Rules of Re-Engagement

16:57 Romeo. Manhattan. Tuesday, October 7. He stood across the street from United Nations headquarters, watching--a scarred man hidden in the shadows of bare-fingered trees. A wanted man. He didn't like being back on U.S. soil--illegally, no less. But he was here because he had to be. He was the only one who could stop an inordinately powerful man from bringing the entire nation to its knees in just six days. And he needed a particular woman to help him do it. She worked inside that building. She was the key to that man's inner sanctum, his Achilles' heel. His daughter. Jacques Sauvage thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his coat and narrowed his eyes into the brooding gray mist that was cloaking the city with premature darkness and chill. The trouble was, Olivia Killinger was also his own Achilles' heel. Her father had already destroyed him once because of it. Six days--that's all he had to find out whether she was complicit in her father's scheme. If she was somehow oblivious to what Samuel Killinger was doing, he would have to turn her, force her to betray her own flesh and blood, the father she adored. But if he found her guilty, he'd have no choice but to use her life as leverage against Killinger. Either way he could not afford to fail. If he did, millions upon millions of innocent people in the country's three largest cities--New York, Chicago and Los Angeles-- would start dying by midnight, October 13. Just six days away. And that would be only the beginning. He hadn't seen Olivia in sixteen years. How in hell did one begin to bridge a gap like that? Especially when the woman you were waiting for had once been your fiancÉe--and you were supposed to be dead. He checked his watch. She should have come out by now. The row of flags--almost two hundred of them-- that had clapped bravely in the fall wind had long been wrestled to the ground by security staff, their poles now naked as the scraggy boughs above his head. Only the blue-and-white UN flag with its olive branches of peace was left snapping against the front sweeping down from the Arctic, dragging the premature chill of the Canadian prairies behind it. The irony of that lone UN flag flying in the face of the coming storm wasn't lost on him. Global peace wouldn't stand a chance in hell if Samuel Killinger's plan succeeded. War would be his tool, the weapon that would feed his massive corporate coffers. Samuel Killinger and his Cabal were about to launch the U.S. into an era of violently aggressive imperialism that would kill democracy and forever change the shape of the globe's future. Unless Jacques got to Olivia in time. He checked his watch again. The temperature was dropping. Leaves skittered across the road, clattered and churned in the wake of a cab. It was fully dark now, the streetlights just fuzzy halos in mist. Still she didn't come. He felt the first spits of rain against his face. Perhaps he'd missed her. Perhaps he hadn't recognized her profile among the huddled shapes that had scurried from the building into the streets, bent against the cold, making for home. Or perhaps she'd used a different gate. He shifted his feet against the growing numbness in his toes. Then, suddenly, she was there. Primal recognition slammed through him. His body snapped tight, and his nostrils flared, as if he'd somehow detected her scent on the chill wind. The muscles of his face grew taut, twisting at his scar as his world tunneled into just this moment. Just her. The headlights of a car panned round and silhouetted her figure as she ran across the road, the wind playing with her coat like a malevolent spirit, opening it so that it fanned out behind her, pressing her skirt firmly against the outline of long, lean legs. She moved in his direction, her boot heels clicking on the pavement as she neared. His heart beat fastWhite, Loreth Anne is the author of 'Rules of Re-Engagement ', published 2006 under ISBN 9780373275168 and ISBN 0373275161.