"I agree. Don't worry. They won't make you do the job. They've got a pool of men who can off an innocent girl and somehow still sleep at night."

Over his dead body, but he didn't offer that bit of information to Monroe. "Where'd they find men like that? The back alley of hell?"

Monroe shrugged. "They serve their purpose. Can't say I'd invite them home for dinner with the wife and kids, but we've used them before."

David looked at the colonel. He respected Monroe more than almost anyone, yet Monroe sat there, talking about killing Noelle as if it were just another distasteful op that would be full of mosquitoes and cold mud.

David wanted to feel sorry for Monroe and all the shit he must have lived through to make him hard enough inside to be so casual about killing, but instead, he found himself hating the man for even thinking about hurting an innocent woman. David had spent his life suffering and killing to protect the innocent. Yeah, he'd done some horrible things that still haunted him late at night. And yeah, he wished away a lot of days on dreams of a different line of work. But in the end, he was doing the right thing. He killed scum so that the innocent could live.

But Monroe was talking about killing one of those innocents whom David had devoted his life to protecting.

Somehow, that put them on opposite sides of an invisible line.

David stepped away from Monroe, unable to look him in the eye without giving away the burning hatred that flooded his gut.

Monroe placed a wide hand on David's shoulder and it was all he could do not to shrug it off and break the man's wrist.

"We've still got time to change her mind," said Monroe.

"You've already threatened her with torture and death, and she still hasn't come around. What the hell do you think will work? Oh, wait, I know. We forgot to say 'please.' I'm sure that was it."

"Don't be an idiot, son. It's obvious that this whole thing is chapping your ass, but the bottom line is that you'd better stop hating me for giving you the truth and start looking for something that will change her mind. You were with her the longest of any man here. You've got to have some idea of how we can convince her."

David searched his memory for some soft spot in her armor. She didn't have a child, for which David was grateful.

Any kid of hers would certainly have been used as a pawn.

Two weeks of intel said that she didn't go out with friends, at least not during the time she was being watched. She went to work and came back home with the occasional trip to the grocery store or library. She had family they could threaten—parents and a sister who lived in Kansas. David could see using them as a last resort, but somehow, he didn't think threatening to kill her family would make her warm up to their way of thinking.

The only thing he could think of was the way her eyes lit up when she looked at that paper Monroe had shown her.

David would have sworn she was looking at the Holy Grail of ciphers. Maybe there was a chance they could whet her appetite enough and get her interested in solving the puzzle just for the sake of knowing the answer.

Of course, even if she did break the code, what were the chances of her presenting it in a format that would be useful to the CIA? Just because she knew the answer didn't mean she had to share.

David ran a hand over his chin feeling the stubble of his three-day beard. He was tired. Frustrated. Angry as hell.

He needed some air to clear his head. There had to be something he was missing. He didn't know Noelle that well, but there had to be some way to convince her to help.

That code would tell them the location of several nuclear warheads that had been hidden in Russia during the height of the Cold War. That was why the Swarm was so dead set on breaking that code before the CIA did. Intel had told them at least that much. Word was, twelve good men had died just for that little tidbit of information.

If Noelle didn't help, those twelve lives were wasted. Not to mention the fact that if David didn't know where the Swarm was, he wasn't going to be able to get his revenge. He'd vowed to kill them all, and that was exactly what he meant to do.

But even the need for revenge was not strong enough to overshadow his desire to see Noelle safe. And the only way she was going to stay safe was to agree to work with the military, ITiey'd offer her protection in exchange for her work. It was a symbiotic relationship, and probably not a comfortable one, but the only real option she had.

Whatever he did, he had to think of a way to get her to cooperate and fast. With only twenty-four hours left, there wasn't a lot of time to change Noelle's mind. He had to find a way to weaken her resolve.

In the end, he had only one card left to play, and the thought of using it made him break out in a cold sweat. His past was not a friendly place. If he shared it with her, she'd know just how horribly he'd failed. His biggest mistake would be highlighted in vivid color in all its gory detail. And even if he did it—even if he bared his past and his dishonor, it still might not be enough to convince her to cooperate.

David knew he had no choice. He had to try. Failing another woman was not a sin he was strong enough to live with, and like it or not, he'd gotten himself involved in Noelle's life, tying their fates together. If she died, so would he.

He'd do whatever it took to protect her. And, unfortunately, that included facing his past again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Noelle's arm was aching, but not nearly as much as her head. All she wanted to do was curl up on her old, secondhand couch with a blanket and a good book and pretend that none of this had ever happened.

For the first time in her life, she wished she had been born stupid. At least then she wouldn't be sitting here wondering whether or not she was going to five to see her twenty-seventh birthday. She'd be out at a club somewhere with Muffy and her giggle-gang getting drunk and picking up men.

Man, that was the life.

But instead, she was in this dingy little room, waiting to see how long she had until they executed her.

The bulletproof vest David had made her wear cut into her sides, so she took it off. It wouldn't help if they wanted her dead, anyway. They'd just go for a head shot.

The room was cold, so she pulled David's shirt back on over her others, wishing for a blanket to cover her chilled toes. It was probably some sort of interrogation technique to make her as uncomfortable as possible so she'd be more willing to get out of here by giving them what they wanted.

Too bad she wasn't the type of girl to give in that easily. It sure as heck would have made things a lot simpler all around.

Noelle huddled in the chair, pulling her legs up under her to help keep them warm. The shirt smelled like David, clean, with a faint hint of male warmth and some manly deodorant, and she couldn't help but bury her head in her arms and breathe in his scent for comfort.

In all her dealings during the past twenty-four hours, he was the only one who had shown her even a modicum of humanity. The suited agents were repetitive automatons who probably had never had an original thought in their lives.

And Colonel Monroe. Well, he was just about as cold a man as she'd ever seen. He merely played at caring what happened to her, when deep inside, she was sure he was calculating the odds of her cooperation and how his role in this might further his own personal agenda.

The whole thing just made her want to cry, but tears didn't help. In fact, the three-minute tear-fest she'd allowed herself had only managed to make her nose run and her head pound.

She went to the door, surprised to find that it was unlocked. On the other side was a pair of guards wearing the same sort of vaguely military gear as David's. They each had big oF freakin' guns at their sides and a look in their eyes that said they weren't strangers to using them.

"Can I get some aspirin or something?" she asked the blond guard.

"I'll check," he said as she shut her door, and she heard a lock turn on the outside.

So much for not being locked in.

A couple of minutes later, David returned with a bottle of water, two white pills and a briefcase.

Noette's belly fluttered at the sight of him. He filled the doorway, his angular face shadowed with stubble. Even though she could see the signs of fatigue etched under his arctic blue eyes, he held himself as if he had all the strength in the world, as if he could just keep going until it was convenient to stop. His expression was relaxed, giving her some hope that things weren't quite as bad as she'd thought. She kept wishing that he'd touch her again like he had in the motel. A simple hug, or even an arm around her shoulders would have done a world of good toward helping her believe that she was going to make it through this.

But she was pretty sure that hugging was not on the agenda for a secretive military man like David. For all she knew, he'd be the one assigned to kill her if that was what they decided to do.

What a time to develop a crush. Sheesh.

David handed her the water and the pills, watching as she washed them down.

"1 hope that wasn't cyanide," she said with a touch of humor. "Although that would certainly get rid of my headache."

"Not poison. I pulled them out of my own supply just to be sure, though."

He wasn't joking.

Noelle's stomach filled with acid. She flopped down into one of the hard wooden chairs and just focused on breathing.

It was beginning to sink in that her days were truly numbered. She just hoped they were at least in the double digits.

David shed the windbreaker he was wearing and draped it over her shoulders. The warmth from his body sank into her skin and helped to soothe her nerves.

Until she looked up at him. He now wore only a black T-shirt under that black multipocketed vest. His arms were bare from his biceps down, and in the ugly fluorescent lighting, she could see a fine network of scars over his hands and arms. They weren't from anything drastic, nothing life-threatening. Just a testament to the way he lived his life.

David No-Last-Name was a dangerous man.

But, he was also the only man in this house for whom she held even a sliver of trust.

"What are they going to do with me?" she asked.

David turned the chair across the table around and straddled it. "I won't lie to you. It doesn't look good. They want this code broken, and, failing that, they don't want someone else to break it first."

"They're really going to kill me, aren't they? That wasn't just a bluff to get me to cooperate."*

David's steady blue gaze slid away and silence stretched out between them with icy fingers.

She knew the truth then. She was a dead woman.

"How long?" she managed to whisper.

David's eyes flickered toward a corner of the room. It was a signal.

It didn't take Noelle long to see the small black hole that undoubtedly housed a tiny camera lens.

"I don't know what their plans are for you," he said evenly, holding up two and then four fingers on a hand that was hidden from the camera by his body. "But if I were you, I'd start thinking twice about your position."

Twenty-four. Days? Hours? Was that all the time she had left?

The room started to fade away, receding as her fate loomed large before her.

This time tomorrow, she could be dead.

It was almost worse knowing when it was going to happen. At least when she wasn't sure, she could pretend that things were going to work out okay.

"I don't want to die, but I will if I have to. I won't let you use my work as a weapon."