Page 85 of Killer Secrets (Tempting SEALs 5)

Kell chuckled and moved across the room to plop into the heavily cushioned couch that sat along the wall.

"All clear. We have monitors in place as well as motion sensors. We're safe for the time being."

"Jammers are in place," Macey reported. "The villa seems pretty quiet. Old man Fuentes retired to the basement from what I could see. He likes his solitude?" Macey glanced at Ian.

"He likes his playroom down there," Ian snapped. "And the pretty young woman willing to play with him."

The others grimaced.

"You're all here, now what the hell is going on? I put off a grab against Ascarti for what?"

"For me, Lieutenant Richards."

Ian had his weapon out, swinging around to the shadowed opening that led to another room and the petite young woman that stepped through it.

He recognized her. A regular at some of the clubs in the past few months. Red hair, haunted green eyes, and wariness.

"Tehya?" Surprise colored Kira's voice as she touched Ian's arm, indicating that he could holster his weapon.

The others sat and stood comfortably, obviously well aware of her presence before she stepped into the room.

"You know her?" Ian questioned tightly.

"Tehya Talamosi," she stated. "I'm just not certain why she's here."

"It's good to see you again, Kira." Tehya nodded almost regally in Kira's direction. "It's been a few years."

"Tehya."

Ian could feel the tension in Kira's voice now; she was as off balance as he felt.

"Why is she here?" Ian lowered his weapon carefully. "And it better be good, Reno, because I'm ready to kick all your asses for jeopardizing this mission in this way."

Tehya's lips curved with an edge of bitterness. "It wasn't their fault, Lieutenant Richards. Once they learned why I was here, they really had no other choice. We have a mutual goal, and I can help."

She couldn't be more than twenty-two, twenty-three a

t the most. She was so damned delicate it was hard to picture her as an adult.

"And how can you help?" Ian growled. "Unless you can identify Sorrell for us."

"I can do better than that. I can bring Sorrell to you. I'm his daughter, you see. There is no better bait on the face of this earth."

Ian couldn't believe it. It couldn't be this simple.

"You can identify him?"

Her lips turned down. "Unfortunately, not his face. If it were that simple I would have made the information available to your terrorist enforcement agencies years ago. I don't know his face, but I know his voice and I know the single identifying mark he carries. I can give you that much, and you can kill him for me."

Anticipation rippled through Ian. He felt Kira tense beside him, saw the satisfaction reflected in the other men's eyes.

This was what they had been waiting for. Years of investigations, of planning. They had heard about the wife and daughter who had escaped Sorrell years before. The wife had turned up dead in Nicaragua, but the daughter was rumored to be a figment of the imagination. An urban legend created by the agents desperate to identify Sorrell.

Sorrell's twenty-year rise within the underground terrorist community had been subtle. The power shifts had been carried by men working directly beneath him, yet never seeing him. Somehow, Sorrell had managed to finance and build an empire within the white slave market before sliding into terrorism, and he had done it all without ever being identified. There hadn't even been a strong suspect in the years since his name had popped up. He was an anomaly, a shadow.

"I know Tehya, Ian," Kira murmured. "I knew she was running from something, I just didn't know what."

Tehya's pert little nose wrinkled as her lips tightened.

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