In the silent hours before dawn, only the occasional set of headlights stabbed through D.C.'s embassy district. The brick town houses lining a side street just off Massachusetts Avenue were shuttered and dark. From the outside, the elegant, three-story town house halfway down the block appeared as somnolent as its neighbors.

Light from a nearby streetlamp glowed dully on the discreet brass plaque mounted beside the front door. The plaque identified the building as housing the offices of the president's special envoy. Old-time Washingtonians knew the title was meaningless, one of dozens doled out after every election to wealthy campaign contributors itching to be part of the hustle and bustle of the capital. Only a handful of insiders knew the special envoy also doubled as the director of OMEGA, a secret agency that reported directly to the president and was activated as a last resort, when all other measures failed.

One of OMEGA's operatives was in the field now, and behind the darkened windows of the town house's third floor a high-tech operations center vibrated with rigidly restrained tension. The agent's controller sat at an elaborate console, his face tight with concentration.

"I didn't copy that last transmission, Rigger. Come again, please."

Joe Devlin, code name Rigger, responded with a heavy dose of disgust. "I said this part of the op just blew all to hell. I've got a corpse floating in the surf and I'm following a set of tracks fast getting washed away."

"Is the corpse our informant?"

"Negative. The contact said to look for someone in a Mazatland Tigres football jersey. The dead guy's in a Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt. My guess is he followed our pigeon, spooked him and got drilled in the process."

Everyone in the control center shared the frustration in Devlin's terse reply. Their first real lead — their only lead so far — to the ring suspected of murdering U.S. citizens and selling their identities to dangerous undesirables was now on the run.

Devlin's controller flicked a glance at the man listening to the exchange from a few yards away. Nick Jensen, code name Lightning, stood with the jacket of his Armani tux shoved back and his hands buried in the pockets of the hand-tailored trousers. He'd swung by the control center on his way home from one of the endless ceremonial dinners he regularly attended, and stayed for Rigger's anticipated report.

His wife, Mackenzie, sat perched on the edge of the console, sleek and elegant in a sheath of black silk and matching spike heels. With or without those three-inch stilettos, Mackenzie Blair Jensen was a force to be reckoned with. Formerly OMEGA's chief of communications, she now directed a team that supplied several agencies, including OMEGA, with equipment that would give any techie wet dreams. She remained as quiet as the others in the control center until Devlin came back on, huffing a little.

"Dammit! The shooter just jumped into a vehicle and took off. He's heading south on the coast road. Get some surveillance in the air ASAP."

"Will do. And I'll —" The controller broke off, eyeing a blinking red light. "Stand by, Rigger. I'm getting a flash override."

He switched frequencies, listened for a few seconds and switched back.

"We just intercepted a phone call to the Piedras Rojas police. There's a female on the line, reporting a shooting at approximately your location. Our listener says she sounds like an American."

"Well, hell! The blonde!"

"Come again?"

"There was a woman on the beach. I was just about to get rid of her when the bullets started flying."

Frowning, Lightning stepped forward. "What was she doing at the rendezvous point so late at night? Acting as a lookout? A decoy?"

Three thousand miles away, Joe Devlin scrubbed a hand across the back of his neck. He'd spent almost six years as an OMEGA operative and had learned long ago never to take anyone at face value. He'd also learned to trust his instincts. The little he'd overheard suggested the blonde had come out to the beach to conduct a personal exorcism.

"I don't think she's part of this op. Sounded like she just got a 'Dear Jane' letter and was working off steam."

Judging by her crack about living like a nun, it also sounded as though she'd built up a bad case of the hungries. Wishing like hell he'd had time to satisfy them, Devlin got back to business.

"We need to run her through the system and see what pops."

"Did you get a name?" Lightning asked.

"No, but I did tag her Jeep when she drove up." Luckily, he'd arrived at the rendezvous site early. He'd seen the woman drive up and had tracked her from her Jeep to the water's edge. He'd planned to call in her tag and have OMEGA check her out, but matters had moved too fast. Drawing the numbers from his memory bank, Devlin relayed them along with a brief physical description.

"I'd say she's about twenty-eight or -nine. Five-six or so. Maybe 120 pounds. It was too dark to be sure, but I'm guessing her eyes were brown."

"We'll run her," Lightning advised. "How about the corpse? Did you find anything on him that gave you a clue as to his identity or why he showed up at your rendezvous?"

"I didn't have time to check. I'll go back now and do a search."

"Better do it quick. The locals will arrive on the scene shortly."

Devlin flipped the lid on what looked like an ordinary cell phone. Despite its innocuous appearance, the device contained enough ultrasonic signals, secure satellite frequencies and encryption capabilities to orchestrate an intergalactic expedition. Mackenzie Blair, bless her state- of-the-art soul, believed an operative couldn't carry too much in the way of communications into the field.

Keeping an eye out for the blonde, Devlin jogged back to the dark hump in the surf-washed sand. Damn! Whoever this guy was, his untimely demise sure put a kink in the mission.

Dropping to one knee, Devlin dragged out the tail of his T- shirt to use as a glove. A quick search turned up a fat wad of pesos wrapped with a rubber band, the kind of switchblade you could buy in any Mexican market and a container of dental floss.

Flipping the cell phone up again, Devlin punched a single key. "Robbery obviously wasn't the motive. The guy's still carrying his stash."

"Any ID?"

"Negative."

Lightning greeted that news with a grunt. "What about the woman? Can she ID you to the police?"

"Not by name, but she can give them a general description."

"Then I suggest you disappear. We'll track the locals' investigation. In the meantime you need to maintain your cover."

Devlin acknowledged the order but threw a regretful glance along the shoreline. He hated to leave with so many unanswered questions. Not to mention a very curvy, very delectable female who sounded as though she was in dire need of male companionship.

So long, Blondie. Sorry to leave you with this mess.

An hour later Liz wished fervently she'd high-tailed it back to town instead of calling the local gendarmes. They were hardly CSI types.

The first officer on the scene had poked at the body with the toe of his boot, tugged on plastic gloves and shooed away the crabs. After feeling around in the victim's pockets, he extracted some objects and entered a sort of inventory in a notebook before ambling over to Liz.

She told him what happened. He made a few more notes and asked her if she knew the deceased. She didn't.

About that time, Subcommandante Carlos Rivera and the crime scene unit arrived. Liz waited while the inspector studied the corpse and conferred with the uniformed officer. Finally he turned his attention to her. Slowly and methodically, he went over every word of her statement. Such as it was.

"You say you do not know the identity of the man who has been shot?"

"No, I don't."

"What about this Americano? The one you say appeared out of the darkness?"

"I don't know his identity, either."

"Yet you spoke with him."

Liz had done more than speak with the guy. She'd responded to the laughter in his voice and that damned grin and let the man get close enough to touch her. Worse, she'd wanted him to touch her. Okay, more than touch her. She'd actually entertained notions of rolling around in the surf with him. How stupid was that?

Too stupid to admit to Subcommandante Rivera. "We only exchanged a few words," she muttered. The inspector nodded, his face grave beneath the visor of his cap. "Perhaps you will be so kind as to explain again what brought you to such an isolated spot at this late hour."

Liz dragged a hand through her cropped hair. She'd gone through this with the first officer on the scene. It didn't sound any better the second time around.

"I received news that upset me. I needed to vent."

"And you could not do this in Piedras Rojas, where you live?"

After receiving Donny's e-mail, Liz had thought about stopping by her favorite cantina in town and drinking herself into a stupor. But she had a flight tomorrow morning. Her training and professionalism went too deep to climb into a cockpit hung over. Since the small, sleepy village of Piedras Rojas offered no other outlet for her anger, she'd headed for the beach some miles south of town.