by Paula Graves
Amanda’s eyes narrowed. How did she know this? “Do you have any ID?”
The footsteps stopped just outside the bedroom door. Once again, the other woman seemed oblivious. “You want to see my driver’s license? Really?” There was a surprising hint of delight in her voice. “You still think I’m a threat?”
Amanda shook her head. “You’re about as threatening as a three-week-old kitten.”
“Don’t depend on that. I hear she’s dangerous with a baseball bat.” Rick’s voice preceded him into the bedroom. He arched one eyebrow at the gun still leveled in Amanda’s grip. “Put it down. She’s one of the good guys.”
Amanda slowly lowered the SIG. “She didn’t knock.”
“I didn’t want to wake you if you were asleep,” Alicia protested. “Isabel lent me her key. Just thought I’d peek in to see if you were awake.”
Her hands shaking a little, Amanda set the SIG on the bedside table and turned back to look at them, pushing her hair away from her perspiration-damp face. “I’m Amanda.”
“Like I said, I’m Alicia Cooper.” Alicia flashed her a smile. “How’re you feeling?”
“Better,” she admitted. She sank onto the end of the bed and gestured toward a nearby chair. “Sit down. Tell me how you want me to help you.”
Alicia pulled up the chair and sat in front of her, folding her hands on her lap. She was dressed in a trim-fitting brown trouser suit with a turquoise sweater beneath the jacket. On the outside, she looked calm and composed, yet she seemed to vibrate visibly with pent-up energy. “I understand one of the people who shot at you yesterday was a former MacLear agent.”
Amanda glanced at Rick, wondering how much he’d told his family about her background. He met her gaze without flinching, so she guessed he hadn’t spilled anything he’d know she wanted to stay a secret.
“Rick’s the one who recognized him. I only knew a few MacLear agents, and Rick’s the only one I knew well.”
“I think it’s likely the men who chased you through the forest outside Chattanooga were also MacLear agents.”
Rick, who had been hanging back near the doorway, moved forward at Alicia’s words, looking at her with interest. He sat next to Amanda on the bed. “Has something happened to make you believe that?”
Alicia nodded. “J.D. put out some calls to old Navy buddies who’d served with Jackson Melville, to see if anyone connected to MacLear had approached them recently about working any new assignments.”
“J.D.’s one of my cousins,” Rick explained to Amanda. She was beginning to wonder how many Coopers there were.
“A few of them seemed to be evasive in their answers,” Alicia continued, “while a couple of others were happy to tell him they’d turned down offers of freelance security work because of the taint of any connection to MacLear or Melville.”
“Melville can’t be involved—he’s under indictment,” Rick pointed out.
“So is Barton Reid,” Alicia countered. “Though that’s looking pretty shaky at the moment.”
“Nobody reputable is likely to work for Melville or any MacLear upper-level officer again,” Rick said firmly.
“Nobody reputable,” Amanda agreed quietly. When they both looked at her, she added, “That’s the problem, isn’t it? MacLear’s seedy underbelly has come back out to play.”
“Someone has sent them after you,” Alicia said with a nod. “It can’t be a coincidence that Barton Reid was working at the embassy in Kaziristan while you and Rick were there.”
“How do you know so much about Barton Reid?” Amanda asked.
“Jesse hired her specifically to profile Reid,” Rick answered for Alicia. “We want to help strengthen the case against him if we can.”
“Who’s paying Jesse?” Amanda asked.
“Actually, I am,” Alicia said with a sheepish grin. “Sort of. I invested in Cooper Security, so when I decided to look into Reid, Jesse was good enough to let me use the company’s resources to do it.” Her smile widened, this time with pleasure. “He also made me an offer I couldn’t refuse—he gave me a job.”
“Alicia has a PhD in criminal psychology—”
“And I live here in Chickasaw County,” she added. “My husband is a fishing guide on Gossamer Lake. I didn’t want him to have to leave his family and the job he loves behind, and I wasn’t really looking forward to an hour or more commute to Birmingham, so when Jesse said Cooper Security could use a profiler…” She stopped herself, apparently realizing she was rattling on. Her grin turned sheepish again. “Anyway, I wanted to help Luke and Abby out. They’re family. So I’m doing anything I can to get them out from under this constant threat.”
Amanda couldn’t hold back a slight smile. She might talk a mile a minute, but Alicia Cooper seemed like a decent person with the guts and determination needed to make good things happen for the people around her. Amanda hadn’t known too many people like that—they were rare in her world.
“Nailing Barton Reid to the wall will definitely help Luke and Abby,” Rick said firmly. “You know I’ll help you any way I can, Ali, but the MacLear Special Services Unit was serious about secrecy, especially when it comes to keeping the legitimate end of the company in the dark. I probably know less than you do about what they were up to at this point.”
“You may know more than you think,” Alicia said. “At the very least, you’re familiar with how MacLear worked from the inside out. If we’re right about what’s going on, some of the SSU agents who escaped detection or managed to slip under the radar have banded together to start their own mercenary force. Guns for hire, with no scruples about who hires them or why.”
“And we have to stop them,” Rick said, his voice quiet but fierce with determination.
Amanda felt distanced from their conversation. Nothing they were discussing should have had anything to do with her. Not anymore. She’d gotten out, kept her head down, her eyes forward and her mind firmly shut to everything that smacked of her former life.
And yet, here you are, a little voice in her head reminded her. Recovering from a gunshot wound and running for your life.
“I’m not sure why rogue SSU agents would be gunning for me,” she said aloud.
“Well, the tracker in your tooth suggests a few things—”
Alicia’s brow furrowed. “Tracker?”
Rick told her about the tracker they’d found in Amanda’s crowned tooth. “The only person who could have implanted the tracker is the person who made the crown, and that was a CIA dentist. So the decision to track her almost certainly came from the CIA.”
Alicia winced. “You pulled out your own tooth?”
“I extracted the crown,” Amanda corrected. “It didn’t really hurt.”
“But still!” Alicia grimaced. “All right, you’re right about one thing—I can’t see how anyone but the CIA could have implanted the tracker. And it really does sound as if the people who were chasing you through Tennessee knew exactly where you were at any given time.”
“We never saw their faces,” Rick pointed out. “We’re assuming they were mercenaries like Delman Riggs—”
“Who?” Alicia asked.
Rick told her about the man Amanda had shot. “He used to be with MacLear—one of the guys the government had tried to indict but ultimately lacked evidence against.” He looked at Amanda. “There were several people like that—SSU agents who claimed they were duped and the prosecution couldn’t come up with enough evidence for the grand jury to indict.”
“But like you said, no decent security firm is going to touch them now,” Alicia added. “The taint of MacLear and the allegations against them make them too risky to consider.”
“I was lucky I had my brother to fall back on for a job,” Rick murmured, his voice taut, “and I wasn’t ever involved in the shady side of the company.”
Amanda saw a flicker of doubt in his eyes, as if he wasn’t quite sure he was telling the truth. She tucked that information away for later and addressed the qu
estion she’d been wrestling with all day. “I thought the tracker meant the CIA had to be involved. But I don’t think the men chasing me were CIA. What went on out there in the woods when they were chasing me was more paramilitary maneuvers than spy craft.”
“The CIA has paramilitary units,” Alicia pointed out.
“True, but the CIA isn’t going to deploy a whole unit of operatives to go after one person who isn’t bothering anyone.”
“Who would?” Rick asked.
Both Amanda and Alicia turned their gazes to him. “Send a whole unit after me, you mean?” Amanda asked.
He nodded. “You’re living under the radar in some tiny mountain town in Tennessee, bothering nobody, like you said. What would compel anyone to send assassins after you? The CIA gave you your identity—have you changed it since then?”
“No.”
“Have you moved?”
“No.” Amanda’s heart sank a little. “Maybe I should have.”
“Maybe,” Rick conceded. “But the point is—if the CIA wanted you, couldn’t they come get you anytime they liked?”
“Maybe Delman Riggs was working for the CIA,” Alicia suggested. “It’s not like they’re always scrupulous about the backgrounds of their hires.”
“Still goes back to the same question—why the stealth? The CIA could easily have sent someone you knew well to catch you off guard. Kill you before you could defend yourself.”
“And why did Quinn get involved in this?” Amanda asked aloud.
Alicia’s brow furrowed. “Who’s Quinn?”
Amanda slanted a look at Rick. “Someone we both know.”
Alicia’s expression cleared. “And on a need-to-know basis, someone I don’t need to know?”
Rick nodded. “Sorry.”
“Should I go?” Alicia asked.
“No, stay,” Amanda said, surprising herself. “You said you’re a criminal profiler, right?”
“Well, not officially—I mean, there’s not really a degree in that—”
“But that’s what you do, more or less.”
Alicia nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I do.”
“If you were given my case—multiple attempts on my life—where would you start investigating?”
Alicia thought for a second. “First, I’d find out what you’d been doing most recently. Has your schedule changed at all in the last few weeks?”
“I took some new freelance jobs, but nothing any different from what I’ve been doing for the last three years.”
“Met anyone new?”
“No. I’m not exactly a social butterfly, and Thurlow Gap is a very small place.”
As Alicia asked her a series of questions, most of which she quickly answered in the negative, Amanda found her patience wearing thin. Her headache was coming back with a vengeance, and despite Alicia’s smart and reasonable questions, she didn’t seem to have any better grip on why someone would want her dead, after all this time, than she’d had when she’d first heard Rick give her the assassination code word Alexander Quinn had drummed into her head the day she set foot in Kaziristan.
Thinking of Quinn reminded her of the question she’d asked Rick earlier. Why had Quinn thrown Rick back into her life? What did the old master manipulator know and why was he playing games instead of giving her an overt warning?
“I think the CIA has to be involved somehow.” She interrupted Alicia’s next question before she got more than a single word out.
“Because of the tracker?” Rick asked.
Amanda glanced at Alicia. “And because of who sent you to my house in the first place.”
“Quinn?” Alicia asked.
Amanda and Rick both looked at her. She held up her hands. “Sorry. Need to know. Got it.”
“I don’t have the highest opinion of the CIA,” Rick admitted, “but I don’t see them going after you that way.”
“What if it wasn’t an official thing?” Alicia interjected. “What I mean is, nobody thinks the State Department condoned the things we believe Barton Reid has done, right? Could someone in the CIA be running his own operation, using the rogue MacLear SSU agents?”
Amanda locked gazes with Rick, trying to gauge his reaction. Of course, it was possible there was a corrupt officer running his own game. The CIA was essentially a group of people who kept secrets for a living. Hid their identities, worked in the shadows, told lies as easily as they breathed.
“It’s possible,” Rick said aloud, echoing her thoughts. “Probable, even.”
Alicia nodded. “So the question we should be asking now is, why? They let you leave the agency almost three years ago without kicking up any kind of fight, right?”
“More like the other way around,” Amanda murmured, bitterness aching in her throat. “They were pretty clear that I wasn’t welcome at Langley anymore.”
“Okay, then—what was the last thing you were doing before you were let go?”
Amanda smiled. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Would it help if I pointed out that I’m a psychologist and bound by an ethical code that precludes me from revealing anything you tell me in confidence during a session?”
Amanda’s smile widened more. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I’m serious. I’d be bound to keep your secrets from everyone, including my husband. Which he’ll hate, but he’ll deal.” Alicia leaned forward. “I get it if you don’t want to, but you can say whatever you want to me without fear that I’ll reveal it to anyone else.”
The urge to share with someone—anyone—a little of what her life had been like for the past three years was a powerful drive. She forced herself to think before speaking.
“I may want to do that,” she said finally. “But I’d like to speak to Rick alone first.”
Alicia nodded. “No problem.” She stood and headed for the door. “Need me to get you anything? Something to drink?”
“No. I think Rick can do anything I need.” Amanda put a tone of finality in her voice.
She could tell by Alicia’s expression that she understood she was being dismissed. “Rick knows how to reach me.” She gave a goodbye nod and left the room.
Amanda waited until she heard the front door open and close before she turned to Rick. “She’s kind of exhausting.”
“She’s very good at her job, though.”
“I think she may be on to something. About the CIA.”
“Because of Quinn?”
“You know him. He has ears everywhere.”
“He didn’t have to be so damn cryptic about it,” Rick said flatly. “If he knows something, he should just say it.”
“Maybe he doesn’t have any evidence. Only suspicions.” She knew Rick didn’t care much for Quinn, but the man had saved her backside more than once over the course of her time in Kaziristan. He’d been the first person from the CIA to reach her after she escaped al Adar. She’d been hanging by a tiny filament of sanity, and if he hadn’t taken her in hand and pulled her from the abyss, she didn’t know if she’d still be alive today. “There’s one thing I know better than I know my own name—Quinn isn’t my enemy.”
“But I’m not sure he’s your friend, either.”
She shook her head. “Probably not.”
“He knows what happened to you in Kaziristan, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah. He was my handler. He knows everything.”
Rick’s eyes narrowed. “When I arrived at your house yesterday, you were packed and ready to flee. Was that just because of my call?”
She stood and walked to the window, gazing out on the backyard. The sun was starting to dip in the western sky, the tall pines in the yard casting longer shadows across the newly green grass. Spring had arrived without her noticing, she realized, spotting bright yellow daffodil blooms edging the lawn just below the window. “Quinn sent me something by courier. A box.”
“What was in it?”
“Fake fingernails. And a matchbox with your number on it.”
Rick m
ade a low grumbling noise in his throat. She turned to look at him and saw his eyes blazing with anger. “If he knows something, he should tell you what it is and stop playing his stupid little spy games.”
“What about you?”
His brow rose. “Me?”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
He stared at her as if he didn’t know what she was talking about. But she could also see confirmation of her suspicions lurking in his dark eyes.
“Earlier, when I was telling you about what happened when al Adar kidnapped me, I saw…something in your eyes. You seemed to react to something I said—about the man al Adar was looking for. They tortured me to get me to reveal his location. They thought I would know.”
Rick’s dark gaze dropped to the floor. “The Doctor,” he said softly.
“You know who he was?”
Rick nodded.
“Did you know where he was?”
He looked up at her, pain glittering in his gaze. “Yes.”
She crossed back to the bed, her knees feeling wobbly. She sat next to Rick and caught his hand in hers. “Where?”
Regret twisted his features. “With me.”
Chapter Ten
Joining MacLear had been a whim, at first. A way to seek the sort of adventure his brother Jesse had found by joining the Marine Corps without actually walking in his brother’s footsteps. Jesse had been appalled—his opinion of mercs, as he called them, wasn’t positive.
But in his work as a MacLear operative, Rick had found the life he’d thought he wanted. Adventure, travel, enough danger to make life exciting and plenty of variety. He’d also come to believe in what he was doing, a job he saw as a vital support system for the increasingly overextended military units tasked with protecting the world from the constant and escalating threat of conflagration.
Learning MacLear was a high-priced facade for dangerous adventurism had been one hell of a blow to his sense of purpose. But it hadn’t been the first.
Losing Amahl Dubrov had been the beginning of the end of his association with MacLear.
“I was one of three MacLear agents given the job of protecting a Kaziri doctor,” he said aloud from his position near the window, where he’d fled to avoid looking into her pained blue eyes. “They told me his name was Amahl Dubrov. Kaziri mother, Russian father.”
