www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Birgit, for all the wonderful support.

       It’s been thrilling.

      Contents

      CAST OF CHARACTERS

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Coming Next Month

      CAST OF CHARACTERS

      Nate Pratchett: Delta Force Commander—leader of the team, wanted for treason

      Tamara Chen: Biochemist—tricked into creating a nightmare; forced to live a life underground…till now

      Seth Turner: Delta Force Surveillance—lost his hand, but healed by the love of Harper

      Harper Douglas: Physician—eyewitness to the scope of Omicron’s weapon

      Boone Ferguson: Delta Force Communications—risked his life to save his best friend’s sister, Christie

      Christie Pratchett: Innocent Bystander—lost her old life, but found hope and love with Boone

      Kate Rydell: Forensic Accountant—the first to realize Omicron’s plan

      Vince Yarrow: L.A. Homicide Detective—turned in his badge to fight for his woman, Kate

      Cade Huston: Delta Force Sniper—lived silently and alone while he fought for the team and the girl he left behind

      Eli Lieberman: Cub Reporter for the L.A. Times—willing to risk everything to report the truth

      Leland Ingram: CEO of Omicron—the man in charge of death

      Jackson Raines: Senator and guiding force behind Omicron

      Omicron: A rogue CIA operation whose goal is to sell an illegal, toxic chemical weapon to the highest bidders and use the money for political gain

      Prologue

      ELI LIEBERMAN STARED AT the notebook in his hand, afraid to open it. He checked his front door again to make sure all the locks were in place, but what were locks? They could get past locks.

      Taking a deep breath, he sat down at his kitchen table. The day had been long and frustrating. Every single lead he’d pursued on this story had dried up. No one would talk to him. The only thing he could do now was to go back to the beginning. Corky Baker’s notes.

      Well, they’d become his notes after he’d found Baker dead. Baker had been the number one investigative journalist at the Los Angeles Times, while he’d just been a glorified fact checker.

      He stared at it again, a small lined notebook with a blue cover. They sold for less than a buck. But inside this particular notebook was information that had already gotten one man killed, and if Eli transcribed the notes, could very likely lead to his own death.

      Shit. He was only twenty-three.

      He put the notebook in his briefcase, the one he’d gotten from his Uncle Morty when he’d graduated from college. Of course Uncle Morty had also told him he was a schmuck for wanting to be a reporter, that all it would bring him was headaches and overdue bills, and what girl in her right mind would want to marry a man with no money?

      After a few minutes of agonizing indecision, he snatched the notebook out, but this time, Eli flipped it open to the first page. Hell, he shouldn’t be so edgy about transcribing the notes. He was already doomed. He couldn’t end up more dead. The bad guys from Omicron already knew about him and that, according to Vince Yarrow, was enough. And Vince should know—he was an L.A. homicide detective. No. Used to be. Now he worked with Nate Pratchett. Who was wanted for treason. Who led a team of ex-Delta Force soldiers, a biochemist, a doctor and an accountant, all of them on the run, all of them being hunted by the rogue CIA agents working for Omicron, all of them in possession of secrets that would turn the world of U.S. politics on its ass…. Then there was the matter of a deadly gas that could wipe people out. Big time.

      He might as well transcribe the damn notes.

      It probably would have been easier if it hadn’t been almost midnight. If he hadn’t been sitting in the chair that squeaked, and if he’d turned on more lights.

      No, he could do this. Just reading the notebook would not put a curse on his head. It only felt as if it would.

      Eli flipped open the book, squinting as he tried to decipher the almost illegible scrawl that was Corky Baker’s handwriting. Any normal person would have tossed the notebook in the trash thinking it was nonsense. But after having transcribed some of Baker’s other stories, Eli was familiar with Baker’s unique shorthand.

      As he deciphered the first page, then the second, his heart beat faster, and all he wanted in this world was to write it all down. Yeah, he’d give Baker the credit, at least for the first part of the story.

      As for the ending? It didn’t look good for Nate and the other fugitives. They were fighting big power and big money, and they had neither.

      That’s what had made Baker pursue the story in the first place. It had all the earmarks of David versus Goliath, although it was clear Baker thought Goliath was gonna win hands down.

      Eli wasn’t so sure.

      1

      NATE PRATCHETT stared down into hell, watching the underground lab burn. They’d found Tam. They’d either killed or taken her, and both options made him sick to his stomach. If they’d found Tam, he had to assume they’d found them all. As he was standing here, they might be at Kate and Vince’s, at his place where Cade was going over recordings from the bugs placed in the office Omicron used as a front in downtown L.A. All his friends might be dead.

      He stepped back as the heat intensified, and that was lucky because something down in the lab exploded, rocking the building around him. He had to get out of here, now, before the whole place came down.

      The complex itself had been an incredible find, but there had always been inherent danger. Built by Colombian drug dealers, it had been an underground labyrinth of rooms and escape routes. He’d turned it into a lab for Tam, who’d been a virtual prisoner there during the past two years as she’d worked on the antidote for the deadly gas created by Omicron. Now it was ashes and the end of hope.

      There was only one chance that she wasn’t dead or captured, but he hesitated. If she wasn’t there…No, he had to go. Had to know. If she had made it out, she was probably hurt.

      That thought spurred him into a run. He was halfway down the block before it occurred to him that he was heading straight for the Plan B building, and that Omicron might be watching him.

      It wasn’t like him to be so careless,