by Paula Graves
They lowered the lights and ate at the coffee table in the den, with a view of both the homey Christmas tree and the snow flurries falling in light showers outside, illuminated by the floodlights on the outside of the cabin. Afterward, they curled up on the sofa and flipped channels on the television until they found an old Cary Grant movie they hadn’t seen in years.
It was such a normal way to spend an evening, Connor thought as he draped his arm around his wife’s shoulder and nuzzled her hair while Cary Grant hid in a dried-out cornfield, chased by a crop duster. Just an ordinary married couple, baby on the way, watching a movie in front of the Christmas tree. It was the life they’d been planning, he realized, before everything had gone so very wrong.
As the movie wound to its exciting end, Risa stirred in his arms to ask, “Have you ever visited Mount Rushmore?”
He looked at Cary Grant clinging to the rock face between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. “No. Definitely not like that.”
“My dad used to take my mom and me on what he called our America trips,” she said with a smile in her voice. “Did I ever tell you about those?”
“I don’t think so.”
“After we spent those years in Kaziristan while he was on duty, I think he wanted to be sure I remembered I was an American.”
“Do you think he’s ever suspected you were a CIA agent?” One thing he and Risa hadn’t done as a married couple was spend much time with the in-laws, thanks to jobs that kept them overseas so much of the time.
“I think he probably did, but he was always pretty big on the concept of loose lips sinking ships. So he’d never say it out loud, even if he was pretty sure all my trips across the world weren’t really about diplomacy.”
Maybe once they got clear of this hit-list mess, he and Risa would finally have a chance to get to know each other’s families, like real married couples did. His mother would be thrilled that one of her three sons had finally given her a grandchild, he knew. And he had long suspected that beneath crusty old Benton DeVille’s drill-sergeant exterior, there lived an old softy who’d spoil the hell out of his grandchild.
But to have any of those things, they first had to survive.
Whatever it took.
Chapter Fourteen
The list was growing longer than Risa had anticipated. She’d been working for the CIA since the year after she’d graduated from college, plucked out of a Foreign Service fellowship program by Martin Dalrymple himself. Her fluency in Kaziri, Farsi and Arabic had made her a valuable asset put to use quickly.
Now, ten years later, she was beginning to realize just how many contacts she’d made during her time in the agency.
“That many, huh?” Connor set a glass of apple juice on the table in front of her and pulled up a chair next to her.
“I really thought it might be easier to figure out who I might have ticked off enough to earn a price on my head.” She put the pen down on the table and picked up the coffee mug, curling her cold hands around the warm stoneware. “But apparently there are dozens of people who could want me dead.”
“Not everybody on that list has a reason to want you dead, surely.”
“That’s the real problem,” she said. “I could be on a hit list for reasons I know nothing about. What if someone thinks I saw or heard something that could someday cause a problem? It wouldn’t even have to be something obvious to me. It could be something that, eventually, will make sense to me once it all unfolds. And maybe someone doesn’t want me to be around when that happens.”
“Oh, well. That certainly narrows it down.” His tone was dirt-dry.
“I wish we could find out what Dal was thinking.”
“A little late for that.”
She rubbed her gritty eyes. “Yeah, I know.”
His fingers brushed her cheek, making her look at him. His expression was both tender and anxious. “We’ll figure this out. Or we’ll figure out a way to disappear. I won’t let anyone get to you. You know that.”
She nodded. “It’s just—I don’t want to disappear. I’ve already done it once, and I hated it.”
“You won’t be alone.” His thumb caressed her chin. “Junior and I will be there.”
She held his hand against her face. “I know. But I’m going to have a baby. Our parents are going to have their first grandchild. Do you really want Junior to grow up not knowing them?”
She could see the answer in his troubled gaze, before he said the words. “No. I don’t.”
“I don’t, either. So we’re going to have to find the answer, not just run away again.”
She leaned in and kissed him lightly before pulling away and picking up the pen again. “What did Heller have to say this morning?”
“Not much. He’s looking into the death of the agri-tech guys, to see if there’s any chance their deaths were anything other than random terrorism, but it can be hard to get information from that part of the world, especially when he’s trying to do it anonymously.”
“The last thing he needs to do is ping anybody’s radar,” Risa warned.
“Believe me, I don’t want him and his family to be on anybody’s hit list, either. But we need information. We can’t hide out forever.” He reached over and touched her stomach, grinning as the baby gave a sharp kick against his palm. “We’ve got a kid to raise.”
Risa patted his hand. “I wonder if maybe we should be talking to Rebecca Cameron instead of Heller. She’s the one who has all the contacts in the State Department. Maybe she might have an idea or two about who might be running something on the side.”
“She hasn’t been in government in almost five years.”
“But she knows a lot of people who are still there.”
“I could call Heller back. Suggest he talk to her, tell her what we’re looking for.”
Good idea, Risa thought. Better to let Heller ask the questions, at least for now. She wasn’t sure how well the burner app Connor had downloaded to the phone was going to work if he kept calling people on it.
While Connor wandered off to make the call, Risa looked at the list of names she’d written down. The problem, she realized, was that almost everyone on the list had people they had to report to in some way. And most of those people had bosses as well. Even covert operations had layers of bureaucracy involved, and anyone on any level of the operation could be the person who had put her on the hit list.
And that was assuming she was dealing with someone in the government in the first place, and not al Adar or one of the other terrorist groups she’d gotten crosswise with over the course of her covert career.
Connor returned and sat beside her. “Heller said he’ll get Cameron involved. He wants me to call every eight hours to get an update, since he can’t call me because I’ll be changing the phone number after every call.”
“Okay. Good idea,” she said, barely listening.
“You’re distracted.”
She sighed, looking up from the paper. “What if we’re chasing shadows here? Dal seemed to think al Adar was who put the hit on me. Maybe we’re trying too hard to complicate things when we should be focused on our original belief.”
He didn’t look happy. “Is this you telling me you want to go back to Cincy?”
“It’s where Dal thought I should be.”
“And Dal is dead now.”
“We could find Farid—Malcolm—whoever he is. Find out what he knows about those men.”
“I’m sure Quinn already knows everything he knows about those men,” Connor said firmly. “If it’s something we need to know—”
“We need to know!” she said sharply. “And Quinn has no right to keep information from us that way. If Heller hadn’t figured it out, we still wouldn’t know Farid was on your company’s payroll. This is our lives, Connor, not j
ust one of Quinn’s operations. I don’t trust him to tell us what we need to know. Do you?”
“No,” Connor said although Risa could tell he didn’t like admitting it.
“For the record, I don’t think we should go back to Cincinnati,” she said with a sigh. “But I do want to talk to Malcolm. If nothing else, I think we need to find out if the man who tried to talk his way into my apartment was really Tahir Mahmoud.”
“I can guarantee you, Maddox Heller will be on top of that question.”
Risa supposed he was right. If there was anyone in the world who had a better incentive to find out if Tahir Mahmoud was still alive, it was Heller. Not only had he witnessed Mahmoud killing an embassy translator in cold blood during the US Embassy siege a decade ago, he’d also nearly lost his wife to Mahmoud’s murderous plot.
“Okay. So we leave that to Maddox Heller.”
“I did some digging on the murder of Martin Dalrymple,” Connor added. “Still no idea who killed him, but the postmortem results suggest he was killed forty-eight hours before his body was found.”
“Which means whoever tried to contact me Wednesday morning wasn’t Dal.” She frowned. “Do you think that means he was killed because he was trying to protect me?”
“You’re not blaming yourself, are you?”
“No,” she lied.
He caught her hands in his, making her look at him. “Dal is the person who put you in this situation, which means he knew the score. He made his choices knowing the potential consequences.”
“I wish he’d told me more about what he was investigating. I should have asked more questions.” The problem was, she’d been taught not to ask questions. Dal had always told her just what she had needed to know. No more, no less.
Without his direction, she felt as if she were stumbling around, blind.
A good way to end up dead.
* * *
JESSE COOPER ENTERED the Sunset Mountain Grille at three on the dot and went to stand near the restrooms, as Connor had suggested. He wasn’t a particularly large man, which somehow caught Connor by surprise. Though it shouldn’t have—some of the toughest marines he knew had been average-sized. What he lacked in size, Jesse made up in sheer presence. He was lean and fit, his dark hair cut high and tight, as if he hadn’t really left the Marine Corps behind when he retired.
Connor approached him slowly, giving the man time to see him coming. Jesse’s dark eyes followed him in, his gaze assessing. “McGinnis?”
“Cooper.” Connor extended his hand.
Jesse shook it with a firm grip. “Good to meet you.”
Connor nodded for Jesse to follow him to the table near the back where Risa waited. Jesse gave her a nod of greeting and took the seat across from her, while Connor sat beside her.
“I was intrigued by what you told me on the phone,” Jesse said as soon as a waiter took their drink orders. “I had some of my people do some digging, and it seems that your thoughts about a potential bioweapon aren’t out of the question. Terrorists, whether foreign or domestic, would love nothing more than to use diseases to spread terror. We saw it after 9/11 with the anthrax letters. There’s some fear that terrorists might be looking for ways to get their hands on the Ebola and Marburg viruses to use to spread fear.”
“So, this hemorrhagic fever in the bats that Akwat found could be a potential weapon in the hands of terrorists?”
“Only if it jumps species,” Jesse answered. “Which could potentially be hurried along if infected bats were harvested and induced to bite animals like goats and pigs, increasing the likelihood that the disease could jump into those animals. And that would increase the likelihood that humans could eventually be infected, since they’re exposed to livestock far more regularly than bats in a cave.”
“Right,” Risa said with a nod. “Akwat had been considering applying for a UN research grant to isolate the infected bat colonies and provide them to scientists for research, while separating them from the healthy bat populations that they planned to use to harvest guano for fertilizer.”
“Except, now Akwat is no more,” Jesse said.
“Right.” Risa looked grim. “The question we’re considering is, could their deaths be connected to the attempt on my life?”
“Potentially, yes.” Jesse lowered his voice and looked at Connor. “A former employee of mine is working at Campbell Cove Security now. Eric Brannon. Do you know him?”
“Not well,” Connor admitted. “He’s a former navy doctor, right?”
“Right. One of his interests is infectious diseases. I think it’s the main reason he joined your company—access to a research grant studying the potential use of infectious diseases as weapons of terror.”
Risa looked at Connor. “Did you know about this?”
He shook his head. “It’s not my area of expertise.”
“But Quinn would know, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes,” Connor admitted. “He would.”
“Quinn and his ‘need to know’ garbage,” she growled.
“Listen—I’ll vouch for Eric Brannon. He’s a good guy. A man of integrity.” Jesse reached into his jacket and pulled out a card. “I wrote his home number on the back of my card. Call him. You can trust him. Heller will vouch for him, too.”
Connor glanced at Risa. She was wearing her best poker face, but he could feel the tension in her leg where it rested against his. “Thank you,” she said aloud, taking the card.
The waiter brought their drinks—coffee for Connor and Jesse Cooper, and water for Risa—and asked if they were ready to order. Connor told him they needed a few more minutes and the waiter headed for another table.
“I’m up here for a couple more days. My wife and I needed a little alone time, so we left the baby with my sister and her husband.” Jesse grinned. “Meggie just found out she’s pregnant, so I thought they should get a sneak preview.”
Risa smiled. “I could use one of those. Get ready for Junior.”
Connor tamped down a sudden rush of sheer panic. In a month, he was going to be a father.
What the hell did he know about being a father? His own father had only recently retired from the Navy. He’d been away from home as much as he was there, and while he’d loved his children dearly, he hadn’t exactly given Connor a hands-on example of how to be a dad.
“It’s a lot of work. Not much sleep. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” Jesse smiled. “And believe me, I never thought I’d say something like that.”
Connor felt Risa’s fingers curl around his beneath the table, her touch comforting. Calming.
“If you want me to be there when you talk to Brannon, let me know. Don’t feel obligated to do so, though.” Jesse picked up his menu. “Let’s eat, shall we?”
* * *
DESPITE THE VOUCHING of both Jesse Cooper and Maddox Heller, Connor and Risa agreed that it was wiser to meet Eric Brannon in a public place rather than letting him come to them. Connor made the call and set up a meeting for the next morning at a park a few miles outside of Cumberland.
“I think Quinn just wants us to hunker down somewhere and stay out of his way.” Connor tugged her closer under the covers.
Risa flattened her back against his front, enjoying the light rasp of his chest hair against her skin. “I’m beginning to think that’s what Dal wanted, too.”
“Maybe they’re both right. Maybe you should just concentrate on staying safe. You’re weeks away from giving birth—this isn’t the time to put your life in danger.”
“I won’t stop being in danger if I lie low.” She rolled over to face him. “I want our child to be born in a hospital under his or her real name. I don’t want to try to raise a baby while we’re constantly on the run.”
“I don’t want that, either.” He brushed her hair away from her ey
es, letting his fingers trail across her cheek. Sheer pleasure raced through her where he touched her, and she had to struggle to focus on his words. “But I don’t know how to make the danger go away. We don’t even know where the danger is coming from.”
“I don’t think it’s from Tahir Mahmoud or whoever that guy at the restaurant was,” she said.
“Even after he tried to get inside your apartment?”
“He did that because I followed him. Before that, I don’t think I was on his radar at all. Which means he’s not the person who wanted me dead.”
“But someone was tracking us, and that tracking started the night we left Cincinnati.”
“Exactly. I think the men in the restaurant were coincidences. I think whoever was looking for me had probably been keeping an eye on you while you were in Cincinnati. In fact, they might have been tracking Quinn and other people at Campbell Cove Security as well. You’re on the government payroll, which means there are ways for people in the government to track what y’all do.”
“So, technically, someone might have already known we spotted you in Cincinnati, and they just waited for me to find you before they made their move.” Connor shook his head. “If you’re right about that, then whoever’s gunning for you is someone inside our own government.”
“I can’t live like this. I’ve spent over a decade living my life as someone else. I quit the CIA so I could just be me again.” She touched his cheek. “So we could finally be us.”
Connor caught her hand and pressed a light kiss to her palm, then rolled onto his back and gazed up at the ceiling. He remained quiet so long that Risa thought he might have fallen asleep.
But a moment later, his voice rumbled in the darkness. “We can’t meet with Brannon tomorrow. Not if someone in the government is following employees of Campbell Cove Security.”
Risa sat up suddenly. “Maddox Heller met with us in Cumberland. And drove us here. He’s one of your company’s management team.”
“But he drove us here in his brother-in-law’s SUV.”
“What if someone connects Iris’s brother-in-law to Maddox?”