Unfaded Glory. Sara Arden

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       CHAPTER ONE

      BYRON HAWKINS HAD an earworm.

      Most people got them at one point or another—a Top 40 hit they couldn’t escape, a catchy ad jingle, a children’s song heard one time too often. A bit of auditory flotsam that’s busywork for the brain, a refrain that plays over and over.

      Byron had such a loop, but he wasn’t lucky enough to have anything as innocuous as the last song he’d heard on the radio. He had the screams of his team as they died.

      Their terror and pain was always with him whether it was a damning whisper or a roar that sounded like the army of hell.

      He knew it was no less than he deserved for his failure. If he hadn’t given the order to pursue the guerrillas, they’d have all made it back to camp. They’d have gone home to their families at the end of the mission.

      Instead, they were ambushed and tortured.

      Instead, he was the only one who went home.

      And Hawkins knew it was his fault no matter what the incident review board had to say about it.

      It had been a mistake from the beginning to believe that he could be a good man, that he could redeem himself by sacrificing for his country. Byron Hawkins had always been better at taking life than saving it. He’d been a fuckup for as long as he could remember; nothing was ever good enough. So he’d stopped trying, and life was easier when he didn’t care—when he didn’t bother to try to fit himself into a box that was labeled “supposed to” or “should have.”

      When he didn’t give a damn, he didn’t have responsibilities he couldn’t handle. No one trusted him, and no one paid for his inevitable mistakes.

      It was a mercenary’s life for him. No attachments. No responsibilities. A way for him to channel all the destruction that roiled inside him like a hurricane.

      The voices were especially loud tonight—the screams—they always were before a mission, but here in the darkness, he could silence them. He could shut off the outside world and hone all his highly trained senses on one target—the mission. As an “independent contractor” for the Department of Defense, he never had to be responsible for another life again.

      Unless he was ending it.

      He silenced the howls of his fallen brothers. He drowned out that song in his head as he moved through the darkness toward his target—the Jewel of Castallegna.

      The Jewel was being kept in the Carthage National Museum in Tunisia. It would be no easy feat to get in and out with a national treasure, but breaking and entering was a skill he’d acquired during his delinquent youth.

      He didn’t ask his betters how a gemstone could serve the DOD. That wasn’t his job. His job was to acquire the item and bring it home. He didn’t give a damn what they were going to do with it.

      Byron entered through the front door. Security rolled in staggered shifts and there were only three officers since the museum was closed to the public. He’d tranqued an officer in his car before he’d come on duty, and taken his keys. Easy as his granny’s pecan pie.

      Until he heard voices coming from the first chamber. He flattened himself against the wall and peered through the door.

      Two men had cornered one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. She was petite, but he could tell from her stance that she could hold her own. She’d been trained. Krav Maga, perhaps. She was poised for a fight. Her eyes were a most curious shade of blue, and her skin was dusky and golden. It was too bad so much of it was covered by her black fatigues. She looked ready to do battle, and Hawkins had to admit it didn’t get much hotter than a gorgeous woman with a thigh holster and a utility belt.

      “You know the Jewel should never leave Castallegna,” one of the men said.

      He swore under his breath. There would be bodies to dispose of. Byron wouldn’t be much of a ghost if he couldn’t get in and out without a trail of blood a mile wide in his wake, and he could tell this guy wasn’t going to let the Jewel go without a fight.

      He hoped he wouldn’t have to dispose of the woman, but he would if she stood between him and his mission. He wasn’t just a trained killer; he was a born killer.

      “The Jewel isn’t going back,” the woman answered defiantly.

      “I can’t kill you yet,” the man said, sadistic glee lighting his cruel face. “But I can hurt you.”

      Byron knew he had to act. The woman had the Jewel or she knew where it was. He launched himself from his hiding place and snapped the big man’s neck with a single fluid motion. He dropped like a stone, and the other would-be jewel thief sprang to action. He hurled himself toward the woman. Hawkins would’ve saved her, but she saved herself. As he watched her seamless movements taking the other man down, he realized he’d been right in his assessment: Krav Maga.

      Hawkins was impressed.

      Even though she’d subdued the other man instead of killing him, he wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating her.

      She didn’t seem afraid of him. In fact, she looked almost happy to see him.

      That didn’t bode well, not at all. It was almost as if she were expecting him, but if that were the case, that would mean his cover had been blown. If she thought he was someone else, maybe he could use that to get her to hand over the stone.

      “Thanks for the assist,” she said.

      Her voice was melodic and sweet with an accent he couldn’t place. She wasn’t Tunisian—it was almost Greek. The dossier said the culture and the people of Castallegna were a blend of the two. He wondered if she was a rebel or a patriot. He could tell from the fire in her eyes that she burned with one cause or another.

      It would be easier if she was just a jewel thief, an unscrupulous antiquities dealer. Those could be bought off—not so much when it was a cause.

      “Don’t thank me yet, sweetheart. I’m here for the Jewel.” He flashed a slow, lazy grin that belied the urgency of the operation.

      She smiled, baring all of her straight white teeth at him. “You’re looking at it.”

      “You’re shitting me.” There was no way, no way that this woman was the Jewel of Castallegna. His eyes narrowed, and he assessed her with a particular intensity.

      “No, Mr. Hawkins. I would never do that. I’m Princess Damara Petrakis, also known as the Jewel of Castallegna. We better get moving. The last thing we need is to get caught with a dead body on our hands.”

      She knew his name. She had been expecting him. Damn it. This screwed all of his plans. “That’s going to be a problem. I only made provisions for one.”

      “They didn’t tell you the Jewel wasn’t a stone?” She arched a dark brow.

      “No.” And Hawkins knew why. As a private contractor, he could decline an assignment. His handler, Daniel Renner, knew that Byron would decline this one if he had all СКАЧАТЬ