Chapter 1

"That's all we have?"

Undercover operative Dayna Duncan lifted a sun-bleached brow. Her green eyes, so vivid against her tanned skin, locked on her boss.

"Wu Kim Li is playing in the Women's International Pro-Am Charity Tournament and whispered an urgent message to another golfer that her father is flying to Scotland to watch her compete?"

"That's all we have," Nick Jensen confirmed.

Nick, code name Lightning, had run the ultra-secret organization known only as OMEGA for more years than he wanted to count now. It was headquartered in a brick town house just off Massachusetts Avenue, in the heart of Washington, D.C.'s embassy district. A discreet bronze plaque beside the front door identified the building as home to the offices of the President's Special Envoy—one of those meaningless titles given to well-heeled contributors to campaign war chests. Not more than a handful of insiders knew the Special Envoy also served as director of an organization so small and so secret that its agents were activated only at the request of the President himself.

One of those agents was preparing to go into the field now. Dayna Duncan, code name Rogue, had arrived at the town house via a secret underground access and been whisked up to OMEGA's high tech Control Center mere moments ago. This wasn't Dayna's first op, by any means, but from the little she'd heard so far, it sounded as though it might be right up her alley.

Lightning's next question confirmed her guess. "What kind of handicap are you carrying these days?"

"A two," she replied, scrunching her nose in disgust. Golf was more of a hobby now than the passion it had once been, but Dayna still played to win.

"You do know," her boss drawled, "most of us weekend duffers would kill for a two handicap?"

"I'll be back to scratch by the Pro-Am Charity Tournament," she predicted confidently. "You are sending me to Scotland to get close to Wu and her daddy, aren't you?"

"I am."

"Yes!"

A former college all-star athlete, Dayna had twice won Olympic gold in the controlled mayhem known as white-water kayaking. She took her code name from the Rogue River in Oregon, where she'd first learned to run rapids. Her current job as a consultant at one of the nation's foremost outdoor sports-training centers gave her both flexibility and the perfect cover for her OMEGA assignments.

Especially this one. Eighteen-year-old golf prodigy Wu Kim Li was one of those international celebrities everyone loved to hate. Incredibly skilled, obnoxiously temperamental, the North Korean won as many fans by sinking a long putt as she turned off by her tirades when she missed a short one. But it was the golfer's father who had captured OMEGA's attention.

"What's the story on Dr. Wu?" she asked. "I know he's some kind of a scientist working on hush-hush stuff."

Nick flicked a switch and filled the Control Center's wall-size screen with the intent, unsmiling face of Wu Kim Li's father.

"This is our most recent photo of Dr. Wu Xia-Dong. The photo was hard to come by, as he hasn't traveled outside North Korea in almost a decade. His government keeps him on a short leash. No surprise, considering he's one of their foremost nuclear weapons engineers."

"Uh-oh. I'm guessing that doesn't make him real popular with the White House."

"To put it mildly."

Relations between the United States and North Korea, always shaky, had deteriorated steadily in recent months over Korea's stubborn determination to develop nuclear weapons. The situation had become so tense that the State Department had warned U.S. citizens to think twice about doing business with or traveling to North Korea. As Dayna studied the face on the screen, she wondered how much Dr. Wu had contributed to those tensions.

"What's the thinking?" she asked. "Why did Kim Li whisper that urgent message about her father's attendance at the golf tournament in Scotland?"

"The CIA has picked up subtle vibes that Wu is chafing under the constraints his government imposes on him. They're convinced he wants to defect. Your task will be to find out if that's true and, if so, effect the escape."

Nick didn't have to tell his agent how absolutely vital this op was to U.S. national security. Her low whistle indicated she'd grasped the implications immediately.

"What about the daughter? Is she in on this, too?"

"We think so."

He brought another photo up on the screen. This one captured Wu Kim Li in midswing, displaying the perfect form and incredible power that had led the media to christen her Tigress Wu.

"As you well know," Nick said, "she makes millions in product endorsements. Since she lives in a Communist state, however, only a fraction of those revenues come to her personally."

"If that," Dayna commented. "I've competed against athletes from Communist countries. The State produces them, the State reaps the reward. Particularly North Korea. They won't let their athletes train anywhere but in their own country."

"Precisely. And Wu has more than product endorsements to tempt her. She's hinted that she's interested in a possible career in the movies."

"She certainly has the face and figure for it," Dayna agreed. "Too bad she's such a little bitch. Hollywood will have trouble casting her as anything but a werewolf."

Nick left the photo on the screen as he studied his field agent. Wu Kim Li wasn't the only athlete with the face and figure to make it big in Hollywood. Rogue's shoulder-length tumble of honey-colored hair framed a face dominated by sculpted cheekbones and wide, forest-green eyes. Regular and strenuous exercise had honed her body to a perfect symmetry of line and curve. Posters of her lithe form molded by the wet suit she'd worn in her last run for Olympic gold still sold for megabucks on eBay.

Copyright © 2008 by Merline Lovelace.