Force of Fire (The Kane Legacy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

But
as far as a seventeen-year-old boy had been concerned, it might as well have
been the world.
    And then, so many years later,
someone in Beirut saying he knew something. Overheard some talk at the
Pentagon. Big brass speculation. Heathrow was no
accident...
    Someone in
Beirut who knew something. Someone lucky enough to get
called off night duty. Someone damned unlucky enough to get hit with ten
tons of moving shrapnel as he lay sleeping in his bunk, a picture of his
fiancée tacked to the ceiling overhead. One dead soldier who took his burning
secret to his grave six hours before he had planned to share it with Mark.
Afterwards, Mark had continued to ask around. But he’d gotten nothing, niente , nada. Nobody else seemed to have caught wind of the
rumor. And his higher ups, if they knew, weren’t telling. So there he was right
back where he started, another SOL dead end.
    Mark leaned forward and set his
elbows on his desk, resting his head in his hands. He’d gone in for the
adventure and come out to change the world. But so far, what had he
accomplished?
    Ana’s open dossier sat just out
of reach, her pleading eyes upon him. If only there were any guarantees. But
there was never any way to know. You could war-game it out to the 'nth' degree.
Never made one shred of difference when it came down to brass tacks. In the
end, you had your head, your training and your instinct. And if those didn’t
fail you, you came out with your tail between your legs, not your guts blown
from your body.
    Mark shook his head thinking of
Heathrow, then of Beirut. Missing Person Central America, Ana Kane. Then pushed
back abruptly in his chair, his hands dropping to his knees.
    Whenever he came this close to
making a difference, dammit, something always happened.

 
    'Tell us what you know or we'll
cut your pretty throat!' The tall man stood before her now, waving the fat
one's knife. It was a hunting knife, Ana realized with distaste, the kind used
for scraping animal pelts.
    She sat strapped to the chair
with electrical tape, her captors' idea of some perverted game. Even her
freedom would hurt.
    ' Escuchame !' the fat one yelled at the other, ' preguntale sobre el archivo !'
    Ana needed no translation.
'I’ve told you a hundred times I know nothing of this archivo azul ! It's a mistake –'
    'A mistake?' the short one
said, his voice rising like a child’s. He walked to the foul-smelling corner,
unzipped his pants, and began urinating into a barrel.
    'We can teach this one about
mistakes, can’t we, Fidelito ?' he said with a
guttural laugh, his yellow stream pummeling hollow wood.
    Ana turned her head in disgust.
    The other leaned toward her and
raised her chin with a dirty finger. ' Tu apellido es Kane, no?' He
held the knife in his left hand, its shining crescent just above her ear.
    She fought the urge to tremble.
    'It's a common name,' she said,
stung by the chill of his eyes. They were wolf eyes. Inhuman. Jagged icicles slashing from a frozen face.
    'Common name for a common
whore!' the fat one shouted from the corner, stuffing himself back into his
fatigues and yanking up his fly. He walked back to them and tugged the knife
from the tall one’s hand.

 
    Mark’s
concentration was broken by the sharp trill of his desk phone .
    'Hello, stranger.'

    'Camille. Oh, Christ –'
    'Don't you spy types ever eat?'
    Mark laid Ana's open file on
his desk. 'Sorry about dinner.'
    'Yeah, yeah. Sorry about dinner and the theater and the Capitals game. When are you going to
stop being sorry and just show up?'
    Mark looked at his watch,
suddenly realizing the time. 'Honey, I had no idea – '
    'Let me guess, something’s come
up.'

    'This one’s important.'

    'So important you keep me
waiting two hours without so much as a call?'

    Mark glanced over at Ana's
dossier, feeling her eyes on him. They were eyes that undid him, the eyes of a woman who’d lived beyond Ana's twenty-nine years, the eyes of a
woman with a story to tell