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always an overeager aide or two beyond that door, just waiting to do some ass kissing.
    “We might have found them.”
    He didn’t need to ask who? The hunt for those bothersome soldiers had been the proverbial thorn in his side this past year.
    “Which one slipped up?” he demanded.
    “If the intel checks out? Barrett.”
    Frustration seized his insides. Damn it. Barrett was the last man he wanted to kill.
    Hell, he had no desire to kill anyone.
    “Where is he?”
    “Cortega. He met with a journalist who’s covering the election crisis down there. Rebecca Parker.”
    Christ. A reporter? And Parker, in particular? That woman was far too smart for her own good. And damn ambitious.
    Why would Barrett be talking to her?
    He shifted uneasily in his chair. Had the soldiers found something to connect him to the Meridian virus?
    “Parker’s producer has been making phone calls all night,” the man on the other end of the line continued. “He raised several flags when he started asking questions about Barrett.” A pause. “If Barrett is in Cortega, what would you like to do about it?”
    He went silent, mulled it over, sighed in reluctance. “Send a team down there. Take care of the problem—but not until he gives up the location of the other two.”
    “Sir, with all due respect...”
    He clucked in irritation. “Spit it out, Carraway.”
    “Our primary concern was that the soldiers would realize the deaths in Corazón were caused by a virus rather than the ULF rebels. At that point, the goal was to silence the unit before they questioned what happened in the village.” Another pause. “But now the whole country knows that a virus was being tested in San Marquez.”
    Bitterness clamped around his throat. The whole country did know, a fact that continued to infuriate him. Project Aries had been shrouded in secrecy from the get-go. Nobody was ever supposed to know that an American-engineered biological weapon was being tested on foreign soil, and the truth would have stayed hidden if it weren’t for that greedy scientist at the lab that created the Meridian virus.
    That slimeball Stephen Langley had sold the virus to a terrorist group, who in turn revealed to the world that the virus was U.S.-made and government-authorized. And now, thanks to Langley’s betrayal, the DoD had formed a damn task force to determine who was responsible for Project Aries.
    Not that he was worried about it leading back to him—he had several fail-safes in place.
    Several scapegoats, too.
    “Now that the truth is out, the soldiers aren’t a threat,” Carraway went on. “It’s not like they can expose us.”
    “Not a threat?” He chuckled harshly. “Special Ops soldiers are a different breed. They’re ruthless, smart, unforgiving. They won’t stop until they find the person responsible for ordering the elimination of their unit.”
    “A unit that shouldn’t have been sent to Corazón in the first place,” was the embittered response. “A cleanup team was already on its way. The rebels would’ve been taken care of and the deaths of the villagers and the medical staff would’ve been blamed on Hector Cruz and his men. But no, thanks to a communication mix-up, a Special Forces team was sent to answer Dr. Harrison’s SOS.”
    “There’s nothing we can do about that now,” he said with a heavy breath. “Mistakes were made. The unit was erroneously dispatched, and now we have three loose ends to take care of. So send a team to Cortega and deal with it.”
    “What about Parker?”
    He thought it over, his stomach going rigid with anger. Damn it. Why had Barrett met with Parker?
    And what the hell had he told the woman?
    “Take care of her, too,” he finally replied.
    A long beat. “It will be difficult to separate her from her crew, and any sort of interrogation would have to be handled delicately. She can’t know why she’s being questioned.”
    “Then don’t question her. The woman is smart. She’ll see through