by Gayle Wilson
“How can I not be involved?” she demanded, her eyes on his. How can I not be involved in something that threatens you? “Jorgensen has been targeting me.”
The truth of that briefly prevented further protest. Then Rafe shook his head, rejecting that argument as well.
“It’s not an option.”
“Then maybe it should be,” Hawk interjected. “The agency has been trying to get a handle on this guy for almost a year. You aren’t going to find him unless he wants to be found. And the only thing we’re fairly sure about is that he wants you to watch Elizabeth die.”
“So you think I should make that easier for him? You’re beginning to sound like Steiner,” Rafe said, his voice sharp with anger.
“Don’t compare me to that bastard,” Hawk said.
“Then quit thinking like him,” Rafe said. “Would you agree to use your wife for bait?”
“Elizabeth isn’t your wife. She’s an agent. And a damn good one.”
“That’s enough,” Griff broke in.
The authority in his tone was probably enough to put an end to the increasingly hostile exchange. Or maybe, Elizabeth acknowledged, that had more to do with the relationship these two men had once shared.
Both responded to the command, looking at Griff rather than continuing their debate. And it was to him that Rafe spoke.
“I’ll do this, but only on one condition. I do it alone. You’ll be responsible for keeping Elizabeth here and for keeping her safe. If anything happens to her, I’ll hold both you and Steiner personally liable.”
“I’m not yours to dispose of,” she said.
He couldn’t have it both ways. He couldn’t profess disinterest and then attempt to arrange her life.
Of course, he hadn’t seemed all that disinterested. Despite her moving without a forwarding address, he had known where to find her. When Griff issued his warning about Jorgensen, Rafe had not only known where to deliver it, he had brought it himself.
“That doesn’t mean you’re free to throw your life away,” he said.
“Of course it does. It means I’m free to do whatever I want.”
He held her eyes for perhaps ten seconds before he turned back to Griff. “I’ll leave it to you to talk sense into her.”
“It’s my life,” Elizabeth reiterated. “And if something happens to me because I want in on this, that’s my business. My choice.”
He refused to look at her, his eyes still focused on Griff.
“Your decision,” Rafe continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “It all comes down to how badly you want him.”
“I didn’t contact you with the intention of sending you after Adler Jorgensen,” Griff said. “I was only passing on the agency’s warning.”
“That may be true, and I’d like to believe it is, but we both know that’s why Steiner came to you. You agree to keep Elizabeth out of my way, and I’ll give the agency what they want. If she’s in on this, then I’m not.”
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” Elizabeth said. “Who the hell put you in charge?”
“Adler Jorgensen,” Rafe said.
Without glancing her way again, Rafe stood, pushing his chair back so violently that it teetered. He crossed the room, slamming the door behind him. There was a moment of stunned silence.
“You aren’t going to give in to that blackmail, are you?” she asked Griff.
“Exactly what Rafe’s accusing me of. Emotional blackmail. And maybe I’m guilty,” Griff conceded. “I’m the one who brought up your name. He wouldn’t even be considering going after Jorgensen if you weren’t involved.”
“This has never been about me. It’s always been about Jorgensen trying to avenge his brother’s death.”
“And doing it in a way guaranteed to cause the most pain. For Rafe, you’re that way.”
She wanted to tell him he was wrong, that Rafe didn’t care. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to give voice to a lie of that magnitude. Rafe still refused to explain what had driven him away six years ago, but she no longer believed it had been indifference. That had been evident in every encounter she had had with him since he’d showed up in her living room.
“You’re telling me to let him do this alone?” she asked.
“I’m telling you to stay out of his way,” Griff said. “For everyone’s sake. Because of his concern for you, he’s undertaken to do a job that desperately needs to be done. One that will be hard enough without the additional stress of having to worry about your safety.”
“You think he’s agreed to do Steiner’s dirty work because of me. I think it’s just as likely that he’s missed the rush. Rafe’s an adrenaline junkie like the rest of us.”
The silence that followed her assertion was strained. She replayed the last words of what she’d just said in her mind, wondering what had produced the emotion she couldn’t quite identify in Griff’s eyes. After all, they had been addicted to those alternating peaks of fear and elation. That addiction probably had as much to do with the formation of the Phoenix as anything else, despite their genuinely altruistic motives.
Or was that sour grapes? she wondered. Because she hadn’t been asked to join? Suddenly she was ashamed, not only of what she’d said, but of what had prompted it.
“I didn’t mean that,” she said quickly. “I know that what Rafe is trying to do—”
“Has he told you about Amsterdam?” Griff broke in to ask.
Acknowledging that he hadn’t would be hard. In light of her comment, however, she supposed she deserved Griff’s rebuke.
“Not really. I know that what he did there was incredibly heroic.”
“And incredibly costly.”
She’d never known how long Rafe had spent in the hospital. Like a fool, she had respected his wishes against her flying over to be with him, forced to rely on Griff for information instead. Rafe had never answered any of her letters or calls.
She had believed that he needed time. Time to recover. Time to put the horrors of what he’d experienced behind him. She had never dreamed that eventually he wouldn’t let her help him do that.
He hadn’t. And it had hurt. Only much later had she acknowledged that he wasn’t coming back to her, no matter how much time and space she gave him.
“I wanted to help,” she said defensively. “He wouldn’t let me.”
“He wouldn’t let anyone. He was completely focused on finding Gunther Jorgensen to make him pay for that atrocity he’d committed.”
“He succeeded.”
She hadn’t known for sure until she had asked him the night he’d eaten dinner at her house. Two strangers discussing without outward emotion what was probably the seminal event in their relationship.
“He succeeded in killing Jorgensen,” Griff agreed, “but if you want to understand why he feels so strongly about your not being involved in this, get him to tell you about Amsterdam.”
“Do you really think he would?” she mocked.
“He needs to tell someone,” Hawk said.
Ironic, she thought, that the most uncommunicative of all of the fairly closemouthed members of the team should offer that observation.
“Then maybe he’ll tell you,” she said bitterly. “He hasn’t told me anything in the past six years. I don’t think he’s going to start now.”
“Ask him,” Griff urged.
And be rebuffed again? Even she wasn’t that great a glutton for punishment.
“I take it I’m free to go,” she said without verbally committing to what they’d suggested. “Or should I consider myself under house arrest?”
“Don’t make this any harder than it is,” Griff said.
“Harder for who? Surely you aren’t referring to your role in this. You got what you wanted. So did Rafe. Don’t lecture me on how to deal with having my own freedom of choice curtailed by the two of you.”
“Rafe’s only concern is your safety.”
“And what’s yours? To see how high you can jump when Steiner says boo?
”
“My concern is the same as it’s always been,” Griff said, his voice calm, despite her mockery. “To keep my people safe. As safe as they can be, given the difficulty of the mission we undertook for this country.”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, it isn’t our mission. Not any longer. You can thank Steiner for that.”
“The mission and the need for it never changed. We’ve always known that, even if the CIA didn’t. This one, however, has become…personal,” Griff said. “On both sides.”
“Well, I’ve been warned off the personal enough times that the message has finally sunk in. If you think Rafe needs to talk to someone about Amsterdam,” she said to Hawk, “maybe you should ask him. I’m following Griff’s advice. I don’t intend to make this any harder for him or for you than it already is.”
“I TAKE IT everything’s decided,” John Edmonds said.
He had been sitting on one of the benches in the rose garden when she came through the French doors. Unless she wanted to chance running into Rafe in the inner hallway, they had seemed the only viable exit from Griff’s office.
“You could say that.”
“Anything I should know?”
“That I’m not going to be allowed to be involved.”
“When Rafe goes after Jorgensen?”
“Alone. It’s what he wants.”
Edmonds’s eyes conveyed his surprise. “None of you could convince him that might not be the wisest course of action?”
“I couldn’t. They didn’t try,” she said. “They made a deal with him.”
“What kind of deal?”
“They keep me out of the way while he tries to lure Jorgensen to come after him.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t let me in on their plans.”
“And that angers you.”
It wasn’t a question. Obviously he could read that emotion in both her tone and her attitude.
“I think it’s stupid. Jorgensen chose the players. He came after me before Rafe had any idea what was going on. It seems I’d be the logical lure to get him to come out of hiding again.”
“Rafe doesn’t see it that way,” Edmonds said, a subtle movement at one corner of his mouth.
“Obviously not.”
“If you hurry, you can probably catch him.”
“What?”
“Rafe. He went to get his things from my car.”
He tilted his head in the direction of the drive, which was hidden by the thick foliage of the crepe myrtles that had been planted to screen it off from the garden.
“You expect me to go chasing after him?”
“If you want to talk to him before he leaves. I got the feeling he was in a hurry.”
“I don’t believe his departure is imminent. I think he and Griff have some unfinished business.” The unthinking phrase seemed to echo with personal significance.
“Look,” John said, “I know this is none of my business—”
“That’s right. It isn’t.”
Edmonds’s quick grin made him look almost boyish. She realized that she had been so focused on what was going on between her and Rafe that she almost hadn’t noticed how attractive he was.
“You won’t ever regret trying to talk to him,” he said. “If you don’t, however…”
Rafe was about to go after a man who had sworn to kill him. Someone who, though young in years, was old in bloodshed. Someone who had learned hate at the hands of a master.
“What do you know about what happened in Amsterdam?” she asked.
Edmonds shook his head. “Nothing beyond the fact that the bombing there was what sent Sinclair after Jorgensen. Is there something else I should know?”
“I don’t know. Hawk suggested I make Rafe tell me about it.”
“I wouldn’t think that would be a suggestion he’d make lightly. That memory can’t be pleasant.”
Rafe had never talked about what had happened the day of the embassy bombing. And for Hawk to suggest to her that he should…
“Maybe you’re right,” she said.
“About the memory being painful?”
“About regrets. I really don’t need any more of those.”
SHE MET RAFE on his way back to the house. Actually, she almost ran into him as she rounded the row of tall shrubs.
When he found her blocking his path, his expression hardened, becoming almost grim. She expected him to step to the side and go past her without speaking.
He stopped instead, waiting with ill-concealed impatience for her to say whatever she wanted to say to him. She knew he was probably already thinking about what lay ahead, his mind totally focused on the mission. She was nothing more than an unwanted distraction right now, so she decided to make this short if not sweet.
“Griff said to ask you about Amsterdam.”
It was apparent by the widening of his eyes that it had caught him off guard. “What about Amsterdam?”
“I don’t know. That’s what you’re supposed to tell me.”
“People died. Jorgensen was extremely efficient.”
“Ever the meticulous planner.”
He said nothing in response, his eyes so shuttered now that she wondered if he even saw her.
“You were able to save some of them,” she went on, determined that if Griff and Hawk thought this was so damned important, she would finish it.
And if she did, despite what was in his eyes, maybe finally there would be no regrets. Not for things that had been left unsaid or undone. Not this time.
“A few,” he said. “Is that what you want to talk about? The few people who somehow managed to escape that inferno.”
“I don’t know what I want to talk about. Griff seemed to think it was important that you talk about it.”
“Let it go, Elizabeth.”
“Let you go,” she said. “Isn’t that what you mean?”
“Nothing has changed. I shouldn’t have come to your house. If I hadn’t, none of this would have happened.”
“The bomb? You heard Griff. That was Jorgensen’s way of attracting your attention. It would have happened whether or not you were there.”
“And this?” he asked. He touched the gauze and tape he had applied to her arm. “Would this have happened if you hadn’t been with me?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how madmen think.”
“I know how this one thinks.”
“He isn’t his brother.”
“I haven’t been able to see much difference. That’s why I don’t want you there.”
“Because you’re afraid for me? Or afraid I’ll get in the way?”
“I don’t doubt your competence.”
There had seemed a slight emphasis on the pronoun. Not enough to cause her to comment about it, but enough that she would remember it later.
“Then let me help,” she begged. “Despite what you suggested inside, I have a stake in this. That bastard targeted me, no matter what the reason. I have a right to go after him.”
There was a hesitation before he answered. Long enough that she knew he had considered what she said.
“I’ll do better without you,” he said.
“Why, Rafe? Give me one good reason why you’re so determined to do this alone. We’ve never worked this way.”
Griff had always insisted on backup. No one on the team went into a situation alone if they could figure out any possible way to avoid it. Now he seemed to be sanctioning Rafe’s determination to do exactly that. And it made no sense.
Even if Rafe didn’t want her with him, Griff could still have sent Hawk or John. The decision not to provide backup was a departure from the standard operating procedure Cabot had always insisted upon.
“There is no we,” Rafe said. “Not any longer.”
He meant the External Security Team. She understood that, but again the words seemed to resonate with personal meaning.
“If that’s true, then we’ve let Steiner win.”
&nbs
p; “Steiner won a long time ago. This country paid the price of his victory in being unprepared for terrorist actions on our own shores. We can’t do anything about what happened then, but I have the opportunity now to do something about one particular terrorist. And this time, I don’t need Steiner’s approval to go after him.”
“They want you to go after him,” she said. “They’re using you. Griff knows that, and so do you. But this time… This time, Rafe, you don’t have to do it alone.”
He held her eyes a long time, reading in them, she hoped, her need to be by his side. She hadn’t been there six years ago, and through each long, dark, empty day since, she had lived with that regret.
He lifted his hand, laying his fingers lightly against her cheek. His mouth moved, slowly tilting upward at the corners as he continued to study her face.
“I couldn’t ask for a better offer,” he said. “Or for a better partner.”
Her heart quickened with the flare of hope those words produced. And then, as he continued, it settled back into the same despair she had felt when Griff agreed to Rafe’s conditions.
“I have to do this alone, Elizabeth. There’s no other option. Believe me, if there were—”
He seemed to bite off the words, stopping the flow before he said more than he intended. She waited through the silence, hoping he’d finish.
When he didn’t, she knew there was still one question she had to ask. No matter the answer.
“And when it’s over?”
He knew what she meant. She could read that in his eyes.
“This isn’t a business that allows people to make promises,” he said. “You know that. We both know it.”
As he said the last, his thumb moved to trace across her bottom lip, pulling against the thin, sensitive skin. Her mouth opened, her breath catching like a sob as his denial snapped the last thread of hope she had foolishly clung to.
She nodded, stepping back so that there was no longer any contact with the warmth of those dark, calloused fingers. It seemed, however, that she could still feel them against her skin.
His hand hesitated briefly in midair, and then, lips tight, he stepped around her. Without looking back, he rounded the hedge of crepe myrtles and disappeared, leaving her as alone as she had ever been in her life.