All the Queen's Men by Linda Howard Page B

through your muscles. SWAT teams, DEA agents-they were adrenaline junkies. So was he. And so was Niema.
    He did what he did partly because he loved his country, and someone had to be in the sewers taking care of the shit, but also because he loved walking on the knife edge of danger, continually poised on the brink of disaster, with only his skill and his wits to keep him alive. Niema was no different. She wanted to be, but she wasn't.
    "Do you know how prevalent terrorism is?" he asked conversationally. "It isn't something that happens in other countries; it happens here, all the time. Flight 183 is just the latest episode. In 1970,
    Orlando, Florida, was threatened with a nuclear device if it didn't cough up a million bucks. In 1977, Hanafi Muslims took hostages in the D.C. City Council offices, and a couple of other places. In 1985, the FBI caught three Sikh Indians sent over here with a list of assassination targets. There was the World Trade Center bombing. Lockerbie, Scotland. Hell, I could give you a list three feet long."
    She bent her head, but he had her undivided attention.
    "We catch most explosives because of the detonator, not the explosive itself. If the bastards have come up with an explosive that begins as a stable compound, then degrades and becomes unstable and detonates, we have a big problem. One bridge taken out can foul shipping over the entire eastern seaboard. A blown dam threatens our entire power grid. Airplanes are particularly vulnerable. So I need to find out where the stuff is being manufactured, and Ronsard is my best bet. I'll find out some other way, eventually, but how many people will die in the meantime?"
    She still didn't respond. He said briskly, as if she had already agreed to work with him, "I'll be there under a different cover, using an identity I've been building for quite a while. I would take you in with me as an assistant or a girlfriend, but Ronsard doesn't issue 'invitee and guest' invitations. You have to get invited in separately."
    "No. I won't do it."
    "Once we're in, I'll have Ronsard introduce us. I'll pretend to be smitten. That'll give us an excuse to be together."
    She shook her head. "I'm not going to do it."
    "You have to. I've already told you too much."
    "And now you have to kill me, right?"
    He put his hands in his pockets, his blue eyes alive with amusement. "I wasn't thinking of anything quite that James Bondish."
    "That's what this whole thing sounds like, something out of a James Bond movie. You need someone trained in cloak-and-dagger stuff, not me."
    "You'll have time to brush up on basic handgun skills. That's all you'd need, though if everything goes right, you won't even need that. We get in, you place the bug, I get into his files and copy them, and we get out. That's it."
    "You make it sound as easy as brushing your teeth. If it were that easy, you would already have done it. He-what was his name? Ronsard?-Ronsard must have a pretty good security system."
    "Plus a private army guarding the place," John admitted.
    "So the job would be a lot trickier than you're trying to make it sound."
    "Not if it goes right."
    "And if it goes wrong?"
    He shrugged, smiling. "Fireworks."
    She wavered. He saw it, saw the temptation in her eyes. Then she shook her head. "Get someone else."
    "There is no one else with quite your qualifications. The fact that you haven't been active in five years is a plus, because no one is likely to know you. The intelligence community is a fairly small one. I can build you an identity that will stand up under any investigation Ronsard does."
    "What about you? You haven't exactly been inactive."
    "No, but I go to a lot of trouble to make sure no one knows what I look like, or who I am. Trust me. My cover is so deep sometimes I don't know who I am myself."
    She gave a little laugh, shaking her head, and John knew he had her.
    "Okay," she said. "I know I'm going to regret it, but... okay."
    "John," Frank Vinay said carefully, "do you know