by Jana DeLeon
“Does she still work here?” I asked.
“She does but she’s on vacation,” Lois said. “Since she’s senior, she gets her pick of time off. I used to wonder why she left the city for Mardi Gras because it’s such a good time. Then I worked a couple of Mardi Gras in the ER and had my answer.”
“I don’t suppose you know how to reach her, do you?” I asked. “I wouldn’t ask but it’s rather urgent.”
She looked at me, then at Ida Belle and Gertie, bit her lower lip, then finally nodded. “I have her number in my cell phone but we’re not allowed to have them on shift. I can get it for you, though.”
I gave her my card with my phone number on it. “Just text it to that number. And thank you.”
“Of course,” she said. “The tech will be back for Ms. Hebert soon.”
“Well, that’s that,” Gertie said, looking disappointed.
“It’s not the end of the road,” I said. “As soon as we get out of here, I’ll leave a message for her and maybe she’ll get back with us.”
“Would you get back with total strangers asking you to violate HIPAA laws, especially while you were on vacation?” Gertie asked.
“You lost me at total strangers,” I said, “so I’m really not the person to ask.”
“All we can do is try,” Ida Belle said. “Maybe she’ll get back with us. Maybe she won’t. Either way, we just keep moving.”
Gertie sighed. “What a waste of a good concussion.”
It took another hour before the tech came to the room to retrieve Gertie and by that time, it was all Ida Belle and I could do to keep her from walking out. She swore she was fine, and I figured she probably was, given the things I’d seen her survive, but you never played Russian roulette with a head injury. I finally managed to get her settled by reminding her that a medical report would be a solid addition to our police reports.
Ida Belle and I exited the room behind the tech and she said she was going in search of coffee. I told her I was going to try to call Carter and bring him up to speed and to grab me the largest cup she could find. I needed something in my stomach because I was going to starve to death before we got food. I should have joined Gertie eating granola bars earlier. I started walking in the direction of the lobby when a man in a janitorial uniform and hat opened a door and grabbed my arm.
My father!
Chapter Sixteen
He motioned me inside the supply room, and everything I thought I would do if I came face-to-face with him fled my mind and I found myself unable to do anything at all. Then the moment passed and I yanked my arm back and pulled out my pistol. He put his hands up and nodded, then motioned to the room again.
“I have to speak to you,” he said. “It’s a matter of national security.”
Crap! There were only two things that could get me to step into the lion’s den—my friends and national security.
I waved my gun at him and he stepped backward, keeping his hands up. He was fast but no way could he pull a gun on me before I got off several shots. And only one would do.
“Speak,” I said as the door closed behind us. “And keep your hands up while you do it.”
“I need you to get information to Director Morrow,” he said.
“Why don’t you do it yourself? You could probably accost him somewhere in a hallway.”
He shook his head. “The CIA and intelligence agencies for most countries have him under surveillance and have for months. Just like you. I’ve been trying for days to find a way to get to you that didn’t cause you more problems, and with all the people milling around this city, this was the best opportunity.”
I stared. “Are you serious? More problems? You abandoned me as a child after I’d already lost my mother. Pretended to be dead for fourteen years, then pop up alive and suspected of being a traitor, and I’m still not convinced you’re not. You’ve done nothing but cause me problems. My entire life before Sinful consisted of nothing but trying to get out of your shadow, and when I finally did, you show up to ruin everything again. I should shoot you right here and save all of us a lot of trouble.”
At least he had the decency to look somewhat contrite. “Look, I know what I did to you was wrong but at the time, I thought it was the best choice. I was a crap father and husband, for that matter. There was only one thing that I did well, and when the military made me an offer to go under deep, I thought it would be better for you and the country if I disappeared and did what I do best.”
“You’ve been working for the military for all these years?” I still wasn’t convinced.
He nodded. “You won’t find my name on a payroll check, of course, but yes. I infiltrated a major terrorist cell over a decade ago and have been handling communications between cells for several years.”
“How did you convince them you’d sold out?”
“I took a lot of money and withstood years of scrutiny. The military never planned on getting regular updates from me. I was in place only to alert if things were about to go bad on a global scale. But my military channels are compromised. The one person I know I can trust is Morrow. But I can’t get to him.”
“So you decided to get to me instead. Now that I’m old enough to do something for you. Not that you ever did much of anything for me.”
“I know you don’t believe it, but my leaving was for you. I knew Morrow would look after you. I just didn’t ever consider that you would follow in my footsteps. If I had known how things would turn out, I would have done everything differently.”
“No. You wouldn’t have.” I studied him for several seconds. “You know that some think I was an even better agent than you. Do you really think you can lie to me and I can’t tell? In so many ways, I am my father’s daughter.”
His expression went totally blank, and for a moment, he looked just like he did when I was a child, which said a whole lot about the first sixteen years of my life.
“Fine,” he said. “Neither of us is looking for some big Oprah father-daughter reunion, so I’ll get right to the facts. In ten days, there is a meeting in London between the top security personnel of several countries. The president will be there. The prime minister of Great Britain will be there and several other leaders.”
I frowned. “And what’s going to happen?”
“There’s a massive hit planned. The hotel that the visiting leaders stay in has been rigged to attack them with sonar. Even if they make it through the attack alive, they probably won’t ever be the same again. Simultaneously, assassins have targeted the prime minister during his dinner. His entire family will be poisoned.”
“Sonar? But won’t that cause widespread problems?”
He nodded. “It’s likely that everyone in the hotel will be affected—guests and staff. It will kill or cripple several hundred people at once, mostly people whose only mistake was being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Who’s behind this?”
“It’s a joint effort among several terrorist groups but I haven’t been able to determine who is leading the charge.”
“And what’s the purpose?”
“The same as it always is—to injure the strong.”
“I don’t get it. Why are you telling me this? You’ve managed to become invisible for over a decade and you really think you couldn’t have gotten this information to Morrow another way?”
“You were an excellent operative. I don’t have to explain to you the difficulties one experiences when there’s corruption within the ranks. There’s a sheet of paper on the table behind you that contains twelve names. Those people are traitors working within the intelligence community of each government that will be represented at this meeting. Three of them are CIA. One is the man currently sitting in federal prison for leaking information on you.”
I felt my pulse tick up a notch. “And the man in the casino?”
“One of your old friend Ahmad’s captains. But there’s been no hit ordered on you. The guy in charge now has been looking for a
way to take over Ahmad’s group for years. You did him a favor. His only interest in you now is the same as the others—leading them to me.”
“Before you can get information to the right parties.”
He nodded. “You are the only person I can trust to deliver this for me. Most don’t believe that you’ve been deactivated, but they’ve been unable to prove differently.”
“Maybe because it’s true.”
“Is it really?”
He stared at me and I knew he was doing the same thing I do—watching every inch of my face for that telltale sign that I was lying.
“My reasons for becoming an agent are no longer important to me,” I said. “I have a new life. A life that I vastly prefer to the one before.”
He watched me silently for several more seconds, then nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that. You’re a real asset to this country.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve found some people who appreciate me even more, and now they’re in danger.”
“Yes. I can only assume the man you dispatched at the casino broke surveillance and approached you. The clock is ticking and the closer to the meeting they get, the harder they’ll work to ensure their plan goes off without a hitch.”
I cursed loudly and he glanced nervously at the door.
“My life will never be normal,” I said. “All because of you. You should never have married. You should never have had kids. You knew who you were. It wasn’t fair to shove other people into your trajectory.”
He was silent for a few seconds, then lowered his head and sighed.
“You’re right,” he said. “I shouldn’t have pursued your mother but she was unlike anyone I’d ever met before. Just being near her made light brighter. I’d never felt like that. I would have given her whatever she asked for, and what she wanted more than anything was a child. I was selfish. It wasn’t fair to her or to you. I hoped by leaving that I could avoid making you as miserable as I made her.”
“You’re 0 and 2.”
“I know. And the last thing I wanted to do was drop this in your lap, but I don’t know any other way. You needed to know what was happening, so you could get the information to Morrow and so you could protect yourself. I never would have risked coming out of hiding and exposing you further, if it wasn’t critical.”
“So that’s it? You just dump this on me and disappear again?”
“No. I’ll make a ‘slip’ somewhere so that they can gain temporary position on me, then leave the area in an attempt to draw them off. Good luck, Fortune.”
He dropped his hands and inched for the door. I stepped back and let him go. There was no point in holding him there any longer. Nothing he could say would change the current situation or make up for the damage he’d done. He opened the door and slipped out.
I heard a faint “I’m sorry” before the door closed.
And then I started to cry.
I grabbed the paper with the names and scanned them, my blood running cold, then I sprinted out of the room. But my father had already disappeared. A nurse coming down the hall gave me a funny look but I just turned and took off for the lobby. I stuffed the paper in my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. Then I stopped. Who was I calling first? I needed Ida Belle back in my sight. I needed to warn Mannie that the situation had just gone from fifty to one thousand. But mostly, I wanted to talk to Carter. Just because.
As I was trying to decide, Ida Belle came through a side door clutching two huge coffee cups, and some of my tension eased. She took one look at my face, set the cups on a table and rushed over.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Is it Gertie?”
“No,” I said.
I headed for the restroom, motioning for Ida Belle to follow. I didn’t like the big glass front that the lobby had. Too much exposure. When we got inside, I checked to make sure it was empty, paced a couple times, then stopped, took in a deep breath, and slowly blew it out.
“My father was here,” I said.
Ida Belle plopped the coffees on the counter.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I shook my head. “We need to get out of here. Everything has changed.”
“What did he tell you?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t involve Ida Belle and Gertie in this. Or Mannie for that matter. It was too big. Too frightening. It went so high up on the food chain that it was an apex predator. Several were high-ranking military officials in three different countries. One was the CIA operative who had effectively replaced me in the Middle East. The other was the deputy director of the CIA—Morrow’s right-hand man.
No wonder my father had come out of hiding. No wonder half the world’s bad guys were gunning for him and shadowing me. But now it was my problem. And I had to think like an operative in order to complete the mission, but this time was different. This time I had to consider the survival of people other than myself. It was a lot.
“We need to get back to Sinful,” I said.
On the surface, it sounded counterintuitive—as if I were just leading the bad guys right to my front door and exposing the entire town to my burden. But the reality was, the bad guys were already there. If I disappeared, it left everyone there at risk of being kidnapped to draw me out. The only way I could keep them safe was to put myself on display, and the best place to do that was where strangers stood out and neighbors were nosy and called the police about everything.
I could try to convince the people closest to me to go into hiding, but without time to prepare documents and without a system in place to move several individuals at once, it would have been hard to do successfully. And even if a foolproof plan could be established, I knew they wouldn’t leave. So it wasn’t an option.
“What about the police statements?” Ida Belle asked
Crap! If we didn’t give our statements, one of the bad guys would be back on the job. I figured there were more where he came from, but taking him out of commission for a day or two was an every-little-bit-helps sort of situation.
My phone rang and I saw it was Mannie. I knew he wouldn’t call unless it was important so I answered.
“Your casino friend escaped police custody at another hospital,” he said when I answered.
“How did that happen?” I asked.
“No idea,” he said. “All I know is that Big called a contact with the NOLA PD and found out. He’s got them running scared as he’s claimed you are a close personal friend, but you know how hard it will be for officers trained to work civilians to try to locate one guy, especially with Mardi Gras in full swing.”
“I get it,” I said. “I think we need to get back to Sinful immediately.”
“I agree. What do you need from me?”
“Move Ida Belle’s SUV somewhere we can pick it up without being seen. That might give us enough lead time to make it back to Sinful without incident.”
“No problem. I’ll need about thirty minutes.”
“That will work. Gertie isn’t released yet but should be soon.”
“I’ll pick you up when you’re done,” he said.
“Are you being followed?”
“I was earlier, but they couldn’t hang. They don’t know the city, and I can use that to my advantage.”
“Text me when everything is in place.”
“Will do. Watch your back.”
“Always.”
I slipped my phone in my pocket. “Our friend got away, so the statements aren’t going to be an issue. We need to get Gertie and get out of here.”
We located the charge nurse, and she told us Gertie was back in her room and the doctor would be there soon. We headed back and found Gertie sitting up and raring to go. I brought Gertie up to speed as much as I had Ida Belle at least, making sure she knew to hold in her thoughts—which were likely to be stringent and loud. I could tell she was straining not to let out her anger and squeezed her arm, indicating that I knew exactly how she felt.
The doctor walked in about twenty minutes later.
&
nbsp; “Your tests look good,” he said as he checked Gertie’s head and shone a light in her eyes. “How do you feel?”
“Bored and restless,” Gertie said. “I’m ready to leave.”
The doctor frowned. “I’d prefer to hold you overnight for observation.”
“The only way you’re holding me overnight is if we’re dating and it has to include dinner first,” Gertie said. “If I’m not dying, I’m getting out of here.”
“I’ll get you a release form to sign,” the doctor said. I could tell he wasn’t happy when he left the room, but he also knew better than to try to argue.
“You know,” Ida Belle said, “this is the first and I hope the only time I see you check yourself out of the hospital against doctor’s orders.”
My cell phone signaled an incoming text. Mannie.
SUV in place but enemy is positioned outside hospital. Spotted three on foot and two vehicles so far. Probably more. Building is surrounded.
Crap! I figured after our friend at the casino got away, he’d alert his people and they’d set up shop outside the hospital, hoping for a chance to grab one of us as we left, but I hadn’t expected that many. Of course, that was before I knew that several terrorist groups had decided to make friends and get together for one big hurrah. But that didn’t mean they’d trust one another, which meant all of them had sent operatives to come after me.
Ultimately, they’d show up in Sinful, but we needed to get a jump on them. The lone highway between New Orleans and Sinful was filled with long stretches of nothing, which gave ample opportunity to force us off the road. Or worse. If the enemy even suspected for a second that my father had gotten information to me, they’d kill me just to be sure. How many people were surrounding me at the time wouldn’t matter. In fact, they’d just assume it was safer to get us all.
I repeated the text to Ida Belle and Gertie, and they gave each other worried looks, then looked back at me, clearly expecting me to come up with a solution. In my past life, I would have shot my way out and gotten a lift from a helicopter, but that didn’t seem like the best idea at the moment, even if I had a helicopter at my disposal.
