by Debra Webb
He bit his tongue, literally. Did he just say that out loud?
Sue snorted, the nostrils of her longish nose flaring. “Yeah, that’s it. Professional jealousy because I aspire to be a cold fish just like The Falcon...or is that a cold bird?”
Hunter gave up on the conversation and concentrated on the road. He didn’t want to open his mouth again and blurt out the wrong thing, and Sue wasn’t making much sense, anyway.
She descended deep in thought for the rest of the ride back to the hotel, her chin dropped to her chest.
At least she seemed more on board with his agenda, which seemed to have taken second place to all the drama swirling around Sue. But he’d lay odds that her drama was Denver’s drama.
By the time they reached the hotel, Sue had climbed out of her funk—mostly.
“Pazir, huh?”
“What?” He pulled the car up to the valet stand.
“Denver’s contact is Pazir, some Afghani who’s working both sides over there?”
“That’s right. Sound familiar now?”
“Not yet, but by the time I’m finished researching him, he’s gonna be my best friend in the world.” She shrugged out of the lab coat and tossed it in the back seat.
Back in the hotel room, Sue made a beeline for her laptop. “I have most of my files on here. It’s secure. Email is encrypted. And my password is my fingerprint.”
“All the latest and greatest stuff, but can you get to everything you need?”
“I can, but if your CIA buddy who likes to leave you gifts in mailboxes wants to play, I might need his help.”
“I can get him on board. He knows Rex, and he wants to help.”
“Rex?”
“Denver.”
As Sue attacked her keyboard, Hunter crossed his arms and studied her from across the room. The Falcon’s identity seemed to energize her, fueled by her puzzling resentment that The Falcon was a woman.
Sue raised her eyes from her laptop. “What? Why are you staring at me? Shouldn’t you be on the phone to your CIA contact to see if he wants to play ball?”
“When we met in Paris, you said you were on assignment, although I didn’t know it at the time.”
“That’s right.” She planted her elbows on either side of her laptop, joined her hands and rested her chin on them. “So?”
“I’m not trying to grasp at straws here—or maybe I am—but is that why you had to leave me without a word, without a backward glance, without warning?”
“Technically, I left you word. I put a note on your pillow.”
“Cut it. You know what I mean.” He wedged a shoulder against the window, wondering again what they were doing in this hotel room instead of Sue’s townhouse in Georgetown.
She closed her eyes for a second. “Yes, that’s why. Do you think I wanted to leave you? Did last night feel like I wanted to leave you all those years ago?”
His jaw tightened. “The Falcon made you leave me. She’s the one who told you never to contact me again.”
“Bingo.” Sue stared off into space. “I’d already been warned not to get personal with anyone while on a mission, but—” she shifted her gaze to him “—we couldn’t help ourselves, could we?”
Warmth flooded his veins, washing away all the doubt and regret that had dogged him since his affair with Sue. After his divorce and his abandonment by Sue, he’d felt toxic.
His shoulders slumped and he sagged against the window.
Sue jumped up from her chair and flew toward him. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she choked, “I never wanted to leave you, Hunter. Never wanted to give up on you, on us, b-but my job depended on it. Maybe even my life.”
He rested his cheek on top of her head. “And people think the military demands blind allegiance. Was the job important enough for you to give up...love?”
“I didn’t know it was love.” She pulled back from him and cupped his jaw with her hand. “Not then. We had a crazy chemical attraction for each other. When we weren’t making love, we were talking to all hours of the morning, strolling along the Seine. It was like a magical dream, wasn’t it?”
“It wasn’t a dream. It was real.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I knew it then. Knew we had something special. The setting, the circumstances might have supercharged what we were feeling, but there was no denying what we were feeling.”
“You’d just gotten out of a marriage. I knew it had been hard on you.” She brushed her thumb over his lips. “I thought maybe I was just a rebound for you, someone to hold on to and make you feel again.”
He raked a hand through his dark hair. “I can understand that. I can even understand slipping away when ordered to by The Falcon, but I can’t understand the rest.”
Her body stiffened. “The rest?”
“Never calling me, never reaching out.” He snapped his fingers. “All it would’ve taken was one phone call. I would’ve followed you anywhere. Surely, even The Falcon realizes that CIA agents have relationships, marriages.”
Sue broke away from him and stepped back. “I’m more than an agent. You know that now.”
“So, once you join a black ops organization, you give up your personal life? I find that hard to believe.” He flattened his hands against the cool window behind him.
She pressed the heel of her hand against her forehead. “You might find it hard to believe, but you see how I live—racing from one thing to another, always living on the edge, never knowing whom to trust.”
“You’re giving up on marriage, kids...love?” He reached out and captured a lock of her hair, slowly twisting it around his finger. “You’re made for love, Sue. I see it.”
Her cell phone buzzed on the table behind her, and she shifted her gaze to the side as he tightened his hold on her hair.
She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “That might be important.”
Expelling a long breath, he released his hold on her, maybe forever. Her priorities lay elsewhere and he couldn’t change that.
She lunged for the phone. “It’s the hospital. I’ll put it on speaker.”
Cradling the phone in her hand, she tapped the display and returned to him by the window, but their connection had been broken. She’d broken it.
“Hello?”
“Is this Sue Chandler?”
“It is.”
“I’m calling about the injured woman who came to your hotel room last night.”
“Yes?” Sue grabbed his arm.
“She’s conscious and she’s asking for you. Do you know who she is? She won’t tell us her name, she had no ID on her and we can’t fingerprint her without her consent. We’re going to have to get the police involved, as she was a crime victim.”
“I don’t know who she is, but I’m curious to find out why she came to my room and why she wants to see me now. Maybe it’s just to thank me, but could you hold off on calling the police until I talk to her? Maybe I can discover who she is.”
“She just came to in the past few hours after a turn for the worse. She’s still not out of the woods, so we have no intention of calling the police yet.”
“Okay, I’ll be there within the hour. Tell her I’ll be there.”
“Thank you.”
Sue ended the call and then backed up, falling across the bed. “Thank God she’s awake and okay.”
“It doesn’t sound like she’s okay. The nurse said she’s still in bad shape, but at least she’s asking to see you.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “I hope she plans to tell you how she was compromised and can set things right with the Agency.”
“I hope she can tell me a lot of things.”
They made the drive back to the hospital—a little faster this time and with more confidence. At least he had more confidence. Sue had never had any doubts they could get into The Falcon’s hospital room.<
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This time they checked in at the nurses’ station and were given the room number, which they pretended they didn’t already know.
The same patient, hooked up to the same machines, in the same position greeted them when they entered The Falcon’s hospital room.
Hunter hung back as Sue poked her head around the screen and said, “Are you awake?”
When Hunter heard a slight intake of breath, he followed Sue around the screen. The Falcon didn’t look much like a falcon.
The beating had taken a toll on the older woman in the bed. Two dark, penetrating eyes stared out from a worn face, crisscrossed with life’s miseries and triumphs.
She rasped out one word. “Nightingale.”
She could barely get out that name as it cracked on her lips, and Hunter’s high hopes took a nosedive. How much could Sue get out of The Falcon in this condition? The woman looked as if she were on death’s doorstep.
Sue dragged a chair over and sank into it while she took the older woman’s hand. “What happened? How’d they get to you?”
The Falcon pointed a clawlike hand at the plastic water cup on the bedside table, and Hunter retrieved it for her and held the straw to her lips.
She drank and then waved him away. “Ambush.”
“They ambushed you? How did they find you? The CIA doesn’t even know who you are. I didn’t even realize you were here in DC.”
The Falcon coughed. “Whole mission over.”
“No.” Sue scooted her chair closer. “I don’t believe that. I can’t accept it. I gave up...everything for this mission.”
The Falcon’s gaze darted to Hunter and pierced him to his soul. She coughed again, and the beeping on her machines picked up speed. “Over. Too dangerous.”
“Tell me what to do. I’ll finish it.” Sue reached for the water cup again as The Falcon went into another coughing fit.
“Over, Nightingale. Someone inside.”
Hunter hunched forward. “Are you telling us there’s someone on the inside of our own government working with terrorists against US interests?”
The Falcon placed her thin lips on the straw. When Sue pulled it away, a few drops of water dribbled from the corner of The Falcon’s mouth.
“Deep. Someone deep. Major Rex Denver.”
“No!” Hunter shouted the word. “He’s not involved.”
The Falcon reached out, and with unexpected strength, she wrapped her bony fingers around his wrist like a vise. “Someone inside setting up Denver. My shoe, Nightingale.”
Sue’s eyebrows arched. “Your shoe? What are you talking about? This isn’t over, Falcon. I’m gonna see this through.”
“Danger. Stop.”
“There’s always been danger. I’m not stopping now.” Sue jumped from the plastic chair and it tipped over. “Why did you do it? Why did you ruin my life if you’re going to give up so easily?”
“Necessary.”
“Necessary but now it’s over?”
Hunter drew his brows over his nose. How did The Falcon ruin Sue’s life? If she was talking about their relationship, that wasn’t over—and he had no intention of allowing Sue to end it now, black ops or no black ops.
“Had to do it, Nightingale. For the best.”
“The best? Really? The best that I gave up the man I loved and our...son?”
Chapter 12
A sudden fog descended on Hunter’s brain activity. What the hell was Sue talking about? Son? She didn’t have a son. They didn’t have a son.
Another coughing fit seized The Falcon, and her face turned blue while the machines went crazy.
This time the nurses arrived even faster, and as they swarmed the room and clustered around the bed, Hunter tugged on Sue’s arm.
“Her shoe. Get The Falcon’s shoe.”
Sue turned a blank face toward him as one tear seeped from the corner of her eye.
He dived past her and yanked open the door of a cabinet. He plunged his hand into the folded stack of The Falcon’s bloodstained clothes, and his fingers curled around a pair of sneakers. He clasped them to his chest, unnoticed by the nurses and by Sue herself, still rooted to the floor, in a daze watching the medical efforts to save The Falcon’s life.
Hunter grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room, past a doctor rushing in to take their place.
He propelled Sue to the elevator and out to the car, where he tossed The Falcon’s shoes in the back seat. He’d deal with those later. There was so much more to deal with in the seat next to him.
His throat tight, he closed his eyes and he took a deep breath. “Sue, what was all that about our son?”
She slumped in her seat and clasped her hands between her knees. “It’s true. I’m sorry, Hunter. I got pregnant in Paris and had a son. Drake is almost three.”
Her words punched him in the gut and for several seconds he couldn’t breathe. For the second time in his life a woman had lied to him about children—but this was much worse than his ex changing her mind about having them. He’d had a son out there for three years and never knew.
A wave of rage overwhelmed him and he punched the dashboard, leaving a crack—like he felt in his heart right now. “Why?”
“Do I have to tell you that after what you just heard?”
He rubbed his knuckles. “You kept my son from me because The Falcon told you to?”
“Yes. I had to. I had to comply.”
“Your job was more important...is more important, than anything else in your life?” He snorted. “What a sad life you lead.”
Sue sniffed and the tears she seemed to be holding back spilled over and coursed down her cheeks. “You don’t think I know that?”
“Where is he now? Where’s... Drake?” The unfamiliar name stuck on his tongue and the rage burned in his gut again.
“He’s with my dad and my stepmom.”
Hunter whistled through his teeth. “That’s great. He’s with a woman who detests you and a father who groomed you for a soulless, empty career with the CIA. Don’t tell me. It was your father’s idea for you to go black ops. His little girl fulfilling everything he hadn’t in his career.”
Sue pressed her fingers against her temples. “Drake lives with my sister, Amelia, and her family in South Carolina. They went to the Bahamas and I didn’t want Drake to go, so he spent some time with me first and then I sent him with my parents.”
“Our son doesn’t even live with his mother.” Hunter bowed his head and rested his forehead against the steering wheel. How did this happen?
He felt Sue’s hand on the back of his neck, and he stiffened, his first instinct to shrug her off—this woman who’d tricked him and lied to him at every turn.
But her touch turned to a caress as she stroked his flesh with her fingers. “I’m sorry, Hunter. I thought it was best for Drake to live with my sister while I’m involved in all this. Can you imagine if he lived with me and I failed to return home one night? Or worse, what if I were home with him and someone broke in with a weapon, like how someone stormed our hotel room the other night?”
“Why even have him if you weren’t going to keep him?”
Her hand trailed down his back. “There was never any question that I’d have your baby, regardless of how I chose to care for him later. I was thrilled with my pregnancy and never thought about my situation until... I told The Falcon.”
He lifted his head. “She’s the one who told you to send Drake away.”
“Yes.”
“Is she the one who told you not to tell me about the baby?” He tried to swallow the bitterness filling his mouth.
“Ordered me. She ordered me to keep quiet and explained the difficulties of raising a child for someone in my position.”
“And then she sent you off to Istanbul and Berlin and God knows where else to make the point, right?”
He cranked on the car engine, and Sue went back to her own side of the car.
“Do you think she kept me busy on purpose?” She dragged her hands across her face and peered at him through her fingers.
“She must’ve had a lonely, desolate life herself. She wanted to make sure you had the same.” He pulled out of the parking garage so fast the car jumped and Sue grabbed the edge of her seat. “Isn’t that why you were so angry when you found out The Falcon was a woman? You could understand a man telling you to give up your child, keep him from his father, be a part-time mother. But coming from a woman? That must’ve felt like betrayal.”
Sue crossed her arms. “I guess so.”
“I’m taking us back to the hotel, or do we even need the pretense now? You did keep me away from your townhouse because there’s evidence of Drake all over that place, isn’t there?”
“There is and I did.” She dropped her chin to her chest. “But that’s not the only reason. I really did believe we were safer at the hotel.”
“Do you want me to take you home now? Forget this whole thing? Go back to your life?”
She whipped her head around. “Go back to my life? This is my life now. Like I told The Falcon, I have sacrificed too much to walk away now. I can’t walk away, anyway. I’m under suspension and suspicion at the Agency, and I’m going to be cleared there only when The Falcon speaks up. Besides, didn’t you hear The Falcon? There’s someone on the inside and that someone is responsible for setting up Major Denver and probably for outing The Falcon’s operation.”
He nodded and squeezed the steering wheel. “I want to see my son, Sue. I want to meet Drake.”
“You will.” She traced the corded muscle on his forearm. “Can we wait until this is all over? We can go down to South Carolina together. He’s just starting to ask about his father, and I can’t wait to introduce him.”
“I could’ve taken him, you know. I could’ve taken care of him.”
“Hunter, you’re in the army still getting deployed.”
She was right, but he’d be damned if he were going to admit anything. He pulled in front of the hotel and said with a grimace on his lips, “Home sweet home.”