THE MIDDLE SIN

by Merline Lovelace

  "That's cor­rect." Qu­i­et em­pathy fil­led Lady Mar­s­ton's vo­ice. "I fo­und the ori­gi­nal birth cer­ti­fi­ca­te among my mot­her's pa­pers af­ter she di­ed last ye­ar. I bro­ught you a copy."

  Fury bla­zed from Slo­an's eyes. "The bas­tard! He adop­ted his own sons. All tho­se ye­ars, he let Alex and me be­li­eve we we­re so­me ot­her man's dis­cards and we we­re his own sons."

  Whir­ling, he stro­de ac­ross the ter­ra­ce and tur­ned his fa­ce to the sea. Di­ane star­ted to ri­se and go to him. Lady Mar­s­ton wa­ved her back down.

  "Ple­ase," she mur­mu­red. "Let me."

  As she jo­ined Slo­an, the bre­eze off the oce­an te­ased her ha­ir in­to silky black wings and mol­ded the am­ber chif­fon to her slen­der fi­gu­re. She spo­ke softly, most of her words lost to the wind and the wa­ves slap­ping aga­inst the rocks be­low the ter­ra­ce.

  Wha­te­ver she sa­id, Marc wasn't bu­ying. He sta­red at the sea, his fa­ce a sto­ne mask. Cleo co­uld only ima­gi­ne what it wo­uld fe­el li­ke to ha­ve yo­ur en­ti­re li­fe rip­ped off its fo­un­da­ti­ons. Fi­nal­ly, his sis­ter la­id a hand on his arm and pul­led him aro­und. Her vo­ice to­ok on a tart no­te that car­ri­ed cle­arly ac­ross the ter­ra­ce.

  "The ge­ne­ral wan­ted his sons. He went to the tro­ub­le to ar­ran­ge an adop­ti­on and gi­ve you and Alex his na­me. That's mo­re than he did for his da­ug­h­ter."

  Slo­an held her eyes for long mo­ments be­fo­re co­ve­ring her hand with his. "You're right, it was."

  The to­uch was ten­ta­ti­ve, the res­pon­se even mo­re so. Ame­ri­can ca­uti­on me­ets Bri­tish re­ser­ve, Cleo tho­ught with a lit­tle pang for both of them.

  She'd grown up with only one pa­rent. But Pat­rick North had clo­sed the ho­le ma­de by his wi­fe's de­ath with a li­fe­ti­me of fi­er­ce be­ar hugs, lo­ud smac­king kis­ses and ef­forts to ma­ke su­re his da­ug­h­ter knew she was lo­ved. Jud­ging by Marc's pre­vi­o­us com­ments, the ge­ne­ral had hardly qu­ali­fi­ed as a warm, lo­ving pa­rent. She felt for Slo­an as he tri­ed to brid­ge the for­ty-ye­ar gap bet­we­en him and the stran­ger who sha­red his blo­od.

  "I don't know abo­ut you," he sa­id gruffly, "but I co­uld su­re use that whisky now."

  "So co­uld I."

  Once they we­re back at the tab­le, a wor­ri­ed Di­ane se­ar­c­hed his fa­ce.

  "Are you all right?"

  "I'm get­ting the­re."

  When his sis­ter pas­sed him the whisky, he of­fe­red her a si­lent sa­lu­te and tos­sed back the con­tents. Lady Mar­s­ton did the sa­me, the­reby ear­ning Cleo's in­s­tant ap­pro­val. An­yo­ne who co­uld sho­ot with such de­adly ac­cu­racy and down two fin­gers of Scotch in one smo­oth swal­low qu­ali­fi­ed as okay in her bo­ok.

  Lif­ting his cha­ir back on­to its legs, Marc set­tled be­si­de Di­ane. His fury had co­oled, but ten­si­on still sho­wed in the stiff set to his sho­ul­ders.

  "Tell me abo­ut yo­ur…" He ga­ve an im­pa­ti­ent sha­ke of his he­ad. "Abo­ut our mot­her. How did she and the ge­ne­ral me­et?"

  Cleo ca­ught Jack ste­aling a glan­ce at his watch. They had a he­li­cop­ter in­bo­und and a car­go ship lo­aded with mu­ni­ti­ons to fly out to. He hid his im­pa­ti­en­ce, tho­ugh, as Lady Mar­s­ton res­pon­ded to Slo­an's qu­es­ti­on.

  "They met in York, ac­tu­al­ly. The ge­ne­ral was on le­ave from his em­bas­sy du­ti­es. He'd mo­to­red up to re­se­arch the old Ro­man fort at Ches­ters, stop­ped for a pint in York, and en­ded up tum­b­ling in­to bed with a uni­ver­sity stu­dent he met in a pub."

  "A stu­dent?"

  "She to­ok ho­nors in Ro­man his­tory at Ox­ford."

  Slo­an ga­ve a bark of la­ug­h­ter. "I wo­uld ima­gi­ne that ga­ve the ge­ne­ral a re­al bo­ner."

  "Yes, qu­ite. I didn't le­arn any of this un­til last ye­ar," Johan­na con­ti­nu­ed with a shrug. "I al­ways knew I was il­le­gi­ti­ma­te, but Mum cla­imed she'd ne­ver tri­ed to track down my fat­her. I cer­ta­inly ne­ver knew I had brot­hers. I didn't dis­co­ver that un­til I was go­ing thro­ugh her pa­pers and fo­und the let­ter the ge­ne­ral had writ­ten in res­pon­se to one she pos­ted to him, ad­vi­sing him she was preg­nant. She knew she was gi­ving birth to trip­lets. Knew two we­re boys. She al­so knew she co­uldn't ca­re for three nip­pers wit­ho­ut fi­nan­ci­al as­sis­tan­ce. The ge­ne­ral very gra­ci­o­usly of­fe­red to re­li­eve her of so­me of that bur­den by adop­ting the two boys. Ap­pa­rently he didn't ha­ve any use for a girl." "Bas­tard," Marc sa­id aga­in. His sis­ter smi­led. "I rat­her tho­ught so, too. I had plan­ned to tell him so to his fa­ce and was qu­ite crus­hed to le­arn he'd di­ed ye­ars ago." "Why didn't you con­tact Alex or me?" "I in­ten­ded to. I did qu­ite a lot of re­se­arch abo­ut you both, but-" a sha­dow rip­pled ac­ross her fa­ce "-Barty was di­ag­no­sed with li­ver can­cer shortly af­ter Mum di­ed."

  "Barty?"

  "My hus­band, Sir Bar­t­ho­lo­mew Mar­s­ton. Such a de­ar, de­ar man. I miss him dre­ad­ful­ly. I don't know what I wo­uld ha­ve do­ne if the Firm hadn't kept me so busy."

  "That's the SIS," Cleo ex­p­la­ined in an asi­de to Di­ane. "They're known as the Firm, just as the world knows the CIA as the Com­pany."

  Di­ane sho­ok her he­ad, as if to in­di­ca­te all this clo­ak-and-dag­ger stuff was out of her le­ague. The re­fe­ren­ce pro­vi­ded just the ope­ning Do­no­van had be­en wa­iting for, ho­we­ver. Sli­ding his chi­na cup to one si­de, he le­aned for­ward.

  "J­ust what is it you do for the Firm, Lady Mar­s­ton?"

  Her glan­ce shif­ted to Jack. Co­ol. As­ses­sing. De­li­be­ra­te. When she rep­li­ed, Cleo gu­es­sed her su­pe­ri­ors had vet­ted the res­pon­se well be­fo­re the fo­ur of them had shown up at her front do­or.

  "I do the sa­me thing you do for the Uni­ted Sta­tes Air For­ce, Mr. Do­no­van. Col­lect in­tel­li­gen­ce and run co­vert ope­ra­ti­ons." '*Do­es that in­c­lu­de col­lec­ting in­tel­li­gen­ce on the mo­ve­ments of a Uni­ted Sta­tes mu­ni­ti­ons ship?"

  "It do­es when that ship is in my area of ope­ra­ti­ons and may be the tar­get of a pos­sib­le hi­j­ac­king."

  "SIS co­uldn't just no­tify the CIA and let our own pe­op­le work it?"

  "Ac­tu­al­ly, my su­pe­ri­ors in­form me such no­ti­fi­ca­ti­on was ma­de," she rep­li­ed. "But our in­tel­li­gen­ce at that po­int was va­gue and non­s­pe­ci­fic. The thre­ads didn't be­gin to co­me to­get­her un­til the Pit­sen­bar­ger ma­de port he­re in Mal­ta and I, ah, as­cer­ta­ined the car­go she car­ri­ed."

  "By hac­king in­to a clas­si­fi­ed air for­ce da­ta­ba­se."

  She had the gra­ce to lo­ok em­bar­ras­sed. "I do apo­lo­gi­ze for that. But when I re­se­ar­c­hed the ship and saw that Slo­an En­gi­ne­ering had ret­ro­fit­ted it to me­et the new NOx emis­si­on-con­t­rol stan­dards, I co­uldn't re­sist."

  "How did you bre­ak the DNA co­de on my ac­cess sig­na­tu­re?" Marc as­ked.

  "I knew you co­uldn't ha­ve used yo­ur own DNA, sin­ce you and Alex are iden­ti­cal twins. Nor co­uld you use the DNA of anot­her li­ving per­son, as that per­son co­uld be com­p­ro­mi­sed. On a hunch, I tri­ed a sam­p­le from our fat­her."

  Cleo was ha­ving aw­ful men­tal ima­ges of for­ty-ye­ar-old ex­c­re­ment aga­in when Lady Mar­s­ton ex­p­la­ined the so­ur­ce of her sam­p­le.

  "I ex­t­rac­ted the DNA from the let­ter our fat­her sent our mot­her, of­fe­ring to adopt you and Alex. I gu­es­sed, cor­rectly as it tur­ned out, he lic­ked the en­ve­lo­pe flap and left so­me of his ton­gue skin cells in the glue."

  That was al­most as bad as ex­c­re­ment.

  Jack wasn't as con­cer­ned with the how as with the why. "What ma­de you ze­ro in on the Pit­se
n­bar­ger?"

  The Bri­tish agent's fa­ce ref­lec­ted the sa­me grim in­tent as Do­no­van's. "For al­most a ye­ar now I've be­en on the tra­il of a sha­dowy in­ter­na­ti­onal con­t­ra­band bro­ker both our co­un­t­ri­es wo­uld very much li­ke to un­mask."

  "Do­mi­no," Jack grow­led.

  "Do­mi­no," she con­fir­med. "I tho­ught I had him when one of my agents stum­b­led ac­ross in­for­ma­ti­on in­di­ca­ting he had of­fe­red to act as in­ter­me­di­ary on a mas­si­ve ar­ma­ments de­al. My agent he­ard ru­mors that the so­ur­ce of tho­se arms might be the Pit­sen­bar­ger. That's when I be­gan to gat­her spe­ci­fic in­for­ma­ti­on on the ves­sel."

  Her glan­ce flic­ked to Cleo.

  "Un­for­tu­na­tely, this ope­ra­ti­ve blew his co­ver and to­ok a bul­let in the back be­fo­re he co­uld con­firm the ru­mors."

  The three ot­hers swi­ve­led in the­ir se­ats. Cleo threw up both hands in de­fen­se. "Hey, all I did was show a pho­to at the Ca­fe Co­rin­t­hia. I didn't know the wa­iter was an un­der­co­ver Bri­tish agent."

  "I bla­me myself for that," Johan­na ad­mit­ted, her co­ol fa­ca­de crac­king long eno­ugh to re­ve­al bit­ter reg­ret. "I'd he­ard you'd ar­ri­ved in Mal­ta, Ms. North, and was chec­king in­to the re­asons be­hind yo­ur vi­sit. I didn't ex­pect you to mo­ve so qu­ickly."

  "You mo­ved pretty fast yo­ur­self in the cat­hed­ral. I owe you for that one."

  "Yes, well, you can re­pay me by-"

  The chirp of a be­eper hal­ted her in mid­sen­ten­ce. She slid a hand in­to the poc­ket of her caf­tan, glan­ced at the be­eper's dis­p­lay and ro­se with a flu­id gra­ce.

  "I must ma­ke a call. Ple­ase ex­cu­se me."

  She di­sap­pe­ared in a clo­ud of am­ber chif­fon, le­aving her gu­ests to di­gest the­ir cof­fee, puff pas­t­ri­es and the star­t­ling in­for­ma­ti­on she'd just sha­red.

  Cleo hel­ped her­self to anot­her flaky of­fe­ring stuf­fed with nuts and ca­ra­mel. Di­ane slip­ped her hand in­to Marc's and mur­mu­red so­met­hing for his ears alo­ne. Jack sho­ved his cha­ir back, got up and pa­ced the ter­ra­ce.

  Ever­y­t­hing he'd un­co­ve­red in the past few we­eks po­in­ted to the Pit­sen­bar­ger as a po­ten­ti­al tar­get. Johan­na Mar­s­ton's in­tel­li­gen­ce po­in­ted in the sa­me di­rec­ti­on. He ne­eded to get out to the ship, talk to the cap­ta­in, as­sess the ne­ed for in­c­re­ased de­fen­ses.

  Jaw set, he shot anot­her lo­ok at his watch. He was abo­ut to tell Cleo they'd ha­ve to le­ave when his cell pho­ne rang. Flip­ping up the lid, he saw he had a se­cu­re tran­s­mis­si­on. A push of a but­ton un­s­c­ram­b­led the bri­ef mes­sa­ge.

  "Gre­at," he mut­te­red. "Just what I ne­ed. Anot­her fe­ma­le to ke­ep on a le­ash."

  Cleo strol­led ac­ross the ter­ra­ce, lic­king su­gar from her fin­gers. "What's up?"

  "I just got a mes­sa­ge from the Old Man. He's in di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on with SIS."

  "'Bo­ut ti­me."

  "As a re­sult, he's cle­ared Agent 316 to ac­com­pany us out to the Pits."

  "Agent 316, huh? What do you want to bet that's Lady Mar­s­ton?"

  Jack's ga­ze swi­ve­led to the left. "Ye­ah," he cho­ked out, "I'd say it is."

  Cleo threw a puz­zled lo­ok over her sho­ul­der. One glan­ce pro­vi­ded an ex­p­la­na­ti­on for Do­no­van's sud­den loss of spe­ech.

  Lady Mar­s­ton had shed her la­yers of chif­fon. Al­so her air of aris­toc­ra­tic sop­his­ti­ca­ti­on. The wo­man who stro­de to­ward them wo­re bo­ots and a black jum­p­su­it that lo­oked as tho­ugh it had be­en pa­in­ted on. She al­so had a small, let­hal se­mi­a­uto­ma­tic tuc­ked in a hol­s­ter un­der one arm.

  "He­ad­qu­ar­ters in­for­med me you're chop­pe­ring out to the Pit­sen­bar­ger. They've re­qu­es­ted and re­ce­ived aut­ho­rity for me to ac­com­pany you. You sho­uld re­ce­ive a com­mu­ni­que from yo­ur he­ad­qu­ar­ters di­rectly."

  "I just got it."

  "Ex­cel­lent. Then we're go­od to go."

  Slo­an and Di­ane had pic­ked up on the con­ver­sa­ti­on.

  "I'm co­ming, too," Slo­an sta­ted. "I know the ship," he ad­ded be­fo­re eit­her Jack or his sis­ter co­uld pro­test. "I clim­bed all thro­ugh her du­ring the ret­ro­fit. And I've got the ne­ces­sary se­cu­rity cle­aran­ces-un­less you still con­si­der me a sus­pect in the APP bre­ach."

  "I think we've re­sol­ved that is­sue," Jack sa­id with a wry glan­ce at his Bri­tish co­un­ter­part.

  He wasn't too ke­en abo­ut ha­uling a ci­vi­li­an out to the Pits. On the ot­her hand, agents in the fi­eld had to ma­ke in­s­tant de­ci­si­ons ba­sed on best ava­ilab­le in­tel and the­ir gut in­s­tincts. Jack's gut was tel­ling him Slo­an might be a go­od man to ha­ve as bac­kup.

  "All right," he con­ce­ded, "let's get this show on the ro­ad."

  22

  Di­ane wasn't happy abo­ut be­ing left be­hind.

  The wash from the chop­per's whir­ling ro­tor bla­des whip­ped her ha­ir aro­und her fa­ce as she sto­od be­si­de the li­mo and glo­we­red at the fo­ur pe­op­le cut­ting ac­ross the tar­mac to the he­lo pad.

  They co­uldn't ha­ve lo­oked less li­ke a te­am. Marc wo­re the dress slacks and the hand-ta­ilo­red bla­zer he'd don­ned for cof­fee with Lady Mar­s­ton. His sis­ter was zip­ped in­to a black jum­p­su­it that only a wo­man with her fi­gu­re-and ut­ter self-con­fi­den­ce-co­uld we­ar in pub­lic. Spe­ci­al Agent Do­no­van was in je­ans and his rum­p­led sport co­at. Cleo bla­zed in bright jun­g­le co­lors that en­ded mid-thigh.

  She'd tra­ded her spiky san­dals for a pa­ir of sne­akers bor­ro­wed from Lady Mar­s­ton, tho­ugh. Di­ane wo­uldn't ha­ve ima­gi­ned the En­g­lis­h­wo­man wo­uld even own black-and-whi­te high-tops. But then Di­ane hadn't ima­gi­ned she'd be stan­ding be­si­de a chop­per pad in Mal­ta, eit­her, wat­c­hing Marc pre­pa­re to cha­se off af­ter a car­go ves­sel on the high se­as.

  He was at the hatch, abo­ut to climb abo­ard, when he sud­denly tur­ned and duc­ked un­der the bla­des aga­in. Di­ane's mind clic­ked in­s­tantly in­to exe­cu­ti­ve-as­sis­tant mo­de. Hol­ding back her whip­ping ha­ir, she pus­hed away from the li­mo.

  "What is it? What did you for­get?"

  "This."

  The kiss was hard and fast and po­tent. She was bre­at­h­less when he yan­ked open the li­mo do­or and thrust her in­si­de.

  "Go back to the ho­tel and stay the­re."

  The glow fa­ded. Evi­dently she wasn't the only one who'd slip­ped back in­to the­ir pre­vi­o­us mo­de of ope­ra­ti­on.

  "Yes, sir. Right away, sir. Any ot­her or­ders, sir?"

  "J­ust one. Call the of­fi­ce and cle­ar our ca­len­dars for the next few we­eks…or ho­we­ver long you think it will ta­ke us to for­ma­li­ze this new par­t­ner­s­hip of ours. We're not flying back to Char­les­ton un­til we do."

  The­re, Marc tho­ught as he duc­ked un­der the bla­des on­ce mo­re. At le­ast that was set­tled. Gi­ven the way his world had tur­ned up­si­de down in the past few ho­urs, he re­fu­sed to zip ac­ross a hun­d­red mi­les of open sea wit­ho­ut let­ting Di­ane know she was one con­s­tant he co­uldn't let go of.

  A se­aman in a navy flight su­it re­ac­hed down a hand to help him abo­ard the SH-60 Se­ahawk. Sho­uting to be he­ard over the whi­ne of the en­gi­nes, he di­rec­ted Marc to a se­at be­si­de Cleo.

  "We'll po­wer up and be on our way as so­on as you strap in, sir."

  Nod­ding, Marc ho­oked the har­ness. The yo­ung flight en­gi­ne­er wa­ited un­til he was set­tled to hand him a he­ad­set.

  "You key the mi­ke to tran­s­mit," he yel­led. "And this but­ton to switch chan­nels. Chan­nel one will get you the flight dec
k. Chan­nel three is the in­ter­com if you folks want to talk to one anot­her."

  "Got it."

  Marc didn't tell him he'd log­ged mo­re than a few ho­urs abo­ard SH-60s du­ring his ye­ars in uni­form. A se­ago­ing ver­si­on of the army's Blac­k­hawk and the air for­ce's Pa­ve­hawk, the twin-en­gi­ne, me­di­um-lift Se­ahawk was the wor­k­hor­se of the navy. Its mis­si­ons in­c­lu­ded ever­y­t­hing from an­ti­sub­ma­ri­ne war­fa­re, drug in­ter­dic­ti­on and car­go lift, to se­ar­ch-and-res­cue and Spe­ci­al Ops. The two po­wer­ful Ge­ne­ral Elec­t­ric en­gi­nes ga­ve it a max spe­ed of one hun­d­red and eighty knots and a cru­ising ran­ge of al­most fo­ur hun­d­red na­uti­cal mi­les, de­pen­ding on the lo­ad.

  The he­lo al­so pac­ked a hell of a punch in terms of ar­ma­ments. Marc was eye­ing the two.50 ca­li­ber can­nons mo­un­ted at eit­her si­de hatch when Cleo's vo­ice flo­ated thro­ugh his he­ad­set.

  "Do tho­se ba­bi­es bring back me­mo­ri­es?"

  "As a mat­ter of fact, they do."

  "Ha­ve you ever fi­red a can­non that si­ze?"

  "On­ce or twi­ce. How abo­ut you?"

  "On­ce or twi­ce."

  "I ha­te to di­sap­po­int you two," Jack draw­led in­to the mi­ke, "but we're not go­ing in with guns bla­zing. The last com­mu­ni­que from the cap­ta­in of the Pits ap­pro­ved our re­qu­est to set down abo­ard his ship and ex­ten­ded a he­arty wel­co­me."

  All bu­si­ness now, Cleo ke­yed her mi­ke. "What ha­ve you got on the cap­ta­in and crew?"

  Jack hun­c­hed for­ward. The ot­her three did the sa­me. El­bows on kne­es, he bri­efed the small, in­tent cir­c­le.

  "The cap­ta­in is Eric Ko­be. He has so­me twen­ty-two ye­ars in the mer­c­hant ma­ri­ne un­der his belt. The crew con­sists of three deck of­fi­cers, a chi­ef en­gi­ne­er and three as­sis­tant en­gi­ne­ers, and a ra­dio ope­ra­tor, plus as­sor­ted dec­k­hands, co­oks and oilers."

  "Wha­te­ver tho­se are," Cleo mut­te­red.

  Marc ca­ught the com­ment and flas­hed her a qu­ick grin. "They work for the en­gi­ne­ering of­fi­cers be­low decks, lub­ri­ca­ting ge­ars and shafts, re­ading pres­su­re and tem­pe­ra­tu­re ga­uges, re­pa­iring equ­ip­ment."