Page 1 of Bonded in Death

Prologue

London—Urban Wars

In war, life and death hung in tenuous balance. In war, taking a life in battle wasn’t murder, but victory.

And still, death won.

In war, planning the death and destruction of the enemy was strategy.

And still, death won.

Violence, like a virus, spread from city to city. A stray spark in Hanoi kindled a fire in Chicago. A fire set in Berlin burst into a blaze in Tokyo. Wild winds of fury carried flames to New York, to Moscow, to Brazil, to Hong Kong.

And cities across the globe burned.

The human race consumed itself in a conflagration of rich against poor, culture against culture, with some beating the drums of fanaticism, be it religion or politics or the gnawing hate of the other.

And so, death won.

The twelve who gathered in the bowels of the old stone church understood the horrors and miseries of war. They had taken lives in battle,through strategy, through guile and deceptions. And accepted that the blood on their hands would leave a stain.

It seemed peace couldn’t win unless death won first.

Though they’d come from different walks of life, war had bonded them. They called themselves The Twelve, and each brought to the war room, in what had been a place of worship, their own skills. Skills noted by the Underground.

They’d been recruited, then trained in other skills.

Killing skills.

Their number included a teacher, an actor, a dancer, a cop, a medic, a young scientist, technicians, a retired soldier called to duty once more, a thief, a mechanic, an heiress.

All spies now, all soldiers in a war that swept through cities around the globe and threatened to leave them in smoking rubble.

Deep under the streets where blood and death had become horribly normal, their headquarters included a large round table, like Arthur’s of old. Counters held computers, listening devices, communication centers.

Weapons of war—the guns, the knives, the grenades, the explosives—they stored in racks and cabinets.

A room off the main was set up as a makeshift infirmary and dispensary. The medic treated wounds there when necessary, and dispensed the drugs—locked in another cabinet—for use against the enemy. Hallucinogens, sleeping powders, poisons, venoms.

Though each knew the names the others went by in this time of war, they called the medic Fox.

Another room held wardrobe, wigs, hairpieces, makeup, face putty, and more used in disguises. Though the actor continued to use her name as part of her cover, they called her Chameleon.

Yet another room served as a workshop to make explosives, the wiring, the timers, and the remotes used to detonate.

The teacher, who at the dawn of the wars had dug the broken andbloody bodies of her young students from the rubble of the bombed school, now made bombs. Her purpose, one she’d vowed when weeping over those broken and bloodied bodies, was to destroy those who would murder children.

She’d met the medic that day, the day that had changed her life forever. Out of the smoke and blood there had been a light.

They’d loved, they’d married and created a cherished child.

To keep her safe, they took the child out of harm’s way in the care of a trusted friend.

They called the teacher Fawn.

She worked with the retired soldier most directly, the one they called Rabbit.

The others, due to his age and experience, considered him the de facto leader.

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