See Me, Cover Me: Full Heart Ranch Series #4

by Barbara Gee

  “In other words, there’s no room for mistakes,” Izzy said softly.

  “None,” Luther confirmed. “Tanner has to fit in with the culture completely. He also has to make a lot of real tough decisions on the fly. Sometimes there’s no right answer, just one that might be slightly less awful than the alternatives.” He paused and looked over at Tuck and Ryan. “I know Tanner has talked about this aspect of the job with you men. Any insights for Ms. Harding?”

  Ryan’s gaze went to Tanner, then back to Izzy. “It’s the hardest part of the job for him. With everyone jostling for position in the group, they try to prove themselves in sometimes heinous ways. When Tanner gets caught in the middle, he has to weigh his reaction against several different factors. Will his actions save someone from harm, or merely blow his whole mission, which has the potential to save a heck of a lot more lives if he completes it? Keep in mind, things happen fast, and he doesn’t have the luxury of weighing things out at great length. He has to decide quickly, and that’s tough because there’s plenty of time to second-guess yourself after the fact.”

  Luther took over again. “This isn’t a daily occurrence, of course, but it happens. I’m not going to give examples. Tanner can do that himself, if he wants. He’ll know how much he can say. I’ll just tell you that not once, not one single time, has Tanner made a choice that differed from what I myself would have chosen to do. He’s smart, compassionate, and driven. He knows when to put the mission first, and when to risk everything to save someone else.”

  “He’s also his own worst critic,” Ryan added. “He agonizes, mostly internally. It’s not easy for him to talk about the bad days, but sometimes it’s important he do just that. I hope you’ll be there for him, to listen and not judge.”

  Izzy was trying desperately to process everything she was hearing. What Tanner went through when he was undercover was unimaginable. Part of her wanted to scream and cry with the injustice of asking so much of the man, and the other part wanted to broadcast her pride from the rooftops. It took an incredibly special person to protect his fellow citizens in the way Tanner did, and judging him was the furthest thing from her mind.

  “What about during the assignment?” she asked. “Is there anyone in the bureau he can talk to while he’s undercover, or is he all by himself for the duration?”

  Luther answered her. “Each job has an assigned handler he checks in with, and once in a while he’s able to schedule a time when he and I can safely talk. For the most part, though, he’s on his own.”

  Izzy exhaled shakily. “It seems like you’re asking too much of him,” she said bluntly.

  Luther nodded slowly. “I’ll admit to that. It’s not fair of us to ask so much of any one man, and that’s hard for me to live with sometimes. I wish I could say we don’t need him, that we’re ready to transition him out of the undercover work and use his other skills exclusively. But the terror threat is always there, and I have no trouble admitting Special Agent Tanner James is the single most important asset I have in the fight. As long as he’s willing and effective, we’re going to use him.” He paused and took a long drink of water. Then his eyes met Izzy’s once again, his expression bleak. “I’m sorry, Ms. Harding. I wish I could tell you Tanner is free to stay here as long as he wants to, but I can’t. We’re not done with him yet.”

  “So you’ve already committed him to a specific mission?” It was Tuck who spoke up now, his narrowed gaze focused on Luther.

  The man nodded. “He’s been requested by the national security branch for a job in another state. I thought long and hard before giving my blessing, but in the end I did, because this job is one I truly believe only Tanner can succeed in. He knew there was something in the pipeline before he came here, he just didn’t know the details or the timing.”

  “So why’d you let him leave?” Tuck wondered.

  “I actually ordered him to get away, to try to enjoy the time before the mission. I haven’t given him much chance to do that in the past, and that was wrong of me. I didn’t know where he’d choose to go, and I didn’t care, as long as he was safe. I simply wanted him to be able to relax and enjoy normal life for a while, because this next assignment could be another lengthy one, and to be regrettably frank, it will probably be his most challenging yet. I thought some rest and relaxation would help rejuvenate him.” He looked apologetically at Izzy. “Needless to say, you came as a surprise. I’ve often wondered what kind of woman would finally turn his head. Meeting you has answered that question, and it’s given me even more regret about having to call him back in.”

  Izzy gripped her water glass so tightly her fingers started to cramp. “When is that going to be?” she asked, her voice low and shaky. “When does he have to leave?”

  “My best guess is three or four weeks.”

  Realizing she’d been holding her breath, Izzy let it out in a rush. That was a little more time than she’d expected, which she saw as a blessing, but knowing what Tanner faced when he left made her feel physically sick.

  Luther wasn’t quite finished. “Once he leaves, there can be no contact. Not a word, not with you or anyone else, outside of his handler. That’s for his own protection, and I know you won’t violate the trust I’m putting in you by trying to get around that.”

  Izzy shook her head emphatically. “I’d never do anything to put him at risk. Not in a million years.”

  Luther nodded and continued. “While he’s gone, you need to remember that hearing nothing is a good thing. As long as you don’t hear from me, you can assume Tanner is okay. You also have my word that should something happen, you’ll be one of the first to know.”

  “I’d appreciate if you’d contact me first, so I can tell Izzy in person,” Ryan said. “If something happens, I don’t want her to get the news through a phone call.”

  Luther looked at Tanner for his approval. He must have nodded, because Luther told Ryan he would make sure that was noted.

  “Do you have any more questions for me, Ms. Harding?” Luther asked. “I know I’ve hit you with a lot of scary stuff, but I think we can all agree that nothing short of the truth will do in this situation.”

  “I have a ton of questions,” Izzy declared, “but it won’t do any good to ask them, because I know you can’t answer. I will tell you that I hate the thought of saying goodbye for who knows how long, and not having any idea where he’ll be, who he’ll be with, or exactly what he’ll be doing. It makes me feel sick to think about him being in danger and there’s nothing I can do to help him.” Izzy paused and swallowed past the lump in her throat. “At least tell me this. After this job, if he wants to be done with undercover work, will you let him walk away without trying to guilt him into doing still more? I mean, I know it’s vitally important to have people do what he does, I know that, and I’m eternally grateful to him and everyone else who risks their life to keep our country safe and free. But how much can one man be expected to give?”

  Her voice broke at the end and then she heard Tanner approaching from behind.

  “Can you men leave us alone for a few minutes?” he asked tersely.

  The other three stood and Tuck indicated they could go into his study. Agent Luther stopped part way across the room and looked over his shoulder.

  “I’ll answer that question for you, Ms. Harding. The answer is, it’s up to Tanner. It’s always been up to him.”

  ***

  Izzy was aware of his weight coming down beside her. She wanted to touch him, to press up against him to feel that he was there, solid and warm, but she couldn’t move. He put a hand on her back, rubbing slowly back and forth.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I will be. It’s just hard to hear what you’ve been through, and what you’re facing.” How was she going to let this man go, knowing his life was going to be in terrible danger? Knowing the awful stress he’d be under every minute?

  His voice was low and intense. “I know it’s hard, and I’m so sorry, but I need to say a f
ew more things. Luther said I could give you details about some of the harder stuff I’ve gone through while on a job, and I might as well put them out there so you have the whole picture.”

  All she could do was nod. He took her hand between his, warming it, giving them a connection.

  “The job where my cover was blown was the worst, and I don’t mean the part where I was taken.”

  “How can it be worse than that?” Izzy whispered.

  “That group was—” he broke off and exhaled slowly. “I can’t even explain their level of fanaticism. The leader claimed to be a jihadist, but I honestly think he used that as an excuse to inflict his own personal psychopathy on the world. Luther didn’t tell you this, but the extra training I had before that job—it made me an expert in death. I won’t say how, just know that it was lethal. And the leader tasked me with coming up with the most horrible methods of mass destruction you can imagine.”

  Izzy still couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t bear to see the suffering she knew she’d find in his dark eyes. “I’m sure you didn’t, though. You didn’t give him that.”

  “No. Nothing I came up with would have actually worked, but he wasn’t smart enough to see that. I stayed in his good graces by coming up with all kinds of amazing ideas, ones that fed his desire for the outrageous. The kind of thing that would put him in the history books. But when it came right down to it, there was always a glitch that prevented me from moving past the concept stage.”

  “You made sure there was a glitch,” Izzy said, knowing him well enough to guess that.

  “I made sure of it,” he confirmed. “And in the meantime, I used my cyber training to become useful to him in other ways. Ways I can’t really go into. But that’s not what I need to tell you.”

  He went silent, and Izzy waited patiently, squeezing his hand to let him know she was ready when he was.

  “There was a kid they’d recruited soon after I was inserted. I don’t know his story, other than he had a real tough time of it at home. He’d been in and out of the juvenile correction system, and got noticed by the recruiters in the group I was with. They knew his vulnerabilities, and convinced him he had a higher calling. They radicalized him, which in my opinion is the same as brain-washing. It’s like drawing people into a cult. Pretty soon he came to live at the house and was prepped to be flown to Iraq, to take part in the Al-Qaeda movement. This was before ISIS popped up on the national radar.”

  Tanner let go of her hand and stood, pacing away and then back again. “The night before he was supposed to fly out, the kid got scared. He tried to back out. Said he wouldn’t go.”

  Izzy felt frozen with dread, but she stayed quiet.

  “The leader tried to convince him to stay with the plan, to go to Iraq where he would train to take part in the divinely sanctioned extermination of infidels. But the kid was terrified. He went a little crazy. Crying. Screaming. Begging to be let go. I knew it was going to turn bad fast, and I tried to stop it. Tried to get the others to put him in a room alone for a while to think about it, tried to convince them he just had cold feet and he’d come to his senses and follow through with what they’d planned. I thought if I could distract them and get them to leave him, I could help him escape later. But by this time they were out for blood. Nothing I could say or do would change that, I saw it in their eyes. He’d betrayed them and he would pay.”

  Tanner paced away again and Izzy huddled into her corner of the love-seat, aching for him. Dreading how the story would end.

  “I had two choices. Let them kill him, or try to save him. If I chose the latter, I knew without a shadow of a doubt they’d turn on me as well. Which would have been okay, if I could have saved the kid. But I couldn’t, I knew that, and trying would only get us both killed.”

  He stopped walking, then started again, passing in front of her. She heard his palms rasp over the stubble on his jaw. “I would have still done it, if death was the only consequence, because that’s what good men do. They give their life for the cause, right? Even if they can’t win. And yet, my cause was bigger than what would happen in that room, and I was so close to fulfilling it. After eleven months, we were almost ready. The take-down of the group was planned for the following week, and if I blew my cover now by trying to save the boy, the leader and his men would all have the chance to escape. Their evil would continue.”

  Tanner’s back was to her, his hands on his hips. His voice was low and tortured. “I had a choice to make, and only minutes to decide. Either die with the boy because valor demanded it, or live to try to save those who would be future victims of the group, if they weren’t stopped.”

  Izzy shivered. The choice he’d made was obvious, and just as obvious was the fact he was still haunted by it. So this was what Ryan had meant when he said Tanner second-guessed himself. Of course he did. Anyone would, when put in such a terrible position. She closed her eyes, imagining how he must have agonized.

  “I watched them kill him,” he said quietly. “Two days later, my cover was blown. I was tortured, yeah, but in a way it was almost a relief. Like I deserved it, because I stood there and let that boy die.”

  “No, Tanner,” Izzy said, bending forward and covering her face with her hands. “Don’t say that.”

  “I have to. If you want to know who I am, you need to know the things I’ve done. The things I might still have to do.”

  She pressed her fingers to her eyelids and fought her tears. Her voice trembled. “I hate the FBI for putting you through this—risking your life, over and over. It’s not right.”

  “Not in a perfect world, no.” His voice was gentle but firm. “But I’ve seen the evil, Iz. I’ve seen it first-hand, and it has to be stopped. The tough calls have to be made.”

  He came over and knelt before her, putting his hands on her knees. “Will you look at me, Izzy?”

  She shook her head and kept her hands over her face. “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “I need you to,” His voice was low and rough, revealing his tension. “I need to see whether you look at me the same way you did before. I need to know how much things have changed now that you know.”

  She swallowed hard, dropping her hands but still looking down. “If anything, I feel even more strongly than I did before.”

  “More strongly in a good way?” he asked carefully.

  She nodded, still looking down rather than at him because her emotions were still too much. Too raw. “Because you’re even more amazing than I thought, but it hurts,” she said, pressing a fist to her chest. “Thinking of you being in danger every second of every day, having to make awful choices, being captured and tortured and almost killed. It hurts. I don’t want you to suffer. I can’t stand the thought.”

  He exhaled slowly. “I know. I’d feel the same if it was you.”

  She pushed on. “I want to be strong because you’re so strong, and I will be. I can handle this. I just need a little time to process everything.”

  “You aren’t going to try to convince me to pull out of the next job?”

  “I want to, more than anything,” she admitted. “But I won’t let myself be that selfish. Even without knowing any details, it’s not too hard to figure out there’s a major threat somewhere, and the head guys think you’re the best person to stop it.” She smoothed her hands along her thighs. “I know you can’t pull out now, even if I beg. So I’m going do my best to be supportive.”

  “Please look at me, Izzy.”

  She reached for him instead, pressing her face into his chest. His arms immediately encircled her, strong and comforting.

  “I’m sorry, babe,” he whispered. “I know this isn’t what you bargained for.”

  She shook her head, moving her hands along his back, over the smooth fabric of his shirt. “No, but I’m so proud of you, Tanner. And so grateful to you for risking everything for the rest of us. I’m not surprised, either, because I see that selflessness and courage in you. I just—I’m not sure what it means for the two of us
going forward.”

  He ran a hand down over her hair. “If you can’t do it, I understand. I’ve known all along my job could be a deal breaker. I would have told you about it right when I sensed things were going to get serious between us, but I couldn’t make that decision on my own.” He gradually loosened his hold and pulled slightly away. “I’m not going to ask you to wait for me, but I should warn you I plan to come looking for you when the assignment ends. If you’ve moved on, so be it, I’ll bow out gracefully. Either way, I won’t ever regret meeting you.”

  Izzy lifted her face away from his chest, blinking back the tears she’d so far managed to keep from falling. After a moment she pulled back further and raised her face to his, finally meeting his gaze.

  “You’d better come looking,” she said softly. “Because I will be waiting.”

  His dark eyes showed relief, and yet he shook his head. “No,” he said quickly, taking her face in his hands. “I don’t want you to promise me that, Iz, because if you change your mind at some point, you won’t be able to tell me, and then you’ll feel guilty. That’s not what I want. I want you to find what makes you the happiest, and if someone better than me comes along while I’m gone, I don’t want misplaced guilt to keep you from that.”

  “There won’t be anyone better than you,” she said, her voice stronger now. “I already know you’re the best. Plus, we have another three weeks or so to go, and by then I’ll be so completely head over heels I’ll beg you to let me wait for however long it takes.” She put a hand on his cheek. “Don’t try to talk me out of it, either. I fight dirty.”

  He gave a low chuckle. “You couldn’t fight dirty if you tried,” he said.

  “I have two older brothers, remember? I had to learn early how to stand up for myself.”

  He smiled. “Maybe, but I’m not looking for a fight, sweetheart. I’m just saying I don’t want you to make an impulsive promise, and then live to regret it.”