81

 

SEVENTEEN MILE DRIVE, FOUR DAYS LATER, FRIDAY, LATE AFTERNOON

Dan put down the weight, picked up his shrilling cell phone, grimaced when he saw the caller ID.

“Yeah?” he said.

“You haven’t been into the office all week,” declared MackStack acidly. “You avoiding me?”

“Nope.”

“I’m getting a kinda disappointed feeling here, Jacobsen.”

“Why? Couldn’t get it up last night?”

“Cute. Nothing on Falcon, nothing juicy on ARk Storm. Professional failure kind of disappointment.”

Dan glanced at Gwen. She was lying on a bench, pressing 140 pounds. Sweat ran down her face and she was breathing hard. Her hair fell from the bench, tumbling toward the floor. Her muscles bulged and shone. Her bandage covered half her forearm. She wasn’t supposed to be working out. Had a blithely contemptuous attitude toward personal injury, which he shared, and loved. She looked to him like a warrior princess. She looked magnificent. And oblivious.

Foreigner pumped from the speakers: “Dirty White Boy.” That was how Dan felt right now, and not in the good sense. He walked from the gym onto the lawn.

The sun was setting and the air was chill. Dan hunched in on himself.

“I get the feeling you’re getting sweet on the meteorologist,” murmured Mack, as if psychic. “It would be a shame,” he added silkily, “if she knew how you stage-managed your meeting with her. She might think you only got close to her to get close to her boss, to get yourself a story. Makes you a kind of prostitute in her eyes. Not to mention making a dupe of her.”

Dan stayed silent. Thought of fifty different ways to kill his editor.

“Stay on the job, Daniel. Deliver us what we need.”

“Adding blackmail to your box of tricks now, Mack?”

“What d’you mean, adding?”

Dan ended the call. He gazed out at the ocean: cool, blue, pure. It offered no comfort this time. He felt the darkness creep, remembered too much. The memories flooded back. No matter how hard you tried to wash your mind after a task, you never could. He shut his eyes. It would be so easy to pick up that mantle again, to do what he had done so effectively in years gone by for his country. He could do it for himself without a qualm. And, most likely, get away with it. What difference would it make to spill a little more blood?