Lindsay McKenna - Hunter's Pride

“Take a look at this,” he told Dev in a casual tone as he picked up a color photograph and handed to him.

Frowning, Dev took the large photo. “Hey, this is some looker,” he rasped as he sat back, his gaze riveted on the picture. It showed a woman in a Hawaiian grass skirt and a bright red halter top, her wrists and ankles surrounded by garlands of pale pink plumeria, her arms raised skyward as she swayed gracefully on a golden beach, the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean behind her. Her black hair, shining with blue highlights, was encircled with a wreath of white plumeria and greenery, which set off her dusky gold complexion and warm black eyes. Her gaze, too, was turned heavenward, her full lips, a ripe pink color, parted, as if she were caught up in some sacred dance with the spirits of nature and the mighty, placid blue ocean that lovingly framed her.

Dev’s gaze moved in appreciation over her tall, lithe body. One of her knees peeked out from the grass skirt, parting the yellowish strands and displaying her long calf and delicate bare foot. Her exquisitely long fingers curved upward in honor of the sky she danced beneath. Her arms, firm and slender, arced gracefully above her head, as if in tribute to the golden sun that embraced her. She was small breasted, her torso long and her hips slender beneath the flowing grass skirt.

As his gaze moved to her face, he felt a wrenching in his chest. That caught him off guard. Hunter was used to being around attractive women. He drew them like sunlight opened flowers. It was his gift, he supposed. Certainly, his other brothers did not possess the charisma he had with women. But something about this woman moved him as no one had before. He studied her features—the square face with high cheekbones, the dark black brows arching above her wide, shining eyes. Everything about her shouted of aristocracy, from the fine thin nose to the confident way she held herself as she danced the hula. Dev had been to Hawaii a number of times, and because of his curiosity about other cultures, he’d learned quite a bit about the traditional dance. It was a sacred custom among the Hawaiian people, not the touristy thing that visitors thought it was. And there was no doubt the woman dancing in this photo was moving in a deeply sacred communion with the unseen.

Releasing a low whistle, he raised his chin and pinned Morgan with his gaze. “Tell me she’s my mission.”

Smiling a little, Morgan said, “She’s half of it.”

Dev sat up expectantly. His hands tingled as he held the photo, and he was amazed once again at his reaction to the woman pictured there. She looked like an ancient Hawaiian princess—or maybe the daughter of the fire goddess, Pele. “Okay…you got my attention. Is she my tango?”

Morgan smiled to himself. Tango, a military term that meant target, was used to identify the person a mercenary would be protecting. “No,” he said slowly, “she’s your partner.” Steeling himself, he saw Dev’s expression go first, to surprise and then to mild shock before he set his jaw firmly. Hunter was a loner among the elite personnel of Perseus; he didn’t work with a partner. He never had—until now.

Glancing briefly down at the photo, Dev bit back an automatic “No.” He knew Morgan too well, and he sensed his boss was trying to trap him into taking the mission by showing him an incredibly beautiful woman. Morgan knew a pretty face was Dev’s Achille’s heel. Anger sparked within Dev and tension ran through him momentarily. Yet, as he looked at the photo, those shining eyes filled with such life and awe, he found his anger dissolving. That shook him. No woman had ever had that kind of hold on him. He took that back—one had, but not to this powerful degree at first glance—and that relationship had ended up in a disaster of untold proportions that haunted him to this moment.

“What’s her name?” he demanded gruffly.

Morgan was surprised. He’d expected Hunter to instantly put up a fight and flatly turn down the assignment. Something must have captured his attention. Smiling to himself, Morgan answered, “Kulani Dawson.”

“Kulani…” Dev muttered, more to himself than to Morgan. He repeated the name over and over in his mind. The funny thing was, his heart pounded a little bit every time the word spun through the halls of his mind. Was he just having a purely male response to this photo of her? She was stunning looking. More ethereal than real to Dev. He wanted her. For him it was that primal, that straightforward. Yes, it had to be his desire for her that had caught him off guard. That was all.

“Kulani used to work for us. She’s a helicopter pilot,” Morgan continued. “She was one of the first women to fly helos in the U.S. Navy. I found out about her, managed to convince her to leave her military career behind and work for us.” His voice grew sad. “A little over a year and a half ago, she quit. She runs her own tourist helicopter service over on Kauai now.”

Dev grinned cockily. “This is one helluva dessert to be putting on my plate.” He placed the photo back on Morgan’s desk. “You know I don’t do partners. And even though I’m intrigued, I’m not changing my mind about how I operate.”

Holding up his scarred hand, Morgan said, “Hear me out first, Dev, before you make a final decision.”

Shrugging his broad shoulders, Dev replied, “You’re the boss. What’s up?”

Becoming grim, Morgan said, “Your brother Ty and the team from the Organization of Infectious Diseases—OID—confirmed that a genetically altered form of anthrax was sprayed upon an unsuspecting Juma Indian village south of Manaus as a ‘test’ case for Black Dawn, the international terrorist group.”

“Damn,” Dev whispered painfully. “I didn’t know the details. I suspected what was going on, but Ty didn’t say for sure.”

“He couldn’t. This is top secret information. But it’s been confirmed through five different governmental agencies, including our own. It’s only a matter of time until Black Dawn picks a top event target.”

“Like delivering anthrax by air over a major city?”

“Yes, and probably a U.S. city—that’s our best, educated guess.” Morgan tapped the pile of e-mail messages on his desk. “But we’ve got a lead. A strong one. And I hope this isn’t a wild-goose chase this time. The light plane used to deliver the aerosol spray over the Juma village in the Brazilian jungle had numbers on the side of the fuselage. We were able to trace those numbers.”

Dev’s brows shot up. “That was a pretty basic mistake on Black Dawn’s part not to disguise or change the lettering on the plane.”

Morgan agreed. “No plan, no matter how carefully thought up, is without mistakes and screwups. And this is theirs.”

“Who does the plane trace to?” Dev asked, unable to keep his gaze from wandering to the photo of Kulani Dawson. There was such incredible life in her. There was a radiance about her face, as if she were caught in the throes of something so sacred that Dev could not even begin to connect with it. That didn’t matter. He knew with sudden insight that just by being next to her, hearing her voice, and looking into her eyes, he could somehow possess it. Possess her. Shaken, he forced himself to pay attention to Morgan.

Pulling a paper from the file, Morgan rumbled, “A Professor Jevon Valdemar. A refugee from the Balkans granted asylum by our government to continue his work in biochemistry.” The derision in his voice was heavy. Tossing the paper toward Dev, he added, “The turncoat son of a bitch has sold us out. We gave him asylum, grant money in the millions and what did he do? He joined Black Dawn, perfected the genetic anthrax to kill millions around the world.” Morgan’s nostrils quivered as he glared across the desk at Dev, who picked up the paper and looked at the photo of the professor on it.

Eyes narrowing, Dev studied the thin-faced man with round, gold, wire-rimmed glasses. The professor appeared to be in his late fifties, his hair gray and helter-skelter across his broad forehead. “Funny how faces never tell the whole story,” Dev murmured philosophically. “You’d think a killer would look like a killer. You’d think they’d have pig eyes, hard faces, their features broadcasting just what kind of people they were.”

Morgan’s eyes were icy. “Valdemar looks like a radical in my opinion.”

“How does this top event tie in with her?” Dev asked as he slid the paper back to Morgan. Again, his gaze drifted to the beautiful Kulani Dawson. He’d been over on Hawaii, the Big Island, and Oahu, but never on Kauai. He’d seen his share of hula dancers, but no one like Kulani. Was she the daughter of Pele, the fire goddess? She looked it, with the fire in her heart, her passion, written across her lovely face, in her shining eyes.

“She did a little of the legwork for us already, because after we traced the plane back to the professor, we discovered it was originally bought in Kauai. Since then we’ve found out Valdemar was paying rental at Lihue Airport for his plane. How it got from there to Brazil, we don’t know. It could have been transported in the belly of a large cargo plane. In any case, Professor Valdemar disappeared a year ago from Kauai, where he was doing his work at a local lab that was part of the CIA efforts. His plane disappeared from Lihue Airport about the same time he did. Rafe, our contact in Brazil, found the plane after a search of the Manaus airport with that city’s police detectives. Rafe, who is one of our deep mole Perseus operatives, showed a photo of the professor to Manaus airport employees and Valdemar was positively identified. And now we have another lead. Kulani saw Professor Valdemar back at Lihue Airport three weeks ago. Further, she’s reported an unmarked black helicopter coming and going just at dusk or dawn around the Na Pali Coast area, on the north side of the island.”

“Even though she doesn’t work for you anymore, it sounds like she keeps pretty good tabs on the island for you,” Dev said with a slight smile.

“Well,” Morgan hedged, “let’s put it this way. I was the one who contacted her. I sent the professor’s photo over the Internet to her. I asked if she’d seen him around the airport she flies out of, and she said she had. When I asked if she’d seen anything unusual by way of flights or airplanes, she mentioned the black helo.”

Intrigued, Dev asked, “So you think the professor is on Kauai right now and you want me to verify that?”

“Yes, and I want you to persuade Kulani to join you.” Morgan held up his hand in warning. “And before you say no, hear me out,” he growled. “This mission is going to absolutely take both of you. I’m choosing you because of your mountain climbing skills. I need her to help you because she has equal skills in climbing. Plus she knows those damned dangerous valleys where the professor’s lab is located and the sheer lava cliffs you’re going to have to climb down to get there, better than anyone.”

Morgan slowly stood up and turned around. Pulling down a screen, he pointed to the detailed map of Kauai pictured there. “These lava cliffs on the Na Pali Coast are twenty-two hundred feet high. They’re sheer, vertical faces with nothing but lichen, grass, moss, ferns and brush clinging to their surface. Kulani grew up climbing these cliffs. She knows them like the back of her hand. And she knows the Kalalau Valley, where we believe the professor has his lab hidden. We can’t go busting in there with a military force. If the professor is there, and he hears us coming, he’s liable to let loose some of that anthrax and put the entire island’s population at risk. I’m working with FBI headquarters, as well as with their field office located on the Big Island. We’ve got the green light to try and get in there and insert a team to verify the professor and his lab are there. If you can take ’em out, you’ll do it. Quickly, quietly and cleanly. I want Valdemar alive, if possible. We know he’s making enough anthrax for a top event. You and Kulani will stop him.”