Force of Fire (The Kane Legacy) (25 page)

'I know this won't be easy for
you, but I have some bad news.'

She looked at him
indifferently. 'What could possibly be worse than what I've already been
through?'

It gave him no pleasure to say
it. 'Scott came with us to Spain.' There was an uneasy expectation in her eyes.
'But I'm afraid he didn't make it to Santiago.'

'Didn't make it how?'

'Didn't make it alive.'

Ana downed her last sip of beer
and motioned for the waiter to bring her another glass. She rolled back her
shoulders. They appeared to be tense. 'And you're expecting me to cry?'

Mark looked at her. She was
absolutely right. She'd been used up. What else did she have to give? 'No, I'm
not expecting you to do anything. In my opinion, you should be able to do
whatever it is you damn well please.'

She sat quiet for a moment,
reflecting. 'And does your opinion carry much weight with the DOS?'

'It could.'

'And with my father?'

'It might.'

'Then what I damn well please
is to be left the hell alone.'

'I know how you must feel
–'

'No, you don't.'

'Fine. You're right, I can't possibly
know. But, I'm so–'

'Sorry? Sorry for which part,
Mr. Neal? Sorry that you saved me, or sorry I'm not what you expected?'

Ah, but she was
.

'You've been through a hell of a lot these past few
weeks.'

'You would know.'

She had told him in
excruciating detail and, if those LPP bastards had still been alive, Mark would
have smashed their beady-eyed heads into the wall.

She was looking at him in a
funny way, trying to read him, it seemed. 'Look, Mr. Neal –'

'Will you please stop calling
me that. You're making me feel really old.'

She studied him a moment.
'Well, exactly how old are you?'

Bull’s-eye. He felt the tops of
his ears growing red.
'Almost forty.
Why?'

'Why not?' she asked. 'You
already know everything there is to know about me and you didn't even have the
courtesy to ask.'

'Believe me, I would have if
I'd had the chance.'

She looked him up and down and
took a bite of her sandwich. 'Yes, I believe you would have. Anyway, what I was
about to say when you stopped me was that I realize none of this is your
fault.'

'You really shouldn't blame
your father either. He did his damnedest to protect you.'

'I see. You've been an analyst
for Defense for maybe, let’s see, ten years?'

'Eight. But you've got pretty
good instincts.'

'Okay, eight years, eight
wonderful years with the DOS, and you feel qualified to tell
me
where to
lay the blame for my own kidnapping?'


He couldn't resist.
'Yes.'


'Mr. Neal,' she said on
purpose, 'you've been in the business so long you've lost touch with the human
element.'


Why was he still sitting here,
a receptacle for her hostile words?
Part of him wanted to
storm from his chair and give
her the show she wanted. Prove to her she
wasn't the only one spiraling out of control on this chilly Spanish evening.
But no, he wouldn't do it. He was stronger than that.
Stronger
than the rage that burned within her.

The air hung heavy between
them. She looked at him and raised one eyebrow. 'You're a strange man.'

'Strong, silent type,' he
assured her with a grin.

Joe and Cromwell sat in the hotel
bar swirling their bourbon. The old man looked up with tired eyes. 'Mark and I
agreed, it has to be Pete.'

Joe nodded. 'Nobody else had
access.'

Cromwell took another sip of
his drink, resting his elbows on the bar. 'Damn sloppy, that’s what it was. DIS
should have caught Barcelona.'

Joe kept his mouth shut. The
Defense Investigative Service was Defense Department territory.

'You fellows were just lucky
AIC’s interest was in keeping you alive.'

'To a point,' Joe reminded him.
'But you’re right, the warehouse was their only hit. They were waiting to reel
us in all the way in Santiago.'

'That or let the LPP take care
of you on the way. AIC underground has really mushroomed. No doubt they had
eyes on the LPP. Decided to let
Carnova
do their
dirty work.'

'Lazy sons of bitches,' Joe
said, taking a belt.

'You ought to get down on your
knees and thank the good Lord for their sloth.'

Joe called over the barkeep and
ordered another round. He was buying tonight. Ana was dining al fresco with
Neal. Very uptown, Joe thought, wrapping his lips around the rim of his newly
fortified glass. He took a swig then hoisted his glass in the air.

'To Salvador
Rebelles
, God rest his soul.'

Cromwell sat pensive for a
moment. 'To Salvador,' he said, slowly raising his glass.

Rebelles
had been Spanish Intelligence all
along,
someone sent
to secure their mission.
An unofficial general for an
unofficial cause.
And, he’d died in the line of duty. If he hadn’t known
and been able to tell Mark the calls had been coming from Washington, they
might not have been able to piece it together so quickly.

It had been Spanish
Intelligence watching in the pub, providing backup at the warehouse (the thug
who’d hit Denton hadn’t made it out alive), and on the road to Santiago.
Salvador had been Michael, not Lucifer, after all, and, as the Spanish saying
goes, now slept with the angels.

Joe looked into his glass,
thinking maybe he’d had enough – and not just of the bourbon.

'Have they got Jarvis?' he
asked.

Cromwell set his glass down on
the bar. 'Closing in as we speak.'

Pete was booked on the 7:00
p.m. flight to Barcelona from Dulles International Airport. Something had gone
the hell wrong. Somehow Vaquero had tipped his hand, screwed things up and the
whole fucking thing had blown up in their faces.

Didn’t matter. There’d be
another time, another chance for the AIC. Nothing had been definitively proven.
And, once Pete was out of the country, the DOS would never be able to tie up
that loose end.

He’d been nervous about sitting
still at the gate, so instead had walked down the hall to a pushcart selling
popcorn. He’d fiddled with the bag, but hadn’t eaten. Damn stuff always stuck
in his teeth.

By the time he heard the
boarding call, his hands were a sweaty mess. He got rid of the popcorn, removed
his baseball cap and pulled a small black comb from his hip pocket to fix his
hair. He still had on the sunglasses he’d worn in from the parking lot. Pete
was no master of disguise, but it looked like he was going to make it on that
plane.

He told himself to slow down as
he ambled into line with the other passengers. An enormous woman in front of
him was berating her adolescent son for something that couldn’t be worth the
public humiliation. A hot iron twisted in Pete’s chest, and he realized he was
crying for that little boy. The one he couldn’t possibly save, because he’d
already grown up.

He didn’t even see them until
he felt the pinch on either side, just above his elbows. A pair of
granite-faced agents pushed his arms rudely behind his back.

'Peter Jarvis,' the fair one
said as the dark one slapped cold metal around his wrists. 'You are under
arrest for treason against the United States of America.'

She needed a walk, and Mark
Neal had insisted on coming along. She hadn’t wanted the company, but after a
while something in his easy gait had reassured her. She had confidence he
wouldn’t get too close. He hung back a few paces and let her lead.

Let her lead. What a laugh. No
man in her life had ever had faith in her ability to be in charge. For her
father and Joe it was evidenced by their deceit. And Scott didn’t even feel her
capable of selecting a wardrobe. She realized with a tender pang that his
controlling behavior had, of course, been a symptom of other things, an
insurmountable barrier of circumstance culminating from his youth. There were
probably other things, too. Other things she wasn’t aware of. She had to
believe it had never been her. It was the only thing that made sense.

They walked aimlessly, skirting
reckless dark corners, mossy brown buildings hanging black with the night.
There was a certain comfort in having him there, a security in his distance.

For now, Ana knew, the only way
to judge a man clearly was from afar.

When he turned his head away,
she swung her eyes behind her, taking in his tall but solid frame. He had the
lean, long look of a runner, with broad shoulders that offset a square face.
His chestnut hair was graying just a bit at the temples and, for an instant,
she found herself remembering her father at a younger age.

Ana broke the long steady
stream of silence. 'You have children?' she asked, looking for something casual
to say.
Anything to take her mind off the present.

'No,' he answered, smiling down
at his shoes. 'Always wanted them.'

Thinking she’d hit a sore spot,
she wasn’t sure how to proceed. 'I’m sure you’d make a great father,' she said.
And, for some unknown reason, she found herself believing it.

He looked up from the pavement.
'I have a hunch you’d make a pretty good mother yourself.'

She looked into his eyes,
then
quickly turned away. There’d been something there that
startled her, something she didn’t quite recognize but felt she knew.

She picked up her pace, winding
them back toward the main square.

He was a nice man, maybe too
nice. The last thing Ana wanted was for anyone to take pity on her. She was
struggling against a feeling that had been mounting inside ever since she’d
heard about Scott.

At first, she thought she was
too numb to feel anything. But no, something was there, a burning and twisting
inside, something battling to the surface, struggling to be free.

'You all right?' Neal was
standing beside her.

She had stopped, she realized,
before a small courtyard fountain. She had seen it before.

All at once something wailed
from within, a wild primitive sound she did not recognize as her own until Mark
Neal stepped forward and drew her into his arms.

The plane surged as Joe
sauntered back to the place where
Ana
was seated. He
grabbed the smooth rib of the overhead compartment to steady himself. She was
sitting there staring out the window, watching the hills of Galicia disappear
behind the clouds, her hair pulled tightly behind her, eyes hollow. She had the
same look Joe's aunt had the year his cousin died. He never saw the light
return to Aunt Peggy’s eyes. There was something irrevocable about losing a
child.

Ana turned
from the window to accept a cup of coffee from the airline attendant.
Her seatmate declined and rose to go to the rest room. This was Joe's
opportunity. He strode down the aisle and slid into the vacant seat. She looked
at him, unmoved, then swirled the cream into her coffee.

'Ana, I've tried every way I
know how. All I want is five minutes of your time.'

She looked over at him, then
down at her father's gold wristwatch.
'Five minutes?
Then what?'

'Then maybe you'll understand a
little better just what I had to go through, what I was up against.'

'What you had to go through?'

Joe felt the hairs on his neck
prickle his denim collar. 'Give me half a chance.' He looked at her, pleading.
'I don't think you understand –'

'That's the problem. You don't
think I understand much, do you? Don't think I know it was a job. Keep an eye
on the Kane girl. Keep her out of trouble. Jesus, Joe, do you take all your
assignments to bed?'

'It wasn't like that!'


'No? How was it?'


'Different. You were different.
I never meant for things to get so screwed around.'


She began to thaw. 'You're one
lousy excuse for an agent.'


He looked down at the arm of
the chair, knowing she was right. Trouble was, he’d let things get personal. He
had started to fail at his job the day he'd lost his professional distance. But
he'd been fighting it for so long that, when that night at the beach house
finally came, he just couldn't fight it any longer. She'd worn him thin with
her penetrating glances. She’d turned him inside out with the way she crossed
her legs and made him crazy when the raw scent of her breezed into a room.

He spoke without raising his
eyes. 'My mistake.'


'What was your mistake?' she
asked, her voice a whisper.

He looked at her now, for the
first time admitting it to himself. 'Falling in love with you.'

Albert could hear their voices
six rows behind him, but it was impossible to distinguish individual words
above the engines’ roar. She hated him. It was clear. They would all hate him.
Isa and
Emalita
too.
Maybe it
would have been better for the entire family if he'd really died. He'd been a
fool to think Ana would be glad to see him.

She'd sequestered herself in
her room and refused to come out, even for the requisite debriefing. He was
relieved that Mark, at least, had been able to persuade her. She’d talked to
him. Told him as much as she could, as much as her conscious mind would reveal.
Albert prayed to God there was nothing else, no other dark secrets that, in the
years ahead, would come back to haunt her.

He'd given Mark his watch, a
peace offering, and asked him to pass it on to Ana. She'd mailed it to him on
his sixty-fifth birthday from a faraway
correo
in northern Spain. She'd had it engraved somewhere –
tu
nina
,
siempre
. It meant
more to him than any gift he'd ever received.