Jude shoved to his feet and staggered, the vertigo so bad he fell. He tried to stand. Fell again.

So he crawled in the direction of the bathroom, panting through the ripping pain in his stomach. Sharp lances speared his brain as well, the pain that was nothing at all like his headaches.

The attack was so sudden and fierce he could hardly think. But about the time he hung his head over the toilet, he realized his mistake; he should have brought the goddamned phone with him. Called the front desk for help.

He retched violently, lost his breakfast. Just lay draped over the toilet like a sacrifice, waiting for his body to turn completely inside out.

Sweat popped out on his forehead and his nose began to run. On reflex, he swiped at his nose and was startled to find it kept running. A lot.

Shit, he had a nosebleed.

What the hell was causing this? Even tainted food wouldn’t have hit his system so quickly. No, this was… unnatural.

Almost as though he’d been slipped something. By the nice employee who brought his tray? Come on, Jude, that’s ridiculous!

Your breakfast, Mr. St. Laurent.

He gasped, clinging to the bowl. No!

To make Liam feel more secure, Lily had made the reservations under assumed names. The resort did not have his real full name. And he hadn’t told his last name to Brenda, either.

“Oh, God.”

What was going on? He had to get help.

Jude crawled down the hallway, stopping now and then to clutch his gut, his head.

He collapsed before he reached the living room, blessed darkness swallowing him whole.

Breakfast was great and Liam had decided taking a stroll down the beach would be fun. Lily wanted to get back and check on Jude, but they decided a quick walk wouldn’t hurt.

Hand in hand, they left the restaurant and passed through the patio area, and started down a pretty, winding path to the beach. Tropical plants and flowers encroached on the walkway, and a lizard jumped from a leaf.

They were almost to the end when Lily glanced through a break in the foliage and spotted a big, dark-skinned man dressed in one of the resort’s uniforms duck his head and take off down another path. Nothing strange about that. The employees were everywhere.

Something about this man, however, prickled the back of her neck.

Liam tugged on her hand. “Whatcha looking at?”

“Huh? Oh, nothing. I just saw an employee who seemed familiar.”

“There’s a ton of them. I’m sure he’s been around.” He started pulling on her. “Come on, let’s go find a crab!”

Laughing at his infectious enthusiasm, she took off jogging with him toward the beach.

How long had he been out?

A few minutes? An hour?

Jude pushed up to his hands and knees, found he still couldn’t stand, and sat instead, leaning back against something. The wall in the hallway, he realized.

His bones ached as though being ground into dust. He’d always had a high tolerance for pain, but this… if he had the energy, he’d scream. The muscles in his joints were on fire, felt scoured raw.

Reaching to his face, he swiped under his nose. The blood was sticky, drying, not flowing anymore. That was something, at least.

His head hit the wall with a thunk, eyes closing. Despite the ice pick stabbing his brain, jumbled thoughts began to sort themselves.

The man who’d brought his breakfast. Had he put something in the juice? Jude had gotten sick immediately. But he’d been hit with this illness before, and that man had been nowhere around.

What did this have to do with the nightmares and the suspicions Jude held about himself?

Flipping the lid of the lighter. Something just out of reach. What?

“What, goddammit?”

And then, a crack in the dam. Growing dangerously wider, revealing truth after ugly truth he would have chosen never to remember.

Jude-using his alias of John Sandborn on this assignment-leaned back in the squeaky vinyl chair so thoughtfully provided by the shitty motel and shook his last Marlboro out of the pack, narrowed eyes never leaving the screen of his laptop. He lifted his antique Zippo lighter from the corner of the scarred desk and stuck the cigarette between his lips.

He lit up and inhaled, letting the rich smoke curl through his lungs in a futile attempt to soothe his nerves, on a whole variety of levels.

Something was royally fucked about this order from Dietz-the one he’d turned down flat not one hour ago, thus hurtling his illustrious career with the Secret Homeland Defense Organization down in screaming flames as nothing else could’ve done. Especially with Michael Ross grieving, secluded, and out of the picture. Indefinitely. SHADO’s take-no-bullshit leader, and Jude’s staunchest ally, had been brought to his knees by his wife’s death-and, blinded by the loss, had left a jackal in charge.

Jude held his pounding head. Dietz. Robert Dietz. Tall, sandy hair. A weaselly fucker.

SHADO. Michael Ross. What the fuck?

Oh, Jude had lost his edge in the last year-he was on his way out and everyone knew it-but with Michael’s support, he might’ve held on a bit longer. Might have… what? Managed to retire and slip quietly away to a foreign beach where he’d spend his days trading tequila body shots with a naked beauty or two?

With a low, cynical laugh, he stubbed out the cigarette he hadn’t really wanted in the cheap plastic ashtray. Flipped the lid on his lighter. Open and shut. Snap. Snap.

The prickle on the back of his neck warned him that the joyless screw he’d indulged in last night could very well be the unremarkable period on the end of an otherwise exciting life. And if so, he wanted to know why, nosy, self-destructive bastard that he was.

He continued to pick apart the classified information on the screen, more vital for what it didn’t say than for what it did. The facts seemed complete on the surface, and the job appeared to be highly justified, a no- brainer, as it involved protecting American citizens from terrorism through the machinations of a traitor. Absent was the usual moral dilemma he weighed with each assignment before executing a flawless kiss of death.

“Kiss of death?” Jude whispered. “I’m a killer? Sweet Jesus, no.”

Why had he been chosen? The fact was, his days had been numbered before Dietz dumped this dossier into his lap, and with it an order that should’ve gone to another operative. One who wasn’t beginning to crack around the seams, who hadn’t nearly botched dispatching his last tango.

Which meant SHADO needed a fall guy, and who better than a man who’d become unstable and therefore expendable?

But Dietz had made a couple of mistakes. For one, Jude wasn’t so far gone that he hadn’t clued in on the almost imperceptible discrepancies between the information they’d fed him and his own sources. Just a little more time, and he’d solve the puzzle. Second, he’d prepared long ago for just such an emergency. An elaborate ace up his sleeve even an asshole like Dietz would appreciate.

If only Jude could make sense of this maze of half-truths.

As afternoon melted into evening, he poured two fingers of Jim Beam into a Styrofoam cup and ignored the rumbling in his stomach. The whiskey blazed a path to his gut and, unfortunately, to his groin. His unsatisfying encounter the previous night had left him hungry for the darker, richer pleasures to be found at home, where the sharing of flesh was like savoring various types of wine. Some sweet, others crisp with more bite. All heady.

God, he missed Liam. His friend hated it when Jude disappeared for weeks with no explanation. Worried himself sick. And what Jude wouldn’t give right now to be buried balls deep in that tight ass-