Alpha Squad Read online

  Veronica could only hope he would see today’s news reports and recognize the day’s success. If he didn’t, she’d hear about it, that was for sure.

  Veronica knew quite well that over the course of the prince’s tour of the United States she was going to earn every single penny of her consultant’s fee. Because although Tedric Cortere was princely in looks and appearance, he was also arrogant and spoiled. And demanding. And often irrational. And occasionally, not very nice.

  Oh, he knew his social etiquette. He was in his element when it came to pomp and ceremony, parties and other social posturing. He knew all there was to know about clothing and fashion. He could tell Japanese silk from American with a single touch. He was a wine connoisseur and a gourmet. He could ride horses and fence, play polo and water-ski. He hired countless aides and advisers to dance attendance upon him, and provide him with both his most trivial desires and the important information he needed to get by as a representative of his country.

  As Veronica watched, Tedric shook the hands of the U.S. officials. He smiled charmingly and she could practically hear the sound of the news cameras zooming in for a close-up.

  The prince glanced directly into the camera lenses and let his smile broaden. Spoiled or not, with his trim, athletic body and handsome face, the man was good-looking.

  Good-looking? No, Veronica thought. To call him good-looking wasn’t accurate. Quite honestly, the prince was gorgeous. He was a piece of art. He had long, thick, dark hair that curled down past his shoulders. His face was long and lean with exotic cheekbones that hinted of his mother’s Mediterranean heritage. His eyes were the deepest brown, surrounded by sinfully long lashes. His jaw was square, his nose strong and masculine.

  But Veronica had known Tedric since she was fifteen and he was nineteen. Naturally, she’d developed a full-fledged crush on him quite early on, but it hadn’t taken her long to realize that the prince was nothing like his cheerful, breezy, lighthearted yet business-minded sister. Tedric was, in fact, quite decidedly dull—and enormously preoccupied with his appearance. He had spent endless amounts of time in front of a mirror, sending Wila and Veronica into spasms of giggles as he combed his hair, flexed his muscles and examined his perfect, white teeth.

  Still, Veronica’s crush on Prince Tedric hadn’t truly crashed and burned until she’d had a conversation with him—and seen that beneath his facade of princely charm and social skills, behind his handsome face and trim body, deep within his dark brown eyes, there was nothing there.

  Nothing she was interested in, anyway.

  Although she had to admit that to this day, her romantic vision of a perfect man was someone tall, dark and handsome. Someone with wide, exotic cheekbones and liquid brown eyes. Someone who looked an awful lot like Crown Prince Tedric, but with a working brain in his head and a heart that loved more than his own reflection in the mirror.

  She wasn’t looking for a prince. In fact, she wasn’t looking, period. She had no time for romance—at least, not until her business started to turn a profit.

  As the military band began to play a rousing rendition of the Ustanzian national anthem, Veronica glanced again at their blurry images in the window. A flash of light from the upper-level balcony caught her eye. That was odd. She’d been told that airport personnel would be restricting access to the second floor as a security measure.

  She turned her head to look up at the balcony and realized with a surge of disbelief that the flash she’d seen was a reflection of light bouncing off the long barrel of a rifle—a rifle aimed directly at Tedric.

  “Get down!” Veronica shouted, but her voice was drowned out by the trumpets. The prince couldn’t hear her. No one could hear her.

  She ran toward Prince Tedric and all of the U.S. dignitaries, well aware that she was running toward, not away from, the danger. A thought flashed crazily through her head—This was not a man worth dying for. But she couldn’t stand by and let her best friend’s brother be killed. Not while she had the power to prevent it.

  As a shot rang out, Veronica hit Tedric bone-jarringly hard at waist level and knocked him to the ground. It was a rugby tackle that would have made her brother Jules quite proud.

  She bruised her shoulder, tore her nylons and scraped both of her knees when she fell.

  But she saved the crown prince of Ustanzia’s life.

  When Veronica walked into the hotel conference room, it was clear the meeting had been going on for quite some time.

  Senator McKinley was sitting at one end of the big oval conference table with his jacket off, his tie loosened, and his shirtsleeves rolled up. Henri Freder, the U.S. ambassador to Ustanzia, sat on one side of him. Another diplomat and several other men whom Veronica didn’t recognize sat on the other. Men in dark suits stood at the doors and by the windows, watchful and alert. They were FInCOM agents, Veronica realized, high-tech bodyguards from the Federal Intelligence Commission, sent to protect the prince. But why were they involved? Was Prince Tedric’s life still in danger?

  Tedric was at the head of the table, surrounded by a dozen aides and advisers. He had a cold drink in front of him, and was lazily drawing designs in the condensation on the glass.

  As Veronica entered the room, Tedric stood, and the entire tableful of men followed suit.

  “Someone get a seat for Ms. St. John,” the prince ordered sharply in his odd accent. “Immediately.”

  One of the lesser aides quickly stepped away from his own chair and offered it to Veronica.

  “Thank you,” she said, smiling at the young man.

  “Sit down,” the prince commanded her, stony-faced, as he returned to his seat. “I have an idea, but it cannot be done without your cooperation.”

  Veronica gazed steadily at the prince. After she’d tackled him earlier today, he’d been dragged away to safety. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. At the time, he hadn’t bothered to thank her for saving his life—and apparently he had no intention of doing so now. She was working for him, therefore she was a servant. He would have expected her to save him. In his mind, there was no need for gratitude.

  But she wasn’t a servant. In fact, she’d been the maid of honor last year when his sister married Veronica’s brother, Jules. Veronica and the prince were practically family, yet Tedric still insisted she address him as “Your Highness.”

  She sat down, pulling her chair in closer to the table, and the rest of the men sat, too.

  “I have a double,” the prince announced. “An American. It is my idea for him to take my place throughout the remaining course of the tour, thus ensuring my safety.”

  Veronica sat forward. “Excuse me, Your Highness,” she said. “Please forgive my confusion. Is your safety still an issue?” She looked down the table at Senator McKinley “Wasn’t the gunman captured?”

  McKinley ran his tongue over his front teeth before he answered. “I’m afraid not,” he finally replied. “And the Federal Intelligence Commission has reason to believe the terrorists will make another attempt on the prince’s life during the course of the next few weeks.”

  “Terrorists?” Veronica repeated, looking from McKinley to the ambassador and finally at Prince Tedric.

  “FInCOM has ID’d the shooter,” McKinley answered. “He’s a well-known triggerman for a South American terrorist organization.”

  Veronica shook her head. “Why would South American terrorists want to kill the Ustanzian crown prince?”

  The ambassador took off his glasses and tiredly rubbed his eyes. “Quite possibly in retaliation for Ustanzia’s new alliance with the U.S.,” he said.

  “FInCOM tells us these particular shooters don’t give up easily,” McKinley said. “Even with souped-up security, FInCOM expects they’ll try again. What we’re looking to do is find a solution to this problem.”

  Veronica laughed. It slipped out—she couldn’t help herself. The solution was so obvious. “Cancel the tour.”

  “Can’t do that,” McKinley drawled.

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p; Veronica looked down the other side of the table at Prince Tedric. He, for once, was silent. But he didn’t look happy.

  “There’s too much riding on the publicity from this event,” Senator McKinley explained. “You know as well as I do that Ustanzia needs U.S. funding to get their oil wells up and running.” The heavyset man leaned back in his chair, tapping the eraser end of a pencil on the mahogany table. “But the prospect of competitively priced oil isn’t enough to secure the size funds they need,” he continued, dropping the pencil and running his hand through his thinning gray hair. “And quite frankly, current polls show the public’s concern for a little-nothing country like Ustanzia—beg pardon, Prince—to be zilch. Hardly anyone knows who the Ustanzians are, and the folks who do know about ’em don’t want to give ’em any of their tax dollars, that’s for sure as shootin’. Not while there’s so much here at home to spend the money on.”

  Veronica nodded her head. She was well aware of everything he was saying. It was one of Princess Wila’s major worries.

  “Besides,” the senator added, “we can use this opportunity to nab this group of terrorists. And sister, if they’re who we think they are, we want ‘em. Bad.”

  “But if you know for a fact that there’ll be another assassination attempt…?” Veronica looked down the table at Tedric. “Your Highness, how can you risk placing yourself in such danger?”

  Tedric crossed his legs. “I have no intention of placing myself in any danger whatsoever,” he said. “In fact, I will remain here, in Washington, in a safe house, until all danger has passed. The tour, however, will continue as planned, with this lookalike fellow taking my place.”

  Suddenly the prince’s earlier words made sense. He’d said he had a double, someone who looked just like him. He’d said this person was an American.

  “This man,” McKinley asked. “What was his name, sir?”

  The prince shrugged—a slow, eloquent gesture. “How should I remember? Joe. Joe Something. He was a soldier. An American soldier.”

  “’Joe Something,’” McKinley repeated, exchanging a quick, exasperated look with the diplomat on his left. “A soldier named Joe. Should only be about fifteen thousand men in the U.S. armed forces named Joe.”

  The ambassador on McKinley’s right leaned forward. “Your Highness,” he said patiently, “when did you meet this man?”

  “He was one of the soldiers who assisted in my escape from the embassy in Baghdad,” Tedric replied.

  “A Navy SEAL,” the ambassador murmured to McKinley. “We should have no problem locating him. If I remember correctly, only one seven-man team participated in that rescue mission.”

  “SEAL?” Veronica asked, sitting up and leaning forward. “What’s a SEAL?”

  “Part of the Special Operations,” Senator McKinley told her. “They’re the most elite special-operations force in the world. They can operate anywhere—on the sea, in the air and on the land, hence the name, SEALs. If this man who looks so much like the prince really is a SEAL, standing in as the prince’s double will be a cakewalk for him.”

  “He was, however, quite unbearably lower-class,” the prince said prudishly, sweeping some imaginary crumbs from the surface of the table. He looked at Veronica. “That is where you would come in. You will teach this Joe to look and act like a prince. We can delay the tour by—” he frowned down the table at McKinley “—a week, is that what you’d said?”

  “Two or three days at the very most, sir.” The senator grimaced. “We can announce that you’ve come down with the flu, try to keep up public interest with reports of your health. But the fact is, after a few days, you’ll no longer be news and the story will be dropped. You know what they say: Out of sight, out of mind. We can’t let that happen.”

  Two or three days. Two or three days to turn a rough American sailor—a Navy SEAL, whatever that really meant—into royalty. Who were they kidding?

  Senator McKinley picked up the phone to begin tracking down the mysterious Joe.

  Prince Tedric was watching Veronica expectantly. “Can you do it?” he asked. “Can you make this Joe into a prince?”

  “In two or three days?”

  Tedric nodded.

  “I’d have to work around the clock,” Veronica said, thinking aloud. If she agreed to this crazy plan, she would have to be right beside this sailor, this SEAL, every single step of the way. She’d have to coach him continuously, and be ready to catch and correct his every mistake. “And even then, there’d be no guarantee…”

  Tedric shrugged, turning back to Ambassador Freder. “She can’t do it,” he said flatly. “We will have to cancel. Arrange a flight back to—”

  “I didn’t say I couldn’t do it,” Veronica interrupted, quickly adding, “Your Highness.”

  The prince turned back to her, one elegant eyebrow raised.

  Veronica could hear an echo of Wila’s voice. “I’m counting on you, Véronique. This American connection is too important.” If this tour were canceled, all of Wila’s hopes for the future would evaporate. And Wila’s weren’t the only hopes that would be dashed. Veronica couldn’t let herself forget that little girl waiting at Saint Mary’s…

  “Well?” Tedric said impatiently.

  “All right,” Veronica said. “I’ll give it a try.”

  Senator McKinley hung up the phone with a triumphant crash. “I think we’ve found our man,” he announced with a wide smile. “His name’s Navy Lieutenant Joseph P.—” he glanced down at a scrap of paper he’d taken some notes on “—Catalanotto. They’re faxing me an ID photo right now.”

  Veronica felt an odd flash of both hot and cold. Good God, what had she just done? What had she just agreed to? What if she couldn’t pull it off? What if it couldn’t be done?

  The fax alarm began to beep. Both the prince and Senator McKinley stood and crossed the spacious suite to where the fax machine was plugged in beneath a set of elegant bay windows.

  Veronica stayed in her seat at the table. If this job couldn’t be done, she would be letting her best friend down.

  “My God,” McKinley breathed as the picture was slowly printed out. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

  He tore the fax from the roll of paper and handed it to the prince.

  Silently, Tedric stared at the picture. Silently, he walked back across the room and handed the sheet of paper to Veronica.

  Except for the fact that the man in the picture was wearing a relaxed pair of military fatigues, with top buttons of the shirt undone and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, except for the fact that the man in the picture had dark, shaggy hair cut just a little below his ears, and the strap of a submachine gun slung over one shoulder, except for the fact that the camera had caught him mid-grin, with good humor and sharp intelligence sparkling in his dark eyes, the man in this picture could very well have been the crown prince of Ustanzia. Or at the very least, he could have been the crown prince’s brother.

  The crown prince’s better-looking brother.

  He had the same nose, same cheekbones, same well-defined jawline and chin. But his front tooth was chipped. Of course, that was no problem. They could cap a tooth in a matter of hours, couldn’t they?

  He was bigger than Prince Tedric, this American naval lieutenant. Bigger and taller. Stronger. Rougher edged. Much, much more rough-edged, in every way imaginable. Good God, if this picture was any indication, Veronica was going to have to start with the basics with this man. She was going to have to teach him how to sit and stand and walk…

  Veronica looked up to find Prince Tedric watching her.

  “Something tells me,” he said in his elegant accent, “your work is cut out for you.”

  Across the room, McKinley picked up the phone and dialed. “Yeah,” he said into the receiver. “This is Sam McKinley. Senator Sam McKinley. I need a Navy SEAL by the name of Lieutenant Joseph—” he consulted his notes “—Catalanotto. Damn, what a mouthful. I need that lieutenant here in Washington, and I need him here yesterday.”r />
  Chapter Two

  Joe lay on the deck of the rented boat, hands behind his head, watching the clouds. Puffs of blinding white in a crystal blue California sky, they were in a state of constant motion, always changing, never remaining the same.

  He liked that.

  It reminded him of his life, fluid and full of surprises. He never knew when a cream puff might turn unexpectedly into a ferocious dragon.

  But Joe liked it that way. He liked never knowing what was behind the door—the lady or the tiger. And certainly, since he’d been a SEAL, he’d had his share of both.

  But today there were neither ladies nor tigers to face. Today he was on leave—shore leave, it was called in the navy. Funny he should spend the one day of shore leave he had this month far from the shore, out on a fishing boat.

  Not that he’d spent very much time lately at sea. In fact, in the past few months, he’d been on a naval vessel exactly ninety-six hours. And that had been for training. Some of those training hours he’d spent as an instructor. But some of the time he’d been a student. That was all part of being a Navy SEAL. No matter your rank or experience, you always had to keep learning, keep training, keep on top of the new technology and methodology.

  Joe had achieved expert status in nine different fields, but those fields were always changing. Just like those clouds that were floating above him. Just the way he liked it.

  Across the deck of the boat, dressed in weekend grunge clothes similar to his own torn fatigues and ragged T-shirt, Harvard and Blue were arguing good-naturedly over who had gotten the most depressing letter from the weekly mail call.

  Joe himself hadn’t gotten any mail—nothing besides bills, that is. Talk about depressing.

  Joe closed his eyes, letting the conversation float over him. He’d known Blue for eight years, Harvard for about six. Their voices—Blue’s thick, south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line drawl and Harvard’s nasal, upper-class-Boston accent—were as familiar to him as breathing.