Shades of Gray

by Vicki Hinze

  “Dad,” Timmy whispered, tugging at his sleeve. When Jake looked his way, Timmy went on. “It ain’t Jacksonville.”

  Laura snapped her gaze to Timmy. So did half of the people at the table, including Connor.

  “It isn’t Jacksonville?” Jake asked.

  Timmy gave Jake a negative nod, clearly uncomfortable at being the center of attention. “I heard the man who sounds like Grandfather tell them to say Jacksonville so nobody would know where they’re going to poison the water.”

  Puzzled, Jake asked for clarification. “The man who sounds like Grandfather?”

  Laura interceded. “Madeline and Hawkins have a boss, Jake. Timmy didn’t see the man, but he heard him, and the man sounded like Sean Drake.”

  That disclosure set off a buzz of speculation around the conference table. Jake frowned, not sure what to make of this. “Did you hear anything about this man from anyone else?”

  “He’s mean.” Timmy looked up at Jake, his eyes as wide as saucers. “The man guarding me told me he was a mean sonofabitch.”

  “Timmy.” Laura chided him for cursing.

  “Sorry, Mom.” He glanced over at her. “But that’s what he said.” Timmy’s expression shifted, as if he wanted to add something, yet he hesitated.

  “What is it, Tiger?” Laura clasped his hand in hers.

  Timmy shrugged and fidgeted. “Madeline really wasn’t kidnapped like she said. She lied to me, Mom.” He looked up at her, his pain in his eyes. “She lied to Bear, too. But he knew who she was ’cuz he saw her picture in my wallet when we went to court, and he told her so. That’s when she shot him. I saw her shoot Bear two times. Here.” He pointed to his chest, and then to his right shoulder. “And here.” Timmy lowered his hand to the armrest. “She didn’t know I saw her, but I did. And I think the mean man really was him, too.”

  “Who do you think he was, son?” Jake asked.

  “Their boss.”

  “Who do you think their boss was?” Laura tried again for clarification.

  “Grandfather.”

  “He can’t be, Timmy,” Jake said. “You know your grandfather is dead.”

  A tingle started at the base of Laura’s spine. It worked its way up her back to the roof of her mouth, and suddenly so much made sense. So many pieces fell into place. “Jake, wait a minute.”

  He looked over at her.

  “Maybe Timmy’s right. Maybe Sean’s not dead.”

  “Honey, we went to the man’s funeral.”

  “But Madeline didn’t.”

  She hadn’t. And they’d always thought that didn’t make sense.

  “Maybe she didn’t go because she knew he wasn’t dead.”

  “Maybe,” Jake agreed.

  “That’s a big jump, Laura,” Connor said.

  “I know it is,” she said. “But we never saw the body. It was a closed-casket service. Why would there be a closed-casket service for a heart attack victim? An accident victim, yes. But a heart attack victim?”

  “Can we check out his personnel records?” Jake asked.

  “No,” Connor said. “CIA files are sealed.”

  “Not from me.” Agent 27, the CIA team member, looked at Connor over the top of his glasses. “I have access.”

  “Get on it, then. Maybe we’ll find something that explains why Sean Drake would stage his own death.”

  The JAG, Colonel Jim Mather, spoke up. “All we need is a court order to exhume the body.”

  Connor nodded. “Get it going, Jim. Shove it through.”

  “Will do.” He slid back his chair and then left the conference room.

  Agent 27 left on Jim’s heels.

  “Him staging his death fits, General,” Jake said to Connor. “Drake had a jaded philosophy toward interpreting the Constitution and its rights. If he isn’t dead, he’s got the connections and the money to finance ROFF.”

  “Timmy.” Jake returned his attention to his son. “You said it wasn’t Jacksonville they were going to contaminate. Did you hear where it was?”

  Timmy nodded. “Hawk told Madeline.”

  “Where is it, son?”

  “Miami.”

  Jake looked at Connor. “Miami.” That too fit. More densely populated, greater damage, higher body count: all the elements terrorists looked for in an ideal target.

  Connor stared at Timmy, then let his gaze drift around the table. Jake sensed the other team members’ skepticism, and he suspected Connor did too. It was easy enough to guess what the general was thinking. Did he dare to put his trust and the lives of everyone in Miami and Jacksonville in the word of a nine-year-old?

  Twenty-two

  Connor returned his gaze to Timmy. “Son, are you sure that’s what you heard?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Yes, sir. I don’t know if it’s true—Hawk could have been lying—but that’s what he told Madeline.”

  Hands against the edge of the table, Connor paused for a tense moment, then shoved back and walked over to a credenza behind him. A gray phone sat atop it. He reached for the receiver. When he pressed a single button, Jake knew exactly whom he was calling. The Ops Center.

  Looking at Jake, Connor spoke into the receiver. “Scramble forces to Miami. Same orders as Jacksonville. STAT.”

  When Connor returned to the table, Jake said, “Sir, I need to get down there.”

  Connor nodded.

  Laura stood up. “I’m coming with you.”

  “No, you’re not,” Jake insisted.

  “Don’t get tes—”

  “No, Laura.” He clasped her upper arms. “Until we catch them, Timmy’s not safe. Madeline has used him once. If she can, she will again. He needs you.”

  Laura again felt torn. Madeline had to be an operative. She had to be. But not one of theirs, not with the OSI. Maybe CIA, like her father, though Laura doubted it. Most likely, she worked only for her father. Regardless, Madeline now had become a traitor. One who always had cited stress as her reason for drinking. Was that real, or part of her cover? And what tied her to Hawkins? He had to have something on her to have some kind of leverage. Of course if Sean was running ROFF, no further explanation was needed. Madeline would do anything he told her to do. Even kidnap her own son.

  “I have to go with you, Jake,” Laura said softly. “I have to do it.”

  “What about Timmy?”

  “I’ll keep him with me,” Connor said. “I agree with Laura on this, Jake.”

  Jake’s heart rebelled. She’d been in enough danger. He didn’t want her in any more.

  “I know how Hawkins thinks, Jake,” Laura reminded him. “Let me help you.”

  Jake looked at Timmy, who nodded. “Mom’s gotta do it, Dad. Responsibility isn’t a coat.”

  Timmy was right. She did have to do it. She couldn’t back away from a confrontation with Paul Hawkins. Not and ever stop looking over her shoulder again.

  “Okay.”

  In flight, Laura reached over and clasped Jake’s hand.

  He looked over at her, and his chest went tight. “Some marriage I’ve gotten you into, isn’t it?”

  She gave him the ghost of a smile. “I’m not complaining.”

  “You never have.” Jake rubbed the tips of their fingers. “But I somehow don’t think this is quite what you had in mind.”

  “It wasn’t.” She looked at him, love shining in her eyes. “But I’ll take this with you, rather than anything without you.”

  A knot lodged in his throat. “Me, too.”

  She blinked, then blinked again. “Connor’s going to take a lot of heat for letting me come with you.”

  “Yes, he will.”

  “He’s a good man. He scared me at first on Colonel James, but Connor is a good man.”

  �
��Yes, he is.” Jake looked over at her. “Connor’s ordered Colonel James detained for questioning. If our hunches about him pan out, the man is going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.”

  “Explaining?” Laura grunted. “He won’t be able to justify any of this.”

  Thirty minutes outside of Miami, the pilot turned to Jake. “General Connor is on the horn, Major.” He passed Jake a set of headphones.

  Jake fitted them over his ears, then spoke into the mouthpiece. “Yes, sir.”

  “Timmy was right. It was Miami. We stopped them in time, Jake. I’m putting the boy in for a Special Ops Special Commendation.”

  Jake smiled. “He’ll like that.”

  “He’s earned it. When I think of what could have happened . . .” The general’s voice trailed to a sigh. “We apprehended Madeline. She swears she was kidnapped just prior to Timmy’s abduction. Timmy swears she wasn’t. I believe him, of course. We’re using Bear Barton to break her story.”

  “I’d think Bear would be effective at that.”

  “No doubt,” Connor said. “Hawkins is still at large. James—I refuse to call that lowlife bastard ‘Colonel’—is singing like a canary. He’ll do serious time for this.”

  “So our hunches were on target.” Jake stared at Laura. She looked tired. Bone-weary, actually.

  “I’m sorry to have to say it, but they were. It makes me sick that one of ours would turn traitor.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I’ve ordered Madeline and James brought here, and, since Miami and Jacksonville are secure, your plane to return to base.”

  “What about Sean?”

  “Some backwoods bastard judge blocked the court order to exhume his body. Agent twenty-seven, the CIA rep, called in. His people have done some digging, and they’ve found something solid that’s just as effective. We’ll discuss it when you get back to the base.”

  Did that mean Sean was alive and heading ROFF? Jake wanted to know, but for the sake of security, he didn’t ask. “Yes, sir.”

  Jake removed the headset, then returned it to the pilot and turned to Laura. “We’ve got Madeline and James,” he whispered. “Miami and Jacksonville are safe. It was Miami. Connor’s putting Timmy in for a Special Commendation. And Agent twenty-seven has found something on Sean Drake.”

  She stared into his eyes. “He’s alive, Jake. I feel it in my bones.”

  God, he hoped she was wrong. But his own bones warned him she was right.

  Just after 1600, Laura and Jake walked into the twelve-by-twelve detention room where Madeline was being held. Like the vault, furnishings here were sparse. A squat table that could seat six and some chairs. She sat across from Connor, her blouse mud-splattered, her jeans dirt-crusted, and her black hair matted.

  Timmy wasn’t there.

  “Where’s my son?” Laura asked Connor, fighting a flicker of panic she knew was unreasonable.

  Madeline glared at her. Laura glared back, daring the woman to give her an excuse, any excuse, to punish her for using Timmy and putting him in danger.

  She must have sensed that Laura was teetering on the edge of control, because Madeline lowered her gaze and then looked away.

  “Timmy’s in my office with Gladys,” Connor said. “I didn’t want him in here.”

  Knowing he meant around Madeline, and that the dragon lady, Gladys, wouldn’t let anyone within a mile of Timmy, some of Laura’s tension ebbed. She sat down, all but collapsing from exhaustion onto a chair at the far side of Jake, grateful the windowless room didn’t reek of lemon or of pine. Either one would have had her retching.

  Thirty minutes into the interview with Madeline, they hadn’t learned anything, except that she was definitely not an airhead. Then Agent 27 reported in by phone and asked to speak to Laura.

  She went into a cramped but neat office across the hall to answer the secure-line call. “Logan.”

  “Agent twenty-seven,” he said. “I asked to speak with you because I wanted you to know firsthand that your son might just be right about Sean Drake.”

  Laura’s pulse leapt.

  “His file netted nothing. But one of our people had an interesting talk with a Michael Cass who worked under Drake. Cass said he’d gathered hard evidence that Drake had broken numerous laws in gathering intelligence. Cass discreetly reported it to a friend of his, Senator Wade. Wade was in the process of calling for a congressional hearing to investigate Drake when Drake died.”

  “And because he was dead, they dropped it,” Laura speculated, twisting the phone cord around her fingertip.

  “Right.”

  “Convenient, wasn’t it?”

  “It appears so. Though the stress of him knowing a congressional inquiry was on the near horizon could have incited a heart attack.”

  “I suppose so.” She seriously doubted it. The arrogant bastard would have sworn he could beat it.

  “It’s not conclusive,” Agent 27 said. “We’ll know more after the body’s exhumed. We’ve, er, come to terms with the judge, who happens to be a distant relative of Colonel James.”

  Now why didn’t that surprise her? “I appreciate the update.” Laura said goodbye, then hung up the phone and returned to the room where Madeline was being interviewed.

  A few minutes later, it became glaringly apparent that Madeline had no intention of cracking. But why should she? She’d been trained by the best: her father.

  Watching for an opportunity to induce a bluff, Laura saw one, then took it. “Enough.” She stood up and leaned across the table. “Here’s my take on things, Madeline. You weren’t kidnapped. You’re a willing member of ROFF, and kidnapping Timmy was just fine with you. You and Paul Hawkins have worked together for years.”

  Madeline stared at her, her eyes gleaming, but held her silence.

  That was exactly the way it had been, Laura realized. Exactly. “You wanted Jake to marry you, and he wouldn’t, so you did the one thing you knew to do that would change his mind: a pregnancy. And it did. Only your father vehemently opposed. He wanted you to abort—a child would just get in the way of your career in Intel—but you wanted Jake, and without the child, you wouldn’t get him. So for the first time in your life, you defied your father and married Jake—or so I thought, until I took that phone call. Now I know better.”

  Laura stopped and let her gaze drift to the ceiling. “You opposing Sean never made sense. You always did what he wanted. Sean changed his mind. He wanted you married to Jake. He sold you out for his career because he wanted access, an opportunity to manipulate Jake like he manipulated you. Only Jake wouldn’t cooperate. So you got pressure from both sides—from Jake and from your father, who reminded you with monotonous regularity that you were blowing his deal with Colonel James. You were a plant there, in James’ office, gathering OSI intelligence data to pass on to your father. Only you weren’t coming through for him, were you, Madeline?” Laura shrugged. “Everyone knows spies spy on spies, right? Isn’t that what Sean always said?”

  Laura leaned forward. “He’s still saying it too, isn’t he, Madeline? Sean didn’t die. He faked his death to avoid a congressional inquiry. He’d been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar and was about to get it cut off. So he faked his death to avoid prosecution for blatant intelligence-gathering illegalities, and you helped him.”

  In Laura’s mind, more and more of the puzzle pieces fell into place. “Only now Sean was working against this country, and you had no choice but to work with him. You had to continue to do what you’d always done: exactly what he said. The stress got to you. And so you drank. And drank. And drank.

  “When you’d sober up, you’d feel guilty and agree to Timmy’s adoption. But then Sean would yank your chain and remind you that if you let go of Timmy you’d be cutting off your access to Jake, and so you’d pull the papers. Sean sta
rted ROFF. You and Hawkins worked with him. And when Hawkins and I had the run-in at survival school, you recruited him to work with you because, like you, he hated me.”

  Yet another piece of the puzzle slotted into perfect place in Laura’s mind. “Back then, Hawkins wanted my bicolor tracking design. He figured he’d kill me and get it. He knew I had the plans for it with me. And for that same reason, he broke into my apartment—to get the design for my tri-color tracker.”

  It made perfect sense. Perfect sense. “In the interim years, all of you thought I’d stopped my research. But then Colonel James heard through channels it was complete.” Possibly from an unsuspecting Dr. Harrison. “And James passed that information along to Sean, who thought such a communications device could be helpful to ROFF.” Laura shrugged. “Of course, killing me was fine with Sean, too. He hated me as much as you did, because he couldn’t manipulate me. I screwed up his plans to do that by getting out of the Air Force. And God knows Paul Hawkins was just chomping at the bit to execute Sean’s kill order on me.”

  Laura paused a moment, then went on. “The only thing I haven’t figured out is what Hawkins has on you. Why is he manipulating you, Madeline? Why are you letting him manipulate you?”

  “He isn’t. Hawk loves me,” Madeline said, defiance etching her voice. Her face paled to white and tensed with anger. “He’s the only one who’s ever loved me.”

  I hate it when people walk away from me!

  Remembering Madeline’s shouted words the night she’d nearly driven into Jake’s kitchen, Laura pegged the woman’s motivations. Sean emotionally had walked away. So had Jake, who also physically walked away from her. Madeline was ripe for a man like Hawkins. Ripe. So he came along professing love and acceptance: exactly what Madeline always wanted from the men in her life and never received.

  Laura stared down at Madeline. “And because Hawkins loves you, you’ll do anything for him.” Just like with Sean. “You’ll put your own flesh and blood in danger? You’ll bomb my car and kidnap Timmy? Poison innocent people with contaminated water? What kind of love is that? What kind of man would ask those things from you?”