Undercover Wife. Merline Lovelace

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      “You’ve seen what I can do, Mike,” Gillian said. “You know I don’t lose my cool when things go boom.”

      “Maybe not on the firing range or at a trap shoot, Gillian. They’re a world away from the streets and sewers that spawn the kind of garbage we run up against.” His eyes never left hers. “The same streets and sewers spawned me. When I fight, I fight dirty. In ways a girl with a lifetime membership to the Rocks Springs Golf and Country Club would never stomach.”

      “So that’s it.” Uncurling, she snapped her champagne glass down on the coffee table. It was time…past time…that Hawk opened his eyes and saw her as she was, not as he wanted to see her.

      “First,” she said, “I stopped being a girl years ago. Second, I can handle whatever crawls out of a sewer. And that—” she stabbed her forefinger into his chest “—includes you, Michael Callahan.”

      Bunching her fists into his shirt, she swooped in. The heat, the anger fused her lips to his. When he remained rigid and unresponsive, sheer stubbornness took over. She altered her angle of attack and covered her mouth over his.

      Dear Reader,

      I first visited Hong Kong on my honeymoon. I was a young lieutenant stationed in Taiwan at the time and absolutely fell in love with the fabled city that combined British ambiance with a Chinese history that went back for millennia. I remember thinking then that the broad boulevards and narrow, teeming alleys made the perfect setting for a novel.

      I didn’t follow up on that thought until my husband and I went back to Hong Kong last year for a brief visit. Once again, the exotic mix of cultures captured my heart and my imagination.

      So I hope you enjoy this tale of danger, intrigue and sizzling romance set against the backdrop of one of the world’s most dazzling cities.

      Merline Lovelace

      Undercover Wife

      Merline Lovelace

      

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MERLINE LOVELACE

      A retired U.S. Air Force colonel, Merline Lovelace served at bases all over the world, including Taiwan, Vietnam and at the Pentagon. When she hung up her uniform for the last time, she decided to combine her love of adventure with a flair for storytelling, basing many of her tales on her experiences in the service.

      Since then, she’s produced more than seventy action-packed novels, many of which have been on the USA TODAY and Waldenbooks bestseller lists. Over nine million copies of her works are in print in thirty-one countries. Named Oklahoma’s Writer of the Year and the Oklahoma Female Veteran of the Year, Merline is also a recipient of the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA^® Award.

      When she’s not glued to her keyboard, she and her husband enjoy traveling and chasing little white balls around the fairways of Oklahoma. Check her Web site at www.merlinelovelace.com for news, contests and information about upcoming releases.

      To my handsome husband and those magical days and

       nights in Hong Kong. Who wudda thunk the honeymoon would last for thirty-eight years and counting.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Epilogue

      Prologue

      “What do you think it is?”

      His voice muffled by his surgical mask, the pathologist at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Lab yielded his place at the electron microscope to his partner.

      “Damned if I know,” the second scientist answered as he peered at the sample taken from the carcass. “It doesn’t match any known viral strains.”

      He straightened, and both men’s glances went to the glass enclosure separating them from the creature stretched out on the autopsy table. It was a nomascus concolor, or Western black-crested gibbon, very rare and native to the jungles of Asia. The two pathologists had no idea how it had made its way to the ditch beside California’s Highway 101 where it had been found dead, its carcass pecked almost to pieces by crows. The fact that those same crows lay in lifeless heaps beside the gibbon raised an immediate red flag with the road worker who stumbled across them. Within hours, local authorities, worried about a possible outbreak of avian flu, had sealed and shipped the remains to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensics Lab in Oregon.

      The pathologists performing the autopsy could confirm that bird flu had killed neither the monkey nor the crows. The mounting evidence of what had killed them scared the crap out of both scientists.

      “Looks like we’ve got us a mutant virus,” the senior member of the team acknowledged reluctantly. “Very contagious and very deadly. We need to issue an immediate alert.”

      The alert went out to all government agencies. The Centers for Disease Control reissued it to the civilian sector, where everyone not directly involved in health care or simian research pretty much ignored it.

      Except for one individual halfway around the world. When the alert painted across the screen of a computer configured to search for such items, it was read with fierce, almost primal satisfaction.

      “Soon.” Exultation shattered the stillness of the darkened room. “Soon my revenge will be complete.”

      Chapter 1

      The town house halfway down a side street just off Massachusetts Avenue, in the heart of Washington, D.C.’s embassy district, looked much like its neighbors. It boasted an elegant, federal-style facade and tall windows framed by black shutters. A short flight of steps led to an oak door painted in gleaming vermilion.

      A bronze plaque beside the door identified the town house as home to the offices of the president’s Special Envoy. The position was one of those jobs created to reward rich campaign contributors with a yen for a Washington office and a taste of power politics. Only a handful of insiders knew the Special Envoy also served as Director of OMEGA, a supersecret government agency with an elite cadre of operatives activated only in extreme emergencies.

      It wasn’t an emergency that had brought a small legion of agents in from the various ventures that provided cover in their civilian lives, however. They were gathered in the director’s office to welcome back one of their own.

      Elizabeth Wells had served as executive assistant to OMEGA’s director for almost two decades. The silver-haired grandmother had fallen while doing a foxtrot on a big-band cruise of the Potomac with her latest beau. After hip-replacement surgery and months of rehab, Elizabeth was ready to resume her duties.

      Three of her bosses were present for the homecoming. Adam Ridgeway, code name Thunder, had hired Elizabeth all those years ago. Tall and broad-shouldered, Thunder stood with one hand in the pocket of his hand-tailored slacks and a pained expression on his face while his wife—also a former operative and one-time OMEGA director—related the latest exploits of their