Asia.”
He swiveled the monitor around to display a black, furry creature with tufts of white on his cheeks and impossibly long arms.
“It’s the most critically endangered ape species in the world. Supposedly, its very scarcity makes it highly prized as a sacrificial offering in certain far-out religious cults.”
The tiny ape on the screen stared back at Jilly with an inquisitive expression in his caramel-colored eyes. The thought of this cuddly little creature being carved up by religious fanatics raised goose bumps on her skin.
“Someone tossed the carcass of one of these gibbons into a ditch in California,” Lightning continued. “Both the road worker who discovered it and the animal-control officer who responded to his call are now in intensive care. Their docs are still trying to find the right combination of drugs to combat the virus infecting them.”
That was scary. Gillian knew all kinds of nasty diseases like HIV, SARS and Ebola were linked to primates. Now, apparently, a new one had appeared on the scene.
“How did this gibbon get into the States?”
“We don’t know. But the bug that killed it has proved so virulent that Homeland Security tasked one of their top agents to track down the person or persons who brought it in.” Lightning’s voice went flat and hard. “That agent was found this morning in a back alley in San Francisco, with a bone-handled knife through his throat.”
His glance cut to the operative standing stone-faced and rigid on the other side of the communications console.
“Hawk was just about to tell us why his name was the last word the agent uttered.”
The clatter of keyboards and hum of voices in the Control Center stilled. A tense silence descended until Hawk broke it with slow deliberation.
“Charlie Duncan and I served together. A long time ago. In Special Ops. He saved my life. My guess is he was hoping I’d repay the favor by hunting down whoever put that shiv through his throat.”
His rigidly controlled tone belied the feral light in his hazel eyes. For the first time in her life, Jilly was just a little afraid of him.
Her mother’s warning rang in her ears. But as quickly as the goosey feeling came, she shoved it aside. This was Mike Callahan. The man who’d cradled her against his chest, corrected her aim and taught her to put nine out of ten rounds dead center. He was big, certainly. Gruff, sometimes. Hot as hell, always. She refused to be afraid of a man she fully intended to bring to his knees.
Unaware of his fate, Hawk zeroed in on Lightning. “I want this mission.”
“You’ve got it.”
“I’ll fly out to California tomorrow, see what leads the locals have on Charlie’s death.”
“You might want to talk to the folks at the Centers for Disease Control here in D.C. first.”
“Will do.”
“I can help,” Jilly said. “I spent three years in Asia. I could…”
“No.”
Hawk rounded on her.
“Listen to me, Gillian-with-a-J. We’re talking a potentially lethal virus. Possibly radical religious nuts. A cold-blooded killer or killers. That’s enough for me to handle without worrying about you running around playing amateur secret agent.”
Heat rushed into Jilly’s cheeks and fire into her eyes. Before she could let fly, Hawk raked a hand through his short-cropped hair and offered a grudging compromise.
“I don’t like the idea of you getting into this game. You know that. But…Well, it looks like you’ve made up your mind. I’ll mentor you, Jilly. Teach you some of the tricks of the trade I’ve picked up over the years. After I get back from this mission. In the meantime, I need you to stay out of my way.”
Mentoring was the last thing she wanted from Mike Callahan. This was hardly the time to tell him so, however.
“I’ll stay out of your way,” she promised, masking her anger with icy politeness, “but at least let me work my contacts at the State Department. They have a special desk tracking religious splinter groups. One of the analysts might have something we can use.”
“All right, but let me know immediately if you find anything.”
His tone implied that he was highly doubtful, and Jilly had to subdue a thoroughly unprofessional impulse to flip him the bird. The gesture would have been wasted in any case. He’d already turned his attention back to Lightning.
Chapter 2
Jilly steamed all the way to Foggy Bottom.
None of the other passengers on the Metro would have guessed she was pissed. She smiled her thanks to the tattooed kid who moved aside to give her room. She apologized to the Navy lieutenant she bumped into when the train took off. And she had herself well in hand when she exited the Metro and took the soaring escalator at the Foggy Bottom–George Washington University stop.
Foggy Bottom got its name from the mist that swirled through the low-lying area between the Potomac River and Rock Creek. The Bottom was home to a host of well-known institutions, including George Washington University, the Kennedy Center and the infamous Watergate Hotel. Most Washington pundits, however, believed the “fog” emanated from the government agency that took up an entire block on C Street.
The headquarters of the U.S. Department of State was a monolithic square of concrete and glass. Jilly could still remember the thrill that
