Surrender the Dark (20 page)

“Ol’ Pruneybody would have had my hide if my mom didn’t skin it from me first. I never did understand why you took the blame for it.”

“Like I said, it was an accident. And I knew Pruney wouldn’t have played it fair. Besides, you paid me back out of your allowance.”

Zach laughed. “For months and months. Even though Dane paid his share, I remember thinking I’d
never get to buy ice cream from the Popsicle man ever again.” He was still chuckling as he followed Jarrett from the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. “Ah, those were the days. I still have an overdeveloped craving for Dreamsicles.”

Rae chose that moment to step into the kitchen. Jarrett suddenly found himself at a loss for words. He forced himself to look directly at her. She was wearing dark jeans and a dark sweatshirt with a hood. She had a backpack stuffed with gear and a coded map of Bhajul marking the drop location with the Bhajuli colonel.

Jarrett’s mind raced with all the things he wanted to say to her but couldn’t. In the end, he settled for the banal. “Zach Brogan, I’d like you to meet Rae Gannon. Rae, this is Zach.”

Her smile was warm and friendly, but Jarrett didn’t miss the strain tightening the corners of her eyes.

She extended her hand. “Hi, I’m very pleased to meet you. Jarrett has told me a lot about you.”

Zach shook her hand. “He did?” He shot a surprised look at Jarrett. “You did?”

Jarrett scowled, then quickly schooled his features to a careful blank when Rae’s expression became uncertain. He forced a dry note into his voice. “Yeah, I told her you were a psychotic headcase who gets his jollies from leaping naked into volcanoes.”

Zach shot him a brief odd look, then laughed easily. Rae just glanced back and forth between them, baffled.

Zach turned to her. “He’s exaggerating, of course.” He leaned closer, cupping the side of his mouth with
one hand. “I wasn’t naked at all.” His eyes twinkled. “I was wearing a parachute.”

Rae’s smile came slowly, but even as tense and emotionally exhausted as she was, the brawny blond man’s charm was impossible to resist. “I bet those straps were killers,” she said.

Zach hooted with laughter. “You’re all right, Rae Gannon.”

Her smile widened, warmed. Beneath his obvious charm was a comforting steadiness. Jarrett may have had few true friends, but he’d chosen this one wisely. “So are you, Zach Brogan,” she replied honestly, then, clinging to the easy camaraderie Zach inspired, she added, “I hope your plan of smuggling me into Bhajul doesn’t include nudity, because they’re pretty close-minded about females baring anything more than their foreheads there.”

She saw Jarrett from the corner of her eye. He looked downright miserable. She was trying her best, but she knew just how he felt.

Zach’s smile stayed, but his eyes took on a sharpened brightness as he openly watched the two of them. “I’m pretty fond of my own hide, thank you,” he said to Rae. To Jarrett, he added, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep her covered at all times.”

The two men stared at each other for a long moment, Zach’s smile fading, replaced by a look of assurance and something … deeper. Rae sensed the underlying messages being silently transmitted and wondered what they had talked about before she came into the room. She’d heard Zach’s laughter. It was that sound
that had snapped the thread of her spiraling dread-filled thoughts and given her the focus she so badly needed.

“We should get going.” Zach scooped up her gear. “I’ll meet you out back.” Rae nodded, and he turned and laid his hand on Jarrett’s shoulder. “You need transport out of here? I can arrange it from the chopper.”

“No. Too risky. I want you two gone. I’ll get down on my own. I’ve got to get back to JMI and start digging to find out where the leak is.”

So this was it, Rae thought. All business. She already trusted Zach. Nothing would go wrong. She’d be back here in less than a week. Zach would take her report to Jarrett. By then Jarrett would already be swallowed up in the darkness, immersed in planning another intricate and sensitive transfer of information, no doubt saving thousands more lives.

She wouldn’t make him choose between her and a job that was his whole reason for living. She glanced around her home, the sanctuary she’d so carefully built for herself. What would it feel like five days from now? She had the uncanny feeling that instead of feeling cradled and safe, all she’d feel was alone. Totally alone.

“I’m outta here,” Zach was saying. “See you in five, Jarrett. I’ll be out back, Rae.” Before she could do more than nod, he was gone, leaving her alone with Jarrett.

She fought the strong need to just turn and leave with Zach. If she was going to emerge from this whole and strong, she had to start taking control now.

“You’ll see to the pup before you go?” she asked.

“You have my word on it.”

“That’s all I need,” she responded. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

So polite, so damn distant. Their walls were sturdily upright and strong as ever. But instead of feeling comforted, she felt trapped, as if those walls were squeezing the life right out of her.

“Don’t take any foolish risks, Rae,” he said suddenly, his tone tense. “If anything looks wrong, get out. I don’t know where the mole is, so don’t trust anyone. Get to the colonel and out. If he’s not at the designated drop, get out.”

“I know the drill. I’ll get the information to him.”

Silence descended around them, between them. The only sound was the ticking of the battery clock over the stove. Time ticking away. Not enough of it. Too much of it.

“I’d better go.” Her voice was choked.

“Yeah.” His was a raw whisper.

She had actually made it all the way to the door when she stopped and turned. In two seconds she was back across the room and in his arms. Their kiss was fierce and all-consuming. And over much too quickly.

She stared into his smoky eyes for a timeless moment.
I love you
, she said silently.
I’ll always love you
. The words ran through her mind over and over. She ran from the room before she caved in and said them out loud.

She was winging her way to Bhajul by now, Jarrett thought hours later. The sun was high, the sky a brilliant blue, and he had just come in from feeding the pup. He
prowled the kitchen, then paced into the living room. He couldn’t seem to stop moving. Already, he’d cleaned up her bedroom, packed his stuff. He’d even gone out to her shop. He pressed a hand to the bulge in his shirt pocket. How would Rae react when she discovered he’d broken into her safe and taken the ruby heart? He’d left a note that she was to bill JMI for it.

Was it a ploy on his part to force her to have some contact with him when she returned? Did he really believe there was any way to combine her new life with his old one? Or had he simply been unable to leave here without taking something of her with him? Something tangible, something he could touch and stroke every time he wanted to touch or stroke her, only to find the space next to him empty?

Maybe it was all of those things. He didn’t know. Didn’t care. It was done. This heart belonged to him, even if hers didn’t.

He wandered through the house again, trying to recapture the feeling of peace and solitude, the sense of warmth and light he’d felt for the last several days. It was gone as surely as Rae was gone.

That was when he realized it had been Rae, not the mountain, or the view, or the remote location of the A-frame, that had provided the peace, the warmth.

His wandering became pacing until he began to feel caged, ready to crawl out of his own skin. He grabbed his cane and climbed the stairs to Rae’s office. He had to get out of there now, get back to JMI, and start digging. And only God knew what other disasters were awaiting his return. The very thought of wading back into the
never-ending morass fatigued him, depressed him. Still, he needed to do something useful to occupy him since he couldn’t do what he really wanted, which was to be with Rae. First he had to get someone up here to take care of the wolf pup and make sure it got to the zoo. And then he needed to get off this mountain.

He snatched up the phone. Halfway through punching the number for a private line into JMI, though, he stopped and pressed the switch down. The mission wouldn’t be jeopardized by his calling in now, but he still didn’t know where the leak was or who else might be involved. He couldn’t risk tipping off the mole and possibly threatening the security of Rae’s home in the future.

Who, then? The answer came to him instantly. And it was at that precise moment that his whole life broke down into its most basic, honest components. For the first time he objectively looked at the totality of his life—what it had been, what it was now, what he wanted it to be. He couldn’t call one of the dozens of employees he’d personally handpicked and trained, whom he trusted with his life and the lives of others. Because that trust was measured.

In the end, they were just employees. It was, after all, only a job. He could never, ever, be one hundred percent certain of any one of them. The leak that had almost gotten him killed, that had ultimately caused Rae to put her life at risk again, proved that point emphatically. He’d always known this. Every transfer, every strategy he’d planned, had always been done, even subconsciously,
with that fact in mind. His history with Rae was a most painful example.

So when it had all broken down, when the regular gauges of trust were no longer valid, whom did he have left? To whom could he turn, no questions asked?

Zach Brogan. Dane Colbourne.

And Rae Gannon.

Just like that, his priorities shifted. With that shift came a clarity of vision, an understanding of what was important to him, the value of his old goals and the tantalizing merits of his newly discovered ones, goals that awaited him if he was courageous enough to fight for them.

On the heels of this revelation came an overwhelming impatience to act on it. Now. Jarrett grabbed the phone again, but his attention was snagged by the folder Rae had left by the computer. He cradled the phone and flipped open the folder.

There was a handwritten note on top, addressed to him. His heart began to pound, his palms grew damp.

Jarrett, Don’t worry about me, I won’t let you down
, she wrote. Dear God, how had he ever let her go?
I know you have to go back. I know your work is … well, everything
. You’re wrong, Rae, he thought, so damn wrong. His eyes burned and his vision blurred. He forced himself to read on.
I’m sending my report back with Zach. I can’t return to JMI. But I want you to know this, you’re not alone either. Rae
.

The burning became a stinging, and Jarrett swung away from the desk and scrubbed at his face. If there had been any doubts at all about the monumental decision
he’d made only moments ago, they’d just been permanently silenced.

“Neither are you,” he said out loud. “And you never will be again if I have any say about it.”

He turned back to the phone, only then realizing he’d crumpled the note in his hand. He smoothed it out, noticing a postscript.
Take care of Wolf
.

Wolf. Not “the wolf”—Wolf. She’d named the damn thing. This from a woman who’d taken forever to call him by his first name, the woman whose idea of commitment was naming her computer Hal.

A smile broke across his face, then he began to laugh. Rae’s walls were as effectively smashed as his were. They were both ready to surrender the dark.

He picked up the phone and dialed an old familiar number.

Dane picked up on the third ring. “Colbourne.”

“You free this weekend?”

“McCullough?” There was a brief pause, then: “As long as they keep the planes in the sky where they belong, I’m free. What’s up?”

“Two things.”

“Name them.”

Jarrett smiled. He hadn’t completely screwed his life up. He had a chance. “I need an airplane. And I want you to wolf-sit for me.”

Rae raised her head just enough to scan the enemy camp. It was the only barrier remaining between her and safety. It was no small barrier.

At least it appeared that the information she’d gotten from the lieutenant was correct. It was about time something went right.

She’d arrived at the colonel’s camp the afternoon before, only to discover he’d been assassinated. Before giving her presence away, she had overheard enough of a conversation between his second-in-command, the lieutenant, and one of the other officers to know the information she carried should still be transferred.

As it turned out, her decision had been the right one. She’d relayed the information and slipped out of the colonel’s camp unimpeded. The lieutenant was at this very moment preparing a plan to thwart the rebel regime that would otherwise massacre the civilians of the tiny nation of Bhajul.

Rae winced as sand crept into the last remaining fold of skin on her body. Now she knew why she’d chosen the mountains to live in. No sand, and it was cool there.

Forcing the discomfort from her mind, she crawled on her belly across the remaining three feet of hot desert and hid behind the minimal protection of a small supply tent.

She checked her watch. She had three hours to get to the checkpoint, which was less than a mile away. All she had to do was get past this last border encampment, which the rebel forces had taken a week ago. Then she was home free.

Home. Why did thoughts of home conjure up images, not of her cool mountain retreat or the creations she derived so much satisfaction in making, but of Jarrett? Jarrett sitting on a stool watching her work, Jarrett
sprawled in her bed, Jarrett taking her against the window in the moonlight—

Stop it
.

She crept to the corner of the supply tent and looked across the compound of the small outpost. Mentally plotting the swiftest course that would conceal her presence, she made her move.

She hadn’t gone two steps when a meaty hand clamped over her mouth and the barrel of an assault weapon dug into her temple.

She was dragged roughly across the sand to a tent and swiftly chained to a metal stake with a hole in the top that was driven into the ground. Her captor was a huge sweaty man with a bushy dark beard that obscured the entire lower half of his face. He was dressed in the tan field fatigues of the Bhajul Army, but from what little she could make out of his wild rantings as he waved the gun at her, he was part of the rebel faction.