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Dec tore his gaze from the picture. “Yessir,” he said hoarsely.
Black looked at the other men. “I think you all know her. Correct?”
Five voices mumbled their agreement.
“As Annie Stanton,” Black said. “But, as we all know now, she is not Annie Stanton, she is Princess Anoushka, the daughter of the former king of Qaram and the niece of its current ruler, King Cyrus.”
Dec could hear the drone of his CO’s voice, but all he could think about was Annie. Annie, laughing up at him. Annie, in his arms. Annie, trembling as he caressed her…
Olivieri jabbed an elbow into Dec’s side.
“Sanchez?” Black said. “Are you with me?”
Dec swallowed hard and shot to full attention. “Yessir.”
Black gave him a long, careful look. Then he turned that same look on the rest of Unit One.
“As I was saying, the woman is at the center of this situation.”
Click. Another photo came onscreen. It showed a domed building backed by high mountains. Long black limos were parked in a circular driveway.
People were grouped in the driveway.
A couple of dozen ramrod-straight soldiers in fancy uniforms. The embassy spook. The American ambassador and his wife. Half a dozen women in long dark robes.
And Annie.
Correction.
The Princess Anoushka, standing in the center of the group of women, her expression grim, her chin uplifted, the light of defiance shining in her topaz eyes.
“It’s a wedding party,” Black said. “The princess was traveling to Tharsalonia, where she was to marry the Tharsalonian king. Halfway there they were attacked by a group of bandits who like to think of themselves as liberators. They’re not. They’re killers.”
Dec heard a roaring in his ears.
Annie, on the way to her wedding. Annie, pledging herself to another man. Annie, his Annie…
Except she had never been his Annie. She’d never been a woman named Annie at all.
For reasons he knew he would never comprehend, she’d chosen him to take part in a game. And when she’d grown bored, she’d walked away.
No warning. No explanation, not even when he’d run into her at the wedding of Chay Olivieri and Bianca Wilde.
That was the day Dec had learned that Annie Stanton, grad student in computers, was really Princess Anoushka, daughter of the dead king of Qaram.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he’d said.
Her answer had been meaningless.
“You never asked,” she’d replied.
Yeah. Right. He never had. Shit, why would he have asked? What would he have said? Are you really who you say you are? Yes, that would sure as hell have been a question a guy would ask of a woman he’d been—he’d been becoming fond of.
Dec’s jaw tightened.
Okay.
No problem.
