Deception of the Heart by Ellen Wolf Read Free Book Online

flaws of the political and social systems guiding the world toward an abyss of self-destruction. Still, it didn’t matter. His death would certainly create enough impact to gain the world’s attention, bringing the Peace Brigade out of obscurity and into the spotlight it craved and thought it deserved.
    Bernard ’s team, along with the government and FBI, had been working on eradicating the group for many years. Extremely cautious and elusive, its members managed to slip through cracks each and every time an agent closed in, and they left behind no traces or clues that could lead the agents to cracking the case. Their aggression seemed to have escalated in the recent months, leading the agency to believe they were gearing up for something major with the potential to shake up the current political scene. A series of attacks on affluent and influential people could spark a chain of reactions that could lead to larger scale operation, Bernard had argued, urging the government to step up to the plate and do its share in stopping that from happening. With the info gathered from his informants, Bernard could say with certainty that Daniel Spitieri was the first name on a much longer list. His violent death was sure to cause confusion and panic in the right circles.
    The y had no basis on which to arrest Pete Brunner was the infuriating answer. He had not given them any plausible reason to suspect he was plotting an assassination, so any attempt to arrest him would lead to a dead end. He’d be out in no time, and his lawyer would make sure they paid for each and every penny of damaged reputation the whole commotion might cause. With the Brigade’s cautious approach, tracing any crime to its members was virtually impossible. Plus, if they managed to stop one of the Brigade’s members, the others planning to carry out similar attacks would regroup and be even harder to hunt down. They needed to be taken down one by one, each of them unaware of the other’s fate, Bernard had insisted, and his plan was brilliantly simple. If coordinated correctly, “Operation Dove” could intercept six major plots virtually simultaneously, leaving the organization’s members with no time to reconnect and regroup. Just like Hydra’s heads needed to be cut off at the same time, they needed to destroy the Peace Brigade completely and irrevocably. Leaving any of its senior members long enough so they could go back into hiding and restore the organization from the ground up was just like Hercules trying to destroy the mythical beast by cutting off its heads one by one. As long as one was intact, the rest grew back over and over again, his efforts futile and doomed to fail.
    Jon closed his eyes, the complexity of the operation overwhelming him for a second. Coordination and speed were the keys to success. He could do it, he told himself firmly, not allowing panic to set in. Ever since the fiasco in Iraq, he had promised himself to make sure no other human being would die because of his incompetence or lack of resolve. He had managed to live up to that lofty plan so far. There was no reason to doubt himself now, he reminded himself, reopening his eyes and skimming the last page. Melanie Bennett’s name popped out, her image capturing his attention.
    He was ready to meet her and her boss. It didn’t matter that her smile looked innocent and fresh and brought back an unreasonable yearning for things he knew couldn’t be found. Like complete trust and honesty, or purity and simplicity. He was beyond the point of looking at the world through rose-colored glasses. If anything, his life had taught him that whenever things looked too good to be true, they probably were. And then some.

Three
    ‘This place is absolutely amazing!’ Melanie’s her wide eyes took in the pinkish walls of the small villa basked in the late afternoon sun. The golden ball of pure fire highlighted the pure, classical lines of the house and emphasized each crevice and carving.