He found it tough to reconcile the fragile, frightened-looking woman with someone who could carry out such a cold-blooded scheme, but those who could blend in and appear innocent on the outside always made the best operatives. Maybe she was just damn good at her job.
He had to admit, the whole thing smelled of a setup. But who could she be working for? Who would put so much time and energy into planting an operative on an isolated mountain road for the express purpose of having him find her?
He had more enemies than he liked thinking about—hostile operatives in organizations he’d worked to weaken like Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamayah in the Philippines and similar groups in other countries, but also a few within the U.S. intelligence community.
His whereabouts were supposed to be a secret from all but the top echelons of the Agency but leaks were as common in the spy business as flies in a manure pit. A government can’t expect to give its operatives the skills to infiltrate the organizations of enemy combatants without running the risk that they could turn those same skills inward and sneak through all the firewalls and safety nets.
He had angered a lot of people by dropping out of the Game. Mason couldn’t deny that. He’d been a key operative in Mindanao and his cover had been solid. Though there were layers and contingency plans built into the system, his exit would certainly leave a void, one that hadn’t gone over well with some.
As long as they kept their antagonism to themselves, Mason didn’t care if the entire Agency had him on their shit list. He had given twelve years of his life to the cause—and most of his soul. Yes, he believed the work was important. Yes, he had played a valuable part in protecting the security of his country. But he had wondered for a long time—well before Samuel and Lianne were murdered—if the cost was worth it.
The music in his ear stopped abruptly and Mason sat up straighter.
“Hello?”
Finally, just when he’d been about ready to give up in disgust, he heard the slight West Texas twang of one of his FBI contacts in the Salt Lake City field office.
“Hey, Davis. Mason Keller.”
Cale Davis had been sent to the Philippines as part of the FBI’s Crimes Against Children unit. He was investigating a sex-slave ring where homeless Filipino kids were being sold to wealthy international businessmen. Though it wasn’t typically his area of expertise, Mason, in his cover as an expatriate bar owner and sometimes arms trader, had found himself in a position to help the CAC investigation.
Their two worlds had collided and through it, he and Cale had somehow connected.
A long silence met his greeting and he could only guess what was running through the agent’s mind.
“Keller,” the other man finally said. “I’ve heard some interesting rumors about you.”
“I can imagine.”
“Did you really tell your division director to pull his thumb out of his ass before he dug around and found a terrorist cell up there?”
Mason grimaced. “Uh, something like that.”
“Man, you always did have stones as big as watermelons. I heard you’re gone from the Agency. Did they fire you?”
“I didn’t give them the chance. I submitted my letter of resignation before that little altercation with my superiors.”
“Why the grand exit?” Cale asked.
Mason thought of all the reasons he’d quit. The disillusionment. The grinding challenge of constantly playing a role, wallowing in filth and ugliness and unrelenting hatred every day of his life. The growing fear he was losing himself somewhere along the way.
Those were all secondary. He might have continued in counterintelligence forever, no matter the cost emotionally, if not for those two most important reasons now giggling in the kitchen with Pam and a strange Brit.
How to explain all this to Cale?
“Lianne and Samuel Betran are dead,” he finally said. The other agent had met them during his time in the Philippines. Though he couldn’t know the extent of their work for Mason, he would likely remember how instrumental they had been in his sex-ring investigation.
“I’m sorry,” Cale said after a moment. “They were decent people. I know they were good friends of yours.”
“They shouldn’t have died.” He pitched his voice low to ensure the children didn’t inadvertently overhear. “Samuel came to me a week before they were killed. He wanted help smuggling Lianne and the kids out of the country. He was afraid their cover had been blown and his contact in the Jemaah Islamayah was beginning to suspect he was working with the Americans.”
Acid washed into his stomach, as it did whenever he thought of the role he had played in their deaths with his helpless inaction.
“I tried to convince the brass but I couldn’t get anybody to listen. The Betrans were too valuable where they were, they said. It was hellishly difficult to infiltrate the JI and any of their satellite organizations, and we would lose years of effort without Samuel in place. An extraction at that time wouldn’t be in the best interest of our mission, they said.”
“They were important assets in the region.”
“They were people, damn it! A husband and wife who loved each other and their two kids, who thought they were doing something right and good. They believed in freedom and democracy and protecting the innocent and they spent ten years risking their lives for us! What did they get for it? When they needed help, we sacrificed them for the greater good.”
He knew he sounded bitter but he didn’t care. The fact that he couldn’t really blame anyone but himself left more than acid in his gut. He should have tried harder, should have told his superiors to go screw themselves and helped the Betrans catch the next boat out of Butuan, no matter the cost to himself or the mission.
Every time he looked at those two orphaned children, his own failure to act haunted him.
“I’m sorry, man,” Cale murmured.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“I’m sure they weren’t thrilled to lose you down there, too.”
“Not my problem anymore.” He couldn’t let it be.
“I suppose that’s true enough. So what are you doing with yourself?”
Besides failing completely as a father figure, trying to relearn ranching after years away from it and stumbling on to strange women up in the mountains?
“A little of this and that,” he answered, loathe to explain to the agent about Miriam and Charlie. “You know I’m back in Utah, don’t you?”
“I’d heard rumors. Something about a ranch in the family and you playing cowboy for a while. You’re just over the mountains, right?”
Cale had been working out of the Salt Lake FBI field office for the last few years, precisely the reason Mason had tracked him down. “Yeah. Outside Moose Springs.”
“Close enough to catch a beer sometime. Hope we won’t run into any angry Filipino scooter gangs this time.”
Mason laughed, to his great surprise. “Definitely. Next time I’m in the city, I’ll call you.” If he didn’t have two little rugrats along, anyway.
“Listen,” he went on, “I called because I need a favor.”
“Anything. You know I’m in deep to you after you saved my ass in that bar in Tandag.”
“I have no doubt you would have charmed your way out of it. It wasn’t your fault you hit on the Vespa King’s girlfriend.”
He paused, trying to figure out the best way to explain about his Jane Doe. “Look, I know missing persons isn’t your specialty—at least not missing adults—but I figured you could maybe keep your ear to the ground for me.”
“About?”
He heard a small exclamation of laughter from the other room and somehow he knew it had to be Jane. The low, delighted sound seemed to slide down his spine, distracting him from his thoughts. He strained to catch more of it, or some clue into what might be so amusing, but couldn’t hear anything future.
“About?” Davis prompted again after a moment.
“Sorry.” He let out a breath and focused. “I ne
ed you to let me know if you hear any buzz about a missing persons case involving a woman—late twenties, maybe, with brown hair and blue eyes. British.”
Cale said nothing for several seconds and Mason could almost hear his eyebrows rise. “Okay.” The agent drew the word out. “You want to tell me what this is about?”
He sighed. “Long story, one I’m sure you’ll never believe. I’ll have to tell you over that beer.”
“And in the meantime I’m supposed to keep my eye open for a missing persons report. I don’t suppose you might have a name to narrow things down. Quite a few missing persons reports pass through the field office.”
“Negative on that. Only a description.” Small, delicate. Beautiful.
“Of course not. A name would make things too easy, wouldn’t it?”
The kitchen had fallen silent, he realized. A moment later he heard a flurry of footsteps going up the stairs. “I wouldn’t need your help if I had a name.”
“Right. Okay. I’ll make a note of it. I can’t make any promises. We’re not always brought into missing persons cases and this one could slip through the cracks.”
“That’s all right. I appreciate your help.”
They spoke a few moments longer about shared acquaintances. Cale told him he was off CAC for a while and working on other projects.
“You have to have a heart of iron to work Crimes Against Children all the time,” he said.
“Yeah. I don’t know how you’ve done it this long.”
Even as he spoke, Mason found himself distracted, wondering what Jane and Pam and the kids were all doing up there. A moment later his question was answered when he heard the thump and moan of the pipes in the old ranch house and realized someone was running a bath upstairs in the clawfoot tub of the guest bathroom.
He had a quick mental image of that slender form slipping into warm, scented bubbles, all creamy skin and tantalizing curves. He lingered for only an instant on the image before he shoved it aside, disgusted with himself.
He was still castigating himself—and doing his best to keep those images from reappearing—when he and the FBI agent ended their conversation a short time later.
“I’m sorry again about the Betrans, Keller,” Cale said quietly. “I lost a partner a few years back. I was in a bad place for a long time, blaming myself, angry at the world. But I can tell you things do get better.”
Did you have two constant reminders living with you? Mason wondered. Two children you didn’t know what to do with, who cried in their sleep and looked at you out of dark, lost eyes?
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mason murmured, then thanked the agent again for his help and hung up.
The water abruptly stopped and all was silent from upstairs. It took every ounce of willpower not to dwell on those images of bubbles and curves again.
He was half-aroused, he realized with disgust. He had been without a woman far too long if he could get turned on trying not to imagine his mystery guest taking a bath.
He would have to do something about that, but he had no idea what. This was rural Utah. Unattached women willing to have a no-strings affair with a man who was lousy at relationships weren’t exactly growing on trees in this region of the country.
In the meantime, he would have to just do his best to ignore his unwilling attraction to Jane Doe—and hope to hell he could figure out her game.
* * *
After a delicious meal and a long, hot soak in water softly scented of lavender and chamomile, Jane felt almost human again.
Though her skin was wrinkled and pruney, the pervading ache in her muscles eased and even the pounding in her head had dulled to a steady throb. Perhaps with a little sleep even that would fade.
She dried herself, dressed in the voluminous cotton nightgown loaned her by Pam Lewis, and found her way to the guest room Mason’s housekeeper had pointed out.
The room was a little threadbare with only a bed, an old-fashioned carved chest of drawers and a small bedside table, but it was clean and comfortable enough and had a lovely view of the ranch and the surrounding mountains out the window.
All she really cared about was the bed, anyway. She wanted to sink into it and not climb back out for days.
She pulled back a pale-blue quilt of worn, soft cotton and slid between sheets that smelled of sunshine and fresh air. Ah, heaven.
Sleep didn’t come immediately, despite her exhaustion. She couldn’t have expected it to, not when her mind raced with a hundred questions. What was the story here with Mason and the children? How did a ruggedly handsome Utah rancher come to be the caretaker for two foreign-born children?
Why had his ranch been empty for the last few years? Where was he during that time and what had he been doing?
Why was he so suspicious of her, so unwilling to believe she was telling the truth about her amnesia? And why did he seem to be surrounded by a subtle air of danger, of keen alertness, as if he would be ready to take on any threat?
The more vital questions, of course, were the ones she almost couldn’t bear entertaining.
Who was she?
What had she been doing on that mountain road?
What kind of life had she left behind?
Probing her mind for any clues only made her head begin to ache again. Perhaps it would be better to tuck those questions away for the morning and concentrate for now on sleeping, on giving her body a chance to heal.
Tomorrow could wait.
* * *
Simon Djami was not pleased.
He surveyed the four men in front of him, wondering why he had been cursed with such incompetence.
Fury whipped through him like the wind atop Mount Caragog, powerful and violent, but he allowed none of it to show through his supreme calm.
“I believe my instructions were quite simple,” he murmured. “You were only to take the infidel woman into the mountains and kill her, leaving her in the most remote location you could find, a place where her carcass would not be discovered until long after our plans have come to fruition.”
“Yes, sir. Those were your orders, sir.” A tiny trickle of sweat dripped from the mustache of Ibram Ghalib and the man cast a nervous eye toward his three countrymen flanking him, as if he might deflect attention away from himself.
Foolish man. He was the leader. As such, he carried the responsibility for carrying out orders—and ultimately, the blame.
Simon would not let him take the coward’s way out by turning that blame to others.
“Can you, great warrior, tell me why my orders were not obeyed?” Djami asked, his voice deceptively tranquil.
Ghalib seemed to relax, his coarse features losing some of their anxiousness.
“I cannot say, sir. We drove deep into the mountains but when we stopped, we discovered the woman was gone.”
“Gone. Just like that? Is this woman an aswani?” He smiled as if the whole thing was a grand joke. “Do you think she performed some kind of evil magical spell and turned herself into a snake who could slither through her restraints and into the night?”
Ghalib, the stupid sod, laughed and the other idiots joined in. “As to that, I do not know, sir. We do know the doors to the truck were not latched properly. We believe she escaped that way. You can be assured, sir, that as soon as we discovered her missing, we tried to return the direction we had come to find her but these mountain roads have no signs. We drove all the night through but could not find her again.”
Djami steepled his hands together. “This displeases me.”
Ghalib bowed his head. “I am unworthy of your trust in me.”
Yes. He had determined that already. Djami allowed a small portion of his terrible anger to show. “The woman is a threat to our entire plan. Only a handful of people in this cursed country speak Vandish and she is one. With all that she must have overheard, she knows everything. And now, because of your carelessness in letting her escape, one stupid female has the power to destroy many months of careful planning.”
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Ghalib swallowed hard, but he betrayed no other signs of nervousness.
“Have you forgotten our cause?” Djami went on. “The great splendor of Vandelusia? We must keep our beloved country pure and unsullied for our children and grandchildren. We cannot allow western infidels to bring their wicked dollars to corrupt our sons and defile our daughters, can we?”
“No, sir.”
“We must stand together to defeat them.” Djami allowed his voice to rise with passion. “If we allow the weak and manipulated leaders of our country to have their way, we will be forever allied with the evil infidels. We must fight for Vandelusia!”
Djami gauged his audience, saw the rising fervor on the features of all three men. “We have come too far to back down now. We cannot let one woman stand in the way of our plans. We must go forward to rid our country of this unholy influence forever!”
“Huzzah!” the men cried.
When their exultation had faded, he turned back to Ghalib. As leader of the VLF cell, he bore complete responsibility for failure.
“You do understand the importance of our mission, do you not, my friend?”
Ghalib nodded. “Yes, sir. Completely, sir.”
“And yet you allowed the woman to escape, possibly to go to the inept and corrupt American police with lies.”
“I am an unworthy servant. A thousand apologies.”
Djami studied his henchman’s bowed head with displeasure. This was not the first time he had encountered incompetence here. Ibram had passion in abundance but lacked vision and strength. The fool had been a stumbling block to his plans from the beginning.
“I’m afraid a thousand apologies are not enough, my friend.” In one swift motion Djami pulled a small black Walther from the folds of his robe and squeezed the trigger.
Ghalib had time for only one tiny exclamation of surprise before he toppled back with a neat round hole in his forehead.
The other three men stared at Djami, their foolish eyes wide and terrified and their breathing harsh with fear.
He allowed himself a small smile. “Dispose of him and then find the woman, for the glory of Vandelusia. This time I would advise you not to fail.”
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