He had a hollow feeling in his stomach.
The urge to run hit him, but he stood immobilized as he listened to heels clicking on the floor in the main office area. On reflex, he catalogued the weapons within range: his gun at his hip, his backup firearm in the ankle holster, the knife in his pocket.
Then the door swung open and a pair of familiar eyes, fringed with thick lashes, scanned the break room before they zeroed in on him.
Oh, heck. She was definitely his Lilly Tanner.
Yet she was nothing like the girl he remembered.
âGood morning, gentlemen.â Her voice was a sexy purr, enough to make a man sit up and pay attention
Chapter One
As Shep Lewis, undercover commando, strode into his teamâs office trailer on the Texas-Mexico border with his morning coffee, his bad mood followed him. To do anything right, a person had to give his allâand he did, to each and every op. But it didnât seem to make a difference with his current mission.
He adjusted his Bluetooth as Keith Gunn, one of his teammatesâcurrently on border patrolâtalked on the other end. They all took turns monitoring a hundred-mile stretch along the Rio Grande, in pairs.
âDo you think theyâll really send in the National Guard to seal the border?â
âThey wonât,â Shep said between his teeth. âIt would just delay the problem.â For some reason, the powers that be didnât see that the National Guard was a terrible solution, which frustrated him to hell and back.
His six-man team had credible intelligence that terrorists with their weapons of mass destruction would be smuggled across somewhere around here, on October firstâfive short days away. His teamâs primary mission was to prevent that. Switching out players for the last five minutes of the game was a terrible strategy.
They had the exact date of the planned border breach. If they could somehow discover the exact location, they could lie in wait and grab those damned terrorists as they crossed the river. The bastards would never know what hit them.
The National Guard coming in to seal the border could not be hidden, however. Which meant the terrorists would move their crossing to a different place at a different time and might slip through undetected. The sad fact was, even the National Guard didnât have the kind of manpower to keep every single mile of the entire U.S. border permanently sealed.
âThe op has to be small enough to keep undercover to succeed,â he said, even if Keith knew that as well as he did.
âExcept, we donât have the exact location for their crossing.â
âWe will.â But he silently swore. They were running out of time, and the stakes couldnât have been higherânational security and the lives of thousands.
There could be no more mistakes, no distractions. They had five days to stop the biggest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. Failure wasnât an option.
Keith cleared his throat. âThe FBIâs guy will be here today.â
âDonât remind me.â Frustration punched through Shep. Everybody seemed to have a sudden urge to meddle. âWhere are you?â
âComing in. Ryderâs cutting the shift short. He wanted to talk to the whole team at the office.â
âMore good news?â
âHe didnât say. Weâll be there in ten.â
They ended the call as Shep strode through the empty office that held their desks and equipment, passed by the interrogation room to the left, then team leader Ryder McKayâs office. Ryder had been on border patrol this morning with Keith.
Voices filtered out from the break room in the back, so Shep kept going that way.
âShe burned down his house, stole his car and got him fired from his job.â Jamie Cassidyâs voice reached him through the partially closed door.
Okay, that sounded disturbingly familiar. Shepâs fingers tightened on the foam cup in his hand as he paused midstep, on the verge of entering. His mood slipped another notch as old memories rushed him. He shook them off. No distractions.