“So does the hospital,” she countered. “Our odds of being caught there are lower.”
“But our risks of the gear being mishandled are greater,” he insisted. “I won’t take this stuff to a place where people are already weak and sick. I can’t do that.”
He spared her a glance. -“Besides, the car’s interior is contaminated, too. The - hospital can’t handle it. The chamber can.”
He had a point. Several. The biohazardous waste hospitals dealt with wasn’t in the same spectrum as the contaminated waste they had. And the car would fit in the chamber-barely, but it would fit. “All right. But I’m going with you.”
The traffic signal changed. A guy driving a white Corvette ran the light. Adam waited until the intersection was clear and then stepped on the gas. “You’re not going and don’t bother arguing with me on this.”
“I will bother.” Seeing the guard shack at the base gate ahead, Tracy gripped the door handle and squeezed the cold metal.
“Look, if I get caught, they’ll either kill me or put me back in the brig. I need you out here. Someone has to be left on the outside who has the guts to expose the truth.”
Adam, dead? She couldn’t bear the thought. Couldn’t make herself consider it. He was being realistic-she knew that, and she saw the wisdom in what he was saying. She didn’t like it, but she saw it. “So where are you taking me?”
“To a safe place,” he said, clearly relieved she wasn’t going to argue with him anymore.
“A safe place?” The guard shack was close now. Two more cars in front of them, and then they would either be admitted, detained, or shot. The tension had sweat trickling down between her breasts. “On base?”
“On base,” Adam confirmed, sunlight slanting through his window and across his lap. “There’s a special place for Intel people. You won’t have a lot of comfort, but you will be safe.”
The guard waved the first of the two cars through the gate, his gun holstered. And then the second car. Adam pulled to a stop beside the shack. The man walked out and, on seeing the chemical gear, his eyes widened.
Tracy went board-stiff. He had recognized them. Oh, God. What would he do?
He hesitated a scant second that seemed to drag on a lifetime, then sharply saluted and waved them through the gate.
Adam stepped on the gas pedal. On clearing the guard shack, he sighed.
Stunned, Tracy couldn’t move. “Adam?”
He cupped her hand fisted in her lap. “It’s okay, counselor. We’re in.”
“Yes, but why?” She looked at him. “For the hundredth time, Adam, I’m AWOL and you’re dead. That guard recognized us, I know he did.”
“You’re right, he did. Otherwise, he would’ve stopped us.”
“You knew he would recognize us?”
“Tracy, any terrorist worth his salt can get a suit of chemical gear. If he hadn’t checked us out, I’d be furious, and I’d be back there chewing his ass.”
“But you’re dead, Adam.”
He gently squeezed her hand, “I’m Intel, honey. I’ve been dead before.”
She stiffened as if she’d been slapped. “So the guard thought all of this, your arrest and the charges-everything-was just another mission?”
“Possibly,” Adam said. “Most likely, he hasn’t decided what to think. Not yet. But he’s a trained professional. He won’t risk blowing my cover for fear he’ll blow my mission.”
Tracy closed her eyes, quietly groaning. “I’m not cut out for Intel work, Adam. I’m really not. I just don’t have the nerves for it.”
When Adam didn’t respond, she supposed he had surmised the same thing. That irritated her. She refused to feel inferior about this; she was a lawyer, not an Intel officer. And she was a good lawyer. Damn good. Even Adam agreed on that.
In silence, he drove past the credit union and base exchange, then on past the hospital to an isolated part of the base on the far side of the flight line. In the airport overrun’s wooded bumper, he pulled off the road and stopped.
Woods on one side of them and freshly mowed weeds “What on the other, Tracy looked at Adam, confused. are we doing here?”
“This is the safe place.”
“An empty lot?”
“It’s not empty, counselor.” He opened the car door, then got out and led her not into the lot, but across the street, into the woods.
She wasn’t sure but she thought she saw the hint of a smile curving his lips. If she didn’t love him, she would have given him hell for that smile. She might just do it anyway. After she murdered him for pushing her off that damn roof. Her blasted knee still ached from that fall and from all the tromping through the woods. That hadn’t helped it any. She’d seen men die, for God’s sake. She’d been through hell, and she wasn’t interested in games.
Between the trunks of two ancient magnolias, Adam stooped low to the ground. What he did only he knew, but a faint whirring sounded and an opening appeared in the grass. Tracy looked down into it. Concrete steps, a metal handrail-it looked like a stairwell. “A bunker?”
She swiveled her gaze to Adam. “Here?”
He nodded. “Get inside. I can’t leave the car parked here.”
“But-”
He rolled his eyes back in his head. “Tracy, this isn’t a time for discussion. Get in the bunker. Go straight to the decontamination chamber. It’s right at the foot of the stairs on the left. Strip and leave everything but your skin in there. Everything.” He didn’t wait for her to answer before going on. “You’ll find what you need. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Fear exploded inside her and she clutched at his arm. “What if you don’t come back? What do I do then?”
He stepped closer, touched a blunt fingertip to her masked face and let it trail down her cheek. “You bury me again, honey, and then you find out the truth ‘ “
Oh, God. Her muscles clenched, her chest ached. A jumbled mass of feelings whirled in her heart, her mind, but she couldn’t speak. There were too many feelings and no words to convey them all. No mind could comprehend them all.
“I know. Me, too.” Masked, he dropped a mock kiss to her lips, then released her. “Stay put here until tomorrow.” He nodded down the stairwell. “Go on. Hurry now.”
She stepped down the concrete stairs, then paused. “Be careful at the simulator. There’s an elaborate alarm system. The panel is on the inner wall, just to the left of the hangar’s main door.”
“I know.”
“I should tell you that I planted a bug in Colonel Hackett’s office.”
“You did?” Surprise trickled through Adam’s voice.
She nodded. “One was already there, Adam. Did you plant it?”
“No, but I’m glad to hear someone else has strong suspicions about Hackett, too.”
Disappointed, she stared at him. He was clearly antsy to get going. “Adam?”
:“Tracy, I’ve got to hurry. The car..
“Come back to me,” she said in a rush, then swallowed hard. “I’ve buried too many people I care about already.”
He cupped her face mask with his glove, and his voice turned tender. “I’ll try my best, counselor.”
Afraid she might never again see him alive, Tracy stood there, greedily drinking in everything about him, until the opening between them slid closed. And then she gave her emotions their due. She slumped down on the cool stairs, and cried.
The bunker wasn’t at all what Tracy had expected She left the decontamination chamber birth-aked and, outside it, picked up a towel from the stack on the end of a wooden bench. Wrapping it around her, she then explored.
No one else was there; the stillness and lack of noise made that apparent-The walls, ceiling, and floor were constructed of concrete, and the long hallway branched off into two smaller ones that looked more like windowless apartments. Fire extinguishers hung on the wall every twenty feet. A big concern down here, she supposed, entering the second apartment.
Space being at a premium, none was wasted. A double bed and chest rested against the outer wall. A bathroom, stocked with personal supplies, lay on the left, and a kitchenette with a table, two chairs, and a small refrigerator was to the right. There was no stove. Two cabinets near the table were Stocked with food-She opened the fridge. The things she would find in her kitchen at home filled every shelf.
Glimpsing an upright metal locker on the other side of the bed, she walked over, then opened its door. Some of her own clothes hung on the metal rod, including a complete uniform, and beneath them, on the floor of the locker, sat her own shoes.
Adam had planned well. He had known before he had kidnapped her that he would eventually be bringing her here. Recalling Reuger and his men, she amended that thought. I Adam might not have known, but he had prepared for the possibility. Nice asset in a man.. She glanced at the wall clock near the door leading to the hallway. It was huge; a school clock with large black numerals and a red sweeping second hand. Two o’clock. How long would it take Adam to encapsulate the canister, dispose of the gear and car, and get back here?
That depended on whether or not he ran into complications.
Denying that he would, she swiped her hair back from her face and returned to the closet. Her body had dried, but the stench of Area 14 and all she had witnessed there clung to her skin. She needed another shower. She needed to do something to feel clean again.
Reaching for the hangers, she grabbed a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, doing her damnedest to not let fear sink its talons into her. It proved challenging. Adam was again putting his life on the fine. He could be caught. Killed at any time.
He was innocent—of course he was innocent. But being innocent wouldn’t keep him alive.
She crunched the shirt in a tightfisted grip. Why hadn’t she come to terms with loving him before he’d had to risk his life again? Whether it was the situation or true feelings-feelings this strong have to be real-she should have told him. He’d had so little love in his life. He would have known. Now she might never again have the chance to tell him.
No. No, that wasn’t possible. He would come back. He would. She jerked up a pair of sneakers from the bottom of the locker.
A gold locket fell out onto the white floor.
Her locket.
Her heart wrenched and she let out a little moan. She fell to her knees, lifted it by the chain, and then opened it. Abby’s photograph as a newborn. Tears burned Tracy’s nose, her eyes, and spilled down her face. She thought she’d lost the photo forever, and An uneasy shiver slithered up her back.
She hadn’t worn these sneakers since before all this started with Adam. She and Janet had searched high and low, and they had deduced Tracy had to have lost the locket at the cemetery.
Adam had been at the cemetery; he’d told her so. He had found her locket.
And after already giving her everything he had to give, her very life, now he had given her back all she had of her daughter.
,Oh, Abby.” Tracy gently fingered the photo, as if caressing her daughter’s face, feeling the ache of losing her as if it had only just happened. She’d never dared to dream she would love anyone again. And she hadn’t, until Adam. ,I always lose everything I love, and I’m so scared I’m going to lose him, too.”
She rubbed the edge of the gilded locket, letting her fingertip trace its rough rim. He could die and never know she loved him. She wasn’t sure it would matter to him, but it mattered to her. She squeezed her eyes shut. “It matters … to me.”
He had to come back. He had to get through this, and come back to her. He deserved to know. After all the hell in her life, she deserved at least one last chance to tell him.
Life isn’t fair. you know what you deserve and what you get can be poles apart.
“Shut up,” she told her conscience. “He’ll come back. I know he will.
I believe it.” She sniffled and put the locket on, hearing its little catch slip into place, feeling it nestle in its familiar place between her breasts. Tears swelled and fell down her face, and fear’s talons clawed her hard. “Oh, bloody hell.” She gave in; cried until her head throbbed-for Abby, for Adam, for herself. Cried ur out, until and prayed, letting all her fears and hopes go she had nothing new left to say. Then she showered, just let it spray her standing under the stream of water, letting it sluice down her body until her tears stopped, her mind emptied, and the hot water turned cold.
Emotionally and physically drained, she turned off the tap, toweled dry, and dressed in the fresh jeans and T-shirt. Then, she waited. And waited. Sitting at the kitchen table, then sprawling across the bed, she watched the clock, and waited some more.
By nine P.m. her nerves had frayed. Something had gone wrong. He wasn’t coming back. He had been caught, or killed. If Hackett or O’Dell had found Adam, he was surely dead.
The red light above her door flashed, and a quiet alarm beeped.
She darted her gaze to it. Heavy footfalls sounded in, the corridor, outside her room. Someone was here.
She sprang to her feet, unsure what to do. Should she step into the hallway and see who it was? Stupid idea. What if it wasn’t Adam? What if it was someone else from Intel with access to the bunker? What if it was Hackett? O’Dell? Nestler? Please, not Nestler.
Oh, God, how she wished she could run and hide. But hide where? In or out of the bunker, there was no place to hide. There was no refuge.
She had no alternative but to face this head-on. And her instincts, fully alert, shouted that she would fare best by retaining an element of surprise-provided whoever was out there didn’t already know she was here. Maybe they did. Maybe they’d come to get her.
Resolved to confront them first, Tracy turned the knob and opened the door.
Chapter 25.
Adam paused outside the bunker’s decontamination chamber. Tracy’s chemical gear lay folded on the floor in the corner next to the wall. Relieved to see it there, he ice nl I’ve buragain heard her vo’ - Come back to me, Ada led too many people I care about already … Either she didn’t realize she’d fallen in love with him yet, or she had and she was fighting it. Considering her past, she was probably fighting it. God knew, he was. But he felt it in her touch, saw it in her eyes-It awed and humbled him. And it scared the hell out, of him. She didn’t trust him. To a point, yes, but past it? No way. He did trust her. it was love he didn’t trust.