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I WALKED THEO TO THE hangar bay and kissed him a dozen more times before he got in the cockpit. When he was ready to take off, I was instructed to stand in the control room behind six inches of reinforced glass. I watched the bay doors open and the engines heat up. Then the jet taxied out of the base and took off into the sky, trailing twin flags of smoke behind it.
Theo was gone. But I had a million things to do, so I couldn’t dwell. I knew he would be all right; I just had to concentrate on my own tasks. And the first thing on the agenda was a meeting with the head of the CIA.
I walked through the hallways, deep in thought. All the drama surrounding Ryan’s reappearance poked its ugly head up, causing me to almost miss my turn. Why did it have to be Ryan? Why couldn’t it be literally anyone else from my past? I thought what I had with him was real and pure, but he had turned it into something sinister just by coming back into my life.
I hoped to get some answers. If the leadership of the CIA had been read into his fake death, then they were going to explain why. I would make them explain, if it was the last thing I did. The fact that he was going off on his own mission was a comfort. I wanted to put off my conversation with him as long as possible.
Dumping someone who was possibly an enemy agent could be tricky. I’d killed people after sex before, but I’d never told anyone I didn’t love them. I wasn’t eager to get that particular chore over with, and I just might take Theo up on his offer for backup. With my new boyfriend in the room, I would be less susceptible to Ryan’s charms. That, and Ryan wouldn’t dare put the moves on me if Theo was right there.
I walked into the command center to find Lukas waiting for me. Together, we went to the conference room, where it seemed I was spending a lot of my time. It had to happen, but I would rather be on the flight with Theo than trading secrets with a bunch of stuffed shirts.
Holding my breath, I sat down to wait for everyone else to arrive.
“How are you doing?” Lukas asked.
“Fine,” I said. “When are the doctors going to look at our shoulders?”
“After the meeting,” he said.
I peeled one sleeve down to see if there was anything underneath my skin, but it looked smooth. I didn’t believe there was a tracker, no matter what the intel said. I would have known. I would have felt it. Mr. Ashcroft would have made an appearance a long time ago if he knew where I was.
“Ms. Abrams,” the director of the CIA said, walking into the room.
I stood up, almost correcting him. I had taken the name Abrams after Ryan died as a tribute to him. We were almost married, and I thought that I was doing his memory justice. But now that he was back and proving a much more mysterious figure, I didn’t want to be aligned with him that way.
The only thing that stopped me from speaking was the realization that my other option as far as last names were concerned was Ashcroft. I didn’t want that one either. It was six of one, half dozen of the other, so I opted to stick with Abrams. Maybe I would take Theo’s last name when this was all over. I would much prefer being Mrs. Wells, considering the other choices.
“Why does New Dawn want you so badly?” George asked.
I fixed him with a narrow stare, hating the insinuation that I was somehow still working for Ashcroft. “How should I know?” I snapped.
“Maybe you could start with what you remember about our childhood?” Lukas suggested, cutting the tension with his special brand of pragmatism.
I swallowed, watching as the room filled up with more spooks. They took seats around the table until I was drastically outnumbered. I didn’t realize there were so many of them in the base. American, British, and French, they all dressed the same, and all had the same air of superiority about them.
This was something I didn’t enjoy. I preferred field work to being in the office, mostly because if I didn’t like someone out in the field, I could kill them. I wasn’t wedded to my job, but I didn’t want to escape from the bunker guns blazing. I had to remember Theo. Once he completed his mission, he would return, and then we could escape. Of course, there was the pesky problem of New Dawn, but we could figure that out. I didn’t feel the need to sit there like a worm on a dissecting platter for all these bureaucrats to study.
“Why don’t you tell me about Ryan?” I snapped.
“What do you want to know?” the leader of the CIA asked.
“Did you know he was underground? All this time, I thought he was dead, did you know?” I demanded, unable to stop my voice from cracking.
“We knew,” George confirmed. “Now let’s talk about Ashcroft.”
“How could you do that?” I shouted. “For three years, I thought he was dead and you said nothing!”
“Ms. Abrams!” the director yelled, slapping his palm on the table. “Let’s retain some semblance of professionalism!”
“You’re worse than Ashcroft.” I shook a finger at him.
“In what way?” he asked, leading me toward the question he wanted answered.
Lukas reached out for my hand, directing my gaze toward his face. I allowed myself to be distracted, and when I saw the calm in Lukas’s eyes, it helped me find my center. I wasn’t going to get anywhere if I was overly emotional. Yes, I had been hurt, but there were bigger things at stake. I might not like the people I shared the room with, but they were the world’s only hope. I was forced to play ball.
“Never mind,” I muttered.
“No,” George pursued it, “I want to know.”
“I was going to say that Mr. Ashcroft didn’t lie,” I admitted. “But I know that’s not true. What do you want to know about him?”
George straightened his shirt, recognizing that he’d won that round. “What was he like as a father figure?”
“I never thought of him as my father exactly,” I cautioned. “He was more like a principal of a school or a prison warden. I was honestly relieved when he died. When I thought he died,” I corrected myself.
“And why do you think you are so important to him?” George asked.
“I used to think it was because I had special skills,” I mused. “All along, he gave me certain privileges, but I had to earn them.”
“Like what?”
“Like he would allow me to stay up and listen in on the chatter,” I admitted. “When the other kids were in bed. He had a room in his mansion with all kinds of surveillance equipment, and we would listen in on what was going on in the world.”
“And what did you learn?” George continued.
“I thought I was learning how to be a good CIA agent,” I said. “But I could see how he might have been preparing me for something else.”
“Did you ever hear the name New Dawn while you were growing up?” one of the other people in the room asked.
“No,” I said emphatically.
“And what about the agents who died?” someone else spoke up. “Did you know them?”
“I probably knew some of them,” I admitted. “But Mr. Ashcroft had kids going into and out of that house for years. I didn’t know all of them.”
“What did he say when you saw him last?” a fourth person asked.
“Not much,” I remembered. “He wanted me to get on the helicopter with him, but I refused.”
George turned to Lukas, apparently asking him for direction. Lukas sighed and glanced at me. “Give us a minute.”
“Sure,” I said, standing up.
I walked out of the room, feeling like I had accomplished very little. We were still no closer to finding Mr. Ashcroft or determining the scope of his depravity. Maybe Theo would have better luck with his mission. But for the moment, I felt dirty and wanted a shower.
I was walking down the hall on the way to my bunk when I ran into the last person that I wanted to see. Ryan wore battle fatigues and a gun belt, and the sight of him made my stomach want to rebel. I looked around, instinctively searching for a way out, but there was nowhere to hide and no one to rescue me.
“I thought you were shipping out,” I said, trying to make it sound casual.
“I am,” he assured me. “We just haven’t left yet.”
He put a hand on his hip and gave me an appraising look. When we were engaged, I might have found it charming, but at the moment, it felt invasive. I didn’t want him to look at me like a piece of meat. I didn’t belong to him, and I wasn’t ready to lay out terms. I had hoped I would have a few more days before having to formally dump him, but it looked like I was already out of time.
“Listen, I’m really busy,” I tried.
But he didn’t give me an inch. Instead, he put a hand on my hip the way he used to do when we were together. I flinched, unable to keep the disgust from my face. Again, I was sure that would serve to broadcast my feelings, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Baby, we need to talk,” Ryan murmured, pulling out all the stops.
I wondered why I ever thought he was husband material. He seemed so smug and so divorced from reality it was laughable. For a spy who was supposed to be able to read body language, he was acting tone deaf. I stepped away, putting an acceptable amount of space between us.
I wasn’t worried about him forcing me to do anything I didn’t want to do. Both of us knew that I was more than capable of handling myself. The problem was that I had some distinctly pleasant memories attached to him. Regardless of how he was acting, I couldn’t deny the fact that I was attracted to him. Maybe that was the reason I decided to let him into my life so many years ago. He was hot.
“Don’t call me baby,” I protested.
“Okay,” he replied, putting up his hands. “I know it’s a shock to find out that I’m alive, and I want to say I’m sorry.”
“I know you weren’t in any Russian jail cell,” I snapped. If we were going to have this conversation, we might as well have it. I didn’t care if other people walked by. In fact, that would be preferable to finding myself somewhere alone with him.
But he looked around, concerned about the public location. “I know I have a lot to explain,” he said, giving me puppy dog eyes. “Please, let’s go somewhere to talk.”
“Why can’t we talk here?” I demanded.
“I can’t share state secrets in the hallway,” he replied. “Come on, you know I won’t bite. Please don’t tell me you’re afraid of me.”
“I am not afraid of you!” I shouted, rising to the challenge.
The last thing I wanted to do was get a reputation as a pushover. If he thought I was scared, that was more than enough reason to meet him on his terms. It didn’t occur to me that he knew exactly which buttons to push to get me to respond. We’d been together for a while, and even though he might not have been sincere, I was.
I followed him down the hall to a dorm room. He held the door open for me, acting like the perfect gentleman. I stepped through, still steaming from his implicit insult. But when I made it past the threshold, I realized my mistake. This wasn’t just another room. This was his room. And his bed was right there.
