Michal was a hero.
But no one could ever know. He had been ordered to retain his cover…to live with those he despised and to continue to provide the intelligence no one before him had ever been in a position to know. The very people he risked his life to protect, feared and despised him the most. The fewer people who knew the truth, the less risk to his cover. Less than half a dozen men were privy to Michal’s actual status.
“No one has ever been inside this deep,” Ron, his only friend as well as superior, said, echoing Michal’s thoughts. “You know how important the intel you provide is to the security of not only our country, but also numerous others. Look at the number of catastrophes we’ve been able to avoid in the past two years. All because you are trusted by those who wish to do harm and ravage our American friends as well as our own people.”
Michal whipped around and glared at his old friend. His posture went instantly to that of the ruthless savage he portrayed each day. It was second nature now. He had to consciously restrain the fury as well as the urge to grab his friend and shake him. “Do you think I don’t know that? I have risked my life dozens of times to provide those warnings. Even now Carlos grows more suspicious of me each day. When is it enough?” He looked away, battling the rage that he so liberally unleashed on a regular basis amid his cutthroat associates.
“Michal.” Ron gripped his arm reassuringly; Michal flinched and pulled away. “No one understands more than I what you have sacrificed. But your role is far too vital to our continued stability to allow the mission to come to an end. You must not waver.”
Michal unclenched his hands and scrubbed them over his face then through his hair. Could he do this another day? Another hour? His thoughts went immediately to Amira and he forced the resulting images away. With every fiber of his being he wanted to believe that she was one of those he hated, but his heart would not allow him the luxury. His men were already suspicious of his allowing her to live this long. Carlos, in particular, had pushed the issue. This continued unrest among the ranks of his followers would undermine his absolute control, ultimately getting him killed. To a degree, death would be a relief. It was the other that kept him from simply shirking off all cares. The vow he had made to serve his country.
The damage control he could assert from the position he held as Michal the Executioner was priceless. Even he could see no way anyone else could match the level of power he had attained.
He almost laughed out loud when he considered how the Americans likened their CIA to the Mossad. If they only knew. The Mossad was more aggressive and more ruthless than the CIA could even imagine. Even those CIA officers who worked closely with their Mossad counterparts had no idea just how far the Mossad would go to accomplish their intended mission.
“It’s the woman, isn’t it?”
Ron’s question brought Michal up short.
He didn’t hide the surprise in his expression quickly enough. “I knew it was you,” Ron went on. He pushed off from the stone wall, allowing a slash of sunlight to fall over his profile. “When the woman was discovered alive and well and then came up missing, I knew.” He turned to Michal. “You know that her existence jeopardizes this mission. She could ruin everything.”
A muscle ticked in Michal’s tightly clenched jaw.
Ron glanced first right then left, noting the children racing after the goat that had escaped their watch. “My CIA contact says she has no memory of any of the events from two years ago.” His gaze locked with Michal’s once more. “The risk that she might remember is far too great. You must take the proper steps.”
Michal inclined his head, his barely banked fury no doubt blazing in his eyes. “And if I choose otherwise, what will you do? Kill me?” He smirked. “I think not.”
Enough talk. Michal turned away. There was nothing more to say…not even to the man who was his only friend, the only soul on earth he could trust. He walked away.
“Michal.”
Though he hesitated, he did not turn around to face the other man.
“What happened two years ago was a necessary risk. This is not. You know what has to be done.”
The warning fell on deaf ears.
Whether Amira lived or died was Michal’s decision.
His alone.
“I’D LIKE TO TAKE a walk.”
Ami stared into the cold, beady eyes of the man named Carlos and prayed he would not deny her request. Michal had allowed her to go outside for short periods each day for the past three. Since he’d been gone all morning she could see no reason one of the other men couldn’t do the same. She just hadn’t expected to find Carlos outside the door of the bedroom turned prison. Why did it have to be his turn to watch her?
His glare turned more venomous but, to her credit, she held her ground. She knew he, more so than any of the others, despised her. As with all else related to her current situation, she had no idea why. She only knew that she had to find a way to escape. Nothing else mattered.
“Go back into the room. I have no time or desire to bother with a whore such as you.”
Fear raced up her spine, but she held herself rigid against it. “I am allowed to take a walk. Michal said so,” she argued, working hard to keep her voice from quavering. “I want to do it now.”
Carlos made a dismissive sound and turned away from her. He folded his arms over his chest and propped against the wall next to her door as if that were the end of the subject.
She had to do this. Michal was gone. This might be her only chance to get outside without him watching her every move. “Fine.” She swallowed back the terror rising in her throat. “I’ll just ask one of the other men to accompany me.”
When he didn’t respond, she focused her gaze on the end of the hall where it opened into the massive great room and started in that direction. Her heart thudded so hard against her rib cage she could scarcely take a breath. One foot in front of the other, she reminded her sluggish brain. She was almost there and Carlos hadn’t demanded that she stop. As she came to the entryway leading into the great room she could see three men lounged around the room. One had been nicer to her than the others. Kolin, she was pretty sure. Kolin from Ireland. It seemed that Michal Arad’s band of terrorists were multinational.
Not merely a ragtag group of multinational terrorists. These men are highly trained, the cream of the crop. Their ruthlessness is rivaled only by their superior intelligence and innate instincts. No one has been able to stop them.
Ami jerked to a halt as the words crashed into her thoughts, shattering all else. She blinked. Where had she heard those words before? The voice sounded vaguely familiar. She frowned, concentrating with all her might.
Tanner.
His voice. Had he said those words to her in the nurses’ lounge when he’d tried to warn her about all this craziness? Why hadn’t she listened? Uncertainty turned the hardwood floor beneath her feet to mire. How could she hope to escape?
Suddenly aware that all eyes in the room were on her, Ami jerked her attention back to the matter at hand. She sucked in a bolstering breath and manufactured a shaky smile. “Kolin.” She looked directly at the only man who had shown a glimmer of kindness toward her. “I’d like to take a walk now. Would you mind—”
The rest of the words trapped in her throat when someone grabbed a handful of her hair, snapping her head back. Carlos, she realized, terror claiming her all over again. He jerked her against him and pressed his face close to hers. “You disobeyed me,” he snarled. “No one disobeys me.”
“I—I just wanted—”
“Shut up!” He tightened his fist in her hair. “When I’m finished with your punishment you won’t forget to obey me again.”
She cried out as he jerked her backward, toward the bedroom that was her prison. Begging for help would be pointless. None of the other men would dare defy Carlos. He was the second in command.
“Carlos, please…I…”
He shoved her into the room. For one second she prayed he would sl
am the door and leave her be. The next second she knew that was not going to happen. He slammed the door behind him and moved toward her like the evil predator he was.
Fear sent her stumbling backward. Her heart stuttered to a halt in her chest as the fury in his eyes turned to a sinister gleam. Her throat closed in fear. He was…
He slapped her hard, knocking her off her feet.
“You may have Michal fooled,” he bellowed, “but I know what you’re up to.” Her jerked her to her feet when she tried to scramble away from him. “You’ve come back to finish the job you started two years ago.” He pounded his chest with his free hand. “I know this. I am not blinded by your whorish temptation.”
She tried to claw his fingers away as they closed around her throat. The coppery tang of blood leeched from her lip into her mouth. “Stop,” she whimpered, his punishing grip very nearly overpowering her ability to speak. She tried to knee him in the groin, but he twisted away from her feeble effort. He slammed her against the nearest wall and jabbed the barrel of his weapon into her temple.
“Who sent you here?” he demanded, his face only inches from hers, the stale smell of whiskey on his breath.
She tried to shake her head. To deny his accusations. But his brute strength pinned her helplessly to the wall.
The barrel of the weapon bore more deeply into her skull. “You will tell me or you will die.”
“Laissez-la partir.”
Though she didn’t understand the words, the stone-cold voice belonged to Michal.
“I said, let her go,” Michal repeated.
Relief flooded Ami, making her legs so weak beneath her that she collapsed to the floor the instant Carlos released her. Her chest ached with the harsh banging of her heart.
Carlos turned on Michal. “She makes you weak,” he accused, the pitch of his voice rising to match his fury.
Ami cradled her bruised throat with her hands, gasping to fill her lungs more fully with life-giving air, but her gaze was locked on the two men squaring off only a few feet away. Carlos still held his gun in his hand. Michal stared him down, his own hands empty but clenched into hard fists at his sides.
“Your orders are only to see that she does not escape,” he said firmly.
Carlos waved his gun at her. Ami gasped and curled into herself protectively. “She makes a fool of you, my friend. She was sent here to destroy us…just like before.”
Michal’s dark gaze remained steady on Carlos, his composure never faltered. “That is for me to decide. You—” he moved a step closer to Carlos “—will never touch her again. Is that understood?”
For three long beats Ami wasn’t sure if Carlos was going to back down. His fingers tightened around his weapon as the face-off continued for another seemingly endless second, then he said, “You will regret this day, my friend.”
Carlos walked out of the room, not waiting for Michal to say more.
Thank God. A sob burst loose from her chest. She closed her eyes and tried hard to hold back the tears, but it was impossible. If Michal had not arrived when he had…
Strong arms suddenly scooped her up. She tried to escape, but he held her firmly against his chest. What was he going to do with her? Fear pumped through her veins once more. She stared up at Michal and tried to make her lips form the words to ask that very question, but she didn’t have the strength.
He carried her into the bathroom and settled her on her feet. She seized the opportunity to put some distance between them, moving around to the far side of the sink. She pressed against the wall, trying to make herself small and unnoticeable. Some of the panic had receded, but the fear lingered still. He planned to kill her…he’d made no bones about that. She couldn’t fathom why he’d bothered to save her from Carlos.
Unless…he wanted the honor for himself.
She shivered uncontrollably. That was it. He’d said as much. It would be his decision. He would no doubt do the deed personally.
Emotion brimmed behind her lashes as she thought again of her sweet baby and the idea that she would never see him again. Another sob wrenched from her heart.
Michal moved toward her, trapping her between the wall and his powerful body. Her fingers fisted against her sides, the urge to run or to fight so fierce she could scarcely resist the impulse to do one or the other. He growled savagely beneath his breath in that language she thought to be French. She didn’t understand the words, but he looked furious.
Her breath caught as he reached toward her.
That dark, dark gaze collided with hers. “Don’t move,” he ordered softy but, even tempered, the tone echoed with the danger that emanated from every square inch of him.
As gently as if she were an injured child, he cleaned her bleeding lip with a damp cloth, dabbing tenderly. Stunned by the act of mercy, she could only stare at him and watch the startling metamorphosis of emotions on his face. This close she could see the tiny lines that marred the smooth complexion of his skin. Lines that spoke of years of close calls with death and wielding that same power over others. The hard set to his chiseled jaw told her more about the unyielding determination he possessed than any words could have. His entire body was honed to lethal perfection. And yet the tenderness exposed in the beard-shadowed, granite-like features of that same face shifted something deep inside her.
He could kill her in an instant, but instead he was making her come.
The breath hissed past her lips. It was him that she’d been dreaming of…even before the episode in the ER with the injured Israeli man…before the startling conversation with Jack Tanner.
Michal Arad was the man she’d dreamed of making love with so often that she’d been unable to commit to Robert. The dark image that had haunted her dreams had rendered the possibility of a future with the real, flesh-and-blood man in her life impossible. Robert hadn’t had a chance, she realized ironically. He’d been competing with a ghost…
A ghost from her past.
“They all want you dead,” Michal murmured as he studiously worked to soothe the bruised skin of her throat with the cool, damp cloth. That dark, dark gaze lifted to meet hers. “What am I to do?”
Later, when she could think back on that moment, Ami couldn’t say what made her do it—some long-buried instinct or self-protective urge—but she thrust her arms around his neck and buried her face in his chest and sobbed.
She didn’t want to die.
Somehow she knew that though he appeared to have the most reason to want her dead, he was the only one who could save her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AMI KEPT HER EYES CLOSED, feigning sleep until he left the room. At last she opened them and blinked to adjust to the pale dawn hues sifting through the wall of windows. Her gaze went immediately to the chair where he sat each night and watched her. She shoved the thin coverlet aside and sat up in the bed, the cool air easily penetrating the gossamer-thin gown she wore, making her shiver. She stared down at the silky pale pink garment, wondering what had made him give it to her last night.
He’d stayed closer than usual since the incident with Carlos two days ago. That memory sent a shudder quaking through her. She consciously set aside the other memories related to that exchange, especially the one where she’d thrown her arms around Michal and held on tightly as if he were her only anchor in violent waters. He had allowed the unexpected display for a few moments before pushing her away, his expression going instantly from tender to threatening.
No matter what she thought she saw as he’d tended the hurt Carlos had inflicted, he was still determined to have his vengeance. To make her pay for her betrayal two years ago. Ami trudged to the bathroom and took care of necessary business, including a change of clothes.
As she brushed her forever unruly hair she considered the face in the mirror. Could she really have played the part of Amira Peres as Jack Tanner had said? Was she really capable of those kinds of exploits? The dreams she’d experienced night after night the past two years seemed to indicate a past with Mic
hal. But she couldn’t be certain. The dreams could be nothing but dreams. Just because his features were dark didn’t make him the father of her child. She trembled with something totally unrelated to fear for her life at that thought. If that were true and he ever found out about Nicholas…
She shook off the concept. For that matter Tanner could be the father. He’d insinuated that something had gone on between them while he’d trained her for the mission. His coloring was dark, as well.
Ami shook her head. Maybe Carlos was right. Maybe she had been nothing but a bought-and-paid-for whore who’d done the CIA’s bidding or anyone else’s, ultimately betraying Michal.
But he was a terrorist. Another shiver danced up her spine. The single most ruthless terrorist on the planet, Tanner had said. Somehow it didn’t fit. She had yet to see him harm another human being. Not even when Carlos over-stepped his bounds did Michal use violence to control the situation. It was true that he’d manhandled her to a degree, but he hadn’t actually hurt her. She studied the fading bruises left over from her encounter with Carlos. Now there was a man she was certain was capable of horrible violence.
Ami sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. This was all insane. She was a nurse, for Pete’s sake. A mother. She didn’t know anything about terrorists except what she saw in the news. She barely kept up with politics. How could she be this Jamie Dalton, undercover agent for the CIA, that Tanner told her about? How could she have played the part of Amira Peres and then orchestrated the murder of Yael Peres?
She shook her head. It just wasn’t possible. Of course, the coincidence that the name Ami could be derived from both Amira and Jamie wasn’t lost on her. When she’d been found wandering in that park two years ago the name Ami Donovan was all she’d known. She’d stuck by the name, insisting that, despite her inability to remember anything about her past, she was indeed Ami Donovan. The police and even the FBI had searched every data base available and found nothing on an Ami Donovan. For all intents and purposes, she simply did not exist.
Double Impact: Never Say DieNo Way Back Page 30