“Stop, you idiot,” he muttered.

He refocused his mental energies. It wasn’t only his life on the line here, but the lives of thousands. Danger, closing in on Americans from all fronts. Hell, just last month there was that theft of-

The answer came, ripping the breath from his lungs. His heart slammed against his rib cage, and for one moment, the cold assassin was nothing more than a frightened man. Horrified and nowhere near prepared for the path set before him.

Jude slumped, curled in on himself. “No. I don’t want to remember. Please.”

But the dam had burst wide, and there was no stopping the flood.

“Sweet Christ.” Elbows on the desk, Jude dropped his face into his hands. In the wake of this terrible exercise of connect the dots, he’d be goddamned lucky if he didn’t wind up at the bottom of the Atlantic. In five different oil drums.

Because Dietz was coming for him. No doubt about it.

If he had a whisper of a prayer of avoiding a grisly fate, he had to work fast.

Clicking the X in the top right corner of the laptop’s screen, he closed the classified file and opened another. Fingers flying, he activated a program he’d hoped never to use, but was damned glad he’d put into place. Next, he composed a simple coded message a ten-year-old couldn’t decipher, yet not so difficult a trusted operative couldn’t, either.

“Okay… got it.” He blew out a deep breath. It wasn’t perfect, but would have to do.

Last, he opened his e- mail and hit Send. He waited, every muscle tense, while the new files, along with the classified one, shot to six different destinations and burrowed into six different hard drives. A high- tech worm that would make any hacker cream in his shorts-and just might save his ass.

Action complete.

“Thank fuck.” Jude attacked the keyboard again, clicking rapidly. His instincts screamed Get out, but he didn’t dare leave the last two tasks undone.

Precious seconds were whittled away, scraping his nerves raw, as he accessed the script file he’d written to initiate the virus that would destroy his hard drive. The final box popped onto the screen, and he executed his CTRL+F+U command.

Jude gave a grim chuckle at the double entendre in his chosen three- finger salute and wiped the sweat from his brow. Time to make like a ghost.

The door to his motel room burst open, hitting the inside wall like a gunshot. Jude spun, the SIG from the desktop already in hand, arm leveling at the leader of the traitor’s cleanup crew.

Too late. A pop split the air, and pain blossomed in his chest. He stumbled backward, managing to get off a shot, the explosion deafening in the tiny space. The leader went down with a grunt as Jude trained his gun on the second man, tried to squeeze the trigger. And couldn’t. His arm fell limp and useless to his side.

The second man crossed the room, a smirk on his ugly, pockmarked face. Cold overtook the pain, spreading from Jude’s chest to his limbs. Numbing every muscle. Looking down, he stared in fascinated horror at the dart embedded in his left pectoral.

He swayed, speaking quickly. His life depended on it. “Tell your boss I know everything. I put safeguards in place, and he’ll never find them without me,” he rasped, the drug freezing his vocal cords, fast. “If I die… the whole world will know… what he’s done.”

Jude’s legs buckled and he slumped to the floor, completely nerveless. Aware, but paralyzed, along for the ride and at their mercy. A nightmare.

A pair of heavy-soled leather boots appeared in his line of vision as the second man paused, obviously peering at the laptop. “You smart-ass sonofabitch,” Crater Face hissed.

Jude pictured the cartoon gopher dancing across the screen, shooting the finger at the henchman, and a hoarse laugh barked from his dry throat. The boots backed up a couple of steps.

Jude’s last image was a snapshot of the man’s right shitkicker rocketing toward his face.

And Jude had awakened in a strange hospital. Had been told he’d been in a terrible car accident.

Blind. Confused.

All a lie.

“I work for Michael Ross at SHADO. I’m a fucking assassin,” he rasped. “And I was set up. Betrayed.”

By Robert Dietz, the motherfucker.

Thank God for Liam and-

Lily.

Lily Vale.

Agent Lily Vale. Fellow assassin. Black widow.

They’d never formally met. But he’d brushed past her at SHADO’s compound, seen her at meetings and debriefings. He’d been intrigued at the thought of getting closer to her, but their assignments had always taken them in opposite directions.

Until now.

Jude began to laugh. Harsh, bitter laughter, agony spearing his chest, and not just from the poison she was feeding him.

Dietz had sent her to find the files.

And eliminate him.

How pathetic am I? How sad is that?

He laughed until tears streamed down his face, and the laughter became something else, splitting his chest in two.

The irony killed him. He’d spent months after the “accident” wishing he would’ve died.

And Lily, who had breached his defenses, made him fall in love, was going to see he got his wish.

Fifteen

Lily pushed into their suite, listening to Liam ramble about their find.

“Did you see the size of the pincers on him? Boy, was he pissed when we dug him out-oh, God! Jude!”

Liam dashed past her and ran to the man slumped in the hallway, dropping to his knees. “Jude? Talk to me.” He patted the other man’s face, shook his shoulders. “Shit, we never should’ve left him alone.”

Lily jogged over and knelt beside them, noting the stains from what had been a pretty bad nosebleed. A chill went down her spine. “Do migraines cause bleeding?”

“I don’t think so. Jude’s never have. Hey, buddy?” he called louder.

Jude shifted, eyes fluttering open. His face was pale, lined with pain. “Liam… get out of here.”

The younger man frowned. “What? I’m not going anywhere. Did you hit your head?”

“No. I want you on the next plane to New York.”

“What? Why?” Liam’s face blanched in hurt. “Never mind that, let’s get you cleaned up and in bed.”

Jude waved him off. “Give me a few minutes.”

“I’ll get you a wet cloth,” Lily said.

“Don’t bother,” he replied. Cold as the Arctic.

Liam shot her a concerned look.

Fear crept in, forming a chunk of ice in her gut. “You’re bleeding.”

His laugh was scary. Sarcastic and angry. When he lifted his chin, she swore he could see into her soul.

“I don’t have a high tolerance for toxins, Agent Vale. But then, you know that already, don’t you?”

The bottom dropped out, the earth tilting on its axis.

“You-you remember,” she said hoarsely.

“Fat lot of good it does me, huh? Give me the third dose and I’ll be dead before Dietz whisks you out of the country.” His expression twisted into a snarl. “Are you fucking him, too? What are you getting out of helping a traitor?”

“What in the holy freaking hell is going on?” Liam was starting to appear frightened. “All of a sudden you guys are talking a different language.”

For the moment, they were too wrapped up to answer him.

Lily laid a hand on Jude’s chest, desperate to make him understand. “I’m not a traitor.”

“Save it, honey. Tell me you didn’t slip me poison.” His face was hard.

“Once! But that was before I knew you were innocent!”

“Of what?” he asked in disbelief.

“Of the theft of the weapon. Dietz took advantage of Michael’s absence and pinned the whole thing on you,” she said quietly. “My mission was to-”

“Worm your way into my life, fuck me if necessary, locate the files, then watch me die slowly.” He gave a sad, bitter laugh, the sound strangled. “Yeah, I get it.”

“When I figured out what Dietz had done, and after Liam was attacked to blackmail me into complying with him, I forced Michael to listen,” she insisted.