Alpha Squad: Prince Joe / Forever Blue

One of the lesser aides quickly stepped away from his own chair and offered it to Veronica.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling at the young man.

“Sit down,” the prince commanded her, stony-faced, as he returned to his seat. “I have an idea, but it cannot be done without your cooperation.”

Veronica gazed steadily at the prince. After she’d tackled him earlier today, he’d been dragged away to safety. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. At the time, he hadn’t bothered to thank her for saving his life—and apparently he had no intention of doing so now. She was working for him, therefore she was a servant. He would have expected her to save him. In his mind, there was no need for gratitude.

But she wasn’t a servant. In fact, she’d been the maid of honor last year when his sister married Veronica’s brother, Jules. Veronica and the prince were practically family, yet Tedric still insisted she address him as “Your Highness.”

She sat down, pulling her chair in closer to the table, and the rest of the men sat, too.

“I have a double,” the prince announced. “An American. It is my idea for him to take my place throughout the remaining course of the tour, thus ensuring my safety.”

Veronica sat forward. “Excuse me, Your Highness,” she said. “Please forgive my confusion. Is your safety still an issue?” She looked down the table at Senator McKinley “Wasn’t the gunman captured?”

McKinley ran his tongue over his front teeth before he answered. “I’m afraid not,” he finally replied. “And the Federal Intelligence Commission has reason to believe the terrorists will make another attempt on the prince’s life during the course of the next few weeks.”

“Terrorists?” Veronica repeated, looking from McKinley to the ambassador and finally at Prince Tedric.

“FInCOM has ID’d the shooter,” McKinley answered. “He’s a well-known triggerman for a South American terrorist organization.”

Veronica shook her head. “Why would South American terrorists want to kill the Ustanzian crown prince?”

The ambassador took off his glasses and tiredly rubbed his eyes. “Quite possibly in retaliation for Ustanzia’s new alliance with the U.S.,” he said.

“FInCOM tells us these particular shooters don’t give up easily,” McKinley said. “Even with souped-up security, FInCOM expects they’ll try again. What we’re looking to do is find a solution to this problem.”

Veronica laughed. It slipped out—she couldn’t help herself. The solution was so obvious. “Cancel the tour.”

“Can’t do that,” McKinley drawled.

Veronica looked down the other side of the table at Prince Tedric. He, for once, was silent. But he didn’t look happy.

“There’s too much riding on the publicity from this event,” Senator McKinley explained. “You know as well as I do that Ustanzia needs U.S. funding to get their oil wells up and running.” The heavyset man leaned back in his chair, tapping the eraser end of a pencil on the mahogany table. “But the prospect of competitively priced oil isn’t enough to secure the size funds they need,” he continued, dropping the pencil and running his hand through his thinning gray hair. “And quite frankly, current polls show the public’s concern for a little-nothing country like Ustanzia—beg pardon, Prince—to be zilch. Hardly anyone knows who the Ustanzians are, and the folks who do know about ’em don’t want to give ’em any of their tax dollars, that’s for sure as shootin’. Not while there’s so much here at home to spend the money on.”

Veronica nodded her head. She was well aware of everything he was saying. It was one of Princess Wila’s major worries.

“Besides,” the senator added, “we can use this opportunity to nab this group of terrorists. And sister, if they’re who we think they are, we want ‘em. Bad.”

“But if you know for a fact that there’ll be another assassination attempt…?” Veronica looked down the table at Tedric. “Your Highness, how can you risk placing yourself in such danger?”

Tedric crossed his legs. “I have no intention of placing myself in any danger whatsoever,” he said. “In fact, I will remain here, in Washington, in a safe house, until all danger has passed. The tour, however, will continue as planned, with this lookalike fellow taking my place.”

Suddenly the prince’s earlier words made sense. He’d said he had a double, someone who looked just like him. He’d said this person was an American.

“This man,” McKinley asked. “What was his name, sir?”

The prince shrugged—a slow, eloquent gesture. “How should I remember? Joe. Joe Something. He was a soldier. An American soldier.”

“’Joe Something,’” McKinley repeated, exchanging a quick, exasperated look with the diplomat on his left. “A soldier named Joe. Should only be about fifteen thousand men in the U.S. armed forces named Joe.”

The ambassador on McKinley’s right leaned forward. “Your Highness,” he said patiently, “when did you meet this man?”

“He was one of the soldiers who assisted in my escape from the embassy in Baghdad,” Tedric replied.

“A Navy SEAL,” the ambassador murmured to McKinley. “We should have no problem locating him. If I remember correctly, only one seven-man team participated in that rescue mission.”

“SEAL?” Veronica asked, sitting up and leaning forward. “What’s a SEAL?”

“Part of the Special Operations,” Senator McKinley told her. “They’re the most elite special-operations force in the world. They can operate anywhere—on the sea, in the air and on the land, hence the name, SEALs. If this man who looks so much like the prince really is a SEAL, standing in as the prince’s double will be a cakewalk for him.”

“He was, however, quite unbearably lower-class,” the prince said prudishly, sweeping some imaginary crumbs from the surface of the table. He looked at Veronica. “That is where you would come in. You will teach this Joe to look and act like a prince. We can delay the tour by—” he frowned down the table at McKinley “—a week, is that what you’d said?”

“Two or three days at the very most, sir.” The senator grimaced. “We can announce that you’ve come down with the flu, try to keep up public interest with reports of your health. But the fact is, after a few days, you’ll no longer be news and the story will be dropped. You know what they say: Out of sight, out of mind. We can’t let that happen.”

Two or three days. Two or three days to turn a rough American sailor—a Navy SEAL, whatever that really meant—into royalty. Who were they kidding?

Senator McKinley picked up the phone to begin tracking down the mysterious Joe.

Prince Tedric was watching Veronica expectantly. “Can you do it?” he asked. “Can you make this Joe into a prince?”

“In two or three days?”

Tedric nodded.

“I’d have to work around the clock,” Veronica said, thinking aloud. If she agreed to this crazy plan, she would have to be right beside this sailor, this SEAL, every single step of the way. She’d have to coach him continuously, and be ready to catch and correct his every mistake. “And even then, there’d be no guarantee…”

Tedric shrugged, turning back to Ambassador Freder. “She can’t do it,” he said flatly. “We will have to cancel. Arrange a flight back to—”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t do it,” Veronica interrupted, quickly adding, “Your Highness.”

The prince turned back to her, one elegant eyebrow raised.

Veronica could hear an echo of Wila’s voice. “I’m counting on you, Véronique. This American connection is too important.” If this tour were canceled, all of Wila’s hopes for the future would evaporate. And Wila’s weren’t the only hopes that would be dashed. Veronica couldn’t let herself forget that little girl waiting at Saint Mary’s…

“Well?” Tedric said impatiently.

“All right,” Veronica said. “I’ll give it a try.”

Senator McKinley hung up the phone with a triumphant crash. “I think we’ve found our man,” he announced with a wide smile. “His name’s Navy Lieutenant Joseph P.—” he glanced down at a scrap of paper he’d taken some notes on “—Catalanotto. They’re faxing me an ID photo right now.”

Veronica felt an odd flash of both hot and cold. Good God, what had she just done? What had she just agreed to? What if she couldn’t pull it off? What if it couldn’t be done?

The fax alarm began to beep. Both the prince and Senator McKinley stood and crossed the spacious suite to where the fax machine was plugged in beneath a set of elegant bay windows.

Veronica stayed in her seat at the table. If this job couldn’t be done, she would be letting her best friend down.

“My God,” McKinley breathed as the picture was slowly printed out. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

He tore the fax from the roll of paper and handed it to the prince.

Silently, Tedric stared at the picture. Silently, he walked back across the room and handed the sheet of paper to Veronica.

Except for the fact that the man in the picture was wearing a relaxed pair of military fatigues, with top buttons of the shirt undone and sleeves rolled up to his elbows, except for the fact that the man in the picture had dark, shaggy hair cut just a little below his ears, and the strap of a submachine gun slung over one shoulder, except for the fact that the camera had caught him mid-grin, with good humor and sharp intelligence sparkling in his dark eyes, the man in this picture could very well have been the crown prince of Ustanzia. Or at the very least, he could have been the crown prince’s brother.

The crown prince’s better-looking brother.

He had the same nose, same cheekbones, same well-defined jawline and chin. But his front tooth was chipped. Of course, that was no problem. They could cap a tooth in a matter of hours, couldn’t they?

He was bigger than Prince Tedric, this American naval lieutenant. Bigger and taller. Stronger. Rougher edged. Much, much more rough-edged, in every way imaginable. Good God, if this picture was any indication, Veronica was going to have to start with the basics with this man. She was going to have to teach him how to sit and stand and walk…

Veronica looked up to find Prince Tedric watching her.

“Something tells me,” he said in his elegant accent, “your work is cut out for you.”

Across the room, McKinley picked up the phone and dialed. “Yeah,” he said into the receiver. “This is Sam McKinley. Senator Sam McKinley. I need a Navy SEAL by the name of Lieutenant Joseph—” he consulted his notes “—Catalanotto. Damn, what a mouthful. I need that lieutenant here in Washington, and I need him here yesterday.”

Chapter Two

Joe lay on the deck of the rented boat, hands behind his head, watching the clouds. Puffs of blinding white in a crystal blue California sky, they were in a state of constant motion, always changing, never remaining the same.

He liked that.

It reminded him of his life, fluid and full of surprises. He never knew when a cream puff might turn unexpectedly into a ferocious dragon.

But Joe liked it that way. He liked never knowing what was behind the door—the lady or the tiger. And certainly, since he’d been a SEAL, he’d had his share of both.

But today there were neither ladies nor tigers to face. Today he was on leave—shore leave, it was called in the navy. Funny he should spend the one day of shore leave he had this month far from the shore, out on a fishing boat.

Not that he’d spent very much time lately at sea. In fact, in the past few months, he’d been on a naval vessel exactly ninety-six hours. And that had been for training. Some of those training hours he’d spent as an instructor. But some of the time he’d been a student. That was all part of being a Navy SEAL. No matter your rank or experience, you always had to keep learning, keep training, keep on top of the new technology and methodology.

Joe had achieved expert status in nine different fields, but those fields were always changing. Just like those clouds that were floating above him. Just the way he liked it.

Across the deck of the boat, dressed in weekend grunge clothes similar to his own torn fatigues and ragged T-shirt, Harvard and Blue were arguing good-naturedly over who had gotten the most depressing letter from the weekly mail call.

Joe himself hadn’t gotten any mail—nothing besides bills, that is. Talk about depressing.

Joe closed his eyes, letting the conversation float over him. He’d known Blue for eight years, Harvard for about six. Their voices—Blue’s thick, south-of-the-Mason-Dixon-Line drawl and Harvard’s nasal, upper-class-Boston accent—were as familiar to him as breathing.

It still sometimes tickled him that out of their entire seven-man SEAL team, the man that Blue was closest to, after Joe himself, was Daryl Becker, nicknamed Harvard.

Carter “Blue” McCoy and Daryl “Harvard” Becker. The “redneck” rebel and the Ivy League-educated Yankee black man. Both SEALs, both better than the best of the rest. And both aware that there was no such thing as prejudices and prejudgments in the Navy SEALs.

Out across the bay, the blue-green water sparkled and danced in the bright sunshine. Joe took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the sharp salty air.

“Oh, Lord,” Blue said, turning to the second page of his letter.

Joe turned toward his friend. “What?”

“Gerry’s getting married,” Blue said, running his fingers through his sun-bleached blond hair. “To Jenny Lee Beaumont.”

Jenny Lee had been Blue’s high school girlfriend. She was the only woman Blue had ever talked about—the only one special enough to mention.

Joe exchanged a long look with Harvard.

“Jenny Lee Beaumont, huh?” Joe said.

“That’s right.” Blue nodded, his face carefully expressionless. “Gerry’s gonna marry her. Next July. He wants me to be his best man.”

Joe swore softly.

“You win,” Harvard conceded. “Your mail was much more depressing than mine.”

Joe shook his head, grateful for his own lack of entanglement with a woman. Sure, he’d had girlfriends down through the years, but he’d never met anyone he couldn’t walk away from.

Not that he didn’t like women, because he did. He certainly did. And the women he usually dated were smart and funny and as quick to shy away from permanent attachments as he was. He would see his current lady friend on occasional weekend leaves, and sometimes in the evenings when he was in town and free.

But never, ever had he kissed a woman good-night—or good-morning, as was usually the case—then gone back to the base and sat around daydreaming about her the way Bob and Wesley had drooled over those college girls they’d met down in San Diego. Or the way Harvard had sighed over that Hawaiian marine biologist they’d met on Guam. What was her name? Rachel. Harvard still got that kicked-puppy look in his brown eyes whenever her name came up.

The truth was, Joe had been lucky—he’d never fallen in love. And he was hoping his luck would hold. It would be just fine with him if he went through life without that particular experience, thank you very much.

Joe pushed the top off the cooler with one bare toe. He reached into the icy water to pull out a beer, then froze.

He straightened, ears straining, eyes scanning the horizon to the east.

Then he heard it again.

The sound of a distant chopper. He shaded his eyes, looking out toward the California coastline, to where the sound was coming from.

Silently, Harvard and Blue got to their feet, moving to stand next to him. Silently, Harvard handed Joe the binoculars that had been stowed in one of the equipment lockers.

One swift turn of the dial brought the powerful lenses into focus.

The chopper was only a small black dot, but it was growing larger with each passing second. It was undeniably heading directly toward them.

“You guys wearing your pagers?” Joe asked, breaking the silence. He’d taken his own beeper off after it—and he—had gotten doused by a pailful of bait and briny seawater.

Harvard nodded. “Yes, sir.” He glanced down at the beeper he wore attached to his belt. “But I’m clear.”

“Mine didn’t go off, either, Cat,” Blue said.

In the binoculars, the black dot took on a distinct outline. It was an army bird, a Black Hawk, UH-60A. Its cruising speed was about one hundred and seventy miles per hour. It was closing in on them, and fast.

“Either of you in any trouble I should know about?” Joe asked.

“No, sir,” Harvard said.

“Negative.” Blue glanced at Joe. “How ’bout you, Lieutenant?”

Joe shook his head, still watching the helicopter through the binoculars.

“This is weird,” Harvard said. “What kind of hurry are they in, they can’t page us and have us motor back to the harbor?”

“One damn big hurry,” Joe said. God, that Black Hawk could really move. He pulled the binoculars away from his face as the chopper continued to grow larger.

“It’s not World War Three,” Blue commented, his troubles with Jenny Lee temporarily forgotten. He had to raise his voice to be heard above the approaching helicopter. “If it was World War Three, they wouldn’t waste a Hawk on three lousy SEALs.”

The chopper circled and then hovered directly above them. The sound of the blades was deafening, and the force of the wind made the little boat pitch and toss. All three men grabbed the railing to keep their footing.

Then a scaling rope was thrown out the open door of the helicopter’s cabin. It, too, swayed in the wind from the chopper blades, smacking Joe directly in the chest.

“Lieutenant Joseph P. Catalanotto,” a distorted voice announced over a loudspeaker. “Your shore leave is over.”

Veronica St. John went into her hotel suite, then leaned wearily back against the closed door.

It was only nine o’clock—early by diplomatic standards. In fact, if things had gone according to schedule today, she would still have been at a reception for Prince Tedric over at the Ustanzian Embassy. But things had gone very much not according to schedule, starting with the assassination attempt at the airport.

She’d gotten a call from the president of the United States, officially thanking her, on behalf of the American people, for saving Prince Tedric’s life. She hadn’t expected that. Too bad. If she’d been expecting the man in the White House to call, she might have been prepared to ask for his assistance in locating the personnel records of this mysterious navy lieutenant who looked so much like the crown prince of Ustanzia.

Nobody, repeat nobody she had spoken to had been able to help her find the files she wanted. The Department of Defense sent her to the Navy. The Navy representatives told her that all SEAL records were in the Special Operations Division. The clerk from Special Operations was as clandestine and unhelpful as James Bond’s personal assistant might have been. The woman wouldn’t even verify that Joseph Catalanotto existed, let alone if the man’s personnel files were in the U.S. Special Operations Office.

Frustrated, Veronica had gone back to Senator McKinley, hoping that he could use his clout to get a fax of Catalanotto’s files. But even the powerful senator was told that, for security reasons, personnel records for Navy SEALs were never, repeat never, sent via facsimile. It had been a major feat just getting them to fax a picture of the lieutenant. If McKinley wanted to see Joseph P. Catalanotto’s personnel file, he would need to make a formal request, in writing. After the request was received, it would take a mandatory three days for the files to be censored for his—and Ms. St. John’s—level of clearance.

Three days.

Veronica wasn’t looking to find Lieutenant Catalanotto’s deepest, darkest military secrets. All she wanted to know was where the man came from—in which part of the country he’d grown up. She wanted to know his family background, his level of education, his IQ scores and the results of personality and psychological tests done by the armed forces.

She wanted to know, quite frankly, how big an obstacle this Navy SEAL himself was going to be in getting the job done.

So far, she only knew his name, that he looked like a rougher, wilder version of Tedric Cortere, that his shoulders were very broad, that he carried an M60 machine gun as if it were a large loaf of bread, and that he had a nice smile.

She didn’t have a clue as to whether she’d be able to fool the American public into thinking he was a European prince. Until she met this man, she couldn’t even guess how much work transforming him was going to take. It would be better to try not to think about it.

But if she didn’t think about this job looming over her, she would end up thinking about the girl at Saint Mary’s Hospital, a little girl named Cindy who had sent the prince a letter nearly four months ago—a letter Veronica had fished out of Tedric’s royal wastebasket. In the letter, Cindy—barely even ten years old—had told Prince Tedric that she’d heard he was planning a trip to the United States. She had asked him, if he was going to be in the Washington, D.C., area, to please come and visit her since she was not able to come to see him.

Veronica had ended up going above the prince—directly to King Derrick—and had gotten the visit to Saint Mary’s on the official tour calendar.

But now what?

The entire tour would have to be rescheduled and re-planned, and Saint Mary’s and little Cindy were likely to fall, ignored, between the cracks.

Veronica smiled tightly. Not if she had anything to say about it.

With a sigh, she kicked off her shoes.

Lord, but she ached.

Tackling royalty could really wear a person out, she thought, allowing herself a rueful smile. After the assassination attempt, she had run on sheer adrenaline for about six hours straight. After that had worn off, she’d kept herself fueled with coffee—hot, black and strong.

Right now what she needed was a shower and a two-hour nap.

She pulled her nightgown and robe out of the suitcase that she hadn’t yet found time to unpack, and tossed them onto the bed as she all but staggered into the bathroom. She closed the door and turned on the shower as she peeled off her suit and the cream-colored blouse she wore underneath. She put a hole in her hose as she took them off, and threw them directly into the wastebasket. It had been a bona fide two-pairs-of-panty-hose day. Her first pair, the ones she’d been wearing at the airport, had been totally destroyed.

Veronica washed herself quickly, knowing that every minute she spent in the shower was a minute less that she’d be able to sleep. And with Lieutenant Joseph P. Catalanotto due to arrive anytime after midnight, she was going to need every second of that nap.

Still, it didn’t keep her from singing as she tried to rinse the aches and soreness from her back and shoulders. Singing in the shower was a childhood habit. Then, as now, the moments she spent alone in the shower were among the few bits of time she had to really kick back and let loose. She tested the acoustics of this particular bathroom with a rousing rendition of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s latest hit.

She shut off the water, still singing, and toweled herself dry.

Her robe was hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and she reached for it.

And stopped singing, mid-note.

She’d left her robe in the bedroom, on the bed. She hadn’t hung it on the door.

“No…you’re right. You’re not alone in here,” said a husky male voice from the other side of the bathroom door.

Chapter Three

Veronica’s heart nearly stopped beating, and she lunged for the door and turned the lock.

“I figured you didn’t know I was in your room,” the voice continued as Veronica quickly slipped into her white terry-cloth bathrobe. “I also figured you probably wouldn’t appreciate coming out of the bathroom with just a towel on—or less. Not with an audience, anyway. So I put your robe on the back of the door.”