by Cindy Gerard
“Who am I calling?”
“Just keep redialing.”
Short of jerking the wheel away from her and plowing into a palm tree to get her attention, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to make her talk if she didn’t want to.
Brooding, he held the phone to his ear.
Did she think he didn’t know she was Mossad? That he hadn’t figured it out after she’d left him in Kabul? Only one country had wanted al-Attar more than the United States: Israel. They had sent Mossad to take care of al-Attar—and Talia to take care of him.
Maybe this was another top-secret mission, and she couldn’t tell him anything. So why had she dragged his ass along with her?
He was up to his neck in questions and determined to get some answers when she screeched to an abrupt stop in front of an affluent-looking house in a well-established neighborhood.
She kept the engine running and searched the street, then grabbed the Glock and jumped out of the Expedition. “Wait here.”
Hobbled by her mutilated feet, she ran up ten wide steps and knocked on the front door, hiding the Glock alongside her leg and slightly behind it. He couldn’t see who answered the door, but she talked with the person for a brief moment before running back to the Expedition.
Too late, she realized her mistake. He’d pulled the keys.
“Give them to me.”
“Not a chance, sweetheart.” His tone twisted the word into an unmistakable insult. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“Don’t do this,” she begged. “There’s no time.”
“Then quit wasting it. Talk to me.” He met her pleading eyes with a stony stare.
She looked away, and it pissed him off.
“What do you want from me?” he roared, his throat tight, his patience long gone. “You do want something, or I wouldn’t be here.”
If she didn’t tell him, he was bailing out. His head hurt, his ears were still ringing, and his body felt as if it had been slam-dunked by a Dumpster.
And she sat there looking tragic and not saying one damn word.
“You know I can’t possibly be of any use to you if I don’t know what the fuck’s going on.” The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he caught the idiocy of what he’d said. “Oh, wait. I didn’t have a clue in Kabul, either, but it worked out real well for you, didn’t it? You know all about using people while you keep them in the dark.”
When a tear fell, he reached the proverbial end of his rope. It was either haul her into his arms and hold her or bully her. “Do you think it doesn’t strike me as odd that a ‘journalist’ keeps several passports, a gun, ammo, a phone, and extra car keys hidden behind a license plate? Just in case—oh, I don’t know—she has to run for her life?”
She gripped the steering wheel with both hands and lowered her forehead against it. “Give me the keys.”
But he was on a roll. “I don’t know what your game is or why you were coincidentally working for Ted just before I showed up. But I do know there’s got to be a connection between you being at the embassy and—oh, wow, another coincidence—someone bombs it to kingdom fucking come!”
He had to look away then, because he was back to another impossible choice—kill her or kiss her—and it royally pissed him off that he liked the complicated option so much more than the easy one.
“Do you honestly think I don’t know you’re Mossad?” he finally asked, and got absolutely no reaction. “So why aren’t you contacting your Mossad brothers to help you? Why me?”
“Because this is not Mossad’s problem,” she said abruptly.
He jerked his head around in surprise.
“And yes, you’re right about the bomb, okay? It was meant to kill me.”
Another shock that wasn’t a shock. In his short experiences with Talia, she and trouble were equally predictable.
He’d decided a few blocks back that she wasn’t running away; she was hunting. And if not for her Mossad contacts, then who?
“Who are you looking for, Talia?”
She lifted her head but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “My son. I’m looking for my son.”
14
I’m looking for my son.
The words replayed in Bobby’s head in a slow loop, as if his mind needed time to process it over and over again.
She had a son.
“Taggart.”
His name on her lips made his heart rate double. She said it with such intimacy, so much uncertainty and anguish, he had to look at her again. And saw the stark fear on her face.
“Taggart. I—”
He shook his head, silencing her. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say. Didn’t want to see the pain that came with the words. But he not only saw it, he felt it, as she held his gaze, clearly committed to telling him something he knew he didn’t want to hear.
He jerked his gaze away. He wanted so badly to hate her with everything in him.
But he hated himself more, because her words had just made him face an awful truth. He might still love her.
He was an even bigger fool now than he was back then, a fool for ever thinking he’d gotten her out of his system.
He hadn’t written her off six years ago. He’d written off the idea of them being together by trying to convince himself that he hated her. Yet an idea that had lived for one week out of his life had somehow become a dream. A dream that her life would become a major part of his.
But it hadn’t worked that way. She’d gone on without him.
It shouldn’t hurt. And he was stupid and pathetic to let the thought of her with another man cut so deeply.
She had a son.
He breathed deep.
Well, hell, why not? He could fill a battleship with the things he didn’t know about her.
He clenched his jaw and handed her the keys.
And he felt small suddenly, for holding on to so much anger over a weeklong affair and a bruised ego from six years ago. She had all the rights to pain in this scenario.
Neither of them said a word as she fired up the engine, shifted into gear, and took off.
Maybe she had a husband he didn’t know about, too.
Maybe she’d already had both the hubby and the kid when they were in Kabul.
“Why did you make me bully that out of you?” He was surprised his voice didn’t match his anger.
She hesitated. “It’s . . . complicated.”
No shit. He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Who have you been trying to call?”
She made a sharp left turn. “Meir’s bodyguard.”
Meir. The son now had a name. And yeah, a bodyguard made sense. Middle East. Mossad agent for a mother.
“He should have picked up right away,” she said, talking more to herself than to him. “The lines are secure, so there’s no reason for him not to.”
Unless . . . aw, hell. “You think whoever targeted you is going after your son?”
“They will go after Meir.”
“For God’s sake, Talia. Why not just tell me that to begin with?”
“Because I’ve been hoping I’d reach Jonathan. That he’d tell me Meir was safe. And because telling you . . . saying the words out loud . . .”
Would make it all too real that her son was in danger, he concluded when she stopped and got hold of herself again.
Hate, love, anger, frustration—all of it had to take a backseat. If she was right, if the boy was in danger, they needed to find him. Fast.
“Let’s back up,” he said. “You’re sure you were the target of the bombing? You, Talia Levine? Not you, the Mossad agent?”
“What does it matter now?” she snapped, then settled herself down. “Because of those news crews, my face is all over TV and the Internet. They’ll know that I’m still alive. And they’ll go after Meir—if they haven’t alread
y.”
“So why did we stop back there? How does that figure in?” He notched his head back over his shoulder.
“Meir had a play date with a friend after school.”
“And?”
“According to the boy’s mother, Jonathan waited outside in the car for him. They left at six o’clock as planned.”
He glanced at the dash clock. Almost two hours ago.
And the bodyguard wasn’t answering.
Whoever she was dealing with were real bad guys. So bad that they’d bombed a building, not caring how many people died as long as they achieved their goal. But they’d failed to kill her, so now it was on to plan B: rain down enough pain and suffering on her until she wished she was dead, until she prayed for death. All they had to do was take her son.
His gut filled with cold dread, his instincts telling him they’d accomplished their mission. It had been too long without a word from the boy’s bodyguard, too many unanswered phone calls.
“Hamas did this,” he said. It was the logical answer. The only illogical thing was Talia’s insistence that Mossad wasn’t involved. Why else would Hamas be after her, if it wasn’t connected to her work for Mossad? Hamas’s sole mission was to destroy Israel. Mossad’s mission was to stop them. The bombings and retaliations between them had played out for decades on the world stage.
When she didn’t dispute his conclusion, he knew he was right. He also knew something was way off base.
“How good is this bodyguard?”
“The best I could find,” she said. “But with Hamas after him, it would take a team to keep him safe. A team or a . . . a miracle.” Her voice broke.
Damn it. He had to stop letting her pain get to him. Of course, he had sympathy for the boy. Of course, he would help her if that was what she wanted. But when this was over, one way or another, he was out of here.
“Where’s your husband? Why isn’t he here?” The instant the question popped out, he wished he hadn’t asked.
“I’m . . . not married.”
He felt something very close to relief. But that stupidity was soon eclipsed by a distant bell of alarm.
It’s . . . complicated.
“Where is Meir’s father?”
She stared straight ahead, her gaze locked on the street.
That was when a steel fist grabbed his heart. And squeezed. Complicated.
He stared at her long and hard, afraid to ask. Afraid not to. “How old is Meir?”
She flicked him a glance, then looked back through the windshield.
“How old?” he demanded, as the fist tightened.
“Five,” she said quietly.
He closed his eyes. Felt the world shift beneath him. “His birth date?”
She told him, tears rimming her eyes.
Even though he knew the outcome, he did the math. Did it again, and felt a blow so crushing it sucked the air from his lungs.
But it couldn’t be. He’d always used protection. The blood left his head in a rush. Not always. There’d been that one time. That one out-of-his-head-with-lust time.
He stared at nothing, barely breathing. Fought another urge to hit something. Needed to beat the ever-loving crap out of something.
“He’s mine?” He barely whispered the words, too afraid to believe them, too rational not to.
Her hands clutched the steering wheel so tightly her fingers turned white.
“He’s mine?” he yelled. “That’s the complication?”
She bit her lower lip and nodded—and his world changed forever.
Shock and anger flooded his mind, until a primal rage, huge and raw and ugly, burst out of him. “Five years? Five goddamn years! You never thought to tell me?”
The Expedition swerved wildly, and he realized that he’d gripped her upper arm until he’d hurt her.
He let go. Couldn’t stand to touch her.
He stared out the window as the streets rolled by, tenting his fingers on top of his head to keep it from blowing off. He’d never despised anyone as much as he despised her right now. And he’d never longed for something as much as he longed for those five lost years.
A child. A son. His own blood.
A weary resignation rode in on the heels of his anger.
“You hated me that much?” he asked into the tomb of silence filling the Expedition.
“I didn’t hate you. I could never hate you. I—”
“Save it. Sorry I asked,” he said wearily. “I don’t want to hear anything out of your mouth that doesn’t have to do with finding the boy.”
The son he’d never known, who might already be lost to him.
15
“So what’s your plan?” The question seemed as surreal as the conversation about the son whose existence he hadn’t known about.
“Find Jonathan. He had to have heard the news about the bombing. He’d have taken Meir someplace safe.”
“And that would be?”
“I . . . I hadn’t been here long enough to set up a safe house for us. My best guess is his apartment.”
“They’ll be looking for your car. We could lead Hamas straight to him.”
“What choice do I have?” Desperation overrode caution.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have any other ideas. Just another hundred questions. “Tell me everything. Everything,” he repeated, unable to look at her.
He’d lay odds that the bodyguard wasn’t at his apartment. And if he was, he was probably dead. A chance still existed, however, that the boy—his son—might be alive. He needed every piece of information she had if they were going to find him.
“Start with what you were doing at the embassy.”
“I work . . . worked there,” she said.
“Right. Undercover for Mossad.”
“No. I’m not with Mossad now. I haven’t been since . . . since before Meir was born.”
A knifelike pain sliced him again at the mention of his son. Five years. He’d lost five years.
“I started working as a security investigator for the U.S. embassy in Israel after he was born.” She glanced over her shoulder and made a quick lane change. “A couple of weeks ago, when the embassy SI here retired, I was temporarily reassigned here until they found a permanent replacement.”
He remembered Ted telling him that before the bomb detonated. Ted. God, what if he was dead? Dead because Taggart had left him there.
“So you left Mossad,” he said, shaking off the guilt by trying to piece everything together.
“I wanted out,” she said, in a way that made him glance at her. She had that thousand-mile look in her eyes, telling him that her fear for the boy was getting the best of her again. “I wanted to provide Meir with a more stable life. I wanted him safe.” She shook her head. “Look how great that worked out.”
Yeah. Look how great it worked out. Bitterness tasted ugly. Uglier still if he’d let the words out of his mouth. They both knew that if he had been in his son’s life, the boy would be safe now. He wouldn’t be kidnapped and at the mercy of barbarians.
He swallowed back his frustration. “Did you know this was coming?”
“No. I sensed that something was going to happen. But not a bomb. Not at the embassy.”
“But you suspected something? Why?”
“For the past several days, I’ve been fairly certain I was being followed. At first, I wanted to write it off as paranoia. You were a special operative; you know what it does to you. You never stop looking for threats, even ones that don’t exist.”
Yeah, he knew about paranoia. Now he knew a helluva lot more about blindsides. “So what was different this time?”
“I just . . . I couldn’t shake it off. So I went with my gut and tried to reach out to one of my old teammates last week. To see if he’d heard any rumblings. Anything in the wind.
”
“And?”
“And I found out he was dead.” She stopped, swallowed, and tore away from a stoplight. “But no one wanted to talk about it. I knew then that something was wrong. I was finally able to get hold of another friend there—I’d been her trainer when she was first drafted. She quietly did some digging for me and found out that over the past five years, my entire team had been killed.” Her voice broke again. “One by one.”
“Christ. Mossad couldn’t have given you a heads-up? They had to know you were on the list.”
“The team split up shortly after I left. It’s possible that no one put it together that the specific operatives they’d lost had all been part of the same team at one time.”
“So why target your old team specifically?”
She let out a deep breath. “Because we took out al-Attar.”
Jesus. Talk about the past coming back to haunt him. It was because of al-Attar that Talia had targeted him.
It was because of Talia’s part in the Mossad op that he’d ended a mission in disgrace. And with a son he didn’t know.
Anger boiled up again. Again, he tamped it down. It wouldn’t help the boy. “Why was al-Attar so important to Mossad?”
Unspoken was, Why was al-Attar so important that you had to screw me over to get him?
“Because he was a monster,” she said without apology. “His specialty was killing children. Attacking schools, buses. Anything to get to them. The Mossad director lost his grandchild in a school-bus bombing orchestrated by al-Attar. He hit number one on Mossad’s wanted list that day. Things are never supposed to get personal. But they do. They did. And that’s why we went after him.”
“And I ended up as collateral damage? Is that how you wrote me off?” Fuck. So much for controlling his anger.
“Taggart—”
“Forget it. Forget I said it. Just . . . forget it all.”
Except he couldn’t forget anything. He had a child. They had a child—a child who could end up as more collateral damage if they didn’t get on top of this.