Meant to Be (27 page)

McDunna gazed at him intently with his
head tilted. “You fell in love after one meeting?”

“
I know, it’s crazy. I
can’t explain it.” Rad stood again. “Twist of fate. Grand design.
Whatever. It happened. She’s my heartbeat.”

When he paused and noticed McDunna’s
face had turned a shade paler, he felt his heart flutter with
something akin to panic. He took a deep steadying breath. “There’s
more, isn’t there?”

McDunna sucked air into his lungs as
if he wished he were anywhere but in this room. “Yeah, there’s one
more thing. Something that didn’t make it into the debriefing on
the mission.”

Rad forced himself to breathe and
pushed away the uncomfortable sensation of an icy hand closing
around his throat. The elated sense he’d felt at being part of a
successful mission seeped from his heart, replaced by a feeling of
shock and fear. He tried to concentrate on the disastrous news he
knew was coming, but his thoughts were moving so fast, everything
started to blur.

“
You okay?”

He looked up at McDunna, blinking his
eyes to clear his head. “Yeah. Go ahead.”

“
Apparently a Paki
military patrol saw or heard your choppers. Follow-up reports say a
dozen fully loaded trucks were heading your way—enough to have kept
you guys busy for a while and throw everything out of whack.” He
took a few long moments to crush out his cigarette in an ashtray.
“Cantrell flagged them down. Told ‘em she’d seen choppers landing
and directed them down the wrong road.”

Rad put his head in his hands again.
“Geez-uz.”

“
You’re familiar with the
layout of that town. The road she sent them down was narrow and had
a dead end, so by the time they got their trucks untangled, turned
around, and straightened out, you guys were long gone.”

Rad sat silently, assessing the
international catastrophe that would have resulted if his men had
gotten into a gun battle with Pakistani military. He had led an
invasion into a sovereign country in order to eliminate one person.
If any civilians or military personnel had been killed in carrying
out the mission, if shots had even been fired, it would have become
a crisis of monumental proportions.

He pictured Lauren standing
perfectly calm in the midst of the enemy, while being aware of the
choppers, the gunfire, and the chaos of battle simultaneously
occurring down the street. Instinctively his hand went to his chest
where he kept her hand scrawled note close to his heart.
Hey, Dude—Don’t worry about me. Just kick some
ass. I got it on this side. – L.C.

He bit his lip and closed
his eyes.
Lauren, why didn’t you just stay
where it was safe?”

But he knew the answer to that. Her
instinct to shield his men, to protect her country, was stronger
than her own self-preservation. That kind of devotion to duty
required more than simple resolve, more than just courage and rash
audacity. She had literally placed her life on the line.

His mind drifted back to
the piece of Berlin Wall at Ripley’s museum.
Don’t Go With The Flow.
He’d felt the
power of those words as he gazed at them that day, and remembered
feeling an inexplicable connection to Lauren when he’d seen the
look of wonder and admiration the sentiment had evoked in her as
well.

The sound of McDunna’s voice brought
him back from his thoughts.

“
Yeah, so without the
leak, it probably seemed like an innocent mistake. But
now…”

“
Then what are they
waiting for? We need to do an extraction.”

“
That’s
impossible.”

“
Come on. We can have a
spin-up team together in fifteen minutes.” Rad leaped out of his
chair and headed for the door.

“
Slow down.” McDunna’s
voice was severe. “Not in this political climate. Pakistan already
has its hackles up over the kill and the way it was carried
out.”

“
Fuck the politics!” Rad
turned around, incredulous that McDunna could just sit there.
“We’re talking about an American life!”

McDunna winced when Rad swore,
probably because he knew he didn’t do it very often. He slid a file
across the table. “Okay, fuck the politics. But she was under
non-official cover. The United States has already officially denied
any knowledge of her.”

“
But they sent her in
there.” Rad’s heart jolted at the realization this administration
would have no problem writing off a faceless operative who had
given them the greatest victory of their lifetime.

“
They sent her in there
and told her there would be no help coming. She understood the
consequences.”

“
But she—”

“
She knew. Read the first
page.”

Rad opened the file, and his eyes
flicked over the handwritten note clipped inside the front
cover:

At the verbal request of
Lauren Cantrell, no lives are to be put in danger with a rescue or
extraction if kidnapped, captured, or otherwise endangered
in
Pakistan
.

Rad’s eyes blurred as he
studied the date the missive was signed. He stood, threw his chair
across the room, and then banged the table with his fist.
“
Damn
her!”

“
I’m sorry, but there’s
nothing we can do.”

Rad nodded his head, thinking back to
that day on the beach. He looked back over his shoulder at McDunna.
“I was with her the day she had that put in her file. She took a
phone call, made a decision like that—and then told me it was her
fucking travel agent.”

His commander took a deep breath.
“Well, you of all people know what it’s like to risk your life for
your country. You do it every day.”

Rad ran his hand through
his hair and growled. “It’s
not
the same. If I die, it will be with a bullet hole
or two in me.” He put his hands on the table and leaned toward
McDunna. “They’re going to kill her by inches, slow and
deliberate.”

McDunna closed his eyes and nodded but
didn’t bother to reply.

Rad’s thoughts went back to the
briefing and his snarky remark about having to do an extraction. No
wonder she’d been so offended. She had gone out of her way to make
sure no other lives would be put into danger. She’d been keenly
aware of the difficult international situation the operation would
entail and had not wanted any action taken that would jeopardize
American lives or its standing.

Images of Lauren as he had last seen
her arose unbidden before him. Her dark eyes had been full of
fortitude, shining with steadfast and deliberate resolve when she’d
climbed into the chopper. Had she known what was coming? Suspected
it?

God has a plan for
me,
she’d told him at the landing zone in
Afghanistan when they were waiting for the chopper.
It can’t be changed. Only completed.

The recollection of those chilling
words practically made him shiver. She possessed an inexhaustible
spirit of dauntless determination and surprising strength of will.
The combination, he feared, could be a dangerous one.

Rad closed his eyes and winced when he
thought of her reaction to the torture room at the Ripley museum
and where she might be now. Courage and resilience were a part of
her very being, but would they be enough to sustain her?

To face this danger and her greatest
fears alone and without help was far more impressive than heroism
on the battlefield where soldiers could depend on each other and
their weaponry. She sacrificed all for her convictions and her
country, her only consideration being the importance and magnitude
of the mission.

“
Fortitude and strength
are powerful weapons.” McDunna interrupted his thoughts with a tone
that conveyed awe and respect. “Don’t give up hope.”

Rad headed to the door for
some fresh air to clear his head.
Give
up?
He would not rest until she was safely
back in his arms. Reaching for the knob, he turned to McDunna with
a look of fierce determination in his eyes.

“
I promised her I’d see
her again,” is all he said before slamming shut the
door.

Chapter 25

Half a world away, Angela
Powers sat on the back veranda staring absently at the gardens and
the pool in between sips of two hundred dollar-a-bottle wine. She
thought she heard the sound of a car pull in but didn’t bother
getting up. The housekeeper was in today. If the bell rang, she
would get it.

But the doorbell never rang. Instead,
the front door slammed shut with enough force to cause the wine in
her glass to tremble. She was about to get up and investigate when
she heard the familiar sound of her husband’s expensive shoes
echoing through the hall and into the kitchen.

“
What are you doing home
so early, honey?” she asked innocently when he appeared in the
doorway. “Sit down. I’ll get you a drink.”

“
I guess you’re proud of
yourself.”

Angela jerked her head back toward him
when she heard his tone.

“
Overall, yes.” She could
tell something was terribly wrong but didn’t want to let on.
Anyway, she wasn’t really worried. She knew how to handle this man.
“If you’re talking about something in particular though, you’ll
have to share.”

Senator Powers walked over to the
outdoor bar and poured some scotch into a glass. “I guess you’re
proud you’ve single-handedly gotten a U.S. spy captured by
terrorists.” He downed the entire glass in one gulp.

Angela blinked innocently. “What are
you talking about?”

“
You know damn well what
I’m talking about, Angie.” Powers poured himself another drink.
“You ran with that story, knowing full well you were outing a spy,
and now she’s gone missing.”

Angela set her glass down and exhaled
with exasperation. “I simply did that story to give the girl the
credit she was due. If she’s gone missing, it’s because of the
career she chose—not anything I did. She knew the
danger.”

“
She knew the danger of
operating in a foreign country. She surely didn’t know the danger
of an insanely jealous woman who happens to be in the journalism
field.”

Angela pushed out her chair and stood.
“How dare you make such an accusation!”

Senator Powers spoke calmly now. “It’s
not an accusation. It’s the truth.”

“
You don’t know what
you’re talking about, Gerry. I wouldn’t have been able to get that
story without the help of the White House.” Angela lowered her
voice. “You know that.”

“
Just because the White
House leaks bits and pieces of a story to you doesn’t mean you have
to run with it and make up the other half.”

Powers became so angry his voice
quaked, making Angela feel a twinge of apprehension for the first
time.

“
Honey, I didn’t make it
up.” She tried to calm him down. “I did the groundwork in
Afghanistan and put two and two together.”

When he didn’t respond she walked up
to him and put her hand on his arm. “Why can’t you be proud of me
for breaking the biggest story of the year?”

Powers growled in response and stamped
back into the house. Angela gulped a few swallows of wine as she
listened to him rummaging through his briefcase. When he returned,
he dropped a file on the table without saying a word.

Her gaze dropped down to the folder,
and then snapped back to meet his. “You can’t be
serious.”

“
If you would have had the
decency to show some remorse, I might have
reconsidered.”

“
Remorse?” Her voice rose
in anger as she lowered her glass onto the table. “For doing my
job?”

Powers shook his head and sighed. “You
technically have thirty days to sign.” He reached down and turned
the page. “And you will see I’ve been very generous. But for every
twenty-four hours you delay, the offer goes down
substantially.”

Angela took a step backward. “Do you
think I’m a tramp who’s going to walk quietly out of your life with
a little payoff?”

Powers said nothing, but his silence
spoke volumes.

Grabbing her wine glass, Angela hurled
it at him. “Did you ever think of the scandal this will cause? What
this will do to your career?”

“
The scandal of divorcing
you can’t be half as bad as the one I created by being married to
you.” The senator picked up his coat, turned, and walked
away.

“
Where do you think you
are going?” She ran after him.

“
A hotel.” He stopped.
“Surely you don’t think I’m going to stay here until this is
legally over.”

“
You’ll be sorry for
this,” she yelled after him. “I’ll make you regret the way you’ve
treated me.”

“
Take anything you want,
Angie.” He waved his hands in the air toward the paintings, the
china, the furniture. “Just sign the papers and get
out.”

Angie heard the front door bang closed
with thundering finality and contemplated her options. She wasn’t
that upset her marriage was breaking up. She’d never been in love
with the man whose name she took. But the impact it would have on
her career gave her pause. Being the senator’s wife had opened
doors, and now they were all closing with a bang.