by Sonja Stone
—
As the first rays of sunrise streaked the sky, her driver pulled in front of Hopi Hall. Libby, Alan, Simon, and Jack waited on the steps. As Nadia left the car, Libby rushed forward to give her a hug. Like little ducklings, Alan and Simon followed.
“Are you okay?” Libby asked. “We’ve been so worried about you.”
Nadia nodded. “I’m glad to be back,” she said, her eyes stinging. She stopped talking so she wouldn’t cry.
“Sensei and Dean Shepard are inside,” Libby said. “We’ll wait out here for you.”
“But I am hungry,” Alan said. “Can we not meet at breakfast?” Libby shot him a look, and he shook his head. “We will wait.”
“Of course we will,” said Simon. “Welcome back, love.”
Nadia smiled and continued up the steps.
Jack stood at the top, deep concern etched in his forehead. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“I’m sorry I shot you,” she said. “Damon—”
“I know. I know what you did for me. Thank you.”
Her eyes burned, and she willed herself not to cry. Her lip quivered as she thought about Damon. She’d killed him. And what would happen to his mom? Nadia pressed her hand over her mouth.
Jack stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. He rested his chin on the top of her head and pulled her close. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “You’re okay.”
She nodded against his chest.
“Do you want me to go inside with you?” he asked.
Nadia moved back and shook her head. “No, thanks. I’m fine.”
“Then we’ll talk later.” Jack opened the door for her.
Sensei waited in the foyer. As the heavy door closed behind her, Nadia bowed to him and burst into tears.
He moved forward quickly, leaning down to look at her face. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head.
He straightened. “Then your tears are wasted energy. We only have a moment. Dean Shepard is expecting you.” He lowered his voice. “Tell me, why did you destroy the DNA database?”
“Damon,” she answered, as she fought down the tears. “He convinced me that my parents were in danger—and I think he may be right. He said it was the only way to keep them safe. I thought I had no choice.” Nadia dropped her eyes to hide the half-truth. That was most of it, but she’d also gone along with his plan because she wanted information.
“Did he want to erase his own DNA?”
“Yes, but he also said someone hired him to destroy the entire database. He didn’t know who.”
“Is this why he came for you? Because you were the only one able to access that room?”
Nadia sniffed and wiped her nose on her arm. “No, that was just an added bonus. Roberts has Damon’s mother. Damon told me Roberts is holding her prisoner until he returns some files that he stole last semester—some evidence against the Nighthawks—and that he needed my help to get her back. But it turns out it was a hostage exchange—Roberts wanted to trade me for Damon’s mother.” Nadia shook her head. “I know, you warned me not to trust him, and I shouldn’t have.” She took a shaky breath. “I think Roberts planned to kill him. Damon’s tracking device had a remote-controlled suicide pill—cyanide.”
Sensei studied her closely. “Why is Agent Roberts interested in you?”
“I don’t know.” Revenge against my father? Nadia dropped her voice to a nearly inaudible whisper. “Do you know Project Genesis?” He shook his head so slightly she wasn’t sure he’d actually done it.
“We must not keep the dean waiting.” He gestured down the hall. When they reached the sitting room, he stopped in the doorway. “We will speak more after you have rested.”
Again, her eyes filled with tears. “Sensei, why didn’t anyone come for me?”
“Every effort was made to find you. When I discovered you had accessed the secured rooms, I alerted Director Vincent. He dispatched a team that followed your tracking device to your campsite, but they found no trace of you. Before the director generated another lead, you telephoned.” His intense eyes bore into hers. “Nadia-san, had we the slightest notion where to find you, we would have come.” He bowed slightly then turned to go.
Nadia felt the quickening of her heart. She grabbed Sensei’s sleeve. “Wait. Please.”
He studied her, concern clouding his dark eyes. “You are very troubled.”
Afraid to say the words, she whispered, “The trailer exploded. He was inside.”
“Nadia-san—”
“He’s dead, Sensei. Damon is dead. I killed him.”
The instant Nadia slammed the trailer door, Damon reached into the cupboard under her bench seat at the dining table and rummaged through his duffel for the spare handcuff key. After freeing himself, he grabbed an empty rucksack from the closet. He shoved his Glock, hunting knife, two sets of spare license plates, passport, a wad of cash, cell phone, the thumb drive he’d stolen from Roberts’ storage unit, and the tracking device Nadia had cut from his shoulder inside the bag, then kicked out the window above the dining table.
Before climbing out, he eased his rifle and the vest packed with C-4 onto the desert floor.
Damon dropped the ten feet from the window to the ground. He wedged the vest against the gas-powered generator and sprinted a hundred yards away from the trailer.
Nadia would’ve gone in the opposite direction, toward the road. He didn’t follow. At this point, the only way to stop her would be brute force, and he’d just discovered that wasn’t an acceptable option. He needed another plan. Even if Roberts hadn’t said not to kill her, Damon knew he couldn’t do it. Not even for his mother.
He found a chaparral large enough to catch the shrapnel, slid underneath, then set up his rifle. He sighted his scope on the detonator attached to the vest. If he missed, if he severed the cord instead of striking the switch, the C-4 would be useless. Damon exhaled and pressed the trigger. He was another hundred yards away before the debris hit the earth.
Hayden hadn’t known anything about his mother, and Damon’s sole bargaining chip had just bolted. The last man who might be able to help was currently convalescing in a medically induced coma.
It was time to wake him up.
* * *
—
A few hours later, Damon boosted a rental car from the parking lot of the Hilton Condominium Vacation Properties in North Scottsdale and, after swapping out the plates, headed south. He reached Tucson before sunrise on Tuesday morning, hit the Shop-Mart for supplies, then got to work.
At 0500, dressed in navy blue scrubs with a fake ID clipped to his waist, Damon entered the front door of the Catalina Foothills Long-Term Care Facility and immediately headed to the nurses’ station. He picked the youngest, a cute twenty-something with a blond ponytail, and flashed his most disarming smile.
“I’m Jordan Phelps.” He carefully set his duffel bag on the floor. “The new orderly.”
An older nurse approached. She had that no-nonsense look of a seasoned professional, someone who’d trained hundreds of nurses over the years. She peered over the rim of her reading glasses. “I didn’t hear about a new orderly.”
Damon didn’t bother flirting. “Yes ma’am,” he said courteously. “The temp agency called this morning. I guess the complaints about understaffing finally got through to the powers-that-be, because your human resources director sent a request.” Damon consulted the note in his pocket. “Mr. Hernandez?” He shoved the fake note back into his scrubs. Using an actual name was risky, but Damon had researched the facility and learned that HR, along with the rest of corporate, was headquartered in Phoenix. The nurses probably had minimal contact with the administrative staff. “And I’m very grateful. I’ve been out of work for a while. You know what it’s like.”
“Well, it better not come out of the nurses’ pay.” She appraised him for another moment and then nodded. “You can put your bag in the break room. Start at the end of the hall. Grab the janitor’s cart out of the
closet and work your way up, room by room.”
“Yes ma’am,” Damon said. “Thank you.”
Down the hall, before he entered the break room, he slipped into the supply closet. He removed the teddy bear, the houseplant, and the canvas knife roll from his duffel. Those items he tucked onto the janitor’s cart. Across the hall, he threw his now-empty bag into a locker, and wheeled the cart into his first room.
Two hours and sixteen scrubbed toilets later, he found his target. The name written on the chart hanging in room 117 said John Seacrest, but Damon would’ve recognized his face anywhere.
Thadius Wolfe: former dean of students at Desert Mountain Academy, former CIA, current Nighthawk, and soon-to-be victim of one very disgruntled employee.
From his cart, Damon removed the nanny-cam teddy bear and stuck it on the built-in bookshelf across from the bed. He arranged the houseplant beside it: close enough so that no one would pick up the stuffed animal, but not so close that the leaves would block the camera lens. After Damon left, Wolfe would send for someone. They’d discuss the Nighthawks. Damon might learn where his mom was being held.
He unrolled the canvas knife bag and removed the syringe of adrenaline tucked inside.
The safe way to bring someone out of a medically induced coma was to slowly wean them off sedation while simultaneously warming their body back up to ninety-eight-point-six. Since Damon had neither the time nor the inclination to revive him safely, he folded the cooling blanket away from Wolfe’s chest, drove the needle into his heart, and squeezed the plunger.
Immediately the cardiac monitor registered an increased heart rate. Damon shoved the syringe into the medical waste can on his cart and returned to the bed. Wolfe’s eyes shot open.
“Where is my mother?” Damon asked.
Wolfe’s eyes darted wildly around the room.
“Hey,” Damon said sharply. “Roberts has my mother. Where would he keep her?”
The machine beeped faster. Wolfe’s heart pounded, whether from fear or adrenaline or a combination, Damon couldn’t say. He snapped his fingers in Wolfe’s face. “Where is she?”
The overhead announcement clicked on, “Code blue, room one-seventeen. All nurses respond.”
“Dammit.” Damon returned to his cart as the first wave of nurses rushed the room. He should’ve disconnected the monitor. “I don’t know what happened,” he said.
The head nurse came in and ordered him out. Damon dropped his cart off in the janitor’s room, threw the knife roll into his duffle, and shoved the plastic container of medical waste on top of that. He’d dump it somewhere else. He pushed through the exit at the end of the hall and jogged to his car, then drove to the parking lot across the street to pull up the nanny-cam surveillance feed on his laptop.
As the nurses sedated Wolfe, he slipped back into unconsciousness.
Now to wait.
A few hours later, Wolfe had a visitor. Damon saw her walk in: large sunglasses, a long white sweater-wrap, a sun hat. He didn’t recognize her. But once inside, she took off the light disguise and leaned toward the camera to pull a chair to the side of Wolfe’s bed.
Damon’s pulse quickened as he placed her.
Ms. McGill, assistant to the dean of students at Desert Mountain Academy, sat down and took Wolfe’s hand. She wiped at her eyes, visibly distraught.
“How the hell did I miss that?” Damon sat back in his seat and exhaled. He’d had no idea they were a couple.
Or that she was Roberts’ inside man.
As if things weren’t complicated enough.
Late Tuesday morning, after a few short hours of sleep, Nadia reported to medical. Security scanned her for tracking devices, the nurse collected blood and urine samples to run a toxicity screen, then Dr. Cameron sent for her. Instead of attending classes, Nadia spent three hours hooked up to a lie detector, fielding questions from both the psychiatrist and Dean Shepard.
Fortunately, their common goal was determining Nadia’s complicity in breaking and entering, stealing from the school, and destroying equipment. They had no reason to ask about her father. Her stress response remained consistent throughout the interview, so no red flags. Yes, when Damon arrived at my campsite, I believed my life was in danger. Yes, when I destroyed the database, Damon was armed and I acted under threat of death to my classmates and colleagues. Yes, I wholeheartedly believed Damon intended to shoot Jack with lethal ammo. No, I did not deliberately kill Damon.
As the exam ended, Dr. Cameron unhooked the electrodes from Nadia’s body, loosened the blood pressure cuff, and slipped the heart-rate monitor from her finger.
Dean Shepard turned off the camcorder. “Well, I’m satisfied that you had no previous knowledge of Damon’s intentions, and that you acted under duress.” She leaned against Cameron’s desk and crossed her arms. “But you must understand, Nadia, once you leave the safety of this institution and complete your undergraduate training, once you are a full officer of the CIA, actions such as those you’ve recently engaged in will result in a conviction of treason, the punishment for which is the death penalty. Nothing—not even a quest to save your teammates’ lives—will excuse that behavior.”
Nadia felt her blood pressure rise as anger welled in her chest. “The safety of this institution? Is that what you said?” She lifted the edge of her shirt, exposing the scar near her right hip. “I hate to keep bringing it up, but I haven’t been safe since I got here.”
Dean Shepard’s eyes flitted to her scar, then back to her face. “I’m so pleased you’ve been exonerated.” She turned crisply and marched from the room.
“I know you’re angry,” Dr. Cameron said. “But you should know: she went to bat for you. Student or not, you assisted a terrorist and essentially stole from the CIA. You destroyed government equipment and wiped the entire DNA history from the Academy’s records. The fact that you aren’t in shackles leads me to believe that she probably lied through her teeth to protect you.”
Nadia looked away. If Shepard lied, it was to protect herself. She turned her eyes back to Cameron. “I’m a minor. Why isn’t anyone apologizing that I was kidnapped by an ex-classmate during a school-sanctioned exercise?”
He offered a sympathetic smile. “Welcome to black-ops.”
* * *
—
Against her will, Nadia joined her teammates at the library for their afternoon study session. She had work to do, research on her father to conduct, though in her gut she knew that Damon’s files were authentic. He couldn’t have pulled together images of her father, Sloan, Roberts, Alan’s grandfather…
And what about Alan’s grandfather—whose side was he on? Had he turned, like Roberts? Should she report him to Dean Shepard? Could she, without implicating her father?
Nadia glanced at Alan. Maybe she should talk to him about Saba, though she doubted Alan would know one way or the other if his grandfather had joined the Nighthawks.
No—of course Saba wasn’t a Nighthawk. His officers had let Damon live. If he was a bad guy, Mossad would’ve killed Damon right along with Hayden.
She sighed, tired of having more questions than answers. Though she didn’t really care, she asked, “So what did I miss?”
“Yesterday in psychology we talked about Amsterdam Syndrome,” Simon said.
“Stockholm Syndrome, not Amsterdam,” Alan said. “I knew you were not listening.” He turned to Nadia. “It is a little complex. In the event of a prolonged kidnapping or hostage situation, the victim often experiences a complete psychic change—one’s foundational beliefs are eventually destroyed. The target loses trust in friends and family, and begins to rely solely on the person administering the manipulation.”
She jotted Damon’s code at the top of her planner: 78655986. “I know about Stockholm Syndrome.”
“How? I barely understand it, and I sat through the bloody lesson,” Simon said.
“Shh.” A cute boy from the next table locked eyes with Simon. “Keep it down, please,” he said with a smile
.
In a stage whisper, Simon said, “Sorry to disturb.”
“My father.” Nadia paused. “The professor.” Specializing in political assassinations and high-value kidnappings. The line played like a recording in her head.
“Nadia, why don’t you explain it to Simon,” Libby whispered. “Because these two had this exact conversation at lunch, and I don’t believe I can listen to it again.”
Nadia had once asked to sit in on her father’s class. He’d been teaching a summer course called Kidnappings Abroad: A Lucrative Business. Her dad had refused; he told her it was against school policy, and anyway, wouldn’t she rather hang out at the pool with her friends? He’d given her twenty bucks for lunch and dropped her at the mall.
“Go on then,” Simon said.
Nadia sighed. “Stockholm Syndrome occurs when a kidnapping victim begins to sympathize with her captors.”
“Ah.” Simon nodded. “See? When you explain it, it’s clear as day.”
Nadia turned her eyes to Alan. “What about political science? Did Professor Katz have anything interesting to say?”
Alan’s face reddened as the table fell silent. Libby examined her cuticles, Simon busied himself by sorting through his backpack, and Nadia realized that every one of her teammates knew Alan’s secret. What on earth had she missed?
And what else did they know?
* * *
—
That night as the girls climbed into bed, Nadia asked, “Why did everyone get weird when I asked about poli-sci?”
Libby’s face lit up and she clamped her lips together, like she was trying to contain her excitement. She took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and then exhaled her words in one quick stream. “Okay, you know I hate to gossip, but oh my goodness—guess who Professor Katz is? Alan’s saba! Can you believe it? I was dying to tell you but you’ve been through so much, I didn’t want to sound petty if you weren’t ready to chat.” She clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes smiling.
“Wow.” Nadia pulled the covers around her legs. “How did you find that out?”
