15

 

Five years ago, the FBI SWAT team had come in a van, so Katie hadn’t gotten a helicopter ride out of the human trafficking incident on the Olympic Peninsula. Though she had never ridden in one, something about the look of the big chopper sitting on the grass in Whistler gave her a sense of foreboding.

Katie wouldn’t tell anyone, especially Josh, that the thought of the chopper ride made her nervous. She hurried up the steps and sat in the second seat.

Josh climbed in beside her.

Peterson plopped down in front of them, beside the pilot, and turned toward her as the whining engine spun the rotor. “I called Jennifer on the way up here. You scared her to death.”

“So did you, especially if you told her we were evading gunmen by riding the peak-to-peak at Whistler. You shouldn’t have called her, Peterson. Not yet.”

The rotor began the whopping sound, the helicopter tilted forward, and they lifted off.

Peterson looked at her incredulously, “And do you know what would have happened to me if I knew you were in danger and didn’t call her?”

Katie glanced at Josh. “Mom can get a little intense.”

“A little intense?” Peterson blasted out. “She would have probably shot me, or let your granddad kick my head off.”

Josh stuck his head between Katie and the tall FBI agent. “Your family sounds almost as wild and wacky as you, Kate.”

Katie sighed in resignation as she pictured how things would play out in Seattle. “You can see for yourself when we get to Seattle. I know Mom’s going to pop in on us.”

After fifteen minutes of the rotor’s incessant drumbeat on her head, Katie had developed a headache. As the headache grew, her stomach became queasy.

The noise inside the cabin restricted all but the most important communication, so their conversation ended.

Glad for the respite, Katie leaned back in her seat, closed her eyes, and tried not to puke.

“Kate?” Josh whispered into her ear.

She turned her head and opened her eyes. Josh’s forehead bumped against hers.

What was he doing? Surely not trying to kiss her. Her stomach quivered from the nausea. If he tried, Josh might get more than he bargained for.

“You look sick, Kate.”

She didn’t reply, didn’t dare speak or move. She closed her eyes again.

“Don’t close your eyes. It’s the worst thing you can do. Focus on something in the distance.” He pointed ahead to their right. “There’s Howe Sound and beyond it, Vancouver.”

She chose Vancouver and tried to focus on the city. Her stomach churned. Katie grabbed her stomach as a powerful contraction began.

“Kate’s sick!” Josh yelled ahead.

“Bag’s in front of you, Joshua,” the pilot yelled back.

Josh reached for the bag.

“Oh crud!” She puked with an impressive barfing sound, as Josh pulled the bag open for her.

Katie tried to aim for the bag. She hit it for the most part. But the rest splattered on Josh’s hand.

She ripped the bag from Josh’s grip and pulled it to her mouth, then retched again.

Peterson tossed a box of tissues to Josh. “Close the bag, Katie or you’ll make us all sick.”

She choked the bag off and fell back in her seat as her head swam through waves of nausea.

Josh furiously wiped his hand with several tissues.

Puking in front of Josh embarrassed her. Puking on him was even worse. But she dare not speak to apologize. The situation with her stomach remained too tenuous. After Katie focused on one of the Cascade peaks in the distance for a few minutes, she won the battle with nausea. In its place, a dull headache lingered.

“You OK, Kate?” Josh whispered in her ear.

“Josh…I’m so sorry. I…”

“It’s OK.”

“No, it’s not,” she whispered back. “I just puked all over your hand. That’s so gross. You’ll probably never want to—”

“No, Kate. Nothing you could ever do would do that. But, it was a first for me. I’ve never kissed a girl and had her puke on me the same day. At least you didn’t do it right after the kiss.”

He was only trying to make her feel better, but Josh’s self-deprecating humor wasn’t enough to make her laugh. She gave him a weak smile for his effort and made another entry in her growing list of Josh’s great qualities.

When the chopper sat down at Boeing Field, a black sedan was waiting on the tarmac. It whisked them downtown to the field office, where Peterson let them clean up, before ushering them into a conference room.

Katie had just taken a seat beside Josh when the conference room door flew open and Jennifer barged in, eyes flashing like lasers. “They said out front that you hadn’t started yet.”

Peterson, across the table from Katie, stood and faced Jennifer. “No we haven’t, Jennifer, but—”

“I know. You don’t have to tell me…I’m cleared for this but have no need to know. I just had to be certain they were OK.” The twin lasers focused on Katie. “We’ll talk about this later, Katie. You’ve got a lot to explain.”

Lee’s and Jenn’s grilling at home would make Peterson’s feel like a cool, refreshing breeze. She tried to defuse the situation. “We’re fine, Mom. Really.”

“It’s nearly 7:00. You two missed dinner, tonight. Granddad hasn’t been this upset since Maui five years ago.” She turned her attention to Josh. “Tomorrow is Katie’s twenty-first birthday. You’re invited to dinner, Joshua…again. 7:00 PM.” She glanced at Peterson as she turned toward the door. “As you were.” Jennifer left as quickly as she entered, closing the door behind her.

Josh looked around the room. “Wow. Shouldn’t someone have called the room to attention or something?”

Peterson chuckled and looked across the table at Katie. “I don’t envy you, young lady.”

Peterson launched into his interrogation. It lasted nearly an hour, but didn’t pull any new information from her or Josh, only a few more clarifying details. Nevertheless, the tall FBI agent took copious notes this time.

Twice during their questioning, a woman had entered and given papers to Peterson. Was he being updated on the Whistler situation?

Katie’s curiosity grew until the questions dwindled to a trickle. “Did they catch the man and woman in Whistler?”

Peterson stopped writing and looked up at her. “The Mounties and the FBI are coordinating the search but, as far as we know, they are still on the loose somewhere in BC.” He paused and gave Katie his Incident Commander’s look. “Until this whole matter is resolved, you and Josh are not to cross the border into Canada. Furthermore, I would suggest that you both remain in the Seattle area.”

How serious was he? She decided to find out. “So, you’re restricting our freedom of movement?”

Peterson glared at her. “I’ll restrict your freedom of movement to a cell if need be. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Joshua, since you told Ruska to leave your car at the computer science building, I’ll drive you over there now. Ruska is still a couple of hours out.”

Katie laid a hand on Josh’s well-developed arm. “Do you mind taking me home, Josh?”

“I picked you up this morning, so I assumed I’d be taking you home.”

“And,” Peterson continued, “Katie, you will give me your database and instructions for accessing it.”

“It’s just a comma-delimited text file. Your people can read it and load it into your own database.”

“What about the encryption, Kate?” Josh whispered.

Katie met his gaze and shook her head. The less information they volunteered, the more leeway she would have for continuing her work.

Fifteen minutes later, Katie punched the cipher key into the lock and led Peterson into the computer lab. She unlocked her private storage area and retrieved the flash drive containing her data. “It’s encrypted.” She tore off a sheet of paper from a pad on the counter and began writing. “Here’s the encryption scheme and the key I used.” She handed him the paper.

Peterson pulled the drive from her fingers. “I’ll contact you if we have any questions.” He looked from Katie to Josh. “See if you can stay out of trouble for a few weeks.” He gave them a weak smile. “If this leads to the demise of a conspiracy, I’ll see that you’re both properly thanked.” He turned and left the lab.

Josh stuck a thumb out toward the door closing behind Peterson. “That’s all we get from him after our hard work and…”

“Yep. That’s Peterson. All business. He doesn’t show his feelings much, except when he’s mad.”

Josh sighed heavily. “I’m sure glad this is finally all over.”

“It’s not over. It’s just beginning.” Katie studied Josh’s face.

He didn’t look happy about her revelation. “But you gave everything to Peterson.”

“Everything, but my backup copy.” She smiled.

Josh’s frown deepened to a scowl. “Didn’t you learn anything today, Kate?”

She gave him her coy smile. “I learned a couple of things.”

“A couple? Kate Brandt! You are the most exasperating, the most stubborn…”

She rested her arms on Josh’s shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Don’t stop on my account.”

“The most beautiful…” His gaze dropped from her eyes to the vicinity of her lips.

Not that she wouldn’t have liked it, but it wasn’t a good idea. “The honeymoon’s over, Josh. Part of it was terrifying, and the rest…well, we did what we had to do.”

“So you kissed me because you had to, forced by circumstances—”

“I didn’t say that I didn’t like it, only that we had to do it.”

Her words brought a major frown to his face. “What are you trying to do, drive me crazy?”

“Pretty short trip…”

“What?” Josh’s scowl returned.

“For people who hang out with me, it can be a short trip. But I guess we need to talk about those, you know…kisses.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“You need to know some things about me. Things like…I’ve never kissed any guy, ever. Unless you count the kiss a junior high kid stole. And he regretted it afterward.”

“Regretted?” Josh’s scowl was gone. “What did you do?”

“Decked him. Knocked him out cold. Because a girl had done it, he was too embarrassed to report it. But I had to tell the school nurse, because he didn’t get up for a few minutes. It scared me.”

“So I’m the first guy you ever voluntarily kissed? It didn’t seem like a pretend kiss, Kate.”

“The second kiss? No, that one didn’t. And that’s why I need to tell you something else about me.”

“More mysteries about crazy Kate?”

“Crazy? Josh, how could you—”

“Easy. You know what they say, Kate. The thing about really smart people is they seem crazy to dumb people.”

“You know what they say, Josh…comedians who use self-deprecation are really desperate to get the audience on their side.”

“As desperate as people with a sharp tongue are to use it to hide their real feelings?”

“OK. No more verbal sparring. You win. But, Josh, if we’re going to be working together this summer—”

“Working? But you promised Peterson we—”

“I promised him I wouldn’t continue what I had been doing. Not that I wouldn’t do what I’m about to do.”

Josh rolled his eyes at her. “I’m not stupid, but you really are crazy.”

“Listen. There are at least two other components to this plot. I haven’t said much about them because they need a lot more investigation. But when we analyze them, we may see something a whole lot worse than a few forest fires.”

“We need to back off, Kate.”

He wouldn’t bail. Not Josh. “When I asked, you said you were in. Are you?”

“I think I’m going to regret this, if I live that long.” He released a long sigh that sounded like a deflating tire. “Yeah. I’m in. In way over my head with terrorists and with a beautiful, blue-eyed, crazy lady named Kate Brandt.”

“You can call me crazy as long as you qualify it in such a nice way.” She had done it again. No matter what she did or said, everything seemed to turn into flirting with Josh. She hadn’t intended for it to be that way between them, but now that it was, Katie wasn’t sure she wanted to change it. But a huge chasm remained between Josh and her. Could they ever build a bridge across it?

“Kate, weren’t you going to tell me some more about yourself?”

“Uh…OK. Here’s the scoop on Katie Brandt, who used to be Katie Lloyd.” She told him about being orphaned at age four, thrown into the foster care system, never being accepted as part of a family until she met Jennifer and Lee. “The love and acceptance they gave me was something I had never known. I’m turning 21 tomorrow, finishing my PhD program later this year, and stepping into my place in the world as an adult. The only way I can have what Jennifer and Lee have is if I meet someone who defines love the way they do, the way God does. Someone who knows God and completely trusts Him.”

Josh’s gaze dropped to the floor. “And you don’t think that’s me. That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

The hurt in his eyes stabbed her in the most vulnerable spot in Katie Brandt’s heart. “I shouldn’t have brought this up. It’s too early for us to be having this discussion.”

“But that’s what you mean, right?”

“No…look, you’re coming to dinner at my house tomorrow night. Let’s see how that goes.”

Josh’s eyes widened.

“You are coming, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Crazy must be contagious. I’ll be there.”

“That’s settled. Let’s get back to work. With a little luck, we can unravel this whole conspiracy before the FBI digests the stuff I gave them.”

“But we do it from here.” Josh jammed his index finger into the top of Katie’s desk. “No more forays into enemy territory.”

“Only their cyber territory.”

Their cyber territory. Katie’s gut told her that what they found there would make the plan to create forest-fires seem like a few candles on a birthday cake. The hand full of lone-wolf attacks over the past decade obviously had not satiated the enemy’s appetite for violence and destruction. And their appetite had grown ravenous over the years since 9—11.

 

****

 

Kate’s face had concern written all over it. Josh suspected the source of her angst was something they might find on the enemy’s cyber turf. She wasn’t volunteering any information, so he would do a little probing. “Why do you suppose jihadists do the things they do? Commit such atrocities?”

Kate’s eyes looked past him—off into some other world. “In case you haven’t noticed, it matters a great deal what a person believes.” She had focused on him as she said the last four words. “The jihadists believe it’s their duty to kill the infidels or force them into converting. Anyway, people are all bad by nature. It’s not just radical Islamists who do evil things.”

Why had she—”So that’s what you’ve got against me? It’s why we can’t—you think I’ll do the wrong things because I believe the wrong things.”

Kate’s eyes saddened. She shook her head. “No, Josh. I don’t believe that you do a lot of bad things. I don’t think you do much at all.”

“So now I’m a lazy bum?” Where was this girl coming from?

“I didn’t say that.” Her eyes turned steel blue. “The reason you don’t do much, good or bad, is that you’re not sure what you believe.”

Wham! Kate’s hammer had hit the nail and drove it in all the way to its head. He was living the life that—what was it Socrates said? The unexamined life was not worth living?

Kate was brilliant, living an examined life, and she evidently found coherence in Christianity. She would push him that direction, but maybe even that would be a good thing. Better than living life in limbo. “Kate…would you please help me with that?”

The cold blue steel vanished from her eyes and they softened to the blue of sunny, summer skies. She put her hand on his arm and slid it down to his hand, interlacing their fingers.

She nodded to him. “I would love to. But, Josh, I’ll be pointing you to the truth. No lies, no deception, no pseudoscience, no religious mumbo jumbo, just the truth. It won’t be what you expect.”

Could she really do that? Could this brilliant, beautiful, bluer-than-the-sky-eyed girl cut through the jungle of issues surrounding the human condition and answer his questions about purpose, meaning, and destiny? Remove his sense of being defective, too? The genuine smile, the confident look in her eyes, and her fingers closed around his said that she believed she could. Maybe that was good enough for now. And Kate Brandt, as crazy as she could be, was becoming more than good enough for beyond now, for his future, a future his mind balked at even considering unless Kate was in it.

A glance out the window told Josh that darkness had fallen and that Ruska had just arrived with his car. He and Kate had been running traplines on IP addresses for nearly two hours. “Kate, with all that’s happened today I’m feeling a little wrung out. Ruska just dropped my car off. I’ll go get my keys.”

“I’m tired, too. Let’s lock up and you can drive me home. And…you can pick me up and take me to church in the morning.” The words came wrapped in her irresistible smile.

“I had hoped to sleep in after a short night last night, and after uh, today.”

“You still can, as long as you pick me up by 9:00 AM. Services start at 9:30.”

“So tomorrow you start pointing me to the truth?”

“That’s part of it. But trust me, tomorrow evening will go a lot easier if Jenn and Lee see you in church with me in the morning. Then there’s the other part.” She flashed that coy smile again. The one he couldn’t say no to.

“Kate, did anyone ever tell you that you’re a flirt?”

“I think you did yesterday. But I’ve never given anyone a reason to say that…well, not before you.”