Enemy Mine (3 page)

“So, what’s this sudden black ops popping up on your radar screen, Pet?” Morgan asked a few minutes later, as he spooned gravy over the mashed potatoes on his plate. Sitting at the head of the oval table, with his daughters at his elbows and Laura at the other end, he gave Kathy an inquiring look. He saw her cheeks turn a faint pink as she pushed a piece of roast beef around on her plate. Otherwise she looked totally relaxed.

“I can’t say much about it, Dad.”

“Hmm,” he murmured.

“You’re flying the Seahawk as part of an insert-extract mission?” Laura asked.

Nodding, Kathy felt her stomach tense like a fist. She
had to pull this off! One thing in her favor was that no matter how fearful she felt, how awkward or unsure, she never allowed any of these things to broadcast on her face or seep into her body language. No, she’d learned to hide her emotions when she was a very young child. Crying had become something she’d done alone, in her closet if her family was around, her hand over her mouth so no sound would escape.

Her father, whom she’d idolized, wasn’t always there, and when he was, he’d been preoccupied with the mercenary teams he sent out around the world to do good for others. He hadn’t had time for his daughter or for his eldest son, Jason. Kathy couldn’t count the many times she’d ached for her dad to come and hold her, to say he loved her. After the kidnapping, he’d tried to be there for her, but by that time the damage had been done. Kathy had learned not to show emotions on her face or allow her body or voice to betray her real feelings. Now she was glad of that, because this time it was essential.

“Yeah, I’ll be piloting my helo, Mom.”

“South America?” Morgan asked.

Kathy nodded. “That much I can say.”

“The country?” Morgan pressed.

“No, Dad. I can’t….” She held his narrowed gray eyes, which made her feel as if he could look into her mind and read the truth. Her heart beat hard in her chest. Kathy forced herself to take slow, deep breaths and chew her food, even though she didn’t taste a shred of it. Where she was going, the ability to play a part was paramount. It would keep her alive until…

“Hmm,” Morgan said, slicing more of the beef. “I’m just surprised I haven’t been made aware of it, is all.”

“It’s come up in a hurry, and it’s a changing mission ops, Dad, that’s why. It might be different by the time I arrive at the base.”

Laura groaned and rolled her eyes. “One of
them.
”

Kathy at least had her mother fooled. She wasn’t so sure about her dad. He still regarded her with a strange glint in his eyes, which alarmed her. Still, Kathy reminded herself, if she was scared of Morgan Trayhern finding her out, she’d better be far more worried about Carlos Garcia discovering who she was and why she was there.

“Daddy, you said you wouldn’t talk job at the table,” Kammie reminded him, tapping him on the elbow.

“Uh-oh, so I did, Kammie.”

“That’s right,” Laura said apologetically. “And I’m just as guilty.”

Kathy smiled across the table at her sister. “Why don’t you tell Mom about your butterfly in the making?” Anything to divert her parents’ focus from her. Kathy felt bad about using Kammie that way, but she had to do something to distract them.

On other missions, she had been able to tell them more. Usually, what she couldn’t say, Morgan found out anyway, because he worked so closely with the Pentagon and other military and security networks. Crossing her fingers mentally, Kathy hoped that Commander Patrick O’Conner of her SEAL team would keep this mission compartmentalized on a need-to-know basis only.

While forcing herself to slowly chew and swallow
her food, she vaguely listened to Kammie’s exciting account of finding the caterpillar. If Kathy didn’t finish her meal, Morgan would know something was wrong, and that was the last thing she wanted. The food sat like a lead ball in her stomach.

“You know, Kelly and Pete will be here tomorrow,” Laura said as they ate their dessert of freshly made apple pie and vanilla ice cream.

Kathy lifted her head. “Yes, you said they’d be coming home.” She saw the joy shining in her mother’s eyes, as well as her father’s continued scrutiny, which set her nerves on edge yet again. Stomach clenching, Kathy had a feeling he wasn’t about to let go of the topic of her black ops mission. Damn! She’d have to call Patrick and make sure that it stayed under wraps. She decided to do so at the first opportunity.

Giving the excuse that she’d eaten too much and was going to hike the wildflower trail behind their home, Kathy slipped away after dessert. Kammie was dragging their parents to her room to look at the captured caterpillar, so it was an opportune moment. Dressed in her hiking boots, a pair of jeans and a dark blue tank top, Kathy borrowed one of the many knapsacks from the garage, put a water bottle in it and took off for the woods.

Hoping that her cell phone would work from the top of the ridge, Kathy stood facing the west, toward the setting sun. Above her, through the dark branches of the stately evergreens, the evening sky was turning an apricot color.

“Commander O’Conner speaking.”

“Hey, Pat, this is Kathy Trayhern.”

“You’re coming in scratchy. Where you callin’ from, Kathy?”

Turning slightly, Kathy waited. “How’s this? Can you hear me better now?”

“Yeah, a little. What’s up? You’ve still got four days on your R and R.”

Hearing his chuckle, Kathy smiled slightly and pressed the cell phone to her ear. “I’m counting them, trust me. Listen, I
really
need to give you a heads-up on our mission. My father is giving me the fish eye, which means he intends to find out about what we’re doing.”

“Don’t worry, Kathy, I’ve got that covered. There’s no way he can get to it. Relax, okay?”

Relief sheeted through her. Kathy closed her eyes for a moment and felt her stomach begin to relax. “Good…good.”

“Listen, the ops has changed. I was going to call you, so you musta been reading my mind.”

“Oh?” Her heart pounded.

“Yeah, we just got a KNR—a kidnapping and ransom call—from the State Department. Carlos Garcia just kidnapped Sophie, a little girl from an oil executive down in Lima, Peru. She’s an American citizen. The kid is only seven years old, blond-haired, blue-eyed, and was abducted from her parents’ apartment in the Mira Flores district, the wealthy area in that city. They probably kidnapped her for either political gain or for a ransom. This isn’t the first time Garcia has kidnapped. It’s part of his profile.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No, I’m not. So that doubles the ante on getting you
in place, in Garcia’s good graces. You’re going to be looking for that little girl while you’re insinuating yourself into his command structure. She becomes our top priority now. And this lends credence to your mission. Before, we were standing on shaky ground, trying to snatch the child of a drug lord. Now, with this girl being kidnapped, we’re a bona fide mission.”

Rubbing her brow, Kathy stared at the darkening woods surrounding her. “This complicates things, Pat.” She was counting on hurting the Garcias just as much as they’d hurt her family, by kidnapping Carlos’s only child, a little girl named Tiki Garcia, age six. If the American girl was there, the mission would involve two children, not one. That made it even more tricky to carry off. And Pat was telling her that if she had to make a choice between the children, Sophie, the American child, would have to be the one she spirited away. After all, the U.S. wasn’t in the kidnapping business—at least not officially—and Kathy knew her mission would put Patrick into a lot of hot water if it was discovered by higher-ups. For him, this mission had just gotten a blessing. For her, it had become more complex.

“Yeah, it does complicate things. But you knew from the get-go that this ops was an evolving one, like a pissed-off snake twisting around, trying to bite.”

Grimacing, Kathy nodded. “You’re right. Okay, no problem. Then the time frame is the same?”

“Yeah, stay where you are. There’s no sense in changing the schedule. If you dropped in on Garcia early, he might suspect something. This way, it’ll be at least four to five days after the KNR.”

“Right.” That made sense. Patrick O’Conner was one of the oldest SEALs in the business, but one of the smartest and foxiest when it came to strat and tact—strategy and tactics. That’s why Kathy had gone to him in the first place. It would take a mastermind to draw up a mission that Carlos Garcia wouldn’t suspect. “Okay, then I’ll be there as scheduled.”

“You bet, Kat. See you soon. Out.”

Standing there, watching the apricot sky deepening to gold overhead, Kathy pushed the cell phone back into her pocket.

Damn.
Not one child to steal from beneath Garcia’s nose, but two. An innocent American child was now part of the mix. Already Kathy felt dread. She shook it off, and the thirst for revenge that had lived liked a good friend in her all these years resurfaced. She allowed her rage to burn off whatever doubts she had. Anger, if directed and focused properly, could become a powerful ally, and that was exactly what Kathy wanted.

Hiking slowly back down the mountain, across pine needles brown and slick beneath her boots, she tried to clear her mind of the new twist on her mission. Far below she could see the two-story home bright with lights. With life. A terrible sadness cloaked Kathy as she continued her descent on the well-worn path. She knew her mother often came up this trail, which ran through a flower-filled meadow on the side of the mountain. Laura would trek the mile to gather wildflowers, arranging them in vases throughout the house—colorful reminders of nature, which she loved so much.

Well, at least Kathy would get to see the twins tomor
row, as well as Jason, Annie and their new baby. A series of goodbyes, she reminded herself grimly, and felt new grief edging through the hatred and rage that the Garcias brought out in her. It was going to be a tough role to play. She wanted to cry, because she knew she was going to die. This would be the last time she’d ever see her brothers and sisters.
Oh, God, help me pull off this charade. Please….

H
OW WAS SHE GOING TO SAY
goodbye to her family? Kathy lay in bed, the morning sunlight slanting across the familiar pink rose wallpaper. Her bed faced the window and she gazed out at the pines, hands behind her head, mulling over the situation.

Today was going to be a heady day of celebration for the Trayhern family. Jason and his wife, Annie, were coming for brunch, driving from their mountain cabin, twenty miles away. Kathy would get to see their baby, little Alexander. This afternoon, Kelly and Pete were flying into Anaconda on a commuter flight from Annapolis, Maryland, where they’d just graduated. Both were choosing to go into the Marine Corps, following in their father’s footsteps, as she had.

Sighing, Kathy shut her eyes. For her, it was going to be a day of exquisite, silent anguish. How could she tell each of them goodbye without revealing that they’d never see her again? She ran over this point again and again in her mind. Already immersed in grief, Kathy didn’t even try to banish the heavy feeling wrapped around her heart. At no point, however, did she reconsider her choice to go after the Garcia drug cartel, to try
to hurt Carlos’s family as much as his father had hurt theirs. Not once.

She turned on her side and pressed her face into the soft feather pillow. Outside the open window she heard a robin trilling its long, beautiful song, along with a cardinal vying for territorial rights.

Looking at her watch, she saw it was 0600. Hearing no sounds in the house, Kathy knew the rest of the family must still be asleep. She threw off the sheet and placed her feet on the cool cedar floor, rubbing her face and pushing her thick blond hair over her shoulders. What to do?

The answer came as she showered, scrubbing her hair with a light jasmine-scented shampoo and contemplating the dilemma. After completing her toilette and climbing into jeans and a pink tank top, she sat at her desk in the corner. Over the next two hours, Kathy penned a letter to each member of her family. Sealing them in envelopes, she painstakingly printed the name of each of her loved ones on the outside.

Kathy saved the most painful for last: Alex Morgan Trayhern, the newest member of their clan. Frowning, she pulled another pink linen sheet from the drawer beside her and scrawled the date in the upper right-hand corner.

Tears burned in Kathy’s eyes, blurring the letter as she carefully folded it in half and slipped it inside the envelope. She heard the family stirring to life outside her door. Wiping the tears away with the back of her hand, she sniffed and wrote Alex’s name on the envelope. She set it aside and pulled a tissue from the box. After blotting her eyes and blowing her nose, Kathy got up and looked around her room. One side held nothing but books, because she’d been a voracious reader as a child growing up. How many times had her mother read to her and her siblings at bedtime? Oh, how Kathy had
looked forward to that! All that had been missing from those nightly readings was her father. Rubbing the area above her heart, Kathy told herself she’d better get used to the pain there. It was the pain of goodbye.

Where to put the letters so they wouldn’t get discovered? She knew her mother had a housekeeper, Sally, who came twice a week to clean. Where to put the letters…

“H
EY
, K
AT
!” Jason called as he entered the living room. “How are you?”

Kathy grinned and walked over to her older brother. He was dressed in a pair of jeans, a short-sleeved white cotton shirt and loafers. His blue eyes were alive with joy as he hauled her against him and gave her a fierce hug of greeting. For just a moment, Kathy allowed herself to be crunched against him. He was slightly taller than her, slightly huskier, and now, three years after his near fatal head wound, was looking much more like his old self. His lopsided grin was there once more.

The air rushed out of her lungs and she hugged him back. “Hi, Jas.” Kathy pulled away and smiled up at him. It always pained her to see the jagged scar that ran along the right side of his face. He’d gotten that wound when flying shrapnel landed in the tent where he had been sleeping at the Kandahar air base in Afghanistan. He and Annie were the only two survivors of the horrifying experience.

“Hey, this is great, Kat. Dad said you came in unexpectedly.”

“Yeah, I wrangled some time off before a black ops.” At least that wasn’t a lie. Kathy looked around Jason to
see Annie carrying her son into the house on her left hip. “Hi, Annie.”

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Kathy. Welcome home,” Annie said, laughing. She held up Alex, who was dressed in a blue romper and tiny white tennis shoes. “You know, I think our son is very psychic. The day before you came home, he kept going to the screen door and looking out of it.” She hefted Alex into Kathy’s awaiting hands. “He started walking six months ago, and now he has a fixed routine of where he toddles. But that day he went straight to the door, put his hands on the screen and looked out. He kept saying
‘Ninya.’
”

Holding Alex in her arms, Kathy noticed his thick black hair was short and neatly cut. She looked down into his wide blue eyes and grinned, her heart expanding with love for this precious little one. “Ninya is the name he gave me.”

Jason chuckled and slid his arm over Kathy’s shoulder. “Yeah, that’s his name for Aunt Kathy.”

“So,” she whispered, placing several soft kisses across Alex’s broad little forehead, “you knew I was coming home, didn’t you?”

“Ninya…” Alex cooed and grabbed a lock of her blond hair.

Laughter erupted and Kathy smiled at Annie, who stood at Jason’s side. She was a full-blood Apache, her copper skin and nearly waist-long braids proclaiming her proud heritage.

“Watch it,” she warned. “Alexander has taken to yanking on my hair, so you’re liable to lose some of yours if you aren’t careful.” She picked up one of her
braids and grinned. “I learned a long time ago to keep my hair away from this little guy.”

Kathy reached down and gently removed the lock from his greedy little hand. The baby smiled up at her and her heart broke. She cuddled him for a long moment and then, reluctantly, set him down. Once his feet touched the gleaming cedar floor, he was off, darting one way and then another. Kathy followed, making sure he didn’t lose his balance and hit the coffee table between the leather couches.

“He’s like a tank in high gear with no driver,” Jason called, chuckling as he settled his hands on his narrow hips.

Kathy laughed. “No kidding! Is Alex always in this much of a hurry?”

Annie walked around the living room and stood at the opposite corner, where her son was heading. “Sometimes. I think he smells the cookies Grandma made and he’s making a beeline for the kitchen—” she hooked a thumb over her shoulder “—which is directly thatta way.”

“And he knows that?” Kathy was amazed as she watched the toddler maneuver between the couch and coffee table. The boy confronted his mother, who stood between him and the cookies in the kitchen.

“He’s not dumb,” Jason said. “In fact, he’s probably too smart. He’s very visual.”

“The eyes of a wolf, the ears of a bat,” Annie murmured with a smile, taking her son’s hand and walking with him toward the kitchen and those cookies.

“Wow,” Kathy said as Jas came up and stood near her. “That’s amazing. He’s only one and a half and in this
big house he knows exactly where the cookie jar is. I don’t think we learned that until we were around four.”

Grinning, Jason rubbed his chin. “Yeah, compared to him, we were slow on the draw. This little guy of ours is special.” He held up his hand. “I know, I know, every parent says that about their child. But Alexander really is unique.”

Watching Annie and Alex disappear around the corner, Kathy said, “I believe it.” She looked up at her older brother. Since his traumatic brain injury Jason had recovered at home as well as going to the Veterans Hospital in Anaconda for additional medical treatments. His skin was ruddy with good health and he’d gained back all the weight he’d lost. His eyes burned with a fierce passion for life that Kathy knew existed because of his love for Annie and his new son.

“He gives his babysitter hell, let me tell you,” Jason chuckled. “He’s got her figured out and gives her a run for her money.”

Giggling, Kathy said, “I feel for her, then.”

“This little guy is going places. I don’t know where yet, but he’s definitely got a mission in life.”

Kathy noted the catch in Jason’s voice and saw worry in his dark blue eyes. “We all have a date with destiny, Jas.” She said the words quietly, and when she saw him nod his head, his gaze fixed on the empty doorway to the kitchen, she knew he would replay this conversation someday and take her words in a different light. She hoped Jas wouldn’t blame himself for not picking up on the double entendre.

“Hey,” she said, mustering a playfulness that she
knew was the “old” Kathy, “how’s work with Dad going? Are you enjoying learning the ropes at Perseus?”

Groaning, Jas sat down on the couch and stretched out his long legs. “Yeah, I empty the wastebaskets, sweep the floors, dust the cobwebs out of the corners of the offices—you know, things like that.”

Laughing softly, Kathy sat on the couch opposite him. “Oh, come on! It can’t be that bad. Dad said he wanted you to join Perseus and to learn it from the ground up.”

“He meant every word, Kathy.” Her brother smiled wryly. “I’m lucky he doesn’t have me on my hands and knees waxing the floors.”

“Mom said you were working with Mike Houston, learning mission planning. Sounds interesting.”

Losing his smile, he sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. “Yeah, it is. I’ve only really been working at Perseus for six months. Before that, you know, the head recovery thing…” He pointed to his skull.

“And the baby. You were a little busy, Jas. I’m glad Dad gave you time off to be with Alex.”

“Yeah. And I’m discovering he’s quite the handful.”

“Oh, he’s a curious little boy, Jas. I’m sure Mom told you about your own growing up years? Remember how you used to get into
everything?
Mom told me you drove her crazy when you were going through your terrible twos.” She laughed.