Duplicity by Vicki Hinze Page A

uneasy. She resented that, though on some level, she understood it.
    He didn’t answer.
    She gave him a sigh she meant for him to hear, then sat back and folded her arms akimbo. “Look, you’ve obviously made the choice to trust me-at least, insofar as you must-so why don’t you just tell me what happened to cause your arrest?”
    Adam couldn’t sit down. Just the idea of trusting Keener had every nerve in his body knotted. Looking at the rank on her slim shoulders, knowing his own was about to be stripped from him, only jerked those knots tighter. “Are there any loopholes we haven’t covered that would allow you to disclose what I’m about to tell you?”
    She tilted back her head to meet his gaze, doing her best to bury her impatience. “Give doubt a rest, Burke. Just tell me the truth. I won’t reveal anything you say to anyone without your permission. You have my word.”
    Give doubt a rest? Easy for her to say. Unconvinced, he knit his brows. “What’s your word worth?”
    “To me?” She looked up at him from under her lashes. “Everything,” Adam did his damnedest to stare straight into her soul. Hell, yes, he was being cautious. This was his life he was putting on the line, and he meant for her to realize it.
    She didn’t flinch or look away.
    “Okay,” he said, her steadiness giving him the reassurance he wanted. “Okay.”
    Settling back on her chair, she crossed her long legs at her ankles. He couldn’t not react; she was beautiful, and that tragic mystical air hovered around her like a cool mist on a hot night. Trying to ignore it, just as he’d. tried ignoring her subtle perfume and everything else attractive about her, he forced his mind back to the incident.
    “Orders came down from Command for me to participate in a war-readiness exercise out in Area Thirteen. It was short notice-one day-but that isn’t uncommon when O’Dell-Colonel Hackett’s assistant, Major Gus O’Dell-spearheads raissions.”
    Hating that bastard O’Dell for having involved him, Adam’s stomach flipped over and he swallowed down a fist of bitterness from his throat. “I was assigned to lead Alpha team-me and four junior operatives-in the exercise. Our mission was to cross enemy lines, jam Omega’s communications with their factions, and gather intel.”
    Adam’s thoughts drifted to the day of the exercise and, low in his gut, anxiety coiled tight. “We hopped into a. truck and headed out to the field. At Thirteen’s drop-off point, O’Dell pulled me aside. There had been a change in orders, he said. He issued me chemical protective gear, a personal chemical alarm, and then ordered me to lead my men to Area Fourteen.”
    Keener’s eyes registered shock and confusion. “Butbut that’s a bombing range.”
    “Yes, it is,” Adam confirmed, his tone deadpan flat. “My reaction to the order was about the same as yours. I couldn’t figure out why the hell my team was being ordered to infiltrate a bombing range during an active war-readiness exercise, or why I needed chem-gear and they didn’t.”
    “What did you decide?”
    Tension lumped his muscles, and Adam rubbed at his neck. “Military information is disseminated on a ‘need to know’ basis. Everyone in uniform is aware of it. I figured I had no need to know.”
    He walked toward the window and looked out. A cardinal sat on an oak limb, just outside the window. Beyond it, prisoners worked in the garden, weeding. “Intel operatives routinely face unorthodox situations, counselor. It seemed logical to be trained in how to protect yourself in a controlled readiness exercise rather than to be put in that position in the field and to have to figure it out then.”
    “Sounds like valid judgment to me,” she said. “So far.
    A concession, but Adam had a long way to go to convince her he was innocent. “Considering what’s happened since then, I wouldn’t do it again, but I followed orders. I led my team to Area Fourteen, and then I returned to