by Gabby Grant
Sure, Mark had perpetuated the motions: the routine evening kiss, the love-making, infrequent though it was. But in those motions, the tenderness had somehow gotten swept away like dew drops in a sweltering storm.
Swollen heat pressed from his eyes as Mark recalled the girl he’d convinced to become his wife. The woman to whom he’d promised the moon and for whom he could no longer guarantee tomorrow.
It would soon be Christmas morning, a time for gifts of life and renewal. A time to wake up one’s beliefs.
Mark squeezed shut his filming eyes and wished for one present and one present only- to wake up from this nightmare and, once again, find Ana in his arms.
Mark righted himself with a catching breath and ran his fingers through his stubbly hair, the one thing about him that hadn’t changed in these past three years. The rest of him had grown weak, both in spirit and in body. At forty-three, Mark was getting older... Older, and less efficient, he thought, slamming himself for his inadequacy.
Mark collapsed into the chair behind him, wondering how he could have missed it. Every damn bit of it- including Maria?
Mark had to get back to the DIPAC. Had to find a way to make the baby safe. Tomorrow would be impossible, with next to everybody on leave. But Mark could still make some necessary calls, wrap things up here at headquarters. Brief Albert on what was going on and leave the greater operation in his capable charge. Then, once he’d secured Isabel, Mark could get back to Washington, and focusing on Ana. Like where in the world she was.
Mark swivelled his chair and looked out the window, searching for an answer. All he had was the mysterious scrambled message from yesterday, demanding his and Albert’s resignation, her coat bloodied, as it turned out, by pig entrails, and a mysterious hank of Joe McFadden’s hair that happened to match up perfectly with the DNA samples he’d left on record at the CIA. But somehow, even before the results of the hair analysis had come in, Mark had instinctively known to whom the reddish-brown lock belonged. And somehow, Mark had the gut-wrenching feeling Ana was no longer in danger, at least not from the terrorist threat.
Though Mark had once considered Joe a comrade, truth be known, they’d never been the best of friends. It was hard to put too much stock in a friendship when the other man had once slept with your wife.
Mark balled his hands into tight fists, wanting so badly to pound something... Anything.
But the only thing that came to mind was the sorry image of Joe McFadden’s face.
***
Carolyn checked on the baby for the umpteenth time and tucked her in under the covers of her porta-crib.
Merry Christmas, to you, sweet Isabel, she thought, giving the sleeping cherub a sad smile.
Too young to know what was going on. Blissfully unaware of her mother’s danger. That, Carolyn supposed, was baby Isabel’s greatest gift for the season.
And soon, at least, Isa was to see her father. Not tomorrow probably, Mark had said. But most certainly the day after that. Neal was bound and determined to get down here to his daughter, but faced a tally of duties at the DOS first. Duties, Carolyn was sure, weighed very heavily in his trying to find Ana, or else he’d already be down at the DIPAC now.
But Carolyn had assured him Isa was in good hands. Now with the two-faced Maria under lock and key and all forces on alert, Carolyn was confident she could stay the watch and keep it steady until her boss arrived on the twenty sixth.
Carolyn blew Isabel an air kiss then sat heavily on the berth beside the crib.
Well, Carolyn decided, pulling the crinkling paper bag from beneath her bed. Now was as good a time as any.
Reaching into the bag, Carolyn settled her grasp around the snugly white teddy bear’s neck and withdrew the fuzzy creature from its packaging. Carefully arranging its bow with agile fingers, Carolyn fluffed the bear’s tummy and settled it securely in the far corner of Isabel’s crib, just shy of the baby’s feet.
At least someone would have Christmas tomorrow, Carolyn thought, hunting through her purse for the handful of candy canes she’d snatched from her Division’s Christmas party earlier in the day. Though, with their Division Chief in Washington on such a precarious mission, a certain pall had hung over the celebration, they had, by consensus, gone ahead with the party anyway. Mainly, because it had been Mark Neal’s precise orders to keep Division activities as normal as possible.
Carolyn frowned, wondering just how normal things could ever hope to be again if Mark’s quest for Ana didn’t come to a happy end. And what about the analyst scare and the new havoc that seemed to be tearing loose daily, in spite- or maybe because of, Carolyn thought bitterly- the Christian holiday that was upon them?
Carolyn laid back on her pillow and propped her aching feet up on the mattress, wondering just what her baby sister was up to back at Carolyn’s apartment, but reasoning that it was undoubtedly “up to no good.” Not that Carolyn believed Becky could get into much trouble, really. Not with her level-headed law school boyfriend Randy looking after her. Thank God for small favors, Carolyn thought, studying the coiled, gray springs above her head. At least Becky would have Christmas. Thoughtful Randy would make sure of it, likely even take her home to share the day and Christmas dinner with his family west of town.
Family, Carolyn thought, sighing heavily at the notion and casting a sleepy eye at Isabel. Pleasant dreams, sweetheart. May Santa bring you- and the rest of us- only good things.
CHAPTER 18
Tom Mooney cursed out loud and sat back in his chair. Fricking commies. If it weren’t for the fricking commies none of this would have happened. Joe wouldn’t be in danger. Goddamn Castro had them all in trouble. But Tom Mooney knew how to fix that. Yessireebob.
He and the boys had devised a plan. And Tom had set it into motion. No more waiting on Kane to call the shots. This baby was entirely in Mooney’s hands. Enforced retirement. For crying out loud, Tom hadn’t even known such a term existed. But it did and the government was taking him to task. Him, but not the one year older Albert Kane.
No, no. Kane was untouchable. Was and always had been the master rule breaker. And yet, rather than reprimands Kane had received praise for his insubordination.
Well, who would get the praise this time? Praise and, forgetting retirement, maybe even a promotion... Perhaps a post over at DOS, a post most recently vacated by an Assistant Director who couldn’t seem to get a handle on an analyst scare.
Old Tom Mooney was killing several jackass birds with one stone. First, he’d flush the US system of all those commies wafting through the ranks like odorous turds. Then, he’d show his old buddy Albert Kane who was really top dog between them.
Albert Kane had always gotten the breaks and these past three years had magnified his good fortune. Of course, he’d lost Isa, but other than that biting thorn, all was coming up roses for the AD of DOS. He’d reconciled with his daughters and was a grandfather, for crying out loud.
Tom didn’t even have a fricking son.
“Myra,” Tom barked into his intercom, “get President Kennedy on the line.”
“Sir, I...”
Goddamn woman was as insipid as a shoe shine rag.
“Myra, I asked you before to try the number I gave you!”
“Yes sir,” the unsteady voice replied.
Jesus H. Christ, Mooney thought, bounding from his chair and storming for the doorway. Goddamn female couldn’t even make a cup of coffee if...
Mooney stopped and paused in the threshold, staring at his secretary.
Myra removed the receiver from her ear and put it back in its cradle. “Sir...?”
Mooney looked down at her empty Styrofoam cup thinking he remembered. Certain he remembered.
“Bring me a cup of coffee,” Mooney barked, scanning the outer office. “And, next time, don’t make me buzz you twice!”
***
Albert Kane strode to the edge of the river and sadly shook his head. Yesterday had been Albert’s loneliest Christmas. Ana missing, his beloved Is
a gone and now baby Isabel in danger with the impending need to be sequestered. The phone call from INR had come on the heels of all that.
Albert squinted his eyes against the misting morning and cleared the clouded frames of his glasses with a handkerchief. It couldn’t be right, and yet he’d never known his source at INR to be wrong. It was more than pure scuttlebutt; INR Chief Tom Mooney was losing his mind.
Albert walked to an isolated bench and sat near the Potomac’s pulling waters. Not much happening out at Haines Point this time of morning. Scarcely a soul in sight. Only a couple of cars, expensive makes, the sign of drug deals going down. Drug deals Kane didn’t have the time nor inclination to worry about on a day when everything else in the world seemed to be going straight down the tubes.
First, there was Ana’s abduction, her second in four years. And when Albert looked inside himself to that gloomy place he seldom went, he knew Ana’s being in danger again was largely his fault. He’d been the one who’d given her the okay for becoming involved, provided the green light to her “little project.” By God, by eighty-four, a seasoned pro like Albert Kane should damn well know there was no such thing as a little project within the echelons of the DOS.
Albert gathered in his overcoat and braced himself against the howling winds blasting off the icy water. The threat to baby Isabel was the worst of it. A baby had no business being subjected to this muck, this murky half-assed stew concocted another lifetime ago by Kane and his cronies. Kane’s original plan had never involved babies. Women or civilians either. It had been Tom, he remembered, who’d wanted to diversify the threat. Threaten, he’d assured the others, only that. But Albert and Au Yang had never liked the taste of it. Not only was it un-American, it was also un-Buddhist-like, Au Yang had assured them. The Oriental had wanted no part of it. Albert, being the team’s director, had made the final call against civilian attacks period.
But whoever had gotten hold of this dangerous plan had taken it to its most sinister proportions and now civilians were dying. Children and women being threatened alike. It was no wonder the work force was jumping ship like a million drowning rats. Though, at this point, abandoning ship was no option for Albert Kane. He had a counter- operation to lead, a menace to do away with, and a mission to bring not only his daughter and granddaughter home safely, but a charge to rescue a multitude of other analysts’ families from harm, as well.
At least Albert could take some comfort in his knowledge that Mark would soon secure Isabel. In that, and in Albert’s own shared hunch with Mark that Ana had somehow, with Joe McFadden’s help, averted danger. What else could the coat evidence have meant? Ana’s jacket bloodied by the guts of a swine and Joe McFadden’s hair? Sure as hell didn’t point to a pig-pickin’. But it just might mean that Joe and Ana- in cahoots- were plotting to skewer something or someone together.
Or perhaps, they already had.
The most compelling piece to the puzzle thus far, lay in the Orange County morgue. A young Oriental man had wound up in intensive care after a supposed domestic dispute in an Orange County motel. Albert had an uneasy feeling that had been no “domestic dispute,” that the unnamed, unidentifiable Oriental had been landed in the ICU by none other than his daughter. His daughter, perhaps with the assistance of one particular operative gone AWOL from a mission in the Middle East: CIA man Joe McFadden.
Albert heard a car engine fire and rested his hand on his chest, feeling for his pistol.
The black Jaguar prowled down the narrow two-lane road that stretched out into the water then circled slowly at its bend, snaking its nose back in Albert’s direction.
Albert lifted his right hand off the frigid bench and pulled his weapon just as the driver floored the petal and roared in his direction.
Albert hit the ice-encrusted ground and whirled his frame behind the bench as the dark auto approached, tinted windows whizzing into open machine gun racks.
Automatic rifle fire corn-popped in Albert’s direction as he ducked beneath the ineffectual barrier of the bench. A white-hot flame licked the side of his right shoulder. God dammit, he’d been hit.
Albert gritted his teeth and let three shots go, just to show he was still kicking.
The car slowed to a near-stall and another round of bullets riddled the trees at Albert’s back.
Albert reached out an arm, sensing a clear shot at a rear tire, then withdrew his piece. Too damn old to have these guys after me on foot.
A siren peeled at the foot of the bridge and Albert craned his neck to see a police cruiser ripping onto Haines Point.
Thank God, Albert thought, falling back against the bench, as tinted windows clamped shut and the Jag took off with a roar.
The police car squealed a quick revolution and took off in hot pursuit.
Albert Kane got to his feet and dusted off his trousers. Then quickly gripped the bench back as his knees started to falter. He wasn’t the spring chicken that he once was, Albert thought with a grimace, bringing a hand to his stinging shoulder. A warm patch of blood met the palm of his hand. And someone had just about cooked his goose.
CHAPTER 19
Ana stirred beneath the covers, the ache in her bones calling her out of her slumber. Somewhere through a filtering haze, there was sunlight. Sunlight and coffee, she realized, her eyelids opening to the white-washed walls around her as her sense of smell kicked in.
There was a stirring in her peripheral vision.
“Morning, beautiful,” Joe said from the corner, where he slouched in a ladder-back chair. “Miss me?”
Ana bolted upright in the bed, clutching the sagging covers to her- naked, she saw looking down- chest. “J--”
“Shh,” he told her, getting to his feet. “Plenty of time for explanations, but first...”
He made for the bed and a shriek sliced from Ana’s throat as she remembered the pistol, the dark shadow moving through the trees...
Joe stopped in his tracks and surrendered two palms to the air between them. “Hey, now,” he said, “there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“Nothing to be afraid of?” Ana said, backing up against the headboard and pulling the covers in tighter. “Tell that to your evil twin pressing a pistol to my head!”
“I can explain that,” Joe said with a placating smile, a smile that tempted Ana to grab Joe’s wrist watch off the nightstand beside her and lob it in his direction.
Joe’s lingering gaze fell on her bare shoulders and she wriggled the covers on top of them. “Explain away. Start by telling me what the hell happened to my clothes.”
“Oh that” he said with a laugh. “Ana, no...”
She leveled him a look.
“Drying- outside. You would have caught your death and you know it.”
“So, it was you? You in the woods last night?”
“Me in the woods- two nights ago.”
“Two?” Ana leapt from the bed, pulling the bedclothes with her.
“Wait!” Joe nabbed his wristwatch off the night stand and trailed after her.
Ana cinched the heavy comforter around herself and passed through the threshold to the living area.
“Where are you going?”
“Home!” she said, throwing back the cabin door.
Ana stood motionless in the whistling threshold.
All around her echoed wilderness. A green mossy trail led through crook-fingered trees. At the far end of the path, a lush, green meadow, tumbled toward cascading mountains- purple-blue in the early light.
“Where in the world are we?” Ana asked, slamming the door and spinning back around.
Joe loudly snapped the watchband back onto his wrist, that infuriating cock-sure grin settling beneath his auburn moustache. “Welcome to Shenandoah.”
***
Mark took another swing at the bag and sent it swaying.
A hard left hook followed by a right cross that made his target careen wildly toward the mirrors.
“Hold it!” Albert said, reaching up and deflecting the
swinging sack with his left arm.
Mark righted himself and rubbed the aching jaw that was no less tense than it had been an hour ago when he’d come down to the DOS gym to begin his work out.
“Sorry, sir,” Mark said, “didn’t see you standing there.”
“I’d say,” Albert agreed. Albert hefted the punching bag in Mark’s direction. “Take another swing at it, son, if it will make you feel better.”
Mark shook his head and stepped back off the mat. “Only two things would make me feel better,” he said, perspiration dribbling down at the backs of his ears.
Albert studied him a moment, then chose his words carefully. “You think Ana’s with McFadden, don’t you?”
Mark stepped forward and took another slug at the bag. “You of a different opinion?” he asked, his tone sparking with his intensified physical effort as he gave the bag another hard one, two.
Albert centered his glasses on the bridge of his nose. And though it was a common habit of Albert’s, for some reason, the movement seemed unnatural. “That’s what I pray for, Mark.”
Mark stopped mid-swing and steadied the reverberating bag. Fact was, that’s what Mark prayed for, too. That Ana was alright, no longer in danger. But, holed up- with of all people- Joe McFadden? McFadden, the man she once couldn’t get enough of?
Mark felt his stomach sour and cursed himself for losing his touch. For letting raw emotion interfere with the very important task at hand. Mark wasn’t looking at this as an analyst, dammit; he was stumbling through every ounce of it like some embittered jealous husband.
Albert laid a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about Ana. Not in that regard.”
Mark looked over at his father-in-law realizing it must have been written all over his face. But what was bothering him even more was what wasn’t written all over Albert’s. What was it about his father-in-law that had struck him all wrong ever since he’d walked into this place?