My father is a freedom fighter? I glance over at my editor’s office across the bullpen. My mind is spinning with everything I’m suddenly desperate to know about this man who shares half of my DNA. But then I stare back at the photo of my family. I can’t do anything until I talk to my parents. But once I do...I need to look into this.
Right after I finish my NAFTA story.
A little after 6:00 p.m., I sling my messenger bag over my shoulder and take the stairs down to the Post’s gym. Five years ago, I was on assignment in Darfur, and I had to run from a kill squad that was after my source. I made it all of a mile before I was so winded, I had an asthma attack. Luckily, a family saw my photographer and me and urged us to hide in their home. They saved our lives, and the day I arrived back in the States, I went right to the office and found the gym.
Now, I can run ten miles and barely break a sweat. Two years ago, I started lifting weights and studying Aikido. I lost twenty pounds, and I have abs most women would die for. Nothing seems to trim down my thighs or my ass, but I’m damn proud of my abs.
In the women’s locker room, I change into my workout gear, then get on the treadmill. Six miles later, I head for the free weights and spend an hour working my upper body.
The sweat and the burn help me feel alive, and after a quick shower, I head home. Back to my lonely apartment, my dinner of stale pizza and club soda, and a phone call I didn’t think I’d ever make.
“Hey, Dad,” I say when Steve Pritchard answers the phone.
“Dani? Is everything okay?”
I just talked to them yesterday, and while we’re close, I usually only call once a week at most. “Yeah. I just wanted to talk to you about something.” I get up to pace my living room, fearing if I sit still another minute, I’ll lose my nerve. “Um, right after Gil died, he sent me a letter. Well, scratch that. Right before Gil died, he sent me a letter, and I got it the day after the memorial.”
“You never said anything.” His tone carries the barest hint of pain, and my heart squeezes.
“I know. I’m sorry. But he sent me information on my birth father. A flash drive with his name, date of birth, and last known address on it. I never opened it. I didn’t need to. You’re my father.”
“Dani, you know your mother and I love you. You’re our daughter, and nothing will ever change that. If you’re going to ask me for permission to meet this guy, you have it. Not that you need it.”
“I can’t meet him. But I do want to find out more about him. I opened the drive last night. I needed to feel closer to Gil, and he obviously wanted me to have this.”
“Go for it, sweetheart. Nothing you find is going to make us love you any less. Your Mom and I believe you choose your family. That’s why we adopted you and Gil in the first place. Because you needed a home and we had one to give. But what do you mean you can’t meet him?”
“He’s in prison in Venezuela.”
“Prison?” My father clears his throat. “Not sure I like where this is heading, squirt. Why is he in prison?”
“I didn’t dig into it much yet. I wanted to talk to you first. The rumors are that he was arrested for speaking out against the Venezuelan government’s human rights violations. That he’s been taken to The Crypt—one of the worst prisons in the world—and is being tortured.”
A whistle carries over the line. “You smell a story.”
My cheeks heat, and I run a hand through my hair. “I do. And I want to follow it.”
The man who lost one son to a black ops mission where his other son was tortured and almost killed sighs. “Be careful, sweetheart. That’s all I ask. As far as I’m concerned, the only good thing Venezuela’s ever done for our family is give us you and Gil. After that...”
“I know, Dad. I love you.”
“Love you too, squirt. Keep me posted.”
“Will do.” After my father disconnects the call, I sink down onto my couch and stare out the window towards the Potomac. I’m really going to do this. Find my birth father and maybe, get a hell of a story out of it along the way.
Two days later, after almost non-stop research, I have my pitch ready to go. With my notebook and my favorite pen in hand, I rap on my editor’s office door. “Lincoln? Do you have a minute?”
He’s leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up on the radiator, a sign he’s in full-on idea mode. “Sure. Come on in.” Studying me, a gleam appears in his dark hazel eyes. “You have a lead, don’t you? Something big?”
“Maybe.” After I shut the door, I perch on the edge of his visitor’s chair. “I want to do a story on the Democrática Resistencia in Venezuela. With a spotlight on one of their leaders, Luis Rojas.”
“Who?” Lincoln plants his feet firmly on the floor and slides his keyboard closer before typing in my father’s name. “He’s in prison.”
“It’s worse than that. He’s in The Crypt. I got confirmation this morning. And…I think I can get in there to interview him.” I wish I’d brought my thinking putty with me. I’m so excited about this story I can barely sit still, and I tap my pen incessantly against the top of my notebook.
“Holy shit, Dani. The Crypt’s a hell hole. I don’t want you down there.”
“I’m Venezuelan.”
Lincoln blinks at me as if I’ve just told him I’m from Mars. I don’t advertise my heritage. I don’t hide it either, but my slightly darker-than-white skin, brown eyes, and black hair mean most people have no idea what ethnicity I am. I prefer it that way. Being American is the only thing I’ve ever known, so whether my parents were from Venezuela or Antartica never really meant a lot to me. Until now. “My mother was American, and my father was Venezuelan. I was born in Venezuela, just outside of Caracas. The Pritchards adopted me when I was nine.”
“Do you have dual citizenship?” Lincoln sits forward and his brows crease.
“No. I qualify, I believe. But I’d need to find proof of my birthplace, and all I have is a small diary my birth mother left for me and Gil when she abandoned us at a church in El Paso.”
Lincoln shakes his head. “It’s still too dangerous.”
Giving him a “you can’t be serious” look, I yank up the sleeve of my red sweater to show him the long, angry scar that stretches from just below my elbow to the middle of my forearm. “I got this on assignment in Afghanistan, remember? Embedded with the 82nd Airborne? A stray bullet outside of Kabul. I’m not afraid of a little danger. Not with what’s at stake.”
“What’s at stake? Dani, Luis Rojas is in prison for opposing the Farías regime. There’s nothing ‘at stake’ here.”
Anger flares, heat gathering in my chest as I grip my pen tightly. “A man’s life is nothing? Luis Rojas is probably being tortured for wanting all of the Venezuelan people treated like people. And since I’m technically one of those people—or could have easily been one, had my mother not returned to the United States—I think there’s a hell of a lot at stake.”
Lincoln’s mouth flattens, and his hazel eyes darken. “You want to travel to the country with the highest number of kidnappings in the world and interview someone the government would rather see dead—or tortured—than alive. I can’t let you go alone and I can’t send a photographer with you.”
“What if I get my brother to accompany me?” I have to do this. Now that I know where my birth father is, I want this story. More than I’ve wanted any other story in my entire life.
“Commander Pritchard?” Lincoln’s eyes widen. “If you can get him to go with you, I’ll approve your travel.”
“Fine. Give me a day to arrange things with him and reach out to my contact at the prison. But be prepared to book me that flight.” With a grin, I practically skip out of his office and head back to my desk. By tomorrow, I’ll have everything arranged.
I hope.
Chapter Three
Trevor
My desk phone buzzes, but I don’t bother to look away from my computer as I hit the button. “Yes, Marjorie?”
�
�There’s a Dani Monroe here for you, Trevor.”
My world screeches to a halt. Dani? Here? Four days after the anniversary of her brother’s death? This isn’t good. But I can’t refuse her anything. Not after all the pain I caused.
“Send her in.”
Smoothing my hands down my dress shirt, I blow out a breath, trying to ease the stress of the day, then stand and open my office door.
The woman walking down the hall bears little resemblance to the one I last saw in New Haven more than six years ago. The Dani I knew was soft and curvy with a shy smile that belied her confidence. Long hair used to fall halfway down her back in ebony waves, and her kohl-lined eyes never missed a beat.
But now… My jaw hangs open as she strides towards my office, purpose in her steps. She’s lost at least thirty pounds, and the urge to take her out for a steak dinner flares up for a moment until I remind myself I don’t have the right to comment on anything a woman does with her body.
Her smile’s different too. Instead of shyness, now, there’s unease. Like she doesn’t want to be here but has little choice. She’s cut her hair into an angled bob, and it frames her heart-shaped face in a way that makes her look in command of her entire universe.
“Trevor.” Her voice is strong, but not entirely steady as she offers me a firm handshake. Too firm, in fact. One of my knuckles cracks when she squeezes, and she releases my fingers quickly. “Sorry. Kind of a must in my world. Never let a man have a stronger grip than you.”
“It’s okay. Come on in. Can I get you a cup of coffee or tea?” I don’t know how to act around her. Fall to my knees and beg forgiveness for killing her brother? Avoid mentioning it completely? Ask her what she knows? Austin told her some of it, but last I heard, not everything. The air in the room seems to get thinner by the second as she shakes her head.
Dani takes the chair across from my desk and tugs at her black suit jacket. “I wouldn’t be here if I had another option.”
“Well, that…makes me feel like shit,” I mutter to myself as I pull a notepad from my drawer, then meet her brown eyes.
“Dammit.” She tucks a thick lock of hair behind her ear and fiddles with a simple, silver drop earring. “I didn’t mean it like that. Not exactly. But Austin’s out of the country for the next six weeks or so, and I only have one shot at the interview of a lifetime. He sent me to you.”
If this woman asked me to fly her to the moon, I’d do it. Even though I’ve never piloted a damn thing in my life. I owe her that much for what I did to her. Breaking her heart, then killing the only blood family she had? Hell, I owe her the world.
“What do you need?”
“A chaperone.” She spits the words out like they’re the worst thing she could possibly say.
“Where do you need to go that’s dangerous enough to need a chaperone?”
“Caracas, Venezuela.”
Oh, shit. The one place I hoped to never see again. “Dani, Caracas is where—“
Anger churns in her gaze. “You don’t have to remind me what happened there, Trevor. Gil died, Austin barely survived, and you…” Her eyes shimmer for a moment, and I see a hint of the real Dani. The one she hides from everyone. The one I was stupid enough to walk away from—no, to abandon—all those years ago. But just as quickly as the mask slips, she blinks hard, and it’s firmly in place again. She’s back to being professional, almost unflappable.
Dani pulls a small tin from her purse, opens it, and scoops a golf ball-sized lump of…something purple into her palm. Her fingers work it into various shapes, and I stare at her hand—the perfectly filed nails with no polish, the soft skin, the way the tendons and muscles flex and dance.
“What is that?” I ask.
“Oh.” Her cheeks flush a bit darker, and she unfurls her fingers, revealing the purple sparkling blob. “Thinking putty.”
“Huh?”
“Thinking putty. It helps me concentrate. Something about the motion and the feel of it between my fingers helps me see patterns and options I wouldn’t normally see. And it helps me when I have to say something…I’m not ready to say.”
“Like…?” I don’t want to know. Or…maybe I do.
Dani levels me with her brown eyes. “I know what happened, Trevor. The truth. You fired the shot that killed my brother.”
“Dani—“
“Don’t ‘Dani’ me.” She gets up and starts to pace, her fingers working the putty nonstop. “Austin told me everything. He didn’t want to. Hell, it took three years and a lot of cursing. Mostly mine.”
I’m so taken aback, I almost laugh. “You cursed out the head of JSOC and got him to spill classified information? He’s had so much SERE training, he’s unbreakable.”
“I cursed out my brother and got him to tell me the truth about Gil’s death. About why he died.” Dani’s voice cracks. “I know Gil tortured Austin. I know he almost killed both of you. I know his birth father convinced him to turn against the CIA, against the United States, against everything we’d ever known.”
“Dammit, Austin,” I say under my breath as I stand so we’re on the same level. I don’t want to look her in the eyes, but I have to own my shit. “Gil was my best friend. Second only to Austin.”
And you, once. The thought nearly escapes out loud, but I swallow hard before I continue.
“I think about him every fucking day. I didn’t want it to end the way it did, but it was either kill him or let him end up in a CIA black site.”
Dani stops, her back to my office door. “I know. Look, Trevor…I won’t deny that a part of me hates you for killing him. The part that spent years bouncing from foster home to foster home where the only constant was Gil. But the rest of me…” She squeezes the putty hard enough it makes little popping noises—or maybe that’s her knuckles. “I don’t blame you for his death. I blame Gil. And right now, I’m staring at a story that could make my entire career and…more. But it just happens to be in the most dangerous city in the world. I need your help.”
The vulnerability in her tone only lasts for those four little words, but they play on a loop in my head as I hold her gaze.
I need your help.
This is a mistake. A big fucking mistake. Going back to the place that ended my CIA career with the woman whose brother I killed there? I can’t believe I’m even considering it.
I need your help.
I gesture to the chair as I round my desk. “Give me the details. All of them. My boss is on his honeymoon, and I need to run this by Second Sight’s co-owner. But even if they expressly forbid me from leaving—I’m in. You’re not going to Venezuela alone.”
Dani’s eyes light up, the relief in them impossible to ignore. “Thank God,” she says. “If I had to give up on this now, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.”
“So, who are you interviewing?”
Her gaze shifts down to the putty in her hands. “Luis Rojas. He’s a freedom fighter for the Democrática Resistencia. The Farías government locked him up in The Crypt for his ‘crimes’ and the rumors are that he’s being tortured until—”
“If he’s in The Crypt, he’s definitely being tortured.”
“Don’t interrupt,” she says sharply, and I snap my jaw shut. “He’s being tortured until he agrees to recant all of his claims that the government is oppressing its citizens and give up information on the resistance movement, so Farías can put an end to them for good.”
After a beat to make sure she’s done, I arch a brow. “And the Farías regime agreed to let you interview him? Why?”
“Because I’m very persuasive.” She offers me a challenging gaze, and I shake my head.
Leaning forward, I told my hands on my desk. “Not good enough, Dani. Venezuela is a shit-show. Has been for years. I can protect you from anyone after a quick ransom or a pretty woman to sell into the sex trade. But the entirety of the Farías military complex? We wouldn’t stand a chance. No matter how lethal I am.”
The words are meant to intimidate her.
To frighten her so she won’t do anything stupid. Like putting herself in harm’s way for a story no one wants told but her.
If she were anyone other than Dani Monroe, I might have been successful. Instead, she mirrors my position and lowers her voice. “I want this story, Trev. I need this story. I’ve worked fifteen hours a day all week making calls, promising favors, and paying sources to secure this interview. Marcos Farías wants to prove to the world that he’s not a monster, and I’m going to expose him for what he truly is.”
There’s more. Something in Dani’s tone tells me she’s only giving me most of the truth. I should push her. Hell, I should refuse to accompany her completely. Except, she’s desperate. That emotion is hidden behind her words and the way she’s stopped playing with that sparkling putty and is now squeezing it in a death grip. Dammit. I’m going to regret this.
“When do we leave?”
Chapter Four
Dani
By the time I get home, I’m running on fumes. When I’m on a story, I work non-stop and usually end up so exhausted, I feel like I could sleep for a week. Yet, every night when I collapse into bed, sleep comes only in fits and starts.
My quick trip to Boston took six hours, and tomorrow, I have three hours scheduled at my doctor’s office getting the required vaccines for Venezuela—typhoid, malaria, hepatitis A, and diphtheria—then another several hours at work handing off my other assignments to the pool reporters, assuring Lincoln that I’ll be safe with Trevor with me, and transferring all of my critical information to multiple flash drives. Anytime I travel, I carry at least six of them—some out in the open, some in hidden compartments of my suitcase, my toiletry kit, and, if I’m going somewhere extremely dangerous, my shoe.
One thing you learn when you report from volatile countries? Always keep multiple backup copies of the information you most desperately need.
Call Sign: Redemption Page 3