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Body Double

Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.

Chapter One

The odds of her leaving the Middle Eastern desert compound under her own steam grew slimmer by the minute. Her instincts hummed it. And if there was one thing Amanda knew she could count on, it was her instincts.

From the age of three, her instincts had warned her to hide when her dad got tanked up at home in New Orleans and came looking for her to use as a punching bag and then locked her in a wooden box until her bruises faded so looking at her didn't offend his eyes. Instinct had warned her to protect herself through a year of grueling CIA training at the nine thousand wooded-acre, barbed-wire-fenced hell known as "the farm" and four years of subsequent covert operations. Instinct had warned her it was time to get out of the CIA or wake up dead, and when the U.S. Air Force had recruited her out, instinct had told her to go.

Shortly thereafter, she had been assigned to S.A.S.S., Secret Assignment Security Specialists. On paper, they were a division of the Office of Special Investigations buried in the Office of Personnel Management along with all the other air force members assigned to paramilitary or covert operations, and had an official name so secret it changed every six months. Keeping up with the changes had everyone in the need-to-know loop dubbing the unit S.A.S.S. for convenience and consistency.

Her instincts had been on target all those times, and a million others, and they were on target now. She had used up her nine lives.

Today, Amanda West had run out of last chances.

"If she moves, shoot her," the beefy guard whose nose she'd broken told the other guards.

A certain satisfaction rippled through her. He had quickly developed a healthy respect for her and the damage she could inflict, but seriously. Move? Absurd. The ropes binding her to the chair cut deeply into her wrists and ankles, scraping her chafed skin, rubbing it raw. Her spine tingled, her ass and legs had been numb for hours. Her shoulders ached, head throbbed, and never in her life had she been more thirsty or tired.

She'd given up illusions. She had no idea what country they'd dragged her to, and during the last two days of intense interrogation by GRID's second-in-command, Paul Reese, she'd lost any hope that her identity had remained secret. GRID - Group Resources for Individual Development - was the largest intelligence broker in the world on U.S. resources, assets and personnel. Its operatives were experts at gathering and selling information, and masters at torturing to obtain it.

In the worst cases, evil is about ideology shaped by greed. GRID wasn't just shaped; it was twisted. That elevated GRID's ranking to worst of the worst. Its leader, Thomas Kunz, resented Germany's reliance on the U.S. military presence in his country. In his convoluted logic, Germany's economic woes were the U.S.'s fault, and he hated Americans for it. Of course, if the U.S. military pulled out of his country and Germany's economy suffered, Kunz would hate the U.S. for that, too.

Bottom line, Kunz hated the U.S. and what he hated, GRID hated.

Weak sunlight streaked into the cavernous metal building through dirt-smudged windows high overhead. Whether it was dawn or twilight, Amanda couldn't say. She'd been in and out of consciousness, and had lost track of time. All time. Sweat beaded at her temples, pooled between her breasts. Her once-white blouse clung limp, damp and dirty against her body, and her navy slacks were covered with a thin layer of dust. Her bare feet against the sandy dirt floor were crusted and itched.

They'd taken her shoes.

That had been her first warning that Reese knew who she really was, knew that her hands and feet were lethal weapons.

Through slitted eyelids, she looked over at him, standing with his hip hitched against a folding table, smoking a pungent cigarette that smelled of cloves. Tall, dark and, some would say, gorgeous with black hair and come-hither eyes, Reese was a lady-killer. Figuratively and, she feared, literally.

He exhaled, and smoke rose into obscuring plumes between them. Tossing the butt to the floor, he crushed it under his loafer-shod foot and glanced at the dozen guards circling her, as if reassuring himself of their presence and protection.

Wise move. Amanda wanted to kill him. Given the opportunity, she would kill him. And Reese knew it. He assumed professional necessity drove her, but it didn't. Her reasons were damn personal. Amanda's dad had been the last man to hit her and live. That was a record she intended to keep intact.

The guards stood ready, dressed in camouflage gear, looking like the skilled mercenaries they had proven to be during her capture. She had only disabled three of them. Only three.

They were professional warriors, and for all they had known, she was merely a small, fragile woman. They hadn't yet contended with Captain Amanda West, former CIA operative and current U.S. Air Force paramilitary S.A.S.S. operative - the real her. Now they'd gotten a taste.

Because she'd downed three of them, they hungered for revenge the way starving dogs covet bones: standing at the ready, just hoping she'd give them the slightest excuse to cut loose. All twelve of the men carried M-16s, all twelve aimed directly at her chest.

"Amanda." Reese sounded exasperated. He stepped over to her but stayed out of striking distance, in case the ropes didn't hold. "You're being totally unreasonable."

Unreasonable was denying her water and sleep. She should feel grateful the bastards hadn't resorted to rape, but in a sense they had. They hadn't molested her body, but Reese had done all he could to rape her soul. Fortunately - though it was hard for her to imagine "fortunate" and "her father" in the same breath - she'd been raised by the devil himself. Reese wasn't nearly so formidable.

She wasn't a kid anymore. And she damn sure was not helpless, not anymore.

"I wished to avoid this, but you've given me no choice." Reese sighed heavily, a tinge of regret touching his voice.

"I've called Thomas."

Thomas Kunz. Her heart slammed against her chest wall, hammered hard. Reese was dangerous, but Kunz was lethal. The GRID mastermind had united henchmen of all nationalities and from all walks of life with a single, driving goal: to destroy the United States. Under his leadership, GRID had proven so capable at infiltrating U.S. assets, and so elusive at being pinned down long enough to be captured, that Secretary of Defense Reynolds had deemed the situation critical and issued a by-name request through Colonel Sally Drake, action officer and commander of S.A.S.S., to gather desperately needed insight on GRID and devise a containment plan.

That by-name request had been for Amanda.

"Answer me, Amanda." Reese shoved a hand into the pocket of his black slacks. "What have you reported? To whom do you report?"

Reese's yellow shirt looked fresh and crisp, his tanned skin hydrated, and no dark, exhausted circles marred the skin beneath his eyes. Hating him for that, she stared at him from under her lashes. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Reese slapped her.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Body Double by Vicki Hinze Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
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