Surrender the Dark

by Donna Kauffman

  She wrapped that feeling around her now, knowing she’d need all this mountain had given her to stand up to the man she now shared her security with.

  “Why don’t you take the chair,” she suggested, pointing to the Adirondack. “You can use the hassock for your leg.”

  Jarrett turned to her, irritated by her relentless concern. “I think I can handle my own seating, thank you.”

  Though obviously taken aback by his uncalled-for rudeness, she said nothing. She just shrugged as if to say “Suit yourself,” then plopped down in the middle of the small couch.

  Grumbling under his breath, Jarrett took the only other seat that looked remotely comfortable, the one with the hassock. What the hell, he thought, as he tugged the hassock closer and propped up his leg. He’d pushed himself way too far that day and was well past needing some rest. He should be in bed.

  Would have been hours ago, but for the thoughts that hounded him. Rae’s crazy belief that he was burned out, that he needed a break. That he needed to heal his soul more than his body. That he might need even a little of the solace she’d found here …

  He had no idea how he’d ended up out in the garage with the pup. Remembering the scene she’d stumbled across and her laugh, he felt his neck heat up, and a spot deep inside his belly tightened and burned.

  Clearing his throat, he forced away this and every other image that had assaulted him during the interminable afternoon and focused on the deed at hand. Why this was so damn difficult to achieve he refused to analyze.

  And yet, even as he opened his mouth to get to it, his attention was caught by the view outside the huge window. He found himself saying what was in his heart instead of what was in his head. “I can’t recall ever being in a place so … restful.”

  He heard her quick intake of breath. Instantly feeling foolish, he shifted his gaze to some innocuous point past his propped-up foot. There were lives at stake here, he viciously reminded himself. Get to it.

  He looked over at her, but she cut him off before he could utter a word.

  “The two men who are after you have been spotted in town. They’ve been asking questions about you.”

  SEVEN

  Jarrett thrust himself forward in his chair. “What!”

  “Don’t yell at me. They apparently asked around a bit, giving some story about being hunters who thought they might have mistakenly shot another person while out hunting. Being concerned citizens, they were anxious to know if anyone matching your description had come into town looking for medical help. Of course they found out nothing.”

  “And this just slipped your mind until now?” he demanded, his voice barely short of a roar.

  “No. I meant to tell you when I got back, but I figured you were sleeping and you needed the rest. They can’t track you here—”

  “According to you, they shouldn’t have been able to track me to town either.”

  Her tight control began to fray. “The trail I laid was a good one, McCullough. It’s taken them four days to come this far. And from what I was able to get without asking too many questions myself, it seems their choice of this town was somewhat random. Face it, there aren’t that many towns in a fifty-mile radius of here. When the trail I laid turned cold, it only makes sense that they’d start canvassing any developed land in the area.”

  “Next time let me be the judge of that.” Jarrett knew Rae was too good to leave any tracks in town, verbal or physical, that would lead them to him. But he also knew these men weren’t run-of-the-mill hit-squad types. His sense of urgency zoomed into sharp focus. This latest turn of events underscored his need to take action, now.

  As if Rae sensed the direction of his thoughts, she spoke again before he could. “I’ve got one phone line, a two-way radio, a computer with a modem, and a fax machine. They are at your disposal. Make whatever contacts you need to set the rest of this thing up.” She took a short sip of her tea, then said, “And while you’re at it, send someone up here for you. I think you’re well enough to leave now.”

  He only paused briefly to absorb this latest volley. When he spoke, his voice was cold, hard, and pure business. “I’ve sent encoded computer transmissions. Faxes on secured lines. Hell, I’ve sent in three men. Two are dead. I have no idea where the third one is, but I imagine his fate had a lot to do with the ambush on me six days ago, when I was on my way to a supposedly secret meeting with a Bhajul operative.”

  “Another operative gone bad, McCullough?” she asked with only the slightest trace of sarcasm. “Maybe you better look into your screening methods a bit more closely.”

  Jarrett shut out her jab, knowing he deserved it, but not caring. He had no problem focusing now. He should thank Rae for that. Her edict, on top of her little revelation, had done the same as a bucket of cold water. Cold water he could have used about four hours ago.

  “The leak might have come from somewhere else, though,” he said. “I can’t contact JMI. My next move has to be completely solo. And it goes without saying that my cover is blown.”

  He rubbed a hand over his face, then raked it through his hair with an impatient jerk. His whole life was spinning out of control like a kaleidoscope gone crazy, and the only person who could unscramble it was the same one causing the problems in the first place. Rae Gannon.

  “I know my lines are clear,” she said, after a brief pause. Her tone was wary. “But they may not be secure.”

  Jarrett sighed, the sound not nearly as deep as the need that caused it. He looked back out the window, but instead of the soothing display of nature, all he saw were the determined faces of the two men hunting him. And the mirrored reflection of the thousands of people who would die if those men succeeded.

  “Why all the hardware?” he asked, intentionally diverting his mind from the disturbing images. “I thought you would cut yourself off completely up here. Wasn’t that the idea?”

  She nodded. “At first, I was. But as my work became more popular I had to either find a way to communicate with my buyers or promote my work in person. State-of-the-art communication gadgetry was my compromise.”

  Jarrett didn’t have to ask to know that any compromise, even something as seemingly innocuous as buying a fax machine, had been a huge capitulation for her. It made him realize the magnitude of the compromises she’d made when she’d chosen to bring him there, to care for him.

  It shamed him, because that realization wasn’t going to stop him. He was going to do whatever was necessary to get her to make the biggest compromise of all. It was his job, no matter how much he was beginning to despise it. He had no choice.

  Better one shattered soul on his conscience than thousands. Although as he looked into the depths of her world-abused eyes, he wondered if his soul might not survive this either. Strange thought for a man who didn’t think he had one to lose.

  “I need to contact someone,” he said. “No one will connect him to me, so the security of the lines isn’t paramount. But I need you to send the transmission. I’ll tell you what to say.”

  “Then what are we waiting for? The sooner we get in touch with him, the sooner this will be over.”

  Jarrett ignored the honest need he heard in her voice. She wanted him gone. He’d never wanted so badly to stay. “The man I’m contacting isn’t an operative. He’s a friend.”

  Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I wasn’t aware you cultivated any relationships that weren’t job-related.”

  He deserved that, but it bothered him nonetheless. He wondered if she still considered what had happened between them in the shop as “cultivating a contact.”

  He looked directly at her. “With few exceptions, I haven’t. I’ve known Zach since I was a kid.”

  She smiled. “Even that is a stretch.”

  “What, that I made friends as a kid?”

  “No, that you were a child at all.” She laughed when he swore under his breath. “I can’t see you delivering papers, or playing ball, or taking Betsy Sue to the prom.”

&n
bsp; “Maybe it’s because I never did any of those things.” He nailed her again with his gaze. “Did you?”

  Her smile faded. “No.” There was a small silence, then she asked, “How did you get into this line of work, Jarrett?”

  His name on her lips was like a punch to the gut. Get back to the business at hand, he told himself. Tell her what Zach’s role is, how it involves her. He answered her as briefly as possible. No way was he spilling the story of his childhood. “I went into the military at eighteen. I was good at covert work, but not too good at taking orders.”

  Her smile returned, even wider than before. “Now that I can picture.” She sat her mug on the rough-hewn coffee table and tucked her feet under her legs, tailor fashion. “So you got out and just opened up JMI? What, you sent out flyers? ‘Will deliver sensitive information for lots of money’?”

  Jarrett almost smiled. “That’s closer than you might think. I did some covert work for the military, delivering exactly that sort of information. But my dislike of their rules and regulations matched up with their need to occasionally do things outside standard protocol. So I got out and started my own civilian division.”

  “Initially funded by government contracts?”

  “On paper, no.”

  She nodded in understanding. “How old were you then, when you started JMI?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  Rae shook her head, not as shocked as she should have been. After all, she’d worked for the man. She knew what he was capable of. She’d thought him to be in his mid to late thirties—he looked it—but she knew JMI had been in existence less than ten years. That meant he was closer to her own age of thirty. Thirty-two tops. She knew how the business she’d been in could age a person.

  “Pretty impressive,” was all she said.

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t move a muscle. Yet he suddenly looked immensely tired, unbearably so. It went beyond the price he was paying for being overactive that day. This was the sort of tired that went soul-deep.

  It hit her then, the magnitude of the real mission this man had taken on, the burden he’d willingly accepted and made his own.

  “How do you do it, Jarrett?” she asked softly. “How do you keep going? Doesn’t the endlessness of it ever get to you? Doesn’t the fact that while you’re preventing one crazy bastard from killing hundreds or thousands of people, there is another one out there somewhere else committing another atrocity on other human beings?”

  He slid his foot off the hassock and leaned forward, his gray eyes open all the way down to his soul. She shivered at the cold emptiness that lay there.

  “Yes,” he answered. “From the time I was fourteen until two days ago, I’ve thought of nothing else.”

  She was riveted by the palpable darkness in his words, the stark request for her to understand what she couldn’t possibly understand. Why? she wanted to ask, suddenly desperate to know what really drove him. There was so much there—pain, frustration, desire, commitment, determination.

  She trembled with the realization that a man who’d dedicated the totality of those emotions to the huge and complex task of solving world problems was probably inherently incapable of devoting the same intensity of caring to just one person.

  But, Lord oh Lord, if he ever did.

  For the first time she understood why he’d read her report and calmly asked her if she wanted her job back. Why he hadn’t shown any emotion.

  If he let himself feel, even at the most basic level, for one person, he’d be worthless to the thousands he considered to be under his care and protection.

  Rae’s heart pounded and breathing became difficult. As she stared at Jarrett feelings of respect and admiration and awe combined with the heady desire she had for him to put her in a state of jeopardy she’d never before encountered.

  She could heal him, give him the rest and solace she still believed he deserved, believed he needed. But giving in to the feelings whirling inside her, giving in to him, letting him open that part of himself any further, would not only destroy her, it would destroy him.

  She tore her gaze from his, ducked her head to hide the tears that burned her eyes. For the first time in many, many months she felt ashamed. Ashamed that she’d given up when Jarrett had kept going, ashamed that even now, she would rather selfishly convince him to stay here with her than let him go back to the world she’d so narrowly escaped.

  She was faced now with the last decision she’d ever wanted to make—reentering that world. But how could she not? It was the one thing she could do for him. The only thing that would let him walk away whole.

  Her stomach knotted painfully as she fought to keep her demons at bay. Her head pounded, as if her skull was tightening, and she wasn’t too certain she wasn’t about to be sick. She fought it with everything she had. Just as she fought the self-protective instincts that commanded her to run hard and fast from the commitment she was about to make. It didn’t make any difference anymore that it would destroy her. She knew now that she wouldn’t emerge from this intact, no matter how it ended.

  “Zach is a thrill seeker by profession, Rae,” Jarrett said, his steady voice breaking into the maelstrom of emotions whirling through her mind and body. “He can devise a plan into and out of Bhajul that no one would ever imagine, or trace. I’ll set up the delivery. But you have to be the one to go in. You’re the only one I can trust now and the only one trained to do it. I won’t do anything to jeopardize you unnecessarily.”

  Rae began to shake. What was she about to do? She was insane. Wrapping her hands tightly around her arms, she looked at Jarrett, who was now leaning back in his chair, waiting for her to respond.

  The irony of his words sank in, and she choked back an almost hysterical urge to laugh. Her lips twisted in what must have been a travesty of a smile. “How things change,” she said, unable to hide the sarcasm, needing the harsh shield it provided against the panic rising in her. “Two years ago you were willing to believe I betrayed you, and now I’m the only one you can trust. If there is a God, surely he is having a great laugh over this final irony.”

  Jarrett said nothing. He didn’t have to. Rae understood that, better now than she ever had before.

  A snort of laughter, hard and empty and cold, erupted from her before she could clamp down on it. “I guess you have nothing to fear this time. You know who the mole is. One of them at least. And no matter what happens to me, at least you can rest easy knowing I’m clean.”

  “Rae, don’t.”

  She waited for the anger, the blessed fury that would let her rail at him, vent the fear rapidly consuming her despite her mocking stance. It didn’t come. Her breathing slowed, the panic receded. Her mind cleared and focused inward.

  She looked at Jarrett and calmly said, “I understand that when the courier who framed me fed you misinformation about me, you had to consider it. No one is above corruption. I understand that my disappearance during what seemed to be an airtight transfer that you yourself had devised seemed suspicious at the very least. That there was no real way to determine if I’d been taken hostage, or willingly gone over to the other side.”

  She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “But that was in my head. In here”—she pressed her fist to her chest—“in my heart, I believed you knew I’d never betray JMI, betray you. You were my family. You were all I had.” She took a deep breath and sat back. “I do understand, McCullough. Better now than I did then. It’s business. But I can’t return to that world.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  Rae flinched at the sincerity and pain he’d managed to infuse into those two unexpected words. She made a sharp movement with her hand, cutting off anything further he might say. The decision was made. She couldn’t let him in now. She drew in a deep breath and took the final step. “So, what’s the plan? When do we make our move?”

  Jarrett tensed. “What did you say?”

  “When do we make our move?”

  He shook his head. �
��Pardon me if I seem confused, but didn’t you just get done telling me—”

  “I just wanted to make it clear before we got down to business that I’m not coming back in. I’ll do this, for reasons of my own.” For you, she thought, but would never say. So you can carry on the job I can no longer do. Because you still need to. “But then I’m out. And I don’t ever want to be contacted in any way, ever again.” She looked him squarely in the eye. “No matter what’s at stake. So, do we have a deal?”

  Jarrett stared at her long and hard, trying to see behind her emotionless words. She was shaking, yet seemed perfectly still at the same time. Her rigid posture didn’t hide the fact that her eyes were swimming with fears and memories he couldn’t even begin to imagine.

  “When do we make our move?” she repeated.

  It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to forget it. He’d find some other way, any other way. But he already knew there was no other way. Why in the hell was she doing this? Why in the hell was he going to let her?

  He sighed and slumped down in the chair, suddenly so damn weary he wasn’t sure he could go on. Her reasons were no concern of his. And he wasn’t going to stop her because, after all, he’d just gotten what he wanted. Right? The success of the mission was all-important.

  So why did he feel like he’d just lost the only really important thing he’d ever had?

  “First thing in the morning,” he said, his voice flat.

  “Fine.” She rose from the couch, her motions stiff and awkward. “I know it’s early, but it’s been a long day. I’m going to turn in for the night.”

  He pushed himself out of the chair, welcoming the increased throb of pain in his leg and ribs. Still it was no match for the dark ache centered deep in his chest. “Fine.”

  He waited for her to lead the way, but she simply stood in front of the small couch. Finally, he motioned with his hand.

  She nodded to the couch. “You’re standing in my bedroom.”

  Feeling a hot flush creep up his neck and something like shame crawl into his belly, Jarrett ducked his head and limped around the couch to the doorway. He put as much space between them as possible. He knew it was pointless to offer to take the couch, simply because he wouldn’t fit. She’d fight him on any other suggestion, too, and he wasn’t up to fighting with her. He wasn’t about to put her through anything else that night.