Jack took her mouth then without resistance. He pulled her against him, unmindful of the damp towel that separated him from her hot skin. She was soft and smelted of soap and hot water and something that could only be defined as her own personal perfume. The combination of it sent his senses reeling and his purpose with it. He knew in seconds he shouldn't have touched her. He'd kick himself later, but now his arms encircled her and she moved her arms around his neck. Her body was soft and warm and it seemed to wrap around his with precision.

Jack was supposed to teach her a lesson. He was supposed to maintain control, but it snapped within microseconds of her action. It had been years, twelve long years, since he'd held her in his arms, since he'd kissed her, twelve years of dreaming and waking to find himself holding empty air. He wouldn't forgo the pleasure now. It was more than pleasure. It was paradise. She was real, alive and in his arms. Her mouth was hot and her body was soft in places he'd forgotten existed. Jack was lost and he didn't care. His tongue swept past her lips to taste her, devour her, drink her in as surely as if she were a twelve-year-old vintage. He wanted her badly and his mouth told her that, savagely taking what she had to give. He crushed her to him, lifting her off the floor and pushing her against the wall, driving his body into hers.

It wasn't enough. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted to lose himself in her warmth, tearing the towel away from her and gazing on the golden glint that covered her skin from neck to toe. He wanted them safe in bed and he wanted to make every one of her dreams a possibility, each of her fantasies a reality. With her this close, with him inhaling the soft perfume of her skin, he knew everything he'd dreamed could come true. He understood fantasies and he was intimately acquainted with reality. What he held in his arms was real. She was heaven or at least as close to it as he'd ever come.

The moment he touched her he knew he was lost. If she'd fought, pushed him away, it would have been better than this torture he knew couldn't continue. He lifted his head at the thought and buried it in her neck, kissing her skin, sampling the soft texture of smooth velvet. Her arms tightened around his neck and he squeezed her and his eyes shut. He kept them that way for a moment. He needed another second to hold her. Then it was time to destroy both their worlds.

"That's it, Morgan," he whispered, his voice filled with emotion. "I'm your bad boy. The kiss is over. Your arms released." He pulled her arms away from him. "It's customary to run your hands down the bad boy's rock-hard chest." He demonstrated using her hands. "You like it, don't you? All bad boys have rock-hard chests. It's the law. And then it's time for the bad boy to move on, Morgan.

"To the next one, and the next one, and the next. . ."

 

***

 

Morgan didn't know how it happened. She heard his voice, heard the soft words. They had been sweet, mesmerizing, sexual. They pushed all the right buttons, turned her on. Then they changed. The softness remained but the words hardened. No longer did the letters have curved edges. They weren't rounded and comfortable, falling on her ears like sweet caresses. These words had metal spikes, long and ugly, protruding like daggers even through their whispering delicacy. They were nailed into Morgan's mind. The pain hit her like lightning striking. Then her hand was curling, turning from a long slender appendage that had dropped to her side into a tight fist. Her entire body tensed, then without volition, without thought, with nothing behind it but the brute force of an outcast teenager and all the shoulder she could muster, her arm swung out and she slapped him. The noise resounded about the room with the strength of a sonic boom.

They were both surprised. Morgan had never slapped anyone. She'd been in fights as a teenager, many of them, staking her claim, showing bullies they couldn't run roughshod over her, proving time and again that she was tough enough to make it on the mean streets of Washington, D.C., but until today, until this moment, until Jack, she had never slapped anyone. She considered it the ultimate insult.

Jack's hands came up to grab her, but he stopped himself. Murder surged into his eyes, black chips of obsidian, but it couldn't hold water if he saw what must be reflected in her own eyes. For a moment they held each other's gazes, poised like two mountain lions ready to battle over turf ownership. Then Jack stepped back from her as if he needed distance to keep himself in check. Morgan didn't move. She didn't back down. She never backed down.

"And the next one," Jack said. "And the next one." Jack turned his back and left her. He closed the bathroom door. Morgan slipped down the wall until she was sitting on the floor. Her head fell forward and tears seeped from her eyes. He'd done what no other man had ever been able to do. He'd stripped her of everything. How appropriate it was for her to have on no clothes. He hadn't left her anything. He knew everything about her now. Her weaknesses. How much his presence destroyed her ability to think straight. How, if he came close to her, she was no more than a Roman candle ready to explode. And explode she would.

Morgan pounded the floor in anger, but there was nothing she could do except hurt her hands. She knew how she felt about Jack. She hadn't thought he knew until a few moments ago when he burst into the bathroom and kissed her. She couldn't call what he'd done a kiss. He sapped her of life, removed the carefully constructed wall she'd lived behind almost all of her life. He'd shattered the glass, melted the invisible structure in the heat of the unleashed fire that should have burned the small bathroom and the two of them to cinders. But Fate wasn't that kind. She had never been kind to Morgan. Fate had always been the ghost who stepped in to kill her dreams. It had taken her best friend, Jean, from her, but brought her foster mother, Sharon. Then it had taken Sharon and given her the Olympic chance, a carrot she didn't recognize for what it was. Her chance at the top of the world would be marred by a small matter of breaking into a foreign jail and living, but not to tell about it.

She forgot about Fate. It abandoned her for long periods. Then it came back just when Morgan thought she was off screwing up someone else's life. She should have remembered Fate never completely abandons her. She came back when Jack appeared and now she had left again, giving her another opportunity to face him and see the scorn in his eyes.

 

CHAPTER 6

"The plan was to get Hart Lewiston out of jail," Morgan began as if she were answering Jack's question from dinner. She wouldn't acknowledge anything that had happened in the bathroom. Nothing had happened there, she told herself. She stood in the doorway, dressed all in black, the same as she'd been the night she got Hart Lewiston out of the jail. Jack turned to look at her, but didn't move from his seat at the bar. She came into the room. She didn't sit or go near him. She needed space, the entire floor, the entire state. She paced around before continuing.

"I had memorized the floor plan. I knew the layout, all the exits, the doors, cells, guards rooms, bathrooms, warden offices, laundry. I knew the exercise yard, the intake pipes, water pipes, heating ducts. I'd memorized everything about that prison from the barbed wire fencing to the width of the ledge surrounding the roof. I'd practiced getting in and out of it. A special setting had been set up just for me. It was designed to help familiarize me with the layout. I'd practiced a special routine in daylight, twilight and darkness. I could do it under a full moon, in dense fog, or rain, or sleet. I could do it barefoot or with cramps in my toes. Nothing had been left to chance. Regardless of time of day or weather conditions, I was prepared. Everything was under control."

Jack knew everything she told him, but he didn't want to interrupt her.

"Then it happened." She turned to look at him. He sat still, frozen almost, as if moving, breathing, the tiniest twitch of a finger would break her fragile connection between time-present and time-past and she'd decide not to continue.

Morgan, however, had no intention of stopping. That night had been burned into her brain like some cerebral video disk that played for an audience of one.

"The building was constructed of red brick, old brick. It must have been there for centuries. The stone was rough to the touch and hard to get a foothold in. Much of it crumbled when I touched it. Putting weight on it, even my 103 pounds of muscle, was enough to make the walls turn to dust. It's a wonder a strong wind didn't topple the structure in on itself."

"But you got inside," Jack prompted. His voice was low, without emotion or inflection. This was a story she'd waited twelve years to tell. And she was telling it to him.

"I climbed the wall, imagining it to be the rock wall in the special gym. My feet slipped more times than I expected. It took longer to do the Spiderman act and then the timing was thrown off."

Morgan sat down on the sofa. She stared into the past. She no longer saw Jack, although she was aware of his presence. She was always aware of him being there. She wanted to reach across the table and take his hand, make him again the anchor that kept her grounded to the earth. But she remained where she was and Jack stayed in his position.

Her heart pounded in her chest. It had done that on the final night of the competition. When she should have been in the arena, waiting her turn or resting with her team members, she was scaling bricks that needed pointing. At the top she found the entrance, a small window. The grate on it was old, rusted and no longer fit into the base of the cemented window frame. As expected, the grate was loose and she easily pushed it aside. The room was empty. Her heart slowed as she felt this job might go as planned. She should never have allowed that thought to enter her brain, for nothing afterward would follow the plan.

"Morgan."

She'd stopped talking. Her memory was replaying the night, but Jack wanted the details. "I got into the building through a window near the roof. It was a tight fit, but my length and lack of body fat had to be one of the reasons they chose me." She paused and glanced at Jack before beginning to talk again. "He wasn't in his cell. It was on the top floor at the edge of the hall near the tiny room the window led into. The cell was empty."

The place smelled of human waste, sweat and hopelessness, like something had died there long ago and the walls held onto the odor of decay and rot as a warning to all who came after. She fought to keep from coughing. Even now, half a world away from that place, Morgan wanted to cough.

"No guards patrolled the classic row upon row of iron-barred cells. The lighting was dark and I couldn't see into the other cells." She could hear the murmur of collective pain. It covered centuries of life and death and despair, day after day of relentless boredom. Boredom that became agony. If you've never heard it, it's difficult to explain, so she didn't try to tell Jack what it sounded like. There were no words to describe it. It had to be experienced, and Morgan knew she'd never wanted to sentence anyone to that kind of torture.

"I started down the rows, keeping my breath controlled, not wanting any of the prisoners to see me, call out and alert a guard. But it was already too late. The guards knew I was there. The prison had an electronic surveillance system. No one told me."

"They didn't know," Jack supplied.

"I found Hart Lewiston. He was in the cell near the end of the row. The lock mechanism was exactly as I'd been told. I opened it with the key I'd been given. Hart had been drugged. I thought he was asleep, but I couldn't wake him."

This is when fear first set in. Morgan knew she wasn't going to be able to complete the assignment. She wasn't even sure she could get out without being killed. Her hair had been pulled up and confined with pins. On her head was a black skullcap, matching the black body suit she wore as camouflage for the night and muted light of the halls.

Her face, already dark by natural selection, was painted with a black, odorless grease. She was designed to blend into the walls, no more noticeable than a shadow.

Morgan was going to have to carry Hart back to the room in which she'd entered. She grabbed his arm. It was cold and hard.

"At that moment I knew he was dead."

"Who was dead?"

"Lewiston. The man in the bed had been dead a long time. His body had begun to harden."

"Morgan, you're not making sense. Hart Lewiston is alive. You got him out of the prison."

"I was going to try to carry him back," she continued as if she hadn't heard him. "But the man was dead. It was all going to be for nothing. I was going to die for a man who was already dead. They knew. The Koreans knew. Someone talked, told them, set me up."

She stood up then, hugging herself, holding her arms around her body as if she would spill out.

"I turned to run. All I could think of was the tiny window in the small room, getting back to it, getting to the roof. The helicopter was to meet us there, me and Hart Lewiston. It would take us to safety. But I knew as I rushed down that hall that there would be no helicopter when I got there. Nothing would wait for me except the thin, dimensionless air. I would be stranded, alone, unprotected, huddling in darkness until they found me. Still I raced to it. It was my only hope and I streaked toward it.

"Suddenly, someone stepped out in front of me. He grabbed me. I struggled, started to scream. He clamped a hand over my mouth. He wore a uniform. I couldn't see his face, but I could feel the buttons pressing into the tight skin of the jumpsuit I wore. He whispered in my ear for me to be quiet. I was too frightened to do anything else. I kept thinking, this is it. This is where I die. After surviving the streets of D.C., facing down bullies, drug dealers and pimps, after scavenging in garbage cans for enough food to survive on, after coming all the way to Korea and getting so close to the goal I'd worked my entire life to attain, I was going to die in a dark prison twenty-five thousand miles from home."

"Morgan." Jack came up behind her. "You're all right. You aren't in Korea now. This is only a memory. It can't hurt you."

Morgan knew he thought she was reliving the experience, not just telling him what happened. She was. She was back in the prison, twelve years earlier, twelve years younger, with twelve years less experience. She was nineteen years old, more afraid than she'd ever been facing down a knife on a corner in the murder capital of the world.

" 'What you're looking for is in there,' he said. 'You've got three minutes.' He slapped an envelope into my hand and released me. I went to the door he pointed toward and found a man lying on a bed. He'd been beaten. Blood had crusted on his face and legs. His clothes were torn and ragged and he looked older than time. His hair was matted and thin and his skin had a gray tinge in the weak light. I didn't even try to get him to walk. I stuffed the envelope in my suit, grabbed his arm and heaved his weight over my shoulder."

"What happened to the guard?"

"I don't know. He wasn't there when I looked in the hall again. The other prisoners woke and started making noise. I didn't stop to find out why. I headed for the little room. The hall looked a mile away. The weight on my shoulder wasn't that heavy, but it slowed me down. Suddenly bright lights flared and sirens went off. Guards burst through a door at the end of the hall, cutting off my escape route. I immediately changed direction and headed for the other end. There was a door that would lead to the roof. I needed to get there. That's where the helicopter was to pick us up. So far I hadn't heard it. I wouldn't let myself think it wasn't coming. I had to be positive. So I willed it to be there. All I had to do was reach it. The noise of the guards' feet sounded fast. Lewiston grew heavier, but I kept going. A bullet whizzed past my left ear. I didn't know what it was. I just thought this was a lesson they hadn't taught me. They'd given me sharpshooting and hand-to-hand combat training, but they'd fallen short in the area of bullets coming close to the body. I shifted Lewiston, but kept going. My one thought was reaching that door. Lewiston was dead weight, holding me back, and for all I knew he could already be dead."

A second bullet hit the wall next to her. Concrete chips flew into her face. She didn't bother trying to brush them away. She pushed at the door, praying it wasn't locked. It wasn't. It should have been. She thanked whoever had been there for her. Maybe the helicopter would be on the roof when she got there.

If she got there.

She swung through the door, reversed and swung the lock into place. It wasn't a fancy lock. In fact, it was medieval. The prison didn't call for sturdy locks anywhere but on the cells. This was a simple board that folded down into a wooden slot, like the locks on western movie forts. She remembered the Indians always broke through those doors, and she understood her time was growing shorter and shorter.

"You got him out.'' Jack interrupted her thoughts. She turned to him and nodded. Then she continued her story.

"We made it to the roof with only a bullet in Lewiston's sleeve. One grazed my arm, but only burned the fabric of my suit. I didn't even know it until I was changing clothes much later and discovered the hole and a small drop of blood. There was no helicopter. I listened but could hear nothing other than the guards behind me."

"How did you get down?"

She turned and stared at him. "Don't you get it, Jack? We weren't supposed to get down. I was sent there to cause an escape attempt. We were both supposed to be killed."

"You don't know that."

"Don't I?" Her gaze never wavered. She knew it as sure as she knew her name. "I was there. There was no escape route. Hart wasn't where he was supposed to be. The guards were coming from both directions. There was no helicopter. The man was practically dead and I had to carry him. If ever a setup was designed for failure, this was it."

She stopped and took a deep breath. Her heart hammered in her chest.

"Morgan, they would never have let you die in there. They'd have gotten you out."

"Jack, you're a smart man. Look at who I was. I had nothing, no parents, no one concerned about me. I'd been on the streets, a vagrant, someone lost in the system, non-productive, hardcore unemployed. All the labels fit me. And they had a man in a foreign jail who had secrets in his head. They needed to get him out or kill him. If one or both of us died in the process, the mission would be accomplished. It didn't matter the outcome. If he got out, that would make them heroes on a worldwide scale. If he died, he'd be one of the honored dead. No one would ever know my involvement. I was expendable."

"If what you say is true, why didn't they just have the guard kill Lewiston? You said there were already dead men there. What would another dead body mean?''

"That would mean someone at the prison was playing his hand. It would look better if an escape attempt took place. Then he could be shot while attempting to leave. And what would a nobody from the streets of D.C. mean? The government would deny everything."

"But you're here now."

"That is true."

"How did you get off the roof?'' He went back to the Korean story.

"I used the rope." She stopped to focus it in her mind. "I don't know where it came from. I'm sure it hadn't been there long. It was already set up. It looked like something used in a circus. It was stretched taut and there was a roller or pulley-type mechanism that I could hold onto and slide to the ground."

Jack frowned.

"I think the guard, the man who caught me, was an agent. He must have set the rope up. It was a special kind of cord, probably nylon, the kind circus acts use. It stretched from the roof to a point outside the prison fence. At first I didn't know what to do with it. The guards were getting closer. I couldn't scale it hand over hand to the ground. There wasn't time to harness Lewiston and send him alone, then go after him. And I didn't know who would be on the other end. Lewiston couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds. I slipped the harness over him and jumped into it with him. The guards broke through to the roof just as I started the flight downward."

Morgan was fully in the present now. She no longer felt as if she was on the roof of the prison in the dark of night with bullets that could pierce her body and cut her life short.

"I knew we were going to fall hard. It hadn't rained in the week I'd been in Seoul. The ground would be hard, packed. We'd be lucky if we were killed. If we only broke our legs the prison guards would be on us in seconds." Her voice was flatter now. "Lights were flashing and sirens sounded loud and close. Just before we reached the ground, the agent I'd made contact with earlier broke our fall. As he cut the harness, separating Lewiston from me, two cars came from nowhere. A man, whose face I couldn't see, jumped out of one of them and took Lewiston. He got into one car while I was pushed into the second one. It couldn't have been more than fifteen seconds from the time we got to the ground until we were speeding away from the prison."

Morgan finished. She felt drained, tired, in need of sleep. She slipped into a chair and hung her head. It had been so long ago, yet it had been yesterday. She'd never ended that night. She still lived it over and over in her dreams and in her fear of someone coming to take back what she had.

For a long time neither of them spoke. Morgan didn't have the energy to wonder what he was thinking, what he thought of her story. Did he believe her? She didn't think so. Jack was one of them. He worked with the kind of men who'd sent her into that prison, that valley of death, and who never thought she would emerge.

"It's funny," she laughed without humor.

"What?" he asked.

"The very men who sent me to that prison are the ones I'm running to now for help."

He didn't say anything in reply.

"Am I going to survive, Jack? Or is this another staged play that has only one inevitable end?"

Jack stood up and came to her. She was exhausted. Her voice was even tired. She could hear it slow to a near slur. Jack took her arm, pulling her up from the chair with ease. Silently he led her to her bedroom. Morgan was suddenly tired. She sat on the bed while he went to the bathroom. She heard the water running. He came back with a glass of water. Morgan drank greedily as if she needed to replenish the liquid in her body from her feet up, as if she'd expended all the energy to run the prison hall, scale the stairs and zipline down the rope to the ground.

"Lie back," Jack said, taking the empty glass.

She obeyed. "Do you know who he was, Jack?"

"Who?"

"The other man. The guard who set up the rope?"

Jack shook his head. "You should rest now." He turned to leave.

"Who was the other man, Jack?"

He stopped and looked at her.

"The man who cut me out of the harness. The one who took Hart Lewiston and was so careful to keep his face bidden. Was that you, Jack?"

He stared at her for a long time. She didn't think he'd tell her. She could see the man's shadow in her mind, but not clearly enough to put form to it. Yet there was a familiarity about him, some non-visible imprint that told her she knew him on some level.

Morgan had never thought about that man until tonight. He'd simply been a savior, a nameless agent there to get her and Lewiston to safety as fast as possible. Hart Lewiston needed to go to an airstrip to get him out of the country. She, on the other hand, had a date with a crowd in the Olympic Pavilion. The two cars separated and Morgan didn't dwell on anything else about him except her report that later told her he was safely away from Korean soil.

"It was you, wasn't it, Jack?" she asked again.

"Yes," he whispered and closed the door.

 

***

 

Jack went straight to the minibar and broke the seal. He grabbed a one-shot bottle of Johnnie Walker Red and upended it. It was an incredible story. If Jack hadn't been there for part of it, he might not believe it. He felt sick. Had they really done what Morgan believed? Had they set her up to fail? And had he been an unwitting party to the deception? If she hadn't come out of that prison he was there to get her out. If she were killed trying to get Lewiston out he wouldn't have been able to get in.

The lights and sirens had his heart in his mouth when they suddenly lit up the prison yard and surrounding area. It was then he saw the rope. He didn't know how it had come to be there, and it wasn't until Morgan was swinging her legs over the fence that he understood its reason.

The plan was for Morgan to get to the roof and the helicopter would pick them up and take them to a point between the arena and the airport. Morgan would be taken off the helicopter and Lewiston would be taken to a ship offshore. She would go back to the arena and complete her competition.

Jack assumed something had happened to the helicopter. It wasn't unusual for things to change during an operation. When the lights came on and the sirens sounded, guns would have been trained on the sky. Landing a helicopter would have been suicide. The rope and the cars were backup as was the guard inside. If he wasn't an agent, they'd bribed him to make sure the roof door was unlocked.

Morgan had to be wrong. If she had been found in the prison, even if she and Lewiston had been dead, it would have been a serious embarrassment to the United States. Jack wonder what the truth was.

He shook his head. She had to be wrong, but somewhere in Jack's gut he knew part of her story was real.

 

CHAPTER7

The bed was comfortable, a peach-colored comforter over standard white sheets, covering a firm mattress, but Morgan couldn't find a place which complemented her body. She'd turned over more than once, punching the pillows up then flopping down on them. It wasn't her body, however, that was the problem. It was her mind. It was active, too active and that was affecting her ability to find comfort.

She'd told her story to Jack. Almost all of it. There were two items she left out. The ring. And the papers. A gold ring with a heavy crest and some papers written in Korean. That's what they were after. What they wanted and were willing to kill her and anyone in her path to get. They'd already killed one person trying to get to her. Would they get to Jack? The thought almost cramped her stomach. She doubled up, folding her arms over her abdomen and drawing her knees to her chest. She'd lived all these years remembering him, thinking of him swimming in some pool. She'd relived his kiss, fantasized his arms around her countless times, but she'd never put him in her nightmare of escape. This had been a solitary run, one in which she alone made her way to safety. And now she had his safety on her mind.

She flipped over again. Opening her eyes, she saw the bathroom in the darkened room. That was why she couldn't sleep. What happened there? What she refused to admit or discuss with Jack. It was on her mind. He was on her mind, keeping her awake. Jack had kissed her, devastated her with his mouth. That was going through her mind, repeating over and over to the rapid beating of her heart. He'd been right about her, pegged her as surely as if she were a child caught stealing.

He was the bad boy of her mind, but she was the bad girl too. What set her apart was she looked like the debutante. Her adoptive mother had worked hard to smooth some of her rough edges, teaching her manners and how to choose the right clothes, taking her to ballets and concerts at the Kennedy Center. And she was the phenom of the school too. She'd racked up trophies for gymnastics since she started in the sport at thirteen.

Everything was going for her, popularity, good grades, friends, a loving mother, but she was attracted to the dangerous guys, the hard bodies who were often in trouble and whom she could deal with on their level, yet she shied away from them, thinking that life on the street would rear up and snatch her back to it. She hated life on the street, but feared she could be there again.

Jack was like the bad boys. He was the ultimate dangerous one because he had her heart. He'd discovered her secret attraction for him in Seoul and he'd used that against her tonight. And she had been powerless to stop him. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted it from the moment she discovered it was him pinning her to the floor of her hallway. She watched him, stared at him when he wasn't looking, just as she'd done to the guys in her school. She only looked at them when they weren't looking at her. She rarely initiated conversation when they were near, and often refused dates when asked.

Jack was the epitome of the bad boy, all of them rolled into one. But with him she couldn't refuse. She couldn't not talk to him. She couldn't not remember his kiss—either the one in Seoul or the one in the bathroom.

Morgan sat up and pushed her feet to the floor. Why had he shown up right now? She'd planned to escape on her own if the need arose. She would get to Washington, contact Jacob Winston as she'd been instructed and take matters from there. She could have done it too. She was sure she would have made it, but now she had no car and she had Jack. They, whoever they were, had to know he was with her. After the helicopter incident, there was no doubt that someone would have gone over the house and found some clue to his identity. He'd already called Washington and that had resulted in the two of them coming close to being killed. Jack's quick thinking had saved them. But if Jack had never shown up, where would she be now? He'd known to keep silent and stay put when they were in the tree and he'd saved her at her house and at Michelle's "cabin" in the woods. She never would have thought of the water hose.

Morgan stared at the rumpled bed. She gave up trying to get to sleep. She wished they'd taken an efficiency. She'd have a kitchen and she could cook something. She liked to cook, but they were on the ninth floor of a hotel. She could do nothing except return to the living room and confront Jack.

". . . we don't believe she's dead and we're going to find her." Morgan stopped in her tracks when she saw Jan. The face of Janine Acres, her former teammate, filled the television screen. "Morgan is a very self-sufficient woman. Since the police admit they haven't found a body we can only assume she wasn't in the house and that she's somewhere alone." This came from Alicia Tremaine. Morgan hadn't seen Allie in years. She hadn't changed. She was still beautiful and poised and in control. She played the same kind of character on her television program. Morgan stiffened when the film of her came on the screen. It was the same clip they used of her every time the Olympics came around. There she stood, twelve years earlier, wearing a red, white and blue leotard, crushing roses to her chest, tears spilling down her face like Niagara Falls as she sang The Star Spangled Banner.

"What are they doing?" Morgan whispered to herself. She took a step toward the television as if she could stop the action. Jack turned to look at her. "No," she said, the sound coming from low in her throat. "They don't understand."

She went to Jack. "You've got to do something. They don't know what they're doing."

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"They'll be killed. Anyone that has anything to do with me, they won't hesitate to kill them. They haven't an inkling of what's headed their way." She stared at Jack, pleading with him. She needed his help. He could do something, call someone, get help for Janine and Alicia. "We have to go back there," she said, more to herself than Jack. "We have to find them and let them know I'm alive. They have to stop looking for me."

 

***

 

Jacob heard his wife, Marianne, laughing. He stared through the window, watching her and his three-year-old daughter, Krysta, splashing in the pool outside their Rock Creek Park home. For a moment he thought of joining them. The cool water would be refreshing on his skin. His heart swelled when he looked at Marianne and grew even larger when Krysta was included in the picture.

Jacob had met Marianne because of his job as Director of WITSEC, and he often thought with a smile of how much he had changed since she became part of his life. And how protecting one woman had led to such happiness for him.

He could always look at the tangible Marianne and see the intangible need to help someone else. He supposed that was one of the reasons Morgan Kirkwood intrigued him. Jacob had left the file Forrest Washington had given him in his office, but he'd brought the CD home.

Returning to his computer, which was constantly on, he reviewed the CD of Morgan Kirkwood's early life for the third time that day. There was nothing confidential about the contents. The paperwork, back in his office, detailed her interview and training with the CIA prior to the Korean Olympics. It gave in-depth information on her biological parents, her life on the street, her adoption, her adoptive mother's death from cancer, and Morgan's career as a gymnast.

The CD played, showing him a younger version of the woman whose older face he'd seen from a photo in the file in his office. There was little here for anyone to see. Morgan Kirkwood's early life through some photos of her in detention centers, her adoption proceedings which had been filmed as a matter of court record, several practice sessions in various gyms with different outfits and different degrees of skills, and her performance at the Seoul Olympics. The CD moved onto Morgan with a tearstained face, holding her roses as she sang. Like everyone else in America, Jacob remembered this moment. In the following interviews when she looked afraid and alone, she never answered the question of why she sang, more than to say she thought it seemed appropriate.

He wondered whether Brian Ashleigh and Forrest Washington had held out on him. Finding Morgan Kirkwood was not Jacob's responsibility, just as protecting her wasn't Jack's. Jacob dealt with people in the program, not finding missing persons, but she had raised the consciousness levels of someone extremely high up in the system. His director, Christopher, had said it. She was too small a person to concern people like Brian Ashleigh, yet he'd come personally to a meeting about her. That intrigued Jacob, but he was finding reviewing her life a waste of time. There was definitely something missing that made Morgan Kirkwood important.

Jacob read between the lines. At the level Morgan Kirkwood sat, she must be unfurling some extremely high feathers. She'd been home from Seoul for twelve years. She'd lived a normal, unassuming life. Then suddenly Olympic fever hits the country and her life is in danger.

What was the link? Whose buttons did Morgan Kirkwood push? Who was pushing back? And with a deadly force.

Krysta's voice, high and laughing, pierced the silence, and Jacob knew she was coming in from the water. In a moment, Marianne would appear and tell him it was time to get away from his job. She never asked him who he was working with or what was going on. She'd been part of the program and understood the confidential nature of what he did. This CD was part of every public television system in the U.S. He'd seen it over and over on the news since Morgan's home exploded, and no sign of her had been found since. But Jacob knew she was alive. Somewhere between St. Charles and Washington, D.C., she was with his friend, Jack Temple. They were together and in danger.

"Daddy, I went swimming." Krysta bounded into his office and ran to him. Her three-year-old voice couldn't say "swimming" correctly, but Jacob understood her. She climbed into his arms, her swimsuit and body wet from the pool. He ignored the water and pulled her onto his lap.

"How far did you swim?"

"As far as Mommy. All the way to the other side." She pointed toward the window. Jacob swung around in the chair and looked over his shoulder.

"That's wonderful." He kissed her wet hair.

"Who is that?" Krysta asked, switching her attention with lightning speed the way children often do.

"One of America's heroes," he answered, knowing any explanation would be too much for her to understand.

Marianne came in then. "Krysta, you're wetting your daddy."

Krysta looked at her mother as if nothing was wrong. Jacob glanced at his wife and his heartbeat thumped. He thought after five years of marriage her presence wouldn't affect him so strongly, but he was wrong. He hoped the urge to make love to her never went away. Even when they were in their nineties he wanted to look at her and feel this sudden quickening of his heart.

"Come on, it's time to get dressed." Krysta jumped down and ran toward Marianne's outstretched hand. Marianne looked over her daughter at him. "It's time you closed up shop."

"Closed up shop," the little girl repeated. They turned to leave. At the door Krysta turned back. "Daddy, can I be a hero?"

Jacob smiled. "Of course you can."

"Do I get a ring, too?''

"If you want one." Jacob didn't understand the reference, but appeased her anyway.

"And flowers?"

"All heroes get flowers," he said.

They left the room and Jacob reached forward to terminate the program. His hand stopped in mid-air.

 

***

 

Jack hung the phone up. Morgan looked at him, more nervous than she could remember being since she stopped competing. The garish light of a convenience store on some back highway not far from Indianapolis washed Jack's features into craggy shadows that made him look more dangerous than she knew him to be.

He had led her from the hotel to a black Jeep Cherokee and driven until the density of the city population gave way to suburban developments and then to rural farmland.

"They'll be safe," he told her.

"How do you know?"

"Because I trust the people I just talked to," he snapped. She watched his shoulders drop and knew he regretted it. In a calmer voice, he said, "They'll find them and keep them safe."

"Maybe I should try one more time.'' Morgan moved toward the phone, but Jack's hand on her arm stopped her.

"You've tried, Morgan. She isn't answering that cell phone and you already said it's been years since you dialed it. You don't even know if the number is still hers. People change plans all the time."

Morgan felt defeated, beaten, helpless. She could accomplish nothing, help no one, not even herself, and it was her fault her friends could die. She should have known. They'd made a pact. It sounded silly now to think about it. It was what friend did in high school. And Morgan didn't have many friends. She hadn't given that pact a thought until she saw Jan and Allie on the television screen. They had been so young at the time. Morgan was eighteen. Her mother had died only two weeks before and Jan and Allie came to her, both of them fifteen, taking her with them, back to their families, so she wouldn't be alone. They had vowed that summer that they would be friends forever. If any of them needed the others, they would come. All they had to do was call.

Jan and Allie stood by that vow, like musketeers taking up the banner of truth, and it was Morgan's fault that she had not held up her end. That they would look for her, after so many years of silence, was something outside of her realm of belief. No one ever looked for her, except her mom. No matter how many years had passed Morgan still thought of herself as alone in the world. For a small space of time, while her adoptive mother lived, Morgan had been part of something, a family, friends, her gymnastics partners, but when her mom died, everything went with her.

"Trust me, Morgan." Jack broke into her thoughts. She squinted at him in the harsh light. His face was set, still deeply detailed by the bulbs that had mosquitoes creating a glow about them. Every once in a while she'd hear the sizzle of a bug light. At the moment nothing passed between them except the grotesque sound.

Morgan realized she did trust him. She'd hardly trusted anyone in her entire life. She could count the people on three fingers whom she'd be willing to let into her life. No wonder she didn't recognize the feeling when it came. But it was there for Jack. She'd trusted him since they left her house. He'd do what he said and she wasn't going to have to pay for it. He wasn't going to come by later with something she had to do to pay up for the deed. Jan and Allie would be safe because Jack was a man of his word. Jan and Allie could be trusted to keep the vow. Morgan felt ashamed of how well she had kept it.

 

***

 

Senator Hart Lewiston sat quietly in his campaign office. Huge reproductions of his face graced the walls. Bumper stickers, posters, buttons with lewiston for president were scattered about. A computer sat on his desk and a television was mounted on the wall. It was switched on, but he'd muted the sound. Outside the glass-enclosed office, phones rang, people scuttled around, the place was a battle zone of activity. For a moment he could just watch. He hadn't had a moment to himself since months before he officially threw his hat in the ring. From that point on it had been at least one event every day, some days more than one. He'd talked to labor and industry, visited college campuses, whistle-stopped across the heartland, shaken hands with the old in nursing homes and lifted children into his arms in kindergartens. He was tired and ready for the end. But he had months ahead of him before the election.

It hadn't been an easy road for Hart. Unlike his wife, he hadn't grown up having all his needs fulfilled. He never wanted for food or clothes, but his family couldn't afford the latest fad clothes or the newest electronic toys. Yet he grew up happy. His father had been a country lawyer and Hart idolized him, expecting to follow in his footsteps. When he thought of his life, he never chose public office as a goal. Then his father was made a judge and their lives took a different course.

Hart went to law school as expected, but after graduation he clerked for a judge in D.C. before training at the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA made all the difference, sending him to foreign countries on covert missions. It took him to Seoul, where he was caught and sent to prison. Hart hung his head, remembering the nightmare of his time there. Sweat popped out on his brow. His breath came in gasps. His heart beat faster. He stopped the thoughts. He wouldn't let them return. The nightmares were over. The panic attacks were in the past. He wouldn't go through those memories again.

Elliott Irons, his campaign manager, came through the door. Hart sat back, silently thanking the younger man for and jerking him out of a dream that could occur whether he was asleep or awake. Elliott was forty-seven, but looked twenty years younger. He had a full head of blond hair, stood six feet tall, had been married to the same woman since the day he graduated from Harvard Law School, and believed in all the ideals of America. How he got into politics, Hart would never understand. Hart came from a family of politicians, but Elliott wasn't made in the same mold.

His family was a strain of men with so many skeletons in their closets that to go to the can they had to negotiate for toilet paper. Elliott's grandfather had been governor of California during the 1930s. He'd left a colorful legacy including some scandalous activities involving land deals and the Hollywood movie machine. Elliott's aunt had caused a major scandal in the political arena when she was discovered with a high-ranking official of a foreign government in a state of total undress. His father was a senator, serving on some of the same committees as Hart, and Hart had to constantly keep him from dipping into the till. Yet these people had produced Elliott, a trustworthy young man with boundless amounts of energy. And Hart would trust Elliott with his life.

"I had a great idea this morning."

Hart wondered if Elliott ever slept. Or did he dream of campaign strategies during periods when he should rest.

"Have you been watching the news?"

Hart nodded, glancing at the television with its mime figures. It was his duty to follow the news, listen to what everyone was saying. Often he used opinions for his benefit.

"Did you hear they haven't found any trace of that gymnastics champion?"

Again he nodded. This time his entire body tensed, but Hart was too good at hiding his feelings to let anything his campaign manager and friend said show on his outward countenance.

"She was in Korea at the same time you were in prison there. I thought we could pull this into the limelight somehow. Perhaps showing footage of her in the full arena during the Olympics and couple that with a reenactment of the daring escape you made the night the Americans took first place in that competition. It will tear America's heart out."

Elliott paced the room like some Hollywood film mogul with a new idea.

"I prefer to forget that ordeal," Hart said.

"Hart, it's perfect." Elliott sat down in a chair in front of Hart's desk. "Right now Olympic fever is sweeping the country. This campaign and those athletes vie nightly for the first and second spots on the news. When that girl went missing it would be the perfect combination. We could increase our percentage poll by at least a point--maybe two."

"We don't need a point, Elliott. We've got enough votes now to swing the election. As long as I don't do something rash like rob a bank or go on national television airing dirty laundry, I'll be president-elect come November."

Elliott stood up again. "It never hurts to play it safe."

"Elliott, when it comes to political candidates, the public has a thin layer of trust. Either they believe in them or they don't. In our recent past they've had plenty of reason to distrust the lot of us. It won't keep them from voting, even if they have to choose the lesser of two evils. I think we have plenty going for us right now. We don't want to kill our own campaign with distrust."

"What do you mean? Look at the polls. If the election were held today, you'd win in a landslide."

"And I'd have you to thank for it." Elliott didn't often need stroking to know he was a force in this campaign, but Hart understood that Elliott was a push-forward manager. He never looked back and he never stopped. He wanted to keep going forever advancing until the race was won. Hart often thought Elliott would have been a great coach for some sports team. They'd been friends a long time and Elliott's enthusiasm for winning had never wavered.

"We've got commercials running every hour," Hart explained. "Billboards crisscross the country, bus and subway advertising in all the major cities, speaking engagements so close together that any deviation in time schedule could collapse the entire structure. People can't turn around without tripping over something with my face on it. It's getting to the saturation point. Soon they'll notice that line they've drawn. The one that will make them question the reality of the campaign promise."

"Hart, you believe in everything we've said."

Hart nodded. "I do. But I'm not John Q. Public. The man on the street when inundated with information will often begin to question it. I'm saying we need to keep doing what we're doing, but adding a commercial that correlates me with Morgan Kirkwood may not be the best idea."

"It would be wonderful. And don't worry about the public. They believe what we tell them to believe. The good thing is it's all true."

Elliott left him a moment later, when one of the campaign workers knocked lightly on the door and whispered that he had a problem. Elliott was right on top of it. He would handle it, solve it and go on to the next item that cropped up. Hart was privileged to have him in his camp. He was an idea man, a visionary, a take-charge guy and a strong supporter.

As activity on the outer side of his door escalated to a new level of frenzy, Hart pulled a phone from his inner pocket and dialed. He didn't want to use the one on the desk.

"Is it done?" he asked without acknowledging either his or the receiver's identity. A second later he disconnected the call, returned the phone to his pocket and observed Elliott speaking into a phone in the center of the room.

Elliot's idea wasn't without merit. The use of Morgan Kirkwood's footage might add a few points to the polls, but it would bring him back to a time in his life that he didn't want to revisit.

 

***

 

Morgan sat in the Jeep next to Jack. She didn't know where the vehicle had come from. Jack offered no explanation and Morgan didn't ask for one. They hadn't talked much since leaving the convenience store. Morgan had her own thoughts to contend with. She wasn't comfortable with the trust factor, but she wasn't uncomfortable with it either. She knew Jack's orders would be followed. His voice on the phone had been no-nonsense. She could imagine people flying through doors and tires squealing as they jumped into cars and peeled rubber to get to Jan and Allie. She was still a little nervous for them. She wouldn't be completely comfortable until she knew they were safe.

Jack had talked of other things while he spoke into the phone. He hadn't mentioned the name of the person he spoke to, but she had listened to the one-sided conversation. Other than the safety of her friends, Jack had spoken about a meeting. They were on their way to it now. Morgan had to trust that if he could help Jan and Allie, he could also get her to safety.

She glanced at Jack. He didn't talk much, but she guessed in his line of work silence was a matter of course. His profile in the dark was strong, and Morgan admitted he looked better now than he had when they were in Seoul. And back then she thought he was gorgeous. She wondered if he still swam as often as he did when she first knew him. He had to be doing some exercise because when he'd kissed her she felt every inch of his body. It was just as hard as it had been in Seoul. His face had changed though. He'd lost an almost indefinable quality of. . . freedom was the only word she could use to describe it. He had more character lines in his features and he moved with an air of command, but he moved inside an invisible box. One that said, don't touch me.

Morgan felt a little sad. He reflected her own life. Both of them had been changed by that trip to Seoul. Somehow she knew it had begun there. When Jack entered a room, people noticed. They instinctively moved aside as he passed, sensing both the danger he radiated and the aloofness that set him apart.

Morgan knew these traits could also be a powerful aphrodisiac. It drew her to him. Without volition, her thoughts returned to the hotel bathroom and Jack's mouth crushing hers. Quickly she dashed thoughts going in that direction, but not fast enough to keep her body from flashing hot.

"Why did you decide to do this kind of work?" Morgan asked the first question that came to her addled mind.

"Tired of your own company?"

"A little," she admitted.

"You don't decide this," Jack answered. "You get recruited."

"Who recruited you?"

His head slowly turned and he looked at her with piercing eyes. She could even see them in the half-light of the Jeep's cabin. She knew he wouldn't answer.

"How long have you been at it?"

"Too long."

"Well, you must be very good."

"I thought you said I wasn't doing a very good job of protecting you."

She dropped her eyes a moment. "I've changed my mind." She looked up, but his expression was closed. "If you hadn't been with me I'd be dead by now. And I wouldn't have known what to do about Jan and Allie."

Jack swallowed. She noticed it, but that was the only change in him. She wondered if her life mattered to him or if she was only a job. He hadn't said it in words, and his actions in the hotel room resulted from anger and frustration at her withholding information from him. She could be misinterpreting his feelings, making things up in her own mind. Was she making too much of a simple kiss? The problem was, it wasn't simple. It was devastating. She couldn't forget it and at every turn it popped to the front of her mind, derailing her thoughts and making her intensely interested in knowing more about Jack. Maybe she was only a job. If he weren't here with her, he'd be someplace with someone else. The thought made her heart tighten a little and set her teeth on edge.

"Have you protected a lot of people?" she asked.

"Some," he said, volunteering nothing.

"Women?"

Again he let his gaze travel to her. This time slowly as if he had all the time in the world. Morgan held her breath. She wanted him to deny it, lie to her.

"Some," he said.

"Did any of them die," she hesitated, "while. . ."

"You're not going to die, Morgan. I'll make sure of that."

"You can't know that. We don't know what those people are thinking, how they found us the last time, how long it will be before they come again."

"I know my job. I do it well. There's nobody better that can do what I do." His voice had no vanity in it, no brashness or bragging. He spoke as if it were fact.

"Are you saying you're the best?"

"I'm alive," he answered.

Morgan shivered at the coldness in the statement. Jack was a force unto himself. A lone ranger. He worked with no one and relied on no one. He said it in every breath. He didn't need anyone and didn't want anyone. No attachments was his policy. The aura about him spoke it as loudly as cheap perfume.

 

***

 

Jack understood why we study history. The past never really goes away. It waits for you, waits until some point in the future when you least expect it to screw up your life. Then, there it is—ready or not. Without warning, it imposes itself, returns, forces you to face it, recognize it, and act, without the power of veto. Jack's past was here. It had to be dealt with. Sitting next to him, as they sped along the dark road in the middle of the night, on their way to a rendezvous point in western Ohio, was Morgan Kirkwood—his past.

It began on a night not unlike this one. He was driving back to the residence hall after a practice meet. He'd dropped off several team members who'd ridden with him and was alone in his car. He smiled to himself, as he'd done then. The team had won. They were all elated, high on Adrenaline and looking forward to conquering the next meet. Strange, Jack thought, how youth hadn't prepared him for the future. It had just happened. How could he have known, on that other night as he raced through the darkness, that he'd end up here? That the road to here wasn't a straight line. It went up hills and into valleys, around back roads and across superhighways. It took him past farmhouses, grass huts, into bug-infested jungles and through homes that cost more than the entire treasury of some countries.

What he'd told Morgan was true, although he'd glossed over the worst of it. He had been the bad boy type, but when it came to being bad, he'd done the worst. But not here, he'd done it in the name of the law, under the protection of the United States government, going into places the government couldn't go and doing jobs he couldn't speak of, jobs that had few or no records and dealing with people who had no names or faces. He hung alone, worked alone and all problems were his to identify, postulate and execute. His means were his own concern. He answered to no one.

And he'd been selected for his career because of a swimming meet. He didn't know who had been at that meet, but someone had seen him and recognized something in him. The man who actually approached came during his time at Olympic training camp. He'd simply given him a card with an address on it. No explanation, just a comment, "Twenty hundred hours, tonight. Speak to no one. Come alone."

He looked back now, not understanding how he could have been so naive. He thought it was some kind of invitation, that there was an initiation ceremony or even a hazing, like they did in college for fraternity pledges or some ritual for newcomers to the camp. The party he expected to attend turned out to be dinner and a long conversation with a man from the CIA, who offered him a job. The man told him they'd been watching him for some time, that he had all the qualities they looked for in good agents: physical ability, intelligence, aptitude and teamwork. They also needed someone who could swim.

Jack remembered returning to his room that night. No thought of practicing or where he was entered his mind. He only thought how weird the night had turned out and how strange everything had sounded, yet he had no doubt that the man he'd had dinner with was serious. He reviewed his own situation, his sisters, his parents, the loving home in which he'd grown up, how his parents struggled to give their children anything they needed, but not everything they wanted.

Jack thought eventually to follow in his father's footsteps and become a pharmacist. Today, after all he'd been through, all he'd done and seen, he couldn't imagine himself in a white coat filling prescriptions or even going so high as to becoming a doctor. What he looked forward to now, before he'd become immersed in Morgan Kirkwood's life, was going to Montana, fixing up his home, putting down roots. He might even get married and have children. His parents would like that.

Glancing at Morgan, he wondered what she wanted to do.

"When we get out of this. . ." he started, deliberately saying when and not if, ". . . what do you plan to do?"

"I don't know. Some part of me never thought it would come to this. The other part never thought about anything after getting to Washington."

"You'll be all right when we get there. Jacob is a good man. He'll protect you."

"You and he are good friends."

"We've spent some time together. I was best man at his wedding five years ago. He's got a kid now."

"Boy or girl?"

"Girl. Krysta. I've never seen her."

"Have you ever been married, Jack?"

He shook his head. He'd never even come close. His work didn't allow for relationships. Jack had met many women, most of whom had been hiding something or were part of some plot that involved the United States and its allies. He'd known they were agents. Morgan was the only one who touched him with her innocence. When she carried Hart Lewiston out of that prison and within the hour stood in front of the world, albeit with tears streaming over her face, as if she was strong enough to withstand the demons from hell, Jack had been more than over the edge. She was the only woman he'd ever come close to falling in love with and since then he'd hardened his heart to anything and anyone else.

Only when he'd seen Morgan and held her in his arms did all that hardness break as surely as a quarry stone is reduced to gravel.

"I've never been married either. Marriage was one of those things that wasn't one of my goals."

"I thought it was a goal of all American women."

"Only those that live the American dream."

Jack understood the way she said it that she felt the dream wasn't within her grasp.

"One more point," she went on. She turned in her seat to look at him. "Just for your information, I've also never had an abortion or been pregnant."

"I apologize for that." He'd been so angry when he found her trying to run away. He wanted to know who she was trying to protect. He still thought there was something or someone. "Your actions are the same as a person trying to protect someone. I thought I could get you to tell me who, and that would make my job easier."

He remembered his method. It probably wasn't the best, but he'd had little control when her saw her. Her skin, dark and slick with water, the smell of the soap and the way her face looked all clean and fresh and softened in the mist of the small room. Her hair was off her face and her eyes were huge and melting. He'd have to be a dead man not to respond to having her so close and wanting for twelve years to fulfill his fantasies. "The only person I'm trying to protect is myself," she paused. Then in a lower voice, she said, "I wouldn't want you to get hurt either."

"Thank you," Jack said. "We're going to make it." She reached over and placed her hand over his. Jack grabbed it and squeezed. For a moment they sat like that, the car silent except for the noise of the road and the wind and the singing of his heart.

 

***

 

Morgan heard it first. The sun had risen an hour ago, bringing the day into full light. Traffic hadn't picked up much. Three miles back the road split into two ribbons with a dense crop of trees separating them. Along the opposite side was a long-running bank of trees. They tunneled through them. Trapped. The place was perfect for an ambush and it seemed Jack had driven them straight into it. If someone wanted to lead them in only one direction or to kill them, this was a perfect setting.

"It's back."

"Yep," Jack agreed. "And we're sitting ducks."

Morgan craned her neck, looking out the front windshield, then the side windows trying to see the helicopter she could hear. "I don't see it"

"It's directly over us."

"What do we do?"

Jack didn't get to answer. A shell exploded in front of the Jeep. A flash of red fire and black smoke cut their ability to see. Morgan grabbed the chair arms and gulped air as the force of the blast pushed her against the upholstery. Jack fought the four-wheel drive vehicle, trying to keep control, maneuver around the pothole created by the explosion, and stay on the road. The Jeep fishtailed wildly as if it wanted to follow the laws of physics while its driver tried valiantly to break them. Gravel and twigs spit out from under the tires like shrapnel as they crunched onto the shoulder. Jack cut the steering wheel sharply and re-established the Jeep on the road.

"Why aren't there any other cars?" Morgan finally whispered. "Someone had to hear that explosion."

Jack accelerated. "It's my guess that somewhere ahead and behind us are road closed signs. It's a classic ambush technique. They let us pass through, then close the road at two ends."

Morgan narrowed her eyes, looking through the side window on Jack's side of the Jeep. The crop of trees was dense, but there were places she could see through to the other road. It was clear of cars and a cornfield ran along the road. It was only late May and the corn wasn't very high. It looked more like pineapple plants than com stalks.

Another explosion hit the ground. Jack swerved, guessing right as a chunk of the ground scooped out like a moon cleaving from the ground and hurled leftward.

Bullets rat-tatted against the ground around them. One hit the side of the Jeep and shattered a back window. Morgan screamed as she grabbed her head and leaned forward. Glass exploded inward.

"We're going to have to get out of the car." The odds of a bullet or something worse hitting a major system and the Jeep turning into a giant toaster were escalating. "When I stop, get out as fast as you can and go into the woods."

Morgan grabbed her backpack and slipped it on. She rolled the window down as Jack swerved right and left. Another shell exploded. Jack plowed into the trees and came to a stop. Morgan forced the door open and rolled out, Jack right behind her. She started running.

Low-hanging branches slapped him in the face. Morgan didn't stop going even though the branches must be hitting her too. Jack couldn't tell how far it was to the other end, but if the people chasing them were smart, and he knew they were, the other side was no sanctuary.

"Morgan, stop," he shouted. She slowed and turned. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to the ground. Together they listened for the helicopter.

Morgan looked up. "Do you think they can see us?"

"No, but I don't think it's safe—" He stopped, listening. The bird was overhead. He followed the sound with his eyes. It was flying away from them back toward the road.

Jack thought about their options. They could go back to the road and get the Jeep, but they would only have the road to drive on and he wasn't sure they could make it. Even the four wheel drive couldn't get through trees this dense. If they kept going forward, there was no telling what was ahead of them. He could almost guarantee they'd find men with guns trained on them. If they went sideways, the same fate awaited them.

Suddenly a powerful explosion shattered the air. Jack instinctively covered Morgan, pushing her to the ground. A second thunderous blast convulsed the air.

"The Jeep is no longer a means of escape," he explained when she looked at him.

Morgan's hand squeezed his arm. She faced the opposite direction, away from the road. "I hear voices."

Jack heard them too. "We have to go or they'll find us."

Pulling Morgan behind him, he ran straight ahead, parallel to the road. He wanted to come out ahead of the Jeep. About fifty yards later, he turned and headed toward the road. They had one chance. They'd have to get back to the road, cross it and hide in the trees on the divider median. If no cars were coming along the other side of the road, the median was their only refuge since the cornfield hadn't grown tall enough to hide them. It might not save them, but it would buy them some time.

He stopped suddenly. Morgan ran into him, but he kept them balanced. He placed his finger to his lips to keep her quiet. Then he listened again for voices. He could hear tree branches and leaves being beaten aside. They were gaining on them. He wondered what happened to the helicopter. He no longer heard the sound of the rotor blades. It could have left, but he doubted it. Jack hated being blind to all the possibilities of failure. And he didn't like surprises. But they had no choice but to keep going forward.

He signaled Morgan to follow him. They made it to the edge of the trees. They were ahead of the Jeep. The chopper sat on the blacktop, facing the burning hunk of metal, big and imposing and as nonchalant as if it knew there was nothing to worry about. Jack smiled. This was at least a bit of luck.

"Stay here," Jack told Morgan.

She grabbed his arm. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to get us a ride."

Morgan looked back toward the charred Jeep they'd traveled in and then at the helicopter sitting as new and polished as the day it left the hangar. "How?"

"I'm going to steal it."

"Jack, there's someone in that helicopter."

"I know." He patted her arm. "Trust me."

He left her, crouching close to the ground and moving like a sand crab. The pilot in the helicopter wasn't looking his way. He was facing the opposite direction, and unlike road vehicles, helicopters had no need for outside mirrors. Unless the pilot turned around, he'd never see Jack.

And Jack was counting on that.

 

***

 

Morgan watched with her heart in her mouth. The voices behind her were getting closer. She hid behind a tree, but kept Jack in sight. She was going to have to move soon or die right here. Jack was still hugging the ground and the man in the helicopter cabin glanced every so often toward the trees. Morgan's heart thumped in her chest. She prayed to herself, asking God, once her only friend, to please keep him safe and let his plan work.

Jack scuttled along until he would be in the line of the pilot's vision should the man turn his head. Jack waited. Morgan calculated the rhythm of the pilot's movements. It was basic human nature. People moved repetitiously, especially when they were waiting. Unconsciously they created a method of doing something. In this case, for the pilot, it was glancing at the crop of trees. He did it in forty-second intervals. Just sitting made active people bored. She thought the pilot was either bored or keyed up. He'd been throwing bombs, shooting at the Jeep and hanging over the field trying to do aerial reconnaissance. She was sure it took Adrenaline to kill people. He was probably on his way down now. She hoped Jack knew that and that Jack was also reading his rhythms.

The pilot glanced at the trees, then turned back. He looked down and bit a fingernail. Jack moved then, skirting behind the helicopter and stopping on the balls of his feet. He waited a while, longer than Morgan thought she could stand. Her heart was in her mouth and the sounds behind her, sounds that meant instant death, were closer. She froze, her heart thumping in her throat. She wasn't even sure she could move when it was time. Then Jack disappeared. She could only see his feet.

Morgan prayed again. The sound behind her grew louder. They were close, too close. In a moment they would be on her. She had to move. She looked back. Jack's feet had disappeared. Her glance flew to the pilot. He was gone too. Then a body fell onto the ground. It was on the opposite side of the helicopter. She couldn't see who it was and she couldn't wait any longer. Jumping up, she rushed for the helicopter, going toward the side where the pilot had been. Whatever was about to happen would be done now. Maybe if he had knocked Jack down, she could surprise him and give Jack enough time to recover. Before she reached the door, Jack jumped in the pilot's seat. Morgan's heart burst and her step faltered. A second later a man broke through the perimeter of the trees. Morgan felt him more than saw him. He shouted for her to stop. Her feet took off and she ran for the cabin door. He shot at her. The bullet came close. Too close. The sound took her back to the prison, and the fear of being killed welled up inside her like a monstrous weight that slowed her ability to lift her feet and run. She trained her gaze on the helicopter, making it her goal, and continued as fast as the nightmare would allow her. Another bullet came close enough to her feet to spike the ground, shattering the blacktop into pieces of tar as dangerous as an exploding grenade. A clump of pavement hit her leg. She stumbled at the impact, fighting to maintain balance. She kept going, her eyes still trained on the helicopter. She couldn't stop. She was too afraid. She felt the burning gravel raining against her pants legs.

Jack swung the door open. She jumped into the passenger seat and he took off. Shots rang out as they ascended straight up. Jack worked the controls, expertly getting them away from the bullets that sounded more like popping corn than the elements of death. Morgan strapped herself in, then hunched in the seat, expecting one of the pellets to burn through the cushioning and into her back any second now. It took moments, but felt like hours, before they were out of range.

"They can't hit us now," Jack said. "Not without a rocket launcher."

She let out a breath and slumped forward, closing her eyes and trying desperately to abate the fear that lodged in every cell of her body.

"Are you all right?" Jack asked.

She looked at him. "I'm fine," she panted, completely out of breath. She'd only been this scared one other time in her life and it was for the same reason--bullets bent on killing her. "My leg burns a little." She reached down. Her hand touched something wet. She pulled it back. Blood covered her palm.

"I've been shot."

 

CHAPTER 8

"Jan, will you stop that? It's getting on my nerves." Allie snapped at her friend. Allie sat on the bed in the two-room safe house playing solitaire. She was as bored and frustrated at being cooped up as Jan, but she was more used to waiting. Her profession often called for the hurry-up-and-wait method of working. Jan's however, was made up of constant activity. When Jan wasn't teaching, she was stretching or creating routines, going over the new or changed rules of the Olympic committee, doing books or ordering new equipment. Twenty-four hours a day her life was filled with activity.

"Stop doing what?"

"Pacing. That constant walking up and down. If you have to do it, go in the other room."

"I don't want to go in the other room. I don't want to talk to Agent Burton or Agent Tilden." She'd steadfastly refused to call them by their first names. "It's been two days. They virtually snatch us off the street, bring us here to the middle of nowhere, tell us Morgan is alive and that they're protecting us for our own good. Well I don't believe it for a second."

Allie got up and walked to the window. There were no bars on it, but they were so far away from anything that running was a useless endeavor. Allie hated being confined, but Jan was paranoid about it.

"Why don't we go for a walk or a run. We could both use the exercise."

"You know they'll follow us."

"Yes, but it will get us out of here." Allie hated rooms where the only place to sit was on the bed. She liked sleeping in beds, but sitting on them for long periods was uncomfortable.

She opened the door. The two men in the other room came instantly to their feet.

"We're going for a walk," she announced in her official actress-playing-goddess voice. Neither of them contradicted her. They reached for their jackets, which covered the gun harnesses each wore. Jan and Allie both had on T-shirts and shorts, clothes from the suitcases the agents had acquired when they checked them out of their hotel rooms and, according to Jan, imprisoned them here.

The foursome left the building. It was a beautiful ranch house in the shade of huge trees. The air outside was warm and comfortable.

"Has there been anything more from Morgan?" Jan turned suddenly and spoke directly to Max Tilden.

"No, ma'am."

"When do you expect to hear something? I mean don't you agents have to check in regularly?"

"I can't say when we'll hear anything. And yes, we do check in regularly." His voice was startled and formal. Jan loved that she could get on their nerves. She was usually a very nice person, but they'd taken her freedom and she was irritated by it.

Jan cursed to herself and walked away. Agent Burton followed her. She took off in a jog. He had to run to keep up with her and Jan knew he looked silly jogging in a suit and tie.

"She isn't always like this," Allie explained. "She's just a little. . .concerned."

"I understand. Your friend is in good hands. Jack Temple is the best. He won't let anything happen to her."

Allie smiled quickly, using every ounce of her acting ability not to let on that the name set off church bells in her brain.

She turned to continue walking, and so Agent Burton didn't have a full view of her face.

Temple! That was his name. Jack Temple! She had once known a Jack Temple and so had Morgan. It couldn't be the same man. Morgan had been attracted to him, although she thought no one knew it. Allie and Jan knew it, but neither spoke of it to Morgan. They'd learned the boundaries of their friendship and unless Morgan brought up his name, neither Jan nor Allie would introduce it. Yet they had discussed him without Morgan. Allie shook her head. Jack Temple was a swim coach in Seoul and now he was an agent protecting Morgan.

This couldn't be the same guy. But suppose it was? A sneaky smile crossed her face and Allie took off jogging.

 

***

 

There is always more blood than the wound calls for, Jack told himself as he looked at the widening stain on Morgan's leg. She might only have been grazed, but she could have a hole in her leg. Jack's hand shook on the stick he held controlling the chopper. The bird dipped slightly before he compensated. He had to land.

Morgan suddenly unstrapped her belt. With bloody hands, she pulled her shoes off and undid the zipper to her pants.

"What are you doing?'' Jack shouted over the noise. Morgan hadn't put on her earphones. She lifted herself from the seat and started pulling at her jeans.

"Taking off my pants."

"Why?"

"I need something to stop the blood and I need to know how bad it is." She continued to struggle in the confined space. "God, it hurts." She bit her bottom lip, holding herself still for a moment.

Jack tried to concentrate. "How much pain are you in?"

"It burns." She frowned, pulling the word out, making it two syllables.

Morgan peeled her jeans over lace panties. On the outside she might be all practical with black jeans and T-shirts, but underneath, hidden from everyone's view, burned the hot pink lace of the real Morgan. Jack turned his attention back to the operation of the whirlybird. Moments later he asked, "How are you?"

"I think it's only a flesh wound." She pulled her leg up, twisting it into a position that should have hurt, but he'd seen evidence of her flexibility before. He remembered her climbing both the rope in her basement and the tree not far from her house.

She went to press the denim into her leg. "Don't do that." Jack stopped her. "There's a first-aid kit somewhere." Morgan looked behind him and found it. She had to twist her body to reach it. Her breasts grazed his shoulder. Jack could have been an intake valve if the amount of air he took into his lungs was any evidence of the blatant desire that seized him when Morgan's body touched his. "You should find something in there to clean it with," he suggested, unable to keep from glancing at the long length of creamy legs that stretched the small length of the cabin. She smelled wonderful and Jack took a breath trying to hold onto the soft scent. She took a sterile gauze from the white metal case and cleaned the wound. Accidentally she brushed it across her leg. Pain seized her suck her teeth.

"What's wrong?" Jack asked. She could hear the concern in his voice.

"Nothing." She spoke through clenched teeth, but continued cleaning the wound until she could see the skin. It wasn't as bad as she thought. The bullet had ripped the skin, but it had not lodged in her leg. "I'll be all right," she said.

"It didn't penetrate?"

"It's a flesh wound, but it stings like the devil." She'd had a flesh wound before. That one had barely ripped the fabric of her shirt. This one would leave a scar.

"Wrap it with one of those gauze bandages and take a couple of the pain killers."

Morgan did as she was told, swallowing two of the pills without water. She put her bloodstained pants back on, strapped her belt and put on the earphones. The sound of the rotors was muffled and she could hear Jack clearly.

"This isn't the first time you've dealt with a gunshot wound, is it?"

She glanced at him, then went back to scanning the ground below them. "No," she said in monosyllable.

"Have you been shot before?"

She had. At least the clothing she was wearing had been burned by a bullet. Her arm had stung, and a layer of skin had been removed.

"It was one of my friends." She hesitated. "I'd been on the streets a while when it happened. Before I learned not to make friends. You know people out there, but you don't know them. We have our own code, an etiquette of life without boundaries." She spoke as if she was still one of them. "If anyone comes looking for you, nobody knows your name and nobody has ever seen you before. If you get sick or hurt, we'll all pull together to do what we can, but when we see you again, we won't even acknowledge familiarity. I had friends before this. We were the same, rejects of society, people no one wanted. Her name was Jean."

She stopped, remembering the young face of her friend. Often dirty, but always smiling, Jean should have been a him or a nurse. All she wanted to do was help people. The fact that they would smack her aside didn't seem to penetrate her young mind.

"What happened to her?" Jack asked.

"She died." Morgan didn't want to remember the night Jean died. She didn't want to talk about it, but Jack pushed on.

"How did she die?"

"She went for a catsup."

"Wrong timing?" Jack understood.

"Wrong timing," she confirmed. "We hadn't had anything to eat the whole day. We were hungry and had gone out to scavenge garbage cans. It was dark and late and children our ages should have been home snug in their beds." She delivered the last line with sarcasm. "We came down an alley and saw a couple arguing on the street. The man held a McDonald's bag in his hand. The woman suddenly walked off and the man threw the bag down in anger. When he stalked off, we ran and grabbed the bag. It was full and something fell out before we got back. When we opened it we gorged ourselves fast, eating with both hands, stuffing food into our mouths. We ate like it was our last meal, and it was since we didn't know where the next one would come from."

Each time Jack thought of her eating other people's garbage, his heart hurt. How could anyone let a child stay on the street?

"When our stomachs were full we started to joke. Jean said she wanted some catsup for her fries. We'd dropped it on the sidewalk as we ran away. She got up and shouted she'd go get it. I stayed where I was. A moment later I heard the shots. Someone screamed. I screamed. I got up and started running for the end of the alley. I got to the street. Jean hobbled toward me. She had a bullet in her leg. Blood ran into her shoes. She collapsed on me. I wanted to run for help, but she stopped me. I tore her clothes away, looking for the wound. The bullet had gone right through her leg. She refused to let me call the policemen who were arriving only a few yards away from us. She said they would send her home, call her father and he'd kill her or do something worse. So I tried to stop the bleeding."

Jack noticed her chin trembling. He'd never seen her do that before. Even when he knew she was scared, she always held her emotions so tightly there was no outward show of what was going on inside her. She must have really loved Jean.

"I got her back to our place. That's what we called it, 'our place.' It was a bunch of rags we spread out each night and slept on in a back alley in Southeast." Morgan stopped, taking a long breath. Jack knew she was fighting emotion, but it wasn't evident in the voice that continued. "Jean was delirious for three days. I was so scared I didn't know what to do. She got worse and worse each day. Finally, I couldn't wait any longer. No matter how bad it was for her at home, I had to tell someone, get her some help." Morgan stopped and swallowed. "I left her, went to the social worker, Sharon Peters, who'd been nice to me. I told her about Jean. She came immediately, calling a doctor from her car and telling him to meet us at our place with an ambulance."

Jack saw Morgan's eyes glistening, but there was no sign of tears in her voice.

"It was too late when we got back. Jean was already dead."

 

***

 

Morgan remained quiet after she finished her story. She hadn't relived that story in decades. Yet she felt as if it was always with her, that just as easily she could have been the one to go for the catsup and end up dead in that dark alley with no one to care.

After Jean died, Morgan never lived on the streets again. Sharon Peters took her home with her and Morgan stayed there until Sharon died of cancer just before Morgan's eighteenth birthday. Before she had the meeting in the big conference room at the CIA.

At Jean's funeral, her father stood by her casket and cried. He looked grieved and tired. Morgan should have felt sorry for him. What she felt was anger. People shook his hand and said kind words in soft tones. Morgan glared. She knew it was all an act. Behind closed doors, out of sight of the world, he'd abused his daughter. Jean hated him. She would rather die in a dirty alley, taking her chances on the mean streets and back alleys of a world that no child should ever see, than stay in his warm, comfortable home in Richmond, Virginia.

Sharon Peters had taken her to the funeral and afterward returned her to her own house. She bought her new clothes and let her sit for hours in a bathtub full of sweet-smelling bubbles. She'd fed her huge meals and given her pocket money. Morgan accepted it all, squirreling it away for the day when she was back on the streets.

Losing Jean had left Morgan feeling empty and guilty. She'd waited too long. She should have gone for help sooner. She shouldn't have taken Jean all the way back to their place. It was her fault. Sharon understood her feelings, even though Morgan hadn't said them out loud. Sharon spent time with her. She took days off from her job to make sure Morgan was all right. She hugged her a lot and told her stories. Morgan resisted her love. She tried to hold herself aloof, but Jean was gone and there was no one. With her defenses at a low point, she let it happen. She let Sharon take her into a kind of life that would never really be hers. People like her lived on the streets and it was only a matter of time before she would be back there.

But she let Sharon hug her and hold her and she let her guard down for a moment before she'd quickly pushed it back in place. She knew it was unwise to begin to like someone who wasn't part of her street world. Eventually, they would throw you back to the sea of the unwanted. But Morgan didn't run away from Sharon's house. She was scared. Sharon voiced her feelings for her.

She knew Morgan thought it could so easily have been her they buried instead of her friend. Then Sharon told her she would keep her safe, always protect her. She could live with her for as long as she liked, having food and a clean place to sleep. She could go to school and make friends. It was a foreign world, but one that Morgan longed for as much as she wanted to be one of the girls in the pretty jeans she'd seen in the torn newspapers she slept on at "her place."

She stayed and Sharon kept her word.

 

***

 

Jack should pity Morgan. Her life was so different from the way his had been. She'd had nothing, but somehow she didn't ask for pity. She accepted what had happened to her. She didn't wear it on her sleeve or force the world to pay for it. She accepted what she had to and went on.

He'd spent most of his adult life in jungles, serving the government, going where he was sent and doing his job with quiet and unobserved efficiency. But he had a choice. At any time he could have left the jungle and returned to his quiet suburban home. Morgan's jungle was without end.

Jack checked the fuel gauge. He needed to find a place to set down. They'd used this as long as they could. It wasn't like he could have it refueled and continue on. He checked the ground. The land below was green and hilly. He wondered where they were. Morgan had thrown his concentration out the window by just being close to him. She didn't have to do anything. When she undressed in the small area and he discovered there was nothing seriously wrong with her, his mind had gone straight to her shapely legs and not to the airspace in front of them.

The story of her friend had taken something out of her. Jack glanced to his side, checking to make sure she was all right. She looked tired. They needed to find a place for her to rest, although if he mentioned resting, she'd protest that she was fine and didn't need to rest. Jack wondered how long she'd been living so close to the edge as she was now. From what he could tell, it had been since that night in Seoul. That was longer than anyone should have to. He knew some agents who could exist on half that amount of time.

He'd been flying low, but then radar didn't usually track helicopters anyway. But with all the navigational and computerized equipment onboard, not to mention the gunwales, this bird was strictly military. It wasn't new, however. More like salvage, something the government moth-balled or sold. So why would a military aircraft from a foreign government be trying to kill an American gymnastics champion twelve years out of the field?

Jack thought Morgan was beginning to trust him. She'd told him more about her life than he figured she'd ever told anyone else, except maybe her adoptive mother. He was glad she told him. It made him understand her need to survive. Underlying everything about her, he could tell she thought her entire life was a temporary situation. That no matter the notoriety or how solid a place she stood, everything would be yanked from her and she'd be back on the streets. It had to be her greatest fear, that "place'' where Jean died, where life was ignored by people who had adequate food and clothing and where no one wanted to acknowledge these were people.

Jack wanted to take her in his arms and let her know she would never be one of them again. She'd gotten out of that and there was nothing that could pull her back into it. But he knew you couldn't tell people these things. The fear was inside them, ingrained from the hard knocks of experience. They had to let it go like an unwanted emotion. It had to come from the inside. No one else could make it go away. But he'd be there—

He stopped.

He wasn't going to be there. When they got to Washington, when this was over, Morgan would get a new life. True, she would never have to worry about the basic necessities of life, but he wouldn't be part of her existence.

The thought sobered him, but couldn't keep the sharp pull that settled around his heart from tightening.

 

***

 

Morgan's leg smarted more than she thought it should for just a flesh wound. Jack had nearly lifted her out of the cockpit and she'd hobbled to the cave, refusing to let him carry her. He'd gathered some wood and dropped it in a pile before disappearing to hide the helicopter. She didn't ask how you hide a thirty-foot black bug with a wing span of at least fifty feet, just as she hadn't asked him if he could fly it. There were certain things she just accepted that Jack could do. She didn't know why, but her experience had shown her that there were times and people she had to take on faith. There weren't many of them, but Jack was one. Faith, she thought. He made her believe they could survive.

Morgan reached over and grabbed some of the wood. She may as well get a fire started. The cave was damp and dark and a fire would add both light and warmth. Plus it would give her something to do other than worry that Jack would get caught and leave her alone.

She steepled the wood over a base of twigs surrounded by small rocks she gathered inside the cave. Then she lit the twigs and the branches caught on. Morgan hugged herself, feeling as if the coldness was seeping inside her.

"How's your leg?" Jack returned, dropping another armful of wood onto the cave floor.

"It's fine," she lied. It still hurt. She should have taken a pain pill while he was gone. She hadn't thought of it. She'd been too busy worrying about him. If she reached for them now, he'd know she'd lied. "Where are we?" she asked instead of concentrating on her leg.

"I'm not sure. I think we're somewhere in southern Ohio. These hills are the outskirts of the Allegheny Mountains."

"Do you think we're safe here?"

"For the time being," he nodded.

Morgan lifted her leg and bent her knee several times. Her leg had begun to stiffen and she wanted to keep it flexible.

Jack looked around. He grabbed her backpack and set it in front of her. "Take one of those migraine pills. It will help with the pain."

Morgan opened her bag and took out a bottle of aspirin. "This is better," she said. She swallowed two pills dry.

"Let me see it," he commanded.

"I can't. My pants are too tight."

"Take them off."

His eyes came up as slowly as his voice had been. They met hers directly. "It's not like I haven't seen you without them."

"But then your hands were busy."

He said nothing, only waited for her to comply. After a long moment, she stood, opened the fly and slipped the pants below her knees.

Jack checked her leg. His touch was impersonal, like those of a doctor, but for Morgan they were hot and sexual, caressing her skin as he examined the wound. Keeping his eyes on her injured leg, Jack opened the first-aid kit and found a sterile cloth to clean away any debris. Satisfied with his work, he nodded to her, applied an antibiotic and tightly bandaged it.

"All done, you can pull your pants up."

Morgan did as she was told. Yet she knew he saw the red-colored flush that covered her entire body.

She sat down, stretching her sore leg in front of her.

Jack faced her. He spread his hands toward the fire. "I'm going to have to go and find us some food and water soon and another form of transportation."

"I should wait here?" She attempted humor, but her voice came out strained.

Jack nodded.

Morgan knew she couldn't walk a long distance. Her leg hurt, but she wasn't an invalid. She would be fine in twenty-four hours, back to normal for sure in forty-eight, but right now she'd be an anchor around his neck. They wouldn't starve or dehydrate in that amount of time.

She knew Jack wanted to get in touch with Washington. He needed that more than he needed the food and water.

"How far do you think the nearest town is?"

"Ten miles, I'd say." He glanced in the direction she assumed he intended to go. "I saw one as we flew over. If I'm lucky I'll be able to hitch a ride."

She looked at Jack over the fire. It turned his face slightly red. "Thank you, Jack."

"For what?"

"For saving my life. For rescuing me. For helping me remember. I planned this escape alone, but I'm awfully glad you're here."

 

***

 

The urge to move next to Morgan and take her in his arms was so strong Jack had to summon superhuman strength to keep his place.

"It's a life worth saving." He thought to pass it off as a joke, but his words came out dead serious. His gaze stayed locked with hers for a long moment. She broke it first, dropping hers to the fire. "How'd you start the fire?" he asked.

"Old Indian trick. I used two rocks to create a spark."

He shouldn't be surprised at her resourcefulness. He'd seen it over and over. She, who'd left her house without even a lipstick, could survive in the wilderness with assassins on her trail.

Morgan reached into her backpack and held up a cigarette lighter and a book of matches. "Survivor's bag."

He smiled and she did too. God, Jack thought, he was in love with her. He stood up. Her eyes followed him. They were hungry eyes. His had to look the same. He didn't even try to hide what he felt. He took a step toward her. She started to get up.

"Stay there," he said. "It's time I started for town." He walked toward the door of the cave. Morgan got up anyway.

Jack wanted to help her to her feet, but knew if he touched her, he wouldn't, couldn't stop there.

"Would you leave me the phone?"

He looked tenderly at her. "It might be compromised, but other than that, it won't work without me. It needs both a thumbprint and a code."

She nodded and he saw the slightest amount of fear enter her eyes before she blinked and it was gone.

"I thought if anything unexpected happened, you would have a way of reaching me."

He pulled the phone from his pocket and handed it to her. "If I call you, it will be an extreme emergency."

She nodded.

"Are you sure you'll be fine?" Jack asked.

"Absolutely," she said her voice forceful. It told him she was capable of surviving on her own. Jack tried to read her voice to see if there were any telltale signs that she was putting on a front. She could be lying. She was good at it, but just as he wanted her to trust him, he had to trust her too. He knew with her leg she could run, but she couldn't get far.

He hesitated, giving her a long look. He wanted to kiss her and the look in her eyes told him she wanted it too. He stopped himself. There was no relationship for them. She was a job. He had to keep her safe until he could turn her over to another authority. Then she'd disappear behind a door and he would never see her again.

"You're sure?" Jack asked instead of moving toward her.

She nodded.

"Stay near the fire. Once the sun goes down it will be cold in here." He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a small gun. "If anyone comes near you, use it."

She looked at it as if it was a snake with its fangs open and ready to strike.

"Do I need to show you how to use it?"

She took the gun flat in her hands. "No," she said. "I know how to use it."

Jack could hear, in the words she didn't say, that there was a story in between her sentence. He didn't have time to pursue it The place they were in was safe, but Jack needed to get in touch with Washington and he needed to find another form of transportation. He also knew Morgan. He couldn't get her to tell him a story she wasn't ready to tell. He had to wait until she felt it was time to reveal another part of herself, a time when she was ready to open a scab and let the sore bleed out.

 

***

 

Jack had walked only two miles before finding a pay phone. He made one call and moments later the Dodge Caravan slowed along the road and stopped near him. The interior light came on as he got inside the minivan. The sun and its red and gold rays fell behind the emerald green hills in the valley where he'd left Morgan. The cave would be pitch black now except for the small fire she'd made. Jack didn't like thinking of her alone there, but he had to do this.

"Good to see you again, Ben." Jack leaned over and shook hands. Ben Laurini retired from the CIA two years after Jack joined. He'd befriended Jack the first day Jack walked into the training facility, and on more than one occasion something Ben had taught him came back when Jack found himself cornered and facing some serious form of death or mutilation.

"It's been a while," Ben said. "Glad to see you though. I've been looking for you for a while. I got a call from Brian Ashleigh himself. He too thought you might be in the area."

Jack thought someone might have called him. Even retirement didn't really mean retired when a fellow agent was in trouble. Ben was that kind of guy. He'd taken retiring from the field hard, but adjusted at the training facility. When he moved into full retirement and returned to his native Ohio, he'd taken to life as if he savored every day the good Lord gave him.

"How's Olivia?"

" Olivia's fine. The kids and grandkids are all doing well." Ben got the small talk out of the way quickly. "Your sisters?"

"Everyone is fine." He grouped his four sisters and parents into one complete sentence.

"Did you find anything?" Jack asked the question both he and Ben knew he wanted answered. He'd called Ben when he went to the helicopter. Using the on-board radio, he checked to see if Ben was still using his short-wave radio. Thankfully, he was and Ben told him he'd already been contacted. Jack arranged to meet him.

"I only had a short time, but I found out Miss Kirkwood's gym partners are being held in a safe house. They are concerned about her. It might be a good idea if you let the young lady call them. And I'm sure the two agents protecting them would appreciate it too."

Ben reached in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. "Remnant from a past life," he explained.

Jack took it. he would call Morgan if he trusted the phone he gave her, but she was alone and they'd been ambushed once already. "Anything else?" Jack asked.

"The people on the highway were long gone before anyone could get to them."

"What about the helicopter? I have it hidden back near the cave. We should be able to find out something from it. It's definitely military."

"I've already made the calls. They'll get the bird tonight. By morning you'll know everything it knows."

 

***

 

Morgan shivered in the cave. The fire was too small to heat the cavernous area. It gave her rudimentary light, throwing vast, grotesque shadows against the jagged rock. She felt the darkness close in on her. Fear made her tremble.

Jack had been gone a long time. She wondered where he was and when he would return. Paranoia made her think he'd abandoned her. Like her mothers, both of them. They'd left her in the world to make her way--alone.

She hobbled outside. Morgan hadn't exercised in days and she felt the need to move. Of course, running for her life, climbing trees, and into helicopters in motion, wasn't the same as cartwheels, swinging from uneven parallel bars or tumbling around a carpeted floor. With her leg cramping her ability, she concentrated on upper body exercises. She stood on her hands and balanced her weight above her head. Going up and coming down on her good leg worked fine for several minutes. Then inadvertently she fell on the bad leg. Biting her lower lip, she held the scream inside.

Getting up, she tried it again. She remembered her coach's words that she could do it if she put her mind to it and even if one part of her body was hurt, the other parts worked fine. But out here in the dark, where could she find something uneven or even parallel so she could try her routines? She had nothing. So she made do with handstands and floor stretches.

Usually her mind was totally absorbed in her exercise. She'd review the routine or recited affirmations, but now she thought of Jack. She couldn't help it. No matter what she tried, since he came back into her life she could think of nothing else, especially after he kissed her in the bathroom. Her mouth tingled when she thought of that. Her body had been hot and she could feel every inch of him pressing into her. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. She'd forgotten that in the light of what he said, but she knew Jack wasn't as immune to her as he pretended.

She even wondered if his reason for going into town was to give himself some time away from her. If they were leaving in the morning there was no need for him to go and get supplies. They could live one day without food. Her stomach growled at that moment reminding her she was hungry.

Morgan went on trying to do exercises, but with her mind on Jack she kept coming down on the wrong leg. Finally she gave up and sat down.

The sky was dark, light coming from a half moon and stars that rained overhead like tiny points of glitter spangled in the darkness. Many nights she'd spent this way, alone with only herself and the stars for company. She hadn't thought of anyone other than herself. Before she'd befriended Jean, her next meal was her only concern. Now she thought of a man—Jack.

Then Morgan did something she hadn't done since she was twelve years old. She lifted her head to the heavens and wished on a star.

 

***

 

Jack took a cart from the rows of interlocking metal carriages and headed for the produce section. Ben had left the van with him. He hadn't told Jack how he was getting home and Jack hadn't asked. Camping supplies filled most of the back cabin. The gear could act as a cover and be functional. Again he thought of Morgan in the cave. She could use the blankets that sat on the back seat.

Jack also stopped in a store to gather a few things Ben hadn't had time to gather. They needed real food. He'd found a tin of Olivia's coconut macaroons which Ben knew he was partial to. He'd buy a ready-made salad and a few non-perishable foods.

One wheel squeaked as he pushed the cart. He considered returning it for another, but stopped, refusing to break one of his own rules. Only travel the distance once, he'd told himself over the years. This was a get-in-and-get-out situation. He wasn't here to compare prices or socialize with a neighbor he hadn't seen in months, who happened to turn one end of an aisle as he turned the other. He was here to grab what they needed and return. If he was lucky no one would remember he'd ever been there.

Equally lucky for him, the store was one of those gargantuan places with aisle upon aisle carrying everything from what a person would need to diagnose most ailments to swimming pool supplies. Bananas and Mrs. Smith's Apple Pie could share space in the same grocery cart with a color television, a bottle of white wine, work boots and books. Stop and Shop, the outside sign had read. Jack saw it as a true definition of one-stop shopping.

Besides the salad in Jack's cart he added bottles of juice, water, some carrots, Parmelat milk, crackers, a pair of work pants for him and a T-shirt advertising the Cleveland Browns. He thought of getting a matching one for Morgan, but stemmed the idea as too suggestive of a relationship. Instead he got her a pair of long pants and a plain shirt. His eye for size was perfect, especially after his hands had sized her from neck to hips, but he picked up a sewing kit anyway, in case the fit needed adjustment. On his way to the cash register he threw a comb and brush combination in the basket and stopped in front of a wall of cosmetics. He selected a tube of lipstick. Women could exist without a lot of amenities and Morgan had yet to complain of their hardship, but makeup was one commodity that rivaled food as a basic necessity of life.

On the same shelf as the lipstick Jack knocked down a box hanging from a metal extension. He bent over and picked it up. About to return it to its place, he hesitated. The box contained condoms. Pictures of Morgan naked in the bathroom flooded his mind like a reel of film. He gripped the cart tighter and hesitated, staring at the box. He lifted his arm to replace it on its metal arm, then stopped. A second later he threw the box into the cart.

"What the hell?" he muttered. It was better to err on the side of safety.

Jack obeyed all the rules of the road on his drive back to Morgan. He couldn't explain his feelings at being separated from her. He thought of her constantly, wondering if she were all right. Grabbing the lipstick, he held it in his hand. It was as close to her as he could get.

 

***

 

When he returned he parked the van and covered it with as many branches as he could find. Carrying the bag with their food, he could see no light coming from the cave as he approached it.

She didn't come to the mouth of the cave when Jack approached. It was dark inside and anyone coming to do harm would be at a disadvantage until their eyes adjusted to the darkness. Morgan was smart. She'd know that.

"Morgan," he called her name.

"It's me, Jack."

The lipstick was still held in his. His heartbeat accelerated. Had she run away again? His legs unconsciously moved faster. He rushed toward the opening. He was sure the bullet wound would hurt her too much for her to run.

"Damn!" he cursed. She was probably lying when she said it didn't hurt. She knew one of them was going to have to go for food. She planned this all along.

"Jack." He heard his named called and swung around. She hobbled toward him, the gun in her hand.

She'd pulled her hair loose and it fell about her shoulders. Her face was outlined in the darkness. He took a step closer. The night was dark but there were still shadows softening her face. Jack controlled the breath he let out. He had to stop himself from charging over and pulling her into his arms, burying his face in her hair and taking her mouth as if the two of them needed to share the same breath.

"I brought some blankets."

"In that bag?" she laughed, indicating the grocery bag he carried.

"This one contains food. Are you hungry?"

She stood up. Jack noticed she favored her bad leg. She came toward him.

"Famished," she said, but the look Jack saw had nothing to do with nutrition and everything to do with sex.

"This is a job, Morgan." Jack turned and put the bag down, then faced her. "It's not a romance." The words seemed flat. Who was he trying to convince? He'd bought condoms. He could feel the small box pressing against him through his pants leg.

"What makes you think I'd want a romance with you?"

Jack sighed, then walked toward her. He could see her reaction. She wanted to run faster than any jackrabbit he'd ever seen, but she was a fighter. She'd stand her ground for as long as there was breath in her body. Well, he'd show her how much breath he could steal.

"The way you look at me."

"And how is that?"

"Like your body is ovulating and I'm the last piece of chocolate candy on the planet."

 

CHAPTER 9

"I do not," Morgan protested, her voice shrill and high.

Jack took another step toward her and stopped. He'd seen her movement. It was slight but recognizable. He admitted she was good-looking, more than good-looking. At nineteen she'd been a budding beauty. Today, after running for her life, everything about her was alive and vibrant and eager for someone to hold her. He continued, walking all the way up to her until he was so close he could feel the fire between them. It was red and living, swirling, ready to consume, to take the life out of them with its oxygen-eating force. Jack waited, saying nothing. He wanted her to look at him, lift her head and look into his eyes. He knew she'd do it, knew she couldn't help but do it. He was patient. His life was built on being patient. Finally, she raised her eyes and her head. He let the moment linger, looking at her, running his eyes over her features like a lover ready to take what was his. Then he leaned closer. Neither his mouth nor his body touched any part of hers. There was nothing between them but want and need. She swayed forward. He watched her eyes close and her body begin to melt. Her arms came up to grab hold of him to prevent her from falling.

"You're a job, Morgan. This is not a romance," Jack said, knowing what her reaction would be.

He stepped back as her eyes flew open and she regained her balance. She glared at him through storm clouds of emotion, then stalked off into the darkness as much as her leg would allow.

As the darkness swallowed her, Jack let his breath escape. God! To say she didn't have a stranglehold on him was like saying the blood in his veins was ice water. She positively drove him mad, but the only way the two of them would survive is if they never crossed the line. He'd tasted Armageddon more than once, but with Morgan there would be no reprieve. She was leaving when he got her to Washington. Jacob would give her a new identity and a new life. They would never see each other again. Even if he left the CIA, he couldn't go with her. Jack knew it. It was unfair to both of them to get involved, to begin a relationship that had no future. It had been the pattern of her life. People leaving her. He didn't want her to think of him as one of the others, someone from her past who'd come and gone.

She'd be devastated and he'd—. Jack didn't want to think about what he'd be when this was over. He wanted her more than he'd ever wanted any woman. He'd come damn close to having her in that hotel bathroom. He'd wanted to ravish her then and that want hadn't diminished by a single iota. His only refuge was to keep his head and stay on his side of the line.

 

***

 

Morgan was past angry. She sat on the ground, hugging her knees to her chest and rocking back and forth. Jack brought out the tiger in her and he seemed to do it on purpose. Why had he intentionally begun a fight? She'd done nothing, but they couldn't be together without some strong emotion occupying the same space. Jack was determined to make that emotion anger. She wondered why.

Morgan checked the sky for a possible answer. Earlier she'd been wishing on a star, now she wanted to know why Jack—

She stopped.

"He's afraid,'' she said out loud. He was afraid of her. Why? Every time she got near him, he retreated.

Morgan didn't have time to discover the answer. Something dropped in her lap and she jumped. Jack stood outlined in the darkness three feet from where she sat.

"Morgan."

She looked at what he'd dropped. It was makeup, lipstick, a comb and brush.

"You thought about me," she said, not bothering to keep the incredulity out of her voice. It followed right in with the train of her thoughts. Jack never bothered with anyone, but when he went out he'd thought enough to bring her back lipstick and a comb.

"They were at the checkout stand," he covered, with a slight lift of his shoulder. She saw the movement in silhouette.

"Why are you afraid of me?'' she asked, voicing the thoughts that were uppermost in her mind.

"Why do you think I am?" His question was asked slowly as if he were buying time, trying to figure her out. He didn't know her as well as he thought he did. Maybe he'd read her file. She didn't know what was in it, but she was sure it existed somewhere in the annals of the CIA.

Morgan got to her feet. She moved toward him slowly. Her leg hurt but it was secondary to her purpose now.

"You push me back each time you have to touch me and you take serious measures not to touch me."

"I don't want to complicate things."

"We're running for our lives, Jack. Things can't get more complicated."

He stared at her but didn't answer.

"If we get killed all complications end, so it can't be the threat to our lives you fear. Tell me what it is?"

Jack didn't move, but Morgan noticed his shoulders move slightly. "You know Jacob Winston?"

"Not personally. We've met once."

"When we get to D.C., what do you think will happen?"

Morgan looked away. She hadn't wanted to think about getting to D.C. She knew she and Jack would part there and while her life was on the line here, she was still with him.

"I hoped I'd be safe."

"How do you think that will happen?"

"I don't know. I guess I'll find out what the FBI is going to do."

"And if they could do nothing?"

"Why are you asking me all these questions?"

''Morgan, Jacob Winston is the director of the witness protection program. That's where you're going when I get you to Washington."

So it wasn't her. He was afraid of her leaving him. Could she be right?

"Then you're not as impervious to me as you claim," Morgan challenged. She started toward him.

"Back off, Morgan. You're way out of your depth here."

Morgan didn't back off. She couldn't say what pushed her. She was so tired of Jack acting like he ruled the world. Her world at least. He made the rules and she was expected to follow them. Well, she wouldn't this time. Something inside her wanted to know that he wasn't all stone and granite, that he was human. That his control could either meltdown the way hers did.

Jack stared at her, his eyes hooded and as impossible to read as always, but this time Morgan didn't care. This time she was determined to have the upper hand. She went toward him. He didn't move back, but she saw him react as if he wanted to. As quickly as it happened it was gone. He was in control again. A fragile control and she knew it.

"Let's test my depth," she said. She grabbed the snap on his jeans, releasing it and the zipper in one smooth stroke. Her hands moved faster than he thought or he was more surprised than anything else when she plunged them inside his pants and surrounded him. He was already erect. She'd known it, but the proof gave her more confidence, more power.

Out of pure reaction and self-preservation, Jack's hands grabbed Morgan's shoulders, crushing them so tightly she should have screamed. She didn't even feel the pain. Not in her shoulders. Not in her leg.

"Morgan, stop!" His voice was a wail, like a wild, wounded animal. She ignored him, raking her long fingernails over the rigid length of him.

"Tell me," she whispered, keeping her voice intentionally controlled, intentionally low and seductive. "Tell me, Jack."

Jack's knees bent and his head fell on her shoulder. She supported his weight, continuing her torture. She knew he was human, knew he wanted her. He'd told himself he wasn't human for so long, he believed it. She refused to let him continue to think like that. She'd force him to know the truth, just as he'd forced her to see it.

His breath on her neck was hard and ragged and his hands would probably leave bruises on her shoulders.

"Morgan, please stop." He pleaded with her.

"You don't want that, Jack," she told him, continuing that seductively low voice, a whisper and a caress in one. "I know what you want. You want me. You've wanted me since that first day at Olympic training camp. I could see it in your eyes.''

"You're wrong." His words were stretched apart like a person who was learning to speak the language and struggling to remember the right combination.

"I could see it in the way you looked at me when you didn't think I noticed. You kept me in your sight as if we were would-be lovers with business ahead of us."

"I did nothing. . .of the. . .kind." He faltered.

"Didn't you, Jack?"

"That's not the reason."

"If I'm wrong, Jack, if we have no unfinished business, why don't you stop me?" She moved her head back, giving him access to her neck. He groaned. "Why don't you pull my hands away?" She'd worked his jeans and shorts down. Her hands touched his hot skin, drawing circles over his buttocks, teasing the skin as she brought her hands closer and closer together, closer and closer to the sensitive point of his erection. "I'm here, Jack." Her tongue licked his flame-incensed shoulder. "I want you." She kissed his collarbone. "Take me, Jack. Take me."

"You don't know what you're saying."

"I do." As harsh as his voice was, she kept hers velvet, dark and caressing like a summer night.

His hands squeezed tighter on her shoulders. The pain registered and she winced. Quickly he released her and like lightning grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands away from his body.

"You want me to make love to you," he stated. His eyes bore into her like a drill. "It wouldn't be love, Morgan. It's lust! Do you hear me? Pure and simple lust. And in its most basic form."

She didn't have the use of her hands, but she had her body. She moved into him, making contact. Her breasts hovered against his chest. She spread her legs and let his erection find its home. His groan was muffled but she heard it.

"I'm not in love with you," she lied. Then she raised her head until her mouth was only a kiss away from his.

Jack's body was a mass of connected coils, but he was down to a single thread holding it all together. Morgan frayed that thread until an electron microscope would be needed to see it, but it held. One more rub and it would snap. She wouldn't cut it. He had to do that. He had to be the one to make the final step. She wouldn't make it easy for him. She wouldn't back off, step away, give him the chance to fall back into that safe world where there was no feeling, no emotion, no love.

"Morgan," he groaned and yanked on the wrists he held, pulling her forward. His mouth slammed into hers, rough and hard. There was no softness in him. His tongue rushed into her mouth and his hands banded her to him. He took the kiss as if decades had passed since he'd kissed anyone. Everything about him said there was no escape for her. She'd asked for it and she was getting what she demanded.

His hands moved over her clothes, ripping them from her and raking over her skin like claws. She felt their roughness on her breasts and shoulders as her T-shirt and bra were replaced by large hands. His mouth left hers and traveled over her neck. His teeth scored her skin, punishing it as he went to her breasts. His teeth closed over her nipple and she cried out at the pleasure that fissured through her, spiraling inside her and settling between her legs.

Her hands held his head, keeping him there, allowing him to torture her as she had done him. She knew he was trying to prove himself right, that he wasn't making love to her. That this was lust, pure and simple, as he'd told her. Basic, he'd said. But she knew better. She knew nothing like this had ever happened to her before and the experience for him was new and wonderful and full of promise. But promises weren't something Jack understood or relied on. He couldn't give to another person. He had no practice in trusting another person and to completely lose control as he was doing was something he would want to stop. He would stop too. She wouldn't let him. Morgan clamped her arms around his neck and molded herself to him, sliding her injured leg up and down his, feeling his hardness against her increase, listening to the groans that passed from his mouth to hers.

Jack held her crushingly tight, bending her backward as his mouth devoured hers. On one leg, she clung to Jack to keep from falling. She set her leg on the ground oblivious to any pain. His hands moved all over her. Burning heat surrounded her. She could almost see it glow in the darkness.

Jack had to be out of his mind. There was nothing else to explain it. He should stop. Now! But he didn't want to. He'd dreamed about Morgan, awakened in frustrated sweats from the erotic fantasies he'd shared with her. Not one of them compared to what was happening to him now. No dream could match her softness, the way she felt in his arms, the way her smooth skin contrasted his rough hands, the way her soap smelled on clean skin.

He was lost, over the edge, unable to do anything more than dive into the pool she'd created, make her his, keep her close and love her. The time for turning back had passed. He had to keep going. His chance to keep control ended when Morgan unsnapped his jeans.

Jack's leg pushed her foot aside and he lowered her to the ground. Quickly he kicked his jeans away and pulled his shirt over his head. He removed her jeans and shirt without finesse, yanking the pink lace panties down and over her long legs, giving no reverence to her injured leg.

At the last minute, he grabbed his jeans and pulled a foiled condom from his pocket. He sheathed the latex over himself. Then he was on top of her, thrusting himself inside her. She would have screamed, but his mouth clamped to hers and he swallowed the sound.

Morgan thought she was lost when Jack had first kissed her, now she knew what he meant. He was a beast and she his willing victim. He held her arms above her head as he thrust stroke after stroke into her. She was helpless to stop the unleashed animal. And she gave what she got, lifting her hips and taking him further and further inside until she was sure the two of them would split into equal halves.

Morgan pushed him over, rolling on top of him. She took the role of aggressor, vowing not to let him think she wanted to turn their struggle to tenderness. Jack would expect tenderness. She wouldn't give it to him. She'd give him what he gave her and he'd love it. She lowered herself over him, then began her ride. She rode him long and hard, her body joining with his. His hands took her waist, guiding her, completing the dance they both wanted to go on and on. Her heart beat fast and she thought it would burst with the sensations that flowed through her. She'd known life before, known love before, but after tonight, after being with Jack, nothing would continue the same.

And she wouldn't want it any other way.

 

***

 

Jack hadn't been this close to tears since he was eight years old and lost his first swimming meet by mere seconds. He rolled away from Morgan the moment the explosion he knew was inevitable between them shattered the night and he calmed down enough to move. He wanted to get away from her. He didn't want to discuss what had just occurred between them. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to admit that it had touched him more than anything else that had occurred in the past thirty-seven years.

He sat with his back to her, his head in his hands. Behind him he could hear Morgan's soft hiccups as she tried to regain her breath. He didn't have much time. Two minutes, three at the most, before she turned to him, before she touched him. He didn't want her to touch him. That's how this had started. And it was his fault. He could have stopped it. Why hadn't he? Why did he let her put her hands on him? And why did he let it go on?

"Don't do it, Jack."

He heard her soft voice, the one that sounded like warm brandy on a cold winter night. The one that sent chills down his spine and wrapped his resolve around her finger.

"Don't crawl back into the shell. It's broken, shattered. There are too many pieces to put back together."

Jack swung around and stood up. He took her hands and pulled her to her feet.

"Get dressed," he said.

He pulled on his pants, not bothering with his shirt. When Morgan had on her T-shirt and was trying to put her leg in her pants without falling, he grabbed her sneakers and lifted her off the ground. He carried her back toward the cave. Her head fell on his shoulder. She was light. Much too light for the strength she'd shown today and too light for the weight she'd pulled from his shoulders. She didn't know she now carried it.

 

***

 

Nothing remained in the cave. Jack had cleared it earlier, moving everything Morgan had left there to the SUV before he went looking for her. He'd unrolled sleeping bags for them to sleep in, but now figured they'd only need one. He carried Morgan to the SUV.

"Where did this come from?" she asked as Jack set her on her feet.

"I'll explain it later," he said. He punched the security pad on the key and the back door unlocked. Pulling it open, Morgan looked inside. "You'll be warm tonight." Her head snapped around at him. "The sleeping bags." Still the look in her eyes seared through him, leaving him unable to look away. Morgan stepped in front of him. She was barefoot and wearing no pants. Jack looked at her upturned face. She was beautiful and no light complimented her more than the moonlight casting soft shadows across her skin. Hair, framing her face, turned silvery and he wanted to comb his fingers through the mane he knew was thick and soft to the touch. His breath became shallow. He controlled it with a practiced skill.

He liked the way she made him feel, but she was right, it also scared him. She had a power he'd never before felt, one that made him both strong and weak at the same time. It made him want to be with her, yet ready to run away. Want to protect her, yet afraid of the threat she presented to his heart.

Morgan still stared at him as if she were waiting for him to make a decision. Jack had no choice. He wanted her as much now as he had in the past, moments ago, ages ago, a lifetime ago. He leaned forward, removing the small space that separated them and pressed his mouth to hers. No part of her body touched him, only her mouth. Sensation ballooned inside him and the heat they seemed to generate like the beginnings of a nuclear explosion sprang up, surrounding them with its swirling heat

Tenderly his mouth brushed over hers, seeking, testing, tasting what was his for the taking. But Jack wouldn't take. He wouldn't plunder. Morgan was strong, but she was also fragile. Contradictions raged through him as his tongue moved past her teeth and he drank of her well. Where had she been all his life? How could he know she existed in his world and not fight the forces keeping him from her? He wanted to grab and pull her against him, but he held back.

He raised his hands and touched her face, still keeping their bodies apart. The fire around them glowed red, taking the air between them and creating a vacuum that sought to pull them together. Jack kept them in place, positioning his mouth over hers and accepting the slow torture that surrounded his heart like an emotional noose. He never knew his life was incomplete until this moment. With this woman he understood the forces of the universe. His previous experiences had lacked the understanding that she was where his life headed. That around them were an infinite number of circles, no beginning, no end, only the continual revolution that brought them together. Running away made no sense. He couldn't run from the emotion, from the torture, from the love.

Jack took the step then. His heart nearly burst as years of running away from her slammed into him like the ghost of himself finally meeting his own destiny. His hands moved to Morgan's waist and he pulled her against him. She wore only her shirt, which hung to her thighs. He slipped his hands under it to feel her skin. It was hot and soft and his hands melted into her. He groaned at the sensation that arrowed through him when her hands slowly ran up his chest and connected behind his neck.

Still he kept the pace slow, although the effort was herculean. She was a gymnast. Her body had been sculpted through exercises, shaped to give it the strength it needed to perform on the various pieces of equipment, but Jack didn't think of that. His thought was of the way her frame fit into his, as if some divine hand had found the separate pieces of a mold and brought the two of them together to form a whole.

Jack felt whole, complete. He walked Morgan backward to the SUV. At the open door, he lifted his head and looked at her. Her face was soft, and a mini-smile lifted the corners of her mouth. Jack's heart constricted. She climbed into the SUV and lay on the sleeping bag. It was darker inside since he'd parked it in a secluded area and concealed it with tree branches. He could still see Morgan. His eyes read every inch of her body. Everything about her was aerodynamically wrong for gymnastics. She was too tall, her breasts too large, but Jack loved the combination. It was perfect for him. Jack pushed her T-shirt up one inch at a time as he kissed the silky skin it uncovered. She was a wondrous map which he planned to explore. He heard her gasp when his mouth touched her. Her hands caught his shoulders and she tried to draw him upward. He wanted to go, wanted to delve into her, but he forced himself to savor the moment.

There had been an explosion earlier tonight. He wanted to commit every moment to memory this time. He wanted to know the sweetness of the torture she went through, carry them both to the brink of madness before consummation. He only hoped he could do it. His own body was rock hard. Blood pulsed through him like an out-of-control cyclone.

He pulled Morgan up and removed the T-shirt. She kissed his bare chest, running her hands slowly over his skin, leaving trails that could have been molten flame in her wake. Jack clamped down on a groan. Her hands came down. When she reached the top of his jeans, he knew their power, knew what would happen if she took him in those wickedly wonderful hands again.

He kissed her as they sat, his fingers exploring her back and taking pleasure as she arched toward him whenever he moved his hands over her. He spanned her small waist and moved upward to cup her breasts. She opened her legs then and moved to sit over him. No space separated them, not even the absent light could have sought space. The kiss went deeper as her mouth demanded more. He shifted from side to side, kissing her, tasting her, devouring her mouth like a long drink of cold water when the temperature soared over the ninety degree mark. He wanted more and more of her. Kisses weren't enough.

Jack pressed her back and removed his jeans. He slipped one of the condoms over him and joined with her. Jack heard her sigh of pleasure as he settled between her legs.

God! This is heaven, he though.

Everything Jack had thought about taking his time was lost the moment his body connected to hers. Pure sensation, lust, wanting, need, love took over and he could think of nothing other than the combined pleasure that two people could give each other. Not any two people, specifically Morgan Kirkwood and Jack Temple. Her body was made for his. His blood pounded and his heart beat and his senses told him she was different, more than any woman he'd ever slept with. Making love was something that didn't happen often, and while he'd thought he'd made love before, nothing compared to the woman in his arms, in his bed and in his body. She'd insinuated herself inside him, stolen into his pores when he wasn't looking and taken up residence. She was here for the duration. There was no going back after this.

Morgan was the Rolls-Royce of his life and he thanked the heavens he'd found her. He called her name as a sudden rush like an approaching tsunami pounded within him. Lightning flashed inside his head and drove him like a madman. Her body accepted the force of his as the wave topped him and crashed. His release was like falling from an airplane. The ground rushed upward but the parachute saved him and gently set him on the ground.

Morgan's arms were his lifeline. She hugged him, slipped her sensual hands over his heated skin, as she rained kisses over his face. Jack was as weak as a man recovering from a long illness, but he knew the Morgan sickness which had invaded his body was something that had no cure.

And he didn't want one.

 

***

 

The house glittered white in the sunshine. It was one of those monstrosities left over from the Jazz Age or some age that never seemed to fall completely out of style. The rich passed them around like Faberge eggs, changing the interior once a decade to make it seem as if it was part of the present. The place should have been demolished years ago and a shopping mall put up, but it had survived to be decorated according to the taste of its present owner, who favored a Far Eastern motif. All the windows and doors had been covered with opaque sliding panels. He always felt as if he were entering a tomb when the doors slid in place behind him.

There was practically no furniture in any of the downstairs rooms. Some of them had a couple of steps leading down to a floor of gravel, which was carefully raked for evenness. Trees of odd shapes grew inside and appeared green no matter what the time of year. It was as if the owner never wanted the outside world to touch him, so he built his own world within the walls. Never having been above the first floor, he wondered if there were beds or if some other unexpected forms were used there.

He stopped the car at the end of the driveway, which stretched three miles from the road to culminate in a circle around a fountain. Atop it stood golden dragons spouting water in the four directions. A long sigh escaped him as he got out of the car. He hated coming here.

He got out of his car in the circular driveway and looked at the sky. The day was clear, warm, a hint of the humidity that could descend on the place without warning was in the air, but he wasn't uncomfortable in his suit and tie. The water dragons spouted at the relentless sky, arcing rainbows in the light.

His steps were heavy approaching the door. He had bad news and he never knew how it would be received, but whether there was quiet or explosion, he knew underneath was a seething heart that had no compassion, no conscience. He had little either, but he did draw the line at cruelty to animals and children. He'd never be involved in any operation that preyed on the innocent and defenseless. Children should be protected and maybe they wouldn't grow up to be like him.

He rang the doorbell. It was immediately opened by a maid who said nothing. She admitted him and showed him to one of the downstairs rooms. He'd been in this one before. This one had a floor, instead of a rock garden.

"What do you mean they got away?" The old man received the news badly. He slammed his fist down on the oriental antique desk. A jade pencil cup danced in a circle on the black polished surface and a carved-ivory-handled letter opener jumped out of its tray to lay flat on the wood. "She's an amateur."

"I doubt amateur is the word to apply to Ms. Kirkwood. She was ready for us. She'd planned her escape. Had a way out fully orchestrated and she executed it beautifully. Exactly like she did in that prison twelve years ago."

"Maybe," the other man said. He got up from his desk and came around to face his adversary. "What about the Indiana house and the highway? She couldn't have had a plan there."

"She had help there and the man she's with is no amateur."

He secretly admired Morgan Kirkwood. She was a fighter, determined to stay alive, and so far she was succeeding.

"Who is he?" the man demanded.

They didn't know, but he wouldn't admit that. "As far as we can tell he's an agent. What branch, what government, isn't clear. Ms. Kirkwood is as patriotic as they come. I'd say he's U.S. He could be a cop or military, even FBI. No one else could have pulled off his stunts without a high degree of skill, training and experience."

"I don't care who he is." The man's hands disappeared inside the huge sleeves of his robe. He wore these garments inside the house. During the rare times he left this house, he wore the standard suits of the western world. But inside this sanctuary, the outside world didn't exist until someone brought it in. Unfortunately, he was that messenger. His voice was low. He had to strain to hear him clearly. "I want them both found and then I never want anyone to hear from them again. Do I make myself clear?"

The other man nodded.

"Either she's dead or you are."

 

***

 

Nothing was more erotic than a woman sleeping, Jack thought as he watched Morgan. A long T-shirt, exposed legs, just the shadow of promise, revealing skin beneath the fabric. The bandage on her leg remained intact, but in no way did it obscure the shapeliness of form, balance, and proportion that defined not only her body, but also her mind.

Jack's body got hard.

The sun had risen, but he hadn't disturbed Morgan. He'd left her to go for a run, returning to find her still asleep. Since then he could only sit and watch her. The covering over the windows he'd used to camouflage the SUV kept the inside dim. He reached over and smoothed the hair away from her face. She stirred, but didn't awaken. He let her sleep. They should leave soon, but he enjoyed looking at her. It had been too long since he'd simply looked at a woman. He'd known women who scrambled to get to other places and women who cooked breakfast in the morning. He'd known women on assignments, when time was of the essence, but he'd never run with a woman and he'd never felt the way he did with anyone, except Morgan.

She appeared vulnerable in sleep, like a child needing protection. Jack was surprised by the swell to his heart when he thought of her.

She reached up and touched his face, smoothing her fingers between his eyes. "You're frowning," she said. Her voice was the morning-after-sex voice. It grabbed him and wove a spell that told him he wanted her again. "What were you thinking?''

Jack took her hand and kissed her fingertips. One finger slipped into his mouth and he sucked it. "I think you sleep beautifully," he answered.

Morgan smiled and raised herself up enough to slip her arm around his neck. Jack held her, closing his eyes. He drank in her scent, the smell of her hair, the warm cologne of her body, the lingering after effects of a sexual encounter. He wanted her, not just now, but for always. Yet he knew it couldn't be. Holding her a second longer and squeezing her to him, as if to imprint a memory he could take out and hold in the coming years, he pushed her back.

"We have to go soon. You must be hungry."

"Your hair's wet," she said.

"I found a stream about fifty yards from here. If you need some time alone it's over there." He pointed toward the front of the vehicle.

Morgan left after pulling on her clothes. Jack got their food out from the previous night. He cleared the sleeping bags, feeling the warmth of Morgan's body in the blankets she'd left behind. He wanted to hold onto it, keep it for the future, but like a soft wind it would escape. He set the salads out and pulled drinks from the cooler Ben had left for him. She was gone a long time. Jack was about to go after her when he glanced up and saw her returning. He stopped still, straightening from his task.

She walked slowly, coming toward him. Her leg must not have hurt much any longer, for her limp was less evident than it had been the previous night. For a moment everything slowed down and he watched openly as she approached. She mesmerized him. He couldn't move his gaze away, not even able to pretend he wasn't looking. He stared—outright.

A single tube of lipstick and a comb and brush had transformed her from the country girl, all wheat and morning sunshine, into a glowing, raving beauty. Her eyes seemed brighter, larger. Her mouth wore the dark color and her face radiated an inner glow. He wanted to go to her, take her into his arms and make love to her again. The night had been more than he'd imagined life offered. The two of them had scaled mountains, soared into the heavens beyond the moon until they entered that corporeal area where time and space ceased existence, where only the few and the very rare are ever allowed. Yet with her, with Morgan Kirkwood, he'd found it. Together, they had crossed over the line, past the spot marked with the X and discovered something so beautiful that defining it wasn't necessary. They'd experienced it and to recall it they only needed to touch or feel or think and it would be there.

Jack kept watching her walk toward him. Her arms swung slowly forward and back at her sides. Her head moved and her hair swung about her face like a focus ring that kept him trained on that one area of the landscape. He knew never again would he be able to look at that place where they'd gone as a couple, a unit, a set, two lovers alone. Without her he could never go there and the urge to experience it over and over was towering. He wanted her with him every day, every step of the way, for always.

At that moment Jack knew he was in love with Morgan. She complemented him, brought out qualities that were more than a job, even one where he cared about the principles behind it. She showed him lands he'd never expected to see, took him to heavenly mountains he didn't know could be viewed by mortal man. He wanted her again, wanted that feeling again, that ultimate trip, a journey that could only be made with her.

Nearly incapable of speech when she stood in front of him, he couldn't resist the urge to touch her. His hands brushed her arms lightly and he stepped close enough that she had to look up at him. He leaned toward her gently, holding himself in the greatest check he'd ever done. Then he kissed her, tenderly, cradling her in his arms, hold her like a work of art so fine and so delicate that she required the greatest care.

Jack wanted her again, wanted to make love. He knew tomorrow was their enemy and that time for them had become finite. He crushed her against him, feeling the blood in his body rioting through his system, knowing the imprint of her smaller frame outlined against his.

He was only a thread away from undressing her when he heard her stomach growl. The sound was like a huge hammer striking a boulder. He couldn't remember the last time she ate and he knew her migraines would return if she didn't get some food. With an effort greater than the forces needed to pull down a mountain, he slid his mouth from hers, but kept her in his arms for just a little longer. He inhaled, knowing that even if he were blind he'd be able to pick her out of a crowd by the distinctive fragrance that spoke her name. It was as identifiable as fingerprints. Slowly he pulled back, letting his hands run down her arms to her hands. He held them a moment and smiled, then stepped back, allowing the space between to calm his chiming nerves.

He reached into the SUV and picked up the plastic containers of food. She curled her feet under her as she leaned against the vehicle wall and took the salad they'd left untouched the night before. Jack went to the small cookstove and poured two Styrofoam cups of coffee. Giving her one, he sat opposite her with his own meal. The dressing had made the lettuce soggy, but they ate it anyway. Morgan drank deeply of the juice and coffee. Jack carefully opened a single packet of sugar and dumped it into his cup. Then he slipped the torn-off top into the bottom and dropped both into a small plastic bag. Morgan watched him. He didn't meet her eyes, because he didn't want her to see what was in his.

"Jack, where were you born?'' Morgan asked as she finished her salad and set the plastic container aside.

It wasn't the first time Jack had heard the question, and it usually came from a woman. The planted story Jack usually told sprang quickly to his memory. He had an alias, many of them, and reading the situation or direct orders usually told him which one to use. Morgan wasn't an order and she'd proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she wasn't just a job.

He couldn't give her the company line and he couldn't wave her off with one of his fabricated aliases. All that remained was the truth. She deserved that. She'd had so many lies in her life. He couldn't heap another one on the tottering pile.

"Lexington, Kentucky," he answered with the truth.

"We're not that far from Kentucky. Do your parents still live there?"

He nodded. "My dad retired last year. He was a pharmacist.''

"And your mom?"

"She's a lawyer. She still practices, but only takes cases that interest her."

Morgan smiled. "That's wonderful. I thought about that once."

"Being a lawyer?"

She shrugged. "Being helpful," she paused. "What about brothers? Sisters? Do you have any?"

"Four sisters. They're all married with children."

"That's nice." This time her smile had sadness to it. "You must have wonderful holiday reunions."

Jack only nodded. For reasons he knew would conjure up her own poor memories of holidays, he refrained from giving her details of the Christmases he'd spent with his family, the summer picnics or family ski trips. Jack's life of late had been all jungle and farce. He'd forgotten the happy times, put them away to deal with day-to-day needs, but they were there, waiting behind a door he only need open to remember and relive.

Morgan's doors to the past were locked, entombing memories she fought to hide. He doubted any of them would make her smile.

"Tell me about Jack?" Morgan broke into his thoughts.

"What?"

She looked up. Her brown eyes were huge and filled with wonder.

"You know everything about me. I only know that you exercise, eat salads instead of junk food, neatly tuck the torn-off tops of sugar packets inside the bottoms before throwing them away.'' She glanced at the sugar packet. His eyes followed her lead. "I know"—she hesitated suggestively—"almost nothing else." Stretching her leg toward him, she ran her toe up his leg. "So tell me about Jack."

Jack hesitated. He couldn't help it. It was both habit and ingrained teaching. He didn't talk about himself. Often he turned the conversation around to gain information from the other person, but today he was going to tell Morgan what she wanted to know.

"My childhood was normal. I did all the things children do, summer camp, winter sports, braces on my teeth, extremely shy of girls."

Morgan laughed. She turned sideways, pulling her legs up and banding her knees with her arms. Jack liked the way her hair fell around her face. She looked as if she was a child and he was telling her a fascinating story.

"Our family gatherings were always happy," he continued. "We get together during the holidays and I attend when I can."

"How did you become interested in swimming?"

"When I was eight my parents put a pool in our yard and I spent all my free time in it. I joined the swim team in high school and chose my university because it had a first-class team. While in college I was asked to join the Olympic team."

"As a coach?"

He shook his head. "As a competitor." He looked at her wide wonderful eyes. He wondered why he'd never noticed how expressive they were.

"I would have been in high school then," Morgan added.

"I turned it down."

"You did!" She nearly sat up straight.

"Not immediately. I went to the training camp." He told her the story of his experience at the camp. And his fateful dinner with his recruiter. "They offered me a job."

"But you were only in college," she protested.

"I remained in college, but I turned down going to the Olympics." Jack had always wondered what he would have done if he'd made the other decision. During lonely nights in the jungles or while hiding in the hot sands of some foreign country, he had thoughts of how different his life might be if he'd turned down the CIA and gone on to try for the gold medal.

Morgan, ironically, had made the same decision. She'd done exactly what he did, but her choice took her to the limelight, center stage of the world. Not only did she complete her mission, however bad the circumstances, but she went on to show the world that she was championship material. Jack admired her for that Even the tears she cried when it was over didn't take away from the strength of purpose she needed to do what she had done. He wasn't sure his masculine and supposed greater physical strength could have matched hers if he'd been in the same position.

"When I graduated I went to work for the police department in Chicago. That's where I met Jacob Winston."

"Did he recruit you?"

"Jacob works for the FBI. He didn't recruit me. He left Chicago for Washington a few months after I joined the force. We had become friends and have stayed that way." Jack didn't elaborate on who had actually approached him. It was a story he didn't tell. Not even his family knew how he'd gone from police officer to Middle East expert. Somehow he wanted Morgan to know the truth.

"I stayed with the department two years. The city changed drastically in some areas. A huge number of Koreans escaping oppression in their own country settled in an area called Little Korea. It was my beat. I picked up the language enough to communicate with the locals. Then people started dying in that area. A serial killer targeted Koreans. The city was in an uproar to find the killer. Factions split along racial lines and the newspapers were increasing circulation with stories on the ineptitude of the police force or its lack of concern due to racial ethnicities."

"I remember that," Morgan said. "It was my first year in college. There was a Chinese student in my dormitory. She did some modeling to pay her tuition. So many people mistook her for Korean. They asked her a lot of embarrassingly racist questions."

"I was assigned to the detective in charge because of my knowledge of the language and my friendship with some of the people. We found the killer, the husband of one of the victims. He was trying to cover up the death of his wife by killing other innocent people."

"How did that get you into the CIA?"

"Shortly after the trial ended I took a few days off. I went up into Michigan. I was to meet some friends and we were going skiing. Instead of meeting them, a man named Brian Ashleigh was waiting for me at the cabin we'd rented. He laid out the plan for me to join a special forces group of the CIA and I've been there ever since. When Brian moved I moved. He's the director now. I still work for him, although indirectly. I report to Forrest Washington, director of anti-terrorist activities in the Middle East."

"How did you end up a swim coach?"

"It was a cover. They assigned me because of my former status and because I'd been tapped by the Olympic team. If you failed to get Hart out, we were your backup. We were going in even if we had to storm the place."

"The information he had must have been sterling for so much effort to go into his rescue."

Jack knew no one had ever told her the complete truth of what Hart actually had in his head. Jack couldn't tell her now either. It was still classified information.

"It was," he said, without committing anything.

"I guess it's lucky we got him out. Look at where he is now."

 

***

 

Brian Ashleigh stared at footage he'd seen hundreds of times. He didn't see the need to go over it again, but Jacob had been excited when he called. Brian leaned back in the rose velvet chair at CIA headquarters. His eyes were heavy and he wanted to go home, but he watched the flickering image of Morgan Kirkwood singing the national anthem.

"I don't see anything I haven't seen before, Jacob." He rubbed his eyes. "I can watch this on the nightly news. I don't need to use this room to see it."

"That's right, Brian. We've seen it so much we don't see what's there. Look at her hands."

The film started again. Brian stared at the screen. Morgan went through the routine prior to her last one. It was on the floor. She moved quickly and competently. Brian knew this routine well enough to perform it himself, but he gave it his undivided attention, taking special note of her hands. When she finished the minute-and-a-half exercise summary and raised her hands to salute the judge, there was nothing special about them. They had a little chalk on the palms, but nothing extra. No cuts or bruises. Then the film moved to her last routine. She ran toward the beam and did the now-famous somersault with her special precision landing onto the apparatus. Since that time, every gymnast in the world tried to duplicate that same action.

Brian leaned forward, studying her hands with new resolve. Something about her right hand was different, but she kept moving it. Then the routine ended. The sound of the crowd exploded in the room, but Brian could clearly see she wore a ring. The spliced film went on to the singing sequence. Morgan clutched the roses to her breasts as she sang. Tears flowed down her cheeks. Brian recognized the photo that had made worldwide news. Only this time he could clearly see the ring on Morgan Kirkwood's finger, an addition that had not been there during the floor exercise, but had appeared for her next routine.

"That's got to be it," Brian stated aloud, coming out of his chair as if the small auditorium had just been filled with flying bullets. "I want that segment of the film blown up in detail."

"I've already had that done," Jacob told him. "The ring is that of a Korean emperor. If it's not a reproduction, it's extremely expensive and no one in Korea would have given it up voluntarily. According to the report I've received, the ring was lost. The president gave it to his wife on their wedding date. It's assumed the ring was stolen."

"How did Ms. Kirkwood come to have it?"

"I don't know."

"She didn't have it going into the prison," Brian said. "Directly after getting Lewiston out she was taken back to the Olympic Pavilion. She had to have gotten it somewhere between the two. The only stop she made was at the prison."

"Why would such an item be in the prison?" Brian asked.

"I guess that's the next question in the riddle."

"Riddle?"

"Brian, why is Morgan Kirkwood such an important person?"

"She isn't."

Jacob stretched his long legs out in front of him and, resting his elbows on the chair arms, and threaded his fingers together. "I sat in a conference room with the two top people responsible for defending the laws of the United States, discussing a woman who shouldn't have as much clout as that kind of meeting would require. Now who is she?"

Brian glanced at the control room and both he and Jacob left. They didn't speak on the way to Brian's office. Inside, Brian closed the door. Both men sat in front of the desk.

"We thought we had everything under control before we sent Ms. Kirkwood into the prison. In truth, nothing went right from the moment she entered the facility. The blueprints we'd received had never been updated. New walls existed that weren't in the plans. Surveillance equipment had been installed that was unknown to us. She went in blind."

"I'm sure that kind of thing has happened before. It doesn't make her a top priority for two phases of law enforcement twelve years after the fact," Jacob commented.

Brian sighed. He knew Jacob was thorough and that he was extremely perceptive. He'd often wanted him on his team, but Jacob's allegiance to his job and to Clarence Christopher were deeply rooted.

"She's the granddaughter of a very powerful man," Ashleigh said.

"I thought the report said she had no family. That she was adopted as a homeless child."

"It does," Brian admitted. "We didn't find out until she was well into her training."

"Does she know?"

Brian shook his head. "Neither does her grandfather, but we have to keep her safe nevertheless."

Brian wondered if Jacob was quick enough to know that protecting her under the auspices of the CIA meant under orders to do so.

"How come her mother never told her?" Jacob asked.

"We don't know. She was left alone as a child. She could have been too young to remember. When she came to work for us she was a legal adult."

Jacob nodded.

"Who's her grandfather?"

Brian wasn't required to reveal that. It wasn't germane to finding her or to keeping her safe. Her grandfather's ignorance of her existence and Ms. Kirkwood's ignorance negated any reason to reveal the association. But Jacob had come to him with the ring. It was the only link they had and it gave him more information than they'd received since Jack disappeared in St. Louis.

"Supreme Court Justice, the Honorable Judge Angus Lewiston."

"Hart Lewiston's father! Morgan Kirkwood had gone into a prison and saved the life of her own uncle and neither of them knew it?"

"Hart Lewiston is not her uncle," Ashleigh corrected.

"He's her father?" Jacob's face showed more surprise than Brian Ashleigh had ever seen him display.

"If Hart Lewiston wins the election, Morgan Kirkwood becomes the First Daughter."

 

CHAPTER 10

Ohio Route 821 intersected Interstate 77 at Exit 6. Jack brought the SUV to a stop at the highway entrance. He waited longer than necessary at the road sign. Morgan expected him to consult the cache of maps he'd stored in the pocket next to the driver's door or two. She heard no paper rattling and Jack made no move either. She looked right and left before turning to face him, a questioning frown on her face.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"South leads to Kentucky and my parents in Lexington. East leads to Clarksburg, West Virginia, the closest FBI office." Morgan was reluctant to go to the FBI. Instinct told her something was wrong. The road between here and there had few places to hide. If they got into trouble, there would be nowhere to go. On the other hand she didn't want to do anything that might put his parents in jeopardy. Morgan knew Jack had never laid his problems at their door.

"Which way are we going?"

Jack hugged his arms around the steering wheel and looked her way. "It's your call."

Morgan's lips turned up in the corners, but she didn't say anything. She looked at the road, first left, then right. Jack had once told her she had no say in what he decided.

She wanted to choose Lexington. She would have if their lives were normal. If they were two lovers sightseeing in mountainous beauty she would love to meet his family. She wanted to see his parents, see if she could see Jack in their faces. She wanted to meet his sisters and their children, but this wasn't a normal situation. They weren't vacationers out for a good time.

"West Virginia," she said after a moment.

Jack made no protest, no comment on her decision. He headed up the entry ramp. Pulling into the light flow of traffic, he turned the radio on. Static poured out loudly. Turning the volume lower he pressed the Scan key. The first station the electronic device found was a country station. Bonnie Raitt's whiskey-hoarse voice sang "Something to Talk About." Morgan usually sang along, even going so far as to dance around her kitchen when this song played. Today she sat still.

She sat with her private thoughts for a long time. Jack was quiet too. Morgan wondered what he was thinking. After last night when the two of them had made love with such abandon, she wondered if he regretted it. When she got to the FBI what would happen? She knew she couldn't say she wanted to go to Kentucky. She wanted to go to the ends of the earth as long as the two of them could go there together.

"Who's going to meet us at the FBI?" she suddenly blurted out.

"Brian Ashleigh and Jacob Winston."

"Have you talked to them?" She swallowed hard as if the office was only a mile away and they'd be parting within the hour.

"No," he said.

How could they have shared last night and he turn her over today as if she were some rag doll? Didn't last night mean anything, or this morning? He was there when she opened her eyes and she had the feeling he'd been watching her for some time. Her hair was still wet from the pond she'd used to wash up. The water was cold to touch, but she submerged her body in it. She needed to defuse the temperature gauge that Jack had the ability to elevate. The pond was clear and beautiful and she suddenly wanted a bath.

She felt great when she returned to the vehicle, and the way Jack had looked at her, she thought they were on the right road. That the two of them would have a future together. It had been a long time since she thought of a future, and in her circumstances it was almost laughable to think that the two of them could have anything together.

"Jack, take the next exit." Morgan sat forward suddenly and pointed.

"What?" His foot was already on the brake and the SUV was slowing.

"Go toward Belpre."

"Why?"

"We can take Route 14 from there."

"Where does that lead?"

The green and white sign said they were one mile from the exit.

"We're going to get the ring," Morgan told him. "It's what you've wanted all along. I told them about everything I saw and did. The ring and the papers are the only things I held back. That's what I took from the Korean jail. The pieces I never gave to the CIA."

Jack took the exit when it came up. He turned the SUV south and drove until he saw the junction for Route 14.

"The town is called Clay," she informed him. "It's small and sits near the Elk River."

"This is where you hid the ring?"

"It's where it's hidden. I was wearing it during the final rotation of the competition. During the interviews I kept my hands under the desk."

When she saw reruns of that film, she looked nervous. Of course, she was nervous, and it hid the fact that she was hiding her hands.

"I thought you'd never been in this part of the country."

"Why would you think that?"

"The way you act. The way you look at it."

"I've been a lot of places," she told him. Morgan understood what he meant. It was the wonder element. She'd seen it on her own face and that of other competitors when they went to competitions and then got to see cities they hadn't been to before. It was the wide-eyed wonder look. Morgan knew she had it. The land was beautiful and the moonlight last night had been breathtaking. She couldn't help seeing beauty in the things around her, and Jack was a contributor to that beauty. Her eyes were open a little wider today and she looked at the world as birds flying in the sky and corn waving along the road. It wasn't just scenery blurring past them, life moving at the speed of light, it was specific. She wanted to see every blade of grass and listen to the cry of the birds performing their own acrobatics.

"I've been to Clay once. I only stayed for one night."

Jack rubbed the back of his neck, stretching tired muscles. "I'm not even going to try to figure this out. Why don't you just tell me the story."

"The women on the news, Jan and Allie."

Jack nodded. "I remember them."

"Jan owns a gymnastics school and camp in Clay. The ring is hidden there."

"Tell me what's so important about this ring?"

"I think it belongs to the president of Korea."

 

***

 

Janine Acres kicked the door closed. She had a large glass of her own personal recipe for pineapple surprise in each hand. The drink consisted of blended pineapple juice, ginger ale, a banana and coconut. Allie lounged in one of Jan's leotards on the floor in the gym. Both of them had completed the exercise program Jan often required of her students.

Jan sat cross-legged on the blue carpet and handed a glass to Allie, who sat up and sipped it through the long red straw Jan had added to the pastel yellow liquid.

"What is this?" she asked.

"Something that's good to the taste and good for you."

Allie took a long swig. "This is positively sinful. I'm not even going to think about how many calories are in this."

"You haven't gained a pound in decades."

"Due to hours of hard work." She frowned. "Did you think to give our two friends one of these?"

"I did not." Jan sipped from her glass. "After they held us for days."

"They let you come home or I should say James Burton let you come home."

"He followed right along with us,'' Jan reminded her. "And if you haven't noticed he's keeping us under house arrest."

"We must not be in much danger," Allie surmised. "He'd never have let us come here if it would put the school in danger."

"Well, more than one parent has noticed the presence of two strangers. This is a small town."

Allie's smile was wide. "You think the parents have noticed that you're attracted to Agent Burton?"

Jan stopped still, holding her glass out for a moment as if she were about to drink from it. Then she dropped her hand and the glass to the floor and leaned toward her friend.

"Me? Attracted to that big—"

"Tall, strong, good-looking, unmarried man who fits the right age, height, weight and personality profile," Allie interrupted her. "You better believe I do. He's attracted to you too."

"Allie, you've been reading too many of your own scripts. This is not a television program or the movies."

"It's also not a script. If it were, there would be much more action. And you'd have already slept with him."