“The GPS.”
“—we’re about to connect with a major north-south road. If we go south, then west, we can head for Orlando Airport. But I still don’t have the fake ID we’d need to fly.”
“Orlando is the nearest airport and probably too obvious a destination. What’s the next closest big city?”
“To the west is Tampa. North is Jacksonville and south is Miami.”
“North of Jacksonville is Atlanta.” He headed north. “That’s what we need…a major metropolis and a gigantic airport.”
“But they’re still following us. Why are you showing them which way we intend to go after we lose them?”
“Because they’ll assume what you just did. They’ll think we’re going either west or south.”
“Or maybe they’ll know you tried to outsmart them and—this is making my head hurt.”
“Sorry. You did great. Turn off the power, close your eyes and rest.”
“While you drive at breakneck speed? While every breath might be my last? I don’t think so.”
“We’ll lose them at the next truck stop. We just need to arrive a few minutes ahead of them.”
While the highway didn’t have many intersections, he’d noticed that the last few truck stops had been busy. A few hundred in cash should buy them a ride out of state.
Clay figured he had a two-minute lead when he careened around a corner and spun out the tires to a screeching halt. While Melinda grabbed their things from the trunk, including their bags and her mother’s files, he found a truck driver heading to his cab.
The man he chose to ask for a ride possessed a wedding ring, an oversize shirt that was too tight around the belly and well-worn shoes. He had tired eyes, thinning hair and wore a frown. A glance into his truck revealed his license and name, Mike Hubbard, and showed pictures of family tucked around the windshield to keep him company.
“How about a ride?” Clay asked, holding out three hundred dollars.
“Sorry, I don’t pick up hitchhikers.”
Clay peeled off another seven hundred in crisp bills and added them to his offer. “Please?”
Melinda joined him, wrapping an arm around his waist. “We’re trying to get to Atlanta for my sister’s wedding and our car isn’t going to make it. Sally won’t forgive me if I don’t show up. I’m her matron of honor.”
Clay didn’t say a word as she did her best to charm the trucker. She’d slipped into the role of hapless traveler as easily as any actress. He was amazed at how easily she concocted a believable and nonthreatening story.
“Mister, please. We’re stuck in the middle of nowhere. It’ll take days for a tow truck to even show up, and then they’ll probably have to fly in parts from Detroit.”
“Okay. Hop in.”
Clay tossed their things inside and then boosted Melinda into the cab just moments before their pursuers peeled into the parking lot. He kept his head down and fiddled with his seat belt. Melinda dropped her purse to the floor and didn’t pick it up until their truck passed the chase car.
Standard operating procedure would slow the agents. They’d check out the restaurant and the rest rooms, ask people if they’d seen Melinda and Clay. By then, they’d be fifteen miles away and their pursuers would have no idea which way they’d gone.
The trucker eyed them a little warily as they straightened in their seats. “You people in some kind of trouble?”
“Yeah.” At Melinda’s admission, Clay’s heart started to race. Now was not the time to come clean. “My sister’s going to kill us if we don’t make Atlanta by six.”
Clay contained a chuckle. Mike’s shoulders relaxed. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”
They arrived in Atlanta an hour early. The trucker dropped them off at a bus station, where Clay consulted his Palm Pilot. He still needed some fake ID for Melinda before they risked taking a plane. After hacking into CIA records that he had no business seeing, Clay instructed a cabdriver to take them to an address in one of the seedier parts of town.
Clay tipped the driver. “I’ll pay an extra C-note for you to wait a half hour.”
“Sorry.”
The cab peeled off, leaving them on the sidewalk with their bags. Again Clay preferred to keep his hands free in case he needed to draw a weapon to protect Melinda. “Would you mind carrying the bags?”
“Not as long as you stay close.”
He didn’t blame her for feeling wary. The dilapidated buildings blocked the sun. The cracked sidewalks stank of urine and stale food. Kids with blaring Walkmans scooted by on skateboards. Winos slept off their drunks in the crabgrass, and a prostitute plied her trade on the street corner where she competed with druggies selling crack.
“Come on.” He led her up concrete stairs to a door with two dead bolts and barred windows. “This is the place.”
Clay knocked loudly. No one answered.
“Suppose no one’s home?” Melinda asked.
He tried to cheer her up. “Hey, you did great with that trucker. That wedding story was terrific spur-of-the-moment thinking.”
“I’m scared, Clay.”
Before he could respond, the dead bolt clicked. The door opened two inches and a tiny black man with bottle-thick glasses peered through the crack at them.
“We’re looking for Inky.”
The man’s voice came out softly. “What for?”
“If you don’t know, then you’re not him.” Clay turned to go.
“Hey, wait a minute.” The chain scratched on the wood as he opened the front door. “I’m supposed to get a phone call first.”
“Sorry, we’re in a hurry. You open for business or not?”
AN HOUR LATER Melinda possessed three driver’s licenses under three different names with her picture as a blonde, a redhead with glasses and a brunette with hair down past her waist. The entire process hadn’t taken long thanks to the borrowed wigs, but she noticed that Clay got antsy while the pictures developed and Inky left for five minutes to make a phone call.
While the studio where Inky took the photographs had been immaculate, Melinda couldn’t wait to leave the neighborhood. She understood the need for the fake identification, but the illegal transaction made her feel as if she’d stepped into new territory.
Finally, with IDs in hand, they exited onto the sidewalk and walked toward the cab Inky had called for them. The driver was about six feet tall with black hair. He stood unusually straight by the car, his jacket bulky, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.
Beside her, Clay moved in on the driver so fast, she didn’t have time to gasp. The driver reached beneath his jacket as if to pull a weapon, but Clay moved faster. Charging the other man, Clay slammed him against the car.
As the taxi driver spun around, Melinda saw a white tuft of hair on his head and it jogged her memory. Where had she seen him before? Or heard about him?
Clay pinned the man over the hood with his body. “Who are you? Who sent you? How did you find us?” He pulled out his gun, cocked the hammer and pressed the muzzle to the man’s throat. “Talk.”
“I’m a friend of Melinda’s mother.”
“My mother?”
“Your biological mother.”
Melinda peered at the stranger. “You came by my house, didn’t you?”
Clay didn’t move a muscle. “You know this joker?”
“I think he’s the man Sam Bronson told us about. The ex-military guy with a white tuft of hair, remember?”
The fake taxi driver frowned. “Who’s Sam Bronson?”
Clay shoved the gun tighter into the man’s throat. “I’ll ask the questions around here.”
“Let’s hope you ask the right ones,” the man muttered sarcastically, not appearing the least bit frightened. “Because if you don’t, I’ve wasted the last thirty years.”
Clay shook the man. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m Herbert Silverberg.”
Herbert watched Melinda, not Clay, as if expecting her to react to his na
me. When she didn’t, he let out a sigh of resignation. He turned his hard eyes to Clay, his stare piercing, judging. “You bringing her in on orders from the agency?”
“And if I am?” Clay challenged.
“Then you can’t be trusted.”
Clay relieved Herbert of his weapon and released his hold on the man. “We need to go somewhere private and talk.”
Melinda trusted Clay, but she didn’t understand what the hell was going on. This man had come out of nowhere, offered several provocative statements that only made Clay more hostile, but when Herbert claimed he couldn’t trust the CIA, Clay turned the man loose.
Clay might have let go of the man, but he wasn’t forgetting his basic wariness. “This joker’s getting in the back with me. Melinda, you drive.”
Herbert nodded. “Key’s in the ignition.”
“Inky called you?” Clay asked as they all got into the car.
“I had the word out. Only hoped I’d find you before…”
Melinda pulled out of the parking space and onto the mostly deserted street. “Before what?”
“Before…everyone…else.” Herbert looked from Melinda to Clay.
“And why would everyone be after us?” Clay asked mildly.
“For the diary. Have you broken the code, Viper?”
“Viper?” Melinda knew she was way out of her depth. Herbert’s quiet tone frightened her in a way she didn’t understand. He seemed to have secrets in his soul. Dark secrets.
“It’s my nickname,” Clay told her without relaxing one iota or even showing a hint of surprise at the man’s statement. “But how did you know?”
“I made it my business to know.”
“And why is it your business?” Clay asked.
Herbert scratched his chin. “I need a private conversation with the lady.”
“Not a chance.”
“Look. You can tie my hands to the steering wheel. She can be outside the car. You can hold a weapon on me as long as you’re out of hearing range.”
Melinda frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“He doesn’t trust me,” Clay explained.
Herbert caught Melinda’s eye in the rearview mirror. “And neither should you, young lady.”
A chill iced straight from her heart to her toes as if she’d wandered into a nightmare. She recalled choking out seawater on the beach, and a strong stranger, Clay Rogan, telling her he’d saved her life. She still couldn’t remember that day. Still had no proof he was who he said. He could have made everything up. Except, if he was a liar and merely after the diaries, he wouldn’t have kept her with him after he had broken the code. “Why shouldn’t I trust him?”
“You should trust no one.”
“Including you?” Clay asked, surprisingly patient with the man, as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether he was friend or foe.
“Where do you want me to drive?” Melinda asked.
“Take the interstate north,” Clay directed. “Our plans haven’t changed.”
“How about that private conversation?” Herbert asked again, his voice pleasant, his undertone lined with steel.
Clay didn’t sound irritated. “What part of no don’t you understand?”
Melinda let out a sigh of frustration. She wanted answers, not more arguments. “Look, if you two are going to get into a testosterone contest, you can both get out and walk. I want to know what’s going on.”
Now that they were in a better area of town, she pulled over into the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour diner. The pink and green neon light flickered inside the car and cast an eerie glow. “Herbert, I trust Clay Rogan. I can’t tell you why, but I have good reasons. Anything you can say to me in private, you can say in front of him.”
Herbert didn’t back down. “You aren’t just betting with your life anymore, now you’re betting with mine.”
“Clay isn’t going to kill me. Or you.”
“Lady, he works for the CIA.”
“I know,” she said softly. “His mission is to find and decode your mother’s diary.”
“I know,” she said again.
Clay frowned. “The problem is how the hell do you know that?”
“I have my sources.”
Clay aimed the gun at Herbert’s knee. “The source’s name?”
Melinda knew Clay wouldn’t follow through on his threat. But she had to admire the older man’s courage. He didn’t know Clay wouldn’t pull the trigger and he didn’t flinch.
Stubbornly, Herbert shook his head and rubbed his white tuft of hair. “I won’t have another death on my conscience by revealing my sources.”
Melinda looked from Clay to Herbert. “Another death?”
“Your mother died in my arms.”
Melinda gasped. “You killed her?”
“No, my dear, I loved her.” Herbert’s voice was low and dry, yet his hurt poured through, leaving her no doubt he spoke the truth. “But I waited too long, and she married your father before I ever spoke up. She adored him. So I loved her from afar. I don’t think she ever knew how I felt about her. It was my gift to her—that and trying to see that her murderer receives justice.”
“But you still feel responsible for her death?” Melinda said softly from the front seat. “How did she die?”
“We were in the Mideast, in a country which will remain nameless. Our mission was to advise. In truth, we were secretly supplying arms to the democratic rebels who were fighting for their freedom.”
“In other words, you were fomenting a revolution.” Clay translated the spy talk for her.
“History is written by the victors. If our side had won, they would have been celebrating their Independence Day.”
“But you lost?” Clay guessed.
“The Soviets backed the other side. They gave the soldiers more guns, more ammunition and more help.”
“And my mother?”
“Couldn’t see we were fighting a lost cause. She was determined to stay until the end.”
“How did she die?” Melinda asked.
“And why do you have her death on your conscience?” Clay added.
“Are you sure you want to hear the details? They aren’t pretty. Your mother…she died…in pain.” His voice broke.
“What happened?” Melinda asked, no longer sure if she really wanted to know. At the memories, this hard-bitten man was close to tears. Would the story he was about to tell give her nightmares? But like a driver compelled to look at the accident she passed on a busy highway, she had to know.
Herbert drew himself up straight. “During our work we grew close to people in the resistance. We ate with them, slept with them, knew the names of their children. And when it was time to pull out, your mother couldn’t leave them behind.”
“Why not?”
“She knew they would be tortured and killed. So she tried to get them across the border, to freedom. We marched day and night in the dead of winter. Mothers, children, babies pushed to the limits of human endurance.”
“You were caught?” Clay asked.
“We were betrayed.” A sick feeling washed over Melinda. She knew there was no happy ending. Her biological mother might have died thirty years ago. She had never even known her, but how could she not be saddened by the story of a courageous woman fighting against terrible odds?
Still, Melinda wondered what kind of mother would risk her own life for others when her death meant leaving her own three children motherless? Was she so swept up in her cause that she hadn’t spared a thought for Melinda or her siblings? Just the question made her feel selfish and small, yet since her mother’s actions had a direct effect on her own life, she felt entitled to answers.
“Did my mother worry about her own children? And where was my father?”
“Your mother worried about her children every moment of her day and night. That’s why she sent your father home—she insisted that at least one of them survive. Sadly he didn’t.”
“He died in a car accident when
we were children,” Melinda said.
Clay shook his head. “He was murdered. Afterward, the CIA thought the children might be in danger, so they split up the family. And their tactic worked. You were safe until your brother, Jake, dug into the past and found your mother’s old diaries.”
“Who betrayed my mother?” Melinda asked Herbert.
“We didn’t know for sure.”
Clay arched an eyebrow. “We?”
“I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me explain the way it happened.” He shifted in his seat, totally ignoring Clay’s gun. “Our tiny group of about forty people had almost reached the border. One member of our cell, Lion, claimed he knew a guard he could bribe and went ahead to make arrangements.
“We were hidden in a cave. Yet, two hours later, the guerrillas found us. When they walked straight to us, with no searching, we knew we’d either been sold out or Lion had been captured and tortured.”
Herbert sighed and licked his bottom lip. He reached over and patted Melinda’s hand as if to give her comfort.
“Your mother and the remnants of our cell could have fled. We were healthy. But she wouldn’t leave those less fortunate behind. She refused to flee, using her last bullets to defend the rebels. We lasted about two hours before soldiers shot every man, woman and child in camp. It wasn’t a battle. We were never offered terms of surrender. It was a slaughter. And they knew exactly where we were hiding.”
“My mother?”
“Took a bullet in the gut when she threw her body over a child to protect her. I took a shot to the shoulder, another grazed my head, rendering me unconscious.” He raised his hand to the spot where the hair grew in white. “It’s never been the same. I like the reminder.”
“What happened when you woke up?” Melinda asked.
“The soldiers didn’t do a thorough job. I’d like to think they were sickened by what they’d done—may their souls rot in hell. But probably they were simply careless. Several of us were still alive, including your mother. I tried and failed to stem the bleeding. She was in terrible pain, and she begged me to end her life.” Tears flowed down his cheeks. “I couldn’t do it.”
Melinda realized he regretted his weakness. Yet, how many men could have ended the life of the woman they loved? And wouldn’t that merciful act have made him a killer? She wished she could say something to ease his pain, but sometimes no words would do the job.
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