Big Sky Medical Center, Big Sky, Montana. About fifty-nine miles northwest of Tower Fall
Jana woke in the hospital and opened her eyes to see a man with a grizzled beard standing beside her bed.
“More orange snack crackers, Uncle Bill?” she said as she reached to pluck a crumb free.
“They’re my favorite.”
“I thought Misses Uncle Bill wouldn’t let you have them anymore. Presumably because of all the crumbs everywhere.”
“She doesn’t. But when I came out here on temporary duty to see my girl, I figured, what the hell.”
Jana’s eyes widened. “Kyle? Cade—”
Bill held up his hands. “They’re okay. They’re going to be just fine. In fact, we’re all going to be just fine. We almost lost Cade. But both Cade and Kyle came out of surgery and are doing well. They’re already up and walking around. Well, hobbling around, anyway.”
“Jarrah?” Jana said, still trying to piece together the events.
“Dead. Very dead.”
Jana thought back to the scene at the top of the waterfall and the hellish fight with Jarrah.
“How long have I been out?”
“Two days. And you’ll need to stay a few more until you’re able to travel. It’ll be a medical transport back to Bethesda, I’m afraid.”
“Bethesda Medical Center. Crap. I really don’t like that place.”
“I know. But it will take a bit of rehab to get you back up and running.”
“I left them, Bill. I left Cade and Kyle to die.”
“You made a choice.”
“I should have gotten the medical kit to them.”
“And if you had, what do you think would have happened?”
Jana’s eyes drifted out the open doorway. “It would have been too late. Too late to stop Jarrah.”
“You did what you had to do. You chose the mission over all else.”
“So today is May third? And I’ve been unconscious for two days? We were almost too late, Bill. Did you notice the date?”
Bill exhaled. “Yes, I noticed the date. Two days ago was May first.”
“May first. He was going to detonate at 11:16 a.m.”
Bill nodded. “Adjusted for local time, May first, 11:16 a.m. Pacific would have been the exact date and time of the anniversary of the Osama bin Laden assassination. From what the HRT operators said, you probably killed Jarrah within minutes of then.”
“I don’t think I can do this anymore, Bill.”
Bill studied her face a moment. “Jana, you’re like a daughter to me. The daughter I never had. You need to do what’s best for you.”
“Bill? I don’t know why I never asked you this. Did you and Mrs. Tarleton ever have children?”
“Sure we did. A boy. He turned sixteen today.”
“Oh, Bill. You shouldn’t be here with me. You should be at home with him, celebrating. Sixteen is a big deal.”
“At home? What for? He’s right here,” Bill said as he looked into the hallway.
Knuckles walked in.
“Wait a minute. Knuckles? He’s your son?”
“Well, sure he is. You didn’t know that? I call him son all the time.”
“Bill, you call every male who’s younger than you son.”
Knuckles said, “Yeah, I guess we do keep it a bit of a secret. Not that I mind keeping it a secret. You think I want people to know this is my old man?”
Jana giggled, but grabbed her ribs. “Ouch. Hey, don’t make me laugh, all right?”
“Listen, Jana, I just wanted to be here to see that you were all right.” The boy looked at Uncle Bill. “I’ll let you two talk now.”
After Knuckles shut the door behind him, Bill said, “He’s a good kid, really. But don’t tell him I said that.”
“It’ll be our secret, Bill.” She drew in a shallow breath and winced against the pain. “Bill, there are some things I have to know.”
He looked at her, but said nothing.
“Things about my personnel file.”
“You accessed it, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Bill, Jarrah told me everything, had the documents to prove it. I have to know, Bill. I have to know if it’s true.”
He did not hesitate. “It’s true.”
“Which parts?”
“All of them. It’s all there in your personnel file. I have access to the redacted sections in the records.”
“You mean when I was hired, the FBI knew my real father was Richard Ames? The brother of Aldrich Ames? And they still hired me? They let me be a special agent with a background like that?”
“Yes, the bureau knew. But Jana, you were a toddler when your father was arrested. The bureau may be a, well, a bureaucracy, but they have common sense, too.”
“Yet they chose to polygraph me more frequently than anyone else. They never really trusted me, did they?”
He said nothing.
“I don’t even know who I am anymore.”
“I know exactly who you are. You are Jana Baker.”
“But who is that? She’s a work of fiction. An imagined person.”
“That’s crap and you know it. Jana, we are not made up of the sum total of our biological parts. We make ourselves. Your father had no say in the matter. He didn’t form you then, and he doesn’t form you now. The bureau’s trust or lack of trust has no say in the matter either. You formed you. You are exactly who you were when you started as a rookie agent. You just have to accept your past now.”
He took her hand and encased it in both of his. “There’s more,” he said.
“I don’t think I want to hear this.”
“You have to know the truth, Jana.” He gripped her hand harder. “It’s about your mother.”
“Please don’t tell me she committed treason, too,” she said as a lump formed in her throat.
“Far from it.” He paused. “Your mother acted as a material witness in federal court against your father. She’s the reason he was convicted. She took a huge risk, Jana. She took a huge risk . . .”
“Bill, what are you not telling me?”
His eyes found the floor. “And they killed her for it.”
“Killed . . . she wasn’t killed in a car accident?”
“It was a setup, Jana. It was staged to be a car accident. She was murdered.”
“Who? Who killed my mother?”
“His sponsors. Your father, Richard Ames, was career CIA. But he was selling information to the Russians. After his conviction, the Russians wanted to send a message to anyone that might want to help convict another one of their spies. They killed her.”
He held her hand until the sobbing subsided.
She wiped a tear from her cheek. “You talk about my father as if he’s still alive.”
“He is alive, Jana.”
“What?”
“He’s in the same place he’s been since his conviction, at the United States Penitentiary at Florence, Colorado.”
“He’s alive?”
“That’s right. It’s called the Alcatraz of the Rockies. It houses those in the federal prison system who are deemed the most dangerous or in need of the tightest control.”
Jana sat with the information for what seemed like an eternity. Her gaze fixed on the wall in front of her, though she didn’t really focus on it.
“What do I do now, Bill?” she whispered. “Where do I go?”
Bill’s smile almost protruded from underneath the enormity of his beard. “On.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “You go on.”