“An old friend,” Wishnevsky said with a grin. “His Excellency knows who you are, of course.” She was old enough to be his mother, but looked a good fifteen years younger than she was. “There will be several minor Colombian bureaucrats at this fundraiser. Try to keep an eye open for a potential recruit.” She’d been the CIA station chief in Bogotá for over a decade now, and what she didn’t know about Latin America wouldn’t fill a pamphlet.
It was good to be back in the field, even if it was a punishment detail, in the relative backwater of the espionage world.
Backwater suited him just fine. The ops he had been part of before were dangerous and exciting, but after the job in Oaxaca, his taste for adrenaline died just a little. “What are we offering?”
“The usual,” Wishnevsky said. “You know the routine.” She stood, signaling the end of their briefing. “Six PM tomorrow, sharp,” she said. “I hope you have a decent tux.”
“I can make do,” he said.
As he turned to go, she stopped him. “How’s your brother?”
“Better,” he said. “The trial’s over, and Lucas is back on tour.”
“That was a hell of a thing you did for him.”
“It was all his fiancée, Gwen,” he said. “I just pulled some strings.” Too many strings, and strings he shouldn’t have pulled—which was how he wound up in Bogotá. “Still, they’re both safe, and things have settled. It was time for me to get back in the field.” As if the choice had been his.
“I’m glad to have you,” Wishnevsky said. “Bill McKenzie’s loss is my gain.”
“Believe me, he doesn’t think so.” Lee grinned. “Come on. Let me buy you a drink, old woman. You can tell me about the bad old days when you still used passenger pigeons to carry messages and trade barbs with the Russkis.”
She laughed and swatted him on the shoulder. “Asshole. The last passenger pigeon died in 1910 or something. This old woman can still wipe the floor with you in hand to hand, you know.” The phone in her office across the hall rang. “I’ll grab that, then we’ll go.”
Lee took another look at his legend, the identity he meant to take on. The stakes were lower in Bogotá than his other field assignments; he’d be doing more office work than before, analysis, maybe some recruiting and running agents, but he’d be out of the stifling, overly-political air of D.C. He could forget that he’d tried to live a ‘normal’ life, but more important, he could try to forget Oaxaca and Zoe Rodriguez.
It was time to move on. Zoe saw him as nothing but a reminder of her worst nightmare. If she never wanted to see him again, he couldn’t blame her.
“I hope you can return that tux.” Wishnevsky was back, standing in his office door. Her expression was grim.
“What is it?”
“Explosion across town,” she said. “Word’s not official, but my source says it was a bomb.”
“Who?” He wasn’t sure at first if he was asking who was hit or who the bomb belonged to.
“No one’s stepped forward yet. Too early. The explosion took out a chunk of an office building full of American NGOs.” Wishnevsky turned back to her office, and Lee didn’t need to be told to follow her.
***
The phone call came just as Zoe was helping Maria finish the dinner dishes in the small house they shared with Susan, another doctor. Cell service in Inírida was spotty at best, so they had a satellite phone for emergencies and that was the phone that rang—Zoe’s first clue that something was wrong.
“Hello?”
“Zoe.” Zoe barely recognized the voice as Christiane’s, the regional head of Médecins International in Bogotá. “You need to close the clinic for tomorrow and move the staff to a situation yellow footing.”
“What’s going on?” Her tone alerted Maria, who put down the towel to listen.
“There was an explosion. Our building—well, it’s gone.”
Zoe’s stomach tightened and she made herself sit down. “Oh my god. Is everyone okay? When?”
“No.” Christiane took a shaky breath. “This afternoon. We lost ten people. There were other NGOs on other floors, I don’t know yet—” Her voice cracked, then she steadied herself. “We don’t know who’s claiming responsibility. We don’t have any reason to think they were targeting MI specifically. But we’re calling all the clinic directors and asking them to take precautions anyway.” Christiane’s region covered all of Colombia and most of Venezuela. All of those clinics, closed, including Zoe’s …
“Of course.” Zoe met Maria’s worried eyes and shook her head. “What can we do? Anything?”
“Just stay safe. We’re already working to keep supply logistics in place, but for now, just close the clinic tomorrow and stay safe.”
When they hung up, Zoe sat still and tried to control the way her heart wanted to race.
“What’s going on?” Maria crouched near her chair. “You look faint.”
Zoe shook her head, trying to keep a lid on the panic—the panic that had nothing to do with the situation. “A bomb exploded in Bogotá. The MI offices.”
“Dios mio,” breathed Maria. “FARC?”
“They don’t know yet.” Zoe’s color must have returned, because Maria moved to sit in a chair.
“Are you all right?”
“Just shocked,” Zoe said. “We’re going to yellow, and closing the clinic for tomorrow. Just as a precaution. I need to call the local staff, let them know.”
“Zoe.”
“I’m fine—”
“Come on, chica. I’m not blind. You flinch at loud noises, you hate walking on the street, and I know you’re having nightmares.”
“I’m okay,” Zoe said, with a little less conviction. “It’s just—the transition back to working in the field is a little harder than I thought, is all.” Maria didn’t look convinced. “I promise you, if it was something talking about would help, I’d talk.”
“I know a little something about the bad things that can happen,” Maria said. “Talk to someone. If not me, somebody.”
“I will. I promise.” She squeezed Maria’s hand. “Thank you. You wanna help me divide up these phone calls?”
The next day they were left with nothing much to do. Maria called her obstetrics patients to check on them. She and Susan, the clinic’s two volunteer doctors, took the closing in stride. Thankfully, they’d had no patients in the clinic overnight.
By about noon, Susan was going stir-crazy, and she convinced Zoe to go out for a walk with her. Zoe would rather have stayed inside behind a locked door, but the idea of Susan wandering by herself with her limited Spanish was even more frightening than leaving the house.
The crowds were too much. Zoe envied Susan’s easy enjoyment of Inírida’s market square. Susan was content to move from stall to stall buying whatever produce looked good, practicing her Spanish as if nothing unusual were going on.
She came back from one of the stalls holding two delicious smelling arepas de huevo, and handed one to Zoe. They were hot out of the fryer, cornmeal dough crisp around the edges. Suddenly, Zoe was starving, the crowds momentarily forgotten. “Maria says she’s going to teach me how to make these,” Susan said as they walked to the next stall.
“God help us,” Zoe laughed around a mouthful of savory corn cake and egg. She swallowed. “Warn me, will you, so I can be out. Or so we can alert the fire department.” She looked up ahead of them and her stomach slammed shut. It couldn’t be. There was no way she was seeing what she was seeing, and yet …
A man was haggling with one of the stall owners with a good natured smile on his face. His clear, fair skin and expensive-looking clothes marked him as an American; she would have known that even if she hadn’t known who he was. His dark hair wasn’t as close-cropped as it had been the last time she’d seen him, but was still gleaming and perfect.
The last time she’d seen Lee Wheeler, he’d brought flowers to her in the hospital and made uncomfortable small talk until visiting hours ended. The time before that,
she’d been clinging to his hand while orderlies tried to wheel her away on a stretcher.
She had to get out of here.
“Zoe?” Susan touched her arm and she jumped. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I—I think it’s the heat getting to me a little. I should—”
“Oh my god, Zoe? Zoe Rodriguez?”
Damn it. She turned around and there he was, tall and breathtaking and terrifying. “What are you doing here?” he said. “I thought you were in Miami.”
“I’ve been here a few months, at the MI clinic in town.” She made herself smile, acutely conscious of Susan’s curious expression as she looked between them.
Lee turned to Susan with the full wattage of his smile. “Hi, sorry. I was just surprised to see her here. I’m Will Freeman.”
“Susan Carpenter. Nice to meet you, Mr. Freeman.” She glanced between them and said, “I need to grab something for us for dinner tonight. I’ll just be a moment or two.”
Zoe tried to communicate no don’t leave me alone but failed.
When Susan was out of earshot, Lee leaned a little closer. “Thanks for not blowing my cover,” he smiled. He wouldn’t stop smiling at her, and it was confusing. The rush of adrenaline didn’t feel like fear, exactly. “I shouldn’t have even said hi, but …”
Zoe hid some of her confusion and discomfort by throwing away the last of her arepa. She wasn’t hungry anymore. “So … I should call you Will, then?”
He raised a finger to his lips. “At least in public. But look at you! You look fantastic. And you’re back in the field?” It was impossible to miss the admiration in his eyes. She felt utterly exposed, but a reckless, buzzing part of her brain liked it.
She smiled back, and it was almost real. “Thank you. And yes. It was time. I needed to be back.”
“Good for you,” he said warmly. They stood looking at each other, the pause in the conversation growing to an awkward length.
“Well,” she said, “I should—”
“Zoe.” Just that one word, her name spoken quietly. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
“I am.”
His eyes, still so sincere (in her mind, she heard him saying I’m Lee Wheeler, I’m with the CIA, and I’m here to rescue you), still so vividly blue, stayed on her face. “I’m glad you’re back out in the field,” he said. “I know that’s where you want to be.” He took a breath. “But I have to ask: is there any chance you might get reassigned somewhere other than Guainía?”
“What? Of course not. I’m the clinic director. I’ve got volunteers counting on me, regular staff, not to mention the patients—”
“Look—” He stopped and ran a hand over his hair. “I shouldn’t say anything. I know you’re upset to see me—”
“I’m fine—”
“I get it. I don’t blame you for not wanting to see me.”
She wanted to argue with that—the idea that he thought she didn’t want him around made something twist in her gut.
“You know about the bombing in Bogotá?” he asked, and she nodded. He leaned in and her pulse jumped when he spoke into her ear. “We’ve traced some leads out here. I just want you to be safe. Get out if you can.”
The softness of his words threw her, as did the warmth of his breath against her skin. She pulled back to find his eyes uncertain.
“I—” Her heart was hammering in her chest now. “Thanks for telling me. I have to—I should go.” She turned and forced herself to walk away instead of running, not wanting to make a fool of herself. She caught up with Susan finishing up her shopping and practically dragged her out of the market.
I just want you to be safe. The words followed her the rest of the day, and down into sleep and her troubled dreams.
Lisa Nicholas lives in Michigan with her dog and possibly more cats than is sensible. If she’s not writing, she’s feeding her story addiction any way she can: raiding Netflix, pillaging her local bookstore and library, and (most recently) tearing her way through the comics archive at Marvel.
Looking for more?
Visit Penguin.com for more about this author and a complete list of their books.
Discover your next great read!
The Farther I Fall Page 25