Quinton Mann is CIA through and through. Mark Vincent is WBIS for life. There is no way they could end up as anything other than adversaries -- and yet, Quinn takes Mark out to dinner on his birthday -- the one no one is supposed to know about -- and gives him one hell of a present in the restaurant's restroom. Mark, not to be outdone, has decided to escalate this game, because it has to be a game, right? There's no way it can be anything else.<br><br>But as the game continues, as Quinn shows up to a WBIS funeral, as a friend of Mark’s penetrates the CIA computer network to get information on Quinn, as Mark breaks into Quinn's house and gives Quinn a very interesting encounter, both Quinn and Mark realize that this is becoming the most real thing in their lives.<br><br>Can they find a way to do their jobs and keep this surprising, intriguing connection?

Houseboat on the Nile

Damn, I wished I could have seen Drum’s face when he’d learned his riding to the rescue like the fucking cavalry had been for nothing.


Setting aside the pleasant vision of Drum getting a dressing-down for not only discharging his firearm unnecessarily, but for returning to the Pentagon with a crap formula, I resumed uploading the last of that new information on Mann into my personal file.


I was just finishing when my intercom buzzed.


“Mr. Davies would like to see you, Mr. Vincent. Immediately.”


The head of the WBIS’s PR department? “Did he say why?”


I saved the information and closed the program, then popped the floppy out of the drive and slid it into a concealed space inside the center drawer of my desk. It wouldn’t do to have it on my person, and I didn’t have time to reformat the disk, wiping it clean, but it would be safe enough there. No one got past my secretary and entered my office uninvited.


Chapter 22