by Rebecca York
Jessica laughed hollowly. “I’m not trying to break you, Michael. I’m just trying to understand what makes working with me so threatening to you.”
“All right,” he snapped. “You can have what you asked for.” Squeezing his eyes closed, he forced himself to think about that day three years ago. He and Laura Atkins had been on a mission for the Falcon in Greece. She was a linguist, and this was her first time in the field. Michael hadn’t thought she was ready, but he’d enjoyed her company and rationalized that the assignment was really not all that dangerous.
They were meeting a defector named Balinski who had escaped from Bulgaria and was hiding in the hills around Elasson. Posing as a married couple on vacation, they took several days traveling from Athens. They stopped at little taverns to enjoy the spicy Greek food, walked hand in hand through historic villages, and enthusiastically continued the charade of being married in the bedrooms of charming country inns.
But as the rendezvous drew closer, Michael sensed Laura’s nervousness. They were to meet Balinski in the ruins west of town. Michael would have left her in Elasson, but she was the one who spoke the man’s language.
He forced his mind to picture the scene once again. The rocky hills. The dry grass. The gnarled olive trees. Balinski, dressed like a hiker emerging from behind the remains of a small temple and whistling two low notes.
Despite the innocence of the scene, it was a death trap. The man was more important than even the Falcon had suspected. He knew too much to be allowed to escape to the West, and the Bulgarian secret police were already closing in.
Armed men surrounded the defector. When one shouted a warning, he broke for cover. They cut him down in a hail of automatic fire. Michael remembered instinctively ducking behind the rocks. He had never been able to bring any more of it into focus. Yet some part of him remembered. Here in this quiet room at the Aviary, sweat broke out on his brow and his temples throbbed.
The grim images had come to Jessica very clearly, like a movie projected on the screen of her mind. She felt the tension in Michael’s body and squeezed his hand.
“Damn it,” he spat out. “I saved my own neck and let them kill her. She died, and it’s my fault.”
“That’s not what happened, Michael.”
“How the hell would you know?” His voice was harsh with self-accusation.
“Even if you can’t see the end of it, I can. It’s there in your subconscious.”
“I can’t face it, Jess. I never should have let them send her on that assignment. She was too green.” He turned his face and shoulders toward the wall. He needed to be alone with this, had always needed to be alone with it.
“Taking her on the assignment wasn’t your decision.” Eden interjected.
“Why couldn’t I save her?”
“You tried,” Jessica soothed, gently reaching over to bring him back toward her. “You pulled her down with you and held on to her. When one of the Bulgarians started in your direction you reached for your gun. Laura panicked and ran. That’s how she was shot. It wasn’t your fault.”
“So why didn’t they get me?”
“They must have assumed she was the only contact and didn’t come looking for you. She was already dead, and you did what you were supposed to do. You came back to report what had happened to the defector.”
Michael’s blue shirt was soaked with perspiration. His head felt as though an eighteen-wheeler were roaring through the middle of his skull. Yanking his hand away from Jessica’s, he covered his face.
“Don’t you believe me?” she questioned.
“I don’t know.”
“Michael, it wasn’t your fault.” Eden added her assurance to Jessica’s.
“It’s hard to accept what you’re telling me. But then, you already know that.”
“Guilt does strange things,” the psychologist added. If she only had the time to put Michael into six months of therapy, she could help him work through this properly. As it was, she felt like a front-line medic patching up a soldier and sending him back to the front. But with Jed’s life hanging in the balance, there was no time for extensive therapy. Despite their personal problems, Michael Rome and Jessica Duval were the best shot Gordon had at successfully pulling off the rescue. Whether she liked it or not, her job was to get them in shape to do it.
She came over and put her hand on Jessica’s shoulder. “I think we should leave him alone with this for now.”
Jessica didn’t want to go. But she deferred to the psychologist’s judgment. Before standing up, she leaned over and brushed her lips against Michael’s cheek. “It must have been terrible to carry that around with you.”
He didn’t answer. He was slumped on the sofa, wrung out and exhausted, his mind still struggling with the new information that he must have known all along but refused to acknowledge. They were right. He needed to be alone with his feelings about Laura. Whether he had been technically responsible for her death or not, it was hard to stop blaming himself. And the old guilt was mixed up with his current anxieties over Jessica.
He didn’t look up as the two women left the room.
Chapter Fifteen
Jessica put down the thick briefing folder and leaned her head back against the leather couch in the library. It was almost eleven o’clock and she knew she should be in bed, but she was still too unsettled to sleep.
She’d taken a sheaf of background material downstairs to read and made herself a cup of herb tea. But it was impossible to keep her mind on the Blackstone Clinic and Royale Verde. Michael had steered clear of her since the confrontation in Eden’s office. The raw emotions she’d last seen on his face continued to haunt her. When he hadn’t appeared at dinner, the psychologist had taken her aside for a few reassuring words.
“Michael has the facts now. But he still must deal with them in his own way, Jessica,” she’d explained.
“I know that. I hope he comes to the right conclusion.”
Now, despite Eden’s admonition, she had the feeling that he needed her. Would it help if she went and talked to him? she wondered, glancing at her watch. But it was late. He was probably in bed, and she certainly didn’t want to walk in on him there.
She was just closing the folder when the feeling of being watched made her look toward the doorway. Michael was standing with his hands in the pockets of his jeans, regarding her with intense gray eyes.
“Doing your homework?” he questioned.
“Trying to. There’s a lot to absorb.”
“So you’re still determined to go?”
“Yes.”
“Laura and I were sleeping together,” he said abruptly.
She gave him a measured look. “And whose idea was that?”
“Hers, although I wasn’t averse to going along with it. However, as the senior agent, I should have known better.”
“How did you feel about her?” Did you love her, Michael? Her fingers gripped the folder as she waited for his answer.
He looked toward the darkened windows. “I liked her. I shouldn’t have used her as a safety valve to let off steam.”
“Maybe she was using you. Did you ever think about that?”
“Agents on assignment aren’t supposed to get sexually involved with each other,” Michael insisted.
“Are you trying to say that if you hadn’t been lovers, she wouldn’t have gotten killed? That’s nonsense. How would that have prevented the ambush?”
“Maybe if I had been thinking a little more clearly, I would have seen the trap.”
“You’re still looking for a way to blame yourself.”
“No, I’m looking for a way to keep it from happening to you.”
She heard the anguish in his voice, knew that his concern for her was more than superficial. “Michael, I care a lot about you too. If I didn’t think I could help you, I wouldn’t be coming along.”
He moved into the room and took a seat at the other end of the couch. His gaze caressed her face, but he didn’t dare to
uch her.
“Jess, don’t you understand the risks? These people are ruthless. They didn’t hesitate to get your brother hooked on Dove. They tried to kill you—and me.”
“You can’t scare me off of this.”
“I wish I could. I have a job to do, and I can’t afford to worry about you too.”
“Then don’t. I’ll take care of myself.”
He sighed. “You know that’s only part of it. There’s a friend of mine down there on Royale Verde being tortured. I’ve got to help him, and I should be putting all my concentration on that assignment. But I can’t stop thinking about the session we had with Eden.” He paused. “And how much I’d like to escape to a very quiet bedroom and spend the night making love to you.”
She leaned toward him slightly. She ached for that too.
Their eyes locked for several heartbeats.
“Michael, you can’t help Jed until you know the situation down there. All you can do tonight is speculate and make contingency plans that will probably be worthless in the long run.”
“I’d still feel better if I could concentrate on the problem without so many distractions.”
She had to clench her hands together to stop herself from reaching out toward him. He’d had to cope with so much recently. “Accepting what comfort I could give you doesn’t mean you’re betraying Jed,” she finally said.
His gaze focused on her lips as if contemplating their taste and texture. She had spoken of comfort. It was much more than that. She’d awakened deep emotional needs he hadn’t wanted to admit existed. “Jess,” he began.
The temptation to draw him into her arms threatened to sweep her away. She loved this man deeply. But he wasn’t ready to deal with that now. If she surrendered to her desire for him, she’d be giving him the proof of his own doubts, and he’d use that against her in the morning.
“You’re a man of tremendous willpower,” she finished the sentence for him.
“Jess, I wish things were different.”
“I’ll see you at breakfast.”
He stood up and turned away. She had won a victory. But what had she lost?
* * *
THE NEXT DAY Jessica found out just how quickly the Peregrine Connection could put its plans into action. The morning was taken up with several intensive briefing sessions. The Falcon’s strategy was to strike quickly before Talifero realized that a rescue mission had been mounted. To do that, he was counting on Jessica to supply Michael with inside information he would ordinarily be unable to obtain.
After being outfitted with suitcases that had everything from summer vacation clothes and black camouflage fatigues to electronics equipment and plastic explosives, the pair left that afternoon for Jamaica. That evening they had made contact with the CIA man, George Holcroft. His deep-sea fishing cruiser, the Sea Turtle, took them to Royale Verde. The name of the craft was deceptive because it had a powerful motor that could outrun any patrol boat. It also carried sensitive eavesdropping equipment that could pick up signals from twenty miles offshore.
The boat made short work of the distance between Jamaica and Royale Verde. By very early Friday morning they were tied up at a half-moon-shaped harbor at the south end of the island.
Jessica had been given the small forward stateroom while the men bunked down in the main cabin, which also served as a galley and sitting room. When she awoke to the gentle slapping of waves against the side of the craft, she was disoriented for a moment. Yesterday she had been in Virginia. The day before that, New Orleans.
Swinging her legs over the side of the bunk, she scrambled down and pulled on a pair of white cropped-cut pants and a knit top. When she emerged from the hatchway, the two men were already on deck studying a map of the island. Jessica was once more struck with how well the versatile Mr. Rome could adapt to a given environment. At the university he’d projected the image of street-wise student; near Harley’s he could have passed as a dock worker. Here on the Sea Turtle, dressed in a white polo shirt and shorts, Michael looked like a man who could tie a very competent reef knot and hold the helm steady even in stormy seas.
He glanced up and caught her staring. The coolly assessing expression in his gray eyes gave no hint of their complicated relationship. Without sparing the subject even a word, he’d made it clear he was going to block out their unfinished personal business for the duration of the assignment. She hoped she could match his professional demeanor.
Yet she could still discern an element of protectiveness in his actions. Last night, though he’d been anxious to assess the current situation at the Blackstone Clinic, he’d seen her exhaustion and sent her to bed without putting her psychic talents to any further test.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“Good, because we’re going to need you in a little while.”
George waved her toward the galley refrigerator. “There’s some fruit and muffins in the fridge. Make yourself at home.”
“Thanks.” She looked out over the bay full of pleasure craft bobbing in the gentle waves. It didn’t seem like the departure point for a commando raid. Along the shore was a fishing village of white stucco houses with red tile roofs. It was terraced into the hillside that protected the harbor. The sky was a clear blue and the water an incredible aqua.
Jessica helped herself to a banana muffin and a slice of fresh pineapple and carried them back on deck where Michael and George were deep in discussion about the best way to make an assault on the clinic.
After she’d finished her light meal, Michael turned to her. “Now that we’re closer, I’d like your impressions of what’s going on in that compound.” His matter-of-fact tone of voice told Jessica he no longer doubted her ability to pick up information he had no other way of acquiring and that, since she had insisted on coming, he was going to make use of the talent.
Holcroft looked from the seasoned operative back to the young woman in a T-shirt and pedal pushers. He’d been assured Ms. Duval was a psychic and had already made some sort of contact with the agent being held by Talifero. That kind of claim didn’t impress him. There was a lot of mumbo jumbo that went on down on these islands. Most of it was for the benefit of the tourists. He wasn’t going to put his faith in clairvoyant intelligence gathering until he saw some proof.
“Perhaps we’d better go down to the main cabin,” Jessica suggested. “Do you have anything from the Blackstone Clinic?” she asked Holcroft.
He laughed. “How about the brochure they use to lure jetsetters with nutty relatives?” Opening another compartment, he pulled out a glossy booklet.
The color picture on the cover made her shiver slightly. It depicted one of the buildings she’d seen in her vision two days ago. “That should do.”
Down in the lounge, Michael waited while she made herself comfortable on one of the built-in couches. “I’d like to know whether Jed is still alive, where he and Xavier are being held, and what Talifero is planning for them.” There was one piece of information he wasn’t going to share with her. His main concerns were rescuing Jed and stopping the production of Dove. If they could get Xavier out, fine. If they couldn’t, he’d simply have to be abandoned.
She took a deep breath. Despite her insistence on coming along, she was still afraid of opening herself up to the aura of evil that clung to the Blackstone Clinic. Yet if it would help save Jed, she’d have to take that risk. “I’ll do my best.”
“I know.” Was her best going to be good enough this time? he wondered. And what was the personal risk to her? “Don’t go in too far,” he added softly.
Her eyes were pulled to his for just a moment. The mixture of worry and expectation she found in their gray depths gave her the strength to reach for the brochure.
This time, when she took the folder in her hand, the clairvoyant perception came faster and surer than it ever had before. Her eyes were open, yet the boat lounge and the men before her disappeared from view. They were replaced by the beautifully manicure
d grounds of the private psychiatric clinic. The heavy, sweet fragrance of tropical flowers enveloped her. Two men were standing below the terrace shaded by the shiny leaves of a lemon tree. One she recognized from the Falcon’s briefing file as Jackson Talifero. The other was a tall black man who stood silently, his face slightly averted. Jessica sensed that he was struggling to hold back anger.
“You will prepare the ritual site for the usual Saturday evening service,” Talifero directed. “But I will be making some changes in the normal procedures. The American mambo is with us again. She will serve as priestess and you will assist her. Is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“See that she has everything she needs. She will probably want to prepare the American spy herself.”
The voodoo priest nodded, even as he clenched his fist behind his back. He was hungan on this estate, and he should be the one to decide whom to offer to the great loa. The American priestess had not earned that honor—or the respect of his followers. Yet he couldn’t protest if the doctor chose to give her his prerogative. The ceremony tomorrow, like so many conducted on the estate, was illegal. The special rites were possible only because of Talifero’s protection, and that put the ultimate power in his hands.
Jessica shuddered violently.
“What is it?” Michael demanded.
The picture snapped and the garden scene vanished. She was back on the boat, feeling Michael’s urgent hands on her shoulders.
“What happened?” he repeated.
She swallowed convulsively. “They were talking about an American spy. Jed, I assume.”
“Who was talking?”
“Talifero and his hungan—his voodoo priest.”
“So what did they say?” George Holcroft interjected. His tone of voice indicated that he didn’t attach much importance to voodoo priests.
“Talifero was giving the man instructions to prepare Jed for a ceremony tomorrow night.” She paused and frowned. “Most of what I got was from their conversation. But I did pick up something from the priest’s mind—maybe because he was so angry. The ceremony tomorrow night is illegal.”
