The Island (28 page)

Lee sounded a shade sarcastic. “Yes, ma’am. He sort of had to say something, you know, after a navy frigate picked us up.”

Shaw hid another smile. He liked snarky Lee.

The chairwoman frowned slightly at him over her glasses. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Anderson. We appreciate how difficult this must have been for you.”

“Can I say something?” Lee asked and didn’t wait for her to answer. “Agent Shaw saved my life. My government didn’t even know I was still alive. He saved me. He didn’t have to, but he did. He’s a good guy.” A flush rose on the back of his neck. “That’s all. Thank you.”

He rose, turned, and saw Shaw sitting there. His eyes widened, and then he pushed his way back outside.

Shaw waited for a minute and followed. Lee’s escorts were still waiting in the foyer, but there was no sign of Lee. Shaw looked up the hallway and saw the sign for the toilets. He headed toward them.

As soon as he pushed the door open, he could hear the sounds of retching.

“Lee?” He pushed open the doors to the stalls and found Lee on his knees in the third one. “Lee, are you okay?”

Lee pulled himself up, wiping his mouth. He flipped the toilet seat down and sat on it heavily. “Yeah. It’s good to see you, really.” He started to cry.

Shaw’s heart raced. The same protective instinct he’d always felt with Lee came rushing right back like no time at all had passed. He knelt in front of Lee and put his arms around him. Lee leaned forward and rested his head on his shoulder, and it felt right.

“They shouldn’t have called you up,” he said. “That’s just fucking cruel.”

“I wanted to help,” Lee mumbled into his collar. “You shouldn’t lose your job because of me.”

Shaw shrugged. “Don’t worry about that. I made a call. It was the right one, but it did fuck up an entire intelligence operation.”

“Yeah,” Lee said. “And now we’re locked in a bathroom stall together. That’s gonna look bad.”

Shaw laughed. “Yeah, won’t it?”

Lee sniffed.

Shaw patted him on the back and released him. “How’ve you been, anyway?”

Lee shrugged. “Okay, actually, until this. I went home, but since it’s all classified, I can’t talk to anyone but my shrink about it. My parents don’t know what the fuck happened.” He frowned and looked away. “My mom saw my back once when I got out of the shower, and just started screaming.”

Shaw reached up and touched his hair. He stroked the curls gently.

Lee shuddered. “I think I’m gonna have to move out.”

“I’m sorry,” Shaw said, reaching for his hand. “But, you know, there’s classified and then there’s classified.”

“How do you mean?” Lee asked him, chewing his lower lip.

Fuck, that was distracting. Shaw pulled his thoughts back with difficulty. “I mean make something up. Tell them a drug lord tortured you. You don’t have to tell them everything. They probably just want to help.”

Lee shrugged dismissively, so Shaw didn’t press the point.

Lee looked at him worriedly. “Did I do okay in there?”

“Yeah,” said Shaw. “Don’t worry about it. You did great. If they want me gone, I’m gone. If they decide I’m worth the trouble, they’ll find a way to spin it so I come out smelling like roses. It’s just politics.”

“And what if they want you gone?” Lee asked him with a frown. “It’s my fault.”

“No,” Shaw said. He shook his head. “None of this was ever your fault. And I will never regret getting you off that island.”

I only regret I didn’t do it sooner.

“But what will you do if you lose your job?” Lee asked.

“I’ve put some thought into that,” Shaw told him with a smile. “I’ll head back up to Ayr, buy myself a tinny, and spend my days wetting a line with Molly.” He almost laughed at the look on Lee’s face. “Molly’s my dog.”

“I didn’t understand half of what you just said,” Lee said, wrinkling his nose. “But I’m glad Molly’s a dog.”

They both tensed as they heard the squeal of the door. “Mr. Anderson?”

Lee rolled his eyes. “Gimme a minute, okay?”

The door squealed shut again.

“They’re like fucking guards,” Lee said. He leaned forward and brushed his lips gently against Shaw’s. “I gotta go. I’ll miss you.”

Shaw rose, his thighs aching. “I’ll miss you too, Lee. Take care of yourself, okay?”

Lee straightened his tie. “Yeah,” he said. “You too.”

Shaw waited until he was gone before he let himself out of the stall.

* * * *

“So,” Callie said that night as she looked for the remote control, “this is you now? Drunk and miserable?”

Shaw knocked the top off another bottle of beer. “I’m not drunk. Yet.”

They were sharing a room. It wasn’t an issue for either of them, but Shaw knew it would have been different if he had been straight. In some respects, the service had come a long way, he supposed. Twenty years ago, he wouldn’t have been sent into the field. Thirty years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to get a job with ASIO. Forty years ago, he wouldn’t have been able to get any government job at all.

Callie found the remote at last and turned off the television. She flopped onto the bed on her stomach and flipped open her laptop. “The Americans are very interested in the outcome of the inquiry, you know,” she said.

Shaw shrugged.

Callie checked her e-mail. “I’m telling you this because I don’t think they’ll be happy if the inquiry hangs you out to dry.”

“And we must keep the Americans happy,” Shaw muttered.

“You should be glad when it works in your favor,” Callie told him sternly.

Shaw shook his head. “You know, Cal, I don’t even care much at the moment.”

Callie picked at a piece of fluff on her pajama top. “I think you do, and that’s the problem. I’ve got your e-mail right here.
At what point am I a fucking monster
?”

Shaw looked at her sideways. “Christ, Callie, you know that’s all about context. I felt like shit that night.”

It was always about context with Shaw. Context or interpretation or perspective. There was nothing he couldn’t get a philosophical crowbar underneath, and maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe he’d lived so long in that world that he wasn’t fit to live in normal society. And he’d always trusted that Callie would warn him when he was too close to the edge, but maybe she’d lost all perspective as well. Shit, maybe they all had.

Shaw sighed. Or maybe Callie was right, and he was just drunk and miserable.

“And you think I didn’t?” Callie asked, raising her brows. “What did I send back?
It’s not your job to give a fuck
. Meanwhile, I was ready to have a breakdown in the middle of the bloody office! Frank threatened to have me pulled off your support team. All I could see was that photo you’d sent. This young, cute guy, and you were going to watch him be tortured. I went and cried in the toilets because I had to be the one to tell you not to give a fuck.”

“Jesus.” Shaw sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s my job to pick up the slack for you,” Callie reminded him. “God, I wish you’d seen Frank’s face when we got the call from the
Stuart
.”

“I’m glad I didn’t,” Shaw said.

“Oh, he called you everything under the sun,” Callie said. “For
hours
. And then he asked if you’d got the American out. None of us
wanted
him to die. It’s just none of us wanted to throw in a six-year op either. And the next morning, Frank was on the phone telling everyone he supported the decisions his agents made in the field.”

“It’s probably not enough to save me,” Shaw reminded her.

Callie shrugged. “But we all know you’re not a monster. And that’s the important thing, right?”

Shaw finished his beer. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

Callie fetched a beer from the bar fridge. “You know, that picture you sent didn’t do him justice.”

Shaw smiled slightly.

“He’s cute,” Callie said. “And when he doesn’t look twelve anymore, he’ll be hot.”

Shaw snorted. “He’s twenty-two.”

“He’s a twink,” Callie said, throwing Shaw a sly smile. “And apparently that’s your type.”

“I don’t have a type,” Shaw said.

“Bullshit,” Callie said. “I can tell you’re head over heels for that kid.”

Maybe, Shaw thought, but I don’t have a type.

“You can’t call him a kid,” he said at last. “You’re like two years older than him.”

“And hugely jealous that he looks so young,” Callie said. She flicked her bottle cap in Shaw’s direction. “You can bet he doesn’t even use any moisturizer!”

“Yeah, he’s cute,” Shaw said and looked out the window for a moment.

It was a three-star view of a car park.

“And more than that,” Callie said. “You miss him.”

Shaw turned his face to look at her sharply.

Callie raised her tinted eyebrows. “Don’t even try to bullshit me. I know you too well. You had a thing. Or, if you didn’t, you wanted to.”

Shaw knew better than to answer that. He shrugged.

“You could go to his hotel,” Callie said.

“I don’t even know where he’s staying,” Shaw said.

“We’re ASIO, for fuck’s sake,” Callie said. “If anyone can find out, it’s us, right?”

Shaw laughed. “I suppose so. But we’re not going to stalk him. Look, maybe some stuff happened that didn’t make my report, but it doesn’t matter. He needs to put it all behind him and get on with his life. He doesn’t want me. How could he? Not after I saw the things they did to him.”

Callie inspected a thread on the hem of her pajama shirt. She raised her eyebrows. “Did you ask him?”

“What?” Shaw asked.

“Did you ask him?” Callie repeated.

“It’s too late now,” Shaw said, wiping a droplet of moisture off the neck of the bottle. Jesus, how could he have asked something like that? Lee had enough to deal with without Shaw laying that emotional blackmail on him:
I saved you, stay with me
! It would have been too cruel.

“If you’re sure,” Callie said and flashed him a grin. “Because, you know, if this was a movie, I’d be the mad bitch who drove the wrong way in traffic so you could catch him at the airport and declare your love.”

Shaw snorted with amusement at that mental picture. He didn’t doubt for a second it was true. “Cal, whatever happens you’ll always be my mad bitch.”

She raised her bottle in a toast. “Damn straight.”

Shaw laughed despite himself.

He wondered if he should tell her how often he dreamed of Lee, and how, surprisingly, it wasn’t sexual. Okay, so sometimes it was. Sometimes his subconscious took him back to that day when Lee had gone down onto his knees in the shower, and he’d looked fucking gorgeous with his eyes closed, his mouth around Shaw’s cock, and the water running over his skin. But most of the time, he dreamed they were still adrift on the Pacific, before they’d been rescued.

Stay with me, Lee.

Zev wasn’t with them in the dream. It was just the two of them, their fingers entwined. Just the two of them and the Pacific and the stars.

Stay with me, Lee.

And they drifted together in the Milky Way.

Chapter Nineteen

“Are you okay, honey?” His mother slipped an arm around him.

Lee leaned on the patio railing and showed her a smile he wasn’t sure he meant. “I’m okay, Mom.”

He stood as far as he could away from the steps. Away from the light that pooled out of the back door. He felt more comfortable watching from where he couldn’t be seen.

The backyard was strung with party lights. Smoke came off the barbeque and brought the scent of grilled steak all the way back to the house. Lee could hear talking and laughter, and someone’s kids squealing as they chased one another around the yard.

At the back of the yard, behind the tool shed, there was a wilderness. Kids were always drawn right to the narrow patch of untamed grass and creepers that hung between the back fence and the shed. It was a pirate’s jungle. It was an unexplored planet. It was a magical land. Lee had played there every day when he was a kid, until he hit adolescence. He had a sudden urge to see it now, but he didn’t want to thread his way through the party just to be disappointed because it wasn’t what he remembered.

Lee rested his beer bottle on the top of the railing for a moment. It had gone warm, and he’d hardly drunk any of it. He’d been carrying it like a prop.
Can’t shake hands; I’m holding this beer. Can’t stop and talk; it’s a party—look, I’ve got a beer and everything. Here I am with a beer like a normal guy.

His mother released him. “Maybe you’ll want to come down and say hello to some people later.”

“Yeah, sure.” It surprised him how natural that sounded when he was already planning to sneak away upstairs and hide in his bedroom.

He’d overheard his mother on the phone earlier in the day. “Yes, he’ll be here, he got back last night. Just don’t bring it up, please.”

His parents had collected him at the airport. Between his escorts and his parents, he hadn’t had a moment to himself since Canberra. It had felt more like a hostage exchange than a homecoming. He’d given his mom the fuzzy koala toy he’d bought at the airport—the closest he’d made it to the real thing—and she’d burst into tears. Lee still wasn’t sure why. Relief or pity. He’d looked like shit, he guessed. He was so tired after everything—the inquiry, seeing Shaw, the flight back—that he’d ached all over. He could have fallen asleep on his feet in the terminal. He had fallen asleep on the ride home and woken up at one point to see the lights on the highway flashing past.

“He’s just tired,” his dad had been saying. “He’ll talk when he wants to talk.”

“I want my son back,” his mom had said.

Lee didn’t know where to find him.

“Okay, honey,” his mom said now and headed back inside to get the salads.

There were fewer than twenty people in the yard, but it might as well have been a crowd of thousands. These were the people Lee had known since he was a kid, the same people who came around every few weeks. The same people, he kept reminding himself, who had worn black at his memorial service. He didn’t feel ready to face them yet, and he wondered if he ever would.