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bombing of Khobar Towers, a U.S. military complex in Saudi Arabia. According to the grapevine, Chief Decker had been frustrated by the red tape that, at the time, kept the SEALs from actively hunting down the terrorist organization that had killed so many American servicemen. He’d left the Teams and joined the clandestine and nearly nameless organization known as the Agency, where he’d gotten his wish—going deep into countries known for harboring terrorists. Now he was one of many former SEALs and Delta Force, Marine, CIA, FBI, and Agency operatives who were working for Tommy Paoletti’s civilian consultant group.
    Yeah, Troubleshooters Incorporated’s personnel list read like a Who’s Who of the elite from the Special Operations world.
    “You’ve got how many weeks of leave left?” Tommy asked Cos.
    “Three weeks, two days, seventeen hours.”
    His former SEAL CO smiled. “Well, at least you’re not counting the minutes.”
    Cosmo glanced at his watch. And fourteen minutes.
    “And you’re sure you don’t want to use this time as a vacation?” Tom asked.
    “I’m quite sure, sir.” Like many SEALs in Team Sixteen, Cosmo wasn’t good at taking vacations. After just a few days, he got bored. Restless. “I just want to be able to check in on my mother once or twice a day, even just by phone.”
    “You’re an only child, aren’t you?” Tom asked.
    “Yeah. I’m it,” Cos said. “That’s why I took the full thirty days.” He’d taken the extra time off even though his mom was adamant that Cosmo not be the one to provide her personal care. She’d put it in bottom-line terms by saying no way was she going to allow her grown son to accompany her into the bathroom. “She’s doing really well, but I still want to be close by, you know? She seems to like both her day and night nurses—which is good, because with both wrists in a cast, she can’t do much of anything without help.”
    “That must be frustrating for her,” Tom said.
    Understatement of the year. “She has her coping strategies,” Cos told him. “She loves listening to music, so she’s been doing a lot of that. The Card’s also putting together a special computer keyboard for her, so she’ll be able to go back online.”
    God bless WildCard Karmody, SEAL Team Sixteen’s computer wizard.
    “So tell me about this Hollywood producer.” Cosmo got down to business. “Her name’s . . . Mercedes? Like the car?”
    “J. Mercedes Chadwick,” Tom told him, then smiled at the look of disgust Cosmo shot in his direction.
    “What’d she do,” Cos asked, “to piss people off enough to make them want to kill her?”
     
    “I don’t need personal protection—a team of bodyguards? That’s absolutely ridiculous!” Jane Chadwick told Patty, her new college intern.
    Patty didn’t seem convinced, so Jane turned to Robin, hoping for just a teensy bit of brotherly support.
    But he wasn’t paying attention. He was giving Patty one of his “hey there” smiles. The girl, naturally, was dazzled. Of course, she was impossibly young and didn’t yet have the mileage that would enable her to see past Robin’s gorgeous face to the inner low-life womanizing scum within.
    “Yo,” Jane said, clapping her hands sharply at her brother. Half brother. At times like this it helped to remind herself that they shared only a fraction of their genetic makeup. “Robin. Focus. Patty, go call the studio back and tell them no. Thank you, but no. I’m perfectly safe. Be firm.”
    Unlike that of many young movie-loving girls who made the pilgrimage to Hollywood, Patty’s freckle-faced cuteness wasn’t an act. She actually wore kneesocks and meant it. Jane didn’t know her very well yet, but unfortunately being firm didn’t seem to be high on her skill list.
    But at least she was out of Jane’s office, closing the door behind her, releasing Robin from her captivating spell.
    “If you touch her,” Jane told him, “I will kill you and I will make it