I pulled into a parking spot at the hotel.
“Then, I’ll probably be on an international flight sometime on Sunday.”
We walked into the hotel lobby in silence, and Nikki didn’t say anything until we were waiting for the elevator.
“I don’t suppose you know when you’ll be back in Norman, do you?”
Once we were alone in the elevator, I told her. “To be honest, Nikki, I have no idea. I could be gone for two days, two months, or even two years.”
She stared at the floor. “I understand.”
I couldn’t read the emotional tenor of her voice. She sounded either very sad or very angry.
I placed my hands on her shoulders and turned her towards me. tilting her face so I could look directly into her eyes.
“However, here’s what I do know. I will be coming back to Norman, and when I do, I want to spend as much time with you as I possibly can.”
She nodded.
I added, “That is, if you want me around.”
Just as she was about to respond, the elevator doors opened on her floor. Three giggling teenage girls were standing there waiting to get on the elevator.
We got off and walked down the hallway toward her room, but neither one of us spoke until we got to her door.
Nikki said, “Come inside. I’d like to finish this conversation.”
I didn’t object.
As soon as she used her key card to enter the room, she walked over to the bed and flung her purse on it.
Then, she whirled around and started jabbing me in the chest with her finger.
I finally decided what I heard in her voice earlier was more anger than sadness.
“Of course, I want you around, Titus Ray. Why do you think I came all the way up here to Michigan to see you? It wasn’t because I—”
I bent down and kissed her.
As I wrapped my arms around her, her soft lips responded to mine. Our kisses grew more passionate, and I reached a point where I knew I had to stop or I never would.
She must have thought the same thing, because, as I let go of her, she stepped away from me.
I said, “I ought to go now.”
She nodded.
I headed toward the door, but then she called my name.
“Titus.”
When I turned around, she walked over and kissed me gently on the cheek.
“I couldn’t ask for a better first date. It’s been wonderful.”
Wonderful was hardly the word for it, but I couldn’t think of a better one.
Chapter 24
Friday, June 8
The moment I arrived at the funeral chapel and heard the music playing in the background, I knew Pastor John had arranged my mother’s funeral service exactly the way I’d envisioned it.
A few minutes after Nikki and I were seated, a female soloist stood to her feet and sang “Amazing Grace.” I’d heard the song before, but, for the first time in my life, the words finally made sense to me, because I knew what it meant to be a recipient of God’s amazing grace.
Following her song, Pastor John read the obituary, and then Uncle Harold did his eulogy.
Although he took about fifteen minutes longer than the five I’d allotted him, he did an excellent job. In fact, when we all got together for lunch afterward, no one could stop talking about it.
Later, I realized Uncle Harold had done so well because, although the stories happened fifty years ago, his recollections made them sound as if they’d just happened yesterday.
For Pastor John’s message, he related several conversations he’d had with my mother. Then, he used those encounters to present the message of the gospel, ending with Jesus’ words from John 14:6, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
As we prepared to leave the chapel, Carla whispered to me, “The service was wonderful, Titus. I’m sure Mother would have been pleased.”
Once the graveside service at Sunset Memorial Park was over, I told Nikki I’d like to stay at the cemetery a little longer, and she took the hint and rode with Carla back to her house, so I could have some time alone.
A few minutes later, the funeral hearse pulled away, and I walked back over to my parents’ burial plots. After lingering at my mother’s grave for several minutes, I moved over a few feet and stared down at my father’s headstone.
Then, dropping to my knees, I placed my hand on top of the cold granite and whispered, “I wish you were here to hear the words I’m about to say, Dad, because I never thought a time would come when I could say them. But now, because I’ve been forgiven, I forgive you. I forgive you, Dad. I really forgive you.”
Suddenly, I felt as though my legs were being held in place by a steel trap, and I couldn’t move. Earlier, a brisk breeze had gusted up, causing the canvas tent covering my mother’s gravesite to whip back and forth.
Now, the air was completely calm.
I wasn’t calm, though. Inside of me, there was a ferocious battle going on. I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening, but, after a few minutes, an incredible peace descended, and I knew what I needed to do next.
Placing my hand back on top of the granite headstone, I said, “If you were here, Dad, I would also ask you to forgive me. I know I never treated you with any kind of respect. I’m sorry for that. I’m so sorry.”
Tears began flowing down my cheeks and onto my father’s gravestone. My sobs sounded foreign to me; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d wept.
“When you were alive, I never once expressed gratitude for the home you gave me or the sacrifice you made for our country. And, most of all, I never tried to understand the kind of pain you suffered that made you want to drown yourself in booze. Please forgive me. Please forgive me for all of that.”
The wind suddenly whipped up again, causing the dozens of red rose petals left behind on my mother’s grave to swirl around in a tiny vortex. A few seconds later, I watched in awe as they lifted up to heaven and disappeared from sight.
Free now, I stood to my feet and walked away.
* * * *
By the time I got to Carla’s house, the funeral mourners were piling their plates with food from the buffet table in Carla’s dining room.
I filled a plate for myself and wandered around the house until I found Nikki. She was in the den and engaged in a serious discussion with Carla’s daughter, so I decided to keep on wandering.
When I arrived back in the kitchen, I spotted Carla out on the deck and waved to her. When she saw me, she opened the sliding doors and asked, “Would you mind coming out here and meeting some of my friends?”
I stepped out on the deck and Carla introduced me to several of her neighbors who’d gathered around the picnic table. After I made appropriate answers to their condolence remarks, Carla picked up her glass of ice tea and gestured toward a massive oak tree in the backyard. Underneath the tree was a heavy wooden swing.
She said, “Let’s walk over to the swing so we can talk.”
The swing was an antique, acquired by my grandparents and then handed down to each generation since. A set of rusty chains attached the dark wooden boards to the frame, and as Carla and I put our weight on it, the swing creaked and groaned.
The sound reminded me of all those summer nights as a teenager I’d spent swinging back and forth in it and gazing up at the stars. I remembered trying to recall that sound, while I was hunkered down underneath the stars in Afghanistan, doing recon on a Taliban camp.
Carla said, “Nikki told me you have to be at the airport in a couple of hours.”
I gave the swing a push with my foot and said, “I’m sorry it has to be so soon.”
“I’ve really enjoyed having you here, Titus. You’ve been a stranger for so long now.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is ... we’d like to see more of you. And, of course, you can always bring Nikki whenever you come this way.”
As soon as
she mentioned Nikki’s name, she raised her eyebrows and grinned at me, the way she used to do when we were kids, and we were trying to keep a secret from our parents.
“I promise you, Carla, I’ll do my best to come back here more often. As for Nikki, I’m not sure where our relationship is headed right now.”
She shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re still single. You’d be a great catch for any woman.”
“You’re joking, right? Didn’t you once tell me my behavior would drive any woman crazy? And what kind of catch would I be when I have to travel all the time?”
“I just think Nikki might be the kind of woman who could put up with you. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Well, thanks for that affirmation, Sis.”
She laughed, but then she turned serious when she saw me glance at my watch. “Before you go, I wanted you to know I spoke with Rev. Townsend after the—”
“He goes by Pastor John.”
“Okay, Pastor John. Anyway, I told him after the funeral service I’d like to talk to him soon. His sermon raised a lot of questions for me.”
I smiled at her. “I hope you follow up on those feelings.”
She cocked her head to one side and looked at me. “Where’s the guy who couldn’t care less about anybody but himself? Whatever happened to that kid who used to lose his temper at the slightest provocation?”
She pretended to rap on my head with her knuckles. “Is he still in there?”
“He’s still in here,” I said, pointing at my heart. “I’m fighting him all the time.”
* * * *
Nikki rode back to the hotel with me so she could pick up her rental car. She told me she planned to spend the rest of the afternoon with Carla before catching her flight back to Oklahoma City.
When we got back to the hotel, I invited her to come up to my room to keep me company while I finished packing. Mostly though, I just wanted to say goodbye to her in private.
As soon as we got up to my room, I started gathering my toiletry items from the bathroom, and she went over and took a seat in the recliner. When I walked back in the room, I saw her staring at the Agency computer I’d placed on top of my suitcase.
She asked, “If your bosses at the CIA knew you’d told me about your job, how much trouble would you be in?”
I tucked my shaving kit in a side compartment of the suitcase. “It would depend.”
“On what?”
“On whether I voluntarily disclosed the information to them or it came out in a polygraph.”
“I see.”
I sat down on the bed across from her. “Why? Do you plan on becoming a snitch?”
She leaned in toward me as if to emphasize her words. “You know I would never do that.”
“No,” I said, holding her gaze, “I don’t think you would.”
For a brief moment, a look of sadness clouded her face.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said, getting up from the bed. “I’ll tell my boss at an appropriate time before my next polygraph.”
She didn’t respond.
I snapped the lid down on my suitcase. “But, I hardly think it matters that much. You’re law enforcement, and when I told you I worked for the CIA, I had a lot of good reasons for doing so.”
Nikki shook her head. “I don’t believe the reasons you gave me were the real reasons you wanted to help me with the investigation.”
I looked over at her.
She was right, of course. She was too good a detective not to have figured there were things I hadn’t told her. I’d never told her an assassin was looking for me. I’d never told her I thought an assassin was responsible for the murder we were investigating. At the time, I suspected she knew I wasn’t telling her the whole truth, but this was the first time she’d ever brought it up.
“Listen, Nikki, maybe we need to talk about this before our relationship goes any further.”
I walked across the room and sat down beside her once again. Her hands were resting in her lap, and I picked them up and held them tightly in my own.
“My life is a secret, Nikki. I’ve sworn to keep it a secret. I go places and do things, and then I lie about them in order for them to remain a secret. That may be hard for you to accept. I know it would be hard for me to accept if our situations were reversed. I honestly wish I could tell you where I’m going next and what I’m going to be doing when I get there. But that’s never going to happen. You need to tell me now if you think that’s going to be a problem later.”
She pulled away from me, got up from the chair, and walked over to the window. After staring outside for several seconds, she turned around and faced me.
“I don’t know, Titus. I just don’t know.”
For a few seconds, I simply stared at her; surprised at myself for the anger I felt building up inside of me.
Finally, I said, “In my book, that’s a yes. You obviously think my career is going to come between us. If you thought my lifestyle wasn’t going to be a problem for you, then you would have said so.”
For the first time since meeting her, I heard her raise her voice. “You could be gone for months, Titus. That’s a huge obstacle in a relationship.”
“You’ve got that right.”
I got up and grabbed my suitcase.
She quickly walked over and stood in front of me. “Don’t be angry with me,” she said, touching my arm. “Believe me; I really want this relationship to work. I’m not closing the door; I’m doing everything I can to keep it open.”
As I looked down on her beautiful face, now clouded over with sadness, I finally managed to get my anger under control.
I dropped the suitcase and took her in my arms.
“I apologize, Nikki. Getting mad at you isn’t going to solve anything.”
When I let go of her, she looked up at me and smiled, “We’ll have a lot to talk about when we see each other again.”
I leaned down and gave her a very long, very slow, very satisfying kiss.
Then, without looking back, I headed out the door for Langley.
PART THREE
Chapter 25
As soon as my flight to Langley was airborne, I decided to concentrate on Ahmed Al-Amin. I wanted to focus in on his possible target once he arrived in Venezuela.
Even though I knew my mental exercise was an effort to direct my thoughts away from Nikki, I did it anyway.
It worked pretty well—for about fifteen minutes.
Then, I gave up entirely and replayed our last conversation at slow speed.
While I was sorry I’d gotten angry with Nikki, I didn’t regret making her acknowledge the barriers we’d have to overcome if we decided to pursue our feelings for each other.
Although I’d had many relationships with women through the years, for the most part, they’d been temporary and superficial. For the first time in my life, I longed for someone with whom I could share my life forever.
Someone who was tough, but vulnerable; highly intelligent, but down to earth; beautiful, but not conceited.
Someone exactly like Nikki.
In the last analysis, though, I knew Nikki was right.
My career was a big obstacle to any kind of relationship.
Still, I wondered if we couldn’t make it work—somehow.
I’m not closing the door; I’m doing everything I can to keep it open.
* * * *
My flight was long and boring, and when I landed, I realized I was facing an equally long and tedious evening in my hotel room before Carlton’s briefing the next morning.
All that changed, however, when my Agency driver announced he’d been instructed to drop me off at one of the CIA’s safe houses near Langley.
I asked, “Which one?”
“The Gray. Lucky you.”
Beginning in the 90’s, the Agency had started identifying their safe houses with a color code. I’d been housed in The Red and The Green before.
However, following my return from Iran, my d
ebriefing had taken place in the Agency’s newest acquisition—The Gray, a 10,000-square-foot monstrosity in a gated community. It was completely self-sufficient and had its own mini-hospital and library.
The Gray had been an obvious choice for me when I had returned to the States from Tehran because, not only had my debriefing been expected to go on for several days, I had also needed extensive rehab on my leg during that time.
Now, however, my stay in the area was scheduled to be brief, and I was mystified as to why Carlton had assigned me to The Gray.
A short time after my arrival, though, that mystery was solved.
* * * *
Greg, the resident manager of The Gray, greeted me as soon as I stepped inside the enormous foyer.
“Hi, Titus, it’s nice to have you back.”
Greg, and his wife, Martha, were responsible for the overall management of The Gray. To their neighbors, they were the homeowners, but, in reality, the real property owners were the U.S. taxpayers.
Greg pointed at my leg. “I see you’ve lost your limp. No more problems?”
“Not a bit.”
Greg was probably in his late fifties and had short gray hair. While I wouldn’t describe him as fat, his midsection was beginning to droop over his belt. However, it was easy for me to understand his thickening middle, because I’d been the recipient of Martha’s incredible cooking during my two-week stay at the residence.
“Hi, Titus.”
When I heard my name, I glanced up and saw Martha peering down at me over the wooden balustrade of the winding staircase. She wasn’t alone, however. She was accompanied by another guest of the house, and at that moment, I understood why Carlton had assigned me to the safe house, instead of putting me up at a hotel.
When Martha and her guest reached the bottom of the stairs, she shook my hand and said, “We weren’t expecting you back so soon, but it’s certainly nice to see you again.”
Martha was an attractive woman with bright blue eyes and a heart-shaped face. Her jet-black hair made her look several years younger than her husband. However, her looks totally belied the drill-sergeant mentality she used when running the household.
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