by Geeta Kakade
“Where did you grow up?”
“In Michigan. But…”
Bridget waited, holding her breath hoping he would go on. He did.
“No matter how hard they tried, I still felt alienated from them in my teens. I couldn’t wait to get away from them.”
“Did you get away?”
Andrew nodded. “A Marine recruiter came to my high school and I knew I wanted to join up. I was elated when I knew I had been selected but my aunt and uncle were not. They wanted me to go to medical school and become a doctor. They begged me to reconsider as they were against war and an active military. I wouldn’t listen to a thing they said. After boot camp I chose counterintelligence as the Military Occupational Specialty I would train for. I completed a Basic Intel Training Course and an Infantry Officer’s Course among others to get the MOS of my choice. Together with all the Intel courses, I learned Arabic, Pashto, Hindi and Russian. By the time I got be a Counterintelligence Agent, I was ready for deployment first to Iraq and then to Afghanistan.”
“How long have you and Mark known each other?”
“Since we were 17. Mark and I went through boot camp and Quantico together. He chose combat training for his MOS. When I was in Iraq he was in Afghanistan for the first time. I was transferred to his battalion before they deployed to Afghanistan the second time.”
Bridget had never heard Andrew or Mark talk about this part of their lives.
“I was having the time of my life but now I regret the disappointment I was to my aunt and uncle.” A pause and then Andrew went on, “Aunt Lucy died of influenza when I was on my first tour abroad in Iraq and Uncle Bert followed six months later. He just couldn’t see the point in living without her. I’d arranged a live in caregiver/housekeeper on my last leave to take care of them as I could see how frail they were getting but I bitterly regret I wasn’t there for either of them at the end. The housekeeper told me they read my letters over and over again. They left me all their money and their farm in Michigan, which I don’t deserve to have. I’d also inherited more money from my parents when I’d turned twenty five but I would give it all away for the one real legacy my aunt and uncle left me. It was Uncle Bert’s last letter to me in which he said Aunt Lucy talked about me to everyone with so much pride in the hospital, even the doctors and nursing staff. Her last words to Uncle Bert were, 'Tell Andy he is the best son anyone could wish for.’ In his letter Uncle Bert said again they couldn’t have loved me more and I made the world of difference to their lives.”
Another pause and then he said in a hoarse voice, “They gave me everything and I took it all and gave nothing back and I will always regret my selfishness.”
“I’m sorry.” Bridget knew the words were inadequate as soon as she had said them.
“Why?” Andrew demanded bluntly.
“Well it’s hard to carry a burden of guilt like you have all these years. Listen to what your uncle was trying to tell you in his last letter. Your aunt and uncle eventually understood the reasons for what you did, even if it wasn’t the life they wanted for you. They didn’t hold your choices against you.“
She waited till Andrew looked at her and then went on, “I’m no expert on the subject but you gave them the happiness they wanted of being parents. Don’t all parents have to deal with the choices their children make in a free country? Take Christy for example…she literally had a 24 karat gold spoon in her mouth, never mind the proverbial silver spoon, with the Beverly Hills lifestyle, fancy clothes, a car, servants. Some people would die to have a life like that but she left it all to search for what was missing in her life, wanting to make her own money and ended up with true happiness. Don’t you think everyone has the right to search for happiness in their own way?”
Andrew felt strangely comforted by her words. In her direct way Bridget had honed into the truth as no one else had.
“What’s your road to happiness, Bridget?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just know that I was happy at the convent and I am happy here but there is this empty space inside that insists I have to know who my parents were to move on with my life. I don’t give the thoughts much room but they rear their head every now and then.”
“Do you resent your parents for having abandoned you?” he asked.
“No. I think they wanted the best for me and knew I would be looked after at the orphanage. I don’t know what their situation was so I can’t judge them.” Bridget said. “Sister Winifred always said we couldn’t miss what we’ve never had and that is true of my parents to a certain extent. It wasn’t till I was in school and the other kids talked of their parents and the things they did together that I started thinking about them more and more, missing being part of a family. I talked to Sister Winifred about it once she said, ‘God chose to give us to each other and He knew what He was doing. We are a family here.’ I knew it wasn’t the same but I had to accept that.”
“Is that why you want to join the convent? It would be a place where it wouldn’t matter who your parents were or that you didn’t know them?”
“Of course not. I can’t join the convent as a refuge from my problems…I can only take my vows if that is the one thing I want to do with my life.”
“Then why do you feel your parents have to define your life? You are what you make of yourself. Your parents gave you life but what you do with it, how you choose to live it even in your case how you think of yourself is entirely up to you. People who might see you differently because you don’t know who your parents were have skewed perceptions anyway.”
“Sister Winfred said something like that to me too when I was in high school.”
Andrew smiled. “You really care about her don’t you?”
Bridget nodded, ”She was always there for me.”
They both stood up at the same time. He turned to say goodnight to her and lost his balance for a few seconds. She put her arms around him immediately. It was the most natural thing in the world to put his arms around her and drop a light kiss on her mouth.
“Goodnight Bridget.”
She had frozen and he wondered if he had offended her.
Later as he lay in bed, Andrew thought it all over. He was amazed at how much he had told her; stuff he hadn’t told anyone else except for the psychiatrist who had become a friend of his and Andrew’s during their last deployment, Dr. Jacob Lightfoot. What was even more surprising was the fact he’d wanted to tell her about the women in his life. There had been a few; reaching out to each other just to dispel the loneliness, have some human contact in the desolation of war. He’d always been too involved in his work to get serious over anyone.
If it wasn’t not having known her parents, he wondered if Bridget’s feelings regarding joining the order were mixed up with her feelings for Sister Winifred. Did she feel obligated to take her vows to continue being with the nun who was the only mother she had known?
“What’s going to happen next?” demanded Phillip. “When I kissed you, you knew I loved you and that was it. Are we going down that same road of new fangled thinking nonsense that takes them forever to sort things out?”
“Be patient Pa.” Agnes remembered how impatient he’d been in life too. Some things never changed.
“What if she goes off to become a nun? What then, eh? Do we start all over again, Ma?”
Agnes knew it was worry that him fretting.
“Cupid’s Kiss is really powerful, Pa. Very few people can experience it and not awaken to the lure of love.”
Phillip thought about it and then he grunted. The woman had always made sense.
“I’m going to think,” he said, wafting out the window, wishing he could use his pipe.
“See you later.” Agnes was happy he’d accepted what she’d said.
To reach the point where happily ever after beckoned every couple had to experience some turbulence. Bridget and Andrew were heading into stormy weather.
“Fasten your seat belt Pa,” Agnes said under her breath.
>
CHAPTER FIVE
Bridget sat in the SUV on Monday and waited for Andrew. Her mind was on the kiss. She knew it hadn’t meant anything more than a friendly gesture. Outside the convent people were always hugging and kissing their friends…it didn’t mean anything special.
But it did to her.
It had been her first kiss and she had instinctively wanted more. It had taken real effort to say goodnight and turn away. She couldn’t place her finger on the moment she had started being so aware of him, acutely aware of the crackling electricity that wrapped her whenever they were together. She need to insulate her feelings in protective tape so she wouldn’t come across as a fatuous twenty-one year old with no more sense than she’d been born with.
When he came out of his therapy session, Bridget could see immediately that Andrew looked pale and tense. He was half an hour later than normal and his mouth was drawn into a tight line. Had his therapy been more painful than usual? She knew he pushed himself as he wanted to get back to normal but that wasn’t always a good thing.
He got into the SUV silently and closed the door.
“What’s wrong?” said Bridget.
“Nothing.” The snap in his tone told her she wasn’t getting anything more out of him.
Back to square one.
She hit the CD button and reversed quietly. Most appropriately the passionate strains of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture filled the air.
A few minutes later she looked at him again. He was staring ahead as if he could see something that made him paler than ever.
Bridget knew she had to do something. The new Andrew, the one everyone liked being around, couldn’t retreat allowing the old Andrew to take over. They had made some headway and she didn’t want to lose the ground they’d gained. In a few minutes they would be home and there would be no chance to talk privately for a while.
Suddenly she knew what she was going to do. She turned down another road and he didn’t say a word…proof that he was oblivious to his surroundings. Bridget stopped at the lookout spot she’d had a picnic at with Christy, Moira and Frank when she’d first come to Silver Lake. The panoramic view from here overlooked the lake. The fir-covered hills that rimmed the aqua lake made a sharp contrast to the perfect blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds.
Andrew Blackwell’s focus changed when she stopped the car. He looked around and then at her.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“I wanted to show you this spot,” said Bridget.
He looked around. “I’ve seen it,” he snapped. “Let’s go back.”
Bridget stared out of the windshield telling herself to be patient. “I’m probably not the best person for this but sharing sometimes lightens the load. Now I know something went on with your session that has you upset. Talking will help, holding it in will only make you revert to the porcupine you were.”
“My session? It’s not that.”
Andrew didn’t know what to say. How had she picked up on his tension? There was a major glitch in Viktor’s arrival that threatened to ruin everything he had worked for the last six months.
Technically he was off the case, so he shouldn’t have anything to do with it but a text from Viktor an hour ago had him back in the middle of it.
“What is it then?”
He looked at Bridget and something about the steady look in her beautiful eyes told him that if he couldn’t trust her he couldn’t trust anyone in the world.
“A friend contacted me and wants to meet me.”
That was it? “I’ll be happy to drive you.” A thought occurred to her. “Unless it’s a woman and then you could call a cab.”
“A woman?” he stared at her for a second. “It’s not a woman. It’s a man but there are reasons we cannot meet openly.”
“What reasons?”
“His life is in danger.”
Bridget’s eyes widened. “What?”
It sounded like the first chapter of one of the action thrillers her friend Hilda had given her in high school. She’d read them in the bathroom by the light of the candle kept in the girls’ bedrooms for emergencies.
“He’d originally planned on coming over to the States with a group of athletes but then he and his friend were going to stay behind when their group left.”
Her heart started pumping at twice its normal rate. “Stay behind? As in defect?”
“Yes. He’s on our side and he’s been passing me vital info since my last tour in Afghanistan. Now someone’s become suspicious of him and his friend.”
“So he has to stay back?”
“Yes.”
“And…?”
“It’s not just that. Something happened yesterday and his friend was killed four days after they got here.”
Bridget felt herself go tense. “Killed?”
“They found his frozen body this morning on the slopes at Devil’s Run. They say it was an accident and that his ski bindings came undone but Viktor knows it was deliberate but he is not sure if someone is on to both of them or just him.”
“That’s terrible but why does he feel it’s him they’re on to? He’s still alive.”
“His friend was using Viktor’s skis instead of his own. Viktor wasn’t feeling well and he loaned them to Harry as his needed some repairs for rock gouges.”
Rock gouges, she knew, could affect turns while skiing. To prevent further damage to skis they had to be repaired before the skis could be used again. All kinds of winter sports had been indulged in at the Orphanage. Tobogganing on old trash can lids, skating on the frozen lake when they visited the old nuns. Everyone had skied too down the snow covered slopes behind St. Mary’s. Donated skis had been repaired and reused till they fell apart.
“How is your friend so sure it was murder?”
“No one else knew that Viktor had loaned Harry his skis.”
The full import of what Andrew was saying dawned on Bridget.
“So Viktor thinks he was the intended victim?”
“Viktor says he doesn’t think. He knows. He’s terrified and he’s refusing to meet the contact who took my place when I got hurt. He says the only person he has faith in now is me. He says he told me about this plan to defect because he got to trust me when we worked together. Our government will help him once he makes contact with them here but he had to come up with a way to get here on his own. Officially the government cannot have anything to do with it. It would cause too much trouble between Russia and the US. Viktor and I also set up a code to communicate in that only one or two people in the world can crack. If I don’t reply today, he’s going to return with the group in two days to Russia and take his chances there however dim the outlook.”
“But if his friend was killed surely his cover is blown too?”
“Not yet because he and his friend never talked to each other in public or gave anyone the impression they were anything other than members of the same ski team. There are twelve of them here on this trip so the connection Viktor has to Harry may not have been made.”
“So there is a chance Viktor could still get away if you helped him?”
Andrew nodded. “He’s playing out the angle that his knee’s given way and he wants to have it checked out by a specialist in Reno. It’s an old injury and he’s been treated for it often so no one thinks anything’s wrong. He got away from the hotel the group’s staying at on the pretext of seeing the doctor and is in a motel by himself.”
“Did he tell you where he is?”
“No. Just says he’s in South Lake now under the name Phil Smith but no one else knows that. He told the group he had met a woman on the slopes and a little r and r while he got his knee checked out was what he needed and he would be back next Monday night. He’s hoping the red herring will give him time to get away.”
Bridget bit her lower lip and then let it go. After a few minutes silence she said, “Does that mean you have to get him and stash him somewhere he won’t be found before that?”
“Or he go
es back to the group and they leave in ten days as planned.”
“If he isn’t killed before then.”
“If I fail to come up with a plan, a quick death here would be better than going back with the team and being thrown in jail in his homeland.”
Bridget frowned into the distance. “I don’t think your accident was an accident…I think someone knew you were involved with Viktor and wanted to send a message. Now they’re sending Viktor another one by killing his friend. You can’t be seen anywhere around him. That leaves only one choice.”
“What’s that?”
“Me.”
“You? What can you do? Beside Mark will have my hide if he even knows I told you all this.”
Bridget tapped on the steering wheel with one finger. “What’s important is saving Viktor’s life, nothing else, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Andrew. “I have to get a message to him and then I have to come up with a safe place to hide him.”
“We could bring him back to Cupid Lodge and he could stay in the attic for a few days.”
“Absolutely not,” Andrew’s tone told her there would be no discussion on that point. “I gave Mark my word I wouldn’t do anything of the sort and I’m not going back on it. You’re in too deep as it is. I shouldn’t have told you any of it. I’ll come up with something on my own.”
“And will you shoulder the blame if he gets killed, because you led the assassins to him?” she asked.
He didn’t answer and Bridget said, “If all you want me to do for the time being is get a message to him that you will help him, I’ll be happy to do that. You can come up with a plan about where to keep him later.”
She started the SUV.
“Where are you going?” Andrew demanded. He was already cursing himself for having told her as much as he had.
“I’m going to drive us back and then fix our lunch,” said Bridget in her usual calm manner.
An hour after lunch she came looking for him and asked him to walk with her on the path in the front of the house while she told him what she had come up with. Thinking about it later, Andrew knew he had no choice but to agree to her plan to save Viktor. With Mark gone he had no one he could trust in the area. His injury prevented him from doing anything more himself. It was like a bulls eye on his back. Anyone seeing him with Viktor would have no problem connecting the two of them and that would be the end for his friend. Andrew couldn’t understand how the matter had leaked out. He and the people in HQ had been the only ones who knew about Viktor. For him to be injured and taken off the case and Harry to be killed, one of the men at HQ had to be a mole who had known both their whereabouts. Till the snitch was found Andrew knew he couldn’t take the chance of passing any more information to his boss. He couldn’t contact Viktor on his phone either in case there was a tap on it. For the same reason he couldn’t use his own phone any more. On the other side of the coin was the fact that someone in Viktor’s group had found out something and was out to prevent his defection at any cost. Viktor had mentioned that Harry drank quite a bit and wasn’t always careful about what he said.