Heartbreaker Read online

  Nothing. The place was just as it should be. The smell of the river, the sound of the water lapping against the boats, the creak of the docks, the gentle bobbing of the boats—­all of it soothed his soul, and he felt his permanent reservoir of tension emptying just a little. He’d definitely been born with an affinity for water. Once, noticing that he was doing something with his left hand, a teammate had asked him if he was ambidextrous, to which an instructor standing nearby had retorted, “No, he’s amphibious.” That was close to God’s truth: give him gills, and he’d have been a happy camper.

  He’d grown up around Pensacola, so he couldn’t remember a time in his life when the ocean hadn’t felt as if it were a part of him. The Potomac was a far cry from the Gulf of Mexico, but any water would do. Hell, he’d be content paddling around a lake in a canoe—­for a little while, anyway; then he’d start itching for some action. There was nothing like blowing shit up or getting shot at to give a man a real jolt of adrenaline.

  He went onboard the Shark, feeling the familiarity of the boat wrap around him. Because he respected the water as much as he loved it, he checked the gas and oil, the battery, the radio, and the bilge pump. He got his tackle from the locked storage and checked it. He checked that he had his cell phone, though he knew damn well that he did; same with the knife in his pocket, the pistol in the holster at the small of his back, plus the backup on his right ankle and the backup to the backup in the bottom of his tackle box. Everything was a go.

  He freed the Shark from its moorings, then slid into the seat and turned the ignition key; the reliable motor fired up immediately. He turned his cap around backward on his head, reversed out of the boat slip, and turned the steering wheel toward freedom. The choppy water reflected the blue of the sky today, with murky green depths sliding along below him. He felt every bounce and slap of the hull on the surface, then the ride smoothed out as he gained speed.

  Man, this was the life. Now if he could just haul in some fish—­for bragging rights if nothing else, so he could rub his success in Kodak’s face—­he would count this a damn good day.

  Even though he was just going fishing, he couldn’t turn off the habits ingrained by sixteen years of intensive training, live combat, and plain old feral instinct. He hadn’t reached the age of thirty-­four without learning how to stay alive. He gave the water the same attention he’d given the parking lot; his head constantly swiveled back and forth as he studied everything rushing by on both sides of the boat. He noticed every craft on the water, who and how many were on board each craft, what they were doing, how fast they were going and in what direction. He noticed if anyone paid any particular attention to him, which almost no one did, because there was nothing flashy about the Shark.

  The water traffic was heavier than he’d expected, given that this was a weekday—­maybe. He was halfway certain this was . . . Wednesday? Thursday? Damn. If this was Friday, he’d seriously lost track of when

  he was. Changing time zones was one thing, but when you backtracked across the IDL a ­couple of times, everything kind of went twilight-­zone on you, when tomorrow became yesterday, and today hadn’t happened yet. Stretching out his leg, he fished his cell phone out of the cargo pocket and swiftly glanced down to check the day. Thursday. Okay. He’d been in the ballpark, which was all he asked after a long mission.

  The Potomac was a big river, almost eleven miles wide in places as it worked its way southeast to the Chesapeake Bay. Avoiding the other boats should have been easy, but it seemed as if most of the ­people out today had no idea what the rules of the road—­or river, in this case—­were. Boats ran at angles, cutting in front of other boats, some deliberately throwing up water on other boaters. Wet-­suit-­wearing idiots on WaveRunners darted back and forth, in and out, seemingly oblivious to the topography of the river and whether the boats they were meeting had a choice of either hitting them or running aground. The wonder was that someone hadn’t gotten shot. After two close calls—­and the second time, having discarded the idea of doing some shooting himself, he almost chose hitting the idiot on the WaveRunner over scraping the bottom of his lower unit in the mud—­he gave up and took to the middle of the river. To hell with it; let everyone else steer around him. He might earn some dirty looks and cuss words, but at least he wasn’t in danger of tearing up the Shark.

  Because he was in the middle of the river instead of running along the right side, when he glanced at a cabin cruiser anchored about a hundred yards to his left, his sharp eyesight picked up the sun glinting on a shock of silver-­white hair as the wind blew back the hood of a black rain jacket. There were a ­couple of ­people on the deck, one in a blue shirt, and the other in the black jacket. The hair struck a chord of recognition with him, and on impulse he turned the wheel of the Shark toward the cabin cruiser; if the person with the silver-­white hair was who he thought it was, he wanted to make certain everything was all right.

  The hull bounced across the water; as he got closer he saw the person in the blue shirt go below decks. Then the woman—­because it was a woman—­with the silver-­white hair started waving at him, big, side-­to-­side enthusiastic come-­here waves, and he knew he’d guessed right.

  He waved in return, then a few moments later throttled back and eased the Shark alongside the cabin cruiser; he cut the engine off and moved up to lower the electric trolling motor into the water so he could hold his position. “Congresswoman,” he said in greeting to Joan Kingsley, twelve-­term member of the House of Representatives and a leading member of the House Armed Ser­vices Committee. They’d initially crossed paths the memorable time when the Kingsleys’ son had been kidnapped in Venezuela, and Morgan’s GO-­Team had been dispatched to rescue him. Congresswoman Kingsley had insisted on personally thanking all the men involved in saving her son’s life and had even thrown a lavish backyard barbecue at a private location for the team. Normally, acceptance wouldn’t have been possible, but because she was on the HASC, an exception had been made. You didn’t snub someone who held the strings to the money bags; Mac, the head of the GO-­Teams, was way too savvy for that, so he’d given the go-­ahead.

  To Morgan’s surprise, he’d liked her. She was undoubtedly a politician, alert to all angles, but she’d also struck him as not just grateful, but genuinely friendly. She had a warm, open smile and seemed to meet everyone on the same level. Her husband, a D.C. lawyer, was friendly enough, but unlike hers, his friendliness came across as more calculated. Well, hell, given that he was a D.C. lawyer, what else could be expected?

  “I didn’t recognize you at first,” she said, leaning over the railing and smiling down at him. “I wondered who on earth was barreling toward us.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”

  “I wasn’t worried,” she said, and laughed. “After all, my boat is bigger than yours.”

  “Yes, ma’am, it certainly is” was all he allowed himself to say as his sharp gaze roved over the boat. Everything seemed to be okay, and given that no one else was on deck, she could have given him some kind of sign if there was any trouble.

  She was an important person in Congress; she should have exercised better security, but he wasn’t about to lecture her on that. He’d satisfied himself that there wasn’t any trouble, which was what he’d set out to do.

  “Come aboard and have a drink with us,” she invited. “We’re just having a relaxing day.” She turned her head as the man wearing the blue shirt re-­emerged from the cabin. “Dex, it’s Morgan Yancy.”

  “So I see.” Dexter Kingsley was buttoning up his shirt over his white tee shirt as he approached the rail. A practiced smile was on his evenly tanned face—­a tan that said it was either sprayed on or he’d been in a tanning bed. “It’s a good day to be on the water. Want to come up for a drink?” The invitation was the same as his wife’s, but somehow lacked the underlying sincerity.

  Morgan wasn’t even remotely tempted. Making polite s