Texas Hero

Evidently Ellie Alazar shared Mackenzie’s fascination with electronic gadgetry. She gave the small metal box the kind of pat a fond mother might give a child.

“This holds the guts of a technology I developed the summer after we…” Her brown brows slashed down. Obviously impatient with her hesitation, she plowed ahead. “The summer after I met you. I didn’t make the trip to Mexico City that year. I didn’t go down for several years, as a matter of fact.”

Jack wasn’t surprised. Elena’s emotions ran close to the surface. In the short months he’d known her, she’d never once reined them in. Looking back, he could see that was what had drawn him to her in the first place. Everything she thought or felt was all there, in her eyes, her face. Impatience, passion, anger—whatever emotion gripped her, she shared. Honestly. Openly.

She’d certainly shared her feelings the day her uncle sent his police to arrest Jack. She’d been furious with Eduardo Alazar. But not half as angry as she’d became with the Marine who refused to stand and fight for her.

“You didn’t go to Mexico that summer,” Jack acknowledged, steering the conversation to less volatile subjects. “What did you do?”

“I worked for the National Park Service on a dig in the Pecos National Park. We were excavating the site of the battle of Glorietta Pass. The battle took place in 1862 and was one of the pivotal engagements in the Civil War.”

“The Gettysburg of the West. I’ve heard of it.”

She gave him a look of approval. “Then you know the battle turned the tide against Confederates and sent Silbey’s Brigade scuttling back to Texas in total disarray.”

Another Texas defeat. Evidently Ellie had started her career at the site of one disastrous conflict for the Lone Star state. Now she was up to her trim, tight buns in controversy over another. No wonder some loyal local citizens wanted to roll up the welcome mat and send her on her way.

“We used metal detectors to locate shell casings at the battle site,” she explained, warming to her subject. “We marked their location on a computerized grid, then categorized the casings by make and caliber. We also analyzed the rifling marks on the brass to determine the type of weapon that fired them.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“It was. Three summers’ worth of digging and mapping. Plus hundreds of hours of detailed research into the weaponry of the time. The Confederates tended to carry a wide variety of personally owned rifles and side arms. Union weapons were somewhat more standardized. By matching spent shell casings to the type of weapon that fired them, we were able to map the precise movement of both armies on the battlefield. We also built a massive database. For my Ph.D. dissertation, I expanded and translated the raw data into a program that allows forensic historians to reliably identify shell casings from any era post-1820.”

“Why 1820?”

“The copper percussion cap was invented in the 1820s. Within a decade, two at most, almost every army in the world had converted its muzzle-loading flintlocks to percussion. More to the point where my research was concerned, the copper casing retained more defined rifling marks, which aided in identification of the type of weapon that fired it.”

Jack was impressed. He could fieldstrip an M-15, clean the components and put it back together blindfolded. He’d qualified at the expert level on every weapon in the Marine Corps inventory, as well as on the ones OMEGA outfitted him with. Yet his knowledge of the science of ballistics didn’t begin to compare with Ellie’s.

“So how do we get from the invention of the percussion cap to your finding that the hero of the Alamo deserted his troops and ran away?”

“It’s not a finding.” She shot the answer back. “It’s only one of several hypotheses I surfaced for discussion with my team. Honestly, you’d think simple intellectual curiosity would make folks wait to see whether the theory is substantiated by fact before they get all in a twit.”

“You’d think,” Jack echoed solemnly.

Flushing a bit, she backpedaled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just getting tired of having to deal with outraged letters to the editor, picketers at the site, skittish team members and a nervous National Park Service director who’s close to pulling the plug on our funding.”

There they were again. The fire, the impatience. She hadn’t learned to bank, either. Jack found himself hoping she never did.

“And this hypothesis is based on what?” he asked, the evenness of his tone a contrast to hers. “Start at the beginning. Talk me through the sequence of events.”

“It would be better if I showed you.” She speared a glance at her watch. “It’s only a little past two. If you want, we can start here at the Alamo, then drive out to the site.”

“Good enough. Give me ten minutes.”

With the controlled, smooth grace that had always characterized him, he executed what Ellie could only describe as an about-face and passed through the connecting door. It closed behind him, leaving her staring at the panels.

The old cliché was true, she thought with a little ache. You can take a man out of the Marines, but you never quite took the Marine out of the man.

Like dust blown by the hot Texas wind, memories skittered through her mind. She could see Jack the night they’d met. She’d accompanied her aunt and uncle to a formal function at the American embassy. As head of the security detail, Gunnery Sergeant Carstairs had stood just behind the ambassador, square-shouldered, proud, confident. And so damned handsome in his dress blues that Elena hadn’t been able to take her eyes off him all evening.

She’d been the one to ask him to dance. She’d called him a few days later, inviting him to join her for a Sunday afternoon stroll through Chapultapec Park. She’d let him know in every way a woman could that she was attracted to him.

And that’s all it was. A sizzling, searing attraction.

At first.

How could she know she’d fall desperately in love with the man? That she’d find a passion in Jack’s arms she’d never come close to tasting before? That she’d swear to give up everything for him—her scholarship, her family, her pride—only to have him throw them all back in her face.

If she closed her eyes, she could replay their final scene in painful, brilliant color. Jack was already under house arrest. Her uncle’s overly protective, knee-jerk reaction to his niece’s affair had forced the U.S. ambassador to demand Sergeant Carstairs’s immediate reassignment and possible disciplinary action.

Steaming, Ellie had ignored her uncle’s stern orders to the contrary, marched to the marine barracks and demanded to see Jack. He’d come to the foyer, stiff and remote in his khaki shirt and blue trousers with the crimson stripe down each leg. With brutal honesty, he’d laid his feelings on the line.

Ellie still had a year of college and at least three years of grad school ahead of her. He was going home to face a possible court-martial and an uncertain future. He refused to make promises he might not be able to keep. Nor would he allow her put her future on hold for his.

He was so noble, Ellie had railed. So damned, stupidly obstinate. Traits he continued to demonstrate even after they both returned to the States.

Cringing inside, Ellie recalled the repeated attempts she’d made to contact Jack. He wouldn’t return her calls. Never answered her letters. Finally, her pride kicked in and she left a scathing message saying that he could damned well make the next move. He never did.

Now here they were, she thought, blowing out a long breath. Two completely different people. She’d fulfilled the early promise of a brilliant career in history. Jack, apparently, had bottomed out. Despite his extensive training and experience in personal security, he’d evidently drifted from one firm to another until going to work for some small-time operation in Virginia. Ellie wouldn’t have known he was in the bodyguard business if one of her colleagues hadn’t stumbled across his company on the Internet while preparing for a trip to Bogotá, Colombia, the kidnap capital of the universe.

It was guilt, only guilt, that had made her insist on Jack when her uncle urged her to accept the services of a bodyguard. She’d caused the ruin of his chosen career. Her own had exceeded all expectations. The least she could do was throw a little business his way.

From the looks of him, he could use it. She didn’t know what was considered the appropriate uniform for bodyguards, but her uncle’s security detail had always worn suits and ties and walked around talking into their wristwatches. She couldn’t remember seeing any of them in thigh-hugging jeans or wrinkled, blue-cotton shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Or, she thought with a small ache just under her ribs, black leather boots showing faint scuff marks.

More than anything else, those scratches brought home the vast difference between the spit-and-polish sergeant she’d once loved and the man in the other room. Her throat tight, Ellie turned to gather her purse and keys.

Jack flipped open the palm-size phone and punched a single key. One short beep indicated instant connection to OMEGA’s control center.

“Control, this is Renegade.”

OMEGA’s chief of communications responded with a cheerful, “Go ahead, Renegade.”

As little as a year ago, operatives at the headquarters stood by twenty-four hours a day to act as controllers for agents in the field. Mackenzie Blair’s improvements in field communications allowed for instant contact with headquarters and eliminated the need for controllers. Instead, Mackenzie and her communications techs monitored operations around the clock.

Mostly Mackenzie, Jack amended. The woman spent almost all her waking hours at OMEGA. She needed a life. Like Jack himself, he thought wryly.

“I’ve made contact with the subject.”

The terse report no doubt raised Mackenzie’s brows. After all, the background dossier she’d compiled had included a summation of Elena Maria Alazar’s affair with Sergeant Jack Carstairs.

“Tell Lightning I’m working the preliminary threat assessment. I’ll report back when I have a better feel for the situation.”

“Roger that, Renegade.”

After signing off, Jack slid the small, flat phone into his shirt pocket and hiked his foot up on a handy footstool. His movements were sure and smooth as he drew a blue steel short-barreled automatic from its ankle holster. He made sure the safety was on, released the magazine, checked the load and pushed the magazine back in place. A tug on the slide chambered a round. With the 9 mm tucked in its leather nest, he shook his pant leg over his boot and rapped on the door to Ellie’s room.

“Ready?”